Chapter 9:
"Hullo, Martha," the Doctor said, hands shoved awkwardly into his trousers pockets. If Martha isn't ready for the crushing disappointment seeing him at her door brings, then the Doctor is doubly unprepared to feel it pouring off her in waves.
Martha'd always been easy for him to read. She wore her heart on her sleeve, especially when it came to him. Beautiful, wickedly intelligent, resourceful, and utterly in love with him. That's how the Doctor had always thought of Martha. She was a good friend. A great friend, really. She'd put up with more than her fair share, during her time in the Tardis, with very little acknowledgement from him. He'd counted on the love she held for him to see them through the rough patches. Just for a little while. Just until he could wrap his mind and his hearts around the grief and the helplessness of Rose being ripped away from him. By the time he finally felt ready to confront it all, the Master resurfaced and, as he usually did, ruined all his good intentions.
"What are you doing here, Doctor?" Martha asked wearily. She was dressed for bed in a man's shirt and a pair of shorts. Her feet were bare, toes painted a blood red that complemented the warm brown of her skin. She crossed her arms as the silence lengthened, her weary expression morphing into one that said he'd better start talking and soon.
"I've lost the Master," the Doctor finally said, opting for honesty. Martha raised one delicate eyebrow.
"And…what? You thought he'd be here?" She asked, skepticism so thick in her voice that he felt his cheeks warm in embarrassment. He rubbed the back of his head and sheepishly explained, "Well, I thought…you being his wife and all…"
Martha scowled and gripped the back of her chair. Her voice was terse when she said, "I was Sam's wife. Not the Master's. You're better off asking Lucy Saxon than me. I don't know him."
"Martha," the Doctor sighed. How to explain? Where could he possibly begin?
"Don't," Martha said harshly, her dark eyes drilling holes into his, "don't you even think about it, Doctor. I don't want to hear you say that Sam, my Sam, was really the Master all along. I know how the chameleon arch works: had more than enough experience with it. Remember John Smith and Nurse Redfern? That wasn't you, right?? So don't you dare lie to me, Doctor. I deserve more than that from you." Her voice was trembling between rage and tears by the time she finished, and all the Doctor wanted to do was gather her up in his arms and let her cry all her hurt out. But he feared that the Martha who would've welcomed such a gesture was not the one he was currently speaking to.
Instead, he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, wondering how everything had blown up in his face. None of this should've turned out this way. It should have been easy to find a cure for the Master's madness. It should have. He could manipulate space and time itself; what was an imaginary drumbeat in the face of that? He was The Oncoming Storm! Basically a god. He should've been able to find a cure, then he would have come back to find Martha and the Master, close friends now due to the arch but nothing more, cure the Master, and then all of them, Donna included, would have traveled the stars together. His own little family.
But instead, the Master had run off, Donna was "clearing her head" at her mother's, and Martha could hardly stand to look at him. It wasn't fair.
"That's the thing, isn't it? Your Sam, like John Smith, wasn't real. He was just…a mask, or a costume, if you like. The Master was always there, underneath. And maybe closer to the surface than either of us expected. The Tardis was far from one hundred percent when we used the arch." The Doctor said, and if he sounded a little bitter, he thought he could be forgiven for that.
Martha scoffed. "What are you saying, then? That the Master just decided to play happy families with me? Why would he do that? He spent a year trying to kill me! If the arch didn't work the way you intended then how is Missy even here? You told me that humans and Time Lords can't reproduce together."
The Doctor tugged at his tie. "Ah well, as to the last part, I may have misspoke? It's not that we can't breed…it's more that it's very difficult and requires a good deal of genetic exchange. Like ah, erm…quantity over quality, so to speak."
Martha grimaced, suddenly extremely interested in her meticulously painted toes. "Oh."
Her demeanor felt softer now, so the Doctor padded forward until he could place a gentle hand on her shoulder. A mistake, but he misread the stiffening of her posture.
"The chameleon arch definitely worked to some degree, but…Martha, he was so angry in the Tardis, and I don't think it had anything to do with being Sam. It had everything to do with not being Sam anymore." Rassilon's teeth! That look of grief and pain on the Master's face was seared into his mind's eye. His old friend had been throwing his emotions all over the place, feelings he hadn't felt from the other Time Lord since they were still Theta and Koschei: heartache and grief, embarrassment and outrage, and so much of it that he was momentarily breathless. That's why he didn't see the punch coming or the fight that followed, and he would never forgive himself for this lapse in judgement, as it allowed the Master to once again slip through his fingers, ruining any chance the Doctor had held for salvaging the mess they all found themselves in.
Martha pushed his hand away, glaring up at him through eyes shiny with unshed tears. Whether they were tears of anger or something else, the Doctor couldn't tell. "What? You think that psychopath misses us? He hates us! I'm glad he hasn't come round. The only reason he would is so he could kill us. He's evil, remember, and we embarrassed him, you and I. And me especially. Does a man like the Master forgive insults that easily?" She put her hands on her hips and adopted a school teacher voice, as if she were speaking to a particularly slow child. "Or did you expect to come here and find us snuggled up and watching Missy play with her dolls?"
The Doctor bristled, not used to being spoken to in this way by one of his companions. "I expected to find Martha Jones here, not a sad little girl moping after a man she supposedly never wanted. But you were attached at the hip to good ole Sam, weren't you? I've never seen a more content man. You certainly had him wrapped tightly around your finger, eh Martha?"
Martha jerked back as if physically struck, the chair behind her noisily scraping against the tiles when she inadvertently bumped it, her eyes widening and face heating. "You left him with me for six years, Doctor! The Tardis told him we were engaged! He woke up thinking we were madly in love. What else was I supposed to do? Break his heart? Yeah, he'd have definitely stayed with me if I did that. I only did what I had to do, what I thought was right!" They looked ridiculous, whisper shouting at each other, both trying to be mindful of Martha's sleeping daughter in a room not far from them.
"But you didn't have to fall in love with him! You didn't have to -" the Doctor bit off the end of his sentence, clenching his jaw so hard his teeth ached. The conversation had spiraled out of control. This wasn't why he'd come to Martha's home. He didn't want to fight with her, he never did; all he wanted was to find the Master - and he wasn't wrong to think the other Time Lord might come to see his wife and child, he knew it. No matter what Martha thought The Master had a vested interest in her that went deeper than even he knew. The Master wouldn't be able to resist seeing her, and he would come; it just hadn't happened yet. And the Doctor needed Martha on his side, so that she would tell him right away when the Master came around.
That wouldn't happen if he couldn't get himself under control and stop feeling betrayed by her feelings for Sam. She couldn't help the weaknesses of her human heart.
"I-I'm sorry, Martha. That was out of line. I'm sorry."
Martha had covered her mouth with her hand. Her shoulders had hunched, as if warding off an attack, and the tears that had been threatening since the beginning of their conversation had finally escaped, and now she looked up at him with wounded eyes through wet eyelashes.
"I didn't mean to, you know," she whispered. The tears flowed thicker with each word she spoke, "I know who Sam really is. How could I forget? How could I ever forget? And I fought so desperately to stay detached. But I couldn't. He was so…wonderful. No one has ever loved me like that before. How could I resist? Stay away? Even knowing it wasn't real, everything between us felt so right. I loved him so much." A soft sob escaped her, her entire body shook with it. She swallowed heavily, gave the Doctor a tremulous smile. "I'm really sorry, Doctor. I failed you, didn't I?"
"Oh, Martha," the Doctor gathered her into his arms in a fierce hug, unsurprised to feel her tightly clutching the fabric covering his back or by the hot tears that began to wet the fabric of his shirt. "Oh, my dear Martha. You didn't fail me. Never think that. Sweet girl, it's alright. Everything is alright." He must have stood in that dimly lit kitchen for an hour or more, softly rocking from side to side and murmuring soothing nonsense into the crown of Martha's hair as she wept.
Martha was not a loud crier. She didn't wail or moan or anything of the sort. She simply held the Doctor like he was her only lifeline and let the grief and heartbreak that she had kept bottled up for the last six weeks escape her in tears and deep, shaky breaths. After a while, long after the Doctor's voice was little more than hoarse murmuring and her tears had dried, Martha made to step back. The Doctor released her but kept her within the loose circle of his arms. Separated but still close.
Martha scrubbed at her face, projecting embarrassment into the late night air. "Sorry about that. I don't know where that came from," she said with a wobbly laugh. The Doctor's eyes brimmed with compassion. He chucked her under the chin, smiling when she gave the same old shy reaction he so cherished.
"Nothing to apologize for, Martha. Like I said, I was out of line. And all of this has been…yeah."
"Yeah it has," she agreed with a nod, resting her hands on his forearms.
"But still," he pressed their foreheads together, breathing in her scent and taking courage from the deep well of it that she possessed, "I was wrong to insinuate. I should have realized that this could happen, and I shouldn't have asked so much of you when you've already done more for me than I'll ever deserve." He met her eyes, so deep and brown and trusting even after everything. "I should've been more careful with your heart. And for that I apologize."
Martha's breath hitched, as if she were fighting back a fresh wave of tears, but her eyes remained dry. She cupped his cheek, the understanding smile he was so familiar with touching the edges of her mouth.
"I forgive you, Doctor. That's the beauty of friendship, isn't it? We love and hurt and forgive each other. And we do a little bit better each time around." This time when she moved away, he let her go completely.
She picked up her cup and took a sip, grimacing at the cold tea. "D'you really think the Master will come round?"
The Doctor cleared his throat, feeling oddly bereft. "I've learned to discount nothing when it comes to the Master."
"Do you think…" she paused and glanced down the hallway, towards her daughter's bedroom. The Doctor immediately understood.
"He doesn't strike me as the parenting type, but, again, who can say what he'll do. That's why I need you to call me right away if you even think he's been around. Missy won't understand that he isn't the father she's known her whole life, and that's doubly true if she's inherited any Gallifreyan traits from him, such as telepathy. He'll "read" to her as her father because his mental fingerprint, so to speak, is the same."
Martha's eyes closed, her fingers tightened around her cup. "And she's been missing her dad so much since he left."
The Doctor winced. He didn't want to touch that. "I can't imagine. Has…has she been displaying any odd traits since he left?"
Martha pursed her lips, cutting her eyes away. "No."
Right. He definitely believed that. No matter: he could keep an eye on Missy from a distance and intervene when necessary. If the girl was more Gallifreyan than human (and genetics were such a tricky thing) then he had plenty of time. He wouldn't take Missy from her mother. But one day the girl would need more than her human family could offer. And that's when he would be there.
"That's good to hear. But if she does, I'm only a phone call away, Martha. I want to help you both however I can. And you know," he said with a wistful smile, "it'll be nice to teach a time tot again."
Martha laughed, "Time tot?" He grinned.
"That's what we lofty Time Lords called our young. Very dignified, isn't it?" He said and reveled in the giggle he got in return.
"Well! This has been fun, but it's late and you humans need your sleep. I suppose I'd better be going."
"I suppose so," Martha said, genuinely sad to see him go, "but I shouldn't like to get an earful from Donna when you go bursting into the Tardis and disrupt her sleep."
The Doctor hummed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. "Ah well, no fear of that. She's at her mum's. Told me not to come round until I'd settled things with you."
"Oh, I like her. Make sure to keep this one close, yeah? You need it."
He gave a mock two finger salute. "Yes, ma'am."
She opened her arms. "Oh, come here, you." He gladly swooped her up into a big hug, briefly lifting her off her feet. She threw her arms around his neck. "We're okay," she said, kissing his cheek, "but you've hit your quota on asking for big favors for at least the next five years."
He chuckled and set her down, giving her a tender kiss on the forehead before stepping away. It was about time to leave, but:
"I'll remember that. And Martha -"
"If the Master comes round, give you a call. Got it, Doctor." She finished, managing to sound both exasperated and amused. He could feel how much she didn't believe it would happen.
"Call me right away," he insisted, and this time an eye roll accompanied her affirmation. Well, whatever, he thought as he exited and made the short walk back to his Tardis. Just as long as she agreed. He knew he could trust Martha to keep her word.