Consciousness returned like a dam bursting-- little warning droplets creeping through the cracks, and then all at once. The Doctor’s eyes shot open, a ragged rush of air inflating his lungs, one hand flying out to the side to grab at the nearest stable thing and landing on what felt like Fitz’s arm.
Volus stirred, feeling the muscles of his new form stretching. Hands, fingers, eyes, lungs-- oh, two hearts, how very generous-- it had been so long since the Leach had had a physical body, and oh, how he’d missed it. The steady whooshing of blood through veins, air in and out of his lungs, the whizzing-about of neurons in what was admittedly quite an impressive brain.....
The Doctor cast a glance around as he got his breath back, memories reasserting themselves sluggishly. They’d found what looked like an escape capsule floating in the void, giving off a distress signal - it was barely big enough to fit anything bigger than a cat, so bringing it aboard the TARDIS hadn’t exactly been difficult. One minute he’d been examining it, the next-- yes, he remembered now-- it had given him a rather nasty shock and everything had gone dark.
And now he was here, halfway across the console room, hanging onto Fitz for support and still feeling a little bit wobbly, if he were entirely honest. The pod still sat on the console-- but where it had once been sealed up, the doors were open and all the little flashing lights on its exterior were no longer active.
“Fitz,” he began, in a remarkably steady tone considering the circumstances. “I-- I think something--”
Something’s wrong, he wanted to say, something’s gone very wrong. Whatever the wrongness was, it sat twisting somewhere deep in his chest, eating away at him... but instead what came out was:
“Never mind. Help me up, would you?”
