The afterglow was short-lived. So fleeting it was easy to imagine there'd never been one at all.
It was the first thing she saw upon waking, half-opaque through rice paper: the Doctor, barefoot at the table in jeans, staring a hole through a lunchbox.
Blinking sleepily, it took Martha a few moments to familiarise her surroundings, and put the strange image in context.
Sunlight streamed through the dusty green lamp hanging in the kitchenette and cast lovely, fragmented emerald flecks across the Time Lord and the upper cupboards. The kitchen window was open, letting a thick, unsatisfying half-breeze drift in. The radio burbled on quietly: faint strains of I'm The Urban Spaceman carrying into the flat.
"Morning, you," she said, leaning round the folding screen.
He looked up – smiled, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Morning."
"Doesn't look like you got any sleep."
"I told you, I don't need much."
"Not much, but – you must need some, yeah? You haven't slept all week."
This observation was apparently for the walls, as he reacted to it in no perceivable way. She sighed a bit and stood from the bed, stretching. "Hasn't dinged yet, has it?"
"Not yet."
"I hope you didn't spend all night staring at it."
"Nah. Nipped out for a pub crawl with Bowie. Started a riot and founded a new religion."
She wasn't quite sure what to do with the dry deadpan. With that tone of voice.
"I'd believe you," she ventured, chuckling a little uneasily. Then, massaging the stiffness out of the shoulder she'd slept on: "So, you're just…"
He looked up at her briefly.
"…waiting, then?"
There was a short nod that was more his eyebrows than his head. He otherwise didn't move.
"You know that saying," she hedged, frowning a bit, "a watched pot never boils?"
"Water boils at one-hundred degrees," replied the Doctor tonelessly.
"… Right."
She'd decided, going off to shower and ready for work, that the post-breakthrough euphoria had thoroughly worn off – that he was back to his stilted, quietly restrained misery. Sitting there like a statue, literally waiting for Billy Shipton to turn up, like a madman. Like the fate of the entire universe hinged on that dented-up lunchbox.
Martha gathered it was partly disappointment; he'd put so much of himself into rigging up the detector, as though that would save them. Now, a week and some change in, the detector was up and running – and they were still as stuck as before. No escape in sight.
The disappointment, she understood; she shared it. But she knew it couldn't have brought on this level of despondency alone.
It was the inescapable downside, of all that manic depressive exuberance. First she'd got the mania; now came the depression.
It wasn't exactly a surprise to her. He was very much a creature of habit – for hundreds of years he had been travelling, as far as she knew, without interruption. It was his life, the TARDIS, the open road; and it had been taken from him. Temporarily, of course, but that was no consolation, in the thick of the uncertainty.
To see this side of him feels wrong. To understand that the Doctor she'd known all along was nothing more than a careful production. A part of her had always felt that way; but nothing made the contradiction quite as stark as this, as peering behind the curtain to see what lay beneath.
He had offered a carefully crafted image to entice her. Even after inviting her into his home, he'd controlled every glimpse. There was never an unguarded moment between friends, never an awkward run-in or an unexpected laugh. Only coiffed hair and neat suit and abounding, unstoppable vigour: always a grin, an idea, a breakneck pace she couldn't resist.
Living together had been more an illusion than anything, on the TARDIS. There were set hours during which they inhabited the same space, hours during which they travelled and fought and ran: hours during which he presented her with the Doctor. At the end of their deliberately meted time together, he would say goodnight. And then, he would disappear.
Martha couldn't help but wonder, if this was what he became after.
This woebegone shell of a man, lost in limbo. This aimless, rudderless person, who wasn't completely the Doctor. Who'd no idea what to do with himself without a distraction.
There was a brief glimpse of light; he'd got the paperhanging job at Wester Drumlins, according to the response put through their letterbox, in spite of the fantastical references and claims of knighthood he'd included in his application. Martha reckoned they were desperate for help, and didn't care if he was a nutter – only that he'd a working pair of hands. He reported to the estate on Saturday morning, in somewhat higher spirits.
By Saturday at noon, naturally, he'd been sacked. Fired about forty-five minutes after arrival, for graffitiing the entirety of the east dining room wall. Looking at the photograph, she supposed the 'Love from the Doctor, 1969' was a bit heinous, from an interior design perspective; but it certainly didn't help that his new distraction hadn't lasted a full hour.
He tried to occupy himself by repairing the television. It'd a massive crack through the bulbous, grey-green CRT screen, like a portal to another dimension – Martha was hopeful that it'd be a time-consuming, and therefore distracting undertaking for him. Unfortunately, he proved a bit too clever, the crack was easily welded with the sonic, and they were blessed with BBC One in rippling greyscale before nightfall.
Days passed. The Doctor spiralled. For better or for worse, he was not an idle depressive. He worked constantly – always had to have input, stimulation, something to do with his hands. He'd mutilated half of his junkyard scrap, whittling it down to spare parts until it was impossible to tell what bit had come from which appliance. He was now on a first-name basis with the milkman – Martha hadn't known they had a milkman. She'd discovered him on his back under the kitchen sink, meddling with the plumbing beneath the cupboard. Standing atop the rickety-footed dining chair in socked feet, screwdriver grasped between his teeth, busily re-wiring the light fixture. Rearranging the plants in the flat for 'optimal photosynthesis'. He spent a night knocking about the curry house, allegedly shoring up the electrics – likely leaving little anachronisms all over the place, if Amir's resultant delight (and refusal to let Martha pay for her food) was any indication as to what sort of improvements he'd made.
He developed something of an obsession with fixing the video camera. She'd hear him talk to himself, late at night, the same lines. "People assume time is a strict progression from cause to effect…" and so on, over and over, under his breath, reciting the transcript in a mutter.
And as far as she could tell – he still didn't sleep. She was worried, as his friend; alarmed as a medical professional.
"So, are we aiming for psychosis? Or just the usual oxidative stress?"
It was what she asked, quite flatly, coming home from work to find him pretzeled on the settee with the camera between his legs and the sonic screwdriver in hand for the third successive evening in a row.
She'd startled him unlocking the door; broke his concentration mid-solder. A sparking flicker jumped between the wiring and his screwdriver, and the Doctor swore, snatching his hand away from the sizzling curl of smoke.
"What?" he snapped, shoving his fingertips in his mouth and glaring at her over the top of his glasses.
"Just asking so I know what to put on the certificate. Death by sleep deprivation's tricky."
He screwed up his face into a squint. "What are you on about?"
She shut the door behind her with a sigh, tossing her keys and her rucksack. "It's almost been two weeks. You've got to sleep. You can't keep on like this, it isn't healthy."
He stared at her as though regarding unprecedented stupidity.
"I'm not human."
For the sake of civility, she elected to ignore the unmasked disdain levelled at her species. "No," she said calmly. "But I don't see how that has any bearing on what I've just said."
He dismissed her with what looked suspiciously like an eye roll. "I'm fine."
"You look terrible."
"Thanks. Do my best."
She shook her head, studying the lines of concentration in his face, the ever-growing dark circles under his eyes. "Doctor, you're making yourself sick—"
"I'll sleep when I need to," he cut her off, giving her a pointed look over his tortoiseshell frames. Leave it. "All right?"
"Fine," she said evenly. "Work yourself to death. None of my business."
"It rarely is," he retorted.
She bit her lip and gave a measured exhale. Stiffly, deliberately, she stepped out of her shoes.
"Dinner in five. I've done chicken."
"Great."
She closed the bathroom door rather harder than was necessary.
The camera was functional the next day, clicking and chugging around a steady spool of tape. The Doctor, buttoned back up in his brown suit for the first time in days – now deodorised, impressively – took to fixating on getting the set dressing just right. He pushed about furniture, scraping up the floorboards, and insisted that Martha strip one wall bare, carefully taking down Sufia's quaint little frames. Then he positioned himself before the blank drab canvas, fired up the camera, and proceeded to deliver his lines in jarringly convincing fashion, odd pauses in between: as though he were really talking to another person, staring into the lens.
Martha did her bit, leaning into frame to complain about supporting him. She didn't particularly mind, in truth – but the transcript was the transcript. She'd already said it, the Doctor told her, so she had to stick to what was on the page.
"If I'd said something different," she wondered, "would the transcript have changed?"
"Yes," said the Doctor absently, hovering over the dwindling spool of tape. "But you didn't, so it won't."
With the Easter egg filmed, their part in the paradox was done. Nothing left to do, except wait.
Predictably, the Doctor didn't handle it well.
There was only so long he could spend cooking her dinner, baking the neighbours scones and fixing their leaky bathtub, tinkering with random bits of junk, before he inevitably ran out of distractions.
She was surprised, and a fair bit dismayed, to see him back in the t-shirt and jeans by choice. Knocking about the flat like a depressed student. Sprawled on the settee in a miserable slouch, actually, properly watching telly. Mindlessly, silently. No commentary on how he was actually on set for the filming of so-and-so, no long-winded tale about how he'd averted catastrophe at the fourteenth Eurovision, no unhinged conspiracy theory on how Blue Peter was originally aired by aliens as a means to implant hostile psychic wavelengths in planet Earth's children. Nothing. He was distressingly subdued.
Martha knew he'd hit rock bottom around the third rerun of Spider-Man.
All three television channels signed off at eleven (with the national anthem, no less – Martha found it over the top, a bit of excessive pomp that annoyed the Doctor so greatly he went to lengths to disable the speakers before it happened). But after eleven, when the airwaves went dead, he left the TV on – and had the most terribly unnerving habit of watching the static.
The t-shirt and the jeans she'd so adored became desperately sad. In the same way his suit felt like armour – these clothes felt like acceptance of defeat. Martha found herself longing for the sight of pinstripes. Wishing that he'd smile, take a big deep breath and launch into an empty, meaningless ten-minute recap of unfettered nonsense, odd things he'd gotten up to at odd times in even odder places.
Her worry for him was immense, but she tried not to let it interfere with her work. Her job at the department store was the only thing standing between the Doctor and further brazen bank robberies – she was keen not to lose it. Especially as, given his deteriorating mental health, she wasn't quite sure he was capable of pulling off another effortless heist like the first. Someone had to stay on top of things, keep food in the fridge, ensure next month's rent: Martha resigned herself to the fact that it was going to be her, at least for the foreseeable future.
She woke Wednesday morning to Cilla Black. Which wasn't an ideal way to start her day, Surround Yourself With Sorrow, but it was rather in keeping with the Doctor's general attitude.
She smelled salt – heard something frying. Extracting herself from bed and peering round the dressing screen revealed the olfactory and auditory input as breakfast.
"Bacon?" she enquired, padding into the kitchen to grab her coffee cup.
"Put up a good fight," sighed the Doctor, "but I got the better of him in the end."
She stopped short of pouring her coffee, blinking. "Wow. Was that a joke?"
"I've done worse."
She smiled tentatively. "I just thought we were doing, you know… dark, brooding misery."
"Yes, well. I'm diversifying. Keep you on your toes."
"And another. Blimey," she chuckled. "I must've woke up on the right side of the bed."
It was, in hindsight, inviting disaster, that sort of blindly optimistic assertion.
Every time she felt a glimmer of optimism, 1969 never failed to bring her crashing back down to Earth. At no point was she allowed to grow too comfortable, or forget what year she was in. The subtle, silent racism was insidious, obviously; it still rankled, the prim and proper brand of oppression preferred by her countrymen, prejudice hidden in plain sight. But she could generally brush it off. See past it. Reconcile the behaviour as a product of the time.
Sometimes it got the better of her anyway.
That morning she turned up, bright and early, to find the shop vandalised. Something heavy clearly having struck the window, a white web of hairline cracks in its wake. In vivid, dripping red spray, bleeding across the splintered window, a slur had been emblazoned on the glass.
It hit her like a punch to the gut.
She'd known that sort of vitriol was thrown around freely in this era – used by bigots, primarily designed to attack anyone remotely sympathetic to the plight of minorities. But seeing it outside the context of a history textbook was jarring. The stares she got on the street were one thing, the offhand rudeness, her apparent invisibility to bus drivers and cabbies alike – but this was different.
It was unapologetic. A screaming, in-your-face sort of vile. An anonymous act of hatred.
She'd had to take a moment outside to collect herself. To swallow down the abrupt, helpless, frustrating urge to cry.
Crying was letting them win – and so she made a point not to. Took several deep, calming breaths; ensured her British stiff upper lip was firmly in place.
When she finally calmed down enough to go inside, there had been something of an emergency huddle taking place around the till.
"The important thing is," Mr Ardley was saying, placating and mild-mannered as ever in his argyle sweater vest, "the window didn't break. Nothing was stolen."
As the bell above the door chimed, three heads turned to look at her in sync.
The generational divide present in the ranks of this understaffed little Woolworths was on glaring display, that morning.
"I told you so," hurled Nancy, voice brittle on the accusation. "I said you'd only encourage them, hiring these."
"Thank you for your input, Nancy." Ardley gave her a warning look. "That'll be quite enough."
Agnes was up in arms. The young woman had, as it turned out – though not surprisingly – a bit of an activist streak. She wanted to report it to authorities, wanted it investigated as a hate crime.
Mr Ardley lacked similar enthusiasm on the subject. "No need for dramatics," he'd exhaled, seeming incredibly wearied by the whole thing. "We'll just… handle it internally."
"You mean ignore it," Agnes scoffed, folding her arms.
"Now, Agnes—"
"Sweep it under the rug, just like you did with Carla."
Martha's eyebrow went up at the mention of the scarcely-seen, mixed-race Jamaican cleaning lady. "This has… happened before, then?"
"I suspect it's students," Ardley sighed. "Too much time on their hands, nothing better to do. Typical nonsense. I'll report it to corporate. Maybe they'll send security."
"Right," said Martha, a bit dubiously.
"It's not students. Students have brains," Agnes argued. "And whoever it is, they're clearly watching the shop. Stalking us. Martha walks home alone. It's not safe!"
"She'll be all right," Ardley dismissed. "A couple of stray vandals, hardly that serious. Certainly not a reason to waste police time. Bit of paint thinner and we'll be right as rain. Nancy – would you sort that out?"
The older woman balked. "What? Why me?" She glared at Martha. "I say she should have to clean it, it's her fault!"
"Good thing no one asked your opinion, then, isn't it?" sniped Agnes.
"If we could keep things civil, ladies. Thank you." Ardley put his hands on his hips: his universal gesture of asserting authority and ending a discussion. "Nancy. On you go, run along."
With a final glower, the older woman stormed away, kitten heels clicking sharply.
Agnes huffed. "Dreadful cow."
"Agnes, I won't ask you again to remain professional."
"Sorry, sir, but she is!"
"Would you please make yourself useful in the storeroom? We're expecting a shipment later and it's rather a mess back there."
"And I suppose we'll just leave Martha on the sales floor, so the vandal can come back and throw rocks at her through the window. Let them get a good lob right at her head, why don't you. Surely corporate'll fix it!"
Mr Ardley sighed deeply as the blonde marched away. "Agnes, no one is going to stone Martha."
"You don't know that!"
He looked to Martha tiredly, seeking some measure of sanity.
"Why don't you go give her a hand in the storeroom?" he sighed. "It's rather… shaken her up, this, I'm afraid."
"Yes, sir." She turned to follow.
"Erm – Martha?"
She looked back round. "Yeah?"
"You're…" He hesitated, looking a bit uncomfortable. The florescent lighting shone unpleasantly off his balding crown. "Well, I mean, you're all right, aren't you?"
She smiled thinly. "Fine, sir."
"I understand that must have been… unpleasant for you."
"I really am fine," she said.
"Right. Of course. Very good. Well." He gestured with a nudge of his fingers. "As you were."
"People," Agnes was fuming, upon Martha's entry to the stockroom. "Bloody people."
"Yeah," she agreed heavily.
"Ridiculous. I don't care what he says. We ought to go to the police."
"Well, maybe that's a bit… hasty." Martha keenly recalled the Doctor's warning about making waves. "I mean – it could be students, couldn't it? Could be harmless. Nasty, but harmless."
Agnes looked at her incredulously. "I don't know how you're so calm about this."
"There's nothing I can do, Agnes. No point in getting worked up over it."
"I wonder if Nancy knows who's doing it. Bloody hell, who knows? She might've done it herself!"
"I'm not sure graffiti is in her wheelhouse," Martha chuckled. "I mean, she's still a fifty-five year old woman at the end of the day. Doubt she moonlights as a vandal."
"Wouldn't put it past her. I've had it up to here with her. She's a bloody disease, that woman."
"Well, you can say that again."
"I reckon she's jealous of you. Knows you've got perfect skin. Knows she looks like the back end of a bus."
"I dunno about perfect…"
"Oh, hush. Never had a spot in your life," Agnes dismissed. "Haven't even got pores."
"I definitely have pores."
"Yeah, under a microscope. If I were you? They couldn't keep me off the magazines. I'd have adverts in the Tube. Be a film star. Like Eartha Kitt, but English. Oh – you'd look smashing in a catsuit. Have men swooning, I tell you."
Martha laughed. "I don't know about that. Me as Catwoman. Might be a bit controversial."
"Well, if they can do it in the States…" She sighed and put her hands on her hips, head shaking. "I swear, next time she's rotten to you, I'll push her down the stairs."
"Who, Eartha Kitt?"
"The cow. I'm serious. I'll do it. We both know her hip wouldn't hold. One good push, that'd do it. She's made of dust."
"Agnes," she scolded, smirking.
"If I was you I wouldn't stand for it. Don't know why Mr Ardley won't give her the sack."
"Maybe he will. But we are short-staffed."
"I think he's scared of her. Big tall man, scared of a little old witch."
"He means well. And it's not all bad, is it?" Martha said.
"Isn't it?"
"Nah. I've got you, haven't I?"
And Agnes smiled brighter than anything.
Two weeks in 1969 provided Martha with unique insight. It came as less of a eureka moment and more of a proverbial rusty tire iron over the head, admittedly – but she found it revelatory all the same.
Wednesday night found her huddled against the cold, repeating light of the television, listening to the faint canned laughter of some sitcom. The Liver Birds or On the Buses or some other programme her grandfather had loved.
"All this time," she mused, staring through the television, "and I think I finally understand my mother."
The Doctor paused and looked at her. Chopsticks halfway to his mouth, glasses perched on his nose.
"I mean, she's always been a bit – out there, you know. Sort of… militant by nature. Untrusting. Convinced that the world's this minefield, full of people out to get her." She chuckled a bit to herself. "Tish and I always say she ought've been a drill sergeant, not a mother. Didn't even let up on birthdays. Christmases. Easter. No egg hunt, Martha. It's degradingly juvenile. Egg hunts are for simpletons, chocolate is cariogenic and there is no Easter Bunny. Now stop snivelling and get in the car."
The Doctor grimaced. "Well. She has got a point."
"Yeah. She has. And I'm just now seeing it." She shook her head. "Never mind me. I'm rambling. You don't care."
"No, go on."
She glanced at him, a bit surprised. He prompted her with an expectant raise of his eyebrows.
"Well, the thing is… she always pushed me so hard, when I was a kid, right?"
"Yeah?"
"I had to be the cleverest. Had to be the best. Top of my class. Nothing less than a First or Distinction would do. Mediocrity was failure. I did ballet, piano, gymnastics… was rubbish at all three, but I did them. Had to put every last arrow in my quiver, like she was readying me to go to war or something. My whole life, I've always just… dismissed her. Thought she was just being melodramatic. Hysterical, high-strung, whatever. Classic helicopter parent stuff. But now I get it." She nodded her chin toward the window. "Out there, somewhere in Stepney, she's just a little girl growing up. And people are looking at her the same way they look at me everyday. Like she's done something wrong – just for existing. Because of some… arbitrary sequencing of her DNA. The mere coincidence of her ancestry."
"Yes." There was a tired resignation in the Doctor's voice, soft disappointment.
"There are so many things she'll grow up thinking she can't do, can't be. So many doors just – slammed in her face, outright. And I've just been thinking how it must change a person, to grow up in a place like that." She breathed out heavily. "Of course you'd think the world is hostile. No wonder she is the way that she is. No wonder she wanted every door to be open for me."
"Martha?"
"Yeah?"
"What's brought this on?"
Sat at the opposite end of the settee, nursing a warm plastic carton from their Chinese takeaway, she sighed into the steam of her fried rice. "Just… 1969, I suppose."
His brow furrowed. "You're sure that's it?"
"What else would it be?"
"Well, I'd thought you were… you know. Coping."
"What makes you think I'm not?"
"You're…" He shook his head slightly, searching her face. "Brooding."
"And?"
"And I've never known you to brood."
Her lips twitched into a smile. "You haven't got a monopoly on it, you know."
"So, nothing's happened?"
The smile lost shape, and she heaved a sigh. She set down her food and put her feet on the carpet. "The shop was vandalised today."
He blinked. "What shop?"
"The shop where I work."
"How do you mean, vandalised?" His nose wrinkled.
"I mean – vandalised. Cracked the window, graffitied the storefront."
"Oh. Right." He was frowning. "Well, there's all sorts in this area. Vagrants. Youths. Could've been anyone. Street artist with an axe to grind, you never know."
Martha exhaled roughly. "Yeah, it wasn't art."
"What was it?"
"A slur."
"A slur?"
"It was meant for me. It's because I was hired."
"How could you possibly know that?"
"It was a very… specific slur, Doctor."
His eyes darkened in realisation – like a storm rolling in. Very slowly, he lowered his chopsticks. "Someone's threatened you?"
"It wasn't a threat. It was just… hateful. I mean, bog-standard racism. They weren't even remotely creative about it."
"Martha, they singled you out specifically. And they know where you work. Clearly someone's been watching you."
"Now you sound like Agnes," she said, exasperated.
"Who?"
"Co-worker. She's very paranoid about it. Just like I told her, it's probably a one-off. Not terribly intimidating, writing a mean word and running away."
"You walk home alone at night—"
"At dusk," she protested. "The sun's out. People all around."
"—and someone's expressed violent intentions toward you."
"They cracked a window," Martha corrected, rolling her eyes. "Anyone can crack a window. Give a toddler a brick."
"I don't want you walking home by yourself anymore."
"Sure thing, Dad."
He glared at her. "Martha, I'm serious about this."
"I am in exactly the same amount of danger now as I've been in for the last two weeks," she said irritably, standing from the settee. "And you weren't bothered about it before."
"Before, no one was defacing your workplace with targeted attacks."
She groaned, trudging into the kitchen. "This is exactly why I didn't want to tell you. I knew you were going to make it a thing."
"I'm making it a thing because it is a thing," he said behind her. "I won't play fast and loose with your safety, Martha."
"You abandoned me in 1913 just fine."
There was a stark, stifling silence. The television warbled on quietly.
"That was never my intention. You know that. The TARDIS randomly generated—"
"You knew it was a possibility. You could've put safeguards in place."
"I could never have accounted for every variable. It was a mathematical impossibility. And there was no time. The odds were infinite. We just got unlucky."
"I got unlucky," she retorted. "You got to fall in love at your cushy day job."
"Martha, for the last time, that wasn't me."
"You invited her along!"
His face scrunched. "What, Joan?"
"Yes, Joan. Don't look so surprised. You know, she wasn't an innocent, Doctor. Actually, she's got an awful lot in common with the vandal you're trying to protect me from. Bet they'd get on like a house on fire."
"All right. I'm not doing this with you. I'm not."
"Course not. Just avoid it, like you do everything else."
He left the flat while she was in the shower. The front door seemed to echo, long after he was gone.
It was becoming a tradition of sorts.
Waiting until the day before an energy transfer to acknowledge it was reckless. Apparently not reckless enough, however – as she and the Doctor had upped the ante, and they were now closing in on twelve hours without a single word spoken on the subject.
Thursday afternoon found her worrying herself sick.
The cleaning lady had fallen ill, and her duties had been delegated to Martha. It wasn't the first time she'd ended up stuck in the past on the wrong end of a mop and bucket. Mr Ardley maintained that this was because Martha was a 'good sport' – and did not at all seem fazed by the optics of assigning his only black associate to the task of cleaning toilets.
Martha was so stressed by the prospect of the shag – and, moreover, the imminent death that awaited her if it did not come to pass – that she hadn't any energy left to be offended. Nancy made a point to sneer at her over it. Agnes, in usual fashion, cared less about the reassignment and more about telling Martha, at headache-inducing length, about her plans to see the Rolling Stones: apparently the most exciting thing to happen to a person in all of recorded history.
"You could come with," she prodded her, trailing behind as Martha wheeled the supply cart out of the ladies – thoroughly skiving off, as per usual. "Concert's free. We're both off work, we could make a day of it."
"I'll think about it," said Martha numbly, for the third time. For all she liked the girl, she could talk the Doctor under the table when she put her mind to pestering her.
"Aw, it'll be fun. You've got to get out more, love. Spend less time cooped up with your husband. Maybe he wouldn't drive you so mad if you weren't around him all the time."
"Yeah, there's a thought."
"You need friends," she carried on. "Not just me, I mean, other friends. Proper mates. You've got to get a life outside him. Make your own way in the world. Get a hobby, buy a goldfish…"
"Can you hand me that bin liner?"
She did with a sigh.
"All right," Agnes said heavily, seeming preemptively put upon. "Let's hear it, then."
"Sorry?"
"You're bringing me down. Out with it. What's he done now?"
"What? Nothing."
"That was terribly convincing. Full marks. Something's got you in knots. And I know it's to do with him. Always is."
Martha exhaled irritably, not particularly keen on being therapized today. "Not everything going on with me is to do with him."
"Right – pull the other one. It's got bells on."
"It isn't!"
"Oh, but why's he so hard to read? Why the mixed signals? Why must his bum look so good in jeans?"
She flushed. "I told you that in confidence."
"It's every day with you. You've no idea how you sound. I'm counting the days till the divorce, I am. Might throw a block party."
"Thanks," Martha said dryly.
"Oh, come on. You deserve to be happy. And, no offence, but he sounds like a cad. I don't care how nice his arse is."
"Agnes."
"What sort of a man marries you, if he can't even tell you how he feels about you? Rubbish."
"We've just been…" She drew a breath, shook her head as she pushed the cart into the supply cupboard. "Having a difficult time lately, is all. It's not really his fault. Things just got complicated."
"Ugh. Complicated." Agnes huffed dramatically as she followed her onto the sales floor, into a sea of dull, placid beiges. "You and that word. Everything's complicated. Well, it's not complicated from where I'm standing, love."
"We've got a customer," Martha said, nodding across the room. "Shh."
"I'll tell you what we've got. An annulment to sort out."
"Agnes."
"Hiya," said the man approaching them, giving a short, awkward wave as he crossed the distance. "Er, sorry, I'm a bit – lost."
Martha cleared her throat politely. "What can we help you find, sir?"
"I was just looking for alterations, but I've got turned around, I think."
"Tailor's upstairs," offered Agnes. "I can take you."
"That'd be perfect, thanks." He smiled briefly at Martha in passing – she mechanically returned the expression, not really thinking about it.
Then he stilled, and looked at her rather strangely.
"Sir?" Agnes raised an eyebrow. "This way."
"Sorry, just… bit forward, but – don't I know you, from somewhere?"
Martha almost pointed at herself in surprise. "Er, me?"
"Yes, I just – I can't place your face. Maybe we've met…?"
She regarded the man in puzzlement, not finding anything particularly recognisable about him. Middling blue eyes, longish hair, round wire specs. He was attractive in a scholarly, Lennon-esque sort of way – but not terribly familiar.
"Oh, my God." The blue eyes suddenly went rather wide.
Martha blinked, alarmed. "What?"
"It's you! You're the woman!"
"What woman?" She was growing concerned, mind racing through potential consequences of her time travel. She'd hung about with Shakespeare, been in Hooverville, Farringham, Redwater – but she'd never been photographed in the past, never been drawn. The Doctor was terribly careful about things like that.
"I hit you with my car!"
"You what?" said Agnes, nose wrinkling.
"Oh," realised Martha, settling down. "Oh, right. That was you, wasn't it?"
"Oh, my God, are you… all right?" He took a step forward, looking her over nervously. "I mean, were you – hurt? Are you hurt?"
"Erm, no." She smiled uneasily. "I s'pose I got lucky."
"You were hit by a car?" Agnes demanded. "When was this?"
"Weeks ago – God, I lost sleep. I'd no idea what happened to you, after that policeman took you away."
"I'm all right," Martha assured him. "Looked worse than it was."
"Well, did you – how's your head?"
"It's fine. Thick skull. Or so my mother says, anyway."
"You're certain you're okay?"
"I really am," she insisted, chuckling a little. "No harm done."
"I am – so sorry, Miss. I never got the chance to properly apologise."
"Really is all right. Nothing to worry about, Mr…?"
"Erm – Hugh. Hugh Cardsley, Daily Worker. Er – Morning Star, sorry. Force of habit." He rifled in his pocket and produced a plastic card. Martha accepted it tentatively. Agnes peeked at it nosily. "That's got my, er, telephone number on it. Look, if you ever need anything, if there's ever something I can do for you – feel free to phone."
"If she ever needs what? Investigative journalism?" Agnes questioned flatly.
"That's very kind of you," Martha said, subtly pushing her elbow into the other girl's ribs. "But there's no need."
"I ran you over with my car. You could've pressed charges. The least I can do, surely."
"I wouldn't say you ran me over. Just… ran into. A bit."
"You were hit by a car… and you want to talk semantics?"
"Well, it's an important distinction."
He smiled. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Martha. I mean – properly. Without the running over."
"Into," she corrected. Then frowned. "Hang on. How do you know my name?"
Hugh glanced at her nametag, eyebrow lifting.
She looked down at it and blushed a bit. "Oh. Right. Forgot about that."
"I'm sorry," drawled Agnes, "but can we go back to the bit where you got hit by a car? And didn't tell me!"
"It wasn't a big deal," Martha said. "Why don't you take Mr Cardsley to alterations?"
"You could've died, Martha!"
"Agnes, really."
"We're going to talk about this. Don't think we're not." She gave her an ominous look over one shoulder. "Right this way, Mr Cardsley."
Thursday proceeded agonisingly slowly. The lower the sun sank in the sky, the deeper the pit in her stomach grew.
Closing time found her biting her nails. It was a terrible, unsanitary habit, but a compulsive one. She couldn't quite seem to stop.
"You're counting that up for the third time," Agnes observed, sitting beside her, studiously people-watching.
"Just – making sure," Martha muttered. The pre-decimal system was frustrating enough for her on a good day; her brain refused to focus.
"Everything all right?"
"Fine. Yes."
"I'll presume that's code for: my train derailed, dog died, and my kidney failed again, but don't worry your pretty little head about it, Agnes."
Martha rolled her eyes. "It wasn't really a car accident. I only got grazed. You've got to let it go."
"I dread to think, what else you haven't told me about. Matter of time before I learn about your secret double life, at this rate."
She imagined how the other girl might react to learning she was a time traveller, and stifled a wince.
"There isn't much," she said tiredly. "You've a way of pulling it out of me."
"Well, I hope so. Cos I tell you everything, you know that. Told you all about my evil boyfriend. With his cheating and his jock itch. Didn't I?"
This was less a measure of the trust they'd built, than it was a testament to Agnes's inability to shut up and penchant for egregious oversharing. Martha decided not to call attention to it. "I remember."
"You're my mate. You can trust me. Tell me things." She shrugged. "That's what mates are for."
"I know I can trust you. And I do. Really." It was true. Being forty years separated from Tish, the girl was the closest thing to a female confidant Martha had.
"Good." Agnes smiled. "Things were so dull round here before you. Don't know what I'd do with myself if you quit, honestly."
Martha tried to ignore the little pang of guilt in her stomach. Tried not to think about how much of a betrayal it would come across as, when she simply up and disappeared one day.
"Would you make sure I counted right?"
"Oi, forget about that. You're missing the view."
"What view?"
Agnes popped her gum and pointed out the window. "Dreamboat, six o'clock."
Martha glanced up from her ready-reckoner table – and did a double-take.
"Ooh," the blonde sucked a breath through her teeth, "I just know he'd break my heart, that one."
Her eyes almost instinctively found the pinstripes through the scattered passerby outside the shop. Recognised the hands in the pockets at first glance, the wide-set stance, before she even saw the face.
"Oh, God." She clamped her hand to her forehead and sank down behind the till in defeat. "Lovely."
"Isn't it just? Love a man with sideburns. Martha, mind your posture, love. I think he's coming in."
"Yeah, because he can't leave well enough alone."
The blonde glanced down at her quizzically.
"Agnes, that's my…" She already felt a migraine coming on from the stress. "Husband."
The girl's eyes went cartoonishly round – only made more dramatic by the wings of her eyeliner.
"What, really?"
"Really. So if you could just behave yourself…"
"Come off it."
"It is. That's him."
The Doctor was now looking puzzledly between storefronts, frowning, reading the signs – the sort of irritable, consternated look on his face he always wore when he was refusing to admit he was lost.
"Just to be perfectly clear – we're both talking about the tall glass of water in the pinstripe suit, yeah? Not the stubby bloke standing next to him?"
"Yes. The one in the suit."
"With the hair?"
"Yes, with the hair."
"That's your husband, husband?"
"Yeah."
"The no good for you husband? World's biggest cad husband? His arse is God's gift to denim husband?"
"So when I ask you to behave, I'm ideally hoping to avoid statements like that."
Agnes swatted her on the arm, rather hard. "You are joshing me! How did you never once tell me he was…"
"What?" she wondered, reluctantly amused. "White?"
"No! Gorgeous!"
"I'm sure I've complained. Look – he didn't want me walking home alone after the… incident yesterday. Convinced I'm not safe. I thought it was an empty threat. Ugh, I never should have mentioned it to him."
"You're not safe," Agnes said. "But I thought you said he doesn't notice you exist?"
"It's not really me," she retorted irritably, handwaving it. "He just can't resist a rescue. Swooping in and playing the hero."
"I can't believe I get to meet him. The world-renowned shag!"
"Please wind it in. I'm begging you."
"I'll be good."
The bell above the door tinkled.
"Hullo," said the Doctor mildly.
Agnes waved rather too enthusiastically, at windscreen wiper velocity, standing on her toes. "Hello!" she chirped. "Welcome in, Mr Jones!"
Martha wanted to die on the spot.
As it was, if things went south tonight – she reckoned she just might get her wish.