Chapter 6

Everything Sara tried to look at swirled and dipped and spun into psychedelic colors. There was a heavy mist all around her that concealed things and made it impossible to focus on anything. She couldn't tell up from down or left or right or if she was moving at all. Her head felt swollen to an impossible size and her tongue felt like it filled her mouth. She felt like she was on fire and freezing at the same time.

"Sara," she heard TARDIS call, "answer me. Please, answer me."

The thought that she should answer TARDIS entered her mind and passed in a second. She went back to trying to figure out where she was, who she was, and what she was doing. Those answers were nowhere close to being found, so she kept walking – or believing she was walking.

#

The TARDIS began to materialize on a beach, causing the aliens that were enjoying the sunny day or gathered in a crowd nearby to quickly scatter. At the center of the crowd Sara lay on the sand. She was drenched in sweat, shivering, and barely conscious. The second the TARDIS materialized the door flew open and The Doctor rushed out. The hologram of TARDIS appeared next to Sara, wringing her hands with worry.

"What happened, exactly?" The Doctor asked TARDIS. He scanned Sara with his sonic screwdriver.

"I don't know. We had been here for five days while I waited for you to call me back, and she was feeling fine when we got here. Yesterday she said she was nauseous, had a slight fever. She thought it was just because she'd been outside all day and hadn't eaten much."

The Doctor looked at the screwdriver.

"This morning she said she was tired and stiff, but otherwise felt fine, TARDIS continued. "My sensors detected she had a slight fever, and her heart rate was slightly higher than normal, but she insisted she felt fine. She went out to the beach and twenty minutes later she was feeling sick, and dizzy. I detected her fever and heart rate had increased significantly and told her to come back inside. She collapsed right here, and that's when I came for you."

"She has the Westevian virus."

"What? No. She's human. She can't have that."

"Well she has it." He reached down and pushed wet hair back from Sara's face. He scanned her forehead with the sonic screwdriver again. "Her brain has begun to swell." The Doctor picked Sara up and went back inside the TARDIS. "We don't have much time."

TARDIS appeared inside with him. "That's… The Westevian virus doesn't have a cure, Doctor." TARDIS began to cry. "Is she supposed to die now? Do you know? Have you seen it? Is this the—"

"There is a cure for non-Westevians. Take us to 1847 London, Madame Vastra's." The Doctor laid Sara on the floor and scanned her again.

"Doctor, the virus is incurable. It—"

He looked up at her. "I updated the information some time ago. You should find that. And I need Silurian secretion to create it."

TARDIS grew still for a few seconds. "This cure is untested. You don't even know if this will cure her, Doctor!"

He smiled. "We're about to test it."

"Not on Sara!"

He stood, leaning in close to the hologram. "TARDIS, we either try this and hope it works or we try nothing and we know she'll die, today, before her time. What would you have me do?"

TARDIS wrung her hands. The controls lit up and knobs whirred on their own. She looked him in the eye when the door opened.

"Doctor," TARDIS told him, "please save my friend. Please make this work."

"That is the plan, my dear TARDIS." He picked Sara up and hurried out of the TARDIS.

Madame Vastra checked Sara's temperature and then turned. Jenny, Strax, The Doctor, and TARDIS waited by the door, waiting for her prognosis.

"We need to get her fever down as quickly as we can," Vastra told them. "Strax, draw a cold bath."

He hurried off to obey.

"Her fever is dangerously high," Madame Vastra told the remaining three. "Her kidneys may fail before the anti-viral can make an impact, and half of her left lung has already become paralyzed. For the next four to five days, she must be monitored, so—"

"I can stay with her," Jenny said at the same time The Doctor and TARDIS said, "I'll stay with her."

Vastra smiled. "TARDIS, you will be of no help to her if she goes into cardiac arrest and you must take The Doctor and I to Silurian to get proper medical supplies and another three doses of the anti-virus. Jenny will stay with her while we're gone."

"If she makes it through these four or five days, will she live?" TARDIS asked.

"She is strong and healthy, the likelihood is favorable; however, please do not get your hopes up yet, TARDIS. Sara is very, very sick."

TARDIS nodded. Jenny offered TARDIS a sympathetic smile.

"Shall we?" Vastra asked The Doctor.

"I'll be right there."

Madame Vastra walked out of the room. "Jenny, I need you to do a few things on the hour."

Jenny followed her, listening to the detailed list.

The Doctor looked back and stared at TARDIS. She wiped tears away and then held his stare.

"She is the only thing I have ever seen you cry about," he said.

She glowered at him. "She's my friend. I care about her. And I have cried for you many times. When I lost you, when you've done something brash and stupid…"

He smiled. "That's good to know, but TARDIS, going to Silurian is going to a long journey, and I suspect we may have to make several more stops to get everything Vastra needs. I need you to make sure we have enough reserve power for this."

She nodded, then disappeared. He walked over to the bed, staring at the girl. The Doctor leaned over so his face was close to Sara's.

"Can you hear me Sara?" he asked.

She didn't answer.

He smiled. "Of course you can. You're still in there. In that lonely dark place. You aren't alone, Sara. We won't leave you alone and out there for very long. So keep moving, keep heading toward home. You can see it, can't you? Up there on the horizon? I know it seems far away, but it's not so far. You keep moving toward it, and when you get there, we'll be waiting. TARDIS, me…" His brow dipped. "And someone else. Someone I can't seem to remember, just her name. Clara. She'll be there too." He reached down and stroked her damp hair back. "Sara, plain and tall. You are a fighter, the best kind, too. You keep that fight well hidden, but no one can beat you. Not even me." He gently pressed a hand against her sweaty forehead. "Do not stop moving, Sara, plain and tall, no matter how tired and long it feels. TARDIS need you, and it is not your time to die."

He stood up and left. In the hall, he caught Jenny's arm as he passed her. "If anything happens, anything at all—"

"I'll call."

"No. Do not call. Tell us when we return. TARDIS will not take losing Sara well and I'm afraid of how she'll react if we're traveling."

Jenny nodded.

The Doctor walked away.

In the TARDIS, he found Madame Vastra reading something on a monitor. She looked away to watch him. For several minutes the two watched each other. She smiled.

"I have never met this girl before, but I do not get the sense she's a companion of yours."

"She isn't. She is one of TARDIS' friends." He considered that statement. "Actually, I think she's the only friend TARDIS has."

"Is she?" Madame Vastra asked with a hint that she knew he wasn't entirely honest.

"Yes. She is."

"Hm."

"What?"

She smiled at him. "You aren't known to rescue someone you don't care for."

"I care about TARDIS. She cares about Sara. Therefore, I must save her."

"I see."

He scowled at Madame Vastra. She smiled back.

"At any rate, one can never have enough friends."

"At any rate," he replied, and then sent them traveling through time to Silurian.

The Doctor wasn't really reading the book in his hands as much as he was staring at the words. His mind had drifted off to solve some mystery it had bene work on for several lifetimes, and would clearly be working on for much longer at the rate his thoughts were moving.

"Where am I?" Sara whispered.

He lowered his book. The room had been transformed into a hospital room with all the equipment Vastra had brought back. The high-tech equipment looked very out of place among the early Victorian furnishings and gas lights. Since her first shot of the anti-viral, Sara had been slowly improving, but the dim light made her look just as sickly as the first day they'd arrived.

He got up, sat his book on a table, and walked over to the bed. He sat down next to her.

"You are in London, in the home of Vastra, a friend of mine."

"When am I?"

"1832."

She closed her eyes. Thinking she'd fallen asleep he stood to go back to his chair.

"Why am I sick?"

He sat back down. "You contracted the Westevian virus while you were on Westevia."

"H-How? I thought it was… safe."

"Ah, Sara, you never listen to me, do you? Nothing is ever really safe, just a bit safer than something else like it. Being human you shouldn't have contracted the virus, that's true, but viruses are strange things. They mutate and alter themselves to survive. A lot like humans, I'd say."

"That's mean."

He smiled, even if her eyes weren't open to see it. "The truth sometimes is mean."

"Am I going to die?"

"No, not this time."

She looked up at him. "Not this time?"

"Someday you are going to die, but not this time. You're recovering now."

"I'll die from this another time?"

He shook his head. "No. You die from—"

"I don't want to know."

"—old age."

She stared at him for a long moment and then closed her eyes. "Where is Tara?"

"She had to recharge. We had to travel back and forth across some long expanses of time just to keep you from an untimely death. She's exhausted."

"I want to see her when she wakes up."

"I'll tell her, but right now you both need to rest."

Sara slid her hand across the bed and looped her small finger around his. He hesitated, not sure what to make of the gesture. Then he tightened his finger around hers.

"Thank you," she whispered, "for coming for me, Doctor."

"I couldn't let you die before your time. TARDIS would never have forgiven me."

She smiled just slightly. "Aye."

He didn't respond, because he wasn't ready to admit the truth to her or anyone else.

Sara was insufferable! She fought with him, argued nearly every point he brought up, ignored him when his temper got the better of him, and he had lost count of how many times she walked out in the middle of a conversation. She positively annoyed him and there were times he believed she relished in that.

But… In his hidden thoughts, kept only for himself, the truth was he was insanely jealous of the friendship she had with TARDIS. Her humor was contagious, although he made sure no one ever knew he thought that of her. She had an insatiable curiosity and adventurous spirit, but she was cautious, and she had never become enamored by the lifestyle of a Time Lord. In fact, after convincing her to join him three times outside the TARDIS, he decided he really did hate having her with him on adventures for one simple fact. All three times he had been looking for the adventure he enjoyed – attract trouble, as TARDIS now called it – but each time she had gone with him, trouble never showed up. He had come to believe she had some innate ability to repel trouble, and while he equally hated and was perplexed by that, he knew it was an anomaly he may spend lifetimes trying to understand.

She was the complete opposite of every companion he'd ever had. She didn't act like she was fond of him, but he was convinced that some part of her must be. Why else, despite their volatile relationship and her extreme caution, would she have helped him when TARDIS had asked her to?

He didn't like her, but only to himself would he admit he was slightly fond of her. That was what had actually motivated him to rush to her rescue her. Plus, some time ago he'd gone ahead in her life and knew how she died. So, fate be damned if it thought for one moment that The Doctor would not save Sara O'Dwyer from an unscheduled death!

He found himself wondering how would he react on the day she was destined to die. Would he let nature take its course like he should? Or would he intervene and keep it from ever happening? Why did he get this vague feeling he'd done that before, for someone else? Something told him that had not ended well, and he was left with an ominous feeling and fear. But The Doctor was never afraid, so what could have happened to make him feel fear from this elusive memory?

The Doctor frowned. He decided not to think any more on this.

The Doctor let go of her finger and returned to his chair and book.