TEN

Martha heard the snuffling, burping and singing as she and Manny made their way across the hot valley bed.

“Doctor!” she called, shielding her eyes from the sun as they approached.

“Martha!” he called back, sounding relieved. He got to his feet and dropped his bottle, leaning an arm against the thick green hide of the dragon and jumping repeatedly to look over the top of her back.

“How did no-one else see you?” she demanded incredulously, walking round the dragon and stopping with her hands on her hips.

The dragon mewled cheekily and lifted her head, rubbing Martha’s arm. She staggered with the unexpected force, stretching her hand out and patting it awkwardly.

The Doctor leaned off the dragon unsteadily and whirled around to find Martha behind him.

“My little boxes!” the Doctor cried ebulliently, and she looked at him. Just looked. He didn’t appear to notice. “Manny! Hello!” he gushed.

Manny was standing behind Martha, his mouth open, staring blankly at the dragon.

“You?” Manny managed. He was still staring at the dragon, but something was making his mouth work coherently. “We thought… We thought you were with Lady Ermin!”

“What?” the Doctor scoffed, and Martha waved her free hand past her face at the collective alcohol fumes hanging in a noxious cloud around the Gallifreyan and the dragon. “And miss all this excitement?”

“Mate, you smell like a brewery,” she tutted. “What have you been drinking?”

“Well they call it rum, but it’s like no rum I’ve ever tasted – and I’ve tried a lot of rum,” he said conspiratorially, tossing her a huge, over-done wink. She blinked.

“Doctor, how much have you drunk?” she dared.

“Not enough,” he said confidently, leaning down and picking up another bottle. He tossed it at Manny. “There you go son, make yourself at home.”

Manny caught the bottle awkwardly, but his eyes were still on the dragon.

“You two – you two really are friends, aren’t you?” he managed, distracted. “How can a man be friends with a woman?”

“The eternal question,” the Doctor hiccupped, dropping back to the ground soundly, leaning back against the dragon and looking extremely comfortable.

“Right, well,” Martha said, walking over and taking the bottle that had mysteriously materialised in the Gallifreyan’s hand.

“Oi!” he grumped.

She took a sip, half-choked, and then took a big mouthful. She handed it back to him.

“You,” she said sternly. “Don’t even bother to explain the boxes. Or the invisible thing. Or the rum,” she tutted. “What do we do with this bloody great dragon?”

The beast grunted and she looked at it quickly.

“No offence,” she said hastily. The dragon snorted a great bellow across the ground, and Manny jumped, skittering backwards.

“It’s going to eat me!” he squeaked fearfully.

“No she’s not,” the Doctor interrupted petulantly. “Why is it the first thing people say when they see a dragon is ‘oh no it’s going to eat me’?” he demanded grumpily.

“Dragons don’t eat people,” Martha said kindly to Manny, who just looked back at her.

“You sure, my lady?” he swallowed.

“Tell him,” Martha said, folding her arms and looking back at the Doctor. He grinned.

“No, she is not going to eat you,” he said clearly.

“Cos you told her not to?” Manny dared.

“Don’t be daft,” the Doctor said, fishing his hand into the Morrisons carrier bag. “Cos we’ve been eating these all afternoon,” he added brightly, lifting his hand out and popping a jelly baby into his mouth.

“Oh good god,” Martha moaned, putting her face in her hands. “Doctor, you know how you get when you eat too many jelly babies.”

He hiccupped and then sniffed to himself.

“Well it was that or die of boredom out here. Couldn’t very well save the last dragon and then let her die of boredom, could I?”

Manny jumped as the dragon lifted her head slowly, swinging it closer to him. She sniffed him suspiciously.

“It’s alright,” the Doctor called out, “he’s with me.”

The dragon slewed her head back away from the smaller man, then over toward the Doctor again. She laid her head down on the dusty grass and let out a long, contented sigh.

Then she belched, and Martha jumped and moved away from her quickly.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“Get my suit back. I don’t much care for these things,” the Doctor said, plucking at the fabric of his cotton shirt. He stood slowly, wobbling only slightly. “Oh. Ah. And find a washroom.”

Martha gaped.

“You’ve been sat here since I left you this morning, drinking rum and eating jelly babies, and you haven’t even got up to go to the loo?” she demanded.

“Been busy,” he said defensively.

“How the hell did you drink five – no, seven bottles,” she amended, eyeing the litter on the ground, “of that stuff and not need the toilet?”

“Time Lord science,” he said cheerfully. “Well, biology, to be precise.”

“Do I want to know?” she dared.

“Bigger on the inside,” he hiccupped innocently, and she slapped her hands over her face.

“Like I didn’t know that was coming,” she muttered. She pulled her hands away and looked at Manny. “Well. This is the moment we say goodbye and disappear,” she said politely. “Do you want dropping anywhere?”

“Dropping?” he prompted, lost.

“Is there anywhere you want to go?” the Doctor said clearly. Manny shook his head.

“I think… I think I need to go home now,” he said bravely. “I’ve seen men who aren’t servants, and dragons drinking rum. I need to go home.” He stared at the three of them, oblivious.

“Yep,” the Doctor said, then sat back down. “You get off home, Martha here will go back to the palace and get my suit, and me and her will sleep off the alcohol,” he added happily, chucking a thumb over his shoulder at the sleeping creature.

“I will not!” Martha said indignantly. The Doctor looked up at her, surprised.

“Well are you going to dragon-sit while I go back and get it?” he asked innocently.

“Actually,” she said slowly, “I think you should sit here and sleep it off. If in fact that’s what Gallifreyans do,” she added doubtfully. “I’ll get Manny back, and then go for your stuff. Don’t move,” she said sternly, pointing at him.

“Yes mistress,” he said cheekily.

--

“There, you see?” he grinned, watching the huge beast circle and find a direction. “There should always be a dragon in the sky. Somewhere.”

“I don’t get it,” she said, her arm through his comfortably. “We went through all that, saved the very last one, and now you’re just letting it fly away with no idea of what’s going to happen to it or how it’s going to survive?”

“Martha Jones!” he protested, not taking his eyes from the sight of the dark green creature wing its way over the hillside. “You offend me. Of course I know what’s going to happen to her next.”

“What?” she asked, suddenly afraid. He looked down at her now, the dragon well and truly gone.

“She’s going back to the nesting grounds. The ones on the other side of the continent,” he grinned. “Why do you think she only got doctored rum?”

“Mate,” she said uncertainly.

“Couldn’t risk giving her anything else, not with close to two dozen eggs waiting for her to get back to and watch over.”

“Doctor!” she cried angrily, pulling her hand away and slapping him in the chest.

“Ow! What now!” he protested.

“You let me believe she was the last one! The last one!” she cried, slapping at him repeatedly with both hands. He staggered back, lifting his hands to protect himself.

“Martha!” he accused, and she stopped, putting her hands on her hips and staring at him. He affected his best puppy-dog eyes until he suddenly grinned like a small schoolboy, his head tilting to one side inanely.

They burst out laughing at the absurdity of it all.

“Come on,” he said at last, controlling himself. He put his hands in his pockets and turning to look across the hills, spotting the side of the TARDIS sticking out like a sore thumb from the side of the greenery. “Time we were off.”

She turned and stopped him, putting her arm through his again as they walked.

“Did you mean that?” she asked. “When you said there should always be a dragon in the sky?”

“Of course,” he nodded cheerfully. “Like Star Trek.”

“What?”

“You need dragons, whether you believe in them or not. Especially if you don’t,” he said.

“You’re not making sense.”

“Alright,” he sighed, thinking. “It’s like… It’s like when you’re watching cable TV, and on some channel somewhere there’s always an episode of Star Trek on. Right?”

“Right,” she grinned.

“You don’t need to see it to know it’s there. But it’s comforting to know it is there. Dragons are like Star Trek episodes,” he said simply.

“How?” she marvelled, grinning.

“Well… Everyone knows about them, and yet if you ask them, they’ll never admit to having seen one. If you believe in them you’re a geek, if you don’t, you’re mainstream. But they do a much wider, more important job than simply being an episode or a creature,” he rattled off.

“And that is?” she asked.

“Well, I could explain the existential connections underpinning complex and ancient belief systems in all kinds of humanoid cultures in a thousand different star systems, but I think the cosmological and anthropomorphic nature of the ramifications of just how widely these belief systems spread and how they’re actually propagated would bore you,” he grinned helpfully.

She rolled her eyes and pulled him on.

“Come on then,” she said gratefully, “let’s work out where to go next.”

THE END