Alternatives: New Beginnings (1/2)
Who_Daily Link: < a href="http://persiflage-1.livejournal.com/185085.html">Alternatives: New Beginnings (1/2) by < lj user=persiflage_1> (Characters: Human-Ten, Alt-Martha, Rose, Tyler family | Rating: PG-13 | Spoilers: Seasons 2 - 4)
Title: Alternatives: New Beginnings (1/2)
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Human-Ten, Alt-Martha, Jackie, Pete, Rose, Tony
Rating: PG-13 for swearing, violence and mentions of sex
Spoilers: Seasons 2 - 4
Summary: Trying to find his feet in Pete's World, the Human Doctor learns something unexpected about himself and makes a new friend.
Disclaimer: I occasionally wish I did own it!
Warning: Don't read this if you think Rose is the bees knees, because I don't. If you choose to ignore this warning and then flame me, don't expect me to be nice about it.
Author Notes: A while ago jadekirk wondered "What if Handy and Ten were wrong about Handy and he found that he did have an extended lifespan and/or could regenerate (even if it's a small part of him, like his eye/hair colour/accent/freckle count/etc)? I know it's canon that he can't, but I would love to see Handy with a long life." The plot bunnies seized on the idea and ran away with it in rather spectacular fashion and this is the first part of the first fic in a series set in Pete's World.
Beta: The wonderful shadowturquoise
~~~~~~
Fic Banner by angelfireeast
5 weeks after the TARDIS left Pete's World
John Smith sat in his room in Torchwood's hospital and listened to Rose carrying on at the doctors outside. He couldn't hear her words as she was too far along the corridor, but he could guess the gist of them: she was still mad about what had happened to him after he'd been injured on a Torchwood mission.
Two days ago
John stared up into a face full of teeth and realised, rather belatedly, that he wasn't armed: not even a sonic screwdriver did he have to distract the Trampling Wildebeest of Luxnor IV. So now he was going to die a horribly painful death in a universe that wasn't his, surrounded by people who didn't give a damn about him, nor he about them if the truth was told. Well, except for Jackie Tyler and her young son Tony: Jackie had begun treating him as a slightly wayward son-in-law almost the moment the TARDIS had left taking the Doctor and Donna with it.
John wondered what it would be like to die and not regenerate: he supposed that by its very nature it would be a singular experience, and he found himself wishing for the umpteenth time that Donna and the Doctor hadn't left him here to die.
The Wildebeest lunged forward and John threw himself sideways, but not before its teeth and claws found their mark in his body, tearing large chunks out of his right arm and leg. He screamed in agony, and so did the Wildebeest as Flynn and Marcus shot it; John felt the creature crash to the ground beside him as he blacked out from the agonising pain wracking his body.
Being unconscious, he had been unaware of what happened next, but he had heard accounts of the golden light that had briefly flowed out of his body leaving his injuries healed, and changing the colour of his eyes and hair (to green and a darker brown respectively). The Torchwood staff had immediately contacted the base and a clean-up team had brought back his unconscious body and the corpse of the Wildebeest. He hadn't asked what had become of the creature that had done its level best to kill him: he'd been too busy, once he regained consciousness and discovered what had taken place, trying to fend off the questions of the Torchwood medical team and the utter fury of Rose Tyler. She had accused him and the Doctor of lying to her about his humanity, and nothing he said could persuade her that neither he nor the Doctor had had the slightest idea that this would happen.
Now
The Torchwood doctors hadn't been able to say whether it was likely to happen again if he was badly injured a second time, and so far Rose had refrained from suggesting they try any practical tests, although the speculative look she'd given him when she'd first arrived this afternoon had made him wonder if it was in her mind.
John had gained the impression that Rose had been driving the Torchwood medical team around the bend with her behaviour: she'd alternated between whining at them as she insisted they give her the information that she wanted, and crying extensively. He'd seen more than a few of them rolling their eyes in exasperation when she wasn't looking, or wasn't around, to see their reactions. He'd wondered whether the Doctor, with the aid of the TARDIS' medical equipment, would have been able to answer Rose's questions, but he knew that was a pointless line of thinking in the circumstances.
More than once over the last two days, as he'd endured the questions, tests and proddings of the medical team, he'd found himself wishing Martha Jones was here; she might not have been able to answer Rose's questions any more satisfactorily, but her quiet, calm competence would have been a relief compared to the bustle that surrounded him.
The door to his room banged open, and Rose stood in the doorway, her face streaked with mascara, and he guessed she'd been trying the 'waterworks' act on the doctors. "You might as well get dressed," she told him, "we're goin' back to the mansion." She watched impassively as he swung himself off the bed and reached for his shirt: Jackie had come in early the previous morning with fresh clothes for him since his others had been ruined by the Wildebeest.
Yesterday
"Where is he?" demanded a familiar voice outside the door of John's room.
The next moment the door opened and Jackie swept in, a carrier bag in one hand.
"There you are," she said, as if he'd deliberately been hiding from her. "Brought you some clothes to wear, since yours were wrecked."
"Hello Jackie. Thank you."
She plonked the bag down on the chair and perched on the edge of the bed where he'd been sitting reading the newspaper. "Let's have a look at you." She put a hand to his chin and tilted his head towards the light.
"What do you reckon?" John asked, unable to resist teasing her a bit. "Think I'm more handsome with green eyes than brown?"
"You're bloody daft, that's what you are," she informed him forcefully, shaking his chin slightly to emphasise her words.
"What did I do?" he demanded angrily, reaching up to grab hold of her wrist and pull her hand away.
Jackie looked startled by his sudden anger and he realised she'd never seen him angry before. He swallowed hard, trying to push his sudden rage down again; she was the only friend he had here and quite apart from the fact that he didn't want to hurt her, he couldn't afford to do so. He didn't want to be stuck in this world completely friendless.
"Oh, only went out on a dangerous mission unarmed," she retorted, glaring. "That's all."
"C'mon Jackie, be fair! None of us knew the mission was dangerous when I went out. And since Flynn and Marcus were both armed, we all thought I'd be safe enough. Besides, I've got another couple of weeks before I can get my weapons' license."
Her expression softened slightly. "Just be careful, yeah? I'm not ready for you to go changing your looks any more, assuming you can regenerate. And I don't want you to throw yourself into danger willy-nilly, like you used to before."
He nodded, knowing that she was right about his need to take more care of himself than he had when he'd been the Doctor. "I'll try," he told her.
"Good. Rose might not care what happens to you, but me, and Pete, and Tony wouldn't wanna lose you, you daft plum."
John smiled slightly. He had no idea what had possessed Jackie to start referring to both himself and the Doctor as 'plum', but it had stuck, and since it was obviously meant affectionately he didn't bother protesting after the first time.
Now
John heard Rose sigh loudly as he pulled on his shirt: although his injuries had healed, he was stiff and a little weak still, and he knew he'd need to exercise to build up his strength again.
"Are you gonna be there all night?" asked Rose, sarcasm dripping from every word as he wrestled with his buttons.
"I'm going as fast as I can," he answered mildly, not looking up from the sleeve button he was fastening.
"Tuh!" Her loud exclamation of disgust was followed by the door banging shut behind her again.
John sagged with relief as he sat down on the bed to put on his socks. He hadn't wanted her to watch him while he finished dressing, knowing that she took no interest in his body. After they had first got back from Bad Wolf Bay, he'd tried kissing her again, thinking that was what she wanted, but she'd quickly pushed him away claiming she was too tired by everything that had happened. Given she'd spent the journey home sobbing noisily, he hadn't been too surprised to hear she was tired, but he had thought, naively as it turned out, that she'd want him to comfort her.
He had been a little surprised when, a little while later, Jackie had shown him into a room of his own at the Tyler mansion, but she'd explained it by saying that she had thought he might want his own space while he adjusted to his new life, and he'd been too miserable about the loss of the Doctor and Donna to dispute that. Since then he had twice attempted sex with Rose, but she had been rough and hurried with him, only interested in him getting her off, and refusing to let him come inside her, even with a condom.
"Mickey used to take it up the arse and get 'imself off," she told him when he expressed frustration at her refusal. "I wasn't surprised when 'im and that Jake got together. Always thought he preferred men, but he was trying too hard to be cool to admit it."
John had no way of verifying Rose's statements since Mickey had chosen to remain in his original universe, but he'd been shocked at the suggestion that her own sexual pleasure was all that mattered. He had always assumed that if ever he, or rather the Doctor, and Rose had indulged in a sexual relationship, that it would be based on mutual pleasure and enjoyment.
Since that conversation he hadn't attempted any intimacy with Rose, but he'd gathered from a couple of stray remarks that she wasn't upset. He'd had to resort to the traditional method of satisfying his own increased libido, and he'd been surprised and embarrassed to discover that as a human male his interest in sex had increased exponentially; it wasn't that Time Lords were asexual so much as that their libido was low and they were well practised in controlling their sexual urges. As a human male he'd had to make a conscious effort to control his own urges, something he hadn't always succeeded in doing, although as the weeks since his arrival in this universe had passed, things had settled down sufficiently that he was no longer having to change his pyjamas and sheets twice a night.
John finished dressing, then folded up his pyjamas and put them in the carrier bag before going out into the corridor. Rose was lounging against the wall, inspecting her brightly painted fingernails and chewing gum. She straightened up when she saw him and he noticed that she'd washed her face in the interval.
"Took your time," she said, then strode off along the corridor without a second glance at him.
He followed her out of the hospital and into the car park where Pete and young Tony were waiting in the car. Pete gave him a smile, but Tony was positively beaming at the sight of him, wriggling in his child car seat like a puppy about to be taken for a walk.
John climbed into the back of the car, glad yet again that Pete drove a car with plenty of legroom in the back since Rose insisted on sitting in the front when she was in the car.
"Hello Uncle John," exclaimed Tony. "You better now?"
"Hello Tony. I am better, thank you."
"You tell me story tonight?" asked the small boy, a hopeful look on his face.
John nodded and Tony let out a squeal of excitement, clapping his hands wildly. John found himself smiling for the first time that day, feeling cheered by the child's delight. He was fairly sure Tony regarded his stories as nothing more than fairy tales, but it soothed his homesickness a little to recount the adventures of the Doctor in the other universe.
The drive back to the Tyler mansion was silent except for Tony's excited chatter, and John was relieved when Pete finally pulled up outside the house. Rose was out of the car almost before it had stopped moving, and she went inside without a second glance while John was undoing Tony's seat restraints and helping him out of the seat.
"Rose cross," the small boy said as he crawled across the back seat and allowed John to lift him out of the car.
"I know," John answered, not daring to meet Pete's eyes as he turned towards the front door, Tony in his arms.
"She fink you and Doctor man are big meanies."
At Tony's artless comment, John's eyes flew to Pete's face, his own cheeks flushing; he saw Pete's mouth was drawn into a tight line.
"Tony don't fink you mean," confided the child, his small arm sliding around John's neck.
"Thank you," John answered softly, grateful even for that vote of confidence.
Once inside the house Jackie came hurrying to greet them, lifting her son from John's arms so she could hug John.
"Hello love, You look a bit peaky, why don't you go up to your room and I'll bring you something to eat in a little while?"
"Why are you molly coddling 'im? He ain't sick. Got a clean bill of health from Dr Richards and his buddies." Rose stood at the top of the staircase, hands on hips, and a thunderous expression on her face.
Jackie glanced up at her daughter, her own expression darkening. "In case you've forgotten my girl, John was nearly killed two days ago."
"And in case you've forgotten he made a 'miraculous recovery'," she retorted, making air quotes on the last two words. "I swear you care more abaht 'im than you do me, an' I'm your daughter."
Rose stomped up the stairs, sparing her mother the trouble of finding a reply that wouldn't antagonise her daughter further.
"Sorry about that love," Jackie said, rolling her eyes as she turned back to John.
He shrugged. "She'll come around eventually." I hope, or life here will be even harder. He was glad that Pete had disappeared with Tony before Rose's outburst. He didn't want Tony to hear any more of his sister's tirades.
"You go an' have a rest," Jackie said again. "Dinner won't be for another couple of hours, but I can bring you a snack if you're hungry?"
John shook his head. "I can wait." He leant forward and kissed her cheek. "Thank you," he murmured, turning away towards the stairs, but not before he'd seen her blush with surprise at his gesture.
He went up to his room, but he didn't lie down: he felt too restless after being cooped up for two days, so after rooting around in his pockets and finding a handful of pound coins and a ten pound note, he went back downstairs, then let himself out of the house, setting off at a brisk walk. He breathed deeply, relishing the fresh air and exercise.
By the time he reached his destination he was feeling a bit more lively and even a little more cheerful. The Market Tavern was busy, but not too noisy, and he managed to get served fairly quickly. He was looking around for somewhere to sit when he spotted a very familiar, if totally unexpected, face at a crowded table in the corner.
Martha Jones! he thought, feeling his heart thump painfully at the sight of her.
In fact, John's heart was thumping so hard he began to wonder if he'd survived the Trampling Wildebeest only to die of a heart attack instead. He dragged his gaze from her face with great difficulty, not wanting her to see him staring, and looked again for a seat. As he was still dithering, a couple got up from the next table but one from where Martha sat, and John realised they were preparing to leave. He moved over to the table and slid into a seat with a feeling of relief: he was shaking slightly, partly from the shock of seeing Martha (he'd never seriously thought about the possibility that this universe might have its own Martha Jones) and partly from nerves. He wanted to talk to her, but felt clueless about how to approach her. Not even Donna's memories offered an answer, and he could hardly introduce himself with 'Hi, my duplicate in another universe knew your duplicate in that universe, can we be friends?' She'd think he was completely mad.
He watched her as covertly as he could, not wanting to get caught staring because while that would be a conversation starter, he didn't want to appear to be a stalker.
When he'd finished his drink, he went to the bar for a second one: two was his limit for alcoholic drinks as he'd discovered quite soon after joining Torchwood when an evening 'out with the lads' had left him not just hung over, but suffering from alcohol poisoning because his part-human, part-Time Lord biology couldn't process the toxins in the alcohol. Rose, predictably enough, had mocked his plight, cheerfully boasting about the drinking sessions she and Mickey had shared.
As John stood at the bar waiting to be served someone bumped into his back and he turned, startled, to find Martha blinking owlishly up at him.
"Sorry 'bout that," she said. "Guess I better switch to the soft drinks now."
"It's okay," he assured her, his mouth suddenly dry and a herd of elephants dancing a rumba in his stomach. Please don't let me throw up now! he begged silently.
"Can I get you one, by way of apology?" she asked.
"Y-y-yes, thanks." Oh great! Stuttering's hardly better than puking. She's going to think I'm an idiot.
She smiled up at him, and he felt his face beginning to redden.
"What are you having?" she asked.
"Coke, with ice, but no lemon, please," he asked, feeling sure she was going to tease him about not being able to hold his drink.
She didn't though, she just smiled and suggested that he sit down, and she would bring his drink over.
"Thank you. My name's John."
"Martha Jones," she answered, offering him a hand to shake.
Without thinking, he lifted her hand and kissed the back of it, and when her eyebrows shot up, he mumbled an apology, feeling he'd made a fool of himself. He was miserably certain that she would bring him the drink and then go back to her friends. He could practically hear Donna's voice in his head, calling him 'Spaceman' and teasing him for kissing Martha's hand. He felt a sudden surge of anger and grief that the Doctor had dumped him here with a woman who didn't want him, and probably never had, despite that kiss on the beach.
Over the last month John had given it a lot of thought and he couldn't help feeling that the Doctor had been punishing both John and Rose by making them stay here: he was being punished for doing something the Doctor had done himself in the not-too-distant past, and Rose was being punished for trying to get back to the Doctor. He had understood from the Doctor that it was up to him to keep Rose happy to ensure that she didn't try such a thing again. But he wasn't the Doctor: oh, he looked like him, and even thought like him to a certain extent, but there was more than a dash of Donna in him too, and she didn't love Rose. In fact, once she'd met the blonde, Donna hadn't understood what the Doctor saw in Rose, and John was aware that Donna, although not interested in women, had considered Martha rather attractive. The two women had quickly become fast friends when they'd met, and John knew the Doctor had been relieved that they'd got on so well.
"Penny for them," said a soft voice.
John looked up, surprised to find Martha sitting down beside him. "Sorry? Oh, they're not worth a penny."
"No? You drive a hard bargain, John. What about a pound?" She placed a coin on the table next to the glass of Coke she'd brought him, and he looked at it, then at her, confusion plain on his face.
"What's that for?" he asked.
She laughed. "You said your thoughts weren't worth a penny. I thought that you meant I should pay a higher fee for the privilege of hearing them."
He blushed. "No, I meant that a penny was too high a price." He pushed the coin back across the table.
She shook her head, smiling. "Are you always this serious? It's Friday night, time to relax and let your hair down."
She shook her own hair back at her words and grinned at him, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.
"Sorry. I'm just not very good company, I'm afraid." He reached out for his glass and she put a hand on his arm.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked. "I'm generally considered a good listener."
He managed to bite back a reassurance that he knew she was a very sympathetic listener, reminding himself that this wasn't the Martha that he, or rather Donna and the Doctor, knew.
He shrugged. "It's rather boring and ridiculously complicated," he said, wondering why she cared.
"Yeah? So let me guess. You've got a hideously ugly, but very rich wife, who's the mother of your two children who, fortunately for them, take after their rather good-looking father. You comfort yourself by having lots of energetic sex with a gorgeous young woman: blonde, 19, and can eat whatever she likes without putting on an ounce of fat. But she's empty-headed and works as an air-hostess on the main Zeppelin route from London to Hong Kong." She grinned at his dumbstruck expression. "Am I close?"
John shook his head slowly, a smile beginning to tease his mouth. "Not even remotely," he answered.
"Well that's a relief," Martha said, laughing. "I think you must have had a very lucky escape."
His smile slipped, which she noticed immediately. "Are you okay?" she asked, all concern again.
He nodded. "I'm fine."
She frowned. "You don't look fine." She put her hand on his arm again. "Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?"
"You're very sweet," he told her. "But it really is hideously complicated, and I'm not sure you'd believe even half of it if I told you my story."
"Oh I don't know," Martha answered. "You might be surprised at what I'd believe. Still, what I don't believe in is pushing people to talk about what they'd rather not discuss, so we'll talk about something else instead. I haven't seen you in here before, are you new in the area?"
"Do you know everyone in here?" John asked curiously. He would have believed that if they'd been in a village pub, but not in a London one.
She shook her head. "I don't know even half the people in here by sight, but I wouldn't forget seeing a good looking guy like you in here, especially with those green eyes." She smirked at him over the top of her glass when he flushed and looked away feeling flustered.
This Martha wasn't just older than the one he knew, she was rather more confident too, and while he felt rather flustered by her references to his looks, he was flattered too. Not only had Rose made it clear that she wasn't interested in him, none of the women at Torchwood had shown any interest either: he'd gained the impression they were too scared because of his involvement with the Tylers. There was a pretty Japanese girl called Toshiko who had reminded him of someone the Doctor had briefly met in his ninth incarnation, but when he'd invited her to go for a drink with him one evening after work, she'd turned him down flat. Stung, he'd snapped at her, and she had muttered something about him being off-limits.
John had seriously considered finding Rose and demanding an explanation from her, but the intensity of his rage had sent him downstairs to the firing range instead, and he'd spent a therapeutic hour blasting holes in a number of targets with a variety of weapons. The Doctor might scorn to use weapons, but he had decided he wasn't going to do the same: working for Torchwood was dangerous, and the sooner he had a weapons' license, the better as far as he was concerned.
"You're doing it again."
He snapped out of his reverie to find Martha watching him, a quizzical expression on her face.
"You were off in your own little world again there," she observed, "so I'm going to leave you in peace with your drink."
She stood up, and John stood too, annoyed with himself for pushing her away. "I'm sorry," he said helplessly.
"It's okay," she assured him. "You've clearly got a lot on your mind." She put a hand on his chest as she stood up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. "I'll see you around, gorgeous."
She winked at him, then picked up her drink and headed back to her friends, leaving John to unconsciously run his fingers over the spot on his face where she'd kissed him. Then he realised he was feeling uncomfortable and took himself off to the gents; when he returned he saw that Martha and her friends had left, and he decided he ought to get back himself before Jackie started worrying about him, assuming she had noticed his absence.
* * * * * *
The doctors at Torchwood had advised him to take at least a week off once he got out of the hospital, and also to take plenty of exercise, so John settled into a routine of twice daily swims in the Tylers' swimming pool, and long walks around the estate, which was vast enough that he managed to take a different route each day. During that time he found himself thinking about Martha a lot, and dreaming about her too, and he slipped out each evening and went back to the Market Tavern in the hope of seeing her again, but to his great disappointment she wasn't there until the Friday evening.
Almost as soon as he entered the pub, John saw Martha waving at him from a table at which she sat with two other women and two men, and he felt as if his smile was going to split his face when she quickly got up and came to meet him between the door and the bar.
"Now that's better," she said cheerfully, before he could greet her. "You look bloody gorgeous when you smile. You should do it more often, it suits you better than your brooding look."
He blinked, surprised by her directness. "Thank you."
"Sorry, that was a bit rude of me," she said, threading her arm through his and leading him over to the bar. "But you do look much friendlier when you smile. Now, what are you drinking, same as last week?"
He nodded, feeling slightly bewildered by her manner, and wondering if she'd been drinking: he knew that some people became more confident and direct when they had alcohol inside them.
Martha ordered him a Coke with ice but no lemon, and he felt absurdly pleased that she'd remembered his preference.
"How are you, John?" she asked. "You're looking healthier than you did a week ago."
"Well I had just got out of hospital last week," he told her.
"Nothing too serious, I hope?" she asked, and he noticed that she sounded sincere in her question.
"I was injured at work," he said, knowing he couldn't be more specific without her thinking that he was a weirdo. "I was only in for a couple of days though."
"That's good to hear." She led him to an empty table and sank down into a chair. "Thank goodness it's Friday."
"Long day?" he asked sympathetically.
"A whole week of long days," she answered. "I'm a doctor."
He had to fight the temptation to say 'Me too', because it wasn't true, not for him. "What area do you specialise in?"
"I don't really," she answered. "I've been trained as a surgeon, and I have a strong background in dealing with unusual ailments, things that tend to baffle other doctors."
If he hadn't already known that Martha didn't work for Torchwood, he would have taken the latter part of her statement to be a coded way of saying she dealt with alien diseases, and he found himself intrigued.
"Is it satisfying, or merely frustrating?" he asked curiously.
"Both, but mostly satisfying, thankfully." She smiled. "What about you?"
"Oh I work in an office. Bit dull, really, but it pays the bills."
He didn't want to tell her that he worked for Torchwood; the organisation wasn't as secretive here as it was in his universe, but he had soon discovered they didn't have a good reputation, in part because of Rose's recent activities in building the dimension cannon. He'd wondered about finding a job elsewhere, but he wasn't sure what else he could do: he'd toyed with the idea of teaching, but he wasn't sure what he'd teach, or if he was suitable teacher material, given his fits of rage - while it was true that he was learning how to handle those, he wasn't sure that facing a classroom full of potentially unruly children would be a good idea. Unbidden his mind flashed back to his first big argument with Rose.
Four weeks ago
"I told you that lab's out of bounds to ev'ryone!"
Rose's full fury was not something that John, or rather the Doctor, had ever seen before, and it wasn't a pretty sight. She wasn't shouting yet, but he suspected that was only because there were so many other people around.
He tried one of his grins, the sort the Doctor always thought of as disarming. "Sorry, I didn't realise you meant me as well." He tried to sound apologetic, but he wasn't sure he'd succeeded.
"My office, now!" Rose said through clenched teeth.
"You know I'm surprised your dental practitioner hasn't warned you about not clenching your teeth like that," he said, as he wandered over to the lift. "It will eventually have an impact on your ability to articulate clearly."
As the lift door swished shut behind them Rose slapped him across the face just where her mother had once slapped the Doctor's earlier incarnation. Then the Doctor hadn't reacted, but John did: he grabbed Rose's wrists as she raised her hand to slap him a second time and shoved her against the wall of the lift. He held her hands above her head and pushed his body hard against hers, staring angrily down at her from his greater height.
"Don't you ever raise your hand to me again," he growled, "or so help me, I'll make you regret it for the rest of your life."
She stared up at him defiantly.
"Do you understand me?" he demanded.
"Yes." She didn't look intimidated, though: in fact, he wondered if she was aroused, from the way her breathing had quickened.
He pulled away from her and folded his arms across his chest. "What's in that lab, that you won't even allow me in there?"
"None of your business. You're only a technician here, so you don't 'ave the security clearance."
The lift came to a standstill and she shoved past him, heading towards her office, and he followed, determined to try to find out more. He was starting to think she had the dimension cannon in that lab, and if that was the case, he going to have to get in there to destroy it. As much as he wanted to return to the other universe (and it was such a persistent desire that he felt as if terriers were worrying his brain about it as they would worry a rat), he knew full well the devastating consequences if Rose made another attempt to cross into their universe. He'd only been here a week, but that had been quite long enough to establish that after the temperature rises caused by the Cybermen crossing into his universe had stabilised once the Void was closed again, the world had begun warming up again when Rose had begun trying to punch through to their universe with the dimension cannon. John had wondered whether to try talking to the scientists about ways to slow down the effects of the global warming, but there was no point in trying to offset the problems if Rose was going to start firing it again.
Once in Rose's office, he tried wheedling the information out of her, telling her that she could trust him with the information, but she told him point blank that she didn't trust him, so he tried demanding, then threatening, but it got him nowhere, and he slammed out of her office to stop himself from hitting her.
"Don' you dare walk away from me, John Smith!" she yelled after him, but he was already at the end of the corridor.
He ran down the five flights of stairs until he reached his office, then fetched his coat and walked out of the building, knowing he'd have to find some other way of getting the information. It was a nuisance that Mickey had stayed in the other universe, or John would have got him to hack into the Torchwood computer for him.
Now
"John, John!"
He started as he felt someone shaking his arm, and realised Martha was calling his name.
He blinked at her. "Sorry," he mumbled.
"Are you okay?" she asked anxiously. "You completely spaced out on me there."
"Sorry," he repeated, embarrassed: at this rate she would either think he was incredibly rude or mentally unstable.
"Do you do that a lot?" she asked, and he recalled that she had said that she dealt in unusual ailments, and wondered if he should confide in her. This might not be the Martha Jones the Doctor loved and trusted, but he felt she was enough like that Martha Jones that he could talk to her, and maybe she could help him.
"Now and again," he answered truthfully.
She swallowed the last of her drink. "Come on, finish up."
"What?" He gave her a puzzled look.
"Finish up your drink and you can walk me back to my place, away from prying ears, and you can tell me what's going on, if you're regularly having episodes like that."
Intrigued, John finished his Coke, then waited while Martha grabbed her coat (a short black leather one, he noticed absently) and said goodbye to her friends. Then they went outside, shivering a little in the chilly air after the warmth of the pub.
To John's surprise, Martha threaded her arm through his as they set off along the street, then began talking about the global warming they'd been experiencing over the last few years. She talked intelligently about the situation, explaining the various solutions that had been suggested by different scientific groups in far more detail than he would have expected from the average doctor, even one who dealt in 'unusual ailments', and he found himself wondering what her story was because he sensed that there was more to this Martha Jones than met the eye.
"Here we are," she said after they'd been walking for about ten minutes. She led him across the street to a smart, detached house with a red car parked in the drive and let them in, pulling off her coat as she went, then hanging it on a peg in the hallway. She took John's long black wool coat and hung it up next to hers.
"Do you want tea or coffee?" she asked.
"Yes please."
She laughed. "Unless you want them both in the same mug, you'd better pick one," she told him.
He flushed, embarrassed by his apparent stupidity: sometimes his Donna side wanted coffee at the same time that his Doctor side wanted tea. "I'll have whatever you're having," he said.
"Come through to the kitchen, then," she invited, setting off along the hall.
John followed her, taking in the pale green walls and the darker green carpet of the hall, before he stepped into a kitchen decorated in pale blue and cream. It was fitted with all the mod cons, but it seemed inviting nonetheless, and he decided it was the framed photos of waterfalls on the walls, and the collection of herbs growing in pots on the windowsill that did it.
"Have a seat," Martha said, gesturing to the breakfast bar, while she got out mugs, coffee and sugar from the cupboards.
"Are you hungry?" she asked, and he realised abruptly that he hadn't eaten yet.
"A bit," he said, not wanting to admit that he felt ravenous.
"Pizza okay? I haven't eaten yet since I went straight to the pub from work."
"Pizza's good, thanks."
"There are some in the top part of the freezer," she said, gesturing. "Get out whatever you fancy."
John moved over to the freezer and opened it. Sure enough, there were three or four deep pan pizzas in the top compartment, and he lifted out a ham and pineapple one.
"Pizza oven's over there," Martha told him, with another gesture to an appliance he'd taken to be a microwave. As he took the pizza from the box and put it on the pizza plate in the oven, Martha set their mugs of coffee down on the breakfast bar, then got out a couple of plates.
"So then, John, what's your 'hideously complicated' story?" she asked, crossing to his side to set the controls on the pizza oven.
"It's a long story," he answered.
"We'd better sit down then."
They settled at the breakfast bar and John swallowed a mouthful of coffee, and gathered his thoughts before he began.
"Do you believe in aliens," he asked, "or the existence of other worlds besides this one?"
Martha gave him a look that he found difficult to interpret, then nodded. "I believe in aliens and parallel worlds."
He blinked, surprised that she had specified parallel worlds. "What if I told you that I'm part alien, and that I come from a parallel world to this one?"
"Tell me more about the 'part alien' bit first," she said.
So he told her, watching her expression of rapt concentration and fascination as he explained everything that had happened with the Doctor and Donna to lead to his own creation. Then he told her briefly about the Doctor's and Rose's visits to this parallel world; he didn't mention the Cybermen, feeling wary about telling her everything all at once. The Doctor part of him was tempted to tell all, because he instinctively felt that he could trust her, but the Donna part of him was worried about scaring her off, remembering times when Donna had tried to confide in someone only to regret it. In the week since he'd first met her, John had become acutely aware of his need for someone like Martha in his life.
They ate while he talked, and he found himself relaxing as he told his tale: it felt good to be able to tell someone at least part of his story. After John finished his tale, there was a long silence, and he wondered just how much of it Martha had believed.
"Wine?" she asked, finally breaking the silence.
"What?" he asked, bewildered.
"Do you want a glass of wine?" she asked patiently.
"Oh. Yes please."
She got up to get out some glasses and a bottle of red wine, and he couldn't help thinking how beautiful she was; he knew the Doctor had thought so too, even though that had been the other universe's Martha. But just as with Mickey and Ricky, this Martha and the one in his universe could have been identical twins.
"Do you like what you see?" she asked, derailing his train of thought and leaving him blushing furiously.
He nodded. "You're beautiful," he said simply.
He had left the other Martha Jones out of his narrative: she wasn't really a part of the story of his creation, although he considered her a very important person in the Doctor's story. But he felt, perhaps wrongly, that this Martha Jones might not appreciate hearing about her counterpart just yet.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "Come on, let's go and sit in the other room. We'll be more comfortable in there."
He followed her and they settled on the wide sofa, Martha tucking her feet under herself; John took a quick look around the room which was spacious and pleasant. The cream sofa faced a large, flat screen TV with a stereo positioned below it, and speakers on either side. There were long bookshelves lining one of the walls, filled with books, CDs and DVDs, and he resisted the urge to go and look at Martha's collection. The furniture was all cream fabrics and blond woods, and the walls were decorated with a pale green wallpaper patterned in gold.
"You've got a nice house," he said. "It feels inviting and comfortable."
"Thanks. I've only lived here a couple of years." She hesitated for a moment. "I think it's only fair that I tell you my story, since you've told me yours. It's not quite as astounding as your tale, but it's fairly unusual all the same."
John raised his eyebrows at that, intrigued. "I'm all ears," he said.
"A few years ago, I got caught up in something pretty bizarre that happened here in London, across Europe, and probably further afield too. There was an organisation called Cybus Industries that made all sorts of very advanced technology, including some things called Ear Pods that acted like a mobile phone with internet access. You know the things I mean?"
John nodded, feeling hollow.
"These Ear Pods were linked directly into the Cybus Network, and also directly into the user's brain." She shuddered, and John reached across to put his hand on her arm. "I didn't own them myself: I wasn't entirely convinced that they were safe. John Lumic, the man behind Cybus, may have been a technological genius, but his products always struck me as being a little more intrusive than I liked. Most people didn't agree with that, and one of the people who really liked the Ear Pods was my sister Adeola."
John felt as if Martha had doused him with a bucket of cold water, and his memory flew back to another girl called Adeola, Martha Jones' cousin, who'd been used and killed by the Cybermen in his universe.
"Adeola was my twin sister, and - "
"Was?" John interrupted, horrified. "Sorry, go on."
"Adeola was a bit of a gadget geek. She loved new technology and was always buying gadgets as soon as she could afford them. So she had the Ear Pods and used them happily. Unfortunately, no one knew that Lumic, who was terminally ill, was going to use the Cybus Network and the Ear Pods to turn people into monsters. He programmed the Ear Pods to send people to Battersea where he'd set up a processing facility that converted people into Cybermen: gigantic steel robots into which humans' brains were wired. Adeola was one of those who was converted."
"Oh Martha." John turned to her, an expression of horror on his face.
Martha bit her bottom lip and he could see that her eyes were bright with unshed tears. He held out his arms, not sure if she'd accept a hug from a complete stranger, despite the fact she'd been telling him this story. To his relief she moved into his embrace and he wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin lightly on the top of her head.
"I am so sorry," he said softly, knowing the words were useless. He had thought what had happened to Adeola in his universe had been bad enough, but this seemed far more horrendous. He knew the other Martha had been close to her cousin, but to lose a twin sister to the Cybermen seemed infinitely worse.
She straightened back up and picked up her glass again. "It took me several years to move out of the flat I shared with Adeola." She looked down at the wine glass she cradled in her lap. "Moving felt like a betrayal in some ways, final proof that she was gone and never coming back."
"So why did you move, if you don't mind me asking?"
"My psychotherapist recommended it. She felt that I would never fully accept Addy's death as a permanent loss if I stayed there. I resisted it for a few years, and then one morning I woke up and just knew that the time had come - that she was never coming back, and that I could stay there and let my grief destroy me, or I could move to somewhere new and start living again."
John reached out and placed a hand on her wrist, and she looked up with a half smile.
"So then, John Smith, what's it like, living at the Tyler mansion?"
He shrugged. "It's okay, I guess. Jackie and Tony are - oh shit! Tony! Sorry, sorry!" He began digging into the pocket of his jeans.
"What's wrong?"
"I promised Tony I'd tell him a story tonight - it's our bedtime routine. He'll be in bed by now, hopefully asleep, but Jackie must be wondering where the hell I am."
"Didn't you tell her you were going out?" Martha asked.
He shook his head as he pulled out his phone. "Sorry, do you mind? "
"Go ahead."
He switched on the phone, then stepped out into the hall, wondering who would answer. When he returned a few minutes later, he looked tense.
"Are you in trouble?" she asked.
"Jackie was okay, once I spoke to her," he said.
She raised her eyebrows. "So who did you speak to first?"
"Rose."
"Let me guess, she was less than impressed that you'd slipped your leash?"
John's eyebrows rose in surprise. "You know Rose?" he asked.
"Only by reputation. Let's just say you and I have an acquaintance in common who made me privy to quite a lot of information about Ms Tyler."
"Who do we both know?" he asked, puzzled.
"Not tonight," she said. "I'll tell you another time."
He looked at her, annoyed and frustrated at the same time. "Why won't you tell me now?"
"Because it's a long story, and I've had a long day. I was at work at six this morning."
He glanced over at the clock, then back at her face, looking contrite. "Sorry." He shuffled his feet. "I should be getting back."
Martha looked him up and down, and he somehow knew she was assessing how much of a threat he might be. He'd seen that look on his Martha's face - no, not his Martha, not even the Doctor's Martha - she would, he knew, have resented being considered anybody's. Despite the fact she'd had a fair bit to drink this evening, the way this Martha looked at him now spoke of competence and calm authority.
"You can stay here, if you like," she said finally. "I reckon my sofa's long enough for you to sleep on without causing you too much discomfort."
He closed his eyes on a sudden memory of himself - no, the Doctor - scrunched up on a too-short sofa, trying to rest after spending hours working on the temporal incursion detector to set himself and Martha free when they were trapped in 1969.
"You okay?" Martha asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
His eyes snapped open and he found a smile from somewhere. "Yeah, sorry. Just remembering - " other people's lives "something."
"I thought you were going to space out on me again," she told him.
"No. Sorry."
"Don't keep apologising, John," she said, "it's really not necessary."
"S - " He stopped himself just in time.
"Come on, I'll show you where the bathroom is."
He followed her upstairs and she pointed out the bathroom, her bedroom "and that one's my study," she finished, indicating the third room. Then she opened a cupboard on the landing and took out a duvet and some pillows.
"I can't offer you any pyjamas, I'm afraid, as I haven't got any that will fit you."
"That's okay," he assured her. "I'll just use your bathroom, if I may?"
"Feel free," she answered. She put a hand on his chest, then stretched up to kiss his cheek. "Goodnight, John Smith. See you in the morning."
"Goodnight Martha Jones."
She went into her bedroom and John took himself into the bathroom, pulling a folding toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste from his pocket: he made a habit of carrying a variety of potentially useful items in his pockets. One of the reasons he so often wore the jacket from the Doctor's blue suit was the fact that the pockets were bigger on the inside: admittedly they didn't hold as much as the pockets of the Doctor's coat, but they still held rather more than normal pockets.
In the early days of his time in this world Rose had tried to get him to abandon the blue suit, offering to buy him a new brown one instead, but he had refused, saying he preferred his blue suit. When she had pointedly informed him that she didn't like the blue one and preferred him to wear a brown one, he had equally pointedly informed her that he preferred the blue suit, and since she kept reminding him that he wasn't the Doctor, he saw no reason to dress like him. It had been yet another nail in the coffin of their failed relationship.
He washed his hands and face, then cleaned his teeth before heading downstairs with the pillows and duvet to get some sleep. He stripped down to his boxers, knowing he wouldn't be comfortable sleeping in his trousers, and Martha's house was warm enough that he didn't need to wear his t-shirt as well. He wrapped the duvet around himself and closed his eyes, willing himself to go to sleep and not to think about how much he wanted to share a bed with Martha.
Title: Alternatives: New Beginnings (1/2)
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Human-Ten, Alt-Martha, Jackie, Pete, Rose, Tony
Rating: PG-13 for swearing, violence and mentions of sex
Spoilers: Seasons 2 - 4
Summary: Trying to find his feet in Pete's World, the Human Doctor learns something unexpected about himself and makes a new friend.
Disclaimer: I occasionally wish I did own it!
Warning: Don't read this if you think Rose is the bees knees, because I don't. If you choose to ignore this warning and then flame me, don't expect me to be nice about it.
Author Notes: A while ago jadekirk wondered "What if Handy and Ten were wrong about Handy and he found that he did have an extended lifespan and/or could regenerate (even if it's a small part of him, like his eye/hair colour/accent/freckle count/etc)? I know it's canon that he can't, but I would love to see Handy with a long life." The plot bunnies seized on the idea and ran away with it in rather spectacular fashion and this is the first part of the first fic in a series set in Pete's World.
Beta: The wonderful shadowturquoise
~~~~~~
Fic Banner by angelfireeast
5 weeks after the TARDIS left Pete's World
John Smith sat in his room in Torchwood's hospital and listened to Rose carrying on at the doctors outside. He couldn't hear her words as she was too far along the corridor, but he could guess the gist of them: she was still mad about what had happened to him after he'd been injured on a Torchwood mission.
Two days ago
John stared up into a face full of teeth and realised, rather belatedly, that he wasn't armed: not even a sonic screwdriver did he have to distract the Trampling Wildebeest of Luxnor IV. So now he was going to die a horribly painful death in a universe that wasn't his, surrounded by people who didn't give a damn about him, nor he about them if the truth was told. Well, except for Jackie Tyler and her young son Tony: Jackie had begun treating him as a slightly wayward son-in-law almost the moment the TARDIS had left taking the Doctor and Donna with it.
John wondered what it would be like to die and not regenerate: he supposed that by its very nature it would be a singular experience, and he found himself wishing for the umpteenth time that Donna and the Doctor hadn't left him here to die.
The Wildebeest lunged forward and John threw himself sideways, but not before its teeth and claws found their mark in his body, tearing large chunks out of his right arm and leg. He screamed in agony, and so did the Wildebeest as Flynn and Marcus shot it; John felt the creature crash to the ground beside him as he blacked out from the agonising pain wracking his body.
Being unconscious, he had been unaware of what happened next, but he had heard accounts of the golden light that had briefly flowed out of his body leaving his injuries healed, and changing the colour of his eyes and hair (to green and a darker brown respectively). The Torchwood staff had immediately contacted the base and a clean-up team had brought back his unconscious body and the corpse of the Wildebeest. He hadn't asked what had become of the creature that had done its level best to kill him: he'd been too busy, once he regained consciousness and discovered what had taken place, trying to fend off the questions of the Torchwood medical team and the utter fury of Rose Tyler. She had accused him and the Doctor of lying to her about his humanity, and nothing he said could persuade her that neither he nor the Doctor had had the slightest idea that this would happen.
Now
The Torchwood doctors hadn't been able to say whether it was likely to happen again if he was badly injured a second time, and so far Rose had refrained from suggesting they try any practical tests, although the speculative look she'd given him when she'd first arrived this afternoon had made him wonder if it was in her mind.
John had gained the impression that Rose had been driving the Torchwood medical team around the bend with her behaviour: she'd alternated between whining at them as she insisted they give her the information that she wanted, and crying extensively. He'd seen more than a few of them rolling their eyes in exasperation when she wasn't looking, or wasn't around, to see their reactions. He'd wondered whether the Doctor, with the aid of the TARDIS' medical equipment, would have been able to answer Rose's questions, but he knew that was a pointless line of thinking in the circumstances.
More than once over the last two days, as he'd endured the questions, tests and proddings of the medical team, he'd found himself wishing Martha Jones was here; she might not have been able to answer Rose's questions any more satisfactorily, but her quiet, calm competence would have been a relief compared to the bustle that surrounded him.
The door to his room banged open, and Rose stood in the doorway, her face streaked with mascara, and he guessed she'd been trying the 'waterworks' act on the doctors. "You might as well get dressed," she told him, "we're goin' back to the mansion." She watched impassively as he swung himself off the bed and reached for his shirt: Jackie had come in early the previous morning with fresh clothes for him since his others had been ruined by the Wildebeest.
Yesterday
"Where is he?" demanded a familiar voice outside the door of John's room.
The next moment the door opened and Jackie swept in, a carrier bag in one hand.
"There you are," she said, as if he'd deliberately been hiding from her. "Brought you some clothes to wear, since yours were wrecked."
"Hello Jackie. Thank you."
She plonked the bag down on the chair and perched on the edge of the bed where he'd been sitting reading the newspaper. "Let's have a look at you." She put a hand to his chin and tilted his head towards the light.
"What do you reckon?" John asked, unable to resist teasing her a bit. "Think I'm more handsome with green eyes than brown?"
"You're bloody daft, that's what you are," she informed him forcefully, shaking his chin slightly to emphasise her words.
"What did I do?" he demanded angrily, reaching up to grab hold of her wrist and pull her hand away.
Jackie looked startled by his sudden anger and he realised she'd never seen him angry before. He swallowed hard, trying to push his sudden rage down again; she was the only friend he had here and quite apart from the fact that he didn't want to hurt her, he couldn't afford to do so. He didn't want to be stuck in this world completely friendless.
"Oh, only went out on a dangerous mission unarmed," she retorted, glaring. "That's all."
"C'mon Jackie, be fair! None of us knew the mission was dangerous when I went out. And since Flynn and Marcus were both armed, we all thought I'd be safe enough. Besides, I've got another couple of weeks before I can get my weapons' license."
Her expression softened slightly. "Just be careful, yeah? I'm not ready for you to go changing your looks any more, assuming you can regenerate. And I don't want you to throw yourself into danger willy-nilly, like you used to before."
He nodded, knowing that she was right about his need to take more care of himself than he had when he'd been the Doctor. "I'll try," he told her.
"Good. Rose might not care what happens to you, but me, and Pete, and Tony wouldn't wanna lose you, you daft plum."
John smiled slightly. He had no idea what had possessed Jackie to start referring to both himself and the Doctor as 'plum', but it had stuck, and since it was obviously meant affectionately he didn't bother protesting after the first time.
Now
John heard Rose sigh loudly as he pulled on his shirt: although his injuries had healed, he was stiff and a little weak still, and he knew he'd need to exercise to build up his strength again.
"Are you gonna be there all night?" asked Rose, sarcasm dripping from every word as he wrestled with his buttons.
"I'm going as fast as I can," he answered mildly, not looking up from the sleeve button he was fastening.
"Tuh!" Her loud exclamation of disgust was followed by the door banging shut behind her again.
John sagged with relief as he sat down on the bed to put on his socks. He hadn't wanted her to watch him while he finished dressing, knowing that she took no interest in his body. After they had first got back from Bad Wolf Bay, he'd tried kissing her again, thinking that was what she wanted, but she'd quickly pushed him away claiming she was too tired by everything that had happened. Given she'd spent the journey home sobbing noisily, he hadn't been too surprised to hear she was tired, but he had thought, naively as it turned out, that she'd want him to comfort her.
He had been a little surprised when, a little while later, Jackie had shown him into a room of his own at the Tyler mansion, but she'd explained it by saying that she had thought he might want his own space while he adjusted to his new life, and he'd been too miserable about the loss of the Doctor and Donna to dispute that. Since then he had twice attempted sex with Rose, but she had been rough and hurried with him, only interested in him getting her off, and refusing to let him come inside her, even with a condom.
"Mickey used to take it up the arse and get 'imself off," she told him when he expressed frustration at her refusal. "I wasn't surprised when 'im and that Jake got together. Always thought he preferred men, but he was trying too hard to be cool to admit it."
John had no way of verifying Rose's statements since Mickey had chosen to remain in his original universe, but he'd been shocked at the suggestion that her own sexual pleasure was all that mattered. He had always assumed that if ever he, or rather the Doctor, and Rose had indulged in a sexual relationship, that it would be based on mutual pleasure and enjoyment.
Since that conversation he hadn't attempted any intimacy with Rose, but he'd gathered from a couple of stray remarks that she wasn't upset. He'd had to resort to the traditional method of satisfying his own increased libido, and he'd been surprised and embarrassed to discover that as a human male his interest in sex had increased exponentially; it wasn't that Time Lords were asexual so much as that their libido was low and they were well practised in controlling their sexual urges. As a human male he'd had to make a conscious effort to control his own urges, something he hadn't always succeeded in doing, although as the weeks since his arrival in this universe had passed, things had settled down sufficiently that he was no longer having to change his pyjamas and sheets twice a night.
John finished dressing, then folded up his pyjamas and put them in the carrier bag before going out into the corridor. Rose was lounging against the wall, inspecting her brightly painted fingernails and chewing gum. She straightened up when she saw him and he noticed that she'd washed her face in the interval.
"Took your time," she said, then strode off along the corridor without a second glance at him.
He followed her out of the hospital and into the car park where Pete and young Tony were waiting in the car. Pete gave him a smile, but Tony was positively beaming at the sight of him, wriggling in his child car seat like a puppy about to be taken for a walk.
John climbed into the back of the car, glad yet again that Pete drove a car with plenty of legroom in the back since Rose insisted on sitting in the front when she was in the car.
"Hello Uncle John," exclaimed Tony. "You better now?"
"Hello Tony. I am better, thank you."
"You tell me story tonight?" asked the small boy, a hopeful look on his face.
John nodded and Tony let out a squeal of excitement, clapping his hands wildly. John found himself smiling for the first time that day, feeling cheered by the child's delight. He was fairly sure Tony regarded his stories as nothing more than fairy tales, but it soothed his homesickness a little to recount the adventures of the Doctor in the other universe.
The drive back to the Tyler mansion was silent except for Tony's excited chatter, and John was relieved when Pete finally pulled up outside the house. Rose was out of the car almost before it had stopped moving, and she went inside without a second glance while John was undoing Tony's seat restraints and helping him out of the seat.
"Rose cross," the small boy said as he crawled across the back seat and allowed John to lift him out of the car.
"I know," John answered, not daring to meet Pete's eyes as he turned towards the front door, Tony in his arms.
"She fink you and Doctor man are big meanies."
At Tony's artless comment, John's eyes flew to Pete's face, his own cheeks flushing; he saw Pete's mouth was drawn into a tight line.
"Tony don't fink you mean," confided the child, his small arm sliding around John's neck.
"Thank you," John answered softly, grateful even for that vote of confidence.
Once inside the house Jackie came hurrying to greet them, lifting her son from John's arms so she could hug John.
"Hello love, You look a bit peaky, why don't you go up to your room and I'll bring you something to eat in a little while?"
"Why are you molly coddling 'im? He ain't sick. Got a clean bill of health from Dr Richards and his buddies." Rose stood at the top of the staircase, hands on hips, and a thunderous expression on her face.
Jackie glanced up at her daughter, her own expression darkening. "In case you've forgotten my girl, John was nearly killed two days ago."
"And in case you've forgotten he made a 'miraculous recovery'," she retorted, making air quotes on the last two words. "I swear you care more abaht 'im than you do me, an' I'm your daughter."
Rose stomped up the stairs, sparing her mother the trouble of finding a reply that wouldn't antagonise her daughter further.
"Sorry about that love," Jackie said, rolling her eyes as she turned back to John.
He shrugged. "She'll come around eventually." I hope, or life here will be even harder. He was glad that Pete had disappeared with Tony before Rose's outburst. He didn't want Tony to hear any more of his sister's tirades.
"You go an' have a rest," Jackie said again. "Dinner won't be for another couple of hours, but I can bring you a snack if you're hungry?"
John shook his head. "I can wait." He leant forward and kissed her cheek. "Thank you," he murmured, turning away towards the stairs, but not before he'd seen her blush with surprise at his gesture.
He went up to his room, but he didn't lie down: he felt too restless after being cooped up for two days, so after rooting around in his pockets and finding a handful of pound coins and a ten pound note, he went back downstairs, then let himself out of the house, setting off at a brisk walk. He breathed deeply, relishing the fresh air and exercise.
By the time he reached his destination he was feeling a bit more lively and even a little more cheerful. The Market Tavern was busy, but not too noisy, and he managed to get served fairly quickly. He was looking around for somewhere to sit when he spotted a very familiar, if totally unexpected, face at a crowded table in the corner.
Martha Jones! he thought, feeling his heart thump painfully at the sight of her.
In fact, John's heart was thumping so hard he began to wonder if he'd survived the Trampling Wildebeest only to die of a heart attack instead. He dragged his gaze from her face with great difficulty, not wanting her to see him staring, and looked again for a seat. As he was still dithering, a couple got up from the next table but one from where Martha sat, and John realised they were preparing to leave. He moved over to the table and slid into a seat with a feeling of relief: he was shaking slightly, partly from the shock of seeing Martha (he'd never seriously thought about the possibility that this universe might have its own Martha Jones) and partly from nerves. He wanted to talk to her, but felt clueless about how to approach her. Not even Donna's memories offered an answer, and he could hardly introduce himself with 'Hi, my duplicate in another universe knew your duplicate in that universe, can we be friends?' She'd think he was completely mad.
He watched her as covertly as he could, not wanting to get caught staring because while that would be a conversation starter, he didn't want to appear to be a stalker.
When he'd finished his drink, he went to the bar for a second one: two was his limit for alcoholic drinks as he'd discovered quite soon after joining Torchwood when an evening 'out with the lads' had left him not just hung over, but suffering from alcohol poisoning because his part-human, part-Time Lord biology couldn't process the toxins in the alcohol. Rose, predictably enough, had mocked his plight, cheerfully boasting about the drinking sessions she and Mickey had shared.
As John stood at the bar waiting to be served someone bumped into his back and he turned, startled, to find Martha blinking owlishly up at him.
"Sorry 'bout that," she said. "Guess I better switch to the soft drinks now."
"It's okay," he assured her, his mouth suddenly dry and a herd of elephants dancing a rumba in his stomach. Please don't let me throw up now! he begged silently.
"Can I get you one, by way of apology?" she asked.
"Y-y-yes, thanks." Oh great! Stuttering's hardly better than puking. She's going to think I'm an idiot.
She smiled up at him, and he felt his face beginning to redden.
"What are you having?" she asked.
"Coke, with ice, but no lemon, please," he asked, feeling sure she was going to tease him about not being able to hold his drink.
She didn't though, she just smiled and suggested that he sit down, and she would bring his drink over.
"Thank you. My name's John."
"Martha Jones," she answered, offering him a hand to shake.
Without thinking, he lifted her hand and kissed the back of it, and when her eyebrows shot up, he mumbled an apology, feeling he'd made a fool of himself. He was miserably certain that she would bring him the drink and then go back to her friends. He could practically hear Donna's voice in his head, calling him 'Spaceman' and teasing him for kissing Martha's hand. He felt a sudden surge of anger and grief that the Doctor had dumped him here with a woman who didn't want him, and probably never had, despite that kiss on the beach.
Over the last month John had given it a lot of thought and he couldn't help feeling that the Doctor had been punishing both John and Rose by making them stay here: he was being punished for doing something the Doctor had done himself in the not-too-distant past, and Rose was being punished for trying to get back to the Doctor. He had understood from the Doctor that it was up to him to keep Rose happy to ensure that she didn't try such a thing again. But he wasn't the Doctor: oh, he looked like him, and even thought like him to a certain extent, but there was more than a dash of Donna in him too, and she didn't love Rose. In fact, once she'd met the blonde, Donna hadn't understood what the Doctor saw in Rose, and John was aware that Donna, although not interested in women, had considered Martha rather attractive. The two women had quickly become fast friends when they'd met, and John knew the Doctor had been relieved that they'd got on so well.
"Penny for them," said a soft voice.
John looked up, surprised to find Martha sitting down beside him. "Sorry? Oh, they're not worth a penny."
"No? You drive a hard bargain, John. What about a pound?" She placed a coin on the table next to the glass of Coke she'd brought him, and he looked at it, then at her, confusion plain on his face.
"What's that for?" he asked.
She laughed. "You said your thoughts weren't worth a penny. I thought that you meant I should pay a higher fee for the privilege of hearing them."
He blushed. "No, I meant that a penny was too high a price." He pushed the coin back across the table.
She shook her head, smiling. "Are you always this serious? It's Friday night, time to relax and let your hair down."
She shook her own hair back at her words and grinned at him, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.
"Sorry. I'm just not very good company, I'm afraid." He reached out for his glass and she put a hand on his arm.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked. "I'm generally considered a good listener."
He managed to bite back a reassurance that he knew she was a very sympathetic listener, reminding himself that this wasn't the Martha that he, or rather Donna and the Doctor, knew.
He shrugged. "It's rather boring and ridiculously complicated," he said, wondering why she cared.
"Yeah? So let me guess. You've got a hideously ugly, but very rich wife, who's the mother of your two children who, fortunately for them, take after their rather good-looking father. You comfort yourself by having lots of energetic sex with a gorgeous young woman: blonde, 19, and can eat whatever she likes without putting on an ounce of fat. But she's empty-headed and works as an air-hostess on the main Zeppelin route from London to Hong Kong." She grinned at his dumbstruck expression. "Am I close?"
John shook his head slowly, a smile beginning to tease his mouth. "Not even remotely," he answered.
"Well that's a relief," Martha said, laughing. "I think you must have had a very lucky escape."
His smile slipped, which she noticed immediately. "Are you okay?" she asked, all concern again.
He nodded. "I'm fine."
She frowned. "You don't look fine." She put her hand on his arm again. "Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?"
"You're very sweet," he told her. "But it really is hideously complicated, and I'm not sure you'd believe even half of it if I told you my story."
"Oh I don't know," Martha answered. "You might be surprised at what I'd believe. Still, what I don't believe in is pushing people to talk about what they'd rather not discuss, so we'll talk about something else instead. I haven't seen you in here before, are you new in the area?"
"Do you know everyone in here?" John asked curiously. He would have believed that if they'd been in a village pub, but not in a London one.
She shook her head. "I don't know even half the people in here by sight, but I wouldn't forget seeing a good looking guy like you in here, especially with those green eyes." She smirked at him over the top of her glass when he flushed and looked away feeling flustered.
This Martha wasn't just older than the one he knew, she was rather more confident too, and while he felt rather flustered by her references to his looks, he was flattered too. Not only had Rose made it clear that she wasn't interested in him, none of the women at Torchwood had shown any interest either: he'd gained the impression they were too scared because of his involvement with the Tylers. There was a pretty Japanese girl called Toshiko who had reminded him of someone the Doctor had briefly met in his ninth incarnation, but when he'd invited her to go for a drink with him one evening after work, she'd turned him down flat. Stung, he'd snapped at her, and she had muttered something about him being off-limits.
John had seriously considered finding Rose and demanding an explanation from her, but the intensity of his rage had sent him downstairs to the firing range instead, and he'd spent a therapeutic hour blasting holes in a number of targets with a variety of weapons. The Doctor might scorn to use weapons, but he had decided he wasn't going to do the same: working for Torchwood was dangerous, and the sooner he had a weapons' license, the better as far as he was concerned.
"You're doing it again."
He snapped out of his reverie to find Martha watching him, a quizzical expression on her face.
"You were off in your own little world again there," she observed, "so I'm going to leave you in peace with your drink."
She stood up, and John stood too, annoyed with himself for pushing her away. "I'm sorry," he said helplessly.
"It's okay," she assured him. "You've clearly got a lot on your mind." She put a hand on his chest as she stood up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. "I'll see you around, gorgeous."
She winked at him, then picked up her drink and headed back to her friends, leaving John to unconsciously run his fingers over the spot on his face where she'd kissed him. Then he realised he was feeling uncomfortable and took himself off to the gents; when he returned he saw that Martha and her friends had left, and he decided he ought to get back himself before Jackie started worrying about him, assuming she had noticed his absence.
* * * * * *
The doctors at Torchwood had advised him to take at least a week off once he got out of the hospital, and also to take plenty of exercise, so John settled into a routine of twice daily swims in the Tylers' swimming pool, and long walks around the estate, which was vast enough that he managed to take a different route each day. During that time he found himself thinking about Martha a lot, and dreaming about her too, and he slipped out each evening and went back to the Market Tavern in the hope of seeing her again, but to his great disappointment she wasn't there until the Friday evening.
Almost as soon as he entered the pub, John saw Martha waving at him from a table at which she sat with two other women and two men, and he felt as if his smile was going to split his face when she quickly got up and came to meet him between the door and the bar.
"Now that's better," she said cheerfully, before he could greet her. "You look bloody gorgeous when you smile. You should do it more often, it suits you better than your brooding look."
He blinked, surprised by her directness. "Thank you."
"Sorry, that was a bit rude of me," she said, threading her arm through his and leading him over to the bar. "But you do look much friendlier when you smile. Now, what are you drinking, same as last week?"
He nodded, feeling slightly bewildered by her manner, and wondering if she'd been drinking: he knew that some people became more confident and direct when they had alcohol inside them.
Martha ordered him a Coke with ice but no lemon, and he felt absurdly pleased that she'd remembered his preference.
"How are you, John?" she asked. "You're looking healthier than you did a week ago."
"Well I had just got out of hospital last week," he told her.
"Nothing too serious, I hope?" she asked, and he noticed that she sounded sincere in her question.
"I was injured at work," he said, knowing he couldn't be more specific without her thinking that he was a weirdo. "I was only in for a couple of days though."
"That's good to hear." She led him to an empty table and sank down into a chair. "Thank goodness it's Friday."
"Long day?" he asked sympathetically.
"A whole week of long days," she answered. "I'm a doctor."
He had to fight the temptation to say 'Me too', because it wasn't true, not for him. "What area do you specialise in?"
"I don't really," she answered. "I've been trained as a surgeon, and I have a strong background in dealing with unusual ailments, things that tend to baffle other doctors."
If he hadn't already known that Martha didn't work for Torchwood, he would have taken the latter part of her statement to be a coded way of saying she dealt with alien diseases, and he found himself intrigued.
"Is it satisfying, or merely frustrating?" he asked curiously.
"Both, but mostly satisfying, thankfully." She smiled. "What about you?"
"Oh I work in an office. Bit dull, really, but it pays the bills."
He didn't want to tell her that he worked for Torchwood; the organisation wasn't as secretive here as it was in his universe, but he had soon discovered they didn't have a good reputation, in part because of Rose's recent activities in building the dimension cannon. He'd wondered about finding a job elsewhere, but he wasn't sure what else he could do: he'd toyed with the idea of teaching, but he wasn't sure what he'd teach, or if he was suitable teacher material, given his fits of rage - while it was true that he was learning how to handle those, he wasn't sure that facing a classroom full of potentially unruly children would be a good idea. Unbidden his mind flashed back to his first big argument with Rose.
Four weeks ago
"I told you that lab's out of bounds to ev'ryone!"
Rose's full fury was not something that John, or rather the Doctor, had ever seen before, and it wasn't a pretty sight. She wasn't shouting yet, but he suspected that was only because there were so many other people around.
He tried one of his grins, the sort the Doctor always thought of as disarming. "Sorry, I didn't realise you meant me as well." He tried to sound apologetic, but he wasn't sure he'd succeeded.
"My office, now!" Rose said through clenched teeth.
"You know I'm surprised your dental practitioner hasn't warned you about not clenching your teeth like that," he said, as he wandered over to the lift. "It will eventually have an impact on your ability to articulate clearly."
As the lift door swished shut behind them Rose slapped him across the face just where her mother had once slapped the Doctor's earlier incarnation. Then the Doctor hadn't reacted, but John did: he grabbed Rose's wrists as she raised her hand to slap him a second time and shoved her against the wall of the lift. He held her hands above her head and pushed his body hard against hers, staring angrily down at her from his greater height.
"Don't you ever raise your hand to me again," he growled, "or so help me, I'll make you regret it for the rest of your life."
She stared up at him defiantly.
"Do you understand me?" he demanded.
"Yes." She didn't look intimidated, though: in fact, he wondered if she was aroused, from the way her breathing had quickened.
He pulled away from her and folded his arms across his chest. "What's in that lab, that you won't even allow me in there?"
"None of your business. You're only a technician here, so you don't 'ave the security clearance."
The lift came to a standstill and she shoved past him, heading towards her office, and he followed, determined to try to find out more. He was starting to think she had the dimension cannon in that lab, and if that was the case, he going to have to get in there to destroy it. As much as he wanted to return to the other universe (and it was such a persistent desire that he felt as if terriers were worrying his brain about it as they would worry a rat), he knew full well the devastating consequences if Rose made another attempt to cross into their universe. He'd only been here a week, but that had been quite long enough to establish that after the temperature rises caused by the Cybermen crossing into his universe had stabilised once the Void was closed again, the world had begun warming up again when Rose had begun trying to punch through to their universe with the dimension cannon. John had wondered whether to try talking to the scientists about ways to slow down the effects of the global warming, but there was no point in trying to offset the problems if Rose was going to start firing it again.
Once in Rose's office, he tried wheedling the information out of her, telling her that she could trust him with the information, but she told him point blank that she didn't trust him, so he tried demanding, then threatening, but it got him nowhere, and he slammed out of her office to stop himself from hitting her.
"Don' you dare walk away from me, John Smith!" she yelled after him, but he was already at the end of the corridor.
He ran down the five flights of stairs until he reached his office, then fetched his coat and walked out of the building, knowing he'd have to find some other way of getting the information. It was a nuisance that Mickey had stayed in the other universe, or John would have got him to hack into the Torchwood computer for him.
Now
"John, John!"
He started as he felt someone shaking his arm, and realised Martha was calling his name.
He blinked at her. "Sorry," he mumbled.
"Are you okay?" she asked anxiously. "You completely spaced out on me there."
"Sorry," he repeated, embarrassed: at this rate she would either think he was incredibly rude or mentally unstable.
"Do you do that a lot?" she asked, and he recalled that she had said that she dealt in unusual ailments, and wondered if he should confide in her. This might not be the Martha Jones the Doctor loved and trusted, but he felt she was enough like that Martha Jones that he could talk to her, and maybe she could help him.
"Now and again," he answered truthfully.
She swallowed the last of her drink. "Come on, finish up."
"What?" He gave her a puzzled look.
"Finish up your drink and you can walk me back to my place, away from prying ears, and you can tell me what's going on, if you're regularly having episodes like that."
Intrigued, John finished his Coke, then waited while Martha grabbed her coat (a short black leather one, he noticed absently) and said goodbye to her friends. Then they went outside, shivering a little in the chilly air after the warmth of the pub.
To John's surprise, Martha threaded her arm through his as they set off along the street, then began talking about the global warming they'd been experiencing over the last few years. She talked intelligently about the situation, explaining the various solutions that had been suggested by different scientific groups in far more detail than he would have expected from the average doctor, even one who dealt in 'unusual ailments', and he found himself wondering what her story was because he sensed that there was more to this Martha Jones than met the eye.
"Here we are," she said after they'd been walking for about ten minutes. She led him across the street to a smart, detached house with a red car parked in the drive and let them in, pulling off her coat as she went, then hanging it on a peg in the hallway. She took John's long black wool coat and hung it up next to hers.
"Do you want tea or coffee?" she asked.
"Yes please."
She laughed. "Unless you want them both in the same mug, you'd better pick one," she told him.
He flushed, embarrassed by his apparent stupidity: sometimes his Donna side wanted coffee at the same time that his Doctor side wanted tea. "I'll have whatever you're having," he said.
"Come through to the kitchen, then," she invited, setting off along the hall.
John followed her, taking in the pale green walls and the darker green carpet of the hall, before he stepped into a kitchen decorated in pale blue and cream. It was fitted with all the mod cons, but it seemed inviting nonetheless, and he decided it was the framed photos of waterfalls on the walls, and the collection of herbs growing in pots on the windowsill that did it.
"Have a seat," Martha said, gesturing to the breakfast bar, while she got out mugs, coffee and sugar from the cupboards.
"Are you hungry?" she asked, and he realised abruptly that he hadn't eaten yet.
"A bit," he said, not wanting to admit that he felt ravenous.
"Pizza okay? I haven't eaten yet since I went straight to the pub from work."
"Pizza's good, thanks."
"There are some in the top part of the freezer," she said, gesturing. "Get out whatever you fancy."
John moved over to the freezer and opened it. Sure enough, there were three or four deep pan pizzas in the top compartment, and he lifted out a ham and pineapple one.
"Pizza oven's over there," Martha told him, with another gesture to an appliance he'd taken to be a microwave. As he took the pizza from the box and put it on the pizza plate in the oven, Martha set their mugs of coffee down on the breakfast bar, then got out a couple of plates.
"So then, John, what's your 'hideously complicated' story?" she asked, crossing to his side to set the controls on the pizza oven.
"It's a long story," he answered.
"We'd better sit down then."
They settled at the breakfast bar and John swallowed a mouthful of coffee, and gathered his thoughts before he began.
"Do you believe in aliens," he asked, "or the existence of other worlds besides this one?"
Martha gave him a look that he found difficult to interpret, then nodded. "I believe in aliens and parallel worlds."
He blinked, surprised that she had specified parallel worlds. "What if I told you that I'm part alien, and that I come from a parallel world to this one?"
"Tell me more about the 'part alien' bit first," she said.
So he told her, watching her expression of rapt concentration and fascination as he explained everything that had happened with the Doctor and Donna to lead to his own creation. Then he told her briefly about the Doctor's and Rose's visits to this parallel world; he didn't mention the Cybermen, feeling wary about telling her everything all at once. The Doctor part of him was tempted to tell all, because he instinctively felt that he could trust her, but the Donna part of him was worried about scaring her off, remembering times when Donna had tried to confide in someone only to regret it. In the week since he'd first met her, John had become acutely aware of his need for someone like Martha in his life.
They ate while he talked, and he found himself relaxing as he told his tale: it felt good to be able to tell someone at least part of his story. After John finished his tale, there was a long silence, and he wondered just how much of it Martha had believed.
"Wine?" she asked, finally breaking the silence.
"What?" he asked, bewildered.
"Do you want a glass of wine?" she asked patiently.
"Oh. Yes please."
She got up to get out some glasses and a bottle of red wine, and he couldn't help thinking how beautiful she was; he knew the Doctor had thought so too, even though that had been the other universe's Martha. But just as with Mickey and Ricky, this Martha and the one in his universe could have been identical twins.
"Do you like what you see?" she asked, derailing his train of thought and leaving him blushing furiously.
He nodded. "You're beautiful," he said simply.
He had left the other Martha Jones out of his narrative: she wasn't really a part of the story of his creation, although he considered her a very important person in the Doctor's story. But he felt, perhaps wrongly, that this Martha Jones might not appreciate hearing about her counterpart just yet.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "Come on, let's go and sit in the other room. We'll be more comfortable in there."
He followed her and they settled on the wide sofa, Martha tucking her feet under herself; John took a quick look around the room which was spacious and pleasant. The cream sofa faced a large, flat screen TV with a stereo positioned below it, and speakers on either side. There were long bookshelves lining one of the walls, filled with books, CDs and DVDs, and he resisted the urge to go and look at Martha's collection. The furniture was all cream fabrics and blond woods, and the walls were decorated with a pale green wallpaper patterned in gold.
"You've got a nice house," he said. "It feels inviting and comfortable."
"Thanks. I've only lived here a couple of years." She hesitated for a moment. "I think it's only fair that I tell you my story, since you've told me yours. It's not quite as astounding as your tale, but it's fairly unusual all the same."
John raised his eyebrows at that, intrigued. "I'm all ears," he said.
"A few years ago, I got caught up in something pretty bizarre that happened here in London, across Europe, and probably further afield too. There was an organisation called Cybus Industries that made all sorts of very advanced technology, including some things called Ear Pods that acted like a mobile phone with internet access. You know the things I mean?"
John nodded, feeling hollow.
"These Ear Pods were linked directly into the Cybus Network, and also directly into the user's brain." She shuddered, and John reached across to put his hand on her arm. "I didn't own them myself: I wasn't entirely convinced that they were safe. John Lumic, the man behind Cybus, may have been a technological genius, but his products always struck me as being a little more intrusive than I liked. Most people didn't agree with that, and one of the people who really liked the Ear Pods was my sister Adeola."
John felt as if Martha had doused him with a bucket of cold water, and his memory flew back to another girl called Adeola, Martha Jones' cousin, who'd been used and killed by the Cybermen in his universe.
"Adeola was my twin sister, and - "
"Was?" John interrupted, horrified. "Sorry, go on."
"Adeola was a bit of a gadget geek. She loved new technology and was always buying gadgets as soon as she could afford them. So she had the Ear Pods and used them happily. Unfortunately, no one knew that Lumic, who was terminally ill, was going to use the Cybus Network and the Ear Pods to turn people into monsters. He programmed the Ear Pods to send people to Battersea where he'd set up a processing facility that converted people into Cybermen: gigantic steel robots into which humans' brains were wired. Adeola was one of those who was converted."
"Oh Martha." John turned to her, an expression of horror on his face.
Martha bit her bottom lip and he could see that her eyes were bright with unshed tears. He held out his arms, not sure if she'd accept a hug from a complete stranger, despite the fact she'd been telling him this story. To his relief she moved into his embrace and he wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin lightly on the top of her head.
"I am so sorry," he said softly, knowing the words were useless. He had thought what had happened to Adeola in his universe had been bad enough, but this seemed far more horrendous. He knew the other Martha had been close to her cousin, but to lose a twin sister to the Cybermen seemed infinitely worse.
She straightened back up and picked up her glass again. "It took me several years to move out of the flat I shared with Adeola." She looked down at the wine glass she cradled in her lap. "Moving felt like a betrayal in some ways, final proof that she was gone and never coming back."
"So why did you move, if you don't mind me asking?"
"My psychotherapist recommended it. She felt that I would never fully accept Addy's death as a permanent loss if I stayed there. I resisted it for a few years, and then one morning I woke up and just knew that the time had come - that she was never coming back, and that I could stay there and let my grief destroy me, or I could move to somewhere new and start living again."
John reached out and placed a hand on her wrist, and she looked up with a half smile.
"So then, John Smith, what's it like, living at the Tyler mansion?"
He shrugged. "It's okay, I guess. Jackie and Tony are - oh shit! Tony! Sorry, sorry!" He began digging into the pocket of his jeans.
"What's wrong?"
"I promised Tony I'd tell him a story tonight - it's our bedtime routine. He'll be in bed by now, hopefully asleep, but Jackie must be wondering where the hell I am."
"Didn't you tell her you were going out?" Martha asked.
He shook his head as he pulled out his phone. "Sorry, do you mind? "
"Go ahead."
He switched on the phone, then stepped out into the hall, wondering who would answer. When he returned a few minutes later, he looked tense.
"Are you in trouble?" she asked.
"Jackie was okay, once I spoke to her," he said.
She raised her eyebrows. "So who did you speak to first?"
"Rose."
"Let me guess, she was less than impressed that you'd slipped your leash?"
John's eyebrows rose in surprise. "You know Rose?" he asked.
"Only by reputation. Let's just say you and I have an acquaintance in common who made me privy to quite a lot of information about Ms Tyler."
"Who do we both know?" he asked, puzzled.
"Not tonight," she said. "I'll tell you another time."
He looked at her, annoyed and frustrated at the same time. "Why won't you tell me now?"
"Because it's a long story, and I've had a long day. I was at work at six this morning."
He glanced over at the clock, then back at her face, looking contrite. "Sorry." He shuffled his feet. "I should be getting back."
Martha looked him up and down, and he somehow knew she was assessing how much of a threat he might be. He'd seen that look on his Martha's face - no, not his Martha, not even the Doctor's Martha - she would, he knew, have resented being considered anybody's. Despite the fact she'd had a fair bit to drink this evening, the way this Martha looked at him now spoke of competence and calm authority.
"You can stay here, if you like," she said finally. "I reckon my sofa's long enough for you to sleep on without causing you too much discomfort."
He closed his eyes on a sudden memory of himself - no, the Doctor - scrunched up on a too-short sofa, trying to rest after spending hours working on the temporal incursion detector to set himself and Martha free when they were trapped in 1969.
"You okay?" Martha asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
His eyes snapped open and he found a smile from somewhere. "Yeah, sorry. Just remembering - " other people's lives "something."
"I thought you were going to space out on me again," she told him.
"No. Sorry."
"Don't keep apologising, John," she said, "it's really not necessary."
"S - " He stopped himself just in time.
"Come on, I'll show you where the bathroom is."
He followed her upstairs and she pointed out the bathroom, her bedroom "and that one's my study," she finished, indicating the third room. Then she opened a cupboard on the landing and took out a duvet and some pillows.
"I can't offer you any pyjamas, I'm afraid, as I haven't got any that will fit you."
"That's okay," he assured her. "I'll just use your bathroom, if I may?"
"Feel free," she answered. She put a hand on his chest, then stretched up to kiss his cheek. "Goodnight, John Smith. See you in the morning."
"Goodnight Martha Jones."
She went into her bedroom and John took himself into the bathroom, pulling a folding toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste from his pocket: he made a habit of carrying a variety of potentially useful items in his pockets. One of the reasons he so often wore the jacket from the Doctor's blue suit was the fact that the pockets were bigger on the inside: admittedly they didn't hold as much as the pockets of the Doctor's coat, but they still held rather more than normal pockets.
In the early days of his time in this world Rose had tried to get him to abandon the blue suit, offering to buy him a new brown one instead, but he had refused, saying he preferred his blue suit. When she had pointedly informed him that she didn't like the blue one and preferred him to wear a brown one, he had equally pointedly informed her that he preferred the blue suit, and since she kept reminding him that he wasn't the Doctor, he saw no reason to dress like him. It had been yet another nail in the coffin of their failed relationship.
He washed his hands and face, then cleaned his teeth before heading downstairs with the pillows and duvet to get some sleep. He stripped down to his boxers, knowing he wouldn't be comfortable sleeping in his trousers, and Martha's house was warm enough that he didn't need to wear his t-shirt as well. He wrapped the duvet around himself and closed his eyes, willing himself to go to sleep and not to think about how much he wanted to share a bed with Martha.