For the rest of the day the Doctor seemed distracted and subdued. Even when he was promised a date of discharge soon he did not seem too happy. Martha knew he was trying to rationalise what had been done to him. She did not accuse him of being moody or ask him to 'spit it out', she just let him. He'd not just been physically injured by Coljai and his colleagues, he had been wounded emotionally too. He'd been put in a position where sickness had not only risked his life but to some extent was still risking his future. He had to be allowed to figure out what he needed to do in order to come to terms with that.
The following morning Martha was surprised to find that when she went into work that the Doctor had already gone for a walk. He was no longer under constant supervision but he did have to abide by a treatment regime and he had left early and before he had eaten and before he had taken his morning medication. It was that which concerned Martha, it supported his hearts and his respiration. He needed to take it and he needed to take it before midday or he'd not be able to take the afternoon medications he needed that eliminated the night cramps.
He was still getting fairly substantial assistance from medications, and it was important that he carried on taking it, especially the drug that kept his hearts clear. He needed to be weaned off that a bit at a time, not bugger off out before breakfast without it. If he just stopped taking it then the withdrawal would be quite difficult to manage and could cause an arrhythmia which was essential what the drug assisted in preventing in his recovering right heart.
Martha hadn't have thought he would do something silly like go out without his drugs, but she also knew he'd had a hard day the day before. She was concerned that he had just gone without telling anyone when he was going or where he was going. His last check had been a night check at three in the morning. They had found he was gone at just after seven when they went to ensure he was awake for breakfast and medication.
The Doctor hadn't told anyone what he was planning to do because he didn't think anyone would understand. He hadn't gone far, but he had gone early. He wanted to get a head start and had been in the TARDIS since just after four in the morning. He wasn't on the flight deck thinking he was in the science lab. He had tied a bit of rubber tubing around the bicep of his slung shoulder to find a vein and had drawn a large blood sample.
He had then screened it using the TARDIS equipment. It was equipment that Bylax could never have gotten access to. By the time he should have been woken up for breakfast he had used blood sample in order to create an injectable cure for the virus using the antibodies from his own blood stream. He wasn't going to offer it as it stood though. He went through a further process of screening it for DNA fragments. He was not going to suddenly going to trust the Bylaxians with Time Lord DNA. It took him another hour and a half. In total he had created a cure within four and a half hours. If they had asked him he would have been able to do that. He would not now be breathing heavily and be slightly dizzy and nauseous. He needed to do one more thing and then he could set the TARDIS to create a sample of 5000 doses and a replication module so that they could make more of the cure easily.
He went onto the flight deck with the phial of the drug and he went over to the security building again. It took him longer to make the trek across the base than it had done the day before. He was quite surprised that the early exertion before and without the medications he took in the morning was having such a negative effect. He'd thought that he was managing and the drugs were just a failsafe and an over precaution. It seemed that they were not. He felt like the world was positively swirling around him by the time he got to the security building.
"I need to… go back into see the… Bylaxians," the Doctor told the desk officer. It was the same officer as the day before.
"Are you okay, Sir?"
"Yes, yes, fine… just ran across base… that is all," he lied. "Now, let me in… it is urgent, or I… would not have run… and I would appreciate it… if you did not tell base… command straight away?"
"Sir," the officer gave him access to the custody suite. He could not get into any of the cells anyway and if he was that knackered after running across the base then he wasn't going to be doing much to them even if he could. He did not see what harm there was and he had been advised to tell Dr Jones if he went back and not the base commander.
"Doctor?" Coljai went to the front of the cell when the Time Lord visited for the second time. "You do not look well," he had a genuine concern.
"Just a bit… short of breath… didn't take any medication… this morning."
"Why ever not? You need to return to your medical team for assistance, Sir," Coljai advised.
"Not yet… I have been busy," the Doctor suggested. "The Time Lords…" he started. "You are right… they would have… passed judgement from… on high… and would have done… nothing… but the Time Lords… are gone… and I was… I was…" the Doctor paused putting his hand on the Perspex of Coljai's cell door for a moment to catch his breath. He then got the sonic screwdriver out and opened the cell door. "I am not… like them… never was… never fit in." He pulled a phial of serum from his pocket. "The antibodies… in my blood… form the base… of this… all lab tests… show it will work… but I have… no live virus… to test it on."
"You want to give me the dose?" Coljai asked him.
"It will work… or not… it will do… you no harm… if it is…not effect… effective… let me… give you… the drug… can test blood… tomorrow for… virus."
"You must return to bed, Doctor," Coljai advised him seriously. He went to bang on the door in order to call the attention of the guards.
"No… not until… tested… my friends… won't… won't… understand," the Doctor's hands were shaking and his vision swam. He could feel that his right heart was hammering. It was not in synch with his left. He should not have gone without his medication. Coljai had to catch the Doctor's arm or he would have gone down heavily. Instead he guided him over to the bench in the cell. The Doctor realised he had put himself in a highly vulnerable position. If Coljai wanted to he could take the sonic screwdriver, let his colleagues out, and then attempt to escape. Even if they didn't get far the Doctor would be in immense trouble.
Coljai took the phial of the medication. "How much of it do I take?"
"All…" the Doctor watched as Coljai took the phial and drew up the serum into the syringe he had given and then injected it into his own vein. "You trust… me?" the Doctor was surprised. He'd expected some resistance.
"If you wished to kill me then there are easier ways," Coljai advised. "Now please? You must return to your medical team and take your medications." Coljai helped the Doctor to rise but his knees started to go when he was halfway across the cell. Coljai lowered him to the floor again.
"No… outside… or…" the Doctor struggled to get any words out.
"I need to get you outside the cell and seal myself in. If you're in here or I am out there then you will never get back in here and we won't know if the serum works," Coljai realised what the Doctor was trying to say. He assisted the Doctor out of the cell and made sure that he was seated at the back of the corridor leaning against the wall. Coljai went back inside. "You can lock the door now, Doctor?" Coljai suggested. The Doctor raised his hand to lock the door and then slid the screwdriver back into his pocket. He had to get back to Martha now. He could get to the security desk and get them to fetch her for him. He used the wall to get back to his feet but he only managed a couple of steps before the world spinning around him greyed out and his senses faded.
"Help!" Coljai banged on the glass. He hit his intercom and banged and shouted. The custody officer came in expecting it to be because the Doctor was somehow distressing him from outside the cell. He did not blame him if he was since they were the men who had injured him. He would have given him a couple of minutes with the door opened if he was well enough and he asked. The Doctor was a hero and they had hurt him. When he went into the corridor he saw that the Doctor was lying on the floor and not moving. He raised an immediate alarm to the medical team and then went to try to administer any first aid he could. Thankfully he was breathing so all he did was turn him more onto his side and make sure he stayed that way.
By the time Martha arrived the Doctor had regained consciousness and was arguing with the custody officer who was not letting him move and still had him laid in a close approximation to the human version of the recovery position on the floor. At least he had done that, but he could get up and go and report to Martha himself and he wasn't letting him.
"What happened?" Martha asked as she crouched down, having to alter her position because she did not have a cast or boot protecting her ankle and she could not yet crouch like that. She knelt instead. "Doctor?"
"I'm okay, I'm fine," he offered clearly and without any major breathlessness.
"He was out cold on the floor!"
"Yes, okay, but now I am not," the Doctor advised plainly. "And, since I am not out cold as you so dramatically put it and I am still on the floor which is rather uncomfortable I would appreciate it if you would let me get up?" the Doctor announced. "And be out of your way?" he added to the desk officer. "I mean, don't you have duties to attend to?"
"I'm not leaving you on your own when you've just been out cold on the floor. I told you that and the way you were panting when you got here?" the desk officer suggested. "I'm not leaving you."
"And quite right too. I thank you for your concern and for raising your alarm, but now Doctor Jones is here so clearly I am not on my own," The Doctor argued. "Martha, will you please tell him?"
"I am not interested in your petty squabbling, Doctor. I would quite like to know what has been going on in here and why you are on the floor in the first place. Were you panting when you got here?" Martha asked him.
"He said he had been running," the desk officer advised.
"May I offer some insight?" Coljai asked from within his cell.
"No you cannot!" the desk officer leapt up and banged on the Perspex with his fist. "You are the one who did this to him! Don't think we don't know that you did! Don't you know who that man is?! What he has done?! And look what you have done to him! You can shut your filthy mouth!"
"There is no need for that," the Doctor stated.
"I think you can go to your desk now," Martha advised the officer. "Thank you for calling me." She offered. The desk officer left, but not before he heard Martha address the prisoner. "Coljai? Did you see what happened?"
"Based on the damage done by the latter stages of the virus to the victim's hearts and the interventions carried out, and the fact that the Doctor was in fact breathless on his arrival and stated that he had taken no medications that morning, I would suggest he suffered an acute arrhythmia. It caused him to lose consciousness but that allowed it to reset," Coljai offered.
"Is that what happened?" Martha asked the Time Lord directly.
"I think so," the Doctor agreed. He let Martha listen to his chest. "I didn't like it much."
"Why didn't you take your medication this morning?"
"I had something to do," the Doctor advised. "I didn't think I really needed it anymore."
"What is more important than making sure you continue to recover?" Martha asked the Doctor.
"Nothing," the Doctor commented and looked to Coljai. The Bylaxian nodded understanding that the Doctor didn't want Martha to know that he was trying to help them despite her continuing efforts to reverse what they had done to him.
"You are an idiot. What if you'd not had a mild arrhythmia but had another heart attack? Or what if you'd jarred your shoulder again?" Martha asked him.
"Then you'd fix me because you're brilliant," the Doctor commented and then grinned at Martha broadly. She knew he knew she couldn't get too mad at him when he was like that so she just swatted at him with the rubber of her stethoscope. "I'm okay."
"You're not okay, Doctor. You are going back to bed now and you are having your medication and you are to stay in bed until at least two hours after lunch," she told him.
"Fine, that is okay, can I get up now?"
"Yes, but slowly," Martha warned.
"And, can I have this thing off?" he pulled at the collar and cuff supporting his shoulder.
"Don't push it when you've just been a big idiot," Martha offered. He got to his feet. A brief wash of dizziness went unnoticed. It was just a slight delay in his blood pressure accounting for his vertical stance. There was a jeep outside waiting to transport them back to medical. The Doctor was sent back to bed by Martha with his drugs and another stern word, though Martha did send the orthopaedist in to check his shoulder and he was allowed to lose the collar and cuff and begin using his arm properly. That was good. That would make flying the TARDIS much easier.