Current mood:	amused
Entry tags:	doctor who, fanfiction, three times

Three Times in Which a Certain Time Lord Did Not Have a Cold (3/3)
Title: Three Times in Which a Certain Time Lord Did Not Have a Cold (3/3)
Author: azriona
Characters: Nine, Ten, 10.5, Rose
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Beta: jlrpuck

Prompt Claim: Well, originally it was Nine/Rose: The Doctor most definitely did not catch a cold, but then I sort of...expanded.

Summary: Pretty much what it says on the box, kids. The Doctor most definitely does not have a cold. Rose is just being difficult, that’s all.

Part One: Nine ~ Part Two: Ten

The Doctor most definitely did not have a cold.

Oh, no. This was much worse.

“I’m dying,” he groaned, leaning heavily on Rose’s shoulders. “Oh, Rose. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s not fair to you. To find me in another world, to have a few short, stolen summers with me, and then to have me leave you like this.”

“Yes, really, too awful,” agreed Rose, stumbling as she moved them down the hallway to the bedroom. “Entirely unfair, I’m going to have to have a word with you when it’s done.”

“But I’ll be dead,” he said morosely.

Rose flicked on the light in the bedroom; he moaned and threw his hand up against his eyes. She sighed and turned the lights off again. “I’m going to trip over a shoe,” she complained.

“I’m sensitive to light!” he wailed. “I’m dying and I’m sensitive to light!”

She sighed, and half dragged him to the bed. “Sit,” she ordered, although it wasn’t as though he could argue. He sat on the bed, nearly flopping over. His muscles ached and screamed in raging pain; his head was five times larger than normal, and much too heavy for his neck. Dimly, he felt Rose untying his shoes, pulling off his socks. His trousers were shimmied from his legs and replaced, laboriously, with pajamas; his coat and shirt were unbuttoned and replaced with a plain vest.

“Up,” said Rose, but he couldn’t move. He heard her sigh, and felt himself rolled back and forth as Rose pulled the covers away from the bed, settled him into place, and replaced the sheets and blankets to rest over him.

“Rose,” he gasped through parched lips. “Rose, come closer.”

“One minute,” said Rose, and he felt something thin and hard slipped between his lips. “I know it’s going to be difficult, Doctor, but try not to talk for a few minutes while I take your temperature.”

“I’m dying, who cares about my temperature?” he grumbled, and Rose reached over and held his mouth closed until the thermometer beeped.

“Just a little fever,” she said, almost satisfied, and she pulled him into a sitting position. “Right then, swallow these, please.”

“What are you giving me?” he asked, as she shoved a glass and two pills at him.

“You’re not still allergic to aspirin, are you?”

He froze. “I don’t think so.”

“No matter, it’s only paracetamol.”

He swallowed, and flopped back down on the bed. “Rose...Rose!”

She moved around the bedroom for another moment, while he let out a series of groans and moans, sounding increasingly pitiful. If he hadn’t been dying, he might have found the energy to be pleased with his performance.

Finally Rose returned and sat beside him. He sighed, still pitiful, as she leaned over until her chin rested on his chest. “Yes?”

“I’m dying, Rose.”

She buried her face into the blankets – to sob, he was sure. He could feel her shoulders shaking just a bit. Oh, poor girl...Jackie as a mother, Bad Wolf Bay, and the Dimension Canon, and then Bad Wolf Bay again, and now this.

“Rose, listen to me, love, don’t cry.”

“Not crying,” said Rose, her voice muffled by blankets.

He was quiet for a moment. “Well, you can cry a little bit,” he said, and she lifted her head.

“All right,” she said, her voice oddly thick. “I’ll cry a little bit. Later, maybe. For now, you need to rest.”

He scoffed. “Plenty of time for that later. I need to talk to you Rose, before – before I die.”

“Well, I hardly expected you to be quiet.”

He frowned. “No need to be flippant.”

Rose ran her hands over the blankets on his chest, smoothing them. “Of course not. I’m sorry. Now, Doctor, tell me – what should I know before you—" She swallowed. “Before you die?”

“I kissed Martha,” he choked. “I’m sorry.”

Rose’s hands never stilled, not once. “Are you confessing?”

“Isn’t that what humans do when they die?”

“Ah – yes, some of them, but—"

“And Joan. I kissed Joan.”

“Of course you did, you loved her,” replied Rose, tucking the blankets under his chin.

“And Astrid.”

Rose stilled then. “Who’s Astrid?”

“She wasn’t as pretty as you. No one’s as pretty as you.”

“You didn’t kiss Donna too, did you?”

He swallowed, wincing from the pain in his throat. “Technically, she kissed me.”

Rose sighed. He wished his sight wasn’t nearly gone; he would have liked to have known if she sighed from frustration or sorrow. Was dying always this bothersome? And would Rose know how to light a funeral pyre? Should he even have a funeral pyre, since he wasn’t exactly a Time Lord anymore? It wasn’t as though he could have the traditional Gallifreyan rites read over his smoldering body, since Rose wouldn’t know them. But it might have been nice, to have something at his funeral. Maybe a song. A song would be good.

“Can you play the Beatles at my funeral, Rose?”

“Doctor,” she said firmly. “You aren’t dying.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Rose, I’ve died a few times now, I think I know what it feels like.”

“Your muscles ache, your head feels twenty times larger than your neck, you can’t breathe and you’re exhausted.”

The Doctor blinked. “Rose – are you dying too?”

“Doctor,” said Rose gently, “you have a cold. That’s all – just a cold.”

“I do not.”

“Yes, you do.”

“That’s ridiculous, I’ve never had a cold in my life.”

Rose laughed for ten minutes solid.

And swore ever after that it’d only been for three.