Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Dr Who – Martha and Ten The Inbetweens and Backstories ❯ Chapter Four ( Chapter 4 )

Having decided that he would give Martha one more trip, the Doctor knew exactly where he wanted to go, a place that Rose had loved when she first saw it.

'How about a different planet?' he asked her.

'Can we go to yours?'

He paused while he thought of the best way to say no. 'Ah, there's plenty of other places.'

'Come on, though. I mean, planet of the Time Lords. That's got to be worth a look. What's it like?' she asked with a smile.

'Well, it's beautiful, yeah,' he said with a far away look in his eyes.

'Is it like, you know, outer space cities, all spires and stuff?'

Oh, it was all that and more. 'I suppose it is,' he said quietly.

'Great big temples and cathedrals!'

'Yeah.' The thought of it was almost unbearable.

'Lots of planets in the sky?'

'The sky's a burnt orange, with the Citadel enclosed in a mighty glass dome, shining under the twin suns. Beyond that, the mountains go on forever. Slopes of deep red grass, capped with snow . . . .' He stopped talking, and stared off into the distance.

'Can we go there?' she whispered. He looked at her for a long, silent moment, his memories of home playing through his head.

'Nah. Where's the fun for me?' he said suddenly. 'I don't want to go home. Instead, this is much better. Year five billion and fifty-three, planet New Earth. Second hope of mankind.'

He grabbed his long coat off the coral and put it on. 'Fifty thousand light years from your old world, and we're slap bang in the middle of New New York.' He started running down the ramp. 'Although, technically it's the fifteenth New York from the original, so it's New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York. One of the most dazzling cities ever built.'

Martha caught up with him, and she stepped outside, into a narrow alleyway, that was pouring with rain.

'Oh, that's nice. Time Lord version of dazzling,' she said, as she zipped up her maroon leather jacket.

'Nah, bit of rain never hurt anyone. Come on, let's get under cover!' He ran down the alley, with Martha close on his heels, until they came upon an open area filled with plywood huts that made it look like a shanty town.

'Well, it looks like the same old Earth to me, on a Wednesday afternoon,' she complained. To be honest, she felt she'd seen better in the backstreets of London.

'Hold on, hold on. Let's have a look.' He used his sonic screwdriver to get a monitor working, and a pleasant blonde lady appeared, giving a traffic report.

'And the driving should be clear and easy, with fifteen extra lanes open for the New New Jersey expressway.' A view of a high-tech Manhattan was shown, with flying cars, the view he remembered Rose had loved.

'Oh, that's more like it. That's the view we had last time. This must be the lower levels, down in the base of the tower. Some sort of under-city.'

'You've brought me to the slums?' she said, looking at the futuristic city on the screen.

'Much more interesting. It's all cocktails and glitter up there.' He pointed at the screen. 'This is the real city.'

'You'd enjoy anything.'

'That's me. Ah, the rain's stopping, better and better.'

Hang on, he'd said “that's the view WE had last time”. 'When you say last time, was that . . . you, and Rose?'

'Er . . . yeah . . . Yeah, it was . . . yeah.'

'You're taking me to the same planets that you took her?'

'What's wrong with that?'

'Nothing . . . just ever heard the word rebound?'

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'All closed down,' the Doctor said as they walked into the pharmacy shanty town.

'Happy?' Martha asked him.

'Happy happy,' he said, looking into an empty shack. 'New New York can start again. And they've got Novice Hame. Just what every city needs. Cats in charge. Come on, time we were off.' He started wandering towards the alleyway.

'But what did he mean . . . the Face of Boe . . . you're not alone?'

'I don't know.'

'You've got me . . . is that what he meant?' she asked, smiling hopefully.

'I don't think so . . . sorry,' he said kindly, as her expression changed to one of disappointment.

'Then what?'

'Doesn't matter. Back to the TARDIS, off we go,' he said glibly, continuing his wander towards the alleyway with his hands in his pockets.

"Sod this", Martha thought to herself. She'd had a stomach full of his mysterious, moody, attitude. It was time to cut the crap and tell it like it is. She found an overturned chair, put it straight, and sat down; crossing her arms and legs in defiance.

At the sound of the chair being sat on, he casually turned to look at her, and was surprised at what he saw. 'Alright, are you staying?' he said sharply.

Okay, he was still in love with his ex, that was obvious. He wasn't looking for anyone on the rebound; he'd made that obvious as well, to the point of being rude. But he didn't have to be an obnoxious git; he could at least try and be friendly.

'Until you talk to me properly, yes,' she said angrily. 'He said last of your kind, what does that mean?'

'It really doesn't matter,' he told her in an annoyed tone of voice.

'You don't talk, you never say, why not?' She was shouting at him now, it was almost domestic.

He was considering his reply, when the air was filled with voices, singing a hymn. ['Fast falls the eventide.']

They both looked up to the sky. 'It's the city,' she said.

['The darkness deepens,'] the voices sang.

'They're singing.'

['Lord, with me abide. When other helpers fail.']

They looked at each other as the singing filled their souls,

'I lied to you, because I liked it,' he said quietly. 'I could pretend . . . just for a bit . . . I could imagine they were still alive . . . underneath a burnt orange sky.' Martha looked at him, silently listening as he started to open up to her. 'I'm not just a Time Lord . . . I'm the last of the Time Lords. The Face of Boe was wrong . . . there's no one else.'

'What happened?'

['Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day,'] the voices continued.

He swallowed hard, reached over to another toppled chair, and placed it in front of Martha. 'There was a war,' he started, hesitantly at first. 'A Time War. The last Great Time War. My people fought a race called the Daleks, for the sake of all creation. And they lost,' he said sadly. 'They lost . . . everyone lost.' He stared off into the distance as he remembered the end of days on Gallifrey.

'They're all gone now . . . My family . . . my friends, even that sky.' He tried to remember happier times. 'Oh, you should have seen it, that old planet.' She could see in his eyes that he was looking out at his lost home world.

'The second sun would rise in the south, and the mountains would shine.' There was a slight quiver in his voice as he tried to keep it together. 'The leaves on the trees were silver . . . and when they caught the light every morning . . . it looked like a forest on fire. When the autumn came . . . the breeze would blow through the branches like a song . . .'

['The darkness deepens. Lord, with me abide.']

'The capital Citadel had an upper city of towers and spires, which spanned the lower on vast arches. These were crowned by further arches and bridges, all of them carrying buildings and gardens, domes and belfries.'

'It sounds beautiful,' Martha breathed.

He smiled and nodded. 'Oh it was magnificent. My family home was situated on the slopes of Lung Mountain in the Cadon range. The red lawns, led to the orchard of Magenta Fruits, where Trunkikes nested in the branches, and Silverband Flutterwings would pollinate the blooms.'

Martha now had tears stinging her eyes, understanding why he'd been so reluctant to reminisce about his home, but he'd opened the door on his memories, and they came pouring out.

'In summer, we'd go down the valley to the Cadonflood River, where we'd watch the jousting Neversuch beetles on the bank, the clacking of their antlers filling the warm air, and we'd fish for Yaddlefish in the crystal clear water.'

'I'm sorry,' Martha said quietly, standing up and wiping the tears from her cheeks with her hands. She felt as though she'd trespassed onto the sacred ground of his private, painful memories. 'I think I'm ready to go now.'

He stood up, and they slowly walked back to the TARDIS, where he opened the door for her to walk inside. 'So, I'd better get you home then, so that you can carry on learning to be a doctor.'

'Yeah, I suppose you had,' she said disappointedly.

He passed Martha on the ramp, and went up to the console, where he started setting the coordinates. Martha slowly followed him, having one last look around this remarkable ship. The time rotor started pumping up and down, as it made its way into the Vortex. There was a sudden rotation, and a slight shift to the left, which made them grab for something to hold onto.

Martha looked at him in concern, but he just grinned at her. 'Turbulence,' he said casually, and then went to the monitor to check on the “turbulence”. The TARDIS had done it to him again, and he started the landing sequence.

He gave a sheepish, apologetic smile to Martha. 'Bit of a technical hitch,' he said as they felt the TARDIS land. 'Bit of a detour.' He stopped the time rotor, and shut down the console.

'Technical hitch . . . ? Detour . . . ?' Martha rolled her eyes at him. 'What's that, a euphemism for lost?'

'Oi, I'll have you know, I'm not lost,' he said as he walked down the ramp. 'I'm just not where I wanted us to be.' He opened the door, and held it for her to step out.

'Where are we?' she asked him with a smile, looking out over a bay, with skyscrapers in the distance.

The Doctor stepped out after her, and took a few steps forward. 'Hah, smell that Atlantic breeze . . . nice and cold, lovely.' He turned to face her and then looked up. 'Martha, have you met my friend?'

She turned around and looked up also. 'Is that . . . ? Oh my God! That's the Statue of Liberty!'

'Gateway to the New World,' he said. 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to break free . . .'

'That's so brilliant. I've always wanted to go to New York. I mean the real New York, not the new, new, new, new, new . . .'

'Well,' he said turning back to look over the Hudson River towards Manhattan. 'There's the genuine article. So good, they named it twice. Mind you, it was New Amsterdam originally, harder to say twice. No wonder it didn't catch on. New Amsterdam, New Amsterdam.'

'I wonder what year it is `cos look, the Empire State

Building's not even finished yet.'

'Work in progress. Still got a couple floors to go, and if I know my history, that makes the date somewhere around . . .'

Martha picked up a discarded newspaper while he was talking. 'November 1, 1930,' she said.

'You're getting good at this.' Wow, after only a couple of trips, she'd managed to get a handle on which time period she was in. He turned around, and realised that she'd been cheating.

'Eighty years ago,' she said, as the Doctor took the newspaper and started to read the lead story. 'It's funny `cos you see all those old newsreels in black and white like it's so far away, but here we are . . . it's real, it's now,' she said, laughing at the sheer wonder of it. 'Come on, you. Where do we go first?'

She looked at him, and realised that he was frowning at the story. 'I think our detour just got longer,' he said, as he showed her the headline.

'Hooverville Mystery Deepens,' she read. 'What's Hooverville?'

'I think I'd better show you. Come on; let's get the ferry over to Manhattan Island.'

They wandered down onto the jetty that led to the `Old Ferry Dock', and boarded the Battery Park - Liberty Island paddle steamer ferry. As they made their way across the Hudson, Martha looked on in wonder at the steam ships powering their way through the water, along with Clippers and Schooners in full sail, making their way in from the Atlantic and heading for the Ellis Island Immigration Station.

The ferry docked at Battery Park, and they caught a bus which took them the four miles to Central Park. At the Museum of Art, on Fifth Avenue, they hopped off the bus and strolled through the park towards the shanty town on the Central Lawn.

'Herbert Hoover, Thirty First President of the USA, came to power a year ago. Up till then New York was a boom town, the Roaring Twenties, and then . . .'

'The Wall Street Crash, yeah? When was that, 1929?'

The Doctor was impressed with her knowledge of history. 'Yeah. Whole economy wiped out overnight. Thousands of people unemployed. Suddenly the huddled masses doubled in number with nowhere to go. So they ended up here in Central Park.'

'What? They actually live in the park? In the middle of the city?' The Doctor didn't answer; he just gave her a look that said “you'd better believe it”b.

'Ordinary people . . . lost their jobs,' he told her as they walked through the cobbled together shacks. 'Couldn't pay the rent and they lost everything.' It reminded Martha of the Pharmacy shanty town that they'd visited in New New York, only a few hours earlier and five billion years in the future. 'There are places like this all over America . . . You only come to Hooverville when there's nowhere else to go.'