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Martha ducked past the Toclafane, making use of her small size to weave through the streets of the city that the signs proclaimed was once London. She needed to get down, to get to the underground tunnels where they hid, that used to be filled with the grumble of trains, or so she had been told.
Martha was too young to remember life before the Toclafanes, but her older sister Tish could just about recall walking the streets with a sky that was blue, and the chirping of birds.
She slipped into another alleyway, and started. A blonde girl, who looked just a bit older than Martha, was slumped against the wall, wearing a suit jacket far too large for her. She looked up with wide eyes, and then grinned upon seeing Martha. Martha’s hair was a mess, her natural curls matted because she simply didn’t have the time to care for them, but this girl’s looked as if it had swirled around her face in almost a fall, but not before.
Martha crept up to her, sticking to the shadows and the wall, “Hello?” Martha couldn’t exactly hide her confusion, seeing someone else above the surface was rare, due to the sheer lack of life on the planet. Almost every adult had been massacred when the Toclafane first arrived, and the children had scrounged to survive. Martha had been in Royal Hope Hospital earlier in the day, trying to find any medications that had lasted. The Toclafane didn’t care for anything but destruction and death, so the city was filled with the sounds of their gleeful whirring.
The girl smiled, pushing herself up with a well concealed wince. Then, without warning, she pulled a tie out of her pocket, and wrapped it over her hair like a bandana.
Martha blinked, and tilted her head to one side, “Can I help you?”
“I’m the Doctor,” she held out her hand, having crossed the gap between the pair, “pleasure to meet you.”
Martha nodded, “Right. Martha Jones.” She shook the Doctor’s hand, “Doctor what?”
The Doctor looked confused, “No. Just the Doctor.”
“Do you know medicine? You have to earn to be a Doctor,” Martha sighed, “I’d like to be a Doctor. We have books for it.”
She nodded in response, “I think I know medicine,” she shook her head, the tie-bandana coming loose, “it’s all a bit of a blur.”
Then, she collapsed.
Martha started, just managing to catch her before she fell to the floor. A concussion was not something Martha wanted to, or could afford to risk. She lowered her down gently, sitting on the floor beside her, and at the close proximity she realised the red that had seeped into the dark jacket that swallowed her. It was all she was wearing, it seemed, and Martha hurriedly pushed it out of the way, seeing the deep cut in the Doctor’s side.
She slung the backpack off, and pulled out the towel she kept within, applying pressure to the wound. She needed to be somewhere clean, but there was no universe in which Martha could carry the taller girl back, especially not without being spotted by the Toclafane. She took a deep breath, and pulled her small pouch of water out, wetting the towel and wiping her wound clean, making sure to move the Doctor’s wound away from the floor.
She didn’t like to stay still on the surface for this long, but she didn’t exactly have a choice. The blood stopped, and she wrapped a bandage from her bag around the wound, which looked much less threatening once the blood stopped its flow.
People weren’t meant to stay unconscious for that long, and just before the panic set in for Martha, the Doctor jumped up, almost headbutting Martha before she realised where she was. “My hearts.”
Martha blinked slowly, “Be careful, I just patched you up.”
The Doctor grinned at her.
“We need to get going. Do you have anywhere to go?”
The Doctor paused, “My Tardis. We need to find it.”
“When you’re better.”
She scowled, but let Martha help her up, and guide her down to the Tube station.