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He’d had a whole year to think. Literally, what else could he do? Integrating himself into the psychic network was a painstakingly slow task. He had to go slowly because the Master could never guess what the real agenda was. The agenda that banked upon his brilliant Martha.
He felt sick thinking of what she must be going through for him. He felt alive knowing she was doing it for him. She had such trust despite what he’d put her through. He normally tried to ignore thinking about the past, but, again, what else could he do?
He could remember every bit of his nine hundred plus years, slight emphasis on the plus. He wondered if his reticent desire to age was akin to Jack Benny. Just as soon as this was over he’d go meet him. He’d take Martha and they’d have a good laugh. She could use a laugh. Still, that was to come. Now he was remembering. And he could see every snub, every brush off, every comparison that had been dealt to her since she’d joined with him. Those done by him, whether human or Timelord. It was ironic considering that when he’d witnessed her dealing with her family that night she came with him, he’d just wanted to take her away for a bit and give her a treat. Then he’d treated her worse than they had.
But she never gave up. She always listened, always cared, always was willing to go further, and wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. Maybe she should speak it more often. That might have helped when he was blatantly lying to her, trying to fill up the space Rose’s loss had left, reliving the pain of a Gallifrey gone, showing off because he could. What an immense prat he was. Charming, clever, and all around magnificent, but definitely prat-like.
Especially where the Master was concerned. How easy this would have been to take care of if the Doctor had only paid attention. Couldn’t be helped now and, after all, timelines were in peril and so was Martha, and he hadn’t felt this old in years. Everything from the moment he’d met her had been pointing toward this and he was just too self-centered to see it. A wake up call. A year long wake up call. Maybe for a Timelord that’s how long it took. It certainly took them longer than that as a group to wake up to whatever they were doing that was insane and ludicrous and otherwise not good.
He didn’t know what he was going to do when this was over, but he did know Martha would be treated like a queen and he had to somehow save the Master. The Master. Another Timelord. How impossible it still seemed to him. Another thing that came out of this year’s deep thought was that Gallifrey was gone and he was realizing it anew. He’d never forgotten but Rose had helped dull the pain and then stabbed him anew.
And it was his fault, he shouldn’t have tried to play house. He shouldn’t have taken a nineteen year old whose guts were far greater than her emotional maturity and elevated her to a place neither of them was ready for. He had needed her, she did help heal him, but that one act had thrown them into awkward roles of intimacy simply through association.
But now, now he’d had a year and the hole that Gallifrey had left and Rose had widened was starting to realize something. It should be filled. It couldn’t ever totally be. He’d never be able to forget the pain of having no planet to go home to. But when he’d been exiled and on the run that pain was eased by the love and companionship he'd found strewn across time and space. So many people had gathered alongside him and given their lives for him. (Adric was not to be thought of if he could help it). And they made him better even as he did the same to them. That was his trade, but their practical application of his medicine healed his own hearts.
They left him, they found someone better and it wasn’t like Rose said, that they were just dropped off, they left him. Mostly. And no one would ever be the same as they were to him. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t love others anew. That was his curse and his gift.
Whenever he used to think of love, he would involuntarily get flashes of blonde hair and hear a rough accent and feel all the emotions of someone so young who didn’t understand. But somehow, without realizing it, those feelings weren’t forgotten, but they were laid beneath new ones.
These ones brought to mind ebony skin, red leather and intelligence and compassion and something he couldn’t name that he'd missed so desperately.
There had been a moment in the hospital when he’d met Martha. They were being chased and he’d grabbed her hand. It was instinctive, yet almost a ritual. He’d chosen her and she’d accepted. It wasn’t the first time he’d done that. But it was powerful and he’d ignored it because he was supposed to. He preferred being alone, he shouldn’t drag people with him anymore.
He was an impossibly ridiculous Timelord.
When this was over, Martha Jones was going to get an earful and the first thing would be an apology. Three pages long and he could do it. Especially in this body.
***
She said no – did she look a little bit hopeful? - but it wasn’t as if he couldn’t see the old desire there. Now that he was looking for it. But she’d changed even as he had over that Year That Never Was and yet would haunt both of them till they died.
Because he could feel the difference. He was hurting, he was in pain, but he’d grown and he loved her.
“I have to stay and help them.”
“Course you do. You’re a Doctor.”
“Not yet,” she reminded him.
“Always have been,” he countered.
“Thank you.”
She looked down. He stepped closer and did something he didn’t think he could ever do when there wasn’t a life or death situation. He tilted her chin up and gave her a kiss. A gift.
“That,” he whispered, “was not a genetic transfer.”
“Don’t do this to me if you don’t mean it.”
She looked at him firmly, though he could see tears in the corners of her eyes.
“I mean it, Martha. More than I’ve ever meant anything. Because I’ve got to stop running from my past and embrace my future and you’re no replacement, you’re something far better.”
“I still have to stay,” she whispered.
“I know, but I just wanted you to know. You’ll move on and find someone, but just know that I’ll be out there, in the stars, lo-”
“Doctor, you’re an idiot.”
“What? After all that? A nice thank you. A lovely farewell. Well, that’s fine then.”
She finally smiled.
“If it helps, you can travel in time. Like so.”
And she took his tie off and held it in front of him.
“Oh.” He blinked. “Right then. Out, Miss Jones, out. I’ve got to go meet you. What time would you say?”
“Give me a year,” she asked.
“You’ll be walking the slow path, you know. I’ll get you right now. But you’ll have to wait.”
“I’ve been walking the slow path for a year already. And I know how to wait. I spent a lot of time with you thinking I was second best, but I am good.”
“The best.”
And the acknowledgement was a blessing. He kissed her again, more firmly this time and she walked out of the door to wait and he walked to the console. He’d waited long enough to grow up, nine hundred plus years and they were going to meet Jack Benny, then maybe the Cuagolo Sector, but now, right now, he was going to go get his Doctor.