Archive of Our Own ^beta

“That time when I found you down the road, all beat up,” Jack murmurs.
It had to be nearly half a year ago now. “You kept saying you didn’t need to go to hospital.”

“I didn’t,” she insists. “I didn’t then and I don’t need to be here now.”

“Doctor,” he hisses, horrified. How many injuries has she hidden, has she dealt with alone, just because of this – this phobia?
“You were probably concussed back then –”

“So?” she cuts in. “And what was some doctor going to do about it? Tell me I have a concussion? I already knew that!”

(i can't remember who's to blame - Campervan AU Part 4, Chapter 6)

Bill stands in front of the door to the house, throws her head back and groans.

Ughhhh.

There’s maybe possibly probably a 95% chance that she left her keys…inside when she left to go to work this morning.

Because of course.

Yep.

She huffs, feeling her face twist into one of its usual masterpieces. Someone should take photos of all her expressions, some day. Make a book. She’d hate it, of course – even if she can’t manage to look enigmatic to people she knows, the idea of her gallery of weird and wonderful expressions being immortalised would pretty much be the worst. But she reckons it would be cool for other people. Maybe she’d win a Guinness World Record – most weird faces ever made by one person ever. There’s a record for that, right? Well, if there isn’t, she’ll make one. That’s for sure.

She still needs to get in the house.

Fortunately, there’s a solution to the dilemma – this is a scenario that has played out many times before, and she has not always been the idiot stuck on the doorstep, groaning at the sky. She’s pretty sure that, at this point, the only person who’s never lost the keys to the house is Nardole, and technically he doesn’t even live here. But there’s a spare key to the back-room window under the pot with the dead plant in the little paved over area around the back. Which…means that her entrance into the house will require the graceful act of clambering through the window and probably falling into the mop bucket.

Why they can’t put a spare front door key under the pot, Bill has no idea. The Doctor had said something about extra security, or something. Everyone expects people to leave around a spare front door key. No one expects someone to leave around a spare window key.

Which is a fair point.

But still.

She could, of course, knock on the door like a normal person and save herself the embarrassment. After all, she’s almost certain there’s someone in the house. It is the main reason why she’s come back straight after work rather than running the growing list of errands that she needs to sort. Jack had cornered her whilst she’d been shoving toast into her mouth that morning, looking harried. Which meant, she’d quickly deduced at the time, that he’d probably spent the night trying to damage control something. Probably something related to the Doctor, Bill had thought wryly. She knows from experience.

“When do you come back from work?” he’d asked her, leaning on the table, his shirt all creased. She’d gotten the distinct feeling he’d slept in it.

“Uhhhhhh. After lunch? ‘Bout two o’clock-ish, probably.” She’d smiled, not understanding what he was asking for. “Why?”

He’d sighed, letting his head sink.

“Man, you need some coffee,” she’d said, hoping he’d laugh. He hadn’t.

“Can you watch the Doctor? When you’re back,” he’d asked her, and concern had immediately churned in with the confusion, twisting her face into one of its finest.

“Uh. I mean, yeah, sure? Why though? Also, don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Doctor doesn’t really seem like one for being watched to me, just saying. I mean, unless she wants to be the smartest in the room, in which case she wants everyone watching her, but I’m getting the feeling you mean the other kind of watching which is definitely something she’s not gonna be down for.”

Jack had looked at her, eyebrows raised.

“Sorry,” she’d winced. “You were saying?”

“I think she’s got a concussion,” he’d said. “In fact, I know she’s got a concussion, but she’s doing a bad job of pretending that she doesn’t.”

“Okaaay. And this happened…how? When?”

“Last night. And –” he’d made a vague sort of shrugging gesture – “take a guess. I didn’t see, but –”

“Doesn’t take a genius, yeah,” Bill had grimaced. After all, the Doctor is pretty much infamous at this point for picking fights that are way over her head. “She ok?”

“Like I said. Concussion. I can stay here this morning, but –” His shoulders had sunk. “I have a lecture. Which I would normally just skip, but unfortunately it involves a presentation that definitely makes up a big percentage of my grade.”

She’d given him a once over, and figured that with the designer bags under his eyes and his general dishevelment, he’s probably not going to do much better by actually being present for the presentation than if he just skipped it.

But. Yeah. Ok.

She gets it.

It’s not like Rose is here either – she’s down in London, visiting her mum for the day.

“It’s cool,” she’d said. “I got it. I’ll get home quick as I can.”

The look of relief on his face had been painful. “Thanks, Bill.”  

And so that brings her back to now – which, unfortunately, means that whilst she’s nearly certain that the Doctor is in the house, she isn’t about to make the person with a concussion get up and let her in because she forgot her keys. Especially if the Doctor is alone in the house – she might be actually resting if she thinks no one is watching.

So – back-room window it is.

Yay.

In the end, it doesn’t take her too long, but it’s definitely not the most elegant manoeuvre she’s ever accomplished. Not that she makes a habit of accomplishing elegant manoeuvres – as much as she tries to be enigmatic, she’s pretty much constantly falling short. Which is probably fine – like, Moira’s always saying that she should just be herself and all that. But that’s just what foster mums are supposed to say, isn’t it?

Once mission: get into the house without breaking anything is completed, she picks herself up out of the mop bucket and closes the window, before moving through the doorway and into the kitchen, leaving the key on the counter in the hopes that she’ll remember to put it back at some point. The lights are all off, she notes, and the house is…quiet, but in a way that isn’t quite right. Like the walls know there’s someone in the house and that there should be at least some noise. Some sign of life. But instead, there’s just…nothing.

She tries not to be unnerved.

Instead, she dumps her bag in the living room and heads up the stairs, trying not to tread too heavily. She’s never had a concussion before, but she can’t imagine that the headache is any less painful than a really, really bad hangover.

She takes herself to the door of the Doctor’s room, expecting it to be shut – it’s always shut when the Doctor’s in there. Bill can take a few guesses as to why. She knows the Doctor grew up in care, just like she did. And whilst she’d been lucky to have Moira as her foster mum for the majority of the time, she does remember the period before that, when she’d been shifted from house to house, or been woken up with someone she didn’t recognise in her room telling her to pack up her things in twenty minutes because she was being moved somewhere else. That sort of thing…it sticks with you, you know? It’s the sort of thing that would make you want to close the door and control who comes in – make it so that no one could just barge in and take your things, and kick you out of the sanctuary you’d tried to make for yourself even when you knew it would just be temporary.

The Doctor’s talked to her about it a bit – more than most people, actually, she thinks, just because she knows that Bill gets it. There’s stuff she doesn’t have to explain – little quirks that Bill just understands because, yeah, been there. Of course, the Doctor’s never actually really gone into it – like really really – but still, Bill gets a good sense that, unlike her, the Doctor never had any proper stability at any point. It doesn’t take a genius to notice that she’s got even more issues than Bill does – and she doesn’t mean that in a nasty way. She’d never – it’s not like she’s one to judge. It’s just the way it is. No point dancing around the subject and all that.

But anyway – the point is, that the Doctor’s door isn’t shut. It’s been left ajar. Which is…really weird, and only serves to make Bill just a little more concerned than she had been already.

“Heeeyy…Doc? You in here?” she asks quietly, poking her head through the door. The light is off and the curtains are drawn, but there’s enough daylight making it through that she can tell the Doctor isn’t there. The cover on the bed is creased where it isn’t covered in a pile of books or whatever appliance the Doctor is taking apart at the moment (it looks like the kettle…again) – which means she must have been lying on it at some point recently.

She pulls her head out, trying to decide what other room she’s most likely to be hiding in, or whether she’s actually left the house for whatever reason, when she hears a cough followed by a stifled groan coming from the direction of the bathroom. Carefully, she reaches to pull the Doctor’s bedroom door closed, before padding gently towards the bathroom. Again, the door has been left ajar, the light off, and she pokes her head around to find the Doctor has pressed herself into the corner of the bathroom, right next to the toilet, and is resting her head against the wall tiles. She looks distinctly miserable, and Bill’s worry goes up yet another notch.

“Heeey,” she says, trying to smile, but her face is undoubtably making a right mess of it. “You alright if I come in?”

The Doctor doesn’t look up, but she does wave her hand vaguely in a way that Bill effectively translates to mean ‘I don’t really care’.

It’s about as good an invitation as she’s going to get, and she slips in through the door, before sitting down with her back against the bathtub, just opposite the Doctor. Now she’s here, she can see that the Doctor looks…really rough, and she suddenly gets a sense of why Jack had been so worried this morning. There’s already an impressive looking bruise forming on the left side of her forehead.

“Hey, are you – you feeling ok?” she asks, frowning with concern – it’s a dumb question to ask, because obviously not, and the Doctor will definitely just lie anyway. She always does – to the extent that it’s become rather a good metric to figure out exactly how not ok she is. Bill has started forming something of a spotter’s guide:

Type 1: “I’m fine.” – said with a normal voice, and maybe even a reassuring smile. Friendly. Translation: yeah, she’s mostly fine, and the not-fine bits will be sorted in short order. A cup of tea would probably be appreciated, and she might even say what’s up if you’re really lucky. This one is the easiest to deal with but, unfortunately, not that common.

Type 2: “I’m fine!” – said in a far too cheery voice, like there’s nothing wrong with the world. This is definitely the most common. Translation: she’s not fine, but she is going to pretend everything is fine and not address the fact that things are not fine ever. Bill still hasn’t really figured out if it’s best to just play along, or if challenging her just makes things worse.

Type 3: “I’m fine.” – much more snappish, rude. Like, ok, who hurt you, man? The answer is probably a long list, but whatever. Translation: no, she’s not really fine, but it’s manageable. This is also pretty common. Try and push as to what’s wrong and you probably won’t get far, and she’ll just snap at you again. Best to just put a few biscuits in front of her and let her stew in it for a while. Maybe just watch a movie in the same room as her and let her secretly appreciate it without actually admitting that she needed help or a distraction. Speaking of which –

Type 4: “[insert extremely random unrelated monologue here]” – again, very common. Translation: she’s not fine, she doesn’t want to talk about it and she definitely doesn’t want to think about it. Probably best just to let her ramble. She won’t notice if you don’t engage with the conversation – in fact, she probably prefers it if you don’t. Again, placing biscuits in front of her is a good shout. Sometimes the things she rambles about are pretty interesting, so it’s worth a listen if you’ve got the time. The Doctor has a weird way of looking at things, but Bill, Jack and Rose have definitely come to love it.

Type 5: “I’M FINE.” – translation: she’s really not fine, and she doesn’t want to talk to anyone. Leave her be. She needs time without anyone bothering her. And pushing it will probably just result in –

Type 6: “[insert extremely rude and unnecessary personal attack here]” – this one’s definitely the worst, and thankfully not that common, but it happens more often that Bill would like. Translation: she’s hurting and she can’t stand the idea of someone seeing her vulnerable, so she hits them where it hurts to try and drive them away. She never means the things she says, and…well, most of the time she apologises after. But still, having someone know how to twist a knife with their words and then purposefully doing it to hurt you, even if it’s some kind of messed up defence mechanism, is not nice. When this happens, Bill tends to just leave it. She’ll try and help when she’s not going to scratch anyone who gets too close.

Type 7: the vanishing act – the Doctor just straight up ghosts everyone. Translation: she is definitely not ok but you will never find out why. This one is thankfully rare, but scary. The Doctor just goes, sometimes for more than one day at a time, and won’t answer any calls or messages. Just drops off the map. And then a while later she just reappears, happy as larry, like nothing happened. There’s not much you can do with that one, other than remind her that actually you do care about what happens to her and would like to know that she’s not dead. The worst part is that she never seems to really believe it. If she’s honest, Bill reckons that the only reason she comes back sometimes is because she has a journalism degree to finish.

She’s not sure what type she’s expecting here – she’s not naïve enough to think she’ll get a Type 1, as nice as that would be. But the Doctor just closes her eyes and sighs, looking like she’d really rather not be existing right now. She doesn’t even try to pretend she’s ok.

Frick, Bill thinks. That’s – yeah, not a good sign at all.

“Have you been sick?” she asks suddenly, nervousness bristling. “Because – I mean, I don’t know much about concussions but I think if you’re being sick that means it’s, like, bad.”

The Doctor lets out a breath.

“I haven’t been sick,” she mutters.

“Ok,” Bill says. “That’s good then.”

She must be feeling pretty nauseous, though, Bill reckons – she’s not exactly going to be sat on the floor by the toilet for funsies, is she?

“Don’t tell Jack,” the Doctor says suddenly.

“Uhh,” Bill says, not quite sure what she’s not meant to be telling Jack, other than ‘man, you were right, she is a MESS and definitely, definitely concussed. Like that is a solid concussion right there’. “Why?”

The Doctor shifts her head and lets out a pained noise. “He wants me to go to hospital.”

Hm. She can see why that would be a sensible suggestion. Actually, why isn’t she in hospital? She’d sort of assumed that A&E must have happened at some point, but – but maybe not?

“Yeaaaaaah,” she says, drawing the word out. “I mean…he’s probably right about that? Not gonna lie, you look…not great.”

“I can’t go,” the Doctor says – and again, Bill can’t help the red flags waving manically in her brain that the Doctor isn’t even trying to convince her that she’s all good. 

“You can’t go?” she asks. “Or…won’t go?”

The Doctor’s breath hitches. “I can’t. Don’t –” her voice cracks, and she swallows – “please don’t make me go.”

The realisation hits Bill like a duck to the face – sudden and flapping and very alarming.

“You’re scared,” she breathes. “Doctor – are you scared of hospitals?”

She expects her to try and deny it adamantly – but again, she says nothing. That’s pretty much confirmation, Bill thinks, concern swirling in her chest. And, now she’s realised, it suddenly explains a bunch of things about the Doctor. She’s always been getting into trouble, getting herself hurt, but Bill has never seen or heard of her going to the doctors, or even getting something looked at properly. Dammit, she barely even lets anyone help her when she’s hurt – she tends to snap at people and then hide in her room with the first aid box to lick her wounds in private. Bill had always thought she understood it – that need to not let people see you vulnerable, that overwhelming instinct that you have to look after yourself that’s so hard to shake. Plus, the Doctor is touch averse as hell, which doesn’t help at all. And it probably is all of that, but right now, it looks like it might be something else to.

“What is it you’re scared of?” Bill asks, gently. Maybe if it’s something specific, they can work around it. Because – well, she certainly looks like she needs medical attention.

“All of it,” the Doctor mutters, her eyes slipping closed, like maybe she read Bill’s thoughts. “Don’t bring anyone here either.”

“Doctor –”

“I don’t need to go,” she mutters – and ah, there’s the denial. “…what’s a doctor gonna do anyway? Tell me I’m concussed?” She huffs out a breath. “I already know that.”

“Yeah but they can also make sure it’s not anything worse than a concussion, y’know?” Bill points out – but the Doctor’s face just scrunches up in distaste. Yeah, she probably should have seen that one coming. “Have you taken painkillers, at least?”

The Doctor blinks, and then frowns. “No…they’re downstairs.”

Ok – that’s something Bill can fix. “You want some?”

“…yeah.” A pause. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Bill replies, before quickly heading out the room. Down the stairs, to the kitchen, grabbing a box of painkillers and a glass full of water, before heading back up again. The Doctor is still in exactly the same position when she returns, but she uncurls herself slightly when Bill enters, reaching out a hand. Bill takes one of the tabs of pills from the box and places it in her open palm, before putting the glass down just beside her, within easy reach. She sits down just to the right of it, watching the Doctor carefully as she fumbles with the medication.

“So, uh,” Bill asks as the Doctor picks up the glass, sipping it carefully to wash down the pills. “What happened, then?”

The Doctor swallows, and places the glass and the remaining strip of pills back down again before she speaks, her voice quiet. “Last night? Or what made me scared of hospitals?”

Bill blinks. “Well, I meant last night, but…if you wanna talk about the other thing, then –”

“I saw this guy spike this girl’s drink while she went to the toilet,” the Doctor interrupts. “So I went and told her. She…I don’t know, I think she pretended she had to leave suddenly, so she just left without drinking it. But then the guy started following her.”

Ah. “So I’m guessing you followed him too?”

“Yeah.”

“Aaaaand rather than doing the sensible thing and going up to the girl and like, I don’t know, pretending you were her friend, you…picked a fight with the guy?”

That actually makes the Doctor huff in a way that almost sounds like a laugh. “Shut up.”

“What? I’m just saying. Means you don’t end up all like this anyway. You’re lucky he didn’t try anything with you.” Oh, and then dread drops in her stomach. “Did he try anything with you?”

“Nah,” she replies immediately, and thankfully it sounds genuine. “Too much trouble. Plus…think he thought he’d killed me or something.” She laughs. “I blacked out for a moment and he was runnin’ off…”

Bill can’t help but laugh too. “You mean he didn’t even try to hide your body?”

A smile cracks at the Doctor’s lips. “Should find out where he lives.”

“What, and stand outside his window every night and like, haunt him?”

“Deserves it,” the Doctor mutters.

“Heck yeah, he does.”

The Doctor just smiles slightly at that, which Bill considers to be a huge win. If she can make someone smile with what is clearly the worst headache ever known to man, then she’s clearly unstoppable.

“And so, what then?” she prompts, hoping to get the whole story. And, of course, she’s doing the job that Jack asked her to, but hopefully without the Doctor realising that she’s being babysat until they can be sure her head injury isn’t the really bad kind. It’s a good idea to keep her talking – means she knows the Doctor’s brain is still working. “Did Jack find you flat on the floor?”

Another smile quirks at the corner of her mouth. “Not quite. I was ‘bout…halfway back? Bumped into him. Freaked him out, I think.”

Bill hums. “Yeah, bet you were a right state.”

“A bit,” the Doctor huffs. But by the look at her now, when she must have cleaned herself up (or begrudgingly allowed Jack to help her), she’s already rather worry-inducing. She can’t imagine she’d have looked any better last night, when she was probably bleeding or something and covered in dirt and dust.

“Where’s he now?” the Doctor asks. Her words are a little slurred every now and then, Bill’s noticed – just a touch. She thinks it’s probably just pain and tiredness, but if it starts getting worse then she’s getting her arse off the floor and dialling 999, she doesn’t care what the Doctor says.

“Lecture. Had to do a presentation or something,” Bill answers, before cocking her head. “Didn’t he tell you?”

“Oh. No, yeah, he did,” she answers, pressing a hand against her face. “Sorry. ‘t’s just…it’s fine.” She huffs a laugh. “Headache.”

Understatement of the century, Bill thinks to herself.

The conversation lulls for a moment, silence falling over them thick and fast. Quickly, desperately, Bill scrambles for another conversational thread she can pick up – and finds a discarded piece that could either be promising or make the Doctor shut down again crazy fast.

“Soooo…” Bill starts, sounding very confident. “Do you wanna…talk about the other thing?”

The glaring great big elephant in the room that the Doctor had quickly pushed aside earlier.

“Bill,” the Doctor replies. “I don’t ever want to talk about stuff like that.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I get that.” Boy, does she – even if she has a bit of a habit of running her mouth and oversharing once she’s made friends with someone. “But like, you don’t have to tell me all of it. Or any of it. Lie, for all I care. Just. If I know, then…maybe I can help a bit. If I know what it is that freaks you out.” She pauses, considering how to appeal to the Doctor’s unique sort of logic. “And maybe I can help fight your corner better when Jack comes back if I get what’s going on in your head a bit more.”

It’s a bit manipulative, maybe, but it is sort of true. Currently, Bill is still solidly in camp get the Doctor to the hospital, but if she has some kind of idea as to why the Doctor is so adamant that she can’t go…

The Doctor just sighs, closing her eyes and shifting her head, like she’s trying to burrow into the tiles.

“I…” she starts, her voice sounding strange. “I trusted someone.”

Bill stays extremely still – like maybe, if she moves, the Doctor will stop. Will hide it all away again, like she always does.

“I trusted someone, and – and –” she breaks off suddenly, pressing her hands against her face. Whatever it is, it’s clearly extremely hard for her to talk about. She wonders if she’s ever even told anyone this much – “and I shouldn’t have. And someone I cared – someone I care about –”

She breaks off suddenly, a shaky breath escaping from her throat in a shudder. Bill opens her mouth, not even sure what she’s about to say, but the Doctor speaks before she can figure it out.

“You know how it is, in foster care,” she says. “When you make a friend. You don’t want to at first, because you know it’s gonna be temporary, but then you do it anyway and you just – you click, and you think it’s all going to be ok, that you’re actually going to stick together, that no one else can separate you, not this time –”

She cuts off suddenly.

“But it always happens,” Bill finishes, feeling the Doctor’s words deep in her soul. How many childhood friends had she lost over the transient years of her early life?

“It always happens,” the Doctor repeats.

Bill still isn’t quite sure how this relates to her being scared of hospitals – she doesn’t understand how the things she’s said even connect. But in a way, she thinks she doesn’t need to know the hows and the whys. She can see it for herself. She can see the Doctor struggling, can see her grappling with her panic and her desperate need to keep all her vulnerabilities hidden. The fact she’s said this much is, honestly, a minor miracle, and probably mostly due to the fact she’s concussed.

“I was hurt,” the Doctor says, so quiet that Bill almost doesn’t catch it. “Or – maybe I was sick. It’s – confusing but…” she trails off, her hands still covering her face. Like a child hiding from a monster, Bill can’t help but think with a pang in her chest. “I was alone, and I was so, so scared, and –”

She breaks off again. Lets out another shaky breath.

“I didn’t want to get hurt again,” she finishes. “And I don’t – I don’t want to lose anyone again.”

Bill swallows. She has…absolutely no idea how to deal with or help with any of that.

If it were anyone else, she’d take their hand. But she’s pretty sure for the Doctor, that would just make it worse.

“Hey…listen,” she says, and the Doctor’s hands move until one eye is peeking over the top, looking straight at Bill. “We’ll stay with you, if that’s what you need –”

The Doctor closes her eyes, before swallowing thickly. “I don’t think it will help.”

Bill sighs. “Yeah. Ok then.”

They sit in silence for a long moment, with only the sound of the clock ticking in the hallway to signify that time itself hasn’t stopped to sit with them. But after a while, the Doctor shifts, moving to lean her head against the cool porcelain of the toilet bowl. Bill sits up, suddenly concerned that there’s about to be sick everywhere.

“You good?” she asks. At least, she supposes, the Doctor’s hair is short enough that she won’t need to hold it back.

“I shouldn’t have told you all of that,” the Doctor murmurs, sounding disturbed.

Right. Of course.

Bill still isn’t convinced that vomit isn’t going to be involved in the near future, and so she stands carefully, moving around to sit on the edge of the bathtub.

“Maybe not,” she says, not even intending on arguing with her. “But like, maybe just realise that actually everything you just told me didn’t really make much sense, so I don’t even know what happened anyway.” She pauses for a moment. “And I won’t tell anyone else anything.”

The Doctor looks up at her, almost pleading. “Promise?”

There’s something about the request that makes the Doctor look so young, even though she’s got a couple of years on Bill, and something painful twists in her chest in response. But she smiles.

“Yeah. Promise.”

She doesn’t understand a thing – but she knows secrets, and she knows what the Doctor is like with vulnerability. If she can tell her…a bunch of things that don’t make any sense, granted, but still, a bunch of things about what’s messing with her head so much…then the least she can do is respect that she doesn’t want any of it to be common knowledge.

She can also do the Doctor the favour of moving past it all quickly and seamlessly.

She clears her throat.

“You sure you’re not gonna be sick? Because I don’t really like the idea of sick on my shoes.”

The slightest of smiles tugs at the Doctor’s lips. “Think so.”

“Alright,” Bill says. “In that case, I vote that your bed is gonna be a hell of a lot comfier than…the bathroom floor. Unless you’re particularly attached to hugging the toilet.”

The Doctor’s smile widens by an increment. “Yeah. Prob’bly…”

Success. Bill stands, swinging her arms by her side a little before stuffing them in her jeans pockets. “Cool. I’m gonna go…move things off your bed. If that’s ok?”

If it’s not, then the Doctor can use Bill’s bed, since she doesn’t use hers as a table-slash-workbench. Because she knows how it feels to have someone else root through your stuff, and if the Doctor doesn’t want that, then she won’t do it.

But the Doctor just shrugs. “Yeah. ‘S fine, ‘s not important. Just stick it on the floor.”

Bill nods, already moving for the door. “And then, I’ll come back for you, yeah? Don’t be an idiot and try getting out here on your own.”

The Doctor groans. “But being an idiot is what I’m best at…”

Bill laughs. “Yeah, don’t I know it.” She’s the smartest idiot Bill’s ever met, that’s for sure. 

Five minutes later sees the Doctor’s bed cleared, the Doctor deposited on said bed, and a sick bucket placed strategically on the floor near her head – just as a precaution. Bill considers making herself a cup of tea – only, yeah, it had been the kettle half-dismantled on the bed, so she’s made do with just a cup of squash and sat herself down on the floor, her back leaning against the bedframe. The Doctor is lying with her face pressed into her pillow, hair all ruffled and pointing in a million different directions, and Bill wonders if she should try to keep her talking or if it’s better to just let her rest. But then the Doctor speaks before she can come to an answer.

“You stayin’ there?” she murmurs into the pillow, words muffled. Bill turns to look over her shoulder, and finds the Doctor has shifted her head slightly so that one eye peeks out to squint at her.

She smiles at her. “Yep. That ok?”

Tough if not, she can’t help but think.

The Doctor seems to process this, before turning her head back into her pillow completely. She waves an arm vaguely at the bookshelf opposite where Bill is sat.

“Read somethin’, if you want,” the Doctor offers. Bill considers it, and then stands, crossing over to the shelf, curious. She quite quickly discovers that the Doctor’s small book collection can be quite neatly split into two categories – journalism textbooks or weird sci-fi novels. Bill can’t help but be amused, running her hand along the spines of the sci-fi books – those, after all, are more her taste.

She quickly identifies the most well-worn of all the books – something called Speaker for the Dead. She frowns, drawing it out from the shelf and examining the cover, before turning back to glance at the Doctor as an idea strikes her.

“Want me to read to you?”

The Doctor’s head shifts again so she can look at her, frowning blearily.

“…what you got?” she asks. Bill looks back at the cover again.

“Uh. Speaker for the Dead?”

Something about that makes the Doctor laugh.

“Only if you want,” she says, before adding: “It’s weird.”

And Bill has to smile at that, as she crosses over to sit back down on the floor by the bed.

“Think I can cope with weird,” she says, teasing. “Friends with you, aren’t I?”

The Doctor huffs another laugh. “That you are.”

Bill’s smile widens a little, unable to stop the way her mind flickers over friends she’s made and lost over the years, moving from place to place. Of the friends she has now, right here – the Doctor, Jack, Rose, Mickey, and, yes, even Nardole. Her friends. And there’s going to be no knock on the door, no sudden change of plans – no being told she’s got to uproot her life and move somewhere new and leave everything behind. She’s staying. Her friends are hers, and no one is ever going to take her away from them. Not on her life.

And so, with that in mind, she flicks open the book, finds the start of the first chapter, clears her throat and starts to read.

And that’s how Jack finds them, several hours later, when he pokes his head through the door – and immediately does a double take.

“Is she asleep?” he asks in an incredulous whisper.

“Yeah, think so,” Bill says – closing the book. She stopped reading out loud a while back, her voice getting dry and her squash completely finished. The Doctor hadn’t complained. She turns to look at her now, finding her lying on her side, face exposed to the air rather than buried in a cushion. Like this, she almost looks…at peace, which isn’t exactly something that Bill associates with the Doctor, of all people. “I’m gonna wake her in a bit. Check she’s not dying or brain damaged or whatever.”

Jack steps into the room properly, and full-on stares at the Doctor for a moment. A smile quirks at Bill’s lips in her bewilderment as she glances at the Doctor, and then back at Jack again. “What?”

“Nothing,” Jack says, frowning, even as his lips quirk upwards at the corners. “I just – well, I think this has got to be – maybe only the third time I’ve actually seen her asleep.”

His smile spreads a little further – but then it falls as the implications of what he’s just said settle in the air between them.

Yeah.

Bill feels that.

“What are you reading?” he asks, looking down at the book in her lap. Bill purses her lips, tapping the cover, before pushing herself up off the ground.

“Something weird,” is all she says, as she crosses over to the shelf, diligently returning the book exactly where she found it. Jack hums in acknowledgement, sounding distracted, and Bill turns to look at him again. He’s staring at the Doctor again with an expression she can’t quite read. She sighs. It’s no secret how Jack feels about her – it’s not like he tries to hide it.

“Bit creepy,” she informs him. Jack blinks and visibly pulls himself out of it.

“Right,” he says, purposefully looking away. He pinches his nose with his hand. “Is she actually ok, though? Wasn’t sick or anything?”

“If she had been, I’d have dragged her to A&E whether she liked it or not,” Bill answers, crossing back over to pick up her abandoned cup on the floor. As she stands up to her full height again, she can’t help but glance at the Doctor’s face, hoping that she really is asleep and hadn’t heard it. Because even though she knows it’s the right thing – that maybe they should just take her to A&E anyway – she can’t shake that moment out of her head. The Doctor on the bathroom floor, hands pressed against her face, talking in stuttering, faltering sentences as she practically shook with fear.

Even though it would be the right thing if she really wasn’t ok…it still feels like a betrayal, to just say it.

“Yeah, right,” Jack says, rubbing his face. He looks exhausted. Probably, he is.

“I’d make you coffee but, uh.” She gestures to the dismantled kettle on the floor. “Resident engineer is sleeping off a concussion.”

Jack’s hand slips from his face and he manages to look even more spent than he had already – and also like maybe he’s wondering why he has a crush on the Doctor exactly.

She can’t help but smile in sympathy, giving him a pat on the shoulder as she walks past him and out the doorway. “Come on. Leave her be. We’ll check on her again in a minute. In the meantime, you can tell me all about what happened last night from your side.”

He doesn’t reply, and so she stops, turning, and finds Jack is still stood in the doorway.

“Hey,” she says, whacking his arm playfully to get his attention. “Quit moping and come downstairs. She’s gonna feel you staring and wake up.”

“I am not moping,” he protests as he pushes himself out of the doorway, finally turning. Bill snorts.

“What do you call this, then?”

She expects him to laugh, or at least come up with some quip in return – but he just sighs.

“Doesn’t it scare you when she can’t even pretend that she’s fine?” he asks, brushing her shoulder gently as he moves past her and towards the stairs. He pauses just before he goes down, hand resting on the wall and halting his momentum for a moment. His eyes flick back to look at her.

“I just wish –” he starts, and then glances away, a humourless laugh escaping his lips in a huff. “I wish she’d not be so stubborn and let someone help her for once.” He shakes his head – and then, before Bill can say anything, he’s moving again, gone down the stairs and out of sight.

He doesn’t realise, it occurs to her – just like she hadn’t realised herself, before finding the Doctor on that bathroom floor and seeing the wild look in her eyes. He doesn’t realise it’s not stubbornness – or, well, not entirely.

She doesn’t think he realises that the Doctor is scared out of her mind.

That’s not his fault. The Doctor, after all, doesn’t ever let anyone see her vulnerable. Today’s conversation had been a significant exception to that rule – one that Bill doubts will occur again.

She pauses, moving back to the doorframe. She peers inside, finding the Doctor still sleeping, exactly as they left her. Part of her hopes that she’s wrong – that, maybe, because she spoke to her today, perhaps the Doctor will talk to her again. Maybe, because she knows now (not that she really knows – she doesn’t know anything, actually, other than she’s scared), the Doctor will actually come to her. Tell her things. Or maybe, more likely, she’d just spout more cryptic, half-stuttered sentences that don’t make any sense – but still. It would be something. It would be talking, about something that Bill reckons she’s probably never, ever talked about with anyone.

It would, maybe, help her.

Bill swallows, watching her for a long, still moment.

Then, without a word, she reaches forward, takes the handle, and pulls the door quietly shut.