(Untitled)

[who_never_would]

A familiar sound echoes through the nearby area - the sound of TARDIS, though a few new frequencies decorate the melody of her engines. The old, blue police box fades into view. As soon as it's entirely solidified, the door opens, and a young man steps out, closing the door behind him gently. He stands there for a few seconds, one hand on the wood

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[marthajonesmd]

Martha frowns for a moment as she eyes this...different Doctor, clad all in black - but she's wearing black, too, a long overcoat reminiscent of her Doctor's, and her eyes are different, too, the only visible evidence of all she's been through.

She tips her chin up as she looks at him, stubbornness evident in the set of her jaw. "I would," she says quietly, but not without conviction.

((ooc: Just throwing something out there to see where it goes. ^^;))

[who_never_would]

The Doctor meets Martha's eyes with his own, and approaches her with the tepid mix of an unpleasant smirk and bewilderment crossing his freckled face. Hands in his pockets, he stands in front of her, gazing down at her in silence for a few moments, because this is not the Martha he remembers either.

"Martha Jones. The little human girl who could. I have you to thank for still standing here." There's a distance in his eyes now, like he's staring through her. "Go on. How would you stop me? Think you could?"

[marthajonesmd]

Yeah, okay, so maybe she hadn't thought that bit all the way through. Still, Martha stands her ground, her back ramrod-straight, gazing coolly up at the Doctor. She still doesn't know what's going on, but she's not afraid.

"How would I stop you?" she echoes, the corners of her lips threatening to twitch upwards into a smile. "Any way necessary. You can't expect me to answer vague threats with concrete answers." There's an inaudible 'Doctor' tacked on to the end of that sentence, hanging there between them - but she's not sure if the title applies any longer, not with the man who's standing in front of her.

[who_never_would]

Oh, but the girl is smart, and that brings one of his more traditional, familiar smiles to his face, if only for a few seconds. He moves swiftly into her personal space, only six inches good breathing room in between them.

"Here's concrete scenario for you, Miss Jones. Or is it Mrs. Jones now? Let's play a game of pretend. You and me, just the two of us. Say I opened up the console of the TARDIS and stared into the heart of time. Rose was human, she couldn't possibly hope to control it, much less understand it. Brave, dear Rose, all she wanted was to keep the rest of us safe. I could. I could turn galaxies to dust, Martha, and him along with them. The universe could be better, and I could make it that way."

There is silence for a moment, and the Doctor stares at her, eyes glittering, almost trembling.

"Would you stop me?" he asks again.

It's almost a plea.

[marthajonesmd]

Martha's gaze is dark and unreadable, and she doesn't flinch as he moves closer. "Doctor Jones," she points out, and there's so many words unspoken there, in the deliberate use of that title, so many choices that she's made.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." It's a trite saying, but it's applicable, or so Martha feels. "Maybe you'd start out wanting to make things better, but it wouldn't work like that. Things never do. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Another cliched saying - another truth. "I'd stop you if I had to take the power from you myself, and be burnt to dust along with it." Though she's not certain if she'd be doing it to save the universe - or to save him.

[who_never_would]

"Doctor Jones, then," he corrects. He favors her with another amused smirk. "Doctor Jones, you're practically a mouse in front of a lion, and yet..." There is a moment of clarity in his eyes for a second, and the coldness drains out. "Still the same old Martha. Still frightened of being alone. Still bugger-all stubborn."

"I could though," he says, a touch more quietly. "I could end it all, all wars, everywhere, for good, Martha, can you imagine it? The silence? The beautiful blankness of an open cosmos, like a gigantic, black canvas just waiting to be painted on. Such peace. Such quiet there'd be."

[marthajonesmd]

She grins at him for just a moment, the grimness leaving her face. "I learnt from the best, didn't I?"

And then it's back, just as quickly as it'd left, though her eyes have remained the same throughout - so much older than she is, deep and dark and unfathomable. "Silence? I don't much like the sound of that, to be honest. The beauty of the universe is in the cacophony. All the noise from all the people - yeah, there'd be peace, but at what cost? Destroying everything? Making everything the same?" The thought of so much silence scares her. The world was deathly quiet under the Master. She doesn't want that to happen again.

[who_never_would]

"Best in the whole universe," he replies softly in turn, gazing at his former companion, though not quite meeting her eyes. In fact, he refuses to at this point, if she tries to meet his, he immediately looks somewhere else.

"It could be rebuilt though," replies the Doctor, fiddling with the black end of his tie. It's like a tic, like he doesn't know that he's doing it. "And all the things that make the universe so very wrong could be righted. All the injustice, all the dark would be shattered into brilliant dust. Martha," and he takes her by the shoulders, looking down at her, but not quite into her eyes. "Martha, I've stared into the black for sixty years, and seen all of the cosmos unfold before me at the moment of its existence, seen what beauty there is in that blackness. It was perfect. Absolutely perfect."

[marthajonesmd]

"You're mad," she tells him, smiling softly - almost fondly. "The universe is perfect in its imperfections. There's beauty in those flaws - like your freckles. There's beauty in the potential for people to right the wrongs themselves, to rise above the darkness without any help from you. Destruction is destruction, no matter how you phrase it, no matter what you promise." She doesn't make any move to break free from his grip. "And I won't let you do it."

[who_never_would]

"I am not," he replies indignantly, shoving his hands back into his pockets. A flash of his old self. "Martha Jones, I am a many lot of things, but I am not mad."

The Doctor smirks faintly.

"Well, guess we're at war then. Because I'm going to, because he can't get at the rest of it. If I have to tear down entire star systems and galaxies to end it, then so be it."

[marthajonesmd]

She frowns at him. She's never really stopped loving him, her Doctor, not after all these years and all these heartbreaks, and war is a harsh word to use. But she's sacrificed more than this before, and she'll do it again - give up whatever's necessary to save the world. "He," she repeats, plucking a word from what she thinks is madness. "Why don't you back up a bit, stop talking about destruction and tell me just what's going on here?" Maybe she can help, help turn things around, help save him from himself, help fix things - maybe she can be the old Martha.

[who_never_would]

"The Master." he hisses, that hiss breaking off into another sharp, bark of a laugh. "Oh what, did you think he was gone for good? Think that shooting him got rid of him for good? Oh, he's cleverer than that."

The Doctor turns away from Martha, turns his back to her and wanders a few steps away.

"No, no, I don't think so! You undo everything I'm going to do, just by talking about how I feel about things, how terribly sad and lonely I must have been for all those years. I don't think so."