Over the next three days they had the same conversation several times, but each time the Doctor remembered more detail and asked more specific questions. By the end of the week he knew what had been done to him and even if he was not being sedated anymore he appeared to be quite pragmatic about it. He had even had a conversation with Jack with regards the ethics of the actions the Bylaxians took. If they had been in their shoes would they have done the same? Of course they agreed with each other that of course they would not have done so, but, to sacrifice one life to save hundreds of thousands?
They both acknowledged if only to themselves they had made similar choices and potentially would again. That did not mean they would ever condone what had been done to the Doctor, it just meant that they both had to tread carefully in the face of outright condemnation and would not shout too loudly from their moral high ground on that regard. Jack was not happy to let it pass though, if UNIT did not call them to an appropriate justice then he would make them pay.
It was a week before the Doctor ventured back downstairs onto the terrace with Martha and Donna. He was in a wheelchair and the length of time it was taking for him to recover was evident. Martha was now out of a cast and wearing a walking boot. It was now on though and she was still using crutches only putting partial weight on her leg, but it was a lot more progress towards a full recovery than the Doctor had made as he sat in a wheelchair on a drip and with an oxygen line running to his nose as he waited for Donna to fetch their drinks.
Martha was on hand this time to fend off any well-intentioned but disastrous questions or comments from injured Servicemen, but no one came and talked to them. The Doctor enjoyed the drink in the fresh air and then they took him around the grounds which were designed for recuperating soldiers to spend time in to relax. They were extensive and ornamental including many seating areas and places just to stop. The Doctor was grateful for that. There was plenty to look at and he wasn't rushed back to bed. He was however exhausted by the time he did get back to bed an hour and a half later. He ended up sleeping through until the following morning.
"Come on then, Doctor," Martha instructed a couple of days later. She didn't come in with a wheelchair for him, but a nurse was carrying a frame for him.
"What is that?" the Doctor asked disdainfully.
"It is time for your shower," Martha instructed. "And, today, you are making your own way to the bathroom. We will take it slow and May is going to assist you, but we need to get you u on your feet again or those hearts of yours will think the only thing they have to cope with is sitting around all day and we both know that isn't right don't we?"
The Doctor could manage the couple of steps from the bed to the chair beside it where he was currently sitting and he could get up from that and into a wheelchair. He could do each of the actions in reverse and in various combinations, but that was the limit and he always had oxygen on hand if he needed it though it ran beside his bed rather than it being permanently attached to his face. He wasn't permanently attached to anything anymore. He was only getting oral medications and he was being asked to drink and eat regularly and by the clock which was beginning to get quite annoying, but he was doing better, so, why did they think he was going to need a frame? Besides, it was his hearts that were the problem not his legs, even if he had got horrendous cramps a few times with the circulatory aspect of ineffective blood flow.
He'd learned not to argue too much though, Martha and the other medics took heart attacks and recovery from them very seriously even if he did have two of them. He stood up from the chair without the frame and took a couple of slow steps toward it, maybe he wasn't running a marathon but he was up and the bathroom where he showered was only four doors down the hallway.
"Yes, you do have to," Martha told him before he had even asked the question. The Doctor didn't say anything in response but he scowled slightly at the medic. He wished she'd not broken her ankle. Not least because it was painful for her and he did not want Martha to be in pain even if he had never heard her complain about it and Donna had told him exactly how hard Martha had worked to save his life and how she'd not even missed a beat when she'd broken her ankle halfway through his rescue. He also wished that she'd not broken her ankle because then it would be her positioned behind him wanting to catch him if he fell and not a nurse he didn't know to trust.
It wasn't an issue until he got to the main corridor. He took the frame with him, but he carried it. He was not going to need to use it. When he got out of the bedroom he realised he may have been a bit ambitious and gone a bit too quickly. Fifteen steps in quick succession left him feeling a little dizzied for a moment and he was forced not only to put the frame down but to lean on it, though just for a moment.
"Are you okay?" Martha checked with him.
"Fine, just got a bit dizzy," he admitted. He closed his eyes for a moment taking a deep breath to try and centre himself before he continued on to the bathroom. He was relieved to be able to sit down again when he got there.
Martha was gracious enough just to let him get showered without supervision. He had shown he was able to dress and undress without assistance now. He knew that she was going to be just on the other side of the door, more so as he'd admitted having a very brief dizzy spell on walking down. He was recovering all the time. It was fine.
He undressed in the area leading into the shower and then went into the actual cubicle. He folded the shower seat in there down but instead of turning and sitting on it he put his UNIT issue toiletries on it. He smelt like a soldier, but he wasn't going to ask them to get his toiletries out of the TARDIS. That would be too much when they had done so much for him already.
He put the water on to a medium heat. He had already learned that came through just right. He waited a few moments for the water to mix correctly and then he stepped into the refreshing spray. He let the water wash over him, but when he closed his eyes and turned his face to the spray he felt a little disorientated as the dizziness teased him. He'd not say he was dizzy, but it caused him to feel unbalanced and he reached out for the rail at the side of the shower as he felt himself stagger. He knocked the shampoo off the shower seat and it fell into the bottom. He'd taken the cap off ready to use it and it spilled into the bottom of the shower. As he bent down to retrieve it the dizziness did hit him full on.
He could feel that his breathing was a bit harsher with exertion and his hearts may have been beating a little faster. He felt like he had jogged for a mile, nothing too strenuous, they weren't going run for your life fast, but they had increased. He was acutely aware of his body's over reaction to far too little in the way of exercise. A further wave of dizziness swept over him. This one was like a tsunami. He grabbed at the side of the shower, but his feet slid in the foaming shampoo in the base and he fell. He cried out as he landed squarely on his elbow and it jarred up his arm driving his weight through it as he rocked backward. It felt like his shoulder had exploded.
Martha was just outside the bathroom and she heard a clatter and the Doctor yell. She went to the door and knocked. "Are you okay in there?" she didn't want to just bust in on him if all he had done was drop the shower head and soak everything (again).
"Martha?" the Doctor called back out to her. It was all she needed to know he wasn't okay. She opened the door and went in to find a bundle of naked Time Lord on the bottom of a foam filled shower. The water was still running. He was looking very white and he was short of breath. She could see that he had not been sitting on the shower chair as there remained some toiletries on it. He'd been using it as a shelf.
Martha went into the shower. She was able to bear most of her weight on her ankle within the boot now so she stood in there and turned the water off. She grabbed a towel and put it over the Doctor to maintain some of his dignity though she guessed that it had long since evaporated. That didn't mean she would just damage it more.
"Come and sit up straight, Doctor, you will find it easier," Martha commented. It constricted his chest if he curled up. She took his arm to help him rise so he could sit back against the shower wall and get his breath back. She had a stethoscope permanently on hand and as she tried to ease him up with one arm she was reaching for that with the other.
"Aaargh, no?!" the Doctor hollered as he tried to sit. Pain ripped through his shoulder. It was the arm under him and when he moved it felt like it was being twisted off. He groaned and grimaced. Martha moved to kneel in the shower.
"What is causing you pain?" she asked him. She hoped he'd not damaged his ribs or his sternum that had been cut through the surgery. They had healed well but were not totally healed. The surgical scar had the staples removed from it and was healed but it was still scabby at the bottom end and they were keeping an eye on it. She hoped he'd not knocked that either.
"Shoulder," the Doctor gasped. "Martha, it hurts?" he complained and then groaned. "Ow God?" He knew he'd had a sling on when he first woke up and he was sure he'd probably been told why but that was one thing he couldn't really remember. Now he was in agony. It was a brutal pain that took his breath and made his hearts beat faster and the vague dizziness was rolling over him as a result.
"We suspect that your shoulder had been dislocated at some point," Martha told the Doctor. "I hope that you're not put it back out again. Let me just have a look?" She carefully felt around him to his shoulder and the arm that he was laying on. The Doctor grunted as she found the joint. "I'm sorry, Doctor. You're laid on your arm at the moment. Can you bring it forward?"
"I can't move," the Doctor groaned.
"Yes you can, slowly come this way so you're on your back," Martha suggested. "I will give you a hand. Take long deep breaths in and on the count of three we can just ease over so you're on your back," Martha instructed. The Doctor tensed as Martha counted him down. When he moved off his shoulder he almost blacked out with the pain that struck him. Martha examined his shoulder. "Close your eyes, Doctor," Martha instructed.
"Why?"
"Don't ask why, just do what you're told," Martha commented. "We need you to calm down a bit, so close your eyes and take a long deep breath. Remember to breathe right down into your abdomen. Take a breath in and hold it for a moment and then let it out slowly. We don't want you getting any more short of breath or I will be telling them to put you back on oxygen," Martha warned him.
"Martha?" the Doctor moaned when he felt her take his wrist in one hand. She wasn't taking his pulse with the meaty grip she had around his arm.
"Keep on breathing," Martha told him as she eased her other hand under his elbow. "Breathe in, long and slow," she instructed. As she did she lifted his elbow very slowly upward. He groaned. As she used her hand on his wrist to rotate his arm round the Doctor roared until it all just gave and his shoulder clunked. "There you go," Martha folded his arm over his chest. "Sit up against the wall now and calm down a bit," Martha helped him up so he was sitting against the wall.
"Thank you," the Doctor sighed. He left his arm across his chest. He looked down on the red line of scar along his sternum. His shoulder ached but the pain had gone so he tentatively tried to shrug it.
"I'd not do that just yet in case it decides to pop out again," Martha warned. "Can I trust you to sit still for a moment?" she asked him.
"Yeah."
"Okay, good, just sit there and relax."
The Doctor didn't really have much choice but to sit and wait for Martha to return. He wasn't sure how he would get back up without using both arms to haul himself and he couldn't do that. When she did return she had a nurse with her and a wheelchair. Martha went back in the shower with a shoulder sling. The Doctor didn't argue when she slid it over his arm. It would hold it still until he could get it scanned. Martha didn't think there was anything broken so she was going straight for MRI to view the soft tissues.
The Doctor had no room to be shy when he was sitting naked in the bottom of a shampoo foam filled shower. Martha hosed him down a little and then helped him up onto the seat so he could dry off. He got into his tracksuit trousers again, not bothering with the T-shirt as he was wheeled out and to the treatment suite rather than back to his room. He needed to get his shoulder scanned and checked. The only reason why Martha had elected to put it straight back before hand was due to the level of pain he was in and the affect that had on his stress levels.
The scanner was busy when they arrived so he had to sit in a waiting room with Martha while they waited for it to become free. It was a soldier who had popped his knee playing rugby so the scans were likely to take some time.
"Do you need some pain relief?" Martha asked the Doctor as she sat close to him.
"It's not too bad now it is back in."
"We may have to move your arm a little in order to take adequate scans. I can get you something now while we wait and it will have worked by then and the scans will be easier."
"I will be guided by you," the Doctor commented.
"Well, that will be a first," Martha teased. She went and got him some oral pain relief he could take. She had them in her pocket so she was okay to use her crutches as she had to go to a pharmacy point to draw them out. Then she got him a cup of water to take them from the dispenser in the room walking with a single crutch.
When the scanner was free Martha got him to lie on his back on the bench. They took images of his shoulder with his arm in the sling but she couldn't see much on the scans as they came up on the screen. She took the sling off and got him to raise his arm to the side. She helped him and he was entirely grateful for the pain relief then. It was only for the moment of the scan and then he could put it back across his chest and Martha secured it in the sling. He relaxed into the sling.
He sat back in the wheelchair in the waiting room and waited for Martha to come and tell him how his shoulder was looking. She showed him the scans. There was a moderate looking tear to one of the ligaments holding his shoulder at the front. It would heal on its own but he'd have to be careful until it did. Martha added a second strap to the sling so he couldn't move his arm at all. She then helped him put his T-shirt back on over the top.
He felt a little pathetic sitting in a wheelchair in a loose pair of grey jersey trousers and a white UNIT T-shirt over his strapped arm. His hair was unstyled from the shower but was mostly dry now so a fluffy mess. His feet were bare on the footplates of the wheelchair and there was a scattering of hair on them. He looked pale and tired but when Martha crouched down in front of him to make sure he was okay he gave her a weak smile.
"As your doctor I should probably suggest we get you straight back to bed to rest," Martha told him. "But," she stated when he pulled a face. "I'm not technically your doctor at the moment, so, as your friend what about a short sojourn out onto the terrace to get some fresh air? Jack isn't due in until later and I think Donna has got to do something with her grandfather this morning so isn't going to be here until after lunch. I have got nothing on this morning," Martha assured him. "We can go outside and have banana milkshakes."
"That sounds nice," he accepted. Martha caressed his head and then dropped a kiss onto his crown in an unusual show of affection.
"What was that for?"
"I'm just sorry," Martha told him.
"What for?"
"Just because of all of this," Martha commented. "And now your shoulder is just something else for you to deal with."
"It's okay."
"Is it?" Martha asked him. "You know you're not on any sedation any more. If you want to get upset or angry about any of this then it is allowed now. I would be angry. I am angry, I'm angry with the Bylaxians for what they have done to you. They have taken you at a time when you were healthy and fit and they have turned you into a wreck," Martha told him. "It is not fair."
"I'm recovering," the Doctor advised. "It is slow while things get in order, but once my hearts are recovered enough to support regenerative based healing it will be much quicker. I will quickly get to the good level of fitness again and I should be dead. You rescued me and you have all saved me, but you especially Martha, and while you're injured? I could never have asked for more. I'm confident things will work out it will just take time, and my shoulder is one more thing now and it does hurt."
"I can get you some stronger pain relief?"
"No, I think I want it to hurt for a bit," the Doctor offered. Martha looked at him curiously. "I can pretend that I'm stuck here lie this because I've wrecked my shoulder rather than because I can't shower standing up," he commented.
"Oh, Doctor," Martha sighed. "It will be okay."
"I know."
"Aren't you angry with them for what they did to you?"
"Yes, but, I know that it is hard to see but I can also understand why they did it. I'm not sure it makes it easier or worse to deal with. I was shopping with Donna and the next thing I am truly aware of is being here unable to function properly. If they had asked me to help then I would have helped them and would not now be in this state. That they have not only rendered me incapable but they have also taken my opportunity to help away from me is what makes me angry. It is pointless, but is also a show of the desperation felt by the Bylaxians. They are generally passive and not violent and do not stray far from their own systems. It must have taken them time, effort, and a lot of planning to come and find me."
"And it was all for nothing," Martha commented. "Their initial hearing is being held next week."
"Decided not to charge them with murder now then?" the Doctor checked.
"Yeah," Martha nodded. "Do you want to be there to give evidence?"
"Not if I can avoid it."
"You can avoid it," Martha assured him. "I will get you a medical pass. It would certainly be justified and I would be worried about you going face to face with them in court before you're a good deal fitter than you are now."
"Are you going to give evidence?"
"Yes, I'm giving the medical evidence," Martha confirmed. "It is Donna they are going to have to watch out for."
"I can imagine," the Doctor offered and smiled. "They'll be wanting someone to throw away the key so she can't get in!" he commented and then laughed. Martha smiled. It was good to hear him laugh, even if it did leave him wheezing with loss of breath from the effort.