Hello all!

It's been a while - a full 7 months since I've written a Doctor Who piece - I've been concentrating on another fandom that had a massive meltdown last summer... it's been so much fun riding (and writing) that wave! Unfortunately, I sort of lost my thread of writing for my favorite duo, and almost lost their voices.

This is not a fully-formed story in my mind yet... I know where I'm going with it and what I'm trying to prove, but getting there might be weird. I don't think it's going to be a very long story, but one never knows...

As I was saying, I feel like I sort of lost their voices a bit, so if the dialogue seems stilted, that might be why... or it might be for another reason. Suffice it to say, I'm re-learning, and I hope this story can be enjoyed by all fans of Ten and Martha.

ONE

"Welcome," said the tall, incongruously attractive woman, sitting down on a cream-coloured sofa. "As you already know, I am Dr. Hilde Weth – you may call me Dr. Weth or Hilde, it's all the same to me."

She spoke with a thick German accent, befitting of someone from the small city of Kassel. She had come to Great Britain on an educational venture, and had found excellent opportunities to ply her trade here. It was not difficult to decide to stay.

"Good morning, Dr. Weth," said the male client, sitting across from her, beside his wife, in an armchair that was chosen for its design, not for its comfort.

Weth sized them up: a young couple, both gorgeous, both uncomfortable and refusing to look one another in the eye. Obviously, this was not a good sign in a marriage, but it was excellent for business.

Similarly, the husband was dressed in a suit, but the wife was in jeans and a knit top – what was that about? Could that be a symptom of the conflict? She hoped so. They were an interracial couple, and there appeared to be about a ten-year age gap, both of which could be sources of discord in the marriage, even unconsciously, and could be exploited.

From their intake paperwork, she knew they were both doctors, had been married less than two years – it was his second, her first. They had known each other only a month before getting married, had no children, and both had checked "I don't know" on the form where it asked whether they planned or wanted to have any. This was very telling – it might mean they were not on the same page. She could use it.

"So, what brings you in today?" she asked, assuming a position of intent listening. She was sitting on the light blue sofa in her office, and had a pen in her hand and pad in her lap. She rested her elbows on her knees, rather than posing as though she was ready to write down all of their deepest darkest secrets.

"Well," said the wife. She raised her hands in a half-shrug, half raise-the-roof gesture, and said, "We're about to implode, and we don't know what to do about it anymore."

"You've come to the right place," said Weth, with a great deal of sympathy in her voice. "When you say implode, what does that mean?"

"It means," said the wife, and then she swallowed hard. "That I… I love him. I want this to work, but I don't know if it's going to. I don't know how much longer things can go on the way they are."

The husband was nodding, not surprised at her opinions. Or perhaps he was agreeing. Either way, there was accord of some kind, at least in this particular matter.

"Go on," Weth encouraged.

"The closeness just isn't there," the wife said. "It's like he's put me into a corner and forgotten about me."

"No, no, you are the one doing that to me," the husband said.

"Not true," the wife argued calmly. "You're putting me in a box. You've decided that I am a certain way…"

"You are! You are a certain way!" he interrupted. Then he looked at Dr. Weth. "I try to help her change that behaviour, but she refuses."

"Okay, let's back up," Weth said, getting excited about the prospect of getting to the bottom of this, but for now, it was far too vague. Very often, accusations such as these could be traced to a pattern. So, she held up both hands, and said, "Before we start assigning blame all over the place, let's get a little more information. Martha, I'll start with you."

The wife whose name was Martha cleared her throat, said, "All right," and switched the way her legs were crossed.

"Tell me a little bit about your history in relationships. I'd like to see if I can discern any similar frameworks from one relationship to the next."

"Well, there's not much to tell," said Martha. "I had a couple of relationships in high school, but you know, at that age, you get distracted by something shiny, and it's over."

"Of course," Weth said.

"Er…" she looked at her husband… why? Not for help, surely. It was almost apologetic. "I had my first 'real' boyfriend at uni – years two through four. We split because I went to medical school in Scotland, and he got a good job here in London."

"Why didn't he go with you? Or you stay with him?"

Martha shrugged. "I dunno, I guess we both just knew all along that it was a university romance, and that would be it. When the time came to decide what was next, going our separate ways seemed the only logical choice."

"I see. And what about since you've been an adult?"

"Again, not much to tell. I dated one person before I met my husband, and that relationship ended because his rabbi told him to stop wasting his time with me."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," Weth said, writing this down. "Do you feel like you've carried forward any of that with you, in your marriage to John?"

"No, how could I? Why would I?"

"Is either one of you religious?"

"Not remotely," she responded, a bit nonplussed.

"All right, thank you, Martha," said Dr. Weth. "Now, how about you, John? You've been married before, yes?"

"Oh," said the husband, whose name was John. "Er, yeah. Yeah, I have."

"How long were you married before?"

He, too, now looked at his spouse and it almost looked as though he wanted help, but that didn't make any sense. Her look in response was cold, which spoke volumes.

Weth jotted this down.

"Five years," he said. "Or, just short of."

"And how long were you divorced before meeting Martha?"

That look again. Interesting.

"A year and a half or so," he told her, quietly.

"I have to ask," Weth said, leaning forward again. "Why did you decide to get married after such a short courtship?"

They looked at each other with worry.

She was finding their looks intriguing – a hint of quizzicality, and a hint of fear. What were they afraid of?

Martha spoke first. "I think we just got swept up in the… chaos, maybe? Is that the word? The chaos of being in love? The initial rush that clouds your judgement and makes you think you could never feel any differently."

"You think it was a result of clouded judgement?" Weth asked, writing. "Fascinating."

"Well, it's just... ordinarily I'm much more careful with decision-making, but…" She looked at her husband, smiled, and shrugged. "I guess I had never felt the rush quite so strongly. More a storm than a rush, and I was powerless. You were so charming. Are so charming."

He smiled, too, a bit sadly.

"John, is that not how you see it?" Weth inquired.

"No, that's how I see it, as well. Though, for me, the rush, or the storm might have come on a bit fierce because after the divorce, I was wondering, you know… would I be alone forever? How could I ever feel that way about someone again? But then I did, and it seemed silly to wait for some societal convention to tell us when we could make it official."

Martha shrugged. "Life is short."

"Isn't it just?" he mused.

"Let's get back to your divorce, John. Can you tell me why that relationship ended?" asked Weth.

"Ugh," his wife groaned, leaning her head back, exasperated.

This time, when the husband looked at the wife, he seemed surprised. What was that? Had they never discussed this? Her groan would suggest they had discussed it ad nauseum, but his surprise would suggest that he hadn't known her feelings on the topic.

Better probe.

Now, he seemed to be lost in thought for a few moments. "Well, by the end, we were just… I guess you could say, living in different dimensions. She got a new job, shut me out. We lived parallel lives for a while until we finally realised that this was no longer a marriage but, like, a home-sharing programme of some sort."

"Do you think she would see it the same way?" asked Dr. Weth.

"I don't really know," he said. "We never talked about it. I just filed for divorce, and she said, okay, and signed the papers and that was it. I came home from a fishing weekend, and she had moved her stuff out, next thing I know she's sending me an e-mail about forwarding her post to Norway."

"How very cold and impersonal," Weth pointed out. "Now, you said she shut you out. Is that the in the same way you feel Martha is shutting you out? Is the feeling the same, in your world?"

Then he said, "No, not the same," he said.

"But you feel shut out by Martha."

"Yes."

"I will venture to guess, perhaps she is not giving you the attention you need?"

"It's maybe not the kind of attention I would like," he said, sinking down in the chair and pouting.

Weth jotted this down. The body language was profound.

"Martha, you feel this way too?" asked Weth. "That exactly what he says you do to him, is what he does to you."

"Yes, but it's hard to explain," Martha said. "I'm not even sure he knows how to explain what he wants from me."

"What do you want from him? What need is not being met by him putting you in a box, as you said earlier?"

She looked over at him, but he did not look at her. "I feel like he doesn't see me as an individual, but as echoes of someone else. Of his ex, of my family, of the world I come from…"

"Do you mean because you come from different races?" Weth asked, carefully.

"No," Martha said. "It's not a race thing – it's something else. I need him to know that I am my own person. I am a product of certain aspects of my life before marriage, yes, and so is he. But I am not anyone but me. Still, I feel like I'm living with ghosts."

"Living with… what?" he asked, with the first hint of impatience or frustration from either of them. "Ghosts? What the hell are you talking about?"

"You pigeonhole me. You do it with my family, and you do it with her. Your ex. I suppose that's what makes me feel shunted aside, because you think I'm something else."

"I don't expect you to be like my ex," he said, nonplussed, voice raised a little.

"Don't you?"

"No," he said. "Leave her out of this."

"I'd love to," she said. "You won't let me."

Bingo, thought Dr. Weth.

Well, I know I'm not exactly writing in code here, so you've probably worked out who the characters are ;-). But what the hell are they doing in marriage counseling?

If you have ideas, comments, thoughts, or just want to say hi, please leave a review. I would love to know what you think!