http://jay-vingt-six.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] jay-vingt-six.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] who_contest2014-10-03 03:03 pm

A Bright Shadow ('Light and Dark' entry)

Title: A Bright Shadow
Rating: PG
Genre: General/Introspection
Word Count: 539
Pairings or Characters: Tenth Doctor, Martha Jones
Spoilers: None; references from all of Season 3.
Warnings: None
Summary: The Doctor ponders over what he had and what he lost at the end of an especially long day. Continues where Last of the Time Lords ended.


“I’ll see you again, mister.”

He could only smile in response, one that quickly faded as the doors shut behind her. Alone, again. By Rassilon, he hated being alone. You are not alone, Boe’d said(Jack’d said. Jack. Jack bleeping Harkness was the Face of Boe!). Well, that didn’t hold true anymore, did it?
He still felt kind of bowled over, to be honest. It had been a long day. There was the Jack thing, of course. And the Master. And… her.

Martha. His-

What was she to him? He pulled a lever down slowly, pensively. She was hard to place, his Martha. No, not his. Never his. Brilliant Martha Jones. ‘The Woman Who Walked the Earth’. Hmm. A bit long, that. ‘Bad Wolf’ was easier… no, stop. He mustn’t go there, no good would come of that. And it wasn’t fair on her, on Martha. Even now, after she’d left, he had no right –none- to still compare her to Rose.

That’s not to say he hadn’t done it in his head millions of times before, more number of times than Martha would have liked, had she known. Rose had been a sort of template, a paragon of a mould, and he had always tried to fit Martha into it. It was horrible of him, but he did it anyway. And every time he did it, he’d come out supremely frustrated, whether Martha was on par or not. If she didn’t fit, he’d be angry and disappointed. If she did, he’d be even more angry that Rose wasn’t as unique as he’d made her up to be.

She wasn’t, of course. She was just an ordinary human, and yet extraordinary because of that. Martha was exactly the same.

No, not exactly. Didn’t he realise that from all those times he compared the two of them?

He turned the whirly-whooshy lever and gazed at the console rotor absently. He never should have done that. He had many regrets but this one was stinging hard, even now, mere minutes after she’d left.

He really shouldn’t have wasted his time comparing her to his past, to someone that didn’t even exist in this reality anymore. There was no comparison, really. How could he compare Rose, who meant so much to him, to Martha, who-

Who-

There really was no comparison. Rose was Rose. Martha was…

A really good medical student, as good as a Doctor herself. A loving daughter and sister. An untiring walker, as it turned out. Brave, brave enough to face the Judoon, the mad scientist, the Master –all on her own. Compassionate, sympathyzing with kidnappers and pig-mutants alike. Hard-working enough to breeze through “race-appropriate” (how he hated that term) jobs in two different eras. Probably wasn’t a breeze, but she made it seem so easy. Kind, caring, considerate. Garnering admirers in Shakespeare and space pilots alike. A shoulder to lean on, to cry on. A hand to lead, to hold and to follow.

She was his light in the darkest depths of the universe, and she was his shade, his respite from the harsh brightness of reality.

She was Martha Jones.

And she was brilliant.

He flipped a switch, and the world crashed down around him with a bellowing horn.

[identity profile] a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com 2014-10-03 12:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Ohhh...

Ohhh this was marvelous!! So insightful and brilliant!

*HUGS*
but_can_i_be_trusted: from the Wayne & Shuster sketch, 'The Mark of Zero' (a 'Zorro' parody) (Chocolate Bars)

[personal profile] but_can_i_be_trusted 2014-10-03 07:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Very lovely. Martha deserves this one hundred percent. :)

[identity profile] gallif-migrant.livejournal.com 2014-10-03 09:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Martha doesn't get a lot of love; I'm happy you showed her some appreciation. With the Doctor having just lost somebody he loved, he was grieving far too much to see Marha in her own context. (I mean, 11 took about a 100 years to get over his depression after losing the Ponds. 10 was only about 2-10 years total in that regeneration, tops. He had no time to fully deal with it.) Thanks for this wonderful story.

[identity profile] radiantbaby.livejournal.com 2014-10-05 06:12 am (UTC)(link)
<3 this! Martha is so often unappreciated in fandom, so it was wonderful to see this. :)

[identity profile] flowsoffire.livejournal.com 2014-10-09 08:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, I love that piece of insight, you really explore the Doctor's feelings regarding Rose and Martha very nicely—the way he couldn't help comparing them, how unfair it was and how much it frustrated him, and the fact that they couldn't be compared, they were so different and each of them unique, as human beings are ♥ You really did wonderful justice to what a brilliant character Martha was, while still showing that the Doctor's connection to Rose was so powerful and one he just couldn't shake off. I love the fact that he felt equally frustrated when Martha measured up to Rose and when she didn't, it's spot-on. I like how he couldn't seem to define what Martha was to him, too, that she wasn't his anything, she was brilliant all on her own, yet still offered him all of her strength, support, friendship and help. Martha being light and shade alike was a very beautiful sentence. And I also really like the way you smoothly insert those ponderings into the episode's narrative, starting with her ending line and finishing with the horn ;) Neat! Very nice job.

(You just had one typo, I think: "sympathyzing" shouldn't have a Y?)
ext_13288: pre-raphealite (drwho-tasha)

[identity profile] paynesgrey.livejournal.com 2014-10-14 03:49 am (UTC)(link)
Wow, I think you nailed the Doctor's thoughts on Martha. How hard that must have been for him, but I'm really glad for the end, he seemed less conflicted. Well done. Very creative.