preserved_ginger

Title: Together
Character(s): Martha Jones, The Doctor
Pairing: Ten/Rose
Setting: Smith and Jones
Beta:

glory_jean
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
A/N: Prompted by this post in

doctor_rose_fix.
Summary: She isn’t Rose.

“All right, then. Let’s get going.”

I promised you one trip. Just one, and that’s it. I — don’t want to be amongst others right now. I need to be on my own.

“But is there a crew? Like a navigator and stuff?”

Can you see ‘a navigator and stuff’? Well, then.

“Just me.”

“Where is everyone?”

I’m all that’s left. My family’s — gone, now.

“All on your own?”

It’s better that way. If she can’t be with me, I’d prefer to be on my own.

“Well, sometimes I have guests.”

Like Rose was a ‘guest’; no, not even from the beginning. Let’s try that again, shall we?

“I mean some friends, travelling alongside. I had — there was recently a friend of mine.”

Better, but that’s not what she is to me and I know it; I promised her I wouldn’t forget her, that I’d mention her to other companions like I should have mentioned Sarah Jane and all the others – but then I never —

“Rose, her name was, Rose.”

There we are. Almost there, and it didn’t hurt quite as much as you thought it would, did it?

“And ... we were together. Anyway —”

All right, I might as well stop lying to myself; it hurt in just exactly the way I thought it would. But if I’m ever going to lance the boil, then —

“Where is she now?”

Oh, Rassilon. The one question I don’t want to answer, certainly not this soon. Time to lie, and quickly; but convincingly enough that she buys the answer and leaves me alone. I can’t exactly tell her I don’t want to be having this conversation, after all, can I?

“With her family.”

Well, that much isn’t a lie.

“Happy. She’s fine.”

And here we go. She may be safe — did I say fine? I meant ‘safe’, because neither of us are fine after that last conversation we had. Rose, I — but I very much doubt she’s happy. She can’t be happy. Can she?

“Not that you’re replacing her.”

Oh, bravo. Way to go trying to convince her to drop the subject. Tell her that she’s not replacing somebody you’re obviously hung up over. That’ll work. Idiot.

“Never said I was. You were the one who kissed me.”

Yeah. ’Course you didn’t. And that was just a genetic transfer.

“That was a genetic transfer.”

Which part of “this means nothing” didn’t you understand? You’re not Rose. Can’t you see that I — you’re not Rose. It’s as simple as that, right now.

“For the record? I’m not remotely interested. I only go for humans.”

Really? Not the impression you were giving with all that “you kissed me” business, but I don’t care enough to argue.

“Good.”

Why aren’t you Rose?

“Well, then.”

Sooner I get this show started, the sooner I’m on my own again. Allons-y.

“Close down the gravitic anomaliser. Fire up the helmic regulator. And finally – the hand-brake. Ready?”

You’re a distraction I don’t need, Martha Jones.

“No.”

Well, at least you’re honest.

“Off we go.”

And why do I get the feeling that this is a mistake that’ll come back to bite me?