so here, finally, is the next chapter. it took me way longer than I intended, but hopefully the length of this chapter will help to make amends :) thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, you have no idea how much it helped!
anyway, please read and enjoy!
by the way, i have a slight obsession with Downton Abbey. there is a line taken directly from the Christmas Special in this chapter, let me know if you see it! :)
Chapter 5 ~ It's Me, It Really Is
Donna and Cora were both concerned. Moving along the corridor they had chosen they had found no evidence that people were being experimented on here. They just found an empty corridor, with doors leading off it into empty rooms. Admittedly they had found signs of some kind of habitation in those rooms, rotting holes in the floor, parts of the concrete rooves ripped away, a room entirely covered in slime. There had been one room full of furniture, beds and tables, littered with empty beer bottles and tinned food cans, clear sings of human habitation. The sight of that had sent Donna into such a rage that she hadn't spoken for the last five minutes.
Cora walked a bit further down the corridor and opened another door while Donna trailed behind her, fuming silently. She walked into the room, finding her self in what seemed to be some kind of armoury. Donna followed her and looked around at the strange weapons, and said, 'these aren't from earth are they?'
Cora glanced over her shoulder, surprised, yet glad, that her friend was speaking again. 'No they're not. Actually, I'd say that they are from a range of different places, judging from the variety'. She picked up a bronze trident from where it was leaning against the wall and examined carefully, 'see, this one is from a planet where all the inhabitants are fish-like creatures. It's not as primitive as it looks, it can heat water to boiling point in a split second if they want it to, or it can freeze it'.
Donna backed away from it slightly, 'does that mean that the number of weapons here adds up to the number of people we're up against?'
Cora replaced the trident and folded her arms, 'I hope not, because if we are then we are seriously out matched'.
'Maybe we should grab something then? I mean, just to be on the safe side' said Donna anxiously, finding her self really not in the mood to fight hundreds of people unarmed.
Cora shrugged and turned to a rack of objects, 'I don't see why not. The Doctor is always going on about negotiating rather than resorting to violence, but there are just some people you can't reason with so there are exceptions. Besides, I'm really not in the mood to negotiate today'. It was clear that she meant it, and Donna knew without a doubt that she shared her friend's opinion.
Donna walked over to a shelf lined with dozens of objects, all of which resembled some sort of gun-like thing. She stared in bemusement at the hundreds of buttons and intricate wires that stuck out of some of them and then grabbed one that didn't look too complicated. The gun had a long body, with two handholds, the back one containing the trigger, and a circular piece of metal set just in front of the back handhold. The barrel was made of metal, and resembled something like an eggbeater in her opinion. She turned back to Cora; holding the gun gingerly in front of her, just encase it turned out to be some kind of bomb.
Cora was standing over near a rack of swords, holding a long knotted wooden staff in her hands, which was about a metre high and a couple of inches thick. It whistled through the air as she spun it around several times and then pressed a small button in the wood, camouflaged as a knot. Two very sharp blades slid out of the ends. Cora nodded as if confirming something and pressed the button again, concealing the blades once more. Donna decided this was a good time to interrupt and said, 'Cora, this is a gun right, not a concealed bomb?'
Cora turned to face her with a smile on her face, when she suddenly froze and stared in horror at the weapon in Donna's hands. 'Donna, where did you find that?'
Donna had decided a while ago that she shouldn't freak out whenever Cora was shocked at something, seeing as she was from the future, and said calmly, 'over on the shelf, there was only one. What is it?'
Cora swallowed, 'it's a gun like you thought, but it's based on the design of a Dalek gun stick'.
Donna frowned, slightly surprised by the obvious disgust in her voice, 'what's a Dalek?'
Cora shot Donna a look of surprise, before understanding dawned, 'oh of course, you wouldn't have met them yet. What are they? Only the most foul creatures in the universe and you had better prey that its just a coincidence that gun is here because of there is a Dalek here then we are in serious trouble'.
Donna frowned, 'what makes them the most foul creatures in the universe?' she was slightly shocked by the venom in her friends voice; even when she had been talking about whoever had caused all this to happen she had never sounded so angry.
Cora clenched the wooden staff hard and glared at it, saying, 'they have no humanity, no emotions, nothing to prevent them from destroying an entire civilisation just because it's there. They have only one aim in their miserable lives, and that's to make their species the more dominate and to survive'. She seemed to shake herself, 'never mind what makes them that way, they were engineered like that and there is no way of changing them because they have no desire to be changed'. She looked around for a moment and then picked up an ordinary human gun from the floor, 'do you think you could use this? It will make me feel a little better'.
Donna replaced the gun and accepted the offered replacement without hesitation, saying as she did, 'you sound as if you really hate these…Daleks or whatever. How did you meet them?'
Cora moved towards the entrance, saying, 'its not so much meeting them that made me hate them, though that did help to contribute, but its knowing what they've done in the past, and the fact that all through history they have never done anything good. My parents have both met them, my father many times, and the Daleks tried to have them both killed. My mother hates them. My father pities them in a way, he hates them of course, but he pities them for their lack of ability to change or to feel anything at all. He tried to teach me to pity them but my first meeting with them sort of destroyed all that work. I don't think I have ever hated anything so much in my life'.
They were walking along the corridor again now, and Donna felt as if the very air was full of Cora's hate for these creatures. After a relative pause she whispered, 'so how do I meet them, because if I can I would like to avoid it. Actually, how do you even know that I meet them?'
Cora grimaced, 'you told me about it and you said it was one of the single most awful experiences of your life. Aside from being zapped into the TARDIS on your wedding day'.
Donna smiled slightly, and then a thought stuck her, 'so you know me in the future then? Does that mean I am still travelling with the Doctor? It sounds like you know me quite well'.
Cora scrunched her face up, mentally adding another thing to the number of slip-ups she had made, 'I don't think I can tell you that, sorry'.
Donna made a face, 'can you tell me anything?' it was something she had been wondering ever since she had come to the conclusion that Cora was the future Doctor's companion. What had happened to Donna herself? Had she left? Been left? Had she died? Or was she still travelling with both the Doctor and Cora?
Cora weighed her options before giving in with a sigh, 'all right, I'll tell you one thing that I know won't upset anything' she paused for a second before continuing, 'you're happy. That's all I can tell you, you're happy and you wouldn't have anything any other way, as you yourself said'.
Donna opened her mouth to say something when she suddenly noticed that there were shadows moving towards them from a side corridor they were approaching and suddenly became aware of voices. She reacted as quickly as she could, pushing Cora roughly under the shadow of an arched doorway, blocking them from view as well as she could. She turned her back to Cora and peered around the edge of the arch. The creatures gathering in the corridor seemed to be of several different races. There was one of those fly creatures, and several more humanoid beings, including a creature that looked entirely human except for strange silvery patterns that covered its entire body, with golden eyes. There were a dozen or so in all and each and of them was carrying a weapon, except for the fly creature. They seemed to be discussing something in urgent low tones, one of them making wild gestures.
Donna swallowed slightly and whispered, 'Cora we've got trouble'. When there was no reply she turned to look at her friend and immediately moved towards her. Cora was lying slumped against the door, her head lolling on her shoulder, quite clearly unconscious. Donna realised with some horror that when she had pushed Cora into the doorway she must have tripped and her head must have hit the door. Donna moved closer to her friend and frantically pressed her fingers against the base of her neck, unable to consider that she could have killed her friend.
What happened next was a moment that Donna would remember for the rest of her life. Because instead of one pulse beating against her fingers, she felt two. Two twin pulses beating steadily away in her friend's neck. Donna jerked her hand away and stared at Cora, momentarily forgetting where she was as shock washed over her. As the world spun she remembered what Cora had said earlier; my father pities them, he hates them of course, but he pities them. And she remembered Cora's brief hesitation when Donna had asked whether she was the Doctor's companion, how she had said that Martha had been with them when this had all begun, and all the little slips she had made since then. And as she stared at her, stared at her properly, taking in the familiar features and countenance, she suddenly knew what had been lurking at the back of her mind for a long time.
Before she could fully process this though, Cora's eyelids flickered and focused hazily on Donna. Cora's lips moved silently for a second before she murmured, 'what happened?'
'You tripped over when I pushed you', whispered Donna, almost literally forcing the words, she still felt so shaken. 'I'm sorry', she was, she really was, she had thought for a split second that she had actually killed her.
Cora shook her head and the blurriness faded, 'I'm all right'. She was about to continue when she finally saw Donna's expression properly. Beneath the concern and relief, Cora could see an almost haunted expression, mixed with a profound feeling of shock, on her friends face. She frowned slightly, 'Donna? Is something wrong? You look shocked'.
Donna gazed into the deep brown of Cora's eyes, and knew immediately that there was no way she couldn't tell Cora what she knew, not now that she knew exactly where she had seen those eyes before. Donna shifted so that she was leaning against the door with her friend and leaned her head back against it, wondering exactly how to begin to tell Cora what she knew. Cora sat up with a slight struggle and watched her friend, trying to push down the feeling of dread inside her. After a brief pause Donna said quietly, 'Cora, when you introduce yourself to people in the future, do you call yourself Cora Smith, or Cora Jones?'
The Doctor leaned forward slightly and then back again when she shied away from him. He took a deep breath through his nose in an effort to calm himself before saying, 'Martha, its me, the Doctor'.
Martha just continued to stare at him, trembling with either cold or fear, he couldn't tell, but there was no change in her expression, nothing to show that she knew him. After a moment she whispered, 'I've told you everything I know, why are you here? And don't you think its about time you used something else?'
The Doctor stared. 'Martha I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what's happened to you here, though I can guess, but whatever it is I am so so sorry'. He held out his hands pleadingly, completely at a loss for what to do. 'Martha…please I know its hard but you have to believe that I'm here to help you'.
Martha closed her eyes, 'Doctor…I can't, I just can't throw myself into your arms and trust that it is you because I've done that before and its always turned out to be that blasted shape shifter'. She swallowed and looked at him again, searching for some sign that it was him as she continued, 'I always thought I would know you, that was one of the only things I was sure of, that I would always know that it was you. They took that away from me within a few hours of being here. I want to believe it's you, I really do, but I just can't'.
The Doctor put his head in his hands, unable to bare the broken tone in her voice, unable to bare hearing that someone had once again used him to hurt the people he loved, and in this case the person he loved with all his hearts. He looked up again slowly and gazed into her eyes, trying to express that it was him, because for once he had absolutely no idea what to do. After a second he said, 'is there a way I can prove that I am the Doctor?'
Martha looked away, unable to see the defeated expression on his face, even if she wasn't sure that it was him, and said quietly, 'if you were the real Doctor you would know the answer'.
The Doctor took a deep breath, slightly comforted by the knowledge that not all was lost. He spent a moment trying to work out what to say to her, when he remembered something. Taking another deep breath he said, 'do you remember the day we first met, and we were transported to the moon?'
Martha smiled despite herself, 'how could I forget?'
The Doctor continued to look into her eyes as he went on, 'do you remember how I asked you to come out onto the balcony, and how you didn't hesitate, even though I told you it would be dangerous? You just followed me out onto the balcony, out onto the moon bathed in the earth's light. Do you remember what you said?'
Martha shook her head. But she did remember, she remembered exactly what had happened; she just wanted to hear him say it. The Doctor smiled wistfully, 'You said that it was beautiful. You should have been terrified, frightened at least, that you were standing on the moon and you were still able to breathe properly. But while almost everyone else in the hospital was screaming themselves horse, you were gazing at the surface of the moon and declaring it beautiful'.
He could see that she was affected by the story, knew that she knew that no one else could possible know that as they had been completely alone at the time, but he could still see doubt in her eyes. So he reached out slowly and took her hands in his, and gently pulled it towards him. She didn't resist to his surprise, just watched him with large eyes until he had laid her hand over his chest. Underneath his shirt she could feel the steady beat of his twin hearts and the breath she had been holding whooshed out of her as she laughed with relief. That had always been what gave away the others, either she had noticed that they weren't acting like the Doctor or she hadn't been able to feel his heartbeats. He gazed down at her with hope as her face flooded with relief and warmth and never felt so relieved. She looked up at him and smiled, 'it really is you'.
He nodded and leaned forward, resting their foreheads in together, nearly overwhelmed by the relief that was rushing through him, and murmured, 'its me'.
They stayed like that for a few minutes, both comforted by the fact that the other was there. For Martha, she was still coming to terms with the fact that he was there, that he had actually found her, that he wasn't a fake. The Doctor was just relieved that he had finally found her and that she seemed relatively unharmed and that he could finally make her safe. He swore silently to himself that it would be a long time before he let her out of his sight again. Neither was aware that the Doctor was still holding her hand to his chest.
Suddenly the moment was broken as Martha's body abruptly twitched and convulsed violently, her limbs flew out from under her as her body jerked wildly. The Doctor grabbed her and pulled her onto his lap, holding her tightly as she continued to shake, to prevent her from hurting herself. His hearts were pounding in his chest as he held her small frame in his arms; all sorts of scenarios as to what the cause could be springing to his mind, fearing that he was going to lose her again. Finally the convulsions settled down until they ceased with a last tremble. The Doctor held her to his chest for a moment before pulling away slightly and looking down into her face, saying urgently, 'Martha, talk to me, please'.
Martha smiled weakly, 'I'm all right', at his expression she insisted, 'no really, I'm all right, it doesn't hurt'.
He leaned her back against the wall and knelt in front of her, searching her eyes for any sign that she was in pain. When he found none he said, 'so what caused that then?'
Martha continued to grip his hands in her own, needing his warmth, the only warmth she had felt since being there. 'I trust you've seen the other experiments?'
A shadow passed over his face as he nodded, silently urging her to continue. After a moment, she did. 'What they've done to me is far less drastic and inhumane. I'm not sure why there are so many of them here, or why they all look so disfigured, but from what I've heard I think they were the beginning experiments and that the people here were just trying to get used to manipulating DNA'. The anger and disgust in her voice was clear and she had started to shake again. The Doctor sat down beside her and put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her gently against his shoulder and keeping their hands linked. This was enough for her to continue, albeit slowly. 'They keep referring to me as the 'final experiment'. Apparently they had been trying to achieve the same thing for a long time but that it just wasn't working and people were just being driven insane as a result. Until they found me'.
'Why you?' asked the Doctor, 'was there a reason? Or were you just in the wrong place at the wrong time?'
She smiled slightly, 'I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But when they started to experiment on me, they found that for some unknown reason it was working. They said it was something to do with me having mutated cells, because of the time travel'. She stopped at this, seeing the way his face closed up, and said, 'its not your fault Doctor'. She knew him too well to hope that he wasn't blaming himself.
The Doctor shook his head angrily, 'yes it is. If I hadn't taken you with me then you wouldn't have something growing inside you that caused you to convulse randomly and—'
Martha interrupted him, 'Doctor, you were one of the best things that ever happened to me. You opened my eyes to what was really out there and I have seen things that most men and women could only dream about. Besides, if you hadn't taken me and I had still been experimented on then I would have gone mad. I'm in perfect health Doctor, or as close as I can get to it in the current situation. Its not hurting me. The convulsions are just a side affect of it reaching a new stage in its growth development, my body reacts that way because its not used to it. They're a lot more violent at the moment because, according to the people here, it's almost reached its full growth'.
The Doctor couldn't help the slight thrill that rushed through him when she said that he was the best thing that ever happened to her. But there was a more pressing thing on his mind at that moment. For one, she hadn't actually told him what this 'it' was that was growing inside her, and he was busy imagining all sorts of different things, the most pressing one being some sort of embryo. He shifted against her, brushing his thumb gently over her shoulder as he whispered, 'what is this thing growing inside you anyway?'
So his surprise Martha pulled away from him slightly so that she could look at him properly. Her eyes were fraught with conflict and she bit her lip before saying, 'I don't know if I should tell you, you might not be able to handle it'.
The Doctor leaned forward and took her hands in his again, saying; 'now you really must tell me because nothing could be worse than my imaginings'.
Martha hesitated for a moment before nodding, 'alright, but you must remember that I have no idea why they are doing this, nor how its even possible. And you must promise me that you won't faint'.
The Doctor raised his eyebrows, 'it would take a lot to make me faint'.
Martha laughed softly, 'this is pretty big, trust me'. She studied him for a moment, noticing the new lines on his handsome face and wondering what had been the cause for that. His appearance was even more dishevelled than usual; his hair stood up a hundred different directions, his tie was loose, his shirt was crinkled and he had buttoned it the wrong way. He was gripping her hands tightly, all most too tightly, as if he was afraid that she would slip through his fingers if he held her gently. She pulled one of her hands away and touched his cheek, 'I'm not really sure how to tell you; its not really something I can say'.
He leant into her hand, wanting more of the soft contact, 'then show me'.
She swallowed, praying that he wouldn't freak out, and then used both her hands to pull his head towards her on an angle. He didn't resist, but followed her lead, leaning forward on his hands and knees, and when she bought his head against her chest he didn't pull away, though it did cause his hearts to start pounding a million miles an hour at being this close to her. He wasn't sure exactly what she wanted to show him but he didn't mind, he was content to rest there for a moment, eyes closed, listening to her heart beat. His eyes snapped open. He sat up slightly and pressed his ear more firmly against her chest, paying more attention, unable to believe it when he heard it. His ear was resting in the centre of her chest and he could clearly hear her heart, but there was another sound, a slightly softer echo that was keeping in time with her heart. He shifted all most unconsciously, bringing his ear to the right side of her chest, and the echo grew louder, becoming a slightly fainter heartbeat. He couldn't just hear it; he could feel it, feel her skin move with each pulse. And though the evidence of what was really going on was right in front of him, it took a moment for him to realise exactly what this meant. Because this changed everything. Martha was growing a second heart.
sorry, i know its a really bad place to end the chapter! what do you think?
suggestions are welcome, but please review!