REFUGEES
Chapter Two The Doctor started off by giving Michelle a little blue pill along with a small glass of water. "This will help your headache, Bookworm," he said, giving it to her. She put the pill in her mouth and swallowed the water. After doing that, John watched while she helped him pull out examination tools and an IV bag. "Who does the child belong to?" John said to the Doctor while he prepared to insert the IV needle into Rose's arm. "She is the child of a very dear family who has adopted me as one of their own," the Doctor said. "Would you like some tea?" "Tea sounds great right now," John said. The TARDIS made some and put it on the counter for him. Michelle took it and carefully brought the piping hot tea and milk over to John while John slowly sat up. He thanked her as he took it from her. "I thought you were the real Doctor when I first saw you," Michelle said. "I am the real Doctor," John said. "I mean, not the clone," Michelle said sheepishly. "I know the Doctor that looks like you…or I did, I think he's gone now." "Gone where?" John said. "He changed into him," Michelle said, pointing to the Doctor. "Well, I don't think of myself as a clone if you don't mind," John said. "I do have my own life now." "I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to upset you," Michelle said. "She's not meaning to offend so don't take offence," the Doctor said while he finished inserting the needle in Rose's arm. "My other self was just as involved in her life as I am and she only knew you as the clone from the stories we told her. She meant no disrespect." "Yeah, I don't want to make you mad," Michelle said to John. John chuckled. "Michelle, you're the first thing in several days that didn't make me mad so no worries," he said before taking another sip of tea. "What happened?" Michelle asked him. "An invasion happened," John said bitterly. "An invasion that I as scientific advisor to Torchwood warned was coming but Torchwood and the governments of the world chose to ignore me and Rose because we obviously didn't know what we were talking about and they kept on ignoring us until the so-called "friendly" aliens showed their true colors. By then, they had a fleet encircling the Earth and there was little anyone could do. They invaded and killed half the population of Earth and enslaved the survivors. They threw us and most of Torchwood into a concentration camp and tortured, beat and starved us until Rose and I managed to make a desperate escape. We fled to Torchwood where they had a void ship in storage. We climbed inside with rucksacks filled with supplies after Rose wrote a note asking for help. We then used that dimension cannon and launched ourselves towards this universe in the hopes of finding you. We don't know how long we were inside the ship but we ran out of supplies and we grew weaker than we already were and we passed out, I suppose. I managed to wake up and there was Michelle." "And you can't go back?" Michelle said. "I don't know if there's anything to go back to, love. They were planning to ravage the Earth and strip it bare of all resources including the survivors. We would have been part of the purge if we hadn't escaped." "And Jackie, Pete, Tony?" the Doctor asked. "Dead. Jackie and Tony were killed in the first attack and Pete was tortured to death in the camps," John said bitterly. "I'm sorry," Eleven said. John nodded. "They were lucky, it's the survivors who will have to cope with the hell that comes next," he said before taking another sip of tea. "Donna's knocking on the front door. TARDIS, let her in and lead her here," the Doctor said, looking up at the ceiling. "Donna, thought I'd never see her again," John said. A moment later, Donna was coming into the room. She froze when she saw how haggard both Rose and John looked. "My God, what happened?" Donna said, walking up to the examination table. "Aliens took over the planet in the other universe," the Doctor said to her. He quickly recapped what John said while he walked over and prepared to examine him. Michelle moved out of the way while the Doctor sat down on the edge of the bed and scanned him with his screwdriver. "New model of screwdriver, I see," John said. "Yeah, the other one got damaged shortly after I regenerated," the Doctor said. "You need an IV drip as well but I can hook one up from here. Rose is far worse so I'm trying to get her stabilized before moving her over here." "She got the brunt of it, was trying to defend me because she was worried about my one heart," John said. "After all she went through with you, she was a little overprotective of me at times." "Was she violated?" the Doctor said. "I don't know, she won't answer when I asked her that. I hope not." "I can check for that," the Doctor said gently. "Do you mind if Michelle keeps you company then? She's a bit under the weather but she's friendly when she's not being cheeky." John chuckled. "I would welcome the company of a child again," he said wistfully. "Shelly, sit down and be British and I'll tend to John. Donna, help me," the Doctor said. "Be British?" John said while Michelle took the Doctor's place on the bed. "He thinks I gotta be British and say things like Macaroni Cheese and stuff like that," Michelle said. "Is Rose your wife?" "Yes, she is so please respect that," he said to the Doctor. "Well, I'm married to River so please respect that," the Doctor replied while he sat an IV bag and tube on a table by the bed. "You are?" John said, surprised. "I am. She's not here at the moment, she's out traveling on her own but yes, she's my wife now so I'm only interested in being a friend to Rose…and to you." John considered that while he took another sip of tea. "I haven't the strength to fight anyway, not at the moment," he said to the Doctor. "I don't want to fight. There's more important things to fight about in the universe," the Doctor replied. "Besides, me and my tenth self fought on Shelly's birthday and upset her," he said, tousling Michelle's hair. "So I want to be friends with you." "Me too," Michelle said. John smiled at that and nodded. Michelle watched while the Doctor inserted an IV needle into his arm while Donna stood nearby. She got an IV pole for him when the Doctor was done with the needle and they hung a bag of saline from it. The Doctor checked it and Rose's bag and went to get two syringes filled with a pale green liquid from the counter. "How long has it been since you've eaten?" the Doctor said to John while he walked over to Rose. "Dunno. In the void sphere we lost all track of time, maybe two days…at least," John said. "I think because I'm part Time Lord, I was able to keep going even after she lost consciousness but I still drifted in and out. I still feel woozy even now." "Have a rest then if you want, you can use that table there," the Doctor said as he inserted the syringe needle into the tubing and put the liquid inside it. "This will heal any internal trauma for her…and one for you," he said, bringing the second one over to him. "You look like you've been through hell." "Hell is an understatement," John said. He watched while the Doctor inserted the needle and put the liquid into his IV tube. "If you're hungry, ask the TARDIS to make you some soup or something simple. I don't want you to eat any solid foods until you have some of your strength back. I can give you something that will put some weight back on you but if Rose doesn't wake up soon, I will have to feed her with a stomach tube. And your eye, what happened?" John snorted. "Punishment for misbehavior," he said bitterly. "I tried to escape once and got something poured in my eye that burned like hell and blinded me. We didn't try it again until there was a chance of success because that intimidated Rose more than me. Rose was terrified they'd do something to my other eye after that." "I'll see if I can do something to mend it," the Doctor said, peering at it. "But…I want your weight back up, that's first priority. But for now, rest and spend some time with Shelly. Donna and I want to check up on the rest of the family but we won't be long. Shelly, if Rose wakes up, ring me, yeah?" "Yup!" Michelle said. "Shouldn't be long. I know everyone wants an update and I need to check and see if they're satisfied with the house we chose. So I'll be back soon." Michelle nodded and they watched while he and Donna left the room.
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