MASTER PLAN

The Doctor came out of the building carrying his mask but otherwise still wearing his fencing clothes, all white with a few smudges on the chest. “I think my opponent used vinegar,” he complained, but he was smiling; he’d had a good match and enjoyed himself. Nyssa took the mask from him so he could draw off his gauntlets. They strode together around the corner to where the TARDIS awaited them, between two trash carts. The Doctor stuck his left gauntlet under his right arm and leaned against a cart to remove the right one, but yelled “Ow!” when it was halfway off.

“What is it, Doctor?” Nyssa took his left gauntlet from him and, after a moment’s hesitation, pocketed it, then helped him off with the other. “You’re bleeding!”

“A splinter….” The Doctor dropped the tiny metal shard as he sank to his knees.

“Doctor!” Nyssa quickly pocketed the right glove and helped the Doctor stand up; together they stumbled into the TARDIS.

“I want,” stammered the Doctor, turning back as if to go outside again, “but don’t touch….”

“The splinter?”

“Can you find it?”

“But your hand!”

“I’ll be….” He slumped to the console room floor and lay still.

The Doctor awoke in his own bed with no recollection of how he’d gotten there. His right palm was sore and when he inspected it he found a small scratch, remembered the metal splinter and sat up, confused and alarmed.

Since he was still wearing his fencing uniform, apart from the mask and gauntlets (which were hired), he changed into his usual attire before leaving his quarters.

He found Nyssa in her room, analyzing the shard, which she’d managed to find and collect onto a sheet of paper to avoid handling it directly. “I’m fine,” he declared, as she looked up, before she could ask.

“I don’t think you’re fine,” Nyssa disagreed. “I haven’t been able to identify the substance this tiny thing delivered to you but it must be in your bloodstream now and it’s nothing good. It knocked you over. Doctor, you can’t possibly be fine.”

“I feel all right,” the Doctor insisted. “I really do. No lasting ill effects at all. See?” He walked without wobbling; he performed eight vigorous squats before Nyssa stopped him.

“Something toxic is in your system right now. I don’t know what it is. You look all right, you feel all right, but you can’t be all right.”

The Doctor lowered his eyes. “I’m rubbish at not being all right.”

Nyssa laughed: “Tegan said all men are rubbish at that. Doctor, I am here to take care of you and make you all right.”

“I know, Nyssa.” The Doctor reached for her hand, but both of her hands were full; she set down the sample, the test tube and the slide she hadn’t yet examined and took his hand. He squeezed, she squeezed back, and then they both let go. She went back to her work and he turned to go, then spun to face her. The tiny sound he made was enough to make her look up and almost drop what she had so carefully taken back up. His face was contorted in pain, and then the contortion slowly relaxed into slackness, almost as if his face were melting; the Doctor’s eyes stared right through Nyssa, into nothingness.

The Doctor didn’t fall down again; he just stood there, not being there. Nyssa was afraid of what might happen if she disturbed him so she decided to keep working on the sample. The metal was ordinary siliconized stainless steel, from Earth, which was already odd, since they were not on Earth. The fencing match had advertised across several galaxies but the flyers hadn’t reached Earth; the Doctor had seen an announcement online and off they’d flown through time and space to Avlira, one of Earth’s later colonies. Socially, Avlira was more or less stuck in the equivalent of Earth’s 1960s, which meant there were no electronics involved in fencing – just good, old-fashioned observation and the telltale smudges of an epée hit. “I like to get back to basics,” the Doctor had explained. Nyssa found the match somewhat interesting and the opportunity to people-watch even more interesting; she couldn’t help noticing that several young women (and two young men) had gigglingly focused on the Doctor in his uniform and asked for his autograph after the last bout. She smiled to herself at their confusion when he signed, simply, “The Doctor.” She wasn’t smiling now, examining the steel shard. It was thinner and sharper than a butterfly needle and had obviously been used to deliver a toxin alien to her experience and dangerous to the Doctor.

Suddenly Nyssa remembered that she still had the Doctor’s gauntlets in her pocket. Her own hands were encased in latex gloves, so she just dug into her pocket and pulled them out, examining the right one closely. There was a spot of blood on it. Now she had a little bit more with which to work. She almost (not quite) forgot that the Doctor was standing there, in something resembling a trance, like a piece of furniture, but while she was fiddling with the glove, he suddenly turned and left the room.

“Doctor, come back!” She hoped he was going back to his room to lie down, but no, he led her straight to the console room, and, worse, right out the door into the urban tangle of Avlira’s capitol, Avla. She followed him right back to the building in which the fencing matches had been held, but he didn’t go in. He walked purposefully past that building to the next corner, crossed against the light and was briefly obscured by traffic; by the time Nyssa once more had a clear view, the Doctor was gone.