Chapter six

When I woke up, my eyes were hesitant to open. My eyelids felt heavy, like lead, and I wasn't strong enough to push them up. So I lay there, listening. There was the sound of beeps all around me. They were spanning through different frequencies, some high, others low, all providing a steady beat like a morbid song. I could feel bandages on my right shoulder, around my left calf and covering the middle of my stomach. There was something inserted into my wrist, something round and made of soft plastic that I guessed was an IV. I could also feel an object inside of my nose. Air circulated through it, so I decided it had to be an oxygen tube.

Finally, I slowly opened my eyes. I had been right about the IV and the oxygen tube; I was lying in a hospital room. Everything around me was pure white: the bedsheets, the walls and the tile floor. The lights glinted off of everything, making my eyes water. I had on a hospital gown, as I could see the top of the greenish floral pattern peeking out from under the blanket. On the table beside me was a lamp, a glass of water and piles of GET WELL SOON cards. There were teddy bears and balloons in the corner, and I saw a few vases full of flowers on the table across the room.

My mind was working sluggishly, as if I had to brush out some dust every time I had a thought. I couldn't remember what had happened that landed me in the hospital, or where exactly this hospital was. Actually, I honestly couldn't remember much. So I did what my mom used to tell my grandfather when he was feeling the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease: "Think back from the very beginning."

My name is Shaina Renae Applewhite. I am sixteen years old. My birthday is January the 8th. I live in Arrowhead Trail. I am an American. I am in eleventh grade at Arrowhead Trail Upperclassmen School. I live on Cherokee Street with my mother. My father lives in Bleckley. My younger brother's name is Daniel. He lives with my father. My older brother's name is Roy. He lives at Middle Creek College. My older sister's name is Victoria. She lives in Arrowhead Trail with her husband, Nathaniel.

Before I could keep listing facts about my life, the door opened. A nurse with short black hair cut in a bob walked in. She took a pen out of her pocket and began to write on a clipboard. Then she saw me and gasped. "Miss Applewhite, you're awake."

I just stared back at her.

The nurse came forward. "Your parents have been waiting a long time to see you. Once I check all your vitals, I'll try and squeeze them in before visiting hours end." She then proceeded to look over all the machines I was hooked to, as well as take my temperature and check my pulse. "Once Al comes and gives me the okay, I'll send in your visitors, okay?"

Al turned out to be Allison, another nurse. This one was very tall and thin, with extremely curly blonde hair. She scribbled a lot on her clipboard and checked my vitals again. "You came through really well, Miss Applewhite. Are you ready to see your visitors, or should I send them away until later?"

I tried to speak, but the words got caught in my throat. Clearing it, I tried again. My voice came out as a croaky whisper. "Now, please."

My mom was the first one in. She looked disheveled; her hair was unwashed and thrown up in a big clip. She kissed my forehead, tears in her eyes. "Oh, Shaina, I was afraid I had lost you."

My forehead crinkled in confusion.

"They've been saying you would come out of your coma for months now, and I was just beginning to think that maybe they were wrong. But here you are." She seemed to sense I didn't understand. "You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?"

"No," I said, "What happened to me?"

"They aren't sure. You were found in the park, lying on the bench. You looked dead, but you had a pulse, so they brought you here." She leaned in close to me. "Do you remember what happened?"

"I can't remember anything."

At that moment, my dad walked in the door. I could see my mother visibly tense up; my parents are divorced, and they can't stand to be in the same room. She gave me one last peck on the cheek before slipping past him.

My dad sat down. Daniel, only five years old, crawled up into my bed, snuggling himself under both the IV tube and my arm to press his face into my side.

"How ya feelin', sweetheart?" Dad asked gently.

"I'm okay," I told him.

Daniel's little hands were softly gliding over my fingertips. I curled my hand around his, and he let out a cute sigh. "Are you better now, sissy?"

"I don't know, love."

"Mommy said you were gonna die, but I told her no. You wouldn't do that to us, right, Shaina? You wouldn't die and leave us here?"

"I will always try really hard not to, okay?"

"Okay." Daniel pulled his hand away from mine so he could hug me lightly.

My dad's bright blue eyes locked with mine. "How long have I been in a coma?"

"Almost two months," Dad said in a solemn tone.

"Do you have any idea what happened?"

"No one does, Shai. We were hoping you could tell us once you woke up."

I sighed. "I can't remember."

Dad smoothed my hair out of my face for me. "It's okay, don't be upset about it. Maybe it will come to you, maybe it won't. Either way, we'll figure it out."

There was a pause. And then, from me: "Daddy?"

"Yeah?"

"Why did you take Daniel and not me when you and Mom got divorced?" It was a question I had been dying to ask him for years, but had never had the right opportunity or proper amount of courage to do it. But here in the hospital room, I knew my father would finally tell me the honest truth.

His face was pained for a moment, and then cleared, maybe for Daniel's sake. "I wanted to take you both, honey. I tried to get the judge to give me full custody, but he wouldn't. He said we had to share. You didn't want to choose, so we were supposed to choose for you and the state would approve. Well, your mother wanted you."

"She wanted me and not her baby?" I was shocked. Daniel had been one year old when my parents' divorce case had been held in the court.

"I don't get it, either, although maybe I do." Dad paused. "I wanted you to live with us. I tried so hard. And I really wish the state would have allowed me full custody, because then maybe this would have happened."

"This isn't her fault," I replied immediately.

"How do you know, if you can't remember? It happened on her watch, and I'll never forgive myself for letting it happen."

I brought my hand up to his face. He was warm, and judging from the fact that my father flinched when I touched his face, my skin must have been cold.

"I love you, Shai, you hear me? Even if I can't have you all to myself."

"I love you, too, Daddy. And you too, Dan."

Dad lifted my little brother up so he could kiss me on the forehead. Then the two of them left with a promise to come visit first thing the next day.

I imagined Roy and Victoria weren't coming to see me that day, so I laid back, closing my eyes. I was tired. I desperately wanted to remember what had happened so I could clear my mother's name in both my father's eyes as well as my own.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Eyes flying open, I looked over at the door. It all came rushing back to me as soon as my eyes locked on his face. Everything, from seeing that first Araneviro in the hallway, to time-traveling to planet Ara, to the reality gap, to fighting off the hordes of monsters with the other companions, all of it came flooding back in an instant. I remembered everything in that moment.

The Doctor pushed open the door and came in, shutting it quietly behind him. He took a seat in the chair beside my bed.

"Doctor, what are doing here?" I said before he could speak. "What am I doing here? I thought the Araneviro were poisonous, I should be dead!"

"Shhhhhh." He put a finger to his lips. "They are poisonous, and yes, technically you should be dead, Shaina. But once I managed to trap the radiation from the reality bomb, I released it on the Araneviro and their time-traveling equipment. Everything was destroyed, and reality was set back together. Everyone went back to where they had been before reality was completely torn."

"But that doesn't explain how I got here, in this hospital on Earth."

"I was about to get most of the venom out of you before it reached your heart. After that, you were able to be cared for by human medical doctors, so I left you in the park and watched until you were discovered."

My hand wrapped around the metal railing on the side of the bed. "You saved my life."

"I was almost the reason you lost it, too." The Doctor's shining brown eyes were still so full of that sadness. I now realized it was loss. After seeing how many companions he had had at one time in his life, I understood that he must have lost so many of his friends. Not to mention that, if he really was a thousand years old, the Doctor must have lost so many people over the years.

"What I told you is still true. About time-traveling with you being the best experience of my life. I can't explain it, but even though it seemed so crazy, it was fantastic."

The Doctor frowned. "No."

"No what?" I wondered.

"You're not."

"I'm not what?"

"Traveling with me again."

My eyes widened. "I could travel with you again?"

"I just said you couldn't!"

"Oh, Doctor, please?" I gazed up at him. "You can't tell me life-threatening things haven't happened to your other companions."

He pressed his lips together.

"Please? I promise I'll be careful."

"No, you don't." But his voice was softening. "You're sure you want to do this?"

"Once I get out of the hospital, I'll walk straight onto the TARDIS."

He gave me a look. "You've been in a coma for almost eight weeks. You were recovering from major Araneviro poisoning. I don't think you're in any condition to be time-traveling just yet-"

"But you just said I could-"

The Doctor held up his hands. "I'll give you a few months to recover, alright? And once I think you're ready, I'll come get you, alright?"

I heaved a sigh. Even though it wasn't exactly what I had wanted to hear, it was a promise just the same. |

It was a beautiful late-summer day. The sky was clear and blue, although not quite the color of the TARDIS. I remembered that color well, as it checked for it every time I looked up at the sky.

The Doctor's promise of collecting me once he thought I was recovered had been a little over five months ago. I had been settled back into the normal routine of things for weeks now, yet there was still no sign of him. But I refused to give up.

I sat curled in a chair on the back porch, sipping a glass of homemade lemonade. The soft breeze picked my bangs up off my face, cooling me. Dusk was approaching, and the air was starting to cool off. Autumn was on the horizon. I wasn't looking forward to the end of summer, as it meant school was drawing near.

"Mind if I join you?" asked a voice all of a sudden.

Lost in thought, I merely replied, "Uh-huh," off-handedly thinking it was my mother.

But then I realized the voice was a male's.

My head snapped sideways. The Doctor, looking just as he had before, was sitting in the chair beside me. "Doctor!" I cried with glee.

He accepted my hug. "I've decided I'm done being lonely, for at least a little while."

"So you've come to get me? We're going time-traveling again?"

"If you want."

"I've been waiting for you ever since you walked out of my hospital room. I'd say that means I definitely want to."

The Doctor stood up. "Well alright, let's go then." He held out his arm, ready for me to hook mine through.

And I did. We walked down the porch steps and around the side of the house. There stood the TARDIS, just as I had remembered it. The interior was exactly the way my brain recalled it as well.

"So, Shaina Applewhite." The Doctor grinned. "We can go practically anywhere and do practically anything. There's no curfew, because I can have you back at his exact moment, like we were never even gone."

I felt myself smile, really smile, for the first time in months.

"Where do you want to go?" |