Weaving 8/11?
Story: Weaving
Author: wmr wendymr
Sequel to: Broken Threads (Series: Tapestry)
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Jack Harkness, Rose Tyler; Team Torchwood and other characters, including Martha Jones, in minor roles
Rated: PG13
Disclaimer: None of them are mine, and that's a good thing ;)
Spoilers: DW: S3 and VotD; TW: pretty much all of S2, though this is completely AU.
Summary: She's back, and it should be just as it was before, the three of them... but can you ever really go back?
As before, my thanks to dark_aegis and kae_nine for BRing and reassurance. This is a sequel to Broken Threads, as noted, and might not make a lot of sense without it.
Chapter 1: Transmission Complete l Chapter 2: Minefields l Chapter 3: Papering Over Cracks l Chapter 4: Secrets and Lies l Chapter 5: Mystery l Chapter 6: Plans and Schemes l Chapter 7: Home Truths
Chapter 8: Confrontations and Revelations
Getting Jack’s phone was a bonus. She’d expected to have to find a public phone, not easy at all these days, and of course she’d need change to use it, too.
Even though it’s what this trip is all about, she still hesitates before finding Martha’s number again. Is she doing the right thing? She’s going behind their backs, both of them, digging into their pasts, asking questions about stuff that happened to them while she was away. Stuff they might consider private. Stuff that, if they wanted her to know, they’d have told her.
But she knows the Doctor. He’ll never talk about personal things if he can avoid it - and, yes, he’s got every right to keep personal things private. It’s just that when it’s things that have happened to him and that still hurt him and eat away at him it does help to know, because then she can avoid accidentally mentioning topics that cause him pain. Or she can try, in whatever small way, to help him.
Jack, too. Whether he’s had any more nightmares since that night she has no idea, but since it’s apparent that the one she interrupted wasn’t the first then it’s likely, isn’t it?
Jack was tortured, by the sound of it, by someone called the Master. Repeatedly killed, as well, at a guess. The Doctor was there too, and she’ll just bet that he was tortured as well. She can’t just not try to find out, not if there’s a possibility that Martha knows what happened.
She’s about to press the call button when she hesitates again. What if it was them hunting up information about her behind her back? How would she feel about that? Wouldn’t she be angry? Hurt? Betrayed? Wouldn’t she prefer that they just asked her and let her choose whether or not she wanted them to know? Does she have the right to do this?
No. But she’s doing it anyway.
Rose takes a deep breath and hits the button.
***
“Satellite Five?”
“Yup.”
Jack’s not looking at all happy, and he expected that, of course. But it’s the right thing to do. Should have thought of it before, really.
And good timing, too, that Rose had something she wanted to do. Though that’s something else he’s going to have to get to the bottom of. That’s not just a shopping trip she’s gone on; he’d bet his sonic screwdriver on that and not be in any remote danger of losing it.
“Why?” No, Jack’s not pleased. Looking suspicious, too.
“Because we need to.” He tweaks a control. “Well, you need to, really, but we both need to be there.”
“Doctor.” There’s a warning tone in Jack’s voice now, a reminder that he’s not the brash, impressionable youngster of pre-Satellite Five days who hero-worshipped him. Then, Jack would follow instructions without question, no matter what they were or what risk they required him to take. He even waited for permission to hand over the extrapolator to Blon Fel Fotch, regardless of the fact that Rose’s life was in danger.
This is Captain Jack of Torchwood, used to commanding his own team, old enough and experienced enough not to be intimidated by a Time Lord, and certainly not one whose bed he shares. Doesn’t matter. This is still his ship and he’s still in charge, even if he will consult with Jack far more than he ever would have before.
“Unfinished business.” That’s all he’s ready to reveal at this stage.
It’s for Jack’s own good, and that’s why, no matter how much his lover protests, they’re going.
***
“Martha? ‘S Rose. I’m at the Bluewater Centre. Can you get here?”
“What, now?” Martha sounds taken aback, and perhaps even irritated. “I’m at work! Oh, suppose you couldn’t exactly plan it for a particular day, right?”
“Difficult, yeah.”
“All right, I’ll come, but I won’t be able to get there until around half-one.”
“Fine by me. I’m supposed to be doing some essential shopping, so I’d better come back with something.” Including a phone. That was one of Jack’s better ideas.
They arrange to meet in Nando’s on Water Circus, where two young women will blend in nicely and no-one will pay them any attention whatsoever. Then a potential problem occurs to Rose. “How will I recognise you? I don’t have a clue what you look like.”
“You don’t? At least I know you’re blonde.” There’s what sounds like an ironic laugh in Martha’s voice. “Jack mentioned it,” she explains. “Me, I’m not very tall, black, hair up, will be wearing a black leather jacket.”
“Blonde,” she confirms. “Not natural. Hair down to my shoulders, an’ I’m wearing jeans an’ a dark blue zip-up jacket.”
“I’ll find you.” There’s a click, and she’s listening to dead air.
No going back now. She squares her shoulders and heads off to find the Virgin Mobile shop.
***
“How long did you stay after the TARDIS disappeared?”
The Doctor’s really serious about this Satellite Five thing. The bastard. It’s not as if he doesn’t know that Jack doesn’t want to go back there, but he’s going anyway.
It doesn’t make sense. It’s the last place Jack wants to go, but it’s got to be about the last place the Doctor wants to be as well, though Canary Wharf and the Valiant have to be high on that list too.
He considers strategies. Arguing won’t work. This Doctor’s response to anyone who tries to argue with him is to ignore it, blithely carrying on with what he’s doing anyway - unlike his previous regeneration, who was usually easy to distract into an argument. He could take the avoidance approach and simply disappear deep into the TARDIS - then the Doctor’d have to go to the satellite on his own or just forget about it. But running away’s never been his style.
Passive resistance, then. That’s got another advantage, in that he might actually find out what the Doctor’s up to. “Can’t say I remember.”
“Jack.” That tone’s one step away from giving an order. The Doctor really does like being in control. And a lot of the time that’s a turn-on, so Jack doesn’t really mind - but right now he does mind.
Not because they’re in a relationship and he’d expect things to be more equal; it’s not as if he’s not been the one holding all the power in relationships in his past, including the very recent past. It’s more that if he’s going to be taken to somewhere he doesn’t want to go he damn well wants an explanation why.
“Doctor.” His own tone is sharp, and he finds himself giving in to his temper after all. “What’s this about? And give me an answer that makes sense this time - or I’m not going anywhere with you.”
The Doctor shrugs. “Well.” Typical. Doesn’t look like he’s getting an answer. But then, abruptly, his lover gives him an encouraging smile. “It’s time we did something about your abandonment issues, Jack. And there’s no better place to start than where I abandoned you in the first place.”
***
She’s waiting for a table at Nando’s when a voice from behind her says, “Rose Tyler?”
Turning, she sees a petite, very attractive black woman standing a couple of feet away. Oh, he really does pick the gorgeous ones, doesn’t he? Though that’s not fair. Not given what he said about the way he treated Martha.
“Martha,” she begins, but she’s interrupted immediately by the host.
“Table for Tyler?”
“Yeah, that’s us.” She beckons Martha forward, bending to pick up her bags at the same time. As they follow the host to their table, she’s conscious of Martha watching her.
“You leave anything behind for anyone else to buy?” Martha asks as soon as they’re alone at their table.
Rose glances ruefully at her shopping bags. “Three years without Boots. S’pose I was making up.” And, together with the phone, and whatever she’ll spend on this lunch, she’ll owe Jack around three hundred quid.
Martha blinks, then says, “No Boots in the universe where you were? God, that’s tragic.”
“Yeah!” There’s shared horror, and in that moment a tenuous bond is formed. It’s a relief; the last thing she wanted was another companion stand-off, especially when she needs Martha.
“So, he got you back, then,” Martha says once the amusement’s died away.
“No.” Immediately, she corrects the other woman’s misassumption. “He didn’t think he could without damaging both universes - an’ anyway, he thought I was probably better off where I was. I came back myself. Long story,” she adds as she sees a combination of curiosity and irritation in Martha’s eyes. Oh, hell, the Doctor really did do a good job of making Martha feel less valued. Damn. That’s not like him at all - or is it? Though she’s only got herself, Jack and Sarah-Jane to go by, unless she counts Adam and Mickey, and he didn’t go out of his way to make them feel welcome, did he?
She tries to give as brief an explanation as she can. “I never belonged there. I felt it, the whole time I was there. The Doctor says it was resistance, cause there never was a Rose Tyler in that universe, so I was trying to fit in where there wasn’t a place for me, an’ at the same time the universe was trying to push me out again. So when I found a way back I took it.”
“Right.” Martha nods, and Rose gets the uncomfortable sense that this woman knows all about trying to fit somewhere that won’t make a place for her. “Bet he was glad to have you back. Never stopped missin’ you the whole time I knew him.”
“I never stopped missing him, either. Both of them,” she adds, because it’s true.
Martha glances down at her menu, then after a moment looks up again. “How is he? Jack, too?”
She plays with an earring. “They’re so different, both of them, from when I knew them. The Doctor, he’s... Oh, some of the time he’s fine, actin’ like a little kid in a sweetshop. An’ then the rest of the time he’s back to brooding, but he never says what’s wrong, an’ I think it’s the War all over again, but then I don’t know cause I don’t know what else he’s been through since I got pulled away. An’ Jack... well, after what I did to him an’ how long he’s lived it’s hardly surprising he’s not the same carefree bloke he used to be.”
Martha nods. “The whole time I knew him - the Doctor - he was grieving. Sometimes I thought it was you. Other times it was his people. He lied to me at first, pretended his planet was still out there somewhere - an’ then he told me the truth an’ I wanted to cry for him.”
“Yeah. Know what you mean.” After all, she felt exactly the same when he told her, too.
Their waiter comes to take their order, but once he’s gone Martha gives her a direct, no-nonsense look. “You said there was stuff you wanted to ask me about.”
She nods slowly. “Yeah. Look, I really don’t want to bring back bad memories for you, but I need to know. What do you know about someone called the Master?”
***
With great reluctance, he follows the Doctor out of the TARDIS and into the control-room of Satellite Five. It’s about an hour after the time when the younger him finally accepted, once and for all, that they weren’t coming back for him and he activated his vortex manipulator, intending to send himself to 2006.
The satellite’s as dark and airless as he remembered. Oh, there is oxygen; the Doctor wouldn’t be breathing if that wasn’t the case. But, once he’d awoken to nothing but the sound of the TARDIS engines fading away, he’d felt it, almost as if the walls were collapsing in on him. They weren’t; it was just his imagination. But the place felt - feels - oppressive.
There it is, the Delta wave, finished but unused. He remembers being baffled by that, just as he was by the Dalek dust that covered the floor. Remembers, too, searching all five hundred floors of this place for two days until he accepted that, first, he was the only being left alive, and second, that he really had been abandoned.
The Doctor’s crossed to the main control panel before he remembers what he did there. “Fuck you, Doctor,” the Time Lord reads aloud.
He’s not going to apologise for that. It was how he felt at the time, and it was justified. But the Doctor turns, and there’s regret in his gaze. “I deserved that, of course I did. Do. But that’s not why we’re here. Jack, what’s your strongest memory of this place?”
“You need to ask?” The look the Doctor gives him tells him he does. “Standing right over there-” He points. “-watching the TARDIS fade away and not having a fucking clue why you’d left me behind.”
The Doctor nods. “Very persistent thing, memory. It’s been a hundred and forty years for you, yet it’s still as fresh in your mind as if it just happened. Understandable, of course. Well. Time to do something about that.”
“Like what?”
“Replace it with a better memory.”
His whole body tenses. “I won’t let you mess around in my head.”
“Not what I mean.” The Doctor’s mouth turns down at the corners in a disappointed moue. “Jack, at least try to trust me.”
“It’d be easier if you’d trust me enough to tell me what you’re doing!” He can’t help the frustrated exclamation. The Doctor’s demanding automatic, unthinking trust yet, as always, doesn’t offer it in return.
But the Doctor comes to stand in front of him and grips him by the shoulders. “Can’t, Jack. This won’t work if you know exactly what’s going to happen. So. Trust me?” He nods slowly. The truth is, he does, even though - as he told the Doctor - he’s still half-expecting to be abandoned again some day.
“Right. So. Tell me - exactly, step by step - what happened when you resurrected.”
He has to close his eyes as memory swamps him. The sudden jolt. The pain in his chest, and the knowledge that this shouldn’t be happening. Dizziness as he tried to move. The pile of ashes on the floor in front of him; reaching out to touch them as he wondered where the Daleks had gone. And then the sound that was so familiar: the TARDIS engines roaring. Dragging himself into a shaky run and making for the control-room, only to see the TARDIS vanishing as he got there.
“Right.” There’s nothing but sympathy and regret in the Doctor’s eyes. “So. Go back through those doors and do it again. Just as you did before.”
Role-playing. It makes some sense, he supposes. With a nod, he turns, takes a deep breath and then heads for the doors.
***
“One question first, Rose Tyler. Why are you asking me this?”
The steel in Martha’s voice takes her by surprise - though, of course, it shouldn’t. She travelled with the Doctor. Nobody goes through that experience and comes out of it a pussycat. And she’s working for UNIT now - like Torchwood, that’s not for anyone who can’t stand their ground.
She gives the same answer she gave on the phone. “Like I said, I want to help them. I can’t help if I don’t know what happened.”
Martha’s eyes flash with something like suspicion. “But why are you asking me? Why not them?”
Ah. So that’s it. Naïve of her to assume that she’s the only one whose instinct is to protect the Doctor and Jack. “You know the Doctor,” she explains softly. “He’s had so many awful things happen to him. It hurts him to talk about it, so he doesn’t. He bottles it all up inside.”
“I know.” Martha’s expression says she knows only too well. She still cares about him, too. “But, come on. You and him are together, yeah? If he’d talk to anyone, it’d be you.”
Her eyes widen. What on earth did he tell Martha about her? “We were never like that. No, really,” she insists as Martha looks sceptical. “I mean, yeah, there were times when I wondered, but - no, it wasn’t like that.”
“But now?” Martha’s still looking disbelieving. “I mean, if there was ever a bloke I’d swear just couldn’t get over losing the woman he loved...”
“We were close, yeah. Still are.” Well, they’re getting there. Coming back’s been a lot more difficult than she ever imagined. “But...” She hesitates, then decides there’s no reason Martha shouldn’t know. From what Jack’s said, his people at Torchwood know. “He an’ Jack are together.”
“Jack?” Martha’s eyes widen and her body jolts in the chair. “Well, all right, I knew Jack’s bi, but the Doctor?”
Rose smiles wryly. “Jack told me, a long time ago, that it’s got nothing to do with labels. It’s the person. Wasn’t ever sure I believed him, but then I discovered... There’s this bloke. Mickey. My best mate both here and in the other universe. We grew up together. He was my boyfriend for a couple of years until I met the Doctor. He stayed in the other universe when we first went there, and when I ended up over there he was living with this other bloke, Jake. He says he was never attracted to men until he met Jake, and he’s still not. Jake’s the only one.”
“Right.” Martha’s still looking taken aback, but then she takes a deep breath and recovers. “Still. I thought if there was anyone he’d talk to it’d be you. Thing is, you can’t let him keep bottling it up. It’s not good for him - for anyone - to keep it all locked away. An’ that’s a medical opinion, by the way.”
She wants to argue - she’s seen the Doctor struggling to hold back tears as something happens to remind him of the War, or of losing his people - but it’s not going to get her what she wants. “I tried. An’ sometimes he did tell me stuff. But I think it’s just too hard for him. Most of the time I didn’t ask questions. I jus’ waited, an’ he knew if he wanted to talk I’d listen.”
Martha nods. “He told me about his planet, because I didn’t give him a choice. But what about Jack?”
“Nah. Jack asked me - he said he wanted to forget about it so would I not ask. Thing is-” She leans across the table towards Martha, needing the other woman to understand. “-if I don’t know what happened, how will I know if I’m sayin’ the wrong thing, or how to say the right thing?”
Martha’s silent for a long moment. And then she speaks, and her next words steal Rose’s breath away. “The Master was a Time Lord. He survived the War an’ we found him at the end of the universe, hiding, disguised as a human.”
“Oh, god.” For a moment, she can barely breathe. “But he said he’d know. If there were any others, he’d know in here.” She taps her head.
“Like I said, he was disguised.” Martha lets the chicken wing in her hand fall to her plate, as if all of a sudden she’s lost her appetite.
“But what do you mean, disguised?” Rose pushes her own plate away. Another Time Lord. The Master Jack has nightmares about torturing the two of them - that the Doctor said they escaped from - is one of the Doctor’s own people. Why can’t the universe just once be fair to him?
“It’s hard to explain if you haven’t seen it,” Martha says. “There’s this process... it sort of extracts everything about him that’s Time Lord: DNA, biology, all his memories, his genius, everything, an’ it gets stored somewhere safe. Both times I saw it happen, it was a watch. And until it all gets put back again he actually believes he’s human.”
“You saw it twice?” A horrible thought is going through her mind.
Martha nods. “The Doctor too. Long story. Basically, he needed to hide from these aliens who could’ve used his... I dunno, his DNA, I think, to become immortal.” It’s clear from Martha’s manner that she doesn’t want to relate the full story. Whatever it was, it wasn’t nice, either for her or the Doctor.
“So this other Time Lord, the Master, was disguised as a human an’ the Doctor found him?”
“I found him.” Martha swallows, looking down at the table. “I... He was acting very strange, and I noticed his watch - it was exactly the same as the Doctor’s. An’ I was all excited, thinking it meant one of the Doctor’s people survived. That he’d be happy. An’ then I saw his face. He said Depends which one. And it was the Master. He told us later - me an’ Jack - that the Master was a sociopath. They’d known each other for centuries, right from when they were at school together. The Master’d try to destroy planets and the Doctor would try to stop him, over and over.”
“God.” She realises that she’s gripping her glass so tightly she’s in danger of making it crack; with a shaking hand, she sets it on the table. “Of all the Time Lords it could’ve been, it had to be that one.”
“Yeah.” Martha’s eyes are wide with remembered horror. “It’s not really surprising, though. The War was the reason he hid in the first place. He knew it was coming and he’d have to fight, so he converted himself and went to hide until it was all over. Thing is...” Her eyes are shimmering faintly as she swallows again. “If I hadn’t’ve noticed the watch, if I hadn’t made a point of looking at it, making him look at it closely, he’d never have known. He’d have died as a human and none of it would ever have happened.”
“None of what?”
This is it, obviously; what Jack’s nightmare is about, what the Doctor doesn’t want to remember, what neither of them want to talk about.
Martha takes a deep breath, and Rose realises that Jack’s not the only one who has nightmares about this. Martha’s still traumatised too. “I’m sorry,” she interjects quickly. “I’m really sorry for making you remember all this.”
Martha shakes her head. “It’s okay. You’re right. You need to know.”
“What was it, then? What happened?”
“The year that never was.”
***
He lowers himself to the ground as his mind’s filled with images. Daleks heading towards him, weapons at the ready, their metallic voices shouting EXTERMINATE! The pain of being killed. Waking up confused and still in pain. And then the shock of realising that he’d been abandoned and that he was alone on this deserted hell-hole.
Waiting, because he couldn’t believe that the Doctor’d just leave him. Making excuses: maybe he thought he was dead. Maybe the Doctor’d had to leave in a hurry because the Daleks were pursuing him. Maybe he’d gone to lure them away from the satellite. Excuse after excuse, each one weaker than the next, and all made nonsense by one fact: that the Doctor didn’t come back.
He pulls himself up and looks around. God. The ashes are still there.
He’s reaching towards one pile when he hears it. The sound of the TARDIS engines.
Panic seizes him. It’s happening again. The Doctor’s leaving-
No. Common sense - and faith - take over. The Doctor wouldn’t do it, not again. And he said this is all about replacing bad memories with good. Still, even his trust in the Doctor doesn’t stop him bursting into a run, pushing his way through the doors and storming into the control-room.
The TARDIS is still there, but now in the same position it was before, the time he got left behind. The Doctor’s moved it. The engines are still roaring, but it’s standing still with the door wide open. Waiting for him. Inviting him in.
As soon as he runs through the door, his passage is halted by a man stepping out in front of him and wrapping leather-clad arms around him. The scent of leather surrounds him, even as chestnut hair presses against his cheek.
“Welcome home, Jack.”
And now there’s a lump in his throat, because the words are spoken in a Northern accent he hasn’t heard in a hundred and forty years, yet is still as familiar to him as his own voice.
***
The year that never was. Time that never happened. This is what the Doctor meant.
She flags down a waiter to order coffee. “Tell me,” she says.
“I wasn’t there for it all.” Martha’s voice is soft now. “I was... busy. But my mum and dad were there. They saw most of it - and I was there at the end.”
“I want to hear it. All of it - including what you did. Jack said you saved the planet. The Doctor said it too. He said you were brilliant.”
An odd look crosses Martha’s face - regretful, longing, bitter. “Could’ve told me that himself.”
Damn. He really meant it when he said he treated Martha badly, didn’t he? “He does mean it,” she emphasises.
Martha just nods, then begins talking again as the coffee arrives.
It’s a long story, dwarfing in horror and sheer duration anything she ever went through with the Doctor. An entire year. Genocide throughout the human race. Entire nationalities converted into slaves. The Earth on fire. And Martha Jones, lone missionary, travelling the planet in secret, in fear of her life, to tell the world about the Doctor. The one person who could save them, if they believed in him enough.
“I thought I was gonna die,” Martha tells her, fingers almost white as they clench around her coffee-cup. “All I could think of, the whole time, was had I done enough? Did enough people know what to do to make it work? The Doctor told me later that he was afraid I would be killed, but that he knew that if his plan worked then once he managed to undo it all I’d be okay. The one thing he didn’t want to happen was for the Master to catch me and bring me on board the Valiant, cause if he killed me there I’d stay dead.”
“Undo it...?” She’s trying to get her head around it all, but it’s not easy. “Oh! Right - the year that never happened. He turned back time?”
“Eventually. Once the time was right and the plan worked. But before then...” Martha continues with the rest of the story, life on the Valiant. An aged Doctor. Martha’s parents and sister prisoners, forced to act as servants. Jack in chains, casually tortured and killed over and over for the Master’s entertainment, the Doctor forced to watch. All of them forced to watch as cities burned and people died. People they knew, and that the Master knew they knew, killed on camera as they were forced to watch.
And, finally, the end of it all, when the Doctor’s plan was unleashed, the paradox machine sprang into action and the year was undone, the Master beaten.
It’s like nothing she could ever have imagined, and this is what they went through while she was gone?
It’s no wonder Jack has nightmares. It’s no wonder the Doctor’s bleaker than she knew him before. All of this pain and torture to people he knows, people he loves - and the destruction of a planet he loves. Worst of all, being done by the only other surviving member of his own people.
“God, you were so brave. All of you,” she tells Martha, reaching across to touch the other woman’s hand.
“Didn’t feel like it at the time,” Martha says, half-laughing, though it’s not with amusement. “It was... I just had to get on with it. I didn’t have any other choice.”
“S’pose not. Still, though. If anyone knew what you’d done, you’d have a medal. You’d be a Dame.” And she rolls her eyes inwardly at the memory that brings back. Martha Jones did far more than she did to earn that Damehood.
“You know what the worst was, though?” Martha says abruptly. “It wasn’t the year of trying to get around the world and talk to as many people as I could. It wasn’t being caught and taken back to the Valiant and seeing my parents terrified. It was the Doctor, after Lucy shot the Master. He refused to regenerate an’ he died in the Doctor’s arms, and the whole time the Doctor cried. He sobbed his heart out and begged the Master not to leave him.”
Martha’s eyes are bright with tears again. “After everything that happened, everything that man did, the Doctor cried over him and pleaded with him not to die.”
She’s got tears in her own eyes now. “Because it meant he’d be back to being the only one.”
And he is. Still, the last Time Lord. From what Martha’s said, having another member of his people meant more to him than anything else. Anyone else. As much as she and Jack love him, how can they ever be enough for him, or even begin to help him not to be lonely?
It’s simple. They can’t.
***
tbc
Author: wmr wendymr
Sequel to: Broken Threads (Series: Tapestry)
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Jack Harkness, Rose Tyler; Team Torchwood and other characters, including Martha Jones, in minor roles
Rated: PG13
Disclaimer: None of them are mine, and that's a good thing ;)
Spoilers: DW: S3 and VotD; TW: pretty much all of S2, though this is completely AU.
Summary: She's back, and it should be just as it was before, the three of them... but can you ever really go back?
As before, my thanks to dark_aegis and kae_nine for BRing and reassurance. This is a sequel to Broken Threads, as noted, and might not make a lot of sense without it.
Chapter 1: Transmission Complete l Chapter 2: Minefields l Chapter 3: Papering Over Cracks l Chapter 4: Secrets and Lies l Chapter 5: Mystery l Chapter 6: Plans and Schemes l Chapter 7: Home Truths
Chapter 8: Confrontations and Revelations
Getting Jack’s phone was a bonus. She’d expected to have to find a public phone, not easy at all these days, and of course she’d need change to use it, too.
Even though it’s what this trip is all about, she still hesitates before finding Martha’s number again. Is she doing the right thing? She’s going behind their backs, both of them, digging into their pasts, asking questions about stuff that happened to them while she was away. Stuff they might consider private. Stuff that, if they wanted her to know, they’d have told her.
But she knows the Doctor. He’ll never talk about personal things if he can avoid it - and, yes, he’s got every right to keep personal things private. It’s just that when it’s things that have happened to him and that still hurt him and eat away at him it does help to know, because then she can avoid accidentally mentioning topics that cause him pain. Or she can try, in whatever small way, to help him.
Jack, too. Whether he’s had any more nightmares since that night she has no idea, but since it’s apparent that the one she interrupted wasn’t the first then it’s likely, isn’t it?
Jack was tortured, by the sound of it, by someone called the Master. Repeatedly killed, as well, at a guess. The Doctor was there too, and she’ll just bet that he was tortured as well. She can’t just not try to find out, not if there’s a possibility that Martha knows what happened.
She’s about to press the call button when she hesitates again. What if it was them hunting up information about her behind her back? How would she feel about that? Wouldn’t she be angry? Hurt? Betrayed? Wouldn’t she prefer that they just asked her and let her choose whether or not she wanted them to know? Does she have the right to do this?
No. But she’s doing it anyway.
Rose takes a deep breath and hits the button.
***
“Satellite Five?”
“Yup.”
Jack’s not looking at all happy, and he expected that, of course. But it’s the right thing to do. Should have thought of it before, really.
And good timing, too, that Rose had something she wanted to do. Though that’s something else he’s going to have to get to the bottom of. That’s not just a shopping trip she’s gone on; he’d bet his sonic screwdriver on that and not be in any remote danger of losing it.
“Why?” No, Jack’s not pleased. Looking suspicious, too.
“Because we need to.” He tweaks a control. “Well, you need to, really, but we both need to be there.”
“Doctor.” There’s a warning tone in Jack’s voice now, a reminder that he’s not the brash, impressionable youngster of pre-Satellite Five days who hero-worshipped him. Then, Jack would follow instructions without question, no matter what they were or what risk they required him to take. He even waited for permission to hand over the extrapolator to Blon Fel Fotch, regardless of the fact that Rose’s life was in danger.
This is Captain Jack of Torchwood, used to commanding his own team, old enough and experienced enough not to be intimidated by a Time Lord, and certainly not one whose bed he shares. Doesn’t matter. This is still his ship and he’s still in charge, even if he will consult with Jack far more than he ever would have before.
“Unfinished business.” That’s all he’s ready to reveal at this stage.
It’s for Jack’s own good, and that’s why, no matter how much his lover protests, they’re going.
***
“Martha? ‘S Rose. I’m at the Bluewater Centre. Can you get here?”
“What, now?” Martha sounds taken aback, and perhaps even irritated. “I’m at work! Oh, suppose you couldn’t exactly plan it for a particular day, right?”
“Difficult, yeah.”
“All right, I’ll come, but I won’t be able to get there until around half-one.”
“Fine by me. I’m supposed to be doing some essential shopping, so I’d better come back with something.” Including a phone. That was one of Jack’s better ideas.
They arrange to meet in Nando’s on Water Circus, where two young women will blend in nicely and no-one will pay them any attention whatsoever. Then a potential problem occurs to Rose. “How will I recognise you? I don’t have a clue what you look like.”
“You don’t? At least I know you’re blonde.” There’s what sounds like an ironic laugh in Martha’s voice. “Jack mentioned it,” she explains. “Me, I’m not very tall, black, hair up, will be wearing a black leather jacket.”
“Blonde,” she confirms. “Not natural. Hair down to my shoulders, an’ I’m wearing jeans an’ a dark blue zip-up jacket.”
“I’ll find you.” There’s a click, and she’s listening to dead air.
No going back now. She squares her shoulders and heads off to find the Virgin Mobile shop.
***
“How long did you stay after the TARDIS disappeared?”
The Doctor’s really serious about this Satellite Five thing. The bastard. It’s not as if he doesn’t know that Jack doesn’t want to go back there, but he’s going anyway.
It doesn’t make sense. It’s the last place Jack wants to go, but it’s got to be about the last place the Doctor wants to be as well, though Canary Wharf and the Valiant have to be high on that list too.
He considers strategies. Arguing won’t work. This Doctor’s response to anyone who tries to argue with him is to ignore it, blithely carrying on with what he’s doing anyway - unlike his previous regeneration, who was usually easy to distract into an argument. He could take the avoidance approach and simply disappear deep into the TARDIS - then the Doctor’d have to go to the satellite on his own or just forget about it. But running away’s never been his style.
Passive resistance, then. That’s got another advantage, in that he might actually find out what the Doctor’s up to. “Can’t say I remember.”
“Jack.” That tone’s one step away from giving an order. The Doctor really does like being in control. And a lot of the time that’s a turn-on, so Jack doesn’t really mind - but right now he does mind.
Not because they’re in a relationship and he’d expect things to be more equal; it’s not as if he’s not been the one holding all the power in relationships in his past, including the very recent past. It’s more that if he’s going to be taken to somewhere he doesn’t want to go he damn well wants an explanation why.
“Doctor.” His own tone is sharp, and he finds himself giving in to his temper after all. “What’s this about? And give me an answer that makes sense this time - or I’m not going anywhere with you.”
The Doctor shrugs. “Well.” Typical. Doesn’t look like he’s getting an answer. But then, abruptly, his lover gives him an encouraging smile. “It’s time we did something about your abandonment issues, Jack. And there’s no better place to start than where I abandoned you in the first place.”
***
She’s waiting for a table at Nando’s when a voice from behind her says, “Rose Tyler?”
Turning, she sees a petite, very attractive black woman standing a couple of feet away. Oh, he really does pick the gorgeous ones, doesn’t he? Though that’s not fair. Not given what he said about the way he treated Martha.
“Martha,” she begins, but she’s interrupted immediately by the host.
“Table for Tyler?”
“Yeah, that’s us.” She beckons Martha forward, bending to pick up her bags at the same time. As they follow the host to their table, she’s conscious of Martha watching her.
“You leave anything behind for anyone else to buy?” Martha asks as soon as they’re alone at their table.
Rose glances ruefully at her shopping bags. “Three years without Boots. S’pose I was making up.” And, together with the phone, and whatever she’ll spend on this lunch, she’ll owe Jack around three hundred quid.
Martha blinks, then says, “No Boots in the universe where you were? God, that’s tragic.”
“Yeah!” There’s shared horror, and in that moment a tenuous bond is formed. It’s a relief; the last thing she wanted was another companion stand-off, especially when she needs Martha.
“So, he got you back, then,” Martha says once the amusement’s died away.
“No.” Immediately, she corrects the other woman’s misassumption. “He didn’t think he could without damaging both universes - an’ anyway, he thought I was probably better off where I was. I came back myself. Long story,” she adds as she sees a combination of curiosity and irritation in Martha’s eyes. Oh, hell, the Doctor really did do a good job of making Martha feel less valued. Damn. That’s not like him at all - or is it? Though she’s only got herself, Jack and Sarah-Jane to go by, unless she counts Adam and Mickey, and he didn’t go out of his way to make them feel welcome, did he?
She tries to give as brief an explanation as she can. “I never belonged there. I felt it, the whole time I was there. The Doctor says it was resistance, cause there never was a Rose Tyler in that universe, so I was trying to fit in where there wasn’t a place for me, an’ at the same time the universe was trying to push me out again. So when I found a way back I took it.”
“Right.” Martha nods, and Rose gets the uncomfortable sense that this woman knows all about trying to fit somewhere that won’t make a place for her. “Bet he was glad to have you back. Never stopped missin’ you the whole time I knew him.”
“I never stopped missing him, either. Both of them,” she adds, because it’s true.
Martha glances down at her menu, then after a moment looks up again. “How is he? Jack, too?”
She plays with an earring. “They’re so different, both of them, from when I knew them. The Doctor, he’s... Oh, some of the time he’s fine, actin’ like a little kid in a sweetshop. An’ then the rest of the time he’s back to brooding, but he never says what’s wrong, an’ I think it’s the War all over again, but then I don’t know cause I don’t know what else he’s been through since I got pulled away. An’ Jack... well, after what I did to him an’ how long he’s lived it’s hardly surprising he’s not the same carefree bloke he used to be.”
Martha nods. “The whole time I knew him - the Doctor - he was grieving. Sometimes I thought it was you. Other times it was his people. He lied to me at first, pretended his planet was still out there somewhere - an’ then he told me the truth an’ I wanted to cry for him.”
“Yeah. Know what you mean.” After all, she felt exactly the same when he told her, too.
Their waiter comes to take their order, but once he’s gone Martha gives her a direct, no-nonsense look. “You said there was stuff you wanted to ask me about.”
She nods slowly. “Yeah. Look, I really don’t want to bring back bad memories for you, but I need to know. What do you know about someone called the Master?”
***
With great reluctance, he follows the Doctor out of the TARDIS and into the control-room of Satellite Five. It’s about an hour after the time when the younger him finally accepted, once and for all, that they weren’t coming back for him and he activated his vortex manipulator, intending to send himself to 2006.
The satellite’s as dark and airless as he remembered. Oh, there is oxygen; the Doctor wouldn’t be breathing if that wasn’t the case. But, once he’d awoken to nothing but the sound of the TARDIS engines fading away, he’d felt it, almost as if the walls were collapsing in on him. They weren’t; it was just his imagination. But the place felt - feels - oppressive.
There it is, the Delta wave, finished but unused. He remembers being baffled by that, just as he was by the Dalek dust that covered the floor. Remembers, too, searching all five hundred floors of this place for two days until he accepted that, first, he was the only being left alive, and second, that he really had been abandoned.
The Doctor’s crossed to the main control panel before he remembers what he did there. “Fuck you, Doctor,” the Time Lord reads aloud.
He’s not going to apologise for that. It was how he felt at the time, and it was justified. But the Doctor turns, and there’s regret in his gaze. “I deserved that, of course I did. Do. But that’s not why we’re here. Jack, what’s your strongest memory of this place?”
“You need to ask?” The look the Doctor gives him tells him he does. “Standing right over there-” He points. “-watching the TARDIS fade away and not having a fucking clue why you’d left me behind.”
The Doctor nods. “Very persistent thing, memory. It’s been a hundred and forty years for you, yet it’s still as fresh in your mind as if it just happened. Understandable, of course. Well. Time to do something about that.”
“Like what?”
“Replace it with a better memory.”
His whole body tenses. “I won’t let you mess around in my head.”
“Not what I mean.” The Doctor’s mouth turns down at the corners in a disappointed moue. “Jack, at least try to trust me.”
“It’d be easier if you’d trust me enough to tell me what you’re doing!” He can’t help the frustrated exclamation. The Doctor’s demanding automatic, unthinking trust yet, as always, doesn’t offer it in return.
But the Doctor comes to stand in front of him and grips him by the shoulders. “Can’t, Jack. This won’t work if you know exactly what’s going to happen. So. Trust me?” He nods slowly. The truth is, he does, even though - as he told the Doctor - he’s still half-expecting to be abandoned again some day.
“Right. So. Tell me - exactly, step by step - what happened when you resurrected.”
He has to close his eyes as memory swamps him. The sudden jolt. The pain in his chest, and the knowledge that this shouldn’t be happening. Dizziness as he tried to move. The pile of ashes on the floor in front of him; reaching out to touch them as he wondered where the Daleks had gone. And then the sound that was so familiar: the TARDIS engines roaring. Dragging himself into a shaky run and making for the control-room, only to see the TARDIS vanishing as he got there.
“Right.” There’s nothing but sympathy and regret in the Doctor’s eyes. “So. Go back through those doors and do it again. Just as you did before.”
Role-playing. It makes some sense, he supposes. With a nod, he turns, takes a deep breath and then heads for the doors.
***
“One question first, Rose Tyler. Why are you asking me this?”
The steel in Martha’s voice takes her by surprise - though, of course, it shouldn’t. She travelled with the Doctor. Nobody goes through that experience and comes out of it a pussycat. And she’s working for UNIT now - like Torchwood, that’s not for anyone who can’t stand their ground.
She gives the same answer she gave on the phone. “Like I said, I want to help them. I can’t help if I don’t know what happened.”
Martha’s eyes flash with something like suspicion. “But why are you asking me? Why not them?”
Ah. So that’s it. Naïve of her to assume that she’s the only one whose instinct is to protect the Doctor and Jack. “You know the Doctor,” she explains softly. “He’s had so many awful things happen to him. It hurts him to talk about it, so he doesn’t. He bottles it all up inside.”
“I know.” Martha’s expression says she knows only too well. She still cares about him, too. “But, come on. You and him are together, yeah? If he’d talk to anyone, it’d be you.”
Her eyes widen. What on earth did he tell Martha about her? “We were never like that. No, really,” she insists as Martha looks sceptical. “I mean, yeah, there were times when I wondered, but - no, it wasn’t like that.”
“But now?” Martha’s still looking disbelieving. “I mean, if there was ever a bloke I’d swear just couldn’t get over losing the woman he loved...”
“We were close, yeah. Still are.” Well, they’re getting there. Coming back’s been a lot more difficult than she ever imagined. “But...” She hesitates, then decides there’s no reason Martha shouldn’t know. From what Jack’s said, his people at Torchwood know. “He an’ Jack are together.”
“Jack?” Martha’s eyes widen and her body jolts in the chair. “Well, all right, I knew Jack’s bi, but the Doctor?”
Rose smiles wryly. “Jack told me, a long time ago, that it’s got nothing to do with labels. It’s the person. Wasn’t ever sure I believed him, but then I discovered... There’s this bloke. Mickey. My best mate both here and in the other universe. We grew up together. He was my boyfriend for a couple of years until I met the Doctor. He stayed in the other universe when we first went there, and when I ended up over there he was living with this other bloke, Jake. He says he was never attracted to men until he met Jake, and he’s still not. Jake’s the only one.”
“Right.” Martha’s still looking taken aback, but then she takes a deep breath and recovers. “Still. I thought if there was anyone he’d talk to it’d be you. Thing is, you can’t let him keep bottling it up. It’s not good for him - for anyone - to keep it all locked away. An’ that’s a medical opinion, by the way.”
She wants to argue - she’s seen the Doctor struggling to hold back tears as something happens to remind him of the War, or of losing his people - but it’s not going to get her what she wants. “I tried. An’ sometimes he did tell me stuff. But I think it’s just too hard for him. Most of the time I didn’t ask questions. I jus’ waited, an’ he knew if he wanted to talk I’d listen.”
Martha nods. “He told me about his planet, because I didn’t give him a choice. But what about Jack?”
“Nah. Jack asked me - he said he wanted to forget about it so would I not ask. Thing is-” She leans across the table towards Martha, needing the other woman to understand. “-if I don’t know what happened, how will I know if I’m sayin’ the wrong thing, or how to say the right thing?”
Martha’s silent for a long moment. And then she speaks, and her next words steal Rose’s breath away. “The Master was a Time Lord. He survived the War an’ we found him at the end of the universe, hiding, disguised as a human.”
“Oh, god.” For a moment, she can barely breathe. “But he said he’d know. If there were any others, he’d know in here.” She taps her head.
“Like I said, he was disguised.” Martha lets the chicken wing in her hand fall to her plate, as if all of a sudden she’s lost her appetite.
“But what do you mean, disguised?” Rose pushes her own plate away. Another Time Lord. The Master Jack has nightmares about torturing the two of them - that the Doctor said they escaped from - is one of the Doctor’s own people. Why can’t the universe just once be fair to him?
“It’s hard to explain if you haven’t seen it,” Martha says. “There’s this process... it sort of extracts everything about him that’s Time Lord: DNA, biology, all his memories, his genius, everything, an’ it gets stored somewhere safe. Both times I saw it happen, it was a watch. And until it all gets put back again he actually believes he’s human.”
“You saw it twice?” A horrible thought is going through her mind.
Martha nods. “The Doctor too. Long story. Basically, he needed to hide from these aliens who could’ve used his... I dunno, his DNA, I think, to become immortal.” It’s clear from Martha’s manner that she doesn’t want to relate the full story. Whatever it was, it wasn’t nice, either for her or the Doctor.
“So this other Time Lord, the Master, was disguised as a human an’ the Doctor found him?”
“I found him.” Martha swallows, looking down at the table. “I... He was acting very strange, and I noticed his watch - it was exactly the same as the Doctor’s. An’ I was all excited, thinking it meant one of the Doctor’s people survived. That he’d be happy. An’ then I saw his face. He said Depends which one. And it was the Master. He told us later - me an’ Jack - that the Master was a sociopath. They’d known each other for centuries, right from when they were at school together. The Master’d try to destroy planets and the Doctor would try to stop him, over and over.”
“God.” She realises that she’s gripping her glass so tightly she’s in danger of making it crack; with a shaking hand, she sets it on the table. “Of all the Time Lords it could’ve been, it had to be that one.”
“Yeah.” Martha’s eyes are wide with remembered horror. “It’s not really surprising, though. The War was the reason he hid in the first place. He knew it was coming and he’d have to fight, so he converted himself and went to hide until it was all over. Thing is...” Her eyes are shimmering faintly as she swallows again. “If I hadn’t’ve noticed the watch, if I hadn’t made a point of looking at it, making him look at it closely, he’d never have known. He’d have died as a human and none of it would ever have happened.”
“None of what?”
This is it, obviously; what Jack’s nightmare is about, what the Doctor doesn’t want to remember, what neither of them want to talk about.
Martha takes a deep breath, and Rose realises that Jack’s not the only one who has nightmares about this. Martha’s still traumatised too. “I’m sorry,” she interjects quickly. “I’m really sorry for making you remember all this.”
Martha shakes her head. “It’s okay. You’re right. You need to know.”
“What was it, then? What happened?”
“The year that never was.”
***
He lowers himself to the ground as his mind’s filled with images. Daleks heading towards him, weapons at the ready, their metallic voices shouting EXTERMINATE! The pain of being killed. Waking up confused and still in pain. And then the shock of realising that he’d been abandoned and that he was alone on this deserted hell-hole.
Waiting, because he couldn’t believe that the Doctor’d just leave him. Making excuses: maybe he thought he was dead. Maybe the Doctor’d had to leave in a hurry because the Daleks were pursuing him. Maybe he’d gone to lure them away from the satellite. Excuse after excuse, each one weaker than the next, and all made nonsense by one fact: that the Doctor didn’t come back.
He pulls himself up and looks around. God. The ashes are still there.
He’s reaching towards one pile when he hears it. The sound of the TARDIS engines.
Panic seizes him. It’s happening again. The Doctor’s leaving-
No. Common sense - and faith - take over. The Doctor wouldn’t do it, not again. And he said this is all about replacing bad memories with good. Still, even his trust in the Doctor doesn’t stop him bursting into a run, pushing his way through the doors and storming into the control-room.
The TARDIS is still there, but now in the same position it was before, the time he got left behind. The Doctor’s moved it. The engines are still roaring, but it’s standing still with the door wide open. Waiting for him. Inviting him in.
As soon as he runs through the door, his passage is halted by a man stepping out in front of him and wrapping leather-clad arms around him. The scent of leather surrounds him, even as chestnut hair presses against his cheek.
“Welcome home, Jack.”
And now there’s a lump in his throat, because the words are spoken in a Northern accent he hasn’t heard in a hundred and forty years, yet is still as familiar to him as his own voice.
***
The year that never was. Time that never happened. This is what the Doctor meant.
She flags down a waiter to order coffee. “Tell me,” she says.
“I wasn’t there for it all.” Martha’s voice is soft now. “I was... busy. But my mum and dad were there. They saw most of it - and I was there at the end.”
“I want to hear it. All of it - including what you did. Jack said you saved the planet. The Doctor said it too. He said you were brilliant.”
An odd look crosses Martha’s face - regretful, longing, bitter. “Could’ve told me that himself.”
Damn. He really meant it when he said he treated Martha badly, didn’t he? “He does mean it,” she emphasises.
Martha just nods, then begins talking again as the coffee arrives.
It’s a long story, dwarfing in horror and sheer duration anything she ever went through with the Doctor. An entire year. Genocide throughout the human race. Entire nationalities converted into slaves. The Earth on fire. And Martha Jones, lone missionary, travelling the planet in secret, in fear of her life, to tell the world about the Doctor. The one person who could save them, if they believed in him enough.
“I thought I was gonna die,” Martha tells her, fingers almost white as they clench around her coffee-cup. “All I could think of, the whole time, was had I done enough? Did enough people know what to do to make it work? The Doctor told me later that he was afraid I would be killed, but that he knew that if his plan worked then once he managed to undo it all I’d be okay. The one thing he didn’t want to happen was for the Master to catch me and bring me on board the Valiant, cause if he killed me there I’d stay dead.”
“Undo it...?” She’s trying to get her head around it all, but it’s not easy. “Oh! Right - the year that never happened. He turned back time?”
“Eventually. Once the time was right and the plan worked. But before then...” Martha continues with the rest of the story, life on the Valiant. An aged Doctor. Martha’s parents and sister prisoners, forced to act as servants. Jack in chains, casually tortured and killed over and over for the Master’s entertainment, the Doctor forced to watch. All of them forced to watch as cities burned and people died. People they knew, and that the Master knew they knew, killed on camera as they were forced to watch.
And, finally, the end of it all, when the Doctor’s plan was unleashed, the paradox machine sprang into action and the year was undone, the Master beaten.
It’s like nothing she could ever have imagined, and this is what they went through while she was gone?
It’s no wonder Jack has nightmares. It’s no wonder the Doctor’s bleaker than she knew him before. All of this pain and torture to people he knows, people he loves - and the destruction of a planet he loves. Worst of all, being done by the only other surviving member of his own people.
“God, you were so brave. All of you,” she tells Martha, reaching across to touch the other woman’s hand.
“Didn’t feel like it at the time,” Martha says, half-laughing, though it’s not with amusement. “It was... I just had to get on with it. I didn’t have any other choice.”
“S’pose not. Still, though. If anyone knew what you’d done, you’d have a medal. You’d be a Dame.” And she rolls her eyes inwardly at the memory that brings back. Martha Jones did far more than she did to earn that Damehood.
“You know what the worst was, though?” Martha says abruptly. “It wasn’t the year of trying to get around the world and talk to as many people as I could. It wasn’t being caught and taken back to the Valiant and seeing my parents terrified. It was the Doctor, after Lucy shot the Master. He refused to regenerate an’ he died in the Doctor’s arms, and the whole time the Doctor cried. He sobbed his heart out and begged the Master not to leave him.”
Martha’s eyes are bright with tears again. “After everything that happened, everything that man did, the Doctor cried over him and pleaded with him not to die.”
She’s got tears in her own eyes now. “Because it meant he’d be back to being the only one.”
And he is. Still, the last Time Lord. From what Martha’s said, having another member of his people meant more to him than anything else. Anyone else. As much as she and Jack love him, how can they ever be enough for him, or even begin to help him not to be lonely?
It’s simple. They can’t.
***
tbc