This was a random bit of something that I started on my phone a while ago. Despite its humble beginnings, I sense big things for this story.
Disclaimer: I Don't own the characters, I'm just playing with them.
Grey Matter
He'd missed her. Far more than he ever imagined he would. She had saved the day- well, the year- for the most part singlehandedly and she'd finally figured out what he had known all along: she didn't need him.
But he never expected that he'd miss her this much. Yes, he was grateful for all she had done, taking care of him more often than he did either one of them. Yes, he missed the woman he'd come to consider his best friend. However, he never expected to feel her absence so deeply… so prominently.
The silence permeated the air where her excited laughter had once been. It filled the corridors where once her footsteps fell loudly on the floor. It filled the areas around the console where he'd picked her up so many times after turbulence had knocked her down. It filled the space she had inhabited by his side, where she'd be looking up at him in confusion or excitement or humor, but always- underneath it all- adoration.
Now, there was no laughter to delight him, no sounds of footfall besides his own, no one to worry about in the turbulence, and no one to glance at him adoringly with big brown eyes. Just silence and hints of her perfume that clung to her favorite places- like the huge chair in the library and the blanket she always cocooned herself in when she laid in the theatre. These little remnants of her only aided in his palpable loneliness.
His solitary missions were less exciting with no one to share them with. He could remember it all. Every planet, the names of every star. He could remember the names of everyone he'd ever met in 900 years of time travel. But when he thought about her, all he could remember was the grey of the sky the day she left. Heavy smoke colored clouds hung there as if foreshadowing his life without her. Stale grey replaced the full blown Technicolor that had been Martha Jones.
He'd wanted her to stay, but what could he offer her? More of the same? She's seen the Earth grieve and suffer and wither and die. She'd seen the destruction, enslavement and annihilation of her species. No amount of time or space could erase that. He knew what she wanted, and he wasn't sure if he could give it to her. He didn't even know what he was feeling, but he knew her family needed her more than he did. And she needed them.
So he let her go.
With each passing day, he grew more and more aware of his mounting loneliness- more and more aware of how he'd taken her for granted.
I know this chapter was short, but there's more coming soon!