Like Any Old Day | Doctor Who (Martha) | G
Title: Like Any Old Day
Author: Doyle
Rating: G
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Martha Jones, Tish Jones
Recipient: nam_jai
Prompt: "The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball -- the further I am rolled the more I gain."
Spoilers: Last of the Time Lords, Journey’s End
Summary: On this day in history, Martha Jones saved the world with words.
Author's Notes: I know there’s debate about the dating of the series but I’m going with Wiki and assuming The Sound of Drums took place in November 2008.
On this day in history:
1872: The Marie Celeste sets sail from New York, later to be found abandoned by all hands.
1917: Insurrection in Petrograd begins the Russian revolution.
2000: Hillary Rodham Clinton, mother of Archbishop Chelsea Victoria Clinton, is elected to the United States Senate.
2008: UK Prime Minister Harold Saxon assassinates US President Herbert Winters on live television and, minutes later, is in turn assassinated by his own wife.
2035: First transmission from China’s manned Mars mission shows unusual…
She’d only been half-reading the display - something for her eyes and brain to do while she drank the day’s first coffee and waited for the call to morning session - but now Martha motioned the scrolling text to stop. It froze in the air, the 2008 entry almost vanishing off the top of the screen.
On this day.
It’d be almost midnight in London, should she…?
She was reaching for the voice sensor on her desk when it pinged, and an efficient voice said, “Madam Ambassador, I have your sister on the line.” Martha blinked. Her aide was very good, there was no denying it, but UNIT staff screening would have flagged up any psychic abilities. “It’s the third time she’s called this morning,” he added, just the tiniest shade of reproach in his voice that suggested some people weren’t lazy diplomats who thought they could get away with swanning in at nearly eight in the morning and still call it a day’s work.
“Thanks, Cole - patch her through? I was just thinking about you,” she told Tish as half her office dissolved into her sister’s living room, her conference table vanishing behind a perfectly solid-looking image of Tish curled on the sofa. With that rug pulled around her shoulders and a pair of glasses - those were new - perched on her nose, she was the living image of their Nana Oshodi, Mum’s mum. Still, even half a world away, Martha wasn’t about to risk her life by pointing this out.
“How’s my little sister?”
Martha moved around to the chair in front of her desk. “Busy,” she said automatically, her stock answer, and she caught herself and frowned. “But I should have remembered. About today.”
“Tomorrow,” Tish said, then glanced at something out of range of the projection field: “no, you’re right, today. It’s midnight.”
Somewhere in Tish’s house, the clock that had belonged to their mother was striking the hour. They were quiet until the twelfth chime had died away. Martha could hear the rain hitting her sister’s windows; disorientating, being able to see and hear a winter night in London when she could turn around and see the morning summer sunshine.
“Fifty years today,” she said.
Half a century, and there were things as clear and bright in her mind as if they’d happened hours ago. Seeing her family, after a year when she hadn’t let herself believe they might still be alive. Sitting on that flight of stairs, telling a story for the thousandth time and knowing that, one way or the other, these people would be the last on Earth to know about the Doctor. Tom dying to save her - not her Tom, but Tom as he might have been, in some other life, and it struck her that she’d known Tom for fifty years, too. Once she would have called that a lifetime.
“Everybody’s coming. Usually there are at least some who can’t make it but this year… because it’s the big five-oh, I suppose. It’s important to people.” Tish had picked up an old-style clipboard from her coffee table and as she spoke she leafed through the pages with studied-looking casualness. Martha had to smile. I love you, she thought, but you’d be the world’s worst negotiator.
“Tish, I can’t.”
Tish glared. “Just so you know,” she said, “if I didn’t have the grandkids asleep upstairs I’d be shouting the roof off at you.”
“I know.”
“Martha, you have to come.”
“This peace conference, it’s so important…”
“It’s always important. Every single year.”
That wasn’t quite true. She’d gone to the anniversary once. The year after Dad had died, when she hadn’t been able to refuse their mum anything, she’d let herself be dragged along to meet the survivors of the Valiant. Soldiers and secretaries and mechanics and journalists, the people caught in the eye of the storm, the people who remembered when the whole world forgot. She didn’t know anyone, felt overwhelmed by the private jokes and the people she’d never met coming up to tell her how much they’d liked her dad, spent most of the day with Jack. By then he already looked younger than anyone else.
“I can’t,” she said again. “It’s not right. I wasn’t there, I didn’t go through all of that with you.”
Tish’s eyes were sad. “But those people from the Valiant, they’re alive today, fifty years later, because of you. Because you saved us all, and nobody else even knows. Martha, you saved the world.”
“I know,” she said, unconsciously flexing her fingers as the cool weight of the Osterhagen key ghosted a memory across her skin. “I remember waking up the next day and thinking, even if I never do another thing with my life, at least I’ve done this.” She’d learned a lot that year, about terror and people and how just talking could change the world. Later, when she’d seen enough to understand that the world was ending in quiet, ordinary ways all the time, she’d remembered that. “Only it doesn’t work like that, really. I think… once you’ve saved the world it’s your job to keep it saved.”
It was at least another few centuries before her sister nodded. “Ring me if you change your mind,” she said. “Jack can get you a flight. We’re not meeting till nine, our time, and you’d be here in an hour. Love you, sis.”
“Love you,” Martha echoed, as the room faded back into her empty office.
Her coffee was stone cold. Cole looked scandalised when she appeared in the outer office to get a fresh cup.
“Madam Ambassador, I can do that for you!”
Sometimes she got the impression he believed that people who just talked for a living couldn’t be trusted to do anything else. She waved him away. “Cole, if I had to leave tonight - go back to London, just for a couple of hours - could that be managed?”
He frowned at the thought of someone interfering with his schedule, but gamely said, “I think that could be arranged. I can’t imagine today’s sessions running much over time, they’re mostly routine.”
“That’s what I thought.” Martha Jones smiled at him, perplexed and keen and unbelievably young. “It’s just another day.”
Author: Doyle
Rating: G
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Martha Jones, Tish Jones
Recipient: nam_jai
Prompt: "The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball -- the further I am rolled the more I gain."
Spoilers: Last of the Time Lords, Journey’s End
Summary: On this day in history, Martha Jones saved the world with words.
Author's Notes: I know there’s debate about the dating of the series but I’m going with Wiki and assuming The Sound of Drums took place in November 2008.
On this day in history:
1872: The Marie Celeste sets sail from New York, later to be found abandoned by all hands.
1917: Insurrection in Petrograd begins the Russian revolution.
2000: Hillary Rodham Clinton, mother of Archbishop Chelsea Victoria Clinton, is elected to the United States Senate.
2008: UK Prime Minister Harold Saxon assassinates US President Herbert Winters on live television and, minutes later, is in turn assassinated by his own wife.
2035: First transmission from China’s manned Mars mission shows unusual…
She’d only been half-reading the display - something for her eyes and brain to do while she drank the day’s first coffee and waited for the call to morning session - but now Martha motioned the scrolling text to stop. It froze in the air, the 2008 entry almost vanishing off the top of the screen.
On this day.
It’d be almost midnight in London, should she…?
She was reaching for the voice sensor on her desk when it pinged, and an efficient voice said, “Madam Ambassador, I have your sister on the line.” Martha blinked. Her aide was very good, there was no denying it, but UNIT staff screening would have flagged up any psychic abilities. “It’s the third time she’s called this morning,” he added, just the tiniest shade of reproach in his voice that suggested some people weren’t lazy diplomats who thought they could get away with swanning in at nearly eight in the morning and still call it a day’s work.
“Thanks, Cole - patch her through? I was just thinking about you,” she told Tish as half her office dissolved into her sister’s living room, her conference table vanishing behind a perfectly solid-looking image of Tish curled on the sofa. With that rug pulled around her shoulders and a pair of glasses - those were new - perched on her nose, she was the living image of their Nana Oshodi, Mum’s mum. Still, even half a world away, Martha wasn’t about to risk her life by pointing this out.
“How’s my little sister?”
Martha moved around to the chair in front of her desk. “Busy,” she said automatically, her stock answer, and she caught herself and frowned. “But I should have remembered. About today.”
“Tomorrow,” Tish said, then glanced at something out of range of the projection field: “no, you’re right, today. It’s midnight.”
Somewhere in Tish’s house, the clock that had belonged to their mother was striking the hour. They were quiet until the twelfth chime had died away. Martha could hear the rain hitting her sister’s windows; disorientating, being able to see and hear a winter night in London when she could turn around and see the morning summer sunshine.
“Fifty years today,” she said.
Half a century, and there were things as clear and bright in her mind as if they’d happened hours ago. Seeing her family, after a year when she hadn’t let herself believe they might still be alive. Sitting on that flight of stairs, telling a story for the thousandth time and knowing that, one way or the other, these people would be the last on Earth to know about the Doctor. Tom dying to save her - not her Tom, but Tom as he might have been, in some other life, and it struck her that she’d known Tom for fifty years, too. Once she would have called that a lifetime.
“Everybody’s coming. Usually there are at least some who can’t make it but this year… because it’s the big five-oh, I suppose. It’s important to people.” Tish had picked up an old-style clipboard from her coffee table and as she spoke she leafed through the pages with studied-looking casualness. Martha had to smile. I love you, she thought, but you’d be the world’s worst negotiator.
“Tish, I can’t.”
Tish glared. “Just so you know,” she said, “if I didn’t have the grandkids asleep upstairs I’d be shouting the roof off at you.”
“I know.”
“Martha, you have to come.”
“This peace conference, it’s so important…”
“It’s always important. Every single year.”
That wasn’t quite true. She’d gone to the anniversary once. The year after Dad had died, when she hadn’t been able to refuse their mum anything, she’d let herself be dragged along to meet the survivors of the Valiant. Soldiers and secretaries and mechanics and journalists, the people caught in the eye of the storm, the people who remembered when the whole world forgot. She didn’t know anyone, felt overwhelmed by the private jokes and the people she’d never met coming up to tell her how much they’d liked her dad, spent most of the day with Jack. By then he already looked younger than anyone else.
“I can’t,” she said again. “It’s not right. I wasn’t there, I didn’t go through all of that with you.”
Tish’s eyes were sad. “But those people from the Valiant, they’re alive today, fifty years later, because of you. Because you saved us all, and nobody else even knows. Martha, you saved the world.”
“I know,” she said, unconsciously flexing her fingers as the cool weight of the Osterhagen key ghosted a memory across her skin. “I remember waking up the next day and thinking, even if I never do another thing with my life, at least I’ve done this.” She’d learned a lot that year, about terror and people and how just talking could change the world. Later, when she’d seen enough to understand that the world was ending in quiet, ordinary ways all the time, she’d remembered that. “Only it doesn’t work like that, really. I think… once you’ve saved the world it’s your job to keep it saved.”
It was at least another few centuries before her sister nodded. “Ring me if you change your mind,” she said. “Jack can get you a flight. We’re not meeting till nine, our time, and you’d be here in an hour. Love you, sis.”
“Love you,” Martha echoed, as the room faded back into her empty office.
Her coffee was stone cold. Cole looked scandalised when she appeared in the outer office to get a fresh cup.
“Madam Ambassador, I can do that for you!”
Sometimes she got the impression he believed that people who just talked for a living couldn’t be trusted to do anything else. She waved him away. “Cole, if I had to leave tonight - go back to London, just for a couple of hours - could that be managed?”
He frowned at the thought of someone interfering with his schedule, but gamely said, “I think that could be arranged. I can’t imagine today’s sessions running much over time, they’re mostly routine.”
“That’s what I thought.” Martha Jones smiled at him, perplexed and keen and unbelievably young. “It’s just another day.”