Chapter Title: A Helping Hand
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Doctor Who and any of its characters, places and so on and so forth. This is written purely for cheap entertainment purposes.
The Doctor remained unconscious throughout the entire walk. He didn't even stir when Vestor laid him onto one of the cots in Madge's cottage.
Madge was quick to shoo everyone out of the room after that. The kind, old Parivian all but evaporated as a commanding, fierce woman took over. She ordered everyone out of the room but Rory, who spent the next hour pedalling in and out of the bedroom to collect various vials and cloths. Amy could only lean back and watch and wait. She was sick of the waiting by now. She had done enough of that to last a lifetime.
But there was nothing she could help with or do so she patiently sat down and let the hour pass. And it did, quicker than she had dared to believe. When Madge emerged from the room it was with a solemn expression and Amy found her hope slowly dwindling. The Parivian couldn't tell her much, if anything at all. She had found a gash on his forehead that could have led to his unconsciousness but it looked neither deep nor severe enough. Aside from the gash on his head along with few bruises and a single burn there wasn't anything to find. Nothing that could explain the Doctor's state. The only one who could probably tell them what was wrong was currently lying senseless on a cot.
Amy was allowed into the room where she seated herself on the cot opposite of the Doctor's. The Time Lord was splayed out on the mattress with a thin blanket pulled up to his hips. His suspenders had been pulled down and his bowtie removed, folded and placed neatly on the small flimsy nightstand by the bed. His jacket was likewise folded and placed on another bed. Rory must have had a hand in that. The blood on his face had been cleaned away, leaving only an angry-looking red gash visible on his forehead. Amy couldn't decide if he was paler than usual. It was hard to tell in the dim light. Other than that nothing appeared to be wrong. Amy would say he looked to simply be sleeping but she wasn't sure she had ever seen him do that ... at least not willingly. He rarely ever allowed anyone to see him so off guard and open. And here he was. All of the lines that had seemed etched into his face when he was awake were now gone. He looked every bit the young man whose face he wore instead of the old, intelligent Time Lord that was hidden underneath. Just an untroubled, young man looking for adventure. Amy wasn't fooled. She knew who was truly hiding under those eyelids. If he would only open them ... She sighed and leaned over to gently brush a stray piece of his ruffled hair away from his eyes.
Always gotta be raggedy, don't you, Raggedy Man
Rory joined her in the bedroom a little while later. He tried to pretend he had been busy elsewhere but she knew he had been waiting patiently in the other room, letting her have her moment with her Doctor like he knew she needed. He flopped down next to her and the fragile cot whined a little as two people gathered on the thin mattress. Amy snuggled up next to her husband, her eyes never leaving the Doctor's prone body. Rory rested his head atop of Amy's ginger hair.
"Thank you," Amy said fondly.
"For what?"
"For being you."
They sat there and let the hours tick by. Slowly Rory drifted off into a light sleep. But Amy stayed awake as the sun poked its head above the horizon and filled the bedroom with orange light as it shined in through the small window. Amy watched as it slowly grew brighter and wider until it spread to the Doctor's face. He showed no indication of being bothered with the sunlight. He hadn't moved either. He was in the exact same position as he had been throughout the night.
Madge came in and instantly her eyes fell on her patient. She blew out a breath like she had been hoping for another sight than the one that met her. Silently she entered and crouched down at the Doctor's bedside. Tenderly she placed the outside of her wrinkled, orange hand on the Doctor's cheek and when he didn't respond she moved it to his chest. There it rested and moved slowly up and down in pace with his breathing.
"Yeah, he's been like that all night," Amy supplied and gently moved out from her husband's embrace. It didn't wake him so she let him sleep. He deserved the rest.
"I only treated the visible wounds," Madge answered her earnestly. "I had hoped the head wound was the cause but I did not expect it to be so. Something else is amiss and I do not have the tools to handle such things."
"What do you mean?"
"Time Lords are no easy patients, my dear. All I have to go on are old books and rumours," Madge threw her a sad smile. "There is only so much I dare to try. Most of what I have might do more damage than good."
"There must be something you can do," Amy dared.
"Time Lords are able to close themselves off psychically if pressured enough," Madge carefully explained. "Close off their minds to the outside world to heal or to hide. If he has retreated into himself I'm afraid there is nothing we can do."
She sighed and directed her attention back to the Doctor. "We just need to give him time."
Amy had taken it upon herself to try and drag the Doctor out of his little mental prison.
If Madge was right, then he simply needed to know it was safe to wake up. She spent the remainder of the day trying desperately to rouse him. She tried talking to him first. She said everything from comforting, soft words to menacing threats. The latter one came much easier than the first. Her fear fuelled a lot of them and she found herself making all kinds of threats. From swearing to never travel with him again to painting the TARDIS pink. When that didn't have an effect she tried a more physical approach. She poked, pulled and prodded with as much force as she dared. Eventually she slapped him a couple of times. On both cheeks just to be sure. Nothing worked.
The Time Lord remained completely limp.
So when the day was slowly coming to its end and red and pink colours started to appear in the sky, Amy was in the exact same position as when she first started. She was sitting on the opposite cot, just staring at the Doctor, willing him to wake up or just move. Anything to let her know he heard her. That he was okay.
He did no such thing. She would never say it out loud but she was terrified. She was terrified that she and Rory would be trapped here because of the Doctor's bloody heroics. She was terrified that he would leave her, this time for good. That he would never came back to her. She was absolutely frightened that he would die right here in front of her and this time there wasn't some magic trick, no Tesselecta, no River, to bring him safely back to her.
Amy was absentmindedly turning the golden flower Rory had given her around in her hands. She looked down on it and noticed the golden colours hadn't dimmed one bit since it got plucked and neither had the blue and green leaves or the stem they were attached to. She gently ran her fingers across the glowing petals and felt the velvet softness under her touch. She placed it then atop the folded bowtie on the nightstand and turned her attention back to the Time Lord.
Please be okay, Doctor.
TBC
