Summary: "She was never there...was she?" The Doctor asks, his voice was the only sound to break the silence.
"What are you doing, you daft git?" Martha screams, and she can't do anything else, because the Doctor is doing something stupid – yet again – but what on earth can a human do that the Doctor can't?
He rolls his eyes and turns to her with that look – the one that makes her feel like a little less than a bug on the windshield of their lives, "Martha, we don't know exactly what's going to happen when I grab it – so why should you be in that kind of danger?"
Part of her wants to hope he says that because he cares about her and wants her safe, but the logical part of her (the one that got her in and out of Medical School) tells her it's just that he doesn't want another death on his hands (or another worse-than-death except it won't be because she isn't blonde, she isn't white, she isn't Rose). So the Doctor reaches out to grab the Orb of Sanctity.
(" This Orb was given to the Ghwek way back when they were still just little sproutlings plodding about on their wreck of a world – which, incidentally, is where the word ghweck came from – only they have a slight speech impediment so it sounds like guh-weck rather than wreck – but they meant wreck and—!"
" Doctor!"
" Right, anyway, the Orb is all sacred and whatnot, but it's also sucking the planet dry of life – soon enough, in about three hundred years wiping out all existence here – and our job is to modify it so it can't do that anymore. We can't take the Orb – it's blasphemy of the highest level – but with my handy-dandy sonic screwdriver we can fix it! Ready, Blue?"
" That's it, no more Blue's Clues for you."
" But Martha!")
His hand wraps around the silver edges and they both cringe, waiting for something to jump out and eat them or something equally gross and demoralizing. But there was nothing. Not a thing. Just a slight lurch of the room and then nothing. The Doctor shifts in his place and turns back to Martha, looking bewildered and slightly off – like he expected to be mauled and got a slight scratch on his finger.
"Well, that was anti-climactic." He mutters to himself, and pulls out his sonic screwdriver.
Then there is a voice. Sudden and soft and warm and accusing, "Why did you leave without me?"
Both the Doctor's and Martha's heads shoot up. Standing right there in front of them is a girl. A girl with long blonde hair and made-up brown eyes. Looking for the entire world like they killed her puppy.
Rose Tyler.
"Really Doctor, leaving me behind in the TARDIS is just plain rude." She is scolding him, Martha realizes, and laughs, because that is so classically Rose to scold the Doctor.
And then Martha remembers, they had been waiting for Rose, waiting for her to get dressed, and the Doctor wanted to get it done so they could take Rose on a trip to some spa-planet. That was so nice of him, she remembers. And Rose – darling Rose – was so unaware and the Doctor was elated.
"Sorry Rose," Martha begins, "He wanted to get it over with."
Rose laughs, "Sounds just like ya, eh Doctor?"
The Doctor looks confused – perhaps he forgot? – but then he looks repentant, "Sorry, Rose…I just wanted to surprise you." He pulls the puppy dog face and Rose simply laughs.
They finish their business with the Orb and leave. It is a quick and easy job (but something is wrong, because jobs are never that easy martha's logical side whispers vicious warnings) and they are nearly to the TARDIS. Laughing and playing about with one another, just like always (notrightnotright martha's mind croons)
But it is right, because the Doctor's arm is wrapped around Rose's waist and he is pressing soft kisses to her head, telling her all the wonderful things about the planet they are going to see. They are warm and complete and the Doctor has never looked so happy in all his life with Martha and she breathes deeply because it's so nice – such a nice difference from all the sadness and aching and pain (what pain, explain, what pain? her brain is urging her to figure it out, wrench logic out of the fairytale and explain the sentence that doesn't make sense in this world, in this dream).
Then there is the feeling of lurching again and there is a hole in the world. A large gaping hole that sucks and pulls and searches with hands through their very beings to grab and pull and hurt and rip apart at the seams that are barely holding already – and Martha screams.
But there is no need for fear, because Martha and the Doctor remain firmly planted, not being touched by the hole at all (the fingers searching and will not find) but Rose is yanked up like her namesake. Then there is need for fear.
Pulled and falling over and over and suddenly she's gone and not coming back. There is no time to call out for her, no time to extend a hand and reach for the girl who isn't coming back (the girl who was never there in the first place martha's mind hisses again and again and again).
Silence.
" ROSE!" The Doctor cries, lunging forward to the hole that has already closed over itself and is gone. He lands on his knees and stays there, sobbing and wracking and stilted in a way that he has never been before. He claws at the air, wanting to rip it apart and destroy Time itself and find Rose – because only Rose matters, only Rose.
He wails for her and love and things that Martha can't understand.
But it doesn't matter for she is angry too. She is vengeful and torn and burning because Rose was her friend (her mind screams something at her but she is too lost to hear it) and now she's gone.
" BRING HER BACK! YOU SONS OF BITCHES!" She screams, clawing at the ground and screaming. She reaches out to find a hand, a finger, a nail of the girl who was lost.
And then it all stops.
They are back in the room with the Orb still in the Doctor's hand and they jolt. Martha looks around wildly and thinks it all to be a horrible nightmare. Then they realize the warning outside the door – which while sneaking in, they forgot to look at – saying The Punishment is Severe.
Martha thinks there is nothing more severe than watching him lose Rose again.
"She was never there…was she?" The Doctor asks, his voice was the only sound to break the silence.
Martha thinks and thinks and remembers that Rose is gone. Has been for months and isn't coming back. Rose Tyler; lost in space and time. Martha Jones; there, but still isn't enough.
She answers softly, "No Doctor. Rose was never there."
(but the scars of her presence are there and the Doctor can never erase those – not that he wants to, martha thinks as she follows him back to the TARDIS, orb left the same; to wreak havoc)
"Why aren't we stopping the Orb?" She asks when they are safe and sound in the TARDIS (when she cannot be left behind on the planet) – it is very unlike the Doctor to leave without completing his mission.
"We can't mess with history, Martha." The Doctor says as if he just realized this fact himself.
And Martha still thinks that reason is the only explanation why she is here with him and Rose is not.
It's so much easier to poke about with Martha about Rose than Donna...I don't know why...it just is!
Aimlessly Unknown.