A medical team arrived. They immediately ushered Donna away as they seemed to swarm around the Doctor as he sat in the wheelchair. That just seemed to panic the Time Lord more, but within minutes he was on a gurney and was being wheeled through to the emergency medical area leaving Donna still standing on the terrace. She watched him being rushed away as he was pushed through double doors and out of sight she sunk down onto the seat. She realised that her hands were shaking and there were tears on her face.

Donna tried to find out where they had taken the Doctor, but when she asked one person the response that she was not military personnel almost cost them their eardrums as Donna yelled that he was her friend at her. A nurse that had spent a lot of time dealing with the Doctor came and showed Donna into a small seating area where she could wait. She said she'd come back with information as soon as she could, but she didn't return. No one came.

Donna was left standing or sitting and then pacing for what seemed like forever. Each time a medic passed the room she tried to get information from them, but the most she got was another apologetic nurse who told her that they were still trying to get him stabilised but that someone would come and tell her all she needed to know as soon as they could. Stabilised? That was serious wasn't it?

It was two and a half hours since they had been sitting down to tea when the door to the waiting room opened. Donna had given up pacing and was sitting in one of the chairs with her elbows on her knees, staring at the tiled floor through bleary eyes as she waited. She was stunned when it was Martha who came in through them. She had been off for the day and there she was in civilian clothing and on her crutches. That she had been called in worried Donna more, surely they'd only needed to give him a bit more oxygen or something to help him out?

"How is he?" Donna rose up to see Martha.

"Maybe we should sit down?" Martha suggested. She swung confidently through her crutches to go and sit on the chairs. The suggestion that the Doctor's condition could not be discussed standing stung Donna with new fears.

"I just want to know how he is?"

"Can we sit down?" Martha asked. "My ankle is bothering me a bit today," she suggested.

"Oh, yes, of course, sorry," Donna accepted. She went to sit down with Martha on one of the seats. She allowed the medic a moment to get comfortable as she crossed her cast leg up over the other. Donna wasn't quite sure that was how she was supposed to be elevating it, but she had come to learn that Martha was one of the most senior medics on base so she wasn't going to be telling her off. "Martha?"

"The Doctor is pretty poorly right now," Martha started cautiously.

"Just tell me? Please don't try to sugar coat it. I just need to know what has happened to him."

"Okay," Martha nodded. She should have known that she'd just want the news given to her. "In the most basic of terms the Doctor has suffered a fairly significant heart attack."

"A what?!" Donna exclaimed as tears burst into her eyes immediately. "A heart attack?!"

"His right sided heart has been suffering with the most residual damage from the virus," Martha reminded Donna and she nodded. She knew that. There was scar tissue on his hearts but the right was worst and they had been monitoring it as that in combination with the scar tissue in his lungs left him quickly out of breath and exhausted. But this? "His right heart stopped beating for a while. It is going again now, but not very well at all. I am sorry that you were left alone for a while, but we were doing a test to see how well his heart is functioning. That involves injecting a dye into the blood stream and then monitoring its flow through the heart. We can see that his right heart isn't doing very well and the function is very poor in some places. We also know there is less significant damage to his left heart too. We already knew that the virus had attacked the heart muscles and that there was scar tissues that are slowly healing and repairing. They have formed something what is generally termed plaques in his hearts and it is interrupting the blood flow."

"The blood flowing through his hearts?" Donna checked.

"No, not directly, it is affecting the blood flowing to the muscles of his actual hearts, but then because they don't have a good blood supply the muscle tissues aren't working properly which then means that the hearts don't contract well enough to pump the blood around the body and that is when the most serious issues arise."

"And that is what is happening to him?"

"It is more significant in his right heart so we consider him to have had a right sided heart attack. We are hoping that the damage done to his other systems because of the loss of his heart for a while will be minimal due to his left heart maintaining a rhythm throughout, but his blood oxygen levels did fall quite substantially. We were hoping that the scar tissue would resolve and that there would be no need for intervention," Martha told Donna. "But, when we consider this latest complication I don't think we are going to have a choice but to intervene. I have called UNIT's best cardiologist in. He will be here within a couple of hours and we will look at how we will proceed. I hope we will be able to remove the offending plaques with a minimally invasive procedure, but we won't know that until our cardiologist has had a look and we do some more tests," Martha advised. "The Doctor is stable enough for us to do that as a matter of urgency but not as an emergency. If he were to deteriorate or have another attack then we would not be able to wait and intervention would be immediate."

"You're talking about surgery?" Donna confirmed.

"Yes, hopefully we will be able to access his hearts through an artery either in his groin or through his wrist as we would a human. If we can get to the right places in his hearts to deal with the plaques that way then we will be able to avoid opening his chest up. If not then it looks like he may need to have open heart surgery."

"Oh no?" Donna commented and started to sob fully.

"I know it is frightening, Donna, but we have the best people and he is in the best hands."

"Can I see him?"

"Yes, in a moment, I will take you through to see him. We have him sedated full again which means we have had to take over his breathing onto the ventilator. It is the best way to reduce the stress on his hearts so we will be keeping him that way until we have done what we need to do. His right heart isn't beating well so there is a risk that he could have another attack, and that is then increasing the stress on his left heart significantly. We have given him some drugs to assist that, but they can have some nasty side effects so it is another reason why it is best to keep him unconscious. He would potentially be feeling pretty dizzy and disorientated otherwise and that can be distressing and then increase the stress on his hearts, so keeping him unconscious is the best way forward for him."

"Okay."

"I need to ask Donna, did anything happen? We have been monitoring his hearts and have been aware of the damage but he had been coping. Did anything happen to cause him additional stress or did it just come out of nowhere?"

"I took him in the wheelchair down to the terrace to have a cup of tea and get some fresh air," Donna advised. "He had his drip and his oxygen and I had helped him to get dressed so he didn't get too tired out doing that. While I was getting him a drink another soldier came and spoke to him and he must have said something about the Bylaxians doing this to him deliberately because when I went back to him he wanted to know what we'd been keeping from him and why the soldier said that it had been done to him and about marching off to war against them," Donna explained. "He just got so breathless and he was panicking about not being able to breathe. I called someone to get help and then they arrived and they just took him away."

"I am sorry that no one came to explain what was happening any sooner, but the most important thing was to get him stable and to a position where we can afford to wait for the cardiologist," Martha advised. Donna nodded her understanding and she supposed if someone had popped their head into the waiting room told her he was having a heart attack and to wait that she'd have ended up having one herself. Usually when she had imagined the worst things possible when she found out what it actually was it wasn't half as bad. Her imaginations had been worse, but a heart attack? Poor Spaceman? If that soldier with the cane wanted to go and wage war against the Bylaxians for this then she'd be there with him every step!

"Martha?" Donna sighed. "What does this mean for him in the long run? My dad had a heart attack and he never recovered. He just got more and sicker over the last years of his life until he died."

"I really can't say what it means for the Doctor at the moment," Martha admitted. "It depends on how well he recovers. I don't think we can compare him to a human case study and I am sorry about your father, it does not mean the same for the Doctor, but, I can't say that it definitely isn't either. What I do know is that the Doctor has an extraordinary capacity for healing and repair when he is in the right condition to do so. I have seen him get knocked down and bounce right back up as if nothing had happened when I have been sure he'd be lad up for weeks. I am sure you have seen the same. Right now I can't see how he can't be laid up for weeks, if not longer."

"How much longer?"

"I can't say." Martha knew she wasn't answering any of the questions directly and it was unfair. "The virus has done physical damage to both his lungs and to both his hearts. As that improves he will recover, and his improvements will be what determines how he is able to continue after this. I simply don't know. I am going to have to discuss it with him in order to figure out what the long term prognosis is and if there are any implications with how he goes on. He may make a full recovery and be able to commit fully to his previous lifestyle, or, he may not recover much at all," Martha admitted. "I know it is not the answer anyone wants to hear, but it is the only one I can give at the moment. I also need to discuss with him why he has not regenerated," Martha commented.

"I am not sure what that means."

"So, he's not discussed it with you, why does that not surprise me," Martha tutted as she rolled her eyes. "He is a Time Lord and at time of death or when he is very seriously injured or ill he undergoes quite a remarkable process which triggers the energetic activation of redundant DNA," Martha advised. "Basically he spontaneously changes into another version of himself. He changes in order to defeat death. Jack actually knows more about it than I do, but he has been so sick, I'd have expected him to have regenerated."

"Is he out of danger now?"

"No," Martha told Donna plainly. She didn't want to frighten her but she couldn't offer her assurances when there none to be given. "He is seriously unwell, Donna. I am not sure how he is going to do, but as I have said his right heart is not beating effectively. It is beating but it is not holding a decent rhythm and it is only working to about a 15% capacity. That means his left heart is taking on more work and is under strain now when that is also damaged although to a lesser extent. The treatment we are giving him now is to reduce that strain long enough for us to figure out how to best repair some of the damage in his hearts. Even when we work out what we want to do for him we don't know how he will respond to it. He's not human and that is the biggest complication we face with him. If he comes through the surgery then we will be in a better position to know how he is going to be. As for the recovery he goes on to make then we clearly want him to make a full recovery, but if you have been through cardiac disease with you father then you will know that it is not always achievable.

"If he were human then I don't think he would be here now. The damage done by the virus would have been fatal. We would not have got him off the boat if he was even alive by the time we reached him. If we had of done then I think we'd now be looking at a heart transplant," Martha told Donna. "Clearly that is not something we can consider for the Doctor, but that is where we would likely be looking at as best case scenario for a human. The Doctor has got an inherent ability to heal and to recover. It may take him some tie but I think his recovery will be good if e can get him to the point where he is able to heal. He seemed to be improving gradually over the last week. I know he was starting to get frustrated but that in itself is a good thing. When he is too ill to worry and complain about medical restrictions that is when I worry the most about him," Martha offered. "For now I can't say anymore, we will know more when the cardiologist has reviewed his case. We just need to keep him supported and stable until then," Martha offered.

"And by that you mean alive don't you?" Donna checked. Martha sighed but then she nodded.