Lost In Time: A Doctor Who Fanfiction

Chapter 6 - The Idiot's Lantern, Part 2

Lyssa woke to a throbbing head that felt slow and filled with fog. Blearily cracking her eyes open, the harsh light forced her to immediately shut them again, wincing at the accompanying sharp pain. Unwilling to move and risk making it worse, she tried to return to the comforting oblivion of sleep, only to find no success. Some inconsiderate person was talking very loudly with absolutely no respect for her headache. 

"Tommy! Tommy, wake up!" a male voice hissed.

"What happened?" a younger voice muttered groggily.

"Where's Magpie?" the first voice responded instead of answering, sounding coldly furious.

Lyssa scrunched up her nose, the name bringing some vague memory to life before pushing through the heavy fog became too difficult and she released the thought. There was some muted talking before a door slammed shut with a heavy bang, making her wince, but be grateful for the blessed silence that followed. Finally relaxing, she started to drift off into peaceful darkness only to be roused once more by the door creaking open and footsteps pounding along the floor.

Hoping they'd go away, she curled into herself as much as she could, vaguely aware that it took far more effort than it should. The thought was buried under more pain as the footsteps grew close to her, rummaging around in drawers and banging metal objects together like they were trying to create the world's most annoying music. They shuffled around a bit more then stopped abruptly with a gasp.

"Doctor! It's the girl you were with earlier! She's hurt!" the younger voice called out, making her curl up tighter with a wince. They must have crouched down, because their voice was practically right next to her the next time they spoke. "Hello, miss? Are you all right?"

"What?" the first voice called out incredulously. The sound of racing footsteps came their way, coming to a halt by the first pair. "Lyssa!" the voice exclaimed, placing a hand on her shoulder and trying to turn her onto her back. "Lyssa, are you all right? What happened?"

She groaned, unable to fight them off as she was gently rolled over onto her back, a warm hand carefully cradling her aching head to keep it from bumping the floor in the process.  She pried her eyes to glare at the cruel person who kept waking her up, scowling as a blurry face appeared above her. Blinking harder as she became more alert and wincing at the light, the face soon came into focus enough for her to make out what she thought was the Doctor bending over her, looking both concerned and furious.

"Doct'r?" she asked groggily, hoping she was right.

He let out a breath of relief. "Lyssa! I've been looking all over for you! I should never have left you there! I forgot how new you are, you're not used to this yet. I'm sorry," he told her apologetically.

She blinked at him, uncomprehending. "Uh... s'rry?" she tried. That's what you were supposed to say when someone was upset, right? "'M right here. Not...." What was it he was worried about? Oh, right. "Dead," she informed him as confidently as she could. "'M not dead."

Weirdly enough he didn't look like he felt any better. "Headache?" he asked instead, looking her over carefully.

She started to nod, but thought better of it, and settled for saying, "Yeah. How'd you guess?" She gasped. "Are you reading my mind?" she demanded slowly, carefully pronouncing each word so that it came out clearly. "Is that how you knew?"

"Am I - what? No!" The Doctor stared at her incredulously, gently placing his hands on the sides of her head and tilting it from side to side as he examined her. "I'm not sure how much of this you'll understand, but it's literally written all over your face. The men in black turned out to be a secret branch of the government. They found Rose left on the street, faceless, and brought her to their holding cell with all the rest of the people they've taken. But there was no sign of you." He scowled, eyes darkening. "You've been missing since last night. We managed to trace the source back here, but were attacked by the Wire. We were looking for supplies when Tommy found you. Now, do you think you can sit up?"