In another universe, Martha Jones did her best to pick up the pieces and carry on, after the Year that Never Was. In another life, she'd find that her family was to shattered by the events perpetuated by a madman, and Retcon would help take care of the more jagged wounds, but she also didn't stop walking, after the Year.
In this life, however, she's just…tired.
Warnings: early mentions suicidal thoughts and dealing [badly] with the fallout of a severely traumatic event [the Year that Never Was], up to and including memory modification. Also heads up for unreliable narrator later on, because it turns out that neurochemistry and muscle memory aren't things that can be put away so easily, especially when it comes to paradoxes. Spoilers for the entirety of Season 3, goes AU at the end of it.
Formatting notes: [thoughts going on inside narrator's head] [thoughtsthenarrator'stryingtoignore]
This is an off branch of the Blurred Lines universe; however, this is intended to be able to be read as a stand-alone.
Martha Jones wasn't okay.
She'd walked the Earth, helped fight the madman who'd orchestrated a massacre on a global, if not galactic, scale. She'd seen ancient cities burn, newfound friends die, seen the sheer desperation as the days went on in a universe that was nothing more than a paradox. She'd had to pick her way through mass graves [iftheycouldevenbecalledthat] to get to relative safety, and bribed and cheated and slunk her way through countries' borders towards her next destination, where she'd start all over again. And all the while, she'd had to just...carry on. With the threat of failure hanging over her head, knowing she couldn't relax, had to keep walking [eventhoughherfeetachedandhereyesburnedfromthesmokeand-] to keep everything and everyone she loved safe.
So, no. After everything, after seeing the Master shot dead and the Paradox Machine disassembled so that all the horrors never really happened, Martha Jones was. Not. Okay.
Her family was still a wreck from a year of cohabitation with the madman; she still woke up silently at night, with a knife in her hand, and a litany of the no-longer-actually-dead on the lips. UNIT was both helpful and not helpful in this matter; they seemed to care more about completing the mission reports than the darkening shadows in her family's eyes, and she'd promised to look after them, even while ignoring once-familiar faces in both reality and her [dreams]nightmares, but...she wasn't okay. [Martha was drowning. Quietly, and slowly, with every tick of the clock, every glimpse of her sister's flinch and her brother's confused looks and every incident report she filled out, she was drowning.]
Sometimes, she called Jack to commiserate about it. About the Year, about the Doctor's ramblings and the journeys they'd had. Other times, they made a drinking game of it. ["We can laugh or cry, why not take a shot and do both?" "You're on, I cut my teeth on vodka." "Sorry, but you've never partied with Silurians, so I might have you beat." "We'll see."] Retcon came up, in one conversation- and when Martha realized what it did, that was that. [The beginning of the end.]
(In another universe, Martha Jones might have abstained from erasing her memories of her journey, might have decided to keep both the good and the bad because she could bear the darker moments, if they meant she could remember everyone's kindness and brilliance during such dark times.)
In this life, however, Martha decided to take the Retcon with the rest of her family [because she's just a touch more tired, and can feel it in her bones]. She had very little incentive to do otherwise, and a part of her knew that the fight to get out of bed [and to ignore the medicine cabinet— becausesheknewhichoverdosesandcombinationswouldneedastomachpumpshecouldlockthedoorandnoonewouldknowuntilitwasover] would only worsen as the days went on.
A long talk and several [dozen] arguments with Jack later, and it was done.
Jack had seen the look in Martha's eyes, and a part of him hated that they looked like his whenever she looked in the mirror [even if she didn't know it just yet]. She had potential, had been so strong and incredibly brilliant throughout the Year, but.
But she was so, so terrifyingly close to shattering now, he could already see the cracks. [The almost-sob she'd made when talk shifted around to her family, how they weren't recovering, and the slump in her shoulders that refused to lessen.] He didn't want to be alone, but it'd happen one way or another, and she didn't deserve any of this, so he gave in. Some fast [not fast, actually, he'd been very careful to be as precise as possible because this was for a dear friend, for all that it stung and burned] calculations and one last time sharing drinks for old time's sake [ha], and it was done.
(In this universe, there were four cups of tea with Retcon, not three.)
Months later, he gave into temptation and visited her on one of her shifts in the A&E. [Well, 'visited' was putting it a bit strongly, but still—] and when he saw her at work, so self-confident and young it ached, he knew that he didn't regret it [even despite the ringing silence from her seat at their usual place, and the pitying looks the other regulars gave him as he quietly sipped his glass].
He also braced himself for the fallout, because the Doctor would inevitably find out, and Jack had seen his wrath more than once before. [But he was a fixed point, an immovable object— as the Doctor had so callously mentioned—so he knew that he could endure what was to come.]
But Martha had been nothing if not prepared; when she had set her mind and persuaded him to help, she'd also talked him into keeping her souvenirs from the Year. In the days immediately after the Jones family took the Retcon, Jack flipped through some of her journals.
[And understood more of her desperation. Again.]
The things she hadn't said, even to him, could be easily picked out at times. She hadn't cried, but the hurried, spidery handwriting that described ravager gangs and how they'd differed from scavenger groups had been telling. As had the light pencil strokes that only implied the scope of the Fields, and the ruins of cities that had stood for centuries. One journal was neatly filled, with stories organized in chronological order. Another, far more battered book had neat handwriting on the same page as a budding doctor's nigh-illegible scrawl, and dotted with half-sketched faces, in red ink and pencil alike. But they all told bits and pieces of Martha's story. And Jack had grown to realize, that while the Doctor was a good man, he still made mistakes. [And this incarnation was…dicey. What on Earth had he been thinking when he'd dealt with Harriet Jones?] And he'd really dropped the ball when it came to Martha. [They all had, but at least Jack had been able to do something about it.]
The Jones family woke up with no memories of the Year, and under the impression that Martha's scars came from being hit by a drunk driver on her way home from the Lazarus gala. Martha blamed her lack of recollection of the event to the head trauma induced by the accident, and worried more about her residency instead of wondering why she didn't feel as though she'd been hit by a car. [Some of the scars ached when it stormed, but overall, she felt she'd gotten off lightly; nothing that necessitated pins, no internal bleeding that she could tell, mobility mostly unrestricted, etc.] What she did sometimes wonder about were her new nervous ticks, but decided it was probably from muscle damage, or, at worst, nerve damage, which fit with the accident.
[She'd picked up several things during the Year that proved hard to break. Andrei and the others had taught her well.]
Francine and Clive go back to fighting, and everyone stares flatly at Annalise when she talks about how she still thinks it's impossible for Martha to have gone to the moon.
"Of course it's impossible!" Francine bursts out. Meanwhile, Tish not-so-discreetly snickered, and Martha quirked an eyebrow but still made a noise of assent. Annalise looks at them all oddly for not contradicting her, but doesn't question it, and the world goes on.
"Hey," Julia said cautiously, politely fake smile on her face, "Martha, do you know that man, over there in the hallway? Rather tall, handsome, vintage coat that'd look at home in a museum?" Her concern was only visible in her eyes, and the grip she had on her pen.
"No, I've been going over Room 4A's charts. Why?"
"Because he's been staring at you for over two minutes. Want me to call security?"
But when Martha looked over, all she saw was the tail end of a navy-blue coat, and a flash of dark hair before the door closed.
Martha had been headed home, tired after a long day, and had been looking forward to curling up with a mug of tea and her book. Nowhere on that list was social contact, not after the day/week/month she'd had. Almost getting puked on by a child with a nasty case of flu, several Joe Bloggs admitted with a new pathogen in the past month that'd somehow caught the attention of UNIT's Medical and dealing with some of the paperwork surrounding the admission of said patients because the ward she'd worked in was adjacent to where the first case had been found—it'd been a mess and a half, she'd had to cover for a coworker's shifts several times this past fortnight, and Martha was not ashamed to say she was one shower away from possibly crashing on her couch. No one could say she hadn't earned it, after all. So it was perfectly understandable, for her to be a little short with strangers she'd nearly crashed into on the street, handsome or as the one who'd beamed when she'd turned a corner.
"Hello!" The handsome man with a tan trench coat said brightly, reaching to give her a hug.
"Who the hell are you?" She blurted out as she stepped back. Her left hand reached towards the keys on her belt loop, though neither of them understood why. [Martha had made it a habit to carry a knife, during the Year. It had saved her life more than once.]
He froze for a heartbeat, a stricken expression on his face. [Part of Martha wished she could've recognized him, ached to get rid of that look on his face. She chalked it up to the warmth in his voice, but it didn't explain all of her unease, just most of it.] Then he started to reach out, and she braced herself to run, this time reaching for her phone. [She took back all regret and empathy she'd had for this guy, her instincts were screaming at her. A part of her was ready to use the stethoscope still around her neck (oops) as a garrote, which was certainly not to be confused with the inexplicable, simultaneously occurring urge to reach out and hug him.]
He stilled completely, as he took in the tense line of her shoulders, and her grip on her bag, before almost pointedly stepping back. "Martha," he asked lowly, peering carefully into her face,"do you remember me?" He looked afraid of the answer.
There was a world in her now-very-confused, "I'm sorry," she inched back, "but who are you? I don't think we've met… Unless mum or Tish called you, then I'm honestly not sorry, because I don't have time to play their games, I just got off my shift as is."
A beat. Then, with a confused expression on his face [which was unbearably similar to the look of denial families had when she'd had to help break the news], he stubbornly forged on to ask, "Pardon me, but what year is it?"
Her careful reply of "It's March 17, 2011. Sorry, but are you feeling okay? Do you need help?" seemed to have left him reeling.
He staggered back, and ran a hand through his hair distractedly.
"No, I'm— I'm— okay then," and he gave her a sudden, sharp glance loaded with more emotions than she could shake a stick at [she thought she spotted a moment of alien fury, quickly followed by regret, horror, and sorrow, but she also felt very confused as to why], "just— just wanted to make sure. Thanks. Sorry, I thought you were someone I knew. Sorry." And with that, he abruptly broke eye contact and made to turn away, tan coat swirling, when—
"Doctor!" a redhead called from several blocks away, voice slightly shrill from what sounded like quite a bit of running.
Martha didn't hesitate before whipping around, shifting her weight yet again and one hand immediately tightening around her bag. "Yes?"
Then she froze, and whipped her head over to where she'd heard it echoed by the stranger. Apparently, he'd heard her too, and she still didn't get why the look of shock [and instantaneous warmth] that flitted across his face for a second was so [achingly] familiar, before he straightened up.
"Sorry, she's calling for me."
"You're a doctor?"
"From what I can tell, so are you." He sounded amused and proud [and strangely remorseful], that time. "But in different fields, sounds like…Unless you'd like to see a different side of the Titanic?"
"Wait, what?…Like I said, just got off shift. Good luck with your research."
"Right, right—" He sounded equal parts distracted and curious, now.
"Doctor!" The redhead sounded even more hurried now, as if they were running late and the last train was leaving in five. The stranger [a doctor of some kind?] half-turned to Martha one last time, gave her a quicksilver smile.
"Pleasure chatting with you, and goodbye, Doctor Martha Jones." And with that, he swept away.
Martha looked in the direction he'd headed off to, but after a moment's pause, kept walking. A few minutes later, however, she flinched at the sudden grating noise that sounded like it came from a few blocks away, and immediately ran her fingers over her class ring on her silver necklace; she didn't know why, but its familiar weight helped. [It was only a few ounces lighter than the TARDIS key that had once hung from the same chain.]
She walked home faster, to prevent any other encounters, when she realized—
"I never told him my name!"
When she arrived, felt far more tired than what the short encounter warranted. A few quick sips of chamomile later, and she was out like a light. The nightmare she had was just as scarily intense as the ones from right after the accident. And when she woke up, she didn't remember any of it [only the residual fear, then waking up tangled in clammy sheets], just like the ones before. Martha chalked it up to a long day compounded by the stranger, and carried on.
Jack heard the grating noise, and braced himself for chaos even as he waved Gwen and Ianto to head back to the Hub. "No, don't worry," he said even as they eyed him warily, "I'm not running to him this time, he's got some questions. But… this might get ugly, so just—go help Owen, or something. Work on the new case. Just go on ahead. I'll…probably be a bit late, truth be told." He thought his voice sounded fairly distant, but…
[Martha had walked through a wasteland for them, defending her decision was the least Jack could do.]
He'd been half-expecting this moment ever since Martha had convinced him that it was the best choice, all around. The multiple arguments they'd had, especially over her dose, however, meant that he had an even better excuse to give other than 'Martha scared me on a number of levels'. So, as the Doctor stalked up to him, Jack squared his shoulders, and cut off the impending rampage with a flat, "She was three questions away from suicide watch."
He kept his face as blank as he could manage [which he now had plenty of practice doing, thanks to the madman]. But Jack knew that he'd caught the alien more off-guard than if he'd decked him, if the way his shoulders shook was any indication. [Although a part of him appreciated that he'd even bothered to come his way for this; he still remembered the Doctor's little speech of how much Time Lords abhorred fixed points. Which was only compounded by the Master's fascination with his…situation, during the Year, and—no.] But he continued relentlessly, with a wan smile and a only half-sarcastic, "By the way, hello, Doctor. Not that it's been very much of a while. Only a few months, from my end."
Jack could tell that the Doctor clearly did not want to be anywhere near him, but this was something that had to be addressed as soon as possible. So he quietly continued, in a voice slightly more careful and considerate in the face of, well, everything, and explained.
"So. Martha's entire family didn't heal. The scars went too deep, we're talking civilians who underwent something that trained personnel who volunteer for it sometimes can't quite deal with. They just— they couldn't. And I run Torchwood. We have access to Retcon, it's—"
"It tampers with memories." The Doctor's voice was quiet, but still had a bite to it that made Jack mentally cringe.
"Yes. It alters memories. And we talked —mostly Martha and I, the rest were trying to deny it ever happened, until they found out, and—and it was decided that it was the probably the healthiest alternative." He didn't want to tell the Doctor more than that, but he waved his hand, a wordless 'carry on, explain now' expression on his face.
Jack set his jaw, gave his best 'you asked for it' look, and took a deep breath. "So. Martha and I talked. A lot. I called her a day after they…went home," in the hours after the Year, "and we've been— were in constant communication. Turns out, even despite UNIT's therapists and the like, they weren't recovering. Martha noticed that they were only getting more self-destructive over time, and they weren't healing. I might've left it at that, Retcon be damned, but Martha was operating as their live-in medic. She was their rock."
He took another deep breath, ignored the expectant look in the Doctor's eyes, [and the slowly dawning horror that the man was trying to deny,] and let it hiss out through his teeth. "But Martha wasn't dealing with it very well, either."
[Jack didn't mention their late-night conversations, which had only increased over the weeks up until the end. He didn't want to dredge up any memories from her journals, because it had felt like a huge invasion of privacy when he'd first done it, and she had flat-out told him he was welcome to them. But he had to make sure that the Doctor wouldn't try to pry into this mess, or make it worse, so he pressed onwards.]
"Martha and I talked, and she told me of the tentative diagnoses she'd seen in her family. We'd call each other just because, or after nightmares, and on good days," [or days when Martha just couldn't fight off the urge to start roaming, and immediately headed towards Cardiff because she hadn't been able to stand being in one place for long when it hit,] "we'd go for drinks. Just drinks, mind," Jack added hastily, as he saw the Doctor's expression start to shift, "but we…you could say we bonded, more than a bit."
"And, being friends, we got to see each other's ticks, habits, and the like. Martha looked okay, for the most part, did her best to look strong. But she wasn't. She— she scared me, when Retcon came up. I'd been talking shop, about having to clean up after a case, and how it doesn't always work. But when she realized what it did, she just looked so tired, and—well. We had one of our biggest arguments, that day… But this brings me to my point, Doctor. I respect you, but please, stay out of this." And there was that familiar, stubborn I'm-going-to-poke-it-with-my-sonic-screwdriver expression. 'Sorry, not this time,' Jack thought grimly. His voice hardened again.
"I mean it, Doctor. Don't. I tried to argue about it with Martha, and look where we are now. The family found out about Retcon, and they very nearly begged for it. And I— I couldn't say no. And Martha...she was…well. I already said. A few phrases away from suicide watch. She looked so tired, and the look in her eyes…" [No. Not now, not anymore.]
"That was not your call to make." The Doctor's voice was still accusatory, but far less vicious now.
"No, it was hers. And she made her choice. Martha's an adult, now officially a doctor, with her residency done," Jack had laughed at the bittersweet irony when he'd snuck into her graduation ceremony, "she knew what she was doing. So did her family. They talked it over, and decided what they'd do. I had minimal input, mainly had to figure out what to tell UNIT. So, Doctor, please don't interfere. Martha only chose to erase the memories of her travels because she was worried that they'd be loose ends that would undo the Retcon. But if anything triggers it, well— I'm not sure what would happen, but I don't want to find out."
Neither he nor the Doctor wanted to do this. Jack was uncomfortably aware that just seeing him made the Doctor's hackles rise, and he hated having to play the devil's advocate over something he'd opposed. But…Jack had to make sure. So… "Do you swear, Doctor? That you'll stay out of this?"
The Doctor grimaced, and ran a hand through his hair. He glowered at a faded spot of graffiti on the wall, but Jack could tell, just by the slump in his shoulders, what his choice was. "Yes," the Doctor gritted out, "I promise. I'll do what I can."
Jack knew just how much seeing strangers with familiar faces hurt, and sympathized. "I'm sorry." He left it at that, and walked away, acutely aware of the eyes on his back.
He ignored it, and the grating noise that followed, as he walked back to the Hub.
Martha sometimes wonders why some strangers look at her with sadness and remorse in their eyes from afar. She also tries not to think too hard as to why she sometimes has the urge to just start walking and never look back, or why running sometimes feels more like home than when in her flat, or being with her own family. When she graduates medical school, her insistence on 'call me either Martha or Jones, please' makes her stand out in her rounds— her lack of defensiveness over the title she'd worked so hard to acquire gets the respect and friendship of several colleagues and coworkers. [She never tells anyone how discomfited she feels, whenever she hears 'Doctor' without a name.]
A recruitment offer from UNIT arrived several months into the last part of her residency. Martha was utterly baffled as to why she got it, and promptly turned it down. She might have been interested in seeing the world, but she'd rather do it with Doctors Without Borders, or simply while on holiday, than with a paramilitary force. It had sounded interesting, mind, but…simply not for her.
Martha meets Tom Milligan in one of the rare pub matches her coworkers manage to drag her to, and they start dating not long afterwards. She has a small feeling of deja vu, and of coming home, but doesn't understand why. They get married after a few years, and she doesn't tell anyone of the nightmares she gets, where he's waiting for her on a lonely grey beach, and always dies in front of her eyes. [After all, laser guns aren't real.]
Tom goes to Algeria, while Martha goes to Uzbekistan and is pleasantly surprised to find that her accent isn't as bad as she'd expected, and somehow more instinctive than for most of her coworkers. Overall, it's a good experience, one she wouldn't hesitate to do it again, and if it makes for a good story at the dinner table, well at least she'd be able to deal with the awkward silence generated whenever her parents were in the same room, so bonus.
They live a happy life together, and travel often, just as both had dreamed of doing. [She never talks about the small, pulsating headaches she gets when she sees the headlines about aliens, of the itch to explore and see what was out in space as well.]
Time passes.
Martha's phone in the TARDIS never rings.
Author's commentary: Because I was working on Blurred Lines early on when the idea grabbed me: 'what if Martha took the Retcon too?'
And I kept going back to it, in between scenes and chapters, and realizing that a) it'd be a huge change, the likes of Turn Left, and thus would definitely spawn another entire universe; and, b) trying to mash the Sherlock timeline with Martha Jones' journey is hard enough with just one 'verse, never mind two. [I got a headache, less than a few scenes in.]
Thus, the Blue Pill, a universe that branched off of the Blurred Lines dimension.
You can also reach me on tumblr; I'm mynormalisnotyournormal.