DramaDramaDuck (RL with the Doctor- Woman Wept- Rescue)

[sky_w_diamonds]

In a side room of an abandoned building on the edge of a city Lucy Saxon didn't know the name of, she hunched further into herself, shivering as she wrapped her ratty cloak tight around her body.  It was ragged and dirty, probably one of the nastiest things Lucy had ever worn in her life, but after a day or two on Woman Wept- if that was what this

Comments

[sky_w_diamonds]

It was so unaccustomedly warm inside the Doctor's TARDIS that Lucy actually stopped still for a moment, letting the cold slowly leech out of her. It felt incredible. Somewhat awkwardly, she tilted her head forward, baring the back of the scold's bridle to the Doctor's inquiring eyes. It was only a few moments before she heard the buzz of his sonic screwdriver, and then he was lifting the thing forward and off.

The metal plate scraped faintly against the roof of her mouth, and Lucy exhaled a soft sound of pain. It was nothing new, though; the roof of her mouth seemed to be constantly sore from the scraping and pressing of the rough-edged iron. Opening her mouth, she let go of her cloak to help pull the plate out, and then, finally, it was off.

For a moment, she just opened and closed her mouth, pressing her lips together, running her tongue over the roof of her mouth. She ran a hand through her hair, combing it down from where the bridle had rested over it, shook her head, which now felt incredibly light.

Finally, Lucy turned to the Doctor. 'Thank you,' she tried to say, but after so long not being able to talk, her voice was rough and scratched, and all that came out was a whisper that quickly descended into coughing. She grimaced, holding a hand to her throat and waiting for the coughing to subside.

'Tea?' She managed, looking inquiringly at the Doctor.

[timey_wimey]

With the thing off her head and in his hands, he wasted no time in throwing it to the floor, where it clattered against the metal grating. With that done, he looked at her anxiously as she coughed, half-hovering to lay a hand on her back, maybe, but in the end, nothing came of it.

Tea, however, was something he could certainly take care of. "Of course," he said, trying to manage a smile. "You might want to follow me to the kitchen, though. S'a bit more comfortable than in here."

[sky_w_diamonds]

Lucy gave the Doctor half a smile at his words, nodding. She didn't quite yet trust herself to speak again. Before she followed him, though, she shrugged off the dirty cloak she had been shrouded in. A necessity against the cold on Woman Wept, it was hot and, she rather suspected, starting to smell in the warmth of the TARDIS.

Underneath, if the Doctor cared to look, she looked even more wretched. Her once fine silk blouse was dirtied and wrinkled, hanging ever so slightly too loosely on her, and the skirt had a great rip up the side, almost all the way up, from where she'd torn it running from Harry. Still though, she held herself proudly as she walked after him to the kitchen.

After a moment of indecisive hovering, Lucy seated herself at the table, watching with something in between amusement and gratitude as the Doctor fussed. There were questions she might want to ask him, but still, she wasn't quite sure. It was far too complicated, really.

But it was probably best she wait for the tea anyway, so she took that excuse to be silent for the moment.

[timey_wimey]

Fussing was the word for it - the Doctor was almost dancing around the small kitchenette. He'd misplaced the tea caddy again and eventually found it hiding inside the sugar tin - how it got there, even he didn't know. Maybe Haruhi had hidden it there for a joke.

More likely, given his track record, that he had put it there himself for some unfathomable reason, but never mind, no one needed to know.

When the tea was ready, he sat down opposite Lucy and slid the hot mug across the table, placing a bowl of sugar between them.

"I wasn't sure if you took sugar, so I'll let you add your own," he commented, taking a sip of his tea. Now that he was sitting, he could actually see how wretched the poor woman looked, and he frowned slightly. "D'you want anything to eat with that?"

[sky_w_diamonds]

Two sugars she added to her tea, breathing in the scent of it as the spoon clinked against the sides of the mug. Her eyes closed in unashamed appreciation at the first sip, the tea warming her from the inside out.

She gave a weak little chuckle at the Doctor's words, and looked down at herself. 'Yes, I am rather-' she broke off, grimacing slightly, not wanting to necessarily give a word to it- 'aren't I?' Another sip of her tea, and her eyes flicked up to meet the Doctor's for a moment before she said quietly, 'That'd be lovely.'

Because food (warm, good food) was food, even if it did come from the Doctor's table.

[timey_wimey]

He nodded, and after his second sip of tea pushed his chair back, opening the nearest cupboard. Of course, he wasn't much of a cook, so he supposed that sandwiches would have to do. He just hoped that would be good enough for her, he thought wryly as he took out a loaf of white bread and bent down to get some ham out of the small fridge.

Five minutes later, he set down a plate full of reasonably tidy ham sandwiches.

"Sorry, it's not much. I never was all that much of a cook, I'm afraid."

[sky_w_diamonds]

'It's food,' Lucy said wryly, giving him a little look. 'That's quite enough, I assure you.'

And it was true. Humble and only mostly tidy though the ham sandwiches might have been, as far as Lucy was concerned at the moment, they might as well have been the finest of pheasant or pate de fois gras her mother used to serve at the horrible dinner parties she'd been so fond of. They were nourishing, that was the important part. Ham sandwiches and tea, and already she was feeling slightly less awful.

Halfway through her first sandwich, she looked curiously up at the Doctor, her eyes sharp. 'Why did you come get me?' She asked bluntly. Lucy was genuinely curious, however; she was grateful, extremely grateful, but had their positions been reversed, she would not have dreamed of doing the same for the Doctor. She didn't understand why he should've done as much for her.

[timey_wimey]

He raised his eyebrows, his mug of tea halfway to his mouth. He supposed that he should have been expecting this, but quite frankly he also thought that it would have been obvious, given that he knew for a fact she saw him as a bit of a bleeding heart.

"Lucy, you know me. I couldn't just leave you out there, not like that."

[sky_w_diamonds]

'Even despite what I've done to you... And to Harry.' It wasn't a question or clarification, though; she was just thinking out loud. Ordinarily, she would have said that made him a fool, but in this instance, she felt it would have been rather churlish to say as much. And anyway, she could hardly think him a fool when it had been for her that he'd acted.

She shook her head faintly, taking another sip of her tea. Again, she looked up as a thought occurred to her, but this time, her expression was slightly wicked. 'What did Harry do to you this time? You mentioned something about a genderswap virus...?'

Lucy was interested to hear his answer, if he'd even consent to give one, but that wasn't really the point of the question. More, it was a reason to stop thinking about why the Doctor had come to get her. That was entirely too confusing for the moment.

[timey_wimey]

His mouth set into a thin line as the question threw him back a few days. He may have rescued her, and he may be helping her, feeding her, but he was not about to divulge that bit of information. Definitely not. That was a matter between him and the Master. Above all things, he was not about to complicate it any further by allowing Lucy to gloat over it, no matter how charitable he was feeling towards her right now.

"I'd rather not talk about that, if it's all the same to you."

[sky_w_diamonds]

'Fair enough,' Lucy said mildly, returning to her tea. In any event, she imagined she could probably sort out the gist of it, given Harry's obsession with the Doctor.

She took another pensive bite of her ham sandwich before setting it down, sighing absently as she traced whorls in the wood of the tabletop with one nail. The red nail varnish was, remarkably, only somewhat chipped off. Her other arm went compulsively around her stomach, pressing just under her breasts, as though she needed confirmation that she was really there.

[timey_wimey]

Awkward question successfully avoided, he took another sip of tea, cupping his mug in both hands. Seeing her compulsive self-hugging, he frowned again, this time out of worry.

"Are you still cold?"

[sky_w_diamonds]

'Mmm?'

Lucy hadn't even really realised what she'd been doing, and she somewhat awkwardly loosened her hold on herself, bringing her hand to link with the other one on the table. She shook her head, her mouth twisting into something between a rueful smile and a tight frown.

'No, I'm fine, It's just-'

She shrugged, breaking off. Truth be told, she didn't actually know what it was.

[timey_wimey]

"I see."

And he did see. Well, sort of, anyway. After an ordeal like that, it was no wonder she was having to check that she was still very much here and real. He wasn't about to pry into what the Master had done to her, but he knew him well enough to know that it could very well have been anything. The scold's bridle itself was proof of that. So he just left it at that, drinking his tea and staring at some point on the ceiling somewhere.

[sky_w_diamonds]

The silence that passed then was several different kinds of awkward, and Lucy paid it as little heed as she could, concentrating instead on tea and warmth.

It was as she finished her cup that she realised quite how disgusting she felt. She hadn't bathed in three weeks, after all, and she felt practically covered in blood and dirt and filth. In reality, she didn't look all that terribly dirty- since most of Woman Wept was snow and ice, there wasn't that much opportunity for it- but it was the principle of the thing.

'Do you have a shower?' She asked suddenly, looking up at the Doctor. 'It's- I feel... filthy. If you wouldn't mind.'

Of course, she could simply wait until she got home, but somehow she felt that she didn't want to return quite yet. And anyway, she thought, on a somewhat lighter note, there was no way she was getting any of this dirt in her flat.

[timey_wimey]

The Doctor had long since finished his own cup of tea and had started to drum his fingers on the sides of the cup absently. Because of this, he almost missed Lucy's question, and it took him a moment to answer.

"Hmm? Oh, a shower!" He raised his eyebrows. "Of course I have a shower, what do you take me for! I might be a traveling alien, but I still wash. Besides, if I didn't have one, I think Donna might just kill me."