Chapter LVII
Martha's POV
It was a day as normal as it could be, and not so long ago she wouldn't have given a thought about it. But since the events around Canary Wharf with the Cybermen and the Daleks she really appreciated those days in all their beautiful, boring normality.
Even the announcer in the radio seemed to be of the same opinion. "What can happen on an average beautiful day, you never know. Celebrate seasonal changes...On a beautiful sunny day."
She had to smile as she continued her way down Chancery Street to the hospital, just as her phone rang. It was her sister, Trish.
"You're up early! What's happening?" she said, even though she could easily guess what was going on.
"It's a nightmare, because Dad won't listen, and I'm telling you, Mum is going mental. Swear to God, Martha, this is epic. You've got to get in there and stop him," Trish confirmed her suspicion. Oh well, she really loved her family, but why was it always her to get caught in the middle and to sort things out?
"How do I do that?" she replied with a smile – it wasn't that bad after all. Just the normal, every day madness.
"Tell Dad he can't bring her!" Trish said, just as her phone rang again.
"Hold on, that's Leo. I'll call you back."
"Martha, If Mum and Dad start to kick off, tell them I don't even want a party," Leo, her brother, said without greeting her. "I didn't even ask for one. They can always give me the money instead."
"Yeah, but why do I have to tell them? Why can't you?" she asked him, just as her pone rang. Again. They must have planned that, mustn't they?
"Hold on, that's Mum. I'll call you back," she said to her brother.
"I don't mind your father making a fool of himself in private," her mother started talking as soon as she had her on the line, "But this is Leo's 21st, everyone is going to be there, and the entire family is going to look ridiculous."
"Mum, it's a party, I can't stop Dad from bringing his girlfriend," she replied, still walking down the street. Now her pone rang for the fourth time.
Seriously?
"Hold on, that's Dad, I'll call you back."
"Martha?" her father said, sounding as if being outside as well. "Now, tell your mother, Leo is my son, and I'm paying for half that party. I'm entitled to bring who I like."
"I know, but think what it's going to look like for Mum, if you're standing there with Annalise," she said, knowing that nothing in the world would stop her father from bringing his girlfriend.
"What's wrong with Annalise?" he asked.
"Is that Martha? Say hi. Hi, Martha, hi!" she could hear Annaliese's voice through her phone.
" Hi, Annalise," she replied with mocked friendliness.
"Big kiss, lots of love, see you at the party, Babe," Annalise replied.
Martha just sighed and closed her phone as a man stepped right in front of her. But instead of stepping aside, he just looked at her in a weird, intensive way, saying, "Like so!" Next he put of his tie. "See?" And off he went.
She frowned, being slightly puzzled, but then continued on her way to the Royal Hope Hospital. Sometimes one could meet really weird people on the streets, and he seemed to be one of the nicer – and harmless – kind.
It seemed she reached the hospital just in time as a thunder tore the air. She had no intention of getting wet.
Suddenly, she felt being pushed aside and almost stumbled. As she turned her head she saw a figure all dressed in black leather with a helmet.
"Hey! Watch, it mate!" she said, but the figure made no attempt to apologise. He only turned around for a moment and looked at her before entering the hospital. Well, at least she assumed he looked at her, for she couldn't see his eyes.
Fine, then don't.
She hesitated for a moment – the day that had begun so nicely turned out to be quite weird – then entered the hospital herself.
At her locker she changed into her lab coat. When she was finished and about to close the door, she got an electrical shock as she touched the door, causing her to pull her hand away. As she touched it again, more reluctant this time, nothing happened.
Doctor's POV
He had admitted himself yesterday into the hospital as a patient, despite Mira's protests. At worst he would seriously puzzle some nurses or doctors, but there was no real danger for him. What should happen anyway? Humanity had begun to become aware of the existence of alien life, so one more alien in one of their hospitals wouldn't make it any worse. Apart from that, his TARDIS wasn't that far away, just outside of the hospital.
Then she had started to talk about Torchwood, and somehow him replying that she should just live a little hadn't come across that well - judging from the look she had given him. She had even offered to have herself admitted, but he could see that she clearly didn't like that idea, so he had declined. Plus, she hadn't gotten tired of stating how much she hated hospitals.
Now she was playing the role of an official again, but this time from the NHS, doing an assessment of performance and efficiency. How the taxpayers money was spent, things like that.
She had talked to him last night, just when none of the nurses was present, told him that she had sensed an alien presence in here, but she hadn't been able to locate who it was. Just too many people in here, between hope and total despair, suffering, frightened, some even dying, and all of them in a highly emotional state, making him suddenly see why she hated hospitals that much.
Now he was here, lying in bed, wearing pyjamas, trying not think about the last time he had worn pyjamas, as a bunch of students and their professor approached.
"Now then, Mr Smith, a very good morning to you. How are you today?" the professor said. Or was he just a doctor? No way to tell that now.
"Aw, not so bad, still a bit, you know. Blah," he said and stuck out his tongue.
"John Smith, admitted yesterday with severe abdominal pains. Jones, why don't you see what you can find? Amaze me," he said to a young woman of colour.
She approached him and took the stethoscope that was hanging around her neck.
"That wasn't very clever, running around outside, was it?" she said.
"Sorry?" he replied. He really had no idea what she was talking about. He hadn't been running around.
"On Chancery Street this morning. You came up to me and took your tie off," she said.
"Really? What did I do that for?"
"I don't know, you just did."
"Not me. I was here, in bed. Ask the nurses," replied, whilst thinking about when this would be about to happen. In his future obviously, if she really had seen him.
"Well, that's weird, cause it looked like you. Have you got a brother?"
"No, not any more. Just me."
"As time passes and I grow ever more infirm and weary, Miss Jones," her professor finally interrupted them. Had no one ever told him about the importance of patient – doctor conversations?
"Sorry. Right," the young woman called Jones said and put her stethoscope to his chest, listened, then looked at him, completely puzzled. Didn't keep her from moving the stethoscope over to his other heart, confusing her even more.
He winked at her, glad that she didn't start to panic.
"I weep for further generations. Are you having trouble locating the heart, Miss Jones?" the professor said.
She shot him another puzzled glance, and then replied, "Um. I don't know. Stomach cramps?" without mentioning what she had just discovered. Well, maybe she was afraid of the others thinking she was just crazy. Humans had a tendency to react in that way when one of them discovered something unexplainable.
"That is a symptom, not a diagnosis. And you rather failed basic techniques by not consulting first with the patient's chart," the professor said and picked up the chart, only to drop it again immediately – after receiving an electric shock. .
"That happened to me this morning," Jones said.
"I had the same thing on the door handle," another student said, followed by another member of the group, "And me, on the lift."
Well, could be quite normal. If he hadn't detected those abnormal readings above the hospital.
"That's only to be expected. There's a thunderstorm moving in and lightning is a form of static electricity, as was first proven by – anyone?" the professor said.
Silence. Oh well, didn't they teach physics any more at university?
"Benjamin Franklin," he finally said with a wide grin.
"Correct!" the professor said, seemingly pleased.
"My mate Ben, that was a day and a half. I got rope burns off that kite, and then I got soaked...," he continued.
"Quite...," the professor started, but he wasn't done yet.
" ... and then I got electrocuted," he finished his sentence, and smiled even wider at the memories of those days.
"Moving on," the professor said and went away, after giving him a last, sizing look, the group following him.
"I think perhaps a visit from psychiatric," he could here him saying, even though he was speaking rather quietly.
The young student who had just discovered his two hearts turned around once more as she walked away, and he smiled at her.
Martha's POV
Later, as they had completed their round through the hospital, she was in the kitchenette with her fellow student Swales. She was thinking about this strange man the whole morning, and about his weird heartbeat. He should be dead, and yet he had smiled at her in a way that had her own heart skip a beat or two. Apart from that, she was pretty dammed sure that it had been him earlier in Chancery Street.
But now was not the time to think about it, as her sister was calling her again.
"No, listen, I've worked out a plan. We tell Annalise that the buffet tonight is one hundred per cent carbohydrate, and she won't turn up," she said to her sister.
"I wish you'd take this seriously. That's our inheritance she's spending. On fake tan. Tell you what, I'm not that far away, I'll drop by for a sandwich and we can draw up a plan," Trish responded.
Well, true, she wasn't too serious about the carbs, but it might work, knowing how superficial Annalise was.
"In this weather?" she replied and looked out of the window. It was pouring. "I'm not going out, it's pouring down."
"It's not raining here," Trish replied, and then, after a moment of silence, she added, "That's weird. It's sitting right on top of you, I can see it, but it's dry where I am."
"Well, you just got lucky."
"No, but it's like in cartoons, you know, when a man's got a cloud over his head."
"But listen, I tell you what we'll do," she replied, ignoring her sister. It was rain, nothing else. So what? Right at this moment she saw Mr Smith walking by the room in a dressing gown, throwing her a short glance.
What the hell?
"We tell Dad and Annalise to get there early, for about 7:30, for Leo to do his birthday stuff," she continued, slightly distracted now. "We tell Mum to come about 8:30 or nine, and that gives me time to have a word with Annalise, and-"
Swales touched her arm, looking past her, to the window.
"What?" she asked her fellow student, the phone still at her ear.
"The rain."
"It's only rain," she said, slightly annoyed now.
"Martha! Have you seen the rain?" her sister asked now as well.
"Why's everyone fussing about rain?" she said, still looking at Swale, and not out of the window.
"It's going up," Swale replied, and not a second later her sister said the same thing over the phone.
She finally turned around to the window and then she saw it herself. Indeed, the rain was going up. Before she could think about an explanation the whole building started to shake, throwing her and Swale to the ground. The cupboard doors flew open and the content, as most things on the counter as well, went flying through the room. It only lasted for a few moments, and as everything was silent again, she got up.
"What in hell was that?"
"Are you all right?" Swale asked.
"I think so, yeah. It felt like an earthquake, or -"
"Martha? It's night. It was lunchtime."
"It's not night."
"It's got to be. It's dark."
She turned around to the window again, and indeed, it was dark. But that was by far not the strangest thing right now.
"We're on the moon," she said almost breathless.
"We can't be."
"We're on the moon. We're on the bloody moon," she repeated herself. She had no idea how, but that was definitely moon, with the earth hanging above as a blue and white globe them in the black space.
…
She hurried through the corridors, trying to calm down the people who were crying and screaming in panic. For a moment she wondered why she was staying rather calm, but it must have something to do with Adrenaline, she thought to herself. One could never know beforehand how one would react in a situation like that.
Finally she reached the ward where Mr Smith had been. Right now, she had no eyes for any of the patients, instead she hurried to the window, Swales still on her heels.
"It's real. It's really real," she repeated, as she looked out and over the silvery surface of the moon. It was totally like the pictures taken by the Apollo-Crews. "Hold on!" she said and reached for the window-latch.
"Don't!", Swales said between too sobs, "We'll lose all the air!"
"But they're not exactly air tight. If the air was going to get sucked out it would have happened straight away, but it didn't. So how come?"
"Very good point!" she suddenly heard a voice behind her. She turned and saw Mr Smith, now dressed in a blue pinstripe suit. "Brilliant, in fact. What was your name?"
"Martha," she said and couldn't help but smile at him.
"And it was Jones, wasn't it?"
She just nodded, still grinning.
"Well then, Martha Jones, the question is, how are we still breathing?"
"We can't be!" Swales cried.
"Obviously we are so don't waste my time," he said, not unfriendly but clearly slightly annoyed. "Martha, what have we got? Is there a balcony on this floor, or a veranda, or...? Oh, and by the way, have you seen my companion? Skinny, pale, long hair, grey eyes?"
"Companion? Uhm.. No, don't think so," she murmured. Companion? How did he mean that? Long hair somehow sounded female, didn't it? "And there's a balcony by the patients lounge...," she added.
"Fancy going out?" he asked with a smile that made her forgot that he just had asked after his partner/companion/whatever he or she was to him.
"Okay."
"We might die," he said and looked at her intently.
"We might not."
"Good! C'mon. Not her, she'd hold us up," he said and nodded over to Swales, who was still sobbing.
...
A few minutes later they reached the patient's lounge. He pushed open the doors without hesitation and for a second she feared she had been wrong, he had been wrong – and they would just suffocate. But nothing happened, instead she heard a voice from the right.
"There you are!"
She turned her head and saw a woman leaning against the wall next to the door, her arms crossed and her head turned to Mr Smith now. She was skinny indeed, pale, but she couldn't see how long her hair was because she was wearing some funny sixties revival hairdo. Okay, it actually suited her, but it was just not really common these days.
"I was looking for you," Smith said, and then turned to her, "I asked you, didn't I?"
She just nodded and watched how he gave the woman a bone crushing hug.
"We're on the moon!" he said to her as they had separated. "We and the whole building!"
"I know," she replied and smiled for a moment as well.
Martha couldn't tell for the live of her how old the other woman was, but she guessed only a few years older than herself.
"So," Smith said and turned around to her again, "Martha, that's Mira. Mira, Martha. We- We're travelling together."
She took the hand Mira was holding out and smiled at her. She smiled back. Travelling together? So that was his 'companion'? At the same time she reminded herself that that was probably not the right time to speculate about his relationship status.
"We've got air!" she eventually said after letting go of Mira's hand. "How does that work?" She really had no idea.
"Just be glad it does," Smith said.
"Forcefield," Mira added, picked up a small stone and threw it over the balcony. It collided with some sort of invisible barrier, sending waves of energy across it.
"Good," Smith smiled at her.
She only pulled up one brow. "How do you think we've secured our hangar doors?"
Hangar doors? Where on earth existed hangar doors with forcefields, Martha thought quiet confused.
For the next moments they just stood next to each other and watched at Earth floating above their heads.
"I've got a party tonight. It's my brother's twenty-first. My mother's going to be really ... really..," she finally said, not really knowing why she brought it up right now. Maybe it was the sight of her homeworld, being that far away from it what made her quiet sentimental.
"You okay?" Smith said and gave her a compassionate look.
"Yeah."
"Sure?" Now it was Mira asking. She stood on her other side and was looking at her from the side. "It can be quite... awkward seeing Earth like that for the first time."
Martha turned her had and looked her straight in the eyes. Eyes that somehow didn't seem to belong to her rather young looking face.
"Yeah, it's awkward, you're right. But I'm fine," she said and looked back at Earth again.
"Want to go back in?" Smith asked.
"No way. I mean, we could die any minute, and yes, it's just plan awkward, but all the same - it's beautiful."
"You think?" he asked.
"How many people want to go to the moon? And here we are!"
"Standing in the earthlight," he said softly.
"What do you think happened?" she asked both of them.
"What do you think?" Smith returned the question.
"Extraterrestrial. It's got to be. I don't know, a few years ago that would have sounded man, but these days? That spaceship flying into Big Ben - Christmas - those Cybermen things. I had a cousin. Adeola. She worked at Canary Wharf. She never came home," she said.
"I- We are sorry," Smith said.
"Yeah."
"We were there. In the battle."
"Yeah, and we all lost a lot of people, one way or another," Mira said absent mindedly, and Martha wasn't quite sure what to make of it.
"I promise you, Mr Smith, Mira, we will find a way out. If we can travel to the moon, then we can travel back. There's got to be a way."
"It's not Smith, that's not my real name."
"Who are you, then?"
"I'm the Doctor."
"Me too, if I can pass my exams. What is it, then, Doctor Smith?"
"Just the Doctor."
"How do you mean, just the Doctor?"
"Just... the Doctor."
She turned to Mira for a moment and saw that she was desperately trying to suppress a laughter. "You'll get used to it," Mira said eventually but then hurried to turn her head away again, pretending to look at Earth.
"What, people call you 'the Doctor'?" she turned to Smith again.
"Yeah."
"Well, I'm not. As far as I'm concerned, you've got to earn that title."
For a moment he looked quite sad, then he just dropped the topic. "Well, I'd better make a start, then," he said. " It seems we only have the air within the forcefield. How many people in this hospital?"
"I don't know, a thousand?"
"One thousand people. Suffocating," he said quietly, hardly suppressed anger in his voice.
"Why would anyone do that?"
"Head's up! Ask them yourself," he said.
She looked up and saw three gigantic ships landing. They looked like cylinders, and once they were on the surface, masses of creatures were leaving them, marching in line, just like some sort of army.
"Aliens. That's aliens. Real, proper aliens," she breathed.
"Judoon," Smith said with a dark tone in his voice.
Ronin Kenshin, NeoMulder, Julia N SnowMiko, 10th Squad 3rd Seat, bored411, Wicken25, oXxgeorgiaxXo: Thank you for reviewing :-)
