FOUR

They ate lunch in silence. Peanut butter on toast. And tea, of course. Always tea. This time, Jack drank some. He wanted to find solace, and so many people in his life could find solace in tea, that he grasped at it. Really what he wanted was a good shot of bourbon and brush to scrub out the inside of his brain.

Francine hadn't said a word since Jack had finished telling her what he had seen in Martha's mind. He thought he suspected what she was thinking, and he was aching to speak to her about it, but he allowed her to stew in peace. She would say something when she was ready.

She finished her sandwich, and sat staring at nothing, her napkin still clasped tightly in her right hand. His suspicions were confirmed, when finally, at long last, she said, without emotion, "He asked them to whip her, and then watched."

"Yes," Jack said, swallowing some of his beverage.

She closed her eyes as if to steady herself. She spat, "That... filth." Her voice was dry, raspy. Her anger bubbled like lava.

"Francine," he said gently. "I don't think it was a memory, just a nightmare. Think about it: if that had really happened, she would have lost her mind long before she actually did."

She looked at him squarely. "She told me they'd met Shakespeare. She told me they'd gone to Bedlam in 1599, and that they whipped people for sport. I know they were there, Jack."

"Yes, they went to 1599 and met Shakespeare, and went to Bedlam. But Bedlam didn't accept women at that time," he offered, again, gently. "I really don't think it was real."

"Well, it certainly would explain a lot," Francine said, hardly listening to him.

"Yes, but..."

"If that's what he did to her, no wonder she tried to scratch out his eyes," Francine was now standing, ranting. "And good for her, I say! I knew that damn Doctor couldn't be trusted! I knew it!"

"Francine, calm down," Jack said, trying to get her back into her chair. She stared at him with the same frustrated incredulity he'd seen in the bedroom a half-hour before.

He could see that he wasn't going to be able to convince her to give the Doctor the benefit of the doubt, in the circumstances. The woman had been running on pure adrenaline for six months, and her nerves were frayed to nothing. Jack wasn't going to try to keep her objective – most mothers aren't good at being objective about their children's misery anyhow. He would simply let her fume, as long as she stayed out of his way.

"I need to do it again, Francine," he told her, honestly unsure of what she would say.

She sighed. She looked at him as if the whole thing were his fault, as though his connection to aliens, time travel and general weirdness made him responsible for what was happening to Martha.

"Why?" she asked, coldly.

"Because, in this particular, shall we say, 'episode,' she already knew the Doctor and was already scared of him. She saw his face and recoiled even in the nightmare – now you and I both know that's not natural. And their trip to Shakespeare country was early on in their relationship. Mind you, I still don't believe for a minute that any of it's real, but in her mind, something must have happened before that, which scared her even more..." he trailed off.

Still with the incredulous stare. "And this is supposed to help me calm down?" she shrieked.

"...and there was some indication that she had been frightened and humiliated to this degree only once before. It must have happened right when they met. If I can figure out what it is, maybe I can free her from it."

"You're going to free her from it by making her re-live it?"

"Yes," Jack told her. "Haven't you ever heard of Sybil and her dissociative personality disorder?"

"Are you saying Martha has multiple personalities?"

"No, no... you're missing the point," he was a bit exasperated now. He took a deep breath. "Look, I need to go back into her mind to find out what else she thinks happened. It might be the only way I can help her."

Francine took a deep breath and forced her panic down. She kept her lips tight – she was tired of crying. Jack waited patiently for her to get control. Finally, she said, "Just tell me one thing. Is what you're doing harming my daughter?"

"No," Jack told her truthfully. "She's going to re-live these things either way. The only thing I can do is watch and learn."

"Then do what you have to do," she whispered, without looking at him.

Minutes later, butterflies dancing in his stomach, he was on his way back up the stairs. Once again, he opened the bedroom door and saw her. Invoking the unique voice his pin-striped wearing, time-traveling friend, he stared at Martha, and uttered, "Blimey." Once more into the breach.

He took his place on the stool at the end of the bed. Once he was fitted with his end of the apparatus, he held Martha's half in his hand and hesitated for a moment. Last time, she'd fought this part.

"Are you going to do this nicely, Martha?" he asked her, of course, expecting no response.

He reached out to fit her with the small helmet, and she batted it away. It rolled to the floor. With a sigh, Jack picked it up. Patiently, he said to her, "Now look. I want to help you, Martha, and this is the only way I can. I don't want to have to hold you down and force you, but for your own good, I will. Do you understand?"

For some reason, this speech sparked some sentience in her. For the first time since he arrived, and indeed for the first time in months, she looked directly at him with clear eyes. She held his gaze. Jack's heart sped up. It was all he could do not to reach out and grab her, and hug her to him.

He kept his voice even, and said, "You do understand."

Her eyes closed for a moment, and when she opened them, she uttered the first words she'd said in almost six months: "Burn with me." It was flat and expressionless. And with it, she went back to her catatonic state, fidgeting, twitching, looking at nothing except the demons inside her head.

She'd been almost lucid for ten seconds! And now, she was back to the way she was. Jack felt discouraged both by the phrase, which he had no idea what to do with, and by her reversion. He exhaled frustratedly, and then tried once more to fit Martha's helmet to her head. This time, she let him.


He had hoped to see something of importance, some tiny thread of an idea that would bring him to the answer. And failing that, he hoped to see definitive evidence that her constant nightmares were just that – nightmares, and not anything resembling the reality she'd experienced while travelling with the Doctor. But when he was finished watching the scenes inside her mind this time, he had no answers, and no solace. He was more confused than ever. He decided to record what he'd seen, right then and there, before the details escaped him.

He extracted a dictaphone from his inside pocket and quickly narrated, in as much specificity as he could, the horrors inside the mind of Martha Jones. Anecdotal though they were, they had to be helpful somehow, to someone. He had told Francine that the worst case scenario would be that he'd get a bunch of flashes of things with no meaning attached to them. Well, that's almost what he'd gotten, but somehow, they fit together, he could feel it. He just needed someone to tell him the timeline, give him background, give him anything. If nothing else, he needed to know if this vision occurred before or after the whipping in 1599.

And there was only one "person" who had been in all of the visions, other than Martha herself. Jack needed to bring him in. Desperate times, he told himself. He knew Francine and Clive would not approve, but in the end, he was sure they'd be grateful for whatever means he applied to help Martha. Besides, sneaking around was his forte.

Having decided on a course of action, he went downstairs. It was barely one o'clock. He'd been in the Jones home only since half-past nine this morning, but it felt like a week.

"Well?" Francine asked.

"It was weird," he said contemplatively. "There was this helmet, and a spaceship on the moon. The ship was in danger somehow, and Martha was... possessed maybe? And in a smaller spaceship with another guy... but the smaller spaceship had avocado green and harvest gold wallpaper on the inside, and lace curtains."

Francine blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah, I don't know," Jack said.

"What about the Doctor, was he in this memory?"

"Vision, Francine, we'll call them visions."

"Fine. Was the Doctor in this vision?"

"Yes, but I don't want to say anymore until I know more about what's happening. Knowing all the details will just upset you," he told her. "I'm going to call my team this afternoon and see if they can bring up any of these images on the ethernet, see if any of it is archetypal or associated with any known alien species."

"All right," she said. "Where are you staying?"

"I'll be at the Reem Hotel in Prince's Square," he answered. He gave her a little slip of paper with the hotel's address and phone number. "You can ring if you want. I'll be back tomorrow, same time, okay?"

"Okay," she sighed. "Thank you, Jack."