Mickey Smith was almost certain that he loved Martha Jones.
When he had first seen her it wasn't really the time to stop and admire a pretty face but that didn't mean he didn't do it later. When he'd left the Tardis he had no idea what his future might hold but he did know that he would catch up to her and Captain Cheesecake and see where it went from there.
As it turned out it went pretty well from there. He soon found out that Martha Jones was so much more than a pretty face, she was, well… to put it quite frankly she was amazing. He found himself spending more and more time with her and making excuses to go and see her just to try and make her smile and each time he did it felt like a small but personal victory.
~o~o~o~
It was three months after the events in the Medusa Cascade that he had finally plucked up the courage to kiss her. They'd spent their whole afternoon trailing after some alien threat that UNIT had given them and they hadn't found anything. In the end they gave up and Mickey drove her home.
By the time they got there the darkness of the night had already set in and he found it only natural that he should walk her to her door. When he got there all he could think in his head was how much more clichéd could this possible get?
That was the last thought he had before Martha stood on her toes and leaned up to kiss him. Even as he pulled her against him slightly he wasn't surprised; after all when was the last time he had seen Martha wait for something to come to her when she could go out and get it herself?
As the days after progressed Mickey found himself surprised at how little seemed to have change. There wasn't some dramatic shift in their relationship, before they were two good friends and now they still were. They were just slightly more on top of that.
~o~o~o~
It was two weeks since she had kissed him and Mickey was going to the special effort of not screwing this one up. But despite all of his efforts he could see Martha growing more distant. It wasn't just from him, but from everyone. She said nothing when he asked her but when he pressed to know what was wrong she had given him the most heartbreaking look he had ever seen and told him that there was an anniversary coming up. From the look on her face he could safely assume it was one that she would much rather forget.
~o~o~o~
It was two days after he had asked her what was troubling her when she asked for some compassionate leave from UNIT to be with her family. Once the whole thing had been smoothed over officially she was gone with the hour, but not before Mickey had seen the defeat in her posture, and even more tellingly, the tears in her eyes.
It took him all of five minutes to grab a semi-urgent folder that he could use as a convenient excuse to follow after her and to drive.
He followed the tracker in her car that was standard issue to all UNIT personnel to a fairly small house in the suburbs of London where he waited five minutes before going up and knocking on the front door. The women who opened the door could only have been Martha's mother.
She looked almost completely normal to the eye but Mickey could tell she was fit to fall apart at any moment. Her hands shook too much to be healthy and she had the appearance of someone who had once been a normal size but had lost too much weight too quickly. When he managed to tell her his half hearted excuse to see Martha she had given the tiniest of genuine smiles and ushered him into the house.
He was abashed to see that he was intruding on some sort of family reunion as when he went into the sitting room Martha's father and sister both sat on the sofa looking quietly subdued and in the case of her sister quite as ill as her mother. He saw all of this but sought out Martha's reaction to him intruding. He was relieved when he saw that there was genuine happiness to see him in her eyes mixed in with the confusion.
He would have left then if wasn't for Martha's mother bursting into heart wrenching sobs. He watched from the side lines as Martha quickly became the carer for her family, patching them up the best she knew how.
Martha Jones was one of the best doctor's he knew but from the way her family looked even he wondered if this was something that could be fixed.
~o~o~o~
He was still confused as to what had happened to her family but he had stayed and tried to help the best he could and he could see that Martha was thankful for that at least. He had driven her home at the end of the night and had fully intended to walk her into her house and lock the door on his way out.
Martha had different ideas.
She let him into her house and sat him down on the sofa while she busied herself making the tea. When she eventually settled down she sat down beside him and looked him straight in the eyes. And then she started talking.
She told him everything, but most of all she told him about the Year That Never Was. He knew at some point the rendition of events had overwhelmed her and after that she carried on telling him everything as she sat curled up against him with his arms around her protectively.
She talked herself to sleep-literally, and it was then that Mickey knew she hadn't been telling him for his benefit but she had been telling him for hers.
Carefully, he made to stand up so as to carry her to her bed but Martha's hands tightened around the fabric of his t-shirt that she clung to in her sleep and soon he found himself stretched out on her sofa with her curled into his side thinking that he wouldn't mind going to sleep like this every night.
~o~o~o~
It seemed in the time that followed that their relationship went from strength to strength. It wasn't too much time later when Mickey found himself sitting in a nice restaurant with Martha sitting opposite him. It had been a particularly harrowing day so to try and take the edge off Mickey had called in a few favours and managed to snag the table.
The restaurant was nicer than they'd usually go for but the food was good and the company even better and the evening was shaping up to be perfect.
It was much later that same evening when Mickey found himself stumbling through Martha's door as he tried to divest himself of his coat, kick off his shoes and not break off the kiss with Martha all at the same time.
In the end it was Martha who pulled back from him if only to kick off her own shoes and lead him to her bedroom.
Mickey would always think of that evening as the most perfect of his life.
~o~o~o~
He wasn't sure what woke him up so early but whatever the reason Mickey found himself woken enough to feel the smile cross his lips as he remembered earlier that evening. He looked to his side fully expecting to see Martha there asleep and was surprised when he saw the other side of the bed empty. He rested a hand on the sheets. Stone cold. Whenever she had left it hadn't been just now. For a second an overwhelming sense of disappointment crashed over him before he brought himself to back to his senses. Martha wouldn't bail and run the first night they slept together, for one thing-
His musing were interrupted by the noise of someone moving down on the floor by Martha's side of the bed.
Cautiously, he looked over the bed and was surprised to see Martha asleep on the floor with only a pillow to rest her head on. He was debating whether to wake her to see if she alright when she opened one eye blearily,
"Hey," he said softly, "are you okay?"
"M'fine." She mumbled back before twisting to face him better, "Couldn't sleep on the bed. S'too soft."
Mickey's mind flew back to when she told him all about her journeys in the Year That Never Was. If she had been travelling and sleeping rough for a whole year then he doubted that a bed wouldn't take some getting used to.
Making his decision he quietly grabbed a pillow and a thin sheet from the bottom of the bed. Silently, he made his way round the bed to lay at Martha's side on the floor. He laid the pillow down and carefully draped the sheet over the both of them before sideling up to Martha. He didn't miss the way she smiled in her sleep.
As he lay there and began to feel the sleep steal over his mind once more he knew that he was wrong. He wasn't almost certain he loved Martha Jones, in fact that there was no almost about it.
A/N- Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it and if you did, please review!- VE