Chapter Fourteen: Intensive Care

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"Will you stop poking around?" I snap. It has been ten minutes and all the Doctor has done is walk around the ward, asking questions and peering at things through a pair of rectangular glasses that I'm certain he doesn't even need. He ignores me. Relieved to see Rose in the doorway, I rush over to her. "Rose, tell him to stop poking around. He's going to upset the patients! Please. He won't listen to me."

She only offers a bored hum in response, her eyes fixed on something behind me. Frowning, I glance over my shoulder to find her examining her own reflection in the glass doors, particularly her lower half. I try to ask but she interrupts before I can, "Are pockets always so small?"

"I don't— I— What?"

Heaving a disappointed sigh, she drops her phone into the hand that had been outstretched in greeting. "Be a dear..." she looks me up and down as if trying to remember something and then adds, "Dear. That thing is doing me no favours."

"There you are!" the Doctor exclaims, rushing in before she can say a word, guiding her away. "Come and look at this patient. Marconi's disease, should take years to recover. Two days. I've never seen anything like it."

Huffing, I try once again to pull him away. "And, of course, that means that it isn't realistic! Are you even a proper doctor?"

He ignores me, continuing to talk as if I had never spoken, "They've invented a cell-washing cascade, it's amazing. Their medical science is way advanced. And this one: pallidome pancrosis. Kills you in ten minutes, and he's fine. I need to find a terminal. Gotta see how they do this."

"Doctor are you serious?" They start to leave. I have to run to keep up with them. "Hey! What is your problem?"

"Come off it, Inara. Something's off and you know it! Think. If they've got the best medicine in the world, why's it such a secret?"

Rose sighs, "I can't Adam and Eve it."

We pause. Confused, he looks to me, as if to check if I can hear Rose's oddly posh-sounding accent. I shrug, just as clueless. "What's— What's with the voice?"

"I don't know, just... larking about. New Earth, new me."

He laughs, still sending sideways glances my way. Although I am certain I notice his eyes linger on the skin now peeking out where the top buttons of her blouse have been undone. "Well, I can talk — new new Doctor."

"Hmm, aren't you just?"

Without warning, they are kissing. I am certain that she leant in first, and her fingers grip onto his hair a little too tight. He offers no resistance. He just stands there.

And then she is walking away and he still stands, staring dazedly after her.

"Terminal's this way," she stammers, cheeks flushed.

I find that heat has risen into my own face, most likely out of embarrassment that I had to witness that. I hurry after her without daring to spare him a single look.

"Yup," he squeaks, "still got it."

By the time we get to the terminal, it's like the kiss never happened. I can still remember it, though. It replays over and over in my mind until I'm certain I might actually be sick. Still, I try not to let it show. Maybe if we don't talk about it, it will just be forgotten.

"Nope," the Doctor's voice brings me back out of my wonderings, "nothing odd. Surgery, post-op, nanodentistry. No sign of a shop. They should have a shop."

"No, it's missing something else," Rose mutters. She moves over to where I stand, elbowing me out of the way. I am too startled to say anything. It is so unlike her. Perhaps she is still caught up on the kiss. Immediately, my mind works to erase that image again. She must not have realised — that's it — too caught up in this little mystery that she and the Doctor have become obsessed with. "When I was downstairs, those nurse-cat-nuns were talking about intensive care, but where is it?"

He barely tears his eyes away from the screen but offers an absentminded, "You're right. Well done."

"Why would they hide a whole department?"

Shrugging, I lean in again, trying not to feel so distant. "Well, if they can treat all of those deadly diseases, they don't exactly need an intensive care department. Maybe they just use the name out of habit?"

Neither of them acknowledge my suggestion. Rose's eyes narrow and she reads through the floor names once again. "It's got to be there somewhere. Search the subframe."

He fishes in his pocket for the sonic. "What if the subframe's locked?"

"Try the installation protocol."

"Yeah, 'course. Sorry. Hold on." The sonic whirrs. Then, with a whoosh of relieved pressure, the wall itself lowers to grunt us access to a dark corridor. Rose strides ahead without a second thought so I try to do the same, holding my head high. "Intensive care," the Doctor says under his breath. "Certainly looks intensive."

The corridor gradually opens up into a railed walkway. I try to appear as unbothered as Rose but I can't help but notice just how vast this space is. The room is wide and reaches up for what looks like miles, every floor with its own walkway. Rows of oval windows glow bright green across every single wall. There must be thousands of them, all identical. Each one we pass has a distinctly humanoid silhouette on the other side.

The Doctor pauses, commanding one hatch to open with his sonic. As it does so, an unpleasant stench wafts towards us. What makes me feel sick, however, is not the stench but the sight of the man inside. He stares blankly out at us, his sallow skin blistering and bruised.

"That's disgusting. What's wrong with him?" Rose remarks, wary not to get any closer.

"Oh my Gods," I gasp. My attempt to approach is blocked by the Doctor. "But he's sick. Doctor, look at him. He's really sick. I have to help."

He slowly closes the door and whispers, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." The next one across is just the same — a young woman covered in bloodied lesions.

Looking her up and down in disgust, Rose sidles closer to the Doctor. "What disease is that?"

"All of them. Every single disease in the galaxy. They've been infected with everything." He is quiet. Scarily quiet.

"What about us? Are we safe?"

Again, he closes the door. "The air's sterile. Just don't touch them."

Approaching the railing, I watch as he glares out at the other pods; all the same, all containing a real life person infected with Gods know how many diseases. Cautiously, I rest a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry. I should have listened. I should have trusted you. We're going to fix this, okay?"

I can feel her beside me once more. For the first time, I'm not too comfortable with it. There's something off about her today. The Rose I know would never act like this. Never. "How many patients are there?"

"They're not patients."

"But they're sick."

"They were born sick," he spits, more furious than I have ever seen him with this face. "They're meant to be sick. They exist to be sick. Lab rats. No wonder the Sisters have a cure for everything, they've built the ultimate research laboratory — a human farm!"

I am relieved when we move away from the edge, although it pains me to pass the same pods. I had seen their faces. I had seen the pain in their eyes. It's not right. It's horrific.

The girl has a smug look on her face as she walks alongside the Doctor, forcing me to linger behind. "Why don't they just die?" she scoffs, as if it's the smartest question anyone could ever come up with, as if she's a genius for even suggesting it.

"Plague carriers are the last to go."

"It's for the greater cause," a timid voice says from the shadows.

He turns to her with a scornful glare. "Novice Hame. When you took your vows, did you agree to this?"

Her approach is reluctant and she eyes us, wary of what we will do — more specifically, what he will do. "The Sisterhood has sworn to help."

"What, by killing?"

A disbelieving smile curls her feline mouth and she sighs, "But they're not real people. They're specially grown, they have no proper existence."

His eyes are wild. Not even the Daleks managed to make him this angry. He's like a completely different person. "What's the turnover?" he demands. "A thousand a day? Thousand the next? Thousand the next? How many thousands for how many years? How many?"

"Mankind needed us. They came to this planet with so many illnesses. We couldn't cope. We did try, we tried everything. We tried using clonemeat and biocattle. The results were too slow so the Sisterhood grew its own flesh. That's all they are, flesh."

I can't believe it. The Sisters swore an oath, just like me — an oath to treat without judgement, to save lives. We cannot pick and choose our patients. This goes against everything.

"These people are alive."

"But think of those humans out there, healthy and happy because of us."

He scoffs, "If they live because of this, then life is worthless."

I don't understand how she can remain so calm. Her voices grows more exasperated but she never raises it, not once, "Who are you to decide that?"

"I'm the Doctor. And if you don't like it, if you don't want to take it to a higher authority, there isn't one. It stops with me."

Rose inches closer, addressing the nurse with her unusually dainty drawl, "Just to confirm, none of the humans in the city actually know about this?"

She grimaces. "We thought it best not."

"Hold on. I can understand the bodies, I can understand your vows... but one thing I can't understand: what have you done to Rose?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"And I'm being very, very calm — you want to beware of that — very, very calm. And the only reason I'm being so very, very calm is that the brain is a delicate thing. Whatever you've done to Rose's head, I want it reversed."

Still, Hame insists, "We haven't done anything."

The girl forces a simpering smile. "I'm perfectly fine."

Finding his gaze on me, I nod, confirming his suspicions. "He's right. She's been acting weird ever since she came to Ward Twenty-Six. What, you expect us not to be upset when someone hijacks our friend?"

"These people are dying and Rose would care."

"Ugh. All right, cleverclogs..." she yanks him closer by his tie, smirking mischievously, "smartypants... ladykiller."

Slowly backing away, I use him as a distraction to grab a rusted wrench that lies discarded on the floor. "What's happened to you?" he breathes, eyes darting over to me for a brief second.

She doesn't notice. I'm not quite sure if whatever-she-is is trying to scare him or something else. "I knew something was going on in this hospital but I needed this body and your mind to find it out."

I raise the wrench, ready to strike. Although I'm not quite sure how to do it without hurting Rose. "Who are you?"

"The last human."

The Doctor frowns, bewildered. "Cassandra?"

"Wake up and smell the perfume."

She pulls a tiny bottle from her bra and squirts it right at his face. Within seconds, he is unconscious on the floor. I panic, attempting to swing the wrench but she dodges and grabs hold of my wrist.

"What are you—"

The pungent stench of flowers and chemicals hits me. I try to push her back but all of a sudden the world is spinning out of control.

The air is thick when I come to. The stench is overpowering, blood and vomit and a number of things I will not forget for some time. Forcing my eyes open, I find that I am right up against a glass window, too stained for me to see through. Everything is lit an eerie green.

"Di Immortales! Oh. Ohhh, gross. What is—" The frame I lean back against lets out a quiet grunt. Horrified, I jump away again but find my way blocked by glass yet again. The space is far too cramped; suffocating, almost. I can't escape. "Oh! No, no, no, no. Oh Gods."

"Inara?"

"D-Doctor?"

I can't believe that I hadn't noticed before, especially since his hands rest on the frame either side of me. Now, one grips my arm, as if to offer some comfort or reassurance. Or I'm just reading too much into it and should be shouting like he is. "Let us out! Let us out!"

"Aren't you two lucky there was a spare? Standing room only."

There she is, right in front of us — Rose's body, but not her mind. Cassandra, as the Doctor called her. He tenses against me and leans around, desperately fumbling at the edges of the window for some kind of hatch. "You've stolen Rose's body."

"Over the years, I've thought of a thousand ways to kill you, Doctor, and now that's exactly what I've got: one thousand diseases."

"Brilliant. How long did it take you to come up with that one?"

Even with her face clouded by the barrier, I can see her sneer. "Inara, was it? Well, this isn't really about you. We've never met. Don't take it personally, dear."

I groan in frustration and begin to kick at the glass, desperate to break free. My head tilts back. A small series of wires running across the top of the pod catch my eye and, quickly fascinated, I stop my struggling. "Oh, I think I will, if it's all the same to you."

"Anyway, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted... they pump the patients with a top-up every ten minutes. You've got about three minutes left. Enjoy."

"Just let Rose go, Cassandra."

"I will," she replies, sounding almost offended by the suggestion, "as soon as I find someone younger and... less common. Then I'll junk her with the waste. Now, hushabye. It's showtime."

Grimacing as my face is practically pressed up against the window, I strain to move my foot to a higher perch. The Doctor quickly turns his face away and hisses, "Do you mind? You're right in my face."

I roll my eyes and reach up, managing to grab onto a bar that I use to lift myself up with until I am right at the top. My legs push against the walls to keep me from falling. "Sorry. Just trying to save our lives. What are they saying out there?"

I am just about able to see him under me as I fumble with the wires. A couple of quick glances are sent my way but he seems a little too focused on listening to the conversation happening outside between Cassandra and some nurses. "She's... blackmailing them. Is she serious? What—"

"Need to cut the wires. Sonic." Still distracted, he passes it up to me. I flash him a grin, wary not to accidentally hit him with my knees. The device whirrs as I hold it against the wires. Smoke curls from them. They snap apart and I make quick work of switching and knotting them. Nothing happens. Maybe I had too much hope. Carefully withdrawing my hands from the wires, I meet his expectant stare. "I don't know if that—"

The pod opens. Unfortunately, my foot had been pressing right up against the window to keep me steady and now my support has vanished. My fingers grab for the bar but I am already falling.

The Doctor manages to catch me, albeit a little awkwardly. Tripping out of the pod, gasping for air, we quickly realise that we aren't the only ones to have been freed. The patients are out. They stagger, zombielike, with their blank stares fixed right on us. "What have you done?" he shouts the second that his focus lands on Cassandra.

"Gave the system a shot of adrenaline just to wake them up. See ya!"

A/n:
Yes, I didn't need to put them in the same pod. No, I don't regret it.

Also, Cassandra's amazing. My favourite version is yet to come but I love her anyway. Although that kiss is pretty awkward.

May publish less often. In the last 2 weeks of GCSEs and then I'm moving house. Can't wait to leave this town and shitty family but the rest of the move is just going to be stressful. I've written up to Chapter 32, so I can still publish if I have time but writing might be a little delayed.

Anyway, love y'all so much. I hope you're enjoying this so far! ❤️


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