GREEN BLUE

Martha timidly began to unbutton the Doctor's blue dress shirt, which hung from her body like a smock. "You know, you could go back to your own room to change," she suggested uncomfortably.

"I'm not leaving you alone," he said. "We know what this man is capable of – I don't know how he'd use his talent if he got you on your own."

"Okay," she said, stalling. She made a slow production of stepping out of the large slippers.

The Doctor fidgeted. "Are you ready yet?" he asked.

She looked at him with surprise. "Er, no," she said. "It's going to be a while. Do you know how elaborate dresses are at this point in history?"

He turned on a lark and caught her pretty well unbuttoned. Her hands were in the middle of undoing the second-to-last button, so he had a clear view from her collar bone down the centre of her body to her navel. A lump formed in his throat.

And then the worst happened. The Doctor cursed.

The voice wafted about the room, that hypnotic, suggestive voice that had driven them into each others' arms and further. "J'étends mes bras, tu y réponds d'un baiser, et puis tu réponds de ton toi, ton être entier." They each took two steps forward which put them squarely body-to-body, and in a few split seconds, mouth-to-mouth. Their lips clung desperately to each other, and their arms snaked around sneakily. Martha's lips moved down his jawline, planting kisses all the way down his long neck. She relished the ready accessibility, adorned today in a tee-shirt instead of the usual starched collar and tie.

But though the Doctor's body was slowly igniting, his eyes were darting all about the room, planning an attack, an escape, anything... and then he noticed.

"Martha," he said, gulping. "The voice is coming from the music box."

"What?" she asked, not stopping her voracious ministrations.

"Blimey, he's a ventriloquist as well," the Doctor said, more to himself than anyone. "That explains..."

But then their lips caught again and their hands went back to exploring.

"Maintenant c'est décidé, je suis à toi, tu es la mienne exactement comme en noir deux amants s'appartiennent."

Amid the blast of heat, Martha jumped up and wrapped her legs around his waist. He turned so that her back was to the bed and fell upon bit, catching himself on his hands. He didn't have far to go to undress her: two buttons came undone and she was his for the taking.

Her hands went to his waist band readying to push his pyjama bottoms down, but even as she did this, she gasped, "Doctor, help me fight this!" With a great amount of effort, she resisted pushing further.

"Emballé, je m'en vais, je tombe au-delà du seuil."

He buried his mouth between her breasts, and asked, "Mmm?"

"This is wrong!" she said, panting, not pushing him away. "Tell me how to keep him out of my mind!"

He pushed up on his hands again and looked down at her. "You're right," he said, eyes wide with something that looked like fear. "We have to block it!"

"Tu me remues, et puis tu m'accueilles."

She looked back with the same fear, and said gasped, "I don't know how! Help me!"

"Quand même je deviens solide et tu deviens liquide." With this, their tentative resolve crumbled for a few seconds and they fell back into each other, sucking, clinging. Untangling at this point would be difficult – he was definitely hard now, and she was melting. "Nos êtres sont en harmonie, saisissants et intrépides."

"Notre ouverture grandit, se joue, commence l'opéra magique !"

She pushed at his shoulders. "D'teuh! Stpppp!" she insisted, muffled by his avid lips.

He understood her plea as "Doctor, stop!" and he tore himself away. "Oh no!" he panted. "It's starting! Martha, think of something else ! Think of something that will make you want to stop, something disgusting or something pure…"

"Je suis les paroles, mon amour, et tu es la musique, soudain tu m'entoures de chaleur, tu me contiens," the voice told them.

Taken almost wholly by the music, his brain dangerously overridden, he pushed at his waistband and placed the head of his member at her entrance. Both of them were breathing heavily in tandem now, and staring powerfully into each others' eyes. Would he push inside, or could he resist? Could she?

"I'm trying, Doctor, but I want you so much…" she was almost crying now, and she shut her eyes tight. "I don't know if there's anything that will make me not want it!"

"There's always something, Martha," he assured her, still rasping, still intense and still unable to take his body away from contact with hers. He knew how she felt. He wanted it too, and all it would take was one good push forward, and he could be buried in her, he could have her liquid heat wrapped around him…

But that meant they would always be slaves to it. The more often this happened, the lower their resolve would slide. This man could keep them rutting like bunnies indefinitely if they didn't fight it now.

For her part, she knew that one nudge of her heel against his bum, one pull of his hip, one throaty plea of "take me" and she could feel him driving into her, moaning her name, desperate and

needing her…

But this was the Doctor. He was not, could not be, just a shag to her. She loved him with every fibre of her being, and she didn't want this if she couldn't have all of him. She'd rather languish in silence as always. It was clear that the hypnotic suggestion was not changing is feelings, only his desires, therefore, they would be better off if they could push the song out of their heads now.

He swallowed hard and closed his eyes.

"Nos mouvements font une chœur, chantant envers le même refrain."

"No, no movements," he muttered to himself in response to the singing. "No chorus... no refrain..."

Martha moaned beneath him. "Doctor," she panted. "Doctor!"

That alone nearly caused him to crumble. "Shhhh," he lulled. "Martha... don't talk, you'll weaken."

"Les cordes brouillent notre chanson en beauté, en démence, et leur rythme nous apporte en avance, en avance…"

She seemed lost in something now, her head moving side to side. "No," she sighed. "No madness... no rhythm…"

"Not forward..." he added. "Good, Martha, keep doing that."

The song continued with its sensual lyric, its climax came and went, complete with its promise to ensnare them again. They stayed poised as they were, fighting its insidious power. When the singing stopped, the Doctor and Martha opened their eyes and looked at each other. They had withstood this test.

"Last time he sang it twice," Martha croaked out in a high pitch.

"Right," he said, and he pushed up and off of her. Facing away, he tucked himself back into his pyjamas, and she buttoned his shirt back up around her, then cast about for some knickers or a skirt or anything.

"Are you decent?" he asked.

She pulled on a pair of white gym shorts and tied the drawstring in the front. "Yes."

"What finally did it?" he asked her.

"Erm," she said, trying to think up a lie. "I thought about my brother. You know... family and sex don't mix."

"Good, good," he said, nodding. "Me too. I mean, I didn't think of your brother, but family..."

"Right," she said. After a pause, she said, "You're as rotten a liar as I am."

"Nine hundred years, you think I'd learn how to tell a little white lie."

"It's okay," she told him. "You're a good bloke, Doctor."

"So what was it really?" he asked.

She hesitated, then exhaled heavily. She sat down sadly on the edge of the bed, and confessed softly, "I thought of you, standing in the corridor ten minutes ago, shouting about how it wasn't going to work because you have no more love to give."

He looked at the floor. He moved slowly toward the edge of the bed and sat down next to her. "Oh, I'm sorry, Martha," he said. "But I understand. It wouldn't be very fulfilling to have that happening to us time after time if we're not in love."

She examined his face. He was serious. No sign of covering or poignancy, just his usual obliviousness. She shook her head and chuckled bitterly. "No, I guess we're not."

Three full seconds, and then the Doctor looked at her with realisation, for the first time. She looked back with tears in her eyes, acknowledging the thing she'd felt for nine months. His eyes were apologetic and sad, but he didn't say anything for a long time.

The suspense was killing her, but he was going to have to be the one to speak first. She had already said too much.

Staring at the floor, he finally managed, "You are beautiful, Martha. Beautiful. And brilliant. And every day, I think that your beauty has finally outshined your brilliance, and then you prove me wrong... until the next time you, say, try on a blue dress."

"You don't have to do this."

"Listen. You know, that day on the moon, there had to have been at least a hundred brilliant young doctors and nurses and med students in that hospital. Many of them would have made a good companion for me, even the men. But I chose you, Martha."

"Yes, you did."

"I chose you because when you bent down to take my heartbeat, my hearts sped up, did you notice? I was charmed by you, entranced. And... turned on," he confessed, with one eyebrow raised.

"What?" she inquired, shocked.

He sighed. "In very many ways, Martha, I am not like other men. But a beautiful woman... well, then, we're all alike, I'm afraid. And it doesn't take a satin gown or pyjamas or hypnosis."

"What does it take?"

"Nothing. Just your being you. Last night, for the majority of our, erm, time together, there was no singing – there was just us, lost in each other. I found that I wanted you even when there was no outside force wheedling its way into my consciousness. No song – just you."

Tears were falling now. "I wanted you too," she told him. "Even after..."

He smiled. "And it was beautiful, wasn't it? It felt good to let go, just to be together and let our guard down. I mean, it felt good in that other way as well, but it's what it meant that was more important."

She looked at him with supplication and desperation in her eyes, and then asked, "Then why, why would you say you have no more love to give? Doctor, why are we not in love?"

He sighed heavily. "Do you want to know what I was thinking about just now, that allowed me to keep out the voice?"

"I don't know if I do. But tell me."

"I think you already know."

"Rose."

He nodded. "I pictured her watching me with you. I imagined the jealousy she'd feel, the anger, like I was being unfaithful."

"Lovely."

"Martha, until right now, I thought that my travels with you had absolutely nothing to do with her. I was drawn to you, but she was the love of my life – I don't know if you can understand that."

Fresh tears fell. "Oh, I can," she said.

This squeezed his hearts just a little bit further. But he continued, now crying a bit himself. "I loved her. I really, really loved her, and the fact that I never told her made it all the worse when she was taken from me. When I lost her... oh Martha, I thought I'd never be whole again. I thought I'd never travel with a human again. And then I found you, and you stirred something in me, but... it felt wrong. It felt empty. It felt like rebound, like you said, just lusty and... empty."

Martha nodded with heartbroken acceptance. Right now, she hated Rose. But she loved the Doctor, and she knew he needed comfort. So she swallowed her bitterness. "What do you think she's doing right now?"

He smiled sadly. "I don't know. Sometimes I wonder what she's doing now, who she's talking to, if she still thinks of me. It lessens every day, but it still can drive me mad, the wondering."

"I'm sure she does think of you, Doctor. How could she not?"

"She has Mickey," the Doctor said. "The boyfriend she had before we met, and I assume – I hope – they are together now that I'm out of her life. Mickey is good for her – clever and brave. Sometimes my thoughts run to him, and I will him to take care of her, lessen her pain, maybe."

"He loves her?"

"He does, I know he does. He can't give her everything, but I know he'll do his best."

"I think he will," Martha said, taking the Doctor's hand. "If he knows you, he knows what a thing Rose has lost – he'll want to take her pain away. I'm sure he'd do everything to make her feel a little bit better each day. She's in a good place, Doctor, with people who care. I don't think you need to worry."

The Doctor was moved. It was the first time he and Martha had really discussed Rose, and now knowing what he knew, it was an emotional moment. "Thank you, Martha," he choked.

They hugged, and the tension dissipated slowly and their friendship was on its way back to repair.

But what the Doctor could not feel was the slow burn in Martha's guts, the churning nausea eking its way in... the breaking of her heart. Talking of Rose this way was draining her spirit, and it was all she could do no to collapse in tears.

The Doctor stood up and crossed the room. He stood in the doorway and stared down the hall. "So, are you up for another foray into the labyrinth to track down our friend?"

"I suppose," she said, getting to her feet.

"Good," he said. He slammed his palm against a knot in the wall, one that Martha had never noticed. This opened a panel on the other side of the room, and out fell a man.

He was wearing a black silk opera cloak.