oOo

"I hope this plan of yours is working," was the first thing Dr. Mallory said to the Doctor, when the Time Lord regained consciousness.

"Uhm." It was all the Doctor managed to say. He felt incredibly exhausted. Just the thought of moving or speaking took effort.

"I told you this was too dangerous. You can't go on like this. You're killing yourself, Doctor," Dr. Mallory continued. "I can't let you do that." Dr. Mallory shook his head, then continued in a soft voice. "It's what Central wants anyways. They have ordered me to replace your NVI. This time I will follow their orders. I can't allow you to kill yourself. At least with a new NVI, you'll have a chance of surviving until things can change. And I promise you, they will. Very soon."

"Please. You have to let me do this," the Doctor struggled to form the words.

"Do what?" Dr. Mallory asked.

"End this." It was getting harder for him to speak. He felt the tug of oblivion on his mind, dragging him back into darkness. "We want the same thing," the Doctor told him, his strength waving quickly. The expression on Dr. Mallory's face changed to one of surprise.

"I need your help. You can trust me." The Doctor couldn't keep his eyes open any longer.

"Just rest, Doctor. You'll feel better when you wake up," Dr. Mallory promised. Panic swept through the Doctor, but he was too weak to do anything about it He tried to protest, but he had already felt the faint prick of a needle and oblivion claimed him.

oOo

When the Doctor woke the next time, he could attest that Dr. Mallory had been right. He did feel a lot better, he could tell even before moving or opening his eyes. His headache had dropped down a notch or two to bearable levels and the bone-deep exhaustion had lessened as well. Much to his surprise, his internal sense of time told him that he had been out for a good twelve hours.

From the looks of it, he was still in the dome's infirmary, but Dr. Mallory was nowhere to be seen. There was another familiar figure, though: the young man from the tunnel, the same young man who was in a way responsible for landing him down there sat on the next bed, eyes on the Doctor. The Doctor waved at him, just to see what he was going to do. The young man looked at him uncertainly, but waved back. Then he pushed himself off the bed and headed out of sight, only to return a few moments later with Dr. Mallory in tow.

"Hello, again," The Doctor greeted him, having sat up in the meantime. He had tried to straighten his hair as well, but he suspected that he had failed on that account.

"Doctor, this is Paul. I believe you have met before," Dr. Mallory introduced the young man. He only nodded in acknowledgement, but didn't smile.

"You said you had a plan?" he asked the Doctor.

The Doctor nodded. "Indeed I do. Not the best plan, I admit, but it's a plan."

"How do we know we can trust you?" Paul demanded, a scowl still firmly on his face.

"Uhm, you don't, I guess." The Doctor scratched the back of his head. "But you saw what happened to the people in the yard? I think that should count for something." He folded his arms in front of his chest. The ball was in the other man’s court now.

“Let’s hear it then.” Paul remained cool.

Or maybe it wasn’t. The Doctor wondered whether being around people controlled by the NVI was causing him to lose his touch. But since pondering that question most likely wasn’t going to get him anywhere, he started outlining his plan.

Dr. Mallory and Paul listened attentively, although the Doctor couldn’t help but notice the expressions of disbelief soon forming on their faces as he spoke. When he finished, there was a long moment of silence.

“What do you need?” Dr. Mallory was the first to speak.

“Half an hour of quiet time, at the max, that is. Ten minutes really should be enough,” the Doctor told him with more confidence than he felt. In truth, he wasn’t sure he would be able to safely sustain the connection with Martha long enough for her to set the TARDIS in motion.

“I’m under orders to send you back to the tunnels once you are recovered, but I think I can delay that for the time you need. But what I still don’t understand is how you are planning on getting your ship inside the dome.”

“Exactly,” Paul chimed in.

“She’s not exactly an ordinary ship,” the Doctor explained. “Getting her in here won’t be a problem and she doesn’t really take up a lot of space. Not much more than that cupboard over there.” He pointed across the room. Paul and Dr. Mallory simply stared at him.

Again the physician was the first to regain his composure.

“There are a lot of disused tunnels underneath the dome. People used to take refuge down there before the domes were built. Most of them are closed up now or have become too unstable, but I still know a few places that should be fairly safe.”

“All right, let’s get going then,” the Doctor declared.

oOo

Pain was the first thing Martha became aware of when she regained consciousness. She remembered the white-hot pain that had brought her down and was pleased to find that what she was feeling now was a mere muted echo of that earlier pain. Confident that her brain wasn't going to leak out of her ears, she opened her eyes and found herself to be in a familiar room. It was the same room where she had awakened after the TARDIS had crashed, complete with the fireplace burning. As she had discovered then, it was just like the candles. Once lit, the smokeless fire just continued to burn until extinguished. Martha was certain that she had put it out before leaving the TARDIS. She hadn't thought that anything would catch on fire, as this clearly wasn't an ordinary fire, but she hadn't wanted to take the chance. Martha sat up, the ache in her head intensifying, but remaining moderate. Merely the effort of sitting up had tired her out. She was tempted to lie back down immediately. But curiosity won out and she got to her feet. Her knees were weak, but holding her weight. She felt shaky, like she had just run ten miles.

"Martha!" The Doctor called out to her from the doorframe. Even in the rather weak light from the fireplace, he looked awful. He was pale, his face was drawn and she wasn't sure, but it looked like he had lost weight as well.

"Doctor! I'm so glad to see you! I thought..."

"Well, you did all the work."

"What do you mean?"

"With a little help from me, of course, but it was you who brought the TARDIS here."

Martha stared at him, only now realizing what must have happened earlier. "I was flying the TARDIS?" she repeated. "You were in my head!" she exclaimed as it finally sank in.

"Yes. I'm so, so sorry. It was the only way I had of getting the TARDIS back,” the Doctor sounded genuinely sorry, making it hard for Martha to stay mad at him. Besides, she would have done just about anything to get off this planet.

"Where are we, by the way?" Martha asked, secretly hoping that they were indeed far from this wretched planet.

"We're in a cave beneath the glacier. We're safe, at least for the moment." As he spoke, a tendril of blood started to sneak from his nose.

"Doctor, your nose is bleeding," Martha told him, unable to keep the concern out of her voice. Something was wrong with the Doctor. The Doctor pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the blood away, not meeting her eyes.

Martha had many questions, so many that she didn't quite know where to start. She settled for the obvious one. "Doctor, are you all right?"

"Yeah, it's nothing." He told her, refusing the meet her gaze, The Doctor might be good at a lot of things, but he wasn't a very good liar.

"I see you brought a new friend." He changed the topic. Martha went along, deciding to leave the subject for now.

"I didn't have much choice, she was in the TARDIS when...you know. But she told me some interesting things about this planet. Apparently it wasn't always a wasteland. There was some sort of crash - I think it might have been a meteorite that devastated the planet and released some sort of toxin into the atmosphere."

"That explains some things. Not all of them, mind you, but some. But I don't think it was a meteorite, at least not a real one. I think it was a ship, disguised to look like a meteorite. To cause this degree of pollution, it must have exploded in the atmosphere."

"That's exactly what Marion told me," Martha confirmed. "Speaking of Marion, where is she?"

"She's with Paul, going over specs for the dome."

"Paul is here?" Martha asked. She was surprised to hear from the young man again. She hadn't imagined that he'd faced a pleasant fate after their operation had gone so terribly wrong.

"Yes. He's been pretty helpful, actually." From the Doctor's tone, Martha gathered that while he didn't like Paul very much, he did hold a degree of appreciation for him.

"Are you all right?" the Doctor asked her suddenly.

Martha shrugged. "I think so." It was true, her head still ached a bit, but it was nothing compared to the pain she had experience earlier in the TARDIS.

"What is the plan?" Martha didn't think the Doctor would have gone to all these lengths without having something in mind. The Doctor always had a plan, even if they didn't always work out.

"Paul is working on setting up a bigger EMP generator. That will take out everyone implanted with an NVI for a couple of minutes. While everyone is down, you and Marion use the air filtration system to deploy the anti-viral serum," the Doctor said as he succinctly explained his plan, leaving Martha with more questions than she had started out with. She wondered how long she had been out and how the Doctor had gotten Marion and Paul to trust him so quickly. She knew he was good at gaining people's trust, but Marion and Paul didn't seem like the most trusting people.

"Come."

She followed the Doctor into the console room, where Paul was working on what looked like a shoebox and Marion was studying blueprints spread out on the floor. An elderly, white-haired man stood leaning against the railing, watching them work.

"Ah, Doctor. How is your young friend?" he asked warmly when he spotted Martha and the Doctor come in.

"She's fine," the Doctor replied curtly. The man looked taken aback at the curt response, but caught himself quickly. "And how are you, Doctor?"

"To be honest, I’ve been better," the Doctor admitted, but before the man could say anything else, the Doctor had already turned his attention to Paul.

"How is it coming?" the Doctor asked Paul. The young man looked up from what he was doing. "Almost done. But it's going to need an enormous amount of power. There is no way we can extend the range to cover the dome, even if we had ten generators. It’s simply not possible."

"Let me worry about that," the Doctor simply said. Paul looked at the elderly man, as if searching for confirmation. The man just nodded.

"If Paul's ready, I'm good to go as well." Marion got to her feet. "But we need to get in closer. Much closer. The EMP gives us less than three minutes to get to the life support controls. We were never going to make it from down here." She sounded doubtful. "We..."

"Let me worry about that. Just do what I told you," the Doctor cut her off roughly. Martha looked at him in surprise. She had seen the Doctor angry, even enraged, but never like this. He never treated people this way. Something was wrong with him and it was more than just a nosebleed, Martha was sure of it.

"Stop worrying, Martha." The Doctor suddenly told her. "I'm fine."

"Did you just read my thoughts?" Martha asked, dumbstruck.

"I'm sorry, Martha. I'm so sorry. It won't happen again," the Doctor told her, his voice softening.

But Martha wasn't about to let it go. "You read my thoughts," she repeated, her mind struggling to process. "Since when? And when were you going to tell me?"

"This was the first time and I promise it won't happen again." The Doctor sounded genuinely sorry.

"But you can read minds?" Martha couldn't believe it, her surprise momentarily outweighing her anger. She had been with the Doctor all this time and he'd never even hinted at it. Despite his reassurance that it hadn’t happened before, she felt betrayed.

The Doctor hesitated before he answered her question. "Yes, I can. We'll talk about this later, I promise." The way he looked her straight in the eyes made Martha believe him, made her want to believe him. She needed to believe him.

The elderly man came walking towards them, obviously having witnessed their exchange. "Doctor, can I have a word?"

"Yes, excuse me. Marion will fill you in on your part of the plan."

The Doctor and the elderly man walked out of earshot. Martha looked after the Doctor, not sure whether she should be angry or concerned about the change in his behaviour. It was all going a little bit too fast for her taste and she couldn't help but wonder how much of what she was seeing was the Doctor and how much was the NVI influencing him. For the first time since they had met, she didn't feel comfortable around him. She considered confronting the Doctor right now, but it looked like he was already getting an earful from the white-haired man. Martha went over to Marion instead, hoping that someone would finally tell her what they were doing here. Not that she wasn't glad to be reunited with the Doctor, but she felt a dark sense of foreboding that their troubles were only just beginning and that, as usual, the Doctor was in the thick of it.

"Are you all right?" Marion asked her, looking up from the floor where she'd been studying the blueprints.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Marion got up and joined her. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't believe you before. But thanks to you and the Doctor, we now have a real chance to make a difference."

"What do you mean?" Martha was getting tired of everyone knowing something she didn't.

"Well, with Dr. Mallory perfecting the antidote and the Doctor and Paul increasing the range of the EMP generator to cover the entire dome, all you and I have to do is deploy the cure." When Martha looked at her questioningly, she explained further.

"Dr. Mallory helped develop the NVI for Central. He's been working on the cure for decades now, but you have seen that it's far from perfect yet," Marion told her sadly, no doubt recalling the gruesome death of her sister. "Your doctor friend managed to synthesise an aerosol from the anti-viral drug. We can use the air filtration system to deploy it.”

Martha was appalled. She didn't know how many people were living under the dome, but it was massive, and there had to be thousands of people depending on the structure for protection. They would be causing hundreds if not thousands of deaths given the high mortality rate of the treatment. She couldn't go through with this and she couldn't let the Doctor go through with this. Martha crossed the room in quick strides and pulled the Doctor away from Dr. Mallory.

"Doctor, you have to stop this!" The Doctor looked at her blankly. "You can't do this, you can't gamble with the lives of these people like this." The Doctor didn't even look like he was listening, he was staring into space.

"You have to stop this." She grabbed the Doctor by his forearm. He jerked under her touch, like struck by a jolt of electricity. His eyes focussed on her. "Martha," he said slowly, as if just now registering that she was talking to him.

"What is wrong with you?" Martha asked, concern for her friend temporarily winning out over her outrage.

"It's nothing. I'm fine," he replied casually.

"No, you're not. Your nose is bleeding again," she pointed out. The Doctor pulled out his handkerchief again and wiped away the blood. Martha watched him closely, finding his motions just a touch jerky. "What have they done to you?"

"You know about the NVI," the Doctor began softly.

"Yes, of course I do.” Martha nodded. “But I thought you not being human and all, it wouldn't work on you," It wasn't quite true. It was what she had been hoping, but she had thought her hopes confirmed when the Doctor had brought them here, but now his strange behaviour made her suspicious. Could he be leading her into a trap?

The Doctor seemed to pick up on her fear. "I promise you that I'm in full control of my actions. So whatever happens, trust me."

Martha wished she could.

TBC