Chapter Text
1.
—
If reality being gently nudged aside (and then nudged irritably back in the other direction) could have made a sound, it would probably have sounded like this:
A nondescript storage cupboard on a nondescript floor of a nondescript space station suddenly filled with the whine and moan of a bag of cats becoming faintly acquainted with several bag pipes. Sourceless wind howled. In the dimness, the vague outline of something that shouldn’t have been began to take halting, determined shape.
Inside the TARDIS, the liquid in Yaz’s mug was rippling.
“Er,” she said. “Doctor—”
The TARDIS rumbled with discontent, and her tea slopped over the side of her mug onto her fingers.
The Doctor fluttered a hand in her direction. “It’s fine!” she insisted, which meant that it probably wasn’t. “I’ll sort it in a ‘mo, nothing to worry about.”
Out of the corner of Yaz’s eye, Graham took off his sun visor glumly. “We aren’t gonna make it to the sunny sands of Sandolovar 12, are we,” he muttered. “I had a picnic packed and everything.”
The Doctor’s head shot up. The wide-brimmed sun hat she’d been wearing flew off with the motion and landed somewhere behind her. “Yes, we are!” She went back to glaring down at the console. “And it’s going to be so much fun, I absolutely promise—”
Yaz took a hasty sip of her tea in between irritable jolts, unconvinced.
“We can still have your picnic,” she offered to Graham. “Wherever it is we end up. A sandwich is just as good when you’re on the run from angry space squid.”
The Doctor’s head popped up again. “I apologised for that.” She scowled. “And we’re going to Sandolovar 12, where the sun is always shining and where the sky is always bright, and we are going to eat ice creams on the beach.” She emphasised her last words with an uncharacteristic kick to the base of the console, still scowling. Somewhere along the way, a few stray hairs had wandered to the front of her face. The effect, Yaz noted mildly, was sort of charmingly deranged.
Ryan had already scavenged a pickle and cheese from Graham’s optimistic picnic hamper and was sprawled on the steps. The fingers of his other hand gripped the edge of the stairs, bracing himself.
“Don’t really seem like the TARDIS wants to take us there,” he pointed out, in between bites.
“Got that, thanks, Ryan,” the Doctor hissed over the console.
Graham fretted up at the ceiling, visor still in hand.
“Only we could all use a proper vacation,” he said, half-imploring. Yaz swallowed back a smile. “If the TARDIS could see how pasty we all were—”
“Oi.”
“You especially, Doc—”
“Oi!”
“Well, maybe it just don’t understand how beneficial it could all be,” he continued, still gazing beseechingly up at the ceiling. “Y’know. Rest. Relaxation. The whole bit. It’s been a bit full keel, lately, Doc, I gotta say.”
Her head popped up again. She blew some of the hair out of her face, irritated. “Hence the vacation,” she said. “I do listen, sometimes. Reckoned I owed you all a do-over.”
“A do-over, right.”
The Doctor ignored the TARDIS’ fretful moaning for a moment, frowning at them all.
“Are you really that tired?” she asked, face twisting.
Ryan scoffed. “Aren’t you?” he threw back, more gently than Yaz would have. It was getting harder and harder to ignore the Doctor’s tendency to tilt wildly between extremes, lately. Either they were abandoned for days on end while she sunk her hands into what she insisted were repairs, left to fend for themselves—or lounge around—on alien tourist traps, or they were being dragged from planet to planet, adventure to adventure, like they were running out of time. No breaths in between.
Yaz frowned, out of view of the others. Not running out of time, maybe. That wasn’t quite right. But running all the same.
The Doctor’s face retreated into her neck in slight disgust. “No,” she said. “But—”
“Right,” Graham tried, skeptical, “only—”
Before he could finish, the TARDIS made a noise like an emergency brake in the midst of failing spectacularly, and the Doctor flung herself back over the console with a shout.
“No,” she said, banging a fist on the console irritably, “no, that’s not what I said, don’t—”
The TARDIS whorped belligerently, and a lever near where the Doctor’s other hand was resting sparked. She tore her fingers away and jammed them in her mouth. “Oi! Don’t be cheeky!”
“What’s going on, really?” Ryan ventured, glancing up at the ceiling. The TARDIS creaked and moaned. He grabbed hold of a column by the stairs absently. “Is the TARDIS pullin’ a mutiny?”
“No,” the Doctor protested. She removed her singed fingers from her mouth. ‘Well,” she said. “Maybe a bit.” Her nose wrinkled, irritated. “Message came in from Resus One. You remember, after the—”
“That time we almost got blown to pieces?”
She tilted her disapproving frown towards Graham. “Don’t have to go on about it!” Her back turned to them, as she flipped a switch on the console passive-aggressively. The TARDIS moaned. “It’s an automated reminder. Yearly follow-up. Completely unnecessary,” she ground out, hands on her hips. She glared up at the ceiling. “Seeing as the TARDIS has a fully equipped medical suite that’s light years ahead of whatever they’ve got on Resus One. But the TARDIS—”
“Seems to disagree with you,” Yaz pointed out, hiding a smile. Her smile fell. “It can’t hurt, can it? We could see how Mabli’s got on.”
“We could also text her,” the Doctor muttered darkly, flipping another switch in what Yaz was now recognizing as a vain attempt at resetting the coordinates. “She’ll be on tour, anyway.” But the TARDIS was having none of it. It whorped in offense, lights flashing, and the Doctor withdrew her fingers quickly, scowling. “Fine!” she snapped. The TARDIS, having won whatever invisible battle they’d just been waging, landed delicately, with only the slightest shudder and a wheeze. “Honestly.”
Her coat whirled around her as she spun and stalked towards the door. “Quick in and out,” she said. “Only ‘cos the TARDIS won’t get rid of the notification, and I can’t bear it. And then,” she scowled up at the ceiling, “you’re going to go where I’ve programmed you.”
They filed out after her. Graham patted a column consolingly as they left, and the TARDIS creaked in what might have been appreciation.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “She talks to all of us like that, these days.”
“Well, this is a bit of alright, isn’t it,” Graham marvelled, gazing up at the skylight above them. Deep space glistened down into the lobby of Resus One. “We only got the view from the A&E last time, thanks to you and that ectospleen, Doc.”
“You’re welcome,” the Doctor muttered, not sounding particularly thrilled about the reminder. She glanced over her shoulder at the maintenance cupboard the TARDIS had decided to park in, nose wrinkling.
“It is posh, this,” Yaz said. She paused beside Graham to glance up at the skylight, smiling. “Still not quite the beach, but it’ll do.”
“I’d put a gift shop.” The Doctor leaned in between them, pointing to a wall behind the intake desk. “Right there. Just a little one. Love a gift shop, me.” She elbowed her way through them irritably, coat trailing behind. “Come on, fam.”
Yaz didn’t quite sigh.
“It’s alright, love,” Graham said, as they followed. “We’ll get that beach.”
“Not the beach I’m worried about,” Yaz whispered, mindful of the Doctor just ahead of them. The woman had ears like a satellite, when it suited her. Which was often, except when it wasn’t.
“Nothing new, though, is it,” Ryan said morosely, through a mouthful of sandwich.
The three of them glanced at each other. As always, Graham was never quite sure what they were trying to say. They never seemed to find the time to actually say it. And in the meantime—well. He shrugged at them. All you could do was follow.
“Come on,” he said, falling back into step, admiring the shine on the floors. It certainly wasn’t the beach, but everywhere with the Doctor was an adventure—as long as you knew how to make the most of it. “And give me one of them sarnies I know you squirrelled away, while you’re at it.”
Ryan scowled and dug one out of his jacket.
“What?” Graham protested. “I made them, didn’t I?”
A smooth, impeccably polite voice interrupted them.
“Please be advised,” it said sweetly, “that no outside food or liquid is permitted on-board Resus One.”
Graham stopped. Graham goggled.
“Er,” he said, taking a miniature step back from the egg-shaped robot floating serenely in front of them. It had two blue pixelated eyes set into a black-screened visor for a face.
“Please enjoy your stay,” it said. “Please note that this being is equipped for audio and visual recording and your image and or likeness may be stored and collected by the relevant authorities at a later date.”
Ryan edged in closer, cramming the other sandwich back into his jacket pocket. “Sorry, Graham,” he told him solemnly. “Robot said I’m not allowed.”
Just past the robot, Graham could see the Doctor taking a space in the waiting queue, arms swinging impatiently. “Right,” he said, glancing back at the robot. He swallowed back a shiver. He’d never liked robots very much. “Well, um, we’d best be catching up with the Doc, anyway.”
The two of them inched away slowly, maneuvering around. The robot blinked at them placidly, swivelling to watch them as they joined up with the Doctor and Yaz in the line-up.
“If that don’t make your spine tingle,” Graham muttered. “Maybe this place is too posh for us. No outside food or drink? Does it think it’s the Royal Albert or something?”
“I dunno,” Ryan offered. “Thought it was a bit cute.”
“Ahh, mass surveillance,” the Doctor said, peering behind them at it as they finally caught up. “Already a feature of your century, Graham. At least this one’s got a map included.”
Graham shoved his hands in his pockets. “Well, that don’t exactly reassure me.”
“He’s just cross because it wouldn’t let him eat his sandwich.”
“Well, you would be too!”
“There’s still loads left in the picnic basket,” Ryan pointed out. “You can have one when we get back to the TARDIS.”
The queue in front of them crept forward. The woman in front of them yawned and idly flicked to the next page of the holographic magazine she was perusing. Graham felt his brow wrinkle. “Could be a while, son.”
The Doctor hummed in agreement, bouncing on her heels. She peered over the heads of the couple in front of them, neck craning, clearly doing some quick calculations—or planning something slightly illegal. Yaz frowned, anticipating.
“Hold on,” she said. “You’re not—”
But the Doctor was already pulling the psychic paper from her pocket, dangling it temptingly. “Come on,” she said, mischief warring with the irritation it was trying to cloak. “Unless you’d like to stand in line all day?”
She grinned and bounced ahead, coat trailing behind her. Yaz’s frown deepened but she followed. Ryan shrugged back at Graham and did the same, without glancing behind him to see if he was coming.
Graham shot one last nervous glance behind him, but the robot was nowhere to be seen.
By the time he’d caught up to the three of them, the Doctor was already sweet-talking the receptionist. He edged tentatively in front of the irritable-looking man they’d budged in front of.
“—ever so urgent,” the Doctor was saying, eyebrows raised in what she must have thought was the picture of innocence. Maybe it did, if you didn’t know better. “The Earl will be terribly grateful.”
The receptionist clearly didn’t know any better. She leaned in, glasses slipping down her nose.
“Anything for the Earl,” she said, though she glanced hesitantly behind them, at the throng of irritated people in the queue they’d just barged in front of. Graham felt his face flush, despite himself. “I’ll let her know you’ve arrived,” she said, typing faster than Graham could blink. She passed them four visitor badges. “Just take the lift up to Ward 3. And, uh,” she said, flustered. “Well, tell the Earl we so appreciate his financial support.”
The Doctor smiled tightly. “Of course,” she promised. “Come on, fam,” she said, grin sharpening. “See?” she whispered as they shuffled over to the lift, leaving the disgruntled remnants of the queue behind them. “Quick in and out, just like I promised.”
She passed them their visitor badges and pressed the lift button with far too much relish.
“I love a good lift. Come on, get a shift on.”
Another swirl of her coat, and she was off again.
“Doc,” Graham protested, edging into the lift with Ryan at his side, out of the vague—but more rational by the minute—fear that if he wasn’t fast enough she’d just leave him behind. “I thought Mabli was on tour.”
“Someone’s been promoted,” the Doctor told him, eyebrows raising, sounding faintly impressed. “Fast-tracked, too. I knew Mabli was a good one. She’s in charge of a whole ward, now.”
Graham hummed thoughtfully in reply, glancing up at the lift warily. It moved so smoothly it was hard to tell if you were moving at all. The back of his neck was prickling a bit, too. There were no cameras that he could see—but there was a feeling, nonetheless, that they were all being watched.
The lift dinged as they reached their destination, fourteen floors up. It would have made him a bit queasy, too, but he supposed heights didn’t matter so much when you were floating freely in space. Or locked in orbit. Or whatever. Truthfully, the science of it all was a bit beyond him. All that mattered, he told himself reassuringly, as they wandered out of the confines of the lift, was that it was safe. Even if it was floating in space. Even if it was a hospital, which tended not to be his favourite place to relax. Even centuries into the future, the sterile, antiseptic smell was exactly the same. It would have been enough to make his skin crawl, but then again, he was with his family. And it was safe.
The Doctor plunged ahead of them. She’d become intolerant of dawdling, lately—at least when it came to places she didn’t want to be.
He sighed. Safe enough, anyway. Even if it wasn’t proving to be especially enjoyable, so far. Oh, well.
All you could do was follow.
They’d seen as little of Resus One as was humanly possible, last time. The Doctor had been too anxious to get back to the TARDIS for them to stick around. It must have been huge, though, even if the corridors felt a bit claustrophobic, the same way Tsuranga had. It was clearly built in the same style—or, Yaz supposed, it had been the other way round. White on white on white, and very few thoughts given to throwing up a sign or two. Slippery floors. But then, that was all hospitals, wasn’t it. Yaz wasn’t as intimately familiar with them as she knew Ryan was, as she knew Graham must have been. All she had were vague impressions from when she’d broken her arm as a kid, from when Nani had taken ill, a few years back.
She glanced at Graham. Under her watchful gaze, he cast a fretful look back in the direction of the lift, but to her keen eye that had more to do with the hamper full of sandwiches he’d been forced to abandon than anything else. She smiled faintly. It had been the same on the Tsuranga, hadn’t it? If he was upset by the reminder of it all, he didn’t show it.
Beside her, Ryan had shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket, but that could have meant anything. And his gaze was trained on the Doctor, always a few steps ahead. Yaz swallowed. They were all looking out for each other, in their own way. Eyes trained on each other’s backs. But did it mean anything, when all of it remained unspoken? Who watched the watchers, when they were watching themselves?
Ahead of them, the Doctor stumbled upon the entrance to the ward with a soft cry of delight.
“Oh, mind the decontamination,” the Doctor said as the doors closed behind them into an antechamber, a second too late. The three of them flinched as something harsh and antiseptic sprayed from four vents on the wall. Yaz squinted her eyes shut, stinging, wincing at the feel of the spray as it caught in her hair. When she wrenched her eyes back open, the Doctor was shaking out her coat, unalarmed, and fixing her attention to a screen embedded in the door.
“How does it all work, then?“ Yaz wheezed, the inside of her nostrils burning, but the Doctor had already taken the sonic to it with further delight.
“Should be able to hack their personnel system,” she said, squinting. The flat, rectangular hologram flickered. “Figure out exactly where we need to go and avoid the administration.”
“Ain’t that the point of this, though?” Graham asked. His mouth was still twisted from the taste of the decontaminant. “Insurance and all that.”
The Doctor glanced at him over her shoulder. One of her eyebrows raised skeptically. “Do you want to spend all day in another queue?”
“Well, no.”
“I’m streamlining.”
“Queue-jumping,” Ryan muttered, but he was smiling. “Again.”
“Aha.” The doors shuddered to life. The Doctor pressed her visitor pass to the keypad, and they opened with a pneumatic hiss onto the rest of the floor. “There, just a few corridors down, no directions needed. Two lefts, a right, another left. Someone remember that, ‘cos I won’t. Come on!” The doors closed behind them silently.
“Why,” Ryan wondered, as they trailed behind her, “are there no signs anywhere? How are people meant to know where they’re going? Tsuranga was small, but this place goes on forever.”
“Videographic interface that syncs with everyone’s ocular implants,” the Doctor said, dodging a white-clad orderly, who frowned at them as they passed. “Saves a lot of money on paint, maybe.”
Yaz shuddered. When they’d been trapped on Tsuranga, everything had flown by so fast, she’d never stopped to think about it all. “Does everyone have implants, in the future? Med-tags, ocular implants.”
“Unless you’re a hippy.” The Doctor threw a brief smile over her shoulder that was maybe meant to be reassuring. “It’s like having a smart phone, in this time period. Arguably good or bad, but—mostly just what everyone does because everyone does it.”
“Proper weird,” Ryan muttered. “I’d never want anyone messing about with my eyeballs.”
“It’s all a hop skip and a jump from your present,” the Doctor countered mildly, still careening ahead. “You’ll see things like it soon, popping up. Up to you to decide what to do with it, how to use it.” She nearly skidded past a windowless door, and then immediately backtracked. “Here we are!” She sonicked it open with a smile. “After you.”
“I’m still worried we should have queued,” Graham muttered, but he crept past her through the open door.
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Most days,” Yaz said dryly, following. The door slid shut behind them, closing them in a low-ceilinged office space, white and bright and—cramped. She could smell coffee bubbling away, or whatever the equivalent was, this far into the future.
A figure with their back to them was fussing with the coffee maker. At their unmistakeable entrance, they turned, startled. “Oh—”
Mabli blinked at them owlishly.
“That door was locked,” she said, blinking again. “Didn’t someone escort you from the ward entrance?
“Was someone meant to?” Graham said, frowning, though he smiled reassuringly at her first. “Afraid we skipped through a few hoops to get here. But it’s nice to see you, cockle. When the TARDIS steered us here, we didn’t think we’d be running into you.”
“Well done, Mabli.” When Yaz glanced over at her, the Doctor was beaming. “Astos would be proud of you.”
The reminder brought a bittersweet smile to Mabli’s lips.
“After Tsuranga, they let me accelerate some of my training,” she said, stepping forward. As an afterthought, she twisted to put her coffee cup on the counter behind her. Her smile dimmed. “I see you got my message. Er, well—not my message, the automated yearly reminder, of course—”
“Congratulations, Mabli,” Yaz said, stepping forward to give her a hug. The other woman’s arms were tense, but when they parted she was still smiling. In fact, she almost looked relieved to see them. Yaz tucked the thought away for later. “It’s good to see you. Are you a proper doctor now?” she asked, grinning.
“Almost.” Mabli shifted. “I’m on my last year of training. I’ve been—I’ve been working in Ward 3, here. Running the admin. And, y’know, dealing with some smaller administrative matters. Like—” Her smile grew tight. “Yearly automated checkups. For, um. It’s insurance purposes, you see. I’m so glad you came.”
“We almost didn’t,” Ryan muttered under his breath.
“Insurance?” The Doctor had clearly grown impatient, and was doing that thing she did where she bumbled around a bit but was actually snooping. She poked absently at the coffee maker.
Mabli eyed her warily. “New board of directors was sworn in last month. Things are, um. Well, they’re bit a different here, these days.”
The Doctor’s head snapped up. She raised an eyebrow. “Different how?”
The shift in the air was obvious. Yaz frowned as Mabli’s smile grew brighter and tighter around the edges. “Oh, you know,” she said. “It’s—it’s normal, isn’t it, a bit of changeover. Um, if you wouldn’t mind—there’s water and coffee and you can take off your coats. I have an examining room, just to the left.” She worried at her lower lip. “I don’t suppose you checked in when you arrived on the floor.”
“No, in fact, we did everything we could to avoid it,” Graham said.
Mabli winced. “That’s fine!” she said. “Backend administration, I can—I can have you fill out the right forms later. You don’t have med-tags anyway,” she muttered, more to herself, “so I suppose it doesn’t really—um, this way.” She gestured to her left, looking scattered. Yaz frowned again. There was a small arch connecting the bright, cramped office to what looked like an equally cramped examining room. Yaz’s eyes caught the same wave-like bed Tsuranga had been equipped with. It took up the entire length of the room. Equipment was scattered behind it, crammed in and crushed up against the wall, hung above the examining table.
Resus One might have been larger and better equipped than the rescue ships that got sent out, Yaz thought mildly, but it certainly didn’t seem to have an economy of space. At least not on Ward 3, anyway.
Yaz glanced over her shoulder to where the Doctor was spooning a truly alarming amount of sugar into the coffee she’d helped herself to. She raised her eyebrows encouragingly.
“Go on, then,” she said, tilting her head. Still irritated, if you knew where to look. Still strange, but Yaz never quite knew what to say about it. There was nothing in her gaze that invited any questions. Nothing about her at all, lately, that invited any questions, ever since that night in the console room. “I’ll be along.”
Which sounded like a lie, but Yaz wasn’t in the mood to push the issue. She gave the Doctor’s coffee one last exasperated glance and then turned to face the examining room.
“One at a time, then?” she wondered, curious.
“It’s just a quick check-up,” Mabli said, nodding. “Quality assurance. Who wants to go first?”
No one wanted to go first, as it turned out, but Ryan finally relented when he lost rock, paper, scissors two times in a row.
There wasn’t a question of the Doctor going first, of course. She lurked outside the small room while Mabli ran them one by one through the paces, which mostly consisted of questions like ‘and have you felt your organs moving about at all lately?’ and Mabli scribbling things down absently on the holographic tablet she kept glued to herself. She was brisk and professional, and Yaz was proud to see that there was very little left of the hesitance that had so defined her on the Tsuranga. She’d clearly done some growing of her own, in the year or so since they’d last met. They moved on from things so quickly, it was nice to see the lasting impact, for once. In the wake of the scorched earth they’d left behind so recently, it was reassuring to see tangible proof they’d left somewhere better than they’d found it.
Still. Yaz frowned as she watched Mabli give Graham a clean bill of health. There was a nervous edge to her smile.
“Well, that’s a relief,” Graham said, sliding gingerly off the table. “Though I will say—”
“Nothing the TARDIS couldn’t have told you,” the Doctor interjected finally, filling the doorframe, arms crossed. She was smiling, but it was only skin-deep. “She’s got medical facilities that your lot won’t see for centuries.”
Mabli blinked again in mild confusion, but clearly knew better than to ask too many questions.
“Quality assurance for insurance purposes can’t be completed by a third-party,” she said firmly. She glanced beyond the Doctor briefly, into the office beyond. Nervously, Yaz thought, and tucked away another frown. “Doctor? You’re the last one.”
The Doctor opened her mouth, on the verge of protest, but the three of them glanced to her, eyebrows raised. Ryan crossed his arms, mirroring her.
“Least you didn’t have to play rock, paper, scissors for it,” he told her, and it rang earnest enough that Yaz thought it might actually work. “It’s only fair, right?”
The Doctor was a hard sell these days, though, and Yaz caught that same flinty irritation creep into the slant of her shoulders, the lines of her eyes. Her mouth twisted in disagreement. It was Ryan asking, though, and somehow that made all the difference. She uncrossed her arms. “Fine,” she relented, shifting past them awkwardly through the cramped space to reach the table. She sat stiffly.
“Mabli,” Yaz asked, now they were all in closer quarters. There was something about the outside, some indefinable safety about the closeness of the exam room. “Is everything okay?”
In the dimness of the examining room, Mabli’s newfound confidence took on a more solemn air. She swallowed as she set up the same scan she’d performed on the three of them previously. It ran with a soothing hum in the background, as the Doctor sat with her arms crossed again.
“Of course,” Mabli said, smiling. “It’s nice to see you all again. And I’m so sorry about the—well, about the yearly reminder, only—” She swallowed again. “It’s the patient confidentiality, you see. I don’t need to record anything for training purposes anymore, which means as long as we’re in here, we’re protected.”
The back of Yaz’s neck prickled. “Protected?” she asked.
Mabli shook her head, reaching above to end the scan. “Sorry, poor choice of words. I just mean, there’s no one listening. Or watching.”
The Doctor had uncrossed her arms. The first hint of genuine interest that Yaz had seen in days gleamed in the back of her eyes. “Are you being watched, Mabli?” she asked, straining forward.
“No,” she said, too quickly. “Well, we all are, all the time, of course. I just—” She cast a nervous glance beyond the door again, past Graham and Ryan. Ryan shifted uncomfortably, shooting a glance behind him in solidarity. “I need your help,” she admitted, bringing up the holographic screen again, going through the motions by rote.
“Here to help, that’s us,” the Doctor said insistently, suddenly looking a bit like she’d won the lottery. She sat up straighter. “I knew we were right to come.” Yaz shot her a disapproving look over Mabli’s head. Ryan scoffed, quietly. “Tell us exactly what’s wrong.”
“Well,” Mabli said. “It’s just—”
She paused, frowning. One finger tapped her screen, repeatedly.
“What is it?” Yaz asked, stepping forward.
“Er,” Mabli stalled, dragging another screen from above the table towards her with a deepening frown. “Just let me—now, that can’t be—”
The equipment beeped and Mabli turned off the source of the noise with her free hand absently, absorbed.
“Amazing,” she breathed, distracted. “Your cells have completely regenerated. There’s not even a sign of the original injury. How is that—?”
The Doctor smiled tightly. “Call it a talent. Am I done now?” She made to scoot off the table.
Mabli glanced to her, finally breaking away from her readings. “But—but I’ve never—” Her holographic tablet beeped again, sounding irritated. She swiped, and then paused. Her frown returned. “Er. Hold on a minute. Doctor, is everything alright?”
The Doctor raised her eyebrows. “Yes?”
“Have you been experiencing any symptoms?”
“No.”
“Restlessness, irritability—”
Ryan coughed pointedly.
“No,” the Doctor insisted, irritably.
“It’s just—” Mabli swiped at her screen again, brow wrinkling. She cast the chart to the larger screen, looking perplexed. “Cell regeneration aside, I took a baseline of your biodata the last time you were admitted, and these readings don’t—”
The Doctor swung her legs off the table, expression flattening. “You don’t have my species on file,” she reminded her. “You have no idea what’s normal.”
Mabli’s frown didn’t budge. “I don’t even know what your species is. But I took a baseline, and I’m more than capable of extrapolating—”
“Well, you can’t extrapolate me.”
“I don’t have to extrapolate,” Mabli said firmly, with more confidence than Yaz had ever seen in her before, “to know that these readings are suggesting a high level of self-neglect. Dehydration, malnutrition, clinical exhaustion—”
“Doctor,” Yaz interjected incredulously.
“—not to mention the high blood pressure,” Mabli continued. “Is everything alright?”
The Doctor glared at them all mutinously, as if daring them to say anything. “Yes,” she insisted. “Everything’s fine.”
“These readings would suggest otherwise.”
“Well, these readings,” the Doctor said, shoulders hunching, “are wrong.”
Mabli stared her down for a moment, still frowning. “No,” she said quietly, searching the Doctor’s face. Yaz wondered what she was seeing. “I don’t think they are.” She put the portable screen down and wrung her hands together, in a gesture that felt far more familiar—and much less steely. “I can’t ask for your help, not like this.”
At her hesitation, the Doctor straightened, nose wrinkling. “Hold on,” she protested. “I’m fine. Tell us what’s been happening. Here to help, remember?”
Mabli shook her head minutely. “But I—” She pressed her lips together, clearly thinking furiously. “I was worried about how I was going to sneak you into the ward,” she muttered, more to herself than to them. “But—well, in some ways—”
The Doctor raised her eyebrows. “Why d’you need us in the ward, Mabli? What’s going on?”
Mabli shook her head again, clearly conflicted. Her earrings glinted in the dim light.
“The Doctor’s right,” Yaz said, stepping forward. She eyed the Doctor, swallowing back her frustration—for now. “We came here to help. The four of us, we’re a good team. Remember?”
“I remember,” Mabli said softly. She took in a breath again, hesitant. “No one else will believe me. I’ve filed reports, I’ve tried to access security footage, I’ve tried to put in for access to information requests, nothing goes through.” She swallowed. “But there’s something going on in my ward. Excess deaths, for weeks now, but none of the reports have been properly delivered, or there’d be an investigation. And—” she hesitated. “Anecdotal evidence, from some of my patients. Word-of-mouth only, and nothing that I could verify myself, but—well,” she glanced away sheepishly, “some of them seem to think the ward is being haunted.”
The Doctor sat up straighter. “Haunted?” she said, eyes gleaming. Yaz leaned over to swat her gently on the arm.
“How much excess death?” she asked, reaching for Mabli’s hand sympathetically.
Mabli shook her head. “Too much,” she said quietly. “I have a responsibility, to my patients and their families. Even if the higher-ups won’t pursue, I have to figure out what’s going on.” She glanced up, hopefully. “That’s where you come in.” But her face twisted int a frown again, as she looked worriedly to the Doctor. “But I can’t in good conscience ask for your help.”
The Doctor hopped spryly off the examination table. “Yes, you can,” she said. “I told you, nothing to worry about.”
“It’s nothing to make light of,” Mabli insisted. “If you were anyone else, I’d be recommending you for—admission.” She paused again. She tilted her head.
The Doctor soured, following the thought. “Oh, no,” she protested. “Absolutely not.”
Yaz crossed her arms. “It’s not a bad idea,” she ventured.
“Mabli’s got a point,” Ryan said.
“Definitely,” Graham agreed, nodding. He frowned. “What point is that, exactly?”
Ryan knocked him on the arm, gently. “We needed an excuse to get into the ward, right? No better excuse than bein’ an actual patient.”
The Doctor’s nose had wrinkled. “But—”
“Come on, Doctor, even you have to admit it’s a solid infiltration plan,” Yaz pressed.
The Doctor’s wrinkled nose devolved into a scowl. “Someone else should be the patient,” she protested. “Trust me, I make a terrible one, last time I was in hospital it got teleported to the moon. Time before that, I regenerated in the morgue, caused a huge mess. Then there was that business with the plague and the cat nuns—”
“Doctor,” Ryan interrupted.
She paused. Swallowed. “What about Graham?” One last ditch effort, panic crawling across her face. “He’s old.” She jabbed a thumb in his direction.
A series of shrill beeps began to emanate from Mabli’s tablet. Mabli raised an eyebrow.
“Blood pressure alert,” she said, straight-faced.
The Doctor’s lips pressed together. “I don’t do initials,” she said firmly. “Or hospitals, or waiting rooms, or bus stops.”
“Doctor,” Yaz muttered.
The slant of her shoulders lessened. “But when people need help,” she admitted grudgingly, “I never refuse.”
She sighed, and rolled up her sleeves.
“So where do I sign?” she asked.