The Doctor laid on his bed and tried not to listen to the way in which the Colonel was letting Captain Price, his partner, see how hurt he was by the deaths. Now the people acting on his behalf had left the room he no longer had to maintain his air of control and command. The Doctor realised that he was hurting, not just with his injury, but with the deaths and with the pain of every one of his men who had been hurt. The Doctor did try not to listen, but they were in the same room as him and that room was technically only designed for one. Jack had gone out but Mickey had not come in yet to keep him company, and if he did not think about their conversation then the only thing he had to concentrate on was the pain in his leg.
It remained too much even with the new drugs. They thought that because he was able to draw breath and was not writhing with it that it was better, and, of course it was – because he could breathe and was not writhing, but it was not good. He doubted it would be good at all until he had the surgery and then that was only going to be temporary. When he had the full surgery to stabilise him it would be better again, but not until then. He heard what Marion said about coming clean to Martha. It was what he'd been told so many times before, not necessarily only about injuries but about not talking and not coming clean.
Colonel Mace was suffering the pain of his injury but he was feeling the deaths of those that had died under his command, those who had followed his orders and gone into battle. They were soldiers. People who had elected to come into UNIT in order to protect the planet. He had led people into battle and it wasn't even their battles. People who had not signed up and had not trained as soldiers had died in his name, had died for his causes. What was it he was told? That he turned ordinary people into weapons? As he laid and listened to Captain Price trying to console Colonel Mace and get him to admit to Martha that he might need some help to rest the Doctor could hear the same conversations echoing through his own head.
He could actually see when considering it from the outside view of Colonel Mace how it would be easier for Martha to deal with things if Mace came clean to her. He could see it so plainly now it was not himself at the centre of it but a reflection. Martha was a brilliant young physician who was loving and compassionate. It was important to give her the information she needed so that she knew how best to proceed and as she had sometimes put it so she didn't have to enter into guessing games. He wondered what he'd actually say to her if she came in and he took to being totally honest with, well with himself more than with her. It was never about not telling Martha, it was about not acknowledging it to himself. He wondered if it was the same for Mace. He expected it was.
He was scared. He was, not Mace, though Mace might be as well, but he was. He should probably admit that to Martha. He'd had surgery before in a human hospital and that really had not ended well at all. He was saying he was okay with general anaesthetics because they shouldn't just kill him straight, but he didn't know just how he would handle them. Different ones could make him feel pretty unwell and he'd not had any in this generation, for all he knew he was deadly allergic to them and one sniff would have him regenerating – or not. He'd taken ether in this generation. It had been accidental and he'd ended up with a headache though as Martha had pointed out that may have been due to his braining himself on the science lab bench rather than the ether itself. He blamed the ether.
He knew he needed surgery. He also knew he needed it more than once. In fact he knew he was going to need it at least four times over the next few months, possibly more. He needed it now to close the open fracture and hopefully stabilise it a bit to reduce the play the cowboys had with it. Then when the swelling went down he'd need the surgery to fully stabilise the fractures in his ankle, leg, and knee and turn his leg into an inside out cyber-leg for a while. He would need another surgery once the bones had started to knit in order to repair the ligaments in his knee and ankle. Then once he was healed a final surgery would remove all the hardware.
It scared him. The thought of being put under a general anaesthetic scared him once. It scared him more to think it was going to have to happen four times. He was not human. His body wasn't always going to respond in the way a human doctor expected a human patient to respond. He was not a doctor either, he did not always know how a human wound expect the body to respond with a human nor did he know how his body would respond so that he could let them know in advance that if such and such happened then it would do this in a human but would do this in him. He didn't know what the potential such and suches were and he didn't know what the potential such and suches would do to a human and he didn't know what the potential such and suches would do to a Time Lord.
He trusted Doctor Martha Jones with his life. He also trusted Captain Jack Harkness with his life, but that was when they were in battle or in the middle of an adventure. They trusted him with their lives as well. That didn't mean they would necessarily trust him to give them a gas that would totally remove any conscious ability from them so that he could hammer nails and wires and various other things into their smashed legs. Though, knowing both Martha and Jack if he had said it was necessary to do it then they would just let him. Jack would certainly, Martha might have been a bit more reticent about it.
It might be hard enough as it was to get him to actually breathe in the anaesthetic gas without it triggering his bypass. If he was particularly worried about it or scared about the surgery at the time then he might instinctively shut his airway down and then not breathe the gas. What if they didn't realise that he'd not breathed it in properly? They might start to operate on him and he'd not be properly out of it? And, general anaesthetics were not pain killers, they just prevented movement and reaction. What if he felt every one of the cuts and slices and drills and hammers?
He didn't like having a mask over his nose and mouth when it contained life giving oxygen. When it contained a gas that would taste strange and lead him to be disassociating with himself he didn't know if he would be able to do it. Then he would be embarrassed because it would become clear that he was not only too scared to breathe the gas but that he had no control at all over his bodily functions as his bypass triggered. If they didn't realise then they'd carry on feeding him the gas until his bypass was depleted and then he'd have no reserve if anything did go wrong.
He should probably tell Martha about that. He should probably tell her how to watch for if his bypass went and that if he needed to be intubated then she had to use a straight rather than a curved intubation device. He should tell her that there would probably still be a bit of blood but that it was nothing to worry about unless there was a massive haemorrhage. He would have to tell her to let his bypass flick off and recover before trying to anaesthetise him again, but then if he told her all of the things that worried him would she feel more or less confident about operating on him?
He knew she had to be worried about it as well. If she was not then why were they waiting for the most experienced team when it was only going to be a quick leg fix? If she was not worried then she'd just be taking him in with the B tea. It wasn't a serious operation in real terms, a quick pin insertion, so why wait for the best to come out of the critical life-saving surgeries that their experience was required for? It was because she was worried about operating on him, so if he admitted he was worried about being operated on then it would make her less confident and more worried wouldn't it?
Was that fair and was that conducive to having a safer surgery? It was not that he did not have full confidence in Martha's ability. He did. She was a brilliant doctor. It was just he wasn't human. If he had to have surgery then he'd want her to be doing it, well, short of being able to take a trip back to Gallifrey and having Time Lord medics do it, though they'd probably not waste their resources in the face of a leg injury like his and just trigger a regeneration. He didn't want to regenerate. He didn't want to go. He wasn't ready to go. He just wanted to stay and no one was knocking were they? It wasn't time for him to go.
He was getting paranoid about prophecies, he didn't want to regenerate, that meant he had to put his trust in Martha and in 21st century medical techniques. They were probably the best to deal with Time Lord bones anyway. Advanced human grafting and cementing techniques would not be successful for a Time Lord. With his immune system the difference between using titanium pins and using laser pins was insignificant, besides, Martha would not be able to carry out any of those techniques and then it would be worse. He'd end up being totally screwed.
"You alright there, Boss?" Mickey had come into the room. He'd not even realised he had. He'd been so lost in his own worries and concerns that he'd made it all the way over to his bedside before he'd even acknowledged him.
"I'm scared." The words came out of his mouth before his brain kicked in with the drugs and changed the truth to a confidence building tactical lie of yes, he was fine. He had to believe he was fine didn't he, and damn? He'd just told Mickey the Idiot that he was scared. What a bloody stupid thing to do. What was the idiot now? It had to be the drugs. There was no way he would have opened his mouth and allowed that kind of idiocy to come out to Mickey if he wasn't. He closed his eyes and sighed and waited for him to be ridiculed and jibed.
"About having surgery?" Mickey asked him as he pulled the seat over a bit. Oh, he was taking a pew and getting himself comfortable. It was going to be a prolonged ridicule and jibing session. Mickey couldn't imagine the Time Lord being scared about the ghost, not now it was dead anyway, unless he had figured something else out that he needed to run and tell Captain Jack about.
"Yeah." He couldn't safely back track now could he? Mickey had noticed the words that had come out of his mouth. Maybe he should just say he was scared of the ghost. That was more realistic wasn't it?
"That is understandable," Mickey commented kindly.
"Is it?" the Doctor asked wondering if Mickey was being genuine or if he was going to get him to open up and then come in for the kill.
"Course it is. All surgeries carry some kind of risk don't they? You're putting absolutely every control you have in someone else's hands."
"Way to make me feel better," the Doctor grumbled.
"It's true though, Boss. It's okay to be scared and nervous about that. Martha is going to look after you though, and, when you do go down we will all be here waiting for you when you wake up. That will be something for you to look forward to won't it?" Mickey teased him slightly. He wasn't being mean about it though. He would have been mean to Mickey about it. Like when he'd screamed when a whole cupboard of freeze dried rats had landed on him. He had never admitted to Mickey that he'd probably have ended up being scared by that as well. Not because of the rats but because of the shock factor and instead he'd ribbed him about pigtails and screaming like an eight year old girl.
"I had surgery about three months ago," Mickey advised the Doctor.
"Three months?" The Doctor tried to get the time line right in his head. "That would be after the planets in the sky?" Mickey would have been in this universe?
"Yeah," Mickey confirmed. "About four weeks after. Martha did that for me as well. Man, I was scared going into it though. I didn't think I was going to wake up. I had a bad time with an anaesthetic when I was a kid. I had to have a couple of teeth taken out and they wanted to do it in the hospital. I was intensive care for a week after that. I've never felt so ill in my life, so then I had to have surgery again and I was proper bricking myself."
"Did you tell Martha you were worried?"
"Yeah, and she was great. She spent ages trying to find my medical files and then looked at what had made me sick. She told me about all the different changes in the anaesthetics that had been made. The one that had made me sick wasn't even in use anymore. She explained everything to me and when I came round I didn't even feel sick! It was fine," Mickey advised. "Plus, Martha isn't a bad view to be coming round too, eh, Boss, if you catch my drift?" Mickey nudged the Time Lord very gently. The Doctor didn't comment on that.
"What did you have surgery for?"
"I dislocated my ankle. Snapped all the ligaments right through and needed them surgically repaired," Mickey commented. "God, you'd have thought I broke it. Martha isn't sure how there wasn't any breaks in there. Guess it was all the milk I drink or something," Mickey advised. "It was totally dislocated though and God it bloody hurt. I had to have surgery to reattach some ligaments and I got a screw to hold the tibia and fibula together so that it could heal even though there were no breaks in there. I still ended up in a cast for six weeks. I've still got a support on it now and have to do some physio and stuff, but it is pretty good. I'm lucky that Jack called Martha in and didn't just dump me at the local hospital or something. Martha reckons they might have delayed the surgery and seen if it healed conservatively and then I'd be in more trouble now. Martha did the surgery straight away and it's just about back to normal," Mickey commented. "You're in good hands with Martha, Boss."
"I know," the Doctor confirmed. "How did you dislocate your ankle?" the Doctor asked wanting to take his mind off things.
"Captain Cheesecake did it."
"Jack?" the Doctor checked and then frowned. Jack wouldn't hurt anyone, not deliberately, not anymore. He'd certainly not hurt Mickey.
"Yep, Captain Jack Harkness almost crippled me for the last piece of pepperoni pizza," Mickey commented. He sounded gravely serious to begin with and then he laughed. "We were fighting over a bit of pizza," he elaborated more cheerfully.
"What? Really fighting?"
"Nah, not really fighting. I'm not that stupid. If I ever got into a proper fight with Jack I'd be dead in seconds. He'd do me over in a heart beta in a real fight. He's bloody strong, don't tell him I told you that though."
"No, I think his head is big enough already," the Doctor agreed. "But how do you get a dislocated ankle over a bit of pizza?"
"I pinched the last piece of pepperoni pizza. It wasn't even the last bit of pizza. There was Hawaiian and vegetarian left. We both wanted the pepperoni one though and I nicked it and he gave chase. We were just horsing around you know. Ianto and Gwen were there and were egging us both on. We'd had a few beers. We'd spent most of the last three days trying to track down a weevil in the sewers so Jack bought us all pizza just to have a nice evening. We started to wrestle a bit and try to get a bite of the pizza and then my foot just turned the wrong way. I fell over and Jack fell on top of me and that was the end of that. It was totally accidental, but God it hurt. I can't imagine what yours feels like. You've had a dislocated ankle as well as everything else on top haven't you?"
"Yeah," the Doctor admitted. "I thought my leg was going to come off," he offered sheepishly.
"What? Literally?"
"Yeah. I'm not sure I've ever been so scared, Mickey. There was no one there and I could hardly breathe. It was only because the TARDIS helped me that I didn't just pass out and stay passed out and then I'd still be out there on my own. My leg was hanging and flopping in the middle. Where it is not supposed to bend. Where it is never supposed to bed. It was just hanging like it was about to come off and was totally snapped through. I didn't know what to do."
"At least you've got Martha now, huh?" Mickey squeezed the Doctor's hand. He couldn't imagine how terrifying it would be to see your own leg actually flopping over. He was almost in hysterics when he'd hurt his ankle. Jack had tried to block his view of it to begin with but his foot was rotated around. When he'd see it he'd gone mental and that was with Gwen, Ianto, and Jack there all trying to support and keep him calm. "I'm glad that Jack was able to go and get those better drugs for you. They seem to be helping."
"They are," the Doctor confirmed. "It will be better after the operation. It's still bad now."
"You're pretty pale," Mickey offered. "In fact you look like total shit, Boss. Has anyone told you that? And, that really is one Hell of a shiner you've got there as well. I didn't expect you to be so bad when Jack asked me to drive up because you'd broken your leg. He didn't tell me how seriously you'd done it. I guess I should have known that there would be no half measures with you. There is no point doing something the easy way if you can do it the Doctor way is there?" Mickey teased him.
"Guess not." The Doctor smiled at Mickey's efforts to make him feel better. They were working. "It would always be bad though. Time Lord bones don't break that easily so when they reach a point where it is going to happen it is usually a bad injury because of the forces required. They'd not just tend to crack but to really go and then the neural system makes them hurt quite a bit, or very much a lot, more than a lot. I always knew it would hurt a lot, but I never really imagined it would hurt this much. I'm totally incapacitated by it."
"You've got a broken leg, Boss. You're supposed to be incapacitated by it."
"It is all I can think about. All Hell has been breaking loose and I've been totally useless. I had Wilfred and Ethan trying to push my bed out the way of the Harlequin because I could do nothing to protect myself even as it was coming through the ventilation hatch above my bed!" The Doctor sounded ashamed and distressed by it. "That is an old man and a kid!"
"From what I heard you protected both of them and that is how your leg got worse."
"Only because they had already started to tip the bed. If they'd not managed to do that then there would have been nothing I could do, and it was hardly a success."
"I don't think you should worry about any of that now anyway, Boss. The alien is contained. They only know what it is because of you and you gave them the information to deal with it and to kill it. You may not have been running around like a loon…"
"Like a what?"
"A loon." Mickey clarified and chuckled. "And, don't try to tell me you wouldn't have been if you could have been."
"Maybe."
"Definitely," Mickey argued. "What is it you say is good for fighting? You don't have weapons but you have this?" Mickey tapped his head. "You don't carry a gun, you have your mind. Well, you still ended winning out today because of what you know. The information you gave informed the soldiers and the orders received. Shooting it in the head wound worked. Liquid nitrogen worked. So even if you were stuck in a bed you were able to help, and, Martha will be able to fix your leg soon and she'll get you running around like a loon again, but I tell you one thing now for free, Boss."
"What is that?"
"You might think that James bloke is a bit harsh and cold. When it comes to doing what you're told and doing the physio and exercises you need to do in order to rehab once you're healing Martha Jones is a slave driver. Believe me. I have had her for the last three months!" Mickey commented. "By phone a lot of the time. She puts it on speaker and then sets Gwen and Jack on me. Mind you, Jack has been pretty good about it. I think he feels guilty about it, not that he needs to," Mickey commented. The door opened and Jack came back into the room.
"Talk of the Devil, isn't that what you lot say?" the Doctor asked. "Talk of the Devil and he will appear?"
"You walking about me then?" Jack raised his eyebrows at the Doctor. "Let me guess. It's about how brilliant and handsome I am?" "No."
"What, I featured in your conversation and that didn't even get a mention?"
"Not a one," Mickey commented and then laughed.
"Mickey was just telling me how you almost broke his ankle for him," the Doctor advised.
"Oh," Jack commented. He actually sounded and looked genuinely worried about it and the Doctor regretted turning it into a joke. If they had been fighting over a bit of pizza then it sounded like they were having some welcome fun and sometimes things like that happened.
"Did he tell you that he's got the hots for our Martha Jones?" Jack quickly turned it back around onto Mickey. The Doctor glanced at Mickey and swore that he blushed as he looked away bashfully. Jack burst out laughing.
"Jack, keep it down a little, huh?" Mickey scolded as Colonel Mace was sleeping in the adjacent bed.
"Yeah, we should keep it down," the Doctor accepted. He almost envied the Colonel that he'd managed to get to sleep. "Did you sort out what he asked for with the dead?"
"Major Starkey has called the liaisons and the chaplaincy team in. They have a really good set up here for dealing with bereavement. I think with the Sontarans and the daleks they've had a fair bit of practise," Jack commented sadly. "But they have their own Vicar and an Imam and they have regular access to a Rabbi, a Hindu Preacher and a Sikh Minister," Jack advised. "Major Starkey is getting them all called in and they will start contacting the families. They are going to go out and do it face to face where possible. That is not a task I envy them," Jack offered solemnly. "It is going to be very difficult for some time, but they don't need me to be in direct involvement with it for a while."
"What is Ethan doing?" the Doctor asked.
"He helped sort out which liaisons will go to which families based on their locations and he's putting together an information pack to leave behind with the contact details that the families might need so if they can't take it all in they have a reference point," Jack advised. "That is his idea too. Said that when his brother was killed he was told about all the different people he needed to contact and then he couldn't remember any of them because he was so upset in the first instance. They are also getting in touch with UNIT in Leeds and in Portsmouth to see if they can spare any liaisons to come down and provide additional support. The issue that we have got is that as soon as the liaisons go out the news of what has happened here will start to break. At the moment it is contained within the base and there have been no known information leaks. As soon as the liaisons start going out it will start so I've got Major Starkey onto the Press Office as well. They are preparing an initial statement indicating that there has been an incident contained on the base and that a full investigation will be conducted," Jack advised. "Something along those lines."
"Perhaps you should ask Sarah Jane what to say?" the Doctor commented. "She'll know what the minimum information accepted will be."
"I might ask her to speak to Major Starkey about it," Jack nodded his agreement.
"Will Colonel Mace have to approve a statement?" Mickey asked.
"Not now he's injured," Captain Price overheard. "I am sure he will want to know what is being said when he wakes, but he trusts you to handle things, Captain, or he would not have put you in post," she advised Jack.
"Major Proctor will be here within a couple of hours. It has been confirmed that he is in the air on route back. I think everyone will be happier then," Jack commented. He had been relieved when they had confirmed that Colonel Mace's usual number two was going to be back soon in order to take over base command while the Colonel recovered. "It took them a while to locate him. He had boarded a cruise ship in the Mediterranean but he has been airlifted off it and is being brought back."
"Who is he?" the Doctor asked.
"He is Colonel Mace's normal number two. He has been on leave."
"It is typical isn't it?" Captain Price suggested. "It is the first leave he has taken since the dalek invasion. We were just getting back up to speed. Even Alan was talking about taking a couple of weeks off base when Major Proctor returned. He's not had a day off since the daleks and no more than two days off since the Sontarans," Captain Price sighed and caressed his head.
"I heard what he said about the men and women who died under his command," the Doctor offered sensitively. "You need to make sure he knows that with a Harlequin Ghost on site that he could not have saved those that came into direct contact with it. His actions and the actions of the men and women under his command have ensure the ghost has been contained and prevented from escaping the base. If that thing had got off base and into the city? Hundreds of people would have been killed in a very short period of time, it would have been carnage," the Doctor advised Captain Price on the Colonel's behalf. "He and his men should be highly commended."
"Yes they should."
"I know that it is unlikely to make the losses easier to bear or to relieve his personal burden."
"No, it won't."
"But, it may be useful to provide a balance in the days ahead," the Doctor offered.
"Maybe," Captain Price offered. "I hope it does. Thank you, Doctor."