Time To Mend
Who_Daily Link: < a href="http://persiflage-1.livejournal.com/296704.html">Time to Mend by < lj user=persiflage_1> (Characters: Eleventh Doctor, Amy, Alt-Ten, Martha, Rose | Rating: PG | Spoilers: S2 - S5)
Title: Time to Mend
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Eleventh Doctor, Amy, Alt-Ten, Martha, Rose
Rating: PG
Spoilers: S2 - S5
Summary: The Eleventh Doctor and Amy meet various former companions of Ten.
Warning: I'm not a Rose fan - don't expect me to treat her as the most special companion ever. All comments to this fic will be screened, and flames will be put out...
Disclaimer: I occasionally wish that I did own it!
Author Notes: The plot bunny for this story came from a report of a supposed sighting of a certain blonde on the set of S5 filming. Since we've yet to learn anything much about Amy or Eleven, this fic speculates heavily regarding their characters and their relationship to one another, and the adventures they'll share.
Betas: abstruse_fangrl and catholicphoton
~~~~~~
Inside an abbey, somewhere in southern England, a wheezing, groaning sound reverberated around a small room, and when the noise had abated, a large blue box had materialised where nothing had been before. The door of the self-proclaimed Police Public Call Box creaked open in a theatrical manner and two people stepped out: the first was a man who looked no older than 25, yet dressed like someone much older in a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches and a bow tie; the second was a red-haired young woman in grey leggings and a pale blue jumper. The young woman seemed to be a handful of years younger than her companion; her eyes betrayed curiosity and wonder, whereas his betrayed more experience than his youthful appearance implied.
"Where are we, Doctor?" she asked, looking about the room.
"Earth, somewhere," he answered; his head tilted to one side so that his floppy fringe fell into his eyes, and he brushed it aside with an impatient gesture, his long fingers flicking it back from his face.
"Judging by the faint scents in the air and the quality of the silence, I'd say we've landed in a religious building of some description, though why a spatiotemporal anomaly would be situated here, I don't know. I'm pretty sure it's not the Meddling Monk."
This last sentence was uttered in a quieter, regretful tone, and she glanced away quickly as if to spare him embarrassment.
"Well, then, Amy, shall we investigate?"
"Okay," she agreed easily.
They crossed the room together and had nearly reached the door when it was violently flung open, almost hitting the Doctor as it passed.
"Oh!" gasped the young woman who stood framed in the doorway.
The Doctor's usually mild expression hardened as he took in her appearance, and Amy looked from his face to the young woman's with a feeling of faint puzzlement at his abrupt change in manner.
"Rose," he growled. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm looking for the Doctor," Rose said. "My Doctor."
Her emphasis wasn't lost on the Doctor.
"As you can see, he's gone," the Time Lord said, his tone sternly uncompromising. "Why are you looking for him? I left you and my clone on Pete's World."
Rose snorted. "Him? Handy the Genocide? Did you, the other you, really think I'd make do with a poor imitation when I could 'ave the real thing with just a bit of effort?"
Amy shivered slightly when she saw anger flare in the Doctor's eyes. She wasn't entirely sure what or who they were talking about - in fact, she felt rather as if she had walked into a play in the middle of the second act - but she could easily see that Rose's answer had upset the Doctor. She paid closer attention to the woman daring to anger the Time Lord, and realised that the dyed blonde hair and thick mascara had misled her as to Rose's age: she was nearer thirty than twenty as Amy had first guessed.
"'A bit of effort'," repeated the Doctor, his anger obviously barely held in check. "Using the Dimension Cannon hardly constitutes a bit of effort. It's a very dangerous device which threatens to destroy the very fabric of Time and Space. No doubt it is the cause of the spatiotemporal anomaly that drew the TARDIS here."
"I don't care!" Rose shouted angrily. "I don't care! I love the Doctor, the other Doctor, and I want 'im back!" She began to sob loudly and Amy bit her lip, looking away in embarrassment at this noisy display of emotion.
"He can't come back," ground out the Doctor, "and he wasn't yours to own. You don't belong here any more." He reached out and grabbed her shoulders, giving her a slight shake to emphasise his point. "When are you going to accept that and stop behaving like a thoughtless, selfish brat?"
"Selfish?" gasped Rose. "Me, selfish? What about that clone of yours? He wouldn't help me with rebuilding the Cannon, and it wouldn't have taken him hardly any time. It took me two years to get it working again. And then he wouldn't come all the way back with me, started moaning on about 'is 'ead and lungs 'urting. I - "
"What?" shouted the Doctor, making both Amy and Rose jump. He shook Rose harder this time. "Where is he?"
Rose glared defiantly at him through her tears, apparently oblivious to the trails of mascara that now marked her face. "You care more about 'im than you do about me," she said accusingly.
"Of course I do, you stupid APE! He's my own flesh and blood! And you - well you're increasingly trying my patience. Which bit of 'destroy two universes' did you not understand on that beach that day?" he demanded, as he turned around and pulled her after him as he headed back to the TARDIS.
"I'm sorry, Amy," he said as she joined him by the door. "I'm going to have to deal with Rose and this whole sorry mess before we do anything else."
She nodded in response to his apologetic smile. "It's okay," she said softly, relieved to see some warmth back in his eyes. "I feel a bit lost, though."
"I know, and I will explain, I promise, but we need to move fast to sort this out. There's a lot at stake."
He frogmarched Rose up the ramp towards the console, ignoring her cry of shock when she saw the unfamiliar gleaming white interior that was so unlike the coral-themed one she had known.
He pushed her roughly towards the leather padded bench. "Sit," he commanded.
"I ain't a dog," Rose snapped.
"No, you're not. Dogs have more sense." As he turned his attention towards the console Amy thought she saw the ghost of a smirk, but she couldn't be sure.
The Doctor moved swiftly around the hexagonal console, and Amy watched, still as fascinated now as she had been on her first trip, by the way his long hands darted across the controls in a series of elegant movements whose precision reminded her of a famous pianist she had seen playing a Mozart piano concerto shortly before she'd begun travelling with the Doctor.
The TARDIS hummed into life, and she felt the familiar lurch of the ship leaving normal Time and Space as it dematerialised.
"Where are we going now?" Amy asked, conscious of the glare that Rose was directing at her back.
"Back to Pete's World, a parallel version of Earth, to take Rose back to her family," the Doctor answered, "and then we'll go in search of my clone." He didn't turn his attention away from the console screen as he spoke over his shoulder to Rose. "What name is my clone using?"
"Dr John Bowman," she answered in a sulky tone. "He was gonna call 'imself John Noble, but I wouldn't let 'im."
"Why?" asked the Doctor sharply.
"Think I wanted to be reminded of her every time I used 'is name?" she asked scornfully. "Bad enough 'e was such a girly bloke, anyway, always fussing with his clothes and wanting to talk about 'is feelings until I sent him to the Asylum, where 'e could talk about them all 'e wanted."
The Time Lord straightened up slowly, and Amy saw his hands curl into fists as he swallowed hard; she sensed that he was fighting not to lose his temper altogether.
"You did what?" he snarled, turning around to confront the blonde with a furious expression.
Amy saw Rose smirk in triumph and wondered how she dared to goad the Doctor; had she been in Rose's shoes, she would have been shaking with nerves.
"I sent 'im to a mental asylum," Rose repeated. "Pete paid for it, though 'e didn't know it." Her expression grew disdainful as she continued. "They kept him in there for two years until I decided I needed his help to get the Cannon working again. Not that 'e was much help in the end. Kept going on about how much the Doctor'd disapprove. In the end 'e only came with me 'cos he wanted to see Donna again. Don't see what's so special about gingers, though."
Amy bristled at the remark, but the Doctor shook his head minutely at her; she saw him blinking hard, a wealth of emotion in his eyes, and she thought of Professor River Song whom they'd met so recently: her red hair had blazed like fire in the sunlight of the planet where the Byzantium spaceship had crashed, and where the Doctor had found her helping the injured survivors. Afterwards, when he and Amy had been having tea in the TARDIS kitchen, he'd told her about his meeting with River in the great Library run by Cal, and about Donna, his previous red-haired companion, who'd been travelling with him at the time.
"Where did you leave John?" asked the Doctor, refusing to respond to Rose's provocative remark.
"I dunno, do I? Some hot red place - air tasted bad, and that's when he started complainin' about 'is lungs. He'd been moaning about his head for days before we left."
Amy saw a look of horror sweep over the Doctor's face, and he quickly began adjusting controls on the console. "What is it?" she asked softly.
"It may be a meta-crisis event that's causing him headaches," he answered quietly. "Although if he's been suffering them for days - " He broke off, and went back to the controls.
It seemed to Amy that the noise of the TARDIS' engines had taken on a more urgent note.
As if confirming her thought, the Doctor looked up. "Hold on tight," he said.
She grabbed one of the specially placed handholds on the console and tightened her grip as the TARDIS seemed to swoop through the Vortex, tilting alarmingly at one point.
There was a thump behind them; Amy glanced over to see Rose sprawled across the floor in an ungainly manner and she fought to suppress a smirk - she hadn't been happy with that 'gingers' remark.
* * * * * *
The TARDIS materialised with a noise like a groan. "I know, old girl, I know," the Doctor said, patting the cylindrical Time Rotor.
"Is everything okay?" Amy asked, releasing her grip on the handle and shaking her hand to loosen her muscles.
He nodded. "She doesn't much like coming here - this universe is inimical to her well-being." The Doctor turned and grabbed Rose's elbow in a tight grip.
"Ow!" she cried, trying to pull away before she realised that doing so was only hurting her even more. "I hate you!"
"Good. Perhaps you'll stay here, where you belong, from now onwards." He frogmarched her back down the ramp and out of the door, only letting her go once she was outside the ship.
Amy followed them and saw the Doctor dart across a large open room towards an oddly-shaped object near the far wall.
"Oi!" Rose shouted furiously as she saw him take out his sonic screwdriver. "What are you doin'?"
"Dismantling it, what do you think?" he spat, half glancing over his shoulder as she charged towards him. "No you don't!" He turned the sonic on Rose and she yelped, then fell over.
Amy hurried across the room to join him. "What did you do?" she asked, looking at the other woman, who was lying on the floor clutching her ankles and sobbing.
"Given her the equivalent of two sprained ankles. Don't worry, the effects will wear off within an hour. I just can't risk her getting in my way and trying to stop me."
He turned his attention back to his task, and Amy watched in amazement as the strange device began to shudder and creak.
"Come on!" He grabbed her hand and pulled her away, then grabbed Rose's elbow with his free hand and hauled her upright, ignoring her yell of fear and pain.
Moments later the device burst apart and bits of metal, bolts and springs pinged and bounced around the device until it lay in pieces on the floor.
The Doctor ran back across the room to a computer workstation and his fingers began flying over the keyboard in a blur. Amy rejoined him, curious about what he was doing, and in no mood to stay beside Rose, who was still sobbing.
He glanced up at her, and gave her a crooked smile around the sonic that was clamped between his lips.
"Are you deleting the data?" she asked.
He gave a vigorous nod, his attention focused back on the terminal. After a few minutes his fingers slowed, then stopped; he pulled the sonic from his mouth and fiddled with the buttons on the side, then pointed it at the terminal. There was a lot of whirring, then a click, and he straightened up looking very satisfied.
"There. No one will ever be able to rebuild the Dimension Cannon." He blew on the tip of the sonic theatrically, gave her a wink, then walked over to another terminal.
"Now what?" wondered Amy.
"Now I find out where the building's water supply is," he said quietly. "I'm going to make sure no one in Torchwood even remembers that there was such a thing as a Dimension Cannon. Then we'll make sure no one in London remembers, either."
She frowned. "How can you do that? And what's the water supply got to do with it?"
"I'm going to dose the water supply in the building and in central London with a drug that'll destroy everyone's memories of the Cannon."
Amy's eyebrows rose. "That's some drug," she said, "if you can target specific memories."
"Ah, no." He looked slightly regretful. "It'll wipe their memories of the last few days."
"Oh!" She bit her lip, a worried expression on her face. "Isn't that a bit - well, dangerous?" she suggested. "Suppose people forget really vital things?"
He looked up at her, flicking his fringe out of his face. "I suppose you have a point," he said. He sighed. "Okay, I'll just dose the Torchwood water supply, not the London one as well." He grinned. "That'll save us some valuable time, too. Come on."
He ran to the door in the far wall, ignoring the pile of debris he'd caused, and sonicked the door open, then he ran along a corridor to a bank of lifts. "Going up!" he exclaimed cheerfully.
Amy followed him into the lift, clutching the handrail when it shot upwards faster than she'd been expecting. "Why are you so angry at Rose?" she asked.
The Doctor sighed. "She's become reckless and irresponsible," he answered. "She has twice risked our universe and this parallel one by jumping through dimensions with that Cannon I destroyed, all because she wanted to find me. Well, not this me, I'm obviously not to her taste, but my previous incarnation. During an incident involving the Daleks a clone of me was created using regenerative energies, some of my tissue and DNA, and some of Donna's DNA." Amy pulled a face, only half understanding. "I'll explain it in more detail later. Anyway, I left the clone here in this parallel version of Earth, hoping that he would satisfy Rose's desire to spend the rest of her life with me. Clearly I misjudged her, and I fear I've done him a grave disservice. I need to find him and try to make amends for what my former self did."
He looked down at the floor, not meeting Amy's eyes. "I probably shouldn't have used the sonic on her, like I did, but I was - still am - very angry with her."
The lift arrived with a bump, the doors swooshing open noiselessly, and the Doctor hurried out and down the corridor with Amy close behind.
"Why is Rose so obsessed with staying with you?" she asked.
"When I first met her she had very little going for her: she didn't have much education, and she was in a dead-end job, living with her single mother, and although she had a boyfriend, she didn't really value him. I took her away from all of that, took her travelling through Time and Space, and she didn't want it to end. I suppose you could say I turned her head."
He opened a door and led the way up a flight of uncarpeted stairs lit by a bare bulb. They found themselves in a large space under the roof and the Doctor gave a squawk of delight when he saw the water tank; he hurried across, delving into the pocket of his jacket as he went. Amy followed more slowly, wondering at the mercurial changes in his mood, and watched as he undid the cover over the water tank, then poured a jarful of a fine white powder into the still water.
"There, that should do it," he said. "No more Dimension Cannon." He turned to Amy. "Right then, Miss Pond, are you ready to go in search of my clone?"
"Yes. What will you do when you find him, if he's ill, I mean."
"Take him to a good friend of mine who's a rather brilliant doctor," he answered, a soft smile appearing.
She noticed that his eyes had brightened. "Another travelling companion?" she suggested.
The Doctor nodded, then threaded his arm through hers. "I didn't mean for you to meet so many of my former companions all at once, and in such numbers," he said. "I hope you don't feel too overwhelmed."
Amy shook her head. "It's interesting," she said. "I'm not sure about Rose, but I liked Professor Song a lot. And seeing someone who looks like you used to do should be interesting. Who's the doctor friend?"
"Martha Jones," he said, a grin appearing. "You'll like her, I'm sure. She gets on well with everyone - it's a knack."
"A useful knack to have if you're a doctor, I'd have thought," Amy suggested, as they headed back down the stairs.
"Very. We met Shakespeare, Martha and I, and he fell head over heels for her." He laughed joyfully. "Martha wasn't so impressed, though, she told him his breath stank!"
"Really? She told the Bard that?" The Doctor nodded and she couldn't help giggling at the thought. "I think she sounds like fun."
"She is."
Shortly afterwards they were back aboard the TARDIS and the ship was in flight through the Vortex, tracking the Doctor's clone via a DNA sample he had stored in the Medical Bay. Rose had disappeared from the lab where they'd left her, and the Doctor, after checking she hadn't stowed aboard the TARDIS in their absence, had dismissed her.
"She's not important," he said, "my clone may be ill or injured or dying somewhere. We need to find him ASAP."
* * * * * *
As the TARDIS hurtled through the Time Vortex, following the faint traces of the cloned Doctor's DNA, the Time Lord explained to Amy in more detail the events which had led to the creation of the man now known as Dr John Bowman.
"To be honest, I half think I - he - deserved to get shot by that Dalek," he confessed, his long fingers wrapped around the large mug of tea he held. "Running towards Rose like that - " He shook his head. "I'm ashamed that I succumbed to such a bad movie cliché. And not allowing myself to fully regenerate was mostly vanity, although, given how much time and energy I need to recover from a regeneration, I suppose it's just as well that I didn't do it then, with the Daleks invading and shifting the Earth."
Amy shivered involuntarily. "Those things," she said. "I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life."
"Where were you when they moved the Earth?" asked the Doctor.
"At the Queen's Hall in Edinburgh," she answered. "There was to be a concert that evening featuring the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and I was there to help get things ready." She looked down into her mug, remembering. "Once we realised what had happened, the concert was cancelled, and I went home to see my dad."
"You said your mum died a few years ago," the Doctor recalled.
"Yeah, breast cancer." She pulled a face. "The really ironic thing is that she worked in a hospice for the terminally ill."
He lifted his hand and covered hers, squeezing her fingers. "I've often observed that those people who are most caring towards others take less care of themselves - they seem to feel that their needs are less important."
She gave a nod. "So, tell me the rest about Donna and your clone, please?"
He rubbed a hand over his face. "All right," he agreed, before plunging back into his narrative.
He'd just got to the point in the story where his tenth self and Donna had returned to the prime universe from Pete's World when something on the console began to emit an urgent beep.
The Doctor leapt up, giving Amy a grateful smile when she took his mug from him, and grabbed the edge of the console as he leaned in to look closely at the screen.
"This could be him," he said joyfully. "Oh, that looks bad."
"What?" asked Amy, getting up from the leather padded bench and approaching the console.
"The air out there is toxic," he said, giving her an anxious look. "If he is here, he may already be dead. You won't be able to go out there, and I'll have to be quick."
"But if the air's toxic - " she began worriedly.
"I've got a respiratory bypass system," he said, interrupting gently. "If the TARDIS can pinpoint his exact location I'll only have to be out there for a very brief time."
He began fiddling with the controls nearest to the screen. "I'm fine tuning the search parameters," he explained.
Amy watched the screen which showed a very barren rocky landscape that was an amazing red colour. "I thought it was Mars that was the 'Red Planet'?" she observed.
"That's what your astronomers nicknamed it," the Doctor agreed. "But this isn't Mars. You'd better hold on to something, I'm going to materialise as close to his location as possible."
Amy looked down at the empty mugs she still held and the Doctor smirked, then flipped a switch and something slid out of the edge of the console.
She gaped, and his smirk became a broad grin. "Cup holder," he said. "Don't worry, it's stronger than it looks."
She carefully placed the mugs into the two slots. "It looks a bit like the CD trays you see on some older PCs," she observed as she grasped the nearest handhold on the console.
He laughed. "You know, I've been wondering what it reminded me of ever since I first saw it."
The TARDIS began the dematerialisation sequence. "Right then, assuming the old girl's got her coordinates right, my clone should be no more than a few feet away from the ship." He gave her a serious look. "Please stay here, no matter what happens. The TARDIS will protect you while you remain inside, but it’s best if you keep your distance, okay?"
Amy nodded. "Okay." She bit her bottom lip. "Be careful."
He reached up and gave her shoulder a squeeze. "I promise." The ship settled down with a slight bump and the Time Rotor stopped moving.
Amy watched anxiously as he hurried down the ramp and opened both the doors, and she squinted against the fiery red light which beat down unmercifully outside. Once the Doctor was out of sight she switched her attention to the screen and watched him carefully picking his way over the rocks. After a few minutes he stopped, then knelt down; she couldn't see who or what he'd found, but after a little while he carefully got to his feet, carrying someone in a firemen's lift.
Amy waited anxiously as the Doctor made his way back to the ship, and the moment he was inside, she threw the switch to automatically shut the doors.
"Is he alive?" she blurted out.
"Barely," the Doctor gasped, sucking in the cleaner air of the TARDIS as he made his way up the ramp. "Can you come and give me a hand please?"
"Of course." She wasn't sure how much use her First Aid training would be, but she would rather try to help than simply hang about worrying.
They made their way to the Medical Bay with its almost bewildering array of advanced equipment, and she helped the Doctor to get the other man, John, onto the examination bed.
"Should he be that thin?" Amy asked worriedly.
"No. I was always skinny in that incarnation, but he's lost more weight. Rassilon knows how long he's been stranded here." He began removing John's jacket, which she now realised was actually blue underneath the heavy red dust that coated his clothes, hands, face and hair.
She began tugging the laces of his red Converse undone, thinking how strange it was that they would have matched her own were it not for their battered and worn state.
The Doctor gave her a half smile. "One of the first things I noticed about you, the day we met, was your lovely red hair, and your red Converse."
She gave him a smile in return, then shook her head slightly. "Are you going to undress him completely?" she asked, seeing the Doctor was undoing John's shirt buttons.
The Time Lord looked up, apparently surprised by the question. "Yes. I need to give him a full examination so I can tell Martha what state he's in and she can advise me what to do before we reach her."
"Then I'll wait outside, unless you need my help?"
He gave her a slightly puzzled look, then obviously realised what was bothering her. "No, I can manage for now, thanks."
She looked relieved as she hurried out into the corridor, her cheeks flushing almost as red as her hair.
The Doctor finished undressing John, who stirred and mumbled incomprehensibly for a moment as the Time Lord began hooking him up to various bits of equipment that were placed around the bed. The Doctor then dug into his inside pocket and pulled out the phone Martha had given his previous incarnation and quickly hit the speed dial number for her new number.
"Dr Martha Jones," came the familiar voice of his favourite doctor.
"Hello, Martha Jones," he said warmly, unable to stop himself from smiling.
"Hello, who's this?" she said cautiously.
Abruptly he remembered that she hadn't yet met this new incarnation. "Martha, it's me, the Doctor."
"You sound different," she said, slightly suspiciously.
"I've regenerated since we last met. I'm sorry to trouble you, but I need your expert medical assistance."
"Prove it."
"What?" he asked, thrown.
"Prove you're really the Doctor, and not some random bloke who's nicked his phone."
"Oh." While he appreciated Martha's caution, he hadn't actually expected an on-the-spot quiz. "I first met you in the Royal Hope Hospital. There was a platoon of Judoon upon the Moon, and you called me daft when I hopped about trying to get radiation into my shoe. And when I told you that I was a Time Lord, you said 'Right! Not pompous at all, then.' And - "
"All right," she said, interrupting him. "I'll believe you for now, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary. So, why do you need my help?"
"To cut a long story short, it's actually my clone who needs your help. He's in a really bad way."
"Where are you?" Martha asked, her tone of brisk professionalism giving him a strange surge of hope.
"I'm not sure, exactly," he answered. "But I can be with you in about half an hour, I reckon. Are you at UNIT HQ?"
"No, I'm at home. It's Saturday evening and I'm not on duty this weekend."
"Oh, I hope I'm not ruining your weekend plans," he said hastily.
"Don't be daft," Martha answered instantly. "If your clone needs my medical help then everything else can go hang. You'd better give me some specifics about his condition, so I know what to expect. Has he been injured?"
"Not really - he's got some cuts and bruises, but the main problems are dehydration, mild starvation, and respiratory problems owing to breathing toxic air for an unknown length of time."
"Good god! What on Earth - or off it - have you two been up to?" asked Martha, horrified. "Never mind, tell me once I've seen him for myself. You're going to need to set up an intravenous drip to rehydrate him and use an oxygen mask for the respiratory problems. We'll worry about the starvation later. What was in the toxic air, do you know?"
"It was CO2 rich," the Doctor answered.
"Definitely use an oxygen mask then," she said. "With the purest oxygen the TARDIS can supply."
"Okay. I'll be with you in about half an hour, then."
"I'll be waiting."
The Doctor ended the call, then covered John's lower body with a sheet before calling Amy in to help him set up the IV drip; he had to hunt for an oxygen mask and tank as it had been a long time since such a thing had been needed.
"Right, that's all we can do for him until Martha joins us, and with that in mind, I'd better get the TARDIS moving. The sooner Dr Jones is aboard, the happier I will feel."
"Shall I stay with him?" Amy asked shyly.
The Doctor stopped in the doorway. "If you like. I'm sure he can still hear you, even though he's unconscious." She nodded, and pulled a chair over to the bedside. "Thank you," he said softly before hurrying out."
* * * * * *
Half an hour after her phone had rung Martha Jones lifted her head from checking the contents of her medical bag, then zipped it closed as the TARDIS materialised in the front hall of her home. She shouldered the bag, then walked into the hall just as the door of the ship creaked open and a very young-looking man stepped out. She took in the bow tie, tweed jacket, pale blue shirt, black jeans and black boots with her head tilted to one side, and he self-consciously twirled around on the spot.
"How is it that the older you get, the younger you look?" she asked. "It's very discourteous of you."
He gave her a half amused, half remorseful look. "Genetics?" he suggested. Then his face crinkled into a pleased smile. "Hello, Martha Jones."
She gave him a smile. "Hello Doctor. Are you going to show me the patient?" she asked with a return to her more professional manner. "We can catch up later, yeah?"
He nodded and stepped back inside the ship, holding the door for her, which caused her to lift an eyebrow at him before she gaped in surprise at redesigned interior. She didn't break her stride, though, as she crossed the Control Room. "You've redecorated," she commented as the Doctor led her into the corridor towards the Med Bay.
"Yes." He pushed open the door for her, and she moved inside, then paused when the redhead beside the bed looked up and she realised it wasn't Donna, as she'd first thought.
She moved forwards, giving the younger woman a friendly smile. "Hi, I'm Martha Jones. You must be the Doctor's travelling companion."
"Amy Pond," she answered, smiling back.
Martha didn't miss the momentary relief in her eyes and she wondered at it, but didn't want to worry about it right now. "Has he regained consciousness at all?" she asked, nodding at the painfully thin man on the bed.
"No. I was talking to him so he'd know he wasn't alone any more." She flushed slightly as she added. "My mum always believed that it comforted her patients."
Martha noted the past tense, but didn't want to intrude. "Your mum was a doctor?" she asked instead.
Amy shook her head. "No, she worked in a hospice for the terminally ill."
"Brave woman," Martha answered as she took the younger woman's place at the bedside. "That's not a job to be undertaken lightly." She looked over at the Doctor who was standing near the door, a small, pleased smile on his face, and she wondered if he was remembering her first meeting with Donna.
"What name is your clone going by?"
"Rose said he calls himself Dr John Bowman," he answered.
She frowned at the harsh tone in his voice, then dismissed it as unimportant for the moment and focused, instead, on the clipboard which held readings from the various bits of equipment around the bed.
"Judging by these readings, the level of CO2 saturation in his lungs isn't too heavy - he'll live, but it remains to be seen whether his brain has been affected by the poisoning." She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Have you got a Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber aboard the TARDIS?"
"No, but I'm sure we could build one," the Doctor said.
"No offence, but we really don't have time. UNIT has access to one at the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, near Lord's Cricket Ground. If you can get us there, I'll give the staff a ring and arrange for us to use it."
"You can do that?" Amy asked, a mixture of surprise and respect in her tone.
Martha flashed her a smile. "RHIP. Rank hath its privileges," she clarified when she saw Amy's puzzled look. She pulled out her phone, then glanced at the Doctor.
"On my way," he said, hurrying out of the Med Bay.
She turned back to Amy. "Do you mind staying with John again while I make this phone call?"
"Of course not." She stepped aside to allow Martha to pass, then settled into the chair beside the bed.
When Martha and the Doctor returned to the Med Bay after a few minutes they discovered that John was shifting about restlessly on the bed. She hurried across the room and checked the monitors that were recording his vital signs, and almost jumped when John suddenly sat bolt upright with a yell that was muffled by the oxygen mask on his face.
Martha moved into his line of sight, and he gave her a confused and fearful look in which she saw no spark of recognition, before he began to scrabble desperately at the mask.
"Calm down," she said, catching hold of his hands and pulling them away to stop him from tearing off the mask. "It's okay, John. It's okay. It's me, Martha, and you're safe now."
The Doctor moved in beside her, clasping John's shoulders, and Martha carefully removed the mask since it seemed to be distressing him so much.
"Hey," she said gently, cupping his cheek in her right hand and turning his face so that he focused on her. "You're safe, Doctor, safe in the TARDIS, and with friends."
She felt the tension in his body easing in response to her soothing tone and touch, and saw the panic and confusion clearing from his eyes.
"Martha?" he asked, his voice a croaky whisper.
"That's right," she said calmly. "You trust me, don't you?" He gave a weak nod. "Then believe me when I tell you that it's best if you keep the oxygen mask on. You've been breathing air that's heavy in CO2 and you need the pure oxygen to clean your blood. We're taking you a London hospital that's equipped with a Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber, which will help even more, but it's best if you continue wearing the mask for now, okay?"
He gave her another weak nod, then croaked a word at her. "Water?"
She thought for a moment, then gave a brisk nod. "Yes, okay. But you'd better sip it, not slug it down."
Martha turned from him and found Amy already passing her a glass that was half full of water. "Thanks," she said.
"You're welcome."
Amy gave her a shy smile and Martha found herself hoping that the Doctor hadn't been talking up his earlier companions too much. Then she dismissed the thought and turned to offer the glass to John, holding it up to his mouth and helping him to take several sips. Then she fitted the oxygen mask back over his face, smiling reassuringly at him as she did so.
"It's okay," she told him. "I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere for a while yet."
John nodded and she squeezed his fingers, then stroked her thumb over his knuckles.
"Will he be okay?" the Doctor asked in a low voice as John's eyes closed.
"I think so, but he's going to have to take it easy for quite a while. He'll be weak and lacking in energy for some time. It'll be quite a long recovery period."
"Time is the one thing I can give him," the Doctor answered soberly. "Anyway, we've arrived."
John's eyes opened again and Martha saw anxiety in them. "It's okay," she told him. "We're going to make you better." She turned to the Time Lord. "Have you got some pyjamas for John to wear until we reach the HOC? The staff will give him a 100% cotton garment to wear in the Chamber, but he needs something to wear in the meantime."
The Doctor nodded. "I've still got the pyjamas I wore as John Smith, which I know will fit him. And there's a wheelchair in the storeroom down the corridor."
"Good."
Twenty minutes later, John was dressed in a familiar pair of red and blue striped pyjamas with a blue dressing gown over the top, and Martha was steering the wheelchair in which he sat. The Doctor opened both of the TARDIS doors so she could easily get the wheelchair outside, and then she showed her UNIT ID pass to the member of staff who'd come to meet the party.
"Why don't you and Amy go and explore, or have a meal, or something?" she suggested to the Doctor. "There's no real reason for you two to hang about here, and you know how rare quiet intervals are in your life."
Amy brightened at this suggestion, which the Doctor noticed. "All right," he agreed. "If you're sure you don't need me?"
"Go and have some fun," Martha said. "You and I will have time to catch up before I go home again, I promise." She smirked at him. "I don't need you."
He nodded sharply. "You never have," he said simply. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. "Thank you."
"Take care of yourselves," Martha said, watching as the Time Lord offered Amy his arm, then she turned her attention back to the task at hand, carefully wheeling John inside the building and through the corridors to the facility known as the London Diving Chamber. Within a short space of time the two of them were seated inside, both of them dressed in an all-in-one pure cotton garment that resembled a boiler suit.
"Try to sleep," Martha suggested to John as he leant back against the wall behind them.
He nodded, then closed his eyes, his hand in hers, and she found herself remembering those forty-five minutes aboard the SS Pentallian, when the Doctor had been so scared of the living sun possessing him. It had been the most unnerving forty-five minutes of her life, and even now she suppressed a shudder at the thought.
It's no good thinking about things like that, Martha chided herself. She closed her eyes, instead, and allowed herself to doze, knowing they'd be in the Chamber for at least two hours.
* * * * * *
Martha must have fallen asleep because she woke abruptly to someone calling her name, and the realisation that John seemed to be having a nightmare. She looked across at the viewing window and gave the technician outside a thumbs-up to indicate her thanks for being woken.
"John, John! Come on, John, wake up." She shook his shoulder and he started upright with an incoherent cry. "Shh, shh, it's okay," she said softly, holding him close. She rubbed at his back between his shoulder blades, murmuring soothing words until he stopped shaking and straightened up a bit.
"What were you dreaming about?" she asked.
"Being stranded on Estrela - that's where the Doctor found me, where Rose stranded me."
"Rose?" Martha asked, startled. "What do you mean, she stranded you there? Why isn't she here, travelling with the Doctor, and what happened to Donna, do you know?"
"I don't know about Donna," he said, his voice still husky. "Didn't you know the Doctor, the previous one, left me and Rose in Pete's World again, where she'd been living?"
"No!" she exclaimed. "Why?"
John heaved a deep sigh, then explained what had happened to him and Rose after Sarah Jane, Martha, Jack and Mickey had left the TARDIS. Then he went on to tell her about the two years he'd spent in a mental asylum at Rose's instigation, and explained that she had only got the staff to let him come home because she'd wanted his help with the Dimension Cannon since she had decided she no longer wanted to hang around with 'an imitation Doctor'.
Martha listened in silence, appalled by his story, not only because Rose had done those things, but because the Doctor had abandoned them on the parallel Earth.
"I really don't understand his reasoning," she said when John had finished his narrative. "Especially his anger at you for destroying Davros and the Daleks, when it's the very thing he attempted to do at the end of the Time War."
She rubbed a hand over her face, realising that she was getting quite tired. She was about to suggest to John that he try sleeping again when the technician used the intercom to let them know that their two hour session was up.
They made their way out of the chamber, through the 'airlock', and out into the main part of the room. Martha helped John back into the wheelchair and went with him so that the staff could assess his lungs and haemoglobin to see how much CO2 remained after the treatment.
Just as Martha was booking an appointment to bring John back the following day, Amy and the Doctor turned up, and after a short delay, during which time Martha helped John back into his pyjamas, they returned to the TARDIS.
* * * * * *
The next day, while John was sleeping aboard the TARDIS after his session at the London Diving Clinic, and Amy was out sight-seeing in London, Martha and the Doctor had a long conversation to catch up on each other's news.
"What happened to Donna?" she asked, after telling him about UNIT's latest projects as they sat in a clearing in the TARDIS arboretum. "I thought she'd still be with you: after all, as the DoctorDonna, she could stay with you forever, and I thought you'd be glad to have another Time Lord around, even if she wasn't a full Time Lord."
The Doctor sighed: he'd been expecting and dreading Martha's questions but, unlike his previous incarnation, he had no intention of trying to evade them.
"There's a good reason why there's never been a human-Time Lord meta-crisis before," he answered slowly, "and that's because it's unstable. The human brain isn't designed to hold a Time Lord mind: we've considerably more senses than you, for a start, and Donna's mind was being overwhelmed by mine. I had two choices - leave my mind in her brain, and watch her suffer as her brain was burned out by my mind, or take my mind from hers, which meant also taking her memories of her travels with me." He rubbed a weary hand over his face and when he spoke again Martha could hear that he was choking back tears. "I wiped her memory. She's safely at home with her granddad and her mum. She begged me not to do it, and I really didn't want to, but I couldn't leave her to suffer an agonising death. Wilf would never have forgiven me, nor would you, nor could I ever have forgiven myself."
Martha stared at him, aghast by what he was telling her: the thought of her brilliant, caring and fun-loving friend losing all her precious memories of the Doctor and her travels with him was painful. But looking at the heart-broken expression on the Doctor's face, she knew that he was right, that she would have been angry with him had he just let Donna die.
"I'm sorry," she said softly, holding out her arms and wrapping him in a hug; he clung to her tightly and she was surprised to realise this was their first hug since he'd regenerated.
They simply held each other for several minutes, both of them remembering Donna.
"Why wasn't John also affected by the same problem?" she asked after a while.
The Doctor straightened up, surreptitiously rubbing at his eyes, which Martha pretended not to notice.
"Because John's a pure hybrid - he was created from my tissue and DNA, Donna's DNA, and my regeneration energy. Although he's mostly human, he's got a Time Lord mind, but his brain was created to hold that mind, so his brain isn't in danger as Donna's was." He gave her a wan smile. "I was worried, when we picked him up, that he might be suffering a meta-crisis event because Rose had said he was complaining of headaches, but I think it's more likely a side effect of the dehydration he was suffering caused by jumping between the dimensions."
"The dehydration's contributed to John's severe weight loss, as well," Martha observed.
The Doctor nodded. "It's going to take him a while to recuperate, isn't it?"
"Weeks, or even months," she said soberly.
"Will you stay, to look after him, I mean? Please? I don't think he entirely trusts me - and I really can't blame him for that after the way my previous incarnation behaved." He looked down at his boots. "I know I'm asking a lot of you - and that you owe me nothing - but I think John deserves the best, and you're the best person I know to look after him." He looked up and gave her a crooked smile. "He trusts you, just as I trusted you."
"Why did your previous incarnation insist on Rose returning to Pete's World, and why did you send John with her?" asked Martha.
He looked away, clearly ashamed. "I got over Rose," he said, "although she clearly never got over me. I thought that if John went with her, she'd accept him, particularly because he's human, so he could spend the rest of his life with her, and she with him. I imagined them growing old together, and being happy. And I took them back to Pete's World because Jackie was going back there, and I knew she'd rather have Rose there than here."
"You got over Rose?" Martha asked disbelievingly.
He nodded, still avoiding her eyes. "Between you and Donna, yes."
"You might have said," she said sharply.
The Doctor looked up. "By the time I realised, after Rose had come back, I felt it wasn't really important - you were engaged to Tom, so you had clearly got over your feelings for me. I thought we could go on being good friends."
"Sometimes I'm reminded sharply of just how alien you are," Martha observed. She gave him a thoughtful look and he felt it best to simply wait silently for her to answer his request.
"Very well. I'll stay and look after John - though that's more for your sake, than his. But I've got two conditions."
"What are they?"
"You have me back home by no later than 9 pm tonight. And you give John the choice of what to do or where to go once he's recovered."
"I accept your terms, Dr Jones," he said, his tone oddly formal. Then he grinned hugely and hugged her. "Thank you."
"I expect you and Amy will continue your travels, yeah? Think of John and I as house guests. There's more than enough to do in the TARDIS when I'm not looking after John - he's going to need to get plenty of rest initially."
"Okay." He got to his feet and held out a hand. "Shall we go and see if John's awake yet, and let him know?"
Martha let him pull her to her feet, then stood holding his hand, looking him up and down. "This new incarnation's a good deal quieter than the last," she observed, smirking.
He nodded. "My personality changes each time my face does, but I'm still the same man underneath." He gave her another hug. "I still know you're good," he said quietly in her ear.
She laughed. "Thanks."
* * * * * *
When they entered the Med Bay John was lying awake, staring at the ceiling, although his eyes found Martha's the moment he realised she was there.
"How are you feeling?" she asked, coming to stand beside his bed. She took his wrist in her hand to measure his pulse and he summoned a smile.
"All the better for you holding my hand," he said.
Martha rolled her eyes a little, but she smiled almost immediately afterwards. "I'm going to be doing that a lot - more metaphorically, than literally," she told him. "I've agreed to stay aboard the TARDIS to look after you until you've fully recovered."
"You don't have to do that," he said instantly.
She bent forward to look into his eyes. "I want to," she said softly. "Besides, do you really want the Doctor to look after you?" Her tone was light and teasing, but her smile disappeared when she saw a flash of panic in his eyes.
"I'd rather you stayed," John answered.
"That's settled then. The Doctor and Amy are going to continue their travels, while you and I remain here. There's plenty for me to do or explore while you're sleeping, which you'll do a fair bit of initially. And when you're up and about we can use the Library, or the swimming pool, or go for a walk in the arboretum."
"Thank you," he whispered. He grasped her hand in his and she squeezed his fingers, smiling reassuringly at him.
* * * * * *
It took six weeks for John to recover fully from the carbon monoxide poisoning and dehydration that he'd suffered while jumping through the Dimensions, but after that Martha declared him fit to do whatever he chose.
Martha had lunch with him, the Doctor and Amy for one last time aboard the TARDIS before the Time Lord took her back home for the day after he'd first picked her up.
"Have you decided what you want to do next?" the Doctor asked John. "You know you'd be welcome to travel with me and Amy if you wanted."
John shook his head. "Thank you, but I'd like to settle on Earth," he said. "Find a job and somewhere to live, and put down some roots." He pushed his food around on his plate for a moment before he spoke again. "If it's okay, I'd like to go with Martha."
He darted a glance up at her face, aware that he was springing this on her. To his relief she smiled.
"Of course," she said. "I've got plenty of space at my place - and with Tom away more often than he's home, I'll be glad of the company until you find your feet."
"You're married?" Amy said, clearly surprised. Then she blushed. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, it's just that you've never said."
Martha smiled, more amused than offended. "Yeah. I married a doctor who's away a lot. I think that pretty much sums up how bad I am at the whole romantic thing. Anyway his name's Tom Milligan and he works overseas, mostly in South Africa with the Doctors Without Borders organisation. He's a paediatrician and as you can imagine, there's a lot of call for a man with his skills."
"You've not thought of going out there with him?" the Doctor asked.
She blinked, surprised by the question. "No, my work is with UNIT." She turned to John. "So yes, I'd be happy to help you get settled in London. And I daresay UNIT would snap you up, if you're interested in working for them - they could make good use of your knowledge, skills and experience."
"Thank you."
After lunch the Doctor led his three friends into the Control Room and took the TARDIS back to London. He shook hands with John, and hugged Martha, then waited while she and John said their farewells to Amy.
"Don't forget, I'm only a phone call away, Dr Jones," he said as Martha and John stepped out of the ship.
"As am I," she answered, giving him another hug. "Look after yourself, and Amy, won't you?"
"I will, I promise." The Doctor stepped back into his ship and after a few moments the TARDIS dematerialised.
Martha turned to John. "Let me show you the guest room," she suggested. "And then, if you've got the energy, we'll go shopping and get you some clothes. You can't live in that blue suit forever."
John nodded, then followed her upstairs. He felt that he would settle down in this universe as he had never managed to do in Pete's World. He knew he could trust Martha to help him, unlike Rose, whom he'd never really felt had his best interests at heart.
Martha opened the door to the guest room and gestured for him to go inside. "Welcome to your new home."
"Thank you." He walked across to the window, to look out at the view, and when she joined him, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
"Earth hath not anything to show more fair," he said, then smiled when she wrapped an arm around his waist. "I'm home."
Title: Time to Mend
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Eleventh Doctor, Amy, Alt-Ten, Martha, Rose
Rating: PG
Spoilers: S2 - S5
Summary: The Eleventh Doctor and Amy meet various former companions of Ten.
Warning: I'm not a Rose fan - don't expect me to treat her as the most special companion ever. All comments to this fic will be screened, and flames will be put out...
Disclaimer: I occasionally wish that I did own it!
Author Notes: The plot bunny for this story came from a report of a supposed sighting of a certain blonde on the set of S5 filming. Since we've yet to learn anything much about Amy or Eleven, this fic speculates heavily regarding their characters and their relationship to one another, and the adventures they'll share.
Betas: abstruse_fangrl and catholicphoton
~~~~~~
Inside an abbey, somewhere in southern England, a wheezing, groaning sound reverberated around a small room, and when the noise had abated, a large blue box had materialised where nothing had been before. The door of the self-proclaimed Police Public Call Box creaked open in a theatrical manner and two people stepped out: the first was a man who looked no older than 25, yet dressed like someone much older in a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches and a bow tie; the second was a red-haired young woman in grey leggings and a pale blue jumper. The young woman seemed to be a handful of years younger than her companion; her eyes betrayed curiosity and wonder, whereas his betrayed more experience than his youthful appearance implied.
"Where are we, Doctor?" she asked, looking about the room.
"Earth, somewhere," he answered; his head tilted to one side so that his floppy fringe fell into his eyes, and he brushed it aside with an impatient gesture, his long fingers flicking it back from his face.
"Judging by the faint scents in the air and the quality of the silence, I'd say we've landed in a religious building of some description, though why a spatiotemporal anomaly would be situated here, I don't know. I'm pretty sure it's not the Meddling Monk."
This last sentence was uttered in a quieter, regretful tone, and she glanced away quickly as if to spare him embarrassment.
"Well, then, Amy, shall we investigate?"
"Okay," she agreed easily.
They crossed the room together and had nearly reached the door when it was violently flung open, almost hitting the Doctor as it passed.
"Oh!" gasped the young woman who stood framed in the doorway.
The Doctor's usually mild expression hardened as he took in her appearance, and Amy looked from his face to the young woman's with a feeling of faint puzzlement at his abrupt change in manner.
"Rose," he growled. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm looking for the Doctor," Rose said. "My Doctor."
Her emphasis wasn't lost on the Doctor.
"As you can see, he's gone," the Time Lord said, his tone sternly uncompromising. "Why are you looking for him? I left you and my clone on Pete's World."
Rose snorted. "Him? Handy the Genocide? Did you, the other you, really think I'd make do with a poor imitation when I could 'ave the real thing with just a bit of effort?"
Amy shivered slightly when she saw anger flare in the Doctor's eyes. She wasn't entirely sure what or who they were talking about - in fact, she felt rather as if she had walked into a play in the middle of the second act - but she could easily see that Rose's answer had upset the Doctor. She paid closer attention to the woman daring to anger the Time Lord, and realised that the dyed blonde hair and thick mascara had misled her as to Rose's age: she was nearer thirty than twenty as Amy had first guessed.
"'A bit of effort'," repeated the Doctor, his anger obviously barely held in check. "Using the Dimension Cannon hardly constitutes a bit of effort. It's a very dangerous device which threatens to destroy the very fabric of Time and Space. No doubt it is the cause of the spatiotemporal anomaly that drew the TARDIS here."
"I don't care!" Rose shouted angrily. "I don't care! I love the Doctor, the other Doctor, and I want 'im back!" She began to sob loudly and Amy bit her lip, looking away in embarrassment at this noisy display of emotion.
"He can't come back," ground out the Doctor, "and he wasn't yours to own. You don't belong here any more." He reached out and grabbed her shoulders, giving her a slight shake to emphasise his point. "When are you going to accept that and stop behaving like a thoughtless, selfish brat?"
"Selfish?" gasped Rose. "Me, selfish? What about that clone of yours? He wouldn't help me with rebuilding the Cannon, and it wouldn't have taken him hardly any time. It took me two years to get it working again. And then he wouldn't come all the way back with me, started moaning on about 'is 'ead and lungs 'urting. I - "
"What?" shouted the Doctor, making both Amy and Rose jump. He shook Rose harder this time. "Where is he?"
Rose glared defiantly at him through her tears, apparently oblivious to the trails of mascara that now marked her face. "You care more about 'im than you do about me," she said accusingly.
"Of course I do, you stupid APE! He's my own flesh and blood! And you - well you're increasingly trying my patience. Which bit of 'destroy two universes' did you not understand on that beach that day?" he demanded, as he turned around and pulled her after him as he headed back to the TARDIS.
"I'm sorry, Amy," he said as she joined him by the door. "I'm going to have to deal with Rose and this whole sorry mess before we do anything else."
She nodded in response to his apologetic smile. "It's okay," she said softly, relieved to see some warmth back in his eyes. "I feel a bit lost, though."
"I know, and I will explain, I promise, but we need to move fast to sort this out. There's a lot at stake."
He frogmarched Rose up the ramp towards the console, ignoring her cry of shock when she saw the unfamiliar gleaming white interior that was so unlike the coral-themed one she had known.
He pushed her roughly towards the leather padded bench. "Sit," he commanded.
"I ain't a dog," Rose snapped.
"No, you're not. Dogs have more sense." As he turned his attention towards the console Amy thought she saw the ghost of a smirk, but she couldn't be sure.
The Doctor moved swiftly around the hexagonal console, and Amy watched, still as fascinated now as she had been on her first trip, by the way his long hands darted across the controls in a series of elegant movements whose precision reminded her of a famous pianist she had seen playing a Mozart piano concerto shortly before she'd begun travelling with the Doctor.
The TARDIS hummed into life, and she felt the familiar lurch of the ship leaving normal Time and Space as it dematerialised.
"Where are we going now?" Amy asked, conscious of the glare that Rose was directing at her back.
"Back to Pete's World, a parallel version of Earth, to take Rose back to her family," the Doctor answered, "and then we'll go in search of my clone." He didn't turn his attention away from the console screen as he spoke over his shoulder to Rose. "What name is my clone using?"
"Dr John Bowman," she answered in a sulky tone. "He was gonna call 'imself John Noble, but I wouldn't let 'im."
"Why?" asked the Doctor sharply.
"Think I wanted to be reminded of her every time I used 'is name?" she asked scornfully. "Bad enough 'e was such a girly bloke, anyway, always fussing with his clothes and wanting to talk about 'is feelings until I sent him to the Asylum, where 'e could talk about them all 'e wanted."
The Time Lord straightened up slowly, and Amy saw his hands curl into fists as he swallowed hard; she sensed that he was fighting not to lose his temper altogether.
"You did what?" he snarled, turning around to confront the blonde with a furious expression.
Amy saw Rose smirk in triumph and wondered how she dared to goad the Doctor; had she been in Rose's shoes, she would have been shaking with nerves.
"I sent 'im to a mental asylum," Rose repeated. "Pete paid for it, though 'e didn't know it." Her expression grew disdainful as she continued. "They kept him in there for two years until I decided I needed his help to get the Cannon working again. Not that 'e was much help in the end. Kept going on about how much the Doctor'd disapprove. In the end 'e only came with me 'cos he wanted to see Donna again. Don't see what's so special about gingers, though."
Amy bristled at the remark, but the Doctor shook his head minutely at her; she saw him blinking hard, a wealth of emotion in his eyes, and she thought of Professor River Song whom they'd met so recently: her red hair had blazed like fire in the sunlight of the planet where the Byzantium spaceship had crashed, and where the Doctor had found her helping the injured survivors. Afterwards, when he and Amy had been having tea in the TARDIS kitchen, he'd told her about his meeting with River in the great Library run by Cal, and about Donna, his previous red-haired companion, who'd been travelling with him at the time.
"Where did you leave John?" asked the Doctor, refusing to respond to Rose's provocative remark.
"I dunno, do I? Some hot red place - air tasted bad, and that's when he started complainin' about 'is lungs. He'd been moaning about his head for days before we left."
Amy saw a look of horror sweep over the Doctor's face, and he quickly began adjusting controls on the console. "What is it?" she asked softly.
"It may be a meta-crisis event that's causing him headaches," he answered quietly. "Although if he's been suffering them for days - " He broke off, and went back to the controls.
It seemed to Amy that the noise of the TARDIS' engines had taken on a more urgent note.
As if confirming her thought, the Doctor looked up. "Hold on tight," he said.
She grabbed one of the specially placed handholds on the console and tightened her grip as the TARDIS seemed to swoop through the Vortex, tilting alarmingly at one point.
There was a thump behind them; Amy glanced over to see Rose sprawled across the floor in an ungainly manner and she fought to suppress a smirk - she hadn't been happy with that 'gingers' remark.
* * * * * *
The TARDIS materialised with a noise like a groan. "I know, old girl, I know," the Doctor said, patting the cylindrical Time Rotor.
"Is everything okay?" Amy asked, releasing her grip on the handle and shaking her hand to loosen her muscles.
He nodded. "She doesn't much like coming here - this universe is inimical to her well-being." The Doctor turned and grabbed Rose's elbow in a tight grip.
"Ow!" she cried, trying to pull away before she realised that doing so was only hurting her even more. "I hate you!"
"Good. Perhaps you'll stay here, where you belong, from now onwards." He frogmarched her back down the ramp and out of the door, only letting her go once she was outside the ship.
Amy followed them and saw the Doctor dart across a large open room towards an oddly-shaped object near the far wall.
"Oi!" Rose shouted furiously as she saw him take out his sonic screwdriver. "What are you doin'?"
"Dismantling it, what do you think?" he spat, half glancing over his shoulder as she charged towards him. "No you don't!" He turned the sonic on Rose and she yelped, then fell over.
Amy hurried across the room to join him. "What did you do?" she asked, looking at the other woman, who was lying on the floor clutching her ankles and sobbing.
"Given her the equivalent of two sprained ankles. Don't worry, the effects will wear off within an hour. I just can't risk her getting in my way and trying to stop me."
He turned his attention back to his task, and Amy watched in amazement as the strange device began to shudder and creak.
"Come on!" He grabbed her hand and pulled her away, then grabbed Rose's elbow with his free hand and hauled her upright, ignoring her yell of fear and pain.
Moments later the device burst apart and bits of metal, bolts and springs pinged and bounced around the device until it lay in pieces on the floor.
The Doctor ran back across the room to a computer workstation and his fingers began flying over the keyboard in a blur. Amy rejoined him, curious about what he was doing, and in no mood to stay beside Rose, who was still sobbing.
He glanced up at her, and gave her a crooked smile around the sonic that was clamped between his lips.
"Are you deleting the data?" she asked.
He gave a vigorous nod, his attention focused back on the terminal. After a few minutes his fingers slowed, then stopped; he pulled the sonic from his mouth and fiddled with the buttons on the side, then pointed it at the terminal. There was a lot of whirring, then a click, and he straightened up looking very satisfied.
"There. No one will ever be able to rebuild the Dimension Cannon." He blew on the tip of the sonic theatrically, gave her a wink, then walked over to another terminal.
"Now what?" wondered Amy.
"Now I find out where the building's water supply is," he said quietly. "I'm going to make sure no one in Torchwood even remembers that there was such a thing as a Dimension Cannon. Then we'll make sure no one in London remembers, either."
She frowned. "How can you do that? And what's the water supply got to do with it?"
"I'm going to dose the water supply in the building and in central London with a drug that'll destroy everyone's memories of the Cannon."
Amy's eyebrows rose. "That's some drug," she said, "if you can target specific memories."
"Ah, no." He looked slightly regretful. "It'll wipe their memories of the last few days."
"Oh!" She bit her lip, a worried expression on her face. "Isn't that a bit - well, dangerous?" she suggested. "Suppose people forget really vital things?"
He looked up at her, flicking his fringe out of his face. "I suppose you have a point," he said. He sighed. "Okay, I'll just dose the Torchwood water supply, not the London one as well." He grinned. "That'll save us some valuable time, too. Come on."
He ran to the door in the far wall, ignoring the pile of debris he'd caused, and sonicked the door open, then he ran along a corridor to a bank of lifts. "Going up!" he exclaimed cheerfully.
Amy followed him into the lift, clutching the handrail when it shot upwards faster than she'd been expecting. "Why are you so angry at Rose?" she asked.
The Doctor sighed. "She's become reckless and irresponsible," he answered. "She has twice risked our universe and this parallel one by jumping through dimensions with that Cannon I destroyed, all because she wanted to find me. Well, not this me, I'm obviously not to her taste, but my previous incarnation. During an incident involving the Daleks a clone of me was created using regenerative energies, some of my tissue and DNA, and some of Donna's DNA." Amy pulled a face, only half understanding. "I'll explain it in more detail later. Anyway, I left the clone here in this parallel version of Earth, hoping that he would satisfy Rose's desire to spend the rest of her life with me. Clearly I misjudged her, and I fear I've done him a grave disservice. I need to find him and try to make amends for what my former self did."
He looked down at the floor, not meeting Amy's eyes. "I probably shouldn't have used the sonic on her, like I did, but I was - still am - very angry with her."
The lift arrived with a bump, the doors swooshing open noiselessly, and the Doctor hurried out and down the corridor with Amy close behind.
"Why is Rose so obsessed with staying with you?" she asked.
"When I first met her she had very little going for her: she didn't have much education, and she was in a dead-end job, living with her single mother, and although she had a boyfriend, she didn't really value him. I took her away from all of that, took her travelling through Time and Space, and she didn't want it to end. I suppose you could say I turned her head."
He opened a door and led the way up a flight of uncarpeted stairs lit by a bare bulb. They found themselves in a large space under the roof and the Doctor gave a squawk of delight when he saw the water tank; he hurried across, delving into the pocket of his jacket as he went. Amy followed more slowly, wondering at the mercurial changes in his mood, and watched as he undid the cover over the water tank, then poured a jarful of a fine white powder into the still water.
"There, that should do it," he said. "No more Dimension Cannon." He turned to Amy. "Right then, Miss Pond, are you ready to go in search of my clone?"
"Yes. What will you do when you find him, if he's ill, I mean."
"Take him to a good friend of mine who's a rather brilliant doctor," he answered, a soft smile appearing.
She noticed that his eyes had brightened. "Another travelling companion?" she suggested.
The Doctor nodded, then threaded his arm through hers. "I didn't mean for you to meet so many of my former companions all at once, and in such numbers," he said. "I hope you don't feel too overwhelmed."
Amy shook her head. "It's interesting," she said. "I'm not sure about Rose, but I liked Professor Song a lot. And seeing someone who looks like you used to do should be interesting. Who's the doctor friend?"
"Martha Jones," he said, a grin appearing. "You'll like her, I'm sure. She gets on well with everyone - it's a knack."
"A useful knack to have if you're a doctor, I'd have thought," Amy suggested, as they headed back down the stairs.
"Very. We met Shakespeare, Martha and I, and he fell head over heels for her." He laughed joyfully. "Martha wasn't so impressed, though, she told him his breath stank!"
"Really? She told the Bard that?" The Doctor nodded and she couldn't help giggling at the thought. "I think she sounds like fun."
"She is."
Shortly afterwards they were back aboard the TARDIS and the ship was in flight through the Vortex, tracking the Doctor's clone via a DNA sample he had stored in the Medical Bay. Rose had disappeared from the lab where they'd left her, and the Doctor, after checking she hadn't stowed aboard the TARDIS in their absence, had dismissed her.
"She's not important," he said, "my clone may be ill or injured or dying somewhere. We need to find him ASAP."
* * * * * *
As the TARDIS hurtled through the Time Vortex, following the faint traces of the cloned Doctor's DNA, the Time Lord explained to Amy in more detail the events which had led to the creation of the man now known as Dr John Bowman.
"To be honest, I half think I - he - deserved to get shot by that Dalek," he confessed, his long fingers wrapped around the large mug of tea he held. "Running towards Rose like that - " He shook his head. "I'm ashamed that I succumbed to such a bad movie cliché. And not allowing myself to fully regenerate was mostly vanity, although, given how much time and energy I need to recover from a regeneration, I suppose it's just as well that I didn't do it then, with the Daleks invading and shifting the Earth."
Amy shivered involuntarily. "Those things," she said. "I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life."
"Where were you when they moved the Earth?" asked the Doctor.
"At the Queen's Hall in Edinburgh," she answered. "There was to be a concert that evening featuring the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and I was there to help get things ready." She looked down into her mug, remembering. "Once we realised what had happened, the concert was cancelled, and I went home to see my dad."
"You said your mum died a few years ago," the Doctor recalled.
"Yeah, breast cancer." She pulled a face. "The really ironic thing is that she worked in a hospice for the terminally ill."
He lifted his hand and covered hers, squeezing her fingers. "I've often observed that those people who are most caring towards others take less care of themselves - they seem to feel that their needs are less important."
She gave a nod. "So, tell me the rest about Donna and your clone, please?"
He rubbed a hand over his face. "All right," he agreed, before plunging back into his narrative.
He'd just got to the point in the story where his tenth self and Donna had returned to the prime universe from Pete's World when something on the console began to emit an urgent beep.
The Doctor leapt up, giving Amy a grateful smile when she took his mug from him, and grabbed the edge of the console as he leaned in to look closely at the screen.
"This could be him," he said joyfully. "Oh, that looks bad."
"What?" asked Amy, getting up from the leather padded bench and approaching the console.
"The air out there is toxic," he said, giving her an anxious look. "If he is here, he may already be dead. You won't be able to go out there, and I'll have to be quick."
"But if the air's toxic - " she began worriedly.
"I've got a respiratory bypass system," he said, interrupting gently. "If the TARDIS can pinpoint his exact location I'll only have to be out there for a very brief time."
He began fiddling with the controls nearest to the screen. "I'm fine tuning the search parameters," he explained.
Amy watched the screen which showed a very barren rocky landscape that was an amazing red colour. "I thought it was Mars that was the 'Red Planet'?" she observed.
"That's what your astronomers nicknamed it," the Doctor agreed. "But this isn't Mars. You'd better hold on to something, I'm going to materialise as close to his location as possible."
Amy looked down at the empty mugs she still held and the Doctor smirked, then flipped a switch and something slid out of the edge of the console.
She gaped, and his smirk became a broad grin. "Cup holder," he said. "Don't worry, it's stronger than it looks."
She carefully placed the mugs into the two slots. "It looks a bit like the CD trays you see on some older PCs," she observed as she grasped the nearest handhold on the console.
He laughed. "You know, I've been wondering what it reminded me of ever since I first saw it."
The TARDIS began the dematerialisation sequence. "Right then, assuming the old girl's got her coordinates right, my clone should be no more than a few feet away from the ship." He gave her a serious look. "Please stay here, no matter what happens. The TARDIS will protect you while you remain inside, but it’s best if you keep your distance, okay?"
Amy nodded. "Okay." She bit her bottom lip. "Be careful."
He reached up and gave her shoulder a squeeze. "I promise." The ship settled down with a slight bump and the Time Rotor stopped moving.
Amy watched anxiously as he hurried down the ramp and opened both the doors, and she squinted against the fiery red light which beat down unmercifully outside. Once the Doctor was out of sight she switched her attention to the screen and watched him carefully picking his way over the rocks. After a few minutes he stopped, then knelt down; she couldn't see who or what he'd found, but after a little while he carefully got to his feet, carrying someone in a firemen's lift.
Amy waited anxiously as the Doctor made his way back to the ship, and the moment he was inside, she threw the switch to automatically shut the doors.
"Is he alive?" she blurted out.
"Barely," the Doctor gasped, sucking in the cleaner air of the TARDIS as he made his way up the ramp. "Can you come and give me a hand please?"
"Of course." She wasn't sure how much use her First Aid training would be, but she would rather try to help than simply hang about worrying.
They made their way to the Medical Bay with its almost bewildering array of advanced equipment, and she helped the Doctor to get the other man, John, onto the examination bed.
"Should he be that thin?" Amy asked worriedly.
"No. I was always skinny in that incarnation, but he's lost more weight. Rassilon knows how long he's been stranded here." He began removing John's jacket, which she now realised was actually blue underneath the heavy red dust that coated his clothes, hands, face and hair.
She began tugging the laces of his red Converse undone, thinking how strange it was that they would have matched her own were it not for their battered and worn state.
The Doctor gave her a half smile. "One of the first things I noticed about you, the day we met, was your lovely red hair, and your red Converse."
She gave him a smile in return, then shook her head slightly. "Are you going to undress him completely?" she asked, seeing the Doctor was undoing John's shirt buttons.
The Time Lord looked up, apparently surprised by the question. "Yes. I need to give him a full examination so I can tell Martha what state he's in and she can advise me what to do before we reach her."
"Then I'll wait outside, unless you need my help?"
He gave her a slightly puzzled look, then obviously realised what was bothering her. "No, I can manage for now, thanks."
She looked relieved as she hurried out into the corridor, her cheeks flushing almost as red as her hair.
The Doctor finished undressing John, who stirred and mumbled incomprehensibly for a moment as the Time Lord began hooking him up to various bits of equipment that were placed around the bed. The Doctor then dug into his inside pocket and pulled out the phone Martha had given his previous incarnation and quickly hit the speed dial number for her new number.
"Dr Martha Jones," came the familiar voice of his favourite doctor.
"Hello, Martha Jones," he said warmly, unable to stop himself from smiling.
"Hello, who's this?" she said cautiously.
Abruptly he remembered that she hadn't yet met this new incarnation. "Martha, it's me, the Doctor."
"You sound different," she said, slightly suspiciously.
"I've regenerated since we last met. I'm sorry to trouble you, but I need your expert medical assistance."
"Prove it."
"What?" he asked, thrown.
"Prove you're really the Doctor, and not some random bloke who's nicked his phone."
"Oh." While he appreciated Martha's caution, he hadn't actually expected an on-the-spot quiz. "I first met you in the Royal Hope Hospital. There was a platoon of Judoon upon the Moon, and you called me daft when I hopped about trying to get radiation into my shoe. And when I told you that I was a Time Lord, you said 'Right! Not pompous at all, then.' And - "
"All right," she said, interrupting him. "I'll believe you for now, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary. So, why do you need my help?"
"To cut a long story short, it's actually my clone who needs your help. He's in a really bad way."
"Where are you?" Martha asked, her tone of brisk professionalism giving him a strange surge of hope.
"I'm not sure, exactly," he answered. "But I can be with you in about half an hour, I reckon. Are you at UNIT HQ?"
"No, I'm at home. It's Saturday evening and I'm not on duty this weekend."
"Oh, I hope I'm not ruining your weekend plans," he said hastily.
"Don't be daft," Martha answered instantly. "If your clone needs my medical help then everything else can go hang. You'd better give me some specifics about his condition, so I know what to expect. Has he been injured?"
"Not really - he's got some cuts and bruises, but the main problems are dehydration, mild starvation, and respiratory problems owing to breathing toxic air for an unknown length of time."
"Good god! What on Earth - or off it - have you two been up to?" asked Martha, horrified. "Never mind, tell me once I've seen him for myself. You're going to need to set up an intravenous drip to rehydrate him and use an oxygen mask for the respiratory problems. We'll worry about the starvation later. What was in the toxic air, do you know?"
"It was CO2 rich," the Doctor answered.
"Definitely use an oxygen mask then," she said. "With the purest oxygen the TARDIS can supply."
"Okay. I'll be with you in about half an hour, then."
"I'll be waiting."
The Doctor ended the call, then covered John's lower body with a sheet before calling Amy in to help him set up the IV drip; he had to hunt for an oxygen mask and tank as it had been a long time since such a thing had been needed.
"Right, that's all we can do for him until Martha joins us, and with that in mind, I'd better get the TARDIS moving. The sooner Dr Jones is aboard, the happier I will feel."
"Shall I stay with him?" Amy asked shyly.
The Doctor stopped in the doorway. "If you like. I'm sure he can still hear you, even though he's unconscious." She nodded, and pulled a chair over to the bedside. "Thank you," he said softly before hurrying out."
* * * * * *
Half an hour after her phone had rung Martha Jones lifted her head from checking the contents of her medical bag, then zipped it closed as the TARDIS materialised in the front hall of her home. She shouldered the bag, then walked into the hall just as the door of the ship creaked open and a very young-looking man stepped out. She took in the bow tie, tweed jacket, pale blue shirt, black jeans and black boots with her head tilted to one side, and he self-consciously twirled around on the spot.
"How is it that the older you get, the younger you look?" she asked. "It's very discourteous of you."
He gave her a half amused, half remorseful look. "Genetics?" he suggested. Then his face crinkled into a pleased smile. "Hello, Martha Jones."
She gave him a smile. "Hello Doctor. Are you going to show me the patient?" she asked with a return to her more professional manner. "We can catch up later, yeah?"
He nodded and stepped back inside the ship, holding the door for her, which caused her to lift an eyebrow at him before she gaped in surprise at redesigned interior. She didn't break her stride, though, as she crossed the Control Room. "You've redecorated," she commented as the Doctor led her into the corridor towards the Med Bay.
"Yes." He pushed open the door for her, and she moved inside, then paused when the redhead beside the bed looked up and she realised it wasn't Donna, as she'd first thought.
She moved forwards, giving the younger woman a friendly smile. "Hi, I'm Martha Jones. You must be the Doctor's travelling companion."
"Amy Pond," she answered, smiling back.
Martha didn't miss the momentary relief in her eyes and she wondered at it, but didn't want to worry about it right now. "Has he regained consciousness at all?" she asked, nodding at the painfully thin man on the bed.
"No. I was talking to him so he'd know he wasn't alone any more." She flushed slightly as she added. "My mum always believed that it comforted her patients."
Martha noted the past tense, but didn't want to intrude. "Your mum was a doctor?" she asked instead.
Amy shook her head. "No, she worked in a hospice for the terminally ill."
"Brave woman," Martha answered as she took the younger woman's place at the bedside. "That's not a job to be undertaken lightly." She looked over at the Doctor who was standing near the door, a small, pleased smile on his face, and she wondered if he was remembering her first meeting with Donna.
"What name is your clone going by?"
"Rose said he calls himself Dr John Bowman," he answered.
She frowned at the harsh tone in his voice, then dismissed it as unimportant for the moment and focused, instead, on the clipboard which held readings from the various bits of equipment around the bed.
"Judging by these readings, the level of CO2 saturation in his lungs isn't too heavy - he'll live, but it remains to be seen whether his brain has been affected by the poisoning." She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Have you got a Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber aboard the TARDIS?"
"No, but I'm sure we could build one," the Doctor said.
"No offence, but we really don't have time. UNIT has access to one at the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, near Lord's Cricket Ground. If you can get us there, I'll give the staff a ring and arrange for us to use it."
"You can do that?" Amy asked, a mixture of surprise and respect in her tone.
Martha flashed her a smile. "RHIP. Rank hath its privileges," she clarified when she saw Amy's puzzled look. She pulled out her phone, then glanced at the Doctor.
"On my way," he said, hurrying out of the Med Bay.
She turned back to Amy. "Do you mind staying with John again while I make this phone call?"
"Of course not." She stepped aside to allow Martha to pass, then settled into the chair beside the bed.
When Martha and the Doctor returned to the Med Bay after a few minutes they discovered that John was shifting about restlessly on the bed. She hurried across the room and checked the monitors that were recording his vital signs, and almost jumped when John suddenly sat bolt upright with a yell that was muffled by the oxygen mask on his face.
Martha moved into his line of sight, and he gave her a confused and fearful look in which she saw no spark of recognition, before he began to scrabble desperately at the mask.
"Calm down," she said, catching hold of his hands and pulling them away to stop him from tearing off the mask. "It's okay, John. It's okay. It's me, Martha, and you're safe now."
The Doctor moved in beside her, clasping John's shoulders, and Martha carefully removed the mask since it seemed to be distressing him so much.
"Hey," she said gently, cupping his cheek in her right hand and turning his face so that he focused on her. "You're safe, Doctor, safe in the TARDIS, and with friends."
She felt the tension in his body easing in response to her soothing tone and touch, and saw the panic and confusion clearing from his eyes.
"Martha?" he asked, his voice a croaky whisper.
"That's right," she said calmly. "You trust me, don't you?" He gave a weak nod. "Then believe me when I tell you that it's best if you keep the oxygen mask on. You've been breathing air that's heavy in CO2 and you need the pure oxygen to clean your blood. We're taking you a London hospital that's equipped with a Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber, which will help even more, but it's best if you continue wearing the mask for now, okay?"
He gave her another weak nod, then croaked a word at her. "Water?"
She thought for a moment, then gave a brisk nod. "Yes, okay. But you'd better sip it, not slug it down."
Martha turned from him and found Amy already passing her a glass that was half full of water. "Thanks," she said.
"You're welcome."
Amy gave her a shy smile and Martha found herself hoping that the Doctor hadn't been talking up his earlier companions too much. Then she dismissed the thought and turned to offer the glass to John, holding it up to his mouth and helping him to take several sips. Then she fitted the oxygen mask back over his face, smiling reassuringly at him as she did so.
"It's okay," she told him. "I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere for a while yet."
John nodded and she squeezed his fingers, then stroked her thumb over his knuckles.
"Will he be okay?" the Doctor asked in a low voice as John's eyes closed.
"I think so, but he's going to have to take it easy for quite a while. He'll be weak and lacking in energy for some time. It'll be quite a long recovery period."
"Time is the one thing I can give him," the Doctor answered soberly. "Anyway, we've arrived."
John's eyes opened again and Martha saw anxiety in them. "It's okay," she told him. "We're going to make you better." She turned to the Time Lord. "Have you got some pyjamas for John to wear until we reach the HOC? The staff will give him a 100% cotton garment to wear in the Chamber, but he needs something to wear in the meantime."
The Doctor nodded. "I've still got the pyjamas I wore as John Smith, which I know will fit him. And there's a wheelchair in the storeroom down the corridor."
"Good."
Twenty minutes later, John was dressed in a familiar pair of red and blue striped pyjamas with a blue dressing gown over the top, and Martha was steering the wheelchair in which he sat. The Doctor opened both of the TARDIS doors so she could easily get the wheelchair outside, and then she showed her UNIT ID pass to the member of staff who'd come to meet the party.
"Why don't you and Amy go and explore, or have a meal, or something?" she suggested to the Doctor. "There's no real reason for you two to hang about here, and you know how rare quiet intervals are in your life."
Amy brightened at this suggestion, which the Doctor noticed. "All right," he agreed. "If you're sure you don't need me?"
"Go and have some fun," Martha said. "You and I will have time to catch up before I go home again, I promise." She smirked at him. "I don't need you."
He nodded sharply. "You never have," he said simply. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. "Thank you."
"Take care of yourselves," Martha said, watching as the Time Lord offered Amy his arm, then she turned her attention back to the task at hand, carefully wheeling John inside the building and through the corridors to the facility known as the London Diving Chamber. Within a short space of time the two of them were seated inside, both of them dressed in an all-in-one pure cotton garment that resembled a boiler suit.
"Try to sleep," Martha suggested to John as he leant back against the wall behind them.
He nodded, then closed his eyes, his hand in hers, and she found herself remembering those forty-five minutes aboard the SS Pentallian, when the Doctor had been so scared of the living sun possessing him. It had been the most unnerving forty-five minutes of her life, and even now she suppressed a shudder at the thought.
It's no good thinking about things like that, Martha chided herself. She closed her eyes, instead, and allowed herself to doze, knowing they'd be in the Chamber for at least two hours.
* * * * * *
Martha must have fallen asleep because she woke abruptly to someone calling her name, and the realisation that John seemed to be having a nightmare. She looked across at the viewing window and gave the technician outside a thumbs-up to indicate her thanks for being woken.
"John, John! Come on, John, wake up." She shook his shoulder and he started upright with an incoherent cry. "Shh, shh, it's okay," she said softly, holding him close. She rubbed at his back between his shoulder blades, murmuring soothing words until he stopped shaking and straightened up a bit.
"What were you dreaming about?" she asked.
"Being stranded on Estrela - that's where the Doctor found me, where Rose stranded me."
"Rose?" Martha asked, startled. "What do you mean, she stranded you there? Why isn't she here, travelling with the Doctor, and what happened to Donna, do you know?"
"I don't know about Donna," he said, his voice still husky. "Didn't you know the Doctor, the previous one, left me and Rose in Pete's World again, where she'd been living?"
"No!" she exclaimed. "Why?"
John heaved a deep sigh, then explained what had happened to him and Rose after Sarah Jane, Martha, Jack and Mickey had left the TARDIS. Then he went on to tell her about the two years he'd spent in a mental asylum at Rose's instigation, and explained that she had only got the staff to let him come home because she'd wanted his help with the Dimension Cannon since she had decided she no longer wanted to hang around with 'an imitation Doctor'.
Martha listened in silence, appalled by his story, not only because Rose had done those things, but because the Doctor had abandoned them on the parallel Earth.
"I really don't understand his reasoning," she said when John had finished his narrative. "Especially his anger at you for destroying Davros and the Daleks, when it's the very thing he attempted to do at the end of the Time War."
She rubbed a hand over her face, realising that she was getting quite tired. She was about to suggest to John that he try sleeping again when the technician used the intercom to let them know that their two hour session was up.
They made their way out of the chamber, through the 'airlock', and out into the main part of the room. Martha helped John back into the wheelchair and went with him so that the staff could assess his lungs and haemoglobin to see how much CO2 remained after the treatment.
Just as Martha was booking an appointment to bring John back the following day, Amy and the Doctor turned up, and after a short delay, during which time Martha helped John back into his pyjamas, they returned to the TARDIS.
* * * * * *
The next day, while John was sleeping aboard the TARDIS after his session at the London Diving Clinic, and Amy was out sight-seeing in London, Martha and the Doctor had a long conversation to catch up on each other's news.
"What happened to Donna?" she asked, after telling him about UNIT's latest projects as they sat in a clearing in the TARDIS arboretum. "I thought she'd still be with you: after all, as the DoctorDonna, she could stay with you forever, and I thought you'd be glad to have another Time Lord around, even if she wasn't a full Time Lord."
The Doctor sighed: he'd been expecting and dreading Martha's questions but, unlike his previous incarnation, he had no intention of trying to evade them.
"There's a good reason why there's never been a human-Time Lord meta-crisis before," he answered slowly, "and that's because it's unstable. The human brain isn't designed to hold a Time Lord mind: we've considerably more senses than you, for a start, and Donna's mind was being overwhelmed by mine. I had two choices - leave my mind in her brain, and watch her suffer as her brain was burned out by my mind, or take my mind from hers, which meant also taking her memories of her travels with me." He rubbed a weary hand over his face and when he spoke again Martha could hear that he was choking back tears. "I wiped her memory. She's safely at home with her granddad and her mum. She begged me not to do it, and I really didn't want to, but I couldn't leave her to suffer an agonising death. Wilf would never have forgiven me, nor would you, nor could I ever have forgiven myself."
Martha stared at him, aghast by what he was telling her: the thought of her brilliant, caring and fun-loving friend losing all her precious memories of the Doctor and her travels with him was painful. But looking at the heart-broken expression on the Doctor's face, she knew that he was right, that she would have been angry with him had he just let Donna die.
"I'm sorry," she said softly, holding out her arms and wrapping him in a hug; he clung to her tightly and she was surprised to realise this was their first hug since he'd regenerated.
They simply held each other for several minutes, both of them remembering Donna.
"Why wasn't John also affected by the same problem?" she asked after a while.
The Doctor straightened up, surreptitiously rubbing at his eyes, which Martha pretended not to notice.
"Because John's a pure hybrid - he was created from my tissue and DNA, Donna's DNA, and my regeneration energy. Although he's mostly human, he's got a Time Lord mind, but his brain was created to hold that mind, so his brain isn't in danger as Donna's was." He gave her a wan smile. "I was worried, when we picked him up, that he might be suffering a meta-crisis event because Rose had said he was complaining of headaches, but I think it's more likely a side effect of the dehydration he was suffering caused by jumping between the dimensions."
"The dehydration's contributed to John's severe weight loss, as well," Martha observed.
The Doctor nodded. "It's going to take him a while to recuperate, isn't it?"
"Weeks, or even months," she said soberly.
"Will you stay, to look after him, I mean? Please? I don't think he entirely trusts me - and I really can't blame him for that after the way my previous incarnation behaved." He looked down at his boots. "I know I'm asking a lot of you - and that you owe me nothing - but I think John deserves the best, and you're the best person I know to look after him." He looked up and gave her a crooked smile. "He trusts you, just as I trusted you."
"Why did your previous incarnation insist on Rose returning to Pete's World, and why did you send John with her?" asked Martha.
He looked away, clearly ashamed. "I got over Rose," he said, "although she clearly never got over me. I thought that if John went with her, she'd accept him, particularly because he's human, so he could spend the rest of his life with her, and she with him. I imagined them growing old together, and being happy. And I took them back to Pete's World because Jackie was going back there, and I knew she'd rather have Rose there than here."
"You got over Rose?" Martha asked disbelievingly.
He nodded, still avoiding her eyes. "Between you and Donna, yes."
"You might have said," she said sharply.
The Doctor looked up. "By the time I realised, after Rose had come back, I felt it wasn't really important - you were engaged to Tom, so you had clearly got over your feelings for me. I thought we could go on being good friends."
"Sometimes I'm reminded sharply of just how alien you are," Martha observed. She gave him a thoughtful look and he felt it best to simply wait silently for her to answer his request.
"Very well. I'll stay and look after John - though that's more for your sake, than his. But I've got two conditions."
"What are they?"
"You have me back home by no later than 9 pm tonight. And you give John the choice of what to do or where to go once he's recovered."
"I accept your terms, Dr Jones," he said, his tone oddly formal. Then he grinned hugely and hugged her. "Thank you."
"I expect you and Amy will continue your travels, yeah? Think of John and I as house guests. There's more than enough to do in the TARDIS when I'm not looking after John - he's going to need to get plenty of rest initially."
"Okay." He got to his feet and held out a hand. "Shall we go and see if John's awake yet, and let him know?"
Martha let him pull her to her feet, then stood holding his hand, looking him up and down. "This new incarnation's a good deal quieter than the last," she observed, smirking.
He nodded. "My personality changes each time my face does, but I'm still the same man underneath." He gave her another hug. "I still know you're good," he said quietly in her ear.
She laughed. "Thanks."
* * * * * *
When they entered the Med Bay John was lying awake, staring at the ceiling, although his eyes found Martha's the moment he realised she was there.
"How are you feeling?" she asked, coming to stand beside his bed. She took his wrist in her hand to measure his pulse and he summoned a smile.
"All the better for you holding my hand," he said.
Martha rolled her eyes a little, but she smiled almost immediately afterwards. "I'm going to be doing that a lot - more metaphorically, than literally," she told him. "I've agreed to stay aboard the TARDIS to look after you until you've fully recovered."
"You don't have to do that," he said instantly.
She bent forward to look into his eyes. "I want to," she said softly. "Besides, do you really want the Doctor to look after you?" Her tone was light and teasing, but her smile disappeared when she saw a flash of panic in his eyes.
"I'd rather you stayed," John answered.
"That's settled then. The Doctor and Amy are going to continue their travels, while you and I remain here. There's plenty for me to do or explore while you're sleeping, which you'll do a fair bit of initially. And when you're up and about we can use the Library, or the swimming pool, or go for a walk in the arboretum."
"Thank you," he whispered. He grasped her hand in his and she squeezed his fingers, smiling reassuringly at him.
* * * * * *
It took six weeks for John to recover fully from the carbon monoxide poisoning and dehydration that he'd suffered while jumping through the Dimensions, but after that Martha declared him fit to do whatever he chose.
Martha had lunch with him, the Doctor and Amy for one last time aboard the TARDIS before the Time Lord took her back home for the day after he'd first picked her up.
"Have you decided what you want to do next?" the Doctor asked John. "You know you'd be welcome to travel with me and Amy if you wanted."
John shook his head. "Thank you, but I'd like to settle on Earth," he said. "Find a job and somewhere to live, and put down some roots." He pushed his food around on his plate for a moment before he spoke again. "If it's okay, I'd like to go with Martha."
He darted a glance up at her face, aware that he was springing this on her. To his relief she smiled.
"Of course," she said. "I've got plenty of space at my place - and with Tom away more often than he's home, I'll be glad of the company until you find your feet."
"You're married?" Amy said, clearly surprised. Then she blushed. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, it's just that you've never said."
Martha smiled, more amused than offended. "Yeah. I married a doctor who's away a lot. I think that pretty much sums up how bad I am at the whole romantic thing. Anyway his name's Tom Milligan and he works overseas, mostly in South Africa with the Doctors Without Borders organisation. He's a paediatrician and as you can imagine, there's a lot of call for a man with his skills."
"You've not thought of going out there with him?" the Doctor asked.
She blinked, surprised by the question. "No, my work is with UNIT." She turned to John. "So yes, I'd be happy to help you get settled in London. And I daresay UNIT would snap you up, if you're interested in working for them - they could make good use of your knowledge, skills and experience."
"Thank you."
After lunch the Doctor led his three friends into the Control Room and took the TARDIS back to London. He shook hands with John, and hugged Martha, then waited while she and John said their farewells to Amy.
"Don't forget, I'm only a phone call away, Dr Jones," he said as Martha and John stepped out of the ship.
"As am I," she answered, giving him another hug. "Look after yourself, and Amy, won't you?"
"I will, I promise." The Doctor stepped back into his ship and after a few moments the TARDIS dematerialised.
Martha turned to John. "Let me show you the guest room," she suggested. "And then, if you've got the energy, we'll go shopping and get you some clothes. You can't live in that blue suit forever."
John nodded, then followed her upstairs. He felt that he would settle down in this universe as he had never managed to do in Pete's World. He knew he could trust Martha to help him, unlike Rose, whom he'd never really felt had his best interests at heart.
Martha opened the door to the guest room and gestured for him to go inside. "Welcome to your new home."
"Thank you." He walked across to the window, to look out at the view, and when she joined him, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
"Earth hath not anything to show more fair," he said, then smiled when she wrapped an arm around his waist. "I'm home."