Tea for two
"So how big is this place?" asks Martha, when she's caught her breath.
The Doctor waves the sonic screwdriver in the direction of the doorway. "Go and have a look round. Find yourself somewhere to sleep while you're at it."
"Where do you sleep?" she asks, mischievously.
"Sleeping's for humans," he retorts, and she's not sure whether he really means that he doesn't or he's just avoiding the question.
He carries on before she has a chance to push the subject any further. "Don't get lost. You've got half an hour until tea. You'll find the kettle in the kitchen cupboard, two floors down on the left."
"Why am I making the tea? I thought I was the guest."
"Think of it as an initiation rite."
She rolls her eyes. "Great. Well, just so you know, you're washing up." And she grins at him as she heads past him, still running on adrenaline as she steps out into the green-lit passageway and all that lies beyond.
Martha makes her decision quickly: it's something she's got used to doing, working in the hospital. The room she chooses is clean and airy, with a high ceiling and white walls. If she's honest, it's clinical, but it's more spacious than the first two she looked at, and after six years living in halls she's not exactly picky.
As for the third room – well, the third one felt wrong, somehow. Cosy. Lived in. There'd been a mug left on the bedside table; she'd picked it up automatically, meaning to take it back with her to the kitchen, but something had stopped her, and she'd placed it carefully down again, covering the coffee stain, the way it was before.
When she does find the kitchen, she's surprised to discover the Doctor has what looks like an entire matching set of the same china. It's not what she'd imagined, especially the floral pattern: she'd expected a mismatch of curious cups assimilated from assorted alien worlds. They should really be drinking out of Judoon horns, or something, she thinks, as she selects the bluebell for him, and the daisy for herself. It occurs to her she didn't think to ask how he liked his tea, but she makes it the way she drinks it, strong and milky, and then as an afterthought gives the Doctor two sugars, one for each heart.
Concentrate, she reminds herself as she heads back to him: there are two cups of tea to get up two flights of stairs before she can even let herself think about what might come next. Time travel can wait a few minutes longer, because right now she has to focus on not tripping and smashing the china, even if it doesn't exactly look irreplaceable.
But then, perhaps it is, she thinks, remembering the one she left upstairs, the one that's missing, the one with the rose.