A/N My summer job is the most mentally and physically exhausting thing I've even done, but the nice thing is it gives me a lot of opportunities to really think about this story and what I'm doing and where I want it to go. So YAY for that! I finally got over my block enough to not completely hate this chapter, so you'll have to let me know what you think. And happy weekend!
Chapter 36:
"It's done?" The question came out as a startled whisper. It's funny how two syllables could both diffuse the tension in one topic and heighten the tension to astronomical levels in another. The Doctor stared morosely at the still whistling, green concoction as if he took pity on it, but Rose recognized immediately that the emotion was not actually directed towards the chemical. No, it was almost certainly directed inwards. And it wasn't pity she saw in those eyes once that realization crossed her mind. It was remorse, in its most basic, primitive, unadulterated form. It was the look of a man staring over the barrel of a smoking gun and knowing his finger was the only one on the trigger.
Not taking his eyes off the solution, the Doctor replied with a solemn, "Yeah."
A grimace crossed the Doctor's face as he took a step closer to the chemistry set. He used the edge of the table to balance himself as he wobbled slightly, tipping dangerously to the side as he walked. In a matter of seconds Rose was on the other side of the table, ready to help. But one look down told her the Doctor had grossly under exaggerated when he said he was 'just sore'. Rose gasped, "Your leg!"
Even through the dark material of his trousers, Rose could see his left knee swollen to twice its usual size, straining against the fabric. The Doctor was barely putting any weight on it at all.
"Felling guilty about slapping me now?" The Doctor questioned through clenched teeth. Rose rolled her eyes.
"Not when you lie about how hurt you are to begin with. What happened?"
The Doctor gave a dismissive shrug. "Oh, it's nothing. Just a training accident, no big deal."
"Yeah, because the last man to have a training accident here ended up being just fine." Sarcasm dripped from each word as she wound an arm around the Time Lord's waist. The Doctor scoffed.
"I'm hardly going to keel over from a bit of swelling. I'm a Time Lord, not some fragile Laksen. It'll go away in a few hours, it's just…tender for now. Over there, please." He instructed as he ground his teeth together from the effort of trying to take a step forward.
Rose helped him hobble around the edge of the table to where he indicated. Snatching up a pair of heat tongs, the Doctor carefully removed the hot flask from its holder. The whistling instantly died down, like taking a kettle off the stove, but the mixture kept its sickly green hue. "Now, let's see if all this trouble was worth it." The Doctor muttered, more to himself than his companion.
Rose frowned. "Hang on, you told me just yesterday that you were still working on the formula."
At that, the Doctor cringed. "Yeah, well, that may have been another lie."
"Two strikes already, Doctor, you're not doing yourself any favors today." She tried to sound playful, but the words came out more callous and reprimanding than she intended.
As if in reaction to her tone, the Doctor shivered, eyes instantly darting to the ground. "I'm sorry." He murmured almost silently to the tiles. Then he looked back up, eyes hesitantly seeking hers out. "Rose, can you do me a favor?"
Rose nodded, not trusting her voice. What was with that sudden apology? She had just been poking fun, but had he taken it seriously? Did he think she was threatening him?
The Doctor sighed before stating, "Slap me again."
Rose just blinked. "What?"
"Slap me. Across the face. Just like before."
"No!"
"Please – "
"That first time was for your own good, I'm not doing it again."
"Listen – " His voice was tinted slightly with the sound of desperation, but she just ignored it.
"You may be going on a self-destructive rampage, Doctor, but that doesn't mean I'm going to help!"
"Rose, just listen to – Oh, never mind."
So instead, seemingly from out of nowhere, the Doctor's own hand came flying up and smacked across his own face. The sound was startlingly loud from standing so close and Rose stumbled backwards in surprise.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" She practically shouted. "Are you out of your mind? Do you actually like getting hurt?"
But the Doctor wasn't listening. The force of the slap – admittedly stronger than he had intended – send his head snapping to the side, the skin on his cheek red and stinging. He shook his head to get ride of the tingling, gasping dramatically. "That's better." He breathed as he crinked his neck to the side.
"Well, I'm glad you're enjoying your own torture." Rose huffed, crossing her arms over her chest.
The Doctor shook his head one more time before peering over at his companion. "Oh, come off it." Was his gruff reply. "It was a slap. Hardly qualifying enough for torture. Besides, it was necessary."
"Oh, was it?"
"Yes, it was." The Doctor returned her sass with a wag of his eyebrows. "There was a subconscious buildup of the psychocentric side effects of the induced cerebral paralysis that needed to get broken up in order to satisfactorily cleanse the hippocampic walls." He paused for a moment to take a breath before raising his eyebrows. "Happy you asked?"
"I didn't ask. Now in English this time?"
The Doctor couldn't quite figure out why she was so angry with him, so he just gave a surrendering sigh and explained. "I got the physical elements of the drug out of my system earlier, but the side effects have to wear off on their own. Sometimes the particles get stuck or stubborn and they physically need to be dislodged to get them cleared. Your slap started it and made me aware of the extra buildup. That's why I needed the second slap. But I'm good now. At least," He sniffed thoughtfully before flicking his right temple. "I should be."
"Okay. Just – stop." Rose said, a bit more calmly, as she stepped forward and took hold of the Doctor's hands to keep him from causing further injury to himself. Her hold was gentle and incredibly grounding. Suddenly, the Doctor saw that she wasn't angry with him. She was worried.
Without thinking about it, the Doctor raised her hands and placed his lips gently, lovingly, to each knuckle in an apologetic kiss. It was a bit more lovey-dovey, mushy-gushy that his usual style, but for some reason it seemed to fit perfectly in the moment. "I'm sorry I scared you." He whispered honestly.
He could feel the tension release from Rose's body. She leaned forward into him, resting her head on his chest, his double heartbeat pounding comfortingly against her ear. "I don't like you on these drugs." She whispered back.
"I don't like being on them either."
"No, I don't like you on them. I don't like how you act – all submissive and…and…slavelike. Yesterday I counted five times you called Jancon 'Master' and no one was even around. And I know it's not your fault!" She added quickly, pulling away enough so he could see the sincerity in her eyes. "I just don't like you thinking you're worthless, cause you're not. Not to me, at least."
The Doctor held her closer to him, planting another kiss on top of her blonde head. "I know. I'm sorry."
They stood like that for a moment longer before the Doctor regretfully pulled away. "I should check on the formula."
"Right. Yes."
The flask had cooled down enough to touch by now, but the Doctor still used the protective tongs to lift it up and carry it to a set of microscopes along another lab table. Using an eyedropper he placed a drop of the green stuff on a slide and slipped it beneath the lens, leaning in to observe. Rose wrapped her arms tighter around her own chest after jumping onto one of the bare tabletops across from the silent Time Lord. He still placed his entire body weight on his right leg, leaning into the table on his elbow as he peered through the glass. But at least now he looked a bit more relaxed. Somehow, even as he had been lying across the table earlier, his body had been noticeably tense, the muscles in his back and shoulders coiled as if ready to pounce or run.
It was a comfortable silence they shared as the Doctor continued to study his concoction. Rose picked up a steady drumming beat with her heels against the side of the table, quiet enough so as not to disturb the busy Time Lord. A few minutes passed before the Doctor moved again, silently hopping on his one good leg over to a device that looked remarkably like a Bunsen Burner from Earth. As Rose watched, intrigued and curious, the Doctor raised the microscope pad and lens up about half a foot and slide the burner underneath, fire heating the metal plate beneath the slide. Rose was sure that wasn't good for the microscope, which looked expensive, but the Doctor didn't even bat an eyelash to the fact that he might be destroying one of his 'Master's' possessions.
The Doctor turned off the flame and stared so hard though the lens, Rose was sure he was about to burn a hole through that side as well. More silence, and then…
"Oh…" The Doctor said quietly, and Rose's heart sank a little bit. Something went wrong. The formula wasn't right and the Doctor would be forced to go through even more pain to get the virus ready within the week they had. She felt her head hang down against her chest. Here they go again. "You…are….beautiful!" The Time Lord breathed excitedly into the microscope.
That had Rose taken aback. "Did you just call a virus that's about to kill a bunch of innocent slaves 'beautiful'?" She asked, disbelief etched into her voice.
"No…" Replied the Doctor without taking his eyes away from the lenses. "I called the antivirus that's about the save a bunch of innocent slaves 'beautiful'."
Rose perked up instantly, jumping off the desk in one fluid motion and coming up to stand beside him. The Doctor took the cue and shuffled out of the way so Rose could see in through the lens. Squinting, Rose could just make out the image. It looked absolutely…not extraordinary. Like a pool of green liquid.
"Okay…what am I looking at?"
"Well, nothing now. But – " The image in the lens instantly vanished and Rose looked up in time to see the Doctor move that slide over to the side and slip another one in. The burner had been turned off, but stayed beneath the pad. "Take a look again."
Rose obeyed, narrowing her eyes to the lens once more. This time she could actually see what she assumed were the tiny molecules dancing around their little pool on the slide. Okay, so at least there was something to look at now. She still had no idea what it meant, or how it could ever be classified as 'beautiful'.
"You see how there are two different shapes in the molecules?" The Doctor's voice appeared in her ear, as if he had read her under-whelmed thoughts. And yes, she could kind of see how some were uniformly bigger than others. And maybe if she squinted a bit more she could make out an extra point on the smaller ones.
"Yeah. Why's that?"
"That's because they literally are two different molecules. The rabies virus, and the antivirus."
Rose's eyes snapped back to the Doctor. "Seriously? Is that even possible? Wouldn't they cancel each other out?"
"Nope. We have two completely different molecules co-existing inside a neutral solution that keeps the molecules separate but still sustains the proper environment to keep the virus's alive." He flashed her one of his now rare genuine smiles. "Yep, I'm that good."
Rose bit her lip. "Okay, I didn't get very high marks in my science classes, true, but something tells me that's not usually how this is supposed to work."
"It's not. It's completely ridiculous, at least that's what the rational side of my brain told the weird side when it first came up with the idea. Right up there with banana-skin shoes, totally bonkers. BUT, the more I thought about it the more it actually started to make sense. Master is only going to allow one injection – the tracker pad – and I couldn't have two different capsules on it, or find a way to ensure another injection."
"You mean Jancon." Rose corrected instantly.
"What?"
"You said 'Master' but you meant Jancon, yeah?"
The Doctor just stared at her for a moment before crinkling his nose. "Oh, yes, course I meant that. Sorry. But anyway, I knew I had to get an antivirus on there somehow. Maybe I could make a dual-chambered capsule? But no, that would end up being too large for the tracker pad if I included enough of both virus and antivirus, or too small for either one to be at all effective if I kept the capsule it's normal size. Maybe I could soak the tracker pad in the antivirus so it gets in the system before the virus would be activated? No again. Then the virus would have no effect, and I know Master is going to try it out to make sure I did it right before he puts it into use."
"Jancon." Rose corrected again, an edge of worry in her voice.
"Yes, that, thank you." The Doctor amended distractedly. "Really, I am trying to stop. But anyway! I realized that the only way it would work would be to combine both virus and antivirus in the same chamber so we wouldn't have to waste room including the extra protective fluid each virus needed. But then the problem arose that I still needed protective fluid for both of them, regardless. So the real trial came in figuring out how to make that work.
"You see, the truth is," The Doctor continued, bringing his voice back down from the excited level it had been to something a little more somber and serious. "I could've had the virus formula done in…oh, I don't know? Two hours? Three hours, tops. Really, what Master –"
"Jancon."
"– asked was a piece of cake. My final exam at the Academy was more difficult. But it was that bloody fluid that took me so long to figure out. But – " The Doctor suddenly froze and looked seriously at Rose before intentionally emphasizing, "Jancon – insisted I hurry things along, so I gave it the old Gallifrey try, and, as usual, it just happened to work. I managed to design a formula with both the environmental requirements of both viruses and a system that would ensure the virus is released first, followed by the antivirus before any fatal side effects can happen."
"That's the loophole"
"Yep-o!" The Doctor really was getting excited again. It had been so long since he'd had something to really, truly be excited about. He'd almost forgotten how much he likes the feeling. "You see…Jancon…only said he wanted me to make him a virus. He never gave me explicit instructions not to make anything else. So long as the virus works, there's really no need for him to know about the antivirus until it's too late."
"But you said something about Jancon probably wanting to test the injection beforehand." Rose crossed her arms again as she leaned backwards against the counter, trying to keep up with the Doctor's explanations. "So even if you have found a way to get both the virus and antivirus on there undetected, he'll eventually discover the antivirus when the tests miraculously come back unaffected, right?"
At this the Doctor made a pained face. "Yes…I've thought about that. And I'm also almost positive the tests will be done on living subjects, too, so that really doesn't make this any easier. But the only way I could think to get around it is to have a manual override of the tracker pad. Sort of like the remote Jancon will have to activate the virus. It will be able to target specific capsules so Master can choose who to trigger and when so people won't get too suspicious of all the other competitors randomly dropping dead."
Holding onto the side of the table again, the Doctor hobbled around to a set of cabinets and twisted it open. The metal sang with lack of use as a draw was pulled out. From it the Doctor grabbed what looked like a typical small remote, like the ones people leave in their cars to open the garage, a large microchip with what looked like a small pocket protruding from the bottom, and a one and a half inch by one and a half inch metal plate with a hump coming out of its center. Rose helped him by taking hold of the devices and setting them on his work table as he hopped back around the lab. His left knee wasn't looking much better.
"So what are these things?" Rose asked curiously. "I'm guessing this is the remote you're giving to Jancon?" She held up the small remote, holding it gingerly between her thump and forefinger as if it had been drenched in Slitheen vomit.
"Yep. That remote will control this –" The Doctor pointed to the large microchip. "and trigger the heating pad I'm going to install beneath the capsule. That's the trick, you see. The virus's molecules burn at a lower temperature than the antivirus, so by heating the pad up it will send the heat into the capsule above and, because of the design of the capsule walls, the fumes of the virus will be able to seep through them. Then this guy –" This time he indicated the square piece of metal with the hump. "when turned on, will target the active pad with the highest heat signature and turn up the heat, all the way until the antivirus is able to seep out as well. Pretty simple, eh?"
Rose frowned. Yes, it was simple. But she could still see a major flaw.
"But how are you going to activate it?" She pointed at the bump. "I'm assuming that's some sort of button you have to press? But aren't you not allowed to bring anything into the Trial with you?"
Again, the Doctor made an unpleasant face. "Yeah, that's why I have to implant it somewhere in my body."
Rose blanched. She had not been expecting that answer. The metal plate was quite a bit larger and thicker than the tracker pad they were going to inject. She didn't think a regular tagging gun would be able to fit it. How was he going to get it in?
She ended up asking him just that and, to her absolute horror, watched as the Doctor hobbled over to another draw and pulled out a horrible sharp scalpel. He inspected the blade for a moment before lowering it, testingly, to his left arm, a few inches below the crook of his elbow. Rose noticed for the first time that there was a little mark there, drawn in with pen, right where the Doctor was apparently planning on slicing himself.
"Well, unfortunately," The Doctor eventually responded. "There's really no two ways about it. I'm just going to have to cut myself open, place it beneath the skin close enough to the surface so I can reach the button, but not close enough for it to accidentally go off at any touch, and really, really hope I don't knick any veins and cause any massive internal bleeding." He looked up at Rose with eyes that looked like they were just as unconvinced of the sanity of this plan as she was. He picked up the metal plate one more time and measured it against his arm. Suddenly it looked about ten times larger than before.
"Piece of cake, yeah?"
TBC
A/N Also, Happy Anniversary to this story! It's been a long road, and I want to thank all you marvelous readers for sticking with me through the ups and downs. Let me know what your favorite part of the story has been so far in a review! And see you next time!