13
Sarah found his baffled expression priceless and couldn't quite suppress a chuckle. Backing off he laboriously cleared his throat.
"Sarah, that's quite.. erm..." he stuttered arching an eyebrow at her.
"Yes?"
"It's... ah...okay. Quite okay. But I've got to go now," he stiffly told her, trying very hard to keep his composure, the longing to become more deeply acquainted with her red, delicate lips battling the boundaries he had set around that kind of desires.
He got up and Sarah eagerly followed him. "No, I think it's better if you stay here..."
"But..."
"No but. I'm just going to help packing and check on the scanner, it's better you get some rest," the Doctor insisted. "We'll manage, you don't have to help."
Sarah looked utterly deflated at that prospect but didn't protest. He was right. Still, irrational as it was, the feeling that he didn't want to have her around hurt.
The one thing the Doctor hated was to disappoint Sarah, but what better solution did he have? "We can have a snack with Jegor and Teria later, if they want, before we take them to Nermela. What do you think," he suggested.
"Mmh," Sarah agreed, noticing her still empty stomach. The prospect to spend the evening with her friends somwehat improved her mood.
When the Doctor was gone she stopped by at the kitchen for sandwiches and tea and retreated onto the large oriental divan in the library. To some soothing classical music she huddled into a blanket and continued with her favourite computer strategy game, but found it hard to concentrate. She turned it off after a few minutes and instead grabbed herself a romantic tear jerker from one of the more remote shelves. She was in the mood for the kitschy story of a knight and his lady but still she couldn't quite shake off the disturbing images of fangs and blue-black fur, the shrieking and splintering of wood. She tried her best to direct her thoughts to the more pleasant notion of the Doctor's tender loving care and must at some point have dozed off to her more adult fantasies. The next thing she became aware of was the faint groaning and the vibrations of the engine running through the ship.
She was strangely exhausted after her little nap and that creepy fear still lingered in the darker corner of her mind. Spending the evening alone suddenly became unbearable. At least her scraped ankle was doing really nicely with Teria's ointment, it felt almost as good as new, so Sarah hurried the short way to the console room to find out what was going on.
Her heart stopped at what she saw when she pushed open the doors to the console room. Jegor was on the floor, his wife busily hunched over him. The Doctor leaned against the console dabbing his forehead with a blood stained handkerchief. He looked up when Sarah came through the door.
"Hi there," he greeted her with a huge grin.
"My god, what happened?" With a few long strides she was at his side.
"No, it's nothing, really. Just a scratch," he tried to comfort her.
"No, it's not nothing, you are bleeding!" She pulled him away from the console to the chair and made him sit down. She took the handkerchief from his hand, he closed his eyes when she considered the gash at his hairline and carefully wiped the blood from his face. The Doctor bemusedly blinked at her and then his head sank to her chest with a heavy sigh.
"Teria, I think he needs help!"
The elderly physician looked up from her husband. "He told me it's just a cut, give me a moment, I'm mending a broken bone!"
Sarah cradled his head to herself, he whined a little when she parted his curls to see the complete damage and sagged a bit more against her. Tenderly she petted his cheek and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
"I think it's not that harmless. Can you just come," she urged, exasperated with worry.
"Finished. Just lie still for a while, it'll be better in a moment, okay," Teria mumbled to her husband, got to her feet and crossed the room.
"Now, what do we have here?" she had a closer look at her new patient. "Doctor?" she addressed him.
She raised an eyebrow when a grumpy "mmph" was all that she got out of him. She gave the wound a closer look. Then she fetched her scanner, it beeped softly when she ran it over the Doctor's head.
Her face fell when she went through the readings a moment later. Reluctantly the Doctor opened his eyes and turned his head sideways, bemused he looked at Teria. "It won't really work on me, you know," he declared. " And by the way, you are disturbing me," he indignantly exclaimed. "I have no idea, why you are doing that."
"What!" Sarah exclaimed. Bewildered, both women looked at each other, then it dawned onto Sarah. She frowned down at the Doctor.
"Doctor, acting more injured than you are is not even remotely funny," she scolded him, abruptly taking her arm off his shoulder. "I was afraid you might change again!"
He lifted his head from her chest, "but it was so cosy," he explained with his best innocent face. "I just couldn't resist... "
"You..!" Sarah just gawked at him, opened her mouth and closed it again, lost for words.
With a meek "sorry" the Doctor trained his puppy dog eyes at her. While Teria was trying to make anything at all of the data from the scan, running the scanner over her own hand to check it for malfunctions, Sarah contemplated if she was ready to forgive the Doctor this prank so easily.
"Let me see!" He grabbed the roughly brick sized device out of her hand and curiously looked over the display. "Oh, that's my brain," he commented. "Mmh, sometimes I forget that I have such a beautiful brain," he muttered.
"Sarah, what's going on with him? He is not human, is he," Teria whispered to Sarah.
"Oi," he exclaimed, interrupting Teria, "what are you two whispering! Of course I'm not human," he retorted, then the subject was done for him. "It's hardly more than a cut. If you can stitch it up it'll be just fine," he imperiously added. "How is your husband doing?"
"The collarbone is broken and a few ribs are contused. He just temporarily had problems breathing, because of the impact trauma. So. Do you have a headache? Do you feel dizzy? Nauseous?" she insisted.
"Mmmmh," he commented, closing his eyes for a moment. "A very faint headache. No dizziness, no nausea. Satisfied?"
"Well, I have to believe you if you say so, I'm hardly an expert on your physiology. So you are not human! I have always been wondering what it is that you are hiding, but I'd never in my wildest dreams have thought..."
"Well, thank you for that compliment," he replied with a toothy grin and cheekily twinkled at her from under his mop of curls. She shook her head and got a few items from her medical bag.
"You are not a shapeshifter, are you?" She took her time to clean the area around the wound and cut off some of his hair while Sarah held his head.
"Nah. Can't shapeshift. I'm a Timelord from Gallifrey."
"Doctor, now could you please tell me what has hurt you two," Sarah chimed in.
"Ah, they used a matter transmitter to teleport a bomb right over our houses to make sure we are dead and there are no traces. If you operate that kind of matter transmitter without a receiving platform there is a slight tremor wave and light phenomena from the extruded matter for a few seconds. The same that Jegor had noticed at our house when they teleported the beast there. We just made it to the Tardis but the shockwave knocked us into the door. Teria was inside," he explained.
"You could have died!" Sarah exclaimed.
"I know. And there is no regeneration if my body is destroyed in an explosion," the Doctor replied thoughtfully and winced when Teria pressed the edges of the wound together and fixed it with some sort of medical staple gun."
"Sorry, but as you are not human, I don't think I have an anaesthetic that works for you."
"That's fine. I guess now you really don't want to stay on New Polynesia, do you?"
"No," she replied with coarse voice. "Do you know if the bomb destroyed more houses?"
"I don't know. Probably," the Doctor replied softly, taking the staple gun from Teria's shaking hand. "I'm sorry."
She tried to bite back the tears but they just kept coming. "I want them to pay for this!"
"Teria, vengeance isn't a solution," he kindly replied, her hazel brown eyes found his and he gave her a consoling smile. "Don't go down that road, it's not going to help, you know."
The Doctor grabbed Teria's hands and for a moment his gaze found hers. In one instant she knew why Sarah had fallen for this oddball alien and she knew that if she'd been Sarah's age she would have reacted exactly the same way. She swallowed hard and looked to her injured husband.
"Isn't there anything we can do put a stop their activities?"
The Doctor got up, Sarah was quick to support him. He didn't need help, but it was good to feel her hand on his arm, to have her at his side. Wordlessly he leaned over the console and spent some time with his instruments, Sarah's hand comfortably rested on his back while Teria returned to check on her husband, not knowing what to think of the Doctor after all this. After a while she rejoined him and Sarah at the console, curiously eyeing what he was doing.
"I triangulated the source of the teleport and have made a little report about all this. I sent it to all members of the New Polynesian senate and other authorities and let them know where they can find the illegal teleport equipment and more bombs. You want to stay with me and return to New Polynesia when they have cleaned up that plot?"
"I don't know," she mused. "I guess the political turmoils will explode now. Paldevan is very popular. He has tremendous infulence. And some of the natives have become more and more xenophobic. I guess on New Polynesia we'll never again be safe, Paldevan has too many supporters."
"Mmh," the Doctor agreed with a slight nod. "We pick up the rest of the Shama and then quietly disappear," he suggested.
"I guess, that's the best solution," she mumbled, again tears welling up in her eyes.
"I'm so, so sorry. I wish we hadn't dragged you into this."
"I know," she sobbed.
The Doctor shot Sarah an an apologetic glance, then he wrapped an arm around the elder woman's shoulders and let her cry her despair into his shoulder.