Weeks again passed under the scope of what could only be described as part-dream and part-nightmare. Maggie felt just a fraction of what she realized the Doctor bore on a day-to-day basis. Many nights the TARDIS woke her, bidding her toward the console room, where she would find the Doctor huddled in the swing hanging from the working deck. She never knew what to say on those nights, having never dealt with grief unless it was her own, but even after only a few minutes with his hand clasped in hers the Doctor seemed much improved. They never spoke of those incursions in the waking hours, when Maggie tried not to wonder if she would ever see River again and the Doctor pretended that everything was fine.
They went to more planets, but they weren't all as beautiful or peaceful as Asgaard or Darillium. Never had Maggie known such fear as the moment she watched an alien mother and child vaporized by beasts called the Daleks, and they next turned their eyestalks unto her. Never had she known real sadness or pain until she held a young man's last moments - literally his last moments; the man himself was gone but his consciousness remained a solid mass - in her palm and listened to him cry for his mother.
With the grief sometimes came joy, days where they saved species or stopped planets being sent hurtling into their suns. Days when the Doctor was made into a god, and Maggie his human disciple, and the natives created week-long holidays in their names. Those were the days the Doctor left quietly, when no one was looking. He said it was better not to let such things go to his head. "Wouldn't want to develop a God Complex, would we now?" he laughed to himself.
With every day that passed Maggie grew bolder, taking more liberties with the wide variety of clothes in the wardrobe. She took to enjoying what the Doctor called "rainy days," which she quickly realized meant he wanted either to be alone or to spend hours together in the parlor with games and snacks abounding. It was nice to have a sense of normalcy in an otherwise topsy-turvy world. On the days he spent on repairs they sometimes stopped on Earth or humanoid planets where Maggie could explore safely on her own. Most of the time, though, she simply wandered the wardrobe, looking for new combinations of ensembles. Once she found a veritable collection of short denim skirts and multicolored stockings, it felt like Christmas had come early. Did the Doctor celebrate Christmas? Oh, bother.
By the time they landed on Wilforumdvar IV, Maggie had finally found some strange sense of self-identity in the futuristic world she had been placed into. Though the freedom of being able to wear whatever she wanted was nice, she also liked to remain somewhat feminine in her clothing style, taking particular pleasure in trim-waisted dresses in various vivid colors, usually decorated with white polka dots, and the colored stockings she'd found. Most days, there wasn't much chance to wear anything other than "battle clothes," as she called her jeans and canvas jacket, so getting a chance to put on a dress was special. She liked pop music, and didn't care for country. She wore her hair in a knot at the back of her head. It was okay to flirt, surprisingly enough, and it made her feel special. For the first in a long time, she felt truly happy with herself and who she chose to be. Looking in the mirror every morning wasn't as much of a struggle as it once was.
"Morning, Maggie," the Doctor greeted, already waist-deep in the space under the TARDIS console. She reached down and untangled the wires around his head in response. "I've got some pretty important repairs to do, so I've landed us on Wilforumdvar V, one of the biggest marketplaces in the galaxy. Should be fun, eh? You go do some exploring, and I'll meet you when I'm finished. There's money and your mobile on the jumpseat, give me a call if anything goes pear-shaped."
"Will you answer your phone this time?" Maggie teased him. Tucking the phone and foreign bills into her purse, she straightened her skirt before setting off to the marketplace.
The Doctor had always loved working with his hands, even way back when he was only 105 years old. Whenever he was bored, sorting out his thoughts, or had had a quarrel with Koschei, he had turned to the confines of his rooms in the Citadel. There was an odd comfort in the weight of gears and wires in his hands, the buzz of his screwdriver an assuring hum in his ears.
Sometimes he would listen to music, but to be perfectly honest, the music of Gallifrey had been either depressing or slightly maniacal worship of the Untempered Schism, which he supposed also was depressing, but in a different sort of way. He loved the music of far-off places while he worked, songs of adventure and heroism; sometimes, if he closed his eyes and focused on the feel of his tools and the alien melodies, he could almost imagine himself as that far-off hero.
He hummed those songs to himself as a reminder more than anything these days, because it had occurred after Demon's Run that many of those songs in actuality were about him. It had not been an optimistic epiphany. He didn't want to be put on such a pedestal as the hero in those songs, to have so much expectation placed upon his shoulders, to have peoples assume greatness in his every breath. He was a man. He was a man, who had friends, and family, and people he loved who were dragged into hell with him every single day. All he wanted was peace.
Before he'd even been halfway finished with his work - spending more time chatting to Sexy than actually fixing her - the phone started ringing. He considered ignoring it, assuming it was some far-off dignitary trying to pry a favor from him, but remembered Maggie was out on her own and figured he ought to make sure things were going alright. "Hello?" he grunted, breathless from lying on his front so long and then getting quickly up.
"Doctor!" came a familiar and almost painfully welcome voice on the other end. "Your voice sounds different; don't tell me you changed?"
The Doctor smiled to himself, leaning with one hand against the console. "Captain Jack Harkness," he beamed. "I wear a bow-tie now, bow-ties are cool." It was all he was willing to offer as an explanation, still remembering how painful the idea of dying had been to his previous regeneration. He supposed the idea of dying would be painful to anyone who saw it coming. It had certainly been painful when he thought it was inevitable.
The door swung open, and in swaggered Captain Jack, coat still intact and beaming grin on his face as he appraised the Doctor's new body. "What's going on, Jack?" he asked, turning to lean against the console with one hip. Sexy purred appreciatively, and so did Jack. "What trouble have you gotten into this time?"
Jack laughed, low and growling, in his throat as he pointed with a thumb over his shoulder. "I just ran into your companion, Maggie, about ten minutes ago," he explained. "I heard the TARDIS and came running to say hello, saw a human and put the pieces together. She's precious, and such a flirt! Didn't know any companion of yours would have it in them."
"Well, you didn't know the Ponds," reasoned the Doctor, allowing the Time Agent to wrap him in a hug for a moment.
Another laugh, Jack throwing back his head, before becoming smilingly serious. It was a gift unique to the man. "But listen, Doctor, in all seriousness, why aren't you with her? I told her to keep clear of the north side, but it's still a bit of a bad idea to let a human wander around unaccompanied on Wilforumdvar IV, isn't - Doctor?" he asked at the sight of the Doctor's hand slipping and knocking his head into the center column of the console.
"Wilforumdvar IV? I thought we were on V!" the Doctor practically shouted, white-faced with shock.
Jack raised his eyebrows and grabbed the Doctor's shoulders to steady him. "Doctor, it'll be fine, she can't have gone far, let's just go get her."
"Where did you run into her?"
Biting his lip and looking to the side, Jack replied, "About a ten-minute jog north." He clapped the Doctor on the shoulder and they set off, locking the TARDIS doors behind them. The journey north was silent, the Time Lord too worried to talk other than to get directions or ask if anyone had seen Maggie.
The difference between Wilforumdvar IV and V, though only a short distance and only one digit away, was a drastic one. V was a marketplace teeming with trinkets and beauty and peaceful peoples of all races. IV was a planet specialized in black market trades, selling illegal substances and weapons to anyone who had the money. Humans gave the place a wide berth, having somewhat unfortunately gained a reputation as a highly sexual species. Any humans found on the north end, Auction End, tended to end up picked up and sold to the highest bidder within half an hour.
"Excuse me, have you seen a human in a blue dress?" Jack was asking aliens around them. "Pardon me, have you seen a human female, blue dress, black hair? Hey, come here, look at this picture, tell me if you've seen this girl. Look at this girl, have you seen her? If you lie to me I'll rip all three of your tongues out."
On Auction End, a low roar had started up capable of being heard from halfway down the market. It grew in pitch, in volume, in viciousness, as they drew nearer, the Doctor's hearts beating like a kick-drum in his chest.
"Hu-man! Hu-man! HU-MAN! HU-MAN! HU-MAN!" they screamed in unison, waving currency in the air to make a desperate bid.
Jack and the Doctor shoved and elbowed their way through the masses, trying to get to the stage where the auction was taking place. Up on the plinth, the auctioneer was shouting to be heard over them all, "Look at this pretty young specimen! Look how she fights! Watch her beautiful blood swell beneath the shackles! Who will give me ten thousand for her?"
They were nearly deafened by the roar of the crowd, and still Jack and the Doctor were not near enough. As they drew nearer to the front the people became more hostile, shoving them back, knocking them over the heads, finally lifting them bodily over their heads and throwing them off to the side. From their distance, the Doctor couldn't even catch the barest glimpse of Maggie, and was subdued by, ironically, a security officer.
"I'm not human, you swine, I'm Boeshane!" Jack snarled. Technically, that was still human though it was not Earth, but the majority of people on Wilforumdvar IV were not the most intelligent. "Doctor, they've sold her, it was a private bid, this is just for show to excite people." He was gasping, wild-eyed, and the Doctor hated himself for always dragging the people he loved into such dreadful messes.
The crowd began to move, churning and writhing into a mass that surrounded and swallowed them. The Doctor reached blindly out and grasped both of Jack's hands to keep them together. He could hardly breathe with closely-packed bodies and fear all around him. Jack looked equally grim, though braver than the Doctor felt at present. The Time Agent pulled back a hand, raised a highly-illegal-looking blaster in his hands, and sent three shots into the air. The aliens surrounding them went still, giving them a chance to get more securely together, but the rest of the crowd was still moving and cheering. By the time Jack and the Doctor could more freely again, Maggie was long gone.
"We'll find her," Jack assured him, though there was a tremor to his voice that the Doctor didn't like one bit. He knew the chances just as well as anyone else on this planet. Once an item - he shuddered at the blatant objectification of his friend - had been sold, it was gone forever until it was brought back for resale. And Maggie was out there somewhere, being treated like an item...it made the Doctor's skin crawl. He would find her, and he would destroy whoever it was who had the audacity to think she was something to be bought.