It seemed such a relatively simple plan. Get to hospital, find Jessica and Elizabeth, catch up on everything that's going on. It's not even a plan, it's the prelude to the events that will inevitably lead to disasters requiring plans.
The Doctor isn't the sort of man to panic, but a little twitter goes through his hearts at the thought – if he can't even manage his preludes anymore, what's going to happen when it comes the time for plans? If his prelude can be ruined by one gargantuan nurse in concrete-grey scrubs the size of a small garden marquee refusing to let him through one little door, what can he expect next time there's an entire planet in danger?
Clara sighs, "Just show him your magic I.D. thing."
"I don't have it."
"What?"
"I was caught in a police cordon and Jessica did it for me. I assume that's how she got in, Elizabeth hanging off her, no doubt, not a one of them thinking to wait for me and-"
"Wait," the mammoth nurse interrupts. He's suddenly nervous, running a hand over his thin hair, licking his thick lips. "You're… You're here with Agent Apple, Agent Goode?" Oh so they're agents now!, he thinks. It feels like frustration. If you were to suggest to him maybe he's a bit annoyed that he's not an agent, he'd… he might even have to agree with you. "They did say they were waiting for an assistant…"
"Assistant!" the Doctor balks, but the nurse is lifting a phone, and Clara's elbow shoves sharply into his ribs. "Yes, yes, that's us, assistants, no question about it."
"We assist," Clara helps.
"We have made an art of assisting. In fact you might say I have a doctorate in it." This last comment earns him another jab, leaves him wondering just how many elbows Clara's bony arms contain.
There's a brief, hushed conversation on the phone while the nurse takes instructions. Then he wedges his enormous bulk out of his chair and moves in rolling steps towards the sealed doors behind him. "You need to understand," he says, punching in a code, "beyond this point you're in a government quarantine zone. Anything you see or experience is strictly confidential. Anything you catch is at your own risk. And, given you're their assistants I'm sure you already know this, but I'm under orders to tell everybody – the Special Agents are in charge of the operation, nobody breathes up there without running it past them."
"Have you met th-Ow!? Alright, that was definitely a third elbow, Clara, where are you keeping them?"
"It's the same one, it's just overworked."
There's a cursory inspection of their hands and the soles of their shoes, and a long couple of floors packed into the corners of a lift around the nurse. "I have met them, actually," he says. "And they're nicer than any other federal types we've ever had in here."
"I'll bet they are."
"Doctor, I may be too far from you to jab you again, but shut up."
The nurse continues, "They know my name when I bring people up." Before they part, the mirrored inside of the lift doors show the warm, glowing smile on his face. A smile spreads across the Doctor's face too. How can he stay annoyed, with his wonderful friends doing him proud like that? "Just out of interest," the nurse adds, turning onto the sterile corridor, "how do you communicate with Agent Apple? Is it notes, sign language? I couldn't get to the bottom of it."
The Doctor, once he has checked that Clara's brow is furrowed up too, begins to beg the man's pardon. But there isn't a chance. The corridor splits, one branch straight ahead, another making a sharp right. Then they both turn again, boxing in a room which is all glass and observation and instruments and beeping machines. From experience, the Doctor might expect this environment to be busy, hiving, full of people. Here, however, there is a surprising level of calm. Two attendant doctors in their long white coats are making notes from beyond the windows.
Looking into the room itself, he hardly notices at first that Clara's breath is stopped in her throat, and she's staring at the object of all this attention.
The young man has been cleaned of the dust and debris from the pit and put to bed. That's all to be expected, although the granny-square blanket tucked in around him does not look like hospital issue. Nor, for that matter, are a lot of the medicines and accoutrements laid out on the benches. There are lot of things lying around that look like twigs and mud and sorts of moss. Then there's Lizzie, going amongst these things, treating them all with equal respect.
"Clara, these are, respectively, the young man and the suspected witch I've been telling you about."
"Right." That should have cleared everything up. But her brow is still knit, and she's still staring. He looks at her, waiting for the follow-up question. She shakes her head when she notices, "Nothing, nothing…" She's still thinking far too hard for his liking. He keeps watching. Clara shakes her head again, "No, you won't like it."
"Won't like what?"
"I get nervous when I know Jessica's around somewhere and I can't see her."
"Go up on your tiptoes."
The little extra height lets her see across the body of the sleeping man. There, on the other side of the bed, looking up at the ceiling, lips moving faster than a nun going through a rosary, is Jessica. "Oh. Yes, now I feel better. What's she doing?"
"Not a clue. Let's get in and ask her."
The seals on the door hiss as they're released. The tiny room, no longer soundproof, spills glorious noise into the hall; a mess of machine sound and The Beatles on the radio and Lizzie talking to herself and her plants. Somewhere underneath all this is a tiny current of whispering, which stops as soon as Jessica's head picks up from the pillow. Whispering, then. Apparently she was whispering. Now she's on her way across the room, in about three steps and as many seconds, to hug the Doctor around the ribs, flinging out an arm for Clara too.
Over the top of her head, the Doctor looks to Lizzie. She points at the radio, "I know this song," then at a cardiac monitor, "and I know what that does."
"You will get used to that."
"It's been nearly three days."
"Well, it's a lot to get used to. And you!" He prises Jessica from him, so quickly she forgets to let go of Clara and almost drags her over. "Why aren't you talking to anybody? And I warn you, if you say anything less convincing and evidenced than laryngitis, I'll… I'll think of a semi-threatening threat."
"Is being easier. Not questions her then. Talks for SleepyAdam, though. Is telling histories, so that him am not to be gets confused when is wakes up."
Lizzie smiles to a potted amaryllis, "I keep having to correct her. It's turning the years 2013-2086 into my specialist subject."
Clara goes to the empty body. She murmurs the new name, 'Adam', and she murmurs the year of his hollowing out. The Doctor watches her but, since Lizzie seems to be the one with all the information, he has a few more questions for her. "Anything on the patient?"
She sways her head, "Still don't know what's the matter with him, if it can be fixed, how to fix it. We were waiting for you."
"That's kind of you. Why?"
"…I had this wild notion you might know more than us."
"Never more than you."
Lizzie rolls her eyes. "You keep saying things like that. We did find one thing that might help, I suppose." From the messes on her bench, she pulls out a small white card and passes it to him. "A business card. Same era as the newspaper. There's a fingerprint on it which doesn't belong to Adam."
The Doctor doesn't need to know about the fingerprint. He doesn't need to know anything, from the moment he looks at the card.
"Clara."
She glances back, then takes it from him. Reads aloud, "Louis Sieverts. Doctor, you don't think-"
"Yes, I do."
She points at the man under the crochet blanket. "And this… this happened… in the year we just left. Doctor, did-?"
"Yes. Actually, that's the question I was answering the first time. Surprised it took you two stages to get there. Stay here, keep talking to Adam. Lizzie, do what you do, keep trying. Jessica, come with me."
"Where am goes?"
He doesn't have to answer her, she'll follow anyway. And if he can just breeze out of here in one big swoop of his coat, Clara won't have time to question it. Maybe later on she'll remember him telling her that she couldn't go anywhere without him. But that will keep her here. That will keep her in a government quarantine zone, behind two air-locked doors, a passworded elevator and a physically and psychologically immovable nurse.
And thinking all of this, he thinks of something else. Turns so quickly that Jessica almost treads on his toes with stopping and tells her, "No. On second thoughts, you stay here. In case you're needed to protect the patient."
She looks up, blue eyes gone honest and wide, "But who am then to be protecting Doctor?"
He grabs her into a hug. Pretending just to be grateful and happy with her but while he has her close and no one else can hear he hisses the truth; "Jessica, Clara could be in massive danger. She doesn't know it and you mustn't let her, but I want you to be her guardian. Just us, big secret, alright?"
She steps back, with a military nod and a small salute. "Right yes. SleepyAdam am being most important objective." While no one can see, she gives a sweetly-exaggerated wink.
He's halfway back to the lift when she figures it out and scatters into the hall, "But where am goes?"
"Doesn't matter," he tells her, knowing the doors will be closed before she can reach him. "Trouble usually finds me."