"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you..."
Paul Steamer was crawling on all fours, stopping and clutching her right side from time to time - her pale violet shirt was ripped and soaked in blood right there. She had managed to escape into the TARDIS, but that was when her plans had failed. One of the guards (overgrown meatballs!) had wounded her. Or rather had almost "suckered her to death": Paul had seen that there had been some kind of toothed holes on his three-fingered, like Sontaran, hands, and one of them had clung to her side, this is why it was pulsing with pain now.
Finally Paul reached the console and stood up, leaning on it to get rid of dizziness. No life-important organs seemed to be hurt, but nevertheless... It is incredible that sometimes it all depends on one single string, Paul thought. Wobbling from side to side, as if drugged, she made her way to the huge box next to one of the ways to the depths of the time machine and began digging in it, fighting with darkness filling her mind.
"Hello, old friend", Paul weakly grinned, having found the thing she was searching for. It was a long smooth cane, black with green top - that very one with special functions, which the Doctor hadn't told her when it had been needed. A sonic cane. If sonic screwdrivers had a function of healing minor damages, then it was to have it as well, so Paul aimed it at her side and pressed the cunningly hidden button on the handle.
She didn't know how much time passed (there were two or three times when she was ready to slip into oblivion, but didn't give up) before the TARDIS doors creaked open.
"Paul! Wait, what are you doing?!"
"How the heck did you get here?" Paul hissed, raising the cane in what she thought was a threatening gesture. The world was still swimming in front of her eyes, but she realized that this was one of those lab assistants. The young one, without too much scientific scepticism, but nevertheless not better than any of those who had called her "possible hybrid" or "bred", despite her more than obvious being a pure-blood human with no mixtures.
"Look". The young man produced a TARDIS key hanging on a chain from under his shirt. "Paul, didn't you recognize me? I distracted the guards for you to get away".
"You didn't put too much effort, I see", Paul muttered through clenched teeth.
"That Devor could've drunk all of you!" the young man exclaimed. "I could ask the TARDIS, and she could tell what to do with you".
"Why would she?"
"They must've beaten the brains out of you". The young man sighed. "I've also seen what they did to Doctor-daddy. And the Impossible Kids escaped, they're working on it as well. I saw them".
"Hold it..." Paul dropped the cane. "Johnny-Jimmy? What the steampunk did they do to you?"
"Took up the ideas of Miss Trunchbull from Dahl's Matilda. Turning kids into adults". Maybe it was because of Paul's now-blurred perception of the world, but she only now began recognizing him, though he had been a child like any of the Impossible Kids less than a day ago, and now he looked at least twenty. "I guess I spoilt their settings", he showed his sonic screwdriver, which now could be hidden in his fist, and then rolled the sleeve of his white lab coat up, showing something like a chip inserted into his wrist. "They managed to turn me into an adult, but my minds stayed the same".
"And you tricked them", Paul mumbled, having slid onto the floor. Johnny-Jimmy shrugged and leaned onto the console, listening to beeping and chirping of the TARDIS. "W-wait..."
"First you wait", Johnny-Jimmy asked. "She's talking".
Having listened to the directions understandable only to him, he vanished in the farthest corridor and returned with a small can filled with greenish sticky ointment, which smelled more with nature than with science - this was the only thing that Paul could tell about this smell.
"What is it?" she asked, when Johnny-Jimmy began spreading it over the mess on her side. A typical scene for reacting and beginning romantic theories, the voice in her head said. Yeah. But Johnny-Jimmy was a child, and besides her friend.
"Doctor-daddy used it for mending things. Directing and all". After the procedure was done, Johnny-Jimmy produced his sonic again and aimed it at the green spot now covering Paul's bottom ribs (more exactly, at the place where chest and belly were joined) at the right. Immediately, fresh skin began growing on its place, while the ointment got dried and started falling off like fish scales. The pain reduced as well, and soon the only thing remained from injury was slight dizziness. "But the TARDIS told me we cannot use it on you anymore, at least today".
"Why?"
"This stuff is like nanobots, but advanced. It can be used for renewing many things, not only bodies. I've set the sonic to healing", Johnny-Jimmy explained. "But its side-effect is draining power - you cannot find such small batteries, eh?"
"Fine logic... Still, what did they do to the Doctor? And where are the Impossible Kids?"
"At first I need to come out. The scientists are suspicious about me..."
"I'm not going to leave you". Paul grabbed the sonic cane and hit her palm with it two or three times - this gesture usually means a wish to give someone a good beat. "And tell me nothing, JJ".
A/N: Pauline "Paul" Steamer is "a regular thing in up-to-date world - a girl in unisex clothing and with a male name". She's a girl from Earth whose time-and-space adventures started all of a sudden, but this is a different story.
Johnny-Jimmy is the Doctor's adopted child who lived in the TARDIS since he was one (this is why he's able to understand her). He's not as clever as his quarter-Timelord pals, but he's brave and witty.
The human quest is about to be added! So, tell me what you think - comments are awesome!