Hello everyone. I don't have anything earth-shattering to say, except it's been a while since I've said hi, and thank you for reading. I'm grateful for all the comments!

I believe a corner is turned here in this chapter - the story goes into a higher gear. I hope you're as appalled by this turn of events as I am!

Walk The Line

Annalise? Fine. Perhaps she was looking for a father figure because her own dad had walked out on her, but people can't always control their feelings or their fate – eventually she would outgrow Martha's dad and move on. Or, maybe she wouldn't.

Medical school? It was a hard road, and she felt relatively confident in her abilities, but if she didn't pass her exams, it wasn't meant to be. She did have other talents, other things she could do to spend her time and earn a living.

Mum? She was in a bit of a rough patch right now, being separated from Martha's dad, but her zeal was only out of love for her family. Anyone would be a bit on-edge if their hopes had been dashed in such a severe way, as when a divorce occurs. In a few years, she'll calm down, and Martha will be able to talk to her again.

The Doctor? He's a wonderful, brilliant, man and Martha was lucky just to know him. So, the fact that he couldn't love her, it wasn't the end of the world. Once in a blue moon someone had come along that caught his fancy, and Martha had simply had bad enough timing to come into his life just after having hideously lost the last person he'd loved. And what would she think of a man who could forget about such a terrible loss so quickly, and turn his attention to someone else, just like that? Not much, that's what. And perhaps under different circumstances, he would have fancied Martha, but she would never really know. And there are some things in life that we're better off not knowing, because knowing…

"Now," said the Mother Superior. "Let go of one another's hands."

Martha opened her eyes, let go of the two women's hands beside her, and looked at the group. Six more women had joined today, and the circle now comprised twenty hosts of Asmei's soul. Three of today's new members were private citizens of the planet who had been on space buses, repaired by the Doctor and/or the gardening clergy, escaping in a haste from the planet as it boiled underfoot. The other three were members of the miitia which had been called in to help rescue the planet, the same militia of which Aivy, formerly Major Fendono, had once been a part.

"Today we begin verbal communion," said the large nun. "Bouthilette Hadran, I'd like you to begin."

"What do I do?" the former President asked.

"Tell us who you are."

"Who I am?"

"Yes, for example, you mentioned you had a family," said Thredd. "Tell us about them."

"Well, my husband's name was – is – Colfan. We met when we were both in Governmental Training on Asmei, oh, more than twenty years ago. He was… well, not exactly brilliant at his studies, didn't have a political bone in his body, but he was funny, and was the perfect foil for me. I was too earnest," Bouthilette confessed with a sad smile. "We got married as soon as I graduated – Colfan never did graduate, but he was always at my right hand, supporting me all thre way through the Senate and running the agricultural network in the southern quadrisphere. He was wonderful. And he was an excellent, excellent father. Our kids… they're much closer to him than to me. He has such a generous spirit, is able to give to them in a way that I never could – I was always too busy, too ambitious. But you know, now that I'm here, and they're… rescued, I hope… I'd give anything to spend that time with them. To learn how to be generous like him. To…"

"It's all right," the Mother Superior told her as she sniffled a bit.

"Sorry," Bouthilette said. "I'm just… terrified that I won't see them again. Or if I do, my children will be adults and I'll have missed everything. It all goes so fast."

"Okay, now, Bouthilette, join hands with your sisters," Thredd ordered gently.

The women obeyed, and joined hands once more.

"Bouthilette, tell me about yourself and your family now."

"I'm a mother and a wife."

"And?" asked the nun. "What does that mean?"

There was a pause. "In the scheme of the universe, as compared with the motherhood of planets and stars and millennia, as compared with the spousing of heavenly entities… I am small."

"That's true. But you are a host to Asmei, the great planet. What of your children?"

"They are not," Bouthilette said.

"Your husband," asked the nun. "Your life-long lover?"

"What is love?" asked Bouthilette, rhetorically. "Love is an individual… an individuality. It isolates me. I want to be whole."

"That's right," said the nun. "Now drop hands again. Aivy Fendono… who are you?"

"I was a Major in the Seventeenth Intergalactic Defence Militia. It's an organisation – a militia, obviously – that gets called in, or intervenes, when injustice occurs. For example, when a planet who has done nothing to provoke the ire of another planet, suddenly comes under fire and destruction becomes imminent. We do our best. Obviously with Asmei, we weren't able to help."

"Mm," said the nun. "You said that you have designs on returning to the militia?"

"It's what I intend, yes. I loved being part of the unit," said Aivy. She closed her eyes. "Being a piece of a whole is natural. The soul and the flesh should never be isolated nor merely paired. I am part of a whole."

"Mm. And you mentioned a daughter."

Aivy kept her eyes shut for a moment. "Oh. Yes, her name is Mireille."

"How do you feel when you think about her?"

Aivy opened her eyes. "Guilty. Rushed. Empty."

"Why?"

"Because I have left her with my sister, and I feel that I shouldn't have done that. I am her mother, I should be there for her all the time, not allowing her to be raised by anyone else. My sister is wonderful, but she does not love Mireille the way I do – she could never, nor could I ask her to. And I feel that I should get back to her as quickly as possible because I miss her so terribly." The former Major was near tears now.

"Join hands, my hosts," said the Mother Superior.

The ladies obeyed.

"Aivy," she said. "Your militia defends innocents. Tell me why this matters."

"It doesn't matter," said Aivy, now seeming to be in a trance. "The universe oscillates between light and dark, fast and slow, just and unjust. The universe recognises no morality, only logic. Logic tells us that there can be no light without the dark, no just without the unjust."

"So light, dark, it's all the same?"

"Yes. We walk the line all the time. We live in grey, we die in grey."

"Even Mireille lives and will die in grey."

"Even she," agreed Aivy.

"And your sister."

"And my sister."

"What about justice?"

"My daughter will never know true justice. She will know pain, and she will know joy, but never will she see retribution or justification. She will merely live."

"Does she need you for that?"

"She doesn't need anyone for that," said Aivy. "It is an inevitability."

"Martha Jones, who are you?"

Martha was surprised, and her eyes flew open, and her hands came instinctively, protectively, into a folded, closed position in her lap. All of the women let each others' hands go then.

"I'm a traveller," she responded. "I help save planets and…"

"No, that's not who you are. That is who hehas you pretending to be. Who is Martha Jones?"

"Oh. Well, I grew up in London, on the original Earth, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I had a lot of dance training and piano lessons and whatnot as a kid… but I was never very good at it; my real aptitude was for science. My family all work in the arts – my mother does PR for a couple of the West End theatres, and my sister does similar work. My father owns his own publishing firm for African and British-African authors, and does a lot of editing himself. But me? Science girl? I went to medical school. I wanted to work with the human body, use real knowledge to help people."

"So you're a doctor?"

"Not yet. When I left the planet, I was about six months from finishing."

"You're a medical student, on your way to becoming a doctor. And will you finish your medical degree?"

"Absolutely."

"You think it's worth doing? Helping people to heal?"

"Yes, of course. Not only heal and get better, but to understand what's wrong with them, and how to prevent disease and injury. I think that more and more, medical professionals have to become educators as much as scientists and 'healers', at least in my time."

The nun looked away from her for a few minutes, took a deep breath, and seemed to be thinking. "You mentioned your friend when we first convened here."

"Yes. Yes, I did."

"Tell us about him."

"But when I first arrived, you wouldn't let me…"

"It was not appropriate then," the Mother Superior explained. "Now is the time. Please. Tell us about your friend."

"He's called the Doctor," Martha said. "He is a traveller of time and space. I met him about nine months ago when he landed at the hospital where I was working, and together we fought off these… thugs. Humanoid rhinos. Well, anyway, I… well, I guess I sort of agreed to run away with him. But it's not like it sounds."

"Why not?" asked the nun.

"Because… to say that I agreed to run away with him makes it sound a bit romantic. I really mean that he invited me on one trip, and I said yes. There's nothing romantic about it."

"No?"

"Well, no. Not really."

"How do you feel about that, Martha?"

Martha explored her feelings. She knew that a few moments ago she was okay with all of that. But now?

"It hurts," said Martha. "Because… I wanted to run away with him, like the princess runs off into the sunset with the white knight. I wanted it to be like one of those big, hot summers of adventure and travel and meeting new people and… feeling loving and free. Our outer life, and our inner life… the face we show to the world while we're running and jumping and thumbing our nose at death, and the face we show to each other while we're… I don't know, naked and entwined and and marvelling at how the world can't see us and we share our ecstasy only with each other. It sounds stupid now, now that I know…"

"Do you think about this a lot?"

"I hardly think about anything else," Martha admitted. "Well, that's not exactly true. I just mean, it's always on my mind, somehwere just below the surface."

"What's the problem? Why can't you have the outer and inner life with the Doctor?"

"He doesn't… well, I was going to say that he doesn't have that kind of an inner life, but that's not true. He does. It's just closed to me." She was reflective. "I'm quite sure he's capable of love, just not of loving me."

"He cares about you, though."

"Oh, yes," Martha agreed. "I do believe that, without a doubt. But it's not the same. It's not the way I care about him."

"Martha, the last time the Doctor was here, he advised you to hold onto your inner turmoil."

Martha blinked a couple of times, surprised, though reminding herself quite quickly that all of her goings-on, including with her visitor, were monitored. "Yes, he did," she responded.

"If he cares about you, why would he want that for you?"

"I don't know," Martha answered. "I didn't give it a lot of thought at the time."

"If he is your friend, why wouldn't he want you to let go of all of that? Why wouldn't he want you to be happy?"

"I'm sure he wants me to be happy, it's just…"

"Join hands," ordered the Mother Superior. They all obeyed, and she asked, "Martha, who is the Doctor, really?"

"He's a Time Lord."

"And so much more?"

Martha was quiet for a moment, and then she said, "No, not really. Except that he's the last of his kind."

"What does it mean to be a Time Lord?"

"Not much when you're all alone."

"What does he think it means to be a Time Lord?"

"He seems burdened all the time."

"By loneliness?"

"Yes, but also… he thinks he has to bear the weight of the universe on his shoulders."

"Would the universe continue to exist without him?" asked the nun.

"Of course," Martha said, almost in a singsong fashion. "Life blossoms, the cosmos turn, time heals itself eventually – the Doctor is only one man, and the Time Lords swore not to interfere anyhow."

"How much does the Doctor matter?"

Martha sighed. "He couldn't save Asmei."

"But he tried."

"Perhaps he shouldn't have. Planets die, all things come to an end. The universe has no joy without sorrow, no life without death."

"And what of your projected vocation, Martha? Saving lives, using knowledge to heal?"

She repeated, "There can be no joy without sorrow, no life without death."

"How shall we all live, if the Doctor, the Time Lord, is not important, and doctors, the healers, are not important?"

"We shall live – that is all. We walk the line every day between life and death. We are all living, we are all dying – it makes no difference whether anyone intervenes."

"Good. Ollery Gelig Liskoa, who are you?"

Almost a week later, once again, the Doctor waited at least one half hour ahead of time to see Martha. He paced back and forth, fidgeting with his hair and his tie, he tried to distract himself by singing softly, but he felt each moment pass as slowly as linear time possibly can, and he grew impatient.

More and more, he missed his companion, and he was anxious to see her. He had a lot of down time now, quiet moments and hours in which to think on the situation. Nurse Hame was one type of creature, but the cat nuns on the whole had been known to be sketchy. And increasingly in these times, he regretted his decision to allow Martha to stay here at the facility. If he had any idea what would happen to a human being, in the long run, carrying a piece of the consciousness of a living planet in her mind, he might take her away and leave the whole sordid mess behind. But he didn't want her brain to blow up, and he sure as hell couldn't extract a planet himself without fragmenting her native mind, so… well, perhaps this was the only option.

Actually, it didn't seem possible that anyone could extract the soul of a planet without messing up the mind of the host. A soul or consciousness is not tangible matter, it is energy. Non-material energy is notoriously difficult to isolate from other types of energy – once hot dry air mixes with cold vapour, is it still possible to suck out the hot dry air? And now that he thought about it, he didn't recall the cat nuns at any point saying that they could reconstitute the planet, and leave Martha exactly the same as she had been.

This was why, the last time he'd seen her, he told her to hold onto her inner turmoil. He didn't like what she had said about her problems going away, her questions being answered, as a result of the communion with the other hosts. Along with passions, a person's problems, worries and questions make the individual. Once those things are taken away, everyone becomes alike, like zombies or robots. And he knew that part of the objective was to have the women meld with one another, but… well now, he was back to the same argument he'd been having with himself for two weeks. Martha is posessed, something has to be done – what's the alternative?

He desperately wanted to probe, do research, launch a full-frontal attack on the facility's computer system and find out what they were up to. But he didn't have all the facts yet – no real evidence (other than his past experience on New Earth, with the disease incubators) that these particular cat nuns were doing anything untoward. All he had was a fragment of a hunch, and some rudimentary physics, as his argument. And Martha, as far as he could tell, seemed to believe in the methods, and certainly seemed to feel that reconstituting the planet Asmei was worthwhile. He couldn't argue with that last bit, it was simply the arena in which it was occurring that made him feel uneasy.

He'd give it a bit more time; he didn't want to derail something good, if Martha and the other women were benefitting from it…

"Hi, Doctor," jolted him out of his reverie.

He looked up with a start, and Martha was standing in front of him, dressed in white as usual.

He felt deflated, though, when he saw her. Her eyes were half-closed, and she wasn't really making eye contact. Her hands and arms were limp at her sides, and the smile which had greeted him last time was light years away.

"Martha, you look exhausted. Are you all right?"

She searched his face for something, and seemed to be thinking him over. "I'm fine, Doctor. No better, no worse."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. So what have you been doing?" she asked with a little sigh, as though the thought of listening to him speak might actually prove to be tedious.

"Well… not much. Been seeing the sights, catching a few films, studying the local florae."

"No oh-so-great adventures?"

He squinted at her, surprised at her tone. "No, I told you I wouldn't leave the planet or time while you're here, and I haven't."

She smiled very subtly. "Do what you have to do, Doctor. If you think you need to be somewhere else, that's swell. Go play."

"Martha, really. Are you feeling depressed? Queasy? Drugged?"

"Nope. I'm just fine."

Yeah, something was definitely not just fine.