No, don't have that heart-attack just yet! This story is now officially OFF HIATUS, because... well... it's my baby. Seriously. As much fun as I have writing all my other ones, this fic holds a special place in my heart, which no other can replace.

So, how is everyone? I hope everything's going swimmingly for everybody. Since we are to be essentially deprived of Doctor WHo for 2009 - which RUINED my gap year, I'll have y'all know - I, in desperation, wrote another chapter of this story. I doubt it will help anyone else, but it soothed the wound for me just a little.

On the other hand, we have - le gasp - 'Merlin' instead! I know all the reasons I should hate it, really I do. I grew up reading and re-reading the Arthurian legends, I can tell you the tales of each knight, Bedivere, Launcelot, Gawain, Galahad... all of them. And I know that this TV show, with all it's bastardization and re-telling, should be loathed and hated. And for all that... I really like it. It helps that the slash potential is pretty darn high. (grin)

OK, I'm done trying to be witty and amusing. I promise. Here, have a chapter of a long abandoned, though much loved, story!

DISCLAIMER: The list of what I own is very short, and it doesn't include either 'Doctor Who', or 'Alex Rider'.

The Doctor looked at him, and frowned, worriedly. "Are you alright?" he asked, rather than answering the question.

"Leg." Alex said, shortly, and the Doctor bit his lip.

"Ah. I forgot about that. Sorry…" he thought for a second. "I'll take you to a hospital, they can deal with it."

"I think I'd have trouble explaining to a hospital that I was hit with an alien weapon that doesn't exist on Earth, don't you?" Alex said, sarcastically, his face scrunching up in pain as he attempted to pull himself upright on one of the weird tree-like things around the edges of the consul room.

The Doctor grinned, fiddling once more with the consul, apparently setting coordinates of some sort. "Who said it had to be a hospital on Earth? Or, indeed…" he flicked a switch, and the 'ship' started to hum, a sound which, Alex was beginning to realise, signalled that it was moving. "In this time?"

Alex stared at him. "You wouldn't…"

"Wouldn't I?" He grinned.

Alex stared at him for a couple of moments, contemplating his options – which, he conceded, were limited at best. He could hardly stop the man – Time Lord, alien, whatever – from doing whatever he want, so he supposed the best thing to do was to give in gracefully.

"Can we get back?" he shouted to the Doctor, over the noise of the machine starting up. "If we go – wherever it is you're taking us?"

The Doctor grinned. "'Course. I wouldn't strand you in a different time zone!"

"Oh." Alex tried to feel reassured by this, but somehow failed. "Wait, we're actually going to a different time?"

"Yeah… just forward a bit, you'll need the technology."

Alex nodded, distractedly, the pain in his leg growing every second. It felt like his thigh was being torn apart, or melting. "I thought that stuff you gave me was supposed to deal with this!"

The Doctor glanced at him, before looking back at the consul, and flicking a switch, before gently twisting a weird green ball. "It would have, but you must have strained it somehow; with the damage already done, it's created too much damage for the Grinalem to deal with. You've sped up the energy in the cells, somehow or other… maybe even just by walking around. I should have waited." He looked a little guilty. "Sometimes even I forget that the TARDIS is a Time Machine; we could have waited a couple of hours, for you to mend. Sorry."

Alex shrugged it off, only half paying attention to the man's speech. Between the overwhelming pain in his leg, and concepts he only barely half-understood, he hadn't taken in much.

There was a clunk, and Alex jerked forwards, biting back the half-scream of pain as his damaged muscle spasmed, while the Doctor just rocked on the balls of his feet, giving him another apologetic look. "C'mon." was all he said, though, making his way over to Alex. "We're here."

Alex took a ginger step forward, and fell as his leg gave way underneath him. The Doctor hooked an arm round his waist, hoisting him up and helping him forwards, half carrying him at times.

"This is so embarrassing." Alex muttered, just catching the Doctor's grin out of the corner of his eye.

"You humans." He grinned. "All the same. So image conscious."

Alex frowned. "No we're not." He answered, a little petulantly.

"As you say." The Doctor agreed, maddeningly calm. Alex fought down the desire to throw something at him.

They walked – or, in Alex's case, limped heavily – on for a couple of seconds in silence, Alex having decided not to bother trying to come up with a reply. Finally, the Doctor started up again,

"You doing OK?"

Alex nodded, teeth gritted. "Alright." He managed to get out, jaw clenched against the pain. "Thanks."

"We're nearly there…"

They turned the corner, and a huge, glistening white building appeared in front of them, all white marble and shining glass.

"Best hospital in the Asranian galaxy." The Doctor said, without slowing; apparently he could walk and preach. "Invented the cure for interspecial cancer here; violent non-remitting MS, too…and…"

"Wait." Alex said, slowly, breath coming in gasps, his leg feeling like it was literally on fire. "We're not on Earth anymore?"

"Nope." The Doctor said, cheerfully. "Earth won't have this sort of technology for maybe five hundred years yet. If then. And I wanted to make it a quick trip."

"Looks like Earth, though." Alex managed, and the Doctor nodded.

"Yeah; there was a big humanist movement, for a while, once Earth became a major planet in universal trade."

Alex nodded, teeth still gritted, but he was beginning – just – to get a grip on the pain. "So – when are we?" he shook his head. "God, that sounds weird."

The Doctor chuckled a little. "Oh, about… year 5172?"

Alex sighed a little. "Oh, fantastic, I've only to wait a few thousand years for humans to start listening to me when I talk about aliens, then."

The Doctor actually grinned at that. "Nah – 5172 to 5175 is probably about the height of the humanist movement. You lot have been in the general universal community – well, locally anyway – for at least a millennium by then."

"Fuckin' hell." Alex said, with perhaps more honesty of reaction than politeness.

The Doctor let it go, though, passing thought the enormous glass doors which formed the main entrance to the hospital – without them opening.

"Flexi-Glass. Keeps general germs out." The Doctor explained, when Alex stared over his shoulder at them, nearly tripping over his own feet as he did so, and biting back a whimper at the near-unbearable shoot of pain it caused in his thigh. "No Super Bug is allowed here, not after the outbreak they had in 4111; decimated the entire population. Worst case of Super Bug in the Universe…"

Alex hadn't been listening, staring around the hospital, which had either been built by an architect with delusions of grandeur, or was simply like this because all hospitals in wherever-they-were-now were built along palatial lines. "Wow." He breathed, rather dazedly.

The Doctor, still practically carrying him, grinned. "Quite."

He headed over to the main desk, helping Alex along with him, and gave the woman behind it – at least, Alex assumed it was female, since it was wearing a dress of some kind – a wide smile. Apparently, he wasn't the slightest bit put off by her electric blue skin.

"Hi. Um, victim of a micro-energizer?"

She gave him a surprised look, purple eyes widening. "You?"

"Oh, no, no no no no!!" he shook his head, vigorously, and gestured at Alex, careful to keep his supporting arm around the boy's shoulders. "Not me. Him. Sorry. His name's Alex."

"What am I, your pet?" Alex muttered, but only the Doctor heard.

The blue woman gave Alex a warm smile; somehow, in the light of that smile, Alex could forget the purple eyes and hair, and the blue skin. She was just someone who was going to help him, and, recently, people like that had been few and far between. "How on Old Earth did you manage that?" Alex shifted uncomfortably, and winced, and the receptionist must have realised that no answer was going to be forthcoming, as her smile became a little ruefully. "Sorry. Pretty serious, then…"

Alex offered her a tight smile in return. "I think so. I mean, it hurts."

She smiled again. "I'll bet. Right: head up to floor 18 – the lift's just on the left there – and go to Room 23. Adixena will help you out." She turned her warm smile back to the Doctor. "Your Dad can go with you."

The Doctor choked a little on that.

"Adixena." Alex repeated. "Floor 18, Room 23. Got you, thanks. C'mon – Dad."

For once speechless – Alex had only known the alien for a few hours (or was it several thousand years?), and he had already worked out that he was rarely silent – the Doctor helped him over to the lift.

Adixena was a tall, bean-pole-thin woman – if the term 'woman' was even applied to non-humans – with jewel-red skin, bright grey eyes, and a wide, friendly smile. Her blue doctor's coat hung on her thin frame, cheerfully dishevelled; she put Alex at his ease almost immediately.

"You must be Alex." She said, with the same wide grin. "Yareva from reception called up to tell me that you were coming. Quaint name, by the way – this Old Earth movement. Very quaint."

The Doctor grinned. "Isn't it just?"

Alex paused, unsure of what reaction to give. "Um – thank you?"

She just smiled in response. "Right – so, before we get started, any illnesses or allergies? Any major medical issues we should know of?"

Alex paused. "Well… I've been shot?"

The Doctor grinned, but Adixena simply raised an eyebrow at him, her smile taking on the tinge of a tried parent. "OK, Alex." She nodded. "We'll get down to business. You've been hit by an ME?" Alex nodded. "How did you manage that?" it was obviously a rhetorical question, where the receptionist's had not been, and she carried right on, without waiting for a reply. A clipboard appeared miraculously in one of her hands – Alex wondered, rather illogically, whether they had invented magic this far in the future. "Well, we'll be able to fix that, I'm sure. So, I just need a few details – second name?"

"Rider. Alex Rider."

"Lovely. We'll get your age group from the cell sample we take from you – so, species?"

"Human." Alex said, frowning a little. He'd thought, from all the talk of 'Old Earth movements', she'd already known that he was human. Certainly, it didn't seem to have come as a surprise to her.

She smiled, nodded, and jotted it down on her clipboard, before looking at him, expectantly. "Sub-species?" He gave her a blank look. "Which strain of human are you?"

The Doctor took that one. "Oh, he's pure." He said, rather hurriedly. "Pure human. Top secret. Very rare."

Alex glanced at him, but looked back at the nurse almost immediately, nodding, and risking a rather awkward smile.

She smiled back at him, but her eyes were a little awed. "Right – well, we'd better be careful with you, then, I suppose! How on Old Earth did they manage to…" she shook her head, and paled a little, which Alex supposed must be a bright red person's version of a blush. "I'm sorry. It will be simple enough for us to sort out the problem, though it might take a couple of days."

The Doctor smiled at that. "Trust me. Time is no object."

Adixena looked at him. "That's not one I've heard before." She said, slowly, but shrugged, turning back to Alex. "Well, let's have a look at your leg then. How long ago did it happen?"

Alex shrugged. "About three thousand years ago." He told her, dead-pan.

She frowned, confused. "I'm sorry?"

"A couple of hours ago." The Doctor intervened, quickly, shooting Alex a half-warning, half-amused look.

The glance Adixena gave the Doctor was far easier to read, pure disapproval. "Why didn't you bring him in earlier?"

The Doctor's returning look was flat. "An energizer is a weapon. Why do you think we didn't turn up earlier?"

She paled again, embarrassed. "Oh, of course. I'm sorry." She managed to hold his gaze for just a few seconds, before turning back to Alex. "So, I'm going to take a cell sample, then do a scan done of your leg, alright? Once we've got that done, we'll know what action we can take."

The cell sample was easy enough, for all that it sounded nasty; Adixena produced a syringe, thin and shiny and sterile, cleaned a small section of Alex's upper arm, and explained the process as she went through it.

"The syringe is a vacuum at the moment," She told him, calmly, as she poured out something which smelled antiseptic and smoked slightly as it hit the gauze pad, "So you don't get any air bubbles in your blood. As I take the cells, the gases in your blood will – 'aerate' it, and the cells will be allowed in. Brilliant little invention, very useful." She dabbed at his arm with the gauze, "Just taking some extra precautions with you." She flashed him that same wide smile, and despite some lingering misgivings, Alex felt himself relax. When she took the sample, it didn't hurt in the slightest.

Alex was expecting a huge fuss to be made over the scan – to be transported to some other room with a massive scanner and about three technicians to deal with it – but Adixena simply placed his sample on another machine Alex didn't recognise, and turned back with a hand-held machine, and proceeded to scan his leg.

It beeped a couple of times; she frowned; Alex waited.

After a few minutes, during which Adixena programmed the information from both his sample and the little scanner into some kind of computer, he spoke up. "Is that it?"

"Hmm?"

"Is it over? I mean, is that – it?"

The Doctor, in the background, grinned. Adixena offered Alex a pale version of her usual smile, tinged with a little worry.

"Well, that's the scan and cell sample dealt with." She told him, quietly. "But – I've never seen such a young ME victim…"

The Doctor lost his smile, a faint line of worry appearing on his forehead. "What do you mean, so young?"

She looked at him. "Well, after all the regulations on the legal age to join up, I haven't seen an ME victim under thirty for about a decade. Your Alex," Alex grimaced, "Is much younger than that."

The Doctor relaxed. "Oh! Yes, he's younger than that. He's just… it was – crossfire. We got caught in some crossfire."

"What was he doing out anyway?" she asked, suspiciously. "If he's a pure human? Surely he should be better protected?"

The Doctor just shrugged. "He's a sentient being. He's got a right to a life outside a laboratory."

She sighed. "Of course, but… children shouldn't be in situations where they can get caught in crossfire."

Alex wholeheartedly agreed, but the Doctor just nodded, rather tersely, and Adixena – probably recognising that she wasn't going to get any real answers – let the subject drop.

After all the pain, and all the preparation which went into it, Alex was a little surprised at how easy it was to fix his 'wound'. Adixena had been a little wary, unsure as to how to treat him, but the Doctor – passing himself off as one of Alex's 'carers' (Alex made a mental note to do something painful and lasting to the man. Time Lord. Whichever.) – carefully guided her through what could and couldn't be given to such a rare species as Alex.

It was strangely difficult to get used to thinking of himself as a rare species, but he brushed it off. After all, likelihood was he was only going to get to do this once, so he had better things to concentrate on – and anyway, he'd be back in 'normal' circumstances soon enough.

Then he thought of MI6, and suddenly that thought was far from reassuring.

Adixena was reassuringly no-nonsense about the whole thing, however, hooking him up to what she told him was a 'cell wash', which the Doctor explained basically swapped the damaged cells for new ones, explaining that the cell sample they'd taken generated the new cells which they needed.

The Doctor prattled throughout the wash, which took about an hour and a half, though Adixena left, promising to be back when it was done, to check it had gone to plan. After a while, Alex listened to him with less than half an ear, more interested in the sensations in his leg; he had been warned that it would feel 'a little funny', but when he concentrated on it, it felt more like his muscles were trying to mutate, twisting and oozing strangely under his skin, than were simply being exchanged – albeit on a cellular level.

Shrugging, he shook off the thought, and concentrated back on the Doctor.

"…said, 'hospitals need a shop, not a big one, just a shop', wonder if they've got one here? D'you fancy checking it out when we're all done here?"

Alex nodded. "Sounds good. Don't s'pose I can buy anything, though, I don't want to muck up the timeline, or anything."

The Doctor opened his mouth, then shut it again, firmly. "Y'know, I think you're the first human who's ever come up with that spontaneously." He said, slowly, then shook it off. "Oh, well. Shop!" This last was addressed to Adixena, who had reappeared in the doorway. "Have you got a shop here?"

She blinked, momentarily taken aback, before nodding. "Yes, it's on the third floor… why, is there something you need?"

"No, no, it's just – well, every hospital should have a shop." He shrugged eloquently. "Retail therapy, huge help to some people in times of crisis."

The red-skinned woman's lips twitched suspiciously. "I didn't peg you for a shopaholic, sir." She told him, calmly, moving over to her patient, and checking the cell wash.

"Me?" The Doctor actually looked surprised. "No! No, I just – I had…this friend. Her mum…" he broke off. "Some people like it. Takes their mind off things."

Adixena, once again recognising a sensitive subject, backed off, saying simply, "I believe there's a shop on the third floor, sir." With that, she turned back to Alex and looked over what seemed to be an electronic version of a patient's chart. She touched the screen – the thing whistled cheerfully at her, and Alex jumped. The Doctor grinned.

"You're all better, apparently." She smiled at him, but there was a faint question, a hint of worry, as she looked at him. "Your muscle is a little hotter than I would have expected, given what seems to be your average temperature," Almost any other situation, and Alex would probably have cracked a smile over his 'hot muscle', "But oh, well." She shrugged. "Pure human; it's probably just normal for you. Compared to most people I see, your core temperature is positively glacial!" This time, it was the Doctor frowning a little, but Alex ignored it. His leg didn't hurt, and this seemed to be a permanent cure this time.

The Doctor disappeared as Adixena prattled through his 'follow up' treatment, taking out all the apparatus he had been attached to for the wash, giving him some painkillers and telling him how to care for his leg. By the time the man returned, Adixena had handed him a box of painkillers – "just in case!" – and given him a prescription for some additional medication, in the small chance of infection.

"So!" The Doctor grinned, brightly. "Are we all done here?"

Adixena nodded, pushing her hair back behind her ears. "I think so." She said, cheerfully, and gave Alex a smile. "You look after yourself, now! No more running around in warzones. You're a gift to science, and don't you forget it!"

Alex managed to keep a straight face – and not to ask what the hell the Doctor had in the bag he had brought back from the shop – all the way down to the lobby, where he couldn't quite stop the grin which spread across it.

"What?"

"Be careful how you speak to me, I'm a gift to science." Alex grinned at him, and the Doctor chuckled.

"Strange, isn't it, the things which become precious as time goes on? Your time, there are six billion other people built along the same genetic lines as you, three thousand years in the future, and you're one of a kind. Original iPods are an antique collectors dream now! And you could flog the jeans you're wearing for a fortune, even though they're damaged…"

The Doctor chattered all the way back to the TARDIS, where he dutifully set the coordinates for Earth again. "Got to be careful about this, you know – once I promised to take a friend of mine back to Earth, and was an entire year out… they'd had a police hunt and everything!" he paused. "First time I've ever been slapped by someone's mother." He shuddered. "And I hope it'll be the last time, as well."

Alex, perched on one of the railings around the edge of the consol, simply nodded, more than a little distracted. "Here." He chucked the little bag containing his pills, and his prescription, to the Doctor. "Can't take them back to Earth with me, can I?"

The Doctor caught them, and nodded, soberly. "Course not. But – you'll be alright for painkillers?"

He flexed his leg experimentally, and nodded back. "I think so. If it gets bad, I'll take a Nurofen. Or nab some morphine from my local hospital, depending on how bad it gets."

The TARDIS was shuddering through what Alex now recognised as its take-off, and the Doctor handed him the little bag he'd returned with from the shop. "Got you that." He said, awkwardly. "Just thought you might like it. Y'know. To remind you."

"Of the time I got shot in the leg and had to be taken several thousand years into the future to get it healed?" Alex asked wryly, holding the bag a little gingerly.

The Doctor managed a rueful grin. "Um, yes." He scratched the back of his head. "I'm really not very good at this sort of thing, am I?"

Alex smiled back at him. "Not great, no." he shrugged. "Then again, no one's ever bought me a present from three thousand years in the future, so…"

"It doesn't look like it's from the future. I made sure it – didn't look like it was from the future." The Doctor hastened to reassure him, and Alex nodded, holding up the small plastic figure the Doctor had bought him.

"You bought me a figurine?" he asked, confused. The toy was about a handspan tall, wearing a long blue coat Alex recognised from all the World War Two films he had watched with Ian.

"Not just any figurine, though!" The Doctor said, looking affronted. "That's Nestene plastic, that is!" In response to Alex's raised-eyebrow look, he elaborated. "It has a mild consciousness of its own. Toys get given an extra shot of – something or other – and you can talk to them. Great for kids with working parents."

"So… I can have a conversation with this thing?" Alex asked, looking at it with increased respect.

"Um… no." the Doctor frowned. "Sorry. I disabled it. Didn't think it was a good idea."

"No, probably not." Alex agreed, and put it back in the bag before shoving it into a coat pocket.

The Doctor brightened a little. "Oh! But, best part of it is, I've met that guy!"

Alex looked up. "What?"

"The figurine. I met him. Made him what he is today." The smile slipped off his face. "Though I don't know that that's anything very much to boast of." He added, quietly, and Alex hastened to change the course of the conversation before either of them got morbid. God only knew it seemed like the pair of them had enough to be morbid about, between them.

"That's pretty cool." He said, quickly. "That you've met him, and all. When's he born?"

The Doctor looked up at him, and grinned, but Alex wasn't fooled for a moment by the happy look. "Oh, the fifty-first century." He said, lightly. "Captain Jack Harkness."

"Captain Harkness. I'll remember."

"He's a memorable sort of person."

They stood in awkward silence for a moment as the TARDIS spun them through the Vortex. Finally, Alex broke the silence. "Um, thanks, by the way. For the gift. People don't normally buy me gifts when I'm in hospital. And I wasn't even properly in hospital that time."

The Doctor looked a little sad at that, and for one horrible moment, Alex though the Time Lord was about to comment on it, but in the end, all he said was, "S'OK." The TARDIS jolted to a stop, presumably back where they had been before. "One sec, I'll just check that I got the coordinates right… yep, we're good to go." He looked up at Alex, and said, diffidently, "You know… you could come with me. For a bit. If you wanted...?"

And there it is. Hope you all enjoyed it - do please tell. (grins and scurries off to write her thrice-damned Personal Statement)

-amitai xxx