Doctor Who_ Nightshade - Mark Gatiss [88]
corridor towards the control room.
The Doctor felt the heat first and a blinding light as he lost There was a sharp pain in his leg and he reached down, his grip on the rope. Then there was terrible empty air wincing as his fingers contacted a vicious cut. The tweed around him and his senses cried out in shock, his stomach material of his trousers hung in shreds.
lurching. He hit the ground with tremendous force.
Trevithick took a deep breath and hauled himself to the Ace and Robin were by him in an instant.
top of the steps. He allowed himself a little smirk of
‘Doctor!’ Ace wailed, running her fingers over his satisfaction. He’d fought off that creature. Come through it blackened face.
alive. Him! A seventy-year-old man. That was something to The ruined tower crackled with flame behind them and tell his granddaughter, should he ever chance to see her lumps of stone continued to fall. Robin coughed as a blanket again.
of smoke drifted down to ground level.
He pulled open the doors and stumbled as black dots The Doctor lay sprawled on the grass, deathly still.
crowded his vision. Shaking his head, he advanced down the corridor, leaning against the wall for support. For an instant, everything went black.
No. He’d never fainted in his life. This was no time to start.
Oh but he had, hadn’t he? After the window had been smashed.
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DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
Don’t think about that. Don’t...
The Doctor fell back, tears springing to his eyes, and bit He had to tell them what he had seen in the lower floors.
into his lower lip.
It was too important to ignore.
‘It’s his shoulder,’ yelled Robin. ‘Look!’
The corridor walls seemed to close in on him.
Ace looked and felt suddenly sick. There was an ugly Dicky ticker, he thought to himself. No surprise at his age, lump projecting from beneath the sleeve of the Doctor’s coat.
and after the strain he’d put himself under...
‘Dislocated,’ gasped the Doctor, weeping in agony. ‘Have With a low moan, Trevithick slid to the floor, unconscious.
to put it back.’ He was panting in distress.
‘What?’ said Ace. ‘I can’t...’
‘Doctor!’
‘Do it!’ ordered the Doctor. ‘Please ... please. Can’t stand Ace pulled at the hood of the Doctor’s duffel coat in an it...’
attempt to rouse him. Robin put his ear to the Doctor’s chest He arched his back and screamed. Robin put his hands on and blinked anxiously. He frowned and moved his ear to the Doctor’s right shoulder, eliciting an immediate howl the other side.
from the prostrate Time Lord.
‘He’s got...’
‘I’ll hold it,’ panted Robin. ‘You push it back in.’
‘I know,’ said Ace quietly. ‘Two hearts.’
Ace looked down worriedly.
She knelt down and held the Doctor’s hand in hers. His
‘Please!’ hissed the Doctor between his teeth. ‘Quickly!’
face was pale and waxen, little curls of sweat-soaked hair
‘Sorry about this, Doctor,’ said Ace grimly.
plastered to his forehead.
Robin pushed his knee under the Doctor’s back and Ace
‘You might as well know,’ she said, hopelessly. ‘He’s an rested her hands on the dislocated shoulder, gritting her alien and I’m from the future. We travel through Time.’
teeth as though she were feeling the pain herself. She Robin looked up from his scrutiny of the Doctor. He grasped the bones firmly and, holding her breath, slammed shrugged and smiled slightly. ‘Well, you did say you them back into place.
weren’t from round here.’
The Doctor emitted a stream of oaths not heard since the Ace put her hand on the Doctor’s brow. ‘Why won’t he very darkest days of Gallifreyan history and then fell back, wake up?’
sobbing, on to the moor.
Robin sighed. ‘I don’t know. His heartbeat is very shallow.
‘Thank you. Thank you both,’ he muttered, eyelids Maybe that’s normal for him...’
flickering.
Suddenly, the Doctor sat bolt upright and yelled in pain.
‘Did I do good?’ asked Ace eagerly. ‘Blowing up the Ace sat back on her haunches in surprise, staring at the tower?’
Doctor’s wide open mouth. He roared and screamed and The Doctor opened one eye painfully. ‘Nothing