Chapter Text
“We’ve got air,” Martha murmured incredulously. “How does that work?”
The Doctor shook his head. “Just be glad that it does.” He strode forward to lean against the low wall and look out across the moon to the Earth. Rose would be worried sick by now, and, he thought guiltily, would have no one to call, no one to turn to for help or comfort. He made a mental note to look up Jack as soon as he was back in the TARDIS. A man with his unique bio signature wouldn’t be at all difficult for his ship to find.
“I’ve got a party tonight,” Martha said, and the Doctor realized that she had come to stand by his side. “My brother’s twenty-first,” she continued. “Oh, my mother’s gonna be…” She trailed off, and for a moment the Doctor thought she might break, and he’d have to find someone else to be calm and rational and helpful. Then she pulled it in and schooled her features back into relative calm.
“You okay?” the Doctor asked carefully.
“Yeah,” she replied, her voice a little shaky.
“Sure?”
“Yeah,” she repeated, firmer this time.
“D’you wanna go back in?” the Doctor asked, belatedly realizing that standing on the moon without the benefit of a space suit or oxygen tank was probably incredibly disconcerting for her.
“No way,” she said instantly, and the Doctor’s respect for her went up a notch. “’Cos, I mean, we could die, any minute, but all the same…” She smiled at him and looked back toward the Earth, shining blue and green and white in the black sky. “It’s beautiful.”
The Doctor grinned. Rose would say the same, he knew. Come to think of it, he’d been meaning to let her see the Earth from the moon for some time. He added that to his mental list of things to do.
“What do you think happened?”
The Doctor glanced at Martha. “What do you think?”
Martha didn’t hesitate. “Extraterrestrial,” she said with a firm nod. “Got to be. I dunno,” she continued, “a few years ago that would’ve sounded mad, but these days…” She shook her head. “That spaceship flying into Big Ben. Christmas. And those Cybermen things, that battle in the sky.” She frowned. “I had a cousin, Adeola. She worked at Canary Wharf. Never came home.”
The Doctor watched Martha steadily, remembered vaguely a girl who had looked very much like her who had been one of the first victims. He thought of Rose, how close he’d come to losing her and how she had lost her family, and suppressed a shudder.
“I’m sorry,” he managed, and Martha shrugged.
“Yeah.”
“I was there,” the Doctor said, unable to stop himself. “In the battle, my friend and I, and her family. She misses them every day,” he added, regretfully. He looked back out at the Earth and shook his head. “Speaking of which, oh, am I in trouble.” He brightened a little as a thought occurred to him. “You wouldn’t happen to have your mobile on you?”
Martha rummaged in her pockets and pulled out her phone. “Doubt it’ll do you much good on the moon, but here.”
“Thanks,” he said, taking the phone and pulling out his sonic screwdriver. He opened the back of the phone and aimed the sonic.
“Oi!” Martha exclaimed. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” he assured her glibly. “Little bit of jiggery-pokery. Don’t worry, I’ll put it back to rights when I’m done.” It wouldn’t do to have a superphone in the hands of someone who didn’t live with a Time Lord. A few seconds later, he finished his adjustments and replaced the back of the phone, then dialed a number.
Back on Earth, Rose had pulled herself together and given up her wordless staring at the hole where the hospital had been. She was skirting around the edges of the line of barriers the police had scrambled to set up, looking for a way to get closer. Without the Doctor or any of his gadgets, she wasn’t sure how checking out the hole would help, but it was something besides running back to the TARDIS and weeping, and that was better all around. Oh, she thought, the Doctor was in so much trouble. As soon as he got back, of course.
She was about to give up and walk back to the TARDIS after all — she might not know how to fly the ship on her own, but she’d been learning all sorts of things lately and figured she could manage a scan for the Doctor’s bio signature — when her mobile rang. She snatched it out of her pocket. The Doctor was now the only person in the whole of the universe who had her number, so she opened the phone without bothering to look at the display .
“‘I just want that bio-damper,’ you said, ‘you’ll only be gone for ten minutes, nothing will happen,’ you said. Well something bloody well happened!” She took a deep breath, her fear for the Doctor’s safety manifesting itself in anger.
“Hello, Rose!” the Doctor replied brightly. Martha raised her eyebrows. She’d heard the tone of the woman’s voice on the other end of the line, if not the actual words, and it didn’t sound like the Doctor had responded appropriately.
“Don’t you ‘hello, Rose!’ me!” Rose said sternly into her phone, pacing further away from a nearby policeman. “I don’t suppose you know where the hospital’s gone?”
“Oh, no, I do!” The Doctor glanced at Martha, then back to the Earth. He stared steadily at the small speck of land that was Great Britain and a sheepish look crept over his face. “We’re on the moon.”
Rose bit back a sigh. “The moon,” she said calmly.
“Yep! But don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll have everything sorted before too long.”
Martha couldn’t hear anything of the woman’s response, and wondered just how this Doctor expected to sort everything out. They were on the moon, for goodness’ sake.
“Yes, well,” he was saying into the phone. “If you could go back to the TARDIS and run some scans for me… yes, exactly. You can call me back at this number…” He paused, and then an indignant look crossed over his face. “I did not steal it! I borrowed it with every intention of returning it!”
Martha grinned at the affronted tone in his voice.
“I will so,” he insisted, and Martha noticed the glimmer of a smile in his eyes. “So back to the TARDIS with you, then,” he continued. “You remember what I showed you last week?” He nodded, smiling widely now. “That’s my girl. No, I don’t think it’ll come to that. You haven’t got your license yet.” He laughed. “I don’t need one. Just run the scans and call me back. I’ve got investigating of my own to do.” He paused, listening, and then something shifted, softened in his eyes. “Quite right, too. See you later.” He ended the call and slipped the phone into one of the inside pockets of his suit jacket.
“So who does one call when one is inexplicably transported to the moon?” Martha asked bemusedly.
The Doctor scratched the back of his head. “Oh, um, that was my friend.”
“Your friend,” Martha repeated doubtfully.
“Yes, my friend.” Again the soft look stole across his features. “Rose. We travel together and she…” he trailed off when he saw the speculative look Martha was giving him. “She’s my Rose,” he finished quietly, feeling silly. For a man with a gob like his, it was a little embarrassing to be so often at a loss for words when he spoke about Rose.
Martha shook her head a little. This Doctor was certainly turning out to be quite a strange man. A strange man who was now squatting down on the floor of the balcony, muttering to himself.
“Ah-ha!” he exclaimed suddenly, getting back to his feet. There was a small stone in his hand. “Might as well get started investigating.” He tossed the stone over the wall of the balcony. A few feet out from the edge, the stone’s progress slowed momentarily and, with a small popping noise, it passed through an invisible membrane of some kind, which rippled briefly around the stone and then disappeared.
“Force field,” the Doctor said confidently, “keeping the air in.”
Martha nodded, but then a worrisome thought struck her. “But, Doctor… if it’s like a bubble, sealing us in… sealing the air in… this is all the air we’ve got, yeah? What happens when it runs out?”
All traces of smile were gone from the Doctor’s face now. “How many people in this hospital?”
“Dunno,” Martha said. “A thousand, maybe?”
“Then what happens, Martha Jones, is a thousand people suffocating.” He glanced inside the hospital, then back at Martha’s face.
“Why would anyone — any thing — do something like that?”
A loud thrumming drew their attention to the skies above them. “I think you’ll be able to ask them yourself in a minute,” the Doctor said ominously. He gestured above them as three massive military-looking spaceships flew over their heads, landing a half-mile or so away from the entrance to the hospital.
The Doctor and Martha leaned against the stone wall and watched as the ships opened and lines of indistinct figures began to stream out in formation. Martha gaped in awe. “That’s aliens,” she said wonderingly. “Real, proper aliens.”
“Judoon,” the Doctor said darkly. He patted the pocket with Martha’s mobile in it and willed Rose to call back.