After a year of horror on the Valiant, all Francine and Clive Jones wanted was for their daughter to live a normal life. They adored gentle Tom Milligan, who worked in a hospital, who took Martha on dates to the symphony and weekends to the Lake District. Tom, who tethered her to an average human existence.
He was everything Martha couldn’t settle for. The day Martha returned his engagement ring, Francine had a panic attack.
After the disappearing stars and the Daleks, Mickey materialized from nowhere. Francine and Clive weren’t keen on him. It wasn’t his accent, or what part of London he was from, or anything like that; his quiet confidence and determination frightened them.
Martha and Mickey fit together seamlessly – aliens, otherworldly technology, a passion for finding something to fix – even when they weren’t working together, they functioned as a team. Every night before bed, Mickey loaded and double-checked her ammo clips. Martha always made sure his Torchwood and UNIT paperwork was properly filed. They both lit up like Piccadilly Circus when the other walked into the room. Martha’s parents saw clear as day that she would run hand-in-hand with Mickey down that extraterrestrial rabbit-hole, and they’d lose her for good.
In the end, Jack Harkness brought Clive and Francine around. They’d forged a familial bond with Jack during their year on the Valiant, nursing him as he recovered from each new death inflicted on him by the Master. They’d bolstered each others’ spirits, kept each other from giving in to despair, until Martha returned to them. After everything was over, Jack spent every Christmas with the Joneses.
When Martha broke the engagement news to her parents over Christmas supper, Jack was the one who soothed Francine’s nerves and Clive’s anger. After all, who else could love their brave, dedicated daughter as much as she deserved, except Mickey? They’d both traveled with the Doctor and been irrevocably changed by the experience. They’d both lived in alternate universes and understood each other like no one else could.
More than anything else, Jack told them what he’d witnessed firsthand: how deeply Mickey’s loyalty ran, especially once he gave his heart to someone. And everyone could see Mickey’s heart, cradled right there in the palm of Martha’s hand.
By the time Christmas pudding was gone, Francine smiled through her tears, and Clive embraced Mickey and called him “son.” And as soon as they were out of earshot, Jack suggested that Martha and Mickey honeymoon in the back-end of Bulgaria, not only because it was a beautiful and rugged spot, but also because there might just be a few Sontarans there who needed sorting.
