ONE

She pushed at the door, waiting for its slow swing to find its momentum. It gained speed and swung open, and she leapt forward and grabbed the thick edge, dragging on it, leaning back on her heels to stop it slamming into the wall behind.

She managed to stop it and let go of the door, wiping her hands together automatically. She looked round the room slowly, then stopped and blinked, surprised.

"Now I've seen everything," she said to herself, then grinned, letting her hands land on her hips as she stared. It wasn't rudeness, it was the first chance she'd had to get a really, really good look.

The Doctor was asleep. Or at least, he appeared to be. But just like most things he did when awake, the Doctor was doing it with enthusiasm.

He had taken off his brown jacket and hung it over the backrest of the old wooden chair. His right ankle was perched on the corner of the writing desk, his left crossed over it carelessly. She couldn't help but notice that his shoes were missing, and his red socks were twisted. The black seams ran vertically back over his feet, not across his toes. It made her smile for some strange reason.

His tie had been yanked open and the top two buttons of his shirt undone. She noticed it was the dark blue tie with the small navy blue squares on it. It always reminded her of Marks & Spencer's, or perhaps a sale at The Tie Rack in the run-up to Christmas.

He had moulded his long, lanky frame into the chair with the agility of a primate, his hands loosely holding a hardback book in his lap. His head had fallen back as if he were studying the ceiling, the base of his skull propped up slightly by the wooden backrest. His mouth was wide open, and yet he didn't appear to be making a noise.

What was making a noise was a small radio-like device on the desk by his feet. It was square, bright orange, and the song issuing from it was starting to sound familiar.

'Now if you can stand… I would like to take you by the hand, yeah…'

She looked around the large room, all dusty white with the same large, circular accoutrements on the walls. She wondered, not for the first time, what they actually did for the ship.

Apart from his large, antique writing desk and the matching chair, the room appeared to be filled with junk; large wooden tea-chests with 'Singapore' printed on them, piles of rolled up papers, a stand-up trunk with 'do not touch' written on it and even an antique-looking hat-stand.

'And go for a walk, past the people as they go to work…' the radio sang.

She walked past the sleeping Doctor and up to it, looking at the straw boater sat on it. She shook her head, confused, then turned. As she did she caught sight of something she never thought she'd see. And she stopped dead.

A bed. Like everything else, it was large. And square. Two firm-looking pillows held their own on a sea of deep blue silk-like material. One side had been very much used but left as-is, as if lifting the sheets to straighten them would have been too much trouble. The bed's right side was littered with small shiny pieces of electronica, a pair of rim-less glasses tossed casually somewhere in the collection of parts.

She blinked, her mind already taking in the rumpled, used look of it all, and the tiny blue square clock attached to the wall over the headboard. She put her hands to her mouth in guilt, stepping back a few as if she could erase her intrusion.

She turned and looked back at the Time Lord quickly, wondering if he'd seen her. However, he was very obviously still enjoying his wooden chair. The sound of the radio interrupted her thoughts admirably.

'Let's get out of this place before they tell us that we've just died…'

"Well I can't pretend I haven't just been nosing round his bedroom, can I?" she asked herself firmly. She shook her head and walked back over to him resolutely. She looked at him for a long minute. "Doctor?" she asked nervously. "Are you really asleep? Or just ignoring me?" she dared.

She leaned over him slowly, studying his face up close for the first time. She'd noticed his large brown doe-eyes the very moment they'd first met, and the eyebrows that spoke volumes. But now she noticed the 'pale-boy' freckles, the paleness to his skin when he wasn't getting over-excited or out of breath running for his life. The slight, very slight reddish base tones to his brown hair.

I wonder how old he actually is, she caught herself thinking. Thirty? Maybe even… forty? She let herself smile, then straightened and put her hand out to his book. She lifted it from his hands and looked at the cover.

"'Ethel the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying'?" she asked herself. She looked at the page number and snapped it shut, shaking her head and reaching over him to put it on the desk. She half-expected him to make her jump by saying something. He didn't.

'Move, move, quick you've got to move…' The radio-like device played on, and she straightened, letting one hand steal onto her hip.

"I don't believe you," she said, then put her other hand out and pushed at his shoulder firmly.

The effect was instantaneous. His ankles slid off the desk as if he'd been kicked. His hands grabbed for the book that was no longer in his grasp. His head bobbed up and he looked around, startled and most definitely completely awake.

He realised Martha was standing next to him and simply raised his eyebrows.

"What did you break?" he asked knowingly. She frowned.

'Come on it's through, come on it's time,' the radio continued, and she leaned past him to the desk, reaching for the radio.

"No, hold on, leave it," he said indignantly, "I'm listening to that."

"Doctor, you were asleep," she pointed out, but she did leave the radio to itself.

"I listen better when I'm at rest," he pointed out peevishly. She frowned at him.

'Oh look at you, you, you're looking so confused, just what did you lose?'

"Are you always ratty when you've just woken up?" she asked bluntly. He turned and blinked at her.

"What?"

"I said, are you –"

"Sssh," he said irritably, leaning over and turning up the radio, "this is my favourite bit."

She put her hands on her hips and just waited, resisting the urge to roll her eyes.

"I know this song. It's 'Bar Italia'," she said.

"Sssh!" he hissed urgently. She clamped her mouth shut.

'Now if you can make an order, can you get me one –'

"Here it comes," he said delightedly, looking at her and gesturing to the radio with his head, a daffy grin stealing over his face. She smiled despite herself.

'Two sugars would be great. Cos I'm fading fast, and it's nearly dawn –'

"There, see!" he cried, vindicated. He pushed his chair back from the desk abruptly, pointing at the machine excitedly before slapping his writing desk. She just raised her hands and eyebrows at him. "Two sugars? Fading fast?" he prompted. She just shook her head. "Jarvis put that in after we had a conversation about the restorative powers of a good cup of tea, especially when you find you're – well, that you're suddenly not yourself," he said, turning thoughtful.

"You?" she asked, reaching over and turning down the radio abruptly. "You had a conversation with Jarvis Cocker? Of Pulp?"

"Is there another one?" he asked innocently. "Nice man. Very clever. Likes his tea. Suspiciously understanding of that moment when you go in a store and find that all the trousers are just about an inch too short. You know what it's like, you go in looking for some 34 inside leg and all they've got is –"

"Doctor?" she asked quietly. He stopped and looked at her.

"Hmm?" he asked, realising the discomfort on her face. "What?" he asked, his smile fading.

"Look, I didn't mean to just barge in here, and I certainly wasn't looking for your bedroom or anything, but that countdown on the main console thing says we had an ETA of ten minutes… before I got lost trying to find you in this huge place," she added lamely.

"Why did you do that?" he asked, mystified. "The TARDIS would have woken me when she needed me," he added confidently. She reserved judgement. He got up quickly and then looked at his feet, wiggling his toes in the socks. He paused. "Oh. Where did I leave my…" He walked off and out of the door. She followed quickly, finding he was already reaching a bend in the zigzagging corridor. She hurried so as not to be left behind in the maze. "Ah-ha!" she heard him shout in victory, and rounded the corner to find him bent over directly in front of her, picking up his carelessly discarded trainers. She managed to stop herself before she bumped into him.

He turned and looked at her.

"Martha Jones, you're a girl," he said firmly, and she just blinked at him.

"I thought you were supposed to be smart," she teased. "I've been here a week and it's taken you this long to work that out?"

He actually smiled, she noticed. "As a girl, you have that infinitely acute sense of colour that Time Lords have always lacked," he went on cheerfully. She waited. "So do these red ones go with the brown suit?"

She laughed out loud, then caught his expression: confused.

Good, she thought vindictively. "No," she said. "White. Or black," she added as an afterthought.

"I can't wear the black ones!" he cried, aghast.

"Why not?" she asked, surprised at his energetic reaction.

"Martha Jones, I thought you were supposed to be smart!" he countered, as if it were obvious. He walked off in his socks, down to the circular console, a red shoe in each hand. "Those are my best ones – they go with the monkey-suit," he added, still sounding indignant. She just looked at him.

"Doctor," she said firmly, as she walked up to his side by the console, watching him stuff a red shoe under his arm to play with some controls. "You wear brogues with a tux. You wear… Brooks Brothers, Armani, Prada," she admonished. "You do not wear a battered old pair of Converse Chuck Taylor's!"

"But they fit," he said, looking at her in exasperation.

"So do dress shoes," she said patiently.

"No, they fit," he stressed. "Black Chucks for a black tux. See?"

"Doctor, you are a nutter, mate," she breathed, shaking her head.

"Me? A nutter?" he scoffed. "You're the one who thinks Jarvis Cocker comes from Sheffield," he added, rolling his eyes in amazement.

"Jarvis Cocker does come from Sheffield," she shot back.

"The city? Or the planet named after it by the colonists?" he asked, pre-occupied, watching some tiny read-out as he adjusted the ball set into the console.

"You're joking," she stated flatly.

"Nope," he said, popping the 'p' loudly. "If I were joking, I'd say… 'why did Jarvis Cocker cross the road?'" he said, apparently to himself.

"I don't know, why did Jarvis Cocker cross the road?" she sighed.

"Cos it wasn't just any road, it was a pan-dimensional transport tunnel with the added benefit of a different hyper-glaxial exit springing from the many –"

"Stop it!" she chuckled, forcing her hand through his arm and taking the red shoe. He grinned and let her turn him slightly by his elbow, taking the other one. "Right. How long have we got till we land?" she asked, banging the shoes together in her hands.

"Er… four minutes," he said, looking up from the console.

"Then you'd better get a shift on if you're going to find your white ones," she said.

He turned and raced up the rampway excitedly, grabbing at the doorjamb to aid his flight through it.

"And your jacket!" she called after him, grinning.

"Just wait!" he called from somewhere in the corridor.

"Just shift!" she countered, looking down and realising she had slipped her hands into the shoes to bang them together sole-first. She shook herself and jerked the shoes off her hands quickly, tutting at herself.