by Becky Miller
them for a few minutes. Now what?' Mickey asked.
'Is it treatable, Doctor?' Lynne said jestingly, since Mickey asked an obvious question, again.
'What? Parrot Brain? Nah?He'll have to live with it.' the Doctor quipped. He and Lynne laughed and even Rose thought it was rather funny and had trouble hiding her laugh from Mickey.
'Rose. How is your acting?' the Doctor asked out of the blue.
'All right, I guess.'
'Good. Act like you are having a heart attack or something. When the guard raises the glass, and he will, Mickey and I will overpower him. Ready?' the Doctor shared his minute made escape plan. 'Well, what are you waiting for? Go on.' he ushered her on.
Rose walked up to the glass and halfway she fell to the floor dramatically acting to be suffering a heart attack. Mickey rushed over to pretend to be giving first aid. The Doctor and Lynne tried to attract the guard's attention by banging on the glass.
The guard finally noticed and once he figured out what was the matter, he rushed to open the glass wall, as the Doctor had predicted, even though his colleague hadn't returned from the restroom yet.
'What's wrong? Is she alright?' the guard uttered as he stepped toward Rose, who was beginning to over dramatise her act a bit.
'Does it look like she is okay to you?' the Doctor asked the guard who could only stammer. 'Of course she is fine. As fine as a human being can be!' the Doctor said with a smile and before the guard knew what was happening, he and Mickey seized and disarmed him.
Lynne had proceeded to the door to check if the other guard was coming, but he hadn't returned yet. Mickey made the first guard sit on the chair, while the Doctor pulled the lever lowering the glass back into place. The guard was helpless; he did not dare resist Mickey who pranced around with his rifle now
'Come on, quick! It's clear for now.' Lynne said and Rose and Mickey followed her out to the elevator.
'Go on, I'll be right behind you.' the Doctor said as he lingered behind to retrieve his belongings that were taken from him when he was imprisoned. He found his long overcoat and his wallet with the psychic paper. He also found his sonic screwdriver which he used to delete all data on the scientists computers. Then he tracked after Lynne, Rose and Mickey.
A final dash
Lynne, Rose, Mickey and the Doctor made it out of the Torchwood building unseen. It was a good thing the Doctor brought his sonic screwdriver because they needed it several times to get through locked doors, but once outside they weren't out of danger yet.
'Spit spot. No time to linger. The guards must have warned that we have escaped by now. We need to get to the TARDIS quick. I want to track down Patchwork.' the Doctor said as he picked up the pace.
'Which one? Yours or mine?' Lynne asked him teasingly.
'Erhm?.' Usually he would have a ready reply, but at Lynne, he could only vacantly stare.
Rose did have an answer for her though.
'His, of course. Yours is?rather damaged.' she said to Lynne, while the foursome made their way hurrying along the dark and deserted streets of Cardiff in the direction of Penarth.
'Mickey, why are you still carrying that rifle?' the Doctor asked him accusingly.
'It might come in handy, I figured.' Mickey said proudly.
'But you are not planning on shooting anyone, are you? You know shooting doesn't solve anything, it causes only trouble and misery.' the Doctor said, but Mickey carried it along anyway because he couldn't just leave it behind on the street.
The four had just arrived in Penarth when they heard cars racing down the street. Two black vans with a big white T symbol on the side appeared in sight.
'See! I told you this would come in handy.' Mickey remarked, referring to his rifle.
'Run! This way.' the Doctor yelled and all four started running down the street as fast as they could. Lynne was still weak from the drugs and Patchwork's experiments and she had trouble keeping up. The Doctor took her by the hand so she wouldn't fall too far behind.
They got to a junction in the road.
'Left!' the Doctor yelled. 'No right, yes right. Go right!' he changed his directions, and so did Rose and Mickey.
They turned the corner onto Castle Road.
'Mickey! Here; you make sure she gets in the TARDIS.' the Doctor said to him as he left Lynne into his care. 'Whatever happens, get in the TARDIS.' he stressed to Mickey.
Rose had stopped and turned to see what kept the others and she saw the Doctor talking with Mickey.
The Doctor looked at Rose. It was a look she had seen on him before; a determinate look. He was going to get them safely out of here, no matter what.
'Now go!' the Doctor yelled and they ran off, like they were trained dogs ordered to fetch. The Doctor stayed behind. He looked down the street at the two black vans approaching at high speed.
Suddenly they pulled over and six heavily armed guards stepped out of each van.
'That's him. Get him!' one of the guards called out and all twelve of them were coming after the Doctor; just as he had planned.
'The alley. The alley. It can't be far.' Rose said to herself as she tried to find the way back to the TARDIS, followed closely by Mickey and Lynne.
'Ah, here it is. This way Mickey. Hurry!' Rose said as she turned into the alley.
The Doctor was running along Byrd Crescent, with the guards on his tail.
'Don't let him escape! Shoot, if you must.' he heard one of the guards yell behind him. That was not as he had planned, so he had to move the schedule ahead.
He passed by the alley and quickly got into the garage of the second house of the row. He used the sonic screwdriver to pick the locks and close the doors securely behind him. Through the shed door he proceeded into the garden and he slipped through the conifers to the adjacent garden. It would throw the guards off his trail and it would buy him some time to get to the police box, which was parked in the middle of an open field.
Through the second garden's porch, the Doctor came out in the middle of the alley. He looked towards the Byrd Crescent side of the alley to see if any of the guards were still in pursuit, but he didn't see any of them.
Triumphantly he jogged through the alley into the in darkness shrouded filed next to the golf course, where the familiar blue box stood perched in front of a patch of shrubbery.
Rose had reached the police box and quickly opened the door with her key. The lock was a bit hard to find in the dark but she used the light of her mobile to find the keyhole.
'Hurry!' she called to Mickey and Lynne, who were not far behind. They came running across the field towards the TARDIS hand in hand.
Standing in the doorway, Rose could see the Doctor coming out of the alley behind them. Rose was relieved he was not far away anymore. Then she saw another person moving in the cover of the darkness. She heard a loud bang and she saw the Doctor stagger to a halt.
Mickey and Lynne had made it to the TARDIS too and the three of them witnessed everything with horror, too far away to help.
The Doctor slowly turned around, his face strained with pain and anger.
'Patchwork?' he said slowly and with disappointment as the man stepped from the shadows into the pale moonlight.
'Doctor.' Patchwork said almost triumphantly. 'We meet again. Alas, I am sorry it has to be under such awful circumstances.
'You are not sorry at all, Patchwork. You are not capable of such feelings. Every fibre of your being is drenched with immoral wickedness. You are a black mark on this Earth!' the Doctor said with the deepest anger and malcontent.
'How well put, Doctor. You have nailed the exact reason why, what I am about to do, takes me so little effort. I have come to know a great deal about you and the lady of your kind. The biggest discovery; that you are not human, but neither am I. Though more notably, you are not entirely invulnerable.' Patchwork said raising the pistol to the Doctor's chest.
The Doctor raised his hands slightly and looked Patchwork intently in the eyes.
'What d
o you mean?' he asked gravely.
'I have searched this wretched planet for compatible candidates for decades and I have worked my way up from the degrading position of janitor to finally reach my goal. The Torchwood Institute has been most helpful, I might add. Of course they know nothing about my experiments, nothing real anyway.
I have worked too hard, Doctor, to have all this taken away from me, by you, by anyone. I will not let anyone stop me from reaching my breakthrough!' Patchwork poured his whole frustration out to the Doctor, who was trying to slowly edge away from this dangerously mad man.
If only he could get a little closer to the TARDIS, he would be certain of its protective relative dimensional field.
'That woman, you call Lynne. She is the perfect candidate.' Patchwork continued.
'For your sick experiments?!' the Doctor added disgustedly. 'Well mark my words, Patchwork. As long as I am alive I will make sure you will not ever lay your hands on her again!' the Doctor said and turned around and made a run for the TARDIS.
'You leave me no choice, Doctor!' Patchwork said, straightened his back, took the pistol firmly in both hands, aimed and fired three times. The first shot missed, but the next two hit target.
'Doctor!' Rose and Lynne screamed simultaneously when they heard the shots being fired. They wanted to run to him up out on the field, but Mickey restrained them.
'No. I promised him.' he said gravely. 'Get inside. He is coming.' He took his rifle, ready to defend whenever necessary, but nothing else happened.
Patchwork had retreated into the dark shadowy alley.
The Doctor still came jogging across the field towards them. Mickey opened the door and let him in.
Heavily panting, the Doctor stumbled into the TARDIS. He looked at Lynne and then at Rose and all he could say was, 'I am sorry.' before he collapsed on the floor.
The three stood in shock of what they saw and looked upon the Doctor's motionless body with disbelief.
'Not again.' Rose whispered as she began to cry. 'No. Please don't do this to me, not again.'
Rose and Lynne kneeled at the Doctor's side and they turned him flat on his back. It was then that Rose saw the extent of his wounds. He had been shot through the chest three times.
'He isn't dead, is he?' Mickey asked, but he got no reply. 'No. He can't be? He just shot him. Patchwork just shot the Doctor, in the back!' Mickey got boiling hot with anger as he fully realised what had just happened out on the field.
Enraged he stormed outside and ran out into the dark gloomy field.
'Patchwork! Where are you?! You can't just do this. You killed him, now I am coming to get you. For the Doctor and for Rose. She loved that man. Patchwork! Show yourself, coward!' Mickey screamed as he wondered across the field helplessly.
Patchwork was nowhere to be found.
All good things come to an end
Rose was still kneeled next to the Doctor's motionless body. She was holding his hand and stroking his hair. Tears ran across her cheeks.
'Oh, Doctor. Please don't leave me, you promised.' she whispered to him silently.
Lynne had moved away. She was now sitting at some distance from Rose and the Doctor and quietly observed them. She looked to be sad but otherwise not very touched by the tragedy.
'Can't you do anything? He is one of your kind, you must know how to help him. You are the reason this has happened, this is all your fault!' Rose angrily said to Lynne. Rose was appalled that Lynne seemed not to care.
'I can't do anything. He has been shot through both hearts. He is dying.' Lynne said solemnly to Rose.
'But?' Rose protested. She just couldn't accept the Doctor was actually going to die. 'You don't even care?!' she spat at Lynne.
'He will regenerate, as all Time Lords do when they are dying. Their bodies die but they live on in a new body.' Lynne explained.
'Then why isn't he regenerating?' Rose asked her. Rose had seen the Doctor regenerate before and there was nothing happening now.
'It takes a lot of energy. The TARDIS will provide him with that energy, but it might take a while to build up.' Lynne kindly told her.
Rose turned away angrily and kicked the control column. 'Come on then, you piece of old space junk. He is your designated driver. Help him regenerate.' she barked at the space ship.
Mickey hurried in.
'We need to get out of here. There are a dozen of heavily armed guards coming at us right now!' he said earnestly. 'Can you fly the TARDIS? We are sitting ducks here.' he asked Lynne.
'No. It is the Doctor's ship. I cannot fly it.' Lynne said.
'What, but you are a Time Lord too, right?' Rose asked.
'Well?Still I cannot fly it. It won't let me.' Lynne said. 'But it will protect us. There is nothing the armed men outside can do to harm us. We are safe in here.'
'Yes, but we can't stay in here forever.' Mickey remarked. He had a point there, but Rose and Lynne knew nothing to say in return. Both looked at the Doctor and then at each other.
Still nothing had happened.
'This is taking too long.' Lynne said.
'Yeah, I was thinking so too.' Rose said, a little bit relieved that she was not the only one worried and that Lynne was now too.
Maybe it was a Time Lord trait, not to show much emotion in such circumstances. Rose remembered the Doctor always seemed to hide his grief when they had to deal with deaths. It was the only emotion he tried not to show.
Rose looked at Lynne for a while. 'Maybe she isn't as harsh as I first thought. She does seem to care for the Doctor. She just has a different way of showing it.' Rose thought.
'He should have regenerated by now, what is wrong?' Lynne said worried.
At first Rose didn't want the Doctor to regenerate because she would have to get used to a whole new Doctor again and she had just gotten to know his new personality. She didn't want to do that all over again, but she couldn't bear to lose him altogether either. She would give the world now, if only he would live, in any way possible.
'What can we do?' Rose asked Lynne concerned.
'Well, my first thought would be to take him back to Gallifrey, but we can't get there. My ship is broken and this one will only be flown by the Doctor himself. With that possibility gone, there is nothing much I can do.' Lynne said gravely.
'You are not even trying anything. I thought the Time Lords were supposed to be such a mighty people. You have telepathy and you can travel through time and space. There has to be something you can do?' Rose pleated. Mickey came over to Rose to comfort her.
'It's over now. There is nothing we can do, Rose. Don't blame it on Lynne.' he whispered to her softly as they held each other tightly.
Lynne sat looking at the Doctor and his grieving companions. There was one thing she could do, but she would rather not have to.
She had waited so long to return to Gallifrey, her home world, she had almost given up. She was so pleased when one of her kind had arrived after receiving her signal, not only did it give her hope she could return home but more incredibly, it also reunited her with a long lost friend.
She had known the Doctor a long time ago, when she was still young, but she didn't see him since she went missing hundreds of years ago. She had been travelling all over the universe trying to get home, until she got stuck here on Earth. Lynne had been so happy when she recognised it was him in the TARDIS that summer morning, only a few days ago, but she was also hurt to hear that he didn't remember her.
It didn't matter anymore now. He wasn't the same Doctor she knew anymore anyway. She had two choices. Either do nothing and be stuck on this planet for the rest of her existence, or help the Doctor and his companions, but that would mean a big sacrifice on her side. Going back home would not be amongst the options, so she decided in favour of Rose and her Doctor.
She walked up to the Doctor and slowly sat down beside him, she placed her fist on her chest at about the same place the Doctor's wounds were and she closed her eyes.
; Rose and Mickey looked in silence at Lynne sitting like that for a long time. Neither of them had any idea how much time passed, but they didn't care either.
Finally Lynne raised her head again and opened her eyes. She looked at Rose and Rose looked back. She could see the intense fatigue in Lynne's red sore looking eyes. She didn't blink them once.
'He is all yours. Go wake him up.' Lynne said softly and kindly. Slowly a smile appeared on her face, but her eyes still showed she was exhausted.
As Rose went over to the Doctor, Lynne turned to look at him. She blinked once slowly and her stare began to wander off. Mickey came over to her, but he was only in time to hold her while she collapsed in his arms.
'What happened?' Mickey asked as the Doctor began to regain consciousness. Rose was incredibly happy about that, but she felt sorrowful because of what Lynne had done. She knew what had happened and understood why Lynne had done it. She had seen it in her eyes, the fatigue. Lynne had healed the Doctor somehow, but she made an incredible sacrifice for it herself. It had drained her from all her energy.
'She healed him.' Rose said to Mickey, but he was dazed with grief and disbelief. He couldn't cope with all the distress anymore. He had to be alone for a moment.
He went outside to get some fresh air and some time alone, but he had totally forgotten the twelve guards were still out there besieging the police box.
'Go away. There is nothing left to fight for anymore.' Mickey said sadly. All the guards looked at him silently.
'We only want the girl named Lynne.' a guard said.
'Tell your boss, she is no longer with us.' Mickey replied without even looking at them.
'Come on. It's shield is too powerful anyway.' another guard said to the first one and all the armed men left the field.
Mickey remained, standing alone in the cold night air.
'Doctor, I am so glad you are back!' Rose said to him as he shakily stood up from the TARDIS floor.
'It is good to be back.' he said optimistically. He felt his chest, because it was still somewhat sore and he noticed the three holes in his shirt. 'Ow, that was my favourite tie, now look at it. It's ruined. Where is Lynne? And Mickey? Patchwork didn't get her, did he?' he asked concerned.
'No. Lynne?collapsed after she healed you. Mickey laid her down comfortably as possible over there and he went outside for some air after that.' Rose explained to the Doctor.
'She didn't?' the Doctor said sadly. He let his words trail off as he went over to see her.
'Oh, Lynne. You shouldn't have done this.' he added.
'She is still alive. She is just very weak and tired. I am glad she did it, though, because you were? almost-' Rose said, but didn't finish her sentence.
She caught a glimpse of the Doctor's deeply saddened face and thought back for a split second to when Lynne was looking at him from a distance. They looked remarkably the same at that very moment. But then the Doctor got his determinate look again. He walked back to the console and threw his coat off.
'Mickey, get back inside!' he called. 'We're leaving.'
The Doctor started pushing