The Doctor went and washed his hands again then returned to Josh. He carefully removed his trainer. They had been nice trainers at some point, probably expensive ones, with a good name. Nike was a good name. Now they were tatty and dirty and when he removed his other trainer as well it felt a bit tight. They were slightly too small, but fourteen year old humans grew quickly. He put his trainers neatly side by side by the bed. If he was a runaway he'd want to keep sight of everything he had, even if they were too small for him and probably beginning to hurt his toes. He took his sock off to reveal his ankle. He wasn't going to remove his jeans, but he couldn't work on his ankle with them still on, so he cut up the side seam and then rolled the fabric right up to his thigh. He'd get him some clean clothes out of the wardrobe room later on.
The Doctor went to get what he needed in order to put a temporary cast on Josh's ankle. He checked that Josh was deeply asleep with the sedative and that he was breathing well. His blood oxygen levels and blood pressure were good. There was a chance he was still going to feel what he had to do to his leg, but he wasn't going to remember. It had to be done though, the skin was bleached and tight across a bulge of bone on the inside of his ankle where his foot rotated round and folded away from the usual position. He was lucky that the pressure hadn't forced the bone out through the skin altogether. It was going to be quite awkward getting it sorted with only one pair of hands, but he was going to get it as close as he could, apply the cast, and then if necessary he'd be able to reposition it within the cast while the plaster dried.
The Doctor raised Josh's leg up and moved the pillow it was resting on out the way before putting it flat on the bed. He had a look at the monitors again at the jigsaw of bone that should have been his ankle joint, then he took him by the calf and bent his leg up at the knee. He gripped his calf and slid his hands down his leg, pulling and squeezing at the same time as he did, as he got down to his foot he maintained a gentle traction as he rotated his hands so one was cupping his heel and the other was over the top of his foot. He pulled down on his smashed ankle as he tried to unwind and relocate his foot. It took a bit more force than he would have liked, but Josh's foot slid back round with an audible popping. He held his foot and heel, drawing it down, and looked at the live scan on the TARDIS monitor. It was much better, but not good enough yet.
The Doctor shifted his grip slightly, pulling down on Josh's heel and up on the ball of his foot. "You're okay," the Doctor assured him as Josh remained silent but squirmed slightly on the bed. He remained well medicated but the Doctor knew that was a pain response and he didn't like that he was hurting him. As he rotated his foot down Josh moaned uncomfortably. The Doctor looked at the live scan again. He didn't think he was going to achieve a full reduction, but the bones were much closer and once cast and secured he'd not be in as much pain. They could allow it to swell and for the swelling to reduce and then set and secure it properly. The Doctor lowered Josh's leg back to the mattress. His foot rotated out slightly as he did. The Doctor didn't know if Josh was going to be with him in the TARDIS when he needed the next treatment, so he had to go for a contemporary casting system of foam, plaster, and bandages.
He wrapped three layers of a cotton wool bandaging from Josh's toes to his knee, then ripped shorter sections off and placed them around his ankle for additional padding. He then cut a three inch wide length of foam so that it was twice as long as Josh's lower leg. He ran it from the outside of his knee, under the heel of his foot, and up to the inside of his knee, then used a layer of bandage to hold it in place. He cut several long lengths of plaster bandage so they were ready, then soaked them one at a time, squeezing out some of the excess water, before creating a thick slab of plaster from the back of his knee to his toes. He moulded it into the back of his ankle and into the arch of his foot to keep him still and secure, before smoothing the plaster he checked the position of the bones on the live scan. It wasn't very stable and he had pull down on his foot again. He pulled it and held it with that traction as the quick setting plaster began to dry. Josh moaned and whined.
"We're almost done, Josh," the Doctor informed him. "You're doing brilliantly." The Doctor cautiously let go of his foot and then wrapped several layers of bandage around his leg to support it and to keep it snug within the plaster. It was going to be heavy and clunky. His ankle wasn't stable, but as long as Josh didn't do anything daft like try to stand on it, it would hold until he could be dealt with properly, and it would feel better than it had done. How Josh hadn't spent the entire afternoon simply screaming he wasn't sure.
He went to the TARDIS store and got a metal support. It was sturdy and quite heavy and he felt it pulling through the cuts on his back as he carried it back to Josh. He opened it out on the next bed to him, looking at Josh and then setting it up before he positioned it and clamped it onto Josh's bed. He fitted a sling to one side of it, then eased Josh's leg up and fastened the sling onto the other side so his leg was elevated. He then fetched a clean bowl of warm water. He wasn't going to intrude and wash him down, but he gently cleaned the blood from his face and around the cuts he had. He left his lip, it would heal well on its own, but he got a cooling salve for the cut on his forehead and put a couple of strips across it just to keep it closed so he'd not scar. He then went to get some ice packs. He placed three into the sling around his plastered ankle and used a smaller sticky cooling strip which he activated and then placed on the lump across his brow. He noticed that there was some blood drying in the tight curls of his hair and he took a moment just to clean that as well. His skin was a warm mid brown but there was an almost reddish tinge to his hair.
The Doctor wondered about Josh's parents. If they'd died three years previously then that was when he Josh was eleven. He wondered what had happened. What had led Josh to be living in the woods on his own because he thought that was better than his foster home? What led him to chasing a group of older teenagers into a storm drain after a tatty rucksack? And, more importantly, how had he reached him with his fear all the way out in the vortex? The boy was definitely a mystery. He thought about doing some additional scans to see if he could determine who he was. He could run a complete DNA profile, determine who his parents were, find out what had happened to them. He could rummage through his rucksack see if there were any clues in there as to who he really was and find out what was so important that a lanky fourteen year old who looked like he'd blow over in a storm would risk chasing those bigger, older boys to get it back.
He looked at Josh. He could do all of that, but he wasn't going to. He wanted Josh to come to trust him. If he found out he'd done secrets tests on him or gone through his stuff then he wouldn't. Instead, he pulled a chair right up to the side of Josh's bed and put his rucksack and trainers in it so he could see them and reach them. He then went and got a jug of water and a glass and pulled a table up to the other side of his bed. He made a sandwich and fetched a bag of crisps and an apple. He didn't need to scan him to see he was probably a little underweight. He wasn't exactly sure what fourteen year old human boys liked to eat, but Rose always accused him of eating like a child, so he was sure a sandwich and a packet of crisps would be good. He'd rather have chocolate that an apple though, so he went back into the galley and into the secret stash he had at the back of the top cupboard. It ripped through his back as he stretched up, but he got three different chocolate bars and put them on the table as well.
Josh was still settled with the sedation and he didn't want to go out after the creatures while he remained asleep. The Doctor went over to the other side of the sickbay. He took his no longer clean jacket off and then his shirt. He'd put an undershirt on when he'd changed to soak up any blood, but it felt wet against his skin. He cautiously took it off over his head and could feel it sticking to his skin as he removed it. Even if time lords were more flexible than humans were it was still pretty much impossible to examine his own back. He had a cursory look at it in the mirror. There was still fresh blood pooling and running from the wounds that obscured the view he had, but it looked like he had three long claw marks — they probably should have stopped bleeding, but he'd been pulling Josh's leg around so he'd have been aggravating them. The gashes started over his right shoulder blade and ran diagonally across his back, in the middle of the central slash his skin had split open over an inch wide and he could see exposed muscle tissues. It looked like he'd been flayed.
There was also some quite heavy bruising coming out over his hip. It was either from the initial blow from the creature or when they'd hit the ground. He'd not really noticed that hurting. That's why he shouldn't have looked. It brought the dull ache in his hip and across his lower back more to life. He was a bit battered, but it wasn't anything that wouldn't heal. There wasn't much he could do about it anyway — it wasn't as if he could stitch and dress his own back. He went into the shower to make sure it was clean and dried it with a rough towel then pulled a new T-shirt. He didn't bother replacing his shirt or jacket, but remained in just the T-shirt so there was less to rub on his back. It felt a little odd, but the cuts were sore even if they'd heal well enough without any treatment.
He wondered if he should go and sit with Josh until he woke up, but he didn't want the 14 year old to think he was guarding him. He didn't want to give him the chance to try and run away again either. If he tried to stand on his ankle then it wouldn't take his weight. Rather than risk him trying he went and got a pair of crutches. He tried to estimate the length required with Josh laying on the bed. He didn't want him to use the crutches at all. He only had a temporary cast on and he should just stay in bed with his leg up until they could properly set it, but if he was going to get up and try to run away then he'd be better with the crutches than without them. The Doctor went and sat on the other side of the sickbay and used the monitor to try to research what kind of creatures they were dealing with based on their body shape and hunting style. Hopefully if he could identify them then he'd be able to figure out what to do with them without putting anyone else in any more danger.