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storypaint) wrote2014-10-26 07:41 pm
storypaint) wrote2014-10-26 07:41 pm
Entry tags:
[Doctor Who] only who is left (Martha gen)
Title: only who is left
Fandom: Doctor Who
Length: 686 words
Prompt: MARTHA JONES APPRECIATION DAY, 9/25/14 (I wrote this and then forgot to post it on the right date)
Pairing: Martha gen; Martha/Tom
Other: Set post S3. Some PSTD themes.
Excerpt: How Martha came to join UNIT. When she meets Tom again, for the first time, she thinks it will help. He doesn't remember anything from that time, isn't steeped in terror and loss, doesn't have nightmares about deaths and deaths and deaths. He had been a good man, during the Year that Never Was, and he is a good man now. She could love him again.
Martha has to relearn everything when she returns to normal life. She has to remember that she can safely sleep through the night. She has a hard time in crowds or when she hears loud noises. She finds alternate routes to work and varies the times she leaves for months, until she realizes she doesn't have to do that anymore. It never quite becomes easy to go back to her apartment, and finally she moves to another one that she secretly thinks of as more defensible.
When she meets Tom again, for the first time, she thinks it will help. He doesn't remember anything from that time, isn't steeped in terror and loss, doesn't have nightmares about deaths and deaths and deaths. He had been a good man, during the Year that Never Was, and he is a good man now. She could love him again.
She does, and he loves her back. She revels in being normal with him. She loves going grocery shopping together on Sunday afternoons and watching soaps she has never enjoyed. Tom is the kind of man she has always wanted -- before the Doctor tipped her life upside down. Sometimes, a whole week goes by in which she doesn't think of the Doctor.
They get engaged after a year. It is a wonderful proposal, private and personal. Tom asks her to go to Africa with him when he goes back. Martha has patched up people with two hearts and people with external lungs. She has used blunt scissors and gleaming tools. She wants to go wherever she's needed, so she says yes, to the marriage and to the trip. They schedule the wedding for a month before they fly out.
The closer it gets, the more uneasy Martha becomes. She mentions it to married friends and to her sister; they reassure her that a little uncertainty is completely normal. A friend tells her that she called a cab to the church and had nearly taken it, before changing her mind again and walking down the aisle. She starts having insomnia again, and nightmares. Her skin itches, inexplicably. Tom is wonderful about it. He has no doubts at all, or so he tells her. He kisses her forehead when she wakes up screaming and makes jokes about how he must be a terrible fiance indeed to cause all this trouble.
Four days before the wedding someone calls her cell phone and they know. She's never met the person talking calmly and easily on the line about the parts of her life that she most wants to forget, and she almost hangs up before the woman mentions Jack Harkness and another "mutual friend" and it all becomes clear. Martha agrees to meet with them and there is a car outside the apartment in an hour. She tells Tom she's going out to see her family. When she comes back an hour later, head spinning, she tells him that the crisis has been averted, that Tish is just being dramatic about a boyfriend again.
The next day he kisses her forehead before he leaves for work. Once he's gone, she packs a bag and practices what she wants to say. She forgets all of it when Tom comes home, seeing the house dark and his fiancee sitting quietly at the kitchen table with a little black backpack sitting by her feet. She tells him that she's sorry. He offers to help with the bag.
She takes a cab to her mom's house and cries half the night. Her mother doesn't say anything about the catering, or the church, or the dozens of other reservations that Francine cancels the next day, going down the careful list in Martha's datebook. She just pets her daughter's hair and thinks unpleasant thoughts in the Doctor's direction.
Two days before she was supposed to be married, Martha Jones squares her shoulders and walks into UNIT headquarters for her first day of really making a difference again.
She hopes it's enough that she can start sleeping through the night again -- knowing where the monsters are.
Fandom: Doctor Who
Length: 686 words
Prompt: MARTHA JONES APPRECIATION DAY, 9/25/14 (I wrote this and then forgot to post it on the right date)
Pairing: Martha gen; Martha/Tom
Other: Set post S3. Some PSTD themes.
Excerpt: How Martha came to join UNIT. When she meets Tom again, for the first time, she thinks it will help. He doesn't remember anything from that time, isn't steeped in terror and loss, doesn't have nightmares about deaths and deaths and deaths. He had been a good man, during the Year that Never Was, and he is a good man now. She could love him again.
Martha has to relearn everything when she returns to normal life. She has to remember that she can safely sleep through the night. She has a hard time in crowds or when she hears loud noises. She finds alternate routes to work and varies the times she leaves for months, until she realizes she doesn't have to do that anymore. It never quite becomes easy to go back to her apartment, and finally she moves to another one that she secretly thinks of as more defensible.
When she meets Tom again, for the first time, she thinks it will help. He doesn't remember anything from that time, isn't steeped in terror and loss, doesn't have nightmares about deaths and deaths and deaths. He had been a good man, during the Year that Never Was, and he is a good man now. She could love him again.
She does, and he loves her back. She revels in being normal with him. She loves going grocery shopping together on Sunday afternoons and watching soaps she has never enjoyed. Tom is the kind of man she has always wanted -- before the Doctor tipped her life upside down. Sometimes, a whole week goes by in which she doesn't think of the Doctor.
They get engaged after a year. It is a wonderful proposal, private and personal. Tom asks her to go to Africa with him when he goes back. Martha has patched up people with two hearts and people with external lungs. She has used blunt scissors and gleaming tools. She wants to go wherever she's needed, so she says yes, to the marriage and to the trip. They schedule the wedding for a month before they fly out.
The closer it gets, the more uneasy Martha becomes. She mentions it to married friends and to her sister; they reassure her that a little uncertainty is completely normal. A friend tells her that she called a cab to the church and had nearly taken it, before changing her mind again and walking down the aisle. She starts having insomnia again, and nightmares. Her skin itches, inexplicably. Tom is wonderful about it. He has no doubts at all, or so he tells her. He kisses her forehead when she wakes up screaming and makes jokes about how he must be a terrible fiance indeed to cause all this trouble.
Four days before the wedding someone calls her cell phone and they know. She's never met the person talking calmly and easily on the line about the parts of her life that she most wants to forget, and she almost hangs up before the woman mentions Jack Harkness and another "mutual friend" and it all becomes clear. Martha agrees to meet with them and there is a car outside the apartment in an hour. She tells Tom she's going out to see her family. When she comes back an hour later, head spinning, she tells him that the crisis has been averted, that Tish is just being dramatic about a boyfriend again.
The next day he kisses her forehead before he leaves for work. Once he's gone, she packs a bag and practices what she wants to say. She forgets all of it when Tom comes home, seeing the house dark and his fiancee sitting quietly at the kitchen table with a little black backpack sitting by her feet. She tells him that she's sorry. He offers to help with the bag.
She takes a cab to her mom's house and cries half the night. Her mother doesn't say anything about the catering, or the church, or the dozens of other reservations that Francine cancels the next day, going down the careful list in Martha's datebook. She just pets her daughter's hair and thinks unpleasant thoughts in the Doctor's direction.
Two days before she was supposed to be married, Martha Jones squares her shoulders and walks into UNIT headquarters for her first day of really making a difference again.
She hopes it's enough that she can start sleeping through the night again -- knowing where the monsters are.