Well, you all liked the idea of the Doctor weighing in on the Helen/Martha - Max vibe. So, here we go - I think you'll find it juicy, even if the Doctor herself doesn't actually say much. ;-)

The bulk of the chapter is two friends catching up... and it's also kinda juicy, but I'm predicting a mixed reaction, for various reasons. Looking forward to knowing what you think! Sink your teeth in, and enjoy!

THREE

Max had come in, and done his Max Thing, and now he was gone, and there was silence in the hallway. The two women were leaning on opposite walls, facing each other, in the wake of his departure.

"So," the still scrub-clad Doctor said, breaking the silence. "How long have the two of you been…"

"Been…?"

"You know."

Martha sighed. "We're not a couple. He's married, and I have a boyfriend… who is not him."

"Oh. Sorry. Didn't mean to pry. You two just have a…"

"A vibe. I know," Martha finished. "Can't escape the vibe."

"Heard it before, then."

"Yeah," Martha whispered.

There was another pause, and the Doctor added, "Well, again I'm sorry for prying."

"It's all right. Pry all you like," Martha said, wearily, with a smile.

"Okay then. For whatever it's worth, he's clearly stubborn as an ox, but I like him."

Martha chuckled a bit bitterly. "Of course you do."

"Of course I do? What makes you say that?"

Martha looked at the Doctor meaningfully, as though she had daggers in her eyes. She smiled mirthlessly. "Clearly…" Martha said, then sighed, reluctant to admit what she was about to admit. "Clearly, something is pulling me toward Max. If you see it, and my boyfriend sees it, and the crazy lady who thinks she's psychic saw it…"

"You don't see it?"

"I see it," Martha confessed. "I'm not an idiot, I know there's something there. As you know well know, I've been in this situation before. I also know that it's not just from my end. I know when a man fancies me, and when he doesn't… another thing I learned from… the best."

"Sorry," the Doctor said. Force of habit, she supposed.

"I've had to come to terms with the vibe, and recognising its truth. I've also had to come to terms with the fact that I'm drawn to Max because…" Martha sighed heavily.

"Because?" the Doctor said, when the silence grew longer than appropriate.

"Because he reminds me of you."

"Oh. Oh!"

"Back then."

"Oh, I see!" the Doctor breathed, looking at the door through which Max had disappeared.

"I reckon that's why you like him, even though he's stubborn as an ox, and is behaving like a total prat. He must remind you of you, too."

"I guess, maybe, on some level… in some ways…" the Doctor said, tentatively.

"He's got a wicked ego. And an even more wicked hero complex – he's got to save everyone, and he's got to do it his way, as only he can."

"Yep. Sounds like me," the Doctor agreed, softly, reluctantly.

"He's tortured with a painful past, and he's tragically flawed. Sometimes I think he has zero self-awareness. And he's so clever, it hurts sometimes." Martha was now staring at the slick hospital hallway floor while leaning against the wall, a she contemplated, and spoke. "He's amazing at, as they say, non-routine problem-solving. He uses mundane resources like no-one I've ever seen – well, not no-one, because there's you. And… in spite of myself, I have this ridiculous, visceral faith in him. He will fix everything. The Great Max will swoop in at the end of the day, and save everyone… just like you. Remember New New York, and the traffic jam? I remember telling my kidnappers that you'd save us in the end, and they were sceptical because they hadn't seen the things you could do… Max is like that too, only he doesn't do it with time-travel, and technology, and speeding through space. He does it on a micro scale, with bureaucracy and logic and loopholes, and pure love."

"Wow, Martha."

"Max could save the world if he didn't have the bloody cancer," Martha chuckled at this, and was mostly joking.

"As I recall, you are the one who saved the world," the Doctor reminded her.

"I want to be at his side, but I also want sometimes to have nothing more to do with him. I want to save him, and I also kind of want to kill him."

Martha said these words mechanically, still staring at the floor, and the Doctor could see her remembering…

"The only thing missing is the hair and the suit," Martha continued, again, chuckling at this. "He's tall, boyishly handsome, diabolically charming…"

"Yeah, sometimes I miss those days," the Doctor sighed.

"He just wears blue scrubs instead of pinstripes."

"He wears them well."

"Sorry," Martha said, sort of coming-to. "I didn't mean to impugn who you are now. I have to say, seeing you like this is very freeing."

The Doctor smiled. "I'm glad to hear it. And being like this can be very freeing. And speaking of free… who the hell is Helen Sharpe?"

"Helen is my middle name, Sharpe is my grandmother's maiden name," Martha shrugged. "The rest is quite a long story."

The Doctor smiled. "I've got time... as you know. How late do you have to be here?"

"Until at least six."

"Want to meet me for a drink later? We can catch up.

"Whoa, that's… a lot of catching up," Martha said, with wide eyes.

Wearing jeans and a lightweight white sweater, Martha walked into a bar, about four blocks from the hospital, at half-past seven. At the bar, she spied a blonde woman in a purple striped shirt, sipping a Coke. This time, her braces were up over her shoulders, and a long tan coat hung from the back of the barstool.

Martha slid into the seat beside her, and said, "Still with the hero coat?"

"Can't seem to kick the habit," said the Doctor.

Martha ordered a glass of wine, and then asked, "So what have you been up to?"

"No, you first," the Doctor protested. "What's with the new identity? Me, I can regenerate. What's your excuse?"

"The only thing that's changed is my name," Martha shrugged. "I'm still the same person on the inside."

"Really? Because the last time I saw you, you were married, fighting aliens, and living in Britain. Now, you have a boyfriend, are practising medicine again… in New York. And I've looked into it: Helen Sharpe is quite the media figure."

Martha sighed. "Well, Mickey and I split up after two years – I wasn't ready to have a baby yet, and he was badgering me… it caused this huge rift between us. Which was weird, considering our lifestyle at the time. And it's ironic when I look back on it now, since... anyway, I didn't want to get pregnant, and I didn't like being made to feel guilty for it, and I guess I became a cold fish, and he met someone else."

"What? Mickey? That's odd. He's so loyal."

Martha nodded, and took a sip of her wine. "You're not wrong. Which is why I didn't really blame him in the end… at some point, I closed the baby-having conversation altogether and became an impenetrable wall of stubborn. I started to pull further and further away from him, and weirdly, he wanted a wife, not a flat-mate," she said, the last bit with a bitter bit of sarcasm.

"Men have a lot of nerve," the Doctor said with a familiar smirk.

"Right? So, he found someone who was ready, at that time, to have kids. I would have preferred that they wait to conceive after our marriage was over, but you can't have everything, eh?"

"Oh, Martha…"

"It's all right. I heard from him at Christmas. They have three kids, and are expecting twins. He's doing computer stuff mostly, and doing some freelance alien work once in a while if he's needed somewhere. He sounds ludicrously happy, so I think it all worked out for the best, you know?"

"Good attitude, that. So, divorce… and what did you do next?"

"Me, I went back to UNIT. Reckoned I couldn't live without the aliens, but also wanted to be a doctor again, you know? So I resumed my Chief Medical Officer role. And then, Colonel Mace got cancer."

"Oh, I heard about that," the Doctor said, wincing.

"He'd contracted it from exposure to these radioactive waves brought to Earth by the Zurufans."

"Aw," the Doctor sighed. "They mean well, but yeah… their sun particles are deadly in some galaxies. I don't know how many times I've told them to quit touristing about willy-nilly, until there's a prophylactic found… they don't listen."

"Well, the alien origin of it meant that Mace couldn't just go to hospital and get treated, so I had to step up. My specialisation had been internal medicines, but with him ill, I had no choice but to become an oncologist. I did my research, used what instruments we had, and designed a course of treatment for him – chemo, radiation, the works. In the end…"

"I know," the Doctor said, squeezing her hand. "His secretary left me a message when he died."

"What I did for him did not work," Martha sighed. "It might have, if the cancer had been Earth-based, but… what he needed, honestly, was you. But that didn't occur to me until it was clearly too late. And during that time, you were exceptionally difficult to get hold of - at least that's what I'd heard through the grape vine at UNIT."

"Was that when Kate Lethbridge-Stewart took over?"

"Yes," Martha said. "It was also right about the time I got sent to Siberia to treat some miners who had been attacked by a cell of burrowing Geadlicks."

"Ohhhh," the Doctor said, drawing out the syllable. "They pegged you as a time-traveller, didn't they?"

"Yeah, it was weird," Martha told her friend. "It was my lymphocytes. I'd known that my stint with you had given me these souped-up cells… I'd found out while working with Captain Jack and the gang. But it had never occurred to me that it might become a problem, or something that aliens might zero-in on."

"They keep pegging me, as well. Every now and then, they chase me down again, and try to recruit me."

"Well, I can't just jump in my TARDIS and get away from them – they hounded me. Kept saying they needed someone with my 'abilities' to head up their lesser-species relations division or something, and wouldn't leave me alone. Kate was researching their M.O., and realised at some point that they would never take 'no' for an answer, and would, in fact, kill me if I kept on refusing."

"So you moved to New York?"

"Well first, I tried to become invisible to them. My newfound experience with cancer gave me a unique insight into how abnormal cells behave. I designed a course of treatment for myself, and flushed my blood of the mutated lymphocytes. I was mightily ill for a while, but it needed doing. It wasn't quite as bad as chemo, but it makes me sympathise with my patients a lot better. After I did that, I thought I was home free, but they found me again through bureaucratic channels."

"What?" the Doctor asked, laughing.

Martha nodded. "I swear to you, they worked out which car was mine, and followed me out to Devon to visit my gran. I was on the grid, so they tracked me down."

"Oh no!"

"That's when I got really scared. Kate and I realised that the only way to shake them off was for me to move, change jobs, and change my name. Kate used her UNIT clout to contact the universities where I'd earned my degrees, and had new official documents drawn up, with my new name on them. That way, I could find work somewhere else, as Helen Sharpe."

"Wow. And the Geadlicks haven't found you? Even as Dr. Helen, doing the talk show circuit?"

Martha shook her head. "They haven't found me. And I haven't told anyone my real name because I don't want there to be a trail leading to me at all… especially through anyone else."

"So not even Max knows?"

"Nope."

"And your boyfriend doesn't know?"

"No. And sometimes I think he'd really like to hear the story of my life, because he's an oncologist, too, and he does this alternative treatment thing… I think he'd find my lymphocyte story quite interesting. But I can't tell him."

"Yeah, best not. But what about your family?"

"Oh, they know exactly where I am," said Martha. "Kate keeps them under intermittent surveillance just to make sure they're not being watched by the Geadlicks, and she thinks its best if we meet up in neither New York nor London. So, I've done holidays with my dad and stepmum in Hilton Head South Carolina, been to Disney world with Leo and his kids..."

"That's a relief to hear," the Doctor said. "It's not like you're in witness protection."

"Not really. Just can't use my real name, and can't go home for another decade or two. But that's about it. It's not so bad." Martha then took a long pull off her wine, and the Doctor off her soda. The two of them sat in contemplative silence for a few minutes, before Martha finally asked, "And you? Dare I ask what you've been up to this past… millennium?"

"Oh, you know, same ol', same ol'," she replied. "Taking down interplanetary bullies, saving planets, meeting great historical figures."

"How mundane," Martha joked, and they both laughed.

"The last time I saw you and Mickey, I'd decided to visit because I knew I was dying," she said. "I'd never be able to look you in the eye again, and have you completely recognize me. You and Mickey, Captain Jack, Sarah Jane... it made me sad that from then on, I'd have to explain who I was."

"Like today?"

"Exactly."

"Thanks for taking out that Sontaran, by the way. Last time I saw you, I mean."

"No problem. Amazing what you can do with a ball-peen hammer and a bit of upper-body strength. Anyway, I regenerated shortly thereafter, and lived in that body for about seven hundred years."

"Wow."

"I was young-looking. I wore a bowtie and a cheeky grin, and… at one point, met up with a couple of my past selves, and stopped Kate Lethbridge-Stewart from blowing up London. Weird, eh?"

"How the hell…"

"Zygons."

"Oh yeah – heard about that. I had just settled in here, when that happened."

"Bowtie guy travelled for a time with someone called Amy."

"Attractive and feisty?" Martha asked, chuckling.

"Of course," the Doctor shrugged. "That part of me hadn't died."

"Though, it might interest you to know that Amy's husband and daughter were also in the mix."

"Really? That's cool!"

"Cool… and pretty convoluted, actually. Speaking of which, I've been married twice since last you saw me, and I had a Scottish accent for a while. And the eyebrows to match."

Martha laughed out loud. "Have you been a quirky dresser the whole time?"

"Oh, that's been all my life," the Doctor said. "The Scottish Eyebrows pretended not to care about such nonsense. He did, though. A man doesn't own that many slightly-different black hoodies if he isn't trying to affect some sort of image."

"And you mentioned historical figures," Martha said. "Any that can match Shakespeare?"

"Well…" she cleared her throat uncomfortably. "Speaking of Shakespeare, and getting married... and Zygons, I did finally find out why Queen Elizabeth the First wanted me dead."

"Speaking of... getting married? The queen... wait, you didn't."

"I didn't have a choice!"

"Really? Married? Ceremony, consummation, the whole nine yards?"

"Not necessarily in that order, but... yes."

"And... was she a Zygon?"

"No. Well, sort of. Okay, yeah, sometimes. Don't judge me," the Doctor said with one pointed index finger, and a nervous sip from her Coke.

"Whoa," Martha said, laughing

"And now to quickly change the subject, I also met Queen Elizabeth the tenth."

"No!"

"Yes! She's brilliant. Quite the dark little gumshoe she is!"

"That's… amazing."

"I worked a bit with Churchill and some Daleks, though it wasn't the first time we'd met. Vincent Van Gogh, he cried a lot, and hugged a curator at Musée d'Orsay. And there was Marilyn Monroe… oh, come to think of it, got married three times!"

Martha laughed out loud again. "Oh my God!"

"Richard Nixon, Adolf Hitler, Robin Hood…"

"Robin Hood is fictional, though."

"That's just what he wants you to think."

"Excuse me?"

"Let's see… Santa Claus…"

"Okay, now you're just messing with me."

"King James the first, Rosa Parks…"

"Rosa," Martha mused. "Would love to meet her."

The Doctor smiled. "Yeah, my friends were pretty taken with her. Though not with the time and place itself. Can't say I was a fan, either."

"Really? What about just walking about like you own the place?" Martha smirked.

"It was bad advice to you in London in 1599," the Doctor said, quite seriously. "It would have been dangerous advice to Ryan and Yaz in Alabama in 1955."

"Oh… I see."

"Besides, that cocksure swagger doesn't work as well as it used to. I've had to adapt," the Doctor said, quietly, now staring into her beverage, and pushing the ice around with the thin straw.

Martha watched her, and knew her friend well enough to see the avoidance in her mannerisms.

"Doctor, what's wrong?" Martha asked.

The Doctor sighed. "Well… speaking of having to adapt, Martha, there's a reason I asked you to have a drink with me. I mean, I wanted to catch up, sure, but… I need your help."

Martha nodded. "Okay. I can't go anywhere in the TARDIS, otherwise the Geadlicks will be able to track me again."

"No, I get that. What I need from you is... well, I didn't know who else I could ask."

"Just tell me what you need."

Thoughts? Comments? Concerns? All of the above?

Leave a review, and let me know! Thanks so much for giving this bizarre little fic an audience!