The Doctor looked at the young woman standing in front of him with a mixture of amazement and admiration. How long had it been since someone had surprised him this much? Hermione was obviously extremely intelligent. She had only been on his ship, conscious, for a couple of hours. However, she had already displayed her power, faced him down without fear, communicated with his ship and made friends with her, figured out that he was a time traveler, that he was not even from Earth - and she was still taking it all in stride! That was just...

"Fantastic! Utterly fantastic!" he exclaimed as a wide grin appeared on his face. Their eyes met and she blushed a little bit at his praise. Three heart rates increased then, but before they could even process that occurrence, Hermione's overwhelming day finally caught up with her and her knees buckled. The Doctor's quick reflexes allowed him to catch her before she fell and he helped her over to the jumpseat.

"How long has it been since you've eaten, Hermione?" he asked gently, with quite a lot of concern for her and reproach for himself. Why had he not addressed this issue before now?

The woman looked up at him with tears in her eyes. She felt like she would not be able to stop herself from crying soon, but she did not quite know why. She did not like feeling weak like this. She tried to answer the Doctor's question honestly, though. "I don't really know. A couple of days maybe…Before I got here, the battle went on all day and long after the sun went down. I don't think that I had anything before that. I'm sorry. I just don't know. I'm just so tired now, and I'm having trouble keeping my thoughts straight."

"I think that your body is going into shock, Hermione. You've been through too much, too soon." Without hesitation, the Doctor bent down and easily scooped up her frail frame. "I'm goin' to take you back to the infirmary and give you some supplements that you need to replenish your basic supplies. Then, you're goin' to sleep!"

Hermione wanted to protest being carried, but she did not know if she could actually walk on her own or not. Therefore, she just held on to him and let him handle it. She smiled weakly, though, as she definitely felt his double heartbeat this time against her own chest as she wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned her head on his shoulder for the short journey. She had to wonder, though, if his hearts always beat quite that fast. After a moment, they reached the now familiar infirmary and he laid her gently back on the bed. He then crossed over to the line of cabinets on the wall and rummaged through one briefly before he came back to show her the small flat rectangle on the palm of his hand.

"Here, place this under your tongue," he instructed. "It's called a Nutristrip. Humans began to use them as meal replacements during long space flights in the 51st century. They also help with hydration and to rebuild muscle, bone, and tissue loss. Plus, it will be easier on your stomach than solid food right now. I'm glad that I had the foresight to snag those off of that annoying ex-Time agent that I ran into on Exaltis Six because they'll come in handy for you now. While that's dissolving, I'm goin' to give you a multivitamin hypospray. It'll go directly into your bloodstream and start workin' immediately. That's good because you're obviously malnourished which means that your body hasn't been getting what it needs. That's why you're so weak. I think that you must have been running solely off of adrenaline and the force of your obviously strong will for a while now."

"A year on the run culminating in a battle to the death tends to have that effect, I think," she said matter-of-factly, albeit in a very tired and distant voice. She struggled to keep her eyes open while she spoke, though, because she really did not want to miss any of her host's fascinating explanations. However, it was obviously a losing battle and her voice was thick with exhaustion when she asked, "So…Doctor is really more than your nickname, isn't it? Is it your profession, too?"

"Well, I really am a Jack of all Trades, but…yes…I do know quite a bit of medicine."

His answer must have reassured her enough because she finally allowed herself to let go and slipped into a sleep so deep that it was almost unconsciousness. It happened so quickly, though, that he had not even had a chance to give her the hypospray, yet. Therefore, he took it upon himself to roll up her sleeve and expose her forearm in order to expertly apply the vitamin solution. There was no way that he could have anticipated what happened next, however. All of a sudden, the clear smooth skin on her arm seemed to flicker and then fade away leaving the most horrid, painful looking, and half-healed carving in its wake.

"Mudblood," read the Doctor aloud with absolute fury in his voice as he looked back up at the sleeping woman in concern before his eyes returned to the recently acquired wound on the arm that he now cradled gently in his hands. He realized that she must have used some kind of magical perception filter on it in order to keep it from drawing unwanted attention. It had worked, too - even against his superior senses - until it had been disrupted by the hypospray.

What has this extraordinary young woman gone through? he could not help but to wonder while his eyes wandered over her form as he noted her poor physical condition again. She had mentioned a battle, being on the run, and now he knew that she had been tortured, as well. No wonder she had drawn her wand on him earlier! She probably expected him to attack her, as well.

Fury flowed through him at the thought. He was not known in parts of the universe as the "Oncoming Storm" for nothing, after all. Nevertheless, there was nothing to vent his anger on here, no enemy to destroy with it. Therefore, he needed to keep busy in order to keep those negative emotions from taking him over completely. Plus, he wanted to help Hermione, as well.

With that in mind, he went back into the cabinet to find something with which to treat her arm while she was still asleep. After some searching, he finally found a salve that he could use on her half-healed wound to provide some immediate relief from the pain and swelling. Later, though, when she was awake and rested, he would suggest using the Dermal Regenerator on the area. It would help the arm to heal completely. Unfortunately, she would always carry a scar there – a reminder of her hardship. With that gloomy thought, he applied the salve as gently as he possibly could and then gave her a hypospray of pain reliever that would also hopefully help her to sleep peacefully.

The Doctor then decided that she would rest more comfortably in a real bed, so he carried her back to her room - which the TARDIS had kindly moved next to the infirmary for him. He smiled at the undisputable fact that the ship had already become quite fond of the young woman during their short acquaintance. Of course, he had never known anyone to catch on to the nature of his ship quite so quickly, nor to accept it so fully, either. In fact, quite a few of his past companions had never recognized her sentience, at all. Therefore, it made sense that the TARDIS would favor Hermione a bit. Unfortunately, he was afraid that the young woman would need it, too, especially while she was healing.

He also knew from experience that she was obviously suppressing her grief over whatever had happened to her, but that it would more than likely overwhelm her soon. She would need some friends to help her through it all when that happened, and it looked like he and the TARDIS were going to have to be those friends. He continued to ponder the idea of friendship with the mysterious and intriguing young woman while he had carried her into her room and then laid her gently on her bed. He also took off her boots and pulled the covers up around her. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he gave in to an odd impulse to lean forward and place a kiss on her forehead.

He did not know where the sentiment had come from - especially since he could already tell that his current body did not have the range of open emotionality that some of the others had possessed. He also did not understand why he felt so protective of Hermione when they had just met. Maybe it was just because it felt nice to finally have some sort of connection with someone else besides his ship again.

He decided not to examine that thought too closely and run the risk of opening his own barely scabbed-over pain, but he already knew that he would do whatever he could to help his guest. Therefore, he asked the TARDIS to let him know when she woke and then he exited the room quietly. In the meanwhile, he decided to spend the down time to complete some of the ever-necessary maintenance on his ship. Hopefully, that would help to keep his thoughts off of the fascinating, pretty, and young (way too young, he kept reminding himself) woman asleep down the corridor...and away from his own past, as well.