A/N: Kinda like this. Like Drop, excet a little less sweet and a lot more Doctor-ish, I think, anyway. I still refer Drop. Although my opinion may be swayed if the resonse to this is as brilliant as the one to Drop was. Really, I love you whovians so much, the HP lot have been irritating me lately, and you lot make the writing worthwhile, so thanks, really and truly. Anyway, enough of that. Inspired in part by my father and his calls when he's on his way home telling me to put the kettle on and inspired in part by the ending of Last of the Timelords. I wanted to write something post-titanic and it stretched into this. Read, review, and most of all, enjoy, if you please. Oh, and if you really like my writing, you might want to check out my profile (which will be updated when these fics have been posted).
Put the Kettle On.
by Flaignhan.
The first time he came, he didn't call in advance. In fact, it hadn't even been twenty four hours since he'd disappeared.
She'd opened the door of her parents' house to find him standing there, dripping wet and looking thoroughly miserable.
"What happened?" she asked, barely concealing a grin.
"The Titanic," he informed her, looking absolutely furious. She laughed and he reluctantly let himself smile. "Don't s'pose there's a cuppa going, is there?"
A few minutes later he was sitting at the kitchen table, warm fluffy towel wrapped around him with a steaming mug of tea clutched in his hands. Martha set a plate of chocolate biscuits on the table and sat down opposite him.
"You're an angel," he said, taking one off the plate and biting a huge chunk out of it. "A real life angel."
The second time he came, he did call in advance. Francine had told him that Martha had moved into a new flat, and gave him the number and address. He didn't bother phoning, just landed the Tardis in the middle of her kitchen, almost causing her to have a heart attack.
"You're a menace," she said, taking a steadying breath before turning back to the sink to finish washing up after her dinner. "D'you get a kick out of scaring Earth girls to death?" He laughed and put some water in the kettle, before hunting around in the cupboards for a couple of mugs and some teabags. "Make yourself at home, by the way."
"Will do," he replied, "Aha!" he took the teabags out of the cupboard. "Fancy keeping them with the cereals! Honestly..." Martha turned to look at him indignantly but he was too busy with the just-discovered teabags to notice.
She didn't mind though, because they sat down in the living room and had a chat while they drank their tea.
It was a stonking cup of tea, too.
The third time he came, he did call, but it went onto answer machine. He shrugged and landed the Tardis in her kitchen anyway, thinking that if she wasn't there, she wouldn't mind if he helped himself to tea and left her a note saying thanks.
Again, Martha Jones almost died an extremely premature death. She maintained that nobody had phoned, and that there had been no messages. He'd shrugged and collapsed onto the sofa, taking the tea she held out for him a few minutes later.
The phone rang and Martha ignored it, making the Doctor wonder if she ever answered her phone.
"Martha Jones, it's your favourite alien here, put the kettle on, I'll be round in a moment."
"Ah..." the Doctor sitting next to her had said as the answer machine bleeped. "Well I did say I'd phoned." Martha burst out laughing and shook her head in disbelief at him.
"I'd like to see you get it right all the time," he argued.
"I'd like to see you get it right once!" he folded his arms at that, shifting in his chair to making his new sulky pose more comfortable.
The fourth time he came, he called at the right time. Martha picked up the phone to be greeted by his cheerful tones. "I'll be round in a second, and I'm going to get it right this time."
"You've already been round today," Martha told him, biting her lip to stop herself from laughing.
"Have I? Are you sure?" there was a tiny giggle from Martha's end and he frowned. "Miss Jones, are you deviating from the truth?"
"Possibly," she told him.
"You could change the universe by doing that! Reapers swarming down all over the place if you're not careful!"
"What, cos of one cup of tea? Anyway, I'm just about to watch a film, so be quick, and don't make too much noise, alright?"
"Blimey, you know how to make a bloke feel welcome."
"Well I've been wanting to watch this film for ages, you're welcome to stay but I daresay it's too domestic for you."
"I'll stay."
"Alright then," she said indifferently.
"Ok," he replied, matching her tone.
"Make me a cup too, will you?" the Doctor tutted and hung up. There was a grinding noise as the Tardis materialised in her kitchen and she shushed the machine as the titles began to appear on screen.
Tea, film, and Doctor. It couldn't get better.
The fifth time he came, she was at work.
The Doctor had a cup of tea and a nose around her flat, flicking through the TV channels and frowning at anything that didn't appease his high standards.
He drained the rest of his tea, switched the TV off and left the empty mug on the kitchen counter by the side of the sink. He scribbled a quick note on the back of an open envelope, saying he'd see her soon and thanks for the tea.
When Martha got home she frowned at the mug (which the Doctor seemed to have adopted as his own – light blue with thin horizontal brown stripes) and then saw the note. She tutted and dumped the mug into the sink, muttering about people who came into other peoples' houses and made a mess.
The sixth time he came, he'd set the coordinates so he landed at two o'clock in the morning, instead of two o'clock in the afternoon.
She'd gone ballistic of course, telling him he'd better thank his lucky stars that she didn't have work the next morning. She'd begrudgingly made him tea and sat on the sofa with him while they drank it. He put an arm round her and fiddled with the fluffy material of her dressing gown, not wanting to say anything in case she shouted at him again.
She must have been tired (and he did thank his lucky stars for this) because she soon fell asleep against him, mug held loosely in her right hand. He sighed and put her to bed, tucking her duvet around her and placing a soft kiss on her forehead before leaving.
The seventh time he came, her friends had stared wide eyed as a man stepped out of a blue box that had just appeared in Martha's living room.
"You're an idiot," she said to him, as soon as she saw him. Her friends sat in stunned silence.
"Hello!" he said cheerfully, raising a hand in a casual wave. Her friends said nothing. Jerry just drank down a few large mouthfuls of cider and attempted to refocus his eyes. The cider didn't help one bit. "Well you never answer your phone so there's no point in calling anyway!" he told Martha defensively.
"Oh...grab a glass and sit down. No tea here, it's a drunken student gathering. You can be a mature student."
"Less of the mature, if you please," he replied, grabbing a glass and plonking himself down between Martha and one of her male friends. He raised his glass (which had been filled with whiskey at some point by one of Martha's friends) to the others, and said "cheers," before downing a large gulp, shaking his head as it travelled smoothly down his throat, leaving a hot, burning trail behind it.
He shuffled so he could get comfy between the two students, his arm coming to rest on the back of the sofa behind Martha, his fingers occasionally fiddling with a lock of her dark hair.
If any of her friends had had any ideas about being anything more than friends, they pretty soon forgot them.
The eighth time he came, she was about to start cooking dinner. She told him there was enough for two and he'd accepted her invitation to stay.
Considering she was a student, she was a very good cook. The Doctor had assumed that the furthest any students' culinary expertise could stretch was pouring boiling water into a pot noodle, but Martha had just blown that theory out of the water.
He stayed all evening, and before either of them realised, it was half past one in the morning. Martha yawned, stretching tiredly. She'd only got up to make cups of tea since they'd sat down to eat dinner, and her legs felt like they needed a good stretch.
Martha stood up and said a sleepy goodbye to the Doctor, accepting his hug before wandering into her bedroom, knowing that in the morning, she'd regret leaving the dirty plates out.
The Doctor sighed, looking at her closed bedroom door only for a second or two before stepping into the Tardis, the machine disappearing after a few moments.
The ninth time he came she was in the shower. He put some water in the kettle and went to the cupboard to get his favourite mug. When he opened the cupboard door, he laughed as he saw a bit of paper blutac'd to the inside of the door, on which was scrawled in large letters: "Wash up after yourself". He pulled out his mug and a mug for her and set about making tea.
She appeared in the kitchen ten minutes later as he perused the local paper, glancing boredly at articles about school children who'd won some sort of competition, or elderly people who'd told some troublesome youths where to go. He closed it dramatically as she sat down, hair wrapped up in a towel, dressed in dark jeans and a light blue vest top.
When both their mugs were empty, he stood up, taking both of them in his hand and went over to the sink, turning the hot tap on and allowing the washing up bowl to fill up with water.
"What are you doing??" she asked. He didn't reply, simply opened the cupboard and pointed to the sign which she'd put up. She laughed and made her way over to the sink, taking the soapy mugs from him and drying them with a tea towel.
Once the mugs were dry and back in the cupboard, she turned to him, about to say something about his newfound respect for other peoples' homes when he flicked a large bundle of soap suds into her face. "Oh you asked for it..." she said, before grabbing a handful of the bubbly soap and slapping it down onto his head.
His cry of despair could have been construed as his dying moments by someone out in the street.
As it was, nobody reported a murder that afternoon.
The tenth time he came he brought someone with him.
"This is Sophie," he'd said, and Martha smiled at Sophie, who smiled back. "Sophie, this is Martha, and she is my tea lady!" He earned himself a clip round the ear for his last comment and Sophie bit her lip, holding back a laugh.
"D'you want tea or not?" Martha asked, her hands resting on her hips.
"Yes, fine, I'm sorry," he was touching his ear gently, as though trying to ascertain whether she'd knocked it clean off.
"Do you take sugar, Sophie?"
"One, please," Sophie had replied. Martha had decided she was nice, and if she was jealous about anything to do with the ex, as Martha herself had been, she was hiding it well.
"Sit down, make yourself at home, I'll be back in a minute." Sophie smiled and sat down on the sofa, tapping her fingers nervously. She was obviously a shy girl, so Martha tried to be as friendly as possible, knowing how horrible it was to be the new girl, only to have the ex rubbed in your face. It was lucky she'd never met Rose, now she came to think of it.
"Ooh, give me two secs," she heard the Doctor say to Sophie. "Martha, have you got any of those biscuits with the chocolate on them?" he asked loudly as he wandered into the kitchen.
"Yeah," she replied, not turning to face him. "In the cupboard."
"Are you alright?" he asked warily, not moving towards the cupboard to find the longed-for chocolate biscuits.
"Yeah, fine," she stirred the tea and paused, "It's just..."
"What?"
"Well, you won't be coming round for tea anymore, will you?" she turned round and faced him, arms folded, no trace of a smile on her features.
"What on Earth makes you think that?" he asked.
"Well, someone new, you'll be busy. And she's nice, I like her, and you better be treating her well, it's just that I know you, and I know you won't come back after this." The Doctor frowned and stepped forward, putting his arms around Martha and pulling her into a tight hug.
"Miss Jones, your flat is the only place in the world where I can get a stellar cup of tea and some brilliant chocolate biscuits. Of course I'm coming back." Martha chuckled into the shoulder of his jacket and moved away from him, handing him his cup of tea before picking up her own and Sophie's, then took them into the living room, handing Sophie hers.
He hugged her extra tightly before he and Sophie set off to the Panamic Nebula, kissed her on the cheek and whispered into her ear: "I'll see you soon, promise."
Martha had hugged Sophie, told her it was nice meeting her and said goodbye
The Doctor winked at Martha before he stepped into the Tardis, and Martha felt a little more sure that he'd be back at some point in her life.
She just hoped it wasn't too far in the future, because if he landed the Tardis in the kitchen when the flat had new occupants...she laughed and sank onto the sofa, switching the TV on and trying to find something interesting.
The eleventh time he came, he was alone again.
"No Sophie?" Martha asked.
"Nah, she was just there for a couple of trips, had to go back home. She's only young, had to go back to college."
"Ah right," Martha replied, not really knowing what to say.
"What is it with you students ditching me for education?" he asked, grinning broadly, showing he was joking.
"Well, I s'pose we just have better things to do, don't we?" Martha joked.
"What, like making tea for visiting aliens?"
"Is that a hint?" Martha asked. He nodded and Martha sighed dramatically, before going into the kitchen.
The Doctor drunk the last of his tea and stood up, glancing over at the Tardis, before looking back at Martha. "What d'you reckon?" he asked, "one more trip?" Martha thought for a moment, looked at the clock (even though it didn't matter what the time was if she went with him) and finally looked back at the Doctor.
"Maybe," she said. "One condition though."
"What?"
"You wash up," she said, nodding to the empty, tea-stained mugs.
He grinned, and she grinned back.
The End.