Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [71]
‘Jack,’ a voice said close to his ear. Jack woke with a start and gasped for breath, feeling as if he really had just surfaced from deep in the ocean. He was lying on a cold bench. Marble. It slowly dawned on Jack that he was in a morgue. And he was lying on the slab.
‘Oh blimey!’ he exclaimed. ‘Am I dead?’
The Doctor was sitting next to him, his arm resting gently on Jack’s. He smiled, kindly. ‘Ssh. You’re not dead, very much alive in fact. But we’re in a lot of trouble, a lot of danger. Keep your voice down.’
Jack swung his legs off the bench and hopped down beside the Doctor. He realized too late that his feet were full of pins and needles and collapsed in a heap on the floor. ‘Oww!’
‘Ssh,’ the Doctor chided. He knelt down beside Jack and started to rub the life back into his numb legs. ‘I think it’s an effect of the anaesthetic. You’ll be all right.’
‘Why am I wearing pyjamas?’ Jack asked, noticing that the Doctor was similarly attired. He realized that he’d never seen the Doctor without his funny little hat. ‘What happened to our clothes?’
‘I’ve no idea. Were you particularly attached to them? If it’s really important I suppose I could go and look for them, but I’m a bit more concerned with getting us both out of here alive.’
‘I see.’ Jack thought about this. The events of the night before came rushing into his head like a tidal wave crashing on to a dusty beach. ‘Hey, what happened to that black cab? Blimey! I was inside of it. Where are we, Doctor?
What’s going on?’
119
The Doctor finished his impromptu massage and fixed Jack with a weary look. ‘To take your questions in order: I don’t know; somewhere very dangerous; nothing good. What’s the last thing that you remember?’
Jack searched his memory. ‘Being sucked inside that horrible taxi and then. . . oh –’ he found himself suddenly blushing furiously ‘– you kissing me.’
The Doctor laughed. Jack thought that it was an easy laugh – not one out of awkwardness or embarrassment. ‘I had to blow the liquid from your lungs.
I put you into a trance to reduce your body’s requirement for oxygen to near zero. It’s a little trick I picked up from a Tibetan.’
Jack grinned. ‘I bet that’s what you say to all the boys.’ He wasn’t really sure that he understood what the Doctor was saying, but that probably only meant that things were getting back to normal, as only half of what the little man said ever made any kind of sense. ‘So you weren’t kissing me then?’
‘No,’ the Doctor said and climbed to his feet. ‘You’re about nine hundred and eighty years too young for me, Jack Bartlett,’ he added, as he headed for the door. ‘Not to mention an entirely different species.’
Different species? Things were definitely getting back to normal. ‘Good,’
Jack whispered to himself, as he followed the Doctor out of the room.
‘Should we be doing this?’ Jack asked as the Doctor picked the lock to Moriah’s private quarters.
‘I’ll give you three guesses,’ the Doctor replied, busy with a hairpin.
‘Thought not.’ The corridor was empty. There didn’t seem to be anyone in this part of the hospital. The pyjamas he’d woken in were too big for him.
Jack folded back the long sleeves of the jacket and rolled the trouser bottoms into turn-ups. The linoleum floor was cold under his bare feet and he felt vulnerable without his shoes and socks on.
After a moment, the Doctor finished working on the lock and pushed the door gently. ‘Ta-da!’ he announced, as it swung silently open. He stepped to one side. ‘After you,’ he said.
Jack stepped over the threshold and into the room beyond. He let out a low whistle. Whoever lived here didn’t want for much. It was a large room, bigger in fact than the whole ground floor of his mum’s and dad’s place back in Darlington. The walls were wood panelled and lined with tall bookshelves.