When Martha got up in the morning and returned to his bedside he had remained asleep for the rest of the night. He was stable and appeared comfortable so she gave the instruction for his sedation to be reduced a little bit more.
Donna had gone home, but it would not be long until she came back in. Jack had not returned to Cardiff but he had gone wandering while the Time Lord slept. She knew he was stressed and worried. Martha didn't really want to think about what Jack might be getting up to or how he was relieving the stress. Just off base there were a lot of bars and clubs frequented by a lot of soldiers. She would not put it past Jack to meet one of two or possibly three or four of them.
They had all gathered around his bed by the time the Doctor began to wake. With his sedation reduced they might have a better change to have a longer conversation with him, but it was also likely that he'd be more persistent and less easily persuaded to accept being put off the reasons why he was so sick.
"Morning, Doc." Jack was the one sitting by his bedside when he woke. They didn't all crowd around him. Jack was holding his hand and the Doctor glanced down at it. Jack knew he'd be devastated if the Doctor pulled away from it because of how wrong he felt, it seemed he was hesitating for a moment, but then he curled his fingers around Jack's broad hand a little tighter. "How are you feeling this morning?"
"Thirsty, can I have something to drink?"
"Course," Jack confirmed. "Do you want tea, water, juice, or milk?"
"Just water, thanks," the Doctor responded. His voice remained cracked and weak. Jack held the water and straw so he could drink deeply from it. He drained the cup and Jack poured him another which he drank down too.
"That is enough for now," Martha interjected before Jack poured the Doctor a third cup.
"I'm thirsty," the Doctor complained.
"You are getting enough fluid, Doctor, it is being given to you intravenously," Martha told him. "But, what about trying to have something light to eat? You won't be thirsty, but you may well be feeling hungry? What about if you try a bit of banana or something?" Martha suggested. Donna went out to go and get him on. "Would you like to try to sit up a bit more? You have slipped down the bed a little while you were asleep."
Martha and Jack helped him to sit forward so his pillows could be rescued and they brought the head of his bed up a little more. "Rest back now, Doctor," Martha instructed. "How does that feel?"
"Okay, I think," the Doctor accepted. He kept hold of Martha's hand. "What's happened?" he asked her sincerely and with the vaguest hints of worry creeping past the reduced sedation into his tone. "What is going on? Why do I feel so awful?" he checked. He looked down at his chest. "What happened to me?"
"What is Tish's birthday?" Jack asked him.
"What has that got to do with anything?" the Doctor checked. "Why would I even know what Tish's birthday is? That is Martha's sister. I don't know when her birthday is, don't ask me, ask Martha."
"Yesterday you asked what happened and we told you what Tish's birthday is, and, we decided together that if you are well enough to remember what her birthday is today that we would tell you everything that happened."
"No you didn't," the Doctor argued with Jack.
"We did, Doctor, but, I actually don't think it was as far as we intended it to be," Martha offered. "So, don't worry about it."
"I'm not worried, I don't feel worried, I don't feel anything," the Doctor complained.
"Except fuzzy?" Martha asked him.
"Yeah, fuzzy, why am I fuzzy?"
"I am giving you ketamine at the moment and that can make you forget things. It is nothing to worry about, and the added advantage is that you're less likely to worry because of the ketamine, but if you are concerned you don't need to be as it is just the drugs. I am hoping that when we can reduce them more you will be feeling better, but they are important for you to carry on having now. We are reducing them a little bit every few hours. If you remain calm and comfortable this afternoon and manage to have something to eat then I will reduce them again. We will carry on bringing the level down gradually."
"I want to know what happened to me."
"I know," Martha commented. "And, I am going to tell you. If you have forgotten alter on then I will just tell you again, but I don't want you to remember snippets and get worried. If you think you remember something that is worrying you then you need to talk to me about it straight away, not try to work it out yourself because the drugs will make that hard for you to do and it will wear you out and I don't want you to get too tired, okay?"
"I suppose, I am quite tired now," the Doctor admitted. "But, if you are giving me ketamine it is not a surprise."
"I am not only giving you ketamine. You are getting a whole host of Time Lord friendly medications at the moment. They are to keep you feeling calm and peaceful."
"I think they are working. I'm not getting annoyed with you for not telling me what has happened."
"Good," Martha offered. "So, how about we reverse it and you tell me what you remember from the past fortnight?"
"I was shopping in Kingston with Donna for her mother's birthday present. I met some Bylaxians there and contracted a Bylaxian virus that made me pretty sick. I should be able to beat off viruses though. I didn't this one and it has caused me damage."
"Yeah, it has. It caused you a lot of damage Doctor. Especially to your lungs and to your hearts," Martha told him. "Three days ago we found out that the damage that had been done to your right heart was significant enough for you to have a stress induced right sided heart attack," Martha explained. She didn't' bother sing the medical language she knew the Doctor understood because she didn't want him entering a medical frame of mind. If she kept it basic she hoped he'd just accept it for now. "You had scar tissue on both of your hearts but most significantly to the right. Your right heart couldn't cope and you had a heart attack which put additional stress on your left heart making you very ill, so the decision was made to intervene. During a very successful operation our cardiologist has removed the plaques caused by the scar tissue and has opened up the blood vessels again and both your hearts have a good blood flow to and through them. They are both beating well at the moment, but, we are giving you drugs to stop you getting too excited about anything as your right heart still has some healing to do. As your hearts continue to recover you will get stronger and we will continue to reduce the sedation. All you need to know right now is that you are doing well and are on the road to recovery, okay?"
"It's not okay, not really," the Doctor stated. "I should be very worried if I've had a heart attack."
"We can't afford for you to get very worried as it would put a strain on your hearts that is why we are giving you the drugs. If you continue to improve over the next few days or so then you will be able to come off the sedation and things will seem clearer to you."
"Do you know how I contracted the virus in the first place?" the Doctor asked.
"Why do you ask that?"
"It doesn't feel right. I don't think it has. I think you have been less than up front with it. I should not have got so ill from a virus. There are only a few viruses that only affect Time Lords and not humans, most of them attack the hearts, but I'd not ordinarily get beaten by a virus. I've got a strong feeling that there is something else to do with the Bylaxians."
"There is something else," Martha told him. "And you have every right to be very angry and upset about it. We all are on your behalf, Doctor, but if you show any signs of stress when I tell you I will be forced to increase your sedation again, okay?"
"Okay?" the Doctor was more puzzled than curious.
"The virus that you had was the same strain as the virus that is causing a pandemic on Bylax," Martha explained to him. "The Bylaxians that you saw were infected, but you did not catch it from them. Hundreds of thousands of people are dying and many more are left with significant damage from the virus on Bylax and they aren't winning the battle either biologically or medically," Martha gave him a brief background. "They estimate that the virus will wipe out over half of the planetary population and leave a large proportion of the rest infertile and it could essentially wipe out the Bylaxian race. It is highly virulent and infectious, but it only affects species with a binary cardiac system."
"It sounds like a plague," Donna commented.
"Pandemic events happen from time to time, the human race has had a few, plague, influenza, and they generally don't wipe out the whole population. The virus ends up mutating or simply petering out," he reassured Donna in case she was worried that the Bylaxians became extinct. She didn't seem very worried about it. He turned back to Martha. "So, I did catch it from them?"
"Not exactly," Martha commented. "You were given it by them." The Doctor looked puzzled for a moment. "Deliberately," Martha clarified. "They gave you massive doses of pure virus over a sustained period in order to overwhelm your immune system. It made you very sick indeed. We almost lost you on more than one occasion," Martha told him.
"My immune response would create antibodies far more successfully than theirs," the Doctor advised. "If I'd just breathed it in from meeting them it would have had no effect. I knew it had to be more than that. Were they trying to kill me with it?"
"No, they weren't trying to kill you but they knew that they were going to kill you," Martha told him. "And that was of no consequence, but their primary purpose was not to end your life. Not before they achieved what they wanted to achieve by giving you the virus. They were turning you into a biological antibody factory," Martha told him. "They had already started to harvest some of them from you and had given them to one of the scientists who was symptomatic for the virus."
"Did it work?" the Doctor asked.
"There is no way of quantifying whether it did or not."
"You're lucky we found you when he did, Doc. You weren't going to last much longer. The Bylaxians that did it to you are in custody. They will be charged by UNIT over the next couple of weeks," Jack advised.
"Why haven't they been charged yet? Are they disputing their involvement or something?"
"No, they were caught red handed and have not denied anything. It is UNIT that has not yet brought the charges though they have been charged with incursions into Earth territories in order to carry on holding them. They are waiting to see what the initial charges with regards their attack on you are going to be."
"Waiting to see if it is murder or just attempted murder?" the Doctor asked far too casually.
"Bluntly?" Martha looked at them. "Yes, that has been a consideration."
"Attempted," the Doctor advised firmly.
"Good," Martha offered and smiled. "Now, are you going to have something to eat? Donna brought you a banana?"
"Maybe later," the Doctor offered and simply went back to sleep.