Part Three
"Doctor?"
The Doctor opened his eyes and instantly met Jack's grinning face staring down at him. So, the afterlife consisted of Jack? He blinked a few times, not quite sure what was going on until he realised he was in the TARDIS infirmary. What...
"Am I dead?" he croaked, his words slurred.
Jack laughed. "Not yet."
The Doctor reached up to check his face. Oxygen mask, sideburns, messy hair, the same bad skin... He hadn't regenerated.
"What..." he asked tiredly, struggling to make sense of this through an oxygen-deprived brain. Suddenly his own reflection appeared in front of him, his own face grinning down at him like a loon.
"I am so good!" his reflection said, punching the air.
"What happened?" the Doctor asked, but even as he asked it all came rushing back. The crash, the oxygen, the transmat, Rose... "Rose!" he suddenly said, making to sit up but his head was spinning. Jack quickly pushed him back down again.
"She's fine, she's awake, she'll be gutted she missed you waking up," Jack replied, laughing.
Suddenly there was a stampede of footsteps from outside the door and Rose, Martha, Mickey, Donna, Jackie and Sarah flooded in. They all caught sight of him and beamed from ear-to-ear, moving to crowd the bed. Mickey was on crutches, Donna's head was bandaged and the metacrisis' arm was in a sling, the damage to his chest hidden by his shirt.
"How did you...?" he wanted to finish the sentence, but he forgot what he was talking about halfway through. He frowned and tried to remember the end of the sentence, but had already forgotten what he was supposed to be remembering... Wait, what was he thinking about, again? He looked down at his feet for inspiration, and they were nearly sticking out the bottom of the bed. "... I'm tall," he said instead.
"Yeah, he'll be disorientated for a couple of hours, like Rose was," the metacrisis admitted, looking a bit guilty. "But it'll be entertaining."
"I can ride a unicycle."
"Yeah, like that," the metacrisis said as everyone laughed.
"Doctor, you hungry?" Jack asked.
"Yeah, I've been there," the Doctor replied, his brow furrowed. "I fell in a puddle."
Everyone snorted with laughter again. "I meant food," Jack clarified. "You need to eat?"
"Why would I eat a puddle?" the Doctor asked, obviously very confused.
Jack rolled his eyes. Rose moved forward to sit beside the Time Lord, taking his hand.
"That was so close," she said.
"How're we alive?" he asked. "You stopped breathing... I stopped breathing..."
Sarah stepped forward. "The transmat dropped us in Cardiff at the rift," she explained. "Me, Jackie and Martha took the others to the hospital whilst Jack checked Torchwood. By the time I got back Jack was yelling that he was getting traces of a distress signal from the TARDIS, and that he could use the rift like we did a few hours ago to tow the TARDIS to Earth..."
Martha continued the story. "The TARDIS landed at the rift and automatically refuelled. We didn't know how long it had been for you, because when we found you two you weren't breathing. We had to do CPR on you both and get you to the Infirmary. You both started breathing again but we thought you might've had brain damage because you didn't wake up for a week..."
"Then I did a runner from hospital," the metacrisis jumped in quickly, still grinning. "Came back here, worked some magic and now you're both awake. With no brain damage, I might add."
"And everyone's okay?" the Doctor asked.
Eight nods came back at him with happy smiles.
"Get some sleep," Rose said, pulling the covers over his chest.
"Maybe... yeah," he murmured, swallowing as his head lolled back on the pillows. "Um..." He opened his eyes again to look at them all, squinting to focus. "Please don't go anywhere."
Jackie smiled and leant forward to kiss him on the forehead. "We'll be 'ere when you wake up, love," she said gently.
"Good," the Doctor muttered, and closed his eyes. He swore he felt lips pressing gently to his, and he remembered them. Rose.
"I love you," he whispered, but he didn't hear a reply as he slipped into sleep.
A/N: The end. Well that was a bit lame, wasn't it. Got no idea where that came from :o