A/N: Tell you what? I like Martha. No, she's not my favorite but it doesn't mean I wouldn't like her. But there's something in her I miss. So I tried to write it in her and still keep her in character. I don't know if I made it. Tell me if I did (and even if I didn't).
Sorry for my bbad grammar!
Disclaimer: I own nothing but U-Dil-Va. I don't even own tre trees.
- Ah! The Doctor said entuastically as he opened the door. - Now this, this I like. U-Dil-Va. It means 'The land of the life'. It's one of the very rare planets in the Universe that are protected. It is not allowed to build here, or live here in the matter of fact. They made trips in here, some decades ago, but you know people, always throwing things to places where they don't belong. So now they can only watch it from the safe distance up from the space. You should feel very special, Martha Jones, for being the only human in history to ever set her foot on U-Dil-Va.
Martha Jones, indeed, felt herself very special. But it wasn't just being on this planet in thousands of lightyears away from the Earth. It was being there with the Doctor. The Doctor who had decided to take her in here. Her, and no one else. She smiled back at him and turned her eyes away from his face for the first time since stepping outside of the TARDIS. She gasped. The planet was colorful, it was the first word to come in her head. There were so many shapes of green, she had never seen even half of all those greens. And all those other colours that came along with the green, all shapes of yellows and reds and blues and oh. She turned to see the Doctor.
- Oh this is great! It's... it's so beautiful!
- Yeah! The Doctor said happily, rocking on his heels. - Want to see more?
- You need to ask?
- Come on then!
The Doctor took her and and pulled her to follow him down to the valley. She was very aware of her hand in his, a thing that took her thought often away from the surroundings. She still managed to look around, to see gigantic orchids bloom in so many different colours, flowers of all kinds, some of them even hummed. Her eyes met a butterfly that opened it's large wings, shaped like the face. Martha followed it as it flew off, only half listening Doctor's endless babble of the miracles of U-Dil-Va.
- ... and that, Martha Jones, I call a purpose. Humans don't have much purposes in things like that, so I... Oh! A banana!
With a happy grin the Doctor rose on his tiptoes and picked up a few yellow fruits.
- Want one?
- No thanks, Martha said, looking curiously as the Doctor peeled the banana and tasted it. He hummed in satisfaction and started to speak his mouth still half full.
- Most pure and tasteful banana you can ever have! he exclaimed.
- I don't like bananas, Martha pointed out.
- Don't like bananas? How can anyone not like bananas? Bananas are good!
- Oi! Mister I-hate-pears.
- Pears are different. Pears are evil!
They walked deeper to the forest, the Doctor eating one banana after another. Martha slipped on the rock and the Doctor stopped.
- Don't step on anything, he said looking at her. - It might be the last thing you do.
- What do you mean, don't step on anything. We are in the middle of a jungle!
- Well, to be honest, we shouldn't be here. It's illegal.
- And if I step on some small flower they're gonna shoot me down?
- Yeah, something like that.
- Great!
The Doctor grinnes.
- Come on. Should be easier in here.
She followed him to the clear and fresh brook that ran through the forest. The Doctor stepped over it with one leap and reached ou his hand to help Martha. After she landed she noticed that this side of the brook was completely different. There were much less growth on that side, and though the trees were high and well-looking, they were more sparse. There were more rocks and lichen and the colors weren't so blentiful. It was beautiful in here as well, just in completely different way.
- See, funny thing about U-Dil-Va is that there is a brook, this brook. It splits the whole planet in two. On the otherside there is, as you can see, a jungle. Exotic world. And on this side, it's a nordic forest, dry and cold. It is physically impossible for a plant from that side to grow on this side and other way around.
- But that's brilliant! Martha said. - It's like two world's in one.
- With very long legs you could stand in both of them at the same time! the Doctor said enthuastically. Martha laughed, not just because it was so absurd but because the Doctor said it in the way he used to say absurd things like that.
They started to move again, up and down the nordic forest, the Doctor now telling tiny little details about their new surroundings.. Martha looked up to see wether the weather was different on each side when she pumbed into the Doctor who had stopped suddenly.
- Look, he said and pointed out. In front of them there was two high trees, Martha didn't regocnize either of them but she could tell they were different species. One of them grew on the exotic side of the brooke, the other on the one they were standing. The trees reached to each other over the brooke and twisted around each other the whole way up to the sky. Martha opened her mouth to say something but closed it then.
- You know, it's really rare that the trees grow like that, there souldn't be any room for it. They need to grow as one, in the same synk, or it will kill both of them. It's really a gift from the nature to let them be.
His voice sounded different, somehow less happy, and Martha turned to look at him. He was still smiling but in his eyes there was a glove, like he remembered something that made him extremely happy and very misrable at the same time. And then came the words to take all that happiness away from Martha, those words she heard every once in a while, words that hurt her every time as much.
- Rose would have loved this.
Martha turned her eyes away, looked at the ground. A pink rose blossomed near her. She felt how ironic it was, like the Universe was laughing at her. Then she had a sudden need to crush the flower with her foot. Sometimes she blamed herself for having this utterly stupid cursh on this man she could ever have. He was, after all, one, an alien, and two, still in love with his ex-girlfriend. Martha shook her head and stepped closer to the Doctor, slipped her hand into his to show that she was there, and she loved it. He squeesed her hand hard and she felt better, thought that though the Doctor still missed Rose he was now with her. But somehow his grip felt a little different. Maybe it was the way he run his thumb over her knuckels, maybe it was the feeling that he never wanted to let go. But right then he turned to look at her and winced like he had a eletric shock, backed off several two steps not even noticing it.
- Sorry, he said and cleared his throat. - There was a... a fly. In my... neck. Fly in me neck, there was. Yeah.
He rubbed his neck, looked as uncomftorable as Martha felt. Neither of them believed to the lie, Martha probably even less than the Doctor who still avoided her eyes. And right then Martha understood. It wasn't that she and Rose were arrivals but that Rose was the winner. She had won long before Martha even stepped in the picture. It wasn't like the Doctor wouldn't care for her, she knew he did, he even loved her, just not the way she hoped he did. And she understood that if she wasn't there with him there would be someone else. Understanding that hurt more than anything but it also gave her strenght. At least she knew now where they were, and that there would never bee a change in that. She cleared her throat.
- Alright then, if you didn't eat all the bananas already I'm willing to give them a go.