Chapter Text
The Doctor hesitated in the dingy alleyway outside of the TARDIS, not quite sure that he wanted to do this. Well, he wanted to. And then he didn't. And then he reconsidered. And then he re-reconsidered. Again. And again. And— Really, he might as well just go through with it. He had half a mind to believe the TARDIS would refuse to leave now even if he tried. She seemed to know what he wanted more than he did.
He just….
This wasn't easy.
Not that he expected easy, really. Easy too often meant boring. Not in this case, though. In this case, he'd almost rather the Sontarans or someone of their ilk show up and threaten Earth. Dealing with that would be a good excuse not to do this.
Not that he genuinely wanted any alien threats to show up right now. If they did, more was wrong with the timeline than there'd been before, and that was saying something.
The Doctor let out a slow breath, shoved his hands into the pockets of his favourite coat, and started walking before he changed his mind again and did something silly like try the door of the TARDIS only to realize she'd locked him out for dithering like this instead of simply getting on with it.
This wouldn't be a long conversation.
Well.
It didn't have to be. Not for him. Well, not entirely. It could be a short conversation with an old friend. He could call her a friend even if she'd killed him, couldn't he? It wasn't like she'd done so intentionally, and she'd been a great help to him afterwards. Surely they'd been through too much to be nothing more than mere acquaintances. She'd practically been one of his companions.
All right, so maybe he wouldn't mind if the small talk stretched on because perhaps then he could forget, just for the tiniest fraction of a second, why he had even thought about coming here in the first place. Why he'd thought it was necessary so that he would know what to look for in the future. How she'd managed to see what he, and so many after her, could not.
Besides, there were only so many of them out there, people he'd asked to travel with him who'd had the good sense to refuse. A smaller fraction of those hadn't reconsidered their choice. Not that he knew if she would, given the chance. Only, he couldn't give her that chance. He just couldn't. Not when he knew the cost.
Of course, he wasn't even sure that she was here. Not completely, positively, without-a-doubt sure. He only had a hunch. And he'd sort of let the TARDIS decide where and when. Namely because he was trying not to think about it too much. Not overly so. He wasn't, well, exactly proud. More…regretful. Well, guilty. Well. If he were honest…. Not that he went around lying through his teeth, but…. Well, he was, technically, just a little bit—a teensy, tiny, itty bitty little bit…or perhaps a bit more than that—scared.
He needed to distract himself.
Shouldn't be hard; he was easily distracted.
Unfortunately, he tended to be distracted from his distractions, meaning he started thinking about it again.
Of course, sometimes the most effective distractions meant he'd rather be left without them. Case in point, the last time he was here in San Francisco. He never enjoyed getting shot. True, it had been an excellent distraction from the immediate problem of finding the Master, but at that point in time, he hadn't wanted to be distracted, and the distraction had led to his death, and he could do without any more distractions like that.
Ever.
He was near the end of his tenth life. He didn't have that many left. No more handy-dandy bio-matching receptacles around now. And, well, no matter how long he'd travelled, no matter how much he tried living life to the fullest, he still missed things.
Normally, he could get by. Sometimes, someone would point it out. Sometimes, there wasn't anyone to do it. But sometimes he needed to know, like Donna had said, because when he tried to do everything that he…. And he knew what happened when he snapped, when he lost control for a few crucial moments, and he—
The Doctor stopped walking and frowned.
He'd circled the block. Or walked in a circle, anyway, even if it had been more than the block. He hadn't been paying much attention to where his feet had been taking him, but clearly, they were no more sure about this course of action than his head was.
The Doctor eyed the TARDIS, hearing the scolding judgement in her gentle hum that his companions would have never noticed.
Roundabout distractions weren't helpful, clearly, and he'd spent enough time dawdling. He was here, and the TARDIS was making it very clear to him that she wasn't about to leave until he'd sorted himself out.
It could be worse. She'd picked worse planets to drop him on, worse climates to leave him out in. She was only doing what she thought was best. Probably what was best. But….
The Doctor strode off again, paying attention to more than just his thoughts as he searched for a distraction.
It was never something that took him long to find.
But, really, in retrospect, he could have done without being stabbed and left to bleed to death next to the woman he'd been trying to save.
The Doctor jolted back to consciousness, hissing between his teeth. Blimey, his shoulder hurt. Must've banged it. He moved to sit up, abruptly realizing that he was lying down, and fire ripped over his side while his vision swirled with black.
Right.
That had not been his smartest idea.
He found himself pushed back down and breathed through his teeth, waiting for the pain to abate back to more manageable levels and for his vision to clear. He'd been through worse. He knew he had.
It was a little difficult to remember that through the pounding in his head, though.
Had he hit that, too?
He couldn't remember, but he also couldn't remember falling. He did remember inserting himself into the middle of a fight and learning very quickly that the knife-wielder hadn't wanted to talk. They'd made that abundantly clear, and he'd been left trying to apply pressure to his bleeding side as best he could, but apparently his best had not been good enough.
Or maybe it was simply that he wasn't nearly up to his best right now and hadn't been even before the fight.
He'd live, though.
No need to be concerned about himself, at his best or not.
Focus.
He should focus.
He remembered the woman's scream. That was why he'd come. He hadn't been fast enough to keep her out of harm's way, but she was still alive. He knew that. Alive and in more pain than he was, likely as not. He'd heard her arm crack. The radius and the ulna, though he suspected the second might be just a greenstick break. He might've gotten in the way of the knife (little blade on the thing, comparatively, maybe four inches, but its wielder had been fast) before the blade could find a home in her heart, but….
But what?
No. No. Focus. He could focus. He'd stopped bleeding. Well, mostly. Well, enough. Nothing was gushing. And he was still alive, clearly. He hadn't regenerated. That was good, wasn't it? Of course it was. Good. Always good. At least, always well-intentioned. Sometimes things just…got a little….
Focus. Situation at hand. He could puzzle out precisely what else had happened later, though given the state of his head, and the fact that he'd been unconscious, however temporarily, he rather suspected he had a good-sized lump somewhere in the back. Probably not from falling, come to think of it. Ooh, it throbbed. Worse than his shoulder, now that he had time to think about it. Though, not worse than—
"—with me?"
The Doctor blinked and forced himself to focus on the woman. She was sitting next to him, one arm cradled against her body in a position that made him think her shoulder had probably been dislocated, and the other—
Oh.
The other was attached to the hand that was pushing on the wound in his side with what was undoubtedly more pressure than he'd ever managed himself.
That was good. Probably. At least, the woman seemed well enough, considering what had happened. She didn't seem to be bleeding anywhere, and she was conscious and clear-headed enough to talk, even if her eyes were bright with pain and tears streaked down her cheeks.
"How long was I out?" His voice sounded distant, even to him. Strange, that. Like he was—
"Not much longer than me," the woman replied, and this time, the Doctor could hear the careful control in her voice as she forced it to stay level. "I called 911. Don't try to move again, do you hear me? I'm a doctor, and I've had a look at you, but I need—"
The Doctor managed a smile, but he feared it was a poor one. "Proper equipment?" he suggested, knowing that wasn't what she'd been about to say. At least, not in its entirety. He closed his eyes for a moment and did a quick mental assessment. "I'll live," he said idly, not bothering to look at her this time. "I have so far. Though, you might've found yourself in a spot worse than me if I hadn't—" He broke off, sucking in a quick breath as he realized why he didn't quite feel like himself—obvious points aside, of course.
His words to her were still true enough: she likely would have been worse off if he hadn't intervened. She likely would have had more than a broken arm. But, unless something else happened, very quickly, he wouldn't be all right. Not in so many words.
"Stay with me," the woman ordered, and she sounded so urgent that he looked at her again. "Stay with me, okay?" Before he had a chance to open his mouth, she continued, "I'm Vera Taylor. I'd like to thank you for your help." She took a few breaths, her fight to keep her voice steady becoming more obvious as the seconds ticked by. "I'm not sure what happened. I was just going to let him have the purse, but he must have thought otherwise, and then—"
"And then I came barging in." The Doctor smiled, and he thought it would look more like a proper smile this time, but Vera did not seem particularly reassured. "Funny thing, that, with me. Timing, I mean. Sometimes I have excellent timing. Right in the nick of time. But sometimes it's horrendous. 'Couldn't've picked a worse time, could you, Doctor?'" The smile stretched into a semblance of a grin. "Sorry. Right. Pleased to meet you. I'm the Doctor. Ah, Doctor John Smith."
"I'd say it's good to meet you, but I would rather meet colleagues under different circumstances."
"Oh, well, I'm not here on business." The Doctor didn't think he could pursue this much longer. That topic, anyway. It was dangerous.
Talking. He had to keep talking. Preferably about something else. Distractions. It all came down to distractions. And— Hold on, what had she been saying? Before? Why hadn't he been paying more attention? "Wait, you called emergency?"
"They'll only be a few more minutes," she said, and he couldn't tell from her tone if she were being optimistic. "Don't worry about it. Just stay with me. Have you been here before or is this your first time in San Francisco?"
"Oh, I've been here before, but that's not important. I really don't think an ambulance is necessary—"
"I beg to differ," Vera interrupted sharply, and the Doctor realized that she might be doing this as much for her sake as for his. She kept talking, ensnaring the Doctor in conversation and trying to keep both their minds off their injuries.
Trouble was, it wasn't working. Not for him, anyway.
More to the point, that wasn't the only thing that wasn't working.
He felt terrible, and rightly so—only one heart was working. It was no wonder he had trouble organizing his thoughts. Bumps and bruises were expected. And this wasn't the first time he'd been knocked out. But stabbing was bad enough. Did he have to have heart trouble to go along with that? Worse still, did he have to have heart trouble when he wasn't near the TARDIS and when he didn't have any means to get to it, seeing as he doubted the good Dr. Vera Taylor was going to let him out of her sight?
"They can't give me anything," the Doctor said suddenly, cutting off Vera's steady stream of words. He really was terribly rude in this regeneration. "Make sure they don't give me anything. Terribly allergic. I just need to grit my teeth and bear it. Or sleep through it. Self-induced, mind. I can't tolerate anything else." He tried to pull himself to a sitting position again, but she stopped him with a firm shove before he could do much more than shift one arm.
"Don't. You know better than that."
"Yes. Well." The Doctor took another moment to study her. She was in great pain, but…. She was being brave. For him. Because she thought she needed to be.
He sighed. "Look, if anything happens…. If things go wrong, I mean. Which they shouldn't. No knocking. But, well, if anything happens, just…." He took a careful breath. "I was going to talk to a Dr. Grace Holloway. About…a time we'd met, oh, I dunno. Been a few years now." At least, he thought it had been. It didn't seem that close to the millennium. Well, within the decade. Well, maybe even within five years. So perhaps it was close. But—
Distractions.
"If you know her or could track her down and tell her I was asking after her, if, well, if worse comes to worst. That is, assuming she's still here. I'm not quite certain. I was assuming so. But assuming's not always the best thing."
"Well, I wouldn't rule out telling her yourself," Vera said in reply, smiling a bit herself now. "I work with her. I think she's on tonight."
"Ah." The Doctor clicked his teeth. "Well." No going back now. He just had to open his gob…. "Still. It has been a while. A rather long while. She won't recognize me."
"People don't change that much. Besides, you wouldn't tell me to say you were asking after her if you didn't think she'd remember you."
"Oh, well. I'm memorable enough. Just…. I have changed a bit more than most people."
She agreed it was possible and kept talking. Or rather, kept trying to get him to talk. Which normally wasn't hard, but, well, he did have to be careful. Liable to forget where and when he was if he didn't watch it. Still. He couldn't fault her effort. And it did pay off. He was conscious by the time the ambulance arrived. With his right heart stopped, his left one was pumping erratically, but although that concerned the paramedics, it was better than trying to explain the alternative. And it certainly slowed the bleeding. He had to look on the bright side of things, after all.
He wasn't going to die yet. Which meant that this wasn't a horrendously thick idea of his. Hopefully. Or had it been his idea, really? The TARDIS had certainly weighed in. She'd made the final decision. But who had initiated it?
"Dr. John Smith," Vera was saying. "He's confused. Possible concussion. Laceration over the…."
The conversation outside of his head wasn't much more interesting than the one inside his head, though he had a feeling that he really ought to listen in. He wanted to, in fact. But it was a bit difficult. Oh, he was trying. He even answered the questions put to him by the paramedics, though he couldn't remember what he was saying in reply, let alone what the questions were in the first place. It was all a bit of a struggle. He tended to avoid physical injury as best he could. Danger might be a part of his life, but being stabbed certainly wasn't.
And, given the events four days ago, he wasn't exactly well-rested.
He hadn't even closed his eyes, not for any decent amount of time.
He was regretting that now. Just a little. Because that made it a lot harder to fight down the chemicals that were trying to slip him into unconsciousness to heal. Frankly, he was lucky he'd woken up at all after losing consciousness in the first place. Perhaps it had been the TARDIS's influence, pouring every ounce of the energy she could spare into their bond; she would've known how bad it would've been for him to slip into a healing coma then and there. Or perhaps she'd simply thought he should talk until he managed to put his foot in his mouth, which he had, sealing his fate the way he had.
Before the Doctor could figure out exactly what he was going to say to Dr. Grace Holloway, however, he lost his battle and slipped into unconsciousness.