when a Doctor needs a doctor [ota]

[celeryboy]

He hadn't responded to the message from his older self concerning one Perpugilliam Brown, as opposed to the multiple versions of her he'd already encountered in the corridors of the station. His fault. All his fault. If he had kept better tabs on her rather than allow the TARDIS to drag him to this infernal place without her

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[peri_patetic]

The Doctor was changing so fast, not like the others she'd seen in the corridors. He wasn't going to get any better if she didn't say anything. And he was so still on that table.

As still as death. She'd seen him like this before. Sometimes if he got hurt, he'd fall into some sort of trance or a coma while he recovered, but how could you recover from turning into somebody else?

Her arms hung loosely at her sides, easily taken for a blood sample. She raised her eyes, trying to look at the face of the man beneath that helmet...

A face that sorta looked like an older version of the pale man who'd helped the Doctor...

Was...was he a victim of the virus too? But

[peri_patetic]

"I'm a size 5," Peri told Arik, slightly amused despite everything that's been going on. "Good eye, doctor. I don't suppose you get a chance to guess at that a lot."

Exams. Blood samples. Scans. She was afraid of that. Detested needles, but tolerated them when they took her blood. "Do I..." she started, staring upwards at the newcomer. "Do I have to take my clothes off if you do a scan?"

[adoctornota]

Normally, McCoy might have given her a wink and a teasing comment (she was a pretty looking girl, after all) - but this was an emergency, and he was (mostly) all business.

"No need, young lady," he said. "I just need to run this," indicating the medical tricorder, "for a reading. Get a comparison between your DNA and everyone else's."

[dr_arik_soong]

"At least I guessed right." He offered her an awkward grin. Which drifted when Dr. McCoy mentioned 'Arik Soong.'

"That would be me." He started scanning the antibodies. ...These would help, but he'd need something stronger. It would only retard the virus. What would he give for Persis or one of the other Augments. Their cultured cells could send the virus into remission.

Well, maybe not for Malik.

"No, you don't have to," he said offhandedly, reassuring her and agreeing with McCoy.

[(Going to slip this in right here.)]

[peri_patetic]

Well, gee Peri, she asked herself mentally. You always wanted to be popular, and now you're the most special girl on this space station. You get all the attention and now everyone is just dying to look like you. How does that feel?

Pretty darn lousy.

Especially now that she'd infected the Doctor too.

He is going to be so mad when he finds out...or not mad, but just irritated. Maybe a little disappointed.

After the scan, she hugged herself, not really knowing what to do or where to go. She supposed she had to stick around the sick bay so she wouldn't infect anyone else.

"Would it okay if I stay here with him?" she asked, again pointing to the image of herself on the table. "I wanna be here when he wakes up." Hopefully as himself and not as another Peri Brown.

[adoctornota]

McCoy's eyebrows practically disappeared into his hairline. "Augments? That Dr. Soong?" He'd read about the doctor at medical school, of course. None of the texts had painted a very flattering picture of the man...but just maybe, a geneticist willing to experiment would be exactly what this crisis needed.

Plenty of time to debate ethics later.

Biosuit fitted, McCoy wandered over to Peri, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I understand," he said. He'd often have to chase Kirk or Spock out of his sickbay, when one or the other was injured. Same with the rest of the crew. "We'll see about getting you a chair."

It was interesting and frightening, how fast this Doctor fellow had changed. It might as well be this girl's identical twin lying there motionless on the bed (albeit dressed in clothes that were now several sizes too big for him..her).

[dr_arik_soong]

"Yes. I would be that Dr. Soong. It's probably been a while for you but I just lost my children last year. The wound's still a little fresh, so we can debate about it later."

He had seen some interesting samples earlier, and his attention kept flitting back to them. "I'm going to put this in to culture," he said, fussing around with bits of equipment to get it started.

Data looked behind him, stood up out of his chair, sat it near the Doctor's bed wordlessly, and then went back to what he was doing. He didn't necessarily need it. Comfort wasn't an issue with him and he could do this as well hunched over the console as he could sitting down. But other than his initial glancing over the Doctor, he seemed unwilling to look at him now.

[adoctornota]

"Try at least a hundred years," he said. "But still, very impressive work. I wrote a paper on it once, in medical school." He'd been allowed to view some of Soong's original documents. And ethical issues aside, you couldn't fault the man's work.

"A geneticist like yourself may just be what these people need."

As he spoke, McCoy made his way over to where Soong was standing - a quick 'thank you' to Data as he did so. "Now, Doctor," he said. "Tell me what I can do to help."

The use of Soong's title was quite deliberate; almost a kind of reassurance, in a way.

[peri_patetic]

Even with the reassurances (and really, these guys seemed to know their stuff), Peri was worried. And it wasn't as if the Doctor was your typical, normal human either. The other men were a little surprised to see how the Doctor ticked. Which may have been good or bad for him.

She was hoping it was good.

Trying to keep as out of the way as possible, Peri sat down next to the Doctor. She hesitated a moment, recalling how much he disliked being touched, but she stretched out a hand to grip at the Doctor's.

It was very very strange, holding a hand that was an exact mirror of hers.

"Don't worry, Doctor," she told him. "You'll be helped, I promise." She sighed. "I just hope you won't grouse about having to be me for a while..."

[dr_arik_soong]

Max's blood had stem cells. The patent of an Augment, only even synthesizing it at great amounts could only keep the virus at bay. Combining Max's and Peri's DNA to create a more efficient system was what would work out best.

Though like hell was he going to point out any Augment on the station.

"There are other versions of the Doctor, right? Every marker in this virus from him suggests this is what's at fault for it. Activated when his body is in distress. Problem is, we don't want to just turn these people into random people, and we don't want them to have the virus permanently... well I wouldn't mind having it permanently but it probably wouldn't be a great idea. I can stop her virus, but I would like to figure out a way to use this other one to turn people back..."

He looked around, over his shoulder, over at other patients. "Have you seen the gold skinned woman with the pointy ears? She should be able to help, too."

[adoctornota]

"First things first, Doctor. Stop the virus. Or at the rate this is going, there'll be no patients to actually change back." A quick glance around sickbay confirmed the obvious - beds were filled with people who either looked exactly like the young lady in question, or were in the process of turning into her.

McCoy raised an eyebrow at Soong's request. "Gold skinned woman?" He shook his head. "I don't think so. She got a name?"

[dr_arik_soong]

"Trance Gemini.... I think I knew an Orion mistress named something like that- no, that was Chase Nebula." He shook his head dismissively and sighed with a puff of his cheeks.

"Aaaaaand... Sample synthesized-" He pulled a sample from the equipment, put it in a hypo, removed his helmet to his biosuit, and looked at McCoy squarely as he injected himself. "I need to see if it works to curb the virus's spread. Check my blood after I make contact to make sure the virus is being held at bay?"

He pulled off his gloves and headed toward Peri, reaching to pat the back of her neck both as a comfort and to infect himself.

[adoctornota]

"Name sounds familiar - I think I heard one of the techs say she was the Ch--good god, man!" he exclaimed, as Soong injected himself, then moved in Peri's direction. "Have you gone stark raving mad? You don't even know if this will work!"

Muttering various curses, McCoy hurried after Soong, medical tricorder in hand, and hastily scanned him. "Well, I'll be damned," he said, glancing down at the display. "Your hairbrained stunt actually seems to be doing some good." He shook his head. "But just to make sure, I'll have to take a blood sample."

[dr_arik_soong]

"You were the only other one who could volunteer," he said, peeling off the top part of his biosuit so he could offer his arm to Dr. McCoy with a smirk. Why not? He was probably infected. "But as my reputation proceeds me I thought I would make the obvious choice."

It was then that he noticed Data had stopped working to watch him, that same vaguely unsettled, slightly confused look knit onto his features.

"It'll be okay, go back to what you were doing."

The android seemed to take another moment, then looked back to his console.

[adoctornota]

"Good point," he conceded, even as he was pulling out an empty hypospray from his medikit. "And as they say, beggars can't be choosers."

Blood sample extracted, McCoy glanced over to where the android was working. "Mister Data, would you mind running a test? " He tapped the sample. "See if this is infected with the virus." He'd normally run it himself, but that needed time they didn't have - and he'd observed Data working faster than most.

[vedran_avatar]

Trance had heard a voice say Good God, man and glanced up just in time to see him run a tricorder over Dr. Soong. She rushed over to them.

"Is everything all right?"