Gallifreyan Nature: Chapter 28

[nevermoreraven]

Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: Teen
DISCLAIMER: Other people have actually read this one before the internet.  Yes, I know.  It's weird.
Summary: This is a rewrite of the Human Nature/Family of Blood two-parter, because I really liked Latimer.  It's long.  I liked it pretty well at the time, as did the other readers, so let's see how well it held up.  ...so far, so good.  also I actually bothered to tab for once on this one.
It's not finished, but it's fairly close.

 

The Doctor skidded to a halt by the body of Martha Jones.  At first, he couldn’t think, couldn’t even breathe, at the sight of the blood abandoning her poor body, leaving it to its fate.  It stained the earth, leaving a mark just as obvious upon both hearts, upon his very soul.  If he’d thought her broken before…

No.  He refused to continue that line of thought.  He wouldn’t, couldn’t bring himself to check her for vital signs, afraid of what he might find.  He was terrified that she’d died, because of him, no less.  If he’d just let events play out, then she wouldn’t be lying on the road here, her heartbeats slowly being taken away from her one by one, or just a lifelike corpse.  Why did he always have to meddle?

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes to the horror coloring every shadow of his world, then knelt.  Gently, hand shaking, he reached over to touch her neck to check for a pulse.  For a minute, her soft, silky skin distracted him; he was in danger of going into shock himself.  Then he noticed the very slight throb beneath his fingers.  He could kiss her, but didn’t want to damage her further.  She was alive!  Dan fought down the urge to dance and instead, ever so carefully, checked her body for any obvious damage other than the dagger wound.  She didn’t react violently at his touch, which meant one of two possible reasons:  either she wasn’t hurt, or she was deeply unconscious, perhaps in a coma.  He hoped it was the former.

            The young Time Lord didn’t feel anything wrong.  Still, to be completely sure, he put a hand on either side of her head and reached into her mind, bypassing the frontal lobe to reach the deeper, more instinctual areas.  The neurons hadn’t registered any spinal damage either, which was good.  More than that-it was excellent.  He wasn’t, as a matter of fact, an expert physician as Martha was training to be, despite his title, but he was familiar with the basics-including the mantra that you never, ever, moved the wounded unless they were in further danger or you were absolutely certain they had no injuries to the backbone.  Otherwise, if you disturb them, you risk paralyzing them-and the Doctor had no intention of doing that to his beloved Martha.

            Daniel let a bit of sentimentality sidetrack him as he caressed her cheek with bloodstained fingers, then got to work.  He slid his hands below her knees and her shoulders and slowly stood up with her cradled in his arms.  He made sure to press her wound up close against his chest.  He wasn’t sure how much it would help, even less how much it would hurt.  But hopefully it would staunch the bleeding.  Every little drop of blood that remained within her body was precious now.  He felt his jaw clench, the tears threaten to fall, but refused to give in-especially now.  She was counting on him, needed him more than ever, and he wasn’t about to let her down…even if it meant sacrificing all he’d ever known.

            He started down the road, sending a psychic signal to the TARDIS to get to a predetermined location as quickly as possible.  The Doctor let his stride lengthen, but didn’t go at full speed-he couldn’t keep her safe in his arms if he went too fast, but if he went too slowly, she would die on him before he got to his ship. 

            If the Oncoming Storm had ever tread the currents of Time, he was here now, thunder in his face as the biggest tempest of wrath and grief the universe would ever know threatened to break, should one woman lose her life.

 

Martha coughed up blood as the Doctor lay her gently on the console floor, the golden latticework of the floor turning red with her life draining out.  To some extent, she’d begun to regain consciousness, which was a good sign, even if she couldn’t keep it up for long periods of time.  “I’m so sorry, Doctor…he got the watch….”

Her beautiful brown eyes turned up in her head as he hopped over to the console to check a reading-making sure that they were alone and that he could save her, uninterrupted by the actions of a bunch of alien murderers.  He was so thick.  Why could he never reveal the deepest secrets of his heart, the ones that screamed to be let out?  Especially to someone who meant as much to him as Martha did.  He hadn’t thought it through.  And if she died, a part of him would die with her.

His ship sensed the anger and the pain washing through him.  She tried to comfort him, but for once, he wouldn’t accept it, just shrugging her off.  His next step was the medical bay.  And in one way or another, he reflected, he’d been in and out of that room far more times in the past couple weeks than he’d ever recalled in the rest of his life.  Well…past lives.

 

Miss Jones had been fairly calm until he’d tried to bandage her wound.  Currently, she was thrashing around, causing the bleeding to intensify.  Nothing he could do could calm her down.  By this point, he was exhausted, and he’d tried practically everything, aside from using a tranquilizer on her.  He was avoiding the last option at any costs-her heart still hadn’t calmed down and, if anything, had become even more erratic.  He wasn’t sure how a depressant would affect her beautiful heart-it might even stop it completely.

“Oh, Martha…” the Doctor whispered, stroking her cheek.  He tried to smile through the tears.  “It’s only me.  Your stupid, thick ol’ Time Lord, just trying to save you.  You know.  The usual.  Just cooperate, okay?  I need you.”  He didn’t know whether he was referring to her helping him fight death, or just having her by his side.  He didn’t think it mattered.

Her teeth clenched, and one of her hands grabbed his own in a grip that made his skin turn white.  Daniel gasped, and would have jumped back if that wouldn’t have yanked his arm off.  Experimentally, he touched her wound, and although her fingers tightened even further, she had stopped screaming.  “Good girl,” he muttered, even though she wasn’t truly conscious, as far as he could tell, and it would be extremely difficult bandaging her one-handed.

He managed it.  Dan did many things he didn’t think he was capable of.  He didn’t break down, because work had to be done, and he was lacking another pair of hands to do it.  Briefly, he contemplated the early days, when it wasn’t that uncommon to have at least four others wandering around.  The TARDIS had felt a lot smaller then.  He was covered in Martha’s blood, but it was as precious to him as she was, now.  Although he’d be much happier if it decided to stay inside her, instead of leaving for parts unknown.

The Doctor ignored the med-screens in front of him, warning that the chances of his sweetheart’s survival were low, at best.  He refused to listen to the nagging doubts in the back of his mind, refused to believe that he couldn’t save her.  At the very worst, he’d give up one of his own lives to have her back, by his side.  ‘I won’t listen.  I’m a Time Lord.  I can turn back time, change things for the better.’  How, he wasn’t sure, but that’d never stopped him before.

After all the flurry of scans and miscellaneous doctor-y things, he decided to settle down by the hospital bed, to be there for her, if she should wake up.  A thought popped into his mind, and he decided to fetch two glasses of water, one for him, one for her.  He downed his in one gulp and left it sitting by the screens monitoring her vital signs.  The other he put on the stand.

She had pretty much stabilized.  She wasn’t doing great, but then again, she wasn’t getting worse.  It was better than he had believed, better than the TARDIS’ realistic estimates had given her condition.  He sat down and held her hand, staring at her motionless form.  Time passed, and for once in his life, it felt like forever.