Title: Wasteland (10/?)
Characters: Ten, Martha, Donna
Word Count: 7,438
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine. sniff
Spoilers: Up to "Planet of the Ood." (Sort of.)
Summary: The Doctor receives the phone call that sends him running back to Martha Jones, but all is not well with his former companion. What begins as a reunion for the travelling partners becomes something far more sinister, and the two must mend bridges, confront old demons and face new ones as they struggle to save the Earth (yet again).
Author's Notes: Huge thanks to eponymousrose and persiflage1 for their beta help - none of this would make much sense without them. Concrit is always welcomed, and thank you all for your time and patience.
--
Tension, it seemed, did nothing to soothe Donna's bristly temperament.
For the first few minutes of the Doctor's mind-meld Martian thing, she stared attentively at the alien's hands, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice.
After a half-hour, she got bored and began to pace around the room, eyes still glued on the woman laying on the bed and the man kneeling on the floor.
It was odd, watching the two. Martha would whimper and barely a second later the Doctor would wince. She would flinch, and then the Doctor would become rigid.
After another half-hour, she noticed the reactions had reversed. The Doctor would be the first to indicate pain, and then Martha would follow with a similar response, almost like a delayed reply. It wasn't the Doctor anticipating (she didn't care how impressive Time Lords were – psychic mumbo jumbo was too ridiculous even for him), it was more defensive. Feeling it first so that Martha didn't have to.
Except, about every twenty minutes, Martha would become oddly glazed, almost peaceful, and the Doctor's brow would become severe with some sort of torment as he'd cringe and recoil. And then the pause would end, and Martha would be tossing and turning right along with the Time Lord once more.
It was during one of these sessions that the Doctor cried out and began to withdraw his hands from Martha's face.
Donna was screaming the instant she saw the motion, and it took her less than a moment to be across the room and yelling into the Doctor's ear. "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?!" With that she clamped her hands over the Doctor's and kept them there, awkwardly sitting half-on and half-off the bed while the other two kept about their less-than-merry stroll through Martha's dreams.
Being the responsible one in the gang, she realized, was an awfully boring gig.
Not long after this revelation, Martha's body relaxed one more and the Doctor's hands began their retreat.
"No you don't!" She tightened her grip on the fingers.
"Donna-"
"I don't care! Martha's the first person I've known who's insane enough to hang around you longer than I have and I need as much help as I can get!"
"Donna, it's okay." She looked up to see the Doctor properly conscious once more, smiling reassuringly. "She's okay, I can let go."
"Oh, well then." She released her grasp and stared at Martha expectantly for a moment. "If she's fine then why isn't she waking up?"
"I put her mind in stasis," he said, sounding infinitely tired as he came to his feet, only to promptly sit down on the bed next to Martha. "Her mind's at peace, for now."
Donna frowned. The Doctor faced dangers and horrors that would terrify even the bravest of men on a daily basis, but very rarely did such adventures make him seem so utterly exhausted. It was almost as if, at a point in Martha's mind, he had been defeated in some way.
Donna began to panic.
"Can you wake her?"
"Yes," he answered instantly. "In a jiffy, actually." He almost sounded surprised. "Not complicated at all, this. Rudimentary stuff. Just influence and manipulation – little actual mind control at all. That's why it's only possible to do it through Martha's dreams. They're using her memories to influence her nightmares because they can't control her any other way." He sent the prone woman a fond grin. "She's too strong while awake, so they've been attacking her when she's most vulnerable." He gave himself a slight shake, still staring at Martha, regret flowing from him in waves.
What had happened in there?
Donna walked around the bed so that she was standing in front of the Doctor, Martha lying peacefully behind him on the bed while he stared at the ground. "What did you see?"
He didn't answer, carefully reaching out and wrapping his hand around one of Martha's. Donna leaned over the Time Lord's bony shoulder, taking note of the jagged scar across the surface of Martha's hand. "Doctor?"
"Terrible things." He finally allowed, gaze hard. "I saw her memories." He let out a bitter laugh "Which were more than enough to give anyone nightmares. But whoever's doing this is morphing them. Changing them. Making them worse."
"Do you think it's Rossi?"
"I don't know," he all but ground out, anger clearly burning beneath the surface. At himself for not knowing, and at whoever had dared to harm his friend.
Donna knew better than to be scared of such fury. In fact, she was pleased by it. The Doctor, a man who spent so much of his seemingly infinite energy trying not to feel, was livid on behalf of Martha Jones.
Between the guilt and the rage, his exhaustion was suddenly easily explained. These were big emotions, for a person still riding the training wheels of feeling.
"There's no reason for it," the Doctor continued, gritting his teeth and staring fiercely down at Martha's hand even while his grip remained gentle. "He has the TARDIS but no way to get in, and doing this to Martha now isn't going to change that. It gains him nothing, not our location, nor our intentions. There's no reason for it."
And the Doctor always needed his logic.
Donna recalled and rearranged information, furrowing her brow in thought. "Maybe it's like you said – influence and manipulation." They wanted to push Martha to the limit, but what kind of limit and to what end? "Trying to make her falter, bending her until she breaks."
The Doctor winced at the phrase and was silent.
Donna waited. It was rare, for him to be in such a chatty mood (in an emotional sense, at any rate. Inane jabber shouldn't be counted for anything more than it was – mindless sounds coming out of a gaping hole), and she suspected that pushing him would end it all abruptly.
"Why her?" he finally asked. "Why not me?"
"Because they think she's the weaker of you two," she replied with certainty.
The Doctor sent her a steely stare. "They're wrong."
Donna returned the gaze with equal seriousness. "I know."
It took more than the Doctor realized, to follow him into the unknown.
He broke the stare, suddenly helpless again. "I didn't realize what I had asked her to do, Donna." He ran his free hand manically through his hair. "I had no idea. All the things-" He cut himself off, taking a breath. "I don't know if I'll be able to make this up to her." He looked up to Donna desperately. "I don't know if she'll ever forgive me."
And she heard the bit he didn't speak. If I'll forgive myself.
But that was the part he couldn't say, because he hadn't quite gotten there himself yet.
And so Donna Noble, temp and secretary, slowed down for him, this Time Lord of infinite knowledge and wisdom. Getting off the training wheels did, after all, take a great deal of time.
"That's not for you to decide, is it?" she said, nudging his foot with hers. "You have to earn that forgiveness like the rest of us mortals do, and you can't manage that if she's not conscious."
The Doctor smiled hopefully at her. "You think I can make this right."
As if she would let him get cocky.
"I think you can do a great many things. The question is whether or not you actually will." She sent him a gentle grin and gestured toward Martha, still sleeping peacefully on the bed. "Wake her up, Doctor."
And just like a fairy tale, he turned, placed his hands on Martha's temples, and closed his eyes.
--
Everything merges. There's screaming and tears and blood and fire and death and there's so much of it that she thinks she's drowning.
Until, all at once, she isn't anymore.
Martha. Martha, wake up.
And then, for just an instant, everything goes black.
--
Martha woke up burning, suffocated and absolutely terrified.
Her mind screamed runrunrun, and she rocketed forward at the command, ready to leap small buildings if she had to so long as she could be safe.
But when she herself flung forward her momentum was abruptly stopped, a cool, solid form halting her progress.
She put her arms in front of her face, cowered, backed away, tried to flee any direction she could.
"Martha! Martha, it's me!"
She knew that voice. Could identify the feeling of slender fingers on her back. Of a rising and falling chest pressed against her forearms, a frantic double heartbeat thrumming through the connected skin.
And there was only a second of doubt, as she recalled the grinning face framed in gun smoke (not real, not real), before she felt her body slacken. The need to escape vanished, her fists unclenched and came to rest on either of his shoulders, and her lungs took in a large, cleansing, breath of air.
"I've got you," the Doctor told her, and she was frightened enough to let herself believe it.
She pressed her forehead into the cool (so very cool) valley under the Doctor's chin and tried to center herself.
Her skin still felt like it was burning from the fires, and she was exhausted because of the running, but these were small details.
The important things were that Japan had never been burned, that Leo and his family were still alive, that Tom was still dead, and that the Doctor hadn't killed him.
Already she wanted to call Leo. To give him another ring at two AM complaining about creaking floorboards just to hear his voice. To have him say that Shonara and Keisha were just fine, thanks, and that Martha would know that if she bothered to visit once in a while.
He always had been cheeky.
She wouldn't call, of course, because she knew that it wasn't necessary. But it still took a little time to quell the compulsion.
Once done convincing herself of the reality she lived rather than the one she had imagined, she catalogued the differences between this ordeal and the ones that had come before. There had been more of the dreams, on this occasion. Typically, there was only one scene that lasted an entire night. By the looks of it (the sun still setting through the bedroom window), these three had barely made it two hours. Not an encouraging trend.
On the other hand, beyond the fever and the fatigue, she barely felt the effects from these dreams. Even the nightmare itself had become less vivid at one point, more detached. Like a buffer had come and filtered through the worst of the images, the emotions, as Japan went ablaze. An oh so welcome respite.
All things considered, she was doing just fine, save for the spectacle she had clearly made of herself.
Martha meant to break the silence with a cheery 'hello.'
What came out was an ungodly gurgling sound.
Suddenly Donna made herself known. "Tea. You need tea." Martha peered over the Doctor's shoulder to see the woman dashing about the room, the redhead tilting her head in thought as she paused in her progress. "Tea that hasn't been sitting out on a table for a few hours. A fresh pot then!"
With that she had bustled out of the room, and Martha felt her lips crack into a smile.
She quite liked Donna Noble.
"Hello," the Doctor's voice sounded above her in amusement, head still turned toward Donna's exit. He gave his head a shake and rested his chin on her hair. "How are you feeling?"
Martha cleared her throat. "Fine." Her voice was shockingly quiet as it rasped out of her, and she wished she could blame it on the dreams. But she knew it was more than that.
She was nervous.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bother you with these silly little nightmares."
She felt the Doctor tense around her, felt the flexing of his jaw on her skull, containing his frustration.
It wouldn't be the first time she'd made him close in on himself again.
Which was what made the words he said next so startling.
"Martha, your well-being could never be a bother to me." He lowered a hand down her back and began to rub soothing circles against it. "And those weren't silly little nightmares." His jaw tensed once more. "Something or someone is manipulating them, making them worse, adding physical manifestations and aftereffects."
She should have been immediately overjoyed by the fact that the dreams weren't natural – that some twisted part of her subconscious wasn't punishing her for surviving while so many others had perished. She should have been thinking about who was responsible, how to find them, make them stop. She should have been imagining reclaiming her dreams again and nights of peaceful sleep.
But instead, the first thing that came to mind was that the Doctor hadn't been pushing her out. That his anger, dissatisfaction, wasn't directed at her. It was aimed toward them, whoever had done this.
Which brought about her second thought. How did he know about 'this' anyway?
"How did you-?"
"I went into your mind to figure out what was causing them." He had stiffened again, but there was no anger in his tone. She felt his fingers withdraw from her slightly, and she tried not to be disappointed.
His skin was just so cool.
She tried to focus. He had gone into her mind. Had seen (felt?) her dreams.
She wasn't pleased about that.
But it was obvious (from his tone, his hesitant touch and the care he seemed to be taking with her) that he had been truly worried by what he saw. That he had done it to protect her.
And suddenly it became clear. "You were the buffer."
She hadn't become detached during the dreams, not at all. The Doctor had simply sheltered her from them. And that explained why she didn't hear thousands of people screaming in her ears, why her stomach was easy in spite of the sight of her brother's dead family, how she didn't feel Tom's blood under her fingernails.
He didn't need to be told what she meant. "I was hoping my consciousness could shield yours a bit, yeah. Although I wasn't certain that it would work." His arms wrapped themselves more firmly about her once more. "There shouldn't be any lingering physical effects this time, except for the heat." He gulped, swallowing some emotion down. It really was helpful, being this close to him, and not just to quell the burning she felt tingling across every expanse of skin. "I wasn't fast enough to block out the flames."
So close to him, she was able to feel so many of the things that he would never let her see.
Martha pressed her cheek more firmly against his neck, almost nuzzling him, wondering what other secrets she could uncover wish just a bit more proximity…
She felt a small chuckle rumble in his chest. "Fortunately, I have a built-in cooling system. One more of my many and impressive skills, I assure you."
With a start Martha's senses came flooding back to her in an embarrassing and abrupt fashion.
She was nuzzling the Doctor's neck. Like a cat would but with less dignity, because cats were furry, fluffy and cute and could get away with those sorts of things. She was a grown, respectable woman cuddling up to a man who had all but beaten her away with a stick two years ago.
One bad dream with a hug and she goes bloody barking mad.
She released his shoulders from her grip and pulled away. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize-"
"No, please don't." His arms hadn't relinquished their position, still twined around her. Holding on instead of pushing away.
It was all so disorientating.
"Stay."
And since she was tired and fevered and he was welcoming and cool, she leaned against him again, resting her cheek against his chest and wrapping her arms around his waist.
She just kept telling herself that her willingness had nothing to do with the feel of his skin against hers, the sound of his hearts or the way he made her feel a little dizzy when she was so close to him.
She was only tired, was all.
After enough time had passed and it felt like her skin was no longer on fire, she gently pulled herself away from him.
And, in so doing, fully realized that the Doctor was still shirtless.
Wonderful.
Her cheeks started burning again and she did her best to ignore them, instead looking up at the Doctor's face sincerely. "Thank you, for all of this."
"You don't have to thank me, Martha," he said with a grin, brushing a lock of her sweat-drenched hair out of her eyes. "I want to help."
And looking at him just then, his fingers cupping her ear, one of her hands resting on his chest, she truly believed it.
A part of her knew such faith was dangerous, but the larger, more immediate part didn't seem to care.
Until there was an irritated coughing noise coming from the doorway.
Like an electric current had run through their veins, Martha and the Doctor jumped away from each other, both looking frantically about like they had been caught doing something they shouldn't.
Donna had her arms crossed over her chest and was leaning against the doorway, a smug look on her face as she blinked at them both.
"Tea's done, kiddies." She jerked her head toward the living room. "Come on then."
With a great deal of awkward shuffling and pointed not-staring – a process that made Martha feel as if she was sixteen again – she and the Doctor managed to make their way out into the larger room, Martha plopping into the comfy chair while he sat on the sofa.
Distance, she thought, would be a very good thing right now.
Both Martha and the Time Lord quickly picked up their cups of tea and starting sipping as inconspicuously as possible.
Martha wasn't terribly certain that it was working.
A few moments later Donna appeared out of one corner or another, shoving the Doctor's clean t-shirt and button-up onto his lap with little pretense before sitting next to him on the couch. "Like I said, Martian. Don't need to see that."
Was the Doctor blushing?
"Thanks, Donna," he said, throwing the shirts over his head, the dramatic motions causing him little to no pain.
The doctor part of Martha's brain made a mental note to take out his stitches, before he healed them into his arm.
"How did you get out the blood?" he asked the redhead, grinning a bit as he poked his fingers through the bullet holes.
"Salt."
"Really?" He turned to Martha eagerly. "You hear that Martha? Salt! Who knew?"
Martha nodded with a bit too much enthusiasm and took another sip of tea before she dared to speak. She was just happy the Doctor had more clothes on and less skin she could stare at.
She really was a teenager, wasn't she?
"You're brilliant Donna!" the Doctor said eagerly, buttoning up his shirt and smiling with unwarranted eagerness. "Just brilliant!"
Donna looked skeptically from Martha frantically sipping at her tea to the Doctor's unnaturally wide grin. "Um-hm."
Martha coughed quietly and thought it was a grand time to study her teacup.
After allowing the silence hang for a few, terribly long, moments Donna let out a sigh and stood up. "If we're done with the raging hormones, think we could take some time to regroup?"
"Regrouping!" The Doctor all but shouted from his spot on the couch, bobbing his head keenly at Donna. "To group once more! Sounds fantastic. Dazzling, even. Well, come on then! Let's group!"
Martha and Donna both blinked at him.
"Well, if you'd like, that is." He took another manic sip of tea.
Donna rolled her eyes and began to pace. "Right then." She took a deep breath. "The TARDIS has been taken for unknown reasons by Rodolfo Rossi, an Italian ambassador who has been living in London for the past fourteen months for, according to the people in his offices, 'diplomatic reasons,' correct?"
Martha gave a firm nod mid-sip. All backed up by the research she had done prior to the Doctor's arrival when she was back at Torchwood.
Donna continued. "During these fourteen months, Martha has been under continuous attack as a ploy to get her to contact the Doctor."
The Doctor and Martha shared a nod.
"Rossi has at least three lackeys that go by the names Franklin, Danish and Anders, with Anders clearly in command."
More collective nodding.
"We don't know how Rossi found out about the TARDIS, where he transported it, whether he's human or alien-"
"Alien," the Doctor chimed in.
"Human," Martha corrected, convinced of her original conclusions.
The Doctor simply rolled his eyes in her general direction.
While Donna rolled her eyes at the both of them. "We also don't know if it's just the TARDIS he's after or the Doctor as well."
"TARDIS," the Doctor supplied.
"Both," Martha insisted.
They exchanged annoyed glances.
It was astounding, how quickly the Time Lord could fluctuate from being a beautiful, sexual fixation to an absolute annoyance.
He would, undoubtedly, claim it was a Time Lord talent of some sort.
"If I may?" asked Donna at their interruption.
Martha at least had the decency to look guilty. The Doctor just smiled and said, "Of course!"
Donna graced him with another eye roll as she stopped pacing. "And now he, or likely someone working with him, has started to manipulate Martha's dreams."
"Actually," Martha began. If the secret was out anyway, there was little reason to keep the details back. "That began a year ago." When Tom had died.
From across the room, the Doctor stared at her with an expression that she couldn't quite place.
Donna frowned and gave a determined nod at the information and moved on.
Martha sent her a grateful smile. Dwelling, after all, had little use.
"Anything we're missing?" Donna asked them at last.
The Doctor leaned forward in his seat. "There was something Anders said about the sonic screwdriver back in the alley. He recognized it and then told me I should switch to laser." He sent Martha a significant glance. "He said it was good advice when 'he' had told me to do it."
She gasped, images of the Master pointing his weapon at Jack, the Doctor, Tom flashing through her mind.
No one should have remembered that device.
"He was there."
Donna frowned. "What?"
Martha ignored her, anxiety growing. "He was there and he remembers."
"During the year that wasn't, it was something the Master said to me," the Doctor explained to Donna.
"So?" Donna demanded.
"So nobody on Earth should have any inkling about anything that happened during that year," Martha clarified.
The Time Lord held up a halting finger. "Except for the people who were on the Valiant when we put everything right."
Donna nodded her understanding. "He must have been there, then. Maybe the other minions too." She furrowed her brow, in thought.
Martha shook her head. "I don't recognize him – any of them."
"There were plenty of armed guards in that room when we switched things back again," the Doctor insisted. "Anders and the others could have easily been among them and we wouldn't have known it." He let out an exasperated sigh. "It's the matching uniforms, that does it. How are you supposed to tell one from the next? It's just not practical. At the very least they should come with name tags."
Donna sat down, next to the Doctor, looking at her two companions eagerly. "That could be how Rossi knows about the TARDIS, yeah?"
The Doctor's eyebrow tweaked. "Name tags?"
"No, doofus." Donna gave him a light smack on the arm. "If one or all of his lackeys remembers it from that year."
Martha inclined her head. "It makes sense."
"But it still doesn't explain what he wants," the Doctor pointed out, an observation that effectively silenced the room.
They could speculate all they wanted, but it did little good if they couldn't find who they were looking for and locate the TARDIS. Trying to find anything in London was a bit like searching for a needle in a haystack, but to find someone who could manipulate dreams…
Martha paused. Well, that actually wouldn't be that difficult, would it?
"What about controlling the dreams?"
"What about it?" the Doctor asked, hands pressed to his temples as he thought.
"Not exactly normal, is it? You would need a machine to manipulate them, wouldn't you?"
"Or alien technology," he reminded her.
She dismissed him. "Whatever, but it's unique on this planet, right?"
Across the room, she saw Donna smile in recognition.
"Something that stands out?"
"Something that can be traced?" Donna nudged.
And like someone had turned up the sun, he grinned. "Oh, you two!" He jumped up off of the couch, dashing around the room. "You're brilliant you are." He came to stand by Martha's chair and carefully cradled her head in his hands. "Martha, hold still!"
The contact made her dizzy for a moment, causing butterflies begin to swoosh around pleasantly in her stomach and for her to want lean into his touch. Until she heard a hmm sounding from his fingers.
The sonic screwdriver.
The Doctor was using the sonic screwdriver on her head.
She tried not to sigh.
"Isn't that going to give her cancer or something?" Donna asked from her position on the couch, observing the Doctor's actions warily.
"This? No, of course not."
"It better not," she muttered. "She's still got sense in that trap of hers, and I won't have you sonic-ing it out, you hear?"
"It won't give her cancer, honestly." He paused. "Now, it might slightly rearrange the sound receptors in her brain…"
"What?" Martha screeched.
"But there won't be any of that cancer nonsense. Honestly, what century do you think this screwdriver is from?"
Martha was about to yell and shout and demand that he take that thing away from her brain that instant, when he pulled away in triumph.
"Ah-ha! Found it!" He smiled in excitement as he turned to the two women. "Martha, Donna, I'm going to follow the signal."
Martha frowned. "Alone?"
He nodded. "You need to rest." He turned to Donna. "And you need to do as much research as you can on Rodolfo Rossi and Anders."
Donna glared. "You want me to research a man called 'Anders'? Do have any idea how common that name is?"
"But you were a secretary!"
"How does that make 'Anders' any less common?"
Martha resisted the urge to giggle. "I'll help you," she told Donna, grinning. "I really don't need much rest." Something about decoding the puzzle always acted like a shot of adrenalin to her system. She turned to the Doctor. "You'll come back before you do anything?"
He hesitated. "Define 'anything'?"
"Anything dangerous and/or stupid," Donna clarified.
He deflated in disappointment. "Fine, I'll come back."
"Good." Martha tentatively smiled at him, still uncertain as to where they stood, but willing to make this one small risk. "Be careful, Doctor."
He smiled back.
Who said recklessness couldn't be rewarded?
"What she said," Donna added. "Don't get killed."
"Ruin my fun," he grumbled before pressing a few buttons on the screwdriver and dashing out of the flat. "I'll be back!" he threw over his shoulder as the door slammed shut behind him.
"Right then." Donna stood up from the couch and made her way into the kitchen. "So, Doctor Jones." Disturbing rattling noises sounded from behind her. "I figure we can do what the Doctor asked and spend hours looking for unspecific and unhelpful information." She popped out of the kitchen, bottle of wine and opener in one hand and two glasses in the other. "Or we could not and say we did."
An hour later, Martha was on her second glass and Donna her third.
"It's all mad!" Donna screamed and they both laughed.
And it did sound mad. The walking fat, Pompeii and the Ood. Mad and brilliant and amazing all at once.
Martha grinned. "Sounds wonderful."
"It was," Donna agreed, still laughing a bit. Then, her expression changed, became a bit more serious. "But not all of it."
"Yes, well." Martha took a small sip of wine. "I'd know a little about that, too."
She felt more than saw Donna observing her, seeming to catalogue her reactions and temperament, seeming so careful in her studies.
Which made it all the more surprising when the redhead blurted out, "You love him, don't you?"
Martha sputtered a bit, only just saving her tank top from the red wine. "What?"
"Sorry, sorry!" Donna had the grace to look ashamed. "I've got a mouth on me that doesn't take much account of my head. I'll say anything the instant the thought comes to me, not thinking about a thing. It's too personal, I know." She leaned forward. "But do you?"
Martha laughed, awkwardly groping for a napkin and avoiding Donna's far too perceptive eyes. "No more than anyone who travels with him does, I'd guess."
Donna scoffed. "Well I can't speak for the others, but I know I don't want to pull him into a broom closet and have little tiny Time babies."
She gaped. "Neither do I!"
"Uh-huh." Donna certainly didn't sound convinced. "I'm not daft, you know. I did see that little exchange you two had, Doctor Jones, with the eyes and the staring and the bated breath. You would have burnt the rest of his clothes right off him if you had looked at him any harder."
Martha felt her cheeks burning again. "That's not true!"
Donna blinked pointedly, and Martha promptly realized it was useless.
"Okay, maybe it's a little true," she said. "But that, what I have with him, isn't love."
The grin on the redhead's face could have spanned the continent it was so big. "Ah-ha! There's someone else, then! Excellent. You wouldn't want a tiny wisp of a thing like him anyway, not with a real man back home. So, tell me about him!"
Martha allowed herself a small smile. "I did have a fiancé. But-"
"Did he cheat on you?" Donna interrupted, staring at her fiercely. "The bastard. Never trust men, no matter what species. They say that they love you, that they want to marry you, that they're going to have their children with you. And then you find out that they've been scheming with a spider alien out to destroy the world and that you were just a way for him to wreck said destruction…"
Martha stared at Donna in what she hoped didn't appear to be complete terror.
"Sorry. This isn't about my relationship issues." She shifted on her seat and focused her attention on Martha once more. "What did he do, luv?"
"He died," she said. "Was murdered, actually." She let out a bitter chuckle. "Very inconsiderate of him, really." Martha finished off her glass.
Donna was silent for a moment. "Well. There I go again, opening my mouth without a shred of sense." She leaned forward, placing a gentle hand on Martha's. "I'm sorry. I had no idea-"
"It's okay." And it was.
Martha quite liked Donna Noble.
"Was it Tom? From the dreams?"
She nodded. "He's in most of them, one way or another. And the year that wasn't." Another off-putting laugh escaped her lips. "It's cruel, really. He died on the same day he did during that year. Tomorrow's the anniversary. Was at the same time, too."
It was funny, how some days you forgot and some you didn't. Martha forgot appointments, tests, birthdays and weddings, but she never could forget the exact date, down to the minute, that Tom died.
She looked at Donna desperately. "A million, billion things changed since we put everything right. Horrible things that you wouldn't believe just disappeared in the blink of an eye. But for all of that, I couldn't save Tom." She felt moisture building in the back of her eyes, but she didn't have the strength to stop it. "In that other world I let him die so I could live – so I could save the Doctor." She sighed as she felt a tear fall. "And that was the one thing that didn't change."
And in that instant she felt ashamed. For still wanting the Doctor, even now, after Tom had loved her so completely, so well. After she had loved him back. And after knowing that the way she desired the Doctor could never be the way that he desired her.
She betrayed Tom - the man who had given everything for her twice - with every longing she had for the Time Lord, a man who had two hearts but no room for her in them.
"Why do you do it, Martha?"
Martha looked up, wiping at her eyes and holding back tears, to concerned gaze of Donna Noble staring back at her. "Hm?"
"Stay with that sliver of an alien with a gob the size of the Atlantic after everything that's happened?" Donna grinned, no less worried, but clearly trying to spread some humor.
Martha laughed. "Same reason you do, I imagine." She sighed. "For better or for worse, I'm more when I'm with him. He's turned me into a different person, a stronger person."
"But at what cost?"
One that was high enough so that she wasn't certain she didn't regret it.
But Martha knew better than to say a thing like that.
Donna noticed her tentativeness. "Your memories the Doctor saw-"
Martha's head perked up.
"-he didn't say it, but I think they terrified even him."
Martha frowned. "My memories?"
"When he was in your head."
"He saw my memories?"
Dreams were one thing. They were subconscious. Truth mingled with fantasy. The unreal cloaking the real so all that could be uncovered were hazy shadows. What's more, the dreams the Doctor had seen hadn't even been the work of her subconscious. Instead they had been the concoctions of someone else, someone external to herself who played on her fears. To see those wasn't a violation, not really. It was a glimpse that the Doctor shouldn't have seen, yes. But he had been trying to help her, to protect her. To find what was causing the nightmares and put a stop to them.
But memories. That was something that was altogether different. The things she had seen, that had been the fodder for those dreams… Those were things she hadn't wanted another soul to witness. That she was still trying to forget. Those were personal, private, moments that exposed her weaknesses as nothing else was capable of. He had seen her at her most vulnerable, had laid her bare for his viewing pleasure, for no greater purpose than that. No protection or halting of pain.
He hadn't needed to see those memories. He had wanted to, and he could, so had.
Martha felt her insides freeze and had to stop herself from shivering.
She felt sick.
Donna's expression hardened as she saw Martha's mood change. "I thought you knew."
It was all Martha could do to keep her body still and her face serene.
There was more to this situation than she was seeing right now, odds and ends that were beyond her infuriated vision. She knew that, on some level, all of the information she couldn't bear to look at was sectioned off and waiting for her to be able to approach it at a later time.
But at the moment she couldn't stop thinking about what a fool she had been to believe in him again.
There was a tense quiet, Donna staring attentively at Martha and Martha staring distractedly at nothing, when an odd chiming noise shattered the silence.
Her mobile.
With a start she rose from her seat, heading to the spare room and her jacket. "I thought I turned it off."
In fact, she knew she had. It had felt cruel to do so, to cut herself off from her family after Tom's house had been targeted, but experience had taught her how necessary it was.
She reached the room and her jacket and pulled her phone out of the pocket. "It's my brother." She called back to Donna. "Better take it and tell him to bugger off."
She had wanted to know if he had been all right anyway.
She flipped open her phone. "Leo?"
"Martha," he sounded almost surprised to hear her.
"Leo, why are you calling me?"
"You mean beside the fact that your house got destroyed in a shoot-out and no one's been able to contact you since?" He scoffed. "That I'm getting through to you now's a miracle."
Not a topic to dwell on. Martha changed the subject. "How are Mum and Dad?"
"Worried."
Leo was awfully stubborn.
"Look, Martha, what's going on?"
Martha clenched her jaw, determined. "It's safer if you don't know."
"Right. Of course it is." He laughed cynically. "It's all safer if I don't know what's happening in my own life! And don't try to tell me you don't have ideas about everything that's been going on. You disappearing, accidents at work, your patients dying." He sighed. "Your keeping me safe is going to kill me some day, you know. And it's not getting any better now, with Keisha getting sick-"
Martha saw an image of her niece flash through her mind, laughing and playing in a park last spring, the last time she had seen her. "Keisha's sick?" The image twisted, the girl looking frail, choking. Dying.
"Yeah, some sort of flu. Her mum and I have been up for days trying to get her to sleep, and eat, all the good it's doing. At first we thought it was a stomach ache, but after so long-"
"I'm coming over."
Really, there was no choice in the matter at all.
"What?"
"Keisha might need a doctor and what do you know, here I am. Convenient having a medic in the family, isn't it?"
Leo sounded suspicious. "And if you do come over will you tell me what the bloody hell is going on?"
"Yes."
There was a pause on the other end. "Why are you so worried, Martha?"
She wasn't going to tell him that she thought his daughter had been poisoned. Not if she didn't have to.
"I'll be over in a bit."
Martha closed and turned off her phone, snatched her jacket and rapidly made her way to the door of Donna's flat.
"Sorry but I've got to go."
Donna was standing in a second, trailing her to the door.
Martha didn't stop. "My niece is ill, and knowing what these people have done before…" She wouldn't finish that thought, that sentence.
Because Keisha wasn't going to die.
"I have to go."
With that she had opened the door.
"Martha, wait!" Donna grasped her hand. "Wait for the Doctor to get back, then we can all go."
Martha shook her head. "There might not be enough time. When Rossi wanted to make it quick, the poisons wouldn't take more than a few days to kill the victim. I can't wait any longer."
"Fine, then I'll come with you." Donna made a move to grab a coat back inside.
"Better not," she said, halting the redhead's progress. "The Doctor would be worried when he got back." She sent Donna a wink, feigning a good humor that she didn't feel. "Besides, this is something for a doctor, a real one, to take care of." She backed away from the door and into the night outside. "Stay here and wait for me before you head off anywhere."
"Well at least give me Leo's address and the Doctor and I will meet up with you!" Donna called after her.
Martha stopped, staring at the woman severely. "No, I'm not taking him to my family, not at a time like this."
And it almost hurt, how crushed Donna looked just then. "You don't trust him anymore."
Martha's insides, still frozen, turned to stone. "I trust the Doctor to do what he feels he has to. I can't afford to trust him more than that."
With that Donna seemed to deflate, resigned to Martha's course of action.
"Don't leave without me!" she shot back to the redhead, dashing out of the flat much like the Doctor had some time before. "I'll be back as soon as I can!"
--
The Doctor had been led to a park.
It had taken a few hours and it was night now, so it was hard to tell, but he was almost certain he was standing in a park.
Of course, it was a lovely park, with not a few grand statues and the ilk all about, but there was nothing particularly extraordinary about it.
But, for the sake of thoroughness, he decided he might as well give the place a proper snoop, powering up the sonic screwdriver and beginning his search anew.
Eventually, he tracked the signal to its exact origin point, a small metallic box that seemed to be bolted to the ground or the bedrock underneath it.
A remote power source. Nothing unusual about that. Not terribly helpful, of course, but not odd either.
It was only after he had dusted the device off and saw the name emblazoned on its side that he began to become truly wary.
With a start he backed away from the box, his first instinctual need to get away from the information that didn't make sense - couldn't make sense. He pulled out the sonic screwdriver, started analyzing the bit of metal, fought the urge to tear it apart, examine it in pieces, destroy it now rather than admit that his past had come back to haunt him again.
The only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that he had made a promise to Donna and Martha, a pledge he couldn't afford to break, not now when everything was so uncertain.
He retreated from the power source and ran, heading back to Donna's flat, cursing himself for making a promise he had no choice but to keep.
The word on the side of the box had been Archangel.
--
Leo snapped the mobile shut with a scowl, offering the device palm-up to the room at large.
Anders smirked at him as he snatched it from the man's limp hand. "Well done. Very convincing."
"You have my wife and daughter held at gunpoint," he spat.
The hostage shot a glance to the next room, the woman sitting on a chair with her frightened child in her lap, sobbing silently while Dannish held his cocked gun near their faces.
Leo Jones shot a dirty glance back to Anders. "Of course it was convincing."
Anders' grin only got wider.
"Now let them go," the boy demanded. "I've done what you've asked, Martha's on her way and she doesn't suspect a thing." He paused, looking at Anders desperately. "Let my family leave."
He had tried, Anders noted, to humble his tone a bit. Less righteous rage and more supplication. Not enough, of course. The boy was too arrogant by half, and it's not as if he would have been able to convince Anders in any case. Still, it was nice to see them try, clinging onto a fruitless remnant of hope. It made things such fun, stamping that faith out for them.
"No. I don't think so." Anders circled around their captive, nodding to Franklin who gripped Leo's arms and locked them behind his back. "I think, we're going to keep your family right here. And I think that if you or your sister does anything at all-" he waved an arm about, gesturing vaguely as he made his way back to Leo's face, grinning millimeters away from the boy's scowl "-unseemly, we'll shoot your daughter first."
Leo lunged forward, teeth bared, almost growling.
The ringleader jumped away, Franklin only just containing the hostage as the boy struggled, arms trying to slash out at his captor.
Anders laughed. "So testy." He patted Leo's head, causing the boy's struggles to increase and Franklin to send him a longsuffering glare as the henchman tightened his grip.
He ignored them both, walking to the small flat's window and staring down at the street below. "Come out come out wherever you are, Martha Jones." He smirked. "We're waiting."