A/N: Aww, but we like clowns :P


Chapter 9 – DI Doctor Returns

"Lirok died last night."

The Doctor just stared at his partner that morning, his eyes wide in complete disbelief.

"I know," Rose muttered, nodding. "Leah's started hallucinatin' too. She kept talkin' about this clown walkin' up the aisle, but there was no one there. It was weird cos we were asleep by quarter past three, and we got woken up by the noise at twenty past. He must've died in those five minutes."

The Doctor didn't answer verbally, his eyes drifting off of her and staring at the end door of the ward. The cogs in his brain were whirring again. She knew by now when to be quiet to let him think.

After a few moments his head snapped up again. "What did the clown look like?"

"Like one of those horror movie ones, I think."

"And what time exactly was it Leah saw the clown?"

"Around 3am."

He nodded, spun on his heel and started running down the aisle. "Back in a minute!" he yelled, disappearing out the far door without any further word of explanation. He was back to investigating again, obviously. There was just no stopping him.

She rolled her eyes, and went back to Leah.


"What are you looking for?" Martha asked as the Doctor sat in the security room five minutes later searching through the CCTV tapes.

"Both Leah and Lirok have talked about seeing someone on the ward minutes before the next child has died," the Doctor began in explanation, fast forwarding through 2am. "And although it's not likely to be either Lirok's father or a low budget horror movie clown, there may have been someone there. Their fevers may have just been distorting the person somehow."

Martha nodded. "So if there was anyone there, they'd be on the CCTV."

"Yup," the Doctor replied, popping to 'p' before he finally reached 2:59am, and slowed the footage. He and Martha watched with complete unbroken concentration as they saw Leah suddenly awaken, turn over, and then absolutely freeze in position. She was staring into the aisle with wide eyes, and they could hear her voice in the silence, a terrified whisper...

"Mummy..."

After a few seconds Leah suddenly opened her mouth, as if to scream, but something made her stop. It was another few seconds before she tore her gaze away from whatever she was looking at to awaken her mum.

"Mummy, Mummy, Mummy..."

"What? What is it?"

"Clown. Clown!"

"What?"

"'Round there..."

Rose got up and looked, but obviously found no one. "Sweetheart, there's no one there."

Leah suddenly began to cry. Rose took her into a hug, kissing her forehead.

"It was there."

"Leah, you're so hot, Daddy said it's normal for you to hallucinate. You saw a clown earlier, remember? He came to cheer you up."

She nodded. "Mummy, I'm scared."

"I know, I know. But I'm here and Daddy's in the TARDIS, so there's nothin' to be scared about, yeah? We'd never let anythin' happen to you. Now go to sleep, you're exhausted."

They settled down again, and the Doctor fast forwarded to quarter past. He and Martha watched for the whole five minutes, up to, including and after the moment Lorik had died. After all had been seen, the Doctor stopped the tape.

"They were hallucinating then," Martha summarised. "There was no one there."

Th Doctor nodded, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "... Did Bri talk about hallucinating the night before he died? Or the Bizo the night before that?"

Martha nodded. "What are you thinking?"

"There's strain of mutated ZRI that can cause hallucinations to be solid. But I've never heard of these solid hallucinations to be murdering other people. The instinct not to kill another being is too strong, it would fight the hallucination on a subconscious level, it even happens with notorious serial killers in Volag-noc. There was a particularly murderous dictator who killed 1000's without hesitation, and when he caught the mutated ZRI he vividly hallucinated murderous entities but his subconscious fought it killing anyone."

"Maybe it's a new form..." Martha muttered. "One that can override the subconscious instinct?"

"That's saying that the kids have actually indirectly killed each other. If Leah hallucinated the clown last night and it killed Lorik, then she technically murdered him. Lorik murdered Bri with his father, Bri murdered the Bizo. So..."

"Pelo, the Akilian, has just spiralled down into fever," Martha muttered. "If this is true then..." She paused, almost not wanting to say it. "... Pelo's going to kill Leah tonight. Then he's going to be killed by another hallucination tomorrow."

The Doctor swallowed, and his body tensed. "But it's too systematic, how are these children becoming ill one after the other with such precise timing?"

Martha didn't have a reason for that.

The Doctor thought for a very long moment. "Nah," he finally said, shaking his head. "This is ridiculous." He got up out of the seat and shrugged on his coat. "Let me see Lorik's notes."

"Thought you might want to," Martha replied, opening the folder she was carrying and pulling out the notes to hand to him. His eyes ran down the page, and then a big frown appeared on his face.

"Why aren't his hallucinations noted down here?"

Martha joined in with his frown, moving forward to look. "They aren't? ...Oh."

"Who's in charge here?" the Doctor asked quickly.

"Dr Johnston," Martha replied, and got it instantly. "His office is this way."


"Well, to be honest, I find it all a bit of a damp squib," Dr Johnston laughed, pouring himself more tea. "Sir, I would not worry yourself. When a fever as high as some of the ones we've been having recently is present, it is very common for hallucinations to occur."

"They need to be written down," the Doctor said, beginning to get slightly annoyed at the man's apparently uncaring demeanour. "They need to be recorded in the notes. It's standard procedure."

"Not here, I'm afraid," Dr Johnston replied simply with his unwavering smile. "Imagine if we wrote down every time a child so much as coughed!" He laughed again. It sounded a lot like nails down a chalkboard to the Doctor's ears. "It would be utterly ridiculous."

"Hallucinations are a teeny bit different to coughing."

"It is very natural for you to worry as a parent to a patient, of course," Dr Johnston said happily. "I am aware your home planet may practice medicine a little differently, but I do assure you, here on Earth we are quite in control of the situation."

"Three children have died in three days, all of them with no obvious reason. You call that 'in control'?" the Doctor asked in a voice far too calm to be sane.

"It is just one of those things," Dr Johnston said, taking a sip of tea. "It is ridiculous to suggest their hallucinations could be killing each other. It is simply children's imagination."

The Doctor's eyes widened, his fists clenching and his knuckles turning completely white in suppressed rage. Martha could see that he was quite obviously about to lose his temper, so she quickly thanked Johnston, took the fuming Time Lord's arm and pulled him back out of the door.

"How is he even a doctor?!" the Doctor squeaked.

"The rules work a little differently for the UNIT hospital," Martha told him gently. "Since alien medical care is nothing like human medical care the head doctor can choose whether or not for things like hallucinations to be noted. Dr Johnston probably doesn't feel they're important."

"Not important?!" the Doctor squeaked again, and Martha could quickly see where this was headed.

"Forget him. We need to check Leah's strain of ZRI," she suggested. "Does your scanner do that?"

He nodded, calming down slightly. "All right."


He carried Leah back to the TARDIS, putting her to sleep with the needle gun before placing her in the scanner. It was ten, long minutes until the results were displayed, and the Doctor pulled a face.

"Is it the mutated strain?" Martha asked anxiously.

"Nope, it's just normal ZRI," the Doctor muttered. "And... I'd be willing to bet the others had normal flu too."

"So the hallucinations..." Rose began, frowning as she tried to figure it all out in her head.

"Really are just hallucinations, yes," the Doctor completed. "Coincidental, but children are like that. In the case of Leah and Lorik's hallucinations, they must've subconsciously felt the dying child's distress on a low telepathic level, then created the image through the fever without even realising."

"Leah didn't see her hallucination actually kill Lorik, though," Rose pointed out.

"Yeah, but the presence was all there. And we haven't actually talked about what they're seeing. What was Lorik most scared of in the whole wide universe? His father. The low telepathic 'distress signal' of sorts got sent to him, telling him unconsciously that Bri was dying. And Lorik was only a child. If you were an ill child with a raging fever and a father like his... Wouldn't you assume the absolute worst?"

"I guess," Rose said. "But then why did Leah see a clown?"

"She was very ill all day," the Doctor reasoned. "When that ward clown came to visit she was very, very agitated, scared and unhappy. Seeing the clown formed an imprint in her mind, and thanks to a couple of horror movies she's walked in on unexpectedly she twisted it into something she thought was the scariest thing in the world. She sensed Lorik was dying, thought the worst, her brain tells her it obviously must be the evil B-movie clown doing the murdering and baam. Hallucination gets power."

"So the hallucinations are harmless," Rose said, still trying to figure it out.

"Very scary, but completely harmless."

"This still doesn't explain the pattern," Martha pointed out. "How are they getting the fever then spiralling down so precisely?"

"I had another thought about that," the Doctor began, glancing between them. "What if it's not coincidence? What if... it's intentional?"

Rose and Martha stared at him, jaws agape.

"Are you sayin' there's someone here that's purposely makin' them ill?" Rose asked, her eyes wide.

"Maybe."

"But we've been with Leah all the time."

"No, we haven't," the Doctor pointed out. "She slept on her own a couple of times. We left her alone for an hour just before she became worse."

All three looked at Leah, lying there in the scanner still asleep.

"Watch for anyone suspicious," the Doctor said, breaking the stunned silence. "A doctor prescribing something, a nurse administering something. Keep it all written down in a logbook. I'll stay with her today and tonight. Martha, stay with her tomorrow morning. Rose, the rest of the day and the night. We'll continue the rota. Nobody leaves her side."