A/N

Disclaimer: Yes. I own Doctor Who. In my ever-optimistic dreams.

If you're not a sarcasm-oriented person, ignore the sentence above. Anyway, I'm not a doctor, so if I got anything wrong in this chapter, feel free to point it out.

Also, if you don't like Martha/Rose friendship, I suggest you leave. Now. Although that would be a waste… you'd miss a good story!

Onward ho! Reading we go!

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Martha Jones sighed with a small smile as she sat at the table with her parents- Francine and Clive- who had finally decided to forgo their differences and sit together for a meal. Her sister, Tish, and her brother, Leo, were also there. It was a whole family gathering, just after the 'year that never happened'.

It wasn't long after she had walked out on the Doctor. She couldn't fully define her feelings. She was definitely sad- having ditched the person she fell in love with. She felt relief- ditching said person would allow her to move on with her life. She felt happy- because her father and mother, after years of arguments and separate living arrangements, had finally realised they were great together, and had started a new relationship.

She felt guilty- all the Doctor had gained- well, lost- from the 'year that never was' was the death of his old friend, yet mortal enemy- the Master. Repeating that word in her head even gave her shivers.

The obvious insanity and cruelty of the Master she had never before seen- and she was almost a doctor; she had researched on cases such as this in order to better diagnose her patients. And none that she had researched were as bad as the Master. Although, she supposed, nothing could compare to an insane lord of time that could control futuristic orb-monsters intent on world destruction.

But they had stopped him. Her, and the Doctor, had stopped the Master. She felt triumph over this, but she knew the Doctor didn't. Losing your friend, after all, would never be easy. Ever. And the Doctor had lost the mysterious Rose, too; now another death was heavy on his subconscious. Martha only could hope that this death wouldn't break him.

When she had first met him, she believed he was an eccentric, crazy yet brave persona, with gleaming eyes, glowing smile, and a wicked kiss. But, as she had grown to know the sides of himself that he chose to share with her, she realised that was all wrong. He wasn't eccentric- he was in pain. And, as all doctors knew, a form of dealing with pain- psychological pain- was to forget about it by forming something new. And that something was the eccentricity. He wasn't crazy- he was lost. Searching for someone he'd never see again that he loved was bound to take its toll.

And Martha had seen him upset; his eyes would grow dark, so much so that the pupil could barely be seen. On the occasions that the Doctor had been like that, Martha had been truly, honestly afraid of him. The Doctor with nothing to lose was a Doctor you didn't want to cross paths with.

He was brave though; he just did not see it that way. His smile; it was always real. Never faked. This meant, sometimes, that the Doctor would appear surly all day because he hadn't been able to muster up a smile. But when he did smile, his entire face lighted up, in a way that made Martha feel overjoyed.

The kiss they had shared. That was a tough one. On one hand, the Doctor had told her it was for the ultimate survival on everyone aboard the hospital –aboard the hospital- how weird was that? And the Doctor was telling the truth. The Doctor also didn't care about Martha the same way he did Rose, but to him, she was still a friend.

To her, he was the love that had to turn into friend, for the sake of keeping the friendship. If there was one thing Martha could say about the Doctor, he was loyal. You make friends with him, you stay friends till the end.

But for Rose, she thought, slightly jealously, he was the love. Rose and the Doctor; purely in love with each other. In some ways she was envious of 'Rose', who had taken the Doctor out of any romantic equations. In other ways, she was glad the Doctor had someone.

Martha's only wish was that she could meet Rose.

Just as she had thought that, she heard the sounds of the Doctor's TARDIS dematerialising. And, soon after the first whoosh-dong sound, she heard another- a voice, strained, but yelling 'Doctor!' anyway.

Martha rose quickly from her chair, almost knocking it over in her haste to get to the window, ignoring the questioning looks her family gave to her. Peering out, she caught sight of a young woman with blonde hair running desperately towards the ever-fading TARDIS along the empty street.

"Doctor!" the voice called again, "I'm over here!"

Martha frowned, confused. Did the Doctor know this person? She squinted, trying to get a closer view of the woman who was attempting to stop the Doctor. The woman had her blonde hair in a ponytail that was half out; hair was spilling everywhere, in her eyes and over her face, but the strange woman didn't seem to notice. Her left sleeve had a gaping hole in it, which was covered in a red, flowing substance. Blood.

Martha's doctor side took hold, and she left the window, opting instead to run to the door and pull it open. From that position, she could easily see the woman sprinting towards the TARDIS.

"Doctor!" the woman yelled again.

Martha's heart ached towards this person, whoever she was. It was a lost cause, and Martha knew it. The Doctor and his TARDIS were leaving. And there was nothing that the woman could do.

But the woman still tried. One last desperate scream of the Doctor's name echoed around the desolate street as the TARDIS finally left the Earth.

Then the woman collapsed on the harsh black road where the TARDIS had once been, hands angrily pounding the ground. Martha immediately took action.

Running to the distraught body, Martha called out, "Hey. Hey. It's alright."

The woman chose not to listen. Still angrily pounding the ground, Martha had to grab the poor person's arms to stop her from harming herself- although Martha was careful not to further damage whatever had caused the bloodied sleeve.

"Hey," Martha tried to calm her down. "Hey, I'm a doctor. It's okay."

For the first time, the woman paid attention to what was going on around her. "You're not the Doctor," the woman cried, still upset.

Martha's eyes widened. So this woman, whoever she was, did know the Doctor. When the person let out another cry of loss and swayed alarmingly, Martha knew she had to do something, and fast. "I know the Doctor," Martha told her. "I know the Doctor, and I can bring him back."

The woman turned her head to stare at Martha. "You do?" she asked.

But Martha wasn't paying attention. The eyes… the woman's eyes… shaded brown… looked exactly like the Doctor's. Lost. Hurt. Lonely.

"What's your name?" Martha asked, her inner turmoil luckily not piercing her exterior.

The woman didn't reply, only continued to stare at Martha with glazed eyes, and that was when Martha began to take a catalogue of the woman's symptoms.

Glazed eyes. Blood on arm- Martha looked closer. Deep cut on left arm. That was probably because of the other symptoms, rather than with them. The smell lingering over the woman- she must have vomited recently. Thus, nausea. The woman was swaying. Dizziness

Concussion? Martha moved her fingers above the eyes of the woman. No. The woman responded. So… what?

Drugs? That would explain the glazed eyes, the dizziness and the nausea. Martha felt the woman's head. No fever. If the woman had drugs, and it was this bad a reaction, the woman most likely would have had a fever. Martha put that diagnosis to the back of her mind.

Pulse. Check for a pulse. Martha placed two fingers on the carotid artery of the woman. Fast pulse. Slightly uneven. Temperature- normal, maybe slightly elevated. That could be explained by the exercise the woman had just been doing.

Fast respiration rate. The woman was breathing harshly, but that could be, also, explained by the running the person had been doing. The woman suddenly gasped, and her eyes focused on Martha's face.

"Okay," Martha started, "Are you with me?"

"Yeah," came a small, hoarse whisper.

"Right. What happened?"

The woman, as if realising what she had been previously doing, brushed the hair out of her face sheepishly. "Nothin' much," was the reply.

Martha sighed. "Look, I know about the aliens. I know about the Doctor. I'm friends with the Doctor. You can talk to me."

The woman stared at her in surprise. "I-I went through a portal-thing, and it sort of made me dizzy. I came out, chucked up, and cut myself somehow along the way."

Martha nodded to herself. "Vortex manipulator?" she asked sympathetically.

"What?" the woman said.

"Sorry. Was it a Time transporter?"

"No," the woman said, before elaborating. "More like universe transporter."

Martha's eyes widened. "You're from a different universe?" Martha questioned, shocked.

"No!" she denied. "No, not really. I'm… from this universe. I just got stuck in another one."

"And you know the Doctor…" Martha whispered to herself, putting the pieces together. The separation. The lost love in each of their eyes. "What's your name?" Martha asked her, someone apprehensive of the answer.

"Rose."

Martha exhaled, loudly and with a lot of emotion.

"Why?" Rose asked.

"Y-you… you're Rose?" Martha tried to process it.

"Yeah, I am. Why?"

"The Doctor… he misses you." Inwardly, Martha snorted. What kind of answer was that? Oh yeah, the person you love misses you. Quickly, she elaborated. "He... really, really misses you."

"Oh, yeah?" Rose grinned happily for a second, before grimacing and clutching her arm. "Ouch," she cursed.

"Let me take a look," Martha ordered.

Rose obligingly held her arm out. Martha moved the torn pieces of cloth from Rose's wound, and scrutinised it. "You'll need stitches," Martha told her.

"Oh, don't worry, I got that part," Rose smiled up at her, and Martha couldn't help smiling back. This Rose, who Martha had put an imaginary face towards, was nothing like the Rose she had expected. The real Rose was a lot kinder than Martha had given her credit for, and she felt a tinge of guilt as she stared at the Doctor's love.

"I'll drive you to the hospital," Martha suggested.

"No!" Rose exclaimed. "No. You're a doctor, right?"

"Well, almost," Martha answered. "But I still need-"

"Could you fix my arm up here?" Rose requested, hopefully. "Now?"

Martha, appreciating but not fully understanding Rose's circumstances, nodded. "Yeah, alright. On one condition."

"Yeah?"

"You clean yourself up at my place," Martha told her. "Change of clothes, have a meal, I'll fix up your arm for you, then I'll call the Doctor and get him to come back."

"You can do that?" Rose asked. Then she paused. "The Doctor doesn't have a phone."

"Now he does. I gave him mine," Martha informed her.

"And he agreed to it?" Rose sounded surprised, and Martha grinned despite herself.

"I didn't give him a chance to say no," Martha told her.

Rose nodded. "Smart. You know him well." Then Rose inspected Martha closely, something in her words making Rose curious.

Martha's eyes widened. "No, no. Nothing like that. I'm just a friend. Nothing more."

Rose relaxed slightly, and looked embarrassed. "Am I that obvious?"

"Yeah, but don't worry about it. I can understand." Martha tried desperately to remove all jealous feelings she harboured towards Rose. They wouldn't do her any good, and besides. Rose and Martha could become friends, if given the chance. And Martha didn't want to screw up a friendship because of a crush on the Doctor that wouldn't go away.

Martha stood up, realising only then that she had fallen to her knees to see if Rose was alright. She looked down at her black pants, noticing with disappointment they had been stained. She rubbed them, trying half-heartedly to get the marks off, yet knowing they wouldn't come off. Martha sighed.

"Sorry 'bout that," Rose apologised to her, pointing to the pants.

"Wasn't your fault," Martha replied off-handed. She glanced at Rose again, taking in the pale face and tense posture- her arm really must be hurting. "Can you stand?" Martha asked her.

"I think so, yeah," Rose replied. Using her right hand, she laboured to unsteady feet, and grinned at Martha upon standing. "See?"

Martha led Rose to her door. Francine was waiting there, a confused look upon her face. "Who is she?" Francine asked her daughter.

Martha smiled weakly. "A friend of the Doctor's."

Rose glanced at Martha with eyes narrowed in thought, but didn't speak.

Martha's mother nodded then spoke, beckoning to the cut on Rose's arm. "How bad is the cut?" she asked.

"Nothing that stitches wouldn't fix," Rose told Francine with a grin. "It's alright if I stay here for awhile, right?"

"Yeah, that's fine," Francine glanced at Martha, "Can I talk to you for a sec?"

Martha nodded, and they both moved out of range of Rose's ears, while she watched them with something akin to jealousy in her eyes.

"Martha, why don't you take her to a hospital? She's really pale."

Martha thought quickly. The reason Rose hadn't wanted to go to the hospital had to have something to do with the Doctor, and Martha did want to know why, but she was going to give Rose a chance to recover first.

"She used a transporter- thing to get her here, and because of that the doctors at the hospital would not understand some of her symptoms." There. That seemed a good enough excuse, Martha hoped.

And it was. Francine nodded and said, "Make sure she's okay. But Martha, you can't bring strangers into the house just because they know the Doctor, okay?"

"Alright," Martha agreed.

"So this never happens again?"

"Yeah," Martha nodded, and began walking towards Rose, feeling her mother's inquisitive eyes boring holes in her back. "C'mon," Martha said to Rose, "Let's go get you fixed up."

"Fine with me!" Rose followed Martha into an adjoining room, eyes widening at the sterile floor, walls and one stretcher in the middle. "Why…?" Rose questioned, looking around.

"I work at the hospital nearby. But, a couple of months before I met the Doctor, the hospital had a mass epidemic. There were people everywhere, clogging the halls, so the administrator asked for some of us to donate some rooms. And, so, it's never changed since then. We haven't really been bothered to change it."

"Oh." Rose looked around, before making her way to the hospital bed and jumping up to land with a small thump on the bed. She held her left hand out as Martha walked around the room to the cupboard, picking out some items that she would need.

Martha walked back to Rose. "Alright, I'm going to numb the area, okay? You'll feel the needle."

"Yeah." Rose grimaced slightly as the needle went in, watching it the whole time. "Does it need to be cleaned?" Rose asked her.

"Yeah, it does," Martha picked up something else. "This may sting a bit."

Rose nodded, this time wincing as, Martha knew, a stinging sensation washed through her arm. "What's your name?" Rose asked her.

Martha felt a flash of embarrassment. "Sorry. My name's Martha."

"Martha," Rose said. "How do you know the Doctor?"

Martha sighed. Continuing to put sutures into Rose's arm, she recounted how the Doctor and herself met, wisely keeping out the part with the kiss. By the end, Rose was laughing aloud.

"That's great!" Rose chortled. "Just like the Doctor! Hospital on the moon!"

Martha smiled. "Yeah, it was pretty cool. Seeing Earth from a hospital on the moon; that doesn't happen every day!"

"And Rhino-police!"

Martha laughed. "Yeah, they were sort of scary. But they helped out in the end. What was really scary, though, was the evil blood-sucking lady."

Rose nodded. "I'm sure."

Martha patted Rose's arm. "There you go! Done."

"Great!" Rose exclaimed, getting up, before paling slightly and falling back onto the bed. "Whoa…"

"Dizzy?" Martha asked.

"Little bit, yeah. Probably nothing though, don't worry about it."

Martha wasn't fully convinced, but agreed anyway. "I'll get you a change of clothes, shall I?"

Rose inclined her head. "That'd be great, thanks."

Martha got up and motioned Rose to follow her. They walked up a flight of stairs, reaching a room. "Is this your room?" Rose asked.

"Nah. Lost my room when the Prime Minister tried to blow us up."

Rose's eyes widened. "That's going to be a story. What happened?"

Martha began rummaging through a drawer. "The Prime Minister was really an evil Time Lord called the Master that was trying to take over the world," she told Rose.

Rose gave a little jolt of surprise. "The Master?!"

"Yeah. He got shot. The Doctor felt really guilty about it."

Rose shook her head in denial, making Martha stop fumbling and stare at Rose with confusion. "Why?" Martha asked.

Rose looked down, and to Martha's shock, she had tears pooling in her eyes. "He told me he had been obsessed… I didn't expect him to…"

Martha's eyes widened this time. "Did you know him?!" she exclaimed.

"Not this universe," Rose told her, placating. "In the universe I was trapped in. He helped me get back."

"Don't trust him," Martha told her firmly. "He'll kill you."

"No, he won't," Rose denied. "He helped me. A lot. And he told me he was doing it for the Doctor."

Martha's eyes grew further. "He just wants to kill the Doctor! He doesn't care about anyone but himself! Trust me, don't believe him."

Rose looked up at Martha. "The Master I know has to be different, then. Because I saw him. I was there. And he was guilty."

Martha took note of the pure sincerity in Rose's eyes. "Okay, I trust you. I just hope you can live with it if you're wrong."

"I'm not wrong," Rose said stubbornly.

Martha went back to poking through her mother's drawer. Good thing that Martha had left some of her spare clothes here. She pulled out some black pants, like the ones she was wearing, and a pale pink singlet top. "Here," Martha handed Rose the clothes.

"Thanks," Rose said, then paused. "Where can I get changed?"

"In the bathroom," Martha told her, showing her where the bathroom was. "You should take a shower too, no offence."

Rose smiled. "I will." She walked past Martha and entered the bathroom, closing the door behind her, before opening it again and peering at Martha. "Thank you. For this."

"No problem," Martha grinned at her. Rose closed the bathroom door again, and Martha sighed, leaning against the wall. As much as Martha was warming to Rose, it was taking a lot out of her. Not telling Rose that Martha was in love with the Doctor was hard to accomplish. Rose was pretty smart, and observant. She had probably already guessed.

Martha snorted. So she had met the person whom the Doctor loved. It just wasn't how she expected. Not at all. But she respected Rose, Martha could tell that already. Rose, who had been trapped in another universe, had made her way back, just so she could be with the Doctor. If that wasn't love and loyalty, Martha didn't know what it was.

But how had that all happened in the first place? How had Rose ended up trapped on a parallel universe? According to science, it was possible, just extraordinarily hard. And why couldn't the Doctor get to Rose beforehand? It was all a huge puzzle, one Martha wanted desperately to figure out. But she knew it was quite likely that she'd never find out; that she'd be left in the dark forever.

Even so, Rose deserved to be with the Doctor. Martha reached down, and drew out her mother's phone- Francine had given it to her once she had explained why she had given her old mobile to the Doctor. Fingering it gently, she opened it, and went straight to the contacts. Martha Jones, it said, plainly. She hovered her fingers over the call button, pulling back, moving forward again, and pulling back again. If she did this… it would be the end of any possibilities of herself and the Doctor. But it was bound to end anyway, right?

Martha pressed the call button and raised the phone with a trembling hand to her ear.

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TBC…

Yes, I know. Real nice of me to end it there, huh? Oh well. And you all got that this chapter was just after the goodbye between Martha and the Doctor in 'Last of the Time Lords', right? Yeah. Of course you did. And I hope that the interaction between Rose and Martha was believable.

Okay, gotta be quick, going out soon.

Time for the thankyou's:

To all that reviewed: huge cheers and thanks: Tigris T Draconis, QuiteRightToo, NewDoctorWhoFan (who reviewed chaps 2-4), Talia-Taylor, gaiafreedom21, CSITribe, x-EmilyTennant-x, gaia-x-goddess and M64.

To those that put this story on favourites: you're the best! Thanks so much: I'mTheMasterOfWhatever, Kaia-S, QuiteRightToo, Rosie-Jess, Sunny angel, Talia-Taylor, The Chibi's Are Stalking Me, VampMistress, VampMistress, Wanabee, gaiafreedom21 and jimmybeam.

To the people (I'm assuming we're all human) who put me as a favourite author, thankyou deeply and a huge hug: I'mTheMasterOfWhatever, Mara Jade Snape, QuiteRightToo, Rosie-Jess, Talia-Taylor and VampMistress.

Thankyou all! You make my day!

Anywho, I'll be able to update soon, once again, but you'll have to wait until after Christmas. Oh, and that reminds me:

Merry Christmas!

SnowFox3