Refuelling.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/n: This was originally meant to be a one-shot, but ended up being around 13 pages on Word, so I've separated it into parts. Please review.
"Refuelling," The Doctor told his two companions enthusiastically as he bounded around the TARDIS console. Having skipped around it several times, he jumped to a halt at the screen and tuned it to enable him and his companions a glimpse of their exterior surroundings without the need to approach the door.
Martha looked thoughtful for a moment, before grinning at Donna and speaking up. "I wonder what drama it will entail this time…"
Successful tuning of the monitor completed, the Doctor looked to Martha and feigned offence. He pouted at her, before stamping a foot down onto the grating in typical child fashion. "You'd never notice he was 900, not only by his looks!" Martha commented, giggling madly as she did so. "Miss Jones, what were you suggesting?" The Doctor finally enquired.
"Oh, come on. You've never been able to refuel without incident. I mean, we end up at the end of the universe, only to have the TARDIS stolen, and a couple of years beforehand, you initiated an earthquake!"
Donna's expression deteriorated from slight amusement to an extreme case of shock; something not dissimilar to disgust etched across her face. "He did what?!" Donna's unmistakeable tones boomed out.
Martha took several paces towards her fellow companion before abruptly, swiftly and suddenly halting her steps. "I know," she chuckled with her, clasping Donna's palm in her own and leading her to the monitor; still attended to by the Doctor.
Donna, never one to remain in a place which offered her not the slightest degree of excitement; began pulling her friend away from the console as a blue coat came into her view. "Who's that?" she commanded to be told by either of those accompanying her.
"Here comes trouble," Martha thought aloud, and pursed her lips; almost in disbelief.
Donna tapped her on the shoulder twice, and Martha responded by turning her head and glancing at her. "Who is it?" she asked again, rather patiently by her own established standards.
"That's an old friend of the Doctor's; conveniently the same friend that the Doctor and I met here."
Donna shot an appalled glare at the Doctor. "We're going to have the TARDIS stolen off of us now are we, spaceman?"
"Spaceman? Good one, Donna!" Martha said with an annoyingly harsh chuckle, as she made her way to the door. She swung it open enthusiastically, sprinting up to the approaching Captain as he jogged to the TARDIS, neatly positioned by the Doctor between two lampposts. Reaching her destination and friend, she held her arms out to him and he enveloped her in a hug, which was almost suffocating. She'd been aware that the Captain more or less fancied everything with a pulse, but she was the Doctor's friend, and so was he. Surely that was a bit too close to home? It would complicate things no end; he was immortal and most probably not a human, and she was a mortal human. To put it bluntly, he was the wrong man. Martha Jones had no problem with being the object of alien's affections, but his were undesirable. As Jack moved away from her and offered her his hand, the pair started towards the TARDIS. Martha did not reciprocate his offer of a hand; to put it plainly, she had her eyes fixated on an alien already, and there was no room for another. Her sites were firmly set on the last remaining time lord; the Doctor.
"What are you doing here?!" Martha asked the Torchwood head rather excitedly as he strolled confidently through the door of the ship, which she courteously held open for him.
Jack grinned at the medical student before him, and glanced across the TARDIS's extending width at the Doctor. "Thank you, Martha Jones," he voiced in his usual flirtatious tones, which were promptly met with a stern utterance of "Jack, drop it!" the origin of which was their designated driver.
Martha smiled sarcastically while glancing at the wall of one of the many corners of the time ship. One out of two wasn't bad, she concluded, as Captain Jack Harkness ceased flirting with her, somewhat unfortunate to attract the attention of his roving eyes; as some would regard the issue.
The Doctor busied himself through the commotion fixing a small section of the TARDIS. The sonic screwdriver illuminated several times before the time lord declared that the batch of repairs had now been completed. He spun round to face the new arrival. "So Jack, what's with you being back?" he questioned, noting that Martha's question remained unanswered as a direct result of his attempt to prevent flirting on Jack's part.
Sensing that the somewhat intense atmosphere that had fallen over the ship as their visitor entered it had now been alleviated by the Doctor's command, Martha allowed herself to jokingly join the impending exchange. "Yeah; leaving us like that; did we smell or something?"
The Doctor exploded into laughter. For a time lord that had lived for a little over nine centuries, he really was extremely childish. Upon first glance, one could not stand the most minute of chances at successfully deducing that he could defend the Earth single-handedly against terrible, abominable and truly harrowing monsters, only to be easily humoured by a commonly assumed explanation for being deserted at a moment's notice.
Jack looked peeved for a second, as he considered whether or not the pair had contracted amnesia on some alien planet. He dismissed this thought as simply being too surreal even by the standards of the slightly domesticated time lord, and spoke up again. "I told you; I had Torchwood depending on me," he informed his companions coolly.
"Don't know why you bothered to rebuild it after everything that happened there anyway," the Doctor told his old friend sorrowfully. Neither Martha nor Jack felt the need to question the Doctor's words, which had certainly drained him emotionally. He looked to be lost, deeply saddened and contemplating his thoughts aimlessly; considering Rose; for no particular reason. Silence fell around the TARDIS, which dragged the Doctor from welcome thoughts; thoughts that he was less than willing to admit. He had to live on, to continue in his typical bounding, indestructible and legendary fashion. "What's changed, then?"
"Oh, my job was stolen; I got the boot." The Captain replied in his standard tones, loud by comparison with the Doctor and many of his companions.
The Doctor sniggered slightly, allowing himself to wonder which combination of choice words the Captain would have reserved for any that stood in his way; never mind took over his role within the Torchwood organisation. "By who?" he enquired, his tone rising, detached from the thoughts which almost constantly tugged at his heart strings. He remained rather amused at his recent discovery that his immortal friend had returned jobless.
"Rose Tyler," the Captain stated simply.