Set at the start of the Doctor's regeneration sickness during S11E1 'The Woman Who Fell to Earth'. Inspired by the Inktober/Jotober day 7 prompt 'exhausted'.
"Seriously though, aliens?" Asked Graham, sounding like he still wasn't believing 100% of what had happened that night.
"Yep," replied the Doctor, feeling dizzy. She barely noticed Graham's next words
"Oh yeah, maybe I won't mention that bit," before he walked off into the darkness.
She was suddenly struck with a wave of exhaustion, knocking everything sideways. She bent over, trying to keep her balance before straightening up, drawing in a large breath.
"Suddenly," she admitted to her new friends, "I feel...really tired."
"That was a big fall you had, love." The Doctor felt Grace near her side and heard the concern in her voice. "Should get you checked out at A and E."
"No, no," she objected "I never go anywhere that's just initials." And hospitals, in her experience, were full of people who meddled and fussed and caused all sorts of problems. All she needed was somewhere quiet to rest for a bit. "Although…" Her nose started to itch, her time sense trying to tell her something, though the feeling was unclear.
She drew in a deep breath, sticking her finger in her nose to concentrate the scent of time in one nostril.
"Ah, can one of you catch me?" The nose plugging had worked, coalescing time into a something she could understand.
"You gonna fall over?" Asked Ryan, alarmed.
"In two minutes nineteen seconds. Wait," okay, so her sense of time was still a little fuzzy, "forget the two minutes, nineteen-." The thought slipped through her mind and no matter how hard she tried she could not gasp it. "Oh, this new nose is so reliable."
Then everything turned into a fading riot of light and colour and she knew no more.
Grace was shocked as the strange woman suddenly collapsed into Ryan's arms. He struggled with her ungainly weight for a moment before managing to sit her on the floor, propped up against his chest as he knelt on the pavement.
Grace gave her a shake to see if she would wake up, but she didn't, just stayed there limp in Ryan's arms.
They looked like a right odd lot, a nan and her grandson sitting on the pavement outside their house holding the unconscious form of a scruffy looking alien woman wearing men's clothes several sizes too big for her.
"She's breathing steadily," said Grace, giving their new friend a look over, "which is good. And as she has been running about all evening she can't have any broken bones from that fall. She must be exhausted. Ryan, love, can you carry her inside? I'll open t' door."
With Grace's help Ryan manages to wrangle the limp body into his arms and carries her up the steps and through the front door. Her head lolls on his shoulder and he can feel her soft breathing on his neck. She doesn't make a sound, even when he accidentally lets her dangling hand hit a door frame on the way past.
"Put her on t' sofa so she can sleep," said Grace after shutting the front door, squeezing past them in the living room to rearrange the cushions to make it comfortable for their guest. "I'll keep an eye on her whilst you go check Twitter for anything alien."
Ryan carefully deposits the alien on the sofa, helping Grace to remove their guest's coat then leaves his nan to settle her, straightening limbs and propping her head up on two of the more comfy cushions, making sure she still breathing easily. She must be really deeply asleep as she didn't even twitch during her ministations.
Grace leaves her for a few moments, sitting at Ryan's side at the dining room table as he flicked through Twitter on his tablet. She looked at his search results - the American president, immigration, NASA, views on the new sci fi show on the TV, nothing local about aliens. She looked at her own phone, opening Whatsapp and reading the recent messages there. No mention of anything strange there either. She sent off a message to the group and put the phone back in her pocket.
She looked at the woman lying across her sofa. She looked different now she wasn't running around. Gone was the cheeky grin and the manic spark in her eyes. Now she was sleeping peacefully, breathing slowly and body still, blond hair fanned across the cushions. She didn't look alien.
Nothing to do now but wait for Graham and Yaz to reappear, Grace thought to herself, looking at the clock on the wall. Hopefully they will be more successful in their information gathering than she had been.
Her eyes drifted back to her guest, suddenly remembering the coolness of her skin as she helped Ryan carry her. She didn't know how different her biology was from human, it wasn't as if she had been taught about different species when she was learning to be a nurse. But if she was human she could get cold, especially in those ill fitting clothes after running outside all evening. Best fetch a blanket.