"The Benevolent Doctor"
14. One Poor Soul
Sometime in New New York
Tried as they might have, the rest of the day had not seen the promise of any kind of progress. When night had fallen, the Doctor, Martha, and Santana were offered beds. It was not difficult to fit them in; they did have a pair of empty beds. The Doctor had taken Alfred's bed in the boys' room, while Martha and Santana shared Agnes' bed in the girls' room. A few times he had gone to look in on them and found them sleeping, the smaller girl leaning to Martha like a child prone to nightmares might lean to its mother.
He had been a witness to this due to the fact that while the pair of them were sleeping soundly, he on the other hand had not been able to close his eyes at all. He'd lie in the missing cat boy's bed, staring at the ceiling for a while, and then he'd get up out of frustration and go look in on the girls for a while, before he made it back to his borrowed bed and repeated the entire cycle.
Finally, morning had come. All cats great and small were still purring soundly in their beds when it came, a loud rap at the door. Being the only one awake, as far as he knew, the Doctor had sprung from the bed and hurried to the door, though by how quickly after Brannigan and Valerie had joined him, he couldn't see how they would have been sleeping either. The Doctor had been about to go for the door, but Valerie had pushed ahead of him and opened it herself.
A tall and muscular man had bustled through as soon as the way was open, carrying a load of blankets.
"I was out on morning deliveries when I spotted him. The poor thing, he was just walking by all sort of confused, didn't know me at all when I went to him, and he collapsed in my arms," the man explained, laying down the blankets, which were not exclusively blankets at all.
"Alfred!" Valerie gasped and crouched at her son's side. When they saw him, both the Doctor and Brannigan were stunned.
"I don't understand what's happened to him," the tall man looked stricken, and the Doctor would peg him for being a father himself. He went and crouched across from Valerie, pulling out the sonic screwdriver. He showed it to the mother first, for consent, and she nodded rapidly. Brannigan had disappeared, and when he returned half a minute later, a barely awake Martha was behind him.
"What's happening, why…" she started, until the Doctor looked back, and the medical student saw the boy on the floor. "What…" she breathed, moving quickly to the boy's side.
"He's still breathing, help me move him," the Doctor told the others. The delivery man had taken the task up alone, carrying Alfred up to Brannigan and Valerie's room, as they requested. By then, little by little, the other children had begun to wake, confused by all the activity, but their mother and father kept them from the room where their brother was being examined by the Doctor and Martha; they didn't want them to see what had been done to him… They weren't even entirely sure they knew what it was.
The first and easiest conclusion they could reach was that something had been done to him, or at least had been in the process of being done, and something had gone wrong, a bad reaction.
"Doctor," Martha was holding the boy's arm and staring at an area, one of many, where his fur looked to have receded. There was a great big discolored welt, which was already the second mark they found on him, after they'd removed a bandage at the back of his neck. "It's like… like…" She couldn't even bring herself to say it, the thought was too impossible. "They tried to take away the half of him that's not human," she finally made herself say it. "But they can't, he couldn't…" she shook her nerves away, getting back on track.
Only at that exact moment, Alfred began to convulse. "He's rejecting it," the Doctor stood back, muttering to himself, trying to think, while Martha moved to turn the boy on his side. "Yes!" he suddenly exclaimed, and Martha stared at him, frowning. "Just a minute!" he dashed out of the room.
"Doctor!" Martha called after him, then seeing the crowd of them outside the door, staring in horror, she frowned, taking charge again. "Brannigan, in here, shut the door!" she told him, and the boy's father did as told. "Hold him," she told the man, and he did so, while she wished very much that they were in a hospital, where she might be better equipped to deal with this. She didn't know what his system was like, being half cat, but one way or the other, there would be a way to…
When the Doctor came barging back into the room, he was lugging a large crate, which he deposited on the side of the bed and opened, rummaging through until he could find a smaller tin box, from which he pulled out what looked like no more than a gel pack. But he applied it to Alfred's forehead, and after a few more frightening seconds, the boy stopped, and he fell back in Brannigan's arms, sleeping. The room was very silent, save for much labored breathing. The boy was laid out to rest once more, and they stood back.
"Will he… Is he…" Brannigan turned to the Doctor.
"Might not be completely out of trouble, but this will help some…" he barely had time to say before he was caught up in a massive cat hug.
"Thank you, Doctor… And you, Martha," he turned to look at her. "Don't know what we would have done if you hadn't been here…" The words were heartfelt; they were also eye opening.
"Yes… We are here, aren't we…" the Doctor spoke to himself, and Martha waited to see what he would say next. "You called me… You needed help…" He looked back to Alfred. "Now we know why, don't we? The timing was wrong, not the need. Brannigan, you need to call me, so we'll come."
"But you are here, Doctor…"
"Because you called me. Now make the call."
TO BE CONTINUED (TUESDAY)