Chapter 7
From the journal of Brigadier Alistair Lethenbridge-Stewart
24 January, 1970, UNIT Headquarters, London
I thought we'd seen the last of the Doctor, but he resurfaced again this week, and wearing a new face. Extraordinary. Not sure how that works. He was found unconscious and hospitalized, and it took a while for me to be sure it was really the same man. Doctor Sullivan saved blood and tissue samples for later study. At any rate, the Doctor is on my payroll now. Seems his police box is grounded, so he's stuck here on Earth for a while. This could be a mistake, but it could prove useful having him around. At the very least, we can gather more information about his species. He says they're called Time Lords, and his home planet is Gallifrey.
June 19, 1970, UNIT Headquarters, London
Had a bit of a scare this week. After a risky trip to another dimension, the Doctor was in a coma. Miss Shaw looked after him, and he did recover, but it was touch and go. When he regained consciousness, he was delirious, spouting off dire warnings and offering strange commentary. He said he'd slipped sideways in space and time – imagine there could be such a thing! Seemed he'd visited an alternate reality, where I was missing an eye, among other things.
We were investigating a string of murders in the restricted area at Hoo on the Isle of Grain. That beastly Stahlman was in charge. He nearly blew the installation sky high drilling through the Earth's crust. The Doctor managed to save the day, but then proceeded to call me names and leave the scene via his partially operational TARDIS control board, only to return, moments later, looking contrite and covered with muck. He'd managed to transport himself into the garbage tip.
It was a bit rocky with the Doctor Wednesday and Thursday, as he was none too happy to find himself still stranded with us. His TARDIS sits in the corner of his laboratory. He seemed very down, and I couldn't stand to see him so low, so I yesterday invited him home to dinner.
In retrospect, I probably should have rung Doris and tell her to lay on an extra plate, but there was plenty to go around, and she quickly realized that the Doctor is not someone who requires the rolling out of red carpets. Within minutes he had her at ease and had Kate giggling through dinner with silly stories.
Overall, I'm glad I invited him, and even more glad that he accepted. The whole family seemed comfortable around him, like he's a distant cousin we've known for years. Even though he can be mysterious at times and often prickly, I've grown fond of him.
Earth, Royal London Hospital
22:00, 25 December 2025
Kate became aware that she was too warm. Her arms and legs felt heavy, and she couldn't open her eyes. She tried to call out to somebody that she needed help, but instead she fell back to sleep.
The next time she awoke, she could hear people talking in hushed voices nearby. She felt incredibly tired and a little nauseous. While she felt the same heaviness she'd experienced on her previous awakening, this time she was able to turn her head a little. The movement caused pain, though, and she groaned involuntarily. The voices stopped talking. She felt someone squeeze her arm gently.
"It's okay, Kate, you're safe. Just lie still. Doctor Harrison is on his way." It was Osgood. She sounded worried.
Kate cracked her eyes open. Osgood stood at the rail of her hospital bed. She looked like she hadn't slept in a while or perhaps was ill.
"What happened? Why am I in a hospital bed?" Kate was surprised by how weak her own voice was. She also became aware that she was on an oxygen cannula.
"You were in a building collapse while out with the salvage team. You were pinned under the rubble for two hours. They finally dug you out and brought you back here. It was touch and go for a while. We were all worried." Osgood smiled, but Kate thought she looked like she might cry. Kate tried to sit up but found she was too weak.
"The collapse. Was anyone else hurt?"
Osgood paused before answering, clearly debating whether or not to tell her some bad news.
"We lost Stewart Finney and Ingrid White. Jax broke her arm." Kate's stomach rolled over. She breathed a few moments, trying to absorb the shock of the news.
"What's wrong with me?"
"Well, you got a concussion, and had a nasty break to your femur that required surgery. Your radiation suit was torn, and you got a pretty good dose. Even with the radiation tablet from the Doctor, it must have been pretty high. You were in isolation the first two days due to the high gamma radiation readings. Dr. Harrison and one of the sisters each took radiation tablets so they could attend to your injuries. You've had another course of Russian blue, so hopefully your system is clearing the radiation."
Just then, Dr. Harrison opened the curtain drawn around Kate's bed.
"Oh good, you're awake! How are you feeling, Kate?"
Kate coughed and cleared her throat. It hurt her chest to cough. Osgood smiled, squeezed her arm again and disappeared behind the curtain, obviously wanting to give Kate privacy while the doctor examined her.
"I've been better, I think. Thanks for taking care of me."
Harrison smiled.
"It's all part of the service here at Royal London."
"Very funny."
Harrison used a stethoscope to listen to her chest, then cranked up the bed so Kate was in a sitting position so he could listen to her lungs from her back. He shined a light in her eyes, felt the glands under her jaw, and checked her temperature. Finally, he checked the IV lines leading up to two bags suspended from a hook next to her bed.
"You are definitely on the mend. The worst of it's the leg. You were pinned under something pretty heavy. At the location of the break your femur was partially pulverized. We inserted a steel rod and several pins. You will be on crutches for at least six weeks, possibly longer, but you will walk again.
"Other than that, you've got bruised ribs and an orbital fracture to your cheekbone. You also lost an earlobe. Whatever did that was very sharp. If it had been your throat instead of your ear, we wouldn't be talking right now."
"Nothing really hurts, though," Kate observed.
"You're on a morphine drip. Enjoy it while you've got it, we don't have much more."
"You can wean me off of that. We lost two people and I need to get back upstairs as soon as possible."
Kate moved her right arm experimentally. When that went well, she decided to try to sit up. Flexing her abdominal muscles evoked a lance of pain. She gasped with the intensity of it.
"Yeah, I wouldn't do that if I were you." Harrison watched her appraisingly until he seemed satisfied that she wasn't going to try to get up again.
"You need to stay here for a while and rest. Injuries aside, you had yet another significant radiation exposure. And your cough is getting worse. Basically, you're a mess, Kate. You need to relax and let Jax and Osgood run things for a while. You've been out of it for five days and the world hasn't ended. Okay, poor choice of phrase. Merry Christmas, by the way."
The next time Kate awoke she found Osgood and Jax playing cribbage at her bedside.
"Jax, how is your arm?" Jax took her arm out of its sling to show off a pristine white cast from knuckles to elbow.
"It's on the mend. Hardly hurts at all, and the ibuprofen takes care of it." She glanced at Kate's leg, which was currently suspended above the bed by a sling and pulley.
"I got off easy compared to you. We thought we'd lost you, Kate." Osgood nodded in agreement.
"Anyway, one good thing did come out of the salvage trip. We found a radio setup. The team went out again the day after the collapse and hauled it back here. It's quarantined in the far end of the upper level right now, near one of the Doctor's radiation sensor/cleanser things. Once the Geiger counter doesn't go berserk around it, we'll get it set up and I will start broadcasting."
"That is good news." Kate looked over to Osgood. "Any word from the Doctor or Peter?"
Osgood looked downcast. "No. Nothing yet."
Earth, Nice, France
18:00, 14 July 2016
"That's really sweet, Danny, Thanks." Clara paused, looking down thoughtfully at her clasped hands.
"I love you. I really do, and I think it would be better if we waited - shit!"
Clara met the gaze of her reflection in the vanity mirror.
"You can do this. Okay. Let's give it another try."
They arrived at the hotel in Nice an hour ago. Danny decided to squeeze in a workout at the hotel gym before their 7pm dinner reservation. Clara used the time alone in their room to bathe and dress for the occasion, and also practice turning down his proposal. She'd found the receipt for the engagement ring in his wallet while searching for tip money for the porter.
Practicing in front of a mirror didn't seem to be working for her, so she paced for a bit and tried to clear her mind. She knew she was acting silly. After all, she didn't know for sure he was going to propose at dinner. She wasn't even one hundred percent sure the ring was for her.
"How do I do this, Doctor?" She tried to imagine how the time lord would react to her histrionics. He'd been on her mind lately. She even had a dream about him the other night. In the dream, he was alone and in trouble. Clara kept calling out to him, but he didn't hear her.
She pictured him sitting at the end of the bed, swinging his gangly legs.
"I don't see why this is such a big deal, Clara. It's PE. Just tell him you don't want to be Mrs. PE," she imagined him saying.
"It's not that easy. He's a nice guy. A really nice guy. I should be thrilled that he's asking me."
"But you're not."
"I just feel so stifled. I feel like if I marry him then we'll settle down and have 2.5 children and take turns being teacher of the year until it's time to retire, and that will be it. My whole life. Boring."
"Clara? Who are you talking to?"
She snapped out of her intense conversation with the imaginary Doctor to see Danny entering the suite, gym bag in hand.
"Oh, no one. Have a nice workout?"
He came over and kissed her. "Good. You look very nice. Do I have time for a shower before dinner?"
Clara smiled. "Of course, you do. Don't take too long, though, we have to leave early because of the traffic."
The Bastille Day celebrations were already well underway. Danny had made the dinner reservation for 7pm so that they would finish just ahead of the parade, which would pass right in front of the hotel.
When Danny disappeared into the bathroom, Clara grabbed her mobile and stepped out onto the balcony. She had resisted this temptation for two years now, but she couldn't delay any more. She opened her contacts and found the Doctor's number.
It rang continuously for five minutes. Clara finally hung up.
The Universal Collaborative for Temporal Insight
The Doctor and Peter retreated into the TARDIS. The Time Lord sighed heavily and looked over at his youthful human companion. He looked equally frustrated.
"So, we're stuck here, huh?"
"For the moment, yes." The Doctor made an effort to climb out of the morass of anxiety about the fate of Earth on the corrupt timeline and also the new threat of the inquiry. He was also not happy about being conscripted into tutoring a cohort of Academy students while the TARDIS databanks were uploaded and pilfered through by the enforcement arm of the Universal Collaborative.
"Well, might as well show you around the TARDIS. This will be home for the foreseeable future."
At the end of the tour, Peter was suitably impressed with his new digs, which included, among other things, a swimming pool and bowling alley. The Doctor noted that the boy seemed equally, if not more excited about the well-stocked self-service kitchen, his bedroom, and the extensive library and laboratory. He also recalled that Peter had recently been living in the basement of a defunct hospital with no plumbing on a post nuclear event world.
Their last stop was the clinic. The Doctor had Peter lie on a diagnostic bed, which inspired another reel of questions.
"But why?"
"Because I want to run a scan and make sure you don't have any lasting damage from your accident and the radiation back on Earth."
"Oh. Okay. But how dangerous is this? What kind of scan is it? Does it use radiation? Ultrasound? Are there any risks?"
"Nothing like that, and it's very safe. The only risk is of me losing my temper if you don't hold off on the questions for a bit."
The scan didn't take long. The Doctor schooled his face while he studied the results.
The right arm was severed just below the humerus. It looked like a fairly competent surgeon had done some repair work, with rounding of the end of the bone to accommodate prosthetics later. The neurological study revealed the source of Peter's phantom pain.
"Do you want to know why sometimes it feels like you still have your right arm?"
"Um, yes." Peter avoided eye contact.
"When you lost your forearm, all the nerves going to the missing part of your arm were severed. The nervous system is a vast network running from the brain, through the spinal cord to every part of your body. Electrical impulses, or signals go back and forth from the brain to different parts of the body." Peter cut him off.
"I know about that stuff already. So, when my nerves got severed, my brain stopped getting signals from my arm. It keeps sending them, though, but they have nowhere to go."
"Close. The human body is pretty good at healing. As your arm healed and those nerve endings died off, the brain re-routed the signals it was sending to your arm somewhere else. In your case, it looks like now those signals are going to your left ear."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"Lots of things in science don't look like they make sense from our perspective. But think of it from the brain's point of view. I've got these signals to communicate, but when I send them I'm not getting a response any more. Your brain is like a massive data server that sends out automatic emails and things. It's sending all these emails, but everything that goes to this one group of addresses keeps bouncing back. Well, that will go on for a while,"
"but eventually, those old email addresses are going to get purged," Peter finished for him.
"That's exactly right. The problem is, your brain is still getting triggered to send emails to those old addresses, because someone sold their email list to a third party."
"I don't get it. Who's the third party?"
"Your left ear. It's neuroplasticity. When one area of the brain is damaged, often another part of the brain will pick up the job of the damaged part. It required changing the cell structure to carry out that work, but the brain does it, no problem. Maybe your ear had capacity to receive more signals. Maybe something you habitually do caused a synapse in your brain to decide that the returned emails should get forwarded on to your ear."
To illustrate the point, the Doctor reached out and tugged Peter's left earlobe. His stump moved involuntarily. Peter startled.
"I felt my arm! When you did that, I felt it in my right arm!" He tugged on his left earlobe while watching his stump. It happened again.
"That's really weird, Doctor. So, any time I touch my ear I'm triggering it. Good to know." He looked sharply at the Doctor.
"But your email analogy really sucked. I mean, it made no sense at all. Total crapola."
"Really? I thought it was good. Anyway, now that you know what's triggering that feeling, you can avoid it by not touching your ear. Eventually it will go away on its own." And if I had any nanogenes, I could not only get rid of your phantom limb, I could also regrow your arm.
In addition to the arm, apparently Peter had sustained a grade 2 concussion and whiplash. Those injuries were still healing but did not require intervention.
"Do you have a lot of headaches, Peter?"
"Huh? Yeah, I guess so. They're not too bad, though, and they're getting better. After the accident, I had a headache all the time. Now it just comes and goes. My ears stopped ringing at some point, too. I don't remember when."
The Doctor palpated Peter's neck to get a sense of how well the cervical spine was moving. While there was some stiffness, he didn't think it was anything the boy even noticed.
"So you're a real doctor, then? Because Osgood told me it was just a name you picked out for yourself." The Doctor felt himself blush a little.
"Yes, I actually am a real doctor. Among other credentials, I studied as a physician in 19th century Glasgow." The Doctor summoned his most severe look to cut off further questions.
Peter had absorbed enough gamma radiation over time to cause cellular changes and mild damage to his DNA. Without intervention he would likely develop leukemia, sarcoma, or other cancers. If he were back in that environment, the Doctor doubted he would live a year. He was also sure that the other survivors were in similar, if not even worse condition. And Kate said the radiation levels were increasing.
I've got to fix this, he thought.
After the tour and the exam Peter was ready for another meal. Once the boy was seated and consuming his dinner the Doctor returned to the console room, challenging Peter to find his way back when done eating.
It was in the third compartment he searched. The Doctor sighed with relief and hauled it out.
"What's that?" Peter asked. That was quick, the Doctor thought. He held it up for Peter's examination.
"It's a vortex manipulator. It's for time travel."
"Wearable tech. Cool."
"I can use this to go back to that first intervention point in Earth's timeline and set things to right." He looked meaningfully at his sidekick. "I only have one."
"Oh." Peter's expression darkened.
"Look, I can leave here, make the corrections, and return a minute after I left. If all goes well, everything will be sorted well before morning and the Collaborative will let us go on our way." Well, maybe. Romana might still push for an inquiry, but the Doctor hoped her gratitude for his actions to save Gallifrey would outweigh her strong predilection to follow rules.
"But Romana said we're outside of time here. If we just hang out while they do their inquiry once they clear you, we can leave, right?"
The Doctor groaned inwardly. The idea of trying to articulate the many reasons that he might not come out well in the inquiry just made him tired.
"It's a long story, but let's just say I have no reason to believe that an inquiry will clear me. Regardless of the inquiry outcome, it's possible Romana will find other reasons to detain us here or prevent us from going back and correcting the timeline."
"But why? I thought she was your friend."
"It's complicated."
"Is it about sex?"
The question startled the Doctor. "What? No! Of course not. And that's a rude question."
"It's not rude. Sex is just part of being human. Oh, wait, you're not human. You do do that, don't you?"
"Do what?"
"Have sex."
"I think that's another good question for your list, Peter. Right now, I need to put together a plan. I saved the audit results to my sonic, and I have another way of traveling through time. Now I just need some silence so I can think this through. Why don't you read a little more Treasure Island?"
The Doctor pored over the audit confirming the students' findings. Peter lasted longer than the Doctor expected, but eventually the glassy-eyed human issued one too many bone-cracking yawns and the Doctor ordered him to bed.
Then he used the TARDIS data banks to pinpoint the coordinates for what would likely be the first of many trips. Several Earth hours passed before the Doctor felt he had a workable plan. The boy had not yet emerged from his bedroom. Knowing that Sagacity's artificial night was passing, the Doctor couldn't put off his departure any longer. I will be gone and back before Peter wakes up, he thought. But when the vortex manipulator was firmly strapped to his wrist and coordinates entered, his finger hesitated over the Execute button.
Honoring what he thought Clara would want him to do, he looked in on the boy. Peter was, indeed, dead to the world. He slept on his stomach with his head turned away from the door. One bare foot dangled over the edge of the bed. The Doctor heard a soft, rhythmic snoring and wondered how long it had been since Peter slept deeply in a soft bed.
Assured that the boy would be fine in his absence, the Doctor returned to the console room. He checked the monitors. A lone guard was stationed outside the TARDIS. Other than that, the room was empty.
"No time like the present," he uttered to the TARDIS. She did not respond. He tried to interpret the silence. Was she disappointed in his impatience? Condoning his plan? Outraged that he was leaving a traumatized boy alone? He couldn't tell.
"Okay, fine. Bye, then." He pressed the Execute button and felt the familiar nauseating pull behind his navel as he dematerialized and was on his way to planet Earth, 2016, Des Moine, Iowa to convince Martin Shaw to pull out of the United States presidential race.