Doctor Who | Spare Change

[eponymous_rose]

Title: Spare Change
Author: eponymous_rose
Word Count: 690
Rating: G
Characters: Martha Jones, Tenth Doctor



"May the blessings of the great Markranmaham Sellophlage be with you," the nine-legged creature said, and handed Martha the bundle of fruit and her change. In the time-honoured tradition of tourists everywhere, she smiled and nodded in return, then bid a hasty retreat back through the crowded marketplace.

"Got the food, then?" the Doctor said, making her jump at his sudden proximity. Oblivious, he leaned over her shoulder to peer into the bag. "Oh, you got bleeglenuts! I love bleeglenuts."

Martha was still staring at the handful of coins the alien had dumped in her hand; they seemed to be near enough to Earth money - mostly circular, made of some sort of metal, imprinted with what might charitably called a face. "No dates on the coins," she said.

"Hmm," said the Doctor, and reached into the bag for something red, slightly hairy, and with a strong resemblance to a peanut. "Don't suppose they've got any real need for it. The metal's the important part - doesn't matter to them when it's minted."

"Weird, though," said Martha as he deftly squashed the bleeglenut so that it broke into three equal parts. He offered her one; it tasted a bit like cold pizza. "I mean, I used to have a little bit of a coin collection as a kid - gift from my Granddad, I guess - and that was half the fun of it, looking at all the dates and trying to figure out who might've touched the coins before I did."

The Doctor was now eyeing the money in the palm of her hand with slight distaste. "Not very sanitary, is it?"

She elbowed him, grinning. "You know what I mean. Take a coin from the 1960s - for all I know, the Beatles touched it at some point."

Smirking, the Doctor reached for another bleeglenut. "There's something they could start selling at rock concerts, then. Instant souvenirs, right in people's pockets!"

"Really, though," said Martha, and turned one of the coins over in her hand. "I mean, once I went to a shop and saw they had a coin from 100 B.C. or something-"

"Was there a date on it?" the Doctor said innocently.

"Any more out of you," Martha warned, "and you don't get the reminiscences, which means there's less of me talking and more of me eating all the bleeglenuts."

He looked slightly panicked at the prospect, and motioned for her to continue talking. She opened her mouth to speak and realised she didn't really have anything more to say.

"Well," she said. "I just- just liked having the dates on, is all."

"Oh, they date the coinage on lots of planets," said the Doctor, peering up at the sky as though he could see anything through the purple-blue atmosphere overhead. "And I suppose that means you get kids everywhere pretending they've got their very own time machine, the past all written up in nickel and copper and strontividinium-19."

"Yeah," said Martha, and grinned at the sight of a familiar blue box wedged between two electronics stores. "But it's better having the real thing in wood than the idea of it in silver and gold, right?"

He adopted a hurt expression. "I should think so," he said, and patted the TARDIS door. "I mean, not as stable, maybe, not everyday enough to fit in your pocket, but it's definitely something better."

"Yeah," said Martha, and laughed. "Yeah, it's definitely something."

With the key nearly to the lock, he paused. "Martha, did you get any pleebleberries?"

"Oh," she said, peering into the bag, "the- the being at the shop said we could find them fresher on the neighbouring planet."

"Ah," said the Doctor, and grinned, opening the doors. "Well, Martha Jones, if you're not tired of all these insane adventures, and if you wouldn't rather sit at home looking at coins from the past, I think we might as well go on and see if we can find ourselves some pleebleberries. Quick little jump, that's all; nothing to it!"

Martha smirked and pocketed the dateless coins, following him into the impossible. "It's never that easy," she said.