Just an idea I had. I'm working on other stories as well, so updates won't be as frequent. I also have school, which stinks, but I'll do my best. :)

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Day 1

Martha dashed into the TARDIS, the Doctor straight behind her. She yelped as a gun shot exploded into the TARDIS.

"Get down!" The Doctor yelled as another shot fired. He slammed the door and locked it. He turned around. "Did they see you?" he demanded, hurrying forward to help her up.

"I don't know!" Martha cried.

"But did they see you?"

"I don't know," Martha replied. "I was too busy running!"

The Doctor looked her in the eye. "Martha, it's important. Did they see your face?"

Martha thought for half a second. "No," she decided. "They couldn't have."

The Doctor let her gold and bolted to the console. He flicked a lever. "Off we go!"

The TARDIS whizzed off into the vortex. The Doctor looked at the scanner.

"Argh!" he shouted. "They're following us."

"How can they do that?" Martha cried. "We've got a time machine!"

"Stolen technology," the Doctor explained. "They've got a time agent's vortex manipulator. They can follow us wherever we go, right across the universe. They're never gonna stop-" he stopped, running his fingers through his hair. "Unless..." Realization dawned on his face. "I'll have to do it." he turned to Martha and looked her right in the eye. "Martha, you trust me don't you?"

Martha stared at him. What a stupid question! "Of course I do."

"Because it all depends on you."

"What does?" Martha asked, confused. "What am I supposed to do?" The Doctor reached to the console and pulled something off it. He held it out; a silver, ornately decorated pocket watch.

"Take this watch, because my life depends on it. This watch, Martha," he said. "This watch, is me."

"Right, okay, gotcha," Martha said, taking the watch. Then she realized she didn't get a word he was saying. "No, wait, hold on. Completely lost."

"Those creatures are hunters." The Doctor said. "They can sniff out anyone, and me being a Time Lord, well, I'm unique." he pulled some levers. "They can track me down across the whole of time and space."

"Huh," Martha laughed at the hopelessness of it all. "And the good news is?"

"They can smell me, but they haven't seen me. And their life span'll be running out, so we hide. Wait for them to die."

"But they can track us down," Martha pointed out.

"That's why I've got to do it." He said, standing straight. "I've got to stop being a Timelord. I'm going to become human."

Martha opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

He pulled a lever and a headset descended from the ceiling. "I never thought I'd use this," the Doctor murmured. "All the times I've wondered."

"What does it do?" Martha asked.

"Chameleon Arch." The Doctor announced. "Rewrites my biology." He turned to look at her. "Literally changes every single cell in my body. I've set it to human."

He snatched the watch from her fingers and pressed it into the front of the head set. "Now, the TARDIS will take care of everything. Invent a life story for me, find me a setting and integrate me. Can't do the same for you." he said, looking at her. "You'll just have to improvise. I should have just enough residual awareness to let you in."

"But, hold on," Martha realized. "If you're going to rewrite every single cell, isn't that going to hurt?"

"Oh, yeah," The Doctor nodded. "It hurts. But it's necessary."

Martha stared at him, as he continued to talk. Taking advantage of her silence, he sat in front of the console, and recited a list of instructions, his words being recorded to the TARDIS's database. After a few minutes of talking, the Doctor turned off the screen and approached Martha. To her surprise, he brought her into a tight hug.

"It's only for three months, Martha," the Doctor whispered.

"I know," Martha whispered.

"They're like Mayflies. It'll be over before you know it."

Martha didn't know what to say. She just hugged him back as hard as she could. After a moment, he pulled away, and started pulling switches on the console. He hurried over to the headset and stood under it. He glanced at her.

"Thank you," he said, as he lowered the headset down. "Goodbye, Martha."

The clamps pressed down on his temples and forehead as he gave her one last smile. There was a low buzzing as the machine went to life.

He started to scream.

Martha covered her mouth, her heart pounding as the Doctor screamed his throat raw. The machine had started up moments ago, and the Doctor had his eyes clamped shut tightly, face locked in a grimace, hands clutching his head as he screamed in pain.

It was horrible to watch, but Martha couldn't look away. She covered her eyes. "Doctor," she whispered.

A few minutes of horrible screaming passed before everything switched off and the Doctor collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

Martha scrambled to his side and pressed her fingers to the side of his throat, feeling for the erratic double thump of his twin hearts. Instead, she felt the strong and steady beat of a single human heart.

He breathed lightly, lips slightly parted, a single human heart beating for the first time. Martha stroked his head as he lay there.

The screen on the console lit up with information on a man who didn't exist. His name, John Smith, was at the top of the list.

According to the scanner, they were going to 1913. The Doctor-no, John Smith-was a teacher at a school for boys.

"1913," she whispered as his words flashed through her mind.

I should have just enough residual awareness to let you in.

"Let me in," she whispered. "As what?"

A slight moan escaped from the Doctor's body. Martha turned her attention to him as he slowly opened his eyes.

"Doc-" Martha stopped, eyeing the screen. "John?"

"Wha-"

"It's me, your-" she stopped, thinking for a moment. "Maid," she finished. "Martha Jones. I've worked for you for years."

"Mar...tha?" He whispered, his voice cracked and raw.

"Yes, it's me."

"What happened?"

"You," she whispered. "-fell?"

He glanced around the TARDIS, his eyes probably not even seeing properly.

"Are you alright?" Martha asked. The Doctor-No, No, John Smith-nodded slowly.

"I believe so," he murmured. Martha stiffened slightly, hearing his voice say a full sentence for the first time. Even his accent was different. She bit her lip.

"Come on, Mr. Smith," Martha said, pulling him to his feet. There was a whirling behind them. Martha spun around in surprise as two outfits on games descended from the ceiling. One, the-no-John's size, was a tweed suit for a school teacher. The other one was a black maid dress. John didn't seem to notice the clothes.

Martha reached for the suit and handed it to John, who took out without looking, his movements almost robotic. Martha pulled the maid dress off the hanger, and the rack elevated to the ceiling. She quietly thanked the TARDIS under her breath before turning to John.

"Mr. Smith," Martha said, trying to be as calm and maid-like as possible despite the circumstances. "If you would follow me to the restroom, you could can change."

"Yes," John murmured, sounding distracted. "Thank you."

Martha led him out of the console room and down the hall. The TARDIS looked to rearrange her interior, but thankfully, she put the bathroom right around the corner. John went inside, not making a sound to signal that he noticed how futuristic everything was. Martha hurried to her bedroom, which the TARDIS put the next room over, and quickly changed into her outfit. She scanned herself in the mirror, surprised at how different she looked. How 1913 she looked.

The sound of a door opening told her John was ready. She hurried into the hall to meet him, and led him back to the console room. She noted how John still looked faced and confused.

The thing was, Martha didn't know what to do next. She sat John in the chair in front of the scanner where he sat staring straight ahead without seeing anything. Martha went to the computer where a file was flashing at the screen. As soon as she sat down, it opened and started playing.

"Is this working? Martha, before I change, here's a list of instructions for when I'm human." The Doctor said. Martha realized all of this was just a repeat of what the Doctor had said moments before he changed. She re-watched it through, this time completely focused on what he was saying.

"One; Don't let me hurt anyone." he instructed. "We can't have that, but you know what humans are like. Two, don't worry about the TARDIS. I'll put it on emergency power so they can't detect it. Just let it hide away. Four. No, wait a minute, three. No getting involved in big historical events. Four, you. Don't let me abandon you. And five, very important, five. Don't let me eat pears. I HATE pears. John Smith is a character I made up, but I won't know that. I'll think I am him and I might do something stupid like eat a pear. I don't want to wake up in three months to taste that."

Martha stifled a small laugh. He may have said that to make her laugh before the change, but he was probably serious. It made her want to laugh out loud even more.

The Doctor continued. "Six; When I wake up, I'm going to be a bit disoriented, so don't worry about that. Just take me out of the TARDIS and to the school. I'll come to my senses after I leave the TARDIS. The TARDIS will give you some credentials to help get him a job. He's knowledgeable in history." He smiled. "Your known history, not what I mess around with. When I get the job, have me get you employment as... well, you'll improvise."

He went on mentioning random things that she may have a question about. Finally, he finished up with number twenty-three.

"And twenty-three," he said. "If anything goes wrong, you know what to do. Open the watch. Everything I am is kept safe in there. Now, I've put a perception filter on it so the human me won't think anything of it. To him, it's just a watch. But don't open it unless you have to. Because once it's open, then the Family will be able to find me. It's all down to you, Martha. Your choice." he started getting up to finish preparing the Chameleon Ark, but sat down, remembering something. "Oh, and thank you." he smiled and the screen faded back to senseless Gallifreyan screen saver.

Martha glanced back at John, seeing he still did look disoriented. There was a beeping and Martha turned back to the console as some papers slid out of a slot she had never noticed before. She looked at them, seeing credentials.

"Psychic Paper," she whispered.

There was a tug at the back of her mind from the TARDIS, and Martha looked back at the Chameleon Ark, the torture device. The Fob Watch still hung clamped into place. Martha trudged over to it and pulled it off. She ran her fingers over the Gallifreyan writing on the front.

Somewhere, concealed inside of the metal clock, the Doctor's consciousness resided, asleep and waiting. She clutched the watch and turned to John.

"Mr. Smith?" she called walking up to him. She lightly shook him, and he seemed to come back to reality.

"Yes, yes, I'm here," he said slowly, still disoriented. "What do you need, Martha?"

"It's time to go to the school," she said. "To get a job."

He nodded slowly and stood up. Martha's eyes flashed to the screen as the address glowed in blue letters on it. Martha nodded to herself, and slowly led John out of the TARDIS, to their new life in 1913.

Wednesday, September 10th, 1913

John slowly became more aware of his surroundings, and was able to get the job at the school easily. Within a couple of hours, John had gotten Martha employment. The rest of the day whirled by as Martha watched the man who looked like the Doctor settle in his life of 1913.

Another maid who introduced herself as Jenny helped her find her new quarters and left her to sleep. The Doctor had landed late in the day, for when she first stepped foot in the school, the boys who learned there had settled down in their dormitories.

Martha stared up at the ceiling, the events of the day swirling through her head. This morning was just another morning in the TARDIS. She never imagined herself as a maid to a man she didn't know in 1913. The Doctor's promise flew through her head.

It's only for three months, Martha.

"Three months."

Martha slipped into sleep, unaware that Jenny would wake her up bright and early to begin work, working for less than minimum wage.


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