FIVE

Wednesday morning, the Doctor was the one who had to drag Martha to the kitchen, rather than the vice versa of the previous evening. He poured her into a chair, coffee into a mug, then gave her a Pop Tart. He engaged her in conversation, so she wouldn't fall asleep sitting up.

"So," she said, before taking a long, long pull off her coffee. "What's today – more research?"

"I want to know more about that magnetic field round the Ifasma," the Doctor said. "So, yes. But it's much more narrow and specific research than before."

"Okay," she sighed.

They made small talk for a bit, had coffee, unhealthy toaster pastries, and the Doctor jotted down a few book titles on a napkin, that he suggested Martha seek out.

And then, there was a tingly feeling in her bum.

She wasn't firing on all cylinders yet, so her first response was to frown in confusion.

Then, she said, "Ah! My phone!"

She pulled it from her back pocket, flipped it open to an unfamiliar number, and said, "Hello?"

"Martha, it's Tim," said the voice on the other end.

"Hi, Tim," she said. "What's up?"

He sighed. "I think we have a problem."

"Of what sort?"

"Last night, after I left you guys and came back into the flat, Curtis was sitting on the sofa, watching telly. He said that he wasn't able to sleep."

"Okay, with you so far."

"Well, that's not like him. The guy sleeps like a log, especially if he's dealing with some conundrum or other… but that's neither here nor there. The point is, we talked a bit about the implications of what we're doing. I mean… okay, for example, there's this woman named Jessica who lives in our estate, and she has asked us a couple of times to do stuff so her boyfriend will be more of a… you know, model boyfriend. I've always felt weird about it because it's never seemed right manipulating people, and I've talked with Curtis about that in the past. But I've always just let it go because Jessica's boyfriend is a prat, and it's always minor things."

"Oh, good. Seems like a good segue-way into, erm, you know… not manipulating Stephanie Havilland."

"I didn't really go there," he said. "I just told him, overall, what we're doing is wrong because there's too much power involved, and too much potential for shit to go wrong. I put my foot down and told him we're not doing it anymore."

"What did he say to that?"

"He cried," Tim reported.

"Because he was sad?"

"Hard to say. I know that doing this was a good outlet for him. Losing that will be hard. I also know that he felt pretty good about contributing to the household income, which is something he's never been able to do before. Who knows? It could be because he was relieved. Or even because he isn't sure what Mrs. Marais or Jessica will do now that he's not available."

"Okay, Tim, I don't see how any of this constitutes a problem. Didn't you ring to tell me there was a problem?"

The Doctor stared at her with interest.

"Yeah, there's a problem," Tim said. "Because this morning, I went in to wake him, and I discovered… he's already started the drawing."

"What? The one for Edge?"

"Yep."

"Why? How could he… why?"

"He said he didn't know what else to do. He said his brain and his fingers got itchy."

"Oh, God," she groaned.

"What's happened?" the Doctor asked.

"How far has he got?" Martha asked Tim,

"The figures are only complete, basically from the waist-down."

"So, you can tell what they're doing…"

"…just not who they are," Tim finished.

"Okay. What did you do with it?"

"I confiscated it, told him I was going to burn it," Tim said. "But he screamed so loudly when I said that, that I didn't have the heart to. Do you think I should?"

"Burn it?" Martha asked.

"Burn what?" the Doctor wanted to know, the phrase having sent off bells in his brain.

Martha looked at the Doctor. "Curtis has begun the drawing."

"Shit," the Doctor groaned, pulling one hand down over his face.

"The people in the drawing are complete only from the waist-down, so you can tell what they're doing, but not who they are. Tim threatened to burn the drawing, wants to know if he should."

"No, he shouldn't," the Doctor responded. "We don't know if reality has manifested somewhere or other for someone else, or for Edge, or for… we just don't know. Maybe somebody, somewhere, is shagging because of that drawing. If we burn it, we don't know what it would do to them."

Martha said, "Tim, did you hear that?"

"Yeah," responded Tim. "So what do we do?"

"Well, do you think you can put Curtis on?" Martha asked. "Maybe I can talk him into abandoning it for now, and letting me handle it."

"You?" asked the Doctor. "Just you?"

"Just for his benefit, Doctor," she said. "He doesn't listen to you."

"Okay, hang on," Tim said.

Martha switched her phone to speakerphone, and laid the apparatus on the table."


One more time, Tim and Martha (and to some extent, the Doctor) tried to talk to Curtis about how he can't just draw things without the proper barrier between himself and the galaxy that allows him to manipulate reality. They talked to him about the wrongness of manipulating anyone, let alone in the way that Edge wanted Stephanie Havilland manipulated. Curtis, in the end, swore he understood what they were talking about, but repeated the sentiment that his brain and fingers were "itchy," and he didn't know what else to do.

"I think he's also reeling from the fact that I've cut him off from doing this sort of thing ever again," Tim said.

"I'm not reeling," Curtis protested. "I don't reel. I just don't like it."

"The point is, mate, can we count on you not to take any further steps in that drawing until we've worked out what to do?" Martha asked him.

Curtis grumbled something unintelligible.

"What was that?" the Doctor asked, before he could stop himself. Even he realised, after it was out of his mouth, that he sounded a tad judgemental.

"Yes! You can count on me!" Curtis shouted, in response.

"Great, thank you," Martha said, before the Doctor could agitate the man any further.

"Curtis, you're being rude," Tim scolded.

"Well, what do you want from me? Haven't bloody slept since this whole bloody thing began, and I am experiencing the corresponding irritability!" Curtis snapped back.

"Oh, that's your excuse for being irritable today?" Tim chuckled.

"Curtis, why don't you take a sleeping pill?" Martha suggested.

"I don't know…" Curtis said, with trepidation.

"I know that putting drugs into your body doesn't sound like the best way to handle a stressful situation," Martha said, anticipating Curtis' misgivings. "But just this once, you have my blessing. Me, Martha Jones, M.D. Just take something over the counter. Even a good, strong antihistamine. You've had enough of thinking, Curtis, and you just need sleep."

"We'll see if we have something in the medicine cabinet," Tim said. "Thanks, Martha.

"Okay. If you don't find something, ring me back."

After that, the call ended.

"Well… what now? Stick to plan A? Research on the magnetic field?" Martha asked the Doctor.

"Yes, except…" he said, trailing off. He took a contemplative sip from his coffee, then finished his thought. "I think we should just go there."

"To the Ifasma?"

"Yes. And interact with the magnetic field. What's it called?

"The Axiothe Field."

"I think we should go hands-on, study it ourselves."

"Okay. Sounds… like something we would do."

"Doesn't it just?" he asked, with a bit of a manic smile.


The next thing Martha knew, they had traded their library plans for one that included flying into a totally foreign part of the universe, looking for God Knows What.

"Whoa," Martha said, feeling something tug at the floor beneath her, enough to put her momentarily off-balance. More accurately, she felt something tug at the entire TARDIS. "How far away are we?"

"A hundred thousand miles or so," he said, realising that her question was warranted. "That's quite the pull."

"What's it pulling? The box is wood."

"Well, we can't assume that the Axiothe Field only tugs on metal."

The TARDIS was drifting in space, but they had just begun feeling the effects of the Axiothe Field surrounding the Ifasma Galaxy, as there was definitely a trajectory now, without the vessel's instruments doing any work… they were being pulled in.

"But," the Doctor said. "It works to our advantage, because the TARDIS can calculate distance and velocity and other factors involved in this pull, and work out just how strong this thing is."

He stared at the screen and seemed to be contemplating the measurements the vessel was taking. This went on in silence for several minutes.

And then, both of them were lifted off their feet, momentarily, only to fall to the side, as though the console room had been turned sideways… but that's not how the TARDIS worked. Even when the box was lying sideways, one's feet stay on the floor.

However, they now found themselves standing on the wall.

"What the hell, Doctor?"

"Damn," he hissed. "It's messing with the TARDIS' gravity modulator."

Suddenly, the force pulled them toward the door, and they stood on the wall, just above the TARDIS' main entrance/exit.

The Doctor "climbed" to the left, and grabbed onto a railing that bordered a balcony, lining half of the console room. He held onto it, and told Martha to do the same, just in case, things changed again. Then he began to attempt to climb the floor, to perhaps make his way back to the console.

"What're you doing?"

"I'm planning to see whether we've taken all of the readings available, and if we have, then I will get us out of this orbit," he said. "Failing that…"

"Whoa!" she cried out as the gravity changed again, and they now found themselves standing on the domed ceiling. Because of the way the Doctor had been climbing (tenuously) it caused him to fall, and land in a heap. Martha sort of ran down the wall until she reached a comfortable point.

All too quickly, it changed again, this time quite suddenly, and they both fell hard to the floor.

"Quick, Martha!" the Doctor cried out. "Hit the blue button!"

Martha's wrist was injured in the fall, so when she tried to push herself up to standing, she winced, and failed. She struggled to get to her feet, and found a blue button on her side of the console – it was currently flashing.

She hit it with her non-injured hand, then said, "What does it do?"

"Gravity booster," he said, making adjustments to the controls on his side. "Hit it! What're you waiting for?"

"I did!" she replied, just before they were pulled off their feet again, and gravity switched to a different wall.

And then the ceiling again.

Then the opposite wall.

"Are you sure you pressed the right button?" he asked.

"Flashing blue light?"

"Yeah!"

"Yes – I pressed the riiiiiiiight…."

Over and over they got jerked to the side, down, up, to the side again.

"Doctor, how do we get out of this? I think I've broken my wrist!" Martha shouted.

"I can't do anything unless…" he began.

And then the real force began.

They could feel the TARDIS begin to move, in the direction it had been moving for the past several minutes, only now, at a breakneck speed. Mercifully, gravity stayed constant. The Doctor and Martha crouched down with their feet on the front wall of the console room, with the floor and controls to the side.

"Can't do anything unless…?" she asked.

"Unless I can get to the controls," he said. "And the last thing I tried didn't work at all, so maybe not even then."

"Great!"

"Do you really think you've broken your wrist?"

"Hard to say," she said, momentarily allowing herself to cradle it, before applying both hands to steadying herself again. "Maybe not… you're totally at a loss, then?"

"There is one other thing I could try…"

"What happens if we just keep getting sucked in?"

"I have no idea," he admitted, holding onto one of the roundels at his feet, with white knuckles. "I suppose that depends what gets in our way."

That was when they began to hear the whoosh. A tremendous sound surrounded the TARDIS, that sounded a bit like wind, a bit like a vacuum cleaner, but definitely like they were being swallowed by something. Their velocity picked up…

…and picked up again. The noise became louder.

"What is that?" Martha shouted, wanting to cover her ears with her hands, but afraid to take her hands away from the cables she was gripping.

"Martha, this is all new to me," he told her, shouting back. "I don't know anything right now!"

Louder still.

Martha screamed against it. It hurt her head and her ears.

The Doctor now followed suit. His tolerance was higher, but they'd now reached his limit.

He yelled out a curse.

They both realised they were frozen in place. The force, the gravity, the noise, everything was creating a perfect storm that meant they were paralysed.

"Oh my God," Martha whined, and a sob welled up in her chest. She let it out, tentatively, afraid to cloud her vision, but unable to hold it in. "Doctor, this is horrible!"

"I know! I'm sorry! This was a bad idea!"

"My head is going to implode!"

"No… no it won't…" he assured her, without any sort of certainty.

"Are you sure this isn't a black hole?" she asked, and then screamed more.

He didn't answer…

And then, there was a loud bang, and suddenly, the TARDIS stopped quite suddenly. Slowly, gravity brought them back to normal, with their feet on the metal floor.

"What was that?" she asked, each word coming out sharply, individually, slowly.

He studied the readings on the screen. "We've come through the barrier," he said. "We're on the other side of the Axiothe Field. Inside the galaxy."

"Out of its range?"

"Erm… I guess?" he said, squinting harder, typing commands into the computer. He waited, then said, "So, the field only tends to work in one direction. It sucks in passers-by, but doesn't spit out what's inside."

"That's… bizarre. Isn't it?"

"Yeah," he agreed. "That means it's not just magnetic, it might be sentient. Which means it can be manipulated."

"Good," she sighed. "That's something, at least. Manipulated to do what?"

"An idea is forming," the Doctor said. "This thing got into the TARDIS' inner-workings and messed up its gravity. It practically got into our brains, just through physical force. Imagine how that could be combined!"

"Sounds bloody dangerous."

"It is. How's your wrist?" he asked.

"It hurts a lot. Can only move it slightly," she answered, examining it against the side of the console.

"Okay. Let's make sure we're not going to get blasted into some planet's gravity by a space cannon or something, and then I'll examine it. Otherwise, are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm lucky it's just my wrist. You?"

He nodded. "I'm fine. Probably covered with bruises, but fine."


We will definitely learn more about the Axiothe Field, and how it might be of use!

Crickets have been the pervasive noise in my head... why not leave a review, and make it a little louder? Just take a moment...

And THANK YOU for reading!