In Her Shadow
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Doctor
Copyright: BBC
Rose Tyler was getting heartily sick of the name of Martha Jones.
It had started the day the Doctor saved her from the Nestene Consciousness and invited her to travel with him. Fiddling with the TARDIS controls to avoid her eyes, he'd told her: I had this friend … Martha, her name was Martha … and … we were together. Then, turning around fiercely: Don't ever think you're replacing her!
Not much danger of that, she thought wearily. The woman was everywhere to him. It would have been very sad if it weren't so aggravating.
When Rose and the Doctor observed the natural end of Planet Earth: There was a war. We lost. I'm the last of my kind … if I hadn't met Martha, who knows what would have become of me? I swear, that woman saved my soul.
The time a dying Dalek she'd accidentally revived went on a killing rampage, had an existential breakdown and asked her to order it to self-destruct: You touched it? After I expressly told you not to? That was a careless, thoughtless, stupid thing to do and Martha Jones would never have done it!
On New Earth, in a sunny applegrass meadow: When I was here with Martha, we stopped a traffic jam that had lasted twenty-four years and sent all the cars soaring up to the sky. What'd you think of that, eh?
When they discovered the atrocities going on in the NNY City Hospital: If only Martha were here. She's a medical student, you know, and some of her training would be really helpful right about now.
The day they ran into Sarah Jane at the alien-infested school: Martha never spoke an unkind word to any of my previous companions, and if anyone had the right to be jealous, it was her. Why can't you be more like that?
The day the Wire stole her face: Why is it that every time I turn around, you wander off and get into trouble? When I traveled with Martha, I could always trust her to take care of herself when we were separated. Sometimes she'd even rescue me, and she didn't need the Time Vortex to do it!
Rose Tyler loved the Doctor. He was everything to her. She loved his larger-than-life moods: shattering sorrow, smoldering rage, all-embracing joy. She loved the occasional hug he gave her after they'd escaped some danger or other. She loved his headlong dashes into danger, his last-minute plans, his rapid-fire explanations. She loved him for saving the world again and again. But she knew quite well how hopeless her love was. He would never see her as anything but a little blonde shopgirl; good enough for friendship but not for love. When he'd left Martha Jones trapped in that alternate universe, his hearts had stayed behind.
Perhaps, after all, it would be better for Rose to go back to Mickey; her neighbor and childhood sweetheart was neither exciting nor dangerous, but he at least would never leave her. The more she thought about it, the more welcoming the prospect seemed.
She had to get out, while she still could.
