So, in the little building in the 'burbs, time is standing still! And the Doctor's presence confuses that stillness directive... when time is "set" to do something specific and you add a big dose of chaotic time energy (like, say, a time-traveller), then things get weird!
And while we're on the subject of time standing still, because of this bizarre quality, if they summon the TARDIS inside the building, they might be able to get back to "their" original version of 2008, where there's been no flattening of London in 1938.
Cross your fingers, my friends. And enjoy!
TWENTY-EIGHT
The TARDIS materialised around them, right there in the hallway of Buford S. Greene's annexed office building.
"Whoa," Colin breathed, finding himself suddenly standing a foot from the console. He looked around, again. "I can't believe this. I mean, I still cannot believe this thing."
"Okay, kids," the Doctor announced. "We've only got one shot at this. If we misfire, reality transforms, 2008 becomes the future of what Kir and the Time Lords orchestrated, and we're buggered."
"If finding an untouched 2008 works at all. Right?" asked Donna.
"Right," he confirmed, a little irritatedly. "But hey, how about a little faith?"
"All right, I believe in you, Doctor," she said, rolling her eyes.
"That's better," he said to her with a smirk.
"Now, run it by us again," Martha said. "You're going to literally throw yourself into the portal between Earl's Court Road and 1938 jammed into a barrel."
"Yes," he said, turning to face her.
"And time energy from 1938 that's supposed to explode will filter through you instead?"
"Filter through me, maybe," he nodded. "More likely it will swarm around me as an enigmatic time event…"
"And this is safe?" she interrupted.
He chuckled. "Is anything?"
"Doctor, be straight with me," she said, her voice stern, hard. "What are the risks here? I saw what happened in 1938 when you stood on that spot. And all you did was stand there."
"Wait, what happened?" Donna asked.
"He stood on the corner, at the exact point where the time capsule was buried, he got overwhelmed and he vomited into the gutter."
"Doctor!" Donna said, scolding him like an auntie. "How could you consider this? If it mucked up your guts when you just stood there on the pavement, what happens when the thing opens, and all that time stuff actually gets you?"
"Listen, I'm a Time Lord," he sighed. "Time energy is what I do. It's what I am."
"You didn't answer the question," Donna pointed out.
"Could this kill you?" Martha asked, eyes wide.
"Martha…"
"Could it?" she shouted.
He sighed, and admitted. "It could."
"Will it?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
"Fifty fifty?"
"Yeah, or thereabouts."
She groaned, and threw herself onto the lone seat in the room. "So, then… what are we supposed to do, if it does kill you?"
"It probably won't," he tried to assure her.
"You just said fifty-fifty!"
"Well… sixty-forty," he said. "Sixty in our favour."
"You'll excuse me if I'm not comforted by that," she snapped back.
"She's not wrong, Mr. Evasive," Donna said. "If you die, what happens then? Will you regenerate?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe?" she hollered back at him. "Well, there's a bloody reassurance – thanks for that!"
"Donna…"
"Seriously," Colin cut in. He surprised everyone enough that they stopped and stared. "Doctor, I don't know you well, obviously, but from what I've seen, from what Donna has told me, I don't understand how you can be so blasé about giving your life. Or even possibly giving your life."
"He does this all the damn time," Donna informed him, exasperated.
"Why?" Colin asked him, earnestly. "Because, I don't know if this planet can do without you."
"You don't, eh?" the Doctor asked, rather quietly.
"Well… I mean, without you, this time-capsule thing would've just happened, and we'd be stuck in the Nazi apocalypse, on a loop, mind you, and our lives would be hell, and we'd be none the wiser," Colin said, rather logically. He turned to Martha for confirmation, "Am I right?"
"You're right," she said, never taking her eyes off the Doctor, who was now not making eye-contact with anyone.
"And according to Donna, this isn't even the most intense thing you lot have been through together," he said, almost laughing. "Even if you save us now, what's to happen the next time some alien race decides to teach us naughty humans a lesson?"
"What's to happen, Doctor, when they realise you're dead?" Martha asked, jumping off the stool, and crossing to him. "We're all sitting ducks, and so is every other innocent species in the universe, and you know it."
He pulled his hand down over his face in a harried, buggered gesture. "I don't know," he said, flatly.
"Doctor," she said, quietly, her voice breaking. "What's to happen to me, when I realise you're dead? Eh? Do you think I could ever just… recover from something like that? Find someone else, move on with my life?"
"Oh, Martha…"
"Never, Doctor," she insisted. "Never ever would I get over that. And it's unlikely I could forgive you."
He sighed, and then looked at her with tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry, but don't have any other ideas, Martha," he said. "This is all I have. I have me."
She whispered, as tears threatened to fall, "You're all I have, too."
"That's not true," he said, as his own sadness began to break as well. "Tell me that's not true."
"I only have one life," she told him. "And only one love."
He bent his head toward hers, and for a moment, they just stood, forehead-to-forehead, despairing.
"It's the planet, Martha."
"I know," she murmured, with a resigned sigh. "I know."
It was an acknowledgement of what he had just said: this was the only plan there was. The Doctor was the Doctor, and he had to do what he had to do. Which was, as usual, take a huge mortal risk, to save the helpless from the hellbent.
After several moments of this intensity, permeating the console room of the TARDIS, Donna broke the silence. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but… Doctor, how long will we be able to access our version of 2008 from here?"
He seemed to come to. "Not long, so we have to act fast," he said, moving round the console suddenly. He began pressing buttons and adjusting things. Martha could see that he was setting coordinates of some sort.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Glad you asked! Now listen, all three of you, pay attention," he chirped, having seemingly completely shaken off the heaviness of a few moments ago. "Do you see this lever here? Martha, Donna, you've seen me throw this thing a hundred times, and you know what it does."
"Sets the TARDIS in motion," Donna said. "Moves us from point A to point B."
"Exactamundo," the Doctor said. "And both of you, in the last few days, have successfully moved this old girl on your own, so none of this should come as a shock, or seem difficult, yeah? Now, if all goes well, I'm going to fall through the portal from 2008 into 1938. Hopefully, at that point, 2008 will begin to transform into 1938, fast enough that people will barely notice it, and slowly enough that it won't take out a bunch of city blocks. And, all the pesky time-trusses will have disappeared and life will be normal there… all I will need is a way out."
"Time won't transform around the TARDIS?" Martha asked. "You actually need us to come and get you?"
"I can't be sure. The last time something like this happened, the TARDIS got swept into the vortex and pressed up against a atemporal wall, as time matter proliferated. So, that means, once I'm out of the TARDIS, turn this dial here all the way to the right, which will switch off the vortex-hopper mode, then throw this lever into place. That should bring you to Earl's Court just around the corner from Bolton Gardens, first January, 1938, at five in the morning. I should be along sometime over the course of that day – don't know when. If I'm not there already. From there, we can pack up and move on."
"Why not just land us right on the corner? Too much time debris, or something?" Donna wanted to know.
"No, it's because Martha and I were there, on that corner, on that day, just a bit ago," he said. "And I don't want 'us' to see the TARDIS sitting there."
"Oh!" Martha exclaimed.
"And since I don't know what time I'll be falling through the portal, I don't know what time to park you there, and I don't know if we'll be crossing our own timelines or not…"
"Okay, okay," Donna dismissed. "Just asking. Blimey, when will I learn?"
"All right, now, tell us one more time," Colin said, closing his eyes tightly. "This will work because you are… a chaotic time event? Do I understand that correctly?"
"Yes," said the Doctor. "I'm a time-traveller. I'm an anomaly. I will, in a manner of speaking, confuse the explosion, if we can hit it just right."
"And there's a chance that the time energy will channel through you, and you'll be able to control the release of 1938, and have it overtake 2008 at a safe rate?"
"Yes, a small chance," the Doctor answered. "But what will probably happen is that I will distract the energy being released. It will focus on me, adhere to me, churn a bit, then get released into 2008. This will also be a relatively safe speed. Mind you, a small blast might occur over a block or two, but nothing that the city can't repair."
"Doctor, do you even know how big the opening is? Is it a literal opening, even?" Donna wondered aloud. "I mean, you're a skinny guy, but what if it's like a shoebox?"
"Even if all I can fit in there is my foot or my head, or two of my fingers, the effect will be the same."
"And Buford Greene's minions?" she asked. "They'll be standing about. What'll you do when they grab you and pull you out?"
"Blimey," he sighed. "One thing at a time, yeah?"
"And we… do what now?" Colin asked.
"Well, hold onto something, for a start," the Doctor said.
While the Doctor readied the TARDIS to fly into the vortex, and do what he described as "hopping" sort of sideways, trying to find a particular timestream, Martha's mind began to race.
She could not help but let her thoughts drift back to a few minutes ago when she and the Doctor had their moment of angst, during which she knew without a doubt, that if the Doctor died today, it would destroy her. She would have her job, her family, the life she'd had before he'd come into it, but it would never be the same again. Her heart would never be the same. Her body and soul would carry his imprint forever, and would always feel empty and longing…
There was really very little reason to think that today was unlike any other time when he had put his life on the line to save the Earth, which she had seen him do dozens of times, and yet…
It was different, because they were different. She had always loved him, but back in the old days with the Judoon, and the Carrionites and the Daleks, she didn't have him. Now, in him, she had everything to lose. She knew full well it was selfish of her to try and manipulate him into hanging back for her sake, but she hadn't been able to help it. When he said it was fifty-fifty he might die, every fibre of her being was suddenly in panic.
Never ever would I get over it, she had said to him.
Especially if I thought there was something I could have done about it, she now said to herself.
He had explained to Colin, "I'm a time-traveller. I'm an anomaly. I will, in a manner of speaking, confuse the explosion, if we can hit it just right… what will probably happen is that I will distract the energy being released."
I'm a time-traveller, too, she said. I'm an anomaly, as well. This was proven in Mallorca, all those weeks ago, when the alien homed in on me and my time-anomalous family.
She stood and watched him do his graceful solo waltz round the console, and admired, once again, the way he moved. This was his element. He was a powder-keg of energy and passion when he was here at the console with a problem to solve. The sight made her heart race, even more than it had a week ago in her flat, when she sat and watched him putter around the kitchen in his perfectly-tailored suit, and his purposefully-mussed hair. He looked like just a man – well, a really cracking handsome, charismatic, enigmatic man, but a man all the same. But he was so much more. Behind those eyes, there were entire worlds that he'd seen, saved, destroyed, explored, deplored… and behind that closely buttoned-up coat there beat two hearts. And somewhere inside, all of time and space burned, ready for him to see, feel, wield, and make bend to his will.
And with this, she realised that she had a lot less chance of survival than he did. A hell of a lot less. But with him gone, the Earth would have zero chance of survival in the long-run. Not to mention, the horror of facing the universe at large, un-policed by the Doctor.
And yes, he would be heartbroken just as she would, but, she reminded herself, he does not have only one life. He had had ten so far, and would have how many more? He'd have millennia to get over her, and it must have occurred to him that he'd lose her someday, anyway…
Tears fell down her cheeks while she turned over all this in her mind.
She had to play this close to her chest. She had to be watchful, and quick.
Keep it together, Martha. For everyone's sake.
"And a-hoppin' we go!" the Doctor exclaimed, as the TARDIS lurched, and everyone grabbed on for dear life.
The ride was bumpier than usual, because, as the Doctor explained, they were not flying through the vortex as they normally did, but rather, going "sideways," looking for a particular version of 2008.
After ten seconds or so, the TARDIS' trajectory changed direction, and smoothed a bit.
The Doctor let go of the controls, and the vessel seemed to be flying on some sort of auto-pilot setting. He went to the door, opened it, letting in a loud rushing noise and oscillating rays of light, moving about the console room at a million miles per hour. The Doctor held onto the door opposite and leaned out.
All three on-board with him exclaimed something expressing alarm, concern, exasperation, confusion… or all of these.
Martha was the first to grab him.
"Don't worry, I'm just looking," he told her, pulling away, so that he could use his arm to brace against the doorjamb.
"Yeah, now," she said. "What about five minutes from now?"
"Look," he said, ignoring the question, and focusing hard on something. "That little sliver of yellow – do you see it?"
Donna and Colin gathered at the door with them, and Martha peered into the churning mix of vortex below them. The speed at which they were moving was terrifying, and the energy around them was completely intangible. She dared not think of what might happen if one of them fell at the wrong moment.
"I see it," Donna called, and pointed at it with one manicured index finger. Martha saw it then, just at the same moment – a razor-thin, wafting band of yellowish-gold light, wandering through the vortex. "What is it?"
"That's our version of 2008," the Doctor shouted. "It's fading away!"
"It's what? How is it fading away?" Colin asked, frantically. "How is it even… what is… wait…"
"You lot, you keep an eye on it, I'm going to try and get us in there," the Doctor instructed, moving away from the door, and back up to the console. "Hold on at all costs… but tell me how close I am."
The TARDIS began to careen toward the yellow light, and Martha, Donna, and Colin all began to scream involuntarily.
"Doctor, we passed through it!" Donna screamed. "Try again!"
The Doctor cursed, and seemed to change a few settings on the console again. The TARDIS flipped around, and they could see the yellow ribbon again. He growled in frustration. "This is going to be a bugger to catch! And we've only got a couple of minutes before…"
He tried again to fly the TARDIS into the slit of yellow light, with some shouted "guidance" from Donna. Again, he missed.
With a great, throaty cry, he tried again. This time, the TARDIS itself shook with nervous rage, but it worked.
"We're through!" she shouted. "We're in space!"
"We're a few hundred thousand miles from Earth," the Doctor said, examining his screen. "We'll have to get to the right day and time, and teleport into London… and then get really clever."
Indeed, Martha thought.
Thoughts?
Thank you for reading!