Sorry for the late update. Next will be during this week, I promise! I won't let wait this long again!
"I want tea."
"I'm going to give it to you as soon as possible, Doctor."
"You're currently investigating how long I can survive without food or water, aren't you?"
"No, Doctor, I'm only taking a blood sample. And after that I'm going to run a physical performance test in order to exclude food intolerances or possible allergies. Therefore I've already asked you for having a little patience."
"Has it ever occurred to you that I might not be very comfortable with having a so-called Doctor sticking needles into my body, injecting dubious remedies which probably haven't been tested on either humans or animals, and putting me on an IV while the only thing that I was asking for was a cup of tea?"
Martha folded her arms.
"Not to speak of the catheterization..." hissed the Doctor and folded his arms likewise after retorting a huffed glare. Martha rolled her eyes and sighed.
"I'm not a so-called doctor, I'm a physician, Doctor," she replied snappish.
"By human standards," growled the Doctor.
Martha sighed again in annoyance and started fumbling with a small flexible tube
"And your catheter needs to be replaced."
"Oh great, here we go again" the Doctor sighed and rested his head on the cushion as Martha pushed back the sheet.
"I've treated hamsters that had more patience than you," mumbled Martha quietly as she inserted a sterile plastic tube into the Doctors urethra.
The Doctor hissed in pain. "Like I said, Martha: Physician by human standards. Treating hamsters and Time Lords equally."
"Shut up" chuckled Martha.
She removed the Doctor's garment to take a look at his chest.
"Why are you even here?" asked the Doctor quietly as Martha put him on another IV. "Mh?" she replied without listening. "You're not part of those alien-chasing-species-eliminating-gun-loving-sex-toys of Captain Jack Harkness, are you?"
The Doctor had managed to get Martha's attention; she stared at him with her jaw dropped, wondering if he'd actually just said what she'd heard.
She mouthed the word 'sex toy' unbelievingly over and over again before muttering: "I'm... no, I..."
Then she chuckled and smiled at him and raised her eyebrows: "Well, what do you think?"
"I think you've pushed the flexible tube a bit too enthusiastic in," replied the Doctor and shifted uneasily. Martha looked down to spot the blood dripping into the catheter bag. She adjusted the catheter once more hurriedly and retorted a sheepish grin.
"Sorry," she hissed through gritted teeth.
"But I guess it's my own fault, isn't it?" asked the Doctor "I keep distracting you with my lamentations."
The Doctor let out a long drawn-out sigh and shook his head.
Martha sat down on the bed beside him and sighed several times, as if she was searching for the right words to tell him that there was probably something bad going to happen to him... though the Doctor wouldn't have believed her if she had told him that it could get worse... well, eventually she managed to face the Doctor earnestly.
"Jack asked me to keep an eye at you," she explained in a low voice "He said you'd need medical assistance. He even paid for my flight himself."
"Bloody Torchwood," mumbled the Doctor "Another fine exhibit for throwing money down the drain."
"I would have come either way," Martha cut in.
She touched one of the Doctor's hands gently.
The Doctor stared at her fingers as she stroked the palm of his hands.
"Because I knew that this was serious. And I don't want you to interrupt or contradict me. I mean it. Jack's voice on the phone... he sounded..."
"Disturbed? Frightened? Scared? At his wits end?" suggested the Doctor and growled under his breath.
"Uncertain," explained Martha "And Jack is never uncertain about anything in his life."
The Doctor nodded before interjecting: "Except maybe what to wear and which bodily cavity to try first."
Martha stared at him with disbelieving eyes before bursting out laughing. The Doctor chuckled quietly.
"He has trouble deciding on those things?" Martha giggled "Like: a(nal) before c(unt) except after o(ral)?"
The Doctor's jaw dropped; when he'd found the decency to close his moth again he added:
"Ms Jones, your behaviour appals me! I thought I had taught you a few manners."
"What? Doctor, we're in Torchwood. I thought you'd expect cheap and dirty jokes."
The Doctor nodded his ascent and chuckled: "I guess you're right. That's prerequisite for the job."
Both of them ended up laughing like mad as the Doctor added: "Torchwood. If it's alien it belongs to us. We ensure that we'll keep it locked up properly... and give it a good spanking from time to time..."
Martha shook her head. "You've never talked about kinky stuff, have you? What is it with you all of a sudden, Doctor? What's been loosening you up?"
"Jack" replied the Doctor "and actually I shouldn't be telling you this. I promised Jack that I wouldn't tell anyone about our sex life or his techniques of loosening me up."
"Eew, gross!" Martha burst out laughing again.
She calmed a bit down before adding, "And that wasn't what I meant."
The Doctor sighed and rested his head on the pillow. It was so good to find peace and calmness in a bed for once in a while. It was a relief not being forced onto an operating table and being strapped down before someone started rummaging through...
The Doctor flinched as Martha touched his hands again. She backed away irritated.
"Sorry," she mumbled "Did I...hurt you?" Judging by the low tone in her voice it was more a reproach than actually a question.
"My skin's a bit dry and itchy. Can't tell you what caused it, really. Might have something to do with wrong medication, you know, side effects or adverse reactions, wrong dose and probably even wrong protein-base of medicaments. But search me."
Martha took a closer look at the rash on his chest again.
" Lately I'm going tingly all over my body," concluded the Doctor and sighed again.
"Oh, that's no side effect, that's simply Jack," added Martha and smiled again before buttoning up the Doctor's shirt and patting the mattress beside him uneasily.
She was still fiddling with the bad news, the Doctor mused. Whatever they could have been. Sadly it wasn't a relief to know that they wouldn't make him feel any worse.
It couldn't get worse. It simply couldn't.
He felt as if he had already hit rock bottom weeks ago and still they tried to dig deeper and deeper...
The Doctor flinched.
He wouldn't even bother thinking about the Silurian surgeon anymore. He had stopped caring. All he wanted was to make sure that he wouldn't lay hands on him again; or at least as long as he was asleep, as long as he wouldn't notice it.
He had tried to convince himself that Rose had only been an illusion he had imagined due to his good-naturedness because he couldn't get his head around the fact that sometimes things happened without a reason.
That they simply happened; and just bad things without good things to follow.
Simple, no reasoned bad things you couldn't do anything against.
He was far too optimistic to believe any of that.
And he knew that knowing that Rose had attended his mutilation would have only made things worse.
The Doctor figured it was time for some good news after all.
So he ignored it. He lied to himself, crossing Rose beside the operating table out of his memories.
And he had to admit: Didn't work that bad.
If only he could forget about the torture, and the torment and the brat inside of his body...
A clenched fist hit his lower abdomen unintentionally, causing him to double over. The Doctor spat beside the bed and bit his lower lip.
His mind was a mess and he knew it.
His mind had become a mess as...
He didn't even want to think about it. He didn't even want to think, at all. He was far from his Tardis, Jack probably wouldn't let him come near her ever again, his screwdriver had been taken from him, the meds he had been injected with seemed to cause both red hot burning anger and black despair at the same time.
Had he been female and a human teenager he would have said that he had been on an emotional rollercoaster ride; but he wasn't and therefore he wouldn't. Besides it wouldn't have been remotely appropriate.
It could have been described more as kayaking down a waterfall on a bag filled with coconuts... the Doctor frowned at his own imagination and shook his head.
Those ideas were probably part of a side effect, too.
Or Martha had switched to a rather lovely hair conditioner which reminded him of coconuts.
The Doctor shrugged and stared at Martha, who was still evading his gaze while searching for the right words.
But she was so wrong. There aren't any wrong words or right words.
There's just words.
And the worst you can do is not to speak up at all...
"I have constant headaches," explained the Doctor; Martha blinked at him
He tried making it a bit easier for her by starting with his symptoms.
And he had to admit that his patience had seen better days; he felt rather twitchy and knew that sooner or later the tears would start filling his eyes or he would howl in rage.
And he was hoping that he made sense at least to himself.
"When did they start?" asked Martha and moved closer, extracting a stethoscope from her coat pocket.
"I can't remember," replied the Doctor quietly and dug his nails into the mattress.
He was quiet unpleased with Martha pressing the metal chest piece against his bare skin. Martha knew about two hearts inside of his body. But not about four...
Martha furrowed her brows and moved over the same spot again.
The Doctor gritted his teeth.
"Really, I can't remember, Martha," he repeated as if she hadn't heard him.
She popped the earpieces out of her ears and glared at him.
"Doctor, it's rather hard examining you when you keep talking. I can't understand a word you're saying because of the constant noises from your hearts, but I can't hear your hearts properly as long as you're talking to me. One at a time, please!"
She picked up the stethoscope again and adjusted it once more.
"Not knowing when his symptoms had started..." mumbled Martha while mocking the Doctor quietly "Calls himself a Time Lord and doesn't know anything about time."
"Martha, it may not appear to you like this but time is more than hours, days and months..." hissed the Doctor between gritted teeth.
"Well, I thought you were supposed to tell time, not to tell me about time," replied Martha and sat up again.
"I'm a superior race, Martha" snapped the Doctor and leaned back in his bed once more, trying to get used to the feeling of Martha palpating his chest "Not a bloody clock."
"Will you shut it, for a moment?" Martha snapped all of a sudden. The Doctor folded his arms and cocked an eyebrow at her.
"Seriously Doctor, would you be so kind as to stop talking for a moment? I've heard something... I think I'm on to something..."
"You could be right about that," the Doctor breathed out slowly and dug his nails into his skin.
Martha listened for quite a while.
The Doctor breathed in deeply, his chest moving clearly visible.
Martha laid the stethoscope aside and stared at the Doctor thoughtfully.
All the Doctor needed to see was the baffled expression on her face... and he knew.
"It isn't...?" Martha began.
"Yes, it is," the Doctor cut her off.
"But you're not..."
"No, I'm not but it's theoretically possible."
"But you couldn't..."
"Why shouldn't I?"
"But if..."
"If what?"
"I mean that's..."
"It's weird, I know. Look, can we stop talking about it?" interrupted the Doctor.
"What are you talking about?" asked Martha irritated.
"Depends on what you were talking about," retorted the Doctor instantly.
Martha shook her head and thought about it for a moment, probably trying to get her mind back into the proper order.
"We haven't even started talking yet."
"Yes, but I think we're done here nonetheless," stated the Doctor firmly.
"You've never been so bad tempered in your life ever before," mumbled Martha and got to her feet again.
"You don't even know me that long," snapped the Doctor "You don't know anything about me, Miss Jones. And I don't quite see the point in talking to you. Jack was wrong, you shouldn't have come to see me; you're causing nothing but trouble, as always. You've been complaining about my rash, my bad blood test results, you've stuck needles into my bladder, put me on an IV, you called me a hamster, a clock and whatsoever, and I've had enough of this. I didn't want to talk to Jack and neither do I want to talk to you. Do you understand that, Miss Jones? I don't want to talk to you. I don't know what about I should talk to you."
"About the child in your body," Martha blurted out.
The Doctor breathed in deeply and pressed his folded arms deeper into his chest.
"Of course, about the child, we could talk about the child," mumbled the Doctor while coming back to his senses again.
It was of no use and he knew it.
He'd rather tell Martha than Jack.
And Martha knew it anyway.
"You heard the two small heartbeats," concluded the Doctor but Martha shook her head.
"Doctor, I know you. Maybe not for quite so long, but I know you. I don't think it takes all the time of your life to get to know a Time Lord..."
"Alright, stop that" interrupted the Doctor "I may put up with talking about that brat, but not with you making jokes about me. I've had enough of this."
Martha nodded quietly.
"...and I know you quite well enough to know that it's only because Jack keeps bugging you with Time Lord jokes" chuckled Martha.
The Doctor looked up to meet her warming gaze.
"I knew that there was something wrong with you when I first caught a glimpse of you, Doctor," explained Martha, "and I knew that you didn't want to be treated; I knew that you were trying to hide it from me."
"IT is quite the word..." mumbled the Doctor and Martha patted one of his hands.
Silence filled the room.
"So, how long do I have?" asked the Doctor a bit worried.
"How long do you have what?" asked Martha back.
"Until the...ch...child..." the Doctor pushed himself into using the word for once without even thinking about 'brat'.
"Well, I'm sorry Doctor, but how should I know? You keep telling me you're a superior race..."
"...but apparently my body isn't see-through, so I won't know either," added the Doctor.
"I'm sorry" Martha gave it another try "but... how long does a Time Lord usually take until it's finished?"
"Martha you're talking about an unborn Time Lord if it was some kind of frozen dinner you just have to shove in the oven until its... which is rather disgusting when you come to think about it. Great Martha, I won't be eating pizza in my life ever again. And I'm sure glad you tried to starve me because otherwise I would be throwing up right now."
The Doctor pressed one hand against his stomach.
"But if you're unlucky there's still some gastric acid left. And due to the fact that I hadn't been drinking anything for the past day it should be highly concentrated and therefore would definitely vitriolize my throat."
"How about gastric acid inhibitors?" Martha started fumbling in her pockets "I have some of them with me, always."
The Doctor eyed them up suspiciously as Martha handed him some small pills.
"They won't bite you" explained Martha and let them drop into the Doctor's hand. He cleared his throat and looked at them for quite a while before lifting his head a bit and asking: "Can I have some tea with them?"
"Tea, tea, tea!" snapped Martha and got up again "It's all you're currently thinking about, isn't it?"
"What, would you prefer it if I kept talking about Jack?" asked the Doctor as Martha left the room to return with a thermos flask in the one hand and a small cup in the other.
"Jack switched to plastic lately," explained Martha while placing the cup on the bedside table and pouring in some of the hot liquid from the flask "he told me about some incident."
"I smashed one of his grandmother's cups" replied the Doctor and sighed "And he told me he wouldn't make a fuss about it."
The Doctor waited fretful beside Martha until she would hand him the cup.
"What is it with Time Lords and tea?" she asked and placed her hands on her hips.
"It's not about Time Lords and tea, that's simply me and tea" explained the Doctor after taking a sip.
Martha pushed the hand in which the Doctor held the pills towards his mouth.
He gave them a disbelieving look.
"You promise me they won't do me any harm?" asked the Doctor.
"I promise" replied Martha.
"They won't have a bad impact on the rash?"
"No."
"They won't make me dizzy?"
"No."
"They won't burn me up from the inside?" the Doctor asked anxiously.
"No!" replied Martha unnerved "Just take your meds and shut it!"
The Doctor sighed and put them on his tongue, shifting them around uneasily in his mouth before deciding to swallow.
He pulled a wry face.
"Burn up..." repeated Martha and folded her arms in front of her chest. "I may be familiar with 'burn-out' as a symptom but I have never heard of 'burn-up'."
"Depends on how you treat your patients," replied the Doctor and shifted a bit uneasy. "Can't you give me anything against the pain?"
"Oh, no" replied Martha "No, no, no, you're making a fuss about everything. And I'm sorry, but I can't help you, I don't know what to give a Time Lord."
"You could go to my Tardis and fetch me some of the pills," suggested the Doctor.
"You've got medicine in your Tardis?" asked Martha baffled.
"Of course. Never take a trip without a medicine cabinet and a first-aid kit."
"And where do I find them?" Martha went on.
The Doctor patted his chest to find that he wasn't wearing his usual shirt. Martha got the hint and rummaged through the Doctor's clothes until discovering a small key in the Doctor's shirt's breast pocket.
"If you go to my Tardis... if only I could remember where I parked it..."
"It's in the subbasement" explained Martha.
"Alright, now listen carefully. You unlock the Tardis and go downstairs, you head for subbasement four. You should find a small cabinet... alright, you should find several small cabinets but only in one of them you can find the meds. The others are simply stuffed with old things... probably trophies or whatever..."
Martha gave him a disbelieving look.
"Just look into the one with the green moon on the side. Green moon is the sign of a hospital in some... decades, centuries, I don't know..."
"And it's got a green moon on the side because it used to belong to a hospital," concluded Martha.
"Just bring me anything you can find in it," replied the Doctor and took another sip of his tea.
"Right."
The Doctor had just helped himself to some more tea as Martha stormed into the room again; she carried several bottles of different sizes in her hands as well as something that looked rather small and fluffy.
"That's all?" asked the Doctor while putting the cup aside.
"Definitely all," replied Martha and sighed while dropping the bottles onto the bed "seven bottles, half of them nearly empty and a dead rat."
"Oh, don't say that" the Doctor nearly cut her off, "It's neither a rat nor is it dead. It's sleeping."
Martha backed away from the bed as the Doctor grabbed the small ball of fur and stroked it carefully.
"It's always sleeping."
The Doctor sighed and stroked the small creature lost in thought.
"What is that?" asked Martha a bit irritated and started rummaging through the drawers of the bedside table, possibly looking for a bag with the "Pending check for alien traces" imprint, the Doctor thought for a moment and held out his right hand as some kind of a warning gesture.
"No, don't touch it. That's none of your business. It won't do you any harm and it was a gift."
"But it could be contagious" countered Martha.
"Especially then you shouldn't touch it" replied the Doctor "and don't come near it. I don't like the look in your eyes. And it can be easily upset... if it is awake... if it happens to be awake..."
Martha wouldn't dare to move an inch and stared at the striped ball of fur.
"It was a gift?" Martha asked to pick up the conversation again.
"A friend gave it to me" replied the Doctor quietly and looked up; Martha could have sworn that she had seen grief flickering in his hazel eyes before he continued in his usual cheery voice "but it had always been much of a sleeper; it was thought to be a secret invention for the Time War. Small furry animals as sleepers. You know, looking innocently but when you push the right button: 'BOOM'..." he tossed the ball of fur in the air and Martha took a step back.
The Doctor laughed at seeing the fear in her eyes and patted the small creature which had landed on the sheets.
"But it turned out that all they could be useful for was actually sleeping."
"That's a weapon?" asked Martha and stayed where she was; she felt quite comfortable near the door, just in case the fuzzy thing was an UXO.
"It would have been" explained the Doctor "but they weren't manufactured in series; and that one's missing the detonator. Or at least I haven't found it so far. No, it must be missing the detonator. Otherwise why should he have given it to me?"
"You said a friend gave it to you..." repeated Martha and cocked an eyebrow at the Doctor.
"Yes, of course, he had worked in the factory and explained that they weren't going to continue them. He swore it wouldn't do me any harm and that I should always keep it close to me and that it liked to be stroked at the belly and that you could press down on it firmly..."
The Doctor's voice trailed off; he eyed up the fuzzy thing that was purring gently.
Martha took a step back again.
"Oh, he's going to pay for that," mumbled the Doctor and poked the small creature all around its body several times, punching it in the belly and waited for a moment.
"Giving me a 'paneopal puffy' that's still armed..."
The ball of fur showed no sign of exploding in the near future, like starting to glow or going 'beepbeepbeep' all the time;
eventually the Doctor shrugged.
Martha had held her breath and enjoyed breathing out deeply. She also enjoyed breathing quite a lot, when she came to think about it right now, and living, and knowing that she wouldn't be killed by the Doctor's hand because he had to find out if something that had been lying around in the Tardis for centuries was still able to detonate.
Martha breathed in deeply before picking up the conversation again. "You said it was a living thing." stated Martha and dared to come closer again.
The Doctor nodded and fondled the ball of fur carefully.
"And how do you know that it's still alive? It didn't even move when you punched it."
The Doctor pressed one ear against the small creature and listened carefully. Then he stroked it at the back of its neck.
He signalized Martha to take it in her hands but she refused to touch it.
"It's still breathing," explained the Doctor "You can hear the humming of its hearts."
"Is it a creature or a weapon?"
Martha didn't quite seem to get the hang of it.
The Doctor sighed.
"Both. It's an animal as well as a time bomb."
Martha gasped.
"Not this one, of course. I told you it's deactivated." The Doctor was in a huff "Martha you're a bit slow today, aren't you?"
"How can this be an animal and an explosive device at the same time?" she asked "How is it possible to manufacture animals?"
"Time Lord technology" explained the Doctor "And believe me, you don't want to know about it. But actually... it's not that hard to understand."
He faced Martha again.
"Look at you, Martha."
Martha followed the Doctor's instruction irritated and stared down at her boots before catching a glimpse of the fire burning in the Doctor's eyes as he eyed her up.
"You're a soldier but a human being at the same time. Tell me, what's the difference?"
"I wasn't created to be a weapon," Martha replied as quickly as always "and I'm not small and furry and cute so that someone may mistake me for a pet."
"Good point there," replied the Doctor and refilled his cup. He tossed the creature aside which yawned quietly before putting its feet up, a total of six feet. The Doctor chuckled while running his fingers through its fur.
"Haven't heard it making that sounds in four hundred years," he smiled.
"How old is that thing?" asked Martha and poked it gently.
"Nearly as old as me," replied the Doctor and looked through the bottles.
Well, he sure had a bad handwriting and the circles looked terrible...
But some of them had to be painkillers, he was sure of that He just didn't know which ones.
He tossed a bottle aside.
But he wasn't as mad as Dr. Neakahla* to try that out on himself.
The Doctor fumbled with one of the caps and looked inside it. The meds had changed and greyish fume emerged from it which told the Doctor to seal it as quickly as possible and probably get rid of it in the near future.
He deciphered one of the captions and opened a promising bottle.
But he found it to be empty.
"Great," he hissed quietly and hoped that Martha wouldn't notice because she was still distracted by the ball of fur, "the last of them gone. I thought I'd refill them when I got to the last ten..."
He stopped in mid sentence and his eyes opened wide.
He couldn't remember taking them.
In fact he knew that he needed them and had always made sure that he wouldn't use them up.
But they had been taken from him.
They must have taken the pills from him.
Which meant that they now had the last remaining sedatives for Time Lords in the universe.
Martha looked up as a tremor spread through the Doctor's body.
"Doctor?"
"No...!"
"Doctor?" Martha repeated and took a closer look at his widening pupils.
"...but... if they have... I don't want them to... I won't even...no, they can't...!"
"Doctor, listen to me!" Martha grabbed the Doctor by his shoulders and shook him gently "Doctor, what's going on? What does that mean?"
"It means that they're going to come back. And I won't even notice it."
* Dr. Neakahla had been a Time Lord surgeon who was known to be the greatest surgeon (due to his immense height of 6'8) and the best surgeon of all times in the whole universe (due to his abilities of travelling through time and space). He died as he lived, investigating on the meaning of life, life itself and how you might be able to end it.
It was simply bound to happen one day.