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Good old Rose, Martha thought bitterly to herself. The thought hadn’t left her head ever since Jack and the Doctor had rejoiced over her survival. It wasn’t just the constant reminder of the shadow she was living in that hurt, but the knowledge that this perfect Rose had survived the Battle of Canary Wharf when her own cousin had died. And despite the very obvious problems the Doctor and Jack had, they’d put them aside momentarily for Rose.
Jack had been abandoned by the Doctor, someone who - in the Doctor’s own words - was an old friend. Yet it was Rose that the Doctor clung to even when human and without his memories. So really it hadn’t been that surprising to learn that the elusive Rose was blonde. She’d felt mildly vindicated by the bitter touch to Jack’s words as he’d relayed that fact.
At least she wasn’t the only one living in the shadow cast by the larger than life Rose.
Of course, those thoughts had been temporarily shelved as they’d raced to the silo away from the hungry Futurekind. Then they’d been found by Professor Yana and their dream of escaping to Utopia. It was while he was talking that the Professor seemed to become overwhelmed and a previously unseen blonde appeared at his side when attempts by those gathered to get his attention failed.
“Professor, you must rest. You work too hard, come now, sit. Let us take over for a bit.” She ushered him to sit away from the circuitry and hardware strewn about.
“Yes, yes alright dear.” The Professor agreed.
It was only as Martha went to ask the Doctor a question that she’d realised he’d fallen silent. A quick glance at him revealed that he was frozen in shock, Jack too it would seem. What the hell was going on?
“Rose…” The Doctor whispered in giddy disbelief.
Oh, that just wasn’t fair.
x-x-x
Rose had scarcely noticed the new additions to the room when she’d witnessed the Professor undergoing another episode and had rushed to his side. But there was no mistaking the sound of her name being uttered, no matter how faint. She glanced up from the Professor to find an impossible face that she had been searching for, for far too long and had ultimately failed to find.
Until now it would seem.
The Doctor slowly approached her on shaky legs as if afraid she would disappear, a notion Rose was familiar with. With a tilt of her head, Rose gestured to an empty corner away from the recovering Professor. As soon as she was within the Doctor’s range she was scooped up into a familiar exhilarating reunion hug.
“What are you doing here? How are you here? You were trapped in Pete’s World, the walls were sealed, I checked. Constantly.” The Doctor started to babble as he set her back down on the ground.
“I was looking for you silly. Got it a bit wrong obviously when my device burnt out and left me stranded, but I was looking for you.” She said ruefully.
“How? It’s not impossible.”
“No such thing as impossible, you taught me that.” Rose smiled warmly.
The Doctor grinned down at her.
Rose's smile drooped as she remembered their current circumstances. She cast a glance at the Professor. They - and everyone in the silo - were stranded as the Professor worked tirelessly to get them to Utopia in what was increasingly becoming clear was a fool’s errand. Their much awaited reunion would have to wait.
“Can you help them? Can you get them to Utopia?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen a system like it, it’s so far beyond anything I’ve ever encountered. Why? You look worried.”
“I am worried. Not just for all the people stranded here but…” She chewed on her lip as she thought over how best to convey her worries. “There’s something wrong about that Professor. His memories don’t make sense, and I don’t mean in that usual old person way where they can’t quite recall something. His memories are crystal clear but odd. Like they’re incomplete.”
“Rose, I’m sure it’s fine. He’s just old.” The Doctor tried to reassure her, placing a hand on her shoulder not wanting her to worry when they’d only just reunited.
She melted under the familiar and missed touch. It was almost enough to distract her.
“No, it’s- Do you remember when we went Kithanar? And there was that android race that believed they were the natives of that planet? They fully believed what they were saying, they believed they were the Kithanar natives but there were these weird gaps in their stories that couldn’t be explained. And not in the way where you just forget something and can’t fill in the blanks. But holes they couldn’t see? It feels like that. His life doesn’t make sense. Nor does his prevailing illness, there’s nothing wrong with him that any med equipment can detect.”
“Okay, if you’re sure I’ll keep an eye out. I trust your judgement.”
“Thank you.” Rose smiled in gratitude.
With that out of the way, she took the time to notice the other occupants of the room. There was Jack - who seemed to be respecting the privacy in a surprising turn - and another woman who seemed to be scowling at her. Rose gave a tight, awkward smile and small wave in her direction but it only served to make the woman look elsewhere as she realised she’d been spotted.
“So you found Jack then? Thought he was busy rebuilding the Earth?”
“He found me and actually I need to tell you something about that…” The Doctor trailed off awkwardly, as he rubbed at the back of his neck.
Rose knew even without him saying anything that she wouldn’t like what he had to say. And she decided she’d rather not hear it now, not until it was relevant, when they had bigger things to worry about.
“You can tell me later. And what about that woman?” Rose asked with a gentle smile, not letting on any of the discomfort she felt at being the recipient of her scowl.
“Oh, that’s Martha. She's travelling with me now, she’s brilliant. She’s a doctor.” The Doctor told her proudly bouncing on his toes.
Rose watched Martha on the other side of the room. She was sure the woman in question was brilliant, the Doctor only took the best after all, but Rose was a little deterred by the seemingly unprovoked animosity in her gaze.
“Have you told her about me?” Rose stumbled over the words unsurely, as she brought her thumb up to her mouth to chew on.
It felt presumptuous to ask, but she couldn’t explain the other woman’s behaviour towards her. And loathe though she was to admit it, the expression was almost familiar in its jealous capacity.
“Oh yes. I didn’t want her to think she was replacing you. You’re very special to me, of course, I talk about you.” The Doctor beamed.
Ah. So that was it. The Doctor wasn’t the most… tactful when it came to feelings or domestics at the best of times and combined with the hostility in Martha’s gaze Rose could piece together a fairly clear picture of what had actually happened.
But the Doctor was still bouncing on his toes, like a proud child awaiting recognition and it was then that Rose processed what his words meant in relation to them. She hadn’t forgotten that stilted conversation outside of a cafe after meeting Sarah-Jane but it seemed the Doctor had been true to his word.
No, not to you.
Rose returned his smile with a much softer one of her own. She couldn’t quite share in his enthusiasm, this place put her on edge and she was half convinced this was a dream and he was going to disappear. It wouldn’t have been the first time. But never had Jack and Martha been there before.
This hadn’t been the reunion she’d expected when hopping parallels. But nothing had ever been simple when it came to them so perhaps it was to be expected.
“I’ve missed you.” The words tumbled free before she could think better of it. Before she had the chance to carefully measure her words and the emotion behind them as she always had when travelling with him. Before she’d told him she’d loved him on that dratted beach.
But the Doctor’s answering glee and responding hug made it worth it. God, she really had missed him.
x-x-x
The Doctor had managed to help fix the Professor's blueprint and was now beneath the rocket with Jack fixing the couplings so they could fly.
Martha had felt no small amount of vindication when Rose had been equally shocked by Jack’s surprise resurrection - and the Doctor’s supposed nonchalance - despite already knowing him. The lab had been a flurry of activity that Rose and Jack had fit seamlessly into despite their absences, so the shared lack of knowledge had felt like a levelling of the playing field to Martha.
The Professor had had another episode in the meantime in which Rose - who seemed to have taken on the role as his carer - rushed to his side before the Doctor also joined her to inquire into the man’s health. Martha felt a pang at the sight, it was painful to watch the way the Doctor just drifted towards Rose. She could relate to Chantho’s unrequited and ignored feelings towards the Professor in that regard.
Rose had been preoccupied with another one of the Professor’s episodes upon him hearing about time travel, and though she hadn’t been fixed to the screen like Martha was as the Doctor and Jack discussed Jack’s inability to die, she seemed just as transfixed. This was clearly news to her too. There was heartbreak in her eyes though as she heard the Doctor admit that he’d knowingly abandoned Jack and all that Jack had gone through as a result.
“What happened?” Jack demanded now that he was finally getting answers to something that had haunted him for centuries.
“Rose.” The Doctor answered simply.
Martha felt her stomach drop as her eyes fell away from the screen to the woman in question who was frozen beside the Professor. Of course, who else but perfect Rose could be responsible for the Doctor’s friend’s immortality?
Rose slowly raised her gaze to find Martha looking at her. Martha was surprised by the terror and uncertainty there. Rose hurriedly dropped her gaze to the floor with a gulp.
“I thought you'd sent her back home.” Jack continued over the comms.
“She came back. Opened the heart of the TARDIS and absorbed the time vortex itself.” The Doctor told him.
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“No one's ever meant to have that power. If a Time Lord did that, he'd become a god. A vengeful god. But she was human. Everything she did was so human. She brought you back to life but she couldn't control it. She brought you back forever. That's something, I suppose. The final act of the Time War was life.”
Well this just kept getting better, didn’t it? Not only was Rose perfect, but it also seemed the Doctor hadn’t been exaggerating, as she’d been a bloody goddess of time. No wonder Martha could never compare. She wasn’t even competing in the same race.
“Do you think she could change me back?” Jack asked hopefully.
But based on the conflicted apprehensive expression on Rose’s face, Martha already knew the answer.
“I took the power out of her.”
“How is she here? At the end of the universe?” Jack questioned.
“I don’t know. She wasn’t just in a parallel universe, she was trapped. It shouldn’t be possible but she came back.”
“Again,” Jack added, in reference to Rose’s stint as a goddess of time.
“Yeah.”
“I went back to her estate, in the nineties, just once or twice. Watched her growing up. Never said hello. Timelines and all that.”
“Do you want to die?”
“Oh, this one's a little stuck.”
“Jack?”
“I thought I did. I don't know. But this lot. You see them out here surviving, and that's fantastic.”
“You might be out there, somewhere.”
“I could go meet myself.”
“Well, the only man you're ever going to be happy with.”
“This new regeneration, it's kind of cheeky.”
“Hmm.”
“I never understand half the things he says,” Martha said finally tuning out the two men on the comms when she took note of the Professor, Rose was tending to. “What's wrong?”
That was where it had all gone wrong. The gaps in the Professor’s memory becoming clear to Martha when she saw the familiar fob watch. The perception filter preventing Professor Yana from seeing or opening it. And despite never having spoken, or knowing anything about her, Rose could read the alarm on Martha’s face. She easily offered to take over for her while she went to check on the Doctor.
There was a strained smile on Rose’s face as she sought to reassure her companions whilst also acknowledging Martha’s concerns.
That was the last Martha saw of Rose.
She was nowhere in sight when they broke back into the lab away from the Futurekind. Chantho dead on the floor and the Professor stumbling into the TARDIS dying as he locked the door behind himself. Rose wasn’t the only one missing, the Doctor’s hand was missing too.
Martha had never seen the Doctor so frantic and despondent as when pleading with one of his own kind to get into his own TARDIS. Their pleas went unheard as they fought off the Futurekind.
Martha had the oddest feeling that they weren’t to get out of this the same people they once were.