A DRINK AND A SHAG
"Oh, this is adorable," Tish moaned as she pulled a turquoise sun dress out of a piece of luggage. "Where'd you get it?" She held the spaghetti straps up to her shoulders to see how it might look on her.
Martha smiled mirthlessly at the memory of trying to negotiate with the sales clerk and intergalactic currency. "Drasah 12," she answered.
"Excuse me?"
"Drasah 12," Martha repeated. "It's a planet. Chased a nest of blood-sucking Eukleks out of the Siall Galaxy and ended up imprisoning them in the traitor's jail on Drasah 12. Kind of a long story, actually. Anyway, the royal family invited us to a banquet, so I had to buy a dress." She gestured listlessly at the bright silk garment.
She also mentally battered herself for allowing to enter the memory of how her traveling partner never noticed, even a little bit, how great the dress looked on her after she'd spent hours poring over the shop's selection, trying to find the one that might catch his eye...
Tish just stared at her, still trying to process the myriad of different and strange names she had just spouted. Martha stared back, her eyes half-closed, her mouth set in a weary, don't-mess-with-me position.
Tish decided to heed this particular advice, but it didn't mean she was going to leave the whole thing alone. She turned, put the adorable turquoise dress on a hanger and stashed it in Martha's closet, leaving the rest of her sister's luggage still to be unpacked.
"Martha," Tish said quietly, sitting down to join her sister on the bed. "You love him."
Martha's eyes cast downward, and she let out a little chuckle. "Yeah."
"You've loved him ever since we saw you with him at Lazarus' party."
"Way before that, Tish. Light years before." Martha answered, now looking up at the ceiling, but pointedly avoiding her sister's eyes. Tears flooded them and threatened to spill over.
"Then why leave?" Tish pleaded, taking Martha's hands. "Why would you walk away from a life that allows you to save the world, see the other side of the universe, even travel in time, if you love him?"
Finally, Martha met her eyes. The tears overflowed and now made neat little rivers down her cheeks. She looked as sad as Tish had ever seen her. She looked as though she had once posessed the universe, and now had had to give it up. Tish supposed that might be how Martha must actually feel.
"He's nine hundred years old, Tish."
"Wow, really?"
"Really. And do you know how much longer he will live?"
"No."
"Neither do I. Neither does he. Could be another nine hundred years, could be another week. And he can regenerate his body and face and personality and extend his stay. Time will tell. And do you know how much longer I will live?"
"No."
"Neither do I. But it won't be another nine hundred years. And I definitely cannot regenerate."
"Oh, I see," Tish said. And she really did see. She saw how a relationship between a regenerating near-immortal and a human being who was bound to live a hundred years or less could be problematic. What heartbreak for the Doctor, in the long-run, but what heartbreak for those left behind in the here-and-now. Wouldn't he be better off traveling with other Time Lords?
"But do you know what the worst part is?" Martha asked, no bitterness betraying itself. Only sadness, regret.
"That's not the worst part?"
"No. The worst part is..." and she took a deep breath. "In nine hundred years of traveling through time, space, relationships and heartbreak, he has had one person whom he would call the love of his life."
Martha's eyes now bore holes through Tish's. Tish's nose scrunched up, and she leaned forward secretively and asked, "Was it Captain Jack?"
"What? No! Are you mad? No!" Martha screeched, stifling a laugh.
"Sorry, I just thought... if that was the case, it... it would be really hard for you to have a relationship with him."
"Well, thank you for putting things into perspective. But no."
"Fine. Continue."
Martha gave her an awful look, and then took another deep breath. Her voice broke as she said, "Her name was Rose. And it wouldn't have been so bad if she had been long ago and far away. But he lost her about a month before he met me, and so I spent the entire time living in her shadow. Loving him hopelessly, and living with her ghost."
"I see – can't get over the ex, eh? Oh, I've been there," Tish said. She gestured in a little dismissive wave that reminded Martha that Tish would never, ever be there. She would never know what it was like to live in a time-traveling spaceship and have life-changing, adrenaline-pumping, existence-affirming adventures with the man she loved, only to have him pine away constantly for someone who was trapped in a parallel universe. The angst, quite literally, followed them across the stars and could make planets weep, if the Doctor got crazed enough. A gargantuan hunger was in perpetual suspense in the air on the TARDIS, as the Doctor hungered for Rose and Martha hungered for the Doctor. No fulfillment was ever had, no satisfaction and very little solace. And so Martha and the Doctor just kept on running...
As many wanker boyfriends as Tish had had, and would have, in her life, she would never be there.
And to her surprise, it somehow offended Martha that anyone could just dismiss the Doctor's pain as something as childish as 'can't get over an ex.' She resented Rose's influence on him, yes, but she did not appreciate her Doctor being chalked up to a banal schoolboy.
Quietly, Martha tried to defend Rose's relationship with the Doctor. "She wasn't just an ex, Tish. She was... more than that."
"What? They had kids?"
Martha smiled this time. "Again, thank you for the perspective."
"Anytime."
"We're talking about a man who has been to every planet, every galaxy, every time period conceivable. We're talking about a deeply damaged individual who literally watched his home planet burn, right before his eyes, and with it, his entire family and all of his brethren. We're talking about a man who has met Cleopatra, Mata Hari, Madame de Pompadour... Mae West! And he chose this one, tiny, teen-aged, blonde shopgirl from the council estates to love, and to try to earn her love in return. I asked what was so special about her, and all he could say was 'she makes me better.' That's it. Just 'she makes me better.' I mean – all he's seen and done, and she makes him better. Can you imagine a better compliment than that? Can you imagine how brilliant she must be?"
Tish smiled. "Yeah. She must be."
Martha had never voiced this opinion out loud, and she didn't allow her mind to go there very often because it hurt too much. She reminded herself, whenever she caught herself wallowing in self-pity, that the Doctor was no ordinary man, and therefore his love must be extraordinary. Sometimes the thought that the Doctor and Rose's love was a cosmic event pre-destined from creation itself, dramatic though it was, kept her oddly sane. The idea that it was a star-crossed fate, and not something defective about her, Martha, keeping the Doctor's eyes from her... well, sometimes she found that a comfort.
Now Joan Redfern, there was absolutely nothing comforting about that woman. That whole debacle had been just plain horrible. Another place where she rarely allowed her mind to wander...
Unexpectedly, Tish hugged her big sister, nearly cutting off Martha's breath in so doing.
"What was that for?" Martha asked when she was released.
"I'm just proud of you," Tish told her. "And you're a much bigger person than I am."
Martha was touched, and just smiled.
"You know what you need?" the younger sister asked.
"What?"
"What you need, big sister, is a drink and a shag. Let's go get you a bit of both! Take your mind off all this alien business and plant yourself firmly back in reality!"
"Tish!"
"What? It'll do you good!"
"Well, I don't know about the second part, but I'm definitely amenable to the drink part!"