ache
Her sheets are cool but she can’t get comfortable. She turns over on her side, the digits of her clock blurring into view (four fifty-seven, a.m.). Huffs to herself. Everything’s louder tonight, making just enough noise to grate on her nerves. The neighbor’s dog, barks muffled through the walls. The mechanical whir of electronics on standby. The water in the broken faucet (drip-drip-drip).
A wheezing sound she’d recognize anywhere. A soft groan somewhere below.
She’s down the stairs in an instant, taking them two by two by two all the way to the front hallway where she throws open the door to see him sitting on her porch. The TARDIS steams ominously, parked just down the block and slightly askew.
“Had a bad landing on Castor V,” he says, by way of explanation. “Old girl kicked me out. Repairs and such.”
She offers her hand and he takes it with a flourish, but for the first time she remembers he puts his full weight on her.
“Sorry,” he grimaces. “Could use a few repairs myself.”
His weight is more than she’s ready for, but less, perhaps, than she expects. Her stride is long and his sway very slight, and their stumble to the kitchen is not entirely graceless. He perches on a tall stool and watches her make laps around the wooden island, dropping bandages, scissors, ice. (She can feel his eyes following her, the way the stray cat she feeds never takes lifts its eyes from her shoes.)
He draws back only slightly as she slips the heavy jacket from his shoulders, then not at all as she undoes braces and bowtie. The buttons he unbuttons with clumsy fingers (and oh how like him to be confounded by the ordinary).
He’s all nervous chatter and time-traveling show-off; it’s her turn to be grounded (and she pulls the stitches tight). He pales but doesn’t flinch, frowns almost proudly at the seam. (It takes some time for him to notice that she’s stitched him up in blue.)
She makes him tea, but then it’s time for her to go and he won’t follow her to work. When she comes home, the street is empty. Her house creaks the ache that keeps her awake, listening all night long.