NINETEEN
It wasn't the same passers-by who had previously seen the pin-striped man in trainers running at top-speed across Westminster Bridge, but these passers-by were no less bewildered. And what was with the tool-box? Whoever he was, he was in an awfully big rush, and something mightily important was in that box. More than a few people thought, "criminal," as he nearly knocked them over trying to get back to his TARDIS.
Their suspicions were confirmed when, not thirty seconds later, a team of hospital security came running from the same direction.
As they jogged behind, one rather young guard asked an older man, "Sir, what are we doing? How can we hope to contain this man?"
"We can't for long," the superior answered. "We're just apprehending him until the special forces can get in. Besides, all we know is that, according to Dr. Hamleigh, he's asked for the antidote drugs that treat bubonic plague, which is known to be a bioterrorism weapon. We do not have any indication that he is currently armed."
"What if he infects us?" asked the young man?
"Then we go back to the hospital," the older man told him, calmly.
"Sir," crackled the older man's walkie.
"Yes, Hodgekins, go ahead."
"He's reached the end of the bridge and he's headed down the embankment now," Hodgekins answered. "Should I follow him?"
"Yes, follow him," answered the superior. "Which direction?"
"He's gone right, upriver."
"Thank you, we're right behind you."
The young guard and the old guard picked up their pace and began running faster across the bridge. When they reached the end of the bridge, they found Hodgekins standing at the top of the stairs, staring down the embankment. He had a serious frown. Other guards were standing nearby in very much the same state.
"I can't believe he'd be that stupid," Hodgekins said to no-one in particular.
"Well, what's happened, then?" asked the older guard.
Hodgekins pointed. "He's gone into that police box, sir."
The old guard stared at the blue box, and then looked back at Hodgekins, then looked at all the guards standing about, waiting for his order. "He's gone in there?"
"Yes, sir. What should we do?"
"Is he armed?"
"Not that we know of, sir."
"Well, go in there and drag him out!"
"Yes, sir."
Jack had never been so glad to see that pin-striped suit. And now it was coming at him at full speed, and the man wearing it had a red bio-hazard box in his hand. His relief was palpable and showed on his face.
"Doctor, thank God," he sighed. Martha lay on the floor, her blanket pulled up to her waist, and the Doctor's white shirt which she wore was laid open. Jack had Martha's head in his lap and was stroking her hair, and Feeno was dribbling cool water over her chest and arms. "Her fever spiked, she's been delirious the last few minutes. She's only just now stopped rambling. We've been trying to stave off the fever, but..."
The Doctor came crashing to the floor nearby and opened the box. "That's good, keep doing that, keep her cool," he said, as he extracted a syringe. He chose a bottle from the array, and filled the syringe. He handed the syringe to Jack. "This is streptomycin. It's the first-line drug, should bring down the fever. Make sure you get it in a vein."
"What?" Jack asked.
"Jack you have to do this so I can get the TARDIS out of here," the Doctor said. "They'll have called in a terrorist threat before I was even out of the hospital. We have to get out of here!"
"A terrorist threat?"
"Yes," the Doctor said. "Certain terrorist cells have been threatening use of yersenia pestis as a bioterror device, and I just waltzed in and asked for the cocktail that cures it!"
"But what if I screw it up? I'm not a doctor, Doctor... that's her department," Jack protested, gesturing at Martha.
The Doctor caught Jack's arm. "Jack, these are desperate times, and you're not exactly a novice at doing what's got to be done. Please. Do this for me so I can get us out of here."
Reluctantly, Jack took the syringe. Feeno, already one step ahead, had found a string and tied off Martha's arm halfway between the elbow and wrist. A vein popped out of her arm right away, and Jack readied himself. He'd killed people, he'd been killed himself. He'd seen alien guts splattered all over the inside of a containment cell, he'd witnessed World War II in all its horrible glory. Twice. But this... this was a different kind of repellent. This was a syringe, and his friend's life in the balance.
He took a deep breath, pressed the needle to Martha's arm, and pushed. He silently prayed he'd hit the vein (he wasn't sure how to tell), and then he emptied the medicine into her arm.
Meanwhile, the Doctor was powering up the TARDIS. Outside, they heard hard, fast footsteps.
"Here they come," the Doctor said. "Hold on."
As the TARDIS began to grind, the door opened and a young man in a hospital guard uniform burst in. At the sight of the inside of the vessel, he was stopped in his tracks. He leaned against the railing for support as his jaw dropped and he looked about with wide-eyes. The Doctor, Jack and Feeno registered his presence just a split second too late. Around him, the TARDIS shifted out of London, 2007 into somewhere else entirely, unbeknownst to the guard.
Finally, he got his wits about him and pointed his stunner at the Doctor. "Y-you're surrounded."
"Don't think so, mate," the Doctor told him. "And put that away. Who do you think you're going to apprehend with a stun gun?"
"Who are you?" he demanded.
"I'm the Doctor. And this is Jack, Feeno, and Martha."
The guard took a few steps toward the sickly woman on the floor. He glanced at the open bio-hazard box. "What's wrong with her?"
"I think you know," the Doctor said, twisting dials, reading gages.
"Bubonic plague?" the guard asked incredulously. "Do you expect me to believe that?"
Jack stepped in. "Well, look around you. Do you believe any of this, Mr...?"
"Hodgekins."
"It's a pretty incredible sight, isn't it Mr. Hodgekins?"
Jack's tone seemed to disarm him. With one eye still on the Doctor (and one of the Doctor's eyes still on him), Hodgekins lowered his stunner and holstered it. He came closer to Martha's supine form and knelt down.
"Is she going to be okay?" he asked.
"We don't know," Jack said softly. "I just gave her the streptomycin. I'm assuming there's more, but she's the doctor, not me. Well, she's almost a doctor, anyway."
Hodgekins looked more closely at her. A spark of recognition showed on his face. "Is that... Miss Jones?"
The Doctor's ears perked up. He came rushing over from the console. "Yes, it is! But you can't tell anyone what you've seen here."
"Like they'd believe me," Hodgekins smirked. He looked back at Martha. "I can't believe that's her. I mean, it is her. She's a medical student at the hospital... she's the only one who's nice to us, doesn't order us around like their personal staff."
"Well, Mr. Hodgekins," the Doctor said, placing his hand on the young man's shoulder. "All we wanted was to help her. We're not terrorists or anything like that... just travelers. And our... friend... is sick." As he said the word friend, tears came to his eyes once more, which was not lost on Hodgekins.
"Are you and she...?"
The Doctor nodded sadly.
"She never said," Hodgekins told him. "We'd talked a few times, and she never said."
Jack offered, "She's a very private person."
At this comment, Feeno reached over and shut Martha's shirt. He figured the hospital security guard didn't need to see her undergarments.
"Well, Doctor," Hodgekins said. "It doesn't matter if you're terrorists or not. I mean, I believe you, but you are surrounded. Twelve guards, including me, came after you as you left the hospital, and they all saw you run into the police box."
"Look outside," the Doctor said.
Hodgekins crossed the control room and opened the door and stared. The surface of another planet stared back. "Wh-where the hell are we? H-how did... Wh-wha..."
"Yeah, sometimes I still feel that way myself," Jack confessed with a smile.
"It didn't even rain upwards this time," Hodgekins said, with awe.
The Doctor smiled at the memory and joined the guard at the door. "We're on the planet Otromalo. We're delivering some friends back home. But don't worry. Soon as we're done here, we'll get you back to London, too," the Doctor assured him.
"We'll go find the prisoners," Jack said, leaving the control room with a couple of weapons and Feeno.
"Mr. Hodgekins, will you give me a hand?" the Doctor asked.
Hodgekins shut the door. "What do I need to do?"
"Take that string and tie off her other arm until a vein pops out," he said. He filled two more syringes with gentamicin and chloramphenicol.
Hodgekins did as asked. He'd been nearby on plenty of occasions when doctors and nurses at the hospital did this sort of thing. He didn't like it, but he liked Martha, and at least he'd seen the procedure from an outsider's perspective before.
Soberly, the Doctor listened to Martha's breathing, and was encouraged to find that it was equalising. He put his finger in her mouth and found that her fever had gone down. He smiled, and said, "That's my girl," before plunging two more syringes into her arm.
He sat back and watched her, as did Hodgekins.
"Are you really going to let me go back home?" asked the security guard.
The Doctor was surprised at this question. "Yes, of course. Why wouldn't we?"
"Dunno. I reckon I've seen too much," Hodgekins answered shyly.
"Aw, no," the Doctor said, waving him off. "Just don't go blabbing about it."
"Oh, I won't."
"Good."
A long, silent minute passed, and then Hodgekins asked, "How did this happen?" He gestured toward Martha.
The Doctor sighed. He looked around. "This is a time machine, Mr. Hodgekins."
"Uh-huh, and?"
Surprised by his easy acceptance of this fact, the Doctor hesitated before explaining further. "Well, I.... you really..." he cleared his throat. "Anyway, we wound up in the year 1350, and Martha became infected with the Black Death. In the process, we caught some aliens trying to destroy the human race and captured them... we were trapped on the TARDIS for a while, plus there was a nobleman and a beheading, a bar-maid, and the entire planet was in love with me, but that's neither here nor there..."
Hodgekins stopped him. "Okay, okay. 1350 – that explains it."
"You're very accepting of all this."
"Did you hear about the hospital landing on the moon? I was there. I know stuff."
"Indeed," the Doctor muttered, smirking.
Jack and Feeno emerged from the hallway escorting the three Namuh Gnieb, who were walking docilely in front of them.
"Do we need to notify anyone that they're coming home?" Jack asked the Doctor.
"If we tried, we'd be captured and killed. Well, you, Martha and Hodgekins anyway. Better not. Just leave them, tell them to find the Bastion of the Otromalos."
"If you say so," Jack said. "Come on, creepy friends." And he and Feeno pushed the anti-humans out the door.
The Doctor stood up and went back to the console.
"What are you doing?" asked Hodgekins.
"Getting ready to take you home."
"Can't I see outside?"
"This planet doesn't exactly revere human beings," the Doctor told him. "Didn't you hear what I said?"
"But Jack is out there," Hodgekins pointed out.
"Captain Harkness is an experienced time and space traveller. You're a hospital security guard."
Hodgekins sighed.
In a minute, Jack and Feeno were back on-board, and the five of them were headed back to London, 2007.
"I'm bringing you back 2 days before you left, so we don't risk the anti-terrorism brigade tracking us down," the Doctor said, spinning as usual around the console. "Stay the hell away from that hospital so that you don't cause a paradox. Check into a hotel until after you know that your other self has stepped into the police box. Then wait a few hours and go back to work. Make up a story – I don't care what."
Wide-eyed, Hodgekins said, "Okay."
