"How was the briefing?" Jack asked as Martha returned. "Was it as bad as you thought it was going to be?"
"Worse," Martha commented. She saw the Doctor appeared to be asleep. She was sure that if he was just resting with his eyes closed he'd have acknowledged her when she came in. At least she was mostly sure. Surety was never complete when he Doctor was concerned and that was possibly going to further fuel the minority attitudes. She needed to make sure that he was protected and that he was safe. "Has he had his scans?"
"Yeah, his leg has been really hurting him though after they had to lower it for the scans and then put it back up again. I don't think anyone has actually looked at the scans yet. I think they're all waiting for you as they're not sure what they are going to be looking at," Jack offered. "Anita has just gone to the lab to chase up the results of his blood and urine tests, and I was thinking. Maybe I should take a sample over to the TARDIS? She told the other Jack how to start with the blood cleanser. Maybe she'll be able to help with this too?"
"I don't think it can hurt, but I need to go and talk to someone. I will be back in about ten minutes, okay? Hopefully Anita will be back with the test results and we can look at all of them together and decide how we best proceed."
"He's asleep at the moment so take your time."
Martha went down to the East Wing and to the room adjacent to the Colonel's room. It was where the Harlequin had come down and killed two soldiers and a nurse. It had been cleaned and put back in order the best it could be, but it felt wrong. Not just because people had died, but also because it was so close to the Colonel's room. They would be able to hear each other and not be able to see each other. If the Doctor was in pain and groaning or yelling then it would not be fair. It was not going to be fair either way. Martha took a breath and painted on her professional smile and went into the Colonel's room.
"Alan, how are you doing?" Martha asked him and picked the chart up from the end of his bed so she could look at what her team had been doing for him.
"Better than you by the looks of it?" the Colonel responded. He regarded Martha curiously and with an undisguised concern. "Are you alright?"
"No, Sir, I'm not. Your prick of an understudy just told the entire base that the Doctor is on site and injured, and not only that he showed them a photographic image of his leg injury. I was trying to keep his being here quiet. I knew it would get out and now Andy Johns spouted off and got himself arrested trying to get people to think that the Doctor set up the Harlequin attack or that he's as dangerous as the Harlequin just because he's not human. I'd like to think that no one would believe something as ludicrous, but there were people agreeing with him! Everyone is on edge. They have been on edge for so long and maybe there is some fear associated with the Doctor. Andy got arrested because it seems he might be the leak but if other people think the Doctor is a risk? I mean that is insane! We're in the middle of UNIT and I'm actually worried that he might not be safe! He's certainly not going to get any privacy, I've already ha Doctor Taylor practically begging to come and see him. They're telling me they have a right to know about his medical status as if he's some kind of object that belongs to UNIT like our token alien mascot rather than a man that has a serious injury and a near fatal reaction to medications and needs peace, quiet, and a chance to recover!"
"Our token alien mascot?" Alan asked Martha and raised his eyebrows at her.
"That is how he will be treated. He'll end up trying to run, Alan, and if he doesn't look after his leg he could end up with permanent injury. The whole hospital is busy now with people coming and going and he is now right in the middle of it all."
"It is quiet down here. Bring him back in here with me? Put the quarantine back in place as you planned in the first place."
"Sir, he really isn't well at the moment. I'm not sure it is a good idea. He's quiet nauseous and you don't want him to be throwing up just next to you do you?"
"I have spent forty years as a soldier at UNIT, Martha. I have certainly seen plenty of people throwing up. Granted, it's usually the result of intoxication or bad hooch, but if he is sick then he cannot help that and it is even more important he is separated. I can deal with him. Bring him down here, put the quarantine in place. I assume that is what the ideal situation would be? If you're really concerned about him sharing then I will return to the main area."
"You will not," Martha warned him. She knew as soon as he got there he'd be thinking more about his men and trying to entertain and bolster them rather than resting himself.
"I assume Jack and Mickey will be down with him too and Ethan Coates?"
"I've not seen anything of Ethan today," Martha realised. "Have you seen him?"
"He's come in here a couple of times. I gave him an assignment to do. I'm surprised he's not asked you any questions about it though. He may do."
"I've hardly been around today with all of Major Proctor's briefings."
"He is following protocols with the briefings, Martha," the Colonel advised. "He does like them though."#
"It's not funny, Alan. There will be a mutiny before long and I will be leading it!"
"Bring our mascot down here," Alan commented deliberately teasing Martha to try and get her to relax a little. "Perhaps we could get a UNIT sponsored T-shirt printed?"
"Behave," Martha groaned at him.
"Bring him down. It will be quite nice to have some company. There is only so much a man can sleep and Marion has only popped in and out today and sometimes I've worried that you might all have forgotten I'm down here," the Colonel admitted sheepishly.
"Okay, but, if it gets to the point where he is too much of a distraction and it's not working then you need to tell me. I will be checking your wounds before I finish. I've just put the Doctor through the CT scanner though, so I've got to look at those results and then I will bring him down, as long as you are sure?"
"Yes, bring him in here. It's been far too peaceful."
"Thank you." Martha went down to the main medical area where Anita was arguing with a UNIT soldier about whether he could go in and see the Doctor or not. The door was closed and Anita was stood against it within the frame so that he could not get passed, but the soldier didn't look like he was going to budge any time soon as he stood with his arms crossed and a furious expression as if Anita had no right to be stopping him. Martha didn't know if he wanted to see the Doctor for a bit of hero worshiping adoration or because he believed him to be a threat. It was making her paranoid.
"Can I help you, soldier?" Martha asked him. "I just came to see the Doctor."
"What for?"
"I'm Sergeant Benton's son, Ma'am. My father worked very closely with the Doctor. He asked that if the Doctor every dropped by UNIT that I should remember him to him," the soldier advised.
"I am sure there will be opportunity to do that, but I'm about to move the Doctor into another area of the hospital and he will not be readily accessible until he is more fully recovered."
"I was in the briefing. I saw the state of his leg on that screen."
"Yes, and you shouldn't have. Now please, I appreciate your concern. I will let him know when he is next awake, but I'm sorry. I don't know your name."
"I only just transferred from Leeds last week. I'm Corporal Benton."
"Do you have a first name?"
"My father never did," the Corporal advised. "But, mine is Mike, after Mike Yates," Benton advised.
"If you just transferred a week ago why have you not been in for a medical? I review all medical reports and I've not seen yours."
"It was booked for Friday and it got cancelled. There is no rush though. I am quite healthy."
"Good, now, I must get on and see the Doctor."
"Yes Ma'am," Corporal Benton moved out of the way.
"What did he just say? What did he mean when he said that he saw the Doctor's leg in the briefing?" Anita asked Martha. "I thought we were going to keep all of this as quiet as possible? He's the second person who has tried to get in here."
"We can thank Major Proctor for that," Martha grumbled. "He better stay away from me or I will be giving him a proctology with my foot! The entire base will know that the Doctor is here by now. I need to get him to the East Wing. I've spoken to the Colonel and explained and he's said it is okay, though I am not sure he appreciates how sick he is. Did you get all the blood and urine test results?"
"Yes, they've been uploaded for viewing," Anita confirmed.
"Okay, if it's already started with him becoming a side show, however well intended that is, let's move him and then have a look at it all in the East Wing. I'm raising the quarantine level to a level 3 as well. Named personnel and visitors only."
"Alright." Anita could tell that Martha was stressed and annoyed.
Martha went into the room. "Is he awake?"
"No, sound asleep."
"We're moving him into the East Wing under quarantine. Proctor managed to tell the whole of UNIT that he is here and we're already turning visitors away and I had them in the briefing," Martha told Jack. "Someone was also arrested for making potentially inflammatory comments as well as potentially being the leak. He was trying to incite people into thinking the Doctor is a threat to them because he is an alien, he even thought of suggesting that he had brought the Harlequin here just so he could save us all. We're moving the Doctor back in with Alan. I think that will be good once he's feeling a bit better but I am concerned about how much he will disturb Alan. He's putting on a bit of a brave face at the moment for our benefit, but he's hurting and worn himself. I don't see there is much choice. The Doctor certainly isn't going to be able to cope with being the centre of attention whether that is positive or negative attention. So we're putting a level 3 quarantine on the East Wing which means only named persons will have access and I will get a couple of guards provided to ensure the integrity of it."
"Are you serious?" Jack asked. "He's going to be under guard?"
"I'm not having him made to feel any more uncomfortable Jack. He came to me for help with a shattered leg and that is bad enough, but I just about killed him and I'm concerned we've put him in renal failure. Now he's the talk of the town? I'm not having it." Martha's mind was made up as far as it could be. She was not happy, but her hand had been forced. She went to the foot of the Doctor's bed and clicked the brakes off. "Come on, we're going."
Martha, Jack, and Mickey pushed the Doctor's bed down to the East Wing while Anita led the way and made sure there was no one ready to gawp in the corridors. They wheeled him straight into the spot beside the Colonel's bed and then put the brakes back on so his bed was secured.
"Martha?" the Colonel was watching with a concerned interest. "I'm not bothered by him throwing up and sick, but is that metal thing going into his leg?" he asked. Martha winced slightly knowing that the Colonel did tend to be a bit squeamish about things medical.
"Not just into it. It comes out the other side." Mickey was helpful and answered on Martha's behalf. The Colonel's eyes widened slightly as he looked at the metal contraption visibly on the Doctor's elevated leg. Martha chuckled and grabbed a spare pillow. She removed the pillow case and gently draped it over the brace.
"I still know it is under there," the Colonel muttered.
"It is keeping the main fractures in his mid-shin stable and stopping the bone coming back out of the skin, so it is better that it is there than not," Martha assured him. "And, we almost killed him during the operation to put it in, so I'm certainly not going to go and take it out again. I think it has reduced his overall leg pain for him," Martha advised the Colonel. "We've just got another problem that we need to investigate and that results from the medication he had during the surgery to put the frame on, so I do need to work on that for a moment?"
The Colonel nodded knowing that was Martha's polite way of telling him to shut up so she could work. Mickey went and sat over by the Colonel's bed noticing the book he was reading, having read two in the same series. They were quickly off in the world of Sharpe.
"Right, Doctor, let's have a look at your scans and see what is going on here," Martha commented thought the Doctor remained asleep. She put the abdominal scans up on the screen.
"His left kidney is clearly a lot larger than the right," Jack observed.
"Yeah, and see this here?" Martha pointed to some white spots in and around his left kidney that were not visible around his right.
"Are they more stones?" "
"Yeah, I think so, but they are only very small. I don't think he'd have a problem passing them, but he should have passed them by now. I don't think he can be utilising that kidney much at all. It is looking swollen and enlarged. There is no evidence of bleeding into the tissues around it, but it's definitely not happy in there. He did say he got a whack to that area about a week ago. I think he must have had a bruised kidney as a result. He's lucky it did not rupture or bleed, but now the organ has been put under a lot of strain because of the drugs, and not just the interaction, but we've been giving him a lot of powerful medications to burn off and his kidneys will have been in overdrive. Then we basically poisoned him and all of that has resulted in that kidney just not being able to cope with it and becoming very inflamed."
"So, is it infection or fluid?" Anita asked.
"Let's have a look at his blood tests and urine test results," Martha suggested. His blood test scores were set against the comparison card for a previous regeneration. It gave a fair comparison for a Time Lord even if it was not this version of the Doctor. "His red blood cell count remains low. He's still anaemic, that is probably enough to explain the dizziness still. His leukocytes are normal which doesn't indicate he's fighting infection which is a relief. He does however have protein and glucose in his urine which is indicative of kidney failure. His blood test is also showing a high level of the components of urea that should be being filtered out. I think we can safely assume that his left kidney is not functioning to full capacity," Martha concluded.
"Is that why he is feeling so unwell?"
"It's got to be a large part of it. If he's like a human then he can cope with one kidney if he has to, but it will be putting his other kidney under strain and with the drugs he is taking. We can't reduce what he is on now," Martha advised.
"So, what is the treatment?"
"If he were human I'd be looking at maintaining bed rest and be pushing as much fluid as possible and putting diuretics as well as flushing him through and seeing if the inflammation goes down and kidney function recovers. There are drugs that support kidney function and there is always the dialysis again to reduce the toxins in his blood if they start to build up to dangerous levels," Martha advised Jack. "I could do with knowing more about him specifically?" She glanced at Jack. "Would you mind going to the TARDIS and finding out what you can about him?"
"Do you want me to go straight away or are you going to look at his leg now as well?" Jack asked Martha.
"I'll wait for James to return for that. There isn't anything that is showing as needing immediate attention so I'd rather just wait for James, get him put under, and then sort his leg out all at the same time. I don't want to be manipulating him and causing him additional pain when it can wait."
"How is James?" Jack asked Martha.
"He's out of surgery and he's resting on the ward," Martha told him. "He's going to be in plaster for a couple of weeks and then back in the brace until he's healed. He's recovering well from the surgery. I expect he'll have tonight and tomorrow to finish getting over the anaesthetic and then he'll want to come in. He'll be able to start doing some bits and pieces then, but he'll be on reduced duties. It'll probably be three or four days before he can put weight through his leg and then we will look about operating on the Doctor if the swelling has gone down enough by then," Martha advised. "James's injury is not going to delay the Doctor's treatment with regards to his leg, especially not if we can't get his kidney function right. We certainly won't be doing it if there is a risk of oedema. His leg is as good as it is going to get for a while. With the cast split we can leave it and just try to help him manage the pain. I just want to have a double check of the scans of his head to make sure there is nothing there that could be causing the continued nausea. I don't think there is, but just to be doubly safe," Martha confirmed. They had a look at the scans of the Doctor's head. They confirmed again that there was nothing going on. His skull was intact, his facial bones were all intact and there was no bleeding or lesions on his brain.
"His head is fine."
"I think that is probably the most surprising thing in all of this," Colonel Mace commented from his bed. Martha glanced over at him and he and Mickey were grinning.
"If you're going to be mean to him I will take your roomy away again, or no, actually, I will add Doctor Taylor to the list of permitted visitors," Martha warned the Colonel. He laughed and raised his hands in surrender.
"Who is Doctor Taylor?" Mickey asked.
"Oh he's lovely really," Martha commented. "He's eccentric but brilliant and he's a physicist whose social skills leave something to be desired, but he is innocent rather than malicious. He liaised with the Doctor on a case recently, he's a bit, um, hyper and even more so when he is concerned," Martha commented. "Not the kind of person you want to be entertaining in the hospital, but, the Doctor's head is fine, so how about you go over to the TARDIS and see what she says about his kidney function. Can you mention the headache, nausea, and his reduced body temperature too?" Martha offered. "I'm still worried about that. He's not recovering from the anaemia as quickly as I expected him to either."
"I'll go through all of it with her," Jack advised. He hurried to go to the TARDIS as Martha busied herself checking the Doctor's drips.
