Disclaimer: Look up 'posses' in the dictionary. When you do, there'll be a picture of me underneath, and I'll be saying "I don't do this."
Okay, so it turns out we weren't going to see my grandparents, but instead we had a surprise holiday to Spain! Woohoo!
But that meant I had no chance of updating. So have a chapter. I'll try to get another one up soon to make up for the delay.
Chapter 18: Not Quite The Answer
"This way." Rose said quietly, leading the way quickly through the forest. "I think I know somewhere we can hide."
"We've got to keep going." John insisted, thrusting branches out of his way as he ran after Rose, but she spared him not a glance.
"Just listen to me for once, John." she replied tiredly, wiping her forehead with her arm as she stumbled through the night. "Follow me."
Martha didn't speak, just followed the two through the forest.
- - - - - - -
Inside their ship, the Family were all at work.
"Fully armed and ready." Jamie reported. "Mother, Father and Sister of Mine, prepare the armaments. I doubt that England is ready for this! Fix targets... and counting down."
He flicked some switches and buttons on the green glowing wall and smirked.
- - - - - - -
Rose stopped abruptly outside a small, lone cottage, and John and Martha stopped beside her, Martha breathing heavily.
"Here we are." Rose said, looking up at the house. "It should be empty."
"But who lives here?" Martha asked as the three of them made their way to the door.
"If I'm right, no one." Rose told her, and pushed gently on the door. It opened easily, and she walked in, flicking on the light to show a small living room with a large television and a fire in the centre of the room.
"Hello?" she called, but there was no reply. "No one home. We should be safe here."
"Whose house is it, though?" Martha asked again, and Rose sighed distractedly.
"The Prices. That girl at the restaurant, she's Helena Price - or she's taken Helena Price's form. If she came home after... that happened, and her dad tried to do anything, then he vanished." She suddenly looked at John. "Her mum's Angela Price."
John looked confused, as if he felt he should remember that name. Rose stepped closer to him. "D'you remember, John? Do you remember Mrs Moore?" she asked him, more tears in her eyes. "She died for us."
John backed away, seemingly horrified by this news, and Rose looked to Martha with sorrow. She heard John sit down on the sofa behind her.
"I must go to them before anyone else dies." he said suddenly.
"You can't." Rose told him, sitting beside him and resting her hand on his knee. She looked up to Martha again. "Martha, there's gotta be somethin' we can do."
She shook her head. "Not without the watch."
"You're this Doctor's companion!" John spat, hating the words with a fierce rage. "Can't you help? What exactly do you do for him? Why does he need you?"
"Because he's lonely." Martha said simply, and John didn't reply instantly. Rose felt her heart sink slightly, just at the mention of the Doctor's life without her. She'd wanted him to find someone, to be happy again. And what had he become instead? John seemed to think the same.
"And that's what you want me to become?" he asked, not expecting an answer.
Nobody spoke for a while, but then Rose gathered the confidence to address Martha. "You and the Doctor..." she started uneasily.
"I'm just a friend." Martha said quickly, banishing any thoughts screaming otherwise to the back of her mind. "I'm not... I mean you haven't got a rival, as much as I might... Just his friend." she finished shortly. Rose nodded.
"How did you even get here?" she asked, frowning. "The Doctor said... he said that the breach was closed. There shouldn't be any way across - and believe me, I've tried." she smiled sadly, but Martha just shrugged.
"I don't know." she sighed, sitting down on the seat opposite the sofa. "The TARDIS was setting off; I'd put in the co-ordinates but then I changed my mind. I pressed something, and it started crashing around, and I fell against the panel, and... and I don't know what I did."
"I'll be surprised if it can even get us out of here." Rose suddenly realised.
Martha looked up, eyes wide with shock and worry, but Rose was prevented from explaining further as there was a sharp knowck on the door. The three of them looked up instantly.
"What if it's them?" Martha asked in a whisper, clutching the fabric of the seat tightly in her hands.
"I'm not an expert," Rose began, edging towards the door, "But I don't think mannequins knock." She opened the door uneasily, but sighed with relief as Kate was revealed, with reddened eyes and a tear-stained face. She stumbled in and Rose shut the door behind her.
Kate held out her hand in a fist and slowly opened it. "I brought you this." she said quietly, and everyone looked down to the beautiful metal fob watch in Kate's hand.
"Martha..." it whispered excitedly, and Martha leapt up from her seat and grabbed the watch from Kate.
She smiled slightly, caressing the watch with her finger, and then turned to John, holding out the watch to him. He stood slowly. "Hold it." she asked him softly.
"I won't." he refused, shaking his head.
"Please, just hold it." she pleaded, holding it out at arm's length. John looked to Rose and Kate, and then to Martha's begging face, and finally to the watch.
"It told me to find you." Kate told him shakily. "It wants to be found."
"How come you've had it all this time?" Rose asked quietly to Kate, who looked directly at John as she spoke.
"Because I was waiting." Kate said, afraid of he words she spoke. John looked up at her, and they made eye contact. "And because I was scared of the Doctor."
"Why?" Rose breathed, though she knew the answer herself. She had felt it before.
"Because... I've seen him." Kate said confidently. "He's... like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun."
"Stop it." John told her shakily.
"He's ancient and forever." she continued, like a spell cast across the sky. "He burns at the centre of time and he can see the turn of the universe."
"Stop!" John said, louder. "I said stop it!"
"And... he's wonderful."
There was a pause, where Martha looked to Kate and Kate looked to John, and Rose locked eyes with her lover and tried to read his thoughts. But, just like his Time Lord counterpart, nothing showed through his exterior of worry and sadness.
Rose reached into her pocket and drew out the journal, surprised that she had it on her. "I've still got this." she spoke into the silence.
"Those are just stories." John was adament.
"Now, we know that's not true." Rose said, not looking at him. "Maybe there's somthin' in here."
She opened it up and flicked to the latest entry, but before she could read anything, a thunderous crash shook the house, and Rose dropped the book with shock.
"What the hell...?!" Martha exclaimed, dashing to the window, and Rose and John crowed round her. Kate gasped and let the watch fall to the floor alongside hte book, then dashed to the window behind Rose. In the night sky, asteroids were falling like rain, barely one mile away. Their faces all showed the same expression of shock and worry as they gazed out upon the fires erupting from the ground, and Rose felt her stomach flip over with fright.
"They're destroying the village." Rose said shakily, not noticing as John turned around and saw the watch on the floor.
"Watch..." John muttered, bending down to retrieve the object, and Rose spun around.
"John, don't." she asked him, afraid of what could happen, then cursed herself. Didn't she want the Doctor back?
"Come closer..." John heard, and he stroked the markings intimately, drawn by the voice, so familiar and yet so mysterious.
"Can you hear it?" whispered Kate, who had turned aorund with Martha and were now also watching John, the falling balls of fire almost forgotten.
"Closer..." it beckoned, "Closer..."
"I-I think he's asleep." John told the others, not looking up from the watch. "Waiting to awaken."
"Why me?" Kate asked, not expecting an answer. "Why did it speak to me?"
Suddenly, John looked up, his now wide eyes snapping up to meet Kate's lonely ones. "Oh, that's just the TARDIS playing up 'cause we're not supposed to be here." came the Doctor's confident voice, flowing quickly and flawlessly from John's mouth. Rose's face lit up, thinking the Doctor was back, and Martha looked up, confused but overjoyed. "Time's all over the place at the moment. You were lonely and emotional after your boyfriend died; I was -" he cut off, drawing back and inhaling deeply. "Is that how he speaks?" John asked, his voice returning to his own shaky speech.
"That's him!" Martha exclaimed happily, stepping forward. "All you have to do is open it and he's back!"
John looked up, momentarily letting his fury get the better of him. "You knew this?" he asked her, helpless. "You knew this all along, and yet you watched while Rose and I -" he broke off, seemingly unable to even say the words. Martha stepped forward again, her heart braking at John's words.
"I didn't know how to stop you." she told him truthfully. "He gave me a list of things to watch out for, but that wasn't included."
"Falling in love?" John asked disbelievingly. "That didn't even occur to him?"
Martha hesitated. "No." she said, her eyes watering at the sadness of the situation and the incredible sound of the explosions outside.
"Then what sort of man is that?" John asked furiously. "And now you expect me to die?"
"It was always going to end, though!" Martha reassured him. "The Doctor said the Family's got a limited lifespan. That's why they need to consume a Time Lord. Otherwise, three months and they die. Like mayflies, he said."
"So your job was to execute me?" John told her, and her heart shattered.
"People are dying out there." she said sadly, tears threatening to fall. "They need him, and I need him. 'Cause you've got no idea what he's like. I've only just met him. It wasn't even that long ago, but he is everything..." Rose smiled distantly, remembering ow she felt after her first adventures with the Doctor, and she suddenly felt so sorry for Martha, having to cope with this burden all on her own. "He's just everything to me," Martha continued, looking straight into John's eys. "And he doesn't even look at me, but I don't care... 'cause I love him to bits. And I hope to God he won't remember me saying this."
The house rocked with explosions, but only Kate noticed. Both John and Rose were regarding Martha with utter surprise.
"It's getting closer." Kate reported, not expecting anyone to care. And indeed, nobody did, as John had just thought up a plan.
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