Wilf
As the two Time Lords raced across the sand, Wilf managed to turn his head towards them, raising one wobbly hand for help – and the onlookers above remembered how to breathe. The Doctor reached him a scant millisecond before Mike, both dropping to their knees on either side. Mike took the old man's hand, darting eyes making quick assessments, while the Doctor put an ear to his chest. In seconds, he'd confirmed the obvious. "Heart! TARDIS!" Mike simply nodded, gathering Wilf's shoulders while the Doctor picked up his lower half, and together they turned and carried him swiftly back across the sand and up the stairs.
"Rose! Sick bay! Open the door, make room!" The Doctor's yell sent the women flying back across the bridge, and Rose unlocked the TARDIS doors, flinging them both wide, then racing across the control room and down the hall, making sure the way was clear of clothes and clutter. The ship had already rearranged herself, moving the infirmary to the first door down. Rose began opening cabinet doors on one side to find whatever they might need, then turned to find River had followed her and was already flicking switches on the diagnostic device she'd pulled close to the bed. Score another point for the woman from the future; Rose had never learned how to work that thing, had never needed to. The two women shared a quick, tiny smile of understanding before the men burst in with their precious cargo and placed him carefully on the bed.
River handed a pair of scissors to Rose with one word: "Shirt." As soon as Wilf was arranged on the bed, Rose dove in and cut his shirt in two down the front, then continued carefully cutting down the sleeves, staying out of the others' ways, until she could ease it out from under him. River, meanwhile, was ready with the tiny monitor pads for the diagnostic machine; she quickly attached them to several points on Wilf's head and chest, and began watching the readout, while the Doctor applied his stethoscope.
Mike reached a hand up between the others and smoothed Wilf's thinning hair back. "Still with us, Grandad?" Fighting for breath, Wilf simply nodded, trying to look his confidence in his doctors through the fear clouding his eyes.
"Arhythmia. Left ventrical," River supplied, and the Doctor nodded.
"The muscle's weakened – the walls have thinned out dangerously." He dove for the medicine cooler on one side of the room, and began frantically searching though the myriad bottles and bubbles. "Shit!" Whatever he was looking for, he couldn't find it.
"What do you need?" River asked. When he didn't answer, she repeated it, enunciating clearly. "Doctor! What. Do. You. Need?" He glanced around at her, and she brought up her left arm – the one with her Time Jumper.
"Tais't'laxsin, with FGCM," he began doubtfully, frantically hoping she'd understand, because he did NOT have time to explain.
Even as he was speaking, and she was punching in coordinates, Mike scooped up Wilf's discarded shirt and then grabbed River's upper arm. "Got it!" he cried. She glanced at him, nodded, then punched the last button and they flashed out together.
The Doctor stared at the empty spot for a second, frowning, then blew his breath out in a huff, turning back to the bed. Wilf was still struggling for air, but the TARDIS had anticipated him, opening a small door in the wall above the bed and popping out an oxygen mask. Rose, almost feeling more than seeing the movement beside her shoulder, grabbed the mask and was putting it on the old man's face. The Doctor took a moment to lean over and reassure him. "You're going to be OK, Grandad. We've got you."
Just then, another flash lit up the room, and Mike was suddenly bending over the table, gingerly placing a small metal box on Wilf's abdomen. "Got it. Fully actualized and ready to go."
The Doctor stared at him for a second, registering River standing back behind him, ready to punch out again if needed. "Fully actualized? How long were you gone?" he asked softly.
Mike didn't meet his eyes, studying Wilf as if he hadn't seen him for a very long time. "Long enough. We jumped ahead through the phases, though." He looked up at his twin, then, and dropped into Gallifreyan. "There's a heart up there, too, if we need it."
The Doctor nodded. "Good." He took a deep breath and turned to the clan clustered in the other half of the large room, watching silently. "Sylvia," he called, beckoning her over, and she came up to stand beside the bed, taking her father's hand. Mike and Rose both moved back a pace to give them that semblance of privacy.
"I need your permission to continue," the Doctor began, speaking to both Wilf and Sylvia. "As you probably guessed, this medicine is from the future. It's what you call nanotechnology, millions of atomic-sized robots, called nanites, each carrying a teeny-tiny bit of heart muscle tissue cloned from your own DNA – which Mike got off your shirt that he took with him. We'll inject the nanite solution into your veins, and they'll seek out the damaged and weakened heart tissue and rebuild it with those cloned bits. There's no absolute guarantees, but this is over ninety-eight percent effective in the time period it comes from. There are possible side effects, but they're minimal and easily handled."
They glanced at each other and Wilf nodded. Sylvia turned back and drew breath to agree, but the Doctor held up his hand. "Just in the interest of full disclosure, there are a couple of other options, too. If you prefer, of course, we could take you to the best hospital on Earth in this time period, and let human doctors work their magic – and I do realize that they are very, very good. You'd be in the best of hands.
"Or, three, we could take the TARDIS and you into the future now, and either let specialists take this route," he laid a hand lightly on the medicine box, "or... Mike also had them grow a whole new cloned heart for you up there. You could have it transplanted into your chest. That's still an option, by the way, if this doesn't work, or if you change your mind later. It'll still be there." He gave the pair a final nod and waited.
"Dad? Your choice," Sylvia told him.
Wilf took a deep breath – easier now, with the oxygen mask – and nodded, putting his free hand on the Doctor's where it rested on the box. "The nanites?" the Doctor asked, to make sure, and he nodded again.
Sylvia added her nod, then asked, "How long will it take?"
"We'll begin seeing improvement within a few minutes, though the entire process will take several hours. We'll know whether it's working very quickly, though."
"Do it, then. And Doctor... thank you." She touched his cheek, tears prickling, and then leaned over swiftly to plant a kiss on her Dad's forehead before returning to the group.
"All right, then. Wilf, I'm sorry, but this is going to be uncomfortable." The Doctor pulled out his sonic while he was talking, and pulsed it over the patient's chest a few times. "Sterilization," he answered the query in his eyes. "Now," he went on, opening the metal box and pulling out what looked like a huge, swollen, dark red leech. "This thing isn't alive, though it looks like it is. It's going to send bunches of teeny-tiny little feelers though your skin to find several veins for injecting the nanites, so you're going to feel like a pincushion here for a bit." He carefully placed the leech onto Wilf's abdomen below his heart. After a moment, Wilf gasped and tensed his stomach muscles. "No, try to relax," the Doctor told him, and after a few moments he was able to slowly let go again, as he got used to the pricking and realized it wasn't going to get worse.
"Why not aerosol?" asked Rose, remembering the nanites during the London Blitz. "That's much easier."
"Yes, but those work best on surface injuries, on or right below the skin. For very deep tissue, needing lots of repair, like this, it's better to inject them directly into the bloodstream."
Mike had stepped back over to the diagnostic monitor, adjusting the display and adding new parameters. River joined him, stepping to his side and working with him as seamlessly as if they'd been teamed for years. "Gah! Where's the Tais'ta freq-mod setting?" Mike complained.
"There," she replied, poking though the on-screen menus and digging it out. "I told you we should have brought the new model back with us." She turned to the Doctor. "How many times have I told you to upgrade this thing? – Oh, never mind. Mark this as the first time – of many."
"It works just fine!" he huffed back.
"And that's what you always say." She murmured something in another language to Mike, who snorted, replying in the same tongue, too low for anyone else to catch, even with the TARDIS' translator.
The Doctor shot an evil glare at their backs before returning to Wilf's heart with his stethoscope. Several tense moments passed before the Doctor and Mike both announced in unison, "It's working!", and a long sigh of relief swept through the room. Sylvia's tears, forcibly held back till now, sprang forth for real, and she turned to Donna beside her (still seeming frozen in shock), pulling her around into a hug. Donna returned it a beat later, and they clung to each other in relief.
Over the next half hour, Wilf's color and breathing steadily improved, until he reached up himself and removed the no-longer-needed oxygen mask. "Thank you, Doctor," he breathed, still weak.
"Better?" came the beaming reply.
"Yes, much. You can tell your ship to stop whispering at me, now."
"What?"
"Ever since the first pain, on the beach, she's been whispering in my mind, keeping me awake. Beautiful things. Music, songs. I'll never forget them. Please... tell her thank you for me."
Utterly surprised, the Doctor stared at the patient on the bed, while he sent a mental query to the mind of the Time Ship. *You've been doing that? Why?* He'd never known her to contact anyone else like that before.
*Because you care* the whisper wound itself through his mind in reply, unusually verbal for the ship.
He smiled back at Wilf. "She knows."