Obviously, this is going to be a smutty fic. In that section, I was going for a kind of intensity, a driving need that seemed to transcend feeling or thought, at least on the Doctor's part. Voracious and passionate. Insistent, dirty, combustible. At the end, you may understand why.
Let me know if I've achieved my goal, if the sex scene fits with the ending. Enjoy!
"Oi! Car four-six-five-diamond-six, Martha! Drive up!" the man on the comm screen said.
"That's the Doctor!" Martha shouted, amid the turbulence.
Trying desperately to steer, keep the vehicle upright and not get eaten by some giant thing with claws, Milo shouted back, "We can't go up! We'll hit the lane!"
"Just do what he says!" Martha insisted.
"You've got access above – now go!" the Doctor shouted at them.
Milo had his doubts – he'd seen the Doctor, and he didn't look like much. But Milo liked Martha all right, thought she was clever, and she had loads of faith in this man. So he did it. He drove up!
And he was rewarded – they all were. The Doctor had somehow found a way to open up the motorway and suddenly, the undercity was flooded with light from the actual sun.
Cheen, Milo's lovely bride, was in tears. "It's daylight. Oh my God, that's the sky, the real sky!" she murmured.
"He did it!" Martha shrieked. She leaned over and, unable to help herself, hugged Cheen in her excitement. "I told you – he did it!"
As they drove into the clear blue, Martha could hear the Doctor talking to some bloke called Brannigan, asking for his coat back. And then he addressed Martha, Milo and Cheen again. "Car four-six-five-diamond-six, I've sent you a flight path, come to the Senate."
Milo nodded emphatically to her, and she replied, "On my way!"
"It's been quite a while since I saw you, Martha Jones." There was a whimsical tenderness in the Doctor's voice just then, a tone which she had never heard him use before. Cheen looked at her and smiled knowingly. Martha flushed.
They flew to the landing pad atop the building which housed the Senate. Milo and Cheen got out of the car along with Martha so that they could say their goodbyes. Milo gave her a kiss on the cheek, and said, "Tell your friend, the Doctor, thanks for us, would you?"
"Absolutely," Martha answered, smiling radiantly.
Cheen hugged her. "Never mind that, we want to tell you thanks, Martha," she said. "If it hadn't been for you telling us how much you trust him and how brilliant he is, we might not have listened to him."
"Well then, it's a good thing you kidnapped me," Martha said, smiling. "And if we really get down to it, I suppose the whole city must thank you for that. If you hadn't done it, the Doctor never would have got involved in all this, and all those people would still be stuck on the motorway. So, bravo for your reckless behaviour!"
Milo laughed, but Cheen did not. She was not insulted by Martha's words – she barely heard them. She was thinking, and finally she said aloud, "No, really, Martha. Thank you. I wish we had something to give you."
"You don't need to do that," Martha said, waving her off.
"Yes, we do," Cheen said. "We don't have much…" she wrung her hands, and Martha could see that she was running through a list of what was in the car that she could give Martha.
"Really, it's fine."
Cheen wasn't listening. She climbed back into the car and started rooting around. "We've got some food you could take with you…"
"No!" Martha yelled. Then she caught herself for her rudeness. "I mean, no thanks. Not necessary."
"Erm, let's see. Oh, I bought this top just before we left Pharmacy Town, never been worn…" she stuck her head out and held up a green and yellow tiger-striped tank top in Martha's direction, then changed her mind. "Nah, not your colour. What else?"
Milo and Martha looked at each other and smirked, having decided just to let Cheen do her thing.
"Here's a bracelet… no, wait, my grandmother gave me that. Hang on! I know!"
Cheen was quiet for a few moments, and then she emerged carrying a little box. It reminded Martha of one of those flat, rectangular boxes that contact lenses come in. It was white and simply said, "Pharmacy Town" on the side in discreet blue lettering. Cheen said, "Milo and I won't be needing it anymore. I know you don't approve, but maybe someday you'll find that you need it."
Martha accepted the gift, thanked them both with a kiss on the cheek, they all said goodbye once again, and as Milo and Cheen drove off, Martha stuffed the little box into her pocket and entered the Senate. There, she found the Doctor, kneeling on the floor next to a huge, breathing, disembodied head…
They'd both had a rough day. Martha had been kidnapped, then almost eaten by Macra (as the Doctor called them), nearly suffocated from Carbon Monoxide, and in the process, was tossed about inside a tiny flying van. At least she'd made a couple of new friends – that was the bright side. But she was still tired.
The Doctor had gone searching for her in a panic, had climbed up and down through car after car, saved a whole city and then watched an old friend die. And to boot, he had divulged his greatest sorrows to Martha. Before, she'd have thought that the main source of his brooding was losing Rose. But today, as he sat in that alley in the rain and cried over memories of a long-lost home, she knew that his grief was much, much bigger. Any hurt that she felt for his having kept secrets from her dissipated and was washed away over the pavement with the dust.
Martha was a Londoner, she was no stranger to a bit of rain. But what ended the conversation was a torrent of cold sheets, bearing down on them, as if the heavens were chasing them off the planet. The Doctor shed his overcoat and put it over her shoulders, then took her hand and ran toward the TARDIS.
By the time they'd sprinted the quarter-mile and reached the blue box, the Doctor was soaked to the skin. Martha was somewhat better protected through the huge wool coat and her own leather jacket, but she was still shivering as they stepped inside. He took the coat from her shoulders and, as usual, tossed it over one of the pillars in the console room. She made an exaggerated brrr sound, and shoved her hands in her pockets in an attempt to warm them up. As she did, her hand jammed into the box that Cheen had given her.
She pulled it out and looked at it. "What's that?" the Doctor asked, shaking the water from his hair with both hands.
"I'm not sure," she said turning it over. "Didn't think to ask. Cheen and Milo gave it to me to say thanks. Really, I supposed it belongs to you, since you're the one who got them out of that mess."
"Nah, it's your gift," he said. He looked at it a bit closer, however, and then smirked. "Besides, I know what it is, and I don't want it. When you see what's inside, I doubt you'll want it either."
"Why? What is it?" she asked, opening it, alternating glancing at him and the box. She peered inside. "Oh!"
She walked over to the console and turned the box sideways, shaking it a bit so that the contents would come out slowly. He came up beside her. "See?"
Upon the console, spread out, were maybe fifty to sixty plastic patches from Pharmacy Town, qualities and emotions in the form of a drug administered through a patch worn on the skin. "Wow," she mused. "Look at all this. Here's Sleep and Forget, like we've seen. And Honesty – Cheen wore that one. Happy, Lucky, Energy…"
"Elegant, Polyglot, Speed-Reading…"
"Athletic, Low Appetite, Green Thumb…"
"Wow, Martha, they must really like you. This had to have cost them a fortune," the Doctor said. "A variety pack like this, they'd have had to save up for it."
"Yeah, well, I guess they wanted it for the road," she sighed. "Reckoned they'd be stuck in that car for six years, needed some stuff to take the edge off. Or to help them grow ferns."
"Well, why don't you go and dry off, and I'll get us out of here," he said, putting all the little patches back into the box. "And while you're back there, why don't you put this thing in the medicine cabinet where it belongs."
"Really?" she asked.
"Unless you want to use them!"
"No, I just thought you'd want them tossed away," she shrugged.
"Well," he shrugged back. "They might come in handy. Maybe someday we can pocket one or two of them to use on our enemies. You know, distract the sentries with a bit of Drunkenness or Political Awareness."
"All right, if you say so," she said, turning and taking the little box to the main bathroom.
"There's a couple of robes on the back of the door, if you want to wear one."
"Thanks."
As she stored the gift in the medicine chest, never to be thought of again (probably), she felt the TARDIS move to a new location. She shut the door behind her, took down her hair, peeled off her clothes, and hopped in the shower to warm up. She took a hotter-than-usual shower, then emerged, climbing into the shorter of the two soft white robes hanging on the back of the door. She took her jeans, tank top, jacket and underwear back to the console room to dry.
As she was laying them over the railings, the Doctor asked, "Finished in there?"
"Yep, it's all yours."
"Okay, thanks," he said. "We're orbiting now. I'll need your help to keep things steady. Come here."
She crossed to him and he showed her the screen which was tracking their progress. He pointed out the figure-eight pattern in which they were orbiting around a planet and its sun. It was, he explained, one of the few solar systems in the universe which allowed this sort of craft to orbit in its airspace without communicating or landing. But it was tricky staying on-course because the orbits had a stream, sort of like ocean currents.
"What happens if we veer off?" she asked.
"Don't," he said. Then he showed her the ball-like control which she could use to right the course if they started to hit the side of the stream.
"Doctor," she said nervously. "I can't fly this thing! Are you mad?"
"Oh, relax," he said, walking away from her. "I'll only be ten minutes. All you have to do is not get us killed for ten minutes."
"Thanks, that's very reassuring."
"I'm just kidding – it wouldn't kill us. The worst that could happen is maiming." He left the room after that.
She chuckled, knowing again that he was joking, but she wasn't sure whether he was exaggerating or minimising the situation.
Ten minutes, he'd said. Ten minutes was all he'd be gone, and all she had to do in that time was keep the TARDIS on-course, clearly mapped out on the screen in front of her. She tried to convince herself that it was like a computer game, like trying to keep a racecar on the track with the touch-pad mouse.
Ten minutes. But she managed to foul the whole thing up in less than three.
Shortly after the Doctor left the console room, the screen indicated that the TARDIS was heading to the edge of the figure-eight. She took a deep breath and put her hand ceremoniously over the ball control. She screwed up her nerve, brought her hand down and turned the ball.
The entire TARDIS jolted violently, knocking her to the floor. She screamed, then looked back up at the screen. "No no no no no!" she shouted, getting to her feet and stumbling crazily back to the control. She suddenly understood the Doctor's mania! Because what she saw indicated that they were now on the course toward running into the other side of the stream. She had turned them more acutely than she'd meant to. It's like in those racecar games when you overcompensate for a mistake on a curve and wind up spinning off into the pit crew.
She tried again, very subtly turning them away from the edge, but this time, she hadn't done enough. The TARDIS seemed to hit the side of the stream, and then jolt once again, knocking her off her feet for the second time. Except this time, she could see that they had flown completely off-course into the area where the Doctor had said "don't," and now the ride was extremly bumpy. She called out the Doctor's name.
"Martha!" he called back, from someplace else in the TARDIS.
"Doctor! I can't get us under control"
"Flashing red!" he hollered back.
"What?"
"Hit the flashing red button underneath the protective shields!"
She looked up on the console and saw that there was a flashing red button, which she had never noticed before. She climbed up in the midst of the tossing and flailing, and hit it with her elbow. The TARDIS began making its familiar wheezing sound, indicating that they were materialising someplace.
She flopped back down on the floor with relief and lay supine for several seconds. And then she heard, "Martha! I need your help! I'm stu… I'm… I'm stuckkkkkk."
She got to her feet and cinched up her robe, and followed his voice down the hall. She knew he'd gone to the bathroom where she'd just been, and that's where she found him. She gasped when she saw him, and her hand flew to her mouth. And then she had to stifle a giggle.
"Oh my God, Doctor, what happened?"
He was lying on the floor awkwardly, shirtless and shoeless, with an array of objects having fallen around him. His eyes were drooping, and he looked about ready to pass out, and Martha could see why. He was covered with the plastic patches which she had just stored away. The cabinet stood open and empty, the contents having all purged themselves and fallen to the floor.
"The f…" he began. Then he tried again. "The first jolt sent everything to the floor, including me. I fell face-down. How humi… humili… don't like it." he said, trying to sit up.
She moved forward and got to her knees, pushing him back down. "No, just stay where you are. You've got the Sleep patch right on your jugular – you're going to fall dead asleep in a minute. Let me guess, the second jolt turned you over on your back."
"Mm-hm. Can you please help me get… please can you take… unstick." he asked, though seemed unable to finish a thought.
"Yes, I can help you get them off," she said, smiling. "I'm surprised you're not exploding with emotion right now."
"Time Lord," he said, pointing weakly to himself. "Takes a bit longer. But not forever, so hur… hur… go fast."
At his shoulders she commenced the process of peeling the adhesive patches from his skin. She attached them to the porcelain tub as she went, lest any of the chemicals seep into her skin through her hands and fingers. Again, she had to stifle a giggle. There went Religious, Immunity, Adventure, Intuition, Prosperity…
"Martha, have I ever told you how st… stunn… beautiful you are?" he asked, slurring his speech.
She stopped short, and looked at him, only a momentary distraction. She went back to work peeling, and said, "Well, that'll be the honesty." She found it on the inside of one of his wrists and pulled it away.
"Really, you're so… so lovely. I quite like being around you. Quite like looking at you."
"I like looking at you, too," she confessed.
"I liked kissing you. It wasn't just a genet… genetic tra… a trick."
"I liked it when you kissed me, too. Now do you think you could stop talking?"
He smiled weakly, and fell silent.
He was still conscious as she finished the front side, but just barely. He was almost no help in turning himself over, so Martha had to lay hands on him much more than was comfortable for her. Not that she didn't enjoy it, but really, that was exactly the problem.
Again, she started at the top, and by the time she reached the middle of his back, she could hear him snoring softly. Sleep had got him. Over the major arteries were the "best" places to put a patch if one wanted a quick response, so Sleep and Honesty had been the first to manifest. Everywhere else took a little longer to reach the bloodstream. She hoped that she'd managed to get all the patches off his skin in time, and that nothing else major would affect him. She'd noted with amusement that so many of these qualities and emotions already applied to the Doctor, the most complex of men. So perhaps it didn't matter much.
Finished, she picked up all the debris on the floor and put it back in its rightful place, an interesting task with the Doctor sacked out, half-naked, on the tile at her feet. But she managed. She even found a little box of plastic gloves, and she put one on, took all the patches and sealed them inside another glove, then threw it in the bin.
Then, she wasn't sure what to do. She had no idea how long she'd been asleep when she woke up in the car after Milo and Cheen had put the Sleep patch on her. The Doctor, very likely, would not be unconscious for as long, but she still had no frame of reference. She didn't think it would be very long, still, she hated to leave him there like a beached whale on the bathroom floor. How undignified. His hair was in disarray (more so than usual), he was snoring, his mouth was open, and his trousers had dried up to the crotch, leaving a very unfortunate area wet with rain water. He looked like he'd had an extremely bad night in a fraternity house. She tried to wake him, even slapped him a few times, but he was too far under.
With no way to wake him, and no way to move him, she was just going to have to let him slumber. The least she could do was make him comfortable. After all, she was the one responsible for the jolt of the TARDIS, which had put him in this position.
She had to go back to the console room in order to remember her way to the Doctor's bedroom, but she found it. She took a pillow and blanket from the bed and headed back toward the door. As an afterthought, she went to the wardrobe and pulled a fresh suit and trainers, and rooted around in the drawers below for socks and pants. He had a copy of Anna Karenina on one of the night stands, so she grabbed that as well. Her arms full, she headed back to the bathroom, covered him with the blanket and slipped the pillow under his head. She hung up the suit on the shower rod so it would be ready for him. She put the toilet lid down, and placed the shoes there neatly, alongside the socks and underpants. Then she sat down on the floor beside her sleeping Doctor, leaned against the tub with her knees up, and opened the book.
He was awake in less than an hour, and a bit confused, and pushing up off the floor.
"Oh, no," Martha said, setting her book aside and putting her hand gently on his back. "Don't try to get up too fast."
"Whoa," he said, resting his elbows on the pillow, burying his fingers in his hair. "That was some intense sleep."
"Yeah, well, it's a drug. Do you have a headache?" she asked. "I had when I woke from the Sleep patch."
He seemed to think about this, then he looked at her squarely. Suddenly, it was like he was seeing her for the first time. "No, no headache. Just…" He sat up properly and faced her.
His eyes seemed to burn holes in her own, and she grew very uncomfortable. "What?" she asked.
"Just something else," he murmured, his lips barely moving. "I feel different, but it's not a headache."
"Does something hurt?"
He nodded. And then, with no warning, not even "forgive me for this, it could save a thousand lives and it means nothing, honestly nothing," he grabbed her by the cheeks and kissed her. This kiss lasted markedly longer than three seconds like the one in the hospital, and it was deeper, less hurried. His fingers pushed into the hair hanging down over the back of her neck, while the thumb caressed her ear. He made a little sigh, more like a groan, and moved himself closer to her.
She was shocked, but found her footing soon enough, and then just hung on for dear life. Her hands went to his arms, noting that he wasn't wearing his usual suit coat, dress shirt, or indeed anything from the waist up. His arms felt tense and sinewy. And then he surprised her once again by opening his mouth, and with his uppper lip, he coaxed hers open as well. His tongue was searching for hers, and she was glad to let it answer. She would have grabbed onto his lapels if he'd had any, but as it was, her hands just pressed against his chest, and she enjoyed the sensation.
When he pulled away from her, all too shortly later, she was sure that it was over. She folded her knees defensively against her chest, pulling the terrycloth robe modestly over her legs. She tried to find the courage to ask him what he was playing at. But something in his eyes told her that she shouldn't speak. Anyway, she didn't trust herself to say anything – she was convinced that she'd forgotten the entire English language in the last few minutes. He moved toward her feet and knelt with his hands on them. He flashed her a cool, one-eyebrowed furrow that made her practically melt into a puddle on the bathroom floor. Then he wrapped his fingers around her ankles, smiled wickedly, and she knew what he was about to do.
She squealed something that somewhat resembled his name as he yanked her feet toward him, pulling her bum out from underneath her. She was able to (sort of) brace herself with her hands on the floor, and not fall sideways in surprise. The soft material under her slid easily along the tile floor, and it felt like she was on wheels. They both laughed heartily, though fortunately, he managed to move quickly enough to catch her head before it hit the hard floor. This meant that he was now, more or less, on top of her. Again, she did not trust herself to speak, so she simply stared, jaw agape. She hoped she was smiling.
He laid her head down gently on the tile and put his hands on either side of her. "All right?" he asked, looking down at her, a smirk coming over his features, that one eyebrow going rogue once more.
She gulped. "Oh, yes."
"Would you tell me if you weren't?"
"Yes, I would."
He didn't respond to that, he just pushed himself back up and sat back on his heels. For the first time, she realised that he had cleverly positioned himself between her legs, the cheeky boy! He reached over and grabbed the pillow he'd awakened with. Martha's neck muscles tensed as she readied for him to slide it underneath her head, but to her surprise, he slid one arm around her waist, signalling for her to lift up her bum, and with the other hand, he slid the pillow under her hips.
She was breathless with the anticipation. Was he really…?
He sat back once again, and she struggled to keep her breathing in check. He waited, looking for a protest, a questioning expression. He found none. He pushed his own legs out behind him and lowered himself down, chest and stomach flat to the floor. His fingers creeped up under the terrycloth, and he seemed to let out a little growl as his hands found her thighs. He squeezed, just feeling her flesh, their shape, the muscle she harboured beneath that beautiful caramel skin. He pushed aside one corner of the robe and kissed the skin behind it, just above the knee, on the inside of her leg.
She gasped, and she whispered his name in shock. This sent a frisson of desire through him, and he wondered if he'd survive the other leg. He did – and she gasped again. This time, he just smiled.
He reached up and tugged the cinch at her waist, then pushed his hands inside the terrycloth, laying the robe open. He could see her body now – small, upturned breasts and miles of perfectly-muscled, flat stomach. She had a tantalising little tattoo between her navel and her left hip, and he leaned down and kissed it. She was compact and lean, strong, gorgeous. He wanted nothing more than to put his hands all over her, hungrily feel each inch, every molecule, and lick every part of her. He felt he could bite her, drink her in, chain her to the radiator and never let her go.
Something powerful had come over him when he saw her laid bare, and when he resumed at her inner thigh, his kisses were voracious, sucking, starving. She grew more and more winded, the higher he went, and when his lips finally met her wet, craving centre, she lost all of her air. The energy, the stimulation, the fire in her body vaccuumed all the oxygen from the room, and she was left with nothing. Everything tingled, from her core, right out to the very tips of her fingers and toes. It felt like several minutes that she was in a kind of suspense this way, her whole being alive, humming with electricity, unable to let go.
After this small eternity, he dragged his tongue properly from the very bottom of her opening to the tip-top of her clit, slithering easily but pressuring her body into further overdrive. When he did this, she finally let out her breath in the form of a short scream. Her hands instinctively flew up over her head, and she grabbed onto the edge of the tub for support.
He licked her again the same way, and this time, the scream was less, but the sensation was greater. Then he repeated the action over and over, licking her vigorously, each time elliciting a violent moan or a screech or a loud pant.
Then he moved to a smaller portion, and concentrated on that one little inch of sensitivity, that engorged and enraged little bud that so badly needs to be caressed. He moved his tongue in light circles over her clit, matching its hardness with his own pressure. She writhed in response, her eyes fully glazed-over, her mouth lost to moaning. Then, he moved up and down. Then side to side. Faster and harder each time, and when he changed his motion, she grabbed on for dear life once more. He began again with the long licks, then graduated once again to rotating his short ones.
His tongue was an instrument both of pleasure and torture, and soon, her hips were moving on their own. Her whole body was bearing down, searching for something – to be filled, to have release, or both. He looked up at her as he worked. Her head was thrown back, and she was sweating all over. Her legs were still spread, of course, but they were closing in as everything in her body was tightening, coiling, getting ready to unhinge.
In that moment, he was desperate – desperate – to watch her come. He wanted to see her body tremble, and feel the quake, feel the pulses inside, the tugging and squeezing of her muscles – if he could just make it happen! Now. He wanted to push her over the edge, make her scream, make her lose control, make her come hard and now.
He pushed two long fingers inside her and felt for the pelvic bone. He hooked his fingers into the other side of that very simple landmark and leaned down with his lips on either side of her clit. A quick flick of the tongue had her shouting in articulately, and saw her bury her hands in his hair. Another, slightly less-quick, lick and another tug of the fingers had her voice ringing out roughly in release, and he felt the pulses he craved as her insides grabbed at his fingers. He watched her twitch and tremble and heave, and her moans and sighs became softer and died down in his ears.
He let his fingers slip from her, and once again, pulled his knees up and knelt. "All right?" he asked again, his own breathing now ragged with anticipation, and his trousers not fitting correctly. Martha nodded absently as she stared at the bulge, then sat up and reached for it, pulling the button loose and the zip down smoothly. His cock seemed to peek around the corner, then fully reveal itself of its own volition. It was long, thick and engorged – like a rock and bright pink. It looked delicious to her, something good enough to shove into her own body and devour, and she could feel the coiling begin again. And so soon after a big release. But she was slick, and he was hard and they both wanted more.
She lay back, tossing the pillow away, and he leant forward. Before she had a chance to think of what was about to happen, he was buried in her, his member pulsing with bliss within the liquid walls. They both greeted the sensation with a hearty, animal grunt. Hers signified that she felt stretched and full, his signified that he felt entrenched, deep and grounded.
He began to thrust, hard, over and over the tip of his cock hitting her deep, slamming a tremor of sharp, explosive pleasure through her body. She could barely keep up with him, as he was like a piston, driving into and through her steadily. Sometimes they looked intensely into each others' eyes, sometimes the sensation was too much, and they simply shut their eyes and demanded things from each other. She found his forcefulness intoxicating, his boldness, the strength of his body pounding into her, the deliciously filthy words that tumbled almost angrily from his mouth in the throes of this crippling pleasure.
But she could hand back the demands and be as filthy as he. She wanted to be ground into the tile, spread open and pinned down like a tent, fucked into a drunken stupor, and she had no problem telling him so. The breathless Martha who had been at the mercy of the Doctor's probing kisses was now buried beneath a woman recklessly requiring more, more and more.
When she could feel the frenzy rising further, and she knew she was on the short path from here to another time-splintering climax, she wrapped her arms around the Doctor's body and demanded that he push harder for her. Her hands glided down over the small of his back, and she let her fingers slip inside his trousers. As her hand passed under the waistband, she felt something odd, out of place, right in the small of his back at the spine. She wasn't thinking straight, or really at all, about anything other than their two bodies and getting them both to a good, scorching, furious orgasm.
She gripped his buttocks and pulled, gave him a rhythm, and he held his breath as he succumbed to the rhythm, and then succumbed to something even stronger. With a punched-in-the-gut groan, he exploded inside her, blasting off like a bottle rocket, and pulling her behind. As she watched his face contort, emptying his most immediate tensions into her, she came again. Her body was suddenly flooded, shot with a wave of quick and blinding passion, and something inside broke went pop. Their voices cut through the uncarpeted room with an echoing bolt, and then a big sigh meant that they were both rather spent.
It was the most pleasurably intense half-hour of the Doctor's recent life, and by far the greatest thirty minutes of Martha's. It had come on so strong, like a hunger, a craving for something specific. To the Doctor, in the moment when he knew he was going to make love to her, she was a gourmet meal and he was a starving man. To Martha, of course, he had always been chocolate cake to her diet of kelp and mineral water.
They lay on the floor upon the blanket for quite a while, never speaking. Her head rested on his shoulder, and his fingers brushed lazily over her upper arm. She could hear one heartbeat, and if she held her own breath and concentrated, she could hear both, but only for two or three thumps.
At last, for the third time that day, he asked, "All right?"
She looked up at him and smiled. "Fine. Better than fine."
She managed not to sound lovelorn and needy, and she was proud of herself for that. She felt that her tone simply gave the impression that she was satisfied with the experience, that she'd been sated by their intense little rendezvous.
He smiled back. "Good. Me too." He sighed, then said, "I was headed toward the shower anyway, perhaps I'd better finish that thought."
"Mm," she agreed, sitting up. He followed suit. "I'm going to go see if my clothes are dry."
"There are some clothes you can wear in that last bedroom down the hallway near the rumpus room," he said.
"Thanks, but I'll stick with what I've got," she replied. She knew she'd never be able to stop wondering who'd worn these clothes before her.
"Suit yourself," he said, standing up, and then he reached out to help her stand. The first thing she did was cover up by cinching her robe shut. The first thing he did was strip out of his trousers.
As he folded them, facing away from her, she gathered up the blanket and pillow, and noticed a glint. She looked again and noticed something shiny and plastic just at the small of the Doctor's back. It was sitting askew, stuck right along his spine. It must have got shoved beneath his waistband somehow when he was on the floor, moving about ungracefully, trying not to fall unconscious. She'd missed it while peeling the rest of them off.
"Doctor, you've got…" she began.
He looked over his shoulder at her. "What?"
"Nothing."
The Doctor stood in the shower, letting the warm water do its work. He was thinking of, and glad for, the first shag he'd had in years, and the first good shag he'd had in decades. He'd had an idea that Martha might have some other-than-platonic feelings for him, and he'd certainly had a few less-than-pure thoughts about her. So when the mood struck – and struck, like a bolt of lightning, was a great word for it – why not? It was fun being non-platonic and impure together. Maybe they could do more of it. He'd have to confront his feelings, explore a bit more and see if he had it in him to commit to it…
Then he noticed that the water in the shower was over his ankles. Something was stopping up the drain. He reached down and felt a piece of plastic spread over the small grate. He peeled it up and immediately, the water level began to abate. He looked at the patch in his hand, one that had remained on his body since the TARDIS had hit turbulence and he fell. Martha must have missed it.
On it, there was a blue moon and one word: arousal.
He sighed, then set it on the ledge of the bathtub. He'd throw it away as soon as he was finished showering.
END
