Wasteland (4/?)
Title: Wasteland (4/?)
Characters: Ten, Martha
Word Count: 3,699
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine. *sniff*
Spoilers: Up to “The Last of the Time Lords,” and casting spoilers for season four.
Summary: The Doctor receives the phone call that sends him running back to Martha Jones, but all is not well with his former companion. What begins as a reunion for the former travelling partners becomes something far more sinister, and the two must mend bridges, confront old demons and face new ones as they struggle to save the Earth (yet again).
Author's Notes: Man I'm slow. If I was you guys I'd kick me in the shin. *eyes mob of angry people with full kicking capabilities activated* Erm, I mean I would hug me with warm fuzziness and give me puppies! *nervous giggles* Yes, puppies and hugs. That'll show me. *runs away* Sorry for the long wait! eponymous_rose has helped me with her amazing beta skillz, and I bow before her awesomeness. Concrit is always appreciated, thanks for your time, and happy New Year!
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
For a few moments more there was a supportive silence, Martha’s presence at his side a comforting weight that made the (temporary, he didn’t dare imagine that the situation was anything but temporary) loss of the last piece of home a little easier to bear.
But it didn’t last long.
“Dammit,” she said, resignation seeping through the word as she turned on her heel and made way for the back gate of the residence.
“Mum, Dad, get back into the house,” Martha commanded with all the authority of one who knew exactly what they were doing and couldn’t afford to allow others to get in their way.
He had heard that tone before, but never from Martha. Where, then?
She turned to him, gesturing towards her already retreating parents. “You go with them. I’m going to check the perimeter.”
Shock slowly wearing off, the Doctor followed her instructions, walking into the house and quickly moving out of the way when Francine closed the door behind him. He then fixed his gaze on the wooden panels of the floor.
Gone. Every last piece of Gallifrey taken, stolen, from him. And he was still powerless to stop it.
“Doctor?” Clive asked, concern apparent in his tone. “Doctor, are you all right?”
“Don’t fuss,” his wife remarked glibly, patting the Time Lord’s shoulder. “You’ll get it back.”
“Francine!”
“It’s a big blue box, Clive! Whoever took it will get bored of it soon enough and drop it off on a corner somewhere.” She stopped glaring at her husband to turn back to the Doctor, voice kind. “There’s no sense in getting depressed about it now, Doctor. You’ve got to focus on what you can do to get it back, not mope on the fact that it’s gone.”
The Doctor felt himself nodding in agreement. Yes, right. After all, the TARDIS was useless to everyone else on this planet. What good would a time machine do someone who couldn’t fly it, much less get inside? And who would destroy, would be able to destroy the TARDIS anyway? After all, the combined hordes of Genghis Khan couldn’t get through his ship’s doors, and they had certainly tried.
The TARDIS would be fine, for a few hours, at least.
Or at least that was what he had to tell himself if he had any hope of figuring out how to get her back.
Allowing his remaining anxieties to fade to the background, the Doctor thought it best to turn his attentions to a mystery which appeared to be more solvable in the immediate future.
He abruptly lifted his gaze from the floor and stuck his hands in his pockets, staring inquisitively at Martha’s family. “‘Check the perimeter’?”
They stared blankly at him.
He rolled his eyes. Humans and their needing everything spelled out for them.
“Since when does Martha Jones, almost-doctor, check perimeters?”
Clive grinned smugly. “Since Doctor Martha Jones graduated, top of her class, and got hired by your friend, Captain Harkness.”
“Torchwood?” The Doctor frowned. At least now he could recall where he had heard Martha’s tone before. “Martha’s working for Torchwood?”
He was going to have a serious talk with Jack about this. He wasn’t fond of encouraging his companions to go off and risk their lives without him there to supervise.
“Worked,” Francine clarified, features drawn. “She went back to the hospital. She’s hired on full-time as a general practitioner and going to school now, studying cardiology as a specialty.”
This made even less sense. Despite Jack’s tendency to terrify those with any sense of personal boundaries or modesty, he didn’t seem the type to abuse his employees, especially Martha. They had seemed to hit it off well, those two. “She was working for Torchwood and quit?”
Clive nodded. “Ten months ago.”
“Why?”
Francine glared at him. “You sure you want to hear it from us?” she asked cheekily. “Don’t want to wait and get the information from someone else?”
The Doctor sighed. “Given the chilly welcome I’ve been given, I have a feeling you two will be a much more receptive source.” The Doctor raised an expectant eyebrow.
Francine just rolled her eyes.
“About a year ago,” Clive began, ignoring his wife and taking a deep breath. “Martha’s fiancé was killed.”
And the Doctor swore he felt a heart stop beating.
“Fiancé?” he choked out, still struggling with the revelation.
Fiancé. Martha had found someone, someone she loved, someone she was going to marry.
And he’d died.
Francine nodded sadly. “Tom, Tom Milligan.”
A dead man with a name who had held the heart of his friend in his hands.
And he hadn’t known.
Martha’s mother continued. “He was a paediatrician, worked in the hospital that Martha went to in order to take her final exam. They started dating not long after you left. Their wedding was going to be this October, but-” Like a barrier had been erected she stopped talking, unable to finish.
“He died,” Clive supplied wearily, uttering the words like they were a defeat.
“You said he was killed.” The Doctor stated, begging for answers.
A scholar of all history, but when it came to things that really mattered, the ordinary people that have the power to make or break their loved ones, Doctor knew nothing.
He needed more answers.
“A shooting,” Clive confirmed. “Some kid high on drugs. Shot Tom and then turned the gun on himself.”
He turned to Francine, understanding dawning. “This is why you thought she called.” A statement, not a question, although there were still so many that he wanted, needed, to ask.
So much could happen in these short human lives, and each painful event left an undeniable, destructive impact. He felt like back-up called too late to a crisis, as if all he could do was stare at the aftermath of some great hurricane.
Francine nodded. “It’s a year next Friday. I thought that maybe she’d give you a ring, maybe want to travel again…” She sighed, a miserable sound coming out of a grieving mother, and stared at him helplessly. “She hasn’t been herself, Doctor.”
The Doctor was used to preventing the disasters from happening, not picking up the pieces after they had done their damage.
Unfortunately, he would get no opportunity to better prepare himself for the task. In the next instant Martha was in the doorway, smiling reassuringly to the inhabitants of the house.
“Perimeter’s fine,” she said. “Stay inside tonight, and if anything happens call me. If I don’t pick up-”
“Call Torchwood,” Clive finished with the bored tone of one who had been given such instructions before.
“You still have Jack’s number?”
“Yes,” he affirmed.
“Good.” There was an awkward silence, Martha shifting on her feet while Francine and Clive seemed to be staring her down, willing her to acknowledge them.
But Martha, it seemed, wouldn’t be having that. “Well. Bye, then.”
She turned for the door only to be halted by her mother’s voice.
“Martha, why don’t you stay?” the woman pleaded. “For a few hours at least, if you’re so worried?”
Martha smiled, jerking a thumb at the Doctor. “I’ve got to get him home.”
He frowned. Home?
Martha tugged on his sleeve, obviously in a hurry to leave. “Come on, then.” She motioned outside and then left, striding purposefully to her car.
He began to follow.
“Doctor!” Francine called as he reached the door. She quickly pulled him forward for a hug, whispering into his ear, “Look after her,” before releasing him.
He smiled comfortingly at her and then continued to make his way to Martha’s car, thoughts whirling.
He would do his best to make sure that Martha was safe, of that there was no doubt.
But the Doctor thought it best not to let Francine Jones know that, in this case, he wasn’t entirely certain he knew how.
==
Martha had known there was something wrong from the instant the Doctor got into the car. Moments after her parents’ house faded from view, the Doctor began talking in that frantic way he had when trying to out-clever an opponent. It was a fantastic method, talking someone into making a mistake.
It just wasn’t going to work on her.
She hoped that, eventually, he would process this fact, but until them she was forced to endure his babbling.
Babbling that she kept telling herself she hadn’t missed at all in their years apart.
“Taking me home, then?” he asked ten minutes into the journey, smiling in an overly eager fashion and bouncing a bit in his seat. “Bit domestic for my tastes, but I suppose I can’t complain. Nice house, really.” He frowned. “Although, I didn’t see any teal. Most disappointing. I quite liked the teal.”
A small pause.
“How do you have a house, again? Medical students don’t live in houses. More like small holes in walls with carpeting and a window or two. Did Jack give you the money?”
Martha rolled her eyes. The all powerful Time Lord sitting in her passenger seat, centuries old and capable of bending space and time to his will, didn’t have any idea how to be tactful.
“Mum told you about Torchwood, then.”
“Doesn’t seem to get the meaning of ‘classified,’ does she?” the Doctor responded cheerfully. “But no matter.” He waved a hand dismissively, turning to better stare at her from his chair. “Tell me about it then. Get any good perks? Vacation time and all that?”
She snorted. “Not so much, no.”
Jack, although her very dear friend, became a different man when at Torchwood. The fun-loving, flirtatious charmer she knew and loved was still there, but he was buried deep under layers of authority and obligation, the burden of responsibility. And with that weight upon his shoulders, Jack wasn’t exactly the most lenient of taskmasters.
Not that any of this added responsibility decreased the flirting for which Martha was, secretly, grateful.
“And what about salary?” the Doctor persisted. “Must have been hefty, to get you a posh place like that house.”
She suppressed another snort and attempted to send him a serious look. “Torchwood Three operates on a more economical scale than its predecessor, actually.”
“Really?” he asked with a raised eyebrow, genuine interest highlighting his features.
And since she hadn’t been able to talk about it before, since she had been so lonely for so very long, since she had missed him, talking to him, being with him, Martha told him everything. “Bad medical equipment, no outside resources, Owen.” She gave a small, internal shudder at the name. “And that’s just when we were working in the hub.” She suppressed a sigh, throwing him a sardonic look. “It was like being with you, but without all of the perks. No psychic paper, no friends waiting for us, no grand and epic salvation at the end of every day. But,” she grinned then, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. “There was still a lot of running.”
He returned her smile, and, like a switch had been flipped, she felt her insides turn cold. “There’s always that.”
It took her more time than she wanted to admit to deny the compulsion to search for the gun.
“Yeah,” she said, swallowing nervously and turning to the road once more. “Always running.” She ignored the cold sweat that began to break out over her skin.
“Sounds dreadful,” the Doctor remarked, oblivious as he leaned back in his seat, arms crossed languidly under his head. He looked at her casually, asking in a carefully inquisitive tone, “That why you quit?”
And it was that tone, the one that people used when they asked questions they already knew the answers to, that led Martha to discover what was wrong with the Doctor.
“She told you about Tom too, didn’t she?”
Because the Doctor didn’t do well in the face of grief. Couldn’t handle the emotional strain, didn’t know how to cope with an overwhelming and terrifying sense of despair, despite his own long, painful centuries of practice.
The Doctor, brilliant though he might have been, was not such a quick study as Martha.
“I’m sorry,” he began, the first phrase of a long-since memorized mantra. “I’m so-”
“You didn’t know him, Doctor,” Martha interrupted, eyes fixed on the road, refusing to acknowledge the sympathetic, inadequate, look she knew was being sent her way. “You don’t get to be sorry.”
And, for perhaps the first time since she had met him, the Doctor was reduced to silence.
Which was all for the best, really, since Martha had no desire to talk about Tom. About the way that his hair felt after it had just been washed, how he would lay out her side of the bed for her every night before she went to sleep, the way he would hold doors open for her and sing to her in public.
She didn’t want to think about the way that she could spend hours running her fingers over his collar bone, enraptured with his every reaction. How she would instinctually wrap her arm around his waist at every given opportunity and how the warm weight of his own arm resting on her shoulders would meet her in response. She didn’t want to think about how he made her feel as if she were the only woman, person, on Earth and that he needed and wanted no one else.
Martha didn’t want to explain that she didn’t need, didn’t want, the universe.
She only wanted to be seen.
And Tom had seen her.
And so she didn’t want to remember the way she had watched him die, the feel of his blood on her hands or the sound of his last rattling breath.
She treasured the silence that lasted until they had reached the house, Tom’s house, once more.
“You can stay with me tonight,” she told the Doctor as she turned off the car. “But tomorrow we’re finding the TARDIS and you’re going back.” With that she resolutely opened the car door, leaving the vehicle and returning to the house, hoping that the Doctor wouldn’t question her.
But of course he did.
“Back?” he asked as he quickly followed her progress, nearly tripping over his feet in an effort to keep up.
“To wherever it is you came from before you decided to pop up here again,” she told him, struggling in the dark to find the right key to open the front door with.
“I do not pop.”
“Really?” She snorted, looking up from her task to scowl at him. “Then what else do you call showing up at one in the morning at the front door?” She turned back to the keys, fumbling with the pieces of metal.
“How many times do I need to remind you of the small but important detail of you calling me?” He glared at her, shrugging dramatically. “My services were requested! I can’t help it if you phoned at an inappropriate hour.”
She stopped with her mission to point an accusing finger at him. “First, how many times do I need to remind you of ‘the small but important detail’ of Leo calling you, not me.”
The Doctor merely gaped.
“Second, he called over a week ago and he did it in the afternoon,” she snapped in conclusion, turning back to the keys. How hard could it be to find the correct one?
“Oh, right.” The Doctor pulled at an ear awkwardly. “A week ago.”
Ignoring this small display of guilt in favor of more immediate and practical worries, Martha made an incomprehensible noise of frustration at the small metal keys in her hand, nearly throwing them to the ground in exasperation.
She let out a strained bark of a laugh, feeling her shoulders slump in dejection. The great Doctor Martha Jones, former defender and savior of the world, defeated by a locked door.
And all she wanted to do was sleep.
Almost as if he felt her desperation, the Doctor wordlessly dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out the sonic screwdriver, unlocking and opening the door in one swift motion after a quick hum of his device.
For several moments Martha simply stared in wonder at the gadget, the miniature machine which had saved her life countless times, that had unlocked the hidden wonders of the universe and that she had nearly forgotten about in the past two years.
Anger suddenly cooled, Martha looked up to the man, the Time Lord, holding the tool.
“Thank you,” she said, on the threshold to the house, knowing full well that she didn’t mean that one door alone.
The Doctor gave an understanding nod of acknowledgment and then moved on.
He had never been one to linger on the lives and civilizations he had saved.
“Why you don’t want me here, Martha?” he asked, voice smooth and pleading. “It’s been two years without a word. Why have you waited so long? Why haven’t you contacted me before now?” He hesitated a moment. “Why not a year ago, when-”
“Because you’re dangerous, Doctor,” Martha interjected, using every ounce of her formidable will power to stop her voice from faltering, her gaze from wavering, as she said it.
This, she felt, was something that he needed to really hear.
“Because wherever you go, disaster has a tendency to linger.” She looked him steadily in the eye. “And the people I love have suffered from that long enough.”
Courage and resolve failing at the shocked expression on his face, she made a motion to enter the house, to escape his devastated gaze and to, perhaps, sleep.
Only to be stopped by a firm grip on her shoulder.
“You aren’t just talking about your family during that year, are you?” the Doctor demanded, bending his head and forcing her to look at him. “You’re talking about something else. Someone else.” He frowned, searching her features, looking for something, for truth.
“Your fiancé.” He pulled away from her. “You think he was killed because of me.”
“I didn’t say that,” she denied instinctually, already knowing that it was too late.
“But you think it,” he alleged, stepping closer yet again. “Don’t you, Martha?”
She looked at the pavement of the entrance to the house.
“Martha!”
“Yes,” she admitted, ashamed for doing so, the accusation weighing heavily in the air.
In the moments that followed, the silence seemed oppressive.
“How?” he finally choked out, and Martha looked up to see an expression of complete disbelief on his face. “How could you ever think that I would endanger you, your happiness-?”
“I don’t!” she reassured him quickly. “Doctor, I don’t.” She found herself grasping onto his arms lightly, staring at him intently, every ounce of compassion within her crying out to him. “You’d never do it purposefully, never harm the people that matter to me.” Her grasp tightened slightly. “But don’t you see?”
She gave him a shake, trying to force the truth into him, to make him understand by her gentle persuasion. “You don’t have to.” She focused her gaze on his. “Your enemies will do it for you.”
The Doctor responded by raising an eyebrow. “My enemies?”
Feeling as if she had been burned, Martha quickly pulled away from him.
“Martha-”
It was always the same.
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you? Just like Jack and Torchwood did.” She let out a bitter laugh, crossing her arms in front of her chest and staring levelly at him. “Fine.”
The Doctor opened his mouth to speak.
“No, it’s all right,” she insisted. “I don’t need you to believe me. I just need you to leave, without asking any questions, once we find the TARDIS again.”
The Doctor sighed, tugging his ear quickly before imploring her. “Martha, I don’t think you’re crazy, really I don’t.” He smiled supportively. “I just think that you might be mistaken.”
He held up a halting hand to stop the protest that was forming on Martha’s lips.
“Yes, I have enemies, but few left on Earth, and of them none are aware of you, much less your family or your fiancé.” He laughed, nudging her gently with his shoulder. “Besides, who would want to hurt me? I’m far too charming, clever and kind for anyone to ever wish ill upon.”
It was in the next instant that Martha saw a small red laser moving frantically about the Doctor’s chest.
“Get down!” With a shove she pushed the Time Lord to the ground, hearing a distinct bang accompanied by the shattering of glass of the door treatment above her.
Allowing a year of Jack’s training to take over, she grabbed the scruff of the Doctor’s jacket with one hand, pushing him closer to the ground. She pulled and guided him into the house on hands and knees, ignoring the sounds of bullets flying as they made their way into the hallway, the feel of glass as it cut into her elbows and knees.
She looked behind her briefly, checking to see if her companion was safe, and found the Doctor wide-eyed but unharmed by the bullets.
It seemed as if the Doctor, the only remaining Lord of Time within the universe, had been mistaken.
After making her way to the hallway’s side table, she briefly fumbled inside the drawer. Relief reached her as her fingers met the feeling cold, solid metal after a few seconds of frenzied searching. Martha pulled the thing out of the drawer, also grabbing the box of bullets that she kept hidden in the potted plant next to the table, before crouching low on the floor once more.
The Doctor watched her with a kind of horror as she loaded the gun Jack had given her on the first day of work.
“Charming, clever and kind you may be, Doctor,” she yelled over the din of the flying bullets that were destroying a house which hadn’t been her home for a year. “But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who want you dead.” She cocked the gun, jerking her head towards the rear entrance of the house. “Come on, there’s a back way out. Stay low.”
The Doctor followed silently in her wake.
Characters: Ten, Martha
Word Count: 3,699
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine. *sniff*
Spoilers: Up to “The Last of the Time Lords,” and casting spoilers for season four.
Summary: The Doctor receives the phone call that sends him running back to Martha Jones, but all is not well with his former companion. What begins as a reunion for the former travelling partners becomes something far more sinister, and the two must mend bridges, confront old demons and face new ones as they struggle to save the Earth (yet again).
Author's Notes: Man I'm slow. If I was you guys I'd kick me in the shin. *eyes mob of angry people with full kicking capabilities activated* Erm, I mean I would hug me with warm fuzziness and give me puppies! *nervous giggles* Yes, puppies and hugs. That'll show me. *runs away* Sorry for the long wait! eponymous_rose has helped me with her amazing beta skillz, and I bow before her awesomeness. Concrit is always appreciated, thanks for your time, and happy New Year!
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
For a few moments more there was a supportive silence, Martha’s presence at his side a comforting weight that made the (temporary, he didn’t dare imagine that the situation was anything but temporary) loss of the last piece of home a little easier to bear.
But it didn’t last long.
“Dammit,” she said, resignation seeping through the word as she turned on her heel and made way for the back gate of the residence.
“Mum, Dad, get back into the house,” Martha commanded with all the authority of one who knew exactly what they were doing and couldn’t afford to allow others to get in their way.
He had heard that tone before, but never from Martha. Where, then?
She turned to him, gesturing towards her already retreating parents. “You go with them. I’m going to check the perimeter.”
Shock slowly wearing off, the Doctor followed her instructions, walking into the house and quickly moving out of the way when Francine closed the door behind him. He then fixed his gaze on the wooden panels of the floor.
Gone. Every last piece of Gallifrey taken, stolen, from him. And he was still powerless to stop it.
“Doctor?” Clive asked, concern apparent in his tone. “Doctor, are you all right?”
“Don’t fuss,” his wife remarked glibly, patting the Time Lord’s shoulder. “You’ll get it back.”
“Francine!”
“It’s a big blue box, Clive! Whoever took it will get bored of it soon enough and drop it off on a corner somewhere.” She stopped glaring at her husband to turn back to the Doctor, voice kind. “There’s no sense in getting depressed about it now, Doctor. You’ve got to focus on what you can do to get it back, not mope on the fact that it’s gone.”
The Doctor felt himself nodding in agreement. Yes, right. After all, the TARDIS was useless to everyone else on this planet. What good would a time machine do someone who couldn’t fly it, much less get inside? And who would destroy, would be able to destroy the TARDIS anyway? After all, the combined hordes of Genghis Khan couldn’t get through his ship’s doors, and they had certainly tried.
The TARDIS would be fine, for a few hours, at least.
Or at least that was what he had to tell himself if he had any hope of figuring out how to get her back.
Allowing his remaining anxieties to fade to the background, the Doctor thought it best to turn his attentions to a mystery which appeared to be more solvable in the immediate future.
He abruptly lifted his gaze from the floor and stuck his hands in his pockets, staring inquisitively at Martha’s family. “‘Check the perimeter’?”
They stared blankly at him.
He rolled his eyes. Humans and their needing everything spelled out for them.
“Since when does Martha Jones, almost-doctor, check perimeters?”
Clive grinned smugly. “Since Doctor Martha Jones graduated, top of her class, and got hired by your friend, Captain Harkness.”
“Torchwood?” The Doctor frowned. At least now he could recall where he had heard Martha’s tone before. “Martha’s working for Torchwood?”
He was going to have a serious talk with Jack about this. He wasn’t fond of encouraging his companions to go off and risk their lives without him there to supervise.
“Worked,” Francine clarified, features drawn. “She went back to the hospital. She’s hired on full-time as a general practitioner and going to school now, studying cardiology as a specialty.”
This made even less sense. Despite Jack’s tendency to terrify those with any sense of personal boundaries or modesty, he didn’t seem the type to abuse his employees, especially Martha. They had seemed to hit it off well, those two. “She was working for Torchwood and quit?”
Clive nodded. “Ten months ago.”
“Why?”
Francine glared at him. “You sure you want to hear it from us?” she asked cheekily. “Don’t want to wait and get the information from someone else?”
The Doctor sighed. “Given the chilly welcome I’ve been given, I have a feeling you two will be a much more receptive source.” The Doctor raised an expectant eyebrow.
Francine just rolled her eyes.
“About a year ago,” Clive began, ignoring his wife and taking a deep breath. “Martha’s fiancé was killed.”
And the Doctor swore he felt a heart stop beating.
“Fiancé?” he choked out, still struggling with the revelation.
Fiancé. Martha had found someone, someone she loved, someone she was going to marry.
And he’d died.
Francine nodded sadly. “Tom, Tom Milligan.”
A dead man with a name who had held the heart of his friend in his hands.
And he hadn’t known.
Martha’s mother continued. “He was a paediatrician, worked in the hospital that Martha went to in order to take her final exam. They started dating not long after you left. Their wedding was going to be this October, but-” Like a barrier had been erected she stopped talking, unable to finish.
“He died,” Clive supplied wearily, uttering the words like they were a defeat.
“You said he was killed.” The Doctor stated, begging for answers.
A scholar of all history, but when it came to things that really mattered, the ordinary people that have the power to make or break their loved ones, Doctor knew nothing.
He needed more answers.
“A shooting,” Clive confirmed. “Some kid high on drugs. Shot Tom and then turned the gun on himself.”
He turned to Francine, understanding dawning. “This is why you thought she called.” A statement, not a question, although there were still so many that he wanted, needed, to ask.
So much could happen in these short human lives, and each painful event left an undeniable, destructive impact. He felt like back-up called too late to a crisis, as if all he could do was stare at the aftermath of some great hurricane.
Francine nodded. “It’s a year next Friday. I thought that maybe she’d give you a ring, maybe want to travel again…” She sighed, a miserable sound coming out of a grieving mother, and stared at him helplessly. “She hasn’t been herself, Doctor.”
The Doctor was used to preventing the disasters from happening, not picking up the pieces after they had done their damage.
Unfortunately, he would get no opportunity to better prepare himself for the task. In the next instant Martha was in the doorway, smiling reassuringly to the inhabitants of the house.
“Perimeter’s fine,” she said. “Stay inside tonight, and if anything happens call me. If I don’t pick up-”
“Call Torchwood,” Clive finished with the bored tone of one who had been given such instructions before.
“You still have Jack’s number?”
“Yes,” he affirmed.
“Good.” There was an awkward silence, Martha shifting on her feet while Francine and Clive seemed to be staring her down, willing her to acknowledge them.
But Martha, it seemed, wouldn’t be having that. “Well. Bye, then.”
She turned for the door only to be halted by her mother’s voice.
“Martha, why don’t you stay?” the woman pleaded. “For a few hours at least, if you’re so worried?”
Martha smiled, jerking a thumb at the Doctor. “I’ve got to get him home.”
He frowned. Home?
Martha tugged on his sleeve, obviously in a hurry to leave. “Come on, then.” She motioned outside and then left, striding purposefully to her car.
He began to follow.
“Doctor!” Francine called as he reached the door. She quickly pulled him forward for a hug, whispering into his ear, “Look after her,” before releasing him.
He smiled comfortingly at her and then continued to make his way to Martha’s car, thoughts whirling.
He would do his best to make sure that Martha was safe, of that there was no doubt.
But the Doctor thought it best not to let Francine Jones know that, in this case, he wasn’t entirely certain he knew how.
==
Martha had known there was something wrong from the instant the Doctor got into the car. Moments after her parents’ house faded from view, the Doctor began talking in that frantic way he had when trying to out-clever an opponent. It was a fantastic method, talking someone into making a mistake.
It just wasn’t going to work on her.
She hoped that, eventually, he would process this fact, but until them she was forced to endure his babbling.
Babbling that she kept telling herself she hadn’t missed at all in their years apart.
“Taking me home, then?” he asked ten minutes into the journey, smiling in an overly eager fashion and bouncing a bit in his seat. “Bit domestic for my tastes, but I suppose I can’t complain. Nice house, really.” He frowned. “Although, I didn’t see any teal. Most disappointing. I quite liked the teal.”
A small pause.
“How do you have a house, again? Medical students don’t live in houses. More like small holes in walls with carpeting and a window or two. Did Jack give you the money?”
Martha rolled her eyes. The all powerful Time Lord sitting in her passenger seat, centuries old and capable of bending space and time to his will, didn’t have any idea how to be tactful.
“Mum told you about Torchwood, then.”
“Doesn’t seem to get the meaning of ‘classified,’ does she?” the Doctor responded cheerfully. “But no matter.” He waved a hand dismissively, turning to better stare at her from his chair. “Tell me about it then. Get any good perks? Vacation time and all that?”
She snorted. “Not so much, no.”
Jack, although her very dear friend, became a different man when at Torchwood. The fun-loving, flirtatious charmer she knew and loved was still there, but he was buried deep under layers of authority and obligation, the burden of responsibility. And with that weight upon his shoulders, Jack wasn’t exactly the most lenient of taskmasters.
Not that any of this added responsibility decreased the flirting for which Martha was, secretly, grateful.
“And what about salary?” the Doctor persisted. “Must have been hefty, to get you a posh place like that house.”
She suppressed another snort and attempted to send him a serious look. “Torchwood Three operates on a more economical scale than its predecessor, actually.”
“Really?” he asked with a raised eyebrow, genuine interest highlighting his features.
And since she hadn’t been able to talk about it before, since she had been so lonely for so very long, since she had missed him, talking to him, being with him, Martha told him everything. “Bad medical equipment, no outside resources, Owen.” She gave a small, internal shudder at the name. “And that’s just when we were working in the hub.” She suppressed a sigh, throwing him a sardonic look. “It was like being with you, but without all of the perks. No psychic paper, no friends waiting for us, no grand and epic salvation at the end of every day. But,” she grinned then, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. “There was still a lot of running.”
He returned her smile, and, like a switch had been flipped, she felt her insides turn cold. “There’s always that.”
It took her more time than she wanted to admit to deny the compulsion to search for the gun.
“Yeah,” she said, swallowing nervously and turning to the road once more. “Always running.” She ignored the cold sweat that began to break out over her skin.
“Sounds dreadful,” the Doctor remarked, oblivious as he leaned back in his seat, arms crossed languidly under his head. He looked at her casually, asking in a carefully inquisitive tone, “That why you quit?”
And it was that tone, the one that people used when they asked questions they already knew the answers to, that led Martha to discover what was wrong with the Doctor.
“She told you about Tom too, didn’t she?”
Because the Doctor didn’t do well in the face of grief. Couldn’t handle the emotional strain, didn’t know how to cope with an overwhelming and terrifying sense of despair, despite his own long, painful centuries of practice.
The Doctor, brilliant though he might have been, was not such a quick study as Martha.
“I’m sorry,” he began, the first phrase of a long-since memorized mantra. “I’m so-”
“You didn’t know him, Doctor,” Martha interrupted, eyes fixed on the road, refusing to acknowledge the sympathetic, inadequate, look she knew was being sent her way. “You don’t get to be sorry.”
And, for perhaps the first time since she had met him, the Doctor was reduced to silence.
Which was all for the best, really, since Martha had no desire to talk about Tom. About the way that his hair felt after it had just been washed, how he would lay out her side of the bed for her every night before she went to sleep, the way he would hold doors open for her and sing to her in public.
She didn’t want to think about the way that she could spend hours running her fingers over his collar bone, enraptured with his every reaction. How she would instinctually wrap her arm around his waist at every given opportunity and how the warm weight of his own arm resting on her shoulders would meet her in response. She didn’t want to think about how he made her feel as if she were the only woman, person, on Earth and that he needed and wanted no one else.
Martha didn’t want to explain that she didn’t need, didn’t want, the universe.
She only wanted to be seen.
And Tom had seen her.
And so she didn’t want to remember the way she had watched him die, the feel of his blood on her hands or the sound of his last rattling breath.
She treasured the silence that lasted until they had reached the house, Tom’s house, once more.
“You can stay with me tonight,” she told the Doctor as she turned off the car. “But tomorrow we’re finding the TARDIS and you’re going back.” With that she resolutely opened the car door, leaving the vehicle and returning to the house, hoping that the Doctor wouldn’t question her.
But of course he did.
“Back?” he asked as he quickly followed her progress, nearly tripping over his feet in an effort to keep up.
“To wherever it is you came from before you decided to pop up here again,” she told him, struggling in the dark to find the right key to open the front door with.
“I do not pop.”
“Really?” She snorted, looking up from her task to scowl at him. “Then what else do you call showing up at one in the morning at the front door?” She turned back to the keys, fumbling with the pieces of metal.
“How many times do I need to remind you of the small but important detail of you calling me?” He glared at her, shrugging dramatically. “My services were requested! I can’t help it if you phoned at an inappropriate hour.”
She stopped with her mission to point an accusing finger at him. “First, how many times do I need to remind you of ‘the small but important detail’ of Leo calling you, not me.”
The Doctor merely gaped.
“Second, he called over a week ago and he did it in the afternoon,” she snapped in conclusion, turning back to the keys. How hard could it be to find the correct one?
“Oh, right.” The Doctor pulled at an ear awkwardly. “A week ago.”
Ignoring this small display of guilt in favor of more immediate and practical worries, Martha made an incomprehensible noise of frustration at the small metal keys in her hand, nearly throwing them to the ground in exasperation.
She let out a strained bark of a laugh, feeling her shoulders slump in dejection. The great Doctor Martha Jones, former defender and savior of the world, defeated by a locked door.
And all she wanted to do was sleep.
Almost as if he felt her desperation, the Doctor wordlessly dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out the sonic screwdriver, unlocking and opening the door in one swift motion after a quick hum of his device.
For several moments Martha simply stared in wonder at the gadget, the miniature machine which had saved her life countless times, that had unlocked the hidden wonders of the universe and that she had nearly forgotten about in the past two years.
Anger suddenly cooled, Martha looked up to the man, the Time Lord, holding the tool.
“Thank you,” she said, on the threshold to the house, knowing full well that she didn’t mean that one door alone.
The Doctor gave an understanding nod of acknowledgment and then moved on.
He had never been one to linger on the lives and civilizations he had saved.
“Why you don’t want me here, Martha?” he asked, voice smooth and pleading. “It’s been two years without a word. Why have you waited so long? Why haven’t you contacted me before now?” He hesitated a moment. “Why not a year ago, when-”
“Because you’re dangerous, Doctor,” Martha interjected, using every ounce of her formidable will power to stop her voice from faltering, her gaze from wavering, as she said it.
This, she felt, was something that he needed to really hear.
“Because wherever you go, disaster has a tendency to linger.” She looked him steadily in the eye. “And the people I love have suffered from that long enough.”
Courage and resolve failing at the shocked expression on his face, she made a motion to enter the house, to escape his devastated gaze and to, perhaps, sleep.
Only to be stopped by a firm grip on her shoulder.
“You aren’t just talking about your family during that year, are you?” the Doctor demanded, bending his head and forcing her to look at him. “You’re talking about something else. Someone else.” He frowned, searching her features, looking for something, for truth.
“Your fiancé.” He pulled away from her. “You think he was killed because of me.”
“I didn’t say that,” she denied instinctually, already knowing that it was too late.
“But you think it,” he alleged, stepping closer yet again. “Don’t you, Martha?”
She looked at the pavement of the entrance to the house.
“Martha!”
“Yes,” she admitted, ashamed for doing so, the accusation weighing heavily in the air.
In the moments that followed, the silence seemed oppressive.
“How?” he finally choked out, and Martha looked up to see an expression of complete disbelief on his face. “How could you ever think that I would endanger you, your happiness-?”
“I don’t!” she reassured him quickly. “Doctor, I don’t.” She found herself grasping onto his arms lightly, staring at him intently, every ounce of compassion within her crying out to him. “You’d never do it purposefully, never harm the people that matter to me.” Her grasp tightened slightly. “But don’t you see?”
She gave him a shake, trying to force the truth into him, to make him understand by her gentle persuasion. “You don’t have to.” She focused her gaze on his. “Your enemies will do it for you.”
The Doctor responded by raising an eyebrow. “My enemies?”
Feeling as if she had been burned, Martha quickly pulled away from him.
“Martha-”
It was always the same.
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you? Just like Jack and Torchwood did.” She let out a bitter laugh, crossing her arms in front of her chest and staring levelly at him. “Fine.”
The Doctor opened his mouth to speak.
“No, it’s all right,” she insisted. “I don’t need you to believe me. I just need you to leave, without asking any questions, once we find the TARDIS again.”
The Doctor sighed, tugging his ear quickly before imploring her. “Martha, I don’t think you’re crazy, really I don’t.” He smiled supportively. “I just think that you might be mistaken.”
He held up a halting hand to stop the protest that was forming on Martha’s lips.
“Yes, I have enemies, but few left on Earth, and of them none are aware of you, much less your family or your fiancé.” He laughed, nudging her gently with his shoulder. “Besides, who would want to hurt me? I’m far too charming, clever and kind for anyone to ever wish ill upon.”
It was in the next instant that Martha saw a small red laser moving frantically about the Doctor’s chest.
“Get down!” With a shove she pushed the Time Lord to the ground, hearing a distinct bang accompanied by the shattering of glass of the door treatment above her.
Allowing a year of Jack’s training to take over, she grabbed the scruff of the Doctor’s jacket with one hand, pushing him closer to the ground. She pulled and guided him into the house on hands and knees, ignoring the sounds of bullets flying as they made their way into the hallway, the feel of glass as it cut into her elbows and knees.
She looked behind her briefly, checking to see if her companion was safe, and found the Doctor wide-eyed but unharmed by the bullets.
It seemed as if the Doctor, the only remaining Lord of Time within the universe, had been mistaken.
After making her way to the hallway’s side table, she briefly fumbled inside the drawer. Relief reached her as her fingers met the feeling cold, solid metal after a few seconds of frenzied searching. Martha pulled the thing out of the drawer, also grabbing the box of bullets that she kept hidden in the potted plant next to the table, before crouching low on the floor once more.
The Doctor watched her with a kind of horror as she loaded the gun Jack had given her on the first day of work.
“Charming, clever and kind you may be, Doctor,” she yelled over the din of the flying bullets that were destroying a house which hadn’t been her home for a year. “But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who want you dead.” She cocked the gun, jerking her head towards the rear entrance of the house. “Come on, there’s a back way out. Stay low.”
The Doctor followed silently in her wake.