Tenth Doctor and Evelyn: Kidnapped

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10th_13thdoctor

Evelyn:

“What have they done to you?”

The Doctor:

The Doctor found it hard to focus. He could see Evelyn when he looked up at her from where he sat on the ground, but her outer edges looked…blurry. Her image kept shifting and changing from blurry to clear and back to blurry again. He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut to try to fix it, but it was no use. And on top of it, sheets of sweat kept falling into his eyes and making them sting.

‘Eb-bel-en,” he slurred. “M’I glad t’see you.”

Evelyn:

The very last thing that Evelyn had expected to find when her Traveling form separated and phased across the universe this night was the Doctor, obviously in a drugged stupor and being held captive in a dingy little cell.  After a moment of shocked and horrified staring, she quickly moved to his side, dropping into a crouch beside him.  “Who did this to you?” she growled, reaching for him to search for injuries.  “Come on; let’s get you out of here.  Where’s your TARDIS?”  She frowned worriedly, hoping that she could successfully get him to his TARDIS before she drained herself and reflexively phased back home.  Even if he was able to tell her exactly where it was, she might still have to phase multiple times to find it, being unfamiliar with the location, and carrying him with her would drain her even further and quite probably force her to inadvertently leave him to fend for himself.  She didn’t want to abandon him in this state.

The sound of approaching footsteps startled her from her contemplation and into action, and she made a decision quickly.  Better to get him clear and safe first, and then bring him back to find the TARDIS when he was recovered enough.  She was fairly certain she could at least do that much, with proper focus.  “Hold onto me, Doctor, and don’t let go.”  She put her hands on his shoulders and added, “Brace yourself.”

The Doctor:

The Doctor had to fight to make himself follow Evelyn’s words. “D-dunno,” he replied to the first question as she examined him. “Species I’ve neva en-encoun-tered.” He was struggling to even sound out his words at times: it felt like his lips were numb and loose, almost refusing to cooperate.

“TARDIS?” he queried, gazing up at her with dulled, half-closed eyes. “I dunno. Prob’ly where I l-landed her. Th-they were not…” He fought through the haze in his brain, which was trying to lapse into speaking Gallifreyan, and he mumbled a couple of morphemes in his native tongue before forcing himself back into English. “In..in…interest’d in her. Jus’ me.” He raised his hand slightly and pointed a long, pale index finger at his own chest.

Sweat poured down his forehead, more of it dripping into his eyes. He could feel the blue Oxford shirt beneath his pinstriped suit was completely soaked. What had the fuckers done to him this last time…test his internal temperature controls? He tried to remember the name of the substance he’d overheard them talking about, but the name was obscured by more fuzz in his brain. Whatever it was, they’d pumped him full of it, and his stomach was barely staying still inside his body; nausea tumbled inside it, threatening to brim up over the edge, and he had to clamp his jaw tightly shut to fight the urge to vomit.

Beyond the haze of his own thoughts, he heard Evelyn tell him to hang onto her: he reached out and wrapped his arms around her waist as tightly as he could.

Evelyn:

Evelyn closed her eyes and took a breath as she circled her arms around his back, locking the two of them firmly together.  Instinctively, with barely a note of deliberate intent, she formed a mental image of a clear protective bubble around the both of them before shifting backwards and plunging them into the chaos of what she called the Between-Space or the Storm-Tunnel, though the Time Lords called it the Time Vortex.  They were whipped through the tumultuous funnel like twigs caught in a formidable ocean storm, and she pushed with her mind and her will, and an instant later they were emerging in the mundane warmth of her living room.  She carefully lowered him to the carpet by the coffee table and couch and rocked back on her heels, closing her eyes against a wave of vertigo as she passed ghostly-pale hands through long silvery tresses.

“Okay.  Give me a minute.”

She was close enough to her primary form that all she had to do was let go, and a second later she found herself dragging deep breaths into her lungs as she lay in her bed, caught in the usual sensory overdrive that overtook her whenever she returned to her primary form.  Her short dark hair was a tangle beneath her head tickling her neck and shoulders, the lace-trimmed satin cami and pajama bottoms like sandpaper against her overly sensitized skin, her heartbeat echoing hollowly in her ears.  For a brief moment, the disconnect that always followed her journeys blanked her memory as her essence slid and snapped back into place within its framework, but then everything reconnected and it all flooded back.  She rolled out of bed with such haste that she nearly sprawled on the floor, but got her feet beneath her and hurried to the living room.  Carrying the Doctor back here had weakened her considerably, but she had become quite adept at ignoring the side effects that accompanied her Travels.  She certainly had better things to concern herself with right now.

The Doctor:

The Doctor felt some sort of energy hum and then encircle them – leaving just enough space around them for a protective layer of oxygen. He leaned into Evelyn’s shoulder, resting his head against her wall of strength. It felt familiar…like muscle-wrapped fortified chassis beneath her skin. And that was all he needed to steady the slow-rotating storm inside his head, and momentarily quelling the chaos in his stomach.

When they entered the vortex, he did not dare open his eyes. But he could feel the tunnel of time and space swirling around them. Through his skin and mind, he could still sense its form, a spectral churning cylinder veined with bolts of chaotic energy. What it must feel like on the exterior skin of his TARDIS – like what he was sure Jack experienced the time he clung to its doors and rode it to the end of the universe – now translated through his body as they traveled down the tunnel through space and time, bouncing around inside it and ricocheting off its inner wall.

He was barely aware of their exit, blinking rapidly as she stood over him. His half-closed eyes focused on the way her silver-white hair waved with her movements. Then just as he felt himself being carefully laid onto a…carpet, was it?…she disappeared.

And returned a few minutes later in her usual form.

“Eb-bel-en,” he croaked, blinking up at her. “T-t-thank you. I…I…”

But the storm rekindled in his stomach. “I’m gonna be sick!” he exclaimed, lurching himself onto his shaky feet with the last of his strength, clasping his hand over his mouth and stumbling blinding through her apartment by memory until he located the open doorway to her bathroom. Sinking to his knees, he crawled inside in just enough time to yank up her toilet lid before the contents of his stomach came hurtling up.

Evelyn:

Evelyn had made her way back to the living room and was in the act of kneeling at the Doctor’s side when he scrambled to his feet and hurtled through the hallway and towards the bathroom.  An instant later, she heard the sound of retching, and she winced to herself as she rose a little bit unsteadily to her feet and followed.

Approaching the wiry, pinstriped figure currently wrapped heaving around her toilet, she leaned forward, bracing herself against the sink, and placed one hand on his back.  Her palm traced slow circles over the sweat-dampened material of his suit jacket and sharp jut of his shoulder blades, and she worried about the unusual amount of heat she felt radiating from his body.  Her voice was soft and soothing as spoke, intertwined with a soft tinge of projected calm even as she struggled to cordon off her own fear for him so it wouldn’t echo in her tone and cause him more stress.  What had they done to him? “You’ll be okay.  Just breathe.  Breathe.”

After a moment, her hand still resting against his back, she asked softly, “What did they give you?  Do you know?”  Not that she would know how to counteract whatever it was, but perhaps he would if she could get him talking lucidly enough. Now that she had whisked him away from danger, she was unsure of how to proceed in helping him, though she knew enough to not take him to the hospital.  (Really, that one was pretty obvious to her, what with his being an alien and all)

Rising from her half-crouched position beside him, she filled the plastic drinking cup that she kept by her toothbrush with water from the sink and offered it to him before dropping back down beside him.  She let her eyes pass over his form, searching for signs of physical damage.  “Did they… Are you injured anywhere?”

The Doctor:

After a few moments, the Doctor was finally able to stop retching. He drew in a series of deep, sharp breaths, gasping and coughing at stuttered intervals in between.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her hand wrapped around a full glass of water; with a shaking hand he reached for it, took it from her, and tipped its lip towards his half-open mouth. Quickly, he swallowed down two huge gulps before drawing in another long, deep breath.

Lifting a shaking arm up towards his face, he dragged the cuff of his shirt sleeve across his wet lips before raising it up to mop the sheets of sweat raining from his forehead. He braced himself, leaning both arms on the toilet seat and turned his head to look up at Evelyn. “Th-they gave me a substance….a biochem’cal somethin’ or other,” he forced out. “This…one…was meant…to ex-ex-experiment with m’internal temp’rature control. I-I-I dun ‘memba the name o’ it –”

A sudden wave of nausea seized him, careening up from his stomach and washing over him up to his throat. He turned and gasped before dry heaving into the bowl again. This time, nothing came up. Drawing in and exhaling a few more deep breaths, he turned back to her and continued to speak. “If…I…had m’TARDIS, I could test m’self to see what it is,” he explained. “But…th’old girl is prolly near where ya found me. On Sekorus T’ree –”

This new wave of nausea barreled through him too quickly for him to stop. He turned barely just in time to vomit out a small amount of a thin, greenish-yellow substance into the bowl.

After a few rough, dry coughs, he turned and looked back up at her. “Injured?” he queried, his eyelids rapidly fluttering. Even his brain was a bit foggy, and he had to rustle around in his head to pull up recent memories. “Uh….yes!” he hissed out, suppressing another bolt of nausea rocketing through him. Reaching up his hands as he braced himself on the toilet bowl by his chest, he unbuttoned the next three buttons on his Oxford shirt and pulled back the collar. Shifting the neck of his vest top downward, he revealed a long, thick angry red gash across the right side of his chest. “Wanted t’see m’second heart,” he explained.

Evelyn:

A clammy tendril of ice-cold fury coiled itself around Evelyn’s heart as the Doctor revealed the gash, and for an instant something dangerous flickered in her brown eyes.  It vanished as quickly as it had appeared, supplanted by grim determination.  Dropping back down into a crouch beside him, one hand reached out to rest on his shoulder as she leaned forward to examine the wound, eyes scanning closely while she kept her hands clear of it.  It appeared to be closed, at least, but she frowned deeply as she took in the jagged redness of it, concerned about infection.  “All right,” she said, rising a little bit unsteadily to her feet and turning to the sink to wash her hands, “Let’s get this cleaned up for starters.”  Turning in the cramped little bathroom to the linen closet behind her, she removed a clean hand towel and dried her hands off, then snagged a soft washcloth, pivoting back to the sink, turning on the tap, and holding it under the faucet for a moment.  She contemplated having him close the lid and sit on the commode so she could better reach him, but then thought better of it– she wasn’t sure if he would need to vomit again.

She lowered herself to the floor beside him, feeling the coldness of the linoleum through the thin material of her pajamas.  Reaching up with the sodden washcloth to probe gently around the wound, she said softly, “I’m sorry.  I should have tried to find your TARDIS instead of bringing you back here, but I wasn’t sure how long I would last.  Didn’t want to accidentally abandon you there.”  A small, gentle smile touched her lips as she looked up at him– he was ridiculously tall compared to her, even when they were sitting on the floor.  “I can try to take you there later.  I don’t… I’m not sure, but I think I may be able to plot a course if you help guide me.  If you can remember an exact location.”  She wasn’t sure how she knew that; it was the same sort of intuitive knowledge that had allowed her to shield him when carrying him earlier.

Comments

"They dinna even do it right." (Ten)

[10th-13thdoctor.livejournal.com]

The Doctor laughed deliriously. “Ebelen…they dinna even do it right,” he scorned, lifting up his head and leaning back to allow Evelyn access to the wound on the right side of his chest. “They ‘peared a lil’ confused ‘bout humanoid-style anatomy. Shoulda p-p-performed a median sternotomy if they wanted t’see it. Ev’dently nob’dy tol’ the fuckahs that Time Lords ‘ave rib cages.”

He struggled to speak, but it wasn’t as hard now: were the effect of the drugs wearing off? Still, his tongue and lips felt a little heavy. “I think they also gave me a sed-a-tive.” He slowed down and carefully enunciated his words, drifting his gaze upward to follow her movements as she procured a washcloth and wet it. A bit more sweat dripped into his eyes, but he blinked it away. “This last time ‘round, anyway. Might ‘splain why I right much feel’ike rubbish, ‘sides the other substance.”

When she touched the wet washcloth to his wound, he grit his teeth and drew in a sudden, hissing breath at its sting. Slowly, he exhaled and tried to relax. “S’okay, Ebelen,” he assured her, reaching up a nearly white hand to wave away her should have. “I’m jus’ grateful ya found me. I do know m’TARDIS should still be on Sekorus Th-three,” he added, his bleary amber-eyed gaze drifting down until it met hers, “an I know exactly where I landed.” Curling his other fingers back, he thrust a long, bony extended forefinger in the direction of the open bathroom doorway as if to punctuate his last point.

Evelyn felt her insides coil (Evelyn)

[10th-13thdoctor.livejournal.com]

Evelyn felt her insides coil with revulsion and horror at what had been done to him. And yet he was sitting here, seeming so… insouciant, so cavalier, critiquing their surgery skills for God’s sake, and– oh God, had he been awake when they tried to… to dissect him? He seemed to know an awful lot about the specifics of what had been done.

It was the Doctor. Of course he was trying to appear nonchalant about the whole thing. That didn’t mean he was really feeling that way. If he could keep his cool, so could she. Assuming she didn’t pass out from the energy drain of Traveling while carrying and shielding him. She had never done that before, not that she could remember anyway, and she was shocked at how much it seemed to have taken out of her. Her head felt like it was filled with helium, that empty tingling rush that filled the space behind her eyes and made her pulse race and made her veins feel like they were filled with air and not blood. She felt like she was about to deflate like a suddenly released balloon, spinning around the room with silly raspberry sound and all, and she gave a soft, almost hysterical chuckle at the mental image. Closing her eyes for a moment, she drew a slow breath, drawing on some deep reserve of strength and willing herself into some semblance of steadfastness.

Her mouth creased into a sympathetic grimace at his hiss of pain when she dabbed the washcloth against his wound, and she laid a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Easy,” she murmured gently, “Just need to clean it. Are you okay with human antibiotic ointment? I’m worried about infection…” Actually, she was fairly certain that it was already infected. She wasn’t sure the little tube of ointment she had would be strong enough, and the thought made her feel like she was offering to put out a forest fire with a squirt gun. But surely it was better than nothing, assuming his alien physiology didn’t have an allergy to it or something.

God, she felt so useless right now. She didn’t know what to do to give him the help he needed. When she recovered enough from her last journey to be able to “fly” again, she could carry him to his TARDIS like she had offered, but then she’d be forced to leave him to fend for himself. But he’d have access to medical equipment, at least. Maybe he could pilot the ship back to her house so she could then go with him to the med lab and pretend to be a little less useless than she currently felt.

She steeled herself; this was hardly the time for a pity party.

“All right. I can’t do it now; that last jump drained me too much.” That was an understatement; she was still struggling to stay upright. He didn’t need to know that, though. “Will you be okay for an hour or so?”

"Ant'biotic ointment s'prob'bly okay," (Tenny)

[10th-13thdoctor.livejournal.com]

"Ant'biotic ointment s'prob'bly okay," he forced out and he turned to glance back up at Evelyn with the same worn, bleary dark amber gaze, "jus' as long as ye dinnae use any asp'rin-type product on me. Poisonous tae Time Lords." He raised up his slightly trembling pale hand and snapped his spindly fingers. "It'd kill me n'an instant."

He nodded at her next question. "Please...take muir time if ya need," he encouraged, reaching up and patting her on her bicep. "That musta been one helluva jump, Eb-b-belen. M'surprised yer still standin'." A mild bit of shock bloomed inside him as he heard his own voice in his ears -- he'd been too sick to notice until now, but was he sounding mildly...Scottish? Internally he waved it away -- they had more important things to worry about at the moment.

"I cuid jus' use muir water...and tae lie doon on yer couch," he added. "I'll b'able tae met'bolise th'substance oot of me system evenchally. Might take a few hours longer than normal fr'Time Lords, but I kin dae it."

And as for returning there...he already had an idea. He remembered the coordinates to where the TARDIS had landed. Once Evelyn was feeling better, he'd feed her the coordinates via a psychic link...perhaps that would help guide her there more exactly.

Evelyn

[memoirsverse.livejournal.com]

"No aspirin. Aspirin bad. Gotcha." Evelyn nodded as he looked up at her, his eyes glassy in a haggard face. He looked exhausted, battered, even a little delirious, but still he somehow held it together. A stream of sorrow rippled through her heart, and she reached up to lightly graze the fingers of one hand over the side of his face. "I'm sorry I didn't come sooner," she murmured. "I didn't know... it was just chance that I found you... random coincidence..." Deeply disturbed by the thought that she could have so easily missed rescuing him, she bit her lip, lashes sweeping downward as she lowered her hand. Then she stood up, her legs trembling with the effort.

He seemed to have inexplicably developed what sounded like a Scottish (albeit rather slurred) brogue, and one corner of her mouth quirked slightly with bemusement. That was somehow just so very him. A time-traveling alien with a Scottish accent. Only sometimes, though.

She took the cup from him to fill it up at the faucet again. "Well... needs must," she said dismissively in response to his surprise that she was still able to keep her feet under her. "I'll rest and find something to eat later, before I try to take you to your TARDIS. I'm used to feeling like I'm about to fall flat on my face at any given time by now. You learn to push through it." Handing the now brimming cup back down to him, she proceeded to pop open the mirrored medicine cabinet over the sink and rifle about until she found the tube of antibiotic ointment.

She dropped back into a slightly unsteady crouch beside him and unscrewed the cap on the ointment. "And of course you're welcome to use my couch. I've also got some mouthwash over by my toothbrush whenever you want it." She gave a rueful smile. "Certified aspirin-free, I promise."

Finding that she was a bit too wobbly in this position, she shifted her legs so she was kneeling on the cold linoleum. She squeezed a translucent, viscous glob of the ointment onto one finger and reached for him. "Here, let me see."

The Doctor

[10th-13thdoctor.livejournal.com]

The Time Lord blinked as he looked up at Evelyn, clearing his vision of the stinging milky film that sometimes covered his eyes. He considered it a side effect of possibly the substance they'd given him, plus maybe some other stuff that hadn't metabolised out of his system yesterday, plus the fact that he was plain exhausted...Reaching up carefully, he closed his fingers around the cup of water and brought it to his lips. In three good gulps, he had drained it of half its water.

After he pulled the cup away from his mouth, he chuckled at Evelyn's quip about aspirin-free mouth wash. "I've nae doubt 'bout that," he replied. Watching as she found the ointment and squeezed some of it onto her finger, he closed the toilet bowl lid and set the cup of water down on it. Then, he scooted back from the toilet a few centimeters and turned around so she could more easily reach him. For ease of access, he undid the rest of buttons on his shirt, then shifted down the neck of his vest to reveal the scar again. "'Ere," he murmured. "That shiuld help."

Evelyn

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From her position where she knelt in front of the Doctor, Evelyn reached up with her hand to apply the ointment, spreading it with gentle fingers over the long, jagged scab.  She glanced up at his face, hoping she wasn't hurting him too much by touching the wound.  The cramped conditions of her little bathroom left little room for them both, and she suddenly realized she was sitting closely enough to him that she could feel the heat emanating from his body.  That wasn't normal for him-- she knew his core body temperature was considerably lower than a human's.  She had noted the sweat dripping from him before but had been preoccupied with other things.  A jumble of emotions swirled through her mind, layered with worry, fondness, and... something else?  Something she wasn't quite willing to put a name to yet.

"There," she said softly, glancing down and lowering her hand to wipe the remaining substance onto a towel.  "Now, let's get you onto the couch to rest.  I'll get a cool cloth for your face too.  Do you want to rinse your mouth first?" 

The Doctor

[10th-13thdoctor.livejournal.com]

While still holding the neck of his vest top down, the Doctor sat back on his heels and peered down at Evelyn's fingers smearing the ointment all over the wound. More sweat crawled into his eyes; he rapidly blinked it away until his vision stopped blurring and he could see her smaller, pale fingers at work. He let go of the neck of his vest top with his left hand and reached for the water glass again; after lifting the rim of the cup to his lips he tilted it and drained the rest in three huge gulps before setting it back onto the commode lid.

He didn't speak for a few minutes, only watched her fingers while occasionally looking up at her with the same bleary gaze, with eyes like clouded honey. The nausea was slowly draining out of his body. He'd ask to take a shower to cool himself down, but he wasn't sure he could stand on his own right now, and he had no fresh clothes to change into. He blinked rapidly in thought: he couldn't do anything else properly until he metabolised the horrid, rotten junk they'd given him out of his system.

He cocked his ear to listen to her next string of speech and then nodded lightly. "Yeah," he assented softly. "Ta. T'at might be a guid idea." Rousing up and gathering what strength he could inside his body, he readied himself to stand.

RE: The Doctor

[memoirsverse.livejournal.com]

He had kept looking up at her while she treated his wound, his feelings inscrutable behind the drug induced glassiness that glazed the dark amber honey-wine of his eyes. His gaze had caught her own for a few seconds before she had lowered her eyes again to concentrate on what she was doing, and again she felt that disconcerting tangle of feelings.

She set them neatly aside, squashed to a dusty corner of her mind where she did not have to deal with them. This was the Doctor-- different, distant despite his usual enthusiastic demeanor, nearly incomprehensible in so many ways, and just... beyond. Period. He wouldn't see her that way, she told herself.

When he made a move to stand, she quickly levered herself to her feet with a hand braced on the sink. Her legs were shaking, but she ignored it. Rest later, she told herself.

She reached down to help him up, one hand on his shoulder and the other closing over an upper arm. "Okay, easy now. Don't try to get up too quickly."

The Doctor

[10th-13thdoctor.livejournal.com]

The Doctor swept his cloudy amber gaze up at Evelyn, blinked slowly, and then nodded. Despite his internal protesting -- Evelyn was nearly as physically weak as he was right now -- he allowed her to gently hoist him up, leaning on her slightly as he slowly rose to his feet. Immediately upon standing he grabbed onto the edge of the sink and leaned over for a moment, squeezing his eyelids shut while trying to still the translucent swimming inside his head.

Drawing in a deep breath, he finally opened his eyes and straightened up to his full height (well, as close as he could, anyway). Turning to look at Evelyn (and not wanting to rush her, either), he grasped her arm lightly -- just enough to support himself. "I'm ready tae go whenev'r ye are, Ebelen," he offered quietly.

RE: The Doctor

[memoirsverse.livejournal.com]

She kept a hold of him as he leaned on the sink, though she was unsure whether she'd be able to actually keep him from falling if he lost his balance. After a moment, he seemed to regain his composure enough to straighten his spine and turn back to her.

"All right," she said with the same degree of quietness, and nudged one of his arms over her shoulder, bracing him with a hand over his ribs as she helped him turn and move towards the living room.

Slowly, they reached the couch, and she carefully lowered him down, helping him pivot and lie back, sliding a pillow beneath his head. "Okay, I'll get that cloth now," she murmured, touching his forehead and shaking her head at the heat emanating from it. "Hopefully we can get this fever down."

The Doctor

[10th-13thdoctor.livejournal.com]

"I dinnae doubt that," the Doctor replied, his clouded dark eyes followed Evelyn's movements after she helped him lay on the couch. "They jus' gave me a LOT of tha'biochemical substance. Might'ake a while tae metabolise it." In his own ears, he noticed his diction and prosody were becoming clearer, but the accent remained. "Some guid ol' H20 will help me flush it oot."

His gaze traveled up to her spackled ceiling; he noticed even his vision was beginning to clear, the blur fading from it and his eyes able to follow the fine starburst-like lines slapped onto it. "I kin notice that m'visions clearin' already. That's a guid thing, yeah?" Reaching up his spindly fingers, he brushed them over his own forehead and felt sticky places where the sweat had begun to evaporate.

RE: The Doctor

[memoirsverse.livejournal.com]

(Reply posted to a new comment since the thread was starting to edge over too far.)

Evelyn

[memoirsverse.livejournal.com]

Whisking out of the living room a little bit too quickly for her shaking legs and swimming head, she returned to the bathroom to collect another cloth for his forehead, holding it under the running tap for a few seconds and wringing it out.  She then filled the cup he had been using with more fresh water and started back towards where she had left the Doctor, but then remembered and grabbed the bottle of mouthwash before stepping back into the hallway.

Returning to his side, she knelt onto the carpet beside him, handing him the mouthwash bottle and the cup of water, wet cloth still in her other hand.  "Here you go."  A relieved smile touched her lips at his declaration, and she said, "Good, good.  That's good.  You're going to be all right, just need a little rest and TLC."  A flash of him lying in that cell, battered and delirious, grated through her mind like broken glass as she spoke, and again she wrestled down a surge of rage towards the... people... who had done this to him, coupled with a desperate need to wrap him in her arms and shield him from further harm. 

Keeping her features placid and her emotions as hidden as possible (though the depth within her eyes told the story, despite her best attempts at concealment), she folded the wet cloth and reached out to dab it lightly against his forehead, catching the rivulets of sweat that were still slowly creeping down his face.  "There," she murmured.  "Lie back.  Let's get this fever down."

The Doctor

[10th-13thdoctor.livejournal.com]

He nodded. "Thank ye," he murmured as he took the cup of water from Evelyn with a mildly quivering hand; he willed himself to steady his muscles as he wrapped his long, pale fingers around the cup and tried not to spill or slosh the water about. Sitting up slightly, he brought the water to his lips and downed it in three quick, hard swallows.

Setting the cup aside on the coffee table, he unscrewed the cap off the mouthwash bottle and poured a small amount -- about a quarter of a inch -- into the cup, Lifting it to his lips and tilting it up, he let the vivid dark green liquid flow into his half-open mouth and then he quickly rinsed. Turning his head after a moment, he spit it out into the cup, dragged the hem of his shirt sleeve across his lips, and then set the cup where it would be out of the way on the coffee table.

Following her command, he reclined on the couch, his eyes drifting up to her hands as she dabbed his forehead with the wet washcloth. He watched her movement to distract himself from the remaining nausea that hovered inside his stomach; it was barely there, but enough to poke at his insides and make him notice it.

But it didn't distract him from how weak he felt; exhausted, his eyelids suddenly felt heavy and began to close. "Sh-sham g-gar’ngun," he mumbled. So sorry....

//The last thing he says is in Gallifreyan. A friend who I RP my Dark!Nico with her Dark!Ten posted a crapload of Gallifreyan phrases a few days ago. Gold!

Evelyn

[memoirsverse.livejournal.com]

Evelyn shifted on the floor so her legs curled beneath her, continuing to draw the cool cloth over his forehead, pushing it up and stroking over the matted snarl of his hair. "Shhhh..." she soothed. Her own weariness was threatening to overtake her senses and plunge her into unconsciousness, but she fought to hold out until she could assure herself that he was safe.

"You have nothing to be sorry for..." As the whispered response drifted from her lips, it did not register to her mind that she had heard and understood the Gallifreyan words.

She sagged forward slightly against the couch, her head lolling and her eyes fluttering closed for a moment before she dragged them open again to look over the Doctor. He seemed to be drifting already towards sleep. Pausing to give one last dab with the cloth, she laid it across his forehead, and then with some difficulty rose to her feet. Her body felt heavy and numb as she walked the few steps to the overstuffed chair by the fireplace, and she sank down onto the cushions, pulling her legs up and resting her head to one side. Sleep engulfed her a moment later.

The Doctor

[10th-13thdoctor.livejournal.com]

Sleep claimed him within seconds after she whispered to him. In his dwindling mental fog, her English reply to his mumbled Gallifreyan -- or the fact that she could even understand it to reply, didn't strike him as strange at all. Currents of that awful biochemical substance that shot up his internal temperature still coursed through his veins, although by now only in fading ribbons as they traveled down his blood stream. He was metabolising it, albeit slowly...

The last thing he felt before blacking out was the wet, cool washcloth laid across his forehead.

In his sleep, sweat kept crawling out of his pores, although over the space of fifteen or twenty minutes, the streams of it began to dwindle. His mind beaconed in dreams, replaying the faces of the scientists -- if they could even call themselves that! -- of Sekorus Three who seized him and experimented on him. They were like giant, human-sized jellyfish with translucent blue-white skin and two green marbles for eyes: incredibly beautiful, but incredibly thick.

It wasn't so much the fact that they wanted to study him that bothered him, nor did their ignorance really bother him either. After all, they'd never really seen humanoid forms, much less a Time Lord. It was their sloppiness, coupled with an unwillingness to learn that annoyed him. And did they really need to poke, prod, and inject him with substances to satiate their curiosity? He would have gladly answered all the questions they had.

He groaned. In his sleep, he could still feel the wound across the right half of his chest emitting a dull throb.

Evelyn

[memoirsverse.livejournal.com]

Her sleep was for a time deep, the sleep of one who had struggled against a creeping exhaustion until finally succumbing. It was a dreamless sleep, a Travel-less sleep.

An indeterminate amount of time later, her cat came padding into the room from wherever she had been hiding. She began to walk over to the couch, to rest on her favorite perch on its back, and was rather perturbed to find a strange man sleeping there. Lifting her head and twitching her whiskers, she tried to get a whiff of the newcomer. His scent was something altogether different from anything she'd ever encountered, and for a moment, Nimue contemplated bounding over him to reach her nesting spot. She thought better of it, though, and made her way to the plush easy chair where her Evelyn slept. Deftly hopping up, she settled in the warm lap, her fluffy tail curling around her.

Evelyn was nominally aware of the sudden weight of the cat in her lap, the motion drawing her momentarily to the brink of wakefulness. She came more fully awake as the sound of a pained groan from the Doctor, and sat up, jostling Nimue and blinking groggily. Squinting at him for a moment, she debated whether or not to go over to him, but he seemed to be as deeply asleep as she had been a moment ago. She leaned back again, her hand idly stroking down the bright orange, brown, and white patchwork of Nimue's fur, and fought against the heaviness pulling at her eyelids, struggling to stay awake in order to keep watch.

The Doctor

[10th-13thdoctor.livejournal.com]

The Doctor continued in a deep, mostly dreamless sleep, moving through a murky viscous blackness. The dull pain wincing from the scar on his chest soon faded as he sunk in deeper.

Soon, some images came unbidden to him from behind his closed eyelids: the view of Sekorus Three he'd seen once in his fourth incarnation when doing a bit of reading in the TARDIS library...the pale green smattering of bushes and trees he'd seen once he peered out of the TARDIS doors after landing there...and then...a Catkind? This was a female, tall and slender, with calico fur and wearing a long emerald off-the-shoulder evening gown. She spoke, but for some reason he couldn't translate her words, which was unusual since he could speak nearly every language.

"'Scuse me," he mumbled, "I'm sorry, but I can't understand you." (Unbeknownst to him, his sleeping form also mumbled these words -- but half incoherently.) But she looked at him confused...and he wondered why his TARDIS was not translating either. Wait -- was he very far away from the TARDIS?

And in the depths of his dream, he could feel himself focus on her with a steely-eyed gaze, his own face expressionless (he'd not had many good experiences with Catkind). Finally she sniffed him, mumbled something he still couldn't translate, stroked his hair, and then walked away.

Well, he decided inside his dream. That was strange. He hoped that whatever substances the Sekorans had given him hadn't damaged his brain. This deep in sleep, he couldn't tell, and exhaustion fogged through the labyrinth of his mind, curling into its corridors like light gray smoke. Maybe he could better judge things after he woke up. He became partially aware in his sleep -- it edged at the periphery of his senses -- that he was starting to feel cold. His sleeping self mumbled malfan and his body shivered lightly.