Chapter 4 - Back from the Dead
Rose waited, sitting curled into the foetal position in the medical office of the stronghold, just staring blindly at the wall.
The Doctor and Jack weren't back yet.
She didn't know why she was so worried. If anyone in the universe could handle themselves, it was the Doctor. He was invincible on a bad day.
So she waited, and waited.
Finally she heard the entrance open and the deep tones of Jack through the wall. She got up quickly, running out of the door to meet the group. She scoured, but couldn't see the Doctor among them. Then Jack caught her gaze, and his face turned slightly. If Rose didn't know any better, she'd say that was an apologetic look…
"No," she breathed, immediately realising what that meant.
"I'm sorry, I really am," Jack told her, taking her arm to pull her aside from the crowd. "The ceiling caved in and he was underneath. There was no point digging him out."
Rose flinched slightly as the thought of that ran through her head. Then she looked at him, narrowing her eyes sightly. "Wait… you just left him?"
"No one coulda survived that," he countered. "Four feet of concrete straight on his head."
"No..." Rose muttered, her eyes searching the ground. "He isn't like that, he's not dead..."
"Sorry," Jack said again. "I know you two were close."
Rose yanked her arm away from his grip. "No," she burst out, turning to the door. "I'm gonna find him."
Jack grabbed her arm again. "What? He's dead, Private. You've got people to help her-"
"He's alive!" Rose interrupted firmly, trying to pull her arm away again but his grip was too firm. "Let go of me! I need to find him!"
Jack just wrapped his arms around her, dragging her kicking and screaming to the medical office. He threw her inside, and before she could get back to the door he'd locked it.
"Cool off, Private!" he shouted through the metal.
"Let me out! He's not dead! I know he's not dead!" Rose screamed, banging her fist on the door. "Let me out!"
But she could hear his footsteps, walking away from her.
The Doctor's head was so painful he could barely open his eyes. He didn't even known how he managed it when he finally accomplished it, but it didn't matter anyway, the world was incredibly dark and blurry and no improvement at all to them being closed.
He coughed slightly, dust flying. His leg was screaming with even more pain than his head and there was a huge weight on top of him, crushing the very air out of his lungs. His arms were pinned down beneath his chest awkwardly. He couldn't remember how he'd got here, or even where he was. But it was clear he really had to get out.
Since his arms were pinned beneath him, his hands were partially numb, so for a moment he just clenched and unclenched his fists to try and get some blood to them. Then he manoeuvred his arms, ever so carefully, towards his inside jacket pocket where he could feel his sonic screwdriver pressed into his chest. After a moment's fumbling he managed to get it out, and pointed it with awkward posture at the concrete directly in front of him. He adjusted the setting, and pressed the button.
BANG!
The concrete exploded out in front of him, hitting something metal across the room. There were several gasps and cries of alarm. He had company.
He put the sonic back and began to pull himself out, trying not to put any undue pressure on his right leg. The concrete on top of him made this almost impossible, but he had to get out.
Eventually he managed to get his top half out, coughing and choking in the dust. He could see the people who had gasped - soldiers in the cell, now just staring at him in pure bewilderment. He looked back at the rubble - daylight above the collapse, and the clear signs that the ceiling and wall had fallen in. Obviously what had happened was he'd been standing there when the ceiling had collapsed - straight onto his head. No wonder his skull felt like it had been split into two.
They had every right to looked bewildered, he supposed. He should probably be dead. Wait. Had he died? He quickly ran his hands up through his hair, which was drowned in dust. But nope, same massive hair, sideburns and thin face. He rolled back his shoulders to check for the mole. Yep. Same body.
He looked back at his predicament - his legs were trapped under a massive slab of concrete. Through his jumbled head he realised that the massive concrete wall was probably what had saved him, collapsing on him to protect him from the rest of the debris. Sure, it had knocked him out, left him with a significant concussion and what felt like a savagely broken leg, but alive, nonetheless.
He leaned forward and gripped the edge of the concrete. Almost immediately the concrete split apart and the concrete on top shifted, straight down onto his broken leg.
He shrieked in pain, and in the panic pulled his legs desperately out of the debris. With a bit more screaming and a lot more pain he managed to get them out, scrambling away from the last of the debris as it fell exactly where he'd been sitting.
His leg was bleeding. He couldn't see the detail through his blurred vision, but blood could only mean it was a compound fracture and he had nothing to treat it with. So he pulled off his coat and then his jacket, and reached forward to tie the jacket firmly around his mangled leg to try and stiffen the bone and stop it bleeding at the same time, gasping with pain as he did so. He couldn't bear to look at it. Not yet. It would just make it hurt even more. Even his extra flood of endorphins wasn't helping to numb the pain. Wincing, he pulled on his coat back on.
But that didn't matter. He had to find Rose.
He coughed again, grabbed onto a hold in the wall and pulled himself up. For a moment he just swayed, feeling quite drunk, until he managed to get some sort of centre of balance. He pulled his hands through his hair and patted down his coat and trousers, trying to get the dust off of him. It did nothing.
Then, standing on one leg, he turned to the astonished crowd, still staring transfixed at him. He gave a brief smile and thumbs up.
"If you can walk... come with me," he said disjointedly through his pained head, aiming the sonic towards the chains holding them. The bonds split apart almost immediately. "I can't... carry you... I'm sorry."
A few of the men stepped forward, rubbing at their wrists where the chains had rested. They all looked half-starved, hollowed cheeks and dark eyes. None of them seemed to be able to process the man seemingly rising from the dead in front of their eyes and the fact this was an escape at the same time.
"There's a... stronghold," the Doctor told them collectively. "I'm going... back there... If you can... take a passenger... please do."
They all nodded in sync.
Jack kept Rose locked in there for the entire night, and in that she had gone from feeling impossibly angry to feeling utterly numb.
He couldn't die. He'd just regenerate, surely?
But he'd told her after his previous regeneration. There were certain methods of death he couldn't regenerate from, most of them involving his head. And if a giant block of concrete had fallen onto his head, there was a very good chance that he was definitely dead.
If he really was dead… What was she going to do without him? She needed to get back to the TARDIS, where the emergency program would activate and take her home.
But how could she do that? How could she just leave him all alone? Trapped under a pile of concrete, left to rot on a hostile world of merciless and mutant humans?
If he was here, he'd been yelling at her to just leave his body and go back to the TARDIS. But he wasn't here, so she wasn't listening to his voice in her head. She'd find him. On the next mission, she would sneak away from the group and get his body to take it to the TARDIS. He needed a proper burial. He deserved more of course, but it was the best she could give him. She'd bury him on Earth, his second home, visit his grave every day with fresh flowers.
And then she began to cry.
No. She stopped herself, forcing back the sobs. This wasn't right. She was grieving for him. Why was she grieving? She'd not seen his body. There was no actual proof he was dead…
Albeit, a highly likely possibility.
Her head had already accepted his death, and her heart was fighting a losing battle. After a small, wild struggle with her rationality, her heart finally gave up and she let the bitter tears fall.
There was a voice from outside, and suddenly the door of her room opened. There stood a soldier, staring at her.
"What?" she spat out through her tears.
"Might wanna get out here," he told her, and walked off.
Rose could have spat bile at him with the amount of poison she could taste in her mouth. She turned over and curled into herself, refusing to obey orders. She had no part in this war. A war that had killed the Doctor. They could all get stuffed.
"Rose!"
Rose's breath caught in he throat in mid-intake. Then she was up, running out of the door to see the Doctor standing there surrounded by astonished soldiers, covered in blood and dust but very much alive.
He broadened a grin at her. "Hello," he said, waving.
She ran up to him and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly. He winced in her tight grip, so she quickly relented.
"Sorry!" sh said quickly, beaming from ear-to-ear. "Oh god, I thought you were dead!"
"Oh, come on... You know me better… than that," he jested in a pained breath, winking.
"What the hell!?" Jack had arrived, gaping at the Doctor. "But you were… It was… The ceiling collapsed on you!" he stammered.
"The ceiling... yes, but before that... the wall, which protected... me," the Doctor told him through strain breaths for air, though somewhat blasé.
"No," Jack concluded, walking around him, panning him up and down. "You got out of that?"
"Apparently..."
"T-that's not normal," Jack stammered. It was the first time Rose had seen him almost completely speechless.
"Yeah, that's me... not normal," the Doctor agreed.
"No. That's impossible," Jack reiterated. "Men have died from far less than that."
"Just lucky," the Doctor said.
"No fucking way that was just lucky," Jack swore. "Are you an android?"
"Nope," the Doctor replied. "Sorry... If you don't mind... I really need... a painkiller."
The Doctor helped himself to Rose's shoulder, leaning on her. She obediently secured his arm in place so he didn't have to put any pressure on his leg, before taking him towards the medical room.
The Doctor collapsed onto the rug, promptly letting out a cry. Rose quickly caught him before he fell back.
"Thanks," he breathed, shuffling carefully back to lean against the wall, leaving his leg outstretched. He looked at her kneeling down next to him, waiting for instruction.
"Sorry," he began, wincing. "Painkiller first… Please."
She nodded, efficiently retrieving one of the capsules, snapping off the end and stabbing it into his thigh. He shuddered a little at the impact, but after a moment the pain began to subside, at least, enough for him to think straight.
He breathed out a sigh of relief, and opened his eyes again. "Thanks," he repeated. "Now this bit you're not going to like."
"What?"
"I think it's a compound fracture," he said. "Which means I think my bone broke my skin."
She visibly steeled herself, nodded, and began to undo the rudimentary bandages. Soon his leg was exposed and he watched her carefully as she looked.
"It's not broken through the skin," Rose told him.
The Doctor leaned forward to look at it. It was fairly intact, apart from deep dark bruising from his ankle to over his kneecap and a large laceration courtesy of where he'd dragged it out from under the concrete. He could see the displacement of the broken bone, though.
"Want me to clean it?" Rose asked, already reaching for the antiseptic wipes.
The Doctor nodded. At least it wasn't open.
Rose obediently cleaned it up, and followed his direction in bandaging and splinting it with some of the longer rusty blunt medical instruments. It was all they had.
"This isn't gonna heal, is it?" she realised as she finished, pulling back to check her work.
He shook his head. "Not until I can reset it in the Tardis."
"So you can't walk?"
He knew what she was hinting at. "I can limp. We can escape."
"How fast can you limp?"
He pulled a face. "Rose… Just leave, okay?"
She shook her head. "No," she said, shuffling to his head. "Right, lemme clean your head up."
"Rose, please, just go," he repeated.
She pulled another antiseptic wipe seemingly out of thin air, took his chin in her other hand and began to dab at his head wound carefully. "No," she said firmly. "I'm not just runnin' off an leavin' you here, yeah? We're doin' this together."
"This is dangerous. You need to leave."
"Well, I'm not," she told him informatively, spreading a slight grin. "You're stuck with me."
He gazed at her for a long moment as she worked. She was hiding something. "... What happened today?"
She paused in her dabbing, looking at him, her face falling. "Nothin', don't worry," she murmured.
"Tell me."
She sighed and refocused herself back on his head. Then she told him everything about the little girl and the poor soldier she had condemned to death.
"It wasn't your fault," the Doctor stressed when she'd finished. "You didn't know."
"It was and you know it," Rose replied honestly.
He thought about that for a moment, before sticking up a hand. "Help me up."
She obliged, but looked confused. "What?"
"You've been saving lives today, Rose Tyler, you saved that soldier," he reminded her. "Don't call it day. Come on, we've got lots of injured people to attend to and I need your help." He gestured to his leg in indication. "Can't do it on my own now, can I? Then we're going to sleep. Okay?"
A brief, watery smile came across her. "Okay."
A/N: Review reply time! Yay! :D