My very first attempt at Doctor Who fanfiction; but the arrival of series four has sent me into DrWho overdrive and fanfiction is always the best outlet for obsession!
Please review and let me know what you think!
To See the Past
Martha stepped out of the TARDIS and looked around expectantly; the Doctor had promised her an afternoon of rest and relaxation, namely shopping, and she was determined to make the most of it. She turned her head to look down the street and her face creased into a frown. She stepped out and stared at the Doctor, accusation in her eyes.
"You've got the whole of time and space at your disposal and you bring me to London?"
"What's wrong with London?" he asked, shrugging on his coat.
"I live in London!"
"You'll know your way around then."
"This is just a stop off point, right?" she asked hopefully. "We're gonna grab some food and then you're going to take me to a shopping mall on mars, or something, right?"
"Mars doesn't have any shopping malls," he told her matter-of-factly.
"You know what I mean." He gave a sigh and looked at her.
"I just thought you'd enjoy a bit of familiarity, and besides, if we're in London you know exactly what you're doing."
"I suppose," she said with a frown, "but next time can we go somewhere a bit more exotic than London in 2008?"
"Actually," he said, scratching the back of his ear, "it's more like London in 2003."
"Nothing I buy is going to be in fashion," she told him in frustration.
"Hey, there's nothing wrong with the retro look, and look on the bright side; everything will be cheaper." Martha stared at him for several seconds while he watched her innocently. She gave an emphatic sigh and rolled her eyes.
"Fine, come on then; I might as well make the most of not running for my life."
"That's more like it," he grinned, offering her his arm. She looped her own around it with a smile; she'd seen plenty of amazing things recently, perhaps the Doctor was right; being back on familiar territory for a bit would do her good.
"So 2003; are any past versions of yourself lurking around?"
"Nope, but for all I know there could be a future version of me wandering through the streets of London, but if he's clever, and, let's face it, we know he is, then he'll stay out of our way."
"You think you're so clever," she teased.
"I am so clever," he argued back. Martha suppressed a laugh; she wasn't going to give him the benefit of seeing her laugh at his jokes. She pulled him along the streets, heading for the city centre, trying to work out where she had been in 2003; she was sure that seeing herself wouldn't help with time lines and whatever else the Doctor tended to rant about at different times.
They turned a corner and Martha spotted Henricks up ahead.
"I used to love that place," she said excitedly, pointing at it across the street. "It wasn't the same after they refurbished it; there was an explosion in there in 2004, you know." The Doctor, however, made no reply.
"Doctor?" she asked. She turned to him and was confused to see that his expression had suddenly become emotionless as he stared at the building. "You alright?" she asked.
"What me?" he said, turning to her, his melancholy lifting. "Course, why wouldn't I be?"
"Did you have anything to do with that explosion?" she asked suspiciously.
"Well…strictly speaking…I suppose you'd be correct in saying that I was involved," he stammered.
"Involved as in turned up afterwards, or involved as in were there before hand?"
"I blew it up."
"I liked that shop!"
"Would you have preferred shop dummies taking over the world?" he asked her.
"I remember that; mum wouldn't let us leave the house for days. Was that you too?"
"I stopped them; I didn't put them there in the first place."
"Trouble follows you everywhere doesn't it," she grinned.
"Oh yes," he replied with a bright smile. "So, are we going shopping?"
They headed over to the store and Martha stepped inside, making her way quickly to the clothes' department, while the Doctor lingered behind; his eyes scanning the shop. She rolled her eyes; he was obviously expecting some sort of trouble, all the more reason for her to shop while she could. She made her way past the clothes racks, running her hands across the materials, glancing through the price tags; she had some money with her, but she'd still have to be a bit selective. Still, she was determined to get some clothes that were more practical; life with the Doctor tended to rule out any clothes that weren't easy to run in.
She glanced back at him and frowned as she saw his face; he was staring solemnly at the pay desk, clearly lost in thought. His mouth was turned down and his eyes were heavy. She sighed; she'd seem him like this so many times and she had slowly learnt that nothing she could do or say would help him; he was lost in the past, a past that she wasn't part of and that she couldn't compete with. She made no attempt to hide her disappointment that their relaxing trip had already turned into a reminiscing session for him, after all he wasn't going to look at her any time soon; he was somewhere else, somewhere with Rose, probably wishing that she was here.
Martha bit down on the stab of jealousy that settled in her stomach; she had learnt a long time ago that he would never see her as he had seen Rose, but knowing that didn't stop her own feelings towards him, no matter how hard she tried to get rid of them.
She turned back to her clothes; she would leave him to his memories for now, after all, with all their running around he probably didn't get the luxury of just contemplating very often. She quickly flicked through the stands, selecting a few items and trying them on in the fitting rooms. When she came out, having decided on a pair of jeans and a couple of tee-shirts, the Doctor was on the other side of the shop, but his gaze was still directed towards the cash desk. Martha frowned and headed towards it with her items, fishing through her pockets for a couple of notes, checking that they did indeed date back to 2003; she wasn't keen on answering the questions that would be directed her way if not.
She stepped forward and laid her clothes on the desk in front of a pretty, blonde shop assistant.
"Hello," she said with a small smile. Martha nodded her reply and muttered a small hello. "Just these?" she asked politely.
"Yes thanks," Martha nodded. She straightened the notes out in her hand while the girl ran the items through the till.
"Rose?" Martha looked up in surprise; since travelling with the Doctor that name always caught her attention, whether she wanted it to or not. The girl serving her paused and turned round to a man, evidently the manager of the store, who was calling to her from the other side of the desk. "I need you to run some supplies through price checks in a minute." The girl nodded that she would and turned back to Martha,
"Sorry about that," she smiled.
"No, that's no problem," Martha managed to reply as shock coursed through her. She glanced at the girl's name tag. Rose. Realisation washed over her like a cold flood, and she looked back to where the Doctor stood, his eyes fixed, not on the cash desk, but on this girl, Rose, the person that she had been fighting for his attention for the last six months. He didn't even notice her looking at him in shock, he just stood there, that mournful expression, that Martha had come to dread, still on his face.
She turned back to Rose, feeling like an inferior being, but there was nothing special about this shop girl. She was pretty, she was polite, she seemed nice enough, but she was just a girl, just another human on Earth, completely unaware of what the future had in store for her and completely unaware that the man standing on the other side of the shop at that moment in time, was undeniably in love with her. Martha watched as she handed her money to Rose and the girl folded the new clothes into a plastic bag. She looked up with a smile, completely unaware of the effect she was having on her customer, and handed the bag over.
"Thanks very much," she smiled. "Have a nice day." Martha nodded, tripping over her words as she took the bag.
"You too," she smiled sadly. Rose gave her a parting nod before turning to her next customer. Martha walked away feeling slightly numb, but her anger at the Doctor was beginning to fight through that feeling. He had brought her here so that he could see Rose, there was no question about it; it had had nothing to do with giving her a familiar place to wander round in for a bit; he hadn't been thinking of her, it had been Rose, it was always Rose.
She felt embarrassed and used, but despite wanting to leave the shop and head back to the TARDIS to avoid the Doctor, she found herself heading straight for him, her face hard. When she was nearly in front of him the Doctor saw her and his eyes turned away from Rose, to stare guiltily at her.
"Is this why you brought me here?" she asked in a disbelieving and hurt whisper. "So that you could see her again?"
"I didn't know you'd choose to go into Henricks," he pointed out, his face equally hard as he turned away from her and headed towards the doors. She followed him, feeling her frustration mount up with every step.
"You didn't try to stop me," she argued as they neared the doors. The Doctor turned to her as he got to the doors.
"Did you get everything you needed?" he asked, as if they were having a leisurely conversation.
"Are you even listening to me?" she asked, her anger slipping away to be replaced with a sadness that often sank into her heart when she realised just how one-sided her affections for the Doctor really were.
"You wanted to go shopping and I took you," the Doctor snapped back at her, a frown on his face.
"Why here? You could've taken me anywhere. Why here?" she asked, hating the desperation in her tone. The Doctor didn't respond, but she saw his eyes slip past her once again. Martha turned and saw Rose heading across the shop floor, carrying a pile of clothes. She looked bored, tired and fed up and yet when Martha looked back at the Doctor it was to see a look of complete devotion on his face, loss mixing with it to make his eyes dark. She let out an inward sigh and shifted uncomfortably on her feet; if she had been in the same position, if she had lost someone she loved, wouldn't she do anything to see them one more time?
"How old is she?" Martha asked quietly, swallowing down her own sadness; the Doctor was sad enough for the both of them.
"She's eighteen," he replied, his eyes still following Rose around the shop. "Living with her mum, about as terrifying as yours," he added. Martha gave a brief smile. "She hasn't got a clue what's out there," he continued, and Martha realised that he wasn't talking to her anymore; he was talking to himself, or to Rose, or to no-one. "She doesn't know what she's going to see, or do, or be."
"How long 'til you meet her?" Martha prompted. She didn't want to know, she didn't want to talk about this now, but it was rare that she got a chance to find out about the Doctor and even rarer that she discovered anything about Rose; she was going to make the most of it, even if it did hurt.
"Ten months, a year maybe," he mused. "I'm going to tell her to run, introduce myself and then blow up her job."
"And she still went with you?" Martha asked, the slightest hint of humour in her tone, but the Doctor's tone remained neutral as he nodded.
"Yes she did."
"Do you miss her?" Martha asked, after a small pause. The Doctor didn't reply and Martha looked back at Rose once again; wanting to remember what this girl, whose ghost haunted the TARDIS, looked like. The Doctor drew in a deep breath, and Martha knew she wouldn't get an answer to her question.
"We should go," he said firmly, but he made no move to turn. Martha stared up at him, waiting for him to come back to her, to leave 2003 in the past. "We should go," he repeated to himself.
"Then go," Martha muttered, her annoyance creeping through her sympathy. She slipped past him when he made no move to leave the shop, clutching her bag to her side and walking out into the street. "Doctor?" she asked, turning around. He stood still; his face composed, his hands in his pockets, and yet she could almost see him framing the scene in his mind; capturing it, or at least trying to recapture Rose. When he finally did turn round his face was as unreadable as ever. "You okay?" she asked.
"Fine," he replied briefly. "So, you got enough clothes or do you want to head somewhere else?" Martha looked at him incredulously; was that it, was that his moment of mourning gone and dealt with? The Doctor looked at her expectantly, waiting for an answer. She shook her head, sighing in annoyance. "I've got everything I need," she told him sharply.
"Good; then I know a great place where, right now, there are ice storms covering the whole of the southern hemisphere of a planet with seven suns; there are rainbows thousands of miles across; colours everywhere. Beautiful," he finished with a grin. She nodded, and gave a sad smile.
"Sounds great." She glanced back up at him and felt relief fill her as the tinniest amount of concern for her and guilt at how he'd made her feel, crept onto his face, and yet still she felt the urge to reassure him. "It does, really," she told him, forcing enthusiasm into her voice, "it sounds great."
The Doctor nodded, studying her for a few seconds before the grin returned to his face once more, just as she knew he would.
"To the ice storm we go then," he told her jovially. She nodded and watched him as he headed off towards the TARDIS, and as much as she was grateful that she had the chance to travel with him, as much as she trusted him to keep her safe, she still couldn't stop the thought that surfaced as she glanced back at Rose one last time; if he had the choice, it would be Rose that he was showing the ice storm, it would be Rose that he wanted to show the universe to, to hold hands with, to be with.
She should stop; she knew she should stop, but she couldn't, how could she? Because, like Rose, she knew that travelling with the Doctor was everything, that he was everything. And so she followed him; heading for the TARDIS and the ice storm and the ghost of a London shop girl who, a year from now, would start to live the life with the Doctor that Martha had always wished for.