PLAGUE

TWENTYONE

Wil had carried The Doctor outside and laid him carefully on the ground.

She sat, cross-legged, a few feet away, softly singing arias from her favorite operas and watching him.

When she noticed he was beginning to stir she scooted in closer and murmured, "Doctor, wake up. Wake up."

With a start he opened his eyes, quickly looked around and inhaled sharply.

He was lying on thick, dark red grass, surrounded by a forest of beautiful, shimmering, silver-leafed trees under a burnt orange sky that held two suns, the second of which was just then rising behind what could only be the Citadel.

"What? How?" He asked, momentarily confused.

Wil repressed the urge to touch him, but instead smiled and answered calmly, "You're on Gallifrey – the Gallifrey I created long, long ago in honor of the Time Lords and of you."

She brought her hands together in front of her heart, steepled her fingers and then folded them down. "I was told to bring you home and this seemed the only reasonable option. I thought at first it was you – your voice instructing me – later I believed it was the TARDIS, but in reality the two of you are one and the same, aren't you?"

Her green eyes glowed slightly golden.

He nodded almost imperceptibly; shifting to his side and bending his elbow he propped up his head with his hand. "What happened to you?"

"I remembered," was her simple answer. But then she thought better of it and elaborated.

"The TARDIS offered to give me back everything I had been, and more. It was the only way to save you; although you were fighting valiantly, you were losing the battle for your life against the plague that had felled you and which by now has ruthlessly killed so many. As I said, I was told to bring you home. I wasn't sure what that meant; it could mean many things, even Jackie's flat." She flashed a fiendish grin as he shuddered, and went on.

"I decided it meant Gallifrey but I was uncomfortable, to say the least, to take you back to the real 'Shining World of the Seven Systems'… aside from the timeline getting corrupted, I wasn't sure we'd be welcome or that they'd let us through the force fields."

Again she smiled beatifically. "So I brought you and the TARDIS here. I created this place during the period when I imagined I was a Time Lord. I hope you don't think it blasphemous that I fashioned it?"

He shook his head and softly whispered, "No, I don't".

"I spent eons here, thinking about you and your people. They weren't as bad as I'd accused them of being, you know. I'm sorry if I was over-critical or insulting to you, it was unkind. They were an old, venerable and powerful race, deserving of respect even though they at times behaved 'badly' when dealing with the moral complexity of interfering in the natural flow of history."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow and then couldn't help but laugh out loud. It felt wonderful to laugh!

It was the reaction Wil had been hoping for. She leaned forward, picked a blade of grass, put its end in her mouth, and waited.

"And what happened to me?" he finally asked her.

"You were infected the moment you arrived at Torchwood and opened the door, Doctor."

She shrugged. "I suspect you knew there was something dangerous outside the TARDIS, in fact I'm certain your ship told you as much. Why you ignored her advice, I'll never understand…"

She looked at him with his boyish grin and then corrected herself.

"Well, perhaps I do understand. Regardless, you foolishly exposed yourself and were lucky to survive the plague's initial incursion into your body. As I already mentioned, your body was fighting the onslaught but losing. You were likely going to die with no chance of regeneration. The TARDIS knew this. So she restored me and together we saved your life. You are free of the infection and permanently protected."

Wil carefully selected another blade of grass, offered it to him and he took it, putting it in his mouth.

The taste reminded him of his childhood.

"Thank you," he said after a minute of contemplative silence.

"You're very welcome."

"Uh, what happened to my clothes?" He was wearing a baggy green scrub suit. Barefoot and short-sleeved, he was feeling a tad naked.

She laughed. "I left them in Cardiff; no time, you know."

"Ah, I know only too well…"

"If you examine your memories, and I suspect you already have, you'll know the nature of the beasties that nearly killed you, and you'll also realize what havoc they are wreaking on earth at the moment."

"Is Jack all right?"

"Yes, of course. It'll take more than tiny robots to bring him down."

"Then, we have to go back."

"Well now, that's something we really do need to discuss…"