Hi friends! Don't know about you, but for me, it's been a doozie of a week! Among other problems, I almost lost my computer data, which would have meant re-writing the next five chapters!
When last we saw Martha, she was wearing the Doctor's tee-shirt and settling in for an evening alone (as the Doctor is currently incarcerated), while Donna went out on a date with Colin.
When last we saw Donna, she'd come back from her date, and had decided to throw caution to the wind, and basically let Colin in on her very weird life. She had told him that she, Martha, and the Doctor are a team, of sorts, who investigate extra-terrestrial and temporal phenomena. She hadn't yet told him that the Doctor himself is an extra-terrestrial and that they travel through time.
Although, in the end, she had decided to prove that she wasn't crazy, by showing him the TARDIS' interior, and just crossing her fingers that the Doctor wouldn't be too angry... except the TARDIS was gone! As was Martha! Colin was uncertain about the whole thing, but could see the very genuine panic in Donna's eyes...
Here we go!
FIFTEEN
At some point during her evening alone, while Donna was out with Colin, Martha had found the wherewithal to search for the blue prints on the building that Colin had located for them, and where the Monday meeting would be. There was a fee, and she'd entered her credit card number, in exchange for the PDF file.
Further research indicated that in order to find specific piping, they would need plumbing blue prints. She paid another fee, and downloaded another PDF.
But when the images came up on her laptop screen, she groaned, realising that it was a whole bunch of lines and codes that she could not decipher at all. Why had she and Donna thought they could just do this? How had they believed that the skill-sets of a physician and an administrative assistant might help with reading the structure of an office building?
Martha was discouraged, and exhausted from thinking and worrying, so she decided to retire to bed around ten o'clock. She'd contemplated waiting up for Donna and Colin, if for no other reason than to ask her cousin to help them read the blue prints. But she reckoned she didn't want to get in their way when they came back, for a number of reasons, and decided just to send Donna a text.
"Got the blue prints but can't read them. I'm a doctor, not an architect, hint, hint," she wrote to Donna. Then she sent a second message. "I've saved the PDF to my computer desktop – filename PLUMBING BLUE. Maybe you and C.B. could have a nightcap?"
"Ok," came a text about five minutes later. Acknowledgement, but nothing committal.
"Going to bed now, in the blue box. The flat is yours. Good night, my friend," Martha texted back.
With that, Martha tucked the phone into her back pocket, and pulled a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream out of a cabinet and left it on the clean kitchen counter for Donna and Colin. She left the foyer light on, made sure that the front door was locked, then slipped out the back door, locking it behind her as well.
Then, she let herself into the TARDIS, shutting herself inside. At this, she finally exhaled. And with breath, came tears. The TARDIS groaned in commiseration.
The Doctor was very likely fine. But the trauma of being startled in the night, seeing him taken, of having been attacked and incapacitated by his captors, and now having to wait another eighteen hours for contact with him… it was, as Donna had suggested, making her want to have an episode of some sort. She wasn't entirely sure of why he'd been arrested, and was fuming over the idea that he could just be carted off, with no explanation of what he'd supposedly done. What if he was being framed for some egregious crime, and he went through a whole rigged trial, and then went to prison? What if his sentence lasted longer than her lifetime? She might very well have just effectively lost the Doctor, and hadn't even had the chance to say a proper goodbye. So much still to say and do and see together…
She knew she was getting ahead of herself, and that wasn't good. But it had now been about twenty hours since the Doctor's unceremonious forced exit, during which she'd spent a lot of time clamming-up for Donna and Colin's sakes, and thinking, thinking, thinking. And thinking some more.
She was a strong woman, but a woman in love. Fear, emptiness, and uncertainty streamed hotly down her face now, and she didn't care. She just missed him now, and wanted nothing more than to curl up in his arms, and listen to him tell her he loved her, and that everything would be all right.
She walked the halls of the TARDIS slowly, careful not to venture too far into places unknown, while she wept cathartic, exhausted tears. But when she came to his bedroom door, she relaxed a bit. She had never been inside this room, but somehow, just seeing the Gallifreyan graphics engraved upon the door, this evidence of his presence – it made her feel calmer.
She went into the room, and found it a mess – this was comforting also, like a life-size diorama of his mind. Books, gadgets and pin-striped clothing were strewn about everywhere. She could see that there was a sunken seating area to her right that rarely, if ever, got used, because the sofas seemed mostly to function as an organisational system for piles of paper. His wardrobe sat open, and the steps leading up to a library loft were covered with tomes and volumes and pamphlets, with only a narrow path that would allow someone (someone agile) to go up and down.
Only the bed was clear of debris, though it was unmade. One side was, anyhow – the left side. The right side was made, and undisturbed. She reckoned that the last time he'd slept here was probably the same night that the two of them had discovered their explosive rapport together, in Mallorca. Since then, they'd been together outside of the TARDIS, staying in hotels and bungalows, and in her flat in London.
In the past seven weeks since they'd become a couple, they had only not made love three nights: twice in Mallorca (once after she'd had some shellfish that hadn't agreed with her stomach, and once because they had decided to spend the night on the beach by the fire, and knew they could be seen from the houses across the lagoon), and of course, tonight.
Their relationship had been, as she'd told Donna, intense. They were incendiary together, electromagnetic. They could scarcely be prone in each other's presence without the interaction running to lustful. Sleep was always secondary. Sometimes they couldn't even be upright in each other's presence, such that it made her wonder how the hell they could have survived that first year together, with absolutely nothing physical happening. Donna had seen this spark in them from the very start, and that's why she'd helped them find each other.
The prospect of engaging in sex forty-six nights out of forty-nine (ish) might have once seemed draining and frankly, overkill, to her. But these had been the seven hungriest, fullest, most vibrant and fulfilling weeks of her life. His company was half of the equation – the half that she had always had, even when he didn't seem to return her feelings. This was his voice, his mind, the adventure and adrenaline that was his life. This was also the attraction, and the quickening of her heartbeat when she looked at him – the way he moved, the suit, the lips, the hair…
The other half of the equation was the sparking, frenetic physical bond they now had. The way they could send each other spinning out of control, traumatise each other with teasing or crashing or euphoria… or even pain. The way they could make each other feel all of life, just by being together, and allowing themselves to combust.
"I've lived a long, long time, Martha Jones," he had whispered to her once, half-wrecked against the pillow, while delirium and fire died down in the dark. "And I know what alive is. This is alive."
She knew that this pace couldn't last forever. Familiarity would set in, or fatigue, or both. They would have ups and downs, dry spells, rows, heartache. No long-term relationship was without those things, and rarely did the intoxication of the first year's fervour remain a part of a sexual relationship that endured for years. This was okay. Hopefully the explosions would give way someday (not too soon) to something solid. Real love, trust, comfort. A partnership – whatever that may mean. She looked forward to finding out, though, she hoped the fire would never completely leave them. Really, how could it?
For now, though, she was ecstatic just to take advantage of the new-relationship zeal they were having now. The romance, the decadence… sex, food, laughter, innuendo…
When the Doctor was arrested, it was like a hole had been gouged out of her in the middle of the night – a hole shaped like both the present and the future.
She sighed, took her phone out of her pocket, and set it upon the Doctor's night table, beside a lamp, and on top of a pile of books. She shed the shorts she was wearing, and her underpants for good measure, then manoeuvred her bra off through her sleeve. She threw it all into a pile and crawled into the Doctor's bed, wearing only his burgundy tee-shirt.
She sank down into the soft, cool, tan sheets, and pulled the blankets over herself. She turned on her side, and took an indulgent, deep breath. Her head was filled then with the scent of him – all the scents of him. His sweat and skin, that particular combo of his laundry soap and after-shave, and whatever it was that he used in his hair. The sheets, his tee-shirt, his pillow, enveloping her – there was no part of her that was not wrapped in something of him, and his life and scent.
She closed her eyes, knowing that this was the most comfortable she could possibly be, without him by her side, and prepared to slide into sleep.
The Doctor had been given a stack of books and a meal. When Agent Pym returned, he was finished with the meal, and the tray was lying near the front of the bars. The Doctor himself was sitting on his cot, his bare back against the bars behind him, leafing through a book about the eventual fall of the Medusa Cascade.
"Hello," said the agent. "I'll be taking your tray now."
"Okay," the Doctor said. "Do you need the books back, too?"
"No, go ahead and keep them. Let me know when you need more."
"Thanks."
"I also need to inform you, it's nearly time for your audience with General Kir."
"Ah. And he would be?"
"He's in charge of the Inner Sanctum – the prison," Pym told him. "We all answer to him."
"Why does he want to see me?"
"I have no idea," Pym said. "Honestly. I was just told to inform you of his imminent arrival."
However, it was at least another hour before anyone else appeared at the bars to speak to the Doctor.
When someone did, it was a man taller than him, and broader, wearing an official-looking green uniform. Though, the Doctor noted, he had never seen an officer of the Galactic Council, of any rank, wearing this colour. In his journeys through legality and galactic insanity, he'd met officers and agents of every possible ilk – never had he seen a green uniform in the Council.
To his surprise, General Kir was quite affable.
"Doctor?" said the man, boisterously. "I'm General Kir. It's a pleasure to meet you." He extended his hand through the bars, and the Doctor stood up, crossed the cell, and shook it.
"What can I do for you, General?" he asked.
"I'm glad you asked that, Doctor," said the General. "Me and mine, we're in a bit of a pickle."
"You and yours, eh? What sort of pickle?" the Doctor asked, with scepticism.
"Well, an organisation that I work for is attempting to heal a rift in history, created between World War II on Earth, and the current temporal position," the General explained.
"A rift?"
"Yes… shall we call it, a temporal anomaly that has been causing localised pockets and whatnot. There are issues, because of some… looping phenomena."
"Looping? What are you talking about? What localised pockets? You sound like a maniac."
"I'm not a maniac," said the General. "This is quite real."
"This is Earth you're talking about, yeah?"
"Of course."
"If there were some sort of temporal folding phenomenon, causing localised time pockets on Earth, between World War II and 2008, I'd know about it, believe me. My bones would know about it!" he said. He took a pause, and studied the man in front of him. "This is my department, General, what business do you lot have in trying to repair any of this, even if it were real?"
The General looked at the floor, lost his smile, and cleared his throat. "That, alas, is none of your concern, Doctor. What is your concern is the fact that you are now our prisoner, and are required to help us."
"And if I don't?"
"Then you'll be here indefinitely," the General said his genial manner having somewhat returned. "For you, that's saying quite a lot, or so I'm told."
The Doctor looked the General over, feeling more than ever that something was not right. "General, since I arrived here, Agent Pym has made it a point to quote the Galactic Constitution at me, paragraph for paragraph, even though he seems to be somewhat unaware of what the Council's very own protocol states. I was cuffed, arrested, transported, fingerprinted, signature-extracted, all in an official capacity. And when I say, official, I mean, official-like. Lots of effort has been expended to let me know that I am in the custody of the Galactic Council, all very prim and proper and letter-of-the-law, and all that.
"And so, I ask you," the Doctor continued. "If you are so keen to stick to the rules and preserve the integrity of your precious institution and your precious documents, then how can you threaten to keep me here forever, if I don't help you with your pet project? Eh? What happened to due process, and the rights of the living?"
"Desperate times call for desperate measures, Doctor," the General said softly, though without malice.
"Rubbish. I was arrested for murder, so I expect to be tried for murder. Find me guilty, or don't… at least it would all be within due process, which you lot care so much for."
The General smiled again, and waved away the Doctor's comment. "Oh, Doctor, come on. You must have figured it out by now: the murder charge is just a ruse."
"Ah, here we go! A bit of honesty!" the Doctor said, quite loudly, his arms spread out wide.
"Not that it's a bogus charge, mind you – you did unlawfully and knowingly kill an Epidromeas, using the functions of your TARDIS. But we are well aware that the Epidromeas' actions and plans constituted an acute menace, and that your actions may have been necessary in defence of yourself and innocents."
"So, you brought me here just to get my help with this… looping thing."
"Yes."
"And you intend to hold me until I help you."
"Yes."
The Doctor sighed. "I still think this is complete crap, and that you're an absolutely spectacular moron if you think a Time Lord wouldn't already be aware of the sort of phenomenon you're talking about, especially on Earth, where, you must know, I spend a great deal of my time, and have a lot invested. But whatever – I'll play. The only looping thing I can think of off the top of my head, having to do especially with World War II, is Captain Jack Harkness."
"I see."
"He has been present throughout the war, twice. As far as I know, he spent both stints knocking about Britain, probably bouncing between Cardiff and London. It is possible, given his temperament and disposition, that he has been less-than-vigilant about crossing his own timeline."
"Interesting."
"Actually, to be honest, I wouldn't put it totally past him to have a one-night-stand with himself, but that's neither here nor there. I can tell by the look on your face that this isn't the sort of info you're looking for."
"The anomaly is engaging at a much more macro level than that," said the General. "In order to heal the breach and smooth out the localised loops, we are attempting to use an advanced-velocity time ring with a high level of consistency."
The Doctor looked at him deadpan, with disbelief. "You want to smooth out the pockets of time by basically unleashing a time tornado?"
"Its like trying to achieve a creamy batter by using the high setting on an electric mixer."
"Yeah, but you're not baking a cake, General, you're mucking about with time," The Doctor sighed with tedium. "Seriously, General, what are you lot up to? What is all this?"
The General ignored the question, and ploughed ahead. "Where we are struggling is in this time, Doctor, in the time that humans have designated as 2008, C.E. We are finding that it is difficult to keep the juggernaut up and running, if you will, because there is always this hiccup when we reach the end of the time ring in 2008. We want to restart the smoothing process in 1938, but find that we can't… not without a break in consistency, which we consider to be a key component."
"Did you say, 1938?" the Doctor asked, having a revelation.
"And that's where you come in," the Kir continued. "Who better to achieve a smooth transition between 2008 and seventy years prior than a Time Lord?"
"Indeed," the Time Lord responded, with a bit of a growl. "Are you, perhaps, also hoping to use a low-level dimensional transition field? In layman's terms, a small portal between this dimension and another? Small, like, maybe the size of a slab of city concrete?"
The General squinted at him in a way that let the Doctor know that the answer was yes. "That's classified."
"And is this temporal ring, perchance, going to be focused on London? Perhaps on Earl's Court Road, at the corner of Bolton Gardens?"
"Also classified."
"You've got actual time stuffed in a time capsule, haven't you?"
The General did not answer.
Okay, stuff is weaving together now.
Now, play nice, and leave a review! It would make me smile! :-)