The Doctor was missing.
Martha had been looking for him for the last half hour. She had become very frustrated with the massive interior of the TARDIS. It had too many corridors that looked the same. The same metal grating that covered the floors and many tracks of lit up wires underneath and the same deep blue walls and silver metallic railings. Martha got tired of it after a while.
She found herself back in the control room, and sat on the battered dirty cream seats facing part of the central console. There was still no sign of the Doctor.
They had been circling a burnt supernova for a few hours. The Doctor said it was to stock up on energy or fuel or Time Vortex stuff for the TARDIS. Martha sort of phased out when the Doctor talked technical to her, she never liked physics and engineering when at college, she always enjoyed and preferred human biology and anatomy, hence why she became a doctor.
Martha had been thinking about her travels with the Doctor, and even the man himself. As first, it seemed that the only reason the Doctor asked Martha on the TARDIS was because she saved his life, and it was a way of saying thank you. Giving her a lift through space and time, for one trip and one trip only. He was still hung up on his Rose.
She must have been someone amazing, the Doctor's equal. Martha knew that even though she's gone now, the Doctor loved her, and she loved him back. That they were ripped apart by an alien threat. Something that wasn't meant to happen.
They were meant to be together forever, and there was nothing to stop the Doctor extremely missing her.
Martha sighed and made a moody expression. She thought she had made it obvious enough that she thought his slim tight blue trousers was cute, but alas, he didn't realise. It was like, ever since Rose departed from the TARDIS he was cut off from all humanity. It was taken away from him. And since the Daleks in Manhattan, he seemed more distant then ever.
She stood, deciding to go and look again for the Doctor when the most peculiar thing happened.
The control console was ringing.
Martha furrowed her eyebrows and took a step closer to the great TARDIS controls. It was ringing, like an old telephone from the nineteen fifties, those ones where you had to turn the entire dial to dial one number.
"Doctor?" She called out, hoping for some kind of reply. But her hope was unprecedented when there was no answer from the Doctor.
She walked up to the console and search for the source of the ringing. Deep down under many of the switches and wires, there was a phone. And it was ringing.
"Since when did the TARDIS have a phone?" She asked herself, as it kept on ringing her ears getting used to the high-pitched sound. She let her fingers trace the spine on the receiver. Wondering what to do. The ringing gradually getting on her nerves.
She picked it up and paused for a second. Thinking about the many possibilities of a ringing phone within the TARDIS that is circling a dead star. She raised it to her ear.
"Hello?" She said, her eyes confused and her mind blank about what might happen next.
"Hello?" A voice replied. It was a woman's voice, a Londoner too.
Martha didn't know how to reply, what was she going to say. But she didn't have to, for the voice spoke first.
"Hello?" It repeated down the line, "Who is this?"
"My name is Martha," Martha said back, "Who are you? How are you calling here?"
The was a pause, probably because the voice on the other side was thinking, "Can you get the Doctor on the phone please?" The woman asked, "Tell him it's urgent."
Martha glanced at the door, hoping the tall Time Lord would poke his head through just then, "Err…sure. Whom may I say is calling?" Martha inquired, feeling stupidity run through her veins. She had to answer the phone like that when she was at her first job, earning money for university.
"Tell him…" The voice trailed off and then breathed, "Tell him it's Rose."
Rose drummed her fingers on her Torchwood desk, bored. She was waiting for an email from a man called Clive, who claims to have spotted a UFO and came up with a conspiracy theory about the whereabouts of aliens. Rose sighed, the public knowledge of aliens an life on other planets had so many holes in it you can strain tea through it, so this email would probably turn out to be a load of crap anyway.
She flicked through her diary and saw the date was 10th July. Rose felt sadness plunge in her stomach.
It had been a year. One whole year since they said goodbye. And she didn't even realise.
She felt her eyes watering as she thought back to that day. Bad Wolf Bay, who'd have thought it. The words Bad Wolf had brought them together again, bought them together for the last time.
She told him how she felt, how'd she been feeling for a long time. She first realised she loved the Doctor when they went back to 1987 and met Pete Tyler, her father. She messed up time, allowed Reapers to come through from another world and begin to digest their own. But he still worked out a way for the timeline to be fixed and her father to stay alive, so she would grow up with the man she always admired but never knew. She realised that the Doctor cared for her, wanted her to be happy, even if it meant she might decide to go home afterwards. He gave his life to stop the Reaper from devouring them all too. He was then gone and so Pete had to give his life to fix the mistake she made in time and space.
She grew to love him even more, which was odd for her, because she didn't really find him that attractive, he was older looking and had a wonky nose. But then those smiles, those words of wisdom, and the way their hands locked in times of trouble.
He regenerated and Rose saw the true power of the Time Lord. He changed his face. He was younger, more energetic. Less moody also. She couldn't help but want to never leave him, she would stay in the TARDIS forever, for as long as her legs would allow.
At Bad Wolf Bay, she told him she loved him, in the last two minutes that they could ever spend together. But the time ran out. Just as he was about to reply.
Rose reached for a chain around her neck and fiddled with a silver key that hung from the end. It had become a habit of hers. Whilst in thought, she would fiddle with the TARDIS key. Wondering what her life would be like if she just kept hanging on to that lever for a few more seconds.
She slid open her desk drawer and under a bunch of files on the latest alien sightings there was her phone. Her superphone that the Doctor did a bit of jiggory pokery to so it worked wherever they went. It didn't really work on the parallel world. She couldn't get a signal anywhere, except when it gave her internet access when they first came to this world. She kept it close by just in case it began to ring or something, even though that was impossible.
She turned it on, hearing the cheerful greeting tune she looked down at the wallpaper. It was of her and the Doctor, him with a quiff and her with pink sunglasses. It was when they had just landed in London, 1953. Although they thought it was New York then. When the Doctor walked through with his quiff into he control room, Rose doubled up with laughter and just had to take a picture of them both. It was a happy picture and reminded Rose of good times.
But something was different.. The phone had signal. Rose furrowed her eyebrows.
If it had signal, did that mean she could call the TARDIS. The TARDIS called her once before, when the Doctor called her after the first Slitheen incident when they crashed into Big Ben and coaxed her back into the TARDIS.
Rose had a thought, and scrolled in her call directory. It was there. The phone number of the TARDIS.
Could she call it? Make contact with the Doctor?
Ask what he was about to say on Bad Wolf Bay before he faded?
Breathing deeply to settle her nerves, she pressed the call button and raised the phone to her ear.
Someone answered.
"Hello?" A woman's voice answered. He had found someone else then. Unless he regenerated into a woman…could he do that?
"Hello?" Rose said, thinking that she was going mad. How was this possible?
There was a paused down the line as the phones were connected. Rose realised that the connection might fail at any moment, so she spoke up again.
"Hello?" She repeated down the line, "Who is this?"
"My name is Martha," The woman answered. Rose didn't think much of it, she thought Martha was an old woman's name, "Who are you? How are you calling here?"
Good question, Rose mused. How was this happening? Why weren't the worlds collapsing? "Can you get the Doctor on the phone please?" Rose asked, feeling time wasn't on her side, "Tell him it's urgent."
"Err…sure. Whom may I say is calling?" Martha inquired. Rose was taken aback from the formality. Who was this girl in the TARDIS?
"Tell him…" Rose trailed off and then breathed, collecting her nerves again, "Tell him it's Rose."