Fic: An Introduction to Space Travel
Nov. 17th, 2009 10:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
netgirl_y2kTitle: An Introduction to Space Travel
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Rose/Martha, Romana, Jack
Rating: G
Word Count: 5028
Summary: Rose and Martha travel the universe with the last of the Time Lords: Romana.
Martha Jones paced from one end of the windowless cell to the other. She tugged at the handle of the heavy wooden door. She didn't expect it to open, so she wasn't particularly surprised when it didn't.
"Stop worrying," the other occupant of the cell told her.
Rose Tyler was sitting on the floor with her legs crossed and her back against the wall. She looked for all the world like someone who spent most of her life locked up in dungeons on alien planets. Which, Martha was beginning to suspect, she did.
"She'll turn up eventually, she always does."
As if in response to Rose's words, the cell door creaked open and admitted a tall woman whose dark red curls stopped halfway down her back, her dark green overcoat set off her bright green eyes.
"Romana!" Rose started to get to her feet, then she noticed the Zygon guard who shoved Romana into the centre of the room and slammed the door after her. There was the sound of a lock turning.
"Oh," she said, slumping back to the floor.
"Now we're all locked up. Brilliant." Travelling with Rose and Romana had given Martha a new appreciation of the art of sarcasm.
"Nothing to worry about," said Romana. She bent down and produced a large iron key from her high-heeled boot. "I relieved one of the guards of this. All we have to do is wait until they're not watching, and we can walk out of here." She returned the key to her boot and sat down next to Rose, stretching her legs out and closing her eyes.
Martha sighed, walked across the room and sat down on Rose's other side. She thought about how she'd ended up travelling the universe with Rose Tyler and her alien best friend.
*
It had been a perfectly normal day at the hospital. Martha had just finished seeing Mrs Walker, who was complaining of abdominal pains, when somebody grabbed her by the arm.
"Are you a doctor?"
The question came from a blonde woman roughly Martha's age. She was clearly upset, her eyes were red and mascara was streaked down her cheeks.
"Yes, I--" before Martha could finish she was dragged into a disused corridor.
"It's my friend. She's been knocked out. I've never seen her like this. She said... But I don't know... Please, hurry."
As the blonde gabbled, she dragged Martha along the corridor to where a small woman of indefinable age was laid out on a stretcher. She was unconscious, her fine blonde hair tangled behind her head. She was pale and her breathing was shallow.
Martha suppressed a wave of annoyance that the woman's friend hadn't taken her to the main entrance where she could have been helped more quickly.
"What's her name?"
"Romana," the blonde answered.
"Romana, can you hear me?" Martha enunciated clearly. She pulled out her stethoscope and listened for Romana's heartbeat. There was one, just barely. But hang on, that sounded like... No, it couldn't be.
She was feeling for a pulse when the flash came. It was as though someone had let off a firework right in front of her face. Martha closed her eyes and turned her head away, blinking and waiting for her vision to return. She shook her head and her wrist was caught in a vice-like grip; she looked down to find a pair of startlingly bright green eyes staring up at her.
She closed her eyes, waited, then opened them again but the hallucination hadn't gone away. The small blonde was gone; replaced by a taller woman with lots of red hair, freckles and a gap between two of her front teeth that showed when she smiled, as she was doing now.
"Hello, who are you?"
Despite the freckles, the teeth and the utter weirdness of the situation, there was something about this woman that made you want to answer her.
"Martha Jones," she responded. "Doctor Martha Jones." She'd only qualified a month ago and she kept forgetting to add her professional title.
Romana propped herself up on her elbows and smiled, showing almost all of her teeth. "I've always liked doctors."
"Who're you?"
"I'm Romanavoratrelundar, and this…" The redhead frowned slightly, her gaze flitting about the room until it landed on her blonde companion. "This is my friend, Rose Tyler."
Rose, who'd been hanging back while Martha worked, hurried over to the stretcher and hugged Romana. "Sorry, I know you said to leave you where you were, but the regeneration was taking ages and then one of your hearts stopped--"
"Hang on," Martha interrupted. "She has two hearts! I heard them and then she changed..."
"Total cellular regeneration," Romana said cheerfully, as if that explained anything. Before Martha could ask one of the many, many questions that were jostling for attention in her mind, Romana sat bolt upright and looked past both Martha and Rose. "Cybermen," she breathed.
She hopped off the stretcher. She was still wearing the old fashioned blue dress that had probably been full length and well fitted when she was smaller and blonder, but now it stopped at mid shin and stretched and bunched in all the wrong places.
She took a few steps, and then hobbled back to the stretcher.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow."
She took off her shoes now, like the dress, several sizes too small. She stood, wiggled her toes, and strode straight past Martha and out the door with Rose following her.
Martha was still gaping in their wake when the door reopened and Romana popped her head through.
"Martha, do you know how to stop a rampaging army of cyborgs from taking over London?"
"Not really, no."
"Never mind, I'm sure we'll muddle through somehow. Come along."
*
After Romana had liberated them from their cell, they managed to creep back to the docks without alerting any of the Zygons, and get aboard their ship.
The ship looked like one of the less well finished special effects from Star Wars. Romana was fond of parking it in the middle of cities and telling people it was modern art.
Really, it was far too small for three people, but Rose had told Martha that it had been the only one available for pinching when she and Romana had absconded from a different alien dungeon.
Romana sat at the controls. "So, Martha, what do you say, back to Earth?"
There were only two chairs in the tiny cockpit, so Martha settled for perching on the arm of Rose's. "Not a chance," she said with a grin.
Romana answered by starting the engines. The ship lurched violently, sending Martha sprawling into Rose's lap.
*
Occasionally Martha felt the urge to ask sensible questions, even though this usually resulted in Romana looking at her like she was a particularly moronic example of her species.
"How come this ship's so fast?" she asked.
And there was the look again, although Rose had told Martha that Romana's you-are-an-idiot look was nowhere near as fierce as it used to be.
"I mean," Martha clarified, "we've been to three inhabited planets already, and I've only been here a week and a half. Shouldn't that take hundreds of years? Shouldn't we have to go into suspended animation or something?"
Romana gave a long suffering roll of her eyes. "Rose, tell Martha how the ship got to be so fast, please?"
"Because Romana is very, very clever. Much cleverer than the people who originally designed this ship," said Rose in the dull tones of someone repeating something they've heard more often than they care to think about.
"Thank you, Rose," Romana said merrily.
*
It was a beautiful day on the planet Adora. Rose had found a pair of sunglasses to wear. Martha, who had neglected to pack sunglasses in her going-to-explore-the-galaxy-with-lunatics bag, was squinting up at the brightly lit building and shading her eyes with her palm.
"What is this place?" Rose asked.
"A hospital," Romana answered. She looked directly at Martha. "About three hundred years in advance of the human medical technology of your time. Including stem cell therapies to grow replacement organs, and I believe they've recently discovered a cure for the Adorian version of cancer. I thought you might like to have a look round?"
"What, seriously?" said Martha, grinning like a loon.
"Seriously, off you go." Romana made little shooing gestures at them.
"Aren't you coming?" Rose asked.
"Whenever we go near a hospital Martha finds some random medical instruments to poke me with. I refuse."
"If you'd only tell me what that whole cellular regeneration thing is about? Or why you've got two hearts? Then I wouldn't have to poke you with medical instruments."
Romana ignored Martha's questions, just as she had every other time they'd been asked. "Anyway, I have to pick up some new parts for the ship. It's best you two amuse yourselves."
She gave Rose a little shove towards Martha. "Martha, you have fun poking Rose with medical instruments."
"Sounds like a plan to me," Martha said, taking Rose's arm and leading her up the steps to the hospital. Rose turned to wave back at Romana, but the alien was already striding away across the square.
*
Three hours later, and they were headed arm in arm back to the ship. The hospital had been very impressive. Okay, most of the equipment was designed for people with three eyes and no spleen, but even so.
Rose had even caved and let Martha test out some of the hospital's scanning equipment on her. Martha had eventually got it figured out, after a bad beginning when the machine kept telling her that Rose was clinically dead.
"Is that Romana?" Martha asked.
Romana appeared to be, with some difficulty and the aid of an anti-gravity lift, manoeuvring a crate taller than herself onto the ship.
"Rose, grab the other end of this, would you?" Romana shouted.
"What's in it?" Rose dropped Martha's arm and grabbed the other end of the crate, which rattled worryingly.
"Nothing."
"Oof, heavy bit of nothing," Rose complained. "Fine, don't tell me, then. Sometimes I miss your last incarnation."
"Did I tell you much more back then?"
"No, but you were shorter."
The hatchway into the ship was only big enough for two people plus the crate, so Martha hung back. It was at times like these that she realised how little she actually knew about her two friends. She didn't even know how long they'd been travelling together before she'd come on the scene.
*
"Is he chatting her up?" Rose asked. She stood on her tip toes in order to get a glimpse of Romana through the press of life-forms.
Martha followed Rose's gaze to Romana and the handsome dark haired man she was standing very close to. "I'd say she's chatting him up."
Rose frowned. Green eyed monster, Martha diagnosed. "That's weird. That's definitely weird."
"Why?" Martha asked. "Is Romana not interested in men, or something?"
"Before her regeneration, she was never interested in anyone. And now she's--" Rose shut up sharply as Romana and her new friend walked over, the crowd parting easily for them.
"Rose, Martha, this is Jack Harkness. Jack, these are my friends Rose Tyler and Martha Jones."
"Ladies," he greeted them, flashing a very bright smile their way. Rose blushed, and Martha tried not to laugh at her friend. Sucker for a pretty smile, that was Rose.
"I was going to show Jack around the ship," said Romana. Jack flashed a look from Romana to Rose and Martha that clearly meant 'How about it?'
Martha shot a look back that she hoped illustrated the sentiment 'No chance, mate.'
After establishing that Rose and Martha could be relied upon to explore the space station for a few hours without getting into any trouble, Romana took Jack's arm and led him away.
Martha stared after them. "Was he human? He looked human. How did a human get all the way out here?"
Rose gave her a significant look; she must have copied it off Romana.
"Yeah, alright, but we've got Romana. I didn't see a handy alien tour guide with Jack.”
"I bet he's a time agent!"
"A time agent," Martha scoffed. "What, like some sort of futuristic James Bond?"
"Sort of. Romana reckons they're humans from the future who go around, well, 'wreaking untold havoc on the timeline' were her exact words. She's been trying to track one down for ages, even since before we met you. I wonder what for?"
It was Martha's turn to raise an eyebrow and look keenly at Rose, the blonde blushed and looked away. "Anyway, we should probably make ourselves scarce for a couple of hours."
*
"What was she like?" Martha asked, once they'd found a less crowded part of the station to explore.
"What?"
"Romana. Before she changed the day that I met you. What was she like?" Martha had wanted to ask that question for ages as her recollection of Romana's previous incarnation extended to small, blonde and dying.
"She was…" Rose paused, and Martha had almost given up on getting an answer when she continued. "Sadder. Other things too; she was more serious, sometimes she could go all intense and a little scary, and she never borrowed my clothes without asking like she does now. But mainly she was sad."
"So, it's a good thing then?"
"Yeah, I suppose. I mean, of course. It's just that I sometimes miss how she was. It was one of the reasons I stayed with her all this time, I thought she needed someone to hold her hand, to look after her."
"Really? I always thought it was because..." Martha trailed off, none of her business.
"What?" Rose demanded, nudging Martha in the ribs. "Tell me."
"Oh, alright. I thought it was because you were in love with her."
"What!" Rose grabbed Martha's elbow, stopping her in her tracks. "I'm not in love with Romana."
"Okay."
"I mean, she's my best friend and I love her, but not..."
"Whatever you say." Martha grinned, enjoying Rose's discomfort even though she knew she shouldn't.
"Look, I just don't fancy her, okay?"
The lady doth protest too much, thought Martha. "Really, I always thought she was very attractive."
Rose frowned. "You make a move on her, then."
"Nah," said Martha, taking Rose's hand and planting a brief peck on her lips. "I only fancy humans."
*
"Romana?" Rose called out when they returned to the ship the next morning. There was no response.
"Romana?" tried Martha, to the same effect.
"Jack?" tried Rose.
"He's gone." Romana leant against a doorway just in front of them.
"So," Rose said in a laughable attempt at a casual voice. "Are you going to see him again?"
"Oh, I doubt he'd be pleased to see me. Time Agent's aren't very fond of aliens who seduce them only to steal their vortex manipulators." Romana laughed brightly, stepping fully through the door and closing it behind her. "By the way, don't go in there for a few days, okay?"
The door Romana was standing in front of was the entrance to the engine room, a clutter of mismatched alien technology and rust. Ordinarily neither Rose nor Martha would be inclined to go in there, but something about being told they couldn't piqued their natural human curiosity.
"Why, what's in there?"
"I've got a bit of a project going on. You'll find out soon enough," Romana said, innocently.
*
Martha looked down at the controls in front of her, they looked like a cross between something from a NASA shuttle and a Playstation 3. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"
"Of course it is," said Romana, who was leaning on the back of Martha's seat. Rose was sitting in the other chair, trying not to look like she was clinging onto the upholstery.
Martha stretched out, but paused with her fingers inches from the controls. "I'm really not sure about this."
"You'll be fine," Romana assured her. "I'm standing right here. And it can't be any worse than the time I tried to teach Rose to fly the ship."
"Hey, that wasn't my fault."
"No, it was the fault of that moon. Just hanging there in space like that."
Rose leaned over and squeezed Martha's hand. "Just think of it as learning to drive."
Martha breathed out. Like learning to drive, yeah, but with NASA controls and a field of stars right in front of her. She pressed down on the controls and the ship pitched in a roughly forwards direction.
*
Martha negotiated her way around the ship's kitchen and passed Rose her cup of tea. "Don't think I'm mad or anything, but do you think the ship's getting bigger?"
"Oh, thank God," Rose said, putting down her cup. "I thought I was imagining it."
"Me too," Martha said, grinning with relief that she was not in fact mad. "Do you think that corridor up to the cockpit is getting longer?"
"Definitely. And you should have seen my wardrobe when I opened it this morning, it was like Narnia in there."
"Romana?" Martha called. The redhead was walking past the kitchen poking at a circuit board. "Is the ship getting bigger?"
"No," Romana replied, walking past without looking at either of them. "You're both imagining it."
Rose and Martha looked at each other and burst out laughing.
*
They were in another cell.
Martha decided that if she ever went home she was going to write book comparing alien detention facilities. At least this one was better than the last, it had a window and a narrow cot was pressed against one wall.
"Do you think she's okay?" asked Rose, who was slouched miserably on the cot.
The three of them had been separated after their roles in the slave uprising were uncovered. Romana was to be hanged in the morning. Martha and Rose had been shoved into a different cell to be dealt with afterwards.
"I don't know," Martha answered honestly.
"I don't know if she'll regenerate if they hang her. I don't know what I'd do without her. And how would we get back to Earth? She's the only one that knows how to...." Rose trailed off with a sniffle. She was trying not to cry.
Martha sat next to Rose and slipped an arm around her shoulders. She tried to think of something to distract her friend with. "Tell me how you and Romana met?"
Rose sniffed. "Do you remember that night about five years ago when all those shop window dummies came to life?"
Martha nodded, she remembered it well. It had been the night of Tish's twenty-first, and they'd been sitting in the pub when two dummies from the menswear shop next door had burst in and started shooting, shattered the bottles over the bar and sending everyone diving for cover. They'd said afterwards that it had been a sort of group hallucination. Martha had never believed that. She hadn't spent the evening hiding under a table from a figment of her imagination.
"My mum was killed that night," Rose continued.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Martha said. She pulled Rose closer, and the blonde's head slipped onto her shoulder.
"After that I went a bit mad, got a new job at Torchwood. Have you heard of them?"
Martha thought she recognised the name, but she couldn't quite place it... "Hang on, weren't they the ones that destroyed that spaceship on Christmas day a few years back?"
"I was long gone by then, but it sounds like them. But it wasn't just that, they found aliens who fetched up on Earth, locked them up. Said it was for the protection of the Earth."
"And then what happened to them?" Martha asked, even though she had a feeling that she didn't really want to know.
"I didn't know. I didn't care. As far as I was concerned aliens had killed my mum. And then one day I went down to the cells and there was Romana."
"Beginning of a beautiful friendship," Martha finished, stroking Rose's hair.
"She was just sitting there, cool as a cucumber. They'd tried all sorts to make her talk but she didn't have a hair out of place. She said that if I helped her escape Torchwood, she'd do the same for me."
"Why did you need help to escape?"
"They don't like people quitting. Really don't like it." Rose turned so she was facing Martha. They were both leaning against the wall, their faces inches apart. "I'm really glad you're here."
"Yeah, me too." Martha tucked a stray strand of blonde hair behind Rose's ear and leaned in. The kiss was soft, so soft that it was barely there at first. Then Martha's fingers tangled in Rose's hair and Rose pulled Martha forward by the collar of her coat and someone opened their mouth and that, of course, was when the door slammed open.
"There you are!" Romana exclaimed. "Time to make a hasty retreat, I think."
"I thought they were going to hang you," Rose said as they both scrambled to their feet.
"Ah, well, that's the thing about the prospect of being hanged in the morning: concentrates the mind."
*
Unfortunately, the escape attempt didn't go quite as smoothly as planned.
Martha couldn't take her eyes off Rose, sprawled unmoving and unconscious after being shot by one of the guards. All of Martha's instincts as a doctor were telling her to run over and help Rose, but she couldn't move.
"Who are you?" That was the King of this backwater planet. He sounded much less regal than he had when he had condemned the three of them to death.
"I am Romanavoratrelundar, Lord President of the High council of Time Lords. The unconscious human on the floor is my best friend Rose Tyler, and the human holding the syringe to the neck of your bodyguard is Doctor Martha Jones, and I suggest you let all three of us go."
*
When Martha had first come aboard the sickbay had been roughly half the size of a broom cupboard. Now it was twice the size of a decent hospital ward and much better equipped. But Martha didn't have time to muse on how this transformation had come about. She was just grateful that they had managed to get Rose back here in time.
Whatever it was those guards had shot her with, it had made a decent attempt at shutting down all her internal organs. With Romana's help Martha had managed to get her stabilised, and now that she was sure Rose would wake with nothing worse than a headache. She left her to sleep in peace and went in search of Romana.
Romana had the gift of seemingly being able to vanish at will. Sometimes neither Rose or Martha would see her for days at a time. Martha was beginning to suspect that this would be one of those times, when she managed to track Romana down in the cockpit.
Romana was lying underneath one of the consoles, Martha could only see her boots and the bottom of her skirt.
"Romana?" Nothing. "Romana!" Still nothing. "Madame President?"
"Ow!" Romana yelped, sitting up too quickly and thumping her head on the underside of the control panel. She slid out to face Martha, rubbing her forehead. "You heard that, then?"
"You mean when you called yourself the lord president something or other? Yeah, it was a little hard to miss. What were you talking about?"
Romana hopped to her feet and began bustling around the room, picking things up and putting them down without looking at them. "I used to be the President of Gallifrey. I'm not anymore."
"Were you really bad at it?"
Romana stopped fidgeting and stood perfectly still, examining her hands. "No. Yes. No. I was a bit rubbish towards the end there." She dived back under the controls and it was muffled through layers of wire and circuitry that Martha heard, "Did Rose hear?"
"No, I think she was already knocked out by that point."
"Don't tell her."
"Why not?" Martha demanded.
Romana withdrew her head from the mess of circuitry to look Martha in the eye. "It was another life, for me, literally. And Rose would only want to know what had happened."
"And I don't?"
"Ah, but I'd feel obligated to tell Rose."
"She's going to be alright, you know," Martha said. But Romana had already vanished back into the jungle of wires.
"Make sure you look after her," Romana said quietly.
Martha leaned down and squeezed Romana's ankle. "We'll all look after each other."
*
Martha was sitting on the bed in her room, she was never planning on leaving. What with the way the ship had been behaving recently, the only way to ensure that you'd ever find a room again was not to leave it in the first place.
She seriously considered not answering the knock at the door when it came. But she did, and found Rose standing outside.
"Oh, thank God I found you! I spent ten minutes knocking at the door to the kitchen before I realised the rooms had been moving about again."
Martha took Rose's arm and dragged her inside. "Have you talked to Romana about it yet?"
"Talked to? I haven't seen her for the better part of a week, and when I do she's got her head in all this alien machinery."
"You'd better stay here then, at least till we figure out what's going on." Martha stepped back to let Rose step fully into the room, aware that there wasn't much space.
Despite the weirdness with the ship's dimensions lately, there hadn't been any dramatic increase in the size of Martha's room. There was barely enough space for her bed, clothes, and one or two items from the sickbay that had demanded a closer look. Add Rose and Martha, and it made for a tight squeeze.
"Thanks," said Rose awkwardly. "And thanks for looking after me when I was hurt."
"You should thank Romana, really. She was the one that got the King to release us."
"I will when I finally get to talk to her. But you were the one who was there when I woke up."
"Look, Rose..."
"Martha, listen..."
They both laughed awkwardly, and it was Rose who started talking. "About what happened when we were in that cell--"
Martha turned away. "Look, we were both freaked out, and you were worried about Romana--"
Rose grabbed her, pulling her back. "Romana's just my friend. Lots of getting locked up together and the occasional bit of shopping, but that's it. There's nothing going on. It's you I--"
Rose decided that she could make her point much more succinctly by grabbing Martha's waist, pulling her close, and kissing her thoroughly. Martha stumbled backwards, tugging Rose with her, until her legs hit the sides of the mattress and they both tumbled backwards. They landed on the mattress, giggling.
"I only fancy humans too," whispered Rose.
"Are you sure about this?"
"Martha, we're the only two humans for god knows how many miles and miles, and even if we weren't I'd still be pretty sure."
Martha arched an eyebrow. "Pretty sure?"
Rose smirked. "All right then, very sure. Very, very sure."
"Good argument, well made," Martha conceded, dragging Rose back down into the kiss.
*
When the door slammed open the next morning, Rose let out a squeak and dived under the covers. Martha made sure the bedclothes were arranged so that they were both decent, raised an eyebrow and said, "Can I help you?"
"Get up, I've got something to show you." Romana turned to leave, then turned back and addressed the lump under the sheets. "Morning, Rose."
"Hiya, Romana," Rose mumbled without emerging from her cocoon.
They got up and dressed, alternating between avoiding each other's eyes and grinning like idiots. Romana was waiting for them outside, smirking.
"So what's this big surprise, then?" Rose asked.
Romana grinned like the cat that got the canary. "Walk this way."
And with that she set off down the corridor. Rose and Martha exchanged slightly worried glances and followed after her. Rose reached out to take Martha's hand like it was the most natural thing in the world.
They spent fifteen minutes walking along a corridor that had recently been only ten meters long.
"Do you even know where you're going?" Martha asked.
"Don't worry," Romana answered. "The transcendental field should have stabilised by now."
"Oh," said Martha, pretending that she had understood any of that.
They eventually reached a door that was recognisable as the door to the engine room that Romana had barred Rose and Martha from all those weeks ago. She opened it with a flourish.
Rose and Martha gaped. The room, which had always been quite small and cramped, now had a high, almost cathedral-like ceiling. Wires criss-crossed all over the floor, leading from the walls to the circular structure that dominated the room. At waist height was a ledge covered in a colourful mishmash of controls.
"It's not quite a TARDIS, but it'll do."
"What's it for?" Rose asked, impressed by the sheer scale if nothing else.
"This, my friends," said Romana walking into the centre of the room and spreading her arms wide, "is a fully functional time machine."
"Pull the other one," laughed Martha.
"Alright, I'll prove it to you." Romana walked around the central device, flicking switches and pulling levers. The ship rumbled its objections to whatever she was doing. "Past or future?" she asked with a grin.
"Past," said Martha.
"Future," said Rose
"I'll surprise you." Romana said, throwing a final switch. The ship heaved and lurched worse than it ever had before. Rose lost her balance and tumbled sideways into Martha, who attempted to stabilise her, but her foot caught on a wire and they both went down.
"Hang on to something," said Romana, somewhat superfluously. Martha, already on the floor, decided that idea of hanging onto Rose was quite appealing anyway.
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Rose/Martha, Romana, Jack
Rating: G
Word Count: 5028
Summary: Rose and Martha travel the universe with the last of the Time Lords: Romana.
Martha Jones paced from one end of the windowless cell to the other. She tugged at the handle of the heavy wooden door. She didn't expect it to open, so she wasn't particularly surprised when it didn't.
"Stop worrying," the other occupant of the cell told her.
Rose Tyler was sitting on the floor with her legs crossed and her back against the wall. She looked for all the world like someone who spent most of her life locked up in dungeons on alien planets. Which, Martha was beginning to suspect, she did.
"She'll turn up eventually, she always does."
As if in response to Rose's words, the cell door creaked open and admitted a tall woman whose dark red curls stopped halfway down her back, her dark green overcoat set off her bright green eyes.
"Romana!" Rose started to get to her feet, then she noticed the Zygon guard who shoved Romana into the centre of the room and slammed the door after her. There was the sound of a lock turning.
"Oh," she said, slumping back to the floor.
"Now we're all locked up. Brilliant." Travelling with Rose and Romana had given Martha a new appreciation of the art of sarcasm.
"Nothing to worry about," said Romana. She bent down and produced a large iron key from her high-heeled boot. "I relieved one of the guards of this. All we have to do is wait until they're not watching, and we can walk out of here." She returned the key to her boot and sat down next to Rose, stretching her legs out and closing her eyes.
Martha sighed, walked across the room and sat down on Rose's other side. She thought about how she'd ended up travelling the universe with Rose Tyler and her alien best friend.
*
It had been a perfectly normal day at the hospital. Martha had just finished seeing Mrs Walker, who was complaining of abdominal pains, when somebody grabbed her by the arm.
"Are you a doctor?"
The question came from a blonde woman roughly Martha's age. She was clearly upset, her eyes were red and mascara was streaked down her cheeks.
"Yes, I--" before Martha could finish she was dragged into a disused corridor.
"It's my friend. She's been knocked out. I've never seen her like this. She said... But I don't know... Please, hurry."
As the blonde gabbled, she dragged Martha along the corridor to where a small woman of indefinable age was laid out on a stretcher. She was unconscious, her fine blonde hair tangled behind her head. She was pale and her breathing was shallow.
Martha suppressed a wave of annoyance that the woman's friend hadn't taken her to the main entrance where she could have been helped more quickly.
"What's her name?"
"Romana," the blonde answered.
"Romana, can you hear me?" Martha enunciated clearly. She pulled out her stethoscope and listened for Romana's heartbeat. There was one, just barely. But hang on, that sounded like... No, it couldn't be.
She was feeling for a pulse when the flash came. It was as though someone had let off a firework right in front of her face. Martha closed her eyes and turned her head away, blinking and waiting for her vision to return. She shook her head and her wrist was caught in a vice-like grip; she looked down to find a pair of startlingly bright green eyes staring up at her.
She closed her eyes, waited, then opened them again but the hallucination hadn't gone away. The small blonde was gone; replaced by a taller woman with lots of red hair, freckles and a gap between two of her front teeth that showed when she smiled, as she was doing now.
"Hello, who are you?"
Despite the freckles, the teeth and the utter weirdness of the situation, there was something about this woman that made you want to answer her.
"Martha Jones," she responded. "Doctor Martha Jones." She'd only qualified a month ago and she kept forgetting to add her professional title.
Romana propped herself up on her elbows and smiled, showing almost all of her teeth. "I've always liked doctors."
"Who're you?"
"I'm Romanavoratrelundar, and this…" The redhead frowned slightly, her gaze flitting about the room until it landed on her blonde companion. "This is my friend, Rose Tyler."
Rose, who'd been hanging back while Martha worked, hurried over to the stretcher and hugged Romana. "Sorry, I know you said to leave you where you were, but the regeneration was taking ages and then one of your hearts stopped--"
"Hang on," Martha interrupted. "She has two hearts! I heard them and then she changed..."
"Total cellular regeneration," Romana said cheerfully, as if that explained anything. Before Martha could ask one of the many, many questions that were jostling for attention in her mind, Romana sat bolt upright and looked past both Martha and Rose. "Cybermen," she breathed.
She hopped off the stretcher. She was still wearing the old fashioned blue dress that had probably been full length and well fitted when she was smaller and blonder, but now it stopped at mid shin and stretched and bunched in all the wrong places.
She took a few steps, and then hobbled back to the stretcher.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow."
She took off her shoes now, like the dress, several sizes too small. She stood, wiggled her toes, and strode straight past Martha and out the door with Rose following her.
Martha was still gaping in their wake when the door reopened and Romana popped her head through.
"Martha, do you know how to stop a rampaging army of cyborgs from taking over London?"
"Not really, no."
"Never mind, I'm sure we'll muddle through somehow. Come along."
*
After Romana had liberated them from their cell, they managed to creep back to the docks without alerting any of the Zygons, and get aboard their ship.
The ship looked like one of the less well finished special effects from Star Wars. Romana was fond of parking it in the middle of cities and telling people it was modern art.
Really, it was far too small for three people, but Rose had told Martha that it had been the only one available for pinching when she and Romana had absconded from a different alien dungeon.
Romana sat at the controls. "So, Martha, what do you say, back to Earth?"
There were only two chairs in the tiny cockpit, so Martha settled for perching on the arm of Rose's. "Not a chance," she said with a grin.
Romana answered by starting the engines. The ship lurched violently, sending Martha sprawling into Rose's lap.
*
Occasionally Martha felt the urge to ask sensible questions, even though this usually resulted in Romana looking at her like she was a particularly moronic example of her species.
"How come this ship's so fast?" she asked.
And there was the look again, although Rose had told Martha that Romana's you-are-an-idiot look was nowhere near as fierce as it used to be.
"I mean," Martha clarified, "we've been to three inhabited planets already, and I've only been here a week and a half. Shouldn't that take hundreds of years? Shouldn't we have to go into suspended animation or something?"
Romana gave a long suffering roll of her eyes. "Rose, tell Martha how the ship got to be so fast, please?"
"Because Romana is very, very clever. Much cleverer than the people who originally designed this ship," said Rose in the dull tones of someone repeating something they've heard more often than they care to think about.
"Thank you, Rose," Romana said merrily.
*
It was a beautiful day on the planet Adora. Rose had found a pair of sunglasses to wear. Martha, who had neglected to pack sunglasses in her going-to-explore-the-galaxy-with-lunatics bag, was squinting up at the brightly lit building and shading her eyes with her palm.
"What is this place?" Rose asked.
"A hospital," Romana answered. She looked directly at Martha. "About three hundred years in advance of the human medical technology of your time. Including stem cell therapies to grow replacement organs, and I believe they've recently discovered a cure for the Adorian version of cancer. I thought you might like to have a look round?"
"What, seriously?" said Martha, grinning like a loon.
"Seriously, off you go." Romana made little shooing gestures at them.
"Aren't you coming?" Rose asked.
"Whenever we go near a hospital Martha finds some random medical instruments to poke me with. I refuse."
"If you'd only tell me what that whole cellular regeneration thing is about? Or why you've got two hearts? Then I wouldn't have to poke you with medical instruments."
Romana ignored Martha's questions, just as she had every other time they'd been asked. "Anyway, I have to pick up some new parts for the ship. It's best you two amuse yourselves."
She gave Rose a little shove towards Martha. "Martha, you have fun poking Rose with medical instruments."
"Sounds like a plan to me," Martha said, taking Rose's arm and leading her up the steps to the hospital. Rose turned to wave back at Romana, but the alien was already striding away across the square.
*
Three hours later, and they were headed arm in arm back to the ship. The hospital had been very impressive. Okay, most of the equipment was designed for people with three eyes and no spleen, but even so.
Rose had even caved and let Martha test out some of the hospital's scanning equipment on her. Martha had eventually got it figured out, after a bad beginning when the machine kept telling her that Rose was clinically dead.
"Is that Romana?" Martha asked.
Romana appeared to be, with some difficulty and the aid of an anti-gravity lift, manoeuvring a crate taller than herself onto the ship.
"Rose, grab the other end of this, would you?" Romana shouted.
"What's in it?" Rose dropped Martha's arm and grabbed the other end of the crate, which rattled worryingly.
"Nothing."
"Oof, heavy bit of nothing," Rose complained. "Fine, don't tell me, then. Sometimes I miss your last incarnation."
"Did I tell you much more back then?"
"No, but you were shorter."
The hatchway into the ship was only big enough for two people plus the crate, so Martha hung back. It was at times like these that she realised how little she actually knew about her two friends. She didn't even know how long they'd been travelling together before she'd come on the scene.
*
"Is he chatting her up?" Rose asked. She stood on her tip toes in order to get a glimpse of Romana through the press of life-forms.
Martha followed Rose's gaze to Romana and the handsome dark haired man she was standing very close to. "I'd say she's chatting him up."
Rose frowned. Green eyed monster, Martha diagnosed. "That's weird. That's definitely weird."
"Why?" Martha asked. "Is Romana not interested in men, or something?"
"Before her regeneration, she was never interested in anyone. And now she's--" Rose shut up sharply as Romana and her new friend walked over, the crowd parting easily for them.
"Rose, Martha, this is Jack Harkness. Jack, these are my friends Rose Tyler and Martha Jones."
"Ladies," he greeted them, flashing a very bright smile their way. Rose blushed, and Martha tried not to laugh at her friend. Sucker for a pretty smile, that was Rose.
"I was going to show Jack around the ship," said Romana. Jack flashed a look from Romana to Rose and Martha that clearly meant 'How about it?'
Martha shot a look back that she hoped illustrated the sentiment 'No chance, mate.'
After establishing that Rose and Martha could be relied upon to explore the space station for a few hours without getting into any trouble, Romana took Jack's arm and led him away.
Martha stared after them. "Was he human? He looked human. How did a human get all the way out here?"
Rose gave her a significant look; she must have copied it off Romana.
"Yeah, alright, but we've got Romana. I didn't see a handy alien tour guide with Jack.”
"I bet he's a time agent!"
"A time agent," Martha scoffed. "What, like some sort of futuristic James Bond?"
"Sort of. Romana reckons they're humans from the future who go around, well, 'wreaking untold havoc on the timeline' were her exact words. She's been trying to track one down for ages, even since before we met you. I wonder what for?"
It was Martha's turn to raise an eyebrow and look keenly at Rose, the blonde blushed and looked away. "Anyway, we should probably make ourselves scarce for a couple of hours."
*
"What was she like?" Martha asked, once they'd found a less crowded part of the station to explore.
"What?"
"Romana. Before she changed the day that I met you. What was she like?" Martha had wanted to ask that question for ages as her recollection of Romana's previous incarnation extended to small, blonde and dying.
"She was…" Rose paused, and Martha had almost given up on getting an answer when she continued. "Sadder. Other things too; she was more serious, sometimes she could go all intense and a little scary, and she never borrowed my clothes without asking like she does now. But mainly she was sad."
"So, it's a good thing then?"
"Yeah, I suppose. I mean, of course. It's just that I sometimes miss how she was. It was one of the reasons I stayed with her all this time, I thought she needed someone to hold her hand, to look after her."
"Really? I always thought it was because..." Martha trailed off, none of her business.
"What?" Rose demanded, nudging Martha in the ribs. "Tell me."
"Oh, alright. I thought it was because you were in love with her."
"What!" Rose grabbed Martha's elbow, stopping her in her tracks. "I'm not in love with Romana."
"Okay."
"I mean, she's my best friend and I love her, but not..."
"Whatever you say." Martha grinned, enjoying Rose's discomfort even though she knew she shouldn't.
"Look, I just don't fancy her, okay?"
The lady doth protest too much, thought Martha. "Really, I always thought she was very attractive."
Rose frowned. "You make a move on her, then."
"Nah," said Martha, taking Rose's hand and planting a brief peck on her lips. "I only fancy humans."
*
"Romana?" Rose called out when they returned to the ship the next morning. There was no response.
"Romana?" tried Martha, to the same effect.
"Jack?" tried Rose.
"He's gone." Romana leant against a doorway just in front of them.
"So," Rose said in a laughable attempt at a casual voice. "Are you going to see him again?"
"Oh, I doubt he'd be pleased to see me. Time Agent's aren't very fond of aliens who seduce them only to steal their vortex manipulators." Romana laughed brightly, stepping fully through the door and closing it behind her. "By the way, don't go in there for a few days, okay?"
The door Romana was standing in front of was the entrance to the engine room, a clutter of mismatched alien technology and rust. Ordinarily neither Rose nor Martha would be inclined to go in there, but something about being told they couldn't piqued their natural human curiosity.
"Why, what's in there?"
"I've got a bit of a project going on. You'll find out soon enough," Romana said, innocently.
*
Martha looked down at the controls in front of her, they looked like a cross between something from a NASA shuttle and a Playstation 3. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"
"Of course it is," said Romana, who was leaning on the back of Martha's seat. Rose was sitting in the other chair, trying not to look like she was clinging onto the upholstery.
Martha stretched out, but paused with her fingers inches from the controls. "I'm really not sure about this."
"You'll be fine," Romana assured her. "I'm standing right here. And it can't be any worse than the time I tried to teach Rose to fly the ship."
"Hey, that wasn't my fault."
"No, it was the fault of that moon. Just hanging there in space like that."
Rose leaned over and squeezed Martha's hand. "Just think of it as learning to drive."
Martha breathed out. Like learning to drive, yeah, but with NASA controls and a field of stars right in front of her. She pressed down on the controls and the ship pitched in a roughly forwards direction.
*
Martha negotiated her way around the ship's kitchen and passed Rose her cup of tea. "Don't think I'm mad or anything, but do you think the ship's getting bigger?"
"Oh, thank God," Rose said, putting down her cup. "I thought I was imagining it."
"Me too," Martha said, grinning with relief that she was not in fact mad. "Do you think that corridor up to the cockpit is getting longer?"
"Definitely. And you should have seen my wardrobe when I opened it this morning, it was like Narnia in there."
"Romana?" Martha called. The redhead was walking past the kitchen poking at a circuit board. "Is the ship getting bigger?"
"No," Romana replied, walking past without looking at either of them. "You're both imagining it."
Rose and Martha looked at each other and burst out laughing.
*
They were in another cell.
Martha decided that if she ever went home she was going to write book comparing alien detention facilities. At least this one was better than the last, it had a window and a narrow cot was pressed against one wall.
"Do you think she's okay?" asked Rose, who was slouched miserably on the cot.
The three of them had been separated after their roles in the slave uprising were uncovered. Romana was to be hanged in the morning. Martha and Rose had been shoved into a different cell to be dealt with afterwards.
"I don't know," Martha answered honestly.
"I don't know if she'll regenerate if they hang her. I don't know what I'd do without her. And how would we get back to Earth? She's the only one that knows how to...." Rose trailed off with a sniffle. She was trying not to cry.
Martha sat next to Rose and slipped an arm around her shoulders. She tried to think of something to distract her friend with. "Tell me how you and Romana met?"
Rose sniffed. "Do you remember that night about five years ago when all those shop window dummies came to life?"
Martha nodded, she remembered it well. It had been the night of Tish's twenty-first, and they'd been sitting in the pub when two dummies from the menswear shop next door had burst in and started shooting, shattered the bottles over the bar and sending everyone diving for cover. They'd said afterwards that it had been a sort of group hallucination. Martha had never believed that. She hadn't spent the evening hiding under a table from a figment of her imagination.
"My mum was killed that night," Rose continued.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Martha said. She pulled Rose closer, and the blonde's head slipped onto her shoulder.
"After that I went a bit mad, got a new job at Torchwood. Have you heard of them?"
Martha thought she recognised the name, but she couldn't quite place it... "Hang on, weren't they the ones that destroyed that spaceship on Christmas day a few years back?"
"I was long gone by then, but it sounds like them. But it wasn't just that, they found aliens who fetched up on Earth, locked them up. Said it was for the protection of the Earth."
"And then what happened to them?" Martha asked, even though she had a feeling that she didn't really want to know.
"I didn't know. I didn't care. As far as I was concerned aliens had killed my mum. And then one day I went down to the cells and there was Romana."
"Beginning of a beautiful friendship," Martha finished, stroking Rose's hair.
"She was just sitting there, cool as a cucumber. They'd tried all sorts to make her talk but she didn't have a hair out of place. She said that if I helped her escape Torchwood, she'd do the same for me."
"Why did you need help to escape?"
"They don't like people quitting. Really don't like it." Rose turned so she was facing Martha. They were both leaning against the wall, their faces inches apart. "I'm really glad you're here."
"Yeah, me too." Martha tucked a stray strand of blonde hair behind Rose's ear and leaned in. The kiss was soft, so soft that it was barely there at first. Then Martha's fingers tangled in Rose's hair and Rose pulled Martha forward by the collar of her coat and someone opened their mouth and that, of course, was when the door slammed open.
"There you are!" Romana exclaimed. "Time to make a hasty retreat, I think."
"I thought they were going to hang you," Rose said as they both scrambled to their feet.
"Ah, well, that's the thing about the prospect of being hanged in the morning: concentrates the mind."
*
Unfortunately, the escape attempt didn't go quite as smoothly as planned.
Martha couldn't take her eyes off Rose, sprawled unmoving and unconscious after being shot by one of the guards. All of Martha's instincts as a doctor were telling her to run over and help Rose, but she couldn't move.
"Who are you?" That was the King of this backwater planet. He sounded much less regal than he had when he had condemned the three of them to death.
"I am Romanavoratrelundar, Lord President of the High council of Time Lords. The unconscious human on the floor is my best friend Rose Tyler, and the human holding the syringe to the neck of your bodyguard is Doctor Martha Jones, and I suggest you let all three of us go."
*
When Martha had first come aboard the sickbay had been roughly half the size of a broom cupboard. Now it was twice the size of a decent hospital ward and much better equipped. But Martha didn't have time to muse on how this transformation had come about. She was just grateful that they had managed to get Rose back here in time.
Whatever it was those guards had shot her with, it had made a decent attempt at shutting down all her internal organs. With Romana's help Martha had managed to get her stabilised, and now that she was sure Rose would wake with nothing worse than a headache. She left her to sleep in peace and went in search of Romana.
Romana had the gift of seemingly being able to vanish at will. Sometimes neither Rose or Martha would see her for days at a time. Martha was beginning to suspect that this would be one of those times, when she managed to track Romana down in the cockpit.
Romana was lying underneath one of the consoles, Martha could only see her boots and the bottom of her skirt.
"Romana?" Nothing. "Romana!" Still nothing. "Madame President?"
"Ow!" Romana yelped, sitting up too quickly and thumping her head on the underside of the control panel. She slid out to face Martha, rubbing her forehead. "You heard that, then?"
"You mean when you called yourself the lord president something or other? Yeah, it was a little hard to miss. What were you talking about?"
Romana hopped to her feet and began bustling around the room, picking things up and putting them down without looking at them. "I used to be the President of Gallifrey. I'm not anymore."
"Were you really bad at it?"
Romana stopped fidgeting and stood perfectly still, examining her hands. "No. Yes. No. I was a bit rubbish towards the end there." She dived back under the controls and it was muffled through layers of wire and circuitry that Martha heard, "Did Rose hear?"
"No, I think she was already knocked out by that point."
"Don't tell her."
"Why not?" Martha demanded.
Romana withdrew her head from the mess of circuitry to look Martha in the eye. "It was another life, for me, literally. And Rose would only want to know what had happened."
"And I don't?"
"Ah, but I'd feel obligated to tell Rose."
"She's going to be alright, you know," Martha said. But Romana had already vanished back into the jungle of wires.
"Make sure you look after her," Romana said quietly.
Martha leaned down and squeezed Romana's ankle. "We'll all look after each other."
*
Martha was sitting on the bed in her room, she was never planning on leaving. What with the way the ship had been behaving recently, the only way to ensure that you'd ever find a room again was not to leave it in the first place.
She seriously considered not answering the knock at the door when it came. But she did, and found Rose standing outside.
"Oh, thank God I found you! I spent ten minutes knocking at the door to the kitchen before I realised the rooms had been moving about again."
Martha took Rose's arm and dragged her inside. "Have you talked to Romana about it yet?"
"Talked to? I haven't seen her for the better part of a week, and when I do she's got her head in all this alien machinery."
"You'd better stay here then, at least till we figure out what's going on." Martha stepped back to let Rose step fully into the room, aware that there wasn't much space.
Despite the weirdness with the ship's dimensions lately, there hadn't been any dramatic increase in the size of Martha's room. There was barely enough space for her bed, clothes, and one or two items from the sickbay that had demanded a closer look. Add Rose and Martha, and it made for a tight squeeze.
"Thanks," said Rose awkwardly. "And thanks for looking after me when I was hurt."
"You should thank Romana, really. She was the one that got the King to release us."
"I will when I finally get to talk to her. But you were the one who was there when I woke up."
"Look, Rose..."
"Martha, listen..."
They both laughed awkwardly, and it was Rose who started talking. "About what happened when we were in that cell--"
Martha turned away. "Look, we were both freaked out, and you were worried about Romana--"
Rose grabbed her, pulling her back. "Romana's just my friend. Lots of getting locked up together and the occasional bit of shopping, but that's it. There's nothing going on. It's you I--"
Rose decided that she could make her point much more succinctly by grabbing Martha's waist, pulling her close, and kissing her thoroughly. Martha stumbled backwards, tugging Rose with her, until her legs hit the sides of the mattress and they both tumbled backwards. They landed on the mattress, giggling.
"I only fancy humans too," whispered Rose.
"Are you sure about this?"
"Martha, we're the only two humans for god knows how many miles and miles, and even if we weren't I'd still be pretty sure."
Martha arched an eyebrow. "Pretty sure?"
Rose smirked. "All right then, very sure. Very, very sure."
"Good argument, well made," Martha conceded, dragging Rose back down into the kiss.
*
When the door slammed open the next morning, Rose let out a squeak and dived under the covers. Martha made sure the bedclothes were arranged so that they were both decent, raised an eyebrow and said, "Can I help you?"
"Get up, I've got something to show you." Romana turned to leave, then turned back and addressed the lump under the sheets. "Morning, Rose."
"Hiya, Romana," Rose mumbled without emerging from her cocoon.
They got up and dressed, alternating between avoiding each other's eyes and grinning like idiots. Romana was waiting for them outside, smirking.
"So what's this big surprise, then?" Rose asked.
Romana grinned like the cat that got the canary. "Walk this way."
And with that she set off down the corridor. Rose and Martha exchanged slightly worried glances and followed after her. Rose reached out to take Martha's hand like it was the most natural thing in the world.
They spent fifteen minutes walking along a corridor that had recently been only ten meters long.
"Do you even know where you're going?" Martha asked.
"Don't worry," Romana answered. "The transcendental field should have stabilised by now."
"Oh," said Martha, pretending that she had understood any of that.
They eventually reached a door that was recognisable as the door to the engine room that Romana had barred Rose and Martha from all those weeks ago. She opened it with a flourish.
Rose and Martha gaped. The room, which had always been quite small and cramped, now had a high, almost cathedral-like ceiling. Wires criss-crossed all over the floor, leading from the walls to the circular structure that dominated the room. At waist height was a ledge covered in a colourful mishmash of controls.
"It's not quite a TARDIS, but it'll do."
"What's it for?" Rose asked, impressed by the sheer scale if nothing else.
"This, my friends," said Romana walking into the centre of the room and spreading her arms wide, "is a fully functional time machine."
"Pull the other one," laughed Martha.
"Alright, I'll prove it to you." Romana walked around the central device, flicking switches and pulling levers. The ship rumbled its objections to whatever she was doing. "Past or future?" she asked with a grin.
"Past," said Martha.
"Future," said Rose
"I'll surprise you." Romana said, throwing a final switch. The ship heaved and lurched worse than it ever had before. Rose lost her balance and tumbled sideways into Martha, who attempted to stabilise her, but her foot caught on a wire and they both went down.
"Hang on to something," said Romana, somewhat superfluously. Martha, already on the floor, decided that idea of hanging onto Rose was quite appealing anyway.
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Date: 2011-05-14 11:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-15 04:54 pm (UTC)