LAST SEEN ON THE MOON
Mickey had no idea what sort of coordinates Randall and Whetstone had set up. He didn't know if he would wind up in Canary Wharf in Dimension Alpha, exactly where he'd left from, or on the planet Frippton or something. But, before putting him inside that device, Randall had told him that he was to go to Royal Hope hospital, check in, and find a clever way to ask about the affair on the moon, to gather as much detail as he could about how the water-based teleportation works. The upwards rain.
As it turned out, he landed right across the street. It seemed to be a few hours after he left because he could see the sun peeking a bit over the buildings around him, and he felt a distinct early-morning chill.
The wankers back at Torchwood had told him to report some sort of vague symptoms, like stomach cramps, nausea, shortness of breath. They'd admit him, waste a day or two running tests, and that would give him time to chat up the staff.
"Good morning sir, how can I help you?" the crisp, shiny lady at the front desk asked.
"Um, I've had these stomach cramps... and some nausea and shortness of breath for about a week now. It's not getting any better." As an afterthought, he hunched over a bit and held his stomach. Dear God, he was a lousy actor.
"I'll direct you to emergency services, right around that way, in the west wing of the hospital," she answered sprightly, standing and pointing.
"Thanks," he said, trying to feign weakness.
He followed her directions and easily found the Emergency ward. Randall had been right – after spending half an hour asking questions, checking his vitals and poking at his tummy, Dr. Thyne thought Mickey should be admitted for tests. A half hour after that, Mickey was in a hospital gown watching a quiz show on the telly and sipping apple juice in bed. He didn't feel like talking to anyone just now – he'd known the answers to all the sport questions thus far and had "won" fourteen thousand pounds for himself. He was on a roll.
At about eight o'clock, a large woman in a suit entered his room. She was accompanied by about six fresh-faced students with clipboards, looking half-frightened, half-eager. Except for one. A beautiful girl, dark like him, stood at the front of the group. She was preoccupied, and the look on her face suggested sadness as well. He'd seen that look perpetually on Rose's face for the past thirteen months.
It had been a long while since he'd noticed any girl other than Rose, and he found that he rather enjoyed the feeling again. Being attracted to someone meant a world of possibilities...
But he was still taken. He could look, and that was all.
The large suited woman adressed Mickey. "Now, then, Mr. Smith, a very good morning to you. How are you today?"
"Feelin' a bit... bleah," he answered.
Something about this seemed to spark some signs of life in the pretty girl in the front. A glimmer of recognition seemed to shine in her eyes for a few moments as she stared at Mickey. Then she blinked it away.
"Mickey Smith, admitted this morning with stomach cramps and nausea," she large lady said, addressing her students.
"Miss Swales?"
"Mrs. Brams?" Julia Stoker asked, surprised to hear her name spoken.
"Your thoughts?" the large Mrs. Brams asked of her.
Julia Swales tentatively suggested that Mr. Smith might have the beginnings of Spanish flu.
"If you had consulted his chart, you'd find that there is no fever and no vomiting. We'll try again," she admonished. She gestured toward the man in the bed. "Jones, why don't you see what you can find.
This too seemed to spark something in the pretty student. She looked at the woman incredulously for a moment. "Excuse me?"
Brams rolled her eyes. "Bloody hell, Stoker was right about you lot. Miss Jones, this is Mr. Smith. Take his vitals."
The girl blinked away yet another expression of utter surprise, and nervously, she stepped toward Mickey and put her stethoscope in her ears. She listened to his heart, and after a moment, she looked up at him. The look in her eyes was deadly serious, almost fearful. He tried to make her smile by winking at her, but it seemed only to make things worse. Her hand began to shake, and then she began to slide the stethescope further to the right.
"Are you having trouble locating the heart, Miss Jones?" Brams asked, crossing her arms sternly across her massive chest.
Miss Jones, as she was called, stood up straight suddenly, stared at her superior with another incredulous, wide-eyed gaze, and then, said, "No, Mrs. Brams. The heart is right where it should be."
"I am exceedingly glad to hear that," Brams sighed. "Perhaps we should move on. Mr. Smith is being held for testing, perhaps we shall have a bit more to go on tomorrow. This way please."
Miss Jones was the last to leave Mickey's side. Just before she walked away, he whispered, "What, did you think I might have a second heart?"
She gasped. The same look was still on her face, and she stared at Mickey stunned. "I've got to go," she insisted, and ran from the room.
Mickey was sorry he'd frightened her somehow, but he wasn't sure what he'd said or done. Too bad – he'd have liked to get to know her better.
Taken, taken, taken, he reminded himself.
This was far from Mickey's first time pretending to be sick. He'd faked every disease known to mankind to get out of his exams when he was at school, and his gran always believed him. Sweet woman. Dead in this dimension. One of the many reasons why he just wanted to get his information and get back to Canary Wharf so he could tell Torchwood to shove it.
Still, he had always marveled at how easy it was to convince yourself that you're sick when you're playing the part for others' benefit. He realised this as he was awakened from a deep sleep. A hand was on his arm.
"Mr. Smith?"
He opened his eyes. It was her. The lovely Miss Jones. He couldn't help but smile when he saw her.
"Hi," he said, yawning ungracefully. "Sorry, must've nodded off."
Without expression, she handed him a tiny cup with two pills. "Take these, please."
"What are they?"
"Anti-nausea medications," she told him. "They'll tide you over until we can work out what's wrong with you."
Not wanting to blow his cover, he swallowed them with some apple juice. He hoped that anti-nausea medicine didn't have the opposite effect on people who weren't actually nauseated.
"Thank you," she said, again, expressionlessly. "I'll be back later to check your vitals after the meds."
She turned to leave, and as she did so, he blurted out, "Wait!"
She faced him, and the dead look in her eyes was back. "Yes?"
"I'm sorry if I said or did something before that scared you," he said. "I was just joking."
"It was nothing," she told him. "Don't worry about it."
"No, bit I am worried. I'm really, really sorry. It's just that..." he saw an opportunity here. "I'm kind of nervous about being here."
"Really? Why?"
"Well, I've never been in hospital before," he told her. "I mean, I've never been the one in the bed. Of course I've visited them before..."
She softened. She came closer to the bed. "There's nothing to be nervous about. We'll run some tests, we'll figure out the best possible action, and then we'll send you home. I'm sure it'll be simple as that." She actually smiled now.
"But what if..." he paused.
"What if what?"
He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Ain't this the hospital that, you know, went to the moon?"
She sighed. This was not helping her mood.
"Yeah, it is." She actually sat down in the chair near where she was standing.
"What was that like?"
"Strange," she said, without moving her lips. "Brilliant. Strange."
He could see her remembering, and he suspected that her mind was being flooded with memories, but he had no idea just how poignant those memories were for her right now.
"I heard it rained upwards!" he said, wide-eyed like a little boy. He felt bad for lying to her, but it was his last mission.
"It did," she said, looking at him in a fog. "It rained upwards, and then there was a terrible crash. Threw us all about like an earthquake. When we went to the window, Julia and me, we were on the moon."
"Whoa," he sighed. "Was there like a light or anything?"
She thought about it. "Yeah. Yeah, now I think about it, there was. A very bright light, like so bright we couldn't see anything for a few seconds, you know. And then it stopped. And it had been lunchtime, but it looked like night outside. Until we realised..." she swallowed hard.
Feigning amazement, he said, "Go on."
"And then of course everyone inside the hospital went completely mental."
He chuckled, "I bet."
Another question occurred to him, it was part of the intelligence process.
"How'd you get out of it?"
"I dunno," she answered, staring out the window. "I was unconscious. I had run out of air. When I came to, I was in the back of an ambulance with a mask over my face."
"So was it aliens, or what?"
She looked at him with surprise, and then fascination. "What would make you say that?"
"Well, rains upwards, hospital shakes, ends up on the moon. Not exactly terrestrial, eh?"
She sighed. "I don't know what it was. Some, I don't know, soldiers came into the hospital, they scanned people, and when they were finished, they left. I passed out while I was giving CPR to this man..." she explained, and her voice caught a bit in her throat.
"Had the aliens attacked him?" Mickey asked, his mock-amazement having gone away and his trademark scowl had come back.
"No, this lady... she..." Martha began. "I'm sorry, why do you want to know that?"
He shrugged, remembering his cover. "Just curious."
"Right," she said, standing up. "Anyway, one of us will be back in a bit to check your vitals again. Go back to sleep, okay, Mr. Smith?"