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Rose, now being controlled by Cassandra, stepped into Ward 26 flattening her hair down from the disinfection shower. She looked around and smirked to herself when she spotted the Doctor and Danni as they paced amongst the patients, the Doctor checking all the IV drips and not saying a word. Danni frowned when she saw her; the way she held herself was strangely overconfident and her top buttons were now undone on her top. She could have at least tried to hide the fact that she wasn't Rose. It was a wonder that the Doctor didn't call her out on it sooner if he was so worried about it
"There you are!" he stated when he saw her, heading to her side to take her by the arm. "Come and look at this patient!" He led her to the red-skinned man that was floating by the door. "Marconi's Disease," he explained. "Should take years to recover. Two days. I've never seen anything like it - they've invented a cell washing cascade - it's amazing. Their medical science is way advanced. And this one!" He dragged her over to a bald bright white man, not giving her a chance to speak. "Pallidome Pancrosis. Kills you in ten minutes, and he's fine!" He waved at the patient, who didn't reply. "I need to find a terminal. I've got to see how they do this." He walked off, Danni and Rose following. Danni leant in close to Rose.
"You're trying too hard. 'Apples and Pears', who says that?" she whispered before jogging slightly to get ahead of her.
"Because if they've got the best medicine in the world... then why's it such a secret?" the Doctor continued, looking at her expectantly as she slowed to a stop.
"I can't Adam and Eve it," Rose muttered and the Doctor shot her a confused look.
"What's... what's with the voice?" he asked and Rose turned to him, looking him up and down unashamedly.
"Oh, I don't know... just larking about New Earth... New me..." She took a deep breath, almost posing in front of him. He copied her gaze for a moment before grinning.
"Well, I can talk. New New Doctor," he reminded happily
"Mmm... aren't you just..." She grabbed the sides of his face and pulled him in for a kiss, her hands grasping his hair tightly. Danni had to bite her lip to stop herself laughing as Rose pulled away, panting slightly and the Doctor had a dumbstruck look on his face as he stared at her, shocked. Rose licked her lips. "T... terminal's this way," she stuttered out before walking off, breathing out in almost relief as she did. The Doctor watched her go before running his hand through his hair.
"Yep... still got it..."
Danni laughed, unable to supress it anymore. He smiled at her; the kiss had obviously killed his angry mood for a moment. "Go on, who is it?"
"I don't think you'll believe me," she told him as they followed Rose across the room.
"Try me."
She hadn't wanted to tell him, but his sudden change of hearts made her wonder if she should. Maybe if she told him then he might forgive her for whatever she had done to him?
"The last human," she settled on before they reached Rose, not giving him any time to question her further. He started poking the terminal, bringing up a schematic of the hospital and they all started looking it over, Rose leaning against the wall next to the screen.
"Nope, nothing odd. Surgery, post-po, nano-dentistry, no sign of a shop. They should have a shop," he complained. Rose walked around and stood in front of the screen, scanning for something in particular.
"No, it's missing something else. When I was downstairs, those Nurse/Cat/Nuns were talking about Intensive Care. Where is it...?" she trailed off as the Doctor turned to look at her; Rose wouldn't have taken such a dominant role in the problem solving, nor would she had known how to use the technology.
The only 'Last Human' he had come across was Cassandra on Platform One, but she had died. He looked at her again, maybe something happened that he missed. Danni wouldn't have lied, would she?
Wouldn't be the first time, but he still couldn't help scratch that little niggle that told him that something more was going on. "You're right, well done," he told her, watching her looking at the screen closely.
"Why would they hide a whole department?" Rose continued. He took the screwdriver out of his pocket. "It's gotta be there somewhere. Search the sub-frame."
He held the screwdriver to the screen, buzzing it. "What if the sub-frame's locked?"
"Try the installation protocol..." she replied, sticking her tongue out at him as if he was an idiot. Danni giggled at the look on his face, slightly offended even though he knew that it wasn't Rose talking.
"Yeah, course. Sorry. Hold on."
He scanned a small green square in the middle of the screen that, after a moment, flickered. The sound of grinding came from behind the wall and all three stepped back as the wall dropped. It revealed a very industrial looking corridor that very much contrasted with the white, pristine walls of the hospital. Wherever it led to obviously wasn't meant to be seen by the public.
Rose straightened and smirked triumphantly, knowing she was getting closer, and walked straight in without waiting for the other two.
"What happened to her?" he asked Danni.
"I can't remember what it's called, but her mind's inside Rose's," she replied lowly. "It's something illegal, like a mind meld."
The Doctor continued to look at his friend suspiciously. "Intensive Care. Certainly looks intensive," he stated loudly in case Rose became suspicious they hadn't followed her. Not that Cassandra would even have noticed. The way she had walked off just proved that she was on a mission that had taken a turn in her favour.
"Is she safe?" he asked Danni as they headed down the stairs that Cassandra – not that the Doctor thought Danni was right about that – was leading them down.
Sadly, and knowing it was going to make him angry at her when he found out the true answer, Danni lied to him once again. She knew she should have told him about the pressure of Cassandra's mind in Rose, but she was quickly seeing just how temperamental the Doctor was and who knew what would happen if she took him off course.
Definitely something for her to test at a later date, one where lives weren't on the line.
"She is for now," she explained. "We've just got to keep doing what we are."
The Doctor didn't like that idea, but he kept quiet as they reached a platform that was lined with tiny chambers with green glass doors. Rows upon rows of them stretched down the giant open room bathed only in harsh, yellow light that showed they weren't worth being particularly well cared for. It was hard to take in the sheer vastness of the hidden room, so Danni turned her attention away from the centre and towards the Doctor, who was heading towards one of the pods. He opened it with his sonic screwdriver, revealing a man in a hospital gown, covered in boils and broken skin.
Rose held her hand up to her mouth. "That's disgusting," she commented harshly. "What's wrong with him."
The Doctor ignored her horrid comment. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I'm so sorry." He closed the door as Rose held her nose, as if the mere smell of the man was going to make her nauseous. Danni stroked the front of the door slightly, her eyes welling with tears as the Doctor went to the next chamber. Inside was another person, in the same state as the first.
On the show there had been so many chambers and at the time it indicated just how vast the Cat Nun's operation was. But, once again, Danni was hit with just how real everything was. These were real people being trapped and pumped through will every illness under the sun. Never viewed as anything but experiments to treat the people rich enough to afford it. It turned her stomach and broke her heart.
""What disease is that?" Rose asked.
"All of them," he told her. "Every single disease in the galaxy, they've been infected with everything." He turned to Danni. "And you knew they were down here!"
She nodded. "They're being used to create the cures for the patients upstairs," she explained.
"What about us? Are we safe?" Rose interrupted.
"The air's sterile. Just don't touch them," he bit out, closing the door and leaning over the railings to see just how many doors there were.
"How many patients are there?"
"They're not patients," Danni spoke up.
Rose frowned. "But they're sick," she protested.
"They were born sick. They're meant to be sick. They exist to be sick. Lab rats. No wonder the Sisters have got a cure for everything. They've built the ultimate research laboratory. A Human farm." He spun to face Danni. "How dare you keep this from me?!" he shouted, storming over to her.
She stepped back, the anger in his eyes scaring her slightly. "I just thought..."
"You just thought you could save everyone yourself! You selfish little girl!"
Her mouth fell open slightly and her own anger boiled over at his words. "What the hell could I do?!" she shouted back. "The only thing I know is that you create some bloody vaccine, I don't know what! You're the smart one!"
"Yes I am!" he exclaimed. "All you do is hide information, and I'm tired of it! You are happy to condemn everyone in the facility to die just so you don't have to tell me anything!"
"Excuse me!" she shouted, stepping forward and poking him in the chest. "I believe I was the one who told you about intensive care before Rose even turned up! There is no way I would have let you leave this place without saving them. I may only be human but don't you dare suggest I don't care!"
Rose, or Cassandra, watched the two argue with a little bit of amusement before she stepped forward. "Why don't they just die?" she asked and the Doctor turned away from Danni, leaving the girl shaking from anger and hurt feelings. She just didn't understand why he was so angry at her, but Rose was fine with her. If anything, she would have thought it would have been the other way around, but the Time Lord seemed to have some deep-rooted problem with her.
"Plague carriers. The last to go," he told Rose as Novice Hame appeared from the end of the row of containers.
"It's for the greater cause," she insisted.
He began walking towards her, glaring openly. "Novice Hame," he bit out. "When you took your vows, did you agree to this?"
"The Sisterhood has sworn to help…"
"What, by killing?" he shouted, horrified by what was going on in the name of medicine. He was the Doctor and this went against everything he stood for; the suffering of anyone went against everything he stood for.
"But they're not real people. They're specially grown. They have no proper existence," she explained, wanting the man to understand why she went along with it. He began striding towards her.
"What's the turnover? Hm? Thousand a day? Thousand the next? Thousand the next? How many thousand? For how many years? How many?" he screamed.
"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 clone-meat and bio-cattle... but the results were too slow. So the sisterhood grew its own flesh. That's all they are. Flesh."
He pointed at the pods. "These people are alive."
"But think of those Humans out there... healthy... and happy, because of us."
"If they live because of this, then life is worthless."
"But who are you to decide that?"
He moved so he was towering over her threateningly. "I'm the Doctor. And if you don't like it... if you want to take it to a higher authority, then there isn't one. It stops with me."
"Just to confirm... none of the Humans in the city actually know about this?" Rose asked, peering over the Doctor's shoulder.
"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?"
Rose's eyes went wide, realising she had been caught. "I don't know what you mean."
"And I'm being very, very calm. You wanna 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."
"We haven't done anything," Novice Hame replied, confused.
"I'm perfectly fine," Rose insisted.
"It wasn't them," Danni spoke up, but he ignored her.
"These people are dying, and Rose would care."
"She's Cassandra!" Danni exclaimed, everyone turning around to stare at her. "You know, 'The Last Human'? That was also something I tried to tell you, but once again you don't listen to me!"
Rose sighed. "Oh, all right, clever clogs," she snapped before turning to the Doctor, pulling out his tie and using it to pull herself up against him. "I knew something was going on in this hospital, but I needed this body and your mind to find it out," she explained huskily. "Now, wake up and smell the perfume." She pulled a tube of perfume out of her top and sprayed it in the Doctor's face, causing him to drop to the floor unconscious.
Danni knelt down by him, checking he was alright as Novice Hame copied her actions. "You've hurt him! I don't understand- I'll have to fetch Matron!"
"You do that, 'cause I want to see her. Now, run along! Sound the alarm!" she exclaimed and Novice Hame hurried off. Cassandra turned to Danni. "Now, as for you..."
Danni rolled her eyes. "Perfume to the face, right? Go on then."
"You're not going to fight?"
"Yeah, because that's done me a load of good today," she retorted. "Hurry up, yeah?" With a shrug, Cassandra sprayed her as well and she fell on top of the Doctor.
~0~0~0~
The Doctor woke up in one the containers, being propped up by the railings inside like the infected humans had been in the other booths. It didn't take him long to look around, taking in his surrounding and realising just what had happened. Or, rather, what was going to happen next.
"Let me out! Let me out!" he demanded.
"Oh, fat lot of good that'll do us," Danni snapped. He looked down and found her sitting on the floor by his feet, obviously just waking up herself. She held her head as it throbbed a bit; oh, that perfume had a bit of a kick to it.
"What are you doing here?" he snapped.
"About to die, just like you I suspect," she replied. "Cassandra was hardly about to let me go, was she?"
"You're always everywhere," he ranted. "Why can't you just leave me and Rose alone? Why don't you just go home?!"
She stiffened as he shouted at her, his words stinging and her anger boiling over. "Because I don't have a home!" she shouted back, standing up in the small space so she could turn around and face him. "What I have is a grumpy Time Lord. I don't have a home, or a family, all I have is you! And I don't bloody want you!" She spun around to bang on the door. "You let me out right now Cassandra!"
A figure appeared distorted through the green glass as Cassandra leant against it. "Aren't you lucky there was a spare? Standing room only," she said in almost a purr. "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. Your little friend is just a bonus. They pump the patients with a top-up every ten minutes. You've got about..." She looked at Rose's watch. "Three minutes left. Enjoy."
"Just let Rose go, Cassandra," the Doctor demanded.
"I will," she promised. "As soon as I've found someone younger and... less common... then I'll junk her with the waste. Now hushaby! It's showtime."
She walked away slightly to stand in the middle of the gangway. Danni sighed and leant her forehead against the glass. "Oh great, the cat brigade are here," she muttered as Cassandra began to bargain with the nuns.
"If you had told me that Cassandra was in her head..."
She found herself glaring at his reflection. "Then what?" she snapped. "You could have commanded her to get out? Gone all 'Oncoming Storm' on her? Because that's worked so far, hasn't it?"
"Don't get snappy with me."
"Says the man who's been in a mood ever since I landed!" she snapped. "I'm sick and tired of your mood, I just want to get the over with so I can go somewhere with a little less 'emo' going on!"
"Emo?"
She spun around yet again. All she wanted was to get away from him, but she couldn't yet. She could never get away from him, could she? Was this what her life was going to be like now? Fielding argument after argument as every little thing she did pissed him off in some way?
"Yes, emo! You're so emotional in this body, it's doing my head in!" She took a deep breath. "We're going to get let out in a second, just hold on and we'll get through this."
Just as she finished speaking the door opened and she stumbled out. The Doctor grabbed her arm just in time, helping her straighten up. She yanked her arm away and walked up to Cassandra, who was looking at her handywork proudly. All around them the infected people were emerging from their pods, for the first time out of their prisons and in the outside world.
"What've you done?" the Doctor shouted.
"Gave the system a shot of adrenaline, just to wake 'em up," Cassandra exclaimed. "See ya!" She ran off, her little tattooed minion following. Danni took off after her, the Doctor looking between them and the nuns as the infected began approaching them.
"Don't touch them! Whatever you do, don't touch!" he warned the cats before following the others. Moments later the cells began sparking and the other patients began escaping. The foursome paused by a staircase, staring out as every compartment opened in front of them.
"Oh, my God..." Cassandra breathed.
"What the hell have you done?" the Doctor snapped at her.
"It wasn't me!" she defended; she had only put a shot through the row they were at. This... this was something else.
"One touch and you get every disease in the world, and I want that body safe, Cassandra! We've gotta go down!"
"But there's thousands of them!" she protested, scared.
"RUN!" he screamed, Cassandra screaming back as Danni grabbed her hand and began pulling her down the stairs. "Down! Down! Go down!"
"Why do they want us? We set them free!" Cassandra asked in a panic as they headed down the stairs.
"They just want to be touched. All their lives, they've never even seen another human, let alone being held. They don't understand they'll kill us all," Danni panted out, trying to dodge all the patients. They finally made it to the bottom staircase, bursting through a small door and into the cellar. Cassandra immediately ran to the lift, pressing the button frantically.
"No, the lifts have closed down. That's the quarantine, nothing's moving," the Doctor told her. She backed up and began running in the other direction.
"This way!" she shouted and they followed her down the hallway, past a waste pipe that made Danni double glance. She knew what was going to happen next. As they ran past a converging corridor, more infected people appeared, cutting off the tattooed man from the trio. He whimpered pitifully.
"Someone will touch him!" the Doctor shouted, pausing to go back for the man. Cassandra grabbed his arm.
"Leave him! He's just a clone thing, he's only got a half life. Come on!"
"Mistress!" he called over, but his mistress was already running away. Danni grabbed the Doctor's arm.
"He'll be fine," she promised. "He'll go down the waste pipe. Come on, we can't let her get away."
She took off after Cassandra, hearing the Doctor apologise to Chip before quickly catching up to them. The man he'd barely met got an apology, but she had a feeling that he wasn't going to apologise to her. What had she done to make him so angry at her? Was she doomed to a life of being hated?
Cassandra led them through a door covered by a plastic covering, the Doctor slamming the door shut behind them. As she ran towards another door to try the Doctor spotted the machine Cassandra used on Rose and the frame her skin used to hang on. She screamed as she saw another load of infected people coming towards them and slammed the door shut.
"We're trapped! What're we going to do?" she cried, terrified.
"Well, for starters, you're going to leave that body," he pointed upwards at the machine with his screwdriver. "That psychograft is banned on every civilised planet! You're compressing Rose to death."
"But I've got nowhere to go. My original skin's dead."
"Not my problem. You can float as atoms in the air. Now, get out." They stared each other down for a moment as he pointed the screwdriver at her. "Give her back to me."
Cassandra tensed and took a deep breath. "You asked for it," she warned him. A bright light shot out of Rose and zoomed straight to the Doctor, Rose stumbling disorientated. Danni moved forward to help her gain her bearings.
"Hey, I've got you," she whispered as Rose clung to her, looking around the room.
"Blimey, my head..." She muttered. "Danni?"
"Hello." She told her with a bit of laugh. "Nice you remember me. She can't have done too much damage."
"Where'd she go...?"
"Where do you think?"
Danni motioned to the Doctor, who was on the over side of the room, adjusting to his new persona. "Oh, my. This is... different."
Rose looked him over warily. "Cassandra?"
"Goodness me, I'm a man. Yum! So many parts! And hardly used..." She wiggled around, smirking at the implications before gasping and almost dancing. "Ah.. ah! Two hearts! Oh, baby, I'm beating out a samba!"
"Get out of him," Rose demanded.
Cassandra began running a hand down the Doctor's body, not listening to a work she was saying. "Ooh, he's slim. And a little bit foxy." She looked over at Rose knowingly, eyebrows raised. "You've thought so too. I've been inside your head..." Rose blushed slightly and looked away as Cassandra approached her, Danni smiling at her reaction. It was just too cute. "You've been looking... you like it."
Before Rose could even begin to defend herself the infected people burst through the doors, heading towards them. Cassandra began hitting Rose on the arm frantically. "What do we do? What would he do? The Doctor- what the hell would he do?!"
Danni pointed to the ladder that was on the wall behind Cassandra's old frame. "We've got to head up." Rose was shoved roughly out of the way by Cassandra, who leapt through the frame and began climbing up first.
"If you don't take care of both of them Cassandra I'll make you go into one of the infected, and you don't want to look like that do you?" Danni shouted up the ladder. Cassandra grumbled in agreement and Danni let Rose up next, following behind her.
"If you get out of the Doctor's body, he can think of something," Rose told her.
"Yap yap yap... God, it was tedious inside your head. Hormone City."
"We're gonna die if-"
Danni interrupted her with a scream as Matron Casp grabbed her by the ankle, her claws digging in painfully. "Let go of me!" she shouted, shaking her leg to get rid of the cat.
"All our good work! All that healing!" she cried angrily. "The good name of the Sisterhood - you have destroyed everything!"
"Go and play with a ball of string," Cassandra called down, sounding bored.
"You're the one who tortured those people every day! Now let me go!" Danni retorted, giving her leg a shake. She could only watch as she suddenly began breaking out in boils, letting go of her ankle moments before she began falling down the shaft.
Once again another adventure with more death than was necessary. Even now felt awful for the nun, but what else could she have done?
"Move!" she shouted up the ladder. "They're coming."
At the top of the ladder was a door and the trio bunched up as close as they could to the top to get away from the ever-advancing infected. "Now what do we do?" Cassandra asked as she banged on the door.
"Use the sonic screwdriver," Rose replied. Cassandra pulled it out of his pocket, looking faintly disgusted at having to go through his jacket pocket.
"You mean this thing?" she asked, waving it between her thumb and forefinger.
"Yes, I mean that thing."
"Well, I don't know how! That Doctor's hidden away all his thoughts."
"Cassandra, go back into me," Rose snapped, becoming more and more irritated with the last human. "The Doctor can open it. Do it!"
"Hold on tight."
She did just that, taking over Rose with a heavy sigh. "Oh... oh, chavtastic again. Open it!"
The Doctor just held the sonic screwdriver at her again like it was a weapon. "Not 'til you get out of her."
"We need the Doctor!"
"I order you to leave her!"
She sighed again, diving out of Rose and back into the Doctor, "No matter how difficult the situation, there is no need to shout."
"Cassandra..." Rose began.
"Oh we don't have time for this," Danni interrupted, very aware of how close they were to getting infected themselves. "Cassandra, go into me!"
"No, we need you too. You always know what to do, we need that!" Rose told her and she shook her head.
"We need the Doctor to get out, he won't let her go into you and we both know he would rather her compress me to death," she retorted. She looked up at Cassandra. "Go on, Cassandra, until we find something more appropriate."
Cassandra rolled her eyes. "Oh, fine!" She cried, jumping out a final time and into Danni, shaking her head slightly.
"Right, we all happy? Open the door!" Cassandra snapped at the Doctor. He didn't feel particularly happy, although that was because Danni had come up with the solution rather than him. He didn't have time to be angry about it though, so he opened the door and jumped in first. He helped Rose into the small box room behind it.
"Nice to have you back," he told her with a smile.
The doors began closing and Cassandra climbed the last of the ladder quicker. "No you don't..."
She leapt across, landing with a thud on the floor just and banging against the wall painfully. The Doctor sealed the door shut before turning back to the Danni-Cassandra mix.
"That was your last warning, Cassandra!" he told her darkly, but she wasn't listening, instead she stared into space.
"Oh my, she's travelled so far. So far and she's so lonely," she whispered before looking up at the Doctor. "And you're so cruel." He blinked in shock. "Blaming her for interrupting your time together, when she really just wants to go home. Every time you snap, she just wants to cry because she thought you'd understand."
The Doctor stared down at her then held out his hand, helping her up. Almost as a residue reaction from Danni, she yanked her hand away as soon as she was up and turned away, staring straight ahead. "Ward 26 is behind that door, apparently. She's as good at shutting off her thoughts as you are."
Rose took her friends hand, hoping she could at least see the gesture. When Cassandra had been in her head, she had heard everything he had said to Danni. She really didn't understand his attitude change towards her, but she didn't feel the same and she wanted her to know that. She wasn't alone, not with Rose Tyler there.