Who Fic - Recurrence 1/2
Jan. 1st, 2009 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sapphire_childTitle: Recurrence 1/2
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating/warnings: PG
Genre: angst
Character/s: Rose/10.5
Spoilers: up to JE with particular spoilers for Midnight
Summary: When a young Torchwood employee seemingly becomes afflicted by the same force that the Doctor faced on Midnight it’s a race against time for him to try and save her life before the situation escalates out of control.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all it’s associated characters/situations etc do not belong to me, I’m just borrowing them.
~*~
“So what exactly are we potentially dealing with here sir?”
Sebastian Cook sighed good naturedly at his younger counterpart. It was her first field mission and she looked nothing short of terrified, twitching and fidgeting in the passenger seat.
“Jodie,” he kept his tone light, jibing her. “You know you don’t need to call me sir. Seb will do fine.”
Jodie’s face coloured until her abundance of freckles disappeared. “Sorry,” she muttered.
“Don’t be,” Seb said, doing his best to concentrate on the terrain. “And to answer your question, I have no idea what we’re dealing with. Some farmer found a bloody great metal canister in the middle of one of his fields and we’ve been sent out to make sure that it’s not of extra terrestrial origin.”
“Or dangerous?”
“Or dangerous,” Seb agreed. “And if it’s either of those things then we’re going to need to deal with it.”
Jodie fell silent as Seb manoeuvred the four wheel drive around a particularly slushy looking section of grass. Torchwood had good cars with good suspension, but having to drive around the countryside like this was still a pain.
“Why do aliens always have to drop their rubbish in the middle of nowhere?” Seb muttered as they crested a small hill and the canister came into view.
“Bloody hell,” Jodie breathed, her grip tightening on the strap of her bag. “I didn’t think it’d be this big!”
“Yeah well,” Seb grunted as he pulled the car up a good hundred yards away and turned the ignition off. “Somebody’ll have to get a helicopter in to get rid of this thing – it’ll take too long to get a Zeppelin out this far into the sticks.”
The two of them regarded the canister a moment longer and then Seb unclipped his seat belt with a sigh.
“Come on then. Let’s go get this over with.”
He took the walk slowly, letting Jodie carry most of the heavier equipment. He’d been having trouble with his back lately – no doubt a by product of years spent chasing after aliens. For some reason they seemed to have a penchant for grabbing him and throwing him around like a rag doll. Even with physiotherapy and pain medication his bones couldn’t take anywhere near as much stress as they used to.
Jodie was the opposite, young and bright with hair the colour of fire and enough energy and strength to make up for his lack thereof. She had just finished a year of army reserve training after studying astrophysics at the University of Kent and despite her relative youth she was rapidly moving up through the ranks at Torchwood.
“So what first?” Jodie asked nervously, rummaging through her bag. “Scan for life? Radiation check?”
“Check the radiation levels first,” Seb said distractedly as he paced the length of the canister. It was quite long and a startlingly bright, mid blue. It glittered strangely in the weak sunlight – maybe it was some kind of metal alloy? – and had a relatively rough surface. No obvious marks or damage, not even burn marks from the atmosphere. Eyes still fixed on it, Seb gestured vaguely at the bag that Jodie was still fumbling within. “Can you pass me the measuring...?”
Jodie all but dove headfirst into the bag and Seb waited impatiently as she found the hand held device and passed it to him. He nodded his thanks and then began to scan the canister to obtain the exact length, width and girth while she began her preliminary radiation check. As they worked however, Seb couldn’t help but notice the anxious expression puckering her face, nor her white knuckled hold on the device in her hands.
“Calm down would you?” Seb remarked after a while, his voice sharp. “You’re more likely to make a mistake if you’re worked up. And making a mistake out here could mean that neither of us get to go home at the end of the day. Alright?”
If anything Jodie only looked more terrified at his words and Seb paused to scrub at his eyes. He was used to taking experienced agents out in the field with him. Normally there’d be at least two others out on a mission as big as this, but most of Torchwood’s best field agents were tied up with a rather messy crash landing in Kensington and so he’d gotten lumped with a girl barely out of her teens.
Watching her jittery progress around the perimeter of the canister, Seb made a note to sit her down when they got back to Torchwood One and have a chat to her. She was very clever and incredibly promising for her age – and she was definitely one of the brightest and most enthusiastic people he’d worked with in a while. But at the moment she was too busy worrying to do her job correctly.
In his hands the measuring device chirped, signalling that it had finished its job. Seb saved the data then waited until Jodie had finished scanning for radiation and given him the all clear before stepping forward and laying a gloved hand cautiously against the strange canister.
“Stone cold,” he reported. “Strange. It looks like it’s almost...organic.”
Raising his hand he rapped sharply on the canister to determine if it was hollow.
A moment later there was a returning echo from inside.
Jodie leapt back with a half-choked scream and Seb shushed her.
“Is there something inside?” she blurted. “Oh my God!”
“Possibly,” Seb knocked again and there was a short pause before whatever was inside knocked back. “Fascinating...”
Jodie meanwhile looked nothing short of terrified. “Jodie,” Seb said, trying to bring her back into focus. “It’s alright. There might not even be anything inside – it’s probably just a delayed echo.”
Jodie bit her lip and took a breath before moving forward and placing a careful hand on it.
“See?” Seb said, smiling. “Nothing to...”
The knocking from inside boomed out suddenly, louder than before, and this time Jodie didn’t even try to contain herself. She screamed loud and long, backing away frantically.
“It was right under my hand!” she gabbled, pointing at the canister. “Like it...like it knew where I was standing!”
“Jodie...” Seb beckoned to her with his hand and after a moment she began to edge around the crater towards him, eyes popping, keeping as much distance between herself and the canister as possible.
But then the banging started up again, chasing her along the length of the crater and she began to scream, terrified. “Don’t let it get me! Oh my God Sebastian – don’t let it get me!”
“Jodie...!” Seb began to make his away around the canister to meet her halfway but as he broke into a sideways run there was a sudden burst of air and light and he was on his back in the dirt.
Blinking away the bright whiteness, he took stock of his limbs as his sight returned. Nothing seemed broken – just bumped and bruised – so he sat himself up carefully and looked around to make sure that Jodie was alright.
What he saw made him gasp.
The canister, which previously had been nearly fifteen feet long, had compacted to the size of a soft drink can. And on the other side of the crater its original landing had created was Jodie, crouched and curled in on herself like a wounded animal.
Seb rose carefully and began to make his way carefully across the crater towards her.
“Jodie?” he said softly. “Jodie can you hear me? Are you hurt?”
There was a moment in which Jodie stayed crouched, immobile next to the crumpled remains of the canister and then she swung around and fixed Seb with such a stare that he actually stumbled backwards and fell on his behind.
Her pupils were like pinpricks, her pale eyes fervent and alert, watching Seb’s every move.
“Jodie?” he said tentatively.
Eyes still blank, Jodie cocked her head and then spoke, her voice slow.
“Jodie?”
Non-plussed, Seb knelt into an awkward crouch and peered anxiously into her face.
“Are you alright?” he asked loudly. “Are you hurt?”
“Are you alright?” she returned. “Are you hurt?”
Seb stood and scratched his head. Jodie stared at him, occasionally twitching when he made a sudden move. He stared at her a moment longer, glanced around at the crater and what remained of the canister and then grimaced as he bent and scooped her up. She didn’t protest, merely hung like a dead weight in his arms.
“I’m taking you back to base,” he told her as he stumbled through the grass. His back was killing him already. “They’ll fix up whatever...whatever’s happened to you.”
“I’m taking you back to base,” Jodie mumbled from his arms. “They’ll fix up whatever...whatever’s happened to you.”
“Christ,” Seb muttered.
“Christ...”
~*~
John Smith didn’t officially work at Torchwood but it didn’t stop him from popping in at all hours of the day and night to help out with cases or steal alien paraphernalia to take home and catalogue. Affectionately nicknamed ‘the Doctor’ because of his penchant for fixing things, he was well liked by the other employees and could often as not be seen on the arm of one Rose Tyler – Vitex heiress and alien expert extraordinaire.
Now as it so happened their particular relationship was one under constant speculation – particularly about the circumstances under which they first met – but they did their best to ignore the fanciful rumours and live as their fellow employees did – eating chips and chasing aliens.
Well...maybe not chips all the time.
“What’s this?” the Doctor demanded, stealing Rose’s fork and poking suspiciously about in her lunch. “It’s green.”
“Its salad,” Rose stole her fork back and speared a piece of tomato with it. “An’ don’t you dare tease me about eating it. M’not nineteen anymore and I need to watch what I eat else I’ll end up as big as a Zeppelin.”
“But you’re not overweight,” the Doctor frowned. “You’re probably one of the least...fat people I know!”
“Says the man who’s so skinny he could make a paperclip jealous,” came an amused voice from the doorway and the Doctor and Rose both grinned as Marion Reed made her dignified way into the room and over to her desk with her own lunch offering. “I see you’ve made it your business to make sure that you visit when our Rose is having her lunch so you don’t interrupt any of her very important paperwork. That’s so considerate of you John.”
“Quite,” the Doctor’s mouth twitched. He very much liked Marion, she was nearing forty and had a very dry sense of humour that he had a bad habit of falling victim to. Slightly built, her dark hair bounced in the most amazing ringlets and she sported a rather lovely collection of smile lines around her dark eyes. “So what’s new in the world of Miss Marion Reed?”
“Oh not a whole lot,” Marion said absently but then turned suddenly serious as she began to unpack her plastic container of Korean food from the shop down the road. Even from across the room the Doctor could smell the whiff of spices and hot meat that escaped along with the steam. “But I did see something interesting on the way up here. Sebastian went out on a field trip with Jodie Trammel today...”
“S’that the new girl we had in here the other day?” Rose queried, shovelling in another mouthful of salad and the Doctor took advantage of her distraction to steal a piece of celery and then an olive. It wasn’t chips but at least salad was better than nothing – the speed of his human metabolism was nothing short of ridiculous. “Wasn’t she the one who did army training?”
“Mmn. Yeah. Anyway,” Marion said distractedly as she began to poke about in her noodles with her chopsticks. “They went out today – Jodie’s first field mission.”
“How’d she do?” Rose pressed as the Doctor crunched away on a piece of carefully stolen lettuce.
“Well apparently she freaked out a bit when she saw whatever the hell it was that they were meant to be checking out,” Marion used her chopsticks to accentuate her point. “Especially when it went and imploded on them.”
The Doctor’s ears pricked up at this but as Rose chose that moment to choke on a lettuce leaf he was forced to pat her on the back instead of asking Marion what sort of object they had been looking at.
“Oh my God!” Rose said once she’d finished choking. “They alright?”
Marion shrugged and slurped the end of a noodle up into her mouth. “Depends on what you mean by alright. Seb’s got a few bumps and bruises – nothing major. Jodie’s just acting weird. They think she might’ve gone into shock.”
“What sort of weird?” the Doctor prompted quietly, intrigued now.
“Well apparently she’s repeating things,” Marion frowned and shook her head. “Whatever people say to her or around her...”
“Everything?” he interrupted sharply and Rose stilled at his tone. “She’s repeating everything?”
“I guess so,” Marion looked puzzled. “I only know what I heard and...”
But the Doctor had already jumped down off the desk. “Is she in isolation?” he demanded.
“I-don’t...” Marion dropped her chopsticks in surprise. “Yes I-I think so. John, why...?”
The Doctor held out a hand, “Come on,” but Rose had already dropped her fork and stood, automatically reaching for his hand.
“Wait, what about your lunch?” Marion rose to call them back but they had already disappeared out the doorway. Grumbling to herself, she made her way over to Rose’s desk and replaced the lid on her salad. “Bloody kids,” she muttered.
~*~
“D’you know what’s wrong with her?” Rose asked breathlessly as the two of them pelted down the stairs that led to solitary confinement. “Can you fix it?”
“I don’t know if I can fix it,” the Doctor admitted. “But I think I’ve got a fair idea of what’s wrong with her yeah.”
Together they clattered down a hallway and then came to a skidding halt at a security door. Pressing her pass card against a panel in the wall to grant them access, Rose tapped her foot as it scanned and the Doctor fidgeted restlessly beside her. She had strict rules about the Doctor using his sonic screwdriver to open doors at Torchwood after he’d been caught in various restricted parts of the building and gotten her into trouble. “So what is it then? A...disease?” she guessed. “Some sort of...I dunno alien possession?”
“I don’t know,” the Doctor muttered as the door finally whooshed open and the two of them clamoured into the corridor beyond. “Hopefully I can figure it out this time.”
“What d’you mean this time?” Rose asked, worried but the Doctor didn’t answer.
Several corridors and security scans later they emerged into an observation room. Seb was watching the proceedings nervously whilst two others, a man and a woman in lab coats observed their quarry through a large window set over an impressively large computer system.
Jodie was crouched on the floor in a simple hospital gown, nodes attached to her temples and various pulse points. She was staring straight ahead, eyes blank, occasionally twitching slightly.
“Oh,” Rose said softly when she saw her. “The poor thing.”
“Rose?” Seb said when he turned to see who had entered the room. “John? What are you doing down here?”
“We heard about Jodie,” Rose explained, finally tearing her eyes away from the window. “And the Do- I mean, John thinks he might know what’s wrong with her.”
“That so?” the male technician turned around in interest. He had a strong Irish accent and a broad, pleasant face. “I’m Kile,” he offered a hand and the Doctor shook it cordially. “This is Julia.”
“Yes,” the Doctor said, smiling broadly. “Lovely to meet you both. Though I wish it were for more pleasant reasons...”
“Yes well,” Kile said uncomfortably. “You’ve come to offer us a diagnosis have you...?” he squinted at the visitors pass hastily pinned to the Doctors waistcoat. “Dr. Smith.”
“Wellll...I’d like to study the patient first if that’s alright with you,” the Doctor said modestly. “Just to make sure that I’m correct in my assumptions. I might be completely wrong.”
“Hardly likely,” Seb muttered but he looked amused nonetheless.
“You’ll have to have a weapon on you if you go in there,” Julia, the female lab technician warned without even turning around.
“No thanks,” the Doctor said simply, appealing to Seb. “Nothing doing Seb. You know I don’t like guns.”
“You can have mine,” Rose offered and he grimaced. “Or maybe I could go in with you and...”
“No,” he snapped and everyone in the room stared. “I mean,” the Doctor struggled to compose himself again. “I think it would be safer if I went in there alone.”
Rose crossed her arms. “Fine,” she said, glaring a little. “I’ll just watch from in here shall I?”
Sebastian and Kile glanced between the two of them and even Julia looked over her shoulder, eyebrow arched in interest.
“Yeah. That’d be lovely,” the Doctor said finally as he made his way over to the door, ignoring the heat of her glower as best he could.
Once he’d been through the decontamination chamber and been thoroughly disinfected he was able to enter the isolation chamber easily enough by touching the panel on the wall, reaching inside his pocket for his sonic screwdriver as he did so. At the sound of the doors mechanical whoosh, Jodie’s eyes snapped up and focused on him. The Doctor tried to repress a shudder and failed – Jodie’s eyes were a lovely pale blue, just like Sky Silvestri’s had been.
He had never forgotten the way that she had looked at him on Midnight, just as he had never dreamed that one day he would see that same expression on another person – a girl. Because that’s all she was really, a girl who probably wasn’t all that much older than Rose had been when he’d been travelling with her.
Silently he stepped over the threshold and made his way over to where Jodie was crouched. On closer inspection it seemed that some of the nodes that had been attached to her had loosened. Instead of trying to replace them, the Doctor merely crouched down in front of her and studied her.
“Jodie?” he said softly. The girl stared at him and tilted her head curiously.
“Jodie?” she echoed.
“Oh lovely,” he scrubbed his face enthusiastically with his hands. “That’s just brilliant.”
“Oh lovely,” Jodie said flatly. “That’s just brilliant.”
After a few simple scans with the sonic screwdriver garnered no real evidence apart from slightly elevated activity in the brain, the Doctor tried speaking to her again.
“Hello Jodie. I’m John Smith – I’m a doctor.”
“Hello Jodie. I’m John Smith – I’m a doctor.”
He paused before he continued on, her following along a word or two behind. “Now Jodie I think I know what’s happening to you but I’m going to need some time. Really, I am so sorry that this has happened to you – I know how scared you must be. But I’m going to do everything I can to fix it. I promise.”
Once she’d finished repeating him, Jodie blinked once and then cocked her head at him.
The Doctor, feeling rather helpless, stood and exited without another word.
“Nobody else is allowed to speak to her until I say you can,” he said as he emerged from the decontamination chamber. “It’s too dangerous for this thing to progress any further.”
Seb and Rose glanced up questioningly but Kile and Julia merely stared at him blankly.
“Now I need to know if you’ve taken blood samples at all?” the Doctor continued. “Because if you have I’d like to take a look at them and if not then I think we need to get some. I’d also like to get her brain scanned for unusual activity – I don’t suppose Torchwood has an MRI machine somewhere down here do they?”
“Unfortunately no,” Seb said dryly. “And in any case, we’re getting brain wave information from the nodes on her temples.”
“But half of them are coming off,” the Doctor frowned. “They’re not stuck on properly.”
“Well her readings seem quite normal,” Julia said, gesturing to the computer readouts. “See?”
“Well the readings I just did with my handy dandy little gadget right here...” the Doctor twirled his sonic screwdriver. “...say that her readings are not entirely normal. Sorry to disappoint you. Now about that blood?”
“We’ve already sent the samples up to lab 260,” Seb said, automatically reaching for a pad of paper and a pen. His hands shook as he wrote something out and then folded it and handed it to the Doctor. “Give this to Thomas Neville – he’s the head lab technician up there. He’ll help you with whatever you need.”
“Oh,” surprised, the Doctor took the folded slip carefully and pocketed it. He wasn’t used to getting such free reign here – not being employed by Torchwood he usually had to fight tooth and claw to be allowed to help them or else he had to sneak around behind peoples backs. “Thank you Seb.”
Seb waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll give you permission to do whatever tests you need to do if it’ll get Jodie better,” he said flatly. “She was my responsibility and I let her down. If you can fix this...”
“I’ll do everything I can,” the Doctor promised then turned to Rose. “Rose, I need you to stay here and keep an eye on Jodie. If her condition changes – anything at all – then you need to get me down here straight away. Alright?”
She nodded curtly, not quite meeting his eyes. “Yeah alright. Come back quick yeah? And don’t lick anything toxic.”
“I’ll do my best,” he smiled tightly and on a whim, kissed her cheek. Rose looked slightly mollified at this and the Doctor backed out of the door. “I’ll be back.”
As soon as he was in the corridor, the Doctor began to run.
Part Two ->
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating/warnings: PG
Genre: angst
Character/s: Rose/10.5
Spoilers: up to JE with particular spoilers for Midnight
Summary: When a young Torchwood employee seemingly becomes afflicted by the same force that the Doctor faced on Midnight it’s a race against time for him to try and save her life before the situation escalates out of control.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all it’s associated characters/situations etc do not belong to me, I’m just borrowing them.
“So what exactly are we potentially dealing with here sir?”
Sebastian Cook sighed good naturedly at his younger counterpart. It was her first field mission and she looked nothing short of terrified, twitching and fidgeting in the passenger seat.
“Jodie,” he kept his tone light, jibing her. “You know you don’t need to call me sir. Seb will do fine.”
Jodie’s face coloured until her abundance of freckles disappeared. “Sorry,” she muttered.
“Don’t be,” Seb said, doing his best to concentrate on the terrain. “And to answer your question, I have no idea what we’re dealing with. Some farmer found a bloody great metal canister in the middle of one of his fields and we’ve been sent out to make sure that it’s not of extra terrestrial origin.”
“Or dangerous?”
“Or dangerous,” Seb agreed. “And if it’s either of those things then we’re going to need to deal with it.”
Jodie fell silent as Seb manoeuvred the four wheel drive around a particularly slushy looking section of grass. Torchwood had good cars with good suspension, but having to drive around the countryside like this was still a pain.
“Why do aliens always have to drop their rubbish in the middle of nowhere?” Seb muttered as they crested a small hill and the canister came into view.
“Bloody hell,” Jodie breathed, her grip tightening on the strap of her bag. “I didn’t think it’d be this big!”
“Yeah well,” Seb grunted as he pulled the car up a good hundred yards away and turned the ignition off. “Somebody’ll have to get a helicopter in to get rid of this thing – it’ll take too long to get a Zeppelin out this far into the sticks.”
The two of them regarded the canister a moment longer and then Seb unclipped his seat belt with a sigh.
“Come on then. Let’s go get this over with.”
He took the walk slowly, letting Jodie carry most of the heavier equipment. He’d been having trouble with his back lately – no doubt a by product of years spent chasing after aliens. For some reason they seemed to have a penchant for grabbing him and throwing him around like a rag doll. Even with physiotherapy and pain medication his bones couldn’t take anywhere near as much stress as they used to.
Jodie was the opposite, young and bright with hair the colour of fire and enough energy and strength to make up for his lack thereof. She had just finished a year of army reserve training after studying astrophysics at the University of Kent and despite her relative youth she was rapidly moving up through the ranks at Torchwood.
“So what first?” Jodie asked nervously, rummaging through her bag. “Scan for life? Radiation check?”
“Check the radiation levels first,” Seb said distractedly as he paced the length of the canister. It was quite long and a startlingly bright, mid blue. It glittered strangely in the weak sunlight – maybe it was some kind of metal alloy? – and had a relatively rough surface. No obvious marks or damage, not even burn marks from the atmosphere. Eyes still fixed on it, Seb gestured vaguely at the bag that Jodie was still fumbling within. “Can you pass me the measuring...?”
Jodie all but dove headfirst into the bag and Seb waited impatiently as she found the hand held device and passed it to him. He nodded his thanks and then began to scan the canister to obtain the exact length, width and girth while she began her preliminary radiation check. As they worked however, Seb couldn’t help but notice the anxious expression puckering her face, nor her white knuckled hold on the device in her hands.
“Calm down would you?” Seb remarked after a while, his voice sharp. “You’re more likely to make a mistake if you’re worked up. And making a mistake out here could mean that neither of us get to go home at the end of the day. Alright?”
If anything Jodie only looked more terrified at his words and Seb paused to scrub at his eyes. He was used to taking experienced agents out in the field with him. Normally there’d be at least two others out on a mission as big as this, but most of Torchwood’s best field agents were tied up with a rather messy crash landing in Kensington and so he’d gotten lumped with a girl barely out of her teens.
Watching her jittery progress around the perimeter of the canister, Seb made a note to sit her down when they got back to Torchwood One and have a chat to her. She was very clever and incredibly promising for her age – and she was definitely one of the brightest and most enthusiastic people he’d worked with in a while. But at the moment she was too busy worrying to do her job correctly.
In his hands the measuring device chirped, signalling that it had finished its job. Seb saved the data then waited until Jodie had finished scanning for radiation and given him the all clear before stepping forward and laying a gloved hand cautiously against the strange canister.
“Stone cold,” he reported. “Strange. It looks like it’s almost...organic.”
Raising his hand he rapped sharply on the canister to determine if it was hollow.
A moment later there was a returning echo from inside.
Jodie leapt back with a half-choked scream and Seb shushed her.
“Is there something inside?” she blurted. “Oh my God!”
“Possibly,” Seb knocked again and there was a short pause before whatever was inside knocked back. “Fascinating...”
Jodie meanwhile looked nothing short of terrified. “Jodie,” Seb said, trying to bring her back into focus. “It’s alright. There might not even be anything inside – it’s probably just a delayed echo.”
Jodie bit her lip and took a breath before moving forward and placing a careful hand on it.
“See?” Seb said, smiling. “Nothing to...”
The knocking from inside boomed out suddenly, louder than before, and this time Jodie didn’t even try to contain herself. She screamed loud and long, backing away frantically.
“It was right under my hand!” she gabbled, pointing at the canister. “Like it...like it knew where I was standing!”
“Jodie...” Seb beckoned to her with his hand and after a moment she began to edge around the crater towards him, eyes popping, keeping as much distance between herself and the canister as possible.
But then the banging started up again, chasing her along the length of the crater and she began to scream, terrified. “Don’t let it get me! Oh my God Sebastian – don’t let it get me!”
“Jodie...!” Seb began to make his away around the canister to meet her halfway but as he broke into a sideways run there was a sudden burst of air and light and he was on his back in the dirt.
Blinking away the bright whiteness, he took stock of his limbs as his sight returned. Nothing seemed broken – just bumped and bruised – so he sat himself up carefully and looked around to make sure that Jodie was alright.
What he saw made him gasp.
The canister, which previously had been nearly fifteen feet long, had compacted to the size of a soft drink can. And on the other side of the crater its original landing had created was Jodie, crouched and curled in on herself like a wounded animal.
Seb rose carefully and began to make his way carefully across the crater towards her.
“Jodie?” he said softly. “Jodie can you hear me? Are you hurt?”
There was a moment in which Jodie stayed crouched, immobile next to the crumpled remains of the canister and then she swung around and fixed Seb with such a stare that he actually stumbled backwards and fell on his behind.
Her pupils were like pinpricks, her pale eyes fervent and alert, watching Seb’s every move.
“Jodie?” he said tentatively.
Eyes still blank, Jodie cocked her head and then spoke, her voice slow.
“Jodie?”
Non-plussed, Seb knelt into an awkward crouch and peered anxiously into her face.
“Are you alright?” he asked loudly. “Are you hurt?”
“Are you alright?” she returned. “Are you hurt?”
Seb stood and scratched his head. Jodie stared at him, occasionally twitching when he made a sudden move. He stared at her a moment longer, glanced around at the crater and what remained of the canister and then grimaced as he bent and scooped her up. She didn’t protest, merely hung like a dead weight in his arms.
“I’m taking you back to base,” he told her as he stumbled through the grass. His back was killing him already. “They’ll fix up whatever...whatever’s happened to you.”
“I’m taking you back to base,” Jodie mumbled from his arms. “They’ll fix up whatever...whatever’s happened to you.”
“Christ,” Seb muttered.
“Christ...”
John Smith didn’t officially work at Torchwood but it didn’t stop him from popping in at all hours of the day and night to help out with cases or steal alien paraphernalia to take home and catalogue. Affectionately nicknamed ‘the Doctor’ because of his penchant for fixing things, he was well liked by the other employees and could often as not be seen on the arm of one Rose Tyler – Vitex heiress and alien expert extraordinaire.
Now as it so happened their particular relationship was one under constant speculation – particularly about the circumstances under which they first met – but they did their best to ignore the fanciful rumours and live as their fellow employees did – eating chips and chasing aliens.
Well...maybe not chips all the time.
“What’s this?” the Doctor demanded, stealing Rose’s fork and poking suspiciously about in her lunch. “It’s green.”
“Its salad,” Rose stole her fork back and speared a piece of tomato with it. “An’ don’t you dare tease me about eating it. M’not nineteen anymore and I need to watch what I eat else I’ll end up as big as a Zeppelin.”
“But you’re not overweight,” the Doctor frowned. “You’re probably one of the least...fat people I know!”
“Says the man who’s so skinny he could make a paperclip jealous,” came an amused voice from the doorway and the Doctor and Rose both grinned as Marion Reed made her dignified way into the room and over to her desk with her own lunch offering. “I see you’ve made it your business to make sure that you visit when our Rose is having her lunch so you don’t interrupt any of her very important paperwork. That’s so considerate of you John.”
“Quite,” the Doctor’s mouth twitched. He very much liked Marion, she was nearing forty and had a very dry sense of humour that he had a bad habit of falling victim to. Slightly built, her dark hair bounced in the most amazing ringlets and she sported a rather lovely collection of smile lines around her dark eyes. “So what’s new in the world of Miss Marion Reed?”
“Oh not a whole lot,” Marion said absently but then turned suddenly serious as she began to unpack her plastic container of Korean food from the shop down the road. Even from across the room the Doctor could smell the whiff of spices and hot meat that escaped along with the steam. “But I did see something interesting on the way up here. Sebastian went out on a field trip with Jodie Trammel today...”
“S’that the new girl we had in here the other day?” Rose queried, shovelling in another mouthful of salad and the Doctor took advantage of her distraction to steal a piece of celery and then an olive. It wasn’t chips but at least salad was better than nothing – the speed of his human metabolism was nothing short of ridiculous. “Wasn’t she the one who did army training?”
“Mmn. Yeah. Anyway,” Marion said distractedly as she began to poke about in her noodles with her chopsticks. “They went out today – Jodie’s first field mission.”
“How’d she do?” Rose pressed as the Doctor crunched away on a piece of carefully stolen lettuce.
“Well apparently she freaked out a bit when she saw whatever the hell it was that they were meant to be checking out,” Marion used her chopsticks to accentuate her point. “Especially when it went and imploded on them.”
The Doctor’s ears pricked up at this but as Rose chose that moment to choke on a lettuce leaf he was forced to pat her on the back instead of asking Marion what sort of object they had been looking at.
“Oh my God!” Rose said once she’d finished choking. “They alright?”
Marion shrugged and slurped the end of a noodle up into her mouth. “Depends on what you mean by alright. Seb’s got a few bumps and bruises – nothing major. Jodie’s just acting weird. They think she might’ve gone into shock.”
“What sort of weird?” the Doctor prompted quietly, intrigued now.
“Well apparently she’s repeating things,” Marion frowned and shook her head. “Whatever people say to her or around her...”
“Everything?” he interrupted sharply and Rose stilled at his tone. “She’s repeating everything?”
“I guess so,” Marion looked puzzled. “I only know what I heard and...”
But the Doctor had already jumped down off the desk. “Is she in isolation?” he demanded.
“I-don’t...” Marion dropped her chopsticks in surprise. “Yes I-I think so. John, why...?”
The Doctor held out a hand, “Come on,” but Rose had already dropped her fork and stood, automatically reaching for his hand.
“Wait, what about your lunch?” Marion rose to call them back but they had already disappeared out the doorway. Grumbling to herself, she made her way over to Rose’s desk and replaced the lid on her salad. “Bloody kids,” she muttered.
“D’you know what’s wrong with her?” Rose asked breathlessly as the two of them pelted down the stairs that led to solitary confinement. “Can you fix it?”
“I don’t know if I can fix it,” the Doctor admitted. “But I think I’ve got a fair idea of what’s wrong with her yeah.”
Together they clattered down a hallway and then came to a skidding halt at a security door. Pressing her pass card against a panel in the wall to grant them access, Rose tapped her foot as it scanned and the Doctor fidgeted restlessly beside her. She had strict rules about the Doctor using his sonic screwdriver to open doors at Torchwood after he’d been caught in various restricted parts of the building and gotten her into trouble. “So what is it then? A...disease?” she guessed. “Some sort of...I dunno alien possession?”
“I don’t know,” the Doctor muttered as the door finally whooshed open and the two of them clamoured into the corridor beyond. “Hopefully I can figure it out this time.”
“What d’you mean this time?” Rose asked, worried but the Doctor didn’t answer.
Several corridors and security scans later they emerged into an observation room. Seb was watching the proceedings nervously whilst two others, a man and a woman in lab coats observed their quarry through a large window set over an impressively large computer system.
Jodie was crouched on the floor in a simple hospital gown, nodes attached to her temples and various pulse points. She was staring straight ahead, eyes blank, occasionally twitching slightly.
“Oh,” Rose said softly when she saw her. “The poor thing.”
“Rose?” Seb said when he turned to see who had entered the room. “John? What are you doing down here?”
“We heard about Jodie,” Rose explained, finally tearing her eyes away from the window. “And the Do- I mean, John thinks he might know what’s wrong with her.”
“That so?” the male technician turned around in interest. He had a strong Irish accent and a broad, pleasant face. “I’m Kile,” he offered a hand and the Doctor shook it cordially. “This is Julia.”
“Yes,” the Doctor said, smiling broadly. “Lovely to meet you both. Though I wish it were for more pleasant reasons...”
“Yes well,” Kile said uncomfortably. “You’ve come to offer us a diagnosis have you...?” he squinted at the visitors pass hastily pinned to the Doctors waistcoat. “Dr. Smith.”
“Wellll...I’d like to study the patient first if that’s alright with you,” the Doctor said modestly. “Just to make sure that I’m correct in my assumptions. I might be completely wrong.”
“Hardly likely,” Seb muttered but he looked amused nonetheless.
“You’ll have to have a weapon on you if you go in there,” Julia, the female lab technician warned without even turning around.
“No thanks,” the Doctor said simply, appealing to Seb. “Nothing doing Seb. You know I don’t like guns.”
“You can have mine,” Rose offered and he grimaced. “Or maybe I could go in with you and...”
“No,” he snapped and everyone in the room stared. “I mean,” the Doctor struggled to compose himself again. “I think it would be safer if I went in there alone.”
Rose crossed her arms. “Fine,” she said, glaring a little. “I’ll just watch from in here shall I?”
Sebastian and Kile glanced between the two of them and even Julia looked over her shoulder, eyebrow arched in interest.
“Yeah. That’d be lovely,” the Doctor said finally as he made his way over to the door, ignoring the heat of her glower as best he could.
Once he’d been through the decontamination chamber and been thoroughly disinfected he was able to enter the isolation chamber easily enough by touching the panel on the wall, reaching inside his pocket for his sonic screwdriver as he did so. At the sound of the doors mechanical whoosh, Jodie’s eyes snapped up and focused on him. The Doctor tried to repress a shudder and failed – Jodie’s eyes were a lovely pale blue, just like Sky Silvestri’s had been.
He had never forgotten the way that she had looked at him on Midnight, just as he had never dreamed that one day he would see that same expression on another person – a girl. Because that’s all she was really, a girl who probably wasn’t all that much older than Rose had been when he’d been travelling with her.
Silently he stepped over the threshold and made his way over to where Jodie was crouched. On closer inspection it seemed that some of the nodes that had been attached to her had loosened. Instead of trying to replace them, the Doctor merely crouched down in front of her and studied her.
“Jodie?” he said softly. The girl stared at him and tilted her head curiously.
“Jodie?” she echoed.
“Oh lovely,” he scrubbed his face enthusiastically with his hands. “That’s just brilliant.”
“Oh lovely,” Jodie said flatly. “That’s just brilliant.”
After a few simple scans with the sonic screwdriver garnered no real evidence apart from slightly elevated activity in the brain, the Doctor tried speaking to her again.
“Hello Jodie. I’m John Smith – I’m a doctor.”
“Hello Jodie. I’m John Smith – I’m a doctor.”
He paused before he continued on, her following along a word or two behind. “Now Jodie I think I know what’s happening to you but I’m going to need some time. Really, I am so sorry that this has happened to you – I know how scared you must be. But I’m going to do everything I can to fix it. I promise.”
Once she’d finished repeating him, Jodie blinked once and then cocked her head at him.
The Doctor, feeling rather helpless, stood and exited without another word.
“Nobody else is allowed to speak to her until I say you can,” he said as he emerged from the decontamination chamber. “It’s too dangerous for this thing to progress any further.”
Seb and Rose glanced up questioningly but Kile and Julia merely stared at him blankly.
“Now I need to know if you’ve taken blood samples at all?” the Doctor continued. “Because if you have I’d like to take a look at them and if not then I think we need to get some. I’d also like to get her brain scanned for unusual activity – I don’t suppose Torchwood has an MRI machine somewhere down here do they?”
“Unfortunately no,” Seb said dryly. “And in any case, we’re getting brain wave information from the nodes on her temples.”
“But half of them are coming off,” the Doctor frowned. “They’re not stuck on properly.”
“Well her readings seem quite normal,” Julia said, gesturing to the computer readouts. “See?”
“Well the readings I just did with my handy dandy little gadget right here...” the Doctor twirled his sonic screwdriver. “...say that her readings are not entirely normal. Sorry to disappoint you. Now about that blood?”
“We’ve already sent the samples up to lab 260,” Seb said, automatically reaching for a pad of paper and a pen. His hands shook as he wrote something out and then folded it and handed it to the Doctor. “Give this to Thomas Neville – he’s the head lab technician up there. He’ll help you with whatever you need.”
“Oh,” surprised, the Doctor took the folded slip carefully and pocketed it. He wasn’t used to getting such free reign here – not being employed by Torchwood he usually had to fight tooth and claw to be allowed to help them or else he had to sneak around behind peoples backs. “Thank you Seb.”
Seb waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll give you permission to do whatever tests you need to do if it’ll get Jodie better,” he said flatly. “She was my responsibility and I let her down. If you can fix this...”
“I’ll do everything I can,” the Doctor promised then turned to Rose. “Rose, I need you to stay here and keep an eye on Jodie. If her condition changes – anything at all – then you need to get me down here straight away. Alright?”
She nodded curtly, not quite meeting his eyes. “Yeah alright. Come back quick yeah? And don’t lick anything toxic.”
“I’ll do my best,” he smiled tightly and on a whim, kissed her cheek. Rose looked slightly mollified at this and the Doctor backed out of the door. “I’ll be back.”
As soon as he was in the corridor, the Doctor began to run.
Part Two ->
