Categories > TV > Doctor Who

Second Chances

by seldra 0 reviews

Martha/11-ish (AU girl!Doctor). The next time Martha meets the Doctor she's in for a surprise.

Category: Doctor Who - Rating: PG - Genres: Drama - Warnings: [!!!] [?] - Published: 2007-10-08 - Updated: 2007-10-08 - 1538 words - Complete

1Original
Title: Second Chances
Author: seldra
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Martha/11-ish (AU girl!Doctor)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Doctor Who is owned by the BBC, and all credit goes to loneraven for her creation of girl!Doctor. For more information about the collective AU that is girl!Doctor see this site: http://community.livejournal.com/girl_doctor/profile
Summary: Next time Martha meets the Doctor she's in for a surprise!
Notes: AU set after S3, SPOILERS for Doctor Who series 3!




For Doctor Jones it was just another day at the hospital. Another long day. Her feet ached and she shook her head sadly as she glanced over the file for her next patient.

It was bad news.

She’d always hated giving bad news.

Stepping into the lift, she noticed a woman run across the hall out of the corner of her eye. The woman slid between the metal doors at the last second and stood beside her. Stood a little closer than was strictly necessary in an otherwise empty lift, but Martha didn’t look up from the medical folder. She pushed the button for the fourth floor automatically.

“Doctor Jones,” the woman said, sounding slightly irritated.

“What? Oh, sorry,” she glanced up, and found herself faced with a stranger.

The woman had a young, pretty face framed by long dark curls that tumbled rather haphazardly over her shoulders. Her fashion sense was a little odd, as she sported a black fedora hat and a long coat that made her look like a private eye from the 40’s.

“I’m sorry,” Martha began. “But do I know you…” As she spoke her eyes had glanced at the woman’s feet and stopped there in surprise because converse running shoes did not go with the rest of the ensemble.

The dark haired woman followed her gaze. “Well, you can hardly expect me to run away from Daleks and Zygons in high heels, can you?”

“What?”

Martha felt her her heart tightened in her chest and she stared at the woman in something like horror as the lift chimed and the doors slid open.

The woman met her gaze with a jaunty grin and a tip of her hat. “Martha Jones, we meet again!”

“Oh my God.”




They sat in the doctors’ lounge. Martha had been able to get one of the other physicians to take care of her patient, claiming a family crisis. The look on her face had convinced him.

“Big change,” she said quietly. The woman had bought her a coffee but it sat between her hands, untouched.

“Yes,” the woman nodded. “Quite so. I mean I’d heard of, certainly – but I’d never – well, just look at my itty-bitty little hands!” she held out one of her hands, examining it, and sighed. “Still, it can’t be helped. It was time for a change though, I expect. I mean I had been a man for over nine hundred years! It’s a bit ridiculous when you stop to think about it.”

Martha stared at the woman sitting next to her. Oh, she’d put all the pieces together. Logically, some part of her brain had come to the right conclusion, but she wasn’t having it.

She couldn’t.

It was just a strange woman sitting in the lounge across from her. Not…not /him/.




A memory flashed through her mind. He stood in front of her, mysterious and exciting. His blue suit stood out sharply against the white walls and the white lab coats of the doctors running in panic around them.

Everyone was panicking. There were aliens. The entire hospital had been transported to the surface of the moon.

And then he’d kissed her.

She could remember the rapid flow of his words. The agitation that was almost panic. And then he’d been over her, covering her completely, his hands so gentle, cradling the sides of her face, tilting her head back. Like in a film or something. It was The Big Dramatic Kiss. The scene where the woman falls for the hero. And it worked.

He ran away from her and she fell. She fell hard and she never stopped falling. But he never stopped running.





“You knew about regeneration,” the woman said quietly.

“No,” Martha shook her head. “No, don’t say it.”

“What? It could have been worse. I could be an old man. With white hair. And a cane! I quite like this. I mean it took some getting used to, certainly, but —”

“So he’s dead then?” Martha asked and the woman stopped with a surprised look. “My doctor – he’s dead? He’s been killed by the – the Daleks or something?”

She was met with a look of confusion. The woman frowned. “Martha?” she said. “I’m right here.”

“But you’re not…/him/. God, and I think I loved him.”

“I know,” the woman said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

The woman stood, turning to face the window. It was raining.

“Like when I met you,” she said, as though she could see inside Martha’s head. “Of course, this is normal rain, not Judoon teleportation. Still, brings back memories, doesn’t it?”

“So you have all his memories?”

“Oh yes,” she nodded. “I am him. Well, mostly. Cells change, body changes, personality changes. Actually, I think my previous self was a bit of a prat when it came to you, Martha Jones.”

“No, don’t you say that! Don’t – talk — about him!” Martha said, rising angrily, pushing the untouched coffee away. “I knew him! I liked him.” She paused, trying to figure out how defending someone against himself (herself?) made any sense at all.

“Oh relax, I’ve never gotten on very well with my previous selves. Or future selves.” She frowned. “It all gets rather complicated.”

“I can see that.”

She grinned. “So I thought we could start again. It’s a been a few months—”

“Years.”

“Years,” she corrected. “The family’s all settled in, I take it? Recovered nicely, I hope? And I can see you've passed your exams. So I thought maybe you and I could try again. In space and time. With the new me.” She held out a hand invitingly, wriggling the fingers. “The me with itty-bitty hands, and an awful lot of hair – and a cat by the way, but you’ll love her, really you will – and it’s still me, Martha Jones. It still is. I promise.”




More memories. Shakespeare and witches and Daleks in Manhattan. The future, the past, and literally the end of the universe.

But she’d suffered for it, hadn’t she? She’d been stranded for three months without him – or with a whiny, amnesiac and painfully human version of him – and right after that he’d gone and gotten them both stranded in the sixties and she’d had to get a minimum wage job to support him –

And that wasn’t even counting the last year, oh no, that wasn’t even thinking about that last year. The year of fear, and loneliness and pain. The year her family was taken away from her by a madman, and she had no one, not even the Doctor to help her…

But she’d kept going, hadn’t she? Because she loved the Doctor.





Martha gazed at the woman and saw eyes that had witnessed empires toppling and galaxies in flame.

The woman smiled, a warm smile, an infinitely sad smile. “What do you say, Martha Jones? Give us another chance.”




And she shouldn’t, she really shouldn’t, because all the loneliness and she walked the Earth and…




She couldn’t help herself. She found herself smiling. “Doctor…”

“You called me Doctor,” she grinned, the hand still outstretched, fingers spread, waiting.

“Yeah,” said Martha, taking the hand, sliding her fingers through the Doctor’s. “I suppose I did.”

The Doctor smiled and pulled her closer, locking their arms together as she began to stride back towards the lifts. She was already babbling on about a fantastic world with violet moons and crystal forests, her face glowing with the thrill of the adventure.

And every once in a while, just quickly, she glanced at Martha, right at her, looking deep into her eyes, and it took her by surprise every time she did it because he, for all his charm and brilliance and heroism, had never looked at her quite that way.

She barely noticed it when they left the hospital, except for the light drops of rain falling and speckling her face.

“On Trialsnine IV the rain sings,” the Doctor was saying.

Martha watched the silvery droplets fall of the brim of her hat and smiled. Tears were welling up in her eyes, but not from sadness.

“Come on, then!” the Doctor grinned, pulling her closer, so that their faces were almost touching. “We’ve got an entire universe to discover! There are galaxies and galaxies out there! Time to get off this dusty old planet! What do you say?”

And she didn’t keep babbling on after she said that. She stopped. And she stared at Martha with that deep, wondering stare. And she waited.





THE END
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