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Healing trances are a handy mechanism to have as a part of your body's defense mechanisms. The Doctor sleeps through the greater part of his convalescence, lying flat on his back in one of the infirmary beds with his eyes closed, not moving for 48 hours straight. While he does, his body heals, the proper balance in his blood is restored and the damaged cells are repaired, diligently, one by one.
His brain heals as well, the altered synapses returning to their previous configuration. A Time Lord's brain is complex, and when he wakes up, the healing process isn't quite finished yet. It will be, though, before long, and when it is, another healing process will start, this one not a physical one.
The Doctor doesn't know anything about that, though. All he knows is that he's not used to his body not functioning at 100% capacity, and that this whole recovery business is tiresome to say the least. Quite literally tiresome, actually; for the first few days after he wakes up from the healing trance, his sleep cycle is almost like a human's, and he wonders not for the first time how they put up with it, having to sleep all the time. His vision isn't quite back to normal, either - he has good and bad days; on the good days, as long as he wears his glasses (which automatically adapt to his eyesight), he can see everything as usually. On the bad days, he's ended up needing the glasses plus a magnifying glass to decipher normal-sized typing. It's frustrating.
He mostly avoids his other. Of course he doesn't avoid him all the time; that's quite impossible, especially when on the second day after waking up, he returns to the cleaned out and purged Zero Room lab to find out more about the radiation his other created during the experiment. But when they're in the lab together, they're mostly working in silence, keeping the small talk to a minimum. When he's not working, the Doctor's usually in his own TARDIS, sleeping, or just resting his eyes, trying to get them to cooperate again so he can continue his work.
He's not sure why he's so reluctant about his other's company. He's not blaming him for anything; it was a lab accident, those happen, and he'll be fine, after all, he just needs a couple more days. But when he's around his other, he feels decidedly uncomfortable. Mostly, the Doctor thinks, it's the drums; ever since the experiment the echo of his other's scarred mental signature grates on his nerves, making him edgy and snappy and generally unpleasant company. The Doctor doesn't like it when he gets like that, so he avoids contact and keeps conversation to a minimum. It's terribly rude, but he'd probably be ruder if he did talk to him.
Besides, his other keeps asking him what happened, and the Doctor just can't tell him, because he doesn't know, and it's just one more thing to get irritated at.
It doesn't help that the research isn't really coming along very well. They found out that the reason for the disastrous effect of the non-Artron is that it's a mixture of Artron and Huon energy, and the Huon, disguised by the Artron and stripped of its outer energy level, is the part that's creating the radiation. Aside from that, though, they're not really getting anywhere. The energy seems to have a very short half-life, but they can't determine a specific value, because it seems to be different for each particle, which simply doesn't make any sense. That's what his other is working on, mostly because it involves close contact with the radioactive particles, and the Doctor isn't too keen on that kind of work, even with protective clothing. He himself is trying to find out how the immunity works that his other seems to be displaying, but so far, his research results haven't given him any answers, because the tissue samples he's taken from his other don't seem to be immune to the radiation at all. It's quite a mystery, and while the Doctor loves mysteries, this one is one of the more irritating kind.
However, now, in the evening of his second day back in the lab, he's had an idea, and it looks like it might be getting him somewhere. He's injected another tissue sample with an intranucleic dose of Huon neutrons, and if his theory is correct, this would have to trigger an immunity. He's waiting for the results right now, but over the last two hours, the image on the screen in front of him has been getting more and more fuzzy around the edges, and he's having a hard time making out the readings. He's not going to stop now, though; if he did, he would have to start over tomorrow and would lose three hours of lab work. He takes off his glasses and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes; it's helped before sometimes.
His brain heals as well, the altered synapses returning to their previous configuration. A Time Lord's brain is complex, and when he wakes up, the healing process isn't quite finished yet. It will be, though, before long, and when it is, another healing process will start, this one not a physical one.
The Doctor doesn't know anything about that, though. All he knows is that he's not used to his body not functioning at 100% capacity, and that this whole recovery business is tiresome to say the least. Quite literally tiresome, actually; for the first few days after he wakes up from the healing trance, his sleep cycle is almost like a human's, and he wonders not for the first time how they put up with it, having to sleep all the time. His vision isn't quite back to normal, either - he has good and bad days; on the good days, as long as he wears his glasses (which automatically adapt to his eyesight), he can see everything as usually. On the bad days, he's ended up needing the glasses plus a magnifying glass to decipher normal-sized typing. It's frustrating.
He mostly avoids his other. Of course he doesn't avoid him all the time; that's quite impossible, especially when on the second day after waking up, he returns to the cleaned out and purged Zero Room lab to find out more about the radiation his other created during the experiment. But when they're in the lab together, they're mostly working in silence, keeping the small talk to a minimum. When he's not working, the Doctor's usually in his own TARDIS, sleeping, or just resting his eyes, trying to get them to cooperate again so he can continue his work.
He's not sure why he's so reluctant about his other's company. He's not blaming him for anything; it was a lab accident, those happen, and he'll be fine, after all, he just needs a couple more days. But when he's around his other, he feels decidedly uncomfortable. Mostly, the Doctor thinks, it's the drums; ever since the experiment the echo of his other's scarred mental signature grates on his nerves, making him edgy and snappy and generally unpleasant company. The Doctor doesn't like it when he gets like that, so he avoids contact and keeps conversation to a minimum. It's terribly rude, but he'd probably be ruder if he did talk to him.
Besides, his other keeps asking him what happened, and the Doctor just can't tell him, because he doesn't know, and it's just one more thing to get irritated at.
It doesn't help that the research isn't really coming along very well. They found out that the reason for the disastrous effect of the non-Artron is that it's a mixture of Artron and Huon energy, and the Huon, disguised by the Artron and stripped of its outer energy level, is the part that's creating the radiation. Aside from that, though, they're not really getting anywhere. The energy seems to have a very short half-life, but they can't determine a specific value, because it seems to be different for each particle, which simply doesn't make any sense. That's what his other is working on, mostly because it involves close contact with the radioactive particles, and the Doctor isn't too keen on that kind of work, even with protective clothing. He himself is trying to find out how the immunity works that his other seems to be displaying, but so far, his research results haven't given him any answers, because the tissue samples he's taken from his other don't seem to be immune to the radiation at all. It's quite a mystery, and while the Doctor loves mysteries, this one is one of the more irritating kind.
However, now, in the evening of his second day back in the lab, he's had an idea, and it looks like it might be getting him somewhere. He's injected another tissue sample with an intranucleic dose of Huon neutrons, and if his theory is correct, this would have to trigger an immunity. He's waiting for the results right now, but over the last two hours, the image on the screen in front of him has been getting more and more fuzzy around the edges, and he's having a hard time making out the readings. He's not going to stop now, though; if he did, he would have to start over tomorrow and would lose three hours of lab work. He takes off his glasses and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes; it's helped before sometimes.
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