THE LOVESICK COBBLER OF PADLUCK

Chapter Ten

The Doctor's paper-white face was rapidly turning blue. Mish pushed me aside and placed one hand under the Doctor's head and the other on his chest, gently forcing him to lie all the way down on the floor. He put the heel of his right hand in the center of the Doctor's chest and his left hand on top of his right, and pushed with the full weight of his body. The cobbler wasn't a large man, but his arms were powerful and he pushed hard and fast. The Doctor, barely conscious, whispered, "Cha."

"He wants tea?" I was incredulous. "He can't drink tea now!"

"Cha-ak," breathed the Doctor, the assaults on his chest bisecting the word.

"Chalk?"

"Barium," said Tegan, "tastes like chalk. That can't be it."

"Cha-a-ca!"

"Chocolate!" cried Tegan, triumphantly. "I remember now!" She jumped off and ran for the interior door

"Remember what?" I called after her, not taking my eyes off of the Doctor.

"I'll explain later!" Her voice trailed off as she sped down a corridor. She wasn't gone long at all but she came back with not only several chocolate bars, a chocolate chip biscuit and a Yoohoo that had been in the refrigerator since our last trip to Earth, but a fresh stick of celery. The Doctor was unconscious now and not responding to the CPR. Tegan held the celery under his nose but he couldn't smell it, as he wasn't breathing. She opened the Yoohoo and stuck her finger into the bottle, then smeared some of the chocolatey stuff onto his lips, evoking no response.

"I don't understand," said Nash. "That's not medicine." Mish sat back on his haunches, tears in his eyes.

Tegan repeated the procedure but this time forced her finger into his mouth and under his tongue, rubbing the liquid on the frenulum. "They didn't teach us this when we trained in CPR," she said. "I saw it in a movie." The Doctor opened his eyes. "Doctor!"

"More," he said, clearly.

I held his head up and Tegan helped him drink the rest of the Yoohoo straight from the bottle. He only choked a little.

Tegan reached for a candy bar to feed him but he spotted the celery and tried to reach it. Tegan held it and he munched on it. Then he took the candy bar in his own hands and ate that.

By the time the Doctor had polished off all the candy and the lone biscuit, he was sitting and indeed attempting to stand, and asking for more chocolate. He was in no better shape than he had been before the partial injection, but at least the aspirin's toxicity seemed to have been counteracted.

With the Doctor tucked in on the pull-out bed in the console room, and his long white hair tied back with a yellow ribbon Tegan unpinned from one of her short skirts ("Call me Rapunzel!" he joked in a lucid moment, and Tegan had to explain the reference to me), Nash prepared to go home to Nena, having cured two out of three of his patients. I stopped him.

"I can't help him," he said. "That formula is all I have and even a tiny bit of it risks his life. The full cure would kill him. I am so sorry."

"Let me borrow your toolkit," I begged. "I can try to synthesize something. But I don't just need your toolkit. I need to ask you some questions. Can you stay just a little while longer? Please?"

"I don't know how I can help you but I am willing to try."

Mish said it was almost opening time for his shop. "I'll go put a sign on the door that we're closed today, and I'll come right back."

Tegan pulled a stool over to the pull-out bed and sat holding the Doctor's hand while Nash and I repaired to the tea room. "Show gnme the packets of powders, please." He pulled out three packets, one blue, one yellow and one clear. "Tell me again what each ingredient is, and what it does, how it works."

"This blue one is the residue of evaporated grigna saliva. It's actually blended with an inert crystalline substance; it doesn't matter which crystalline substance as long as it's inert. There is also dried borage flower, and borage oil that is absorbed by the crystals as well. The borage does so many things but mostly useful here as an anti-inflammatory. Since the syndrome has a huge neurological component, it is also useful for that.
"And this yellow one?"

"Saffron, very similar to borage in its benefits. We use only the tiniest amount to avoid toxicity. Of course, who knew that the willow bark would be so toxic for the Doctor?"

"Tegan knew. Sorry, go on."

"Well," he said, looking down at the tea I had served him, "Saffron interacts badly with caffeine, actually. I don't think that was the problem, though."

"And this clear packet?"

"This is where the willow bark is mixed with dessicated juniper berries. The juniper increases the effects of all the other ingredients. It also calms the neurological aspects of the syndrome."

"What is the willow bark for? That's the part the Doctor can't tolerate. Is it necessary?"

"Yes. Without it, the skin cells that change as the patient is cured would stretch, shrink, snap and cause scarring, and a lot of pain. The cure would be quite painful, in fact. It helps the skin slough off, preventing that scarring and pain."

"Is there no substitute?"

"We tried everything we could think of, even things we were pretty sure wouldn't work." He let his hands rise and fall in exasperation, almost knocking over the tea. "The willow bark is an important component."

"If only," I sighed, "we knew what it was about salicylic acid that is so toxic to the Doctor."

"You know," said Nash, suddenly, "He's been eating all that chocolate, and fortunately it saved him, but chocolate contains caffeine. There is no way he can have the saffron either!"

"Can we leave the saffron out?"

"I don't know. I just don't know."

"All right. Thank you, Nash, for everything. I don't know how to thank you enough, in fact."

"I don't suppose," he answered, with something like a twinkle in his eye, "you could fall in love with Mish?" I blushed. "No, sorry, forget I said that!" He reached out his hand. "Good luck, Nyssa. I see what he sees in you!"