As I do, usually twice over the course of writing a longish story, I went back from the beginning and read everything up to where we are now. My hope is always that what I'm writing now "matches" the style and tone of the first few chapters, and holds the thread of what's been established in the interim chapters.

In this particular story, my hope was that chapter ten (the previous chapter) didn't take too jarring of a turn from the tone we were working with before.

But it sort of does take a jarring turn, doesn't it? It goes in a different direction, it's got a weird little info-dump by Walt, the dimension they're in is talking to them, suddenly Martha just knows stuff. A little bit of a mid-story Deus Ex Machina. Sorry about that.

Well, rest assured that the "different direction" is simply an explanation for what's been going on all along, I just didn't do a very good job of revealing it.

Though my endgame here has to do with relationships, not really with the alien plots/different dimensions/teleportation madness, but that doesn't mean I'm allowed to be lazy on the sci-fi bits. I'm usually pretty good at that... hoping not to let myself, or anyone else, down!

Needless to say, if you're still "with" this story, I appreciate you so very much!


When we left off (like three weeks ago!), the Doctor had received a call from another dimension, seemingly coming from Martha's phone. Could she really be that clever? She could!

Enjoy this chapter!


ELEVEN

Martha Jones fully embraced her "science geek" nature, but she had never expected to get this excited about molecular chemistry. She had once studied it for its applications to public health, but Danielle's knowledge was on a different level, and the current applications were going to be far weirder than public health.

She had a bee in her bonnet. She could communicate across dimensions using her mobile phone if…

"A diamond has got the same FCC structure!" She cried out. She had been comparing it to aluminium, the substance the Shadow Proclamation had used in their comm systems to contact the Doctor across dimensional walls. Aiming specific energies at a subject, using an FCC structure was, apparently, incredibly powerful.

Her fellow prisoner (if prisoners was what they were), Danielle, was explaining what she knew. "Face-centered cubic, yes. But its tetrahedral bonding pattern makes it stronger than the metallic bonding pattern of aluminium. Allowing for relatively easy movement of electrons, and making it highly conductive. Well, aluminium is highly conductive, and diamonds can be, in special circumstances."

Martha smiled. "You're a jeweller, eh?"

"I'm the world's best-educated bauble vendor."

"What you are is a genius!" Martha shouted, then took Danielle's head in both hands, and kissed her cheek. "Do you think any of our friends knows anything about electronics?"

But she already knew from her research with the Doctor that Arabella Chan was a Network Analyst, therefore, extremely computer-savvy. She just hoped that that savviness extended to other types of electronics, as well. Before anyone could answer, she was running down the passage between the two three-room pods, to find the lady in question.

"Bella!" Martha shouted.

Danielle and Walt, of course, chased her. "What's going on?" Danielle asked.

"She said she thinks she can contact someone across dimensions, and then she ran out of her room and started shouting at you about molecules…"

"Not just someone, Walt. The Doctor. The equipment in his ship is wide open for stuff like this," she said. "He's the only one of his kind, the ship is the only one of its kind, and I have… well, its phone number!"

Bella stepped out. "What are you… what?"

"Do you know how mobile phones work?"

"Basically, yeah."

"What if I told you that a communication signal can be boosted using a high-quality diamond?"

Bella frowned for a few seconds, then said, "I would say, it makes a weird kind of sense. Did you learn this from your Doctor?"

"Oh yes!" Then, Martha slipped the diamond off her finger and handed it, and the mobile phone, to Bella. "Let's brainstorm."


The comm system in the TARDIS screeched for the second time today, with another incoming communiqué from a different dimension. He recognised the static…

But he also recognised the familiar brr-brr of a phone ringing underneath it. He cursed, and walked tensely to the console.

The screen said it was Martha's phone, but…

He smiled and said aloud, "No way. Can you be this brilliant?" Then he flipped a toggle to open the comm and said, "Tesco Express, Strand and Savoy, how may I direct your call?"

"Doctor!" said Martha's voice.

He laughed. "Ha! Martha Jones, truly the cleverest human I have ever, ever met! How are you doing this?"

"What?" she asked.

It was grainy and a bit muffled. They would have to speak simply and slowly.

"All right?" he asked, being concise.

"Better now," she responded, answering the same need.

"How did you do this?"

"Mobile phone and a diamond ring."

He laughed out loud again. "You are so clever!"

"I had help," she said.

"Where are you?"

"Have you heard of the Monoklino Abyss?" she asked.

His stomach hit the floor. Although, he was not one-hundred-per-cent sure of what she had said.

"Say that again."

"The Monoklino Abyss," she said.

"Yes. Yes I have."

"Your voice is different."

"Describe where you are."

"Erm... six living areas, two pods of three. Bodies not functioning normally."

"Did you say, body not functioning normally?"

"Yes."

"How so?"

"No digestion, but there's a pulse."

"Time suspension," he said.

"I knew it!" she shouted.

Her voice reverberated through the TARDIS console room with a high-pitched static that caused the ship to protest.

"You're being kept. Entertained, contained. In groups of three."

"Yes. We know we are being held for some sort of conversion to a trinity."

He had heard only we know… conversion to a trinity. It was enough.

"You already know that?"

"Yes. Some people here almost got taken. As a trio. Over this void thing…"

Again, he didn't understand every word, but it was enough.

"The Anisychos Void," he said.

"The what? Doctor, I think the connection is deteriorating."

He repeated Anisychos Void slowly, then said, "Blue? Light and restless…"

"It's like a swimming pool."

"Yeah," the Doctor said darkly. "The Anisychos Void lulls. Pulls you across, then you come out on the other side in the Monoklino Abyss, and you're never an individual again. There's no way back… I'm not even sure you'll be corporeal. Damn it."

"I didn't get most of that," Martha said. "I heard pulls you across and something about never again."

"That's probably enough to know."

"Agreed."

"They were taken? Your fellow… kidnappees?"

"No, just threatened. Dangled. They said it was terrifying."

"It must have been terrifying," the Doctor said, because he hadn't understood the last bit. "Why were they not taken?"

"Walt thinks consent."

"Event?"

"No, consent!" Martha shouted. "Like, permission!"

"It's part of the equation. We know that from Dr. Weth."

"Yes, and I have a story about what happens without consent. Not good."

"That does not sound good."

"If I ever see you again…" she said. "Wait, did you say that the Void lulls?"

"Yeah. The connection is dying, Martha."

"The restless light… is it manipulating us? Lulling? Or is there a low pulse or something? Or will we keep on facing it, and eventually become enthralled by it?"

"Probably," he said, though he had only heard part of what she said. "Ugh, I should have known."

"Known what?"

"That the Tertia Trochos' association with Monoklino. They must worship it like a god."

"Monoklino is a… living thing?"

"Yeah, it's sort of the battery that powers the Abyss. King of the dimension itself."

"Let me guess: it loves the number three."

"You got it. I wonder when it got its hooks into the Tertia Trochos."

"What?"

"Probably because it needed an 'in' in this dimension."

"Doctor, you're…"

"This is the consumption the Tertia Trochos have always threatened."

"Consumption. Yes," Martha said, having heard that word, and got the gist of the rest of it.

"The talisman brings you to the platform, the void plies you submission with comfort and possibly boredom, so you give your consent, then it brings you across into the abyss, where you are consumed as fuel for Monoklino, so he can continue to power his universe."

"Did I hear the word platform?"

"Yes," he said. "You must be on a kind of… platform."

"Like beside a railway track?"

"Yes, for lack of a better description."

"Waiting for the thing that will take us to the next place. Great."

And then the connection died.

The Doctor sighed. "How long was that?" he asked the TARDIS.

The screen then indicated 4 minutes and 27 seconds.

"Okay," he said. "We've got to assume this mode of communication will have diminishing returns. Next time, the connection will be worse, and last for less time… hope she realises it too. Or someone she's with."

With that, he patted the console, and got back on his task. He still needed to burst in on Weth, but now, it was more than just taking her to task.

He had known before that consent was a big part of the Tertia Trochos' M.O. And to hear Martha tell it, something bad happens when they "take" someone without getting consent… as they had taken Martha.

He now realised the consent structure happened in two parts. Part 1 was about the partner (him) giving consent for himself to be taken, thereby releasing the "third wheel," which was Martha. Part 2 happened inside the "platform" dimension, in the void between there and the Monoklino.

This being the case, he knew he couldn't just find her and bring her back. There has to be consent. Specifically, Hilde Weth has to let her go, or the dimension itself has to release her.

How and when was she planning on pushing Martha, and two other kidnappees over into the Monoklino Abyss? And could he appeal to a sense of decency, to get her to let Martha go?


Hilde Weth, or so she went during this "chapter" of her existence, had spent the past twenty-four hours in meditation. She needed to be calm and collected in order to maintain the Vestibule, where she housed her true Third Wheels until they were ready to cross over. Her connection with the Vestibular dimension was vital – it must not collapse nor become perverted in any way. She had already quite probably fractured two of the six upon their arrival through her impatience… she could not afford any more damage.

If only she could see inside. But that was not how it worked. She lived on this side, and only a chosen few got to cross…

"Hilde!" came a voice, along with a bang bang bang on the door. "Hilde, are you in there? It's an emergency!"

It was John. And Weth could guess what the emergency was.

He didn't wait for her to indicate that he could enter, he just did.

"Good heavens, John, what could the problem be?" she asked, coming toward him, snapping out of the meditation with some effort. She put her hands on his cheeks. "Oh my, you are shaking!"

"Martha's gone," he said, his eyes wide, lips slack. He was breathing hard – the poor dear had run here.

"What do you mean, gone?"

"I can't find her anywhere!"

"Are her clothes gone?"

"No," he said. "All of her things are still there, including her car and phone. But I can't find her anywhere. None of her family know where she is, I've called her closest friends…"

He moved to his left, and went toward the desk.

Briefly, Weth felt a jolt of panic, but she realised quickly that there was nothing particularly unusual – at least nothing that could be identified as unusual – on her desk. Even when he absentmindedly put his hand on the talisman, he would interpret it as simply an eagle statue. She had been wise to transform its shape into something a German would properly revere.

"Hilde, this is our fault," he said, hand still on the statue. He raised his voice. "Our fault! If anything happens because of you, or me, or because of what we did..."

He was shouting. She had never seen him do this before, and was frankly surprised he was capable of such an unhinged reaction, given how disconnected he seemed from his wife.

She held out her hands and interrupted his tirade, trying to calm herself, and him. "John, you and I both know, the two of you were having problems. She probably just left."

"Without telling me? Without leaving so much as a note?" he asked, frantic. He took his hand off the talisman, the statue, at last, and moved about the room like a caged tiger. His eyes darted about for… answers? "Without taking her clothes or her laptop or her phone?"

"Is she at work?"

"Of course not," he said. "That was the first place I checked! No-one has seen her in more than twenty-four hours!"

"All right, come sit down," she said.

"No, I can't. I'm too nervous."

"What are you afraid of, John?"

"I'm afraid something has happened to her! I'm afraid she was kidnapped or attacked or was in an accident! You know, all the normal things a husband might be afraid of, if his wife disappeared without a trace, with all of her stuff left behind!"

"All right, all right," she said. "No need to shout at me. I'm not the one who kidnapped Martha."

He stopped moving about then, and stopped short. He looked at her, seemed to examine her almost, then went back to his pace. "No, of course not. I'm sorry. I didn't mean… sorry. I'm just worried."

She stepped forward and caught his shoulders as he moved. "John. Stop."

He seemed to be panting. "Hilde…"

"Listen. I know you're worried that something bad has happened to Martha, but isn't it far more likely that she found out about us, and took off? That the shock of it made her just… run? Get on a train and go somewhere for a few days, to decide how she's going to confront you?"

"Perhaps. Did you do something that would have allowed her to find out about us?"

"How would I have done that?"

"I don't know," he said. "You're… Machiavellian, in your way."

"I'm a therapist."

"Yeah, but look what you're doing here," he said. "Risking your entire career to be with me."

"Are you judging me?"

"No, not really," he said. "Just wondering if you got tired of waiting for me to give up my wife, so you took matters into your own hands."

Oh dear, that was close to the truth.

But she managed to cover the frisson it gave her, by asking, "How? By laying a trail of hints about our affair?"

"Yeah. If you did, I mean, it was bloody reckless."

"Well, I didn't."

"Not waiting until I'm ready, bad things can happen, Hilde."

"I didn't do any such thing. As a therapist, I know that a marriage has to take its course. A marriage ending has to take its course as well. It would be foolish of me to intervene before it's time, because a true partnership cannot be severed."

"So, you have to be sure of the couple's status as not-true-partners? Is that it?"

"Yes. It would be unethical otherwise."

He smirked. "Unethical. That's funny."

"John…"

He stood across the room from her now, hands in pockets. Defensive. Cool. "So, just out of curiosity, if you were to pull the cord, as it were, and hypothetically, tell Martha about us and make her leave before it's time, then what would happen?"

"The transition would be ugly. For everyone."

"And hypothetically, if this were the case, Hilde, how long do you think Martha will be gone?"

"How the hell should I know?" she asked, defensively. "I'm a therapist, not a mind-reader, not a fortune-teller. I use books and education, John, not a crystal ball."

"Right," he said. Then he seemed to shake off some sort of stupor. "Sorry. Sorry… I'm just worried. And afraid that maybe you're right, and she found out, and she went to a friend's house, like maybe someone I don't know, and she'll just get pushed further and further away, until… I don't know, she'll just cross over to a place where I can never speak to her again. Can't get her back even to apologise or say goodbye."

"You're afraid she'll cross over to a place where you can't get her back?"

"Yeah," he confirmed, hands still in pockets.

"Literally or figuratively?" she asked. She wondered if it was a weird question under the circumstances, but something about his words, his manner, what he was saying, suggested that he might understand the truth of what had happened. He suspected her, that was clear.

She had to know what he meant by this comment about crossing over.

"Both," he said. "Literally and figuratively."

"Oh?"

He sighed. "I've seen her go mentally and emotionally into a state where it takes an act of God to get grounded again. And she might just decide to start a new life and never come back. Become part of something else."

He looked at her with deadpan, searching eyes.

He definitely knew something. But how?

All was not lost. She still had not used the most powerful tool in her arsenal with John. He had resisted her thus far, which was why she had become frustrated and transferred Martha for consumption. It had been rash, but she could style it out.

She approached, and began to "fix" the knot in his tie, though it was already perfect. "John, you're paranoid. I won't say to forget her, but… operate under the assumption that she's just angry, and will be back in a few days to pack her bags for good. Meanwhile, let's you and I celebrate a bit, eh?"

She smoothed out his lapels, then put her arms around his neck and began to kiss the flesh beneath his ear.

"Celebrate?"

"Yes," she lilted. "Make love to me. Here, now. Let me replace that frantic place in your mind with thoughts of me, and my… charms."

"Hilde…"

"Then you can marry me, and never have to worry again."

"How could I ever not worry again? After all that's happened…"

"John," she said, and she pulled back, placing her hands squarely on his chest.

She took a pause.

She had placed her hands on his chest before, but never noticed, probably because the situation had never been quite this urgent or dire for him before…

She could feel his heart with her right hand… but her left hand, which was three inches away, and down a bit, also felt something.

She moved it slightly... and there it was. A second heartbeat.

A Time Lord.

It took every ounce of strength and control in her body not to scream it out.

The realisation came to her slowly.

It was horrifying.

Oh no...

He knew everything. He knew where Martha was, and why. He had examined the talisman. She had voluntarily given him so much information! She had been a fool, allowed herself to be lied to...

By a Time Lord.

Could it really be?

All this time and effort, digging her claws into this couple...

She had gone after him like a common mark, and he had probably mentally clocked absolutely everything she had said…

The snake! The sneaky, underhanded, poisonous snake!

She had liked him, too! She had actually wanted to pair with this one for a bit. He was clever and handsome and…

And a fucking Time Lord!

But she took a deep breath to regulate her anger and shock, and laid her head against his chest. She could feel and hear one, and left her hand on the other spot, just to make sure. There was a second heart, beating in counter-rhythm.

With all her might, keeping her voice even she said, "How could you ever not worry, after all that's happened? I've told you before, darling. A true partnership is a rare thing, and cannot be severed. You and I would never have secrets, or things that went unsaid. You and I will win."

"Win? That's a weird way to put it."

She smiled and looked up at him. "I'm not like other women."

"That much has been clear from the start."

Oh, I just bet it has.

She forced herself to calm, continue eye contact with John, continue smiling.

But he wasn't smiling. He said, "I know how to find her."

"Oh, darling, no you don't," she begged, not giving up her ruse, even though she knew she'd been had. She still wanted to believe that all was not lost. "Just stay with me. Please."

"I've got to go."

Buy time buy time buy time…

But before she knew it, he was gone. You couldn't just buy time with a Time Lord, not after he had tricked you for weeks and got information from you.

In fact, suddenly she realised, the Vestibular dimension where Martha was, it was a time anomaly. That's probably how and why he had been tapped to deal with it, and her. Martha, if she was a Time Lord too, was probably manipulating things from the inside. She had heard rumours that Time Lords carry sonic devices on them, which could upset the balance in the Vestibule, and give all six of them a means of escape. She'd have to be awfully clever to work that out, though…

But Time Lords were clever. What if she had got herself captured on purpose, just to shake loose the Vestibule's hold, and attachment to Monoklino?

But Martha might be human. Hilde hoped she was human.

Martha was clearly clever, though. She had managed to get through how many sessions with Weth, and never let on that it was a ruse!

Even if she was a human who just worked with a Time Lord, depending upon how much time they had spent together, she might know enough to wriggle away from the trap!

She allowed her anger to burst out. She picked up a vase and hurled it at the wall. When it shattered, she cursed in her native language, which was not German.


Okay, hopefully, being back in Weth's office anchors the story again, and connecting her with what's going on with Martha...

I'm needy, what can I tell you? Leave a review, and let me know your thoughts... I'm so glad you're still here - I want to know you're out there!

Thanks for reading!