NOTE: This one cuts off abruptly, sincere apologies.
The problem of what to do with all his excess energy has been quite firmly resolved. After less than a week of devoting as much time as can be spared to weaving himself into the Archangel network, he's found himself exhausted. He's not on schedule; there won't be enough power to do what he needs to when the year is up, going at this snail's pace. Without an alternative plan, though, he has no choice but to keep going. But he's so tired...
He lies on his back in his semi-comfortable doggy bed, staring listlessly up at the high ceiling above. There are 851 crystals in the hanging chandelier. He thinks maybe he's miscounted- who puts an odd number of crystals in a chandelier?- but can't quite muster up the energy to re-count them. His TARDIS sings in his head, trying to share as much of her power as she can spare, but she's nearly as depleted as he is. He waves her off, both mentally and physically (which probably looks pretty stupid) and she backs away sadly.
With a sigh he puts an arm over his eyes to block out the light from the windows and thinks about trying to sleep. This body doesn't tolerate over-exertion well at all, and yet he still has the habits of several centuries telling him he won't need to sleep for another few days. The result is that he's very, very tired, but his mind won't let him deviate from its own set schedule to let him rest. He supposes if he were to pass out, it would do the trick. He's not sure that would be very good for his health though.
The sound of an opening door distracts him from his not-sleeping problems, and he lifts his arm slightly to see who it is. Francine glares at him from across the room, looking strange in her maid's outfit and cleaning rag. She blames him for all this, (he can feel the sentiment pouring off her in waves) which is fair so far as he's concerned- if he hadn't taken Martha travelling with him, after all, her family would never have been targeted by the Master. In light of this he's been doing his best not to bother any of them too much. Which is fairly easy since he hardly ever sees them. Francine is here now, though, so he flashes her a courteous smile. She glowers and his expression droops. Well, he supposes it was worth a shot.
It feels wrong to sleep while someone's working nearby, so he quietly hauls himself up to a cross-legged sitting position and leans his aching head on his hands. Another unfortunate side-effect of trying to force a juvenile's mind to do things an adult would find difficult—a near-constant headache.
"Ouch," a voice says quietly. The Doctor looks up quickly to see Francine half-kneeling on the floor, holding her lower back. She's hurt it somehow and is obviously having trouble bending over to wash the tiles. Now he feels even worse. He stands up, trying not to sway too obviously, and walks over to her.
"Can I help?" he asks politely. He's gotten very good as disguising the fact that he feels about ready to pass out at any given moment, and so projects an air of apologetic calm. It doesn't seem to be working, though, as Francine glares viciously at him.
"Get away from me," she bites back. The Doctor's face falls marginally; he'd expected that sort of response, of course, but hearing it said with such venom still hurts.
"Look, I.. ah.." he pauses, bites his lip, tries to think of any way that standing over a woman who's cleaning the floor with a washrag doesn't look bad. He compromises by sitting down a few feet away from her before he continues, "I'm really sorry about all this. If I could do things differently-"
"Save it," Francine snaps. She's managed to get all the way down to her knees and is now dutifully washing the marble tiles. She looks up from her work for the briefest of moments to glare at him, fire in her eyes, and goes back to scrubbing.
"Right, sorry…" he mutters. His head is still swimming slightly from the morning's attempt to weave an entire section of archangel threads at once, and he finds himself rather lost in the shifting patterns of daylight on the section of the floor in front of him. So distracted, he doesn't notice immediately that Francine has started speaking.
"Listen to me!" she barks. His head snaps up to look at her and he nearly keels over from the sudden movement. Alright, no more over-exertions if he can help it.
"… what? Sorry…" he rubs the back of his neck apologetically.
"What's wrong with you?" Francine asks. The Doctor figures it must be his currently-questionable mental state that makes him think she looks concerned. He smiles disarmingly for her benefit.
"Nothing at all! Oh, was I in your way?" he asks, noticing that he's sitting on a spot of floor she hasn't washed yet. Standing up to move doesn't seem that appealing at the moment, so he scoots backwards a few feet and hopes it's far enough.
Francine gives him a look that he doesn't even try to interpret and goes back to her chore. He bites his lip and tries not to feel too horrible about all this. The plan to fix it all is in motion, he's giving everything he's got to reversing all this, there's nothing more to do…
Except there is.
Bracing himself with as much of the TARDIS's energy as he dares to borrow, he stands and walks over to Martha's mother. He doesn't ask, this time. Merely takes the washcloth from her without a word.
"Excuse me—!" she starts. He sits himself down on his rump and starts scrubbing at the stain she's been working on.
"You should rest your back. Don't worry, I'll make sure you don't get in trouble," he says in what he hopes is a reassuring tone. He squints at the surprisingly stubborn spot on the floor and deduces that it's some sort of coffee stain.
Francine's stare seems to burn holes in his back. He thinks maybe she's realised that she could overpower him with little more than a shove, and is about to steal the washrag back. Minutes pass, though, and she doesn't.
Daring to look over his shoulder, he sees that she's seated herself against one of the legs of the dinner table, eyes closed in relief as she holds her injured back. Despite a creeping dizziness, the Doctor smiles and turns back to his newly-acquired job. The coffee stain is fading. He thinks it'll probably go away fairly quickly if he just works at it.
#-#
Francine opens one eye and observes the Doctor's small back as he scrubs at a stain she hasn't been able to get out in three nights of trying. This is the first time she's been in here to find the boy-who-is-actually-a-dangerous-alien awake. Other nights, days, any time really he's just been a lump on that dog bed. She can't figure out what he's been doing. Sleeping, probably, while the rest of them suffer.
Paradoxically, though, it doesn't look like he's been sleeping at all. There are dark circles under the boy's young-old eyes, and though he might hide the fact from Saxon and all the rest of his horrible henchmen, she can tell he's perilously close to collapsing. There's just that bit of sway to his movements, a bit of blank confusion when he speaks that tells her he's not really all there mentally.
"Doctor…" she starts to ask. He doesn't hear her, still scrubbing at that coffee stain. That's good, though, as she's quickly reconsidered speaking to him and instead clamps her mouth shut. The little-boy image is a trick, she reminds herself. He's an alien, like Saxon, like those flying death-spheres, and he's the one responsible for her family's suffering.
As if hearing her thoughts, he stops cleaning and glances at her sorrowfully. She closes her eyes quickly, pretending she hasn't noticed. The sounds of scrubbing soon resume, and she can't deny the relief she feels that she isn't the one doing it. Her back has been hurting her nonstop for days now. Resting it for even this little while feels heavenly.
Minutes pass in near-silence, while Francine rests and tries not to feel too grateful to the Thing that destroyed her life, and the Doctor does a surprisingly good job of cleaning up. She sighs quietly to herself. A campaign of hate is difficult to continue while the subject of it is being genuinely nice to you.
Her thoughts are broken suddenly when a damp cloth is shoved back into her hands. She opens her eyes to find the child Doctor standing over her with a fairly wild expression in his eyes, urging her to get up.
"What? Why?" she asks. Still, the urgency in his expression makes her obey him.
"Just, look like you're cleaning. I'm sorry, so sorry," the boy says. He looks to the entryway of the bridge for a moment before retreating to his corner.
Before she can figure out what the Doctor is trying to do, the doors behind her slam open.
"Hello, my dears!"
