TWO
She walked into the control room, banging her hands together idly.
"Doctor?" she called, unable to see him.
"Hello!" he shouted wearily from somewhere on the other side of the console. She walked round the centre console curiously.
She found him lying out on his front, his head, shoulders and arms disappearing down a trapdoor in the grating. He had taken off his brown suit jacket. It was currently hung on a long lever coming out from an open door underneath the centre console, some six feet away.
She walked over and crouched, taking it all in, hearing the noises of someone busily tinkering with tools.
"Need any help?" she asked gamely.
"Give me a minute," he called up through the grate. "Can't hear you with my head down here."
She nodded, letting her feet out from underneath her and sitting cross-legged on the grating.
He moaned something and then shuffled his entire body back from the grate slowly, lifting his head out and wiping it with his right hand. He looked at the cable in his left as if it owed him money.
"Not good," he breathed to himself, and then heard her clear her throat, trying to cover some amusement. He looked over at her. "What?"
"You've, er, kinda made a mess of your face," she managed, trying not to grin too widely. He stared at her.
"What's my face got to do with anything?" he asked tersely, confused, before putting a hand up and wiping it again quickly.
"No, it's – look, you're covered in -. Well, I don't know, black soot, dust, stuff," she said, more seriously.
"Well after I've figured out why she's stopped dead and we're not going anywhere, then I'll worry about my face," he tutted, then looked back at the cable.
"We're not moving?" she asked, surprised. "But I thought –"
"Then you thought wrong," he snapped suddenly. "We're drifting about in the Time Vortex cos we seem to have lost power." He huffed to himself, inspecting the cables carefully. "Honestly. As if I'd care about my own appearance when she's not right," he grumped, turning back and reaching back down the hole in the grating. "Just no consideration, some people."
She bit her lip and watched his upper body disappear back through the gap.
After ten minutes of struggling, grunting and hissing words that sounded suspiciously like insults, he backed out of the hole again and sat back on his heels, huffing.
This time he had a rather dense scattering of black soot in his hair, too, and large greasy patches on his shirt.
"You know what?" he demanded angrily. "I just don't know! It's just knackered, and I can't find a problem with it cos it's just junk cunningly disguised as stuff that sometimes functions!" he snarled, getting to his feet abruptly.
She watched him, shocked.
"She's not junk, Doctor," she said archly.
"It's all junk!" he shouted suddenly, stepping back and lifting a foot, kicking at the centre console vindictively. Martha stood quickly, shocked.
"Doctor!" she cried accusingly.
"What?" he demanded, turning and looking at her. "What's it got to do with you? She's refusing to tell me what's intercepting power to the navigation board and you're just standing there, thinking you've got some right to tell me how to treat my ship! Who are you, anyway?" he demanded, outraged.
She stared at him for a full second before collecting herself and marshalling her sudden anger.
"You're being mean," she said clearly.
"Good!" he shouted, bending down and pushing his face into hers. "It's about time I got to be the mean one! You're just some argumentative pushy girl who isn't even going to finish her exams to become a doctor cos she's wasting her life tailing round a failing aging Time Lord with stupid delusions of happy endings and who just wants to be left alone!" he cried angrily.
She watched his eyes from three inches away, her own eyes blazing. Some doctor's instinct told her his pupils were too large and his breathing too shallow – even for someone shouting as he was.
"This isn't you," she realised suddenly. "In all the time I've known you, you've never been like this with anyone," she observed through clenched teeth, determined not to bite back.
"Time you've known me?" he demanded in the high notes, "Time you've known me? Is that supposed to be a joke? Cos it's not very funny, Martha Jones! All I've got is time! That's all I've ever had, and it's all I'll ever have! And do you know why?" he snarled, again in her face. She stood her ground resolutely. "Cos you humans have no concept of it, that's why! It makes me sick! You lot just get one slice, one go at it, and then you die!" he cried viciously.
She watched him put his head to his head, but rather than push at his hair as usual, he simply held onto it.
"How do you think that makes me feel?" he continued to rant. "Left out, that's how! Left here doing my best not to pick up a new millstone round my neck with some other poncy Earth-name attached to it! I've put up with your stupid, offensive Earth ways and your irritatingly pathetic attempts to be clever for too long! I'm not putting up with it any more! This next stop you're getting pushed out the front door as I slow her down, and good riddance!" he shouted, enraged.
She took a step back quickly.
"All I ever wanted was to be left alone, but no, you had to barge in here and think you were someone! Well you're not, Martha Jones, you're just one more annoyingly boring carbon-based life form with no grasp of temporal mechanics or in fact life in general! You wanted to be part of my life? My life? Which one?" he demanded angrily.
She didn't take to the vitriol or the colour of his face at all.
"Oh look at me!" he cried suddenly, his gaze diverted to the ceiling, "I'm a London girl and I'm black too! Therefore I get special-"
He suddenly felt the back of his head slam into something.
He opened eyes he hadn't realised he'd closed, looking round. He saw the ceiling windows of the TARDIS, the underside of the console, and something told him it wasn't that the TARDIS up the wrong way at all, but rather the fact that he was lying on his back.
He was struggling with this news as he saw a familiar face hove into view above him.
"Doctor?" she asked quietly, and then he was aware of something holding his head at each side. "Doctor, can you hear me?"
"'S dirty," he said, surprised.
"What is?" she asked gently.
"That," he managed, lifting his right arm up and pointing at the underside of the console. She smiled, then sighed, stroking his fringe back away from his eyes firmly. "Did you slap me?" he asked suddenly, curiously.
"Yes," she said clearly. "You lost it."
"Lost what?" he asked faintly, sounding pre-occupied.
"The plot? Your head?" she hazarded. "You started being rude. And then it just… escalated," she smiled. He flicked his gaze up at her.
"And you decided to hit me?"
"Well it did stop you shouting insults at me," she said easily, smiling. "Although I didn't expect you to drop like Mr Slinky. I was just trying to make you stop," she added suddenly. "Time Lords must have glass jaws. Cheeks. Whatever."
"Perhaps just this one," he said. "There was a time though…" He paused, his eyes rolling round in his head slowly. "There was a time… Oh Martha," he breathed wretchedly, and she swallowed. "She's not well. And neither am I."
"I always harboured this idea you were one sick individual," she teased. "I should have known – I did meet you in a hospital, after all."
"Martha, do me a favour," he said faintly, pre-occupied.
"What?" she asked quickly.
"Stop me from being an idiot?" he asked, looking up at her again. She relaxed.
"I thought that was my role on this ship anyway?" she smiled. He blinked, then grinned cheekily. Suddenly he giggled, and she let her smile drop. "Doctor?"
"Oh, you're good!" he giggled, and she stiffened.
"Doctor, I think you've really hurt your head," she said clearly. He giggled like a small girl and she tightened her hands on his head, shaking it once, briskly. He stopped. "Doctor, listen to me," she said clearly. "The TARDIS is not well. You said so. You're not well either – I think from that bash on the head when we got tipped," she said quickly. "You've obviously got some kind of head trauma and we need to –"
"My Martha: my doctor!" he grinned winningly, and she took a deep breath.
"Look, mate, you have to get up and fix this ship. Otherwise we're dead in the water."
"Time Vortex," he corrected seriously, then raised his eyebrows at her, chuckling more like himself this time. "TARDISes don't like water. Oh they can swim, they just don't like it. Like cats," he said suddenly, "or –"
"Those Gellerites have a lot to answer for," she mused, and he watched her, uncertain. "Fancy using sling-shots anyway, when they had those gun things. Not very bright, I suppose," she added, watching him sadly.
"Sling-shots and guns," he breathed quietly, and she watched his eyes roll to the left, staring, unblinking, for a long moment. "Guns and sling-shots, sling-shots and guns…"
"Yeah well. They didn't harm anything," she said slowly, letting her hand steal over his forehead, testing the temperature. "That's cool," she said, surprised.
"It's always cool," he mused to himself, then suddenly he jerked as if kicked, turning his head to look up at her. "Oh! Oh oh oh oh ohh!" he crowed triumphantly.
He grabbed at her hand, snatching it from his face and pulling on her to sit. She helped him sit up and he swayed dangerously. She grabbed his shoulder and held him still.
"Sling-shots! Not guns!" he cried happily. "Martha! They weren't rocks, they were Leackers!" he added, grabbing her arms and squeezing.
"Great. What are they?" she asked quickly.
"They attach themselves to the outside of a ship making sure they have a good hold then they find an entry point and send in fibres to attack the power lines and start dissolving and leeching and all the while they're sending telemetry back to the evil little jelly babies so they can be tracked and then the evil jelly babies follow cos we'll have no power cos the fibres will have dissolved the link and when they catch up with us –"
"Doctor!" she cried, his rapid-fire babbling worrying her more than being tracked by Gellerites. He closed his mouth with an audible snap. She swallowed. "We have to find these fibres and rip them out?" she asked, more controlled.
"We have to find the fibres and rip them out," he began, but then it seemed as if he'd expended all the energy he had. "And then we… and then we… Oh, think – think – think!" he cursed at himself urgently.
She felt his fingers digging into her arms and gritted her teeth.
"Oh!" he barked suddenly, and she jumped. "Get them – get them out, then… then find the – the thing and thing the thingy, and the things won't be able to – to thing the thingy!" he blurted.
"Doctor," she said patiently, and he paused long enough for her to put her hands to his face, holding him still firmly. "Listen to me. You've either got a concussion or actual serious trauma. You're not making any sense. We have to get you to someone who knows about Time Lord brains and check you're alright," she said firmly but gently.
He put his hands up on hers and pulled them off quickly. But he didn't let go.
"We can't do anything if we don't-." He stopped short, taking a deep breath and squinting at her. "If we don't… What was I saying?" he asked suddenly.
"Doctor?" she said gently, and he watched her. "First things first. You have to be checked for injury, and I mean now. Then when we know how bad it is, we can fix the TARDIS and get you seen to. Ok?" she said firmly, squeezing his hands.
He blinked at her a few times, and she began to think he hadn't heard.
"Oh. Dear. Martha?" he asked quietly. She waited, nodding at him. "My bedroom, please."
"What?" she said firmly, unamused.
"There's a – a thing, and you can – thing my head, and see," he said vaguely. She breathed out.
"Come on then!" she said quickly, then let go of his hands carefully. She got from her knees to her feet, reaching out and taking his wrists, helping him to his feet. He swayed and she grabbed his shirt to stop him from falling.
"Oh," he said suddenly, "this is awkward. Can I -?" He lifted his left arm to put it round her shoulders desperately. "Right. Here we go, then," he said to himself, and she grabbed hold of him quickly, turning them and walking on to his bedroom.