Chapter 9
Broken
I don't want to go.
You have to. You can't stay here.
No.
Ash please. If you stay here much longer you'll just fade away.
—
The light is too bright. I try to roll over but my arm is stuck to something.
"Easy Ash. Easy. You've got an IV. Let me dim the lights."
—
I'm stuck. I try to kick my legs but something's holding me down.
"Relax. It's just the sheets." and I'm free again.
—
Things are clanging together.
My eyes don't want to open.
There's a blurry figure, by a counter. He's not facing me. Why am I so thirsty?
"Hey. You're awake." He whispers, walking over.
"I…"
"It's okay. Take your time."
"Doctor."
"Let me help you sit up."
I just look at him. He adjusts the bed and hands me a glass of water, but has to help me drink.
"Ash, I'm going to go to the kitchen to get you something to eat. I'll be right back." he says as he walks towards the door.
The Doctor positions a table over the bed and puts a plate with two pancakes in front of me, but… I look up at the Doctor briefly. Am I supposed to do something? He starts cutting the pancakes into bite sized pieces, then hands me a fork with a bit of pancake. "Eat."
Oh. Chewing.
"Brilliant. Have another bite for me." He says, looking oddly ecstatic.
Huh, the plate and table are gone.
The Doctor scootches me over a bit and joins me on the bed with a book.
"It's going to be okay Ash. Everything is going to be okay." he says as he leans me back against his shoulder and starts reading The Hobbit.
—
"Hello. How are you feeling this morning?" the Doctor asks. How did he even know I was awake?
I grunt.
"That good eh?"
I open my eyes and look over at him, "What happened? We were in the observatory-"
He interrupts, "Not much. Stopped the wolf, saved the Queen, got knighted and exiled, caught a ride back to the Tardis and voila!"
"Knighted AND exiled?"
"Queen Victoria doesn't approve of my consorting with stars and magic." He says with a big grin. I think he's enjoying having disturbed her.
"How long have I been out?"
"Six days, 11 hours and 17 minutes. Wellll, I kept you in something like a medically induced coma for 82 hours, and you've been in and out of consciousness since then. We've had this conversation three times already."
"Oh."
—
Standing in the shower, clean but not yet ready to come out, I remember. I turn the temperature up to scalding hot, trying to wash away the images of people being torn apart and burn off the foulness from the wolf, but it won't go away. It's in my head and won't go away. They're screaming. Why won't they stop screaming? I sit down and just let the water wash over me. Think about something else. Anything else. But I can't.
The water turns off and I'm being pulled up and wrapped in a warm towel. I put on clothes as they're handed to me. I feel so… disconnected.
—
I'm sitting in my room working on a puzzle with the Doctor. He's telling me about another adventure he had with Rose. People were being sucked into TV's in the 50's and left without faces. Weird.
"Why are you sitting here making a puzzle with me? You never to do this kind of stuff." I say.
"Wellll, when I leave you alone you tend to just sit and stare at a wall."
"Oh, sorry."
"It's not your fault Ash, you're recovering."
"How long has it been since…"
"A little over three weeks."
"It feels like a day or two. Why don't I remember?" I say giving up on trying to fit anymore pieces.
"You've been dissociating."
"Oh."
—
"Ash, can you squeeze my hand for me?" the Doctor asks.
It takes me a minute but I do.
"Good. Tell me something you can see."
I don't know. There's nothing. No words.
"It's okay. Take your time. Look at the dresser. What can you see on top of it?"
—
I've been painting lately. Not any actual things, just colors mostly. Reds and Blacks. Swirls.
"Want to tell me about it?" The Doctor asks, sneaking up behind me.
I drop my brush into some water, "No."
The Doctor sighs briefly. Probably getting tired of my moodiness. Everything's just… ugh. I just want to be left alone.
—
"Wait here." The Doctor says after sitting me down on the captain's chair in the console room. He dragged me here against my will. Typical. I don't like being in here. It's too close to the door and I've been refusing to leave. I don't care how safe he says it is on Netosis, or Barcelona, or Ahkaten; I'm staying in the Tardis.
"Why?"
"There's someone I'd like you to meet. An old friend of mine." the Doctor says before leaving the Tardis
I look over at Rose and Mickey, but the Doctor returns with a middle aged woman in tow before I can ask what's going on. Never seen the console room so full.
"You've redecorated." She says, looking around in wonder. Must be an old companion.
"Do you like it?" the Doctor asks.
"Oh, I, I do. Yeah. I preferred it as it was, but er, yeah. It'll do." She answers.
"I love it." Rose butts in and says.
Sarah Jane turns to her and asks, "Hey, you what's forty seven times three hundred and sixty nine?"
Odd.
"No idea. It's gone now. The oil's faded." Rose answers.
Before I can ask what's been going on, Sarah Jane glances from me to the Doctor with a questioning look.
"Ash, Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane, Ash." the Doctor introduces us.
"It's lovely to meet you Ash. Have you been with the Doctor long?" Sarah Jane asks, walking around the console towards me.
I shrug.
"We picked her up in Cardiff, six months ago? Is that right Doctor?" Rose says.
"Hmmm, something like that. We're about to head off, but you could come with us." the Doctor says looking pointedly at Sarah Jane.
"No. I can't do this anymore. Besides, I've got a much bigger adventure ahead. Time I stopped waiting for you and found a life of my own."
"Can I come? No, not with you, I mean with you. Because I'm not the tin dog, and I want to see what's out there." Mickey says, struggling to indicate he wants to travel with the Doctor.
"Oh, go on, Doctor. Sarah Jane Smith, a Mickey Smith. You need a Smith on board." Sarah Jane says, encouraging the Doctor.
"Okay then, I could do with a laugh." the Doctor says, ignoring Rose's obvious irritation with the idea.
We all head to the kitchen for some tea and I get regaled with a story about bat people trying to crack some code using the kids at a school. It's a little hard to follow with everyone interrupting each other but I'm glad I missed out on that adventure. Bat people!
Eventually the story winds down and Sarah Jane leaves.
—
"What's really bothering you Ash?" the Doctor asks, looking all concerned.
We're hanging out in the console room and he's telling about the last adventure with Rose and Mickey. Something about a girl drawing people and making them disappear. I'm not really paying attention.
I still can't stop thinking about everything that happened. And now I can't stop wondering why he couldn't have just stopped the wolf earlier. It's not like he doesn't have the technology to have destroyed it. A little blaster in those infinite pockets his would have sorted it all out without anyone having to die, without me having to…
I guess he's noticed my mood. But I don't want to talk about it.
"Just leave me alone."
He grabs my arm as I go to leave, "Talk to me Ash."
"They died because of you!" I explode, unable to hold it back.
"What? Who?"
"All those people. They died and you could have stopped it."
"They died because the wolf killed them." He says, all condescending, like I'm stupid.
"You could have stopped it. If you carried a blaster or something, you could have just killed the wolf."
"That's not the way I work."
"No, you prefer to let people get torn to shreds, and make others watch!" I yell before running off. Why did they have to die? He should have saved them. It's not fair!
—
"Forgetting is never the answer." The Doctor says with a gentle smile, quietly sitting across from me. He's managed to find me hiding in my closet.
"Reading my mind? You really don't want to be in my head right now."
"Don't need to. It's written all over your face."
"Why couldn't you just have stopped the wolf in the cellar? I don't understand."
"Imagine the universe being one huge living thing full of positive and negative feedback loops working to maintain a level of equilibrium. It would fight back against anything that disrupts that equilibrium. Most things that happen, they don't really have much of an effect, but some things, some things can change everything. In a way, that's what Time Lords did, maintain a certain equilibrium. We feel the way things are supposed to be, and when things have gone wrong. Fixed points being one extreme example."
"That sounds like destiny."
"No. No. It's more like your body running a fever to kill an infection."
"How does that have anything to do with not killing the werewolf right away, or not carrying a weapon?"
"Your body doesn't immediately ratchet up a fever, it slowly builds, trying to find the lowest temperature that's effective. Too hot and the fever could kill you."
"So."
"So, it's better, safer, to do the minimum needed, fewer unintended consequences."
"You could still carry a weapon."
"No. When you have a hammer in your hand, everything starts to look like a nail."
"What?"
"Carrying a weapon makes it too easy to see violence as the best solution. I won't do that."
"All those people who died horribly, what, they just don't matter?"
"Of course they do! But terrible things happen. I can't always stop that." He pauses. I don't want it to be true. He's supposed to save people…
"Why not? You're the Doctor, you save people. It's what you do. Why didn't you save them?"
"Ash, I did everything I could. But I can't just walk in and kill anyone who plans on doing something I disagree with. What would that make me? I won't choose violence first. I can't."
"No. You make me choose violence instead!"
I can't do this anymore. I jump up to leave but he grabs my hand.
"No I didn't! I had no idea you would try that. It was stupid and dangerous and almost killed you!"
I try to get away, but he's holding too tightly. He doesn't understand, "I had to! He would have KILLED you and Rose and taken the Queen. The world was going to burn! But… but I got stuck. I couldn't tell us apart…"
He lets go, so I start running. I hear him say, "What?" And I run. I run until I collapse, leaning against a wall, sucking in air. Why can't I get this out of my head?
—
"Running away isn't going to solve anything." Stupid snitch of a Tardis led him right to me. I can feel that she's worried, but I don't care. You hear that, I don't care. I slam my head against the wall. I don't care! SLAM!
"ASH! Stop." He says, bending down and reaching for my shoulder. But I don't want his comfort. It's all his fault. His fault, so I take a swing at him. I can hear him grunt as I land the odd punch or kick, but I'm losing this battle. Pretty quickly he's got me restrained, sitting on the floor and holding me firmly against him.
"Make it stop! Make it go away!" I cry. I can't stand feeling like this. He could take these feelings away, blur them like he has before.
"I can't Ash. I'm sorry but I can't. You need to feel this, to get through it, or it'll never go away."
"I hate you!" He's holding me too tightly. No matter how hard I struggle, I can barely move.
"I know. It'll pass. Try to breathe with me." he says and starts taking slow deep breaths. "In…. Out… In… Out…"
It's not going to work. Nothing will. But I humour him, and try to breathe with him. Until something breaks and I'm crying so hard it hurts.
—
It feels like it's been hours. My whole body hurts. At some point the Doctor must have carried me to my room. He's sitting next to my bed reading something. I guess he notices I'm feeling a little more coherent because he turns to look at me..
"Can you tell me what you meant when you said you became the wolf?"
I don't want to remember. I don't. I can't.
"You don't have to relive it, think of it like a movie. You're just describing a movie you've seen, that's all." He says, rubbing a finger over my forehead. He's doing something. Helping me distance myself.
"I was scared Sir Robert couldn't hold the door for very long and I started wondering what would happen if the wolf got in too soon." I pause. I really don't want to remember this. But I take a deep breath and continue. Maybe saying it will actually help.
"Then it happened. The wolf came in and the telescope wasn't in position and…It killed you. I watched it rip you and then Rose to pieces and bite the queen and then it all went black. I thought we'd failed. I thought you were dead." I blurt out while staring intently at the wall.
"That's why you tried to slow the wolf down?"
I nod. "I came to lying on the floor and it hadn't happened yet, but I knew it would. So I tried to… but it was… it was so horrible. I couldn't tell us apart. I felt the light burning the wolf. I felt the boy die. And I can't get it out of my head."
Sometime later we head to the kitchen and eat something, then he's tucking me into bed. "I'll be right here. Try to get some rest."