Chapter 32: Cold Blood

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, it belongs to BBC

Madness- Ruelle

Nowhere to run

There's nowhere to hide

This is madness, madness, madness

Ernie had been right. They found Nancy by the train tracks on the outskirts of town. She was walking somewhere with a purpose but they didn't know where. They had been following her for some time before she finally came to a stop at some sort of shack. They came up on the other side of the shack and looked through the window to watch Nancy put the food that she stole away.

Nancy stood up and jumped when she saw the Doctor and Kit. "How'd you follow me here?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I'm good at following, me. Got the nose for it."

Nancy narrowed her eyes. "People can't usually follow me if I don't want them to."

"My nose has special powers."

She grinned. "Yeah? That's why it's…"

"What?"

Nancy muffed a laugh but Kit just laughed out right. "Nothing."

"What?" The Doctor tried again, looking between Nancy and Kit

"That why your noise so big?" Kit finished Nancy statement which caused Nancy to laugh more.

The Doctor scoffed. "It's not that big."

"Yeah and I'm not that short," Kit joked.

The Doctor grinned. "So you admit you're short."

Kit's eyes widened. "Wait—no I—shit!"

Nancy shook her head. "You two are very strange but it still doesn't explain how you knew where I was."

"I told you it's—"

"Ernie told us," Kit cut the Doctor off realizing there was no point in lying.

Nancy cursed. "I knew I should've never told him."

"Don't blame him," she said softly. "I think he's just worried about you."

Nancy looked down at her feet sadly. "I should really be going."

"Nancy," The Doctor stopped her before she could leave. "There's something chasing you and the other kids. Looks like a boy and it isn't a boy, and it started about a month ago, right? The thing I'm looking for, the thing that fell from the sky, that's when it landed. And you know what I'm talking about, don't you?"

Nancy bit her lip. "There was a bomb. A bomb that wasn't a bomb. Fell the other end of Limehouse Green Station."

"Take us there," he instructed.

She shook her head. "There's soldiers guarding it. Barbed wire. You'll never get through."

"Try me."

"You two sure you want to know what's going on in there?" She asked with a sigh.

"Oh, trust us, we really do," Kit stressed.

"Then there's someone you need to talk to first."

"And who might that be?" The Doctor questioned.

"The Doctor," she told them and started walking away.

Kit opened and closed her mouth like a fish. "Wait… what?"

...

They followed Nancy to the crash site. Just as she said, there was a large barbed wire fence that encased the bomb. Inside the fence was a good amount of guards with guns. They stood far enough away that they wouldn't be caught.

"Can we move further?" Kit asked. "I can barley see."

Nancy shook her head. "This is as far as we can go without them arresting us."

"I'm guessing you've found out the hard way?" The Doctor questioned.

"You're not the only one that wanted to know what that thing was," she replied with attitude.

"Okay so we can't go closer. So how're we suppose to know what the hell is going on down there?" Kit asked impatiently.

"With these." The Doctor rummaged deep in his pocket and pulled out binoculars.

"How'd you fit binoculars in your pocket?" Nancy asked in bewilderment.

"Let's just say my pocket is a little bigger on the inside," The Doctor explained and Kit grinned. The Doctor peered through the binoculars and scanned the area.

"The bomb's under that tarpaulin," Nancy pointed. "They put the fence up over night. See that building? The hospital."

"What about it?" The Doctor inquired.

"That's where the doctor is. You should talk to him."

"I think we'd rather go to the crash site first," Kit told her.

Nancy shook her head. "No, see the Doctor."

"Why do you want us to see this guy so bad?" Kit questioned.

"Because then maybe you won't want to get inside." Nancy started walking away.

"You gonna leave?"

"There was a lot of food in that house. I've got mouths to feed. Should be safe enough now," she explained.

"Can I ask you a question?" The Doctor asked suddenly. "Who did you lose?"

Nancy smiled tightly. "What?"

The Doctor lowered his binoculars and turned to Nancy. "The way you look after all those kids. It's because you lost somebody, isn't it? You're doing all this to make up for it."

Nancy was quiet for a second. "My little brother. Jamie. One night I went out looking for food. Same night that thing fell. I told him not to follow me, I told him it was dangerous, but he just. He just didn't like being on his own."

"What happened?"

"In the middle of an air raid? What do you think happened?"

Kit suddenly understood Nancy. She was trying to fix her mistake. Trying to make up for what happened to her brother. She fed all those kids—fed her—because they all reminded her of her brother. They were all lost and trying to find someone to cling to like how Jamie clung to Nancy and she was hoping to make sure they were safe. It was incredibly sad to think about.

"Amazing," the Doctor suddenly said out of the blue.

"What is?"

"1941. Right now, not very far from here, the German war machine is rolling up the map of Europe. Country after country, falling like dominoes. Nothing can stop it. Nothing. Until one, tiny, damp little island says no. No. Not here. A mouse in front of a lion. You're amazing, the lot of you. Don't know what you do to Hitler, but you frighten the hell out of me," The Doctor told her seemly like he was off in a whole different world. "Off you go then do what you've got to do. Save the world."

Nancy smiled slightly and did what she was told. The Doctor looked at Kit and nodded his head to the hospital. She knew what that meant. It was time to meet this Doctor.

They headed towards the hospital. They made sure they avoided any guards on their way. They finally got to the gate of the hospital when they noticed that it was locked.

"Why would they lock a hospital in the middle of an air raid?" Kit pondered out loud. "What are they trying to keep out?"

The Doctor took out his sonic and soniced the lock. "Maybe it's not what they're trying to keep out, maybe it's what they're trying to keep in."

"You know, just once I would like some positive reassurance," Kit grumbled.

"So lying?"

"If that's what you want to call it then yes."

The Doctor just shook his head and pulled the lock off. They made their way inside. The closer they were getting the more nervous Kit was becoming. For a place that was suppose to keep people alive, it sure was screaming death. The outside of the hospital reminded her more of an abandoned haunted asylum then a place made to make people better.

When they walked into the hospital, it was completely dark. She expected there to be maybe nurses and doctors running around but no one was there. It was eerily quiet and Kit didn't like it at all. They started walking down a long hallway.

"I said it once and I'll say it again, we're in a horror movie," Kit muttered and hugged herself.

"I think I'm going to agree with you on this one," the Doctor replied, looking around cautiously.

The Doctor and Kit looked into one of the rooms and saw two rows of beds with people in it. They seemed to be sleeping but they were oddly still. They made their way into the dark room. Something about the room didn't feel right and it wasn't just the people lying in the bed. There was a weird atmosphere; a dark atmosphere. The Doctor held his sonic tightly in his hand.

To Kit's surprise, with the other hand the Doctor took Kit's hand. "Stay close," he simply said.

Kit did as she was told and held the Doctor's hand tightly. She still wasn't happy with the Doctor but the room they were in was giving her the creeps. She wasn't normally scared but there was something about this place that was making her terrified. What made her even more scared was when she realized suddenly that all the patients were wearing gasmasks.

They left the room, leaving from a door on the other side of the room. The entered a hallway that was more light and Kit let out a sigh of relief. That relief didn't last long when they entered another room with more patients laying on bed with gasmasks. This room had more light and she realized with horror that it didn't look like the people were even breathing.

She jumped when she heard someone coming up behind her. It was an old man in a doctor's lab coat. He carried a cane as he limped towards them.

"You'll find them everywhere. In every bed, in every ward. Hundreds of them," he told them casually.

Unlike Kit, the Doctor didn't seem startled by the sudden appearance of the man. "Yes, we see that. Why are they still wearing gas masks?"

"They're not," he said quickly. "Who are you two?"

"I, er—" The Doctor stopped himself. "Are you the doctor?"

"Doctor Constantine," he replied. "And you are?"

"Nancy sent us," the Doctor avoided the question again.

"Nancy? That means you must've been asking about the bomb."

"Yes."

"What do you know about it?"

"Nothing. Why I was asking. What do you know?" The Doctor asked impatiently.

"Only what it's done."

"These people, they were all caught up in the blast?"

"None of them were."

Kit eyebrow raised in confusion. "That doesn't make any sense."

The man chuckled and then coughed. "I mean what I mean, child. None of these people were caught in the blast." He started coughing more violently and sat down in a chair by a desk in the middle of the room.

"You don't sound so good," Kit commented.

"Dying, I should think. I just haven't been able to find the time. Are you a doctor?" He asked the Doctor.

"I have my moments," he replied vaguely.

"Have you examined any of them yet?" The old man asked.

"No."

"Don't touch the flesh," he warned.

"Of which one?" Kit asked nervously.

"Any of them."

Kit gulp. "All of them?"

Constantine simply nodded. The Doctor and Kit waked towards one of the patients. Kit made sure she wasn't standing too close just in case. The Doctor used his sonic to scan one of the bodies.

"Conclusions?" Constantine asked after a couple moments of silence.

"Massive head trauma, mostly to the left side. Partial collapse of the chest cavity, mostly to the right. There's some scarring on the back of the hand and the gas mask seems to be fused to the flesh, but I can't see any burns."

"Examine another one."

The Doctor went over to another patient and scanned them. "This isn't possible!"

"What isn't possible?" Kit asked.

"It's the same injury," he answered in awe.

"What?" Kit said, more confused then before. She looked over the body again and notice a scar on the patient's hand. "Doctor, isn't this scar the same from the little kid from earlier?"

"It is but how?" The Doctor ran over to another person and scanned. "This isn't possible!"

"Same injury again?"

"Yes, everything's the same."

"But it can't be! They weren't even caught in the blast."

"Exactly," Constantine cut in. "But here we are."

"How did this happen? How did it start?" The Doctor questioned.

"When that bomb dropped, there was just one victim," he told them.

"Dead?"

"At first. His injuries were truly dreadful. By the following morning, every doctor and nurse who had treated him, who had touched him, had those exact same injuries. By the morning after that, every patient in the same ward, the exact same injuries. Within a week, the entire hospital. Physical injuries as plague," he explained. "Can you explain that? What would you say was the cause of death?"

"The head trauma."

"No."

"Asphyxiation."

"No."

"The collapse of the chest cavity?" Kit tried.

Constantine shook his head. "No."

"Then what the hell killed them?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing," Kit repeated in astonishment. "What do you mean nothing killed them?"

"Very simply, child, they're not dead."

Constantine hit a waste basket that was beside him with his cane. Suddenly all of the patients sat up. The Doctor pushed Kit behind him protectively.

"It's all right. They're harmless. They just sort of sit there. No heartbeat, no life signs of any kind. They just don't die," Constantine said with slight annoyance in his voice.

"And they've just been left here?" The Doctor accused as the patients lay back down. "Nobody's doing anything?"

"I try and make them comfortable. What else is there?"

"Just you? You're the only one here?"

"Before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather. Now I am neither. But I'm still a doctor."

The Doctor grew a little tense. "Yeah. I know the feeling."

"Well, you're clearly one again," Constantine observed, looking to Kit. "I, alas, am too old and have lost too much." Before either of them could correct him, he waved them off. "I suspect the plan is to blow up the hospital and blame it on a German bomb."

"Probably too late."

"No. There are isolated cases— Isolated cases breaking out all over London." Constantine seemed to be struggling to breath and doubled over. When they tried to go help him he yelled, "Stay back, stay back. Listen to me. Top floor. Room eight oh two. That's where they took the first victim, the one from the crash site. And you must find Nancy again."

"Nancy?"

"It was her brother. She knows more than she's saying. She won't tell me, but she might—" He suddenly stopped talking and looked like he was going to throw up. His face started to turn red and he was breaking out in a sweat. "Mummy," He said to Kit and the Doctor's horror. "Are… you my… mummy?"

The Doctor started leading Kit backwards as Constantine's eyes widened in distress. Suddenly, something started coming out of his mouth. It slowly started to envelop his face until they realized that his face was turning into a gasmask like the others. Constantine slacked into his chair making him look dead.

"I've traveled with you for a while so please don't take this lightly… that's the scariest shit I have ever seem!" Kit stressed.

"I'll admit that was strange." The Doctor looked around him. "We should probably leave just in case these things wake up."

"Yeah, leaving would be good."

Before they could leave they suddenly heard a familiar voice. "Hello?"

There was another voice that was less familiar. "Hello?"

"Hello?" The familiar voice said again.

Kit's eyes widened. "Wait, is that… Rose?"

They took off out the door and walked down the hall looking for the voices. At the very end of the hallway was Rose with a very handsome man that looked weirdly familiar. It was like he was from a dream. It was the same feeling she got when she saw Gwyneth for the first time.

The four of them met in the middle of the hallway.

The Handsome man shook the Doctor's hand professionally. "Good evening. Hope we're not interrupting. Jack Harkness. I've been hearing all about you on the way over." He then looked down at Kit. "But I haven't heard about you. You are…?"

Kit watched Jack Harkness dumbfounded. "Um, Kittredge. Have we met before?"

He grabbed her hand and shook it, giving her a kind smile. "Don't think so. I would remember that red hair. It's a good look by the way."

"Er, thanks?" Kit turned to Rose. "Rose, what the hell—"

"He knows. I had to tell him about us being Time Agents," she cut Kit off giving her a pointed look that said please shut up.

"And it's a real pleasure to meet you, Mister Spock," Jack said politely and then walked away.

When Jack was out of ear shot, the Doctor whispered. "Mister Spock?"

Kit tried to hide her laughter by covering her mouth but a few giggles still came out which caused the Doctor to glare at her.

Rose shrugged defiantly. "What was I supposed to say? You don't have a name. Don't you ever get tired of Doctor? Doctor who?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Nine centuries in, I'm coping. Where've you been? We're in the middle of a London Blitz. It's not a good time for a stroll."

"Who strolling," Rose scolded. "I went by barrage balloon. Only way to see an air raid."

"Wait, you did what?" Kit questioned, trying not to laugh at the look on the Doctors face.

"I was dangling from a hot air balloon. That's how I met Jack," she explained, trying to act like it was no big deal.

Kit burst out laughing. "Oh my god! How'd you even manage to do that?"

Rose frowned. "I'm not going to tell you! You'll just laugh more."

"Too late!"

Rose rolled her eyes and turned back to the Doctor. "Listen, what's a Chula ship?"

"Chula?" The Doctor repeated, deep in thought.

"What? Is that important?" Rose questioned.

"I—"

"Mister Spock, have you seen this?" Jack called from the room that Kit and the Doctor were in earlier.

They rushed to the room and saw Jack examining the patents using some sort of device of his wrist. He wore the same expression that the Doctor and Kit had not too long ago.

"This just isn't possible," he muttered. "How did this happen?"

"No idea," Kit shrugged. "Well, we have theories but no solid answer. Right, Doctor?"

The Doctor though wasn't paying attention and was just glaring at Jack with his arms crossed. Kit figured she was wrong. They did have an answer and it had something to do with Jack.

"What kind of Chula ship landed here?" The Doctor demanded.

"What?" Jack asked in confusion but there was a worry in his voice.

"He said it was a warship," Rose answered instead which seemed to catch the Doctors attention. "He stole it, parked it somewhere out there, somewhere a bomb's going to fall on it unless we make him an offer."

"What kind of warship?" The Doctor asked.

"Does it matter?" Jack snapped.

"If it has anything to do with what's happening to these people then yeah, it matters," Kit argued.

"Well it doesn't," he glared.

"Come on Jack!" Kit pleaded. "Look around you. These people need help. Just tell us what kind of warship!"

"I don't need to answer to you, kid!" Jack fumed.

"Then answer to me," the Doctor cut in making himself tall. "What kind of warship?"

"An ambulance! Look," Jack produces a hologram of the ambulance from his wrist device. "That's what you chased through the Time Vortex. It's space junk. I wanted to kid you it was valuable. It's empty. I made sure of it. Nothing but a shell. I threw it at you. Saw your time travel vehicle, love the retro look, by the way, nice panels. Threw you the bait—"

"Bait?" Rose asked slightly offended.

"I wanted to sell it to you and then destroy it before you found out it was junk."

"Wow, you sure know how to pick them, Rose," Kit commented.

Rose rolled her eyes. "Not now, Kittredge."

Kit shrugged and turned back to Jack. "So then what is all this? A con?"

"Of course it's a con!" Jack snapped. "That's what I am, I'm a con man. I thought you were Time Agents. You're not, are you."

"Just a couple more freelancers," Rose replied.

"Oh. Should have known. The way you guys are blending in with the local colour. I mean, Flag Girl was bad enough, but U-Boat Captain?" He insulted. "And let's not forget Little Red over here." He pointed at Kit. "How old are you anyways? Nine? Ten?"

Kit crossed her arms and glared at him. "Twelve."

"Oh, that so much better." He shook his head. "Anyway, whatever's happening here has got nothing to do with that ship."

"What is happening here, Doctor?" Rose asked.

"Human DNA is being rewritten by an idiot," the Doctor replied, glaring at Jack.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. Some kind of virus converting human beings into these things. But why? What's the point?" He pounded out loud.

Kit looked over at Jack. "Guessing you don't know."

"Of course I don't know," he hissed. "I told you I have nothing to do with this."

Kit rolled her eyes. "Of course you don't."

"You know, I don't think I like you very much, Little Red."

"Get in line," she grumbled. "Also don't call me that!"

"Whatever you say, Little Red."

Kit glared and muttered a couple curse words under her breath so the Doctor couldn't hear.

"Kit, language," he told her, obviously hearing what she said.

She sighed. "Sorry."

Rose walked over to the patients and looked over some of them. "Do they all have gasmask?"

"Yeah," Kit replied. "And the same injuries too. It's pretty weird."

Kit walked over to where Rose was standing. Rose leaned in to get a better look at one of the patients. Everything seemed perfectly fine. That was until the patient suddenly sat up with no warning. Kit and Rose both jumped back. Kit looked around and realized that all of the patients were now sitting up right.

"Mummy. Mummy. Mummy? Mummy?" They all moaned and started to stand up.

"Well, this is new," Kit said wide eyed.

"What? This never happened before?" Rose questioned as they started being push up against the back wall.

"Not like this," Kit replied.

"Then what's happening?"

"I don't know," the Doctor confessed.

They now had their back against the wall. The patients were surrounding them. Kit looked around but couldn't see a clear exist. This was not good.

"Don't let them touch you," the Doctor warned them.

"What happens if they touch us?" Rose asked.

Kit tried to swallow her fear. "You become like them."