[FIC] INTRO FIC: How Ten and Martha Get to the Island
NO SERIES THREE SPOILERS! There are spoilers for the conclusion of Series Two and "Doomsday" however.
I was going to post this as Ten and Martha's intro post on the comm and then segue into what's already happening, but I changed my mind. But here's the intro fic getting them there.
(Yes, I've been ficcish lately.)
How Ten and Martha Get to the Island (or The Doctor Doesn't Know Where or When He's Going Again)
The turbulent TARDIS threw the Doctor across the console room. He held on, barely, one hand clutching firmly to the side of the console, the other grasping at Martha's wrist. Another bump and thrust and swift tilt to the left and he pulled his assistant back to the console before she rolled across the room and broke something that frail humans couldn't do with breaking.
"Something's wrong!" Martha shouted over the wail of the TARDIS straining to compensate. She fumbled at the console, not at him - (Martha was a smart one and knew that he needed his hands free to work the controls) - and found another grip. His eyes darted from her face to her hands and back again and Martha simply nodded. They didn't need words to communicate that she had a good a grip and wouldn't go flying about again.
"The TARDIS isn't supposed to do this, is she?"
"We're off course," the Doctor explained. He pulled a lever and turned a dial. The TARDIS slowed marginally but not nearly enough.
"How far off?"
The Doctor met her gaze and there it was again. Flickering and gone again quick as it appeared, that brief flash of worry, of self-deprecation, of doubt. Four months back together now, and sometimes, usually when he least expected it, the reminders and evidence surfaced to remind him just how much he'd damaged this human.
Martha didn't think that he would tell her. For a fleeting millisecond of time, shades of the past reared their head. For once, she was almost correct. Had it not been for that flash of doubt and worry, he wouldn't have told her.
Because "Very far," wasn't a precise answer or even a good answer.
It certainly wasn't a calming one.
"How far off is very off?" Martha demanded. She lost her footing and the turbulence bounced her directly toward him. The Doctor had but two heartbeats, one for each heart, to react and grab her around the waist before she went spiraling head-first into one of the TARDIS walls.
"You don't know, do you?" Time was when Martha would have gone soft against him, being held like this, and gotten coy. Now those dark eyes just met his firmly, recognition and understanding growing brighter by the moment. "A billion years? A trillion years? The end of the universe?"
"No, not that far. Never that far again," The Doctor easily flipped Martha around so that her back was to his chest and worked around her to steady the TARDIS trajectory. He'd made sure of that. The TARDIS could never go that far again. "It's not so much when as where and the where -"
Suddenly the world around them cut to black.
Then it cut to white.
Brilliant, pristine, pure, glowing white. White of everything, white of nothing.
They stood in the midst of the pure whiteness, the TARDIS there, tickling in the back of his mind, but the console no longer under his fingers and the TARDIS no longer under his feet.
"Doctor?" Martha's voice echoed in the pure, white nowhere and nothing. "Where are we?"
He considered a moment before answering. "In the void, if I had to guess."
"The void." Not a question, not really. Doubt, disbelief and fear under cut the not-question, but Martha didn't react badly. Calm in the face of panic, that was one of the things he liked about her. "The void between worlds, where you sent the Daleks and the Cybermen?" She didn't mention the rest of it.
She'd grown a bit, changed a lot bit in their time apart. Martha studied him more, questioned him more, demanded more - and got it back in spades - but she knew when to stop and draw the line. She knew when he needed her to stop; and she knew when she needed to keep going.
Another thing, a pleasant change that he found he liked in Martha Jones.
Martha curiously walked a self-defined perimeter. Self-defined because there didn't seem to be a true perimeter. No walls, no floors, just white going on forever. "Not exactly what I expected."
"We're not here."
That got her attention. She stopped walking and whipped around to face him. "What d'ya mean we're not here? We seem to be here to me." Martha stomped her booted foot, and it echoed. "Solid ground. Or floor. Or something. Where are we if we aren't here?"
"Physically, we're not here. Or rather we're not physically in the void. This," the Doctor waved his hand around them, "is an abstract. A physical construct. This is the void where our minds, our consciousness is trapped. It's the TARDIS trying to protect us," and by 'us' he meant 'you' and the rise of Martha's eyebrows and jut of her lips told him that she heard that translation as well, "from whatever is really out there. Or … nah, couldn't be."
He wandered his own self-determined perimeter in the waiting beats. One. Two. Three. Four.
"Couldn't be what, Doctor?" An edge of frustrated annoyance in her voice. He knew if he looked back at her now, Martha would be scowling at him, giving him the look that a parent gave to a particularly trying child.
Of course, he'd be the first to admit that there were times when he was akin to a particularly trying child.
"This isn't the void. It's my mind. I'm saving you by holding your mind here in mine."
"Protecting my frail human mind from the horrors of the void that my underdeveloped human brain can't process?"
"Precisely," the Doctor spun around to look at her now and the slight grin tugging at her full lips was contagious. "Brilliant, clever, Martha Jones. You make me so happy when I don't have to explain it in detail."
"Then it's a bit of a let down," Martha continued, her smirk growing with each word. "With that ego and the way you go on, I'd expected a lot more from being inside your head. Rather on the empty side, wouldn't you say?"
The Doctor ignored the barb. "The problem, as I see it, is figuring out why we're here. We can't be dead or dying or there'd be no point for this. It had to be an involuntary reaction, quite like breathing. It caught me off-kilter, so I did this, or the TARDIS started this, and now -"
"You're just holding us here?" Martha volunteered. She folded her arms beneath her breasts and tilted her head, "Or you don't know how to get us out?" Martha made no attempt to hide the accusation, although there was no malice to her words.
"That's the troublesome bit, I'd say. I know how to get us out. I don't know what made me put us here. Also don't have any idea how long we've been here."
"You're a Time Lord. I thought you knew everything about time."
"This is a bit different, Dr. Jones. My perspective is skewed." The Doctor shrugged and reached into his breast pocket. The sonic screwdriver whirred to life under his touch and he smiled in delight. "Fancy that! Everything appears to be in working order."
"That's doing us what then? Considering this is all some shared hallucination or metaphysical dream or whatnot?"
"Metaphysical dream, yes!" The Doctor slipped the screwdriver back in his pocket and clapped his hands. "I do like the way your mind works. That's the perfect explanation, this is a sort of metaphysical, telepathic connection between us. Getting us out is as simple as opening a door. We just need to find the door."
He bounded toward her, stepping abruptly into her personal space. One hand hooked behind her neck and Martha drew back in surprise. "This is a bad time to decide you want a snog, Doctor!"
"That was a genetic transfer," the Doctor reminded her, but the edges of his words were soft and he felt fondness and humor despite the absurdity of the situation. "And this is not a snog. I'm taking us out of here." He slid his hand from her neck to her face, cupping her face between his hands as he looked into her eyes. "I should warn you, we might be better off like this. I have no idea what the TARDIS and I are protecting us from."
"A lifetime trapped in your head is not my idea of adventure." Martha closed her eyes and he could feel her relaxing against him. It helped that she knew what was coming, that she'd seen this even if she hadn't experienced it. Quite abruptly those chocolate eyes popped open to meet his stare, "You should consider redecorating by the by."
"That's enough out of you," the Doctor gently chided. "Just relax and follow my lead. It's time we found out exactly where we are. . ."
- End
Yes, boys and girls, it fades to black and picks up with Ten and Martha's first post. Which I may (or may not) get up today.
I was going to post this as Ten and Martha's intro post on the comm and then segue into what's already happening, but I changed my mind. But here's the intro fic getting them there.
(Yes, I've been ficcish lately.)
How Ten and Martha Get to the Island (or The Doctor Doesn't Know Where or When He's Going Again)
The turbulent TARDIS threw the Doctor across the console room. He held on, barely, one hand clutching firmly to the side of the console, the other grasping at Martha's wrist. Another bump and thrust and swift tilt to the left and he pulled his assistant back to the console before she rolled across the room and broke something that frail humans couldn't do with breaking.
"Something's wrong!" Martha shouted over the wail of the TARDIS straining to compensate. She fumbled at the console, not at him - (Martha was a smart one and knew that he needed his hands free to work the controls) - and found another grip. His eyes darted from her face to her hands and back again and Martha simply nodded. They didn't need words to communicate that she had a good a grip and wouldn't go flying about again.
"The TARDIS isn't supposed to do this, is she?"
"We're off course," the Doctor explained. He pulled a lever and turned a dial. The TARDIS slowed marginally but not nearly enough.
"How far off?"
The Doctor met her gaze and there it was again. Flickering and gone again quick as it appeared, that brief flash of worry, of self-deprecation, of doubt. Four months back together now, and sometimes, usually when he least expected it, the reminders and evidence surfaced to remind him just how much he'd damaged this human.
Martha didn't think that he would tell her. For a fleeting millisecond of time, shades of the past reared their head. For once, she was almost correct. Had it not been for that flash of doubt and worry, he wouldn't have told her.
Because "Very far," wasn't a precise answer or even a good answer.
It certainly wasn't a calming one.
"How far off is very off?" Martha demanded. She lost her footing and the turbulence bounced her directly toward him. The Doctor had but two heartbeats, one for each heart, to react and grab her around the waist before she went spiraling head-first into one of the TARDIS walls.
"You don't know, do you?" Time was when Martha would have gone soft against him, being held like this, and gotten coy. Now those dark eyes just met his firmly, recognition and understanding growing brighter by the moment. "A billion years? A trillion years? The end of the universe?"
"No, not that far. Never that far again," The Doctor easily flipped Martha around so that her back was to his chest and worked around her to steady the TARDIS trajectory. He'd made sure of that. The TARDIS could never go that far again. "It's not so much when as where and the where -"
Suddenly the world around them cut to black.
Then it cut to white.
Brilliant, pristine, pure, glowing white. White of everything, white of nothing.
They stood in the midst of the pure whiteness, the TARDIS there, tickling in the back of his mind, but the console no longer under his fingers and the TARDIS no longer under his feet.
"Doctor?" Martha's voice echoed in the pure, white nowhere and nothing. "Where are we?"
He considered a moment before answering. "In the void, if I had to guess."
"The void." Not a question, not really. Doubt, disbelief and fear under cut the not-question, but Martha didn't react badly. Calm in the face of panic, that was one of the things he liked about her. "The void between worlds, where you sent the Daleks and the Cybermen?" She didn't mention the rest of it.
She'd grown a bit, changed a lot bit in their time apart. Martha studied him more, questioned him more, demanded more - and got it back in spades - but she knew when to stop and draw the line. She knew when he needed her to stop; and she knew when she needed to keep going.
Another thing, a pleasant change that he found he liked in Martha Jones.
Martha curiously walked a self-defined perimeter. Self-defined because there didn't seem to be a true perimeter. No walls, no floors, just white going on forever. "Not exactly what I expected."
"We're not here."
That got her attention. She stopped walking and whipped around to face him. "What d'ya mean we're not here? We seem to be here to me." Martha stomped her booted foot, and it echoed. "Solid ground. Or floor. Or something. Where are we if we aren't here?"
"Physically, we're not here. Or rather we're not physically in the void. This," the Doctor waved his hand around them, "is an abstract. A physical construct. This is the void where our minds, our consciousness is trapped. It's the TARDIS trying to protect us," and by 'us' he meant 'you' and the rise of Martha's eyebrows and jut of her lips told him that she heard that translation as well, "from whatever is really out there. Or … nah, couldn't be."
He wandered his own self-determined perimeter in the waiting beats. One. Two. Three. Four.
"Couldn't be what, Doctor?" An edge of frustrated annoyance in her voice. He knew if he looked back at her now, Martha would be scowling at him, giving him the look that a parent gave to a particularly trying child.
Of course, he'd be the first to admit that there were times when he was akin to a particularly trying child.
"This isn't the void. It's my mind. I'm saving you by holding your mind here in mine."
"Protecting my frail human mind from the horrors of the void that my underdeveloped human brain can't process?"
"Precisely," the Doctor spun around to look at her now and the slight grin tugging at her full lips was contagious. "Brilliant, clever, Martha Jones. You make me so happy when I don't have to explain it in detail."
"Then it's a bit of a let down," Martha continued, her smirk growing with each word. "With that ego and the way you go on, I'd expected a lot more from being inside your head. Rather on the empty side, wouldn't you say?"
The Doctor ignored the barb. "The problem, as I see it, is figuring out why we're here. We can't be dead or dying or there'd be no point for this. It had to be an involuntary reaction, quite like breathing. It caught me off-kilter, so I did this, or the TARDIS started this, and now -"
"You're just holding us here?" Martha volunteered. She folded her arms beneath her breasts and tilted her head, "Or you don't know how to get us out?" Martha made no attempt to hide the accusation, although there was no malice to her words.
"That's the troublesome bit, I'd say. I know how to get us out. I don't know what made me put us here. Also don't have any idea how long we've been here."
"You're a Time Lord. I thought you knew everything about time."
"This is a bit different, Dr. Jones. My perspective is skewed." The Doctor shrugged and reached into his breast pocket. The sonic screwdriver whirred to life under his touch and he smiled in delight. "Fancy that! Everything appears to be in working order."
"That's doing us what then? Considering this is all some shared hallucination or metaphysical dream or whatnot?"
"Metaphysical dream, yes!" The Doctor slipped the screwdriver back in his pocket and clapped his hands. "I do like the way your mind works. That's the perfect explanation, this is a sort of metaphysical, telepathic connection between us. Getting us out is as simple as opening a door. We just need to find the door."
He bounded toward her, stepping abruptly into her personal space. One hand hooked behind her neck and Martha drew back in surprise. "This is a bad time to decide you want a snog, Doctor!"
"That was a genetic transfer," the Doctor reminded her, but the edges of his words were soft and he felt fondness and humor despite the absurdity of the situation. "And this is not a snog. I'm taking us out of here." He slid his hand from her neck to her face, cupping her face between his hands as he looked into her eyes. "I should warn you, we might be better off like this. I have no idea what the TARDIS and I are protecting us from."
"A lifetime trapped in your head is not my idea of adventure." Martha closed her eyes and he could feel her relaxing against him. It helped that she knew what was coming, that she'd seen this even if she hadn't experienced it. Quite abruptly those chocolate eyes popped open to meet his stare, "You should consider redecorating by the by."
"That's enough out of you," the Doctor gently chided. "Just relax and follow my lead. It's time we found out exactly where we are. . ."
- End
Yes, boys and girls, it fades to black and picks up with Ten and Martha's first post. Which I may (or may not) get up today.