whoniverse fic: nothing on your nobel prize
nothing on your nobel prize; au martha jones/rani chandra; 2408 words; pg-13
In year seven, two of the other kids’ dads had come to talk to Rani’s class about their jobs. Stephen Kerr’s dad was a doctor, and Amy Walsh’s was a police officer. Rani didn’t pay much attention to either presentation, because she already knew she wanted to be a journalist, anyway. She took away from them that, essentially, they both tried to help people.
Then one day Rani saw Amy crying in the hall, and the next day she was absent. Rani heard another kid whispering in class that Officer Walsh had been shot.
At lunch, Rani saw Stephen sitting with his friends in the cafeteria, laughing and eating a sandwich.
Rani thought that if she had to choose, she would have her father be a doctor over a police officer any day.
+
Martha Jones was beautiful, sarcastic, and the most efficient barista on campus. Somehow Rani felt like she was betraying her every time she bought a latte from one of the other cafes. Because every time Martha noticed Rani waiting in line, she seemed to get a look in her eyes, and they talked like they’d known each other for years, though not well - just as acquaintances, as if they’d been locker neighbours in high school, or counselors at the same camp every summer. Today, Martha puffed her cheeks out and sighed.
“The dean come by again?” asked Rani, amused.
“He all but threw a fit when I gave him a medium cappuccino, which is what he ordered,” Martha half whispered, leaning in slightly closer to Rani, who was a much easier customer to handle; Martha rang up a large skim latte without asking, laughing off her annoyance, and Rani produced exact change.
Before long, Rani found herself going out of her way to go to Martha’s cafe even when the library she was headed to was on the other side of campus. (Martha didn’t need to know that.) Rani’s study group grew used to her showing up late, with an odd little smile on her face.
Martha was going to be a doctor, and graduation was looming closer than ever. But even having so many years of schooling under her belt already, she was genuinely interested in what Rani was doing, too. It was Rani’s second year, and happy as she’d been to start more journalism classes, it was only once she’d started talking to Martha that she finally felt like she was settling in at uni.
On one of the rare days that their schedules aligned, Martha and Rani sat across from each other at the library, studying their separate topics. Rani smiled at the huge medical volume Martha was reading from, shaking her head. She didn’t know how anyone could stuff all of that knowledge into their head without it exploding. Martha threw an eraser at her.
“One day, you’re going to find the cure for cancer, and I’m going to write about,” said Rani dreamily, but the look she gave Martha said she totally believed it. And so Martha believed it too.
“You’ll get the scoop before anyone else in the world. You’ll have a Pulitzer.”
Rani grinned. “I’ll have nothing on your Nobel Prize.”
They’d long since drained their coffee cups by the time they packed up.
+
Rani pulled away suddenly, disentangling herself from Martha’s limbs. A look of concern spread across Martha’s face.
“Did I...” It seemed a struggle for her to find her words, and painful to speak them. “I’m sorry, I...fuck.” Martha turned her body away, and Rani ran a hand through her own hair, frustrated.
“I’m sorry,” said Rani. “I just need a moment to process all this and--”
“Just forget it, okay?” Martha snapped, getting up and moving to the door. “Forget it ever happened. I’m sorry.”
Tears sprung to Rani’s eyes. “But I want you!” Her voice was tiny, now. A few moments passed in silence before Rani could bear to say what was on her mind. “I’m too young for you, aren’t I?”
And Martha looked somehow even more surprised than Rani had felt when she’d kissed her in the first place. “What?”
“Oh don’t even lie to me, Martha. You’re about to start your residency, and I’m just some kid. I don’t even know what I was expecting.”
“You are not just some kid to me,” said Martha, crossing the room and sitting back down on the bed in front of Rani. “You’re Rani. You’re beautiful, and brilliant, and I’ve been in love with you since the first time you showed up in my line.”
Rani’s tears fell freely for awhile. Then she wiped her eyes, and tentatively reached for Martha’s hand. She looked up into her eyes at last.
“Love at first latte?” she laughed softly, and Martha laughed too.
“Something like that.”
Shaking, Rani leaned in and kissed Martha this time, slowly, sweetly. She pulled back just a little.
“This is scary,” she breathed. “This...should be scary. Only...”
Martha cupped her face in her hand, brushing the last stray tear away, and she shivered.
“...I’m not that scared.”
+
She’d thought about leaving a note on the pillow. She didn’t do it in the end, because she didn’t want to become that person. She didn’t want to become that ex. The one who left a note on the pillow who you still hate ten years later when they show up back in town again and propose a cup of tea. She crumpled the note she’d already written and tossed it in the recycling.
Martha appeared unmoved when she came downstairs, still so early in the morning. “You’ve packed.”
“I just need to get away for awhile,” she said quietly. She took Martha’s face in her hands after a moment, kissing her on the forehead. “I love you, you know that. But I just...I have to go.”
Martha didn’t even cry. “I know.”
Rani had washed out her mug and left it in the drying rack (for the last time). This was by far the most civilized breakup Martha had ever experienced.
“I love you too,” she said, as Rani picked up her bag, halfheartedly smiled at her, and walked out the door (for the last time).
She found the crumpled note in the recycling later, having heard Rani messing around with the paper when she thought Martha was asleep. There was no need for etiquette or shame now that Rani was gone. She read it at the kitchen table, still in her pajamas and dressing gown.
I love you. That’s never going to change. I’ve never been afraid of loving you, and that’s not what this is about. You know this has been killing me. I always thought I was so lucky to be with someone who was helping other people without putting herself in harm’s way. I always wanted a doctor over a police officer. Which one are you, now? Every day you leave and I don’t know if you’ll even come back home, and it fucking terrifies me, Martha. Why did you have to find Torchwood? I keep lying next to you at night asking myself why they had to take you away from me, even when you’re right there. Because now I live with the fear every day that you won’t come home, and I can’t do it anymore. This is scary and I’m scared. Why couldn’t being a doctor have been good enough for you? But whatever, it doesn’t matter anymore. Keep working for Torchwood if that’s what you need to do. But I need to go, because I’m afraid of loving you and losing you.
Martha waited a few days before emailing Rani.
You don’t need to worry about pretending that you’re coming back.
There was never a reply.
+
She was almost dripping with mud, and just as confused as Gwen that the Weevil they’d rushed out here for was already unconscious. “He left a trail of bodies the whole way here,” said Gwen. “What could’ve stopped him all of a sudden?”
“From the looks of it, a blow to the head,” said Martha, rising from where she’d been crouching to look over the creature. “The question is, who or what could’ve knocked out a Weevil?”
There came a rustling from a short distance away. “I don’t know,” said Gwen, “but I don’t think they got his mate.”
Martha pulled out her anti-Weevil spray (and checked for her gun, just in case). Gwen was ready, too. Still, it was dark, and the Weevil appeared from behind the trees so quickly that both of them were almost thrown off balance. Panicking, Gwen fired a shot before bothering with the spray, but missed. “Fuck!”
But before Martha could act, the second Weevil was on its knees, then face down in the mud. A woman stood behind it, still holding out in front of her the large, jagged rock she’d hit it with.
“Well, it was definitely a blow to the head,” said Gwen, lowering her gun. But Martha’s heart had leapt to her throat, and for a moment all three women stood there in silence.
“Rani?” said Martha finally.
She had never expected her ex-girlfriend to be covered in mud and standing over an unconscious Weevil the first time she saw her again.
+
Gwen loaded the Weevils into the back of the SUV, while Martha and Rani had their first conversation in two years.
“I never would have seen this coming,” said Martha after a long silence.
Rani looked guilty, somehow. “Look, this probably isn’t going to make any sense...I left you because I couldn’t handle the fact that you were choosing to put yourself in danger every day. But after I left, I roamed for awhile. Freelanced for a bunch of local papers. And there was this one story I followed, and it led me right to one of these. Well, not one of these exactly, but an alien. I walked right into its trap, and I fought it, and I lived. And I just couldn’t stop after that. It stopped being about the story. I wanted to find the aliens, and I wanted to protect people from them. It’s like...it’s exactly the thing I hated you doing, but it was the only thing that I felt right doing once I left you.” She looked at the ground. “Funny, isn’t it?”
Martha was floored, and she felt just a little bit betrayed. “I don’t know what to say.”
She didn’t need to say anything, though, because Gwen finished packing up then, and beckoned them to the car. “You don’t need a lift, do you?” she asked Rani.
Rani hesitated. “Actually, that would be great,” she replied. “I took a cab out here and followed them on foot for awhile...I was sort of in a rush.” Martha almost wanted to laugh, hid the tiny smile that crept onto her face, because that was just so Rani. She didn’t realize at first that Gwen was waiting for her to say something, silently asking if this was alright.
“It’s fine by me,” she said, looking Rani in the eye. Rani smiled at her for the first time in forever, and her heart beat even faster than it had facing the Weevil.
The ride back into the city wasn’t as uncomfortable as Martha might have expected. Rani sat alone in the back, and Gwen kept up a pretty normal conversation, leaving Martha to sit with her thoughts. Martha was grateful.
They needed to get the Weevils back to the Hub, so they dropped Rani off downtown on the way. “Thanks so much for the ride,” said Rani, locking eyes with Martha in the rear view mirror. “I’ll see you around, I guess.”
Martha spoke just as she opened the door. “You could join us,” she said, speaking for the first time the entire ride. “If you’re fighting aliens, anyway, you could help us.”
Rani’s face didn’t betray whatever she might have been feeling. “I’ll think about it,” she said, and stepped out of the car.
Gwen squeezed Martha’s shoulder as they drove away.
+
The coffee shop Rani had stopped in at was swarming with students, and she felt a rush of nostalgia as a younger girl took her order (large skim latte, same as ever). She remembered waiting in line with grumpy professors and stressed out students, and always hoping for a chance to talk to Martha. (And Martha would look stressed out right up until she noticed Rani standing there, when Rani would feel her own grumpiness disappear.)
She was snapped out of her reverie by the very real presence of Martha standing by the window, sipping a latte of her own, and just as surprised to see Rani there.
“Second time in a week,” Rani murmured.
Martha seemed to contemplate her. “Do you believe in fate?”
Rani laughed. For awhile they just stood there, sipping their coffee. It almost felt the same as ever, like they were students again, stealing a shared coffee break in the middle of a long day. Like the coffee shop had become the space for their shared daydream.
“I don’t think I wanted to endanger myself just because you were doing it,” said Rani. “There was no real reason to it, at first. I just followed a story.” She paused to think. “But I guess it just felt right. Doing what you were doing. Understanding. It was the only way I could kind of hold onto you, by mirroring you, following you, like I was chasing a ghost. It’s stupid.”
“A little,” said Martha, with just a hint of amusement. “Most reports of ghost sightings turn out to be aliens, anyway.” Rani smiled.
“I’m sorry.”
A dozen fights, one crumpled note, and two years later, there were those two words at last. Apologies couldn’t solve everything, but even so, Martha felt herself finally letting go of all the pain she’d been holding onto.
“I want to join you,” said Rani. Martha opened her mouth to say it was all right, she didn’t have to, but Rani just smiled and shook her head. “You’re right, I’m already fighting on your side anyway. Might as well join the team.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Rani reached for Martha’s hand but stopped short, unsure. So Martha took her hand, instead, and they seemed to fit together as well as ever.
“Let’s go, then.”
And they walked on.
-
In year seven, two of the other kids’ dads had come to talk to Rani’s class about their jobs. Stephen Kerr’s dad was a doctor, and Amy Walsh’s was a police officer. Rani didn’t pay much attention to either presentation, because she already knew she wanted to be a journalist, anyway. She took away from them that, essentially, they both tried to help people.
Then one day Rani saw Amy crying in the hall, and the next day she was absent. Rani heard another kid whispering in class that Officer Walsh had been shot.
At lunch, Rani saw Stephen sitting with his friends in the cafeteria, laughing and eating a sandwich.
Rani thought that if she had to choose, she would have her father be a doctor over a police officer any day.
+
Martha Jones was beautiful, sarcastic, and the most efficient barista on campus. Somehow Rani felt like she was betraying her every time she bought a latte from one of the other cafes. Because every time Martha noticed Rani waiting in line, she seemed to get a look in her eyes, and they talked like they’d known each other for years, though not well - just as acquaintances, as if they’d been locker neighbours in high school, or counselors at the same camp every summer. Today, Martha puffed her cheeks out and sighed.
“The dean come by again?” asked Rani, amused.
“He all but threw a fit when I gave him a medium cappuccino, which is what he ordered,” Martha half whispered, leaning in slightly closer to Rani, who was a much easier customer to handle; Martha rang up a large skim latte without asking, laughing off her annoyance, and Rani produced exact change.
Before long, Rani found herself going out of her way to go to Martha’s cafe even when the library she was headed to was on the other side of campus. (Martha didn’t need to know that.) Rani’s study group grew used to her showing up late, with an odd little smile on her face.
Martha was going to be a doctor, and graduation was looming closer than ever. But even having so many years of schooling under her belt already, she was genuinely interested in what Rani was doing, too. It was Rani’s second year, and happy as she’d been to start more journalism classes, it was only once she’d started talking to Martha that she finally felt like she was settling in at uni.
On one of the rare days that their schedules aligned, Martha and Rani sat across from each other at the library, studying their separate topics. Rani smiled at the huge medical volume Martha was reading from, shaking her head. She didn’t know how anyone could stuff all of that knowledge into their head without it exploding. Martha threw an eraser at her.
“One day, you’re going to find the cure for cancer, and I’m going to write about,” said Rani dreamily, but the look she gave Martha said she totally believed it. And so Martha believed it too.
“You’ll get the scoop before anyone else in the world. You’ll have a Pulitzer.”
Rani grinned. “I’ll have nothing on your Nobel Prize.”
They’d long since drained their coffee cups by the time they packed up.
+
Rani pulled away suddenly, disentangling herself from Martha’s limbs. A look of concern spread across Martha’s face.
“Did I...” It seemed a struggle for her to find her words, and painful to speak them. “I’m sorry, I...fuck.” Martha turned her body away, and Rani ran a hand through her own hair, frustrated.
“I’m sorry,” said Rani. “I just need a moment to process all this and--”
“Just forget it, okay?” Martha snapped, getting up and moving to the door. “Forget it ever happened. I’m sorry.”
Tears sprung to Rani’s eyes. “But I want you!” Her voice was tiny, now. A few moments passed in silence before Rani could bear to say what was on her mind. “I’m too young for you, aren’t I?”
And Martha looked somehow even more surprised than Rani had felt when she’d kissed her in the first place. “What?”
“Oh don’t even lie to me, Martha. You’re about to start your residency, and I’m just some kid. I don’t even know what I was expecting.”
“You are not just some kid to me,” said Martha, crossing the room and sitting back down on the bed in front of Rani. “You’re Rani. You’re beautiful, and brilliant, and I’ve been in love with you since the first time you showed up in my line.”
Rani’s tears fell freely for awhile. Then she wiped her eyes, and tentatively reached for Martha’s hand. She looked up into her eyes at last.
“Love at first latte?” she laughed softly, and Martha laughed too.
“Something like that.”
Shaking, Rani leaned in and kissed Martha this time, slowly, sweetly. She pulled back just a little.
“This is scary,” she breathed. “This...should be scary. Only...”
Martha cupped her face in her hand, brushing the last stray tear away, and she shivered.
“...I’m not that scared.”
+
She’d thought about leaving a note on the pillow. She didn’t do it in the end, because she didn’t want to become that person. She didn’t want to become that ex. The one who left a note on the pillow who you still hate ten years later when they show up back in town again and propose a cup of tea. She crumpled the note she’d already written and tossed it in the recycling.
Martha appeared unmoved when she came downstairs, still so early in the morning. “You’ve packed.”
“I just need to get away for awhile,” she said quietly. She took Martha’s face in her hands after a moment, kissing her on the forehead. “I love you, you know that. But I just...I have to go.”
Martha didn’t even cry. “I know.”
Rani had washed out her mug and left it in the drying rack (for the last time). This was by far the most civilized breakup Martha had ever experienced.
“I love you too,” she said, as Rani picked up her bag, halfheartedly smiled at her, and walked out the door (for the last time).
She found the crumpled note in the recycling later, having heard Rani messing around with the paper when she thought Martha was asleep. There was no need for etiquette or shame now that Rani was gone. She read it at the kitchen table, still in her pajamas and dressing gown.
I love you. That’s never going to change. I’ve never been afraid of loving you, and that’s not what this is about. You know this has been killing me. I always thought I was so lucky to be with someone who was helping other people without putting herself in harm’s way. I always wanted a doctor over a police officer. Which one are you, now? Every day you leave and I don’t know if you’ll even come back home, and it fucking terrifies me, Martha. Why did you have to find Torchwood? I keep lying next to you at night asking myself why they had to take you away from me, even when you’re right there. Because now I live with the fear every day that you won’t come home, and I can’t do it anymore. This is scary and I’m scared. Why couldn’t being a doctor have been good enough for you? But whatever, it doesn’t matter anymore. Keep working for Torchwood if that’s what you need to do. But I need to go, because I’m afraid of loving you and losing you.
Martha waited a few days before emailing Rani.
You don’t need to worry about pretending that you’re coming back.
There was never a reply.
+
She was almost dripping with mud, and just as confused as Gwen that the Weevil they’d rushed out here for was already unconscious. “He left a trail of bodies the whole way here,” said Gwen. “What could’ve stopped him all of a sudden?”
“From the looks of it, a blow to the head,” said Martha, rising from where she’d been crouching to look over the creature. “The question is, who or what could’ve knocked out a Weevil?”
There came a rustling from a short distance away. “I don’t know,” said Gwen, “but I don’t think they got his mate.”
Martha pulled out her anti-Weevil spray (and checked for her gun, just in case). Gwen was ready, too. Still, it was dark, and the Weevil appeared from behind the trees so quickly that both of them were almost thrown off balance. Panicking, Gwen fired a shot before bothering with the spray, but missed. “Fuck!”
But before Martha could act, the second Weevil was on its knees, then face down in the mud. A woman stood behind it, still holding out in front of her the large, jagged rock she’d hit it with.
“Well, it was definitely a blow to the head,” said Gwen, lowering her gun. But Martha’s heart had leapt to her throat, and for a moment all three women stood there in silence.
“Rani?” said Martha finally.
She had never expected her ex-girlfriend to be covered in mud and standing over an unconscious Weevil the first time she saw her again.
+
Gwen loaded the Weevils into the back of the SUV, while Martha and Rani had their first conversation in two years.
“I never would have seen this coming,” said Martha after a long silence.
Rani looked guilty, somehow. “Look, this probably isn’t going to make any sense...I left you because I couldn’t handle the fact that you were choosing to put yourself in danger every day. But after I left, I roamed for awhile. Freelanced for a bunch of local papers. And there was this one story I followed, and it led me right to one of these. Well, not one of these exactly, but an alien. I walked right into its trap, and I fought it, and I lived. And I just couldn’t stop after that. It stopped being about the story. I wanted to find the aliens, and I wanted to protect people from them. It’s like...it’s exactly the thing I hated you doing, but it was the only thing that I felt right doing once I left you.” She looked at the ground. “Funny, isn’t it?”
Martha was floored, and she felt just a little bit betrayed. “I don’t know what to say.”
She didn’t need to say anything, though, because Gwen finished packing up then, and beckoned them to the car. “You don’t need a lift, do you?” she asked Rani.
Rani hesitated. “Actually, that would be great,” she replied. “I took a cab out here and followed them on foot for awhile...I was sort of in a rush.” Martha almost wanted to laugh, hid the tiny smile that crept onto her face, because that was just so Rani. She didn’t realize at first that Gwen was waiting for her to say something, silently asking if this was alright.
“It’s fine by me,” she said, looking Rani in the eye. Rani smiled at her for the first time in forever, and her heart beat even faster than it had facing the Weevil.
The ride back into the city wasn’t as uncomfortable as Martha might have expected. Rani sat alone in the back, and Gwen kept up a pretty normal conversation, leaving Martha to sit with her thoughts. Martha was grateful.
They needed to get the Weevils back to the Hub, so they dropped Rani off downtown on the way. “Thanks so much for the ride,” said Rani, locking eyes with Martha in the rear view mirror. “I’ll see you around, I guess.”
Martha spoke just as she opened the door. “You could join us,” she said, speaking for the first time the entire ride. “If you’re fighting aliens, anyway, you could help us.”
Rani’s face didn’t betray whatever she might have been feeling. “I’ll think about it,” she said, and stepped out of the car.
Gwen squeezed Martha’s shoulder as they drove away.
+
The coffee shop Rani had stopped in at was swarming with students, and she felt a rush of nostalgia as a younger girl took her order (large skim latte, same as ever). She remembered waiting in line with grumpy professors and stressed out students, and always hoping for a chance to talk to Martha. (And Martha would look stressed out right up until she noticed Rani standing there, when Rani would feel her own grumpiness disappear.)
She was snapped out of her reverie by the very real presence of Martha standing by the window, sipping a latte of her own, and just as surprised to see Rani there.
“Second time in a week,” Rani murmured.
Martha seemed to contemplate her. “Do you believe in fate?”
Rani laughed. For awhile they just stood there, sipping their coffee. It almost felt the same as ever, like they were students again, stealing a shared coffee break in the middle of a long day. Like the coffee shop had become the space for their shared daydream.
“I don’t think I wanted to endanger myself just because you were doing it,” said Rani. “There was no real reason to it, at first. I just followed a story.” She paused to think. “But I guess it just felt right. Doing what you were doing. Understanding. It was the only way I could kind of hold onto you, by mirroring you, following you, like I was chasing a ghost. It’s stupid.”
“A little,” said Martha, with just a hint of amusement. “Most reports of ghost sightings turn out to be aliens, anyway.” Rani smiled.
“I’m sorry.”
A dozen fights, one crumpled note, and two years later, there were those two words at last. Apologies couldn’t solve everything, but even so, Martha felt herself finally letting go of all the pain she’d been holding onto.
“I want to join you,” said Rani. Martha opened her mouth to say it was all right, she didn’t have to, but Rani just smiled and shook her head. “You’re right, I’m already fighting on your side anyway. Might as well join the team.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Rani reached for Martha’s hand but stopped short, unsure. So Martha took her hand, instead, and they seemed to fit together as well as ever.
“Let’s go, then.”
And they walked on.
-