NORMALLY, I SCOFF AT WEIRD CROSSOVERS, BUT I MADE AN EXCEPTION THIS TIME. A FRIEND OF MINE CONVINCED ME TO ANSWER TO A POSTING FROM A LIST OF CHALLENGES RELATING TO "PHANTOM OF THE OPERA" CROSSOVERS. APPARENTLY, NO ONE WAS SIGNING UP FOR THE PHANTOM/DOCTOR WHO CROSSOVER, AND I WAS THE ONLY PERSON SHE KNEW WHO WAS FAMILIAR ENOUGH WITH BOTH UNIVERSES TO WRITE A VIABLE STORY. OR SOMETHING.

ANYWAY, IN KEEPING WITH MY USUAL STYLE, THERE IS ROMANTIC ANGST BETWEEN MARTHA JONES AND THE DOCTOR, AND THEY ARE ABOUT TO COME FACE-TO-FACE WITH THE LITERARY GODFATHER OF ROMANTIC ANGST... I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT.

London, 2007, across the street from Sparrow and Nightingale Antiquarian Books and Rare DVDs, next to Josef's Hairstylist shop. As their adventures went, it was not exactly an exotic locale for her, but the work involved was plenty unusual. Martha Jones groaned as she scrunched up her face and wiped globs of green goo off her clothes. "Ugh. If I never see another giant alien lizard egg, it will be too soon,"

The Doctor was standing nearby doing very much the same thing. He stopped, looked quizzically at her, then smirked. "There's something you don't get to say every day. Well done."

She climbed out of her brown mesh cardigan and held it up, assessing the damage. "Well, I suppose if we can get it to a good dry cleaner..."

"Oh! I know a planet that specialises in that!"

She smiled at him. "Okay. But I was just thinking I know a place right around the corner. But if you'd rather travel across the universe, I won't argue."

He looked at her with his nose and chin in the air, still with the smirk. His expression seemed to say, "Cheeky girl!" But in response, he disentangled himself from the rucksack filled with arrows that he had taken from Martha in a desperate moment, and the longbow draped across his shoulder. Then he peeled off his tan trenchcoat.

"Lucky I took off my tie before going in," he said. "That one was my favourite – wouldn't want it splashed with lizard blood."

He handed the coat to Martha. She took it without question or protest and draped it over her arm. "I'll do this, you get lunch?" she asked.

"All right," he managed to say using a high-pitched tone, no actual words. "Curry?"

"Nah, Chinese."

He pulled a face. "Pizza?"

"Yeah, that. Leporello's is just a block that way."

"Okay. The TARDIS is parked on Queensway across from the Bayswater station."

"Yep. Meet you there in half an hour."

"Yeah."

They went their separate ways for the time being. She went around the corner to Pappas' Dry Cleaning and Pastries.

"Ah, Miss Jones," he exclaimed as she entered. "You've come back!"

"So it would seem," she said with a smile.

"You wait here. I have your dress."

"Oh! Okay." She waited in the lobby as Mr. Pappas disappeared behind the strips of opaque plastic hanging from the doorjamb. When he returned, he was carrying a wrapped garment that must be the bridesmaid dress she had worn about two weeks before it began to rain upwards at the hospital and her life changed forever.

"The shrimp cocktail is a bugger to remove," Mr. Pappas told her in his thick Greek accent, hanging it on the tall hook. "But it should be good as new now."

"Thank you," she said, rather surprised. She had entirely forgotten she had brought that dress here. With exams and Leo's 21st and Annalise, she had had so much on her mind at that time, a blue satin dress was the least of her worries.

She loaded up the counter with the two garments. Hers was a tiny brown fitted thing, and the Doctor's trenchcoat, of course, totally overwhelmed it. Mr. Pappas zeroed in on it immediately.

"What's this?" the five-foot-five dry cleaner asked, hefting the tan coat to its full height. He turned it round and round draped on the tip of his finger, looked at it with amusement, and then at Martha. "Is there a new man in your life, Miss Jones?"

"I guess you could say that," she said flatly.

"A doctor like you, I hope," he probed, referring to Martha's projected profession.

"Yes, a doctor. But not like me."

"A tall man, by the looks of it," he commented, this time referring to the coat.

"Yep," she sighed. "Tall and brilliant. But also strangely clueless."

"Well, Miss Jones," he said to her, draping the long coat over his arm. "Sometimes men need to be shown. Not all males are sensitive and responsive to subtlety like yours truly." He said this, then laughed heartily to show it was a joke.

"You can say that again," she said, rolling her eyes. She dug into her pockets for some money. She handed him a tenner. "Thank you, Mr. Pappas."

He grabbed her hand as he took the money. "Honestly, all joking aside. If he is clueless as you say, then perhaps he needs a bit of persuasion. I'd hate for you to miss out on something brilliant because you were too afraid... and for him to miss out on a pretty girl like you."

Far from pulling her hand away, she felt oddly comforted by his warm smile, and sighed again. "I know. But it's complicated."

"Life is complicated. We do our best with what we've got." He let go of her hand.

"There's... someone else. Sort of an ex."

"She won't go away?"

"It's not that. It's not her fault. He just can't get his mind off her."

"Ah, I see," he said. "That requires a bit more manoeuvering. Like I said, Miss Jones, he needs to be shown."

She stared at him, but the wheels were turning. She'd spent now nearly nine months with the Doctor and she had long since given up on "manoeuvering." She had managed to convince herself that she was content to accept his little hang-up on a blonde in another universe, and simply be the best friend that he so badly needed. She wasn't sure she even wanted to throw herself into that particular fray again, but she did mull over, quite thoughtfully, what Mr. Pappas said.

She smiled brightly, warmly. "Thank you, really," she said. "Erm, is the tenner enough?"

"Oh yes yes, more than enough for you, Miss Jones," he told her. He gathered up the two coats in his arms as Martha gathered up her dress and turned to go. "Miss Jones?"

She turned back. "Yes?"

"You forgot this. It was inside Doctor Clueless' trenchcoat. Hmm. The pockets seem to be bigger on the inside."

She reached out and took the purple plastic portfolio in her hand. It was the packet of information that the girl from the DVD shop down the street had given the Doctor. "Thank you," she said, before leaving.

She boarded the Underground not far away, and as the train jetted through the tunnels, she stared at the information packet. The girl (what was her name... Sally?) had said that the Doctor was, sometime soon, to be stranded in the year 1969. How she knew this, Martha had no idea, but she seemed like a nice person – clearly smitten with the Doctor, but then, who was she to cast stones for that?

But stranded in 1969? She laid the dress across her lap, opened the packet and read a bit. She learned that the Doctor and his companion (it was Martha, according to the DVD Easter egg transcript) were to be stuck without their time vehicle in London of 1969 for an unknown duration. However, it would be long enough that Martha would have to get a job to support the two of them, apparently while the Doctor worked out how to use Sally's instructions to get them out of there.

Oh, that was not good. That meant probably months she would be with him, trapped without the TARDIS, likely living together, playing house. Worst case scenario: they'd have to pretend to be husband and wife in order to be allowed to rent anywhere that didn't have fleas, and they would have to share a bed. If that was to happen, then she would be in even more pain than she was in now. Traveling together in an infinitely large spaceship was one thing, but if she didn't want to be sharing a bed (again) and playing at marriage with Doctor Clueless, then for her own sanity, she needed to do something. She either needed to get over it, or do as Mr. Pappas said: show him.

She exited the Bayswater station and crossed the street. The TARDIS was just hanging about, weirdly unnoticed as always, right next to a Tesco. She pushed on the door, but it was locked. That meant the Doctor hadn't returned with the pizza yet, so she used her key to get inside.

She placed the info packet on the navigator's chair, then wandered back to her room to put the dress away.

It was wrapped in white plastic which was tied off at the bottom. She hung it on the peg inside her closet door and unwrapped it. Contrary to the nasty reputation most bridesmaid dresses carried, she had really loved this dress, and had enjoyed wearing it – she had loved how she looked in it, and so had lots of men at the reception! She smiled at the memory. She had taken Oliver Morgenstern to the wedding as her date, which was fun, but dancing with a gay man provided few prospects. She had never turned so many heads in her life, though, and that had been enough for her, for the time being.

Impulsively, she decided to try the dress on. After being splattered with alien lizard goo, she needed to change her clothes anyway, and she could use a bit of a pick-me-up. She had no idea how long before the Doctor came back, but it didn't really matter – it's not like he was ever interested in entering her bedroom. He could wait for a bit.

She pulled the pink scarf from her head with one quick motion and grabbed a spider clip from the vanity and pinned her hair up. Then she stripped down to only her knickers, took the dress from its hanger, and stepped into it.

It was a strapless A-line gown, in cornflower blue satin, with a lacy, cream-coloured embroidered pattern crawling its way across the hem and bustline. A cream-coloured sash stretched across her middle, and she did her best to tie it behind her back. It accentuated her dainty waist and sculpted arms. The colour was perfect against her liquid dark skin tone, though it did not exactly match the pink eyeshadow she had put on that morning. She wished she had the faux-diamond necklace she had worn before, and the matching earrings, but... oh well, the necklace and earrings she was wearing were fine for a quick flight of fancy.

She admired herself in the full-length mirror, which is not something she'd had a chance to do very often of late. Her life had been about running and fighting aliens and saving planets, laser this, sonic that, and a man who wouldn't notice her appearance if she showed up at the breakfast table naked. Not an environment conducive to playing dress-up.

But today, she sighed with satisfaction, and a bemused smile on her face. She made a mental note to buy a new dress every now and then as a treat for herself. She'd forgotten how good this felt.

She had also forgotten to close her bedroom door, and when the exclamation of "Oh!" came from the doorway, it startled her terribly. Her face grew hot, and the unpleasant rush spread down the rest of her body.

"Doctor!" she cried, her hand at her chest which was threatening to split open from the harsh beating inside. "God, you scared me to death!"

The expression on his face was frozen in a surprised "O" for a few moments, and then he seemed to shake it off. "S-Sorry," he said, placing one hand on the back of his neck, not making eye contact. "I didn't mean to scare you. The door was open, and..."

"I know, I know," she said, taking a few steps toward him. "I should have closed it, sorry. So, ready for lunch?"

He met her eyes, and just looked at her for a moment with wide-open, shocked eyes. Then he said, "W-what? Oh, oh, yes... y-yes."

"I'll just change," she said, signaling for him to leave. But he did not.

His wide-as-saucers eyes traveled from her eyes all the way down to the cream-coloured embroidery near the floor, and back. There was no lasciviousness on his face, no amusement or bemusement, but when he did that, the unpleasant blush spread down her body once more.

"What?" she asked.

"What?" he echoed, snapping out of some kind of stupor. "S-sorry, I'm just..."

"What?"

"Surprised."

"Surprised at what?"

"You look..." and in lieu of an adjective which he could not seem to recall, he simply exhaled quickly through pursed lips.

"Thank you," she said, coquettishly not meeting his eyes. The spreading blush was back, but more pleasant this time.

"That dress is... be-beautiful, just..." he sighed, at a loss. "Beautiful."

"Thank you."

He took two steps toward her and took her hands. He looked into her eyes, not for the first time, but in an entirely new way, and said, "I mean... you are beautiful."

For the third time, she said, "Thank you, Doctor." A lump was forming in her throat, and butterflies seemed to be dancing in her stomach. He held her hands and gazed at her, not speaking. She searched his face. She couldn't believe what she was seeing there.

"Doctor?" she asked softly.

"Yes?"

"Are you ready for lunch?"

"Yes," he told her.

"Okay then. I'm going to need to change. Meet you in the breakfast nook in a few?"

"Okay," he whispered, breaking eye contact. As he moved away from her, his hand held onto hers for as long as possible, before he disappeared behind the door.

She was clever enough to shut the door this time, and she shed the cornflower dress and hung it in the back of the closet, out of sight. She felt that she should be happy about what had just happened, but she wasn't, somehow. It only made her nervous. She supposed it was the uncertainty that was bothering her, and tried to push it down. She knew that if she was going to "do something" about Doctor Clueless before they got stuck in 1969 (God knew when), that she'd have to weather the uncertainty and the possibility of rejection for a while.

It was getting colder, so she threw on a long black skirt over the tights and boots she was already wearing, and pulled a long-sleeved white fitted tee-shirt over her head. She swallowed the lump in her throat and went to the breakfast nook to have lunch with the Doctor.