Lord of the Rings.
Cute, fluffy little one-shot I thought up during Modern Studies. Short, and typically AU.
Wherever he goes, the Doctor wears a ring on his wedding finger. No-one knows why, no-one dares to ask. Find the true meaning of the ring through the eyes of Martha, Jack, the Master and the Doctor himself.
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Martha Jones.
It was a clinking sound that first attracted me to it. When he was walking up the railing, calm despite almost being shot by an arrow after meeting both Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I. He held on to the metal, the band around his finger clinking once again. It was about the only normal thing in this so-called ship, that ring. The clinking is almost comforting, the exact same sounds as my mother's ring sounds when she's drinking a cup of tea, the ring hitting against the chipped china as she raises it to her lips. I open my mouth, to ask him why he's wearing it, when he bounces into action as though he knows what I'm about the say, and doesn't want to answer.
"Where to, then? I could take you to … oh, the first anti-gravity Olympics? Atlantis? Or, New Earth! That's a place and a half! Can nuns, you see," he said, going on and on although I had stopped listening.
I smiled. "New Earth it is, then!" and that was his cue to bounce off around the console, pushing a button here and there …
But It wasn't until we were back on Earth, fixing ourselves up for Lazarus' big do that I realized he was still wearing the ring. It flashed in the moonlight, and when the light hit it right it was beautiful. I summoned up the courage, and asked him straight.
"Why are you wearing a wedding ring?"
He frowned, and then raised one eyebrow at me. "Why? Jealous?" he said, skipping away from me with that boyish grin plastered on his face. I smiled back, knowing he was right, but I never let him see it. I guess I was never to know what that ring represented, even though he wore it until my final days in the TARDIS.
Jack Harkness.
It was something that the "old" – though I never really think of him as old – Doctor would have never done. But, oh no, this one did. It hit me in the shoulder blade as he gave me a hug at the end of the universe. It glinted in the candlelight as she waved at Martha, stunned as she produced a "hand-in-a-jar" or, as I prefer to call it, my Doctor Detector from my bag. This thing that I'm talking about was the Doc's ring. It was always on his wedding finger, wherever he went, despite the fact that there was only himself, me and Martha on the TARDIS. Sometimes when he was worried, or seeking an answer I caught him twirling it, around and around on his slim finger but never taking it off. It stayed firmly on the fourth finger of his left hand, through wind, snow and rain. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was taking comfort from it, as though it was a remembrance of something. Something long gone. I could never ask him about it, though. Hushed conversations, with Martha in the kitchen - mainly when the Doctor was fixing something in the TARDIS - told me that she'd noticed it too, only she'd had the courage ton ask him about it, only for her question to be rebuffed. It seemed like an almost taboo subject, but Jack Harkness isn't an out-of-bounds sort of guy. So, I asked him.
"What's with the ring, Doc?" I tried straight to the point, biting the bullet as we piloted the TARDIS. I was secretly hoping he was too busy concentrating on driving, and that the answer would slip out without it meaning to.
"Why, Jack? Jealous?" he said, looking up at me. I rolled my eyes, knowing that he'd given the same answer to Martha. "Buy me a drink, first," I heard as I walked further into the TARDIS, ready to share this new progress (or lack of) with Martha.
The Master
It was like my very own. Platinum, I suspected, a simple band that wound around the slender fourth finger giving off an aura of possession and marriage. When myself and Lucy had been married, we had gone together to pick out rings. I favoured a simple style, and it seemed that this man did too. It seemed odd – there were only three of them, a proper trio of sorts, only one seemed left out. The girl. Martha Jones, I learnt. Was he married to her? There was no way. I could see the way he looked at her, like he was only glossing over her, not seeing the proper picture. He wasn't married to the man, either – that man, Jack, was too much of a Ladies Man, I learnt after visiting him several times on the Valiant. Why did he wear it, then? I was confused, but a year of studying the two men and learning more about the girl shed some light on the whole drama.
There was someone else, someone who both the Doctor and Jack personally knew and Martha had heard of. A legend, of sorts. Another girl. I pierced the Doctor's mind in a way on Time Lords could a saw a blonde girl, human, before being thrown out. I smirked. So, the Doctor had fallen to the charms of a human girl, as well?
Like Doctor, Like Master.
The Doctor
It was her idea. Rose's. Ecstatic after seeing the pair of platinum rings while we were wandering around Edinburgh in 2043.
"Please, pretty, pretty, pretty please!" she had moaned, on and on until we went back so I could stay sane. In truth, I wanted them as well, a sign of my possession to Rose. She loved hers, and never took it off, even when we went to see her mother. Whether Jackie noticed them or not, I don't know. She was certainly keeping her gob shut if she had, which was unusual and not like Jackie, which made me think she hadn't cottoned on to them.
I had a moment of panic when I lost mine, while we were staying at Jackie's for Christmas. For days I had no idea where it went, and felt rather embarrassed; I was what, 900 years old, and I lost a ring? Getting old, Rose had joked. Then, on Christmas Day, Rose returned it to me with a rose engraved on the inside of it, for my Christmas. I was overcome with emotion, a vowed never to take it off again.
After Rose had gone, it was a source of comfort for me. I twisted it around my finger, vying for an answer I knew Rose would have given me straight away. I always seemed to get the answer quicker when I was playing with that ring – but whether it was just me, or whether the rings had a bit of a connection like I'd always suspected, I'll never know.