Story: Martha May, Doctor Who

Author: August Mayhem

Disclaimer: I don't own characters or setting. Anything that follows canon is mine. This is a continuous disclaimer and I won't be re-posting it every chapter.

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Chapter 1

He had just invited her into his spaceship. And she was just a little more than weirded out by how it was bigger on the inside. After getting over that, she leaned against a railing while the Doctor gently twisted a few knobs.

"So, Martha, I've promised you one ride, where do you want go?" A quirky grin accompanied the question. Martha could feel her stomach doing its own version of gymnastics.

She gave a small grin, "I don't rea-"

"Oh! I know just where to take you!" A full blown smile split his face and he began leaping about. He flicked some switches, turned a few dials and then slammed a button.

"HA!"

Martha did her best to hold on to the railing as the TARDIS whipped from side to side, leaving the two occupants to be thrown about and into machinery.

Having never been one for rollercoaster (for a good reason), Martha felt sure that she was going to throw up, if not soon, then certainly after they stopped!

And when they actually did stop, Martha cautiously took a few steps, gulping air, trying her best not to throw chunks all over the, good looking, alien who had brought her into his spaceship.

"Where are we?"

The Doctor was standing by the front door. "We are in Canada! When we are, is a few years before your present-day, maybe about 15 or so."

Martha had always wanted to go to the prairies of Saskatchewan and raced past the Doctor, through the open door.

She was immediately assaulted by blinding white snow, and a very chilly wind. She wrapped her arms around her shoulders.

"Perhaps next time, you should specify which part of Canada we're in. And maybe what season! Or you could tell me to bring a bloody jacket!"

She snatched her maroon jacket off the railing, zipped it up quick and went back outside.

"Sorry, I forget you apes feel the cold a lot more than I do."

"Oh, how kind of you." Martha walked ahead of him for about ten minutes before coming to the top of a hill. Down below was a great lake; petrified wood and scrappy bushes decorating the edge. A few buildings had been gutted by a fire and the charred remains stood there, a dark blight on a clean landscape.

"I couldn't save anyone." The unusually dull voice startled her, and she turned to see the Doctor's somber face. Chocolate eyes full of painful memories.

"What happened?" her voice was equally quiet.

"There was a group of rebel Vreemd'ling from AvfyrF'uo." A questioning noise interrupted his tale.

"A very hot planet, where the citizens are made of different forms of heat and fire. Plasma, flames, some are steamed water. They feed of other beings, absorbing the heat from their bodies. Burning coal and wood will tide them over if no life forms are available.

"I got here soon after the attack started. People were panicked and few listened to any instruction I may have called out. Many were caught and killed. Their homes were destroyed by the fire. Very few things can put it out. One of the villagers was a shamanic woman. She used her magicks to into a whale. If you go further west, you'll come across it."

Martha looked at his face once more, before turning and following the shoreline, arms hugged around her body. Almost half an hour later she came across part of an old wooden dock, a large barren tree-bush, and about ten feet away was the body of a hump-back whale, half beached, lying on its back. A thick coating of pale, creamy-brown clay had hardened over the flesh, petrifying the body.

"The man who owned the dock tried to help the village. He was set apart from the others, but went to help when they needed it. I told him there was nothing he could do but he tried anyway. He died."

His voice was rough with regret and anger.

"Those stupid apes! They all could have been saved! But they all ran around being dumb, and stupid and got themselves killed."

The Doctor continued to rant in an uncharacteristic fit of rage while Martha looked on.

His comments in the hospitals about humans and calling them apes had been irritating and hearing all the insults he was spewing now was not helping her temper.

She may have a crush on the man, but she certainly didn't need to put up with the verbal abuse he was spouting.

"If we're all so stupid and annoying, then why do you keep coming back? What draws you to this tiny, pathetic planet with its stupid, stupid apes time and time again? What is it Doctor?"

Martha's voice was freezing and yet burning with anger. Her fists were clenched at her sides, anger rolling through her body. She was waiting, just waiting for him to say something stupid so she could hurt him.

"Because you apes are so creative! And inventive! You go out and you find things, figure out how things work, make more of them. It's amazing to see! I mean you're no where near as smart as most superior species, and you haven't even managed intergalactic space travel yet.

You apes are so stupid at times, relentlessly so; but there's this untapped potential to what you could be, and what you could do. I highly doubt you'll ever manage your potential to be, but damn will you create some interesting things!

But until that happens and even after it does, you need someone to guide you. Lead you through all the danger you'll muddle through while trying not to kill yourselves."

Listening to him, Martha decided that crush or no, she wasn't about to subject herself to verbal abuse, however indirectly, for any longer.

Her words came out clipped with anger as she narrowed her eyes on his brown clad form.

"Fine. We're stupid apes. No we don't have your superior intelligence, yes we do have wars and killing everywhere, yes we like to understand things and no we do not know everything in the universe.

But you know what Doctor," She fairly spat his name out. "I'd rather be a human than anything else in the entire universe. I like who I am and what I am. I don't care what you and all your superior-intellectual-species friends think.

I'm sure you can manage to find the TARDIS, what with your superior intellect. I'll make my own way home. Goodbye."

And so the dark-skinned beauty turned and walked away from the skinny alien from outer space.

The Doctor stared after her form, shocked silent. No one had ever walked away from him before. Never! His companions were always forced to part for some reason or other, but no one had willingly walked away.

"Martha…?" He didn't even start after her until she passed a curve and the small black spot that was her vanished.

"Martha!" He ran after her.

~~*~~

Martha got to their point of origin in a shorter amount of time than it had taken to walk to where that infuriating…thing was. Her anger had fueled her movements. Pointedly ignoring the TARDIS, she started walking south. There was a faint road heading that way.

A few minutes later, she came across a vague intersection, with a beautiful black motorcycle parked off to the side.

"Martha!"

The Doctor was catching up. Quickly she made her way to the bike and checked her pockets for any kind of metal contraption that would help her hotwire the machine.

"Can I help you with something?" Startled, Martha snapped up and overshot her balance, falling back into a powdery pile of snow.

"Uuuh…Hi! Sorry, I'm not trying to steal your bike…"

"Except that you were trying to hotwire it so you kinda were." His voice was amused and he didn't seem too concerned about her plans.

Martha tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. "Yeah…I kinda was…."

"Martha!" The Doctor was getting closer.

"Is he bothering you?"

Martha looked at the brown spot and frowned. "He brought me here, and I came willingly, but we had a spat and I don't particularly care to be in his presence anymore. Think you can help me out?"

The man grinned, perfect white teeth set in a handsome, lightly tanned face. His green eyes were sparkling with laughter.

"Tell you what. I'll give you the key and $1000 cash for gas, food and motels. I have a meeting in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in two days. We'll switch cell numbers and you give me a call when you get there. In return, you accompany me for the following week. Deal?"

"Martha!" The Doctor was getting closer.

Martha shook hands with the man. "Deal!"

"There's a map in the back. My name's Marque."

"Martha, thanks so much!" She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek before pulling the helmet and gloves on.

She drove off as Marque called out, "By the way, I love your accent!" She gave him a thumb's up.

The Doctor ran up as Martha's figure disappeared down the road. Always getting smaller and further away from him.

"Who are you? Where is she going? Why'd you let her take off?" His voice was indignant and slightly angry.

"The way I heard it, she left you. Don't be an ass about it. I'm not gonna tell you my name, and I don't know where she plans on going."

"Why in the nine levels of hell would you give a random girl your vehicle?" Hands were tugging at hair and brushing through the strands in an aggravated motion.

"Because it seemed like she needed it. And she was one good looking girl!"

The Doctor rolled his eyes at the blonde ape and turned around with a huff. He would locate Martha with the TARDIS. She wouldn't be able to outrun him for long.

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