(no subject)
Jack isn't sure why he hangs around in London after the funeral. He just has a feeling, one that leaves him approaching the freshly-dug grave again, long after the other mourners have departed. There's someone silhouetted against the grave next to Tish's, his shoulders hunched under his long coat. "Francine will kill you if she catches you here." He's not joking, either; they've never spoken about it, but she's made her feelings on the subject quite clear. She blames him for everything that's gone wrong in her life - Jack isn't entirely certain that she's wrong, either.
"You didn't tell me." He reaches out and grasps the top of the stone with one hand till his knuckles turn white.
"Oh, yeah, because you make it so easy to find you." Jack doesn't even know how or why he's here now, how he found this one point in time and space amongst all the others that slip through his fingers, all the lives he's touched like grains of sand. "It's not the sort of thing you can just email someone or tell them on Facebook." Not when he didn't even find out about it till well after the fact, himself. He still blames himself for not preventing the whole mess; maybe the Doctor had washed his hands clean of Martha, but that didn't mean he had to. He's still trying to atone for that mistake, and he's not sure he ever will, not entirely, and especially not now.
"You could've-"
"I could've what?" Jack cuts the Doctor off, his voice harsh. "There's nothing I could've done to find you, not when you don't want to be found again. I spent years learning that the hard way. You threw Martha away after she didn't meet your standards, so why should any of us have gone to the trouble of trying to contact you to tell you about her death?" He's only felt this level of disgust with the Doctor once before, when he first laid eyes upon what Martha had become after her imprisonment. UNIT hadn't done it because she'd shot the prime minister - they'd done it because of her association with him, because they'd wanted to know what she knew, and she'd refused to tell them anything at all.
"She volunteered to go to Africa after she got her degree, to go help sick kids." The official story rings false in his ears; he hates it almost as much as Martha and Francine do. "It was supposed to be safe - well, you know how things can change from one moment to the next where humans are involved. Rebels took over the field hospital where she was working, and she wouldn't leave her patients, not till the last." It's a story that casts her as a heroine - it's not surprising to anyone who knew Martha; what is surprising is that UNIT created the lie. They'd made her sign her own death warrant, giving her the choice between her own life and her family.
The Doctor's silent for a long while before offering up his own hollow words. "It's how she would have wanted to go, I guess."
Jack almost wants to punch him in the face for that. "She was twenty-four, Doctor. She had her whole life ahead of her. She didn't want to die at all. Everything she did - it was about living." Her imprisonment wasn't a real death, not by any means, but the Martha waiting back in Cardiff isn't the same one the Doctor knew before - not the same one any of them knew. She's learning how to live again, one day at a time; she's not necessarily happy with the life she has, he can see it in her eyes, but it's better than not having a life at all. She can't see her mother again, nor the rest of her family - Francine's the only one allowed to know she's still alive, period - and her family's falling to pieces, and there's nothing she can do about it. But Jack's taken her into his own little family, the one he's worked hard to put together over the years, and they're all struggling along together, a little broken, but still very much alive.
He could tell the Doctor that - he wonders for a moment if he should. But he doesn't think Martha would want him to. It's her choice, in the end; she's had enough choices taken from her that he's not going to rob her of another one. Besides, he can hear the unspoken rejoinder, that maybe the Master wanted to live, too, and that probably would make him punch the Doctor in the face. The Master could have regenerated, in the end; Martha couldn't. Neither could Tish, and she's as much a casualty of the Year as anybody who died under the Master's reign. More of one, now, since they were all undone.
Jack doesn't bring that up, either, and the Doctor doesn't bother to respond at all, probably out of guilt. They stand there for awhile in silence before Jack just walks away. Maybe he wouldn't tell the Doctor about Martha - but he's not going to tell Martha about the Doctor, either.
"You didn't tell me." He reaches out and grasps the top of the stone with one hand till his knuckles turn white.
"Oh, yeah, because you make it so easy to find you." Jack doesn't even know how or why he's here now, how he found this one point in time and space amongst all the others that slip through his fingers, all the lives he's touched like grains of sand. "It's not the sort of thing you can just email someone or tell them on Facebook." Not when he didn't even find out about it till well after the fact, himself. He still blames himself for not preventing the whole mess; maybe the Doctor had washed his hands clean of Martha, but that didn't mean he had to. He's still trying to atone for that mistake, and he's not sure he ever will, not entirely, and especially not now.
"You could've-"
"I could've what?" Jack cuts the Doctor off, his voice harsh. "There's nothing I could've done to find you, not when you don't want to be found again. I spent years learning that the hard way. You threw Martha away after she didn't meet your standards, so why should any of us have gone to the trouble of trying to contact you to tell you about her death?" He's only felt this level of disgust with the Doctor once before, when he first laid eyes upon what Martha had become after her imprisonment. UNIT hadn't done it because she'd shot the prime minister - they'd done it because of her association with him, because they'd wanted to know what she knew, and she'd refused to tell them anything at all.
"She volunteered to go to Africa after she got her degree, to go help sick kids." The official story rings false in his ears; he hates it almost as much as Martha and Francine do. "It was supposed to be safe - well, you know how things can change from one moment to the next where humans are involved. Rebels took over the field hospital where she was working, and she wouldn't leave her patients, not till the last." It's a story that casts her as a heroine - it's not surprising to anyone who knew Martha; what is surprising is that UNIT created the lie. They'd made her sign her own death warrant, giving her the choice between her own life and her family.
The Doctor's silent for a long while before offering up his own hollow words. "It's how she would have wanted to go, I guess."
Jack almost wants to punch him in the face for that. "She was twenty-four, Doctor. She had her whole life ahead of her. She didn't want to die at all. Everything she did - it was about living." Her imprisonment wasn't a real death, not by any means, but the Martha waiting back in Cardiff isn't the same one the Doctor knew before - not the same one any of them knew. She's learning how to live again, one day at a time; she's not necessarily happy with the life she has, he can see it in her eyes, but it's better than not having a life at all. She can't see her mother again, nor the rest of her family - Francine's the only one allowed to know she's still alive, period - and her family's falling to pieces, and there's nothing she can do about it. But Jack's taken her into his own little family, the one he's worked hard to put together over the years, and they're all struggling along together, a little broken, but still very much alive.
He could tell the Doctor that - he wonders for a moment if he should. But he doesn't think Martha would want him to. It's her choice, in the end; she's had enough choices taken from her that he's not going to rob her of another one. Besides, he can hear the unspoken rejoinder, that maybe the Master wanted to live, too, and that probably would make him punch the Doctor in the face. The Master could have regenerated, in the end; Martha couldn't. Neither could Tish, and she's as much a casualty of the Year as anybody who died under the Master's reign. More of one, now, since they were all undone.
Jack doesn't bring that up, either, and the Doctor doesn't bother to respond at all, probably out of guilt. They stand there for awhile in silence before Jack just walks away. Maybe he wouldn't tell the Doctor about Martha - but he's not going to tell Martha about the Doctor, either.