Cotton wool… I've died again and regenerated into a ball of cotton wool. The Doctor thought as his senses slowly began to return to him. No, hang on a mo… He tried to concentrate, but with limited success. Aha, the mole is still there. I'm still me! Yes! This is great! I'm not dead, but I'm beginning to think I'm completely stoned… and that's never a good thing. The euphoria was short lived, as the cotton wool feeling wore off and was replaced with pins and needles in his extremities, and an inability to do anything about it. The fact that I can wiggle my fingers and toes means I'm not paralysed… but why can't I move? The Doctor opened his eyes to see that he was surrounded by white. Just lots and lots of white and a hum... Hmmmmmm… A. All machines hum in A… He tried turning his head to see how far all this white went, but he couldn't do that either. Oh, that's right… I got drugged and now I'm completely restrained. Well, this could be a problem… The Doctor felt stronger by the minute, but not strong enough to loosen the bonds that kept him lying down.
"There's no point in wasting your energy trying to struggle free. " It was Claire's disembodied voice. "It's not going to happen. Those restraints can hold…"
"A man twice my size, I get it." The Doctor snapped. By now he was fully conscious and aware. Claire was taking no chances with the restraints. Not just the wrists and ankles, but The Doctor could feel bindings around his thighs and upper arms too. His head was kept immobilised by a stiff neck brace. The Doctor sighed. "I really need to start working out."
"Good for you. Now just lie still for another minute and the MRI will be finished."
Medical experiments. really need that . "Find out anything interesting?"
"Just verifying what you told David." Claire said. "You're an alien with two hearts and regenerative abilities when someone kills you. I thought you were delusional, but David had no reason to lie to me about you… and I had to see all this for myself."
"What?" The Doctor felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. "David did this?" Normally he was a good judge of character and David Vaughan came across as a trustworthy person. "I should have known better than to trust a journalist… Doesn't he have the nerve to show himself after the story he spun me?" He angrily tugged at one of his wrist restraints.
"Now, don't go upsetting yourself." Claire pulled the Doctor out of the MRI machine. "You'll skew the readings. Look, if it makes you feel better, David had nothing to do with this. But " She moved into his line of sight. "Right, I'm going to take off the neck brace and make you a little more comfortable."
"The old bedside manner." The Doctor said. "Condescend to the patient, telling them what you're doing as you do it to make them feel more involved." The way she had him trussed up, she could pretty much do what she wanted and all he could do was glare at her.
"You at least deserve that." She said, unclipping the brace and removing it. The Doctor tried his best to shift around to relax the uncomfortable tension the brace had caused his neck and shoulder muscles.
"How kind of you to tell your lab rat what you're doing to it."
"Have I done anything to hurt you?" Claire asked, getting agitated with him.
"Aside from the drugging, kidnapping and probable vivisection?" he said through gritted teeth. "Everything's just peachy."
"Have I caused you any pain?" She snapped. "No! I could have bashed you over the head and cut you up but that's not what I wanted to do."
"Oh spare me the hollow sentiment, Doctor Bailey! You know how this is going to end for me. Don't pretend you care."
…
Rose paced around the TARDIS debating with herself whether or not it was too early to get worried. She tried the Doctor's phone one more time only to have it skip straight to his message minder (that he never checked anyway.). Time to be safe rather than sorry. "Hi David, it's Rose Tyler."
"Hello Rose." David, sitting in his cubicle in work, automatically picked up a pen and notebook.
"This is going to sound like a really stupid question, but is the Doctor with you?"
"Um… No." David said. "Should he be?"
"He told me that you sent him a text message, asking to meet up with you."
"Text message? That's odd." David frowned. "I don't send texts for interviews. If I want to meet someone I'll ring them and arrange a time and place, otherwise there's just too much faffing around."
Rose's heart sank. "This doesn't sound good."
"Where did this text message say to meet?" David was already gathering his things together.
"I don't know." Rose sighed. "He just said he was meeting with you."
"Where are you now?" David grabbed his jacket. "I'll meet you and we'll figure this out."
…
Claire pressed another sensor pad to the Doctor's forehead. She had adjusted the bed the Doctor was tied to in an attempt to make him more comfortable. He was now propped up and she had even put a pillow behind his head. He had a better look at his surroundings. The building must have been empty because the door was wide open. The controls for the MRI were in a small ante room to his right. Claire had laid out trays full of equipment that he didn't like the look of one bit. Scalpels, needles, tubes… absolutely nothing that reassured him. The room was clean and white, just as you'd expect in a state of the art private medical facility. No colour, save for the small black fire extinguisher hung near the exit.
"So what next, Dr Bailey…" the Doctor asked quietly. "A nice facial or aromatherapy massage? How about a pedicure? Or maybe you'll just go for amputating a limb? Will you cut off my hand to see if it will grow back? Stop one of my hearts to see if I'll survive on just the one? "
"I should have kept you sedated." Claire muttered, picking up a syringe from one of the trays.
He didn't fancy being unconscious again and at her mercy. How ever bad his current situation was, there was at least a glimmer of hope if he could keep her talking."Ah, but what about all the false readings? Can't have false readings if you're going to present your research as the saviour of the medical profession."
"That's not what I'm trying to do…"
"Course it is. You think you're going to find the ultimate cure for everything. You'll poke, prod, cut, bleed, scan, dissect, disinfect, dislocate until you think you've gotten what you came for." He turned his head towards her, fixing her with the eye contact she had been avoiding. "None of this will be worth anything because nobody will believe you."
"You're hoping I'll believe that, but I don't." She yanked on restraint on his upper left arm, tightening it considerably. " I think that you could be the answer to a lot of medical problems here, on Earth… God, I don't believe I just said that!" She swabbed his left arm with an antiseptic wipe. "But I'm not doing this for my own glory. I'm doing this for the benefit of the human race." She carefully inserted a cannula into the Doctor's arm. He grimaced as he felt the needle embed itself into the vein. Moments later, crimson fluid flowed from his arm, down a tube into a collection bag.
Claire looked on with great curiosity. "It looks just like real blood."
"It is real blood. It's my real blood." The Doctor squirmed uncomfortably, not enjoying the sensation. "You were expecting blue or green or purple, perhaps?"
"Perhaps." She replied, continuing to watch the bag fill up. "I took pulse and blood pressure readings earlier. Your bp was literally off the scale."
"Afraid I'll stress out and have a stroke on you… Have a heart attack and you won't know which heart to attend to?" His sarcastic tone was starting to grate on Claire's nerves.
"Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of taking blood from the other arm too." She undid the button on his shirt sleeve and rolled it up past his elbow. "I have a lot of tests to run, a lot of experiments."
"After this experiment?" The Doctor closed his eyes as yet another needle pricked his skin.
Claire pulled hard on the upper arm restraint, ignoring the Doctor's discomfort. It formed another tourniquet, kick-starting the blood flow into the bag. She replaced the original bag from his left arm which had filled its pint.
…
Rose stood on the corner of Clifton Parade waiting for David to collect her. She recognised his car as it sped down the road towards her.
"Get in." David reached across and opened the passenger door for her.
"What's wrong?"
"Claire's missing too." He sighed, shaking his head. "I went to our apartment to collect the car and she was gone. Fresh coffee had been poured for 2 but not drunk." David pulled out onto the road and sped off again.
"Do you think the Doctor was at your place?" Rose gripped the dashboard as he rounded a corner at considerable speed. "Woah, Starsky! Slow down. If we crash we aren't going to be much help to anyone."
"Sorry. I'm just worried something terrible has happened to them." He had to stop at the traffic lights, which gave David a chance to explain his theory. "Someone sent a text message to The Doctor to get him around to our place. I always work Saturdays to get the Sunday edition to bed. Claire doesn't. Edenwood is strictly Monday to Friday. Somebody knows our schedules and I reckon it's one of the higher ups at Edenwood."
"So you think they might be there?"
"Call it a journalistic hunch." David shrugged. "And anyway, it's a place to start."
"And we're going to walk through the front door and… What?" Rose wasn't a big fan of half arsed plans.
"Actually… I was thinking more of the back door." David pointed to Claire's ID card on the dashboard. "I know the code. Claire gave this to me when she started working late so I could just nip up and collect her, instead of her having to come down to reception and buzz me in. If they ever found out, she'd probably get fired.. but, as they say, what they don't know can't hurt them."
