Once again, I am appalled at how long it's taken me to get back to this story! Over two months since the last posting - for shame! However, I was finishing up another story under another name, and I was waiting to find "truth" in this story. A couple of days ago, miraculously, I was able to pick it up, let the story infuse me, and complete chapter four... which means I'm now free to post chapter three! Thank you for your patience! If you're still reading this, it means a lot.

In the previous chapter, the Doctor asked Martha to show him the "movie in [her] mind," as he has realised he'd love to be closer to her in every way... but he wound up hanging up on her because it all became too much. Again. Too much intensity, intimacy, honesty.

But in the end, he decided he was ready for "it," whatever that meant, ready to be touched by her (emotionally, for now) and he was not going to hang up this time. And he's really annoyed and vulnerable...

Enjoy!

PART THREE

"Right on time," she said, picking up the phone, with a sigh. "Late enough to catch my parents asleep, but early enough to catch me awake."

He was pacing back and forth in front of his bed. He stopped with one hand on his hip, and said, "Well, if I can't get the timing of a phone call right, what is the point of me?" he asked her, with more whimsy in his voice than she had heard since the phone fiascos began. "I believe you called me a Rushing-To-Catch-Up Lord?"

"Touché," she replied. "I stand corrected."

"Now look," he said, resuming his pacing. "I called to tell you that I'm annoyed."

"I'll bet you are," she lilted.

He was stunned into a short period of silence. He had expected her to be surprised, but instead she had put him, within seconds, on the back foot. "Excuse me?"

"You don't like being challenged," she said. "Or, rather, you do, but not by someone you can't just Doctor your way past."

"What does that mean?" he wondered, voice rising.

"It means that I'm not a Dalek or a Carrionite or a shape-shifter or a piece of technology. And when I challenge you like I did last night, or like I've been doing for two years, you can't think your way to defeating me. You have to feel your way to it, and that's terrifying. In fact, you can't, and don't want to defeat me at all, and you wonder what the hell that even means."

"Wow."

"And you can't talk your way out of it. You can't blow me up, find me a new home on a different planet, or use your sonic screwdriver on me, so… you retreat. You ignore. You get squirrelly and cut yourself off… from a friendship, from a phone call, or all of the above."

"Yeah."

And when he didn't say anything else for a disturbingly long time, she said, "Yeah? Yeah, what? Hello?"

He cleared his throat. "Yeah, I reckon you hit the nail on the head. And that's annoying."

She laughed. "So it is. But I apologise – I didn't mean to overtake you. What were you going to say, about being annoyed?"

"I'm not sure it's worth talking about now. The annoyance."

"Of course it is. I can't have hit it so well on the head that you have nothing else to say. There's got to be more to be annoyed about."

"Fine. I was going to say, I'm annoyed because… of course I like hearing about your fantasies. A little too much, as you might say. I'm not made of stone, Martha, and I do have a healthy ego."

"Indeed."

"But mostly, they make me… squirm."

"In a good way, I assume."

"How could all of this not get under my skin? I'm a breathing being with blood flowing in my veins!"

"Yes, you are. I can feel that every time I look at you. Every time I think about you," she confessed.

"So I'm annoyed because, how could you tell me I'm not ready?"

"I dunno… maybe because everything about you, since the moment we met, has suggested it?"

"Well, I'm ready! I'm ready to be touched. By you."

"Excuse me?"

"By what you have to say."

"Oh. I see."

"Because I couldn't sleep last night, and I reckon that you could, and that's…"

"Annoying?"

"Yes!"

"So, are you telling me you're ready to be touched, just to stop the tables turning? You want to open up to me, and me to you, because you're pissed off about being up all night thinking about me, when I wasn't up all night thinking about you?"

"No!"

"Really? Because I know you pretty well, and to me it sounds like this is the only way you can think of to win."

"It's not about winning!"

"Then what is it about? Be clear, Doctor. What are you telling me?"

He sat down on his bed, and groaned. "Oh, God."

"Well, sorry. But if this conversation is worth having, then it's worth doing right. I've laid my cards out on the table. Haven't I?"

"Yes, you have."

"I love you. I've never wanted anyone or anything else so badly in my life, and this conversation is exciting and gut-wrenching at the same time."

He sighed, and thought. Formed, and reformed his words. At last, he said, rather slowly, "Okay. Maybe I'm not annoyed because you challenged me last night. Maybe it's not because your fantasy about fucking in a secret hallway right under the nose of the General got my juices flowing, and yet I don't want to admit that I have certain feelings about you. And always have had."

"Okay, now we're getting somewhere."

"Maybe I'm not annoyed because hearing you describe your daydreams had me on-edge all night, but did not have you on the same edge, and that might be an indication that the tables have turned, and that you have the upper hand now."

"I thought it wasn't about winning."

"It's not. That's what I'm saying. Maybe all of that, while difficult to admit, is irrelevant. I'm now wondering if I'm so annoyed because I've had all these chances, and I've blown them all off. That I couldn't work all of this out on my own."

"Keep talking."

"Or, more accurately, allow myself to work it out with you sooner. Because… ugh, there's so much I've missed out on."

"Yes, there is. I don't like to boast, Doctor, but I'm a lot of fun."

He smiled. "I'm starting to understand that."

"Although… you're still not being clear."

"I'm ready, Martha. I'm ready for the kind of honesty that burns. I don't just like hearing about your fantasies – it's bigger than that. I'm desperate to hear them. I'm ready to hear all of them, anything and everything you want to tell me, and not to cut off the call, or run away."

"Really? And what about… you know, reciprocation?"

"I may or may not have a story or two to tell, and I can give you the same. Only…"

"Only?"

"Well, all of this is new to me. So you can lay it all on me, but you might have to hold my hand through the fallout."

"Okay. I'll hold your hand." There was a long pause, then, "So, last night, when you said you'd like to see the movie in my mind, you really meant it? And mean it even more tonight?"

"I meant it then – I wanted to see it. Blimey, did I want to but…" he said. "Well, you asked me to take it seriously. I couldn't do it last night, it would've been too much. Too real. But I can do it now."

"You can listen, take it in, let it get inside you? Let it affect you, and let me know it?"

"Yes, I can," he said, his voice low, unwavering.

"Are you sure? Because this is where everything went awry last night."

"I know. A lot has happened since last night."

"This makes me very vulnerable, Doctor," she said, her voice now dropping.

"Yes, and me too. But I won't let anything bad happen," he assured her. "You have my word."

"All right, then. Brave new world."

"Brave. New. Yes."

"I've got a new mobile phone as of this afternoon. I'd feel safer if I could use that instead of my family's home phone. Safer, and less icky."

She cut off the call and returned the cordless house phone to its cradle in the hallway. On the way back to her bedroom, she dialled from her new mobile, and they picked up quite easily where they had left off.

"Do you recall last night when I said that sometimes, I used try to sleep and couldn't, and there would be fireworks?"

"Fireworks and bits of torture in your mind and body. Yes."

"But that even more delicious than that was if I could spend time anticipating, and I'd retire to my room at night knowing…"

"The slow burn, yes."

"I probably should clarify: in those states, what I was thinking and wondering and making happen – the movie in my mind – was not intentional. I didn't stand around and think, okay, fantasy – go! It would just start to form and get out of control before I even knew what was happening."

"I get that. Happens to everyone. Doesn't it?"

"I should think so," she told him. She lay down on top of her bed, as she hadn't yet pulled back the covers. "And… I wonder, do you remember my telling you how I had a few favourite variations?"

"I do."

"Well, shall I tell you a firework favourite, or a slow-burn favourite?"

"Slow burn. I'm going to need some time."

"Your wish is my command, Doctor," she lilted, and something in her voice, in this phrase, made his knees melt. "Are you comfortable?"

He adjusted himself so as to lean his back against his headboard. "I am now. More or less."

"Do you remember Andrew Dervish?"

"That bloke who worked with you at that clothing shop in 1969?"

"Mm-hm."

"He fancied you."

"Yes, he did," she confirmed. "He chatted me up a lot, and I kind of didn't mind."

"Really?"

"He was good-looking and relatively respectful, considering who I was, and where we were, and when we were there. If I didn't have you, I might've gone for it. Of course, if I didn't have you, I wouldn't have been there in the first place."

"So you liked him?"

"Well, sort of. Let's just say, he's someone to whom I might have given half a chance, under different circumstances."

"We weren't… I mean, you could have…"

"No, Doctor, remember, you and I had to keep up the appearance of being married so that we didn't get kicked out of that flat we lived in," she reminded him. "We were afraid that if it got around my job that we weren't actually married, my boss, Mrs. Fincher, would tell our landlord, because that's what meddlesome harpies do."

"Ah yes," he said. "I even remember using the phrase meddlesome harpy."

"Anyway, I liked the idea of saying, sorry, I'm married, and coming home to you, and playing house."

"I kind of liked it, too," he whispered, almost reluctantly.

"And you and I, we mostly shared a bed at that time, but do you remember sometimes waking up in the morning and I'd be gone, and you'd find me on the sofa in the sitting room?"

"Yes, I remember."

"Well, you're about to find out why I left our bed sometimes."

"Erm… okay."

"So, Andrew," she said with a sigh. "Do you remember the night I told you about him?"

"Well… no. Actually, sort of…"

"It was one of the few nights when we went to bed at the same time," she said. "I told you some story about him and a customer while you were brushing your teeth, and then when you came into the bedroom, I said I thought he was trying to get up the courage to ask me out. You sort of grunted, then climbed into bed next to me, and asked me doesn't he know you're married? And I said I didn't know, but it might not stop him. And you said…"

"I said, You'd better be careful," he remembered.

"Yes."

"I just meant that you probably shouldn't be seen letting him chat you up too much," he told her.

"I knew what you meant," she said. "But it sounded just a bit possessive. And as I told you last night, I've got an active imagination, and I sort of enjoy a bit of aggression… you know, your hand over my mouth, telling me to shut up and hold still."

"I see," he said, with a hard swallow.

"A little fantasy started to gather then. And, the next day, Andrew did ask me out, and I declined, told him I was married, and he said Are you sure? I told him I was absolutely sure… and that fantasy began to churn, and round itself out, just as Andrew was walking away from me," she said. "And I didn't tell you for a long while about him asking me, because I wanted to keep the fantasy going. The movie in my mind."

"Ah, the movie."

"I imagined telling you about it, and that you might be annoyed. You'd wonder how anyone could ask if I was sure I was married, because what the hell kind of question is that? If people aren't convinced, then we'd better think of solutions, ways to make it stick, and seem more real. You'd muse about how perhaps we need to act more convincing, which would mean convincing ourselves a bit…"

"I think I see where this is going."

"Does that mean you don't want to hear the rest?" she teased.

"God, no," he practically heaved.

"Good. Because that night, we went to bed about an hour apart – I was still tossing and turning a bit when you came in, but once you had settled down next to me, things started to roll in my mind. Lying next to you night after night could be hellish at times, Doctor. I spent so many nights during that stint in 1969 trying to force down any urges… but that night, I just couldn't. Something had pushed me too far… another man wanting me, I guess. And I could actually hear you breathing, smell your scent. And in my mind, I could hear you whispering in the dark, asking whether I thought Andrew would persist. I tried to resist going further with that little imagined conversation, but my body wouldn't let me forget it."

"So you got up and moved to the sofa."

"I did. And then I was free to play out the movie however I liked."

"And?"

"And you decided that I needed to do a more convincing job, if Andrew was ever going to back off."

Sorry for the cliffhanger... next chapter will be NSFW, and I promise not to let two months pass this time!

Leave a review, and let me know you're out there! What are your thoughts and feelings at this point?

Thanks so much for reading!