Doctor And Assistant (Chap. 13)
Chapter Three: One Broken Hand, Three Broken Hearts
/Lilly\\
"Yes, you all heard me right," the Doctor laughed. "Surprised at your shock, though. I thought you'd know that'd be my backup plan. If the fight wants to come to us, we'll go to them instead."
"Told you he would go mad one day," Rachel snickered.
Lilly rolled her eyes at Rachel, but then met the Doctor's gaze. "How do you kill a Dalek?"
"It's eyestalk," Derpy said automatically. "Sorry, Doctor. I wanted to be the smart one for once."
"No problem," he laughed again. "So, how about we head out? Just follow my lead."
The Doctor led them out of the TARDIS, now once again in the cold autumn air. A light wind blew against them and they continued along the bus stop they'd (for some reason) teleported to after Lilly's semi-injury. They had been just along the pier before.
"What's the game plan?" Scarlet asked.
"We show up, we take care of business, we leave," he said sarcastically. "Kidding. We'll assess the situation and figure it out from then."
"Like always," Derpy nodded.
Rachel appeared alongside their group. "I want you guys safe. Please? Listen to what they say?"
"Yeah, yeah, Rachel," she smiled.
"I feel like I'm walking into a war right now," Scarlet said.
The Doctor frowned, an empty sigh escaping his lips and forming a sentence. "Yeah... me too."
Derpy lagged behind, staying next to Lilly. "Feeling a bit better?"
"Meh, somewhat," Lilly responded.
"How much of our conversation did you hear?"
Lilly lowered her voice. "The first thing I heard was 'that was a lie'."
Derpy shook her head at the ground. "Please don't bring it up to him. The war, I mean. It's been, what, 500-something years? And he hasn't made any good improvements towards it."
Lilly nodded. "No problem."
"You're close," Rachel warned as they crossed the street in the direction of Big Ben.
"Closer," Lilly repeated. She continued to follow the Time Lord through the tortuous paths of people.
The Doctor kept a blank stare, locking on something in the distance. "I found one."
/the Doctor\\
"If I aim correctly," he muttered to himself, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and focusing it on the lone cyborg.
"How is no one noticing it?" Scarlet asked. "The Dalek is there, but they are just walking by."
Lilly shrugged a moment later. "Maybe they're being thick," she suggested.
The Doctor, now reminded of his first fight in his tenth incarnation, laughed at her suggestion. He then perfected his aim and fired.
The Dalek exploded, flames starting on top. People screamed, fleeing from the scene. As if on cue, gray, dark storm clouds rolled in over them. The Doctor grimaced.
"They're here," Lilly said breathlessly at the flying air carrier. "Doctor, what now?"
"Wait for it..." he ordered. Once everyone on Bridge Street took to a shelter or ran off, he smiled. "Run."
Derpy laughed triumphantly, mimicking the Doctor's run as he sprinted to the Daleks.
"Scarlet!" the Doctor yelled.
/Scarlet\\
Only hearing him say her name shocked Scarlet into action. She pulled Lilly aside, gripping her wrist.
"What're you doing?" Lilly asked.
"You are staying with me," she explained.
Lilly paused, probably listening to Rachel. "Doctor's orders?"
"Doctor's orders."
/Derpy\\
Derpy smiled at the Doctor. For some reason, whenever he ran, she thought he looked incredibly cute. 'If we weren't running to a Dalek, I would SO kiss him,' Derpy sighed in her mind.
"Derpy, stay close!" the Doctor said, having to yell over the sounds of Daleks teleporting down to Earth.
"I know," she laughed back.
They finally reached a point where the Doctor stopped running, halting to a stop. They were at most 2-3 feet away from the group of Daleks which had. To have around 28 inhabitants.
One Dalek rolled out of the group. It's eyestalk grew into a dark sky blue, almost mimicking the Doctor's sonic screwdriver. After a few tense moments if utter silence, it began speaking. "It is the Doctor!"
The Doctor cleared his throat. "Really?" he asked sarcastically, his hands on his hips, "I didn't know!"
Derpy bit her lip to hold back her giggle at his childish behavior, but the Dlake didn't have to do the same. "A need for sarcasm and humor is as insufficient as living," it croaked.
"Geez," he inhaled through his teeth, "tough crowd. Your emotional levels must be neck-and-neck with the Cybermen." He paused, adding ice into his glare at the lone Dalek. "Why are you here?"
A second Dalek rolled next to the first. "The Doctor was here in our detection scans–"
"–yes, yes, and you've come to 'exterminate' me, I know," he said quickly. "But why do you want to kill me?"
"The remaining lot of us have a purpose in life. Ours is to kill you," Dalek 1 said flatly.
"That was pretty deep..., for a Dalek," the Doctor shot back. Speaking of "shot"...
/Scarlet\\
"...,for a Dalek," the Doctor snarled. In the blink of an eye a laser was heard zooming past the Doctor, landing a centimeter away from Derpy's foot. He growled out of rage, and Scarlet grabbed Lilly's hand to direct her to hide behind a tree.
But Lilly gasped, pulling Scarlet down so she could whisper in her ear. And what she whispered in her ear? "War has begun."
/Derpy\\
The Doctor looked up from the indented cement caused by the laser. "I will give you one last chance. Don't harm one more person, and LEAVE — right now," he growled.
But Dalek 1 shot it's laser once more at Derpy's feet. The Doctor grabbed her hand and pulled her to a wall of Big Ben, lasers streaming past them left and right. Derpy was placed against the wall, the Doctor only a centimeter away from her. "D-D-Doctor?" she managed to stutter out, her cheeks growing extremely hot the longer he was there. Oh, how she so desperately wanted to kiss him...
The Doctor cleared his throat. "Derpy, there's something important I need to tell you. So important, that it may change your life forever," he said breathlessly.
"Y-Y-Y-Yes?"
He gazed into her eyes. "I... Derpy... I... Oh, this is new."
"What is?"
He gulped, flashing a weak smile. "Derpy, I don't know what to do."
Derpy kept her concerned expression vibrant to hide her disappointed feeling at what he could have said. "About what?"
A laser shot right by them, singing a stray strand of hair from Derpy's ponytail. The crowd of Daleks changed "Exterminate!" over and over countless times. "That," he said, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and jumping forwards to the crowd he fired his weapon in return for them firing theirs. Derpy and the Doctor dodged, trying to ignore Lilly and Scarlet watching them intently.
"Exterminate! Exterminate the Doctor! Exterminate!" the chanting changed. A laser swam by the left side of his head, stunning him for a millisecond before he regained his focus, aiming quickly and shooting even faster. 4 more Daleks burst into flames and the other 24 fired at an increasing speed.
The Doctor grabbed Derpy's hand and pulled her to the wall again. "It's like we're in 'the Matrix', huh?" he laughed.
"Do you know what to do now?" she asked, oblivious to his allusion.
"Yes, but don't follow my lead. What I'm about to do is stupid but requires lots of skill in unison," he explained.
"What are you going to do?"
He smirked during a pause. "I'm the Doctor. I'll do something stupid and then make a rebuttal saying it was smart when really I could've gotten myself killed," he laughed. "And do you know the first thing I will say?"
The Daleks were missing them by inches with their lasers. They were coming closer; their chants were becoming louder. Derpy said the first thing on her mind: "Allons-y?"
"I've taught you well," he grinned insanely. "Here,—" he tossed her his sonic screwdriver, "–you'll know what to do about it."
She nodded once as her answer, trying to find a grip on the metal object
He watched her enduringly before yelling "Allons-y!" and again jumping in front of the crowd. He raised his arms high above his head and yelled a the Daleks momentarily paused their shoot is, "look at me! I'm a target! Derpy, now!"
Derpy jumped out as well, all of the Daleks turning from her to the Doctor. Derpy took this time to shoot 3 or 4 before they began firing again. She tossed his sonic screwdriver back to him.
/Lilly\\
Lilly watched from behind the tree with Scarlet, completely enchanted with how well they worked with each other. But in the blink of an eye, everything changed.
As his sonic screwdriver flew from my Derpy's hand to his, one of the remaining 14 Daleks blasted it. It landed a few feet away, but the Daleks had cornered them against another wall.
Derpy looked at the Doctor fearfully. Lilly saw Scarker tense; she wanted to help. But the Doctor shook his head at the Skyolozine as though he WANTED to be shot.
"Lilly, grab the screwdriver and toss it back to him when I say so," Rachel ordered.
"How?"
"Trust me."
Before Scarlet could ask if she was talking to Rachel, the apparition herself appeared in her usual elegant form. Scarlet gasped.
Lilly smiled. "Scarlet, meet Rachel. And Rachel, you know Scarlet already."
Rachel waved. "Hello!" she smiled, running to the crowd. "Daleks!" she called out, changing her form to look and sound exactly like the Doctor himself. "You've got the wrong man! I'M the Doctor!"
The Daleks' attentions tilted to Rachel and they began chanting their battle cry, shooting their lasers. But they rendered useless – she was already dead.
"Lilly, now!" Rachel yelled.
Lilly nodded, running to the sonic screwdriver and holding it in her hands before tossing it to the Doctor. All but 1 Dalek were crashed into a domino effect of fire.
/Derpy\\
The Doctor pressed the button, no one noticing the single Dalek who rolled out of the way just in time to be saved from the first Dalek's explosion. Afterwards, everything seemed to stand still. The Doctor stared at the fiery remains, deep in thought. Lilly and Scarlet wouldn't move. The woman who said she was the Doctor was gone. Everything was silent.
Except for the sound of the Doctor's yell.
/the Doctor\\
He'd been counting how many were fallen. 26... 27... weren't there 28? That's when he turned around to Derpy and saw the 28th Dalek gliding to his assistant. He yelled her name but their reflexes weren't quick enough. The Dalek quickly stopped about 2 feet away and issued it's own self destruction.
Derpy was thrown forwards into the Doctor's arms. Lilly and Scarlet automatically rushed to them, helping him up to a standing position.
Derpy whimpered, looking down at her hand. "Doctor?"
His expression lacked belief. "No..."
"My hand hurts," she sighed, her eyes watering. "It really, really hurts..."
"Oh, Derpy," the Doctor said softly, pulling her to himself and embracing her. "I'm sorry, I could've pushed it away, I could've-"
"-stop," she giggled into his chest, a blush on her cheeks that he mimicked. "There was nothing you could have done. So stop blaming yourself."
He held her arms in his hands and looked at her. "But... I could've-"
"-eh, eh, eh," she warned, making them both laugh softly.
He hugged her one last time. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry," he whispered into her hair. She shook her head to hide a smile. "Do you want to go back to the TARDIS and figure out what to do there?"
She nodded, exhaling shakily at the pain in her hand.
(Later On)
"Alright, Miss... Delilah Hoover? Funny name," the male nurse named Joshua Bennett laughed. "X-Rays are back. Just a break between your-"
"-can you explain it in a language I'll be language to understand his time?" Derpy requested, causing the Doctor (whom was beside her in a chair) to chuckle under his breath.
"Oh, okay," Joshua nodded. "The bone that connects your wrist and hand together. That's the broken one. And how did you get it this way, anyhow?"
The Doctor answered for her since he had already thought of a human cover for them. "Fell down a flight of steps outside."
"Ah," the nurse nodded. "Can't blame her. We got quite a bit of ice this time around."
Derpy nodded solemnly, trying not to think about the Dalek that had caused her injury. The Doctor saw her expression fall and found a lock of hair, twirling it around in his fingers. His thoughts sauntered off to what to do next.
New planet, perhaps? Maybe, just maybe, he'd-
No. It was completely clear.
He had to drop her off back at Ponyville.
"And how do you two know each other?" Joshua asked.
"Friends, just... just friends," the Doctor muttered.
"Yeah... just friends," Derpy echoed.
The Doctor frowned down at his assistant, letting go of the lock of golden hair and watching her eyes for reasons even he couldn't comprehend fully.
"Good news, it isn't permanent. Bad news-"
the Doctor tensed at the mention of 'bad news' when referring to Derpy.
"-,we'll have to put it in a cast."
The eager Time Lord tensed again. "How long until that comes off?"
"Uhm... About six - to - eight weeks. Why?"
He pursed his lips, Derpy smiling as an apology to Joshua. "He's a bit... weird."
"I see," Joshua sighed.
The Doctor wasn't weird. Well, he wasn't as weird enough as he should be for an alien, he supposed. But he wasn't acting weird, he was trying not to cry. If he looked down, he saw a hurting young woman whom he cared for with all of his two hearts. But if he looked away, well, he couldn't, because her eyes were just so enticing. He found himself trying to see how she felt, see what she was thinking.
Or maybe it was because he wouldn't see them after this.
"Well, I'll need to bring Delilah to our Set Room. And, you, her... friend, stay here."
The Doctor pouted, getting out of his chair next to her hospital bed and grabbing her good hand. He helped her out from the pale green sheets, a hand on the center of her back to keep her still even though it wasn't her back that was hurt, it was her hand. He didn't care, and quite frankly, it seemed neither did Derpy.
He led her to the door where Joshua took over. The Doctor then walked back over to his chair, slumped against it, and rested his head on his hand. It was going to be a long amount of waiting.
Lilly and Scarlet were in their chairs too wringing their fingers together. "So, just waiting?" Scarlet asked.
Lilly sighed out of disbelief at Scarlet. "Seriously? Be happy she's still alive. Who cares if we have to wait?"
The Doctor stayed silent, watching the door from his chair. He cared. He cared that he had to wait.
(Even More Later On, Back In The TARDIS)
The Doctor sat on his bed, his hands cradling his own face, trying not to let a single tear drop as he watched the ceiling out of the tops of his eye. He could not stand looking at his assistant at the moment. 'I shouldn't tell her,' he thought to himself. 'I can't tell her something of that severity and then-'
-"Hey, Doctor," Derpy smiled, opening his door and walking in.
"Oh, hey, Derpy," he answered in a tone that had a forced calmness, his eyes now on the wall in front of him.
"You excused yourself to your room over an hour ago. Is everything fine? Is this a bad time?"
"No, um-" he coughed mid sentence to clear his throat, "-no. It's okay. Everything's fine." His hands fell into his lap.
She took a seat next to him in the edge of his bed and turned to him, using her non-casted hand to wipe a strand of hair out of his face. "No, it isn't." She dropped her hand.
"Yes, it is."
"Doctor," she sighed, gazing into his brown eyes, "you're obviously trying not to cry."
"No, I'm not."
"Doctor. I know you are lying."
He turned to face her now, a small, weak, embarrassed smile on his face. "Is it that obvious?"
"Yeah. And, I'm a mother back in Ponyville. I know things like that," she explained, causing the Doctor to chuckle. She used both of her hands to hold both of his. "Please. Can you just tell me what's wrong?"
His smile slightly brightened at the fact they were holding hands. "Nothing."
Derpy kept her gaze into his eyes. The Doctor desperately tried to ignore the way his were watering. "I don't like liars," she teased sarcastically.
His smile went even weaker, pained almost, but he kept it up and as bright as possible. "Sorry," but during his laugh a tear dropped.
Her playful expression vanished in the blink of an eye — quite literally. Before he blinked, she had her beautiful smile embellishing her beautiful face. But afterwards, she looked guilt-stricken. Her amount of her concern was doubling, tripling by the second, and the Time Lord couldn't begin to comprehend how large it was. "Doctor?" she asked.
He shook his head, using one hand to cover his eyes. Tears were falling faster now and his smile turned to a frown. He looked away; he didn't want his assistant to see him like this.
"Doctor?" she asked again. She finally gave up, however, when he didn't answer. Instead of repeating his name a third time, she sighed a depressed sigh and pulled him to her. He practically attached himself to his assistant. The Doctor wrapped his arms around her and sobbed heavily against her shoulder, unable to stop or do anything else. "It's alright, Doctor," she whispered, placing her casted hand on his back, "it's okay. Just cry, let it all out, it's okay... Everything's okay..."
"No, no, no it's not okay," he whispered back. He blushed after a sudden realization: he was hugging his assistant. He kept crying though, as embarrassing as it was.
"Doctor, please tell me why you're crying?"
He pulled away, looking into her eyes. His reflection in them showed a man; one broken down into a small grain of sorrowed sand.
"Doctor? Please answer me?"
"I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry," he admitted. He felt an even deeper frown cascade over his face and his bottom lip quivered.
"Oh my God, Doctor, you're seriously crying," she whispered breathlessly, holding him to her again. "Why...? You are never this upset..."
"In front of people I try not to be," he managed to choke out.
She let her good hand rest against his head, her fingers weaving throughout his brown hair in an attempt to calm him down.
"I'm sorry," he kept repeating. He was keeping a secret the thing he planned on doing later after she had fallen asleep.
He had to do it. He had no choice. He didn't WANT to, though.
And that was why he was crying.
"What can I do to help?"
"I... I don't know," he admitted.
He pulled away again and found that she was watching his every move for some sort of answer. He gulped out of nervousness. And then, he saw how beautiful she was in one love-striking wave. They both began slowly leaning forwards to each other, and -
- no. He couldn't do this. He can't give more of a reason for her to be hurt even more when she wakes up tomorrow to find he had...
He leaned away quickly, causing Derpy to blush out of embarrassment and purse her lips. They stared at each other for a few painful moments. "I'm gonna... I'm gonna go to bed," she muttered, quickly leaving his side and shutting his door behind her in one loud motion.
He sighed, falling into his bed. On his back, he watched the ceiling like he had been originally. "Mother of Rassilon... what have I done?"
/Derpy\\
Derpy walked off, a chill of despair spreading in her heart. So close. So close to finally kissing him. To kiss the man she's been in love with for half of a year.
And then he ruined it.
"Stupid Doctor," she muttered quietly, pouting. She stopped walking, taking a double take behind her. "I could go check on him again, just to see if he's still crying?"
But she turned forwards firmly again. "No."
Scarlet met her halfway there. "I heard a bit of noise. You two all right?" she asked
"Fine. Just fine," she grumbled.
Derpy continued into her bedroom although she wasn't tired at all, shutting her door behind her and snuggling into her covers. Surprisingly, she fell asleep seconds afterwards.
(39 Minutes Later, Exactly)
Her door creaked open, a small sliver of light entering into her room and becoming larger with each passing second. Derpy shut her eyes, deciding to keep them closed.
Footsteps, small and quiet, evenly spaced between each beat. They neared her bed and she could feel her stomach turn with anxiousness.
Then, they stopped.
Her breathing delayed as she waited for something to happen. She debated whether or not to look at where it was coming from.
But then a hand was on her cheek. It's touch was delicate, soft, almost like it wasn't even there. It traveled up and down three times before leaving, probably now somewhere in her room. And she knew the hand was too large to be Lilly's, but also too friendly and warm to be Scarlet's.
"Derpy..." the voice was familiar. She couldn't recognize it still — she was half asleep still. "Derpy, I'm sorry..." Now something was in front of her face and she shut her eyes tightly so whoever it was couldn't see she was awake.
"One day," it continued. "I swear. I swear on all 9 of my previous lives and the remaining 2. I lo...no... I can't say it, for my own sake. Derpy, I'm sorry I have to do this. I don't want to, I really don't want to... I just can't keep having you get hurt. It isn't your fault, it's mine, and that's why... I don't want to do this...," it whispered, "I'm going to miss you, so, so much..."
'Wait, why is he going to miss me?' Derpy asked herself in her mind. 'Im not going anywhere.'
"I suppose if it's... my last chance to say it. Derpy, I..." it paused. "Derpy, l..." it tried again. "Derpy, I-"
She fell asleep again.
Author's Note:
Again, sorry for the wait! I hope no one else cried over that Doomsday reference. I did. Anyways, thanks for reading!
—GothicPegasister