The hospital is just about empty at this time of night. Occasionally an intern will be sent to check on the patients but for the most part it's just quiet. It's dark in the hall a few faint lights from the nurses' station about 20 feet down the hall but due to the lack of movement the auto lights have shut off. That what her life has been like for the last couple of months. The Dreams were to vivid, the headaches; to strong. The life was draining slowly but she knew it was coming, she knew she was going to die.
There is a muffled sound throughout the floor like a whooshing then a revving , a moment of silence, a creaking like old hinges on a cupboard then footsteps on the linoleum. The lights click on. 'Hospitals' he thinks 'I've never liked hospitals. Too much sad nothing good's ever happened to me in a hospital well not yet who knows.' His thoughts ramble like that for a few minutes as he walks toward the more brightly lit areas of the wing. 'Bart's seems like a good enough place to be though for her it must be.' He looks about realizing he is lost he wanders for a few moments more turning around a few corners before running in to an older woman, probably only a few years younger than his best mate, and asked her to point him in the right direction.
"Room 198" she mused looking at the map on the back of her clipboard "I'm headed toward there now. Just follow me I'll point it to you when we get near."
"Thank you miss…?"
"Hooper, Molly Hooper and it's Dr." She offered her hand out to shake. It was nicked in several places like it had been hit with a scalpel accidently, a few age spots speckled it too. He shook it fervently. He didn't know why but he felt he should admire this woman. She seemed like she had seen brilliant thing sad things and lived many lives in her days she seemed like an old soul. He always admired old souls. "And you?" She finished.
"Ah. John Smith."
She chuckled "John smith you know normally I would be suspicious but an old friend just came by and I'm just to worn out to care."
He laughed lightly before she continued "So who you here to see?"
"An uhh…" he hesitated thinking about how exactly to describe her. "An old friend who can't remember me anymore."
"Ahh Alzheimer's is it? A friend of mine, same friend as the one who just visited actually, he's been telling me I've been getting touches of it recently, he would know wouldn't he. The board if quietly pushing me to step down. I probably should too but I just can't really stand to leave the place, you know?"
"Ya…" his eyes go far away and the slight smile that had been stuck to his face drooped slightly, it was as if he was thinking about something so much worse than a love for a building. Then he snapped back "Ya I know what you mean."
"Hum." She mumbled out looking for something to say "I like your jacket by the way. Not many people wear thing like that anymore some of the things you see people wearing now a days."
"Thank you. I thought so too. I like the long"
"Ya, it's quite nice. Well if you just turn here and walk three doors you should get to the room."
"Thank you Doctor Molly Hooper. Have a nice night."
"You too, John Smith."
She continued down the hall, she had a slight limp, he realized, as she went probably a bad hip.
He turned the way she had indicated his hearts beating faster. He wasn't sure if this was right. He knew he probably shouldn't but he realized when she landed him here what had to happen. He needed to see her one more time before her end. She deserves that, he thinks. He stops in front of the door hand on the knob and takes a deep breath.
She wakes with a start it was the bee again that was common. It's one of her favorite Agatha Christie's' but it wasn't her story it was so different. That man was there, who's in all of them, the dreams, and he's always there. And more vividly tonight than ever. Maybe he's her own personal angel of death it would explain the tired feeling in her bones. It's a good tired though, a peaceful tired.
She listens to the foot steps outside expecting an intern to step inside and check all her machines. But the man who steps inside isn't an intern she's seen before but she has seen him before Just minutes before actually.
"It's you!" she exclaims "The man from my dreams!"
He instantly looks terrified and ecstatic. He didn't remember how much humans age and how quickly. She looked so different and so much the same. "You remember me?"
"No! That's the problem I can remember all of these other things but your skirting around the edges, you!" her tones almost scolding. It makes him smile she's the same when it all comes down to it. He drops his eves to the cables an I.V.'s attached to her.
"You can if you want to." He murmurs to his shoes
"What?" she says sitting forward in the bed.
"Remember. You can, but it's probably more trouble than it's worth. No, it is."
"In what way." She doesn't know why she hasn't hit the panic button that will send 2 nurses and a security guard to her room yet. (She only knows that because after the first few days a hospital gets to be a very boring place, testing the different buttons bring a moment of relief.) A man who is inexplicably in her dreams shows up on the night she can feel herself dying; any normal person would be panicked but she's never been normal really has she.
"Oh God Donna." He sat heavily in the chair next to her bed rubbing his hands across his face "It'll hurt It will feel like the whole universe it being stuffed inside your head. It will be like pain you have never known before. It will be the worst feeling in the world and then you will black out and a few moment later, die. But I swear just before you black out you will have a moment just one moment of absolute clarity and you will be able to remember the wonders of the universe one last time, and Donna, Doctor-Donna you will remember how brilliant you really are, more than you know."
He looked so sad, so sorry, like he had once ripper the ground out from under her and was trying to fix everything. And in all honesty she wanted him too. "My husband died a few years ago. We wanted to travel but never go around to it. We won the lotto but he wanted to keep working I never got why really. Maybe If I see him again I can tell him the stories I'm about to get the stories of how I traveled with a man who popped in to my dreams. That is what we did isn't it? Travel?"
He smiled lightly "Yes that's what we did. Is that a yes then?"
"Yes." She sat up straighter. "Do it."
"Ok." He leaned in and put a hand on both sides of her face closed his eyes and let it go.
He felt her recoil slightly at the pain she gasped and he opened his eyes. He needed to do this fast, it was going to be worse if her held back for too long. He ran through everything from the first time they met to that final moment when he striped her of him. She yanked opened her eyes as the last memories flew through. He saw all the pain imaginable there in her eyes but as predicted just for a moment she smiled. "Spaceman!" She threw her arms around him and squeezed tight. "Thank you, Doctor, thank you." Her grip loosened and she sank back against her pillow she smiled at him as she closed her eyes he heart rate dropped then spiked he knew he needed to leave before the 'Dr.' doctors came so he leaned in gave his Donna a kiss on the head and left. He stopped at the door turned back and said "Good bye Earth girl."
The doctors were too busy trying to notice the strange man in the long coat stepping around the corner. All except Molly Hooper who did post-mortems any way she wouldn't be much help with a live patient she watched him walk down the hall she had run in to him in and turn in to a storage closet. She saw a flash of blue as the door opened. A strange muffled whooshing then revving sound then quite, except the chatter in side room 198. She walked down the hall and opened the closet. Nothing the blue she had seen and no man to be found.
'Hua…' she thought 'Maybe Sherlock's right, I should resign'