Work Text:
Martha felt sick the moment she saw the apartment building, though sick with anxiety or disgust, she wasn’t sure. It was a squat building of smooth white stone, not unlike the two sandwiched on either side of it. But the windows stared at her, asking why she bothered to come. Beats me, she thought and turned her gaze to her friend at her side. Jack Harkness stood staring up at the building, the perpetual London wind blowing his coat out behind him. Unlike Martha, he made no effort to hide the grimace on his face.
“You know what,” Martha said. “I’ve just realized how utterly I don’t want to do this.”
“Just?” Jack asked. “I’ve been ready to bail since we got in the car.”
He paused, turned to look at Martha, then continued. “We could lie. Say she wasn’t home. You could pawn this off on some lowly cadet.”
He winked. Martha rolled her eyes and gave him a shove.
“See, I got a smile out of you,” he said.
“You know we can’t.”
She made a move towards the front door, stopped, clenched her fists tight, and exclaimed, “god! How did we become Saxon’s cleanup crew?”
“If I recall, UNIT’s pitch was basically, ‘you’re the only ones who can remember what happened.’”
“But three years of this nonsense. All of it, it makes me nauseous. It makes me furious. It makes me-” Tears pricked at her eyes. She took a moment. Anxiety ran down her arms, her fingertips numb. She felt as air struggled to both come into her lungs and go out. Breathe, breathe. Somehow, knowing how to diagnose panic did nothing to calm it when it came for her.
“Every time we do this,” she said quietly, “I’m just reliving it. Over and over, all I can see is Siberia filled to bursting with rockets, and Toclafane flying over the ruins of New York, and then I’m running and I’m running as Japan is burning around me.”
She didn’t realize Jack was hugging her until she felt the rough wool of his coat push into her cheek. Her whole body shook now and her breath, uneven and shaky, was loud as traffic. She squeezed her eyes shut, and for a moment, her whole world was that hug.
“This is it,” she heard Jack say, his words quiet and soothing. “The last thing, and then we never have to think about the Master again.”
“Good luck.”
“I know, but it’s a nice thought.”
Martha sighed and tried to bring herself back to reality. She took every thought of the Master, every image of the world ravaged by metal spheres, and pictured folding them up, twisting and compressing them, until they were impossibly tiny and taut. Like this, they were unassuming enough to store in the back of her mind. It wouldn’t last, she knew. That evening, she’d go home and they’d spill out, bursting open like springs tight with all the hours she ignored them. Erased realities, kept alive only by her nightmares.
Knowing that would do nothing to stop her from picking every thought to bits. As if that would destroy them. But the truth was, she and Jack could clean up every last bit of Saxon damage, even go as far as to erase Harold Saxon from history, and the task would still feel half-done.
“Thank you for coming,” she said finally. “You didn’t have to.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No, you didn’t. And that’s why I’m even more grateful.”
Martha nudged out of his embrace and wiped her eyes dry.
“Look at me,” she said with an exasperated laugh, “I’m supposed to be a UNIT doctor.”
“I think you’re doing amazing.”
“Oh, shut up,” Martha said warmly. “C’mon, let’s get this over with.”
They expected resistance at the door, but when Martha buzzed flat nine, the front door unlocked immediately. She and Jack shared a quizzical look. As much as Martha wanted to see this as a sign of good things to come, she knew she didn’t share the Doctor’s propensity towards miracles.
They ascended the two flights of stairs in silence. The apartment was a repurposed mansion, with narrow wooden stairs polished to shining and covered in a tasteful, off-white runner. Early afternoon sunlight filtered in through the front windows. It felt nice, pleasant even. The sort of well to do that didn’t like showing off. Maybe it was the panic still working its way down her arms, but it gave Martha goosebumps.
Jack rapped twice on flat nine’s door before Martha could have further second thoughts. They heard shuffling from inside, and then all too soon, the door opened to a voice.
“You can start with the boxes in the kitchen, and when you’re finished, I’ll-”
Lucy Saxon started when she saw the two of them. Her hair was up in a messy bun, and dark bags sat beneath her eyes. Her whole face looked hollow. She went to close the door, but Jack was faster. He wedged his foot in the open space and asked, “got a minute?”
“Get out of my flat,” she said. The words, Martha was sure, were meant to be harsh, but Lucy faltered halfway through. Her expression cycled through anger and fear, one eclipsing the other with each new thought, a mix of wide eyes and a furious, set mouth.
“You’re going to want to speak with us,” Martha said.
“Like hell I will. Leave, or I’ll call the police.”
Martha pulled her UNIT badge out of her jacket pocket and held it up.
“See this?” she asked. “United Intelligence Taskforce. You call the police, I call the military.” When Lucy still said nothing, Martha continued with as much kindness as she could squeeze out of her voice. “Honestly, I don’t want to be here either. So the sooner you let us in, the sooner we can end this for all of us.”
Lucy hesitated, her eyes going from the badge to Martha and Jack’s faces.
“Are you sending me back to prison?” she asked quietly.
“No,” Martha said, trying her best, despite everything, to sound comforting. “We just need you to sign some papers.”
Lucy dropped her gaze to the floor and let out a shaky breath.
“Alright, let’s make this quick. I’m expecting movers.”
Martha and Jack walked into a bare living room piled high with cardboard boxes. Each was taped several times around, and labeled with crisp, even handwriting. Despite the sunny day, every window was closed. A single lit floor lamp gave the room a dull orange glow.
“Fleeing the country?” Jack joked.
“Is that relevant to your papers?” Lucy asked curtly.
“No.”
“Then none of your business.”
Lucy dragged a wooden chair into the center of the room, sat down, and crossed her arms. When she made no move to accommodate them, Jack walked to the other end of the room, grabbed two more chairs, and set them opposite from Lucy.
From her bag, Martha pulled out a plastic folder. She took a moment to steady herself. She’d practiced this speech in the shower that morning, and in the passenger seat of Jack’s car, muttering the jargon over and over until the words lost meaning. All the while, thinking, get it done, act professional, and finally, this Saxon nightmare will end.
“Starting from late 2006 into mid-2007, and additionally in the aborted timeline 2007-S, you conspired with the time lord known as the Master to conquer the Earth and wipe out humanity. You’ve broken several international and planet-wide laws related to Earth’s autonomy, the sum total of which are listed out on the first page of this document-”
“I thought I wasn’t going back to prison,” Lucy interjected.
“If you’ll let me finish,” Martha said. “UNIT, in recognition of your illegal imprisonment by the Disciples of Saxon, the potential of coercion by the Master and the Archangel Network, and your eventual decision to back Earth rebellion forces, is prepared to offer you amnesty as laid out in this agreement.”
She handed the folder to Lucy. Lucy stared at it, almost as if she believed it was a trap, then snatched it. She pressed the plastic between her fingers for a moment, then gingerly opened the folder. Martha watched her eyes scan across the pages.
“Are you here to make me sign this?” Lucy asked.
“You can sign or not,” Martha said. “I’m just here to get your answer.”
“But if I don’t, I’m subject to all of this?”
“That’s generally how amnesty works,” Jack said.
Lucy glared at him, then turned back to the document in front of her. She flipped through the pages, skimming the headings, getting a sense for its length.
"I do hereby swear not to conspire with any other hostile aliens," she paraphrased. "That won't be any trouble. One was plenty enough for me, thanks."
She ran her thumb down the length of the page. It paused a quarter of the way from the bottom. Lucy chewed her lip, then read, "'I agree to immediately surrender all artifacts once belonging to the Master, or related in any way to the Toclafane invasion of Earth.'"
For a moment, her face twisted up into something tight: pained and angry. Her eyes were so sharp, they could bore holes through the document in her hands. Then, she remembered herself, and it broke apart in an instant.
"You know what, fine," she muttered into the document. "Save me a trip to the bins."
Lucy stood up and walked across the room. From behind a stack of boxes, she dragged a large black garbage bag back towards them. It was a lumpy, unwieldy mass, too large for her to lift and too wide for her to wrap her arms around. Martha watched as the sleeves of Lucy’s sweater rode up her right arm, revealing a large pink burn. It ran the length of the exposed skin and down the back of her hand.
With a final shove, Lucy pushed the garbage bag beside Martha’s chair. They listened as it slumped down, contents rattling and falling into each other as the bag settled, and finally, lay still.
Lucy looked at Martha expectantly.
“Well,” she said, breathless. “That's everything.”
The bag bulged out in every direction, tilting towards Martha. She felt as if it stared her down, daring her. She knew she really should wait until they were back at HQ, but a glance towards Jack showed her that they were thinking the same thing. Slowly, she leaned forward and undid the knot Lucy tied at top of the bag.
There was no order to what was inside. Shirts and suit jackets were balled up and thrown in with sticky notes. Wires wrapped themselves around dress shoes. Several pairs of tweezers and pliers, sets of screwdrivers, and a collection of small metal plates struggled against the sides of the garbage bag. And oh, the scraps of paper were everywhere. Crumpled notebook paper balled up, folded, shoved into corners, sticking out of trouser pockets. It was covered in layers of scrawled handwriting, like when the Master reached the end of a page, he simply wrote the next thought right on top of the last. Martha couldn't make out a word.
"It's all crap," Jack said incredulously.
"What?" Lucy asked. "Were you expecting convenient little plans for you to study? That's not how he worked.”
Martha heard her sit back down, felt Lucy watch her and Jack as they looked through the bag. Jack pulled one of the metal plates out and turned it over in his hands. A mess of wires was soldered to one side, falling off the end in a tangle.
"Then why keep it?" Martha asked. "If it's rubbish, why bother saving it?"
"I'm giving it to you, aren't I?"
"Broadfell exploded months ago," Martha pressed. "If I were you, first thing I'd do when I got home was tip all of this out the window."
"It wasn't that easy," Lucy insisted. She clasped her hands, pulled at her fingers. "We both lived here for months in between the wedding and the election. His things were everywhere. Shirts at the bottom of the laundry hamper, scrap metal in the couch cushions. The notes alone, it was like every time I turned a corner, more of him was there."
"So what, you shove it in a bag in the back of your closet? Why save it?"
"If I'd done that, you wouldn't have anything to bring home to your bosses," Lucy said cooly. "So we both win, it seems."
Lucy dropped her gaze to her lap. She moved to fidgeting with a ring on her right hand, a small silver band twisting back and forth. Martha noted how it was the first time she'd backed off.
"You know," Martha started. "I keep a jacket in my closet, black, durable, decent shape. The last time I wore it, I was on the Valiant."
Lucy bristled and looked up, her gaze over Martha's shoulder towards the back wall.
"All I'm saying," Martha continued, "is I get if sometimes you need... this around to remind you it was real-"
"Of course it was real," Lucy said sharply. "This- he was my husband. This was my life ages before you showed up." She grew angrier, gaze still far away, her fingers laced tightly together. "Months of- of knowing-" she shook her head.
"I saw humanity die a hundred trillion years in the future, the last of it just- burning,” she continued, quieter this time. “And then I came home. And looked around. Everyone was just- making tea and doing laundry and building little governments thinking they'll last. We're still doing that, wandering towards the fire like children, and we don't even know. Harry was right. If we-"
She cut herself off, shook her head.
"It doesn't matter," she said, mainly to herself. She turned her attention back to the papers in her lap. "'I agree to make myself available to UNIT, expediently and upon request-'"
"Wait, hold on," Martha started. Despite herself, or perhaps, more like herself, she couldn't turn off her instinct to help. "It’s alright to talk about this."
"'-should UNIT require any further information about the Master as pertaining to the Saxon campaign or the aborted 2007-S timeline," Lucy continued, as if she didn't hear Martha speak, "the Toclafane, and any and all other species I encountered-'"
Martha gave a disbelieving laugh. It came out harsher than she meant it, but it felt fitting. For a moment, she'd honestly thought they were getting somewhere. But now it felt as if the Master, from the beyond the grave, was making Martha feel childish for even trying.
"Right, so this is it, then?” Martha’s words were jagged, cut off in frustrated splinters at the ends. “You'll just spend your life ignoring what you saw? Pretending it doesn’t affect you?”
"'-during my time with the Master; and any information related to the events laid out in this document. I agree to answer them honestly, completely, and to the best of my abilities.'"
"You can’t do that," Martha insisted, because it was true dammit. God, it had to be. This couldn’t be what was left for them: dividing up their memories until they found something normal in between. Just nightmares and breathing exercises and heaps of denial. “Believe me, I’ve tried. I wish it were possible to make the memories vanish."
"I hope your UNIT keeps good records on everybody," Lucy said. It sounded like she'd channeled all her remaining effort into keeping her voice businesslike, her face forced into a fractured composure. "Because if you want an interview, I'm not providing you with my new address."
"UNIT has programs for people like you, y'know,” Martha said, practically shouting. “Who've dealt with aliens and have no one to talk to. Even if no one else remembers-"
"I don't want your pity," Lucy shot back. "You delivered your document. I'm reading it. That's why you're here."
“I'm trying to give you a shot at life after the Master!” Martha insisted. "Why can't you see that? Why won't you just take it?"
Lucy started as her eyes skimmed further down the page. She narrowed her gaze and mouthed the words to herself as if she was checking if they tasted right. When she looked up, Martha saw her face transformed. She was still angry, but a different type. Self-satisfied and betrayed, like she knew this would happen. Martha ran over the provisions of the agreement in her mind, struggling to find what could’ve had such an effect on Lucy, but she didn’t have to wait long for the other woman’s outrage.
"This is why," she said. "'I agree that presently, if I’m in contact with the Master, to notify UNIT. If ever should the Master contact me in the future, I agree to immediately contact UNIT via the provided secure line. Should the situation arise, I agree to provide whatever information is within my power to assist UNIT in apprehending the Master.'"
When Martha made no move to interject, Lucy went, “you can’t be serious with this. This is a death sentence.”
“We have no reason to believe the Master’s even alive,” Jack started.
“Yes, and you’re welcome twice over!” Lucy exclaimed. “But if he ever comes back for me, if you think he'll give me the chance to excuse myself and call you-”
“Hold on!” Martha said. “We—UNIT—would protect you.”
“You’re all so confident you could manage that.”
“He lost!” Martha exclaimed. “That's the only good thing to come of all this! We beat him. We won! If he comes back, we’ll beat him again.”
“No,” Lucy insisted. “You won. You let your perfect little Doctor have a good cry over him, and then you all picked up and went home to your families. All the while, the Master's people took me away and threw me in prison. Two years of my life, rotting away in secret. Where were you then? Where was the Doctor then?”
Martha broke. It came out in waves of anger, ignited by hearing this woman, who stood by while her mother and sister and father suffered, speak about her family as if she knew them. Months of managing a trauma too impossible to discuss, absurd to explain, and all-consuming not to feel, ran out of her.
Martha knew how to calm a panic attack. She knew what brain fog and nightmares meant. She knew why she avoided parts of Downtown London, why she tried not to fly anymore, why she canceled plans in the evenings just to sit on the couch and let the telly play in the background. And when she had finally sat down in front of a UNIT therapist, someone finally said it to her outright. Martha knew all the right things she was supposed to say to her family. Which coping skills she should teach them, which professionals to refer them to. Why Tish sometimes called her in the middle of the night, even though she’d never say it aloud.
Martha could never explain the Year That Never Was to anyone who'd forgotten it. Even those who knew of alternate histories, lingering just out of common awareness, never felt the fear of living under the Master's rule. But the thing that really got to her was that, when she tried to talk to her family about what happened, the words just dissolved in her mouth. Because how do you cope after learning that monsters are real? Sometimes, Martha looked at how her mother stared into her coffee, and knew there was nothing she could do to pull her back across the timelines.
"You don't get to speak about my family," Martha said. "Not after you stood by while the Master tortured them. Their lives will never recover from what he did, and they didn't have the luxury of deciding, at the last second, to throw their lot in with the Doctor.”
“I see, did your Doctor use up all of his forgiveness on the Master?" Lucy pressed. Her cheeks were flushed with anger, poise abandoned. “I trusted him. I trusted you, and you all abandoned me. Will either of you remember me the next time? Or will the Doctor just mourn me after I’m dead?”
“The Doctor may have forgiven the Master for what he did, but I don't," Martha shouted. "And you, you owe my family so much for what you took away from them. So much, that I don’t want to hear about how slighted you feel. Jack and I—UNIT—we are giving you a second chance to build your life into something better than the slaughter of billions of people. Take it. Or don’t, but either way, we're done here.”
The air felt like glass around them, poised to shatter. Lucy stared at Martha, still breathless from shouting. Martha leaned forward to take the folder from Lucy. Lucy quickly pulled it out of her way.
"I never want to see you again," Lucy said, her voice barely a whisper. She stood up and walked over to one of the moving boxes. On top of it sat a pen. The room was so quiet, all three of them could hear it scratch against the paper as Lucy signed her name. She shut the folder purposefully, stared at it for a moment, then handed it back to Martha.
"Get out of my flat," she said.
Jack looked to Martha, then the two of them stood. Martha tucked the folder back into her bag, taking each action with care. She felt like, if she moved too quickly, the whole room would fall apart. She and Jack made it as far as the door before she turned back to look at Lucy. Lucy watched the both of them, unblinking. In that moment, Martha couldn't tell if Lucy was furious or frightened.
“You know,” Martha said, her hand lingering on the door jamb, “someone really ought to tell you that what happened to you was wrong.”
She paused to commit Lucy’s expression to memory. Its honesty, despite everything, made her feel the tiniest bit sorry.
“'Cos it was. I'm sure, in its own way, it was awful. But, that person can’t be me.”
***
Martha and Jack drove in silence for several minutes. Martha listened to the low hum of the tires on pavement, even and rhythmic like footsteps. She closed her eyes, head on the window, glass cool against her forehead.
"Is she right?" Martha finally asked. "Is that a death sentence?"
Jack jumped on the end of her question, frustration boiling over from their conversation with Lucy.
"First, most importantly, she has some nerve acting that entitled," he said. Martha heard him take in a breath, steady himself.
"But for what it's worth," he continued, noticeably calmer, "no. I think she's… very far gone if she thinks she'd stand a better chance against the Master alone, than with all of UNIT backing her."
He paused, his words hanging in the air like a knife above their heads.
"Assuming," Jack said pointedly, "the Master ever comes back."
It made Martha so angry that she needed him to say that.
"I want to hate her so badly," Martha said. "I should, with how she looked the other way while my family suffered. While the Master tortured you.”
She let out a sigh and opened her eyes. London blurred to colors around her, the details smudging past her as she unfocused her gaze.
“But I can't, not completely, and it's maddening. I hate her. I hate that I hate her. I hate that I even want to hate her."
Jack laughed. "That's the Doctor's influence, right there. Absolutely infuriating."
“Add it to the list.”
They drove on in silence. Martha tried to take in the feeling that this was over now, wasn't it? In a strange way, it made her uncomfortable. She and Jack were leaving behind three years of data redaction and video scrambling and secret negotiations that created a human out of Harold Saxon. He was for the historians now; let them argue what he could’ve been.
One day, Martha might wake up and the Year That Never Was would be less than a memory. So trivial, that it wasn’t important enough to bear reflecting on. It was a fantasy, she knew. All of this just made that fact plainer. But, at the very least, she felt like she could sleep for days.