[fic] Savior 1/3 (Doctor Who, Martha/Master, PG-13)
Title: Savior 1/3
Series: Doctor Who
Characters/Pairing: Martha Jones/The Master, Doctor/Master (implied)
Rating: PG-13
Length: this part 4790 /14900 total
Genre: Dark fic/drama
Warnings: Supporting character death
Spoilers: through Last of the Time Lords
Summary: dark_fest fic, prompt: Master/Martha. The Master lays a trap for the Doctor using Martha before they ever met.
Notes: Hearty thank yous are due to persiflage_1 for Brit-picking a complete stranger's story and being warm and cheerful to boot; to tsubaki_ny, darthneko, emilytarot and armistice_day for cheerleading at all stages; and most absolutely and especially to the fantastic Mr. foxysquid, who held my hand every step of the way, listened to me bitch and moan and gnash my teeth, and pre-read/provided much insight on the story in many of its ugliest phases. Any remaining errors are my own!
Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing :)
( Part 1 | 2 | 3 | Index & Extras )
Savior
1: At First Sight.
Martha's eyes skimmed over the chart in her hands without really seeing it. She was preoccupied by the presence of Doctor Stoker hovering behind her, watching her every move. (That was her defense, later, when Julia Swales teased her about missing the significance of the man she was treating.)
Trying to display her best bedside manner, Martha made light conversation as she assessed the patient's injury.
"How are you today?"
The patient smiled at her, all teeth and crinkled eyes. "Oh, let's just say... brilliant."
"And how did you injure your head, Mr.--" she glanced again at the chart--"Saxon?"
"Travelling. I like to fly here and there, now and then." His smile widened, verging on lecherous. "Turned out to be a bit of a bumpy ride, if you know what I mean, doctor."
Martha was used ignoring to the occasional suggestive remark from a patient, but there was something about Mr. Saxon's tone of voice that made her glance at his face. He was watching her keenly. She might have been a little unnerved, if she hadn't been so annoyed by the frankness of his gaze.
"Well, you haven't done too much damage," she told him brusquely, "A couple of stitches and you'll be good as new."
"A couple of stitches and a kiss will make anything better, I'd say." Mr. Saxon gave her a sharkish grin, daring her, she thought, to come back at him.
Gritting her teeth, Martha looked over her shoulder at Stoker for some support, only to find him staring past her through the window, daydreaming. His fingers twitched absently at his side.
She shook her head, sighing, and proceeded to disinfect, stitch and bandage Mr. Saxon with a speed and efficiency that Dr. Stoker praised her for later. She only wanted to get away from Mr. Saxon's leer and stare. She might have told him off, if they had been alone, or if she'd thought Dr. Stoker would back her up. As it was, she kept quiet and worked faster.
She gave Saxon a tight smile when she was done. "You're all set, Mr. Saxon. You'll need to follow up with your GP in a week to have those removed." She stripped off her gloves so quickly they snapped back at her and tossed them in the trash.
"But you haven't kissed it better." Mr. Saxon leaned forward, dark eyes glittering.
Martha's forced smile became even more strained. "Have a good day, Mr. Saxon."
"I'm waiting..."
Martha turned sharply on her heel and left the examining room, not bothering to wait for Dr. Stoker.
It was only when Julia caught her arm in the hallway and whispered, "Did you really treat Mr. Archangel himself?" that her mind made the connection: Mr. Saxon the obnoxious patient to Harold Saxon the entrepreneur-author-rising-star.
"Oh god," she exclaimed. "That was him? That was him."
"What was he like?" Julia's fingers squeezed her arm.
Martha wrinkled her nose. "Bit of a pig, actually. And he's got a sort of a weaselly face, hasn't he?"
"Martha Jones!" Julia gasped, but she giggled while she said it. "You're going to wake up and your mobile's going to be dead."
"The horror!" Martha laughed, and proceeded to put Harold Saxon out of her mind.
2: Hush.
Martha had always been too busy to pay the so-called ghost shifts much mind. Her priority was the living, and she was fortunate enough and young enough that no one close to her had died. She never hesitated to walk straight through one of the shadowy specters if it stood between herself and a patient in need.
And then the ghosts had revealed their true shapes. They had marched through the wards, metal men, the Cybermen, taking the ill and injured, killing anyone who fought back.
Martha and Julia managed to hide a handful of patients in one of the older MRI rooms. It wasn't enough, but at least it was something.
"I always hated those things, those ghosts," Julia whispered at Martha as they crouched behind the curtain separating off a treatment area. "Gave me the creeps."
Martha was treating an ugly gash on a patient's leg. She pressed a pad of gauze against the wound.
Julia said, "Wasn't right, that, dead people coming back."
"Well, they weren't really dead people, now, were they?" Martha mopped the sweat on her brow with the back of her hand. She indicated a roll of medical tape. "Hand me that, will you?"
Metal footsteps rang out from the direction of the hallway. They were two rooms away from the main hall, and the sound still thundered through the doors. Julia dropped the medical tape and her fingers dug into Martha's arm. "Oh my god," Julia cried. "What if they find us?"
"Shh!" Martha pressed a finger to her lips.
The marching went by without pause. Martha let out a deep breath when she could no longer hear the clanging, ringing footsteps. She had to hope that it was more than luck that was keeping the Cybermen from coming into the MRI lab; they had passed by it numerous times throughout the afternoon, never turning inside.
She turned her attention back to the man she was treating. "You'll be fine," she told him, patting his knee. "Just a little cut." She looked at the group of people huddled against the back of the room. "Anyone else need assistance?"
One wide-eyed girl raised a bloodied hand, and showed her bruised, swollen arm. Martha smiled at her, trying to look reassuring. She touched Julia's shoulder.
"This is Miss Swales. She'll get you all taken care of, all right?"
Martha stood.
"Where are you going?" Julia asked.
"There's others out there. I saw them."
"You're going to lead those things right back here!"
"I won't," Martha insisted.
"Martha, don't. You'll get killed. Please." Julia reached after Martha as she moved for the door.
Martha didn't stop. She had to do what she could, or go mad.
Making her way carefully to the main hall of the radiology wing, she searched for anyone who might be still alive, still in hiding. She opened doors and looked into rooms, working her way down the hall. There were so many dead, and so many more missing from their beds.
Martha was nearly to the A&E waiting area when she heard the distant march of metal feet and ducked into an examining room. She pressed her back against the wall, tense, trying to breathe as quietly as possible.
A shout rang down the hall. "Help! Please, can somebody help?"
Martha felt her stomach drop. The voice was impossibly familiar.
"It can't be," she breathed.
The progress of the footsteps paused. Listening, she thought, even as she was.
"Somebody help us! Please! Is anybody here?"
A second voice, also familiar: "We need a doctor!"
"No," she whispered. "There's no way. It can't be."
The march of feet resumed, this time towards the voices.
Martha clenched her eyes shut, fisted her hands at her sides. "You're going to get yourself killed," she whispered, and then she answered herself: "I don't care!"
Martha stepped into the hallway, cursed, and launched into a blind run.
As she emerged into the wide-open space of the A&E waiting area, her worst fears were confirmed. Huddled near the automatic doors of the entrance were her brother Leo and sister Tish. Between them was her mother, unconscious. Martha refused to think otherwise as she ran towards them. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted two Cybermen marching down the far hallway that led to surgery, moving steadily towards the waiting room.
"Oh my god, it's Martha! Thank god." Tish's eye makeup had run down her cheeks in twin black streaks. "Martha, help us!"
"Tish, Leo!" Martha stared at them, wild-eyed. "What are you doing here? It isn't safe!"
"It's the hospital, isn't it?" Leo said. "Mum needs a doctor!"
Martha glanced towards surgery. The Cybermen were nearly to the end of the hall.
"One of those things grabbed on to her," Leo said. "On to mum."
Martha grabbed Tish's arm. "Come on, we've got to get moving!" Martha gestured the way she'd come. "We can hide-"
Leo nodded. "Tish, get going! I've got mum." He scooped up their mother and started running. He passed Martha, shouldering his way past the separator doors down towards radiology.
As the doors swung after him, Martha gasped.
"No!" she shouted. "Leo!"
In silence of the dead hospital, Martha heard the squeak of the swinging doors and then the crackle of electricity.
Leo never screamed. Martha glimpsed him falling, their mother limp beside him. Then she turned, grabbed Tish's wrist, and dragged her back towards the center of the waiting room. But the metal monsters had closed in behind them; the two from surgery had been joined by two more.
"YOU WILL BE UPGRADED," the nearest one declared.
Martha yanked on Tish's arm, backing them away. Three more Cybermen, the ones who had attacked Leo, emerged from the direction of radiology. They were surrounded.
Martha realized Tish was sobbing.
"Don't cry, Tish," Martha said, squeezing her fingers. "Cos we'll get out of this. I'll get us out of this. I swear."
The Cybermen clustered around them. Martha crouched and picked up a twisted bar, remnant of a smashed waiting room chair.
"Martha?" Tish said, her voice quavering.
One of the Cybermen reached for Tish. Tish shrieked and Martha swung. "Run!" she screamed at Tish, battering uselessly at the Cyberman, the sound of metal on metal ringing through the ER. She saw Tish bolt out of the corner of her eye, darting between two of the Cybermen, and swung again. Attacking the Cybermen was suicide, Martha knew, but if Tish could get away--
Another Cyberman stepped out and gripped Tish's shoulder. Tish screamed. Martha smelled ozone and burning hair.
"No," Martha screamed. "NO!"
"DELETE," the Cybermen said, reaching towards her. Electricity danced over its fingertips.
Martha stood her ground, raising her useless bar. She howled as she struck at the approaching metal arm. Landing one last good hit on the Cyberman's chest, she braced herself to feel its electrified touch close on her shoulder.
The Cyberman toppled over.
Two of its companions followed, a moment later. Martha straightened, blinking, and stared.
In the gap left by the fallen Cybermen stood a man in a suit, holding a strange, pen-like object in his hand. He turned it on the remaining Cybermen, dropping them easily.
Martha's mouth fell open.
"Mister... Saxon?"
He flipped the pen-like object in the air before pocketing it, and smiled at her. "Lovely to see you again, Martha Jones," he said, casually, as if they'd just met on the street. "Maybe now you'll give me my kiss?" He tapped the mostly-healed cut on his forehead.
"Oh my god," Martha breathed. "Oh my god," she repeated, and she suddenly wanted, needed, to cry, but she held herself back. She didn't have time for tears; Tish needed her.
Dropping to her knees beside Tish, she rolled her sister over and tried to resuscitate her. "Tish, please," she gasped, between breathing for her sister, between pumping her sister's heart. But it was a useless exercise. Martha quickly realized Tish was beyond saving, though the urge to keep trying was overpowering. It was only the thought of her mum that stopped her.
She looked up at Saxon, trembling. "She's--. " she said. "I've got to get my mum." Her voice sounded flat in her own ears. She got up, walking, not running, feeling weird and detached.
She pushed past the doors to the radiology wing.
Leo's dead eyes were still wide with shock. Martha was surprised at how steady her hand was as she closed them.
She knelt beside her mother's prone body. Martha pressed her lips together and moved quickly so that she moved at all--she didn't want to touch her mother, but she had no choice. She felt for a pulse, found nothing.
"She's dead," Martha said. Her voice in the hall sounded flat, empty. Clinical. "They came here for nothing." A tremble crept her words. "She was dead this whole time. They came here for nothing!"
That was when Martha finally wept, wept so hard the world seemed to open up beneath her, swallow her up, send her head spinning. She wept for her mother, for Leo who had run with a dead body straight into the arms of the Cybermen, for Tish, for herself. She wept like a child, noisy, screaming out her pain, soaking the collar of her shirt and white coat with tears.
And then Harold Saxon embraced her.
She had forgotten he was there. She shoved him off at first, shouting, "Get away from me!" but he came back, shushing her, cooing, stroking her back and her hair and her face. He hugged her close until she relented, weeping against his shoulder, shaking.
"Poor brave Martha," he murmured to her. She sagged against him, into the tightness of his arms. "Poor dear Martha."
"I tried," she wept. "I tried to save them."
Saxon's hold on her tightened. He spoke softly into her ear. "Of course you did. Poor, dear, Doctor Jones." She pressed her face into his shoulder, comforted by his voice.
"I--I promised Tish--and then I--oh god, Mr. Saxon. This can't be real."
He shushed against her hair, petted her like a child. His words were soft and wrapped around her. "But it is real, poor, poor Miss Jones. Poor silly Martha. This is the real world; this is the truth: you can't save them. Don't you know that yet? You can't ever save them. You're useless."
She twisted in his embrace, stared at him, but he went on.
"Oh, maybe you prolong the life of some of them, but in the end," he smiled, a grim, humorless thing, "They all die."
"Why would you say that?" Rage rose to join Martha's fear and grief.
"Because," he said, "the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll feel so much better."
His arms tightened around her as she looked at him in horror, tried to push him off. But he was strong and she was tired, drained and tired and so sad she thought she could die of it. And worst of all, some part of her thought he was right: there was nothing she could have done. Life was horrible, death inevitable; she of all people knew that, saw it every day.
Martha wept, for her family, and for the part of herself that died with them.
Harold Saxon held her close. He whispered in her ear. "My poor Martha. My clever, sad, mad Martha Jones."
He whispered to Martha until her sobs quieted, until she was just listening to the rhythm of his voice, naming her over and over.
3: Dry.
Time flowed over and past Martha as if she were in a trance.
She tried desperately to get back on her feet again after all the horribleness that followed the Battle of Canary Wharf, but the list of the dead kept coming. In the end she lost not only Leo and Tish and her mum, but also her father, her cousin Adeola, her uncle Jess, Leo's fiancée Shonara, their daughter Keisha, even her father's blond mistress, Annalise.
Martha threw herself into her work, tried to heal herself by healing others, but every time she looked into the expectant faces of her patients, she thought: You can't save them. You're useless. In the end, they all die.
More and more she drifted through her days, lingered at the back of the group on ward rounds and attended to patients with a minimum of conversation. She couldn't work in A&E at all, found every other route to where she needed to be. She waited for Doctor Stoker to say something to her, tell her she was failing out of the program, but his gaze always slid past her as if she, too, were dead. Better, she supposed, than the blatant pity on his face the first day she returned to work, when she asked to be assigned elsewhere in the hospital.
It was Julia who finally confronted her, catching her arm in the hall. "What are you doing?" she demanded.
"Taking these samples to the lab."
"I don't mean that. You know I don't." Julia lowered her voice. "Stoker's talking about forcing you to take leave. I half think he should."
Martha looked away.
"Martha, you can't keep doing this. Take a break. Grieve, for God's sake."
"The funeral's tomorrow," Martha said. "Finally. I'll be better after the funeral." She tried to smile.
There were so many dead; the funeral homes were backed up for weeks. Martha had been lucky to wait only two.
"Miss Jones!"
Martha turned to see Nurse Chapham stalking towards her with an armful of flowers.
Or maybe not lucky, she thought.
Chapham thrust the flowers at Martha. "Your friend Saxon, again," she said, and Martha got the strange idea that she seemed jealous.
Julia raised her eyebrows as Chapham stalked away. Martha stared at the bouquet.
"I thought you just stitched up his head," Julia said. She, too, sounded strangely wistful, envious. "But now Harold Saxon himself sends you flowers every day."
Martha said nothing. Nothing of how he had saved her from the Cybermen, of how he had held her beside the bodies of her dead family, how he had whispered things into her ear. Of how she wished she had gone deaf before he could say those things to her. Of how she wished even more that she could hear him again.
She walked over to a waste bin and dropped the flowers inside. Julia gasped behind her, but Martha paid her no mind.
***
Martha tried to cry at the funeral, but she had no tears left. She had wasted them all in the emergency room, or maybe Saxon had soaked them all up, drunk them like some sort of confused vampire.
She half-expected to see him there, after all the flowers and condolences, but she never found his face among those who watched her out of the corners of their eyes at the service, or who wept for her by the graveside. She heard their words of comfort and sympathy from a thousand miles away, and barely felt their fingers squeeze hers. One by one they passed her, passed the four holes dug in the ground, and the four caskets lying inside. One by one she waited them out, waited for them to go away and leave her alone.
Her Aunt Lisha--Adeola's mum--lingered longest. Adeola's service was next week; Martha didn't know where she would find the strength to go to one more funeral. When they stood alone, just the two of them, Aunt Lisha said, "You're welcome to come by, Martha. Anytime. Stay over, if you like."
The air between them felt thick, as if Lisha's need to connect with Martha weighted it down. Martha knew she should reach out to her aunt. They were the last of the family in the UK, after all.
She kept her hands tucked against her sides, watched a fat tear roll down her aunt's face and settle in the dimple of her forced smile.
"Of course," Martha said. "Thank you, auntie."
That was not the answer her aunt was waiting for, but it was all Martha had to give. She saw the false smile fade from her aunt's face, and her aunt nodded. Lisha hesitated a moment before brushing her fingertips against Martha's upper arm. "Call me, any time," Lisha said. Unspoken desperation tinted her words. "We only have each other, now."
Martha watched Lisha hurry away towards the last waiting car, off to a family friend's house for condolences and casserole.
"No," she told Lisha's retreating back, "I've got nobody."
Martha turned back to the four headstones, the four gaping wounds in the earth. She willed herself to feel anything but empty, empty, empty, but nothing came. She was hollow, scooped out, a grave herself.
She knelt at the foot of her mother's grave, touched her fingers to the graveyard dirt and shut her dry eyes. "Why can't I cry, mum?" she said. "Why don't I feel anything?"
"Poor, brave Martha Jones."
A mad tangle of emotions went through Martha at the sound of that voice, more potent than anything she had felt since That Day: surprise, anger, pleasure, even something that might have been fear. She clamped her teeth together against a scream that threatened to explode out of her and turned to face the man beside her.
Harold Saxon's elbows were propped on his knees, his fingers steepled between them. His face was so solemn it was nearly a parody. When he caught her looking he produced a smile, a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
"Still telling yourself you could have saved them?"
"Why do you say things like that?" she asked, through gritted teeth.
He shrugged, careless. "It's only the truth. The sooner you accept it--"
"'The sooner I'll feel better.' I know. I don't believe you." Martha stood, staring him down. She pulled the comforting blankness she had embraced in the past weeks around herself, regaining some measure of control. "What are you doing here, Mr. Saxon?"
He gave her a smile. "Can't a man pay his respects to the dearly departed?"
"You didn't even know them."
"Ah, but I know you, Miss Jones." He pressed his steepled fingertips against his lips, then tilted them towards her. "I owe you, you might even say."
"I put three stitches in your head. That was it."
"And now it's all better, see?" He tapped his forehead with two fingers. "Very nice work."
Martha frowned. She took a deep breath. "Look, Mr. Saxon, you've been very kind to me, and I'm very grateful." She tried to smile. "But you seem to have got some idea in your head that just because you--you saved me, you need to look after me now. If that's what you think, please, I'm all right. Really. I am."
She expected him to get up and go, or to tell her she was being quite rude. Instead, he laughed. "Oh, Miss Jones," he said, "You're giving me far too much credit."
Martha frowned. "Then, what?" She couldn't quite make it to anger, even though she wanted to rage at him. "What are you doing here, Mr. Saxon? What is it you want from me?"
His eyes hooded and his smile broadened. "Everything," he said.
Martha stared at Saxon, but she couldn't read his face. He went on:
"But we can start with supper. Supper is nice. It's just about supper time, isn't it?"
"Are you joking?"
"Not at all."
Martha narrowed her eyes. She shook her head and started walking, unwilling to play his stupid games. He stepped into her way, and no matter how she tried to sidestep him, he matched her, blocking her.
"Stop that!"
"Only if you'll come to supper with me."
"No thank you."
She took another step; he all but danced in front of her, smiling pleasantly. "I know a very nice place in Soho."
"I said no. Now, stop it!" Anger surged hot under her breastbone, into her cheeks. Martha tried to shove him aside. Saxon laughed as he held his ground. His fingers wrapped around her upper arms and all but caressed her. She flinched at his touch, but her reasons for flinching were confused.
"Let go of me!"
Saxon surprised her by obliging her, moving smoothly aside. She walked away as quickly as she could, but he followed.
"You know, you ought to eat, Miss Jones," he said, conversationally, keeping up with her without much effort. "And sleep. You're starting to look terrible."
She stopped short. "Eat? Sleep? My family died. All of them." She felt something inside her waver and tremble, but never give in. Martha wanted to be drowned under the flood of her grief, to be a wreck, to be demolished, but the strength in her held, impossibly. "All of them, and I can't even cry, even though I want to, more than anything."
She looked over at Saxon, her dry eyes agonizing her.
"I can't cry for my mum and my brother and my sis and my dad, not since... since then. What's wrong with me?" Martha heard her voice rising, wondered if she was cracking, going mad here in the graveyard.
Saxon reached a gloved hand towards her face. Martha recoiled, striking his arm away. An idea surfaced, and made its way to her lips before she could censor it for ridiculousness. "Was it you? Is that why I can't cry, why I feel--why I'm like a hundred miles away from everything? Did you do something to me?"
Saxon raised his eyebrows and she saw his teeth, briefly, in the triangular reveal of his smile. "Oh, you are trouble, Martha Jones." He laughed, softly, in a way that made a shiver crawl up her spine. "But much as I'd love to claim the credit, I'm afraid you've done that all by yourself. You lot are so terribly good at that sort of thing."
Martha hated him then, in a way that made her feel good, that burned away the grief and the fear and the deadness blanketing her. She hated him because she knew deep down what he said was true, that she was utterly capable of shutting herself off, turning herself to stone, of standing at her family's gravesite and feeling nothing. Hadn't she done the very same thing in the waiting room, while her family was killed in front of her?
"'You lot'?" she said, hotly, "Who? Us women? Blacks? Middle-class? Doctors? You keep doing that, talking like you're... outside, somehow." She drew her brows together. "Those things you said to me that day... All those words I couldn't get out of my head." Her thumb started twitching an angry cadence against her thigh; she stopped it by making a fist.
He smirked, and didn't answer. She wanted beat her fists against his chest and shake that smirk off his face, rattle him until he said something.
"And that--that pen you had. What was it? You just stopped those Cybermen like they were nothing. I kept telling myself you must have all sorts of technology, head of Archangel and all that, but it was--that wasn't it at all, was it?"
"This?" Saxon took the pen-like thing out of his inner pocket. "Just a laser screwdriver."
He held it out to her, and she took it, her eyes widening as she turned it around and around in her hands. It was heavier than it looked, intricate but compact, with parts she couldn't begin to understand the purpose of. She let out a long breath between her lips and looked hard at him.
"Just who are you?"
"Harold Saxon," he said. But his eyes were bright, daring her, she thought, to push further.
"No, that's not it. That's not all, at least."
"Say it, then. If you're so clever, Miss Jones, spell it out for me."
"Are you... are you from where ever those Cybermen were from? No." She studied his face. "But you're not from here, are you?" She drew in a sharp breath. "Are you even human?"
Saxon gave her such a pleased, delighted grin that she nearly returned it. Then, wordlessly, he turned away from her, and Martha took several steps after him before she realized what she was doing. She stopped herself, but he stopped as well, and she knew that he had noticed.
Without turning, Saxon said to her, "Come have supper with me, and you'll understand everything. I'll take you to my favorite place. How about it, Martha Jones?"
"Why are you so obsessed with supper?"
"Why not?"
She hesitated, narrowing her eyes. "That all you want? Supper?"
He glanced back at her over his shoulder, flashing his teeth. "Of course not. Coming?"
Martha took a deep breath. She didn't trust him, not even a little, and he made no real effort to hide that his intentions were not all good. She knew she should watch him walk away and hope he would be gone from her life forever. But she was curious, so curious. And he could make her angry, make her hate, make her wonder. That was better, wasn't it, than nothing, better than standing at her family's gravesite feeling empty?
She cast a look back at the four headstones behind her. Martha hesitated just a moment, wavering, and then she hurried after Harold Saxon.
Next Part
Series: Doctor Who
Characters/Pairing: Martha Jones/The Master, Doctor/Master (implied)
Rating: PG-13
Length: this part 4790 /14900 total
Genre: Dark fic/drama
Warnings: Supporting character death
Spoilers: through Last of the Time Lords
Summary: dark_fest fic, prompt: Master/Martha. The Master lays a trap for the Doctor using Martha before they ever met.
Notes: Hearty thank yous are due to persiflage_1 for Brit-picking a complete stranger's story and being warm and cheerful to boot; to tsubaki_ny, darthneko, emilytarot and armistice_day for cheerleading at all stages; and most absolutely and especially to the fantastic Mr. foxysquid, who held my hand every step of the way, listened to me bitch and moan and gnash my teeth, and pre-read/provided much insight on the story in many of its ugliest phases. Any remaining errors are my own!
Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing :)
( Part 1 | 2 | 3 | Index & Extras )
Savior
1: At First Sight.
Martha's eyes skimmed over the chart in her hands without really seeing it. She was preoccupied by the presence of Doctor Stoker hovering behind her, watching her every move. (That was her defense, later, when Julia Swales teased her about missing the significance of the man she was treating.)
Trying to display her best bedside manner, Martha made light conversation as she assessed the patient's injury.
"How are you today?"
The patient smiled at her, all teeth and crinkled eyes. "Oh, let's just say... brilliant."
"And how did you injure your head, Mr.--" she glanced again at the chart--"Saxon?"
"Travelling. I like to fly here and there, now and then." His smile widened, verging on lecherous. "Turned out to be a bit of a bumpy ride, if you know what I mean, doctor."
Martha was used ignoring to the occasional suggestive remark from a patient, but there was something about Mr. Saxon's tone of voice that made her glance at his face. He was watching her keenly. She might have been a little unnerved, if she hadn't been so annoyed by the frankness of his gaze.
"Well, you haven't done too much damage," she told him brusquely, "A couple of stitches and you'll be good as new."
"A couple of stitches and a kiss will make anything better, I'd say." Mr. Saxon gave her a sharkish grin, daring her, she thought, to come back at him.
Gritting her teeth, Martha looked over her shoulder at Stoker for some support, only to find him staring past her through the window, daydreaming. His fingers twitched absently at his side.
She shook her head, sighing, and proceeded to disinfect, stitch and bandage Mr. Saxon with a speed and efficiency that Dr. Stoker praised her for later. She only wanted to get away from Mr. Saxon's leer and stare. She might have told him off, if they had been alone, or if she'd thought Dr. Stoker would back her up. As it was, she kept quiet and worked faster.
She gave Saxon a tight smile when she was done. "You're all set, Mr. Saxon. You'll need to follow up with your GP in a week to have those removed." She stripped off her gloves so quickly they snapped back at her and tossed them in the trash.
"But you haven't kissed it better." Mr. Saxon leaned forward, dark eyes glittering.
Martha's forced smile became even more strained. "Have a good day, Mr. Saxon."
"I'm waiting..."
Martha turned sharply on her heel and left the examining room, not bothering to wait for Dr. Stoker.
It was only when Julia caught her arm in the hallway and whispered, "Did you really treat Mr. Archangel himself?" that her mind made the connection: Mr. Saxon the obnoxious patient to Harold Saxon the entrepreneur-author-rising-star.
"Oh god," she exclaimed. "That was him? That was him."
"What was he like?" Julia's fingers squeezed her arm.
Martha wrinkled her nose. "Bit of a pig, actually. And he's got a sort of a weaselly face, hasn't he?"
"Martha Jones!" Julia gasped, but she giggled while she said it. "You're going to wake up and your mobile's going to be dead."
"The horror!" Martha laughed, and proceeded to put Harold Saxon out of her mind.
2: Hush.
Martha had always been too busy to pay the so-called ghost shifts much mind. Her priority was the living, and she was fortunate enough and young enough that no one close to her had died. She never hesitated to walk straight through one of the shadowy specters if it stood between herself and a patient in need.
And then the ghosts had revealed their true shapes. They had marched through the wards, metal men, the Cybermen, taking the ill and injured, killing anyone who fought back.
Martha and Julia managed to hide a handful of patients in one of the older MRI rooms. It wasn't enough, but at least it was something.
"I always hated those things, those ghosts," Julia whispered at Martha as they crouched behind the curtain separating off a treatment area. "Gave me the creeps."
Martha was treating an ugly gash on a patient's leg. She pressed a pad of gauze against the wound.
Julia said, "Wasn't right, that, dead people coming back."
"Well, they weren't really dead people, now, were they?" Martha mopped the sweat on her brow with the back of her hand. She indicated a roll of medical tape. "Hand me that, will you?"
Metal footsteps rang out from the direction of the hallway. They were two rooms away from the main hall, and the sound still thundered through the doors. Julia dropped the medical tape and her fingers dug into Martha's arm. "Oh my god," Julia cried. "What if they find us?"
"Shh!" Martha pressed a finger to her lips.
The marching went by without pause. Martha let out a deep breath when she could no longer hear the clanging, ringing footsteps. She had to hope that it was more than luck that was keeping the Cybermen from coming into the MRI lab; they had passed by it numerous times throughout the afternoon, never turning inside.
She turned her attention back to the man she was treating. "You'll be fine," she told him, patting his knee. "Just a little cut." She looked at the group of people huddled against the back of the room. "Anyone else need assistance?"
One wide-eyed girl raised a bloodied hand, and showed her bruised, swollen arm. Martha smiled at her, trying to look reassuring. She touched Julia's shoulder.
"This is Miss Swales. She'll get you all taken care of, all right?"
Martha stood.
"Where are you going?" Julia asked.
"There's others out there. I saw them."
"You're going to lead those things right back here!"
"I won't," Martha insisted.
"Martha, don't. You'll get killed. Please." Julia reached after Martha as she moved for the door.
Martha didn't stop. She had to do what she could, or go mad.
Making her way carefully to the main hall of the radiology wing, she searched for anyone who might be still alive, still in hiding. She opened doors and looked into rooms, working her way down the hall. There were so many dead, and so many more missing from their beds.
Martha was nearly to the A&E waiting area when she heard the distant march of metal feet and ducked into an examining room. She pressed her back against the wall, tense, trying to breathe as quietly as possible.
A shout rang down the hall. "Help! Please, can somebody help?"
Martha felt her stomach drop. The voice was impossibly familiar.
"It can't be," she breathed.
The progress of the footsteps paused. Listening, she thought, even as she was.
"Somebody help us! Please! Is anybody here?"
A second voice, also familiar: "We need a doctor!"
"No," she whispered. "There's no way. It can't be."
The march of feet resumed, this time towards the voices.
Martha clenched her eyes shut, fisted her hands at her sides. "You're going to get yourself killed," she whispered, and then she answered herself: "I don't care!"
Martha stepped into the hallway, cursed, and launched into a blind run.
As she emerged into the wide-open space of the A&E waiting area, her worst fears were confirmed. Huddled near the automatic doors of the entrance were her brother Leo and sister Tish. Between them was her mother, unconscious. Martha refused to think otherwise as she ran towards them. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted two Cybermen marching down the far hallway that led to surgery, moving steadily towards the waiting room.
"Oh my god, it's Martha! Thank god." Tish's eye makeup had run down her cheeks in twin black streaks. "Martha, help us!"
"Tish, Leo!" Martha stared at them, wild-eyed. "What are you doing here? It isn't safe!"
"It's the hospital, isn't it?" Leo said. "Mum needs a doctor!"
Martha glanced towards surgery. The Cybermen were nearly to the end of the hall.
"One of those things grabbed on to her," Leo said. "On to mum."
Martha grabbed Tish's arm. "Come on, we've got to get moving!" Martha gestured the way she'd come. "We can hide-"
Leo nodded. "Tish, get going! I've got mum." He scooped up their mother and started running. He passed Martha, shouldering his way past the separator doors down towards radiology.
As the doors swung after him, Martha gasped.
"No!" she shouted. "Leo!"
In silence of the dead hospital, Martha heard the squeak of the swinging doors and then the crackle of electricity.
Leo never screamed. Martha glimpsed him falling, their mother limp beside him. Then she turned, grabbed Tish's wrist, and dragged her back towards the center of the waiting room. But the metal monsters had closed in behind them; the two from surgery had been joined by two more.
"YOU WILL BE UPGRADED," the nearest one declared.
Martha yanked on Tish's arm, backing them away. Three more Cybermen, the ones who had attacked Leo, emerged from the direction of radiology. They were surrounded.
Martha realized Tish was sobbing.
"Don't cry, Tish," Martha said, squeezing her fingers. "Cos we'll get out of this. I'll get us out of this. I swear."
The Cybermen clustered around them. Martha crouched and picked up a twisted bar, remnant of a smashed waiting room chair.
"Martha?" Tish said, her voice quavering.
One of the Cybermen reached for Tish. Tish shrieked and Martha swung. "Run!" she screamed at Tish, battering uselessly at the Cyberman, the sound of metal on metal ringing through the ER. She saw Tish bolt out of the corner of her eye, darting between two of the Cybermen, and swung again. Attacking the Cybermen was suicide, Martha knew, but if Tish could get away--
Another Cyberman stepped out and gripped Tish's shoulder. Tish screamed. Martha smelled ozone and burning hair.
"No," Martha screamed. "NO!"
"DELETE," the Cybermen said, reaching towards her. Electricity danced over its fingertips.
Martha stood her ground, raising her useless bar. She howled as she struck at the approaching metal arm. Landing one last good hit on the Cyberman's chest, she braced herself to feel its electrified touch close on her shoulder.
The Cyberman toppled over.
Two of its companions followed, a moment later. Martha straightened, blinking, and stared.
In the gap left by the fallen Cybermen stood a man in a suit, holding a strange, pen-like object in his hand. He turned it on the remaining Cybermen, dropping them easily.
Martha's mouth fell open.
"Mister... Saxon?"
He flipped the pen-like object in the air before pocketing it, and smiled at her. "Lovely to see you again, Martha Jones," he said, casually, as if they'd just met on the street. "Maybe now you'll give me my kiss?" He tapped the mostly-healed cut on his forehead.
"Oh my god," Martha breathed. "Oh my god," she repeated, and she suddenly wanted, needed, to cry, but she held herself back. She didn't have time for tears; Tish needed her.
Dropping to her knees beside Tish, she rolled her sister over and tried to resuscitate her. "Tish, please," she gasped, between breathing for her sister, between pumping her sister's heart. But it was a useless exercise. Martha quickly realized Tish was beyond saving, though the urge to keep trying was overpowering. It was only the thought of her mum that stopped her.
She looked up at Saxon, trembling. "She's--. " she said. "I've got to get my mum." Her voice sounded flat in her own ears. She got up, walking, not running, feeling weird and detached.
She pushed past the doors to the radiology wing.
Leo's dead eyes were still wide with shock. Martha was surprised at how steady her hand was as she closed them.
She knelt beside her mother's prone body. Martha pressed her lips together and moved quickly so that she moved at all--she didn't want to touch her mother, but she had no choice. She felt for a pulse, found nothing.
"She's dead," Martha said. Her voice in the hall sounded flat, empty. Clinical. "They came here for nothing." A tremble crept her words. "She was dead this whole time. They came here for nothing!"
That was when Martha finally wept, wept so hard the world seemed to open up beneath her, swallow her up, send her head spinning. She wept for her mother, for Leo who had run with a dead body straight into the arms of the Cybermen, for Tish, for herself. She wept like a child, noisy, screaming out her pain, soaking the collar of her shirt and white coat with tears.
And then Harold Saxon embraced her.
She had forgotten he was there. She shoved him off at first, shouting, "Get away from me!" but he came back, shushing her, cooing, stroking her back and her hair and her face. He hugged her close until she relented, weeping against his shoulder, shaking.
"Poor brave Martha," he murmured to her. She sagged against him, into the tightness of his arms. "Poor dear Martha."
"I tried," she wept. "I tried to save them."
Saxon's hold on her tightened. He spoke softly into her ear. "Of course you did. Poor, dear, Doctor Jones." She pressed her face into his shoulder, comforted by his voice.
"I--I promised Tish--and then I--oh god, Mr. Saxon. This can't be real."
He shushed against her hair, petted her like a child. His words were soft and wrapped around her. "But it is real, poor, poor Miss Jones. Poor silly Martha. This is the real world; this is the truth: you can't save them. Don't you know that yet? You can't ever save them. You're useless."
She twisted in his embrace, stared at him, but he went on.
"Oh, maybe you prolong the life of some of them, but in the end," he smiled, a grim, humorless thing, "They all die."
"Why would you say that?" Rage rose to join Martha's fear and grief.
"Because," he said, "the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll feel so much better."
His arms tightened around her as she looked at him in horror, tried to push him off. But he was strong and she was tired, drained and tired and so sad she thought she could die of it. And worst of all, some part of her thought he was right: there was nothing she could have done. Life was horrible, death inevitable; she of all people knew that, saw it every day.
Martha wept, for her family, and for the part of herself that died with them.
Harold Saxon held her close. He whispered in her ear. "My poor Martha. My clever, sad, mad Martha Jones."
He whispered to Martha until her sobs quieted, until she was just listening to the rhythm of his voice, naming her over and over.
3: Dry.
Time flowed over and past Martha as if she were in a trance.
She tried desperately to get back on her feet again after all the horribleness that followed the Battle of Canary Wharf, but the list of the dead kept coming. In the end she lost not only Leo and Tish and her mum, but also her father, her cousin Adeola, her uncle Jess, Leo's fiancée Shonara, their daughter Keisha, even her father's blond mistress, Annalise.
Martha threw herself into her work, tried to heal herself by healing others, but every time she looked into the expectant faces of her patients, she thought: You can't save them. You're useless. In the end, they all die.
More and more she drifted through her days, lingered at the back of the group on ward rounds and attended to patients with a minimum of conversation. She couldn't work in A&E at all, found every other route to where she needed to be. She waited for Doctor Stoker to say something to her, tell her she was failing out of the program, but his gaze always slid past her as if she, too, were dead. Better, she supposed, than the blatant pity on his face the first day she returned to work, when she asked to be assigned elsewhere in the hospital.
It was Julia who finally confronted her, catching her arm in the hall. "What are you doing?" she demanded.
"Taking these samples to the lab."
"I don't mean that. You know I don't." Julia lowered her voice. "Stoker's talking about forcing you to take leave. I half think he should."
Martha looked away.
"Martha, you can't keep doing this. Take a break. Grieve, for God's sake."
"The funeral's tomorrow," Martha said. "Finally. I'll be better after the funeral." She tried to smile.
There were so many dead; the funeral homes were backed up for weeks. Martha had been lucky to wait only two.
"Miss Jones!"
Martha turned to see Nurse Chapham stalking towards her with an armful of flowers.
Or maybe not lucky, she thought.
Chapham thrust the flowers at Martha. "Your friend Saxon, again," she said, and Martha got the strange idea that she seemed jealous.
Julia raised her eyebrows as Chapham stalked away. Martha stared at the bouquet.
"I thought you just stitched up his head," Julia said. She, too, sounded strangely wistful, envious. "But now Harold Saxon himself sends you flowers every day."
Martha said nothing. Nothing of how he had saved her from the Cybermen, of how he had held her beside the bodies of her dead family, how he had whispered things into her ear. Of how she wished she had gone deaf before he could say those things to her. Of how she wished even more that she could hear him again.
She walked over to a waste bin and dropped the flowers inside. Julia gasped behind her, but Martha paid her no mind.
***
Martha tried to cry at the funeral, but she had no tears left. She had wasted them all in the emergency room, or maybe Saxon had soaked them all up, drunk them like some sort of confused vampire.
She half-expected to see him there, after all the flowers and condolences, but she never found his face among those who watched her out of the corners of their eyes at the service, or who wept for her by the graveside. She heard their words of comfort and sympathy from a thousand miles away, and barely felt their fingers squeeze hers. One by one they passed her, passed the four holes dug in the ground, and the four caskets lying inside. One by one she waited them out, waited for them to go away and leave her alone.
Her Aunt Lisha--Adeola's mum--lingered longest. Adeola's service was next week; Martha didn't know where she would find the strength to go to one more funeral. When they stood alone, just the two of them, Aunt Lisha said, "You're welcome to come by, Martha. Anytime. Stay over, if you like."
The air between them felt thick, as if Lisha's need to connect with Martha weighted it down. Martha knew she should reach out to her aunt. They were the last of the family in the UK, after all.
She kept her hands tucked against her sides, watched a fat tear roll down her aunt's face and settle in the dimple of her forced smile.
"Of course," Martha said. "Thank you, auntie."
That was not the answer her aunt was waiting for, but it was all Martha had to give. She saw the false smile fade from her aunt's face, and her aunt nodded. Lisha hesitated a moment before brushing her fingertips against Martha's upper arm. "Call me, any time," Lisha said. Unspoken desperation tinted her words. "We only have each other, now."
Martha watched Lisha hurry away towards the last waiting car, off to a family friend's house for condolences and casserole.
"No," she told Lisha's retreating back, "I've got nobody."
Martha turned back to the four headstones, the four gaping wounds in the earth. She willed herself to feel anything but empty, empty, empty, but nothing came. She was hollow, scooped out, a grave herself.
She knelt at the foot of her mother's grave, touched her fingers to the graveyard dirt and shut her dry eyes. "Why can't I cry, mum?" she said. "Why don't I feel anything?"
"Poor, brave Martha Jones."
A mad tangle of emotions went through Martha at the sound of that voice, more potent than anything she had felt since That Day: surprise, anger, pleasure, even something that might have been fear. She clamped her teeth together against a scream that threatened to explode out of her and turned to face the man beside her.
Harold Saxon's elbows were propped on his knees, his fingers steepled between them. His face was so solemn it was nearly a parody. When he caught her looking he produced a smile, a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
"Still telling yourself you could have saved them?"
"Why do you say things like that?" she asked, through gritted teeth.
He shrugged, careless. "It's only the truth. The sooner you accept it--"
"'The sooner I'll feel better.' I know. I don't believe you." Martha stood, staring him down. She pulled the comforting blankness she had embraced in the past weeks around herself, regaining some measure of control. "What are you doing here, Mr. Saxon?"
He gave her a smile. "Can't a man pay his respects to the dearly departed?"
"You didn't even know them."
"Ah, but I know you, Miss Jones." He pressed his steepled fingertips against his lips, then tilted them towards her. "I owe you, you might even say."
"I put three stitches in your head. That was it."
"And now it's all better, see?" He tapped his forehead with two fingers. "Very nice work."
Martha frowned. She took a deep breath. "Look, Mr. Saxon, you've been very kind to me, and I'm very grateful." She tried to smile. "But you seem to have got some idea in your head that just because you--you saved me, you need to look after me now. If that's what you think, please, I'm all right. Really. I am."
She expected him to get up and go, or to tell her she was being quite rude. Instead, he laughed. "Oh, Miss Jones," he said, "You're giving me far too much credit."
Martha frowned. "Then, what?" She couldn't quite make it to anger, even though she wanted to rage at him. "What are you doing here, Mr. Saxon? What is it you want from me?"
His eyes hooded and his smile broadened. "Everything," he said.
Martha stared at Saxon, but she couldn't read his face. He went on:
"But we can start with supper. Supper is nice. It's just about supper time, isn't it?"
"Are you joking?"
"Not at all."
Martha narrowed her eyes. She shook her head and started walking, unwilling to play his stupid games. He stepped into her way, and no matter how she tried to sidestep him, he matched her, blocking her.
"Stop that!"
"Only if you'll come to supper with me."
"No thank you."
She took another step; he all but danced in front of her, smiling pleasantly. "I know a very nice place in Soho."
"I said no. Now, stop it!" Anger surged hot under her breastbone, into her cheeks. Martha tried to shove him aside. Saxon laughed as he held his ground. His fingers wrapped around her upper arms and all but caressed her. She flinched at his touch, but her reasons for flinching were confused.
"Let go of me!"
Saxon surprised her by obliging her, moving smoothly aside. She walked away as quickly as she could, but he followed.
"You know, you ought to eat, Miss Jones," he said, conversationally, keeping up with her without much effort. "And sleep. You're starting to look terrible."
She stopped short. "Eat? Sleep? My family died. All of them." She felt something inside her waver and tremble, but never give in. Martha wanted to be drowned under the flood of her grief, to be a wreck, to be demolished, but the strength in her held, impossibly. "All of them, and I can't even cry, even though I want to, more than anything."
She looked over at Saxon, her dry eyes agonizing her.
"I can't cry for my mum and my brother and my sis and my dad, not since... since then. What's wrong with me?" Martha heard her voice rising, wondered if she was cracking, going mad here in the graveyard.
Saxon reached a gloved hand towards her face. Martha recoiled, striking his arm away. An idea surfaced, and made its way to her lips before she could censor it for ridiculousness. "Was it you? Is that why I can't cry, why I feel--why I'm like a hundred miles away from everything? Did you do something to me?"
Saxon raised his eyebrows and she saw his teeth, briefly, in the triangular reveal of his smile. "Oh, you are trouble, Martha Jones." He laughed, softly, in a way that made a shiver crawl up her spine. "But much as I'd love to claim the credit, I'm afraid you've done that all by yourself. You lot are so terribly good at that sort of thing."
Martha hated him then, in a way that made her feel good, that burned away the grief and the fear and the deadness blanketing her. She hated him because she knew deep down what he said was true, that she was utterly capable of shutting herself off, turning herself to stone, of standing at her family's gravesite and feeling nothing. Hadn't she done the very same thing in the waiting room, while her family was killed in front of her?
"'You lot'?" she said, hotly, "Who? Us women? Blacks? Middle-class? Doctors? You keep doing that, talking like you're... outside, somehow." She drew her brows together. "Those things you said to me that day... All those words I couldn't get out of my head." Her thumb started twitching an angry cadence against her thigh; she stopped it by making a fist.
He smirked, and didn't answer. She wanted beat her fists against his chest and shake that smirk off his face, rattle him until he said something.
"And that--that pen you had. What was it? You just stopped those Cybermen like they were nothing. I kept telling myself you must have all sorts of technology, head of Archangel and all that, but it was--that wasn't it at all, was it?"
"This?" Saxon took the pen-like thing out of his inner pocket. "Just a laser screwdriver."
He held it out to her, and she took it, her eyes widening as she turned it around and around in her hands. It was heavier than it looked, intricate but compact, with parts she couldn't begin to understand the purpose of. She let out a long breath between her lips and looked hard at him.
"Just who are you?"
"Harold Saxon," he said. But his eyes were bright, daring her, she thought, to push further.
"No, that's not it. That's not all, at least."
"Say it, then. If you're so clever, Miss Jones, spell it out for me."
"Are you... are you from where ever those Cybermen were from? No." She studied his face. "But you're not from here, are you?" She drew in a sharp breath. "Are you even human?"
Saxon gave her such a pleased, delighted grin that she nearly returned it. Then, wordlessly, he turned away from her, and Martha took several steps after him before she realized what she was doing. She stopped herself, but he stopped as well, and she knew that he had noticed.
Without turning, Saxon said to her, "Come have supper with me, and you'll understand everything. I'll take you to my favorite place. How about it, Martha Jones?"
"Why are you so obsessed with supper?"
"Why not?"
She hesitated, narrowing her eyes. "That all you want? Supper?"
He glanced back at her over his shoulder, flashing his teeth. "Of course not. Coming?"
Martha took a deep breath. She didn't trust him, not even a little, and he made no real effort to hide that his intentions were not all good. She knew she should watch him walk away and hope he would be gone from her life forever. But she was curious, so curious. And he could make her angry, make her hate, make her wonder. That was better, wasn't it, than nothing, better than standing at her family's gravesite feeling empty?
She cast a look back at the four headstones behind her. Martha hesitated just a moment, wavering, and then she hurried after Harold Saxon.
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