by Cour M.
“What?” Ten asked.
“Our age,” Eight answered for Martha, “she can see our age—and the weight we carry.”
“You knew that’s what I was thinking?”
“You told me that too.”
“I’m sorry,” Martha shrugged, “I don’t understand. What do you mean that I have told you things already? And what do you mean that we’ve already met?”
“Yes, what do you mean?” Ten echoed, “because I highly doubt that I would have forgotten this interaction.”
“What you remember and forget is not in my realm of knowing, now is it?” Eight jabbed back, sassy, “besides, it’s not your fault. This part of our history perhaps is hazy for the better.”
“Why? And try and not be so elliptical with your words, because I remember what I was like when I was you.”
“And it’s nice to know that my manners get worse with age and not better.”
“I grow on people,” Ten countered.
“I doubt that,” Eight jested.
“Oi, you two!” Martha demanded, “you both can have a good argument later, but I need to know. What am I missing here? And how do we know each other?”
“Because you were once my companion,” Eight explained.
⌛
Ten blinked and then did a double take.
“I’m sorry,” Ten refuted, “that’s physically impossible. Well, I am the best when it comes to making the term ‘physically impossible’ seem foolish, but still! This time I can give credence to that statement: yeah, physically impossible.”
Eight only smirked and Martha read his expression.
“Did I tell you that he would say that too?”
“Yes, you did,” Eight said, feeling in on the joke.
“But my Doctor is correct,” Martha replied, “that’s impossible. When I first met you, it was with him.”
“Precisely,” Ten confirmed, “and even if you did meet her, I would be able to remember it eventually, but nothing about this feels familiar.”
“I’d say give it time,” Eight commented, “but right now, time is not something we may have much of.”
Eight moved away from Martha and began to press some buttons.
“Once I pulled you all out of the Halls of Justice, I placed us safely within the Skull of Zetis. Far away from Mecrellas. That being said, you know me. Both figuratively and literally! So, you know that means we shall very soon go back. But for now, we have to go about this diplomatically.”
“Right,” Martha said, going up to Eight and leaning against the dashboard alongside him, “and while I admit that I still don’t understand how what you say could be true, I suppose it’s time that I put away my doubt. It won’t help now anyway.”
“That’s my Martha,” Eight complimented.
“But one thing is bugging me, though. How did you know to save us? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that you did. But how did you know where to find us?”
“Precisely,” Ten said, looking away from them, still as a statue. His eyes were sweeping over every inch of the TARDIS. He recalled how it looked when he had been Eight, and he was looking for something to be off. All it took was one thing and then it would be clear: this was not him during his Eighth incarnation. Indeed, this would be an imposter.
That being said, it was clear that this was another Timelord. Ten could sense it… and there was no denying that fact.
“Like I said,” Eight continued, “the life you saved was your own.”
“And what did you mean by that?” Martha asked.
“And what did I say?” Ten declared, “stop being elliptical.”
Martha gave Ten a look and Ten looked away, back at the TARDIS.
“He gets like that sometimes,” Martha whispered to Eight.
“Yes, I do,” Eight admitted. This made Martha flinch.
“Sorry, it’s going to be hard to look at you as the same person. I’m new to this.”
“No offense was taken. I know what I am. And what I perhaps shall always be.” Eight raised his voice so that Ten could hear him. “I knew where you were because I got the message on the paper.”
This forced Ten to turn back to him.
“The paper?” Ten echoed, “How?”
“What paper?” Martha asked for clarification.
“The psychic paper,” Ten answered for Eight.
“Precisely,” Eight confirmed. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his wallet, revealing the psychic paper. Martha and Ten leaned over it and read the message.
Doctor, save us both at coordinates 54.36.78
At precisely 9:30 in the morning in Draconis
That will be the day that I first meet you
-Martha Jones
Martha’s eyes widened in reading the message, and she felt Ten’s eyes on her.
“I sent this?” She asked Eight.
“Yes, you did.”
“I never even knew that the psychic paper could send messages. All this time, all that I thought it did was show our job titles however we need them to look.”
“You learned how,” Eight explained, “you said someone trained you how to do it. But you never told me who.”
Martha turned to Ten.
“Then you will eventually teach me?” Martha asked Ten.
“No, he won’t,” Eight countered, “you said it wasn’t me, but someone else.”[7]
“Someone else?” Martha echoed, “Seriously, I become that mysterious? By god, I must’ve been really annoying.”
Eight chuckled at this, while Ten looked completely unnerved.
“You seem upset, future me,” Eight noted, without looking at him.
“It’s because I am,” Ten remarked.
“I don’t understand,” Martha magnified, “he saved us, so why are you…”
“Because I don’t remember you!” Ten roared, then he turned to Eight. “When we were returning from the satellite wreckage, and were arrested by the Mecrellans, it was you they took me for.”
“Wait, what?”
“You don’t know why we were arrested? Did Martha not tell you that either?”
“Oi, that was rude,” Martha remarked.
“Sorry, but I have to be dubious about this all. My past self is here, before me, saving us because you sent him a message, just as we were about to be executed for something he did, and he doesn’t know that. And you say that she was your companion?”
“Yes, along with her…” Eight trailed off, looking to Martha’s hand. Of course! She wasn’t married yet, and it only confirmed more that he really was meeting her… in the wrong order.
“My what?” Martha asked.
“Nothing, never mind,” Eight reassured her, “It was just a friend of yours.”
“Do I know them already? Don’t worry, I won’t ask more than that.”
“No,” Eight smiled, “you don’t know him yet. But you will.”
Eight turned to Ten.
“And for your own sake, I can prove that she was my companion.”
“Then do so,” Ten urged, “because if it’s true, then I need to know why.”
“Why what?”
“Why I don’t remember her, and why she doesn’t remember me.”
“That can be answered very easily,” Eight announced, rushing past them, jumping down the steps and going into a lower landing. Martha pursued him, but Ten grabbed her arm.
“What?” Martha asked, “what’s wrong?”
“Stay behind me,” he ordered her.
“There’s nothing to be worried about,” she offered, “he’s you. You confirmed that.”
“Yes, but… I should have remembered you, when we first met in the hospital all those months ago.”
“I’m sure there’s some sort of explanation. Besides, he wants to show us something.”
Ten eyed her keenly.
“Martha, you feel comfortable around him, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do. He saved us, and he’s you! This is amazing to
me.”
Martha moved out of his embrace and rushed down the landing. Ten followed after her. They rushed down the steps, Eight went under the consul unit, and despite himself, Ten couldn’t help but smile at the layout of the TARDIS.
“By the blue of the TARDIS,” he gasped happily, “this is precisely how I always had it.”
“Nostalgia, huh?” Martha summed up.
“Yeah, it’s perfect!”
“Glad to see that you like it,” Eight said, looking through a chest that he had under a trapdoor under the steps. “But then again, of course you did. When you were me, you chose it.”
“I’ve got good taste,” Ten boasted.
“Correction, Ten,” Eight smirked, “for the moment, I have good taste.”
Eight continued to look through the chest and then he cried out.
“Eureka!”
“What is it?” Martha asked. “Because if you’re going to change, I like your coat already.”
Eight smirked.
“I know that you do,” he winked at her. Martha chuckled at this.
“Oi,” Ten interrupted, “No flirting. I will not have my past self flirt with my present companion. That’s just strangely backwards.”
“Well, if you’re not going to do it, mate,” Eight responded, but he was distracted as something caught his eye. He looked back into the chest. “Ah, here we are.”
He pulled out a red jacket.
Martha’s red jacket.
⌛
“My jacket!” Martha cried, “I can’t believe it.”
“Yes, here you go.”
Eight stood up and handed it to Martha. She laughed, took it, and then put it on merrily.
“It’s not the original,” Eight informed her, “you said that you lost your original one, so we went back in the past to the shop you got it from, the day after you purchased the first one, and we got another one.”
“Seriously?” Martha laughed, “I dragged you all through time and space, just to take me back to Murray’s Leather Jackets and Shoes?”
“Yes, you did! You dragged me all through time and space for Murray’s Leather Jackets and Shoes.”
“Unbelievable.” Martha zippered it up and it fit perfectly. “I love it.”
Martha rushed up to Eight and embraced him suddenly. Eight, content that she accepted him fully, picked her up and twirled her around.
“Martha Jones,” he declared, “back on my TARDIS again.”
“Yes, I am—for the first time for me, but for you, well, huh?”
Eight laughed at this.
“Oh,” Ten tapped his head, “now I got it. Let me see if I’ve got it.” He jumped up and removed his coat, looking around the consul unit, “Truly, I must see if I got this! I must give it a go, first, because I like figuring things out, you know.”
“Are you rambling?” Eight asked.
“Possibly, because I’m a rambler.”
Ten pulled up a seat, placed his feet on the consul unit, folded his arms over his chest, and leaned back, with his eyes on them both.
“Are you putting your feet on my consul unit?” Eight asked.
“It was my consul unit first, you know.”
“When you were me?”
“You know our TARDIS can take it.”
Eight moved away from Martha and took a few steps.
“Are you testing me?” Eight asked.
“Now why would I do that?”
“Because we are meeting each other, and whenever we meet our other selves, we can’t help but test the other. What are we about to do now? Find out who has the more impressive sonic screwdriver?”
“I’m pretty sure that it’s mine. No offense. But having many more years of experience does give me the edge.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that. If you have a good memory, which I highly doubt, you know the screwdriver enhancements began with me.”
“But they didn’t end with you.”
“I’ll take your indirect insult as a compliment.”
“Silence you both,” Martha interrupted, “while I can understand that this behavior is like two brothers meeting again for the first time, I think it’s getting in the way. For example, are either of you thinking of the impending issue? You know, how we just escaped being executed for something the Doctor doesn’t know that he did. Or what about the sleeping sagriens? Or about the fact that I still don’t know fully what you both meant a moment ago?”
“Great idea,” Eight said, then he turned to Ten, “you and me can do this protocol of Timelord tension later.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll set the coordinates for where we are next headed.”
“And I’ll explain it to Martha,” Ten assured him.
“Good, but stay close so that I can make sure that you are correct in everything that you tell her.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll remain on the other side of the consul unit.”
“Good.”
Ten took Martha’s hand and pulled her along.
“And thanks for saving my jacket,” Martha said to Eight.
“I knew I would never hear the end of it if I didn’t,” Eight replied, amused as he continued to fly the TARDIS through space.
⌛
“So, it’s very clear, you see?” Ten asked Martha as they leaned on the railing.
“No, it’s not clear, Doctor. In fact, it’s the opposite of what’s clear.”
“He said that you are meeting him for the first time, but he knows you from before.”
“Yes.”
“But when you first met me at your hospital, you never knew who I was.”
“Not at all. Are you saying that someone tampered with my memory?”
“No, I’m not saying that, but something else entirely.”
“Then what?”
“Oh, come on, Martha, try and figure it out! Truly, it’s not that hard.”
“Oh, well if you’re going to be like that, then maybe I ought to go to your younger self. He’s willing enough to be nice to me.”
“Don’t you dare. Come on, Martha, the worse thing to do is for me to let you go off and never figure things out on your own.”
“Oh, that’s your teaching strategy?”
“Yes, you didn’t notice?”
“No, it always came across in the wrong sort of way. And what could you mean when…” Martha trailed off as the revelation dawned on her. “Oh!”
“Yes,” Ten encouraged her, “go on.”
Martha thought about it for a second, and then she came up with the best conclusion that she could.
“He said that this was the first time that I met him. But he met me before. Therefore, when I met you, I had not met him yet. This is the first time that I meet him. Yet, the first time that he met me, is not now. Which means that he meets me in my future. So, he is my future, and I am his past.”
“Precisely, but it’s more than that. He talks as if he knew you for a long time.”
“Which I did!” Eight called from the other side of the consul unit. “Hence the referencing of the word ‘companion’.”
“Then it follows that we meet out of sequence,” Martha concluded.
“Precisely. Even when I went to see you in the past—well, my past, and your future… I never knew if I was going to be correct in our timelines. I never knew if this was the day that you knew me more, or less. What o’ what to do, when you meet your companion in the wrong order?”
“So, I am really at the beginning, and you are really at the end?”
“Perhaps. You only predicted that this would be the last time that we met, but nothing is certain, I see.”
“But it doesn’t stop the main question,” Ten interrupted.
“What?”
“Why can’t I remember her?” He asked Eight, “if you traveled with her, as you say, then why can’t I remember any of that? Even now, the memory is not coming to me.”
“I haven’t the slightest notion,” Eight admitted, “
yet this is not the first time that we’ve met our other selves, and each time, the future one did not know it was going to occur. You know how difficult time and space is, and more importantly, the effects it has on our minds—the mind of a Timelord, something that was once so intricately woven with the Matrix herself. Even the Eye of Harmony itself could have a hand in it.”
“The Eye of Harmony…” Ten whispered and then he cried out in happiness, “The Eye of Harmony!”
⌛
“Oh my god,” Martha realized, “we have an Eye of Harmony now.”
“Yes, we do.”
“But where is the broken consul unit?”
“What?” Eight asked.
“Martha will tell you later,” Ten cut in, “something tells me that you both have a lot of catching up to do.”
“We do,” Martha confirmed, “but we still have that problem of not knowing where your consul unit is.”
“So, another multi-crisis,” Ten summed up, “we must confront the problem on Mecrellas, find out what happened to the sagriens, and then also retrieve my consul unit. And you,” he pointed to Eight, “your timing was brilliant!”
“Finally, my descendant gives me a compliment,” Eight pointed out, “I thought it would never happen.”
“Don’t worry, I rarely give out compliments, because, well, I’m me.”
“That’s true,” Martha encouraged, “he really never does. So, he must really like you.”
“We’ll see,” Eight surmised, “whenever we meet our other selves, it can go either really well, or really badly.”
“We always play nice overall,” Ten retorted.
“Yes, but all it takes is one time, and one time only. And I don’t want to be the one to put a black mark on our record.”
“And where are we going now?” Martha inquired, looking at the monitor, “because these are not the coordinates to Mecrellas.”
“Why would we go back to the place we almost got executed at today, Martha?” Ten scoffed, “Don’t be stupid. We’re going to go back to Mecrellas tomorrow.”
“Oh, silly me. Well then, where are we going now?”
“Oh, come on, Martha,” Eight added, “can’t you tell? With a situation like this, where else can we go? Use your head.”
“Are you both the sort to move a mile a minute in your brains and then get mad when we humans can’t keep up?”
