This is one I thought of after binging Steins;Gate and Steins;Gate 0. This is set from an alternate universe, though not for long. Therefore, it is important to know...
HISTORY IN THIS UNIVERSE IS DIFFERENT!
An example mentioned is Stalin took over after WWII, not Hitler (which you'll see down below, so don't get confused just yet). As I said though, this will switch to the Doctor Who universe. Just thought it'd be interesting to see the Doctor deal with someone clever but terrified of making mistakes with time. There will also be switches to memories of hers often, so apologies if it gets a little confusing.
Warning: Hints of torture, child neglect, abuse and PTSD-like symptoms... I got a little carried away.
"Fuel, check. Air shield, check. All systems go. Mr. Smith, is everything in order?"
A stuffed rabbit wearing a paper cap sat nearby and the little girl grinned.
"Time and year are set, Captain!" She answered herself for the rabbit, turning to the cardboard buttons she'd drawn onto the empty cabinet packaging with a crayon. "Then, buckle up! We're going back in time!"
She went to press the buttons, only for the loud slam of a door to stop her, making her flinch as voices began to shout in the other room. Hesitantly, she grabbed Mr. Smith and slowly poked her head over the top of the box. Her parents were fighting again. About her, again. It was well past her bedtime, but her mother was drunk and didn't care about her nightmares. Her father was frustrated and couldn't be home to help due to work. His frustration was quick to take hold of him though, so the little girl wrapped her arms around the rabbit tighter and sat back down in the box.
"It's all right, Mr. Smith. We'll go back in time before the dinosaurs even! Maybe then… Maybe then, everyone will be happy again."
Loud clattering came from the basement and a grease-covered face came out from under a panel of a large garden shed with a grin.
"I think I've done it. I think I've finally done it!"
The figure, a young woman, rushed past a ragged stuffed rabbit sitting on her workbench and grabbed a metal cube from a box of other metal parts.
"This is the last piece," she murmured, diving into the shed and grabbing a cable, hastily attaching it to the cube. "Come on, come on, come on," she begged, closing her eyes as she turned the top of the cube, and the inside of the shed hummed to life.
"I… I did it…" She breathed out, opening her eyes and looking around with a grin and bark of laughter. "Ah-ha! I actually did it! I created a time machine!"
Her celebration stopped abruptly as she realized something.
"Oh… I don't even know if it works."
She hurried to the smaller prototype and clasped her hands before it in prayer.
"Please, work."
She flipped a switch on the smaller box and received a satisfying click from the garden shed behind her. Laughing once more, she set an old television on the workbench and fiddled with it for a while before hooking it up to the prototype. With a hard smack to the top of the television, the screen came to life to show a live image of herself from the garden shed's perspective.
"Perfect." She smiled, flipping switches on the prototype. "Fuel, check. Shielding, check. Camouflage?" She glanced back at the shed. "Check. All systems go."
She turned her gaze to the rabbit then, patting it on the head with a soft smile.
"Are you ready, Mr. Smith?"
The rabbit didn't answer, of course, but the woman didn't mind.
"And… go."
She flipped the final switch and with a loud grinding, the garden shed vanished; the gust and noise sending her to the ground with a blink.
"Note to self: find a better way to make it depart and land silently."
She scrambled to her feet though, looking at the television and hitting it as the screen showed static.
"Come on, come on. Give me a clear picture!"
With a final hit, the static cleared, and her mouth dropped open in shock. The garden shed had landed—surprisingly unnoticed—in an alley just off the main road. Crossing in front of it were various men and women in Victorian clothing and hansom cabs being driven past.
"I-I did it… Ha… I actually did it," she breathed out, having to grab the workbench behind her as she started to feel lightheaded at her accomplishment.
She did a few more tests then, sending it even further back and attempting to send it ahead of her timeline. It hadn't phased out at all for the third test and a sigh of relief escaped her. She had never wanted to see the future, so that failure was a good thing. She brought it back and was pleased when it landed near silently. It just needed a few goes before landing and leaving silently. Like an old car warming up in cold weather. Pleased and suddenly feeling the sleepless nights catching up to her, she disconnected the prototype, shut down and locked the garden shed turned time machine, and headed upstairs to bed. Not knowing the trouble she'd end up in, in the next few weeks.
It happened in an instant. She had been called out at work and brought into another room where her boss apologized, and everything went black. Then, she woke up, dazed and memory fogged.
"Apologies, Miss Hawthorne, for the rough treatment. It was necessary. We couldn't have you resisting or knowing where you were."
"Wha… What do you want? What's going on?" She asked, trying to clear the fog in her head as she looked at the man before her.
He was older, in his mid-forties perhaps, with salt and pepper hair and a blank expression hiding behind his sunglasses and suit.
"You're clever, Miss Hawthorne. Any moron with eyes could see that, so we kept an eye on you. You work on space travel, time travel, quantum physics… it's respectable. We had hoped to recruit you before you did anything too big, and then we saw this."
He turned a laptop around and pushed it towards her. The screen showed her in her basement a few moments before the screen went to static and the picture returned—no garden shed in sight. She paled for a moment before carefully schooling her expression into an uncharacteristically blank one.
"As you can see, we've missed our opportunity, but not entirely," the man stated. "We're still offering you a position as chief of our scientific engineers."
"Why? What do you want?" She almost spat out and the man watched her for a moment before answering.
"We've already taken your machine and transported it to our labs, but you're the only one who knows how to work it, how to make more. We want you to show us how it works and provide more resources in order to better help this country," he said seriously. "I'm sure I don't need to explain to you how close we are to the brink of war with the Chinese. With this technology, we could—"
"No," she cut him off, eyes cold. "I won't help you. I didn't make this machine to change things in the past or to use as a weapon. It was made to observe, to study events in the past and make better records of them in order to learn—"
Her head snapped to the side as the man slapped her and leaned forward towards the chair she was restrained to.
"I doubt you made a vacationing device out of this, so don't lie to me," he snarled, and she closed her eyes with a slow exhale as the man straightened. "You will help us eventually. I had hoped you would just agree to help further your own goals and avoid this, but if you wish to be stubborn, then we will just do this the hard way."
He turned to two men by the door and nodded; a silent signal for them to remove the woman from the room.
"I hope you'll come to see things our way soon, Miss Hawthorne. For your sake."
She broke after two months of struggling, fighting, trying to get them to see reason. She had no chance trapped in that cold room of pain. No way to do anything, to change anything. Words meant nothing to them, so she would have to show them.
"Ready to explain now, Miss Hawthorne?" The man—Agent Rivers—questioned her and she didn't answer.
She just shoved a small notebook into his hands and stepped into the garden shed. She only hoped it would kill them in travel, having not yet put a living being inside it during flight. It had been next on her list of things to test if she hadn't been taken in by the government. Rivers had passed the notebook—the instructions on how to pilot the time machine—to the nearest scientist and stepped into the shed with her.
"Date, time and coordinates?" She asked, voice void of emotion.
He gave her a series of numbers that she input into the machine before sending it off. She was jerked across the room and her back rammed into another console before she was able to get a grip on a railing. Rivers was quicker to grab one, so he remained unharmed as the shed landed.
"Curious," he said, brushing himself off. "What changed your mind? Two months is a long time to stay silent."
She shot him a look, straightening with a cringe at the ache in her back.
"Shouting at a wall won't change anyone's mind. The only way to get you to understand is to show you how wrong you are."
Rivers let out a short chuckle that sounded more like a scoff as they headed out. He smirked upon seeing where they were, but she frowned.
"Where—"
A door opened on the other side of the room and a man stepped through. Her eyes went wide as she recognized the man's features—his cold eyes and bald head—but it was the symbols on his military jacket that really gave it away. The man's cold eyes locked onto them, but before he could get a word out, there was a loud "bang". Hawthorne jumped, eyes going wide as she looked at Rivers' smoking gun, and the man across the way cursed in Russian—falling to the floor.
"Y-You… You just…"
"Come on, time to go," Rivers said, grabbing her arm and pulling her back to the time machine, but she struggled.
"No… No! You just killed him! You killed Stalin! Y-You can't just do that! Do you know what you've done! A-All the consequences! How you've changed the future… Don't you realize—"
"That I just killed the man who killed thousands?" Rivers said back, voice calm. "The man who assisted in genocide, started World War II and has been doing nuke testing? Oh, a future without Stalin. What a horrible thing," he scoffed sarcastically, shoving her to the console. "Take us back."
She hesitated, but did so, head aching with the possibilities of the changed future. Yet, a part of her hoped the changed world would help them see how poorly things would turn out if they continued. They stepped out to applause from the other government workers and Rivers jeered down at her.
"See? No apocalypse, no universal destruction, nothing." He snapped his fingers and two men took hold of her. "Send her home. She's given us what we needed but place her under house arrest. No leaving. All necessities will be delivered. All phone and communication lines cut off." He smirked at her stunned face. "Welcome to the government, Miss Hawthorne."
It hurt. Physically hurt. She wasn't sure what was wrong other than… well, everything. They had kept going. Back in time, trying to go forward in time. The changes hadn't appeared so significant at first, but she could tell. She wasn't sure how, but she could remember the timeline before things changed. She knew the differences now. Everything was wrong, and she was the only one who knew.
She hadn't noticed at first, with the death of Stalin being so much of a shock. She hadn't noticed they were speaking German instead of English until she was forced home and saw the news—heard the news. After that, the changes became more obvious. A man named Hitler had taken over where Stalin had been, leading the world into a time with German as the main language. Then, came World War III, decades early and by the Japanese, Africans, Spanish and Italians instead of the Chinese. Space travel was set back dozens of years, hover-crafts were invented before planes, and a race of AIs had begun to surface demanding rights. The universe was falling apart, and she was right at the center of it.
She felt she had to do something to make it right and, after many years of silence to get the guards and cameras removed, she finally had a way to accomplish her goal: to reset time. They hadn't taken the prototype and with some fiddling—and destruction of a number of electronics for parts—she had used it as the base for a second time machine. It was more fragile than the original and she didn't expect it to last more than one or two trips, but that was all she needed to make things right. She just needed an opportunity to stop this mess before it happened, and this would be her only chance.
She set the date, time and coordinates, taking one last look around her home before turning to Mr. Smith and patting the stuffed rabbit on the head.
"Goodbye, Mr. Smith."
She placed her hand on the machine and set it off, cringing at the pain it sent through her body. The prototype had very little to shield her on the trip, but she wasn't expecting to make it back. After all, this version of her wouldn't exist at the end of this. She landed harshly, collapsing on the ground in pain but forcing herself up onto her feet to face the stunned person standing across from her, beside a garden shed.
"Don't," she said hastily, leaning up against the garage wall as her younger self stared in shocked fascination. "Don't finish it. You can't."
Her younger self looked her over with a serious frown. "What happened?"
"The government. They're watching. Everything." She shook her head. "I can't explain but destroy it. They can't get a hold of it. It's too soon."
Her younger self hesitated but soon nodded, moving to grab an ax up on the wall until there was a rumble and a garden shed appeared in the opposite corner of the room. Hawthorne panicked, eyes going wide as her younger self paused in uncertainty. Rivers stepped out of the shed and Hawthorne took a step away from the wall, an angry expression on her face.
"You don't know what you're doing. What you've done. You've changed so many things you don't even realize."
"And this world is a better place because of it," Rivers stated, reaching into his suit as Hawthorne shook her head.
"The future is ruined and I'm going to make it right."
She rushed to grab the ax as a "bang" rang out and stopped her in her tracks. Red blossomed on her shirt and her face twisted in pain as she fell to her knees.
"I'm sorry, Miss Hawthorne," Rivers said, lowering his pistol. "But I can't let you do that."
She glared at him from over her shoulder, pressing a hand to the swiftly bleeding wound in her gut as the agent turned his weapon to the other woman in the room. "And I apologize, Miss Hawthorne, but I can't risk you planning the same."
"No!"
Her younger self was shot through the head, dead before she hit the ground. Hawthorne clenched her fist, her eyes tightly closed as her headache flared at the paradox. Already, her presence was fading due to the murder of her younger self, but she wouldn't let him get away with it. With one last burst of energy, she threw herself into the garden shed—locking the door and struggling to put coordinates into the prototype still in her hands.
"Just come out, Miss Hawthorne," Rivers called. "It's over. There's nothing left that you can do, so don't make this harder than it needs to be."
"Shut up," she snapped, grinning as the prototype hummed to life. "You should have read my papers more thoroughly."
"What are you doing?" Rivers questioned, starting to grow concerned.
"Do you know what happens when you put a time machine inside another time machine?"
Rivers grew even more panicked, tugging on the door now. "Hawthorne! What are you doing!"
"I hypothesized… in one of my papers…" She grunted out, sliding to the ground, out of breath from her injury. "That there were a few possible answers. The main one being the cancellation of the existence of both… trapping them in a never-ending loop of existence a-and non…"
"Hawthorne!"
It was too late. The garden shed vanished. The prototype gone. Young Rebecca Hawthorne's existence was erased. Rivers was reset to a life without her being surveyed. Time was redone. She had done what she set out to do, but she would never expect that her hypothesis would have one more element.
Time had stopped moving for a minute or twenty. She wasn't sure, but for some time the pain in her stomach had gone, directions had been meaningless, thoughts that had once been in her head were missing. Then, it all came back. Pain, anger, sorrow, aches and bruising. Time had been restored and she had been thrust out and dropped in an alleyway. Both time machines were gone, yet she was somewhere—alive and breathing. How?
She looked around wearily, absentmindedly wondering if a hospital was nearby as she glanced down at her blood-soaked shirt. She wouldn't last much longer, but her mind wouldn't stop spinning—theories as to how she was alive, what happened and how she ended up in another location buzzed in her head. She couldn't connect the dots though, not in the shape she was in. And as darkness started to pull her in, she almost gave up. I destroyed a whole world… so many people died because of me… I deserve this, don't I?
As she lost consciousness, however, she missed seeing a blue police box appear and a man stepping out. He looked into the distance at a tall building with a frown and turned to leave the alleyway if he hadn't spotted her. The moment he saw blood, he rushed to her side and checked the wound with a grimace.
"Oh, what have you gotten into?" He murmured, scooping her up and rushing her to the building he'd been looking at before: Royal Hope Hospital.
She woke up after surgery in a dazed confusion, unsure where she was once more or how she got there. A man sat at her bedside, arms crossed over his chest and breathing softly—sleeping, it seemed. Did he find me? She wondered, feeling tired once more as a depressing thought drifted through her mind. Why? He should have left me…
When she woke again, the man was gone but his coat had been left behind—draped over his empty seat. It hardly mattered when the doctor came to check on her and began questioning her about the gunshot wound. Not knowing where or when she was, she feared giving out her name and claimed amnesia. It was the easiest option for her to not raise suspicion or end up being a permanent fixture in the Psychiatric Department. The man had returned at the end of the questioning, getting a quick rundown from the doctor before joining her by her bed.
"Hello!" He grinned, causing Hawthorne to smile a little in return. "You gave me quite the scare, lying in that alleyway like that."
"Sorry," she apologized, already liking the happy-go-lucky man. "Didn't mean to get shot, I'm sure."
He cracked another smile at that, sitting in his chair and nodding at her. "So, how are you feeling?"
"Sore, like I was shot." She shrugged with a cringe. "Pain meds are decent enough."
"And?" He urged, not talking about physical well-being now.
Hawthorne wasn't sure how to answer him. Mentally, she was still reeling over what she'd done and how she was still alive. She'd been prepared to die when she brought the two time machines together, so living at this point felt almost like a punishment. Now, she had to consciously live with her decisions and the memory of the consequences.
"Lost," she finally admitted, not looking at him and turning her gaze out the window. "I don't know where I am, when it is, how I got here. And I've been shot. I upset someone, but who was more in the wrong? Could have been me. I might have deserved it."
I do deserve it. I destroyed an entire future. People died. I died. Rivers might have been a bad guy, but I started the whole thing. I made the time machine. For my own selfish reasons. We weren't ready. The human species wasn't ready for something like that—something like time travel. I could feel it too. Every time they did something, the world shifted off course like a rocket crashing before it gets off the landing pad. Repeatedly. Digging another nail into my mind, screaming at me.
"Look what they've done! It's wrong! Everything is wrong!"
I have to fix it. It's all my fault. Why? Why did I build that damn machine? Why didn't I think of the consequences? Of what could happen if they got a hold of it? We're all so greedy. Tainting time with selfish events and desires that should never be.
"We're going to do it, Mr. Smith! We'll go back in time, back to when dinosaurs roamed the Earth…! Maybe then, mommy and daddy will be happy…"
Oh, what have I done?
"I'm sorry, Miss Hawthorne…"
"Do you know what happens when you put a time machine inside another time machine?"
"…but I can't let you do that."
A hand grabbed a hold of hers and she flinched, grimacing as it sent pain up her side. The man kept hold though, having seen how she'd shut down in her own thoughts for a while.
"A bad person wouldn't look so torn about things like that."
She cracked a small smile at that. "I suppose. What's your name?"
"Ah, sorry! John. John Smith." He smiled, holding out a hand for her to shake. "But you can call me the Doctor."
She raised a brow. "It would get a bit confusing though, don't you think? Being in a hospital and all."
He blinked, opening his mouth and closing it. "A-Ah, good point."
"Mr. Smith it is," Hawthorne mused, thinking about that old rabbit that kept watch over her for so many years. "I had a stuffed rabbit named that."
"Did you now?"
She realized then, that she'd already forgotten her claim of amnesia while talking with Mr. Smith. He seemed to realize this too but didn't press the issue for now—knowing that she probably had a good reason for her lie.
"It's a very common name," he continued, hoping to get her relaxed once more.
She did but kept up some barriers between them after that—not wanting to make the same mistake with one of the actual doctors. He offered to stay with her during her stay there surprisingly, however she felt he had other motives since he'd disappear for a few hours while she slept. She didn't mind though. It was nice to have something to keep her grounded to where she was, especially since the nightmares of what happened often disoriented her.
She tried to focus on her physical therapy to regain her strength, but she also searched for more information about where she had ended up, to distract herself. The year turned out to be 2006 and she was smack dab in the middle of London, England at the Royal Hope Hospital. It wasn't too far from 2157, but Hawthorne felt that it was very different from the time she knew. There was quite a bit of advanced technology that was missing. She had yet to see any hovercars, holograms, or AI-driven androids.
She felt more and more out of place the longer she stayed but couldn't find it in her to just leave. She had nowhere to go and the more differences she witnessed between this time and hers, the more she wondered if she was even on the same plane of existence as before. Could she be in a parallel universe? If so, how? And exactly how different was this one in comparison to her own? Would she bump into a version of herself? Would her mere presence in this universe change things at all?
She couldn't shake off these thoughts and concerns, leading to her nightmares growing more terrorizing. Her death repeating in her mind. Her body falling through a void into another world where her very existence could mean another disaster like before. One world falling apart only for another to fall in its wake due to her arrival. Fires burning, people screaming, yelling that it was all her fault.
Her only comfort was John Smith. While he disappeared for hours at a time, he always seemed to know when she needed company. He would be there when she woke up from a nightmare and would just ramble on about the most interesting things. She didn't have to sit up or face him, but he seemed to sense the moment she'd open her eyes and would talk about edible ball bearings, life on other planets, a day spent with Charles Dickens. It made him sound mad, but it was a welcome change to what she was used to.
"She's weird! She doesn't play or talk with the other kids, just that stupid rabbit! Something's wrong with her, don't you see it!"
"Well, what do you want me to do about it! I've tried everything, and I hardly see you taking any initiative!"
"Oh, pinning this on me now?"
"That's not—"
"Ah, Miss Hawthorne. A very good morning to you. How are you today?"
She blinked out of her daydream to Mr. Stoker—one of the doctors who had been seeing to her care.
"I'm all right, considering," she replied, forcing a small smile at him and the group of med students.
I forgot that they found my ID in my things the other day. Shame they got nothing out of it. I either don't exist in this universe or my other self is busy elsewhere.
"Rebecca Hawthorne: admitted two weeks ago with a gunshot wound to the abdomen and amnesia. Jones, why don't you look her over and see how she's doing?"
"Oh! Sorry, am I interrupting?" John asked, having returned from his most recent venture—grabbing a snack apparently.
"You're all right, John," Hawthorne answered, resisting a shiver as the young med student pressed a stethoscope to her chest. "Just another check-up."
Jones looked up as Mr. Smith sat down though, pausing briefly before speaking to him.
"That wasn't very clever, leaving your girlfriend and running around outside."
"Sorry?" He questioned, opening his bottle of water. "Girlfriend?"
Jones gestured to Hawthorne and she blinked in surprise as the man shook his head.
"Oh, no! We're not… I'm the one who found her, is all. Just keeping her company until she's better."
Jones didn't look convinced but went on to check the wound on her side.
"And I suppose that wasn't you this morning either? On Chancellor Street? You came up to me and took your tie off."
"Really? What did I do that for?" He questioned, earning a slightly curious look from Hawthorne as Jones shrugged.
"I don't know. You just did."
"Not me," he argued. "I was here, keeping an eye on her. Ask the nurses."
"Well, that's weird, cos it looked like you. Have you got a brother?"
"No, not anymore. Just me," he answered, sounding almost sad to Hawthorne.
Not anymore?
"As time passes, I grow ever more infirm and weary, Miss Jones," Stoker cut in, making her wince.
"Sorry. Right." She looked to Hawthorne lightly pressing on areas around the wound. "Does this hurt?"
"No."
She shifted. "Here?"
"A little."
Jones nodded, looking at the bandages for a moment. "Any fever, dizziness, spikes of sharp pain?"
Hawthorne shook her head. "No, only when I twist or sit up, which is expected." She cracked a smile. "I was shot."
Jones nodded again and pulled down her hospital gown. "Your bandages should probably be changed again and with some more physical therapy, you should be good to go by tomorrow."
Mr. Smith caught the small frown on Hawthorne's face at that, keeping an eye on her as Mr. Stoker reached for her chart.
"Good work, Jones, except you rather failed basic techniques by not consulting first with the patient's chart nor what may have caused her amnesia."
He dropped the chart abruptly as he received a static shock and the others looked a little concerned.
"That happened to me this morning," Jones said as another med student spoke up.
"I had the same thing on the door handle."
"And me, on the lift.
"That's only to be expected," Stoker said, clearing his throat. "There's a thunderstorm moving in and lightning is a form of static electricity, as was first proven by… Anyone?"
"Benjamin Franklin," both Hawthorne and Mr. Smith replied, earning a small nod from Stoker.
"Correct."
Mr. Smith grinned. "My mate, Ben. That was a day and a half. I got rope burns off that kite and then I got soaked."
"Quite…" Stoker muttered, leading the group on and Mr. Smith turned to Hawthorne.
"You all right?"
"Hm?"
He settled back in his chair, pulling a hidden jello cup from his coat and passing it to her.
"You didn't look very happy to be told you could leave by tomorrow."
"Where would I go?" She questioned him, and he hummed.
"We can look for your family if you want. I don't mind helping."
"I don't believe I have any family," she answered, having not really stuck to the amnesia lie very well around him.
He probably already knows anyway.
He contemplated that for a moment before responding. "You could always come with me."
She shot him a look and he shrugged.
"You don't have to, but you're interesting, Hawthorne. It's not every day I save someone who's been shot and claims amnesia."
Ah, so he does know.
"I don't like questions," she muttered, and he watched her seriously.
"Because you were shot."
She looked at him sorrowfully. "I'm not a good person. I'm not who you think."
He leaned forward. "Then, show me, because I've gotten to know you these last few weeks, Hawthorne. Now, you may be tortured by something that happened in your past, you may have been shot by someone for making a wrong decision, but I don't believe that you're a bad person. And I'm willing to prove that to you if you'll let me."
She hesitated, not really knowing what to think about the offer he was giving her, but he pat her leg as he stood.
"Just think about it, okay? You don't have to if you don't want to." He smiled, gesturing to the door. "I'll be back in a moment."
Hawthorne nodded with a small wave as he bounded away, leaving her with a lot to think about.
Go with him? Just walk out the door with a man I met only a few weeks ago? And what did he mean, interesting? I sighed heavily, gazing out the window beside me idly as the rain poured outside. Am I mad for considering it? I literally have nothing, as far as I know, so going with him might be nice. A distraction from this universe and my past. I was convinced now, that I'd ended up in another time line on a parallel world and, as happy as I would like to be about this scientific impossibility, I was still concerned over its well-being with a new, un-thought-of addition. Namely, me. Hold on, is that… My eyes narrowed at the window. Is the rain… going up?
I didn't get the chance to rise from my hospital bed and find out though, because the entire building began to abruptly shake. Now, I'd never been a fan of earthquakes. It was a part of the reason why I moved away from the West Coast in my other world. Tornados? Climb in the bath. Tsunamis and flooding? Go to higher ground. Blizzard? Stay indoors. Earthquake? Good luck.
I tumbled out of my bed, cringing and clutching at my injured side as I crawled in the small space between my bed and the wall for cover. G-Go away. Please. S-Stop! God, I can't stand this. P-Please stop! I… I don't want to die. I nearly sobbed, hands covering my head and eyes clenched shut. It was the first time in a long time that I actually found a reason to live, and that reason was—
"Hey, it's all right, Hawthorne. It stopped. You're safe. Haw—Becky. Becky, take slow breaths. You're hyperventilating."
The warm hand on my back slowly calmed me down and drew me out of my hiding place. John gave me a once over, concern shining in his brown eyes before he managed a small smile.
"Not a fan of earthquakes?"
"N-Not… really." I breathed out, trying to relax now that the building had stopped swaying.
"What would you do if I told you it wasn't an earthquake?" He asked suddenly, voice serious but eyes filled with curiosity.
His question did the trick though. I quickly focused on a solution—an explanation—and ceased my earlier panic a lot faster than I would have otherwise. Not an earthquake? Building collapse? No. People wouldn't have stopped panicking. The damage would be extensive. So… what? I then remembered what I thought I saw and something slipped into place.
"Does… Does it have to do with the rain?" I asked, looking to the now darkened window. "It was going up… What… Why is it dark?"
He grinned, holding out a hand to help me onto my feet. "Asking all the right questions. Would you like to see?"
I nodded, curiosity overwhelming as he led me to the window to look out and find the hospital… was now on the moon.
"All right now, everyone back to bed," a familiar voice called out and I barely gave Jones a glance as she herded people back to bed. "We've got an emergency, but we'll sort it out. Don't worry."
I reached for the window latch, stopping only as my head ached and one of the other med students grabbed my wrist.
"Don't! We'll lose all the air."
I frowned, blinking away the odd image in my head of Jones opening the window.
"Windows are hardly air-proof," I argued with the woman. "We should have all died within the first ninety seconds of landing on the moon without proper protection."
Jones stepped over. "She's right. If the air was going to get sucked out, it would have happened straight away, but it didn't. So, how come?"
John spoke up from behind me. "Very good point. Brilliant, in fact. What was your name?"
Jones blinked. "Martha."
"And it was Jones, wasn't it?" He asked, getting a nod. "Well then, Martha Jones, Rebecca Hawthorne, the question is: how are we still breathing?"
I opened my mouth, half a dozen theories spinning through my mind demanding to be let free, but the other med student spoke frantically.
"We can't be."
"Obviously, we are, so don't waste my time," John—no, the Doctor said harshly. "Martha, what have we got? Is there a balcony on this floor, or a veranda or—"
"By the patients' lounge, yeah."
The Doctor grinned, looking at us both. "Fancy going out?"
"Okay," she said without hesitation as I nodded hastily.
"Oh, absolutely."
"We might die."
"I don't care," I admitted, earning a strange look from him as Martha cut in too.
"We might not."
"Good." The Doctor smiled once more before passing by the other med student. "Not her. She'd hold us up. You too, Becky."
"Hawthorne," I corrected, having grown used to him calling me that over my more feminine nickname. "But it's got to be a barrier, right? Keeping the air in? We didn't just pop up on the moon by accident. Someone or something brought us here for a reason."
He glanced at me with a large grin. "Ooh, excellent theory. Where has this Hawthorne been?"
I grinned back, his excitement contagious, as Martha began to question me.
"But how do you figure? Why bring us here?"
I shrugged as we approached the doors out to the veranda of the patients' lounge. "I don't have all the answers, but they need this building for something otherwise they would have destroyed it. So, that means they're probably looking for a living thing since they gave us air. Narrows things down a bit. Police, bounty hunters, concerned search party, you name it.
What I want to know is, how they got us here and who managed to do it. The people in this universe at this time seem unable to do interplanetary teleport, so… aliens? My heart sped up in excitement and a twinge of fear. Extraterrestrials hadn't existed where I was from. Or, if they had, they kept quite a bit of distance between them and us. Past the closest fifteen galaxies, anyway. Feeling little to no caution at all, I was the first out the doors, whereas Martha and the Doctor took their time.
"We've got air. How does that work?" Martha asked as I looked for a small rock.
"Just be glad it does," the Doctor answered as I chucked the rock.
I cringed at the pain the action caused and at the headache that came with it.
The Doctor threw a rock, bouncing it off—
"It's a forcefield or a barrier," I chirped, mind going a million miles a minute as the headache faded. "Oh, that is brilliant! What's it made of? How did they manage to get it set up without anyone noticing, much less teleport us to the moon so quickly without much damage internally? Can we get closer?"
The two blinked in surprise and I realized I had cut in during a conversation they were having.
"A-Ah… Sorry. I'm not…I'm not used to having people around," I apologized lamely, used to being able to talk to myself or my rabbit in either the empty lab at work or my garage.
"Oh, no! That's fine. That was…" The Doctor looked me over in pleasant surprise. "That was brilliant, really. Lots of questions. Love that."
I rubbed the back of my neck with a sheepish smile as he cleared his throat.
"I, uh, wouldn't get closer though. We're not even sure who's coming."
"Extraterrestrial," Martha piped up. "It's got to be. I don't know, a few years ago that would have sounded mad, but these days? That spaceship flying into Big Ben, Christmas, those Cybermen things. I had a cousin, Adeola. She worked at Canary Warf. She never came home."
"I'm sorry," the Doctor apologized as I tried to wrap my head around what she'd just said.
Aliens. Actual aliens? Oh, I might like this world yet. There was a loud rumble that cut through our air bubble and my mouth dropped open in awe as large ships landed a small distance away—depositing a number of alien creatures.
"Aliens…" Martha breathed, mimicking my earlier thoughts. "That's aliens. Real proper aliens."
"Judoon."
I turned to the Doctor curiously, wondering what he meant, but he led us back in to look down at the aliens as they stormed the bottom floor.
"Oh, look down there. You've got a little shop. I like a little shop." The Doctor smiled, earning one from me.
"Me too. They're handy in a pinch."
"Never mind that," Martha cut in, turning our attention back to the aliens. "What are Judoon?"
"They're like police. Well, police for hire. They're more like interplanetary thugs."
"Mercenaries?" I questioned, earning a nod. "Mercenaries on the search for a living thing. Why the moon?"
"Neutral territory," the Doctor explained. "According to galactic law, they've got no jurisdiction over the Earth and they isolated it. The rain, lightning? That was them using an H2O scoop."
H2O scoop? How does that work? Alter the atmosphere, using the rain water and electricity to upend—
"What are you going on about, 'galactic law'?" Martha cut my thoughts short. "Where'd you get that from? If they're police, are we under arrest? Are we trespassing on the moon or something?"
She either hadn't heard my theory or pointedly ignored it, but my mind was stuck on one of the questions she'd asked.
"Where'd you get that from?"
Is he…? I looked down at the large, upright rhino-esque aliens below and then turned to the Doctor. Is he an alien?
"Do we look like you or do you look like us?" I blurted out, and his head whipped around to me in shock as Martha frowned in puzzlement.
"What are you going on about?"
The Doctor just grinned, not looking away from me. "They're making a catalog. That means they're after something non-human, which is very bad for me," he said, eyes sparkling. "And you look like me."
"Oh, you're kidding," Martha scoffed in disbelief, making him raise a brow at her. "Don't be ridiculous. Stop looking at me like that."
"Oh, that is brilliant," I breathed out and he stood, still smiling.
"Come on then."
The Doctor typed away on a computer screen in search of what the Judoon were looking for but couldn't help feeling Hawthorne's stare as she fidgeted nearby.
"You have questions?" He asked, a bit glad that Martha had gone to check on the Judoon.
"You're an alien," she said simply.
"Is that all right?" He asked, glancing at her from over his shoulder.
"It's amazing." She smiled brightly, something the Doctor was glad for. "I never thought I'd ever meet aliens and now I've seen two vastly different ones."
His brows furrowed. "You didn't see the Cybermen or the space ship that hit Big Ben?"
Her smile fell quickly, and the Doctor became suspicious.
"Hawthorne?"
She glanced at him, eyes suddenly looking sad. "You wouldn't believe me."
He went to question her further, but Martha chose that inopportune moment to return with news on the Judoon.
"They've reached the third floor." She frowned, catching sight of the tool he was using on the computer. "What's that thing?"
The Doctor hesitated before turning away from Hawthorne and continuing his work.
"Sonic Screwdriver."
"Well, if you're not going to answer me properly—"
"No, really, it is. It's a screwdriver and it's sonic. Look," he said, pressing the button and making it buzz—not missing the fascinated look on Hawthorne's face.
"What else have you got, a laser spanner?" Martha scoffed, not taking him seriously.
"I did, but it was stolen by Emily Pankhurst, cheeky woman."
"What did she want with it?" Hawthorne asked, and the Doctor shrugged as she went on. "And does it use sonic waves to alter the molecular make-up of the objects you're using it on? I don't see many buttons or switches, so how do you get it to work the way you want it? Voice control is out since you haven't said a word. So… thought control?"
The two openly gaped at her for a moment before she realized the ramble she'd gone on and flushed bright red in embarrassment.
"Ah… sorry. Again, I'm used to being left alone with my thoughts, so I tend to verbalize them without expecting answers. We should, um, continue."
The Doctor though hardly wanted to do that. "Now, hold on a second. I knew you were clever, but that was next-level clever. That was genius! How did you work that out? What do you do for work to have figured all that out? Scientists must love you!"
"Um, well, they didn't quite love me," she responded awkwardly, stunned by his praise. "I was a scientist though. I studied astrophysics and philosophy on interstellar, interdimensional and time travel. I-I only wrote a few papers though!" She hastily waved off. "I-I did most of my work at home, in the lab, or…" Her expression faltered. "O-Or for the government."
"You were a scientist?" The Doctor questioned, intrigued by her use of past tense, but the wince she made at his question drew his suspicion once more.
"Things… didn't work out well…" She muttered, and Martha jumped in.
"Hold on, I thought you had amnesia."
Hawthorne chuckled awkwardly. "A clever lie to avoid questions on my injury. I upset someone and would prefer not doing so again."
Martha frowned, making to continue questioning her, but the Doctor was quick to draw her attention away from the suddenly sheepish woman.
"Oh, this computer!" He shouted, hitting it. "The Judoon must have locked it down. Judoon platoon upon the moon. Because I was just travelling past. I swear, I was just wandering. I wasn't looking for trouble, honestly, I wasn't, but I noticed these plasma coils around the hospital, and that lightning, that's a plasma coil," he explained to them at Hawthorne's curious tilt of the head. "Been building up for two days now, so I checked in. I thought something was going on inside. It turns out the plasma coils were the Judoon up above."
"But what were they looking for?" Martha asked.
"Something that looks human but isn't."
"Like you," Hawthorne concluded. "But not you."
"Exactly."
"Haven't they got a photo?" Martha brought up.
"Well, might be a shape-changer." He shrugged.
"Whatever it is, can't you just leave the Judoon to find it?"
He shook his head. "If they declare the hospital guilty of harboring a fugitive, they'll sentence it to execution."
"All of us?"
"Oh, yes. If I can find this thing first—Oh! You see? They're thick!" He shouted, hitting the computer again and startling Hawthorne. "Judoon are thick! They are completely thick! They wiped the records. Oh, that's clever."
"And counter-productive," Hawthorne muttered, leaning over towards the Doctor to look at the screen. "Have you tried searching for a back-up?"
"Clever with computers too?" He questioned, sliding over to let her have a shot.
"I've dabbled in computer coding, but making them is more entertaining," She hummed with a smirk, typing away as Martha scowled at the smile the Doctor sent back.
"What are we looking for?" She asked, hoping to help too.
"I don't know," the Doctor admitted. "Say, any patient admitted in the past week with unusual symptoms."
"Alien, Miss Jones," Hawthorne mused. "Anything odd or out of the ordinary. Two hearts, five limbs, odd smell—"
"Odd smell?" The Doctor questioned, and she shrugged.
"Just keeping the possibilities open. I always knew aliens would be diverse. How diverse was always up in the air. The chances of having an alien species exactly like ours though is at least one in seven-hundred quintillion. The possibilities are endless, really."
"Oh, I like you." He grinned as Martha scowled.
"I'll go ask Mr. Stoker. He might know."
She left, and the Doctor took that opportunity to answer some questions that had been running through his mind.
"Time travel? What got you interested in that?"
A fond smile appeared on Hawthorne's face, though the Doctor felt that it was a bit sad.
"Everyone wants to go out of the time they live in for one reason or another. For me, it was more than a want."
"Why?"
"Personal reasons," she said solemnly, shutting him out. "Though, I felt the records of human history were never done right. Too many instances were missing, too many events were twisted with personal feelings put into written word. I wanted to be the one to go back in time and write about things the way they were. They were real, not just stories."
"That's… an interesting way to think about it," he mused. "What about the future?"
She shook her head. "Not interested. No one should know what's going to happen. They'd just go back and try to change it…" Her expression faltered as she paused briefly in her typing.
The Doctor caught it again, knowing something had happened, but not what. "I sometimes wonder what's going on in that head of yours when you make expressions like that," he said softly, and she cracked a small smile.
"Maybe I'll tell you about it one day, Doctor."
He grinned at that—both, her calling him "Doctor" and making a silent agreement to go with him after this mess. Oh, won't she be surprised? The screen began to pop up records then, and he cheered, giving her a friendly pat on the back.
"You did it! Come on, let's go get Martha."
They barely made it into the hall before said med student practically barreled them down.
"Hawthorne's restored the back-up!" He said, the same time Martha spoke.
"I found her!"
"You did what?" He blinked as a man in a black motorcycle helmet stomped towards them threateningly. "Run!"
The three hurried into radiology and the Doctor shut the door behind them, sonicking the x-ray as he ordered the other two behind the protective glass in search of the "on" switch. The man on the other side of the door pounded on it and broke through just as Martha and Hawthorne found the button.
"Now!"
The machine went off and the man fell to the ground as it shut down—leaving just the Doctor standing.
"What did you do?" Martha asked in shock.
"Increased the radiation by five thousand percent. Killed him dead."
"Killed him?" Hawthorne breathed out, glancing at the body on the ground as her hand quivered.
I did that.
"Well, not really." The Doctor shrugged. "It's just a Slab. They're called 'Slabs.' Basic slave drones. Solid leather all the way through, sort of like golems."
Hawthorne relaxed slightly, rubbing at her head to rid her of the small headache and image of the Doctor saying the same thing with no shoes on.
"You increased the radiation?" Martha questioned. "Isn't that going to kill you?"
"Nah, it's only roentgen radiation. We used to play with roentgen bricks in the nursery. It's safe for you to come out," he said then, waving them over and they stepped out from behind the protective glass. "I've absorbed it all. All I need to do is expel it. If I concentrate, I can shake the radiation out of my body and into one spot. It's in my left shoe. Here we go, here we go. Easy does it."
He hopped around on one foot, much to Hawthorne's amusement, before tossing his shoe in a radiation bin.
"Done."
"You're completely mad," Martha breathed.
"You're right. I look daft with one shoe," he said, tossing his other shoe and wiggling his toes. "Barefoot on the moon."
Hawthorne took a moment to frown down at his feet, remembering that image from a few minutes ago, before looking at the Doctor. "You can endo and ethnothermically absorb radiation?"
The Doctor winked. "Maybe. Two hearts too, if that's not alien enough for you."
"You're kidding..."
"What about this?" Martha asked, kneeling to the Slab. "It was that woman, Miss Finnegan. It was working for her, just like a servant."
The Doctor wasn't listening though, pulling his destroyed sonic from the x-ray machine sadly.
"My sonic screwdriver…"
Martha hadn't noticed. "She was one of the patients, but—"
"Oh, no. My sonic screwdriver."
"She had a straw like some kind of vampire."
"I loved my sonic screwdriver."
"Can it be fixed?" Hawthorne asked, concerned as well, but Martha shouted to get their attention.
"Doctor!"
He passed the sonic to Hawthorne and grinned at Martha. "Sorry. You called me Doctor."
"Anyway?" Martha complained. "Miss Finnegan is the alien. She was drinking Mr. Stoker's blood."
"Funny time to take a snack. You'd think she'd be hiding."
Hawthorne hummed. "You said it was a shape-shifter? Would it have to change internally as well to get past scans?"
The Doctor's mouth dropped open. "That's too… Yes! Internal shape-shifter. She wasn't drinking blood, she was assimilating it. Genius, Hawthorne! If she can assimilate Mister Stoker's blood, mimic the biology, she'll register as human. We've got to find her and show the Judoon."
"What if she's already been scanned as human?" Hawthorne questioned. "Shouldn't we have a back-up to reveal her? Is there a time limit on how long she can appear human?"
"Depends on the species and how much she drank. Don't worry. I'll think up another plan." He smiled, musing her hair as they went out into the hall, only to see another Slab heading their way.
The Doctor was quick to hide them behind a water dispenser as it changed directions and walked past.
"That's the thing about Slabs. They always travel in pairs."
"What about you?" Martha asked.
"What about me, what?"
"Haven't you got back-up? Another partner other than Hawthorne?"
Hawthorne pointed to herself in confusion as the Doctor corrected her.
"Oh, no. Hawthorne and I just met."
"Seriously? So, you're on your own?"
The Doctor groaned. "Oh, humans. We're stuck on the moon running out of air with Judoon and a blood-sucking criminal, and you're asking personal questions?" He shook his head, standing. "Come on."
"I like that. 'Humans.' I'm still not convinced you're an alien," Martha scoffed, just in time for them to round the corner into a scanning Judoon.
"Non-human," it grunted as Martha gaped.
"Oh, my God. You really are."
"And again," the Doctor groaned as the group broke into a run—barely dodging the shots fired at them.
They reached a corridor and the Doctor slowed as he looked around at the people collapsed on the ground.
"They've done this floor. Come on. The Judoon are logical and just a little bit thick. They won't go back to check a floor they've checked already… If we're lucky," he said, not noticing the pale Hawthorne lagging behind as Martha knelt to her fellow med student.
"How much oxygen is there?"
"Not enough for all these people," the woman answered, drawing the Doctor's attention to them. "We're going to run out."
"How are you feeling?" He asked Martha, remembering that he had two human people with him. "Are you all right?"
Martha cracked a smile. "I'm running on adrenaline."
"Welcome to my world." He grinned back, turning. "And you, Hawthorne?"
The woman didn't answer, or rather, couldn't. She leaned heavily against a wall, doubled over with a hand clasped around her side, hyperventilating.
"Hawthorne!" The Doctor rushed towards her, quickly trying to calm her. "Hawthorne, deep breaths. Tell me what's going on. Breathe, dammit!"
"Doctor!" Martha scolded him, leading Hawthorne to the ground and pressing her head between her knees. "Shouting isn't going to help. She's having a panic attack. We need to know what triggered it."
He pulled a hand through his hair, jaw tight as he wondered if asking her to come with him might have been a mistake. She… She can't handle it… He saw her hand then and realization dawned on him.
"She was shot."
"What!" Martha panicked, but the Doctor waved her off.
"No, no. Not now. Her injury! I think her being chased and shot at by the Judoon may have triggered her to relive whatever happened to get her hurt initially."
There was a crash and screams from down the hall and the Doctor grimaced, looking around and spotting the MRI at the far end of the building.
"She's as clever as me, almost," he murmured, taking a glance at the slowly calming Hawthorne as she winced in pain, before turning to Martha. "Martha, stay here with Hawthorne. I need time. You've got to hold them up."
"How do I do that?" She questioned anxiously, and the Doctor stood with her, placing his hands on her shoulders.
"Just forgive me for this. It could save a thousand lives. It means nothing. Honestly, nothing."
He kissed her before pulling away, giving Hawthorne a pat on the head.
"Hang in there, Hawthorne," he muttered before running off.
"T-That was nothing?" Martha breathed out once he was gone.
She shook her head, kneeling back down the Hawthorne.
"Hey, pull it together, Hawthorne," she murmured. "I may not know what happened to you, but… the Doctor doesn't want to see you like this. You're obviously clever and… I hate to admit it, but he needs you right now. I can hold off the Judoon, but I can't figure him out. You need to calm down though. There's little oxygen to begin with." She sighed, seeing that Hawthorne was trying, but struggling. "Have you… Have you had panic attacks before? Often?"
She gave a shaky nod and Martha took a deep breath, looking over her shoulder as there was another crash—closer this time.
"Okay, okay. What did you do to help? There has to be something."
"I-I had… a stuffed rabbit," Hawthorne breathed out, shaking. "Mr. Smith."
"Well, I don't have—Wait." She spotted a pillow in the hall and ran to bring it back. "Will this work?"
Hawthorne took it just as the Judoon rounded the corner. Martha winced, looking briefly at Hawthorne before heading over to face the aliens with as much confidence as she could manage. This was her chance to impress the Doctor. She couldn't let him down now.
"What's the point! She keeps coming back a disaster and the teachers keep calling me out of work to deal with it! Just home school her!"
"She doesn't listen to me! To anything! What the hell do you want me to do about it! You're not the only one who's busy, you know! She's your kid too!"
"Well, maybe I don't want her to be!"
It's okay, Mr. Smith… I'm all right. I always knew… I just want to get away… Climb into my magic box and run away, back in time. Anywhere, anywhen.
Arms tightened around the pillow as her heartbeat slowly faded from her ears.
They'll be happy then, won't they, Mr. Smith? If I'm gone, then… Then nothing terrible would have happened. History wouldn't have changed, people wouldn't have died, I'd be free. I am free.
Hawthorne took a deep breath, straightening and turning her head to where Martha was facing the Judoon.
"Hang in there, Hawthorne."
"I hate to admit it, but he needs you right now."
She pushed herself to her feet, glancing back at the Judoon, and took off running. He needs me. Somebody needs me. She burst into the MRI room, startling the older woman who had been sucking the Doctor's blood. Hawthorne wasn't sure what to do as the man fell lifelessly to the ground, but the woman—Miss Finnegan—was more annoyed at the interruption than anything.
"Grab her," she snapped, the Slab grabbing Hawthorne's arm.
"Doctor?" Hawthorne called out as Martha rounded the corner with the Judoon.
"Doctor!" She shouted, making to run over to help, but Hawthorne stopped her, voice chilly.
"Scan her."
Martha blinked, confused before understanding dawned on her. "She drank his blood…" She grabbed the Judoon's scanner, missing the wince Hawthorne made at another headache, and aimed it at the confident old woman.
"Oh, I don't mind. Scan all you like."
"Non-human," a Judoon confirmed, making her pale.
"But, what?"
"Confirm analysis."
She shook her head frantically. "Oh, but it's a mistake, surely. I'm human. I'm as human as they come."
"He gave his life so they'd find you," Martha breathed as the Judoon spoke.
"Confirm. Plasmavore, charged with the crime of murdering the child princess of Patrival Regency Nine."
"Well, she deserved it!" The woman shouted, giving up on previous pretenses. "Those pink cheeks and those blonde curls and that simpering voice. She was begging for the bite of a plasmavore."
"Then, you confess?"
"Confess? I'm proud of it! Slab, stop them!"
The Slab released Hawthorne who dived to the Doctor's side, but the Judoon were quick to vaporize the Slab before it could get anywhere.
"Verdict, guilty. Sentence, execution."
The elder woman scowled and plugged in the MRI scanner, grinning when alarms went off. "Enjoy your victory, Judoon, because you're going to burn with me. Burn in hell!"
She was the next to be killed—the Judoon declaring the case closed, but Martha stopped them.
"But what did she mean, burn with me? The scanner shouldn't be doing that. She's done something."
A Judoon scanned it. "Scans detect lethal acceleration of monomagnetic pulse."
"Well, do something! Stop it!" Martha begged.
"Our jurisdiction has ended. Judoon will evacuate."
Martha went to argue, but Hawthorne called out.
"Martha, I'll deal with it! Help the Doctor! He's not breathing!"
Martha groaned in frustration with the Judoon but hurried over to the Doctor as Hawthorne stumbled to the MRI machine. Upon finding the Doctor not breathing and with no pulse, Martha began chest compressions—remembering partway through that he had a second heart and switching sides. They were running out of air though, and she could hear Hawthorne gasping for breath behind her as she gave her last lungful of air to the Doctor. He woke just as Martha collapsed and weakly gestured to the MRI machine. Low on air himself, he struggled to head over, reaching for his sonic only to remember it was fried and gone. He fought to think up a way to stop the machine when Hawthorne practically threw herself to his side.
"P-Plug…" She gasped out, shoving a manual at him before her legs gave out and she collapsed.
The Doctor cursed, looking at the manual she'd given him and grinning at the words on the page. He tossed the book aside and dove for the large plug in the wall, shutting the MRI down. He checked on Martha then, before returning to Hawthorne and wincing. Her wound was bleeding a bit through the bandages and her lips were beginning to turn blue from lack of oxygen. He picked her up and hurried to the nearest room with a view—murmuring under his breath.
"Come on, come on, come on. Please. Come on, Judoon. Reverse it."
Water splashed on the window and the Doctor relaxed.
"It's raining, Hawthorne. It's raining on the moon."
She didn't respond, but the Doctor was just pleased to see her breathing deeply once more.
"Come on," he murmured quietly, turning away from the sunny window—the hospital back where it should be. "Let's get you fixed up."
