Notes: Inspired by the song "Haunted" by Evanescence. This is a direct follow-up to "Bleed" and deals with the aftermath of that story. If you haven't read that story (or any of the others in this series), take the time to do so. Now. Because otherwise this will be a little difficult to follow.
If you think any changes need to be made to the ending, let me know in a review or a PM. If you do decide to review, do not do so as a guest. I cannot reply to guest reviews if they have questions that want answering.
Part Four
"Haunted"
Martha's eyes snapped open and she lurched upright out of reflex, gasping for breath. Her momentum had her rolling off of whatever she was lying on and sent her tumbling to the floor. Disoriented, she picked herself up and tried to take in her surroundings once the room stopped spinning. To her horror, she found she was back in the TARDIS (in the console room, maybe? No, it didn't look like it) and wearing the same clothes she'd worn to that party with Tish and Leo, the party where she'd seen the Doctor—
Martha closed her eyes, gave a quick shake of her head. No. Don't think about that.
How long had she been out? Not long, she didn't think, but it was always hard to judge the passage of time in the TARDIS. The fact she'd been unconscious didn't help either.
Wait—where was the Doctor? He wouldn't have left her alone for long. At least, she hoped he wouldn't.
But then, she would have said he wouldn't kill an innocent woman in cold blood.
Martha suddenly felt sick with fear, cast her eyes around the room wildly. She didn't see him and wondered, with dread, what he had planned for her.
Long lost words whisper slowly to me.
Still can't find what keeps me here
When all this time I've been so hollow inside.
Why was she still traveling with him when all he'd done was either treat her as a rebound or leave her to fend for herself? No, worse than a rebound. She had vague, hazy, half-remembered recollections but no solid memories . . .
. . . Except for the events of either a few short hours ago, or maybe it was the previous night by now.
Back to her original question. She knew why she'd agreed to travel with him in the first place—it had been a "thank-you for saving my life" sort of deal, and then they had kept taking detours on her way home. But now that he'd sort-of officially made her a passenger, his companion . . . Why was she still with him when, as her mother had put it, he was dangerous, that she wasn't safe, that death followed in his wake?
Martha knew the answer to that: Being with him made her feel alive in a way she hadn't, as if her life back on Earth had been hollow. That couldn't be the only reason, though, could it?
No, it wasn't. Maybe her unrequited feelings for him were part of the reason she stayed. Martha had never thought of herself as the kind of girl who would crush on and pursue a guy who wouldn't give her the time of day because he still had feelings for or was in love with someone else. She'd seen that happen with one of her friends, had promised herself she wouldn't put herself in that situation; yet here she was, mooning over a guy from another planet who didn't return her feelings and was pining after his ex-companion.
The soft tread of footsteps suddenly reached her ears; she thought she heard fabric rustling, wood creaking. Her mouth ran dry; sudden panic seized her. Without turning around, she knew who was behind her.
I know you're still there watching me, wanting me. I can feel you pull me down.
She could feel his eyes on her, fought the urge to look at him.
"How are you feeling?" He sounded so normal, so concerned . . . so genuine . . . It had to be an act.
Even so, sometimes it seemed like he had some sort of hold on her. His voice . . . the way he talked . . . He could convince her to do anything, could smoothly talk his way out of trouble, could even manipulate his enemies into taking their own lives.
He'd tried to do the same thing to her after she'd witnessed him . . . murder . . . an innocent human woman.
"I'm okay," Martha lied, pretending to be suddenly fascinated by the fabric of her dress.
Last night hadn't been a nightmare after all.
What did he have planned for her?
Fearing you, loving you. I won't let you pull me down. . . .
"I'm going to go change," she said suddenly, started to move past the Doctor with her eyes downcast. Her skin crawling, she forced herself to stay at a walk until she was out of the room and in one of the TARDIS's many twisting corridors.
Once she was out of his sight and felt like she was a safe distance away, she broke into a run.
-oOo-
The Doctor stayed behind for a few moments, watching Martha as she headed out at a fast walk, her body tense, and smiled slightly as he heard her footsteps break into a run.
Fine by him. The chase heightened his anticipation, made the reward so much sweeter.
He followed her silently, keeping his stride long and leisurely.
It was his ship, after all, and he would catch up sooner or later.
Hunting you, I can smell you—alive.
Your heart pounding in my head.
As he tracked down his companion, a verse from a song played in his head; absent-mindedly, he hummed a few bars, his fingers tapping out the guitar rhythm on his trousers' leg.
He could hear her footsteps pounding against the floor as she ran blindly down the corridor, could hear her harsh breathing. Occasionally his olfactory senses caught a whiff of her scent, now rank with anxiety, dread, and fear.
It smelled delicious.
The Doctor turned a corner, saw her slamming her fists against a locked door—a dead end. He could hear her heart pounding frantically inside his head, and his own heartbeats quickened in anticipation.
"No! Open! Let me out!" Martha screamed at the door, her back to him.
The Doctor, hands in his pockets, stepped forward. "Oh, she's not going to do that," he drawled.
Martha froze, slowly turned to look at him; something deep within stirred at the raw fear in her eyes. He wanted to see more of it, to see it turn to horror as he pressed himself close and asked her, "Isn't this what you want from me?"
"Get it over with then." Her voice brought him back, out of his thoughts, and his brow furrowed in confusion for a few moments.
"What are you waiting for?!" Martha snapped at him.
Her meaning hit him, and he couldn't stop the psychotic smirk from forming. "Oh, like I told you, I'm not going to kill you, Martha. Why would I?" He shrugged. "I've been having so much fun."
"Murdering an innocent woman is fun to you?" she asked incredulously, her expression now one of revulsion.
His smirk slipped, almost faded. Something flickered in his eyes for a brief second, then was gone. "Depends. Daleks, Cybermen, Racnoss, werewolves, vamps, other Time Lords . . ."
"But you had a reason! Not with . . . with her . . ."
"You didn't seem to have a problem with me killing Lazarus."
"He was trying to kill us!"
"He was human," the Doctor reminded her.
"So was she!" Martha spat back at him.
"And I'm not," he retorted calmly.
A laugh escaped her, half-wild and humorless. "I know."
"Do you? Really? Because sometimes I think you need reminding." His eyes hardened, dilated. Time Lord pupils didn't dilate like a humans: they narrowed to slits, like a cat's or a snake's. It only made the gorgeous dark-brown of his irises stand out even more. He leaned in close, too close, invading her personal space.
This body had a tendency to do that, he'd noticed, and with Rose more so than anyone else.
(He wanted her back, needed her back even though he knew it was impossible. This incarnation had almost been custom-made for her—if either of them knew what she'd been looking for—needed her like he needed air.)
(How was it that he, the last of an ancient and powerful race, could be so turned around and willing to break all of the Laws of Time for a mere human girl—even one who had swallowed the whole of eternity for him?)
Martha's breathing hitched, started to go ragged. The neurotransmitter norepinephrine was running through her sympathetic nervous system, preparing her for fight-or-flight. Her heart rate increased; her pupils, blood vessels to the heart and skeletal muscles, and trachea and bronchi dilated; and her digestion and salivation would have decreased as well—it was how the human body prepared to handle stress. She was a mess of adrenaline, glucose, norepinephrine, and all sorts of sudoriferous glands. But underneath all that . . . Discreetly, he breathed in through his nose, trying to sort out what he was smelling. Ah, yes. Typical. Underneath the cocktail of hormones brought on by her sympathetic nervous system was fear . . . and arousal.
"What is it you want from me, Martha?" His voice was low, quiet; his mouth was near the shell of her left ear. "For me to fuck you? Did you think all this"—he drew back, gestured at his ship with a wide sweep of his arm—"was some sort of date?" (Never mind the fact he'd already brought her to orgasm using just his fingers and mouth without her consent; never mind the fact she'd referred to their adventures as dates multiple times; never mind the fact he'd buried or altered some of her memories already.)
"NO!" Her response was quick, almost too quick, and her hands were at shoulder level, palms out, as if to shove him away. Then she turned to the side, away from him. "I want to know why you killed her."
"And I told you: that's not happening."
"She was blonde, wasn't she?"
For once, Martha had caught him off guard. He frowned. "Who?"
"Your . . . victim. And . . . and Rose."
"Yes." He didn't elaborate further. Let her draw her own conclusions.
"So, what, you killed her because she turned out not to be your long-lost girlfriend?"
His dilated eyes now looked almost black with sudden anger. He stilled, went absolutely quiet. Martha, he noticed, had gone pale. "Is that what you think?"
"I— I don't . . . I don't know." She averted her eyes for a long moment then looked into his own. "Did you use her before you killed her?"
"No. She seduced me." The Doctor made sure his voice was carefully controlled, flat and almost clipped. The lie fell easily—almost too easily—from his lips. But then, he'd had centuries of practice. His seventh self in particular had been rather skilled at it—good enough to trick Davros into using the Hand of Omega to destroy Skaro. His ninth body had also lied to Rose about Gwyenth—except that hadn't exactly been a lie, not really. In a way the servant girl had been dead from the moment she'd stepped into that arch. Then there was that time he'd claimed to be half human on his mother's side . . .
Hhmm. He never had found out what happened to the Faction Paradox after the Last Great Time War. Not that it mattered.
"And you let her? Before you figured out she wasn't your precious Rose?" Martha's tone had started out as a mixture of incredulity and disgust before becoming outright bitter.
His eyes flashed fire with fury before freezing to ice. "Don't go there. Don't even think you can mention her name." He was fully aware he was in tranquil fury mode, knew just what he was capable of when he was like this. So did Martha: She'd seen what he'd done to the Carrionites, Richard Lazarus, the Daleks, the Zygons, the Clade, and he'd told her what he'd done to the Family. "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" indeed. That wasn't even counting all the actions of his past incarnations.
Martha's eyes met his, still scared but now with a hint of defiance. "Or what? What are you going to do to me? Throw me out into space?" Another possibility occurred to her, given the state of her sleeveless, strapless dress and their close proximity. "Or . . ." She swallowed hard, had a sudden sense of déjà vu.
His dark eyes glittered with amusement. "Rape you?" he finished for her.
All Martha could manage was a weak nod, her mouth suddenly as dry as a desert.
"Oh, I've already done that," he said softly.
Her stomach dropped out from under her, and her heart shot up into her throat. "What?" It came out as a hoarse croak.
The Doctor said nothing, just regarded her with a slight smirk and laughing eyes.
Suddenly Martha wanted to run, to run from him and never look back. There was no way she could help him—save him—no way she could make him love her. She knew that now. And he was just standing there staring, watching her as her world divided, spun on its axis, failed to make any sense . . .
Her mum had been right about him all along. She'd seen that for herself the previous night, but she had refused to believe it. And now . . . and now . . . he could kill her, or leave her on another planet in another time, and her family and friends would have no idea what had happened to her. There would be no chance of ever finding her body. Or worse, he could erase her from existence.
She'd shoved past him and was running, running . . .
And still she could feel his eyes on her.
Watching me, wanting me, Martha heard in her head, the lyrics to a song she'd heard on the radio back in 2003. I can feel you pull me down. Saving me, raping me, watching me. . . .
She skidded to a halt outside her room, tried the door . . . and found it was locked. No! Trying to force down her fear, Martha whirled around, eyes searching frantically—for what, she wasn't quite sure.
One lone gangly figure stepped through the sudden darkness, and she bit back a scream. Not again, not again, not again . . .
Cold, long-fingered hands came to rest on her temples. Then he was inside her mind and . . .
Nothing.
As her vision faded to black once more, the last thing she was aware of was dark eyes, dark hair, pale skin drawn taut over an alien skull.
And even as she feared him, she couldn't help loving him.
Watching me, wanting me.
I can feel you pull me down.
Fearing you, loving you.
I won't let you pull me down.