Work Text:
The Doctor was alone in the console room, having successfully hustled Amy and Rory off to their bedroom. They would get some of that sleep which humans need so much of, or they might possibly get up to those other human things they got up to in their bedroom. That was the more likely option, probably, since Rory had only just escaped being killed, and they had a rather particular way of celebrating instances like that.
Whatever they were doing, the Doctor was glad to have the console room to himself. There were important pressing matters to attend to. The scan he’d taken of Amy alternately read “pregnant” and “not pregnant,” and unless she was incubating Schrodinger’s cat, those results boded all sorts of badness. The Doctor prepared for another night spent poring over the data.
Before he could get to his important pressing matter, however, he was confronted by another that, if not as important, was just as pressing. “Ah-hehhh…” Though he rummaged as well as he could through his pockets, he couldn’t produce his handkerchief until the hitch in his breath had already got the better of him. A loud “CHOOOO-iuhhhh!” echoed through the console room.
Since he’d gone to the trouble of getting out his handkerchief, the Doctor dabbed lightly at his nose, the way one might mop up a small puddle of milk. He gave an absentminded sniff and returned his attention to the scanner, rubbing his nose with his finger.
The Doctor hadn’t got very far when he realized his nose was still troubling him. It seemed to be leaking—“running,” as the humans called it—and keeping his upper lip dry required regular sniffling. What’s more, he noticed at that moment a discomfort in his throat. It felt rather like he was unsuccessfully attempting to swallow a prickly golf ball. He thought he’d give clearing his throat a try, but it didn’t make any difference.
He was so absorbed in this business that the “Hihhh-ihhh-SHUUHHHH!” was halfway out of him before he realized he needed to sneeze again. It was a real corker, this one, and when it was over, the Doctor found himself staring at the glass floor round the console. The force of the sneeze had either bent him double or broken him in half.
Luckily, it turned out to be the former. The Doctor righted himself and made a pretense of straightening his wild brown hair. “Sneeze number three,” he murmured to himself—he was counting the original sneeze on the spaceship, the one that had led to his nearly being charbroiled by an angry Siren. “Not exactly encouraging.”
Three sneezes and a prickly golf ball in his throat. The Doctor had the feeling this was eerily similar to the colds caught by humans and the like. It was possible, he supposed. Those aliens on the spaceship had contracted a human disease of some sort, and the alien bogeys they’d left behind suggested running noses. If a cold virus had mutated to fit the biochemistry of those creatures, it might have changed into something a Time Lord could catch. It was a bit worrisome that the aliens on the spaceship were all dead, but the Doctor reasoned that he was made of sterner stuff that they were. If his human companions could withstand the occasional cold, of course he could manage.
Not that it was going down without a fight. “Hahhh-SHOOOO!” the Doctor sneezed again, cupping his hands over his mouth. Sniffling, he roundly denied that his head was beginning to throb.
Now, what to do about a cold, assuming that’s what it was? Rory would probably say all kinds of boring things about blankets and rest and chicken soup. This was, of course, entirely wrong. He was the Doctor, the Oncoming Storm, and he wasn’t about to be bested by a little cold. No, the thing to do was show it who was in charge, and that most definitely meant not going to bed.
The Doctor returned to the scanner, ready to analyze data—or at least, very insistent that he was. Though his fingers were drowsier and clumsier than usual, they did their best to dance about the controls. He sifted through the available information on Amy, trying to ignore the spreading ache in his temple and convince himself that his eyelids were by no means drooping. A “SHOOOOO-iehhh!” caught him off guard and sprayed droplets on the scanner. Hastily, he wiped it clean with his handkerchief.
The data drive was being interminably slow. The Doctor gave the scanner a swat. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked, sniffling. The prickly golf ball had started to grow spines, and he was possibly a bit cross about that.
Much to his surprise, an error message appeared on the scanner. Instability in the data drive, it read in delicate Gallifreyan script. Repairing… The image of a sundial traced itself across the screen, its dial spinning as a tiny sun revolved around it.
“Blimey,” the Doctor muttered. “You steal a ship, take good care of her, and 700 years later…” He paused to bury a “Hihhh-SHUUUHHH!” in his shoulder. “…She goes to pieces on you.”
A new message popped up beneath the sundial graphic: Approximately 9 hours remaining…
“Nine hours!” the Doctor cried, his irritation sending him into a cough. “That’s ridiculous! First of all, you’re a time machine. Nine hours has to be a pretty relative concept for you.”
Approximately 9 hours remaining… stared impassively out of the screen at him.
“Second,” the Doctor went on, “that is a preposterous length of time to wait. What am I supposed to do until then? Amy and Rory are no help, they’ll be aslee—" And then, having understood, the Doctor decided it was as good a place as any to end his sentence.
Approximately 9 hours remaining… The words kept unraveling and redrawing themselves across the screen. All the while, the sun spun round the sundial.
“You’re not any fun at all,” the Doctor announced to the TARDIS. This was resolutely untrue and they both knew it, but the whole episode wasn’t doing a thing to help the Doctor’s crossness. He considered sitting in front of the scanner for all nine hours, thoroughly overestimating the span of his attention.
The script redrew itself once more. Approximately 10 hours remaining…
“All right, all right!” the Doctor exclaimed, glowering at the scanner. “You don’t play fair.”
Within moments, the time remaining had ticked back down to nine hours. The Doctor was about to unceremoniously drag himself out of the console room when an unexpected hissing sound caught his attention. He turned round and walked about the console, looking it over for the source of the noise.
He traced it eventually to a blinking light, small and blue. Beside it, hot tea ran from a little spigot into a mug sitting below. The Doctor lifted the mug to his face and breathed in the steamy scent. He gave the console an affectionate rap. “See you in nine hours,” he said with a soft smile. Blowing on his tea, he disappeared down the corridor to his bedroom.