A Shift in Perspective (1/10)
Who_Daily Link: < a href="http://persiflage-1.livejournal.com/150809.html">A Shift in Perspective (1/10) by < lj user=persiflage_1> (Characters: Martha Jones, Third Doctor, Jo Grant, Torchwood Team | RATING: G | Spoilers: Day of the Daleks, The Green Death)
Title: A Shift in Perspective (1/10)
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Martha Jones, Third Doctor, Jo Grant, Torchwood Team
Rating: G
Spoilers: Day of the Daleks, The Green Death
Summary: The Tenth Doctor goes missing and it's up to Martha Jones to track him down again, but it proves both harder and more instructive than she expects.
Disclaimer: I don't even own my brain any more, never mind Doctor Who!
Author Notes: This is the first chapter in a ten chapter story that's set a couple of months after Season 4. Ages ago the Doctor Who Random Pairing generator gave me "Martha Jones / Sgt Benton / A Shift in Perspective" and for a while I thought I was going to write a timey-wimey fic where Martha meets Benton, but then the idea of Ten going missing and Martha having to track him down, and encountering all his other incarnations along the way, came up.
Many thanks to my Beta readers for this chapter: laura_luvage, ladymako71 and most especially shadowturquoise, who has done sterling work in making sure this didn't utterly suck!
Index Post
~~~~~~
Martha's first jump using Jack's Vortex Manipulator landed her in a large study, and was greeted by a female shriek of alarm that made her wince. She looked up into a pair of sharp eyes that were topped by a shock of grey-white hair, and took in a beaky nose and an impression of ruffles before the man spoke.
"Steady Jo. Now then young woman, you aren't quite what I was expecting."
Martha blinked in puzzlement as she straightened up properly and took in a few more details of the room and its occupants.
"You were expecting me?" she asked, confused.
"You, or someone like you," he answered, rubbing a long forefinger across his lips as he considered her thoughtfully.
"Does that mean you know how to get back to your own time then Doctor?"
The young blonde woman, Jo presumably, who was standing next to the brown leather sofa where the Doctor sat, gave a tiny gasp.
"You know who he is?" she asked, sounding surprised.
Martha shrugged one shoulder. "The Vortex Manipulator is programmed to find the Doctor," she said, "so I assumed this was him. Although I - "
"The what?" interrupted the Doctor in a sharp tone.
"Vortex Manipulator," Martha answered, pulling up her sleeve a short way and showing him the bulky device strapped to her wrist.
"Doctor, this isn't the person who came to assassinate Sir Reginald last night, is it?" asked Jo, sounding doubtful.
"Whoa!" exclaimed Martha. "Who said anything about assassination? I just came to find the Doctor, although not this Doctor." She turned to the watching Time Lord. "I presume you're an earlier incarnation of him?"
"You seem remarkable well-informed, and well-equipped," the Doctor observed. "Suppose you tell me what you are doing here, and when my people began handing out devices that can manipulate the Time Vortex?"
"Do you mind if I sit down?" Martha asked. "Only this could take a while."
He gestured to a brown leather armchair opposite the sofa and she sank down gratefully.
"Jo, why don't you get our visitor - I'm sorry, I don't know your name?"
"Martha, Dr Martha Jones."
"Why don't you get Martha a cup of tea?" suggested the Doctor. "I'm sure she would be glad of it."
Martha nodded agreement, noting the fleeting look of surprise that crossed Jo's face before she spoke. "Very well." She crossed the room and went out.
Martha judged by Jo's outfit that she'd arrived in the 1970s - the knee-high white leather boots, short blue denim skirt with a bib, and the red-checked, short-sleeved shirt wouldn't have looked very out of place in 1969, she thought. But the Doctor looked very out of place in his red velvet jacket, white shirt with ruffles at the throat and wrists, and bow tie. Yet, at the same time, he looked at home somehow, rather like her own Doctor so often did, despite his clothes being out of place.
"I believe you were going to explain your presence here?" he asked, his manner courteous yet firm, which convinced her that he fully intended to have the answers before he let her go.
She rubbed a hand over her face, marshalling her thoughts before she spoke. "I'm from the early 21st century. The Doctor came to Cardiff where I was visiting Jack, another of your future travelling companions. We were catching up on each other's news when Jack suddenly stopped the Doctor in the middle of an anecdote about a prince and a lizard…"
Several hours ago, relative time
"Hang on." He put a finger to his ear where Martha knew he wore an earpiece that connected him to his phone, and thence to the Hub.
The Doctor gave him a quizzical look, then glanced at Martha's intent expression.
"What is it?" he asked her softly as Jack spoke to someone in the Hub.
"Gwen or Ianto must have called him," she said, looking slightly anxious. He slipped his hand into hers and she looked over at him, noticing a fleeting expression of concern cross his face as he waited for Jack to finish his call.
"Gwen says she's picking up some unusual signals on the Rift Monitor," Jack told them. "She thinks something might be trying to come through."
"We'd better go and have a look then," the Doctor said, suddenly brisk and business-like, despite his loosened tie and two unfastened shirt buttons.
Jack shrugged and they followed the Time Lord out of the kitchen and back through the TARDIS. The Doctor grabbed his coat and pulled it on, then opened the door.
"Where's the signal strongest?" he asked once they were in the Plass.
"About 300 yards that way," Jack answered, pointing towards the Bay.
"Did Gwen say if there was any indication of what it is?" asked Martha. "Is it animate or inanimate?"
"She didn't know."
"Let's find out then." The Time Lord strode off and his two companions hurried after him as he pulled out his sonic screwdriver and activated it.
They hadn't gone that far when there was a burst of blinding yellow light ahead of them, and they all stopped walking, Jack's hand hovering near his gun, and the Doctor's arm outstretched as he panned the sonic around. They watched warily as a tall, humanoid figure in dark clothes stepped out of mid-air and into the street. The light faded behind the figure and they could see that its face was obscured by a hood that was pulled up over its head, making it impossible to distinguish whether it was human or alien, male or female.
Jack touched Martha's shoulder briefly then stepped slightly in front of her as she heard footsteps hurrying up behind them. She turned quickly, thinking it was civilians who would be safer if they were discouraged from approaching, but found Gwen and Ianto instead.
She turned back again and saw the Doctor had moved nearer to the humanoid.
"Who are you and what do you want here?" he asked loudly.
"You are the individual known as the Doctor?" asked the figure in a low voice that was almost a growl.
"I am. What do you want?" asked the Time Lord warily.
"Only you." The figure's hand shot out and beams of blue light flew forwards and lassoed around the Doctor's body as if they were ropes.
"No!" yelled Jack, rushing forwards as the Time Lord cried out in shock.
"Jack don't!" Martha shouted, seeing the figure raising its other arm. Her warning was too late, however, and the immortal man was struck by a separate beam of blue light which threw him thirty feet across the Plass over their heads. He crashed into one of the pillars around the edge of the plaza, and Martha heard both Gwen and Ianto cry out in horror, but she focused her attention on the Doctor and the being which held him prisoner.
The Time Lord was struggling desperately to free himself, but each movement he made simply sent a shock through his body and she began to wonder if the figure, whoever it was, intended to kill him.
"What do you want with him?" she shouted.
"Revenge," growled the figure. "My master seeks revenge."
Before Martha could ask any more questions, the figure jerked its arm back, pulling the Doctor forward and as the two were about to collide, there was another burst of brilliant light, and when it had vanished, the Time Lord and the figure were both gone.
Now
By the end of Martha's narrative, the Doctor's eyebrows were raised in a thoughtful manner. "And the device, this Vortex Manipulator?"
"I don't know much about it, I'm afraid. It belongs to Jack. We programmed it to track your psychokinetic energy and I hoped it would take me straight to you, I mean, the incarnation of you that I know."
Before the Doctor could answer, the study door opened and Jo came bustling in, almost spilling the contents of the tray she carried in her hurry.
"Thank you my dear."
He smiled at her, and Martha immediately noticed Jo's expression softening in response, and she realised that some things about the Doctor apparently never changed, no matter what his outward appearance: he clearly inspired a certain level of devotion in his companions. She tucked that thought away for later consideration, then answered Jo's questions about how much milk and sugar she wanted in her tea.
She took the cup and saucer that Jo passed to the Doctor for her, and took a grateful mouthful while noting more details of the study where they sat: there was a plainly furnished desk near one wall, with a green shaded lamp on top and a large painting dominating the wall behind it. A silver, three-branched candelabra was on top of the table where Jo was making the tea, together with a narrow blue telephone. There were pairs of long curtains closed over what Martha guessed were French windows, and there was a globe in a free-standing wooden frame on the other side of the sofa.
When Martha brought her attention back to the Doctor she saw he was smiling at her. "What do you think?"
"It doesn't seem very you," she answered honestly.
His smile broadened. "That is because it is not mine," he told her. "This is Auderly House, home of Sir Reginald Styles."
"Sir Reginald? That's who you thought I'd come to assassinate," Martha said. "Why did you think that?"
"Last night an intruder broke into the house, despite the presence of an armed guard of UNIT soldiers." Martha couldn't help starting in surprise at that, and she saw that the Doctor had noticed her reaction. "The intruder attempted to kill Sir Reginald before vanishing 'like a ghost'."
"And you thought I'd come to make a second attempt?" she asked, not quite believing the implications.
The Doctor nodded. "Since you suddenly appeared out of thin air, and in the very room where the intruder is known to have disappeared so dramatically last night, Jo naturally jumped to the conclusion that you were here to make a second attempt."
"Naturally," Martha answered dryly. She couldn't really fault Jo for making such an assumption, but she felt rather glad she'd arrived inside the house, rather than outside if the grounds were full of UNIT men; she knew they'd be inclined to shoot first and ask questions later if there had already been one assassination attempt here.
"I noticed that when I mentioned UNIT, you seemed to recognise the name," the Doctor observed, before drinking more of his tea.
"I work for them, I'm a Medical Officer."
"Interesting. So you are both soldier and healer."
"Oh, I'm not a soldier, not really. I'm employed as a civilian," Martha said quickly.
"Yet you have the military habit of observation and watchfulness. I am quite sure you could describe the contents and occupants of this room in considerable detail, if necessary."
She felt her face freeze for a moment, before she forced herself to smile. "A good doctor should be observant."
He gave her a slightly sceptical look, but didn't contradict her. Instead he changed the subject, rubbing a long forefinger against the side of his mouth and looking thoughtful. "The description you give of the being who took my future self does not recall anyone that I have encountered so far."
"Never mind. Hopefully the next time I jump, I'll find my Doctor."
"And if you don't?" asked Jo, looking concerned.
"If I don't, I'll just keep looking for him until I do find him," Martha said determinedly. "I can't just sit by and do nothing."
The Doctor nodded his understanding. "Have you eaten lately? Travelling in the Vortex unprotected by a vessel will exhaust you."
Martha shook her head. "I hadn't even thought about food."
"Well why don't you and Jo go and see what is in the kitchen? You should take some rations with you, apples or pears, since they're naturally high in sugar. It would be best not to take soft fruit as it probably won't withstand the pressures in the Vortex."
"Thank you." Martha stood up, and moved forward to shake hands with him, then followed Jo out of the study, through the house to the kitchen.
"Aren't you at all scared?" asked Jo as she pointed out the fruit bowl on the kitchen table, then opened some cupboards in search of bread and the makings of a sandwich for Martha.
"Pretty scared, actually," the young Doctor answered as she pocketed some of the fruit. "But I've got to get him back. You must understand that?"
Jo looked up in surprise from the cupboard she was peering into. "What do you mean?"
"Well you know how important the Doctor is to Earth, don't you? How he keeps stopping aliens from invading, or if they do invade, he talks them out of staying?" Jo nodded. "Well then. Besides, if your Doctor was in trouble, wouldn't you do everything in your power to help him?"
"Of course," she answered instantly.
"I thought so. Well it's the same for me. I may not travel with him full time now I'm working for UNIT, but I still care about him and I know we need him back."
She sat down and watched Jo making her a cheese sandwich, thinking about what she had just said. She did care a great deal about the Doctor - they'd been through too much together for him not to be very important to her still, and she loved him: not in that silly school-girl crush way like before, but on a much deeper level. And while he might not say so, Martha was fairly sure the Doctor cared about her too: it was there in the little things he did, more than the things he said, though the pride in his voice when he addressed her as 'Dr Jones' spoke volumes to her. Even her mum didn't sound that proud of her medical degree.
"Are you okay?" asked Jo, interrupting her reverie as she offered Martha the sandwich she'd made.
"Yes, thanks." She picked it up and took a hungry bite.
"You looked as if you were miles away then," she said.
Martha nodded, then swallowed before answering. "Miles and years, actually. It's a bad habit of mine sometimes."
Jo grinned at her. "Mine too, the Doctor gets a bit exasperated by me sometimes."
Martha laughed. "And of course, he never does anything exasperating, does he?"
"Oh no!" agreed Jo, with a roll of her eyes and a mischievous giggle before she began to tell Martha about her first encounter with the Doctor.
"I knocked on the door of his lab and went in, and he told me 'Not today thank you', I didn't know it at the time but he'd assumed it was the tea lady knocking. So I peered around the door, feeling a bit nervous, because he sounded a bit stern, but before I could even begin to introduce myself properly, he interrupted me again. I sort of hesitated half way between the door and his workbench, not quite sure what I should do, because the Brigadier had sent me to see the Doctor and given me a file to show him. He was quite focused on his experiment, and I didn't really like to interrupt, but then it started smoking and so I threw the file onto the end of the workbench and grabbed the fire extinguisher to put out the blaze."
"Was he grateful?" asked Martha, somehow certain he hadn't been.
"Oh not a bit of it. He started going on about how I'd ruined it, that it was three months' of delicate work completely ruined. He called me 'ham-fisted' and when I pointed out that the whole lab might have gone up, he started talking about 'steady state micro-welding' and engineers with 'nine opposable digits', almost as if he was trying to blind me with science. Of course he wasn't really, he just assumes everyone knows what he's talking about all the time. He was really quite cross though, and when I told him that I was his new assistant, he was pretty horrified." She looked thoughtful. "Which wasn't surprising, I suppose, since I'd just destroyed three months' work in one blast of the fire extinguisher. So then I tried to impress him, telling him I was a fully qualified agent, that I know cryptology, safe-breaking and explosives. But he wasn't very impressed. He asked if I was trained in fire-fighting, and then told me he needed a scientist." She shook her head. "He was very cross and appallingly rude," Jo confided.
"He sounds it!" Martha said.
Once she'd finished eating, she recounted her own first meeting, with the Time Lord taking off his tie in front of her in the street, and then the business with the Plasmavore and the Judoon.
"What's he look like?" asked Jo curiously when Martha had finished.
"Over six foot tall, and very skinny. He's got brown eyes and crazy, wild brown hair that he has a habit of ruffling when he's frustrated or thinking." She smiled in reminiscence. "He usually wears a two piece suit with a shirt and tie, and baseball boots and a long brown coat."
"He sounds a bit dishy," Jo said dreamily.
"In a skinny, geeky sort of way," Martha agreed. She pushed aside her plate, then got to her feet. "Thanks for the tea and the sandwich. I really ought to be moving on now."
Jo got up too and moved around the table to Martha's side. "You are welcome. Good luck with finding the Doctor, your Doctor. Take care of yourself." She reached out to pat Martha's hand, and found herself being hugged instead.
"Take care of yourself too," Martha said, "and him."
She let go of Jo, waved, then fiddled with the device on her wrist, disappearing moments later in a vortex of light that left Jo blinking.
* * * * * *
When Martha arrived at her next destination she had barely caught her breath from the jump when a car horn sounded urgently behind her, and a bright yellow car swerved to a halt a short distance away. She realised, rather belatedly, that she had arrived at dusk on a country road.
The driver's door opened and a tall man climbed out, hurrying towards her.
"What do you think you are doing, standing in the middle of the road?" he demanded as he approached. Then he got close enough to see the person he was berating and Martha saw him start in surprise.
"Hello again Doctor," Martha said, trying to hide her disappointment as she recognised this was the same incarnation she had just met.
"Dr Jones, what are you doing here, in the middle of the Welsh countryside?"
"The same thing I was doing the last time we met," she answered. "Is Jo with you?" She looked past him at the empty car, then back at his face, and even in the dim light she could see the pained expression on his face. Instinctively she reached out to touch his arm. "She's okay, isn't she?"
He gave her a brief nod. "Come on, let's get you out of the road," he said, heading back towards his car.
"This is Bessie," he told her, holding the door open for her to climb in, and she noted the fondness in his voice, something she was used to hearing in her Doctor's voice as he talked of the TARDIS.
"Very nice," she commented. "I never knew you had a car."
He shrugged. "I've only had her since I've been stuck here."
Martha recalled the files she'd been given to read not long after she had joined UNIT: the reports on the Doctor's involvement with the organisation. She remembered he'd been exiled to Earth by the Time Lords, although the report in question was vague about the reasons why.
"I take it your presence here means you are no further forward in your quest?" he asked, pulling away once he was sure she was settled comfortably.
"No, I'm not. In fact, I've just left you at Sir Reginald Styles' house on the night you were expecting an unknown assassin to turn up."
"Ah, I think I know what the problem is," he said thoughtfully. "I should have recalibrated your Vortex Manipulator so it only finds me once in any body. If I don't, your task will take considerably longer, since I have spent a fair amount of time on Earth. You could waste a good deal of time encountering the same body over and over again, particularly at this stage in my life."
"That would be - inconvenient," Martha said, knowing this was an understatement.
"And very frustrating, especially if you were to keep running into my previous self."
Martha's eyebrows rose at the Doctor's disparaging tone. "What's wrong with your previous self?" she asked curiously. The Doctor she knew had never really talked about his earlier incarnations.
"He's a foolish little fellow, little better than a space hobo," he answered crossly, "always fussing and fidgeting about in an embarrassing manner."
"Oh." She wasn't quite sure what to make of his tirade, and sought wildly for another topic of conversation. "How's Jo? I was surprised not to see her with you."
"She's fine. She's moved on."
Martha's eyes had adjusted sufficiently for her to see the tension in his arms as he held the steering wheel, and she could hear pain in his voice. She laid a hand on his arm a second time, absently noting he was wearing a red and green checked cape. "Do you want to tell me about it?" she asked gently. She knew her own Doctor wasn't given to emotional conversations, except when he was prodded into them, but she had no idea if that was a common personality trait for all his incarnations.
"Not now," he answered. "Why don't you tell me about your work with UNIT? I would be interested to learn what the organisation is like in the future."
"Is that a good idea?" she asked. "I mean, wouldn't it be dangerous for you to have knowledge of their future?"
"I am adept at making myself forget things," he assured her. "Is Lethbridge-Stewart still around?"
Martha smiled in the darkness: there seemed to be the same tone of exasperated affection in his voice as she had heard in Sir Alistair's on the one occasion she'd had the chance to talk to him about the Doctor.
Two days after the attempted Sontaran invasion
"Now see here, Mace, this won't do at all!"
Martha hesitated outside Colonel Mace's office, hearing the stern voice berating him in crisp, military tones. She thought that she probably shouldn't interrupt them: her report wasn't that urgent, just some preliminary findings on the Sontaran teleportation technology for Project Indigo. She began to back away from the door as quietly as possible.
"Please Sir Alistair, if you'll just let me explain."
Sir Alistair? thought Martha, shocked, and paying less attention than she should have, she backed herself with a crash into a filing cabinet standing near the Colonel's office.
The door immediately flew open and an imposing figure with grey-white hair, a moustache and beard hurried out.
"You there, girl, what was that noise?" he barked, bearing down on Martha with a fierce expression.
She swallowed. "Me Sir, sorry Sir. I bumped into the cabinet."
He stood over her, a slightly portly man with an intimidating air, but she stood straight, making direct eye contact with him; she'd faced down the Master, so she was determined she could face the legendary Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart without quailing.
"You're the new civilian MO: Jones, isn't it?" he asked.
Martha felt her mouth start to drop open and snapped it shut again, then offered him a crisp salute. "Yes Sir!"
A corner of his mouth twitched. "No need for that, Dr Jones. If what I've heard is true, I should be saluting you." He stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulders, looking at her with an expression of pride.
"You did an excellent job of defeating the Master. I'm very proud of you, proud to have you working as a member of this organisation."
Martha stared at him in astonishment, feeling tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. His praise meant almost as much to her as the Doctor's - more in some respects. "Thank you," she whispered, finding her voice.
"Come on, let's find ourselves a quiet corner and you can tell me all about this new Doctor I missed seeing."
She was aware of Mace standing outside his office, a look of surprise on his face, but he didn't object when Sir Alistair took her hand and pulled her arm through the crook of his, then led her away.
"Have you got an office?"
"Yes Sir."
"Now, now. None of that Sir nonsense. You must call me Alistair," he told her.
"Thank you S- Alistair."
They spent two hours talking, over tea and biscuits, of the Doctor and the various aliens they had encountered. By the time he was ready to go back to Mace, taking Martha's report with him, she had decided that she respected him as much as the Doctor, more in some ways.
She was also acutely aware of the fact that he regarded her with respect, which she found both flattering and humbling, especially when he saluted her as he said goodbye.
"I shall be watching your career with considerable interest, Dr Jones. I predict great things for you."
"Thank you Sir - Alistair," she amended when he raised an eyebrow at her.
Now
"The Brigadier's semi-retired now," Martha told the Doctor. "He's a Sir."
"Is he now? Hmm. Well, I daresay he's earned it. He's a good chap at heart, even if he is too inclined to shoot first and ask questions later."
She grinned in the darkness. "He admitted to me that he was a trifle trigger-happy when he first found out about aliens."
The Doctor made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort. "A trifle? Yes, quite."
Martha chose not to comment on his reaction, but began to talk to him about UNIT in the 21st century, explaining that they tried to investigate potential aliens before the public could find out about them.
"We try to use diplomacy before we send in the men and women with guns. Of course, that doesn’t always work - or events escalate far quicker than anyone can anticipate." She thought back, briefly, to the business with the Sontarans, and how they'd lost control of the initiative then.
"I am glad to hear that diplomacy plays a part," the Doctor said. "Perhaps Lethbridge-Stewart and the others will learn something from me after all."
She made a noise of agreement, but privately Martha wondered if at least part of the reason was that UNIT were far more aware of Torchwood's practices and didn't want to be lumped in with them, particularly when Torchwood One had been operating. Then there had been that business a few years before she had joined UNIT, with ICIS: they had succeeded in tarnishing UNIT's reputation in a couple of instances. Sir Alistair had given her permission to access his files and she had been horrified to read the accounts of ICIS' operations, particularly with regard to the imprisonment of one Toshiko Sato, whom they had allowed to believe had been captured by UNIT themselves. Martha had taken that bit of news very hard indeed, even as she had realised that it had explained Tosh's reluctance to have much to do with her when she'd been down in Cardiff working with Jack's team.
Martha pulled herself out of reverie and noticed they were approaching a village or hamlet: the number of lights she could see indicated that it was somewhere smaller than a town.
"It's a long drive from Wales to London, especially in the dark," the Doctor said, "so I thought I'd stop for a meal and a break. Would you care to join me?"
"Yes please." While it wasn't that long, relatively speaking, since Jo had made her that cheese sandwich, she still felt hungry enough to want to eat.
"Good. We will try the pub." So saying, the Doctor drove into the village square with its central war memorial, then pulled up outside the pub.
Martha climbed out of the car feeling a little stiff, and gratefully accepted the Doctor's arm when he offered it.
The pub was well lit, but not too busy or noisy, and pleasantly warm. Although the temperature outside was reasonable, travelling in an open-topped car with the wind rushing over her had left Martha feeling chilled, so she immediately wandered over to the large fireplace and stretched her hands out to the fire blazing there.
The Doctor had headed straight for the bar, but he joined her soon afterwards to tell her that they would be eating soon. "Why don't you make yourself comfortable?" he suggested, nodding at a nearby table, "and I'll fetch some drinks."
"Thanks." Martha unfastened her jacket and moved towards the table.
"What do you want to drink?" asked the Doctor as he shed his driving cape to reveal a blue velvet jacket, a red waistcoat, a blue shirt with ruffles, and a red bow tie above his black trousers.
"Something non-alcoholic, please."
"Lemonade?" he suggested and she nodded, knowing this was the wrong era for most of the things she normally preferred to drink.
Martha took the Doctor's cape and draped it over the back of a chair, then sat down. She had noticed that most of the locals had enjoyed a good stare before going back to their own concerns, and she wondered briefly if they considered her an exotic foreigner with her dark skin and different clothes. She couldn't help recalling another pub she'd sat in, and the rather different way in which Shakespeare had reacted to her presence, despite the considerably larger gap between his time period and hers.
The Doctor set a glass down in front of her and she pushed her thoughts aside before thanking him.
"Are you all right?" he asked quietly as he settled into a chair beside her. "You seem very pensive."
"Sorry. I think I had forgotten what it felt like to be out of my own time."
He reached across and patted her hand as she toyed with the corner of her beer mat. "I am sure you will get used to it again, my dear."
"I'll have to if I'm to get my Doctor back," she said simply.
"That reminds me. You had better let me have your travel gadget so I can recalibrate it."
"Oh yes, of course. Thank you." Martha unstrapped the Vortex Manipulator and passed it to the Time Lord. He slipped a hand inside his jacket, pulled out his sonic screwdriver, and began fiddling with its settings. He had just finished adjusting the settings on the Vortex Manipulator when the barmaid approached with a tray of food, and Martha quickly pocketed the device before it could cause any comment.
"Thank you my dear." The Doctor smiled at the barmaid as she put down and unloaded the tray.
Martha inhaled the scent of the thick stew and fresh bread that she'd brought with a sense of anticipation, and accepted the bowlful that she was offered with eagerness.
"Thanks. That looks and smells good."
He nodded, and then they began to eat in a companionable silence. She made herself concentrate wholly on enjoying the food, not allowing herself to worry about the task she had set herself.
Once they had eaten, the Doctor suggested adjourning to the snug, having established from the barmaid that it was currently unoccupied.
"We shall be able to talk more privately in there," he said.
"Okay."
They took their drinks through into the smaller room and settled themselves side by side on one of the big padded benches near the fireplace.
"I would like to know more about how you end up travelling with me," he said.
So Martha told him all about the Judoon and the Plasmavore, and her unexpected trip to the Moon.
"And that gave you the urge to travel in Time and Space, did it?" the Doctor asked once Martha had finished explaining about arriving back on Earth.
"Not really," she answered. "I thought it was just a one-off, never-to-be-repeated experience until you, the later you, that is, turned up and chatted me up."
"He chatted you up?" repeated the Doctor, sounding rather incredulous.
She nodded. "I'd just left the pub where my brother Leo's 21st birthday party had been held, and he was leaning on the corner of a building opposite, grinning at me. Then he offered to take me on 'just one trip' to thank me for saving his life, and so he could road-test his new sonic screwdriver."
"Humph."
Martha thought the Doctor seemed less than impressed with his later incarnation's behaviour, and decided to change the subject.
"So how did you meet Jo?" She had heard the story from Jo already, but she wanted to hear his side of the encounter too.
He hesitated for a moment before telling her, freely admitting that he'd been initially unimpressed with her after first mistaking her for the tea lady. He talked about her irrepressible cheerfulness, her courage and her friendliness.
"She's a steady girl, even if she does sometimes rush in blindly - but she always means well. And sometimes she completely ignores my instructions and goes off quietly to do just what she meant to do all along."
Martha smiled, noting the fondness in his voice.
"But she's gone off to marry some Professor and go off exploring in the Amazon willy-nilly." He sounded proud but bemused as well, as if he hadn't quite got used to the idea that she'd chosen some other man than himself to spend her time with.
Martha couldn't help thinking that in some things, the Doctor never seemed to change. The incarnation she knew had still seemed slightly bemused by the idea that she preferred to remain on Earth, working for UNIT, rather than jaunting around the universe with him, even though they'd met up three times since she'd first walked out of the TARDIS after that year she'd walked the world.
"We can't stay with you forever," she said softly. "You live for centuries, we're lucky to manage just one, most of us."
"I know. It's just that I was not expecting her to go so suddenly."
He looked a little forlorn and after a moment Martha put her hand over his where it rested on the table next to his empty glass: she wasn't sure he'd appreciate the gesture, but she felt too much sympathy with him not to make it. After a minute or two, he reached across and patted the top of her hand with his free one.
"You'll find someone else to travel with," she told him as he moved his hands away. "You always do."
She had suddenly remembered that Sarah Jane had travelled with this incarnation, and wondered just when that had happened. They'd had a long talk one afternoon about regeneration and the fact that Sarah had known three incarnations of the Doctor, including one who wore velvet jackets and ruffled shirts, which much surely be this Doctor, because she had described the other one as being 'all teeth and curls' and always wearing an incredibly long scarf.
"You're right, of course, my dear." He smiled down at her. "In other circumstances, I might have asked you to travel with me, but you've more important things to do."
Martha nodded. "And I really ought to be going soon," she said. "I've enjoyed talking with you. If you speak to Jo again, please give her my best wishes for her married life. Thank you for your help, and for the meal."
"It's been a pleasure. Thank you for your company." He shook hands firmly. "Travel safely my dear." He kissed her forehead quickly, then got up and went out.
"Goodbye Doctor," she said quietly, then she reprogrammed the controls on the Vortex Manipulator, and jumped through Time and Space to search for her Doctor.
Title: A Shift in Perspective (1/10)
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Martha Jones, Third Doctor, Jo Grant, Torchwood Team
Rating: G
Spoilers: Day of the Daleks, The Green Death
Summary: The Tenth Doctor goes missing and it's up to Martha Jones to track him down again, but it proves both harder and more instructive than she expects.
Disclaimer: I don't even own my brain any more, never mind Doctor Who!
Author Notes: This is the first chapter in a ten chapter story that's set a couple of months after Season 4. Ages ago the Doctor Who Random Pairing generator gave me "Martha Jones / Sgt Benton / A Shift in Perspective" and for a while I thought I was going to write a timey-wimey fic where Martha meets Benton, but then the idea of Ten going missing and Martha having to track him down, and encountering all his other incarnations along the way, came up.
Many thanks to my Beta readers for this chapter: laura_luvage, ladymako71 and most especially shadowturquoise, who has done sterling work in making sure this didn't utterly suck!
Index Post
~~~~~~
Martha's first jump using Jack's Vortex Manipulator landed her in a large study, and was greeted by a female shriek of alarm that made her wince. She looked up into a pair of sharp eyes that were topped by a shock of grey-white hair, and took in a beaky nose and an impression of ruffles before the man spoke.
"Steady Jo. Now then young woman, you aren't quite what I was expecting."
Martha blinked in puzzlement as she straightened up properly and took in a few more details of the room and its occupants.
"You were expecting me?" she asked, confused.
"You, or someone like you," he answered, rubbing a long forefinger across his lips as he considered her thoughtfully.
"Does that mean you know how to get back to your own time then Doctor?"
The young blonde woman, Jo presumably, who was standing next to the brown leather sofa where the Doctor sat, gave a tiny gasp.
"You know who he is?" she asked, sounding surprised.
Martha shrugged one shoulder. "The Vortex Manipulator is programmed to find the Doctor," she said, "so I assumed this was him. Although I - "
"The what?" interrupted the Doctor in a sharp tone.
"Vortex Manipulator," Martha answered, pulling up her sleeve a short way and showing him the bulky device strapped to her wrist.
"Doctor, this isn't the person who came to assassinate Sir Reginald last night, is it?" asked Jo, sounding doubtful.
"Whoa!" exclaimed Martha. "Who said anything about assassination? I just came to find the Doctor, although not this Doctor." She turned to the watching Time Lord. "I presume you're an earlier incarnation of him?"
"You seem remarkable well-informed, and well-equipped," the Doctor observed. "Suppose you tell me what you are doing here, and when my people began handing out devices that can manipulate the Time Vortex?"
"Do you mind if I sit down?" Martha asked. "Only this could take a while."
He gestured to a brown leather armchair opposite the sofa and she sank down gratefully.
"Jo, why don't you get our visitor - I'm sorry, I don't know your name?"
"Martha, Dr Martha Jones."
"Why don't you get Martha a cup of tea?" suggested the Doctor. "I'm sure she would be glad of it."
Martha nodded agreement, noting the fleeting look of surprise that crossed Jo's face before she spoke. "Very well." She crossed the room and went out.
Martha judged by Jo's outfit that she'd arrived in the 1970s - the knee-high white leather boots, short blue denim skirt with a bib, and the red-checked, short-sleeved shirt wouldn't have looked very out of place in 1969, she thought. But the Doctor looked very out of place in his red velvet jacket, white shirt with ruffles at the throat and wrists, and bow tie. Yet, at the same time, he looked at home somehow, rather like her own Doctor so often did, despite his clothes being out of place.
"I believe you were going to explain your presence here?" he asked, his manner courteous yet firm, which convinced her that he fully intended to have the answers before he let her go.
She rubbed a hand over her face, marshalling her thoughts before she spoke. "I'm from the early 21st century. The Doctor came to Cardiff where I was visiting Jack, another of your future travelling companions. We were catching up on each other's news when Jack suddenly stopped the Doctor in the middle of an anecdote about a prince and a lizard…"
Several hours ago, relative time
"Hang on." He put a finger to his ear where Martha knew he wore an earpiece that connected him to his phone, and thence to the Hub.
The Doctor gave him a quizzical look, then glanced at Martha's intent expression.
"What is it?" he asked her softly as Jack spoke to someone in the Hub.
"Gwen or Ianto must have called him," she said, looking slightly anxious. He slipped his hand into hers and she looked over at him, noticing a fleeting expression of concern cross his face as he waited for Jack to finish his call.
"Gwen says she's picking up some unusual signals on the Rift Monitor," Jack told them. "She thinks something might be trying to come through."
"We'd better go and have a look then," the Doctor said, suddenly brisk and business-like, despite his loosened tie and two unfastened shirt buttons.
Jack shrugged and they followed the Time Lord out of the kitchen and back through the TARDIS. The Doctor grabbed his coat and pulled it on, then opened the door.
"Where's the signal strongest?" he asked once they were in the Plass.
"About 300 yards that way," Jack answered, pointing towards the Bay.
"Did Gwen say if there was any indication of what it is?" asked Martha. "Is it animate or inanimate?"
"She didn't know."
"Let's find out then." The Time Lord strode off and his two companions hurried after him as he pulled out his sonic screwdriver and activated it.
They hadn't gone that far when there was a burst of blinding yellow light ahead of them, and they all stopped walking, Jack's hand hovering near his gun, and the Doctor's arm outstretched as he panned the sonic around. They watched warily as a tall, humanoid figure in dark clothes stepped out of mid-air and into the street. The light faded behind the figure and they could see that its face was obscured by a hood that was pulled up over its head, making it impossible to distinguish whether it was human or alien, male or female.
Jack touched Martha's shoulder briefly then stepped slightly in front of her as she heard footsteps hurrying up behind them. She turned quickly, thinking it was civilians who would be safer if they were discouraged from approaching, but found Gwen and Ianto instead.
She turned back again and saw the Doctor had moved nearer to the humanoid.
"Who are you and what do you want here?" he asked loudly.
"You are the individual known as the Doctor?" asked the figure in a low voice that was almost a growl.
"I am. What do you want?" asked the Time Lord warily.
"Only you." The figure's hand shot out and beams of blue light flew forwards and lassoed around the Doctor's body as if they were ropes.
"No!" yelled Jack, rushing forwards as the Time Lord cried out in shock.
"Jack don't!" Martha shouted, seeing the figure raising its other arm. Her warning was too late, however, and the immortal man was struck by a separate beam of blue light which threw him thirty feet across the Plass over their heads. He crashed into one of the pillars around the edge of the plaza, and Martha heard both Gwen and Ianto cry out in horror, but she focused her attention on the Doctor and the being which held him prisoner.
The Time Lord was struggling desperately to free himself, but each movement he made simply sent a shock through his body and she began to wonder if the figure, whoever it was, intended to kill him.
"What do you want with him?" she shouted.
"Revenge," growled the figure. "My master seeks revenge."
Before Martha could ask any more questions, the figure jerked its arm back, pulling the Doctor forward and as the two were about to collide, there was another burst of brilliant light, and when it had vanished, the Time Lord and the figure were both gone.
Now
By the end of Martha's narrative, the Doctor's eyebrows were raised in a thoughtful manner. "And the device, this Vortex Manipulator?"
"I don't know much about it, I'm afraid. It belongs to Jack. We programmed it to track your psychokinetic energy and I hoped it would take me straight to you, I mean, the incarnation of you that I know."
Before the Doctor could answer, the study door opened and Jo came bustling in, almost spilling the contents of the tray she carried in her hurry.
"Thank you my dear."
He smiled at her, and Martha immediately noticed Jo's expression softening in response, and she realised that some things about the Doctor apparently never changed, no matter what his outward appearance: he clearly inspired a certain level of devotion in his companions. She tucked that thought away for later consideration, then answered Jo's questions about how much milk and sugar she wanted in her tea.
She took the cup and saucer that Jo passed to the Doctor for her, and took a grateful mouthful while noting more details of the study where they sat: there was a plainly furnished desk near one wall, with a green shaded lamp on top and a large painting dominating the wall behind it. A silver, three-branched candelabra was on top of the table where Jo was making the tea, together with a narrow blue telephone. There were pairs of long curtains closed over what Martha guessed were French windows, and there was a globe in a free-standing wooden frame on the other side of the sofa.
When Martha brought her attention back to the Doctor she saw he was smiling at her. "What do you think?"
"It doesn't seem very you," she answered honestly.
His smile broadened. "That is because it is not mine," he told her. "This is Auderly House, home of Sir Reginald Styles."
"Sir Reginald? That's who you thought I'd come to assassinate," Martha said. "Why did you think that?"
"Last night an intruder broke into the house, despite the presence of an armed guard of UNIT soldiers." Martha couldn't help starting in surprise at that, and she saw that the Doctor had noticed her reaction. "The intruder attempted to kill Sir Reginald before vanishing 'like a ghost'."
"And you thought I'd come to make a second attempt?" she asked, not quite believing the implications.
The Doctor nodded. "Since you suddenly appeared out of thin air, and in the very room where the intruder is known to have disappeared so dramatically last night, Jo naturally jumped to the conclusion that you were here to make a second attempt."
"Naturally," Martha answered dryly. She couldn't really fault Jo for making such an assumption, but she felt rather glad she'd arrived inside the house, rather than outside if the grounds were full of UNIT men; she knew they'd be inclined to shoot first and ask questions later if there had already been one assassination attempt here.
"I noticed that when I mentioned UNIT, you seemed to recognise the name," the Doctor observed, before drinking more of his tea.
"I work for them, I'm a Medical Officer."
"Interesting. So you are both soldier and healer."
"Oh, I'm not a soldier, not really. I'm employed as a civilian," Martha said quickly.
"Yet you have the military habit of observation and watchfulness. I am quite sure you could describe the contents and occupants of this room in considerable detail, if necessary."
She felt her face freeze for a moment, before she forced herself to smile. "A good doctor should be observant."
He gave her a slightly sceptical look, but didn't contradict her. Instead he changed the subject, rubbing a long forefinger against the side of his mouth and looking thoughtful. "The description you give of the being who took my future self does not recall anyone that I have encountered so far."
"Never mind. Hopefully the next time I jump, I'll find my Doctor."
"And if you don't?" asked Jo, looking concerned.
"If I don't, I'll just keep looking for him until I do find him," Martha said determinedly. "I can't just sit by and do nothing."
The Doctor nodded his understanding. "Have you eaten lately? Travelling in the Vortex unprotected by a vessel will exhaust you."
Martha shook her head. "I hadn't even thought about food."
"Well why don't you and Jo go and see what is in the kitchen? You should take some rations with you, apples or pears, since they're naturally high in sugar. It would be best not to take soft fruit as it probably won't withstand the pressures in the Vortex."
"Thank you." Martha stood up, and moved forward to shake hands with him, then followed Jo out of the study, through the house to the kitchen.
"Aren't you at all scared?" asked Jo as she pointed out the fruit bowl on the kitchen table, then opened some cupboards in search of bread and the makings of a sandwich for Martha.
"Pretty scared, actually," the young Doctor answered as she pocketed some of the fruit. "But I've got to get him back. You must understand that?"
Jo looked up in surprise from the cupboard she was peering into. "What do you mean?"
"Well you know how important the Doctor is to Earth, don't you? How he keeps stopping aliens from invading, or if they do invade, he talks them out of staying?" Jo nodded. "Well then. Besides, if your Doctor was in trouble, wouldn't you do everything in your power to help him?"
"Of course," she answered instantly.
"I thought so. Well it's the same for me. I may not travel with him full time now I'm working for UNIT, but I still care about him and I know we need him back."
She sat down and watched Jo making her a cheese sandwich, thinking about what she had just said. She did care a great deal about the Doctor - they'd been through too much together for him not to be very important to her still, and she loved him: not in that silly school-girl crush way like before, but on a much deeper level. And while he might not say so, Martha was fairly sure the Doctor cared about her too: it was there in the little things he did, more than the things he said, though the pride in his voice when he addressed her as 'Dr Jones' spoke volumes to her. Even her mum didn't sound that proud of her medical degree.
"Are you okay?" asked Jo, interrupting her reverie as she offered Martha the sandwich she'd made.
"Yes, thanks." She picked it up and took a hungry bite.
"You looked as if you were miles away then," she said.
Martha nodded, then swallowed before answering. "Miles and years, actually. It's a bad habit of mine sometimes."
Jo grinned at her. "Mine too, the Doctor gets a bit exasperated by me sometimes."
Martha laughed. "And of course, he never does anything exasperating, does he?"
"Oh no!" agreed Jo, with a roll of her eyes and a mischievous giggle before she began to tell Martha about her first encounter with the Doctor.
"I knocked on the door of his lab and went in, and he told me 'Not today thank you', I didn't know it at the time but he'd assumed it was the tea lady knocking. So I peered around the door, feeling a bit nervous, because he sounded a bit stern, but before I could even begin to introduce myself properly, he interrupted me again. I sort of hesitated half way between the door and his workbench, not quite sure what I should do, because the Brigadier had sent me to see the Doctor and given me a file to show him. He was quite focused on his experiment, and I didn't really like to interrupt, but then it started smoking and so I threw the file onto the end of the workbench and grabbed the fire extinguisher to put out the blaze."
"Was he grateful?" asked Martha, somehow certain he hadn't been.
"Oh not a bit of it. He started going on about how I'd ruined it, that it was three months' of delicate work completely ruined. He called me 'ham-fisted' and when I pointed out that the whole lab might have gone up, he started talking about 'steady state micro-welding' and engineers with 'nine opposable digits', almost as if he was trying to blind me with science. Of course he wasn't really, he just assumes everyone knows what he's talking about all the time. He was really quite cross though, and when I told him that I was his new assistant, he was pretty horrified." She looked thoughtful. "Which wasn't surprising, I suppose, since I'd just destroyed three months' work in one blast of the fire extinguisher. So then I tried to impress him, telling him I was a fully qualified agent, that I know cryptology, safe-breaking and explosives. But he wasn't very impressed. He asked if I was trained in fire-fighting, and then told me he needed a scientist." She shook her head. "He was very cross and appallingly rude," Jo confided.
"He sounds it!" Martha said.
Once she'd finished eating, she recounted her own first meeting, with the Time Lord taking off his tie in front of her in the street, and then the business with the Plasmavore and the Judoon.
"What's he look like?" asked Jo curiously when Martha had finished.
"Over six foot tall, and very skinny. He's got brown eyes and crazy, wild brown hair that he has a habit of ruffling when he's frustrated or thinking." She smiled in reminiscence. "He usually wears a two piece suit with a shirt and tie, and baseball boots and a long brown coat."
"He sounds a bit dishy," Jo said dreamily.
"In a skinny, geeky sort of way," Martha agreed. She pushed aside her plate, then got to her feet. "Thanks for the tea and the sandwich. I really ought to be moving on now."
Jo got up too and moved around the table to Martha's side. "You are welcome. Good luck with finding the Doctor, your Doctor. Take care of yourself." She reached out to pat Martha's hand, and found herself being hugged instead.
"Take care of yourself too," Martha said, "and him."
She let go of Jo, waved, then fiddled with the device on her wrist, disappearing moments later in a vortex of light that left Jo blinking.
* * * * * *
When Martha arrived at her next destination she had barely caught her breath from the jump when a car horn sounded urgently behind her, and a bright yellow car swerved to a halt a short distance away. She realised, rather belatedly, that she had arrived at dusk on a country road.
The driver's door opened and a tall man climbed out, hurrying towards her.
"What do you think you are doing, standing in the middle of the road?" he demanded as he approached. Then he got close enough to see the person he was berating and Martha saw him start in surprise.
"Hello again Doctor," Martha said, trying to hide her disappointment as she recognised this was the same incarnation she had just met.
"Dr Jones, what are you doing here, in the middle of the Welsh countryside?"
"The same thing I was doing the last time we met," she answered. "Is Jo with you?" She looked past him at the empty car, then back at his face, and even in the dim light she could see the pained expression on his face. Instinctively she reached out to touch his arm. "She's okay, isn't she?"
He gave her a brief nod. "Come on, let's get you out of the road," he said, heading back towards his car.
"This is Bessie," he told her, holding the door open for her to climb in, and she noted the fondness in his voice, something she was used to hearing in her Doctor's voice as he talked of the TARDIS.
"Very nice," she commented. "I never knew you had a car."
He shrugged. "I've only had her since I've been stuck here."
Martha recalled the files she'd been given to read not long after she had joined UNIT: the reports on the Doctor's involvement with the organisation. She remembered he'd been exiled to Earth by the Time Lords, although the report in question was vague about the reasons why.
"I take it your presence here means you are no further forward in your quest?" he asked, pulling away once he was sure she was settled comfortably.
"No, I'm not. In fact, I've just left you at Sir Reginald Styles' house on the night you were expecting an unknown assassin to turn up."
"Ah, I think I know what the problem is," he said thoughtfully. "I should have recalibrated your Vortex Manipulator so it only finds me once in any body. If I don't, your task will take considerably longer, since I have spent a fair amount of time on Earth. You could waste a good deal of time encountering the same body over and over again, particularly at this stage in my life."
"That would be - inconvenient," Martha said, knowing this was an understatement.
"And very frustrating, especially if you were to keep running into my previous self."
Martha's eyebrows rose at the Doctor's disparaging tone. "What's wrong with your previous self?" she asked curiously. The Doctor she knew had never really talked about his earlier incarnations.
"He's a foolish little fellow, little better than a space hobo," he answered crossly, "always fussing and fidgeting about in an embarrassing manner."
"Oh." She wasn't quite sure what to make of his tirade, and sought wildly for another topic of conversation. "How's Jo? I was surprised not to see her with you."
"She's fine. She's moved on."
Martha's eyes had adjusted sufficiently for her to see the tension in his arms as he held the steering wheel, and she could hear pain in his voice. She laid a hand on his arm a second time, absently noting he was wearing a red and green checked cape. "Do you want to tell me about it?" she asked gently. She knew her own Doctor wasn't given to emotional conversations, except when he was prodded into them, but she had no idea if that was a common personality trait for all his incarnations.
"Not now," he answered. "Why don't you tell me about your work with UNIT? I would be interested to learn what the organisation is like in the future."
"Is that a good idea?" she asked. "I mean, wouldn't it be dangerous for you to have knowledge of their future?"
"I am adept at making myself forget things," he assured her. "Is Lethbridge-Stewart still around?"
Martha smiled in the darkness: there seemed to be the same tone of exasperated affection in his voice as she had heard in Sir Alistair's on the one occasion she'd had the chance to talk to him about the Doctor.
Two days after the attempted Sontaran invasion
"Now see here, Mace, this won't do at all!"
Martha hesitated outside Colonel Mace's office, hearing the stern voice berating him in crisp, military tones. She thought that she probably shouldn't interrupt them: her report wasn't that urgent, just some preliminary findings on the Sontaran teleportation technology for Project Indigo. She began to back away from the door as quietly as possible.
"Please Sir Alistair, if you'll just let me explain."
Sir Alistair? thought Martha, shocked, and paying less attention than she should have, she backed herself with a crash into a filing cabinet standing near the Colonel's office.
The door immediately flew open and an imposing figure with grey-white hair, a moustache and beard hurried out.
"You there, girl, what was that noise?" he barked, bearing down on Martha with a fierce expression.
She swallowed. "Me Sir, sorry Sir. I bumped into the cabinet."
He stood over her, a slightly portly man with an intimidating air, but she stood straight, making direct eye contact with him; she'd faced down the Master, so she was determined she could face the legendary Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart without quailing.
"You're the new civilian MO: Jones, isn't it?" he asked.
Martha felt her mouth start to drop open and snapped it shut again, then offered him a crisp salute. "Yes Sir!"
A corner of his mouth twitched. "No need for that, Dr Jones. If what I've heard is true, I should be saluting you." He stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulders, looking at her with an expression of pride.
"You did an excellent job of defeating the Master. I'm very proud of you, proud to have you working as a member of this organisation."
Martha stared at him in astonishment, feeling tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. His praise meant almost as much to her as the Doctor's - more in some respects. "Thank you," she whispered, finding her voice.
"Come on, let's find ourselves a quiet corner and you can tell me all about this new Doctor I missed seeing."
She was aware of Mace standing outside his office, a look of surprise on his face, but he didn't object when Sir Alistair took her hand and pulled her arm through the crook of his, then led her away.
"Have you got an office?"
"Yes Sir."
"Now, now. None of that Sir nonsense. You must call me Alistair," he told her.
"Thank you S- Alistair."
They spent two hours talking, over tea and biscuits, of the Doctor and the various aliens they had encountered. By the time he was ready to go back to Mace, taking Martha's report with him, she had decided that she respected him as much as the Doctor, more in some ways.
She was also acutely aware of the fact that he regarded her with respect, which she found both flattering and humbling, especially when he saluted her as he said goodbye.
"I shall be watching your career with considerable interest, Dr Jones. I predict great things for you."
"Thank you Sir - Alistair," she amended when he raised an eyebrow at her.
Now
"The Brigadier's semi-retired now," Martha told the Doctor. "He's a Sir."
"Is he now? Hmm. Well, I daresay he's earned it. He's a good chap at heart, even if he is too inclined to shoot first and ask questions later."
She grinned in the darkness. "He admitted to me that he was a trifle trigger-happy when he first found out about aliens."
The Doctor made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort. "A trifle? Yes, quite."
Martha chose not to comment on his reaction, but began to talk to him about UNIT in the 21st century, explaining that they tried to investigate potential aliens before the public could find out about them.
"We try to use diplomacy before we send in the men and women with guns. Of course, that doesn’t always work - or events escalate far quicker than anyone can anticipate." She thought back, briefly, to the business with the Sontarans, and how they'd lost control of the initiative then.
"I am glad to hear that diplomacy plays a part," the Doctor said. "Perhaps Lethbridge-Stewart and the others will learn something from me after all."
She made a noise of agreement, but privately Martha wondered if at least part of the reason was that UNIT were far more aware of Torchwood's practices and didn't want to be lumped in with them, particularly when Torchwood One had been operating. Then there had been that business a few years before she had joined UNIT, with ICIS: they had succeeded in tarnishing UNIT's reputation in a couple of instances. Sir Alistair had given her permission to access his files and she had been horrified to read the accounts of ICIS' operations, particularly with regard to the imprisonment of one Toshiko Sato, whom they had allowed to believe had been captured by UNIT themselves. Martha had taken that bit of news very hard indeed, even as she had realised that it had explained Tosh's reluctance to have much to do with her when she'd been down in Cardiff working with Jack's team.
Martha pulled herself out of reverie and noticed they were approaching a village or hamlet: the number of lights she could see indicated that it was somewhere smaller than a town.
"It's a long drive from Wales to London, especially in the dark," the Doctor said, "so I thought I'd stop for a meal and a break. Would you care to join me?"
"Yes please." While it wasn't that long, relatively speaking, since Jo had made her that cheese sandwich, she still felt hungry enough to want to eat.
"Good. We will try the pub." So saying, the Doctor drove into the village square with its central war memorial, then pulled up outside the pub.
Martha climbed out of the car feeling a little stiff, and gratefully accepted the Doctor's arm when he offered it.
The pub was well lit, but not too busy or noisy, and pleasantly warm. Although the temperature outside was reasonable, travelling in an open-topped car with the wind rushing over her had left Martha feeling chilled, so she immediately wandered over to the large fireplace and stretched her hands out to the fire blazing there.
The Doctor had headed straight for the bar, but he joined her soon afterwards to tell her that they would be eating soon. "Why don't you make yourself comfortable?" he suggested, nodding at a nearby table, "and I'll fetch some drinks."
"Thanks." Martha unfastened her jacket and moved towards the table.
"What do you want to drink?" asked the Doctor as he shed his driving cape to reveal a blue velvet jacket, a red waistcoat, a blue shirt with ruffles, and a red bow tie above his black trousers.
"Something non-alcoholic, please."
"Lemonade?" he suggested and she nodded, knowing this was the wrong era for most of the things she normally preferred to drink.
Martha took the Doctor's cape and draped it over the back of a chair, then sat down. She had noticed that most of the locals had enjoyed a good stare before going back to their own concerns, and she wondered briefly if they considered her an exotic foreigner with her dark skin and different clothes. She couldn't help recalling another pub she'd sat in, and the rather different way in which Shakespeare had reacted to her presence, despite the considerably larger gap between his time period and hers.
The Doctor set a glass down in front of her and she pushed her thoughts aside before thanking him.
"Are you all right?" he asked quietly as he settled into a chair beside her. "You seem very pensive."
"Sorry. I think I had forgotten what it felt like to be out of my own time."
He reached across and patted her hand as she toyed with the corner of her beer mat. "I am sure you will get used to it again, my dear."
"I'll have to if I'm to get my Doctor back," she said simply.
"That reminds me. You had better let me have your travel gadget so I can recalibrate it."
"Oh yes, of course. Thank you." Martha unstrapped the Vortex Manipulator and passed it to the Time Lord. He slipped a hand inside his jacket, pulled out his sonic screwdriver, and began fiddling with its settings. He had just finished adjusting the settings on the Vortex Manipulator when the barmaid approached with a tray of food, and Martha quickly pocketed the device before it could cause any comment.
"Thank you my dear." The Doctor smiled at the barmaid as she put down and unloaded the tray.
Martha inhaled the scent of the thick stew and fresh bread that she'd brought with a sense of anticipation, and accepted the bowlful that she was offered with eagerness.
"Thanks. That looks and smells good."
He nodded, and then they began to eat in a companionable silence. She made herself concentrate wholly on enjoying the food, not allowing herself to worry about the task she had set herself.
Once they had eaten, the Doctor suggested adjourning to the snug, having established from the barmaid that it was currently unoccupied.
"We shall be able to talk more privately in there," he said.
"Okay."
They took their drinks through into the smaller room and settled themselves side by side on one of the big padded benches near the fireplace.
"I would like to know more about how you end up travelling with me," he said.
So Martha told him all about the Judoon and the Plasmavore, and her unexpected trip to the Moon.
"And that gave you the urge to travel in Time and Space, did it?" the Doctor asked once Martha had finished explaining about arriving back on Earth.
"Not really," she answered. "I thought it was just a one-off, never-to-be-repeated experience until you, the later you, that is, turned up and chatted me up."
"He chatted you up?" repeated the Doctor, sounding rather incredulous.
She nodded. "I'd just left the pub where my brother Leo's 21st birthday party had been held, and he was leaning on the corner of a building opposite, grinning at me. Then he offered to take me on 'just one trip' to thank me for saving his life, and so he could road-test his new sonic screwdriver."
"Humph."
Martha thought the Doctor seemed less than impressed with his later incarnation's behaviour, and decided to change the subject.
"So how did you meet Jo?" She had heard the story from Jo already, but she wanted to hear his side of the encounter too.
He hesitated for a moment before telling her, freely admitting that he'd been initially unimpressed with her after first mistaking her for the tea lady. He talked about her irrepressible cheerfulness, her courage and her friendliness.
"She's a steady girl, even if she does sometimes rush in blindly - but she always means well. And sometimes she completely ignores my instructions and goes off quietly to do just what she meant to do all along."
Martha smiled, noting the fondness in his voice.
"But she's gone off to marry some Professor and go off exploring in the Amazon willy-nilly." He sounded proud but bemused as well, as if he hadn't quite got used to the idea that she'd chosen some other man than himself to spend her time with.
Martha couldn't help thinking that in some things, the Doctor never seemed to change. The incarnation she knew had still seemed slightly bemused by the idea that she preferred to remain on Earth, working for UNIT, rather than jaunting around the universe with him, even though they'd met up three times since she'd first walked out of the TARDIS after that year she'd walked the world.
"We can't stay with you forever," she said softly. "You live for centuries, we're lucky to manage just one, most of us."
"I know. It's just that I was not expecting her to go so suddenly."
He looked a little forlorn and after a moment Martha put her hand over his where it rested on the table next to his empty glass: she wasn't sure he'd appreciate the gesture, but she felt too much sympathy with him not to make it. After a minute or two, he reached across and patted the top of her hand with his free one.
"You'll find someone else to travel with," she told him as he moved his hands away. "You always do."
She had suddenly remembered that Sarah Jane had travelled with this incarnation, and wondered just when that had happened. They'd had a long talk one afternoon about regeneration and the fact that Sarah had known three incarnations of the Doctor, including one who wore velvet jackets and ruffled shirts, which much surely be this Doctor, because she had described the other one as being 'all teeth and curls' and always wearing an incredibly long scarf.
"You're right, of course, my dear." He smiled down at her. "In other circumstances, I might have asked you to travel with me, but you've more important things to do."
Martha nodded. "And I really ought to be going soon," she said. "I've enjoyed talking with you. If you speak to Jo again, please give her my best wishes for her married life. Thank you for your help, and for the meal."
"It's been a pleasure. Thank you for your company." He shook hands firmly. "Travel safely my dear." He kissed her forehead quickly, then got up and went out.
"Goodbye Doctor," she said quietly, then she reprogrammed the controls on the Vortex Manipulator, and jumped through Time and Space to search for her Doctor.