Oh, things are getting intense. Heh heh. Please review when you finish - reading your thoughts is one of the highlights of my day! *blowing kisses*
TEN
Three brisk knocks came at the door.
"Colonel Mace?" a booming voice said from the other side.
"Yes?" said Mace, standing from his desk.
"Are you all right, sir?"
"Yes, of course," replied Mace.
"Can you verify the password?" asked the agent at the door.
"Calico," said Colonel Mace. And with that, Martha heard two loud clicks, and then the door was open.
The man to whom the voice belonged took one step inside Mace's office and looked squarely at Martha. He was broad and solid, and looked like he could kill a man with his thumb.
"Colonel, you'll be pleased to know that the Doctor is detained as well." He shifted his gaze to Mace after he finished speaking.
"All right. Thank you for passing that along. Dr. Jones, please follow Agent Houser."
She reckoned she was still detained, and she wasn't about to try and wiggle free of brick-wall Houser. So, without a word, she fell into step behind the agent, and Colonel Mace followed them both. Another armed agent, a female, took up the rear.
"Watch where you're idling that thing, Agent Silver," she heard Mace mutter.
"Sorry sir," said the woman in back. And Martha heard her shift her weapon.
They paraded down the hall, took a couple of twists and turns and finally came to a door that Houser used a card-key to open. On the other side of the door was a boiler-room type area; unmanned, hot, loud. But in it, there was another door. Houser swiped his card again, and the door opened – it was a lift.
The four of them stepped inside, and went down 2 floors. The silence was palpable, and almost as hot as the boiler.
When they stepped off, there was yet another door which required a card swipe. When they went through it, Martha saw the truth of the situation.
"Oh, you cannot be serious," she said, stopping and turning to Colonel Mace. They were now in a hallway of holding cells. "You're actually going to put me in holding?"
She'd thought that she'd be moved to an inner office area, perhaps with Agent Silver, where armed guards sometimes sat with short-term detainees until a situation could be handled.
"Please keep walking, Dr. Jones," Colonel Mace said.
"Martha?" the Doctor's voice rang out from one of the cells. And in that moment, everything within her sank. She and the Doctor were now to be confined to the bowels of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce. Sitting ducks, they were, and some Agent Vezner was very soon going to break into her flat and detonate a weapon that would do who-knew-what to the non-rogue Doctor.
Martha proceeded down the hall backwards, still pleading with the Colonel. "Are you honestly going to toss me in a cell? Half an hour ago, we were talking promotion."
"A lot can happen in a half hour," he answered, his voice quaking. Clearly, he was uncomfortable.
And well he should be, she thought.
"Martha!" the Doctor called out. "Mace! What the hell are you doing? What is going on?"
They proceeded into the cellblock, and Martha locked eyes with the Doctor. He read defeat in her eyes. It choked him, silencing him.
Martha then looked about, and could see that the Doctor was the only person or thing detained here. She counted eight cells, and only one prisoner – soon to be two. The Doctor was in the third cell on the left, and Agent Houser opened the second cell on the right for her. The female agent stepped toward her and asked her to raise her arms to shoulder-level.
"This is bloody ridiculous," Martha muttered, complying. "I have never seen a more stubborn group of sentient beings in my life! Apart from Sontarans, that is. Do you know what an insult that is?"
"Dr. Jones, please don't make this worse," Mace begged.
The female agent was patting her down, and confiscated the pen that was in her pocket, as well as her key ring and a lipstick.
"Oi! My car key is on that ring!"
"Don't worry, Dr. Jones. Your belongings will be waiting for you in a labelled cubby just outside the door, when you are released."
Houser gestured for her to step through the cell door. "Please," he said.
"And if I refuse?" she asked, crossing her arms belligerently.
"Martha, just do it," the Doctor advised darkly. "They're armed and extremely stupid. That's not a combination you want to screw with."
She took the Doctor's counsel and stepped into the cage. Houser shut it in front of her. The lock fell into place, and Martha thought she had never heard a louder or uglier sound in her life.
Martha stood about a foot back from the bars and looked pleadingly at Colonel Mace. "I can't believe this. How could you, Colonel? If you weren't going to trust me, then why did you hire me?"
"It's not about trust, in the end, Dr. Jones, it's about insubordination."
"Oh, I think it is bloody well about trust!" she protested.
He ignored the comment. "Quite apart from the…" he cleared his throat, perhaps for the four hundredth time that day. "…er, danger already imminent, you have shown yourself to be insubordinate in the face of direct orders. UNIT's charter demands detention until the crisis can be analysed and averted, and your future with the organisation can be assessed."
Her face fell into stony resignation. "I see."
"I'm sorry, Dr. Jones. My hands are tied."
"No, I don't think they are," she challenged, evenly. "I just think you're too much of a coward to use your goddamn brain."
Colonel Mace sighed. "Again, as you like. We'll be in touch, Dr. Jones, as soon as we can be. No-one here has any wish to keep you locked in a cell for a moment longer than strictly necessary." He turned on his heel and looked at the Doctor directly for the first time. "Doctor," he said curtly, nodding, just before leaving through the door they had used to enter.
"Blimey," the Doctor muttered after Mace was gone. "Three months ago, he was trying to salute me. Now I just get a nod? Not even a hello?"
Martha said nothing. She just leaned her back against the bars and seemed to brood. After a minute or so, the Doctor asked, "Are you going to tell me what's going on, or do I have to play twenty questions with you?" When she stayed sullen, he said, "Because, okay, granted, I probably shouldn't have done what I did, but it hardly warrants this. I mean, the computer repaired itself lickety-split-like, and it's not like I injured anyone… just shoved a bloke out of my way. And I am supposed to be still on the payroll, am I not? Should I really have to go to those measures just to get into UNIT HQ?"
She didn't say anything for a long time. She had no idea how to begin. She wondered why he'd come ploughing in, but ultimately it didn't matter. It wasn't for her to judge anyhow; this whole thing was her fault.
For lack of any better option, she started with the fact at the centre of all this chaos. "I have the Eustarus in my wardrobe at home."
His eyes widened. "What? Seriously?"
"Yep. Colonel Mace gave it to me just after you dispatched the Sontarans."
"Why?"
"You made the thing yourself. You know why."
"Well, I know what it's for, but… why isn't it in the vault where it belongs?" he asked, with some anger betrayed in his voice.
"It's never been in a vault," she confessed. "They sent it home with Jo Grant all those years ago, and no-one ever told you. When she left UNIT, it went to the Brigadier. And now me."
"But…" his face was contorted into a look of complete confusion and mounting anger. She'd seen that look a thousand times when he'd been disgusted with 'bad guys,' the despots of the universe, selfish scavengers and the like. "Why would they do that?"
"Two reasons. One, because if you went rogue, you'd just force your way into the Tower and take it. Or try to. You wouldn't want anyone turning you good again, so you'd…"
"Do something dumb, like what I did today."
"Yep."
"Damn it," he hissed. "Okay, this whole situation makes more sense now."
She sighed. "Glad you think so."
"But I came looking for you. Some UNIT operative is spying on your flat. He was staked out for a while, then he started peering through windows and reporting back."
She nodded. "That must be Agent Vezner."
"You knew about it?"
"Sort of."
He exhaled heavily, thinking about what a mess all of this was. "Well, whatever. In any case, I didn't want you coming anywhere near it, just in case there was a kill order or something - you never know with this lot. I broke in because I needed to warn you, and even though I didn't know which exit you take when you leave for home, I had to try something. I couldn't get through by phone, and…"
"Why not?"
"I reckon they've blocked my mobile's signal from coming in, just like they block the TARDIS from materialising."
"If they have, then it's just since this morning."
"What happened this morning?" he wondered.
"I rang them and told them I thought maybe you'd gone rogue," she replied, in a very matter-of-fact tone.
"You did what?"
"Can I finish what I was telling you?"
"By all means," he growled. His manner had gone hard now, and Martha dared not look up at him.
"The second reason why they sent the Eustarus home with your friends is that it's meant to be in the incredibly prudent care of people who know you well," she told him. "People who know what to look for… you know, if you ever do go over to the dark side."
"I see."
"Someone like me would recognise it when you display unusual behavior, like on the list of possible criteria that you compiled, I assume, when you forged the weapon."
"Unusual behavior."
"For example, it was thought that I would be able to discern, say, when you suddenly change your mind about something you'd resisted for years, and then…"
He took in a short, quick breath as realisation dawned. "Oh, Martha," he moaned.
"Maybe become a bit anti-social, like perhaps trying to keep secrets, trying to keep other people of out what you're doing. Maybe if you began trying to manipulate large-scale channels to power…"
"…like trying to persuade someone I'm secretly sleeping with to accept a promotion with an organisation that could change my access to power on this planet, and possibly others."
"Yeah, something like that," she said meekly. With that, she put her back to the front panel of bars and slid down into a seated fetal position.
"You thought I was using you.'
"Not at first, but by the time I got out of the shower in my own flat this morning… yeah. I thought I was seeing the true light of day."
"And today at lunch?"
"Changed my mind," she said flatly. "You. You changed my mind. You seemed to explain everything that needed explaining. I am now convinced that you are not evil."
"Thanks ever so."
"Yep. Fat lot of good, eh?"
He was silent, in thought. Then, "So when you were talking to me this afternoon about your doubts, about how you were afraid I was just grasping at something, and that this really wasn't about you… you were lying to me. Through your teeth."
"Not exactly," she defended. "I thought I was going to tell you the truth. I really wanted to tell you then what I had done, but something wouldn't let me. My conscience, sense of duty… the part of my brain that was possibly damaged the Italian Riviera rocks when I was five. Thing was, I'd told LarryFortis about you… I believed he'd keep his mouth shut until further notice… silly me, thinking he'd do something he promised to do."
"Who the hell is Larry Fortis?"
"He works in the physics department."
There was another silence. Martha was still seated more or less with her back to him. But she knew him well, and she could hear the sound of his trainers moving across the concrete floor and back - he was pacing. And then a thundering noise startled her, and brought her to her feet. The Doctor had kicked the bars in anger.
"Damn it!" he shouted.
"I'm sorry," she said, tears coming to her eyes.
"Where's the trust, eh, Martha?"
"I trust you, Doctor."
"Sure! You trust me enough to…" he trailed off, and stopped walking. He put his hands on his hips in exasperation. "Enough to… what, make love to you, but not enough to give me the benefit of the doubt about it?"
"No, that's not…"
"Not enough to let me go on existing the following day without crushing me in a black hole? Not enough to think I could actually love you?"
"Doctor, please," she said, now standing in the corner nearest his cell. "You have to understand how new this all is for me. How… intense it was."
"Oh, I get it. I get intense. I was there, remember?"
"But do you understand how long I'd waited for you to even notice me? How hard I'd wished for it? How slowly, over the course of two years, you broke my heart? And then suddenly we're having a romantic dinner, and then we're in bed together…"
"I told you, it was not suddenly!"
"If you didn't want it to feel sudden then why the hell didn't you say something sooner? Were you really that stymied by Tom Milligan, that you couldn't just tell me? Because if so, that's just insulting."
"What?"
"So, yeah, in my mind, one minute I'm leaving you and you're letting me. The next minute, we're shagging against a wall, and you're making me swear never to be with anyone else! It was like you were a different person! Especially in hindsight. Especially the more I thought in circles and convinced myself."
He chuckled bitterly. "Wow, that was just this morning, wasn't it? You and me, against the world. Against the wall. Feels like lifetimes ago," he commented. "And believe you me, I know about lifetimes ago."
She agreed with him: that brief moment of their lives did feel like years ago, when in reality, it had only been about fifteen hours. But she did not say so aloud.
After a long, rancorous pause during which the tension was tangible, Martha finally said, "Look, Doctor, I didn't mean to try and put this on you. It's clearly my fault, and I'm sorry."
He paced again. "It's just… you know, contrary to popular belief, I actually do have quite a large capacity for love." He sounded like a child who'd been wrongly admonished.
"I know."
"As it happens, I also have an even larger capacity for fear. Which is what fuels my daily life, but sabotages my relationships."
"Doctor, you don't have to explain. This is on me."
"And when I do, finally, martial my powers for good and decide to push through the fear, and actually go into the trenches with someone... with you…"
"I know. It's scary."
"Absolutely terrifying. But that's why you don't go into the trenches with someone you can't trust."
"Yeah," she whispered, while her heart broke again. He might have been grinding once again on the lack of trust that she had shown in him, but more likely, she thought, he was now saying that he couldn't trust her. And in her gut, she felt it all ending.
He was standing rigid in the middle of his cell, arms across his chest, scowl etched into his features, not looking at her.
"It took a lot out of me, Martha, just to set the whole thing up. Then, to actually get myself dressed, and be there, interact with you…" he swallowed hard, then continued. "And you walked in, looking the way you did, I again didn't know if I could do it. And not just because of some schoolboy nervousness over talking to a beautiful woman, though there was that. But I'm talking about a millennium's worth of tears and toil and watching every kind of love I've ever had absolutely crash and burn, or just turn to ash.
"But there you were," he continued. "And I'd already made a decision that I was going to honour Donna, and you, and myself, by taking a stab at happiness. So I did."
"I'm glad you did," she croaked.
"And then, the relief when you responded. When the seduction scene went to plan… and not just the sex, but everything. I felt like I could… I don't know, just fall into you. Like I'd worked so hard, I'd used up all of my reserves and couldn't afford to be without you ever again."
"Oh, Doctor," she whispered.
"I woke up in the middle of the night, and you weren't in the bed beside me."
"And you panicked?"
"Just a little. I realised in fairly short order that you were still there, because your clothes were still, well… strewn about. But I did not like the feeling. So when I found you again, all those miles away you'd gone – which is to say, to the loo – well, something in me sort of turned over. I got possessive for a few minutes and felt I needed to claim you again. Which was wrong, and…"
"Doctor, we've been down this road already. It's okay."
He nodded, then looked up at her with sad eyes. "And then..." he began. He walked forward toward the bars, and held on with both hands. "And then, to have all of that dismissed as some kind of ruse... To have you doubt all of those feelings, all of that intensity, all of the fear I had to conquer in order to show you that I love you… To have you undo all of that by saying it was just because I'd gone rogue..."
She couldn't speak. Her eyes were wide, her mouth was slack, her feet were frozen in place.
"To have you turn to some bloke named Larry, instead of talking to me about your doubts…"
She couldn't look at him anymore.
This morning it had made so much sense. But look at them now.
"I can't believe this," she groaned.
"I can't either," he whispered sadly. Then his tone changed. "And to top off this honey of a day, in just a few minutes, I might be turned inside out by a weapon I made myself. Won't that be fun?"