This feels so much like a filler chapter to me, but yet again, chapter 16 of I Miss My Mind The Most did as well, and I've been told that is everything but. I'm telling you, that plot twist they think I threw in was already established, they just didn't see it, which is hilarious, considering the story :P
In this story though...the Doctor suffers through more major mood swings, and Martha helps him with the TARDIS, who is treated very badly.
Chapter Twelve
The TARDIS made sure that her room and the wardrobe were the two closest places from the console room. It made it a lot easier for her to find what she was looking for; mainly, her clothes. Still in the drawers in her room were tops, socks, underwear and a few pairs of trousers and jeans.
Not knowing whether anything was going to be done that day, and realising she would have to call work to say an emergency came up, and she was with Torchwood for a few days, Martha decided that she would stay with the Doctor for at least today before going back home.
It was the least she could do, really. She felt responsible for him having had a bad day yesterday.
She chose one of her baggier shirts and a pair of dark blue trousers. If the Doctor could run around all day in his pyjamas then she could run around in these. She went to the wardrobe room next, and chose a pair of jeans and a shirt out for Tom to wear.
At least they'd be fresh and bright eyed for whatever happened next.
"Martha! Could you help me a sec?" came the shouted voice of the Doctor from the console, and smiling, she made her way back in there. The first thing she did was laugh loudly at what she saw. What she saw was his feet, poking out of the grating, kicking madly, as he tried to free himself from the tight spot he had managed to get himself stuck in.
Grabbing at his feet, she dragged them a bit, hoping he was able to free himself, and with luck, he gave a little "Ha!" of accomplishment, and told her to stop. "Got it. Bloody thing got stuck, but it had to go. Need to go get the replacement..."
He popped his head back up, the rest of his body following soon after, pulling a long piece of metal with him as he did so. Oh, so it hadn't been him who was stuck, but an old piece of the TARDIS.
He looked down at it and frowned. "No wonder things have been a bit rougher for the last few trips. She needs an overhaul. Poor old girl. I'm sorry. Still, got plenty of time right now."
He wasn't talking to her, she knew, but the TARDIS itself. She knew he had a telepathic link with the ship so he could understand it, but he always held his conversations with it out loud. She didn't know if it was his narcissistic love of his own voice, or if he did it just to have some audible noise when he was travelling alone, which she didn't doubt he did sometimes.
It wasn't healthy. Well, he could hold conversations with the TARDIS in his head or out loud all he wanted, but he being alone was fundamentally not right. He needed someone there. He couldn't do anything alone. Well, he could, but he always managed to get into even deeper trouble she had found.
He made getting a bite to eat a life or death situation.
He looked at her and smiled slightly. "Thanks. Glad that didn't set me off actually, but it did need to be done. Well and truly stuck this was. Wonder why she didn't tell me?" He went over to the seat, dropped the old bit of metal on it, and went over to pat the console.
"Set you off? Oh...yeah. Dragged. Sorry."
"Not your fault."
"I know that, I wasn't even there."
He looked at her then, and she could almost see the glasses he wore sometimes on his face, and his eyes peeking over the rims. He wasn't even in his normal geek mode. Or wearing the specs for that matter. "Then why do you feel responsible for me?"
Her eyes widened at that, wondering where it was coming from. "I don't..."
"Yeah, you do. And so does Jack. It's getting a bit...annoying. To put it mildly. I have very little control over my emotions right now. Please, try to not make me mad."
Martha couldn't help the little strangled noise that forced its way out of her throat at that. "I'm not trying to make you mad, or feel responsible for what happened, or make myself responsible for your actions and moods. I just want to try and help. And it's harder than it should be, than I thought it would be."
A huff from the Doctor was heard, before he turned to her, sitting down on the seat and crossing his legs out in front of him, wiggling his toes as he did so. "You think it's hard on you? Try being me."
Sighing loudly, Martha picked up the metal thing, and put it across her lap as she took the spot of seat next to him. "It's not that Doctor, it's just...my mum. I have to deal with this kind of thing at home too. I just...I don't want to see anyone like that, and it hurts me to see you suffering like this."
He looked at her from the corner of his eye, she could tell, feel the weight of that stare. "Is it just your mum?"
She nodded. "Yeah. I think she blames herself for what happened on the Valiant. You know, working against you to try and get rid of you to get me back home. She was doing what she thought was right for me, but still...it gets so annoying sometimes. She's so protective, and now that's 10 times worse than it was, but she does nothing about it. She's lost her...fire I guess you could call it. It's scary Doctor. Tish and Dad have gotten better though. Leo's just trying to understand it."
He shifted slightly, and turned his head fully to look at her. "Do you feel responsible for that? I mean, it was you who made Yana see the watch..."
She shook her head. "No. I don't think so. Not anymore anyway. I did before and then I thought of time travel and what you have shown me out there, and I just thought. 'It would have happened anyway. If it wasn't me, it would have been someone else' and it was like a light was flicked on in my mind and I could see that to be true, cause I really believe that, Doctor. It would have happened anyway."
He nodded slightly. "Yeah, it would have. The TARDIS still would have done the same thing next she met Jack. And so would I. We both ran from him, not wanting to deal with that mess. That turned out well, didn't it?"
She laughed slightly and shook her head. "God, I could have strangled you half a dozen, if not more, times while travelling with you. You can be so infuriating when you want to be. And I'm sorry. Sorry for not letting you talk when you needed to. About Rose."
And then he was smiling at her and it reached his eyes. "Martha...have you been talking to Donna?"
She rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't necessarily call it talking as yelling at each other, but, yeah. We talked. I like her you know. She's got the right kind of attitude to put up with you."
He chuckled slightly. "Yeah, thankfully I have the attitude to put up with hers. It irritates me sometimes, it really does. But..."
"But you irritate her too, yeah she told me."
He grinned at her. "Hah! The two of you really have been talking. Just...don't do it in front of me, I don't think my ego can stand up to it."
Martha smiled back at him, nudged his arm with her shoulder and shook her head. "Doctor, your ego can barely fit in the TARDIS."
"Oi! That's not nice. I'm fragile."
"Yeah, and you hate it. But at least you're willing to admit it."
He shifted slightly, sighed, the smile vanishing off his face. "Admit it. Yeah. I've...got to get a replacement for this. Got to find it first. I'll...be back later."
She nodded, watched as he got up, swiped the bit of metal from her lap and went off into the corridors of the TARDIS. Well, at least he was doing something today. From what she had heard he hadn't been doing too well since whatever happened happened.
She moved to the kitchen to make tea the way he liked it. It was the least she could do right now.
The room the TARDIS was telling him held the spare item needed, was dusty and almost completely forgotten about. The part in question could be made nearly anywhere that had the right type of metal, which included right here on Earth, but he was upset now, and he'd prefer to stay inside.
His nose became runny, and his eyes watered and it had everything to do with the thick layers of dust he started kicking up into misty clouds about his person as he began his search. He was sneezing in regular intervals by the time Martha found him, a still hot cup of tea in her hands, though he could swear she had been looking for him since he came in here, half an hour ago.
"You alright? Looks like you've been crying."
"Dusty as a disused room in there..." he replied, finishing off with another huge sneeze that just made him feel as though he should be losing his brain with the force of it. "Bleh. My nose is all clogged up. My eyes are running a hundred miles an hour, and I feel like my head's full of cotton wool."
Martha chuckled lightly at that, not caring at all that he was covered in dust and paying for it. "Sounds like it is a disused room, alright."
"Yeah. Thanks for the tea. I need a break, before my brain decides to go on vacation altogether and melts into a puddle of goo in my head."
"Oh, I doubt that'd happen."
"It feels it will. My sense of smell is gone. Thankfully, my sense of taste is still intact, or I'd be lost." He'd meant it as a joke, and a grin made its way onto his face, but Martha just rolled her eyes at him and sat down in the corridor outside the room he kept spare parts. It was rather full. Why had he forgotten it had existed? It would have helped him a lot since the Time War, instead of having to glue the TARDIS together with junk. The TARDIS might have felt a lot better about it too, and she knew every room she had. Sometimes she got rid of, or made, new ones for the fun of it.
He drank the tea slowly, glad that even after all this time, Martha still remembered how he liked it, and sighed when he realised that he had to get back to looking for the piece. Even if the TARDIS was ready to leave the little one now, which he had no idea about, since she wasn't being too talkative about the subject, he wouldn't risk going anywhere without the stabilisers in working order, and one of them was waiting for a new buffer.
A stabiliser without anything to keep it stable was a disaster he'd rather not have to face even when he was thinking and working at his best. There was no way in hell he was going anywhere with it like this.
The gentle hum of the TARDIS in his head changed to a slightly apologetic tone, and he sighed again and rubbed at the wall closest to him. "Nah, l I get it, you didn't want to worry me, or think you were worse off. I still wish you had told me sooner, instead of having me just discover it like that..."
He didn't know whether he was talking of the room itself and all the spares inside it, or the stabiliser itself, which was a pretty much new development, since he usually checked them regularly. Since what had happened on the Valiant, she'd hidden quite a few things from him though.
That was well over a year ago now, and he'd checked them over several times since, so it must be a very recent problem.
He wondered if it had happened while on Midnight before shaking his head. He doubted it. It was more likely the trip to Messaline. And he didn't want to think about that one either. That had been a bit rough on her systems, though she had seemed to enjoy it, even though for a second they had been separated.
Still, she had been in no danger, and wasn't stolen or anything. He hated when people stole his...
"Doctor? Wakey wakey." A hand wove in front of his face and he blinked and came back to the world around him. Hmm, he hadn't known he had been thinking that intensely.
"Hello. Yeah, sorry, just thinking about when she had needed this part in the first place. I'm guessing it might have been Messaline. She's been a bit rougher than usual since then."
Martha frowned. "Looked like you got lost in your own head there."
He blinked at her and grinned. "Nah, just thinking. And not lost, no, just a bit concerned that she didn't tell me she needed repairing like she normally does. Or kept this room full of dust a secret from me in the first place."
Again the apologetic hum sounded in his head, and he shook himself and got up onto his feet, looking longingly down the corridor away from the room.
"Want any help? Might go a bit faster with two. I'm sure the others in the Hub would help too."
He hesitated, because he wasn't really up for the company, but at the same time a little help in the room to make this search go faster would be very much good for his health, and his sinuses. "Yeah, I appreciate it."
She didn't go out like he had thought she would, instead Martha walked right into the room and immediately let out a sneeze of her own. "Geeze, you weren't wrong. How'd you manage to breathe at all in here for a half hour? No wonder you feel like your head is full of cotton wool. It probably is too full of dust even for your brain to handle."
"With great difficulty. Breathing I mean. I had the taste of dust in my mouth, and it tastes foul by the way, so thanks for the tea to wash it away."
Martha laughed at that, shook her head and walked back out. "You know, for a genius, you really are thick sometimes. Stay out of there until I get back. Go blow your nose, get rid of the dust in there, unless you want to get sick or something."
He nodded, practically hearing the attached 'doctor's orders' and grinned. Well, she might have been given the chance to cut corners when it came to her official doctorate because of UNIT wanting her there, but she still was very good at what she did and cared enough about even the small things like this enough to order someone about. Go blow his nose indeed. Still, it was a good idea. He couldn't breathe out of it at the moment.
She set out of the TARDIS at that, and he asked the old girl what Martha was doing, and the picture of Martha talking to Jack about something, no voices included, made him wrinkle his nose even further than it already was, and so he set out to do what his young human doctor friend had told him to go do.
The gunk that came out of his nose almost made him sick to his stomach. So much dust was stuck there he wondered if he would get sick from it anyway. Still, he was breathing much better by the time Martha came back, masks in her hands of the kind doctors used.
He almost hit his head into the wall for his own stupidity at not thinking that. And why hadn't she asked him, he had plenty in the TARDIS himself, since he had, at one stage, actually studied medicine, and occasionally he actually did things that need one.
He had seen people also use them for painting and sanding and other things where toxic, or otherwise harmful or annoying substances could be inhaled or swallowed. And he had done enough of both of those to have eaten the dust right off the junk in the room. And inhaled enough for him to think he'd gotten off rather lightly.
"I have lost my mind..." were the first words out of his mouth, and the water leaking out of his eyes this time had nothing to do with the dust and all about his thoughts. Because it was true. How could he have forgotten something so utterly basic to use when dealing with a room full of an irritant that could be holding god knew what inside it.
He sat down just outside the room and let himself cry. It was the first time since he'd been like this he actually let himself go through his emotions without a mental fight. But this, he decided, would help more than hinder.
He found himself wrapped up in a hug from Martha, and he buried his head in her clean shirt and didn't care that he was making a mess of it.
Even when he had calmed down enough to stop crying he tried to force himself to do more for as long as he could, before he couldn't get up the strength to do that anymore. He tried not to sniffle too much, breathing through his mouth.
"Here," Martha said, handing him a tissue.
He grabbed it quickly.
He sighed in utter relief as he noted that it had cleared his nose a lot more of the dust. He had really done quite a bit of shuffling things about in the spare room. He hadn't exactly been prepared to want to cry to get rid of the dust that hadn't cleared by normal means. It had blocked him up too much. And it was the only way he could think of to make his nose run.
And, yes, he had been upset.
"You alright?"
"Yep. Needed that. Cleared out the dust." He found that mentally he wasn't as bad off either. He actually felt good again. Not like last night or earlier that morning, but good in a normal sort of way.
"Dust, yeah, I'm sure that's what it was all about."
He coughed slightly. "Umm, no, well, not to start off with. Sorry about your shirt by the way."
She looked down and made a face. "Ugh, thanks. And god, you weren't kidding about the dust. Learnt your lesson?"
"Completely. Never do something so utterly stupid again, unless I forget something so basic and am usually getting before I even start. I just...didn't think at all about it. It completely slipped my mind. I was worried, and impatient and wondering why the old girl had hidden this room from me for so long..."
Martha patted his knee in a friendly gesture which made him feel a bit uncomfortable, and smiled at him. "Yeah, well, we all do stupid things like that sometimes. I once got into trouble when I was in training when I forgot gloves. I mean, there wasn't even a patient at the time, but it was in preparation for such things and...I don't think I had been yelled at more by anyone, including my mother."
They both laughed over this. After they had both settled down, he grabbed one of the masks, put it on, knowing that they made nearly everyone look absolutely ridiculous and grinned behind it. "Well, Miss Jones, ready to do battle with the annoying and somewhat crowded dust bunnies?"
"Yes, Mr Smith, I am."
She put one on, and walked determinedly into the room. He followed right behind her. "It should be somewhere in here, or at least that's what the TARDIS told me. The only thing I've found are pieces that I don't need quite yet, but will come in handy for the future, and dust. Lots and lots of dust."
"I got the dust, thanks for the warning though."
He looked at her and watched for a bit as she got even dirtier as she looked on shelves and inside boxes and across tables, where the spares were scattered about.
Well, it should go a bit faster with her over there and him on the other side of the room.
As it was, a few short minutes later Martha had found the part and handed it over to him. He was simultaneously happy it had been found, relieved the TARDIS hadn't been lying, and upset it hadn't been him who had found it.
The first two were alright. Especially since one of them was thinking clearly and the other had been lying to him recently to make him feel better. Being upset, made him further upset. Because it made no sense and he usually wouldn't be.
He wasn't moping. No, not at all, and he definitely wasn't stomping towards the console room, and shoving the grating away a bit more forcefully than usual. He hadn't really needed to miss with the hammer either, but it felt good to hit something, and while some of the parts of the TARDIS were very delicate, this wasn't one of them. He was glad. He wanted to be rough to teach her a lesson of keeping things secret.
She thrummed in his head, not happy with how he was treating her and he snapped. "Shut up! You want me to be nice, you stop hiding things from me that are important, or I'll leave you in some damn junkyard!"
The link in his head faded to that only-just-there pitch she had made right after, when he hadn't been able to stand anything in his head. He wouldn't feel sorry that he had probably gotten her both angry and upset. He wouldn't apologise either, because everything he said was true. Sometimes the truth damn well hurt.
Just to get his point across, he hit the buffer hard into place, popped his head up out from under the console and threw the hammer hard at the nearest strut. With the link currently hidden, he didn't know if it had hurt her, but he hoped it had. That'll teach her for hiding when she was in need of repair again.
"And don't do it again, bitch!"
"Doctor! That isn't nice."
"Shut up. She deserved it."
Martha stood there, hands crossed under her chest, glaring at him. "You need to get a time out system put in place, or you are going to do major damage."
"The TARDIS is tough, she can take it."
She shook her head. "I'm not talking just with the TARDIS. You're not using your brain right now. You're using your emotions. And while normally that's good, don't act out your anger towards others like this."
He was about to tell her to get the hell out, but decided she wouldn't listen. So he left instead, not going out into the Hub outside but towards the corridors. Oddly enough, his bedroom was the first room he came across, ad he slammed the door closed behind him and locked it. He didn't want company anyway. None. He was glad that the TARDIS was ignoring him.
He was too riled up to sit still, so instead he paced for a good half hour, feeling every minute tick slowly by. He didn't feel anything very different when he felt the link in his mind open slightly, and the TARDIS humming slightly in his head. She was being overly cautious though, asking if he was still angry with her, even though she could feel his emotions.
He didn't answer, because he was.
He wasn't angry with anyone or anything else now though, which was good. He didn't want to lash out again at anyone, especially Martha. She had enough problems at home, without him adding to that burden.
But the TARDIS...she was supposed to tell him these things. She was supposed to trust him, and he her. But she was hiding things from him which could have done irreparable damage to her insides if she hadn't decided to speak up today about it. He should have stayed in bed. But no, he had to get up, and dress in his pyjama's to feel more comfortable, and get down and dirty.
He hit her wall. She closed the link again, slowly and not really knowing if she should, but he needed to be alone right then with his own thoughts.
He buried his head into his hands and let out a stifled yell.
He had completely lost it.
Again.
Oddly enough, he decided he couldn't wait until next Friday came around because he really needed to talk about this. And he didn't think he could to anyone he actually knew. Not even Donna.
He was glad he had made the appointment at least.
He wondered if Martha was angry at him, because he wanted to ask her what Jeremy was like.
Or, maybe he'd wait until tomorrow to give everyone, including himself, to calm down a bit.
Yes, he'd do that...