A/N: Hey everyone! Welcome back to the story! Hope you enjoyed the last two chapters. From this chapter onwards, we introduce and welcome our newest companion to the Tardis: Martha Jones!
These following two chapters take place during the Doctor Who episode 'Smith and Jones'.
Please note that I do not own Doctor Who. All I own is my OC Katy, and this story.
Review, and no flaming will be tolerated. Thanks :)
Please enjoy!
AN APPLE A DAY…
"Jump with me, come with me, burn like the sun.
We'll talk then we'll cry then we'll laugh 'til we're done, oh my.
It's like we're out our minds."
– Pink: 'Trustfall' (Trustfall [2023]).
The Tardis
Library
The fire in the hearth popped and crackled away, allowing the warmth of the fire to flood the reading area of one of the Tardis's libraries, and warm up the lone reader, sitting cross-legged on an armchair, with a thick ancient-looking tome in her lap, as she absorbed the knowledge within the pages. A cup of tea sat on a nearby coffee table; the steam twirling and spiraling from it, as Katy occasionally reaches down and picks it up to take a sip from the cup. Which was where the Doctor found her, after asking the Tardis for her current location. His sad, brown eyes looked down at her with apprehension.
After their unscheduled adventure with Donna, the runaway bride who had mysteriously stumbled onto the Tardis due to Huon Particles that had been introduced into her system; Katy sequestered herself away from the Doctor for a while, just wanting to be by herself and reflect on what had happened. And the Doctor did not like this … at all. He knew that he had messed up badly during their last adventure, and he had grave fears that Katy was having second thoughts about traveling around with him because of it. So, he made the decision to confront her about it. He'd do anything to keep her with him; not only because she was his girlfriend, partner … whatever the term was, whom he cherished and loved deeply with both his hearts, but because she was also his last link to Gallifrey; a Time Lady, whose genius mind and memories currently lay dormant inside a unique heart-shaped locket, waiting for Katy to finally unlock it and release it back into her subconscious. He approaches her cautiously and looks over her shoulder at what she was reading, frowning when he noticed that she was focused once again on the Great Houses of Gallifrey; focusing with particular interest on the House of Oakdown, which produced an old friend of his from long ago.
"You know it is tremendously impolite to read over someone's shoulder, right?" Katy spoke up, without looking away from the page she was studying, as she reaches, yet again, for her cup of tea and takes a dainty sip from it. The Doctor flinches, startled that he had been caught out and moves to take a seat on the armchair opposite from the one Katy was sitting in. He looked sheepishly at her.
"Sorry," He mumbles, but notices a playful smile on Katy's face that indicated she was only teasing. He alternates between watching her read, and looking at the flames dancing in the fireplace, obviously procrastinating a little, when he finally dives right in with his question. "Are you still mad?" He asks, sounding vulnerable, and Katy looks up from the tome and blinks at him in surprise.
"About what?"
"The incident with the Racnoss," the Doctor elaborates and Katy frowns.
"I was never mad with you, Doctor. I was disappointed," Katy explains, and the Doctor is surprised and confused. Seeing this, Katy sighs and marks her place in the tome before shutting it and putting it on the coffee table in front of her and giving her boyfriend her whole attention. "There's no point in getting angry and lecturing you about this, mostly because Donna already did that when we dropped her back home." The Doctor looked relieved, but Katy looked at him sternly. "Having said that, though, it doesn't mean that I don't have a few things to say to you also. I know that the reason why you reacted the way you did, was because you had not truly grieved or vented your anger about losing Rose. Instead, you suppressed it, focusing on taking care of me in my own grief and anger. And that's fine. I'd expect nothing less considering the person that you are. But it can have dangerous consequences, as we just witnessed with the Empress of the Racnoss and her children." Katy stated, and the Doctor looked away out of shame.
"I can't change who I am," the Doctor argued.
"That is a crock of shit, and you know it!" Katy disagreed, and the Doctor frowns at her.
"Do I? Explain it to me, then." The Doctor challenges Katy, defensively.
"Alright I will!" Katy accepted the challenge. "I know for a fact that the moment I retain my Time Lady consciousness, I will also retain all the humanity lessons that were given to me when I was taken in by the Tylers and grew up all over again." The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Mum may have come across to those on the outside as vapid, ditzy and a bit of a fool. But she was anything but one; and she didn't suffer fools lightly either. As you well know…" Katy indicates to the Doctor's cheek, and mimed slapping it, causing the Doctor to wince at the memory.
"Don't remind me. That really did hurt…" He whined, and Katy chuckles.
"Anyway, growing up; Rose and I were taught that life was all about learning and experiencing new things. To laugh, be happy and have fun. Confronting our fears and accepting them. Being angry and having ideas of revenge, but never acting upon them, and standing up for all the right reasons. But also knowing that pain and suffering was a factor of life that we all need to go through; especially if that pain happened to be when we lost someone who meant a lot to us and finding the courage to accept it and move on." The Doctor looked down at his knees, but Katy gets up from her armchair and comes over to kneel at his feet and hooked her fingers underneath his chin to pull his head up to look her in the eye.
"Doctor, you'll get along. The pain that you feel, you only can heal by living. You have to go on living, so one of us is living. The hardest thing to do in this world is to live in it." Katy quoted, and the Doctor smiles and leans his forehead against her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her in close for a hug. But he pulls away after a moment, to smirk at her.
"Why does that sound familiar?"
"I might have borrowed that line from an episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer." Katy grinned coyly. "It doesn't make it any less astute though." She giggles, and the Doctor chuckles also as he rolls his eyes and shakes his head with amusement before pulling Katy into his lap, allowing the younger girl to curl up against him, and plants an affectionate kiss on her forehead.
"My Katy-girl. What did I do to deserve you?" He mumbles.
"One of life's big mysteries, I guess. But the point I was making is, you still have much to learn, sweetie. But I will be with you the entire way to help as much as I can." She promises as they sit like that for a while, just enjoying each other's company. But when Katy suddenly winces from pain, the Doctor lets go of her and sits up, frowning with concern.
"Are you okay?"
"Not really," she admits. "I originally came in here to take my mind of this annoying headache that woke me up earlier." Katy shrugged and leant over and pecks the Doctor on the cheek before getting up from his lap. "I think I might go and try and sleep again. I think the smoke from the fire is making it worse."
"Do you want me to take a look?" the Doctor asked, and Katy shook her head.
"Nah, it's just a headache. I'll be alright. Thanks anyway." She makes her way towards the library entrance. "Sweet dreams, Doctor."
He watches her go, with a concerned frown on his face, before he shrugged and got up also; headed back to the Console Room where he had originally been heading for, before coming here to find Katy on a whim. Maybe he could take another look at the strange reading the Tardis had come across earlier while she was hovering over the Earth, to keep his mind off Katy and her headache…
Katy's Room
Except when the Doctor eventually realised that what the Tardis had picked up was an unusually high frequency of plasma coils coming from the Royal Hope Hospital in Central London, he ran excitedly to Katy's room to wake her up so they could go and investigate this new adventure.
"Katy! Katy! You gotta come see this!" He yells excitedly, hammering on the bedroom door. When he gets no response, he bursts in to shake her awake, but stops in his tracks when he sees how pale Katy was. "Oh, no…" He immediately goes over and gently shakes her awake.
"Stop it, Doctor. What do you want?" Katy grumbles, groggily. She rolls over a little to scowl at him for waking her up after she had just managed to fall into an uneasy sleep.
"I'm sorry, Katy." The Doctor apologises in a soothing voice, before scowling up at the ceiling. "Why didn't you tell me she was this unwell?" he growls at the Tardis, who hummed back with irritation.
"Don't bark at her, it's not her fault. Besides, what can either of you do?" Katy defends the sentient ship.
"Uh, help you?" the Doctor retorts, reacting like this out of concern.
"What did you want, Doctor?" Katy repeats her question, wanting to go back to sleep.
"Oh, right! I came in to tell you that I've located another place for our adventures!" the Doctor explains, a little less excitedly than before, but still eager. "Normally, I'd wait until you were better, but this couldn't be better timing."
"So glad I could accommodate you…" Katy scowled, sitting up and swiveling around to sit on the side of the bed. "How is this good timing? Where are we going?" The Doctor comes over to her side and helps her to her feet, steadying her when she stumbles a little from the pain in her head.
"The Royal Hope Hospital in Central London," the Doctor said, brightly. He guides Katy towards her walk-in wardrobe and retreats away a little to give her some semblance of privacy as she struggles into a random pair of sweatpants, t-shirt, and hoodie she could grab that was within reach. "I was going to admit myself as a patient. But given that you're not well; well, that makes things a little bit easier."
"So long as we do it quietly, I really don't care where we go." Katy mumbles, as she finishes getting dressed and allows her boyfriend to escort her gently from the Tardis towards the hospital he had parked her nearby.
Hospital Wing
Royal Hope Hospital
Central London
The Doctor played the flawless role of the concerned husband, worried about the severe headache that was crippling his poor wife, Katy, and in no time at all, had his girlfriend and companion admitted under the name 'Caitlyn Smith', and safely tucked into bed in one of the Hospital's wards. Needless to say, Katy had been less than impressed, but was relieved that she had been given strict instructions to take it easy and rest, while being hooked up to an intravenous drip for dehydration and the necessary antibiotics.
"How are you feeling?" the Doctor asks Katy, sitting in a visitor's chair beside her hospital bed and holding her hand in his, and tenderly stroking the back of it with his thumb.
"Like the Safaris were practicing Wipeout loudly and painfully inside my head on repeat," Katy mumbles, tiredly. "I wish the drugs they gave me would kick in right about now…" The Doctor frowned at this answer, before bringing forward the song inside his own head and both wincing and smirking at this.
"Ooh … unfortunate," He grinned, earning a half-hearted slap on the arm from Katy. The privacy curtain surrounding the bed is pushed back, revealing Dr. Stoker, who was her attending physician, and his little band of interns, whom Katy affectionately called 'ducklings' because of the way they tended to follow him around like a mother duck and her babies.
He gives both Katy and the Doctor polite smiles.
"Now then, Mrs. Smith, a very good morning to you. How are you today?" Dr. Stoker asks Katy, who winces a little before responding.
"A bit better, I guess. Still got a bit of a headache, but otherwise…" Katy trails off, and Dr. Stoker nods sympathetically before turning to his students to update them on her condition.
"Caitlyn Smith, admitted yesterday with a severe headache, and dizzy spells." He turns to one of the interns; a pretty dark-skinned woman, who was staring strangely at the Doctor, much to Katy's curiosity. "Jones, why don't you see what you can find? Amaze me." She nods, and heads over to Katy's bedside, removing her stethoscope so she could check Katy's heartbeat.
"Is there a reason why you keep staring at my husband?" Katy asks, curiously. The young woman looks at her startled, before responding to her question.
"Oh, I um, saw your husband on Chancellor Street this morning," She responded, earning a surprised look from the Doctor.
"Sorry?" He blinked, confused.
"You came up to me and took your tie off."
"Really? What did I do that for?" The Doctor questioned, curiously.
"I don't know, you just did," the young woman responded. The Doctor gives her a sunny grin and squeezes a frowning Katy's hand reassuringly.
"Not me. I was here, sitting with the missus and enjoying breakfast with her. Ask the nurses," He responded, raising Katy's hand to his lips and kissing it affectionately, earning a fond smile from the sick girl who was still watching the young woman, patiently.
"Well, that's weird, because it looked like you. Have you got a brother?"
"No, not anymore. Just my Katy, now." The Doctor responded, looking a little sad and Katy squeezes his hand. Dr. Stoker clears his throat impatiently.
"As time passes and I grow ever more infirm and weary, Miss Jones." He stated, rather pointedly and she realises that she had been in the process of checking Katy's heartbeat.
"Sorry. Right…" She presses the end of the stethoscope to Katy's chest and hears her heartbeat, while at the same time looking up at both her patient and the Doctor who smile politely at her.
"The diagnosis, Miss Jones….?" Dr. Stoker asks, somewhat impatiently.
"Er, I don't know. Low blood pressure?" She guesses.
"That is a symptom, not a diagnosis. And you rather failed basic techniques by not consulting first with the patient's chart." Dr. Stoker reaches for the clipboard at the end of the Katy's bed and gets an electric shock from the metal clip, dropping the clipboard on the bed.
"That happened to me this morning," the young woman states.
"I had the same thing on the door handle," One of the male interns piped up.
"And me, on the lift…" another female intern adds. However, Dr. Stoker brushes away their concerns.
"That's only to be expected. There's a thunderstorm moving in, and lightning is a form of static electricity, as was first proved by. Anyone?"
"Benjamin Franklin," the Doctor responded, with a bright smile.
"Correct."
"My mate, Ben…" the Doctor smiles fondly, grabbing Dr. Stoker, all the interns, and an alarmed Katy's attention. "That was a day and a half. I got rope burns off that kite, and then I got soaked…" He trails off, earning an uneasy smile from Dr. Stoker.
"Quite," Dr. Stoker acknowledged him.
"And then I got electrocuted!" The Doctor added, oblivious to the strange looks he was getting and the slightly exasperated one he was getting from his sick girlfriend.
"Moving on," Dr. Stoker ushers away his students, before leaning over and muttering into the ear of a nearby nurse. "I think perhaps a visit from psychiatric." He suggested, as the young woman looks back at the Doctor and Katy who smile back at her. Katy waited until they were out of earshot before she lightly slaps the Doctor on the arm again.
"My mate, Ben?" She quotes him, incredulously. "Way to remain inconspicuous, Doctor." Katy scolds, and the Doctor shrugged. "You'll be admitted into the psych ward if you're not careful!"
"Nah, I doubt it. Now, I think it's time you got some rest, don't you?" He suggested, and Katy scowls at him, but at the same time yawns deeply due to the Benadryl the nurse had hooked her up to, pumping into her system.
"Yeah, might as well. It's the only way to combat headaches," Katy relented and made herself comfortable. The Doctor chuckles and leans over to plant a kiss on Katy's head.
"I'm off to do a bit of snooping. I'll be back later on to check on you," He promises, and Katy half-heartedly waves him off.
"Yeah, yeah. Get going already…" She slurs before drifting off to sleep.
A couple of hours go by, and Katy wakes up feeling a lot better than she did when the Doctor had first admitted her to the hospital the day before. The headache was technically still there, but it was tolerable. She could function. Or she did feel better, up until the ward suddenly starts shaking violently, sending her and other patients ricocheting off their beds and onto the linoleum floor.
"Ow! What the hell just happened?" Katy groans, attempting to sit up on the ground in her still slightly weakened condition. Red converse shoes appear in front of her, and she looks up to see a very concerned Doctor looking down at her.
"Katy?! Are you hurt?" He asks, squatting down to help his girlfriend to her feet, ignoring the hysterical shouts of the other patients all around them. Katy leans on the Doctor for support.
"I'm fine. What's happened?" Katy demands, then catches a glimpse of the view outside the nearby window, and notes that somehow it had become nighttime. She frowns in confusion; wasn't it around lunchtime? "Never mind, I think I've figured it out…" She jumps in before the Doctor could reply, indicating towards the window just as the young intern from before comes running into the ward, with one of her colleagues in tow.
"All right now, everyone back to bed, we've got an emergency, but we'll sort it out. Don't worry," She attempted to reassure the hysterical patients, as the Doctor suddenly shifts into 'serious mode' and helps Katy sit on the side of her bed before drawing the curtain around the bed for some semblance of privacy. He immediately goes over and picks up her neatly folded clothes and hands them to her.
"Quickly. Get changed. Time to investigate what's going on around here," He instructs, before turning his back on her and giving her privacy as Katy nodded and does what he says without question. She knew that the Doctor wouldn't ask her to do this if the situation wasn't serious. Especially when it was obvious that while she looked better, she still wasn't entirely 100% well. Both she and the Doctor pricked up their ears and eavesdropped on the conversation between the young intern who had examined Katy early this morning and her colleague were having.
"It's real. It's really real," the young woman comments with wonder. "Hold on!" A metallic sound indicates to the couple that the intern must've reached for the window latch to open it up.
"Don't!" Her colleague shouts out in fear. "We'll lose all the air!" She frets.
"But they're not exactly airtight," their intern friend pointed out, rather flatly. "If the air was going to get sucked out it would have happened straight away, but it didn't." Katy taps on the Doctor's shoulder, and he turns to see that she was fully dressed, and he smiles at her, grabbing the edge of the curtain to pull it open. "So how come?"
"Very good point!" the Doctor complements her, as he pulls open Katy's curtain, revealing them both standing there, ready for business. Katy's hospital scrubs lay neatly folded on the bed behind her. The Doctor studies the clever intern with interest. "Brilliant, in fact. What was your name?"
"Martha," the intern confirms, looking at both him and Katy in bemusement.
"And it was Jones, wasn't it? Well then, Martha Jones, the question is, how are we still breathing?" He ponders with a puzzled frown.
"We can't be…" Martha's colleague bawls, and the Doctor rolls his eyes at her with impatience.
"Obviously we are, so don't waste my time," he retorts, and flinches a little when Katy nudges him with her elbow in rebuke. He offers Katy an apologetic grimace before returning to his conversation with Martha, who looked slightly amused by Katy's scolding. "So, Martha, what have we got? Is there a balcony on this floor, or a veranda, or—"
"By the patient's lounge, yeah." Martha responded automatically, and the Doctor grins at her in approval.
"Fancy going out?" He asks her, and Martha shrugged.
"Okay."
"What about you, love? Are you up for it, or do you want to sit this one out?" The Doctor asks Katy, with genuine worry in his tone. He may have requested her to get dressed and get ready to go; but if she still wasn't feeling well, he wasn't going to push her. However, Katy responded by taking his hand and linking their fingers together tightly.
"I'm absolutely up for it. But just to be safe, I'll stick by you as much as I can." Katy reassures him.
"Well, if, you're sure. Because we might die." He warns the both of them.
"We might not," Martha points out, and Katy nodded in agreement. The Doctor grins at them both with excitement.
"Good. Come on!" He tugs Katy in the direction of the lounge, frowning at Martha's colleague. "But not her, she'd hold us up." Martha follows the Doctor and Katy; mostly because Katy was still her patient despite her willingness to help her 'husband' with this investigation.
Patient's lounge balcony
The Doctor and Katy step out onto the balcony and take in the awe-inspiring view of the moon's surface. Both take in a deep breath as Martha finally joins them, looking just as reverently as they were.
"We've got air. How does that work?" She asks the Doctor, who grimaces uneasily.
"Just be glad it does," He responds. Martha approaches the banister, standing beside Katy who was clutching onto the Doctor's hand for comfort, looking pensive.
"I've got a party tonight," Martha suddenly tells them. "It's my brother's twenty-first. My mother's going to be really, really…" She trails off, uncomfortably.
"You okay?" Katy asks Martha, sympathetically.
"Yeah."
"You sure?" The Doctor adds.
"Yeah," Martha confirms.
"Want to go back in?" the Doctor questions, and Martha scoffs at him for the suggestion.
"No way!" She was quick to respond. "I mean, we could die any minute, but all the same, it's beautiful."
"Can't argue with that," Katy seconds the motion, as the Doctor studies Martha curiously, amazed that the intern hadn't freaked out, burst into tears, or any other reaction that may illustrate culture shock.
"Do you think?" He asks.
"How many people want to go to the moon?" Martha retorts. "And here we are."
"Standing in the Earthlight," the Doctor nodded.
"What do you think happened?" Martha pondered.
"What do you think?" the Doctor encouraged her to have a go at devising exactly why the entire hospital had been teleported to the moon. He was very intrigued about her thoughts on the matter.
"Extraterrestrial," Martha stated, not noticing the secret smile that was shared between the Doctor and Katy when she answered correctly. "It's got to be. I don't know, a few years ago that would have sounded mad, but these days?" Martha started listing all the alien occurrences that had been happening in London for the past few years; all of which had involved the Doctor and Katy. "That spaceship flying into Big Ben, Christmas, those Cybermen things…" Martha's face fell a little. "I had a cousin. Adeola." Katy's eyes widened in shock, as she remembered that poor girl who had been killed when the Cybermen had taken her and two of her other colleagues and implanted 'EarPods' on them. The Doctor squeezes her hand in comfort, also remembering her. "She worked at Canary Wharf. She never came home."
"I'm sorry," Katy acknowledged sincerely.
"Yeah," Martha nodded, gratefully.
"We were there, in the battle," the Doctor explains, indicating between himself and Katy and Martha looked surprised.
"I promise you, Mister and Missus Smith, we will find a way out. If we can travel to the moon, then we can travel back. There's got to be a way." Martha vowed fiercely.
"It's not Smith. That's not our real name." The Doctor corrects Martha, who frowns at them curiously.
"Who are you two, then?"
"I'm the Doctor. And this is Caitlyn Tyler, who prefers to be called Katy." The Doctor introduces himself and Katy to her.
"Hello!" Katy waves half-heartedly at Martha.
"I hope to be a doctor too, if I can pass my exams." Martha acknowledged. "What is it then, Doctor Smith?"
"Just the Doctor," he confirms.
"How do you mean, just the Doctor?"
"Just like he says, he goes by the name 'the Doctor'" Katy insists, and Martha frowns.
"What, people call you the Doctor?"
"Yeah," the Doctor confirms, a little impatiently this time.
"Well, I'm not," Martha shakes her head. "As far as I'm concerned, you've got to earn that title." The Doctor momentarily let go of Katy's hand and bends down to pick up a piece of rubble from off the ground.
"Well, I'd better make a start, then. Let's have a look. There must be some sort of…" He hurls the piece of rubble off the balcony and off into the distance, and it bounces off a "…forcefield keeping the air in." He concludes.
Both Katy and Martha look alarmed.
"But if that's like a bubble sealing us in, that means this is the only air we've got. What happens when it runs out?" Katy questioned, concerned.
"How many people in this hospital?" the Doctor asks Martha, who thinks for a moment.
"I don't know. A thousand?"
"One thousand people … suffocating." The Doctor says, grimly.
"Why would anyone do that?" Katy asked, as the Doctor glances up into space when something large and descending fast, catches his attention.
"Heads up! Ask them yourself," He indicates towards three massive columnar spaceships that had been passing overhead before making their descent and landing nearby. Their hatches open up and three columns of aliens come stomping out. The Doctor suddenly looks incredibly serious, as Martha's eyes widen in shock.
"Aliens. That's aliens. Real, proper aliens."
"Judoon," the Doctor confirms. He then promptly grabs Katy's hand and runs back inside the hospital, with the intention of making further observation of these so-called Judoon aliens. Martha is quick to follow, obviously curious about the mysterious couple and the Judoon too.
Mezzanine level
They make it back to the Mezzanine level, which overlooked the Hospital reception area. The Judoon appeared to be giant two horned rhinoceroses in full body armour, who were now currently scanning everyone within their reach with a blue torch, before marking their hands with black crosses and moving on to repeat the process.
"What the hell are they doing?" Katy ponders out loud, from where she was crouched next to the Doctor, who was already scanning the area, looking for a possible reason why the Judoon were here. His eyes lit up when he suddenly spots a small gift shop nearby.
"Oh, look down there, you've got a little shop. I like a little shop," He beams happily, and Katy grinned and raised his hand to her lips and kissed the back of it affectionately, earning a questioning look from him.
"You and your 'little shop.'" She states and the Doctor grinned back and winks at her.
"Never mind that. What are Judoon?" Martha brings them back to the topic at hand, and gestures down at the aliens still stomping around and scanning the frightened patients and guests on the lower floor.
"They're like police. Well, police for hire," the Doctor explains. "They're more like interplanetary thugs."
"And they brought us to the moon?" Martha confirmed.
"Neutral territory," the Doctor stated. "According to galactic law, they've got no jurisdiction over the Earth, and they isolated it. That rain, lightning? That was them, using an H20 scoop."
"It was raining?" Katy piped up.
"Yeah. Caused quite a lot of commotion," the Doctor explains to Katy who looked disbelieving.
"Seriously? I miss all that?" Katy whines, irritably. "Of all the days to have a bad headache…"
"What are you on about, galactic law?" Martha demanded, impatiently steering the conversation back to the Judoon and the fact that the hospital had been teleported to the moon. "Where'd you get that from? If they're police, are we under arrest? Are we trespassing on the moon or something?"
"No, but I like that. Good thinking!" the Doctor grins at Martha, impressed. "But no, I wish it were that simple. They're making a catalogue. That means that they're after something non-human, which is very bad news for me…" He trails off uncomfortably.
Katy's eyes widened when she made an important realisation.
"What about me? Am I in trouble?" Katy looked alarmed, but the Doctor was quick to reassure her.
"No, you're safe. You're hidden, thank God…" The Doctor presses a firm kiss to Katy's head as the younger girl sags with relief, but still looked worried for the Doctor's safety.
Martha just looks at them strangely.
"Why?" The Doctor just gives Martha a pointed look, while Katy looked pained. Martha's eyes widened and she grins in disbelief. "Oh, you're kidding me. Don't be ridiculous." But when the Doctor showed no signs of joking around, Martha's disbelieving grin fades. "Stop looking at me like that…"
"Come on, then." The Doctor gets to his feet, pulling Katy and Martha up with him and they disappear down a nearby corridor.
Admin office
Running into a nearby office area, the Doctor pulls out his sonic screwdriver and starts working on the nearest computer, while Katy hovers nearby, watching him. Martha comes over to them after checking that the coast was clear.
"They've reached the third floor," she tells him, then looks curiously at the sonic in the Doctor's hand. "What's that thing?"
"Sonic screwdriver," both Katy and the Doctor respond absently.
"Well, if you're not going to answer me properly…" Martha scoffs, and the Doctor looks at her, slightly wounded.
"No, really, it is. It's a screwdriver, and it's sonic. Look!" He pushes a button on the side of the sonic and it makes its usual buzzing noise.
"What else have you got, a laser spanner?" Martha jokes.
"Wouldn't put it past him if he did," Katy comments, and the Doctor grinned at her.
"I did, actually. But it was stolen by Emily Pankhurst, cheeky woman…" He explains, as Katy shakes her head, looking fondly exasperated, while Martha just looks at the both of them strangely. The Doctor shakes the computer monitor impatiently. "Oh, this computer! The Judoon must have locked it down. Judoon platoon upon the moon."
"Good alliteration," Katy complemented him.
"Thanks," He responds absently, still focused on what he was doing. "But we were just travelling by. I swear, we were just wandering. We weren't looking for trouble, we weren't. But I noticed these plasma coils around the hospital, and that lightning, that's a plasma coil. Been building up for two days now, so we checked in, using Katy's migraine as an excuse to check things out, as I thought something was going on inside. It turns out the plasma coils were the Judoon up above…"
"But what were they looking for?" Katy pondered.
"Something that looks human but isn't."
"Like you, apparently." Martha guessed, still looking a bit sceptical about this little piece of information that the Doctor and Katy had just revealed about themselves.
"Like me. But not me," the Doctor corrects her.
"Haven't they got a photo?" Martha asks, logically.
"Well, might be a shape-changer," the Doctor states, and Martha just rolled her eyes and scowls at him with annoyance.
"Whatever it is, can't you just leave the Judoon to find it?"
"If they declare the hospital guilty of harbouring a fugitive, they'll sentence it to execution." The Doctor explains bluntly, and Martha looks horrified.
"All of us?"
"Oh yes," the Doctor confirms confidently. "If I can find this thing first—" He types urgently on the keyboard trying to locate what he was searching for but yells out in frustration when the screen suddenly goes red with strange alien images bouncing around the monitor like a 90's screensaver. "Oh! You see, they're thick! Judoon are thick! They're completely thick! They wiped the records. Oh, that's clever…" The Doctor mumbled sarcastically.
"What are we supposed to be looking for?" Katy questioned, realising that they had to start from scratch, much to the Doctor's chagrin. He rakes a hand through his already messy hair, out of stress.
"I don't know," He admits. "Say, any patient admitted in the past week with unusual symptoms." He surmised, then grabs at the keyboard once again and starts typing. "Maybe there's a back-up…"
"Just keep working," Martha suggests, and starts jogging down the corridor. "I'll go ask Mister Stoker. He might know!" She shouts back at them.
Katy starts after her.
"I'll come with you!"
"Nope!" the Doctor reaches out and snags her wrist before she could go any further. "You stay right here with me," He insists. "You're still not well, and you're my responsibility." He scolds her, and Katy scowls at him.
"You and I are going to have some issues, if you start wrapping me up in cotton wool, sweetie." Katy warns, but stays put, nonetheless.
"That's a risk I'm willing to take, love. I'm not gonna lose you!" The Doctor acknowledged firmly. A few minutes later, Martha comes running back up to them looking alarmed. The Doctor grins at her, triumphantly. "I've restored the back-up!"
"I found her!" Martha announces, grabbing both the Doctor and Katy's attention.
"You did what?" the Doctor was alert. A motorcyclist, heavily clad in leather suddenly breaks down Stoker's office door, drawing attention to itself. The Doctor's eyes widen, and he immediately seizes Katy's hand. "Run!" The three of them head down a nearby staircase, but backtrack immediately when some Judoon approach, and divert onto another floor, followed closely by the leather-clad motorcyclist.
Radiology
The three of them dart into the Radiology suite, and the Doctor slams the door shut; and sonics it to lock. He then grabs Katy's hand and leads both her and Martha behind the radiation screen before running back out and heading for the x-ray machine and uses the sonic to make some alterations to it.
"When I say now, press the button." The Doctor instructs hurriedly. Martha spins about the room, which is filled with expensive medical equipment with wiring and buttons everywhere. What he was asking for, was almost impossible.
"But I don't know which one," Martha stammers.
"Then find out!" the Doctor shouts back, irritably. He continues messing about with the x-ray machine, while Martha and Katy search for the Operator's manual to find out which was the correct button to push. The leather-clad motorcyclist eventually finds where they were hiding and starts battering the door off its hinges. It bursts in and the Doctor immediately points the x-ray machine at it. "Now!"
Katy chooses a large yellow button at random and slams her hand down on it, just in time to see the leather-clad motorcyclist get a massive dose of radiation, and drops face down on the ground, dead as a doornail. Unfortunately, to both their horror, the Doctor had also copped a large dose of the radiation too. Martha switches off the machine, and both women look at the Doctor with concern.
"What did you do?" She demands.
"Increased the radiation by five thousand per cent. Killed him dead." The Doctor explains.
"And then some…" Katy observes dryly, eying the corpse at the Doctor's feet, before looking up at him with worry in her eyes too.
"But isn't that going to kill you too?" Martha asked, worriedly.
But the Doctor didn't look worried.
"Nah, it's only roentgen radiation," he says dismissively, and Katy eyes him dubiously. "We used to play with roentgen bricks in the nursery." He explains, looking pointedly at Katy when he emphasised the 'we' in his explanation. She relaxed and glowers half-heartedly at him for nearly scaring her to death. "It's safe for you two to come out now. I've absorbed it all." Katy and Martha cautiously come out from behind the radiation screen, with Martha still eyeing the Doctor with mild worry. The Doctor starts wriggling and hopping on the spot. "All I need to do is expel it. If I concentrate, I can shake the radiation out of my body and into one spot…" He continues wriggling, before eventually focusing on his left foot. "…It's in my left shoe. Here we go, here we go. Easy does it. Out, out, out, out, out. Out, out. Ah, ah, ah, ah! It is, it is, it is, it is, it is hot. Hold on…" While hopping on the spot, the Doctor manages to wriggle his foot out of both his sock and his converse, and dumps both inside the hazardous materials bin. "Done!" He straightens up, grinning proudly at both Katy and Martha who look at him strangely.
"You never cease to amaze me, love." Katy comments, as she looks at him with disbelief.
"You're completely mad," Martha agreed.
"You're right. I look daft with one shoe," the Doctor realises and takes off his other sock and shoe and throws it into the bin as well. "Barefoot on the moon!" He grins, wiggling his toes playfully. Martha wisely decides to change the subject and refocuses her attention back on the motorcyclist's corpse.
"So, what is that thing? And where's it from, the planet Zovirax?"
"It's just a Slab," the Doctor explains, crouching down beside it to examine it closely, just as curious as the two women were. "They're called Slabs. Basic slave drones. See? Solid leather, all the way through. Someone has got one hell of a fetish." He straightens up and goes over to the x-ray machine to retrieve his sonic.
"But it was that woman, Miss Finnegan. It was working for her, just like a servant." Martha tells him, just as he manages to dislodge the instrument from the machine. It is completely useless, and the Doctor looks crestfallen.
"My sonic screwdriver…" He whines, and Katy rolls her eyes at his childish whine.
"She was one of the patients, but…"
"Oh, no. My sonic screwdriver!" the Doctor is more focused upon the fact that his instrument had been destroyed, than on the helpful piece of information that Martha was giving him.
"…She had a straw like some kind of vampire." Martha concluded, looking at the Doctor for his thoughts.
"I loved my sonic screwdriver…" the Doctor bemoaned a little pathetically, and Martha scowled at him in annoyance.
"Doctor?"
"Sorry!" He tosses the useless instrument over his shoulder and beams happily when he realises what Martha had called him. "You called me Doctor!" Earning a 'really?' look from Martha who immediately dismisses it as one of his weird idiosyncrasies.
"Anyway? Miss Finnegan is the alien," She reiterated to the Doctor, who frowns thoughtfully. "She was drinking Mister Stoker's blood."
"Funny time to take a snack. You'd think she'd be hiding. Unless. No. Yes, that's it! Wait a minute. Yes! Shape-changer! Internal shape-changer. She wasn't drinking blood; she was assimilating it."
"You mean she's attempting to disguise herself?" Katy clarified.
"Exactly! If she can assimilate Mister Stoker's blood, mimic the biology, she'll register as human." The Doctor immediately grabs Katy's hand and runs for the door. "We've got to find her and show the Judoon. Come on!" The three of them race out of the Radiology suite and back down the corridor where they had first come from.
Outside Pathology
The three of them duck behind a nearby water cooler when a second Slab suddenly appears walking down the corridor just ahead of them.
"That's the thing about Slabs. They always travel in pairs," the Doctor explains in low tones.
"Like you two?" Martha indicates between himself and Katy.
"Pardon?" the Doctor asks.
"Travel in pairs," Martha clarifies and the Doctor looks mildly offended, while Katy flushes in embarrassment.
"Oh. Humans. We're stuck on the moon running out of air with Judoon and a bloodsucking criminal, and you're asking personal questions?" Martha looks surprised by his reaction to her question. "Come on," he tells the girls to move away from their hiding spot when he feels it is safe to do so.
Martha scoffs at him and his attitude.
"I like that. 'Humans.' I'm still not convinced you're an alien."
They turn a corner and come face to face with a Judoon who shines its blue torch directly into the Doctor's face.
He looks like a deer-caught-in-headlights.
"Non-human!" the Judoon categorises the Doctor in its deep, gravelly voice.
"Shit!" Katy curses as Martha's eyes widen, completely stunned.
"Oh, my God, you really are!"
"And again!" the Doctor snatches both Katy and Martha's hands and retreats back the way they came from and gets around the corner before the Judoon fires its weapon. The chase is on as the Doctor, Katy, and Martha run up the stairs to the upper corridor.
A/N: Stay tuned for part two!