[A/N: The story isn't over yet! I've got a few loose ends to tie up.

I should also note that I've been busy, going over the beginning of the story, editing the paragraphs, especially around the dialogue, and putting those pesky commas at the end of speech, back inside the quotation marks, where they belong.
Hopefully, the structure I have begun to incorporate is more suitable and easier to read? If there's anything, I am still doing wrong, or that I've missed, please let me know, so I can correct it. Ta x

This chapter is also titled after a song. Its just easier to think of them that way okay. For anyone, oblivious its by The Beatles.]

"Er, he's got the other one."

Donna pointed to the large grey humanoid, currently keeping The Doctor from falling. Gently, the guy leant The Doctor back against the bed and then lifted his guard issue trousers to show off his single footwear. The Doctor looked between the two of them, bemused.

"Aren't they the most terrific set of loafers you've ever seen?" the guard beamed.

"Loafers!" Donna exclaimed. "These are the finest pair of Arabian shoes, I've laid eyes on. Certainly not loafers, phfft!"

"Hand me them a moment," The Doctor requested, a quizzical look on his face. Lloyd and Donna both slipped off a shoe each and placed it in his lap. Picking them up, The Doctor turned the shoes around in his hand, bringing them up to his eye, inspecting them closely. He sniffed them and then swept his tongue along the sole. He made a face, as if it had not occurred to him, such an action would leave a bad taste. "Where's my screwdriver?"

"Uh, I'm not sure. When did you last have it?" Donna checked.

"It was in my trouser pocket?" The Doctor was pretty sure.

"We'll have Mr. Smith's personal items back please?" Donna asked a staff member standing by. "And if the rest of you could clear out? He and I need to speak privately."

"We do?" The Doctor watched as the staff followed Donna's orders so obediently and they were left alone, apart from the tall prison guard. He wondered what seemed to make him exempt from following the order. Were they prisoners? The guard was sharing Donna's shoes though, which made the situation all the more confusing.

"How much do you remember, from the past few days?" Donna probed.

"Days? Oh, uh, has it been that long?" The Doctor scratched the back of his head. "My time sense must be out of synch."

"I'd say so. What is the last thing you can remember?"

The Doctor thought about that for a minute. Everything seemed a bit of a haze to him. A painful haze, but the last thing he truly remembered clearly was being in the TARDIS med bay, trying to remove a parasite from his intestine, but it was going a bit wrong. He had been bleeding much more than he should have been and his regeneration ability wasn't compensating. He swallowed.

"Oh, blimey, I'm sorry, Donna. I'm so sorry."

"I'm not sure that's good enough. Do you know how worried I've been? You nearly died. In fact you did, when your hearts stopped."

"Both of them?" The Doctor checked.

"Yes. You've had dodgy tickers stopping and starting. Only one ended up working at all and they had to put some purple clamp on your chest, to stop that from going completely caput. They put this energy back into you and it got both of them beating together properly and healed up your injuries and got rid of the infection. Your eyes were purple."

"Really?" The Doctor's heart dropped to his stomach. He had been in bad shape. To lose his energy like that? A simple infection could have been his undoing. The energy was the key to maintaining his binary-vascular system, which in-turn assisted his regeneration and healing factor. With one heart and no energy, he may as well have been a meagre fragile human. He really could have died, without regenerating. He was lucky to be alive.

"Why didn't you tell me, you weren't feeling good? You just sauntered into the TARDIS on your own, thinking you'd cut yourself open and nothing would go wrong, did you?"

"Actually, yes. I didn't foresee any complications and I didn't want you to worry."

"Well that plan turned out bloody fantastic didn't it?" She slapped his arm. "You can always ask for help, you know. You can't fix everything on your own."

"I am used to taking care of my own health matters."

"You're not really a doctor though are you? You like to be called that, but you can't actually have a medical degree, if you think slicing yourself open, by yourself, is a good idea?"

"I may not be a doctor, Donna, but I am The Doctor. I've been around long enough and had certainly had my moments when it comes to medicine."

"Still though, can you admit that sometimes The Doctor might just need a doctor?"

"Look, I've not had a good history with hospitals. Anyone who would know how to treat me properly is gone. Exterminated in the war. As the last of my kind, by default, I am the only one who can handle my health care properly."

Donna knew it was tough for her Spaceman to talk about his people. He could see pain in his eyes, when he did. And it had nothing to do with his physical condition. She could tell, by the state he was in, that if she pressed the matter much further right now, she was likely to become agitated.

"What about what they've got you on right now then?" She pointed to the drip, feeding into his arm.

The Doctor followed the line, to its source and inspected the bag. His glasses had been brought in with his things too and he donned them. He scanned the fluid with his screwdriver for good measure.

"This won't do me much harm," he conceded. "Acetylsalicylic-free pain killer and nutrients," he nodded at that, but noted, "Dosage is a tad on the high side, could use more potassium. There's plenty of stuff in here that won't be doing anything at all. In fact none of it is really necessary." He pulled the IV out, casting it aside.
Donna watched, as the final thing her friend had been hooked up to, fell to the floor. It seemed like a silly thing to be doing, but she trusted his judgement.

"They had you on more things before, like this fake blood stuff, but when you were in a coma, your body was healing and replacing things so fast, they didn't have to hook you up to so many things. It was scary whenever they had that machine breathing for you. Just, don't you ever do that to me again, understand?"

"I am sorry, Donna. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. It must have been frightening to deal with this and look after me on your own." He looked to her, proudly. She had certainly ventured well out of her comfort zone and was doing just fine. He reached up, with a now drip-less arm and cupped her face with his hand. "You've done brilliantly."

"Well, I haven't been completely alone," Donna admonished, looking over at her latest partner in crime. "Lloyd here has been amazing. He helped get me out of prison. I took him back to the TARDIS with me, but that was when we found you, half-dead. He was the one who got you medical attention and has been by my side ever since."

"You were in prison?" The Doctor picked out.

"Um, yeah. You didn't give me enough credit and I really wanted these shoes, so I sort of um.. nicked them." She confessed, sheepishly.

"You didn't?" The Doctor smirked.

"They are one great pair of shoes. They were the reason I even got Lloyd to help bust me out of the slammer. We wound up sharing them. To be honest, I haven't really thought about them at all, since you've been in danger. I can't believe, I have been wondering about in one shoe for so long!"

The Doctor took in how comfortable Lloyd and Donna seemed around each other. He felt silly to have ever thought they were criminals, under his guard. The guy's size would have been threatening, if it weren't for his gentle demeanour. The two of them were at ease though and even had their arms around each other.

"They are beautiful though," Donna was looking at the shoes again. "They're just like the illustration from the story book Dad used to read to me. I always admired them in that picture. I've got fond memories of Dad reading me 'The Elves and the Shoemaker'. Do you know it, the one where the poor old man has no money, but elves come in the night and make shoes and he can afford to eat and pay rent again?"

"Do I know it?" The Doctor bounced a little, in his bed. "They weren't elves at all, actually, but Fleebs, who's ship had been shot down by their enemy and crash landed on Earth. They used their evolutionary developed telekinesis to create items much bigger than them, such as human footwear. They helped out the shoemaker in exchange for his protection, until they could repair their ship. Without it, they were vulnerable to attack."

Sometimes, Donna thought there were things she would rather not learn. That story was filled with magic and a nice memory with her father. Now, the bloody Martian had gone and made it all sci-fi and ruined it for her.

An orderly came in with The Doctor's clothing. He beamed and thanked them, before they exited once more. Digging out his sonic, he changed the settings over and aimed the tool at the shoes. They seemed to flicker, like a bad television signal and then they changed into a couple of grubby looking boots.

"What the-" Donna started. The dunce had just transferred her beautiful shoes into something one might find strung over a power line.

"A perception filter?" Lloyd gasped.

"Yup," The Doctor popped the 'p'. "And that's not all." He fiddled with the screwdriver a little more and pulled out a flat disk from inside the shoe.

"What is that?" Donna asked. The Doctor stuck his sonic out at Donna, buzzing it down her body. "Oi, Space-dunce, what have I bloody told you about bleeping me?"

"Donna," he looked at her seriously. "This is a drug-release. Not only has your visual perception of these shoes been altered, your hormones have too. You've been scammed here. You've both been wearing old boots all along, fooled to believe they were the shoes you most ultimately desired.

"What did you see then?"

"Oh, Converse, of course!" He indicated to his own pair of cream coloured trainers, now placed at the end of the bed.

"Those are nice shoes." Lloyd admitted.

"Best footwear in this universe," The Doctor winked back at him.

"My kids don't even have shoes. They are luxuries we just can't afford. I thought that when Donna offered me the pair, we could replicate them and sell them. I could make money and afford to support my family. Too bad Donna isn't really a wealthy queen. Could have gotten a reward for all this good Samaritan work, eh?"

"Wealthy queen? What?" The Doctor burst out in giggles.

"We were under arrest for theft and prison escape," reminded Donna. "I had to get us out of that mess, in order to get you out of yours. So, I used your little universal fake ID."

"And told everyone you were a queen?" The Doctor added.

"To get diplomatic immunity," Donna specified.

"Fair enough," realised the Time Lord, grinning at his companion's resourcefulness.

While happy, the two friends were at least amusing themselves over some of the recent events, Lloyd still felt he ought to put things into a bit more perspective.

"My family are gonna go hungry, if I don't get more hours in at the prison soon. If I haven't lost my job, that is." The man looked sullen and angry at himself.
The Doctor was sympathetic to the man who had helped his friend when she had needed it most and wanted to show that his gratitude.

"I am sure I can do something for you. After you've been there for Donna, when I haven't, it's the least I could do," offered The Doctor.

"It isn't necessary," Lloyd didn't want his friends to feel any sort of obligation, because of his own negligence.

"It's okay, really. I would like to." Lloyd smiled at the kindness of his new friends. "First though, I need to get out of here. Really hate hospitals."

Already, The Doctor had tugged on his shirt and was working on the trousers, beneath the bed sheet. They had put him in one of those awful gowns that paid a little too much attention to the behind. He had been quick to remove that.
"I don't belong here and my presence could disrupt the natural progression of this planet's scientific knowledge. I need any record of my stay here destroyed, before we leave. If I can get to lab, a little work with this baby should do the trick." He flipped the screwdriver around his hand, seemingly very pleased in having it returned to him. "Oh! And if they have a little shop, we should pop in there on the way out."

"He loves a little shop," Donna explained to Lloyd, as she offered a hand, helping The Doctor out of bed. She was happy her Spaceman had found his mouth again. It was good to hear him babbling away like old times. This time around though, he had better have learnt when to keep it shut! He still seemed a bit unsteady and Lloyd linked around his other arm.

"Who doesn't?" Lloyd commented. He had only known The Doctor properly and lucid, not long at all, since he had woken from the coma. Already, he was enjoying his quirky nature and could sense the strong dynamic between him and Donna. He hoped his two news friends would stick around for a while longer.

All three of them made their way out of the unit. Supported, between both Lloyd and Donna, The Doctor was the most eager to get going. He had places to go, things to do and people to see.