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For the good of Great Britain, the Brigadier tells himself, as he marches through a set of doors too confidential to bear any top secret signs. He's fought and damn near died and what's worse, has sent brave men to their deaths for the good of his country. One more shouldn't make any difference.
Perhaps he could force himself to believe that, if it was simply a death at stake.
Down a steel-lined corridor, the papers of the Artron Energy Prognosis Report rustling under his arm, and into a room that makes no bones about its original purpose. Hastily-arranged trappings of hospital curtains and medical equipment only fill a small corner of the power plant's shadowy design.
Forty years of habitual calm, twenty of strict military training, the awareness of four helmeted guards with readied guns, and none of it would stop him doing something foolish, he realises with a curious flat despair. The prospect of more hurt coming to the lonely wild-haired figure before him, however...he sits down by the incongruous gurney, takes a limp hand in his own.
The Doctor opens his eyes, gazes at him with a bleary, vacant look of mild confusion. "Alistair?"
"I came as soon as I could."
"Oh...that's right. I asked for you, didn't I? Something rather important." A pause. "I've forgotten. I seem to be having some trouble with that."
He's accustomed to a Doctor who can put down a whole room of scientists with one dryly crafted insult, or flip an SAS man head over heels while chattering about Italian opera. This wan victim before him, drugged and intubated and wired, is barely recognisable. "There's no hurry."
"Yes. Yes, that was it...I wanted to say, I don't blame you. That was all."
Another pause: and Alistair can see a faint flicker of the man's familiar crispness, the longer it continues.
"You can go now," the Doctor says eventually.
Alistair moves not at all. Says nothing. Continues holding the Doctor's hand as though it's the sole constant in an utterly unfamiliar universe.
The way he feels, it might as well be.
*****
Yates calls that afternoon; and since they won't allow a telephone anywhere near the Doctor, the Brigadier's forced to leave his vigil to take it. If not for the Doctor fixing him with a sardonic and owlish expression, he might not have bothered.
"Any word when you'll be back, sir? Only there's been some uncertainty about my command in your absence."
"As highest ranking officer, you're in charge at UNIT pending further orders," the Brigadier says wearily. Yates was rather wished upon him, but is certainly capable of putting soldiers through drill. If anything more threatening should happen...
well, he'd pointed out that possibility in no uncertain terms when the Doctor had first been kidnapped. ("Reassigned" is the word on the papers.) But the orders from higher up had been steadfast; anything with the potential to end Britain's energy woes in one fell swoop can't be wasted on mere scientific field work. Regardless of whether that happens to be a thing, or a person.
"Sir?"
He realises he hadn't heard Yates' last comment. It doesn't seem to matter much.
*****
Normally the Doctor's body temperature runs ten degrees below the human norm. It's one of the small facts Alistair had to know about his scientific advisor; no reason to panic in the field if he noticed the Time Lord was unnaturally cold.
Now, though, he's been grasping the Doctor's hand for so long that it's warm like his own. The gentle pressure he exerts varies, enough so the sensation won't become unnoticeable in its constancy.
"...going to throw away a promising career on an it?" the Doctor asks. Low, but clear enough.
"As you've observed often enough, I'm mulish to a fault."
"You'll be gone in the morning," the Doctor says dismissively. He closes his eyes, feigning sleep.
Alistair doesn't try to argue. It's the condemned man's prerogative to lash out.
*****
Next morning he's still there. Next evening, too. He hadn't worked with the Doctor for so long without a deep reservoir of patience.
If he was thinking about it, he supposes, he'd know this won't be allowed forever and abandon the effort as ultimately futile.
But then, he's never been much of a thinker.
*****
"I can't hear her!"
The near-hysteria of the cry doesn't rouse Alistair to wakefulness- his sleep was fitful at best- but it brings all his senses to full alert, hunting for a course of action. Nothing occurs to him. He's not been trained for this.
The Doctor's hand clenches around his fingers, hard enough to bruise. "Where is she..."
Alistair holds his tongue. The physicians, slower to react to the crisis, laugh a little amongst themselves as they inject more sedatives: is it that Grant girl or the other one, that Cambridge looker?
Meanwhile the Doctor chokes back a sob, and the sheer obscenity of the contrast is rageworthy. This is hideously inadequate on his part. If their positions were reversed, the Doctor would have saved him, killed him, done something-
please, stay calm. Can't think straight. Be calm for us both.
It's possible he's hallucinating the way the Doctor's voice is echoing through his mind. If the Doctor's simply talking, for instance, and it's mere exhaustion and strain that's making him imagine a more fanciful explanation.
Alistair regulates his breathing, relaxes his jaw. The grip on his hand eases.
You know I didn't mean Jo.
He had, at that.
*****
It is less that the Brigadier is unsurprised to see the Master, and more that he's too bone-tired to register surprise. Besides which, he'd been carefully stripped of any weaponry before being allowed in here.
The Master shoots rapidly, efficiently, and not at all comedically- he's chosen an actual weapon in place of that inane shrink ray- until the staff are all thoroughly dead and cooling on the floor. No muss on his tailored jacket, even.
"If you'd kindly let go of the Doctor so that I can shoot you. I wouldn't want the psychic blowback to do him any damage- any further damage," the Master smoothly corrects himself.
For the Doctor's good he might actually have done it, but his hand is so stiff that thought doesn't equal action. Alistair continues not moving.
"Now don't do that," the Doctor pipes up. "You wouldn't have anybody to rescue if he hadn't been around, keeping me from going into a vegetative coma. They have some very nasty drugs on this planet, you know."
"Who says I'm rescuing you?" the Master demands.
"Oh, if you're going to be like that," the Doctor says; and he might still sound weak but there's a potent sureness about his voice again. He sits up straight. "Do help me get these wires off, they're rather tangled- Alistair?"
"Yes?"
"You can let go now."
"The least I could do," Alistair says, withdrawing his hand at last. He has to look to be sure he has; there's a lingering phantom sensation that's a trifle odd.
The Doctor seems to be having similar issues; he rotates his wrist, inspects it. "My dear chap, you underestimate yourself. Sometimes a hand to hold makes all the difference in the world- ow! I'm not made of steel, you know."
"If you're quite done with this mutual love fest," the Master says, tearing a last plastic tube out of the Doctor's chest with more speed than caution. "I suggest we depart before the trail of dead bodies leading here attracts further attention."
"For once, I've no intention of arguing with you," the Doctor says, jumping out of bed. "Time we weren't here, Brigadier."
Grabs his other hand. Starts to run.
Well.
He can stand it a little longer, Alistair supposes.