WELL, HERE WE GO. I SUPPOSE I'LL MAKE SOME HAPPY WITH THIS CHAPTER AND DISAPPOINT OTHERS. IF YOU'RE ONE OF THE LATTER, I APOLOGIZE. I JUST HAD TO ASK MYSELF, WHAT WOULD I DO?

THIRTEEN

For a few brief, shining moments, Martha thought she'd awakened in her old life. She felt the same odd, spinning sensation as when she'd opened her eyes from her so-called coma. She allowed herself to hope that she might now be able to phone the Doctor and run alongside him as they stopped Davros, saved the Master (if necessary) from becoming a hybrid, and yanked Rose from the evil clutches of...

She felt a cold cloth run across her forehead, and beneath her head, something like a water balloon. Then a hand, stroking her head. She groaned, "What the hell happened?"

"The car flipped over," a voice said. "We were sabotaged."

It was definitely the Doctor's voice, but the Scottish accent was painfully apparent. Damn, she was still here.

"Sabotaged? By..."

"Don't try to talk," he said. "Just work on getting your eyes open so I can check them."

She obeyed. Her lids were swollen shut and difficult to pry apart. Finally, with some effort, she was able to see. She saw a dusty wooden ceiling in twilight, and quite a few insects flying about.

"I'm going to check for concussion, all right?" he asked.

"Okay."

He leaned over her, and she saw his face appear upside-down. She surmised now that she was lying on the floor with her head in his lap. He pried her eyes open and examined her pupils.

"You've got really mild concussion," he said. "I guess it looks worse than it is."

She became aware of something crusty on the left side of her forehead. She reached up to touch it. It felt like a gash that had been stitched up. "Did you stitch me up?"

"Nope," he told her. "Wasn't me. Lucky someone did though, because it looks pretty nasty. You've also got some bruising about the left side of your face, but it's already yellowing."

She sat up and looked at him. His face and head looked as always, but his right arm was in a sling. "Oh," she said, seeing it for the first time. "Someone patched you up as well."

"I think my elbow is dislocated. Also, I seem to have some cuts and scrapes." He showed her that his right trouser leg was torn and there was a negligible amount of dried blood. "Whoever did this to us came prepared. I guess the good news is that they didn't want us dead."

"What do you mean whoever? We know exactly who this was."

David sighed. "I've been trying not to go there."

"How long have we been here?"

"I don't know - I've been awake for about half an hour. It must have taken at least a couple of hours to drag us here and get us both treated, though. Plus, it's getting dark."

She looked around her. They were on the floor in a narrow space behind what looked like a check-out counter with a glass case. Through the glass, she could see rows of empty metal shelves and two or three very old cigarette posters. Beyond that, boarded-up windows. Confusedly, she said, "It looks like a petrol station."

"That's exactly what it is, only long-abandoned," he said. "I've already looked for a way out. As far as I can tell, there's only one exit, and it's barricaded from the outside. We're sealed in. At least we have a toilet that works."

She began to panic a little. "Well... what are we going to do for food?"

"Look," he said, pointing to a supply shelf below the glass case. On it a few things were lined up in plain sight, clearly for them to find. Martha saw first the contents of her backpack, which included a box of shortbread and a little plastic bag of apple slices, and also two rain ponchos and a couple of pairs of clean socks.

But there was also a jar of peanut butter, some beef jerky and a large jug of water. Beside that, there was a stack of washcloths, several bottles of pills, including anti-inflammatories (for concussion patients) and two kinds of painkillers, and a couple of flower-scented jar candles with a stack of matchbooks.

This gave Martha an odd sort of chill. "Someone provided for us to be here a while," she said. "I don't like that."

"I don't either, but at least we're not going to lie here in pain and starving. But I won't lie - a deck of cards might have been nice."

"Well, I have a solitaire game on my mobile," Martha said. Then it dawned on her. "Mobile!"

"Forget it, I checked. They're gone. They didn't want us dead, but they didn't want us found either."

"Damn it!" she cursed. "What do we do?" The useless thought that the Doctor with his sonic screwdriver would be able to break them out of here in two seconds crossed her mind, but she shook it off. No use going down that road.

"Well, first we wait until your pupils look normal again, and then we can talk about what's next."

"David, that takes like twenty-four hours," she cried. "We don't have that kind of time!"

"Martha, I'm not having you..."

"Simm is endangering himself and others!"

"Martha..."

"We cannot let him do this! We have to find a way out of here!" She began to stand up, feeling dizzy as she did so.

He pulled her back down. "Stop moving. You are not well."

"Doctor!"

"Listen!" he yelled. "We don't have a choice! The car is gone, our mobiles are gone. Even if we could break out of here, we'll have to walk somewhere to get help, and we don't know – that could be miles. I'm not doing that as long as you have concussion. Now, I am your physician, and you need to listen to me. Calm down, and give yourself time to heal!"

It was the first time she'd heard David raise his voice. She noticed with curiosity that the Scottish accent diminished, the more worked-up he became.

She also noted that high emotions had caused her to slip and call him "Doctor." She had to remember to stay calm. So she relented, and changed the subject.

"What happened to your accent?"

"How do you mean?"

"Erm, it sort of... went away for a moment while you were yelling.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell. It's just... it's a tense situation."

"No, it's okay," she said. "Just curious is all."

So now that they had nothing but time, and nothing to do but talk, and a mightily large predicament that might require some superhuman ingenuity, Martha thought this might be a good time to set about bringing out the Doctor. They had to get back to London, and clearly, David had no sense of urgency beyond the fact that he was currently locked inside an abandoned petrol station somewhere in the country.

It was getting dark, but this was no time for resting. She lit a candle and set it on the floor, hoping it would give them a campfire sort of feel, something that would encourage them both to express themselves. She scooted over to the wall and sat with her back against it. "You know, I read somewhere that highly emotional responses cause a native accent to emerge, even among well-practised people."

He furrowed. "Well-practised?"

"Or, you know, those who aren't sure of their origins," she offered, not looking at him.

He smiled sceptically, and scooted over to sit beside her. "Are you saying you think I might not be Scottish?"

"Maybe," she said. "I mean, you said your birth certificate was lost. Maybe you lived somewhere else during your language-acquisition years."

"Well, I didn't hear anything different," he told her. "I think you're imagining things, Martha Jones."

"No, no," she insisted. "I heard it. I'm very keen on accents. In fact, I think I heard a touch of..."

"A touch of what?"

Her heart pounded in anticipation of what she was about to say. But she couldn't wait anymore; she had to bring in the big guns now. "A touch of Gallifrey."

He stared at her for a long moment without reacting. Then he asked, "Gallifrey. I've heard of that."

"Yes," she said. "I think that's where you're from. I think it's buried back there in your subconscious, you just need to search, go deep within yourself, and you'll be able to access it." She tried to keep her tone light to avoid alerting him, but poignant so that he might listen.

He thought. "Where is it?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "But I've heard it's beautiful. Have you ever heard of Solace and Solitude? I think those are the names of some hills nearby."

He was thinking harder. "Is it an island? I'm thinking... I'm thinking that I heard it somewhere... and it was out there all by itself..."

"I think it's gone now," Martha told him, solemnly.

"Yes," he said. "I was just going to say that. It seems like it's gone, like it was destroyed somehow... You really think I might have been there when I was a little boy?"

"I'm just telling you what I heard," she told him.

"Wow," he sighed. "You must have a very good ear for accents."

"Well, I've travelled a lot. All over."

"Yeah? Like in your gap year?"

"No, it was... well, just before the coma, I guess."

"On your own?"

She sniffed sadly. "No, I travelled with a friend." She looked at him, searching. "He seems to be gone now. But I'll see him again."

He smiled. "An old flame, perhaps?"

"Alas, no," she told him. "Much as I would have liked that."

"Oh, that's the worst," he exclaimed. "When you fancy someone and they don't notice!"

"I didn't say he didn't notice."

"Well, I assumed. I mean, travelling in close quarters..." He trailed off, contemplating again.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing," he assured her, unconvincingly. He was distracted. "It's just... I think that must have happened to someone I know, because it's the weirdest feeling of déjà vu."

She didn't know what to say. So she spoke about the obvious. "The sun has gone down."

"It has," he said. "Lucky she left us some candles."

"She?"

"Well, they're scented with lavender and hydrangea. I'm thinking Professor Simm is more of an unscented-candle sort of bloke."

She giggled. "Probably true. Billie did a nice job stitching me up, in that case."

"Well, she'd have had to have help," he thought aloud. "I'm a thin man, but I'm still too heavy for her to carry."

"Great. An unknown accomplice. I can't wait to get back to London."

"Let's not think about it for now," he said. "We can't do anything until at least tomorrow morning, so don't worry about it. Why don't you finish telling me about your friend?"

"All right. Well... he bought a car for the trip. It was big blue thing with this really spacious interior. We lived in it," she said before she'd thought about how daft it sounded.

"You lived in the car?"

She laughed. "Well, yeah, I guess we did."

He leaned in closer to her, their arms pressed together, like when they were at the auction. "And you fancied this man?" he asked, as though it were a secret.

She gazed back, and sighed with the weight of all that he was asking. It took her a long time to answer. Funny how the mind wanders in moments like this – she noticed that in the candle light, her shoes made shadows on the wall that looked like two hills strung together by a valley. "Oh, I didn't just fancy him. I was... in love with him. Hopelessly."

"What was he like?"

"Oh, David," she said, nearly sobbing out the words. "You don't know what you're asking of me."

"Well, Martha, if we can't talk about the painful things, how are we expected to get past them?" he asked her.

She sighed heavily again, and looked at David closely. Her voice wavering with emotion, she told him, "He's tall. He has brown hair. He's clever... my God is he clever – like make-the-universe-collapse sort of clever." She paused, looking away from David and into the fire. "And he is constantly lonely. No matter how many friends in his life, no matter how many people love him, he is so, so lonely."

He was staring at her, looking at the little flame playing across her face. "What a sad existence. I can kind of relate."

"Yeah," she whispered. "But, oh, what a great man to have in a crisis. Any trap, any disaster... he always took care of me."

He was still staring closely. "Get trapped a lot, did you?"

"Sometimes."

"Like we are now?" He leaned his head in closer.

"Sometimes."

"And he took care of you?"

She smiled discreetly. "Always."

"Well, then, I have a lot to live up to."

"You do," she whispered. "But you will find it, David. I'm going to help you find him..."

And then suddenly her words were stopped, and he was kissing her. He turned his body to face her and used his good arm to cradle her face in his hand. She turned to face him as well, but her mind was much less sure than her actions demonstrated. She was shaking, thinking of Tom, thinking of Rose, thinking of the warnings her mum and Catherine had given...

When he pulled away from her, he didn't take his hand away from her face, but asked quite calmly, "Shall I stop?"

Thoughts raced through her brain so quickly, she was sure that David could see them flying by when he looked into her eyes. No matter what she said next, either way, all open conversation was over for the night. Either way, daylight would be awkward.

It would have been madness to say "no," though. She wanted to stay faithful to Tom, she wanted her working relationship with both David and the Doctor to remain intact, she wanted to keep her wits about her. But what the mind desires sometimes must take a back seat to what the heart and body need.

And not for the first time in this existence, Martha let her heart be her guide.