Regeneration (1/2)
Who_Daily Link: < a href="http://persiflage-1.livejournal.com/426843.html">Regeneration (1/2) by < lj user=persiflage_1> (Characters: Martha, the Doctor, the TARDIS, Sarah Jane, Liz, Clyde, Rani, Harry Sullivan | Rating: PG-13 | Spoilers: S1 - S4)
Title: Regeneration
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Martha, the Doctor, the TARDIS, Sarah Jane, Liz, Clyde, Rani, Harry Sullivan
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: S1 - S4 (Mild)
Warning: Character deaths
Summary: A battle-worn TARDIS brings a dying Eighth Doctor from the Time War to Martha for her help through his regeneration.
Disclaimer: Nope, still not mine!
Author Notes: I have no idea where this plot bunny sprang from! It's set about 5 years after Journey's End for Martha. I figure the TARDIS, being linked to the Doctor's mind, is as capable of seeing the future as the Doctor himself, therefore she'd know of his meeting with Martha even though it hadn't yet happened in his personal timeline. Though this is not a shippy fic, the pairings are: Martha/Mickey, Sarah Jane/Harry, Liz/Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, and Clyde/Rani.
Beta-readers: abstruse_fangrl and catholicphoton
~~~~~~
Martha paused for a moment outside the door, hearing the laughter and chatter from within the room with a slight tightening of her stomach. Then she reminded herself that these were her friends, and that they had been deeply caring last year when another of their number had found herself in the same position that Martha was in now.
She took a deep breath, then pushed open the door into the private function room and stepped inside.
"Martha!" An older woman with a bright smile immediately got up and hurried across to hug her younger friend.
"Hello Sarah." She returned the hug gratefully.
"How are you?"
"I'm okay," Martha answered, smiling at her friend.
"If it gets too much, let me know, and I'll take you home," Sarah Jane said quietly, before steering her friend across the room to the table around which their friends, young and old, sat.
"Hello Martha, how are you?" asked Liz Shaw, getting to her feet to hug the younger woman. "I'm sorry about Mickey."
"Thanks." She remembered how dignified Liz had been last year when she had lost the Brigadier after he'd suffered from two strokes, and she vowed to emulate her friend, as far as possible.
Clyde and Rani, no longer teenagers, but still loyal to Sarah Jane, took their turns in greeting Martha and expressing their condolences, then Harry Sullivan came around the corner of the table to hug her too.
"Are you all right, old girl?" he asked gently. "We would have understood if you hadn't come today."
Martha poked his arm. "Less of the 'old girl', thank you Dr Sullivan," she said, aware of tears threatening. She wrapped her arms around him instead, hoping she wouldn't break down.
"And yes, I'm okay, I think. Or I will be. I was glad to get out of the house, to tell the truth." She allowed Harry to guide her into a chair between Sarah Jane and Liz, accepted the drink which Clyde had fetched for her, and swallowed down the lump in her throat.
She looked around at her friends, all of whom had known the Doctor at some point in their lives, and thought how lucky she was that they had decided to start meeting up every couple of months to share their experiences, swap information, and generally support each other. She and Mickey had been glad of the friendship they had developed with the others over the five years since she had left UNIT and gone freelance with Mickey. The group still occasionally had dealings with UNIT and Torchwood, but for the most part they worked independently of both organisations, preferring their informal network to the more rigid hierarchy of either Torchwood or UNIT.
"When's the funeral?" asked Liz after a few minutes, during which they'd all placed their lunch orders.
"Friday," Martha answered. "You are all welcome to come, but you're not obliged to attend."
"Of course we'll be there," Sarah Jane said instantly, a response that was echoed by the others.
"Thanks." Martha was grateful since she knew Mickey had no family to attend: his grandmother, who'd brought him up, was long dead, and his mother had died a couple of years earlier. He hadn't known where his father was, and since his return from the alternate universe after the affair with Davros moving the Earth, he'd made only a few friends. It was going to be a small service.
Clyde began asking Liz about something he was working on for his Master's degree, and Rani started a conversation with Harry about an article she was researching.
"Have you heard from the Doctor?" asked Sarah Jane.
Martha shook her head. "I rang and left him a message to tell him about Mickey, but I doubt he'll come to the funeral - you know what he's like."
Sarah Jane nodded, no doubt remembering how they'd all initially been surprised that the Doctor had turned up for the Brigadier's funeral last year. "He does hate saying goodbye," she said.
Martha sighed. "I know." She changed the subject, not wanting to dwell on those thoughts as she was certain that she would start crying if she did.
"How are Luke and Maria?"
Sarah Jane smiled. "They're good," she said. "I had a long chat with them last night. Apparently Alan's finally resigned himself to the fact that his daughter's going to be involved in 'that alien business', as he phrased it."
Martha gave a small smile. "I'm glad he's accepted the inevitability of the situation. Let's hope he'll worry about her a bit less now."
"I hope so," Sarah Jane said, rolling her eyes slightly.
* * * * * *
Harry insisted on driving Martha home after their lunch, and she braced herself for his enquiries about the real state of her health, physical, mental and emotional. He gave her a crooked smile.
"Relax, Martha," he said, pulling out of the pub car park. "I've known you long enough by now to trust that you'll tell me or someone else if you need help, so I'm not going to subject you to a barrage of questions, nor ask you incessantly if you're okay." He reached over and squeezed her arm gently for a moment.
"Thanks, Harry. I promise, if it all gets too much, I'll ring you or Sarah Jane and let you know."
"Good girl."
He changed the subject, asking her about the work she was currently doing on a UN-funded project researching the effects on human physiology of contact with aliens, and she was glad to talk 'shop' with him instead for the rest of the drive home.
"When are you flying out to Geneva?" asked Harry as he pulled up outside Martha's house.
"Next month, some time, unless they change their minds again," she answered, rolling her eyes. "You know what they're like for bureaucracy over there."
Harry laughed. "The Brig was always eloquent on the subject." He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "We'll see you on Friday afternoon."
She nodded, feeling tears stinging her eyes again, and climbed out of the car with a little wave, before heading towards her front door.
* * * * * *
Mickey Smith's funeral was as quiet an affair as Martha had anticipated, but she was still very glad of the support of her friends as well as her family. Jack had rung her the night before to say he wouldn't be able to get back in time, as he'd been hoping, owing to work pressures, but he'd promised to come and see her as soon as he could get away. Martha hadn't been surprised since she knew how busy her friend was in setting up an American branch of Torchwood with the help of Gwen and Ianto. She'd had also a message from the Doctor and suspected that he'd deliberately rung her home number while she was out so that he wouldn't have to talk to her.
Both her parents were there, as were Tish and Leo with their respective families, and Martha tried not to feel bitter at the sight of her nephews and nieces. She and Mickey had decided about three months ago that they were going to try to start a family, which was when she had switched to doing less of the active field work and more research-based work since they had both agreed that it would be foolish to risk injuring the baby out in the field. Martha had really enjoyed getting back into medicine again, and had particularly enjoyed the research projects which had come her way as a result of her UNIT connections. In the days since Mickey's death, however, she had wondered if he would have died had she been out there with him that night; she couldn't help wondering if, between the two of them, they would have been able to deal with the Hoix.
"Are you all right love?" Francine asked, wrapping an arm around her younger daughter as they walked out to the undertakers' car waiting outside the little church.
Martha nodded, unable, for the moment, to speak for the lump in her throat. She swallowed a couple of times before she managed to assure her mother.
They climbed into the car, and Clive joined them, leaving everyone else to sort themselves out between the remaining cars to drive the short distance to the cemetery.
After the internment, everyone went back to Martha's house; Francine, Sarah Jane and Liz had all supplied food for the wake, for which Martha was deeply grateful as she hadn't had the energy to bake anything herself.
As she moved between her guests, she couldn't help wishing that Jack and the Doctor had been able to come too; she felt bad that no one there had known Mickey for longer than the last five years, since his return from that alternate universe. If Jack or the Doctor had been able to come, they could have talked about the man Mickey had been before that experience, which Mickey himself had told her had changed his life in so many ways.
Once she'd spoken to everyone, Martha made her way out to the little back garden and sat on the swing seat under the oak trees at the end of the garden. They'd sat out here last Saturday after dinner, discussing the week ahead, and the project Martha was working on. He'd teased her when she'd objected to him getting too frisky because there were several houses that overlooked their garden, and Mickey had joked about getting Jack to teach her how to shed her inhibitions.
Harry found her there half an hour later as she sobbed unrestrainedly over the things she and Mickey would never do together, particularly the children they would never have now. Harry sat down beside her, slipping an arm around her shoulders, and she tried to stop her tears.
"It's okay Martha," he said softly. "Just let it all out."
She gulped, hiccoughed, then continued to cry, accepting Harry's handkerchief when he pulled it from the pocket of his black suit trousers.
"Did you get much sleep last night?" he asked when her tears showed signs of stopping.
"No."
"Will you let me give you something to help you?" he asked gently. "Just a mild sedative, nothing addictive."
"Okay," she whispered.
"Come on then." He helped her up from the seat, and they made their way back to the house where Francine and Tish both appeared in the kitchen.
"It's okay mum," Martha said, her voice husky from crying.
Francine raised an eyebrow at Harry, who nodded; Tish went back into the sitting room while Francine followed Martha and Harry upstairs. At Harry's low-voiced suggestion, Francine helped Martha to change into her pyjamas while he went downstairs and out to his car for his medical bag.
He returned a couple of minutes later, and extracted a needle and a small phial from his bag. "This should help you to sleep tonight," he said softly, then pushed Martha's sleeve up before administering the sedative. He smiled down at her, then backed out of the room, leaving Francine, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding Martha's other hand.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, looking up at her mother. "I should - "
"No, you shouldn't," Francine answered immediately. "It doesn't matter what you were going to say. You don't have to or need to do anything, except get some sleep. Everyone will understand."
She leaned down and kissed Martha's forehead lightly, then squeezed her hand before getting to her feet. "I'll stay until everyone's gone home," she said. "Make sure the place is tidy for you. Give me a ring tomorrow, okay?"
Martha nodded, feeling her eyelids drooping heavily as the drug Harry had given her began to work. She turned onto her side, curling up in the middle of the bed, and was asleep before Francine had left the room.
* * * * * *
In the early hours of the morning following Mickey's funeral a strange noise woke Martha. She sat up and turned on the bedside light, thinking it was Mickey coming home late, before she remembered with a flare of anger at herself that he wouldn't be coming home ever again.
She looked at the bedside clock and saw that it was just after two o'clock, which meant she'd slept for about nine hours after Harry had given her that sedative. She looked around the room, listening hard to see if the noise would come again, and noticed that the curtains were still open and the moon was up. Martha slipped out of bed and padded across the carpet to close the curtains, deciding that she wouldn't be able to sleep if the moonlight got very bright. She reached up and grasped the curtains, then stopped, staring in disbelief at the tall blue box standing in the middle of the back garden.
"So that's what woke me," she muttered, half annoyed by the Doctor's terrible sense of timing. She left the curtains and hurried across the room to shove her feet into her house shoes, then grabbing her dressing gown from the back of the door, she quickly made her way downstairs.
She barely registered the two plastic boxes of food on the table, a note in her mother's handwriting on top of one of them; she rushed to unlock the back door and let herself out into the garden. She felt some surprise that the Doctor hadn't already left the ship yet; she found herself wondering if he had only realised what the local time was after the TARDIS had materialised here, and had decided not to disturb her in the middle of the night. It was only as she crossed the patch of lawn that Martha remembered her key to the ship was in the drawer of her desk in her study. But even as she had the thought and half turned to go back to the house to fetch the key, the TARDIS door opened with a louder than usual creak.
Dim light spilled out of the interior, and she felt shocked as she got close enough to see that the ship's exterior was a mess: there were huge scorch marks on it where the paint had blackened and peeled, and there were other marks that Martha couldn't quite identify in the diffuse moonlight. She ran her fingertips lightly over a very deep dent in the door as she pushed it open wider.
"What's happened to you, old girl?" she whispered, chilled by the extent of the damage she could already see in this poor light. She wondered if the Doctor was all right as the ship, instead of offering her usual comforting hum, made a noise that sounded like a groan.
Martha took a deep breath as she stepped over the threshold, then immediately wished she hadn't as the stench of smoke filled her nostrils and she coughed. The smoke stung her eyes, too, making them water, and between that and the dim lighting inside the ship, it took her a moment to see that the ship's interior was nothing like the Control Room with which she was familiar. Gone was the green-and-gold décor, and the coral-like support struts, instead it was a vast space with a Jules Verne-type console over to the right, but there was wreckage everywhere. She felt surprised that the ship had managed to get to Earth, looking at the amount of damage she could see, even in this dim lighting.
She began picking her way over the scattered books and other objects that littered the floor.
"Doctor?" she called anxiously.
Where was he, and which one was he, she wondered, certain it wouldn't be the man whom she'd met at the Royal Hope, then travelled with.
She heard a faint groan and felt a mixture of relief and terror at the sound: if he was capable of groaning, he must still be alive, but if he was groaning, he must be hurt. She scrambled across the floor until she almost tripped over a pair of feet, and she quickly knelt down beside the stranger who lay sprawled amongst a random collection of objects, including books, a telescope, and a carriage clock. This Doctor had curly brown hair, what was left of it, and wore an outfit that she felt would have been more appropriate to someone appearing in an Edwardian costume drama on television.
"Doctor," she said, carefully lifting his right hand in hers and feeling for his pulses in his wrist.
"Whozzat?" he asked, his words slurring together.
"Dr Martha Jones," she answered. "I travelled with you, maybe a later you."
He screwed his eyes shut, then opened them slowly and peered up at her; they were a dull blue, she noticed, and very bloodshot.
"TARDIS?" he asked.
"Yes, you're in the TARDIS, but she's very badly injured," Martha answered. His pulses were weak, and his breathing was very raspy, which she suspected was the result of smoke inhalation. "I don't know how she got you here, or why she came to me."
"Zero Room," he said.
Martha frowned. "What's the Zero Room?" she asked.
"Helps healing."
"Okay. Can you stand? Or walk? Because if not, I'm going to need help to get you to this Zero Room."
"Wheelchair," he rasped.
She placed his hand on his chest for a moment before she got to her feet, then picked her way through the rubble of a broken archway into the corridor beyond. She wished she had a torch, and that she had got dressed before coming out to the TARDIS, but she'd been expecting the Doctor to be fit and well, and wanting to have a cup of tea with her, not in these dire straits.
After about ten minutes of searching Martha located the medical bay and found a wheelchair folded up and neatly put away in a corner. She hauled it out, unfolded it, and wheeled it out into the corridor. She wondered whether the Zero Room would be easy to find, and if the path to it was clear because a wheelchair wouldn't be much use if there was rubble in the corridors.
Martha attempted to lift the Doctor into the wheelchair, but he cried out in obvious agony, so she lowered him back to the floor again.
"I'm going to nip back into my house and ring for some help," she told him. "I can't lift you on my own."
He groaned something indistinct, and after a moment she got to her feet, hurrying out of the TARDIS and back into her house. She ran upstairs and grabbed her mobile, hitting the speed dial for Harry Sullivan, then switched the phone to speaker so she could get dressed while she talked to him.
"Martha?" said a sleepy voice. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Harry, but I could use your help. The Doctor's turned up - and it's not the one I know. He's badly injured and the TARDIS is damaged as well. I need your help to move him - he says he'll heal if he's in something called the Zero Room, but I couldn't even lift him into a wheelchair on my own."
"All right, sit tight, Sarah and I will be there as soon as we can."
"Thank you. And sorry for waking you."
"Don't be daft," Harry said, reassuringly. "It's the Doctor, of course you should have rung me."
"See you soon."
Martha ended the call, then finished dressing. She went out to the landing and pulled a couple of blankets from the linen cupboard, then ran downstairs to her study where she rooted out a couple of books. The books had arrived a couple of months ago, in a neat parcel, and Martha had been surprised to discover they were books on Gallifreyan physiology. There had been a note in unfamiliar handwriting in the parcel, signed 'The Doctor', which explained that he'd heard that she was now doing more xenobiological work and he thought she might find them interesting. She'd found them fascinating in fact, as had Harry and Liz when she'd shown the books to them. Now she wondered if the Doctor had known she would need the information they held and sent them in anticipation of this day. Since he was a time-traveller it was entirely possible for him to know about something before it had happened to him, just like when the two of them had met Sally Sparrow.
* * * * * *
Martha heard Harry's car pull up, and she hurried to let them in.
"Which Doctor is it?" asked Sarah Jane as she followed Harry out of the back door into the garden.
"I've no idea," Martha answered. "I'd guess he's about five foot eight, with curly brown hair and blue eyes, and wearing an Edwardian style outfit."
"He doesn't sound familiar," Sarah Jane commented as they stepped into the TARDIS. She gasped in shock as she saw the wreckage lying about the floor, but Harry hurried after Martha as she made her way back to the Doctor's side.
Martha knelt beside the Time Lord. "Doctor," she said gently, taking his hand in hers. "I'm back, and I've brought Sarah Jane and Harry with me. We're going to take you to the Zero Room now."
"Sarah?"
She stepped to the Doctor's other side, and knelt beside him. "I'm here Doctor."
"Zero - " He began coughing, then cried out in pain, and everyone else flinched.
"I think it might be easier if we put him on a stretcher," Martha said.
"Good idea," agreed Harry.
She got up and took the wheelchair back to the medical bay, fetching a stretcher instead. Between them Martha and Harry lifted the Doctor onto the stretcher, which Sarah Jane moved into position beneath him once they had lifted him from the floor.
"Let Sarah and I carry him," Harry suggested to Martha. "You go ahead of us and make sure that our path to the Zero Room is clear."
"Where is the Zero Room?" asked Martha. "I've never even heard of it before."
"Oh," said Harry. "Hadn't thought of that. I don't know." He turned to Sarah Jane, who was getting her mobile phone from her pocket. "Who are you ringing? The Doctor?"
She shook her head. "Mr Smith. He might be able to interface with the TARDIS and tell us."
The lights where they stood brightened for a moment. "I think that's the TARDIS' equivalent of agreement," Martha said hopefully.
Sarah Jane spoke to her super-computer, briefly explaining their situation, then ended the call. "He's sending through an app to trace the Zero Room," she said. "Apparently it's cut off from the electrical and radiological influences of the rest of the universe, which means it can be detected relatively easily with the right equipment."
Sarah Jane's phone played a tune to indicate that a file had arrived, and she quickly activated the app, then passed her phone to Martha, who looked at the screen and saw a diagram showing the TARDIS control room, and then a portion of the corridor outside; a green arrow indicated where they were standing.
"Let's go then." She turned and set off through the archway, then glanced back to see her two friends were carefully lifting the Doctor on the stretcher from the floor.
* * * * * *
According to Martha's watch it took them half an hour to reach the Zero Room as they had to stop a few times so Martha could clear a path for her two friends; once they'd found the Zero Room she felt a little let down as it seemed to be nothing special - just a white, featureless, furniture-less room.
She held the door open for Harry and Sarah Jane to carry the Doctor in, then hurried to join them as they set the stretcher down on the floor.
"Now what?" asked Sarah Jane, looking as puzzled as Martha felt about the point of bringing the Doctor here.
He startled them all by speaking. "Now I can begin to build up enough energy to regenerate."
"I thought you just regenerated anyway," Martha observed. "I mean, I thought that was the point of regeneration."
"No," he answered, his voice raspy still. "Unfortunately not. I need to enter into a healing trance in order to trigger the regeneration - my damaged cells have to heal first."
They watched in awe as the Doctor's body lifted up from the stretcher so that he appeared to be floating in mid-air.
"Doctor, what happened to you?" asked Sarah Jane, voicing the question which had been troubling Martha since she'd woken to find the TARDIS in her garden.
He turned his head to look at them and Martha saw a terrible mixture of anguish, pain and shame in his expression.
"It was War," he answered simply, and Martha instantly knew he meant the Time War, the one 'her' Doctor had told her about in a grimy alley in the far distant future on New Earth. She saw Sarah Jane flinch slightly at the Doctor's words, and Harry's expression become grim, and she stepped closer to the Time Lord.
"Don't talk about it, not now," she said softly, taking his right hand in both of hers. "You said just now that you need to enter a healing trance - we should leave you to do that."
Harry and Sarah Jane agreed immediately and crossed to the door.
"I should," he agreed. "But I think you should stay with me."
"Me?" asked Martha, slightly surprised. She knew the Doctor had known Sarah Jane longer than either Harry or herself, so she'd have expected him to want Sarah Jane to stay, if anyone.
"I think you need healing almost as much as I do, Martha Jones," he said, his bloodshot eyes boring into hers. "You need emotional healing, not physical."
She swallowed the lump that seemed to have developed in her throat, feeling almost choked by her emotions. "I - How do you know that?"
He placed his free hand over both of hers. "I could feel your grief as soon as you entered the TARDIS."
"Sorry," she whispered.
"Don't be," he said softly. "Stay with me, and let the TARDIS help you as well as me."
She swallowed hard and nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
"Martha, Harry and I will head back home now. But if you need our help, don't hesitate to ring again, day or night," said Sarah Jane.
She looked over at them and gave them a half smile. "I will. Thank you."
"We'll see you again Doctor," Harry said.
"You will, thank you, both of you," he answered.
They both sketched a wave, then went out, leaving Martha and the Doctor in the silence of the Zero Room.
"Why don't you make yourself comfortable?" he suggested.
She raised a quizzical eyebrow. "How?"
"You've floated in a swimming pool, right?" She nodded. "This is just the same sort of thing. I'll hold your hand, if you like."
Martha took a deep breath, then closed her eyes and leaned back, pushing up with her legs. After a moment she felt a sensation of weightlessness, and she opened her eyes to see she was 'lying' beside the Doctor in mid-air, his right hand in her left.
"Wow," she whispered.
He smiled and she noticed that his eyes were looking a bit less bloodshot than before. "Tell me about your husband," he said.
She frowned. "Should I? He's someone you'll know in your future."
"So are you," pointed out the Doctor.
"I know." She was silent for a while, trying to decide how much or little to tell him. "Mickey was someone I grew to love very deeply, more deeply than any other man with whom I've had a relationship. We both learned a great deal from and because of you, but neither of us had a very easy time as a result of knowing you, and that brought us closer together." She gave the Doctor an anxious look. "I'm not saying I blame you, not for everything, anyway. Some things I brought on myself because I couldn't accept the situation as it was, and some things were the result of me simply not being the right person at the right time."
She didn't tell him that it had taken her a foolishly long time for her to realise that what the Doctor had most needed was a friend, while she had wanted a lover as well as a friend; it still irked her, occasionally, that she had let that crush blind her so much.
"I'm sorry," he said gently, tightening his grip on her fingers.
Martha shook her head slightly, remembering a conversation she'd had with his bow-tie wearing future self. "You once told me that if someone else hadn't turned down your invitation to travel with you when she did, things would have turned out a bit differently between you and I." She looked over at him, and saw sadness in his eyes, and she squeezed his fingers.
"It's not your fault - you're not him yet. And anyway, travelling with you taught me a great deal, including what I really wanted out of life."
"It sounds like it was a rather painful learning experience," the Doctor said after a minute.
Martha huffed a brief laugh. "Life generally is, whether or not you spend time running around with a time-travelling alien in a big blue box." She allowed herself to drift closer to the Doctor and reached over to put her hand on his chest, between his hearts. "Don't worry about it, though, we've made our peace, you and I."
The Doctor sat up and wrapped his arms around her. "I'm glad to hear it."
She gave him a concerned look. "You sound - and look - exhausted. I don't think I should talk to you any more."
He gave a laugh that turned into a hacking cough, then lay back again. "I think you're right." He clasped her hand a bit more tightly, then closed his eyes, and Martha sensed rather than saw him entering the trance state. She lay back herself, closing her eyes and feeling a sense of peace slowly filtering through her consciousness. She didn't suppose that the Zero Room would or could cure her of her grief, but maybe it could blunt some of the raw edges for her.
As she lay there, she found herself recalling the early days of her relationship with Mickey, when they'd first been dating. Martha had invited him to come round for dinner one Friday night, and they'd sprawled on her sofa talking about the Doctor and Rose; afterwards she'd thought of it as clearing the air. Martha had explained how the Doctor had made her feel second best to Rose, and Mickey had countered with tales of being made to feel like 'the tin dog' compared to the Doctor.
"What would you do if we're together, and then he turned up one day and asked you to travel with him again?" Mickey had asked.
"He won't," she had answered, certain of her answer.
"But say he did?" Mickey had persisted.
"I'd tell him that either you'd be coming with us, or I wouldn't be going. Mickey, there's nothing the Doctor can offer me that I can't have with you. I don't need to travel the stars to find 'adventure'," she had made ironic air quotes, "when aliens come here, causing trouble on a regular basis." She had looked over at him and grinned. "Besides, he's not likely to offer me a fantastic shag."
To her secret delight, Mickey had actually looked faintly embarrassed at this praise. "Okay, but why did you break up with Tom?"
"Tom wasn't the man I thought he was. I told you, I met him right at the end of my year of walking the Earth - but that version of Tom had been forged by life on a post-Apocalyptic Earth. The Tom I met after the Doctor rewound that year was a quite different man, and while there was nothing wrong with him per se, he wasn't the man I wanted or needed." She had briefly looked away from Mickey's intent scrutiny at that point. "Plus, I was on the rebound. I needed time to get over the Doctor, time to remember who I was and what I wanted out of life." Then she had leaned over and kissed Mickey deeply before she'd continued, "You'll never be second best to me, Mickey Smith. Nor a tin dog."
She remembered that he'd kissed her back just as fiercely before whispering in her ear. "First time I saw you, when we were in the Dalek Crucible and you were in Germany giving the Daleks backchat, I wanted to shag you. I reckoned you'd be a firecracker in bed, and I wasn't wrong."
Martha had laughed and started singing "Come on baby light my fire" until he'd stopped her with kisses.
* * * * * *
Martha must have fallen asleep because she suddenly became aware of something tingling against her leg. She sat up, then put her feet down on the floor to pull her vibrating mobile phone from her pocket. She glanced at the Doctor and saw that he was either asleep or still in a trance state, so she tiptoed over to the Zero Room door and let herself out before answering her phone.
"Hello mum," she said quietly.
"Martha, where are you? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine mum, calm down. I'm in the TARDIS."
"What?"
"It's okay, the TARDIS is in my back garden." She set off along the corridors towards the Control Room, hoping that she wouldn't get lost en route. "The Doctor turned up - " She paused and checked her watch, then blinked in surprise to see it was lunchtime already. "a few hours ago, actually. It's not the tall skinny one, though."
"Then who is it?" asked Francine.
"Sarah Jane thinks he's the one who came two incarnations before the one I travelled with."
"That impossible man," sighed her mother, making Martha smile. "I rang to see if you wanted to come to lunch?"
"Do you mind if I take a rain check? I'd rather not go off anywhere just at the moment. The Doctor's not in the best of health, that's why he turned up in the early hours."
"All right. Are you sure you're all right though?"
"Yes, I'm okay, honest." Martha stepped into the Control Room and noticed that the light was brighter than it had been the first time she'd entered.
"All right. I'll talk to you soon, then."
"Yeah, and thanks for ringing." Martha ended the call, then crossed the Control Room and let herself out of the ship, heading to the house to get some lunch.
She was wondering whether to take some food back to the TARDIS for the Doctor when her phone rang again, and she found Liz on the other end.
"Sarah Jane rang me and said the Doctor had turned up," she said, after greeting Martha.
"Yes, in the early hours of this morning. The TARDIS brought him. As far as I can tell, from the damage the ship itself has sustained, she brought him straight from the last battle in the Time War."
There was a long pause. "Is he okay?" Liz asked.
"In a healing trance in the Zero Room. He said he needed to heal before he can regenerate, which was a new one on me."
"Me too," admitted Liz.
"Do you want to come and see him?" Martha asked, wondering if that was why she'd rung.
"I thought you said he's in a healing trance?"
"At the moment, yes. But I presume that'll end at some point before he regenerates. I was going to check the books he sent me."
"Well I'm not planning on going back to Cambridge until Monday, so if it wouldn't be an imposition, I'd like to come over and see him."
"Of course it's not an imposition," Martha said immediately. "Why don't you come and have dinner with me tonight, and we can see what state the Doctor's in then?"
"Thank you, Martha."
"I'll see you about seven, yeah?"
"Yes."
After Liz had hung up, Martha went to investigate the contents of her fridge, freezer and cupboards to see what she could give Liz for dinner. She hadn't done any food shopping since last weekend, but then again, she hadn't eaten much since Mickey's death on Sunday. She found there was some fresh Ravioli and some salmon steaks in the fridge that ought to be eaten by the following day, and resolved to prepare that for herself and Liz.
She made a thermos full of tea, then picked up one of the two boxes Francine had left on the kitchen table the day before, which contained several slices of chocolate cake, and headed back to the TARDIS.
* * * * * *
Martha found the Doctor exactly as she left him, so she set down the box of cake and the thermos of tea, then settled down on the floor beside the door to read through the books on Gallifreyan physiology.
She was deep in the section on regeneration when a noise made her look up and she saw the Doctor was no longer floating but lying on the floor. She got up quickly and went to kneel beside him.
"Doctor?"
He opened his eyes, and she immediately saw that they were no longer bloodshot, and there was life in them too.
"Hello Martha," he said, reaching out for her hand. "Could I trouble you for something to drink?"
She smiled. "I've got a thermos flask of tea and some slices of chocolate cake over there," she said. "If you're interested."
He smiled in return. "How well you know me, it seems." He sat up and she went over to fetch the tea and cake. "What are you reading?" He nodded at the two books she'd left by the door.
"Someone - I'm not sure which one of you - sent me two books on Gallifreyan physiology a couple of months ago. I was just reading up on regeneration."
He blinked. "May I see?"
Martha fetched the books and put them down beside him, then took the cup and top off the thermos to pour him some tea.
"Thanks." He took the cup from her without looking, his attention focused on the two books in his lap. "It was very providential of me to send these to you. I wonder which one of me it was." He looked up at her, his eyes bright with interest. "How many of me have you met?"
"You're the third one," Martha answered. "Sarah Jane told me the one I met the first time was your tenth self, and I've met the eleventh."
"This is my eighth body," he told her, answering her unasked question. "So you'll have met four of me by the time I've regenerated." He tipped his head to one side and gave her a speculative look. "Which one do you like the best?"
"I'm not answering that," she said, laughing slightly. "That's like asking a parent which of their children they like best." Her expression became pensive at the mention of children, and he reached out to clasp her shoulder briefly. "You should eat something and I should leave you in peace."
"You don't have to go," he told her, opening the box containing the slices of cake and removing one. "I like having you here."
"Thanks." Martha felt her face heating up and quickly changed the subject. "Liz is coming over later to have dinner with me - would you like to see her."
"Liz? My Liz?" he asked, sounding surprised.
"I don't think you should let her hear you calling her that," Martha said, smiling again. "But yes, Dr Elizabeth Shaw, as she was."
"What is she now?" asked the Doctor around a mouthful of cake.
"A professor. And unofficially Mrs Lethbridge-Stewart, although she's never used her married name."
The Doctor swallowed his mouthful, his eyes widening. "Liz and the Brigadier?"
Martha laughed softly at his obvious astonishment. "Yes, they got together about ten years ago, after Alistair's second wife, Doris, died."
"Alistair married three times? The sly old dog! And how is he?"
She reached out and clasped his hand. "I'm sorry, Doctor, Alistair died last year." She watched as the laughter died from his expression.
"Did I go to his funeral?" he asked, his grief audible.
"Yes. Your eleventh self came - that's when I met him."
"I'm glad one of me was there. He was my oldest human friend." The Doctor bent his head, and Martha sat down beside him and put an arm around his shoulders.
"I'm sorry," she said softly.
"It's okay," he answered. He finished the slice of cake. "I think I might rest some more now," he told her.
"Of course." She squeezed his shoulder, then picked up the thermos, the box of cake, and the books. "I'm going back to my place," she said. "Liz is having dinner with me, so I ought to go and make a start on it."
He nodded. "I look forward to seeing Professor Shaw later."
Martha smiled, then made her way out of the Zero Room and back to her house.
* * * * * *
Liz arrived promptly at seven o'clock, with a bottle of rosé wine, which Martha considered uncannily prescient of her.
"How are you?" asked Liz as she took off her coat, then turned to hug her friend.
"Feeling better than yesterday," Martha answered. "I think that must be a side effect of being in the Zero Room earlier."
"Oh were you?"
"Yeah. Come through." Martha led the way into the kitchen, which smelled of pasta and baking salmon steaks. "The Doctor wanted to spend time in the Zero Room so he could maintain a healing trance, and he asked me to stay with him - he told me he could feel my grief as soon as I entered the TARDIS, which was a bit unnerving."
"What was it like?" asked Liz, opening the wine as Martha took the salmon from the oven.
"It's a white featureless room with absolutely no furniture, just four walls, a ceiling and a floor. But it's immensely peaceful." She frowned. "It's hard to explain, to be honest, but you'll experience it for yourself."
"You told the Doctor I was coming?"
"Yes, and he seemed really pleased at the thought of seeing you. And he was quite astounded that you and Alistair married."
"Astounded?" asked Liz.
"Yeah. He called Alistair 'a sly old dog'."
"Cheeky." Liz poured them both a glass of wine as Martha served up the pasta.
"I think he must be cheeky, when he's not dying." She gestured at a chair. "Take a seat."
Liz sat down. "Are you okay being with the Doctor, if he's dying?"
Martha nodded. "It's not like I'll never see him again. Besides I've not had time to get to know this version of him, so it's easier, I think, than if it was 'my' Doctor who was dying."
"I suppose so."
As they ate they talked about Liz's current research, then about Martha's, then they talked about Clyde and Rani.
"Can I ask you something personal?"
Liz looked up from her portion of tiramisu. "Of course."
"Do you ever regret not having children?"
"I did a few years ago - but the regrets didn't last long. I don't think I'd have made a very good mother. And it's still very hard to be a successful woman academic and a mother."
Martha nodded her understanding. "I wish I hadn't asked Mickey to wait," she said quietly. "I didn't realise just how much I wanted to be a mum until the chance was taken away from me."
Liz reached across the corner of the table and clasped Martha's hand. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah." She swallowed hard, then blinked to stop herself from crying. "Coffee?"
"Shall we go and see the Doctor first?" Liz suggested.
"Okay." They cleared the table and while Liz filled up the dishwasher, Martha made a fresh lot of tea for the Doctor. She took some sandwiches in a box from the fridge, then the two friends made their way out to the TARDIS.
Although Martha now had her key with her she found that, as before, the ship opened the door for them. Stepping inside, Martha was startled to find that the Control Room looked a good deal smaller than when she'd last seen it; there were fewer objects scattered across the floor and fewer bookcases along the far wall.
"This is nothing like the TARDIS I knew," Liz said as she followed Martha towards the archway that led from the Control Room into the rest of the ship.
"Ditto." Martha noticed that the archway had been repaired in her absence and she lightly brushed her fingertips against the wall as she led Liz further into the ship.
On to part 2...
Title: Regeneration
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Martha, the Doctor, the TARDIS, Sarah Jane, Liz, Clyde, Rani, Harry Sullivan
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: S1 - S4 (Mild)
Warning: Character deaths
Summary: A battle-worn TARDIS brings a dying Eighth Doctor from the Time War to Martha for her help through his regeneration.
Disclaimer: Nope, still not mine!
Author Notes: I have no idea where this plot bunny sprang from! It's set about 5 years after Journey's End for Martha. I figure the TARDIS, being linked to the Doctor's mind, is as capable of seeing the future as the Doctor himself, therefore she'd know of his meeting with Martha even though it hadn't yet happened in his personal timeline. Though this is not a shippy fic, the pairings are: Martha/Mickey, Sarah Jane/Harry, Liz/Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, and Clyde/Rani.
Beta-readers: abstruse_fangrl and catholicphoton
~~~~~~
Martha paused for a moment outside the door, hearing the laughter and chatter from within the room with a slight tightening of her stomach. Then she reminded herself that these were her friends, and that they had been deeply caring last year when another of their number had found herself in the same position that Martha was in now.
She took a deep breath, then pushed open the door into the private function room and stepped inside.
"Martha!" An older woman with a bright smile immediately got up and hurried across to hug her younger friend.
"Hello Sarah." She returned the hug gratefully.
"How are you?"
"I'm okay," Martha answered, smiling at her friend.
"If it gets too much, let me know, and I'll take you home," Sarah Jane said quietly, before steering her friend across the room to the table around which their friends, young and old, sat.
"Hello Martha, how are you?" asked Liz Shaw, getting to her feet to hug the younger woman. "I'm sorry about Mickey."
"Thanks." She remembered how dignified Liz had been last year when she had lost the Brigadier after he'd suffered from two strokes, and she vowed to emulate her friend, as far as possible.
Clyde and Rani, no longer teenagers, but still loyal to Sarah Jane, took their turns in greeting Martha and expressing their condolences, then Harry Sullivan came around the corner of the table to hug her too.
"Are you all right, old girl?" he asked gently. "We would have understood if you hadn't come today."
Martha poked his arm. "Less of the 'old girl', thank you Dr Sullivan," she said, aware of tears threatening. She wrapped her arms around him instead, hoping she wouldn't break down.
"And yes, I'm okay, I think. Or I will be. I was glad to get out of the house, to tell the truth." She allowed Harry to guide her into a chair between Sarah Jane and Liz, accepted the drink which Clyde had fetched for her, and swallowed down the lump in her throat.
She looked around at her friends, all of whom had known the Doctor at some point in their lives, and thought how lucky she was that they had decided to start meeting up every couple of months to share their experiences, swap information, and generally support each other. She and Mickey had been glad of the friendship they had developed with the others over the five years since she had left UNIT and gone freelance with Mickey. The group still occasionally had dealings with UNIT and Torchwood, but for the most part they worked independently of both organisations, preferring their informal network to the more rigid hierarchy of either Torchwood or UNIT.
"When's the funeral?" asked Liz after a few minutes, during which they'd all placed their lunch orders.
"Friday," Martha answered. "You are all welcome to come, but you're not obliged to attend."
"Of course we'll be there," Sarah Jane said instantly, a response that was echoed by the others.
"Thanks." Martha was grateful since she knew Mickey had no family to attend: his grandmother, who'd brought him up, was long dead, and his mother had died a couple of years earlier. He hadn't known where his father was, and since his return from the alternate universe after the affair with Davros moving the Earth, he'd made only a few friends. It was going to be a small service.
Clyde began asking Liz about something he was working on for his Master's degree, and Rani started a conversation with Harry about an article she was researching.
"Have you heard from the Doctor?" asked Sarah Jane.
Martha shook her head. "I rang and left him a message to tell him about Mickey, but I doubt he'll come to the funeral - you know what he's like."
Sarah Jane nodded, no doubt remembering how they'd all initially been surprised that the Doctor had turned up for the Brigadier's funeral last year. "He does hate saying goodbye," she said.
Martha sighed. "I know." She changed the subject, not wanting to dwell on those thoughts as she was certain that she would start crying if she did.
"How are Luke and Maria?"
Sarah Jane smiled. "They're good," she said. "I had a long chat with them last night. Apparently Alan's finally resigned himself to the fact that his daughter's going to be involved in 'that alien business', as he phrased it."
Martha gave a small smile. "I'm glad he's accepted the inevitability of the situation. Let's hope he'll worry about her a bit less now."
"I hope so," Sarah Jane said, rolling her eyes slightly.
* * * * * *
Harry insisted on driving Martha home after their lunch, and she braced herself for his enquiries about the real state of her health, physical, mental and emotional. He gave her a crooked smile.
"Relax, Martha," he said, pulling out of the pub car park. "I've known you long enough by now to trust that you'll tell me or someone else if you need help, so I'm not going to subject you to a barrage of questions, nor ask you incessantly if you're okay." He reached over and squeezed her arm gently for a moment.
"Thanks, Harry. I promise, if it all gets too much, I'll ring you or Sarah Jane and let you know."
"Good girl."
He changed the subject, asking her about the work she was currently doing on a UN-funded project researching the effects on human physiology of contact with aliens, and she was glad to talk 'shop' with him instead for the rest of the drive home.
"When are you flying out to Geneva?" asked Harry as he pulled up outside Martha's house.
"Next month, some time, unless they change their minds again," she answered, rolling her eyes. "You know what they're like for bureaucracy over there."
Harry laughed. "The Brig was always eloquent on the subject." He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "We'll see you on Friday afternoon."
She nodded, feeling tears stinging her eyes again, and climbed out of the car with a little wave, before heading towards her front door.
* * * * * *
Mickey Smith's funeral was as quiet an affair as Martha had anticipated, but she was still very glad of the support of her friends as well as her family. Jack had rung her the night before to say he wouldn't be able to get back in time, as he'd been hoping, owing to work pressures, but he'd promised to come and see her as soon as he could get away. Martha hadn't been surprised since she knew how busy her friend was in setting up an American branch of Torchwood with the help of Gwen and Ianto. She'd had also a message from the Doctor and suspected that he'd deliberately rung her home number while she was out so that he wouldn't have to talk to her.
Both her parents were there, as were Tish and Leo with their respective families, and Martha tried not to feel bitter at the sight of her nephews and nieces. She and Mickey had decided about three months ago that they were going to try to start a family, which was when she had switched to doing less of the active field work and more research-based work since they had both agreed that it would be foolish to risk injuring the baby out in the field. Martha had really enjoyed getting back into medicine again, and had particularly enjoyed the research projects which had come her way as a result of her UNIT connections. In the days since Mickey's death, however, she had wondered if he would have died had she been out there with him that night; she couldn't help wondering if, between the two of them, they would have been able to deal with the Hoix.
"Are you all right love?" Francine asked, wrapping an arm around her younger daughter as they walked out to the undertakers' car waiting outside the little church.
Martha nodded, unable, for the moment, to speak for the lump in her throat. She swallowed a couple of times before she managed to assure her mother.
They climbed into the car, and Clive joined them, leaving everyone else to sort themselves out between the remaining cars to drive the short distance to the cemetery.
After the internment, everyone went back to Martha's house; Francine, Sarah Jane and Liz had all supplied food for the wake, for which Martha was deeply grateful as she hadn't had the energy to bake anything herself.
As she moved between her guests, she couldn't help wishing that Jack and the Doctor had been able to come too; she felt bad that no one there had known Mickey for longer than the last five years, since his return from that alternate universe. If Jack or the Doctor had been able to come, they could have talked about the man Mickey had been before that experience, which Mickey himself had told her had changed his life in so many ways.
Once she'd spoken to everyone, Martha made her way out to the little back garden and sat on the swing seat under the oak trees at the end of the garden. They'd sat out here last Saturday after dinner, discussing the week ahead, and the project Martha was working on. He'd teased her when she'd objected to him getting too frisky because there were several houses that overlooked their garden, and Mickey had joked about getting Jack to teach her how to shed her inhibitions.
Harry found her there half an hour later as she sobbed unrestrainedly over the things she and Mickey would never do together, particularly the children they would never have now. Harry sat down beside her, slipping an arm around her shoulders, and she tried to stop her tears.
"It's okay Martha," he said softly. "Just let it all out."
She gulped, hiccoughed, then continued to cry, accepting Harry's handkerchief when he pulled it from the pocket of his black suit trousers.
"Did you get much sleep last night?" he asked when her tears showed signs of stopping.
"No."
"Will you let me give you something to help you?" he asked gently. "Just a mild sedative, nothing addictive."
"Okay," she whispered.
"Come on then." He helped her up from the seat, and they made their way back to the house where Francine and Tish both appeared in the kitchen.
"It's okay mum," Martha said, her voice husky from crying.
Francine raised an eyebrow at Harry, who nodded; Tish went back into the sitting room while Francine followed Martha and Harry upstairs. At Harry's low-voiced suggestion, Francine helped Martha to change into her pyjamas while he went downstairs and out to his car for his medical bag.
He returned a couple of minutes later, and extracted a needle and a small phial from his bag. "This should help you to sleep tonight," he said softly, then pushed Martha's sleeve up before administering the sedative. He smiled down at her, then backed out of the room, leaving Francine, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding Martha's other hand.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, looking up at her mother. "I should - "
"No, you shouldn't," Francine answered immediately. "It doesn't matter what you were going to say. You don't have to or need to do anything, except get some sleep. Everyone will understand."
She leaned down and kissed Martha's forehead lightly, then squeezed her hand before getting to her feet. "I'll stay until everyone's gone home," she said. "Make sure the place is tidy for you. Give me a ring tomorrow, okay?"
Martha nodded, feeling her eyelids drooping heavily as the drug Harry had given her began to work. She turned onto her side, curling up in the middle of the bed, and was asleep before Francine had left the room.
* * * * * *
In the early hours of the morning following Mickey's funeral a strange noise woke Martha. She sat up and turned on the bedside light, thinking it was Mickey coming home late, before she remembered with a flare of anger at herself that he wouldn't be coming home ever again.
She looked at the bedside clock and saw that it was just after two o'clock, which meant she'd slept for about nine hours after Harry had given her that sedative. She looked around the room, listening hard to see if the noise would come again, and noticed that the curtains were still open and the moon was up. Martha slipped out of bed and padded across the carpet to close the curtains, deciding that she wouldn't be able to sleep if the moonlight got very bright. She reached up and grasped the curtains, then stopped, staring in disbelief at the tall blue box standing in the middle of the back garden.
"So that's what woke me," she muttered, half annoyed by the Doctor's terrible sense of timing. She left the curtains and hurried across the room to shove her feet into her house shoes, then grabbing her dressing gown from the back of the door, she quickly made her way downstairs.
She barely registered the two plastic boxes of food on the table, a note in her mother's handwriting on top of one of them; she rushed to unlock the back door and let herself out into the garden. She felt some surprise that the Doctor hadn't already left the ship yet; she found herself wondering if he had only realised what the local time was after the TARDIS had materialised here, and had decided not to disturb her in the middle of the night. It was only as she crossed the patch of lawn that Martha remembered her key to the ship was in the drawer of her desk in her study. But even as she had the thought and half turned to go back to the house to fetch the key, the TARDIS door opened with a louder than usual creak.
Dim light spilled out of the interior, and she felt shocked as she got close enough to see that the ship's exterior was a mess: there were huge scorch marks on it where the paint had blackened and peeled, and there were other marks that Martha couldn't quite identify in the diffuse moonlight. She ran her fingertips lightly over a very deep dent in the door as she pushed it open wider.
"What's happened to you, old girl?" she whispered, chilled by the extent of the damage she could already see in this poor light. She wondered if the Doctor was all right as the ship, instead of offering her usual comforting hum, made a noise that sounded like a groan.
Martha took a deep breath as she stepped over the threshold, then immediately wished she hadn't as the stench of smoke filled her nostrils and she coughed. The smoke stung her eyes, too, making them water, and between that and the dim lighting inside the ship, it took her a moment to see that the ship's interior was nothing like the Control Room with which she was familiar. Gone was the green-and-gold décor, and the coral-like support struts, instead it was a vast space with a Jules Verne-type console over to the right, but there was wreckage everywhere. She felt surprised that the ship had managed to get to Earth, looking at the amount of damage she could see, even in this dim lighting.
She began picking her way over the scattered books and other objects that littered the floor.
"Doctor?" she called anxiously.
Where was he, and which one was he, she wondered, certain it wouldn't be the man whom she'd met at the Royal Hope, then travelled with.
She heard a faint groan and felt a mixture of relief and terror at the sound: if he was capable of groaning, he must still be alive, but if he was groaning, he must be hurt. She scrambled across the floor until she almost tripped over a pair of feet, and she quickly knelt down beside the stranger who lay sprawled amongst a random collection of objects, including books, a telescope, and a carriage clock. This Doctor had curly brown hair, what was left of it, and wore an outfit that she felt would have been more appropriate to someone appearing in an Edwardian costume drama on television.
"Doctor," she said, carefully lifting his right hand in hers and feeling for his pulses in his wrist.
"Whozzat?" he asked, his words slurring together.
"Dr Martha Jones," she answered. "I travelled with you, maybe a later you."
He screwed his eyes shut, then opened them slowly and peered up at her; they were a dull blue, she noticed, and very bloodshot.
"TARDIS?" he asked.
"Yes, you're in the TARDIS, but she's very badly injured," Martha answered. His pulses were weak, and his breathing was very raspy, which she suspected was the result of smoke inhalation. "I don't know how she got you here, or why she came to me."
"Zero Room," he said.
Martha frowned. "What's the Zero Room?" she asked.
"Helps healing."
"Okay. Can you stand? Or walk? Because if not, I'm going to need help to get you to this Zero Room."
"Wheelchair," he rasped.
She placed his hand on his chest for a moment before she got to her feet, then picked her way through the rubble of a broken archway into the corridor beyond. She wished she had a torch, and that she had got dressed before coming out to the TARDIS, but she'd been expecting the Doctor to be fit and well, and wanting to have a cup of tea with her, not in these dire straits.
After about ten minutes of searching Martha located the medical bay and found a wheelchair folded up and neatly put away in a corner. She hauled it out, unfolded it, and wheeled it out into the corridor. She wondered whether the Zero Room would be easy to find, and if the path to it was clear because a wheelchair wouldn't be much use if there was rubble in the corridors.
Martha attempted to lift the Doctor into the wheelchair, but he cried out in obvious agony, so she lowered him back to the floor again.
"I'm going to nip back into my house and ring for some help," she told him. "I can't lift you on my own."
He groaned something indistinct, and after a moment she got to her feet, hurrying out of the TARDIS and back into her house. She ran upstairs and grabbed her mobile, hitting the speed dial for Harry Sullivan, then switched the phone to speaker so she could get dressed while she talked to him.
"Martha?" said a sleepy voice. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Harry, but I could use your help. The Doctor's turned up - and it's not the one I know. He's badly injured and the TARDIS is damaged as well. I need your help to move him - he says he'll heal if he's in something called the Zero Room, but I couldn't even lift him into a wheelchair on my own."
"All right, sit tight, Sarah and I will be there as soon as we can."
"Thank you. And sorry for waking you."
"Don't be daft," Harry said, reassuringly. "It's the Doctor, of course you should have rung me."
"See you soon."
Martha ended the call, then finished dressing. She went out to the landing and pulled a couple of blankets from the linen cupboard, then ran downstairs to her study where she rooted out a couple of books. The books had arrived a couple of months ago, in a neat parcel, and Martha had been surprised to discover they were books on Gallifreyan physiology. There had been a note in unfamiliar handwriting in the parcel, signed 'The Doctor', which explained that he'd heard that she was now doing more xenobiological work and he thought she might find them interesting. She'd found them fascinating in fact, as had Harry and Liz when she'd shown the books to them. Now she wondered if the Doctor had known she would need the information they held and sent them in anticipation of this day. Since he was a time-traveller it was entirely possible for him to know about something before it had happened to him, just like when the two of them had met Sally Sparrow.
* * * * * *
Martha heard Harry's car pull up, and she hurried to let them in.
"Which Doctor is it?" asked Sarah Jane as she followed Harry out of the back door into the garden.
"I've no idea," Martha answered. "I'd guess he's about five foot eight, with curly brown hair and blue eyes, and wearing an Edwardian style outfit."
"He doesn't sound familiar," Sarah Jane commented as they stepped into the TARDIS. She gasped in shock as she saw the wreckage lying about the floor, but Harry hurried after Martha as she made her way back to the Doctor's side.
Martha knelt beside the Time Lord. "Doctor," she said gently, taking his hand in hers. "I'm back, and I've brought Sarah Jane and Harry with me. We're going to take you to the Zero Room now."
"Sarah?"
She stepped to the Doctor's other side, and knelt beside him. "I'm here Doctor."
"Zero - " He began coughing, then cried out in pain, and everyone else flinched.
"I think it might be easier if we put him on a stretcher," Martha said.
"Good idea," agreed Harry.
She got up and took the wheelchair back to the medical bay, fetching a stretcher instead. Between them Martha and Harry lifted the Doctor onto the stretcher, which Sarah Jane moved into position beneath him once they had lifted him from the floor.
"Let Sarah and I carry him," Harry suggested to Martha. "You go ahead of us and make sure that our path to the Zero Room is clear."
"Where is the Zero Room?" asked Martha. "I've never even heard of it before."
"Oh," said Harry. "Hadn't thought of that. I don't know." He turned to Sarah Jane, who was getting her mobile phone from her pocket. "Who are you ringing? The Doctor?"
She shook her head. "Mr Smith. He might be able to interface with the TARDIS and tell us."
The lights where they stood brightened for a moment. "I think that's the TARDIS' equivalent of agreement," Martha said hopefully.
Sarah Jane spoke to her super-computer, briefly explaining their situation, then ended the call. "He's sending through an app to trace the Zero Room," she said. "Apparently it's cut off from the electrical and radiological influences of the rest of the universe, which means it can be detected relatively easily with the right equipment."
Sarah Jane's phone played a tune to indicate that a file had arrived, and she quickly activated the app, then passed her phone to Martha, who looked at the screen and saw a diagram showing the TARDIS control room, and then a portion of the corridor outside; a green arrow indicated where they were standing.
"Let's go then." She turned and set off through the archway, then glanced back to see her two friends were carefully lifting the Doctor on the stretcher from the floor.
* * * * * *
According to Martha's watch it took them half an hour to reach the Zero Room as they had to stop a few times so Martha could clear a path for her two friends; once they'd found the Zero Room she felt a little let down as it seemed to be nothing special - just a white, featureless, furniture-less room.
She held the door open for Harry and Sarah Jane to carry the Doctor in, then hurried to join them as they set the stretcher down on the floor.
"Now what?" asked Sarah Jane, looking as puzzled as Martha felt about the point of bringing the Doctor here.
He startled them all by speaking. "Now I can begin to build up enough energy to regenerate."
"I thought you just regenerated anyway," Martha observed. "I mean, I thought that was the point of regeneration."
"No," he answered, his voice raspy still. "Unfortunately not. I need to enter into a healing trance in order to trigger the regeneration - my damaged cells have to heal first."
They watched in awe as the Doctor's body lifted up from the stretcher so that he appeared to be floating in mid-air.
"Doctor, what happened to you?" asked Sarah Jane, voicing the question which had been troubling Martha since she'd woken to find the TARDIS in her garden.
He turned his head to look at them and Martha saw a terrible mixture of anguish, pain and shame in his expression.
"It was War," he answered simply, and Martha instantly knew he meant the Time War, the one 'her' Doctor had told her about in a grimy alley in the far distant future on New Earth. She saw Sarah Jane flinch slightly at the Doctor's words, and Harry's expression become grim, and she stepped closer to the Time Lord.
"Don't talk about it, not now," she said softly, taking his right hand in both of hers. "You said just now that you need to enter a healing trance - we should leave you to do that."
Harry and Sarah Jane agreed immediately and crossed to the door.
"I should," he agreed. "But I think you should stay with me."
"Me?" asked Martha, slightly surprised. She knew the Doctor had known Sarah Jane longer than either Harry or herself, so she'd have expected him to want Sarah Jane to stay, if anyone.
"I think you need healing almost as much as I do, Martha Jones," he said, his bloodshot eyes boring into hers. "You need emotional healing, not physical."
She swallowed the lump that seemed to have developed in her throat, feeling almost choked by her emotions. "I - How do you know that?"
He placed his free hand over both of hers. "I could feel your grief as soon as you entered the TARDIS."
"Sorry," she whispered.
"Don't be," he said softly. "Stay with me, and let the TARDIS help you as well as me."
She swallowed hard and nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
"Martha, Harry and I will head back home now. But if you need our help, don't hesitate to ring again, day or night," said Sarah Jane.
She looked over at them and gave them a half smile. "I will. Thank you."
"We'll see you again Doctor," Harry said.
"You will, thank you, both of you," he answered.
They both sketched a wave, then went out, leaving Martha and the Doctor in the silence of the Zero Room.
"Why don't you make yourself comfortable?" he suggested.
She raised a quizzical eyebrow. "How?"
"You've floated in a swimming pool, right?" She nodded. "This is just the same sort of thing. I'll hold your hand, if you like."
Martha took a deep breath, then closed her eyes and leaned back, pushing up with her legs. After a moment she felt a sensation of weightlessness, and she opened her eyes to see she was 'lying' beside the Doctor in mid-air, his right hand in her left.
"Wow," she whispered.
He smiled and she noticed that his eyes were looking a bit less bloodshot than before. "Tell me about your husband," he said.
She frowned. "Should I? He's someone you'll know in your future."
"So are you," pointed out the Doctor.
"I know." She was silent for a while, trying to decide how much or little to tell him. "Mickey was someone I grew to love very deeply, more deeply than any other man with whom I've had a relationship. We both learned a great deal from and because of you, but neither of us had a very easy time as a result of knowing you, and that brought us closer together." She gave the Doctor an anxious look. "I'm not saying I blame you, not for everything, anyway. Some things I brought on myself because I couldn't accept the situation as it was, and some things were the result of me simply not being the right person at the right time."
She didn't tell him that it had taken her a foolishly long time for her to realise that what the Doctor had most needed was a friend, while she had wanted a lover as well as a friend; it still irked her, occasionally, that she had let that crush blind her so much.
"I'm sorry," he said gently, tightening his grip on her fingers.
Martha shook her head slightly, remembering a conversation she'd had with his bow-tie wearing future self. "You once told me that if someone else hadn't turned down your invitation to travel with you when she did, things would have turned out a bit differently between you and I." She looked over at him, and saw sadness in his eyes, and she squeezed his fingers.
"It's not your fault - you're not him yet. And anyway, travelling with you taught me a great deal, including what I really wanted out of life."
"It sounds like it was a rather painful learning experience," the Doctor said after a minute.
Martha huffed a brief laugh. "Life generally is, whether or not you spend time running around with a time-travelling alien in a big blue box." She allowed herself to drift closer to the Doctor and reached over to put her hand on his chest, between his hearts. "Don't worry about it, though, we've made our peace, you and I."
The Doctor sat up and wrapped his arms around her. "I'm glad to hear it."
She gave him a concerned look. "You sound - and look - exhausted. I don't think I should talk to you any more."
He gave a laugh that turned into a hacking cough, then lay back again. "I think you're right." He clasped her hand a bit more tightly, then closed his eyes, and Martha sensed rather than saw him entering the trance state. She lay back herself, closing her eyes and feeling a sense of peace slowly filtering through her consciousness. She didn't suppose that the Zero Room would or could cure her of her grief, but maybe it could blunt some of the raw edges for her.
As she lay there, she found herself recalling the early days of her relationship with Mickey, when they'd first been dating. Martha had invited him to come round for dinner one Friday night, and they'd sprawled on her sofa talking about the Doctor and Rose; afterwards she'd thought of it as clearing the air. Martha had explained how the Doctor had made her feel second best to Rose, and Mickey had countered with tales of being made to feel like 'the tin dog' compared to the Doctor.
"What would you do if we're together, and then he turned up one day and asked you to travel with him again?" Mickey had asked.
"He won't," she had answered, certain of her answer.
"But say he did?" Mickey had persisted.
"I'd tell him that either you'd be coming with us, or I wouldn't be going. Mickey, there's nothing the Doctor can offer me that I can't have with you. I don't need to travel the stars to find 'adventure'," she had made ironic air quotes, "when aliens come here, causing trouble on a regular basis." She had looked over at him and grinned. "Besides, he's not likely to offer me a fantastic shag."
To her secret delight, Mickey had actually looked faintly embarrassed at this praise. "Okay, but why did you break up with Tom?"
"Tom wasn't the man I thought he was. I told you, I met him right at the end of my year of walking the Earth - but that version of Tom had been forged by life on a post-Apocalyptic Earth. The Tom I met after the Doctor rewound that year was a quite different man, and while there was nothing wrong with him per se, he wasn't the man I wanted or needed." She had briefly looked away from Mickey's intent scrutiny at that point. "Plus, I was on the rebound. I needed time to get over the Doctor, time to remember who I was and what I wanted out of life." Then she had leaned over and kissed Mickey deeply before she'd continued, "You'll never be second best to me, Mickey Smith. Nor a tin dog."
She remembered that he'd kissed her back just as fiercely before whispering in her ear. "First time I saw you, when we were in the Dalek Crucible and you were in Germany giving the Daleks backchat, I wanted to shag you. I reckoned you'd be a firecracker in bed, and I wasn't wrong."
Martha had laughed and started singing "Come on baby light my fire" until he'd stopped her with kisses.
* * * * * *
Martha must have fallen asleep because she suddenly became aware of something tingling against her leg. She sat up, then put her feet down on the floor to pull her vibrating mobile phone from her pocket. She glanced at the Doctor and saw that he was either asleep or still in a trance state, so she tiptoed over to the Zero Room door and let herself out before answering her phone.
"Hello mum," she said quietly.
"Martha, where are you? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine mum, calm down. I'm in the TARDIS."
"What?"
"It's okay, the TARDIS is in my back garden." She set off along the corridors towards the Control Room, hoping that she wouldn't get lost en route. "The Doctor turned up - " She paused and checked her watch, then blinked in surprise to see it was lunchtime already. "a few hours ago, actually. It's not the tall skinny one, though."
"Then who is it?" asked Francine.
"Sarah Jane thinks he's the one who came two incarnations before the one I travelled with."
"That impossible man," sighed her mother, making Martha smile. "I rang to see if you wanted to come to lunch?"
"Do you mind if I take a rain check? I'd rather not go off anywhere just at the moment. The Doctor's not in the best of health, that's why he turned up in the early hours."
"All right. Are you sure you're all right though?"
"Yes, I'm okay, honest." Martha stepped into the Control Room and noticed that the light was brighter than it had been the first time she'd entered.
"All right. I'll talk to you soon, then."
"Yeah, and thanks for ringing." Martha ended the call, then crossed the Control Room and let herself out of the ship, heading to the house to get some lunch.
She was wondering whether to take some food back to the TARDIS for the Doctor when her phone rang again, and she found Liz on the other end.
"Sarah Jane rang me and said the Doctor had turned up," she said, after greeting Martha.
"Yes, in the early hours of this morning. The TARDIS brought him. As far as I can tell, from the damage the ship itself has sustained, she brought him straight from the last battle in the Time War."
There was a long pause. "Is he okay?" Liz asked.
"In a healing trance in the Zero Room. He said he needed to heal before he can regenerate, which was a new one on me."
"Me too," admitted Liz.
"Do you want to come and see him?" Martha asked, wondering if that was why she'd rung.
"I thought you said he's in a healing trance?"
"At the moment, yes. But I presume that'll end at some point before he regenerates. I was going to check the books he sent me."
"Well I'm not planning on going back to Cambridge until Monday, so if it wouldn't be an imposition, I'd like to come over and see him."
"Of course it's not an imposition," Martha said immediately. "Why don't you come and have dinner with me tonight, and we can see what state the Doctor's in then?"
"Thank you, Martha."
"I'll see you about seven, yeah?"
"Yes."
After Liz had hung up, Martha went to investigate the contents of her fridge, freezer and cupboards to see what she could give Liz for dinner. She hadn't done any food shopping since last weekend, but then again, she hadn't eaten much since Mickey's death on Sunday. She found there was some fresh Ravioli and some salmon steaks in the fridge that ought to be eaten by the following day, and resolved to prepare that for herself and Liz.
She made a thermos full of tea, then picked up one of the two boxes Francine had left on the kitchen table the day before, which contained several slices of chocolate cake, and headed back to the TARDIS.
* * * * * *
Martha found the Doctor exactly as she left him, so she set down the box of cake and the thermos of tea, then settled down on the floor beside the door to read through the books on Gallifreyan physiology.
She was deep in the section on regeneration when a noise made her look up and she saw the Doctor was no longer floating but lying on the floor. She got up quickly and went to kneel beside him.
"Doctor?"
He opened his eyes, and she immediately saw that they were no longer bloodshot, and there was life in them too.
"Hello Martha," he said, reaching out for her hand. "Could I trouble you for something to drink?"
She smiled. "I've got a thermos flask of tea and some slices of chocolate cake over there," she said. "If you're interested."
He smiled in return. "How well you know me, it seems." He sat up and she went over to fetch the tea and cake. "What are you reading?" He nodded at the two books she'd left by the door.
"Someone - I'm not sure which one of you - sent me two books on Gallifreyan physiology a couple of months ago. I was just reading up on regeneration."
He blinked. "May I see?"
Martha fetched the books and put them down beside him, then took the cup and top off the thermos to pour him some tea.
"Thanks." He took the cup from her without looking, his attention focused on the two books in his lap. "It was very providential of me to send these to you. I wonder which one of me it was." He looked up at her, his eyes bright with interest. "How many of me have you met?"
"You're the third one," Martha answered. "Sarah Jane told me the one I met the first time was your tenth self, and I've met the eleventh."
"This is my eighth body," he told her, answering her unasked question. "So you'll have met four of me by the time I've regenerated." He tipped his head to one side and gave her a speculative look. "Which one do you like the best?"
"I'm not answering that," she said, laughing slightly. "That's like asking a parent which of their children they like best." Her expression became pensive at the mention of children, and he reached out to clasp her shoulder briefly. "You should eat something and I should leave you in peace."
"You don't have to go," he told her, opening the box containing the slices of cake and removing one. "I like having you here."
"Thanks." Martha felt her face heating up and quickly changed the subject. "Liz is coming over later to have dinner with me - would you like to see her."
"Liz? My Liz?" he asked, sounding surprised.
"I don't think you should let her hear you calling her that," Martha said, smiling again. "But yes, Dr Elizabeth Shaw, as she was."
"What is she now?" asked the Doctor around a mouthful of cake.
"A professor. And unofficially Mrs Lethbridge-Stewart, although she's never used her married name."
The Doctor swallowed his mouthful, his eyes widening. "Liz and the Brigadier?"
Martha laughed softly at his obvious astonishment. "Yes, they got together about ten years ago, after Alistair's second wife, Doris, died."
"Alistair married three times? The sly old dog! And how is he?"
She reached out and clasped his hand. "I'm sorry, Doctor, Alistair died last year." She watched as the laughter died from his expression.
"Did I go to his funeral?" he asked, his grief audible.
"Yes. Your eleventh self came - that's when I met him."
"I'm glad one of me was there. He was my oldest human friend." The Doctor bent his head, and Martha sat down beside him and put an arm around his shoulders.
"I'm sorry," she said softly.
"It's okay," he answered. He finished the slice of cake. "I think I might rest some more now," he told her.
"Of course." She squeezed his shoulder, then picked up the thermos, the box of cake, and the books. "I'm going back to my place," she said. "Liz is having dinner with me, so I ought to go and make a start on it."
He nodded. "I look forward to seeing Professor Shaw later."
Martha smiled, then made her way out of the Zero Room and back to her house.
* * * * * *
Liz arrived promptly at seven o'clock, with a bottle of rosé wine, which Martha considered uncannily prescient of her.
"How are you?" asked Liz as she took off her coat, then turned to hug her friend.
"Feeling better than yesterday," Martha answered. "I think that must be a side effect of being in the Zero Room earlier."
"Oh were you?"
"Yeah. Come through." Martha led the way into the kitchen, which smelled of pasta and baking salmon steaks. "The Doctor wanted to spend time in the Zero Room so he could maintain a healing trance, and he asked me to stay with him - he told me he could feel my grief as soon as I entered the TARDIS, which was a bit unnerving."
"What was it like?" asked Liz, opening the wine as Martha took the salmon from the oven.
"It's a white featureless room with absolutely no furniture, just four walls, a ceiling and a floor. But it's immensely peaceful." She frowned. "It's hard to explain, to be honest, but you'll experience it for yourself."
"You told the Doctor I was coming?"
"Yes, and he seemed really pleased at the thought of seeing you. And he was quite astounded that you and Alistair married."
"Astounded?" asked Liz.
"Yeah. He called Alistair 'a sly old dog'."
"Cheeky." Liz poured them both a glass of wine as Martha served up the pasta.
"I think he must be cheeky, when he's not dying." She gestured at a chair. "Take a seat."
Liz sat down. "Are you okay being with the Doctor, if he's dying?"
Martha nodded. "It's not like I'll never see him again. Besides I've not had time to get to know this version of him, so it's easier, I think, than if it was 'my' Doctor who was dying."
"I suppose so."
As they ate they talked about Liz's current research, then about Martha's, then they talked about Clyde and Rani.
"Can I ask you something personal?"
Liz looked up from her portion of tiramisu. "Of course."
"Do you ever regret not having children?"
"I did a few years ago - but the regrets didn't last long. I don't think I'd have made a very good mother. And it's still very hard to be a successful woman academic and a mother."
Martha nodded her understanding. "I wish I hadn't asked Mickey to wait," she said quietly. "I didn't realise just how much I wanted to be a mum until the chance was taken away from me."
Liz reached across the corner of the table and clasped Martha's hand. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah." She swallowed hard, then blinked to stop herself from crying. "Coffee?"
"Shall we go and see the Doctor first?" Liz suggested.
"Okay." They cleared the table and while Liz filled up the dishwasher, Martha made a fresh lot of tea for the Doctor. She took some sandwiches in a box from the fridge, then the two friends made their way out to the TARDIS.
Although Martha now had her key with her she found that, as before, the ship opened the door for them. Stepping inside, Martha was startled to find that the Control Room looked a good deal smaller than when she'd last seen it; there were fewer objects scattered across the floor and fewer bookcases along the far wall.
"This is nothing like the TARDIS I knew," Liz said as she followed Martha towards the archway that led from the Control Room into the rest of the ship.
"Ditto." Martha noticed that the archway had been repaired in her absence and she lightly brushed her fingertips against the wall as she led Liz further into the ship.
On to part 2...