So, this is the second-to-last chapter of this weird little saga! It begins with our lusty heroes trying to decide whether to continue their phone escapade or meet up in person... well, they find a way to have their cake, and eat it too!
But it's going to take two chapters to get it done. Therefore, this chapter isn't too steamy... though it does have a few "ooh!" moments. It sets up the pins so that chapter 7 can knock 'em down!
Enjoy!
PART SIX
"So… what's next?" she asked.
"Well, we could go our separate ways now."
"Is that what you want?" she asked, with more anxiousness in her voice than she would have liked.
"Let me finish. We can get some sleep, in separate parts of the universe, and meet up for breakfast in the morning."
"Okay."
"We can keep talking for a while, and see what sorts of movies it conjures. I did confess to having a small filmography of my own that someday I might like to share."
"Yes, you did."
"Or, I can materialise right now in your parents' front garden."
Her breath quickened again, this time in panic.
"Wha… you're leaving it up to me?"
For the fourth night in a row, Martha's phone rang at a late hour, though this time, the Doctor knew to dial her new mobile phone, rather than risk waking the whole house.
And this time, Martha knew to wait for the call. As much as she hated the idea of waiting by the phone for the Doctor, she did so badly want to hear about his mind-movies.
Though, the Doctor had been, at times, known to be unpredictable. But she took a calculated leap, and had asked for a small delay in meeting up in-person, for the moment.
She felt that he had the upper hand again, even though it wasn't at all true. Her love, and desperation for his affection and his touch, they put her emotionally back at square-one, and she had to remind herself that things had actually changed dramatically.
Case in point, "I had to stop myself from ringing too early," he told her, rather secretively over the phone, that fourth night.
"Interesting," she sang. "Why is that?"
"Well, if you must know, I'm crawling out of my skin."
"Is that good or bad?"
"Depends on how we choose to look at things," he said. "I'm going with good."
"Good," she repeated. Though, it was more of a judgement of the situation, than a parroting of what he had said.
And then she waited.
When he didn't say anything else, she asked, "Are you okay? Are you still into this? Tonight was supposed to be all you."
"Oh, I'm definitely still into it," he said. "I told you, I'm crawling out of my skin to talk to you and be with you. I just… I'm not…"
"What?"
"I'm not sure if I can… you know, talk about it like you did."
"Oh… that's a bit disappointing."
"I'm sorry," he said. "You did such a lovely job. I've been thinking about it, and… I've even tried practising."
"Practising?"
"Yes, what I want to say," he said.
"It's not a performance, Doctor."
"Isn't it?"
"No, it's... well, it's a verbal manifestation of what we need from each other. And an exercise in trust."
"Well, when I do it, it always sounds daft."
"Did I sound daft to you last night?"
"God, no," he said, breathily, and without hesitation. "You sounded scorching hot, and uninhibited, and…"
"And even if I said something a little weird, you still liked it? Because it was about you and me, and you fancy the idea of it?"
"Yes, well…"
"Well? I fancy the idea of it too! Whatever you're going to say, I'll love it," she assured him. "Even if it's weird. Or daft. Or awkward."
He sighed, and was quiet again for a few moments.
"Do you remember the Pentallian?" he asked, after his contemplative silence.
"Oh… er, yeah," she said. "The ship that almost careened into a living sun."
"Mm-hm. Do you remember how I almost died?"
"Yes," she responded. "You got possessed by the sun, while executing a daring stunt to save me."
"I tried to tell you then about regeneration. I told you I was scared. But what I didn't tell you was that afterward, the experience left me feeling… hot."
"I'd worry if it hadn't."
"And... virile."
"Oh. Interesting," she said with some low-key excitement.
"You and I ran at each other when it was all over, and shared that big, cathartic hug, remember?"
"Oh, yes."
"You jumped on me and I lifted you off the floor. There were stirrings then," he said.
"For me, too," she confessed. "Though probably for a different reason."
"It wasn't just your run-of-the-mill survival experience. I have near-misses, brushes with death all the time. This one was different. This was a powerful, fiery force that had crawled inside of me, tried to burn me alive. And you and I kicked its arse, blasted it with ice and then outsmarted it, proving more powerful than it was. And it left, as I said, vestiges of its burn, its aggression, its relentlessness. And there you were, wrapped around me. Sure, I was happy to be alive, but in that moment, I was also… let's say, happy to be a man."
"I wish I'd known," she told him, her voice low, musical, breathless.
"I wish you had, too," he said. "Well, look at that – we have switched roles."
"See?"
"But as glad as I was to be a man, it was short-lived because I was still me, and Me was still terrified and raw and confused, and honestly too much of a prat to do anything about those feelings," he said to her. "But I did think about it."
"And that is, I'm guessing where our story truly begins?"
"Indeed," he said. "I lay there in bed that night, alone, and tried to deny what I was feeling… physically and emotionally. But it wouldn't be denied – it was too hot, too strong. Too intertwined with who I am, and the feelings I've always had."
"Wow… that was beautifully put. Your brain works overtime, all the time, doesn't it?"
"Maybe, but this was anything but cerebral, Martha. It was, as I said, physical and emotional. The physical influenced the emotional, and vice versa. Among other things, I was thinking, blimey, I almost died today, and I'd never have properly warned you about what might happen. The surprise of regeneration has been very upsetting to my friends and companions in the past. And, I had also never properly said goodbye, nor been honest with you."
"Well, you, unlike other people, have a unique chance to tell people how you feel even after you die," she told him. Though, she immediately regretted it, knowing more about his past than she cared to. So she said something else, as quickly as possible. "Though… I would imagine that each death is traumatic, and doesn't leave a lot of room for baggage from the previous body and personality."
"That is sometimes very, very true," he said. "This body, this personality… well, it fancies you. The next one probably would, too, but who's to say the reverse would be true? So I lay there, and thought, damn it, I need to tell her."
"But you didn't."
"In my mind, I did."
"Oh, I think I see," she lilted.
"I imagined paying you a midnight visit, and gently waking you up to tell you," he said. "I wanted to tell you that you're amazing and beautiful, and I can't not fancy you, even if I tried – and I have tried. I wanted to tell you that saving you that day made me burn like a hot prod, and I want to tell you everything about myself. Death, life, regeneration… love, sex, apocalypse…"
"Apocalypse?"
"So to speak," he said. "And this is where the physical demands of my body were influencing how that little movie in my mind went."
She gulped. "Yes?"
"Yes, because I wanted to tell you all of that stuff while…"
"While? While what?"
"Well, you see, a normal man might envision saying all those things to you, and letting it lead us into lovemaking," he said.
"You're hardly a normal man, so I shudder to think," she said, teasingly.
"I wanted to whisper them to you while I was…"
"Oh, Doctor, this is killing me! You've got to finish your sentences!"
"I don't know if I can," he said, sheepishly. "I told you – I'm skittish about this. I feel ridiculous."
She sighed. "Well, can you have a glass of wine or something? Does alcohol loosen up Time Lords the way it loosens up humans?"
"Yes, but…"
She gave an exasperated sigh, and tutted a couple of times, thinking. "What can I do to help? Is there some way I can make it easier for you?"
She heard him chuckle with a breath. "Martha Jones, you never cease to amaze me."
"Why?"
"I'm clearly being difficult – even I can see that," he said. "I've been difficult with you for two years. You've gone above and beyond time and time again, and I'm finding myself adolescently unable to reciprocate, and you're still asking how you can help."
"Well, I'm a fixer at heart. And I love you, and can't stand when you're hurting. That's the math that gets us here. If you can't say what you were feeling then, Doctor… if it's this difficult to describe, then…"
"I had a lot that night that I wanted to tell you, but I wanted to seduce you first," he said, much to her surprise, throwing caution to the wind. "Seduce you easily, with the power of night, heat, a few desperate kisses, and of course, exploiting your feelings for me."
"Er, yes, it would not have been difficult at all. I'm slightly ashamed of how easy it would have actually been for you."
"I knew that, and the thought of how effortlessly I could just have you…" he said, and gave a little humour-tinged groan. "I'll admit it was empowering. It made me swell. And not just then – all the time."
"Wow."
"And I didn't want to confess to you as a prelude. I wanted to say to you all that I had to say while I was inside you. Above you. Thrusting. Feeling everything, feeling your body writhe and grip at me. Somehow, if I could whisper my revelations into your ear in those moments, neither of us could take them back. It would make them real for you, and for me. I could drive them home deeply, so to speak, and let you know that I wasn't bluffing."
"Oh, Doctor," she breathed. She took a deep breath and a pause, and asked, "So how did you imagine getting to that point? From opening my bedroom door at midnight, to pressing me onto my back and burying yourself, and your confessions in me?"
There was a long silence, and the Doctor broke it only to say, "Erm…"
"Having a hard time again?"
"I'm sorry, Martha," he said.
"It's all right. Maybe I can…"
"Hang on," he said suddenly. "Don't go anywhere."
"Where am I going to go? It's one in the morning, and I'm wearing… well…"
"Stay on the phone with me," he said.
"Why – what're you doing?"
"I'm trying to find you."
"You're… what?"
"Trying to find you," he said. "I know you're in your parents' house, and I know where that is, but pinpointing… erm… okay, I think… yes."
And with that, something happened that she had never seen nor heard before. More accurately, it was something she had seen, but never not heard before. She sat up on her bed, feet on the floor, and watched with wonder.
The outline of the TARDIS began to appear, and like always, blink in an out of existence, in the corner of her bedroom. Though, it was all without making noise! It took a while to materialise – much longer than usual – but after forty-five seconds or so, it was solid, and the door opened.
"Hi," he said, sticking his head out.
"How'd you do that?" she whispered.
"You mean without making noise?"
"Yes!"
"I can reroute some of the energies that slip through the valves in the TARDIS' heart, and allow her to navigate through space. Do it right, and it gives us a much less fuel-efficient, journey, but it gets the job done with a bit less of the push that usually causes that noise. She's going to need a few hours to rest," he said, patting the doorjamb affectionately. "Moves bloody slow… but at least I didn't wake up the whole house."
"What are you doing here?"
He stepped out into her room, and she could see that he was wearing his usual brown pinstriped trousers, but only a navy-blue tee-shirt on top, and no shoes. "Ironically, as a man of many words, I find it difficult to speak about what you want me the speak about… even though I really, really want to." His voice was not quite at a whisper, but low enough that no-one could hear except her. He looked worried. Remorseful, almost.
She stood up, acutely aware that her polished cotton pyjamas only barely covered key areas of her body, and it moved around her skin like liquid. She smiled. "So, because you can't tell, you came to show?"
"Yeah," he said, uneasily, closing the distance between them. They could now feel each other's heat, and hear each other's breathing. "Is that all right?"
"So, instead of talking to me about a fantasy where you show up in my bedroom in the middle of the night to tell me all the things you need to tell me, you're actually showing up in my bedroom in the middle of the night to tell me all the things you need to tell me." And with that, she reached out to take his hand… but never quite made contact. She just couldn't quite bring herself to touch him, unsolicited.
He watched this little action, and frowned. "You okay?"
She smiled again, this time a bit more reluctantly. "Well… ironically, as a woman of many desires, I find it difficult to touch you in the way that I'm supposed to touch you… even though I really, really want to," she said, mirroring his words.
"Well, that's quite the Catch-22," he commented
"Yeah," she mused.
"Do you want me to go? Resume on the phone?"
"No, please don't," she said.
He said, "Then, allow me." He cupped her jaws in his hands, and planted a long, languid kiss on her lips. It was practised, passionate, anything but desperate, as he had described on the phone. But it was still doing the trick at seduction.
When he pulled away, she said, "So… you'll still take the lead?"
"It appears so," he told her, taking her hand. "It's the least I can do, since you were such a persistent vixen in the movie-in-your-mind bit. It's my turn to take the lead on the live-theatre bit."
"Okay," she whispered, flushing warm all over.
"I'll still talk to you," he said. "You won't miss any words or thoughts or breaths."
She nodded. "Good, yes… you just have conditions for saying what needs saying."
"I have. So what say you, Martha Jones?"
She smiled dreamily. "I say, you might be able to reroute the navigation energies or whatever, to make the TARDIS quiet, but me? I have no idea how not to make noise."
"Well, it was going to be in poor taste to stay in your parents' house anyway," he said, stopping what he was doing for now. Then he stepped inside the TARDIS once more, and held out his hand. "Come on."
Okay, how ya feelin'? I would LOVE a review from you! :-D
Last chapter will be coming your way in the next few days... hold on tight! Thanks for reading!