AN: Sorry for the delay, classes starting and all that. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not profit or materially gain from this. All rights to the BBC.
The toclofane were present in greater numbers than before in the few days after Rose shot one down. The two women slept in shifts and only briefly at that, staying alert and quiet as they moved through South Africa. Martha didn't have a chance to bombard Rose with questions, for which Rose was thankful. It also gave her time to think up explanations when, inevitably, the topic arose again.
Rose used a lot of her Torchwood training as they skulked across the world and she taught Martha as needed. But, after Martha's first few months walking alone, she'd learned quite a few things on her own, and quickly. Still, Rose didn't think Martha was quite as aware of the small details around them until they finally found a safe place to hide until the spheres went back to their usual activities.
They'd been on the move nearly constantly since Martha's perception filter had fallen off. They'd barely spoken to the people they encountered along the way and avoided the roads, following a map and compass instead. After four days, they arrived in a fair sized village just as dusk settled. Rose and Martha huddled in the shadows, cautiously observing the town before they entered it.
"Perfect..." Rose whispered as they surveyed the main square.
Martha glanced at her companion and was shocked to see a smile ghosting across her usually somber features.
"C'mon." Rose said before she streaked across the square, staying low and quiet as she ran. Martha followed and slipped through the narrow door Rose cracked open. Martha pulled her torch from her rucksack and illuminated her path. She stood on the edge of a steep staircase leading down into a basement. Behind her, Rose shut the door and plunged down into the unknown darkness.
"Are you sure it's safe?" Martha called softly down into the dark.
"Yup." Rose replied from below.
In the basement, Martha found Rose sprawled comfortably on a squishy sofa. The room wasn't large, but spacious enough for the two of them. It was illuminated by soft lamps. Plain, plywood cabinets were built into one wall next to a basic kitchen with a sink and stove. A shadowed doorway led to bathroom. Another sofa sat opposite to the one Rose was on and Martha dropped onto it without a second thought.
"Ahh." She sighed as she relaxed for the first time in days. Then her head snapped up again and her eyes sought the other woman. "Hang on, how'd you know about this place?"
Rose shrugged. "Didn't. Educated guess." She stood and opened a few of the cabinets. Martha was startled to see cans and boxes of food. "What do you want for dinner?"
Martha's eyes narrowed in suspicion. One didn't simply guess that a certain door led to an abandoned place stocked with supplies. Except Marion did, over and over and over. As she recalled the number of times Marion had pulled her into an unexpected safe house, things snapped into place in Martha's mind. "Bad Wolf." She said, a bit shocked she hadn't noticed the pattern earlier.
Rose spun quickly at the familiar words, eyes wide. Her shoulders relaxed after a moment. She should have expected Martha to notice, after all, she was training to be a doctor and you didn't get there by being an idiot. Well, she certainly couldn't play off not knowing now.
"What does it mean?" Martha asked.
"It's a message." Rose told her after a pause.
"A message." Martha repeated. "Messages have three things, a sender, an intended recipient, and a meaning. So spill."
"It means we're safe here." Rose prayed Martha would let it drop. But no, that wasn't her way, was it.
"Go on. The other two." She pressed.
Rose sighed. "I don't know who personally wrote it. It was intended for me."
Martha nodded thoughtfully. "The resistance?"
"Something like that." Rose muttered, just loud enough to hear.
"But why 'Bad Wolf'? I mean, they could've chosen any phrase on the planet and they choose the nightmare of a child's fairytale?"
"Um. It's sort of my name."
"That is the crummiest code name ever." Martha deadpanned.
Rose cracked a smile. She remembered naming herself the Bad Wolf, but she did that because she'd seen it before. A circular paradox, River called them.
"My last name is Wolfe." She told Martha. It was almost funny that Bad Wolf was more of a real name than Marion Wolfe, and that was the name that Martha knew.
"Oh. That makes sense then." Martha said, letting it drop as Rose went back to looking at food.
Rose hoped that Martha didn't realize just how often the phrase came up, it was present a lot more often than graffiti above a door, most of the occurrences couldn't be explained by the ever mysterious resistance. Shop signs, certain brands of food, town names, mountains, billboard adverts, car license plates, even the boats they traveled on; all contained the phrase in some form or another and would be much harder to attribute the coincidence to a small group of humans working for under a year in the hidden places of the world. Popping up in conversation might be okay, as Martha could easily assume that anyone using the phrase was a member of the resistance, but the others would be tough. Rose figured it would not go over well if she attempted to explain that she had handled the entirety of the universe in a moment and rewrote it to suit her needs. Especially as that would involve explaining how Rose had gotten to that point and she'd told Martha that she hadn't traveled on the Tardis. River was adamant that Rose could never tell Martha who she was, and Rose agreed, especially now that she'd met the woman. Though things were improving, Martha's anger and jealousy were fairly ingrained and she knew from experience that the Doctor was difficult to get over.
Rose kept Martha busy with questions as they made and ate dinner, hoping to distract or at least stall her from asking more questions about Rose. At least questions about Rose's involvement in the current happenings.
After dinner, Rose continued the questions as she examined the room more closely. It was a convenient place, perfect for their purposes certainly, but a bit odd. She was certain there was something more to it. On one stretch of whitewashed wall, she found the words again. 'Bad Wolf' was scratched into the soft surface. Rose grinned. She knocked on the wall gently and listened to the hollow sound with a smile. She felt around as Martha came and watched curiously.
"Aha!" Rose said as her fingertips encountered a small latch where the wall met the low ceiling. In the low light of the room and coated in whitewash, the latch was all but invisible. She flicked it open and pushed, part of the wall swung back to expose a dark corridor. "After you." She said with a bow and a gesture to Martha.
"What do you think is down there?" Martha said, retrieving her torch.
"Dunno. Best guess is people. People to tell your story to."
Martha took a deep breath and walked through the hidden doorway. Sometimes Marion reminded her a bit too much of the Doctor, acting on impulse without enough data. Still, she'd had to do that her entire way there. If she waited for information, she never would have gotten out of England.
Marion was right, Martha thought. She waited in the doorway at the other end of the tunnel, leaning casually against the doorjamb, and watched Martha tell her story. Martha learned early on in their travel together that Marion preferred not to be in the center of attention. She let Martha do all the talking, choosing instead to hover at the outside of the crowd and watching for danger. Most of the time, people never even realized she was there. Marion explained that she too had a perception filter, a remnant of her time at Torchwood when she often had to be inconspicuous, and since people wanted to see Martha Jones, they did, but they didn't expect to see her, so they didn't. Martha had often tried to convince the other woman to share her stories of the Doctor but she never would. She never traveled with him, Marion would argue, it was Martha's stories that would make the impact. All of Marion's stories were secondhand and wouldn't have the same sort of power. Nor, she said, did she want word of her getting back to the Master. She had a family to protect. Martha could empathize with that one. It was too late for her to protect her family by staying in the shadows, but she didn't wish that harm on anyone else.
They stayed in the Bad Wolf basement for two days. The toclofane went back to their usual torments so it was safer for the two women to travel again. Once more engulfed by the calm that came as they hiked without evidence of the spheres or other people, Martha had the time to remember there were more questions she wanted to ask Marion. Martha halted mid-step for a moment as she realized how craftily Marion had kept her attention away from it during the past two days by actually offering information about herself. She spent portions of the days telling Martha stories of the mischief she, Mickey, and Rose got into as kids. Martha also heard about their families, the little that each of them had, and what it was like growing up on the council estate. It was a different life from the one Martha knew and she could see how it made the other woman the way she was. She made the best of a bad situation, that was certain. Martha found herself resenting Rose less and less as Marion talked about the way they grew up. Rose certainly wasn't the goddess Martha had assumed from the Doctor's sighs nor was she the superficial type like Annalise. In fact, if Rose had the same kind of sweet charm and morality mixed with stubbornness that Marion showed, Martha imagined she'd get along pretty well with the lost girl. There was just the problem of the Doctor.
Martha still thought of him every day. It would be hard not to, since she was walking the earth on his behalf, spreading his name far and wide, but the intensity had faded. The Doctor, she decided, was such an intense personality that he drew people to him like moths to a flame. Timothy Latimer, back in 1913, said it best.
He's like fire and ice and rage...
Stand close to the fire and it warms you, too close and you get burned.
He burns at the center of time and he can see the turn of the universe.
Everyone and everything gets pulled into his wake.
The Doctor made his own gravity.
Martha certainly had fallen into it, more than most. But what she felt for the Doctor was complicated. The attraction was instant, and he had kissed her. She hadn't known him then. As they traveled she got to know him better but something was still missing.
She frowned as she thought, her feet moving automatically. She was going to need one hell of a pedicure when all this was over, she thought absently. Then it dawned on her. She didn't know the Doctor. Not really. When they met, she'd made assumptions about who he was. Looking at the Judoon from the balcony she'd revised her assessment. It changed again when he kissed her. But since then... no. She'd stuck with the idea of the Doctor as the romantic, tragic hero and ignored everything else. Martha knew his planet was gone, but not how or when. How many loved ones did he lose then? How old was the Doctor? How many people had traveled with him? He liked Shakespeare, any other authors? Favorite movies? He never volunteered anything about himself and she, content with her fairytale picture of him, had never asked. She was disgusted with herself. Martha was clever. She always had been. But with the Doctor she'd turned into an idiot. She'd attributed his pain to a bad break up instead of a crushing loss and was disappointed when he couldn't just get over it. She'd ignored all his signals and words. She ignored the Doctor in favor of a made up character. It wasn't fair to either of them.
She was in love with her idea of the Doctor, but that wasn't who the Doctor truly was. She raised her head high as she walked forward. It was time, she decided, to move on.
So, proudly, quietly, and with determination, Martha Jones fell out of love with the Doctor.
Rose noticed the shift in Martha's attitude after a few days. When the realization dawned, she was a little surprised. It hadn't come after any long discussion about the Doctor, or Rose, or anything else, rather after the avoidance of those topics. Still, in the evenings when they sat around the small cookstove before bed, Martha talked quietly about her travels and her stories contained fewer mentions of the Doctor than they had before. She asked about the Doctor's trip to New Earth with Rose, since he'd mentioned they'd been there but nothing more, without bitterness. Nor was she so defensive to Rose. She talked candidly about her family and the distress they all put her through; dragging her into the middle of every disagreement, forever the arbiter in a never ending stream of conflict.
Rose was gladdened by the change. Before, with Martha suspicious and defensive, she'd had to watch every word and guard her secret tightly. After though, Martha seemed to be content with not knowing all the answers. At least, not right away. Martha was still a clever woman who preferred to deal with things that could be studied and fixed. Answers were something she was fond of and mysteries only existed to be solved. Perhaps she'd simply realized that she had time left to solve Marion Wolfe.
A few nights later, Martha woke alone in the small shelter they'd built. She crawled cautiously outside, expecting trouble, but found only Marion, standing in the clearing, her head tilted back to face the stars.
"Are you alright?" Martha asked.
"Hmm? Did I wake you?"
"No, aren't you tired?" Martha said around a yawn, rubbing the gooseflesh raising on her arms.
"Some things can't be replaced. Sleep can."
Martha frowned at her cryptic friend. "What happened to you?" She asked quietly. That was it, Martha realized as she spoke, something always just under the surface that Marion was hiding. Something had hurt this woman.
Rose surprised herself when she answered. "Have you seen someone who looks just like a friend of yours that you haven't seen for a long time? Someone you miss desperately and just for a moment you think you've found them? Or been somewhere that looks so much like a place you love, but it's missing something?"
Martha nodded.
"Yeah, that's it." Rose said and returned to the shelter, curling into a ball and closing her eyes leaving Martha more confused than before standing outside.
The journey north along the west coast of Africa was relatively peaceful. The usually war-torn regions were quiet under the enforcement of the toclophane, but as the Master had no use for the wood of the forests and large cities were rare, the spheres didn't patrol the forests heavily and the small villages were left mostly alone.
"We need a way to get onto the Valiant." Martha said suddenly as they trudged through a moist, boggy section of jungle.
"You need a way." Rose corrected absently.
"You're not coming with me?"
"Why would I? This is your show."
Martha frowned. "I'd have been dead a long time ago if it wasn't for you."
"Course not. You would have been fine. I just made things easier, that's all. You're brilliant, Martha Jones. You can do anything you set your mind to." Rose may have underplayed her involvement a little, but she didn't mind. "Sides, chances are he'd just shoot me, I don't mean anything so far as he knows. You though, sounds like he'll want to make sure the Doctor knows you've been caught."
"You know... I believe you're scared." Martha said, eying her friend. "But the Master doesn't scare you. You're scared of the Doctor. Scared to see him again."
Rose muttered a curse about all too perceptive medical students. "The Master terrifies me." She informed Martha.
"But that's not why you don't want to be there. You don't want to face the Doctor. I know I'm right."
Rose pulled a face.
"But why? I mean, you know him and you care about him. You're his friend." Martha insisted.
Why? Rose wondered. There were too many reasons, she decided. If she saw him, there was no way she'd be able to leave again. Then she wouldn't be able to correct Donna's timeline. Then the Doctor would be dead. Then the universe would end. A whole causal nexus down the drain. But none of that Martha could know.
Time to bend the truth, Rose thought. "The last time I saw him, we were both so... broken. We both said things that can never be forgotten." All true, but it would give Martha a different idea of what had happened. While Rose heard his voice echoing in her head, saying the words she'd never forget...
"Quite right to. And I suppose, if it's my last chance to say it, Rose Tyler, I-"
Martha though, was probably envisioning a fight between the two of them, each one blaming the other.
"I'm sorry." Martha laid a comforting hand on Rose's shoulder, her voice sincere. "Just me then. I need a way on to the Valiant."
"We have time. You'll think of something." Rose said. She was still a little distant, caught up in her memories. Still, this was another thing Martha could do for herself.