Martha: Chapter Four
Title: Martha
Author: mewiet
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Martha Jones, Ninth Doctor, Tish Jones, and the Nestene Consciousness
Disclaimer: Obviously I don't own Doctor Who or I wouldn't be writing fanfic for it.
Summary: What would've happened if Nine had met Martha instead of Rose when the Nestene Consciousness invaded Earth?
Author’s Notes: Since I forgot to post the second chapter here, I'm just going to do Chapter Two and Three in the same post.
Previous Chapters:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Martha
Chapter Four
"I should've trusted my first instinct, you're just like the others! Stupid little human girl, you think your one sister is more important than every other stupid ape on this planet! I'm trying to save the lot of you, but no, you're too easily distracted with saving one instead of the whole!"
"You've never had siblings, have you?" Martha shot back, releasing her hold on him. "You just don't get it. Family means nothing to you, Time Lord."
The Doctor raised his finger, his face turning scarlet, but instead he took off down the ramp and out the door.
Martha looked down at her hands, then at the melted blob of Tish on the console. She wiped her hands together until the last bits of rubber peeled off, falling to the floor of the TARDIS, and then bounded down the console after the alien.
"I've lost the signal!" The Doctor shouted with his arms waving in the arm. He pointed contemptuously to Martha. "This is your fault!" He began to pace the sidewalk. "How can you hide something that big in a city this small?" he asked, more to himself than to Martha.
Despite her rage, The Doctor's words were getting to her: saving Tish or saving the planet. She wanted to be a doctor, after all, and she knew where the greater good lied. "Hide what?" she asked carefully.
"The transmitter," The Doctor snapped. "The Nestene Consciousness is controlling every piece of plastic in London, so it needs a transmitter to boost the signal.
"What does it look like?"
"Like a transmitter!" he said, emphasizing the alleged obviousness of his statement with his hands. "Round and massive, somewhere slap-bang in the middle of London! A huge metal circular structure."
Martha crossed her arms. "You're thicker than I am."
"Excuse me?"
"A massive round circle in the middle of London?"
"Yes."
Martha grabbed his hand and yanked him over to the bridge. "Ever played I Spy?"
"No."
"Well you're about to start: I spy with my little…" She grabbed The Doctor by the chin and directed his attention across the river. "…London Eye."
The Doctor's jaw loosened in her hand, falling open halfway. He looked to Martha and pointed like a child. "The London Eye."
"The London Eye," Martha nodded.
"Fantastic!" And he took off running.
Martha charged after him, keeping pace. She briefly wondered why they didn't just use his bigger-on-the-inside spaceship, but was quickly distracted when he reached out to grab her hand as they ran. She wasn't even out of breath by the time they thudded down the stairs at the end of the bridge, she was too exhilarated to be winded.
"Think of it: plastic, all over the world, every artificial thing waiting to come alive. The med school mannequins, the shop window dummies, the phones, the wires, the cables…"
"Prosthetic limbs, IUDs, tampons…"
The Doctor released her hand. "Now, we've found the transmitter, so the Nestene Consciousness must be somewhere underneath."
Martha followed a low humming sound to the side of the bridge and peered over the edge. It was coming from some dirty metal boxes with nearby cranks. "What about those?"
The Doctor joined her side. "Looks good to me!"
Martha led the way down to the cranks and began to turn them with The Doctor's help until they opened to reveal a steamy red lit underground, with a rusty metal ladder. "Here goes nothing!" She hopped onto the ladder and crawled down until she had to jump off and was soon joined by The Doctor who'd done the same. As they started to make their way through the underground, Martha asked, "When we find this 'living plastic,' what do we do? How do we stop it?"
The Doctor grinned and retrieved a glass vial filled with blue liquid. "Anti-plastic."
"Anti-plastic," Martha murmured and shrugged. "I guess that's the least extraordinary thing I've heard today."
A few minutes later they arrived in a corridor and when Martha looked over the edge, she could see a glowing ooze of golden-red liquid. "The living plastic?"
"Yes."
Martha followed The Doctor down a few more flights of stairs until he stopped and took up residence against a metal railing, directly facing the molten ooze.
"I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract, according to convention fifteen of the Shadow Proclamation!" As if in response, the blob began to undulate. "Thank you! If I might have permission to approach?"
As Martha began to approach him, she noticed a quiver of movement in the corner of her eye. She began to move around to get a better look and then realized that the movement had been caused by Tish, who was huddled in a ball behind a lower railing. "Tish! Tish!" She ran down the railings until she reached her sister and enveloped the young woman in a frantic hug. "It's okay, Tish, I've got you, you're safe!"
"That - that thing down there, Martha," Tish sputtered. "What is it? How did I get here?!"
The Doctor descended the stairs to where Martha and Tish were huddled. He looked over Tish and rolled his eyes.
"She's alive," Martha breathed, kissing Tish's head.
"Obviously." The Doctor bent down and examined Tish, who stared back at him warily. "That was always a possibility: keep her alive to maintain the copy."
"You knew that and you never said?" Martha snapped.
"Can we keep the domestics outside? Thank you." The Doctor glared.
Tish pointed. "Wh - who is that?" She shook her head. "You said he was a reporter. Martha, w - what's going on?"
The Doctor walked down to the platform above the blob. "Am I addressing the Consciousness?" He waited for it to rise up into some sort of vaguely demonic shape and then proceeded: "If I might observe, you infiltrated this civilization by means of warp shunt technology. So, may I suggest, with the greatest of respect, that you shunt off?"
The Consciousness seemed to crinkle up, growl, and even spit bits of molten rubber into the air.
"Oh, don't give me that! This is an invasion, plain and simple. Don't talk about 'constitutional rights'!" At the Consciousness's increased agitation and what could only be described as shrieking, The Doctor raised his voice: "I. Am. Talking!" He gave a calculated pause and then added, "This planet is only just starting. These stupid little people have only just learned how to walk, but they're capable of so much more. So I am asking you, on their behalf: please, just go."
Martha heard a familiar scraping noise and then gripped the railing as she saw a musclular anatomical mannequin and a skeleton walk up behind The Doctor. "Doctor!"
But her warning had come too late, because the anatomical mannequin secured The Doctor's arms behind his back and the skeleton then reached into his inner pocket and retrieved the anti-plastic. The Doctor shook his head. "That was just insurance!" he said. "I wasn't really going to use it!"
The Consciousness spat and screamed, rising from its vat like a fist.
"I was not attacking you!" The Doctor pleaded. "I am here to help! I'm not your enemy, I swear, I'm not!"
Tish grabbed onto Martha's leg. "We need to get out of here!" she pleaded.
"What do you mean?" The Doctor said, his eyes wide at the creature's screams. Above, metal chambers opened to reveal the TARDIS. "Oh, no. No, no, no! Yes, that's my ship but-" He was interrupted again by the shrill sounds of the Consciousness. "I should know!" he protested. "I was there! I fought in that war, but it wasn't my fault! I couldn't save your world; I couldn't save any of them!"
"What's it doing?" Martha yelled over the sound of the creatures thrashing.
"It's the TARDIS! The Nestene's identified it as superior technology. It's terrified, it's going to the final phase! It's starting the invasion. Get out, Martha! Just leg it: now!"
Thick chords of blue lightning began to arc from the vat. They struck randomly several times, blowing up walls and crates, then they began to mobilize, striking purposefully at the stairs. The stairs - the escape route from which Martha had come down to find Tish - flared and collapsed into a pile of sparking metal and dust plumes.
Martha gripped the edge of the railing, leaning so far over she thought even a little breeze might push her over all the way. Everything inside her was telling her to run, but she couldn't just leave The Doctor down there.
On the other hand, there was Tish to think about, who again pulled at Martha's leg. "We're trapped!"
They could hear a pulsating sound above their heads and Martha assumed it was the transmitter in full swing. She envisioned her brother, Leo, and his pregnant girlfriend, Shonara, out baby shopping and being attacked by baby dolls wielding knives like in those Chuckie movies Leo liked so much. Then she imagined her dad and his new girlfriend, Annalise, getting attacked by store dummies while Annalise was dragging him around Queen's Arcade for new clothes. Finally, she pictured her mum at the airport, fresh off her plane and passing the mini McDonald's restaurant, unaware that the large Ronald McDonald statue that always stood out front with a painted smile on its face was now scowling and ready to murder her.
Suddenly Martha whipped her head around to look down at her elder sister, arms hugging her calf as if she were a wee child. "Leg it," she repeated, her eyes lighting up as bright as the blue bolt that was beaming into the ceiling. "Doctor, leg it!"
The Doctor seemed at a loss. He was struggling against the powerful muscular mannequin to no avail. He cast a pleading look up at Martha, obviously realizing there was no way for her to get out.
"Leg it!" Martha yelled again. She pointed to the skeleton holding the anti-plastic. "It's fibula!" she cried. "The thinner outside bone on the lower section of the right leg, kick it as hard as you can!"
The Doctor's eyes grew wide and he suddenly flung out his leg with as much force as he could muster. It connected with the fibula of the skeleton and a resounding crack was heard.
The force of the break caused the skeleton to shudder and shake off balance and finally plummet forward. The anti-plastic flew from the skeleton's fingers as they both went crashing into the sloshing vat. The Consciousness seemed to bubble and froth, screaming with such intensity that Martha and Tish had to throw their hands over their ears. The pulsating noise above the ceiling dimmed away shortly thereafter.
About the same time, the anatomical mannequin holding The Doctor ceased to move and The Doctor quickly fought his way out of its frozen rubber grips. Within minutes he'd run back over the platform, up a flight of stairs that lead to Martha and Tish which hadn't been caved in, and ushered them both over to his TARDIS. He quickly twisted the key into the little golden lock and the three of them piled inside.
Martha embraced her sister, but kept curious eyes on The Doctor as he danced around the TARDIS console, flicking levers and buttons in some kind of one alien parade. The ship lurched beneath them and Martha felt Tish's muscles contract. "It's okay," she promised. "This is a ship and it's just moving."
Tish shook her head, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. "What's going on Martha? How do you know this man? And - and how can any of this be r-real?"
Martha wiped Tish's face with her thumbs. "I don't really understand it all myself," she admitted. "But this man…he's The Doctor. He's - he's…complicated." The movement beneath their feet stopped and Martha assumed they'd landed again. She urged Tish up and walked her over to the doors. When she pushed them open, she found that they had landed in an alley that opened up onto a street corner. Martha's cell phone began to vibrate in her pocket.
Mere seconds later Tish's cell phone began to go off as well, but the latter was too stunned by being in the alleyway to be able to answer it. She looked back at the thing that she'd stepped out of and realized it was a large blue box. When she'd initially stepped inside of it, she'd only seen the front door and had assumed they'd walked into a new room. But now she realized it was just a box. Gaping, she broke away from Martha and walked around the box until she got back to the doors. She was nearly ready to look inside again when The Doctor popped out.
"Aren't you going to answer that?" The Doctor asked, looking at Martha as she held her vibrating phone in her palm.
"It's my brother," Martha said, "but I don't know what to say."
The Doctor smiled. "Tell 'im you were fantastic!"
"Well I guess I had to be, didn't I? You weren't any help back there. You'd be dead if it wasn't for me."
"Yes," The Doctor somberly agreed. "I would." He nodded. "Thank you."
"This is mad!" Tish exclaimed. "Even madder than all of Adeola's alien conspiracy theories!"
"And even after everything we just went through, you haven't stopped to think that maybe Adeola's conspiracies aren't just theories after all?" Martha pointed to The Doctor. "That man is not from our world, Tish. He's an alien! So was that creature in the vat."
Tish nodded slowly. "And that's what scares me out of my bloody mind, Martha. I take out the trash and then next thing I know I'm being sucked into the bin and I wake up on a staircase in front of this howling mass."
"I know it's a lot to take in-"
"You did not go through what I went through. You have no idea how I'm feeling right now!"
"No," Martha agreed. "I don't." She chanced a glance at The Doctor. "But we can talk about it." She moved to put an arm around Tish's shoulders, but the latter shrugged her off.
"No. No, don't touch me!" Tish threw up her arms and began to back away from both Martha and The Doctor. "Just stay away from me."
"He didn't do anything," Martha said. "He was trying to help. So was I!"
"He was trying to help?" Tish fired back. "Is that why you got so angry with him for not telling you about 'the copy,' whatever that meant?"
Martha deflated. "He was trying to save the world."
"But not necessarily me. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who brought that thing here in the first place."
"Tish, wait!" Martha cried as her sister began to walk out of the alley.
"Let her go," The Doctor said.
Martha stopped halfway between The Doctor and Tish. She watched Tish disappear from the alley and looked back to The Doctor. "Is she right? About you bringing the Consciousness here?"
"I followed them here."
"But back there," Martha frowned. "Back there you said something about a war…that you destroyed its world…and yours."
The Doctor nodded. "I had no choice."
"Is that so? Or is that just what helps you sleep at night?"
The Doctor clasped his hands and looked down. "I don't sleep much."
Martha's phone began to vibrate again. She looked at it conflictedly. "It's my mum this time."
"Better answer it then."
"I wasn't going to tell them," Martha confided. "But Tish…I don't know what she's going to do and I can't stop her from telling our family about you."
The Doctor nodded. "You'll both have to do whatever you feel is right."
Martha pursed her lips. "Is that what you did in the war?"
The Doctor was silent for a time, then he stepped back into his TARDIS and forced a smile onto his face. "Right then!" he said. "I guess I'll be off." He angled his head. "Unless…"
"Unless?"
"Unless…I don't know," he shrugged. "You could come with me? This box isn't just a London hopper you know, it goes anywhere in the universe, free of charge."
"What?" Martha smirked. "Even Pluto?"
"Oh," The Doctor scoffed. "You don't want to go to Pluto, it's not even a planet."
"Not a planet?"
"Well," The Doctor said, glancing down at his wrist as if he wore an invisible watch, "it won't be come next year. Spoiler alert."
"So it's not just a spaceship, but a time machine too?"
The Doctor winked. "How'd you guess?"
"'Spoiler alert,'" she said, mimicking his voice. "And Sumatra, the Titanic, JFK, and right now. I presume there're others. 'Sides, I've seen Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. It's like you copied them."
"Oi!" The Doctor barked. "John Wiggins copied me! Bloody Wiggins." He pushed open the other door. "So, you coming Martha Jones?"
"I never told you my last name."
"Time machine."
"So what else do you know about me then?"
"That you want to come with me. I can see it in your eyes."
"Do I?"
"You tell me."
Martha closed her eyes. "I can't."
"Why not?"
"Tish, for one. And the rest of my family, my exams…"
"Time machine," he reiterated.
Martha smiled sadly. "Semantics. You might be able to take me away for years and bring me back minutes after I left and nobody'll be the wiser. But I'll know. I will know that I left Tish after everything she's just been through; I will know I ignored my family when they called to make sure I was all right. I can't, Doctor. I'm sorry, but I can't. Maybe another time," she said halfheartedly.
The Doctor nodded. "I may just have to take you up on that."
Martha nodded without offering him anymore words. She watched as he ducked back into the TARDIS and shut the door, but the box didn't go anywhere. She suspected he was waiting for her to change her mind, but that wasn't going to happen, so she turned her back and took a few steps forward. She kept taking them until she'd found her way out of the alley and then she heard a whirring, whooshing sound and felt a breeze tickle the hairs on her neck. When the noise was gone, she waited a while, then ventured back down the alley to make sure the box was gone. As she suspected, the TARDIS was nowhere in sight. Martha quickly collected herself and left the alley in search of her sister.
Author: mewiet
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Martha Jones, Ninth Doctor, Tish Jones, and the Nestene Consciousness
Disclaimer: Obviously I don't own Doctor Who or I wouldn't be writing fanfic for it.
Summary: What would've happened if Nine had met Martha instead of Rose when the Nestene Consciousness invaded Earth?
Author’s Notes: Since I forgot to post the second chapter here, I'm just going to do Chapter Two and Three in the same post.
Previous Chapters:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Martha
Chapter Four
"I should've trusted my first instinct, you're just like the others! Stupid little human girl, you think your one sister is more important than every other stupid ape on this planet! I'm trying to save the lot of you, but no, you're too easily distracted with saving one instead of the whole!"
"You've never had siblings, have you?" Martha shot back, releasing her hold on him. "You just don't get it. Family means nothing to you, Time Lord."
The Doctor raised his finger, his face turning scarlet, but instead he took off down the ramp and out the door.
Martha looked down at her hands, then at the melted blob of Tish on the console. She wiped her hands together until the last bits of rubber peeled off, falling to the floor of the TARDIS, and then bounded down the console after the alien.
"I've lost the signal!" The Doctor shouted with his arms waving in the arm. He pointed contemptuously to Martha. "This is your fault!" He began to pace the sidewalk. "How can you hide something that big in a city this small?" he asked, more to himself than to Martha.
Despite her rage, The Doctor's words were getting to her: saving Tish or saving the planet. She wanted to be a doctor, after all, and she knew where the greater good lied. "Hide what?" she asked carefully.
"The transmitter," The Doctor snapped. "The Nestene Consciousness is controlling every piece of plastic in London, so it needs a transmitter to boost the signal.
"What does it look like?"
"Like a transmitter!" he said, emphasizing the alleged obviousness of his statement with his hands. "Round and massive, somewhere slap-bang in the middle of London! A huge metal circular structure."
Martha crossed her arms. "You're thicker than I am."
"Excuse me?"
"A massive round circle in the middle of London?"
"Yes."
Martha grabbed his hand and yanked him over to the bridge. "Ever played I Spy?"
"No."
"Well you're about to start: I spy with my little…" She grabbed The Doctor by the chin and directed his attention across the river. "…London Eye."
The Doctor's jaw loosened in her hand, falling open halfway. He looked to Martha and pointed like a child. "The London Eye."
"The London Eye," Martha nodded.
"Fantastic!" And he took off running.
Martha charged after him, keeping pace. She briefly wondered why they didn't just use his bigger-on-the-inside spaceship, but was quickly distracted when he reached out to grab her hand as they ran. She wasn't even out of breath by the time they thudded down the stairs at the end of the bridge, she was too exhilarated to be winded.
"Think of it: plastic, all over the world, every artificial thing waiting to come alive. The med school mannequins, the shop window dummies, the phones, the wires, the cables…"
"Prosthetic limbs, IUDs, tampons…"
The Doctor released her hand. "Now, we've found the transmitter, so the Nestene Consciousness must be somewhere underneath."
Martha followed a low humming sound to the side of the bridge and peered over the edge. It was coming from some dirty metal boxes with nearby cranks. "What about those?"
The Doctor joined her side. "Looks good to me!"
Martha led the way down to the cranks and began to turn them with The Doctor's help until they opened to reveal a steamy red lit underground, with a rusty metal ladder. "Here goes nothing!" She hopped onto the ladder and crawled down until she had to jump off and was soon joined by The Doctor who'd done the same. As they started to make their way through the underground, Martha asked, "When we find this 'living plastic,' what do we do? How do we stop it?"
The Doctor grinned and retrieved a glass vial filled with blue liquid. "Anti-plastic."
"Anti-plastic," Martha murmured and shrugged. "I guess that's the least extraordinary thing I've heard today."
A few minutes later they arrived in a corridor and when Martha looked over the edge, she could see a glowing ooze of golden-red liquid. "The living plastic?"
"Yes."
Martha followed The Doctor down a few more flights of stairs until he stopped and took up residence against a metal railing, directly facing the molten ooze.
"I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract, according to convention fifteen of the Shadow Proclamation!" As if in response, the blob began to undulate. "Thank you! If I might have permission to approach?"
As Martha began to approach him, she noticed a quiver of movement in the corner of her eye. She began to move around to get a better look and then realized that the movement had been caused by Tish, who was huddled in a ball behind a lower railing. "Tish! Tish!" She ran down the railings until she reached her sister and enveloped the young woman in a frantic hug. "It's okay, Tish, I've got you, you're safe!"
"That - that thing down there, Martha," Tish sputtered. "What is it? How did I get here?!"
The Doctor descended the stairs to where Martha and Tish were huddled. He looked over Tish and rolled his eyes.
"She's alive," Martha breathed, kissing Tish's head.
"Obviously." The Doctor bent down and examined Tish, who stared back at him warily. "That was always a possibility: keep her alive to maintain the copy."
"You knew that and you never said?" Martha snapped.
"Can we keep the domestics outside? Thank you." The Doctor glared.
Tish pointed. "Wh - who is that?" She shook her head. "You said he was a reporter. Martha, w - what's going on?"
The Doctor walked down to the platform above the blob. "Am I addressing the Consciousness?" He waited for it to rise up into some sort of vaguely demonic shape and then proceeded: "If I might observe, you infiltrated this civilization by means of warp shunt technology. So, may I suggest, with the greatest of respect, that you shunt off?"
The Consciousness seemed to crinkle up, growl, and even spit bits of molten rubber into the air.
"Oh, don't give me that! This is an invasion, plain and simple. Don't talk about 'constitutional rights'!" At the Consciousness's increased agitation and what could only be described as shrieking, The Doctor raised his voice: "I. Am. Talking!" He gave a calculated pause and then added, "This planet is only just starting. These stupid little people have only just learned how to walk, but they're capable of so much more. So I am asking you, on their behalf: please, just go."
Martha heard a familiar scraping noise and then gripped the railing as she saw a musclular anatomical mannequin and a skeleton walk up behind The Doctor. "Doctor!"
But her warning had come too late, because the anatomical mannequin secured The Doctor's arms behind his back and the skeleton then reached into his inner pocket and retrieved the anti-plastic. The Doctor shook his head. "That was just insurance!" he said. "I wasn't really going to use it!"
The Consciousness spat and screamed, rising from its vat like a fist.
"I was not attacking you!" The Doctor pleaded. "I am here to help! I'm not your enemy, I swear, I'm not!"
Tish grabbed onto Martha's leg. "We need to get out of here!" she pleaded.
"What do you mean?" The Doctor said, his eyes wide at the creature's screams. Above, metal chambers opened to reveal the TARDIS. "Oh, no. No, no, no! Yes, that's my ship but-" He was interrupted again by the shrill sounds of the Consciousness. "I should know!" he protested. "I was there! I fought in that war, but it wasn't my fault! I couldn't save your world; I couldn't save any of them!"
"What's it doing?" Martha yelled over the sound of the creatures thrashing.
"It's the TARDIS! The Nestene's identified it as superior technology. It's terrified, it's going to the final phase! It's starting the invasion. Get out, Martha! Just leg it: now!"
Thick chords of blue lightning began to arc from the vat. They struck randomly several times, blowing up walls and crates, then they began to mobilize, striking purposefully at the stairs. The stairs - the escape route from which Martha had come down to find Tish - flared and collapsed into a pile of sparking metal and dust plumes.
Martha gripped the edge of the railing, leaning so far over she thought even a little breeze might push her over all the way. Everything inside her was telling her to run, but she couldn't just leave The Doctor down there.
On the other hand, there was Tish to think about, who again pulled at Martha's leg. "We're trapped!"
They could hear a pulsating sound above their heads and Martha assumed it was the transmitter in full swing. She envisioned her brother, Leo, and his pregnant girlfriend, Shonara, out baby shopping and being attacked by baby dolls wielding knives like in those Chuckie movies Leo liked so much. Then she imagined her dad and his new girlfriend, Annalise, getting attacked by store dummies while Annalise was dragging him around Queen's Arcade for new clothes. Finally, she pictured her mum at the airport, fresh off her plane and passing the mini McDonald's restaurant, unaware that the large Ronald McDonald statue that always stood out front with a painted smile on its face was now scowling and ready to murder her.
Suddenly Martha whipped her head around to look down at her elder sister, arms hugging her calf as if she were a wee child. "Leg it," she repeated, her eyes lighting up as bright as the blue bolt that was beaming into the ceiling. "Doctor, leg it!"
The Doctor seemed at a loss. He was struggling against the powerful muscular mannequin to no avail. He cast a pleading look up at Martha, obviously realizing there was no way for her to get out.
"Leg it!" Martha yelled again. She pointed to the skeleton holding the anti-plastic. "It's fibula!" she cried. "The thinner outside bone on the lower section of the right leg, kick it as hard as you can!"
The Doctor's eyes grew wide and he suddenly flung out his leg with as much force as he could muster. It connected with the fibula of the skeleton and a resounding crack was heard.
The force of the break caused the skeleton to shudder and shake off balance and finally plummet forward. The anti-plastic flew from the skeleton's fingers as they both went crashing into the sloshing vat. The Consciousness seemed to bubble and froth, screaming with such intensity that Martha and Tish had to throw their hands over their ears. The pulsating noise above the ceiling dimmed away shortly thereafter.
About the same time, the anatomical mannequin holding The Doctor ceased to move and The Doctor quickly fought his way out of its frozen rubber grips. Within minutes he'd run back over the platform, up a flight of stairs that lead to Martha and Tish which hadn't been caved in, and ushered them both over to his TARDIS. He quickly twisted the key into the little golden lock and the three of them piled inside.
Martha embraced her sister, but kept curious eyes on The Doctor as he danced around the TARDIS console, flicking levers and buttons in some kind of one alien parade. The ship lurched beneath them and Martha felt Tish's muscles contract. "It's okay," she promised. "This is a ship and it's just moving."
Tish shook her head, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. "What's going on Martha? How do you know this man? And - and how can any of this be r-real?"
Martha wiped Tish's face with her thumbs. "I don't really understand it all myself," she admitted. "But this man…he's The Doctor. He's - he's…complicated." The movement beneath their feet stopped and Martha assumed they'd landed again. She urged Tish up and walked her over to the doors. When she pushed them open, she found that they had landed in an alley that opened up onto a street corner. Martha's cell phone began to vibrate in her pocket.
Mere seconds later Tish's cell phone began to go off as well, but the latter was too stunned by being in the alleyway to be able to answer it. She looked back at the thing that she'd stepped out of and realized it was a large blue box. When she'd initially stepped inside of it, she'd only seen the front door and had assumed they'd walked into a new room. But now she realized it was just a box. Gaping, she broke away from Martha and walked around the box until she got back to the doors. She was nearly ready to look inside again when The Doctor popped out.
"Aren't you going to answer that?" The Doctor asked, looking at Martha as she held her vibrating phone in her palm.
"It's my brother," Martha said, "but I don't know what to say."
The Doctor smiled. "Tell 'im you were fantastic!"
"Well I guess I had to be, didn't I? You weren't any help back there. You'd be dead if it wasn't for me."
"Yes," The Doctor somberly agreed. "I would." He nodded. "Thank you."
"This is mad!" Tish exclaimed. "Even madder than all of Adeola's alien conspiracy theories!"
"And even after everything we just went through, you haven't stopped to think that maybe Adeola's conspiracies aren't just theories after all?" Martha pointed to The Doctor. "That man is not from our world, Tish. He's an alien! So was that creature in the vat."
Tish nodded slowly. "And that's what scares me out of my bloody mind, Martha. I take out the trash and then next thing I know I'm being sucked into the bin and I wake up on a staircase in front of this howling mass."
"I know it's a lot to take in-"
"You did not go through what I went through. You have no idea how I'm feeling right now!"
"No," Martha agreed. "I don't." She chanced a glance at The Doctor. "But we can talk about it." She moved to put an arm around Tish's shoulders, but the latter shrugged her off.
"No. No, don't touch me!" Tish threw up her arms and began to back away from both Martha and The Doctor. "Just stay away from me."
"He didn't do anything," Martha said. "He was trying to help. So was I!"
"He was trying to help?" Tish fired back. "Is that why you got so angry with him for not telling you about 'the copy,' whatever that meant?"
Martha deflated. "He was trying to save the world."
"But not necessarily me. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who brought that thing here in the first place."
"Tish, wait!" Martha cried as her sister began to walk out of the alley.
"Let her go," The Doctor said.
Martha stopped halfway between The Doctor and Tish. She watched Tish disappear from the alley and looked back to The Doctor. "Is she right? About you bringing the Consciousness here?"
"I followed them here."
"But back there," Martha frowned. "Back there you said something about a war…that you destroyed its world…and yours."
The Doctor nodded. "I had no choice."
"Is that so? Or is that just what helps you sleep at night?"
The Doctor clasped his hands and looked down. "I don't sleep much."
Martha's phone began to vibrate again. She looked at it conflictedly. "It's my mum this time."
"Better answer it then."
"I wasn't going to tell them," Martha confided. "But Tish…I don't know what she's going to do and I can't stop her from telling our family about you."
The Doctor nodded. "You'll both have to do whatever you feel is right."
Martha pursed her lips. "Is that what you did in the war?"
The Doctor was silent for a time, then he stepped back into his TARDIS and forced a smile onto his face. "Right then!" he said. "I guess I'll be off." He angled his head. "Unless…"
"Unless?"
"Unless…I don't know," he shrugged. "You could come with me? This box isn't just a London hopper you know, it goes anywhere in the universe, free of charge."
"What?" Martha smirked. "Even Pluto?"
"Oh," The Doctor scoffed. "You don't want to go to Pluto, it's not even a planet."
"Not a planet?"
"Well," The Doctor said, glancing down at his wrist as if he wore an invisible watch, "it won't be come next year. Spoiler alert."
"So it's not just a spaceship, but a time machine too?"
The Doctor winked. "How'd you guess?"
"'Spoiler alert,'" she said, mimicking his voice. "And Sumatra, the Titanic, JFK, and right now. I presume there're others. 'Sides, I've seen Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. It's like you copied them."
"Oi!" The Doctor barked. "John Wiggins copied me! Bloody Wiggins." He pushed open the other door. "So, you coming Martha Jones?"
"I never told you my last name."
"Time machine."
"So what else do you know about me then?"
"That you want to come with me. I can see it in your eyes."
"Do I?"
"You tell me."
Martha closed her eyes. "I can't."
"Why not?"
"Tish, for one. And the rest of my family, my exams…"
"Time machine," he reiterated.
Martha smiled sadly. "Semantics. You might be able to take me away for years and bring me back minutes after I left and nobody'll be the wiser. But I'll know. I will know that I left Tish after everything she's just been through; I will know I ignored my family when they called to make sure I was all right. I can't, Doctor. I'm sorry, but I can't. Maybe another time," she said halfheartedly.
The Doctor nodded. "I may just have to take you up on that."
Martha nodded without offering him anymore words. She watched as he ducked back into the TARDIS and shut the door, but the box didn't go anywhere. She suspected he was waiting for her to change her mind, but that wasn't going to happen, so she turned her back and took a few steps forward. She kept taking them until she'd found her way out of the alley and then she heard a whirring, whooshing sound and felt a breeze tickle the hairs on her neck. When the noise was gone, she waited a while, then ventured back down the alley to make sure the box was gone. As she suspected, the TARDIS was nowhere in sight. Martha quickly collected herself and left the alley in search of her sister.