for pradeda
Your Name: Court
Contact: thecourtster[at]gmail.com / demonology @ plurk
LiveJournal: burningvigor
Timezone: PST
Do you have other characters in this game? Nope!
Character
Name: Martha Jones
Fandom: Doctor Who
Age: 22-23 (timelines in DW are kind of insane, but it's one of those two)
Physical description: An official image and icons!
Background:
Martha Jones, for her first twenty-two years, lived a normal life. She was born in London (this is a guess, since it's never mentioned that she lived anywhere else) and grew up with an older sister, Tish, and a younger brother, Leo. As for her parents, they divorced at some point in her life, though it's not made clear when. By the time that she's twenty-two, though, her father has a girlfriend. The fact that Martha seems relatively okay with this indicates that it's been some time since her parents were together, but this is just a guess on my part.
It's implied that Martha was never the most social, outgoing person, mainly through comments made about her being a science geek (and a Harry Potter fan, apparently) and her family's surprise at her having a boyfriend. (Not that she actually does, but that's neither her nor there.) Despite that, Martha was independent enough to move out on her own and smart enough to get into medical school, which is where she is when her story really picks up.
On a seemingly normal day, Martha was approached by a strange man in the street who acted as if he knew her. She brushed it off, but when she was working she came across him again -- because he was a patient. He acted as if he didn't remember what had happened, but even stranger was when she realized through her examination that he had two hearts.
Everything escalated from there. At her lunch break Martha realized that it was raining... upside-down -- and after that, the whole hospital was hit by what seemed to be an earthquake, and the next thing she knew they were on the moon.
Martha was baffled by this, but she had to accept what was in front of her -- and more than that, it was exciting. Still, it became clear that their oxygen supply would run out eventually, and Martha's clever observations made her stand out to the same man she'd met before, who recruited her to help him get to the bottom of what was going on. His name? The Doctor. Nothing more, nothing less.
Together the two dealt with an intergalactic police force in the form of bipedal rhinos called the Judoon and a bloodsucking alien who was looking to destroy half of the Earth. Martha learned that the Doctor was an alien himself, which explained the two hearts if nothing else. During their investigation the two of them shared a kiss that was meant only as a genetic transfer, completely platonic on the Doctor's end and yet it had more of an effect on Martha. In the end the Doctor had to risk himself to expose the alien to the Judoon, but Martha was able to bring him around with CPR before she passed out from oxygen deprivation. The Doctor saved the day, however, and got the hospital back down to Earth with minimal casualties.
The Doctor left without much of a goodbye, leaving Martha to dodge the press who wanted the whole story of what happened and then deal with her family, as it was her brother's twenty-first birthday that night. That ended with the usual drama, though after leaving the restaurant they'd been in Martha spotted the Doctor peering out from an alleyway, waiting for her.
He invited her to go on a trip through time and space with him, made possible by his ship (which is in the shape of a phone booth), the TARDIS. Martha was as amazed by it as anyone else who boards ("it's bigger on the inside!"), but after the Doctor explained that it could travel through time (by going back to meet her on the street that morning), Martha was convinced that this wasn't an opportunity she could pass up. The Doctor explained that it would be just one trip, however, as a thank you for her help.
And where did he choose to take her, but into the past: 1599 London, to be precise. It blew Martha's mind to feel like she was taking a walk through a history book, but even more amazing was when she realized that this was the near the height of Shakespeare's fame. However, a trip that was meant to be a vacation quickly turned into a job when they realized that something was wrong. At the show that they attended, Shakespeare himself announced that a new play would be performed the next night, but this play was one that had never actually existed: a mere myth.
As it turned out, witches were manipulating Shakespeare to write a spell into this play. This spell would call the rest of their kind -- the Carrionites -- onto Earth so that they could take over. Martha proved herself as useful both by catching Shakespeare's attention and by helping the Doctor to sort out the Carrionites' plan, but it became clear that the Doctor would have rather had an old companion of his, Rose, there with him. Martha felt a bit unwanted for that reason, but it didn't stop them from reversing the spell and putting everything to rights. (Oh, and she shot down Shakespeare's advances.)
It seemed that the Doctor had enjoyed her company more than he would admit, however, since he ended up bending his rule and deciding that she could be granted one trip to the future as well. And so they went to a version of New York that was far into the future, though they exited the TARDIS and arrived in a slum. Martha realized that this was a place the Doctor had taken Rose, and it was obvious that he was using this at least somewhat as a grieving process. Neither of them could dwell on that too long, however, as they soon learned about the Motorway, which everyone spoke about ominously, saying that no one ever returned once they went.
Unexpectedly, a couple came up from behind them and kidnapped Martha, dragging her away before the Doctor could do anything. She was knocked out and eventually woke up in some sort of shuttlecraft. She tried to threaten them at first, but the couple apologized and explained that they needed her as a third passenger in order to get into the fast lane. The Motorway turned out to be a huge traffic jam as everyone was attempting to get to the upper city. However, the couple estimated that it would take about six years for them to get there. All Martha could do was hope that the Doctor would get to her somehow.
Which was exactly what he did, though not before the shuttlecraft was almost crushed by huge killer crab monsters. As it turned out, the reason that no one had ever made it through was because everyone in the upper city had died from a drug-induced disease. When Martha went to meet the Doctor, she witnessed the death of the Face of Boe, a very old creature that was the last of its kind. It was due to that that Martha learned that the Doctor was also the last of his kind, the Time Lords. With some pressing, she got the Doctor to open up and he explained that his home planet had been destroyed in a great war and that he was the only one left.
This somber moment could only last so long, however, as they were soon off on another trip: a detour of sorts. This time they ended up in the New York of 1930, a far cry from the place they'd just been. However, they found out almost immediately that there had been mysterious disappearances. Through their investigation, Martha befriended a number of people: a showgirl named Tullulah, a young man named Frank, and Laszlo, Tallulah's sweetheart who was mutated into a half-man, half-pig by whoever was behind the kidnappings.
The culprits turned out to be the Daleks, the race that the Time Lords had been fighting against in the great war that wiped them out. Martha ended up getting captured by them and was slated to be part of "the final experiment." The Doctor caught up with her and they discovered that the Daleks were planning to rebuild their dying race by combining with humans.
They all managed to escape, but the slum where they were camping out was subsequently attacked by the Daleks. The Doctor decided to go and try to reason with them, though he secretly gave Martha his psychic paper before he left. Knowing that it could be used to get her into places, Martha eventually realized that she needed to go the Empire State Building (which was still being constructed) and worked out that the Daleks were planning to use it as an energy conductor. While the Daleks succeeded in creating their human-Dalek hybrids, the Doctor contaminated the energy transferral, meaning that the hybrids were more human (and therefore less obedient) than expected. In the following conflict, three of the four Daleks were killed and all of the hybrids were exterminated. The final Dalek escaped through time before the Doctor could try to reason with it, meaning that their victory wasn't much of one. After bidding farewell to their friends, the Doctor and Martha moved on.
After this adventure, it seemed as if Martha's journey was going to come to an end. The Doctor chose to take her back home next, and was ready to leave after barely even saying goodbye. However, Martha got a call that her sister, Tish, was on TV. She turned it on to a press conference where a scientist named Richard Lazarus was explaining that he was going to "change what it meant to be human." While the Doctor did leave Martha behind, he was back in seconds, curious to find out what that meant.
The two dressed up and went to the event where Lazarus' breakthrough was going to be revealed, as Martha had an invitation due to her sister. Her brother and mother were also there, and her mother in particular was very suspicious of the Doctor. Nonetheless, the two witnessed Lazarus, an older man, step into his machine and then emerge looking like he was in his prime. Everyone was shocked and impressed, but the Doctor and Martha were more skeptical. Martha procured a DNA sample (Lazarus kissed her hand) and then went with the Doctor to go analyze it. They realized that Lazarus' DNA was mutating, which turned out to be very true. Lazarus turned into a hideous monster and attacked all the guests; Martha was entrusted with getting them out while the Doctor kept Lazarus distracted. Despite her mother's pleading, Martha then chose to go back inside and help him. They eventually ended up tracking Lazarus to a church with Tish in tow, and some clever organ playing was enough to finally put the beast down.
With all this over, however, the Doctor was willing to offer Martha one more trip. Martha was sick of being strung along like this, though, and said that she'd rather just stay home if it was going to be that way. The Doctor immediately agreed to take her along as a more permanent companion, which Martha was thrilled to hear. Without further ado, they headed out in the TARDIS.
It landed them inside a spaceship, which was uncomfortably hot and fitted with a crew that was baffled by how the Doctor and Martha had gotten there. There were more pressing matters at hand, however, as it turned out that the ship was on a collision course with a sun and they had less than an hour to fix things. Martha decided to go with one of the crew, Riley, to open up a series of password-protected doors and access the auxilary controls that they could use to get out.
At one point Martha used her phone, newly-outfitted with universal roaming (a gift from the Doctor) to call her mother for help with one of the password questions. Her mother attempted to pry about where she was and who she was with, but Martha wasn't having it. Soon after that, however, they were approached by another member of the crew who was infected with some disease and looking to kill them. To escape, they locked themselves in an escape pod, but the crew member deployed it, sending them straight for the sun. The Doctor appeared just a second too late but yelled to Martha that he would save her.
Martha, scared that she would die out in space and her family would never know what happened to her, both bonded with Riley and called her mother back in tears. In the end the Doctor did save her, but it was at his own expense. He was now infected, in pain and fighting the virus, which it turned out was the sun itself. It had been injured by the crew that had mined it for fuel, and this was its revenge. The Doctor told Martha that he needed to be put in a cryogenic chamber in order to get the sun's infection out of him, and so she took him there even as he struggled to fight it off. This was the most vulnerable that she'd seen him: he admitted that he was scared and even started to tell her about his regeneration process, but Martha cut him off, assuring him that she would take care of him.
In the end, though, she had to leave him in order to race to the other end of the ship and release the sun's resources that the crew had stolen. Reluctant as she was to abandon the Doctor, she did as he ordered and successfully dumped the supplies. When she returned to him, the Doctor was cured and they shared a relieved hug. After bidding farewell to Riley (with a kiss!), Martha boarded the TARDIS with the Doctor and was granted a key to the ship, another sign of the Doctor's growing trust for her.
However, they didn't stay out of danger for long. The two ended up being followed by a family of aliens who were after the Doctor's Time Lord body. The Doctor took the threat very seriously and decided to take extreme measures. He felt that the only way to get rid of the Family was by waiting them out (they had a short lifespan), and that meant hiding. He couldn't hide as a Time Lord, since they would be able to track him that way, and so he used a device called the chameleon arch to make himself into a human.
This meant that Martha had to take care of him as they were deposited into "John Smith's" fake life where he was a schoolteacher in the English countryside in 1913. Martha posed as his maid, which considering her skin color meant that life wasn't easy. Her only friend was a fellow servant named Jenny, and even John Smith didn't always treat her very well.
While it was clear that part of John still remembered his real life, Martha's job was to make sure that he remained human until the Family had died. This meant keeping her head down, though after two months had passed, things started to go wrong. Martha spotted a meteorite falling to the Earth, though she couldn't find the source. Almost as bad was that John had fallen in love with a human woman, and while the Doctor had left her detailed instructions before he changed, that wasn't included. (And Martha couldn't help but feel some remorse that even a human version of the Doctor wouldn't fall for her, since her feelings for him had become quite strong by this point.)
Things went from bad to worse when Martha realized that her friend, Jenny, had been possessed by one of the aliens. There was no hiding anymore; she needed to bring the Doctor back, and the only way to do that was by having him open a fobwatch that had his Time Lord consciousness hidden inside. She ran to John and tried to explain the situation to him, but he brushed her off. When Martha got desperate and tried to literally smack some sense into him, John dismissed her from her position and tossed her out.
Not willing to give up so easily, Martha ran back to the TARDIS to get the Doctor's psychic paper and used it to get into the dance that night, which John and Joan (the human he'd fallen for) were attending. There she tried to appeal to Joan first and John second, handing him the sonic screwdriver and explaining that he truly was the Doctor. (John thought the Doctor was just a man from his dreams.)
However, the Family, which had taken the bodies of four different humans, crashed the party and took both Martha and Joan at gunpoint. They had overheard what Martha was saying and knew that John was really the Doctor, but their attempts to make him change back failed. When they were temporarily distracted, Martha managed to get out of their hold and turn a gun on one of them, at which point the situation was under control enough for everyone else to escape. She followed soon after, running back to the school with John and Joan.
While John rallied up the boys to try and protect the school as an armed force (which Martha thought was a stupid idea), Martha searched his whole office for the fobwatch (to no avail) and managed to at least get Joan on her side. Sort of. The defense of the school failed and the Family eventually entered, searching for the watch. Martha, John, and Joan got outside, only to see that the Family had captured the TARDIS. John had started to believe that the Doctor existed by this point, but he knew that becoming him again would mean his own death.
The three escaped to an empty cottage and were then found by one of the students, a boy named Latimer who had gotten hold of the watch. Martha took it from him and then tried to convince John to change back, but he lashed out at her, wondering why he should turn into a lonely, fearsome man. Martha, beyond desperate at this point (the Family has taken to bombing the countryside), admitted that she needed the Doctor because she loved him. After some more agonizing and a private talk with Joan, John finally agreed and went to go confront the Family on his own.
After punishing the Family for what they'd done, the Doctor went off to speak to Joan on his own while Martha waited with the TARDIS. He returned, unwilling to discuss what had happened with Joan, but thankful for all Martha had done for him. She told him that her confession from before hadn't been sincere, and he acted like he believed it. And so the two headed off with the Doctor back to his normal self.
Except it wasn't long before they were stuck in the past once again. Martha and the Doctor ran afoul of the Weeping Angels, creatures who sent people back in time in order to feed off of the energy of the days in the future that they were never able to live. This put the Doctor and Martha in 1969, though they had a packet of information given to them by a girl in the future, Sally, which gave instructions for how they could get home. (She was basically telling them what clues to send through time to her past self, which is kind of a headache but makes sense in context.)
The Doctor worked on putting all of that together with the help of his timey-wimey detector, whereas Martha was forced to get a job in a shop to make sure they had enough money to live (which she wasn't entirely happy about). They were likely stuck there for a number of months before Sally was able to get the TARDIS back to them, but eventually she did.
Their next stop was in Cardiff, as there was a rift in Time there which gave off excess energy. The TARDIS could absorb this energy, so the Doctor was essentially refueling. However, when they took off again something strange happened, and they rocketed forward trillion of years in time, to the end of the universe. More than that, when they exited the ship Martha found a man collapsed on the ground, dead. The Doctor said it was an old friend of his and didn't seem concerned about his state -- which was because the man was able to come back to life.
And so Martha met Jack Harkness, a man who was essentially immortal and also an incessant flirt. The two quickly hit it off and even made some shots at the Doctor's expense. Upon exploring, the three found an abandoned city that almost looked like a hive. They were worried that there might be no life left, but then they saw a man running from a group of savages. They saved the man and then ran with him toward a fortress of sorts which kept out the savages called Futurekind.
In this fortress humans lived like refugees, waiting for one Professor Yana to finish putting together a spacecraft that would be able to take all of them to "Utopia." It was said that somewhere in space such a place existed, and that was where they were trying to go. Martha, the Doctor, and Jack met Yana, a human scientist, and his assistant, Chantho, who was the last of the planet's species.
The Doctor helped Yana to get the spacecraft working, but some work still needed to be done with the couplings. Jack and the Doctor went to deal with that, with Martha listening to their conversation over the radio. Yana seemed strangely affected by all of this talk of time travel, and he also spoke of being plagued by the sound of drums in his head. He eventually pulled out an old, broken watch of his -- one that Martha recognized as being part of the chameleon arch that turned Time Lords into humans. After some questioning Martha realized that Yana might actually be a hidden Time Lord, and she rushed off to tell the Doctor.
However, the Doctor was not as pleased to find out that he wasn't actually the last of his kind as Martha had thought he would be, and it soon became clear that something was wrong. After making sure that the spacecraft successfully launched, they rushed back to Yana, but it was too late: he had opened the watch and become the Master, another Time Lord and the Doctor's nemesis. While Martha didn't get a look at him, his voice seemed strangely familiar. The Master was shot by Chantho, but he merely regenerated and then stole the TARDIS, leaving Martha, Jack, and the Doctor to die.
Luckily, the Doctor was able to fix Jack's vortex manipulator (a more crude time traveling device) and get them all back to 2007. However, upon arriving Martha realized why the Master's voice was familiar. He'd taken the role of Harold Saxon, the man who had just been elected as Prime Minister. The three went to Martha's flat to look up information about Saxon on the internet, discovering that the Master could have only taken on that role eighteen months ago at the most. He had fabricated the rest of Saxon's life and used hypnotism through a cell phone carrier called Archangel to stop the masses from noticing.
They then watched a TV broadcast by Saxon, where he mentioned that he had made first contact with a race of aliens called the Toclafane. However, then the Master seemed to speak directly to Martha through the broadcast and the Doctor realized that the room had been fit with a bomb. The three escaped just in time, and Martha immediately thought of her family, wondering if they had been targeted as well. It turned out that they had -- Martha watched as her father and mother were abducted and then heard the same thing happen to Tish over the phone -- but all she could do was run, as she, Jack, and the Doctor had been labeled as terrorists.
The three went into hiding and the Doctor explained that the Master had been driven mad as a child by looking into the time vortex. The Doctor also constructed three perception filters for them in the shape of a key they wore around their neck; these would allow them to move around without being noticed. Using them, the three went to watch as the US president came to meet Saxon, finding out that the US was planning to take over the planned televised "first contact" with an airborne aircraft carrier called the Valiant as the stage.
Using the vortex manipulator, they snuck onto the ship and found the TARDIS, but the Master had cannibalized it and turned it into a paradox machine. They moved then into the room where the first contact would take place and watched as the Master took over. He ordered the Toclafane to kill the president and then captured the Doctor, who he had known was there all along. He then used his laser screwdriver to temporarily kill Jack and then went on to artificially age the Doctor one hundred years, making him impossibly old. Martha stayed at the Doctor's side even as her family was brought forward, all of them captured save for her brother Leo.
The paradox machine was then activated, opening up a rift in the sky that released billions of deadly Toclafane into Earth. The Doctor whispered his plan to Martha; she needed to escape and travel the world, putting the name of the Doctor and his deeds into the minds of the people. They could use that collective knowledge to gain control of Archangel and undo the Master's paradox. Taking on her task without question, Martha gave her family and friends one last look before using the manipulator to escape the Valiant.
And so for a year, Martha walked the entire Earth, finding the people wherever they were hiding so that she could tell them all about the Doctor. Her name became well-known during this time as she endured great dangers in order to find as many people as possible and tell her stories. She made it seem like she was collecting the components needed to kill a Time Lord, but she was really just slipping through the cracks in the Master's empire and feeding one idea to the masses: the Doctor.
Once a year had passed, Martha finally returned to England and met up with a contact, Tom Milligan, and went to meet with a professor under the guise of figuring out what the Toclafane were. Martha knew that this professor was actually working for the Master due to her son being held hostage, but that was part of the plan: she needed to get captured in order to be reunited with her family and the Doctor when the plan went into place.
They did capture one of the Toclafane, however, and Martha was horrified to find out that they were the humans from the end of the universe, converted into mindless killing machines. She and Tom left after that and she found a place to hide with survivors and talk about the Doctor, but that was when the Master tracked her down. Tom gave his life to protect her and then Martha was abducted and brought aboard the Valiant.
It was here that she revealed their plan: if enough people who were connected to the Archangel network thought the same thing at the same time, it could revert the Doctor back to his normal self -- and it did. The Master was defeated, and with Jack's help the paradox was undone. The Doctor's plan was to then keep the Master in his TARDIS to watch over him, but at that point the Master's human wife and companion, Lucy, shot him. The Master refused to regenerate, leaving the Doctor alone again.
And so the world reverted back to how it had been a year ago and most of the people in it didn't remember what had happened during the Master's reign. Only those who had been on the Valiant at the time -- Martha, The Doctor, Jack, Martha's family, etc. -- remembered it. And so it was termed The Year That Never Was. With the Doctor and his TARDIS back to normal, business could have continued as usual, and yet Martha decided that she needed to stay with her family and care for them after everything they'd been through. More than that, she knew traveling with the Doctor had always been a temporary thing and she didn't want to waste years of her life trying to get him to notice her and return her feelings. She needed to move on and continue to grow as her own person, and so she said her goodbyes to the Doctor, giving him her phone so that she could call him if need be.
Soon after that, she was able to get a job with UNIT, a military organization that battled alien threats. She had been recommended for the job by a very trusted source, which Martha assumed was the Doctor. She worked for them for a time and even went to help out Torchwood, Jack's small Cardiff-based group, for a short while. Torchwood dealt with anything that came out of the Rift in Cardiff and Martha filled in as their medic for a time. During her time with them she had her body infested by alien mayflies, watched someone get brought back to life and stay alive, encountered Death and was artificially aged by it (now she knows how the Doctor felt), and so on. She enjoyed spending time with Jack (another member of the end-of-the-world-club) and got along with the rest of his team, but eventually she had to return to UNIT. It was also around this time that she re-met Tom Milligan, and while he didn't recall the events of the Year That Never Was, the two of them got to know each other under better circumstances and eventually got engaged.
Time passed and Martha continued her work at UNIT, but when there was a bizarre event where fifty-two people died simultaneously throughout the world, she realized it was finally time to call the Doctor. Their reunion was heartfelt, though Martha was initially tripped up by the fact that he had already replaced her. Despite that, any possible tension between herself and Donna Noble was nonexistent, and the three got down to the business at hand.
The Doctor questioned her loyalty to UNIT considering the fact that they were so prone to violent methods, but Martha explained that she was trying to better them from the inside -- and more than that, the Doctor was the one who had suggested she work for them. The two still bickered like they always had, but Martha had a better hold on her feelings for him. As for Donna, Martha made sure to use her own experiences with the Doctor to advise her to watch over her family closely and make sure that they were safe.
In any case, it turned out that a system in people's cars called ATMOS was behind the deaths. UNIT stormed the ATMOS factory and with Donna's help they realized that something was wrong with their workers. Martha was entrusted with examining the work force, but she was interrupted and then led down into an underground part of the factory. She was overpowered by an alien from a race called the Sontarans and then strapped to an exam table. As it turned out, they were able to use her DNA to birth a clone version of her. Martha fell unconscious while her clone moved around in her place.
She was eventually saved by the Doctor, but at that point she had to confront her dying clone and try to get some information out of her. It turned out that the Sontarans were trying to convert Earth's atmosphere so that they could use it to breed more of their kind, but the Doctor managed to dispel the poisonous gas they'd flooded the Earth with and the day was saved.
Martha was intending to bid farewell to the Doctor after that, but the TARDIS had other ideas. With her, the Doctor, and Donna all in it, the ship took off all on its own, placing them in an unknown destination. The moment that they exited the TARDIS to see where they'd ended up, the Doctor was seized by people dressed like soldiers and then had his hand forced into a strange device. It turned out that it was taking a tissue sample which was used to create an artificial offspring of him: a blond girl who was outfitted with the history and memories to serve as a soldier. Martha and Donna were taken aback by this, but they didn't have much time to work things out, as they were soon ambushed. While Martha did her best to take cover, she was kidnapped by the attackers and eventually passed out.
She woke up next to one of the aliens who had taken her, a bipedal fish creature. They couldn't communicate with each other, but she insisted on helping him since he was injured. While the others were wary of her at first, she was able to negotiate and get on their good side despite the language barrier. As they were trying to explain things to her on a map, however, a hidden part of the map suddenly appeared, and this gave them reason to go march off to war. Martha didn't know what was going on, but the alien she'd helped showed her where she needed to go to meet up with her friends.
As they had been underground this entire time, Martha decided to go to the surface of the planet despite the harsh conditions because it would lead her back to the Doctor and Donna faster. The alien she'd befriended reluctantly followed her and they struggled across the surface, but at one point Martha lost her balance and slid down into a substance that resembled quicksand. The alien ended up giving his life to save her, which understandably distressed her. (It's probably the hardest she cries during the whole series.)
She was forced to go the rest of her way on the own, but she eventually reunited with the Doctor, who had been searching for this mysterious "source" that both sides of the war had been fighting to find. As it turned out, it was an energy that could terraform the planet and make it habitable for both the humans and the aliens. The Doctor unleashed it and all was put to rights -- except that his daughter ended up shot by one of her own.
There wasn't much time to mourn, though, and the Doctor made certain to take Martha home then. Saying goodbye to the Doctor was something that was still difficult for Martha, but she went to go meet Tom with a smile on her face.
Time passed and Martha was eventually promoted within UNIT to work on something called Project Indigo in New York. Using salvaged Sontaran technology, they were working to develop a teleport system. While working on this, however, the world was suddenly turned upside-down; actually, Earth itself was moved into orbit with twenty-six other planets and more than that, it was being invaded by Daleks.
Martha tried to call the Doctor, but to no avail. She was only able to get through to Jack, but he also hadn't heard anything from the Doctor. Martha was ordered to use Project Indigo (which took the form of a sort of holster that she was able to wear) and was also handed the Osterhagen Key, a device that was reserved for when the Earth had no other option but to destroy itself.
Upon using it, the teleport landed her at her mother's home, where she received a signal on the computer from Jack, a woman named Sarah Jane Smith who was an old companion of the Doctor's, and Harriet Jones, a former prime minister who had also worked with the Doctor. They realized that if they all worked together, they could create a signal strong enough that it would reach the Doctor -- and it did. He was only able to talk to them for a short time before the signal was lost, but it meant he would be able to track the Earth to where it had been moved.
Jack then gave Martha the information she needed to properly control the Indigo suit and so she was able to warp to a station where the Osterhagen Key could be activated -- an abandoned castle in Germany. Instead of activating it, however, she sent a transmission to the Dalek stronghold where the Doctor (and Rose Tyler, who had managed to find her way back across universes) was captured. She threatened the Daleks with the destruction of Earth, figuring that its placement was part of their plan, but to no avail; the Daleks were able to pull her from that point onto their ship, the Crucible, with the Key left behind.
And so they were helpless as the Daleks revealed their plan -- to use the energy from the planets they'd collected to destroy the whole universe. Luckily, Donna and a clone Doctor (it's a long story) arrived just in time and were able to stop this plan from unfolding. All of them (Martha, the Doctor, Rose, and Jack all included, among others) piled back onto the TARDIS and then worked as a team to steer Earth back to its proper point in space.
Once home, Martha said farewell to the Doctor once more, agreeing to destroy the Osterhagen Key under his orders. She walked off with Jack and Mickey, Rose's old boyfriend, and life continued on.
Point in Story: Martha will be taken from the end of series 4, after that episode "Journey's End." The universe has just been saved and she's said her goodbye to the Doctor with Jack at her side, ready to go back to her work at UNIT.
Personality:
Martha is, first and foremost, a very loyal and caring person. She decided to be a doctor because she wanted to help people, and this is something that never leaves her character even as she develops over the course of the series. Her first instinct is always to tend to people who need her help, whether it's a fellow human or a possibly hostile alien. The fact is that Martha is of above average intelligence (the Daleks even said so!), which makes her a very capable doctor. Despite this, she tends to be modest in most situations, although she gets better at acknowledging her own talents over time.
She's not only smart when it comes to medical things, either. Martha first stood out to the Doctor because of her cleverness in that she was able to tell that something was keeping them from suffocating on the moon during their first meeting. Later on in their travels, she worked out why the Doctor had given her his psychic paper in New York; she learned how to use his sonic screwdriver for at least basic tasks; she noticed almost immediately that her friend Jenny had been possessed by an alien, and so forth. During her time with him (and afterward) Martha was usually able to keep up with the Doctor's explanations about the aliens they encountered and the methods that he had to stop them and also helped him to solve the many mysteries that they came across. She's level-headed, practical, and quick thinking. Even when she's captured or in danger, Martha can either get herself out of it or remain calm enough to wait for rescue.
While Martha was put into a lot of danger and forced into unpleasant situations during her time with the Doctor, she took it all in stride. More than that, she found it exciting. Even though she had a promising future to look forward to, she was more than happy to go traveling across the universe with the Doctor because there was so much to learn, so many things to see -- whether it was the past of her planet or the future of another. Which says another thing about her: Martha is eternally curious. She's constantly asking questions, both of the Doctor and of their situation, and it's that need to know that makes her such a useful companion. Asking questions like that often reveals the truth, or gives the Doctor that push he needs to put clues together and figure something out.
However, even when Martha ended up in situations that she wasn't as thrilled about, she handled it as best she could. When she was stuck in 1913 with a human version of the Doctor, struggling to fit in and enduring a racism much harsher than she was used to, Martha remained at the Doctor's side and refused to give up on him. And then when she was stuck in 1969, she got a menial job to support them (because chances are the Doctor fails at living like a normal person). This shows how she can be extremely loyal and also very trusting.
Granted, her feelings for the Doctor are very complex. Martha was charmed by him almost immediately due to the fact that they ended up going to the moon and saving a whole hospital full of people together. The Doctor tends to have that sort of effect on people, as he's mysterious and alien and smart and endearing all at once. Despite that, Martha treated him like a normal person, pointing out his faults when she noticed them and forcing him to drop the enigmatic act when she could. Despite that, she started to deeply care for him very quickly. She put faith in his ability to put things right whenever they went wrong and she saw him as someone totally different from anyone she'd met -- as brilliant and wonderful and fantastic.
This led to deeper feelings that she didn't know what to do with, especially since for a large portion of their time together the Doctor was hung up on a previous companion. Martha urged the Doctor to see her as her own person, which he eventually did, and yet she was never able to properly voice the way she felt about him. This was because the Doctor did what he could to not notice and also because Martha realized that the Doctor was much older than her and had experienced much more than she had. She knew almost from the start that a typical relationship between them wouldn't be possible, and yet she couldn't stop herself from loving him despite that.
However, due to a number of reasons, Martha realized that she couldn't travel with the Doctor forever. Even though she loved it, she also knew that it was a disconnect from her life and her loved ones and something that was going to put her family in serious danger. They were tortured by the Master and that was a big wake-up call for Martha. More than that, saving the world almost singlehandedly and without the help of the Doctor (except for the fact that he told her how to do it) made Martha aware of the fact that she could accomplish so much on her own. She didn't need the Doctor to do it, and she couldn't waste more of her time remaining hung up on him when she wasn't going to get anything in return. She was also able to reflect on herself at this point and realize that the way she was pining for him wasn't healthy and that she needed to move on with her life. Her ability to acknowledge this, to realize that she wasn't actually second-best to the Doctor but that she was also caught up in feelings that wouldn't be returned, and then work up the courage to tell him that she wasn't going to travel with him any longer shows more than anything that Martha is strong and independent.
This is shown in how she moves on from there as well. She worked for both UNIT and Torchwood for a time, but in the end she moved away from both of those organizations and became freelance, as she didn't always agree with their methods, so she ultimately felt more comfortable handling things herself. She's more than willing to help if her skills are needed, but she's good on her own and she comes to realize that more and more. (She hasn't gone freelance by the point at which I'm taking her, but she's on the verge of it.)
However, this ability to work alone (or at least without someone above her ordering her around) does not mean that Martha is a loner. It is implied that she isn't as outgoing as her family, but on her adventures with the Doctor she shows herself to be a very friendly person. Regardless of where they go and who they meet, Martha tends to find someone who she can get along with and connect with. This ranges from Shakespeare to Riley to Jenny to Jack to Chantho to Donna and beyond that. She always manages to hit it off with people and is interested in hearing people's stories and getting to know them.
As much as she values friends, however, Martha is also very close to her family. She is the rock and the mediator of her family due to being the middle child and the most stable out of all of them in many ways. Her parents and her siblings alike turn to her for advice and she does her best to give it, though she is overwhelmed by the sheer drama that they generate at times. She also had some tension with her mother while traveling with the Doctor since her mother was being fed information about the Doctor being a bad influence, but this didn't in any way stop her from loving her and the events of The Year That Never Was eclipsed all of that anyway.
In fact, whenever Martha was in danger while with the Doctor she usually thought back to her family and worried about them, since if she died out in space they would never have known what happened to her. More than that, when they are kidnapped by the Master is one of the moments when Martha is shown to be the most upset; she values their safety over her own. Her major reason for ceasing to travel with the Doctor was also because she knew that she had to care for them after what the Master put them through. Long story short, family is a huge consideration for Martha and she will do all she can to keep them safe.
Still, even with all that Martha has been through, she hasn't been hardened. Things still affect her, and while she's generally able to keep a cool head about things, she can be very emotive at times. She'll scream in anger or frustration when she can't find a solution to something; she'll cry if she thinks she's going to die and might not ever see her family again. She'll roll her eyes when she thinks someone isn't talking sense, and she'll laugh along with anyone who'll joke with her. She's still touched by the people she encounters and she still holds out hope for the human race and whatever the future may hold.
The ways in which she has hardened is through what she's capable of. She has learned how to handle danger and control her fear when she needs to. This is especially true when she's working with someone who isn't as used to dangerous situations as she is because she wants to keep them calm and watch over them. Even after a year of traveling the world opposing him, Martha was still scared of the Master and wanted to hide from him when he found her, but she was able to gather her composure and face him without betraying a single emotion. She can definitely take a leader position when necessary and she will take whatever risk is required to keep people safe.
The one thing she won't do is kill. She never planned to kill the Master even after he captured and tortured her family. The only time in which she killed something was with the humans who had been turned into pig creatures, and that was only because they were actively attacking her -- and she felt extremely guilty afterward. Martha doesn't have that capability in her. She's a doctor; it goes against her very instincts.
Like most companions, Martha wasn't able to return to a normal life after leaving the Doctor. Even if she did remain on Earth after that to look after things, she had to remain in a career that had to do with the alien. It's hard to imagine trying to act like everything is normal again after learning so much about the universe, which is why she worked for UNIT and Torchwood. Luckily, her family experiencing The Year That Never Was meant that she could do this without creating a lot of tension with them.
One final note: Martha is a geek at heart. She thinks that analyzing alien DNA is exciting and she was always enthusiastic about hearing scientific explanations from the Doctor.
Powers/Abilities: Martha has no supernatural powers or anything that strange about her, really. The only odd thing about her physically is that her blood is somewhat different from that of a normal human due to traveling through time and space with the Doctor. This doesn't come up often, but it does mean that she can handle certain physical stimuli better than an average human. As for abilities, the main point to keep in mind here is that she is a doctor (more or less), so she can give physical exams, administer diagnoses, and perform first aid. She also knows a small amount about Time Lord biology and probably some other alien biology as well due to her time with the Doctor and working at UNIT. Her time at UNIT also means that she has some experience with handling a gun, though she would not be willing to fire one under most cases. She's also pretty used to running by now, since that's mainly what you do if you're traveling with the Doctor. She is physically fit in general, made clear by the fact that she walked the whole of Earth during The Year That Never Was. That year trained her in survival methods and stealth as well.
Items you're bringing with you:
- the clothes on her back: - a black zip-up jacket
- black pants
- black shoes
- whatever underwear she has on
- stud earrings
- an engagement ring
- her cell phone
Samples
First Person POV (Network Post):
[The video feed comes on with a bit of jostling, and then a brief cry of victory is heard as Martha realizes that it's working. This all reminds her a little of when she was in 1969 and they had to record those videos for Sally. Not that the Doctor let her in them much, but now she's got her chance.
And she'll be talking to people who should respond, at that. Honestly, video chatting is rather high-tech for 2006, so she's a bit excited in her own way.]
Hello! I think this should be working properly now.
[She settles down, seeming to be on her bed in her room. If she's got a roommate, they apparently aren't there at the moment.] So I guess we'll all need to get to know each other. I'm Martha Jones... and, for what it's worth, I'm from London, Earth in the early 21st century.
I'm not quite sure what's going on yet, but I do know we can work this out. I'll do whatever I can to be useful, and I'm a doctor, so anyone who's got medical problems, please let me know!
Though... if anyone comes across someone called the Doctor, I'd like to hear about that too. He's a friend of mine. [And she's betting he's involved with this somehow.]
Third Person POV (Log Post):
It was always strange, going from saving the universe (or at least helping with it, this time) back to relatively normal life. Martha's life would never be completely normal again, now that she knew just how much was out there, but there were stages of it. Absolutely bloody insane was when all the stars were going out and she was negotiating with Daleks. Normal was going over to her mum's house for a cup of tea, which was what she was doing now.
When Francine opened the door, Martha fell into a hug almost automatically. She made sure that their hugs were always extra tight these days, because even though she was used to going toe-to-toe with alien threats, she was also constantly aware of how one day something might just go wrong and that would be it.
Her mother understood. As much as Martha hated that most of her family remembered that year, she was glad that they could relate at least slightly to what she did every day.
"How was he?"
Francine no longer held quite as much disdain for the Doctor, and yet Martha still sensed some of it there. She quirked a smile. "Same as ever." That wasn't entirely true, but she didn't need to get into it now. She was worried about him, but she wasn't sure she could sort through those thoughts at the moment either way.
But then Leo stepped into the room and that was completely different. He was the only one out of the lot of them who didn't remember, and it made things quite awkward at times. They'd all debated over whether to tell him, but had decided that they'd rather avoid having the youngest in the family label the rest of them as mad.
Still, Martha could tell that he knew that something was off, and he hoped that he forgave them for it.
"Come here," she said with that affectionate tone reserved for younger siblings -- and yet he was the one who scooped her up into a hug. It wasn't fair, how both of her siblings were taller than her.
Tish was nowhere to be seen, but Martha was sure she'd be getting a call from her eventually. It was days like this that reminded her what she was fighting for. It might not have been as exciting as stepping into the TARDIS or hunting down a stray alien in the English countryside, but it was why she did all that. It was that reprieve that everyone but the Doctor needed.
Except Martha suspected that he did need it, and that was why she worried.
Contact: thecourtster[at]gmail.com / demonology @ plurk
LiveJournal: burningvigor
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Do you have other characters in this game? Nope!
Character
Name: Martha Jones
Fandom: Doctor Who
Age: 22-23 (timelines in DW are kind of insane, but it's one of those two)
Physical description: An official image and icons!
Background:
Martha Jones, for her first twenty-two years, lived a normal life. She was born in London (this is a guess, since it's never mentioned that she lived anywhere else) and grew up with an older sister, Tish, and a younger brother, Leo. As for her parents, they divorced at some point in her life, though it's not made clear when. By the time that she's twenty-two, though, her father has a girlfriend. The fact that Martha seems relatively okay with this indicates that it's been some time since her parents were together, but this is just a guess on my part.
It's implied that Martha was never the most social, outgoing person, mainly through comments made about her being a science geek (and a Harry Potter fan, apparently) and her family's surprise at her having a boyfriend. (Not that she actually does, but that's neither her nor there.) Despite that, Martha was independent enough to move out on her own and smart enough to get into medical school, which is where she is when her story really picks up.
On a seemingly normal day, Martha was approached by a strange man in the street who acted as if he knew her. She brushed it off, but when she was working she came across him again -- because he was a patient. He acted as if he didn't remember what had happened, but even stranger was when she realized through her examination that he had two hearts.
Everything escalated from there. At her lunch break Martha realized that it was raining... upside-down -- and after that, the whole hospital was hit by what seemed to be an earthquake, and the next thing she knew they were on the moon.
Martha was baffled by this, but she had to accept what was in front of her -- and more than that, it was exciting. Still, it became clear that their oxygen supply would run out eventually, and Martha's clever observations made her stand out to the same man she'd met before, who recruited her to help him get to the bottom of what was going on. His name? The Doctor. Nothing more, nothing less.
Together the two dealt with an intergalactic police force in the form of bipedal rhinos called the Judoon and a bloodsucking alien who was looking to destroy half of the Earth. Martha learned that the Doctor was an alien himself, which explained the two hearts if nothing else. During their investigation the two of them shared a kiss that was meant only as a genetic transfer, completely platonic on the Doctor's end and yet it had more of an effect on Martha. In the end the Doctor had to risk himself to expose the alien to the Judoon, but Martha was able to bring him around with CPR before she passed out from oxygen deprivation. The Doctor saved the day, however, and got the hospital back down to Earth with minimal casualties.
The Doctor left without much of a goodbye, leaving Martha to dodge the press who wanted the whole story of what happened and then deal with her family, as it was her brother's twenty-first birthday that night. That ended with the usual drama, though after leaving the restaurant they'd been in Martha spotted the Doctor peering out from an alleyway, waiting for her.
He invited her to go on a trip through time and space with him, made possible by his ship (which is in the shape of a phone booth), the TARDIS. Martha was as amazed by it as anyone else who boards ("it's bigger on the inside!"), but after the Doctor explained that it could travel through time (by going back to meet her on the street that morning), Martha was convinced that this wasn't an opportunity she could pass up. The Doctor explained that it would be just one trip, however, as a thank you for her help.
And where did he choose to take her, but into the past: 1599 London, to be precise. It blew Martha's mind to feel like she was taking a walk through a history book, but even more amazing was when she realized that this was the near the height of Shakespeare's fame. However, a trip that was meant to be a vacation quickly turned into a job when they realized that something was wrong. At the show that they attended, Shakespeare himself announced that a new play would be performed the next night, but this play was one that had never actually existed: a mere myth.
As it turned out, witches were manipulating Shakespeare to write a spell into this play. This spell would call the rest of their kind -- the Carrionites -- onto Earth so that they could take over. Martha proved herself as useful both by catching Shakespeare's attention and by helping the Doctor to sort out the Carrionites' plan, but it became clear that the Doctor would have rather had an old companion of his, Rose, there with him. Martha felt a bit unwanted for that reason, but it didn't stop them from reversing the spell and putting everything to rights. (Oh, and she shot down Shakespeare's advances.)
It seemed that the Doctor had enjoyed her company more than he would admit, however, since he ended up bending his rule and deciding that she could be granted one trip to the future as well. And so they went to a version of New York that was far into the future, though they exited the TARDIS and arrived in a slum. Martha realized that this was a place the Doctor had taken Rose, and it was obvious that he was using this at least somewhat as a grieving process. Neither of them could dwell on that too long, however, as they soon learned about the Motorway, which everyone spoke about ominously, saying that no one ever returned once they went.
Unexpectedly, a couple came up from behind them and kidnapped Martha, dragging her away before the Doctor could do anything. She was knocked out and eventually woke up in some sort of shuttlecraft. She tried to threaten them at first, but the couple apologized and explained that they needed her as a third passenger in order to get into the fast lane. The Motorway turned out to be a huge traffic jam as everyone was attempting to get to the upper city. However, the couple estimated that it would take about six years for them to get there. All Martha could do was hope that the Doctor would get to her somehow.
Which was exactly what he did, though not before the shuttlecraft was almost crushed by huge killer crab monsters. As it turned out, the reason that no one had ever made it through was because everyone in the upper city had died from a drug-induced disease. When Martha went to meet the Doctor, she witnessed the death of the Face of Boe, a very old creature that was the last of its kind. It was due to that that Martha learned that the Doctor was also the last of his kind, the Time Lords. With some pressing, she got the Doctor to open up and he explained that his home planet had been destroyed in a great war and that he was the only one left.
This somber moment could only last so long, however, as they were soon off on another trip: a detour of sorts. This time they ended up in the New York of 1930, a far cry from the place they'd just been. However, they found out almost immediately that there had been mysterious disappearances. Through their investigation, Martha befriended a number of people: a showgirl named Tullulah, a young man named Frank, and Laszlo, Tallulah's sweetheart who was mutated into a half-man, half-pig by whoever was behind the kidnappings.
The culprits turned out to be the Daleks, the race that the Time Lords had been fighting against in the great war that wiped them out. Martha ended up getting captured by them and was slated to be part of "the final experiment." The Doctor caught up with her and they discovered that the Daleks were planning to rebuild their dying race by combining with humans.
They all managed to escape, but the slum where they were camping out was subsequently attacked by the Daleks. The Doctor decided to go and try to reason with them, though he secretly gave Martha his psychic paper before he left. Knowing that it could be used to get her into places, Martha eventually realized that she needed to go the Empire State Building (which was still being constructed) and worked out that the Daleks were planning to use it as an energy conductor. While the Daleks succeeded in creating their human-Dalek hybrids, the Doctor contaminated the energy transferral, meaning that the hybrids were more human (and therefore less obedient) than expected. In the following conflict, three of the four Daleks were killed and all of the hybrids were exterminated. The final Dalek escaped through time before the Doctor could try to reason with it, meaning that their victory wasn't much of one. After bidding farewell to their friends, the Doctor and Martha moved on.
After this adventure, it seemed as if Martha's journey was going to come to an end. The Doctor chose to take her back home next, and was ready to leave after barely even saying goodbye. However, Martha got a call that her sister, Tish, was on TV. She turned it on to a press conference where a scientist named Richard Lazarus was explaining that he was going to "change what it meant to be human." While the Doctor did leave Martha behind, he was back in seconds, curious to find out what that meant.
The two dressed up and went to the event where Lazarus' breakthrough was going to be revealed, as Martha had an invitation due to her sister. Her brother and mother were also there, and her mother in particular was very suspicious of the Doctor. Nonetheless, the two witnessed Lazarus, an older man, step into his machine and then emerge looking like he was in his prime. Everyone was shocked and impressed, but the Doctor and Martha were more skeptical. Martha procured a DNA sample (Lazarus kissed her hand) and then went with the Doctor to go analyze it. They realized that Lazarus' DNA was mutating, which turned out to be very true. Lazarus turned into a hideous monster and attacked all the guests; Martha was entrusted with getting them out while the Doctor kept Lazarus distracted. Despite her mother's pleading, Martha then chose to go back inside and help him. They eventually ended up tracking Lazarus to a church with Tish in tow, and some clever organ playing was enough to finally put the beast down.
With all this over, however, the Doctor was willing to offer Martha one more trip. Martha was sick of being strung along like this, though, and said that she'd rather just stay home if it was going to be that way. The Doctor immediately agreed to take her along as a more permanent companion, which Martha was thrilled to hear. Without further ado, they headed out in the TARDIS.
It landed them inside a spaceship, which was uncomfortably hot and fitted with a crew that was baffled by how the Doctor and Martha had gotten there. There were more pressing matters at hand, however, as it turned out that the ship was on a collision course with a sun and they had less than an hour to fix things. Martha decided to go with one of the crew, Riley, to open up a series of password-protected doors and access the auxilary controls that they could use to get out.
At one point Martha used her phone, newly-outfitted with universal roaming (a gift from the Doctor) to call her mother for help with one of the password questions. Her mother attempted to pry about where she was and who she was with, but Martha wasn't having it. Soon after that, however, they were approached by another member of the crew who was infected with some disease and looking to kill them. To escape, they locked themselves in an escape pod, but the crew member deployed it, sending them straight for the sun. The Doctor appeared just a second too late but yelled to Martha that he would save her.
Martha, scared that she would die out in space and her family would never know what happened to her, both bonded with Riley and called her mother back in tears. In the end the Doctor did save her, but it was at his own expense. He was now infected, in pain and fighting the virus, which it turned out was the sun itself. It had been injured by the crew that had mined it for fuel, and this was its revenge. The Doctor told Martha that he needed to be put in a cryogenic chamber in order to get the sun's infection out of him, and so she took him there even as he struggled to fight it off. This was the most vulnerable that she'd seen him: he admitted that he was scared and even started to tell her about his regeneration process, but Martha cut him off, assuring him that she would take care of him.
In the end, though, she had to leave him in order to race to the other end of the ship and release the sun's resources that the crew had stolen. Reluctant as she was to abandon the Doctor, she did as he ordered and successfully dumped the supplies. When she returned to him, the Doctor was cured and they shared a relieved hug. After bidding farewell to Riley (with a kiss!), Martha boarded the TARDIS with the Doctor and was granted a key to the ship, another sign of the Doctor's growing trust for her.
However, they didn't stay out of danger for long. The two ended up being followed by a family of aliens who were after the Doctor's Time Lord body. The Doctor took the threat very seriously and decided to take extreme measures. He felt that the only way to get rid of the Family was by waiting them out (they had a short lifespan), and that meant hiding. He couldn't hide as a Time Lord, since they would be able to track him that way, and so he used a device called the chameleon arch to make himself into a human.
This meant that Martha had to take care of him as they were deposited into "John Smith's" fake life where he was a schoolteacher in the English countryside in 1913. Martha posed as his maid, which considering her skin color meant that life wasn't easy. Her only friend was a fellow servant named Jenny, and even John Smith didn't always treat her very well.
While it was clear that part of John still remembered his real life, Martha's job was to make sure that he remained human until the Family had died. This meant keeping her head down, though after two months had passed, things started to go wrong. Martha spotted a meteorite falling to the Earth, though she couldn't find the source. Almost as bad was that John had fallen in love with a human woman, and while the Doctor had left her detailed instructions before he changed, that wasn't included. (And Martha couldn't help but feel some remorse that even a human version of the Doctor wouldn't fall for her, since her feelings for him had become quite strong by this point.)
Things went from bad to worse when Martha realized that her friend, Jenny, had been possessed by one of the aliens. There was no hiding anymore; she needed to bring the Doctor back, and the only way to do that was by having him open a fobwatch that had his Time Lord consciousness hidden inside. She ran to John and tried to explain the situation to him, but he brushed her off. When Martha got desperate and tried to literally smack some sense into him, John dismissed her from her position and tossed her out.
Not willing to give up so easily, Martha ran back to the TARDIS to get the Doctor's psychic paper and used it to get into the dance that night, which John and Joan (the human he'd fallen for) were attending. There she tried to appeal to Joan first and John second, handing him the sonic screwdriver and explaining that he truly was the Doctor. (John thought the Doctor was just a man from his dreams.)
However, the Family, which had taken the bodies of four different humans, crashed the party and took both Martha and Joan at gunpoint. They had overheard what Martha was saying and knew that John was really the Doctor, but their attempts to make him change back failed. When they were temporarily distracted, Martha managed to get out of their hold and turn a gun on one of them, at which point the situation was under control enough for everyone else to escape. She followed soon after, running back to the school with John and Joan.
While John rallied up the boys to try and protect the school as an armed force (which Martha thought was a stupid idea), Martha searched his whole office for the fobwatch (to no avail) and managed to at least get Joan on her side. Sort of. The defense of the school failed and the Family eventually entered, searching for the watch. Martha, John, and Joan got outside, only to see that the Family had captured the TARDIS. John had started to believe that the Doctor existed by this point, but he knew that becoming him again would mean his own death.
The three escaped to an empty cottage and were then found by one of the students, a boy named Latimer who had gotten hold of the watch. Martha took it from him and then tried to convince John to change back, but he lashed out at her, wondering why he should turn into a lonely, fearsome man. Martha, beyond desperate at this point (the Family has taken to bombing the countryside), admitted that she needed the Doctor because she loved him. After some more agonizing and a private talk with Joan, John finally agreed and went to go confront the Family on his own.
After punishing the Family for what they'd done, the Doctor went off to speak to Joan on his own while Martha waited with the TARDIS. He returned, unwilling to discuss what had happened with Joan, but thankful for all Martha had done for him. She told him that her confession from before hadn't been sincere, and he acted like he believed it. And so the two headed off with the Doctor back to his normal self.
Except it wasn't long before they were stuck in the past once again. Martha and the Doctor ran afoul of the Weeping Angels, creatures who sent people back in time in order to feed off of the energy of the days in the future that they were never able to live. This put the Doctor and Martha in 1969, though they had a packet of information given to them by a girl in the future, Sally, which gave instructions for how they could get home. (She was basically telling them what clues to send through time to her past self, which is kind of a headache but makes sense in context.)
The Doctor worked on putting all of that together with the help of his timey-wimey detector, whereas Martha was forced to get a job in a shop to make sure they had enough money to live (which she wasn't entirely happy about). They were likely stuck there for a number of months before Sally was able to get the TARDIS back to them, but eventually she did.
Their next stop was in Cardiff, as there was a rift in Time there which gave off excess energy. The TARDIS could absorb this energy, so the Doctor was essentially refueling. However, when they took off again something strange happened, and they rocketed forward trillion of years in time, to the end of the universe. More than that, when they exited the ship Martha found a man collapsed on the ground, dead. The Doctor said it was an old friend of his and didn't seem concerned about his state -- which was because the man was able to come back to life.
And so Martha met Jack Harkness, a man who was essentially immortal and also an incessant flirt. The two quickly hit it off and even made some shots at the Doctor's expense. Upon exploring, the three found an abandoned city that almost looked like a hive. They were worried that there might be no life left, but then they saw a man running from a group of savages. They saved the man and then ran with him toward a fortress of sorts which kept out the savages called Futurekind.
In this fortress humans lived like refugees, waiting for one Professor Yana to finish putting together a spacecraft that would be able to take all of them to "Utopia." It was said that somewhere in space such a place existed, and that was where they were trying to go. Martha, the Doctor, and Jack met Yana, a human scientist, and his assistant, Chantho, who was the last of the planet's species.
The Doctor helped Yana to get the spacecraft working, but some work still needed to be done with the couplings. Jack and the Doctor went to deal with that, with Martha listening to their conversation over the radio. Yana seemed strangely affected by all of this talk of time travel, and he also spoke of being plagued by the sound of drums in his head. He eventually pulled out an old, broken watch of his -- one that Martha recognized as being part of the chameleon arch that turned Time Lords into humans. After some questioning Martha realized that Yana might actually be a hidden Time Lord, and she rushed off to tell the Doctor.
However, the Doctor was not as pleased to find out that he wasn't actually the last of his kind as Martha had thought he would be, and it soon became clear that something was wrong. After making sure that the spacecraft successfully launched, they rushed back to Yana, but it was too late: he had opened the watch and become the Master, another Time Lord and the Doctor's nemesis. While Martha didn't get a look at him, his voice seemed strangely familiar. The Master was shot by Chantho, but he merely regenerated and then stole the TARDIS, leaving Martha, Jack, and the Doctor to die.
Luckily, the Doctor was able to fix Jack's vortex manipulator (a more crude time traveling device) and get them all back to 2007. However, upon arriving Martha realized why the Master's voice was familiar. He'd taken the role of Harold Saxon, the man who had just been elected as Prime Minister. The three went to Martha's flat to look up information about Saxon on the internet, discovering that the Master could have only taken on that role eighteen months ago at the most. He had fabricated the rest of Saxon's life and used hypnotism through a cell phone carrier called Archangel to stop the masses from noticing.
They then watched a TV broadcast by Saxon, where he mentioned that he had made first contact with a race of aliens called the Toclafane. However, then the Master seemed to speak directly to Martha through the broadcast and the Doctor realized that the room had been fit with a bomb. The three escaped just in time, and Martha immediately thought of her family, wondering if they had been targeted as well. It turned out that they had -- Martha watched as her father and mother were abducted and then heard the same thing happen to Tish over the phone -- but all she could do was run, as she, Jack, and the Doctor had been labeled as terrorists.
The three went into hiding and the Doctor explained that the Master had been driven mad as a child by looking into the time vortex. The Doctor also constructed three perception filters for them in the shape of a key they wore around their neck; these would allow them to move around without being noticed. Using them, the three went to watch as the US president came to meet Saxon, finding out that the US was planning to take over the planned televised "first contact" with an airborne aircraft carrier called the Valiant as the stage.
Using the vortex manipulator, they snuck onto the ship and found the TARDIS, but the Master had cannibalized it and turned it into a paradox machine. They moved then into the room where the first contact would take place and watched as the Master took over. He ordered the Toclafane to kill the president and then captured the Doctor, who he had known was there all along. He then used his laser screwdriver to temporarily kill Jack and then went on to artificially age the Doctor one hundred years, making him impossibly old. Martha stayed at the Doctor's side even as her family was brought forward, all of them captured save for her brother Leo.
The paradox machine was then activated, opening up a rift in the sky that released billions of deadly Toclafane into Earth. The Doctor whispered his plan to Martha; she needed to escape and travel the world, putting the name of the Doctor and his deeds into the minds of the people. They could use that collective knowledge to gain control of Archangel and undo the Master's paradox. Taking on her task without question, Martha gave her family and friends one last look before using the manipulator to escape the Valiant.
And so for a year, Martha walked the entire Earth, finding the people wherever they were hiding so that she could tell them all about the Doctor. Her name became well-known during this time as she endured great dangers in order to find as many people as possible and tell her stories. She made it seem like she was collecting the components needed to kill a Time Lord, but she was really just slipping through the cracks in the Master's empire and feeding one idea to the masses: the Doctor.
Once a year had passed, Martha finally returned to England and met up with a contact, Tom Milligan, and went to meet with a professor under the guise of figuring out what the Toclafane were. Martha knew that this professor was actually working for the Master due to her son being held hostage, but that was part of the plan: she needed to get captured in order to be reunited with her family and the Doctor when the plan went into place.
They did capture one of the Toclafane, however, and Martha was horrified to find out that they were the humans from the end of the universe, converted into mindless killing machines. She and Tom left after that and she found a place to hide with survivors and talk about the Doctor, but that was when the Master tracked her down. Tom gave his life to protect her and then Martha was abducted and brought aboard the Valiant.
It was here that she revealed their plan: if enough people who were connected to the Archangel network thought the same thing at the same time, it could revert the Doctor back to his normal self -- and it did. The Master was defeated, and with Jack's help the paradox was undone. The Doctor's plan was to then keep the Master in his TARDIS to watch over him, but at that point the Master's human wife and companion, Lucy, shot him. The Master refused to regenerate, leaving the Doctor alone again.
And so the world reverted back to how it had been a year ago and most of the people in it didn't remember what had happened during the Master's reign. Only those who had been on the Valiant at the time -- Martha, The Doctor, Jack, Martha's family, etc. -- remembered it. And so it was termed The Year That Never Was. With the Doctor and his TARDIS back to normal, business could have continued as usual, and yet Martha decided that she needed to stay with her family and care for them after everything they'd been through. More than that, she knew traveling with the Doctor had always been a temporary thing and she didn't want to waste years of her life trying to get him to notice her and return her feelings. She needed to move on and continue to grow as her own person, and so she said her goodbyes to the Doctor, giving him her phone so that she could call him if need be.
Soon after that, she was able to get a job with UNIT, a military organization that battled alien threats. She had been recommended for the job by a very trusted source, which Martha assumed was the Doctor. She worked for them for a time and even went to help out Torchwood, Jack's small Cardiff-based group, for a short while. Torchwood dealt with anything that came out of the Rift in Cardiff and Martha filled in as their medic for a time. During her time with them she had her body infested by alien mayflies, watched someone get brought back to life and stay alive, encountered Death and was artificially aged by it (now she knows how the Doctor felt), and so on. She enjoyed spending time with Jack (another member of the end-of-the-world-club) and got along with the rest of his team, but eventually she had to return to UNIT. It was also around this time that she re-met Tom Milligan, and while he didn't recall the events of the Year That Never Was, the two of them got to know each other under better circumstances and eventually got engaged.
Time passed and Martha continued her work at UNIT, but when there was a bizarre event where fifty-two people died simultaneously throughout the world, she realized it was finally time to call the Doctor. Their reunion was heartfelt, though Martha was initially tripped up by the fact that he had already replaced her. Despite that, any possible tension between herself and Donna Noble was nonexistent, and the three got down to the business at hand.
The Doctor questioned her loyalty to UNIT considering the fact that they were so prone to violent methods, but Martha explained that she was trying to better them from the inside -- and more than that, the Doctor was the one who had suggested she work for them. The two still bickered like they always had, but Martha had a better hold on her feelings for him. As for Donna, Martha made sure to use her own experiences with the Doctor to advise her to watch over her family closely and make sure that they were safe.
In any case, it turned out that a system in people's cars called ATMOS was behind the deaths. UNIT stormed the ATMOS factory and with Donna's help they realized that something was wrong with their workers. Martha was entrusted with examining the work force, but she was interrupted and then led down into an underground part of the factory. She was overpowered by an alien from a race called the Sontarans and then strapped to an exam table. As it turned out, they were able to use her DNA to birth a clone version of her. Martha fell unconscious while her clone moved around in her place.
She was eventually saved by the Doctor, but at that point she had to confront her dying clone and try to get some information out of her. It turned out that the Sontarans were trying to convert Earth's atmosphere so that they could use it to breed more of their kind, but the Doctor managed to dispel the poisonous gas they'd flooded the Earth with and the day was saved.
Martha was intending to bid farewell to the Doctor after that, but the TARDIS had other ideas. With her, the Doctor, and Donna all in it, the ship took off all on its own, placing them in an unknown destination. The moment that they exited the TARDIS to see where they'd ended up, the Doctor was seized by people dressed like soldiers and then had his hand forced into a strange device. It turned out that it was taking a tissue sample which was used to create an artificial offspring of him: a blond girl who was outfitted with the history and memories to serve as a soldier. Martha and Donna were taken aback by this, but they didn't have much time to work things out, as they were soon ambushed. While Martha did her best to take cover, she was kidnapped by the attackers and eventually passed out.
She woke up next to one of the aliens who had taken her, a bipedal fish creature. They couldn't communicate with each other, but she insisted on helping him since he was injured. While the others were wary of her at first, she was able to negotiate and get on their good side despite the language barrier. As they were trying to explain things to her on a map, however, a hidden part of the map suddenly appeared, and this gave them reason to go march off to war. Martha didn't know what was going on, but the alien she'd helped showed her where she needed to go to meet up with her friends.
As they had been underground this entire time, Martha decided to go to the surface of the planet despite the harsh conditions because it would lead her back to the Doctor and Donna faster. The alien she'd befriended reluctantly followed her and they struggled across the surface, but at one point Martha lost her balance and slid down into a substance that resembled quicksand. The alien ended up giving his life to save her, which understandably distressed her. (It's probably the hardest she cries during the whole series.)
She was forced to go the rest of her way on the own, but she eventually reunited with the Doctor, who had been searching for this mysterious "source" that both sides of the war had been fighting to find. As it turned out, it was an energy that could terraform the planet and make it habitable for both the humans and the aliens. The Doctor unleashed it and all was put to rights -- except that his daughter ended up shot by one of her own.
There wasn't much time to mourn, though, and the Doctor made certain to take Martha home then. Saying goodbye to the Doctor was something that was still difficult for Martha, but she went to go meet Tom with a smile on her face.
Time passed and Martha was eventually promoted within UNIT to work on something called Project Indigo in New York. Using salvaged Sontaran technology, they were working to develop a teleport system. While working on this, however, the world was suddenly turned upside-down; actually, Earth itself was moved into orbit with twenty-six other planets and more than that, it was being invaded by Daleks.
Martha tried to call the Doctor, but to no avail. She was only able to get through to Jack, but he also hadn't heard anything from the Doctor. Martha was ordered to use Project Indigo (which took the form of a sort of holster that she was able to wear) and was also handed the Osterhagen Key, a device that was reserved for when the Earth had no other option but to destroy itself.
Upon using it, the teleport landed her at her mother's home, where she received a signal on the computer from Jack, a woman named Sarah Jane Smith who was an old companion of the Doctor's, and Harriet Jones, a former prime minister who had also worked with the Doctor. They realized that if they all worked together, they could create a signal strong enough that it would reach the Doctor -- and it did. He was only able to talk to them for a short time before the signal was lost, but it meant he would be able to track the Earth to where it had been moved.
Jack then gave Martha the information she needed to properly control the Indigo suit and so she was able to warp to a station where the Osterhagen Key could be activated -- an abandoned castle in Germany. Instead of activating it, however, she sent a transmission to the Dalek stronghold where the Doctor (and Rose Tyler, who had managed to find her way back across universes) was captured. She threatened the Daleks with the destruction of Earth, figuring that its placement was part of their plan, but to no avail; the Daleks were able to pull her from that point onto their ship, the Crucible, with the Key left behind.
And so they were helpless as the Daleks revealed their plan -- to use the energy from the planets they'd collected to destroy the whole universe. Luckily, Donna and a clone Doctor (it's a long story) arrived just in time and were able to stop this plan from unfolding. All of them (Martha, the Doctor, Rose, and Jack all included, among others) piled back onto the TARDIS and then worked as a team to steer Earth back to its proper point in space.
Once home, Martha said farewell to the Doctor once more, agreeing to destroy the Osterhagen Key under his orders. She walked off with Jack and Mickey, Rose's old boyfriend, and life continued on.
Point in Story: Martha will be taken from the end of series 4, after that episode "Journey's End." The universe has just been saved and she's said her goodbye to the Doctor with Jack at her side, ready to go back to her work at UNIT.
Personality:
Martha is, first and foremost, a very loyal and caring person. She decided to be a doctor because she wanted to help people, and this is something that never leaves her character even as she develops over the course of the series. Her first instinct is always to tend to people who need her help, whether it's a fellow human or a possibly hostile alien. The fact is that Martha is of above average intelligence (the Daleks even said so!), which makes her a very capable doctor. Despite this, she tends to be modest in most situations, although she gets better at acknowledging her own talents over time.
She's not only smart when it comes to medical things, either. Martha first stood out to the Doctor because of her cleverness in that she was able to tell that something was keeping them from suffocating on the moon during their first meeting. Later on in their travels, she worked out why the Doctor had given her his psychic paper in New York; she learned how to use his sonic screwdriver for at least basic tasks; she noticed almost immediately that her friend Jenny had been possessed by an alien, and so forth. During her time with him (and afterward) Martha was usually able to keep up with the Doctor's explanations about the aliens they encountered and the methods that he had to stop them and also helped him to solve the many mysteries that they came across. She's level-headed, practical, and quick thinking. Even when she's captured or in danger, Martha can either get herself out of it or remain calm enough to wait for rescue.
While Martha was put into a lot of danger and forced into unpleasant situations during her time with the Doctor, she took it all in stride. More than that, she found it exciting. Even though she had a promising future to look forward to, she was more than happy to go traveling across the universe with the Doctor because there was so much to learn, so many things to see -- whether it was the past of her planet or the future of another. Which says another thing about her: Martha is eternally curious. She's constantly asking questions, both of the Doctor and of their situation, and it's that need to know that makes her such a useful companion. Asking questions like that often reveals the truth, or gives the Doctor that push he needs to put clues together and figure something out.
However, even when Martha ended up in situations that she wasn't as thrilled about, she handled it as best she could. When she was stuck in 1913 with a human version of the Doctor, struggling to fit in and enduring a racism much harsher than she was used to, Martha remained at the Doctor's side and refused to give up on him. And then when she was stuck in 1969, she got a menial job to support them (because chances are the Doctor fails at living like a normal person). This shows how she can be extremely loyal and also very trusting.
Granted, her feelings for the Doctor are very complex. Martha was charmed by him almost immediately due to the fact that they ended up going to the moon and saving a whole hospital full of people together. The Doctor tends to have that sort of effect on people, as he's mysterious and alien and smart and endearing all at once. Despite that, Martha treated him like a normal person, pointing out his faults when she noticed them and forcing him to drop the enigmatic act when she could. Despite that, she started to deeply care for him very quickly. She put faith in his ability to put things right whenever they went wrong and she saw him as someone totally different from anyone she'd met -- as brilliant and wonderful and fantastic.
This led to deeper feelings that she didn't know what to do with, especially since for a large portion of their time together the Doctor was hung up on a previous companion. Martha urged the Doctor to see her as her own person, which he eventually did, and yet she was never able to properly voice the way she felt about him. This was because the Doctor did what he could to not notice and also because Martha realized that the Doctor was much older than her and had experienced much more than she had. She knew almost from the start that a typical relationship between them wouldn't be possible, and yet she couldn't stop herself from loving him despite that.
However, due to a number of reasons, Martha realized that she couldn't travel with the Doctor forever. Even though she loved it, she also knew that it was a disconnect from her life and her loved ones and something that was going to put her family in serious danger. They were tortured by the Master and that was a big wake-up call for Martha. More than that, saving the world almost singlehandedly and without the help of the Doctor (except for the fact that he told her how to do it) made Martha aware of the fact that she could accomplish so much on her own. She didn't need the Doctor to do it, and she couldn't waste more of her time remaining hung up on him when she wasn't going to get anything in return. She was also able to reflect on herself at this point and realize that the way she was pining for him wasn't healthy and that she needed to move on with her life. Her ability to acknowledge this, to realize that she wasn't actually second-best to the Doctor but that she was also caught up in feelings that wouldn't be returned, and then work up the courage to tell him that she wasn't going to travel with him any longer shows more than anything that Martha is strong and independent.
This is shown in how she moves on from there as well. She worked for both UNIT and Torchwood for a time, but in the end she moved away from both of those organizations and became freelance, as she didn't always agree with their methods, so she ultimately felt more comfortable handling things herself. She's more than willing to help if her skills are needed, but she's good on her own and she comes to realize that more and more. (She hasn't gone freelance by the point at which I'm taking her, but she's on the verge of it.)
However, this ability to work alone (or at least without someone above her ordering her around) does not mean that Martha is a loner. It is implied that she isn't as outgoing as her family, but on her adventures with the Doctor she shows herself to be a very friendly person. Regardless of where they go and who they meet, Martha tends to find someone who she can get along with and connect with. This ranges from Shakespeare to Riley to Jenny to Jack to Chantho to Donna and beyond that. She always manages to hit it off with people and is interested in hearing people's stories and getting to know them.
As much as she values friends, however, Martha is also very close to her family. She is the rock and the mediator of her family due to being the middle child and the most stable out of all of them in many ways. Her parents and her siblings alike turn to her for advice and she does her best to give it, though she is overwhelmed by the sheer drama that they generate at times. She also had some tension with her mother while traveling with the Doctor since her mother was being fed information about the Doctor being a bad influence, but this didn't in any way stop her from loving her and the events of The Year That Never Was eclipsed all of that anyway.
In fact, whenever Martha was in danger while with the Doctor she usually thought back to her family and worried about them, since if she died out in space they would never have known what happened to her. More than that, when they are kidnapped by the Master is one of the moments when Martha is shown to be the most upset; she values their safety over her own. Her major reason for ceasing to travel with the Doctor was also because she knew that she had to care for them after what the Master put them through. Long story short, family is a huge consideration for Martha and she will do all she can to keep them safe.
Still, even with all that Martha has been through, she hasn't been hardened. Things still affect her, and while she's generally able to keep a cool head about things, she can be very emotive at times. She'll scream in anger or frustration when she can't find a solution to something; she'll cry if she thinks she's going to die and might not ever see her family again. She'll roll her eyes when she thinks someone isn't talking sense, and she'll laugh along with anyone who'll joke with her. She's still touched by the people she encounters and she still holds out hope for the human race and whatever the future may hold.
The ways in which she has hardened is through what she's capable of. She has learned how to handle danger and control her fear when she needs to. This is especially true when she's working with someone who isn't as used to dangerous situations as she is because she wants to keep them calm and watch over them. Even after a year of traveling the world opposing him, Martha was still scared of the Master and wanted to hide from him when he found her, but she was able to gather her composure and face him without betraying a single emotion. She can definitely take a leader position when necessary and she will take whatever risk is required to keep people safe.
The one thing she won't do is kill. She never planned to kill the Master even after he captured and tortured her family. The only time in which she killed something was with the humans who had been turned into pig creatures, and that was only because they were actively attacking her -- and she felt extremely guilty afterward. Martha doesn't have that capability in her. She's a doctor; it goes against her very instincts.
Like most companions, Martha wasn't able to return to a normal life after leaving the Doctor. Even if she did remain on Earth after that to look after things, she had to remain in a career that had to do with the alien. It's hard to imagine trying to act like everything is normal again after learning so much about the universe, which is why she worked for UNIT and Torchwood. Luckily, her family experiencing The Year That Never Was meant that she could do this without creating a lot of tension with them.
One final note: Martha is a geek at heart. She thinks that analyzing alien DNA is exciting and she was always enthusiastic about hearing scientific explanations from the Doctor.
Powers/Abilities: Martha has no supernatural powers or anything that strange about her, really. The only odd thing about her physically is that her blood is somewhat different from that of a normal human due to traveling through time and space with the Doctor. This doesn't come up often, but it does mean that she can handle certain physical stimuli better than an average human. As for abilities, the main point to keep in mind here is that she is a doctor (more or less), so she can give physical exams, administer diagnoses, and perform first aid. She also knows a small amount about Time Lord biology and probably some other alien biology as well due to her time with the Doctor and working at UNIT. Her time at UNIT also means that she has some experience with handling a gun, though she would not be willing to fire one under most cases. She's also pretty used to running by now, since that's mainly what you do if you're traveling with the Doctor. She is physically fit in general, made clear by the fact that she walked the whole of Earth during The Year That Never Was. That year trained her in survival methods and stealth as well.
Items you're bringing with you:
- the clothes on her back: - a black zip-up jacket
- black pants
- black shoes
- whatever underwear she has on
- stud earrings
- an engagement ring
- her cell phone
Samples
First Person POV (Network Post):
[The video feed comes on with a bit of jostling, and then a brief cry of victory is heard as Martha realizes that it's working. This all reminds her a little of when she was in 1969 and they had to record those videos for Sally. Not that the Doctor let her in them much, but now she's got her chance.
And she'll be talking to people who should respond, at that. Honestly, video chatting is rather high-tech for 2006, so she's a bit excited in her own way.]
Hello! I think this should be working properly now.
[She settles down, seeming to be on her bed in her room. If she's got a roommate, they apparently aren't there at the moment.] So I guess we'll all need to get to know each other. I'm Martha Jones... and, for what it's worth, I'm from London, Earth in the early 21st century.
I'm not quite sure what's going on yet, but I do know we can work this out. I'll do whatever I can to be useful, and I'm a doctor, so anyone who's got medical problems, please let me know!
Though... if anyone comes across someone called the Doctor, I'd like to hear about that too. He's a friend of mine. [And she's betting he's involved with this somehow.]
Third Person POV (Log Post):
It was always strange, going from saving the universe (or at least helping with it, this time) back to relatively normal life. Martha's life would never be completely normal again, now that she knew just how much was out there, but there were stages of it. Absolutely bloody insane was when all the stars were going out and she was negotiating with Daleks. Normal was going over to her mum's house for a cup of tea, which was what she was doing now.
When Francine opened the door, Martha fell into a hug almost automatically. She made sure that their hugs were always extra tight these days, because even though she was used to going toe-to-toe with alien threats, she was also constantly aware of how one day something might just go wrong and that would be it.
Her mother understood. As much as Martha hated that most of her family remembered that year, she was glad that they could relate at least slightly to what she did every day.
"How was he?"
Francine no longer held quite as much disdain for the Doctor, and yet Martha still sensed some of it there. She quirked a smile. "Same as ever." That wasn't entirely true, but she didn't need to get into it now. She was worried about him, but she wasn't sure she could sort through those thoughts at the moment either way.
But then Leo stepped into the room and that was completely different. He was the only one out of the lot of them who didn't remember, and it made things quite awkward at times. They'd all debated over whether to tell him, but had decided that they'd rather avoid having the youngest in the family label the rest of them as mad.
Still, Martha could tell that he knew that something was off, and he hoped that he forgave them for it.
"Come here," she said with that affectionate tone reserved for younger siblings -- and yet he was the one who scooped her up into a hug. It wasn't fair, how both of her siblings were taller than her.
Tish was nowhere to be seen, but Martha was sure she'd be getting a call from her eventually. It was days like this that reminded her what she was fighting for. It might not have been as exciting as stepping into the TARDIS or hunting down a stray alien in the English countryside, but it was why she did all that. It was that reprieve that everyone but the Doctor needed.
Except Martha suspected that he did need it, and that was why she worried.