Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Dr Who – Martha and Ten The Inbetweens and Backstories ❯ Chapter Twenty Nine ( Chapter 29 )

The Doctor was leaning over, with his hands on his knees, taking some deep breaths. Travel through the Vortex without a capsule was quite unpleasant, as all your cells were distorted from three dimensions, into four, and then back to three again.

To the side of the TARDIS, he had glimpsed a statue with its face covered, and knew instantly where Martha had gone, and he also knew that even with his superior Gallifreyan reflexes, he didn't stand a chance of avoiding the Silent Assassin that would be behind him.

He took a deep breath and stood up, scanning the terrain, and trying to work out how far he'd been pushed through time and space.

He sniffed the air. 'Still in London then,' he said to himself. '1969 if I'm not wrong . . . which I'm not.'

He stepped out of the bushes onto a footpath in a park, looking left and right. There were a few people walking dogs, and a woman feeding bread to the ducks on a boating lake. He reached into his inside jacket pocket, and took out his sonic screwdriver. If Martha had been transported to 1969, then it would be a simple matter of locating her mobile phone signal, because there weren't any other mobile phones around in 1969.

'Ah-ha, direction, north by northeast, range, two point five seven five kilometres.' He started walking in as straight a direction as he could towards Martha's phone. At the gates to the park, he looked at the black sign with white writing. `Welcome to DULWICH PARK, Court Lane Gate'.

He headed north, following the signal from her phone, and stopped briefly at a newsagent on Lordship Lane, to look at the date on the newspapers, it was Wednesday, 19th March 1969. He had no idea how long Martha had been here, he only hoped that the Weeping Angels had similar energy levels, which meant that he and Martha would be transported by a similar amount.

He was concerned about her, because although she was smart, and good in a crisis, she hadn't been brought up on a council estate like Rose, and he didn't know how street smart she was. The good news was that she was within a few kilometres of him, which meant that she should also have been within a few days of him.

The sonic didn't lead him to Wester Drumlin as he expected, but led him to Grove Hill Road. He stopped outside a four storey, utilitarian building built of beige brick. `Salvation Army. Springfield Lodge' the sign outside read.

'Oh good girl,' he said with pride. It appeared Martha was more capable than he thought, she'd found a hostel, a "soup kitchen" for the homeless and those down on their luck, and at the moment, that described them perfectly.

During his fifth incarnation in 1865, he had met William and Catherine Booth, a couple of devout Methodist ministers, when they were despairing about the plight of the poor and homeless. He had suggested an army of volunteers, doing Gods work and looking after his flock. The Booth's had seen this meeting as a message from God, and the East London Christian Mission was born.

The Doctor walked into the reception hall, and a black uniformed young man approached.

'Hello there,' he said pleasantly. 'Welcome to Springfield Lodge.'

'Er, thank you very much,' the Doctor said with a smile. 'I'm actually looking for a friend of mine.'

The adherent looked him up and down, seeing the old, brown pinstriped suit, brown coat, the white converse on his feet, and came to a conclusion. 'Please don't be embarrassed, we do not judge; only the Lord can do that. We offer help to those who need it.'

'Glad to hear it,' he said with a cheery smile. 'Bill and Cath would be very proud of you, now about that friend of mine, a young, dark skinned lady . . . would have arrived, ooh, in the last couple of days.'

'You're Martha's friend, the Doctor?' The adherent asked in surprise.

'DOCTOR!'

He turned to see Martha running towards him. 'Oh thank God,' she cried, hugging him around the neck. 'You found my message then.'

He picked her up and swung her around, before putting her back down. 'Er, what message? I just locked onto your phone signal.'

'Hah!' she laughed and cried at the same time, wiping tears from her cheek. 'The police found Wester Drumlin for me, and I went and waited for you, all day yesterday. When you didn't show up, I scratched my name on the pavement, with an arrow pointing you to this place.'

He looked at her with raised eyebrows, and a big smile. 'Brilliant!'

'And I've been running a minor injuries clinic for the homeless this morning in payment for a bed for the night and my food.'

'Absolutely brilliant!'

'I must apologise for my assumption Doctor,' the young adherent said.

'Nah, no apology necessary, I'm just glad I found Martha. A cup of tea would be nice though, after walking all that way, I'm parched.'

'Come through to the food hall, I'll pour you one out of the urn,' Martha said, hugging his arm and guiding him through the door.

The Doctor sat at a table, and took the purple, plastic folder out of his coat pocket, that was given to him by Sally Sparrow. Martha brought the teas over, and sat beside him.

'What you got there?'

'Well, its 1969, we're stuck, and this is our ticket out of here.'

They sat at the table, drinking tea, and reading Sally Sparrow's account of the events that would happen at Wester Drumlin in thirty eight years time. The Doctor would read a page, and then hand it over for Martha to read, her mouth open in disbelief for most of it.

'This is mental . . . I mean, we're reading about something that hasn't happened yet, and about things we'll do to influence that thing that hasn't happened yet,' she said with a frown.

'Hmm, I know, we'll have to be very careful that we don't cause a paradox,' he told her, deep in thought. 'We're going to need some money to get the TARDIS back.'

While they were finishing their tea, and discussing the transcript, a middle aged man in uniform approached them.

'Hello Martha, thank you for running that little clinic this morning, our guests are very grateful to you, and I see you found your friend.'

'Oh, hello Captain, yes, although he found me if truth be known. Doctor, this is Captain Hanson, who took me in last night and gave me shelter,' she said as they stood to greet the man.

'Captain,' the Doctor said as he shook his hand.

'Doctor, doctor who?'

'Just the Doctor,' he said in his usual explanation.

'Really, THE Doctor?' he said with raised eyebrows, as though he had stumbled upon a mystery.

'Yes, is there a problem?' The Doctor asked.

'No, it's just that in the journal of William Booth, our founder, it's mentioned that he met a man called `the Doctor', a man of such character and compassion, that he was compelled to take action to alleviate the suffering of the poor and the homeless.'

The Doctor smiled a contented smile. 'Really, fancy that, mentioned in despatches so to speak, good old Bill.'

'I was wondering if it was a title bestowed upon a secret order, because from what Martha was telling me, you too are a man of character and compassion.'

'Yeahhh . . . it's . . . complicated,' he said, smiling at Martha. 'A man of character and compassion, really?'

Martha gave him an embarrassed smile. 'His words, not mine.'

Turning back to the captain, his face went serious. 'Captain, I wonder if this man of character could impose on your hospitality. We need a place to stay for a few days, while we sort out a few problems that could cause a global catastrophe.'

'Well, I suppose . . .'

'I mean, we are homeless, and we haven't got a penny to our name, at the moment. However, when Martha gets a job, we'll be able to pay for food and accommodation.'

'Job, what job?' Martha asked in surprise.

'Apparently, it's a job in a shop, according to the transcript, and we need to buy some decorating materials, some electronic equipment for later on. Oh, and I have to film my part of the transcript for the DVD.'

'Electronics?' Captain Hanson said as a question. 'Do you have technical skills Doctor?'

'You could say that, yes,' he replied cautiously.

'Then I think I may be able to supply a solution to your dilemma. We have thrift stores, which take donated items and sell them to fund our operation. Would you Martha, consent to work in one of our shops, and Doctor, would you repair some of the donated electrical items so that we could sell them?'

The Doctor looked at Martha and grinned. 'Brilliant! Captain, you've got yourself a deal,' he said as he shook his hand.

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A week later, the Doctor was in a small photographic studio, where you could record your own video onto 16mm film. He started the camera, smiled at Martha behind the camera, and sat in front of an autocue, with the 16mm movie camera behind it. He put on his glasses and started reading the script in his head, and then speaking his responses.

'Yup. That's me,' he said, after reading `LARRY: Okay. There he is. SALLY: The Doctor. LARRY: Who's the Doctor? SALLY: He's the Doctor'.

'Yes, I do,' he said.

'Yup, and this.' He nodded his head to the side.

He frowned. 'Are you going to read out the whole thing?

'I'm a time traveller. Or I was. I'm stuck in 1969.'

"Hang on", Martha thought, this isn't all about him. She moved from behind the camera and in to view of the lens. 'We're stuck. All of space and time, he promised me. Now I've got a job in a shop. I've got to support him!'

He tried to keep track of the transcript, and pointed at the camera. 'Martha?'

'Sorry,' she said sullenly, and moved back behind the camera.

'Quite possibly.' He continued his one sided conversation. 'Afraid so . . . Thirty eight . . . Er, ah, yeah, people don't understand time. It's not what you think it is,' he said, in response to Sally asking him to explain how he can be speaking to her from thirty eight years in the past. He had to be careful, if she knew too much, it might influence her actions.

'Complicated . . . Very complicated.'

He paused, as he thought about how best to explain time travel. 'People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey-wimey . . . stuff.' That didn't go well.

'It got away from me, yeah . . . Well, I can hear you . . . Well, not hear you, exactly, but I know everything you're going to say . . . Look to your left,' he said, nodding his head to his right.

He continued reading the transcript, nodding his head in agreement, and then pointed at the autocue. 'I've got a copy of the finished transcript. It's on my autocue.'

'I told you. I'm a time traveller. I got it in the future,' he said in a matter of fact voice.

'Yeahhh. Wibbly wobbly, timey-wimey.' He waved his hand back and forth in dismissal.

'What matters is, we can communicate,' he said, finger and thumb tip together. 'We have got big problems now. They have taken the blue box, haven't they? The angels have the phone box . . . Creatures from another world . . . Only when you see them . . . The lonely assassins, they used to be called. No one quite knows where they came from, but they're as old as the universe, or very nearly, and they have survived this long because they have the most perfect defence system ever evolved. They are quantum-locked. They don't exist when they're being observed. The moment they are seen by any other living creature, they freeze into rock. No choice. It's a fact of their biology. In the sight of any living thing, they literally turn to stone. And you can't kill a stone. Of course, a stone can't kill you either. But then you turn your head away, then you blink, and oh yes it can.' He hoped that explanation was sufficient to make them realise how much danger they were in.

'That's why they cover their eyes. They're not weeping. They can't risk looking at each other. Their greatest asset is their greatest curse. They can never be seen. The loneliest creatures in the universe. And I'm sorry. I am very, very sorry. It's up to you now . . . The blue box, it's my time machine. There is a world of time energy in there they could feast on forever, but the damage they could do could switch off the sun. You have got to send it back to me.'

He read `SALLY: How? How?' in his head and paused.

'Aaaand that's it, I'm afraid. There's no more from you on the transcript, that's the last I've got. I don't know what stopped you talking, but I can guess. They're coming. The angels are coming for you. But listen, your life could depend on this. Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead. They are fast. Faster than you can believe. Don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink . . . good luck.'

'And cut,' Martha said, stopping the camera. 'Was that everything?'

'For now, yes, I'll have to encode some digital information onto the audio track for the TARDIS, so that she'll initiate security protocol seven one two when the recording is taken on board.'

'Seven one two?'

'Yeah, single journey that will lock onto my Artron energy signature, like a homing device.'

'Clever,' she said with a smile. 'Come on, dinner's on me.'

'Soup and bread, can't wait.' They left the studio, and went through to the reception area, where he handed the slip of paper to the receptionist. The film would be processed, and ready for collection in a couple of days.

'So how much longer have I got to work in this shop then?' Martha asked, as they walked to the bus stop.

'Well, we need to buy some wallpaper and paste, and I need to finish the temporal disturbance detector, to locate Billy Shipton when he appears, I don't know, maybe another week.'

'Oh great,' she said with disappointment.

'It could be worse, there was this one time where we ended up on a prison planet, Justica. Rose had to work in a laundry; she needed some serious moisturiser to get her hands back to normal after that one.'

There was that ghost again, haunting them, she thought. Mind you, working in a prison laundry, and still standing by him, she deserved some respect for that. Maybe she'd been a bit harsh in her judgement of his ex, letting her jealousy get in the way. After all, if she'd survived half of what Martha had been through, and still come back for more, she must have been one tough cookie.