Work Text:
Martha doesn't think much of the sound when she hears it.
It's late Wednesday night and her feet are aching from a long shift at the clinic. It’s a lot to handle, a second job on top of UNIT, and it doesn’t exactly pay well, but she's been cutting her hours there recently anyway, and money isn’t really something they have to worry about too much.
Having hands on real people, mothers working more jobs than she is and university students catching colds from the dorm and snotty toddlers reminds her what she does this for, anyway.
The expanding network of people throughout London–throughout the world–whom she offers her life up for when asked, who make the sleepless nights and shaking hands worth it.
She wishes, sometimes, that it could just be that. That she could be a normal doctor, that there wasn’t a gun in her purse and she didn’t hear the sound of the TARDIS wheezing while slicing cucumbers for a late night snack. That there wasn’t a UNIT jacket hanging in the hall closet next to Mickey’s bigger size, and that she wasn’t worrying about whether her mother‘s aide would call her tomorrow and ask her to come help calm her mother down because it was cloudy or the elections were coming up and she’d been sobbing for hours.
Mickey brought it up, sometimes, never very seriously. The idea of cutting all contact with UNIT, of putting everything from that life in a box to leave out with the rubbish. Moving on.
The trouble was that Martha had always been too curious for her own good. Before any of it, before she’d met the Doctor, it had squirmed under her skin anyway, a fascination with everything normal people called grotesque and strange. A burning desire to strip away the skin of the world and its creatures, remove the muscles one by one and lay them out to examine, unwind nerves and examine the bones under a microscope.
She’s thought, more than once, that without a doctorate she might be a serial killer.
It’s so cliche to say there are two versions of herself constantly at war within her, and it’s not particularly true either.
There’s Martha the doctor, who lives for seeing her former patients on the street with their red noses gone and eyes bright instead of dull, who wouldn’t know her purpose without being able to help people, get them back on their feet and send them back to their lives.
And there’s the shadow that’s ebbed and fallen without rhyme or reason since she was small, the one that can’t tear its eyes away from the sight of a needle sinking into skin and fat, that’s addicted to the thrill of feeling like a god, the power to reshape bones and part skin conveyed to her in a scalpel and a white coat.
She tries not to let it out too often. It’s part of her, and she’s long accepted that, but it scares her still.
Mickey’s seen that side of her, and he loves her still. Because of it, maybe. She’s not quite sure how he manages it, but she’s never doubted that he’d follow her anywhere, and knows she’d stop the second he did, and that’s enough for them.
It means he doesn’t mind it, much, when she’ll pause and cock her head and listen at odd hours of the night, in the middle of the supermarket or a crowded sidewalk, hearing the ghost of a sound which haunts her worst nightmares and favorite dreams.
Martha left the Doctor long before Mickey ever met her, and she’s not going back. He didn’t like it, in the beginning, that she would still die for the Doctor, if he asked her to. Martha can’t say she’d loved the way he was still, a little bit, waiting for Rose to come back from him.
Neither of them was jealous, exactly. She hadn’t ever thought Mickey would leave her if she did come back, and he’d understood that, as much as there would always be a little part of her in love with the Doctor, most of her was in love with him in a way that was steadier and better built than anything she’d had before.
The difficulty was that they hated seeing each other hurt. It made her feel like her heart was tearing itself to shreds when he slowed down next to a certain fountain, hand slipping out of hers for a moment to brush gentle fingers over the filthy stone. She saw the same look in his eyes when she came back scratched and bruised and haunted from saving the world again.
But at the end of the day his hands were on hers, counting the knuckles in them as they watched a mind-numbing show together on a sofa he’d picked out after vetoing the one she wanted for being too boring, and she fought and lived to come back to him whether she spent the day handing out cold meds or wading through alien marshes, and they made it work.
Which is to say that she’s no stranger to hearing phantom sounds from her past, and is getting back to her dinner when there’s a knock on the door.
She glances towards the ring camera display next to the fruit bowl, but the resolution isn’t high enough for her to recognize the woman shifting outside the door–if she does know her.
Something about the knock sounded familiar, though, and Martha’s learned her lesson about not being careful enough. She snaps the holster of her pistol onto her belt, checking the big sweater she’s wearing mostly hides it, before heading for the door.
It opens with a creak she’s been meaning to pick up WD40 for since last January, and her heart nearly stops dead in her chest at the wide grin that meets her from beneath a set of exhausted eyes she doesn’t recognize.
“Martha Jones!” the Doctor says, the same way he always has, though the blood on her teeth and the bruise spreading strangely orange across her cheekbone are rarer.
“Doctor?” she asks, just to be sure, because she trusts herself, but, well. Watching your own clone die in front of you shakes your faith in what you know, a little bit.
“The world is goin’ to end tonight,” the Doctor says, the manic glint that comes with being stretched too far and thin and keeping on reaching anyways shining out of her eyes. “And I’m goin’ to go save it in a minute, I promise, just. Is there a chance I could have a glass of water first?”
“There,” Martha says, settling next to the Doctor on the sofa and passing over a plate of cheese toastie sticks. She doesn’t know what this face likes, but she hasn’t yet met a version of the Doctor who doesn’t like bread with something between if it’s cut into soldiers. “Eat one and then you can talk.”
The Doctor had spent the entire time she’d been making them, along with two cups of tea–extra strong, because it isn’t worth it to try and get to bed tonight–and finishing her own dinner, trying to protest that none of this was necessary and really she could just be on her way. When that hadn’t worked she’d moved on to asking if she couldn’t upgrade various appliances in exchange.
At that point Martha had pulled the broken toaster she’d been keeping under the sink out and tossed it over to her with a promise to be as quiet as possible.
Surprisingly she’d managed it, though Martha had caught the occasional spray of sparks out of the corner of her eye and had resolutely not turned around.
When she did, plates balanced one on top of the other so she could hold the mugs in her other hand, it had been to two tiny, extremely speedy vacuuming robot mice and seventy five percent of a promise they wouldn’t turn evil or develop sentience.
She’d glanced at the dust piling up in the corners and said she’d take those odds, and beckoned for the Doctor to follow her into the living room, farther from her and Mickey’s bedroom.
She’d kept shushing her through pushing her onto the sofa and tossing a blanket over her head, and now they’re settled, Martha’s toes tucked just under the edge of the Doctor’s wide grey pants, close enough to feel the heat radiating off of her but not really touching.
This Doctor doesn’t shy away from touch she doesn’t initiate like the one with the dumb hat and floppy hair had–instead she flinches, just barely, like she’s expecting to be hit instead, and then leans into it like a cat to sunlight. Martha figures it’s best to let her get acclimated, and then maybe try for a hug if she’ll put up with it.
“We really should be quieter, though,” she adds, while the Doctor’s percolating. “I don’t want to wake Mickey, not least because he might shoot first and ask questions later, and it sounds like you don’t have time for that.”
“Or a spare ectospleen,” the Doctor agrees, lowering her voice. “What year have I dropped in on you? Before the move, at least, but that’s just a stroke of luck, ‘cause I can’t say I have much of a clue when that happens.”
“The move?” Martha asks before thinking, and then blanches. “Wait, don’t tell me. As long as it’s not invading aliens or exploding pineapples or something–then some closer prior warning might be nice.”
“Naw, for a good reason,” the Doctor promises, smiling over at her suddenly. It’s blinding in a way it’s never been before–happier than Martha thinks she’s ever seen her, like the scales have finally tipped after so long of being impossibly sad and she can reach the other end of the wheel, impossible gladness appearing just as quickly as melancholy usually does. “I promise. I ended up helpin’ you move back when I was tall and Scottish, ‘cause your moving truck company turned out to be run by Falaxian spies so you were in a pinch.”
It’s always a bit of a trip, listening to the Doctor talk about her future in the past tense. Martha tries not to think about it too much anymore–she’s much more one for the gristliness of the present, physical structure and tangible realities, as twisted as they might be. Dwelling on the inevitability of time and the constant march forward had made her uncomfortable even when she’d been travelling in it.
“I think I met that face,” Martha says instead, taking a sip of tea. “He caught me coming ‘round a corner and just stared for a minute before handing me that,” she points to a strange flower she’d pressed into an airtight frame and mounted on the wall, “Told me it was a birthday present and that he couldn’t wait for my wedding and rushed off. It was February two months ago, and the wedding was back in ‘07.”
The Doctor’s face lights up. “Oh, yeah! That’s from Proquidia, it glows under ultraindigo light. It’s safe for humans, and the stems have bones and the petals bleed. I thought you might be interested in it but I kept forgettin’ to send it in the mail.”
Martha just watches her for a second, the way her eyes dance and the short blonde hair sticks to her jawline with static electricity.
That’s always been the Doctor’s appeal to her; where everyone else scrunched their noses to hear her talk about skeletal structures and layers of biological tissue, and even her fellow med students and doctors looked sideways at her enthusiasm for dissections,, the Doctor’s taken it as run-of-the-mill as her leather jacket.
It makes her feel like a bug under a microscope sometimes, how well the Doctor understands her–the things she knows about Martha that even Martha doesn’t–and the ultimate truth that, it being so normal to the Doctor, it doesn't register to her. She remembers, more or less, but not always; like a favorite color or a dislike of garlic.
Sometimes, when the doctor visits, Martha wonders if she thinks of them like samples in a slide, forgotten in favor of a more interesting experiment. Shut away in the fridge until she has time to get back to them.
“Thank you,” she says, instead of any of the things running through her head. “I’ll see if I can germinate the seeds. Now spill, what's up with you?”
The doctor shuts her eyes, breathing in the steam from the tea and then sighing. “You know me. Always another crisis, isn't it?”
It's not untrue, but she's usually not so frank about it. “Can't be as bad as all that.”
“No, it's not, only,” the doctor bites her lip, eyes fixing on the window. “It's like. I used to know that I was a monster, and I was tryin’ to be better to make up for it.”
She wishes she could say she wants to protest, tell the doctor she couldn't be a monster and Martha's sure it's not that bad, but, well. It's not the hardest thing to believe. She's thought, more than once, about what kind of choices a person with that much time and that much care must have to make. When you're human, you get maybe a bit more than a century to affect the world, and usually not that long. It's a while, but make it endless, and you become someone's bogeyman, eventually.
“And then I was just me, for a bit,” the doctor says, and grins at her, but it's crackly around the edges, sadder than a smile should be. “And, well. I lost Rose, and I was a bit of horrible to everyone, you know, and then–” she swallows, head jerking like it hurts, and sets her test down to rub at her eyes with the heels of her palms. It makes Martha want to hug her, or slip something into her tea to knock her out, just so she'll sleep a little. “And then I was just hurting, and I went way off the deep end,” she confesses.
“And then you were angry,” Martha says, noncommittally. That's most of what she remembers from the face the doctor had had after the one she'd worn for Martha. He didn't stop moving, except when he went very, very still and Martha could get a good look into his eyes and find an anger so deep and all-encompassing that she thought she'd drown in it.
The doctor laughs. It sounds wet. “Oh, you have no idea,” she says, eyes all shiny. “Full of myself too, wasn't I? I was the Doctor and nothing could change if I didn't let it. Not that that worked, mind.”
“No, it usually doesn't,” Martha agreed. On the wall, the little cuckoo clock Mickey’d found in the trash and brought home last week ticks away.
“I grew out of it, though,” the doctor tells her, scrubbing at the back of her neck. “Figured out I wasn't all that and got my head on straight for a bit. And then I forgot all of it, and I was just so tired .”
“You look it,” she says, leaning over to tuck a strand of the doctor's hair behind her ear. It makes her light up, beaming a little in Martha's direction. An unconscious reaction, like a vine growing towards the sun. “That’s how it works, though, yeah? You think you're getting better and then you go and do something stupid. Everyone's like that.”
“Most people's mistakes don't kill people, though,” the doctor says, and she's not exactly wrong. “I know myself too well, Martha Jones. I can't afford not to.”
“You're never too old to surprise yourself sometimes,” Martha tells her, mostly for lack of anything else to say.
She ruminates on it for a long minute. The Doctor’s run out of steam it seems, apparently content to sit curled up on Martha’s sofa, steam drifting up and into her face. Occasionally she sticks her tongue out to dip it in the tea and make a little scrunched-nose face when it’s still too hot.
The whiplash of finding the Doctor of all people adorable gets to be a bit to much for Martha, so she gets up to fetch an ice cube from the freezer and drop it in her mug–it earns her another one of those bright smiles she’s getting the sense aren’t as rare as they used to be.
“You’re running yourself ragged,” she says, when she gets back. “Why?”
The Doctor startles at the question, eyes going wide like a cornered animal, about to bolt straight through whatever’s blocking it. “What’s that mean?”
“You want to rest,” Martha continues, fixing her eyes on the calm surface of her tea. “I can see it. You’re here, you wouldn’t be if you didn’t. You deserve to rest a bit. Why can’t you take a break?”
“Because it doesn’t work,” the Doctor says, without stopping to think. “I just get tired again, and I can’t stop. Can’t slow down.”
“What’s going to catch up to you if you do?” Martha asks.
The Doctor just sighs, letting her head drop until her chin’s pressed to her sternum and her hair hides her face.
The silence settles like dust, constant and slow and unnoticed until you need to get a book off the shelf and it gets all over your hands. Martha thinks the words she and the Doctor haven’t said to each other could fill a library, probably.
“I’m not very good at this,” she says, eventually, when her eyes are dangerously close to shutting, despite the tea.
“You’re fine,” the Doctor says, which is a kind sort of lie, but seeing as there isn’t really anyone else, it’s probably true, in a relative sense. “I’m the problem.”
I’m always the problem, she doesn’t say, but Martha hears it, clear as the day starting to break on the horizon.
“...We’ve all got to move forward, Doctor,” she says, and it’s wrong as soon as it leaves her mouth, no matter how true it might be. “Even you.”
The Doctor laughs, but not like it’s funny. “I’m tryin’, but the past keeps sticking’ her nose into my business.”
“Tell her to butt out,” Martha suggests, and that gets her a real smile, switching out the melancholy so quick it gives her whiplash.
“Maybe I’ll give that a try,” the Doctor agrees, then makes a face. “Here I am, nattering on about just me. What’s with you, Doctor Jones?”
“Don’t you already know?” Martha asks, only half serious, but the Doctor bites her lip.
“Naw, sorry,” she says, and looks it so much Martha has to force herself to smile.
“S’fine. Well, UNIT’s being a right pain in my arse about dropping some shifts, but I’m not too scared of them anymore, so…”
The Doctor dozes off halfway through the most boring story Martha could think up about filing paperwork, and Martha feels a little bad because this face seems a little more guilty about things like that than the rest, but she figures a little emotional manipulation is a decent price to pay for getting the Doctor a nap.
She steals her mug before it can slip to the cushions and finishes it off even though it’s cold, and spends the rest of the wee hours with a book that’s been sitting on her side table for half a decade’s worth of Christmases since she got given it. It’s not half bad, and she makes a note to get David from the office one in return and definitely not say she’s only just read this one.
Mickey wanders in at some point, probably woken by the sun more than anything because it’s usually her who sets the alarms. He frowns at the stranger on their sofa, but doesn’t do much more than make a face and head to the kitchen to start the kettle boiling when she mouths an explanation.
He’ll be a little grumpy about it later, she knows, on her behalf more than at the Doctor. He thinks the Doctor is selfish, asking so much from people with the assurance that they’ll do it because it’s
her
. Martha’s never quite figured out how to explain to him that it isn’t because the Doctor doesn’t give any of them that much thought outside of the moment, and can’t help but wondering sometimes if it isn’t because that’s worse.
In a couple of minutes the Doctor will wake up, probably, from the whistle of the kettle or the clinking of the mugs. She’ll rush out the door and maybe Martha will manage to stuff an apple into her hand and get an affectionate headbutt for her troubles.
And then she’ll be off again, running running running like the world won’t turn if she doesn’t.
Maybe it wouldn’t.
In the meantime, though, there are a few precious seconds of amber sunlight leeching in through the blinds, hitting the Doctor’s face just so that Martha can see the veins running under her skin, spindly and more curved than a human’s. She can listen to the soft whistle of the Doctor’s breath, so spaced out sometimes she worries it’s stopped, watch the strange, independent movement of the fine hairs around her upper lip.
That’s something that no one else gets, in this moment in the universe, and she doesn’t think she’d give it up for anything.