Anno Domini, a doctor who fanfic

Anno Domini

Disclaimer: If I owned Doctor Who, I would not be writing this. For more reasons than just the obvious.

Summary: Post-S3, AU. Martha thought no one would remember; she'd made her peace with that. But the world didn't work quite like she thought it would.

Notes: I hear this'll probably be contradicted in canon in the near future. It's nice not to care.

There are, to my knowledge, two other stories from this little world. If I ever manage to type them up, you will recognise them by their pretentious Latin names. ;)

Martha, when she left, had carefully adjusted to the situation she thought she was about to face. She would be alone; she would have to work at forgetting the Doctor; and no one else would ever remember that year that hadn't happened. She'd made her peace with that.

But the world didn't work quite like she thought it would.

It started-- no, that was a stupid way of thinking of it. It had started the moment the paradox failed. She noticed it in the street.

And what it was she noticed, she couldn't say. People's reactions were so disparate. Some grew kind; some grew desperate; some grew bitter as hell. But for those with eyes to see, it was there, hovering over their shoulders, in the corners of their eyes. Nothing they could see, but they could sense it there-- the year that hadn't happened.

She wondered if it were any better that way-- vague, nameless terrors in place of her all-too-concrete dreams.

Things the Doctor neglected to tell me, was the list she made.

At the top: Ain't nothing for free.

"It scares me, over there," nurse Crystal said bluntly, after the immigration officials questioned Martha for an hour. It had been rather unnerving, even though the two were polite to the point of respect, almost reverent.

"I mean, you were never one to wave the flag," Martha said, "but all your family's there-- you never liked that President, but I never thought you'd leave."

"My father thinks I'm crazy, but my mother understands." She swallowed. "That thing, with the President... It's stirred up everything in our country that makes me nervous and lit a fire in its heart. Patriotism. Fundamentalism. Conservatism. Jingoism. Interventionalism, Isolationism... Everything that vainglorious ass stood for. Magnified."

"...What do you think will happen?"

"Our President assassinated? On a... thing... your creepy-ass Prime Minister suggested? On a ship that doesn't exist with five theories of what actually happened, each less plausible than the last? I don't know. But I've got a feeling I'm not gonna want any part of it."

There were many disturbing things in that statement. But the first that stuck in her mind-- "You thought he was creepy?"

"Yeah. Didn't you?"

"Well, yeah, but only after I got to know his ideas. Before then, he just seemed... nice."

"That's what was creepy," Crystal said. "He was too nice. Everyone liked him. Maybe it was being a Democrat in the time of Clinton, but it was creepy as hell. Also, he was too damn happy. I don't like happy people. Not as politicians, anyway."

Things the Doctor neglected to tell me. How far the Master's influence reached. And what happened to anyone immune.

It could be simple psychology; like when you learned a new word and suddenly it was everywhere. There'd been dystopian science fiction before-- but this was practically omnipresent. Everywhere you turned, there was another bleak storyline of war and oppression and people cheerfully colluding in what they didn't realize was their own demise. And not just in sci-fi. There was a subplot on Eastenders, for god's sake. Like a shadow, behind everyone's mind.

Things the Doctor neglected to tell me: just because it didn't happen doesn't mean no one remembers it.

It took her a little while longer to realize that dystopias weren't the only thing rising out of the collective unconscious. The news story about the rise in church attendance passed her by. She did notice an odd upswing in the number of starry-eyed messiahs on the telly, but she'd chalked it up as either a natural companion of dystopias or a sign that whatshisname, that "agnostic" producer bloke, was being put in charge of far too many new programmes.

Somehow she'd forgotten her days as an apostle until she heard her name in a song.

There weren't many songs about Marthas. It wasn't regarded as a particularly romantic name. And yet, all of a sudden: three.

She got a lot more respect these days, she realized. Strangers opened doors; patients complied without a murmur; even repairmen were invariably civil.

Because there was no such thing as a reset button. There was no such thing as a get-out-of-jail-free card. She'd known she'd have to pay the price, she and Jack, for redeeming that year; but she hadn't known the ghost of that year would linger on.

It felt like heresy, but she needed to get past him, so she amended the title anyway: Things the Doctor neglected to tell me (or didn't know himself).

Things the Doctor never knew. More than she would've thought. He gave such an impression of infallibility. And yet.

"It's not just a nightmare," little Aisha insisted, through her tears. "It isn't."

"I know. I know." She stroked her hand through the child's hair, wondering, yet again, which was more comforting. Just a nightmare, which put the blame on yourself? Or something that had happened, had been real, could happen again?

Maybe it wasn't something you could write a general rule about. Maybe it was something everyone decided for themselves.

"Do you believe me?" Aisha said.

"Yes. I do."

"Did it really happen?"

"Once," she said, and that was true. "But we made it so it didn't." Also true. "And we made sure it will never happen again."

That, she was beginning to realize, was probably a lie.

Things the Doctor neglected to tell me (or didn't know himself): how to make victory last.

Over your shoulder, under your bed

Sewn to your shadow, all in your head

Nightmares of dying, all black and red

Nothing that's happened, nothing that's said

Covertly watching Crystal type, head carefully turned in a completely different direction from her screen, Martha wondered how much she remembered. If she could feel the heat and pain of the laser-bolt stitching through her heart. If she remembered where she'd been; if there was a sofa or a street she couldn't quite approach anymore. If they'd felt anything after they hit the ground.

But she couldn't ask.

There were nights her mother cried.

She didn't want to talk about that.

When the use of A.D. for dates began to fade out, replaced even in the most verbally conservative publications with C.E., she had a feeling it had to be commected to the Year. She just wasn't entirely sure how.

What had it stood for? Something in Latin. "Crystal," she said, because Crystal had taken Latin; Crystal always knew. "What's A.D. stand for, d'you know?"

"Like the years? Anno Domini. In the year of the Lord. Why?"

"Just curious," she said. Anno Domini. No wonder. "What's that you're reading?"

"O'Reilly. A conservative commentator, he's got a show in the States. A lot of my family always agrees with what he says."

"And you don't."

"Not often."

"Then why are you reading it?"

"Because he's starting to scare me."

"So it's true, then? They're getting all paranoid?"

"And England's saying what's your problem, our head of state's dead too, and they're saying yeah, but that useless sod started it in the first place, and by the way, what the hell was it that happened again? And I'm not sure they'd even believe the truth anymore, if someone happened to decide to tell them."

"What do you think'll happen, then?"

"I don't know... we got over Kennedy... but, all the other presidents we've had assassinated have been assassinated on our soil, by Americans, at least allegedly-- and now that no one can even claim that--"

"How big of a problem do you think this is?" Martha asked, slowly.

"I don't know. That's what I'm trying to find out. There's a gap between what they want to do and what they're willing to do-- there's got to be--"

"What do they want to do?"

"I-- how do I know what's mainstream? I don't know, I don't know."

If there were real trouble. He'd come back, wouldn't he? He'd come back.

She wasn't sure of that anymore.

It was three days later that she noticed the first poster. Carefully not like the Saxon posters-- all the words the same size, on colored printer paper. You had to look to see the message, but wasn't that how it should be?

Bring back Harriet Jones, the posters said.

Martha thought it was a good idea. After all, why was it she'd been sacked, anyway? She looked old? Ridiculous. She'd always liked her, and god knew she couldn't be any worse than Saxon.

Everyone else seemed to agree, and the opinion was so widespread that Martha began to wonder if this might not be connected with the Year as well. She'd been travelling so long, but she thought she remembered hearing the name-- she'd been focused on so many other things, she couldn't remember why. She'd been doing-- something, hadn't she? And, yes-- she'd been on one of his broadcasts, someone he'd killed.

Well, that settled it. Anyone the Master wanted to kill would make a brilliant Prime Minister.

And yes, she had to have done something during the Year, and something spectacular, because even the Americans seemed mollified when her name was brought up. It was the perfect solution for everyone, wasn't it? The only problem was persuading her to put her name in. They were working on her.

One day she saw someone putting up one of the posters; a tall man, in a long trenchcoat, wearing a suit vest over jeans. He smoothed the tape to the window, nodded sharply, and turned around.

There was something about his eyes, she thought, as they widened in what looked like recognition, that ought to be familiar-- but wasn't, quite. Something she'd seen... or almost seen...

"It's work, cleaning up after him, I swear," said the man quietly. Then the light changed and the crowd swelled and he was gone.

Had that been... who she thought he was?

And if it was... he did mean the Master-- right?

A few days later she walked through a curtain and there was Cecelia, sitting squarely in the middle of the thin white bed, looking thououghly miserable.

"She says it was an accident, with the scissors," said the woman who had to be her mother, looking worried. Which means she suspects something different.

Cecelia sticked out her arm, turning her face away; the cut was shallow, too shallow for stitches, but not across the wrist-- lengthwise, elbow to hand. Which means she hadn't known about the pain, the blood, how deep to cut, but she wanted to learn.

"Right," she said. "Could you step out a sec while I--?"

"I don't want to leave her."

"Please?"

She hesitated, and left, because she suspected. Everyone suspected.

"Too shallow for stiches," she said, "but I'll bandage you up. Listen-- I'm going to tell you something. I don't think you'll understand it, but you need to hear it. It's all right. It's all worked out. You did the right thing."

Cecelia's head snapped up, and she stared, and Martha could swear that her eyes were a darker shade of grey than they were before. "I've been writing about you," she said. "In my head. I don't put anything down on paper anymore."

"But we're here," Martha said. "You did the right thing. You helped me."

Cecelia didn't look any happier. "But that means it worked," she said. "That means... I lied to..."

"All those lives," said Martha. "The chance to turn back time. That wasn't worth it?"

"I... suppose it was. But that doesn't make the lying any easier. That doesn't mean I'm not terrified of what I might have created."

"We," Martha said, because it was true, and that was usually all that worked on the girl. "I started it. Don't deny me credit, you selfish wench. Whatever we created, we created it. An' I did most of the real work."

"Oi!"

Martha grinned. "I thought about it," she said. "You're right; he wasn't Jesus. But he saved us, and now-- we're all here. Your mum's here, the world's here-- if you hadn't helped me figure out the words, none of that might've happened. We might still be there-- an' however bad you remember it? It got worse. Started singin' Scissor Sisters to us." She shivered, half dramatically.

"What, someone told 'im he didn't seem queer enough? Had to confirm it?"

Martha grinned at that, but was distracted. "You remember it, don't you? You remember-- everything."

"I... sort of like a dream," she said, and turned her eyes toward the clock. "Like deja vu. More now than ever before, now you're talking about it-- but there's flashes-- things I know and can't put into words, that's how it was at first-- dreams, stories I tell myself that always wind up going the same direction-- No, I don't remember. But I know."

"I think everyone does," she said softly, staring toward the nurses' station, where Cynthia would be. "Not very well, but..."

"Turns out you can't erase things," said Cecelia. "Turns out there's no such thing as a reset button. Even when what's happened was so terrible-- I must say, it's nice to know that. Even when you'd rather forget-- it's nice, in a way, to know you can't."

Martha thought about that for a moment. Thought about her. Still not happy; far from it. But better.

"Don't do anything idiotic, all right?" she said.

"Well, I'll do my best, ma'am."

Things the Doctor neglected to tell me (or didn't know himself): He is not, in fact, Jesus. And even Jesus can be a pretty hard sell.

Alone on the balcony, Martha adjusted the Harriet Jones button on her lapel, and looked back up at the stars. She'd done a lot of that, back in the Year--wondering where in that sky they were, when they might come down. If help might come, or Armageddon.

She checked her watch again; 11:59. One minute until the first new date; one minute until the period of twice-lived time came to an end. It wouldn't stop the shadows, but it would help.

Another year. They kept flying by. Last year she'd become an apostle. This year, she'd become a doctor. Which was she more proud of?

Maybe, counterintuitively, the doctoring. After all, it had taught her about healing what the Doctor had not. It wasn't instantaneous. There was always the possibility of infection. Give it enough time, and if it wasn't fatal, it'd heal over. But there would be a scar. And that was probably how it should be.

And the job of a doctor was to help it heal faster. Well, she hoped she'd accomplished that. In some small way, at least.

"Oi, Doctor Jones?" Crystal called, and she couldn't stop the grin that spread across her face. "We need you!"

And yeah-- that was it. That was everything.