AN: SO I still have no internet and I ran out of mobile data this morning and had to buy two more gigabytes so to upload this I'm having to use my iPhone as a hotspot for the computer. I will get you guys the fluff you asked for at a point, probably in between this storyline and the next one, but consider that Spooks/Clarenny excerpt vanished now so if you didn't get to read it then tough. Or just PM me and I can send you it.

DAY 151

Immaculate Conception

Martha

"Is it mine?" Mickey asked.

"Did you seriously just ask me that? Is it yours? Of course it's yours! I think."

"You think!?"

"Unless there's some weird, alien hocus pocus going on, yes, it's yours," she assured him, "But… you remember hearing about that time Gwen got pregnant overnight after she got scratched by alien."

"Have you been scratched by an alien?"

"Not that I can remember. So, it… must be… oh my god… well, what do we do? About it?"

"'About it'?" he asked carefully. She went and closed the lid of the toilet and sat down on it, still holding the pregnancy test in her hand. She didn't think she could let go of it if she tried; it was glued to her palm. "Are you saying you don't want to keep our baby?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying. It's just… it's not planned, and the TARDIS isn't really the best place to raise a child, and… what about River? Look what happened to her, and to Amy and Rory. They missed out on raising their own daughter because someone wanted to weaponise her. And this… if it was conceived on the TARDIS, you know what that means…"

"It means we'll have a baby," he said firmly.

"A Time Lord."

"But a baby," he reiterated, "Our baby, Martha. Our own little person." She looked up at him and saw that he was smiling about as widely as when he had proposed and she had said yes, or when he had seen her walking down the aisle towards him in her wedding dress. Or even when her mother had told him that she liked him. And it made her smile, too.

"We're going to have a baby," she declared finally, and he beamed and came and picked her up from where she was sitting and span her around for a moment while she laughed, "Careful, careful."

"Oh my god, I'm not going to hurt it, am I?" he asked when he set her back down.

"No, you won't hurt it, you were making me dizzy," she said.

"Are you alright? Can babies get dizzy when they're still inside someone?"

She frowned at him, "I've never asked one. It's probably not big enough to do anything yet, it can only be a few weeks old."

"This must be why you've not been able to sleep properly, and why that Slitheen said she could smell procreation on you, remember? And those insects didn't attack you at all… and you thought the food Clara was eating was actually alright; that was definitely the weirdest thing," he said, as she vividly remembered when she had stolen Clara Oswald's bowl of Lucky Charms and Skittles-flavoured milkshake right out of her hands. She had puked it up later on.

"I think we have to tell someone, talk to someone, though," Martha said, "This is so sudden – we have no plan – and we don't even know if the Manifest virus is passed on genetically. What if we have a baby who's both superhuman and a Time Lord?"

"Who do you want to tell?"

Martha barely had to think before she answered, "Jack."

Five Years Ago

She woke up in the middle of the night horrified and sweating, her heart pumping so hard she thought she was at risk of going into cardiac arrest. She actually touched a hand to her damp chest to make sure her ribs weren't in danger of shattering under the pressure. She sat there in the dark for a few minutes before tears formed at the corners of her eyes and she pressed her hands to her face and gave a stifled sob. It didn't matter that they had overwritten the atrocities the Master had committed, Martha had still seen them all, and things like that left the kind of traumas she couldn't heal so easily.

It took her that long to realise that her phone had been vibrating on the floor next to her; it must have rung itself off of the end table by her side. She took some deep breaths and tried to remember how all of those people she had seen die had not died, nearly all of them would be okay. But that didn't stop her from having nightmares three nights a week. She sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and finally leant down to pick the phone up and answer it.

"Hello?"

"Took you long enough to answer!" Jack shouted, "What have you been doing?"

"Sleeping," she said, glancing at the clock, "It's six in the morning."

"Quarter past six in the morning. Bright and early. We'll be outside your building in ten minutes; Swanson has another body for us, thinks the same thing killed him as killed that homeless guy last week. Another nasty job."

"Remember to bring the nose plugs this time, then," Martha said.

"Oh, I already have. Died on the toilet, 'nough said."

"Who was he? Elvis Presley?" she joked.

"That's coincidental, isn't it? His name really is Elvis Presley," Gwen Cooper said, eyeing the driver's license of the latest murder victim as they skulked through his flat. Mickey flicked a light switch on and revealed that the apartment they were in was a dedicated shrine to the late Elvis Presley – as in the one who had become late in 1977, not the one whose death they were investigating in 2008. "Or maybe it's not so coincidental."

"There are a lot of these," Martha said, looking around at an old cardboard cut-out of the superstar.

"Cut-outs?" Mickey asked.

"Weirdos who change their name to 'Elvis Presley.' Seriously, you wouldn't believe your eyes if you looked at a patient waiting list in an A&E on any given night. You get at least half a dozen Elvises a week down in London. Lots of Michael Jacksons recently, sometimes Marilyn Monroe sticks her nose in."

"Are you being serious?"

"Oh, yeah. The world's full of people who change their names to emulate people they fancy or admire. Isn't that right, Jack?" she quipped.

"Hey!" Jack complained, putting a hand on his hip while holding a signed black-and-white print of Elvis from the 1950s, "I'm still sensitive about that. Captain Jack Harkness was a cute guy with amazing taste in how he wore an RAF uniform. I'm thinking about getting a replica one, maybe convince Mickey to wear it."

"What!?" Mickey exclaimed.

"Oh, if you got it fitted you'd be a wet dream. Don't you think, Martha?" Martha was taken aback.

"Never really got the whole uniform thing," she said awkwardly, trying to work out why her cheeks felt hot when the image of Mickey Smith in a Royal Air Force uniform popped into her head.

"I guess I'll be keeping Mickey all to myself, then."

"Only I get to keep Mickey all to myself," Mickey grumbled.

"So selfish," Jack shook his head.

"Enough flirting, you," Gwen remarked, "Maybe he just wanted to be Elvis so much he willed himself to die on the toilet."

"And ripped himself to pieces from the inside out?"

"Could be. Could be a genie gone wrong," she suggested.

"A genie? You've got to be kidding," Mickey said.

"Never trust a genie," Jack said, "I learnt that the hard way. Those guys will do anything to not grant your wish properly. Maybe it is a genie, I mean, what does a homeless guy wish for? To not be homeless? I guess if he's dead he's technically not homeless."

"I'm never going to be able to watch Aladdin the same way again," Gwen sighed, still looking through Elvis Presley's wallet, "Oh my days, have a look at this. Business cards. 'Elvis Presley, certified Elvis Presley impersonator,' and there's a phone number, then on the back is an alternative business card that says he's assistant manager at the petrol station opposite the supermarket."

"Swanson said he doesn't have any next-of-kin," Jack told them. They were all very blatantly doing everything they could to put off inevitably having to actually go into the bathroom and look at the dead body. The smell was already pungent enough to put them all off. They'd rather examine his collection of obscure memorabilia.

"Quite sad really, isn't it?" Gwen said, "And look at that, he's an organ donor," she showed the red card with his name on it and the NHS logo she had just found.

"Sign-up sheet over here for a charity karaoke night," Mickey said, "Dated a month ago. No names on it to come and watch him sing."

"Can't believe you woke me up for this," Martha moaned at Jack, "As if I need another reason to start crying this morning." Jack wasn't listening because he had just found a pair of replica sunglasses and thought they were very funny, so only Mickey heard what she said.

"You've already been crying this morning?" he asked her quite seriously. He was taking one remark of her's a whole lot more seriously than the newest death and modern Elvis Presley's rather unfortunate life. The entire room was papered with photos and posters of the man, along with a version of the iconic white, sparkly jumpsuit which was hung up in a semi-transparent dry-cleaning bag over the back of the ajar bedroom door. There was even an unwashed mug leaving dark coffee rings on the table in the shape of Elvis's head.

"Don't look so worried," Martha said.

"But you said-"

"I was kidding," she lied, "Just a saying. I haven't been crying." The last thing she wanted was pity, but unfortunately, she did not think that Mickey believed her. And then the moment became a decision between either staying there with Mickey trying to give her sympathy or going and looking at the smelly dead body. Martha chose the smelly dead body.

They had come up with no leads with the last victim. They had identified the man and Gwen had gone to notify his family, who had been very distraught at the news and were under the impression that their son was living a modest and stable life with a modest and stable job and a modest and stable girlfriend, but aside from that there hadn't been any useful information. Jack hadn't been able to work out the species, Mickey hadn't managed to find any CCTV of the incident, Ianto hadn't found any witnesses, so they had been sitting in wait for the last few days. And now another victim, and the same MO, and there was just as little to go on this time.

"So what do the victims have in common?" Jack asked, trying to get them brainstorming.

"Apart from gender? Nothing," Martha said, "Not even the same race, that last one was black. I've got nothing to go on. Don't even know exactly how they were killed."

"Ripped apart?" Gwen suggested. She had a face mask on and nose pegs in – they all did – but was still holding a hand to her nose as she watched Martha try and examine the shredded body of Elvis Presley the petrol station employee. The white floors were caked in blood and faeces, along with the inside of the toilet from what Martha could see. Again, his jaw was practically hanging off his face by skin and sinew.

"That's about as helpful as saying someone died of a heart attack," Martha said, "Or cancer."

"What's not helpful about that?"

"There are a thousand different types of cancer that all work in different ways, and there are about as many reasons behind why someone might have a heart attack. It's like saying they died of death, it's not really a proper cause. I don't know how the ripping happened, where it started, how whatever did this did it, what did it, whether he was dead before or died during this process or even survived the whole thing and was alive like this for a few seconds," Martha said, "They've both been so mutilated it's impossible to tell."

"So it's looking like another autopsy is in order then," Jack said, "We'll get Mickey on bag and tag and Gwen can do a coffee and pasty run."

"I don't want to be on bag and tag," Mickey said.

"Alright, Gwen can bag and tag and you can do the coffee run, end of debate," Jack said, leaving the room. Martha saw Gwen glare at Mickey and do a mime where she dragged her finger across her neck to symbolise cutting his throat. He looked quite scared as he slipped past her and out of the room. Martha sighed and looked at the corpse, trying to scratch her nose with the back of her hand.

"This really is quite grim," Martha said, getting to her feet.

"Sooner we catch whatever's doing this, the better. Look at the state of it in here. If I see another one of these I'll be sick," Gwen said.

"And you say Mickey has a weak stomach… come on, then. Help me get him back to base and prepped for autopsy."

"My pleasure," she muttered.

Elvis's body still stank when they got it back to the morgue, and after she had tried to reassemble him just to dissect him again afterwards. It had been three hours of digging around and trying to find evidence, and she wasn't even sure she had scavenged any information of value. It didn't help that she was exhausted from her nightmare, which was a recurring image of seeing people burn alive behind her when her boat had left the shores of Japan with only her on board.

She sat on the stairs with her latex gloves peeled off next to her and her lab coat covered in blood, paper mask hanging around her neck, trying to work out any kind of lead for them to go on. She couldn't shake the idea that Owen might have been able to think of something by now. Her brooding was interrupted by the sound of someone coming down the tiled steps behind her, and she looked up to see Mickey approaching with two mugs in his hands.

"Brought you some tea," he said when she met his eyes, "You look like you could do with some."

"Do I?" she asked as he sat down on the step one below her and handed her the mug. He wasn't wrong about her needing some tea, though.

"Has this got to you?" he asked after they had been sitting in silence for a while, with Martha relishing in the hot tea. Mickey did make good cups of tea, she had learnt that very soon after meeting him.

"Hmm?"

"These murders."

"Oh. No, not… well, I'm a bit annoyed I can't work anything out from the bodies," she admitted, "It's like living with a ghost sometimes, trying to follow in Owen's footsteps. I'm just as good a doctor – I even showed him up a few times when we first met – but I don't know if I'm thinking laterally enough for Torchwood."

"Takes a while to adjust," Mickey said, "Different not having the Doctor around to jump to conclusions, eh? Jack fancies himself as being on the same level as the Doctor, but…"

Martha smiled, "I know what you mean. Half of him is an act he puts on and I don't think the others have realised." He laughed.

"Exactly."

"The Doctor is kind of like that too, though."

"Can't you ring him and ask him for help?"

"Are you insane!? I'm not calling the Doctor and asking him to help Torchwood. He wouldn't do it in a million years. And I can't admit defeat to him so easily."

"What have you found out so far?"

"The livers are missing," Martha said.

"That's definitely something important!"

"It's not. An alien who eats livers is still an alien, it could be anything. It eating livers isn't going to help us. What are we gonna do? Section everyone with a liver to save them? What a good idea." He laughed. "What?"

"Huh?"

"Why did you laugh at me?"

"Because… you said something funny. Section everyone with a liver."

"You must have a weird sense of humour to think I'm funny."

"No way! You definitely are."

"If you say so."

"I do say so."

She paused and then laughed, and seeing her laugh seemed to make him smile and look away with an expression that she may have called embarrassment, if she knew of any reason why he might be embarrassed. But nothing sprang to mind.

"If these murders aren't what's bothering you," he began, looking into his cup of tea now instead of meeting Martha's eyes, "then why have you been so off?"

"Why are you so convinced that I have been?"

"I just… pay attention. To – to everyone. Not just to you. I'm observant. But today more than normal."

"I just had a bad dream, that's all. I do sometimes," she confessed finally. There was something about the look of concern in his eyes – which was quite a sweet expression, really – that made her tell him the truth instead of lying and being evasive. Or maybe it was just because she was tired and Mickey had brought her a cup of tea.

"Yeah," he said, "I know what you mean. It's him, isn't it? The stuff you see? Half of it's amazing, but the other half… there's a reason people like you and me don't stick around on the TARDIS with him. And then it's like – you don't want to talk about it because the good stuff is so good, it's like it should balance out, but… doesn't sometimes."

"It's exactly like that…" she said quietly, staring at him. He hadn't been looking at her while he talked because he had been thinking about his words somewhat carefully, but she was surprised by how he had just managed to explain what she had been feeling when she hadn't quite been able to manage it herself. When he saw she was staring at him the embarrassment flickered across his face again.

"What?"

"Nothing," she said.

"The next time, um, you have a bad dream… you could call me, you know. I won't mind," he added quickly, "Whenever, doesn't matter what time it is. The middle of the night, I'd answer the phone. I'd rather you woke me up than you were on your own." She frowned.

"Do you mean that?"

"Why would I say it if I didn't mean it?"

"Surely I can't always call you in the middle of the night," she said wryly, then she nudged him with her elbow and smirked, "What if you have a girl over one night?"

"I won't," he said, and she raised her eyebrows. "I mean – not that I couldn't have a girl over. I suppose, potentially I might do. I get girls all the time, actually, you know, like, always. Not always, I mean, like you could still ring whenever you need anything." She could tell that he was lying, so she played up to it.

"And tell me, with all these different girls you bed, how often do you go get tested for STIs?" she inquired thoughtfully. He had not been expecting that, and began to stammer and get very flustered. "I'm pulling your leg. Unless you're telling the truth about all these girls, in which case you should get tested after every new partner."

"I know that," he said, "I do. I'm clean."

"Well, good," Martha said, "Always nice to hear patients actually taking doctors' advice on board."

"Funny again," he pointed out.

"Shut up, I don't know where you're getting that idea from." He laughed slightly and she drank some more tea and then looked into the cup for a second. "Thanks for the tea. You were right, I did need it."

"I'm always on hand to make tea."

"Maybe I'll hold you to that."

"Might be nice for it to be a mutual thing. Since NHS waiting times are through the roof these days, people having to wait two weeks sometimes for a GP appointment."

"If you want an appointment you'll have to go through my secretary," Martha said.

"Do you feel bad for him?" Mickey changed the subject and nodded at the deceased Elvis Presley on the silver table in the morgue ahead of them. "Don't think he had any friends, the only family Gwen finally managed to find was a sister he hasn't spoken to for years. He didn't even have her registered as his next-of-kin anyway. I'd hate for that to happen to me."

"Why would it?"

"Dunno. I'm single, my only friends are work friends or they live in another universe, no family anymore," Mickey said, "What kind of funeral do you think he's gonna have?"

"Don't dwell on it."

"Hard not to."

"Well… we'll just have to make sure we stop whatever's doing this."

"Yeah."

"And that you meet a nice girl who will show up at your funeral. Or find a long-lost sibling."

"Meeting nice girls is easier said than done."

"I thought you get girls all the time?"

"They're not nice. Awful, all of them."

"That's the problem with imaginary people. They're unpredictable. Anyway. You've got CCTV scrubbing to get back to, and I have to look into these liver removals and look for… I don't know. Bite marks, or something. Come on." She stood back up and so did he, him ascending the steps when bade. "Oh, Mickey…"

"Yeah?"

"Really, thanks for the tea," she said.

He smiled, "Don't mention it."