Beta blockers allowed our heroes a much-needed *ahem* blowing-off of steam. So now what?

WITH COLIN'S HELP

"Well, shagging in captivity," she sighed, pulling her forehead away from his shoulder. "It's becoming a habit for us."

"When getting captured becomes a habit, you do what you've got to do, I guess," he commented, shakily.

"It's surprisingly satisfying," she said. "Not that I'm keen to spend any more time under lock-and-key than we have to."

He pulled away from her, to put himself, and his clothing back together.

Martha picked up her jeans, shook them out, and laid them flat on her sleeping shelf. She then shed her purple shirt and underwear, and did the same, hoping they would dry overnight. The cell was damp, so they likely wouldn't dry completely, but this would be better than having icy-cold, soaking wet clothes plastered to her for the foreseeable future.

Their coats had been laid out on their sleeping shelves when they'd arisen that morning, so she pulled on the 1930's-era woolen grey coat she'd been wearing when they'd been kidnapped. Even with the satin lining inside, it was a bit harsh against her skin, but it was dry, and preferable to nudity.

When she finished, he put his hands on his hips, seeming surly.

"What?" she asked.

"Are we ever going to be together again, on our own terms?" he asked with a frown.

"Of course," she said. "What's brought this on?"

"It's just… what you said… it hit home," he told her. "The last two times we've… you know…. we've been prisoners, and it's been desperate and quick and hectic, with weeks in between. While Donna was sick, we weren't able to find the wherewithal. We wait all that time for a chance, and then the bloody TARDIS crashes…"

"Well, this is the life we choose, isn't it?" she asked. "There's always a possibility that we'll be interrupted and have to run for our lives instead. It's what makes times like this so sweet."

"Mm," he grunted.

"Am I wrong?"

"No," he sighed. "But… did I tell you that Colin asked me to consider settling down with you in London? Getting a job, having a couple kids, paying a mortgage?"

She laughed. "He did not!"

"He did," the Doctor confirmed.

Martha frowned, and stared into the corner momentarily. "Could we even have kids?"

"Possibly. Lots of x-factors involved, though. Could get weird."

"Well, that goes without saying…"

"Whatever. I'm starting to warm to the idea," he muttered.

"Of having kids?" she asked, incredulous.

"Of what Colin said. Just settling down for a while."

"You are joking, right?"

"Maybe not."

"Doctor!"

"Well, after this is over, Martha, we can plan a week off if we want to. We can say we'll hole up in the TARDIS together and not wear clothes for a solid seven days, and shag until we're sick of each other. But what's our guarantee?"

"We don't have one," she shrugged. "No-one ever has one, no matter what kind of life they live. But you always try."

"Yeah, I guess. Sorry… I'm just… frustrated."

"Me too," she conceded. "But you know what?"

"What?"

"We've got the next twenty-four hours on beta blockers."

"Yes, we have, haven't we?"

She smiled. "I mean, we definitely need to talk, and consider escape, but…"

"That would be an awful lot of talking."

"Indeed."

They sat for a while, and did, indeed, talk through a scenario in which the two of them could walk all over the complex, without anyone stopping them. It was a crude plan – a child could have hatched it. But it was the simplest, most logical they could come up with. And, it would require a bit of logistical planning-ahead.

"Simple means less chance of error," the Doctor shrugged. And Martha knew that he wasn't wrong.

Though, it still didn't solve the problem of what they'd do when they got back to the ailing TARDIS. They would surely be found again, and captured again, and most likely their execution would be expedited.

They ate their "dinner" sitting upon the Doctor's sleeping shelf, allowing the conversation to meander to places other than escape.

Once they were finished, though, Martha got up to check on the drying status of her jeans, knickers, bra and shirt, and said, "I hate to ask this, but what are we going to do about the TARDIS? We've got phase one possibly worked out. What about phase two?"

She came round the shelf and stood in front of him, looking worried.

"I dunno," he said to her. He reached forward and took her by the waist. "Come help me clear my head."

He unbuttoned her coat, then tossed it up onto her shelf, so it would not become damp. He pulled her down onto his lap then, and they lost themselves in each other for an hour or so.

By the time they were finished, it was dark, and the cell was freezing. They lay on his shelf, he on his back, and she on her side in the crook of his arm, both happily naked underneath his long brown overcoat. They were, for the moment, warm and unafraid.

"There's been something just on the tip of my consciousness for a while," he said, after a long lull, into the dark. "But I think I finally got it sussed out. Sort of."

"You mean… we really did clear your head?"

"Yeah. Why are you surprised?"

"I dunno," she chuckled. "I thought it was just an excuse to give into your body for a bit."

"It was that too. Two birds, one very lovely stone."

"So, what did you work out?"

"After talking with Colin on the phone earlier, I felt like… I knew something, knew what needed to be done, I just couldn't… I dunno, couldn't access the data somehow."

"Colin helped you work it out?"

"In a way," the Doctor said. He took a deep breath, and began to explain. "He and Donna both talked about the TARDIS' heartbeats. It makes a sound that is basically imperceptible to us – truth be told, I've never heard it. It must be on a frequency that translates somehow through a regular old telephone, because Colin and Donna both heard it though phone lines… makes you wonder what our good friend Alexander Graham Bell was into, doesn't it?"

"Erm…"

"But Colin clocked it at 100 beats per minute," he continued. "Which is extremely slow – way too slow for a TARDIS. I mean, she's efficient, but not that efficient. She is very, very sick. Extremely sick. So sick that almost all of her resources were going toward maintaining that heartbeat, and just staying alive. And keeping us alive."

"Do you think she dropped the gravity boosters and turned off the light in the time rotor when we left?"

"Probably," he answered. "I hope so. Maybe it'll give her a little extra oomph. For what, at this stage, I do not know."

"Poor girl."

"100 BPM…" the Doctor mused. "She can't function with her heartrate at that speed. We can't hope to have her rescue us from here at that speed. And even if I could find a way to get through to her, and coax her heart up to functioning speed, she'll crash again – she'll have another Sercatonian heart attack like before. Just like us. Just like every other living thing that comes to this planet and gets any sort of excited."

"Right. Catch-22."

"So, we have to get the TARDIS and this planet on equal footing," he said. "We have to make the planet function on the TARDIS' terms."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means, we have to get the TARDIS out of here, by whatever means necessary, and bring her back here once the planet has been recalibrated."

"Once the planet has been recalibrated? That sounds insane!"

"I know. Don't you love it?" he said, with a kind of softly whimsical tone.

"I guess."

"It's good, because it means you and I only have to do so many steps, it means we don't actually have to escape from this complex and get back out to the desert, or wherever she is. It means we can use our resources on Earth, and eventually, the TARDIS can come to us, which is so much less risky for everyone involved, and it's what she would like to do anyway, if we weren't trapped on Planet of the Slow."

"How are you going to get the TARDIS out of here, when she won't function?"

"Well, if she's shut off the gravity and the lights, she might have some stored-up energy," he said. "She was only doing that stuff because it's an autonomic function for her to keep us alive. Like breathing. I'm hoping that that particular reflex can be applied in a completely different way, now that you and I are outside of her realm of worry."

"We are?"

"We're beyond her reach," he explained. "Because we're here, on Sercaton. She's pretty much useless to us here, the way things are."

"But you mentioned resources on Earth?"

"Keeping us alive… us meaning me, of course, and you, and Donna, and any other companion I've got in the mix at any given time."

"Right."

"Right," he echoed.

When Martha had been wrested from the room, her phone had been dropped on the floor, which meant, fortunately, it had been saved from the deluge of putrid, icy water with which she was veritably tortured, thereafter. It had also, mercifully, survived the two-foot fall to the floor from Martha's grasp. The Doctor had then picked it up and squirrelled it away inside his own suit coat pocket, for safe-keeping.

He now leaned over to where he'd hung his clothing from the end-post of the shelf they were on, and found the phone. He noted that it was at under fifty-per-cent battery capacity, and that they didn't have infinite time to make calls.

Still lying there in the cold, smouldering dark with Martha, he hit redial, and Colin picked up.

"Hi, it's us," the Doctor said, switching to speakerphone.

"Doctor!" Colin exclaimed. "How are you? How's Martha?"

"We're okay," Martha said. "Alive. How's Donna? Damn it, I didn't have a chance to get a call in to Royal Hope…"

"It's okay," Colin said. "We decided just to try and find a hospital here – we reckoned her days without meds could be considered an emergency, given her high blood pressure."

"Good call," Martha said. "So she got what she needed?"

"Yes, this doctor recommended…" Colin paused, and the Doctor and Martha could hear rustling while he looked for something. "Propranolol HLC – the twelve-hour doses."

"Brilliant," Martha told him. "That's what I prescribed as well… except the twenty-four-hour doses. How long ago did she take one?"

"About eight hours. She's due for another one in four hours."

"And you've got a supply to last you the rest of your holiday?"

"And then some," Colin said, with some relief.

"What's Donna doing now?" the Doctor asked.

"She's asleep," he said. "She took her pill and crashed."

"I reckon she was in hypertensive crisis when she finally got it," Martha commented.

"That's what the Portuguese doctor said," Colin confirmed. "She was short of breath, the migraine was making her dizzy and nauseated, she was anxious…"

"Yeah, Colin, I'm afraid I'm going to need her to stay in crisis," the Doctor said.

"What?" Colin spat through the phone.

"What?" Martha echoed, sitting up, looking back down at him.

The Doctor sighed. "Colin, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry, but if Donna's in crisis, hypertensive or otherwise, it can help us get out of here before we get executed."

"How the fuck does that work?" Colin shouted.

"Calm down," the Doctor insisted. "Stop cursing. You know I would never want her in distress unless it was absolutely necessary."

"Do I?" Colin asked. "Do I really know that?"

"Yes," the Doctor shouted back. "Yes, you do! Now give me a break, yeah? Listen. As long as the TARDIS is on this planet, she's dormant. Her heart's restricted, just like ours, to one hundred beats per minute – she can't do anything except basic autonomic functions. Which includes doing certain things to keep me, Martha, Donna, and probably even you, safe."

"Okay. Keep talking."

"When you two first went on holiday, I warned Donna that the TARDIS answers distress calls, which she already knew… at the time, I joked that she needed to keep her blood pressure healthy because I was sure that the two of you wouldn't want it popping in on you at an inopportune moment," the Doctor explained. "Now… things have changed. It's not a joke. I need the TARDIS to come to Donna."

"And it will only do that if she is, as you put it, in crisis?"

"It's going to take a bit more work from our end," the Doctor said. "But yes. Her life needs to be in danger."

"Shit."

"I know, I'm sorry."

"What do I do?" Colin asked, reluctantly.

"Keep her from taking her medication," the Doctor said. "And if she asks for it, just tell her the truth. I'm trying to make the TARDIS answer her distress."

"Because she hasn't been through enough distress already, in the name of saving your arse?" Colin growled.

"Colin, if you've got a better idea, let's hear it," Martha said. "This isn't ideal, but it's what we've got. Unless you'd like me and the Doctor just to sit here and await our execution."

Colin was silent for a few moments, then he gave an exasperated sigh. "Why do I have to keep pep-talking myself into realising that this is the sort of bullshit I signed up for?"

"Our lives are weird," Martha said. "Repeatedly weird. But what are you worried about? None of the three of us is going to let her die! You know how to contact us. If worse comes to worst, you've got the drugs you need to help her."

Colin could then be heard muttering to himself.

"What's that?" the Doctor asked, without anger. "If you've got something to say, say it. I can take it."

"It's just, I've finally met a genuinely good-hearted, intelligent, funny, sexy woman, who I'm reasonably certain likes me for who I am and doesn't want to cheat on me the moment she gets the chance," Colin sighed. "And she's tangled up with you!"

The Doctor sighed. "Colin, I'm running out of ways to say I'm sorry."

"And even at that, she's spent most of the time I've known her in some sort of semi-artificial medical peril," Colin continued. "And I'm left feeling helpless. And now that I've got the means to help her, you're telling me not to!"

"You're helping us," Martha said. "And so is Donna. Again."

"How is this helping you?" Colin asked. "How does any of this mean that you two don't get dead? It seems to me that if you let the TARDIS come to Donna, you're giving up your only way out."

"You're right," the Doctor said. "The TARDIS is our only way out. That's why she needs to convalesce. Again. She needs to get away from this planet so she can recover, and find her full functions again. Or, at least, get away from this planet so it can stop suffocating her. As soon as she's there with you, you can give Donna her meds, and she can start the road to recovery as well… should be about 48 hours until she's her cheeky, noisy self again."

"Okay… the TARDIS needs to be away from the oppressive heartbeat planet… with you so far," Colin said.

"Then when Martha and I are in position, as it were, you and Donna can bring the TARDIS to us, and all four of us can get the hell out of here," the Doctor explained. "And maybe try again at having a holiday."

Colin, having been with Donna on at least one occasion when the Doctor phoned and gave her directions to set coordinates to move the TARDIS, did not blink at this revelation.

God help me, he thought. All of this is starting to make sense.

"Okay," Colin said. "I said I was on-board with you. I guess I've got no choice now but to trust you."

Into the night, the Doctor and Martha had the "holiday" they'd missed while Donna had been ill the first time round, and that had been interrupted when the TARDIS crashed on Sercaton. They took full advantage of regulated heartrates, a need to stay warm, and time to kill.

The down-side, of course, was that it deprived them of sleep.

"Not to mention the kinks and bruises from the various surfaces," Martha groaned, stretching in the morning.

She stood in the middle of the cell, still completely nude, with her back to him. She stepped intentionally into the warm sunlight, and he could now see the scrapes, plus black and blue marks, all over her back and bum, presumably from being pressed hard into the rough, rock-like wall. When she turned around to retrieve her clothes from the top shelf, he saw that her knees had bruises from the stone floor (as did his), and she was moving as though everything were sore.

"Headache and backache from trying to manoeuvre, and then sleep, on a wooden plank?" he asked, standing up now as well.

"Yep," she confirmed. "All that… plus all the usual stuff that comes with, you know, this particular brand of all-night athletics. Not that I'd give it up for anything."

She turned and stood on tiptoe briefly to give him a kiss, then set about putting her jeans and purple v-neck back on, now that they were mostly dry.

He chuckled, pulling his own clothing off from the posts where he'd hung them, and he too climbed into his ensemble. Within a few minutes, they were both dressed, and a few minutes after that, a meal was brought to them – some sort of mushy, overcooked vegetable stalk, and a chalky substance halfway between potato and sauce. Mercifully, this particular morning did not include an audience with Judge Rabic, or any other interrogator, nor water hose.

Over the ensuing few hours, they talked a lot, they snogged a bit, he taught her the names of all the moons formerly surrounding Gallifrey…

…and the Doctor tried again to take a running start and grab onto the high window, to see what he could see… including whether escape was possible through this opening. This time, his heartrate stayed normal, and he was able to try again and again, but the window was far too high.

And, they were both acutely aware that they only had a few hours left with the effects of their first dose of beta blockers, and only two pills remaining.

I suppose you know what I'm gonna say now. So why not do it? Leave a review!