"The Benevolent Doctor"
6. Doctor Meet Doctor
Sometime in New New York
Martha had been uncertain about leaving their stowaways back at the house with the Brannigan children, but the Doctor insisted they would be fine, as did Valerie. Though she still felt there was more motive beneath both of their assurances, she had eventually let it go. The four of them, the Doctor and Martha and the cat man and his wife did not have to walk on very far before they came across the man they were looking for. When Valerie had said that she'd run into him, it might have seemed as though this was an uncommon thing, happenstance, but both the Doctor and Martha soon began to think otherwise.
They could believe that the man was merely familiar with his surroundings, but he knew all those people he passed, their names, their families' names, and enough of the condition of their lives that he might have been the sole doctor of a very small town rather than one pitched at the heart of New New York. After some minor prodding, the Doctor was able to get some information about this Doctor Benedict and how he'd come to hold such a place among the people of the city.
Doctor Everett Wallace Benedict had come to New New York six years prior. What had brought him to the city initially might have simply been the prospect of seeing the expansion it was presently going through, the once great city reduced to so little now taking a new upswing… Only that 'up' turn had not come without a few dips back down, and one of those had been of an epidemic. Dr. Benedict had arrived right when the people were at their most desperate and volatile, with the sick doing their best to tend to their own and to themselves while the healthy did all they could to stay that way.
And he'd saved them all. Some would say he had single-handedly become their savior, others would say he had worked in conjunction with the already established system. One way or the other, the good doctor had become something of a hero, especially to those who had been struck by the illness and cured of it. Rather than leaving the city behind once everything was taken care of, Dr. Benedict had settled down in New New York, in his great big mansion.
He continued to interest himself in the people he had helped, whether they'd become ill or not, and the people continued to be interested in him, too. When they found out that he was not only a healer but a researcher, conducting experiments in hopes of developing more cures and treatments, the people of the city had become very keen to help him in any way they could. This included submitting themselves as test subjects to his varied experiments.
"Aren't these experiments dangerous?" Martha asked, frowning at the thought of these people going in on faith alone.
"Oh, there have been side effects, sure," Brannigan shrugged.
"But they get along fine," Valerie insisted. "It's for the greater good."
"And that was all you needed to hear, wasn't it?" the Doctor spoke to them, though his eyes never left the ambling physician.
"What kind of experiments are they?" Martha wondered aloud. The silence was heavy with possibilities: the possibility that they wouldn't dare give the answer, or the possibility that they did not know it.
"Why don't we ask him?" the Doctor held up his arm with a smile, beckoning the man forward as he had managed to catch his eye.
"Doctor, please," Valerie tried to stop him.
"If he's as good as you say he is, what's there to worry about?" the Doctor told her before stepping forward and extending his hand. "Dr. Benedict, is it? Heard loads about you and I only just got here." Dr. Benedict looked to be in his fifties, late on, not so jovial but not harsh looking either.
"Ah, it's the Brannigans," Dr. Benedict turned to the pair of them after he'd shaken the Doctor's hand. "You two will be new to the city, is that so…"
"That'll be the Doctor…"
"Smith. Doctor Smith, call me John if you like," the Doctor cut in. "And this is my, uh… my apprentice, name of Martha Jones. She'll best both of us someday," he nodded to the man, clapping Martha on the shoulder and leaving the girl so stunned for a moment she stayed quiet and didn't bother to wonder about the Smith situation.
"A pleasure to meet you both," said Dr. Benedict, and he did look glad of it, which might have made Valerie's claims that he should be left alone a bit easier to trust, but the Doctor still couldn't shake the feeling this man was the reason why they had been called in to help, one way or the other.
"Our friends here say you've been in New New York for a number of years already, is that right?"
"Conditions have certainly improved since I first arrived," Dr. Benedict looked around. "I would hope I contributed to some of that."
"By the way they go on about you, I dare say you have."
"Yes, well, was it all six of yours who were bedridden, and Mrs. Brannigan as well," Benedict looked to the pair, though the Doctor could see his gaze turning to the cat man more than his wife.
"All the little ones and my Valerie, yes, and he nursed them back, every one," Brannigan confirmed, his hand going around his wife's shoulders.
"Well it was a pleasure meeting you Dr. Smith, Miss Jones," Benedict shook both of their hands, did the same with the others, lingering again on Brannigan, and then he went on his way.
"Now you've met him, will you forget him?" Valerie asked the Doctor, but the Time Lord had kept looking at the other man as he retreated, and when he did, he saw the doctor approach a man and a young girl, the man's daughter by the look of the pair. The girl could not have been more than twelve, and to the common observer she might have seemed fine, but the Doctor looked at her and she felt… wrong.
"Better get a move on, it's nearly time to eat, and the young ones will not do well with delay," Brannigan declared. "Doctor, Miss Martha, you are our guests. This way now."
TO BE CONTINUED (FRIDAY)