Chapter 4 – Relationships

"Operate?" Martin asked his voice quivering slightly.

Smith giggled. "Yes. You know how! You take a scalpel…"

"I know that! Damn it!" Martin wiped his face. "You want me to remove it."

"Yes. It is a parasite. Like the sentient slugs of Monos Alpha or the reptilian blood leeches on, Donna, what's the name of that planet where the reptiles and the tortoises were having that civil war?"

Donna pursed her lips and thought for a few seconds. "Where the parasites were controlling the reptiles? That was Parthesia. Can't believe you'd forget that place. I still have the smell of sulfur mud in my nose!"

"Yes. I'd forgotten," said Smith. "Too many idle facts whirling about up here." He tapped his cranium. "Might be time for a selective deletion. Probably a few terabytes that could be downloaded."

Martin managed to keep his mouth shut as Donna and Smith babbled back and forth, apparently speaking the Queen's English, but with almost none of it making any sense to him.

Finally Smith realized that he was totally ignoring the good GP. "Sorry about that! We do go on at times. Well, I usually am the one doing the prattling on…" he paused. "Sorry. There I go again."

"Yes." Martin looked at the minor surgical instrument tray on his rollie cart. Through the clear polythene film he saw straight and bent forceps, a suture kit, two scalpels – both sealed in foil packets – and two probes, one straight, the other hooked, and a hemostat. He blew air from his nose.

"Ah," said Smith, peering over Martin's shoulder. "Surveying the implement kit? I suppose you'd not have a neodymium laser about would you? That might solve a number of issues."

Martin examined Donna's hand, probing the pulsing beneath the lump on left hand. With his surgeon's trained fingertips he could feel the woman's pulse and another - one much higher in rate - nearly triple that of the young woman. "There's a pulse."

"Of course I have a pulse!" shouted Donna in confusion. "What sort of doctor are you, anyway?"

"No. Not you. The lump. I can feel a pulse."

Smith raised his magic wand thingy and a light flashed once more. "Oh. I was afraid of that. It's growing, even as we speak."

"But you said it's a parasite! It's not a…" her eyes goggled. "A… you know… A baby."

Smith scratched his neck, followed by a neck popping maneuver. "Yes. I did say that. That is it's not human."

Martin felt he was getting in far over his head. "You're saying that this thing is a disease."

"Might be. But it might not." Smith added. "I think this might change things. Be back in a minute!" he shouted. "I need something from the…"

Donna shouted. "No! Don't tell him anything about the…"

Smith smiled his odd smile. "Right. Our… transport. From the boot. Yeah! That's it!" He swept to the surgery door. "Be right back!" He rushed off and the front door of the cottage opened and closed swiftly.

"I do apologize, Doctor Ellingham. The Doctor does get excited at times," Donna said. "He does care about people, though, in his own way, especially humans and the Earth."

"So you'd call Smith a humanitarian - that it?" sneered Martin. "Sort of a tree hugger."

The woman nodded he head up and down. "Yes, that's it. He cares for us."

"Do you care for him?"

"No… yes! Not in that way! It's complicated!"

Martin grunted. Relationships always are he thought to himself. "Does he abuse you? Are in danger? From him?"

"No," she said softly. "Not at all. He takes care of me."

"Are you the type of woman that needs looking after? We do have a policeman in this backwater village. Not that he's very good. But he is available. Shall I call him?"

Donna stretched out her right hand and touched Martin's arm. "Doc. No. I'm fine. Other than this." She pointed to her swollen hand, which seemed to grow in size as the two of them watched. "Damn it. This hurts."

"I can tell," observed Martin.

"The Doctor and I, we're sort of team. Not romantic. Nothing like that. We do get on." She sniffed. "Not that I haven't thought about it," she added softly. "You have anyone special? Must have, don't you?"

Martin looked away as he heard her words. He thought of the latest row with Louisa Glasson over a silly dustup about a tangled school schedule of student hearing and eye checking. She had told him it was to be the second Monday of the month.

He remembered that quite clearly; had written it down in his schedule. Then because of some stupid school outing to the beach to observe school life with a visiting naturalist, she'd wanted it shifted to the third Monday. That had thrown him into an utter tirade about how suddenly her schedule took precedence over his. How the school was so much important than his own medical practice.

He'd had to cancel patient visits left and right and then just when it was almost sorted, Louisa had breezed up to him in the Post Office and declared that due to a seven-day forecast of awful weather the original date would work.

Martin had felt steam literally come out of his ears at the schedule snafu. 'Is that the way it must be, Louisa?' he'd shouted. 'That your bloody students have a higher priority than my practice?'

She glared up at him, fire flashing from her lovely eyes as her silky brunette ponytail lashed violently like a snake. 'Martin! These are the Portwenn school children! And though they may be MY students, they are YOUR patients as well! You can treat me as terribly as you like,' here she stuck a finger in his face, 'but don't you EVER go running down my students! You will be AT THE SCHOOL on the second Monday or by God…' Words failed her then so she gave him a dirty look and whirled off like a dervish.

That recent memory was why he'd been on the headland, trying to regain - at least internally - some level of control over his own thoughts and emotions. Relationships – difficult at best.

"A big strong fellow like you, large hands and all, must have the ladies climbing all over you! I'd bet village dances are quite the party for you!" Donna said, interrupting his terrible reverie. "So… Doc you got someone?"

Martin opened his mouth, when the door burst open and the crazy Doctor Smith flew in bearing some odd apparatus of tubing, electronic beeping boxes, and a large Perspex cylinder.

"Here you go, Doc!" Smith shouted. "Had to rummage around quite a bit to find this." Her held out the device proudly. "Now if you have some isopropyl alcohol, I think we can proceed!" Smith looked from Martin to Donna and seeing the surprised look on their faces asked, "Have I interrupted a tête-à-tête?"

Author's note:

tête-à-tête = French: literally head-to-head conversation; one of personal and private communication.

For those Dr. Who fans who are searching various DW databases, there is no planet named Parathesia nor Monos Alpha. They exist only in this author's mind.