Title: Wake up
Fandom: Doctor Who (Multi-era)
Characters: the Doctor, various companions
Word Count: 363
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I own no Who, as usual.
Summary: How many times have they found him like this?
He wakes up in the mud, one of Jack’s hands feeling at his throat for a pulse, the other desperately clenching both of his own.
Or he wakes up and Romana’s laughing at him, till she sees how much pain he’s in. Bends to kiss him on the forehead. Runs off to fetch him the glass of water the TARDIS gladly provides.
Wakes up and Ace is calling his name over and over, pulling off her jacket to prop it under his head. He can feel every patch, the embroidery scraping on his ears.
He wakes up and Martha is there, unbuttoning his collar, easing her stethoscope onto his chest.
Wakes up and Rose is screaming his name, taking him by the shoulders and just shaking.
“Spaceman! Hey, come on, wake up!” Donna smooths the hair back from his face and sighs. “Oh, Doctor.”
Or Joan Redfern cradles his head in her lap.
Or he wakes up alone, the TARDIS humming a gentle reproach even as it prepares what he’ll need to patch himself up.
He wakes up in a glade of long red grass, orange skies overhead and silver leaves blowing on the wind. Wakes up to the smell of water and the taste of wind and everything he’s missed and knows he’s the last of his kind and he lies back down and sobs into the red soil of Gallifrey.
Wakes up all tangled in circuits and covered in blood and it’s not enough, the last of the Daleks are still alive and he can hear their awful voices as he watches their ship drift away-
“Shhh.” Amy rubs his shoulder consolingly. “You had a bad dream, did you?”
He can make out the arch of the TARDIS ceiling in the dim room which he slowly recognizes as the infirmary. He blinks several times, but his vision doesn’t clear. Everything’s spinning.
“Rory says concussion. You fell on the ice.” She touches his forehead very gently, brushing his fringe out of his eyes. Lifts her hand. “You should sleep. You'll feel better after."
He closes his eyes, though he knows it isn't true.