Cosmo || Doctor Who

71 : Softer To Me

     "Home?" Her voice dropped. "You took me home."

  The Doctor nodded, curtly, almost absently. "Back to the morning after we left. So you've only been gone about twelve hours. No time at all, really!"

"But all the stuff we've done..." Martha seemed distraught, broken. EJ leant against the door, and she couldn't bring herself to look at him, because he'd known. "Shakespeare, New New York, Old New York!"

"Yep. All in one night." He agreed. "Relatively speaking. Everything should be just as it was. Books, CDs... laundry."

Without thinking, the Doctor picked up a pair of underwear from the drying rack. It wasn't meant to be intrusive, or creepy, or even sexual. He just did it without thinking, and just as quickly, Martha snatched them back off him.

"Maybe don't, babe." EJ rolled his eyes, wrapping his arms around the Doctor's shoulder from the back. His weight was taken so easily, the Doctor was practically giving him a piggy back.

"So," He inhaled. "Back where you were. As promised."

Martha's eyes widened, suddenly. "This is it?"

"Yeah, we should probably, um..."

They were standing in a sort of awkward limbo when the phone rang. Martha didn't answer, and it went straight to the answering machine. "Hi, I'm out. Leave a message."

"I'm sorry." She frowned.

Then, it beeped, and a voice which sounded vaguely familiar. "Martha? Are you there? Pick it up, will you?"

"It's Mum. It'll wait."

"You shouldn't make your Mam wait." EJ thinned his lips. "You'll regret it later, trust me."

"Alright then. Pretend that you're out, if you like. I was only calling to say that your sister's on TV. On the news, of all things! Just thought you might be interested."

Martha picked up the remote and turned on her tv. It was fairly small, but the picture was alright, so they could see the old man on the screen fairly clearly. "The details are top secret."

"How could Tish end up on the news?" Martha asked, and though it was rhetorical, EJ couldn't help but answer anyways.

"Hey, I was on tv a bunch, and I never did anything." It was always his place to put his two cents in. "Everyone gets their fifteen minutes of fame, don't they?"

"But I can tell you that, tonight, I will demonstrate a device..."

"She's got a new job." Martha rambled. "PR for some research lab."

The Doctor hummed in agreement, but his eyes were narrowing as he tried to take in as much information as he possibly could. "Hm."

"With the push of a single button, I will change what it means to be human!"

Martha swiftly turned it back off, bored, but the Doctor's eyes lingered a moment too long. "Sorry." She apologised again, and it frustrated EJ to no extent. "You were saying... you should?"