Sorry about the wait...you know...exam time of year...
Martha took a unexpected breath as the voice on the line revealed who she was.
"Rose?" Martha asked, completely unsure of what to do or say. Should she try and find the Doctor? Leave Rose dangling on the end of a uncertain line of communication? She was in another universe so there must be some sort of power or energy behind this.
Martha knew of Rose. The Doctor told her about their travels. But only when Martha persisted that he would, back on New Earth after the motorway incident in the year five billion. The Doctor explained about the Time War, and the Daleks. How they kept on going while he lost everything, his family, his friends and then Rose.
"Yeah, Rose," She replied, a pang of jealously sparking within her. The Doctor had found someone else. She had been saying for a long time that it was what she wanted for him. If she couldn't be with the Doctor then he shouldn't be alone. He should find someone else. But now she knew it actually happened, it just made her miss the Doctor even more, "Can you get the Doctor please? I'd like to speak to him." She asked again and it was a major understatement to what Rose actually felt.
Martha looked round at the door leading to the other rooms of the TARDIS, yet again eagerly wanting the Doctor to be there.
"He's not here." Martha said, "Sorry."
Rose frowned on the other end of the line, "What do you mean? You are in the TARDIS right?"
"Yeah," Martha replied, leaning on the edge of the console, "I've been looking for him for the past half hour but couldn't find him."
Rose let out a chuckle, "Check the cupboard past the bins, he was usually in there when he went missing. There's lots of old space junk in there."
Martha smiled, "Really?
"Oh yeah, he used to go in there and find an old technical piece of equipment and then attach it to the TARDIS somehow." Rose explained. She felt a sense of relief, she had wanted to talk to someone about the Doctor for a long time, talk to someone who would understand. It was sort of like when she met Sarah Jane. Even for the short space of time they spent together fighting the Krillotanes, she felt that sort of connection. They had both spent time with the Doctor, and understand the obscure world, in the TARDIS behind those blue doors, was like.
"Really?" Martha replied, smiling. She began to twiddle with the chord of the telephone.
"Yeah," Rose nodded along. "So, how long have you been travelling with him?"
"Not that long, just a couple of weeks, I think." Martha answered truthfully, "Though it seems longer. You get sort of …timeless."
"Tell me about it. Once we landed back home and it was Christmas. Completely through me off." Rose remarked, "Well, the big spaceship rock overhead did too..."
Something triggered in Martha's mind, "Wait – are you talking about when most people walked up to the roof and just stood there? That Christmas?"
"That's the one. The Doctor fought in a sword fight and then saved the world with a Satsuma," Rose replied.
"Oh my god. I was one of those on the roof!" Martha revealed, remembering when she awoke and gasped as she realised she was on the top of an apartment block.
"The Doctor was the one who saved you then." Rose remarked, "Does that mean that you're around that time then? Where are you from?"
Rose was genuinely intrigued. She wondered what it was that made the Doctor offered a place on the TARDIS. She realised when he offered it to Rose that it was because he would be dead if it weren't for her. He even said thanks. But she wondered what it was about Martha that got her a place on the TARDIS.
"I'm a Londoner. Croydon originally. And I was 21 when the Christmas Invasion happened. I was born in 1984." Martha said.
"That means you are only a few years older then me." Rose commented.
Martha was quite surprised by that. From the way the Doctor spoke about Rose, he intelligence, her courage and bravery, you would have thought that she was a lot older. He talked of with a lot of energy, never letting him down, always up for fighting united against the enemy, but Martha never thought she was younger then herself.
"How is he?" Rose asked, and Martha was bemused by the sudden change in conversation. "The Doctor, how is he?"
Martha thought, how was she going to reply to that. "He's the Doctor. You know, energetic, excited by really weird things, still saving the world all the time. A bit moody and angsty at times." Martha explained to the best of her ability, unknowing of what Rose wanted her to say.
"Does he mention…" Rose took a breath and rolls her eyes at herself and her stupidity. It was now or never, this line could break at any moment. "Does he ever mention me at all?"
"Er, yeah!" Martha replied as if it was obvious, "All the bloody time!"
Rose let out a huge sigh of relief as she could feel Martha smiling at the end of the line. Rose chuckled slightly and sat back in her desk chair.
Martha continued, "I think though, when I first met him he wasn't…well…over you properly and kept referring how you would know what to do when I didn't. Like when we met Shakespeare. I thought he was on the rebound when he found me." Martha shrugged.
"But now it's all good, right?" Rose asked.
"Yeah," Martha replied, "I think now he's realised that I'm not you."
Rose felt pleased for Martha. "So where did you meet him?"
"He was a patient of mine, on the Moon." Martha grinned.
"The Moon?!" Rose exclaimed.
"Yeah, the hospital I work in got transported to the Moon because it was neutral territory for the Judoon Police force to come and arrest some old woman that sucked the Doctor's blood out." Martha explained finally happy that Rose would believe her. Some of her family didn't, especially her Dad's girlfriend Analiese.
"What? Sounds like some adventure!" Rose mused, laughing at the end of the line, "Where else has he taken you?"
"Oh, New Earth!"
"New Earth!" Rose repeated, her eyebrows rising. It sounded familier. Was he taking Martha all the places that he took Rose, "See any cat nuns there?"
"No, I was kidnapped and taken into the motorway, not that exciting really." Martha answered.
Rose smiled, "And the Doctor searched all over risking life and limb to save you?"
Martha pondered, "Something like that, yeah."
"That's the only way he knows how." Rose said, "One time we were in Rome at like 100 AD and I was turned to stone, and he stole a horse just to follow the cart I was in."
"You were turned to stone?" Martha asked, incredulously.
"Yeah," Rose replied as if it happened every day, "There's a statue of me in the British Museum."
"Bloody hell!" Martha said, her eyes widening, "That is so cool!"
"Oh, and also, he jumped on a horse through a time window to save Madam Du Pompadour, knowing that there was no way back to me and Mickey in the 51st Century." Rose added in her explanation.
Martha burst out laughing, "Blimey!"
Rose began to laugh with her on the other end of the line. It was good, she approved of this girl, the Doctor had done well for himself. She was clever and down to earth.
Once the laughter subsided, there was a gap of conversation. Martha asked the thing that was bugging her for ages.
"Rose?"
"Yeah."
"Do you love him? The Doctor, do you love him?"
Rose paused before answering. It had been a year since they said their goodbyes and the Doctor had become a memory. An era of her life that she can't go back and repeat. She had moved on, to some extent. She had her mum, her dad and Mickey, not forgetting her new baby brother, Jack. But she missed that era so much, so badly wanting a TARDIS to appear on a corner as she walked down the street. She missed him. "Yes." She said firmly, "I think I always will."
Martha smiled, she now understood. The love that the Doctor feels for Rose, as she knows that it wasn't just friendship, is requited. That's what made they're relationship different from the one Martha and the Doctor had.
Just then, the aforementioned Time Lord came through the door and Martha spun on her heels to face him, the phone still in her right hand.
"There it is, see?" The Doctor wavered some metal tubing in Martha's face, "Fuel strengtheners from the Roswell Spacecraft. I can harness the electrics within it make sure the TARDIS lands more accurately when-," He stopped, seeing Martha's currently occupied hand. "What are you using the phone for?"
Martha cringed slightly, "It was ringing, and you weren't around, so I answered it."
The Doctor furrowed his eyebrows, "But how can it be ringing? No one has this number, I don't think the TARDIS even has a number."
Martha bit her lip, and held the phone out for him to take. "You need to speak to her,"
The Doctor took the receiver, looking at Martha with a bemused expression, "Who is it?" He asked Martha.
"It's Rose."
The Doctor dropped the phone in shock. It was left dangling by its chord off the console. "But that's impossible."