I'll Be Home Soon
Summary: Trapped in a hospital that performs illegal experimets on all kinds of species, the Doctor has to bide her time wisely before escaping. Featuring Captain Jack Harkness and a guest appearance from Martha Jones later on.
A/N: Loosely based around Vanessa Ives' stay at the asylum in Penny Dreadful.
Chapter One:
With heavy breaths, the Doctor once again attempted to sit up, to do something, only to find she still couldn't move. Her wrists and ankles were red raw from pulling and yanking against the leather straps that bound her to the table, and her throat hurt from screaming in agony. In her long, long life, the Doctor had faced many kinds of torture, of pain and desperation, but never anything like this. Whatever 'this' was, anyway. She had no idea what her captors were ever doing anymore.
She was just grateful she hadn't decided to bring her friends along with her on this 'adventure', though it could no longer be called that anymore. With a heavy heart, the Doctor finally had to admit that there was no escaping this time. This was her end. If her captors had figured put shat species she was (and she had to admit they were smart enough to have already done that), then there would be no regenerating this time. Only the tempting pull of darkness that she had wished so hard for with her last face.
The Doctor clenched and unclenched her right fist when she felt pins and needles in it with how tight the straps were.
As she was focusing on her hand, the door slamming open startled her and her eyes flew open. She looked over to see who it was this time and noticed it was someone she hadn't haf the pleasure of meeting before.
Unable to talk due to her sore throat, the Doctor resorted to instead keeping a watchful eye on the unknown man as he circled the room, taking it in, in all of its glory. Of glory could even be used to describe the cheap hospital room. The beeping in the background from the heart monitor the Doctor was hooked up to served as the only noise to disrupt the tense silence between her and the man wearing a white lab coat.
Eventually, after his journey around the outskirts of the room, the man stopped at the end of the bed by the Doctor's feet and she shamelessly lifted her head a bit to keep an eye on him. She hated to admit that there was nothing else she could do, but her own paranoia wouldn't leave her be. She didn't want to be in that room with him if she didn't know what he was doing.
The man unlcipped the clipboard from the end of the bed and the Doctor watched as his eyes skimmed whatever was written on there. The Doctor hadn't told them anything about herself, so whatever they'd found out (which she was proud to say was very little) during however long she'd been there would be written on that paper.
"Species... Time Lord," the man spoke with some kind of Russian accent, looking up at her over the clipboard, "subject unknown." He chuckled heartily and scribbled something on the clipboard, then replaced it at the end of the bed. "There is only one Time Lord left in the universe. The Last of The Time Lords. I hope you are enjoying your stay, Doctor."
The heart monitor picked up momentarily before it calmed down, the only sign of the spark of fear and unsurity the Doctor had felt. The man grinned, showing off his gnarly teeth, and rounded the bed until he was situated behind her head this time. The Doctor looked up as much as she could with her limited movement until she gave up when her neck started to ache.
"The other doctors, the real doctors, tell me you have been refusing to eat your lunch," the man said as if chastising a mere child, "you must eat, Doctor, or you will be sent into your next regeneration."
The Doctor minutely shook her head, closing her eyes. The last time she'd eaten something they'd given her, she'd almost choked because the doctors had thought it funny to spray her with water while she was still eating. Apparently she hadn't been eating fast enough. At least, that's what she had been able to make out.
"Are you... refusing?" The man asked, his voice suddenly sinister with a slight hint of amusement.
"Yes," the Doctor croaked, standing her ground. She would rather starve than eat anything they gave her, anyway. It was just slop with a bit of colour to it and no taste. She'd much rather have a custard cream any day.
The man hummed in what seemed like a thoughtful way then chuckled. "I thought you'd say that," he said, "so I came prepared." The door creaked open as the man stepped out of it momentarily. When he came back in,
he had a metal, medical trolley with him. On top of it was a jug filled with who-knows-what and a funnel connected to a tube. The Doctor tensed then immediately
attempted to get up only to be pushed back down by the man. "You need to eat, Doctor, and until you learn to do it by yourself, this is how you will be fed," the man told her.
The Doctor resolutely shook her head and turned away from him, the most she could do with her limited movement.
Suddenly, the top half of the table the Doctor was strapped to was being elevated until she was in a sitting position. As relieved as the Doctor was to no longer be lying
down, that relieved feeling vanished when the man wrapped another leather strap around her chest.
"Now," the man said when he was done tightening the strap, "open wide."
The Doctor stared at him as if he were stupid, refusing to follow his orders. Shaking his head, the man stepped forward and grabbed her jaw. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Make your choice, Doctor," he growled at her. Eyeing the tube to the side, slowly, hesitantly, the Doctor opened her mouth. The man put his thumb in between her teeth just in case she decided to close it again and reached for the trolley where he grabbed a black block. He slotted it in between her teeth on the left, making the Doctor lightly wince, and did the same with another block on the right after removing his thumb. Satisfied with his work, the man collected the tube and funnel and tilted the Doctor's head back as far as he could, then got to work forcing it down her throat. The Doctor gasped for breaths as the tube made its way down her throat and started wide eyed above her as the man grinned at her.
When the tube was far enough, the man carefully reached over for the metal jug. He brought it over and steadily started to pour the liquid down the funnel, resulting in the Doctor wincing at the feel of it. A tear fell from her eye and trailed down her cheek, making a clear line in the dirt she'd gathered since she'd been there.
"This," the man spoke, "is what happens when you refuse to eat. We still have a lot to learn about you, Doctor, you will not mess this up for us by dying."
About five minutes later, the tube was no longer down her throat and the blocks had been removed from her mouth, allowing her to close it again despite how painful it was. The man had left the room to either take the trolley back or to tell the other doctors that she had finally eaten, whatever he was doing, leaving the Doctor alone. The table she was on was still elevated and she still had a strap across her chest, keeping her still.
With nothing to do but wait, the Doctor closed her eyes and attempted to reach out to her TARDIS or her friends. It took a lot of energy out of her using her telepathy to talk to other beings across the universe and usually she needed to be touching said being, but she could do it. It would just take time and effort. Really, she wasn't looking for a rescue from her TARDIS anyway, she wanted to know her friends were home safe. She'd left them at home to give them a break in travelling and had meant to pick them up a week later, but had gotten distractedwhen the TARDIS sent her somewhere else instead. That's when she'd gotten captured and now she wasn't sure where the TARDIS was or whether her friends were safe or not.
Cardiff, 2019...
Feet kicked up on his desk in his new, makeshift office, Captain Jack Harkness swirled his biscuit in his cup of tea. Gwen was over at her own desk, keeping an eye on the rift as it had been oddly silent lately. There wasn't even any sign of a weevil running rampant.
"Anything?" Jack asked Gwen after he'd eaten his biscuit.
"Nope. Nothing. It's weird," Gwen said, frowning at the computer they'd set up as soon as they'd found their new base of operations.
"It's not like it to be so quiet for this long. Even after Miracle Day it was chaos. So why are they all so quiet now?" Jack spoke to himself as he removed his feet from the desk and replaced them with his elbows, resting his chin on his hands.
As he was listening to the background noise of Gwen typing on the keyboard, Jack's vortex manipulator beeped. With furrowed brows, Jack sat up straight and eyed it.
"Is it supposed to be doing that?" Gwen asked, turning to face him with as much confusion as he had.
"No," Jack said slowly, opening it up. On the screen he noticed he had two sets of coordinates with two different orders, both marked by the same person. Jack's eyes widened and he slowly started getting up from his seat.
"Jack? What is it? What's wrong?" Gwen questioned with worry.
"It's him. It's the Doctor. He needs my help," Jack said and ran to grab his coat from the back of the door.
"What? The Doctor? Your Doctor?"
"Yes. I'm sorry, Gwen, but I have to help him. I'll be back soon. I promise," Jack said and ran out of the room.
"Wha- Jack!" Gwen yelled to his retreating form.
