DAY 6,574

Birthday Wishes

Martha

An eight-hour shift in the ER of the only rural hospital in a hundred-mile-radius had left Martha exhausted. Called into work for two o'clock in the morning, it was after ten by the time she finally got home – but she wasn't going to let her tiredness show. And working in the emergency room still wasn't quite as stressful as travelling through time and hunting aliens; the TARDIS and Torchwood had really served to prepare her for an ordinary medical career; at least it was usually only the one life at risk and not the entire fate of the human race. It was probably this lack of pressure that meant she had never lost a patient since they moved back to Earth permanently, eighteen years ago – that and her rather advanced medical experience.

She turned onto a dirt road which was very difficult to spot if you didn't know it was there, and before she knew it she was pulling up in front of a decently-sized cottage out in what was certainly the middle of nowhere. It was a big change from living in the city her whole life, moving around from one isolated house to another every few years like a couple of fugitives, but a welcome one. At the very least it put her mind at ease, and it was nice not to be in London's smog anymore, to be out in some anonymous bit of forestry along the English/Welsh border.

Martha had barely had the opportunity to get out of the car once she'd parked up before she was attacked by a tiny and hyperactive ball of energy who had just come crashing out of the house towards her. Martha opened her arms when the child crashed into her and lifted the girl off her feet.

"Ooh, you are getting so heavy now, I can barely lift you," Martha grunted, which was true though she did strive to pick her up and balance her in her arms.

"Where did you go?"

"Mummy had to go to work," Martha said, carrying her back towards the house because it was chilly out and beginning to rain, "At two in the morning."

"You shouldn't be allowed to work at night."

"I have to work at night, Mattie. I'm a doctor, you know that. I have to go save people's lives. What if someone's life needed saving and I wasn't there to do it because I was home in bed?"

"They should wait."

"They should wait?" Martha asked, pushing open the front door awkwardly with her shoulder.

"Yes. Because I need you too. It's my special day."

"Your special day? What's special about it? Is your life in danger?" Martha asked, feigning obliviousness.

"It could be."

"How so?"

"What if a volcano erupted?"

"A volcano? In England?"

"If Yellowstone erupted, everyone in the world would die, and that's in America."

"Hmm…" Martha frowned and studied Matilda in her arms, who was licking something off the back of her hand, "Has daddy been letting you watch those documentaries again?" Matilda didn't say anything. "What are you eating? What's that on your hand?"

"Nothing," she said, beginning to struggle. Martha set her down on the floor and Matilda went running away into the living room, which was highly suspicious in and of itself. Martha closed the front door behind her and went to follow the girl into the living room.

"What is it? Come back and show me."

"No," Matilda ran all the way through the living room and into the kitchen.

"Mickey?" Martha called loudly.

"I'm in the kitchen," he called back, then she heard him add, "Hey, you, don't run in the house. You'll slip and fall."

"I wasn't running," Matilda said, "I was walking really fast."

"Also known as running," Mickey said. When Martha came into the kitchen she saw Mattie trying to climb onto one of the high chairs at the breakfast bar while Mickey was frying bacon. She dragged a large Nutella jar towards her and began scooping globs of it out with her fingers; that was the mystery of what she had been eating solved, at least.

"Nutella isn't breakfast, Matts," Martha said, debating taking the jar off her.

"It is today, because today's my special day and you've forgotten so you should let me eat whatever I want," she argued adamantly.

"Really? What would today be, then?" Martha leant on the kitchen counter. Matilda glared at her, pouting, covered in Nutella. "I can't think of any justifiable reason why daddy would be letting you eat Nutella out of the jar for breakfast."

"I'm making bacon sandwiches as well," Mickey said, glancing over at them every now and then from the frying pan. Then he looked back, "Hold on, how much of that Nutella have you eaten? You're getting a cake later, you know. Put the lid back on it now."

"Can't I have some with my bacon?"

"Nutella and bacon?" Martha frowned, "I don't think so."

"But I like bacon, and I like Nutella."

"You like a lot of things," Martha told her, "But you can't just throw every food you like into a blender and drink it."

"Why not?"

"It wouldn't taste very nice."

"Can I try it?"

"No. Not even on your birthday. You see, I do know what day it is. Why don't you run all the way upstairs and wash your hands for when people start arriving? You don't want to get them covered in chocolate, do you?"

"Go on, wash your hands, do what your mum says," Mickey entreated the child, "You can open your presents when you come back down." As soon as she heard the promise of presents she went barrelling off through the house. "No running!" She didn't listen to him, they heard her thunderous steps go all the way up the stairs and towards the bathroom. Mickey sighed and then smiled at Martha, halfway through flipping the bacon rashers in the pan over. "How was work?"

"It was alright. Saw a teenager who got shot in the foot with a nail gun."

"Shot by who?"

"His friend. They were 'playing a game', apparently. 'Didn't realise the nails would be so sharp.' It was wedged underneath his big toenail, we had to remove the whole nail afterwards because the wound was unsurprisingly infected, after it had already been stuck in there for four days. He cried. He's on antibiotics now."

"Nice breakfast conversation."

"You asked, it's the most interesting thing that happened last night," Martha shrugged, gingerly putting the sticky lid back on the Nutella jar since Matilda hadn't seen fit to do so and putting it back in the cupboard. "Why'd you let her eat this?"

"She woke me up at seven jumping on the bed asking where you were," he explained. "Needed to give her something to keep her quiet, the porridge wasn't doing it. She's hyper even without the sugar."

"It's her eighteenth birthday," said Martha, "I was excited for my eighteenth."

"You weren't a half-alien mutant child who ages three times as slowly as a normal human," he said.

"Oh, well. Would you really rather she did age normally?" Martha decided to go about buttering some slices of bread for these sandwiches Mickey was promising. She was in desperate need for a cup of tea, too. "She'd be grown up by now. Moving out. Sick of us, going to university." It was the only real side-effect of Mattie being born with the corrupted strain of Manifest DNA as far as they had ever noticed; nothing to do with the fact she was also a Time Lord brimming with temporal energy, just the still-incurable Manifest virus.

"At least she'd be able to go to school," he said. It did sadden Martha, too, that it would be a bad move to send Mattie to school. Who knew what kinds of things she might say to teachers or classmates? Things that could put her at risk? At least they didn't have to move quite as often if they kept her more isolated.

"She'd have to keep re-doing years, she'd get bored," Martha said, "She's still cleverer than most other five-year-olds. Are you not up to the challenge of teaching her about life anymore? Was the alphabet and counting to a hundred too difficult?"

"I'm gonna teach her to play poker. I'm gonna groom her to be a poker champion. By the time she's visibly sixteen, she'll be making millions winning high-stakes tournaments. Just you wait and see."

"Oh, I will. With baited breath." While she buttered the bread, they heard their daughter's loud footsteps jumping back down the stairs. Martha had told her off frequently for jumping down the stairs like that, but she never listened. One day she'd slip and fall; maybe then she'd learn her lesson. "You're soaking wet," Martha said when she came back into the kitchen, "How have you managed that?"

"I washed off all the Nutella."

"…Right. Your dad wants to teach you to play poker," Martha said. Mickey glared at her and she smirked.

"A straight flush is five cards in order with the same pattern," Mattie declared.

"Pattern? You mean a suit," corrected Mickey, then he paused for a moment, "Wait, what did-"

"Who taught you that?" Martha asked her, shocked. Matilda didn't say anything, she looked away towards the window. "Matts…" she warned.

"O-kay. It was Jenny."

"Jenny-!? She taught you to play poker?"

"She said that you told her to play a game with me and she said it's her favourite game."

"Alright, well, I'll be having some very strong words with Jenny when she brings your birthday cake later."

"Hang on," said Mickey, slowly addressing Matilda very seriously, "Did you win any money against her at poker?"

"I won some biscuits." He thought for a moment, then spoke to Martha again.

"See? Prodigy."

"Whatever – is the bacon done yet?"

"Nearly."

"Where's my presents?" Mattie persisted.

"I'll get them in a minute, I'm helping your dad make food."

"Now that I'm eighty-"

"Eighteen," Mickey corrected her, picking up bacon rashers with tongs and setting them onto the three plates Martha had gotten out of the cupboard.

"Now that I'm eighteen, can I go to university?"

"What do you want to do at university?" Martha asked.

"Be a doctor. But a better one than you." Mickey snickered in the background.

"A better one?"

"Not better… the ones who do the operations."

"A surgeon, you mean?"

"Yeah. Can I do that?"

"If you want, one day," Martha said, "They don't normally let five-year-olds into uni to study surgery, though. And you don't have any qualifications."

"Because you won't let me go to school!" she protested.

"Of course you can be a surgeon one day, Matts," said Mickey, cutting her sandwich in half and sliding it to her across the breakfast bar. She sceptically lifted up the bread and examined it. "What's wrong?"

"There's no Nutella."

"Jenny told me your cake is going to have loads of Nutella on it," Mickey told her, going to sit down by her side at the breakfast bar. Martha didn't sit down, she stayed standing up to eat her sandwich because she was going to have to go and fetch presents in a minute.

"Can I have some beer?"

"What kind?" Mickey asked. Mattie faltered, not knowing the names of any types or brands of beer apparently. "Beck's Blue?" Mattie frowned. "You can have a mocktail."

"You're making fun of me."

"No I'm not," he lied, "Would I do that?"

"Yes, because you think you're funny, but you're not funny."

"Don't wound daddy's ego, sweetheart," Martha told her, "It's very fragile."

"Can I drive your car?"

"I don't know – can you reach the pedals yet?"

"I could wear stilts and a big hat."

"Sorry, you can't drive the car until you can reach the pedals," Martha said.

"How can you drive then?" she said, eating her sandwich and looking innocent. Mickey snorted.

"Excuse me?" Martha asked.

"When you used to have the different car, you sat on a cushion sometimes." Martha stopped to stare at her daughter and try and think of an adequate response. Very annoyingly, Mattie was right. Mickey was smirking to himself and trying to hide it in his sandwich. "Can I have some tomato ketchup?" She knew she had won. Mickey silently handed her the bottle of Heinz.

"Do you want your presents now?" Martha changed the subject while she carefully watched the girl try to squirt the squeezy bottle. Predictably, it went everywhere, squirting a big red streak halfway across her plate and the breakfast bar.

"Oops," she said. "Yes, please!"

"I'll go do that, then…" Martha muttered, feeling understandably belittled. She paused on her way past to talk to Mickey, however, putting a hand on his shoulder and leaning down, "Would you make me a coffee? I'm desperate for caffeine."

"Was it that tiring? Pulling off someone's toenail?"

"They are quite hard to pull off," she said.

"I'll do you a coffee – go and get her present," he waved her away, smiling. She kissed his cheek and left him as he stood up to fill the kettle, going and turning the latch on the backdoor.

"Why are my presents outside?" Matilda called after her.

"You just be careful with that ketchup, now," Mickey warned her, "I hope one day you learn how to use condiments without making a mess…"

Martha took her keys out of her pocket and headed through the foggy, dew-covered garden to get to the shed. They were completely surrounded by trees on all sides, trees and an invisible boundary fence Oswin had put up to keep the Artron energy they were all imbued with off any searching, alien radars. It was nearly eleven. They had told people to arrive at twelve, but some of them were always early. Ten and Rose, she was sure, would be there early, probably bringing Donna along with them. Jenny was usually on the nose, as was Esther. And you never knew with Thirteen's lot.

She pushed open the stiff, wooden door, avoiding spiderwebs, and removed a sheet of tarpaulin from a small, child's bicycle with a set of stabilisers attached. Matilda had been begging them for a bike for a long time so that she could learn to ride, so finally they had decided to get her that. That, and a sizeable amount of chocolate. They never got her too many presents because the members of the TARDIS crew usually went all-out with their Christmas and birthday gifts for Mattie – and she had never complained. She was very mellow most of the time, hardly ever threw tantrums.

Matilda was overjoyed when Martha brought the little bike into the kitchen, she nearly fell off the stool with excitement as she attack-hugged her mother for the second time that morning.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!" she beamed, also going and reaching up to hug Mickey, who lifted her onto his knee as Martha set the bike against the wall next to their dining table. "Can I ride it now?"

"No, you have to finish your sandwich now," Mickey said, lifting up the uneaten half of her sandwich and holding it out to her, "And then we've got your family coming over, haven't why?"

"Why do you say they're my family when we're not related?"

"They're family," Martha told her firmly, "And-"

At that moment the doorbell rang.

"And that's probably your godmother now…" Like she said, Rose was nearly always early when she was going to see Matilda because she spent as much time with her as possible. "I'll go answer the door and you, finish your sandwich. No more presents until you've eaten proper food. Not just Nutella."