Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize.
A/N: Oneshot I wrote one day. Be warned- it's pretty grim. Reviews would be wonderful. :o)
Walking down the high street in Central London wasn't exactly one of his favorite past times, he decided. For starters, the only person who he'd come close to enjoying it with had been Rose. Back then, he'd found a strange pleasure in simply watching people go about there normal lives, eating, talking, running. And, of course, Rose had been there, so obviously he'd been ecstatically happy. He'd learned recently it wasn't wise to dwell too much on her, but taking this walk seemed to hit him with odd memories he didn't even know were in there. Secondly, the weather at the current moment was dreadful. The kind of rain that's impossibly light, yet completely soaks you to the bone. Not to mention it was bloody freezing. And finally, Martha was taking hours looking through clothes in an old antique shop. 'Look, I've told you before, we can get those clothes from their original time period for half the price! And after, we could go and see The Beatles!' he'd argued. But she'd insisted she was going in there to help her friend out who owned the place. Plus she was in a bad mood with him, which was never good. Another thing he'd learned recently.
So he was standing in the rain on his own.
He thought Martha was being a tad over-dramatic, really. A month later than she'd planned on returning home really wasn't that bad. Clearly she got her temper off her Mother, who, needless to say, was livid. Martha was angry then, because the whole point of this little trip to 21st century Earth was to try and get along with her family. Instead he'd just earned another slap.
Standing outside the antique shop, and to his sudden horror, he found himself thinking of Jackie. He wondered how, somehow, he'd made the transition from crazy lunatic who'd kidnapped her daughter, to someone who she valued and cared for almost as much as said daughter. He wondered if he'd ever make the same progression with Martha's mum. He wasn't sure he even wanted to.
And then he realized he was, yet again, in an abstract way, comparing Martha to Rose. A habit which, sadly, he doubted he would ever quit, no matter how much it hurt.
"Oi."
He snapped out of his day dream to find Martha standing beside him, smiling slightly. He hoped this was a sign that he'd been forgiven.
"You took your time." He said "Get anything good?"
"Nah. Wasn't really my cup of tea."
He tried not to be irritated.
"So…are we off then?" he asked, with a hint in his voice. The sooner he was out of London, the sooner he could regain his sanity. Well, some of it.
Unfortunately, Martha was giving him a look that she had given him a few times before, which could only be interpreted as 'Please do something for me, even though you are not going to like it.'
"Oh no…Martha, what is it now?" he said, looking up at the sky as though he'd find some sort of escape from whatever it was she was about to ask him.
She winced slightly at his tone.
" I, um, well…I've organized that dinner for the two of us and my Mum tonight. I told you about it."
He groaned, and the loudness surprised even himself.
"I don't do domestic." He said slowly, quietly.
"Look, I just want you all to get along…" she said, looking distressed.
"But Martha-"
"And you dropped me off a month too late…"
"And I told you it was an unintentional mis-calculation that has very little probability of happening again!"
She looked at him, her expression now serious.
"Please."
He sighed, knowing from the start that there would be no way of getting out of this but trying to anyway.
"Your mother hates me." He said, slightly angry for some reason.
"And you think I like that?" she said loudly, drawing some brief glances from shoppers.
"What does it matter anyway?" he shouted. He had no idea why he was being so cruel to her. "How often are we here?"
"Well it matters to me!" she cried. She was about to say something else but decided against it.
The two of them stared at each other, Martha looking slightly hurt.
"Sorry." She said quietly "I just-"
"I know." Said the Doctor. He couldn't help hating the fact that to anyone else they looked like a married couple. Martha seemed to think they were one. He didn't know why she felt the need for him to 'get along' with her Mother.
There was a short pause, before he grabbed her hand,
"I hope you don't expect me to pay." He said.
She smiled at him gratefully, her eyes shining. Of course, he most likely would end up paying. But he supposed Martha deserved to be happy. Yes, she did. He wondered when he had become so human. He decided it was Rose's fault. Most of his misery was.
As they walked, Martha was holding onto his hand, he noticed, with a fierce grip. Almost as though she were afraid he'd slip away from her. Let her go. Leave her behind.
For a split second, he wanted to.
The restaurant was one of those places that tried it's very best to make you feel at home, but in trying to do so, making you feel distant, cold and lonely. Or maybe it wasn't the restaurant that was making him feel this way. Maybe it was that he was, in fact, on his own, picking at a bread roll in the basket, sipping at a glass of the house red ('We do recommend sir, we really do insist.') and wondering for the umpteenth time where the bloody hell Martha had got to. Again. Why did he always end up waiting for her to do something? He had insisted on meeting her and her Mother at the restaurant that she'd booked. He hadn't counted on them taking so long to arrive.
Not that he was looking forward to this. Not in the slightest. He wondered how long Martha had to persuade her Mother before she agreed to socialize with the man who had changed her daughter into something unrecognizable. He wouldn't be surprised if Martha dragged her into the place bound and gagged.
He had a headache. Taking another swig of wine, he looked around again at the door, hoping that Martha would this time walk through. She didn't. Normally he was a patient man, he'd always thought. At the current moment, he yearned to be inside the TARDIS, pressing buttons, pulling levers, zooming through worlds and stars and feeling the sensation of a thousand new lives being born, a million new breaths being sucked in, and the cold thrill of death nipping at his heels.
He was, however, sitting perfectly still and starting on his fifth glass of wine.
He hated wine. And it was the cheap kind, too.
He wondered if he was drunk at all.
" Martha…where are you?" he said quietly to himself in a miserable voice. First signs of going mad. Rose said that to him once. She was wonderful, really. Still is. Probably. He hoped she was, instead of what he always secretly feared. An empty shell, a soul doomed to wander a plain where she didn't belong, deprived of happiness and confidence and love. That thought scared him a lot because it was his fault, really.
Rose Rose Rose. Dwelling on her again.
He sighed, his eyes suddenly heavy, his hearts too.
He must be drunk, he thought, because he was alone and thinking about Rose and feeling sad beyond measure. Sad and alone and drunk. Brilliant.
It was only in these quiet moments that he began to feel sorry for himself.
And then something happened that he would never have predicted.
It was after an hour of waiting when his sixth sense suddenly and inexplicably kicked in with a sharp pain. Something bad had happened. He stood up, swayed slightly, and marched out of the restaurant. Martha could wait, this time. He found himself hoping that something really bad had happened, a new problem to solve, more people to help. The thought made him a little sick. Or maybe it was the alcohol.
He ran, the cold night air freezing his lungs, each step that hit the pavement sending a pounding into his head. His sense for trouble seemed to lead him in the right direction, like a radar, telling him where help was needed, and also telling him hat he was the only one who could possibly help. When he turned the corner, he heard the sickening sound of the ambulance siren before he saw the chaos ahead. He new something was wrong. It excited him and slightly terrified him at the same time.
He stepped closer, the horrific scene before him looking like something from an old movie, an action, a tragedy. It all played out slowly in his head, logically, his brain taking in every detail.
The car, crumpled against a disfigured lamp post, the screaming pedestrians, the group of paramedics and strangers crowding the most likely dead body of the victim of this accident. Accident. What a ridiculous word. An accident was spilling tea over the console.
He saw Martha then, surprisingly. But instead of helping the person, like the doctor that she was, she was stood at the side. It was Martha. Except it wasn't her. More like a ghost, an empty statue of flesh and blood and wires. Emotionless. Staring at the scene before her, the blinding blue lights reflecting in her hollow eyes.
It was then he realized that the body that was being lifted onto a stretcher and locked inside the ambulance was that of Martha's Mother.
He'd never really felt more hopeless before.
He was sitting on a cold plastic chair, Martha beside him. He hadn't looked at her since finding her on the street. When she'd noticed his presence, she'd turned to face him and said nothing, but her eyes were screaming accusingly. Where were you?! Of course, she'd never admit that to him. He knew exactly what was going through her head though, weather she meant it or not. All the lives he'd saved before, all the creatures and monsters and impossible things. And he couldn't save her mum from being hit by a car.
The clinical, sickly smell of the hospital was making him feel dreadful, not to mention the several units of alcohol that were continuing to poison him. His head was thumping. His hearts were pounding. Martha still hadn't said a word.
The rest of her family, her brother, sister and father, were crowding the bed that was in the room currently opposite them. Wires and machines and bleeps and codes and numbers, worming in and out of the deformed victim, blood, he remembered. There had been a lot of blood. The doctors seemed confident that she'd pull through but things could easily change. Martha had seen to her but quickly left when she realized there was nothing she could do. Things would just have to take there course.
He didn't know what to say to her. I'm sorry just didn't seem to cut it this time. He'd been sitting here for about 2 or 3 hours, and he wished again that Rose was here. She'd know exactly what to say. He was useless.
"Take me away."
The sound of Martha's voice pulled him out of his thoughts. His head snapped around to face her.
"What?"
"Take me away. Anywhere. Anywhen." Her voice was hollow, lifeless, but had a desperation to it.
"I don't think-"
"Please just do it."
"Martha." He said, sternly "You are not thinking straight-"
She ignored him, stood up and began to march off. He had no choice but to follow her, his hearts twisting with pain. For her, for him, for this whole sorry mess.
She was running, the clack of her shoes echoing down the hallway of the hospital. He was brought back to the moment they'd first met, when they'd both ran for there lives, saving each other, saving everyone else, when he first took her hand and promised her time and space and everything in between.
He sped up.
But she was surprisingly fast.
The TARDIS was sitting in an alleyway just beside the hospital and he had no doubt that was where she was heading. When they arrived he caught her yanking the key from her neck, breaking the chain, bursting in through the blue doors. He charged in after her.
"Martha!"
She was hitting random buttons, kicking the sides, screaming at them in frustration, all but destroying the console.
"Why won't it work!?" she yelled at him. "Do something!"
He knew by Do Something she meant Go back and stop it from happening.
He stepped forward and grabbed her arms, shaking her slightly.
"Listen to me. There is nothing I can do." It pained him to say it "Nothing. Do you understand me?" his voice was stern and determined and cold.
She sobbed. Short and loud and it broke his heart.
"Martha…" he sighed
He could see her slowly begin to fall apart and it wasn't long before she was clinging onto his shirt and crying into his chest. He held onto her, rocking her from side to side, placing kisses on her head.
"I'm sorry." He whispered, but they were empty words, words he'd said so many times. Too many times "I'm so sorry."
Eventually the two of them were sitting on the floor popped up against the console, Martha holding onto him tightly, her head resting on his chest and her knees pulled up towards her. He'd never seen her so scared. It amazed him how something so close to home could scare her this way, after all they had seen. But then again, she was human. Too much love. Too much inside to worry about things like aliens and monsters and the vast empty silence of the void.
He held her closer at that thought.
"Great doctor I turned out to be." Martha suddenly said, quietly.
"What are you talking about?"
"I could have done something. I should have done something. But I…I just stood there and let it happen!"
"There was nothing you could have done." He said in a low voice full of sincerity. "She's in good hands."
There was a long pause. Martha hid her face from him.
"I love you."
It was quiet, muffled by his chest, but so very true. He swallowed, thinking of the last time those words had been spoken to him, thinking of the pain and sorrow and grief that was the result. He knew Martha loved him. He had known all along. He'd seen it in her adoring eyes, and she was all to willing to do anything for him.
The thought just made him sad.
"I know you do." He said quietly, unsure if she heard because they sat there in silence for hours after.
It turned out that her Mum was ok. Making a big fuss over nothing she'd even said.
Martha, however, hadn't been the same since.
Neither of them had.