Chapter 53:

The hauvskillpud proved to be a worthy distraction. They were stubborn little bastards, determined to stay in their shells even after death. Rose's fingers now sported several shallow nicks and cuts from where the shucking knife slipped against their hard, slimy shelters. Her hands were covered in the goo and she couldn't quite figure out how to get it all off without spreading it everywhere so she stopped trying. The slime made the task of opening the pods that much harder, but Rose relished in the extra work.

She was about halfway through the case of hauvskillpud and no one had bothered her yet. Chef occasionally sent a piercing glare in her direction, but other than that it could have been as if she wasn't even there. And that was completely okay with the human as well. Attention had never done her or the Doctor any good at this estate.

Unfortunately, the peace didn't last much longer. One of the assistants Rose recognized from Jancon's personal supply stock was weaving his way towards her isolated corner, a frenzied look upon his dark green face. For a moment Rose was able to convince herself that he was searching for someone else and tried to return, apprehensively, to her work.

When his shadow fell over her work station, Rose knew she could no longer ignore him. A ball of lead formed in her stomach, growing hotter with each escalating breath.

"The master wishes to speak with you, Miss Rose." The alien said formally. Far too formally, as if trying to cover up the frantic tone that latched onto the edge of each word.

"Right – right now?" Rose asked. Maybe it could wait. Maybe it wasn't important. She gestured towards the case of hauvskillpud. "I'm almost done here." She lied. But in truth, she didn't want to hear what Jancon or his emerald assistant wanted to say at all, ever, no thanks. Nothing good ever came out of a summons from the Prebassador. An image of the Doctor curled up on his knees at Jancon's feet refused to budge out of her mind. Another vision of the Doctor, with glassy eyes and slouched shoulders, drifted into play alongside the first. And between them, as if held aloft by the others, stood a figure of the Doctor, strung up between two poles, bare-chested and dripping blood from the lashes on his back. No, summons from the Prebassador were never good. And there was only one thing she could imagine Jancon summoning her for now.

In response, the assistant merely stepped back and gestured earnestly, stiffly, towards the corridor outside the kitchen. "Lord Jancon awaits," was all he said.

The ball of lead burned sharply against Rose's insides at his ambiguous answer, but there was no arguing. Standing slowly, certain the flaming ball would sear through her at any moment – for surely that was the cause of her nausea and the reason her legs felt like jelly weighed down by bowling balls – Rose followed the assistant through the kitchen. There was a ringing Rose hadn't noticed before growing louder with each step. She could now see Jancon standing in the hallway waiting for her, hands clasped behind his back and eyes refusing, even from a distance, to meet her own.

No.

"Thank you, Nabercet. That will be all." Jancon dismissed the assistant, who scurried away with a datapad in hand, quite clearly desperate to put some space between the master and himself. The Prebassador looked down and guided Rose further from the kitchen with a soft hand resting gentlemanly between her shoulder blades. He stopped her as they came around the bend of the corridor. Jancon took a hesitant breath. "Rose, I –"

But Rose was already shaking her head. She didn't want to hear it. She didn't want to be there. She wanted to go back to the kitchen. She wanted to finish the hauvskillpud. She didn't want to hear what he was saying, but her heart was thudding too loudly in her throat for her to form the words to beg him not to.

"I wanted to be the one to tell you. There's been an,"

"No. No, please don't."

"Incident." He paused as Rose shook her head more insistently, slimy hands covering to her mouth as if guarding her soul from what it was about to hear. "I believe he called it a 'flash-flood', and,"

"No, no, no." The word tumbled out like part of the air moving too quickly through her lungs. She couldn't breathe.

"I'm…I'm so sorry, but John wasn't fast enough."

And Jancon looked genuinely sorry. He glanced down at Rose, who refused to meet his eye, arm jerking as if he were about to reach for the human and just barely stopped himself. Rose pressed herself against the wall behind her. The room had suddenly tipped on its side. She felt her knees buckle as gravity shifted, leaving her barely hanging onto the one scrap of reality pushing against her back.

"No, no, he can't – He didn't. He'll regenerate."

"I'm so sorry." The usually polished voice sounded strained, broken. "I waited. I watched for ten minutes. There was no sign of him, or anyone that could have taken John's place. It happened too quickly."

"Then wait longer!" Rose hissed. "He can't have – He doesn't need to – THIS IS YOUR FAULT!" Rose launched herself at the Prebassador, slamming into his slim frame. "YOU DID THIS TO HIM!" She struck him in the chest with a closed fist. "YOU SENT HIM THERE." She hit him again, grabbing giant fistfuls of his shirt and yanking as if she could pull back the very fabric of Time. The penalty of striking a master flitted briefly through her head, but she welcomed it. Pain. Suffering. Agony. What was it? What was it compared to the lies spewing from Jancon's mouth. The Doctor couldn't be…he wasn't…

Arms wrapped around her in the mockery of a hug and panic flared through her. She was caged. Trapped. Held against this killer! She shoved back against him. "Let me go! Get off me!"

"Shhh, Rose, my little Thorn,"

"Let go of me!"

The arms released her too suddenly and she fell backwards, shoulders hitting the wall. She slid down it, legs no longer able to hold her up as the universe turned on her and dragged her heart down through her stomach to the tips of her toes and into the ground, pinning her to the spot as it leached everything from her body until she felt limp and hollow and wrong. Jancon knelt before her, saying something, eyes uncharacteristically large and wet. Rose couldn't hear him through the rushing in her ears and the pounding in her head. She didn't have a heart anymore, it had vanished through the floorboards – so what was making that sound? What could possibly still be beating in a fragile, empty shell.

"- but John was a pleasure and a privileged to have known. I will miss him dearly."

Somehow, those words made it through her shell and ripped Rose open, like her knife through a hauvskillpud.

"That was the most selfish thing you've ever said, and you've said a lot of selfish things." Rose hissed at her knees before glaring up at Jancon, gold flames practically dancing in her eyes. "He isn't yours to miss."

Jancon frowned understandingly. "Of course, you are right. He was yours and only yours, I just -"

"No!" Rose snapped. "He isn't mine! He isn't anybody's! He doesn't belong to anyone! Why can't you get that through your thick, stupidly grey head? No one can claim him, and look what happens when you try, you disgusting, gutless –"

"My Lord!"

"Not now, Nabercet." Jancon held up a hand as if directing traffic. The assistant had come barreling back around the corner looking, impossibly, even more frenzied then before.

"No, but, my lord – "

"I am currently being justly shouted at by a very wronged woman, are you quite certain you would like to get involved in the middle of this?" Jancon asked almost calmly.

"Of course not, Lord Jancon." And he sounded very honest about that. "But you will want to see this. It's the slave."


The flash flood had lived up to its name, striking hard one moment and all but vanishing the next like a burst of lightening. The storm had more or less cried itself to sleep as well. Drizzle floated down from the slowly brightening clouds and speckled the now smooth surface of the murky river with gentle, apologetic kisses. Even the birds had resumed their soft trilling and flitted around the bankside looking for flood spoils.

Everything seemed so calm in the aftermath of the destruction, as if nature itself was trying to will the memory of its tantrum away from all those who had witnessed it and survived.

The calm was ruined, however, when the smooth, almost wood-like surface of the river was splintered by a hand. The hand thrashed and grasped for the water as if hoping it would turn solid at its touch. The water only churned in response, sending rippling waves crashing into the stones on the bank nearby. As if able to sense the ripples, the hand, now joined by its counterpart, turned and thrashed its way towards the shore. Finally, the surface broke a third time and a head emerged, mouth gasping desperately like an air-caught fish. The half drowned creature nearly bobbed beneath the surface again had it not been for its still thrashing hands and now arms, the frantic movements keeping it afloat and shifting towards the shore. Belatedly, the creature's dark, panicked eyes finally caught sight of the land and, with a cough and gurgle for desperate breath, it lounged towards salvation.

As it nears the shore, the creature remembered. He's the Doctor. He was drowning. He couldn't breathe. He was in pain. He was fighting. He was scared.

It all came crashing down on him like the waves trying to pull him back into the river, but he clung to the thoughts, the memories. He's the Doctor, he can't let himself drown, he can breathe now, he can't be scared, he needs to keep fighting.

The pain, however, is something else. His lungs were burning like hot coals, his head throbbing along with his weak double heart beats. Oh good, lefty started back up again, some voice tried to say jovially in the back of his frenzied mind. It felt like there was an immovable metal band wrapped around his ribs, caging them painfully, and his right hip roared in agony every time it moved or swayed in the water. But he had to keep swimming.

The river had finally become shallow enough for his hands to clasp at the solid stone bedding instead of water. Slowly, agonizingly, the Doctor pulled himself up the gentle incline onto dry land.

Without the weightlessness that came with being in water, the torture of his dislocated hip flared with a vengeance, and it was all the Doctor could do not to scream. He doubted he had enough air in his lungs to get the job done anyway. His respiratory system was still reeling from the incomplete bypass attempt and water continued to siphon through his lung walls and choke the Doctor every few seconds. He coughed the water up, panting desperately through the trickle of liquid and drool dripping from his lips. He didn't care enough or have the energy to wipe it away.

Despite the screaming protests of his leg, the Doctor forced himself to crawl further up the bank. His three working limbs trembled from the exertion, but it had to be done. He needed to relocate his hip. The agony was intense, far worse than any torture he had experienced at the hands of Jancon, Eyal, and the outpost all put together. But without his leg he was useless; he couldn't finish the trial, couldn't move to find shelter or food, and couldn't protect himself from the remaining competitors.

He shivered at the idea of having to set the joint by himself, without aid or anesthesia. This sort of thing should never be attempted without someone's help, but there was no one to help him now. Six had run off – hopefully, the Doctor amended, praying she hadn't been caught in the flood as well – and Seven and Eight would be far too thrilled to find their prey vulnerable and suffering to offer him any sort of assistance.

No, he would have to do this alone.

Squinting through the water dripping into his eyes from his limp hair, the Doctor found a cluster of boulders not far up the bank. That would have to do. Still not daring to try to stand, the Time Lord continued to pull himself up the rocky shore, reminded humorlessly of that one scene at the end of Star Wars Episode III. Rose had had to close her eyes and look away as Anakin dragged his ruined, mutilated body away from the lava river. What was she thinking now? Was she even watching? The Doctor hoped not. She didn't need to see this.

Tears had sprung unwillingly to his eyes, welling up and obscuring his vision. From the way his femur felt like it was grinding against the bones of his pelvis and the way his right foot angled in, the Doctor guessed it was dislocated posteriorly. At least that was an easier fix than anteriorly and the leg didn't seem to be broken or fractured anywhere else. Little silver linings.

The Doctor crawled his way up to the first boulder, which was low enough for him to sit on like a chair, and began to hoist himself up with a stick he had found along his way. It was slow, painful work, putting most of his body weight on the stick as the Doctor's useless leg refused to help, only whining about the pain, but finally he made it. Now for the hard part.

He allowed himself a moment of rest, a reward of sorts for making it this far. But it wasn't much of a rest. By sitting down, he had forced his hip to rotate, causing the ball of his femur to rub even more against the harsher angle of his pelvis. The torment was intense. Realizing the pain was only getting worse the longer he put it off, the Doctor decided it was now or never.

Using his trembling arms, the Doctor shifted himself around until the edge of the boulder lifted and pressed against the right side of his hip. Tears flowed freely now as the Doctor fought a sob. He had to keep going. It was only going to get worse before it could get better. The Doctor carefully laced the stick under his right knee and moved it up until it rested three quarters of the way up his thigh. Gripping either side of the stick, the Doctor took three quick, shallow breaths, and yanked.

Pain like nothing he'd experienced before split through him. His vision whited out, a piercing scream echoing from somewhere nearby. His nerves felt like they were being ground through a mill, but he yanked again, jerking to the right to set the femur in place. There was a loud, sickening pop as the joint fell back into the socket and red light flared behind his closed eyes.

By the time he was able to open them again, he found himself on the ground, panting and whimpering wretchedly. A moment later he was vomiting onto the rocks, his meager meal of raw fish returning with a vengeance. His body shook with lingering pain, his whole leg pulsing miserably, but it was more manageable now. He didn't bother moving as he took stock at last of all his other injuries: a concussion for sure, two broken ribs, a sprained wrist, horribly water-damaged lungs that still felt far too weak and wet, and a multitude of cuts and gashes. The stones beneath him were smeared with orange-red blood.

All in all, he was a complete and total mess. Knowing his leg wouldn't be able to hold weight for a few more hours at least, there was only one thing the Doctor could think of to do. The cluster of boulders created a sort of stone-like nest between them, and while it wasn't the most prime piece of real estate, the Doctor forced himself to crawl back into the center of the mass, curled into a ball against the harsh, unyielding ground, and fell into the heaviest healing coma he'd had to endure in a long, long time.

TBC