CHAPTER 38

It had taken the Doctor a little longer than necessary to reach Regina's TARDIS. Firstly, he'd spent some time familiarising himself with the Soratan rain – which was still beating strongly down on Leadworth – whilst trying, unsuccessfully, to squint through the shadowy clouds in the hopes of glimpsing one of the creatures who inhabited them. Then, once he'd reached the street in which the TARDIS had been left, it had taken him a while to work out which of the streetlamps was actually a spaceship. Regina's chameleon circuit was rather impressive.

Once he'd finally located the correct streetlamp, the Doctor jostled with the small hatch on the side of the pole, and, rather ungracefully, stuck his foot inside it. As he squeezed the rest of his body through, it began to open out into a full-size doorway, and he found himself in the large control room of Regina's TARDIS.

"Hello?" he called out, seeing no signs of life in the circular room.

"Doctor!" Regina's voice called out from a room beyond the main one. The Doctor followed the noise, hurrying through a set of oak double-doors. Dorian was lying, flat on his back, in the centre of a large, circular bed. Any colour that had been in his pale skin had gone, leaving him looking as white as a corpse. The Doctor had to choke back a cry of horror and revulsion.

"What happened?" he exclaimed, joining Regina at the boy's side. Her slender hand cradled her son's cold, white face, her fingers brushing through his thick black hair. The Doctor pulled out his screwdriver and pointed its light towards Dorian's closed eyes.

"I don't know," she replied, her voice rough with choked-back sobs. "He just collapsed…I…I didn't know what else to do."

The Doctor frowned, his eyes flicking between Dorian's pale face and the screwdriver. "Well, he's definitely alive. How long for, I don't know." He looked at Regina's distraught face with compassion.

A sudden crash tore his eyes away from both Regina and Dorian, and he ran out of the bedroom into the control room. Standing by the doorway was Amy Pond, and she was helping Ella clamber through the TARDIS's door.

"Amelia," he growled, his expression thunderous as he hurried towards them. "I thought I told you to stay at Rory's."

She glared at him. "I'm not an idiot, Doctor. Something's going on and I want to know what it is. You can't expect me to hang around in a stupid little town whilst you go gallivanting off with Time Lords and other aliens. You'renot leaving me behind."

The Doctor's retort was interrupted by the arrival of Rory, who looked rather disgruntled at having to enter the ship through a streetlamp.

"Look," he said quietly, his anger draining as he thought of Regina and her son. "Dorian's in a bad way."

"What's happened to him?" Amy asked sharply. "Is he okay?"

"No," the Doctor sighed. "No, he's not. Something's happened to him – we don't know what, but I'm trying to work it out now."

He began walking back towards the bedroom, and he heard Amy's footsteps behind him. "I've been trying to match up his vitals with anything stored on the screwdriver," he explained as he entered the room. Regina had moved from her vigil at Dorian's side, and was waiting anxiously for his return. She looked surprised to see Amy enter with the Doctor, but she said nothing, allowing the Doctor to continue. "If I'm not mistaken, I think it is highly likely that this has something to do with the Soratans."

Regina gasped at the mention of this alien race, and shared a meaningful glance with the Doctor, who nodded.

"It's too much of a coincidence that such a healthy boy, a Time Lord no less, should fall ill within the space of a minute after being exposed to the rain."

"I thought you said it wasn't harmful?" Amy recalled.

"I said that, as far as I knew, it wasn't harmful to Time Lords or humans."

Amy frowned, trying to understand the Doctor's cryptic response. "So…"

The Doctor glanced quickly at Regina, but she was once again kneeling beside Dorian's body.

"Dorian isn't fully Time Lord," he told Amy quietly. "Nor is he fully human."

It took Amy a matter of seconds to grasp the meaning of the Doctor's words. "You mean he's only half Time Lord?"

The Doctor nodded gravely. "I've just found out that his father was human. So although the rain has little effect on either full-Time Lords or full-humans…I don't know. However many hearts Dorian has, they're beating…but only just. Maybe it's just affecting Dorian in this way, but I think that it's attacking the vulnerable elements of both the Time Lord and humans parts of him, as it would anyone like him."

Amy's thoughts immediately flashed to her own child, who herself was not fully human, nor fully Time Lord. "But that means…" she said, as her eyes connected with the Doctor's, her expression of horror matching his own.

Rory burst into the room, a look of panic on his face. "Amy, Doctor, come quick!" he gasped. "It's Ella. Something's happened to Ella."