Author's note: This is a teaser for a fanfic I've been planning for over a year, known to myself and my dear friend Zoe Alice Latimer as A Story Worth Living. I'm posting this to see if it and my OC Sara spark any interest at all. Please, please, please comment. I won't know if anybody's reading, otherwise.
Martha Jones's day started out normally. Family going bonkers, the odd loony on the walk to work, nothing truly extraordinary. Not until she got to Royal Hope Hospital, that is.
Mr Stoker, an authoritative looking man spoke.
"Now then, Mr Smith, a very good morning to you. How are you today?"
"Oh, not so bad. Still a bit, you know...blah."
"John Smith, admitted yesterday with severe abdominal pains," He addressed the group before turning to Martha. "Jones, why don't you see what you can find? Amaze me."
No pressure, she thought.
"It wasn't very clever running around outside, was it?" She said aloud, walking around Mr Smith's bed.
He looked at her curiously. "Sorry?"
"On Chancellor Street, this morning. You came up to me and took your tie off."
"Really? What did I do that for?" He had a strange look on his face, almost as if he believed her.
"I don't know, you just did."
"Not me, I was here in bed. Ask the nurses."
"well, that's weird 'cause it looked like you. Have you got a brother?"
"No, not anymore. Just me."
Mr Stoker interrupted. "As time passes and I grow ever more infirm and weary, Miss Jones..."
"Sorry. Right."
She picked up the stethoscope and listened to his heartbeat. She thought she heard an echoing heart beat. She looked up at him, startled for a second, he smiled slightly. She moved the stethoscope to the right side of his chest and listened. There it was, loud as you like: Another heartbeat. She could feel her body tense and stiffen. He just winked.
"I weep for future generations. Are you having trouble locating the heart, Miss Jones?" said Mr Stoker. Martha was at quite a loss for words.
"Um...I don't know. Stomach cramps?"
"That is a symptom, not a diagnosis."
He walked around to the foot of the bed. "And you rather failed basic technique by not consulting first with the patient's chart."
He picked up said chart, but when he tried to open the clip, it shocked him. He dropped it abruptly.
"That happened to me this morning." Martha said.
"I had the same thing on the door handle." said some-one on her left.
"And me, in the lift." said another.
Mr. Smith was watching all of this, very interested.
"Well, it's only to be expected," said Stoker. "There's a thunderstorm moving in and lightning is a form of static electricity, as was first proven by...Anyone?"
"Benjamin Franklin." Smith answered.
"Correct." Stoker seemed surprised.
"My mate, Ben. That was a day and a half. I got rope burns off that kite. And then I got soaked."
"Quite."
"And then, I got electrocuted!"
There was an awkward silence, as nobody knew whether to think he was eccentric or insane.
"Moving on." Stoker said, breaking the silence.
As they walked away, he muttered to an orderly, "Perhaps a visit from psychiatric." He raised his voice to normal level. "And next, we have Mr..." His voice trailed off as he walked away. Martha turned her head to look back at Mr. Smith. He just sat there, smiling a goofy smile at her.
Neither one of them noticed the teenage girl watching them, grinning like a cheshire cat.
24 hours later
Give or take two hundred years.
"But how does it travel in time? I mean, what makes it go?" Martha shouted over the roar of the TARDIS.
"Oh, let's take the fun and the mystery out of everything. Martha, you don't want to know. It just does. Hold on tight!"
The TARDIS landed with a bump that sent the Doctor and Martha reeling backwards. Immediately, there was a crash and a soft shriek from behind a column. Martha froze and looked at the Doctor.
"Did you hear that?"
He laid a finger on his lips, pulled out his Sonic Screwdriver, and began walking towards the source of the sound. Martha followed close behind.
Holding the Sonic like a gun, the Doctor whirled around the column and was quite startled by what he saw: An oddly familiar-looking fifteen-year-old girl wearing a gray zippered hoody over a pink t-shirt, boot-cut jeans, and black trainers.
"Hello." she said cheerfully, in a light cockney accent similar to Rose's. She looked at the Screwdriver and sighed. "I'm in trouble, aren't I?"
***
"Don't you have to take a test to fly this thing?"
"Quiet."
The Doctor was pacing back and forth in front of the girl, wearing a look that would've sent Hitler crawling back to Germany with his tail between his legs, but then he stopped and thought for a second.
"Well, yes, and I failed it, but that's not the point! How did you even get in here? The assembled hoards of Ghengis Khan couldn't get through those doors!"
The girl smirked sheepishly.
"The assembled hoards of Ghengis Khan never had me, did they?"
The Doctor was clearly not amused. The girl's smile faded.
He turned around and faced Martha long enough to wink at her, slightly intrigued by this cheeky girl.
"Who are you?"
"My name's Sara... Rose. Sara Rose."
The Doctor stopped pacing and got a haunted look in his eyes that quickly disappeared.
"Hold on...hold on, it's you!"
"It is?"
"You were in the hospital. I saw you peeking around corners and hiding behind tall people."
"Oh yeah, I was there. Fancy that, you being there and owning this...coral...thingamy."
"I suppose it is sort of coral, isn't it?"
"It's a really lovely coral, though."
"Yeah, it suits her."
"Her?"
"Oi!" yelled Martha, startling Sara, who jumped and smacked a hand over the right side of her chest. The Doctor raised one eybrow a fraction of a centimeter, but was distracted as Martha continued.
"Can we focus? Doctor, what are we going to do about her?"
"Right! Well, I suppose...since we've landed..." He trailed off, looking at her.
Two sets of brown eyes stared at eachother, one pleading with the other. Finally the Doctor spoke.
"If I agree not to take you back right away...do you promise not to go wandering off?"
Sara nodded solemnly.
"You do not leave my sight unless I say so, understood?"
"Yes sir!"
The Doctor sighed.
"Fine then, you can come, but only because we've landed and I don't want to waste fuel on taking you back home!"
Sara smiled and saluted with one finger. The Doctor withheld a smile and grabbed his coat.
So, what do you lot think? Are you intrigued? Think you've figured me out already? ;) Maybe you have figured me out already.
Please comment and tell me if this is worth continuing. If I get enough feedback, I'll try to have the whole of the Shakespeare Code up before Halloween.