Disclaimer: This is a fanfiction story and not written for any financial gain of any kind. All rights to Doctor Who and any associated material belong to the BBC and any other affiliated entities. Thanks.
A/N: This is not my first fanfic, but is my first venture into the Doctor Who fandom. Please feel free to review, all comments are welcome, but please no flames - they are completely pointless and absurd. This is a blatant Super!Martha fic, and is a Martha/10th Doctor romance. Please hit the back button if either of these things offends you. Full credit must go to Haleine Delail for her ideas on the Doctor's relationship with Rose which I've used in this chapter.
This is now the edited version, beta read by the brilliant Persiflage - thanks for all your hard work!
Part Three: Utopia
"A sword is never a killer; it is a tool in the killer's hands"
Seneca
The Doctor
They had been in flight for a minute or so, when the Doctor saw Martha stumble into the control room. She had to grab a nearby railing as they were thrown around, but she met his grin with her own and lurched unsteadily to join him at the controls.
"Bit of a rough flight, eh?" she said and laughed. They were both thrown to the ground as they landed in Cardiff. Martha sat up and rubbed her back for a moment, and then clambered to her feet. She offered him a hand up, which he accepted graciously, but staggered as she pulled him up with more force than he'd bargained for.
"Those classes of yours must have paid off, Martha Jones. You don't know your own strength!" She laughed and he got started on their refuel. "Should only take about twenty seconds, then we can be off," he said, twisting a couple of dials and then glancing at the display screen. He looked back over to Martha and discovered she had taken a seat on the flight chair. She was looking away from him though, a frown on her face. He wondered if there was anything wrong, but before he could say anything, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye.
He looked at the screen and saw something he really wasn't prepared to face. Looking down and seeing that they had enough fuel for two years of flying, he recalibrated the controls, and looked back to Martha. Whatever she had been pondering on she had apparently worked out, because now she was facing him with a look of anticipation.
"Fancy some star fire then Martha?" he asked and she nodded.
"Why not, it would certainly make a change from ugly shoes and sixties wallpaper!" she said, and he was pleasantly surprised that there was no hint of bitterness in her voice. He knew that she wasn't the vindictive type, but he had expected some kind of reprimand for his behaviour while they were trapped.
Either she didn't feel as though she could say anything for fear he would just take her home, or she didn't care enough to say anything. Maybe she didn't feel as close to him as he did to her. That was a thought he really did not want to dwell on.
He wasn't sure if it was deliberate on her part, but as soon as he had thought those words, the TARDIS gave a horrible lurch and knocked him off his feet. Clearly, he would not have the chance to dwell on anything at all just now.
Martha
When she had reached out and hauled the Doctor to his feet, Martha had been surprised how easy it was. In fact, it was much harder not to throw him right over her shoulder, even only using one hand. Clearly, when Lady Silverhair had said she would give Martha her strength, she had meant literally as well as figuratively. What was it the TARDIS had called Lady Silverhair? Oh yes, it was Selûne. She searched her memories for the explanation and discovered that Selûne was the name the people of Abeir-Toril had given Lady Silverhair's moon. They had believed that she was a goddess.
It was an understandable belief really, given their state of development versus the powers she had at her disposal. Though, Martha realised that Lady Silverhair had been the 'avatar' of Selûne, and had lived on Abeir-Toril in the form of an elf. That was why she had been able to have children with Gannayev. It was only when she left her home planet, and embraced the power which came with her heritage, that she left her flesh behind. That was why she needed Martha; she could no longer birth offspring.
Satisfied that now she was aware of the issue she would be able to control it, Martha turned back to smile at the Doctor. He was looking away, engrossed in something with the TARDIS controls. Martha was glad he had put it down to her exercise classes, but was worried about another slip.
After all, one or two oddities could be dismissed or explained away, but a pile of oddities surrounding her might give him cause for suspicion.
The Doctor was looking at her now, and when he asked if she wanted to go see some star fire, Martha was pleased that everything seemed fine between them. She made a crack about living in the sixties, (the wallpaper had been truly hideous), and off they went.
Or at least, she thought that they were on their way to the star fire, but when the turbulence started to get even more violent, she knew something was wrong.
The Doctor was yelling about the year one hundred trillion, but Martha couldn't really take it in. She was thrown against a barrier, out of his line of sight luckily, since when she turned to look at it, she had dented it. She felt no pain, so she had not damaged herself. A little fear worked its way into her mind. Was she going to have to be careful about who she hugged, in case she squeezed the life out of them?
She stopped herself from panicking by resolving to meditate on the issue as soon as she was at liberty. In the meantime, she would just be extra careful.
The TARDIS was suddenly silent and still. The Doctor rose to his feet and looked up. "We've landed," he said softly.
"What do you think is out there?" she asked. Selûne had never been this far into the future.
"I don't know," replied the Doctor.
Martha was surprised. "Say that again, that's rare for you."
"Not even the Time Lords came this far. We should leave. We should go... we should really, really... go..." His eyes slanted towards hers. They were still for a moment, and then broke out into identical grins. Both of them raced to the door, wanting to be the first to see what was out there.
They looked around carefully and then stepped out of the TARDIS. The Doctor was shrugging his coat on and scanning the horizon. Martha looked to the left and noticed a man lying on the ground.
"Oh my God!" she shouted, racing over to him. Her hand started to glow as she laid it on his chest. She panicked, and instinctively sucked the power back into her centre. By the time the Doctor joined her, it had stopped glowing.
"I can't get a pulse," she shouted over her shoulder. "Hold on, you've got that medical kit thing," she said and raced off towards the TARDIS, all the while mentally reminding herself that she had to be more careful!
The Doctor
"Hello again," The Doctor said as he looked down on the prone form of Captain Jack Harkness. The Doctor had a severe frown on his face. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said, looking away.
Just at that moment, Martha came running back out of the TARDIS with the aforementioned kit, shoving him out of the way.
"It's a bid odd, not very year one hundred trillion though, that coat looks more like World War Two," she noted.
"I think he came with us, from Earth." the Doctor told her, finding it very hard to even look at Jack. "He must have been clinging to the outside of the TARDIS, all the way through the vortex. That's very him."
"What, do you know him?" Martha questioned as she attended Jack. The Doctor couldn't admiring her for doing her best to help someone she didn't even know. Martha was born to be a doctor.
"Friend, of mine, used to travel with me, back in the old days," the Doctor muttered, hating the effect his words had on Martha. It was just like when Rose had met Sarah-Jane, though her face held sadness at Jack's apparent death.
"But he's, I'm sorry, there's no heartbeat. He's dead," Martha said consolingly, before screaming as Jack took a huge breath and lunged forward. He grasped Martha's forearms and slowly his breathing became calmer.
"Hold on, just breathe deeply, I've got you," Martha was saying.
Jack noticed who he was holding on to, and his eyes twinkled at the sight of such a beautiful woman. "Captain Jack Harkness," he introduced himself, "and who are you?" he asked, catching Martha's chin with one hand. Martha told him her name, and the Doctor couldn't help the intense surge of jealousy which spiked violently through him.
"Oh don't start!" he shouted, rolling his eyes and huffing a little.
"I was only saying hello," Jack defended, and Martha assured both of them that she didn't mind. Then Jack got to his feet and stared hard at him. The Doctor braced himself for whatever accusation or recrimination the man had to throw at him. After all, though he had his reasons, the Doctor had abandoned him on the Games Station.
"Doctor."
"Captain."
"Good to see you."
"And you. Same as ever. Although, have you had work done?"
"You can talk!"
The Doctor was confused for a moment, "Oh yes, the face. Regeneration. How did you know this was me?" He wondered.
Martha
Talk of regeneration would have confused Martha at one time, but not any more. She knew what a Time Lord really was and how they could 'cheat' death. She guessed that Jack must have met the Doctor when he was in a previous form. Though, the Doctor didn't know that she knew. Just when was he planning to tell her? In his defence, he had been on the verge of telling her when he'd been possessed by that sun, and likely would have told her everything if she had not stopped him.
"The police box kind of gives it away. I've been following you for a long time. You abandoned me." It seemed to Martha that this was a recurring theme with the Doctor.
"Did I? Busy life, move on." The Doctor replied coldly and Martha felt like slapping him. Here was a man who apparently couldn't die, someone who could be with the Doctor as long as he wanted. They were apparently friends at one time, so why didn't the Doctor want him around?
She noticed that the two of them were talking about Canary Wharf, and tuned out their conversation. She took a longer look at Jack, at the energy around him, and then she touched the presence in the back of her mind which connected her to the TARDIS.
"He is wrong. He is fixed. Take him away from me!" The TARDIS wailed to her, and Martha decided it would be better to let her be. She sent soothing emotions to her, and let their connection fall back to its normal passive state.
"...Parallel world. And Mickey, and her mother!" The Doctor was saying happily.
"Oh yes!" Jack declared and launched himself at the Doctor to hug him. Martha surmised that they must have been talking about Rose. Martha guessed that Jack must have know Rose as well, hence why he had been asking about her. She felt sorry for this man. Yes, the TARDIS was afraid of him for some reason, but he had been separated from Rose and the Doctor. Life must have been hard for him.
They started walking, and Jack began to tell Martha his story. "So there I was, stranded in the year 200,100, ankle deep in Dalek dust, and he goes off without me," he said, indicating the Doctor who was walking a few paces in front of them. "But, I had this," Jack continued, showing her something attached to his wrist.
With her benefactress ignorance on technology, Martha was keen to learn all she could about it. "I used to be a Time Agent," Jack told her. "It's called a vortex manipulator. He's not the only one who can time travel," Jack said smugly and Martha smiled.
She used to think that the Doctor was the pinnacle of everything wonderful in the universe, but she now knew that though that was true in many ways, there was an awful lot more out there. For example, both the Doctor and this new guy needed machines to help them travel in time and space, yet Martha knew that with enough practice, she would be able to do it by will alone.
Just goes to show that men always have to make things overly complicated, and it's only women who get the job done competently, she thought to herself. She could feel amusement coming from the TARDIS, who had a definite feminine personality, and laughed along with her.
"Oh excuse me! That," the Doctor pointed to Jack's manipulator, "Is not time travel, it's like, I've got a sports car, and you've got a space hopper."
"Oh, ho, ho! Boys and their toys," Martha said, mentally thanking them for proving her point.
"Alright, so I bounced," Jack conceded. "I thought, twenty first century, the best place to find the Doctor, except that I got it a little wrong, arrived in 1869, this thing burnt out so it was useless.
"Told you," the Doctor interjected.
"I had to live through the entire twentieth century waiting for a version of you that would coincide with me."
"But that makes you over a hundred years old," Martha said; having made the decision to keep up the pretence she was ignorant, she was finding the execution of it somewhat tedious. So what if Jack was over a hundred years old, big deal! The Doctor was over nine hundred, and Lady Silverhair had been thousands of years old when she died.
But, Martha before her upload, (as she was mentally calling it), had been a human who would find all this incredible. If she didn't say anything and just took it all in her stride, the Doctor would get suspicious.
"And looking good, don't you think? So, I went to the time rift, based myself there, because I knew you'd come back to refuel. Until finally, I get a signal detected on this and here we are."
"But the thing is, how come you left him behind Doctor?" Martha asked, wanting him to confront this issue.
"I was busy," The Doctor hedged, but she pressed on.
"Is that what happens though, seriously? You just get bored of us one day and disappear." She indicated herself and Jack.
"Not if you're blonde," Jack deadpanned.
"Oh, she was blonde!" Martha said, "What a surprise!"
The Doctor had clearly had enough at this point and turned on them.
"You two, we're at the end of the universe, alright? At the edge of knowledge itself, and you're busy... blogging," he spat and Martha glared at him. He was being insensitive again. Though she wondered if it wasn't just another one of his defence mechanisms. He didn't confront the issue because it was too hard to admit.
Boy, Martha was glad she now had an alternative and that she didn't depend on him the way she used to. If she did, then she would be feeling pretty crap right now.
"Come on," the Doctor muttered and moved towards a nearby precipice. Martha looked down on the construction below with wonder. She, or rather, Lady Silverhair, had seen something similar before. In fact, rather than a city it looked more like –
"A city or a hive," the Doctor said, stealing the word right out of Martha's mouth, figuratively speaking. "Or a nest, or a conglomeration," the Doctor continued.
He pointed out that the blackness in the sky wasn't just night, the stars had all burnt out, and faded to nothing.
Just like the sun of Abeir-Toril, Martha said to herself. The Doctor was right, time killed everything. Jack commented that the planet must have an atmospheric shell, or they would have frozen to death by now. The Doctor said that he and Martha might, but he wasn't so sure about Jack. Martha knew at that point, that whatever the TARDIS thought was wrong about Jack, the Doctor thought it too.
Perhaps he hadn't abandoned Jack because he got 'bored' of him; she was sure now that there must have been another reason.
The Doctor
The Doctor was mentally cursing himself and Jack for everything their reunion had brought out into the open. The fact that he had had supposedly abandoned Jack, though inside he knew he had run away from him, was undoubtedly worrying Martha. And then Jack had to go and make that wisecrack about blondes
He hadn't meant to be so harsh with them, especially not Martha. She deserved so much more from him. He wanted to give her so much more, but he was scared. He sighed to himself, when would he stop being scared and just grab what was right in front of him?
"But what about the people, does no one survive?" Martha asked and he loved her for that. For caring.
"We have to hope, I suppose, that life will find a way," he told her. Jack pointed to the ground below them.
"Well, he doesn't seem to be doing too badly!" He said and the Doctor grew concerned. There was a man who looked like he was fleeing for his life and a rabid group with torches close on his heels.
"Is it me, or does that look like a hunt?"
Martha
They had caught up with the man, and he had led them to their current location, The Silo. It was a haven of sorts, for humans. Apparently the people there were waiting for a rocket to be ready to take them somewhere they called 'Utopia'.
In the meantime, the Doctor had persuaded one of the guards who was due to go out on a last water collection to try and retrieve the TARDIS. They had been cut off from her when they were chased by the savage people who were known as the Futurekind.
They were currently following the man they'd seen running and a child who were looking for the man's family. The Doctor was waxing on about how hardy the human race was. 'Indomitable', was the word he used.
They were witnesses to the reunion of the man and his family. It warmed Martha's heart to see it. "It's not all bad news," she said with a smile. Jack was greeting a good looking man, but the Doctor warned him off and asked for his help in trying to open a nearby door.
Martha, with nothing better to do just then, wandered over. She was wondering if she would have been able to force it open herself, but shied away from the idea, wary of giving into temptation. She had to learn control; she could not just unleash her powers with no restraint. Particularly in such close quarters, the people were packed in so tightly, it was like a refugee camp. She would not allow herself to hurt anyone, so she would be patient, she would wait.
Behind the door was a giant, rocket, and Jack had to pull the Doctor back in before he fell. They were puzzling about the rocket's intended destination, 'Utopia', when an old gentleman, Professor Yana, approached them, looking for the Doctor. Apparently, he needed help to get the rocket working. Unfortunately, the Doctor claimed he had never seen a system like it and didn't know how to help.
Martha found his spare hand in Jack's bag, which sparked off the explanation about his sword fight with the Sycorax on Christmas Day, and how he had grown a new hand. When he told the Professor he was a Time Lord, and then the man had never heard of them, the Doctor seemed quite humbled. Martha thought it would be a good experience for him to eat some humble pie for a change. Chantho, the Professor's assistant, told them she was the last of her kind, and that this had been her home planet.
While the Professor and the Doctor were talking about Utopia, Martha went into her mind and tried to contact the TARDIS. She was worried about her, stuck out there, even though she knew the old girl could survive anything. Once the TARDIS had reassured her everything was fine, Martha tried to centre herself.
She had felt herself coming apart a little. She had been a tad snappy, and didn't like it. She wondered for a moment if she was due on, and that was why she was so short tempered. Or if she wasn't, was it some kind of side effect of her upload? She hoped not.
During her contemplation, the Doctor fixed the footprint system the Professor had been working on and suddenly it was all systems go.
From that point on, Martha only paid attention to the proceedings with a small part of her mind. She acted on autopilot, doing what she was told. She was trying to gain more control, mentally, of her power. She didn't know what had sparked this sudden urgency she felt, but her instincts had never let her down in the past, so now was no time to assume they would.
When the TARDIS was brought in, she almost wept with relief. She opened their connection as wide as it would go, and conveyed her worries to the ship. A part of her was wondering why the Doctor did not appear to have sensed that anything had changed between Martha and the TARDIS, but the ship told her she was purposefully blocking the information on just how completely connected the two of them were from him. Now was not the time for him to know, she told Martha.
They worked in the silence of Martha's mind, focusing on honing her talent to direct her will without words. It was only a small part of all she had to learn, but both agreed it would be the most useful. It was like the thing with the candles, only taken several steps forward. What they were aiming for, was for Martha to be able to look at something she wanted done, and push her power out to make it happen. The TARDIS warned that it would be very tiring to begin with, until she had practised more.
"It's all a part of the learning process." Martha told the ship, and carried on working.
When the power was cut, and Jack was zapped by some cables, Martha was still only listening with half an ear. She was glad when the Doctor left with Jack, she couldn't run the risk of him noticing anything was off with her.
The Doctor
The Doctor had noticed that something was off with Martha, but he had wrongly assumed it was something to do with him. He thought it was because of his earlier conversation with Jack about Rose, and how he had left the Captain behind. He thought she was wondering just when he would tire of her, and where he would leave her.
The Doctor couldn't ever imagine getting tired of Martha; he never wanted her to leave him. He knew he couldn't keep her though, and that was eating away at him.
Then there was that thing with his hand, and he again wrongly, assumed that the fact he could grow a new hand after his was cut off disgusted Martha, that it was a step too far for her. He thought she was being so distant because she remembered that they were a different species and she didn't like it.
He was glad that he got a chance to clear the air with Jack though. After he admitted that he'd run away from the immortal man, he felt purged. He felt calmer.
As he spoke of Rose and what she had done, he knew that Martha was at the other end of the communication system and heard every word. But what was he supposed to do? Lie? No, never, not to Martha. He wouldn't pretend that Rose hadn't been a huge part of his life, because she had been.
What he should have done, was told Martha the rest. That he'd looked on Rose as a troubled child. Not all the time of course, but that he hadn't taken it any further, it had never been physical, because he would have felt like a randy teacher ravishing his pupil.
With Martha, he didn't feel like that. She was a grown woman who knew her own mind, and while she had been in awe of him at first she was not afraid to challenge him – she proved that in New New York when she refused to leave until he admitted the truth.
But he hadn't told her these things and he – gods damn it, he was bloody well going to tell her! He would, just as soon as they got out of this blasted mess. Once those people were on their way and they were back in the TARDIS he would tell her everything, he would.
Glad he had made a decision, he focused on the task at hand.
Martha
Listening to the Doctor and Jack discuss Rose had been a lot easier than she thought it would be. She found herself smiling in admiration for what Rose had done. There weren't many out there who could gain the power of life and death, and use it in the way Rose had. Just as the Doctor said, if a Time Lord had gained that power he would have become a vengeful god.
Martha mentally took her hat off to Rose Tyler, and applauded her for being a fellow stalwart human. She was glad too, that the Doctor mentioned the need for control, it reaffirmed to her that she was doing the right thing by working with the TARDIS and taking small steps. Rose had had the power of the Time Vortex taken from her, but Martha's power would be staying with her until the day she died. It could not be drawn out or absorbed, she didn't think she would even be able to pass it on the way Lady Silverhair had.
Though, in fairness, that was likely because she didn't want to pass it on. In the future maybe, when her time came. She turned to Chantho and smiled when Jack made a comment about the Doctor's new regeneration being kind of cheeky, and saw the Professor out of the corner of her eye. He appeared to be in distress.
The TARDIS roared to life in Martha's mind as she looked at Professor Yana, and kept repeating, "Danger, danger, danger" When Martha saw the watch in his hands, she knew.
The man was a Time Lord, in human form. She remembered the Doctor saying in 1913 that the watch produced a low level psychic field. She guessed that the TARDIS was picking up on it, and was frightened. Thus whichever Time Lord this was, it wasn't one of the good ones.
Before her upload, Martha might have run to the Doctor, it was the logical thing to do. She could tell him about the watch without Professor Yana hearing about it. But she could see the folly in that plan now. If the watch remained in Professor Yana's hands, it would speak to him, the same way the Doctor's watch had spoken to Tim Latimer.
"Can I take a look, Professor? Maybe I can get it open for you?" Martha said, all the while, focussing her will on the perception filter and widening its field. She felt herself growing tired as she worked, but ignored it. As the watch's influence on him waned, the Professor's distress went with it. He handed it over to her without a glance and she promptly placed it in her pocket. She wasn't done yet, however.
She placed a hand on his shoulder, seemingly offering comfort, and with the TARDIS' help, manipulated the sleep centre of his brain.
"I think you should rest, Professor. Chantho, will you look after him? I'm going to see if the Doctor and Jack need any help." She said all this in an even tone, giving neither of them a reason to be suspicious of her motives. She could feel the approval of the TARDIS in her mind, as the ship stopped calling out the danger, and returned to the familiar hum.
She walked slowly towards where she knew the boys to be, she wanted to think. Should she tell the Doctor what she had found? Did she have any right to keep it from him? Suddenly, she knew the answer. If she made the decision to hide it, it would be just as bad as if she had told him about Lady Silverhair and he had decided it was too risky for her. It was his people, he had a right to know and it was up to him to make his own choice about this.
All she could do, was support him along the way.
