Wolf Moon: Chapter Thirty-Four

[amberfocus]

 

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Damages

 

The Doctor didn’t sleep for long, just enough to overcome the edge of exhaustion from his long trek, his hours carrying Rose through the rainforest, and the most explosive sexual and mental experience of his life.  When he was sure she was still too deep into sleep to protest he eased himself out of her body, wincing as he withdrew.  He felt scraped raw.  He hoped she was in better shape than he was but he highly doubted it.

 

He should wake her, he knew, and carry her back to the TARDIS so he could fix any damages he had inflicted on her fragile human body.  But he was loath to move, his mind focused only on the depth of his emotion for this woman he held.  Finally common sense asserted itself when his hands caught jaggedly against the scratches on her back.  He rolled her gently onto her back so he could survey the rest of her body.

 

The Doctor gasped in shock at the livid blue bruises that had risen up on her arms and wrists.  He did not remember restraining her but he recognized the bruise patterns and knew he must have done so at some point.  There were bites on her shoulders, he’d been aware of doing that, but he found teeth marks in other places as well, though no other ones had drawn blood.  The teeth marks and scratches on her body pulsed with silver light.  He looked down at his own body, noting that his marks pulsed with gold.  Part of the bonding, he supposed, though he’d never been aware of that as a side-effect.

 

He ran his fingers carefully over the bones of her arms and wrists, grimacing as he held her left hand and saw obvious swelling and more bruising.  He glanced downward and his hearts stopped at the sight of the blood mixed with his pale blue seed on her thighs.  No, oh, Rose, no.  There was more than there should be for simple contusions.

 

“Rose,” he called to her gently afraid to even touch her lest he bring her more pain.  “Rose,” he said again, but she didn’t stir.  Did she feel cold?  Carefully he laid fingertips on her face, frowning at the fat lip where either he or she had bitten nearly through it.  “Rose, wake up.”

 

She blinked her eyes open slowly, trying to focus blearily on his face.  “Doctor,” she said on a sigh, a soft, tender smile sliding across her face.

 

“I need to get you back to the TARDIS,” he said.  “You’re hurt.”

 

“Okay.”  She moved slowly to push herself up with her arms and screamed at the sudden pain of supporting her body weight on her left hand.

 

“What is it?” he asked suddenly very scared.

 

“My hand.  My wrist.  I think it’s broken,” she said over little gasps of pain.  He helped her to sit up and she started crying, flopping back down on her back.  “Doctor, I can’t sit.  It hurts too much and I hurt inside.  Oh, oh, oh,” she gasped out in a series of little sobs.

 

“Don’t try to sit up.  I’ll carry you.”  He found his pants and boots and pulled them on quickly then made sure he had his screwdriver and TARDIS key.  He lifted Rose up onto her feet and she immediately swayed into him and shifted her weight to support herself on one leg.  He felt her quiver, checked her over and realized her right hip had been wrenched from its socket.  He held a canteen to her lips and had her drink some water.  She grimaced as it washed across her cut lip.

 

He had to put her hip back into joint before he could carry her.  "Your hip is dislocated, Rose.  Take a deep breath and I’ll fix it.  It’s going to hurt.  I’m so sorry.”  He waited until she nodded and when she had, he did so with a sudden sharp yank of her body into his from behind.  She keened and the sound tore right through his hearts.

 

He didn’t bother with dressing her, lifting her naked body into his arms.  She huddled against him, her good arm going around his neck and her bad wrist and hand held firmly to her chest.  When she suddenly went limp in his arms and wouldn’t answer him, he gave a mental shout to the TARDIS, asking her to prepare the infirmary and raise the temperture inside the ship because Rose was badly hurt and he was bringing her home as quickly as he could.  He was about to start walking when the TARDIS suddenly materialized in front of him and the doors flung themselves open.

 

“Thank you,” he called out gratefully to his ship as he rushed through the console room and into the Medical Bay.  A large bath stood in the corner filling with a full strength concentration of pain numbing medication that would work on her surface wounds.  He toed off his boots and held her until it filled and then stepped into it with her, jeans and all.

 

The Doctor supported her body in the medicated water, letting the fluid wash across her.  It would numb most of her external pain to a tolerable level and he could then deal with her internal trauma in a much more focused way.  It also helped to sweep away the dirt from their encounter with the rainforest floor.  Her unconscious whimpers shot straight through his hearts as he waited for the fluid to work.

 

Five minutes later he had her lain out on the table and was scanning her pelvic region as his body dripped fluid all over the floor.  He administered a spinal block and set the proper machine to repair the damage as soon as the readings came up, trying not to think how badly he’d fractured her pelvis, torn her cervix or abraded her inner walls.  He had not done any damage to the main part of her uterus, they’d be able to have children one day if she’d ever let him anywhere near her again, and Rassilon, he didn’t see how she ever would.  Even knowing all of the damage was reversible, some only with time, but most with the use of his equipment, did nothing to soften his guilt at his abuse of her body.

 

He fixed her lip first then injected a painkiller into her wrist and set the bones there then began casting her left arm from mid-forearm to halfway down her fingers.  Next he began work on the scratches, repairing the new scabs with the dermal regenerator.  The silver marks stayed on her body despite the repairs.  Her eyes fluttered open as he moved to her shoulder and her good arm caught him as he went to fix the bite mark.

 

“Don’t,” she said.  “Leave it.”

 

He stared at her in shock, for her eyes were filled with gold and he knew that more than Rose was looking at him at the moment.  If Rose even was.  He nodded in acquiescence and her hand fell away from him, her eyes closing again.  He left the first bite on her shoulder alone but repaired the other ones, wondering why she would not let him heal the first.

 

He would have to heal the marks on her back later.  He didn’t want to move her again until he carried her to her bed.  He hooked up an IV with saline and narcotics, inserted a catheter line, took her blood pressure and checked her pulse.  She seemed to be stabilizing and he finally let out a sigh of relief.

 

The Doctor looked at his own body but didn’t see anything that he needed to bother with fixing.  He’d come off easy, although he was rather surprised at the ferocity with which Rose could bite.  He picked up Rose and nudged the IV stand along with his foot.  Rose’s bedroom was not too far away and the TARDIS had given her crisp, clean sheets.  He laid her down upon them and finally collapsed into a chair next to her bed.

 

“You should have called me”, the TARDIS said.

 

“I did call you,” he snapped.  “I told you to get the infirmary ready.”

 

“You should have called me to you.”

 

“Like you would have come?” snorted the Doctor.  “You never come when I call unless I’m near dying.”

 

“I will always come for Rose,” she said.

 

“But not for me,” he said bitterly.

 

“If the need is true”, she said gently, “I will also come for you.”

 

He looked up at the ceiling in surprise.  “But you--.”

 

“I will also come for you,” she repeated.  “I am not happy with you.  You should have asked sooner.  I could have been there before this had to happen.”

 

“Well, how was I supposed to know?” he snarled.  “It’s not exactly like you do favors for me every day.  Or even like me.”

 

The TARDIS was quiet for a long time.  "Rose likes you," she finally said.

 

“Oh, Rose likes me, so you’ll be courteous to me for her sake, will you?” he asked sarcastically.  “You’ve been horrible to me for years.  Idiot ship.”

 

The TARDIS sent a wave of electricity through the floor.  With his dripping wet jeans and the puddle at his feet it was perfectly conducted through his entire body.  She jolted him for ten seconds before letting up.

 

“I was trying to be nice," said the TARDIS.  "You obviously don’t respond to nice.  So listen up, Time Lord.  Rose will be kept safe under all circumstances.  If her life or her mind or her body is at risk I WILL COME.  And because you are hers, I will come for you.”  The TARDIS dimmed the lights and he was left with the very strong impression that if she had been a humanoid she would have flounced off in annoyance in a sea of fluffy pink feathers and tulle.

 

He growled in irritation then called out, “Can you at least watch her while I shower and change?” he asked.

 

She didn’t respond to him but the lights brightened just enough to know the ship had heard him.  With a last guilt-ridden look at Rose, he gingerly put his feet back down on the floor and made his way across the hall to his room, wincing at the burns she’d left on his soles.

 

He stripped down and took a quick shower, the water stinging in the cuts and bites on his skin.  He washed as fast as he could then dressed in his usual t-shirt and jeans before padding across the hallway with a couple of towels, one to clean up the puddle he’d dripped on Rose’s floor earlier, and the other to put down on the chair.  He did so and then settled into the chair to wait for her to wake up.

 

 

 

It was several hours before she opened her eyes.  “Doctor?” she asked in a hoarse voice.  She turned her head and saw him sitting there dejectedly with his eyes averted from her face.  When he didn’t look at her she tried to move towards him and felt panic overwhelm her.  “Doctor, I can’t move my legs!”

 

“It’s the spinal block,” he said heavily.  “You need to stay still for the next three days.  It keeps you from moving.”

 

“Oh,” she said.  “What’s wrong with me.”

 

He wouldn’t look at her.  “I fractured your pelvis.  Amongst other things.”

 

“I feel all right,” she said, taking stock of her body.

 

“That’s because you have enough narcotics in your system to put down an elephant,” he told her.

 

She noticed the cast on her wrist.  “How long is this thing on for?” she asked him.

 

“What thing?” he asked, still not meeting her eyes.

 

“The cast on my wrist,” she answered.

 

“A couple of days.  I snapped a couple of bones.”

 

“When can we make love?” she asked him.  He froze and then slowly met her gaze for the first time, but he couldn’t hold it and quickly looked away.

 

“Doctor,” she said her voice still weak with pain.  “It hurts.”

 

“You’re hurting?” he said, moving to her side and checking her pulse but still not meeting her eyes.

 

“Yes,” she said.  “When you won’t look at me, it hurts me, Doctor.”

 

“I don’t deserve to look at you, Rose!” he burst out.  “I did all of this to you!”

 

“I know,” she said quietly, her good hand moving up his arm.

 

He grabbed her hand and put it back down on the bed, moving out of reach.  “I destroyed that serum on purpose and this is the result,” he said roughly.

 

“You weren’t in your right mind, Doctor,” she said calmly.

 

“I might have been stupid, Rose, but I knew, part of me knew, what I was doing.  Impatient, me.  Didn’t want to wait anymore,” he told her.  “I couldn’t stop myself.  I didn’t want to!”

 

“I know,” she said.  “I didn’t want to either.”

 

“What?”

 

“I didn’t stop myself either and I was in my right mind.  I stopped taking the pink pills down in the ravine,” she said.  “My pheromones were dumping by the time we--.”

 

“Why would you do that?” he demanded finally meeting her eyes again.

 

“To be ready for you,” she said simply her eyes full of emotion.

 

“You couldn’t have wanted this,” he said gesturing to her battered body.

 

“I wanted you.  Being hurt doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

 

“But you aren’t just hurt.  You’re hurt because of me!” he said.

 

“I’d do it again,” she told him.

 

“Then you’re an idiot,” he said bluntly.

 

“No, I’m not,” she said ignoring his harsh words.  She leaned towards him as best she could and reached out with her good hand, grabbing one of his and holding it tightly.  “I love you.”

 

“I don’t deserve your love!”

 

“You deserve whatever I choose to give to you,” she told him.  She laced her fingers through his.  “And I choose to give you everything.”

 

He broke then, falling to his knees and burying his face against her breasts.  She pulled her arm out from under him and ran it through his hair, soothing him the best she could.  He shuddered against her and though he did not sob or cry out, his body shook for a long time.

 

When he finally pulled away and looked at her again she smiled at him.  “I choose you,” she told him.  “I love you.  You’re my Doctor and I’m you’re Rose and that isn’t ever going to change.”

 

“Rose, I--.”

 

“Don’t tell me you don’t deserve me again,” she said covering his lips with her fingers.  “You do because I say that you do.  Now come to bed and hold me so I can sleep properly.”

 

“I can’t hold you,” he said.  “You have to lay flat.”

 

“Then lay beside me,” she said.  “Where you belong.”

 

He moved to join her on the bed and she glared up at him.  “Without the clothes, thank you,” she said.  “I seem to be quite naked under here so I think it’s only fair.”

 

He shook his head at her but stripped down to his boxers.  “All of it,” she growled.  He complied as her eyes roamed over him.  “I did all that to you?” she asked in wonder, an actual look of pride on her face as she took in his scratches and the big bite on his shoulder.

 

The Doctor shrugged.  “Yeah.  Pretty feisty, you.  Marked me as your own, you did.”  His eyes darkened.  “Nothing compared to the damage I inflicted on you though.”

 

“Stop feeling guilty, Doctor.  It was worth it to me.  Means next time will be better, yeah?” she asked.

 

“I don’t think we should--.”

 

“Don’t,” she said.  “There’s going to be a next time.  Thousands of them.  Stop beating yourself up.  Now get into bed.”

 

He slid under the covers and she reached for his hand, holding it tightly in hers.  If it was all she could have tonight then it was all she could have, but she was going to have it.  She had almost drifted off to sleep again when the Doctor spoke.

 

“Rose?”

 

“Yes, love?”

 

“I’m sorry,” he managed in a rush.

 

“I know,” she said. 

 

“Forgive me?”

 

“Have done.”  She squeezed his hand.  They fell silent and again she was about to enter dreamland when he piped up a second time.

 

“Rose?”

 

“Yes, Doctor?”

 

“I love you, too.”

 

She smiled and brought his hand up to kiss the knuckles.  “I know.”

Ch. 35:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/20918.html