Stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID!
Martha couldn't stand her own stupidness, and she was too stupid to realise that this wasn't even a proper word.
Giving the Doctor advice was a once in a lifetime chance.
And she'd just blown it.
He had asked her.
He had asked her for advice and she had retorted a recommendation... no, a crude and tasteless remark.
Martha ran with open eyes even though she wouldn't see the corridor anymore; she was lost in her own anger and frustration. She breathed out through gritted teeth and clenched her fists.
Maybe the Doctor had been right, she pondered; maybe he'd be better off without the stupid bloody humans like her constantly around him...
Lost in thought Martha cannoned into a muscled chest and lifted her head as she rubbed her neck.
"Jack..." she mumbled and considered the thoughts that had rummaged around in her head; unnerved she pushed him aside "Jack, get out of my way, I'm busy..."
Martha stumbled past Jack and tried to remember where she was heading, what she was looking for... the Doctor had asked her to fetch her something though she couldn't quite...
"What's wrong with the Doctor?"
Martha came to notice that something withheld her; something that could be only described as a strong hand of Jack which stabilized its increasing grip on her shoulder.
"Ouch, Jack you idiot," Martha slapped his fingers irritably "I told you, I'm in a hurry. If you would just let go off me..."
She wrapped her fingers round his palm and detached Jack's hand from her arm by a hand movement she had learned during self-defence training.
"Is the Doctor alright?" snapped Jack and rubbed his twisted wrist.
"Yes, everything's fine if you just would stop bothering me..."
Martha's hands clutched at her forehead.
Where was she heading again? What was she looking for? She was supposed to retrieve something to the Doctor because he...
"Is he awake? May I see him?"
Martha turned around to Jack who wouldn't stop bugging her.
"Jack, please...!" she massaged her temples and tried to remember where she'd been heading to.
"But what about the Doctor?"
Martha took a sharp breath and raised her head to face Jack who jumped at the sight of her shirty glare.
She folded her arms enraged and yelled at him: "Just stop bugging me, okay?"
Then she turned on her heel and rushed off into a different direction, leaving a puzzled Jack all by himself.
Jack watched her hurrying aimless through several doors before pushing him out of her way again.
He shrugged.
At least mentally (which was quite an accomplishment; the Doctor would have been proud of him; if he'd be in the right frame for that at the moment).
Jack didn't blame Martha for being helplessly overstrained and restless; in fact he didn't even mind her shouting at him.
He knew that Martha hadn't left the Doctor's side since the... well, "accident" would work quite well for Jack.
Martha had stayed by the struggling Doctor; though thereby she'd missed the end of her shift and had worked incessantly through her sleeping hours until her next shift had begun.
But Martha hadn't cared about that, neither had she cared about sleeping; and neither did Jack care about her being running on empty.
Jack advanced the Doctor's room slowly. He wasn't sure about the Doctor's condition and therefore he approached with mixed feelings.
The sound of Martha opening innumerable doors and rushing trough them (as part of her endless journey) disappeared slowly, swallowed up by the usual hospital sounds.
Though this kind of 'hospital' wasn't what you would have called usual (unless of course you'd regard a Draconian as a typical patient), the sounds were it nonetheless.
The beeping sounds of the ECG monitors were the same, as well as the moaning of the alien patients whose central venous catheters had been inserted by unpractised hands.
The door was slightly ajar.
Jack moved closer and gave it a gentle push; the door swung back and creaked.
The Doctor was kneeling on the floor. No, he wasn't kneeling; he was sitting in front of his bed, his head was turned towards the ruffled sheets; the Doctor sat on the floor with his legs slightly separated as he rested on his thighs, his lower legs spreading away from each other;
the scene was nothing more but a twisted image to Jack; the Doctor didn't look real;
It didn't look like his Doctor. His Doctor was taller.
But it wasn't about his body height. This Doctor was slumped.
He looked weak. He looked vulnerable.
Violative.
The word struck Jack like a lightning as the Doctor shifted a bit uneasy, too weak to press his legs together in order to get up into a kneeling position again.
The Doctor looked violative. He was violative. He was...
Jack closed the door quietly.
Apart from a grey washed t-shirt the Doctor was naked.
It made him appear even seelier.
The Doctor's blanket was down on the floor as well and the Doctor struggled to get it back into place as well as get back into bed.
Jack took a step forward and approached the Doctor cautiously.
"Stop."
Jack froze instantly at the cold demand. The silent room grew quieter as the Doctor waited for any kind of reaction.
He was waiting; at least it was what Jack suspected.
He breathed in deeply and stared at the strange figure of the Doctor in front of him.
Somehow he reminded him of someone else.
The Doctor was the 'Resigned Sorrow's personification.
And he was frighteningly good.
He was cold. But he had given in.
He spoke clearly but aware that he wasn't in charge.
The cold demand had been a helpless plea.
"Don't come near me," whispered the Doctor and pulled on the blanket he'd put back onto the mattress again. It slid down onto his knees.
He pushed it aside wearily.
"You enjoy it, don't you?" asked the Doctor and was obviously suppressing the tears that had formed in his eyes, "You like to see me like this; helpless and weak, right in front of you, yours to take."
Jack gasped in astonishment and clenched his fists without even noticing it. He wondered what the Doctor was talking about.
Or, rather, whom he was addressing.
"I know that you're there," the Doctor went on in a tired voice, "And you can stay silent if you want to. I sense you nonetheless. I can feel you right behind me. I can smell you..."
The Doctor took a sharp breath as his upper part of the body collapsed onto the mattress; helplessly he tried moving towards the bed with his widespread legs.
"You enjoy the smell of me too, don't you?" the Doctor went on and lifted his head on the sheet only to turn it aside, making it easier for Jack to understand him.
"You enjoy me. You enjoy me as your prey."
Jack held his breath and approached the Doctor in silence. The Doctor winced at the footsteps right behind him.
As if Jack had touched a wall; as if he had hit a barrier and was breaking right through it.
"Why?"
The Doctor continued in a lower voice after another question that had struck Jack like a thunderbolt.
"Why are you doing this to me? Why do you savour the look of me, the look of my harassed body? Why do you enjoy it? Do you enjoy humiliating me?"
Jack was quite sure that the Doctor had mistaken him for someone else. Or at least he hoped so.
No, the Doctor would never talk to him like that. Not his Doctor. He was addressing someone else, someone who'd hurt him. Someone the Doctor had refused to talk about for quite too long.
And though Jack had an inner feeling that he should clear up the Doctor's fallacy he didn't.
He wanted to know.
Strange feelings arose in him as he heard the Doctor talking like that.
He didn't like what the Doctor said; it made it hard for him to control his anger.
But he liked the Doctor finally talking to him; finally speaking out on it.
"I can't even protect myself from you," the Doctor went on weakly and there was a hint of a distressing chuckle after the words he spoke, "And you rather like that, don't you? You like it when I'm defenceless, when I can't put up a fight against you... you like my fragile body; laying your hands on my delicate and fragile body."
The Doctor sobbed; but as he breathed out he chuckled again. The Doctor had to be smiling, Jack could hear him smiling as he spoke. And he was really content with not seeing the Doctor's face right now. It would have been a sight too terrifying for Jack.
A hollow face, a distorted mirror of the Doctor's face, smiling and crying at the same time, glowing with unlimited fear as hopeless senselessness joined in.
The Doctor must have lost his hope.
Or his mind.
Or both.
"It's so strange..." whispered the Doctor before he turned his head a bit; Jack gasped at the mere thought of the Doctor discovering him standing right behind him. But the Doctor stopped in midmotion, as if he had changed his mind. He winced as a tremor spread through his body.
"Usually you don't wait that long. But you're enjoying my growing fear, aren't you? You wait for me to panic, wait for me to make a helpless attempt to escape you when I know that you can't be escaped. You'll always find me.
No door is locked for you. No spot is hidden. You'll even find me in my Tardis.
Are you craving for me? You're craving for me; I can sense your controlled desperation. And I'm left with nothing by anxiety..."
The Doctor twitched and breathed in deeply; a suppressed groan left his dry lips shortly afterwards.
There was the sound of water trickling and the Doctor hissed in pain.
Jack held his breath as the Doctor moaned.
The Doctor's fingers buried themselves in the sheets as the Doctor leaned further forward, resting his upper part of the body again on the mattress.
The splashing noise grew louder. Or at least it became more apparent to Jack.
"Do you enjoy watching me pee?"
The Doctor's voice had regained its strange fearsome madness while his words were as sharp as a razor blade. And they stung.
Footsteps approached the Doctor for the last time before two hands were carefully lowered onto his shoulders.
The Doctor lifted his head as the inevitable defilement of his own body had stopped. His gaze reached for the fingers placed on his shoulders.
"I'm so sorry."
Jack's tear choked voice behind him made the Doctor shudder; he froze in the same way Jack had frozen at his helpless demands.
Jack's knees touched the Doctor's back as he knelt down behind him, as he wrapped his arms around his beloved Doctor and pressed the Doctor's fragile upper part of the body against his own.
The Doctor flinched at Jack's grip tightened around his ribcage. He couldn't hold back his tears any longer.
"I'm sorry," whispered Jack again and ruffled the Doctor's hair as he tried comforting the Doctor, "I'm so sorry..."
The Doctor started crying and buried his face in Jack's shoulder, turning around only slightly while pressing his back against Jack's stomach. He warmed his cold body on Jack's.
Jack caressed the Doctor's chest cautiously and stroked his cheeks, wiping away hot streams of tears.
Jack lowered his head a bit and kissed the sobbing Doctor's neck.
"Let me help you."
Martha had stepped into the scene after Jack had already cleaned the Doctor and tucked him into bed. The Doctor had fallen asleep after he'd stopped crying, but the tears wouldn't stop running down his cheeks, not even while he was unconscious.
Jack kicked the towels on the floor aside. The blood smeared stains had nearly disappeared.
Martha peered hard at Jack and her quiet patient.
"He's asleep," mumbled Jack and stepped aside from the Doctor, in case he was in Martha's visual field. Martha nodded and came closer.
"That's never a good sign."
She touched the Doctor's fore head and stroked his moist cheeks.
Martha had learned from her mistakes; therefore she wasn't going to ask Jack "What happened?" because she secretly knew that she didn't want to know. Jack's glare and the suspicious blots on the floor had been more than a hint.
"What are we going to do?" asked Martha and stared at Jack.
Jack had folded his arms and approached the sleeping Doctor, facing Martha motionless.
But Martha could tell that he'd cried.
"He wants to be back in his Tardis," stated Jack quietly, "And who am I to turn down his request?"
"He can return as soon as he gets better," replied Martha and turned back the sheets. She took a close look at the rash on the Doctor's chest before moving to the bed side table and rubbing an ointment of dubious origin on it.
"It's the gloves," Martha sighed, "If I hadn't been wearing gloves I would have noticed it earlier. Then his skin would have started itching as soon as I had felt his pulse."
"I think the Doctor knows what's best for him," Jack picked up the previous topic again. Martha didn't take her eyes off the Doctor and fumbled around with his blanket.
"I don't think so," was all she replied after a while.
"He talked to you," stated Jack, "The Doctor trusts you. And he talked to you about something that I shouldn't know."
Martha smiled: "There's no sense in denying that, is there?"
Martha took a quick glance at Jack who stood beside her with arms akimbo and an earnest face.
"I don't care if he trusts you more than me," said Jack and Martha knew by the look at his eyes that he lied, "But I don't believe that he should stay here. He's uncomfortable with being treated as a patient."
"He isn't treated as a patient he is a patient, Jack," replied Martha.
"Well, he shouldn't be your patient," snapped Jack. Martha narrowed her eyes at him.
"Neither should he be anyone's patient," Jack went on, "The Doctor knows what's best for him. And I won't be standing in his way."
"We'll keep him here and that's that!" snarled Martha and cleared her throat before continuing less agitated, "Until he gets better."
Jack shook his head and glared at Martha. "The Doctor can take care of himself."
"If he could then he never would have asked you for help," replied Martha in a huff.
"And I'm telling you, that Time Lord is staying. We can't let him leave. He's injured, he's hurt he is..."
Martha broke off in midsentence and sighed.
"I know that," replied Jack.
No you don't, Martha hissed through gritted teeth, you have no idea how hurt he is and why his body won't be getting better but worse for quite some time now!
"It's none of your business, Martha," decided Jack eventually, "It's my decision when he's allowed to leave this place, and I think that it is the right time for him to leave as soon as he wakes up again."
"But you can't do that!" snapped Martha "You can't let him leave when he wants to. He needs medical assistance. He needs help!"
"And I'm going to help him!" bellowed Jack.
Martha stared in shocked silence at Jack before she cocked an eyebrow at him. Jack had never yelled at her before. She didn't mind him screaming; but she did mind having a love-crazed Jack who was in charge. And she didn't want him to take the Doctor's fate into his own hands.
For both the Doctor's and his sake.
"You're doing the wrong thing," replied Martha.
"I don't care what you say," snapped Jack, "If the Doctor needs you he will ask for your help. Or he'll ask me to ask you for help. But I won't let him stay here so that you can examine him as per your convenience... that you can lock him up... that you can keep him..."
Jack hadn't quite digested Martha's unfortunate choice of words.
And Martha would leave nothing undone to reprove Jack.
"I didn't mean that we should lock him up like an animal by saying that we should 'keep him' here," Martha defended herself, "It implied that we should keep him as a patient."
"Thank you for your medical opinion on this patient, Miss Jones," replied Jack, "But I'm afraid I have to inform you that he is not longer your patient."
Martha folded her arms and faced Jack's cold stare.
"Fine," she concluded eventually, "I know that the Doctor will ask me for help if he needs me. And I know that you're doing the wrong thing. But nobody listens to me."
"Thank you Miss Jones," repeated Jack and watch Martha leaving the room.
"You'll regret it," hissed Martha before slamming the door.
The Doctor opened his eyes in an instant.