Golden Girl. (On Going) [Doctor Who Fanfiction] {Book One}

Toil and Trouble

Chapter Seven: Toil and Trouble.
Series: Three.
Episode: Two - Shakespeare Code.
Part: Two.

Bethlem hospital was more vile and depressing than Rose could have possibly imagined. The sick and the unfortunate, forced to live in terrible conditions and put on display for the gentry as some sort of macabre entertainment, made Rose sick to her stomach. It wasn't the first time she'd witnessed something of this sort and it wouldn't be the last, but it didn't stop her heart from aching for each and every one of them every time.

The patients - though the term prisoner seemed more apt in this case - pleaded for help, some clawing at the bars as they attempted to make a grab for the visitors.

"Does my Lord Doctor wish some entertainment while he waits? I'd whip these madmen. They'll put on a good show for you. Mad dog in Bedlam." The keeper boasted, oblivious to their disgust.

"No, I don't!" The Doctor snapped.

"Well, wait here, my lords, while I make him decent for the ladies." The keeper seemed to fumble at the unusual reply as he disappeared through the cages, whipping the bars on his way past.

"So this is what you call a hospital, yeah? Where the patients are whipped to entertain the gentry? And you put your friend in here?" Martha spat at the wordsmith.

"Oh, it's all so different in Freedonia." Shakespeare responded unbothered by her accusations.

"But you're clever. Do you honestly think this place is any good?"

Rose ignored the two of them, too distracted by the patient's plight. She knew there wasn't much they could do to help, this sort of practice would continue for years, but it didn't make it any easier to deal with.

"I've been mad. I've lost my mind. Fear of this place set me right again. It serves its purpose." Shakespeare added, hoping this admittance of vulnerability would bring a close to the discussion.

But Martha still wasn't convinced, "Mad in what way?"

"You lost your son." The Doctor spoke up, in the tone Rose had come to recognise as him reflecting on what he'd lost after the Timewar and sympathising with those who'd experienced similar.

Rose's mind wandered back to the conversation on the TARDIS during their run in with the isolus and once more found herself having to remind herself that she didn't know the Doctor quite as well as she liked to think she did.

"My only boy. The Black Death took him. I wasn't even there."

"I didn't know. I'm sorry." Martha fumbled to acquit herself at the revelation.

Rose rubbed a hand soothingly down her arm, knowing she felt awful for lashing out, taking her own guilt at being useless in the patients' suffering, out on Shakespeare. She would likely have reacted similarly if she wasn't so lost in her own bloody head.

She'd experienced the most awful tugging in her gut accompanied by a wave of nausea as well as the now familiar prickling sensation associated with psychic energy not long after they'd left the theatre and was even more keen to have this situation over and done with so she could retreat to the safety of the TARDIS.

"It made me question everything. The futility of this fleeting existence. To be or not to be. Oh, that's quite good." Shakespeare brought a hand to his chin as he contemplated what would become one of his most famous quotes.

"You should write that down." The Doctor suggested.

"Maybe not. A bit pretentious?"

The Doctor shrugged non-committedly, while enjoying giving the playwright some of his most famous lines was apparently unwilling to push the issue. Probably some law of time against it.