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The Doctor had asked her where she wanted to go next. Martha was worrying her lip, trying to come up with some place. Preferably some place safe. Despite all the excitement, she hadn’t forgotten what had happened in the park, a few days ago. She might not be a trained psychiatrist, but it seemed that the appearance of these Daleks had triggered some suicidal streak in the Doctor, and while she didn’t have enough information to determine the cause with certainty, she at least wanted to make sure that their next destination was calm and peaceful, so as not to aggravate the situation.
On the other hand, Martha was a curious person, and visiting the past had been very interesting. She could do without the threats to her life, though, for a while at least.
Combining those factors, she proposed: “How about some big intergalactic history museum? Something like that must exist somewhere, right?”
The Doctor grinned his manic grin at her, enthusiastically punching buttons and turning levers on the console.
“Oh yeah,” he answered, “I know just the place.”
The Tardis was already in flight. When it landed, only a few seconds later, the Doctor elaborated.
“Martha Jones, welcome to the year 34977, to the best and biggest History Museum this side of the Pegasus Galaxy.”
He shrugged on his coat, and didn’t stop talking.
“It has a large section dedicated entirely to Earth history. You humans really start to leave your mark in this galaxy only around the year 6000, but the exhibit goes back to the beginnings of Earth’s space travel.”
Martha listened to the Doctor’s rant on the wonders of the museum with only half an ear. Instead, she marvelled about the fact that the Doctor, for once, seemed to have parked in an actual parking spot, close to a magnificent, sprawling building that proclaimed in large letters to be the ‘Haxion Museum of Intergalactic History’.
Martha tuned back in to the Doctor’s enthusiastic speech when he told her: “And we’ll do it right and proper – I’ve even got the right currency this time.”
He waved some sort of stick under her nose.
“See? Credit stick – perfectly valid in this day and age, and for ages yet to come.”
He quickly stashed the stick back in his pocket. Martha just smiled at him and continued observing her surroundings. The parking lot they were crossing was mostly empty, but if the sun shining down on this planet was anything to go by, it was either early morning or late evening. Martha sincerely hoped the museum would be open at this time. It wouldn’t surprise her if it wasn’t.
Luckily, the museum opened at sunrise, and they had arrived precisely in time. They entered the large foyer, the Doctor immediately bouncing over to one of the aliens manning the ticket sales. Martha followed at a slightly more sedate pace, taking in all the intricate carvings worked into her surroundings. She decided she could ask the Doctor about them later, and took the last few steps to stand next to the Doctor, just picking up the last of his introduction. “… and this is Martha. We’d like to visit the museum today.”
The alien shot the Doctor an unreadable look, then glanced over at Martha, and shot her a small smile. It left Martha a bit puzzled, but looking at the Doctor she concluded he hadn’t even noticed. The alien (Martha would like to assume it was female, but then again, it was an alien) busied themself with printing their tickets.
Of course, just then, as Martha was thinking that maybe this trip would go all to plan, something strange happened. The alien handed the beautifully coloured tickets to Martha, but then refused to take the Doctor’s credit stick.
The Doctor did his best impression of a kicked puppy, muttering about how he was sure he had the right currency this time. He started rifling through his pockets in half a panic, until Martha put a hand on his arm. The alien was trying to point something out to them, though Martha wasn’t sure what they meant.
The Doctor looked up, and the alien pointed at the screen that showed all the ticket prices.
“You don’t have to pay for your tickets, sir. See here?”
They pointed more closely at the screen, their finger hovering near the announcement that all veterans and their chaperons could enter the museum free of charge.
Martha was quite sure that the Doctor hadn’t been this pale when they had first entered the building. She didn’t lose her grip on his arm.
“But...” he started, rather more feebly than usual.
Martha broke in: “I am not his chaperon.”
It came out perhaps a bit more forcefully than she’d intended, but she really didn’t need strange aliens making assumptions like that. The alien looked flustered, and the ring of feathers around their neck had fluffed up in embarrassment.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” the alien started to apologize, “I didn’t think, I should have asked first.”
A strange mix of emotions flitted across the alien face, but Martha thought she could pick out pity and apprehension. Not good signs.
“If this is the case, though, I am very sorry, Lord Doctor, but I cannot allow you to enter the museum. You could stay here or visit the café, while your companion explores the exhibits.”
The alien seemed to somehow grow smaller as they said this. The Doctor, on the other hand, seemed torn between running away and trying to make the alien see sense. The situation was tense, and Martha decided that she needed to intervene.
“Why’s that then?” she asked, crossing her arms in front of her.
The alien, if possible, looked even more flustered now.
“It’s the museum policy, miss. Veterans are allowed to enter for free, but only under the supervision of a caretaker. We’ve had a few bad experiences in the past. Some of the exhibits can trigger bad memories...” they trailed off.
Martha was still rather confused about the whole thing, but remembered that the Doctor had mentioned a war, back on New Earth. He hadn’t mentioned any role he might have played, though. Yes, his planet was gone, but wouldn’t the fact that he’d survived indicate that he hadn’t been anywhere near it when it was destroyed? Maybe that war had been bigger than she’d assumed.
Martha glanced back at the Doctor. He was still pale, eyes blown wide and hands trembling just slightly, and he didn’t seem all there; more bad signs, in Martha’s book. She decided she needed to clear this up and get the two of them into the museum, before he would run off. That way, he’d be able to continue ranting about everything and nothing, and things would be fine.
She turned back to the alien.
“Why did you assume he was a veteran, anyway?” she asked, pointing back at the Doctor.
The alien looked from Martha to the Doctor and back.
“It was no assumption, miss. The two of you arrived in the blue Tardis, we saw it on the security monitors. He introduced himself as ‘the Doctor’. We know our history here. Of course, he is the Lord Doctor.”
“Don’t call me that.”
The Doctor’s voice was soft, but neither Martha nor the alien mistook the words for a request.
“But… Sir, we know who you are, we know what you did, why shouldn’t we call you by your rightful title?” the alien sputtered.
Martha knew she was missing something big, here. It had to do with that war the Doctor had never really talked about. She was curious enough that she wanted to grab this opportunity to learn more with both hands, but there was doubt, too. Martha hadn’t missed how the alien’s apprehension had turned into something closer to fear, and she had to ask herself if she really wanted to know what exactly it was that the Doctor had done. The decision was taken out of her hands before she could even definitively grab it, however.
“If you know what I’ve done, then you also know that I don’t deserve any titles,” the Doctor said in a low tone, not really looking at either of them.
“I didn’t even deserve to survive,” he added, in a near whisper.
The alien looked at him like they might burst into tears at any moment, with pity and shock.
Before either Martha or the alien could get a word in edge-wise, the Doctor continued, not louder, but in a clearer tone of voice: “How can you lot know about it in the first place? The War – all of it – was written out of Time.”
Martha wasn’t sure what that meant, but at least she could be glad to see the alien’s fear turn back into apprehension.
“There were echoes, sir. After the War ended, in some places, debris was left behind. Some peoples would tell stories about things that never happened. You, yourself, have mentioned things to people in the past. Historians have been chasing these echoes for thousands of years, and here, we managed to bring most of it together, to create the most accurate account of the Last Great Time War there has been in history up to this point.”
When the Doctor remained silent, they elaborated further: “It was all fragments, small fragments, but when the historians had gathered enough of the fragments they managed to puzzle out what happened. Or at least, they figured out what it was, and how it ended. Even if we don’t quite understand what you did – we are not Time Lords after all – we know what the consequences were. And we’re grateful.”
Silence descended on the hall once more. Martha was tempted to inquire if the ‘you’ had been meant in the singular or plural sense. A look at the Doctor made her pause. It seemed like he might crumble into dust at any moment, from a single touch.
Even though Martha hadn’t gotten all that much new information, she had a feeling like she had just uncovered the Doctor’s greatest secret. The fact that that secret was apparently on display in a museum in the 34th millennium was a bit of a shock for both of them.
“Lord Doctor?” the alien asked, raising their voice slightly, trying to break through the Doctor’s stupor.
It worked.
“Don’t call me that,” he hissed.
He was angry now, and it did nothing to reassure his companion.
“What’s with that title, Doctor?” she asked in order to distract him.
For a moment, she didn’t think he’d answer. Then he turned to her with a slight smile on his face. The smile didn’t reach his eyes, and was on the edge of becoming a sneer, but it was an improvement nonetheless.
“Oh, you know, Time Lords. Pompous lot, really,” he said. “Always with the Lord Doctor, Lady Romanadvoratrelundar… And you’d think you could order them to stop once you become Lord President, but they actually only get worse about it...” he trailed off, once again looking at nothing at all.
The alien managed to snap him out of it again when they asked: “Would you rather we used one of your other titles, sir? Surely not the ones given to you by the...” They couldn’t finish their sentence.
“No, no, no. It’s the Doctor. Just the Doctor,” he interjected.
“Not ‘sir’ or anything either. Just Doctor,” he added as an afterthought.
The alien nodded, but its feathers had fluffed themselves again, in what Martha was starting to recognize as a sign of considerable stress.
By now, other people had started to gather in the large foyer, and Martha decided it was high time they got out. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to get the Doctor to visit the exhibit about the Time War, but at the very least she wanted to see the one about Earth history. She smiled at the alien behind the counter.
“I think it’s about time we stop holding up the line. Don’t worry; I’ll take care of him. Thank you for the tickets,” she said, as pleasantly as possible, before starting to steer the Doctor to the entrance of the museum proper.
The alien gave Martha a grateful and understanding nod. They then turned to the Doctor and said: “Thank you for your service, Doctor.”
It didn’t seem like the Doctor would respond, but then he gave the alien a barely perceptible nod. He quickly turned and moved away. Martha hurried to catch up, while trying not to pay attention to the hushed whispers of all the people they were leaving behind in the entrance hall.
By the time she caught up to him, the Doctor seemed to have forgotten the whole episode already, and he was rattling off some facts about the history of the museum itself. Martha decided that asking him right here, right now was a bad idea. But if at all possible, she would find a way to sneak off for a bit, and visit the one wing of the museum she was sure the Doctor would completely ignore the existence of.
Her chance came late in a very long day. Apparently, days on Haxion were 37 hours long, and the museum was open for 19 of them. Martha didn’t think even 19 hours would be enough to see everything in the museum, though, by far. Some exhibits were the size of a museum, themselves.
Still, they’d tried, and she’d seen a lot of fascinating things. Now, after a good eight hours, Martha was tired, and about ready to head back to the Tardis. There was just one last exhibit she wanted to see.
She would have to thank the owner of the museum, if she ever met them, for the thoughtfulness of putting a museum shop next to the museum’s library. The Doctor had been immediately engrossed, and babbling away at the librarian. Martha was sure that the combination of books and ‘a little shop’ would keep him busy for at least half an hour. She’d finagled the credit stick from him, claiming to want to go to the café for a drink. She felt bad about lying to him, but with a little luck, he’d never know.
Martha quickly made her way back through the crowds to the entrance of the exhibit entitled ‘The Last Great Time War’. She stepped through the doors, and entered a large round hall. The first thing Martha noticed was the relative silence in this part of the Museum. There weren’t any less people than in the other parts, possibly even more, but they talked only in barely audible whispers. Most of them also seemed to stay out of the centre of the room, where an intricate circular pattern was inlaid. It shimmered with a golden light of its own. It reminded Martha of things she’d seen on the Tardis console screen.
The room was relatively dark, several items around the room highlighted from above. Some additional lights indicated a corridor, branching off from the circular room. At a glance, it seemed a lot more old-fashioned than other parts of the museum had been. Martha looked at the different pieces of debris, one of which looked suspiciously like part of a Dalek. There was an old journal – perfectly preserved, of course – written by one Wilfred Mott. Despite the interesting account from sometime in Martha’s relative future, she didn’t linger longer than a few minutes. She quickly moved on to the hallway, knowing that she had better be back at the café before the Doctor came looking.
The corridor turned out to be better illuminated, though it was still subdued. A number of timelines wound their way over the walls, though there were no actual dates assigned to any of the events. The things that happened were only presented as relative to each other. Many things became clearer when Martha started reading the information plaques. Before, when the Doctor had said the Time Lords and the Daleks had fought over all creation, back on New Earth, she hadn’t really grasped the scale of it. Now, with the destruction of different parts of the universe laid out on the different time lines, it dawned on her that ‘all of creation’ was not an exaggeration at all. Martha was very selective in her reading, and therefore it wasn’t strange that she missed multiple mentions of the Doctor, and the small representations of a certain blue box in the illustrations.
One of the information plaques mentioned that it was hard to build any sort of timeline at all, since time was twisted in on itself all the time, during a Time War. Still, the lines kept going, entering another circular room. At the other end of it, two different tunnel-like corridors branched off. Several signs told Martha that in one, she would find all that was known about the Daleks. In the other, what was known about the Time Lords. And still, the lines that indicated time went unbroken into both corridors.
Martha chose the corridor about the Daleks. No matter how much she would like to learn about the Time Lords, the Daleks still existed, and if they ever ran into them again, Martha wanted to be prepared. And so, she read and learned. Gradually, she started to understand why the Doctor had had such an extreme emotional reaction to their presence.
At the end of the hallway, she found one last circular room, where the only other exit led back into the corridor about the Time Lords.
The last room was large, larger than the other two. At the centre of the room, the different time lines that she’d been following all came together in a single event.
Martha stood there, unmoving, for an eternity and no time at all, or so it seemed. She was surrounded by large, floor-to-ceiling bronze plaques. Inscribed in those bronze plaques were thousands of names. Martha stared without even really seeing them. It felt unreal, the room, but even more so, the event to which it was dedicated.
It was described on the centre plaque, the end of the war. Everything connected to the war had been written out of Time, locked behind the largest Time Lock ever forged. The engraved names were the names of all the known planets lost behind that Time Lock. The death toll was uncountable. And one man was responsible for all of it; had used the Moment to end the war singlehandedly.
Martha dragged her eyes away from the names of the planets, noticing only from the corner of her eye the prominent places that Gallifrey and Skaro had received in the list. Turning around, she found the holographic bust of a man, standing on a pedestal right between the entrances to the corridors. The man responsible. Of course, there was another plaque with more information. With a bit of effort, Martha managed to focus through the shock to read what it said. It identified the man as the Doctor, but it hardly said anything real about him. It described the names given to him by the Daleks and the Time Lords. Those names made a shiver run down her spine. Bringer of Darkness, Oncoming Storm, Renegade, Great Meddler… But the historians had added other ones, too, such as Champion of Time.
She refocused on the hologram, which showed her a man she didn’t know, with long curly hair. Before she could study the hologram more closely, it switched to a different man. This one had close cropped hair, and large ears. He had a solemn look about him. The hologram changed again, and this time, she recognized the face. Before she could recover from the shock of it, the hologram had changed once more.
It was too much. The Doctor was a mass murderer, had committed a multitude of genocides. Or a hero, had saved the universe. Or both. Martha didn’t know anymore. Could she travel with a man like that?
She made her way out of the exhibit as fast as she could, not paying attention to any of the information she still could have found in the Time Lord corridor.
Once out of the exhibit, she took a moment to regain some semblance of control before making her way back to the café. She hadn’t even managed to plan out a next move before the Doctor came walking into the café, obviously looking for her. When he spotted her, he immediately started detailing all the nice things they’d been selling in the little shop. Martha let him talk, as they slowly made their way back to the entrance hall. Martha caught a few people staring and whispering when they recognized the Doctor, but the Doctor was seemingly oblivious.
They were halfway down the parking lot, the Doctor going off on some tangent about some exhibit that reminded him of something completely unrelated, when Martha spotted a small child running up to them. Soon, the Doctor’s explanation was cut short.
“Doctor!” the child squealed, wrapping himself around the Doctor’s leg.
The Doctor recovered fast, and relatively gracefully.
“Hello there. Who are you, then?”
“You’re really the Doctor!” the little boy squealed again.
Martha couldn’t suppress a smile.
“Yes, I’m the Doctor. And what’s your name?” the Doctor inquired again, patiently.
“You’re my hero!” the boy exclaimed, even more enthusiastically than before.
The Doctor flushed slightly, but quickly suppressed the reaction. Martha caught it anyway.
Then he crouched down, to eye-level with the boy. He was about to say something again, when both the Doctor and Martha were surprised by a force of nature that came from behind. The boy’s mother had run up to them without notice, and had now grabbed her son away from the Doctor, holding him in her arms, and glaring fiercely.
“Look, Mom, it’s the Doctor!” the boy informed his mother.
Martha suspected she was already aware of that fact, and a whole lot less happy about it than the boy.
The mother interrupted her glare to admonish her son.
“Yes, and you stay away from him. It’s not safe.”
It took the Doctor a bit longer to recover than when the boy had first wrapped himself around the Doctor’s leg. In fact, it took a lot longer. When he heard the mother’s words, he visibly flinched. But he did recover.
“Don’t worry, ma’am. I wouldn’t hurt him, and he didn’t hurt me. No harm done,” he said, trying for a cheerful tone.
The Doctor soon realized that drawing the attention of the mother hadn’t been his best idea.
“Don’t you dare – don’t you dare pretend like you’re harmless, that you wouldn’t hurt a fly. I know better than that, Doctor,” she hissed.
Martha thought it might not end well; she wanted to butt in, but she needn’t have worried. The Doctor was as non-confrontational as she’d ever seen him. The child had fallen into a shocked silence. The woman huffed, turned around, and quickly made her way elsewhere. The little boy waved at them from his position on his mother’s shoulder. Martha and the Doctor were left behind in silence, and stood still like that for a few moments, while Martha was looking for words.
Then, they were surprised again, when an old man laid a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Doctor,” he said quietly.
The Doctor turned around to face the man just a little bit too quickly. Martha was starting to see a soldier’s reflexes in the Doctor’s actions, something she wouldn’t have considered possible even yesterday.
Uncharacteristically, the Doctor didn’t say anything. But he didn’t need to.
“That was my daughter. I’m sorry for her reaction,” the old man clarified.
“I’ve tried to tell her, to explain, that people sometimes need to do things they don’t want to, if they want to see an end to war. She doesn’t understand. And really, I hope she never will.”
A sad smile played along his lips as he looked to where his family had disappeared between the parked vehicles.
“Yeah,” was all the answer the Doctor managed to utter.
The old man visibly pulled himself together and threw a surprisingly knowing look at the Doctor.
“Don’t worry, then, Doctor. Whether you believe it or not, you did the right thing – wouldn’t have been here with my daughter and grandson if it weren’t for you. So, thank you.”
The grandfather gave the Doctor another sympathetic look and a pat on the arm before taking off in search of his family.
The Doctor was once again lost to Martha, seemingly having retreated inside his mind completely. Martha might have been well on her way towards becoming a medical professional, she was not an expert in matters of the mind, and was therefore a bit unsure as to what to do next. She finally did the only thing she realistically could do, which was guide the still rather unresponsive Doctor back towards the Tardis.
Apparently, it was the right course of action, because upon laying eyes on the Tardis, the Doctor seemed to come back to himself again. He turned to Martha.
“You went to the Time War exhibit, didn’t you?” he asked, in that way that told you he already knew the answer.
Martha hadn’t expected the question, and didn’t answer.
“You would have been asking a lot more questions if you hadn’t,” he reasoned.
By now, they had actually reached the Tardis, and stepped inside. The Doctor made his way to the console, without his usual manic energy.
“I suppose you’ll want me to take you home now,” he said, not really asking, but resigned.
That took Martha by surprise. She had thought about it – for a few seconds – after seeing the exhibit. After that, she really didn’t have time to contemplate it further. What she’d seen had awakened an instinct that told her to run every time she looked at the Doctor, but maybe that instinct could be tempered, like it had been for the child and the old man. She needed something more from him, something that would crystalize her feelings.
So, after a beat of silence, she simply asked him: “Why?”
The Doctor looked up at her, confused in more ways than one.
“Why what?” he asked.
“Why would I want you to take me home now?” Martha clarified, even though she actually meant: why did you destroy everything?
Her mind was still whirling, and she thought she had a good reason not to ask that question directly, anyway.
The Doctor’s eyes had widened again, shock and incomprehension warring on his face.
“You saw the exhibit. You know what I did. If you didn’t believe it, the reactions of those people must have driven it home,” he spluttered, at long last.
It seemed that the Doctor himself didn’t see his actions as heroic at all, might in fact be ashamed of them. The mother had had similar ideas. Multiple genocides, Martha reminded herself. Still, the alien at the counter had thought the Doctor’s actions had been necessary. The child had thought they were heroic, even. The grandfather who looked like he’d seen war himself had thought they were justified.
What did she think of it?
Multiple arguments ran around her head, all vying for prominence.
Martha shook her head, clearing it, and coming to a conclusion.
“I agree with the Grandfather,” she said, “I can hardly understand what you did, what really happened. But you saved the universe. How can that be a bad thing?”
Martha realized that was the wrong question as soon as it left her mouth. She saw equal parts rage and despair in the way the Doctor held himself, even though he wasn’t looking at her anymore.
“I used to be a grandfather,” he whispered, and Martha wasn’t sure she heard that right. Then, louder, looking at her: “I had a family. I killed them, all of them. I did that, it was my decision. No-one asked me to, but I did it anyway. How could that ever be a good thing?”
He cast his eyes back down to the console under his hands.
Martha didn’t know how to respond to that, but she wanted to. His gaze had left her speechless, yet she felt the need to tell him, that maybe he was right, but she was, too. He wouldn’t agree. Maybe they’d have a row. Maybe he’d drop her off back home just when she’d decided to stay, and never come back. The silence stretched. The Doctor didn’t move away from the console, despite the tension in his body. In the end, Martha decided that she should just say it, whatever the consequences.
“Maybe we’re both right,” Martha told him.
It was a near-whisper, but in the very silent Tardis, the sound carried unexpectedly loudly anyway.
The Doctor looked up slowly. He still seemed miserable, but looking at him, Martha almost felt that he pitied her. Then he looked away, sighed, and the moment was gone.
The smile he plastered onto his face didn’t reach his eyes, but the implication was clear: I don’t believe you, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.
Martha wondered, for just a moment, if she’d be able to help him, this alien that seemed so human sometimes, despite her lack of training and experience in this particular field.
Even as she wondered, he distracted her: “Right. Where to next, Martha Jones? Maybe the tidal forests of Dribit? Or…”
Martha cut across him.
“How about a bit of food, and possibly some sleep?” she suggested.
“Right, Humans…” the Doctor muttered, without any real bite.
Martha hadn’t meant those suggestions just for herself, so she dragged the Time Lord along to at least have a cup of tea.
As they made their way to the kitchen – second door on the left this time – she knew that everything was back to normal. As normal as things could be with a centuries old Time Lord, anyway.