SIXTEEN
The conversation had drained her more than she had anticipated. The Doctor was right – Jack needed to know. After all, someone had to break the news later on...
And her mum would have pried it from her eventually. She had deemed it easier to have the difficult discussion now rather than wait and dread.
But now, she rather wished she had put it off for a bit. It was a lot to cope with, having just regained full use of her faculties. She still had the Dark Doctor in her mind to handle, plus the proper Doctor, probably now parked outside and waiting for her.
She had begged off from the agonising confab in the kitchen in favour of a hot shower. She now stood under the hot water and sobbed, probably loud enough for others to hear. She sort of hoped they couldn't, but she was too far gone to stop. She wept for the six months lost needlessly to her unreal world of nightmares, and for her own muddled brain still laden with the awful images. She wept because of the weight now lifted from her shoulders, now that she was free. She wept for her mother, who certainly had no qualms about weeping herself, but whose pain Martha could never take away, ever. And most of all, she wept for what she and the Doctor together had lost; their unabashed, unashamed love, and the product thereof. She had never had the chance to do that, and now was the time.
But eventually, all things run down, and she became tired of crying. Her body was literally drained of tears, and she simply stood in the shower, contemplating, remembering...
When they'd landed in New York, she felt pretty good. Amazingly, as a matter of fact, considering the circumstances. The Doctor had broken the awful news about the possibility of terminating the pregnancy only three days before, and she had spent the subsequent fifty-five hours in bed, laid flat by the sickness of it. He had lain with her as she languished, held her hair back when she vomited, fed her toast and fresh fruit when she needed it, even when she couldn't stand it. He had tried to share in her pain as much as he could, but in the end, it was always she who couldn't sleep, and she whose guts turned inside out, and she who woke in the wee hours with nightmares and dry heaves.
But somehow, after seven days of violent morning sickness, it gave her a much-needed respite. Martha dared to hope that this meant that the worst was over, her body was not 'rejecting' the new specimen, and that the baby would be human. Her spirits were lifted by this thought, and she was able to get up and at 'em and take the Big Apple by storm. Besides, she'd always wanted to go to New York – the real New York, not the cheap reproduction they'd seen on New Earth in the future.
Things unfolded as usual. They turned up for a bit of fun, but had gotten drawn into an epic battle between good and evil in which the Doctor tried to protect innocent bystanders from the crossfire, and Martha watched in horror as he nearly sacrificed himself to save humanity. It was starting to become par-for-the-course with them, but it was still quite exciting! They went about their work with enthusiasm and wonderment, never discussing their dilemma, not really even allowing it to cross their minds. Of course, it was a bit like the elephant in the room that no one mentioned, but it was nice for Martha to have a respite from her morning sickness and mental agony for a bit.
Adventure took her mind off her troubles. She had achieved a delicate balance. And then the glass house came crashing down. She'd been snatched by pig slaves from Tallulah's theatre and taken down into the sewers. Once there, she'd found Frank, which was nice, but then the two of them, along with a slew of others, were marched forward in a doomed trek toward God knew what. When the Daleks came, their question had been answered. She and the others were told to line up.
Amid the chaos, she shouted out, "Just do what it says, everyone, okay? Just obey!"
The loud, robotic thing agreed with her. "The female is wise. Obey."
Another of these beings showed itself around the corner, and asked for a report.
The first replied, "These are strong specimens. They will help the Dalek cause."
That word rang a bell: Dalek. She wasn't sure when and where she had heard it before, but she could obviously see that this was not a good situation, so the when and where of it couldn't be that important.
"I will extract prisoners for selection," the Dalek said. "Intelligence scan – initiate."
It put a device that resembled a toilet plunger in the face of a frightened-looking man. He pulled back as far as he could, but the Dalek had him up against the cold stone wall. It seemed to scan him, and then said, "Reading brain waves. Low intelligence."
Defensively, the man asked, "You calling me stupid?"
"Silence," the Dalek ordered him. "This one will become a pig slave. Next."
The man resisted, insisting he would not become one of them, and Martha could not blame him. How could anyone face a future as a pig/human hybrid, low intelligence or not?
The Daleks had systematically scanned each person in the line, sorting them into low and high intelligence groups. Apparently, those of superior intelligence were to become part of the "final experiment," the details of which, of course, they would not divulge. Frank was sorted into the high intelligence group, and then the plunger was stuck in Martha's face.
She had watched her fellow humans treated like cattle, sorted into piles like merchandise. The anger rose up in her, and she almost wished she had someone nearby to hold her back from screaming. Her senses were so clouded, that she almost missed it when the Dalek scanning her announced, "Incompatible. Not fully human."
"Repeat," asked the second Dalek.
"Incompatible," the first repeated. "This specimen possesses three hearts. This female is not fully human. She is incompatible with the final experiment."
Her anger exploded right there. "You can't just experiment on people! It's insane! It's inhuman!" By the time she reached the final word, she was screaming.
"We are not human," the Dalek answered flatly.
Still, the implications of what had been said had not hit her. She had heard the words, but she was not given time to think about what three hearts meant. All she knew was that being "incompatible" with these Daleks probably didn't mean that she would be set free to roam in the pasture.
"Prisoners of high intelligence will be taken to the transgenic laboratory," the Dalek announced. "This inhuman specimen will be taken before Dalek Sec, and then exterminated."
Of course the Doctor saved the day as he always did, this time by hybridising his own DNA with that of the Daleks, infusing human subjects with "just that little bit of freedom," as he put it. As this unfolded, Martha wondered why it was that these humans could walk about with Time Lord DNA, but she could not. She never had the chance to find out, as they were all killed as a network, but she resolved to ask the Doctor about it later.
But she forgot to. The drama of what the Dalek had told her overtook their lives. Once they were back in the TARDIS and headed elsewhere, the full weight of three hearts hit Martha, and amid a rain of tears and anguish, she told him what she'd heard. Neither was surprised, but both were grief-stricken nonetheless.
And part of their grief came from knowing that sometimes when life and love was at stake, difficult decisions had to be made. The Doctor began preparing himself for what needed to be done.
Captain Jack wasn't sure why it hadn't occurred to him. He'd been so taken with the fact that the Doctor and Martha had been shagging across the constellations, he'd failed to see the obvious. Of course it was a pregnancy! Of course that's what would put a stop to their dalliance and warp Martha's mind into thinking the Doctor was the enemy.
He lay in his hotel bed, though not alone tonight, staring at the ceiling. The semi-anonymous prone figure beside him had long-since fallen asleep, and just as well because he could not remember this person's name anyhow. He thought back to his time with them. Their adventures together happened quite a while after the pregnancy would have ended, especially if you factor in the two months the Doctor and Martha spent stuck in 1969, and the three months they spent hiding in 1913. Dear God, that must have been torture.
He smiled in the dark at how many things made more sense now. He thought about the evening the three of them holed up in the abandoned warehouse for a few hours while running from the Master. The Doctor had gone all mad scientist and set up a makeshift workshop in order to make workable perception filtres out of the three TARDIS keys. He'd demonstrated how they worked, and then was raring to go.
As he dashed out of the room, ready to take on the world, Jack had suggested that they stay for a few more hours, perhaps get some rest, as none of them were sure when that particular opportunity would arise again. As long as no one had found them yet, the idea seemed sensible. It was now eight o'clock. At midnight, they all agreed, they would move on.
Jack had folded up his coat under his head, and lain near a broken window so that he could look at the stars. The Doctor and Martha settled near the fire. After about ten minutes of silence, Jack began to overhear a conversation.
"Are you all right?" the Doctor had asked.
"Yeah, just the usual. You know, death and mayhem, running for our lives. I guess it's starting to take its toll."
"I suppose I could see that," he said.
After a pause, he heard Martha ask, "Why, do I not seem all right?"
"Actually, lately, you seem to be a bit more up. You'd been so depressed," he commented.
Jack heard her exhale, but she didn't say anything for a long time. When she finally did speak again, she seemed to be crying.
"I just keep thinking about..."
"I know, I know," the Doctor said soothingly. "It's going to take time, Martha, for both of us. I think about it all the time, too. I guess I'm just more used to loss than you are."
Her next words seem to have been spoken into the breast of his suit coat. "Lucky you," she joked.
"Yeah," he said back to her, and Jack could tell that he was smiling just a little bit.
She gave a little moan. "Can't we just jump forward to a time when it won't hurt so much anymore?" she asked.
"I'm afraid it doesn't work like that," the Doctor told her. "Real pain takes real time. But you know what? Without that, without feeling, without the bad with the good, what are we? We're just shells."
A long pause, and when Martha spoke again, she said, "I took the bad! I experienced the pain, and I still feel like a shell sometimes. Like my insides were lost, and now I'm just empty."
"Again," he said trying to soothe her again. "It takes time. I know I've said that like six billion times in two billion different ways, but I promise – a day will come when it won't be so raw."
"It's already been five months."
"And look. Five months ago, you could barely even get out of bed. Now you're here with me, hiding in an old abandoned warehouse from the Prime Minister of Great Britain. I'd call that progress."
Another long silence ensued, and finally Martha repeated the Doctor's words. "Real pain takes real time."
"Yes," he told her. "And real love is worth it."
"At this point... really?"
"Yes, really."
Eventually the talking stopped and Jack drifted off to sleep. He obviously had wondered what had happened between the two of them to cause such pain in Martha's voice. He had picked up on the fact that Martha loved the Doctor desperately, but not that the reverse was true – he assumed that this conversation had to do with some planetary adventure, and the lessons about real love were theoretical and part of some great lesson.
How little he'd known then.
