It is now officially November 23rd, 2013, 12:01 AM. Sooooooo... HAPPY FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY, DOCTOR WHO! :D

UPDATE (8/15/14): Because I was bored one day, I checked. This is literally the first story posted on the 50th anniversary. I really don't know how I managed that.

Time Lords Never Get Sick

{Sometime in the TARDIS...}

"Do Time Lords ever get sick?" she asked one day. The Doctor looked up from the circuitry he was fiddling with to raise an eyebrow at her, the brilliant Rose Tyler, his best friend in the entire universe... even if she did sometimes ask daft questions.

"Why on Earth would you ask something like that?" he whined childishly at her, and she couldn't help but smirk.

""Coz I'm curious, and you've barely told me anything about yourself," she responded with a shrug.

Sighing, the Doctor took off his glasses and crumpled them into his suit pocket. He set the bare wire down on the metal floor of the TARDIS' main console room and leaned back against the base of the console. Rose made due to plop herself down cross-legged next to him.

"So? Do you?"

"Rose..." he began seriously, gazing at her. "Time Lords never get sick."

"Oh yeah, that seems likely!" she laughed.

"No, no, I'm serious- you wanted an answer, here it is- I don't get sick. I don't get allergies, I don't get the chicken pox, I don't get cancer, I don't get Barcelonan sypherallisis, I don't even get the flu! That's one of the many advantages of having a super advanced immune system like I do, for example, did you know that if humans had just three more of the inflammatory response stages that Time Lords had, that only 15 percent of the entire population would ever get-"

"Okay, okay, I get it, Doctor!" Rose interrupted, before he went on another one of his long-winded, never-ending rants. She couldn't stall him anymore, now she realized, if they were ever gonna get back to adventuring and out of this time vortex. "Now, you and your super advanced Time Lord immune system," she winked at that, "need to finish repairing the TARDIS. Be back in a 'mo."

"Where are you off to?" he asked, his ego feeling quite bruised by her comment.

"Changing," she responded simply, and skipped out into the corridors.

~8~

{Two weeks later...}

The Doctor landed the TARDIS, and both he and Rose happily piled out, laughing all the way. They had just come from Xeaphrus Minor, a vacation planet at the very edge of the Milky Way galaxy that was completely covered in soft, fresh snow. His suit jacket and shirt soaked all the way through from a brigade of icy snowballs she had pelted him with. Now, Rose had asked if she could be taken to see her mother, so that's what the Doctor was doing right now: he was dropping her off. He was terrified of Jackie even still- most terrifying alien he had ever known- so he always tended to make excuses to Rose so he wouldn't have to go inside the Tyler flat and suffer domestics and... The Mother. It wouldn't be so bad if she acted like she did when he wore his last face, but since he had last regenerated she tended to take him by the lapel and plaster a big sloppy kiss right on his lips every time he walked through her door. Like seriously, what was that even for? Worse, Rose always just laughed.

So that was why the Doctor was standing in the doorway of his ship, watching as his friend walked up the stairs of the Powell Estate to her mother's flat. It was in the middle of winter for the Londoners, which meant rain fell down from the clouds near endlessly. His hair, normally all sticky-upy and impossible to contain, was already plastered to his forehead because Rose was trying to drag him with her through the downpour before he insisted he stay behind to change his clothes. (Which was a pathetic Time Lord lie- he typically hated changing his clothes, and would rather stay in the same brown and blue pinstriped suit for all eternity than mix things up.)

As he was standing there in the cold, he began to shiver. He knew he should probably get back inside to the warmth of the TARDIS, but he just wanted to make sure Rose got in to the flat safely before evading his eyes- you could never be too sure what was out there. When the door opened, and Jackie rushed forward to embrace her, he smiled. And then-

"AH-CHOO!"

Super advanced Time Lord reflexes meant his left arm immediately rushed up to catch the sneeze. It also meant that the sleeve of his long brown overcoat was now coated in a thick, whitish-green goop.

The Doctor muttered a minor Gallifreyan curse under his breath. Nevertheless, he still grinned cheekily and waved back when Rose shouted goodbye. As soon as the door slammed shut, and both Tylers had moved their small chat inside, he booked it for the platform the console was on. The paneled blue doors of his time ship slammed shut as well. Leaned up against a coral pillar, he sneezed again.

"Ah-ah-ACHOO!"

This one was more powerful than the last, and threatened to send him flying across the console room if he wasn't braced against something. He grimaced.

Oh, this is nothing, he tried to tell himself. I've just been out in the rain for too long. If I peel this suit jacket off and make myself some nice tea, I'll be perfectly fine. Time Lords never get sick.

This was yet another pathetic Time Lord lie- Time Lords very well could get sick. It wasn't like what he had told Rose almost two weeks ago, not at all. Sure, back when he lived on Gallifrey, barely anybody ever got a virus or a bacterial infection. But that was because his planet had a very secure border, and any sickness that was native to the Gallifreyans had long since been eradicated when the Time Lords rose to power. And they did have a very strong immune system, but not against foreign sicknesses. Not against annoying human colds, which was what the Doctor really feared that this was the beginning of.

He knew that he should really go to Rose and Jackie and ask for help or something, because honestly he had no idea how he should treat a cold. He'd never had one before. However, if he went to them, he could only imagine the ceaseless teasing that would ensue because "the Time Lord with the super advanced Time Lord immune system had gotten a little human cold".

So he didn't. Instead, he walked up to the console, plugged in coordinates for nowhere in particular, and flipped off the hand break, sending his TARDIS into flight. He would beat this pesky cold by himself, and Rose would never have to know.

~8~

{Day one}

"Now," the Doctor muttered, flipping through a giant medical book in the TARDIS' massive library whilst he sniffed. He was continually sniffing now, because his nose was all blocked up. "The Common Cold," he read, finding what he was looking for. He blinked. "Well, it's not so common for me, now is it?" he muttered. Shaking his head, he continued reading, skipping along the page, although his voice certainly sounded a bit more nasally than usual. "Typical symptoms include sneezing, coughing, nasal congestion, sore throat, headaches, loss of appetite, fatigue, and in serious cases, high fevers. Symptoms vary for everyone, and can last anywhere from one to three weeks. Hmm. Doesn't sound too bad."

That's what he thought before he started coughing.

~8~

{Day three}

The Doctor opened up his fifth box of tissues. He pulled the very first one out of the flowered box, put it up to his nose, and blew hard. Still nothing came out. He groaned, and slumped back in the jump seat. All around him sat an array of tissue boxes, some unopened, some not, and piles and piles of tissues. He added his most recent tissue to the top of the pile in disdain. It was only the second day of this cold, out of seven to twenty-one, and already it was kicking his butt. For Rassilon's sake, he was a Time Lord, and here he was reduced to nothing but a runny pile of weariness because of a common Earth ailment he'd managed to contract. How did humans ever cope with these things?

His head was throbbing, his throat was beginning to become scratchy, and worse of all, he couldn't even breathe through his right nostril because it was clogged up by something that refused to come out. What's more, what he wanted more in the universe than anything else now was to sleep, and that wasn't like him. He almost never slept. Maybe he slept an hour every two weeks, but it was by choice, and it wasn't something that Time Lords ever needed to do to recharge themsel-

Oh, who was he kidding? He was exhausted. Slowly, he drifted off to an uncomfortable sleep in the jump seat, his head lolled back. He soon discovered that he snored.

~8~

{Day nine}

"Dish id horrible," the Doctor moaned with his nose almost completely clogged up, flopped back on a bed like a spread eagle. He had laid here for a straight six hours in a cold sweat, doing nothing but staring at the ceiling and dwelling in his thoughts for entertainment. He didn't want to move, because his whole body ached and burned from the fever he was suffering through, and if he moved from this one very specific position of respite he had found, his nose would instantly fill up with even more mucus. And he was already stuffed up enough as it was.

Two days before, when he was in better shape, he had attempted to get up and going, to step out of the TARDIS and do something for once. (Of course, with nearly a dozen packets of tissues stored in his pockets, just in case!) It was actually quite nice for a bit, standing out in the sunshine and enjoying the views of a small peaceful planet in a local star system. Even though he stood in a village garden most of the trip snorking away on his tissues, it was still very relaxing. The locals kind of dampened the original charm the place seemed to have, though. Especially when they began a riot around him, and began throwing unidentified fruits at his head. Also, it certainly didn't help when a few minutes later they hefted him up in their glove-covered arms and dumped him out of the town borders. As it turned out, apparently the village was quarantine for healthy members of a species with a particularly weak immune system who had just survived a massive plague. This was one of the many days in which the Doctor wished he had done research on the place beforehand.

The day immediately previous to this one, the Doctor decided that it was impossible to go out for a jaunt, no matter what his constant mood for adventure told him. He had woken up from a groggy half-nap to realize that he had gotten a rather serious fever on top of the cold. His normally low body temperature was almost so high it could pass for a human's. It was annoying, because he was shivering in a cold sweat and wanted to lie underneath a blanket to keep warm, but at the same time his skin was boiling, and any contact to anything was nearly unbearable. Taking aspirin was out of the question as well, as all Time Lords were allergic to it.

So here he was, lying in bed like a sick child, with absolutely nothing to do. He'd usually consider the TARDIS' library in times like these, but that's where he had gone the first day of his cold, and it didn't take long at all for him to breeze through every single book in there. He even read an entire Portuguese dictionary.

Now, if only he could find where that cup of hot tea had gone off to...

~8~

{Day eighteen}

He pulled his eyes open, and dragged himself out of the sheets on the temporary bed his TARDIS had made for him. If one were watching, it would have probably looked as graceful as a cat falling off a couch.

"Ow..." he moaned, lying near death on the floor. He sat there for a while, his dark dress shirt all mussed and untucked and his arms flopped outwards in no particular direction. His bed head was quite a sight to see, and that was assuming his hair was tame on a good day. His suit jacket and tie were slung over a chair somewhere else, as he saw when he finally pulled himself to his feet.

He tentatively cleared his throat, testing to see if it ached any more. To his surprise, and much to his delight, it didn't. He tried sniffing a few times, clearing his airways. He didn't feel like he was drowning in phlegm or had to sneeze or cough until he felt dizzy anymore, either.

"Hello, I'm the Doctor," he said out loud in an even tone, grinning when he realized he was speaking without the nasally twinge his voice seemed to have taken on these long three weeks. He closed his eyes, taking his daily mental inventory of his health. Today, unlike yesterday, the cold appeared to be completely fought off. Without a second thought, he grabbed the tie and jacket from the chair, blew out the door of the small room, and took off running down the corridors of his ship.

"Oh yes!" he exclaimed gleefully, being closer to skipping as he neared the console room, where all of time and space were awaiting. As he ran, he adjusted his tie around his neck. He skidded on the rough metal grating whilst simultaneously throwing on his pinstriped suit jacket. Now thankful his nose was no longer as red as a tomato according to his reflection in the time rotor, he flipped down the hand brake. It was finally time to pick up Rose Tyler.

~8~

{Mere seconds later}

The Doctor opened the doors of the TARDIS and rushed outside, clad in his brown overcoat, eager to see his friend again for the first time in weeks. He pounded up the stairs of the Powell Estate, taking them two at a time. It took only a minute to find the correct door, the door of Jackie Tyler's flat. He didn't bother with knocking, (why would you?), and instead just got out his sonic screwdriver and unlocked it himself. Rose was found sitting on the couch chatting with her mother, who, to his complete and utter horror was blowing her nose with a tissue. She looked up, apparently hearing the screwdriver. He began to back away.

No point to it, however. Jackie was too quick.

"Doctor, there you are," she snuffed, rising up from the couch. "I was wonderin' where you'd been off to! Oh, come 'ere, you daft alien!"

Like watching a slow motion sequence in an action movie, (The Matrix came to mind), The Mother of Rose Marion Tyler moved closer... and closer... and closer... until soon she was no more than an arm's reach away.

"Jackie, no," he heard himself saying, trying to push her away. "No, no, no, no, no, no, NOOOO..."

The last thing he heard before Jackie Tyler smashed her lips against his in her customary greeting was the usually contagious ring of Rose's laughter.

"Mum," she giggled. She was standing now. "I hope you don't normally go kissing blokes when you're sick! Want to give the Time Lord a cold, now do we?"

"Time Lords never get sick," the Doctor insisted stubbornly, wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve in disgust. Of all the people in the universe he would dream of getting kissed by, the last on the list was Jackie Tyler. Even lower on the list was a sick Jackie Tyler...

"Oh, sure ya do, you plum," came her as-usual ignorant response. She was very pleased with herself, as always. Rose came up to give her a hug.

"I'll see ya later mum, kay? Drink some tea and get better." she said, and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. She turned and grinned at the Doctor, who was already starting out the door. Her smile began to fall, and she ran after him.

By the time she made it out of her mum's flat, he was almost down the stairs. He looked almost mortified. "And that is why your mother is absolutely terrifying," he muttered.

She laughed. "Trust me, be glad you didn't meet her when she was younger. A major flirt, she was..."

The Doctor almost sputtered over his own words. "She- she was a flirt? Was? What about now?"

"She's gotten better."

"Gotten better? Rose, she grabbed me by the lapels and smacked me one! I don't think that's much of- ah- AH- AHCHOO" He sneezed into his coat sleeve, bringing his arm up to contain the droplets. Rose smirked, crossing her arms.

"You getting sick, are we?"

The Doctor quickly shook his head, an uneasy smile crossing his lips. "Nah, it's- nothing. Time Lords never get sick!"