Chapter Four
"Father, how long are they going to take?"
"I don't know, George," a man said, a few meters from where Clara stood staring blankly at the hotel entrance.
The man's son stood on tip-toe, holding onto his father's hand tightly. "We told them about the Doctor ages ago."
Clara's head perked up. Suddenly she focused on the conversation between the boy and his father. She watched as a woman approached them and put a hand on the boy, George's, shoulder.
"I'm sure they're trying their best."
George let go of his father's hand, crossing his arms in anxious agitation. His parents gave each other silent looks.
Clara found herself walking toward them before she even thought about it.
"Er, excuse me. Did you mention the Doctor?"
The woman smiled politely. "Yes. George, what was his name again?"
George leaned against the building behind him. "Just the Doctor," he mumbled. Clara turned to him
"I-I know him. He's my friend."
George picked his head up. "Really?"
Clara nodded, feeling tears blink into her eyes. "Yeah. Best friend. He...he was stuck. But the firefighters are getting him out now."
George nodded. His eyes were wide and welcoming to this new information. "He only stayed with me because I asked. I…"
George broke off. His mother wrapped her arms around him and his father put a hand on his shoulder.
"Hey," the older man said. "Don't blame yourself. He's a good man and he chose to help you. He decided to stay."
George nodded, but still looked doubtful. Clara let a flash of a smile cross her face. "He's always doing things like that. He never thinks about himself. As much as it drives me crazy...it's what makes him...him."
She knelt beside the boy, fractionally. "I'm sure he's going to be fine. He...he promised."
She knew she was reassuring herself as much as George and his family, but it felt good to say it out loud. The Doctor was going to be fine. The Doctor was always fine.
As good as it made her feel, it also sent shivers down her spine. What if today was the exception to the rule? What if today, he didn't make it out unscathed?
Clara shook her head of these thoughts immediately as sounds came from the hotel. Two firefighters were exiting, black smoke trailing in their wake, through the door. In between them lay…
"Doctor!" Clara practically shouted. She surged forward to follow the men. George made to join her, but his parents held him back.
"George," his mother said quietly. "Let's give him some space for a minute. I promise we'll check on them later, okay? He might need some medical care first."
George agreed, slackening against the wall again.
As Clara neared the firefighters, she felt her heart pump louder and louder in her ears. They were carrying him on a stretcher to an empty spot down the street. How injured was he? Why couldn't he walk by himself?
They set him down and Clara hurried beside them, kneeling at the Doctor's head. She put out a hand before anyone could shoo her away.
"I was staying with him. We're…"
What were they exactly?
"We're…"
The firefighter closest to her rested a big glove on her arm. "Take a deep breath. You can stay with him as long as you want. None of us are gonna chase you away."
He turned to his partner. "We need a paramedic over here. Dave, can you get someone?"
The other man disappeared with a nod.
Clara looked down at the Doctor for the first time, worrying her bottom lip over his condition. He was unconscious, his face was dirtied with dark gray ash, and his breathing was raspy and irregular. She hadn't found the courage to look at his leg yet.
The firefighter wiped his brow. "He took in a lot of smoke. And I don't know how injured that leg is. But he's breathing. His heart rate was a bit odd. Is that…?"
"He has a heart condition. Just, er, he was born like that," Clara lied, almost automatically.
The firefighter gave her a small smile. "Well, he seems very strong. Most people can't handle smoke like that for as long as he did. And coupled with that concrete sitting on him...he's a fighter."
Clara took hold of the Doctor's hand. His was completely limp. Fresh tears found their way down her face, yet again. Today felt like three days rolled into one, and the sun was just risen.
She locked her eyes on the Doctor's face, praying for his eyes to open and for him to miraculously be completely fine. He seemed calmer, though, somehow; lying here on the sidewalk outside of a burning building. His face was softer; less agitated. He didn't look so much like a two thousand year old alien who always carried the world on his shoulders.
Across from Clara and the firefighter, a newly arrived paramedic knelt down. "What's his name?"
Clara's exhausted mind didn't even care to think of something clever. "He usually just likes to be called 'Doctor'."
The paramedic took this with a simple, accepting smile. "I can do that. And what's your name?"
"Clara."
"Hello Clara, I'm Charlie." He turned to the firefighter. "Tom, can you fill me in?"
Charlie began looking over the Doctor, tilting his chin this way and that and listening to his troubled breathing, as Tom the firefighter explained the situation to him. When they were both finished, Charlie started opening the medical bag he'd brought over.
"Heart condition? Clara, do you know more than that?"
Clara's eyes inflated for a second, but she focused on the Doctor and simply shook her head. "He's pretty private."
Charlie nodded. We'll get him to a safer spot and take a look at that leg." He turned to Tom. "Are thy setting up those med tents yet?"
Clara gazed at the Doctor as the two men talked. His eyes flickered under closed lids; dreaming. His skin was still so ashen, and, also, ash-covered. Grayer than his curly hair. She wanted desperately to get some water and clean his face. Make him new again; like this tragedy had never happened.
Charlie's voice entered her ear as her eyes blurred with more unwanted tears.
"Clara, we're going to carry him over there, alright? Then we'll set his leg, maybe give him some oxygen."
Clara nodded, sitting back to clear a space for the men to work. Tom went to where she has been knelt over the Doctor and lifted up half of the stretcher like it weighed nothing. Clara felt her heart drop as the Doctor's arm drooped limply beside him. 'Wake up, Doctor,' she muttered silently to herself. 'Wake up and stop this.'
Tom took the other side and the men quickly made their way through the small crowd forming. Clara followed them, in a daze, to a makeshift tent on the sidewalk, filled with worried but confident nurses and doctors. The tent was only big enough to fit three raised stretchers. Charlie and Tom set the Doctor on the third in this one. He was the only patient still unconscious.
'Please, Doctor.'
Charlie helped Clara to a seat beside the Doctor, close enough so she could hold his hand tightly in her own as the doctor and his aides worked. Clara tried to pay attention to their words, but she lost them quickly. She'd never been very good at biology. She could only pray she could keep up the 'heart condition' act.
Charlie suddenly appeared opposite Clara. He leaned over the Doctor and listened to his breathing with a troubled frown. He looked up at the nearest nurse. "Not doing much better. Let's give him some oxygen."
Charlie disappeared back to the Doctor's leg as the nurse set an oxygen mask on the Doctor's face. Clara squeezed his hand. The nurse gave her a warm smile.
"Don't worry yourself too much. He'll be alright," the nurse said.
Clara glanced up at her for a second before darting her eyes back to the Doctor. He looked even worse, somehow, with the old fashioned oxygen mask on his face. She adjusted how she was seated and looked down at his leg. Charlie was wrapping what looked like the tenth layer of bandages around his left shin. His pants were rolled up to his knee on that side to give the doctor room to work.
"Is it broken?" She asked. Her voice sounded odd, like she hadn't spoken in ages.
Charlie paused; let himself breathe. "No. Came close, though. Shouldn't spend too much time on it for a little while."
Clara nodded, filing the information away for later. Charlie wiped his hands and got to his feet.
"Well, I better be getting back to the hotel. More people will be needing me. I hope everything works out, Clara." He shook her hand and looked at the Doctor. "Keep an eye on him. And tell him I'll be thinking of him."
Clara nodded with a small smile, and Charlie left the tent. The nurses went off to their other charges and left her, finally, on her own with the Doctor. He was still unconscious, but breathing better. His chest rose and fell more evenly. His face seemed to have more color, too. Clara squeezed his hand again.
He squeezed back, gently. Her wide eyes flitted to his face and watched his eyelids flutter and then open. His eyebrows drew together in a question, and then creased in pain. Clara put a hand on his shoulder.
"It's okay. They got you out."
Her words calmed him, and he eased the tension in his muscles. As he gained consciousness, he brought a hand to his face; touched the mask with his fingers. Clara put her hand on his.
"You breathed in a lot of smoke."
He tilted his head at her and she almost smiled at the expression he somehow managed even beneath that mask and beneath all of the exhaustion.
"They want you to keep it on until they know you're okay."
He rolled his eyes and turned to the ceiling. Clara let herself smile and helped him take the mask off.
"If I hear one breath I don't like, you're putting it back on."
The Doctor coughed to clear his throat. Clara turned to one of the nurses. "Is there any water in here?"
The nurse, Rita, handed her a cup full of the life-giving liquid, which Clara brough to the Doctor's face. He almost rolled his eyes again.
"Come on, big bad Timelord. I don't want you hurting your leg to sit up."
He kept his mouth closed in rebellion. Now Clara rolled her eyes. "Let me take care of you. Just this once."
He relented, letting her cup the back of his neck and raise his head enough to pour the water ino his mouth. As she held the cup, he put his hand around hers; one small act of independence. She allowed it with a smile.
When he was laid back down, she took his hand again and stared at their intertwined fingers. She didn't have words. Neither of them did. So they stayed silent.
That is, until a familiar face came hurrying into the tent.
"Doctor!" George shouted with a smile. His joy disippated as he noticed the Doctor's bandaged leg and the ash still covering his face and hair.
The Doctor smiled, sitting up and hiding the pain it caused him.
"How's my favorite counter-capitalist?"
George grinned, but looked at his shoes, kicking the dirt. "I'm sorry I left. I...my parents…I wanted to stay; I did."
"Are you kidding? You got the firefighters. If you hadn't left, they never would've found me."
George met the Doctor's eyes again. "Yeah?"
"You should get a badge. Hero of San Francisco, how does that sound?"
George smirked. "I'm not really 'of' anywhere. Life on the road, remember?"
Clara looked at the Doctor. "Reminds me of someone."
They each gabe each other one last smile before George dashed out, wishing the Doctor well. Clara nudged his arm as soon as the boy was gone.
"You just can't help turning people into heroes, can you?"
The Doctor's face became almost pensive. "I don't make anyone a hero. They already are. I'm just an idiot who attracts them. God knows why."
Clara quirked her eyebrow at him, and then leaned over and kissed the top of his head. "Nah, you're one of the heroes."
The Doctor shook his head. Clara nudged him again. "You're my hero."
He looked up at her and chuckled. "Really? Even now when I'm lying here with ashes on my face and my leg covered in bandages because the ceiling fell on me?"
Clara kept her eyes locked on his, her lips turning up into a gentle smile. "Especially now."
There will be at least one more chapter, don't worry! Please let me know what you thought and have a wonderful day. Thank you so much for reading.