Two weeks later the Doctor was definitely on a more rapid road to recovery. He was up on his feet and had even been permitted his suit back. He didn't wear the jacket as his shoulder was no supported with a basic foam collar and cuff so he could use his arm or let it relax and take the weight off it as he needed. He could go a few hours without much difficulty and on several occasions now he had been in the UNIT gymnasium with various other recuperating patients. He had run for a full two minutes hooked up to heart monitors and though it had exhausted him his issue was with strength and stamina. His hearts had coped with the brief period of added exertion. He was finally starting to bounce back.

The initial hearing had been heard and the Bylaxians were have a second hearing that morning. It would determine if they were going to trial and what was the likely result if they did. Only short statements were being made at this hearing prior to the full trial if it was decided that they would be put on trial. No one had any doubt that there would be a trial for what they had done to the Doctor. The Doctor had been invited to sit in and listen if he didn't want to give evidence, but he didn't much care for trials or hearings. Not when he'd been on the receiving end of so many of them. He was waiting down in the gardens, close to a vender where he could get a reasonable cup of tea for news.

It was just after midday when Jack, Donna, and Martha came to find him. IT had taken longer than expected. Donna and Jack both looked pleased as they came up to the gardens to meet him.

"They are being charged with kidnap, false imprisonment, bringing a lethal substance into Earth space without proper documentation, carrying out illegal experimentation, and with your attempted murder," Donna listed the charges that had been brought against the Bylaxians and feeling happy with that decision.

"They are going to get sentences of a minimum of 5 years and up to a total life sentence if they are found guilty," Jack advised the Time Lord.

"They are not going to get away with it," Donna continued. "Coljai has admitted all that they did."

"He's admitted it?" the Doctor checked.

"Yeah, he has," Jack confirmed. "His own statements are very damning so they don't think the case will take long to hear at all."

"They are not going to get away with it," Donna repeated.

"No, they aren't," the Doctor agreed. He thought he would have felt more pleased by that but he didn't, he just felt saddened. "Sorry, would you excuse me?" the Doctor got up and walked off through the gardens.

"Doctor?" Jack was puzzled by his exit.

"Let him go, Jack, he needs to think this through," Martha offered. She had studied the Time Lord rather than taken part in the actual conversation. "He won't go too far."

"I hope not."

The Doctor went to the TARDIS. It had been moved into a secure area and he had been granted access to his ship by Martha. The TARDIS was not going to take him off anywhere until he was fully fit to leave and until he had been discharged. When Martha said he could go off then he was going to be allowed to go off, but not until then. It was a good place just to go and think. His ship always made things feel less confusing.

He went in and he walked around the console. He adjusted a couple of the dials so she was more comfortable. She was old and she tended to drift away from nominal settings if she was left inactive for too long. Same as he did. They both had to keep moving. He sat on the jump seats with his feet up on the edge of the console. She didn't rebuke him for it in amicable argument about shoes on her surfaces. She was just glad to have him back and find him much improved each time he managed to get away to come and see her.

She knew it would not be long until she had her pilot back full time and she let him go back to his human hospital each time as he did as he came back better the next time. He was not happy now though. She could sense his thoughts were in turmoil. For several long minutes the Doctor sat up on the seats deep in thought as he weighed it all up.

A new determination swept over him. He got up and marched out of the TARDIS and toward the security building. He knew they had cells there, and he knew that is where the Bylaxians were being held. By the time he got there he was breathing more heavily than he should be. There was a barely detectable wheeze to his inhalation. He knew it and Martha would have known it, but the security officer on the desk did not know it as he strode up to the desk with a confidence.

"Do you know who I am?" the Doctor asked him.

"Yes Sir, of course I do, Sir," the soldier got up and saluted him. For once the Doctor did not complain about it.

"You will take me to see the Bylaxian prisoners," the Doctor instructed.

"But, Sir, I…"

"Do I have to repeat myself, soldier?" the Doctor asked him.

"No Sir," the desk officer gulped. "This way." The Doctor was led into the holding cell areas. In the three cells at the end were three Bylaxians. They were behind Perspex screens. Two were sitting contemplatively. The third was curled up on the bench at the back of the cell. He was sleeping fitfully and appeared to be breathing shallowly. The Doctor knew how that felt. He looked at the names on the wall. Coljai was the one he had heard spoken of the most. He stood in front of the cell and turned to the solider.

"You may return to your post."

"Sir," the solider acknowledged and left the Doctor standing in front of the cell. He then turned his attention to the cell's occupant. "Coljai of Bylax?" the Doctor checked.

"It is I," Coljai commented and then went closer to the man in front of him. "Oh my word? Doctor? I was told you were now recovering well, but I did not know what to believe. Look at you?" Coljai went right up to the glass. "That is truly remarkable? You are recovered?"

"Not completely, not yet. I have Doctor Jones and her medical team to thank for their timely interventions," the Doctor advised him.

"Indeed. I am truly stunned to see you here, Doctor. When they told me you were recovering I believed them to be lies told to a prisoner, but you are."

"I am getting there. With one or two souvenirs," he opened his shirt to reveal the surgical scar he would now carry until his next regeneration.

"The virus settled very quickly into your respiratory and coronary systems," Coljai confirmed. "In our species the respiratory symptoms are mild at first and signal the disease moving into the second stage. I do not know if it was the pure virus or the amount we gave you that accelerated the affect and damage done to you or a difference in our species."

"There are many differences between Bylaxians and Time Lords," the Doctor advised. "I am not here to discuss them."

"No, I don't suppose you are. You are here to gloat at our incarceration? There is no need. It is deserved. A minimum of five years will see each of us into our graves."

"You are infected?" the Doctor checked. "I see the third man has some respiratory distress."

"Nimal, yes, he is the most seriously sick of us and the angriest at that. He cannot accept it is fated."

"Nor can you or you would not have infected me."

"Fated for myself. It is too late for me. I too have secondary symptoms. I carried hope for my daughter. She is but 12 years old. Her screening showed she was positive at her last birthday. I had hoped a chance for her that she might live a live and know the joy of carrying children of her own. It is not to be," Coljai advised. "I am sorry that we caused you so much suffering, Doctor," Coljai advised him. He sounded genuine. "I did so not only as a scientist instructed by my government, but as a father who is unlikely to live to see his daughter suffer but who knows it is coming for her regardless."

"And now you will die here and will not see her again."

"Yes," Coljai confirmed and bowed his head sorrowfully. "And that is a greater punishment than any your court could dole on us and it is deserved. I will seek opportunity to write to her, maybe there is a way to get word to her."

"I can see to that," the Doctor confirmed. "I can get word home for you."

"You are a father?" Coljai asked.

"I was."

"Was?"

"My children are long gone. In the Time War."

"That does not mean you stop being a father and carrying around that love you have?"

"No, it does not," the Doctor agreed.

"Then you are a father still."

"Yes I am," the Doctor accepted. "I have a question for you Coljai if I may?"

"Under the circumstances you may do as you wish with my companions and I. A question is the least that is deserved of us. I believed a severe beating at your hand at the very least."

"I'd get too out of breath to try that," the Doctor offered and smiled slightly as he shook his head. "I only have a question. When you came to find me, why didn't you just ask me to help you?"

"You would not help us willingly," Coljai stated and shook his head. "You are a Time Lord, Sir. Time Lords do not offer help, they only offer judgement."

The Doctor bowed his head slightly when he heard that, but he did not have a chance to respond to him as he heard the door to the custody suite open and the desk officer came in with Doctor Jones. The Doctor sighed and he looked to Coljai. "I need to go."

"I hope you continue to improve." Coljai told him sincerely.

"Thank you," the Doctor accepted then went back to where Martha was waiting for him.

"Are you okay? What did you come in here for?"

"I needed to ask him something."

"Did you get what you needed?" Martha asked sensitive to his mood.

"I think so, if not entirely what I expected."

"It would be easier if Coljai were a monster?" Martha asked him as she slid her arm through the Doctor's. He nodded. "You're sounding a bit wheezy," she told him with a medic's concern.

"I walked here from the TARDIS."

"That is right across the base."

"Yeah," the Doctor confirmed. "How did you know I was here?"

"The desk officer has an instruction to tell the base commander each and every time someone seeks authority to see the prisoners. The base commander then told me that was where you were. I think he was worried that we may have an intergalactic incident on our hands if you'd gone in and had it out with them. He clearly doesn't know you very well if he thinks you'd do that."

"No," the Doctor offered. "Neither do they," he sighed as he bowed his head. "I would have helped."