Déjà Vu
The Doctor followed the coordinates given by an as-yet unknown voice, claiming to be an old friend. When the TARDIS came to a halt, he looked at Martha and said, "Be on your guard."
"I know," she nodded.
"This could be a trap," he warned, his voice low and his eyes serious.
"I know," she nodded, again.
"Just because they claim to know what's wrong, and that they can fix it, doesn't mean they do, and can."
"Doctor, I know."
"Not to mention, if they do know what's wrong, that's awfully suspicious in and of itself. I mean, what are they doing, surveilling us? Stalking us?"
Martha closed her eyes once again. "When nebulous matter has become unconcentrated, and said matter is considered to have been an oscillating consciousness, or part of an oscillating consciousness, it is possible for a kindred consciousness, or facsimile thereof, to follow the beacon-like signal of living fragments."
She opened her eyes and stared at the Doctor for a few moments, and he stared back, disturbed.
"Intrinsic logic again, eh?" he asked. "The universe speaks?"
"Mm-hm," she answered, matter-of-factly.
He took a deep, quick breath and said, "Yeah, that's really creepy. Let's get you some help."
He took her by the arm and led her toward the TARDIS door.
Outside, they were assailed by Apple Grass and sunshine, and they both squinted against the unexpected brightness. In front of them, there was a white wall that seemed to stretch for miles in both directions, though was only perhaps three or four stories high.
"Welcome back, Doctor, to New Earth," a female voice said. It was the same voice that had spoken to them in the TARDIS console room, the voice that had claimed it could cure Martha of what ailed her.
The Doctor squinted harder, and a figure became apparent against the stark wall. Humanoid, and smaller than he, but that's all he could tell. "Erm, hello," he said tentatively. "Do I know you?"
The female stepped forward slightly, and seemed to chuckle. "It seems every time we meet, I am much older than the last time, and you have not changed at all," she said. "It hardly seems fair, Time Lord."
"Yeah, well, that's kind of part of the whole Time Lord gig," he replied to her, uneasily. "Who are you?"
She stepped forward further, and her face came into view. The fur upon her cheeks and chin had grown mostly white, and the skin beneath had grown looser, but the kindness in her feline eyes was unmistakable.
"Nurse Hame," Martha mused.
The cat nun/nurse turned her attention toward Martha Jones. "Yes," she said with a soft smile. "And you have not changed either, Miss Jones."
Martha smiled wearily. "Oh, I have," she told Hame. "Plenty."
The nurse reached out and took Martha's hand in her own. She stared into Martha's dark eyes for a moment, and she said, "Oh yes, I see that now. I see great love in your eyes, and also oppression and strife."
Martha pulled her hand away hastily, and before she could stop herself, she glanced up at the Doctor. He was frowning at her with concern, though she could not tell whether the concern came from what Hame was saying, or whether it was general concern over the condition that had brought them here. Martha looked quickly away from him and stared at her feet in the oddly-coloured grass.
"Yes," she said softly to the nurse. "It's been an interesting six months."
"Have you summoned us here to fix love and oppression and strife, Hame," the Doctor asked, a distinct edginess having entered his voice. "Or something else?"
Looking at him pointedly, Hame said, "No, Doctor. We cannot relieve Miss Jones of strife and oppresion of the love in her heart. Only one man can do that."
He stared back almost expressionlessly, though his lips did press together ever so slightly, and temporarily.
Martha thought she might cry for a moment, before taking a deep breath and pulling her emotions into check.
Hame continued, "We have brought you here to repair what has appeared since your stint on the doomed planet of Asmei."
The Doctor seemed to forget all about the intensity that had been upon the air since they arrived, and threw up his hands. "See, that's what I thought, but how did you know? And more importantly, why don't I know? I have examined her from top to bottom and run every test I can think of, and I can't find anything wrong with her!"
"There is nothing wrong with her body, or her brain, Doctor," Hame said calmly. "The ailment is in her soul."
The Doctor and Martha followed Nurse Hame through a door, which had been hidden in the wall and only opened by a command from Hame. They stood in a kind of entryway, large, grey and spacious.
"Wait here," Hame said to them, and then she disappeared for a few moments.
"Wow, this is impressive," Martha said, glancing around at the shiny, marble-like walls and floors, the two walls made of clear glass, the black chairs hovering two feet from the floor. "Is this a hospital?"
"Not exactly," the Doctor said. "I'm not sure what it is, to tell you the truth."
"Well, it seems like you could eat off this floor."
"Yeah, it always looks squeaky clean…"
"What does that mean?"
"It means, the first time I met these cat nuns, it was back… well, with Rose. It looked all on the up-and-up, but they were using human bodies to grow diseases, and keeping these people in little sealed-up virus-incubators." By the time he finished the sentence, his teeth were clenched.
She blinked several times in surprise. "Oh. I didn't know that."
"Lady Cassandra body-hopped one of them, and described this life of total despair, total emptiness…"
"Who is Lady Cassandra, and what is body hopping?"
"She's… oh, it's a long story. Suffice it to say, she needed a body, so she took Rose's, but I wouldn't let her keep it, so she took mine for a while, and Rose made her leave again, so she took one of the patients… you know what? Really long story. Anyway, these cat nuns – not all purring and healing. There's some bad juju in the mix."
"But why were they doing it?"
"Oh, they meant well," he admitted. "Mostly. They were using the viruses they were growing as antidotes to diseases they were treating, under the philosophy that the ends justifies the means."
Martha closed her eyes. "Organisms are ephemeral – the flesh, the trees, the insects, even the mountains and streams and plains. Only the soul remains when fragmentation occurs."
He frowned as she opened her eyes. "Yeah, you're not exactly supporting my point of view there, Martha. But it does remind me of why we're here."
"Because I am having giant headaches and something seems to be talking through me?"
"Yeah, that. The cat nuns say they can fix you," he whispered. "But I don't trust them."
"Well, who are you going to trust?"
"Myself. You."
"Well, neither one of us knows what the hell is wrong with me, not even you, with your big, fat Time Lord brain. So let someone else have a go."
"What if they're doing another ends justifies the means operation, and you become the recipient of an ill-got cure? Or worse, the source of an ill-got cure?"
"Have you got any better ideas?" she asked.
Hame, the Doctor and Martha walked through a large atrium which seemed to stretch upward the entire four stories of the facility. Over the top, a glass dome loomed with clouded panes, letting in a measure of sunshine though no-one could see the sky. Two large white planters, each of them the size of a small house, figured in the room, each with what looked to Martha like tropical plants, peeking out the top. There were benches around the room, some built into the planters and the walls, some standing freely. The floor was shiny and light blue, squeaky clean with little flecks of silver and black. Various humanoids sat in the room, most of them were in pairs or in threes, talking in low tones. Some of them wore white scrub-like trousers with white tank tops, and some of them wore "street" clothes of the times.
When she looked up, Martha noticed a balcony about halfway up, that lined the wall, all the way around the giant room. Three or four nurses walked upon the balcony, and seemed to circle around, keeping watch. Each watchful cat had a comm device in her hand.
"This is the Visitor's Atrium," Hame explained, stopping in the middle of the room. She invited her guests to look about. "The folks in white are patients, and the others are their friends and family members. Doctor, this is where you will have all of your contact with Miss Jones, for the forseeable future."
"Why's that?" he asked, mistrusting.
"That's the rule, Doctor," she said. "We have facilities for therapy and treatment, but they are closed to unauthorised personnel. "
"So only you and the patients knows what goes on in there. You're the only ones who ever set foot in the facilities outside of this room."
"No, not the only ones," Hame said. He listened for uneasiness in her voice, but heard none.
They continued, and followed Hame through a large archway, and down a wide hall. She led them then into a relatively small, though still quite large, room, that looked like an office.
"Please have a seat," Hame said, as she closed the door.
The Doctor and Martha each sat down in a soft white canister chair, as Hame went to the wall and seemed to adjust something on a control panel.
"Miss Jones, are you comfortable?" she asked.
"I wouldn't say that, no," Martha answered, wishing very hard that the Doctor would just reach out to take her hand.
"I mean, temperature-wise," Hame said. "Are you cold? Too warm?"
"Oh," Martha sighed. "I'm fine."
"Good," said Hame. She moved across the room to a large piece of furniture that looked like a wardrobe. From it she extracted a pair of white trousers and a tank top on a hanger. She brought it over to Martha and asked her to stand, holding the hanger against Martha's shoulders. "This should do. There is a privacy screen there behind you – please put this on."
"Er, okay," Martha said, taking the clothes.
She walked over to the screen, and just before she stepped out of sight of the nurse and the Doctor, she heard Hame say, "Doctor, Miss Jones, this is where I leave you. The Mother Superior will be with you in a few minutes . I will see you in a few days, Miss Jones."
"Wait," said Martha. "Are you going to tell me what's wrong with me?"
"The Mother Superior will do that," Hame told her. "Don't worry – you're in good hands."
With that, Hame left the room. The Doctor swiveled in his chair to look at Martha.
"Is this weird?" she asked him, still standing there with her white clothes in her hands. "I mean, is this what you were talking about, with the secrecy and the white uniform thing?"
"Yes, but they do seem to know what's up," he said. "Maybe when the Mother Superior gets here, we'll learn more – or at least we'll learn more of what they want us to know. If it's not kosher, then we'll leave."
"Okay," she said. "I'm just… nervous. I don't know how I feel about…"
"What? I thought you were the one who said we have to trust someone."
"I know. It's not that. I just didn't know I'd be…"
She looked at the floor. She wanted to say I didn't know I'd be left here without you, only seeing you in the Atrium, but she didn't say it. She never said what she was thinking when attachment to the Doctor clouded her brain – why start now?
"Never mind," she said.
"Martha," a new voice said.
Martha looked up. A heavier cat nun had entered the room through the door where Hame had exited. She seemed to be a bit younger than Nurse Hame, though much more commanding.
"Yes?" she said.
"I'm Nurse Thredd," she said with a regal little bow. "I'm the Mother Superior."
"Oh. Hello."
"Hello," said the Doctor to the Mother Superior.
The big cat ignored him, and spoke to Martha as though the Doctor was not in the room. "Please put on the garments you've been given, and we will get started," she ordered.
Martha looked at the Doctor for approval. He nodded subtly, with a careful frown, and she stepped behind the privacy screen.
There was a silence in the room for a few seconds as Martha peeled off her shirt, and began to climb into the white clothes she'd been given. The Mother Superior's voice rang out before too long. "Martha, I know that you're used to deferring to your male companion for most things. You'll have to rid yourself of that habit."
"I'm sorry," the Doctor interjected. "It's just she's…"
"Doctor, I'm speaking to Martha right now. You have not been asked to contribute," the Mother Superior interrupted, really acknowledging the Doctor for the first time since she'd entered the room. "I'll let you know when I need you to speak."
The Doctor was dumbstruck. There weren't many beings in the universe who could shut him up, but the demeanour and tone of this imposing nun had rendered him mute, if only temporarily.
Martha caught a chill from this interaction, and stepped out from behind the screen, all dressed in white. To her surprise, the Mother Superior was standing very near, to greet her, when she emerged. Without asking, the nun took her hand as Hame had, and looked intensely into her eyes. She didn't say anything for a few moments, but she voluntarily let go of Martha's hand.
Mother Superior looked at the Doctor with disdain, and then back and Martha and said, "I see."
Martha sighed with the further reminder of her oppressed and unrequited love, and the fact of it having been brought, again, to the Doctor's attention as well.
"Don't be discouraged, Martha," said the nun. "It's all intertwined, all ailments of the soul."
"It's not an ailment," Martha said bravely.
"It's an ailment," the Mother Superior said knowingly. "You'll see, once it's gone."
"I don't want it gone," Martha was saying as the nun was dragging her by the hand back to the white canister chair.
"Shhh," said the nun. "All right. Just relax. Sit."
She had a terrible feeling that something was about to be taken from her, and she wasn't going to like it.