Thank you for the minimum five reviews. Not as many as I've gotten before, but that's what I asked for, so I can't complain. And as promised, here's chapter six.
It had been another five months since that first family. By now the Rose had reached every town she could from Cardiff to Japan. She had caught up with Martha somewhere in the Australia outback. Martha had explained that she had been sent off the ship by the Doctor for her safety. She had begun walking the Earth in the hopes of finding a way to kill the Master, without him regenerating. The Rose told Martha about her plan to save the Doctor and they teamed up to cover more ground. They each took a house and when they were done they would meet back up and move on to the next town. While there they would pretend to look for a 'secret weapon', thinking that if the Master thought they were trying to destroy him he wouldn't discover their real motive. They had even made a real looking weapon, in case they ever needed to prove it to someone.
They had just left Japan where the Toclafane were the worst. They had decimated the entire island, killing everyone in sight. One of their beams hit the Rose, causing her to was strange, getting used to a new body, a new personality. She had done it before, but that felt like a lifetime ago (and really it was, it was Rose's lifetime, because she was now the Rose, a Time Lady from Gallifrey, not Rosy Tyler, a human from the Powell Estate). She was now an older woman of about 35 with dark black hair and piercing blue eyes. Her voice was different too. Gone was the Estate accent she had picked up from her life as Rose Tyler. Now she spoke with a heavy Northern accent, similar to the one the ninth Doctor had used. In fact her entire body was reminiscent of the ninth Doctor's. Not surprising, she had been thinking of him when she had regenerated. Drawing parallels between her regeneration and his. The Rose was more concerned with Martha. It was hard seeing someone you knew become a totally different person.
They were now traveling through the shipyards of Russia. Martha had barely spoken to the Rose since she had regenerated.
"Martha. We should talk about this. You've been avoiding me since I regenerated." Her new accent broke the oppressing silence between them. Martha flinched at the sound of it.
"There's nothing to talk about." She said briskly. The Rose sighed. Every time she tried to talk about this Martha would always brush it off.
"No. We have to talk about it. You're obviously not coping well with this. I know, I went through the same thing when the Doctor regenerated. If we don't talk about this it will just fester and you'll never trust me again." The Rose reasoned. Martha stopped in her tracks and whirled on the Rose.
"Alright, you wanna talk about this, we'll talk. I travelled with you for months and we got to know each other. I learned about your life as Rose and her life in the parallel universe and you learned about me and my family. You told me about your time at the Academy and I told you about my time training to be a doctor. I thought we were close. And then you suddenly become this whole other person who has a completely different personality and has completely different taste in food! I don't think I could take it if I started to get to know this version of you, just to have them change the next time you died!" Martha explained. The Rose knew how she felt. She had felt the same when the Doctor first changed. But then she realized he was the same man and that made it easier.
"Martha, it's still me. I still have the same memories, I still feel the same way about everyone important in my life. It's still me, just with a different face and voice. And maybe I'm gruffer than I used to be, and maybe I like bananas more than I did before. And yes, maybe I sometimes get cravings for jellybabies. But I'm still the same Rose you knew." She tried to reason with her. Martha just shook her head and continued through the rockets. The Rose easily kept up with her, her legs had gotten much longer.
"Martha, please. I don't want us to be silent companions. We used to talk all the time, but now we've barley said six words to each other until today." The Rose desperately wanted things to go back to normal.
"Maybe if we started with a new topic." Martha suggested. The Rose grinned, her tongue poking out between her teeth. That was one of the few things she hadn't lost in her regeneration.
"How about the Doctor. I can tell you about him growing up and you can tell me about your adventures while I was in Pete's world. How's that sound?" Martha grinned and nodded. She would do anything to learn more about the Doctor.
"Fantastic! So where to start? Oh I've got it! This one time the Doctor was running around Solace and he encountered this strange alien creature, or at least he thought is was an alien. Anyways, he's running around, telling everyone about this 'alien'. When he get's to my house he pounds on the door, and before I can open it all the way he rushes in, babbling about some alien he's found on the mountain! I tell him to slow down, but he just says that there isn't time and he pulls me along with him, going back to the mountain. He leads me to place he saw the alien and points it out to me. When I see it I start laughing. He saw a Woprat that had somehow survived the extinction of it's species! It scared himself half to death and he had riled up the entire town! They thought they were under attack!" She starts to laugh, remembering the look on his face when he realized his mistake. Beside her Martha began to laugh too.
They continued on, each sharing a different story. Martha had just told her about the time they nearly crashed into a living sun when they came across a Toclafane. The Rose quieted Martha and they hid behind one of the rockets. After it left they continued on, but they were quieter than they had been before. They went on like that until Martha's eyes began to drop from lack of rest.
"Come on Martha, time to make camp. I'll take first watch again, you need the rest." She stopped beside a rocket and spread out the sleeping bags from her rucksack. Martha nodded and stretched out on her sleeping bag. The Rose sat down and let her mind wander. Part of her mind was still keeping watch, but the rest of her was stretching across continents, reaching out to the familiar recess of the Doctor's mind. Finally she felt his mind connect with hers.
'Doctor.' She whispered into his mind.
'Rose!' He called back. The Rose relaxed. She had been trying to reach him for months. Ever since they reached Asia she hadn't been able to talk to him.
'Oh thank Rassilon! I thought I wouldn't be able to reach you! Oh, Doctor I've missed you so much!' She informed him. In her mind she felt the Doctor reach out to her, to comfort her. Upon reaching it he instantly felt the change.
'Rose, what happened?' He asked, worried. She knew this would happen, but that didn't make her any more prepared.
'I regenerated. In Japan, there was a Toclafane, its laser hit me in the chest.' She felt the Doctor wince mentally. 'I'm fine now. Just, you know, new body. Actually I remind myself of your last regeneration. Short black hair, blue eyes, Northern accent, broody. In fact I've taken quite a liking to wearing dark jumpers and leather jackets.' She teased him. She felt him relax at her teasing.
'Please tell me you don't have his Dumbo ears?' He asked, suddenly horrified.
'No, regular sized ears I'm afraid. And might I remind you that you used to be that guy?' She told him. He laughed with her, but calmed suddenly.
'Are you safe?' He asked. The Rose sighed. She knew that they would eventually come to this part of the conversation. They always did.
'Doctor, I'm walking an Earth that is run by a maniacal genius who happens to control floating killing spheres that want to kill both me and my traveling companion. Considering that, I'm as safe as I can be. You're in more danger than me or Martha.' She felt the Doctor wince and turn away in reality. She was instantly on alert. She felt him block something in his mind from her, which could only mean one thing. He was in pain.
'Doctor? Are you-' The link broke. He had cut her off. Which meant the Master was in the room and he didn't want him to find out. The Rose closed the link on her side, just in case the Master somehow found it and tracked it back to her.
Slowly the world solidified around her. The sky was beginning to lighten so she woke up Martha. Together they packed up the sleeping bags and set out again.
"You don't have to watch the entire night. You may not need much sleep, but you still need it." Martha told her as they headed out.
"It's fine Martha. I was talking to the Doctor all night anyways." Beside her Martha stiffened slightly.
"So, you can communicate with him still? How is he?" She asked. The Rose sighed.
"Not good. He cut me off before I could ask, but I think the Master's been beating him." The Rose confessed. Martha drew in a sharp gasp.
"It's okay. He's taken much worse, but... I think the Master has been mentally torturing him. The entire time we were talking I felt him hiding something from me. I think it had something to do with Jack. I don't know." She told her friend. Martha put her hand on the Rose's shoulder.
"At least you can talk to him again. I'd kill to hear one of his techno-babbles! Never thought I'd miss not understanding someone." Martha said, chuckling.
"I know what you mean. When I was in the parallel world I would find myself missing the smallest things. When I first got there I found it hard to sleep without the constant hum of the TARDIS." The Rose said. Martha nodded as they walked. The Rose, deciding that they needed something to distract them, kept talking.
"I wouldn't let anyone even touch my hands. Almost like I thought my hands were somehow connecting me to the Doctor. We always held hands, even when we weren't running for our lives. It was almost natural, the way our hands always fit perfectly together. The first time I met him he took my hand. I was in the basement of Henricks and I was surrounded by these mannequins trying to kill me. Right as I thought I was done for, he grabbed my hand and said one word. He said 'Run'. We held hands ever since. It was a sign of comfort, showing the other that they were still there." The Rose drifted off into silence, remembering all the times the Doctor took her hand. She shook herself out of it. "That's enough about me. What about you? I'm sure you and the Doctor had some habits." Martha laughed a bit.
"If you count him pining after you while I'm standing right in front of him. Or maybe him looking at me and wishing it was you. We didn't really get close. I was always second fiddle when it came to you." Martha sighed. The Rose looked at her and finally saw the truth behind her mask. Martha Jones was in love with the Doctor.
"I'm sorry." The Rose said. Martha shook her head.
"It's not you're fault. The Doctor fell in love, it's not like you could help it." Martha said. The Rose couldn't help feel guilty.
"If it makes you feel any better, I do know what that feels like. Loving the Doctor and feeling like you were invisible." Martha looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "It was after my run in with Sarah Jane. It was Mickey's first real trip on the TARDIS and the Doctor took us to a spaceship in the 51st century. It had these windows that connected to the 19th century. Magic doors, so to speak. The Doctor went through one that looked like a fireplace and ended up in the bedroom of a little girl in France. There were these clockwork creatures. He went back and encountered Reinette Poisson, Madame de Pompador. She was the little girl from the fireplace. And he kept going back. Eventually he had to go back to save her, but it meant that he would be stuck there. He went and then he came back, five and a half hours later. Then he left again to take her with us. When he came back he was heartbroken. She had died waiting for him." The Rose sighed. "Wasn't the first time either. Or the last."
"Tell me about the other ones." Martha said. This was interesting.
"Sarah Jane for starters. I wasn't sure, but I had a feeling that something had happened between them. There was Jabe back when he was all leather and big ears. She was a tree! Linda was next I think. She was a contestant on Big Brother in the future. She was killed by Daleks. Then Reinette. He mentioned Cleopatra once, but he called her 'Cleo'. Probably more. What about you, any encounters with women the Doctor may or may not have been involved with?" The Rose asked, suddenly curious.
"First time I met him he kissed me. It was a genetic transfusion thing or something. There was Joan Redfern, but he was technically human then. Different man. But that was it. He was still hung up on you." Martha told her. The Rose felt jealousy well up inside her. She knew it was ridiculous, when she was human she had gone out with people. Jimmy Stones, Mickey, Adam, heck she had flirted with Jack all the time. There was no reason to be jealous of this Joan Redfern woman. And yet...
"I want to get something off my chest." Martha said, interrupting her thought.
"What is it?" The Rose asked.
"When we were on Malcarrisa and you died I just stood there. I want to explain why. When I was walking there I overheard the Doctor and Jack talking about you. I realized then that as long as the Doctor was alive he would love you. When you were dying I saw how he looked at you, and I couldn't move. I wanted to, believe me I did, but it was such a intimate moment. I couldn't interrupt that. I couldn't interrupt his final chance to say goodbye to you. I just wanted you to know that, so you didn't think it was because I wanted you out of the way or anything." Martha explained. The Rose was overwhelmed with emotion. She had no idea how to respond to that.
So the Rose put it out of her mind. They had a job to do and getting distracted by human emotions was not going to help. They continued on in silence.
There you go. Kinda a filler chapter I know, but what are you gonna do? Bit of friendship between the Rose and Martha. I also explained Martha's lack of action when Rose was dying. So that's it. Remember to give six reviews!