Disclaimer: This is a fanfiction story and not written for any financial gain of any kind. All rights to Doctor Who and any associated material belong to the BBC and any other affiliated entities. Thanks.


A/N: This is not my first fanfic, but is my first venture into the Doctor Who fandom. Please feel free to review, all comments are welcome, but please no flames - they are completely pointless and absurd. This is a blatant Super!Martha fic, and is a Martha/10th Doctor romance. Please hit the back button if either of these things offends you.


This is now the edited version, beta read by the brilliant Persiflage - thanks for all your hard work!


Becoming Dr Jones

by Rianess


Part One: Lady Silverhair


"You are your choices."

Seneca


Martha

When Martha first imagined what travelling with the Doctor would be like, working in a shop for a pittance, just to pay their way while they were trapped in 1969, was not one of the many scenarios she had contemplated. And who could blame her, really? All of time and space, he'd promised her. Instead she was being ordered around by an obese, middle aged woman who called her a Negro when she thought Martha couldn't hear her.

She treated Martha like dirt, to be frank, and seemed to think that the colour of Martha's skin had some kind of effect on her IQ. The women who came into the shop, which sold shoes and other accessories, took great delight in ordering around the 'coloured' girl, and made snide comments when she turned her back. Sadly, it was the best job she had been able to find on short notice. And out of all the jobs she could get with no qualifications the people here would recognise or believe were real, it was the highest paid. She wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or cry sometimes. Her life really wasn't what she'd had in mind.

The Doctor appeared totally oblivious to her plight, as was the norm for him. Martha of course had no idea what was actually going on in his head, (she wasn't at all sure he knew himself half the time), but from outward appearances, (which was all she had to go on), he had not a care in the world and couldn't conceive of the fact that anyone else, (here read Martha), could have any either.

She reminded herself that she shouldn't analyse him from a human perspective, since he wasn't human, but she also didn't think she was being unreasonable by expecting some consideration from him. She was, after all, the one who was grafting here, day after day, six days a week in fact, to pay their rent and put food on the table, while he sat at home and did who knew what. Poring over that packet they got from Sally Sparrow, most likely, and building some contraption or other.

She'd noticed that the more time they spent here, the less he seemed to talk to her or even notice she was there. Maybe it was his way of coping with being trapped in one particular time. After all, he had to have some serious wanderlust to have spent so many years, hundreds of years in fact, travelling and never settling down.

All the same, she wished he would just do something, say something, to acknowledge all she was doing, no matter how mundane it seemed to him.

"You know, I admire your determination my dear."

The voice startled her from her introspection. She had been in the alley at the back of the shop, putting the rubbish in one of the communal dustbins. She turned sharply to the direction she'd heard the voice from.

Standing not twelve feet from her was a being that looked like something out of a fantasy novel. Travelling with a Time Lord, Martha had seen some pretty odd looking creatures, but this one, well, she looked like a fairy or a pixie.

"W-Who are you?" She demanded and the creature smiled. Martha relaxed in spite of herself. That immediately put her on edge again, because she figured this being must be emitting some kind of energy which made her calm. That was not good in her opinion. She abhorred being controlled, which made her association with the Doctor all the more frustrating for her.

"I'm sorry if I startled you. It was not my intention to frighten you." The being laughed suddenly and clapped her hands together once. "Forgive me if I seem a little tense, but I have been watching you for such a long time, and now I'm finally talking to you – I'm quite excited."

"What do you mean, you've been watching me? Why? And what do you want?" Martha was not going to let this woman scare her, well, not again anyway.

"It's such a long story but – well, let me summarise. I was born on a distant planet, long ago. A planet which no longer exists, sadly. You know of what happens when a star dies? I believe people of your world call it – supernova," She paused and Martha nodded. She couldn't help feeling sorry for this – woman – for that was what she appeared to be. She had lost her home, just like the Doctor. It had burned, just like Gallifrey. Though in this case one could argue that it was a natural end, but Martha reckoned that didn't make it any easier.

"Well, I left before that happened, but when the sun died, so did the moons and all the planets in the system. My moon died. I knew then it was only a matter of time before I followed too. So I began to search,"

"Search? For what?" The comment about the moon didn't faze her. After all, if a sun could be alive, why couldn't a moon? Funny how after only a relatively short time with the Doctor, that having a conversation with a living moon, in an alley at the back of a shop, years before she was born didn't seem odd to her.

"I did not want my legacy, and the legacy of my people to die. I cannot, ah, what is the word? Ah, yes, I cannot procreate, in the way your people do – you are such a resourceful species, truly. But all the same, I didn't want everything I was, everything we were, to just, fade away. I'm sure you understand."

And Martha did. Of course she did. Who really wanted to see the end of everything they were, everything they knew. She realised that that was part of the reason the Doctor had kept going and not ended it all after his people perished.

"So I searched for a person, someone I could pass on my knowledge and power to. But I didn't want just anyone. I needed someone of a certain intelligence for a start; otherwise they would not be able to handle what I have to give. Also, I wanted someone with some zing!"

Martha laughed, she couldn't help herself. "Zing?" she questioned and the woman laughed with her.

"Yes, zing! I wanted someone who had the same zest for life as me. Someone who looked at the universe and though she could see it was dangerous, she could see how wonderful it was at the same time. Someone, for example, who would stand on a moon and say that although she knew she could die at any moment, would also say it was beautiful." The woman had gradually been moving closer, and yet, Martha was not afraid.

Perhaps she was being stupid, by not running, by listening and maybe even being taken in, but she couldn't help herself. This woman, this alien had watched her, and this woman thought she was special.

"Someone like you, Martha. I saw you before you met your travelling companion. I saw you grow and devote your life to healing. I saw you risk your life to save the people in that hospital. I've seen it all; I've been there and watched as you faced death. Please don't be angry with me if it seems like I've let you down." Martha had been thinking just that – if this woman had watched as she sank towards the sun in an escape pod – and did nothing –

"If your Doctor had not saved you, I would have. Because you're the one, Martha. You are so special, you are so amazing, that you put me to shame. No, really! Don't shake your head. I know things have been tough, really tough, and I would take you away from here if it wouldn't cause a paradox, I –" The woman shuddered and Martha instinctively reached out to her.

"Are you alright? What can I do?"

The woman wheezed as she spoke, suddenly sounding old and weary. "My time is almost up. I'm sorry to rush you, but I have to have an answer soon. Will you take it, Martha? Will you take my knowledge, my power, and go and do good things? Will you travel to the furthest stars and see the sun rise on distant shores? Will you be all that you can be, and most importantly, will you have fun doing it?" She smiled at the last and Martha smiled with her.

Maybe it was the fact that the Doctor hardly seemed to notice her these days. Maybe it was that even when he did, he made her feel like second best. Maybe it was all those months in 1913, watching him fall in love with a human who wasn't her. Maybe it was the musical quality of this woman's voice, and the adventures her words promised. Maybe it was all of these things and more.

"Yes I will."


Martha sat with Lady Silverhair as she died.

She knew now who and what this woman was. Knew her life, her woes, and her world. She saw her husband, a handsome man named Gannayev. She saw how complete and yet cursed their love was. Gannayev had been forty summers when they met, and though they had nigh on a hundred years together, Lady Silverhair had lived thousands of years without him. She saw their children grow, have children of their own, and then they too died. Lady Silverhair was the only one left.

She wondered about why Lady Silverhair would put herself through all that. She knew intellectually how much the woman had loved Gannayev, but she did not feel those feelings herself. She had her benefactress' knowledge, but she was still Martha Jones. She, for her sins, still loved the Doctor.

And now she had assimilated Lady Silverhair's power, she knew that she too would live much longer than her peers. Her family would die long before her. Any human she fell in love with, she would outlive. Possibly she would outlive her children, if she had any with a human. For though Martha was still part human, she was now part – something else.

"Celestial" – her mind supplied the word. She was part Celestial. However, where Lady Silverhair had been born from her moon, Martha had been born human. She was not tied to the moon; she would not suffer due to its destruction. She would age slower, she would not get ill. She would heal from injuries very quickly, she would be faster, stronger, have more stamina – she wasn't even sure where her limits would now lay.

But oh, she was looking forward to finding out.


When she arrived home, the Doctor was still sitting in the kitchen, right where she'd left him that morning, working on his contraption. Lady Silverhair was gone, her form just... dissipated when she died. Though she felt a bit guilty for thinking it, Martha was glad since it meant she didn't have a corpse to try and explain to the authorities.

Despite her recent upload of knowledge, Martha still had no idea what the Doctor was making. She wasn't surprised that she didn't know, since Celestials were not technologically advanced like the Time Lords. They didn't even have the same sort of technology as the humans of this age. Their power was something akin to that of the Carrionites whom she and the Doctor had encountered when they met Shakespeare. They used sound, rather than words or numbers, to manipulate matter and energy. Some of them could do it soundlessly even, through a sheer act of will. Martha realised she would need to get some practice in before she would be able to even light a candle without matches.

"That you back then?" The Doctor said, startling her. He rarely ever said anything when she came in, apart from an occasional 'Hmm'.

She was suddenly worried – what if he could sense that something had changed about her? Could he read auras or something? Did she smell different, or what?

"Are you alright Martha?" The Doctor had put down his gizmo and taken his glasses off to look at her.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?" she replied, not thinking that her answer wasn't exactly convincing.

"Hmm," he said, looking back at his work.

Martha internally heaved a big sigh of relief. "I'm just off for a shower," she said and hastily left the kitchen.


The Doctor

For his part, the Doctor had noticed her heart speeding up and a colour rising in her cheeks. What that meant though, he really wasn't sure. He'd never been good at understanding women, and no matter how long he lived, they never became less baffling to him.

He knew, of course, that he'd rather taken advantage of Martha. And not just in the few months they'd been trapped in this time period. Martha had appeared in his life at a point when he really didn't want anyone else. He'd been grieving, and investigating what was happening at the hospital was a way of distracting himself. He'd never intended to take up with someone new.

But, for all his reasons, he'd not been able to resist. She'd just been so sparky, and bright. Never mind that she was beautiful, she was brilliant too. It took an awful lot of hard work to succeed as a doctor, especially for a woman, and especially for someone who wasn't white. Oh, people in the twenty first century claimed that racism was gone and that all people were equal, but the ideology was still there, buried, in the subconscious.

But Martha hadn't let any of that stop her, and oh, how he admired that.

Didn't matter though, how brilliant or beautiful he thought she was. He was a coward, plain and simple. He was sick of being hurt, of losing people, and he did not want to fall again. Martha had only to smile at him and he felt himself falling, damn it! That was not what he wanted, and it would not do either of them any good.

So, he pushed her away, maintained his distance. And he hurt her. He used her. Not just now, but in 1913 too. He'd behaved abominably. Why on Earth did he choose to hide in a time when he knew she would be persecuted? Worse than that, he'd had her become his servant, a demeaning position that degraded her, every day. But then, she went and proved him wrong. In the dance hall, she stood and she fought, no matter what people had said to her. No matter how badly he had treated her.

He knew that one of the reasons he'd made those choices was that once he had turned human, the colour of her skin and the difference in their social positions would stop him from courting or pursuing her. There would be a natural barrier there, and his human self would repress whatever desire or attraction still lingered from the Doctor himself.

But then, when he'd changed back, he'd still asked Joan Redfern to come with him. A woman, who he later found out, called Martha a skivvy. Martha hadn't ever intended him to find out, he knew. She nobly wanted to preserve the memory of the woman she assumed he still loved. But she had been drunk and the words just slipped out. She had been telling him how people never believed that someone like her could ever be a doctor.

So, there it was. He was a coward. He knew how he felt for Martha. He knew that the feelings were not going away, that the more he denied them, the stronger they grew.

She had probably been angry earlier, after another horrible day at that lousy shop, where the people ordered her around and insulted her. Where she worked so hard to feed and house both of them.

It was a times like this that the Doctor cursed himself for being such an unmitigated bastard.