Martha didn't check in with UNIT to let them know she was on site or on duty, but rushed straight into the TARDIS. Josh was sitting on the floor next to the Doctor and was holding the ice packs to the Doctor's head and neck. "Well done, Josh," Martha offered. "Are you okay down there? Mickey is about twenty minutes behind me. When he gets here he can help. If you're not okay down there I can get another medic in to give me a hand."
"I'm okay, but I'm not sure what I can do to help."
"The priority has to be to get his body temperature and his heart rates down," Martha commented as she looked at the monitor. His body temperature had risen a fraction since the last time Josh had read them out to her. His hearts were racing and were out of synch. They were beating too fast to effectively pump his blood around his body and he was in a real danger of having some kind of vascular collapse.
"It's still going up," Josh commented.
"I'm going to sort some drugs out that will help, we're going to use some more ice packs, and, we're going to put a drip up that has cold saline in it as well. He's not going to like that much, but his body temperature is really high. All I need you to do is keep on doing what you're doing and look after him. Keep talking to him and see if you get a response from him. Let him know it's going to be okay," Martha suggested.
"Martha is here now, Doctor," Josh told him. "You're going to be okay." He didn't get a response from the time lord. "I think he's lost consciousness."
"He's pretty sick at the moment, Josh," Martha informed him. "He must have a raging infection, but we can deal with it and get it under control and then he'll recover quickly. We just need to give him a hand to get it under control first," Martha assured the worried teenager from the pharmacy area.
"Doctor?" Josh adjusted the ice pack on his neck as the Doctor whined on a gasped breath. The Doctor suddenly went completely rigid on the floor. "Martha?!" It looked like his spine was going to snap.
"Move away from him, Josh," Martha instructed calmly as she came over and checked her watch. "He's having a seizure," Martha informed Josh as she helped the teenager scoot away from him on the floor. "He'd be really upset if he thought he'd hurt you," Martha commented. She knelt by the Doctor and made sure his head remained on the pillow. She checked the ball in the side of the oxygen mask and it showed he wasn't drawing breath. "Come on, Doctor, ride it out. It's going to be over soon," she assured him.
"What's happened?" Josh panicked as the Doctor started to jerk violently on the floor. As he fitted he ended up on his back and he kicked the base of the bed. Martha didn't restrain him, but she couldn't reach to push the bed away so she grabbed the leg of the Doctor's trousers and yanked him away from the base of the bed, then returned to just making sure his head didn't bounce off the pillow.
Martha checked her watch again. "Okay, Doctor, I think that's about long enough now," she suggested. "You're going to be okay," she assured him. "You've got yourself a fever and you're too hot," she informed him. "You're just having a little seizure. Just let yourself calm down now," she offered. She checked her watch again. "That's it, come on now," she encouraged as he sagged back. "There we go, well done." Martha ran her hand over his head as a strangulated whine escaped as the Doctor took a shaky breath. Martha put her hands to his face and gently pulled his lower eye lids down. She then got her pen light out and checked his pupil responses. "Let's have you over onto your side, Doctor, I don't think your poor back is going to appreciate you fitting on it." Martha pulled the Doctor up onto his side and into the recovery position. The time lord moaned as she did it. "I know, I'm sorry." Martha caressed his head. She replaced the ice packs that had been dislodged as he'd fitted.
Josh was just watching with tears streaming down his face. "He's going to die isn't he?"
"He's very sick at the moment," Martha informed Josh and went to hug him. "He's also very strong. You can come back over now," she suggested. "You can hold his hand if you want to and talk to him. He might start to come round a bit. He had a febrile convulsion because he's so hot, so I'm going to get what we need to start cooling him down a bit more aggressively."
Martha went back to the pharmacy area and got what she needed. She came back to him with equipment in a large metal tray. "Doctor? Can you hear me?" she asked him, but she got no response. She rubbed him across his collarbone with her knuckles and he groaned. "There you are," she offered. "Just try and stay with us, okay? I think you're worrying Josh here, so just lie there with him. I'm going to put a cannula in your arm," she warned the Doctor. "You're going to feel a scratch." She tapped the crook of the Doctor's arm to find a vein, but he was so sick that nothing immediately came up when he was usually pretty easy to cannulate. She got an elastic band and wrapped it around his bicep and pulled it tight. She checked the crook of his arm and then she went to the back of his hand. She found a vein in the side of his wrist. "We're going to have to try here, Doctor," she suggested to him. She slid the needle in and then taped it in place. It wasn't going to be very comfortable for him in his wrist and she didn't want him to be moving it around too much as it risked the needle shifting out of the vein or right through the other side of it, so she would bandage it in place as well when she'd given him the drugs.
"What are you giving him?" Josh asked.
"This is a bolus of a broad spectrum antibiotic to get some more into his system."
"He did take the antibiotics," Josh commented.
"It's possible that they weren't strong enough," Martha suggested. "Or, what he's been infected with doesn't respond to the antibiotic I gave him. When he's more stable we can do some swabs and identify exactly what it is that is infecting him and then choose a specific antibiotic. Hopefully this one will kill anything in his system, but that means it's also going to kill the good bacteria he has in his gut and that will probably make him feel quite unwell on its own, but it's clearly become necessary." She gave him the massive dose of antibiotics through the cannula. "This one is his pain relief and I've mixed in some sedative. I know he's already mostly asleep, but it should stop him fitting again." She gave him that drug as well. "And this one will work to help bring his body temperature down. It's a bit like giving you paracetamol if you've got a fever," Martha explained to Josh. She then twisted a connector onto the cannula which had two ports and an area where she could still deliver drugs by needle if she needed to. She had two bags of fluid in the tray and she connected a smaller one up first and set it running. "This is the antibiotic again just to make sure it keeps on going in," she explained to Josh as she hooked it onto the side of the bed frame. "This one, I'm going to give to you to hold up," she informed Josh as she connected the fluid bag. "It's saline with some added sugars, but feel it."
"It's cold," Josh commented.
"It's come out the fridge. Do you think you could hold it up and gently squeeze it in?" she asked him and Josh nodded. "When we've given him that one, we'll give him another one as well. I'm just going to get some more of the ice packs," Martha told Josh. She fetched six more and she positioned them in various points on the Doctor's body where his blood ran closest to the surface. "Can you see the monitors?" Martha asked Josh. "What are they saying?" She made sure she included the teenager and got him to check them even though she'd have been able to see them herself just swivelling round.
"Pulse 354 (180/174) 72%. Underneath O2 97% and his body temperature is 23.7 degrees."
"That's starting to show an improvement," Martha assured Josh. "You're doing okay, Doctor, let's just keep going in this direction, okay?" she asked the time lord and ran her hand over his head. "The drugs and that fluid is going to help his condition stabilise and he will respond very quickly, but I need to get him back up on the bed to check his wounds, so I'm just going to ring Mickey and find out where he is. He's probably got lost coming into the woods. I'll be five minutes, no more than that. Just keep on squeezing that fluid bag gently and keep on talking to him and letting him know you're there and looking after him."
"I don't think he's going to be able to hear me."
"You'd be surprised at what he can hear," Martha commented. "I know this is scary, but you're doing brilliantly, Josh. I do need a hand to get him back up on the bed to start checking his back. I can't do it on my own and you can't do it with a broken ankle, so I'm just going to be out there on the phone. If you are extra worried about anything, or anything changes, yell and I'll be straight back in."