Chapter 16: The New New Humans

If you want to help me financially, you can do it on https://www.patreon.com/NeverluckySMILE

The Doctor opened the door and they all stepped into Ward 26, right by the Face of Boe. The people there stopped, startled, before Frau Clovis began charging at them with a chair, roaring almost like an animal.

"We're safe! We're safe! We're safe. We're clean! We're clean! Look, look-" the Doctor immediately shouted, showing him her hands. Rose and Cassandra copied the action, showing that they weren't infected either. "Look! Clean. Look - if we'd been touched, we'd be dead." She nodded, putting the chair down. "So, how's it going up here? What's the status?"

"There's nothing but silence from the other wards. I think we're the only ones left," Frau Clovis told him. "And I've been trying to override the quarantine." She fiddled with a small device as she walked over to the giant window. "If I can trip a signal over to New New York, they can send a private executive squad."

"You can't do that. If they forced entry, they'd break quarantine," the Doctor replied.

"I am not dying in here."

"We can't let a single particle of disease get out - there is ten million people in that City, they'd all be at risk! Now, turn that off!" he shouted, pointing at the device menacingly.

"Not if it gets me out," she stated firmly.

"All right, fine. So I have to stop you lot as well. Suits me," he muttered, looking around as a plan formed in his head. "Rose, Cassandra, Novice Hame, Everyone!" He ran over to the Duke of Manhanatten, stealing one of the winches from his bed. "Get me intravenous solutions for every single disease. Move it!"

Cassandra and Rose helped wrap him up until he was covered in straps and fluid bags. "How's that? Will that do?"

Cassandra frowned. "I don't know! Will it do for what?" she asked back, but instead of replying he rushed over to the lift doors and opened them with his sonic screwdriver, revealing the empty shaft behind them.

"The lifts aren't working," Rose pointed out, looking down the shaft warily. Why did she get the sudden feeling he was going to jump down?

"Not moving. Different thing." He stepped back as far as he could, wrapping the winch around the top of his arm. "Here we go."

He placed his sonic in his mouth before taking a running jump into it. "But you're not going to..." Cassandra exclaimed, trailing off as he grabbed onto the rope in the middle, suspending himself in mid-air.

"What are you doing?" Rose asked as he attached the winch to the rope with the screwdriver.

"I'm going down!"

Cassandra rolled her eyes and leant against the wall as Rose looked at him, still concerned. The Danni girl had let her in on a few things about the Doctor, one thing being her was pretty reckless and spontaneous, but also very clever. Apparently, he worked better without a plan.

"Come on!" he shouted, motioning to Rose who looked down the shaft again.

"What? You want me to go with you?" she asked incredulously, not about to risk falling down a huge shaft like that, even for him. She had already dangled from a rope in the middle of the Blitz, she really didn't want dangle off another one any time soon.

"I need another pair of hands. What do you think?"

Rose was normally up for anything the Doctor asked her to do, but this was something that she really didn't want to do. She looked back at Cassandra, smiling as she thought of a way out of it.

"I think you should take Dan- Cassandra with you," she stated. "Danni knows what to do, she'll be more use."

Cassandra snorted derivatively. "I'm not going down there."

"Danni knows things about the future, and she can let you know what's going to happen next," Rose told her firmly. "You need to go with him to help."

She shot the Doctor a pointed look and he nodded reluctantly. If Cassandra had access to Danni's memories and thoughts, maybe her own self-preservation would help him in the long run.

"If you're so desperate to stay alive, why don't you live a little?" They all looked to the side as more infected people emerged from the walls, heading slowly but purposefully towards them. Rose turned and dived back into the ward next to Frau Clovis, waving with a smirk on her face.

"Seal the door!" Frau Clovis shouted and the doors closed, leaving Cassandra only the option to go with the Doctor. She cried out as she ran towards him, her eyes closed as she jumped onto his back, wrapping her legs and arms around him.

"You're completely mad. I can see why she likes you," she told him with a smile.

The Doctor looked back at her. "Rose?" he asked hopefully and she tried to shrug.

"Well, yes, her as well., Cassandra replied. The Doctor turned back, focusing on anything but Danni.

"Going down!" he shouted before unclipping the winch. They began speeding down the shaft, both screaming as they did. Cassandra squeezed her eyes shut, burying her face into the Doctor's neck so she didn't have to see where she was heading. They landed with a thump on top of the lift, Cassandra jumping off him and straightening herself out.

"Well, that's one way to lose weight," she muttered.

"Now, listen - when I say so..."

She held up her hand. "I know, I know. Hold the lever down and don't let go," she muttered. "But I don't understand, there's still a quarantine down there, we can't-"

"Hold that lever!" he shouted and she backed away slightly, the Danni portion of her mind causing her to wince at his tone. She knelt down by the lever as he pulled off one of the packets of solution and flipped it with one hand.

"I'm cooking up a cocktail. I know a bit about medicine myself," he explained as he began ripping the pouches open with his teeth, squirting each into a clear container on top of the lift. Cassandra moved back, slightly disgusted as he chucked the empty plastic near her as he went through the solutions. "Now, that lever's going to resist. But keep it in position." He opened the trapdoor on top of the lift leading inside. "Hold onto it with everything you've got."

"What about you?" Cassandra asked.

He looked at her with a smirk. "I've got an appointment. The Doctor is in." He winked then dropped into the lift. He pulled out his screwdriver and pointed it at the doors, opening them and alerting the infected people on the outside to his presence. They all started climbing off their seats and walking towards him. "I'm in here, come on!" he cried.

"Don't tell them!" Cassandra shouted down in disbelief, holding the lever as hard as Danni's body would allow. Quite frankly, the girl was a bit of a weakling and she didn't know if she could hold on for as long as he needed her to.

"Pull that lever!" he told her as the infected began entering the lift. "Come and get me, come on! I'm in here, come on!"

"Commence stage one – disinfection," The PA in the lift announced as the Doctor beckoned them forwards.

"Hurry up, come on!" The solution he had mixed began showering down, covering him and the infected. "Come on, come on. All they wanna do is pass it on. Pass it on!"

He cheered, jumping up and down, while Cassandra just felt like she being left out of something important. "Pass on what? Pass on what?!" Cassandra shouted down but he ignored her. He just watched happily as the solution-covered people began to reach out towards their fellow experiments, passing on the solution and their good health.

The Doctor turned and helped Cassandra jump down into the lift. "What did they pass on? Did you kill them? All of them?"

He shook his head with a grin. "No. That's your way of doing things," he told her, stepping into the room as the now non-infected watched him in awe. "I'm the Doctor and I cured them."

A small woman walked up to him, hugging someone for the first time in her life. He gently returned it as Cassandra stepped towards him, still wary of being touched. "That's right! Hey, hey! There we go, sweetheart! Ay? Look at him..." He ushered her away towards someone else. "Go on, that's it! That's it! It's a new sub-species, Cassandra!"

He walked up to a bald man, taking him by the shoulders, "A brand new form of life! New Humans! Look at them, look!" He began pacing around, looking between them joyously. "Grown by cats... kept in the dark, fed by tubes..." He knelt by a blonde woman. "But completely, completely alive!" He crowed before turning and pointing at Cassandra. "You can't deny them, because you helped create them." She rolled her eyes, but her smirk dropped as she realised he was right. "The human race just keeps on going. Keeps on changing. Life will out! Ha!"

~0~0~0~

The Doctor and Cassandra stepped into Ward 26, the Doctor now just in his shirt but still wet from the multitude of medicines he had been drenched in. He really didn't care, though, he was just happy it seemed to have worked out as he'd planned.

Police were scattered around as they took statements and arrested the staff. "All staff will present themselves to the officers for immediate arrest. I repeat - immediate arrest. All new life forms will be catalogued and taken into care." Novice Hame was led away in cuffs by a police officer. She caught the Doctor's eye and bowed her head in shame as he watched her leave, a stoic look on his face.

"The Face of Boe!" he suddenly exclaimed, causing Cassandra to jump as he ran towards the head and his companion in the corner of the ward. He managed to shrug on his jacket before Rose ran over and met him, hugging him tightly. He smiled widely as her nose wrinkling at the dampness of his clothes before moving warily towards Cassandra.

"Danni?" she asked and Cassandra shook her head.

"Not quite, Blondie," she replied, tapping her head. Rose frowned; why hadn't the Doctor got her out yet?

"You were supposed to be dying," the Doctor told the Face of Boe with a smile.

"There are better things to do today. Dying can wait," The Face of Boe projected into their minds, Rose looking around slightly for the voice before realising what he was doing and smiling.

"Oh, I hate telepathy," Cassandra groaned. "Just what I need, a head full of big face."

"Shh!" the Doctor scolded her and she rolled her eyes but fell silent.

"I have grown tired with the universe, Doctor, but you and Danni have taught me to look at it anew," The Face of Boe told him. The Doctor walked towards him, kneeling in front of his container.

He wanted to ask what Danni had to do with anything, after all she had been hidden behind Cassandra for most of the time she would have actually been useful for. Instead, though, he kept his thoughts to himself. He was sure he didn't have long with the big face in a jar and he didn't want to waste them talking about Danni.

"There are legends you know, saying that you're millions of years old."

The Face of Boe shot them a telepathic laugh. "There are? That would be impossible."

"Wouldn't it just?" the Doctor replied happily, knowing that it was a confirmation rather than a dismissal. "I got the impression there was something you wanted to tell me..."

"A great secret."

"So the legend says."

"It can wait."

The Doctor moaned loudly, incredibly disappointed at the news. "Oh, does it have to?"

"We shall meet again, Doctor," the Face of Boe told him. "Oh, how we shall meet again. But, when the last time comes, the truth shall be told. Until that day."

Rose smiled in amazement as the was teleported away in a green beam that seemed to be speckled in stars; that was very Spock, and she was very impressed.

"That is enigmatic," the Doctor muttered with a nod to himself. "That- that is - that is textbook enigmatic." He pondered on it for a moment then took a deep breath in through his teeth, slapped his hands on his thighs and stood up to face Cassandra. The Last Human examined Danni's nails as if she was disinterested in whatever he was about to say. "And now for you."

"But everything's happy. Everything's fine..." She straightened slightly. "Can't you just leave me?"

"You've lived long enough. Leave that body and end it, Cassandra," he demanded.

She held her hand up to her face, starting to fake-cry. "I don't want to die!"

"No one does."

She stamped her foot. "You don't even like her!" she protested. "Can't you just leave me in here? You'll never be bothered by her again!"

"He may not," Rose started in a firm voice. "But I do, and I won't let you kill her Cassandra."

Cassandra, seeing the determination in the blonde's eyes, turned back to the Doctor. "Help me!" she pleaded.

"I can't."

"Mistress!" Chip, her little, loyal minion, cried as he rushed over. He was breathing heavily but looking utterly relieved as if he knew she was in Danni.

"Ah! You're alive!" she cried happily.

"I kept myself safe. For you, mistress."

Cassandra stared at him, contemplating. "A body..." she whispered. "And not just that, a volunteer..."

"Don't you dare!" Rose exclaimed, knowing exactly where her mind was heading.

"He's got a life of his own," the Doctor warned.

Chip turned to him. "But I worship the mistress!" he protested and Cassandra winked at him suggestively. Rose shifted; it looked wrong on Danni's face. "I welcome her."

"You can't, Cassandra!" the Doctor shouted but she ignored him, flinging herself out of Danni and straight into Chip. Danni gasped as her legs gave way underneath her. Rose reached out and caught her before she hit the floor.

"I've got you," Rose told her and Danni blinked up at her, confused as she tried to right herself. She had felt Cassandra in her head the entire time. It had felt like she was wrapped in a rather large sleeping bag, hearing the muffled talking of the people around her. She still found it in her to smile at Rose, though.

"Rose Tyler," she greeted and Rose grinned back.

"Welcome back." She helped Danni stand up straight. The ginger brushed herself down as if it would help get rid of any bits of Cassandra that had been left behind.

"Oh sweet lord, I'm a walking doodle!" Cassandra complained, in Chip's voice and in Chip's body.

"You can't stay in there. I'm sorry, Cassandra, but that's not fair," the Doctor to her. She moved her hand so she could rest her chin on it, pouting. "I can take you to the City. They can build you a skin tank and you can stand trial for what you've done."

"Well, that would be rather dramatic. Possibly my finest hour. And certainly my finest hat," she replied, giving the hat perched on her head a little tilt. "But I'm afraid we don't have time. Poor little Chip is only a half-life. And he's been through so much. His heart is racing so." She blinked in shock as she seemed to realise what was happening. "He's failing. I don't think he's going to last-"

Her legs gave way and Rose and the Doctor rushed forward to support her. "You all right?" the Doctor asked, Danni kneeling in front of them and taking one of the woman's hands, knowing what happened next.

"I'm fine," she told them, before pausing, a hand on her chest. "I'm dying. But that's fine." She squeezed Danni's hand back, glad of the comfort. Having seen inside her head she felt sorry for the other woman, even as she was dying. Danni shot her a small smile, reaching to her side and taking Rose's hand in her other, reassuring the girl who looked upset. Rose clung to her right back.

"I can take you to the City," the Doctor told Cassandra, but she shook her head.

"No, you won't. Everything's new on this planet. There's no place for Chip and me anymore." She looked around, took a deep breath then turned back the Doctor, nodding to herself. "You're right, Doctor. It's time to die." She swallowed, pushing down the lump in her throat. "And that's good." She tried to push herself off the floor, the Doctor and Rose helping her up and Danni moving out of the way, letting go of her hand.

"Come on. There's one last thing I can do," the Doctor told her solemnly and they led her away to the TARDIS.

~0~0~0~

Danni hadn't gone out with them. She had seen Cassandra die already enough times in her life, she really didn't want to witness it firsthand. She had the terrible feeling that death was going to become a bigger part of her life than she ever thought it would, so she was taken the decision to not see it more than she needed to. No matter how often she was going to have to go through this, no matter how many people she would have to see die she doubted she would ever be able to stomach it.

Instead, she went to get changed into the dress that the TARDIS had chosen for her, vowing never to wear trousers again. Maybe it was the pants that had made him angry, maybe he just wanted her in a dress. He had said he liked her bare-legged, after all, maybe later she would wear something where she didn't have to wear tights.

She knew was just grabbing at straws at this point, but what else was she supposed to think? The Doctor she knew, both on the television or in real life, didn't align with how he'd treated her since she'd landed. He was angry at her. She couldn't work out what she had done, other than maybe interrupt his time with Rose? But even that felt like a stretch.

She decided to head to find both him and Rose, hoping that it was just an off day and that the Doctor would have calmed down. She headed towards the console room, pausing when Rose's voice floated through the hallway that she was in.

"You can't just chuck her out, she had nowhere else to go!" she snapped and Danni frowned before gasping; they were talking about her.

"She knew that Cassandra was there and that she would use the psychograft on you. She knew that there was a human farm under the hospital and she never said a word," the Doctor shouted back. "I don't want her here!"

Danni held her hand to her mouth, leaning against the wall at his words. The TARDIS hummed behind her, as if trying to comfort her and she pressed her other hand against the machine. "Well, I do!" Rose snapped back. "And if you chuck her out, I'm going with her!"

She smiled through her tears, touched by the blonde's fierce defence. "I never left when you regenerated, or when you told me about the Time War, or when you sent me back to Earth against my will but I will if you chuck her out!"

There was a long pause. "Fine!" the Doctor shouted angrily and Danni backed away as he stormed out of the console room and past her, glaring at her heavily as he did. She slowly walked to the console room where Rose was stood, breathing heavily but looking pained.

"I'm sorry," She told the blonde, whose head snapped towards her. "I don't want to be the cause of you two fighting."

Rose smiled at her and held her hand out, grasping Danni's tightly. "He comes around, you told me he does. He's just distrustful of people who know more than him." Danni nodded slightly. "You look much better in a dress."

Danni laughed slightly as she looked down. She decided to take the change of topic at face value. "It is more comfortable. It's like the TARDIS knew exactly what I would like."

"It's psychic, so that's probably true."

"She," Danni corrected lightly and Rose rolled her eyes.

"Yes, sorry, she is psychic." She looked at Danni, taking in her sad stature. "Come with me." She began walking her away from the console room, towards the hallway.

"Where are we going?" Danni asked, letting the blonde girl drag her away.

"To cheer you up. When I was younger, when I was sad, my mum would have us watch a load of Rom-coms and eat tubs of ice cream. That's what you did for me when I first met you, now I'm returning the favour." Danni stared at her, confused and Rose took them towards the entertainment room she had sat in not that long ago with Martha. Apparently this wasn't the only time she would see Rose. Which, while rather awesome to know that she would get to see her more, just stung as it was just more evidence that she really was trapped here.

"Can we watch Love Actually?" she asked and Rose laughed.

"Of course, it's your choice."