Fic: The Awakening (3/?)
Title: The Awakening, Chapter 3
Fandom: Doctor Who
Author: strange_charmed aka kilodalton
Characters: Rose Tyler, Pete Tyler, The Doctor (10th), Mickey Smith, OCs
Rating: All ages
BetaBabe: zazie11
Wordcount: 1571
Summary: Rose Tyler awakens in the hospital from a coma, and a certain pinstriped Doctor tells her he has never seen her before ...
Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3
Doctor Smith leaned back against the corridor wall outside Rose’s hospital room, arms crossed, gently thunking his head against the wall as he stared off into space. Although the sound was muffled from the other side of the door, he could still hear Rose crying. A dark expression clouded his face. The girl with the violet eyes stood across from him, her arms tightly crossed as well, regarding his pained look.
“Are you alright?” she asked, hesitant.
The doctor gave her a small attempt at a smile.
“Always,” he said. “I just - well, I wasn’t expecting that.” He sighed and closed his eyes tightly, uncrossing his arms only to sweep a hand across his face.
A quizzical look momentarily flickered across her face, before she noticed how completely rattled the doctor looked, and her expression softened into something more conciliatory. She took a small step in his direction, moving her arm slightly towards him, considering whether to put her hand on his arm in a gesture of comfort. Very quickly, she decided against it - they weren’t exactly friends, or even peers, after all.
“I’m - I’m sorry that was hard for you. It will get easier for her, though,” she reassured him. “She’ll be OK.”
He scrubbed a hand through his hair and glanced up at her to give her a wary look. Faith met his gaze, a tiny but confident smile steady on her face, and nodded to emphasize her statement. Sighing, he looked her up and down, then looked away. Her gaze held steady on him, not looking away.
“She asked me ‘what have you done with him?’, like she thought I could ever have -“ the doctor started.
He cut himself off abruptly, startled to feel her hand on his shoulder. He turned to face her, as she looked back at him almost pityingly.
“I’ll wait here for Pete Tyler,” she said gently. “Go get some tea, clear your head.”
He closed his eyes, considering the offer. The sound was softer now but he could still hear Rose crying from the other side of the wall. He squeezed his eyes closed just a little tighter.
“Doctor Smith,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. “My job is to help you.”
She took a step towards him and looked up at him intently, violet eyes almost flashing.
“So let me help,” she said simply, her mouth quirking with a small, encouraging smile.
He didn’t nod, or smile, or say anything to her in response. Rather, he swallowed hard and turned away, striding down the long hospital corridor toward the staff kitchen. The farther he got from Rose’s hospital room, the more he noticed that the muffled crying sounds started to fade completely away into silence.
He picked up his pace, walking faster.
***
It was a good five minutes before Rose’s room was completely quiet. Faith stood in the hallway as she had promised Doctor Smith, waiting patiently as she leaned back against the wall, ankles crossed, arms folded over her lean torso. She closed her eyes, lost in thought about the odd case of Rose Tyler. She had been honest with Doctor Smith, and thought that the girl would recover - well, at least she hoped so. Faith was good at her job - experienced, too - but she had never seen a situation quite like this one before. Taking a walk through a garden - a garden! - on a planet called Naija 6, indeed!, she thought, shaking her head in consternation at the absurdity of the statement.
Finally the door to Rose’s room opened, and Pete Tyler walked out, hands stuffed into his jacket pockets. He gave Faith a hesitant and slightly uncomfortable smile as he approached her, still obviously feeling awkward from their previous encounter.
“How is she?” Faith asked with a gentle smile, pushing up to a standing position.
“Better,” Pete said, looking at Faith almost accusingly before glancing back over his shoulder at the door. “She’s resting now. I told her I would grab a few of her things from home and come back with them. I hate to leave her, but -“
She nodded approvingly. “No, it’s a good idea, Mr. Tyler. Anything you have that may be familiar to her - stuffed animals, photo albums, things like that. Coma patients can sometimes be a little disoriented when they wake up, and seeing familiar items can make things a little easier for them. In fact, Rose was having some sort of a hallucination just after she woke up. About Doctor Smith and being on some alien planet.”
Pete looked completely taken aback.
“She was just having a dream - it’s actually not as rare as you’d think,” Faith continued quickly, trying to calm Pete’s anxious look. “She’ll be fine. She’s just a bit disoriented right now, it was hard for her to tell the difference between reality and fantasy as soon as she woke up. That’s why she got so upset when we were with her before. I was just about to send her down for some tests.”
On cue, Faith waved to a petite, middle-aged blonde nurse approaching the nurse’s station down the hall.
“Do you mind sending an orderly to bring Miss Tyler down to radiology?”
“Of course, I’ll send one right over,” the nurse said as she nodded back, her blonde ponytail bobbing with the motion. She smiled brightly as she noticed Pete standing slightly behind Faith. “Why hello there, handsome - we’re all so happy that Rose finally woke up! You must be thrilled to bits!”
Pete blushed slightly, but nodded his head and smiled back shyly at the nurse, who gave him a coy little wink before continuing on with her work. She had always been so nice to him, flirtatious even. She wore a bit too much eye makeup, Pete thought, but despite that, she almost reminded him of … well, no use thinking of that now, Pete shrugged, bidding goodbye to both the nurse and Faith and heading home to retrieve Rose’s belongings.
***
Rose sighed deeply and closed her eyes, rubbing them with the heels of her hands. It was the first time she’d been alone since she’d woken up, and although she’d felt guilty coming up with an excuse to send Pete away, she needed time to think. She thought she’d cried herself out - at least for now - and she needed some time to think. Well, to try to think - today had been so surreal that she wasn’t sure what to think anymore.
I have a Dad who can’t be my Dad, a doctor who says he’s not my Doctor … and I’m apparently a coma patient in a hospital, she thought. Any one of those things would have sent her reeling. But taken all together, she felt completely lost. And the Doctor - is he alone, too? Where is he? Is he still on Naija 6? She struggled to think of the last thing she could remember before waking up - it felt like such a blur. We were walking in the gardens and then -
A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. She closed her eyes and let out a frustrated sigh.
“Come in?” she said weakly as the door creaked open.
Any possibility of shocking her further today was long since gone. She felt emotionally and mentally tapped out. Physically, she was cried out and had no more tears to shed. So as it was, she just stared, almost numbly, at the smiling face of Mickey Smith as he peered around the doorway.
“If you were gonna play at Sleeping Beauty, you could at least have let me kiss you awake.”
“Mickey …” she said softly.
“The one and only!” he said with a grin, plopping himself down in the chair beside her. “How are you feeling, babe?”
Babe, he called me babe … Rose inhaled deeply. Yet another thing that felt so familiar. Before she’d driven him away, before Pete’s World, she could remember him using that endearment with her hundreds of times in the past, both when they were friends and later when they started dating.
Then again, she could remember a lot of familiar things that people were telling her never actually happened. And Mickey appeared to be wearing hospital scrubs, which wasn’t a good sign that he was the Mickey she remembered. Still - maybe he knew something. She had to try.
“Mickey … you know me?”
A look of surprise crossed his face.
“Uh … since you were a baby, Rose.”
“You and me, Powell Estates, tea at your grandma Rita-Anne’s, drinks at Shareen’s when her parents were away, Jimmy Stone …”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I’d like to forget him but yeah - what are you bringing up him for, anyway?”
“… the Doctor?”
Mickey paused.
“Rose, you’re my best mate. I know you better than I know anyone, and you know me better than anyone too. What’s this about?”
“Mickey … do you remember: when’s the first time you met the Doctor? I mean … my Doctor?”
A shadow fell over his face, and his big grin fell completely away.
“I’ll never forget, Rose. I first met him the day your shop blew up. Henrik’s, yeah? Scariest night of my life, that was. You were nearly killed by the blast. It took them hours to dig you out. I first met Doctor Smith that night, when you were admitted. You’ve been asleep ever since.”
Chapter 4
Fandom: Doctor Who
Author: strange_charmed aka kilodalton
Characters: Rose Tyler, Pete Tyler, The Doctor (10th), Mickey Smith, OCs
Rating: All ages
BetaBabe: zazie11
Wordcount: 1571
Summary: Rose Tyler awakens in the hospital from a coma, and a certain pinstriped Doctor tells her he has never seen her before ...
Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3
Doctor Smith leaned back against the corridor wall outside Rose’s hospital room, arms crossed, gently thunking his head against the wall as he stared off into space. Although the sound was muffled from the other side of the door, he could still hear Rose crying. A dark expression clouded his face. The girl with the violet eyes stood across from him, her arms tightly crossed as well, regarding his pained look.
“Are you alright?” she asked, hesitant.
The doctor gave her a small attempt at a smile.
“Always,” he said. “I just - well, I wasn’t expecting that.” He sighed and closed his eyes tightly, uncrossing his arms only to sweep a hand across his face.
A quizzical look momentarily flickered across her face, before she noticed how completely rattled the doctor looked, and her expression softened into something more conciliatory. She took a small step in his direction, moving her arm slightly towards him, considering whether to put her hand on his arm in a gesture of comfort. Very quickly, she decided against it - they weren’t exactly friends, or even peers, after all.
“I’m - I’m sorry that was hard for you. It will get easier for her, though,” she reassured him. “She’ll be OK.”
He scrubbed a hand through his hair and glanced up at her to give her a wary look. Faith met his gaze, a tiny but confident smile steady on her face, and nodded to emphasize her statement. Sighing, he looked her up and down, then looked away. Her gaze held steady on him, not looking away.
“She asked me ‘what have you done with him?’, like she thought I could ever have -“ the doctor started.
He cut himself off abruptly, startled to feel her hand on his shoulder. He turned to face her, as she looked back at him almost pityingly.
“I’ll wait here for Pete Tyler,” she said gently. “Go get some tea, clear your head.”
He closed his eyes, considering the offer. The sound was softer now but he could still hear Rose crying from the other side of the wall. He squeezed his eyes closed just a little tighter.
“Doctor Smith,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. “My job is to help you.”
She took a step towards him and looked up at him intently, violet eyes almost flashing.
“So let me help,” she said simply, her mouth quirking with a small, encouraging smile.
He didn’t nod, or smile, or say anything to her in response. Rather, he swallowed hard and turned away, striding down the long hospital corridor toward the staff kitchen. The farther he got from Rose’s hospital room, the more he noticed that the muffled crying sounds started to fade completely away into silence.
He picked up his pace, walking faster.
***
It was a good five minutes before Rose’s room was completely quiet. Faith stood in the hallway as she had promised Doctor Smith, waiting patiently as she leaned back against the wall, ankles crossed, arms folded over her lean torso. She closed her eyes, lost in thought about the odd case of Rose Tyler. She had been honest with Doctor Smith, and thought that the girl would recover - well, at least she hoped so. Faith was good at her job - experienced, too - but she had never seen a situation quite like this one before. Taking a walk through a garden - a garden! - on a planet called Naija 6, indeed!, she thought, shaking her head in consternation at the absurdity of the statement.
Finally the door to Rose’s room opened, and Pete Tyler walked out, hands stuffed into his jacket pockets. He gave Faith a hesitant and slightly uncomfortable smile as he approached her, still obviously feeling awkward from their previous encounter.
“How is she?” Faith asked with a gentle smile, pushing up to a standing position.
“Better,” Pete said, looking at Faith almost accusingly before glancing back over his shoulder at the door. “She’s resting now. I told her I would grab a few of her things from home and come back with them. I hate to leave her, but -“
She nodded approvingly. “No, it’s a good idea, Mr. Tyler. Anything you have that may be familiar to her - stuffed animals, photo albums, things like that. Coma patients can sometimes be a little disoriented when they wake up, and seeing familiar items can make things a little easier for them. In fact, Rose was having some sort of a hallucination just after she woke up. About Doctor Smith and being on some alien planet.”
Pete looked completely taken aback.
“She was just having a dream - it’s actually not as rare as you’d think,” Faith continued quickly, trying to calm Pete’s anxious look. “She’ll be fine. She’s just a bit disoriented right now, it was hard for her to tell the difference between reality and fantasy as soon as she woke up. That’s why she got so upset when we were with her before. I was just about to send her down for some tests.”
On cue, Faith waved to a petite, middle-aged blonde nurse approaching the nurse’s station down the hall.
“Do you mind sending an orderly to bring Miss Tyler down to radiology?”
“Of course, I’ll send one right over,” the nurse said as she nodded back, her blonde ponytail bobbing with the motion. She smiled brightly as she noticed Pete standing slightly behind Faith. “Why hello there, handsome - we’re all so happy that Rose finally woke up! You must be thrilled to bits!”
Pete blushed slightly, but nodded his head and smiled back shyly at the nurse, who gave him a coy little wink before continuing on with her work. She had always been so nice to him, flirtatious even. She wore a bit too much eye makeup, Pete thought, but despite that, she almost reminded him of … well, no use thinking of that now, Pete shrugged, bidding goodbye to both the nurse and Faith and heading home to retrieve Rose’s belongings.
***
Rose sighed deeply and closed her eyes, rubbing them with the heels of her hands. It was the first time she’d been alone since she’d woken up, and although she’d felt guilty coming up with an excuse to send Pete away, she needed time to think. She thought she’d cried herself out - at least for now - and she needed some time to think. Well, to try to think - today had been so surreal that she wasn’t sure what to think anymore.
I have a Dad who can’t be my Dad, a doctor who says he’s not my Doctor … and I’m apparently a coma patient in a hospital, she thought. Any one of those things would have sent her reeling. But taken all together, she felt completely lost. And the Doctor - is he alone, too? Where is he? Is he still on Naija 6? She struggled to think of the last thing she could remember before waking up - it felt like such a blur. We were walking in the gardens and then -
A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. She closed her eyes and let out a frustrated sigh.
“Come in?” she said weakly as the door creaked open.
Any possibility of shocking her further today was long since gone. She felt emotionally and mentally tapped out. Physically, she was cried out and had no more tears to shed. So as it was, she just stared, almost numbly, at the smiling face of Mickey Smith as he peered around the doorway.
“If you were gonna play at Sleeping Beauty, you could at least have let me kiss you awake.”
“Mickey …” she said softly.
“The one and only!” he said with a grin, plopping himself down in the chair beside her. “How are you feeling, babe?”
Babe, he called me babe … Rose inhaled deeply. Yet another thing that felt so familiar. Before she’d driven him away, before Pete’s World, she could remember him using that endearment with her hundreds of times in the past, both when they were friends and later when they started dating.
Then again, she could remember a lot of familiar things that people were telling her never actually happened. And Mickey appeared to be wearing hospital scrubs, which wasn’t a good sign that he was the Mickey she remembered. Still - maybe he knew something. She had to try.
“Mickey … you know me?”
A look of surprise crossed his face.
“Uh … since you were a baby, Rose.”
“You and me, Powell Estates, tea at your grandma Rita-Anne’s, drinks at Shareen’s when her parents were away, Jimmy Stone …”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I’d like to forget him but yeah - what are you bringing up him for, anyway?”
“… the Doctor?”
Mickey paused.
“Rose, you’re my best mate. I know you better than I know anyone, and you know me better than anyone too. What’s this about?”
“Mickey … do you remember: when’s the first time you met the Doctor? I mean … my Doctor?”
A shadow fell over his face, and his big grin fell completely away.
“I’ll never forget, Rose. I first met him the day your shop blew up. Henrik’s, yeah? Scariest night of my life, that was. You were nearly killed by the blast. It took them hours to dig you out. I first met Doctor Smith that night, when you were admitted. You’ve been asleep ever since.”
Chapter 4