30 Days with Martha Jones: Twin
Who_Daily Link: < a href="http://persiflage-1.livejournal.com/193958.html">30 Days with Martha Jones: Twin by < lj user=persiflage_1> (Characters: Martha Jones, Human-Doctor, Ten | Rating: G | Spoilers: 4.13)
Title: 30 Days with Martha Jones: Twin
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Martha Jones, Human-Doctor, Tenth Doctor
Rating: G
Spoilers: Journey's End
Summary: 30 Days in the life of Martha Jones
Disclaimer: I occasionally wish that I did own it!
Author Notes: I signed up to do mini_nanowrimo this year, and snagged 30 random prompts from doctorwho_100 which will form the basis of the 30 fics I write. Each fic will feature Martha and at least one other Whoniverse character, and the prompt will be included in the title of the fic.
Index Post
Erm, yes - this ran away from me in an unexpected direction. *looks shifty*
~~~~~~
Back in London, Martha soon forgot about her recent experiences at Torchwood as she got caught up in her work on Project Indigo. The UNIT technical team had recently built a second prototype and while her colleagues, Doctors Martin and Short, would continue testing the first device, Martha was going to be testing the second one since she was still the most proficient user of the three. The techies had endeavoured to build more precision into the controls, which they hoped she would be able to prove through her test jumps. As a result Martha was now making two jumps per day and finding herself even more tired by the time she got home, so much so that she could barely summon the energy to eat, let alone do anything else, before she crawled into bed.
On the Saturday evening she contemplated ringing Jack to tell him she wouldn't be coming down to Cardiff the next day, but decided that she would take the train instead since she was concerned that she was too tired to drive safely.
She had just finished booking the tickets online when her mobile phone rang.
"Dr Jones."
"Martha Jones! How is my favourite doctor?" asked the Doctor.
"I'm okay."
"You don't sound very okay," he observed.
"Well, it's been a bit of an odd week, and very exhausting," Martha answered.
"Fancy sleeping in the TARDIS then?" he offered. "You know I can bring you back for tomorrow morning, 'cos she always behaves for you. And I'll even make you breakfast in bed."
"I'd be mad to say no," she said, with a laugh.
"I'll be there in less than five minutes," the Doctor told her.
"Thanks." He disconnected the call, and Martha promptly went to pack her pyjamas and toothbrush.
The Doctor was true to his word and arrived in less than five minutes, and the TARDIS dematerialising was a very welcome sound to her ears. When he opened the door to the ship and greeted Martha with a big grin, she did her best to grin back at him.
"Hello Martha Jones," he began exultantly, then he took in how weary she looked, and was instantly solicitous, moving forward to hug her. "My dear girl, you look fit to drop."
"I feel it," she murmured, and the next moment he'd scooped her up and carried her into the TARDIS, heading straight to her room.
The Doctor set her on her feet again beside her bed. "I'll leave you to sleep," he said. "Sleep as long as you need, and then we'll talk and I'll make you breakfast."
She stood up on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. "Thank you."
"Anything for my Doctor," he said softly, kissing her forehead in return. "Sleep well."
He went out and Martha changed into her pyjamas, then went to clean her teeth, almost falling over her own feet on the way because she was so tired. Ten minutes after the Doctor had collected her she was sound asleep, and the TARDIS was in the Vortex.
* * * * * *
Martha slept for ten hours and woke up feeling like a new woman. She went to use the bathroom and when she returned there was a knock on her door.
"Are you decent?" called the Doctor.
"Yes," she called back.
The door opened and he came in carrying a laden tray, and Martha's mouth started watering at the scents wafting across the room ahead of him.
"Your breakfast, Madame."
"Thank you, my good man." She grinned at his startled look, and he grinned back.
"Cheeky," he said, settling the tray carefully over her legs.
"Who, me?" Martha asked, trying to look innocent.
"Definitely you," he asserted, sitting beside her legs. "How did you sleep?"
"Like the proverbial log," she answered, as he lifted the cover away from a plate filled with sausages, bacon and scrambled eggs on toast.
"You must think I need feeding up," she teased when she saw how full the plate was.
He looked down, slightly abashed. "Not really, I just thought you might be hungry and that you might have been too tired to cook for yourself."
"You are very sweet," she told him, leaning forward to kiss his cheek.
He smiled at her. "Eat up, then, before it gets cold."
She began to eat, and he talked about some of his recent trips. When she'd finished eating and was savouring her coffee, he asked her about her work, so she told him about meeting some of his earlier incarnations, and then about his two later ones.
"Eleventh and twelfth?" he asked, his voice going up an octave in astonishment.
Martha nodded. "They both made quite an impression in their own way," she said, smirking a little.
His eyes widened. "I don't think I want to know," he said hastily.
"I've also met some of your former companions, thanks to Project Indigo."
"Oh? Dare I ask who?"
She recounted her meetings with Jo, Liz, Evelyn and Charley; as she talked she remembered that she still hadn't followed up Jack's lead on Harry Sullivan. She also told the Doctor about her visit from the Brigadier, and that she'd been meeting up with Donna once a week for a meal and conversation.
He looked utterly shocked when Martha mentioned Donna. "But - " he began, obviously intending to protest.
"Don't 'but' me, mister," she said, slightly more sharply than she'd intended. "I'm being very, very careful, I promise you, but once I'd literally bumped into Donna, I couldn't let the chance to make friends with her a second time pass me by."
He swallowed and she could see his eyes were brighter than usual.
"I'm sorry," she said softly, "I didn't mean to snap, but honestly Doctor, you can trust me not to do anything to harm Donna. I'm not stupid. I gave her a fake name and I've been very careful about what I tell her."
"I'm sorry," he said. "Of course I trust you, it's just - " He paused and swallowed again.
"You miss her," she said.
He nodded, and she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him. As Martha held him, she couldn't help remembering his other self and the conversation they'd had in this room as the others flew the TARDIS and the Earth back home.
"What did you want to talk about?" Martha asked the Human Doctor as they sat down on her bed after he'd requested a few minutes of her time, leaving Donna to take her place at the TARDIS console.
"You won't see me again after today," he said.
She tilted her head to one side, giving him a curious look. "Why not?"
"The Doctor's going to leave me in the parallel world with Rose." He looked down, toying with a loose thread on the blanket that covered Martha's bed.
"Why?" asked Martha, puzzled. "Why would he do that, when you could be travelling with him and Donna?"
He sighed, not looking up. "He needs me to look after her, to make sure that she doesn’t try to come back again. The fact that she succeeded in crossing the dimensions, even after He told her that she would collapse the two universes if she tried it, means that she would probably be tempted to try it again. But He wants her to stay in the parallel universe with her family, with Jackie and Pete, and her half brother, so I'm going with her in the hope that she'll accept me as a substitute for Him."
The Human Doctor glanced up at Martha. "If it was up to me, though, I'd stay in this universe," he said. "I'd get a job working with UNIT, 'cos you know, done it before already, well, He did, but I've got all His memories, and knowledge, and skills in my head, and all Donna's people skills too, come to that." He laughed. "There's three people in my head." His voice cracked a bit on the last sentence, and Martha moved closer and put her hands on his shoulders.
"You okay?" she asked.
He shook his head, biting his lip. "I want to stay here, with you," he told her. "I wanted for us to be friends. I hoped we might be able to grow old and sit together in a corner of some old people's home, exchanging stories of the days when we travelled in time and space, and maybe of our Earthbound adventures too, but I can't."
She heard the catch in his voice and pulled him into a hug, feeling both sorrow and sympathy for him. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
"Me too," he answered. He pulled back and cupped her face in his hands, like the Doctor had done that day on the Moon, then he kissed her.
They were both breathless when the Human Doctor pulled away and rested his forehead against Martha's. "He loves you," he told her, "but He'll probably never tell you that, but make sure you remember it. More importantly, though, He needs you, desperately. He needs people like you and Donna and Sarah Jane in His life, because you ground Him." He straightened up. "Most of all, though, He needs His Doctor."
He got up off the bed and held his hand out to Martha, and she took it, feeling its familiar shape and its unfamiliar, human-normal warmth. As they reached the door of her room, he bent his head down to speak in her ear. "I love you, please take good care of him for me."
"I will," she answered, then allowed him to lead her back into the Control Room.
Now
After a while the Doctor sat up again and rubbed his face. "Sorry," he mumbled.
"Don't be," Martha answered. She leant forward to kiss his cheek, but he turned his head and kissed her back.
"Okay, that was unexpected," she said, aware her voice sounded shaky.
"But not unpleasant, I hope?" he asked softly.
Martha laughed softly. "I don't think kissing you could ever be unpleasant," she answered.
He snorted a laugh. "You've never kissed me after I eaten walnuts and anchovies."
"Ew, and I think I'd rather not thank you very much Mr Smith!"
He grinned at her, and she was pleased that his previous melancholy seemed to have passed, or that he'd pushed it aside again.
"Can I talk to you about something?" she asked.
He raised an eyebrow at her serious tone. "You can always talk to me," he said. "What's up?"
"You know I said I'd had an odd week?" He nodded. "Well, I heard and saw the spirits or ghosts of two of Torchwood's staff while I was there this week."
The Doctor gave her a startled look, then moved to lean against the wall, his long legs stretched across the bed. "Tell me," he invited.
Martha moved to sit beside him, leaning against his shoulder, and told him about talking to Owen, and then about seeing and talking to Tosh. She also described the two dreams that had preceded the encounters. The Doctor listened intently, his left arm around her shoulders.
When she had finished, he didn't speak for a few minutes. "I wish I had an easy explanation for you," he said, "but I'm afraid I don't."
"Never mind."
"How much longer are you going to be working down in Cardiff?" he asked.
"About 6 weeks, or so. I'm going to spend a whole week down there once Dr Palmer arrives, so I can get him up to speed as much as possible. UNIT have agreed that I can do that, probably because they know they'll have me full time again after that, apart from a monthly trip down to Cardiff." She straightened up and stretched.
"You'll have to give me a ring once you're back to London full time, and I'll come and take you somewhere nice for the weekend."
She smirked at him.
"What?" he asked, suddenly unaccountably nervous.
"Your twelfth incarnation promised to come and visit after I finish trekking back and forth to Cardiff."
"Did he?" She nodded. "Well, if you'd rather go with him than me, I won't mind."
"Liar," she said affectionately. "Don't worry, I won't let him monopolise me. You can both take me away on different weekends."
"All right." He moved off the bed. "I'll let you get dressed," he said. "I'll be in the Control Room when you're ready."
"Okay, and thank you for breakfast, and for listening."
"Any time Dr Jones." He gave her a sketchy salute and she went to have a shower.
Title: 30 Days with Martha Jones: Twin
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Martha Jones, Human-Doctor, Tenth Doctor
Rating: G
Spoilers: Journey's End
Summary: 30 Days in the life of Martha Jones
Disclaimer: I occasionally wish that I did own it!
Author Notes: I signed up to do mini_nanowrimo this year, and snagged 30 random prompts from doctorwho_100 which will form the basis of the 30 fics I write. Each fic will feature Martha and at least one other Whoniverse character, and the prompt will be included in the title of the fic.
Index Post
Erm, yes - this ran away from me in an unexpected direction. *looks shifty*
~~~~~~
Back in London, Martha soon forgot about her recent experiences at Torchwood as she got caught up in her work on Project Indigo. The UNIT technical team had recently built a second prototype and while her colleagues, Doctors Martin and Short, would continue testing the first device, Martha was going to be testing the second one since she was still the most proficient user of the three. The techies had endeavoured to build more precision into the controls, which they hoped she would be able to prove through her test jumps. As a result Martha was now making two jumps per day and finding herself even more tired by the time she got home, so much so that she could barely summon the energy to eat, let alone do anything else, before she crawled into bed.
On the Saturday evening she contemplated ringing Jack to tell him she wouldn't be coming down to Cardiff the next day, but decided that she would take the train instead since she was concerned that she was too tired to drive safely.
She had just finished booking the tickets online when her mobile phone rang.
"Dr Jones."
"Martha Jones! How is my favourite doctor?" asked the Doctor.
"I'm okay."
"You don't sound very okay," he observed.
"Well, it's been a bit of an odd week, and very exhausting," Martha answered.
"Fancy sleeping in the TARDIS then?" he offered. "You know I can bring you back for tomorrow morning, 'cos she always behaves for you. And I'll even make you breakfast in bed."
"I'd be mad to say no," she said, with a laugh.
"I'll be there in less than five minutes," the Doctor told her.
"Thanks." He disconnected the call, and Martha promptly went to pack her pyjamas and toothbrush.
The Doctor was true to his word and arrived in less than five minutes, and the TARDIS dematerialising was a very welcome sound to her ears. When he opened the door to the ship and greeted Martha with a big grin, she did her best to grin back at him.
"Hello Martha Jones," he began exultantly, then he took in how weary she looked, and was instantly solicitous, moving forward to hug her. "My dear girl, you look fit to drop."
"I feel it," she murmured, and the next moment he'd scooped her up and carried her into the TARDIS, heading straight to her room.
The Doctor set her on her feet again beside her bed. "I'll leave you to sleep," he said. "Sleep as long as you need, and then we'll talk and I'll make you breakfast."
She stood up on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. "Thank you."
"Anything for my Doctor," he said softly, kissing her forehead in return. "Sleep well."
He went out and Martha changed into her pyjamas, then went to clean her teeth, almost falling over her own feet on the way because she was so tired. Ten minutes after the Doctor had collected her she was sound asleep, and the TARDIS was in the Vortex.
* * * * * *
Martha slept for ten hours and woke up feeling like a new woman. She went to use the bathroom and when she returned there was a knock on her door.
"Are you decent?" called the Doctor.
"Yes," she called back.
The door opened and he came in carrying a laden tray, and Martha's mouth started watering at the scents wafting across the room ahead of him.
"Your breakfast, Madame."
"Thank you, my good man." She grinned at his startled look, and he grinned back.
"Cheeky," he said, settling the tray carefully over her legs.
"Who, me?" Martha asked, trying to look innocent.
"Definitely you," he asserted, sitting beside her legs. "How did you sleep?"
"Like the proverbial log," she answered, as he lifted the cover away from a plate filled with sausages, bacon and scrambled eggs on toast.
"You must think I need feeding up," she teased when she saw how full the plate was.
He looked down, slightly abashed. "Not really, I just thought you might be hungry and that you might have been too tired to cook for yourself."
"You are very sweet," she told him, leaning forward to kiss his cheek.
He smiled at her. "Eat up, then, before it gets cold."
She began to eat, and he talked about some of his recent trips. When she'd finished eating and was savouring her coffee, he asked her about her work, so she told him about meeting some of his earlier incarnations, and then about his two later ones.
"Eleventh and twelfth?" he asked, his voice going up an octave in astonishment.
Martha nodded. "They both made quite an impression in their own way," she said, smirking a little.
His eyes widened. "I don't think I want to know," he said hastily.
"I've also met some of your former companions, thanks to Project Indigo."
"Oh? Dare I ask who?"
She recounted her meetings with Jo, Liz, Evelyn and Charley; as she talked she remembered that she still hadn't followed up Jack's lead on Harry Sullivan. She also told the Doctor about her visit from the Brigadier, and that she'd been meeting up with Donna once a week for a meal and conversation.
He looked utterly shocked when Martha mentioned Donna. "But - " he began, obviously intending to protest.
"Don't 'but' me, mister," she said, slightly more sharply than she'd intended. "I'm being very, very careful, I promise you, but once I'd literally bumped into Donna, I couldn't let the chance to make friends with her a second time pass me by."
He swallowed and she could see his eyes were brighter than usual.
"I'm sorry," she said softly, "I didn't mean to snap, but honestly Doctor, you can trust me not to do anything to harm Donna. I'm not stupid. I gave her a fake name and I've been very careful about what I tell her."
"I'm sorry," he said. "Of course I trust you, it's just - " He paused and swallowed again.
"You miss her," she said.
He nodded, and she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him. As Martha held him, she couldn't help remembering his other self and the conversation they'd had in this room as the others flew the TARDIS and the Earth back home.
"What did you want to talk about?" Martha asked the Human Doctor as they sat down on her bed after he'd requested a few minutes of her time, leaving Donna to take her place at the TARDIS console.
"You won't see me again after today," he said.
She tilted her head to one side, giving him a curious look. "Why not?"
"The Doctor's going to leave me in the parallel world with Rose." He looked down, toying with a loose thread on the blanket that covered Martha's bed.
"Why?" asked Martha, puzzled. "Why would he do that, when you could be travelling with him and Donna?"
He sighed, not looking up. "He needs me to look after her, to make sure that she doesn’t try to come back again. The fact that she succeeded in crossing the dimensions, even after He told her that she would collapse the two universes if she tried it, means that she would probably be tempted to try it again. But He wants her to stay in the parallel universe with her family, with Jackie and Pete, and her half brother, so I'm going with her in the hope that she'll accept me as a substitute for Him."
The Human Doctor glanced up at Martha. "If it was up to me, though, I'd stay in this universe," he said. "I'd get a job working with UNIT, 'cos you know, done it before already, well, He did, but I've got all His memories, and knowledge, and skills in my head, and all Donna's people skills too, come to that." He laughed. "There's three people in my head." His voice cracked a bit on the last sentence, and Martha moved closer and put her hands on his shoulders.
"You okay?" she asked.
He shook his head, biting his lip. "I want to stay here, with you," he told her. "I wanted for us to be friends. I hoped we might be able to grow old and sit together in a corner of some old people's home, exchanging stories of the days when we travelled in time and space, and maybe of our Earthbound adventures too, but I can't."
She heard the catch in his voice and pulled him into a hug, feeling both sorrow and sympathy for him. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
"Me too," he answered. He pulled back and cupped her face in his hands, like the Doctor had done that day on the Moon, then he kissed her.
They were both breathless when the Human Doctor pulled away and rested his forehead against Martha's. "He loves you," he told her, "but He'll probably never tell you that, but make sure you remember it. More importantly, though, He needs you, desperately. He needs people like you and Donna and Sarah Jane in His life, because you ground Him." He straightened up. "Most of all, though, He needs His Doctor."
He got up off the bed and held his hand out to Martha, and she took it, feeling its familiar shape and its unfamiliar, human-normal warmth. As they reached the door of her room, he bent his head down to speak in her ear. "I love you, please take good care of him for me."
"I will," she answered, then allowed him to lead her back into the Control Room.
Now
After a while the Doctor sat up again and rubbed his face. "Sorry," he mumbled.
"Don't be," Martha answered. She leant forward to kiss his cheek, but he turned his head and kissed her back.
"Okay, that was unexpected," she said, aware her voice sounded shaky.
"But not unpleasant, I hope?" he asked softly.
Martha laughed softly. "I don't think kissing you could ever be unpleasant," she answered.
He snorted a laugh. "You've never kissed me after I eaten walnuts and anchovies."
"Ew, and I think I'd rather not thank you very much Mr Smith!"
He grinned at her, and she was pleased that his previous melancholy seemed to have passed, or that he'd pushed it aside again.
"Can I talk to you about something?" she asked.
He raised an eyebrow at her serious tone. "You can always talk to me," he said. "What's up?"
"You know I said I'd had an odd week?" He nodded. "Well, I heard and saw the spirits or ghosts of two of Torchwood's staff while I was there this week."
The Doctor gave her a startled look, then moved to lean against the wall, his long legs stretched across the bed. "Tell me," he invited.
Martha moved to sit beside him, leaning against his shoulder, and told him about talking to Owen, and then about seeing and talking to Tosh. She also described the two dreams that had preceded the encounters. The Doctor listened intently, his left arm around her shoulders.
When she had finished, he didn't speak for a few minutes. "I wish I had an easy explanation for you," he said, "but I'm afraid I don't."
"Never mind."
"How much longer are you going to be working down in Cardiff?" he asked.
"About 6 weeks, or so. I'm going to spend a whole week down there once Dr Palmer arrives, so I can get him up to speed as much as possible. UNIT have agreed that I can do that, probably because they know they'll have me full time again after that, apart from a monthly trip down to Cardiff." She straightened up and stretched.
"You'll have to give me a ring once you're back to London full time, and I'll come and take you somewhere nice for the weekend."
She smirked at him.
"What?" he asked, suddenly unaccountably nervous.
"Your twelfth incarnation promised to come and visit after I finish trekking back and forth to Cardiff."
"Did he?" She nodded. "Well, if you'd rather go with him than me, I won't mind."
"Liar," she said affectionately. "Don't worry, I won't let him monopolise me. You can both take me away on different weekends."
"All right." He moved off the bed. "I'll let you get dressed," he said. "I'll be in the Control Room when you're ready."
"Okay, and thank you for breakfast, and for listening."
"Any time Dr Jones." He gave her a sketchy salute and she went to have a shower.