Martha would never look at the moon the same way again.  She couldn’t, not after her experience today, and she didn’t care if people would think her a loon; she knew what she saw, what she did, and she had the X on her hand to prove it.

Or she used to.  Apparently, it didn’t stand up to banana-scented soap.

Martha smiled as she listened to Morgenstern talk about the moon and “not being alone” in the universe.  They definitely weren’t.  In fact, there was a very human-like alien right now off somewhere doing something . . . maybe saving another planet.  She wondered how often he did that, if it was his job.  Since the Judoon were intergalactic police, was the Doctor some sort of PI?  Vigilante?  Right place, right time fixer?  He definitely had been this time, for had he not been there, she was sure the Judoon would’ve destroyed everyone in the hospital.

And she had helped stop them.

“Neil Armstrong, eat your heart out!” she whispered, her grin still on her face as she finished getting ready for her brother’s party.  Tish had tried to get the story out of her, but Martha couldn’t find the words that would do it justice, that would make her sister feel even a tenth of what she had for those few hours in space.  Martha had begged off, citing exhaustion and the need for a nap before going to the party.  Instead, all she’d done was lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, as if it was transparent and she could see the moon and the Judoon and the Plasmavore and the Doctor all over again.  She watched it as a spectator instead of a participant, but still felt the adrenaline course through her veins and the zings from when the Doctor had kissed her.

She’d been kissed by an alien. 

His lips had felt incredibly human, if a little cold.  His hands had cradled her face firmly, and he’d stroked her cheeks briefly before pulling back and running around the corner.  Diversion or not, that was a singular experience of which she wouldn’t mind a repeat.  If an “alien nothing” kiss felt like that, God help her how an “alien something” kiss would feel!

Martha shook her head and finished dressing.  She should stop thinking about it, about him.  She hadn’t had a proper snog in far too long, that was all.  And her life was getting a little too dull for even her standards, so she was owed some excitement and snogging.  That should hold her until well after exams and her first rounds as a proper doctor.  Moreover, she finally had something to contribute during pub night, where her “wild story” of the week would be something much better than “patient X threw up four pints of blood and still lived!”  Not to say that isn’t astonishing, but it doesn’t translate as well with non-doctors.

And apparently neither did “I was on the moon!” stories.

She’d been untruthful when she said she didn’t mind Annalise had called her a liar.  She did mind.  As if she weren’t alienated from her family enough, but even they had the tact to give her the benefit of the doubt.  They knew her, as well as they could, and respected her experience even if they couldn’t fully appreciate it.  Drugged?  Really?  A thousand people drugged and telling the exact same story?  Martha wasn’t the least bit sad when Annalise had vowed never to see her family again, but her departure had her family splintering off in opposite directions, leaving Martha alone and estranged and clearly seeing things because a familiar human-like alien appeared to be leaning against the wall right in front of her and he hadn’t been there seconds earlier.

She hurried after him, desperately hoping she hadn’t imagined him, desperately needing to affirm, if only for herself, that everything that had happened was real and not the follies of a study-spent mind.  When she did see him standing in front of a retro police box, she breathed a sigh of relief and smiled slightly.

“I went to the moon today,” she said.

“Bit more peaceful than down here,” he replied.

She let the irony of that statement lie and instead gained answers to some of the questions she hadn’t had the opportunity to ask while they were running for their lives upon that “peaceful” moon.

• Time Lord, his specific species of alien. 
• Time and space traveler, he explained, proving once and for all he had bumped into her that morning and taken off his tie. 
• TARDIS, a wooden spaceship that was much bigger on the inside, she realized as she stepped into the police box.
• Rose, the name of his previous partner who was now with her family and happy; and a partner who still meant a great deal to him since he’d snapped at her when she’d asked about partners before and the huskiness that had entered his voice as he spoke her name. 
• Genetic transfer, the Time Lord definition of a snog.
• Denial, an affliction affecting humans and Time Lords alike.

“Ready?” the Doctor asked, as if the answers she’d gotten had explained everything.

“No,” Martha replied, having more questions whirring in her brain as fast as the TARDIS engines were.

“Off we go,” he said, pulling the lever and sending the bigger-on-the-inside police box into a bumpy frenzy.

Martha hadn’t been drugged earlier, only oxygen-deprived; and she certainly wasn’t either now.  She was completely oxygen-rich and lucid when the Doctor shook her hand and welcomed her aboard while the TARDIS bobbed and weaved as it took them to their new destination. 

Annalise would shit if she could see this.