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silver_sunSummary:Gallifrey has returned, the Doctor tries to make sure it stays that way and Fitz makes sure that he is okay.
Written for Rare Male slash Exhange 2022 for lomelinde
Gallifrey had reappeared. One day it had been gone and the next it was back. Or at least that was what both Fitz and the Doctor remembered, although given the state of their respective memories neither could be completely sure. The TARDIS, if she knew any different, wasn't letting on.
It had been disconcerting waking up in the morning with the certain knowledge that Gallifrey was there, when the previous night it had very definitely been gone. How or why the knowledge was there neither of them could say. Which had led to several hours of the Doctor trying to explain it before finally admitting that it was very confusing even for him. Fitz had therefore decided it was entirely justifiable in that case that he hadn't understood any of it either. Well not apart from the fact that Gallifrey was back and the Faction Paradox weren't, both of which sounded like very good news to him.
Of course the Doctor had then immediately decided that they would have to go back to Gallifrey and check that it was all present and correct. By which, Fitz discovered, he'd meant landing the TARDIS on the lawns of a formal garden near the Citadel and running off without so much as a backwards glance as soon as the doors were open.
Fitz had followed, a little concerned about what the Doctor was going to say and a lot concerned about what the other Time Lords would do in return. Did they know he'd destroyed the planet? Would they be angry? Interested? Understanding? Would they arrest him? Sometimes it was very stressful being in a relationship with him, but however weird and crazy it got, it was still far better than life without him.
It didn't take long to catch up with him, mainly because he'd only made it as far as some kind of reception area before finding his way blocked by two guards. Both of whom seemed to be less than happy at the overly chatty and excited Doctor, who was trying to walk past them with little success.
"So really all I need is to talk to the President. It won’t take long….Well it might, but it’s important.” The Doctor stopped for a moment, a confused frown on his face. “You have a president don’t you? I mean we always did. Well not always, but you know what I mean. I should have asked who they are, shouldn’t I? That would have been better.”
"Oxitaine is the current president. How long have you been away?”
The name wasn't familiar to Fitz, but he didn’t expect it to be. However based on the blank look in the Doctor's face it didn't mean anything to him either, which probably wasn’t news.
"I'm not sure." There was something awful in how the previous excitement on the Doctor's face faded and died, replaced with confusion. "It could be four or five years, but it could easily be a hundred and five. This is why I need to call the council. I was president myself for a while, I think I remember that. I'm sure that I do."
This was part of the problem ever since the Voord attack, the slow drip of returning memories, all of them fragmented and jumbled up. The Doctor had taken to writing them down on scraps of paper every time a new one appeared, desperately trying to order them. There were hundreds scattered around the library, the order of most of it still escaping him.
Fitz had helped him the best he could. He would bring him paper or a pen, he’d listen to him talk late into the night. He’d try to fit it in with anything that he remembered from the years he’d been with the Doctor. And sometimes when nothing else was working he’d hold him until they’d both slept, taking comfort in the realness of being in each other's arms.
“Even if he can’t talk to the President right now, he can make an appointment and see him later, right?” Fitz asked when it looked like the guards weren’t going to answer the Doctor.
“Now would be better,” the Doctor said. He leant forward slightly, as if he was thinking of trying to run past them. “It’s very important. It might be vital or well it might not be, but until I can talk to them we won’t know. I won’t need long. Well I might, but if I do it will be because it needs to take that long.”
The guards looked at each other, then pointed at Fitz. “Who is he?”
"This is Fitz," he said, smiling and patting his arm. "I don't know where I'd be without him. Or rather I do and it's really not a pleasant thought. But the point is and I expect you're wondering what it is, it's that none of us would be here without him. Because I would have forgotten, given up hope years ago if it hadn't been for him. And if I hadn't been here neither would you. Probably. At least I think so."
It gave him an embarrassed, warm and giddy feeling. Fitz thought had they been alone he'd have been tempted to hug him. He doesn’t however, as he thinks it would have gone down about as well here as it would have back in 1960s London.
The guards still seemed very unimpressed. "What do you need to tell us?”
“Lots of things. The Time War mostly. Did you have the Time War? Any version of it? I don’t know if you did. I mean it happened and hadn't happened yet or might never happen depending on where you were standing. I just need to talk to the President.”
The Time War and the last couple of years of alternative timelines, realities and things so weird it made Fitz’s head ache to even try to remember them. Given how weird everything had been and how often things had gone terribly wrong he can’t help but assume that this reappearance of Gallifrey would also prove to be wrong in some subtle, but indescribably awful way. Possibly that was cynical, but life hadn't exactly always been kind to him.
The guards hadn’t wanted to make a decision, but luckily someone higher up in the Time Lord High Council had heard them talking and had come to see what the problem was.
Which was how, barely an hour later by Fitz’s reckoning, they had found themselves standing in front of a dozen senior members of the Time Lord High Council.
Which was unfair in Fitz’s opinion as the council got to have seats. They’d also told him he wasn’t allowed to smoke in the council chamber. All it all, he wanted it to be done as soon as possible, so he and the Doctor could be on their way.
As it was, the Time Lord High Council proved to be every bit as autocratic and intractable as the original one. They'd ignored him, outright blanking his existence when he'd spoken to back up the Doctor's version of events. Not that they seemed to believe the Doctor either. Finally in absolute exasperation he'd agree to let them look directly into his mind and memories.
"If you will not believe my words will you believe what is in my mind?" There was a slight tremor in the Doctor’s voice, but he looked defiantly at them, challenging them to deny his request. "Everything that I have told you is here." He tapped the side of his head. “I’m doing all this to help you.”
There was a rapid conversation, the officials and the president, all of whom were less than happy about any of it, coming to a decision mostly based on getting things over and done with as soon as possible.
"It is agreed. You will submit to the merger completely, without question or opposition. It will continue until we are satisfied that you are being truthful." The president motions for one of the council members to approach the Doctor. "You will accompany Kharnisa to the Viewing Chambers."
"Now?" There was something that looked like outright terror on the Doctor's face, it last little more than a second, replaced by something determined but resigned to his fate. “Right now?”
Fitz feels his stomach drop. “Look, Doctor, why don’t we just leave. Maybe it’d be for the best. You’ve told them everything. I mean it’s up to them if they believe it.”
“They need to believe it. I’m sure they do.” The Doctor catches Fitz's hand in his, holding it tightly. "Please wait for me. I don't know how long...."
"You'll be okay, right?" Fitz asked.. Anything that could make the Doctor look scared was no good at all. "I mean you can say no if you need to?"
"Of course, of course. It’s just a little daunting, that's all." He looked down, not meeting Fitz's eyes. "Yes, of course I will."
If it was meant to be reassuring it failed spectacularly. Fitz wanted nothing more than to tell him not to go. To tell them that laying his mind bare to them wasn't what he was offering. He knew the Doctor wouldn't listen, that even if he was terrified he'd still put himself through it because he'd convinced himself that there was no other way. And if Fitz knew anything it was that once the Doctor had convinced himself of something it was almost impossible to change his mind.
"Right then," Fitz said with false bravado, taking a battered packet of cigarettes from his jeans. "I'm gonna go for a smoke and then once you’re back we can decide where we're going next."
"Take his human outside, before he sets off the security circuits," the President said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I wish to get this ridiculous scene over with as soon as possible.”
"I'm going, I'm going." Fitz held up his hands, and wandered back the way they'd come.
Hoping that the Doctor wouldn't be detained for too long, Fitz decided that lounging around in the sun and having a smoke while he worked on the lyrics for a few songs would pass the time. Finally, with both of the suns starting to set, and not wanting to admit he was worried even to himself, he'd returned to the TARDIS.
It was odd spending the night in the TARDIS without the Doctor, their first night apart for some time. There was no sign of him in the morning either, so by lunch time, having not seen him for a full day, Fitz walked into the Citadel and asked as politely as he could just when the Doctor might be back.
A woman with ornate red robes and grey hair piled elaborately on top of her head, had answered him almost immediately. Unfortunately she'd looked at him like he was something dirty that had been tracked in on the sole of a boot the whole time. It made Fitz wonder if she'd ever thought of a career as a dole office receptionist back on Earth. So she’d informed disdainfully that it would take just as long as it needed to and that it was no concern of his anyway as he wasn’t even from Gallifrey. Then she'd swept off down the echoing corridors and out of sight.
Fitz had then spent the rest of the day trying to tell himself that the Doctor would be just fine without him. The problem was he had rather a lot of experience that told him the contrary. That said if things really did start to go wrong he could try to contact Romana, assuming she was around somewhere. Because while he hadn't exactly seen eye to eye with her last time they'd met, she did seem to genuinely care about the Doctor. So he'd waited and fretted, and then smoked and drank rather more than he should have in an effort to calm the fears he really didn't want to have. Finally, rather more drunk than he'd intended, he'd fallen asleep in the Doctor's chair in the console room.
He'd woken up on the floor to a wretched hangover and a TARDIS that was still missing its Doctor.
So Fitz had returned to the Citadel and had a slightly less polite conversation with a man who was, if anything, even more disdainful of him. No, the man informed him, the council were not finished yet. Surely even a creature of limited intellect such as a human must have realised that viewing so many years of memories would take some time.
So Fitz had returned to the TARDIS again, feeling worse and more apprehensive than before. He found he couldn't concentrate on playing guitar, his cigarette supply was running alarmingly low and he was still far too hungover to do anything much that required thought.
So he'd made toast from some bread they'd picked up on their last trip to an Earth colony world and some marmalade that had been there for substantially longer. He'd also made tea, two cups, his mind elsewhere. Then he'd stared at them, wondering what it said about the state of his mind until they were both mostly cold. He drank them anyway because it was something to pass the time and because, growing up as it had, it felt wrong to waste anything when it was still edible.
By mid afternoon he'd felt less hungover, so he went for a walk and tried to ignore the confused stares of the resident Gallifreyans. He wasn't sure whether he was grateful or not that none of them seemed to want to talk to him. The city was nice in a very formal kind of way, very neat and tidy and so painfully dull that Fitz wondered how nobody had ever died of boredom there. It must have been dreadful for the Doctor growing up there, all that restless energy and an inquisitive mind, and no meaningful outlet for any of it. No wonder he’d run off to see what was out there.
With nothing much to occupy him in the city he had gone back to the TARDIS again, did a few of the boring jobs he never usually got round to, like emptying ashtrays, putting things back onto shelves and binning anything that was past meeting even his standard of edible. Then he'd played guitar for a while, but the songs that came to him didn't cheer him up in the slightest. Eventually he resorted to opening his last packet of cigarettes and lying on the oddly red grass outside, staring up at an orange sky, to smoke them.
Once it was dark again, he'd made something that resembled a meal, and ate at least some of it before he'd retreated to the library alcove to try to distract himself with some decidedly adult holographic comics from a 51st century colony world.
Another night and the prospect of an empty bed beside him and Fitz can feel his fears creeping out of dark corners to ambush him. He felt quite proud of himself for not opening another bottle and trying to numb them. Tonight he'd make plans, he told himself, because if the Doctor wasn't back in the morning he’d go to the Citadel and stay there, complaining loudly to anybody who would listen until somebody told him exactly what was going on. The Doctor had always turned up or at least sent someone when he was in need of help, so he was going to do the same. He couldn’t do anything less.
.....
Fitz woke, nearly falling out of the chair where he’d fallen asleep in the console room, to the sound of somebody knocking on the door. This in itself was unusual as mostly nobody ever noticed the TARDIS and both he and the Doctor had a key. Which meant that either it was somebody else or the Doctor had managed to lose his key or forget what it was for.
None of the options sounded particularly good, but as they started knocking again, Fitz decided he'd have to go and see.
A short young woman, with dark skin and long orange robes was standing in front of the door. She looked at him, a worried expression on her face. "Are you the Doctor's companion human, known as Fitz?"
Still more than half asleep, Fitz rubbed his eyes, "Yeah, what's going on?"
Taking hold of his hand, she said, "You are to come with me."
Once upon a time, Fitz thought, his brain starting to wake up, he'd have been all in favour of beautiful, mysterious women waking him up in the middle of the night. However, this didn't really have the vibe that promised amorous times ahead, not that he’d have taken up the offer these days - he wouldn’t do that to the Doctor. The problem was that this was much more likely to be an 'oh no what's the Doctor got himself into now and how much am I going to end up hurting?' situation.
Despite this there was absolutely no way he was ever going to say no, this was about the Doctor after all, about making sure he was okay. So Fitz scrubbed his free hand across his eyes again in an attempt at looking something like awake and coherent and then let her lead him across the starlit lawns. They were about halfway to the Citadel when he asked, "So are you going to tell me why he sent you?"
"He didn't." She stopped, letting go of Fitz's hand. "I came by myself. He doesn't seem well and I thought that he might need his companion. You are his friend?"
"Yeah." More than that these days, but he wasn’t going to get into that with her. Fitz tried to fight down the uncoiling panic that was settling into his chest. Time Lords and presumably Time Ladies weren't in his experience all that concerned about each other's wellbeing. Just how sick was the Doctor if they'd sent someone out in the middle of the night to find him? Knowing what had gone wrong was probably better than not knowing, given just how vivid his imagination could be, so he asked, "I don't 'spose you can tell me what happened, can you?"
She considered the question for a moment, worrying her lip between her teeth. "Nobody told me I couldn't," she said eventually and Fitz revised her age downwards from about twenty-one to sixteen or so. Or at least whatever the Gallifreyan equivalent of those ages were. A century or two maybe? She looked up at him, obviously wanting some kind of reassurance that she wasn't actually breaking any rules.
It was kind of nice, Fitz thought, that Gallifrey wasn't actually a planet full of stuffy old men and women in very silly robes and hats who'd not had an original thought between them in centuries. "That's all right then," he told her, then as an afterthought, "So what's your name?"
"Rhodilamdahelvatna." She looked at his baffled expression and then said, "Rho is an acceptable contraction if my full name is difficult for your kind."
Fitz thought her name was difficult for anybody human or not, but had just enough wits about him not to say it out loud. She seemed nice enough, better than a lot of Gallifreyans he'd met. Which meant he now had second thoughts about getting her mixed up in the kind of messes that he and the Doctor seemed all too frequently to find themselves in. "I don't want you to get into trouble. You could give me directions or something, and I'll find him. I always do."
Rho considered it for a moment, then said, "Perhaps, but he's the Doctor, he's something of a legend in certain circles, especially at the Academy. To meet him, help him, I should not wish to miss such an opportunity."
Fitz knew what she meant. The Doctor was special, even if he so often didn't realise it. For himself, Fitz had known it from the moment the Doctor had run up to him with a half dead begonia in his hands and asked him if he'd been raised by parrots.
"I'd been told to watch him by my work custodian and show him back to his TARDIS once he felt better," Rho said once they'd started walking again.
"What's wrong with him?"
"I am not sure. I was not present at the Viewing, but afterwards they had to carry him from the Revelations Chamber."
Which didn't sound good at all. "Was he hurt?"
"I do not believe so. Exhaustion is most likely. The strain of multiple psychic connections when sustained for so long is very hard on anyone." She looked less than happy about this, as if she didn't agree with how the situation had been handled. "The senior custodian had him placed in a room where he could rest. I was told to watch him. Until then I had no idea who he was."
"He's still unconscious?" Fitz asked, seriously worried now. The Doctor's mind and particularly his memories had caused him enough difficulties over the years they'd been together and if the Time Lords had meddled with the fragile peace they'd only just managed to achieve Fitz knew he was going to have some very strong words with them. Ones that his lingering 1960s sensibilities said probably shouldn't be shouted in front of teenage girls or the Gallifreyan equivalent there of.
Rho let them into the Citadel via a side door. "He woke up briefly after an hour, but he seemed very confused about where he was. I offered to bring him a blanket and a drink, because he seemed very cold, but he wouldn't speak to me. I'm not sure he knew I was there. My custodian told me to wait. She didn't tell me for how long or what I should do once I had stopped waiting. So here I am."
Fitz thought he actually might have preferred unconsciousness over that kind of confusion. He'd dealt with the Doctor's amnesia before, but he really didn't want to have to go through it again. He didn’t want the Doctor to have to go through that again. What if he forgot him? Forgot them, forgot what they had together? He wished he'd thought to pick up his remaining pack of cigarettes, his hands itched for something to do, some distraction, like dragging smoke and nicotine into his lungs. Sadly it wasn't an option, so he shoved his hands into his pockets and asked, "So how did you find me?"
"It is known the Doctor rarely travels alone and your outbursts in the visitor's atrium did not go unnoticed." There's the hint of a mischievous smile. "My custodian was most upset. I think she would have had you arrested if she could. I thought it was rather a good demonstration of interspecies affection. You were worried about him and did not care who saw. I can see why he likes humans so much if they are all like you."
Fitz found he couldn't actually string a rational sentence together in reply, and mumbled something that he hoped sounded like a thank you.
It didn’t take Rho long to show Fitz to the room where the Doctor was, nor did they meet anyone else on the way.
The Doctor was sitting on the edge of a plain looking bed, the blanket he’d been given draped across his knees. That he was awake was a good sign, Fitz decided. However, he also looked about as far from alright as he could get without actually having any physical injury. Pale, even for him, his hair hanging limp and damp with sweat around his face, he looked dazed as he looked up at Fitz.
“Fitz?” The Doctor’s hand shook as he reached out to him. “You’re here? You…” He blinked as if trying to clear his vision. “Oh you really are here.”
Fitz tried to take comfort in the fact that the Doctor knew who he was, at least some of his memory was working alright. Everything else would have to wait until they were safely back in the TARDIS.
“The one and only,” he replied, trying hard to make it sound light and carefree. “Come on, Doctor. It’s time to go home.”
“Home.”
“Yeah, the TARDIS. Our home.”
“Ours.” There was a small, weary smile on his face as he let Fitz help him to his feet.
The Doctor leant on him as they walked, exhaustion dragging at every step. Rho followed silently behind them until they reached the edge of the building, finally leaving them as they crossed the lawns together to where the familiar blue box was waiting for them.
Any energy that the Doctor seemed to have had disappeared as soon as they were safely inside. He doesn’t collapse exactly, as Fitz helped him over to one of the overstuffed wingback chairs that he kept in the console room, but it was clear he was too exhausted to move any further.
Fitz was about to ask him if he needs to go to bed, about whether he could manage it alone or if it would be better if he was carried.
"Sustained mental link for hours rather takes it out of you," the Doctor replied, answering the question that hadn’t yet been spoken allowed.. “I’m rather rusty on the whole thing really, should have practised a bit more over the years."
Fitz suspected this was the Doctor's way of telling him not to fuss. He also knew that until he'd stopped shaking and looked less like death warmed up he was going to fuss and bug him until he was sure he was going to be alright. Sometimes the Doctor needed someone to take care of him, and for all that Fitz often thought he was rubbish at it, he was also rather glad it was him.
"Oh no, they took turns," he replied. "It would be far too exhausting to make anyone hold the connection for that long."
"Then why make you do it all in one go?" Fitz asked vaguely horrified, but unsurprised as it confirmed his opinion on Time Lords that most of them were callous bastards when it came down to it.
The Doctor blinked slowly, as if he'd only just realised the fact. "I don't know. I suppose they wanted it over and done with, so they could get rid of me. They don't like me all that much, you see, they never did," he said softly, looking down at his hands. "I don't think that's ever likely to change. I'm an outsider really, more so now than ever." He sighed, then sounding like he was trying to convince himself, said, "It's all over and done with now. Nothing more I can do. So I should probably try to eat something."
Food was something he could do, Fitz told himself. Food was easy. Even he could manage to put things between two slices of bread or open a can of soup and heat it up. No, iit was everything else that was going on that was so hard.
The Doctor was shaky on his feet, but Fitz didn't mention it as he put an arm around him, walking with him to the kitchen. Nor didn't he point out that the Doctor all but fell on to the chair. Instead he tried to distract himself from thinking by looking in the cupboards. Finally he decided on tomato soup, as they'd run out of chicken the previous week, and neither of them were fond tins from the 27th century Martian colony, which were supposed to be potato and leek, but tasted more like minty watermelon.
He heated it up and apologised for the lack of bread. The Doctor remained silent. He put it in a bowl and placed it in front of him, then remembering, he handed him a spoon.
The Doctor looked at the soup, prodded it disconsolately with the spoon, then looked at Fitz, then back at the soup. "I don't think I can," he said very quietly. "I feel quite sick really. It's everything in my head at the moment." He looked back at Fitz. "I am sorry."
He looked so desperately unhappy that Fitz was certain that if he ever met any of the council who'd made the Doctor push himself to this point he'd punch them right in the nose and damn the consequences.
"It's alright," he said, moving the bowl away. "I can always heat it up again later. Maybe you should have a rest or something. Everything might seem better in the morning."
"No. No, it won't. Because it's not going to be alright." The Doctor looked away again, his eyes filled with tears. "You see I know what will happen, not the exact details of course, but the Time War will happen again. Time will demand it. I can't..." He shook his head, eyes brimming with tears. His voice was soft and so very lost as he added, "I find myself rather wishing I hadn't survived it at all."
"Don't you ever say that," Fitz snapped, fear coming out as something close to anger. "Don't you dare."
The Doctor didn't appear to have heard him at all as he continued in the same hushed tone of defeat. "They pulled open every memory, picked over every little detail. They made me remember everything. Everything I thought was lost, everything that I wanted never to think about again. I can see it, feel it, every moment, every second." He made a small, strangled sound, hunching in on himself. "It hurts."
Fitz's heart sank. He'd been afraid of this, terrified really, that too many memories coming back at once would overwhelm him. It sucked to be right. He crouched down in front of him. "It won't be the same though, will it, the war, not now they know they can change it. They'll live and it's all down to you. It's going to be okay."
"They didn't believe me. They said that I was the one who’d been in an aberrant timeline, that none of it could happen. I let them see everything, feel every...." The Doctor choked back a near hysterical sob and covered his face with his hands. "Why wouldn't they listen? Why does no one ever listen?"
Fitz had no answers to that. It was incomprehensible to him how anyone could see what the Doctor had seen, to watch him in such a state and still decide he was wrong. They couldn't have a heart at all, he decided, because seeing the Doctor weep for all that had been lost and all he might lose again would have broken even one made of stone.
He knew because it was breaking his, jagged fault lines spreading and splitting him apart as ragged little gasps of air shook the Doctor's shoulders as he lost the fight for control of his emotions and errant tears escaped to trickle over his trembling hands.
There wasn't any point in asking him if there was any possibility that they might have been right, if there was any hope at all the Doctor would have clung to it. It terrified Fitz that they would have to fight that war again, that they could lose each other, that perhaps it would destroy them both in ways he couldn't even begin to imagine. He couldn't stop himself from shaking, fear for the future like ice water in his veins, but he puts his arms around the Doctor all the same.
The Doctor was too exhausted to continue for long, and soon Fitz found he quietened into sleep. Tired and worried himself, he managed to rouse him long enough to help him stumbled to their bed.
The TARDIS’s lights stayed low and soft, a slight pulse to them reflecting her concern. For once there were no endless corridors or being sent down the wrong routes. Today the TARDIS seemed to recognise that her Doctor wasn’t well and needed to rest. So it doesn’t take long at all for them to arrive at the Doctor's room, although these days it would be more correct to think of it as their room.
The Doctor was more than half asleep as Fitz helped him undress for sleep and get into the bed, tucking the covers in around him.
Even asleep the tears still trickled from under closed eyelids, beading on dark lashes before slowly trailing down his cheeks. It made Fitz think of statues of the weeping Madonna, it was probably blasphemous somehow, but he didn't care. He'd long considered himself way past saving in that regard should the whole heaven and hell thing turn out to be true.
He wiped the tears away carefully with the edge of his sleeve. It was dark and nobody could see, and perhaps in the morning things would be better. Perhaps once he was less exhausted the Doctor could think of a way that they could ensure that the Time War wouldn’t happen this time. Surely with the Faction Paradox wiped from all the timeline there must be a way.
They are too heavy and too complicated thoughts to be having in the early hours of the morning , so Fitz laid down beside him, letting the Doctor curl against him. They have both been in this position more than once over the years, and he has little doubt that the future will hold more such nights. As long as both of them are there, as long as they are together, Fitz thought, somehow, as impossible as it might seem, they will be okay in the end.
--
It wasn’t unusual for the Doctor to sleep for an extended period of time following an event that was either mentally or physically taxing. Fitz had been with the Doctor long enough to know what was normal for him.
So he wasn’t worried when the Doctor slept for the next couple of days. Time Lords didn’t seem to need to eat or drink in the same way that people did. They’d be fine for much longer without either.
All the same when a few days became a week Fitz could feel concern setting in. What if something wasn’t right? What if the Doctor didn’t wake up? What if he needed some kind of help that he could give?
The Doctor didn’t seem to be ill however, just sleeping, hopefully his mind putting everything that he’d seen in order. So hoping that he is doing the right thing, Fitz asked the TARDIS to take them somewhere the Doctor would like, somewhere safe, and where he can get food that recognises. The TARDIS, as mercurial as she sometimes was, seemed to be in agreement with him in this.
The Devon coast in the mid nineteen twenties certainly seemed to fulfil all the things that Fitz had asked for. Yes, there was still a part of him that missed the swinging sixties, the bright lights and pubs and clubs of London. But also there was a part of him who wanted to relax these days. To just go sit under a tree somewhere with his guitar and not be distubed.
As nice as the place was, Fitz knew that he would only start to enjoy it once the Doctor was awake and his old self again. When they could go and enjoy it all together. Because if he woke up and was as distressed as before Fitz wasn’t sure how he was going to hold it together. He probably would, because he’d need to, but probably didn’t feel like enough. What certainty was there in ‘probably’? What if he let the Doctor down?
They were thoughts that Fitz wished he didn’t have, yet he didn’t seem to be able to will them away. All he could do was keep himself busy and hope. It was a powerless kind of feeling, too reminiscent in a way of those years before he knew the Doctor, when it was his mother’s health and whether she would recover or not that weighed on his mind.
It’s too hard after the first few days to spend too much time just sitting in the Doctor’s room, waiting and waiting for him to wake. So Fitz looks in the wardrobe room for something not out of place for a 1920s holiday maker. He goes to the library and garden rooms. He goes to his room and to the kitchen.
And it was while Fitz was in the library looking for something to take his mind off things that the Doctor walked in.
Fitz stares, taking in the fact that the Doctor clearly hadn’t come to find him straight after waking up. No, somewhere in the three or so hours since Fitz had last checked in on him the Doctor had woken up, got dressed and gone out for a walk.
The Doctor stood there, dripping wet, and smiled, before holding up a milk bottle in one hand and a half-eaten peach and a fishing rod in the other. "An umbrella would have been a better choice," the Doctor said, "but they had sold out."
It was utterly ridiculous, although whether it was like old times or his final descent into madness Fitz had no idea. Whichever it was he couldn't quite breathe or talk, and he was suddenly rather worried he'll fall over if he let go of the table.
The Doctor looked at him for a moment and then asked a little uncertainly, "Are you alright?"
Fitz considered it for about half a second, then shook his head, because he'd not been quite this level of extremely not alright at all in a long time.
"Do you want me to get you anything? A drink? Or a chair, you look very pale. Are you sure you're going to faint or anything, are you? Or do you need to..." He trailed off, as he saw the look in Fitz's eyes. Then moved in close to him and hugged him.
One of the Doctor's overly tight and enthusiastic hugs shouldn't have made it easier to breathe, but somehow it did. Fitz gasped and sagged against him, knees weak with relief. He was real, because madness wouldn't be this cold, soggy and sticky, where the Doctor was accidentally squishing an overly ripe peach onto his back.
He laughed. It wasn't quite amusement, more weak at the knees relief than anything else. His t-shirt was soaked through and sticking to him, and he was shivering, from far too many things for him to name, but despite that he felt better. Not great, but definitely not as awful as before.
He doesn't even know why he did it, but one moment he was looking at the Doctor, the next he was kissing him.
It took the Doctor a moment to respond, but when he did it was with substantially more enthusiasm than skill, was all kinds of strange and wonderful, and oh god what if the Doctor wasn't back in his right mind at all?
Fitz stopped. It took every ounce of self control he had to gently push him away, because he wanted it, wanted the Doctor to hold him, kiss him and maybe more. "Can't," he managed, "Sorry."
The Doctor looked puzzled, then rather disappointed, “What not? Have I done something to upset you?”
Fitz was baffled for a moment at how the Doctor could think it would be anything he’d done. "It's not that, I mean you've been....well not well lately and I wanted to make sure you were you and I wasn't making you do anything you didn't want to do, because I know what I want, but you need to want what I want and if you don't I..." He stopped, why did things always sound so much better in his head than coming out of his mouth. This was why songs were so much easier than talking, you could write them down a hundred times, perfecting them, so you didn't sound like a gibbering idiot.
The Doctor understands him, and in a surprising gesture raised Fitz hand to his lips and kissed the palm. "The last couple of days were unpleasant, but everything seems to be filed in the right order up here-" he tapped the side of his head "-so really I'm probably more me now than I've been a very long time." He paused for a moment then kissed Fitz's again, on the lips this time, slowly and very thoroughly. "So please don't worry I don't know what I want."
"It was more than a week," Fitz blurted out, unable to believe that after so many days of a near catatonic state the Doctor could wake up and be fine. "After we left Gallifrey you were out of it for days. You didn't speak, you didn't move, you wouldn't eat, and would barely drink. I didn't know if you'd be alright, if you'd ever..." Fitz stopped. There had been a part of him who’d been terrified that he wouldn’t get the Doctor, his Doctor, back after all that had happened. He shivered, then remembered to take a breath. “You're back, but I didn't know if you were back back, if you're really thinking like you and I…”
The Doctor's response was to hug him again, tightly enough to cut off what he was about to say. "I'm sorry, it really didn't seem that long to me. I had no idea, my poor Fitz." He stroked the side of Fitz's face. "I didn't mean to frighten you. I really am very sorry you know."
“It’s okay, you didn’t mean to.” Fitz closed his eyes and leant into the touch. “What you said before about the Time War, we have to do it all again?”
“I don’t know. I think so.” His eyes seemed distant, impossibly ancient. “Things are clearer now. There are things that I can do that mean perhaps we will have a chance this time. Things that I might be able to stop before they happen. Yes, it might be alright.”
It wasn’t exactly a resounding hope for the future, but the Doctor sounded so much better than he had done that Fitz couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
Some things in time were fixed, some were not, so some could be changed while others could not. The Doctor had tried to explain it to him more than once over the years that they have travelled together, but much of it was incomprehensible to someone who couldn’t feel the ebb and flow of time itself as the Doctor could.
Yet in the end, Fitz had decided, perhaps that it didn't matter all that much that he didn’t understand it. Maybe he was with the Doctor in all worlds or perhap this was the only one where it had worked out. Either way it made Fitz feel like the luckiest man alive.
They were alive, they were together and there was a good chance of a long future together ahead of them. Fitz smiled and continued smiling as the Doctor leant in for another kiss.