Another World
Who_Daily Link: < a href="http://persiflage-1.livejournal.com/179001.html">Another World by < lj user=persiflage_1> (Characters: Martha/Nine, Other Characters | Rating: PG-13 | Spoilers: New Earth)
Title: Another World
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Martha/Nine, Other Characters
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: New Earth
Summary: The Ninth Doctor takes Martha on her first TARDIS trip.
Disclaimer: I occasionally wish that I did own it!
Author Notes: This is the sixth in my occasional Martha/Nine series of fics, and it's an AU version of 2.01 "New Earth".
Beta: fourzoas
~~~~~~
"When and where are we?" asked Martha as she followed the Doctor out of the TARDIS. Then she glanced up and saw the flying cars zooming back and forth across her head, above a futuristic-looking city.
The Doctor turned to lock the TARDIS door behind her. "It's the year five billion and twenty three, and we're in the M87 galaxy. This planet is called New Earth."
He slipped an arm around her shoulders as she simply stared, drinking in the sight, and he glanced down at her face, taking in her eyes shining in wonder and her half-parted lips.
"When I said take me to another planet, I was half expecting that we'd pop next door to Venus or somewhere, not a planet millions of light years away." She inhaled. "What's that smell? Smells like cider."
"Apple grass," the Doctor told her, bending and plucking a handful of blades to show her.
"That's amazing!" she exclaimed, and laughed joyfully as she stepped away from his side and looked up at the sky, then span around in a circle, her arms outstretched. He couldn't help smiling in response to her obvious delight; he walked over and she turned, grabbing his arm, then hugged him.
"Can I just say thank you for bringing me here?"
He smiled down at her upturned face. "Thank you for coming with me." He kissed her forehead. "Come on." He let go of her, then twined his fingers through hers and led her across the grass to the headland that overlooked a narrow channel between them and the main city.
"What's that building with the green moon on the side?" asked Martha, looking at the building behind them as the Doctor began, impossibly, to take a number of objects from the pockets of his leather jacket.
"That's a hospital," he told her as he unfolded and shook out a red tartan picnic blanket which he then spread on the grass. "Here, sit down," he said, gesturing at it, then kneeling down. "The green moon on the side's a universal symbol for hospitals in this galaxy."
"Oh." She watched disbelievingly as he set down a thermos flask, a small bunch of bananas, and three greaseproof paper wrapped parcels. "Just how big are your pockets?" she asked curiously.
He flashed a wide grin at her. "They're bigger on the inside."
"Like the TARDIS?" she asked. He'd given her a brief tour of the ship's vast interior after he'd picked her up from her flat earlier and she'd been awed by its size.
"Yeah!" He unwrapped the paper parcels to reveal neatly cut cheese and tomato, and ham sandwiches, and two thick slices of fruit cake.
"I'll take you to a proper posh restaurant later," he told her, "and we'll have a celebratory meal. I just thought you might enjoy a picnic now."
She noticed he looked anxious, as if he was afraid that she wouldn't like it. "It looks good," she told him. "I haven't been on a picnic for years."
"Tuck in, then."
Martha picked up a sandwich. "Tell me about the city and New Earth," she invited.
"The city's called New, New York. Well, strictly speaking, it's the fifteenth New York since New Amsterdam was renamed. So it'd be New, New, New - " he waved a hand vaguely, "New fifteen times York. The original Earth, yours, was destroyed in the year five billion after the sun expanded, but the human race had long since spread out amongst the stars. Anyway, once the original Earth went, there was a big revival movement, a bunch of you humans suddenly got all nostalgic and when they found this planet, they named it New Earth because it's the same size and environment as the original." He took a hasty bite of sandwich, chewing and swallowing quickly. "Same orbit, too, oddly enough."
"So why did you bring me here?" asked Martha as she finished her own sandwich in a more decorous manner, then drank some of the coffee the Doctor had brought.
"You asked to see another planet," he said, not meeting her eyes.
"Yes, I did," she agreed, "but you must have had a reason for picking this one out of the hundreds or thousands out there,"
He sighed softly and shook his head, a look of grudging respect in his eyes. "Can't fool you for a minute, can I?"
"Not any more." She waited, eyebrows raised.
"I got this message," he said, taking a slim brown leather wallet from his jeans pocket. Flipping it open he showed her the words 'Ward 26 - Please come' scrawling across the paper.
"Is that the Time Lord equivalent of voicemail?" she asked.
He let out a bark of laughter. "You're good, you know?"
She shook her head, bemused by his reaction.
"It's called Psychic Paper. Anyway, it means that someone at the hospital wants to see me." He tucked the wallet away again, watching her closely.
"You don't mind?" he asked, when she continued to eat.
"Why should I?" she asked, genuinely puzzled. "You did as I asked, and brought me to an alien planet. Besides, it'll be interesting to see a hospital so far in the future. I'd have thought they'd have eradicated all diseases by now."
He shook his head. "The human race moves on, but so do the viruses. Besides, interspecies breeding brings its own problems."
Martha nodded her understanding. "So, picnic lunch and a hospital visit." She grinned at him. "Bit of a busman's holiday then."
He shook his head, surprised but pleased that she wasn't upset that this trip wasn't solely about her. "You're fantastic," he told her, "and don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise."
"If you say so."
They finished their picnic and the Doctor tucked away the remains in his impossible pockets, then they set off across the headland towards the hospital.
As they entered the building, a voice on the PA was making announcements: "The Pleasure Gardens will now take visitors carrying green or blue identification cards for the next fifteen minutes. Visitors are reminded that cuttings from the gardens are not permitted."
"Very smart," Martha observed as they crossed the atrium to the lifts. "Definitely not NHS."
A woman in a nurse's uniform with a cat's face walked past, nodding to them both, and Martha nodded back, trying not to stare.
"They're cats," she said quietly. "When you said interspecies breeding, I didn't realise you meant people and cats."
He slipped his hand into hers and squeezed her fingers. "Not too freaked out, are you?" he asked, although he sensed that she was intrigued.
She shook her head with a soft laugh. "No, fascinated actually. Besides, I must look as odd to her as she does to me."
"Dr Jones, one of the many things I love about you is your curiosity," he said, leading her into a lift, "it means you're more open-minded than a lot of humans would be." He spoke into a panel on the wall. "Ward 26."
Martha laughed again. "That's what you get for bringing a scientist with you."
A disembodied voice spoke in the lift. "Commence stage one disinfection."
"What does - " She wasn't able to finish her question before green lights flashed on inside the lift and then they were both doused in warm water; Martha yelped in surprise.
"It's okay," the Doctor told her, grabbing her hand again.
"What - " Once again her question was cut off as a white powder was puffed at them.
"What's going on?" she demanded, startled.
"We're being disinfected before we enter the ward," he shouted over the noise of a blow-dryer, which cut off just before the lift doors opened.
"A bit of warning would have been nice," Martha grumbled, patting her hair and clothes quickly, only to discover that she was clean and dry.
"Sorry, I forgot." He had a bland expression on his face, but she wasn't sure whether she believed him.
As they stepped onto the ward they were met by another cat-faced nurse, and Martha suddenly realised their uniforms reminded her of nuns back home on Earth.
"I am Sister Jatt," she told them, her tone calm and gracious.
"I'm the Doctor and this is Martha," he told her. "We're here to see - someone."
"Whom do you wish to see?" asked Sister Jatt, leading them past a patient who was completely red.
"I'm not entirely sure," he answered.
"May I ask about your order?" asked Martha.
"We are the Sisters of Plenitude," Sister Jatt answered. "We take a lifelong vow to help and mend."
"Very noble," the Doctor said distractedly.
Martha could see he was taking everything in and wondered what was bothering him; she was sure it wasn't simply the fact that he didn't know who'd asked him to visit.
They reached a bed in which lay an extremely fat man who appeared to be turning into stone, and she couldn't help uttering a little gasp of dismay, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. By the man's bedside stood a very prim looking woman with a severe hairstyle, dark framed glasses and a dark suit. She looked, Martha thought, like a very bossy headmistress or PA.
"Excuse me," the woman said indignantly as she approached them. "Members of the public may only gaze upon the Duke of Manhattan with written permission from the Senate of New New York."
The Doctor appeared to ignore her as he nodded to the Duke. "That's Petrifold Regression, isn't it?"
"I'm dying, sir," answered the Duke. "A lifetime of charity and abstinence, and it ends like this."
The woman bristled. "Any statements made by the Duke of Manhattan may not be made public without official clearance."
Before anyone could respond to this remark, the Duke gasped. "Frau Clovis!" She rushed to his side and he grasped her hand. "I'm so weak!"
Although she had seen and dealt with those who were dying before, Martha felt uncomfortably like a voyeur.
Frau Clovis turned to the nurse beside them. "Sister Jatt! A little privacy, please!" She sounded outraged.
The nurse inclined her head, then lead them away. "He'll be up and about in no time," she told them calmly.
"I doubt it," answered the Doctor. "Petrifold Regression? He's turning to stone. There won't be a cure for about a thousand years. He might be up and about, but only as a statue."
Martha suppressed a giggle, but the Doctor must heard something because he turned and winked at her, then turned back to Sister Jatt.
"Have faith in the sisterhood," she said calmly. "But is there no one here you recognise?" The Doctor looked around and Martha saw his attention fix on someone as Sister Jatt continued speaking.
"It's rather unusual to visit without knowing the patient."
"No. I think I've found him," he said, and Sister Jatt followed his gaze to the large tank in the corner of the ward by the window.
Martha tried hard not to stare, but it wasn't easy when she was confronted by the sight of a giant, disembodied head. She followed the nurse and the Doctor down the ward as they approached the giant head, and the nurse sitting next to him.
"Novice Hame, if I can leave these visitors in your care?"
"Yes, Sister Jatt," she answered softly.
"Doctor, Martha." Sister Jatt inclined her head to them both, then left.
"I'm afraid the Face of Boe is asleep," Novice Hame said. "That's all he tends to do these days. Are you friends, or - ?" She left the question hanging.
"I only met him the once," the Doctor answered, "on Platform One. What's wrong with him?"
"I'm so sorry, I thought you knew," answered the nurse with a sorrowful expression. "The Face of Boe is dying."
Martha swallowed hard and stepped closer to the Time Lord, sliding her hand into his.
"Of what?" he asked.
"Old age," answered the nurse simply. "The one thing we can't cure. He's thousands of years old, some people say millions, although that's impossible."
The Doctor smiled. "Oh, I don't know, I quite like impossible." He squeezed Martha's hand, then knelt in front of the tank. "I'm here," he said quietly. "It's the Doctor." He placed a hand on the front of the tank, and Martha thought she heard the Face of Boe sigh.
The Doctor turned to her. "Come and say hello," he said gently, and she moved to his side, kneeling next to him. He took her hand and placed it on the glass, his own hand covering hers. "This is my friend, Martha Jones, she's a proper doctor."
"Hello," she said, her voice coming out more steadily than she'd expected.
Though she didn't know it, the Doctor was very proud of Martha for taking so much in her stride: he'd thrown her in at the deep end with this trip, just as he had with Rose's first trip, and the young doctor was reacting more calmly than he'd anticipated. And he didn't think that it was just because of her training.
"Would it be possible for my friend to visit the Pleasure Gardens?" he asked Novice Hame.
"It'd be a bit dull for you, hanging about here waiting for the Face of Boe to wake up," he said to Martha, "but you'll enjoy seeing the Pleasure Gardens. There's a number of plants there that are used for medicinal purposes."
"Okay," she agreed readily.
Novice Hame nodded. "I'm sure I can arrange a visitor's pass for you, and you could stay as long as you like."
"Thank you," Martha said, smiling at the nurse as she got up.
The Doctor squeezed her shoulder before the nurse led her away to get her a pass and give her directions to the Pleasure Gardens on the ground floor.
When Novice Hame returned the Doctor offered her a cup of water, having fetched two cups from the water cooler on the far side of the ward.
"That's very kind, but there's no need," she told him.
"Well, you're the one working," he said, moving away to look out of the window.
"There's not much to do, just maintain his smoke. And I suppose I'm company," she said shyly. "I can hear him singing, sometimes, in my mind. They're such ancient songs."
"Are we the only visitors?"
She nodded. "The rest of Boe-kind became extinct long ago, so he's the only one left. Legend says that the Face of Boe has watched the universe grow old. There's all sorts of superstitions around him. One story says that just before his death, the Face of Boe will impart his great secret and that he will speak those words only to one like himself."
The Doctor turned to her, surprised. "What does that mean?"
She shrugged. "It's just a story."
"Tell me the rest," he insisted.
Novice Hame looked startled by his insistent tone, but answered. "It's said he'll talk to a wanderer. To the man without a home. The lonely God."
The Doctor gave a nod, recognising himself in her description, then wandered up the ward to think about what he'd just been told.
As he got nearer to the doors he heard the Duke of Manhattan laughing cheerfully, and the chink of glasses. Wary, he stepped into view just as the Duke spoke to Frau Clovis.
"Didn't think I was going to make it!" Then he caught sight of the Doctor. "It's that man again!" he cried. "He's my good luck charm! Come in, don't be shy!"
"Any friendship expressed by the Duke of Manhattan does not constitute a form of legal contract," Frau Clovis informed him, still managing to look prim, despite the full glass of champagne in her hand.
The Time Lord nodded, more interested in the Duke.
"Winch me up," the Duke commanded. He gave the Doctor a thumbs up as Frau Clovis pressed a button on a remote control device, and the bed angled upwards.
"Ah! Look at me!" exclaimed the Duke, sounding thoroughly satisfied. "No sign of infection!"
"Champagne, sir?" asked a waiter, stepping to the Doctor's side with a tray.
"No thanks." He spoke to the Duke. "You had Petrifold Regression, right?"
"Had being the operative word," answered the Duke happily, "Past tense! Completely cured!" He gave a belly laugh.
"But that's impossible," the Time Lord said, knowing there would not be a cure for another thousand years.
"Primitive species would accuse us of magic," said a female voice behind him and he span around quickly, "but it's merely the tender application of science."
He stared at the cat-nun, his senses tingling, knowing there was something not right about the situation. "How on Earth did you cure him?" he demanded harshly.
"How on New Earth, you might say," she answered with an enigmatic smile.
"What's in that solution?" he asked, nodding at the drip beside the Duke's bed.
"A simple remedy," she answered blandly.
"Then tell me what it is," he demanded more aggressively.
"I'm sorry," she answered, not sounding sorry at all. "Patient confidentiality. I don't believe we've met. My name is Matron Casp."
"I'm the Doctor."
"I think you'll find that we're the doctors here," she answered smugly.
Sister Jatt suddenly appeared at her side. "Matron Casp, you're needed in Intensive Care."
"If you would excuse me," the Matron said, inclining her head towards the Doctor, the Duke and Frau Clovis in turn.
The Doctor nodded to her and watched as she walked away, certain there was something odd going on, and knowing that he would have to deal with it. He wondered if he should go and find Martha, or wait for her to return.
* * * * * *
Martha had found the Pleasure Gardens quite easily thanks to Novice Hame's directions and she spent about twenty minutes wandering the paths, marked with blue or green gravel, and looking at the various trees, shrubs and flowers, until she came to an area that was signposted, rather quaintly she thought, the Physic Garden.
She spent quite a while looking at the neatly labelled plants, expecting to see something unusual, exotic or alien amongst them, but there was nothing there that she hadn't seen on her visit to the Chelsea Physic Garden back on 21st century Earth. This discovery left her puzzled and she made her way back up to Ward 26 in a very thoughtful mood. As she stepped out of the lift, which she was relieved to discover did not subject her to a second disinfectant shower, she overheard one of the cat-nurses asking another for Sister Jatt, who she was told had gone to Intensive Care.
Martha wondered what they dealt with in Intensive Care, and whether the Doctor would be able to wangle her a visit there; if this was a busman's holiday, then she might as well make the most of it - who knew what she might learn that could prove useful to 21st century medicine.
* * * * * *
"It was having a perfectly normal blood-wash," Sister Jatt told Matron Casp in Intensive Care. "And all of a sudden, it started crying. It's this one." She opened a door and they looked inside as diseased hands reached out to them.
"Please - " begged the man in the cell.
"Look at its eyes," said Sister Jatt. "So alive!"
"Positively sparkling," agreed Matron Casp.
"Please," begged the man pitifully. "Where am I?"
"And speech!" exclaimed Matron Casp, astonished. "How can it even have a vocabulary?"
Sister Jatt responded enthusiastically, "Sister Corvin's written a thesis on the migration of sentience. She calls it 'The Echo of Life'. It's well worth a read."
"Help me," begged the man.
Matron Casp looked disgusted. "I've seen enough, thank you." Sister Jatt shut the door and they walked away. "If this happens again, we might have to review our brain stem policy."
"And what should we do with the patient?" asked her colleague.
"Standard procedure," answered Matron Casp dismissively. "Incinerate."
She continued walking, rounding a corner, but Sister Jatt paused to pull a lever on the wall. After a moment there was a brief, gut-wrenching scream from the patient's cell as it glowed white. She calmly followed her colleague.
* * * * * *
Up on the Ward, Martha had noticed a computer terminal that was being accessed by a young man who wasn't wearing a uniform of any sort.
"Excuse me, is this a public access terminal?" she asked.
He gave her a smile. "Yes it is. Do you need a hand using it?"
She bit her bottom lip. "I might do," she conceded.
"Let me show you then," he said courteously.
"Oh, don't let me interrupt you," Martha said hastily.
"You're not," he assured her. "I was just checking something, but I'm done now."
"Oh, well, thanks."
The young man gestured for Martha to join him in front of the screen and quickly showed her the touch-sensitive controls, which she discovered were actually quite straight forward, and she wondered why he'd offered to show her.
"My name's Riley Thomas, by the way," he said, offering a hand. "I wondered if you'd like to join me for a coffee downstairs? They've got a really nice coffee shop here."
"Martha Jones," she answered, shaking hands. "I'll have to check how much longer my friend's going to be, he's visiting one of the patients on this ward you see." She saw Riley's expression change when she said 'he' and wondered if he'd been trying to chat her up. Before she could find out, a familiar voice spoke behind her.
"Martha, there you are! Come and look at this patient," the Doctor demanded, grabbing her hand and pulling her away.
She mouthed an apology at Riley, whose expression had darkened at the appearance of the Time Lord, but he moved away scowling, so she turned her attention to the patient the Doctor wanted her to see: the man's skin was completely red.
"Marconi's Disease," the Doctor told her, his tone intense and urgent. "It should take years to recover, but he's already recovering after just two days. I've never seen anything like it. And they've invented a cell washing cascade that's amazing. Their medical science is very advanced."
He led her over to another bed where a man lay: he was completely white, as if he'd been dipped in whitewash. "And this one, he's got Pallidome Pancrosis. That kills you in ten minutes, and yet he's fine!" He lifted a hand to the patient. "I need to find out how they do this, because if they've got the best medicine in the world, then why's it such a secret?"
"Would you be able to find out anything from a public access terminal?" Martha asked, gesturing towards the one she'd been using when the Doctor had interrupted her.
"Let's find out, shall we?" His tone was grim and uncompromising.
They went back to the terminal and he pored over the screen, muttering all the while. "Nothing odd, I can see. Surgery, post-op, nano dentistry, coffee shop - "
"What about Intensive Care?" asked Martha also looking closely at the screen. "I heard one of the cat-nurses telling a colleague that Sister Jatt had gone over to Intensive Care, but I can't see it listed here, can you?"
"Well spotted!" he answered, giving her a big grin.
"Why would they hide a whole department, though?" she asked, puzzled.
The Doctor shook his head, then pulled a long silver device from the inside pocket of his jacket.
"What's that?" she asked.
"Sonic screwdriver," he said absently, thumbing a button on the side so that the end glowed blue.
"Oh well if you're not gonna answer me properly," she said crossly.
He looked up startled. "It really is! It's a screwdriver, and it's sonic!"
"What else have you got then, laser spanner?" she asked, not entirely sure she believed him, despite his earnest tone and expression.
"I did have one," he answered, scrutinising the screen again, "but it was stolen by Emily Pankhurst, that cheeky woman!"
Martha shook her head, not sure if he was winding her up.
"Hmm. Searching the sub-frame is out, because that seems to be locked. Oh, I know! Installation protocol!"
He drew the glowing blue tip of the sonic screwdriver across the screen and Martha heard a quiet beep, and then the entire wall moved downwards, revealing a corridor hidden behind it. The Doctor gave her another of his manic grins as he switched off and pocketed his sonic, then he gestured for her to precede him.
"Intensive Care," he said, as he stepped through beside her. "It certainly looks intensive."
They walked down some metal steps into the main area; it was a vast cavernous chamber that overlooked row upon row of luminous green doors. They didn't notice Novice Hame entering the corridor behind them as they walked along one of the rows of doors.
Martha watched as the Doctor pulled out his sonic again and opened one of the doors to reveal a man covered in boils and surrounded by smoke. She gasped in shock, covering her mouth with her hand, as the man looked piteously back at them.
"What's wrong with him?" she whispered.
"I'm sorry," the Time Lord told the man. He closed the door softly, then opened another one.
"What disease is that?" asked Martha, horrified, as they looked at the woman inside the cell.
"All of them," answered the Doctor, disgusted. "It's every single disease in the galaxy; they've been infected with everything."
Martha felt sick. "What about us? Are we safe or will we spread it if we leave here?"
He shook his head as he closed the door again. "The air's sterile, just don't touch them."
He moved away to lean over the railing, looking up and down at floor after floor filled with rows of doors.
"How many patients are there?" she asked, awed by the scale of the place.
"They're not patients," he answered angrily.
Martha gave him a confused look. "But they're sick, infected with everything you said."
He looked at her, a stormy expression darkening his face. "They were born sick," he told her. "They're meant to be sick. That's all they exist for. They're lab rats. It's no wonder the Sisters have got a cure for everything when they've built the ultimate research laboratory: a Human farm."
"Why don't they just die? Oh!"
He nodded, knowing she'd realised the reason. "Yeah, the plague carriers are always the last to go."
A voice spoke behind them. "It's for the greater cause."
They turned. "Novice Hame, when you took your vows, did you agree to this?"
"The Sisterhood has sworn to help," answered the cat-nurse, but Martha thought she detected a note of uncertainty in her voice.
"What, by killing?" demanded the Doctor.
"But they're not real people," protested Novice Hame. "They're specially grown and they have no proper existence."
The Time Lord stalked towards her, sparks flashing in his eyes. "What's the turnover, eh? A thousand a day, a thousand the next? And another thousand the next? How many thousand and for how many years? How many?" He shouted the last two words at her as he towered over her.
"Mankind needed us," she answered and Martha could hear a pleading note in her voice. "They came to this planet with so many illnesses, and we couldn't cope. We did try. We tried everything. We tried using clone-meat and bio-cattle, but the results were too slow. So the Sisterhood grew its own flesh. That's all they are. Flesh."
Martha was outraged. "They're people!" she cried. "People who are alive."
"But think of those Humans out there," argued Novice Hame. "Healthy and happy, because of us."
"That doesn't make what you're doing right," answered Martha angrily.
The Doctor agreed with her. "If they live because of this, then life is worthless."
"But who are you to decide that?" asked Novice Hame.
The Doctor towered over her again. "I'm the Doctor, and if you don't like it, if you want to take it to a higher authority, then there isn't one. It stops with me."
He glowered. "So I suggest you fetch your precious Matron and tell her that I want a word with her."
"Or we'll tell everyone in the city," Martha said, with more bravado than she felt. "Because I'm betting no one over there knows."
The Doctor turned and gave her an approving grin, then frowned and she turned quickly to see Riley, the young man she'd met earlier, watching them with an angry expression. He'd watched Martha with her friend, hoping that he could still persuade her to join him for a coffee, and then followed them when they entered the Intensive Care area, wondering where they were going.
"Riley?" Martha asked, moving towards him.
"You're going to stop the Sisterhood's work?" he asked.
"We have to," she told him, "what they're doing is immoral."
"But they saved my mum," he said angrily, his hands balling into fists. "She would've died without their help."
"That doesn't make what they're doing right," the Doctor growled from just behind Martha.
"I won't let you stop them!" Riley said fiercely, then he lashed out, taking Martha and the Doctor completely by surprise, and knocking the Time Lord unconscious.
"Doctor!" cried Martha, horrified.
Novice Hame had hurried away to find the Matron once Riley had appeared, and found her and Sister Jatt in the corridor outside Intensive Care.
"Oh Matron! It's that man, and the girl! They've found out about our work."
"All right, Novice, we can deal with them. Now get back to work, tend to your patients." She made a shooing gesture and Novice Hame hurried away, relieved, as the two senior nurses made their way into the Intensive Care area.
Martha struggled with Riley, trying not to fall over the unconscious Time Lord who sprawled near their feet.
"I, can't, let, you, stop, the, Sisters," he gasped, his words coming out in short bursts as he struggled to overpower her.
"And I can't let them carry on," she answered, not quite as breathlessly, as she shoved him against a mass of cables on the wall behind him. He shoved back at her and Martha stumbled across the narrow walkway, then tripped backwards over the prone Time Lord, her arms flailing wildly as she tried to maintain her balance. One arm connected with a lever behind her and Martha grabbed it unthinkingly as she fell backwards.
There was simultaneously a clunk, a yell of alarm from Riley, and a groan form the Doctor.
"What have you done?" cried Riley, clearly frightened, as all the doors along their row swung open at once.
"Uh-oh!" Martha realised with horror that she'd accidentally pulled the door override control lever as the infected people began to climb out of their cells.
Riley gave a scream and turned to run as the Doctor shouted to Martha, "Don't touch them! Whatever you do, don't touch them!"
"No touching them," she agreed quickly, moving to help him to his feet.
"I think we should withdraw," suggested Sister Jatt, behind them, as the patients began to advance on them.
"We understand what you did to us," one of the men told them. "As part of the machine, we know the machine."
"Fascinating," observed Matron Casp as she backed away. "It's actually constructing an argument."
"We have to get out of here," the Doctor told Martha urgently.
"Can't we help them?" she asked desperately.
"If they touch you, they'll kill you almost instantly," he told her, his hands on her shoulders as he looked down into her tear-filled eyes.
Behind them the man spoke again. "And we - we will end it." He plunged his hands into the mass of cabling that Martha had shoved Riley against earlier. The patient was electrocuted and died instantly, but at the same time every single cell door in Intensive Care sprang open.
"RUN!" yelled the Doctor, urgently, and they took off down the row of doors as the patients began to climb out of their cells.
Only Matron Casp heard Sister Jatt's exclamation of horror. "They're free! By the Goddess Centauri - the flesh is free!"
The two cat-nurses backed towards the exit as the patients staggered slowly towards them, muttering "Stop the pain", reaching towards the Sisters with anger and pain in their expressions. Sister Jatt was backed into a corner and one of the patients touched her; her skin immediately broke out in boils, and she screamed in agony as she died.
Martha skidded to a halt at the sound, but the Doctor grabbed her arm and pulled her onwards.
"One touch and you'll get every disease in the world," he reminded her, then groaned as the patients began to enter the row ahead of them. He span and saw there were more behind them, moving their way.
"There's thousands of them!" Martha gasped, feeling terrified now.
"Down, down!" the Doctor cried, pushing her towards an alcove she hadn't noticed, but now saw was the entrance to a staircase.
As they raced down the stairs, Matron Casp picked up a phone. "Quarantine the building," she ordered breathlessly, before hitching up the skirt of her uniform and bolting away ahead of the patients.
Down in the atrium steel shutters sealed off all the doors and windows while the PA system announced, "This building is under quarantine. Repeat, this building is under quarantine. No one may leave the premises."
The Doctor and Martha continued their headlong flight down the stairs, but as they rounded a bend on the staircase, she glanced up and saw they were being followed, albeit more slowly, by some of the patients.
"Keep going," the Doctor urged, "go down!"
Upstairs, some of the infected patients staggered out of the corridor that led to Intensive Care and onto the ward.
"Help us, stay with us," they begged a nearby woman and as she stared in dismay, one of them touched her arm.
She screamed, "Help me!" to her husband, but her skin broke out in boils before he could move, and she collapsed, dying, at his feet.
Martha and the Doctor had descended the last flight of stairs and reached the basement where they paused to catch their breath.
"Now what?" she asked, gasping and bent double with her hands on her knees.
"We need to find a cure for the infected patients," he answered, and she tried not to resent the fact that he was scarcely out of breath.
"So, we take the lift back up to the wards," she said, gesturing at the nearby lift doors, "and we make up a cocktail of all those drug solutions, and then we use the disinfection system in the lifts - " She tailed off as the Doctor shook his head.
"The lifts have closed down," he told her, "that's the quarantine, nothing's moving."
"Oh." Her face fell, but he grabbed her shoulders, grinning madly, to her puzzlement.
"But the rest of your plan? Fantastic plan!" He planted a smacking kiss on her forehead.
"So how do we get back up to the wards?" asked Martha.
He gestured to an old-fashioned iron ladder. "The long way, I'm afraid, but with any luck, the patients won't discover and intercept us." He squeezed her shoulders. "Doesn't mean we can dawdle, though, 'cos the longer we are in getting back up there, the more innocent people will become infected and die."
"Better get climbing then," she said, nodding towards the ladder.
* * * * * *
Upstairs on Ward 26, Frau Clovis emerged through some sliding doors and looked around.
"Excuse me!" she called, irritated. "Can we get some service?" She looked helplessly around the empty room, then saw the entrance to Intensive Care and the infected patients emerging from it. She screamed, set off the alarm, and then ran in the opposite direction.
* * * * * *
"How many floors up is it?" asked Martha, hauling herself up the ladder behind the Doctor.
"Six wards to a floor," he answered, "and we're starting from the basement, not the ground floor."
They passed the entrance to the ground floor. "Five more to go," she muttered.
* * * * * *
Upstairs the infected patients were pressed against a glass window, desperately trying to get through into the ward while staff, patients and visitors alike tried equally desperately to stop them.
* * * * * *
There were still two floors to go when Martha yelped in fear as someone grabbed her ankle. Looking down she saw Matron Casp had climbed onto the ladder from the door they had just passed.
"Get off!" Martha cried.
"All our good work! All that healing!" Matron Casp cried. "The good name of the Sisterhood. You two will destroy everything!"
The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver. "I'm warning you," he said, his voice low and fierce. "Let go of Martha or I'll make you regret it."
"Disease everywhere! This is the Human World. Sickness!" ranted the cat-nurse, letting go of Martha to shake a fist at them both. Then a hand grabbed her ankle and she wailed in pain as her skin broke out in boils. Martha watched, horrified, as the Matron fell down the lift shaft, still wailing.
"Move!" shouted the Doctor to Martha as more patients began to clamber out onto the ladder below her. She scrambled upwards, and they eventually reached the top of the ladder only to find the lift doors were locked.
The Time Lord pulled out his sonic screwdriver again, having pocketed it once Matron Casp had fallen off the ladder, and then unlocked the doors. He grabbed Martha's arm and bodily hauled her up the rest of the way, then slammed the doors again and locked them.
As they moved onto the ward Frau Clovis brandished a chair at them menacingly, roaring like a wild animal.
"We're safe!" shouted the Doctor, alarmed by her behaviour. "We're clean! Calm down!"
"Show me your skin," she demanded immediately.
"Look! We're clean. If we'd been touched, we'd be dead already."
Frau Clovis nodded and put down the chair.
"So, how's it going up here? What's the status?" he asked her.
"There's nothing but silence from the other wards, I think we're the only ones left. And I've been trying to override the quarantine." As she spoke, she fiddled with a small device she held. "If I can trip a signal over to New, New York, they can send a private executive squad."
"What?" asked Martha, alarmed. "You can't do that. If they forced entry, they'd break the quarantine."
"I am not dying in here," snarled Frau Clovis.
"We can't let a single particle of disease get out," the Doctor said angrily. "There are ten million people in that city, they'd all be at risk! Now, turn that off!"
"Not if it gets me out," she answered, equally angrily.
Behind her Martha gestured towards his jacket, trying to suggest that he use his sonic screwdriver to disable the device that Frau Clovis held, and he frowned at her, then nodded as he realised what she was trying to suggest.
"We've got a plan to help the infected patients," Martha said, trying to distract her.
Frau Clovis turned, her eyes wide with surprise. "What do you mean?"
"We're going to combine all the solutions from the various intravenous drips and put it into the disinfection system they use in the lifts," Martha told her.
The Doctor nodded at her over Frau Clovis' shoulder and she assumed that meant he'd managed to disable the PA's device.
"Will that work?" she demanded.
Martha shrugged. "Don't know for certain, at least not until we try it."
"Which we'd better get on with," the Time Lord said. "Do you wanna do something useful, while you're still here?"
Her eyes widened again, although she looked less angry now, then her shoulders slumped. "Very well."
"Good. Help us gather up all the different IV bags." They hurried into the main part of the ward and began unhooking the clear plastic bags and gathering them in a heap.
"How are we going to get down to the ground floor?" asked Martha the Doctor quietly.
"I've thought of a way." He gave her what she was beginning to think of as his 'manic grin' and she wondered just what he was planning.
He pulled a length of rope from one of his jacket pockets and began to loop it around his body, then he started hooking the IV bags onto it, and Martha quickly moved to help him, taking the last few bags from Frau Clovis.
"Now what?" asked Martha after she'd hooked the last one onto the rope.
He walked over to the lift doors and opened them with his sonic.
"I thought you said the lifts weren't working?" she asked.
"Not moving," he said, "which is a different thing." He stuck the sonic between his teeth, then leapt into the lift shaft, grasping the cable tightly.
"What are you doing?" cried Martha, startled.
"Going down," he said, after pulling the sonic from his mouth. "I'll need your help too."
She shook her head, then looked down into the shaft.
"You'll have to jump across and hold onto me," he told her, grinning madly, then fixing up a pulley device that he'd taken from his other jacket pocket.
"You're completely mad," she told him backing up a little way. Then she ran and jumped, clinging onto him like a limpet.
"That's my girl," he said softly, and she could hear pride in his voice. "Now, hold on tight."
She wrapped her legs around his waist and tightened her arms as well.
"Going down."
Martha closed her eyes and gritted her teeth as they shot down the lift shaft at speed. The Doctor's feet hit the top of the lift car, jolting them both despite his bent knees.
"Next time, I'll take the stairs," she told him.
He just grinned at her as he opened up the tank on the top of the car with his sonic, while Martha began unhooking the IV bags. They both tore open the tops of the bags and poured the solutions into the tank, until every bag was empty.
"Right. I dunno if you're going to be strong enough to hold this lever down," he said, patting it, "because it'll resist, so I want you to get down into the lift car and I'll set off the disinfection system. Then I'll sonic open the doors and you get people to come in under the spray with you." She nodded her understanding. "Then you and the people who've been sprayed need to touch the others to pass on the 'cure'."
He lifted up a trapdoor in the roof of the lift car and Martha swung herself down carefully.
"Ready?" asked the Doctor.
"Ready," she agreed.
He triggered the disinfection system, then leant over the open hatch, watching Martha even as he hung onto the lever to ensure it didn't return to its off position.
"Commence stage one disinfection," announced the disembodied voice and the water drenched her as the lift doors opened; Martha immediately noticed that the atrium was full of infected people.
"Come on," she called. "I'm in here, come and get me!"
She kept calling as the first few staggered across and into the lift. "Come on, that's it, come on," she encouraged them, touching them, and cupping water in her hands to ensure they were 'infected' by the cure.
"Now pass it on," she said, gently shooing them out into the atrium again. "Come on, pass it on, help the others to get cured."
Martha followed them out into the atrium and began touching people herself, as well continuing to encourage those she'd already touched to pass the cure on.
She heard the Doctor coming up behind her. "Well done," he said softly, sliding his arms around her middle.
"Thanks."
They watched as the cure was passed on to everyone in the atrium, then the Doctor moved across to the reception desk and rang the authorities over in the city to let them know it was safe to break the quarantine, and to tell them of what the Sisterhood had been doing.
"Come on, let's go and say goodbye to the Face of Boe, and then we'll go and have that dinner I promised you."
Back on Ward 26 they approached the Face of Boe who looked far more alive and well than he had earlier.
"You were supposed to be dying," the Doctor said, smiling.
There are better things to do today, he answered telepathically. Dying can wait. I have grown tired with the universe, Doctor, but you and your friend have taught me to look at it anew.
The Doctor knelt down in front of the tank, and Martha joined him.
"There are legends you know, saying that you're millions of years old."
The Face of Boe laughed slightly. There are? That would be impossible.
"Wouldn't it just?" he asked, but Martha had an idea that he might believe it to be true. "I got the impression there was something you wanted to tell me."
A great secret, he answered.
"So the legend says," agreed the Doctor.
It can wait. We shall meet again, Doctor, for the third time, and for the last time, and the truth shall be told. Until that day - He left the sentence unfinished as he teleported himself away.
"That was a bit enigmatic," the Time Lord observed, surprised. He got up, and tugged Martha to her feet, wrapping his arms around her.
"You, Dr Jones, were fantastic today, and I'm very proud of you for being so brave and calm." He kissed her gently on the mouth. "Now let's go and have some dinner."
"Gladly," Martha answered, letting him take her hand and lead her away.
Title: Another World
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Martha/Nine, Other Characters
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: New Earth
Summary: The Ninth Doctor takes Martha on her first TARDIS trip.
Disclaimer: I occasionally wish that I did own it!
Author Notes: This is the sixth in my occasional Martha/Nine series of fics, and it's an AU version of 2.01 "New Earth".
Beta: fourzoas
~~~~~~
"When and where are we?" asked Martha as she followed the Doctor out of the TARDIS. Then she glanced up and saw the flying cars zooming back and forth across her head, above a futuristic-looking city.
The Doctor turned to lock the TARDIS door behind her. "It's the year five billion and twenty three, and we're in the M87 galaxy. This planet is called New Earth."
He slipped an arm around her shoulders as she simply stared, drinking in the sight, and he glanced down at her face, taking in her eyes shining in wonder and her half-parted lips.
"When I said take me to another planet, I was half expecting that we'd pop next door to Venus or somewhere, not a planet millions of light years away." She inhaled. "What's that smell? Smells like cider."
"Apple grass," the Doctor told her, bending and plucking a handful of blades to show her.
"That's amazing!" she exclaimed, and laughed joyfully as she stepped away from his side and looked up at the sky, then span around in a circle, her arms outstretched. He couldn't help smiling in response to her obvious delight; he walked over and she turned, grabbing his arm, then hugged him.
"Can I just say thank you for bringing me here?"
He smiled down at her upturned face. "Thank you for coming with me." He kissed her forehead. "Come on." He let go of her, then twined his fingers through hers and led her across the grass to the headland that overlooked a narrow channel between them and the main city.
"What's that building with the green moon on the side?" asked Martha, looking at the building behind them as the Doctor began, impossibly, to take a number of objects from the pockets of his leather jacket.
"That's a hospital," he told her as he unfolded and shook out a red tartan picnic blanket which he then spread on the grass. "Here, sit down," he said, gesturing at it, then kneeling down. "The green moon on the side's a universal symbol for hospitals in this galaxy."
"Oh." She watched disbelievingly as he set down a thermos flask, a small bunch of bananas, and three greaseproof paper wrapped parcels. "Just how big are your pockets?" she asked curiously.
He flashed a wide grin at her. "They're bigger on the inside."
"Like the TARDIS?" she asked. He'd given her a brief tour of the ship's vast interior after he'd picked her up from her flat earlier and she'd been awed by its size.
"Yeah!" He unwrapped the paper parcels to reveal neatly cut cheese and tomato, and ham sandwiches, and two thick slices of fruit cake.
"I'll take you to a proper posh restaurant later," he told her, "and we'll have a celebratory meal. I just thought you might enjoy a picnic now."
She noticed he looked anxious, as if he was afraid that she wouldn't like it. "It looks good," she told him. "I haven't been on a picnic for years."
"Tuck in, then."
Martha picked up a sandwich. "Tell me about the city and New Earth," she invited.
"The city's called New, New York. Well, strictly speaking, it's the fifteenth New York since New Amsterdam was renamed. So it'd be New, New, New - " he waved a hand vaguely, "New fifteen times York. The original Earth, yours, was destroyed in the year five billion after the sun expanded, but the human race had long since spread out amongst the stars. Anyway, once the original Earth went, there was a big revival movement, a bunch of you humans suddenly got all nostalgic and when they found this planet, they named it New Earth because it's the same size and environment as the original." He took a hasty bite of sandwich, chewing and swallowing quickly. "Same orbit, too, oddly enough."
"So why did you bring me here?" asked Martha as she finished her own sandwich in a more decorous manner, then drank some of the coffee the Doctor had brought.
"You asked to see another planet," he said, not meeting her eyes.
"Yes, I did," she agreed, "but you must have had a reason for picking this one out of the hundreds or thousands out there,"
He sighed softly and shook his head, a look of grudging respect in his eyes. "Can't fool you for a minute, can I?"
"Not any more." She waited, eyebrows raised.
"I got this message," he said, taking a slim brown leather wallet from his jeans pocket. Flipping it open he showed her the words 'Ward 26 - Please come' scrawling across the paper.
"Is that the Time Lord equivalent of voicemail?" she asked.
He let out a bark of laughter. "You're good, you know?"
She shook her head, bemused by his reaction.
"It's called Psychic Paper. Anyway, it means that someone at the hospital wants to see me." He tucked the wallet away again, watching her closely.
"You don't mind?" he asked, when she continued to eat.
"Why should I?" she asked, genuinely puzzled. "You did as I asked, and brought me to an alien planet. Besides, it'll be interesting to see a hospital so far in the future. I'd have thought they'd have eradicated all diseases by now."
He shook his head. "The human race moves on, but so do the viruses. Besides, interspecies breeding brings its own problems."
Martha nodded her understanding. "So, picnic lunch and a hospital visit." She grinned at him. "Bit of a busman's holiday then."
He shook his head, surprised but pleased that she wasn't upset that this trip wasn't solely about her. "You're fantastic," he told her, "and don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise."
"If you say so."
They finished their picnic and the Doctor tucked away the remains in his impossible pockets, then they set off across the headland towards the hospital.
As they entered the building, a voice on the PA was making announcements: "The Pleasure Gardens will now take visitors carrying green or blue identification cards for the next fifteen minutes. Visitors are reminded that cuttings from the gardens are not permitted."
"Very smart," Martha observed as they crossed the atrium to the lifts. "Definitely not NHS."
A woman in a nurse's uniform with a cat's face walked past, nodding to them both, and Martha nodded back, trying not to stare.
"They're cats," she said quietly. "When you said interspecies breeding, I didn't realise you meant people and cats."
He slipped his hand into hers and squeezed her fingers. "Not too freaked out, are you?" he asked, although he sensed that she was intrigued.
She shook her head with a soft laugh. "No, fascinated actually. Besides, I must look as odd to her as she does to me."
"Dr Jones, one of the many things I love about you is your curiosity," he said, leading her into a lift, "it means you're more open-minded than a lot of humans would be." He spoke into a panel on the wall. "Ward 26."
Martha laughed again. "That's what you get for bringing a scientist with you."
A disembodied voice spoke in the lift. "Commence stage one disinfection."
"What does - " She wasn't able to finish her question before green lights flashed on inside the lift and then they were both doused in warm water; Martha yelped in surprise.
"It's okay," the Doctor told her, grabbing her hand again.
"What - " Once again her question was cut off as a white powder was puffed at them.
"What's going on?" she demanded, startled.
"We're being disinfected before we enter the ward," he shouted over the noise of a blow-dryer, which cut off just before the lift doors opened.
"A bit of warning would have been nice," Martha grumbled, patting her hair and clothes quickly, only to discover that she was clean and dry.
"Sorry, I forgot." He had a bland expression on his face, but she wasn't sure whether she believed him.
As they stepped onto the ward they were met by another cat-faced nurse, and Martha suddenly realised their uniforms reminded her of nuns back home on Earth.
"I am Sister Jatt," she told them, her tone calm and gracious.
"I'm the Doctor and this is Martha," he told her. "We're here to see - someone."
"Whom do you wish to see?" asked Sister Jatt, leading them past a patient who was completely red.
"I'm not entirely sure," he answered.
"May I ask about your order?" asked Martha.
"We are the Sisters of Plenitude," Sister Jatt answered. "We take a lifelong vow to help and mend."
"Very noble," the Doctor said distractedly.
Martha could see he was taking everything in and wondered what was bothering him; she was sure it wasn't simply the fact that he didn't know who'd asked him to visit.
They reached a bed in which lay an extremely fat man who appeared to be turning into stone, and she couldn't help uttering a little gasp of dismay, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. By the man's bedside stood a very prim looking woman with a severe hairstyle, dark framed glasses and a dark suit. She looked, Martha thought, like a very bossy headmistress or PA.
"Excuse me," the woman said indignantly as she approached them. "Members of the public may only gaze upon the Duke of Manhattan with written permission from the Senate of New New York."
The Doctor appeared to ignore her as he nodded to the Duke. "That's Petrifold Regression, isn't it?"
"I'm dying, sir," answered the Duke. "A lifetime of charity and abstinence, and it ends like this."
The woman bristled. "Any statements made by the Duke of Manhattan may not be made public without official clearance."
Before anyone could respond to this remark, the Duke gasped. "Frau Clovis!" She rushed to his side and he grasped her hand. "I'm so weak!"
Although she had seen and dealt with those who were dying before, Martha felt uncomfortably like a voyeur.
Frau Clovis turned to the nurse beside them. "Sister Jatt! A little privacy, please!" She sounded outraged.
The nurse inclined her head, then lead them away. "He'll be up and about in no time," she told them calmly.
"I doubt it," answered the Doctor. "Petrifold Regression? He's turning to stone. There won't be a cure for about a thousand years. He might be up and about, but only as a statue."
Martha suppressed a giggle, but the Doctor must heard something because he turned and winked at her, then turned back to Sister Jatt.
"Have faith in the sisterhood," she said calmly. "But is there no one here you recognise?" The Doctor looked around and Martha saw his attention fix on someone as Sister Jatt continued speaking.
"It's rather unusual to visit without knowing the patient."
"No. I think I've found him," he said, and Sister Jatt followed his gaze to the large tank in the corner of the ward by the window.
Martha tried hard not to stare, but it wasn't easy when she was confronted by the sight of a giant, disembodied head. She followed the nurse and the Doctor down the ward as they approached the giant head, and the nurse sitting next to him.
"Novice Hame, if I can leave these visitors in your care?"
"Yes, Sister Jatt," she answered softly.
"Doctor, Martha." Sister Jatt inclined her head to them both, then left.
"I'm afraid the Face of Boe is asleep," Novice Hame said. "That's all he tends to do these days. Are you friends, or - ?" She left the question hanging.
"I only met him the once," the Doctor answered, "on Platform One. What's wrong with him?"
"I'm so sorry, I thought you knew," answered the nurse with a sorrowful expression. "The Face of Boe is dying."
Martha swallowed hard and stepped closer to the Time Lord, sliding her hand into his.
"Of what?" he asked.
"Old age," answered the nurse simply. "The one thing we can't cure. He's thousands of years old, some people say millions, although that's impossible."
The Doctor smiled. "Oh, I don't know, I quite like impossible." He squeezed Martha's hand, then knelt in front of the tank. "I'm here," he said quietly. "It's the Doctor." He placed a hand on the front of the tank, and Martha thought she heard the Face of Boe sigh.
The Doctor turned to her. "Come and say hello," he said gently, and she moved to his side, kneeling next to him. He took her hand and placed it on the glass, his own hand covering hers. "This is my friend, Martha Jones, she's a proper doctor."
"Hello," she said, her voice coming out more steadily than she'd expected.
Though she didn't know it, the Doctor was very proud of Martha for taking so much in her stride: he'd thrown her in at the deep end with this trip, just as he had with Rose's first trip, and the young doctor was reacting more calmly than he'd anticipated. And he didn't think that it was just because of her training.
"Would it be possible for my friend to visit the Pleasure Gardens?" he asked Novice Hame.
"It'd be a bit dull for you, hanging about here waiting for the Face of Boe to wake up," he said to Martha, "but you'll enjoy seeing the Pleasure Gardens. There's a number of plants there that are used for medicinal purposes."
"Okay," she agreed readily.
Novice Hame nodded. "I'm sure I can arrange a visitor's pass for you, and you could stay as long as you like."
"Thank you," Martha said, smiling at the nurse as she got up.
The Doctor squeezed her shoulder before the nurse led her away to get her a pass and give her directions to the Pleasure Gardens on the ground floor.
When Novice Hame returned the Doctor offered her a cup of water, having fetched two cups from the water cooler on the far side of the ward.
"That's very kind, but there's no need," she told him.
"Well, you're the one working," he said, moving away to look out of the window.
"There's not much to do, just maintain his smoke. And I suppose I'm company," she said shyly. "I can hear him singing, sometimes, in my mind. They're such ancient songs."
"Are we the only visitors?"
She nodded. "The rest of Boe-kind became extinct long ago, so he's the only one left. Legend says that the Face of Boe has watched the universe grow old. There's all sorts of superstitions around him. One story says that just before his death, the Face of Boe will impart his great secret and that he will speak those words only to one like himself."
The Doctor turned to her, surprised. "What does that mean?"
She shrugged. "It's just a story."
"Tell me the rest," he insisted.
Novice Hame looked startled by his insistent tone, but answered. "It's said he'll talk to a wanderer. To the man without a home. The lonely God."
The Doctor gave a nod, recognising himself in her description, then wandered up the ward to think about what he'd just been told.
As he got nearer to the doors he heard the Duke of Manhattan laughing cheerfully, and the chink of glasses. Wary, he stepped into view just as the Duke spoke to Frau Clovis.
"Didn't think I was going to make it!" Then he caught sight of the Doctor. "It's that man again!" he cried. "He's my good luck charm! Come in, don't be shy!"
"Any friendship expressed by the Duke of Manhattan does not constitute a form of legal contract," Frau Clovis informed him, still managing to look prim, despite the full glass of champagne in her hand.
The Time Lord nodded, more interested in the Duke.
"Winch me up," the Duke commanded. He gave the Doctor a thumbs up as Frau Clovis pressed a button on a remote control device, and the bed angled upwards.
"Ah! Look at me!" exclaimed the Duke, sounding thoroughly satisfied. "No sign of infection!"
"Champagne, sir?" asked a waiter, stepping to the Doctor's side with a tray.
"No thanks." He spoke to the Duke. "You had Petrifold Regression, right?"
"Had being the operative word," answered the Duke happily, "Past tense! Completely cured!" He gave a belly laugh.
"But that's impossible," the Time Lord said, knowing there would not be a cure for another thousand years.
"Primitive species would accuse us of magic," said a female voice behind him and he span around quickly, "but it's merely the tender application of science."
He stared at the cat-nun, his senses tingling, knowing there was something not right about the situation. "How on Earth did you cure him?" he demanded harshly.
"How on New Earth, you might say," she answered with an enigmatic smile.
"What's in that solution?" he asked, nodding at the drip beside the Duke's bed.
"A simple remedy," she answered blandly.
"Then tell me what it is," he demanded more aggressively.
"I'm sorry," she answered, not sounding sorry at all. "Patient confidentiality. I don't believe we've met. My name is Matron Casp."
"I'm the Doctor."
"I think you'll find that we're the doctors here," she answered smugly.
Sister Jatt suddenly appeared at her side. "Matron Casp, you're needed in Intensive Care."
"If you would excuse me," the Matron said, inclining her head towards the Doctor, the Duke and Frau Clovis in turn.
The Doctor nodded to her and watched as she walked away, certain there was something odd going on, and knowing that he would have to deal with it. He wondered if he should go and find Martha, or wait for her to return.
* * * * * *
Martha had found the Pleasure Gardens quite easily thanks to Novice Hame's directions and she spent about twenty minutes wandering the paths, marked with blue or green gravel, and looking at the various trees, shrubs and flowers, until she came to an area that was signposted, rather quaintly she thought, the Physic Garden.
She spent quite a while looking at the neatly labelled plants, expecting to see something unusual, exotic or alien amongst them, but there was nothing there that she hadn't seen on her visit to the Chelsea Physic Garden back on 21st century Earth. This discovery left her puzzled and she made her way back up to Ward 26 in a very thoughtful mood. As she stepped out of the lift, which she was relieved to discover did not subject her to a second disinfectant shower, she overheard one of the cat-nurses asking another for Sister Jatt, who she was told had gone to Intensive Care.
Martha wondered what they dealt with in Intensive Care, and whether the Doctor would be able to wangle her a visit there; if this was a busman's holiday, then she might as well make the most of it - who knew what she might learn that could prove useful to 21st century medicine.
* * * * * *
"It was having a perfectly normal blood-wash," Sister Jatt told Matron Casp in Intensive Care. "And all of a sudden, it started crying. It's this one." She opened a door and they looked inside as diseased hands reached out to them.
"Please - " begged the man in the cell.
"Look at its eyes," said Sister Jatt. "So alive!"
"Positively sparkling," agreed Matron Casp.
"Please," begged the man pitifully. "Where am I?"
"And speech!" exclaimed Matron Casp, astonished. "How can it even have a vocabulary?"
Sister Jatt responded enthusiastically, "Sister Corvin's written a thesis on the migration of sentience. She calls it 'The Echo of Life'. It's well worth a read."
"Help me," begged the man.
Matron Casp looked disgusted. "I've seen enough, thank you." Sister Jatt shut the door and they walked away. "If this happens again, we might have to review our brain stem policy."
"And what should we do with the patient?" asked her colleague.
"Standard procedure," answered Matron Casp dismissively. "Incinerate."
She continued walking, rounding a corner, but Sister Jatt paused to pull a lever on the wall. After a moment there was a brief, gut-wrenching scream from the patient's cell as it glowed white. She calmly followed her colleague.
* * * * * *
Up on the Ward, Martha had noticed a computer terminal that was being accessed by a young man who wasn't wearing a uniform of any sort.
"Excuse me, is this a public access terminal?" she asked.
He gave her a smile. "Yes it is. Do you need a hand using it?"
She bit her bottom lip. "I might do," she conceded.
"Let me show you then," he said courteously.
"Oh, don't let me interrupt you," Martha said hastily.
"You're not," he assured her. "I was just checking something, but I'm done now."
"Oh, well, thanks."
The young man gestured for Martha to join him in front of the screen and quickly showed her the touch-sensitive controls, which she discovered were actually quite straight forward, and she wondered why he'd offered to show her.
"My name's Riley Thomas, by the way," he said, offering a hand. "I wondered if you'd like to join me for a coffee downstairs? They've got a really nice coffee shop here."
"Martha Jones," she answered, shaking hands. "I'll have to check how much longer my friend's going to be, he's visiting one of the patients on this ward you see." She saw Riley's expression change when she said 'he' and wondered if he'd been trying to chat her up. Before she could find out, a familiar voice spoke behind her.
"Martha, there you are! Come and look at this patient," the Doctor demanded, grabbing her hand and pulling her away.
She mouthed an apology at Riley, whose expression had darkened at the appearance of the Time Lord, but he moved away scowling, so she turned her attention to the patient the Doctor wanted her to see: the man's skin was completely red.
"Marconi's Disease," the Doctor told her, his tone intense and urgent. "It should take years to recover, but he's already recovering after just two days. I've never seen anything like it. And they've invented a cell washing cascade that's amazing. Their medical science is very advanced."
He led her over to another bed where a man lay: he was completely white, as if he'd been dipped in whitewash. "And this one, he's got Pallidome Pancrosis. That kills you in ten minutes, and yet he's fine!" He lifted a hand to the patient. "I need to find out how they do this, because if they've got the best medicine in the world, then why's it such a secret?"
"Would you be able to find out anything from a public access terminal?" Martha asked, gesturing towards the one she'd been using when the Doctor had interrupted her.
"Let's find out, shall we?" His tone was grim and uncompromising.
They went back to the terminal and he pored over the screen, muttering all the while. "Nothing odd, I can see. Surgery, post-op, nano dentistry, coffee shop - "
"What about Intensive Care?" asked Martha also looking closely at the screen. "I heard one of the cat-nurses telling a colleague that Sister Jatt had gone over to Intensive Care, but I can't see it listed here, can you?"
"Well spotted!" he answered, giving her a big grin.
"Why would they hide a whole department, though?" she asked, puzzled.
The Doctor shook his head, then pulled a long silver device from the inside pocket of his jacket.
"What's that?" she asked.
"Sonic screwdriver," he said absently, thumbing a button on the side so that the end glowed blue.
"Oh well if you're not gonna answer me properly," she said crossly.
He looked up startled. "It really is! It's a screwdriver, and it's sonic!"
"What else have you got then, laser spanner?" she asked, not entirely sure she believed him, despite his earnest tone and expression.
"I did have one," he answered, scrutinising the screen again, "but it was stolen by Emily Pankhurst, that cheeky woman!"
Martha shook her head, not sure if he was winding her up.
"Hmm. Searching the sub-frame is out, because that seems to be locked. Oh, I know! Installation protocol!"
He drew the glowing blue tip of the sonic screwdriver across the screen and Martha heard a quiet beep, and then the entire wall moved downwards, revealing a corridor hidden behind it. The Doctor gave her another of his manic grins as he switched off and pocketed his sonic, then he gestured for her to precede him.
"Intensive Care," he said, as he stepped through beside her. "It certainly looks intensive."
They walked down some metal steps into the main area; it was a vast cavernous chamber that overlooked row upon row of luminous green doors. They didn't notice Novice Hame entering the corridor behind them as they walked along one of the rows of doors.
Martha watched as the Doctor pulled out his sonic again and opened one of the doors to reveal a man covered in boils and surrounded by smoke. She gasped in shock, covering her mouth with her hand, as the man looked piteously back at them.
"What's wrong with him?" she whispered.
"I'm sorry," the Time Lord told the man. He closed the door softly, then opened another one.
"What disease is that?" asked Martha, horrified, as they looked at the woman inside the cell.
"All of them," answered the Doctor, disgusted. "It's every single disease in the galaxy; they've been infected with everything."
Martha felt sick. "What about us? Are we safe or will we spread it if we leave here?"
He shook his head as he closed the door again. "The air's sterile, just don't touch them."
He moved away to lean over the railing, looking up and down at floor after floor filled with rows of doors.
"How many patients are there?" she asked, awed by the scale of the place.
"They're not patients," he answered angrily.
Martha gave him a confused look. "But they're sick, infected with everything you said."
He looked at her, a stormy expression darkening his face. "They were born sick," he told her. "They're meant to be sick. That's all they exist for. They're lab rats. It's no wonder the Sisters have got a cure for everything when they've built the ultimate research laboratory: a Human farm."
"Why don't they just die? Oh!"
He nodded, knowing she'd realised the reason. "Yeah, the plague carriers are always the last to go."
A voice spoke behind them. "It's for the greater cause."
They turned. "Novice Hame, when you took your vows, did you agree to this?"
"The Sisterhood has sworn to help," answered the cat-nurse, but Martha thought she detected a note of uncertainty in her voice.
"What, by killing?" demanded the Doctor.
"But they're not real people," protested Novice Hame. "They're specially grown and they have no proper existence."
The Time Lord stalked towards her, sparks flashing in his eyes. "What's the turnover, eh? A thousand a day, a thousand the next? And another thousand the next? How many thousand and for how many years? How many?" He shouted the last two words at her as he towered over her.
"Mankind needed us," she answered and Martha could hear a pleading note in her voice. "They came to this planet with so many illnesses, and we couldn't cope. We did try. We tried everything. We tried using clone-meat and bio-cattle, but the results were too slow. So the Sisterhood grew its own flesh. That's all they are. Flesh."
Martha was outraged. "They're people!" she cried. "People who are alive."
"But think of those Humans out there," argued Novice Hame. "Healthy and happy, because of us."
"That doesn't make what you're doing right," answered Martha angrily.
The Doctor agreed with her. "If they live because of this, then life is worthless."
"But who are you to decide that?" asked Novice Hame.
The Doctor towered over her again. "I'm the Doctor, and if you don't like it, if you want to take it to a higher authority, then there isn't one. It stops with me."
He glowered. "So I suggest you fetch your precious Matron and tell her that I want a word with her."
"Or we'll tell everyone in the city," Martha said, with more bravado than she felt. "Because I'm betting no one over there knows."
The Doctor turned and gave her an approving grin, then frowned and she turned quickly to see Riley, the young man she'd met earlier, watching them with an angry expression. He'd watched Martha with her friend, hoping that he could still persuade her to join him for a coffee, and then followed them when they entered the Intensive Care area, wondering where they were going.
"Riley?" Martha asked, moving towards him.
"You're going to stop the Sisterhood's work?" he asked.
"We have to," she told him, "what they're doing is immoral."
"But they saved my mum," he said angrily, his hands balling into fists. "She would've died without their help."
"That doesn't make what they're doing right," the Doctor growled from just behind Martha.
"I won't let you stop them!" Riley said fiercely, then he lashed out, taking Martha and the Doctor completely by surprise, and knocking the Time Lord unconscious.
"Doctor!" cried Martha, horrified.
Novice Hame had hurried away to find the Matron once Riley had appeared, and found her and Sister Jatt in the corridor outside Intensive Care.
"Oh Matron! It's that man, and the girl! They've found out about our work."
"All right, Novice, we can deal with them. Now get back to work, tend to your patients." She made a shooing gesture and Novice Hame hurried away, relieved, as the two senior nurses made their way into the Intensive Care area.
Martha struggled with Riley, trying not to fall over the unconscious Time Lord who sprawled near their feet.
"I, can't, let, you, stop, the, Sisters," he gasped, his words coming out in short bursts as he struggled to overpower her.
"And I can't let them carry on," she answered, not quite as breathlessly, as she shoved him against a mass of cables on the wall behind him. He shoved back at her and Martha stumbled across the narrow walkway, then tripped backwards over the prone Time Lord, her arms flailing wildly as she tried to maintain her balance. One arm connected with a lever behind her and Martha grabbed it unthinkingly as she fell backwards.
There was simultaneously a clunk, a yell of alarm from Riley, and a groan form the Doctor.
"What have you done?" cried Riley, clearly frightened, as all the doors along their row swung open at once.
"Uh-oh!" Martha realised with horror that she'd accidentally pulled the door override control lever as the infected people began to climb out of their cells.
Riley gave a scream and turned to run as the Doctor shouted to Martha, "Don't touch them! Whatever you do, don't touch them!"
"No touching them," she agreed quickly, moving to help him to his feet.
"I think we should withdraw," suggested Sister Jatt, behind them, as the patients began to advance on them.
"We understand what you did to us," one of the men told them. "As part of the machine, we know the machine."
"Fascinating," observed Matron Casp as she backed away. "It's actually constructing an argument."
"We have to get out of here," the Doctor told Martha urgently.
"Can't we help them?" she asked desperately.
"If they touch you, they'll kill you almost instantly," he told her, his hands on her shoulders as he looked down into her tear-filled eyes.
Behind them the man spoke again. "And we - we will end it." He plunged his hands into the mass of cabling that Martha had shoved Riley against earlier. The patient was electrocuted and died instantly, but at the same time every single cell door in Intensive Care sprang open.
"RUN!" yelled the Doctor, urgently, and they took off down the row of doors as the patients began to climb out of their cells.
Only Matron Casp heard Sister Jatt's exclamation of horror. "They're free! By the Goddess Centauri - the flesh is free!"
The two cat-nurses backed towards the exit as the patients staggered slowly towards them, muttering "Stop the pain", reaching towards the Sisters with anger and pain in their expressions. Sister Jatt was backed into a corner and one of the patients touched her; her skin immediately broke out in boils, and she screamed in agony as she died.
Martha skidded to a halt at the sound, but the Doctor grabbed her arm and pulled her onwards.
"One touch and you'll get every disease in the world," he reminded her, then groaned as the patients began to enter the row ahead of them. He span and saw there were more behind them, moving their way.
"There's thousands of them!" Martha gasped, feeling terrified now.
"Down, down!" the Doctor cried, pushing her towards an alcove she hadn't noticed, but now saw was the entrance to a staircase.
As they raced down the stairs, Matron Casp picked up a phone. "Quarantine the building," she ordered breathlessly, before hitching up the skirt of her uniform and bolting away ahead of the patients.
Down in the atrium steel shutters sealed off all the doors and windows while the PA system announced, "This building is under quarantine. Repeat, this building is under quarantine. No one may leave the premises."
The Doctor and Martha continued their headlong flight down the stairs, but as they rounded a bend on the staircase, she glanced up and saw they were being followed, albeit more slowly, by some of the patients.
"Keep going," the Doctor urged, "go down!"
Upstairs, some of the infected patients staggered out of the corridor that led to Intensive Care and onto the ward.
"Help us, stay with us," they begged a nearby woman and as she stared in dismay, one of them touched her arm.
She screamed, "Help me!" to her husband, but her skin broke out in boils before he could move, and she collapsed, dying, at his feet.
Martha and the Doctor had descended the last flight of stairs and reached the basement where they paused to catch their breath.
"Now what?" she asked, gasping and bent double with her hands on her knees.
"We need to find a cure for the infected patients," he answered, and she tried not to resent the fact that he was scarcely out of breath.
"So, we take the lift back up to the wards," she said, gesturing at the nearby lift doors, "and we make up a cocktail of all those drug solutions, and then we use the disinfection system in the lifts - " She tailed off as the Doctor shook his head.
"The lifts have closed down," he told her, "that's the quarantine, nothing's moving."
"Oh." Her face fell, but he grabbed her shoulders, grinning madly, to her puzzlement.
"But the rest of your plan? Fantastic plan!" He planted a smacking kiss on her forehead.
"So how do we get back up to the wards?" asked Martha.
He gestured to an old-fashioned iron ladder. "The long way, I'm afraid, but with any luck, the patients won't discover and intercept us." He squeezed her shoulders. "Doesn't mean we can dawdle, though, 'cos the longer we are in getting back up there, the more innocent people will become infected and die."
"Better get climbing then," she said, nodding towards the ladder.
* * * * * *
Upstairs on Ward 26, Frau Clovis emerged through some sliding doors and looked around.
"Excuse me!" she called, irritated. "Can we get some service?" She looked helplessly around the empty room, then saw the entrance to Intensive Care and the infected patients emerging from it. She screamed, set off the alarm, and then ran in the opposite direction.
* * * * * *
"How many floors up is it?" asked Martha, hauling herself up the ladder behind the Doctor.
"Six wards to a floor," he answered, "and we're starting from the basement, not the ground floor."
They passed the entrance to the ground floor. "Five more to go," she muttered.
* * * * * *
Upstairs the infected patients were pressed against a glass window, desperately trying to get through into the ward while staff, patients and visitors alike tried equally desperately to stop them.
* * * * * *
There were still two floors to go when Martha yelped in fear as someone grabbed her ankle. Looking down she saw Matron Casp had climbed onto the ladder from the door they had just passed.
"Get off!" Martha cried.
"All our good work! All that healing!" Matron Casp cried. "The good name of the Sisterhood. You two will destroy everything!"
The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver. "I'm warning you," he said, his voice low and fierce. "Let go of Martha or I'll make you regret it."
"Disease everywhere! This is the Human World. Sickness!" ranted the cat-nurse, letting go of Martha to shake a fist at them both. Then a hand grabbed her ankle and she wailed in pain as her skin broke out in boils. Martha watched, horrified, as the Matron fell down the lift shaft, still wailing.
"Move!" shouted the Doctor to Martha as more patients began to clamber out onto the ladder below her. She scrambled upwards, and they eventually reached the top of the ladder only to find the lift doors were locked.
The Time Lord pulled out his sonic screwdriver again, having pocketed it once Matron Casp had fallen off the ladder, and then unlocked the doors. He grabbed Martha's arm and bodily hauled her up the rest of the way, then slammed the doors again and locked them.
As they moved onto the ward Frau Clovis brandished a chair at them menacingly, roaring like a wild animal.
"We're safe!" shouted the Doctor, alarmed by her behaviour. "We're clean! Calm down!"
"Show me your skin," she demanded immediately.
"Look! We're clean. If we'd been touched, we'd be dead already."
Frau Clovis nodded and put down the chair.
"So, how's it going up here? What's the status?" he asked her.
"There's nothing but silence from the other wards, I think we're the only ones left. And I've been trying to override the quarantine." As she spoke, she fiddled with a small device she held. "If I can trip a signal over to New, New York, they can send a private executive squad."
"What?" asked Martha, alarmed. "You can't do that. If they forced entry, they'd break the quarantine."
"I am not dying in here," snarled Frau Clovis.
"We can't let a single particle of disease get out," the Doctor said angrily. "There are ten million people in that city, they'd all be at risk! Now, turn that off!"
"Not if it gets me out," she answered, equally angrily.
Behind her Martha gestured towards his jacket, trying to suggest that he use his sonic screwdriver to disable the device that Frau Clovis held, and he frowned at her, then nodded as he realised what she was trying to suggest.
"We've got a plan to help the infected patients," Martha said, trying to distract her.
Frau Clovis turned, her eyes wide with surprise. "What do you mean?"
"We're going to combine all the solutions from the various intravenous drips and put it into the disinfection system they use in the lifts," Martha told her.
The Doctor nodded at her over Frau Clovis' shoulder and she assumed that meant he'd managed to disable the PA's device.
"Will that work?" she demanded.
Martha shrugged. "Don't know for certain, at least not until we try it."
"Which we'd better get on with," the Time Lord said. "Do you wanna do something useful, while you're still here?"
Her eyes widened again, although she looked less angry now, then her shoulders slumped. "Very well."
"Good. Help us gather up all the different IV bags." They hurried into the main part of the ward and began unhooking the clear plastic bags and gathering them in a heap.
"How are we going to get down to the ground floor?" asked Martha the Doctor quietly.
"I've thought of a way." He gave her what she was beginning to think of as his 'manic grin' and she wondered just what he was planning.
He pulled a length of rope from one of his jacket pockets and began to loop it around his body, then he started hooking the IV bags onto it, and Martha quickly moved to help him, taking the last few bags from Frau Clovis.
"Now what?" asked Martha after she'd hooked the last one onto the rope.
He walked over to the lift doors and opened them with his sonic.
"I thought you said the lifts weren't working?" she asked.
"Not moving," he said, "which is a different thing." He stuck the sonic between his teeth, then leapt into the lift shaft, grasping the cable tightly.
"What are you doing?" cried Martha, startled.
"Going down," he said, after pulling the sonic from his mouth. "I'll need your help too."
She shook her head, then looked down into the shaft.
"You'll have to jump across and hold onto me," he told her, grinning madly, then fixing up a pulley device that he'd taken from his other jacket pocket.
"You're completely mad," she told him backing up a little way. Then she ran and jumped, clinging onto him like a limpet.
"That's my girl," he said softly, and she could hear pride in his voice. "Now, hold on tight."
She wrapped her legs around his waist and tightened her arms as well.
"Going down."
Martha closed her eyes and gritted her teeth as they shot down the lift shaft at speed. The Doctor's feet hit the top of the lift car, jolting them both despite his bent knees.
"Next time, I'll take the stairs," she told him.
He just grinned at her as he opened up the tank on the top of the car with his sonic, while Martha began unhooking the IV bags. They both tore open the tops of the bags and poured the solutions into the tank, until every bag was empty.
"Right. I dunno if you're going to be strong enough to hold this lever down," he said, patting it, "because it'll resist, so I want you to get down into the lift car and I'll set off the disinfection system. Then I'll sonic open the doors and you get people to come in under the spray with you." She nodded her understanding. "Then you and the people who've been sprayed need to touch the others to pass on the 'cure'."
He lifted up a trapdoor in the roof of the lift car and Martha swung herself down carefully.
"Ready?" asked the Doctor.
"Ready," she agreed.
He triggered the disinfection system, then leant over the open hatch, watching Martha even as he hung onto the lever to ensure it didn't return to its off position.
"Commence stage one disinfection," announced the disembodied voice and the water drenched her as the lift doors opened; Martha immediately noticed that the atrium was full of infected people.
"Come on," she called. "I'm in here, come and get me!"
She kept calling as the first few staggered across and into the lift. "Come on, that's it, come on," she encouraged them, touching them, and cupping water in her hands to ensure they were 'infected' by the cure.
"Now pass it on," she said, gently shooing them out into the atrium again. "Come on, pass it on, help the others to get cured."
Martha followed them out into the atrium and began touching people herself, as well continuing to encourage those she'd already touched to pass the cure on.
She heard the Doctor coming up behind her. "Well done," he said softly, sliding his arms around her middle.
"Thanks."
They watched as the cure was passed on to everyone in the atrium, then the Doctor moved across to the reception desk and rang the authorities over in the city to let them know it was safe to break the quarantine, and to tell them of what the Sisterhood had been doing.
"Come on, let's go and say goodbye to the Face of Boe, and then we'll go and have that dinner I promised you."
Back on Ward 26 they approached the Face of Boe who looked far more alive and well than he had earlier.
"You were supposed to be dying," the Doctor said, smiling.
There are better things to do today, he answered telepathically. Dying can wait. I have grown tired with the universe, Doctor, but you and your friend have taught me to look at it anew.
The Doctor knelt down in front of the tank, and Martha joined him.
"There are legends you know, saying that you're millions of years old."
The Face of Boe laughed slightly. There are? That would be impossible.
"Wouldn't it just?" he asked, but Martha had an idea that he might believe it to be true. "I got the impression there was something you wanted to tell me."
A great secret, he answered.
"So the legend says," agreed the Doctor.
It can wait. We shall meet again, Doctor, for the third time, and for the last time, and the truth shall be told. Until that day - He left the sentence unfinished as he teleported himself away.
"That was a bit enigmatic," the Time Lord observed, surprised. He got up, and tugged Martha to her feet, wrapping his arms around her.
"You, Dr Jones, were fantastic today, and I'm very proud of you for being so brave and calm." He kissed her gently on the mouth. "Now let's go and have some dinner."
"Gladly," Martha answered, letting him take her hand and lead her away.