For those of you who thought Colin was a bit too quick to accept all of this...
THIRTY
It was the first of January, 1938, the dead of winter, and burning wood and coal could be seen and smelled all over London, as the populace tried to stay warm. Though, with the New Year's festivities, people were either in jolly moods, or hungover.
Some things don't change, Martha thought.
As she and the Doctor had seen earlier, Christmas decorations were still up, and in some cases, withering and hanging by a thread. Not for the first time, of course, Martha had occasion to look about, and notice the world before consumerism as she knew it, before information was available almost literally on the wind… before even plastics were used in the everyday. The decorations that hung above where she and Colin sat, under a storefront awning, were made from real evergreen sprigs and real holly.
"Well, I'll say this for him: he makes a good cup of tea," Colin said, sipping Earl Grey with lemon from a heated travel tumbler from the TARDIS' kitchen. He was waiting for Donna's return, on a bench across the street from the corner-in-question, bundled up in a coat, scarf and hat found in the TARDIS' wardrobes.
Beside him sat his cousin, Martha Jones, more than a decade his junior, more than a decade since having outgrown him, and yet, there it was, that old protective feeling bubbling up. He had asked her at least a hundred times if she was comfortable, and had reminded her that if she got cold, she could go inside the TARDIS. Five minutes prior, the Doctor had turned up with tea for both of them, as Colin refused to come inside until he was sure that Donna was accounted-for, and Martha refused to leave Colin.
What she hadn't yet told the Doctor was that she was actually reluctant to leave Colin to his own thoughts. She knew perfectly well that he was a grown man, an intelligent man, and a strong one to boot, and could completely survive this uncertainty, facing the possible loss of someone he seemed to care about quite a lot. But what she didn't know was, what would happen if he sat there and thought too hard about this whole business… the Doctor, what she had seen of his lifestyle, the fact that he seems to drag people into it, and they willingly risk (sometimes give) their lives for him. She didn't want him thinking that she'd been seduced into some dangerous, lascivious, codependent relationship by a diabolically charming man. She needed him to know that she was perfectly well, fully cognizant of the danger, and doing what she loved, with whom she loved. And she wanted him to know that the same was basically true of Donna – except without the lasciviousness and the love bit.
Because, in the last few hours, Colin's amiable demeanour toward the Doctor had crashed and burned… hard. She couldn't blame him; he didn't have any kind of investment in the Doctor, but he did have something of an investment in her and Donna. All he could see was that Donna had perhaps died trying to help the Doctor, and that the possibility might be all-too-real for Martha, as well.
Sitting there next to him, she could feel it… she knew him well, and she knew that he'd been just trying to find a way to broach the subject: what the hell are you doing with this guy?
And so, she jumped in. "He makes a good cup of tea?" she asked. "That's the only thing nice you have to say about him, at this stage, Colin?"
He sighed. "Well, what do you want me to say, Martha? Haven't you been paying attention the last few hours?"
"Yes, but…"
"What, this is nothing new for you?"
"Well… sort of. Yeah, I mean… everything you've seen today, it's all pretty much part and parcel of our lives."
"A woman jumps into a black hole in the middle of London and disappears, and you're telling me it's routine?" he asked, practically whined. "Your friend does this, and it's not worrying?"
"Of course it's worrying!" she said, exasperated.
"And you were planning on doing it yourself, only you weren't quick enough!"
Martha tried to catch her breath. "Colin, if you knew some of the stuff Donna and I have done…" She pulled one gloved hand down over her face, much in the way the Doctor does, when stressed.
"I know, I know… I can't imagine."
Briefly, she thought about telling him about the Master, and her trek around the world. Though, she decided to save it for another day.
"I'm just saying, this is the life," she said, softly. "And you've had a taste of it. Even you did what needed to be done, to preserve the Doctor."
"I did it for Donna," he corrected.
"Because the Doctor is the only person who can get her back, am I right? The Doctor, in fact, is the only person who can do a lot of things, Colin, and that's what this is all about. All of it. It's why she and I do what we do. We… jump in with both feet, so to speak."
"That's not funny," he growled.
"I didn't mean for it to be funny."
"I did it for Donna, all right?" he repeated.
There was a pause of two or three minutes, while both of them sat in the cold and stewed.
"And now, I'm sitting here in fucking 1938," he said, looking about, nervously. "I mean… it's 1938. It's not a movie or a dressed set or a dream… it's real."
"Isn't it amazing?"
"It's disturbing. It seems wrong," he said, looking around.
"Seems wrong?"
"Like, there-are-forces-in-the-universe-that-ought-not-be-meddled-with sort of wrong."
"You're right. There are forces that ought not be meddled with, and time is definitely one of them. But the Doctor is a Time Lord. It's his right. For him, it's not exactly meddling."
"To go hopping about all over history, changing things?" Colin asked. "I'm no expert, but that seems arrogant and risky. And it's meddling."
"It would be, except Time Lords govern the laws of these things," Martha tried to explain. "And the Doctor is the only Time Lord left. Basically. Apart from that, he feels time, and time travel, in his guts. It's part of his DNA to do what he does."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he practically hissed at her.
Martha was surprised at the force of Colin's rejection of the Doctor, all of a sudden. She wondered if perhaps he'd been holding this in all along, and now that he had an excuse it was open season.
"You're telling me, sitting here, thirty-some years before your own birth, don't you feel the least bit of awe? The least glimmer of understanding of why Donna and I insist on being involved in all this?"
"Why you've given yourselves over to him?"
"Given ourselves over? What are we, a cult?"
"Sort of feels like it," he muttered.
"Well, it's not a cult. Which, I realise, is exactly what I would say if it were a cult, but… You really can't see it, even a little bit?"
He was quiet for a long while, and Martha could see him thinking. Like the Doctor, it was obvious when the wheels were turning behind Colin's eyes.
"Okay, maybe I misspoke," he sighed after another two-minute interval. "Maybe it was unfair to say that you've given yourselves over. I mean, I can see that the Doctor is… he's a good bloke, right? I'm not just imagining that bit."
"He's the best man I know," she said, steadily, sincerely. "I can't imagine ever meeting anyone even half as clever or selfless, let alone all wrapped up in the same package."
Colin didn't look at her. "I'm sorry, Martha. I know you're an intelligent woman, but you sound a bit Stepford Wives when you talk about him."
Martha had to fight herself not to immediately deny this, because she knew it would only add evidence to Colin's case. She tried to give the comment its due, and consider where it came from. Colin was her de-facto big brother. He'd watched her grow up. In his eyes, an intelligent woman though she was, he might still think of her as something of a fiery, spunky, impulsive child. Perhaps it was fair that hearing her sing the unmitigated praises of a powerful man made him bristle, especially now he was romantically involved with a woman also fiercely devoted to the Doctor.
"Okay… we can… talk about that, I guess…" was all Martha could think to say, that wasn't a denial nor an admission of anything.
"I see a charismatic, charming man, who leads a seductively exciting life, and… Martha, maybe you can't see it, but you are in it up to your neck. You seem to be in him up to your neck."
"No, I can see it," she admitted freely.
"And when I said you'd given yourselves over, at least for you, I meant…"
"I know what you meant."
Another pause, while he thought. Martha could, again, see the cogs turning in his mind. At last, he said, "You're a grown woman. I'm sorry."
"You're right, I am a grown woman, Colin. I'm educated, clever, level-headed… and I happen to be crazy in love, as well. Can't those things go together?"
"Perhaps," he conceded. "But not for very long."
"Okay, so it's new," she told him. "We've been a couple for less than two months."
"Really?" Colin asked, turning to face her. "I thought…"
"It had been longer?"
"Yes!"
"No. We've known each other for over two years, but it was only seven-and-a-half weeks ago that we… well…"
"Yeah, don't finish that sentence," he said. He let out a big, contemplative sigh. "Well, on the one hand, this just makes things so much worse, because after seven weeks, you're already so… Oh, Martha, do you know what long-term relationships are like? They're hard. And they change. They get less-exciting."
"I know that."
"One day, you're not going to be so crazy in love, and you'll just be… this guy's girlfriend. This really dangerous guy."
"Colin…"
He turned toward her all of a sudden, and his eyes were wide with emotion. "But, on the other hand, this is good, because maybe you're not in it up to your neck! It's only been seven weeks – you could still extricate yourself!"
She chuckled. "I was in it up to my neck the day we met," she told him. "And I'm sorry, but nothing is going to change that. The Doctor doesn't have casual acquaintances, and he doesn't commit to anyone or anything just a little bit. You can't love him calmly."
"But on some level, that must've been a choice! You can un-make a choice sometimes."
"Are you trying to get me to leave him?" she asked, her heart sinking.
"What if I am?" he asked. "Would you hear me out?"
"I'm letting you talk, aren't I?"
"I have a lot more to say, believe me."
"I won't stop you from making your case, Colin, but… you're wrong. It was not a choice on any level. The pull I felt toward him, as I said, already on the day we met, was overwhelming. And… well, I tried to leave him once."
"You did?"
"I did. It didn't work. I missed him every day that I wasn't with him. I missed everything about him; the physical and the cerebral. I missed the travel and the discovery and doing good all over the universe."
He turned back again, and looked straight ahead at the corner across the road, where their friend may or may not appear sometime today.
"Martha, what's happened to Donna?" he muttered, almost inaudibly.
"Is this a rhetorical question?"
"Maybe," he grunted.
"Colin," she scolded.
He cursed and stood up, and began to pace the sidewalk. "I get that you like doing good deeds, but Jesus Christ, Martha. This man, this Time Lord is under your skin in a big way, and he's got you and Donna, and God knows who else, risking your skin! Willingly! What if you fall out of his magic box and into deep space, eh? What if you die in a laser battle on the planet Mongo? Or from the Black Plague in medieval Venice? How will your mother feel? How will Tish and Leo, and Gran and the rest of us feel?"
"Not any worse, I imagine, than if I stepped off the kerb in twenty-first century London and got hit by a bus," she said, calmly.
He let out a grunt of frustration, and was angrily silent for a few moments. Eventually, he threw himself back down onto the bench beside her, and said, "Martha, come home."
"Come home? Who are you, my dad?"
"No, but he'd probably say the same thing."
"No, he wouldn't."
"If he knew the kind of…"
"He does know, Colin. They all know – mum, Tish, Leo, even Nadine. They know. They're not that keen on it sometimes, especially mum. And if I haven't let my mother talk me into stopping this madness..."
"…why should let me?"
She shrugged in a way that seemed to say, exactly.
"Can't you do good here? In Britain? On Earth?"
"I can, and I do," she said. "I can do more with the Doctor."
"Plus, you love him."
"That's the bit that's beyond my control."
"He loves you, that much is bloody obvious."
"It is now," she agreed.
"Okay… let's just say for a minute that what you're doing and saying makes any sense," he said, poising his hands in hold it stance. "That being with the Doctor is inevitable for you, that it's something you're compelled to do, by your body, by your soul, by your mind, and all that."
She chuckled. "Let's just say for a minute? Thanks for the benefit of the doubt, cousin."
"Right. All of that… that's you. What's Donna's story?"
"Oh, well… honestly, Colin, you'd have to ask Donna," Martha said. "And it's very likely that you'll have a chance later today."
"But she doesn't have the same kind of connection with the Doctor that you do, but it is a connection. How does she fit in?"
Martha shrugged. "The possibilities for living a more meaningful life are staggering, with the Doctor, which I think you understand, whether you want to admit it or not. And she's fond of him, but unlike me, no part of her is in it for… you know."
"The hair and the suit?" he asked, with bit of cynicism.
"Yeah. I don't know all the details of how Donna and the Doctor found each other, but once they did, they were fast friends. Fierce friends. Each one of them holds a unique place in the other's heart, that no-one can touch. You and I both will have to come to terms with that."
"I see," he commented, non-committally.
"That's living a bigger life – friendship and knowledge, and self-growth. But love? The drippy side of it? Romance? The sexy, sweaty bit? They don't even look at each other twice when that stuff comes up. In fact, they pointedly look away. Much as you and I would."
"So, what, they're like… cousins?"
"If you like," she conceded. "Actually, that's a pretty good way to put it."
"I see," he repeated, with a sigh.
"I'm almost sorry you got involved, now. We introduced you to someone wonderful, then made you watch her disappear."
He shut his eyes tight, and bowed his head forward, resting it in his hands. "Seriously, Martha. She's gone, possibly forever. That was almost you."
"I know."
"Please consider what I've said. Will you do that?"
"Oi," the Doctor said softly to Martha, shaking her shoulder. "Wake up, you."
She sat up with a start, realising it was dark, and impossibly cold. Her head had been resting on Colin's shoulder, and the two of them hadn't moved from the bench where they'd been waiting for Donna. The Doctor had brought them food and tea throughout the day, and sat with them for an hour at a time at different points. But, he could sense tension with Colin, and he needed to keep an eye on the console, just in case a hint of Donna was traced through the localised wormhole between 2008 and 1938. So, he'd spent most of the day inside.
When Martha stirred, so did Colin.
"Oh," she groaned. "I feel like an icicle. What time is it?"
"After midnight," the Doctor said. "She's not going to turn up on that corner. Let's get you both inside, where it's warm."
Martha moved round the bench and made to follow the Doctor's advice. A warm shower sounded absolutely heavenly right now.
Colin stood, but he seemed transfixed, looking at the spot where now, it seemed Donna was not going to appear.
The Doctor put a hand on his shoulder and tried to encourage him toward the TARDIS. "Come on, Colin. You're going to give yourself hypothermia."
"Are you sure she's not coming?" Colin asked, sounding heartbreakingly sad.
"The portal led to the first of January, 1938. It's now the second of January, 1938. No Donna. Come on, mate," the Doctor coaxed again, gently pulling Colin's arm.
When they stepped inside, the Doctor had warm milk waiting for them both. They thanked him, and took it, gladly.
"Colin, I've made up a room for you," he said, after a few minutes, and helping both of them out of their coats, scarves, hats, et cetera. "I can show you…"
"So, that's it, then? We give up on Donna?" Colin interrupted.
"No," said the Doctor. "We're just going to get some rest."
"She could be anywhere!"
"No, she couldn't," the Doctor countered. "As she fell through the portal between two points in time, and didn't turn up at, as they say, point B… that means she must've been knocked sideways somehow. There are any number of ways that can happen…"
"What the hell does that even mean?" Colin shouted, spilling a bit of the milk.
"Wait, if she was falling through a portal specific to two points in time on a particular, specialized, now-defunct timestream, and was knocked sideways, does that mean…" Martha said, thinking aloud. "She's in the vortex somewhere?"
"Wow, you'd make a fair Time Lord, Dr. Jones," the Doctor marvelled. Then he sighed, rubbed both of his eyes, and looked utterly exhausted before confirming, "But, yeah."
"Whoa," Martha muttered.
"Again, what the hell does that mean?" Colin asked.
"It means that we – especially you two – need a good night's sleep and clear heads before we can rescue her," the Doctor insisted. "She may or may not be alive, but if we're going to have any hope of getting her back in any state, we've got to be sharp, warm and a lot less irritable."
Colin growled some sort of contrarian curse word, but he knew it was true. He allowed the Doctor then to lead him down the hall, show him where the kitchen was, just in case he felt peckish, then to a bedroom.
"The bathroom is through there," the Doctor said, pointing to a door. "There's a soaking tub, a shower, some spare clothes, if you like. I didn't know your size, so I just brought in a bunch of stuff. There's also a small washer in there for your own clothes, if you prefer. Pyjamas in the drawer."
"Thank you, Doctor. All this is yours?"
"Basically yeah," the Doctor sighed. "But the TARDIS is meant for a crew of six, so there's always six working bedroom suites. She can create more, if the need arises."
"Donna occupied one?"
"Occupies, Colin. Present tense. And yes. The same room usually serves as quarters for whoever is travelling with me… Martha used to sleep in the room that's now Donna's. Before that, someone called Rose slept there."
"Now she'll share your room? Martha, I mean?" Colin asked, quietly, not looking at the Doctor, pretending to fidget with a lamp.
"Yes," the Doctor answered. He resisted to urge to ask if that was a problem.
"Okay," Colin sighed. "Thanks for the digs."
"Yep. I'll wake you in nine hours."
Crash of the Doctor and the Architect! Oh no!
I heard little more than crickets on the last chapter! I know this wasn't the most exciting thing, but leave me a review anyway. It will make my day!