Happy Spring, my friends!
Suffice it to say, I'm a music-lover, in particular, I get wrapped up in the lyrics of songs, and their meanings. If I hear a song with beautifully-rendered lyrics, I get inspired! And that's how these silly music fanfic stories keep coming about! Not one to let go of ideas very easily, I have a new offering that is actually ANOTHER installment in a series I began almost six years ago (not intending, at the time, for it to turn into a series)!
This is another "song" story, in which the Doctor and Martha Jones have an adventure through music, and come to certain conclusions about themselves and the universe, by way of aptly-chosen songs and a little help from outside manipulation. The previous stories are as follows: Theatre of Nightmares, Jukebox of Regret, Tracks of Emptiness, Notes of Revelation, and Adventures in Vengeance.
If you wish to become better-versed in this weird world I've created, I would suggest reading Jukebox, Tracks, and Adventures. Especially the latter! If not, well, that's why there's a prologue here. It's a bit vague, but hopefully gives you just enough context to usher you into this story. Note, please, that the first part of the prologue. concerning the Ti'urb, is context from my other stories. The second part, with the Doffa priests and the thirty-four days of captivity, that's completely new, and serves as something of a set-up for the chapter to come...
And credit where credit is due: songwriters Guy Garvey, Richard Jupp, Craig Potter, Mark Potter, Pete Turner, John Bucchino, Tim Rice, k.d. lang, and others still to be determined!
Thanks for humoring me, and please enjoy! And don't forget to review!
PROLOGUE
Their life was not like other people's.
They ran, they jumped, they travelled through time. They saved planets and entire civilisations, brought down despots, preserved or destroyed history as the situation dictated. The Doctor had been operating this way for centuries, with various friends coming in and out to offer assistance and companionship, most of them human, all of them brilliant.
Two and a half years ago (for them, anyway - more like eighteen months to the rest of the world) Martha Jones had come into his life, and the adventure continued. They ran and jumped as always, and then she more or less single-handedly brought an alien dictator to his knees through perseverance, dedication, and above all, love.
Soon thereafter, everything changed for them.
At that point, about six months ago, beings from the planet Ti'urb, the whole of which was literally made of sound, had meddled in their lives to the point of nearly breaking them. They had taken the objects of their ire, namely the Doctor and his lovely Companion, and dropped them into various nightmarish scenarios, involving music. Projecting songs into fantasy worlds and intertwining them, and transporting their subjects into these fantasy pockets, they forced Martha to face her love for him head-on, then forced the Doctor to face his for her. Once they finally fell into one another, the Ti'urbs had stolen their voices, their primary means of communicating their feelings, just at that crucial time. When that hadn't worked (as our heroes found a decidedly non-language-based way of communicating their affection), they had tossed them into realities where were contained various stories of treachery told in song, in which their lives were put in danger, and their entire relationship, their love itself, was called into question.
And so, weary of their shenanigans, and desperate to extract Martha from a horrible fate, in which she would be forever captive within the consciousness of a Ti'urb being, the Doctor had tortured and unravelled the mind of one of the nastier Ti'urb operatives. He had threatened to destroy their entire planet with the flick of his sonic screwdriver, should this lot ever mess with them again. It had not been his finest hour, but most beings in the universe knew not to push the Doctor to the point of wrath unless they were ready to face it. The Ti'urbs had underestimated them both.
Granted, it had been one member of a particularly odious Ti-urbian family that had forced the Doctor, almost against his will, to get in touch with his love for Martha. For that, he was thankful. But ultimately, it had been a ruse to help the rest of the family make them miserable, in hopes of bringing about their undoing. After all, the more they loved, the more they had to lose.
But the "ruse" had proved effective enough to convince the Doctor himself - in that it hadn't really been much of a ruse at all. Or rather, it had severely backfired on the Ti'urb! He reckoned he hadn't had far to go, to be nudged into realising how wonderful she was, and how he so badly did not want to live without her. He realised suddenly how he craved her: her presence, her voice, her touch... everything about her...
...and how could he not have seen that she'd felt that way about him all along?
Well, it was all academic now, something they could almost laugh about.
One day recently, the Doctor had received a distress call. The seven High Priests of Doffa had been kidnapped, and the Doctor had gone on a rescue mission. He had foolishly reasoned that it would be a quick in-and-out sort of thing, so he hadn't brought Martha with him. Plus, she'd been on the graveyard shift for two weeks and hadn't really adjusted to it very well - she was perpetually sleep-deprived. But, he'd wound up captured, as tended to happen without his backup, and only had broken free because of the Doffans' brave plot to distract the kidnappers, while their militia squad blew up the back of the building that housed prisoners.
He had been captive for thirty-four days. He had not been lonely or abused, exactly - he had shared a cell with the seven Doffan priests, and had been adequately fed and allowed to bathe. Honestly, life could have been - and had been - much, much worse. It just meant that by the time he re-entered his TARDIS and set coordinates back to London, it had been over a month since he had seen Martha or spoken to her. For a new couple, a month was an eternity. Even when one half of the couple was nine centuries old.
From Martha's point of view, it had only been a few days - the Doctor had seen to that - and he had called her around four a.m., knowing she'd be a just a couple of short hours from finishing her rotation shift for the night.
"Hiya," he'd said.
"Oh, hi," she chirped. "Haven't heard from you in a few days - are you all right? Did everything go okay with the rescue?"
"Got captured. Now I'm... well, less-captured." His tone was light.
"Okay, well, less-captured is better than more-captured," she said uneasily.
"I'll tell you about it later."
"It sounds like you're healthier-than-dead, so I'll try to focus on that, and not freak out too much," she decided.
"Good, because I'm making you breakfast," he said. "There will be no freaking out at breakfast."
"Oh, okay! Thanks. I'll be done here around six."
"Six it is. I'm headed to the market in a bit - I found one in Westminster that opens at five, that has the ingredients I want. Do you like butternut squash and truffle oil?"
"Truffle oil? Why so fancy?"
"I dunno, I guess I just want to make it special," he said. "It's been over a month since I've seen you."
"Over a month?"
"Yeah. I came back early, so you wouldn't worry about me too much. I know it's cheating, but..."
"Over a month?" she repeated.
He sighed. "Yeah. It was rough. I mean, the conditions were all right, and there were some nice blokes to talk to but... blimey, I'd forgotten how long a month can be when you're..."
She giggled. "What?"
"You know," he said, like a child.
"In love?" she asked, teasingly.
"Yes. And under constant surveillance, and sharing a room with seven men. Who are celibate, by the way. Actually, forget I said that last part. That has nothing to do with anything, other than... well, they just don't understand."
"Are you feeling a bit tightly-wound?" she chuckled.
"Oi! What's with the mocking? It's easy to poke fun when it's only been a few days! I could have made you wait the whole thirty-four days as well!"
She laughed. "All right, I withdraw my taunting. I am very happy that you're all right and I will look forward to seeing you, and to tasting and hearing what you have prepared for me."
"You will indeed enjoy the auditory confection I have chosen to accompany the food. I believe I have found the perfect piece."
"Do I get a hint?"
"No," he told her. "It's a surprise."
"Okay, fine, spoilsport," she said. "I have to get back to work. See you a little after six. Love you."
"Love you too."