TEN

Ten minutes later, they were on the sofa, two large boxes filled with journals piled in front of them. The Doctor noted internally that the purple leather one was absent from the supply she'd brought up.

They compared notes and began cross-referencing, and even began tearing pages out and making smaller pile. It hurt Martha to do so, but they needed to categorise things in a more cohesive fashion. It seemed to them that Ephraim only ever wrote in one book at any given period of time, and whatever he was doing, all of it went into one volume. Personal thoughts, snippets of his memoir, lab results, ideas for new inventions... all of it together and frustratingly non-linear.

Martha caught a fairly detailed drawing of a mutated cell, and thought it might be useful.

"Doctor, I..." she stopped. She looked to her left and saw him immersed in something Ephraim had written. "What are you looking at so intently?"

"Listen to this," he said, then he began to read aloud. "Me being me, I know better than almost anyone how cause-to-effect works. Therefore, I know that my life didn't begin the day I was born. The wheels of my existence have been turning for much longer than I can or should describe for the purposes of a standard-issue memoir. At some point, I'll go back a bit further and tell you more about life before I came into it, but for the moment, here is a kind of rudimentary start to my story.

"I believe I'm in my fifties now, but I can't be quite certain. I was born in the early twenty-first century, obviously, but I'm not sure exactly when or where. The frenetic nature of my family life made time and dates, in a manner of speaking, meaningless, and the circumstances of my birth didn't help much. I came early, you see; my mother was not expecting my arrival for at least another month, and my parents' plan to be in London in time for her due date went chaotically awry. My father was obliged to deliver me on the road, as it were.

"It could have been a lot worse, mind you. History is rife with stories of children being born in unusual circumstances (Winston Churchill, for instance); many a frantic, frightened father has had to deliver his own child. But we were lucky, as both of my parents were doctors, and my father had had children before. He was neither frantic nor frightened as he brought me into the world, but my mother said he cried. I did not understand until I was much older that his tears were bigger than just those of a happy, proud father holding a son for the first time.

"I'll get into them with more detail later more later. Suffice it to say, my parents, they are complicated folk. As far as I know, they never married, but there was so much - so much- love. I could feel it in the air every day that I was with them. Their relationship with one another was hard-earned and solid. If you are someone who believes that the circumstances surrounding one's conception can help shape one's personality, then it should be no mystery why I am such an intense person. I am the product of an unexpected revelation, the manifestation of a fit of passion, the proof of a long-incubating burn.

"Though, my memories of them are spotty now – as I said, our family life was rather frenetic, and these days I wonder if some of those memories could possibly be accurate. I see my mother's face when I close my eyes sometimes, against surreal backgrounds that seem absurd for a rational mind. I think that I watched my father do things that shouldn't rightfully be possible. But knowing what I know, knowing where things ended up, knowing where I ended up, I have to believe it's all true. They tried to raise me with as much normalcy as they could, but I did not achieve any measure of normalcy in my life until after they were gone."

"Wow," Martha said. "We should start setting aside pieces of the memoir after we get you cured. Put it together for him, like he probably planned to do someday. This is a good story, and it's worth telling."

"Yeah," the Doctor said to her, distracted. She had the distinct feeling that he hadn't heard her.

"Doctor? Hello?"

"Sorry," he said. "I guess I'm just feeling woozy. Mind if I go back up to bed?"

"No," she said, standing up, offering her hand. "I think that's a good idea."

She helped him up off the sofa, and made to help him to the stairs. But he protested. "Thanks, I can make it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," he said. "I think I'll try and sleep through the night, all right?"

She nodded, concerned.

Martha had crushed the fever-reducers into powder and mixed them with water, and poured them down the Doctor's throat. It's no simple task getting someone to swallow when they're unconscious, and it takes time. But she had done it. She had also mixed some sugar water and done the same, to give him calories. She had done this four times in twenty-four hours. He was out completely, dead to the world, as they say, but breathing relatively normally, and his blood pressure was normal (she assumed, anyway, from what she could tell). His fever went up and down with the administration of the drugs, and to keep him from overheating, she'd taken the robe off him. Not an easy feat, considering he was dead weight and totally naked... but she let him sleep. She wanted him to reserve his strength. If she woke him, he'd insist on helping again, and the last time, it had wiped him.

Though, she was vaguely aware that sometime soon, she'd have to get him up so he could use the toilet and eat something for real sustenance. She wasn't keen on force-feeding him mushed-up beans or not-ham. She really wanted to stop short of giving him baby food or anything intravenous.

Martha was in the basement working with a sample, and she was, to put it mildly, knackered. She looked at the clock. It was past time for another dose of drugs and sugar. Would she wake him up this time? Probably should – it had been a whole day since he'd gone up to bed after reading the snippet about Ephraim's birth.

She dragged herself into the kitchen and emptied two pills onto a cutting board. She took the knife and pressed it sideways against the pills and felt them give. Then she did it again. And again. Her eyes closed involuntarily as she worked, and suddenly, she felt a small but sharp pain across her middle finger. She opened her eyes; she had cut herself.

Note to self: handling sharp knives while running on no sleep is not a stellar idea.

She ran the cut under some cold water and then tore off a piece of dishtowel to bandage it. Then she continued to crush the pills, trying desperately to remain alert enough not to cut her hands to ribbons. She extracted two glasses from the cabinet and filled them with water. She poured the powder into one, and several tablespoons of sugar into the other. She stirred, trying to dissolve the grains, again, her eyes sliding shut from exhaustion.

And in this stupor was when she heard the horrible sound.

"Martha!" came bursting from the bedroom upstairs, startling her. The scream was piercing and panicked. He called out again. "Martha! Please!"

She grabbed the glasses and ran up the stairs, spilling a bit. She burst into the room to find the Doctor sitting upright, his hands buried in his hair, screaming her name.

"Doctor, what is it?" she asked, frantically, setting the glasses down on the floor by the door.

He didn't answer, he just kept screaming her name, begging her to come to his side.

Shit - I waited too long for the fever-reducer this time!

She assumed he was still asleep like last time, so she tried to shake him awake, extract him from the night terror, or whatever he was experiencing. It didn't work. He tried to stand up, so she crawled on top of him, straddled his legs and tried to hold him down. She tried to push him back to a lying position, with limited success. All the while, he was screaming, protesting, panicking for some reason, and she was yelling back, protesting just as hard, trying to calm him.

Finally, she pulled back with her right arm and with everything she had, she slapped his cheek. The sound crackled through the air of the tight bedroom like a whip, and from the startled noise he made, Martha could tell he was awake now.

"Martha?" he asked, relatively lucid.

"Yes," she said. "Doctor, you were having a nightmare."

"What are you doing," he said, putting his hands on her hips. She realised that it must be a very strange experience for him, waking up to her straddling him.

She stood up. "Trying to keep you from throwing yourself over the balcony or something. Sorry."

"Don't be sorry... just... are there butterflies in here?"

"Excuse me?"

"The man in the glass ball said there would be butterflies. Just like at home in Istanbul."

A chill ran up her spine, hearing the nonsense he was spouting. His brain was fevered still, she knew, but she had to verify that he wasn't still asleep.

She turned on the lights, and her hands flew to her mouth. "Oh, Doctor," she cried out, before bursting into tears.

He was sweating profusely, and his eyes were sunken, black rings circling them like a raccoon. In fact, they were swollen almost shut. His skin was grey and dull, with no life nor pinkish hue whatsoever. She could see strong blue lines, indicating veins peeking through transluscent flesh. She could almost see the network of veins and arteries under the skin, coming to cumulate at two different points in his chest, where his hearts dwelled. Frankly, he looked dead.

"Martha, are you crying?" he asked calmly.

"Yes," she said, coming toward him. "Oh, God, I can't believe... Doctor, I'm sorry!"

She touched his forehead. He was burning up.

"I'll be right back, Doctor," she promised. "I'm going to double your dose. We've got to get that fever down. Do not move, do you hear me? Don't move!"

She went downstairs with the water cup in which she had dissolved the first two pills. She crushed two more through her tears, trying to concentrate, rather than cry, so she wouldn't cut herself again.

This time, while she was working, she heard creaking on the stairs. She grabbed the glass and went back to the living room. The Doctor was stumbling down the stairs, and had nearly made it to the landing, completely nude and delirious.

"No, no you don't," she warned. She ran up to meet him, and thrust the glass into his hand. "Drink this. All of it. Right now."

To her surprise, he obeyed without resistance, and she took him by the arm to help him sit down on one of the steps as he drank. She ran back to the bedroom and grabbed the robe she had discarded earlier and came back to drape it over the Doctor's shoulders. The combination of sweating and running around naked would not be good for his health.

She sat down beside him, and he leaned forward and buried his head in his hands, and groaned. After about two minutes he sat back upright and blinked a few times, and looked at her.

"Martha?"

"Yes," she said. She wiped away a few tears. "I'm here."

"What am I doing here?" he asked.

"Never mind," she said. "Let's just get you back to bed. We'll change the sheets again in the morning. You're very, very sweaty, and very, very sick. "

Once again, she helped him stand up, and he looked at her squarely.

"You look terrible," he said. "Are you well?"

"I'm fine," she told him, guiding him up the stairs. "Let's worry about you."

"Why are you crying?" he asked, touching a tear that was, once again, making its way down her cheek.

"Don't worry about it," she dismissed him, again. "I swear to you, I'm going to work night and day to find this cure, Doctor. Don't worry."

They crossed the threshold back into the bedroom and she pulled the robe off him, and he got into bed. He looked back up at her. "You have been working night and day. How much have you slept?"

"Doctor, stop worrying about me," she insisted.

"You haven't slept at all, have you?" He could see that much, though his speech was still slurred, and the fever was still quite clearly driving many of his actions. He reached out and took her wrist, rather more roughly than he would if he were totally lucid. "Come here. Get some sleep."

"No, I can't," she said, trying to pull away unsuccessfully. "I have to work."

"You have to sleep. You can't help me if you're passed out on the floor in the basement."

"True, but..."

"You look as bad as I feel."

"Doctor..."

"Come on, Martha," he said. He sat up again and leaned toward her. He put both arms around her waist and pulled. Next thing she knew, she was off her feet and being pulled into bed. She felt him pull the covers over them.

"The equipment is on in the basement," she said, now her speech slurring too. She was succumbing.

"Sod it," he said, tightening his arms around her.

"The lights are on..."

"Shhh."