A very one sided conversation was taking place in the Smoking Room as the Doctor loitered quietly in the doorway watching cigarette smoke circle in eddies through the air. Pushed aloft by the heat of the television that flickered silently in the corner and the gush of fresh air that the open door let in, thick tobacco fumes sought freedom through the tiny open window near the ceiling. A young woman, still plagued by teenage skin, rocked nervously in the corner, perched on the coffee table like a little gargoyle, hair shaved off apart from a rat's tail at the base of her skull which she was tugging with the thumb and forefinger of her left hand. In the other corner an older woman, perhaps in her sixties, was busily knitting a dishcloth, chatting away happily about an indecent relationship between two members of the ward staff. The Doctor coughed to announce his presence and smiled cheerily at them, giving a little wave as he let the door close itself behind him, the self-closure mechanism hissing quietly.
"Hello ladies. Mind if I join you?"
The older lady put down her knitting and tapped the chair next to her, "Come and sit down lovey, you look tired."
Perceptive, he thought, taking the proffered seat and noting the lack of dilation in the woman's pupils as her eyes met his, "I'm the Doctor. What's your name?"
"Margaret Treverna," she offered her hand politely, "They call me Maggie."
"Pleased to meet you Maggie," he shook her hand firmly, "Nice dish cloth you're knitting there. Made many before?"
She laughed loudly and clapped her hand over her mouth as if expecting someone to rush in with admonishments for the hilarity, "Made one every day for the last five years. I stopped giving them away when my family stopped visiting. Now I undo this one and start again with the same wool tomorrow. Recycling."
"Ah," the Doctor nodded, wondering why a nice old lady like Maggie was locked up in a secure unit, "Good plan."
Maggie smiled appreciatively, "Thank you, Doctor."
The girl in the corner had stopped rocking and was looking at the Doctor curiously.
"Alien," she said abruptly, and tucked her knees up under her chin.
Maggie nodded, "Yes, dear, I know. But he's a nice alien. I can tell."
The Doctor looked at the pair strangely, "Whatever gave you that idea?"
"That you are an alien, or that you are a nice alien?" Maggie laughed quietly, using the half made dishcloth to muffle the sound, "Oh dear we have put you in a bit of a spot haven't we?" she patted his arm affectionately and offered him a humbug from a
brown paper bag, "We've been trained you know, to see aliens. Ever since I came here that's all people talk about, at night of course, when the nurse is asleep at her station. It wouldn't do for the nurses to know what was going on. They might tell someone
and then there wouldn't be any fun any more would there?"
"No, I suppose it wouldn't," he agreed, still frowning and sucking on a slightly sticky sweet, "So, if you don't mind me asking, why are you here?"
The smile of Maggie's face was a bemused one, "The same reason you are, Doctor, to save the Earth."
It was all getting just a little confusing, thought the Doctor as he looked back and forth between Maggie and the girl on the coffee table. People, normal, human people, locked up in a mental hospital, some of them completely able to function within society, and they could all see aliens. Maggie seemed like a perfectly average woman for her age, a bit eccentric perhaps but you could expect nothing less of a woman who had been institutionalised, staring at the same walls for years. Her companion was, he agreed, a little on edge, but he had seen worse in people damaged by war or grief.
"Who runs this place?"
"Torchwood."
It was the girl again. She had crept a little closer, staring at his chest intently.
The Doctor felt his blood run colder.
"Afraid!" the girl screamed and darted back again, "Two hearts. Two. Two. Look at them!"
Maggie shushed her with a wave of her hand, "Nel, quiet! You'll make the nurses come."
Nel was still pointing at the Doctor, "Afraid!"
The Doctor felt a hand on his arm again, "You'll have to control your feelings a little more, deary, Nel's very sensitive about these things."
"Sorry," he said quickly, "Not used to humans being so perceptive."
"That's alright my love. Nel's very new to this," she moved a little closer, straggly white hair brushing his ear as she whispered, "The drugs are making her worse at the moment."
"And what does Torchwood want with you?"
Maggie's eyes looked away, "You of course Doctor, but you know that already."
"But it's 1996..."
The knitting needles began clicking again, "Gareth told us you would come. But Gareth tells us lots of things. THEY made him sick with all the drugs so now he doesn't know what he 'sees' and what the drugs tell him. I see too, but I don't tell them that. But you have places to be, in Time, Doctor, and you make such a muddle of it all that I can't be sure what you have done already, and what is still to come."
Nel was circling him like a scared dog ready to make one last launch at an attacker, "Got to get it. The monster. It stinks of death. Gonna eat us all."
The Doctor nodded solemnly, "That's what I'm here for Nel. I'm going to get the monster."