Timeless [Doctor Who/11th Doctor]

10. Poison

CHAPTER TEN

When I awoke I was warmer than I remember being. Cold November air long forgotten, I realised a tweed jacket was hung over my body like a blanket.
Grimacing, I began to sit up in the chair I was in, and my vision became a little less blurred. The brick walls and rows of computers were familiar enough for me to know I was back at the secret base - UNIT, as I had read on the guards' badges.

"What happened?" I croaked out to Kate, who was sitting with her back faced to me typing furiously on her keyboard.
"Ah, you're awake," she turned around, her smile weak with sympathy. "We're still trying to figure it out."
"Where's the Doctor?" was my next question. My eyes scanned the room, but I couldn't see him anywhere.
"He went back to the scene of the fire after he carried you here," she told me. A little part of me was grateful that he managed to carry me all the way back to the Tower of London, but I'd never admit it to him.

Pushing his tweed jacket off me, I tried to stand from the chair I was sat in. Like standing up too fast when you're low on iron, everything went black for a moment and my head spun.
Kate put her hand out to help me sit back down. "Careful, we don't think it's out of your system yet."
"Sorry... it?"
Sharing a glance with her colleague who was examining a crimson test tube, she took a moment to decide what to tell me.
"From your blood sample, there appears to be some sort of substance you breathed in. An incapacating agent, if you will. You weren't there for long so you just stayed knocked out for an hour or so. Osgood here is working out what might happen had you inhaled it for longer."
Well, wasn't that just bloody great. I could have died, and now I was missing out on all the adventure that came with that.
"Blood sample?" I winced in disgust.
"Don't worry, your arm might ache a little but you'll be fine."

With a sigh, I stood again, fighting past the dizziness. Pulling the Doctor's jacket on for extra warmth, I marched towards the exit. "Charlotte, what are you doing?"
People seemed to be asking that a lot of me today.
Despite Kate shouting after me, I didn't look back for a second. "Don't even try it," I snapped at the guards who attempted to halt me when Kate told them to.

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The walk back to the place the fire had happened took a little longer that it should have, as I clung to walls and lampposts to steady myself from passing out again. Eventually, though, I made it there. Much like the first house the Doctor and I had visited, the walls were now burnt to a crisp, and police cars were stranded diagonally across the pavement.

Just as I arrived, there he was, strutting out of the building, straightening his bow-tie.
It took him a minute to see me, but when he did, confusion instantly crossed his features.
"Lottie?"
"Hi," I smiled weakly, hiding the fact I could barely stand as well as I could.
A moment passed where I couldn't tell if he was extremely annoyed that I was here and not resting at the UNIT base, or if he was actually relieved to see me. I realised it was the latter when his strides got faster and he pulled me into his arms when he reached me. My feet were practically lifted off the ground, just my tiptoes on the concrete, as I buried my face into his shoulder. I was glad his arms were around me or I might have collapsed right then.

"What's the plan, then?" I asked him when I finally managed to prise myself away from his hold.
His eyes flitted over my face, and he smiled slightly, like he was surprised but very pleased I was okay. It was easier to let him believe I was completely back on my feet. Literally.

He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a familiar sound. My phone was vibrating in his trouser pocket. He quickly answered it, listening closely to something I couldn't hear.

When he hung up and put the phone back in his pocket, I raised my eyebrow at him. "Seriously? You stole my phone?"
"Well, you weren't using it," he retorted. "And you stole my jacket!"
"You gave me it, idiot."
Rolling my eyes, I linked my arms with him as we walked down the street.
"So, fires across London, remnants of... alien icky stuff... and poison in the smoke," the Doctor began.
"Poison?!" I shouted over his ramblings.
"Nevermind that," he said, earning an unimpressed look. "If the aliens are the ones dying, then who's starting the fires?"