Title: Bad Wolf

Author: TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel

Story Summary: Martha is angry and hurt after the events that occurred during the time the Doctor spent as a human and needs someone to talk to. Then all of a sudden a strange woman appears in the kitchen, quite at home, explaining that she's adrift in time…

Setting: Right after "The Family of Blood" in series three.

Author notes:

This is a side story to a fic ("Adrift") that I plan to work on during the time I won't have access to the computer. It works fine on its own, though. I know I said I wouldn't write anything that wasn't on my current update list… but hey, it's only short, right?

BAD WOLF

Martha had time to think, now, and wished she didn't.

It wasn't his fault, really, but she couldn't forgive the Doctor for the way john Smith had treated her.

Oh, most of her was logical, rational, knew that he couldn't control what he did as a human, that he hadn't expected to behave the way he had – just look at the whole mess with Joan. (He'd been so quiet afterwards, eyes dark and brooding, something she'd never seen before.) But a small, insistence voice kept pointing out that John Smith or not, some part of the Doctor had been in there somewhere… and after all, hadn't everything that John Smith had been come from some part of the Doctor in the first place? Maybe not the bits he was proud of, maybe bits he tried to deny, but bits of him all the same.

And John Smith, while he had been fond of her, and protected her somewhat, had undeniably resented her.

Martha stormed into the TARDIS kitchen angrily, desperate for a decent cup of tea. She bustled around angrily, trying to find the tea things.

"He's impossible," she muttered to herself as she searched, "complete rubbish as a human… he said he had green tea in here somewhere, so where is it?"

"Try the blue cupboard over the coffee machine," a voice said helpfully. "The Doctor used to keep it in the yellow one, but moved it all out when he decided to fill it with fairy biscuits."

Don't scream, Martha told herself. You're in a time-travelling sentient spaceship with an alien. This sort of thing happens. Screaming would look really stupid.

She turned slowly to see a blonde woman around her own age sitting at the table, resting her chin her hands. She had bottle-blonde hair, big eyes heavily decorated with mascara and a generous mouth, and she was dressed in a professional-looking skirt and blouse. Her expression was somewhere between resigned and disgusted.

"Um…" Martha wasn't quite sure what to say.

The blonde woman sighed deeply.

"So, what's your Doctor like?" she asked with a sort of tired disinterest that suggested she'd asked this question several times before and never received a satisfactory answer. "Scarf? Bad temper? Ridiculous coat?"

"Um, skinny," Martha said hesitantly. "Long coat, brown pinstripes, talks a lot and has sort of spiky hair."

The woman's eyes widened in sudden interest.

"Really?" she asked in pleased surprise. "Must be getting closer, I guess." She gave a discontented sigh. "I've been wandering around in time trying to get back to the right one," she explained to Martha. "Keep landing in the wrong moments, the Doctor never has any clue who I am, really embarrassing." She frowned slightly. "'Cept for the gingery bloke, he seemed to know who I am. He was hot, for ginger. Looked a bit like my dad though, that was kinda disturbing."

She seemed to come out of her thoughts and gave Martha a wide, friendly smile.

"You want any help with that? It doesn't seem to be too long after I was last here, so I should know where everything is."

"That'd be nice," Martha agreed, because it wasn't like the Doctor ever offered, seemed to think making tea was part of her job, and because it was a normal response. Martha was trying hard to act normal. If being lost in time didn't bother the blonde woman, then it really shouldn't bother her.

It did all the same, though.

While she got out the tea and heated the kettle, Bottle-Blonde collected a couple of mugs and the sugar bowl, which for some reason had been stored in the fridge. Bottle-Blonde shook her head when she found it, and muttered about daft aliens.

Then, too soon for Martha's liking, they were both at the table drinking tea. Mind you, it was good to drink tea again. Tea was a bit of a luxury at the school, fine for staff and upperclassmen, but certainly not for mere maids. The only time Martha had been allowed any was when one of the teachers had refused his afternoon-tea tray. She hadn't realised how much she'd missed it until she drank some.

"Heard you talking when I arrived," the stranger offered. "He can be a bit of a prat sometimes. You wanna talk about it?"

Martha was startled and offended; didn't this woman have any tact? Couldn't she see it was personal?

Still, her eyes were warm and brown and filled with empathy, and right now Martha did want to talk about it with someone. It was sitting on her chest like a heavy weight. At least this woman seemed to know the Doctor.

So Martha talked, telling the long story of the Family, the Doctor's transformation, her humiliating experiences working at the school, and finally the mess with Joan.

Finally she finished, and stared dismally into her tea (gone cold long ago) feeling wrung-out and oddly relieved.

"The complete arse," Bottle-Blonde declared. Martha looked up in surprise, not sure whether to vehemently defend the Doctor, or agree totally. The woman caught her look.

"I love him, but honestly, he can be a bit of a berk." She rested her hand on Martha's, eyes filled with earnest understanding. "He treated you horribly. He ever did that to me, I'd walk."

Martha looked down with sudden guilt.

"But he didn't want me here in the first place," she admitted, "I forced him into it, coz I fancied him –"

"If he didn't want you with him, he'd have told you to get out," Bottle-Blonde said seriously. "Trust me, I've seen it happen." She gave a sudden cheeky grin. "Besides, everyone fancies him, and I mean everyone," she added conspirationally. "You should have seen him the day he caught Jack trying to cop an eyeful while he was in the shower."

"Jack?" Martha repeated, imagining the look of absolute, panicked horror on the Doctor's face when he found a man trying to get a glimpse of him naked. She found herself laughing helplessly.

"Oh, God, that must have been priceless."

"Hilarious," Bottle-Blonde agreed. She adopted a curt, Northern tone. " 'Y'ever do that again, I'm kickin' yeh off the ship an' leavin' yeh in the middle of a Sontaran prison.' " She grinned at the memory. "Never seen Jack look so subdued before."

"That's not how the Doctor talks," Martha protested.

"Not this one, yeah," the other woman agreed. "It's a Time Lord thing; see, instead of dying they sort of – change. Rewrite all their DNA at once. There's this bright light and poof, brand-new Doctor. Saw it happen once. I was completely terrified. Didn't know what was going on. Suddenly this was this skinny cheerful bloke gabbling away at me instead of the big-eared snarky one I'd been worrying about a minute ago. Thing is, it's easy to forget that he'd not human, but he's not. Really not."

Martha nodded, filing the words away. It sounded ridiculous – changing bodies in a burst of bright light? but with the Doctor you never knew.

"Anyway," Bottle-Blonde suddenly murmured, "'s about time I got a move on, I'm still not back in the right time yet, so I better keep going." She smiled brightly. "Nice to meet you, though. Maybe I'll see you again."

She stood up, preparing to leave, but Martha had one last question.

"Who are you?"

And the stranger smiled, as she faded away, her bright red smile almost the last thing to vanish.

"They call me the Bad Wolf, but the name's Rose, Rose Tyler."

And Martha was left staring incredulously in an empty kitchen.

FIN