Apologies for the barely edited garbage! Will come back and edit eventually! But an update is an update I guess!
Orla rolled over in her Medbay cot feeling sore. A glance to her left revealed a peacefully snoozing Ian and, to her annoyance, a newly formed crick in her neck.
"Feck," she whispered, rubbing at the knot in her shoulder with little to no effect. Sighing, she stood, relocated to Ian's cot, and started in on his vitals.
Martha had walked her through the process on the second day, when it became obvious the Medbay would be getting new and improved 24/7 security in the form of one Orla MacKenzie. The doctor-to-be had decided it'd be in everyone's best interest to equip Orla with some of the medical basics, insistent as she was on staying by Ian's side. And Orla, grateful for something to occupy her buzzing mind, became a stellar student.
"Temperature still a little high," she mumbled, pulling the thermometer out from under Ian's tongue. His skin was looking better, she noted mentally, hooking the pressure cuff up to his bicep next. She watched as it inflated with each of her measured pumps.
"I don' actually ken what blood pressure is," she narrated aloud, staring down the pressure dial, "but yer numbers check out." She glanced at his face with a grin, hoping to catch a glimpse of his ugh, leave me alone preteened annoyance. But of course, he remained still.
"Ye'd think after three days…" Orla cut herself off. There was no point.
Sometimes, isolating herself to the Medbay was a healing experience, getting to watch over Ian after having been denied the privilege back at Farringham. Other times, it was suffocating. The unfamiliar instruments, the strange, lifeless chirps like metal birds that carried the tune of death. But considering the alternative, a welcome mat might well be in order for as much as Orla had made herself at home in the sterile Medbay room.
As much as she hated to admit it, the TARDIS, as she'd now come to call it herself, scared her. Its unfamiliarity, its vastness, and, perhaps worst of all, its intrigues. She'd seen what the place had done to Martha. Her cynical, clever friend was…changed. All laughs and jokes and unabashed joy to be back in her spaceship. So much so, Orla sometimes wondered if their previous life, back at Farringham, would've ever been enough for Martha. It made Orla anxious to consider what this meant, so she didn't.
And it's not like she had reason to complain, after all. Martha was happy. That was a good thing. But somehow, in her happiness, Martha had become utterly unrecognizable. And with her only friend in the world so fundamentally changed, Orla was left clinging to the last semblance of normalcy that'd survived in Ian, who, asleep as anything, wasn't exactly the person she needed in her corner at the moment.
Lonely. Yes, it was lonely.
The smell of coffee wafted through the Medbay just as Orla finished checking on the dilation of her brother's pupils. Assured by their responsiveness, she allowed the scent, and her stomach, to guide her to the kitchen. It wasn't long before she spotted Martha humming along to one of those music machines and rifling through the cabinets.
"Mornin'," Orla greeted, pulling out a chair at the table. There were only ever two, and she wondered, not for the first time, where the Doctor ate. Or if he ate at all.
"Hey," Martha called happily over her shoulder. "Glad to see you're awake. You want croissants, toast, porridge, or cereal? I guess we have waffles too—they're a tad stale at the 'mo—but 'spose I could throw those in the toaster for you if you please?" She rattled off.
Orla took a few long moments to process. What had Martha said again?
"I haven't tried cereal yet?" She offered, unsure.
Martha smiled, turning back to the cabinets to sweep up three boxes and place them on the table with a flourish. "We've got Weetos, Shreddies, and Crunchy Nut on hand."
More options. Orla had eaten porridge every single morning of her life before stepping onto the TARDIS. Plain or sugar? Those were the only questions she was used to dealing with this early in the morning.
"How about your favorite?" Orla suggested, eyeing the childish graphics decorating each box with a skeptical air. Martha seemed pleased with this reply, however, plunking two bowls, spoons, and a jug of milk on the table before distributing a generous helping of Shreddies between them.
Orla chewed through her thoughts.
Martha had opinions on things Orla couldn't even fathom. The color of her shoes, how well the ink flowed out of her pen, the staleness of the waffles... It was endless. Always something to critique or praise, as if her opinion mattered. As if it could change anything.
Except, as Orla was coming to learn, her opinion did matter. Martha had options. Every single day spent in the TARDIS presented more and more of them-an infinity of choices to fulfill her infinite desires.
It was odd.
It was refreshing.
Her whole life, Orla had been told what to do. Wash the dishes, sweep the floor, make the bed, hang up the laundry, be quiet, do as I say, fuck me you stupid whore.
Options? Not really.
But three days on the TARDIS had Orla wondering if maybe she could have options, too.
"How come ye're here?" Orla blurted out, brushing a fleck of overenthusiastic shreddy from her blouse, hoping her friend hadn't noticed.
Martha frowned. "I've told you about the Family," she said, slowly. "I can explain again, if you'd like? I know it's all a bit confusing and I'm sure—"
"No!" Orla interrupted, immediately embarrassed by the needless passion in her voice. "No," she tried again, "I ken that. Well, as best I can. What I meant is why are ye here. The TARDIS. Ye've told me about yer bein' a doctor, about yer family back in 2007. But why did ye leave it all for this?"
Martha took a moment to contemplate the question. If she were honest, she didn't entirely know herself. It was instinct, more than anything. Curiosity, too. But those weren't answers, not the kind Orla wanted. So, pleased by her friend's sudden and unprecedented interest in TARDIS life, she attempted an explanation.
"I met him in the hospital, the Doctor. And he just had this confidence about him I found…compelling," she began, remembering their episode on the moon with fondness. "Oh, and the two hearts. That definitely had something to do with it."
Martha flew into the story, taking Orla through the highs and lows of being into outer space by "interplanetary thugs" searching for a "blood sucking shape shifter" bent on taking out an entire hospital of victims if it meant avoiding the "Judoon."
It was ridiculous. And amazing. Like one of those fantastical novels Ian stole from the Farringham library and raved to her about whenever she had a spare moment to check in with him.
"So he chose ye," Orla questioned, blinking away the fantasy of the tale and trying to get to the heart of her question. "Ye're here because he chose you? Because ye were the cleverest in the room?"
Martha shook her head and laughed. It was a wry laugh. "No, actually, I chose the Doctor," she admitted with lowered eyes and clenched fists. "He tried to dump me after my second trip. Took a bit of convincing, him."
Orla couldn't possibly know that this was a point of contention in hers and the Doctor's relationship. How could she? That Martha was always the second choice, which is to say, not a choice at all. Because Rose Tyler, a girl she'd never met and never would, had somehow managed to steal the Doctor's heart all the way into a parallel universe. Somedays, Martha wondered if the Doctor even saw her at all,
"Och, that's lovely, Martha," Orla exclaimed, clutching the girl's hands with a new, strange hope.
"What?" Martha said. How could that possibly be a good thing?
But Orla's mind spun. Gaps bridged. Because this was another one of those pesky choices, wasn't it? The Doctor hadn't chosen Martha. He wasn't a Fae lord seducing the young and beautiful to his world of wonders. No, Martha chose him. This life. With knowledge of what it would contain, no less.
Farringham shrunk in Orla's mind's eye as the possibilities grew. Because didn't that mean that Orla could choose this life, too? The one with croissants and waffles and cereal for breakfast? With infinite beds for her to sleep in? Time and space, her sandbox.
It was tempting, but she wasn't being tempted. And there was a difference! One she clung to with for reasons she couldn't even quite explain.
"Okay," Orla said finally. Her thoughts slowed as another question arose. "So, ye do all these things outside of the TARDIS, but what exactly do ye do inside the TARDIS?"
Martha chuckled at the seeming non-sequitur from her strange, strange friend. "You know what," she stood, taking their empty bowls to the sink before returning to take Orla's hand. "I think it's about time for the tour."
It'd come up before, but Orla's utter disinterest in anything TARDIS related had previously postponed exploration. This was certainly a step forward, Martha noted, pride warming her heart.
Orla nodded, allowing Martha to tug her towards one of the branching corridors.
Soon, though, Martha's brow furrowed with remembered annoyance. "I forgot," she said. "I tried these doors a few days ago. They don't open." It was an obstacle, to be sure. But Martha wasn't willing to give up. Not yet. Not when Orla was finally coming around to this whole thing. "No worries," she exclaimed with feigned cheer. "We can check out the library, that one's open. And I think the pool is…still…Orla, what are you doing?"
Orla didn't respond because the door before her, tall, oak, bronze handle, called to her in a way she couldn't explain. She could feel the cool metal against her palm. Hear the click of the lock as it opened for her. And it did. Open.
"I could've sworn I tried that one…" Martha murmured as the pair walked through the bare frame.
Inside was the most beautiful sight Orla had ever born witness. The smell overwhelmed her, fragrant and heady. A trickle of water from a nearby fountain pounded out the same rhythm as her heart. Before Orla was a garden of forking paths.
Smiling, she explored.
Questions. So many questions…
Do people still go hungry in the future?
Do poor people still exist?
CAN MEN GIVE BIRTH YET?
…of which required many disappointing explanations of capitalism and the patriarchy. After several hours of wandering and question-answering in the garden with Orla, a bit of quiet in the library seemed more than a good idea to our Martha Jones.
But after none of the books which would usually interest Martha (smutty historicals, thought-provoking dystopians, trashy supernaturals…) could hold her attention for longer than five minutes, she gave up and decided to gather a pile of books that might be more suited to answering some of her friend's broader queries about what the future held for the human race.
Just as Martha reached for a Where's Wally? book, beach edition, a swish of something two cases away caught her eye. Hyper aware of what happens to black people in horror films, Martha called out a hesitant, "Hello?" before stalking forward, just in case any friendly face-sucking aliens were nearby and willing to bargain for her freedom.
"Hello?" She tried again, moving deeper through the stacks despite her previous caution, because despite a well-developed sense of self-awareness, Martha was an adrenaline junky above all else.
To her relief and mild disappointment, Martha found another alien, trying and failing miserably to camouflage up against a wall of rather erotic-looking Harlequin paperbacks.
She arched a singular, petulant brow. "Doctor?"
"Martha," he addressed with his nose between the pages of a crumpled bodice ripper. (Martha wondered what he was up to in this section in the first place, but argued there were other questions that took precedence)
She prowled forward, snatched the book from his hands, and tossed it over her shoulder in a confrontational stance. "So you've been hiding out in the library, have you?"
The Doctor sniffed defensively. "I've been…around."
"Sure, sure," she said before grabbing hold of his tie and dragging him bodily to a sofa located at the center of the library where any attempts at escape would be futile. "Spit it out," she demanded before flopping onto the sofa opposite with a smile the Doctor suspected he'd seen on her mother Francine's face some time ago at that Lazarus function. It certainly set the tone for this particular conversation.
"What?" The Doctor said with the innocence of a toddler gum-deep into a stick of pristine butter.
"Why have you been avoiding us?"
Because he had been. Avoiding them, that was. Martha hadn't seen the Doctor since their first night in the TARDIS, and the kitchen chairs, only ever two, conveyed some knowledge of the Doctor's intentional absence. But why was he hiding out? Martha hadn't a clue. And she intended to figure it out.
The Doctor hemmed and hawed, and generally took his damn time with any sort of explanation. But eventually, with enough scowls and crossed arms to persuade him, the Doctor fessed up.
"Look, Martha, he began. "I'm from your immediate future."
"Yeah, I know that!" She interrupted, and the Doctor scowled.
"But do you? Really? Do you know that if I slip up for even a second, and give away something from the future, I'll be vaporized from the timeline and—"
Martha's heart sank, and immediately, the Doctor felt guilty for his outburst.
"No, no, don't worry. It's not painful. I wouldn't even know what happened," the Doctor reassured her, though Martha felt anything but reassured. He was really starting to regret worrying her, but this was important. Perhaps it was best she knew. "The fact of the matter is if I tell you something you shouldn't know, and events fail to unfold as they did before minus this one change, just the one–which, by the way, is somewhat doubtful now that I've interfered—"
"So why did you!" Martha interrupted again, despite herself. She really couldn't believe what she was hearing. Putting himself, their timeline, in danger like that?
He shot her another pointed look. One that seemed to say That's a Doctor-vaporizing-question. But there was something else there. Something dark and painful in his gaze that had Martha swallowing thickly around the dozen more questions bursting from her like a curious cat begging to be killed.
"So now that I've decided to interfere," the Doctor continued patiently, though there was that look again. Sad. Very sad. "It's very very important I keep things on track. So no hints. No sneak peaks. No easter eggs. Because if my timeline gets eaten by the time vortex, I won't be able to interfere with this one, and Ian doesn't get the help he needs."
That meant none of what had transpired in the past three days had been a fixed point. But somewhere, further up the timestream, there was one. An important one. One that couldn't be messed with if Martha knew what was good for herself and the rest of the human species (why did it always have to come to that? The human species? ). It meant Ian's death wasn't important in the grand scheme of things, which sounded horrible, but allowed Martha to piece together that it must have already happened.
In another timeline, Ian dies, prompting the Doctor's savior attempt. And it could work, theoretically. Time was durable: it would adjust and Ian could live as long as no one so much as looked at that fixed point wrong.
But then, why was the Doctor still here? He'd done his job. Ian was safe, tucked away in the Medbay. So why, if it was so dangerous for him to remain in this loopy bit of his timeline, was he still here?
Martha frowned, not quite understanding. "I can continue his treatments, Doctor. Really. It's just Scarlet Fever, and now that I have the proper tools, you can head back to your point in the timeline and leave us to it," she offered, suddenly more assured than she'd been this entire conversation. She could be the one to keep the Doctor safe. Granted, she'd been taking care of John Smith this whole time, but somehow this felt different. Useful. She smiled. "I am almost a doctor, after all. Think I can manage an antibiotic drip and some sedatives."
The Doctor dragged a hand down his face. "While the TARDIS is on her emergency setting, she operates on the barest minimum to avoid expending vortex energy. It's highly detectable stuff, particularly to anyone looking."
And there are people looking, as they both knew.
Martha nodded, thinking back to her own Sunday trips to the TARDIS. It'd been just the console room and Medbay then, and only the loo immediately outside either had been functional, or rather, existed at all. There'd been sparse pickings in the kitchen, too, but it wasn't as if she'd been complaining about the fresh fruit after weeks of cold porridge.
"But the TARDIS trusts me," he smiled briefly at the ceiling, and Martha wondered if the machine had somehow confirmed the statement to him privately. "As long as I'm here, rooms open up, supplies get restocked, and dishes get put away. You know, how it normally is, but on a smaller scale," he modeled with his hands, and Martha watched as they shrunk from open-hug distance to the width of a grain of rice. "Much much smaller scale. Miniscule, really."
"Okay, so no Doctor, no TARDIS, no medical supplies…" Martha summed up, but stopped prematurely as they silently finished, no Ian.
The Doctor's grim look was starting to make sense.
They sat in a tense silence for some moments longer, and despite being let in on the stakes to this particular TARDIS reprieve, Martha couldn't help but smile. Maybe it was the science jargon, or the stressed spike to hair, or maybe it was just him—whatever it was that made the Doctor the Doctor—but she was struck so suddenly, the punch-to-the-gut type of striking that WWE wrestlers would surely be jealous of, by just how much she'd missed him.
"Martha…" he hedged, nervously wondering if his companion's lips usually wobbled like that? "What, what is it? Is something wrong?"
And Martha tried to say No, but it really came out more like a croak. And just like, she'd launched into his arms with a sob.
Now this really worried the Doctor.
But never one to turn down a hug, not even a blubbering, tear-stained one, the Doctor squeezed her tight. Adjusting on the sofa so as to compensate the extra body, he hushed and cooed and rubbed circles into Martha's back with all the composure of someone with centuries of practice in hiding when they were really quite concerned.
And with time, 6 minutes and 12 seconds, to be exact (not that the Doctor was counting, because really, it was instinctual), Martha detached herself with a final sniff.
One brief but scrutinizing look later, the Doctor pulled her back in for another cuddle, and Martha was grateful.
He made sure to ask, "Better?" while her head was still tucked into his shoulder so as to give her the time to decide for herself, and pulled away only once feeling her nod.
"Spit it out," the Doctor said once she'd wiped the tears out of her eyes, not because he was mad, or that he even really needed her to explain, but because it was what Martha had said to him not ten minutes earlier, and he knew it would make her laugh.
And it did.
Which really just emphasized her point. "I missed you, that's all."
And it quite nearly choked him up, too. But those extra centuries were coming in handy again because the Doctor was just able to manage, "I missed you, too," before he had to clamp his mouth back shut against the choking noise trekking up his throat.
And despite his sincerity, Martha couldn't help but giggle. "Yeah, right," she accused, though it didn't hurt as much as it might've if she hadn't just spent the last five minutes in his embrace. "John Smith was indifferent to me. At best!" She exclaimed, adding her misgivings about the proper Doctor and his usual indifference to her silently.
"Untrue!" the Doctor gawped. Which, of course, caught Martha's attention.
"Oh?" she smirked, though the puffy eyes somewhat distracted from the intended effect. "Prove it." And knowing exactly what the Doctor would say in response, "Without vaporizing your timeline."
He thought for a long moment, sifting through which details were potentially universe ending—okay, parallel universe ending—and which were harmless enough to back his claim without causing Martha to change any of her previous behaviors towards John Smith (which of course, would change pre established events).
It was difficult. He considered endless possibilities.
After a full minute of contemplation on the Doctor's part (which was really equivalent to about an hour in human contemplation), and a not-so-equivalent minute of stewing on Martha's end, he'd come up with exactly one, one, example. It would have to be enough.
So when he finally broke the silence with, "I keep the TARDIS pretty tidy, don't I?" Martha was more confused than anything.
"Sure, yeah," she replied. Then, never missing an opportunity to tease him, "But I'm also pretty sure she does that on her own."
"Ah, but she wouldn't if I didn't ask!" The Doctor proclaimed, as if he'd just punched a grievous hole in Martha's argument.
And with some thought, she supposed he had. Because the TARDIS didn't tidy the spaces that weren't frequented by either the Doctor or herself. The library, for example, could pass the scrutiny of Mr. Dewey Decimal himself as long as you stuck to the more popular book shelves. Get 30, 40 stacks in, and things got a little more dubious. Another 20 after that, and you'd start finding toothpaste and courgettes and shoelaces filed away between the dustier tomes, as if they were meant to be there all along.
All the same… "Your point?"
"Martha Jones," he said in a lecturing tone. "Then why did John Smith, a man who by all accounts should've maintained my penchant for tidiness, insist no one tidy his classroom?"
It was an interesting question, Martha could admit. Mr. Smith's classroom was…chaotic, to say the least. Not dirty, per se, because despite his best efforts, the maid's were required to complete their biweekly dusting and mopping of the classrooms on a strict schedule. But messy? Oh yes. From Martha's memory alone, which, to be fair, was slightly hazy (it'd been a while since she'd gone in there), all the space in front, behind, on top, and under the teacher's desk was littered with, well, everything. Books, files, important documents, you name it. It made her shudder just to think.
But despite how easy it would be to let a maid, namely Martha, come and clean it up for him, he went out of his way to post a note on his door demanding no one tidy up instead.
"I don't know, why?" Martha pretended to humor him even though her curiosity was more than piqued.
"Because he didn't want to give you the extra work," the Doctor said with a shrug. As if it were nothing.
"Oh," Martha breathed, because it was everything, in its own way.
Because of course it was no great sacrifice for John Smith to go on working in a pigsty for a couple of months, but it was the exact sort of thing that allowed Martha to squeeze what little free time she had in her schedule to do the one thing that made her feel truly herself at Farringham—doctoring.
And as if he'd seen the revelation on her face…"Dr. Jones," he shook his head with a smile. "Suits you."
Martha beamed, thinking how maybe she hadn't needed to give her classroom shifts to Orla after all. But that was the beauty of the Doctor's example. Why it was the only one that worked. Because Martha wouldn't take the shifts back—she still had her doctoring to attend to after all. And the explanation of John's actions, as touching as they were, was just insightful enough to illustrate the Doctor's point while being small enough to not inspire any real tangible change in her behavior towards the teacher moving forward. In other words, just right.
"So no, I didn't remember you as John Smith," the Doctor summarized. "Not with the implanted memories, not properly. But I certainly wasn't indifferent." And he met her eyes with the sincerity of, well, The Doctor. "Because know it or not, Martha Jones, you are incredible. And people take notice."
John Smith noticed.
The Doctor noticed.
Thank you as always dearest Alikai for your reviews!
And Notary Sojac! Welcome back to my page! I never got to thank you for your kind and thoughtful reviews on Designated Driver, and your equally kind and thoughtful comments on this fic. Thank you so much :))) Your ability to sympathize with my characters will never fail to astound me (especially bc I am also a clear Martha sympathizer ;) ), and I'm just as happy to hear you liked the Doctor's definition of faeries-I ripped it almost directly from my Folklore professor's powerpoint loll
See you guys soon (hopefully)! I genuinely can't wait for summer when I can dedicate more time to updating. I know I said I was happy for the break from Farringham but...I'm really excited for what happens in the chapter when we come back, whoops. If all goes according to outline, that'll be chapter 10! But yeah, more John Smith in a big way mwhahahaha