Kitchen Chaos
Who_Daily Link: < a href="http://persiflage-1.livejournal.com/309301.html">Kitchen Chaos by < lj user=persiflage_1> (Characters: Martha/Nine | Rating: PG | Spoilers: S1)
Title: Kitchen Chaos
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Martha/Nine
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Assumes you've seen S1
Summary: Take one old-fashioned grill, one inattentive Time Lord, and mix: chaos will ensue.
Disclaimer: I occasionally wish that I did own it!
Author Notes: To celebrate the second anniversary of my LJ, I invited my FList to offer me some fic prompts and said I'd write up to five of the prompts that most interested me. mischief89 asked for Nine/Martha; toaster. This fic is part of my occasional Martha/Nine series of fics and is the first of three interlinked stories that will finish the series (you could think of this as Nine's 'Waters of Mars'). This fic is set after Another World.
Betas: abstruse_fangrl and catholicphoton (both of whom are brilliant cheerleaders with endless patience!)
~~~~~~
Martha woke aboard the TARDIS to an unexpectedly familiar smell: burning toast. She sat up, then got out of bed, feeling that she ought to just check that everything was okay. Not that she didn't think the Doctor was capable of dealing with burning toast, but he did have a tendency to get distracted on occasion. She shuffled her feet into her slippers and hurried down the corridor towards the kitchen, moving into a flat out run when she saw black smoke billowing out of the doorway.
"Doctor?" she yelled, racing in. She couldn't see the Time Lord, but there were flames billowing from the old fashioned grill, so she snatched up a fire extinguisher and set it off, aiming it at the heart of the grill.
"Oi!" exclaimed a Northern-accented voice behind her. "What's going on here then?"
Martha half-turned towards him, still wielding the extinguisher. "Ever heard of a smoke alarm?" she demanded angrily. "Or a toaster, for that matter? And don't you know that you shouldn't leave grills unattended?"
She set down the empty extinguisher on the floor, then rubbed her hand over her face, as the Doctor approached, a rather sheepish expression on his face.
"I - uh - got side-tracked," he answered. "Sorry."
"Tinkering with the TARDIS' innards again?" she asked. They'd been idling in the Vortex ever since leaving New Earth because the Doctor had wanted to fiddle with something technical which Martha hadn't understood.
He nodded, peering into the foam-soaked grill of the cooker. "Maybe I'd better get an ordinary toaster for her," he suggested.
"It might be safer," Martha agreed. "At least if you stick the bread in to toast and then forget about it, it'll only get cold, rather than bursting into flames. A smoke alarm in here wouldn't go amiss, either." She looked around. "I'm surprised there isn't one already."
"Yeah, Ace was always telling me I should let her make the toast 'cos I kept burning it." He was fishing the charred remains of bread from the grill, so he missed seeing Martha's confused look.
"Ace?" she asked.
He straightened up, two extremely black slices of bread in his hands. "Yeah, she travelled with me two incarnations ago."
She gave him a blank look. "Incarnation? Are you telling me, in a roundabout way, that you're not flesh and blood normally?"
He shook his head. "No. What I am telling you, in a roundabout way, is that I can change me face."
Martha folded her arms over her chest and gave him a sceptical look. "Oh really?"
"Yeah, really." He sighed. "Do you wanna go and get dressed, then we'll go and have breakfast somewhere that doesn't smell of charred bread, and I'll explain properly."
She smiled, her eyes bright with curiosity. "All right."
While Martha hurried away, the Doctor dumped the burnt remains of his toast into the bin, then grabbed a rag and began cleaning out the grill. He knew full well that the TARDIS was more than capable of cleaning the cooker herself, but he preferred to do it. He needed a distraction from the image of Martha in her pyjamas, which was a painful reminder of all that he'd lost by not telling her that he was a Time Lord before she'd found out for herself. He knew he should be grateful that she'd forgiven him enough to travel with him now she had completed her studies, but he missed their previous relationship. It wasn't the lack of sex (although he'd enjoyed that aspect of their relationship), but the lack of intimacy as a whole, and he wondered if he and Martha would ever be that close again.
You'll just have live with things the way they are, he told himself, scrubbing vigorously.
He was very glad that she had agreed to travel with him - after losing Rose he'd been on his own while waiting for Martha to finish her studies, and it had reminded him painfully of the time he'd spent alone after Gallifrey's destruction. Though he'd be loathe to admit it to anyone else, he had realised that he needed a travelling companion now, more than he ever had before he'd lost his people.
Before the Doctor could get too lost in his melancholic thoughts Martha breezed into the kitchen, dressed in her black jeans and a blue vest top.
"I'm ready when you are," she said, her expression eager.
"Come on then." He dumped his cleaning rag into the bin, then grabbed his leather jacket from the back of the chair where he'd left it.
They headed to the Control Room, and the Doctor immediately began setting the coordinates for their destination.
"We'll go and have breakfast at Tiffany's," he told Martha. "It's a beautiful restaurant, near the Robot Regent's palace on Arkon.
"Tiffany's?" she asked. "Is it anything like the Tiffany's in New York?"
He shook his head. "No - the food's better and the staff aren't so snooty."
Martha laughed. "Okay then. Presumably I don't need to dress up, though?"
He looked her over, even though he already knew what she was wearing. "No, you look good as you are."
"Do you ever change?" she asked curiously. "I've only ever seen you wearing jeans and a jumper, and your leather jacket."
"You've seen me nude, too," the Doctor answered, without thinking, then looked away quickly, embarrassed to have reminded her.
"I was talking about your clothes, though," Martha answered, her tone calm.
"I know. Sorry, I won't mention that again."
She stepped closer and put her hand on his arm. "It's okay," she said quietly. "You're allowed to mention it."
"We're here," he said, straightening up. He quickly patted her hand, then moved away.
Martha picked up her red leather jacket and slipped it on, then followed him down the ramp and out through the door to see a city even more futuristic than New Earth's.
"Wow!" she said, staring around appreciatively at the steel and glass buildings that towered around them. "So this is Arkon?"
"Yeah. A high-tech paradise almost entirely reliant on solar power."
"Almost entirely?" Martha asked.
"They use water power in some of the factories which are by the river, out in the suburbs of the city. But everything here in the centre is entirely solar powered. The Arkonides learnt from their ancestors - your descendants - about the misuse of fossil fuels, so when they settled here, they brought wind and water-powered generators, and solar batteries."
She followed him down the side street in which the TARDIS had landed, and along a bustling main road. At least half the passersby were whizzing past on what looked, to Martha, like motorised skateboards, and she noted that there were more bicycles than cars passing, too.
They reached a busy intersection and the Doctor took her hand in his to cross the road. "There's the Robot Regent's palace," he told her, pointing further up the road with his free hand.
"So what's a Robot Regent?" she asked.
"It's the super-computer that rules over the Arkonides," he answered.
"Whoa! A computer? Like HAL, in 2001?"
"Yes and no," the Doctor said. "It's an AI, but it's not dangerous, like HAL. And you do know that was just a film, don't you?" He grinned at her and she rolled her eyes.
"Of course I know - although do you know that it was a book first?" Martha retorted.
His grin widened. "Yes, I did."
"So why do the Arkonides have an AI to rule them?"
"Because an AI is always logical, efficient and cannot be bribed, therefore it can be trusted to rule fairly for everyone."
"Huh, wonder if we could get one to rule in Britain?"
"Unfortunately you don't yet have the technology necessary."
They crossed the road and the Doctor led the way into Tiffany's: it was even more beautiful than Martha had imagined, with gorgeous artworks decorating the walls, a marble mosaic floor, and the windows at the back were stained glass scenes of cooking and food. They were approached immediately by a courteous and friendly waiter who led them to a table in a quiet corner, then gave them both a menu.
"I recommend the ägg rostat bröd," the Doctor said as Martha peered at the menu. "And the citrus saft to drink."
"Eggs on toast and orange juice?" she checked, the TARDIS translating for her.
He nodded, and she agreed, so he signalled to the waiter that they were ready to place their order. Once it arrived he began to explain to her about his people's way of cheating death, telling her that it was called regeneration.
"Essentially , when a Time Lord's too sick or injured to survive, they undergo a process of complete cellular renewal which, when it's complete, results in a brand new body, all injuries will be healed and any sickness will be cured."
"Do you look the same afterwards?" Martha asked curiously.
The Doctor shook his head, then swallowed his mouthful of eggs and toast. "One or two Time Lords do maintain the same outward form, but the majority of us look completely different in each incarnation."
She sat silently for a few minutes, eating her breakfast, and he knew that she was turning over in her mind what he'd told her. "Can you choose how you look?" she asked eventually.
"I can't. I had a friend once - Romana her name - she regenerated during the course of her travels with me, and she tried several 'looks', like you'd try on outfits, before she settled on a particular one. But I've never had that kind of control." He frowned in thought as he drank some juice. "Of course, I usually don't have any choice about when or why I'm gonna regenerate - life I lead's haphazard and dangerous."
His expression was bleak and Martha reached across the corner of the table to put her hand over his in an attempt to offer some comfort; he gave her a smile, but to her it looked forced.
"Tell me about Ace?" she asked, hoping to cheer him up.
His face brightened a little. "She was a rare one," he said, and went on to explain how he'd met Ace back in his seventh incarnation, after she'd been carried to Ice World in a Time Storm. "She had a fondness for blowing things up," he said with a chuckle. "Used to mix up batches of Nitro-9 explosive, made to her own recipe. She could be a bit bolshy at times, but she was fiercely loyal to me and anyone who travelled with me, and she hated injustice."
"What happened to her?" asked Martha quietly.
He gave a slight shrug, the bleak expression back in his eyes. "Dunno for sure, but I suspect she got caught up in the Time War somehow - she'd spent a period away from me, off fighting the Daleks, so I don't think she'd have tried to avoid getting involved."
"I'm sorry."
The Doctor shook his head. "People I travel with, they come an' go all the time - it's the nature of my life an' who I am. I miss 'em all, some more than others, it's true, but I care about everyone in me own way." He looked around for a waiter. "Do you want some coffee before we go shopping?"
"Yes please."
The waiter brought them some coffee and the Doctor talked about where they might go after Arkon; Martha accepted the change of subject, realising that talking about his former travelling companions was probably a painful subject, even if he was used to people coming and going regularly.
"Right then, let's go and do some shopping," he said after they had finished their coffee and the Doctor had paid the bill.
They pulled their coats back on, then he grabbed Martha's hand and led her across the road to a row of shops. He headed towards the third one in the row and she saw that the window display was filled with futuristic-looking devices, some of which barely resembled kettles or toasters.
He left Martha to browse amongst the items while he headed straight to the toaster section; when she caught up with the Doctor again he was paying, and an assistant was packing a red and orange toaster with silver buttons into a box. She blinked a bit at the unexpectedly bright colour scheme, and he gave her a grin.
"Reminds me of home," he told her.
She gave him a puzzled look. "Everyone wore red and orange?" she hazarded.
He laughed even as he shook his head. "Not everyone, and not all the time." He thanked the assistant as he took the bag containing the toaster, then led Martha outside. "We'd better stock up on bread and stuff while we're here," he told her.
"Okay."
Martha let the Doctor lead the way to a food market; she noticed that he continued to hold hands with her, even though they weren't crossing a busy street, but she didn't mind the contact: it reminded her of the relationship they'd had before she'd accidentally found out that he was an alien and had been lying to her. Sometimes she missed their more intimate relationship - and not just because the Doctor was a good lover; when he'd been John Smith, she'd been Martha Jones the medical student, not someone's sister or daughter, or her family's peacemaker, and her relationship with him had liberated her - she had enjoyed the freedom that he'd given her during their time together. Perhaps that was why she hadn't worried when he'd told her, after their very expensive dinner at a very nice restaurant on New Earth, that he needed to do some repairs to the TARDIS and so wouldn't be able to take her back home just yet. She guessed that he'd been lonely in the months that followed Rose's death, while he'd been waiting for her to finish her studies, and she couldn't begrudge him her company now that she had a bit of time to spare to dally about the Universe with him.
She thought back to how much it had hurt when she had first discovered the Doctor had lied to her: Martha had understood then just how her mother had felt when she'd found out about Annalise; Martha had felt betrayed, and she and the Doctor had discussed that before they'd left for New Earth.
Two days ago
The Doctor was giving Martha a tour of the more immediately accessible rooms in the TARDIS.
"You've seen the Medical Bay, of course," he said awkwardly, gesturing through the open doorway.
"I have," she agreed, remembering vividly the scenes that had unfolded there. "Can I ask you something?"
He gave her a wary look. "Yeah," he agreed, but she thought he sounded a bit reluctant.
"Why didn't you invite me to travel with you when we first met? You hadn't met Rose then, had you?"
"I had met her," he told her. "I met her in the basement of Henrik's, before I blew up the relay device on the roof, which was when I got hurt and came to the hospital."
"And met me," Martha said.
The Doctor nodded. "I didn't ask Rose to travel with me right away, though."
"So why did Rose get the invitation when I didn't? Wasn't I good enough to be your travelling companion? Was I only good enough for a meal and a shag when you were in the area?" She paused, then took a deep breath. "Were you shagging both of us? Was I just your bit of exotic on the side?"
"No!" The Doctor looked shocked at the suggestion. He stepped forwards and grasped her shoulders. "No, you were never that." He sighed. "My relationship with you was a bit of stability in a life that hasn't had much real stability for centuries. I offered Rose the trip to thank her for helping me to stop the Nestene Consciousness and their animated shop dummies. But that first trip left her feeling a bit traumatised, so to make up for it, I tried to take her to nineteenth century Venice. Trouble was we landed in Cardiff instead, and that trip didn't go much better. Before I knew it, she'd got attached to me. I'm not sure whether she saw me as a surrogate father or an older boyfriend, bit of both, I think, depending on her mood. But we never had sex."
He rubbed at the back of his neck. "After we got back and I found we'd been gone for twelve months, not twelve hours like I'd intended, I was gonna leave her with her mother - I didn't want to risk Jackie's wrath a second time. But you were so mad at me - not that I blame you - that I couldn't ask you to come with me instead, and by then I'd got so used to having company again that I let Rose stay on. I tried to get Mickey to come too, 'cos he'd proved himself really useful when we dealt with the aliens responsible for crashing that spaceship into Big Ben, but he didn't want to come. Reckon he thought he'd be playing gooseberry, seeing how Rose was so attached to me, but I was hoping I'd do that - I thought Rose had realised what a brave bloke he really was, and it'd bring them back together."
Martha listened to all of this in silence, thinking it over. "So, I was someone to come back to between trips?" she asked.
The Doctor gave her a sheepish nod. "You were obviously caring and compassionate, and then I discovered you were sexy and smart too. I could pretend that I was just an ordinary bloke without any great pressures on me shoulders. To you, I was just John Smith, not the Doctor, and not the last of the Time Lords."
She gave him a wondering look. "Last of the Time Lords?" she repeated.
He nodded, a bleak expression on his face. "The rest of my people were destroyed in a war. I didn't expect to survive either, but somehow I did. For a while after they, and my home planet Gallifrey were destroyed, I travelled alone. I didn't want anyone's company - didn't really think I deserved it, to be honest. Then I met you, and you represented everything that was normal and settled, that I didn't have, and I wanted to pretend that I did, so I didn't ask you to travel with me because I wanted you on Earth for when I returned. It was selfish of me, though, an' I'm sorry I hurt you."
Martha stepped closer and embraced him. "I forgive you. I'm not happy about your lies, but I can understand why you lied."
"Thank you."
Now
Once the Doctor was satisfied they had everything they needed, they headed back to the TARDIS to put away their purchases.
"So, why a red and orange toaster?" asked Martha as he plugged it in and stood it on the corner of the kitchen counter.
"Gallifrey," he answered softly. "Her sky was a burnt orange, and the grass was red. The leaves on the trees were silver, and when they caught the light in the morning, it looked like a forest on fire. When autumn came, the breeze would blow through the branches like a song." He sighed. "It was beautiful. They used to call Gallifrey the Shining World of the Seven Systems. On the Continent of Wild Endeavour, in the Mountains of Solace and Solitude, stood the Citadel of the Time Lords - a mighty city enclosed by a protective dome. I wish you could have seen it, but it's gone now."
She stepped to his side and put an arm around his waist. "It sounds wonderful," she said softly.
"Of course, the people were, for the most part, a stuffy, pompous, tradition-bound lot who thought themselves better than everyone else. Yet, sometimes, I miss them."
She gave a soft laugh. "It's like when you move out of home," she suggested. "You're glad to escape your family, but no matter how much they may have annoyed you or just driven you crazy, you still miss them when they're not there every day."
"Yeah." He hugged her, then kissed the top of her head. "Let's go somewhere," he said. "Fancy going swimming, mebbe?"
"If you like," Martha agreed, sensing he wanted to break his current melancholy mood.
"Good." He loped out and she finished putting away their shopping, hearing the change in the ship's humming that indicated the TARDIS was on the move. Then she headed to the Control Room to ask the Doctor about a swimming costume - she wondered if he'd take them somewhere tropical.
Title: Kitchen Chaos
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Martha/Nine
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Assumes you've seen S1
Summary: Take one old-fashioned grill, one inattentive Time Lord, and mix: chaos will ensue.
Disclaimer: I occasionally wish that I did own it!
Author Notes: To celebrate the second anniversary of my LJ, I invited my FList to offer me some fic prompts and said I'd write up to five of the prompts that most interested me. mischief89 asked for Nine/Martha; toaster. This fic is part of my occasional Martha/Nine series of fics and is the first of three interlinked stories that will finish the series (you could think of this as Nine's 'Waters of Mars'). This fic is set after Another World.
Betas: abstruse_fangrl and catholicphoton (both of whom are brilliant cheerleaders with endless patience!)
~~~~~~
Martha woke aboard the TARDIS to an unexpectedly familiar smell: burning toast. She sat up, then got out of bed, feeling that she ought to just check that everything was okay. Not that she didn't think the Doctor was capable of dealing with burning toast, but he did have a tendency to get distracted on occasion. She shuffled her feet into her slippers and hurried down the corridor towards the kitchen, moving into a flat out run when she saw black smoke billowing out of the doorway.
"Doctor?" she yelled, racing in. She couldn't see the Time Lord, but there were flames billowing from the old fashioned grill, so she snatched up a fire extinguisher and set it off, aiming it at the heart of the grill.
"Oi!" exclaimed a Northern-accented voice behind her. "What's going on here then?"
Martha half-turned towards him, still wielding the extinguisher. "Ever heard of a smoke alarm?" she demanded angrily. "Or a toaster, for that matter? And don't you know that you shouldn't leave grills unattended?"
She set down the empty extinguisher on the floor, then rubbed her hand over her face, as the Doctor approached, a rather sheepish expression on his face.
"I - uh - got side-tracked," he answered. "Sorry."
"Tinkering with the TARDIS' innards again?" she asked. They'd been idling in the Vortex ever since leaving New Earth because the Doctor had wanted to fiddle with something technical which Martha hadn't understood.
He nodded, peering into the foam-soaked grill of the cooker. "Maybe I'd better get an ordinary toaster for her," he suggested.
"It might be safer," Martha agreed. "At least if you stick the bread in to toast and then forget about it, it'll only get cold, rather than bursting into flames. A smoke alarm in here wouldn't go amiss, either." She looked around. "I'm surprised there isn't one already."
"Yeah, Ace was always telling me I should let her make the toast 'cos I kept burning it." He was fishing the charred remains of bread from the grill, so he missed seeing Martha's confused look.
"Ace?" she asked.
He straightened up, two extremely black slices of bread in his hands. "Yeah, she travelled with me two incarnations ago."
She gave him a blank look. "Incarnation? Are you telling me, in a roundabout way, that you're not flesh and blood normally?"
He shook his head. "No. What I am telling you, in a roundabout way, is that I can change me face."
Martha folded her arms over her chest and gave him a sceptical look. "Oh really?"
"Yeah, really." He sighed. "Do you wanna go and get dressed, then we'll go and have breakfast somewhere that doesn't smell of charred bread, and I'll explain properly."
She smiled, her eyes bright with curiosity. "All right."
While Martha hurried away, the Doctor dumped the burnt remains of his toast into the bin, then grabbed a rag and began cleaning out the grill. He knew full well that the TARDIS was more than capable of cleaning the cooker herself, but he preferred to do it. He needed a distraction from the image of Martha in her pyjamas, which was a painful reminder of all that he'd lost by not telling her that he was a Time Lord before she'd found out for herself. He knew he should be grateful that she'd forgiven him enough to travel with him now she had completed her studies, but he missed their previous relationship. It wasn't the lack of sex (although he'd enjoyed that aspect of their relationship), but the lack of intimacy as a whole, and he wondered if he and Martha would ever be that close again.
You'll just have live with things the way they are, he told himself, scrubbing vigorously.
He was very glad that she had agreed to travel with him - after losing Rose he'd been on his own while waiting for Martha to finish her studies, and it had reminded him painfully of the time he'd spent alone after Gallifrey's destruction. Though he'd be loathe to admit it to anyone else, he had realised that he needed a travelling companion now, more than he ever had before he'd lost his people.
Before the Doctor could get too lost in his melancholic thoughts Martha breezed into the kitchen, dressed in her black jeans and a blue vest top.
"I'm ready when you are," she said, her expression eager.
"Come on then." He dumped his cleaning rag into the bin, then grabbed his leather jacket from the back of the chair where he'd left it.
They headed to the Control Room, and the Doctor immediately began setting the coordinates for their destination.
"We'll go and have breakfast at Tiffany's," he told Martha. "It's a beautiful restaurant, near the Robot Regent's palace on Arkon.
"Tiffany's?" she asked. "Is it anything like the Tiffany's in New York?"
He shook his head. "No - the food's better and the staff aren't so snooty."
Martha laughed. "Okay then. Presumably I don't need to dress up, though?"
He looked her over, even though he already knew what she was wearing. "No, you look good as you are."
"Do you ever change?" she asked curiously. "I've only ever seen you wearing jeans and a jumper, and your leather jacket."
"You've seen me nude, too," the Doctor answered, without thinking, then looked away quickly, embarrassed to have reminded her.
"I was talking about your clothes, though," Martha answered, her tone calm.
"I know. Sorry, I won't mention that again."
She stepped closer and put her hand on his arm. "It's okay," she said quietly. "You're allowed to mention it."
"We're here," he said, straightening up. He quickly patted her hand, then moved away.
Martha picked up her red leather jacket and slipped it on, then followed him down the ramp and out through the door to see a city even more futuristic than New Earth's.
"Wow!" she said, staring around appreciatively at the steel and glass buildings that towered around them. "So this is Arkon?"
"Yeah. A high-tech paradise almost entirely reliant on solar power."
"Almost entirely?" Martha asked.
"They use water power in some of the factories which are by the river, out in the suburbs of the city. But everything here in the centre is entirely solar powered. The Arkonides learnt from their ancestors - your descendants - about the misuse of fossil fuels, so when they settled here, they brought wind and water-powered generators, and solar batteries."
She followed him down the side street in which the TARDIS had landed, and along a bustling main road. At least half the passersby were whizzing past on what looked, to Martha, like motorised skateboards, and she noted that there were more bicycles than cars passing, too.
They reached a busy intersection and the Doctor took her hand in his to cross the road. "There's the Robot Regent's palace," he told her, pointing further up the road with his free hand.
"So what's a Robot Regent?" she asked.
"It's the super-computer that rules over the Arkonides," he answered.
"Whoa! A computer? Like HAL, in 2001?"
"Yes and no," the Doctor said. "It's an AI, but it's not dangerous, like HAL. And you do know that was just a film, don't you?" He grinned at her and she rolled her eyes.
"Of course I know - although do you know that it was a book first?" Martha retorted.
His grin widened. "Yes, I did."
"So why do the Arkonides have an AI to rule them?"
"Because an AI is always logical, efficient and cannot be bribed, therefore it can be trusted to rule fairly for everyone."
"Huh, wonder if we could get one to rule in Britain?"
"Unfortunately you don't yet have the technology necessary."
They crossed the road and the Doctor led the way into Tiffany's: it was even more beautiful than Martha had imagined, with gorgeous artworks decorating the walls, a marble mosaic floor, and the windows at the back were stained glass scenes of cooking and food. They were approached immediately by a courteous and friendly waiter who led them to a table in a quiet corner, then gave them both a menu.
"I recommend the ägg rostat bröd," the Doctor said as Martha peered at the menu. "And the citrus saft to drink."
"Eggs on toast and orange juice?" she checked, the TARDIS translating for her.
He nodded, and she agreed, so he signalled to the waiter that they were ready to place their order. Once it arrived he began to explain to her about his people's way of cheating death, telling her that it was called regeneration.
"Essentially , when a Time Lord's too sick or injured to survive, they undergo a process of complete cellular renewal which, when it's complete, results in a brand new body, all injuries will be healed and any sickness will be cured."
"Do you look the same afterwards?" Martha asked curiously.
The Doctor shook his head, then swallowed his mouthful of eggs and toast. "One or two Time Lords do maintain the same outward form, but the majority of us look completely different in each incarnation."
She sat silently for a few minutes, eating her breakfast, and he knew that she was turning over in her mind what he'd told her. "Can you choose how you look?" she asked eventually.
"I can't. I had a friend once - Romana her name - she regenerated during the course of her travels with me, and she tried several 'looks', like you'd try on outfits, before she settled on a particular one. But I've never had that kind of control." He frowned in thought as he drank some juice. "Of course, I usually don't have any choice about when or why I'm gonna regenerate - life I lead's haphazard and dangerous."
His expression was bleak and Martha reached across the corner of the table to put her hand over his in an attempt to offer some comfort; he gave her a smile, but to her it looked forced.
"Tell me about Ace?" she asked, hoping to cheer him up.
His face brightened a little. "She was a rare one," he said, and went on to explain how he'd met Ace back in his seventh incarnation, after she'd been carried to Ice World in a Time Storm. "She had a fondness for blowing things up," he said with a chuckle. "Used to mix up batches of Nitro-9 explosive, made to her own recipe. She could be a bit bolshy at times, but she was fiercely loyal to me and anyone who travelled with me, and she hated injustice."
"What happened to her?" asked Martha quietly.
He gave a slight shrug, the bleak expression back in his eyes. "Dunno for sure, but I suspect she got caught up in the Time War somehow - she'd spent a period away from me, off fighting the Daleks, so I don't think she'd have tried to avoid getting involved."
"I'm sorry."
The Doctor shook his head. "People I travel with, they come an' go all the time - it's the nature of my life an' who I am. I miss 'em all, some more than others, it's true, but I care about everyone in me own way." He looked around for a waiter. "Do you want some coffee before we go shopping?"
"Yes please."
The waiter brought them some coffee and the Doctor talked about where they might go after Arkon; Martha accepted the change of subject, realising that talking about his former travelling companions was probably a painful subject, even if he was used to people coming and going regularly.
"Right then, let's go and do some shopping," he said after they had finished their coffee and the Doctor had paid the bill.
They pulled their coats back on, then he grabbed Martha's hand and led her across the road to a row of shops. He headed towards the third one in the row and she saw that the window display was filled with futuristic-looking devices, some of which barely resembled kettles or toasters.
He left Martha to browse amongst the items while he headed straight to the toaster section; when she caught up with the Doctor again he was paying, and an assistant was packing a red and orange toaster with silver buttons into a box. She blinked a bit at the unexpectedly bright colour scheme, and he gave her a grin.
"Reminds me of home," he told her.
She gave him a puzzled look. "Everyone wore red and orange?" she hazarded.
He laughed even as he shook his head. "Not everyone, and not all the time." He thanked the assistant as he took the bag containing the toaster, then led Martha outside. "We'd better stock up on bread and stuff while we're here," he told her.
"Okay."
Martha let the Doctor lead the way to a food market; she noticed that he continued to hold hands with her, even though they weren't crossing a busy street, but she didn't mind the contact: it reminded her of the relationship they'd had before she'd accidentally found out that he was an alien and had been lying to her. Sometimes she missed their more intimate relationship - and not just because the Doctor was a good lover; when he'd been John Smith, she'd been Martha Jones the medical student, not someone's sister or daughter, or her family's peacemaker, and her relationship with him had liberated her - she had enjoyed the freedom that he'd given her during their time together. Perhaps that was why she hadn't worried when he'd told her, after their very expensive dinner at a very nice restaurant on New Earth, that he needed to do some repairs to the TARDIS and so wouldn't be able to take her back home just yet. She guessed that he'd been lonely in the months that followed Rose's death, while he'd been waiting for her to finish her studies, and she couldn't begrudge him her company now that she had a bit of time to spare to dally about the Universe with him.
She thought back to how much it had hurt when she had first discovered the Doctor had lied to her: Martha had understood then just how her mother had felt when she'd found out about Annalise; Martha had felt betrayed, and she and the Doctor had discussed that before they'd left for New Earth.
Two days ago
The Doctor was giving Martha a tour of the more immediately accessible rooms in the TARDIS.
"You've seen the Medical Bay, of course," he said awkwardly, gesturing through the open doorway.
"I have," she agreed, remembering vividly the scenes that had unfolded there. "Can I ask you something?"
He gave her a wary look. "Yeah," he agreed, but she thought he sounded a bit reluctant.
"Why didn't you invite me to travel with you when we first met? You hadn't met Rose then, had you?"
"I had met her," he told her. "I met her in the basement of Henrik's, before I blew up the relay device on the roof, which was when I got hurt and came to the hospital."
"And met me," Martha said.
The Doctor nodded. "I didn't ask Rose to travel with me right away, though."
"So why did Rose get the invitation when I didn't? Wasn't I good enough to be your travelling companion? Was I only good enough for a meal and a shag when you were in the area?" She paused, then took a deep breath. "Were you shagging both of us? Was I just your bit of exotic on the side?"
"No!" The Doctor looked shocked at the suggestion. He stepped forwards and grasped her shoulders. "No, you were never that." He sighed. "My relationship with you was a bit of stability in a life that hasn't had much real stability for centuries. I offered Rose the trip to thank her for helping me to stop the Nestene Consciousness and their animated shop dummies. But that first trip left her feeling a bit traumatised, so to make up for it, I tried to take her to nineteenth century Venice. Trouble was we landed in Cardiff instead, and that trip didn't go much better. Before I knew it, she'd got attached to me. I'm not sure whether she saw me as a surrogate father or an older boyfriend, bit of both, I think, depending on her mood. But we never had sex."
He rubbed at the back of his neck. "After we got back and I found we'd been gone for twelve months, not twelve hours like I'd intended, I was gonna leave her with her mother - I didn't want to risk Jackie's wrath a second time. But you were so mad at me - not that I blame you - that I couldn't ask you to come with me instead, and by then I'd got so used to having company again that I let Rose stay on. I tried to get Mickey to come too, 'cos he'd proved himself really useful when we dealt with the aliens responsible for crashing that spaceship into Big Ben, but he didn't want to come. Reckon he thought he'd be playing gooseberry, seeing how Rose was so attached to me, but I was hoping I'd do that - I thought Rose had realised what a brave bloke he really was, and it'd bring them back together."
Martha listened to all of this in silence, thinking it over. "So, I was someone to come back to between trips?" she asked.
The Doctor gave her a sheepish nod. "You were obviously caring and compassionate, and then I discovered you were sexy and smart too. I could pretend that I was just an ordinary bloke without any great pressures on me shoulders. To you, I was just John Smith, not the Doctor, and not the last of the Time Lords."
She gave him a wondering look. "Last of the Time Lords?" she repeated.
He nodded, a bleak expression on his face. "The rest of my people were destroyed in a war. I didn't expect to survive either, but somehow I did. For a while after they, and my home planet Gallifrey were destroyed, I travelled alone. I didn't want anyone's company - didn't really think I deserved it, to be honest. Then I met you, and you represented everything that was normal and settled, that I didn't have, and I wanted to pretend that I did, so I didn't ask you to travel with me because I wanted you on Earth for when I returned. It was selfish of me, though, an' I'm sorry I hurt you."
Martha stepped closer and embraced him. "I forgive you. I'm not happy about your lies, but I can understand why you lied."
"Thank you."
Now
Once the Doctor was satisfied they had everything they needed, they headed back to the TARDIS to put away their purchases.
"So, why a red and orange toaster?" asked Martha as he plugged it in and stood it on the corner of the kitchen counter.
"Gallifrey," he answered softly. "Her sky was a burnt orange, and the grass was red. The leaves on the trees were silver, and when they caught the light in the morning, it looked like a forest on fire. When autumn came, the breeze would blow through the branches like a song." He sighed. "It was beautiful. They used to call Gallifrey the Shining World of the Seven Systems. On the Continent of Wild Endeavour, in the Mountains of Solace and Solitude, stood the Citadel of the Time Lords - a mighty city enclosed by a protective dome. I wish you could have seen it, but it's gone now."
She stepped to his side and put an arm around his waist. "It sounds wonderful," she said softly.
"Of course, the people were, for the most part, a stuffy, pompous, tradition-bound lot who thought themselves better than everyone else. Yet, sometimes, I miss them."
She gave a soft laugh. "It's like when you move out of home," she suggested. "You're glad to escape your family, but no matter how much they may have annoyed you or just driven you crazy, you still miss them when they're not there every day."
"Yeah." He hugged her, then kissed the top of her head. "Let's go somewhere," he said. "Fancy going swimming, mebbe?"
"If you like," Martha agreed, sensing he wanted to break his current melancholy mood.
"Good." He loped out and she finished putting away their shopping, hearing the change in the ship's humming that indicated the TARDIS was on the move. Then she headed to the Control Room to ask the Doctor about a swimming costume - she wondered if he'd take them somewhere tropical.