Disclaimer: characters is not mine :(
Rosemary, For Remembrance
There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.
-Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 4
Martha looks out of the taxi window at the vividly-colored trees. New York is always nice in the fall. Of course, the last time she was here was working with U.N.I.T. on Project Indigo. She had really been too distracted by the Dalek invasion to pay much attention to the scenery then. The time before that had been when she was walking the Earth during the Year That Never Was. Manhattan had been mostly turned into rubble. The first time she went to New York was in 1930, where she and the Doctor had found the last surviving Daleks. At least, what they thought were the last surviving Daleks.
And today she is going for her great-aunt-once-removed's funeral. Well, this time nobody will have to fight off pig-men. She hopes.
Martha smiles and leans her head against Mickey's shoulder. They have been married for a little over a year now, and it still shocks her sometimes. But in a good way. She likes being around him. She likes listening to his stories about the other universe. She likes the feeling she gets after running from an alien who's trying to kill them, and her body is filled with adrenaline, and she's happy and breathless, and she'll smile at Mickey, and he'll smile back, and she knows she would never, ever give this up. Not ever. Mickey is solid, reassuring, and dependable, unlike a certain traveling someone she knows. He is so different, but she loves him. And he loves her.
"What are you smiling about now, Martha Jones?" Mickey asks.
"Just old memories, m'dear," she teases, elbowing him in the ribs.
He laughs.
The funeral isn't that bad, actually. It is a beautiful day. The air is crisp and fresh outside. They sit in the back, with Mickey cracking jokes and snide comments, while she tries to simultaneously to shush him and not snort through her nose too loudly.
Then it is over, and they say their good-byes to Martha's mum and dad, Tish and her new boyfriend, Leo, Shonara, and little Keisha, and Mum's cousins (or whoever is hosting the funeral).
Everything feels calm, for once. Calm and peaceful.
"Mickey?" Martha says.
"Yeah?"
"I was thinking, it's really nice out, and I don't feel like going back to the hotel just yet. Want to just take a walk around?" She inquires, smiling.
"It'd be my pleasure, Mrs. Smith," Mickey grins.
He doesn't call her that most of the time. When they had decided to get married, Martha had decided to keep her last name. Martha Jones. The Girl Who Walked the Earth. She just doesn't feel right as Martha Smith. Although, Martha doesn't mind when it is Mickey who calls her that.
They walk through the cemetery, talking and laughing. The cemetery is rather beautiful in the bright sunlight. A light breeze is blowing, and Martha can hear birds chirping, making the whole place into a tableau of perfection.
Suddenly, Martha gets the feeling that someone is watching her, and she spins around.
There is a man. He is tall and young, dressed in a somber black suit and has a black bowtie. His hair is dark brown, flopping over one half of his face, and he has green-grey eyes.
He is holding a bouquet of small, purple flowers and he is standing over a gravestone.
"Mickey! Shush a moment, will you?" Martha hisses.
Mickey notices right a way, of course. He can be oblivious sometimes, but working as freelance alien fighters, they both have to have sharp senses. "Sorry, mate!"
"It's fine, but thanks," he has a British accent, too. So he isn't from around here. "You're far from home."
"You should talk. Are you just visiting, or do you live here?" Martha replies.
"Just visiting. I travel a lot."
"I used to know someone like that. A traveler," she smiles, a bit wistfully.
"Yeah," the man murmurs to himself.
She walks over to where he stood, and reads,
"In loving memory
Rory Arthur Williams
Aged 82
And his loving wife
Amelia Williams
Aged 87."
"Were they family?" Mickey asks, quiet and respectful. He knows about losing people. hey both do.
"No, just friends. But they're never just friends, you know? They are so much more." And the last sentence reminds Martha so strongly of the Doctor that she smiles.
"Yeah," Mickey agrees. The breeze stirs the trees, making a faint rustling noise. The man's hair blows out of his eyes, and for a second they look so, so old.
He lays his flowers on the grave. "Rosemary, for remembrance. Good-bye, Ponds."
Martha doesn't understand what he means, but she can practically feel the sorrow dripping off the man in front of her.
"It does get better, you know," she says. "Just give it a bit of time."
"You seem happy," he says, looking at her - no, right through her, like looking into your soul in books - before turning back to the grave. "But you've known losses too. How do you go on?"
When he looked at her, just now, and said that she'd had her own share of losses, it wasn't quite a question, more of a statement, like he knows her. It's unusual, but stuff like that has happened before. Random people coming up to her in the street saying, "Thank you" or giving her a hug. Not quite knowing why they are doing it, spurned on by what they can't quite remember. Parts of the human race still remembers the Year That Never Was, with all it's horrors and joys - for there were some joys - but it is locked far away in their heads. She is quite sure he is one of those few, rare people.
"By finding someone," Martha Jones says, thinking of the Doctor, of her family, of Tom, of Jack, of Mickey.
"Yeah. I suppose I do need someone, don't I?" And it's like the man is repeating something someone has said to him before. "Say, will you look them up for me? Amelia Jessica Pond and Rory Arthur Williams. As a favor. I've got to be off."
He's becoming cheerful, and a little manic, a little crazy. A good crazy, though. A familiar crazy.
"Time for adventures, and for finding someone new!" The man grins.
"You sure you're alright, mate?" Mickey asks, bemusedly.
"I'm always alright. Oh, and if you were wondering, I'm the eleventh. Ricky, I mean Mickey - of course I mean Mickey - good seeing you again. Martha Jones…it was my honor. As always." The man lifts her up in a hug, swings her around, and sets her down. "Lots to do, places to see, the universe to save!"
The Doctor runs out of the cemetery, and a minute later, Martha and Mickey hear the sound of the TARDIS dematerializing.
"Number eleven he said?" Mickey asks.
"Yeah. That time we saw him, with the Sontaran, I think he was dying then," she looks at him. "Amelia Pond and Rory Williams. They were his most recent companions, I bet."
"What happened to them, do you think?" Mickey puts his arm around her. She likes it there.
"I don't know, but here.."
Martha Jones picks a flower, a pansy from the side of the path, and lays it on their grave. "C'mon Mickey. Let's go home."
Fin