Chapter 5 "All By Myself"
A defenseless man found himself on the opposite end of a slap. He rubbed his sore cheek and shouted with a shocked look on his face, "You just hit me!"
"Sorry!" Maya shouted realizing her mistake. "I thought you looked like someone else. Someone I'm not too fond of at the moment."
The cross janitor angrily tossed the bag full of rubbish into the bin and under his breath, called her some very nasty names. As he gathered his brooms and window cleaners, he gave Maya a lethal glare. She counted her blessings that looks couldn't kill.
As he continued to furiously stare at her, even as he was exiting the room, Maya noted that he looked and sounded nothing like the Doctor. He had to be half his height and twice his weight. He had long, dark, greasy hair that reminded her of sewage and livid eyes. Although, the latter may be due to the large red mark on the side of his face.
"Sorry!" Maya called out again. Even though it didn't do much good. And she wondered why she had thought he was the Doctor mocking her behind the door.
"Maybe I'm just crazy," she said out loud. She shrugged at that and closed the door to Martha Jones' office. Then Maya stopped in the middle of the room. Now what? She thought about for minute, then talked to herself out loud again.
"What would the Doctor do?" she mused. After thinking about that for another minute, she shrugged, walked over to the beautiful, wooden desk against the back wall, and started to open and search through the drawers. Not entirely sure what she was looking for.
There were immunization records, DNA sequences for extraterrestrial viruses, alien anatomy. All technical things. Facts and figures. Nothing that said anything about Martha. Until, Maya found a small, beautiful, white box. Just the touch of it sent vibrations throughout her body, good ones. And just like that, Maya found what she was looking for. She could feel it.
It was locked, but that didn't stop Maya. She reached into her hair and pulled out a small hair pin and her long bangs gently gathered around her face, covering part of her left eye. She tucked the stubborn piece behind her ear and started twisting the pin in the lock.
As the tiny clip worked its way through the tumblers and knobs of the lock, Maya thought of every nasty name she was going to call the Doctor when this whole thing was over. If she ever saw him again, that is. How could she know he was coming back? He basically kicked her out of the Tardis with nothing but a ring to hide her DNA, a card that apparently did nothing but be purple and a broken wristwatch.
Actually that wasn't entirely true. It wasn't broken, the arms were moving. They just happened to be going in the opposite direction. And now it started making a light beeping noise.
Yep, defiantly not broken.
Maya dropped the box out of surprise and focused her attention on the annoying watch. She started pressing buttons, looking for an off switch, anything to make the damn thing stop. But it was a persistent little thing that kept beeping. She stopped touching it, and curled her fingers in a strangling motion, pretending the watch had a neck.
But she didn't have to anymore. The annoying beeps had thankfully stopped. Maya released the tension she didn't realize she had built in her back. Also, she had been so focused on the watch that she didn't hear the door open.
"What are you doing in here?" a stern, familiar voice demanded. Maya froze and looked up for conformation. Yes, it was. There the Doctor stood in all his tweed and bow tied glory, looking at her with a severe face. But then she blinked and he was gone.
In his place stood a tall man in a uniform with a severely pointed face. He looked like a rat that had its face honed in order to look sharper and meaner.
Caught red handed, holding a white box, Maya decided to go violet. Her honey brown irises clouded over until they were a deep shade of purple.
"There's no one in here," she said in a soft tone, reminiscent of a lullaby. Rat Man had a dreamy look and a stupid grin on his face. Then, he nodded slowly as he obeyed Maya's command. She reached for the box and tried to keep cool. She only had six more seconds before she was toast. She looked around the room, panicked and ducked under the desk; a wise choice.
The man came out of his comatose-like stance and looked around the room as if he had forgotten something. He shook his head and said to himself, "I must be working too hard," and left the room.
Gingerly, Maya crawled out from her spot, like a solider hoping to give the all-clear. However, it wasn't ginger enough, because the box fell out from under her arm and hit the carpeted floor in a muted thud. Maya froze, waiting to see if the noise would attract anymore Purple Eye victims. It didn't.
But it did do something interesting. The white box hit the floor just right and opened, allowing its contents scatter around the floor, like cockroaches after a light is turned on. Maya haphazardly gathered everything and retreated back to her hiding spot under the desk to thumb through her find.
Maya held only documents and quickly skimmed through them, memorizing everything she could, lest anything be important in the future. Then the damned watch began to incessantly beep again. Maya threw down the papers, out of annoyance this time, rather than shock and fruitlessly tried to stop the beeping again.
Try as she might, the beeping persisted. Even after Maya replicated the first sequence she did during the first round of beeps, the watch persevered. Again, if the watch had a neck she would strangle it. It came to the point where Maya balled her fist and slammed the face of the watch with all the force she could muster. It, thankfully, stopped beeping.
Maya sat back in the chair, relaxing her spine with a self satisfied smirk on her face. Human dominance over technology was executed once again. Skynet would have to go back to the drawing board.
Ping! Maya sensed it just before the doorknob turned and a person stepped into the office. She had just one second to prepare before Dr. Martha Jones walked into her office.
Got a plan? Maya heard the Doctor's cheeky voice say, as if he were standing right next to her.
Without thinking or hurling one of her pre-planned insults, she responded, Yeah, but it's mental and there's no guarantee it'll work.
My favorite kind, he mused just as the doorknob made a turning sound.
Maya held her breath; there really was no guarantee this would work because she'd never tried it before. Sure, she could hypnotize someone but only for about twelve seconds. She'd never tried to entrancing someone with deep inception. Maya let out her breath and concentrated her energy as a smartly dressed Martha Jones walked in with a handful of documents. Martha was shuffling through them when she looked up and saw a strange girl sitting at her desk.
"Who are you?" she asked angrily.
Maya's eyes turned purple as she answered in a soft, rhythmic voice, "Your new assistant, Michaela Tenny. You trust me. We're friends."
Maya tried to put some extra oomph in words, trying to make them stick. Martha may be nodding her hypnotized head in an eerily creepy fashion. But Maya wasn't sure if she was strong enough for an inception this massive.
Moment of truth.
The standard twelve seconds ended and Martha lost that dreamy, somewhat sickly sweet look from her face. She closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to make sense of the mini black out she'd just had. Maya's eyes returned to their honey brown, as she stood from the desk and shoved the white box back in the drawer.
Finally, Martha focused herself and set her eyes on Maya. Too late to turn back now.
"Good to see you here early, Michaela," Martha said with more of a grimace than a smile as she made her way to her desk, free hand holding the side of her head.
"Something wrong, Dr. Jones?" Maya asked. Though genuinely concerned, she already knew the answer.
"Just a light headache that came out of nowhere," Martha said disjointedly as she sorted the documents into different piles. But then she stopped and looked up. In a pleasanter voice, she added "and Michaela, I've told you that I like to be called Martha."
"Okay, Martha," Maya said in a smile, then gestured to the chaotic conglomeration of papers the doctor had and asked, "Need help with any of these?"
"Sorry, Michaela, but technically, you're not supposed to be in the same room with them," Martha said with an ironic smirk.
Maya nodded, then looked at her new boss's face as she went back to sorting the private documents. Maya could barely see the puffiness under her lids. Whenever Martha breathed in through her nose, she could hardly hear it. The redness in her eyes was only noticeable up close and Martha's eye makeup had been carefully reapplied. Yes, you could narrowly tell that Martha Jones had been crying the hardest she'd had in her entire life.
"Are you alright Martha?" Maya asked.
Without looking up, Martha nodded. "Mmhmm, it's just a headache. Promise, I'll take an ibuprofen if it gets worse."
"That's not what I meant," Maya said softly. Martha looked up at her.
"Is it that obvious?" She asked desperately.
"That something's bothering you?" Maya asked rhetorically. She nodded as an answer to her own question. "But, don't forget, I'm a little more intuitive than most people."
Martha folded her hands and hid her head behind them, as if praying to a god for something so important. Then she lifted her head and looked Maya in the eye. "The wedding's been called off."
Maya only nodded. This she knew, but 'Michaela' didn't. "What happened?"
Martha bit her lip and looked out the window. But it didn't hold the answer because she turned back to her 'assistant'. "It's complicated."
"I think I can help," Maya said encouragingly.
"Mickey accused me of not knowing who he was. When I asked, he said that even he didn't know who he was. He said that he was always a package deal as someone else's boyfriend or fiancé or a nameless drone of a government. He said that he didn't have an identity. That he didn't know who he was and needed to figure out who that person is." Martha looked as distraught as a person could be.
"Did he say that he didn't want to marry you?" Maya asked, almost childlike.
"No. He left before we could talk and I was so angry, I threw away my ring." Martha held up her hand and showed her bare finger. "I called him and said on his voicemail that he didn't have to show up to the rehearsal dinner tonight."
"You don't think that rash?" Maya asked.
"I was just about to ask you that," Martha said with a sad smile. She heaved in a breath, then mused, "why do I feel like I can open up to you like we have some kind of a special connection or something? You've only been my assistant for . . . God, I don't even know how long you've been working here. Couldn't be more than . . . I don't know." Martha grabbed the side of her head. The headache was getting worse.
"Perception of time can be a tricky thing," Maya said with finality. She didn't want to risk her deception being recognized. That's what the headache was, Martha's true memories trying to resurface.
Martha nodded with a sad smile as she thought of the past and Maya's watch started to beep again. Why did the Doctor give this to her? Instead of trying to turn it off, she let it beep, letting a theory play out.
Martha looked up. "New watch?"
Maya nodded with a grin. At that moment there was a knock on the door.
"Come in," Martha called out and a familiar Doctor walked in.
"Be prepared for danger," the Doctor said almost desperately to Maya. Then she blinked.
AN - Only a week and a half in between chapters. Stop me, I am on FIRE! Its really hard guys trying to juggle all these things. Do me a favor, don't grow up. Stay in high school when you have all this time. Anywhoozlbees, enough with the depressing talk. Yes, Rwy'n-Y-Blaidd-Drwg, I do agree that more people should review my stories. Sadly, they don't agree with. Oh well. Then, I'll just withhold Chapter 6, DUN DUN DUH! Yes, Minions, when you do not dance for my amusement, I become sad. T~T So dance for me puppets! Dance!