Constantine Ashe: Does anyone notice?

Little lights flashed and and equipment beeped and monitors stared down on two barely-adolescent children, one stretched out on the bed with plugs, needles, and chords all trailing from beneath the plain, white hospital sheet that covered him up to the chin, and the other perched on the edge of a chair beside his bed, chin propped on her hands. One was pale, a tinge of unhealthy blue clinging to the skin around his lips and eyes, his black hair long but lank and thin, and his black eyes half shut but still fixed on his companion. She, on the other hand, had a much healthier shade to her skin, completed by a smattering of freckles, hair just as black but thicker and shorter, and eyes of a lighter brown, but meeting his, just the same.

The wordlessness between them was strained. After a very long moment, the girl looked away and broke the silence. "You look like shit," she said. "Aren't they feeding you in this place?" Her voice was strong, even strident, but there was a waver to it she couldn't quite conceal.

"None of it's very good. The pudding's all right. But the rest.... You're not missing anything. By not staying here." His voice was barely above a whisper, and punctuated at the end of each phrase with an assisted inhalation through a double-tube extending from his nose.

"I wish I could," she grumbled, but there wasn't any fire in the words, just weariness and fear. She fumbled under the blanket for one of his hands, and unfolded enough to take it in both of hers, trying very hard to ignore the needle and attached wire that trailed from the back of it.

"You'd never sleep," he answered, smiling faintly and curling his fingers around hers. "They come in every hour. To check on me. And take blood."

"If you don't sleep, then I wouldn't," she said firmly.

He didn't answer, closing his eyes for a moment that lasted so long that she squeezed his hand nervously. He opened them again and gave her a weak smile. "Still here. Those machines would stop beeping. If I wasn't."

"I don't want you to go anywhere," she said quietly. "Don't go anywhere. Okay?"

"I'll try, Ana."

"Don't say you'll try," she snorted at him.

That elicited another weak smile. "Don't have a lot of choice about it."

"Everybody's got a choice. You can just choose to stay with me, right? Promise me?"

"Ana...."

Her eyes were pleading. "Don't leave me alone. Connie, promise me?"

He closed his. "I promise."

She scooted her chair closer to the bed, and folded her arms on the mattress, resting his hand on them and her chin on his cold fingers. "We could-- we should get out of here. You and me. Head out to the park, with that little waterfall and all the trees, that you like so much."

Another weak smile, though he kept his eyes closed. "I'd... like that."

"It's really pretty outside, too. Just how you like it. I wish there was a window in here, so I could show you...."

"Tell me?"

She rubbed her cheek against his fingers, trying to warm them up a little. "Well, um. When Dad and I got here, it was mostly cloudy, but you can see little bits of sky through it...."

"What. Else?"

"It's really chilly... cold enough to want a really big coat. And a scarf. And the leaves are all turning different colors... you've been in here so long, you probably haven't seen them... next time we come, I'll bring you some."

"I'd... like that."

"It's starting to smell like rain-- or, it was when we got here. It might even be raining by now... maybe even that cool kind of rain, where you can still see some sky. If you were better... if you were better, you could come out in it with me. We could splash in the puddles and dance in the rain and look for rainbows. Or-- the little Ferris wheel in the park, that you like so much. We've never been on it in the rain. I bet you'd like that, wouldn't you, Connie?"

There was silence. She lifted her head to look at him. "Connie?"

That was when she realized the machine had stopped beeping.

"DOCTOR!" she screamed.