Title: Mismatched Shoes, Chapter 1 (Green-eyed Monster)
Author: DianeB
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Martin/Louisa
Summary: Once more, I'm adding narrative to conversations between Martin and Louisa. Louisa, especially, leaves so much unsaid – and what she does say is never what she really means. This fascinates me and compels me to write. This time it's from the S4 episode, "The Departed."
A/N: Many thanks to Littleguinea from fanficdotnet for her fair eye to editing and to checking the "Americanisms." Written February, 2011, soon after this episode aired in the United States.
Disclaimer: This story is for entertainment purposes only. I claim no right to anything affiliated with Doc Martin. This is my second attempt at Doc Martin fanfic.
"God help me," Louisa said, as she and Martin left the Wenn's large but messy abode, "I was three seconds away from nearly throttling them." Louisa was confident Martin would agree with her, which is why she'd said it at all.
"Yes, it would've been better if you didn't speak at all. Engaging them on the topic only made it worse."
Overconfidence, thy name is Louisa, she thought, gritting her teeth. Why did she even bother? It was as though he was disagreeing by rote, as if nothing she could ever say would lead to anything but a negative response from him. Still, it was impossible for her to resist meeting his biting tone with an equally biting tone of her own. "Maybe you should try defending your aunt, then, instead of leaving it to me."
Martin's response had nothing to do with her comment, or with what the Wenn's were accusing his aunt of. "I have to remain impartial."
It was as if she hadn't mentioned Joan at all. "Impartial is fine. Unemotional? Not so good." She stopped just short of rolling her eyes and was so caught up in her own thoughts, she nearly missed his next words.
"It seems," he was saying, jutting his chin out at her, "like you've got enough emotions buzzing around for the pair of us right now."
Clenching her jaw, Louisa inhaled deeply through her nose, actively tamping down desires unbecoming to a woman in late-stage pregnancy, not the least of which was spitting at him. With a mighty effort, she managed to squelch that particular urge, replacing it with a much more fiendish desire to force him to say out loud what he was really getting at, deciding that would be entirely more satisfying than anything else she could've come up with. "So you're saying I'm…what, then?"
Martin, in purely clinical mode, remained clueless as to her desire, fiendish or otherwise. "Well, emotional, obviously. It's a product of hormonal imbalance."
Into her head came roaring the image of a tight-lipped, ginger-haired doctor, who was about as soft as a concrete block, and it was all Louisa could do not to curl her lip in feral distaste. "Of course. Much better to spend your time with people who don't show any feelings at all."
"What do you mean?"
It was painfully obvious he had no idea what she meant. She heard the words you're being unfair, apologize whisper through her brain, but they were quickly replaced by words that contained far too much hormonal imbalance and not nearly enough common sense. "Why don't you complain about it to your friend, Edith, then? I'm sure she's the type who wouldn't let annoying things like emotions get in the way." The instant it was out of her mouth, Louisa knew she'd gone too far, voicing a jealousy she'd never meant for Martin to hear. But it was too late now to take it back, so she stood there, waiting for Martin to put it together.
Which he did not. Instead, he simply voiced further confusion, scrunching his face in perplexity. "What's Edith got to do with it?" If his expression had become any tighter, he would've been nothing but ears.
This look and his question, both so unarguably genuine, stabbed at Louisa's heart, and reminded her that she was not dealing with a regular man. A regular man would've zeroed in on the jealousy, called her on it. But not Martin. It would never occur to Martin that Louisa would be jealous of Edith, and this, conversely, increased her level of frustration with him, bringing more hateful words to her lips. "I'm just saying that I'm glad that I'm hormonal, because it's better than being cold and prickly and intimidating. But if that's what makes you happy, then that's fine, then. Great. Good for you."
"You're wearing odd shoes," he said, pointing at her footwear.
Until this moment, she felt victorious, certain she had finally managed to stir some kind of emotional response in him. His non-sequitur, therefore, threw her. Looking over her belly to her feet (which was getting increasingly harder to do), she could only summon a questioning "Mmm?" before realizing that she was, indeed, wearing shoes that didn't match. "Oh."
Martin began mumbling something intelligible, no doubt an attempt to inform her of just how her shoes differed, but by then she was done, her dangerously tender feelings for him evaporating in the face of what appeared to be his complete insensitivity to her, the baby, his aunt Joan, and even the spoiled rotten Theo Wenn. "Shut up, Martin!" She turned, and with as much dignity as her stomach would allow, stomped away from him.
End Chapter 1