The Runaway Bride

The word echoes through the chamber. Gallifrey. It resounds in her head, pierces her heart.

Gallifrey. Time Lord. The Empress remembers the flames, remembers the cries of her people - her children - as they died. So long ago, so very long, but so near, so clear in her memory.

The Doctor stands there, imperious, stone-cold. She knows who he is now, the murderer of his own, slayer of the Daleks, the Oncoming Storm. As she rages, lost in her anger, the storm comes down. Her children burn, burn and drown in the Time Lord's wrath.

All she can do is run.



Smith and Jones

She should be terrified. Hell, everybody else seems terrified. But for some reason - and try as she might, as she gazes at the surface of the Moon, Martha can't work out why - she can't find it in herself to be terrified.

Instead, she feels something bubbling up inside her. It's there when she looks at the man who calls himself "the Doctor". It's even there when she finds Florence Finnegan sucking at Mr Stoker's neck. It's definitely there when the Doctor kisses her.

By the time Martha Jones steps inside the TARDIS, she knows she's not terrified - she's just excited.



The Shakespeare Code

Martha Jones is learning about power.

Shakespeare's power is in words, that is clear. The lyrical prose spins its web over the crowd in the Globe. Shakespeare's words are different from the Carrionites' - even Martha can feel that.

The Doctor's power lies elsewhere. He's good with words, he can't stop talking, but it's when he looks at her with those fathomless, ageless eyes that Martha is really captured. One glance, one smile, and she'd follow him anywhere.

But the Doctor also is under a spell. And Martha's not sure she knows how to break it; Rose's power is too strong.



Gridlock

She's been having so much fun up to now - well, up to being kidnapped - that it's only as she admits to the brevity of her relationship with the Doctor that Martha realises the enormity of what she's done. In running away with him, she's broken all those childhood rules. She knows his planet has an orange sky. She doesn't know where it is, or its name.

And yet, she trusts him to find her. He died to save a hospital packed full of strangers. She trusts him.

Later, when she knows why he lied, she finds she trusts him more.



Daleks in Manhatten

"I've seen the way you look at him," says Tallulah, knowingly, girl to girl, and Martha can't deny it. The problem is, it's all looking. She looked as the Doctor fiddled with the TARDIS somewhere between New New York and New York - watched his quick fingers and wide grin and yes, a cute bum in a tight suit. But he's not looking back. He's happy to touch, to hug, to hold hands and run from danger, to tap her on the shoulder and give her tea - but it's all on the surface, and Martha doesn't think she'll ever get deeper.



Evolution of the Daleks

They leave Laszlo and Tallulah holding hands in the park and making calf-eyes at each other. Although Martha really wouldn't want a boyfriend who looked like a pig, she can't help but feel jealous. She's learned a little more about the Doctor over the past day - about the Daleks, and the depths of anger lurking beneath the wild surface. It should make her run; it would make any sane person run. Maybe she's gone mad already, but she knows she'll follow him anywhere.

The pig and the showgirl. They ain't got nothing on the medical student and the Time Lord.



The Lazarus Experiment

Family.

Her mother is so familiar, smells so right, that Martha wants to scream with pure happiness. She's back, she's survived. And there's the familiar bickering between Tish and Leo, perfectly normal.

But there's the Doctor, by her side, looking impossibly dapper in black tie and trainers, and irrepressible as ever. For them, it's only a day since her dad put his foot down and her mum called Annalise orange. For Martha, it's five billion years in the future and five hundred years ago since she last saw them. And now she's torn - stay with the Doctor, or her family?



42

The water, hot and soapy straight from the showerhead, sluices down over her back, washing away the heat of the day. And what a day! A day when emotions ran from the height of happiness to the depths of despair.

Martha closes her eyes, remembering the excitement of landing in a strange place. The terror of seeing a sun, so close, so hot. The adrenalin of the passwords. The sheer desperation of the escape pod. The terror of seeing the Doctor, infected.

And at the end of the day, the joy of the simple Yale key dropping into her palms.



Human Nature

There's another girl's things in the little attic room, but their owner is not there. Martha puts down her bag and sits on the edge of her bed. It gives underneath her, the springs creaking - unlike her modern mattress at home, or the incredibly soft bed in the TARDIS.

Somewhere else in the building, a man who looks like the Doctor is unpacking books and tweed suits and preparing for lessons. He looks at her differently, speaks to her wrong.

Martha twists her fingers together, and tries to tell herself she's not alone, and that three months will fly by.



The Family of Blood

The strange green fire roars down on the countryside, and Martha holds Tim Latimer close. It's comforting to have the warmth of another human body beside her - it lessens, just a bit, the fear coursing through her.

She's not really afraid of the Family and their attack. She's scared of what's happening inside the cottage. John Smith is not the Doctor, she knows that now. He's human. He's in love.

Her fate hangs by a thread; dependent on the terrified mind of a shy history teacher and on the woman he loves. The pendulum could swing either way.

Martha waits.



Blink

Martha's eyelids are drooping, and it's not even noon. God, to be out of here - out of the shop, out of this town, out of this time. She's only working in the shop to escape the flat they've found, which is littered with the Doctor's experiments, and to earn some extra cash so they're not relying on the sonic screwdriver. It's only really bearable because - thanks to Sally Sparrow - they know they will get out eventually. She'd hoped 1969 would be slightly more interesting, but the Moon landing hasn't happened yet, and it's turned out to be like anywhen else.



Utopia

There's something in the Doctor's eyes that she's never seen before. It's a mix of frantic hope and utter despair. Martha is torn between wishing she had never noticed the watch and praying the Professor is someone the Doctor wants to see.

They run, boots and trainers pounding the corridors of the silo with the roar of the Futurekind behind them. But they are too late. The door is closed, Chantho is dead, the Professor is changed.

The hope in the Doctor's eyes is gone now, disappeared, replaced with deep, dark emptiness. Martha can't help thinking it's all her fault.



The Sound of Drums

Taptaptap tap. Taptaptap tap.

It's all around, inescapable, the sound of the network. The sound of control. A sound that's ensnared the world - ensnared her family.

She's so angry, angry with herself for getting her family into this mess. Angry with the Doctor for not stopping it. An insane, brilliant alien has her family in his grasp, and her flat's destroyed, and there seems to be nothing her own insane, brilliant alien can do about it.

Taptaptap tap. Taptaptap tap.

"What'll it be, love?"

Martha shakes herself out of her thoughts.

"Fish and chips. Two."

The Doctor'll work something out.



Last of the Time Lords

So this is it. This is the end of the road, an empty street in Bexley. Martha's seen far too many empty streets in the past year - newspapers blowing down Fifth Avenue with the skyscrapers high above, dogs scavenging the Champs-Elysées, the mud puddles of Calcutta.

And this is where it's led. The Master, dapper in a black suit with the spheres spinning around his head and brave, brave Tom Milligan lifeless at her feet.

Martha lifts her eyes and meets the Master's gaze. This might be the end of the road, but it'll not be the end of everything.

© Joanne Harris 2008