Small White Dragon

Unedited, unbetaed, started out as comment fic for 1000 Drabbles of Awesome but the word count got away from me. My second take on the same prompt, as the first was a bit silly. This is the far more serious version; it didn't turn out too bad, I think.

(ETA: This fic is now posted at the Teaspoon.)

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Doctor Who or any of its characters (or any of its spinoffs or any of those characters) and if I did then it would be a far different show.



No Place Like Home
(Prompt: Martha meets Rose for tatlovestea and burnzitt) (CORRECTION: For ms_treesap, sorry, I was going by a version of the prompt that had been posted on a fic prior to mine, which had the wrong names on it. Sorry!)


"So," Rose said, picking uncomfortably at the label on her beer bottle. "Saved the universe, did you?"

"Well, the Earth," Martha answered, nodding, eyes roaming around the pub, focusing on nothing. "Sort of. I suppose."

There was an awkward silence. Rose picked at her label some more. "Well, the Doctor says it was the universe," she said, watching Jack trying to chat up some girl at the bar. "Says if that Master bloke had launched all those rockets, it would've been the end of everything."

"Suppose so," said Martha, fiddling with her mobile. It had rung half a dozen times since they'd gotten there, friends and family and colleagues, all wanting to know what to do, what to say, how to handle whatever they were doing. All needing Martha. Martha Martha Martha.

Rose scowled.

It had only been a few months since that day on the beach, and things hadn't quite been going like she'd hoped. She'd gotten back together with Mickey, but sometimes she thought maybe he was more interested in Jake than in her. She'd gotten her mum and dad, alive and together again, but with the new baby, there were times when it was almost like they barely knew she was there anymore. And she'd gotten that job with Torchwood, sure, but none of her various positions there had really worked out. She felt inadequate, out of her depth, like she wasn't quite suited for anything there. In the end, with her experience with alien life forms, they'd set her to sorting and cataloguing items of extraterrestrial origin. She was, essentially, a glorified file clerk.

It kind of sucked.

So when the rift had reopened, she had jumped at the chance to come back to her old world, to pick up where she'd left off. To find the Doctor and laugh and explore and be swept away from everything, to feel like she was important again.

In the end, it turned out that it was true, what they said. You really couldn't go home again.

Jack had been ecstatic to see her, laughed and hugged her and swung her in circles. He'd shown her the hub, the pterodactyl, the invisible lift. He'd introduced her to his team. "You know who you should really meet, though?" he'd said. "Martha. Oh, you two have to get together, she's wonderful, you'll love her." And then he'd talked about Martha, and the year that never was. Martha Martha Martha.

The Doctor had been Jack's level of ecstatic times two. She thought possibly her ribs would never recover from such an enthusiastic hugging. And then, after a while, she'd noticed the mobile in his pocket, him fiddling with it all the time like he wanted it to ring, and she'd asked, and after that he had never shut up about Martha Martha Martha. Martha saved the universe. Martha laughed in the Master's face. Martha walked right round the world while being hunted by psychotic disco balls and never got a scratch on her. She was wonderful, that Martha. Martha Martha Martha.

Before that disastrous meeting with Queen Elizabeth I, they'd gone to see a play at the Globe Theatre - not really her kind of thing, but the Doctor had been so into it, it was hard not to be enthusiastic - and Rose had asked to meet Shakespeare. But it had turned out they couldn't, because the Doctor had already been there with Martha, and it wouldn't do for his current body to meet Shakespeare then if he'd already done it later for the first time, would it?

Martha ruined everything.

"I've saved the universe, too, y'know," Rose said, tracing a gouge in the table with her fingertip.

"Have you?" Martha said. Her smile had looked forced ever since Jack had gone to the bar. She kept fiddling with her mobile, wanting it to ring. "And how was that for you, then?"

"Oh, it was... Well...." Her voice sort of fell away, confidence gone. "I don't really remember, actually. I sort of opened the TARDIS... well, I guess Mickey did, actually... and there was this light, and, um..." She shrugged. "Universe saved, I guess."

"Oh," said Martha. "Well. Good thing you were there, then."

Rose shrugged again. She felt very small. "Anyone could've done it, really," she said. "I mean, it was the TARDIS, really, not me. I just sort of... gave her a push, I suppose."

Martha looked at her for what felt like the first time, smiled a small smile, but a real one. "Well, sometimes that's the most important part, though, isn't it?" she said. "Giving someone a push?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Rose answered, picking at her label again. Suddenly, more than anything, she really wanted to go home.