I was at ACross last weekend and I got a scene from chapter 45 commissioned. And the lovely flypup on tumblr also drew a scene not too long ago :D It's from very early on in the story. Chapter 5, I think. You can find them both - along with other fanarts I've recieved - in the WSITW tag on tumblr.
I hope you've enjoyed these last few relatively slow, fluffyish chapters. NOW BACK TO THE PLOT.
Jack and Martha were in the conference room. It was small room on the second floor, with a large table with a computer built into it, a phone and two sleek, curved lamps on top. Six chairs were positioned around it, two on each side, and one at each end. Jack sat at the head of the table and Martha was seated to his left. Both of them were watching the news on the screen on the opposite wall. He had ordered a plate of sandwiches, a bowl of tuna salad, and a small fruit platter from the nearby deli. They were already eating by the time Rose and the Doctor got there.
The ex-Time Agent looked them up and down with a critical eye and pressed the mute button on the remote. "About time you two turned up."
"Mmm." Martha covered her mouth with her hand. "I stopped him from coming after you," she said around her food.
The Doctor and Rose exchanged an annoyed look as they sat down on the empty side of the table. They grabbed paper plates and loaded them up with food, while Jack poured them each a glass of apple juice. He gave them a few minutes to eat in peace before he started telling them what they had missed.
"Saxon won in a landslide," he informed them curtly.
Rose exhaled slowly through her nose and closed her eyes.
"He's already come from his meeting with the Queen. I've tried calling the entire team several times, no answer from any of them. The Brigadier called, though, and he's used his influence with UNIT to prepare them for an imminent threat. I told him you were here by the way, and he says hello," he added to the Doctor, who smiled. "We went by Martha's so she could get a change of clothes—"
Rose nearly dropped the bite of food she had just taken, and had to catch it with her hand, shoving it into her mouth. She chewed quickly, realizing for the first time that Martha was wearing different clothes—a dark green sweater and black pants. Rose swallowed, and then asked, "How?"
Jack tapped the vortex manipulator on his wrist. "Didn't we tell you? The Doc repaired this thing. It's at full capacity—functions as both a time traveling device and a teleport. Surprised it didn't wake you up. You felt it when we teleported here the first time."
"Ah, that was me," said the Doctor. "You started to wake up, but I figured it wasn't important, so I sort of telepathically encouraged you to go back to sleep."
"Speaking of telepathy…" Jack prompted.
"'s okay, I told him." Rose smiled. "You should've seen his face."
Martha looked between the three of them, discerningly. "I'm missing something."
"Long story short, part of the TARDIS's consciousness is slumbering inside Rose's head, and has enhanced her natural telepathic capabilities," the Doctor explained with cheerful smile. He lifted the sandwich to his mouth and took a hearty bite.
"Seriously?" Jack looked between them. "That's what's caused all this?" Rose nodded and Jack cocked his head to one side for a moment and then shrugged. "Makes sense, considering the timing."
"So you can read minds?" Martha queried.
Rose bit her bottom lip. "Well, yes and no. I can't just tell what your thinking. But if I was to go inside your head then, yes, I could. I can do it from a distance, like the TARDIS, but they always know I'm there."
"Is it permanent?"
The Doctor set down his sandwich, and wiped his mouth with the back of this hand. "Once the TARDIS retrieves the piece from inside Rose's head, she may go back to normal, or her natural telepathic abilities may be stronger. Or she'll retain telepathy entirely. We have no way of knowing. But, for now, she's telepathic."
"And she's good at it, too." Jack added proudly.
The moment the Doctor turned his attention back to his food however, Jack gave Rose a disapproving frown. She shook her head almost imperceptibly. She wasn't trying to hide everything from him, she just…hadn't found the right moment to tell him the rest yet. The telepathy revelation had just been on a whim, fueled by her giddiness at waking up in his arms.
She glanced Martha's way and realized too late that her old friend was watching them with narrowed eyes. Rose gave her a pleading look before returning to her food.
"Anyway," Jack continued loudly. "When we got back, I did a check of the cells. Janet's acting a bit oddly."
"Oddly?" Rose deadpanned.
"Remember when we broke up that Weevil Fight Club?"
Rose sighed. Yes, she did. Owen had been in a bad place and he had nearly gotten himself mauled to death by a Weevil in the fight ring. She had been able to save his life. Not that he had been very grateful. "Why?"
"And do you remember how Janet was acting then?" he asked. "Same thing."
She set down her sandwich. Of course she remembered. It had not been a pleasant experience for her. "Someone's hurting the Weevils?"
"Think so. Need you to talk to it."
Well, she had seen that coming. Rose looked between Jack and the Doctor for a moment. "I don't think that's a good idea right now. Remember last time?"
Jack sighed and nodded. "Alright, fine. But will you do it later?"
"Later," Rose agreed. "Now what else?"
Jack looked at Martha. "You want to tell them or should I?"
"I'll do it." Martha exhaled slowly. "I think I might have something. I went looking through some of the files earlier before you two turned up. Doctor, you said the Master is hypnotic."
"Yes."
"How's it work?" asked Martha.
"Well…" The Doctor furrowed his brow. "He can make people do or believe whatever he wants. It's just a psychic trick; I can do it. I can also undo it. I've always been able to un-hypnotize his victims. But it was always one or two. Never this many at once."
"I think I know how he's doing it." Martha looked between Jack and Rose. "The Archangel Project that Saxon launched. He's got fifteen satellites in orbit around the world. They carry all the mobile networks in the world. All of them. Every single mobile phone is connected through the same interface. Who in their right mind would agree to something like that? Sure it might be convenient but it's also easier to control."
Understanding began to dawn on Rose. They had always suspected the Archangel Project was bad news, but they had been missing one crucial piece of the puzzle. Now that they understood the Master's hypnotic skills, it was so obvious.
"Brilliant," the Doctor murmured. "Billions of cell phones, all connected, all controlled by the Master. He could listen in on anything, track anyone, and project a signal all across the world."
"And no one saw the flaw, no one protested because he was able to hypnotize those in power to let it pass." Martha went on. "Britain's networks went to Archangel. And by the time the foreign networks were asked to join, his signal was projecting around the world."
"Not at full power," added the Doctor, "but inflecting everyone in its range, just enough that they would've thought it was a good idea for all the phones to be on Archangel."
Martha nodded.
"Oh, Martha Jones, I have said it before, and I will say it again. You are a star!" He pushed away from the table and leaped to his feet. "Of course he'd use phones! Computers would allow more information, but with phones he gets more range. Everyone has phones these days. Everyone he needs to convince, anyway. But, but! He couldn't use his usual tricks over the whole world for this long. People would begin to question it, break free of it, and soon everyone would know the truth. But no, no, no." He raked his hands through his hair, pacing back and forth along the table. "He knows that, he wouldn't risk it. So what is he projecting through the phones? Think, think, think."
"Something subtle?" Rose prompted.
The Doctor froze for half a second then whirled around. "One of you, give me your phone!"
Rose pulled hers out and tossed it to him. He caught it, pulling out the sonic screwdriver, and turned it on. "Wait, wait, wait. Hold on." He banged the phone against the table and it began to emit a soft rhythm. Four beeps, over and over, the same rhythm.
Beep-beep-bee-beep, beep-beep-bee-beep.
One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four.
"There it is," the Doctor growled, setting the phone down on the table. "That's how he's doing it. That rhythm, containing layers of code, whispers away inside your heads day and night, telling you to trust Saxon, to believe in him."
Rose's fingers began to mirror the rhythm. There was something intimately familiar about it. Tap-tap-tap-tap.
"Oh, yes!" the Doctor hissed. "Of course! That's how he hid himself from me. 'Cause I should have sensed there was another Time Lord on Earth. I should've known way back. The signal cancelled him out."
"I know that rhythm," Rose murmured.
"It's been ticking away in your head for over a year."
"No, no. I know it," she insisted. Tap-tap-tap-tap. Rose looked at her fingers. Her pointer and middle were tapping out the beat together. She stopped, and then resumed with her fingers tapping one after the other, two beats each. It clicked. "Oh…" she breathed. "Doctor…look. Listen." She tapped her fingers harder, more insistently, watching his face intently for a hint of understanding. "Like mine…but doubled."
The Doctor swallowed. "Oh. The heartbeat of a Time Lord."
The four of them listened in silence as the rhythm cycled through several times.
"That's your heartbeat?" Martha asked.
"That's what it sounds like. Don't you remember the first time we met? You listened to my heartsbeats."
"That was a year ago, Doctor. I don't even remember what I had for lunch that day."
He cocked his head once. "Fair enough." Pointing the sonic at the phone once more, he silenced the beeping.
Rose returned it to her pocket.
Jack grunted, leaning forward, propping his elbows on the table. "Well now we know how he's doing it. But can you stop him?"
The Doctor sighed. "Not from down here."
"But we can fight back," Rose said.
He grinned at her. "Oh, yes!"
"Look!" Martha gasped suddenly and pointed at the screen on the wall. "Turn it up, quick!"
Harold Saxon was on screen, seated at a desk in front of the ornate fireplace in the Cabinet Room. Jack fumbled with the remote for a few seconds then un-muted the TV. "—Britain. What extraordinary times we've had." Even still his voice made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and her skin to crawl. "Just a few years ago, this world was so small. And then they came, out of the unknown, falling from the skies."
Saxon disappeared and footage of the Slitheen ship crashing into Big Ben filled the screen.
"You've seen it happen," his voice continued. "Big Ben destroyed, a spaceship over London."
Then news footage of the ghosts appearing followed by Cybermen on the attack.
"All those ghosts and metal men."
More footage, this time of the Racnoss ship over London.
"The Christmas Star that came to kill."
Rose dug her fingers into the table. She understood it better than anyone else. After all, she had lived through it all twice over.
"Time and Time again the government told you nothing." Saxon came back on once more. "Well not me. Not Harold Saxon. Because my purpose here today is to tell you this: Citizens of Great Britain…" He paused, seemingly too overwhelmed for words. "I have been contacted. A message, for humanity, from beyond the stars."
"No way," Rose said. "He hasn't got—"
"Shhh," the Doctor hissed.
Saxon had disappeared once again and a new video was playing. A single metallic sphere hovered in front of a black background. Two fissures ran across the top half and around the lower half, with lights that flashed through them as it spoke. "People of the Earth," it greeted in a female voice, "We come in peace. We bring great gifts. We bring technology and wisdom and protection. And all we ask in return is your friendship."
Saxon made a face somewhere between humored and affectionate. "Ohh, sweet. And the species has identified itself. They're called the Toclafane."
"What?!" the Doctor blurted out.
"And tomorrow morning they will appear. Not in secret… but to all of you. Diplomatic relations with a new species will begin. Tomorrow, we take our place in the universe. Every man, woman and child. Every teacher and chemist and lorry driver and farmer. And every…oh, I don't know…medical student?"
The Doctor, Rose, and Jack whipped around in their seats. Martha was staring at the screen, paler than they had ever seen her, wide-eyed with terror.
"He knows about me," Martha whispered fearfully. "How does he know about me? How does he even know this is where I'm from!?"
Rose shook her head. "I dunno! He never got near your flat. We made sure he wouldn't be able to without us knowing. But there's loads of other places he could've seen you or your picture, I—"
"But if he knows about me then he's gotta know about my family."
Rose's eyes widened.
A shrill beeping filled the room without warning. It took Rose exactly three seconds to place it, and then she was flying from her chair, out of the room, across the walkway, and down the stairs to her computer terminal. She heard the others following her. She grabbed onto the end of the railing and swung herself around before her feet even touched the ground, and dropped into her chair. Her momentum caused it to hit the wall, but she pushed herself off of it with her foot and grabbed onto the edge of her desk, pulling herself in. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, entering the code to silence the alarm then brought up the information.
SUBJECT: JONES, MARTHA
LOCATION: RESIDENCE
INTERNAL CENSOR: TERMINATED
EXTERNAL CENSOR A: CRITICAL DAMAGE
EXTERNAL CENSOR B: ABNORMALITY DETECTED
She brought up the readings for the external censors. Censor A registered an intense kinetic force as well as a massive spike in heat and chemical release, which Censor B also registered, that had begun exactly twenty seconds prior. She clicked the shortcut to the CCTV footage from Martha's street and what she saw made her gasp. Behind her, Martha let out a cry of shock and outrage. Thick black smoke issued from the windows of Martha's apartment. Through it they could see thick orange flames.
Jack wedged himself through Martha and Rose to see the readings from the censors. "My guess is it was a bomb."
Rose licked her lips. The Master himself could not have planted it; they would have known the moment he got close to the flat. But since he had almost the entire world under his hypnotic influence, getting someone to plant a bomb in a random flat would have been all too easy.
Martha let out a strangled cry and reached for her phone. She walked away from them towards the couch.
"What are you doing?" the Doctor demanded.
"My family, I've got to warn them."
"Don't tell them anything!"
She rounded on him, teeth clenched, and her phone already held up to her ear. "I'll do what I like!"
Rose, the Doctor, and Jack glanced at each other. The Doctor leaned down to have a look at the readings himself. "You've been spying on her," he murmured softly.
Rose did not bother denying it. They had put similar sensors around the homes of everyone they had spoken to regarding the Master, except all of them had been able to consent to it without timelines blowing up. "Tosh developed the software, censors that detect alien life forms in a certain area," she murmured.
"Mum!" Martha cried.
Rose closed the windows and turned in her chair.
Martha was perched stiffly on the edge of the coffee table. "Oh my God, you're there. …I'm fine. I'm fine. Mum, has there been anyone asking about me? …I can't! Not now!" Disbelief flashed across her face. "Don't be so daft. Since when?" A few seconds passed and then she shook her head. "You said you'd never get back with him in a million years. …Dad? What are you doing there?"
Martha looked up at Rose and the Doctor fearfully. It had been a very long time since she had seen the Jones family, or heard Martha talk about them, but Rose remembered quite clearly that Martha's parents did not get along. And now suddenly her Mum and Dad were in the same room together, and ready to get back together from the sound of the conversation. The timing was too perfect to be coincidence.
"Dad? Just say yes or no. Is there someone else there?"
There was a pregnant pause and then, from all the way at her terminal, Rose could clearly hear Clive Jones shout, "YES! JUST RUN! LISTEN TO ME! JUST RUN!"
"Dad!" Martha screamed and leaped to her feet. "What's going on? DAD!" She listened for another moment and then snapped her mobile shut. "I gotta help them!"
"We're in Cardiff!" Rose reminded her.
Martha pointed at Jack. "He's got that teleport."
"That's exactly what they want!" the Doctor warned. "It's a trap!"
"I don't care!" she snapped. "We gotta get there now! …Oh, God, not just my parents!" She pulled out her phone again and dialed another number.
While she did that, Rose turned to Jack. "She's right. We have to help. Get the coordinates to her mother's house."
Jack nodded and ran past them into his office. He went onto his computer to find their address and geographical location. While he was doing that, Rose retrieved a pair of thick, fingerless gloves from her desk and put them on. The Doctor frowned at her questioningly while she fastened them, but it turned to one of disapproval when she pulled an ammunition clip out as well, and stuffed it in her jacket pocket.
Jack grabbed his coat off the hook and came out of his office. He slid it on and finished punching in the coordinates to Francine Jones's house.
"Tish!" Martha gasped. "Tish, be quiet and listen! You're not safe! Wherever you are, you gotta get out of there. Go. Run! …I'M SERIOUS! They already got Mum and Dad! I don't—Tish? Tish! Tish!"
She smacked her phone shut and glared at the Doctor. "Only place he can go is planet Earth! Oh, yeah, that's real bloody smart! Trap him on the planet where all the people we love are stuck!"
"Martha, grab on," Jack ordered, holding up his wrist.
She stuffed her mobile back in her pocket and ran over. Rose unzipped her jacket and placed her other hand on top of the manipulator, next came the Doctor, and finally Martha put hers on top.
"Hang on everyone."
Rose felt the manipulator's punch against the fabric of reality as if it were against her own back, but it faded almost immediately as they were sucked into time itself. There was gold everywhere, gold light, gold dark, matter and non-matter, dust and nothingness. She could see so muchand hear everything. The space was infinite, and yet there was none at all. The power of time flowed across her, through her, like warm water. If she had a mouth she would gasp in delight.
Amidst the rush, Rose was aware on some level that they were whizzing across space, but not really through time. She could almost see it, the place where they would punch their way out of the vortex. She reached out, pressing carefully, but firmly against the walls so when the manipulator punched its way out, the work was half done and he damage was minimized.
Then suddenly the gold of time was gone, and reality came flooding back. Sight, scent, and sound rushed back, assaulting her senses. They had landed on the sidewalk against a brick fence. Rose was aware of the others stumbling away, slumping against the house, moaning and grumbling in pain. But she did not hurt at all. Her body was absolutely buzzing with energy and she hopped from foot to foot in anticipation. She felt alive.
Voices raised in anger and agitation drew her attention towards the adjacent street. "Martha?" She glanced at her friend. "Are we here?"
Martha shook her head quickly then looked around. "We're just around the corner, we—that's Mum!"
She tore off up the sidewalk, past the house on the corner, and Rose, the Doctor, and Jack pelted after her. Rose's body felt light as a feather. She caught up to Martha with ease. They rounded the corner onto the street where Martha's mother lived and were greeted with the sight of a paddy wagon, about five government vehicles, a handful of police, all armed, and a severe looking blonde in a suit. Clive was already loaded into the wagon and Francine was being shoved in.
"MUM!" Martha shrieked. "DAD!"
Everybody whipped around in surprise, several of them training their guns on her, and Martha skidded to a halt. Rose slowed to a stop just ahead of her then backed away to stand next to Martha. Jack and the Doctor slowed and the four of them formed a tense line about a hundred feet from the men holding her parents.
"MARTHA!" Francine shouted. "NO! GET OUT OF HERE! GET OUT!"
"Oh my God," Martha whispered.
"Target identified!" The woman in the suit declared and two of the police officers rushed forward with their guns, dropping onto one knee. Rose whipped her gun from its holster underneath her jacket, and Jack was only a split second behind her. Martha backed away.
The two groups were at a stalemate. Guns pointed at each other, sizing each other up, waiting.
"Jack—" the Doctor started.
"Shut up, Doctor," Jack snapped and adjusted his grip.
"Get us out of here," he muttered. "Lower your gun and set the coordinates."
Jack hesitated for moment, then lowered his gun, and started pressing buttons on his manipulator.
Rose raised her gun so it was pointing at the blonde woman. "Call 'em off!" she hollered up the road.
The blonde woman's eyes locked with hers for a moment and they glowered at each other. Then: "Take aim!"
"Shit," Rose whispered.
Jack turned and held out his arm. "Grab on!"
Rose and the Doctor placed their hands over the manipulator.
"Mum!" Martha shouted.
"JUST RUN!" Francine screamed as Jack barked, "Martha!"
"Fire!" the blonde ordered.
The cops began to fire just as Martha turned and flung her arm out to clamp down over the manipulator. Rose felt the punch against the fabric of reality. Before they were sucked into time, however, she heard the Doctor scream and she thought she felt something hit her in the leg… Then they were whizzing through time and space and she no longer had a body to feel.
All too soon they rematerialized in t he Hub from the exact same spot they had left. She felt just as energized as the first time. Jack collapsed to the ground. It took her a second, and seeing the blood on the floor, to realize that he was dead. Martha staggered away.
A burning pain flared in her leg and Rose let out a quiet hiss of pain. Looking down at her jeans, she saw the tear in the fabric on her thigh and the blood beginning to pour from the wound. She must have been hit by one of the bullets before they had dematerialized. Her body was already dealing with it though, destroying the bullet and healing the damage. She would be fine in a few minutes.
The Doctor gasped and she turned her head. His face was twisted in agony and he was doubled over, clutching his midsection.
"Doctor?!" Rose asked.
He opened his eyes, looking down at himself, and pulled his hand away. It was covered in dark, orange-ish blood.
"No!" she shrieked, rushing towards him as he stumbled under his own weight. She caught him, holding him up, and ignored the pain in her leg from the new strain on it. "Martha, he's been shot!"
Martha cursed and stumbled forward to have a look. "Not good. Do you have an infirmary?
"The morgue doubles as one," Rose answered, ducking under the Doctor's arm.
Martha supported him on his other side and together, they helped him across the landing. Rose's leg screamed in protest with each step, but at the same time she could feel the tingling warmth of her body mending the damage with every passing second.
Rose glanced briefly at Jack, still dead on the floor, before she flipped the light switch on and they began their descent down the stone steps into the morgue. Once they got down there, they helped the Doctor up onto the examination table, and laid him down on his back. Martha unbuttoned his brown jacket, took one look at his shirt, and asked for scissors.
Rose wrenched open the cabinet where Owen stored the medical supplies, and pulled out a pair of scissors. She tossed them to Martha who caught then deftly and started snipping his shirt with practiced ease. She pulled the blood-soaked pieces away from his skin, examined the wound for a few moments, and then pursed her lips.
Meanwhile, Rose assessed the progress of her leg. The rejuvenation had reached her muscles. At this rate, it would be at the skin level within the next minute. This was faster than normal and oddly enough, she was not feeling drained at all. Not even a little. Perhaps that jaunt through the Vortex really had given her a boost of energy. She should do that more often.
"Got to get…bleeding stopped," the Doctor panted, drawing her attention back to him. For all his superior physiology, that was not something he could do.
"What happened?" Jack demanded as he came bounding down the stone steps into the morgue.
"The Doctor's been shot. Stomach. Looks bad." Martha reported.
"How bad? Regeneration bad?"
"Possibly. I dunno much about those healing comas you talked about, Doctor, but I don't think you've got that kind of time."
"Oh, brilliant," the Doctor hissed.
Rose licked her lips. She could do it. It had been a while since she had dealt with a wound this bad, but the process had not changed. This just was not how she had planned on telling him. The Doctor let out a tiny whimper of pain, and her resolve hardened. No way she was going to let him regenerate on her. Not now. She had only just gotten him back. If it saved his life, then she would gladly deal with any anger that followed.
She checked her leg once more—completely healed. Only the residual pain remained, and that would go away before long. So she unfastened her gloves, tucking them in the pockets of her jacket, and then pulled it off. She set it on the ground, and then unfastened her gun holster and set it down as well, looking up at Jack seriously. "I've got this."
Jack's mouth twisted nervously. "You sure?"
The Doctor groaned quietly.
"Absolutely. You'll explain it to him, yeah?"
"I'll do my best."
Rose nodded once, and then turned back to the Doctor who was watching them like a hawk. She smiled reassuringly as she reached into her mind and into the glowing piece of the TARDIS's consciousness from which her abilities and knowledge flowed. Once upon a time, she had had all the power of time and space at her command. Enough to do anything she wanted, but too much to control properly. She had brought a man back to life, but she had done it forever yet there had been no personal cost. Now she barely had any of those great powers. Enough to do little things but not enough for the big stuff like turning Dalek fleets into dust or bringing the dead back to life.
But she could heal.
She placed her left hand on his temple, stretching her mind out towards his, and he initiated the temporary bond immediately. Do you trust me?
With my life, he responded immediately. What are you going to do?
Save you, she whispered before breaking the contact.
Focusing in on that desire, she became aware of the energy that resided in her body, and ordered it to flow. A golden light emitted from her right palm, and she lowered her hand to his skin. Her perception extended through his entire body.
She could feel his hearts beating out their dual-rhythm at an accelerated rate, the breath in his lungs, the signals racing through his nerves, the wild activity in his brain, the adrenaline coursing through his system. And she could feel the damage. Two separate bullet wounds so close together they had not seen them under the blood. The bastards had shot him twice. The bullets stopped about an inch from his spine. She concentrated on them first, and with a surge of power through her hand, she destroyed them.
The Doctor gasped.
Rose slipped her eyes shut and concentrated on assessing the damage. An artery had been hit and a few of his organs, one of which she were sure was not shared by humans. Clotting the blood was the first step, then she mended the blood veins and the artery that had been grazed, and then she moved on to his wounded organs.
It was right about then that she felt her strength waning, the energy starting to slow. A thin layer of sweat covered her face. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to keep going. She finished with the organs, and then moved on to the muscles, fusing them back together, and relieving the tension as best she could. Finally it was just the skin left. She pressed down harder and grunted from exertion. Just a little more. Skin cells were always the easiest, so easy to manipulate, just a little bit of a jolt to speed up their rejuvenation and that was all.
Rose gasped as she let the healing energy taper off. Panting heavily, she opened her eyes and found herself staring at the Doctor's startled brown ones. Her lips twitched upwards feebly towards a smile and then she fainted.
Martha rushed forward, but she was too late to catch her, and Rose hit the floor with a thud. She knelt next to Rose and rolled her over carefully, pressing two fingers to her pulse point.
"Rose!" the Doctor cried and tried to sit up but Jack stopped him.
"Whoa there, big fella. Not so fast. You need to take it slow."
The Doctor struggled against him, trying to see over the edge of the table. "Is she alright? Is she alright?"
"She's fine," Martha reported after a moment. "Her pulse is a bit slow."
"That's normal," Jack assured her. "Just give her a little while to recharge and she'll be fine."
"What?" the Doctor demanded.
"You mean she's done this before?" Martha asked.
"Yeah, twice as far as a I know. Once for Owen—got himself mauled by a Weevil. Another time for Gwen's boyfriend—stabbed. She fainted both times." He knelt down and sighed. "Other, smaller things, she just gets weak or tired, but we know how to help her recover. …Ah, that's why. Look at her leg."
Martha followed his gaze to Rose's left thigh. There was a rip the size of a golf ball in the fabric and the area around it was stained with drying blood. Except for the blood, the skin underneath was completely fine.
"She was shot as well. Must've healed herself. I'm gonna take her up to the couch. Doc, just hang tight for a sec." He slipped one arm beneath Rose's shoulders and the other under her knees and lifted her off the ground.
"I'll stay with him." Martha said.
Jack nodded and carried Rose out of the room.
Martha turned to the Doctor and exhaled loudly. She had seen a lot of strange things this last year, but never something quite like that. The Doctor's attention was on the doorway out into the main area so she took the opportunity to press her fingers against the patch of bare, pink flesh surrounded by blood. Just like Rose's leg. She shifted her fingers, pressing intermittently. No signs of internal damage or weakness.
"She healed you," Martha murmured. "She didn't just stop the bleeding and mend your skin, she healed you."
The Doctor craned his neck to have a look at his stomach then rested his head on the metal table and said nothing. Martha found some towels in the cabinet Rose had gotten the scissors from. She got one of them wet in the sink and carried them back to the table. She started gently wiping the blood off his skin.
"She has a piece of the TARDIS's consciousness in her mind," he said slowly. "But that's not enough for something like this."
Martha shrugged. All of that was way beyond her. "She hasn't told you everything. I saw her and Jack lookin' at each other earlier. He knows more than he's saying."
The Doctor exhaled through his nose and tilted his head to the side. "I'm sorry about your family. We'll try to get them back."
Martha swallowed and nodded. But then her eyes widened as she realized there was one member of her family she had yet to speak to. "Leo," she gasped, dropping the towel. She wiped her hands on one of the remaining ones and then wrestled her phone from her pocket and called her brother. She paced from the table to the wall as it rang once, twice, three times, and he finally answered in the middle of the fourth.
"Sup?"
"Leo!" she exclaimed in relief. "Oh, thank God. Leo, you gotta listen to me. Where are you?"
"I'm in Brighton. We came down with Boxer. Did you see that Saxon thing on telly?"
Brighton. There was no way the Master could have known. There were probably people at his house right now, waiting for him. "Leo, just listen to me. Don't go home, I'm telling you. Don't phone Mum or Dad or Tish. You've gotta hide."
He scoffed. "Shut up."
"On my life. You've gotta trust me. Go to Boxer's, stay with him. Don't tell anyone! Just hide!"
"Ooh, a nice little game of hide-and-seek," said a voice on the other end.
Martha swore her heart stopped beating for a second. She froze next to the table where the Doctor had managed to get himself into a sitting position, and was examining the place he had been wounded.
"I love that. But I'll find you, Martha Jones," Harold Saxon went on. "Been a long time since we saw each other. Must be, what? One hundred trillion years?"
"Let them go, Saxon," she growled. The Doctor's head snapped up. "Do you hear me?! LET THEM GO!"
The Doctor reached out for the phone and Martha relinquished it. Above them, Jack was leaning on the railing with a grim expression, drawn in by Martha's shouting. He and the Doctor exchanged a look and then Jack motioned for Martha to come upstairs. She shook her head but he just repeated the motion, insistently this time, and she sighed but did as she was asked. She heard the Doctor start speaking into the phone in a language she did not understand—Gallifreyan, most likely.
"I've got the news playing on Rose's computer," Jack told her quietly. "They're talking about us, and it says several members of your family have been taken in for questioning."
"Questioning for what?" Martha asked wearily.
Jack sighed and pointed at the screen. "Apparently we're terrorists."
She didn't even have it in her to be surprised anymore. "Oh."
Bet you didn't see that coming. Now, show of hands, who thinks they have an idea of what's really going on with Rose?
And y'know... since it's Christmas... if anyone wants to make me some fanart or something *cough* I wouldn't protest.