Author's Note:
Not much action, mainly dialogue in this chapter (but rather funny dialogue)...
During the next chapter the Doctor will finally talk to Jack. I promise.
"What do you mean, you 'won't notice'?"
The Doctor had folded his arms and wouldn't budge from his current sulky position. He wouldn't budge at all, not even after Martha had poked him gently in the ribs.
But Martha pegged away with it.
"Who are they?"
"I don't know" replied the Doctor through gritted teeth.
"Well, what did they do to you?" Martha went on.
"I won't tell you," mumbled the Doctor and stared into space. Figuratively, not literally. After all they were still in Torchwood.
Well, and even though Cardiff had lots of similarities with space (lots of dark places, dull ambience, inhabitants who speak English you can hardly understand...) the Doctor knew that he rather would have been in space right now, outside of his Tardis and slowly choking, or with his head exploding, than having to face a nosy Martha in front of him.
Martha folded her arms likewise and gave the Doctor an annoyed glare.
"I don't do staring contests, Martha Jones" mumbled the Doctor "and you're rather annoying right now. Do something useful and put the meds back where they belong."
The Doctor tossed the bottles in front of him around on his bed. Martha cocked an eyebrow at him and sat down on his bed rather dramatically.
"I won't move, I won't disappear, I won't simply vanish; you won't believe it but apparently I have more patience then you have right now, Doctor, so I'll tell you this: I'll stay here, right beside your bed, on the same spot, until you tell me what's happened to you and who they are and what's the meaning of all this and oh my God, what is it doing?!"
Martha had interrupted her lecture and jumped up as the small ball of fur had started moving; it was tossing and turning and rummaging through the bottles it had been crowded with. The Doctor sighed and stretched his legs; he kicked the thing gingerly until it would stop shifting on the sheet.
"It's tossing and turning in its sleep, that's all," he explained unnerved, "I told you, it's unarmed, in the worst case it's an UXO, but I'd rather believe that this is simply a fluffy and useless creature and nothing more; but I guess you came to notice that it isn't sleeping well in the bright artificial light so would you be so kind as to return it to the Tardis?"
The Doctor's voice was cold and unmoved. His arms were obviously tensed as he folded them again in front of his chest. Martha eyed him up with wondering eyes until she felt her stare sagging...
She gave it another thought. Even though Doctor sometimes seemed as though he was cracking up he wasn't hard to crack, at least it had never been hard for Martha to get him to tell her what she had wanted to hear. But maybe she had lost her touch; maybe her sensitivity had been locked up for too long now that she didn't know anymore how to handle him.
Martha closed her eyes and breathed in deeply.
Just a cool head; that was all she needed. Her intuition had never let her down; and especially while being at her wits end, as she was right now, it was probably best just to listen, just to wait... and maybe that was the answer, even with the Doctor.
She popped her head to one side as if listening to an inner voice.
Or at least as if she had waited for an inner voice to appear and address her.
"Are you alright?" asked the Doctor and reached for Martha's hand.
Martha nearly jumped after touching the Doctor's hands. For a moment there she had been really scared that her subconsciousness had actually talked to her.
Martha found the Doctor staring at her and smiled taken aback and nodded.
The Doctor eyed her up suspiciously.
Martha sat down once again beside the Doctor and yet tried to stay out of the paneopal puffy's reach.
She had sensed the Doctor's desperation. And Martha had felt that the Doctor had wanted to talk to her about something right from the beginning.
But somehow both of them seemed to fail at finding the right words.
But at least Martha found her voice again first.
She simply thought it best to start over the conversation from the point where it had gone wrong. After all there was a Time Lord sitting in front of her with the attention span of a drunken squirrel in a bag full of nuts.
"Who are they?"
The Doctor shifted a bit uneasy and sighed. "Martha, I don't know. And I didn't say that because I tried avoiding the question. I really don't know. After several operations... or whatever they had been... I had been able to identify one of them as a Silurian, a Silurian surgeon. But apart from that... I don't know. I don't know why they're here, I don't know what they want and I can't even tell you what they look like. All lizards look alike to me."
Martha reached for the Doctor's hand and patted it gently. The Doctor looked up to her and chuckled quietly.
He surely was trying to take his mind off things again.
"I know... that's kinda racists, isn't it?" he chuckled.
"Probably," replied Martha, "but a... Siluran... no, Silurian... I haven't heard of them before."
"Working for Torchwood and haven't heard of a Silurian either," mumbled the Doctor through gritted teeth, "This new Torchwood, what good is it anyway?"
"Jack never mentioned a Silurian," explained Martha.
"Right, that's because Jack is an idiot. And it appears that the only one who's seen it is me. Because Jack had the tendency to go missing right before they would... well, shove me out of the Tardis, or wherever they took me... I don't know..."
"What do you mean?" asked Martha "Do you think... do you believe that they can hide in the Tardis?"
"Almost anything could be hid inside of a Tardis," sighed the Doctor "You know...that's the trouble with being bigger..."
"...on the inside," finished Martha and nodded "I know, I know."
"But I guess it had its advantages," the Doctor went on and reached down with one hand to poke the small bulge his abdomen had become, unnerved, "Then again you're not forced to watch your body become disfigured and deformed."
Martha fumbled with the bottles beside her while staring at her feet.
"This child..." she began.
"The brat" the Doctor cut her off and snorted.
"...it's... what is... I mean, I haven't..."
The Doctor sighed. "Just ask straightforward. I can't stand watching my catheter bag filling up and slowly spilling over while you're still searching for the wrong words. You have me where you wanted me to have, Ms Jones; I'll gladly answer your questions so we can get on with this."
Martha had to chuckle quietly. A little patience had always paid off; whether it was about a cripplingly shy patient, or asking someone who met you with disgust for a date; in the end gritting your teeth and patience were the only two true possibilities. Well... at least almost always.
Sometimes it was simply best to annoy people; that worked a lot faster than having patience and all.
Martha grabbed the Doctor's hands and looked him in the eye earnestly.
"The child," she started over again.
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "We've had that before" he explained "You said 'child' I said 'brat' and then you started mumbling and I reassured you that you can ask me anything you want. But you know what? It's probably better if you don't ask. You're a fine listener, Martha Jones, but a terrible questioner. So yes, that's a living thing inside of my body. And no, Jack doesn't know about it. And yes, it was inserted by them, and no, I don't know how. And yes, I'm going to keep it, but no, it's not because I chose to keep it but it's because I know that if I don't obey their commands they're going to repeat the whole procedure and I'm not interested in having my ribs ground down and my pelvis broken and coalesced again."
The Doctor breathed in deeply and sagged back into the cushion.
Martha stroked his hands unintentionally; she stared into space while picturing it in her mind... what did it actually sound like when you ground down rips, she found herself wondering.
Martha shook her head as if trying to shake off the weird thoughts protruding from her mind.
"But how did they...?"
"Martha Jones, what did I say? No questions, just listen. And as an answer to the question you never would have gotten out: I don't know how they managed to get that brat inside of me. I simply don't know it. It's hard for me to say, but the surgeon... you know, the way he works, what he managed to perform, to accomplish... he's a genius. He must be a genius. And I know that he nearly suffocated me twice. And I know that I could die at his hands; and I may even die at his hands. But managing to force a Time Lord into gestation, especially a male Time Lord... I don't know where he got the knowledge from. I can't imagine how he worked that out."
Martha stared abashed at the Doctor, who had just had the nerves to call his torturer a genius.
"Of course he must have some twisted mind," the Doctor went on, "Working on living creatures and rearranging their intestines... but simply the mere thought of it... I never would have come up with that. I guess I wouldn't even know how to do this... well, not all of it... well, not the insertion... well, with the one book, probably but... well, I don't think it would work, well..."
Martha cut off the mumbling Doctor who seemed to be missing the point, as always.
"And why is he doing all this?" asked Martha and thereby calmed down the Doctor a bit. She thought the never-ending babbling he was suffering from to be some kind of a mental illness. It probably wouldn't kill him soon.
But it would definitely kill him slowly. And probably even rather painfully.
The Doctor ran his fingers through his hair and sighed, lost in thought.
"He talked to me... he always talked to me about how ashamed he felt... but I don't... well, I was pretty abashed by looking at my own amniotic sack but... he said something like 'We're in dire need of that child' whatever that was supposed to mean. Well, and after all... he's a surgeon. Of course he would need that child, of course he would need me. What else should he be doing? If he wasn't a surgeon he would probably be up all night and dance or compose music, or..."
"So, in four words: You have no idea," concluded Martha.
"Right," replied the Doctor.
Martha couldn't help but looking down at the Doctor's abdomen.
Imagining that there was a living thing... a child in the Doctor's body...
"You can touch it."
Martha looked up to the Doctor who appeared to be smiling gently.
"If you want to. Well, of course you don't have to. But I guess you're rather curious to feel what a Time Lord stuffed with a creature feels like."
"Stuffed..." repeated Martha and sighed. She reached out and pushed back the sheets. Her fingers rested on the Doctor's scared and sutured stomach. He groaned quietly and pulled a wry face.
Martha pulled back her hand.
"It's alright" the Doctor declared immediately and shifted a bit uneasy again "but I can tell you that this thing's going to be developing a mind of its own soon and, well... it's already bugging me in its silent version."
Martha didn't quite get the meaning of what the Doctor had just explained but she nodded nonetheless.
"So, where were we?" asked the Doctor and tried picking up the conversation before reaching for Martha's head and placing his hands on her temples. He pulled her face slowly in his direction and kissed her on the forehead before smiling at her while searching her gaze.
Martha shook her head.
"What was that?" she asked a bit irritated and placed a hand on her temple, removing the Doctor's fingers emphatic.
"Nothing" mumbled the Doctor and stared into her eyes star struck.
"Oh, no pull the other one," insisted Martha "You've done something like this before. I remember it. With the Judoons and on the moon and you kissed me and I thought you liked me but all you wanted was to distract the mercenaries and they scanned me..."
"Oh no," the Doctor interrupted, "Don't do that. You make it sound like terrible prose but with a touch of romance hidden in the blunt words."
"Well it was kind of romantic," Martha protested.
The Doctor sighed and rolled his eyes.
"It was a diversionary tactic and nothing more."
"But that kiss on the forehead... what did you... is anyone going to scan me again soon?" asked Martha and pressed her fingers against her temples. She had come to the realization that they hurt after the Doctor had touched them.
Martha silenced the Doctor as he wanted to pick up the conversation again.
She'd seen it before. It was something... he could... he was good at...
"You're telepathic, aren't you?" burst out Martha all of a sudden and made the Doctor nearly drop the cup of tea he had picked up again.
The Doctor rolled his eyes as Martha gave him an inquisitive look.
"What did you do in my head?"
"It appears that it's not your mind that seems to be incapable of assembling a question," explained the Doctor while sipping his tea, "the fault must be locked somewhere between your interbrain, your vocal chords and your tongue."
Martha sighed.
The Doctor sure had a different kind of view on medical problems.
"It's not a fault, neither is it a failure" stated Martha "I simply don't speak what I think. I don't say things outright or bluntly."
"If you don't say things that you think why don't you stick to thinking, then?" asked the Doctor. Martha glared at him.
"Is this an insult?"
The Doctor considered this for a moment before shaking his head.
"No. Why?"
"See? This happens when you speak what you think without considering what other could think what you meant to say!" snapped Martha.
The Doctor sighed again. "Martha calm down."
"I'm not calming down," she placed her hands on her hips before deciding that she would appear even more insistently by folding her arms in front of her chest.
"What were you doing in my head?"
"Searching for the questions you're going to bug me with," replied the Doctor bluntly, "In fact, I wanted to know how many questions exactly you were going to ask me. I just wanted to know if my catheter bag will endure that long."
"Why do you keep talking about your catheter bag?" asked Martha irritated and turned up her nose at him, "and it wouldn't become endangered of overflowing if you would stop drinking tea all the time."
"Alright."
The Doctor placed the cup on the bedside table and rested his hands on his lap.
"We'll make it quick. I give you the answers and you simply connect them to your questions."
Martha couldn't quite follow but the Doctor started nonetheless.
"I don't know where the surgeries have taken place."
Alright, thought Martha, that was an easy one: 'Where did they perform the operations?'
"I don't know what it's going to be."
Possibly the answer to 'Is it going to be a Time Lord?', Martha assumed.
"I don't know how they got into her."
The Tardis, completed Martha.
"They've taken it away from me."
"Wait, stop there for a moment," interrupted Martha "Is this: What's happened to your cockiness?' or is it 'Where's your screwdriver?'"
"The screwdriver" replied the Doctor "they've taken away the screwdriver. And my cockiness hasn't suffered a bit."
"Alright, sorry," smiled Martha "Carry on."
"I don't know."
Okay, that's either 'How did they manage to create a Time Lord baby?' or 'What are they going to do to you next?', thought Martha.
"And I don't know, either."
Well, didn't matter, Martha sighed, It had been one of them.
"And finally: Yes."
Martha looked up baffled.
"What was that?" she asked.
"The answer to your last question," replied the Doctor.
"I thought that had been the last one."
"You had wondered if I was scared. And yes, Martha, I'm scared. I'm really scared."
Martha froze after catching a glimpse of the Doctor's facial expression.
His eyes were dark and his cold glare seemed to spread, it seemed to reach out for her eyes as well;
it was more than pure sadness; his stare protruded his hidden forlornness.
The Doctor was unpromisingly hopeless.
Martha felt herself gasp at her own conclusion.
She hadn't seen the Doctor like this, not ever before.
No matter what they had faced together, no matter how past hope she'd been the Doctor had always known... the Doctor always knew a way out.
"And if the Doctor tells you that he doesn't?"
Martha nearly jumped at the Doctor's earnest but crushing reply.
"What if I tell you that the Doctor's lost because the Doctor's at his wits end? What then Martha Jones?"