We are not out of the woods yet, sorry Donna, sorry Doctor, sorry everyone... So I'll just leave the Doctor half dead and working on the cure to save the whole of the humanity while fighting the pneumonic plague; and Donna by his bedside, out of her wits with fear, having to watch half of the town succumb to a terrible diesease; and I will go for a well deserved holiday to a very hot country, to rest by the pool and bake in the sun. Justice at last, mwahahaha...!

Disclaimer: I don't have any rights to him and now I let the Doctor came down with the Plague. How bad am I? I really need to go and iron my ears...

.11. Being Human

It was hot. It was very, very hot. It was like being inside the Vesuvius, inside the escape pod, spit roasted from the outside by Pyrovillian foot soldiers. Actually, it was even hotter than that. Far beyond the point where the body melts and the brain evaporates. Far beyond the hot like hell point.

The Doctor struggled to open his eyes. When he finally managed to lift his eyelids a little, he realised that moving his eyeballs was much too painful, so he only looked up, into the darkness, slowly recognising a pattern of arched bricks on the ceiling. And then he tried to think. Ow, that was a challenge! Just breathing and thinking, and looking up.

"Donna?" he whispered. His voice was hoarse and almost soundless; just a painful gasp.

"I'm here."

He felt cold fingers closing on his own burning hand. It was so pleasant he closed his eyes for a little while, and then had to struggle again to open them back.

"Doctor?" Donna whispered. "Can you hear me?"

"Nothing wrong with my ears," he croaked. "It's my eyes that won't move."

"Oh!" Donna exclaimed and started stroking his hair, which was also painful, as even his follicles were making him miserable at the moment. "I thought... I thought..."

"Except I don't move my ears... much," the Doctor concluded. "How long did I sleep?"

Donna made a sound as if swallowing something, and when she answered her voice was soggy and shaky. "Almost eleven hours."

"What?!" The Doctor tried to spring up, which resulted in lifting his head a few inches above the pillow, and in a coughing fit that almost sent him into the state of unconsciousness again. "Eleven...? Why did you let me... let me... sleep... for... so long...?"

"I couldn't wake you up."

"Well, of course you could!"

"No. I couldn't. I tried, and I couldn't," Donna sobbed. "And I think you needed some sleep. You don't sleep enough. You hardly ever sleep at all. Which is dumb. Cause sleep is healthy. You should have your healthy sleep every day. You wouldn't be so skinny."

"What?"

"Oh, Doctor!" Suddenly Donna's hair was all over his eyes, lips and nose, as she buried her face in a hollow of his neck, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, as good as she could in that awkward position. She was sobbing loudly, and her tears were rolling down the Doctor's neck and under the collar of his opened shirt. The Doctor lifted his right hand (the one made of lead), and patted Donna's head.

"There, there," he mumbled comfortingly. There was a plastic needle protruding from the back of his hand, connected via clear tube to a bag of liquid suspended on a makeshift wooden rack. The Doctor lifted his other hand (the one made of iron), and noted another needle inserted into a vein above his thumb, but not connected to anything.

"A pingpillow," he wheezed. "No... Wait... A pincushion. I look like a pincushion. Needle to say."

That was supposed to be funny, but Donna sobbed even louder, and more tears rolled down his neck towards his shoulder blades. The Doctor tried to blow her hair off his face.

"Donna... Donna? Donna, can you...? Donna!"

"I'm sorry." She sat up, wiping her face with both hands. Her eyes were red and swollen, so was her nose. "I'm sorry I melted like that, but I was so worried."

"Naah," he rolled (or attempted to roll) his eyes. "What were you worried about?"

Donna looked at him incredulously. "Are you serious?"

The Doctor had to ponder it for a moment. "I don't know. All's a bit... fuzzy right now. Am I serious?"

"Oh, God!" she sighed. "You are delirious. It's the bloody fever talking!"

"Right. Fever. I need to go back to the lab," the Doctor noted briskly. "I lost way too much time already. Would you be so kind, and help me up?"

"You're not going anywhere, Doctor," Donna protested. "You are sick, and you're staying in bed."

"Yeah, reasonable, good plan, just..." He used his elbows to prop himself up. "...It's not really helpful, is it? I need to be working on a cure."

"You can't. You tried. And you collapsed. You are too weak."

The Doctor didn't respond. He was looking around the large dormitory room, which eleven hours ago seemed almost empty. Now it was anything but empty. All the beds were taken, and several straw mattresses on the floor as well. The Doctor tried to count patients, but his mind wouldn't work, so he only gazed at them in shock.

"So many..." he whispered. "So many..."

"Well, yes," Donna whispered back. "We hope we were able to trace all the infected." She sniffled. "Allan's here. Just over there, by the window. Cuthbert's trying to find Thomas."

"Oh," the Doctor said. "And Simon?"

"Simon's dead," Donna answered.

"I need to be in the laboratory," the Doctor stated, his face suddenly taut.

"OK then." She grabbed his elbow and helped him to a sitting position.

The whole room swayed. The Doctor grasped Donna's forearms, hunching his shoulders. He gasped in surprise. "Whoa!"

"Whoa what?" she prompted.

"This doesn't feel right."

"Well I should think so."

"I just... I have no idea what's going on!" He wore this expression again – the one as if he was trying to look inside his own body, without rolling his eyes backwards of course; as if he was trying to look inside mentally, if it made any sense. To be quite honest not many things with the Doctor made any sense anyway.

"I always know," he continued, his eyebrows furrowed so much they actually connected above his nose. "I always do. All the time, without even thinking, I know what's happening to me."

"Like, when you said that... something... entered your... phagocytes?" Donna asked breathlessly. The Doctor might have been skinny, but he was using her arms as a support for a bit too long, and she could feel her shoulders beginning to tremble with exertion.

"Exactly! But not now. Not now." He looked up and straight into her eyes, his mouth twisting in distaste. "This is so weird! This is so... so... human!"

Donna pulled her hands back, wrenching them free from the Doctor's grip. Her eyes, still wet with tears, widened in disbelief.

"Human?" she repeated. "Human? So, that's what you think about us? Weak... and... disgusting... and... pathetic... humans?"

The Doctor tried to get up anyway, but his knees gave and he only slumped back on the bed.

"Donna?" he whispered urgently. "Donna..."

"So, that's what you see when you look at all... this..." she almost shouted in a whisper, gesturing angrily at the dormitory, and walking backwards, as if she was trying to run away from him. "Humans?"

Her mouth trembled and more tears rolled down her cheeks. She swivelled sharply on her heel, to hide her red, splotchy face. The Doctor looked as if she had slapped him on a cheek – his eyes suddenly alert and startled.

"Donna, no..." He coughed and continued hoarsely. "Wait... Donna... I didn't mean it... Please, Donna, I'm sorry... I didn't... Donna!"

She halted but wouldn't face him.

"What I meant," he said, "was that it was so... horrible... not knowing what's going on with me... being in the dark... just letting the illness take its course..."

Slowly, Donna looked at him over her shoulder. He was leaning on the bed, propped on his elbow, shaking with exertion.

"It is so... humiliating," he whispered quietly. "So lonely... so scary..."

Donna sobbed.

"And it hurts..."

She wasn't even sure if he really said that; his voice was so weak now.

"I'm sorry."

And she was by his side again, crouching by his bed and tilting her head to look him in the face.

"Oh, shut up, you plum," she whispered.

"It's hard," the Doctor mumbled. "Being human. It's really hard."

"Don't I know that," she said. "It is bloody hard, and it is bloody unfair, and now you know that as well, just... Why? Why, Doctor? You are not human... or are you? Oooh, look at me, I'm talking complete rubbish now! But it's all your fault, I mean... It's all my fault. I wanted to see a bit of the Middle Ages, didn't I? How daft was that, eh? Why did you even listen to me? You were right. Donna Noble and the Middle Ages equals trouble."

"No," the Doctor wheezed. "It's not your fault. Don't you even think that."

"No, but..."

"Donna, help me get to the lab," he interrupted. "Please. I can sort it. I can help them. I can fix this."

"I know you can," she smiled a pale smile. "Come on."

She helped him sit up again and then stand up, his arm wrapped round her shoulders. They walked towards the door slowly, step by step, the Doctor struggling to catch each breath, his hands clenched in fists and face screwed in effort.

"I just need to stay alert," he whispered, as they walked down the narrow passage and towards an arched gallery surrounding a small yard, then along the corridor and into the tiny lab again. Kathryn was there, bent over the microscope. She looked up and sighed in disbelief.

"You? I thought..."

"Yeah," the Doctor said impatiently. "So, where do we stand?"

The woman swivelled on a lab chair. Her face was pale and her eyes were red.

"Right now..." she said gloomily, "...everybody dies."

"We can't have that, can we?" the Doctor snorted. "Fine, so, that is what I'll need..."

Donna hardly listened to a long list of essentials the Doctor required to save the world. It didn't matter how difficult it was. It didn't matter how long it would take. He was there. He was conscious. He was doing whatever he was doing the best. And Donna didn't care if he was a spaceman, or if he was rude, and stubborn and annoying. A glimmer of hope sparkled in her heart. A tiny little glimmer of light in gathering darkness.

To be continued...