So this took longer than I wanted it too, but real life can be a heartless bitch. Anyway, hope you enjoy!
He leaped up brightly, brushing off his suit and bounding gleefully down the stairs. He stopped on the bottom step, aware of the 4 pairs of eyes that were staring at him.
"Forgot my pencil."
Silence followed for a few seconds before everyone, even Donna, burst out into laughter, the Doctor loudest of all. Rose leapt up from her chair and threw her arms around him furiously. In a split second his arms were already wrapped tightly around her, and for the second time that day she found herself hugging the Doctor, and thinking that there couldn't be many more things in the world that felt better than this. It took a few seconds for her brain to catch up with her actions, and as soon as it did she let go awkwardly, pulling back and grinning shyly.
The Doctor on the other hand seemed perfectly overjoyed at what had transpired, though he seemed a little more flustered than usual, ruffling his insane hair with his hand. Rose hoped that there would be a time when she could run her fingers through the thick brown strands herself. If she found her hand moving to mimic the Doctor's actions but managed to stop it just in time to pass it off as scratching her ear, she didn't say a word.
A sound from outside the door jerked them all out their reverie – for the others had been watching the Doctor and Rose with barely concealed smirks on their faces – and Rose hurriedly grabbed the Doctor's arm and dragged him across the room before stuffing him behind her desk, the only conceivable hiding place in the room. Luckily the desks were of the sort that had a solid wooden front to them, or the Doctor might have been in even deeper trouble than he was already.
"What was that noise!?" Saxon burst back into the room, and Rose felt the Doctor's body tense under the desk, her knees jammed into his side. She sat as still as possible, praying that Saxon would not walk behind her desk and at the same time very aware of the Doctor's hand resting gently on her ankle, more by accident than by design she was sure.
"What noise, sir?" Jack said the words so smoothly, with the right amount of respect and just a hint of confusion and worry that gave the impression he was nervous about disagreeing with Saxon's assertion. Rose thought frankly that she would never become as good a liar as Jack appeared to be, even if she lived a thousand lifetimes.
"That noise! Don't tell me you didn't hear it."
"Could you describe the noise, sir?" Martha chipped in. She looked at Saxon quizzically, but as he turned his head away from her Rose saw Martha look quickly down at the open book on her desk, mouth beginning to twitch up into an unstoppable smile.
"A loud noise, like a banging or something, you must have heard it."
Donna looked up. "I didn't hear anything, sir." The tone of the 'sir' seemed to indicate that Donna's word was the end of the matter, it was carefully polite but almost certainly an order.
Saxon glared at each of them in turn before spinning on his heel and marching out of the room, muttering something unintelligible under his breath that was clearly not complimentary.
The door shut firmly behind him, and after a few seconds the Doctor was fighting his way out from under Rose's desk, punching the air in a fit of euphoria and giving high fives to anyone within reach.
"Close call there, Doc," Jack said, clapping the Doctor on the back. Rose exchanged a look of pleased surprise with Martha and Donna. The two boys getting along - that was something new.
Now the Doctor's attention was focussed one Rose again, and she was reminded of their stance a few moments earlier, after the accidental over emotional hug, the thought of which still almost brought colour to her cheeks. Suddenly she wanted to talk to him alone.
"Do you wanna...?" Rose's words trailed off as she replaced them with a gesture of her head, indicating that they should go to the upper level of the library. The Doctor's eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and he fiddled with his out of control hair for a moment before nodding quickly.
They climbed the stairs together, Rose hoping that the feeling of the others' eyes on her back was just paranoia. They sat close together on the landing at the top of the steps, just far away enough from the desks that their every word would not be picked up and scrutinised by their avid listeners.
"Thanks for the save, by the way," the Doctor said earnestly, sitting cross legged with his hands fiddling with his shoelaces. "I mean, Saxon would have actually killed me this time. Throttled me probably. With his bare hands, no doubt."
Rose tilted her head to one side, in an attempt to appear indifferent, though it probably just made her look like one of her ears was a lot heavier than the other one. "Definitely. And you're welcome." Her eyes flickered to his and she smiled widely, feeling ten times more comfortable when he returned it with enthusiasm. He seemed to gain his energy from the happiness of the people around him, she had noticed. At least, that was her current hypothesis. He could do something utterly ridiculous in ten seconds time that would throw her whole theory out of the window.
One thing was for certain: she had never met another person like him before. Good thing too – one was hard to enough to keep control of, never mind more.
Donna had decided that it was probably wisest to at least look like she was sifting through the contents of her battered schoolbag, rather than just sitting and pretending that she wasn't sneaking peeks at the two students sitting in front of her.
Martha appeared to be reading a book, but she hadn't turned a page in a long while – Donna was quite please she had managed to pick up that small clue. Martha might've seemed harmless and absorbed in her work, but she had an air of being completely relaxed and confident in herself that Donna found a little unsettling. At least, unsettling enough that even when Martha was apparently preoccupied, Donna felt like she was being scrutinised.
Jack, on the other hand, was lounging across a couple of desks, sticking out his foot every now and then to nudge the book Martha was reading. The two of them had established a kind of easy relationship, in which Jack kept trying to disrupt Martha's work and Martha nonchalantly foiled his attempts with ease. They could almost have been a comedy duo. Donna would have been perfectly content to sit and watch their antics while the Doctor and Rose were chatting on the upper level, were it not for the fact that Jack's attention was straying to Donna far too often for her to feel comfortable.
"What's in the bag?"
"Nothing, now back off, Casanova." She hadn't really meant to snap, but Jack's ease and confidence was making her defensive.
"Oi!" Jack actually looked a little hurt by her ferocity, and Donna wondered if she might have gone too far, something which did not often occur to her.
"OK, OK. I'm sorry." The words came out reluctantly, almost sarcastically but not quite, and she quickly looked away from Jack, just catching a glimpse of the soft, open expression of surprise on his face before deliberately staring in the opposite direction. Martha was also watching, but Donna was careful not to meet her eyes. She got the feeling that Martha noticed a lot more than she was letting on.
"S'alright," Jack said, shrugging a little with his hands in his pockets. The look of hurt on his face has disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, and yet again he looked mischievous and cocky, just like always. Donna wondered if it was that air of carelessness that had lured all of those girls and boys to him, only to have their hearts broken. Not that he was having that effect on her at all. Of course not.
She shuffled her feet a bit, telling herself her trainers were too tight in order to account for the action. She wasn't going to admit, even to herself, that the presence of this ridiculous boy might be influencing her. "So, what's your story then?"
"Don't have one." He replied almost instantly, not even bothering to consider his answer before it was already out in the open air. Donna raised an eyebrow (a useful skill that she had honed over the years in order to give the best possible air of disbelief) and folded her arms.
"Don't believe that for a second."
"Well if we're sharing stories then why don't you go first?" Jack countered immediately. Donna knew she wasn't the brightest person in the universe – at least, not while the Doctor was around – but she was smart enough to know a deflection when she saw one. She filed it away to be contemplated later, before turning to Martha, who had been listening the entire time.
"What about you, Martha? What's your story?"
"Why do I have to have a story?" Martha looked Donna straight in the eyes, and Donna found her gaze to be slightly disconcerting. It was too open, too penetrating and, most of all, too knowing. "If I'm going to have a story then it probably hasn't started yet. This bit's just the prologue, the first chapter'll begin once I'm out of this place." She gestured to the shelves of books surrounding them, though she might've been was referring to the school, or possibly the entire city. Either way, Martha Jones was destined for great things. Donna could just tell – the calm but utterly charming exterior covered an inside that was bursting with strength and potential. Donna wondered how she had never seen it before, how she could have walked past this girl in the corridor and not felt the aura of quiet confidence and composure that radiated off her like heat.
Pulling her eyes away from Martha to glance at Jack, Donna saw that he had met with the same realisation that she herself just had. That Martha Jones was far from normal. That they had misjudged her.
Donna wondered whether she had misjudged all the others too, though of course she already knew the answer.