"Thanks for giving me that upgrade," Martha said, striding into the console room with her phone in hand. "Still kinda hard to believe I can call anywhere, any time at all."

"I promised, didn't I?"

The Doctor smiled over at her from where he and Barry were standing by the TARDIS console, looking together over a diagram.

"Yeah, hey, can we go somewhere in particular?"

"Sure," the Doctor shrugged, as Barry folded up the diagram and disappeared in a gust of wind, before reappearing a second later.

"Where to?"

"Well, I was just talking to Tish—you know, my sister?—and she said she's working for this Professor Lazarus bloke. Says he's been working on this big project, he's going to "change what it means to be human."

The Doctor traded a glance with Barry. He grinned, Barry's eyebrows rose, and slammed down a lever.


"Oh, black tie," the Time Lord grumbled, plucking at his tux. "Whenever I wear this, something bad always happens."
Barry nodded, remembering previous incidents, though he smirked at Martha's assertion that it was the Doctor, not the suit.

"She's got you there," he smiled, and the rest of the walk was taken up by light-hearted bickering and the Doctor's assertion that he was not a born danger magnet, and that it was entirely possible for him to go somewhere without getting in trouble.

"All right, mister," Martha nodded, mock-seriously, as they approached Lazarus Laboratories. "I'll make you a bet. If something alien crops up, you owe me five quid."

"Deal," the Doctor agreed, adjusting his bow tie. Barry adjusted his own, smiling.


Inside, Barry and the Doctor met Martha's sister Tish. The Doctor claimed to be Martha's plus-one, while Barry flashed the psychic paper, announcing that he was a reporter from Metropolitan Magazine. Truthfully, he'd gotten inside by phasing through a door, but they figured that she didn't really need to know that.

"So do you know what the professor's going to be doing tonight?" the Doctor asked her, peering at the rejuvenation chamber in the middle of the room. "That looks like it might be a sonic microfield manipulator."

"He's a science geek," Tish smiled at her sister. "I should have known. Got to get back to work now. I'll catch up with you later."

"Science geek, what does that mean?" the Doctor asked.

"That you're obsessively enthusiastic about it," Martha told him, rolling her eyes affectionately.

"Oh, nice," the Doctor said, and Barry high-fived him.

"Science geeks FTW!" he exclaimed. The Doctor raised his eyebrows interrogatively.

"Never mind," Barry and Martha chorused in unison.


Shortly after, Martha's mom appeared. After some conversation with her eldest daughter, her attention turned to the Doctor and Barry.

"Lovely to meet you, Mrs. Jones," the Doctor said, shaking her hand. "Heard a lot about you."

"Have you?" she said coolly. "What have you heard, then?"

The Doctor winced, almost imperceptibly. "Oh, you know, that you're Martha's mother and…er, no, actually, that's about it. We haven't had much time to chat. You know, been busy."

"Busy? Doing what, exactly?"

"We, uh, work at the hospital together with Martha," Barry put in, sensing a disaster in the offing. "I'm, uh, another medical student, and Doctor Smith here is our supervisor. He's…uh, he's here with his wife. She's over there," he added, nodding to a random woman in the crowd.

"I see," Francine said, a little less coolly. Just then, to Barry's eternal gratitude, Professor Lazarus tapped on his glass for attention. After a little speech, he stepped inside his machine, which began to whir and spin around, emitting a blinding light. Suddenly, an alarm went off.

"Something's wrong," the Doctor said grimly. "It's overloading."

He rushed for the controls and started sonicking, and after a tense minute or two, the machine spun to a halt. Martha rushed up to the door and pulled it open, revealing a young man looking roughly the Doctor's apparent age, who staggered out.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he announced. "I am Richard Lazarus. I am 76 years old, and I am reborn!"


As Lazarus posed for pictures, Barry, Martha, and the Doctor conferred to one side.

"He just changed what it means to be human," the Doctor announced grimly. He went up to Lazarus as the man started gobbling snacks off of a tray.

"Energy deficit," he announced. "Always happens with this kind of process."

Barry raised his eyebrows thoughtfully, remembering the Doctor's regeneration. He himself had to eat a lot in order to support his super-fast metabolism, and had been grabbing nibbles off the trays all evening just to be on the safe side (plus, hey, it was free food, so why not?)

He was shaken out of his thoughts when an old lady he remembered seeing hanging around Lazarus announced that they would be selling it commercially.

Over their arguments, Lazarus and the older lady headed upstairs.

"Oh, he's out of his depth," the Doctor muttered. "No idea of the damage he might have done."

"So what do we do now?" Barry asked, looking after them. The Doctor suggested that they do some tests, and Martha smiled that, thanks to Lazarus kissing her hand before he'd left, she'd just collected a DNA sample.

"Oh, Martha Jones, you're a star!" the Doctor exclaimed.


Upstairs in one of the labs, the trio leaned over a computer scan of Lazarus' DNA, which blipped and changed for a second.

"And that's two impossible things we've seen tonight," the Doctor grinned. "Don't you love it when that happens?"

"Let's see if we can get to five before breakfast," Barry suggested. They realized that the fluctuation of his DNA was still continuing, changing him…but into what? There was only one way to find out.

Barry rushed them upstairs and the Doctor flicked on the lights. It didn't take them long to discover the husk of what had been his assistant's body, with all of the life energy drained out.

"So he's changed already?" Martha asked.

"Not necessarily," the Doctor frowned. "You saw the DNA. It was fluctuating. The process must demand energy. This might not have been enough. Barry!"

"Yeah?"

"We need to find him. Fast."

"I'm on it," the speedster promised. Less than ten seconds later, he was back. "Downstairs in the reception."

"Let's go," the Doctor snapped, and they ran for the lifts.

Again, they were too late, and achieved nothing but spilling Francine's drink on her dress as they looked around. Barry moved in an eye-blink, pulling the glass away, pushing her away a little, then replacing the drink in her hand so that nothing landed on her.

"Sorry, gotta dash," he apologized, and they were on the move upstairs again. Finding nobody in his office, the Doctor pulled out his sonic, which led them to the roof. He and Lazarus debated philosophy as Martha tried to get her sister away.

"Come on!" Barry ordered.

Behind her back, the man spasmed and fell.

"Tish, he's a monster!" Martha insisted.

"I know the age thing's a bit freaky, but-"

"Behind you!" the speedster hissed, and the young woman spun around as Lazarus, now a massive bony scorpion with a human face and a massive tail, rose behind them.

"Run!" the Doctor ordered, and sonicked the door as they charged inside.

Once in the reception area, Doctor tossed Martha his sonic screwdriver, and the two women rushed for the doors as the Time Lord attempted to chivy people out. Spotting a fire alarm in one corner, Barry rushed over and pulled it. That got an effect, and people began streaming towards the door, the Doctor nodding approvingly to him as Martha unlocked the doors.

Barry was actually starting to think they might get everyone out when the creature Lazarus had become burst in, roaring, and leapt the balcony railing, terrifying the guests who had been slower to leave.

"Oi!" Barry shouted, waving his arms.

"Leave them alone!" the Doctor called, slipping to the other side of the room, and taunting Lazarus while Barry and Martha hurried the remaining guests out. The Doctor led Lazarus down a corridor, and the two friends, everyone else now safely outside, rushed to follow.

"What now?" Martha gasped.

"I've got a plan," the Doctor told her. "We need to get it back to the reception."


Having done so, the three of them crowded into the rejuvenation chamber, which was designed for one person. Needless to say, it was rather awkward for Barry and Martha, though the Doctor didn't seem to notice.

"Right," Barry grunted, sucking in his stomach. "Doctor, you said your plan's to get inside here. Now what?"

"Now…I come up with another plan," the Time Lord replied, and Barry rolled his eyes. Typical.

"In your own time, then," Martha grunted. After a bit of wriggling, the Doctor was able to pull out his sonic screwdriver and kneel to play with the wires in the base of the machine, meanwhile explaining that for once, this wasn't alien, but a throwback hidden in human DNA which had been activated by Lazarus' machine. As they spoke, Lazarus activated it.

"Doctor…" Martha warned.

"Nearly there!"

With a final jab of his sonic, the Doctor was able to reverse the polarity and send the professor flying. They stepped out to find his naked body lying on the floor nearby, face almost peaceful in death.

"Oh, God, he seems so human again," Martha remarked. "It's kind of pitiful."

"Eliot saw that, too," the Doctor told her. "This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but with a whimper."


Outside the building, paramedics took the body away as Barry, Martha, and the Doctor stood on the steps outside, each lost in their own thoughts, until the rest of the Jones family ran up. As the sisters embraced, Francine stormed towards the Doctor and pulled her hand back to slap him. Barry sighed and yanked the Doctor back at super-speed, so that her hand whistled through thin air.

"Keep away from my daughter," she growled, telling Martha that he was dangerous and that she'd been "told things."

"Hang on, who told you what things?" Barry wanted to know, but she ignored him, going on to blame the Doctor for the carnage. Just then, they heard a crash, and the men rushed off to investigate, swiftly followed by Martha and then Tish. Arriving, they found nothing but a couple of husks dressed in emergency clothes.

"Lazarus, back from the dead. Should've known, really," the Doctor noted grimly. The sonic screwdriver led them to Southwark Cathedral and they advanced within, the Doctor leading the way with his companions flanking him and Tish bringing up the rear.


When they found him, Lazarus was back in human form, shivering in a blanket the color of blood behind the altar.

"I came here before, a lifetime ago," he whispered hoarsely, as the Doctor circled around to stand in front of him. "I thought I was going to die then. In fact, I was sure of it. I sat here, just a child, the sound of planes and bombs outside."

"The Blitz," the Doctor nodded, his eyes flicking around, measuring, planning, evaluating, analyzing.

"You've read about it."

"I was there," he said, and Barry flashed back to an adventure seemingly so long ago, in fact barely a few weeks from his point of view, with a dashing Time Agent, gone now.

"You're too young."

"So are you," the Doctor countered. Lazarus choked out a laugh, his body cracking like the old man he truly was. As he continued to speak, the Doctor circled him, looking up at the balconies high above. The other three followed his gaze.

"Facing death is part of being human," the Doctor told him.

"No, Doctor. Avoiding death, that's being human," Lazarus told him. Barry thought about his mom, dead on the floor of his house, and blinked away a tear.

"He's going to change again any minute," Martha whispered.

"I know. If I can get him up into the bell tower somehow, I've an idea that might work," the Doctor whispered back. "Barry, you're in charge of that. Martha," he slipped her the sonic and nodding at the organ, "turn it up to eleven."

Barry nodded, slipping around to the stairway and Martha to the organ as Lazarus continued to banter with the Doctor. Panting, sweating, it was only moments before the young-old looked up once more, hunger in his eyes.

"I will feed soon," he promised.

"I'm not going to let that happen," the Doctor told him, almost gently.

"You've not been able to stop me so far."

"Why don't you try some nice, fresh meat?" Barry taunted, taking a step backwards. "Come on. Come and get me."

"Run, Barry, run!" Martha yelled as Lazarus snarled and charged. He ran at normal speed up the stairs, looking back to ensure the other man was following. Once he'd reached a window, he looked down on his friends.

"Doctor!" he called.

"Take him up to the top!" the Time Lord yelled back. "The very top!"

He ran his way up, keeping his ears open for Lazarus.

"Come on, ugly!" he shouted as he hurried up the curving stairs. Lazarus, now fully in bestial form, roared and followed him.


Unfortunately for Lazarus, the effect of sound waves produced by three people playing the organ very, very loudly, with a sonic screwdriver exacerbating the sound levels, was to once more send him crashing down to the floor. And this time, he didn't get up and walk away.

"Who is he?" Tish asked quietly as Barry zipped down to join them, and the Doctor gently closed the man's eyelids.

"He's…he's the Doctor," Martha told her sister. She shook her head, but clung to Martha, who clung back. After a short while, they headed off.

"You owe me five quid, by the way," Martha told him.

"No, I don't!" the Doctor protested. "I said, if anything alien comes up. Lazarus wasn't alien. Bet's off. Sorry."

"Barry?"

The speedster shook his head, grinning. "Spirit of the contract, Doctor. Pay up."

"Oh…"

Laughing, the Doctor put one arm around Barry, and the other around Martha, and they wandered off together, towards their next adventure.

OK, next episode is 42. Honestly, I'm really not a fan of Chibnall's writing, plus with Barry's abilities, the story would be shorter anyway. So, it's going to be another skipped one (I believe that's the last one we're skipping, so hurrah for that), and next week we get something I've been looking forward to for a while-Human Nature/Family of Blood! And they're not going to be living quietly in 1913, either, oh no...

That being said, I'm coming up on midterms, so I may not be able to post next Sunday as usual. I will, however, do my best to post as soon as I can, but please do be patient with me if it ends up being a while.

Thank you all, and stay safe!