**A few months have passed and Martha has begun to adjust to the Doctor, the TARDIS, and the wild life she now leads. Until now. This takes place sometime after "42".**
Martha blinked her eyes open and stared into the darkness of her room for a few moments, trying to figure out what had woken her up. It made her chuckle to realize that her first assumption was that the Doctor had managed to break something. Or, on a more somber note, perhaps they were under some kind of attack.
Then she heard the noise again: a crash that reverberated through the walls of her room on board the TARDIS.
She gasped and sat up quickly, but froze before attempting to get off her bed. Silence followed the crash, but not the kind Martha was used to. Something was missing…then she realized. Since coming on board Martha had been aware of a faint hum that drifted in and out of her conscious while on board the sentient ship. But now that hum was gone, shut off somehow, and it made even her room seem unnaturally still.
When another noise, a bang this time, reached her ears, Martha jumped off her bed and quickly slipped on a pair of comfortable slippers. She was out the door before her mind had even caught up with what she was doing.
Martha paused in the middle of the TARDIS hallway and blinked away the ship's bright lights. Silence still permeated the halls, making her feel very exposed while clothed in just her cotton jimjams and slippers. But before she could doubt her judgment, the sound of breaking glass, followed by an unearthly scream, came from her right side. She ran towards the sound.
The TARDIS must have shifted her rooms again, because as soon as Martha turned the corner she came upon a large, ancient-looking door, opened just a crack. It was the door leading to a room she had much of her time perusing for human and alien medical texts. Of course, Martha also knew it to be a place the Doctor sometimes disappeared into for days at a time, locking the door and not returning until she was practically threatening to attempt to fly the ship herself. Why the library? She wondered, before she was startled by a series of slams. Someone was pounding something with all their strength.
Though her hum was still silenced, the TARDIS mentally nudged Martha forward. The ship knew what—no, who—was in there, and he needed someone. Someone the TARDIS couldn't be.
Slowly, Martha opened the door.
Whatever she had been expecting, it was not the scene in front of her. The library she had learned to call a safe haven had been turned upside down and torn apart. The decimated remains of thousands of books, papers, and manuscripts littered the wooden floor, smothering a lump that she assumed by its placement was the remnants of her favorite reading sofa. Two of the ceiling-high bookcases that usually lined the walls had been pushed over in such a way that they leaned against the other at an angle. It looked as if the cases would fall to the unforgiving floor if anyone so much as breathed on them. The cumbersome desk, which had strange markings curved into its wooden surface, was still present in the center of the room, but the remains of a smashed wooden chair surrounded it like a halo. A flurry of papers still shook on top of the desk, as if a tornado had recently blown through and ripped them all to shreds.
And just beyond the desk, up against a wall, was the tornado himself. He was on the ground, facing a large wall that was completely white all the way up to the ceiling. Martha had never given it much though before, besides the fact that it was nothing like the coral wall segments surrounding it. Now she wondered if it held some deeper meaning beyond her comprehension.
Over the deafening silence she heard the Doctor muttering to himself in a voice that was so soft it was almost inaudible. His back was to her, but she could practically feel the haggardness that plagued him, the same desperation that sometimes appeared in his eyes when certain words, people, or places were mentioned. Martha had always known, or at least assumed, the Doctor to be a man of class and youthful sophistication. Now she saw his pinstripe suit riddled with holes and tears.
She was frozen in surprise, and more than a little bit of fear, in front of the library door, her hand still grasping its handle as if it wanted to slam the door shut and run from whatever had happened, or was happening, here. But then she heard the repeated pounding, and she saw where it was coming from. Doctor Martha kicked in the second she noticed that there were bloody fist prints on the wall.
Martha tripped and stumbled her way over to the Doctor, not caring how much noise she was making. He didn't turn and continued to pound his right fist against the cement wall, and with each contact the right side of his hand made a bloody mark on the wall. Its scarlet sheen stood stark against the whiteness of the wall, and dribbled down its surface and the Doctor's arm steadily, but he took no notice of it. If Martha were to question him in that moment he would probably claim he felt no pain.
She quickly realized that being closer to the Doctor did not make his state of health, physical or mental, any better. When Martha kneeled beside him she could smell something acidic, presumably his blood, and realized that there was more of it covering his suit jacket. How long had the Doctor been in here? She wondered. His mumblings seemed to become more incoherent now that she was beside him, and when she reached her hand out, he visible flinched away from her touch.
"Doctor…" Martha said quietly, in as soothing a voice as she could manage. A difficult thing to do when she was becoming more frightened by the minute.
The Doctor emitted a small noise she couldn't identify. She caught a brief word here and there. "No…" he hissed. Then his voice shifted and he began to whimper. "Please, please, no…not her, take me, take me, let her go…not fair…I'm sorry, please, I…"
It was about her. Martha chided herself. She should have guessed sooner. If the Doctor wasn't feeling joy at some moment, it was grief. There was no in between, though the last of the Time Lords seemed quite capable of jumping between the two with ease. But Martha had never seen him this devastated, except for that morning, on a ship about to crash into a burning sun…an image of a vulnerable, terrified Doctor flashed into Martha's mind, but she pushed it aside. "Doctor, please," she continued, "At least…let me see your hand."
He froze, and Martha stopped breathing. Was he finally coming back to his senses? She had heard cases of deranged patients coming out of their "episodes" disoriented, sometimes afraid, and fear made anyone capable of unimaginable things. One of the lessons med school drilled into Martha and her classmates was to never handle a mentally-compromised person alone. There'd been too many reports of patients advertently or inadvertently killing their doctors.
With this in mind, Martha braced herself when she saw the Doctor's shoulder muscles tense. Then, ever so slowly, his right fist separated from the wall with a sickening smack, like a suction cup, and drifted to the floor.
"Thank you," Martha whispered quickly, before she gently picked up his hand and uncurled his fist. At her touch the Time Lord hissed in pain.
"Sorry." But she wasn't finding it in her to be compassionate at the moment. The source of the blood was coming from a long gash in his hand, and it was then that Martha remembered the sounding of breaking glass from before. Now she could hear her slippers crunching on glass shards.
"I…" The Doctor swallowed, but kept his forehead on the wall, like he had become part of its white surface. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."
She could have given him a glare her mum would have been proud of, but she held her tongue when she remembered the shouting and screams from earlier. With a few tears of her dirtied and bloodied jimjams she was able to make a sufficient binding. "You scared me."
He swallowed and blinked heavily. Martha could have sworn that she saw a tear splash on the wooden floor. "I'm sorry for that. And, well, everything," he said slowly. He bit back another hiss as she wrapped the cotton around his injured hand. "I must have fallen asleep."
"Oh." Was that sleeping for him? No wonder Martha had never hear him utter the words "I'm off to bed" or show any signs of being tired. He would've desecrated the whole TARDIS if he dared to try and get some shut-eye every night.
When she was finished wrapping the makeshift bandage she sat back on her heels, watching as he rubbed his right fingers together. She could barely hear his mumbled, "Thanks."
Martha considered herself to be a strong and capable young woman, but it hurt to look at the Doctor too long. This wasn't the randy time-and-space traveler she had come to know and, if she was honest with herself, love. This man in front of her was grief-stricken and broken, burdened with so many other thoughts and feelings in the span of a second. Of course, looking at the tarnished library wasn't any help either, and she felt bile on her throat when she flicked her eyes the other way and caught a flash of bright red.
But Gallifrey wasn't his only sorrow, this girl was, too. Whoever she was. The only clue Martha got was a name, and Rose, while not a common name, wasn't uncommon either. Who was she? What did she look like? What made her so special, so unique, and so brilliant that a 900-year-old alien would practically destroy himself over her loss? Martha yearned to ask any of the questions from her mental list, but swallowed them for the time being. She didn't want to send the Doctor into another emotional breakdown.
As her mind wandered, so did her eyes. After a moment she realized that the paper under her was not all in the circle script of the Doctor's language. But then again, English only got her so far where physics were concerned. The few words that popped out at her were phrases like "parallel worlds" and "impossible", even "fabric of reality". Threads of a story that Martha might never uncover.
"Good night, Martha," the Doctor suddenly said, the air of composure finally returning to his voice. It stung her to be dismissed and practically rejected as such, but sitting next to a bloody wall and trying to guess an alien's thoughts wasn't going to help anyone. But as she turned to leave, she heard him whisper, "I'm sorry."
Martha paused. She knew, without even turning around, that the words were meant for another. Someone who the Doctor lost, and doesn't seem to be able to see again. Why? What held him back? Why was he always apologizing for every bloody thing that ever happened to anyone around him? She turned to face the Doctor, even though he was still slouched against the wall. "Doctor."
He didn't speak, and Martha took that as a sign to continue. "Doctor, who was she?" she asked, plowing ahead even as she saw his muscles tense. If she let him speak he would just shut her down. "Where is she? Why can't you see her? Why…why are you sorry?"
The Doctor didn't move, didn't even breath, and Martha was sure that he would remain that way for the rest of time. Then, "She was Rose. Rose Tyler." His right fist clenched on open air. Was he used to something next to him he could grasp? "She's trapped. In a…"
"A parallel world," she supplied for him. She'd heard about them in old science fiction movies, but hadn't thought to ask the Doctor about them. Now she was glad she hadn't.
Another pause. "Yeah. Another world. There was a battle, the Battle of Canary Wharf. Where your cousin was killed." Martha nodded, remembering the event. "We fought but…in the end, Rose was trapped in the other world. The walls were closed. I could barely get a proper good-bye through…" She heard him breathe back what sounded like a sob. "She's fine, though. Got her mum, and her da, and Mickey. She's fine. I'm fine."
Though Martha sensed that he was holding back tears, she needed to know the answer to her last question. "And why are you sorry?"
"Because it was my fault! All my fault." With every word the Doctor's voice rose in volume. She couldn't tell where he stopped talking to her and was instead directing his words towards the wall, or Rose, or anyone. "If I'd been there sooner I could have stopped the ghosts from ever appearing! It was my plan to open the walls between the universes, my plan to send Rose away and save her, thinking I was strong enough to handle losing her. Rassilon, I was stupid! She hadn't been gone five seconds before I was clambering to see her again. And then she appeared and…it should have been me on that side! Not her! I could have sent her away again but I didn't and now we're both suffering for it!"
Despite the Doctor's shouts, Martha surprised herself by her own calm attitude. Because through all those words, she had been listening for certain clues, and she had found them. "Doctor," she said to his pinstriped back, "You said you sent her away, to save her. And then she came back."
From her position, she could only see the back of his neck as he nodded.
"I don't know about you, Doctor, but if a woman's able to cross through the walls of reality just to see her bloke again…well, I doubt some flimsy wall is enough to stop her a second time." Martha tried not to linger on the idea that perhaps she was speaking from personal experience. "I haven't met her, but from what you're telling me Rose Tyler sounds like one determined woman. A determined woman who happens to be in love with a man a universe away. And let me tell you that that is a powerful combination. She'll find a way back. Just you wait."
The Doctor said nothing for a while. Then, after a long silence, "Good night, Martha. And…thank you."
Martha hesitated, wondering if she should go up and give the Doctor a pat on the back or a hug or something, but the TARDIS nudged her mind again, as if to say, it's okay, now. I'll take it from here. Indeed, as soon as Martha left the library and returned to her bedroom she heard the ship's soothing hum once again. Despite her turbulent mind, she fell into a deep sleep. In her dreams she saw a series of white walls, with the same blond woman crashing through them again and again. But the woman always seemed to miss the wall that Martha somehow knew held the Doctor.
In the library, the Doctor had not moved from his position. But as his time sense returned he realized how long he had been awake for. He had told Martha that sleepwalking was to blame, but he knew that he'd been mentally aware of every detail. Down to the last shred of useless paper that had slid through his fingertips. It was better Martha believe that he only had problems while he was asleep, even though he knew that his dreams held far worse terrors than a white wall.
That Wall…he stared up at it, and carefully avoided looking too long at the smear of bloody prints on the concrete.
"Take it away," he heard someone mutter to the TARDIS. Was that his voice? When had it turned so demented and sinister? "Take it away!"
The ship hummed in response, and he stumbled out of the room as quickly as he could. The zero room. Yes, the zero room could help him. He needed all the help he could get.
And Martha…now the Doctor wished he hadn't shown her what he was capable of. Why he needed a companion so much in his life. He promised himself, and her, that he would make her feel more included and vital to his life in the stars. Perhaps a visit to a planet known for excellent health practices? Or maybe the last star of the Klarion system?
Martha walked into the TARDIS kitchen the next morning (or as close to morning as she could get on the time ship) to find a note pinned to the door. In zero room, it read, enjoy the library. One glance and she saw that the ship had managed to clean up the entire library, bookcases and all, so it looked like new again.
And if she ever noticed that the white wall had disappeared overnight, she never mentioned it.
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