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It’s the bubbling that gets to her.
The color burns into her eyes until it’s the only thing she can see, bright orange swirling into itself over and over again, crawling inside her iris. And the smell, the smell digs deep into her lungs into something so unrecognizable she’s sure she’s going to kneel over and wretch.
But thing is, all of that would be fine. Is fine
It phases her, sure, but Martha has dealt with so much more than smell and color in the ER. Hell, she saw worse patching up Trish’s nasty fall in her kitchen. And no matter what anyone else says, she’s an exceptional doctor (in training). It’s just a cut. She’s stitched people’s arms hundreds of times.
Except he’s not people, is he?
People’s blood doesn’t boil.
“It’s–” Martha begins.
“I get it,” the Doctor says, except he can’t, not really. The cut in his arm goes from his wrist all the way down to his elbow and the tiny bubbles forming at the edges of the wound merge to form bigger ones and he doesn’t seem the least bit fazed by it.
“Why is it doing that?” Martha asks. She’s going to puke.
“Do you remember when I told you about regeneration?” he asks, and Martha nods because she doesn’t know what else to do, “well, it’s not a magic trick. It’s a last resort and, sometimes, when a Time Lords nerves are so riled up they think they’re going to die, the body tries to regenerate. Think of it as a false alarm.”
“You think you’re going to die?”
“I’m offended you’d think so. I’ve dealt with a lot more in my lives than a mere cut, Martha Jones. Let me have a look.”
The Doctor turns his arm so the wound is facing him and does a funny face. “Oh, alright… I can see where the reaction is coming from. It really went in there, didn’t it?”
The it in question is in Martha’s hand, a thin piece of glass from the TARDIS console that dug its way into the Doctor’s skin while he was doing “repairs” or something close to that. Martha watched it happen. In the blink of a second, the Doctor tugged at the glass and his skin, paper thin, tore right through the middle of his arm. That’s when the boiling started.
She thought she was hallucinating at first. The Doctor’s skin is cold to the touch, he’d said something or other about “balancing temperatures” back on his home planet. She expected the rest of him to be about as cold as he is. But it’s…
The little drops of blood on the glass are bubbling, too. It's taken all of her willpower not to chuck it as far away from her as possible. Will it burn through her gloves? Will it dig into her skin until it’s gone?
“Martha,” says the Doctor, so gentle now, “I can stitch myself up. I know how to.”
“No, I can do it. I said I’d help you.”
“You look like you’re going to faint, I’ll be alright just let me–”
And, surprising herself, Martha yanks the Doctor’s arm towards her and holds it tightly between her shaking hands. “No, I can do it. Let me do it.”
It’s pride, or this need to prove herself to him, or it’s the burn in the back of her throat during med school that got too excited heading into the lab to look at a body. This is unlike anything she has ever seen and yes, alright, it’s this sick pit in her stomach that loves seeing the Doctor weak. It takes everything in her not to pinch the edges of his wound and see the blood dribble down his pale skin. Poke and prod until he’s begging for her help.
She is a doctor, after all. That’s what they do.
Take a patient.
Grab someone’s life in their hands and squeeze until they feel like God.
“You alright?” the Doctor asks, moving his arm away.
“Yeah, it’s just… I’ve never seen anything like this.” Martha says, eyes staying on the cut.
The Doctor squirms a little in his seat, “it’s not that different to yours.” The realization has cut deeper than the wound, this clear line between alien and human that he can’t seem to cross just yet. He takes hold of his tie and starts cleaning at the wound, rubbing neon all over his skin.
“Would I burn myself if I touched it?”
“Best not find out.” He snaps, turning around in his spiney chair to face away from her.
“I’m sorry, I don’t wanna make it weird. It’s just new. I’m getting used to it.”
“Used to what?”
“That you’re not… That you’re different.”
The Doctor frowns, flinching at the last word. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I should’ve sent you away while I dealt with it.”
“I’m not a child,” Martha argues.
“Martha.”
“It’s boiling, doesn’t it hurt? Teach me how to clean it. It looks–” gross, “wrong. Just let me–”
“Martha, you should leave.”
“I can fix it just tell me how it works and I can help you–”
“Martha.”
And… and–
Oh, it’s a rude thought but it comes quick, grabs every insult Martha has ever muttered under her breath when the Doctor played careless and cruel.
He looks like a dog.
A stray biting its wounds, baring teeth to make itself look the tiniest bit scary when it’s about to die. The Doctor’s chest is heaving rapidly, arm tucked away behind him as he raises his sonic. He’s raising his sonic at her.
Like she’s the dangerous one. Like she’s the one that stabbed him and not his stupid ship.
“I bet you don’t know how to do it properly,” Martha challenges, a little anger getting the best of her.
“You think?”
“You’re not even a real doctor.”
“Neither are you.”
“I’m not the one fussing over a cut because it looks alien.”
“Would you just stop it with that, I’m not that different from you! I’m capable!”
“Oh, because you’re just oh so great and you’re this grand Doctor and you can never be hurt, is that it?”
It happens too quick. His hand slams down on the console, where the rest of the broken shards lay, and he looks into Martha’s eyes like he’s going to bite her head off. His bleeding arm reaches up to hold her still and she hadn’t noticed she’d been shaking until now.
“Yes. You’re right.”
“… What?”
The Doctor frowns, deep and brooding and a thousand years old. His blood is running down his arm surprisingly quickly now, reaching its way towards her. “I’m better. I know things about the human body you can’t even conceive. Your brain would break if I tried to explain Gallifreyan biology to you and yet all you’re doing is… Is staring at me like I’m your science project.”
The blood drips down his thumb. It’s burning, Martha can feel the heat radiating from the golden drops.
“… Sorry,” Martha says.
Drip.
“I’m not your science project.”
“I know, I know, I’m sorry.”
Faster, now.
“Don’t you ever–”
It’s going down his index and he’s holding Martha and it’s going to touch her and–
“I said I’m sorry let go of me.”
Something in the Doctor’s eyes changes, like a switch snapping into place. The dog disappears and the Time Lord comes back, composure and charisma ready in the back of his throat. His nails ease away from his skin, his features go all soft, and he pulls Martha into a hug, holding her like she’s the only thing in the universe left to hold onto.
“Oh sorry, sorry I’m so sorry, I don’t talk like that, I never meant it, you’re brilliant Martha Jones you are brilliant I’m sorry it just hurts and–”
Martha doesn’t hear him. She just feels the wet burn of the Doctor’s arm dig into her back and coat her with his wrongness. It stings a little, like a sunburn or a rash or a minor little itch.
It would be fine.
Except she knows what that blood is doing. Boiling and bubbling on the surface of her skin, and–
The Doctor holds her as she screams.
It takes them both a while to recover after that. The Doctor, stubborn until his death, stitches himself up while Martha takes a shower and then another and another until she’s certain the blood isn’t on her anymore.
“Did it hurt?” Martha asks hours later, wrapping a towel around her hair as she stares at his badly stitched scar.
“Not even a little.”
Martha doesn’t mention the little orange bubbles seething from the edges of his wound, covering her nose.
The Doctor doesn’t ask why she hops into the shower again. Maybe it’s a human thing. Maybe he doesn’t want to know.