Chapter Text
Doctor Carson settled into his chair with a small grunt.
‘How have you been, Martha?’
I was already staring into empty space.
‘Hm? Yeah. Well.’
‘How is August?’ His head was cocked, expectant.
‘He’s good.’ I said.
‘And Mickey?’
‘We’re talking. There’s no bad blood.’
‘Tish? Your mother? Isn’t her wedding quite soon?’
‘Very soon indeed.’
Tish was lucky to have found love. It’s difficult to do so, after a year of round-the-clock suffering. The room went quiet except for the slight squeaking of Dr. Carson’s chair. He wasn’t even moving, but it was rickety. Much like my body. I could already feel the knot in my upper shoulder tightening as I sank into the curled armchair.
‘Do you want to go right to discussing… him?’ Carson said. I nodded.
Yes. Him.
‘What do you want to call him today? You said he goes by many faces.’
‘Let’s go with… Walter. I’ve been watching a lot of Breaking Bad.’ I said.
Carson chuckled. It seemed forced, wanting to make me smile, but I could feel myself not smiling. His smile swiftly faded.
‘Walter it is then.’ He said.
Walter. He lived in my head rent free, his sharp features softening as he was taken in thought both alien and near-extinct. I hung my head and began examining my hands. When I met him they were smooth and delicate. I wanted to wrap my arms around his torso and cling to him. As I stared at them now, thinking what to say, I noticed their wrinkles. My poorly cut nails, the skin beginning to wear thin as the bones made themselves more prominent even though I am not yet in middle age.
‘He… he changed my life,’ I splayed out my right hand, staring at the joints moving. ‘...he made me see things in a way that nobody can really understand?’
‘How did he… make you see things differently?’ Carson was smiling again. It was warm, and it shone alongside his prematurely graying hair. ‘Try to make me understand, as if you are Walter and I am you.’
It was a joke, but I could only shake my head in something like disbelief or confusion.
‘In every way. I barely understand it.’
‘Can you be more specific?’ Carson let out another chuckle. ‘Did he…?’ He shook his head, unable to think of anything of this world that could be so profound.
I rubbed my nose with my thumb and index finger. ‘Walter’ was a key to a door in the universe itself. Through that door I had confidently marched, thinking I was ready for anything; until I was walking into the day before. Shakespeare’s time. The Edwardian Era. The face of an eternal friend. The end of the 2050s. Then the literal end. The universe in its final form. ‘Heat Death’ he had said it was.
When everything in the universe that had ever existed had finally converted all its energy into heat, and even entropy ceased to exist. For eons there had been nothing. It was so absolute, he said, that it was impossible to even guess the year. It had been like this for so long, that time itself may as well not exist. This is what he showed me after I told him I was worried about my medical exams. Not to mention the near-destruction of humanity which only I, he, and others like him remembered.
‘He was very wise,’ I said, voice failing. ‘And…’
Carson blinked with intention and leaned forward. He was so earnest and eager to hear my thoughts, and I wondered how he would react if I was to tell him the whole truth. Call the police? A psychiatrist? Child protective services?
‘...and, well Walter isn’t really his name.’
‘I know, we’ve agreed that you didn’t want to use…’
‘...no no,’ I held out a hand and shook my head. ‘I’m going to tell you his name.’
‘Oh cool, okay. We’re making a breakthrough.’ Carson smiled. I smiled back. It felt good to really smile.
‘Though, he didn’t really have… he doesn’t have a conventional name. He went by ‘The Doctor’.’
Carson frowned and leaned back in his chair. He seemed to be at the precipice of grasping the magnitude of the strangeness I was beginning to unload upon him. He was searching for something, anything, that was mundane. Little did he know that this was only the beginning of the fever dream.
‘Doctor Jones… and he’s ‘The Doctor?’ Doctor Who?’ His face then changed and he performed a realization. ‘What’s he a Doctor of? Same as you?’
I raised a hand to my lips and looked down at the floor. I hoped I wouldn’t regret this.
‘No, I met him when I was still a student. And no, he’s not a medical doctor.’
Carson’s shoulders sagged and the ambiguous frown returned to his face.
‘I… and not just me, but most other people who knew him called him ‘Doctor’,’ I was going slow. ‘And Mickey, my ex-husband, also knew him. He actually knew him before I did.’
‘Ah,’ Carson said, not moving. ‘I see. So he had a central role in both Mister Smith’s and your lives before he…’ Carson stuck his bottom lip out and shrugged. ‘...went his own way?’
‘Mickey hung out with him a little, yes,’ I said. The truth was coming out, in a deluge. ‘Not much though. His ex—other ex, not me—hung out with him a lot. And then she stopped, then I sort of replaced her, and then I moved on, and then I met Mickey…’
My voice trailed off. Carson had tilted his head to the side, his index and middle finger pressed directly into his temple. He was no longer looking at me, but his eyes were fixed at some indeterminable point in space.
‘Hm,’ He said. ‘He’s certainly had an indelible impact on all of your lives. Walter—or ‘Doctor’—if that’s easier. Are you still in touch with Mister Smith’s previous partner?’
‘No,’ I snapped. ‘Never knew her.’
‘...Okay,’ Carson was slowly nodding his head, not looking at me. ‘That’s fine.’
He took in a big breath.
‘I just… I feel like I have no clue who this ‘Doctor’ person is. I can’t exactly help you make sense of him if I don’t know anything about him.’
I didn’t answer.
Carson pushed up his glasses, raised his eyebrows and then blinked a few times. Wow, this woman is mad, he seemed to be thinking. Is it madness to think one can solve a paradox by loving it? Am I mad for clinging to that part of me that still believes that I could have?
Carson shifted his weight again, as if he were trying a new position to ask a question from. He was trying to get through to me, to help me, and as much as I wanted his help I could not escape the fact that his help would be inadequate.
‘Miss Jones…’
‘Please,’ I nod, my eyes closed. ‘Call me Martha.’
‘Martha… you’ve been coming to see me for about a month now, and you…’ He looked over his clipboard and flipped through the pages, not lingering nearly long enough to read anything. ‘...and Mickey went to marriage counseling a few years ago. We started these sessions talking about your son August, about Mickey, about your mother, sister, brother, father, your career, and yet, it seems that most of our conversations lead back to this ‘Doctor’ character. He’s a central figure, and yet, as I just said, I really know nothing about him. I can’t explain to you someone you know better than I.’
Carson threw his hands up, imitating a person giving up. He looked at me, his eyes low and brow furrowed. I looked away, unable to say anything.
‘Martha,’ Carson leaned forward. ‘You know this well. What you get out of therapy is proportional to what you put into it. You must share everything, even if it's uncomfortable—in fact—especially if it is uncomfortable. Those are the feelings that we keep locked away in our chests, which makes them the most important to share.’
Anything. Give him anything Martha.
I opened my mouth, paused, then closed it. My shoulders were rolled forward; I felt like a boulder was pressing me into a ball. I held my chin in my palm, staring at the carpeted floor.
‘You know how you suggested a few weeks back, that I try hanging out with August when he’s playing his games on his computer?’
Carson nodded. He was leaning backward. Giving me space. I thought I liked Carson. That gesture all but confirmed that I did.
‘Well… I went in there with some dinner, and he had his headphones on while he was talking with his friends,’ I straightened my back and crossed my arms. ‘And he got all annoyed, but I was able to convince him to let me watch him play. And I annoyed him again when I saw him die in the game and I went: ‘Oh! You died!’’
Carson nodded and I sucked in a deep breath. My nostrils were crusty and dry.
‘And… after scolding me he restarted the level and kept playing. Now… I don’t play games of course. I never have, but there was something about that. How nonchalant, even apathetic August was toward it. The character in the game doesn’t remember their own death, they’re not even in control of their own actions, but August is. I kind of was, as an observer. We observed this person’s death, and he just restarted. That previous attempt was just that, a previous attempt. It… it no longer exists as what happened because August and I didn’t want it to happen that way.’
Carson’s eyes were wider than at the start of the session. They looked like marbles, magnified under the spectacular thickness of his spectacles. Several beads of sweat were now running down his forehead, getting caught in the ever defining wrinkles of his emerging worry. I was in far too deep now.
‘Imagine Carson,’ I closed my eyes and within the void I saw the Doctor’s eyes, warm but an eternal vortex unto themselves. I saw every modern metropolis city burning to the ground along with all their residents. I saw the end of time, I saw…
‘...Imagine that you were that video game character but you remembered all those past attempts. That you could see your life and other people’s lives that way. In such a detached way. That was how the Doctor made me see the universe. That’s how I think he sees everything. That’s…’ My voice hitched and my breath faltered. ‘...I think that’s how he saw me. Saw everyone.’
I pressed my lips together, and within my chest I felt a great pressure beginning to build. Carson looked down at his watch, and looked out the window, then back at me. The midday sun was shooting through the shades, cutting the room into light and dark strips. That was my mind, permanently scattered amongst the what-is and what-ifs. The haves and have-nots.
‘That’s…’ He paused. ‘That’s a lot.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And…’ Carson swallowed. He seemed to think that he wasn’t going to get a proper answer, but he nevertheless asked. ‘...what were these things he said? What did he first show you…’ He stammered and went quiet.
I thought back before I met the Doctor. Those first 23 years were my true infancy. When I was 12 I went on a skiing camp and I went off by myself on one hike. I remembered the feeling of looking around the snowy mountain. There wasn’t a ‘ringing’ silence. It was true silence. Stillness.
‘When I was with him he made time feel irrelevant,’ I said. ‘He wrapped it, or maybe you around his finger. Except he didn’t even know that he was doing it. At least I think so.’
Another blanket of silence descended on the room. I resisted the urge to pull my legs up onto the bed and hug my knees to my chest. I didn’t need to look more mad than I already sounded. So I sat there, feeling as though I was totally exposed. I expected him to speak, but he didn’t. So I did.
‘Everything we did it was like he had seen it before. It was like he was… seeing through me.’
‘Seeing through you?’ He didn’t even bother to clarify his question.
‘It was all just stuff to him. To say he was a well-seasoned traveler is an understatement. His wonderment and curiosity about everything had dried up long ago. He needed someone else, who hadn’t seen everything to see what he had seen. When me and you look at a beautiful view for example, we see the world. Not just every piece in a system that can be deconstructed, rebuilt, and turned inside out, but a whole picture.’
‘Right,’ Carson began fiddling with the pages on his clipboard. ‘How… How long has it been? Since you last saw the Doctor I mean.’
I bit my lip and struggled to meet his gaze.
‘20 years.’
‘20 years…’ Carson repeated. ‘Well I… it’s certainly a, uh… unique case Martha. He sounds like an extraordinary man. To make you feel the way you do. In fact I must admit, I can’t fully comprehend how or what he would have to have done to have done so.’
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t say anymore for what else was there to say? Thoughts of him swirled about my mind like a whirlpool. There was too much to say, too much I still felt.
‘Martha, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but did you… have feelings for him?’
I paused.
‘Yes.’
‘And… what happened there?’ He raised a hand and bowed his head. ‘You don’t have to say if you don’t want to, but this is a safe space. Everything’s confidential.’
‘He didn’t feel the same way.’
‘I see.’
Carson’s watch beeped. He looked down at it, then back to me. His eyes were strangely apologetic. I took that as my cue and began gathering myself. Straightening my shirt, slipping on my handbag as I stood up. Carson did not.
‘Martha, just before you go.’
I stopped short of walking to the door. Carson gestured to the armchair, beckoning me to sit.
‘Sit, please.’
‘Don’t you have…?
‘They can wait, we started a little late anyway. Sit.’
I sat.
‘Martha, I want you to do something for me. Call it an exercise if you will. Close your eyes. I want you to describe to me your best memory of when you knew the Doctor. None of this baggage, none of these unresolved feelings. Tell me about the best of your time with him. To the best of your ability.’
My best memory of him...
‘Well…’ I began.
I’ve tried to speak to Tish about her time on the Valiant but she ignored me and went about getting married. I sure hoped she could make it work when Mickey and I could not.
‘Martha?’
‘Sorry… sorry Carson.’
‘Whenever you’re ready,’ Carson leaned closer, voice low and reassuring. ‘Tell me, only if you want to.’
I exhale a shaking croak of air, for even my innards were trembling. I took up another gulp of air and I cast my mind back nearly 20 years, to memories I remembered with more clarity than my breakfast that morning. I had to tell him the truth, but change the details. I remembered it all too clearly.
We had been hiding from vampiric aliens in 1913 at the Farringham School for Boys, me as a maid and he as a human professor, teaching the boys how to fight in war. He fell for a nurse called Joan at that school. A nurse who was most definitely a product of the time. In order to defeat the aliens in the shape of humans, John Smith had to transform back into the Doctor. I had to help him do it, and I wound up having to confess my feelings to his human self, right in front of Joan. Once the aliens were destroyed he was back to his old self, I waited for him by his time machine. He came strolling over the rolling green hillocks in the sputtering rain. I was unsure of what he was thinking about. All that potential as a human living a human life, gone.
I stopped speaking to gather my thoughts and looked up. Carson’s face was nodding, but blank. Was he buying it? That ‘Walter’ had been a professor at this school back in 2006? Would Farringham have even been open then? Carson’s eyes softened, and his mouth was tight-lipped. He was letting me talk. I continued telling him about this school, careful not to let slip the year.
‘A part of me yearned for him to address what I had told him, at that party drunk. Did he remember it? If he did, what did he think?’ I said, slowly.
I kept recalling the memory, shifting the details of the memory. I was glued to the spot in front of his blue car—whatever I was saying it was—arms crossed. More protection for my heart. His face was settled in his usual, tight-lipped frown that indicated deep contemplation. My chest swelled as he got closer. He was so peculiar! And wonderful! Awkward because he was so confident.
As he got closer, he called out.
‘Alright then!’ His hands were in his pockets. ‘Molto bene!’
‘Molto bene,’ Carson said, his face genuinely curious. ‘Was he Italian?’
‘Uh,’ I stammered, my brain short-circuiting. ‘He’d spent time there. I was his assistant, you know, secretary for the school and I kind of handled some things that he didn’t understand.’
‘Ah.’ Carson nodded for me to go on. I looked away for a second. My mind was filtering through all possible scenarios and none felt right.
‘How was she?’ I had asked.
‘Time we moved on.’ He said. His voice was flat, almost disciplinary.
‘If you want, I could go and…’ I gestured towards the schoolhouse. Where Joan was grieving a potential life.
‘Time we moved on.’ His eyes widened and his brow darkened.
I put my arms at my sides. I didn’t know what I should do with them if I couldn’t reach for him.
‘I meant to say,’ I began, not sure where I was going to end it. ‘Back there, last night… I-I would’ve said anything to get you to change!’
I grinned as I spoke and he scrunched up his face in rigorous agreement.
‘Oh yeah, of course you would, yeah!’
‘I mean, I wasn’t really…’
‘No! No, no!’ His voice went all husky.
‘Good.’ I nodded, tight-lipped.
‘Fine.’ He said.
‘So there we are then.’ I put my hands in the back pockets of my jeans and nodded into looking at the ever wetter ground.
‘There we are then, yes.’ He too was looking to the ground.
Doctor Carson patted my hands, looking for something to say. He sighed.
‘I hate to say it Miss Jones, but… is there any way you can contact him?
I frowned and withdrew my hands from his. He stayed close, hands loosely closed.
‘What do you mean?’ I said, chest tight. ‘Isn’t that why I started coming here? To be told how to fix myself?’
‘I am a sounding board,’ Carson leaned back in his chair. ‘I can help those who lack self-awareness. You have more than most have ever expressed in their lifetime.’
‘What have I figured out then?’ Suddenly annoyed. Recommended to me by the hospital Carson was, and it was as useless a recommendation as I’d expected. I bit my lip.
‘I want you to run an experiment for me,’ Carson stood up and made his way toward the door. ‘If you saw him again, what would you say to him? Write a letter. Put all of your venom into that and reflect on whether you’d really send it.’
I got up and looked away from him as I brushed past him.
‘Same time next week Martha?’
I waved my hand above my head as I butted shoulders with his next patient; a young man scrolling through TikTok. A glared, side on, at his glassy eyes. What I wouldn’t give to be a TikTok addict. The Doctor and everything he brings is the death of oneself and itself. Mickey and myself couldn’t make it work for August because we both had stumbled upon an event in the shape of a man. An event where your sense of self goes to die.
I went out into the frigid air, taking up the keys to my old Toyota. It's a police box blue. I throw open the door, collapse into the low drivers seat, set the heater to blast and let down my hair. I put on Lianne la Havas, close my eyes as her lyrics about gravity and love fill the car. I shift my chin into my fur coat to warm my nose and the best memory I didn’t tell Carson bursts to the forefront of my thoughts.
After Joan, after my confession, I fell asleep on the TARDIS and later woke up. The control room was quiet, but the TARDIS doors were open. I crept over to them and peered outside. I saw him, a tiny speck on an asteroid rock ridge, staring into the exposed core of a dying star. The whole thing looked like a painting; the end of the world, so beautiful. I pulled the door open more fully, to see him raise a hand to his face. His shoulders were shaking. I exhaled slowly and his head turned. I hid behind the door. Maybe he saw me, maybe he didn’t. He, nor I, mentioned it.