preserved_ginger

Title: The Reasons Why
Character(s): Martha. Mention of Ten, Rose, Jack and others.
Pairing(s): Ten/Rose (implied); one-sided Martha/Ten
Rating: PG
A/N: A quintuple-drabble, inspired by Losing Salvation by ThroughanAmberFocus on Teaspoon.
Disclaimer: I am borrowing, without permission, what will never be mine.
Summary: Martha learns the truth.

Before she'd been forced to listen in to that conversation between the Doctor and Jack, on Malcassiro, Martha hadn't really paused to think too deeply about the reasons why the Doctor was how he was. He was just “the Doctor”.

She'd made him talk to her on New Earth, knowing only that something was very wrong with the man but not exactly what. She'd expected him to talk to her about Rose, seeing as he'd seemed so cut up by her absence when they were in Elizabethan London (she could have sworn, that time when the two of them were sharing the same bed, that he was anywhere but there, emotionally), but no.

The Face of Boe had spooked him completely, obviously; all he could talk about, with an expression of such sadness etched on his face that she wanted to weep for him, was Gallifrey. From the description he gave her, it sounded like a wonderful place. She wondered how long it was since he'd last spoken of it ... wondered if he'd spoken of it to her. She'd stopped that train of thought instantly; thinking about Rose was not how she wanted to spend her time.

For someone who isn't here, Martha had thought, Rose sure has a hold on him. On Jack, too, if the scenes I saw with him and the Doctor earlier were anything to go by. Of course, she knew now exactly what had happened – had realised, finally, that the reason why he was so broken about the fact she wasn't there was because she was trapped somewhere he couldn't reach her. Martha wondered for a second whether Rose was in as much an emotional mess because of it as the Doctor was, before she shivered and decided that, on balance, she didn't want to know.

She'd meant to speak to him about it, after the rocket had left, but everything went to hell in a handbasket shortly afterwards when the Professor turned out to be somebody else entirely. A Time Lord, no less; she remembered well the feeling she'd had at the time, that had never really left her. She'd had the distinct impression that the Doctor would have preferred to have been the last of the Time Lords for ever rather than have to see him again.

And after that there was the Year That Never Was, a year she spent travelling the world like a latter-day John the Baptist, preaching the gospel of the Doctor, the one man capable of saving the world from the insanity of the Master. She'd learned much about herself in that year. She'd also decided to accept the fact that, no matter what she felt for him, the Doctor was still so in love, so obviously in love, with Rose that there was no room in either of his hearts for her.

Rose had taken so much of the Doctor with her when she left; Martha still doesn't know whether she loves or pities him more.