just_the_doctor | [Otherways] Arrival at Palasia Four

He stares blankly ahead for a moment. Then, a sudden thought.

"Do you think you could use the Force to convince the TARDIS to let us in? She does have a mind, after all. And if I could get us inside, I can probably work out how to help us."

"It's worth a shot, but I can't guarentee anything."

Why couldn't she? Because the TARDIS was strong minded and more than likely strong willed.

Taking a deep breath she closed her eyes and focused on the TARDIS, soothing her, caressing her with the Force so to speak. More or less gently coaxing her to let them in.

The TARDIS is used to telepathic connection, but not to the communication being two-way. The mind shrinks back at first, and Padme can hear the garbled speech of others in the park instead of the translation the ship had been providing.

But the TARDIS recognizes Padme after a moment and reaches out again. The alien voices recede and are again replaced by the more familiar Galactic Basic she's used to.

She doesn't communicate in words, or even in images. Just sensations of emotion. If they had words, though, it would be something like I trust you, but...

And when she hears the Galactic Basic it almost relaxes her. ALMOST but not quite. And she's not going to let the TARDIS get away that easily. Nope, no way in the Force is she going to allow that.

But she continues what she'd begun. The soothing and the caressing of the TARDIS with the Force. There is no buts in this... we need to find a way to stop this and we can't do that without you

This time, the response is just shy of verbal. There's no mistaking it for what it means, though.

Doctor?

You could lose him if you don't let us in so he can find a solution to all of this

And that makes her frown. She doesn't want to lose him because they're friends and the TARDIS, well, she needed the Time Lord.

The TARDIS is confused. On the one hand, she can still feel her connection to the Doctor, still loud and strong. On the other, she's also aware of something being not right. She has no concrete reason to either believe or disbelieve Padme, only the feeling of sincerity and pleading behind her words.

And so she does what TARDISes shouldn't be able to do. She takes a leap of faith.

The door lock clicks.

Thank you

And when the door lock clicks she pulls the Doctor up and opens the TARDIS' door and escorts him inside and once inside she shuts the door.

You might want to lock the door so no one else tries to enter

Because the guards and some of the people on this planet are just flat out idiots and would definitely try to get in after them.

No problem there; the lock seals as soon as the door is pulled closed.

The Doctor pats the console affectionately before turning to Padme. "Well done!" he says with a smile. "Now, let's get to the infirmary so I can see what we're dealing with."

He starts down the corridors at a brisk jog.

She gives a smile back before following him down to the infirmary. Once inside she leans up against the wall and watches him. What a way to do things...

The Doctor tosses off his leather jacket and rolls up his sleeve. Popping open one of the drawers, he pulls out a tool the size and shape of a ball-point pen. He places the tip against the inside of his elbow and clicks the plunger twice.

Then, he pulls out a slide and places a drop of the blood he collected on it, moving it under a microscope attached to a display screen. A few fiddles with the knob, and the resolution zooms in with dizzying speed to reveal an infestation of tiny spider-like creatures latching onto the surface of the blood cells and burrowing their way inside.

Her eyes stare at the screen. At the fact that its showing little spider like things burrowing into the blood cells. And she wasn't feeling so good either. For the moment she wasn't showing it...

But then as she watches him she lets herself slide down the wall. Her body feeling weak or rather weaker. Whichever it was...

He doesn't notice her at first. The Doctor's engrossed in introducing several foreign substances into the culture and watching the nanobots effortlessly neutralize them.

The only saving grace so far is that they've been unable to affect the TARDIS itself. The material was simply too strong and too advanced for the nanobots to penetrate. The ones that blew in with the air as the door opened had already been swept up by the ventilation system and blown back outside.

When he does finally look over to her, rubbing his eyes, he doesn't immediately register what he sees.

"You doing okay over there?"

"Doing just peachy, Doctor."

Not really but wasn't going to tell him that. They'd figure this out. She was sure of that. Giving him a warm smile she leans her head back and shuts her eyes, willing her body to relax putting herself in a meditative state.

He mistakes her actions as despair.

"We're going to beat this, Padme," he says reassuringly.

"Didn't say we wouldn't, Doctor."

She might, if he's paying attention, sound a little weaker than what she did before.

He's not paying quite enough attention. He just thinks she sounds tired. Which she would have every right to be. He gives her what he hopes is a confident smile and turns back to his work.

When he looks up again ten minutes later, the expression is not so confident. He's been completely unable to make any progress.

He sighs and leans his head back, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"It'll come to you."

She trusts that it will. Really she does. And she isn't tired... just weak. Opening her eyes a bit she wraps her arms around herself... her mind going elsewhere for the moment. Not that where it was going she could really go.

The Doctor looks over at her, startled by her voice. He'd all but forgotten she was there, so engrossed he was.

This time, when he looks at her, he definitely sees a difference. He doesn't want to alarm her, though, so he doesn't mention it. He just grabs another of the penlike tools and crouches down beside her.

"Roll up your sleeve. Maybe another sample will help pinpoint the issue."

Padme unwraps her arms from herself and pulls up one of her sleeves and holds her arm out to him. Whether or not she's really registering what she's doing is a completely different matter. Because her mind wasn't on what was happening. It was on Obi-Wan.

The Doctor clicks the device against her vein twice and gives her hand a gentle squeeze before returning to the microscope. He prepares a second slide with a drop of Padme's blood and brings the image up on the screen.

"Oh god."

"That doesn't sound good. Not in the least bit."

Anything that goes 'Oh god' was never good.

He turns the screen a little so that she can see. Intermixed with the blood corpuscles were smaller floating bodies -- the midiclorians. Additionally, there were the spidery nanobots in great quantity swimming along as well.

The Doctor flips a switch, and the screen shifts slightly, the left half showing the scene as before, and the right half showing the images from the Time Lord's sample. (He frowns slightly to notice that there aren't any midiclorians in his sample -- no Force-training for him.)

"The nanobots are larger in your blood. Faster, too. They've learned how to use the midiclorians to improve themselves."

"Oh that's just lovely. Really is."

She gets up from where she was sitting and walks over standing behind him. And just staring at the screens she knows he's not Force sensitive. But she thinks that's quite alright. Because he's fine just the way he is.

"Stupid nanos."

Well, it shows that she shouldn't use the Force any time soon.

As they watch, one of the "improved" nanobots floats past one of the "standard" ones. Almost immediately, the larger reverses direction and attacks the smaller, breaking it down in a matter of seconds.

"No," the Doctor says, a note of panic rising in his voice. "No-no-no-no." He jumps up from his seat and barrels out of the room at a full run.

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