who fic: it all comes out in the end
Title: it all comes out in the end
Beta: persiflage_1. I can't thank her enough for all of her help!
Era: post JE, parallel universe
Characters: 10.5 (Handy, human!Doctor ...), alt!Martha, Rose
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I have not profited monetarily from this venture, nor do I claim original ownership of the characters and setting.
Notes: Sequel to there are always exceptions. This won't make much sense if you haven't read that first, I'm afraid. Written in a furious blaze when I should have been studying. Honest criticism appreciated.
for danahid
(back to part 1, there are always exceptions)
When he wakes, he notices three things, in this order: 1) that for the first time in this life, he has no idea what time it is, 2) that the bed curtains are open and letting in too much light, 3) that Rose is sitting beside him. He doesn't actually see Rose, but the scent of her Rose-y perfume is a dead giveaway. For a moment he tries opening his eyes completely, then settles for leaving them half-closed. The sun has already set and the electric lamps are dimmed low, but for some reason the light hurts.
A blur smelling like Rose moves into his field of vision, brushes a hand across his forehead. He grunts in response. "Hey," she says.
"Mmph." He's trying to sit up, but it isn't quite working. Eventually Rose takes him by the arms. She's stronger than he is. It's easy for her to prop him up against the hard hospital pillow.
He blinks at her for a while. It's difficult to think of what to say and the expectant look on her face makes him feel nervous. "What - what time is it?"
His hearts (heart) jiggle, jump. He has an insane desire to cut them (it) out of his chest and hook them (it) up to a battery. The spasms! For a moment he loses himself to the thought of his hearts (heart) convulsing, dancing. He's almost too busy picturing them to realise that Rose is wearing her worried expression.
"It's half past six." She doesn't say it, doesn't rub it in that he is losing his sense of time, and it's because she doesn't that he swallows his irritation. (Where are the minutes, the seconds?)
She can read him like a book. He's not in good form. She knows he's irritated and bites her lip. "Would you like me to bring you a watch?"
"Yes," he says, feeling his hearts (heart) expand - and contract. "Atomic would be best."
She nods. He listens to his hearts (heart) swelling open and then suddenly his irritation is rising again. "Why," he begins, intending to ask why she picked just this hospital and this heart specialist. Except that his hearts (heart) are really jiggling. But Rose doesn't need for him to finish his sentence. She can read him like a book.
He's not in good form.
"Because she's one of the best. She really is. Pete checked out all the specialists in London, and you know how picky he is." Rose takes his hand, squeezes it. "Besides, I wanted it to be someone you could trust."
He's too concentrated on his hearts (heart) to protest, so he says nothing. Stares at the bony legs protruding from beneath the scratchy sheets. Are those really his? They itch, so they must be.
Rose lets go of his hand and starts rummaging in her handbag. "Everybody's been asking about you. I mean everyone. Captain Magambo even called. Look," she pulls out a crumpled card with a child's scribbles on it, "Tony made this for you. It's a get-well card, see?"
He glances at it and tries to smile, but all the card does is make him feel depressed. Rose's family (or not-family? where does Pete come in?) has done so much - too much for him, too much because he lied; he knew this would happen and never said. He knew he would crumple like the paper of the card and never said anything, not even to Rose. Maybe he was in denial. Possibly. He doesn't think so - of course, there was that one time when Freud put him through a talking cure and concluded that he was, indeed, in denial, but everybody knows that Freud's theories are a load of nonsense. And, well, Martha used to tell him something along those lines too, but this is all too complicated to think about right now and rather confusing, actually.
"How is Tony? Your mum and Pete?"
Rose hunches down her shoulders, nods a few times as a prelude to what she's going to say. The gesture means: They're worried sick about you but I can't tell you that. "Mum and Pete are fine. They'll be coming by to see you soon, I suppose." She lets out a sigh. "Do you want to go on a walk? It's allowed, so long 's I take you in the wheelchair."
He hesitates. It's warm here. There are jelly babies in the drawer next to his bed. And the thought of sitting in a wheelchair unsettles him. But he can read Rose like a book today, too. She's not in good form. "Yes," he says.
A wan smile, but it's the first he can remember on her since arriving at this place. His hearts (heart) leap, expand - contract. She looks at the tubes and cables protruding from his right arm, at the massive monitors surrounding his bed, and quirks an eyebrow. "I'll get a nurse."
After a few minutes of watching the nurse prick some needles out of his skin and inject others with some kind of pharmaceutical into his arm, they're on their way.
The wheelchair turns out not to be as mortifying an experience as he'd feared. At least his arms are free. And when Rose pushes him fast - fast enough that the nurses frown at them in disapproval - he almost forgets to listen to his hearts (heart). Soon he's charged enough to tell her stories (has he told her them before? probably) about hospital wards he's been in on other planets, well not him of course, but he remembers the experiences clear as day and well there was this one magnificent place that swore by the healing powers of potassium, practically heaven it was since they served bananas in every thinkable form for breakfast - banana pancakes, banana porridge, bananas and sausage . . .
"What are you laughing for? If you can't appreciate a good banana - stop it, it isn't funny!"
"I'll see about getting bananas onto your breakfast tray."
"Hmm."
Of course there was that one time he went to the moon with the Judoon and - oh.
Not-Martha is standing right in front of them, hands on her hips. She's looking at him as though he were a complicated puzzle she intended to solve. Her gaze lifts to Rose and her eyebrows rise, just a tad, in recognition.
Rose has never visited while Not-Martha was on duty, he realises. And Rose - everybody knows Rose: either as the hero who helped destroy the Cybermen or as the adopted daughter of billionaire Pete Tyler. Or both.
"Mr Smith," Not-Martha says. Her voice rasps; she must have just had a cigarette. "I was just on my way to check up on you."
"Oh."
"Um, hi," Rose says from behind him. "I'm Rose . . . a family friend, I'm listed as his first contact . . . I thought he could use some fresh air." He can imagine her face, how its breathlessness gradually sobers into something confined, nervous.
"Then by all means, continue," Not-Martha says, stepping out of their way. He takes a good look at her eyes and thinks he senses amusement behind that stony mask, but can't be sure. Well, it doesn't matter. He's impatient to get going so that he can finish telling Rose about the Judoon. And Martha by default of course; can't have Not-Martha hanging around to hear all of that.
He thinks they're going to start any second now. But they don't, and then he hears Rose say, "How long are you on duty today, Dr Jones?"
To her credit, Not-Martha barely glances at her wristwatch. "Another twenty-two minutes and three seconds by this count." Martha - no, Not-Martha steps closer, then back to let a nurse go by. When the nurse has passed, she fixes her gaze on Rose. "How long were you planning on visiting, Ms Tyler?"
"Um, well, if you want to talk, we could do it now."
If he had the energy to turn around and glare at Rose he would. He would prefer to stamp on her foot or pinch her, of course, but there's this wheelchair. And Not-Martha is watching. He squirms, tries not to think about being and not-being but instead about his hearts (heart), because there's a certain fun to that, to looking at yourself from the outside, and well, he'd like to have at least some fun before the day ends.
He ends up watching Not-Martha think instead. Her face is like stone. Except for the eyes, except possibly for the dark brown eyes that seem to him the only liquid thing about her, pools containing the true image of his Martha. Not-Martha is the polished reflection. "Good," he hears her say, and suddenly Rose is turning the wheelchair around and they're heading back to his room.
"Not good," he says, but neither of them listen.
For a moment he's too busy sulking to realise that Not-Martha is walking next to his wheelchair. Then he gets a good whiff of the tobacco traces on her labcoat. He tries to look at her without her noticing, but it's not easy. This whole business is making his hearts (heart) threaten to jiggle. This isn't his Martha, and the puzzling bit is, he can't even imagine what it would take to make her this way. She walked the Earth for him (okay, not him exactly) and didn't turn into a rock. So what happened? What's her story?
Ask her, you brute, Donna's instinct says. As if she'd ever say, he snaps back, and takes to observing the rooms branching off either side of the ward hallway. They're much larger than his, he notices. There are - Rose is rolling him by too quickly, he can't see how many beds are in each, but from the glimpse he got of the depth of that one there are at least six beds to a room.
Private healthcare, he thinks, and: Pete must be paying unthinkable amounts of money for me to have a room of my own. His hearts (heart) expand - contract.
All too soon he's back in the bed with scratchy sheets and a hard pillow, hooked up to machines again. At least Rose remembers to give him his bag of jelly babies. He offers them to Not-Martha.
"Jelly baby? Oh come on, they don't bite." Not-Martha is still shaking her head when Rose takes a handful. "See?"
"Mr Smith, I'm glad to see you're feeling so much better," Not-Martha says. "There are just a few things I'd like to discuss with you before leaving you to rest for the night."
For some reason, he doesn't have much of an appetite for jelly babies either. Suddenly he can't stand to see them, nor can he stand the feeling of starch on his fingers. With a grunt, he tries to put them back in the drawer, but can't reach. His hearts (heart) expand - contract, expand - contract . . .
"They belong in this drawer?" Not-Martha relieves him of the bag, stows it back in place. He's too flummoxed to thank her. "Mr Smith, I hope you don't mind that I repeat some of what I told you earlier today to Ms Tyler. I'd like it if we're all on the same page."
"It's cardiomyopathy, or arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia, to be exact," he tells Rose in a single breath. There's a petulant note to his voice, but he can't bring himself to care. "Electrical dysfunction in the heart, leads to scarring of the muscle in the right ventricle and eventually to its failure. I'm already showing signs of failure in both ventricles, which is very bad." He turns to Not-Martha, breathless. "Did I get it all?"
"Almost," Not-Martha says. She's giving him an appraising look, as though he were a riddle she intended to crack. Then she turns to Rose. "What he hasn't mentioned is that this is a very rare inherited condition. Mr Smith's medical history, however, gives no indication of previous cases in the family."
"That's because there weren't any," he says.
Not-Martha crosses her arms. "According to your medical history, everyone in your family died of natural causes. You yourself were perfectly healthy throughout childhood; there are no records of you ever having seen a doctor except to receive mandatory vaccinations." She shakes her head, her face even stonier than usual. "To be perfectly honest, Mr Smith, it seems to me that these records have been faked."
He opens his mouth, ready to fill it with the usual stream of lies, but Rose beats him to it. "It's true," she says. He groans. "No, let me finish. He's not from this world. Neither of us are. We're from a parallel universe and were trapped here before we could get back."
That's not exactly true, he thinks, remembering being abandoned on a cold Norwegian beach, TARDIS-less, with no say in the matter of whether he or Rose wanted to be there. The mere thought of that beach makes his hearts (heart) jiggle, so he says nothing. To her credit, Not-Martha doesn't say anything either.
She was always a good listener.
"As for his childhood," Rose continues, "there wasn't one, because he wasn't born the way you and I were. He's a . . . clone, I guess, and has only lived about five years."
"Did you have to tell her everything?" he snaps. "Aren't you even a teensy-weensy bit surprised?" he demands of Not-Martha.
She raises her eyebrows. "No, not really. I had already concluded that you had something to hide; your story simply confirms that. And everybody has speculated on your origins," she nods at Rose. "As for the bit about coming from outer-space, well," her face darkens, "the Cybermen certainly made that easier to believe."
That's it. That's her story. Or at least part of it.
His hearts (heart) expand - contract.
"You lost family," he says, aching for her as he didn't know he still could. He's reliving the attempt to find Donna again, the lengths he and Rose went to only to learn that his Donna and Sylvia and Geoff and Wilf had all been "upgraded." He never did try to find the parallel versions of former companions after that.
"We all did." Not-Martha's face is expressionless, but he thinks he sees pain in her eyes.
"I'm so sorry," Rose says softly.
Not-Martha straightens. There's a difference to the way she looks at them now, a kind of friendly light to her eyes that he likes. "Well, we've got you to thank that they're gone, haven't we," she says, giving Rose a look of unguarded respect.
He'd like her to look at him like that too, but why should she? He wasn't actually there. No, that was the Doctor . . .
When she does turn to him, it's as a professional. "So, Mr Smith. Now that I know your story, it'll be easier to proceed. I don't like to go into surgery without establishing a relationship of trust with the patient first."
"Surgery?" Rose sounds shocked.
"Yes. The fact that Mr Smith has only lived for five years doesn't change the fact that his condition has had much too much time to develop. The best option, I'm afraid, is cardiac transplant."
"But . . . " Rose gives him a helpless look. "But he isn't completely human. It might not work."
"Don't worry," he tells her. Takes a deep breath for the final truth. "I've suspected this might happen. It's really alright." He smiles into her shock. "My time has come, Rose. Everyone's time comes at some point or another, you know."
"No, I don't. You've known this would happen?"
He doesn't have the energy to explain. She'll get over it. He's closer to Rose than anyone, even Malcolm, her boyfriend from the UNIT science department - very clever chap, by the way, and they all get along splendidly - but Malcolm will just have to fill in his role, won't he now?
He has neither the energy nor the will to explain.
"This is nonsense," Not-Martha says. "I've done numerous tests on his heart, and transfer is possible. There are, of course, always risks involved."
That's my Martha, he can't help but think. A warm feeling blossoms in his chest. His head is growing faint, though. He feels it drop to one side at an uncomfortable angle, but doesn't have the strength to lift it.
His heart is jiggling, jumping. Martha and Rose are talking gibberish-jangle-jumble.
It was a good life. He closes his eyes against the light; it hurts. A better one than the Doctor could have ever expected when he abandoned us here. Me and Rose. It didn't need to work out between us, we're closer now than we could have been elsewise. Someday she'll forgive me, as someday in another world, Martha might forgive us all. Dear Donna, is this happening to you too? Did the metacrisis take it out of you, too? I hope not. I hope you can live a better life for the both of us. It was, all in all, a fairly good life . . .
"We're going into surgery, now," shouts Martha Jones.
(on to part 3, stop crying your heart out)
Beta: persiflage_1. I can't thank her enough for all of her help!
Era: post JE, parallel universe
Characters: 10.5 (Handy, human!Doctor ...), alt!Martha, Rose
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I have not profited monetarily from this venture, nor do I claim original ownership of the characters and setting.
Notes: Sequel to there are always exceptions. This won't make much sense if you haven't read that first, I'm afraid. Written in a furious blaze when I should have been studying. Honest criticism appreciated.
for danahid
(back to part 1, there are always exceptions)
When he wakes, he notices three things, in this order: 1) that for the first time in this life, he has no idea what time it is, 2) that the bed curtains are open and letting in too much light, 3) that Rose is sitting beside him. He doesn't actually see Rose, but the scent of her Rose-y perfume is a dead giveaway. For a moment he tries opening his eyes completely, then settles for leaving them half-closed. The sun has already set and the electric lamps are dimmed low, but for some reason the light hurts.
A blur smelling like Rose moves into his field of vision, brushes a hand across his forehead. He grunts in response. "Hey," she says.
"Mmph." He's trying to sit up, but it isn't quite working. Eventually Rose takes him by the arms. She's stronger than he is. It's easy for her to prop him up against the hard hospital pillow.
He blinks at her for a while. It's difficult to think of what to say and the expectant look on her face makes him feel nervous. "What - what time is it?"
His hearts (heart) jiggle, jump. He has an insane desire to cut them (it) out of his chest and hook them (it) up to a battery. The spasms! For a moment he loses himself to the thought of his hearts (heart) convulsing, dancing. He's almost too busy picturing them to realise that Rose is wearing her worried expression.
"It's half past six." She doesn't say it, doesn't rub it in that he is losing his sense of time, and it's because she doesn't that he swallows his irritation. (Where are the minutes, the seconds?)
She can read him like a book. He's not in good form. She knows he's irritated and bites her lip. "Would you like me to bring you a watch?"
"Yes," he says, feeling his hearts (heart) expand - and contract. "Atomic would be best."
She nods. He listens to his hearts (heart) swelling open and then suddenly his irritation is rising again. "Why," he begins, intending to ask why she picked just this hospital and this heart specialist. Except that his hearts (heart) are really jiggling. But Rose doesn't need for him to finish his sentence. She can read him like a book.
He's not in good form.
"Because she's one of the best. She really is. Pete checked out all the specialists in London, and you know how picky he is." Rose takes his hand, squeezes it. "Besides, I wanted it to be someone you could trust."
He's too concentrated on his hearts (heart) to protest, so he says nothing. Stares at the bony legs protruding from beneath the scratchy sheets. Are those really his? They itch, so they must be.
Rose lets go of his hand and starts rummaging in her handbag. "Everybody's been asking about you. I mean everyone. Captain Magambo even called. Look," she pulls out a crumpled card with a child's scribbles on it, "Tony made this for you. It's a get-well card, see?"
He glances at it and tries to smile, but all the card does is make him feel depressed. Rose's family (or not-family? where does Pete come in?) has done so much - too much for him, too much because he lied; he knew this would happen and never said. He knew he would crumple like the paper of the card and never said anything, not even to Rose. Maybe he was in denial. Possibly. He doesn't think so - of course, there was that one time when Freud put him through a talking cure and concluded that he was, indeed, in denial, but everybody knows that Freud's theories are a load of nonsense. And, well, Martha used to tell him something along those lines too, but this is all too complicated to think about right now and rather confusing, actually.
"How is Tony? Your mum and Pete?"
Rose hunches down her shoulders, nods a few times as a prelude to what she's going to say. The gesture means: They're worried sick about you but I can't tell you that. "Mum and Pete are fine. They'll be coming by to see you soon, I suppose." She lets out a sigh. "Do you want to go on a walk? It's allowed, so long 's I take you in the wheelchair."
He hesitates. It's warm here. There are jelly babies in the drawer next to his bed. And the thought of sitting in a wheelchair unsettles him. But he can read Rose like a book today, too. She's not in good form. "Yes," he says.
A wan smile, but it's the first he can remember on her since arriving at this place. His hearts (heart) leap, expand - contract. She looks at the tubes and cables protruding from his right arm, at the massive monitors surrounding his bed, and quirks an eyebrow. "I'll get a nurse."
After a few minutes of watching the nurse prick some needles out of his skin and inject others with some kind of pharmaceutical into his arm, they're on their way.
The wheelchair turns out not to be as mortifying an experience as he'd feared. At least his arms are free. And when Rose pushes him fast - fast enough that the nurses frown at them in disapproval - he almost forgets to listen to his hearts (heart). Soon he's charged enough to tell her stories (has he told her them before? probably) about hospital wards he's been in on other planets, well not him of course, but he remembers the experiences clear as day and well there was this one magnificent place that swore by the healing powers of potassium, practically heaven it was since they served bananas in every thinkable form for breakfast - banana pancakes, banana porridge, bananas and sausage . . .
"What are you laughing for? If you can't appreciate a good banana - stop it, it isn't funny!"
"I'll see about getting bananas onto your breakfast tray."
"Hmm."
Of course there was that one time he went to the moon with the Judoon and - oh.
Not-Martha is standing right in front of them, hands on her hips. She's looking at him as though he were a complicated puzzle she intended to solve. Her gaze lifts to Rose and her eyebrows rise, just a tad, in recognition.
Rose has never visited while Not-Martha was on duty, he realises. And Rose - everybody knows Rose: either as the hero who helped destroy the Cybermen or as the adopted daughter of billionaire Pete Tyler. Or both.
"Mr Smith," Not-Martha says. Her voice rasps; she must have just had a cigarette. "I was just on my way to check up on you."
"Oh."
"Um, hi," Rose says from behind him. "I'm Rose . . . a family friend, I'm listed as his first contact . . . I thought he could use some fresh air." He can imagine her face, how its breathlessness gradually sobers into something confined, nervous.
"Then by all means, continue," Not-Martha says, stepping out of their way. He takes a good look at her eyes and thinks he senses amusement behind that stony mask, but can't be sure. Well, it doesn't matter. He's impatient to get going so that he can finish telling Rose about the Judoon. And Martha by default of course; can't have Not-Martha hanging around to hear all of that.
He thinks they're going to start any second now. But they don't, and then he hears Rose say, "How long are you on duty today, Dr Jones?"
To her credit, Not-Martha barely glances at her wristwatch. "Another twenty-two minutes and three seconds by this count." Martha - no, Not-Martha steps closer, then back to let a nurse go by. When the nurse has passed, she fixes her gaze on Rose. "How long were you planning on visiting, Ms Tyler?"
"Um, well, if you want to talk, we could do it now."
If he had the energy to turn around and glare at Rose he would. He would prefer to stamp on her foot or pinch her, of course, but there's this wheelchair. And Not-Martha is watching. He squirms, tries not to think about being and not-being but instead about his hearts (heart), because there's a certain fun to that, to looking at yourself from the outside, and well, he'd like to have at least some fun before the day ends.
He ends up watching Not-Martha think instead. Her face is like stone. Except for the eyes, except possibly for the dark brown eyes that seem to him the only liquid thing about her, pools containing the true image of his Martha. Not-Martha is the polished reflection. "Good," he hears her say, and suddenly Rose is turning the wheelchair around and they're heading back to his room.
"Not good," he says, but neither of them listen.
For a moment he's too busy sulking to realise that Not-Martha is walking next to his wheelchair. Then he gets a good whiff of the tobacco traces on her labcoat. He tries to look at her without her noticing, but it's not easy. This whole business is making his hearts (heart) threaten to jiggle. This isn't his Martha, and the puzzling bit is, he can't even imagine what it would take to make her this way. She walked the Earth for him (okay, not him exactly) and didn't turn into a rock. So what happened? What's her story?
Ask her, you brute, Donna's instinct says. As if she'd ever say, he snaps back, and takes to observing the rooms branching off either side of the ward hallway. They're much larger than his, he notices. There are - Rose is rolling him by too quickly, he can't see how many beds are in each, but from the glimpse he got of the depth of that one there are at least six beds to a room.
Private healthcare, he thinks, and: Pete must be paying unthinkable amounts of money for me to have a room of my own. His hearts (heart) expand - contract.
All too soon he's back in the bed with scratchy sheets and a hard pillow, hooked up to machines again. At least Rose remembers to give him his bag of jelly babies. He offers them to Not-Martha.
"Jelly baby? Oh come on, they don't bite." Not-Martha is still shaking her head when Rose takes a handful. "See?"
"Mr Smith, I'm glad to see you're feeling so much better," Not-Martha says. "There are just a few things I'd like to discuss with you before leaving you to rest for the night."
For some reason, he doesn't have much of an appetite for jelly babies either. Suddenly he can't stand to see them, nor can he stand the feeling of starch on his fingers. With a grunt, he tries to put them back in the drawer, but can't reach. His hearts (heart) expand - contract, expand - contract . . .
"They belong in this drawer?" Not-Martha relieves him of the bag, stows it back in place. He's too flummoxed to thank her. "Mr Smith, I hope you don't mind that I repeat some of what I told you earlier today to Ms Tyler. I'd like it if we're all on the same page."
"It's cardiomyopathy, or arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia, to be exact," he tells Rose in a single breath. There's a petulant note to his voice, but he can't bring himself to care. "Electrical dysfunction in the heart, leads to scarring of the muscle in the right ventricle and eventually to its failure. I'm already showing signs of failure in both ventricles, which is very bad." He turns to Not-Martha, breathless. "Did I get it all?"
"Almost," Not-Martha says. She's giving him an appraising look, as though he were a riddle she intended to crack. Then she turns to Rose. "What he hasn't mentioned is that this is a very rare inherited condition. Mr Smith's medical history, however, gives no indication of previous cases in the family."
"That's because there weren't any," he says.
Not-Martha crosses her arms. "According to your medical history, everyone in your family died of natural causes. You yourself were perfectly healthy throughout childhood; there are no records of you ever having seen a doctor except to receive mandatory vaccinations." She shakes her head, her face even stonier than usual. "To be perfectly honest, Mr Smith, it seems to me that these records have been faked."
He opens his mouth, ready to fill it with the usual stream of lies, but Rose beats him to it. "It's true," she says. He groans. "No, let me finish. He's not from this world. Neither of us are. We're from a parallel universe and were trapped here before we could get back."
That's not exactly true, he thinks, remembering being abandoned on a cold Norwegian beach, TARDIS-less, with no say in the matter of whether he or Rose wanted to be there. The mere thought of that beach makes his hearts (heart) jiggle, so he says nothing. To her credit, Not-Martha doesn't say anything either.
She was always a good listener.
"As for his childhood," Rose continues, "there wasn't one, because he wasn't born the way you and I were. He's a . . . clone, I guess, and has only lived about five years."
"Did you have to tell her everything?" he snaps. "Aren't you even a teensy-weensy bit surprised?" he demands of Not-Martha.
She raises her eyebrows. "No, not really. I had already concluded that you had something to hide; your story simply confirms that. And everybody has speculated on your origins," she nods at Rose. "As for the bit about coming from outer-space, well," her face darkens, "the Cybermen certainly made that easier to believe."
That's it. That's her story. Or at least part of it.
His hearts (heart) expand - contract.
"You lost family," he says, aching for her as he didn't know he still could. He's reliving the attempt to find Donna again, the lengths he and Rose went to only to learn that his Donna and Sylvia and Geoff and Wilf had all been "upgraded." He never did try to find the parallel versions of former companions after that.
"We all did." Not-Martha's face is expressionless, but he thinks he sees pain in her eyes.
"I'm so sorry," Rose says softly.
Not-Martha straightens. There's a difference to the way she looks at them now, a kind of friendly light to her eyes that he likes. "Well, we've got you to thank that they're gone, haven't we," she says, giving Rose a look of unguarded respect.
He'd like her to look at him like that too, but why should she? He wasn't actually there. No, that was the Doctor . . .
When she does turn to him, it's as a professional. "So, Mr Smith. Now that I know your story, it'll be easier to proceed. I don't like to go into surgery without establishing a relationship of trust with the patient first."
"Surgery?" Rose sounds shocked.
"Yes. The fact that Mr Smith has only lived for five years doesn't change the fact that his condition has had much too much time to develop. The best option, I'm afraid, is cardiac transplant."
"But . . . " Rose gives him a helpless look. "But he isn't completely human. It might not work."
"Don't worry," he tells her. Takes a deep breath for the final truth. "I've suspected this might happen. It's really alright." He smiles into her shock. "My time has come, Rose. Everyone's time comes at some point or another, you know."
"No, I don't. You've known this would happen?"
He doesn't have the energy to explain. She'll get over it. He's closer to Rose than anyone, even Malcolm, her boyfriend from the UNIT science department - very clever chap, by the way, and they all get along splendidly - but Malcolm will just have to fill in his role, won't he now?
He has neither the energy nor the will to explain.
"This is nonsense," Not-Martha says. "I've done numerous tests on his heart, and transfer is possible. There are, of course, always risks involved."
That's my Martha, he can't help but think. A warm feeling blossoms in his chest. His head is growing faint, though. He feels it drop to one side at an uncomfortable angle, but doesn't have the strength to lift it.
His heart is jiggling, jumping. Martha and Rose are talking gibberish-jangle-jumble.
It was a good life. He closes his eyes against the light; it hurts. A better one than the Doctor could have ever expected when he abandoned us here. Me and Rose. It didn't need to work out between us, we're closer now than we could have been elsewise. Someday she'll forgive me, as someday in another world, Martha might forgive us all. Dear Donna, is this happening to you too? Did the metacrisis take it out of you, too? I hope not. I hope you can live a better life for the both of us. It was, all in all, a fairly good life . . .
"We're going into surgery, now," shouts Martha Jones.
(on to part 3, stop crying your heart out)