Chapter 15 – The Tweakin' Gene

The Doctor ran a scan on the TARDIS the next morning after Penelope had made them breakfast. The Doctor hadn't eaten it, of course.

His father invited himself into the console room for the scan, revealing the TARDIS was still ill but starting to get better. The Doctor was still feeling the effects, however.

"Perhaps if I might take a look, Theta?" Ulysses asked.

Wordlessly the Doctor stepped back out of Ulysses' way. He looked at the monitor, tapping a few keys on the console.

"It appears to be a strain of influenza," Ulysses said, looking at the Doctor who was just stood there silently. "I recall a case like this with Rigono's TARDIS. I can help you."

"How so?" the Doctor asked.

"A simple mogrification circuit switch will help her breathe," Ulysses told him, looking down at the floor plate that gave access to the TARDIS workings. He bent down and pulled it free.

"Are you sure?" the Doctor asked, slightly apprehensive. He was feeling very protective. The only person he'd ever let down there unsupervised was Jack. But still, this was his father, and his father was very good with TARDIS repairs.

"I am always sure, boy," Ulysses replied seriously. "Do you want her to heal or not?"

The Doctor nodded quickly. "Yes, Father, sorry."

"Very well," he said, dropping down into the workings.

Ulysses and the Doctor spent the entire day working on the TARDIS. Lunch and dinner had been and gone, and the Doctor had not taken part in them under the watchful eye of Ulysses.

The Doctor was handing him tools down through the grating hole, watching his father at work. He hated to admit it, but he was learning from what his father did. Much in the way a human boy would learn about fixing a car from his dad, he supposed.

"This, Theta, is the feed reversal loop shell..." Ulysses said, holding up a spherical component. "And it appears to be in backwards."

"Thought I'd try it," the Doctor replied, shrugging and smiling.

Ulysses looked at him for a moment, before his mouth seemed to turn up at the corners... just slightly. "Well, experimenting with her is all well and good, Theta, but there some parts you just can't move around."

"The only difference I noticed was the food machine starting serving turkey when you asked for chicken."

"It's a power concentrator, it means you lose more energy than you would normally with every flight. What are you using to power her without the Eye? Hand me the yearkle, would you?"

"Energy from a rift," the Doctor replied, taking the yearkle from the tools and handing it down.

"Oh? And that works?"

"With the extrapolator I've got, yeah."

"That's very resourceful, well done, boy."

The Doctor had to have a moment to take that in, his eyes gazing off into nothingness. Did his father just say well done? To him? He was resourceful? He couldn't remember that ever happening before. Maybe Rose was right. Maybe if he just talked to his father, said sorry and tried to clear things up, maybe, just maybe...

He realised the pause had gone on for too long, so he quickly cleared his throat and looked back down. "Thanks."

They sank into silence again as Ulysses put the feed reversal loop shell back in the right way around.

The Doctor decided this was probably going to be the best time to do it. He probably wasn't going to get another opportunity like this. So he cleared his throat again and shifted to a new sitting position on the grating.

"Father," he began.

"Yes?"

"... I'm really sorry."

Ulysses suddenly looked up at him, pausing in his work. His eyes narrowed. "Theta, I can never forgive you for what you did to our race. There was no reason in the universe..."

"No, no," the Doctor interrupted quickly. "I... I don't expect forgiveness for that. I haven't even forgiven myself. What I meant was, I'm sorry that... Well, I'm just sorry for who I am and what I've done to you."

"Theta..."

"No, look Father, I know I've always been this disappointment to you, you expected me to go in one direction and I always took the other. I suppose I was doing those things to make myself happy, I never considered what it... Well... What it might do to you. I'm sorry for that."

"Oh, Theta," Ulysses sighed, making to sit up to look him directly in the eyes. "Despite what you might think of me, there was never a moment when you weren't my son. I have always cared for you. Maybe your mother and I have slightly different ideas on how to raise you, but I believed if I was not tough on you, you would never be strong. I had hoped rather than fearing the monsters in the shadows you would fear me more. And look at what you have turned out to be."

The Doctor swallowed slightly. "... Thank you."

"Now hand me the brockan 54 and let's mend this utter mess you've made of your TARDIS."

The Doctor grinned, handing him the tool.

"Can see where he gets his tweakin' obsession from," said a voice from the doorway, and the Doctor looked up to see Rose standing there grinning.

"Get back into bed," the Doctor drawled.

"I need you help to me."

"Do what?"

Rose glanced at Ulysses. "Umm..." She raised a hand to her mouth and hissed, "have a bath!"

"Oh," the Doctor said dumbly, looking back at his father with his hands inside the inner workings of his TARDIS.

"Get going then, boy," Ulysses ordered, head still inside the console.

The Doctor nodded and got up, running over to Rose and starting off down the corridor.

"You've been in the same room with him all day," Rose noted.

"We've been talking."

"Yeah? What about?"

"... Stuff," he replied with a sniff. "I think... I think it might be getting better."

"That's good!" Rose told him, stopping him to hug him one-handed. "I'm happy. What did you say?"

"I said I was sorry for how I've made him feel."

"That was a good idea," Rose said, sounding impressed. "Doesn't sound like it was yours at all."

He laughed, gazing into her eyes. "Not as such."

She didn't even bother asking, just kissing him. That was one of the many reasons he loved her. She would never force him to explain anything she didn't think was important for him to say. When she had asked him about his father, that had been something he had needed to say.

"Theta!" came a sudden shriek from the hallway, and the Doctor and Rose turned to see Penelope running down the corridor, utterly panicked. "It's Alex! I don't know what's happening!"

The Doctor's eyes widened. "Alex?" he yelled, then tore down the corridor past his mother and towards the nursery. "Alex!"

The Doctor ran into the nursery to find his son lying on the floor, his face swollen up and barely able to breathe. He knelt down instantly scooping the boy up in both arms. Even as Penelope and Rose reached the room, the Doctor was already running back out of it to the Infirmary.

"What is it?" Rose asked anxiously, her heart racing in her chest as Penelope helped her to the Infirmary where the Doctor was already running around in a frenzy, Alex lying unmoving on one of the beds.

"I was playing with him when he started crying, then he threw up and his face started swelling, then he couldn't breathe..." Penelope said, barely able to calm her hysteria. "It all happened to fast! What's wrong with him?"

"Anaphylaxis!" the Doctor yelled, running back over to Alex with heaps of medications in his arms, throwing them onto the bed and rummaging through. Rose hobbled as fast as she could over to the bed to put an arm around Alex, barely able to contain herself at the sight of their son looking so pale and ill.

"You're gonna be okay, sweetheart, I swear, Mummy and Daddy are here..." Rose said over and over again, cupping his head and kissing him. His chest was rising and falling erratically, his little teary eyes gazing around trying to make sense of what was happening to him.

"Where's the epinephrine?" the Doctor practically shrieked, throwing all the medicines onto the floor and jumping off of the bed to hunt again. "Rose, tell me if he passes out!"

Rose choked a barely audible "yes" and looked down at Alex again, stroking his swollen face. "Stay with me, sweetheart, Daddy's fixing you, stay here..."

But he was becoming more and more lethargic, and hives were breaking out. Then he closed his eyes.

"No, Alex! Open your eyes, open them..."

He didn't.

"Doctor!" Rose yelled.

"Got it!" the Doctor yelled, bolting over with an Epi-Pen in hand, almost tripping over his own feet. He dropped to sit on the bed and jabbed it into Alex's thigh. He held it there for a few seconds, then took it out, staring at Alex's face.

"Come on," he urged the boy. "You're all right, you're okay... Everything's fine..."

"Is he okay?" Penelope asked anxiously.

"He will be," the Doctor answered quickly, linking the boy up to a few monitors.

"What the hell caused that?" Rose asked, still struggling to calm her hysteria.

"Did you have anything usual in the room that he touched?" the Doctor asked his mother, and she shook her head. "Did you have anything on your fingers?"

"I washed my hands," Penelope replied quietly.

Alex's face was started to go down now, and he opened his eyes, looking around.

"Hello," Rose said to him, smiling. "Welcome back, you scared us, sweetheart."

Alex just yawned and settled down, seemingly absolutely nonchalant as though nothing had happened at all.

"I'll keep him here overnight, check he's all right," the Doctor explained, kissing the boy gently and moving to get some more medications.

Rose nodded. "But what caused it?"

"Perhaps he ate something?" Penelope wondered.

"He's on breastmilk, nothing else," Rose replied.

"Maybe something you ate?" the Doctor asked her, sitting down on Alex's bed again to administer them.

"Is that possible?"

"Maybe. What have you had to eat today?"

"The usual," Rose replied. "Cornflakes, sandwich. Nothing I haven't had before while breastfeeding him."

"Hold on, I'll scan him," the Doctor said, bolting off across the room again.

"What is going on in here? Penelope? Theta?" Ulysses entered in a flourish of a robe, looking around at the sight with his ever-present sense of authority.

"Alex had a very bad allergic reaction, Ulysses," Penelope explained.

"I see. Did you treat him with epinephrine, Theta?"

"Yes, Father," the Doctor replied as he came back holding a strange metal contraption.

"Good, well done boy," Ulysses replied, bouncing on his toes. "Have we any idea what caused it?"

"Just checking now, Father," the Doctor answered, kissing Alex and muttering a few comforting words before he calibrated the device in his hand and ran it down Alex. It beeped, and he checked the readout. Then he blinked, staring at the screen in complete disbelief.

"Doctor?" Rose asked from where she sat on Alex's bed, stroking back his hair.

The Doctor slowly looked up, staring at them all. "He's... He's ingested aspirin."

"What?" Penelope gasped.

"How did that happen?" Rose almost demanded to know.

The Doctor's eyebrows lowered, frowning deeply. "... Did anyone give him aspirin at all today? Even by mistake?"

He was met with negative silence.

"... Do we even have any aspirin?" the Doctor wondered seriously.

He was met with more silence. His eyes rested on Rose.

"What you lookin' at me for?"

"A direct shot probably would've killed him, so it had to have come secondarily..." he reasoned, looking at her. "And all he has is your breast-milk."

She blinked. "Are you sayin' I took some aspirin we don't even have?"

"I'm saying that I can't figure out any other possibility," the Doctor amended quickly. "Could you have taken one by accident?"

"No, I haven't touched any," Rose almost snapped.

"Okay," the Doctor replied, running hand down his face. He swiftly changed the subject. "Everyone, it's bedtime and we're keeping Alex up."

Everyone nodded. Penelope hugged the Doctor in reassurance, before slipping out the door after Ulysses. The Doctor and Rose both took seats by Alex's bed as Rose tucked Alex in, the boy still yawning.

"Hey, you get a big person's bed tonight," she told him, smiling. He made a squeaking sound and extended his arms for a hug, to which she obliged, kissing him. "Go to sleep, sweetheart."

Alex didn't seem to want to until he got a goodnight from his Dad. The Doctor leant forward and kissed him. "Good night, Alex."

Finally Alex settled, content he'd gotten a goodnight from both parents. The Doctor and Rose just sat beside him, staying silent until he was asleep.

"Rose..." the Doctor began in a whisper.

"Yeah?" she asked quietly, stroking back Alex's hair.

"... Did you take an aspirin?"

She jerked her head up to look at him, eyes narrowing.

"If it was a mistake that's fine, really..." the Doctor quickly continued before she became angry. But it didn't seem to help.

"Of course I bloody didn't!" she hissed.

"It's really okay if it was a mistake..."

"Well, I didn't!" she snapped. "Are you sayin' I'm a liar? I would never do that! How could you think I would? I know how sick aspirin makes you, I saw it, Doctor. You were sick for days. I would never, ever have taken it knowin' it might pass through to Alex."

"Okay, okay..."

"You don't believe me, do you?"

"I do, Rose, I do," the Doctor said quickly. "But... there's no other way he could have ingested it..." His face suddenly dropped, his eyes looking down at Alex lying dwarfed in the huge bed as his voice descended to a mumble. "... My Mum made you lunch."

"What?"

"... She knew he was potentially anaphylactic," he said lowly, looking beyond deflated. "What if... What if you didn't know you were taking it? What if she crushed up a pill and put it in your drink?"

Rose stared at him, jaw agape. "... No. No way. She loves Alex, she wouldn't do that."

"If you've got another explanation, please, please tell me," he said quietly.

"Okay, right," Rose began, thinking hard. "If she was trying to kill him, why would she run out and tell us when he was reacting? She could've pretended she wasn't there. And she was really worried, Doctor. You could see it."

The Doctor looked up at her, slowly nodding. "Okay, that makes sense. But if it wasn't her, who was it?"

"Right, so it wasn't you or me or your Mum, that leaves your Dad or Leah."

"Well, Leah definitely didn't do it, and my Father was with me all day."

Rose frowned. "Then who was it?"

"I don't know," the Doctor muttered, running a hand through his hair. "But this... I know we don't even have any aspirin, there's no proof... But this was attempted murder."

Rose stared at him.

He caught her look. "Just... keep an eye on both of them."

"... Do you trust them?"

"... I thought I did. But some seriously strange things have been happening around here since they arrived... The TARDIS, the car..."

"That was an accident...?"

"It was mechanical failure. Very low-level Time Lord science," the Doctor replied simply. "I could've done that with the sonic. Either one of them could have caused that with ease, timed it to you walking out..."

"You mean one of your parents have tried to kill me and Alex?"

The Doctor held up his hands. "Look, I'm just saying it's a bit odd these accidents are happening. In my experience accidents like this don't really happen so close together, looking so unrelated but... so coincidental." He paused, looking at her. "Maybe it is just coincidence, but please, please, keep Leah and Alex close."

She nodded.

A/N: Review reply this chapter, quiz away! :D