In Her Eyes (A Whouffle Fanfiction)

Chapter 18- Changes

Clara took a deep breath. Then another. She could breathe, at least. Under the heavy duvet she flexed her limbs experimentally, rolling her shoulders, testing her elbow joint, wiggling her fingers. All fine. Reassured by the state of her upper body she arched her back, stretching the tense muscle there. When it responded she tried moving her legs, folding them up, pointing her feet and curling her toes inwards. 

Nothing happened. 

Clara kept her eyes closed and tried again, this time stretching her upper body as well. Her head, neck, shoulders, arms and waist all obeyed her commands but below that, she was resolutely still. 

This is a bad dream, she told herself, a nightmare. I fell over on the balcony in France and knocked myself out. I'll wake up in a minute, and the Doctor will pick me up, brush my shoulders and tell me how stupid I was to drink so much wine. 

She focused on that image in her mind for a moment, and when she was feeling ready, steeled her nerves and opened her eyes. Harsh artificial light flooded in and she squinted, lifting her head. She was in a hospital bed, a drip attached to her arm. At the foot of her bed a TV hung on the wall, a sofa bed placed beneath it. To her right was a bedside table, a plate of uneaten food and a glass of water on the side furthest away from her. The glass was half-empty. On the other side of the table was a row of windows, currrently shuttered by a pair of blinds. Underneath the windows sat the Doctor, asleep for once, hands folded in his lap and head lolling back, snoring softly. His suit was rumpled, bow tie hanging loose, the top buttons of his shirt undone. His face was streaked with red, as if he been rubbing at it before he fell asleep. There was a chair next to his with a white coat slung over the back, but no-one was sitting there. 

Clara lay in the bed for a while, wondering where she was. In the back of her mind she thought she heard a voice telling her that it was a hospital, that she was safe. That she was in a hospital she did not doubt, but safe was a whole different can of worms.

She looked around the room for a while, noting the futuristic equipment that was dotted around her, then decided to try to move again. She looked down at her disobediant body and willed it to move, willed her legs to shift under the duvet and push her into a sitting position. Somebody had changed her out of her dress while she was unconscious into a plain white shift. She was glad that future hospitals included a back to their gowns; walking around with her bum on show around the Doctor was one thing that she definately didn't want to experience. She amused herself for a while, thinking about the reaction that he would have to it. He would blush, stutter, then make up some repair he had to do to the TARDIS so he could get away from the awkwardness of the situation as quickly as possible.

And all the while she was imagining how scandalised the Doctor would look, her lower body still refused to move. 

No longer able to avoid what her body was telling her, she used her elbows to pull herself up into a sitting position. It was hard, slow work, shifting herself up inch by inch, her legs dead weights, but she managed it. Once she was up she swung the duvet off her, curled the fingers of her right hand into a tight fist, and punched her thigh with everything she had. Clara braced herself for the pain that was sure to follow and blinked with surprise when there wasn't any. She didn't feel a thing. 

Clara punched her other thigh, willing it to hurt, but the only reward she got was a red mark that was sure to turn into a ripe bruises the next day, taunting her, telling her that it should sting. But it didn't. She let out a wordless cry of despair, jolting the Doctor awake in his chair. He was up immediately, hovering by her bed uncertainly. 

"How do you feel?" He asked, voice raw and scratchy, as if he had been crying. 

Somehow, Clara managed to find her voice. "I'm paralysed," she told him.