41. Oh, Dear...
The Doctor wondered why his last portion of life was destined to be so interesting when reality snapped into his brain: The Taranium Storm. Obviously he hadn't been the only Doctor caught in it!
He stepped into the younger model, eyebrows going up in mild alarm at her battered hull. The lumen responded to his movement and snapped on, giving him a more than adequate view of the damage.
"Oh, dear."
His hesitant knock met with no answer, and he gnawed his lip in an uncharacteristic case of nerves. This TARDIS had been through a rougher trip than his! That could possibly mean...
He plied his own key and the door swept open, leaking the chocolate-spice reek of artronic energy.
And it was dark.
Officially alarmed, the Doctor stepped by memory until he bashed into the Console and fumbled the lights back on. The TARDIS shuddered; lights burned red and low. He flinched at the jumbled horror of the Power Room's contents, spilled out and scattered throughout the Console room like so many toy blocks.
He clicked on the SSD's light. The air was cold enough to steam his breath in its beam. He cautiously waded through the wreckage.
42. What's Happening?
The little Doctor was afraid to move. His body hurt and that was less from the punishment than his joining the tidal roll of equipment spilt over the floor at the last Time Wave. Moving had been tried; he wasn't going to do that again until his bravery returned.
For the past three hours (time marked by the changing rise and fall of the mechanical hum of the TARDIS chronos), he drifted in and out of consciousness. The periods of awareness grew longer, so he presumed it meant he was recovering.
Not that there was anything normal about his condition! Ghoulish, being given a partial regenerative dose that didn't even belong to him! The entire principle of the thing made him sick, and that wasn't a good place to be considering his current state of health.
Something clattered and shattered, sending his nerves flying with the bits stinging his face. He jumped out of reflex, but his body's habits weren't on par with his brain just yet, and he just wound up flopping backwards over hard and uncomfortable mechanical parts. Something knifed into his ribs below the left kidneys and he gasped in pain.
"Just hold on! I'm coming!"