TWO

"We won't be long," Jack said, taking his pea coat from the rack next to the TARDIS door.

"Remember – the plague is still in the air..." the Doctor warned.

"What's it going to do? Kill me? Please," Jack scoffed.

"Yeah, good point," the Doctor muttered. "Still, better safe than sorry. We know that you recover from gunshot wounds, personality extraction, open exposure to wormholes, extreme temperatures, Snarfblatt poisoning, icepick attacks, fire ants, omega-frequency singing and Ricotta cheese gone bad... but we have no idea what bubonic plague would do to you."

"I'll take my chances."

"You'll grow pustules," Martha said. "Wouldn't it be awful if that happened – and you survived? You'd lose that pretty complexion of yours."

"All right, all right, can we go now?" asked Jack.

"Yes!" said Martha, heading for the door.

The Doctor caught her arm. "Wait, wait, wait! Where do you think you're going?"

Exasperated, she stuck one hip out to the side and planted her hand on it. "I know I'm going with them."

"Oh no you're not," the Doctor told her. "I almost lost you once this week. I'll not have that again. You're staying right here, where it's safe."

"Oh really? So, apparently now we're sharing a bed, you think you can talk to me like I'm five? Is that it?"

He sighed. Before, she'd listened to him because he was the Doctor and she was like his pupil. Now, the game had changed. Now that they were lovers, she was an independent woman, worried about keeping equity in their relationship. He'd have to be careful how he spoke to her if this was going to work.

"Martha, it's just not safe," he told her. He wanted to take her hands and kiss her, but at the moment, he believed that she might interpret this as condescension as well.

"Has that ever stopped us before?" she asked. "Besides, we helped save these people, and I want to see what it's like out there!"

The Doctor hadn't been planning on going on the particular excursion, content to let Feeno and Jack do all of the disgusting sample-gathering. There were some minor repairs on the TARDIS he'd rather have done. But instead, he found himself grabbing his own coat and following Martha out the door.

Fortunately, he'd been able to park the TARDIS in a little-used back alley of London where it was unlikely to be seen. Immediately, they felt the chill in the air. Martha estimated that it must be October or November, and she crossed her arms in an instictive attempt to warm herself. The Doctor noticed her discomfort and gave her his tan overcoat.

"Here, wear this. It'll cover you from neck to toe," he said. "No one here should see you wearing trousers anyway. They'll try to burn you for heresy or something."

"Gee, you'd think she didn't have a wardrobe of her own," Jack commented as Martha pulled the Doctor's coat over the Doctor's white dress shirt. Martha rather liked the feeling of it hanging long around her, smelling of the Doctor.

Up ahead abit, and to their right was what looked like a small watering hole. Outside were a group of cloaks hanging on hooks. The Doctor gave a hooded one to Feeno and urged him to keep the hood up, and not allow anyone to see his purple face or the blade ridge across his forehead.

The four of them approached the street. Coming down the incline from the right, two men dragged an oxcart piled with dead bodies. They stopped about fifty feet from where the travelers were standing, and from one of the houses nearby, a man emerged carrying the limp body of a child. He put the little boy on the pile, gave the cart-pullers a penny, and then turned back to his home. He was weeping all along, and his wife stood in the doorway, practically collapsing in tears.

On her neck, just below the jawline, Martha noticed a protruberance. She had never seen anything like it before, but her readings on bubonic plague told her that it must be the beginnings of a buboes pustule. In a few days' time, this man would be carrying his wife's body out to the street to pile her onto the oxcart.

The oxcart continued down the street for a bit, stopping again not far away. A similar scene was played out as a woman and her teenaged daughter dragged the large body of a man into the street. The two cart-pullers helped them toss the body onto the pile, and then moved on.

The Doctor, Jack and Feeno were transfixed. Only Martha spoke. "Oh my God," she gasped at the sight. "This is horrible."

"Sure is, miss," a voice said from behind them. The man must have come from the watering hole. He didn't seem to see any of the others, and he looked directly at Martha's face, and then registered her skin color. "Oh, you'll not be from 'round 'ere then. Then you don' know that this... this ain't 'alf bad, this. This is only the firs' cart o' the day, and it's high noon. Time was, by noon, there'd have been three, maybe four carts come down this stree' already, all of them piled up much 'igher than that. Yeah, I'd say the sickness is mos' definitely slowin' down. God-willin' it'll be over by Christmas."

"We'll hope," Martha said to him.

"God be with ye, miss," he said as he stepped passed her and headed up the hill.

"Doctor, please tell me that we did some good here," she pleaded softly.

"You heard the man," he said, slipping his arm around her. "Two weeks ago, this was four times worse. We're seeing the end of it."

Feeno said, "Let us simply obtain what we require, and leave."

"Amen to that," Jack said.

The four of them went up the street a little way, and stopped at the house where the father had just brought the little boy out to the oxcart.

"We can stop here," Feeno said. "They are bound to have still the blankets used by their deceased son."

"Doctor, will you do the honors?" Jack asked.

The Doctor knocked on the door. It opened harshly, and the man they had just seen, with bloodshot eyes, asked, "Yes?"

"Good morrow, sir, I'm the Doctor and this is the Captain," he said, gesturing to Jack, who waved uneasily. "We are told there has recently been a death by the plague in your home."

"Yeah," the man said. "Our last son. Wha' of it? Make it quick – me wife is distraught."

"Yes, sir," the Doctor said. He flashed his psychic paper in the man's direction. "We are authorised by the... Board of... Keeping Ye Things Cleane... to collect your son's blankets and garments for the pyre. So as to keep the sickness from reaching anyone else in your household."

"Where was you before my other four children was taken, eh?"

The Doctor sputtered. Jack chimed in, "It's a new practise, sir. We've discovered that fire can neutralise the germs."

"The what?"

"The evil demons, erm, that... infest the souls of those afflicted," the Doctor said, glancing sidelong, irritatedly at Jack.

The man stared at both men for several seconds suspiciously, then checked out their companions. This, of course, caused Feeno to duck his head further so that his purple face could not be seen under his brown hood.

"Friar, what say you?" the man asked him. Jack nudged Feeno's arm.

"I say..." said Feeno, unsure.

Martha whispered to him, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness."

"Cleanliness is next to Godliness," Feeno announced, without showing his face. "Give us your soiled cloth, and we may rid your home, and this world, of the demon that sickened your boy."

The man relented. "All righ'. 'Ang on." He disappeared from the door. When he returned, he was carrying a warm, damp burlap blanket in his arms. The Doctor and Jack parted ways so that Feeno could take the germy thing in his arms. The Doctor pulled Martha away and put himself between her and the blanket.

"Thank you, sir," Feeno said to him. "You might have just saved your own life."

The Doctor, Martha and Jack all bade the man a quiet goodbye, and turned to walk away.

"'Old on a minute," the man said. The travelers turned to face him once again. He stepped outside the threshold of his front door and approached the Doctor. He smiled creepily, and asked, "What's your 'urry, Doctor?"

"My hurry?" asked the Doctor, utterly confused.

"Yeah," the man said. He looked the Doctor up and down, never letting go of the smile. "Wouldn't you like to stay for a bit? Me wife can brew us a bit o' tea. Let your friends go with the blanket... you and I can have a chat."

The Doctor stared at him, jaw agape, eyes wide. Jack stifled a giggle. The man licked his lips, then reached out to touch the Doctor's cheek, which snapped the Time Lord out of his stupor.

"Yeah, thanks," he sputtered. "Got to run. Nice meeting you!" He grabbed Martha and split for the TARDIS with Jack laughing behind him and Feeno struggling not to trip over his cloak.