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“Doctor! What about the crib-“
Ruby asks, turning her head towards the space where a crib had been just seconds ago. An empty space greeted her.
“What is it, Rubes?” Questions the Doctor, furrowing his brows.
“Huh, she hesitates, I don’t… it’s nothing, I must have forgotten” she shakes her head, getting herself out of the confusion she was in. Of course there’s no crib, why would there be a crib in the Tardis. Plastering a smile on her face, she turns to Belinda who was looking at her inquisitively.
“Alright you two! Where do we go next!” Exclaims the Doctor enthusiastically, clapping his hands together and startling the both of them.
“I was thinking of going home for a bit” starts tentatively Belinda. “It was always gonna happen, you know, and now we’re finally back on earth… and I miss my parents. You could come with me, of course! You did say you would like to meet them didn’t you.”
“Oh of course” the Doctor replies, smiling kindly. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll occupy myself just fine, you go off”
Belinda smiles and the Doctor inserts the coordinates of her home into the console.
The Tardis parks itself in her back garden, crushing a few flowers on the way, and after a few goodbyes Belinda was off with a smile.
“What about you?” Asks the Doctor, turning his attention to Ruby who had stayed respectfully in the Tardis while they said their goodbyes.
“Oh, i think I’ll return to my house for a bit too, you know, if that’s okay.” Ruby says, apologizing with her eyes. “But Doctor, the console made a noise while you were out, a- a bip, and it flashed green. Is it important?” She asks, pointing to the console.
The Doctor’s eyes widen and his hearts start accelerating. He rushes to the console, not wanting to be too hopeful in case he was wrong. His suspicions were confirmed, though, and a warm smile spread across his face. He let out a laugh and, looking back at Ruby, said: “Oh Rubes! I have to go do something, find someone…” He stares in disbelief at the console.
Ruby gasps in understanding. “Omg! Is it… Did you find him?” She exclaims excitedly, rushing to the doctor’s side.
The ring was wired to the console and the screen was displaying a series of complicated gallifreyan numbers, along with a green light flashing over and over again.
“I won’t stop you longer, just get me home and then…” A grin spread on her face, “Go find your husband” she laughs.
The Doctor sputters, feeling his face getting hotter. He reprimands her, but her smile is contagious and he can’t even pretend to be mad for long. “Alright, let’s get you home.”
***
Once again alone in his Tardis, he anxiously taps some instructions in the console. He engages in a scan for life forms and finally, finally, pulls the lever. The Tardis groans and the Doctor grabs the nearest railing to prevent himself from falling. After a few moments, the Tardis goes back to normal and an unsettling calm sets itself.
Rushing to the screen, the Doctor waits, impatiently, for the scan for life forms to be completed.
-100% completed- Life forms detected: 1
The Doctor sighs in relief, but it doesn’t last long as the 1 begins to flicker on and off. Anxiety rises his chest and he flies out the doors, making sure to memorize the emplacement of Rogue, if he’s lucky, on the map.
The air instantly chokes him and he coughs a few times trying to regulate his breathing. It’s asphyxiating, the hotness of it making his throat hurt. He squint his eyes to try to see in front of him, through the fog covering the land.
The ground beneath his feet cracks every time he takes a step and he understands what rogue meant when he said the world is collapsing. It is literally collapsing. It feels as if the atmosphere wants to crush you. His bones are already aching after just a few minutes in this hell dimension and he can’t even begin to imagine what Rogue must have lived through. He shakes his head at the thought, refusing to let guilt distract him.
After a few minutes of difficult walking, he sees a dark form lying on the ground a few feet in front of him. His hearts start pounding as he approaches, carefully, the still body. He recognizes those curls, although they’re dirtier than the last time he saw them. There’s no questions, it’s Rogue, or a Chuldur that has taken Rogue’s body, of course.
Dropping to his knees, he turns the body towards him. He gets his pulse, and although it’s slow, the heart is still beating. His eyebrows are furrowed, most likely to protect his eyes from the harshness of the air around them. Relief washes over the Doctor, and he works quickly to untie the water bottle he had taken with him and to drop a few drops in his mouth. A few moments later, Rogue opens his eyes and the Doctor brings a hand up to his forehead to protect them from the harsh sun. After giving him a few more sips of water, Rogue clears his voice.
“Doctor, is that you?” He asks quietly.
“Yes, Rogue, I am sorry i wasn’t here earlier, who knows how long it has been for you, and i am sorry but I have to ask you, can you prove to me you’re not a chuldur.” The Doctor asks, guiltily.
Rogue looks confused for a moment, and concentration makes itself known on his face.
“Anything” the Doctor implores, a vague memory of a similar scene playing in the back of his head.
“My ring has a date graved on the inside. 01/03/78. The day I graduated from the bounty hunter academy” he smiles to himself, and the Doctor knew. “But Doctor-“
Without losing a second, the Doctor started to get Rogue’s body up in his arms.
But then he felt it. A hot liquid. And the hiss of pain coming from Rogue confirmed it. Panic rising in his chest, he turned Rogue’s body to the side, discovering a patch of blood on the right side of his shirt, just under the heart and going down all his side. His shirt is soaked and sticking to the injury, and he had made a makeshift bandage using his jacket, but it had probably come loose when he fell.
“Doctor.” Rogue insisted. “You have to get out of here, I can’t be saved and you know that , and they’ll come for you too.” He was staring at the Doctor, trying to reassure himself from his imminent death.
“No no no no no, this can’t-“ tears threatened to spill out of his eyes and he forced them away. “Rogue I’ll get you out of here, I can’t leave you, not again. The Tardis is close, she’ll take you to safety and we’ll get you patched up. I promise we’ll get through this-“
And then he heard it. A low growl behind him. And Rogue did too, the way his body startled and tensed gave it away.
“Doctor,” Rogue hissed, “you have to leave me, I’m already dead, save yourself, please.”
Rogue looks at him, pleading and the Doctor cups his face. He leans down to press a quick kiss to his forehead and quickly turns around to assess to situation.
There were a lot of them. Dark shapes in the smoke, long and slender, arms reaching out towards him. They had claws about the same size as their hands, and the air around them was cracking.
The doctor turned back to Rogue.
“Never.”
He stands up abruptly, taking out his sonic from his pocket. He scans the creatures, trying to establish a way to defeat them. But they were coming rather quickly.
He presses a button on his sonic and a deafening noise came out of it, distracting the creatures who growled in pain.
Hurrying, the Doctor removed his jacket and tied it quickly around Rogue’s chest to slow down the bleeding. He then brought Rogue back on his feet, supporting him by his not injured shoulder. They started walking slowly, away from the creatures and in the direction of the Tardis.
“Why are you so stubborn!” Rogue argued.
The doctor ignores him, focusing on keeping them both steady. The weight of Rogue and the heat of the air around them was unbearable, and his eyes burned.
The shape of the Tardis could be seen in the distance, but before he could rejoice, Rogue collapsed on the floor.
The Doctor dropped down to catch him and gripped his shirt.
Rogue’s breathing was slow and painful, and the Doctor knew, but he refused to admit it. He knew Rogue was dying, he knew there was no way he could walk, and he knew he wouldn’t have enough strength to carry him to the Tardis. His muscles were aching and the dust around them made it harder to breathe.
Tears flowed down his cheeks, and he stared helplessly at Rogue as his breathing slowed down. His lips moved slowly and the Doctor approached his ear to his mouth, trying to decipher his last sentence.
“Thank you… doc,” He breathed.
A slow smile crept on Rogue’s face and his breathing came to a stop. Through tears, the Doctor took his pulse, in denial of the dead man before him that he had failed saving.
Pressing his head to the other man’s chest, he let himself grieve, painfully crashing down to reality.
And then he felt it. Too absorbed in his grief, he hadn’t heard one of the creature approaching. A jolt of electricity shot through his shoulder, descending down his body. He felt sliced in half, his eyes seeing stars and his body jolting as pain installed itself everywhere on his body.
A sudden thud came from behind him. The creature collapsed on the floor. Scanning it with his eyes, the Doctor quickly assessed that it was now harmless. It seemed that their species died after attacking, like bees.
The Doctor closed his eyes, trying to regain a train of thought and concentrate on the situation he found himself in. He was on a deserted planet, barely breathing, jolts of pain coming back and forth through his body. He was laying next to a dead man, a man he couldn’t take back with him. He will have to leave him stranded there to rest for eternity. And he felt the too familiar warmth in his hands.
“Oh no, i liked this face,” he whispered to himself.
With a grunt of pain, he got back on his feet. He wasn’t bleeding, so it seemed like Rogue had been hurt by something else that caused his injury. He closed his eyes to get Rogue out of his head, refusing to think about the man he had to abandon on a barren planet.
He stumbled slowly forward, refusing to look back. After what seemed like hours, he reached the Tardis. She grumbled at him, as if she could feel his pain. Crawling over to the console, he entered new coordinates.
If he was to die, then he didn’t have to be alone. Lights turned off around him as he made his way to the doors, opening them
to see a magnificent nebula before him. Clashes of purple and blue danced before his eyes. And at the center of it, the brightest star shined back at him.
“Joy to the world!” He yelled. “And that is exactly the word. This has been an absolute joy.”