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Hush2.0: I swear on whatever you'd like me to swear on I have not forgotten that fic. I'm about halfway done with the next chapter and will hopefully have it up in say, a week.


Bob swayed on his feet and listed dangerously to the right. The boy brought his bloody hand away from his head and, as he stumbled, braced himself against the wall. That kept him from tumbling over like an inebriate, though it also stained the wall with a gory handprint.

The Doctor watched with great pity as Bob struggled to stay upright. He knew the boy had to be in pain—though the blow to the head might have left him too scrambled to fully appreciate that pain—and just standing had to be taxing. The Doctor knew why Bob was fighting so strongly; the boy recognized that the second he broke eye contact with the angel, the angel broke the Doctor's neck.

"Don't worry about me, Bob. Get out of here while you can," the Doctor said.

"It'll kill you. I can't go," Bob replied.

"There's no way around it killing me. That's going to happen. You're the variable, you can save yourself. What the angel's going to do to me is going to be quick. So quick I probably won't feel much, so don't worry about that. Worry about getting away. Tell Amy what happened. And tell her…tell her I look forward to being a ginger. She'll understand."

"I don't understand and I'm not leaving. But I'll get your mate up here," Bob said.

"That'll kill George and Molly. They need Amy."

"They'll be okay. You need Amy."

Having made up his mind, Bob blocked out the rest of the Doctor's protests. He cleared as many of the cobwebs from his head as he could and shouted.

"Amy! Amy Pond, the Doctor needs you now! Please hurry!"

In seconds, there was the sound of feet racing up the stairs. Amy, breathless and worried, appeared at the end of the hall. She took one look at the mess the Doctor was in and clapped a hand over her mouth. Her body went cold as she realized how thoroughly the angel had the Doctor trapped.

"Doctor, oh God," Amy cried. "How're you getting out of this?"

He couldn't lie to her now. He hadn't lied when the angel in her mind was about to take her over, and he wasn't going to lie about his own impending death. She was a big girl and she could handle the truth no matter how cruel it was.

"I don't think I am. And that's alright. Well, no, it's not. It's not even half right or a quarter right. But I'll survive. Ooh, no I won't," the Doctor said, wincing at his choice of words.

"Don't you think now might be a good time to be serious?" Amy asked.

"Actually, now would be a terrible time to be serious. I haven't got much longer in this body and I would hate to waste that time feeling sad," the Doctor replied.

"Maybe you wouldn't have to die if you'd stop with the wordplay and use that brain of yours! Think, Doctor! There's got to be some way out of there. It's only one angel, and if a whole pack of them couldn't kill you, one shouldn't be able to, either."

"You're not making me feel any better," the Doctor complained.

"I'm not here to make you feel good! I'm here to save your stupid life. Now shut up and think of something."

"You can't tell me to shut up!"

"Shut up and plan something brilliant."

Amy was right. Just because the angel was nearly pulling his scalp off and was one blink away from twisting his head like a bottle top, that was no reason to give up and accept his fate. He'd been, over his 900 years, in some unbelievable tight spots. He hadn't gotten out of all of them—hence him being the Eleventh Doctor—but he'd escaped more often than he'd died.

"Right, a plan. Let's see. I'll need…"

"A pair of scissors," Bob suggested.

Bob staggered forward until he was standing alongside Amy. She hadn't even noticed him when she'd first come off the stairs, but now that he was so close, she couldn't help but glance over at him. Poor Bob was in rough shape. He was pressing his hand against his head again, and blood had run down onto his wrist. It had also been smeared along his face, leaving him marked with smudges of blood that looked like carelessly placed clown makeup.

"You've got to help him, Amy. Head wounds bleed like mad, and he hasn't got much blood to spare," the Doctor said.

"And butter," Bob muttered, as though he hadn't heard the Doctor at all.

Amy and the Doctor both took that seemingly random statement as a bad sign. If Bob was saying incoherent things, something was seriously the matter with him. The mental fuzziness could be a sign of blood loss, or it could be a sign of an injured brain. Neither option was positive, and either could potentially kill Bob.

"Oil, too. We need that."

"Amy, help him. Get him out of here and do it fast."

"No! I know what I need to do. I know how to fix this!" Bob suddenly exclaimed. Without offering an explanation, he turned from Amy and headed for the stairs. His footsteps were unsteady, and he weaved across the hall in a vague zigzag pattern. It would be a miracle if he reached the stairs without falling flat on his face.

The Doctor could have screamed from frustration. "He's going to fall down the stairs and die! Don't you dare let that happen, Amy Pond."

"I'm good, don't worry about me," Bob called. He had reached the top of the stairs, and was about to attempt descending them.

"Brilliant Bob, get away from there!" the Doctor shouted.

"Two ticks, Doctor Bowtie. Two ticks," Bob replied.

Then he was on the stairs, clutching the banister but moving far faster than the Doctor would have thought possible.

"If I hear him fall, I'll leave you here. Until then, I'm not moving and I'm not blinking," Amy said.

"Of course he's going to fall, he could hardly stand," the Doctor said. "There's nothing you can do for me but there's tons you could do for Bob. Like save his life."

"And what about you then? I turn my back on you and run away and you die. You have to understand what you're asking of me. You're asking me to kill you."

"I'm asking you to trust me."

"Please don't do that, Doctor. Please," Amy begged.

"Trust me, Amy Pond. Run as fast as you can. Don't look back, no matter what."

Amy found her vision going blurry as tears formed. Her first instinct was to blink and clear her eyes and before she could stop herself, she'd done it. Both eyes closed for just a fraction of a second and the angel was left unwatched.

In that miniscule time period, the angel had jerked the Doctor's head to the right. It would take only one more blink for the angel to finish the job.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" Amy sobbed.

The Doctor shushed her. "You've got nothing to be sorry for. You blinked; it's what humans do."

"I blinked when your life was on the line. Look what happened."

"Blame the angel. Or me. Or George and Molly, but I'd rather you didn't. We're responsible for this, not you."

Amy couldn't believe it. The Doctor was the one with his neck bent at an awkward, unpleasant angle and he was trying to make her feel better. It was disgusting. It was like a condemned man easing his executioner's conscience.

"How can you do it? I don't understand how you can be so calm. When I had the angel inside my mind, I was so afraid. But you…" Amy had to stop herself. If she said anything else, she'd start crying.

"I am afraid. Very, very afraid. But there's no point in showing it, is there? It would only hurt you and Bob, and the angels like their victims' fear. I'd rather not make the angels happy."

Her Doctor, always so brave and selfless. Always battling horrible creatures, saving the universe from sure destruction, and experimenting with increasingly weird hats. If he died here, the poor bloke would never get a chance to don the wildly adorned six-meter ceremonial headdress of Inoor.

That couldn't be allowed to pass. The Doctor deserved to wear his giant alien hat and Rory and Amy deserved the opportunity to laugh themselves silly over it. The angel had no right to deny them all their entertainment.

"Doctor, you have absolutely no reason to be afraid. We'll find a way to get you out, and until then, I won't blink. Once this is all sorted out, we can go to Inoor just like you wanted and you can wear that big hat you've been going on about all week," Amy said, injecting as much pep and cheer into her voice as was humanly possible.

"Ceremonial headdress, yeah. Amy, your eyes feel like they're about to shrivel up and drop from their sockets, don't they?" the Doctor asked.

Amy couldn't deny it. "Yeah, they do. But I—"

"I haven't got long, then, so I'll make this quick. Amy, it's been wonderful. Absolutely, unequivocally fantastic. All our adventures—even the really awful ones—were brilliant. Thank you. And repeat this to Rory, by the way, because I like him, too. I might be able to do it myself, but I wouldn't be this version of myself when I said it. Not quite as sentimental."

Amy realized then that she'd forgotten one of the Doctor's major secrets. "Time Lord regeneration! You will be alright, even if the angel does kill you."

"I'll probably be alright. I know that's not very assuring, but there are some potential problems," the Doctor said.

"Problems? What kind of problems? Your species can come back from the dead, but the deal comes with a giant asterisk?"

"It's not that big of an asterisk. There're just some stipulations. Instant death, for one. A Time Lord dies too quickly, his body doesn't get a chance to regenerate. A broken neck, that's going to be fast. But I know it's coming, so I should be able to regenerate. That's one of the reasons I want you to listen to me and get out of here. I'll know exactly when to expect…it. You could blink at random any time, and I wouldn't be able to prepare."

"I'm not gonna blink and I'm not gonna leave you! How many times do I have to tell you that? Bob will—"

Anger he didn't want to show flooded the Doctor. With viciousness that shamed him, he snapped, "Bob is twelve-year-old boy suffering from head trauma! For all we know, he collapsed at the bottom of the stairs and died! You're placing all your hope on him and he doesn't deserve that!"

"I can't give up on you! I've got to believe Bob actually has a plan, and wasn't just making some mad shopping list," Amy replied.

"Scissors, butter, and oil, does that sound logical to you?"

"No, but neither does hitting the most advanced machine in the universe with a hammer and expecting to fix it. But you do that all the time."

"That's different."

Maybe it was and maybe it wasn't. Amy wasn't going to argue over the finer points of TARDIS repair anymore than she was going to blink. Even if her eyes burned like she'd just poured salt into them. She was just going to stand here, resolute as the Queen's guards, and wait for something to happen. What that something was, she wasn't sure quite yet. She'd know it when she saw it.

"Amy…"

"No, Doctor, I'm not going anywhere. I'll hold my eyelids up if I have to. I'm prepared to go blink-less for the next five years, if that's how long it takes."

"Amy."

"Do you see this? This is me not blinking."

"Amy!"

"What is it now?"

"I hear someone on the stairs."

"Oh."

"Bob? Is that you?"

"Sorry I took so long. Mrs. Mason tied a dish towel around my head to stop the bleeding. I look like a git."

The Doctor smiled. "Don't let the people of Diledi Seven hear that. They're very fond of their towels."

Amy squirmed like a child who had to use the loo. Her eyes were seconds away from spontaneously combusting, and she didn't even dare wink, lest the unattended eye become jealous and blink out of spite. She didn't want to rush Bob, not when the only medical attention he'd received consisted of a towel, but she couldn't hold out much longer.

"Bob, how close are you?" Amy asked, a dollop of panic creeping into her voice.

"Almost there. Sorry I'm so slow but my head feels wonky."

"Take your time, we're—alright, we're not doing so brilliantly. My eyes…"

They both heard Bob's sharp inhalation. "Don't blink! I'm almost there, please don't blink!"

Her vision was going blurry and her eyes felt coated in sand, crushed glass and grit. She couldn't keep them open any longer. It was physically impossible. She was going to do it, going to…

Blink.


TBC