Lost in Translation (Doctor Who, Twelfth Doctor)

[angora48]

It's been ages since I've posted any fic here. This Twelfth Doctor sickfic has been rattling around in my brain for a long time, and even though it's not quite finished yet, I have enough of a headstart that I figured it's safe to start posting. ;-) I ought to be able to maintain my usual practice of daily updates.

The typical disclaimer, not my charactes. This story is set mid-series 8, between "The Caretaker" and "Kill the Moon." No real spoilers. Because I tried to set it up as much like a real episode as possible, it's not all sneeze-fluff and caretaking. The fetishy stuff is incorporated into the main adventure/alien plot, so some segments aren't going to be as heavy on the sneezing. I think you'll hopefully still like it, though - Twelve is just phenomenal fun to torture!

And without further ado... Part 1!

“The seaside?” the Doctor asked, almost indignantly. His cross eyebrows looked like they were about to leap off of his face. “I’ve got a door that’ll oped to addywhere id time add space, add you want to go to the seaside with P.E.?”

“Danny,” Clara corrected. She’d turned away from the Doctor to rifle through her wardrobe, looking for that sundress she just knew Danny would love. “It’s our first weekend away – it’s important.”

“What’s so ibportant about the seaside?” the Doctor scoffed. A glance his way told Clara he’d crossed his arms and was now leaning against her doorframe with a glower. “It’s just a lot of wet sand add children nagging their paredts to buy theb ad ice cream.” He wriggled his nose and frowned.

He looked pale – tired, too. It had been about two weeks since Clara had been anywhere in the TARDIS with him. How long had it been since he’d been anywhere with her? “It’ll be great,” Clara told him. Truth be told, going to the seaside wasn’t normally anything she’d get excited about, but of course, the Doctor was never going to understand that that wasn’t the point. It wasn’t the place, or what she’d do there; it was who she was going with, and that made it the best place in the universe.

“All right, thed, how about Brighton id dineteed twenty-seven?” the Doctor suggested. “The ice cream’s buch better, add the ozode layer’s still strong eduff to keep the beladoma at bay.”

God, she hoped it had been at least two weeks since the Doctor had been with her. What had he been wearing when they were in 3281, on that satellite that had been a bit sentient? Every now and then, she got the idea that he went straight from one trip with her to another, jumping forward in time just far enough that she wouldn’t think he was being desperate. Please don’t let that be the case.

“I don’t think Danny would go for 1927,” Clara replied, breezily, lightly. As if to say, it’s okay, Doctor; don’t take it personally.

“‘Course he wouldn’t,” the Doctor muttered, and for the first time, Clara noticed how low his voice sounded. There was something off, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Something flickered across his face, too fast for Clara to catch, and then he was squaring his shoulders with a cavalier air. “Right – plade old twenty-first cedtury seaside,” he said. “Whed are you leaving?”

“He’s coming ‘round at half eleven,” Clara told him. She reminded herself that she had no reason to feel bad for saying no when the TARDIS materialized in her living room and the Doctor expected her to just drop everything and pop halfway across the galaxy with him. She had a life – one she had every right to – and she wasn’t responsible for keeping him entertained.

The Doctor, who’d been rubbing his nose with the side of his thumb, brightened in that triumphant, infuriating way he had sometimes. “But that’s ages!” he exclaimed. “Plenty of tibe for a quick jaunt.”

“It’s less than two hours,” Clara pointed out.

“Right, ‘cause two hours is a bit buch for a tibe bachine to handle,” the Doctor rejoined. “How do you fadcy pre-Revolution St. Petersburg? The Winter Palace does a great borscht.”

“I’m sure it does,” Clara said, “but it’ll still be there when I get back on Sunday.” She moved to the loo to pack up her toiletries.

“What about the Ruby Sea of Castillios 4?” the Doctor went on, trailing after her.

“Seen it,” Clara reminded him. “Last month?”

The Doctor dragged his hands down his face and Clara frowned, once again, at how tired he looked. “Ajkerel, thed,” he suggested, a slight edge creeping into his voice.

Clara rolled her eyes, but she hadn’t stopped listening. “What’s in Ajkerel?” she asked.

“Biggest pellion tournabent this side of the Iris Debula,” the Doctor explained and, catching her puzzled look in the mirror, continued. “Pelliod – it’s sort of a cross between football add baseball, odly they play by Dracodian rules.”

“You’re taking me to another planet ‘cause there’s a match on?” Clara asked, smiling bemusedly. “I don’t think so.”

As she passed him on her way back to her suitcase in the bedroom, the Doctor added, “Did I bention that Ajkerel’s gravity is roughly sibilar to your bood’s?” Clara paused. “They have sweepers above the pitch od stratoships, to bake sure the ball doesn’t break through the atbosphere.”

Clara let out a small sigh. Damn him. “Go on, then,” she said finally.

He’d gotten his way, but when she followed him into the TARDIS and saw how he came alive as he flipped switches and spun dials, she almost didn’t mind. “Thirty-dinth cedtury, I thidk,” he told her, flying round the console. “Earth had a top-dotch pelliod teab id the thirty-dinth cedtury.”

It wasn’t until he sniffled, his nose twitching a little, that Clara put it together. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“I’be always all right,” he said, a kneejerk reply.

“No, Doctor, I mean it,” she insisted. “You sound a bit stuffed up.”

He paused momentarily, confusion furrowing his brow. “What’s that?”

“Oh, come on – don’t get all Time Lord on me,” Clara retorted. She didn’t consciously put her hands on her hips; it just sort of happened. “You expect me to believe you never get ill?”

“So it’s ad ill thing,” the Doctor reasoned. “Which is it? The one where it’s like sobewod’s stuck pids id your throat?”

“No – it’s the one where your nose is blocked up,” Clara told him. She frowned. “Wait… does your throat feel like it’s got pins in it?”

“I didn’t say that,” the Doctor pointed out.

“And I didn’t ask you if you said it,” Clara pressed.

The Doctor was the first to break the gaze, as he turned his attention back to the console. “It’s duthing,” he muttered.

“Doesn’t sound like it,” Clara persisted. “And more importantly, why didn’t you know what it was called?” She tried to study his face in the low light of the console room. “You really don’t get ill?”

“Of course I get ill,” the Doctor replied, a scoff at the edge of his voice. “Just dot the sabe ones as you – different biology.”

“What, a cold can’t figure out two hearts?” Clara asked.

“Sobething like that,” the Doctor said. “I haven’t got a cold.” He cleared his throat, not loudly, but loud enough for Clara to hear.

“But you have got something, yeah?” Clara replied. “Something you’re not used to, I’d wager.”

“This is boring,” the Doctor informed her. “Why are we sitting ‘roud talking about thigs that don’t batter whed we could be watching the six huddred add fifth interpladetary pelliod champiodship?”

“Because you’re not feeling well,” Clara insisted. Now that she’d seen it, it was written plainly all over the Doctor’s face, evident in his every word. “If you’re not up to it, we could do Ajkerel some other –”

The Doctor threw a lever, and the TARDIS wheezed into life. “3884, here we cobe!” he announced.

“– time,” Clara finished anticlimactically.

Hope you like it! See you tomorrow!

[VoOs]

*happy noises* AAAHHHH, I'm so in love with this! You really got their voices down pat, it makes my heart swell. <3 "So it's ad ill thing" ...awww, poor, darling Twelve.

I'm very much looking forward to reading more of this adventure.

[IcyFlame]

*whispers* yes

*says in indoor voice* oh yes

*says in enthusiastic voice* Yes

*says it in loud indoor voice* YEs

*switches to outdoor voice* YES

*screams* YES

*chants loud as possible* YES YES YES YES YES

*grabs a microphone* YESSSSS

*is jailed for making many people deaf, jerks on jail cell bars* YESYESYESYESYES

*gets put in padded room* YESYESYESYES

*voice box breaks* yesyesyesohyesyesss

ILOVEILOVEILOVE! THANK!

[MoonDuck]

I remember your old stuff! I love how you wrote Twelve and Clara's interactions with each other, it sounds so perfect. I'm excited to see what happens next

[SneezyHolmes]

This was amazing! I can't wait for more!

[angora48]

Thanks so much! I'm glad you like it (and I love the irony of getting padded-room enthusiasm from someone named Meh!) Here's part 2; feel free to giggle, now and in coming installments, about my silly science.

Clara said that she could see him – could see her Doctor through his new face – and sometimes, she might even think she really did, but the Doctor knew better. He knew he’d started to lose her as soon she looked into the eyes he had now. In other lives, he might have described it melodramatically; he only had two hearts so one could beat while the other broke, something stupid and overwrought like that. He wouldn’t put it past a few regenerations of his (looking at you, skinny one with the pinstripes,) but not him. He wasn’t in the business of letting his hearts bleed all over the place.

Still, he’d taken the way she used to see him for granted. Hadn’t appreciated it enough, which he hadn’t realized until her expression had changed. Now, he didn’t tell her how he sated himself on the way her face lit up when he showed her something extraordinary. That wonder, like on Akhaten – when he saw it, it was almost like how she’d once looked at him.

So, it was with relish that he threw open the doors of the TARDIS. They’d materialized in a bustling Ajkereli transport hub, all tubes and elevated trains and buoyant holiday makers. Considering their location, the population was mainly humans and Quebliads, with a smattering of working-class Ajkereli and small clusters of half a dozen or more other species.

Clara peered around him onto the scene, and her face didn’t betray much wonder. To the Doctor’s credit, his own betrayed no disappointment. “Doesn’t look like low gravity to me,” she observed.

It took an extra instant for her words to illuminate in his mind. There was a distracting lump in his throat that he had to swallow around, and the headache forming behind his right eye made it hard to think. “Ah! Right – that’s because we’re idside,” the Doctor explained quickly, spinning on his heels as he gestured to the glass sky shield overhead (after he came to a stop, the station lobby continued to spin for another 40 degrees or so, and he wished he’d stayed put.) “This area’s largely huban-idhabited, ad they simulate Earth-dormal gravity id edclosed spaces.”

“What for?” Clara asked. She’d stepped out of the TARDIS and shut the door behind her, but she still looked unconvinced as she took in the sights.

“Because the sort of people who colodize other people’s worlds usually like it to rebide theb of hobe,” the Doctor told her. He wished he could stop sounding like he had a stopper in his nose; after Clara had pointed it out, it had seemed to get so much more obvious. He slid a long finger under his nose and sniffed lightly. “Thidk about the British empire: cricket and corsets and cucubber sandwiches everywhere frob Iddia to Bermuda. It’s the sabe thing. Besides, you doh what hubads are like – they’re id too buch of a hurry for low gravity.”

“But you said –” Clara began.

“It’s just where the sky shields are,” the Doctor assured her. “Boste Ajkereli live with the regular atbosphere, add the pelliod pitch is outdoors.” Though his eyelids were heavy, he pretended wakefulness as he scanned the digital board of arrivals and departures. “We’re close – two stops od the elevated.”

One burst of the sonic screwdriver later, they were past the turnstiles, up the escalator discs, and boarding the train that ran through a sky shield tunnel among the skyscrapers. The Doctor noticed that Clara at least seemed mildly interested in the world below them – the enclosed motorways, the cornucopia of touristing species, the holographic billboards – but he himself was a bit busy noticing how overcrowded and stuffy the train was. He and Clara were sat behind a Quebliad mother and her little terror, an insufferable juvenile that was wailing with all three of his mouths. His headache was spreading like a blush across his temple, and it felt like someone had taken a feather to his nose.

“Ahh-heh-ihh-SHUUHHHH!” He rocked forward, clamping a hand over his mouth to quell the minor explosion that erupted from him.

“See?” Clara told him, keeping her eyes on the city outside the windows. “You are coming down with something.”

This wasn’t good. It was Not Good; it was that phlegmy thing that humans and other races like that did. What was it? It had that ridiculous name. The Doctor probed the lazy edges of his memory. “Sdeeze,” he murmured quietly. He wasn’t meant to sneeze. It wasn’t the sort of thing he did. So why was he doing it now, and why did his nose still itch so fiercely? “Ah…” He pressed a finger hard against his nose and closed his eyes, scarcely breathing.

“Doctor?” Clara asked, turning back his way.

The heady tickling sensation was dying down. Opening his eyes, the Doctor gave his nose a quick, distracted rub just as Clara faced him. “Tip top,” he told her, forcing a lopsided smile and pushing thoughts of sneezes and headaches and uncomfortable swallowing from his brain.

After what seemed at least four lifetimes, with the bratty little Quebliad screaming the entire time, they finally arrived at Bracken Stadium. Clara peered curiously at the massive stream of life forms squeezing in through the gates. “How are we going to get in?” she asked.

The Doctor slipped the psychic paper out of his inner jacket pocket and waved it in front of her. “Dod’t you doh be well enough not to ask be that?” he asked, and the sound of his own voice made him depressed. Luckily, the crowd was making enough of a racket that he didn’t imagine she could hear him clearing his throat.

“Get us in the door, yeah, but where are we meant to sit?” Clara asked. “You can’t just hold up the psychic paper and say it’s your ticket. When the people with the real tickets show up, we’ll be tossed out for scalping.” When the Doctor didn’t immediately respond, she gave a bemused smirk. “Didn’t think of that, did you?”

“Didn’t deed to,” the Doctor replied, blustery. As he strode confidently towards the entrance, he hoped he’d have a plan by the time they got inside.

All right – not as soon as they got inside, but halfway up the stairs which, considering the state of the Doctor’s head, he thought was pretty good. “Cobe on,” he said, wrinkling his nose, which was starting to itch again.

As they wove through the crowd, he scrubbed hard at his nose, bullying the itch down to a mild irritation he reckoned he could keep in line. “Agents Sbmith add Oswald, Idternal Defense,” he said, flashing his psychic paper at a security guard. “We’re keepig ad eye out – there’s beed rumblings of suspicious activity.”

The guard, an overworked-looking human, came to stiff attention. “What sort of suspicious activity, sir?” she asked, reaching for her comm. “Alms, is it? Two secs, I’ll got my boss on the line and –”

“What’s your dame?” the Doctor began, then, course-correcting as the guard opened her mouth, went on. “Actually, I dod’t care. Look… guard-persod, it’s strictly deed-to-know, all right?” He tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially, which didn’t turn out to be a great idea. He held a finger under his nose as the itch flooded his sinuses again and vaguely motioned for Clara to pick up where he’d left off.

“We have reason to believe someone’s planning an attack on the tournament, real show of force stuff,” Clara jumped in smoothly. “All we need from you is a clear view of the pitch, and we’ll take it from there.”

If the guard stood up any straighter, she was going to start bending back the wrong way. “Right away, ma’am! This way!” she exclaimed.

Clara, looking satisfied, turned to wink at the Doctor. He offered her a hint of a smile and managed to hold off until she followed the guard past him before the sneeze got the better of him. Pinching his nose, he sneezed a hard “Hnnn-kkkichhuhhhh!” Sniffing deeply, he hurried after Clara and the guard.

Soon, they were being settled into a pair of terrific seats just above the pitch. “Kristerosh Rolloch,” the guard needlessly introduced herself, snapping off an even more needless salute. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

“Will do,” the Doctor replied disinterestedly. The match was about to start.

“LIFE FORMS ONE AND ALL, PUT YOUR APPENDAGES TOGETHER FOR THE INTERPLANETARY PELLION QUARTER FINAL!!” boomed a simply offensively-loud, disembodied announcer.

“Right – that’s dodt going to get addoying,” the Doctor muttered. He pressed his middle finger to his temple as he directed Clara’s attention to the pitch below. “Hubans id blue, Voshera id black,” he explained.

“Seriously? You think I can’t figure out which team is the humans?!” Clara countered. She pointed to the Voshera. “Doctor, they’ve got three legs!”

“Techdically, they’ve got five libbs,” the Doctor corrected. “They use theb all idterchangeably as both legs and arms.”

“Glad we got that sorted out,” Clara replied. She glanced up the aisles. “Do they do candy floss as pellion matches?”

“Dod’t doh. Put Kristerosh od it – she’s adxious to do her bit,” the Doctor suggested. “Look!”

On the pitch, both teams had removed the weighted ankle bands that helped anchor them in the low gravity. Without the weights, they bounded forward acrobatically, leaping into the air and gliding back to the ground as if they were underwater. They took their places at the center of the pitch, each brandishing a wooden bat. When the referee threw the pellion ball in the air for the start of play, human and Vosherus alike shot upward with aerial twists and somersaults.

At the Doctor’s side, Clara gasped delightfully – there was the wonder.

(By now, of course, the show has made it (delightfully) clear that the Doctor DOES sneeze, but I always think it's so much more fun if it's something he's not used to.)

[Pyrus_Fangmon]

O-O

This..... Is a masterpiece! *faints*

[IcyFlame]

|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|

|_| |_|

|_| ~(O-0)~ |_|

|_| / \ |_|

|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|

That is a padded room, and for the record I totally blame you for this.

[VoOs]

This is like something straight out of an episode, only with the added wonder of the Doctor being miserably sniffly.

The first paragraph made my heart ache, by the way. Beautiful writing, all of it. <3

[angora48]

Aw, thanks! Twelve and Clara's relationship can be really frustrating to me, but interesting, too. The way I see it, they're two people who still care about each other a lot, but they can't quite figure out how to make that connection anymore. The Doctor being ill, I think, is going to be a neat way to explore that. (The hard part is trying to be fair to Clara - I tend to be very (irrationally?) protective of Twelve.)

And Meh, I promise to come visit; I'll bring Twelfth Doctor sickfic. ;-)

Part 3. This one's a bit more plot-heavy, but we'll get into the good stuff before long.

Clara had to admit it; pellion – or at least, pellion on Ajkerel – was brilliant. The game combined elements of different kinds of sport, but Clara followed it well enough. There was a single ball, just a bit larger than a football, and two goalkeepers tending posts reminiscent of the massive American football goalposts. Players could hit the ball with their feet, knees, heads, elbows, or long baseball-looking bats (either by swinging it at the ground like a golf club, using to keep the ball in the air, or hitting it to one another.)

The low gravity was the real spectacle. It was a bit strange to get used to, because it made everything a lot slower than regular sport, but so much more impressive. The players could jump higher and farther than anyone could on Earth, and the longer return to the ground gave them plenty of room for all sorts of gymnastic stunts. Opponents collided and tussled in the air, a good crack could send the ball soaring almost beyond the height of the surrounding, glass-enclosed stadium and, since players weighed less here, they could do outrageous things like leap onto someone else’s bat to propel themselves forward. The goalkeepers scaled the sides of the goalposts to jump into the path of high-soaring balls. Clara had never seen anything like it.

The opposing team, the Voshera, were a class unto themselves. They were mostly deep shades of violet with egg-shaped torsos and five limbs that doubled as both arms and legs. Their heads were on top, of course, and then there was a single arm/leg on the bottom, like a pogo stick, and another at each side – left, right, front, and behind. They usually ran on at least two, but any two, spinning and cartwheeling as naturally as breathing and tossing their bat to whatever limb was handiest at the moment. While Clara was naturally rooting for the humans, she couldn’t deny that the Voshera put on an even wilder show than her kinfolk.

A number of the humans, she noticed, had packs strapped to their chests, out of which a tube ran up to what looked like mouth guards. “Is the air breathable?” she asked the Doctor.

“Doable,” the Doctor replied. By now they’d established that, with his voice low on account of being ill, he had to lean in close for her to hear him over the cheers of the audience and the commentary on the loudspeaker. “You lot cad survive id it all right, but it’s dot quite what you’re used to.”

Clara nodded. “That’s why the humans are wearing those things – oxygen, yeah?”

“Mmmb,” the Doctor said. He probably thought she didn’t notice him sniffling. “Right – some use it for the Earth-norb edge and sobe go without for the challedge.”

“And the Voshera?”

“It’s fide for theb,” he explained. He swallowed with a grimace and looked like he really wanted to rub his throat.

A small smile played at the corners of Clara’s mouth. “How’s that cold treating you?”

“I haved’t got a cold,” the Doctor muttered back, gruffly.

“Oh, right,” Clara replied. “You’ve just got a runny nose and a frog in your throat. Could be anything.”

He shot her a puzzled glare. “What was that about frogs?”

“Nothing,” Clara teased, holding back a chuckle.

She wondered why he bothered to deny it. It was obvious that he was feeling poorly – though it wasn’t terribly bad yet, he had an unmistakable cold-voice, and beyond that, he looked sort of… wilted. Like he’d had the air let out of his tires. She sighed. What am I going to do with you? she thought.

Still, the match wouldn’t last more than another couple of hours, and she was having a brilliant time (aside from having to pretend she was some kind of agent every time the eagerly helpful Kristosh came by to make knowing faces and ask cryptic questions about “which way the wind’s blowing.”) Once it was over, she’d call it a day and make the Doctor promise to go to bed after he dropped her off at home. No harm done.

She was just about to ask the Doctor if the players had to train specially to play in low gravity when it happened; simultaneously, two-thirds of the athletes began to spasm and dropped lifelessly to the turf. The surviving teammates barely had time to look bewildered before they started succumbing as well.

“Doctor,” Clara gasped, horrified. “What’s –”

The Doctor was on his feet, staring at the pitch was laser-like focus. “It’s the ground…” he murmured. And then, he was shouting. “Don’t touch the ground! Whatever you do! Don’t-!” He winced; he wasn’t getting enough volume.

He was right, though – everyone who’d lasted longer had been in the air when the others were killed. Clara didn’t know how or why, but he was right, and that warning needed to come from someone whose voice was stronger at the moment. “Don’t touch the ground!!!” she cried, the screaming tearing through her.

By this point, there were only five players left alive, the highest flyers. Even as she shouted, though, one of the falling Voshera brushed the grass with its back foot. Spasm. Dead.

The audience had been confused, shocked, uncertain. Now, though, it had begun to sink in. All around them, people were starting to cry, to scream. Parents covered their children’s eyes, some rose frantically, trying to escape, and some couldn’t move at all.

The Doctor was busily sonicking his seat. “Wood udder the cushiod,” he murmured to himself. “Good – idsulating.” And louder, to Clara, “Get addything between yourselves add the groud.”

It took her a second to realize he was giving her her lines. “Get anything between yourselves and the ground!”

The human goalkeeper was okay; she was clinging to the top of the goalpost. Another human was reaching, reaching, for the ball, just above him. His fingers nudged it, and Clara was afraid he was going to knock it in the wrong direction. It was all so stupidly horrible – no matter how high up they’d been, they were floating like feathers back to the ground, and slow as it was, how were they meant to stop it?

The Doctor had now removed the bottom from his seat as well as Clara’s and had moved on to others in their row. “Up, up, up!” he growled to the stupefied spectators. “You wadt people to die ‘cause you couldn’t be bothered to stand? Out of by way!” As befuddled as they were horrified, the traumatized people managed to slide out of their seats, which the Doctor attacked with the sonic screwdriver.

Clara let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding – the human’s fingers made purchase on the ball. Gently, almost teasingly, he eased it closer to him and held it in the direction of the approaching turf. He was going to land on it, balance on it, anything to keep from touching the deadly ground. Clara pleaded with the universe on his behalf.

“Cobe od!” the Doctor shouted hoarsely, sniffling as he hurried past Clara. He had an armload of flat, cushioned seat bottoms, and, planning to do who-knew-what with them, he raced down the steps to the edge of the pitch.

One Vosherus still alive. It was perched precariously atop its bat, wobbling a little as it gripped the bat with one limb and trying to steady all its others. God, it wasn’t going to make it.

There was another human. Clara didn’t know what had happened to his bat, and of course, the ball wasn’t big enough for two. She held her breath again.

The Doctor sonicked open a panel in the sky shield and stuck his head through onto the pitch. “Use wod of your teabmates!” he called to the falling human.

“Doctor!” Clara cried, scandalized.

“What – they’re dead, he’s dot!” the Doctor argued. “A little decorub’s dot worth his –” His expression suddenly changed. Panic – a mistake. “Doh!!” he shouted, just as the human landed on one of the many prone bodies littering the pitch. He started to spasm.

“Help hib!” the Doctor cried. He threw one of the seat bottoms onto the pitch.

The other human gripped the ball with his left hand and wielded his bat with his right. As the ball touched the ground, he reached forward and hit his friend with the bat. As soon as he broke contact with his teammate’s body, the poor man stopped spasming and rose dazedly back into the air, but the player who’d come to his aid wasn’t so lucky. He’d overbalanced, fallen. Dead on the grass.

“No!” Clara cried. The one who’d been saved wasn’t very high in the air. He’d be down again soon.

She turned at a sudden movement from the corner of her eye. The Doctor was climbing through the sky shield and jumping onto the pitch. “Doctor, what the hell are you-?!” she started to scream.

But the Doctor was all right. Like the players, he floated slowly in the low gravity and landed on the seat. “Don’t touch their skid or clothes!” he yelled as he threw another seat in front of them – stepping stones, Clara realized. “The oxyged packs od the hubads, or the exoskeletods od the Voshera – that’s safe!”

Somehow, the injured human righted himself enough to alight on a dead Vosherus’s exoskeleton. He was disorientated, shaking and gasping. “Don’t stay there!” the Doctor instructed as he continued his way, painfully slowly, across the pitch. “Keep booving – like Hot Potato!”

The human looked like he wanted to cry when the Doctor said that, but he weakly pushed himself off the exoskeleton and jumped unsteadily toward another Vosherus lying on its stomach.

“Good – dod’t stop!” the Doctor encouraged.

“Trusk!” called the goalkeeper; she was edging hand over hand across the top of the goal. “Can you make it over here?”

The human, Trusk, was breathless as he judged the distance between himself and the goalposts, and the number of prone bodies in between. “I- I think so,” he replied, bracing himself to jump again.

“Yes, good!” the Doctor cried, still jumping from seat to seat, sailing like a dandelion seed. “Get above it, somewhere solid until we cad get you away safel- kk-CHUUUHHH-ooo-ehhh!” A sudden strong sneeze cut him off. The force of it bent him double, and in the buoyancy of the low gravity he spun forward in a full somersault – past the stepping stone he’d tossed in front of him.

“Doctor!!!” Clara screamed.

[Pyrus_Fangmon]

“You wadt people to die ‘cause you couldn’t be bothered to stand? Out of by way!”

Yeessssss!

“Use wod of your teabmates!” he called to the falling human.

“Doctor!” Clara cried, scandalized.

“What – they’re dead, he’s dot!” the Doctor argued.

YEEESSSSSSS!!!!!

You captured his humor SPOT ON!

[SneezyHolmes]

This was so cute! I loved his sneezy somersault xD

[VoOs]

I'm actually sad now that I'll never get to see this story visualized in an episode of the show. Sneezing, cold-ridden, painfully adorable Twelve aside, pellion seems like it would look spectacular on screen!

Oh, but I do love how this is a proper DW adventure first, and a sickfic second. I'm genuinely at the edge of my seat here. So many kinds of exciting, all at once.

[IcyFlame]

...

...

...

*dies*

*is revived by the love that I feel for this thread*

BEAUTIFUL. NEVER STOP WRITING. THIS IS WHAT MY DREAMS ARE MADE OF GOOD FIC GOOD FIC

*sprinkles glitter all over*

BLESS THIS THREAD

[angora48]

Thanks, Pyrus_Fangmon - Twelve is SUCH a fun character to write! I just love me some curmudgeonly, surly Twelve. And VoOs, the alien plots are why it usually takes me so long to put a Who fic together, but I think it's worth it (and I'm pretty sure I'm (gradually) getting better at it!) I like to have the Doctor all sick and sneezy but still trying to do everything he normally does.

Part 4!

The Doctor had known he had an excellent reason to dislike sneezing. Granted, getting electrocuted probably wasn’t most people’s worst-case sneeze scenario, but he didn’t like his chances. As he’d tumbled forward, he’d overshot the seat he was aiming for, and those he’d still had in his hands had gone flying. He’d not taken the time to get any readings of the lethal turf yet; he just hoped his Time Lord biology would give him a bit of an advantage.

A hand suddenly grabbed him by the ankle, and the Doctor was so startled he nearly lost all sense of direction. “Easy! Get your bearings!” It was the last living Vosherus, holding him fast even as she pitched unsteadily from her perch on top of her bat.

The Doctor had just enough presence of mind to remember his surroundings. He reached one long arm behind him, and, thankfully, his fingers found the seat he’d sneezed himself past. It wasn’t the surest position in which he’d ever found himself, with a wobbly Vosherus holding one of his ankles and his fingertips poised atop the one piece of non-deadly ground in the near vicinity, which happened to be behind his head and just barely within reach. He struggled to balance himself and keep his remaining limbs well out of the way of the grass.

“Are you all right?” the Vosherus asked, slipping a little on the bat and righting herself.

“All thigs codsiderig,” the Doctor replied. His nose was dripping, but he didn’t dare move his free hand toward it.

“Doctor!” This was Clara’s voice behind him, closer than it ought to have been.

The Doctor groaned. “Tell be she didn’t…” he murmured. He rolled his eyes back as far as they would go, but he couldn’t see her. Raising his voice, he called, “Tell be you’re dot od the pitch!”

“Did you, oh! – You think I was gonna le-EAVE- you in that state?” Clara exclaimed back. The way she halted and gasped, he knew she was jumping onto the trail he’d made out this far.

“Well, stop it! Dod’t boove!” the Doctor told her. “I’ve got it udder codtrol!”

“Do you?” the Vosherus asked perplexedly. “Because I don’t know how I’m going to get you up!”

“Doctor, don’t be daft!” Clara retorted. “You – whoa!! – you’re in no way under control!”

“Right – doh, but I will be,” the Doctor quibbled. “Add if you haven’t doticed, I’be in a tight spot at the bobent, and I could do without you distracting be. Dow stand still!” He paused. It certainly sounded like Clara was staying put. “Dow for the tricky part…” he murmured.

“Because it’s been a barrel of laughs so far,” the Vosherus commented.

“I could do without that, too,” the Doctor told her. “Steady, dow.” Carefully, gently, he rocked his fingers back and forth, the motion causing the seat to edge forward fractionally. “I’be cobing to you,” he explained to the Vosherus. “Keep your balance or we’ve both had it.” With his wet nose, he desperately wanted to sniff, but given the circumstances, it was unfortunately low on his list of priorities.

“Clara!” he called – the silence behind him had him feeling edgy. “What about our fredd the leapfrog? Did he bake it to the goalpost?”

“Yeah, he’s all right,” Clara replied. He judged from the volume of her voice that she hadn’t moved since the last time she’d spoken. Well, that was something, anyway.

“Could you focus?” the Vosherus urged. She spoke forcefully, sardonically, but an edge of panic kept creeping into her voice: brusqueness to convince herself she wasn’t terrified.

“I ab,” the Doctor said, continuing to inch forward. “Dod’t drop be.”

“Well, I wasn’t planning on it, but I’m in a bit of a fix,” she pointed out.

“Please, you’re ad athlete!” the Doctor scoffed. “Add good eduff at it that you eard bore thad the GDP of sobe level two pladets; I thidk you cad baddage a bit logger.” The closer he got to the Vosherus, the more his head orientated almost upside-down. Considering his current nose situation, it wasn’t a good position – what he wouldn’t give for a hankie.

“Do you always scold people who’ve saved your life?” the Vosherus asked.

“Odly whed they cobplaid about it,” the Doctor replied. Keep her annoyed – it wasn’t much of a stretch for him – and she could focus on something other than her fear.

He was a bit too close for their present position. The Vosherus had to adjust her grip on him, and the bat beneath her didn’t appreciate her shifting her center of gravity. She drew in a breath as the bat threatened to slip out from under her.

“Easy!” the Doctor said, his voice low. “Just about there – hold od.” A few more centimeters, and he was able to get his other hand behind him onto the seat. “Okay,” he told her. “Cad you reach be?”

Her face a picture of concentration, the Vosherus held the bat firmly with her right and back hands, waiting until it was steady as a rock. Her left hand, which still had the Doctor by the ankle, kept perfectly still as, slowly, she eased her front limb forward. Her bottom hand braced itself against the side of the bat, and her long black hair fell in her eyes.

Just as the fingers of her front hand found the seat, her bottom hand slipped, knocking the bat backwards. The Vosherus half-cartwheeled round so her right hand could reach the seat and give her some extra balance. Her other limbs, she held aloft as high as they would go, and the Doctor was properly upside-down now. “As rescues go, dot by boste digdified,” he noted.

He could see Clara now, and though his view of her was obviously upside-down, he saw that she’d stayed put. “Why haven’t they come to help?” she demanded angrily.

Between his disorientated perspective and his by-now aching head, it took the Doctor a moment to realize she was looking at the stratoships above the pitch. “They’re built bore for horizodtal travel, dot vertical,” he explained. “If they tried to come dowd here, they’d-” He cut off as the Vosherus spun the two of them the right way up. On an intellectual level, he knew that it was fantastically complicated and required immense coordination, but she moved so skillfully a person would think she was simply crossing the road.

“Right, yes – thadks for that,” the Doctor muttered, trying not to let on how badly his knees were wobbling now that he’d been righted and it felt as if the entire pitch was turning end over end. “I…” Realizing, as his nose began tickling again, that he’d need a good anchor this time, he gripped one of the Vosherus’s limbs and planted his feet as he caught a forceful “Heh-ihhh-chiiuhhhh!” in his palm. Wiping his nose on the back of his hand with a sniffle, he suppressed a groan.

He turned back to the Vosherus, who was looking shell-shocked at her dead teammates and opponents lying all over the pitch. Now that the most imminent of their various imminent dangers was no longer a factor, she’d had time to try and swallow the enormity of what had just happened, and she was choking on it. She shook all over. “Hey,” he said, to rouse her, “what’s your name?”

“…Koda-ren,” she said finally. Her voice was soft now, far away.

“Right,” the Doctor replied decisively. “I’be the Doctor, that’s Clara. She’s dot bent to be out here – sort of lousing the whole thig up if I’be being hoddest.”

“I can hear you!” Clara called across the pitch. “So, stratoships – they’re no good then?”

Koda-ren shook her head, automatically, like it wasn’t entirely connected to her body. “Your friend’s right,” she explained. “They used lifts to get them up there before the match. I saw; it took ages.”

“Well, that’s a bit rubbish,” Clara declared. “So what do we do now?”

The Doctor looked about him, sorting through his muddled thoughts. “We’ve got the seats leadig back to the sky shield,” he reasoned. “If we –”

“Oh, no,” Clara told him sternly. “No way I’m letting you hop back after what just happened.”

“It was a fluke!” the Doctor argued.

“It was a sneeze, and you don’t have any control over those,” Clara rejoined. “No more jumping. And anyway, there’s still the two humans stuck on the goalpost. We can’t just leave them.”

Rubbing his nose with a depressingly wet sniffle, the Doctor scanned over the remainder of the crowd. Many had streamed out of the stadium when everything had gone haywire, and security was trying to evacuate the rest now, but not all of them were having it. Some wailed or raged or had gone catatonic, while other had pulled out their screens to record the events unfolding below. Typical.

“I hope wod of you has bothered to call ebergency services!” he shouted to them.

[Pyrus_Fangmon]

“Do you always scold people who’ve saved your life?” the Vosherus asked.

“Odly whed they cobplaid about it,” the Doctor replied.

Yesss a million times YEEESSSSSS!

You are spot on perfect with this!

[VoOs]

“Odly whed they cobplaid about it,” the Doctor replied. Keep her annoyed – it wasn’t much of a stretch for him – and she could focus on something other than her fear.

Yes. YES. That is Twelve all over. There's purpose behind his rudeness - only one of the many, many things I love about him, and you capture it with such excellence. *happy sigh*

[IcyFlame]

Me: *praises* \(0-0\) /(0-0/) \(0-0\) good shit go0d sHit thats some good :D shit right th h ere right there if I do 5ay so my sel f i say so thats what im talking about right there right there (chorus: right there) mMMMMMM HO0OoOOoOOooOooo (0-0 ) (0-0 ) (0-0 ) :D Good shit

[angora48]

VoOs, I love that about him, too. (Also, in my head, that happy sigh came from your Benedict Cumberbatch gif, which cracks me up.) :-)

Here's Part 5!

All told, it was close to 45 minutes before the authorities arrived, but when they did, they arrived in stereo. Lights flashing, sirens blaring, and boots on the ground, there were high-tech space police and space firefighters and space bomb-squad blokes swarming all over the stadium. Most of them were human, but there were a few aliens dotted here and there, too.

Rightly, the two humans perched on the goalpost were the first to be safely extracted from the pitch, followed by Clara, and then the Doctor and Koda-ren. Clara could tell the Doctor was massively annoyed to be standing around on his stepping-stone seat, waiting passively for rescue, while all the uniformed folk swooped in to scoop them out of the pitch. “The turf itself is electrified!” he yelled to an important-looking inspector type even as this crane sort-of-thing was carrying him back to the stands on the other side of the sky shield. “Every blade of grass is carrying a bassive charge; I suggest you figure out how to switch it off before you start traipsing about. But what do I doh? I’be just the reason addy of these people are alive!”

“More flies with honey, Doctor,” Clara muttered, half to herself, as she shrugged off the shock blanket she’d been given.

And sure enough, the inspector grunted officiously. “I have been doing this for a while, sir,” he replied, “and since I’m the reason you got plucked out of that electrified turf, I think I know my way around.”

“Oh, great, a doh-it-all,” the Doctor groused. “I was starting to worry that dot enough people had beed killed yet.”

The crane screeched to a halt at the edge of the stands, and the inspector stuck his nose in the Doctor’s face. “Is that a threat?” he demanded.

“No!” Clara exclaimed, leaping to her feet. “Nope – no threats. Just, you know, overwhelmed with post-traumatic whatnot, and, er, everything.” That sentence hadn’t quite figured out where it was going. In a last-ditch effort, she decided to play the Feeble Old Man card and gave the inspector an earnest look. “He’s been through a lot, you see.”

The inspector gave the Doctor a derisive once-over and cleared his throat imperiously. “Right,” he called, turning to his lackeys. “You lot – I want a technical team making a full study of what’s happened here. Nothing but your best work. We will nail those responsible to the wall!”

As Clara sank back down, the Doctor threw himself into the stadium seat beside her, coughing miserably. “You okay?” Clara asked, but the Doctor’s scowl told her not to expect an answer. “So, what was it?” she asked. “It’s all artificial ground, yeah? Maybe a fault or something?”

“A fault?” the Doctor scoffed, sniffling hard a few times as he scrubbed his nose with his finger. “You thidk a pelliod pitch cad just accidentally electrocute dineteed people? Huhhh-IHHHH-shhhhiehhhh!” Sniffling again, “You thidk that’s wod of the routide hazards of sport?”

“Amazing how the sneezes don’t even break your rhythm when you’re showing off how much cleverer are you than everyone else,” Clara commented glibly. “Fine – not an accident then. That means someone did this. Why?”

“How would I know?” the Doctor shot back. “Sabotage, terrorisib, vendetta.”

“Sabotage doesn’t really fit,” Clara pointed out. “I mean, say you were a bookie, or maybe a rival team, and you wanted the match going your way. You’re gonna bribe someone to throw the match, or deflate the ball or something; you’re not going to kill everyone.”

“You’re right,” the Doctor conceded. “Vedetta, baybe?” He stifled a small cough in the back of his throat. “Doh, that’s stupid, dot unless you had a grudge against everybody od both teabs, add even thed, why do it id the open, id frodt of ad edorbous crowd? Echh…” He closed his eyes and sniffed.

A sick feeling welled in Clara’s stomach. “Terrorism, then,” she said.

The Doctor nodded. “Terrorism.”

The assorted experts must have succeeded in de-electrifying the ground, because a few of the officers were now taking their first cautious steps onto the pitch. They carried rolls of sheets to cover the bodies.

The Doctor jumped to his feet with an energy that Clara didn’t find convincing. “How did they baddage it?” he called down to the inspector. “If you undid it, you bust have seed how it was dud.”

“And for god’s sake, someone get these civilians out of here!” the inspector shouted, and just like that, they found themselves being trundled out.

“Koda-red,” the Doctor said urgently, elbowing his way over to the Vosherus. “What did you see? Could you feel addythig id the air – static, baybe? Did you hear a crackle, sbell sobething burding, or-”

“You saw the same thing I did,” Koda-ren told him in a flat, numb-sounding voice. Gone were the exquisitely graceful movements from the pitch. She loped slowly, unevenly, on several limbs, not seeming to care where she was going as they were led away. “There was no warning. One moment, it was just an ordinary match, and the next, everyone was dying.”

“Doctor!” Clara hissed sternly in his ear. Raising her voice, she turned to Koda-ren. “We’re so sorry for your loss; I can’t imagine.”

“Well, obviously we’re sorry!” the Doctor replied. “But answers are better thad platitudes, and-”

“And there’s a time and place,” the Clara insisted. “Leave it.”

“No, he’s right,” Koda-ren broke in, startling Clara. Her eyes grew a little less hazy as she looked at the Doctor. “They have to find who did this. I wish I were more help.”

When the Doctor spoke again, his voice was gentler – Clara wouldn’t have guessed he had it in him. “It’s hard to see addything whed you’re so close to it,” he told her. “Give it tibe, add you bight remebber sobething important.”

As they were escorted out of the stadium, a snatch of conversation from down the sidewalk caught Clara’s ear. “…Alms, has to be!”

“Alms,” came the assent.

“Hey, I’m all for charity, but get your priorities straight,” she murmured.

When she turned her attention back to the Doctor, Koda-ren was saying, “How can I reach you? Do you have lodgings?”

“We were expecting a short trip,” the Doctor admitted.

The ghost of a rueful smile played across Koda-ren’s face. “Our rooms are paid up through the week,” she commented. “There’s only me now, and… I won’t be needing all of them.”

The Doctor nodded to her. “That’s good of you.”

The Vosherus motioned down the street. “Come with me,” she told them.

“Er, Doctor – point of interest?” Clara said, hurrying to catch up.

“I doubt it, but give it a go,” the Doctor replied.

Grabbing his arm, Clara forced them to fall a few paces behind Koda-ren. “Do you really think this is the best idea?” she asked.

The Doctor looked perplexedly at her. “What – you dod’t trust her?” he asked. “I’d say dearly dying out there is cobpelling evidence of her id… iddo… Ihh-SHHIIUUHHH!” He sneezed into the back of his hand. “…I think she’s iddocent,” he finished hastily.

“I don’t mean Koda-ren, I mean all of it,” Clara pressed.

“What are you od about?” the Doctor asked, clearing his throat.

“You’re feeling poorly,” Clara pointed out.

The Doctor straightened, squaring his shoulders defensively. “I dod’t see how that’s relevant,” he said.

“I just mean it might not be the best time to investigate a possible terrorist attack,” Clara went on. “It’ll be dangerous, and you’re dealing with an illness you don’t know anything about – doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence, you know? Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to the TARDIS for a few days, lie low until you’re over it?”

Over the course of the day, his condition had worsened quite a bit. She could give the hoarseness a pass, since he’d been running about yelling for a not-insignificant chunk of the afternoon, but his nose was definitely running more badly, and he looked wrung out.

But did he listen? Of course not. “Right, because it’s dot as if the entire city is id danger or addything,” he retorted. “‘Good luck with the whole mass-murder thig, just popping away for a lie-dowd.’”

“Time machine?” Clara reminded him, possibly sounding a bit more condescending than she intended. “We can wait ‘til your cold is better-”

“I don’t catch cold,” the Doctor corrected.

“Sure – and then jump back here and get on with it?” Clara continued. “Your head will be clearer, you’ll have more energy, and you won’t feel so rubbish. Don’t you think you’ll work better that way?” From the Doctor’s expression, he was starting to waver. “If you think about it, it’s the most logical strategy,” she added. “For all we know, you’ve already done it! Future-us is probably materializing right now.”

“Of course – you’re right,” the Doctor agreed. “It bakes so buch sense. We’ll do that.” And because he had a talent for aggravating her, he waited just long enough for her to breathe an internal sigh of relief before finishing, “…Just as sood as we rud into ourselves.” He began to quicken his pace. “Keep up!”

Groaning inwardly, Clara continued after him.

[NorthernLady]

Groaning inwardly, Clara continued after him.

That is amazing! I can hear 12's and Clara's voices crystal clear into my head. And the slow descent into sickness is perfect. Can't wait for more.

[Pyrus_Fangmon]

Ughhhhhh that congested talk is killing me! I can hear his voice perfectly and its driving shivers down my spine

[VoOs]

Gah, this is just too good. The humour and banter between the two is so perfect, and I LOVE how he just refuses to accept defeat. Let's see how long he can keep this pace up...

[angora48]

Did someone ask for Part 6? :-)

The hotel was more than a bit posh. Clara couldn’t remember the last time she and the Doctor had been somewhere overnight where their digs had been half this nice. There were screens and automated conveniences everywhere, as well as a whole mess of mostly-alien staff running about to see to their every need.

According to the Doctor, many of the employees were Ajkereli – Clara had seen some of them earlier in the day, but the city center was so cosmopolitan and intergalactic that she hadn’t recognized them as the major species of the planet, just one kind of alien out of many. They had wide faces with sort of froggy smiles and two rows of small black eyes, each row set at an angle up from either end of their noses. Clara wasn’t quite sure how to look someone in the eye when the Ajkereli had so many, so she just aimed generally for the middle. Their ears were large, overgrown-bat-like, and possibly a bit prehensile.

Koda-ren was understandably spent and retreated to her room as soon as they got to the hotel, but the Doctor insisted on lingering in the lounge area. Clara could tell he was itching to be where the action was and, for the moment, this was as close as he could get.

No surprise, wherever they went, the tragedy at the pellion pitch was the main thing on people’s minds. Reactions ranged from the empathetic (“Do you suppose their families were watching the match? What a horrible thing!”) to the panicked (“Are you sure we can’t get a shuttle off until Tuesday?!”) to the heartless (“Bloody gridlock, I tell you – I can just imagine what it’ll be like getting to my meeting tomorrow.”) Every screen showed news footage and commentary about the catastrophe, some of which was shockingly graphic. Clara couldn’t believe so many stations were reairing the deaths themselves; what sort of a place was this?

Truth be told, only about half of the Doctor’s attention was on the task at hand. The other half was griping about being stuck here at the hotel. “I should be combing that pitch right dow!” he grumbled. “Fiding clues, being brilliadt… I show up, I act id charge, I get where I wadt to go – that’s the deal! Ha…” His eyes fluttered closed, and his face contorted as he sneezed – “Huhh-CHIUOOOO!” – into the back of his hand. “Haved’t they heard?” he finished, after a hasty sniffle.

“It’s the stuffy nose,” Clara remarked. “Doesn’t exude an air of authority.”

“Shut up – that’s ridiculous,” the Doctor said dismissively. “Baybe we cad sneak back in todight. They’ll have to pack it id sometibe. ‘Course, they’ll have trappled through everything add…”

Clara was about to announce that the Doctor needed rest more than he needed to go slipping past police barriers in the middle of the night, when a passing Ajkereli cocktail waitress caught her ear. “Alms, damn them,” the waitress murmured mournfully to herself.

This wasn’t the first time Clara had heard a strange non-sequitur about alms. “What was that?” she asked.

The waitress turned on her heels, instantly subservient. Even her ears seemed to bow. “I don’t hold to any of that, miss,” she explained hurriedly. “I – my whole family – we hate them as much as you do.”

“What, alms?” Clara asked, puzzled. She leaned in toward the Doctor. “Have they got a big panhandler problem on Ajkerel?”

“Dot so far as I doh,” the Doctor replied. He raised his eyebrows at the waitress. He probably meant for it to look inquisitive, but instead, he just seemed irritated. “Albs; what’s that?”

The waitress looked about, a bit incredulously. “…You don’t know?” she asked.

The Doctor buried an “ehhhh-shuhhhhh!” into his shoulder. “Dew id towd – really dew,” he told her.

“ALMS: call themselves freedom fighters,” the waitress explained. She seemed jittery; her voice was low, and she kept glancing about. “You ask me, they’re not about freedom at all. Just hate and anger.”

“What do they need freeing from?” Clara wanted to know.

“Seriously?” the Doctor snapped, before the waitress could reply. “Odly ad English person would ask sobeone od a colodial pladet why they deed freedob.” He could be so impossible sometimes. He looked at the waitress again. “Dot a fan of all the huban ibperialists?”

“The humans do a lot of good!” the waitress immediately insisted. “Wouldn’t have this job without human industry. Opportunities, all sorts.”

“Dice party lide,” the Doctor commented, pointedly ignoring the glare Clara shot him. “So, this ALBS is behide what happened at the stadiub?”

“It’s what they do,” the waitress admitted. “The whole thing has ALMS written all over it.” In a rush, she added, “Don’t think all Ajkereli are like them! They’re monsters, the lot.”

“You’re telling me,” Clara commented. A televised image of lifeless bodies had just appeared on one of the screens. She shuddered.

Stuff like world domination and big invasions, she could get her head around. It was horrible and scary, but in a way that was just a little bit removed. It was like that was alien stuff – that’s how Clara could process it. But terrorism was so close to home. The thought of regular old Ajkereli going to work one day, going round the pub that night, and then killing a pitch full of people the next was an entirely different kind of awful.

The Doctor’s sneezes – “UHHHHHH-shoooooo! Ehhhh-shiuhhhh! Hehhhh… ihhhhh-CHIOOOO-uhhhh!” all in a row – brought Clara back to earth, so to speak. “What do you – ah! She’s god,” he grumbled, seeing that the waitress had bustled nervously away. “What d’you reckod?” he asked Clara as he massaged his temple with one finger. “What dext?”

“Bed?” Clara suggested. “You’ve heard what people are saying – the whole city’s gridlocked, and we’re too far from the TARDIS to use it. It’d take us half the night to get back to the stadium.”

The Doctor sighed heavily, and Clara was a little amazed at how tired he looked. She didn’t think she’d ever seen the Doctor in need of recharging his batteries. “You hubads add your sleep,” he grumbled. “Right – turn id dow so we cad make ad early start of it.” Yeah, because Clara was the one who needed to rest.

They rode the lift up to their floor. Clara watched the Doctor as he coughed wearily into his hand. “Are you sure you can handle this?” she asked, concerned.

“Haddle what?” the Doctor replied. He sniffled and caught Clara’s pointed look. “Oh, that. Clara, it’s fide.”

“You don’t sound fine,” Clara observed.

“Devver said I did,” the Doctor told her. “I said it’s fide – nothing I cad’t banage.”

“But you don’t even know what it is!” Clara pointed out. The lift pinged, and the doors glided smoothly open.

“Sure, I do,” the Doctor retorted as they headed down the hall. “Figured it out ages back. Least, I think I have, add that’s dear enough for be.”

Clara hadn’t been expecting that. “You have? What is it?”

“Head cold,” the Doctor explained.

Clara stifled a laugh. “What, you figured that out, did you? When was that? When I told you?” They’d reached their door; Clara pressed her thumb to a scanner to open it. The hotel was big on biometrics.

“You didn’t tell be addything of the sort!” the Doctor argued, following Clara inside the room.

“Yes, I did,” Clara countered. “I said you had a cold.”

“Right – add this is a head cold,” the Doctor replied, enunciating like she was thick.

Clara sighed, rolling her eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry; not a cold, a head cold. Big difference!”

“What? Doh, I…” the Doctor trailed off, frowning in thought. Finally, he let out an inarticulate grumble. “Look, it’s the TARDIS tradslation circuit – it makes you thidk I’be speaking Egglish whed I’be dot. I’be dot saying ‘head cold.’ I’be saying a Leopterasian word, add it is completely differedt!”

Clara considered this. “Leopterasian?” she asked.

The Doctor nodded, scrubbing his nose with his finger. “You remember the Leopterasians; we helped theb with that cardivorous forest? Their biology isd’t too far off Tibe Lord. Theoretically, it’d be possible for their illdesses to jump species.”

“Okay, so it’s not a cold,” Clara said. “It’s a totally different Leopterasian illness...”

“Exactly!” the Doctor explained.

“…Whose name just so happens to mean ‘head cold,’” Clara finished.

The Doctor scowled at that; she’d known he would. “It’s a very rough translashud,” he finally told her.

“Of course it is,” Clara replied, bemused. “Right, then! Let’s get you and your not-a-head-cold to bed.”

[Pyrus_Fangmon]

Marvelous! Just marvelous! The whole argument about the Head Cold put me in stitches

You're spot on with the humor, this is great!

[VoOs]

Clara sighed, rolling her eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry; not a cold, a head cold. Big difference!”

“What? Doh, I…” the Doctor trailed off, frowning in thought. Finally, he let out an inarticulate grumble. “Look, it’s the TARDIS tradslation circuit – it makes you thidk I’be speaking Egglish whed I’be dot. I’be dot saying ‘head cold.’ I’be saying a Leopterasian word, add it is completely differedt!”

Clara considered this. “Leopterasian?” she asked.

The Doctor nodded, scrubbing his nose with his finger. “You remember the Leopterasians; we helped theb with that cardivorous forest? Their biology isd’t too far off Tibe Lord. Theoretically, it’d be possible for their illdesses to jump species.”

“Okay, so it’s not a cold,” Clara said. “It’s a totally different Leopterasian illness...”

“Exactly!” the Doctor explained.

“…Whose name just so happens to mean ‘head cold,’” Clara finished.

The Doctor scowled at that; she’d known he would. “It’s a very rough translashud,” he finally told her.

“Of course it is,” Clara replied, bemused. “Right, then! Let’s get you and your not-a-head-cold to bed.”

This entire exchange is simply golden. He's being such an obstinate ass. I want to bring him tea and pet his hair, even though he'd never allow such touchy-feely nonsense.

Oohhh, but the plot thickens! As does Twelve's congestion. Sneezing in threes now, are we?

Yes good. <3