Earth Grazer || Doctor Who

49. The Plague of the London Blitz

~unedited~

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Elsewhere in London the Doctor pulled his super binoculars out from his jacket and used them to quickly scan the area, which Jack immediately picked up on his wristlet. As the rogue group of three headed out to meet up with their alien counterpart, the Doctor approached the hospital Nancy suggested he visit first. Upon entering he had a bad feeling, which amped up when he saw every available space filled with patients wearing gas masks, he heard shuffling behind him and quickly turned around and was met with an aging man with a walking stick. "You'll find them everywhere. In every bed, every ward ... hundreds of them."

"Yes, I saw. Why are they still wearing gas masks?"

"They're not," okay weird response, "who are you?"

When met with that question he gave his usual answer none, "I'm ... uh ... are you the doctor?"

"Dr Constantine, and you are?"

And again, "Nancy sent me."

"Nancy? That means you must have been asking about the bomb." Then the information started pouring in, sort of, all the people around him weren't caught up in the blast but they were somehow affected. Constantine coughed and had to sit down on a chair, the Doctor noted his sickly appearance, "dying I should think I just haven't been able to find the time. Are you a doctor?"

"I have my moments."

"Have you examined any of them yet?"

"No."

"Don't touch the flesh." So, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and began to examine the patients and his conclusions were that what he was seeing was impossible. They all had the exact same injuries, the massive head trauma on the left side, the partial collapse of the chest cavity on the right. The scarring on the back of the hand right down to the gas mask having been fused to the skin with no visible burns. But even most shocking of all was the fact that the patients weren't in fact dead, Constantine hit a waste basket with his walking stick, and they all sat up and stared at them.

"It's alright, they're harmless. They just sort of sit there, no heartbeat, no life signs of any kind. They just won' die."

"And they've just been left here? Nobody's doing anything?" Uniformly the patients slowly went back down, unnerving.

"I try to make them comfortable, what else is there?" the Doctor asked if it was only him because at first glance, he seemed to be alone. "Before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather. Now I am neither," words that cut deeply into the Doctor's soul, "but I am still a doctor."

"Yeah, I know the feeling," the lonely time lord murmured so softly he wasn't sure if the human heard him. He shook his head from unwanted thoughts, he had a job to do, "how did this happen?" so Constantine filled him in on all he knew, the first victim from the crash site was brought in and infected everyone he came into contact with. Physical injuries as plague, then the old doctor just had to drop another bomb.

"You must find Nancy again; the first victim was her brother. She knows more than she's saying but she won't tell me." The old human doctor started coughing in earnest, just then Ella burst into the room quickly followed by Rose and another human. The Doctor was too busy studying the new addition to the group to stop Ella from running up to Constantine and trying to help him.

"No, Ella! Don't touch his skin!"

"Why?" The brunette held up her hands, but it was too late she had already touched him. His words died on his throat as the group of four watched in mutual horror as Constantine transformed starting from his mouth and then his eyes bugged out. The skin on his face turned black and finally it looked as though he was simply wearing another gas mask, eventually the Doctor found words, "because that'll happen to you."