Exploration in Style [DW/BSG crossover]
Title: Exploration in Style
Author: trillianastra
Fandoms: Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Spoiler for the BSG final episode.
Pairings (if applicable): hints at Lee Adama/Martha Jones
Character(s) (if applicable) Eleventh Doctor, Sally Sparrow, Martha Jones, Lee Adama.
Summary: After UNIT make an unusual discovery, the Doctor and Martha visit prehistoric Earth and meet a new friend.
A/N: This is kind of a dual-purpose fic. Originally it was just to get rid of the idea that pounced on me while watching (of all things) Law & Order: UK. The other purpose to this fic is as a prequel (of sorts) to a project that I'm calling the Great Mega-Crossover AU of 2009, which will feature the characters from this fic, as well as quite a lot of others. (I'm so not kidding here. Eight separate fandoms are now involved. At the moment.)
Martha Jones sat in a UNIT briefing room, listening to one of the other departments report back on something they’d found. It didn’t sound particularly interesting at first… at least until they handed around photos. Apparently it was from some kind of archaelogical dig - researchers from a university looking for the burial mound of some long-dead king, they said. The researchers had found a suitable-looking hill and started to excavate. It had all seemed to be going well, when they found a structure buried under the hill.
But it wasn’t part of a tomb. To Martha, what the excavation had revealed looked an awful lot like a spaceship - a small one, but a spaceship none the less. While no-one was looking, she used her mobile phone to take a picture of the photograph that showed the ship, and as soon as the briefing was over she hurried back to her office. Making sure that the door was locked, she picked up her phone again, this time calling a number she knew very well, and waiting for an answer.
***
The TARDIS doors opened, and two people ran inside. The man headed straight for the console, flicking switches in rapid succession as the girl shut the doors and found something to hold on to. The ship shook as it dematerialised, and both people inside held on tightly until the shaking stopped.
Sally straightened up, and as soon as she’d brushed the hair out of her face she glared at the Doctor, who was trying to avoid looking at her.
“That’s it, we are never going there again.”
“Awww… but…”
“Doctor, they tried to burn me at the stake!”
“How was I supposed to know that blonde hair is a sign of the devil in their culture?”
Not knowing how to respond to that, she just looked at him. After a moment he smiled apologetically. “Sorry. Are you… okay?”
“I’m fine.” She hesitated. “Uh… Doctor?”
“What?”
“I think… um, I think I’d like to go home for a while.” Seeing his expression, she quickly added. “Not for good! I like travelling with you. I just need a few days of peace and quiet. Maybe do some ordinary things, that don’t involve running for my life…”
“Oh. Well, if you like, I’ll drop you back there. How long do you think? A week? Two?”
Before Sally could answer, they were both startled by the sound of a phone ringing. Specifically, the mobile phone that the Doctor kept on the console. He picked it up quickly.
“Hello?”
“Doctor?” He grinned when he recognised Martha’s voice.
“I’m here. What’s wrong?”
“Well, nothing’s exactly wrong, we haven’t been invaded by aliens or anything. But we have found something that you ought to see. If you can, of course.”
“Oh, of course I’ll come! Where are you?”
“UNIT headquarters. You remember where that is, right?”
“I’m not likely to forget. I’ll be there soon, don’t worry.”
“Thanks.”
As the call ended, the Doctor looked at Sally. “Looks like I’m needed at UNIT again. Um… their headquarters are in London… I can drop you off on the way…”
“No, it’s okay. Go straight there… I can make my own way home.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I’ll probably have fewer questions to answer if I get the bus back.”
“Good point.” The Doctor quickly set the coordinates for UNIT headquarters. “Hold on to something.”
A few minutes later, he opened the door and looked out to see that they had landed in a narrow street at the back of the UNIT building. He glanced around, and grinned when he saw Martha waiting at the end of the street. She smiled when she saw him, and headed over.
“You made it in one piece, then.”
“Oh, just about. What’s the emergency?”
“I’ll show you. Are you ready?”
“Yeah… just need to make sure Sally’s okay to get home, then we’re good.”
“Oh, she’s still with you?”
He nodded. “Still with me. She wanted to go home for a few days, get some peace and quiet.”
“I think I see why.”
Sally stepped out of the TARDIS, with a bag slung over one shoulder. She saw Martha and the Doctor and walked over. “Um, I’m going, I should be able to find a bus going in the right direction.”
“Okay. When do you want me to come back for you?”
“Er… give me a week. I think that’ll be enough.”
“Your wish is my command.”
“See you in a week then. Martha, it was nice seeing you again. Don’t let him get you into too much trouble, yeah?”
Martha smiled. “I won’t. And it was good seeing you, too.”
As Sally left, Martha and the Doctor turned to each other. Martha said “So, ready now?”
“What’ve you got?”
She took out her phone. “An archaelogical dig in Africa found something a bit unusual. Their reports filtered back to us, and a team got sent to check it out. Look what they found.” She showed him the picture she’d taken using the camera in her phone. “What does that look like to you?”
The Doctor frowned. “That’s a short-range, small-capacity spacecraft. There’s something familiar about the design, but I don’t know… I can’t place it. Where did you say they found this?”
“Tanzania. Buried in the side of a hill. When the team reported back they said it had been there over a hundred thousand years.”
“That’s weird. I mean, it’s obvious this was built by an advanced civilisation, probably from another planet, but none of the cultures that were visiting Earth around that time used craft like that.”
“Could it be dangerous?”
“Nah, unlikely. Still, it’s interesting. An unidentified ship from an unknown culture in a period where it shouldn’t have been.” He thought for a second, then smiled. “We’ve got the TARDIS. We could go, check it out.”
“I should get back to work…”
“They’ll never know you left. Anyway, you’ve never seen prehistoric Earth, have you?”
She shook her head. “No. I suppose it would be all right.”
“Great. Let’s go.” He ran back inside the TARDIS, Martha following. “You don’t have the exact location, do you?”
“Er, no, sorry.”
“No problem. Let’s see… Tanzania…” He fiddled with a few dials, sending them spinning through the Time Vortex.
When the TARDIS had come to a halt, the Doctor opened the doors and they stepped out to find themselves on the side of a mountain, looking out at lush African savannah under a clear blue sky. Martha smiled. “Where are we?”
“Well, in a hundred and fifty thousand years, this mountain will be called Mount Kilimanjaro.”
“Wow… wait, didn’t Mount Kilimanjaro used to be a volcano?”
“Possibly.” At her look, he added. “It’s fine. It’s not due for an eruption for years.”
She’d stopped listening, however, because she had just seen something very unexpected - a young man, in suspiciously modern, though battered, clothes, climbing up the mountain towards them. She got the Doctor’s attention. “Uh, Doctor. How far in the past are we again?”
“A hundred and fifty thousand years, why?”
“Are you sure? Because he doesn’t look quite like I’d expect in this period.”
“Who doesn’t?” The Doctor turned and saw the man. “Ah, him. Right.”
The young man was looking at them strangely, his gaze flicking between them and the TARDIS standing behind them. He walked over warily. “Who are you, and how did you get here?”
The Doctor stepped forward. “Well, I’m the Doctor and this is Martha. We’re… travellers.”
“From where? What part of this planet did the Raptors leave you in? You are from the Twelve Colonies, aren’t you?”
Martha blinked. “The what?” It only added to her confusion when the Doctor suddenly laughed. “Uh, Doctor?”
“Oh, it’s all right. I just realised where I’d seen that ship design before. It’s from the Twelve Colonies! I suppose it’s not surprising that I forgot… it’s been ages since I visited the Colonies.” He turned to the young man, who was now looking at him like he was crazy. “So you’re from the Twelve Colonies, yes? Which planet?”
“Uh… Caprica. You’ve… been there?”
“Ah, Caprica. Lovely planet. Bit congested, though. Maybe I should go back one day.”
“I’m sorry… don’t you know what happened? The war, the Cylons…”
“Oh, I thought that was over. Isn’t it?”
“It was. They came back. The Colonies were destroyed. Those of us who could escaped.”
The Doctor frowned, not knowing what to say to that.
“And you ended up here?” Martha asked.
“That’s right. It took three years to find this place. We lost a lot of people.”
“Sorry.”
“Look, who are you two? You obviously didn’t get here with us. Where did you come from? There’s no other advanced civilisation on this planet.”
“We really are travellers,” the Doctor said, “…we just came a bit further to get here… look, what’s your name?”
“Lee. Lee Adama.”
“All right, Lee… you seem clever, so I’ll tell you. We’re time-travellers. That box behind us? That’s my ship. We came here from this planet’s future.”
Lee looked from the Doctor to Martha and back. “You’re from the future?”
“Yeah.”
“So the people of this planet… they survive?”
“They survive. They spread all over Earth.”
Unexpectedly, Lee sighs. “If you’re telling the truth, that’s fantastic. But how do I know I can trust you?”
The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, but Martha spoke first. “Come on, I’ll show you the inside of the TARDIS.”
“Uh… okay.”
She opened the door of the ship, and gestured for him to step inside. He looked at it skeptically, thinking that perhaps these two were crazy after all, and stepped in. Once inside, he looked around, eyes wide. Then he went back outside, walking all the way around the blue box before going back inside. Eventually he asked Martha. “How?”
“Well, basically, it’s bigger on the inside than the outside. I did ask the Doctor for a real explanation once… he used the words dimensionally transcendental… I didn’t really understand the rest. But all you really need to know is that the TARDIS can move through space and time, anywhere and anywhen in the universe.”
“And this Doctor, your friend…”
“It’s his ship. He’s not exactly human… his home planet was destroyed. I suppose he’s been travelling all over the universe ever since.”
Lee thought of the strange young man outside, who looked barely older than he was - younger, even. “He can’t be. He’s not old enough…”
“Yeah… that’s the other thing. He’s a lot older than he looks. I’m not sure exactly how old he is, but he’s hundreds of years old at least.”
“And he just travels? Are you always with him? Doesn’t he get lonely?”
“Oh, he does. Sometimes he’s alone. Most of the time he has someone with him. Not always me, though. I only met him quite recently, just a couple of years ago.”
“Oh.”
“So, do you trust us now?”
“I don’t know. This could all be some elaborate trick. I could be sick, and hallucinating.”
“You’re a tough one to convince, Lee. Anyway, I’ve got an idea.” She went to the doors and called to the Doctor.
“Doctor!”
He came over. “Yes? Is he convinced?”
“Not yet. I had an idea though… maybe we could take Lee on a quick trip in the TARDIS? Show him the 21st century, so he believes us?”
“Good idea, Dr Jones!” The Doctor stepped inside, and Martha shut the door behind him. “Okay, Lee, we’ll prove it to you.” He quickly programmed the TARDIS to take them back to the time they’d left from. “You might want to hold onto something, it could get bumpy.”
Moments later, they were opening the doors and walking out into a side street. A busy shopping street was nearby, and they walked towards it.
Lee looked around, amazed. “This… this is what the planet becomes?”
Martha, standing next to him, nodded. “Yep.”
“It’s like… it’s like Caprica. It looks just like Caprica did.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s strange… I thought I’d never see this kind of place again.”
“Do you like it?”
He looked at her. “I think I do. But this time-ship of yours… that’s more interesting. It can really go anywhere?”
“Anywhere, any time… no limits.”
“Do you know what I was doing just now, Martha?”
“What?”
“Exploring. When my people first arrived… I knew I wanted to explore. See as much as I could. Climb a mountain.”
“Did you get to see much?”
“A lot, yes. But I think… that I’d like to keep exploring. You’ve just told me that this ship can go anywhere in the universe, visit any time period. And I want to see as much as I can.”
Martha smiled. “Let’s ask the Doctor. Maybe you could come with us for a while.”
“I’d like that.”
Martha went back to the TARDIS. “Doctor, can I ask you something?”
“Anything. Square root of pi? Astral distance between Betelgeuse and Sirius?”
She laughed. “Uh, no. I was talking to Lee… I thought maybe he could come with us for a while. In the TARDIS. He wants to see the universe…”
“He does? Well, we’ve got plenty of room.” The Doctor paused. “Wait a second, ‘come with us’? Does this mean…” He raised an eyebrow.
“That I’d like to stay a bit longer? Maybe.”
“What’s brought this on?”
“Lots of things. UNIT’s not as good an employer as you’d think. Things with Tom are… difficult. Maybe I need to get away from everything. If you’ll have me of course…”
“You’re always welcome, you know that.”
“So… what about Lee? Can he come with us?”
The Doctor grinned at her. “Why not. If he wants to, he can.”
“I’ll tell him.” She started to go back to Lee, when the Doctor called out to her.
“You sure there isn’t another reason you want to stay?”
She turned. “Like what?”
“Oh… I don’t know….” He tried to look innocent, but his gaze flicked over to Lee’s direction, then back. Then he saw the look on her face. “On second thoughts, never mind.”
Martha went back outside to where Lee was standing. “He says you can come with us if you want. Otherwise we can just take you back, if you want.”
“You travel in time… so I can go back any time, yes? And it will be as if I’d never left?”
“That’s right.”
“Then I’m coming with you.”
“Great. Come on, the Doctor’s waiting inside.”
Martha and Lee went back inside, closing the door behind them. The Doctor was ready to go, and looked up as they came in. “There you are. We’re all ready here. Just need to skip forward a week to pick up Sally, and we can get going. Uh, Lee… Sally’s another friend, she travels with me too. I’m sure you’ll like her.”
“I’m… sure I will.” Lee said, a little nervously.
Once they had collected Sally from her house, the Doctor looked at Lee and the two girls, and said “Now then, where shall we go first?”
Author: trillianastra
Fandoms: Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Spoiler for the BSG final episode.
Pairings (if applicable): hints at Lee Adama/Martha Jones
Character(s) (if applicable) Eleventh Doctor, Sally Sparrow, Martha Jones, Lee Adama.
Summary: After UNIT make an unusual discovery, the Doctor and Martha visit prehistoric Earth and meet a new friend.
A/N: This is kind of a dual-purpose fic. Originally it was just to get rid of the idea that pounced on me while watching (of all things) Law & Order: UK. The other purpose to this fic is as a prequel (of sorts) to a project that I'm calling the Great Mega-Crossover AU of 2009, which will feature the characters from this fic, as well as quite a lot of others. (I'm so not kidding here. Eight separate fandoms are now involved. At the moment.)
Martha Jones sat in a UNIT briefing room, listening to one of the other departments report back on something they’d found. It didn’t sound particularly interesting at first… at least until they handed around photos. Apparently it was from some kind of archaelogical dig - researchers from a university looking for the burial mound of some long-dead king, they said. The researchers had found a suitable-looking hill and started to excavate. It had all seemed to be going well, when they found a structure buried under the hill.
But it wasn’t part of a tomb. To Martha, what the excavation had revealed looked an awful lot like a spaceship - a small one, but a spaceship none the less. While no-one was looking, she used her mobile phone to take a picture of the photograph that showed the ship, and as soon as the briefing was over she hurried back to her office. Making sure that the door was locked, she picked up her phone again, this time calling a number she knew very well, and waiting for an answer.
***
The TARDIS doors opened, and two people ran inside. The man headed straight for the console, flicking switches in rapid succession as the girl shut the doors and found something to hold on to. The ship shook as it dematerialised, and both people inside held on tightly until the shaking stopped.
Sally straightened up, and as soon as she’d brushed the hair out of her face she glared at the Doctor, who was trying to avoid looking at her.
“That’s it, we are never going there again.”
“Awww… but…”
“Doctor, they tried to burn me at the stake!”
“How was I supposed to know that blonde hair is a sign of the devil in their culture?”
Not knowing how to respond to that, she just looked at him. After a moment he smiled apologetically. “Sorry. Are you… okay?”
“I’m fine.” She hesitated. “Uh… Doctor?”
“What?”
“I think… um, I think I’d like to go home for a while.” Seeing his expression, she quickly added. “Not for good! I like travelling with you. I just need a few days of peace and quiet. Maybe do some ordinary things, that don’t involve running for my life…”
“Oh. Well, if you like, I’ll drop you back there. How long do you think? A week? Two?”
Before Sally could answer, they were both startled by the sound of a phone ringing. Specifically, the mobile phone that the Doctor kept on the console. He picked it up quickly.
“Hello?”
“Doctor?” He grinned when he recognised Martha’s voice.
“I’m here. What’s wrong?”
“Well, nothing’s exactly wrong, we haven’t been invaded by aliens or anything. But we have found something that you ought to see. If you can, of course.”
“Oh, of course I’ll come! Where are you?”
“UNIT headquarters. You remember where that is, right?”
“I’m not likely to forget. I’ll be there soon, don’t worry.”
“Thanks.”
As the call ended, the Doctor looked at Sally. “Looks like I’m needed at UNIT again. Um… their headquarters are in London… I can drop you off on the way…”
“No, it’s okay. Go straight there… I can make my own way home.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I’ll probably have fewer questions to answer if I get the bus back.”
“Good point.” The Doctor quickly set the coordinates for UNIT headquarters. “Hold on to something.”
A few minutes later, he opened the door and looked out to see that they had landed in a narrow street at the back of the UNIT building. He glanced around, and grinned when he saw Martha waiting at the end of the street. She smiled when she saw him, and headed over.
“You made it in one piece, then.”
“Oh, just about. What’s the emergency?”
“I’ll show you. Are you ready?”
“Yeah… just need to make sure Sally’s okay to get home, then we’re good.”
“Oh, she’s still with you?”
He nodded. “Still with me. She wanted to go home for a few days, get some peace and quiet.”
“I think I see why.”
Sally stepped out of the TARDIS, with a bag slung over one shoulder. She saw Martha and the Doctor and walked over. “Um, I’m going, I should be able to find a bus going in the right direction.”
“Okay. When do you want me to come back for you?”
“Er… give me a week. I think that’ll be enough.”
“Your wish is my command.”
“See you in a week then. Martha, it was nice seeing you again. Don’t let him get you into too much trouble, yeah?”
Martha smiled. “I won’t. And it was good seeing you, too.”
As Sally left, Martha and the Doctor turned to each other. Martha said “So, ready now?”
“What’ve you got?”
She took out her phone. “An archaelogical dig in Africa found something a bit unusual. Their reports filtered back to us, and a team got sent to check it out. Look what they found.” She showed him the picture she’d taken using the camera in her phone. “What does that look like to you?”
The Doctor frowned. “That’s a short-range, small-capacity spacecraft. There’s something familiar about the design, but I don’t know… I can’t place it. Where did you say they found this?”
“Tanzania. Buried in the side of a hill. When the team reported back they said it had been there over a hundred thousand years.”
“That’s weird. I mean, it’s obvious this was built by an advanced civilisation, probably from another planet, but none of the cultures that were visiting Earth around that time used craft like that.”
“Could it be dangerous?”
“Nah, unlikely. Still, it’s interesting. An unidentified ship from an unknown culture in a period where it shouldn’t have been.” He thought for a second, then smiled. “We’ve got the TARDIS. We could go, check it out.”
“I should get back to work…”
“They’ll never know you left. Anyway, you’ve never seen prehistoric Earth, have you?”
She shook her head. “No. I suppose it would be all right.”
“Great. Let’s go.” He ran back inside the TARDIS, Martha following. “You don’t have the exact location, do you?”
“Er, no, sorry.”
“No problem. Let’s see… Tanzania…” He fiddled with a few dials, sending them spinning through the Time Vortex.
When the TARDIS had come to a halt, the Doctor opened the doors and they stepped out to find themselves on the side of a mountain, looking out at lush African savannah under a clear blue sky. Martha smiled. “Where are we?”
“Well, in a hundred and fifty thousand years, this mountain will be called Mount Kilimanjaro.”
“Wow… wait, didn’t Mount Kilimanjaro used to be a volcano?”
“Possibly.” At her look, he added. “It’s fine. It’s not due for an eruption for years.”
She’d stopped listening, however, because she had just seen something very unexpected - a young man, in suspiciously modern, though battered, clothes, climbing up the mountain towards them. She got the Doctor’s attention. “Uh, Doctor. How far in the past are we again?”
“A hundred and fifty thousand years, why?”
“Are you sure? Because he doesn’t look quite like I’d expect in this period.”
“Who doesn’t?” The Doctor turned and saw the man. “Ah, him. Right.”
The young man was looking at them strangely, his gaze flicking between them and the TARDIS standing behind them. He walked over warily. “Who are you, and how did you get here?”
The Doctor stepped forward. “Well, I’m the Doctor and this is Martha. We’re… travellers.”
“From where? What part of this planet did the Raptors leave you in? You are from the Twelve Colonies, aren’t you?”
Martha blinked. “The what?” It only added to her confusion when the Doctor suddenly laughed. “Uh, Doctor?”
“Oh, it’s all right. I just realised where I’d seen that ship design before. It’s from the Twelve Colonies! I suppose it’s not surprising that I forgot… it’s been ages since I visited the Colonies.” He turned to the young man, who was now looking at him like he was crazy. “So you’re from the Twelve Colonies, yes? Which planet?”
“Uh… Caprica. You’ve… been there?”
“Ah, Caprica. Lovely planet. Bit congested, though. Maybe I should go back one day.”
“I’m sorry… don’t you know what happened? The war, the Cylons…”
“Oh, I thought that was over. Isn’t it?”
“It was. They came back. The Colonies were destroyed. Those of us who could escaped.”
The Doctor frowned, not knowing what to say to that.
“And you ended up here?” Martha asked.
“That’s right. It took three years to find this place. We lost a lot of people.”
“Sorry.”
“Look, who are you two? You obviously didn’t get here with us. Where did you come from? There’s no other advanced civilisation on this planet.”
“We really are travellers,” the Doctor said, “…we just came a bit further to get here… look, what’s your name?”
“Lee. Lee Adama.”
“All right, Lee… you seem clever, so I’ll tell you. We’re time-travellers. That box behind us? That’s my ship. We came here from this planet’s future.”
Lee looked from the Doctor to Martha and back. “You’re from the future?”
“Yeah.”
“So the people of this planet… they survive?”
“They survive. They spread all over Earth.”
Unexpectedly, Lee sighs. “If you’re telling the truth, that’s fantastic. But how do I know I can trust you?”
The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, but Martha spoke first. “Come on, I’ll show you the inside of the TARDIS.”
“Uh… okay.”
She opened the door of the ship, and gestured for him to step inside. He looked at it skeptically, thinking that perhaps these two were crazy after all, and stepped in. Once inside, he looked around, eyes wide. Then he went back outside, walking all the way around the blue box before going back inside. Eventually he asked Martha. “How?”
“Well, basically, it’s bigger on the inside than the outside. I did ask the Doctor for a real explanation once… he used the words dimensionally transcendental… I didn’t really understand the rest. But all you really need to know is that the TARDIS can move through space and time, anywhere and anywhen in the universe.”
“And this Doctor, your friend…”
“It’s his ship. He’s not exactly human… his home planet was destroyed. I suppose he’s been travelling all over the universe ever since.”
Lee thought of the strange young man outside, who looked barely older than he was - younger, even. “He can’t be. He’s not old enough…”
“Yeah… that’s the other thing. He’s a lot older than he looks. I’m not sure exactly how old he is, but he’s hundreds of years old at least.”
“And he just travels? Are you always with him? Doesn’t he get lonely?”
“Oh, he does. Sometimes he’s alone. Most of the time he has someone with him. Not always me, though. I only met him quite recently, just a couple of years ago.”
“Oh.”
“So, do you trust us now?”
“I don’t know. This could all be some elaborate trick. I could be sick, and hallucinating.”
“You’re a tough one to convince, Lee. Anyway, I’ve got an idea.” She went to the doors and called to the Doctor.
“Doctor!”
He came over. “Yes? Is he convinced?”
“Not yet. I had an idea though… maybe we could take Lee on a quick trip in the TARDIS? Show him the 21st century, so he believes us?”
“Good idea, Dr Jones!” The Doctor stepped inside, and Martha shut the door behind him. “Okay, Lee, we’ll prove it to you.” He quickly programmed the TARDIS to take them back to the time they’d left from. “You might want to hold onto something, it could get bumpy.”
Moments later, they were opening the doors and walking out into a side street. A busy shopping street was nearby, and they walked towards it.
Lee looked around, amazed. “This… this is what the planet becomes?”
Martha, standing next to him, nodded. “Yep.”
“It’s like… it’s like Caprica. It looks just like Caprica did.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s strange… I thought I’d never see this kind of place again.”
“Do you like it?”
He looked at her. “I think I do. But this time-ship of yours… that’s more interesting. It can really go anywhere?”
“Anywhere, any time… no limits.”
“Do you know what I was doing just now, Martha?”
“What?”
“Exploring. When my people first arrived… I knew I wanted to explore. See as much as I could. Climb a mountain.”
“Did you get to see much?”
“A lot, yes. But I think… that I’d like to keep exploring. You’ve just told me that this ship can go anywhere in the universe, visit any time period. And I want to see as much as I can.”
Martha smiled. “Let’s ask the Doctor. Maybe you could come with us for a while.”
“I’d like that.”
Martha went back to the TARDIS. “Doctor, can I ask you something?”
“Anything. Square root of pi? Astral distance between Betelgeuse and Sirius?”
She laughed. “Uh, no. I was talking to Lee… I thought maybe he could come with us for a while. In the TARDIS. He wants to see the universe…”
“He does? Well, we’ve got plenty of room.” The Doctor paused. “Wait a second, ‘come with us’? Does this mean…” He raised an eyebrow.
“That I’d like to stay a bit longer? Maybe.”
“What’s brought this on?”
“Lots of things. UNIT’s not as good an employer as you’d think. Things with Tom are… difficult. Maybe I need to get away from everything. If you’ll have me of course…”
“You’re always welcome, you know that.”
“So… what about Lee? Can he come with us?”
The Doctor grinned at her. “Why not. If he wants to, he can.”
“I’ll tell him.” She started to go back to Lee, when the Doctor called out to her.
“You sure there isn’t another reason you want to stay?”
She turned. “Like what?”
“Oh… I don’t know….” He tried to look innocent, but his gaze flicked over to Lee’s direction, then back. Then he saw the look on her face. “On second thoughts, never mind.”
Martha went back outside to where Lee was standing. “He says you can come with us if you want. Otherwise we can just take you back, if you want.”
“You travel in time… so I can go back any time, yes? And it will be as if I’d never left?”
“That’s right.”
“Then I’m coming with you.”
“Great. Come on, the Doctor’s waiting inside.”
Martha and Lee went back inside, closing the door behind them. The Doctor was ready to go, and looked up as they came in. “There you are. We’re all ready here. Just need to skip forward a week to pick up Sally, and we can get going. Uh, Lee… Sally’s another friend, she travels with me too. I’m sure you’ll like her.”
“I’m… sure I will.” Lee said, a little nervously.
Once they had collected Sally from her house, the Doctor looked at Lee and the two girls, and said “Now then, where shall we go first?”