Until We Burn | Dr Who

Chapter Eighty-Two: The Sontaran Stratagem

TW// Car accident, drowning

—

"Managed to find that last... file." Pausing in the doorway to the medical room, I frown. "Where's Donna?"

Martha looks up from a folder, sat on the resident nurse's desk — of whom there seems to be nobody employed for the task. She forces a smile, beckoning me in. I hand the file over to her. "Thanks," she mumbles, flicking through it almost absentmindedly. "She's gone to visit her family."

I can't help but chuckle at that, taking a seat beside her. "Warned her about us?" I joke.

"Not exactly 'warned'... but yeah."

"Don't blame you. Maybe we should throw together a disclaimer for anyone wanting to travel with us — 'Warning: prepare for mortal danger. Hope you've got your will written up!'"

"Not such a bad idea." An awkward moment passes before she adds, "The Doctor's gone, too."

"Has he?" I ask with feigned disinterest in an answer. I can feel her watching me now.

She nods. "Went off to speak to the guy who designed ATMOS; Rattigan's the name, Luke Rattigan. Some kid genius, got a boarding school outside Surrey for other gifted teens."

"Sounds riveting."

Noting the sarcasm in my tone, she digs her elbow into my side. "Okay, what's up with you? You've been like this since you arrived, acting all closed off, making all these swipes at the Doctor. Did he do something?"

This time, I answer with more truth than I planned to, my voice softening, "Of course not." My next breath is a little shaky, guilt weighing in the pit of my stomach. I am not angry with him, I feel nothing bad towards him, but time seems to stretch out when I'm around him, my patience wearing thin. It isn't getting any better. Regret over my promise to him that I would not use the Coin is getting too hard to bear.

Strangely, she seems to understand something in my reply and asks nothing further, simply regarding me with one last concerned glance.

Before either of us can speak again, there is a knock on the doorframe. A UNIT soldier enters, escorting one of the workers with him. The worker is pale, with blonde hair cut down to the scalp and blue eyes that pierce into the space before him, intense and yet unseeing. He sits on the chair before us.

I move to the corner of the room to give Martha more space. She consults the file in her lap. "And your name's Treppa, yeah? Is that Polish? Listen, we're not checking passports, it's not about that... but did you come from Poland just to work?"

He stares ahead at her, unblinking. "I came to do my job." His voice is monotonous, a light accent cutting his vowels short.

"Okay. I need to listen to your heartbeat. This might be a bit cold. Lift."

He lifts his shirt. She rests her stethoscope against his chest but it isn't long before her brows furrow and she pulls away, checking once more before asking, "Are you on any medication?"

"I'm here to work." Again, there is no shift in tone, no emotion. He is blank. He hasn't even lowered his shirt and instead sits there without so much as a twitch.