The Doctor woke up, inside the cell. Realising where he was, he started banging on the door. "Let me out!" He yelled. "Let me out!"
"Aren't you lucky there was a spare? Standing room only." Cassandra taunted, peeking through the porthole. The Doctor's stomach sank when he saw Elle still unconscious on the floor beside Cassandra.
"You've stolen Rose's body." He growled.
Cassandra smiled at his reaction. "Over the years, I've thought of a thousand ways to kill you, Doctor." She ran her fingers over the glass on the cell. "And now, that's exactly what I've got. One thousand diseases. They pump the patients with a top-up every ten minutes. You've got about three minutes left. Enjoy." She laughed, enjoying the revenge she will finally get.
"Just let Rose and Elle go, Cassandra." He pleaded.
"I will. As soon as I've found someone younger, and less common, much like this 'Raelle'" Cassandra smirked. The Doctor growing in fury. "Then I'll junk her with the waste. Now hushaby. It's showtime." Cassandra turned towards the nurses approaching her.
"Anything we can do to help?" Nurse Jatt asked.
"Straight to the point, Whiskers. I want money." Cassandra demanded.
"The Sisterhood is a charity. We don't give money. We only accept." Casp informed.
"The humans across the water pay you a fortune, and that's exactly what I need. A one-off payment, that's all I want." Cassandra bargained. "Oh, and perhaps a yacht. In return for which, I shall tell the city nothing of your institutional murder. Is that a deal?"
"I'm afraid not."
"I'd really advise you to think about this."
"Oh, there's no need. I have to decline." Casp shook her head.
"I'll tell them, and you've no way of stopping me." Cassandra threatened. "You're not exactly Nuns with Guns. You're not even armed."
"Who needs arms when we have claws?" Casp narrowed her eyes at Cassandra, unsheathing her claws.
Cassandra sighed. "Well, nice try. Chip? Plan B." Chip pulled a level, causing all the cell doors to open. The Doctor bursts out of the cell, as well as the dazed, diseased people. He immediately rushed over to Elle, checking she was ok to see if he can wake her.
Looking up at Cassandra, he seethed. "What've you done?"
"Gave the system a shot of adrenaline, just to wake them up." She replied quickly. "See you!"
He was about to call after Cassandra, just when Elle started to come too. He held her head in his hands. "What just happened. Cassandra!" Raelle remembered, eyes wide, looking around to try and spot her sister. Instead, she noticed all of the diseased patient starting to move towards them. "Um, Doctor?" She asked on edge.
"We'll get Rose don't worry, now come on we have to go"
"Doctor, what? No!" She pulled away from him. "I'm not leaving without my sister"
"Elle, we will find your sister, we just need to get out of here so we don't die" He replied, pleading for her to go with him.
"Promise?" She asked quietly, looking him in the eye.
His gaze softened at the sight of the girl. "I promise" He grabbed Elle's hand, the pair racing in the direction Cassandra had disappeared too. They managed to catch up to Cassandra and Chip, patients starting to surround them. "Don't touch them! Whatever you do, don't touch!" He informed them. They looked behind them at a sound of a loud bang, to see all of the cells in the intensive care unit had started to open.
"Oh, my God." Raelle gasped.
"What the hell have you done?" The Doctor hissed at Cassandra.
"It wasn't me."
"One touch and you get every disease in the world, and I want that body safe, Cassandra. For the sake of Raelle." He pleaded. "We've got to go down." He stated. There was no way they could go back.
"But there's thousands of them!" Cassandra replied, shocked at the suggestion.
"Run! Down! Down! Go down!" He hurried the group along, pushing Raelle and Cassandra in front of him, as they made their way down.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ
When the trio had reached the basement, Cassandra lunged to the lift, rapidly pressing the button.
"No, the lifts have closed down. That's the quarantine. Nothing's moving." The Doctor informed her, shaking his head.
"This way!" She led them in another direction. She leads the Doctor and Raelle towards her lair.
Raelle looks back to see Chip getting cut off from them as more people approach. "Someone will touch him."
"Leave him!" Cassandra replied, not even glancing back. "He's just a clone thing. He's only got a half life. Come on!" She hurried the group.
"Mistress!" Chip pleaded.
"I'm sorry, I can't let her escape." The Doctor apologised, not wanting to lose sight of Cassandra.
"My Mistress!" Chip wailed as they left, as more people approached, he jumps down a chute labelled Waste.
Cassandra runs to the back door but there are people there, too. "We're trapped! What am I going to do?"
"Well, for starters, you're going to leave that body." The Doctor ordered. "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." He pointed his screwdriver a her. Raelle standing beside him, glaring at Cassandra. "Now, get out. Give her back to me."
"You asked for it." Cassandra take a deep breath and blows energy out to the Doctor. Rose stumbles back, Raelle rushing over to comfort her sister. "Blimey, my head. Where'd she go?"
"Oh, my." Raelle turned looking at the Doctor, checking himself out. "This is different."
"Cassandra?" Raelle asked.
"Goodness me, I'm a man. Yum. So many parts. And hardly used." The Doctor giggled. He winked at Raelle. "Oh, oh, two hearts!" He started moving in parts of 2 heartbeats. "Oh, baby, I'm beating out a samba!"
"Get out of him." Raelle ordered.
"Oo, he's slim, and a little bit foxy." He smirked. " I'm inside his head. He's been looking. Elle. He likes it." She taunted the youngest sister. Raelle couldn't help but blush. The diseased people burst in.
"What do we do? What would he do? The Doctor, what the hell would he do?" Cassandra panicked.
"Ladder. We've got to get up." Rose ordered, making her way over, Raelle following.
"Out of the way, sisters!" Pushing the sisters out of the way to make her way up the ladder first.
"Please, help us. Help." One of the sick patients pleaded to the girls, as they climbed up the ladder.
"If you get out of the Doctor's body, he can think of something." Rose pleaded with Cassandra.
"Yap, yap, yap. God, it was tedious inside your head." The Doctor rolling his eyes. "Hormone city."
Raelle sighed. "We're going to die if-" She gasped as Matron Casp grabs her ankle, trying to stop her. "Get off!" She pleaded.
"All our good work. All that healing. The good name of the Sisterhood. You have destroyed everything." She yelled at the girl, angry.
"Go and play with a ball of string." The Doctor retorted, rolling his eyes.
"Everywhere, disease. This is the human world. Sickness!" Matron Casp freezes as a diseased arm reaches up and grasps Casp's ankle, infecting her. She falls, screaming. Raelle watches wide eyed.
"Move!" Rose ordered.
Maximum quarantine. Divert all shuttles.
Cassandra tries to open the doors on the next level, they're fixed in place. "Now what do we do?"
"Use the sonic screwdriver." Rose told Cassandra.
Cassandra pulled the device out of the Doctor's pocket. "You mean this thing?"
"Yes, I mean that thing." Raelle shouted.
"Well, I don't know how. That Doctor's hidden away all his thoughts." Cassandra retorted.
"Cassandra, go back into me. The Doctor can open it. Do it!" Raelle shouted at Cassandra.
"No, Rae, No!" Rose looked down at her sister, shocked.
"We need the Doctor Ro!" She explained, panicked.
"Hold on tight." Cassandra told the girl. The Doctor exhaled, releasing the energy that flows into Raelle.
"Oh, now this is a body I could get used to! Open it!" She ordered the Doctor.
"Not till you get out of her." He angrily told her.
"We need the Doctor." Cassandra argued back.
He glared at Cassandra. "I order you to leave her." He shouted down at her. Cassandra sighed, rolling her eyes, as she exhaled releasing the energy back into the Doctor. "No matter how difficult the situation, there is no need to shout."
"Cassandra, get out of him!" Raelle shouted.
" But I can't go into you, he simply refuses. He's so rude." Cassandra snapped back.
"Just do something." Rose argued. They need the Doctor.
"Oh, I am so going to regret this." Cassandra exhaled again, releasing the energy into the infected woman below Raelle. "Oh, sweet Lord. I look disgusting."
The Doctor, back to himself, sonics the lift, climbing through. He helps Rose and Raelle back into the lift. "Nice to have you back." He smiled at Raelle.
"No, you don't." Cassandra hissed, transferring her energy back into Raelle, making it before the lift doors close again.
As the Doctor locked the doors behind him, he turned to Raelle sat on the floor, catching her breath. "That was your last warning. Cassandra!"
"Inside her head. They're so alone" Cassandra replied, solemnly. "They keep reaching out, just to hold us. All their lives and they've never been touched."
The Doctor reached over to Raelle, offering her his hand. She smiles softly, accepting it.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ
As they entered Ward 26, Frau Clovis lunged at them with a metal stand. "We're safe! We're safe! We're safe! We're clean!" He barked, showing them his hands. Raelle and Rose copied his actions. "We're clean! Look, look. If we'd been touched, we'd be dead." Frau Clovis lowers the metal stand. "So how's it going up here? What's the status?"
"There's nothing but silence from the other wards. I think we're the only ones left." She informed the Doctor. "And I've been trying to override the quarantine. If I can trip a signal over to New New York, they can send a private executive squad."
"You can't do that. If they forced entry, they'd break quarantine."
"I am not dying in here." She retorted.
"We can't let a single particle of disease get out. There is ten million people in that city. They'd all be at risk. Now, turn that off!" He commanded.
"Not if it gets me out." She argued.
"All right, fine. So I have to stop you lot as well. Suits me." He sighed. "Rose, Raelle, novice Hame, everyone! Excuse me, your Grace. Get me intravenous solutions for every single disease. Move it!" He commanded the group, racing around Ward 26. Everyone grabs drip bags while the Doctor collects a long piece of heavy silk rope and starts hanging them on his body.
"How's that? Will that do?" He asked the sisters.
"I don't know. Will it do for what?" Raelle asked, confused. The Doctor opens the lift doors. "The lifts aren't working." Raelle reminded him.
"Not moving. Different thing. Here we go." He puts the sonic screwdriver between his teeth and runs.
"But you're not going to-" Raelle was cut off by the Doctor jumping into the lift, grabbing the lift cable.
"What do you think you're doing?" Raelle asked.
"I'm going down! Come on!" He waved for Raelle to join. He attaches a round piece of equipment to the cable.
Raelle scoffed. "Not in a million years."
"I need another pair of hands. What do you think? If you're so desperate to stay alive, why don't you live a little?" Raelle considered the offer. "Rose, stay here and make sure Frau Clovis doesn't break quarantine". Rose nodded in response, heading back over to Ward 26.
"Seal the door!" Frau Clovis barked. Cassandra looks back, trapped with approaching disease.
She wined. "No!" Raelle jumps onto the Doctor's back, wrapping her arms around his neck, the Doctor wincing in response. "You're completely mad. I can see why she likes you." She told the Doctor.
"Oh yes, Going down!" He replied. The improvised wheel he has attached to the cable takes them down the shaft. Raelle screamed as they plummeted down, the Doctor laughing until he puts on the brake and they come to a gentle stop on top of the lift.
"Well, that's one way to lose weight."
" Now, listen. When I say so, take hold of that lever." He ordered Cassandra.
"There's still a quarantine down there, we can't"
"Hold that lever!" He barked at her. "I'm cooking up a cocktail. I know a bit about medicine myself." He said, somewhat in a boastful manner. "They don't call me the Doctor for nothing" He winked at Raelle. The Doctor pours the contents of the drip bags into the lift's disinfectant tank. "Now, that lever's going to resist. But keep it in position. Hold onto it with everything you've got."
"What about you?"
"I've got an appointment." He grinned. "The Doctor is in." He drops down into the lift itself. He opens the doors with his sonic screwdriver. "I'm in here! Come on!" He beckons the diseased people into the lift.
"Don't tell them." Cassandra scoffed.
"Pull that lever!" He shouted at Cassandra. He encourages all the diseased people in hotel reception to enter the lift, they start to shuffle towards the lift. "Come and get me. Come on!"
Commence stage one disinfection.
"Hurry up! Come on!" He encouraged them. The contents of the disinfectant tank are poured into the lift. "Come on, come on." He cheered. The first of the humans join him, getting sprayed as well, their diseases being cured. "All they want to do is pass it on. Pass it on!" He laughs, bringing in the cure patients for a hug.
"Pass on what?" She paused. Nothing. "Pass on what?" She shouted.
"Pass it on!" He laughed. The disinfected and wet humans touch their diseased comrades. There are hisses and steam coming off their skin, which is now clear of symptoms.
A soaked doctor helps Raelle down as the people are being cured. "What did they pass on? Did you kill them? All of them?" She asked.
"No. That's your way of doing things." He glared at the girl. He pulled her into the reception, showing her. "I'm the Doctor, and I cured them." A woman hugs the Doctor. "That's right. Hey, there we go, sweetheart. Go to him. Go on, that's it. That's it." HE turned to Cassandra. "It's a new sub-species, Cassandra. A brand new form of life. New humans! Look at them. Look! Grown by cats, kept in the dark, fed by tubes, but completely, completely alive. You can't deny them, because you helped create them. The human race just keeps on going, keeps on changing. Life will out! Ha!"
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ
A little later, the quarantine has been formally lifted. The Doctor and Raelle make their way back up to Ward 26 to find Rose.
This is the NNYPD. Please step away from the shuttles. All staff will present themselves to the officers for immediate arrest. I repeat, immediate arrest. All new life forms will be catalogued and taken into care. All visitors to the hospital will be required to make a statement to the NNYPD.
"The Face of Boe!" The Doctor exclaimed at the sight of him. "You were supposed to be dying."
"There are better things to do today. Dying can wait."
"Oh, I hate telepathy. Just what I need, a head full of big face." Cassandra scoffed.
"Shh!" The Doctor shushed Cassandra.
"I have grown tired with the universe, Doctor, but you have taught me to look at it anew."
"There are legends, you know, saying that you're millions of years old."
"There are? That would be impossible."
"Wouldn't it just. I got the impression there was something you wanted to tell me."
"A great secret."
"So the legend says."
"It can wait."
"Oh, does it have to?" The Doctor replied, looking somewhat disappointed.
"We shall meet again, Doctor, for the third time, for the last time, and the truth shall be told. Until that day" He beams away, leaving just the Doctor and Raelle.
"That is enigmatic. That, that is, that is textbook enigmatic." He stated. He turned towards Raelle. "And now for you."
"But everything's happy. Everything's fine. Can't you just leave me?"
"You've lived long enough. Leave that body and end it, Cassandra."
"So much energy coursing in both of your bodies Doctor. So much you don't know. I could live off Raelle's energy for a lifetime. I don't want to die."
The Doctor scrunched his eyebrows together. "What do you mean, Cassandra, what energy?"
"Hush now, secrets, help me."
"I can't."
"Mistress!" Chip called after Cassandra, surviving not being infected.
"Oh, you're alive." Cassandra glanced at Chip.
"I kept myself safe for you, mistress." He told her, admirably.
"A body. And not just that, a volunteer." She smirked.
"Don't you dare. He's got a life of his own." The Doctor shouted at her.
"But I worship the mistress. I welcome her."
"You can't, Cassandra." The Doctor pleaded. "You-" It was too late. The energy transfer takes place, leaving Raelle and into Chip. As a result. Raelle collapses into the Doctor's arms.
"Oh! You all right?" He asks her concerned, catching her. He tried to see if she could stand, to which she collapsed again. "Whoa! Okay?"
"Yeah" Raelle responded. She looked up at the Doctor, smiling. "Hello!"
The Doctor grinned at the girl, matching her wide smile. "Hello. Welcome back." He presses a kiss to her forehead.
"Oh, sweet Lord. I'm a walking doodle." Cassandra whined, drawing the pair's attention back to her.
"You can't stay in there. I'm sorry, Cassandra, but that's not fair. I can take you to the city. They can build you a skin tank and you can stand trial for what you've done."
"Well, that would be rather dramatic. Possibly my finest hour, and certainly my finest hat, but I'm afraid we don't have time. Poor little Chip is only a half-life, and he's been through so much. His heart is racing so." She pauses. "He's failing. I don't think he's going to last" Cassandra falls to her knees, Raelle helping to catch her.
"Are you all right?" Raelle asked.
"I'm fine. I'm dying, but that's fine." She replied, accepting her fate.
"I can take you to the city." The Doctor informed Cassandra.
"No, you won't. Everything's new on this planet. There's no place for Chip and me any more. You're right, Doctor. It's time to die, and that's good." She accepted, Raelle looking sympathetically at her.
"Come on. There's one last thing I can do."
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ
After finding Rose in Ward 26, the TARDIS materialises out of sight of the party, in Cassandra's past. In the background, Cassandra is showing off to her fellow friends. "Oh no, don't. Stop it. Simply not true. Tiny. The beaches were so dismal, and the mosquitoes were-"
Present Cassandra watches on, before turning to face the trio. "Thank you." A grateful smile on her face.
"Just go. And don't look back." The Doctor told her.
"Good luck." Raelle added, a small smile on her face.
"And if you actually see them, you're shocked. But don't quote me on that. Oh, naughty."
"Excuse me, Lady Cassandra." Present Cassandra interrupted.
"I'm sorry, I don't need anything right now. I'm fine, thank you." She dismissed.
"No, I just wanted to say you look beautiful." Present Cassandra told her past self, a meaningful smile on her face.
Cassandra paused, taken aback. "Well, that's very kind, you strange little thing. Thank you very much." She smiled gratefully.
"I mean it. You look so beautiful."
Cassandra looked close to tears "Thank you." Chip's body collapses, with Lady Cassandra catching him, cradling him. "Oh, my Lord. Are you all right? What is it? What's wrong? Someone get some help! Call a medic or something, quickly!" She shouted, nobody moving to attempt to help. Raelle looked away from the scene, tears in her eyes. The Doctor grabbed her hand, to comfort her. "He just came up to me. I don't even know his name. He just collapsed. I think he's dying. Someone do something! I've got you, sweetheart. It's all right. There you are. There you are, I've got you. It'll be all right. There, there, you poor little thing."
The Doctor, Rose and Raelle watched on, sympathetically at the scene. Raelle grabbed Rose's hand, squeezing it to which Rose returned. They started to walk back to the TARDIS, leaving Cassandra behind. The Doctor tugged the trio back into the TARDIS, glad the sister's were ok. However, in the back of his mind, he couldn't forget what Cassandra had said to him earlier.
"So much energy coursing in both of your bodies Doctor. So much you don't know. I could live off Raelle's energy for a lifetime. I don't want to die."
Raelle was human, she wouldn't have an abnormal amount of energy. The Doctor didn't like not knowing, he would figure out what Cassandra meant, if it was the last thing he did.
Word Count -3467
2 episodes done! I hope anyone reading this enjoys the story! Any feedback is much appreciated. Hope you enjoy lovelies. xox