We've been going back and forth between present-day action in a banquet, where Martha and the Doctor are starting to get basically stalked by a journalist, and past memories in which they struggle with their... feelings. In the previous chapter, the Doctor remembers an episode in 1969 when the upstairs neighbors caused quite a ruckus, but it caused him to have a revelation about what he really wants.
In this chapter, we will see that same 1969 episode from Martha's point of view, as well as flashes of her life with Tom, and what went through her mind just before her "this is me getting out," speech. We will also return to that blog, from the beginning of the story, and will learn what it has to do with all of this...
ENJOY!
CHAPTER 5
"Well, that's that sorted," Martha thought as she stepped off the dais, and left Dr. Hazard to make her acceptance speech for the Pioneer Award. Martha had never completely shied away from public speaking – she was unique that way – but it was still the hardest part of the evening.
Well, unless you count whatever insanity the Escappa had in store for her and the Doctor. She was in heels, and adventures with the Doctor usually required a lot of running.
At the moment, she wasn't sure where the Time Lord was. She had seen him standing there watching her as she had begun her presentation about Dr. Hazard, and had also noticed that he had had to move on, probably because he had a job to do – she just hoped it was his catering job, and not a sprinting, screaming, world-saving one. But at present, he was nowhere to be seen. Under the circumstances, he could be in the rafters battling for his life, and the fate of the planet, or he could be in the kitchen carefully placing chocolate-covered espresso beans on saucers. It was fifty-fifty.
For the moment, she simply took her seat to listen to Dr. Hazard speak. It was why she was here, after all. She had to remind herself, as she was pretty irrevocably distracted at this stage, though she felt she had covered it masterfully whilst presenting. Now that she had done her duty, she was keen for the speech to be over, so that she could begin casting about for the Doctor. She really wanted Dr. Hazard to have her moment in the sun, and to experience it with her, but with an alien species stalking the building, bent on Time Lord genocide, her focus was just a tad off the rails.
She also really wished that the Doctor didn't still have the power to take her attention away from someone she had known and cared about for years, and who had been there for her through the hairiest and most formative moments of her career…
…but she supposed that the Doctor fit that bill as well.
But she had never been in love with Dr. Hazard, and that made everything different.
Once the speech was over, Dr. Hazard had sat back down, and another young doctor had climbed up on the dais to present another award, the Doctor appeared across the table from her. He began setting impeccably-prepared, pre-chosen chicken, salmon or pasta entrées in front of the other folks at her table. Eventually, he got to her, and asked if there was anything else he could get for her. She said, "No, but I was about to ask you the same thing," which the young man beside her took as a flirtatious comment, and he laughed out loud with a snort.
"I'll let you know," the Doctor muttered, gliding away.
The next time she saw him, he was delivering entrées to a group three tables away, and she noticed that he was keeping his eyes on the periphery of the room, between setting plates down. And when he turned away from the table to return to the kitchen, he was accosted, much as she had been, by a woman in a frumpy green dress. Kinsey Mund.
Martha watched clandestinely – she knew that she was on Mund's radar for some reason, and didn't want to be caught staring. But for the moment, the reporter was mostly facing away, though Martha could still see the bright smile on her face. The Doctor smiled uneasily at whatever she was saying, and gave some sort of short response, and tried to sidestep her.
But Kinsey Mund would have none of it. She got in the Doctor's way, smiling still, and began behaving a bit coquettishly, one hip stuck out, red-lipsticked lips pouty, and one index finger strumming lightly at the bottom one. They talked, the Doctor, by turns, uncomfortable and bemused, and then he said something apparently hilarious, as Mund held his upper arm while she made a big show of laughing out loud.
He must have then said that he had work to do, because she stepped aside then, with a disarmed stance and wide, playful eyes. He went to the kitchen without looking back, and she chose a table within Martha's sights, and sat down. It was not where she had been sitting before, of course, in fact, Martha wondered if the seat's true occupant had merely gone to the loo.
And when the Doctor came back out, it was another round of drink orders for the table at which Kinsey Mund was now sat, and the woman did not hesitate to continue flirting. She smiled at him, planted her chin in her hand and made a point to be seen gazing at him, and batting her eyes. She also picked up a champagne flute and waggled it at him with a wink.
What the hell was her game, anyway? Martha wondered.
The Doctor nodded and walked away, but then a female server turned up to refill the glass. Mund looked crestfallen, and left the champagne on the table, and began to wander the room a bit more.
Once again, the Doctor appeared with drinks for a table, and once they were delivered, Mund fell into step beside him as he walked back toward the kitchen, forcing him to slow down. She even took his arm.
Martha definitely wished that she could hear what they were saying!
A sick feeling was beginning to creep its way into Martha's stomach, and it had nothing to do with the food. She was also relieved to find that it was not about jealousy either… this was her relatively well-developed sense of impending danger.
The Doctor certainly turned a few heads and got flirted with plenty, but something about this night, and this woman, a reporter who had so heavily zeroed in on Martha herself, and then fired both barrels at the Doctor… it did not sit well, even when Martha thought it through.
She extracted her iPhone from her purse, and did an internet search on Kinsey Mund.
She was, as she had claimed, on staff of the Victoria Park Whistler, a paper distributed in the areas surrounding the Park, such as Bethnal Green, Bow, and Hackney. Her Whistler profile indicated that she was thirty-one years old, educated at the University of Greenwich, then M.A. from King's College in London. She had previously worked at Conlon Books in Fish Island, where she had made "an incredible group of friends and acquaintances, including the controversial editorial journalist, Ken Snider."
Martha had certainly heard of Ken Snider. He was a brilliant freelance journalist, but it was common knowledge that he did not work as a staffer because of his special "bent," on the goings-on of the world. He was an Oxford-trained writer with a Ph.D. in sociology, and so most folks stopped short of calling him a "conspiracy theorist," but… well, that's what he was.
She continued to read Kinsey Mund's bio, and discovered that she is an avid tennis-player, enjoys being an aunt to her sister's son, Breckin, has a pet Shih-Tzu named Alessio, and when she can find the time, is a blogger.
A blogger. Who drops Ken Snider's name.
A blogger who espouses conspiracy theories.
Shit.
She did a little more digging, in places that perhaps were not as kind as the publication paying Kinsey Mund's salary.
Her Facebook and Twitter were rife with people calling her a "wacko," and a "fear monger," to which she never responded, of course.
An op-ed piece for another small paper in Springfield Park, which probably shared some distribution overlap area with the Whistler, called for Mund's firing, and the revocation of her press pass. It called her an "instigator, an agitator in the worst way." It also claimed that "serious journalists should not believe in UFOs and lizard people."
However, a piece that Mund had written for the Whistler a year or two previously, had led to the resignation of a local councilman, whom she had suspected of being part of a cocaine-dealing ring that had ties to the Mafia in New York. Everyone had called her mad, but she had continued digging relentlessly, and had turned up correct. She had also been right about a local secondary school Headmaster running an encrypted gay sex chatroom from his office computer, having paid hush money to a handful of students who had stumbled across it.
This was a terrible combination of revelations. A conspiracy theorist, instigator, who didn't mind digging, and who was often right. And she had attached herself to the Doctor. And earlier to Martha.
Martha knew that she was listed as a known associate of the Doctor in the UNIT files, and that someone like Mund could probably access them without too much effort… if nothing else, she probably had someone in the organisation who owed her a favour. She had known about Martha's background, wanted to know more about her mentors…
"Oh, God…" she groaned.
A man looked at her judgementally, she reckoned, for looking at her phone during someone else's acceptance speech. But she could not stow it away without double checking one more thing.
And yes, she was listed as a known associate of the Doctor on Bougie Boca's blog as well. There was also a recent photo of her, though not of this incarnation of the Doctor.
It all clicked. There was suddenly zero doubt in her mind of who Bougie Boca was, and why Kinsey Mund was acting the way she was. Martha had led her right to him, probably by going into that cupboard with him, to talk!
She sat, agitated. She knew that the biggest threat that Bougie Boca posed was that she could lead the the scum of the universe straight to the Doctor, just as Martha had done with her. The blogger/reporter was clearly onto him now – that handsome guy in the waiter's uniform wasn't a waiter at all… at the very least she suspected something.
She had to find a way to warn the Doctor, without Mund knowing. Don't tell her anything. Anything! Don't let her pull out her laptop! Do not let her snap your photo – in fact, keep your back to her at all times!
It was a small blessing that he wasn't wearing his usual clothes tonight… his pinstriped suits and trainers were one of the things that made him recognisable, especially from behind, in silhouette, or if the photo is blurry (Martha had had to ID him unclear photos before for UNIT). If he could avoid showing his face to her, especially if she had some sort of device in her hand…
But it might already be too late.
She grunted in disgust, then stood up from her seat, much to the chagrin of her table mates. She didn't care. She picked up her purse and conducted herself to the ladies'. She needed some privacy in which to go through the blog, and make notes of every detail that she could, of Bougie Boca's knowledge of the Doctor.
Kinsey Mund was currently sitting at a table, apparently interviewing someone, and did not seem to register Martha's presence at all, though she knew appearances could be deceiving, and that a savvy journalist with an angle would always be on the lookout. The Doctor was not in sight – probably in the kitchen.
And yet, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Something was bothering her… she was back in it with the Doctor whether he liked it or not, and how did she feel about that? Well, she didn't have a choice, did she? His life might be in danger, and that couldn't stand.
Once again, she examined her motivation. Was this jealousy?
No.
Was it love?
She sighed as she walked. Yes, it probably was. Still.
But she could not let him languish with Bougie Boca on the loose, plus the Escappa, either way. She would not let any friend dangle like this in front of two predators, love or no love.
But something else was bothering her as well, something else giving her a frisson of doubt.
She was being watched. She was sure of it.
She looked around casually. It wasn't Mund, and it wasn't the Doctor. But something else. She had a sixth sense… she had had to develop it. For the world. For love.
She had saved the world. The whole bloody world, and now, no-one would ever know it. But that was fine with her, as long as everyone was safe.
Her family had lost so much during The Year That Never Was, not the least of which was a touch of their innocence, their lingering trust in the world. And she was no exception – she was more than a little bit less the idealistic med student she had been when she began.
But she, personally, had also gained quite a bit, and she hoped that something similar could be said for her parents and sister as well. Martha had come away with a new skill set as an "operative," a warrior, a soldier, a spy. In addition, she had come through it with greater strength, resilience, and perspective.
Especially perspective. As such, she had grown into a bigger person.
As she was leaving her mother's house on that day, both the beginning and the end of the debacle with the Master, she faced the TARDIS, and thought that she was now Bigger On The Inside. That infatuation/lust/love that had plagued her since the day she met the Doctor was not gone, and not diminished – how could it be? But today, it took up a lot less space inside of her.
She thought about stepping into that box, and what would happen next. The open road? More of the same? More of every day being different? More of…
More of that. That thing that hung in the air between them most of the time… the thing that threatened to combust, but that was all. Combustion. No cultivation, no maturation. Just detonation of something fierce, but ultimately superficial and harmful.
And it wasn't just attraction, the threat of combustion on its own. It was a pattern. It was the desire for control on the part of the Doctor. Their close-quarters situation had inevitably led them to a few moments of candour, in which the Doctor would give her a piece of himself – disclosures about Gallifrey and what had happened to it, about his fear of being alone, about regeneration – and he would almost immediately try to "get it back," as it were. He would attempt a quid pro quo of making her open up to him, making physical overtures to which she never gave in…
No matter how badly she had wanted to.
Unable not to have the upper hand, if there was such a thing, he would claim that she had "rescued" him from something – sadness, solitude, regeneration – and ostensibly try to get close. In thanks, or in some kind of depth of gratitude of soul that made him want her. But Martha felt she was seeing it for what it was: an eye for an eye. A kind of gentle revenge for making him give up something he would have preferred to keep close to the chest.
"You expose my weakness, I expose yours. You love me, and I will seduce you into showing it."
She didn't think he was doing it consciously; she simply felt that the man was so very damaged, he could not see his "getting close to her" for what it was.
Oh, he definitely had a desire to get close to someone, and that desire had her face on it, but it had nothing to do with her. He was in pain, he was emotionally messy, and – lest she forget...
...he was still in love with someone else.
But God, it had been so, so tempting. She wanted him, it was true – she had let the seduction scenes go on longer than they should a few times, just for the pleasure of it, the way it made her body hum when he pressed against her, kissed her, whispered to her. But she had asked for "both hearts, and all of the truth," which he had never been able to give, and ultimately a physical relationship with him, without the hearts, would have destroyed her. She knew it even then.
Their stay in 1913 had proven difficult in hundreds of aggravating ways, and emotionally draining to be sure. But in one tiny sense, it had been freeing, because all of that was put away for the moment. Her love was still alive within her, but the Doctor had no idea of any of it. No pattern, no shambolic emotional displays. It was a time when she could concentrate on the problem at-hand, rather than their exposed sensibilities and complicated relationship.
And then came 1969. Nothing about that had been freeing. They had been trapped, in every sense of the word. Trapped in time, in space, and in each other.
She thought about the night midway through their sojourn when she had been awakened by an insistent thump thump thump thump, steady, loud, coming from the newlywed Lowes upstairs. Earlier in the evening, they had been quarrelling, but that had clearly passed. Now, it was an imposing display of making up that the whole building could hear. Especially her and the Doctor.
"What the hell?" she had exclaimed, sitting up in bed, startled. She saw him lying next to her with a pillow over his head, clearly having been listening to it unhappily for a bit.
There were moans – hard to forget that bit. It was all quite impressive.
And suddenly, the Doctor had sat up and said, "I'm going to the sofa."
"Oh. Okay," she said, rather impassively. She hadn't had time to feel anything yet, nor contemplate what was happening.
But after he gathered up his pillow and left the room, slamming the door behind him, without looking at her, without any other words, she was well and truly awake. And she could surmise that in the din of a kind of clearly urgent passion happening upstairs, he just wanted to remove himself from her.
Because passion was not a part of their life together, even though she would have liked it to be. Passion was a thing that he tried to extract from her sometimes, but not really return, when he was feeling vulnerable. But tonight was not one of those times, even though he had done a bit of orating at dinner that evening, about her bravery during these difficult times – another "you've rescued me" speech, but it hadn't gone anywhere. And it had been hours since then, and tonight, he didn't feel it, and decided perhaps as a mercy, to spare her feeling it too. She ended up not sleeping at all that night, but doing a bit of crying, and a lot of self-flagellation. Ultimately, she reckoned he'd made the right decision, because hearing the symphony of the Lowes and having him beside her would have been difficult.
This episode had galvanised her surety that his desire had nothing to do with her, and made her more certain than ever that what she was about to do was the right thing, as she walked across her parents' garden toward the blue box. As an afterthought, she decided to try and find out if she could track down Tom Milligan, because there was a man who actually wanted her for her, and not as a receptacle for his own damage.
And so, that evening, after squaring her newly-reconciled parents away in their home after the events of The Year That Never Was, she walked into the TARDIS and essentially "broke up with" the Doctor. Even though that wasn't exactly what it was, that's how it had felt. It had had all the trappings of a breakup: the sad, but liberating, feeling that followed. The second-guessing oneself in the weeks following. The grief, the crying… the rebound relationship.
Ah, poor Tom.
Well, it had taken almost a year to work out that it was Martha who wanted Tom as a receptacle for her own damage. Fortunately, Tom had had no idea of the Lost Year, was not a damaged man, and had been able to part from her without too much drama.
But not before putting a ring on her finger, and idealising the future like an enthusiastic little boy. His jaunt to Africa had been three months – she could live with that. But he really thought that he could go to Cambodia without an end date, and still have a fiancée waiting when he came back… a year, two years on. She would have liked to be the sort of person who could give him that, but she realised that having him so far away, only seeing him on Skype, and at holidays, never knowing when they would get married, it wasn't what she wanted.
She also realised, she didn't really want to get married. Not to him, not anymore.
Even more alarmingly, she realised that she didn't need him anymore. He had already served his purpose. Not just to prop herself back up again after heartbreak, but…
Ten months or so after "breaking up" with the Doctor, she had called him back to Earth with the threat of Sontarans taking over the planet. And God help her, the hug he gave her when he walked out of the TARDIS… it literally pulled her off her feet, and made her heart leap, and every part of her absolutely spark with life.
And then, not quite by accident, she had flashed her engagement ring not at him, but at his friend Donna, who had picked up on it straight away. What she saw flare across the Doctor's eyes was quick, but unmistakable: jealousy. In the days and weeks following, she played those moments over and over in her mind thousands of times… once in a while, she wondered if it had been her imagination, but she didn't really think so.
Someone else had her now. Someone else had opened up to her (as the Doctor had, on occasion) and given her his heart and all of the truth (as the Doctor never could) and been able to take a piece of her as well (which she had never let the Doctor do). And it made him squirm. She didn't want him to suffer, of course, but it wouldn't hurt him to have one or two regrets.
And so, when it came time to decide what to do about Cambodia, horribly, she thought, "Well, the Doctor has seen the ring, I may as well take it off."
Wait, what?
Oh, God. That's terrible – what the hell did that mean? That now that she and Tom had made the Doctor jealous, there was nothing left to do but split? That it had served to make the Doctor's mind fill with wonderments about where Martha's affections went and how they manifested, and what he had missed out on, and that's all she really needed from it?
That was the thought, yes. In the end, Cambodia had been a blessing, because it exposed Martha's exploitation of both men's feelings, and made her shut the whole thing down. She did have feelings for Tom – he was gorgeous, of course, intelligent, treated her like a princess, while also appreciating her fierce intellect. He was funny, good with children, a great singer, and could put Mr. Lowe to shame when it came time to rattle a headboard. How could she not have feelings for him?
But he wasn't a Time Lord. He didn't have those eyes, or that mouth, or that brain, or any other of the ineffable, aggravating minutiae that made the Doctor the Doctor.
So, it was time to end it. She was not this person. She would not be this person.
And so, there she was, in a cubicle in the ladies', reading Bougie Boca's blog. For reasons purely related to the safety of a friend in need. No jealousy on either end (at least not on purpose), no ulterior motives, just help. For the Doctor. For a man who had saved her, and this planet, more times than she could count. No matter how many times he insisted on saying she'd saved him, the reverse was true, many more times over, and they both knew it.
She scrolled to a new entry that she had not seen before. It was dated today.
"Damn," she spat.
Well... thoughts? This story, especially the flashbacks, are getting complicated... let me know you're out there, and reading it, and that it's confusing you. Or maybe it isn't - you tell me! Thanks for reading - you guys are the best!
