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It had started around ten minutes after they'd entered the TARDIS from the rainy planet of Noiphus.
After the hectic day they'd had with running and banquets, the Doctor announced they would take one last trip out before bedtime to some planet he'd described as full of mirages and a great sushi bar. Rose had agreed and quickly went to get changed out of her rain-soaked clothes. When she arrived back in the console room, she'd found the Doctor leaning on the console, looking a little off. Despite ten minutes since she'd left to get changed, for some reason, he hadn't programmed the destination yet.
'I'm ready!' she said happily as she entered, but he didn't reply. He was barely looking at her, his eyebrows knitted. As she watched him, she realised he was struggling to stay upright as his chest heaved, inexplicably having problems breathing.
'Rose,' he gasped.
Quickly worried and confused, she went to him, placing a hand on his arm. 'Doctor? What's wrong?'
'Ah am … Ah …' he groaned, suddenly struggling to speak.
Her alarm bells started ringing. 'Doctor? What …'
'Allayger ...' he slurred out, and suddenly he was on his knees, one hand on his neck and the other clinging to the console.
Now she was panicking. 'What's happenin' to you!?'
The Doctor wheezed, clearly trying to get out some words but failing. He then lost the ability to kneel as his hand let go of the console, and he hit the floor, gasping and clearly unable to speak.
'What the … Doctor!' she cried, panicking. She watched, horrified, as she realised his face was swelling up.
Wait. Rose had seen this before. Her little cousin, Bea, had a nut allergy; one Christmas, there'd been a mix-up with a nut roast, and Bea had a severe allergic reaction. She'd swollen up, struggled to breathe, and collapsed … just like the Doctor. That meant …
'Oh my god, you're havin' an allergic reaction,' Rose realised. 'You're havin' an allergic reaction!'
He just wheezed as his eyes darted around in their sockets, panicking.
'EpiPen,' Rose breathed, her eyes wide. 'I've gotta find you an EpiPen!'
Then, she ran. She flew out of the living room into the corridor, careering down until she reached the infirmary, skidding to a halt in front of the door. She burst in, panting with adrenaline and scanning the room desperately for any hint of where an EpiPen might be. She'd barely been in here, besides one time the Doctor had treated her for a nasty bout of Venusian Flu, and she'd had to stay in here overnight while he observed her. Thankfully she'd come out no worse for wear, but where had he gone for the medicine?
She panned the area. There were four beds in a line, all freshly dressed in clean white sheets by the TARDIS' automated systems, the scanner to her right, a washroom to her left, and a few adjoining doors she'd never explored. She ran to them immediately, going through each one until she found a room stack with white boxes and sealed liquids on metal shelves. This had to be it.
'EpiPen, EpiPen, EpiPen …' she breathed, scanning through the boxes at speed to find the single word that would stop this nightmare. Two minutes later, she was still looking. 'Where are you!?' she wailed before something in her brain told her to recheck the first shelf. She followed that gut instinct, spinning back around and looking again. There, her eyes inexplicably lingered on a packet labelled adrenaline.
She read the back. 'Adrenaline … hormone and neurotransmitter … 500 micrograms dosage, 1 milligram slash 1 millilitre … to be injected intramuscularly, optimally into the anterolateral aspect of the middle third of the thigh … for … acute anaphylaxis!'
Triumphant, she took the box and ran back out of the infirmary, straight back to the console room. Any wild wishes she had about the Doctor having miraculously jumped up and restored were immediately dispelled as she saw him still lying on the floor.
'I got it, I got it!' she shouted, crashing to her knees beside him. Without a beat, she ripped open the packet to pull out a pre-loaded capped needle. This wasn't like an Epipen, she realised. This was a proper injection, and she had no idea how to administer it.
'No, no, no,' she moaned, rechecking the packet. It had suddenly become harder to read in the lack of light - the TARDIS had dropped to half-power.
To be injected intramuscularly, optimally into the anterolateral aspect of the middle third of the thigh.
Middle of the thigh, she concluded. She'd had quite a few injections before but never looked - far too nervous to see. Now she wished her younger self had been a bit braver. Just looked at what the nurse had been doing, so she had an idea of what an intramuscular injection was and what she was supposed to do to save him.
Her gut instinct told her to just stab it at a right angle, so she did, piercing the fabric of his trousers and causing the needle to disappear inside him. She pressed down the plunger, slowly and nervously, expecting any second for him to react somehow. He didn't. Once all the liquid was gone, she just held it there for a few moments, with no idea what to do next. Quite a few seconds passed before she pulled it out and moved to his swollen face, cupping his chin.
'Doctor, Doctor, can you hear me?' she asked, her voice shaking. 'Please, Doctor.'
He didn't react. She checked his pulse - she had no idea what it was supposed to be, but it seemed to be going at the same pace as hers, which for a two-hearted man didn't seem right. 'Doctor … please.'
He suddenly gasped.
'Oh, thank god,' she breathed, stroking back his hair impulsively. 'Wow, you really got me goin' there. Hi.'
He vaguely looked at her and opened his mouth, but only really on one side. 'Arrr,' he said in a drawl.
She frowned. 'Doctor?'
'Nuur,' he croaked.
'What?'
'Nah … nuh,' he managed.
This wasn't fatigue, she realised. The Doctor couldn't seem to talk. The swelling was rapidly going down, and she could see one side of his face was drooped, and the other only had slight twinges around his mouth and eye. Once again, she'd seen this before. Just before he died, Granddad Prentice had been like this in the hospital when she'd been nine years old. And that had been because ...
'You've had a stroke,' she realised. 'Oh god, I took so long that you've had a stroke.'
'Mmm nnn,' he said.
She swore, horrified. 'No …'
He stopped talking, clearly giving up. He was a little more focused now, his working eye fixed on her but completely unable to communicate. She stared at him, trying not to cry. He'd had a stroke. A stroke. This was beyond anything she knew. She'd watched plenty of Casualty with her mum, but this was an entirely different level. So much so …
'I dunno what to do,' she realised, gazing at him in sheer dread. 'What the hell do I do?'
He continued to look at her, his eyes shining.
She suddenly had an idea, picking up his hand and placing his fingers on her temples. 'Please talk to me telepathically,' she begged him. 'Please tell me what to do.'
He was silent.
'Please,' she stressed.
Nothing.
She reluctantly took his fingers off her temples, feeling like she was going to cry. She looked at him, cradling his limp hand against her chin as though clutching prayer beads. He was concentrating on her, entirely focused with that familiar sharpness - he was clearly still thinking straight, but his body seemed to have shut down.
'Okay … okay, think,' she told herself, her mind rushing. 'Think, think, think.'
She considered her options. Her nearest bed would be in the infirmary, and right now, that was precisely where the Doctor needed to be.
'I need to get you to the infirmary,' she told him. 'I've gonna have to drag you there …'
She took position behind his shoulders, placing her elbows under his armpits. She steeled herself and then began to pull him across the grating. He suddenly let out the most appalling and heartbreaking whine at the movement, causing her to freeze in horror.
'Oh god, I'm sorry,' she said quickly, realising it had been through pain. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry …'
'Euuuff,' he said, gasping.
'Okay, okay, I'll stop,' she said, trying to move him as little as possible as she knelt down, still holding him, and gradually moving her arms around to hug his chest, placing her chin on his shoulder. His right hand, very sluggish and uncoordinated, slowly rose and rested on her wrist. His entire left side was completely limp. 'We can stay here for a bit,' she found herself saying without anything in her head agreeing to it. She didn't want to move him an inch. She couldn't hear that noise again.
They stayed like that for at least ten minutes, not that Rose had any particularly reliable method of timekeeping - most definitely not her own warped, thrumming perception of these horrific circumstances. But after those ten minutes, she'd calmed down a little, quelling the initial shock of what was happening. Remaining locked in the hug with him throughout that time, she'd felt his hearts progressively picking up to their normal pace until they intensely vibrated through her arms and chest. His breathing had returned to normal, his swelling had gone down, and his hand had remained on hers as a reassurance.
'Okay,' she whispered in his ear. 'Try again?'
'Buh,' he croaked.
His hand dropped from hers, some sort of signal she couldn't read. Regardless, she slowly stood up again, reaffirming her grip before dragging him again.
This time, he didn't cry out. Reassured, Rose tried her best to get there as quickly as possible.
Even though he was as thin as a rake, Rose still took an extremely long time to drag the Doctor to the infirmary, and getting him onto the bed was even worse. Once there, she did her best to make him comfortable, taking off his shoes and straightening him up. By the end of it, she was exhausted, with her back aching from the effort of pulling and manipulating him.
Once he seemed comfortable, she told him she'd be back and then went to the bathroom. She hadn't intended to cry when she walked in, but she burst into tears within moments of closing the door. This was her fault. If she'd been quicker with the medicine, they'd be laughing off the allergic reaction and saying goodnight right now. Instead, he was now mute and motionless in the infirmary, and she was crying in the toilet with no idea what she was supposed to do now. What if he never recovered? What if he never spoke again? What if he couldn't regenerate? What if … this was it?
When she'd cried all she could, Rose took a few minutes to breathe before smartening herself up in the mirror to make it look like she hadn't been crying. She then decided she couldn't go to her room to sleep - she'd have to stay in the infirmary for the night.
She went back to him. He hadn't moved at all. She took his hand, and he looked at her, saying nothing.
'I'll stay here with you overnight, and we'll see how you are in the mornin', yeah?' she said and hugged him. 'Get some sleep.'
She made sure he was as comfortable as possible before she took the bed next to his, curling up under the sheets, still fully dressed. After what felt like hours, she fell into a very uneasy sleep.
Rose woke up at 6am, feeling no better. In fact, she felt worse - still exhausted and achy, and now hungry and thirsty on top of everything else. Instinctively, she turned her head, looking across the infirmary to the bed she'd left him on. He hadn't moved. She was suddenly disappointed - she'd subconsciously been expecting him to be up and about and running around as usual. But, of course, it wasn't going to be that simple.
She got up, stepping lightly towards him. He was awake. 'Hey,' she said softly and immediately knew he was still the same. One side of his face still wasn't making any form of expression.
'Talk to me,' she said softly.
'Buhnuh,' he said.
'Okay, not magically better. Haven't changed at all,' Rose muttered, her mind suddenly racing. Now she'd had a bit of time to comprehend what had happened, she was feeling more focused. She clearly couldn't just sit here and wait for some fix to appear. She had to do something. Trouble was, she didn't quite know what that something was supposed to be.
She thought through her options. There was no way of piloting the TARDIS anywhere, and even if she could, where would she go? With his home planet gone, there was nothing there to help, and she had no idea if there was any alien hospital that would take gallifreyans.
She could try calling someone, she supposed. Her first thought was Sarah Jane, but she didn't have her number and would have to track her down somehow without the ability to use the TARDIS database. The only other person she had that knew anything about him was her mum, but Rose wasn't quite sure at the moment what she'd be able to do.
'Right, Rose, break it down, goin' too fast,' she said to herself and then looked at him. 'Step one, you need to be comfortable cos I think you're gonna be here a while. Then I'll worry about the other stuff.'
He said nothing, just silently watching her, unmoving. Ignoring her hunger and thirst for the moment, she set to work.
It took most of the morning, but through his limited help and her own strength, Rose managed to get him undressed to his boxers and into a gown and make him as snug as possible in the bed. She swaddled him in blankets and tried to arrange the pillows in their optimum position. She'd even gone to her room to retrieve Matti the purple pirate bear to place on the bedside table next to him. She wasn't sure what good it would do, but at least she brightened up the place from the emotionless, stale whiteness of the infirmary.
She then sat beside the Doctor. Having had all morning to think about it while tending to him, she'd come up with a barebones plan that she was feeling quite optimistic about, which she decided to explain to him as though seeking some approval he wasn't going to be able to give.
'Sarah Jane's a freelance journalist, so she'll probably have her number in the Yellow Pages,' she said as he stared at her. 'So I could get Mum to find her there, then I can call her, and she can help. If that doesn't work, then maybe I can get Mum to ask Tina the Cleaner's medical student lodger about strokes. And if that doesn't work, I could get Mum to go down to the library to search the computer for stuff. One of those has gotta work, yeah?'
He just gazed at her.
'Okay. Gotta call Mum,' she decided.
She made the call. There was an instant dead tone to indicate the phone had no signal.
'No signal,' she said, confused. 'But you upgraded it, it should … Oh. It didn't work on Krop Tor cos it was out of the range of the Tardis, and now she's on half-power cos of you … it's the same thing.'
She paused as he continued staring at her, and she realised what this meant.
'I can't call anyone,' she muttered.
She and the Doctor were now effectively cut off from the rest of the universe. One very sick mute Time Lord and a girl whose height of medical training was a certificate of participation in a First Aid session when she'd been ten years old.
She needed to think again - she looked back at him. He was still gazing at her. 'Right, I'll figure this out. However long it takes. I'm gonna look after you more than my mum, I promise. I'm gonna be here all day every day, and you're gonna be sick of seeing me by the time you're better, yeah?' she joked. 'I'll get us some food.'
Rose made herself a sandwich and, after some deliberation, decided to prepare some porridge for him alongside some tea, as that had done him good at Christmas. She took everything back to the infirmary and placed it on his table before picking up a spoon and dunking it into the porridge. She made sure it wasn't too hot before she raised it to his mouth.
He opened his lips just a little, and carefully she put the spoon in. He clearly tried to swallow, before half a second later, to her absolute horror, he was suddenly choking.
'No, stop …' she said, panicking and abandoning the spoon, unsure what to do. Thankfully it resolved itself with no input from her, but it left the Doctor breathless and his front stained with spewed-up porridge.
For a moment, she just stared at him. This couldn't be happening. 'You can't swallow,' she croaked.
As soon as she said it, a tear rolled down his cheek.
'No, don't cry,' she said softly, taking hold of his hand.
'Murn,' he croaked, and another tear joined it.
She hugged his head, holding him tightly as he sobbed, shaking in her grip. 'It's okay,' she assured him, stroking back his hair. 'It's okay.'
He quietly wept. Rose was trying with every single cell in her body not to join him. She rarely saw him cry, and even to hear him doing felt like someone was twisting a knife slowly in her gut.
When he finally stopped, she pulled back to look him directly in his working eye, cupping his cheeks.
'It's okay. I've just gotta figure somethin' else out. I'll get food in you somehow, I promise,' Rose said slowly and carefully.
He couldn't even nod as she wiped his damp cheeks and carefully lowered him back to lie down. She'd have to clean up first - thankfully, the undigested porridge had only gone onto the blanket, so with a quick switch from the next bed, he was clean again.
She decided then. If she couldn't go anywhere for information, she'd have to bring the information to her. She had to get to the library. It was so big there had to be something there. 'Get some sleep. I'll sort somethin' out,' she told the Time Lord.
Now red and slightly swollen with tears, he closed his working eye, and for the first time, she realised his other wasn't closing with it. 'Hold on,' she said, and he opened his eye again. 'Your eye's not … lemme look.'
She leant in to examine him - the eye looked significantly drier than the other one and irritated, most likely since he hadn't blinked in twelve hours. She frowned, wondering what she could do before her gaze drifted to Matti the purple pirate bear and his trusty eyepatch. She retrieved it, and thankfully it fitted the Time Lord perfectly. Temporary solution, but it was effective.
She left him to sleep as she made her way to the library.
Rose hadn't been in the library much since she'd started travelling with him - usually, she'd only ducked her head in on occasions where she'd been trying to find the Doctor. Now, as she stood at the entrance of its mind-bogglingly big room filled to the brim with books from across the universe, she realised she had no idea where to start looking.
Thankfully, her eye quickly caught a nearby compact silver computer that could only be a database. She jogged to it, touching the screen to kick it into life, but quickly realised the text was in Gallifreyan, which was the one language the TARDIS didn't translate for her.
Her heart sank, wondering how on Earth she would find anything in this endless maze of information before she suddenly felt a compelling gut feeling. Something was telling her to go left.
She decided to follow it. It took her left, through an aisle, right, up some steps, forward, left, and finally to a very particular shelf near some bins. Trusting that gut instinct, she raised her hand, resting on a book. She pulled it out to check the cover.
Her heart sank as she realised it was also in Gallifreyan. However, as soon as she'd thought that depressing thought, the alien letters seemed to blur and warp as she focused on the title and changed to English: Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology, 5th Edition.
'Yes!' she chimed, hitting the bullseye. She quickly flipped through it - the book was full of diagrams and tiny text, which, as she scanned, were changing from Gallifreyan to English like an ocean wave as she moved her gaze across the page. It was changing as she read it, she realised. It had to be the TARDIS, trying her best to translate it for her despite being on half-power.
She shut the book and clung to it tightly, looking up at the ceiling with the broadest smile. 'Thank you,' she said earnestly.
She got no reaction; instead, her gut instinct started pulling her somewhere else. It was precisely the same feeling she'd had in the medicine cupboard - she quickly realised that had been the TARDIS, too, subconsciously directing her to where she needed to be. She followed the feeling and ended up with a second book: Forwein's Guide to Clinical Nursing Procedures, then a third: Management of Stroke Volume 2: Treatment and Prevention.
She followed the feeling around the library, picking up two more tomes until she eventually landed on a small leaflet rack, and her hand instinctively picked up one aimed at kids.
Just Say No!
Just a friendly reminder from the TARDIS not to try anything too clever, she guessed and nodded. 'Got it. No drugs.'
And with that, she found a spot on a nearby empty desk and began to read.
Rose returned to the infirmary with her five hefty books and a good plan for the evening. He was already awake when she dumped the books on his table, saying hi and warning him briefly about what was to come before going to the medicine and equipment cupboards to retrieve everything she needed and then returning with a trolley full of gear.
The very first thing she did was lift his eyepatch, where his eyelid was still uncontrollably open. After allowing his eye to adjust to the light, she carefully squeezed out two beads of eye drops and then covered his eye up again to enable it to recover from being stuck open for so long.
Now, here was the hard part. Rose needed to feed him, and with his swallowing being as bad as it was, the only way that would happen was through a nasogastric tube.
'Okay, I'm gonna put a tube down your nose into your stomach so I can feed you,' she told him. 'I bet it's gonna be really uncomfortable, so I'm sorry, but there's nothin' else I can do.'
'Muhn,' he mumbled, looking at her.
Once again, she followed the book's instructions to the finest detail, preparing everything methodically and keeping it clean. She checked the length of the tube to the Doctor's stomach, lubricated the end, and then pushed the end into his nose with a bit of bravado. Despite how weird it was, it seemed to glide in quickly, and with some simple pushing, she found she was pretty pleased with herself - at least until the end of the tube started coming out of his mouth, clearly having taken the wrong path.
'Whoops. Sorry. Book said I'd do that,' she said apologetically, shrugging and smiling.
She pulled it back out, cleaning it before trying again. This time it seemed to go down all the way. Once fully in, she taped the tube to his face and hung it around his ear. Then, following the instructions to the absolute letter, she checked his aspirate for acid to ensure the tube was in the right place before flushing the line with water. She then pulled out her gamechanger - a large pack of enteral feed. She held it up so he could see.
'This is like liquid food, but you probably know that already,' she said. 'It looks disgustin', but it's the only thing you have in your cupboard.'
'Nuur,' he croaked.
'Yeah, I know, it's not a roast dinner, but we'll get there eventually, yeah?' she said, pulling up the amount needed into a syringe and then pumping it into his tube.
It seemed to take forever. Despite diluting it with water like the book had advised, the thick yellow liquid required so much effort Rose's hand was cramping by the end. Once done, she flushed the line again as per the instructions.
'Okay, your Gallifreyan book says it's that twice a day until you can swallow thick stuff,' she told him. 'Eyedrops three times a day. Don't worry, I've got this. I'm gonna have a really muscly right hand when we're done, yeah?'
She swore she saw the corner of his mouth twitch a little upwards for a small smile. She beamed back and leaned forward to hug him.
'I told you; I promised. I'm gonna be worse than my mum. You'd better be ready.'
Three days passed, and they were settling into something of a routine. Rose would administer the eyedrops in the morning and feed him through the tube before getting him washed from head to toe. The latter had been slightly awkward to start with due to the intimate nature of it, but she'd quickly overcome that feeling. She had no idea if he'd become in any way okay about it. Still, frankly, it was a labour of necessity to make sure he remained snug and hygienic throughout his bedridden existence, and he didn't seem to be trying to fight her.
Doing that usually took up most of the morning, taking them through to lunchtime. After the eyedrops, she'd usually try some games with him to try and improve his speech and motor skills - anything from Connect 4 to word association. It seemed to be having an effect, as although the Doctor was still bedridden and mostly inanimate, the better side of his face was becoming more expressive, and his arm was able to lift a little and grasp things, if only for a few minutes.
Then, it would be tea time. She'd feed him, then settle in for the night to keep him company in a mostly one-sided conversation. She'd talk about anything - her mum, her school days - just to maintain the flow of talking. He couldn't reply, but his attentive nature told her he was listening with interest. That was enough.
On Sunday evening, halfway through watching a film, she asked him if he was comfortable, and for the first time, he firmly nodded.
More time passed, and Rose felt she needed to step up a gear.
She'd been reading the Gallifreyan physiology books she'd accumulated, trying to build a picture of what she was supposed to be looking at when she was monitoring him. One thing she'd noticed that wasn't happening was particularly fundamental, and she decided to confront him about it at 9 o'clock in the morning before she fed him.
'Okay, the book says you wee twice a week, and we're already five days in. Where is it?' she wanted to know. 'Drop it, mate.'
He smiled at the corner of his mouth, far more pronounced than a few days previously.
'Do you need it?' she wondered.
He shook his head.
'Really? You're off-schedule,' she mused. 'Are you feelin' okay?'
He nodded.
‘Cos the book says if you're in urinary retention, I should put a catheter in, and that looks really complicated for me and really painful for you.'
He gave a small smile, amused by her. He shook his head again and let out a small, 'murn.'
'Oh, you think I'm kiddin'?' she bemoaned. 'You'd better go before lunch, or I'm puttin' it in.'
One hour later, she was by him with a urine bottle. Threats had worked.
As the days rolled by, his frail side was now displaying some signs of movement, and he was starting to make more intelligible and complex noises. Nothing too distinct, but she'd noticed certain sounds he was making were matching with what he wanted - nagha meant 'Rose', forne meant 'toilet', and bahnoo meant 'for the love of God, Rose, there are other games besides Connect 4'.
That evening she tried feeding hi to test his swallow, which had been highly unsuccessful. While Rose cleaned the attempt up, he suddenly made a noise she hadn't heard from him previously.
'Rone.'
She paused in wiping at his mashed potato-covered mouth. 'What?'
'Rone,' he said again, looking like he was really concentrating.
'One more time?' she asked him.
'Rone.' He was gazing at her hopefully.
Her eyes widened, startled as she realised. 'Hold on … are you tryin' to say my name?'
'Rone …' he repeated yet again, nodding.
'You are!' she realised, shocked. 'Say it again …'
'Rone.'
She laughed and hugged him, getting mashed potato all over her shirt, but she didn't care. 'Yes, Doctor, yes!'
His weaker arm slowly but surely lifted up a little, trying to hug her in return. It fell after three seconds, but it was enough for her to feel like he was definitely coming back to her.
'No,' the Doctor said after ten days in the infirmary, looking disgruntled as she tried to force some gravy-laden mashed potato in him for the fourth time.
'C'mon, Doctor,' she begged. 'If you can swallow this, maybe I can get rid of that tube soon.'
'No.'
'What d'you want then?' she asked seriously.
'Food.'
'Yeah, but what kinda food?'
'Umm ... rail. Real,' the Doctor corrected himself.
'Real?' she repeated, frowning. 'Mashed potatoes are real.'
'No.'
She sighed, looked to her reliable stroke treatment book, and scanned it for help for something a little more inspired. She found it. 'Ah! Okay, give me half an hour.'
He nodded. She went to the kitchen and returned with a plate full of thick, moist, pureed food in sludgy, unappetising coloured piles.
He looked at her triumphant idea, clearly less than impressed.
'It's a blended roast,' she told him and pointed at each food item in turn. 'There's your chicken, there's your peas, there's your carrots, and there's your parsnips. Phased out the mashed potato for ya.'
'Oh, yes,' he said and then eagerly ate.
It took a while, and he had to put in a significant effort, but eventually they managed to clear the plate entirely without a single incident. Rose was so happy that as the last spoonful disappeared down his throat, she let him pick the film to watch that evening.
As usual, she lay on the bed next to him and allowed him to practise holding her hand, periodically gripping and ungripping with his weak side, but after ten minutes, he was asleep, and the gripping stopped.
Not wanting to disturb him, she stayed with him on the bed, keeping her hand in his if he wanted to grip it again as she finished the film alone. Once it was over, she carefully climbed off the bed, checked his comfort, and then went to hers. She pulled out her phone, hoping and praying that with the progress they'd made, she'd be able to call her mum.
Finally, it worked, and her mum picked up within three rings.
'Hello?'
'Mum, it's me,' Rose said quietly so she didn't wake him up. She suddenly found herself a bit emotional at her mum's voice.
'Rose! Oh, sweetheart, you ain't called in ages. How are ya?'
Rose opened her mouth, expecting to tell her mum in clear, refined, and informative words that the Doctor had been ill, but she'd done her best to take care of him, and he was doing really well. Instead, she let out a very loud sob, surprising both her and her mum.
'Rose? What happened?'
Rose swallowed, wiping at her eyes preemptively to stop the tears she could feel coming. With the Doctor's limited communication, it was as though the emotion of the past two weeks had suddenly washed up and broken through the barriers at the sound of someone else's voice. 'Mum … it's the Doctor.'
'What about him?'
'He … it's all my fault.'
'Rose, tell me what's goin' on. Is he there?'
She took a deep breath and explained everything. He'd had an allergic reaction to something, and she'd taken so long to get him the medicine he'd had a stroke and had spent the past two weeks in the infirmary trying to recover. She explained everything she'd done for him and everything he'd achieved in such a short time. But even saying that didn't make her feel any better about causing all of it.
'Rose, this ain't your fault,' her mum told her when she finished. 'You couldn't 'ave got it any faster. Can I talk to him?'
'He's asleep,' Rose muttered.
'Rose,' he suddenly said from behind her.
Startled, she looked back to see him looking at her, his stronger arm reaching out, seemingly indicating he wanted to talk to Jackie. Frowning and wiping her eyes again, she moved to him and put it on speakerphone.
'He's here,' she told her mum.
'Doctor? How are you doin', sweetheart?'
'Good. Have … words. Eat … err, err … shell, no, small ,' he said.
There was a pause. Rose knew why. She'd gotten used to it, but the sound of the Doctor being so inarticulate was probably quite a shock for her mother.
'... Can you bring the Tardis back 'ere, love?'
'He can't, Mum,' Rose told her. 'He can't walk yet.'
'Try … hard,' the Doctor added. 'No … moves.'
'Okay. Then can you tell Rose that none of this was 'er fault?'
He nodded. 'Rose,' the Doctor began, looking at her. His face suddenly screwed up in concentration, fighting hard to find and say the words he wanted her to hear. 'You … save me. Me … I … my … fault. I have … thanks a lot. Can't… fight … alone. Need … Rose. Need Rose.'
Rose gazed at him, crying again. This time, not because she was sad, but because she was so happy . That sentence had been the longest and most complex she'd heard from him in two weeks. He'd come so far, and she was so, so proud of him.
Forgetting her mum on the end of the line, she dropped to sit on the bed and hugged him, crying over his shoulder. He held her in return, with that weak arm now much stronger and able to stay holding her lightly.
Eventually, they prised apart, and Jackie made Rose promise to call her daily with updates. Rose agreed.
The day the NG tube came out was also the day he managed to get to the shower room and have a wash. He'd achieved it by sitting in a shower chair, with Rose only helping on his lower back, bum, and legs. After that, he'd clearly been inspired by his success and managed to complete an assisted journey around the infirmary using a frame.
By the end, he was absolutely knackered, so she let him sleep for the afternoon. She got a cup of tea and called her mum from her room.
'Hello?'
'Mum.'
'Rose? How is he?'
'I took his feedin' tube out today, and then he had a shower and a walkaround,' Rose told her.
'Oh, that's good,' Jackie said, happy. 'How's his talkin'?'
'About the same.'
'All right. As soon as he can, tell him to come back 'ere, okay?'
'What?' Rose asked, confused.
'Come back, sweetheart. I don't want you havin' you look after 'im all on your own. Hannah was all over the place when Mike had a stroke, poor girl. Just let me help.'
'Mum, honest, it's okay,' Rose tried to insist, but her mother put her foot down.
'No. We'll get the Doctor back together, okay, love? He can stay here in the flat for a bit.'
She rolled her eyes and knew this wasn't a fight she would win. 'Yeah. I'll talk to him. Speak tomorrow.'
'Love you.'
'Love you too,' Rose replied and hung up. She sighed. Now all she had to do was convince the Doctor.
Two weeks after that fateful day in the console room, he was on the way to full recovery. His speech was much better, and although he had to use a frame to help him walk, he was getting stronger quickly.
'Can't believe we finally got here,' Rose said honestly, helping him pull on some underwear. 'Two weeks ago, this felt impossible.'
'It all been you,' he told her.
She sighed as the thought of the cause of it all drifted through her mind.
'Don't think in that,' the Doctor told her sternly. 'All was my fault.'
'If I'd been just a bit quicker …' she moaned.
'I had need to warn you before; I did not warn you,' he insisted. 'You not ready and I not give … err … prepare for it for you.'
'Yeah,' she muttered, helping him guide his legs into a pair of trousers. 'What caused it all, anyway?'
'Eating at last meal. Noiphus.'
'The blue meal we had in the palace of Noiphus?'
He nodded. 'Had … aspirin. My body not do good with drug antiplatelet things. React very bad. Embolism in brain got made. Brain went bang. Ow.'
'You're anaphylactic to aspirin?' she surmised, doing his shoes next.
'Yeah.'
'Wow, yeah. You're an idiot. I needed to know that,' she said, weirdly able to feel like she could joke about it now, despite the past two weeks.
He smiled. 'I … will write pamphlet. Long. Confusing. Diagrams.'
She laughed, now popping his arms into his shirt sleeves and doing up the buttons. 'Just as long as we never do this again.'
He nodded. 'Never again,' he repeated as Rose finished buttoning up his shirt and put a tie on him. She then threw on his jacket and buttoned that up too.
'Done,' she said happily and impulsively fluffed up his hair with her fingers until it was perfect. 'Okay. Got some bad news.'
'What?'
'We're gonna go back to Mum's for a bit and stay there until you're better.'
His eyes widened. 'No, why …'
'Hey, she wants to help,' Rose interrupted. 'Anyway, we're not exactly gonna travel until you're okay again, and the rate you're healing it won't be more than a week, so what's the problem? Gives me a break, and she really wants to help.'
He sighed. 'Ugh.'
'Oh, come on, she's gonna be treatin' you like a prince. Pretend to be even sicker, and she'll do anythin' you want. She's putty, honest.'
He smirked. 'All right. For you.'
She laughed, and they just gazed at each other, their eyes locked. She thought about leaving it there but then made an impulse decision.
She reached forward to cup his face in both hands, and after a slight pause to let him pull away if he wanted to, she kissed him.
He stiffened up a little but didn't try and pull away. When she parted from him, he looked a bit stunned.
'Sorry,' she said quickly, suddenly worried. 'I …'
'Wait,' he said and reached out, his weak side still quite obvious, but he somehow managed to take her arm to stop her. 'Okay.'
'Okay?' she repeated, astonished. 'Do you mean …'
'It is good,' he said, his eyes shining. 'Again.'
She laughed with sheer relief. 'Oh, thank God,' she said and kissed him again. This time he kissed back. It lasted longer and felt so much better.
'I love you,' she said.
'I love you,' he repeated.
She giggled, then stood up, a little giddy, just as her phone started ringing. She answered.
'Mum … yeah, we're comin' now,' she said down the phone. 'Yeah, we're stayin' for a bit … he can have my bed, I don't care, we … yeah, he can eat pizza now … no, he's not vegetarian … Mum … Mum!'
The Doctor rolled his eyes, just looking up at her, grinning. She grinned back.
'Yeah, see you in a bit,' she said down the phone. She hung up and then planted another kiss on the Doctor's forehead before she helped him upright with his frame.
'How long till you're back to normal, you reckon?' she wondered.
'Not fast enough,' he groaned.
She laughed. 'You'll get there.'
He smiled, and together they left for the console room.