Title: Thank You, Fandom.
Author: box_in_the_box.
Rating: PG-13/R.
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Martha Jones, and at least one real person (who’s personally previewed and approved of her appearance in this story).
Spoilers: Set sometime during Season 4.
Summary: Don’t you wish the Doctor and Martha could know how much you love them? Well … who’s to say they can’t?
Notes: This is intended to be my meta-fictional tribute to all the awesome posters of lifeonmartha, as well as a well-deserved gift to one of the community’s more prolific posters …
__________

“Blimey!” Martha Jones yelped, rubbing her sore backside as she rose unsteadily to her feet from the metal floor grating of the TARDIS console room. “That was a bumpier ride than usual!”

“No wonder,” the Doctor muttered, running a hand through his hair as he peered intently at one of the console’s screens. “I think we’ve crossed over, into another reality … but that can’t be!”

“What, you mean, like, a parallel universe?” Martha recalled the “Mirror, Mirror” episode of Star Trek that she’d seen as a little girl. “But … why shouldn’t that be possible?”

“Because without its connection to our universe, the TARDIS should be all but dead right now,” the Doctor squinted at the text that scrolled rapidly up the screen. “And that’s just if we’d been shunted into an alternate timeline. This,” he tilted the screen so she could see it, “is an entirely different magnitude of difference altogether.”

Martha gaped as she studied the image on the screen’s Internet browser. There she was, clad in a sultry blue dress with her hair down, and there he was, wearing a suit with no tie and a rakishly open collar, but those weren’t them.

“David Tennant and Freema … Agyeman accept their awards at the National Television Awards for … Doctor Who,” Martha read the text of the online article aloud, before turning to face the Doctor.

“From what I can gather, in this reality, we exist purely as fictional characters,” the Doctor tugged agitatedly at his earlobe, as he anticipated Martha’s reaction.

“But … I’m real,” Martha insisted, not without a slight edge of upset. “I know I’m real. My family, my friends, my adventures with you … they’re not just … made up, by this,” here, she checked the screen again, “Russell T. Davies.”

“Of course you’re real!” the Doctor reassured her. “And I can say with relative certainty that I’m real, as well. It’s just that, here, the rules are a little … different, is all. Here, we’re characters on a television show … quite a popular one, apparently,” he smirked, as he began scanning the Internet for more information. “A bit like Zen Buddhism, really … are we butterflies dreaming of being men, or actors dreaming of being TV characters?”

“Hang on,” Martha interrupted, as she struggled to keep pace with his inhumanly fast speed-reading. “Scroll back by a few sites … what was that one, again?”

The Doctor dutifully complied, and a giddy grin slowly spread across his face. “Why, Martha Jones … you’re a star.”

“lifeonmartha?” Martha nearly giggled at the pun.

“There seem to be quite a few communities on this … LiveJournal thing, devoted to various of my companions,” the Doctor noted, as he opened a second browser window. “Jack and his Torchwood team have a few … and so does Rose,” she tried not to resent the touch of melancholy in his tone. “Oh! And here’s the ones for Sarah Jane, and … blimey, they even have ones for Donna?”

Martha smiled at her memories of meeting the mouthy but well-meaning Donna Noble, whose abuse of the Doctor amused Martha more than it should have, before she caught the warmth in his mention of a name that was new to her. “Sarah Jane?” Martha teased him. “Have you been two-timing me, mister?”

“Aw, you’d love Sarah Jane,” the Doctor beamed. “She was a lot like you, a real go-getter … she still is, actually.” He shook his head and reached around from behind her to minimize the second browser window, and bring up the site that she’d spotted. “Enough about my other companions, though … I think it’s time that you saw what your fans have to say about you, Martha Jones.”

As Martha scrolled down the screen, skimming through essays and stories and silly photoshopped pictures, she felt her eyes growing moist and a lump welling up in her throat. “All these people,” she blinked back her tears, “I’m just a fictional character to them, but the things they say about me …”

“Even though you’re not technically real in this reality, you’re more than real enough to them,” the Doctor breathed in her ear, as she realized that his arms were wrapped around her waist. “They see how stellar you are, Martha Jones … and they make me ashamed for not seeing it sooner myself.”

Martha craned her neck to face him, and found him gazing at her with mournful brown puppy-dog eyes. “You see me, how … they see me?” she barely dared to ask. “But … why didn’t you ever say?”

“I was afraid,” the Doctor frowned contritely. “After Gallifrey, and after … Rose, I didn’t want anyone or anything else to matter that much to me again. But you do, Martha Jones. You matter to me even more than you matter to them,” he tilted his head toward the screen. “Come to think of it, that’s probably why the TARDIS is still alive in this reality … she’s being sustained by the passion and goodwill of all these fans.”

Martha leaned over to kiss the Doctor sweetly on the cheek, but the kiss that he gave her on the lips was far more smoldering. When they broke away, she wiped her eyes. “Now I wish we could thank them.”

“We could do,” the Doctor suggested mischievously. “Pick out a fan, and we’ll pop in to pay her a visit.”

“Might we do other things with her besides?” Martha arched her eyebrows.

The Doctor gasped in mock astonishment. “Jack has corrupted you, hasn’t he?” he laughed. “Well, go on, then … let’s draw the first name out of the hat.”

“Are we planning on thanking all of our fans in turn, then?” Martha’s eyes went wide.

“As many as you like,” the Doctor promised indulgently.

Martha bit her lower lip with excitement, then pointed to one author whose richly descriptive posts had caught her attention. “Well, she has a vivid imagination for a start …”
__________

The woman in her late 30s was startled to hear the wheezing, groaning, distinctly familiar sound coming from outside of her attic in Oxford. When she glanced out her window onto the front yard below, she was even more shocked to see a blue police box standing in the garden.

She was trembling when she answered the knock at the door, and nearly squealed out loud when she saw the two unmistakable figures who were waiting to greet her.

“Do you write stories under the online handle of persiflage_1?” the Doctor inquired.

She swallowed hard, and tried not to fidget with her glasses as she nodded yes.

“If I’m up on my etymology, ‘persiflage’ means ‘light, good-natured banter’ … and I must say, your writing lives up to your moniker in all the best ways,” the Doctor affected a scholarly air, before fixing her with an attempt at a stern glare. “That being said, that definition most certainly does not include anything about explicit sex scenes.”

“It’s your fault,” Martha pretended to be proper at first, even as she tenderly caressed the other woman’s rounded curves. “We were behaving so well until we read your naughty stories,” here, Martha practically purred into her ear, “all about us doing all sorts of wicked things to each other’s bodies. Look at him,” Martha’s stare guided the other woman’s gaze toward the tight outline of the Doctor’s arousal in the front of his pants. “You did that to him.” Martha’s lips were all but brushing against her pale cheek as she whispered, “You did it to me, too. I’m so wet right now. You made me that way.”

“I think we should punish her for inspiring us to behave in this way,” the Doctor growled, brandishing his Sonic Screwdriver in a way that reminded the woman with the hazel eyes of her own stories about the possible creative applications of such a device in the bedroom.

“It’s time for you to take a short break from writing sex stories, and spend some more time living them,” Martha wagged her finger, before she and the Doctor took her by her hands, and led her into the TARDIS.

She knew none of the other fans would believe it.

Not until the Doctor and Martha came knocking on their doors, anyway.

Wait … what’s that?

What’s that’s noise outside your house?

Who’s that walking up to your door?

Knock, knock.