TEN
When Jack unstrapped the apparatus and looked up, the Doctor's face was streaked with tears. Mildly embarraseed, the Time Lord buried his face in his hands. With a great gasp, he let out a long sob. Jack just watched him with wonder. He had never seen the Doctor so devastated before. He wondered if the Doctor had ever been this devastated before, even with all he's seen and lost.
When he was able, the Doctor got up and looked out the window. He opened it and leaned out for some fresh air. Jack poured them each a drink, and the two of them downed the warm liquid without a word. Their silence seemed to mark a mutual understanding. Nothing had changed, except within Martha's mind.
After a long, long silence, Jack asked the most benign quetsion he could think of, concerning the vision. "Is she mixing up two different events again?"
The Doctor swallowed hard, still fearing that any attempt to speak would be met with another deep sob. He hesitated and said, "Yes. The emotion patches are from a place called New Earth, which was our second real trip together. We didn't see paralysis, but Martha was kidnapped and doused with a sleep patch."
"She was kidnapped?" Jack asked.
A nod as the Doctor poured himself a second shot of bourbon.
"Did the kidnappers apologise as they were dragging her away?"
Another nod.
"Who are the children of the motorway?"
"New Earth. Children who are born in these vans that never seemed to leave the motorway," the Doctor said. In his mind, he was turning over the phrase Children of Time.
"And the 'you are not alone' bit?"
"That was The Face of..." he looked at Jack, and thought better of his words. "He's a kind of prophet who I've seen in the far future. Like five billion years in the future. We were there when he died, and those were his final words, meant for me. He was trying to warn me that the Master was still alive."
"Did Martha think he meant those words for her?"
"I don't think so, but he did know..."
"He did know what?"
The Doctor said, "Remember when I told you that only I, Martha and the TARDIS knew the secret?"
"Yeah."
"Well," said the Time Lord, drilling holes into his friend's eyes with his own. "Someone else knew too. It just didn't click until right now."
The two of them stared, and then continued to drink their sips of bourbon in peace for a bit.
Finally, the Doctor sat back down on the bed, and told Jack, "Have a seat. Put on the receiver. I'll show you what really happened."
A day and a half had passed, and he'd been thinking about Martha Jones, the lovely, brilliant med student from Royal Hope hospital, the whole time. After her bravery on the moon, he hadn't been able to stop. She was plucky and clever, enthusiastic and idyllically beautiful. China Doll beautiful. And he had kissed her, just kissed her without a second thought. It had honestly been in order to create a genetic transfer, and to confuse the Judoon's machinery, but blimey, it had been difficult to walk away from that kiss. He'd meant just to give her a little peck, that would have sufficed. But once he started, it was like he was falling and couldn't stop. Finally, he'd torn himself away and quickly run from her, out of the line of fire, and out of the range of her charms. If he had lingered even for a second, he would have been caught, and forced to repeat the experience.
His loneliness since Rose had been pretty tough to take, but he'd fallen into a deep depression after meeting Donna Noble because she'd made him realise what he could turn into if he let himself. He supposed his Dark Side was closer to the surface than he'd like to admit. Donna had been absolutely right, though – he needed someone. Someone to stop him, someone to spur him on, someone to look at him adoringly and say, "What do we do next?"
Obviously, Martha Jones could be that someone. When he'd been reviving her after carrying her out from the MRI room, after the hospital had been transported back to Earth, he'd asked her a few routine questions to check for brain damage. In the course of this, he'd asked about her family, and she mentioned that tonight was her brother's 21st, and they would all be at the Market Tavern to celebrate. He decided to throw the TARDIS into reverse by a day or so.
He parked it in a back alley of the neighborhood, and wandered down toward the pub. He heard a little spat between two women and one man, including the accusation of "You stole my husband!"
Before long, Martha's unmistakable voice rang out, "Mum, I don't mind, just leave it!"
He was ashamed of himself at how delighted he was to hear her family making her insane... that just meant it would be easier to convince her to go with him. And as the Jones family fanned itself out into the street, he made sure she saw him, coolly leaning against the wall at the end of the block. He slipped cryptically away, and she followed.
This conversation happened very much the way Martha had remembered it, even with her mind all atwist. She accused him of being pompous. He invited her to come along, and she made excuses. Except, of course, that New Earth didn't just appear behind his head in order to convince her that his time-traveling claims were real. Rather, he popped back to the beginning of the day, and took his tie off in front of her while she walked to work.
She made some innuendo about the TARDIS being cramped, and how intimate they would be. Her disbelief and awe had sparked something in him, which she initially failed to see. Then he got cold feet, made clear that she would not be replacing his former companion and that it would only be one trip.
Then she mentioned the kiss. Obviously, it had been on her mind as well. Defensively, he insisted, "That was a genetic transfer."
Then she teased him about flying across the universe to ask her out, and then told him she wasn't interested in him. He could tell even then that she was lying, and when he said, "Good," he didn't mean it.
"Off we go!"
As she remembered, the TARDIS bumped and crashed as it traveled. And then suddenly it stopped. He took his hands away from the console and looked at her meaningfully.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Showing off. Look outside."
She went to the wooden door and peered out into space. Again, her jaw dropped. She gasped with awe. She didn't say anything, and he guessed that she was wondering where the moon and Earth were, and what time frame they were in. He literally was showing off for her, hoping that it would make her want to stay, hoping that it would make him seem hopelessly attractive and exciting.
He came up behind her, and put a hand on the door above hers and the other arm went around her waist. She didn't seem to mind. In fact, if he wasn't mistaken, he felt her lean into the embrace a bit. He was way out on a limb here, but he couldn't help but want to touch her. It had been so long since he'd had someone around that he could just touch...
"Where are we?" she seemed to moan. "It's beautiful."
"We're at the formation of the planet Jupiter," he told her. "The surface of the planet never does become solid enough to support life. See how slowly those gases are swirling? Well that's half the speed of normal gases at this stage of gravitationalising. This solar system will explode back out again before Jupiter has a chance to pull itself together." As he said this, he bent his head forward and smelled her. She was musky, womanly and delicious.
Martha chuckled at his comment. "Mum tells us the same thing about my brother."
"Martha," he whispered in her ear. He took in her scent again, and suddenly, embarrassingly, he knew he was hard, and she must know it too. She must be able to feel it in the small of her back. And they just met! Granted, there was something undeniable here, and they had been through an intense, life-altering experience this afternoon, but for him to be this presumptuous this soon... he dared not move or speak further.
Slowly, she slipped from his grip, and as she walked past him, she gave him a flash of invitation with her beautiful eyes. She stood at the top of the ramp with her arms crossed.
"What do you think you're doing?" she asked, smiling seductively.
"I told you. Showing off," he said again. He turned and shut the door, and turned the lock. "Are you impressed?" He began to walk slowly toward her, as a dreamy expression came over his face.
"No," she lied, and took herself over to the navigator's stool and fixed herself on it.
He didn't say anything, did not increase his slow pace. He simply took his time in getting to her, and planted himself in front of her. He reached over and took her with both hands by the cheeks and neck. He kissed her like before, only longer, deeper. She was much less surprised this time, and was actually in a presence of mind to return the kiss.
For a long time, they remained this way, their lips dancing together, and a kind of odd relief washing over both of them. The Doctor was euphoric – it had been ages since he'd had this kind of rapport with anyone. Martha was just as caught in the moment, but much less fatalistic about the whole thing. She just knew what she wanted, and he was right there with his mouth on hers.
Suddenly she was off the seat. She was wrapped around him as he stood, and he was inching toward a part of the open floor, carrying her to a new kind of life, a new kind of love.
In lieu of asking for approval, he pulled away from the kiss and looked askance at her eyes. Her eyes gave their tacit consent, and so much more.
And then she was on the floor, she was staring at the ceiling of the TARDIS and the Doctor was on top of her, straddling her hips. He was aroused, she was as well.
He kissed her hard, pushed his entire body down against hers, and she moaned. He moved his mouth to her neck and shoulders, nearly completely exposed, and he planted kisses all over her bare flesh. She squirmed and melted beneath him, and she could feel him hardening.
He sat up again, and warned one more time, "I could stop."
"Don't you dare!" she insisted.
His face registered a kind of greed, and she loved it, reveled in it. She reached up and undid his zip, and took out the long, solid member. She fondled it for a few seconds, and then he shifted positions just enough to peel her jeans off. She put her arms over her head and laid out in front of him, anticipating his next electric touch. He knelt between her legs, rested his hands on her forearms and pushed himself inside of her with a delicious moan, and she responded in kind. He pulled back, and drove it back in again, this time harder. With every stroke, he pushed a bit harder, and beautiful, musical moans escaped her lips each time.
Their eyes met and lingered. She wanted this moment never to end. She was suspended in space, and her body was on fire. She was relishing each stroke, each in-and-out motion of the Doctor's body, each little moan he gave, each finger digging into her arm. He moved faster and faster, never losing his smoothness, never missing a chance to penetrate her with his eyes each time his forward thrust hit her at her core.
And then Martha's body gave her its greatest gift. It slid languidly into orgasm, allowing her a delicious moment to tremble and gasp, and then a beautiful feeling of peace. The pulsing inside spurned the Doctor to greater heights, and suddenly his movements were more desperate, more urgent. He pushed faster and faster and faster, and Martha anticipated this, his optimum moment. Then the word "Rose," very clearly formed upon his lips, and he spasmed, and then was finished, spent and emptied inside her.
He rolled to the side, and never leaving each others' arms, they both recovered. When the panting died down, the euphoria retreated and reality came back, they finally looked at each other.
"I'm sorry," he said, smiling sideways. "I really didn't just bring you up here for a shag."
"I know," she answered, smiling back. "And I didn't just come in here for one. But it's what we got."
A long silence passed between them, and finally, Martha asked, "Who was she?"
He broke eye contact, and ashamedly apologised for letting her name slip out.
Martha listened as he talked about how he'd loved and lost Rose, and then promised that he would never say her name again in a moment like that. To Martha, it was more than an empty promise – it meant that there would be more moments like these.
Next stop, 1599. Shakespeare. A lot to be gained there.
"Now," he asked her, standing up, putting himself back together. "Do you fancy a proper trip?"
He helped her up off the floor, and she wiggled back into her jeans.