Okay, wow, that took a while! I've got my attention split between two pieces, and two fandoms, plus real life (which is a bummer!), so it's now taking quite a bit of time to get this story updated!

Martha has announced that she'd like to stay behind in 1980... will the Doctor take it well? :-D Enjoy!

TEN

"Doctor, I think I should stay with her," Martha had said of the unfortunate Tammy Litzinger, a.k.a. Louise Marchand. "Not forever, but you three can go rescue a few more of the Oystermouth disappearances, while my time is better spent here. You need Glenn for that job, not me."

"I need you for everything," he complained. "Especially now."

"No, you don't," she counselled. "When the Weeping Angels come to call, I'm an extra set of eyes, at best, which we don't need, because Jack and Glenn are immune. At worst, I'm a liability… but here, I can do what I've always wanted to do, which is help people heal."

The Doctor didn't answer right away. A heavy silence fell over them as the pair of them stared at each other expectantly, incredulously, somewhat contentiously, and Glenn watched them like a spectator at a tennis match.

Then, the Doctor said, "Glenn, will you give us some privacy, please?"

"Sure," said the half-Eternal. "I mean, you're the ones standing in a hallway for all to see, but whatever." And he re-entered the room to join Jack and Tammy.

"Martha, if we go back into that cemetery, and something happens, and I get zapped away in time, I might get stuck somewhere, which means you might get stuck here. And then we're stuck away from each other," the Doctor explained. "Like 1969, only worse because…"

"That won't happen," she assured him. "You've got Jack and Glenn, impervious to the Angels, and we've all got universal roaming."

"We're playing with fire in that cemetery, letting Glenn absorb energy from the Angels. If they get hold of the TARDIS…"

"That won't happen either. I know you won't let it."

"Not on purpose, but if I mess up…"

"Doctor, if you're going to mess up, it's going to happen whether I'm there or not!" she pointed out, exasperated, now raising her voice. "But you won't!"

He raised his as well. "If I mess up, and the Angels get into the TARDIS, the universe might die. And that will be it!"

"Oh, my God," she groaned. She was groaning at the whole situation. The impossibility of it. The danger. His doomsaying - it was all absurd.

"Or, maybe time bends or twists or goes wonky, and time travel becomes like swimming through toffee or like a game of whack-a-mole – that's another possibility if we keep messing with the Angels, and energy. But at least if you're there with me, we can see it out, see it through, together! And I won't have to worry about finding you in the taffy, because you know bloody well, that's the first thing I'll try to do!"

"Are you telling me that you trust me, and yourself, enough that I can literally walk around the planet, and you can worm your way into the psyches of every human being and save the Earth over the course of a whole year," she asked, with her hands on her hips. "But for me to hang out for a few weeks in Connecticut with a non-dangerous psychiatric patient while you fight aliens with two guys impervious to their powers… that's too much for you?"

"You're missing the point. It's not about trust," he said, now simply exasperated himself, not shouting. "I've never said that you can't help her heal. I've never said that this is a bad idea because of the personalities involved, or anything like it."

"Fine, I'm sorry, but remember…"

"It's about you," he told her, ploughing through her protestation, and now softening. His eyes were heavy with concern. "Just you, Martha Jones."

"What does that mean?"

He moved toward her, and placed his hands on her arms. He stroked them, and seemed to examine her hair, her eyes, ears, and neck. "It means I can't risk you. Not anymore. Not with the way things are now, and not if I can help it."

She pressed her hands gently against his lapels. "The way things are now?" And she chuckled.

"What? What's that about?"

"Do you know that for me, it's never been any different?"

He sighed hard. "Yeah."

"I love you. But I've always loved you, and this is what we've always done. We assess our resources, split them up, and conquer. We are a team who use our uniqueness, our abilities as we have them, to play different parts of the field and problem-solve. Very often in different parts of a crashing ship, or a doomed city… why not in different parts of time? We can't stop taking risks just because we love each other. I mean, is that how you do things with people you care about? How you've ever done things?"

"Clearly not," he admitted, sort of pouting.

"If we do stop risking our lives, then what good is it being together? What kind of togetherness is it, if it comes at the expense of all the people we could help, and all the running and fighting that makes us us?"

He groaned in recognition, and a dawning acceptance of what she was saying.

He walked over to the wall slowly, and leaned against it. "Martha, you know, don't you, why it took me so long to come round? To reach out to you? I mean, the Pleasure Vortex notwithstanding… I had feelings for you from way back – how could I not? But I didn't say anything until… well…"

"Yes, because you loved someone before, lost her suddenly, and were having a hard time getting over her," Martha said, evenly. "I get it. It's hard to get involved with someone new when you're hung up on your ex. I'd say that's the story of our first two years together, in a nutshell, wouldn't you?"

"Yeah, but that's not the whole story."

"The rest of the story is that you lost her, and you were terrified of it happening again. Am I right?"

He nodded in assent. "And this, this conversation, is exacerbated by the fact that our adventures are exactly what caused me to lose her."

"But you decided to give it a go with me anyway, didn't you? Because here we are," she said. "And I assumed that risk with you, as I do with every risk we take. How many times do Jack and I have to remind you of that? And do you know what? We're not dealing with dimensional walls, or conflict on a global scale here, Doctor. This isn't Canary Wharf."

"In some ways, it's worse! The dimensional walls are within them, Martha! Within the Angels! The time vortex might flow through them! They are a dimensionally unstable quantum mystery, even somewhat to me, and that is terrifying. Especially when you put the TARDIS in the mix. With Daleks and Cybers it's one thing, but with the Weeping Angels, time itself is fragile, and the thought of leaving you here… what if Jack and Glenn get too complacent in their imperviousness and forget the damage the Angels can do? I wasn't joking when I said we were playing with fire. And that thing about toffee and twisting, time going wonky, none of that was a joke either."

She approached him where he was, against the wall, and took his hands. "I travel with you because I have faith in you. Because you help. And we came here to help Tammy. She needs us. So are we going to help her or not?"

"What if she never decides to go home?"

"Then as the only medical-type who actually knows what's happening to her, I'll help get her stabilised so she can be safely discharged. She could have a job and a home and a life here in 1980, as Louise Marchand. One way or another, just walking away from her at this point is not what we do, and you know it."

Spring Hill was quite happy to have Martha Jones temporarily in their midst, as they were a bit short-staffed. They actually gave her files of two other patients, as well. Curiously, Dr. Penn, one of two psychiatrists assigned to Tammy's care said it would be nice to have a British perspective. This didn't make any sense to Martha, but she wasn't going to argue. Dr. Penn also hinted that it would be nice to have Jack about, which Martha could see full well was because Jack was so pretty. She said unfortunately, Mr. Harkness needed to be getting back to his assigned duties elsewhere, and the subject was dropped.

Dr. Penn invited Martha to stay at her house, which was just a block from the facility, and to call her 'Sybil.' She warned Martha, though, that they would be unlikely to spend a lot of time together, as she was wont to work late and/or erratic hours. Martha accepted with thanks, and moved in temporarily with a duffel bag and a mobile phone that she kept hidden, and on her person at all times. The Doctor gave her a phone charger that fit a U.S. wall socket, the shape of which had not changed since 1980. The apparatus worked fine, though it was out of its time.

And so, at the very least, she would be able to speak to the Doctor (or Jack or Glenn, if need be) when no-one was around. The uncertainty was still terrible, but it was mitigated by the definite sense that she was doing the right thing.

In the TARDIS, the air was coloured with a different mood.

"She's going to be fine," Jack said, to his distracted friend.

For the past four hours, the three men in the TARDIS had been examining the list of people missing from Oystermouth cemetery, trying to make the most efficient plan for rescuing some of them, possibly helping all of them, and talking about all of the various and sundry things that had come up in conversation. Most of it relevant, some of it not so much.

The bottom line was, the rescue missions would entail more cat-and-mouse with Weeping Angels, reading of energy signatures, et cetera, et cetera. They were in 2008, near Oystermouth once again…

And the Doctor had been staring off into the middle distance for the past few minutes, and had not responded when asked a direct question, which had prompted Jack to tell him, "She's going to be fine."

"Mm," the Doctor mused.

"Doctor?" Jack said. Then shouted, "Doctor?"

This brought the Time Lord round. "Mm, what? Oh… sorry. What was the question?"

"The question isn't the point. The point is, Martha will be okay."

"Can we please get back to the task at-hand?" the Doctor asked.

"I'd like to, but you're all swimmy-eyed over your girlfriend," Jack shrugged. "Again."

The Doctor scrunched his face in distaste. "You make it sound so… so…"

"Adolescent?" Jack asked.

"It's not adolescent."

"Which part?"

"None of it! I have genuine, very complex feelings, and genuine concerns. She could actually be lost, Jack. And I'm not swimmy-eyed. What the hell does that even mean?"

Jack took a deep breath. "Glenn, I don't know if you've heard this story, but let me spin you a yarn," he said, boisterously, sitting down upon the stool for effect. "Once upon a time, there was a Time Lord – and a pretty hot one, if I might say so – who got, unfortunately captured and aged into the full glory of his nine-hundred odd years. He had a friend, an incredibly handsome friend, who also happened to be immortal. For one whole year, the aged Time Lord and his handsome friend were held prisoner on a ship, along with some folks named Jones, and were forced to watch while another Time Lord – also kind of hot, which I only admit to myself in my darker moments – brought the Earth to its knees in submission, and murdered one-tenth of the population in the first few minutes."

"Jack…"

"But despite the fact that the immortal friend was hideously killed at least once a day, the Time Lord was humiliated routinely and forced to sleep in a blanket fort, and the human race nearly languished, hope was always present. One reason was that the immortal friend never lost the glint in his blue eyes, nor his flawless square jaw, no matter how many times he died. But the bigger, grander reason for hope prevailing was… do you know, Doctor?"

"Jack…"

Once again, Glenn was left to follow the conversation with his head on swivel, and his eyes wide.

"Because the Time Lord, his handsome friend, and the Joneses, they all had total faith in one woman. One wicked clever woman, whose incredible intelligence was matched by her bravery, and whose staggering beauty was matched by her faith and love. And all of those qualities – yes, even her liquid dark good-looks – married together to form a human being who was capable of persevering, and saving the world. And she did just that."

"All right, all right, shut up now," the Doctor sighed, waving away Jack's little story.

"And do you know who that woman was, Doctor?"

"I said shut up, Captain."

"That's right. She is the very woman whom you are currently worried cannot survive a week or two in 1980's America, at a hospital where she isn't even the patient. Come on now."

"As I told her, it's not a matter of whether she's clever enough or tough enough to survive," the Doctor insisted. "It's…"

"It's about Canary Wharf, I know," Jack said, rolling his eyes. "Jesus. Talk about baggage."

"It's about that thing, right there," the Doctor practically shouted now, pointing at the computer CPU currently sitting beside the console platform, in a "pit" usually reserved for discarded cables.

"Glenn's mum's computer?" Jack asked, sceptically.

"Yes," the Doctor insisted. "It makes everything different. It makes the stakes higher. Or, at least more unstable. Martha is somewhere in time – she's not just walking across Brazil, or whatever. We've actually left her in the wrong decade, with the TARDIS vulnerable, and no matter how far she walks…"

The phone in the Doctor's pocket rang – the one he had taken from PC Diggs only a day or two ago, which actually felt like lifetimes.

"Is that her?" Glenn asked.

"Who else could it be?" Jack asked, in response.

"Hey, glad you called," the Doctor said into the phone. "It's been four hours and I can't stand myself already. Are you okay?" A pause. "Good. FYI, Jack is freaking out about your absence."

Jack and Glenn both rolled their eyes.

"Yeah, hold on," the Doctor said into the phone. "Okay, Martha, you're on speaker."

"Jack, are you listening?" Martha asked.

"Yeah, all ears," he called back, as the Doctor laid the phone on the console for easier access by everyone. "What's up?"

"I spent most of the afternoon just talking with Tammy," Martha said. "She's been evasive about why she doesn't want to go back home. Eventually, I'm hoping to find out more about it, but for now, we've just been talking. And I found out something that you, Captain, might find interesting."

"Yeah?"

"Tammy said she had been tracking the Weeping Angels for about a month before she wound up at Oystermouth photographing them," Martha said.

"Tracking them?" the Doctor asked. "How is that possible?"

"They first appeared in Cardiff, right around the Plass," Martha said. "A friend of hers saw them there, thought she saw them move, then told Tammy about it. Tammy decided to come and look, and she found it was true: the statues seem to move."

"Cardiff…" Jack said, trailing off. "Does she know which date? I'll bet our instruments picked them up, and we didn't even know it. We were distracted, or…"

"I'll see if she can get a date," Martha said. "Were there any disappearances in Cardiff a month, maybe a month and a half ago?"

"I mean, probably," Jack said. "It might have been something we were working on, even – we do disappearances all the time. But much like the police, sometimes we never find the culprit. Damn it, I wish we'd known!"

"Maybe they rode in on a wave of something bigger, so they wouldn't be noticed," she offered.

"That makes perfect sense," the Doctor growled. "They thrive on going unnoticed. They're the best in the universe at it."

"Anyway, next they were seen in Drope, then St. Nicolas, Bonvilston, St. Hilary… until they found a home in a creepy old cemetery where no-one would notice them," Martha continued.

"Wait," Glenn chimed in. "Are you saying it took them a month to get from Cardiff to Swansea? I mean, that's only about seventy-five kilometres. An hour's drive, if that."

"But they've got to skulk, and they can only travel when no-one is around," the Doctor said, thinking. "Can't move too quickly and arouse suspicion. Even under the cover of night, it's risky for them."

"We should look into disappearances all along that route," Jack said.

"You can," the Doctor said. "You and your team… if you want. But be mindful of rescuing too many people, Jack. Ripples. Ripples all over the place."

"Yeah, but…"

"The reason why this is important this time, is not, unfortunately, about the lives lost. It's about how they got here. Now that we know they came through the rift, we can send them back!" the Doctor exclaimed.

"We don't know yet that they came through the rift," Jack said. "I still find it hard to believe that that could have happened, literally right on top of us, and we didn't notice!"

"Don't take it hard, Captain, there are no accusations here. It's like I said: they are the best in the universe at going unseen! The more they get noticed, the more likely they are to starve to death. It's just evolution. If they wanted in, they would definitely wait for the best opportunity to do so."

"So do we need to figure out what wave brought them in? Which phenomenon they hitchhiked with?"

"Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is always good," the Doctor shrugged. "But for my purposes, it doesn't matter. Ordinarily, I wouldn't consider it fair play just to kick their arses back into the Rift, but now…"

"Martha, is there anything else you can remember?" Jack asked.

"You now know everything I do," she replied.

"Well, I know the Doctor said he doesn't need the intel, but for me, can you get more?" he wondered.

"I'll give it a go, but remember, I'm here to be a doctor, not an investigator," she reminded him. "I'll only do it if it's organic."

"That's all I can ask," Jack said with some finality. "Thanks Martha. I'd say take care of yourself, but you already know to do that. So I'll say… stay gorgeous, and don't let the eighties break your swerve."

"Thanks," she chuckled.

"Anything else, Martha?" the Doctor asked.

"Nope. I'll let you know if something comes up. Going back to Sybil's place now. Dinner, weird 80's American telly, then bed."

"Okay," he said. Then sheepishly, he added, "I love you."

Jack resisted the urge to whoop and go, aaawwww!

"I love you too, and I'll see you soon," she said, before cutting off the call.

"See? She's fine," Jack reminded the Doctor, smacking him on the shoulder.

"Yeah," the Doctor said. "But if we're going to do this job, then let's do it. Let's get Glenn's mum and niece rescued."

"Really?" Glenn asked, looking surprised. "I mean… now?"

"Yes. Do you not want to do it now?"

"I do want to do it now," Glenn replied. "It's just… I thought I'd have to earn my keep a bit more before you'd do it."

"Rescuing your family is not a reward for your services, Glenn. It's something we're going to do because it is needed."

"Honestly?"

"Of course," the Doctor shrugged. And that was that. Then, he was off to the races again. He turned to face the CPU that he had placed in the pit beside the platform and said, "But gents, I just need you to know, and to keep in mind, that there's probably a Weeping Angel stored in that unit, and it's been here in the TARDIS with us for a while. I don't know whether Angels listen and scheme while they are dormant, much less whether it can hear us from inside a hard drive, but we need to be prepared for anything."

"Yikes," Glenn muttered.

"Playing with fire, indeed," the Doctor said, under his breath.

I feel like a new "act" of the story is kicking off here... though I can't tell until I see the finished product. but mentally, I'm going into high-gear now with storytelling, and wondering how I'm going to arrange the climax.

Thanks for reading, hope you're enjoying, and don't forget to leave a review! :-)