Fic: Awakening (Doctor Who)

[flowsoffire]

Title: Awakening
Author: flowsoffire
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing/characters: Martha Jones, mentioning Tom Milligan, the Doctor and Tish Jones
Genre: Family, Romance
Rating: K+
Word count: c. 200
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Summary: Martha Jones, back on earth. All the little things, and how they start to feel real again.
Author's note: Just a small Martha piece, set after the s3 finale, that I wrote a while ago. Enjoy!


At first it feels like she's walking on a cloud.

The voices she hears all seem faraway, like the faint echo of a world she once took for granted. She's seeing their faces; she smiles, and replies without missing a beat, but it feels somehow like she is standing on a stage, speaking the words another wrote for her, automatically. (Is she the girl who almost kissed Shakespeare, still?) She sleeps and wakes, gets up and works and she isn't unhappy, she isn't sad. What she is, exactly, is quite hard to tell.

She tries harder, and then harder still, for her family needs her—and she's never been the type to abandon a loved one, Martha Jones, nor a person in need. At the hospital, she is more careful than ever, scared of daydreaming about stars and letting her awareness slip away. But her hand remains steady and slowly, this small part of the world becomes hers all over again, as she relearns the tiny, silly, stunning wonders of being home.

She thinks of a man who will never be granted such luxuries, and it is partly for him that she looks up a certain doctor Tom Milligan—because he taught her to be fearless, but he's not there anymore to grab her hand and pull her along, and her life is now hers to design. She makes up a story, her voice smooth and sure, fusses and giggles with Tish over the most fitting outfit like it's the only thing that matters in the universe.

And for a moment, for her, it is.

Comments

[radiolaires]

Very pretty.

It's fascinating because Martha has always been the most grounded of the companions, straightforward, extremely competent also. To depict her as daydreaming and afraid of losing touch with reality is telling. She always seemed the companion with the most agency also, the one who didn't need the Doctor because she already knew she could save lives, after all she was the real doctor... In fact it seemed to me the woman she became after the Doctor would have grown without his help, contrary to Rose or Amy, who, you feel, would have been much, much different. You showed how the Doctor changed her and I like it. It's a tiny piece of headcanon but I approve.

Favourite line : "But her hand remains steady and slowly, this small part of the world becomes hers all over again, as she relearns the tiny, silly, stunning wonders of being home." Love, love the rhythm and oppositions.

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for the wonderful comment! I completely agree about Martha, she is basically the only one who had a fulfilling future ahead of her before she met the Doctor, and in a way that kept him from becoming her everything—she didn't only have people to come home to, she had something for herself. There's so much about Martha, but I had to rewatch the series to appreciate it fully… At first viewing I was too annoyed that her crush for the Doctor seemed to take most of her characterization. There's definitely more to her, though :) And she especially showed it at the end.
Thanks again!

[radiolaires]

You express it way better than I do: she knew where she was going.

That's funny because I watched Doctor Who out of order; so I met Donna and Amy and Rory before Martha. I really liked her straight away because she seemed extremely competent, she had skills, medical obviously, but others; you could ask her to do or fix something without explaining the whole process step by step. Of course Amy and Donna were not pretty nitwits, but Martha really had competence, which made her era closer to the usual travel story with a crew in which each member has a precise role and matching aptitudes. And I'm fond of those stories.

Also since I had not met Rose it was easier for me to overlook the whole 'crush on the Doctor' matter. Remained her courage and cool head, the fact she always does her part of the job even when he doesn't. She was not swept away by him, they had a captain/second-in-command dynamic to them sometimes... I have a feeling Clara is a bit similar (Is it a test?), she seems to think the Doctor has chosen her because of some competence she has and is determined not to let him down.

You're welcome, your fic are always so crafted - and thinky!

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

Haha, we could lavish praise on each other all day—I love the way you explained it all, too ;) All the insight!
Oh, that's an interesting POV indeed =) I can imagine how your view of her character would be entirely different, then. The companions all brought something new, their own understanding, but Martha was very resourceful indeed. When I rewatched, one of the eps I liked most was 42, when Ten was so frightened and Martha was there for him, by his side. It was really a strong moment between them. And as she was training to be a doctor, she knew how to reassure and support people in very difficult moments. I also loved the end of Gridlock when she put her foot down so firmly when realizing he really wasn't willing to open up to her, about Gallifrey. "You talk so much, but you never say!" She really seemed to see through him. Rose loved him, and their relationship was very strong, and yet she didn't really seem that curious of that background, instinctively hitting the deep stuff, the hidden part that hurt.
Oh, good point about Clara! I really like the way she seems to want to prove herself to him, too…
Like I said—yay gushing all over each other ;)