Dimension-cannon!Rose/TYTNH!Martha - because I don't buy that Rose didn't know who Martha Jones was.
Oh, there is only the dank stench of melting flesh, the screaming and wailing and broken bones and disease, children gasping through blood-stained tears and frail old men bowing their heads as they tremble on the muddy streets, and Martha is alone in the heart of Japan, and Tokyo has fallen, and death and dust and ash rise above.
She’s safe thanks to her perception filter, but images of what has passed burn when she shuts her eyes; Martha shuts her eyes to escape the images of the present.
Leaning her back against the graying wall of a public housing complex, she breaks. It’s been months since she last gave herself a few moments of selfish indulgence, of tears and heartache and the knowledge of so many things that she has seen and heard (the Resistance spreading, parallel universes, the glory of the coming of the Lord and Bad Wolf).
She sees that phrase, scrawled on bins and bus seats and even in that torture chamber in Cuba, a repeated meme, constant but seemingly random.
Bad Wolf cannot be coincidental because it only appears where she is meant to travel.
Bad Wolf is why she walked from Gaza to Tokyo, because it pointed the way, because it lead her to this spot. Above her head. Written, in swirling gold ink, beckoning and warm and safe.
So when she feels slim arms wrap around her shoulders and a hand coercing her head to a slowly beating heart, she accepts and sobs into the chest of her Bad Wolf.
“Martha Jones,” the woman murmurs into the top of her head, pressing a soft kiss into her hair. “You’re doing a phenomenal job,” she continues as she gently pushes Martha away again.
And Martha Jones stares into the troubled hazel eyes of the woman she didn’t replace, of the woman she honestly didn’t want to replace (she wanted more, she wanted better; and quite right, too), and she knows, oh she knows, that this is Rose Tyler.
“He has pictures of you hidden in the library,” she whispers. “Stuffed inside A Tale of Two Cities.”
Pink lips and blond hair and such a spirit, so very different from the pictures but still the same woman. Rose smiles.
“Was he a right bastard to you?”
“Only when he thought of you.” Tears sting her eyes as Rose shifts to sit beside her and grasp her hand tightly. “I always thought-he never told-I thought he was just pining for some ex-girlfriend who dumped him. I found out… and he doesn’t even know I know.”
“He never was good at talking. He can say so much and for so long, but Martha, we both know very little about him, don’t we?” There’s something in Rose’s face that hardens.
Martha frowns. “He hurt you, too.”
“We hurt each other,” Rose answers. “But that was always going to happen.”
“He’ll find you.”
The other woman laughs. “I thought he might, but… he’ll brood and he’ll brood and he’ll brood and he’ll never do anything about it.” Rose pulls a thermos out of her bag. “Soup. Don’t want you gettin’ there all hypoglycemic.” She hands the container to Martha. “That’s why we’ve got to be the ones who act, the ones who stay behind sometimes, because there’s work that has to be done, yeah.”
They sit in companionable silence while Martha finishes the soup, and then Rose pulls her into an embrace again. “I need to go now. If I get stuck here it’ll cause a fair bit of damage to your timeline and all. And my mum’s probably driving Dad bonkers,” she adds under her breath. She stands and smiles broadly. “Go save the world, Martha Jones.”
And Martha barely sees the capsule in the soup before she swallows it.
She wakes up crying and wondering at the feel of soft lips against her cheek.