Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Dr Who – Martha and Ten The Inbetweens and Backstories ❯ Chapter Thirty One ( Chapter 31 )

Martha was in the year one hundred trillion, on a planet called Malcassairo, standing in a laboratory constructed by a man called Professor Yana. The Doctor was below a rocket in the silo, with a man she had just met, Jack Harkness; a man it seemed who couldn't die.

After a sabotage attempt, Jack had held two power cables together, to jump start the vent override, killing himself in the process. Whilst trying to resuscitate him, he had suddenly come back to life.

'We lost picture when that thing flared up,' she told the Professor and his assistant Chanto. 'Doctor, are you there?' She'd managed to get the sound back from the chamber under the rocket, but not the video.

'Receiving, yeah. He's inside,' he said, meaning Jack had entered the radiation filled chamber.

'And still alive?'

'Oh, yes,' he said with obvious pleasure.

'But he should evaporate. What sort of a man is he?' Professor Yana asked.

'I've only just met him,' Martha told him. 'The Doctor sort of travels through time and space and picks people up. God, it makes us sound like stray dogs.' She thought about that, compared to Rose, his beloved companion, that's exactly what she was. 'Maybe we are,' she thought out loud.

And then she started eavesdropping on a conversation; she couldn't help it. In the last few hours, she'd learnt more about the Doctor than she had in all the weeks she'd been travelling with him, oh, except for that time on New New Earth, when she'd refused to move until he told her about his home world.

And it was all down to this incredible man who used to travel with him, Jack Harkness. He travelled in the TARDIS at the same time as her absent rival Rose did, but it must have been before they split up. And about that split, something didn't sound right.

`Just got to ask . . . the Battle of Canary Wharf, I saw the list of the dead, it said Rose Tyler,' Jack had asked hesitantly.

`Oh, no! Sorry, she's alive,' the Doctor had replied with glee.

It seemed even Jack wasn't immune to the charms of this woman. `You're kidding?!' he'd exclaimed, as though everything else was insignificant. It was as though the end of the universe and the end of humanity didn't matter, as long as “good old Rose” was safe and sound.

But then the Doctor had said something that got her thinking. `Parallel world, safe and sound . . . and Mickey, and her mother.'

What did he mean by that? She hadn't run back to her family like she'd thought, it sounded as though her family had been sent away with her to a “parallel world”, what ever that was. Had Rose been taken from him, rather than having left of her own accord? That would certainly explain that look he had on his face every time he thought about her.

Jack had hugged the Doctor at the news `Oh, yes!' he'd exclaimed in joy. And she couldn't help herself, `Good old Rose' she'd muttered under her breath, still haunted by the ghost of Rose Tyler. Seeing the two of them standing there hugging, had got Martha thinking.

`But the thing is, how come you left him behind, Doctor?' she'd asked him. He'd seemed a bit evasive; as though he was reluctant to tell her, or was it Jack he didn't want to tell? “I was busy” is all he would say, but that wasn't good enough for her. `Is that what happens, though, seriously? Do you just get bored with us one day and disappear?'

`Not if you're blonde' Jack had shot back, and was that a bit of resentment from him as well, was he as jealous of the amazing Rose Tyler as she was? `Oh, she was blonde? Oh, what a surprise!' she'd thought out loud. That had obviously rattled the Doctor, because he angrily came back with `You two! We're at the end of the universe, all right? Right at the edge of knowledge itself and you're busy blogging!'

And then, just when she thought she'd seen everything, she found a jar in Jack's rucksack. `Oh, my God. You've got a hand? A hand in a jar, a hand in a jar in your bag'. But that wasn't the best of it. `But that . . . that . . . that's my hand' the Doctor had said in amazement. Apparently, Jack had been using it to detect when the Doctor was in range.

Chanto had said something quite sweet. `Chan is this a tradition amongst your people tho?' She had this really odd way of speaking, saying `chan' and `tho' at the beginning and end of every sentence, but Martha was incredulous. I mean, she knew he was an alien, the two hearts kind of gave it away, but to grow a new hand . . . that was just too alien. What was he, an alien salamander, or earthworm or something?

`Not on my street,' she'd told Chanto with disgust. `What do you mean, that's your hand? You've got both your hands, I can see them' she'd said to the Doctor. The he went all evasive again; typical, getting an answer out of him was like pulling teeth.

`Long story. I lost my hand Christmas Day, in a swordfight' he'd said as by way of explanation, as if that was good enough. `What? And you grew another hand?' she pressed him. `Er, yeah, yeah, I did . . . yeah' he'd said thoughtfully, and then smiled, trying to get off the subject, he wiggled his fingers and said `hello'.

Come to think of it though, Jack had hinted that he looked different, when he recovered from his trip through the Vortex, as though he'd got a different face some how. The Doctor had just said `Oh yes, the face . . . regeneration'. But then she remembered, the Doctor had asked him `how did you know this was me?' He must have grown a new face as well!

And now, here she was, listening to a conversation between Jack and the Doctor, as Jack tried to connect the power couplings so that they could launch the rocket.

'When did you first realise?' she heard the Doctor ask Jack. She presumed he was talking about his immortality.

'Earth, 1892. Got in a fight in Ellis Island, a man shot me through the heart. Then I woke up. Thought it was kind of strange. But then it never stopped. Fell off a cliff, trampled by horses, World War One, World War Two, poison, starvation, a stray javelin.'

'Urgh,' She heard the Doctor suck in air in sympathy.

'In the end, I got the message. I'm the man who can never die. And all that time you knew.' She heard accusation and recrimination in his voice.

'That's why I left you behind. It's not easy even just looking at you, Jack, because you're wrong.'

'Thanks.'

'You are! I can't help it, I'm a Time Lord, it's instinct, it's in my guts. You're a fixed point in time and space. You're a fact, that's never meant to happen. Even the TARDIS reacted against you, tried to shake you off . . . flew all the way to the end of the universe just to get rid of you.'

'So what you're saying is that you're, er, prejudiced?'

'I never thought of it like that.'

'Shame on you.'

'Yeah.' She heard regret in that "yeah", as though he wasn't proud of what he'd done.

'Last thing I remember, back when I was mortal, I was facing three Daleks . . . death by extermination . . . And then I came back to life,' Martha heard Jack tell the Doctor. 'What happened?' "Ooh, good question" Martha thought.

He answered with one word, a name that told them everything. 'Rose.'

The green eyed demon of jealousy raised its ugly head again and started to gnaw away at Martha as she listened.

'I thought you'd sent her back home.' Martha was surprised at that; he'd sent away the woman he loved.

'She came back. Opened the heart of the TARDIS and absorbed the time vortex itself.'

'What does that mean, exactly?' Jack asked.

'No one's ever mean to have that power, if a Time Lord did that, he'd become a god . . . a vengeful god . . . But she was human; everything she did was so human.' Martha smiled at that statement. Rose sounded like such a caring person, that she had risked everything to save her friends . . . her love.

'She brought you back to life but she couldn't control it. She brought you back forever. That's something, I suppose. The final act of the Time War was life.'

'Do you think she could change me back?' Jack asked.

'I took the power out of her,' the Doctor said, and then paused. 'She's gone, Jack, she's not just living on a parallel world, she's trapped there . . . The walls have closed.'

So that was it, everything was clear now. His love, Rose Tyler was trapped in a parallel world, alive and living with her family.

'I'm sorry,' Jack whispered, his voice choked with emotion. Jack and Rose must have been really close she thought.

'Yeah.' Oh God, Martha could hear tears in his voice as he spoke. That simple "yeah", was so full of pain and loss and yearning, that it broke her heart.

'I went back to her estate, in the nineties, just once or twice. Watched her growing up. Never said hello. Timelines and all that.'

'Do you want to die?' the Doctor asked casually. There was that change of subject again when things got too painful for him to think about. Martha wondered if he'd considered going back to see her, but she thought the temptation to say hello would be too great.

'Oh, this one's a little stuck,' Jack said, he must have been talking about one of the coupling controls.

'Jack?' The Doctor wanted an answer to his question.

'I thought I did . . . I don't know. . . .But this lot . . . you see them out here surviving, and that's fantastic,' he said with pleasure.

'You might be out there, somewhere.'

'I could go meet myself.'

'Well, the only man you're ever going to be happy with.'

Jack laughed. 'This new regeneration, it's kind of cheeky,' Jack said in a flirty way.

'Hmm.' And then it was over. Jack had closed the final coupling and left the chamber, but Martha was grateful to him, because now she knew the truth, the truth that he was in love, the truth he would never admit to, even to himself.

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'Hold still! Don't move! Hold it still!' The Doctor shouted as they leant against the laboratory door, trying to keep the Futurekind hoard from breaking in, and killing them.

'I'm telling you, it's broken. It hasn't worked for years,' Jack said as the Doctor `sonicked' his Vortex manipulator.

'That's because you didn't have me. Martha, grab hold, now!' The Doctor held everyone's hand on the manipulator and activated it.

WHOP!

Martha experienced the same gut wrenching twisting of her atoms from three to four dimensions and back. 'Oh, my head.'

'Time travel without a capsule, that's a killer . . . argh,' the Doctor said as they staggered around in the alleyway. He headed for the street, and his companions set off after him.

'Still, at least we made it. Earth, twenty first century by the looks of it. Hah, talk about lucky,' Jack said, looking around at the architecture. Martha was hugging her stomach, struggling to keep up with the seasoned Vortex travellers.

'That wasn't luck, that was me,' the Doctor said tersely.

They found a pedestrian area, with stone seats set out for weary shoppers. Okay, they weren't shoppers, but they were weary.

'The moral is, if you're going to get stuck at the end of the universe, get stuck with an ex-Time Agent and his vortex manipulator,' Jack said light heartedly.

'But this Master bloke, he's got the TARDIS. He could be anywhere in time and space,' Martha said. She was still convinced that she'd heard his voice somewhere before when he'd said `Anyway, why don't we stop and have a nice little chat while I tell you all my plans and you can work out a way to stop me . . . I don't think'.

'No, he's here,' the Doctor told them. 'Trust me.'

'Who is he, anyway? And that voice at the end, that wasn't the Professor,' she said.

'If the Master's a Time Lord, then he must have regenerated,' Jack told her.

'What does that mean?'

'It means he's changed his face, voice, body, everything . . . new man.' Jack had just confirmed what she'd suspected when the Doctor had asked Jack how he'd recognised him, and the extra hand that he'd grown.

And then she had another realisation, the hologram message she'd seen in the TARDIS labelled “Emergency Programme One, message for Rose”, that was him before he changed, it had to be. Rose hadn't fallen in love with another man and run off with him, she knew that now, she'd fallen in love with another man and he'd changed into this man in front of her.

A homeless man was tapping a tin mug, begging for money, the four beat rhythm was somehow familiar to the Doctor and Martha, di di di dum, di di di dum. For Martha, it was on a subconscious level, a subliminal beat in every phone conversation she'd had on the Archangel Network. The Doctor instinctively knew the rhythm, and had it been a more organic sound, he would have recognised the lub dub lub dub, lub dub lub dub of his own hearts beats.

'Then how are we going to find him?' she asked.

'I'll know him, the moment I see him. Time Lords always do.'

Martha was absently looking at all the posters on the walls and lamp posts that said `Saxon is your man'. 'But hold on, if he could be anyone, we missed the election . . . but it can't be.'

On a series of public screens in the pedestrian area, a newsreader was reporting on breaking news. `Mister Saxon has returned from the Palace and is greeting the crowd inside Saxon Headquarters'. They watched the new Prime Minister walk down steps with his wife.

Martha had a sudden feeling of dread. 'I said I knew that voice . . . when he spoke inside the TARDIS. I've heard that voice hundreds of times, I've seen him, we all have, that was the voice of Harold Saxon.'

'That's him . . . he's Prime Minister!' the Doctor said, looking at the screen.

'Mister Saxon, this way, sir . . . come on, kiss for the lady, sir,' a photographer said.

'The Master is Prime Minister of Great Britain,' the Doctor repeated in disbelief. 'The Master and his wife?'

On the screen, the Master made an announcement. 'This country has been sick. This country needs healing. This country needs medicine. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that what this country really needs right now . . .' He looked at the screen, and the Doctor knew he was speaking to him. ' . . . is a Doctor.'