Those Who Came Before - Chapter 3
Created | Updated Sep 6, 2007
Chapter Three
Martha wandered into the console room with two mugs of tea in her hand. 'Doctor!' she called.
'In here,' said a voice from somewhere underneath her.
'Again?' she replied.
'What do you mean, "again"?' said the Doctor as he poked his head out of a space in the floor.
'Well, it just seems that the more you repair it, the more it breaks down,' Martha said as she handed him his tea.
'Sometimes I wonder if she does it on purpose,' he remarked. Martha smirked. She'd bet on it.
'Anyway, if you need me I'll be in the Wardrobe Room,' she said. the Doctor raised his eyebrows.
'Again?' he said with a grin. She frowned.
'I've nearly finished. I didn't realise what a huge job it was going to be. Why do you need so many clothes, anyway?' she asked.
'Well, I've got to blend in,' he replied. Martha gave him a look that said 'Oh, yeah.' Everywhere they went he ended up wearing that brown suit.
'Right,' she said as she turned and headed out of the door.
She bounded into the room and started to hang up more jackets, trousers and shirts. As she was hanging up a black coat that looked like it belonged to an old-fashioned gentleman, the Tardis gave her a picture of an old man with white hair and a stern face.
'He can't have been a companion, surely,' said Martha. 'My Doctor,' she heard in her mind. Though she thought it couldn't be, as this was such an old man, she was told that this was the Doctor's first incarnation, before his first regeneration. The Doctor had told Martha about his 'get out of jail free' card, regenerating when he was at the point of death, changing himself at the molecular level. He would be the same man, but different, he had explained.
'Susan's grandfather, so to speak?' said Martha. The Tardis confirmed it. She picked up a velvet jacket and a frilly shirt with disdain. 'He didn't seriously wear this, did he?' she wondered. She was provided with a picture of another white-haired man. This one looked younger than the first one and had an air of authority about him. He was dressed in the jacket and shirt as well as a black cloak with red lining that made him look like the Phantom of the Opera. Tardis told her that this was his third 'face' and had spent most of his time on Earth as the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce's scientific advisor. Martha picked up another velvet coat. This one was longer, a frock coat, the type Victorian men used to wear.
'Another one?' she said. She was told this was his eighth face and the picture was of a man with darkish, floppy hair. 'Byronesque' was a word that came to mind, a favourite word of Julia's. His eyes were dark and full of pain, just like her Doctor's. 'Tortured soul' was an apt description of the man in her mind. She bent down and picked up a hanger containing a long black coat and a pair of grey trousers. The coat reminded her of the Penguin in the old episodes of Batman that Leo liked
'Which one wore this?' she asked. The Tardis provided her with a picture of a dark-haired, unkempt man with a mischievous smile who reminded her a little of a tramp — The Doctor's second 'face', she was told. Martha pulled a long beige coat and a pair of striped trousers from the pile and put them on a hanger.
'And this one?' she said. Tardis told her that belonged to the fifth incarnation of the Doctor, a young blonde-haired man who looked rather vulnerable in the picture she was given. Martha felt in the pocket and pulled out a very withered stick of celery. A jumper caught her eye and she picked it up. It was covered in question marks.
'I don't know whether I can see him in this or not,' she said. The Tardis showed her a picture of a man in a white jacket and the question-mark jumper with a straw hat on his head, carrying an umbrella with the handle in the shape of a question mark. 'He likes that symbol, doesn't he? Suits him though, so what number was this one?' she was told he was the seventh incarnation. A leather jacket caught her eye. She picked it up and put it on. It smelled like the Doctor; she could definitely see him wearing this.
'Which one wore this?' Tardis said he was the last one, number nine. An image of a tough-looking man with, big ears, very short hair and a hard look in his icy blue eyes appeared in her mind. 'A "bovver boy",' she said as she remembered a phrase of her Gran's. She slipped the jacket off and hung it up. She noticed a huge purple overcoat on the floor and struggled to pick it up. Stuffed into one of the pockets was a scarf, so she grabbed the end and started to pull it out... and carried on pulling. This scarf was never-ending. When it finally came out, she hung it around her neck. The ends pooled at her feet.
'Who needs a mile-long scarf?' The Tardis gave her a picture of a man with wild curly hair and a wide grin, a grin she'd recognise anywhere. She was told he was the fourth face of the Doctor's, Sarah-Jane's Doctor. She folded the scarf up and put it back in the pocket of the coat. Her fingers brushed against something sticky, a half-eaten bag of Jelly Babies. 'Ooh ooh, yuck, that's disgusting,' she said as she wiped her hands on her jeans. After a while Martha came to the final coat on the floor. She gingerly picked it up and sighed; it looked like an explosion in a paint factory.
'What was he thinking?' she murmured as she hung it up she noticed the badge of a black cat on the lapel. She unpinned it and put it in her pocket for luck. She saw a man with unruly blonde hair dressed in the multicoloured coat — all he needed was a red nose and big shoes, she thought.
'Number six, I take it.'
'Yes, all the faces of my Doctor,' came the reply.
'Thank you,' said Martha. 'It means a lot to me that you shared all this with me.'
'So this is what you've been doing?' said the Doctor.
'The Tardis has been showing me all the faces of the people who lived here,' Martha replied. The Doctor walked down the rail, stopping occasionally to run his hand over a particular garment.
'Yes, many, many faces over the years,' he said softly. 'Still, we won't need any of these for our next stop. We need to go to Cardiff for a couple of minutes.' He grabbed her hand and dragged her after him.
'Why Cardiff?' she asked.
'You'll see,' he replied.
