A/N: I admit to having more fun writing this chapter than I probably should have...

Mind Games will get updated next, promise, it just needs copious amounts of research!

Chapter 9 - Comatose

Rose woke up to the sound of pure, raw screaming.

She shrieked in alarm and instinctively clung onto the Doctor's arm for protection, but after half a second she realised that the screaming was in fact coming from him. She practically jumped out of bed, still holding onto his arm, staring at him in alarm.

"Doctor!" she cried, but he clearly couldn't hear her. His eyes were fused shut and face was twisted into such a fierce emotion Rose could barely stand to look at him. He was sweating, pale, and choking on his own breath in-between his screams of what sounded like pure, raw agony.

She dived to kneel on the bed, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. "Doctor, wake up!" she cried. She shook him as hard as she dared, slapped his face and in the end resorted to screaming down his ear, but still he wouldn't stop.

She looked around for something to help, and saw the glass of water on the table. She took it and poured it over his face, hoping it might wake him up. It didn't.

She grabbed him tightly in a firm hug, pressing his head into her shoulder and trying desperately to stop him shaking.

Was this a nightmare? How wasn't he awake yet?

The door suddenly opened and there was Jack, fully dressed and gun in hand.

"Is someone killing him!?" Jack shouted over the screams.

"I don't know what's goin' on!" Rose yelled, still holding the Time Lord tightly. His screams eventually petered out, until he was just sobbing relentlessly in her arms. Rose checked to see if he was awake, but he wasn't. His eyes were still clamped shut with tears creeping out of the sides and sliding down his cheeks, dripping off of his unshaven jaw.

"It's okay," she said, rubbing his back. "It's okay."

"What the hell's wrong with him?"

"I think it's a nightmare," Rose said quickly, still soothing him, "sir," she hastily added.

"Lieutenant!" Jack shouted, moving and grabbing the Doctor from Rose. He pulled him away from her to examine him, but the Doctor convulsed badly and flew out of Jack's grip, slipped off of the bed and hit the metal floor with a clang. Rose quickly dived to him, checking he hadn't been hurt in the fall.

"Wow," Jack muttered.

"Is he ill?" she asked. She didn't even think he'd know the answer, but she was desperate for some sort of explanation.

"Looks like," Jack said, finally putting his gun away. "Get him rested and do your medical thing."

"My…" Rose began, but he was already out the door. "... Medical thing," she finished flatly, looking down at the Doctor's limp, comatose body. "Oh god," she muttered. "Come on. You'll wake up in a minute."

She lifted him carefully back onto the bed, pulling the covers over him and readjusting the pillows. She held him again, rubbing his back.

She sat there for twenty minutes holding him. He didn't wake up.

She had to go and get breakfast on her own, but she went straight back to the room. After she'd eaten she went to the ward to see if she could find any drugs to help him. She hunted through the medicine bottles one by one, reading the notes on the side as she did so. She finally came across one that appeared to be for convulsions, but as soon as she took it back to him she realised that because of his alien system and allergy to aspirin she could end up making it worse. So she got rid of the bottle and sat next to him again, staring at him. He was becoming increasingly pale and sweaty. He was definitely becoming sicker, and very, very fast. He also hadn't moved, at least until suddenly he spasmed again and launched straight back into screaming. She grabbed him again, holding him tightly for several long minutes until he finally stopped screaming and fell back to an utterly comatose state.

She eased him back down again, readjusting the covers.

"Come on," she said softly to him. "You're okay. It's okay."

As the hours passed by, Rose's resilience was fading. She had been adamant that he would wake up, but he only seemed to be getting worse. She couldn't believe how fast he was deteriorating. It had only been twelve hours since he'd woken her up screaming but already his hearts were slowing and his lips beginning to tinge blue from lack of oxygen. But still every half an hour or so he was still having some sort of nightmare fit.

She had no idea what to do. He wasn't responding at all. She felt increasingly helpless as the hours ticked by and he became worse and worse.

Was he sick? What could have struck him down so quickly?

When John arrived in the evening, she was almost on the verge of tears and biting her nails. The moment he saw her he hugged her, holding her carefully.

"Any improvement?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Nothin'... he's just gettin' worse."

"Have you tried feeding him?"

She nodded, resisting the urge to cry. "He won't swallow, he just chokes…"

John nodded solemnly.

She looked at him desperately. "Have you ever seen anythin' like this?"

"No," he replied lowly.

Silence dawned on them as they both stared at the Doctor for a long moment. He was shaking and sweating on the bed.

"He promised," she suddenly said. "He promised he wouldn't leave me."

"Sometimes things happen and nobody can help it," John said seriously. "Have you done the medical rounds?"

She shook her head.

"Come on," he said, standing up and pulling her to her feet. "He wouldn't let you abandon all your patients for this."

"No," Rose said quickly, shrugging off his arm. "I won't leave him."

"I'll look after him," John insisted.

"If anythin' happens…"

"I'll shout in a forthright manly way," he assured her, ushering her out of the door. "Now go."

As soon as Rose was out of the door, John took a seat beside the Doctor's bed. He checked the Gallifreyan's hearts rate - both of them were bradycardic. His breathing was stilted. He also checked his eyes - they were dilated and fixed, staring up sightlessly at the ceiling.

He considered this, after a moment nodded and pulled off his bag he'd brought with him. He pulled out an anti-convulsant medication and a large book about Gallifreyan biology, laying them out on the bed.

He loaded the needle gun with the anti-convulsant and - after double checking the book on Gallifreyan biology - fired it into the Doctor's arm.

He then quickly packed everything away before finally relaxing, and waiting for Rose to get back.

The night went by so very slowly, but John stayed with Rose.

She'd managed to find an oxygen canister so had brought that back to the Doctor, hoping it would help his breathing. He seemed to have calmed down, or at least, stopped convulsing. He was still having his 'attacks', as she had decided to call them, but not nearly as physical as before.

In between the attacks he looked so serene and peaceful it was almost deceptive. A couple of times she'd been fooled, thinking that it meant he was getting better, but her hopes had been continuously proven to be unfounded.

John had tried to convince her to get some sleep but she could barely keep her eyes closed for all the small noises the Doctor was emitting, making her jerk awake to check him continuously. Of course, nothing ever happened. He had his attacks, and otherwise laid completely comatose.

She had a very long night.

After a bit of persuasion John had convinced her to go out to breakfast. He went with her.

Rose sat at the table, biting her nails again. They were nearly down to the bone. After a few minutes, John arrived carrying two trays of food, setting one down in front of her.

"Chin up," he said, offering a small smile.

"How?" she asked seriously, looking gloomily at her breakfast tray.

"He's stopped convulsing," John pointed out. "That's good."

Rose suddenly stood up, running a hand through her unkempt hair. "I can't do this, I need to be with him..."

"Sit down," John implored, holding up his hand in which was secreted a small red laser light. "Hooked to his vitals, remember? If there's a problem it'll start flashing."

After a moment she sighed and dropped back down again. "Sorry," she muttered, picking up her spoon. She then commenced staring at bowl of suspicious-looking cornflakes, moving them around with her spoon. She had very little intention of eating them. She wasn't hungry.

There was a brief silence.

"He's gonna die," Rose muttered, resigned.

"Come on," John said seriously. "He's got better, he's stopped convulsing. That's a good sign."

"I just hate feelin' so pointless," Rose muttered. "I don't know what's wrong with him."

"He's just picked something up," John assured her. "You said he's Gallifreyan, right? I heard they've got a hell of a sexy immune system."

Rose smiled a little. He caught it, and grinned.

"There you go," he said. "He'll be fine."

"I hope he wakes up before Christmas," Rose said, finally taking a spoonful of cereal.

"I hope he's promised you a present," John joked.

Rose laughed smally. "We were gonna do a Christmas quiz."

John laughed. "Why the hell would you do that?"

"Morale.'

"Ah." John mused for a moment. "Well, why don't we do it?"

"What?"

"I'll do it with you," he said. "What was the plan?"

"I was gonna promote it and the Doctor was…" She paused momentarily before starting again, "... he was gonna do the questions."

"I'll do that," John said. "So what's the prize?"

Rose paused again, frowning as she thought. "Um, I dunno. What d'you reckon?"

"Dinner with you?" he suggested, winking. She giggled and waved a dismissive hand.

"Nah," she said. I'll find somethin'. You just worry about the questions."

"Will do."

The Doctor stayed comatose.

After managing to hook him up to some drips to keep him alive, Rose and John began to work on the quiz. As the days went by Rose progressively spent less time with the Time Lord and more time with John, designing promotional posters on loo rolls as he painstakingly arranged a host of general knowledge questions.

She steadily grew closer to him. John took her mind far away from the Doctor. He made her laugh from the belly with his dirty jokes and lewd comments that reminded her so much of Jack - her Jack, anyway.

She missed him. When she finally got out of here, she'd have such a story to tell him.

But the Jack she was with didn't seem to be bothering her that much anymore. There had been a couple of missions but he hadn't ordered her to participate. For the most part he was staying away from her - maybe avoiding her? She couldn't tell, not that she cared anyway. It was nice not to have his volatile nature anywhere near her for a while and she wasn't particularly compelled to question it.

Five days after the Doctor had fallen into the coma, it was Christmas Eve and she and John were in the cafe, hours after dinner doing the last tweaks to their quiz. Posters were all around the base now, Rose had made sure to cover all areas twice over. At 11:03pm on Christmas Eve most people had left, with just a few soldiers playing cards in the corner.

"And I said, 'seriously Princess, if you're gonna show me that surely I should see the whole package'..."

Rose laughed joyously. "Oh my god, how could you!?"

"Next thing I know, some guard's got his stunner out and I'm lying on the floor like, 'what did I say?'" John said, giving a theatrical shrug. "Then she kicks me right in the nuts and storms off, and I had to say it, 'I paid for an hour!'"

Rose nearly choked on her coffee she was laughing so hard. "You idiot!" she managed to get out. "You're such an idiot!"

He laughed uproariously. "Then of course I'm thrown out of the castle, no clothes and nothing to my name, I had to hitch a lift with these American galactic tourists…"

"Oh my god you didn't, you liar...!" Rose said between laughs. "You're such a liar!"

"So I'm sat there in their spaceship, hands covering myself, saying…"

"Are we there yet?" Rose completed. John burst into laughter and tapped his nose in true charade manner.

"Exactly!" he declared.

Rose could barely breathe for laughing so much. Her face was aching but she didn't care. "God, you're so like Jack it's unbelievable!"

"Yeah?" John asked between laughs.

"This one time, we were on this pleasure planet and me and the Doctor were in the reception, and suddenly he walks up to us completely naked apart from this towel on his head sayin', 'have you seen my towel?' and the Doctor looked at him and said, 'is that what you're calling it now?'"

John laughed uproariously. "When was that?"

There was a long pause as Rose suddenly froze, all laughter immediately disappearing from her expression.

John looked at her, still beaming. "What?" he asked.

"Nothin'," she said quickly. "Four months ago, before we got deployed here."

John's smile didn't lose its integrity. "Come on, Rose," he said, taking her hands. "We're just two soldiers sharing stories. Share a little. Come on."

She sighed heavily. "We're not soldiers."

"Yeah, now get to the un-obvious bit."

She sighed again. "We're time travellers. I'm from the 21st century and the Doctor's a Time Lord from Gallifrey. We didn't mean to land here. We left Jack - I mean, our Jack - on this planet called Plax."

"A different Jack to the Captain?"

"Same one," Rose told him. "Just from the future."

"I'm hoping he's nothing like our Jack," John mused. "Cos this one is a bit of a twat."

She laughed. "Yeah, somethin' like that."

He nodded, and let go of her hands. He paused only momentarily before getting up. "We should check the Doctor," he announced.

Rose nodded, before suddenly catching him arm. He turned back.

"Promise you won't tell?"

He nodded. "Promise," he confirmed with a deft nod. "You can trust me."

The Doctor's condition hadn't changed. They checked his vitals, all were the same, before they both sat beside his comatose body. Eventually Rose left to the bathroom.

After a minute of gazing at the Doctor, John took a casual glance around the room and almost immediately caught sight of the drinking glass on the table - a glass that had been there for five days.

He gazed at the glass, before suddenly leaping to his feet, his eyes shooting wide in alarm.

"Rose!" he called, grabbing the glass and jumping to his feet, hammering on the bathroom door. "I think this… I think I know why he's sick!"

After just a few seconds Rose opened the door in a panic and caught sight of the glass. "What!?"

"This glass! Did he use this glass?" John said, holding it up. She made to touch it, but he quickly pulled it away. "No, don't touch it. Did he use this?"

Rose stared. "I dunno… I guess… wait," she realised, flashing back to that night. "He did, he drank a bit!"

"Look at the rim," he said, pointing it out. "Do you see that?"

"Oh my god," she realised, jaw agape. "Is that…?"

"It's been coated," John concluded. "Coated in some kinda poison I bet…"

"What? Why? Who!?"

"I don't know," John muttered. "But if it's someone in here it had to be something from the ward… There's got to be an antidote somewhere!"

Rose was already making for the door, John only one step behind her still clutching onto the tainted glass.

With the machines it only took a matter of minutes to identify the poison. The machine told them the name of the antidote, and immediately Rose and John ravaged the entire medicine stock for the named drug. It took a while but eventually they found it and attached it to a needle gun. They swooped back into the medical office where the Doctor laid, supine.

Suddenly Rose stopped, still holding the needle gun.

"What?" John asked.

"Sorry, this is… God, he's finally gonna wake up," she croaked, looking at John.

John nodded, making a 'get on with it' gesture with his hand. "Do it, now."

She nodded, stepped forward, took a steely breath and administered the drug into the Doctor's arm. He seemed to flinch a little, but otherwise did nothing.

"How long does it take to work?" Rose asked quietly.

"I don't know," John confessed. "A few hours maybe?"

Rose dropped to sit in the chair, staring intently at the Doctor's face. "Come on," she begged him. "You've got the antidote, just get better now."

John rested his hand on her shoulder. "He's going to be fine. And hey, merry Christmas."

She looked up, confused.

"Midnight," he clarified, pointing at the clock.

She smiled, stood up, and kissed him briefly on the lips. "Thank you so much," she croaked, her eyes shining.

He bowed courteously. "My pleasure. I'm just glad he's going to be all right. I'd better leave you to it."

"No," Rose said quickly. "Please, stay."

He considered that for a few seconds, before finally nodding. "Okay," he said, and sat down to wait for the Doctor to wake up.