Current mood:	happy
Current music:	Vaughan Williams -- A London Symphony
Entry tags:	doctor who fic, ten/martha

doctor who fic: progression (we write stories that aren't fairy tales)
Title: progression (we write stories that aren't fairy tales)
Author: synecdoche
Characters/Pairings: Martha, Ten, Ten/Martha.
Spoilers: Through The Sound of Drums.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1050
Summary: She's good at saving lives, is Martha Jones, a cool head and steely determination.
Notes: I've been wanting to write some Ten/Martha for quite a while, now, and I finally did. I hope you enjoy? ♥




This is how it starts.

It's Christmas morning and Martha Jones is eight years old. And there's a present from Mum and a present from Dad.

She opens them slowly, fingers along the seams so as not to tear the brightly colored paper. (Tish and Leo tore open their presents right away, of course.)

And when she's done, she has a chemistry set (from Mum) and a doll in a pink ball gown (from Dad).

Mum says, "Martha's too old for dolls." There's a frown between her eyes.

And Martha's not the first in her class for nothing -- everyone sees her play with her chemistry set for hours every day. Sometimes there are little explosions, and once the house smells rotten for a week. But Mum smiles. (Her little girl's a genius.)

But on most nights, after everyone's gone to bed, Martha turns on a flashlight and plays with the doll. There are balls and parties and teas.

And the little doll always finds her Prince Charming, in the end.

.

This is how it really starts.

Martha never really questions becoming a doctor. It was the right thing to do: when Leo fell down the stairs and broke his arm, she was the one to hold him close and apply just the right amount of pressure until they got him an ambulance.

She's good at saving lives, is Martha Jones, a cool head and steely determination.

Sometimes she goes out at night, with Tish or a friend from class, and there'll be blokes that grin or wink in her direction.

But it's not until that man (a Doctor, at that) kisses her that she wonders about Prince Charming.

They save the world before she can finish the thought.

.

This is when she wonders.

They've saved New New York, the Doctor and Martha, and he's telling her about Gallifrey. His voice is calm, like he's telling her this comforting fairy-tale of some far away youth, but she can see his hands shaking against the arms of the cheap plastic chair. (Apparently they never learned to make them better.)

She doesn't say anything, just leans a little closer. Studies his profile. Maybe he's not as strong as he puts on.

It's probably an accident, his hand resting on top of hers. But it's warm and comforting.

There's so much about the Doctor she doesn't know, anyway. He could probably save her a hundred times a day without batting an eyelash.

She doesn't think about explosions. Those are easy to clean up.

.
This is when she realizes.

Martha falls for the Doctor like she's a star and he's a black hole.

Eventually she stops denying it. It doesn't do any good, either way.

.

This is when it starts to crack, a little.

He's John Smith now but she's still Martha Jones and every day, Martha's throwing herself at a brick wall that refuses to yield. (It seems like so long ago, they talked about Harry Potter and now she wishes that anyone could talk to her about anything but scrubbing the floors or the color of her skin.)

And he's John Smith and he has his dreams and she's still Martha and she knows what they mean, who he is and why they're here.

She's just Martha, the girl who wants to be a doctor, and she's the one who has to save him.

There was never anything in the plan about her being Prince Charming -- but it's the Doctor, in the end, that destroys the Family of Blood.

But isn't Joan the princess, anyway? Martha's not sure where that leaves her.

.

This is when, inadvertently, he fixes it.

He's the Doctor again, and they've been on dozens of adventures since. (He said he needed to pay her back, and it's not like she could disagree.) But now they're stuck in 1969 waiting for Sally Sparrow to get the TARDIS back from the Angels.

And she's Martha Jones, the girl who knew the bones of the human hand at thirteen, the girl who mastered a chemistry set before the age of nine, even, and she's working at a shop.

Granted, the Doctor can't keep a job for the life of him. Occasionally this gives her a feeling of smug satisfaction. Just a little.

One day she comes back to the room they're renting, reeking of copious perfume samples, and he's lying on the ratty couch they found for practically nothing.

It's almost as if he's waiting for her. Almost.

She lowers herself onto the front of the middle couch cushion and rests her head in her hands and sighs. Normal life in 1969 isn't quite the adventure she was hoping for.

But right when her head starts to throb, she feels his hand on her back, kneading at the knots that have formed after hours of standing and smiling and selling perfume and things. And she finds herself relaxing against him.

The Doctor'll get them out of this.

And when Martha wakes up the next morning, they're curled around each other on the couch. She won't tell him that her back still hurts.

.

This is when there's no denying it.

And just when Martha was used to having the Doctor back, he loses the TARDIS. But he's still the Doctor, and she's certain he'll get them out of this.

Then she's pretty sure. (That's when Harry Saxon turns out to be the Master.)

Then she's not sure. (That's when she watches them take her family to jail.)

But she still hopes. He's still the Doctor, and he's gotten her out of everything so far: Macra and Daleks and the Family.

He's still her Prince Charming, really he must be. Martha's going to be a doctor; she's a smart girl. She wasn't top of her class for nothing, didn't play with that damn chemistry set to witness the end of the world.

But then the Master ages the Doctor a hundred years and she's holding him in her arms and the Doctor (her Doctor!) is shaking against her. He can't hide that from her, not anymore.

And that's when Martha Jones is certain the Doctor can't get her out of this.

.

This is when she accepts it.

Martha Jones has herself, a dying Doctor, a dying world, and a teleport.

When she presses the teleport's button, when she lands face-down on Earth again, she says to herself, "I'm going back." And when she walks the London streets red with blood, she keeps repeating it.

Because someone's got to save the world.

I'm going back.

Someone's got to save the Doctor.

It's her.