Chapter 1
TARDIS
The world spins violently around them as shots fire near their heads, one whisking right by Martha's ear as they collapse into the TARDIS,
"Get down!" He cries out as a blast of energy hits the console, a small explosion erupting before the Doctor slams the door closed behind them.
"Did they see you?!" The Doctor screams into her face and she stammers for a moment,
"I- I don't know." She responds and he grabs her shoulders,
"But did they see you?!" He yells again, running and Martha searches for an answer in the scramble of the escape.
"I don't know. I was too busy running!" She says and he grabs her tighter,
"Martha, it's important. Did they see your face?" He is calmer now but the urgency and fear is all the same.
Finally she decides, "No, they couldn't have!" The Doctor releases his tight grip and runs to the control panel, flipping switches and turning levers manically.
"Off we go!" The TARDIS jolts violently before the familiar whirring starts up, transporting them into the time vortex.
"They're following us!" He shouts, looking at the monitor in front of him intensely.
"How can they do that? You've got a time machine!" She says calmly as he frantically looks around, attempting to find a solution in the mechanisms.
"Stolen technology. They've got a Time Agent's vortex manipulator. They can follow us wherever we go, right across the universe," He runs his hands through his hair almost violently, pulling at his scalp, "They're never going to stop, unless… I'll have to do it." He turns to Martha again, grabbing her shoulders once again and staring into her eyes.
"Martha, you trust me, don't you?" And she could never hesitate,
"Of course I do," It comes out almost as a question as he runs to the other side of the controls and pulls a small silver fob watch out of a secret drawer underneath the console.
"Because it all depends on you."
"What does? What am I supposed to do?"
He holds the watch up close to his face, it spins slightly on its chain as he stares into her and possibly through her.
"Take this watch, because my life depends on it. This watch, Martha. This watch is me." He hands her the watch as he runs around the console in circles.
"Right okay, gotcha," She says her voice strained with confusion before her brain catches up, "No, hold on. Completely lost." She follows him as he pressed some buttons and something lowers from the ceiling, to her it almost looks like a medieval torture device.
"Those creatures are hunters. They can sniff out anyone, and me being a Time Lord, well, I'm unique. They can track me down across the whole of time and space." He quips without even looking up. Martha laughs dryly,
"Ha. And the good news is?" He looks up at her for a moment, seeing the fear and concern swimming in her eyes.
"They can smell me, they haven't seen me. And their lifespan'll be running out, so we hide. Wait for them to die." He explains, smacking more buttons in front of him.
"But they can track us down," Her voice is calmer while he rages on, she can see his chest rising and falling rapidly.
"That's why I've got to do it. I have to stop being a Time Lord. I'm going to become human." The words stop her in her tracks. How could one just switch species?
"Never thought I'd use this. All the times I've wondered." It's as if he is speaking to himself but Martha hears him clearly.
"What does it do?" He takes the watch from her and places it into the circular slot on the headset.
"Chameleon Arch. Rewrites my biology. Literally changes every single cell in my body. I've set it to human." Once the watch is secured he turns to her again and she can see fear in his eyes, not for him but for her, "Now, the Tardis will take care of everything. Invent a life story for me, find me a setting and integrate me. Can't do the same for you. You'll just have to improvise. I should have just enough residual awareness to let you in."
As he places the headset over his head and ears she stops him for a moment.
"But, hold on. If you're going to rewrite every single cell, isn't it going to hurt?" The concern in her face is met by a wicked grin, one he had learned from an old friend.
"Oh, yeah. It hurts." And before she can stop him, he hits on the on switch and begins to shake violently, convulsing as if he were being electrocuted in front of her. The pain makes her stomach churn and she wishes she could release him from this. But before she can even think to approach him, it ends and the Doctor falls to the floor in a heap. She attempts to catch him but only manages to stop his head from smashing into the grating. She feels for a pulse on his neck and breathes out a sigh of relief when she finds one. But when she goes to read his heartbeat on his right side, she feels nothing.
And when she goes for the left, she feels it, a strong beating human heart.