John rinsed the soap from his hair and enjoyed the feeling of the water spray as it massaged his aching muscles. The shower had been a great idea; it was rejuvenating him, but he was still acutely aware of the physical pain he'd experienced the night before.

"Worth it though," he murmured. He was exhausted, but felt so alive, so filled with hope and newness. He'd met her, saved her, kissed her, woken with her. She was here, he wasn't alone, she'd be with him for a little while, at least, and oh, she looked so good in those pajamas.

He turned the hot water off again and let the sharp, cold needles calm him.

He dried off and brushed his teeth, then went down the hall to his bedroom. He could hear the faint sound of voices coming from the front room; Martha must have decided to use his computer. After he dressed, he quickly surveyed the bedroom and tidied it a bit. He planned to offer Martha the use of it while she was with him—he would (reluctantly) offer to sleep on the couch—and he didn't want her to think he was a slob.

Room in satisfactory condition, he walked down the hallway. She was watching something, and the sound of it was familiar to him. He stopped near the end of the hall when he realized what it was.

Suddenly, he was transported back there, back to being Him, back to that awful situation that ultimately started this whole mess he was in. He could feel the cold logic of the Time Lord creeping into his mind, but he fought it. Martha was watching this, Martha who had been so affected by Lumic's technology that she'd made it her personal mission to free people's minds.

Martha was watching him do all the things the Doctor had done in that room.

She was seated at the table with her back to the hall doorway. He walked to the table and stood behind her as he dried his hair. He could see the Doctor guiding Mickey with his cruel taunt (why did he insist on calling him an idiot?), so arrogant in his tone (but hadn't he been so sanctimonious already today himself?), and then, when he and Martha watched the Doctor slam the mobile into the console, breaking the inhibitor chip, he realized that he'd have to explain about everything now, much sooner than he'd wanted to, and that she'd likely never want to see him again once she knew.

Why had Jack sent her here?

He answered the question she hadn't whispered to him, his voice as quiet and cold as His would be when justifying His actions. "I made them aware of who, of what, they were. It was the only way to stop Lumic."

She was confused and anxious, and he wanted to let the Time Lord take control, to hide behind the Doctor's otherworldly persona. It would be easier to let her see that coldness, to cut her off now before she got too close. If she got too close, she would learn who he was and she would leave him. She'd left Jack for lesser crimes than His.

John's heart beat wildly, and he'd convinced himself this was the thing to do as she pushed herself from the table, from him—she was afraid of him. But then she asked her question, and it wasn't the one he expected.

"Who is the Doctor?"

He was about to speak when he saw the courage in her face. She was steeling herself, arming herself against what she feared, and he needed her to not be afraid of him so that he could keep her safe, so that he could keep her. He pushed the Time Lord away. He sat at the table next to her—she still held herself away from him—and rewound the video until he could stop on a clear image of the Doctor's face. He turned himself to face Martha and reached out his hands, offering them to her. She reluctantly put her hands in his, and he squeezed them just a bit before speaking.

"The Doctor is who I used to be, who I was, before I was born. I'm going to have to explain that—" Martha's face clearly indicated that she was incredulous "—but not now. One thing at a time, I think, and I need you to understand this story first. That man there, that was me when the Cybermen were made. Will you let me tell you my story of that day?"

The last thing Martha wanted was to dwell in any memories of that day, but she couldn't turn away from the pleading in his eyes, which were no longer cold, no longer hidden behind an impenetrable wall. She nodded her assent.

So he told her about the party at the Tyler mansion, and the appearance of the Cybermen. He explained the function of the emotional inhibitor and how they had to disable it so that the converted would be disoriented enough to know what had happened to them. He told her about Mrs. Moore, and the Preachers, and how brave and smart Mickey and Jake were, and how they all swung from a moving zeppelin to escape the burning factory. His eyes teared up when he spoke of the girl he met, the bride-to-be, and he cried when remembered how the converted had screamed as they discovered who they'd become. The Doctor had been sorry for their pain; John could now imagine the horror of waking to that transformation when faced with only one life.

They'd been sitting for nearly an hour now. Martha's tea was stone cold and her hands hurt—John hadn't let them go as he told her the story, and she hadn't wanted him to. She could feel him drawing strength from her as he unburdened himself, and when he told her about the bride, she'd wept as she remembered Adeola. When he broke down at the end of his tale, she closed the laptop screen. Whoever the Doctor was, she saw him as an unwelcome intruder now. She stood and held him, his arms at her waist, his face against her belly. She leaned down and kissed the top of his head.

When he'd calmed, she went to the kitchen to put the kettle on. The tin of soup was still on the counter and she decided that they needed to eat something. The night had already been long. They'd need sustenance.

"John? Do you feel alright to help me? We should get our supper ready." Moments later he entered the kitchen. His eyes asked her to accept him, to forgive him for what he had done. She crossed over to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him.

Their mood was still somber after supper. John was in the kitchen opening a bottle of wine. This was not, he thought, what he'd hoped for a first date. "But when does anything go the way I want it to," he quietly moaned, and he had to laugh for a moment at his own emotional outburst. He brought the bottle and two glasses out, and met Martha, who was seated on the couch.

"So, what else would you like to know?" he asked as he poured. "I'm sure you have about 10 billion questions running through your mind right now." He handed her a glass, her fingers lingering a few moments too long on his as she took it from him. He got a mental glimpse of her, in a hospital, and as she withdrew from him, he began to wonder if she might have something she wanted to tell him. "Is there anything," he cautiously asked, "that you want to share?"

Martha blinked as she sipped her wine. Could she speak those words? She'd told only her therapist about the horrors she'd seen in the hospital that day—her UNIT commanders had insisted she have a full psychiatric workup before she began her job there—but she wanted to share it with him, wanted him to understand how she'd been affected. Jack had tried to take it from her, to force her (though he thought he was doing her a kindness) to share, so she'd refused him time and time again. She didn't want to put that distance between herself and John.

She took another drink and began to tell him about the horrors of that night. As she spoke, she let him enfold her in his arms; it was almost as if he were shielding her from the mounting horrors while she described the scene in the hospital when she'd moved from one unsavable person to another. As her narrative closed in on Adeola, she paused, then put her wine glass and John's on the coffee table. She sat sideways on the couch, her legs tucked beneath her; he followed suit, facing her. He wondered what she wanted from him.

"Can I show you?" Her voice was small, and he wondered how much worse things must be if she couldn't articulate it. He nodded and she started to take his hands in hers, but he shook his head. He placed his hands at her temples.

"Remember to close off anything you don't want me to see." She nodded and closed her eyes.

He was walking down the hospital corridor, surrounded by bustling doctors and nurses, and gurneys filled with bodies of flesh and metal. He was terrified; he wasn't trained enough for this, he didn't know what to do. He couldn't save any of them and everywhere he looked was death and pain and horror. Would any of them survive? The smell was overwhelming—Martha's memories were impossibly strong—and he could feel his fear mounting as he reached the end of the hallway. It was the last one, it was covered, and his hand pulled back the cover—

He was at a graveside, flowers in his hand. Adeola's grave, and he was still, after all these years, grieving her loss. He promised her that he'd keep working, that it wouldn't happen again, but he feared he might fail her—

He was on a street—it was disorienting to be in Martha's memories, and he communicated that to her.

What's happening? Why are we shifting?

Jack brought me here.

John was drawn into a complex web of emotions as he experienced her memory; Martha's anger with Jack for taking her there was palpable, and he wanted to give in to it as his own anger at him welled up inside. But there was joy there, too, at seeing her beloved cousin, and the pain of the reopened wound of her loss. These emotions, though, paled in comparison to what was to come. He saw the reaper appear and knew what choice she had been forced to make, what she'd had to do before he experienced her doing it.

No one knows but you.

He could feel how alone she was in this memory.

You're not alone anymore.

He broke the link. His slender fingers wiped the tears from Martha's cheeks as she closed her eyes and rested her head in his hands. After a few moments, he realized that her hand was wiping away his tears and she was tentatively brushing against his mind.

May I?

What do you want to see?

Can you show me who—no, what—you are?

He considered what to show her.

She was laughing with Simon, rumpling his hair as they cleaned up a failed attempt at cake baking. She was running and the wind felt cool and bracing on her skin. She was drinking a coffee outside a café, watching people wandering by on the street, and wondering how they lived their lives and if they were happy. She was painting the hallway and buying furniture at secondhand stores and feeling like she was building a real life. She was standing on a beach and the wind blew and a blue box wheezed and disappeared.

She wasn't hurt by Rose's rejection or the Doctor's condemnation or Donna's abandonment. She wasn't weeping in her bed, comforted by Jackie. She wasn't tempted continually by the artifacts Torchwood collected. She wasn't sitting in the leather chair, reading with no one to share the stories with. He didn't want to share the pain with her, not yet. She'd hurt enough tonight. But he couldn't resist—

She gasped when she found herself walking on a red grassed plain, the sky above her head glowing deep, dark orange, a glistening city encased in a glass dome in the distance.
Your home?

It was.

And now?

It's gone.

What do you mean, gone?

Just gone.

Is that why you're here?

"I can't—" His voice broke the stillness of the room, the strangled cry pushing forth from him. They sat in silence for a moment, hands in their laps. Martha thought back to their talk in the pub—"something significant," she'd thought—and she knew what she wanted and why.

Taking his hand in hers, Martha rose from the couch and led him to the hallway.

"Where do you keep the chalk?" she asked. He walked to the office and brought her back a box of multiple sticks, all different hues. She smiled—he loved to see her smile, and this smile pierced his melancholy—and selected a blue one. She found an open piece of wall and wrote the previous day's date on it, then

I met you today. You saved me with a kiss.

Beneath it, she wrote the current date, then

Today I made love to you for the first time.

John had to squint a bit to read what she'd written—her handwriting was small and the lighting in the hallway wasn't the best, especially at night—but when he made it out, his eyebrows surged toward his hairline. He wondered at the barely suppressed smirk on her face and swallowed hard.

"Can't let Simon see that," he babbled nervously, "being such a young innocent, and do you really mean that you want to—I mean we've only just met and there's so much you don't know about me—" She grabbed his t-shirt and pulled him down to kiss her, dragging him backward toward what she assumed was the bedroom. By the time they reached the door, he'd steadied himself to her purpose, and he pressed her up against the door frame as he twisted the knob and pushed the door open. His hands were tight on her hips while hers moved gingerly up his injured chest before wrapping around his neck. He felt a surge of adrenaline pulse through him as he lifted her, carrying her the way he'd done in that hospital on the moon.

"John, you're injured! You shouldn't—" He silenced her with his mouth as he carried her over to the bed. When he reached it, he sat and held her on his lap while he continued kissing her.

He tasted the wine first, a smooth, earthy richness that filled his senses with woods and flowers and spiced evenings of waiting for just the right time. Then there was the cream, her addition to the tin of soup, which had made it bolder, deeper, and infinitely more interesting than its humble origins would suggest. He feasted on her kisses, realizing how greatly he'd been starving these last years.

Martha held his head in her hands as she reciprocated. Their minds were open. She'd forgot, he'd forgot, and they heard each other's thoughts.

Oak casks, honeyed roses, gorging, blush cream, starving

Don't want to hurt him, how can we maneuver, want him inside, oh so soft his lips

Skin, smooth, satin, so long, too long

He began to ply the buttons on the flannel shirt (my shirt, your skin) while he kissed his way down her neck, then followed the trail of skin his fingers exposed. Martha's breath labored (tongue is fire) as her hands slid beneath his t-shirt, seeking the nipple she'd so smartly tweaked earlier. He groaned around her breast while she tortured her small captive. As she pulled the shirt over his head after he'd pushed the unbuttoned flannel from her shoulders, Martha rose from his lap. He surveyed her skin in the moonlight, her body silhouetted against the window behind her. He couldn't see the wicked little grin on her face, but he knew what she was planning all the same as her hands dropped to the sides of his legs and she began to crawl up the length of him.

When she paused at the waistband of his pants, he realized that it would be a good idea to put the mental shields in place, lest Martha take his next thought (think of England think of England think of England) the wrong way. It was just as well—Martha had erected her own barriers, not wanting him to sense her trepidation at any potential surprise discoveries of his alienness (didn't feel alien when I sat on his lap). Even so, they came to the same conclusion at the same time, which was right as her tongue extended toward that which was decidedly not alien and quite enticing. He touched her hand, she looked in his eyes, and they spoke as if already joined and one—"Condoms?"

Martha leapt to her feet and ran to fetch her handbag. John rolled onto his side (gently old man) and fished around in the drawer of the bedside table. He managed to land on his back again just in time to welcome a flushed and slightly chilled Martha into his arms, her nipples hard and a bit cold against the heat of his skin. She was naked now, the shorts shed as she'd prepared for her vault onto the bed. As he kissed her and warmed her with his hands, he grinned as he realized how well she suited him, figuratively—her body, so small, but nestling into his in all the right places—and literally—she'd slipped the condom and herself onto him in a nearly simultaneous movement. She was moving over him now, and he slowly began to shift their angle on the bed. The moonlight was still too strong behind her and he wanted to see her face. Her nails raked the skin of his sides, while his hands clutched at her hips and slipped up her torso. She was taking care not to hurt him, but she really didn't need to—he didn't care if she broke every bone in his body, so long as she broke him inside her.

He reached his hand up to her face, aching for more, to pierce through to the root and core of her. He pulled her down to kiss him, her movements slowing slightly as her body shifted and she rested her (very slight) weight on her elbows. When his fingers brushed her temple, she opened herself to him entirely.

No words

It was shimmering gold in her mind, an ever loosing and expanding field that glowed, then simmered, then burned, then eased, over and over and over again until her movements quickened the particles in her mind. They coalesced into a tight ball as she tightened around him and he could feel her pulling from him what he wanted to give her so desperately. He cried her name as the ball shattered into a billion pieces of golden dust.

As he slowly became aware that he'd slipped from her mind and her body, he felt the hot tears sliding between their faces. She was kissing his tears, he was kissing her tears, and he wondered what she'd seen in his mind at the moment he'd pulsed his life into her (silver and ice and white-hot fire, a sylvan tongue licking and lapping and pushing its life into her and one day she'd be able to show him). She moved to his side, to the position she'd occupied earlier on the couch, a world away from now. Not wanting to break this perfect stillness, she touched him instead—

Thank you. I needed—

I know. I did too.

He shivered and she reached behind her to pull the bed covers over their bodies. He followed suit, and they were warm and together and feeling whole for the first time in as long as they could each remember.

When she woke she was beneath the bedclothes and she was alone. She saw a small table beneath the window opposite the bed; on it was a tray with a teapot, a mug, and what might be breakfast. She rose and wrapped John's dressing gown, which was draped over the edge of the bed, around her; there was a chill in the room and she wanted to feel closer to him. Beneath the tray she found a long, flat box. The envelope on the box indicated that the package was for her, and she brought the box to the bed after she set the tray down upon it. She prepared her tea, checked the egg in the cup—it was warm, good sign—and then turned her attention to the box.

She opened the envelope first and found a heavy cream colored card inside. John's handwriting attempted to march neatly across the card

I want you to know who and what and where I've been.
I'm here when you want to talk.

The package, a flat, large rectangle, felt solid and weighty in her hands. It was wrapped in brown paper and twine. When she untied the string and peeled back the paper, she found a book beneath several layers of tissue.

The book was bound in navy blue leather. The leather was tooled to resemble a paned window. It was closed with a clasp in the center of the cover; the book opened from the middle, like a set of French doors. It was thick. The closure on the book masked its true contents; when Martha opened it for the first time, she thought there were no pages to turn, confronted as she was by a vast expanse of heavy white paper. She noticed a small tab at the bottom right corner, and when she pulled it, she learned that the book inside was bigger than its outside suggested. The pages unfolded and pulled and spilled open; she found hidden nooks and crannies, doors that opened and closed, bits and pieces that popped up. Voices spoke to her. She shut the pages and turned her attention to the book's opening again. The interior of the cover was lined with a rich blue fabric with small burgundy stripes. She stroked the cover—the leather felt supple and warm—and then the fabric, which felt soft and smooth and surprisingly cool to the touch.

On the inside of the left panel, she found a suit pocket on the fabric. She unfastened the button, then pulled a small card from inside. On it, John had written

I am nearly a thousand years old.
I am only three months old.
I didn't believe in miracles, but it's a miracle that I am.

She closed the book. She buttered and ate the toast, cracked and ate the egg. She drank her tea. She rose and took the tray from the room to the dining table. John and Simon were there, working on the laser spanner.

Martha said good morning to Simon, then held her hand out to John. "Read to me?" she asked. His cheeks flushed and he nodded. He gave Simon instructions on what to do with the spanner. Martha could see bags of groceries on the table, and as John rose to join her, he grabbed a department store shopping bag and followed her to the bedroom. Before she went in, she took a piece of chalk from the box in the office. She marked the date on the wall and handed the chalk to John who wrote

Today I told you my story.