Finding A Way Home - Sacrifices Part III
Title: Finding A Way Home - Sacrifices 3/3
Author: katherine_b
Rating: G
Summary: The half-human Doctor has made the ultimate sacrifice.
Part III
No matter how good the TARDIS is at mending wounds, something that came so close to killing him should certainly not have been completely fixed in only - what’s he been unconscious for? Eight days?
“Oh, he’s noticed,” the Doctor says suddenly, and he looks up, startled, to find that the other man is watching him, his dark eyes dancing.
“Noticed what?” Donna demands in worried tones.
Anxiety sweeps through the man in bed, and he hears as his heartbeat thunders in his ears. The speed of it, however, concerns him. It sounds so fast, so much quicker than before, and irregular, too.
In fact, it’s more like a Time Lord with two hearts.
Two…
He presses his hand flat against the right side of his chest and feels the slightly weaker and somewhat irregular beat of a second heart where there wasn’t one before. As he concentrates, he feels it beginning to throb harder, until it’s beating in sync with his left-hand heart.
“He has two hearts,” the other Doctor announces, as if in confirmation.
“He can’t have two hearts,” Donna argues. “He’s never had two hearts. It was one of the things he whined about almost as soon as he’d got the TARDIS safe.”
“I didn’t whine!” he tells her indignantly.
“Noo,” she retorts in sarcastic tones. “You certainly wouldn’t have said anything like ‘Oh, that’s disgusting!’ would you?”
“Okay, so I might have been a bit surprised,” he does his best to justify the words he can now remember saying, “but really, considering what had just happened - ”
“What, like suddenly existing?” the other Doctor says with a grin. “Yeah, that might have done it. Still, at least you don’t have that problem now.”
“I suppose not,” he agrees hesitantly, still trying to get used to the sensation of the heart pulsing beneath the ribs on his right side.
Perhaps Donna picks up on his feelings, or else she hasn’t been convinced by what’s been said, because she reaches forward and places her hand beside his. After a moment, she looks up at him.
“How?” she demands, and the Doctor in bed shrugs.
“I’ve been out of it for days,” he points out. “How would I know? All I do know is that I don’t remember regenerating.” He looks at the other Doctor. “Tell me what happened.”
“I felt when the bullet hit you,” the man in brown admits. “That echo, the same thing you feel when one of us is hurt. I started running back to where I thought you were, and then Donna found me and brought me to you.”
“Lying on the ground,” Donna adds, tears glistening in her eyes as her voice shakes, entwining her fingers with his as if desperate for the comfort of his touch to reassure herself that that moment is past, “your clothes soaked with blood.”
“It wasn’t right though,” the original Doctor goes on, his hands closing around Donna’s shoulders in a comforting hold. “Right away, I knew something was wrong. There was something not normal about the way you looked, but it took me a good few seconds to realize that there was no blood on the ground. You should have been lying in a pool of it - and you weren’t.”
“Oh, that’s what it was!” Donna’s eyes are wide. “When you said ‘it’s wrong’, I thought you were talking about the fact that he was like - that - at all.”
“No.” The man in brown shakes his head. “Well, I mean, yes, he shouldn’t have been. But at that moment, no, I just meant there was something not right about the whole situation. And if it had been anyone else,” he meets the other Doctor’s gaze, “if I’d been less emotionally caught up in it all, it wouldn’t have even taken me that long to realize what it was.”
“But,” the other Doctor begins hesitantly, “you’re suggesting I was in a healing coma. I can’t be though. I can’t do that. Too human.”
“Well, you can now,” the original Doctor declares almost triumphantly. “And knowing it shouldn’t have been possible, I had the TARDIS check you once we got you back there.” He arches an eyebrow in obvious expectation. “High levels of huon energy.”
“I did regenerate,” the man in bed says softly, almost unable to believe it, his mind racing with possibilities. “But how…?”
“He told Rose he couldn’t regenerate,” Donna interrupts. “And besides,” she hurries on before either of the men can say anything, “I thought regeneration meant you changed your face and your body and everything. He still looks exactly the same!”
The man in bed is deeply relieved to hear that, but the other Doctor speaks before he can say anything.
“It does.” The original Doctor nods. “It will, if - or when - either of us go through it. But not for him.”
“What, something to do with the magic hand, I suppose?” she retorts sarcastically, but he nods, and she continues in rather awe-struck tones. “The one that saved you after you got shot by the Dalek, and then he grew out of it?”
“That was part of it,” he agrees, ruffling his hair. “But it’s more than that, and that’s what bothers me. I know what happened. I just don’t know why it happened. There’s just no way that someone with one heart who’s at least half-human should be able to go through that. Not a healing coma - and definitely not regeneration! It shouldn’t be physically possible.”
“And yet it’s happened,” Donna puts in, placing her hand over that over the man in bed and squeezing his fingers. “If it hadn’t, he’d be dead, wouldn’t he?”
The man in the brown suit nods somewhat distractedly and gets up, starting to pace the floor, still sliding his fingers through his hair.
“The only way it could have happened,” he says as he walks, thinking aloud, as is his wont, “is if he’d been…” He trails off, before suddenly turning to look at the other man. “When have you been exposed to high levels of huon energy?”
“Hold on, you told me huon energy is dangerous,” Donna interrupts. “Deadly, in fact. So why would you want him to have been exposed to it?”
“It is deadly,” the Doctor agrees. “But it’s also a vital element for regeneration to occur.” He frowns, leaning against the wall to stare at the others. “The last time I absorbed a great whack of it, I regenerated into this form, after taking it out of Rose.”
“What about the wedding?” Donna offers. “Our wedding, I mean, not the one you stole me from. Wasn’t it huon energy that was part of the binding ceremony?”
“Yes!” her husband says eagerly, but the man in bed shakes his head.
“If that was the only time it happened,” he points out, “I would have changed then and there, like Donna did. But I didn’t,” he goes on, perhaps somewhat needlessly. “So there must have been another time.”
There’s a long moment of silence, during which it’s clear all three of them are thinking back over their time together.
“Maybe it’s a stupid suggestion,” Donna offers, “but what about when he first came to life?”
“It’s not stupid!” both Doctor say at the same moment, glaring at her, before they realize that the other is doing the same thing and exchange grins.
“It’s also not the answer,” the original Doctor says gently. “Huon energy is shed during regeneration, not absorbed. The TARDIS generally takes in whatever’s left over and uses it to recharge her batteries.”
“And besides,” the other Doctor adds, “if it was then, the situation would be the same as at the wedding: it would have happened at once. No, there must have been another time, to add to the boost I got during the binding ceremony, and then, over time, my body’s been adjusting to the change and waiting for some final signal to prompt it into action.”
“Like being shot,” the Time Lord says helpfully, although he at least has the grace to look a bit ashamed when Donna glares at him.
“What about,” the woman begins hesitantly, and it’s obvious that she’s ready to be contradicted, although the man in bed can’t help thinking that she might also not be particularly comfortable about the topic she’s bring up, “when he nearly died to save me and give back my memories?”
The men exchange glances again, but this time it’s in agreement rather than shared amusement.
“That’s it!” the original Doctor declares, beaming at his wife. “I don’t know how many times I’ve said this, but you really are brilliant, Donna Noble!”
She waves an irritated hand at him. “I still don’t understand how he can look the same,” she complains. “Explain that!”
“We-ell,” the Time Lord rubs his eye, “I can’t be sure. I think it had to do with how he came into being though.”
“The meta-crisis,” Donna offers, and he nods.
“It’s…” He trails off. “It’s hard to explain,” he finishes feebly.
“If I was trying to describe it,” the victim of this apparently complicated process offers, “I’d think of it something like a short-circuit.” He looks at Donna. “During normal regeneration, everything changes, and you can function for a while after that before you’ll need to stop and recover. If what just to me happened was any guide, it seems like I get partway through the process, but then everything shuts down, putting me in the coma. While I’m in that state, my current body repairs itself.”
“So you’ll never be any different?” Donna asks.
“He’s like an infinite loop,” the other Doctor tells her. “No matter how often he regenerates, he’ll always look the same.”
“Well, why would I want to change my appearance?” the man in bed says with a grin, fiddling with his hair. “I mean, look at me!”
“I should hate you,” the Time Lord grumbles. “You’ll never change. You’ll never die. You’re no older than when you came into being, so you could, in theory, go on doing that forever.”
“Sucks to be you then, doesn’t it?” he retorts with a grin as he nudges Donna with his foot and, when she stands up, throws back the blanket and swings his legs over the side of the bed. “And now frankly, I’ve been stuck here for long enough. How about you two clear off and start celebrating your impending parenthood while I have a shower and get dressed?”
The change of subject works as well as he’d hoped it would, as the Doctor and Donna exchange looks that he can only describe as soppy.
“All right,” the other man agrees. “You could probably do with something to eat, too. We’ll be in the kitchen when you’re ready.”
“And if you take too long,” Donna adds, placing her hands on his and giving his fingers a gentle squeeze, “I’ll come looking for you. Got it?”
“Got it,” he agrees, watching as they walk out of the room arm-in-arm before he gets up and heads for his own room, a hot shower, his usual blue suit, and his future.
Surprise!
Author: katherine_b
Rating: G
Summary: The half-human Doctor has made the ultimate sacrifice.
Part III
No matter how good the TARDIS is at mending wounds, something that came so close to killing him should certainly not have been completely fixed in only - what’s he been unconscious for? Eight days?
“Oh, he’s noticed,” the Doctor says suddenly, and he looks up, startled, to find that the other man is watching him, his dark eyes dancing.
“Noticed what?” Donna demands in worried tones.
Anxiety sweeps through the man in bed, and he hears as his heartbeat thunders in his ears. The speed of it, however, concerns him. It sounds so fast, so much quicker than before, and irregular, too.
In fact, it’s more like a Time Lord with two hearts.
Two…
He presses his hand flat against the right side of his chest and feels the slightly weaker and somewhat irregular beat of a second heart where there wasn’t one before. As he concentrates, he feels it beginning to throb harder, until it’s beating in sync with his left-hand heart.
“He has two hearts,” the other Doctor announces, as if in confirmation.
“He can’t have two hearts,” Donna argues. “He’s never had two hearts. It was one of the things he whined about almost as soon as he’d got the TARDIS safe.”
“I didn’t whine!” he tells her indignantly.
“Noo,” she retorts in sarcastic tones. “You certainly wouldn’t have said anything like ‘Oh, that’s disgusting!’ would you?”
“Okay, so I might have been a bit surprised,” he does his best to justify the words he can now remember saying, “but really, considering what had just happened - ”
“What, like suddenly existing?” the other Doctor says with a grin. “Yeah, that might have done it. Still, at least you don’t have that problem now.”
“I suppose not,” he agrees hesitantly, still trying to get used to the sensation of the heart pulsing beneath the ribs on his right side.
Perhaps Donna picks up on his feelings, or else she hasn’t been convinced by what’s been said, because she reaches forward and places her hand beside his. After a moment, she looks up at him.
“How?” she demands, and the Doctor in bed shrugs.
“I’ve been out of it for days,” he points out. “How would I know? All I do know is that I don’t remember regenerating.” He looks at the other Doctor. “Tell me what happened.”
“I felt when the bullet hit you,” the man in brown admits. “That echo, the same thing you feel when one of us is hurt. I started running back to where I thought you were, and then Donna found me and brought me to you.”
“Lying on the ground,” Donna adds, tears glistening in her eyes as her voice shakes, entwining her fingers with his as if desperate for the comfort of his touch to reassure herself that that moment is past, “your clothes soaked with blood.”
“It wasn’t right though,” the original Doctor goes on, his hands closing around Donna’s shoulders in a comforting hold. “Right away, I knew something was wrong. There was something not normal about the way you looked, but it took me a good few seconds to realize that there was no blood on the ground. You should have been lying in a pool of it - and you weren’t.”
“Oh, that’s what it was!” Donna’s eyes are wide. “When you said ‘it’s wrong’, I thought you were talking about the fact that he was like - that - at all.”
“No.” The man in brown shakes his head. “Well, I mean, yes, he shouldn’t have been. But at that moment, no, I just meant there was something not right about the whole situation. And if it had been anyone else,” he meets the other Doctor’s gaze, “if I’d been less emotionally caught up in it all, it wouldn’t have even taken me that long to realize what it was.”
“But,” the other Doctor begins hesitantly, “you’re suggesting I was in a healing coma. I can’t be though. I can’t do that. Too human.”
“Well, you can now,” the original Doctor declares almost triumphantly. “And knowing it shouldn’t have been possible, I had the TARDIS check you once we got you back there.” He arches an eyebrow in obvious expectation. “High levels of huon energy.”
“I did regenerate,” the man in bed says softly, almost unable to believe it, his mind racing with possibilities. “But how…?”
“He told Rose he couldn’t regenerate,” Donna interrupts. “And besides,” she hurries on before either of the men can say anything, “I thought regeneration meant you changed your face and your body and everything. He still looks exactly the same!”
The man in bed is deeply relieved to hear that, but the other Doctor speaks before he can say anything.
“It does.” The original Doctor nods. “It will, if - or when - either of us go through it. But not for him.”
“What, something to do with the magic hand, I suppose?” she retorts sarcastically, but he nods, and she continues in rather awe-struck tones. “The one that saved you after you got shot by the Dalek, and then he grew out of it?”
“That was part of it,” he agrees, ruffling his hair. “But it’s more than that, and that’s what bothers me. I know what happened. I just don’t know why it happened. There’s just no way that someone with one heart who’s at least half-human should be able to go through that. Not a healing coma - and definitely not regeneration! It shouldn’t be physically possible.”
“And yet it’s happened,” Donna puts in, placing her hand over that over the man in bed and squeezing his fingers. “If it hadn’t, he’d be dead, wouldn’t he?”
The man in the brown suit nods somewhat distractedly and gets up, starting to pace the floor, still sliding his fingers through his hair.
“The only way it could have happened,” he says as he walks, thinking aloud, as is his wont, “is if he’d been…” He trails off, before suddenly turning to look at the other man. “When have you been exposed to high levels of huon energy?”
“Hold on, you told me huon energy is dangerous,” Donna interrupts. “Deadly, in fact. So why would you want him to have been exposed to it?”
“It is deadly,” the Doctor agrees. “But it’s also a vital element for regeneration to occur.” He frowns, leaning against the wall to stare at the others. “The last time I absorbed a great whack of it, I regenerated into this form, after taking it out of Rose.”
“What about the wedding?” Donna offers. “Our wedding, I mean, not the one you stole me from. Wasn’t it huon energy that was part of the binding ceremony?”
“Yes!” her husband says eagerly, but the man in bed shakes his head.
“If that was the only time it happened,” he points out, “I would have changed then and there, like Donna did. But I didn’t,” he goes on, perhaps somewhat needlessly. “So there must have been another time.”
There’s a long moment of silence, during which it’s clear all three of them are thinking back over their time together.
“Maybe it’s a stupid suggestion,” Donna offers, “but what about when he first came to life?”
“It’s not stupid!” both Doctor say at the same moment, glaring at her, before they realize that the other is doing the same thing and exchange grins.
“It’s also not the answer,” the original Doctor says gently. “Huon energy is shed during regeneration, not absorbed. The TARDIS generally takes in whatever’s left over and uses it to recharge her batteries.”
“And besides,” the other Doctor adds, “if it was then, the situation would be the same as at the wedding: it would have happened at once. No, there must have been another time, to add to the boost I got during the binding ceremony, and then, over time, my body’s been adjusting to the change and waiting for some final signal to prompt it into action.”
“Like being shot,” the Time Lord says helpfully, although he at least has the grace to look a bit ashamed when Donna glares at him.
“What about,” the woman begins hesitantly, and it’s obvious that she’s ready to be contradicted, although the man in bed can’t help thinking that she might also not be particularly comfortable about the topic she’s bring up, “when he nearly died to save me and give back my memories?”
The men exchange glances again, but this time it’s in agreement rather than shared amusement.
“That’s it!” the original Doctor declares, beaming at his wife. “I don’t know how many times I’ve said this, but you really are brilliant, Donna Noble!”
She waves an irritated hand at him. “I still don’t understand how he can look the same,” she complains. “Explain that!”
“We-ell,” the Time Lord rubs his eye, “I can’t be sure. I think it had to do with how he came into being though.”
“The meta-crisis,” Donna offers, and he nods.
“It’s…” He trails off. “It’s hard to explain,” he finishes feebly.
“If I was trying to describe it,” the victim of this apparently complicated process offers, “I’d think of it something like a short-circuit.” He looks at Donna. “During normal regeneration, everything changes, and you can function for a while after that before you’ll need to stop and recover. If what just to me happened was any guide, it seems like I get partway through the process, but then everything shuts down, putting me in the coma. While I’m in that state, my current body repairs itself.”
“So you’ll never be any different?” Donna asks.
“He’s like an infinite loop,” the other Doctor tells her. “No matter how often he regenerates, he’ll always look the same.”
“Well, why would I want to change my appearance?” the man in bed says with a grin, fiddling with his hair. “I mean, look at me!”
“I should hate you,” the Time Lord grumbles. “You’ll never change. You’ll never die. You’re no older than when you came into being, so you could, in theory, go on doing that forever.”
“Sucks to be you then, doesn’t it?” he retorts with a grin as he nudges Donna with his foot and, when she stands up, throws back the blanket and swings his legs over the side of the bed. “And now frankly, I’ve been stuck here for long enough. How about you two clear off and start celebrating your impending parenthood while I have a shower and get dressed?”
The change of subject works as well as he’d hoped it would, as the Doctor and Donna exchange looks that he can only describe as soppy.
“All right,” the other man agrees. “You could probably do with something to eat, too. We’ll be in the kitchen when you’re ready.”
“And if you take too long,” Donna adds, placing her hands on his and giving his fingers a gentle squeeze, “I’ll come looking for you. Got it?”
“Got it,” he agrees, watching as they walk out of the room arm-in-arm before he gets up and heads for his own room, a hot shower, his usual blue suit, and his future.
Surprise!