A/N: I know this isn't as long as my other stories and I'm dreadfully sorry. It's just a little piece I wrote on a whim. Hope you like it.

Disclaimer: If I owned Doctor Who…well, let's just say I don't and leave it at that.

I hate winter.

Winter is that season on this godforsaken rock where everything becomes grey and bleak. And cold. So cold. Cold and hopeless, like the furor of the Time Lord who imprisoned me here, so many years ago.

But I know that after winter comes spring.

What whimsical terms these petty creatures have for their seasons!

If I had to choose a favorite Earth-season, it would be spring. Observation is one of the major skills of the Family of Blood, and I am no exception. From my post on the moors, I can see the strange little flora sprouting their blooms. The small, feathered creatures that humans call birds hop about and occasionally take to the skies.

I remember when I could do that. Soar about, freely, like one of these…these birds.

But now, I am tethered to the Earth, as the guardian of the island they call Britain. No longer do I fly about. No longer may I soar unhindered, free from any cares. For I wanted the Family to live forever, and now we do.

The only luxuries afforded to me are rest and thought.

One cannot rest for eternity, so one must think to while away the time.

My thoughts and memories are governed by the seasons. In the scorching season, summer, my mind turn to my Family's home planet where we ruled like gods. Fall, the cooling season, reminds me of the disintegration of our power and how at last we so low that we had to steal a spaceship in order to flee our own thralls. Winter, of course, brings sharp recollections of the Farringham Skirmish and the anger of the Doctor as he punished the Family.

But in Spring, my thoughts are more abstract. They verge on what humans call imagination.

What do I think about in Spring?

Admittedly, it is shameful. No member of the Family of Blood would believe me if I cared to divulge it. I am very glad none of them are here to extract it from my mind. I should surely pay a hefty price if they did.

For in Spring, I think of Martha Jones.

She was not like any of the other humans. Clever, with a mind of her own, not like the sheep I constantly encountered. And oh, so spirited! Mother of Mine was quite right in wishing she had possessed Miss Jones, instead of that other fat dumpling of a maid.

But then if she had possessed that young woman, Martha would have been gone.

And I could not have had her, even as a Spring Dream.

I see her in every little wildflower that blossoms around me, every bird that fearlessly hops and flutters within my sight. Every sighing wind brings me her voice. Sometimes there are figures moving about in the nearby pastures, and I imagine that she is among them.

I cannot pretend that she longs for me with even a tenth of the desire I feel for her.

But the thought of her is the one that sustains me. For after a winter of hatred and punishment, battle memories and exile, the spring comes. Martha is with me again. Then, I do not regret living an immortal half-life.

For spring will come, and I shall be thinking again on a girl whose spirit and fire brought Son-of-Mine to his knees.

I want you, Martha Jones.