| Date: 16 December 2007
Characters: Martha Jones, The Ninth Doctor Location: dining room Link to IJ: thread #8766 |
 Having left the Doctor with his TARDIS somewhere on a floor above (she couldn't find any symbols to indicate which floor was which), Martha made her way down to stairs and followed the distant sounds of voices and the smell of food to find the dining room. There were a few other people there, but no one she recognised at first glance, and it wasn't too busy for her to find a table, get some of that purple stuff the Doctor had mentioned and some food she vaguely recognised.
Settling back in her chair, she looked around the room again, stopping when someone lifted their head to meet her gaze, and she gave them a somewhat hesitant wave. |
 "Can I sit," the Doctor asked, holding his muffin a little protectively. |
| "Sure!" Martha straightened in her seat and gestured vaguely across the table, tucking her feet back so they wouldn't trip the stranger.
Eyebrows lifting a little at the possessive muffin cradling, she held out a hand. "I'm Martha." |
| He held out his other hand, sitting down in the same motion, "I'm the Doctor." |
| Martha took his hand automatically, eyes widening, and couldn't stop the instinctive response. "No, you're not." |
| "I keep bein' told that, but really am," he swore. |
| "Right." Letting go of his hand, Martha took a sip of the purple stuff and made a face at the sharpbitter taste, the Doctor had weird taste, okay, that was one to remember. "So...oh! That was what he meant!" |
| "Who meant what?" The Doctor raised an eyebrow, then looked at her drink, "You know that stuff's not made for humans, right? s' the way your taste buds are arranged." |
| "I think I just found that out," Martha agreed, pushing the glass away. "The Doctor. He said there were others of him walking about but not with his face. So if he's the Doctor and you're the Doctor, then you must be another one of him - or he's another one of you - with a different face. Right?" |
| "Skinny thing with bad hair and a suit?" The Doctor inquired, making a face. |
| "Skinny, yeah. And the suit." She paused to consider. "Unusual hair, yeah, though bad's kind of...yeah, okay, bad. That's him." |
| "Yeah, that'll be me," the Doctor nodded, "You'd be a friend of his then?" |
| Friend was probably putting it a bit too strongly, but after the time they'd spent together, and not together..."Yeah," Martha echoed softly. "That'll be me. We saved the world together." |
| He raised an eyebrow, "You sound ecstatic about it. What world?" |
| "Oh, no," she protested. "No, it was just...Well. Earth. It was Earth and it was kind of complicated and there was," her hand waved in the air, "paradox, and time that happened and didn't happen, and the end of the universe..." |
| "But you're here despite the paradox," the Doctor frowned and looked concerned. |
| "Oh, it got resolved." Martha grinned, surprising herself, but it was, eventually, a good memory. Sort of. Well, the world and humanity had survived. "I mean, there was a year, and that year only happened because there was this machine thing that was holding reality against the paradox and then at the end of the year Jack destroyed the machine. So."
She dug her fork into the potato rapidly cooling in front of her. "It's all good." |
| "Jack?" he asked, picking out what made sense to him, staring at Martha a little confused. |
| "Jack," Martha confirmed, swallowing a little too soon and keeping her mouth firmly close until it was empty again. "Are you...this is probably going to sound weird. I guess, I mean, since we've not met, you're you before I meet you, yeah?" |
| He tapped his nose. |
| "Oh, come on." |
| "Come on what?" he grinned. |
| "Give me something to go on." Martha rolled her eyes at that grin, and saw definite similarities to the Doctor she knew. |
| "Yeah. If you know the me with the teenage boy hair, then you know the one right after." |
| "Thank you." She sat back with a smile, which rapidly faded as she worked out that meant this was the one who knew the sainted Rose. "And, yeah, Jack Harkness, he was, I mean, wait, doesn't that mean I shouldn't be telling you this?" |
| "You absolutely should not be telling me this," he agreed, "Except that it just doesn't seem to matter in this place. So tell me." |
| "Yeah, 'cause that's a great reason." Martha shook her head, and went back to her food. "Look, I'm pretty sure I've already said more than I should have said to some creepy guy in a suit, and I'm not planning on repeating that experience any time soon." |
| He shrugged, eating his muffin, "I'll ask him. Are you liking it here?" |
| That wasn't exactly something that Martha had stopped to consider. She just was here, whether she liked it or not. "Well, I...I've not been here long. I guess...it just seems kind of weird." |
| "Weird how?" he asked curiously. |
| "Just...all these people." She gestured with her fork. "Like from all kinds of different times and different realities, I mean, I know the time thing, but there's usually people trying to get somewhere, you know? Not just turning up." |
| "Maybe this is a rest stop." |
| "Like a motorway service station?" Except that didn't really work, either, because mostly people on motorways were trying to get somewhere. "No, it's more this place is sort of sucking people in. Weird." |
| "Why's it weird?" |
| "Isn't it, though?" |
| "Weird's relative." |
| Martha thought about that one for a moment. "Well, some of my relatives are pretty weird. What's your standard for weird, then, if this isn't?" |
| "Radioactive spiders from mars," he said seriously. "They don't come from Mars." |
| "Spiders. From Mars. That don't come from Mars?" |
| "Saturn," he said, utterly solemn. |
| "So they're, what, immigrants?" |
| "More like invaders>" |
| He beamed sweetly. |
| "Oh, no." Martha shook her head, on the edge of laughing. "No. Don't go giving me that look, mister. I know that look." |
| "I keep it?" |
| "Oh, you keep it," she agreed, rolling her eyes a little. |
| He laughed, "Well, that's something at least." |
| "Don't you usually?"
Food was getting cold. That definitely wasn't an option, and Martha turned her attention back to the remaining scraps of potato, forking them up with enthusiasm. |