Chapter Text
“To the what?” Martha questions, and wonders if John - the Doctor - remembering just meant that he would be even more mad than he was before.
“It’s my ship,” the Doctor clarifies, and because Martha had just been to the moon, she shrugs and accepts it, for the most part. She’s found that going along with whatever he says works best, in the long run, even if it doesn’t make much sense at all.
“Bit snug, isn’t it?” she comments, and he shines a very self-satisfied smirk her way.
“Not quite,” he starts to pat himself down, as if looking for something, and then peers closely at the bottoms of his feet like there should be something significant there. All that was there, however, was a layer of dirt. “I should have shoes on,” he mumbles to himself.
Martha’s rather inclined to agree. “You looking for something?”
“Yes,” says the Doctor, somewhat absentmindedly, rummaging through his pockets, “The key. Usually it’s in my shoe, but…”
“But your stuff is still back at the hospital,” she finishes.
“Unfortunately,” he shrugs. “I’ll have to go back for it later. Right now, it seems that using the spare would be prudent.”
“What, do you keep one above the door, or something?”
“Exactly,” he says slyly, before clasping his hands together and beckoning her with his head to stand on them, “It’s in a cubbyhole above the ‘P’.”
Martha worries for a moment if he’ll be able to hold her weight, before sighing and stepping up anyway. She feels about for it for a few seconds before grabbing it and coming back down. The smile he gives her is so bright it’s almost blinding, and before she knows it the key is plucked out of her hand and thrust into the lock.
And then the door is open and the Doctor is inside. “Come on in!” he calls, and his voice echoes far too much for such a small box.
She peeks inside, and she blinks, and then she stops peeking inside.
Because what she’d just seen was impossible. There were ancient tomes piled on sagging shelves stretching towards the ceiling, picture books and comic books and every book in between stacked perilously in teetering pillars. Candlesticks and candelabras perched on nearly every surface, melted wax hanging from the sockets like stalactites. A sunken old armchair sat next to a tiffany lamp on an occasional table, and a few feet away a gramophone played a blurry tune. One corner was littered with clocks, another corner was littered with plants, and in one corner there was a car . And in the middle, perched atop a dais, arose a column emitting a cool blue light. Surrounding it were six industrial metal posts, reaching up over the column like spider legs.
Oh, and the whole thing was bigger on the inside.
Martha stumbled out, as if she’d been kicked back.
She knew that its outside dimensions were no larger than a small shed, yet she still peered around the corners - just to make absolutely sure she wasn’t being pranked, or something.
All evidence pointed towards it being very real indeed.
“It’s bigger on the inside!” she exclaimed
The Doctor was standing by the large column, pressing some buttons on the hexagonal console and looking very smug. “Oh, you noticed that, did you?”
Martha didn’t humor him with a response, still rather in awe of the whole thing. The Doctor had meandered to a side table and was looking forlornly down at a cup of tea. “Cold,” he laments, “And not even half-drank.”
She stared wondrously at the ceiling, which wasn’t so much a ceiling as it was an open sky full of stars and swirling nebulae. Must be holographic , she thinks, you don’t see that sort of color with the light pollution. “How ? ” she finally asks, her voice a mere whisper.
“The old girl is dimensionally transcendental,” he explains, putting the teacup down.
That explained a lot, actually. “I see,” she says.
“You do?”
“Yeah. I took physics, and the words “dimensionally transcendental” -- sorta self-explanatory, isn’t it?”
The Doctor seemed a little put-out by this. Probably wanted to be able to explain it to her, or something. “I suppose.”
“Doctor?”
He hummed.
“Why are you showing me all this?”
The Doctor peers at her, owlishly. “You said you wanted to come with me.”
Martha stares. “I thought you meant, like, to get coffee, or something.”
“Oh, we can get coffee, Doctor Jones. We can get some bona fide--” he says it in the proper latin pronunciation, and with great flourish, “--Turkish coffee from the 1800s, or retrieve coffee-sodas from a distant planet hundreds of years from now,” he says, “Just say the word and we’re there.”
Well, he said it was his ship. He just didn’t explain the full scope of what that meant. “So this thing then, your... TARDIS , it travels in time?”
“Don’t call the TARDIS a thing , Martha,” he chastised, “But yes, she travels in time and space. All across the universe. Frontwards and backwards and sidewards and Möbius strip-wards and--”
“I get it, Doctor,” she laughs, and she considers it. She really considers it.
Anywhere in time and space, with the Doctor. It’ll be hair-raising, of that she has no doubt; there’s something about him that tells her he’s incapable of not getting mixed into things he shouldn’t. The things she could learn, the people she could help…
But no, she can’t . She has exams. Her brother’s birthday party is tomorrow . She can’t.
“I have exams--” she starts, but he cuts her off, a mischievous glimmer in his eyes.
“Ah - time machine, remember? We can go anywhere and any when and be back here in a second.”
Well. That puts an end to her excuses, she supposes. Her mouth snaps closed.
“Time machine. Right,” she’s not even really sure she believes that - but surely, if a small shed can be bigger on the inside, it could also travel in time, right? All this was rather out of her purview. “My brother’s birthday is tomorrow. Wait ‘till then.”
“But we don’t need to wait,” he said, sounding plaintive and pointing at the controls, “Like I said, time machine.”
“I know, Doctor,” she steps onto the dais, “But I need time to pack, you know. Sleep, also,” she tacks on, yawning, “I’m exhausted.”
“You humans and your sleep,” remarked the Doctor derisively, his eyes mirthful behind his contempt.
“Hey!” Martha scoffs, “Are you telling me you aren’t the slightest bit tired from that whole moon business?” The Doctor said nothing in response. “Hm?”
“Well, maybe a little,” he admitted in a mutter.
“Right,” she nodded, motioning towards the door, “So...tomorrow, then?”
“Tomorrow then,” he confirms with a soft smile.
“And you’ll still be here?”
“I’ll still be here.”
Martha grins, biting her lip and nodding, “Good.”
And then she’s out the door, shutting it with a loud creak.
Martha Jones leaves, and the Doctor stands there for a moment in silence, staring at the door.
Right, the Doctor thinks, freeing himself from his reverie, clapping his hands. First things first , I believe a wardrobe change is in order. He peers down at the Greenpeace t-shirt and too-big sweatpants he has on, his lack of shoes. Yes, definitely in order.
As he makes his way to his closet - which, really, is a closet as much as the crop planets of Bellatrix 5 were a small backyard garden - the TARDIS hums at him, aggravated, prickling the symbiotic link between them in his mind.
“Yes, yes, I know,” he tells her, waving his hand dismissively, “I’ll figure it out. When do I not?” the Doctor shoots an arrogant wink towards the walls.
She beeps, affronted.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t bring that up,” he mumbles. “I missed you too, by the way. Do I get no sympathy? I almost died you know. I did die, in fact. How do you like the face?”
The lights turn a warm, affection orange, before darkening to a deep red hue.
“I will deal with the Master. Right now, however, he seems to be a nonissue! Probably found a lovely group of slugs to fraternize with who will ultimately betray him.”
The TARDIS buzzes.
“You know what a slug is,” he says, rolling his eyes.
She chirps - her way of laughing, and the Doctor allows a smile to make its way onto his face before he’s chuckling as well.
There’s a moment then, where she sends him a wave of fondness, worry, relief, all at once, and it feels rather like receiving a hug.
“I’m glad you’re alright too, old girl,” he says warmly, before looking down the infinite stretch of corridor he was traveling down, “Now If you would be so kind as to move the closet here so I don’t trip on these sweatpants wandering down hallways, it would be much appreciated.”
The Doctor examines himself in the mirror. The bottle-green frock coat he’d picked out was an excellent choice, he thinks. It’s comfortable, the velvet a very pleasant fabric. Nice to the touch. Plus, it gave him a sort of sophisticated air, or something. He thinks it does, at least - he’s hardly the one to judge such things. Maybe that’s what he’ll try for this regeneration, though: sophistication. Manners, being a gentleman. Gentleperson. Not pulling the sort of thing he’d done last go ‘round.
...Poor Ace.
He shakes his head, clearing that particular line of thinking. His curls bounce as he does so, which he rather likes. They weren’t quite like his fourth or sixth body, but maybe that’s for the best. They were still very kinetic, try as he might he can’t get them to stay totally still; they wave about slightly, like streamers in the wind. Hopefully no one notices.
The Doctor leans in closer to the mirror.
Bright blue - green? - blue eyes, impeccable eyebrows (if he does say so himself), long nose, slender jaw. It’ll do, he thinks.
Yes, it’ll do very much.
The Doctor does up his cravat and tucks it into his embroidered waistcoat, then sets off to retrieve his stuff from the hospital.
“It’s gone?” he asks the reception woman. She smiles apologetically.
“Sorry sir, someone came in to get it just a half-hour before you did: a man, dressed all in black leather, like a motorcyclist or something - he even had the helmet on! You know him?”
The Doctor frowned - what was a slab doing collecting his sonic screwdriver? His TARDIS key? Something was very wrong. Very wrong indeed. He needs to get back to his ship. “Hm? Oh, yes,” he lies, trying to find the quickest way out of this discussion, “Yes, I know him, yes.”
“Oh, good.” She seems to deliberate on something, debate on whether or not she should speak, “I should let you know though, sir,” she began in a clandestine whisper, “The body’s missin’! It just, poof!” she mimes something exploding with her hands, “Disappeared. Last night, before all the stuff with the,” she mouths aliens .
“Yes, yes, I know,” he says, not paying attention at all and still wholly deep in thought. He decides that now would be as good a time as any to hop out of the conversation, and he begins to head for the door, calling out, “You’ve been a great help, thank you!” as he goes.
Martha decides to ditch her brother’s party early, for one very simple reason:
She just didn’t want to be there anymore.
Martha believes this reasoning valid, because no one would want to be present at an event where your divorced parents fought over your dad’s young blonde girlfriend.
Honestly, though, it’s a simple fact of life that you should never invite a divorced couple over to the same place, unless you want to be very, very, very uncomfortable the whole time. And - to be fair to her, she did stay for a while, and she got pictures and ate cake and had a drink and all that. So there.
They had started talking politics when she left. Annalise - her father’s girlfriend - had said she supported Harold Saxon, to which her mum commented that that was the first smart thing she had ever heard leave her mouth, which made her dad get all offended and defensive, which made Martha excuse herself and vacate the premises as fast as she possibly could.
She knocks on the TARDIS door with a duffle bag full of clothes and a backpack full of textbooks and notes, feeling very relieved she was going to take a break from all... this . Family drama. Frankly, she was sick of dealing with all of it.
The Doctor lets her in, wearing an utterly anachronistic ensemble that she couldn’t help but comment on.
“What’s with the coat?” she asks.
“Do you like it?” he responds, “You said Victorian, didn’t you? Though I did choose to go for Edwardian in the end.”
As much as she wants to complain about it, it does look very dashing. In a Byronic sort of way. “Looks nice,” she says, “It suits you.”
The Doctor smiles. “Thank you,” he says bashfully. Then, like a switch being flicked, he turns very serious. “Martha Jones, I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
Her blood runs cold. Is he not going to let her come with him or something? “What?”
“Something very insidious is stirring in London as we speak. I’m worried my old arch-nemesis has returned.”
Of course he has an arch-nemesis. “Yeah?” she responds, because how else do you respond to that? “Um, what can we do?”
“We can stop him, of course,” says the Doctor, rushing over to the console. “The TARDIS managed to conserve some of his residue. I’m running a few diagnostics on it now.”
“Residue?”
“Well, you see…” he sighs, looking for a way to formulate an explanation, “The Master - I - We - let me see...this is all very complex.” Martha raises her eyebrows at him. “The Master and I, we’re both of the same species: Time Lords, we’re called. And, as Time Lords, we both have thirteen lives.”
Time Lords, huh? “Like how a cat has nine lives?”
“That only applies to the cats originating from Felinsis, but yes. Something like that. The Master, he used up all of his, and he died, and he should have died permanently. But he found a way to cheat death, somehow, and as I was taking him back to my home planet, he managed to escape as this...moving slime. Hence the residue.”
“I see.” Only vaguely.
The TARDIS dinged, like a toaster going off, and he looked down at something. “Ah, it appears he’s in London.”
Martha drops her things and goes to look at the console. The interface is written in circular symbols that flicker across the screen faster than she can quite take them in. Not like she’d be able to understand them if she could, anyway. She glances at the Doctor. “London?” she prompts, “That’s not far.”
“No, though the old girl can’t triangulate his position completely - I can’t see his exact location.”
“Why not?”
“It’s like something’s messing with the signal, making it seem like he’s in two different places at once.”
“And that’s...impossible, right?”
“Should be impossible,” he responds, still distracted by whatever the screen was telling him.
“Why don’t you just go to one of the spots it shows he is, then go to the next one if he’s not there?”
“Hm?” he turns to look at her attentively, and Martha realizes that he hadn’t been paying attention to what she’d been saying at all. She crosses her arms and leans against the console.
“I said--” she began, but he cut her off, grabbing her shoulders excitedly.
“I’ve got it!” he exclaimed, “It’s obvious, really! I’ll just go to one location, and if he’s not there I’ll go to the other one!”
Martha pursed her lips. “Right,” she said. “You do that, and I’ll go unpack my things then, shall I?”
“Oh yes, yes,” that spurns the Doctor into action, as he begins fiddling with buttons and levers. Martha realizes that his coat sleeves are a smidgeon too long; they hang down over the heel of his palm in a way she’s very, very hesitant to call cute. “Let me get a room set up for you.”
Apparently, the TARDIS is much bigger on the inside than she’d thought. The large double doors leading out of the console room opened to a winding hallway of Axminster carpet. The way to her room - though the directions were subject to change, the Doctor had said - was to go right, then right again, then left, then down the middle, ‘round the bend, up the stairs, and to the right once more. Her door is labeled with her name written in a fancy curlicue scrawl.
“Here we are,” says the Doctor, opening the door for her. “After you.”
Martha enters to find a room twice the size of her bedroom at home. In the middle sits a wide double poster bed with a deep red canopy. Against the far right wall is a bookshelf and a writing desk that looks positively ancient, and against the left is a large antique wardrobe.
“It’s nice,” the Doctor says, as if he’s seeing it the first time, “I’m glad that desk is finally getting some use; hardly anyone ever goes into the conservatory anymore.”
“I love it,” Martha breathes, hardly as nonchalant as the Doctor was, “It’s like a room in a castle or something.”
“I’m glad you like it,” he replies warmly. “We can add more furnishings later, if you want. I have a bean bag room.”
“Yeah, sure,” she wanders over to peer into the ensuite, hardly paying attention to whatever it was the Doctor’s saying.
“Go ahead and get settled then, Doctor Jones,” the Doctor said from the doorway, “I’ll be in the console room.”
“Okay,” Martha said, and the Doctor disappeared.
She sighed, excited, then hurriedly began to unpack.
“The Master’s in Downing Street,” the Doctor says once Martha gets back - the way to the console room was far shorter on the way back; she’d practically left her room and immediately ended up there - “Or, well, possibly, anyway. What’s he doing in Downing Street?”
Martha shrugs, hopping up to stand a respectable distance away from him on the dais. “We could go find out,” she suggests.
“I like your chutzpah, Doctor Jones,” he says, then cranks a lever and the TARDIS jolts violently. They both go flying to the side. “That was unexpected,” the Doctor wheezed.
The column in the center pumps up and down, and the TARDIS seems to heave with it, creating a loud, unhealthy-sounding groaning. “What about that was unexpected?” she asks from the floor.
“Usually she doesn’t buck like that,” the Doctor rolls smoothly to his feet to check something on the console. “Not unless she’s mad at me.”
“So the groaning’s normal, then?”
“You can hardly expect traveling through the Vortex to be a soundless venture, can you?” the Doctor shouts back as a wave of sparks sputter from somewhere.
“I wouldn’t know, would I?”
The Doctor doesn’t respond, for he’s busy dashing around to type in various commands and push various buttons and pull on a Bop It device that was duct taped in. “This is very, very strange. It’s just a short hop, I don’t understand why she’s behaving like this.”
Martha moves to get up, but the TARDIS swerves and she’s thrown back down again. The Doctor manages to stay upright, and he pulls down what looks like an old TV from the ceiling. “That’s impossible,” he mutters.
Then, with one last shower of sparks, everything stops. Somewhere in the distance a bell tolls once.
Very carefully, Martha stands up on wobbling legs. “What’s impossible?”
“We’re in London,” the Doctor says.
“Isn’t that good?”
“In 1599,” he finishes.
Oh. “Oh.”