This chapter was slightly edited on 26/11/2013

Chapter 2

Martha Jones snapped her phone shut with a sigh. She sat silently on the sofa for a moment, simply staring at the phone as though at any moment it would start to ring and the Doctor would be on the other end. It took her a full two minutes before she gained the courage to look up at her husband.

Mickey Smith sat on the chair opposite in their small apartment. They'd never really bothered putting money into buying anywhere bigger. They were constantly on missions, working outside of UNIT, keeping the world safe from alien incursions. Somewhere along the line, Martha stopped getting messages from Jack and after trying to track down the Torchwood base, she'd found it completely destroyed and desolate. She didn't know what had happened to Jack or his team, but she did know that if he wasn't there, then she would have to take the lead.

"Well?" Mickey asked, his eyes fixed on his wife's face.

Martha chewed the inside of her cheek absently and shook her head, "I think we're on our own."

"Hey," Mickey placed a reassuring hand on Martha's knee, "we're never on our own. Earth's not what it used to be."

"Mickey," Martha hissed, "we might as well be. No one can handle this, we can't-"

The two held their breath suddenly as they heard footsteps from outside.

"It's alright," Mickey whispered, "they've already raided here…"

Martha shook her head rigidly as she felt tears begin to form in her eyes. She got up from the chair stiffly and cleared the space between Mickey and herself in two strides. She sat down next to him and threaded her fingers through his. Mickey smiled grimly at her.

"Just in case?" Martha whispered.

Mickey nodded briskly as he kept a firm hold on his wife's hand. Martha fiddled inside her pockets and withdrew a single key threaded on a very large piece of string. Carefully, she wound the key around Mickey and herself. They both kept their hands on it, staring at the floor.

Waiting.

"What do you mean she said that Earth was in danger!?" Amy hissed as she grabbed Rory a little too forcefully by the arm and drew him closer to her.

"I-I'm not sure." Rory stammered as he stared at the phone. "Maybe we should call back?"

"Rory!" Amy growled, "Earth, danger, strange woman… we need to tell the Doctor!" But then she pursed her lips, glancing at the console, "But we can't do that now can we?" she muttered to herself.

"We can try and find him again, this is important!" Rory aimed the last part of his sentence at the TARDIS itself as he raised his arms, growing frustrated with the TARDIS' lack of co-operation.

"One way or another, we've gotta do something," Amy summarised as she took the phone from her husband. "We need more information on what the Hell's going on and if the TARDIS is too sick and the Doctor is-" Amy closed her eyes a moment, "Not going to be any help," she opened her eyes once more and looked at the phone awkwardly, "then we'll have to call back."

"Didn't I just say that?" Rory frowned.

Amy scowled at him and Rory immediately backed down, "We still need to find the Doctor though, help from the TARDIS or not." Amy said.

Suddenly, she wasn't the forlorn, distant little girl she had appeared to be only minutes beforehand. Now she had set her mind on an objective and little Amelia Pond was nowhere to be seen. Now she was Amy.

Rory nodded in agreement, "I'm going to look down the hallways again, maybe if I don't follow the sounds of the Doctor, I'll find him… like reverse psychology."

Amy patted her husband on the back with a firm smile, "We can only try everything."

The Doctor coughed once more and moaned as he turned onto his side and into his pillow. In all aspects of the word, the Doctor felt terrible. He was hot to touch, yet freezing cold, his head was hammering and his muscles ached. He didn't know how or why he was in this state, but his head was swimming far too much for him to even consider the possibilities.

Somewhere at the back of his mind he was vaguely aware of the TARDIS groaning in his ear. The poor girl was feeling the illness as the Doctor both unintentionally and uncontrollably channelled his current situation into the ancient time machine. The TARDIS forced herself against the Doctor's mind, trying to get in somehow, trying to break the barriers he had put up, but the Doctor was persistent even in his ill state. He briefly wondered whether the TARDIS wanted to tell him something important, but before he could remain on the thought, his mind was already drifting.

Rory moved swiftly down the vast corridors of the TARDIS. It seemed the further he went, the more things that changed around him. Nothing ever seemed to stay in place on the TARDIS. One day the library was down one corridor and to the left and the next the kitchen would have taken its place. Rory briefly wondered whether it was just the TARDIS playing tricks or whether the Doctor had intentionally done something just to annoy him. Considering the two of them were very immature, both possibilities served equal chances.

"Doctor!" Rory called, growing tired with the constant yelling.

Most of the doors on the TARDIS were unlocked or wide open such as the swimming pool, Amy and Rory's bedroom and the library, but other doors were locked. Always.

Every locked door Rory came across, he'd knock on and call the Doctor's name, making sure to listen for any sounds of life. For all Rory knew, it was the same locked door over and over, but then he had to remind himself, the Doctor was old, really old, and with so many memories, so many things from his past…

The Doctor made sure to save people, but there were so many he had lost on the way. Rory could only imagine what lay behind closed doors. It made him shudder to even think.

Still, he persisted, trying out some reverse psychology on the way. Any doors that seemed tempting to open, Rory would blatantly ignore and move to the next one in a different hallway. It was the only strategy he had left.

"Doctor!"

The Doctor stirred suddenly, aware of his name being called. Although the voice was hazy in his mind, he was almost certain that he knew the voice. Carefully, he sat himself up on the bed he'd managed to find. Although it wasn't his room, the TARDIS had felt his need for rest almost as soon as he had first started showing signs. The old girl was good under pressure, and while she was still as coherent as he was, she had managed to cook up a spare room from the TARDIS storage banks.

"Doctor!"

And that's when the Doctor realised that the voice belonged to Rory Pond, the lone centurion, the boy who waited. Two thousand years standing guard outside the Pandorica for Amy, the girl who waited. Who waited all night in her back garden.

Was it worth it?

Bits of old memories kept sprouting to the surface and with the Doctor's mind deteriorating to compensate for his illness, the barriers that usually kept old memories at bay were disappearing.

"Doctor?"

This time, the voice didn't sound distant, but near, very near indeed. The Doctor rubbed at his eyes tiredly as he attempted to lift himself up off the bed. Then suddenly, with the barriers evaporating in his mind, a soft sweet voice managed to bleed through.

Hide.

That gave the Doctor an energy boost enough to startle him. That voice was familiar, like a ghost of a person he once knew. The once-human voice of his once-human TARDIS.

"What?" he rasped, wincing at his sore throat. He rubbed at his neck subconsciously as he mentally cursed himself for succumbing to such a human weakness.

Oh… that was new. What was that? …Spite? Anger? Old emotions that seemed to surface so easily in his current state of mind. Perhaps this was why he'd been so angry back on Mercy, why he'd felt so tired. Those screams of the victims Jex destroyed… he'd seen that and so much more in the past, but for some reason, that time, he'd barely contained his darker side. If Amy hadn't have been there to stop him, he was almost positive he would have shot Jex in the chest before the Gunslinger could even get close.

Then, the TARDIS spoke again,

Hide.

The Doctor rubbed at his already aching head, the telepathic conversation wasn't really helping his migraine. Usually, the Doctor would have questioned the TARDIS' sudden ability to express her desires through words, but right then, he was just happy to hear her voice. "Who's hiding?" The Doctor asked, trying to add a bit of his charm to the end of his sentence, like he always did when addressing his sexy.

You.

"I'm hiding?" The Doctor asked, frowning. He opened his mouth to speak again, but was cut off by another violent round of coughing. He groaned into his hands once it was over and almost didn't stop himself when his body began to betray him, wanting nothing more than to collapse back down into the bed. But the Doctor was curious as to why the TARDIS thought he was hiding. And curiosity was just one more thing that kept the Doctor going even in the worst of all possible situations. "I'm hiding…" he said the words to himself that time, experimenting with them. Suddenly, his eyes lit up, "I'm hiding!" He looked up at the ceiling and pointed at it accusingly, "You're hiding me!"

Had to.

The Doctor frowned, "And why on Earth did you think-" but he couldn't quite finish as another round of hacking coughs took over. The Doctor felt the TARDIS rumble with him, weakened by his weakness.

My thief is sick.

The Doctor rolled his eyes, a hand firmly pressed against his forehead as if somehow that would suppress his headache. "Perception filter right? You're hiding me from Amy and Rory!"

You need to heal.

The Doctor sighed as he closed his eyes, "I can't, Amy and-" he broke off to cough once more, he cleared his throat, though his voice was noticeably weaker as he continued, "-Rory need me."

The TARDIS groaned, making the walls rumble. The Doctor could tell that it must have taken a lot of energy to do what she was doing, especially in her current state. She was still protecting him, even now. But he knew what was for the best and being hidden wasn't going to solve anything.

"Doctor!"

"That's Rory out there," the Doctor argued, somehow finding his voice once more. "Obviously concerned. I need to help them."

The Doctor lifted himself up on unsteady legs and though the world swerved unstably as he did so, he was up, and that was a great improvement.

Rest.

"Not when you're putting Amy and Rory in danger," the Doctor stressed, locking his jaw into a frown. "Look at you, as useful as I am."

His statement was further verified by another round of coughing which sent him back onto the bed.

He sighed, keeping his face buried beneath his hands for a few moments before continuing, "If you hide me from them, if one thing was to go wrong, just one , you could put their lives in danger." By the end of his sentence the Doctor felt exhausted.

Was this what it felt like to be human and vulnerable? To give into such petty ailments? His eyes were close to closing and for the first time in what felt like several lifetimes, the Doctor actually felt physically tired.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, the Doctor registered the TARDIS giving a very frustrated huff of acknowledgement before the click of a lock was heard and the perception filter was lifted.

The Doctor closed his eyes in gratification as he grinned to himself with relief, "Thank God that worked."

Within just seconds of the door clicking, Rory was on his way. He almost kicked himself for not considering the possibility that the TARDIS was keeping the door hidden. He should have been looking harder, at all the nooks and crannies that he didn't want to see instead of the ones that he did. Still, wasting no time, Rory quickly grabbed the door handle and yanked it open.

"Doctor?" Rory's voice lowered substantially as soon as his eyes spied the poorly Time Lord. The Doctor was half propped up against a pillow, still fully clothed and breathing heavily. His face was coated with a thin sheen of sweat and his skin was pale and flushed.

"Oh, Rory Pond," the Doctor rolled his eyes, but instantly regretted it as it sent a spark of pain into his head. "Brilliant," he muttered through gritted teeth.

"You're worse," Rory summarised as he watched the ailing Time Lord.

Though Rory wanted nothing more than to assess the Doctor's full symptoms, he had to fight against the Nurse inside him. He had to tell the Doctor what he had heard, it came higher on his priorities.

"'m fine," the Doctor murmured, his eyes fully closing as he leant further into his pillow.

Rory sighed, "No you're not."

"No, I'm not." The Doctor agreed tiredly. Suddenly the tables had turned, he was agreeing with Rory. Rory the Roman, since when did that happen?

"Doctor, look, we got a phone call."

"Yes? People call me all the-" the Doctor broke off to cough as he pressed his face further into his pillow, "-time," he barely managed to finish his sentence.

Rory winced; maybe telling the Doctor wasn't the best idea.

Earth is in danger. Martha's voice rang in Rory's ears. He nodded to himself. Earth was in danger and right now, they needed a Doctor. It was just too bad that the Doctor could do with one himself…

"Earth's in danger," Rory spluttered. He didn't wait for the Doctor's reply, although he could already see the Time Lord's eyes open wide, "We got this call, I mean we found this phone… it was ringing and it said that it was Martha Jones… the phone I mean… and then the voice said it too… and she said she needed you, because Earth was in danger." Rory knew he could have phrased that sentence so much better, but he didn't miss the Doctor jerking his head up at the mention of Martha Jones.

"Doctor, who is she?"

The Doctor pushed himself up into a sitting position, his eyes darting about the room, though it didn't do much good as his vision was slightly impaired partly because of his hair clinging to his face and partly because the room seemed to be spinning. "Old friend of mine…" the Doctor muttered, trying to gather his thoughts.

Martha Jones… he hadn't seen her since his last regeneration. The Doctor winced at the memory.

"Doctor, are you alright?" Rory asked, concerned.

"Just can't catch a break today," the Doctor grumbled as he hauled himself onto his feet. Rory saw the Doctor falter before he was even fully standing and moved quickly to support the feverish Time Lord.

"I've got to get to the console, if Earth's in danger, we need to be there." The Doctor said, suppressing the urge to cough.

"Are you sure that's-"

"-Not really the time Rory!" The Doctor growled.

Rory nodded, "Right."

On any other occasion, Rory would have recommended bed rest, but when the Earth was in danger, he really couldn't go against the Doctor. He just had to be there and hope to God he didn't get any worse.