A/N: Surprise again! Aren't you guys lucky, you've got ANOTHER chapter! That's 2 extra chapters this week. This one is celebrating 2 years of this story, 2 years of posting for Kari. Enjoy this chapter!
Kari was sitting in one of the chairs around the console, rubbing her head while the Doctor polished up the time rotor. He had noticed the way she was acting, and he was concerned. "Kari, are you all right?" She nodded at him, just as Clara entered the room, her hair still damp and a towel hanging over her shoulder.
"I feel exhausted. I feel…" She said, leaning against the console.
"We've had two days crammed into the space of one." The Doctor told her, wandering around the console, but glancing over at Kari every now and again.
Clara frowned at him. "Why would you say that?"
"I don't know. I say stuff. Ignore me." He said, as Clara done as she was told and started heading out of the room again. "Do you feel safe?" He asked her suddenly, getting her attention and causing her to stop.
"Of course."
But the Doctor wasn't satisfied with that answer. "Give me a number out of ten. Ten being 'woo hoo', one being 'argh'." He said, letting out a frustrated little scream as an example.
Clara just stood there and looked at him. "You're being weird." She told him, before turning to look at Kari. "He's being weird again."
Kari let out a small sigh. "Tell me something I don't know." She muttered, resting her head in her hands.
"I need to know if you feel safe." The Doctor told her seriously. "I need to know you're not afraid." When Clara asked him what of, he was ready to answer. "The future. Running away with a spaceman in a box and his… Kari. Anything could happen to you." He was going to say wife, but he had a feeling Kari wouldn't be too happy if he did, since she wasn't, not yet at least.
Clara just looked at him, trying to supress a smile. "That's what I'm counting on. Push the button." She told him, before disappearing to finish getting herself cleaned up.
The Doctor smiled at her, before pulling the lever and sending them hurtling through the time vortex. He looked over at Kari and saw that she was rubbing her head still, her eyes scrunched up tightly. His feet took him straight over to her, and he knelt on the floor in front of her. "Kari, what's the matter?" He asked, just knowing that something wasn't right.
"Headache." She mumbled, not daring to open her eyes. It wasn't like the headaches she got when she was about to be pulled through time and space, it was something different, and she didn't like it.
She heard the Doctor's screwdriver buzzing for a few seconds before she heard his voice. "Okay, you've got a concussion." He said sounding slightly confused. "How… how can you have a concussion?" The Doctor gently placed his hand under her chin and lifted up her head a little so he could see her face.
He noticed a mark on her forehead, and gently touched it, causing Kari to let out a hiss of pain. "You remember telling Clara that we've had two days crammed into the space of one?" She asked him quietly, knowing exactly how she had concussion.
"Yes, I remember. I'm still trying to work that one it. It'll come to me."
"Well, I can tell you if you want, because I remember what happened. The reset button didn't reset everything. It didn't mend me at all." Kari told him quietly, her head throbbing even more every time she spoke. She had thought that the big friendly button would reset it so that she wouldn't get thrown about and end up with a cut on the head and a concussion, but she still had it, and the terrible headache that came with it.
Then it hit the Doctor. "Oh… oh… There was the magno-grab and the salvage boys and the monsters and the exploding engine." It hadn't really taken him that long to remember it, Kari wasn't even sure he was going to remember it at all.
"How comes I can remember it clearly, you can only just remember it, and Clara can't remember it at all?" Kari asked him, a slight frown on her face as the Doctor looked at her with worry.
"Clara's human, her brain can't handle the two different timelines. For her, the first event never happened, it was erased from her memories. I'm just getting old, I lose track of things easily." The Doctor explained to her. "And you, well, you're linked to the time vortex, nothing gets passed you."
But there was something that confused Kari a little. "But… Amy, she could remember the different timelines. Are you telling me that our Pond wasn't human after all?" How could Amy remember more than one timeline, while Clara couldn't?
The Doctor simply smiled at her. "See, nothing gets passed you. Amy was different, she was special, and you know that. She had a crack in her bedroom wall, pouring the universe into her head since she was a child." He explained, watching as Kari's eyes seemed to keep loosing focus. "But she was human, as human as they come."
She let out a kind of hum in response. "Makes sense, I suppose." Her head wasn't getting any better, and Kari just wished that everything would stop spinning. Every noise seemed to be amplified and just made her head pound even harder.
"Yes, it does make sense. And it also makes sense to get you to bed before your head gets any worse." The Doctor told her, speaking very softly as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. Most of the time he did know what she was thinking, he could just sense it without even having to try.
"Uh, yeah… I'm probably better off just staying here for a while." Kari told him, feeling everything spinning yet again. She was actually a little too scared to try and move. "Until, you know, everything stops spinning."
In one swift movement, the Doctor had picked her up and out of the chair. "No, it will only get worse if you stay here. You need to go and lay down properly, get some rest." He told her, holding her tightly in his arms as he began to walk out of the console room with her in his arms. "You managed to hit your head pretty hard, you have a concussion from it, and sitting around with me is not going to make it go away."
Kari wanted to protested, she wanted to tell him that she was fine and that she didn't need him to carry her around everywhere. But she didn't. She was actually rather comfortable in his arms, and she could keep her eyes closed to help stop the spinning from getting any worse. "Fine. Dump me in my room, and then take Clara somewhere amazing." Kari ended up saying to him.
"Clara has gone to bed, so no taking her anywhere just yet. Her fragile human body needs rest, just like you do." The Doctor replied, having no plans whatsoever to take Clara anywhere until Kari was better. "And I will not just dump you in your room. How am I meant to check on you if I leave you there?"
In all honesty, she hadn't thought about him checking on her. "Sexy will keep check on me, she always does. She always looks out of me, and you know that." She told him, having absolutely no idea that they were now outside of the Doctor's bedroom. "So you can just put me to bed and go and tinker with something."
The door opened by itself, courtesy of their magical ship, who knew exactly what was going on. "Nope, no tinkering. You need to rest, and someone needs to keep an eye on you. And although I know she does a brilliant job of looking after you, I want to do it myself." He told her, before gently placing her down on his bed. "Now, make yourself comfortable, and I'll be back in a minute."
While Kari forced herself under the covers, the Doctor darted into another room, returning with a glass of water and some pills in his hand. "Uh, what's that?" Kari asked him curiously, wondering what he had those pills for.
"Pain killers. Not aspirin, don't worry. It should help with the headache, and hopefully any sickness you might be feeling." The Doctor told her, before handing her the pills, followed by the glass of water.
Without hesitation, she threw the pills into her mouth, and quickly drank almost half the glass of water. "Thanks. So, what are you going to do now then?" She asked, giving him the glass back before settling down in his bed. She couldn't help but cuddle up to the side where he usually slept.
As she had her eyes closed, she didn't see the Doctor take off his boots and jacket. "Well, I'm going to stay here and look after you, obviously." He told her, before gently creeping into the bed as well.
Kari let out a small groan due to the fact that she now had to move a little to make room for him. "And how do you plan on doing that?" She grumbled, wishing that the pain killers would hurry up and kick in. She wanted the pain to go away, so that she could enjoy spending some time with the Doctor, before she was whisked off somewhere else.
She felt a pair of arms shift around her, and she was pulled closer to the Doctor. "I plan on doing that by staying here while you sleep." He told her, wrapping his arms around her tightly as she rested herself against him. "You have a concussion, I'm not leaving you on your own until I am sure that it is nothing serious."
"You think it's serious." Kari told him, taking him slightly by surprise. "Back when the engine was exploding, you said, 'Bang to the head, concussion. Not too serious.' And I said that you were lying, and you were."
"I just worry about you, Kari, that's all. I am allowed to worry about you." The Doctor told her, before gently placing a kiss on the top of her head. "Now, just go to sleep. Talking isn't helping your head, and I know you want to sleep."
She let out a sigh, knowing that he was right. She had been wanting her bed, although instead she was in the Doctor's bed once more, and she had been wanting to get some sleep. "All right, you win. Night, Theta." Kari mumbled, her hand resting on the Doctor's chest, clutching at his shirt slightly.
"Good night, Kari." He whispered back to her, leaning down and leaving another light kiss on her head. He knew he was in for a long night, because he was going to be watching her the whole time. The Doctor had no plans on sleeping, his only concern was to make sure that Kari slept and that her head didn't get any worse over the next few hours.
Although he didn't actually sleep, he did start to doze off a little, but was woken up by the light humming of the ship. He looked at his watch and realised that Kari had been asleep for almost two hours. She looked peaceful in her sleep, not a single sign of her having a nightmare, which was a good thing. Unfortunately, he knew he had to disturb her, just to make sure that she was all right.
He gently ran a hand through her hair. "Hey, Kari?" The Doctor called to her softly. "Kari?"
She let out a groan and buried her head further into his chest, gripping at his shirt a little more. "What?" Kari mumbled, clearly not happy that she had been disturbed.
"I'm just making sure that you're okay." He told her, still running his hand through her hair. "How's your head?"
"Still hurting. So shut up and let me go back to sleep." She moaned at him, before rolling onto her other side so that she was facing away from him, with his arm now stuck under her. Before the Doctor could even attempt to move, she reached over and grabbed his over arm, forcing him to wrap it around her as he was made to lie on his side as well. "Now go to sleep." She managed to mumbled, before she quickly fell back to sleep herself.
The Doctor couldn't help but smile, that was his Kari, tugging at his arms, using him for a pillow, holding onto his shirt. This was what he was used to from her, she was acting like she always did, like he knew that she always would. It simply brought a smile to his face, one that he slowly drifted off with still firmly there on his face.
The soft humming of the ship once again disturbed him, trying to get his attention and waking him up. This time he let out a slight groan, as Kari felt him moving and tugged on his arm, trying to stop him from getting away from her. "Come on, I need to check what time it is, so I need my arm back." He told her gently, trying to pull himself free from her grip.
"Who cares what the time is?" Kari grumbled at him. "We're in a time machine. Whether it's four in the morning or seven in the evening, it doesn't matter, it's not relevant." The Doctor couldn't help but chuckle at her reply.
"I know you have your own rules for time, but I really do need to know what the time is." He told her, hoping that she would listen to him and let him know what the time was. "Clara might be wandering around, looking for us. She doesn't know where we are, do you want her to get lost in here?"
Kari sat up in an instant, grabbing the Doctor's wrist and looking at his watch for herself. "She better not go snooping around, she's done enough of that already." She said quickly, not wanting Clara to go looking for the Doctor's name again.
The Doctor frowned at her a little as he tried to tug his wrist free. "Do I detect some hostility? Did something happen that you're not telling me?" Kari always got along rather well with Clara, as far as he knew, so something must have happened for Kari to suddenly say something like that. The way she had said it really did sound a little hostile to him.
"Yeah, she didn't just read the book, she also found your cot, Amy's cardboard TARDIS, and I saw Rose's jacket." She explained, finally letting him have his hand back. "I told her not to touch anything in the library, I told her to stay put and to leave everything alone. She didn't listen." That was probably what had annoyed Kari the most, that Clara hadn't listened to her, she done exactly what she had told her not to do.
"And now you know how I feel when you and everyone else decide not to listen to me." The Doctor told her, reaching over and planting a soft kiss on the top of her head. "How's your head?" He knew he had to ask, he had to make sure that it wasn't still hurting her too much, he didn't like it when she was in pain.
Kari looked at him and touched the tender spot where the gash had now healed over and just left a patch of fresh pink skin. "Uh, that kind of hurts a little still."
He rolled his eyes at her. "Well of course it does, you're poking and prodding at it." The Doctor said, taking a hold of her hand and pulling it away from her head so that she couldn't poke the bump any more. "Headache?"
"A bit, yeah." She admitted, knowing that there was absolutely no point lying to him, he would see straight through it. "It's not as bad as it was, but my head is still pounding a little."
"Right, well, come on." The Doctor said, tossing the covers away and swinging his legs off the bed. "Time to get up and get some food into you, then you might start to feel a bit better." He was actually surprised that she hadn't woken up at some point and moaned about being hungry. The man wasn't entirely sure how long it had been since she had last eaten, even though he knew she had been on a date night before she arrived.
But Kari just let out a groan and buried her head into her pillow. "I don't want to get up. I want to stay here, I want to sleep." She had been nice and comfy lying there with the Doctor's arms wrapped around her. Kari had been able to forget all the bad stuff that had happened recently, she had been able to feel safe and secure with him there.
The Doctor had already started getting himself ready, having no plans of going back to sleep, and knowing that soon enough his Kari was going to be hungry. "I suppose a little more sleep wouldn't do you any harm." He told her, leaning over the bed and brushing her hair away from her face, trying to see her. "I'll come wake you up in a bit, yeah?"
Although Kari was slightly suspicious that the Doctor was going to let her get a little more sleep, she didn't bother to question it. "Great, now let me sleep." She muttered, trying to cover up the fact that her head was actually spinning more than she had let on to him and was starting to make her feel a little sick.
After gently pressing his lips against her cheek and placing the covers back over her, the Doctor left her alone to get a little more sleep. There was a frown on his face, because he was certain that Kari wasn't being completely honest with him. Her cheeks were flushed, and he could feel the heat radiating from her when he had been holding her. He had also felt the heat of her cheeks when he had kissed her there. It was a cause for concern, and he was going to have to get the TARDIS to do a quick scan, just to make sure.
Instead of heading to the kitchen, like he was supposed to, he marched straight up to the console and started twisting different dials while he looked at the monitor. An outlined image of Kari appeared on the screen, and he watched it impatiently as the scan commenced. He ended up tapping his fingers on the edge of the console, waiting for something to come up, waiting to find out if Kari really was all right.
"Morning, Doctor!" A chirpy voice called, taking him by surprise. "Where's Kari?" Clara asked, happily bounding over to him and glancing at the monitor, which was showing the scan still. "Okay, what's wrong?" The Doctor was doing a scan on Kari, so she knew something wasn't right.
"Kari had a bit of a bump on the head. I just want to make sure that she is all right, that's all." He told her, deliberately leaving out the fact that he knew she had a concussion and that he thought she had a bit of a fever. "TARDIS scanner will let me know if there is anything odd." And he hoped that there wasn't.
"So where is she?" Clara asked him, knowing that he was more focused on the screen before him. "And when exactly did she manage to bump her head?" She was slightly confused. Clara hadn't missed the way that Kari had been acting before she had disappeared and gone off to bed, she had seen then that something had been wrong.
The Doctor rubbed his eyes a little, getting slightly stressed because he was worrying over Kari. "Still in bed. I'm not sure what happened, she must have hit it at some point and not thought too much of it. You know what she's like, keeping things hidden and to herself is a special power of hers." And no matter how many times he told her that there was no need to hide things from him, she still done it all the time.
Clara could see how worried he was. "Right, how about I go make some tea while you wait to find out of there is anything wrong with Kari." She suggested, knowing that the Doctor really was distracted.
"Uh, yes, tea… lovely." Yes, the Doctor was seriously distracted. He didn't notice when Clara headed off out of the room and to the kitchen to make a cup of tea for them both. He was focused on what was now being displayed on the screen before him. Yes, Kari definitely had a slight fever, the TARDIS had confirmed that, but from what he could see, that was all there was. The ship hadn't detected anything else wrong with her, confirmed the concussion as well, but there was nothing that should caused the Doctor any concern. And yet he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something he was missing.
He stood there and looked at the scan some more, trying to figure out what he could have missed, but there was nothing there. He let out a slight growl of frustration, he couldn't even find a reason for the fever, apart from the headache that Kari had.
The Doctor was still staring at it when Clara came back, a mug of tea in her hand for him. "So, what did you find?" She asked, bringing him back to reality and holding the mug out towards him.
"Uh, nothing much. Fever and concussion, that's all." The Doctor told her, taking the mug but still frowning. "So why do I feel like there is something else, something that I'm missing?" He pondered out loud.
"Have you, I don't know, asked her?" Clara asked him, taking a sip of her tea. "Have you actually asked her if there is anything else wrong?" That was Clara, being direct and not beating around the bush. She understood how much the Doctor worried about Kari, it was something that she saw all the time from him.
He knew she was right, he was better off just asking Kari if there was anything else wrong, instead of creeping around and trying to find out behind her back. "Okay, I'll ask her when she wakes up." He said, turning the screen off. Once Kari had decided that she had been asleep for long enough, he would ask her. Until then, he had to keep Clara occupied. "So, where do you want to go this time?"
A frown formed on Clara's face. "Shouldn't we wait until Kari wakes up?" She asked him, taking another sip of her tea as she followed him around the console.
"Oh, she could be asleep for at least another three hours." The Doctor told her, waving her off as he fiddled with bits a pieces on the panel before him. "No, it's better off if she is just left alone to sleep. I'm not even sure when the last time she slept was, and with the concussion that she has, she should take it easy and get plenty of rest." He rambled to Clara, still twisting knobs and flicking switches. "She'll be fine."
Clara knew him better, she knew both of them better than either of them thought. "Well, maybe you should go and check on her. Keep her company until she wakes up, just to make sure that she is all right." He was still worrying about Kari, and until she woke up properly, he was going to keep on worrying. Even if they left the TARDIS, he would be worrying, and they wouldn't stray very far. There was the possibility that they wouldn't even leave the TARDIS, and he would just show her a few views from the door. Either way, Kari was always going to be on his mind.
The Doctor thought about it for a few moments before shaking his head. "No. No, Kari's all right, she just sleeping." He was torn between watching over Kari while she slept, and showing Clara the universe. He wanted to do both, but he knew that he couldn't.
"Doctor, go." Clara told him firmly. "It's fine, go and be with Kari. There's some books in my room, I don't mind staying there and reading for a while." She could still see the hesitation in the Doctor's eyes. "Kari needs you, Doctor, so go to her."
He knew that there was no point in trying to protest with the woman, she could be pretty pushy when she wanted to. "All right, fine. Are you sure that you're going to be…" The look Clara gave him made him stop midsentence. "Yes, okay. Right, I'll come get you when Kari is up and we can go off on another adventure."
Clara smiled at him. "That sounds like a plan to me. Now go, before I have to make you." She threatened, knowing that he was now doubting what the right thing to do was. But Clara really didn't mind just hanging around and reading a little for a while, Kari deserved to get some extra sleep.
The Doctor ended up nodding at her, before striding out of the console room, heading towards his bedroom where he had left Kari sleeping in his bed. He didn't really see it as his bed anymore, it was their bed, and it was their room. Sure, Kari still had her own room, but she didn't spend that much time in there any more, at least, it had been a long time since he had gone to her room because she was in there.
When he got there he saw that Kari had gone straight back to sleep, the covers wrapped around her and her arms hugging one of the pillows tightly. The Doctor couldn't help but smile at the sight of her, sleeping so peacefully and hugging the side where he would usually be lying on.
He sat himself down on the edge of the bed and carefully brushed her hair out of her face. The Doctor knew he was probably worrying over nothing, but he couldn't help it, he always worried about Kari. After watching her sleeping for a few more minutes, he decided to gently tug the pillow away, so that he could take its place.
Unfortunately, the movement disturbed Kari a little and she let out a groan. "Doctor?" She mumbled, a frown on her face.
"It's all right, Kari, go back to sleep." He told her, pulling her into his arms and letting her rest her head against his chest.
"Where's Clara?"
He should have known she wouldn't go back to sleep just like that, not when he had woken her up yet again. "She's… still asleep." The Doctor told her, hoping that she wouldn't catch on that he had just lied to her.
"Truth, please." Of course, even when she was still half asleep she could still tell when he was lying to her.
"In her room, reading." He told her, wondering how she always managed to work out when he wasn't telling her the truth, even when her eyes were closed. "And before you say anything more, Clara knows and is okay with it. She's quite happy to hang out in her room until you've had enough sleep and you're ready for another adventure."
Kari let out a slight humming sound. "Hmm, I'm ready now. I've had enough sleep." She told him, clearly falling back to sleep already. "Where are we off to next then?"
"Oh, I don't know. Meta Sigmafolio is a wonderful sight to see, or the plasma storms of the Horsehead Nebula. We could go to Barcelona, the planet Barcelona." The Doctor told her, his hand now playing with her hair as he held her. "There are so many places out there, so many planets still for us to see and to explore. We can go anywhere, and any when, the whole of time and space to explore."
"Barcelona, the planet where the dogs have no noses. That really isn't funny, you know that, right?" Kari replied, her hand now gripping onto his shirt, like it usually was when they were laying like that. "That is not a funny joke."
That was how the Doctor knew that she was still tired, she was rambling a little, and that was always a sure sign that she was tired. Or it could have meant that something else was wrong. "Is your head still hurting?"
She hummed a little in response. "A bit, yeah." Kari told him quietly, struggling to stay awake now. "It's not as bad, but it still hurts."
"And is that all it is? Is it just your head that hurts?" The Doctor had to ask her, because she still felt a bit too warm to him, and the TARDIS hadn't found any reason as to why she would have a fever. "You're not feeling sick or anything?" No matter how much he tried to cover up his worry, it still slipped out.
Kari managed to force her eyes open a little and looked up at him. "My head hurts, I don't feel sick, I don't feel dizzy, and I don't feel confused. I feel a little too hot, but that's all it is, I promise." The look in her eyes told the Doctor that she was telling the truth. "So, let me sleep for just an hour or so more, and then we can take Clara somewhere amazing. Best get thinking of somewhere fantastic to take her."
The Doctor chuckled at her a little. "Oh, of course. You just get some sleep, Kari. I'll be right here when you wake up." He told her, lightly kissing the top of her head. He wanted that fever to drop and her headache to go away, and he knew that she really needed to get plenty of rest for that to happen.
But there was another reason as well. Something was coming, something big, and it was going to affect Kari in a pretty big way. He had already been there, he had seen it, and now the time was approaching for Kari to go there as well. The Doctor could remember it clearly, and it was making him very nervous to know that it was just around the corner for her. It wasn't a fixed point, it could change, for the better, or for the worse. He knew that Kari had a habit of changing things, usually small things, but sometimes, every once in a while, she would do something big and incredible.
"No matter what happens, I will always be here, Kari." He told her softly. "For better and for worse. I promise." The Doctor knew that he wouldn't really be there when she woke up, she would be somewhere else, and she wouldn't be very happy there.
A/N: Oh, something is coming. Something good? Something bad? We know it's something big, but what could it possibly be? I do hope you all enjoyed this surprise chapter, it's been a busy week for me with lots of writing going on for Kari.
Hello, hello, hello! And welcome to all the lovely people who have favourited/followed the story, glad you all like it and are here to celebrate over 100 chapters and 2 years! And all you wonder, magnificent, fantastic, brilliant people who take the time to review, thank you all so much! It is because of all of you that this story has made it this far, so thank you all!
I'd love to hear what you guys think is going to happen next, of what this 'something' that is coming is. I've already got the next few chapters written up and ready to go, so we shall be returning to our regular updating schedule.
Until then…
Pippa.