Being careful not to jostle her too much, because every movement, however slight, brought forth a small groan or cry, he walked out of that room of horrors, his new-found hope safe in his arms.
He moved slowly back to the TARDIS, but still arrived safely before his hour was up. When he was in hearing range, he called out "Martha! Open the doors! I've got my hands full, so I can't!"
Martha heard the suppressed joy in his voice and ran to open the door. What she saw made her gasp. There stood the Doctor, a huge smile on his face, looking down at a person he held in his arms. There was an expression on his face that Martha had never seen before; full of such tenderness that she knew at once this was someone important to him. She took a closer look at the girl. She had hair that would probably be brown if it were clean, and it had fallen into her face, covering it. She looked to be about Martha's height, maybe a little shorter, if she were to stand. She was wearing a big black bomber jacket covered in bright patches. Something about the jacket reminded Martha of a conversation she had had with the Doctor a week or two earlier.
"She was very pretty, Martha. She had brown hair, and she loved messing around with it. Up, down, braided, ponytail, always something different. She had this jacket, too, that she always wore. Black, it was, with patches sewn all over it. I don't know where half of them came from. I never thought to ask…The Time War started, and I never saw her again. I don't even know if she fought in the War, or was sent back to Earth. I will never know. I lost her, Martha. I miss her."
"No way." Martha said, looking from the girl to the Doctor. "Is that-is that her? The human girl who became a Time Lady?"
The Doctor couldn't stop smiling. "Yep, this is her. This is my long-lost Ace. Now, I need to get her to the hospital room. Follow me." He walked into the TARDIS, and as the doors closed behind him, there was a tremendous BOOM, and the whole TARDIS shook.
"What was that?" Martha cried.
"That was the Dalek prison ship exploding. No more prisoners on board, remember? We should be moving again now." The Doctor kept walking, carrying Ace, who was still out cold. Martha followed, saying "You have a hospital room? In here? And you never told me?"
Over his shoulder, the Doctor answered "You never asked."
"I shouldn't think I would need to ask, not about something like that!"
"Like what?" he asked. He had stopped in front of a door and was waiting for her to open it.
"Like, I don't know, something important! I mean, I'm a doctor, or at least I'm going to be, so it would make sense that I'd want to know about a hospital room!" She opened the door and went inside.
The Doctor looked thoughtful. "I never thought of that." He said, following her into the room.
The room was a typical hospital-type room, with blank white walls and two beds, separated by curtains, to one side. Cabinets lined the walls, a waist-high counter ran along one wall, and the rest of the space was cluttered with a few chairs and various medical equipment from all over the universe, past, present, and future.
The Doctor walked over to the nearest bed and laid Ace gently on it. She shifted and moaned. He turned to Martha. "Help me get her jacket off." He said.
Together, they began easing Ace's arms out of her jacket. They had to move very slowly, because each time they touched her she cried out softly, though without waking, and they both winced and stopped at each pitiful cry. Eventually, they got her arms out and the Doctor half-lifted her while Martha slid her jacket out from under her. She held it up and made a face.
"This coat could do with a wash. Do you have a washing machine somewhere around here, as well?" She was half joking.
"Um, yeah, somewhere. Uh, go out and take a right, three doors down on your left. Use the middle machine. The others might eat the jacket, if they're hungry." He answered her distractedly, never taking his eyes off the still form on the bed.
"Oh, ok then." Martha answered, her voice blank with surprise. She walked out of the room, looking over her shoulder to see the Doctor pull up a chair next to the bed in which his friend lay. "Wow" she thought. "He really seems to love her. But it's not romantic love, I don't think. It's more like….affectionate love. Yes, that's it. Sort of fatherly."
The Doctor reached out to brush Ace's hair out of her face, seeing it clearly for the first time.
"Oh, Ace." He murmured. Her face was mottled blue, black, and yellow-green with bruises, new and old. There were cuts, too, lots of them, but they weren't deep, thankfully. Looking down her body, he could see now that every bit of her exposed skin was covered in the same bruises, cuts, and scrapes. Her right leg looked broken, and her left ankle was badly swollen. He wondered how long it would have taken to build up so many injuries. He gazed at her face, peaceful in unconsciousness, sadly.
"What have they done to you?" He reached out, almost without thinking, and tapped her nose gently.
At his touch, she opened one eye slightly and managed a weak smile. "'What haven't they done' might be a better question, Professor." She said. "And the answer would be 'not much'."
"Oh, Ace." He repeated hopelessly. It hurt him to see her like this, and not be able to do anything about it. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. If I had known, If I had had any idea you were alive, I would've come, I would've been there, I-" he broke off when she raised a tired finger to his lips.
"I know." She said. "And that's enough, just knowing. It wasn't so bad, anyway, not really. I mean, it hurt, of course, but I didn't tell them anything." Her eyes flashed with a trace of their old defiance. "And as long as I knew you were out there, safe, I was fine. They wanted to know were you were, that's why they captured me, so I knew that as long as they didn't kill me, you were still alive. I just hoped you'd eventually find out, and come." Her eyes clouded over with memories. "But then a Time Lord came in, I don't know his name, and he told me it was all over. The Daleks were all but gone; the Time Lords were all dead. I didn't believe him at first. How could all the Time Lords be dead? I asked him about you. He looked at me and laughed. 'Oh, yeah.' He said. 'That one's dead. He ended everything. He was in the middle of the end. He's dead.' I knew he was telling the truth. It took me a while to believe it, but I did eventually. It was all over for me, then. I don't even know how long I just sat there, taking whatever they dished out. I had given up. Then you walk in." Here, her voice filled with wonder. "You walk in, and suddenly it's all right. You rescued me. And here I am, looking at my Professor, and we're both alive."
"Well, that debatable." He teased. "I don't know if I'd call you alive."
Ace laughed, and the Doctor marveled at it. After having gone through so much, to be able to laugh! "That's true, Professor." She said finally. "I don't know if I'd call me alive either. However, I do know I'd be a lot more alive if I had some Nitro-9 with me." she looked at him hopefully.
Now it was his turn to laugh. "I suppose we might have some around here somewhere." He said, loving the way her eyes lit up ay the prospect of getting her hands on her favorite explosive. "Speaking of which," he added casually, "I'm pretty sure I saw some burn marks on that ship that were made by a chemical mixture that included nitroglycerin. Would you know anything about that?"
She grinned up at him. "I might." She allowed. "I figured if I was going down, I might as well take a couple of the dirty toerags with me. I ran out eventually, of course, but I wreaked havoc until I did."
"I can imagine." He said fondly, and then asked something that had been on his mind for some time. "Ace, did you graduate? From the Academy, I mean."
"Yes, I did." She answered with quiet pride. "With honors, in fact. You are looking at a fully-fledged Time Lady. I was even going to get a TARDIS, but then the war started, and the Gallifrey-born cadets got theirs first. I was traveling with one of them when I got captured." Anything else she had been planning to say was lost in a huge yawn.
The Doctor reached down to the end of the bed and caught the sheet, pulling it up to cover Ace's raggedly clothed, painfully thin body.
"Go to sleep, Ace." He said. "We can talk more when you wake."
Her eyes were already closing, but she looked up at him with sudden fear. "Don't leave me alone." She begged him. "Please, don't leave."
His hearts went out to her, and for a moment he saw the scared young teen who had relied so much on him, and whom he had let down so often.
"It's okay, Ace." He said. "You're safe here."
"Safe is where you are, Professor." She told him simply.
He almost choked up, then, to see such simple yet utter trust in him. He'd forgotten the depth of her faith.
"I'm not going anywhere." He promised. "I'll stay right here."
She looked up at him uncertainly for a moment more, then nodded, closed her eyes, and fell asleep in minutes. He sat by her bed and after a moment put his hand on hers, lying palm up on the sheets. He smiled when she closed her hand around his and held it close to her as she slept.
