Martha was lost once more in the TARDIS. It was so hard to find her way out of the blasted Time ships corridors to the console room. She groaned leaning against the wall. The Doctor had been sympathetic saying that it took people several weeks to get their bearings, but she was sure she heard him mutter something about Rose learning in a few days.
Martha had been travelling with him for three weeks now and she was sure the rooms moved around. She sighed, wondering how long it would take for the Doctor to find her. No sooner had she thought this than the Doctor wandered round a corner.
"Alright?" He asked sheepishly. Martha nodded.
"Just," she replied.
"Come on, I've got this planet to show you," the Doctor stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked off, Martha following. He always found it a bit awkward whenever he said 'come on' and he didn't have Rose's hand to grab.
He found he had to run slower when they were escaping so Martha could keep up. Every time he shouted run his hearts ached.
"What's so special about it?" Martha asked as she followed him, penetrating through the Doctor's thoughts.
"Just the population," the Doctor grinned almost half heartedly.
"Why, who are they?" Martha looked at the Doctor dubiously. The last time he'd been like this about somewhere she'd nearly ended up married to a giant slug.
"You'll like it, I promise," the Doctor replied as they entered the console room. He began to set the coordinates with less gusto than he used to.
Martha held onto the console as the TARDIS jerked this way and that, rather violently. Martha had sustained several bruises since starting her travels. That wasn't the only thing that freaked her out though. Since setting up room in the TARDIS, Martha had found several items which were defiantly of female nature. She had a feeling that they belonged to the Doctor's previous companion and he couldn't bear to throw away the last pieces of her memory.
Martha had tried several times to gently broach the subject of Rose Tyler, but the Doctor closed up whenever he sensed they were heading that way in a conversation. She could tell he was trying hard not to let it affect their friendship, but there was always going to be that missing link.
"It'll make up for me being a jerk," the Doctor added suddenly as though he'd read Martha's thoughts. "It can't be much fun sometimes when I'm moping about."
Martha smiled slightly.
"I don't mind," she said. "I had to live with my teenage sister at home, imagine her moods."
The Doctor grinned then; a proper warm grin. He started flicking switches and pulling levers.
"Press that button there," he pointed vaguely in the direction of a bunch of switches on the opposite side of the console.
Martha looked at them dubiously, then back at the Doctor, one eyebrow raised questioningly.
"Which one?" She asked. "Blue?"
"Nope," the Doctor shook his head. "Not a good idea."
"Yellow?"
"If you want to float through time and space as a trillion dust particles," the Doctor gave her a quick grin to show he was joking.
"Red?"
"Yup!" The Doctor nodded emphatically then. "That's the one!"
"I thought red was meant to be dangerous?" Martha said a note of confusion in her voice as she pushed the button.
"Nope, that's just Earth, all those red alerts," the Doctor chuckled. "Mauve is the universal alert. By our standards red is just camp!"
Martha laughed then. This was the reason she stayed on the TARDIS. For moments like this with the Doctor when he was the happy go lucky Time Lord she assumed he must've been when he travelled with Rose.
"Right, hold on, we're gonna land with a bit of bump," the Doctor had to shout over the whining noise the TARDIS was making now.
"Ok!" Martha called back gripping the console tightly again and bracing herself for the jerk that she knew was likely to send her sprawling. And so it did.
When Martha finally sat up, coughing as she tried to fan the smoke away, she saw that the Doctor was stood exactly where he had been before, looking at the screen on the console.
"How do you do that?" Martha asked, pulling herself to her feet and brushing herself down.
"Do what?" The Doctor asked absently, scratching his chin.
"Stay upright!" Martha said gesturing at him.
"Nine hundred years practise," the Doctor grinned, glancing at her for a moment. "Right, fancy taking a look?"
Martha grinned and bounded for the doors, stepping out onto… She stopped in surprise. They were on Earth. Well unless there was another planet with a blue sky, one sun and beaches of golden sand.
"We're on Earth," Martha said glancing back at the Doctor as he too stepped out onto the beach.
"Yup," he smiled slightly as the wind whipped round him. The cliffs were high, right next to the beach, no one would believe that the TARDIS and appeared out of nowhere, they'd think it was a trick of the light, and move away from the edge before they got dizzy.
"So where are we?" She asked, stuffing her hands in her jacket pockets.
"Somewhere in Norway… not sure what it's called in this universe," the Doctor shrugged.
"So why are we here?" Martha asked wondering what was so special about a beach in Norway that the Doctor didn't even know the name of.
"I'm meeting a friend," was all the Doctor said in reply as he gazed wistfully out to sea.