Informed Consent

by wandererinthefourthdimension

In one timeline, a blunder on the Torchwood team results in a sex-addicted gas creature possessing an innocent human woman and wreaking deadly, smutty havoc on Cardiff. In another timeline, the TARDIS lands right in the path of the gas, just in time to scare the human woman off. Martha opens the door. The Doctor, as per usual, doesn't pay enough attention.

7. Chapter 7

Four lefts and a right wound itself into a maddening labyrinth.

The TARDIS won't let you get lost, my foot.

The walk eroded every last iota of half-baked courage she'd spent several minutes in her bedroom fighting to delude herself into. With every new turn and dip in the shifting maze, she felt her pulse gallop a little faster, felt her stomach churn in a fresh, quivery wave of ever-renewing nausea.

The panic attacks had come and gone – an unexpected treat, they'd been.

There was an interlude in her bedroom: spent pacing in progressively smaller circles, frantically, stupidly texting her sister the horrific particulars of her current situation, begging for advice. Receiving no response – and realising it was linearly the middle of the night – had only served to make things worse.

Then there was a conniption and a half on the subject of interspecies mating, unprotected sex with an extra-terrestrial, which led her on a mad dash to the infirmary, trying not to utterly wreck the shelves in her frantic hunt for a condom.

A heart attack or two was had on the idea of him seeing her even partially naked; she flew back to her bedroom, almost in tears over the fact that she had not had access to a razor for as long as she'd been travelling with him. She'd pulled down her shorts, contemplating the merit of shattering a drinking glass and using the shards to trim her body hair – had a brief waking nightmare of slitting her own femoral artery and having to explain to him why exactly she'd be dead in the next thirty seconds – and then, berating herself for being such a hysterical mess, she had climbed back into her clothing, forcing herself to breathe.

She'd pulled the scrunchie from her hair, shook it out to feel a little more feminine – telling herself he'd liked the curls – then she'd cursed, called herself a series of pejorative names, yanked her hair right back into a ponytail. She'd followed that particular abuse with an extra protective layer, covering her arms with her cardigan in a moment of deep self-consciousness – had she really gone into the galley like this? These shorts bared an awful lot more leg than she realised…

Then she'd wondered what the hell she was doing, standing in a mirror and staring at her kneecaps like an imbecile while her life was at stake.

She found her nerve, through a heavy dose of fear, and marched out of her bedroom with wobbling resolve.

The half-mile afforded her just enough time to lose all of it, and work herself into a good, proper meltdown.

When endless corridors finally yielded, she came upon, as promised, an opened door.

It was where her courage failed her: limbs turning to stone at the sight.

She stopped well short of the doorway; freezing and inhaling softly at the dimly-lit depths beyond. Even just the glimpse inside sent her heart reeling in her chest, beating hard enough to feel in the back of her throat.

Her back thumped against the corridor wall as she backed into it, hands pressing over her mouth.

I can't do this, I can't go in there, I can't…

Martha breathed deeply, unsteadily, and pulled her palms down her face, clutching them together tight beneath her chin. She stared down at her own interlocked fingers, trying to calm the mad pound of her heart, letting her eyes trace the joints in her hands.

Scaphoid, lunate, triquetal. Pisiform.

To say that their discussion in the galley had been a nightmare didn't quite do it justice; Martha's nightmares were never quite that objectionable. The Doctor had approached their dilemma with startling, borderline disturbing calm. He had laid out the facts objectively; spoke of their only solution in blunt, clinical terms. It had all felt so matter-of-fact and antiseptic she reckoned he'd stopped just short of handing her a leaflet and a waiver, clicking a pen in her face.

He had seemed perfectly unfazed by the realities of his plan. As though he were so far removed from perceiving her as anything beyond reliable old platonic Martha, that the idea of sex with her… it didn't even register. She was nothing to him but a jolly good mate – one he wasn't particularly keen on seeing dead. One he would do just about anything to save. Because he cared about her, because he felt a sense of responsibility to protect her, because he was a chronic, inherent do-gooder who just couldn't abandon a friend in peril.

Because of a million reasons other than the only one that actually mattered. The one that was battering her from all sides at the moment: scrambling her mind, her body, her spirit.

She loved him.

Something we'll have to navigate, he'd said offhandedly.

Like her deepest, darkest, most viscerally intimate feelings were a bloody pothole. A passing inconvenience.

Her throat tightened, and she struggled to swallow past the leaden lump. Struggled to cast off the fright that clawed up her insides, the odd brewing of thrill-tinged dread that pumped in her blood. The terrible anticipation shortening her breath, so intense that her body seemed to ache with it – anticipation made all the worse by the fact that Martha didn't entirely know what it was she was even anticipating.

Would he touch her?

Would he even look at her?

And would it be better in the long run, if he didn't? If he treated it with total detachment – approached it as a medical intervention? Or would that just be dehumanising, when it was all said and done? Would it just hurt more?

She couldn't survive this. Couldn't breathe, couldn't look him in the eye, couldn't—

Carpal bones – proximal row.

Trapezium, trapezoid, capitate…

"Oh," said the Doctor's voice – rather abruptly coinciding with the tall, swift-moving thing in her peripheral that nearly trampled over her.

Caught.

Fuck.

"There you are," he said.

Martha looked up at him. Wide brown eyes, hair scratched into a frenzy. The faintest bit of five o'clock shadow, dashed across the angular jaw. Standing far too close entirely, close enough to make her heartrate skyrocket.

She wanted to reach out and touch him. She wanted a thousand metre buffer between them.

She was so undeniably fucked.

"Here I am," she managed. "Sorry."

And what followed was just about the weakest stalling tactic she could've concocted. But he was merciful – went along with the condom ruse. Got his jacket, commanded her not to wander off, and disappeared down the corridor in a few brief strides.

Left her staring after him, leaning in the doorway of his bedroom.

Several long seconds after he was out of sight, she turned her head and looked inside properly.

Her insides flipped like she was on a rollercoaster.

The room appeared more or less as she had always pictured. Dark. Messy, naturally: clutter perilously crawling the walls, the towering, systematic chaos of an untraditional mind. It looked more like a place of long-neglected academia, than any kind of sleeping chamber.

But amid the tomes and half-cobbled inventions and lofty gloom: it was impossible to miss. A rather gothic and looming Victorian bedframe, raised upon a platform. Shoved in the middle of a wall between two globular steampunk sconces, the rich cast from their amber filaments playing across the deep wrinkles in the sheet.

The only light, she realised, in the entire room. Draping the whole place in a kind of subtle, late-night shadow; warming it like candlelight or sunset. Highlighting – intentionally or otherwise – the bed.

The Doctor's bed.

Her brain all but glitched over the sight.

This was really happening.

For several seconds, she just malfunctioned there in the doorway, motionless, staring blankly – her flight instinct risen to a dull roar.

His mussed bedsheets, lighting so low it verged on romantic, all waiting inside a gulf of cold, consuming, pin-drop quiet…

Oh, she was in for it.

Suddenly, she was regretting finding her nerve; regretting the abrupt surge of mettle that had carried her to this spot. Cursing her survival instincts for pushing her to act. Wishing she'd at least had the foresight to go back in the galley and scrounge up something vaguely alcoholic, to take the terrifying edge of lucidity off. Because right now she was unacceptably sober.

Her only saving grace, temporary a comfort though it was: the occupant of the room had taken a detour. Though, even in his physical absence, his presence remained all too palpable, and could still be keenly felt. The air inside was cold, and smelled to Martha exactly like the crook of his shoulder when they hugged. Or the smooth, subtle fragrance of the mousse he heaped in his hair. Like almonds and camphor. Tangled all up in the velvety odour of the wooden bookshelves, the soft, sweet musk of a thousand timeworn pages.

She stifled a shiver, and took her first step in, breathing deeply and biting her lip.

It felt wrong. Wrong all over, so wrong it clung to her skin and roiled her gut. Just being here, breathing his air, her gaze touching all of his things – it felt unearned. Almost sacrilegious. Felt like she was intruding upon a temple or a tomb, trespassing in a holy place. The inner sanctum of a Time Lord – his most private, intimate space. Where he did his sleeping, his dressing, his brooding: all of his most private, intimate things.

The thought alone gave her a guilty frisson. A fresh, heart-racing swell of fear.

She was beginning to wish she'd settled for the pool.

About a billion ways, she had dreamt of finding herself here. Yet never like this. Never as matter of urgency, of necessity. Both of them unwilling participants, in a coupling that was to be nothing more than a means to an end. Under this light, in this room, on that bed…

Martha pressed her hands to her middle to steady herself, closing her eyes and taking a deep, harshly centring breath – gripping at her stomach like she could squeeze the entity from within.

"I hope you're bloody happy," she growled to it under her breath.

It was a strange and disorienting dichotomy: the deep-rooted fear sloshing through her veins, pitted against the shameful, kneejerk flutterings between her thighs. The rational, logical centres of her brain that screamed no – at precisely the same volume as the primal, humiliating, all too human regions that were crying yes. There was the part of her that wanted to shut down, disassociate, melt through the floor at the spiralling, terrifying ramifications of sex with the Doctor; existing in stark contention with the part of her that positively shuddered with nerves and pure heat, that threatened to combust at the mere prospect of what was to come.

They were meant to have sex. Real, proper, actual sex.

And it was his idea.

Not because he wanted to engage in such a thing with her, of course. Not because he chose to. Not because he had any interest in her.

But even in the face of those sobering, nauseating realities – Martha couldn't stop her palms from sweating. Couldn't stop the little hot twinges crawling up and down her spine.

How many times had she lay awake at night, dreaming, praying for this very moment? How brutal of an irony was it, that now that she was in it, submersed up to her neck in its imminence and innuendo – all she wanted was to be anywhere else?

It was the old adage, come to life in horrific technicolour: be careful what you wish for. She hadn't. Had let herself long and yearn and lust with impunity. Let herself fall deeper and deeper for a man she had absolutely no business falling for. Let herself love like never before in her life.

And now she was paying the price.

Arms folded tightly, defensively, Martha ventured forward, her bare feet planting tentative on the soft pile of the carpet: creeping into his room as though in fear of setting off a landmine. As she wandered in, she did shiver a bit, feeling inexplicably exposed in only her tank top and drawstring shorts – her flimsy navy cardigan proving useless.

The deep chill that hung inside his bedchamber hardly helped matters; though it did go a long way towards tempering the scandalous heat gathering in her stomach, at the unexpected gut punch that was a Doctor-scented room.

Her gaze wandered, sombrely taking in the space. Him in so many ways – as grand as it was whimsical. Rife with odds and ends being actively worked on, a carpenter's workbench suffocated under tools and wiring; scribbled blueprints and yellow sticky notes-to-self, all written in circular glyphs rather than any language she recognised; a chaotic, ceiling-to-floor scattering of deconstructed genius. On the carpet she saw the detached head of what looked to be, if she wasn't mistaken, a robotic dog of sorts – and found herself repressing a bewildered smile, anxiety briefly forgotten as a ridiculous wave of fondness washed over her. Of course he'd made a robot dog, the bloody loon. Just the sort of preposterous thing he'd cook up in that big, barmy head of his.

Nine hundred and three – and every year of it seemingly sat crammed before her, packed in a room somehow smaller than she'd been expecting. The place was full of bits of him, bits of Earth, bits of time, bits of space: a microcosm of Doctor. The unlaced Converse, kicked messily by the wardrobe. An assortment of ties in varying shades of blue and brown and red, slung along the shoulder of a dusty standing mirror. A tall brass orrery modelling a solar system she didn't recognise, holding a scattering of warm-toned planets in lazy orbit around two symmetric suns: blown glass spheres revolving in slow synchrony as gears clanked and ticked softly, each celestial body arranged in precise alignment upon the antique mechanics.

Gently, absently, Martha reached out and laid her index finger against one of the tiny glass moons, exerting just enough force to stop it spinning.

How many people had been here before her, in the breadth of nine-hundred years?

Had been here because he actually wanted them here – not because he felt some moral obligation to save their lives?

And would he be conjuring those memories? Seeing their faces, hearing their voices, just to get himself… adequately engaged for the whole thing? Just to get there?

Would he think of Rose?

She tensed all over, teeth gritting slightly: flogging herself at once for even thinking it, opening the door down a road far too often travelled.

Part of her knew – it was none of her business. He was saving her life, and it was hardly a time to get jealous over the rather private particulars of how he motivated himself to do so. It wasn't as though he could spare her ego with some well-placed theatrics; for this to work, he had to have a real, genuine orgasm. Get aroused, work himself up good and proper, and then…

She swallowed tightly.

If she didn't excite him – there was nothing for it. He'd have to get there by… other means. Even if it meant pretending she was someone else; even if it killed her. It was a hard, unpleasant reality of their situation. There was no sense in torturing herself over it.

But she just couldn't help it. She was only human; worse, one in desperate, delirious love.

Once she'd dipped her toe into the storm of insecurity, it was too late to turn back. And the notion began to eat at her then, sickly and looming.

It didn't help that he'd given her such a vicious complex over the whole thing. Several million variations upon the prevailing theme of you're not replacing her, you're only a novice, one trip then back home, I'm better off on my own – all of his greatest hits – had taken their inevitable toll on her self-confidence.

Looped in her head over several months, ad infinitum, it was like a physical sickness. Even after being blessed with a key to the TARDIS, a universal-roaming phone – sincere apologies, thinly disguised as frequent flyer's privileges – those words still haunted her, no less cutting than the first time she'd heard them. Being told, reminded as though it were on his daily to-do list, that he did not want her around. That she was nothing but a passenger, disposable, a temporary chum along for the ride.

That she was second-best. For the simple fact that she happened to be someone who was not Rose.

The name he always uttered with such restrained, breath-stayed tensity, like it took effort to push out – like he was almost reluctant to voice it aloud, like it was an incantation too precious to speak. What little he'd divulged of the other girl had been spoken with emotion that was deafeningly profound, an undeniable, near-fragile tenderness; something almost like rage that threatened to crush Martha whole.

And damn it, as much as it killed her – she knew deep down that it was part of the reason she loved him. She loved all of him, and that included his tragedy, his violent grief, his longing for someone else. That cold, bottomless dark that lived behind his eyes, that lingered even when they smiled; like ceaseless night, an eternal vigil for the woman he'd lost. She loved him because he felt so deeply, and would never have fallen for a man who didn't.

But the thought continued to tie her up in knots. She bit her lip hard, and pushed on the glass moon with her fingertip, winding it backwards, making the mechanics click disjointedly as her stomach turned over.

Could she really survive this? Looking into those lovely, lonely eyes, the face she treasured, in the deepest pleasure the corporeal experience had to offer – knowing they felt nothing for her in return? Knowing that it was just a sort of chore for him? Knowing, in her heart of hearts, that behind them he was probably seeing…

"Careful. You'll muck up the tides."

Martha started with a strained gasp, hand snatching away from the orrery as she whirled around.

The Doctor regarded her with a lightly raised brow, a look of mild amusement. He'd entered the room behind her, moving silent on his feet – a white bag dangling off his left wrist.

"Erm," Martha stammered reflexively, clasping her hands in front of her – blushing, chastised, like she'd been caught out touching artefacts in a museum. "Um. Sorry."

He struck a panel on his wall without looking at it – and her entire body turned rigid on the spot, muscles tightening as the door began to slide shut with a distinct hydraulic shuck-shuck-shuck.

It closed out the light from the corridor, sealing behind him with heart-stopping finality: trapping them in together in warm, gloomy dusk.

Click.

"I expect you've been snooping, then," he said. "Sticking your nose where it doesn't belong."

She almost choked over the little breath she drew. "I – no," she blurted. "No, I wouldn't…"

He gave a sidelong smile.

Easy, it said. You're all right.

She wondered if he knew, that she really, really wasn't.

The coat was shrugged off, tossed over the back of a nearby chair; then he popped the button on his jacket, slung it towards the same final resting place.

As he stepped out of his Converse she felt the beginnings of vertigo.

From any other man it would mean nothing – but any relaxation of the full suited, trench-coated, trainer-clad combo was a unique sort of agony for her, and this was about as dressed-down as she'd ever seen him. Standing in his bedroom, in his socks, the uncharacteristically absent blazer allowing her to see the way his shirt tucked into tailored trousers, clinging to that slim waist, disappearing neatly into blue pinstripes as suffocatingly tight as ever.

The shirtsleeves went up, back to his elbows in two purposeful shoves. He loosened his tie with one sideways jerk at the Windsor knot.

Martha could've swallowed her tongue at the gesture.

It felt like a strip tease – felt like he was trying to kill her.

"It's called Pazithi, in case you were wondering."

Her brain took a good long second to process the input. "I… sorry?"

He tipped an eyebrow at the orrery she'd been messing with, indicating the reddish orb that had resumed its steady revolution, now free of her finger. "Pazithi Gallifreya. Second moon of Gallifrey."

He said it so nonchalantly she almost missed the implications of the statement.

But when it hit her, it hit rather hard. Martha looked back to the scale model in surprise, inhaling a bit sharply; eyes snapping to the little orange sphere, winding its way gracefully around.

"Oh," she realised, quite slowly, taking in the array of planets with new curiosity. With a rising, dawning sadness, her brows began to pull down, eyes following the whirling copper moon. Then she said, softer, less tremulous, "It's beautiful."

"Yeah," the Doctor mused distantly, strolling closer. "I suppose it was, yeah."

She glanced back at him, searching for some sign of discomfort, of the walls slamming back shut; but his eyes were open, surprisingly soft, gazing back at her without any hint of forbidding.

"My grandfather used to have one of these," she offered. "Bought it from this antiques shop, put it up in his study. Fancied himself a bit of an astronomer. Always had a thing about space."

"Runs in the family, clearly."

"Oh, I bet he'd have gone mad over the Royal Hope. Me on the moon? He'd not have believed it!" She smiled to herself at the thought, then looked back to the orrery. "Did you make this yourself?"

"Mm. Got bored one night. Had some spare clockwork and paint, thought, what the hell."

It was clearly false – the craftsmanship and meticulous care which had gone into the device before her was obvious. But she only nodded. The ways he chose to memorialise his home were his business.

"And you had… two suns?"

"That I did. Constellation of Kasterborous. Had seventeen suns, strictly speaking. But only two supported any real life to speak of."

"Must've been gorgeous, to see the sun set twice."

He chuckled and tipped his head back a little, shaking it in fond remembrance. "Oh, you haven't lived till you've watched a proper double sunset, Martha Jones. Remind me – I'll take you to see one, soon as we're done here."

Soon as we're done here.

The words threw over her like fresh boiled water; jolting her back to their present predicament with all the delicacy of a cement truck, mid-pour. Reality drenched her, rushing in like quicksand.

"Right," she breathed with effort, swallowing so hard she could hear it. "So, we… we just, erm…"

His eyes didn't move from hers, fixed, concentrated – deep as anything. Everything about his expression was serious, heavily rapt, firm with the kind of breath-stealing resolve she'd only ever seen in the whirlwind of mortal peril.

And he was aiming it at her now. In his bedroom. Not four feet from his bed. Like she was a puzzle to dissect, a bomb to diffuse…

Like he was about to go to work on a problem.

Fuck.

"Yes," the Doctor said, gaze never shifting.

The single syllable landed like a tonne of bricks to her stomach.

Her chest swelled with a deep, quivering inhale, lips pressing thin. "Okay," she breathed, gulping, desperately trying to psych herself up. "Right."

"Here you are." The bag between them rustled as he extended it to her. "Didn't know what sort you wanted, so…"

Martha gingerly accepted the bag, relieved to have something to do with her fidgeting hands, easing apart the plastic handles and looking tentatively inside.

And she wasn't sure which bit of it got to her. Whether it was the most condoms she'd even seen in her life piled inside the bag – the mildly uncertain, furrowed look on the Doctor's face – the red Have a Nice Day! bleeding into the plastic – she didn't know.

But she burst into giggles before she could stop them, clapping a hand over her mouth.

"Oi!" he whined. "All right, don't laugh. I was trying to be thorough!"

Martha couldn't help herself. She nearly dropped the bag, bending double with the force of her laughter.

He huffed a bit and took the bag away as though to protect it from her, stowing it at the foot of the bed. "Well, there's the last time I go buying you any condoms."

"I'm sorry," she giggled helplessly. "It's just – just—"

"Yeah, yeah. Go on, have it out. Try to be helpful, this is the thanks I get."

"No," she grabbed his arm, still giggling, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to laugh, it's just…" She tried to catch her breath, tried to tamp down the burning smile that the sight of about a hundred boxes of condoms had forced onto her cheeks, looking up at him.

Finding him unexpectedly close.

"What?" he said, rather gently, gazing down at her.

"Just a bit… much," she managed, voice falling.

And suddenly, it didn't seem quite so funny anymore.

His hands curled around her biceps – his thumbs brushing gently up and down the mesh of her cardigan.

Martha felt her heart beating in her throat. She didn't move an inch, arms hanging rigid by her sides; eyes wide and fraught.

"You don't need to be nervous, Martha." Everything about him seemed overwhelmingly earnest, from those dark brown eyes to the unusual reassuring soft of his tone. "It's just me, yeah? Same old Doctor."

"You do know," she breathed, voice strained, "that's sort of the problem, don't you?"

The Doctor's eyebrows knitted, bunching at what was clearly a new consideration.

"Ah," he said, slowly. "Right." He looked around, seemingly in thought. "Intimidating?"

"Just a bit," she admitted, croaking.

"Normally, I'd say just imagine everybody in their pants, but in this context…" He clicked his tongue, drew a breath through his teeth. "Well."

She gave a weak scoff, blushing.

"I won't tell you there's nothing to be afraid of, Martha, because, well… it's a big, dark universe out there. And it's all in flux. We could come under fire and be cast from the Vortex, lost to the Void, entombed in a corrupted dimension. Drift too close to a black hole; end up in eternal darkness."

Martha stifled a shiver. The Doctor smiled slightly, and ran his hands along her biceps, palms trailing up their backs – gooseflesh rising instant under his touch, as he stroked her arms almost absently.

"But this, here?" There was amusement in his eyes he gazed down at her. "I think we'll be all right, you and me."

There was a way to put it in perspective, certainly. Though, practically, in the heat of the moment, perspective did little to assuage her distress. Especially not when he was talking in that low, lulling tone, looking at her like that…

"We'll start slow," he said. "Work our way up to it."

"Okay," she stammered. That seemed sensible enough…

"And I won't do anything you don't ask me to."

All the oxygen in her lungs took that moment to promptly go to smoke, escaping her in a kind of punched-in-the-chest rattle.

"Wha…" Her eyes widened impossibly, mouth dropping open; heart palpitating, positively leaping in her chest. "What?"

She had to be misunderstanding him, twisting his words to…

"It's all up to you," the Doctor said calmly. "You're completely in control here. Whatever you're comfortable with, then that's what we'll…"

"No!"

He blinked – and gave her the first bit of reaction that wasn't cool and unreadable. His brows pulled together in a startled furrow, eyes narrowing.

"No?" he repeated, head jerking forward as though to hear her better.

"That's… just…" She was grasping at the air before in disbelief, face scrunching, almost unable to find words in her dismay. "What, you think I'm just going to give you… stage directions? Order you around like you're some sort of, of…"

He seemed genuinely perplexed by the pushback. "I reckoned it'd be easier that way," he said, frowning.

"For who?" she almost cried.

"I thought it'd make you less uncomfortable. For you to dictate… you know, the proceedings."

"There isn't anything in the universe that could make me more uncomfortable than that!"

His brow went up a bit dubiously – but fortunately, whatever off-topic, otherworldly horror had popped into his brain, he kept to himself. "I see."

"It's already bad enough that I'm forcing you to do this," Martha pushed out, voice rising, hands gesticulating a bit too forcefully. "The last thing I want is to—"

"How do you mean, forcing?" the Doctor cut in, squinting at her in bafflement.

"I… I got possessed. By sex gas."

"That's hardly your fault, is it?" he said. "Could've been anyone in its path. Could've been me, fancy that. Me, hemming up some poor bloke in a nightclub toilet. Now there's a visual if I ever…"

"Doctor, I've put you in this impossible situation. Where you have to help me, by giving me… energy, otherwise I die. Which is taking away any choice you have in the matter, and it's… rubbish. And I'm sorry that I'm putting you through this, that I'm—"

"Martha," he interrupted sternly. Which ordinarily wouldn't have been enough to stop her once she got going and properly worked up – but he punctuated it by stepping forward and grasping her firmer by the shoulders, towering over her.

Her mouth snapped shut at once, voice dying on an inhale.

"Are you listening to yourself?" he asked, sounding a bit exasperated. "I mean, really?"

She couldn't quite find her voice, staring up at him through rounded eyes.

"Let me say this once." His brows went up pointedly. "You aren't forcing me to do anything. All right? Barring the universe-ending stuff – I can honestly say I can't think of a single thing I wouldn't do to save your life. You name it. Run through fire. Jump into the vacuum of space. Regenerate. Die. Get possessed by a mad, bloodthirsty sun – remember that one?"

She nodded vaguely, biting the corner of her lip.

"I did that for you. I didn't even have to think about it. And I would do it again, in a heartbeat, if necessary. It's not a sacrifice, or an obligation, or some burden I have to live with, keeping you safe. You're my friend. You're my companion." He searched her eyes, almost with a sort of frustrated fondness; hands tightening on her arms like he wanted to shake sense into her. "D'you think those are just words I casually throw around? Did you miss the bit where I gave you a key to the only thing in the universe I own?"

"You wouldn't have. You took me home," she all but whispered. "And if you'd have left me there, if I hadn't nagged you into…"

"You didn't nag. You asked, and I said yes. And as for taking you home, Martha – blimey. Lasted about four full seconds without you, or don't you remember?"

"You only came back because my television…"

"There was nothing stopping me from going to Lazarus's gala on my own, sneaking in, altering the guest list, cloak-and-daggering my way about with the psychic paper like I always do. I came back for you because I want you with me. And if I would take an entire blooming sun into my body for you…" He sighed a bit incredulously, eyes wide and imploring. "Pardon my English, but you cannot sincerely believe I'm going to be put off by something as painless as a shag."

She flushed right to her toes at hearing him say the word, breath stumbling – flustered within an inch of her life. "Well, I hadn't… thought about it like that, but…"

"But what?"

Her expression was nothing short of despairing. "It's one thing for me, because you know how I… feel. But you – you don't want this. You don't want…" Her voice went strangled, choking off just short of the word.

Me.

The silence fell like an anvil. She gave up on all attempts to hold his gaze, then, gripping at her own elbows, hugging herself protectively and staring at his feet.

"Really?" said the Doctor, quite blunt.

Her head launched back up to his.

"Is – that what you're worried about?" he asked, grinning now, eyes crinkling at the corners. "I mean. Seriously?"

She felt herself growing warm everywhere – embarrassed by her own insecurity, how adolescent it all sounded now that she'd said it aloud. But then, she had never quite found herself in a situation like this before. Expected to have sex with a man who'd never given any indication he was remotely attracted to her.

"Well," Martha protested, ears hot, "it's not like you ever say."

"Don't be ridiculous," he chided. "You're brilliant. I say so all the time."

"Brilliant's just my brain," she managed, voice small, cheeks burning.

"Your brain's the most important bit. The only important bit, quite frankly… and I think it's magnificent, for the record."

"Thanks," she half-whispered.

"Although, that isn't to say I'm not… conscious of the rest of you, Martha."

Her lips dropped open a little, eyes locking on his: breath stopping altogether.

The Doctor smiled very slightly at her earnest, fawn-in-headlights surprise.

"Not that I should be, mind," he mused, as he trailed his fingertips up her arms. "Supposed to be above it. Purely cerebral creatures, Time Lords – in theory, anyway. An exile-worthy offence, fraternising with lower species."

"Oh." Her voice cracked on the syllable.

"Always been something of a rebel, though, I'm afraid." There was a bit of gentle mischief in his eye. "You'll have to forgive me."

Her whole body felt flushed. "You never let on." It came out rather breathless.

"Pfff, you hardly need me to wax poetic on your charms. As I recall, our good friend William's more than covered our bases. All those cheeky sonnets…" He bounced his eyebrows, shook his head in a what-can-you-do sort of way. "Reckon you made a hell of an impression. Inspired him good and proper. Actually, might need to have a little chat with him about some of the ruder ones, because if you ask me there's a fine line—"

"All right, come off it. You don't know he wrote those about me."

His brow went up in a fashion that, to her alarm, seemed to stoically accept a challenge.

"Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black," he intoned softly, gaze intent on hers, "her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem…"

And the timbre of his voice – fuck, she couldn't breathe.

"At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack, sland'ring creation with a false esteem: yet so they mourn becoming of their woe, that every tongue says beauty should look so."

The recitation melted down her spine, thudded right between her legs; soaked her knickers so obscenely her face began to burn.

She. Was. Fucked.

"Shall I go on?" questioned the Doctor. "Cause there's—"

"No," Martha breathed, a bit too urgently. "I've… got it, thanks. Point well taken."

He smirked a little, and she'd never felt so obvious in her life. So exposed, so visible, so helplessly vulnerable, standing there like a hostage, terrified of betraying how deeply he was affecting her. There was, of course, no hiding it: not in this proximity, and certainly not from him. A blind man at twenty paces could've picked up on how aroused she'd become; to a Time Lord it must've been a bloody floodlight against his senses. She was throbbing from the navel down, her breath coming in audible, erratic little wisps – thighs clamped tightly together as heat spread and seeped wet between them. The thrill was so violent she could scarcely hold still, every drop of self-control dedicated to maintaining eye contact.

"Martha?"

"Y-yes," she panted.

"You're shaking," he observed, quite gently.

"It's… freezing in here."

"Is it? Sorry." He glanced to the ceiling. "Should warm up in a minute."

His attention returned to her, and landed squarely. Roaming her face, tracing from her wide, dilated eyes, to the faint tinge of blood deepening her continuously-blushing cheeks; all the way down to where her lips wouldn't quite close, hung ever so slightly ajar.

It was where his stare stilled, focussed – and sapped every last bit of calm she had left in her.

And she found that the Doctor looked different, up this close. Every fine line, every delicate eyelash, every pore and follicle and individual hair of his sideburns. The hint of stubble she seldom saw, the glorious unruliness of those eyebrows in high definition. She never really noticed his freckles – but there they were, looking down on her in clear relief, at his cheeks and nose and the corners of his eyes. Eyes that seemed duskier, deeper; more piercing than she'd ever seen.

Eyes that were latched dark onto her mouth.

"I'm going to kiss you, now," he said, rather softly. "That all right?"

A tiny breath strained from her lungs, the little involuntary exhale strangling out as her limbs stiffened.

"Nothing we haven't done before, eh?" He smiled faintly, quirked an eyebrow – imperceptibly moving closer.

Her heart was drumming hard enough to ache. Her tongue darted out to moisten her dry lips, and his gaze curiously tracked the nervous reflex, and fuck, she was losing her mind.

"We – we don't need to," was what her mouth blurted, stiltedly – brain running now on emergency power as the Doctor leant down toward her.

"Well. No," he agreed, thoughtful. He gave her ample time to draw away, to change her mind and turn her head. She could do neither; panting, transfixed, knees locked as she watched that familiar face loom closer. "But we don't need candy floss or steamboats or violin music either… and yet we're all the better for them, wouldn't you say?"

It felt like a test she hadn't studied for, presented to her at a university she didn't attend, on a planet she'd never lived.

"Yes…?" she whispered, befuddled, almost afraid to answer.

"Well, there we are then."

Closer, and closer, until his features blurred, closer, until he was just a suggestion of dark eyes and parted lips…

"Just say the word, and I'll stop," he murmured, the words tickling warm at her mouth, "if at any point you feel—"

She couldn't control the impulse, couldn't even begin to stop herself – utterly undone by the suspense, the world-stopping temptation of his breath on her skin.

Martha pushed up on her toes, gasping subtly, lips tilting desperate into his.

"Mm," replied the Doctor warmly – evidently in encouragement of the initiative she'd shown. He hummed against her lips, a four syllable praise to the tune of a daft little, that's the spirit.

And they were right there, in a surreal instant. Pressing deep, so close she could feel the soft exhalation that wafted out his nose, lips locked gently: slipping into their first kiss since the ruse on the Moon.

In a way, this was just a different sort of ruse, a different kind of peril they were working to escape – just another genetic transfer, another scheme that meant nothing.

The thought crushed her, even as it drove her closer to him, as though she could escape its truth. She felt his hands slip from her biceps; was hyperaware of his arms encircling her, drawing her in, pulling her into his inexorable orbit. There was a little sound caught in her throat as his body pressed to hers, their fronts meeting flush: hurtling her into sensory overload.

He felt firm and present and cool, unusually accessible in only his trousers and Oxford – and from the outset, this was quite clearly like no hug he had ever given her. Hugs with the Doctor were always whimsical, squeezy affairs, and entirely waist-up; much like an overly friendly aunt at a family gathering.

There was no whimsy whatsoever in this. It was a full-body annihilation. The angular, bony pressure of his hipbones on her stomach, the involuntary push of her breasts against his well-starched shirt: the way clothes slid and shifted, inciting tension, stirring static cling. His scent was everywhere, drifting pungent on his faint body heat, clinging to his person, washing over her in such unbearable concentration she wanted to dissolve.

Then his hands started to move. Stroking down between her shoulder blades to the small of her back, caressing her through her cardigan in a way they never had – sending fierce, flittering jolts up her rigid spine as the throbbing in her knickers turned constant, and oh God, this was really happening.

Her lips slipped off his for a heavy pause, shallow exhales punctuating the separation. Then – after a breathless, wavering heartbeat – she pressed back up. Kissed him again, trembling. Repeated that cycle three times over, as though she couldn't help herself, as though they were magnetic, kissing longer, bolder, lips clinging with feverish, soft suction.

And then he tilted her head back, abruptly taking her face in both his hands, and went at her mouth from a deeper angle.

"Mmm…" The moan slipped out of its own accord, pushed from her chest on a shiver, dragged out her throat as though forcibly exorcised. She couldn't force it down. Couldn't do a thing to stop it, to impede its escape. It was soft and blunt and helplessly beseeching, a short, whimpering sound of utter sex; a noise she had never produced in the presence of another person.

Then there was a warm wet sliding at the seam of her lips, a prodding, a questing. Martha's jaw unhinged in shock; which was rather by design, it seemed, as the Doctor then took it upon himself to decadently guide his tongue into her panting mouth, pressing it inside with a deep, controlled sigh.

She fancied she saw sparks behind her eyelids, as her limbic system short-circuited.

She was moaning again. Whining, nearly, eyes shut tight as she grabbed hold of his wrists and clung to them, as he kissed her languorously, gorgeously insistent, all slow sucking, licking, pushing, his exhales barely-there as his tongue dragged at hers. Sparking a thrilling, wet, ripplingly southbound rush of sensation inside her, every time it did. He held her head in place and probed her mouth like he intended to make a map, like he was memorising her for a later date.

It felt so forbidden, so good that all the tension was melting out of her, as her full body went to pure liquid. At which point coherent thought eluded Martha, and she no longer had the dedicated processing power to concern herself with as trivial a thing as self-consciousness.

And to compare this to the genetic transfer – now it felt like borderline heresy.

They broke apart when she drew a deep, ragged gasp: remembering, a bit delirious, that breathing was still a requirement.

Her mouth hung open, lips glistening and well-snogged – staring up at him in disbelief as her chest heaved hard. Her soul felt rattled in place, her core wholly throbbing with the depth of her arousal: gone so slick and burning her knickers were verging on ruined.

In one kiss – he'd easily given her the most intense sexual experience of her life. Kissed her so ragged she could barely stand.

She tried to shift her weight between feet, only for both knees to categorically refuse to hold it.

"Steady on." The warm tenor arrived deeper than normal as the Doctor's arms tightened around her; holding her upright against him without even a hint of effort, before she could lose her balance. "Careful. All right?"

"Uh… huh," she breathed, blinking indolently, not quite up to speech yet.

She'd had full orgasms less compelling than that kiss. Somewhere, she thought, in a tiny bedsit in London – there was a young paediatric endocrinologist who ought to hang his head in shame.

"Why don't we have a seat, eh?"

It wasn't a suggestion, per se; more of a health and safety measure, for her own benefit. He'd guided her around the footboard and to the edge of his bed before she'd recovered enough coherence to fully realise it. He sat on the edge of the mattress, still holding her in his arms.

Martha swallowed thickly – coming alive, a bit startled, to the fact that she was all of a sudden standing between his spread legs.

"Would you like this on?" he asked, running a thumb along the hem of her cardigan. "Off?"

"Er, off is… fine." She still hadn't quite caught her breath.

He eased his fingers under the thin mesh fabric and nudged the garment back. It slid smoothly from her arms, pooling at her heels with a whisper.

His fingers traced from her elbows to shoulders, all the fine hairs on the backs of her bare biceps standing to attention in the wake of his touch. Then his hands migrated to her spine: found their way, a bit smoothly, underneath her vest. Coasting along the warm, trembling flesh – making her jump and shiver hard.

Two years. Regardless of the Doctor's dwarfing three-hundred, it was a long time, for a human. Long enough for all the awful first-time jitters to hit her in full force. Long enough, even, to make her forget how thoroughly overwhelming it was, to have another person touch her bare skin.

Which wasn't even to speak of how annihilating it was, to have that person be the Doctor.

"All right?" he checked, gazing up at her. It was a notch above a murmur.

"Your hands are just a bit – cold," she breathed, twitching as her fingertips roamed her vertebrae. The contact crackled up her spine like fireworks, barely-controlled mini-explosives going off in her synapses.

"Sorry," he said. "Not much I can do about that."

"It's okay." And she bit her lip to keep from saying anything else. Saying anything stupid, like it's you or I don't mind. Forced herself not to focus on how arousing it was, the strangeness, the frigid frissons of discomfort: the inescapable reminder of his identity, of who was touching her at the moment. He wasn't ice cold – he was a very particular kind of thawed cadaver cold. Long out the freezer, brought to room temperature; a touch that only felt glacial, due to the natural human expectation of warmth from flesh.

She'd acclimate. And bloody fast, too, if the way she was aching was any clue.

His fingers strummed the full length of her spinal column, from the nape of her neck to the small of her back; playing her delicately all the way like a harp string.

Then she felt them crawl just an inch under the ruched waistband of her shorts.

Her eyes fluttered shut against the sensation, the notion, breath quivering out roughly.

"Okay?" he said. His voice seemed to come from the fringes of her awareness, now.

"Yes," she whispered.

She felt him touch her knickers, the curvature where her hips flared into her bum; felt him draw his thumb slowly across the arc where lace became flesh. And she was panting now. Undeniably. Her eyes clamped shut as though bracing against an unbearable onslaught; and he was hardly even doing anything.

It was all she could do to cling onto her dignity. To hold in the noise filling her throat, the desperate, shuddering whimper that threatened to escape with every snatched breath. To bite back the feral, overpowering urge to beg.

When his hand rather suddenly found a bold, incredibly solid palmful of her arse cheek, she lost the fight – and every bit of resolve she'd ever had.

There was something so dissolute, so unordered, so unlike him about it. Her head lolled back, utterly involuntarily, a faint moan forcing through her clenched teeth – more than a hint delirious with longing.

Both his hands were in her shorts, now, and the Doctor was kneading gently, exploring her shape through lace knickers. Touching her like he wanted to, like he'd thought about it before.

"You're lovely," she heard his voice say. It prompted her eyes to snap back open, to launch at him.

He smiled sideways, and added, "I don't s'pose I've ever mentioned."

She stammered, breathless, thoroughly overheated. "I… I think you're lovely too."

"Well. Yeah," shrugged the Doctor, with whimsy. "Obviously. Look at me."

Under any other circumstance, she'd have laughed and swatted him for the cheek. Not, however, as his fingers roamed further and further down, slipping away from the distraction of her rear… easing slow, curious, between her thighs.

His index finger stroked light along the hot, sodden crotch of her knickers, front to back.

Her equilibrium went. She jerked hard, eyes squeezing shut, her voice breaking over a low, desperate, near-tormented whine – legs almost giving out as he touched her properly.

The faint stimulation slammed through her in vibrating, incandescent waves, in pleasure so intense it deafened her for a second; rocking her from the backs of her heels to the top of her scalp. It set her whole body shuddering for several long, helpless moments, veritable aftershocks of the contact trembling through her.

One of her knees came down on the edge of his bed as her balance failed her, planting in the plush sheet beside his thigh: her hands flying to his shoulders on reflex, bracing, gripping sharply at the light blue fabric.

When Martha managed to pry her eyes back open, she found the Doctor's gaze fixed attentively on her. Wide and dark and utterly concentrated – watching her with a fascination so intense it bordered on obscene, as he slowly, deliberately moved his finger again.

This time he found the stiff, swollen nub head-on, and pushed at it squarely through the wet lace.

And she was beyond words. Just a high, wordless lament came – a ragged little cry that verged on distress. It ricocheted through her with all the violence of a point-blank shotgun blast.

There was a second finger, then, and the both of them took to pressing up on her clit, urging against it in firm, lulling circles, and fuck.

The little shiver of sound that left her was low, broken, utterly disbelieving. Her hips jerked and her jaw dropped, glazed eyes almost widening in protest.

Her supporting leg went to rubber next, and her other knee came down near his hip, bum landing on his thighs as she all but collapsed into straddling him. The throbbing went nuclear between her thighs, radiating up into her stomach, aching right through her nipples – quivering all the way to her fingertips. She couldn't stop trembling. Couldn't stop the disoriented little half-noises falling past her lips as her body quaked, as her spine started to tighten, as her skin flushed hotter and hotter.

In a matter of seconds, she'd lost all semblance of composure. Coiled, burning, positively crackling with need. So soaked it was shameful, the pretty pink lace knickers he was stroking drenched to a deepening fuchsia at her centre. Having stewed in her yearning and rejection for so long, Martha was volatile, dangerously pressurised – liable to burst at any second.

And some part of her felt that she ought to at least have the good sense to be a little ashamed of being so totally, sinfully easy for him, so wanton and hot and ripe for it after a single kiss and the gentlest of touching. But then her brain grappled with the gutting reality that the Doctor was fingering her – and that part of her that said, "Have a bit of self-respect; at least pretend you aren't desperate," ceased to exist in short order.

He stroked her in slow, fluent rhythm, pressing on her nerves in a gesture that seemed to beckon, here, up towards her navel. The sensation was all-consuming, singularly devastating; so overwhelming she barely noticed her knickers being pushed to the side, bunched up in the crease between her thigh and groin.

What she did notice, unequivocally, was the stark revelation of flesh on flesh. His middle and ring finger pushing up inside her, all the way. Disappearing to the very last knuckle.

And he wasn't human, but there they were – proximal, middle, distal.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Her breath tore out in a high, unsteady burst: some suffocated supplication so far removed from English there was no hope of even the TARDIS translating it, her mind lost to full-scale disorder.

"Oh, there we are," murmured the Doctor, pressing slow along her walls – long digits sliding indolently in the tight, quivering wet. "Reckon that's all for me, then."

What little bit of Martha remained sentient fairly blacked out at the words.

"Yes, y-yes…" It shuddered out of her half-mindless, her body twisting for something unseen, lapsing into a writhe on his lap. Just you. Only ever you. Fuck.

"Good," he lilted. Forefinger deeply aswirl at her clit, the other two curling in and out, moving in soft, soaked, experimental thrusts. Metacarpal bones extending in three distinct phalanges. So deep inside her she could've wept.

The Doctor's hand, between her legs, pleasuring her to the edge of sanity.

Martha was inconsolable. She'd lost all hold on language, on time and space and matter. Inarticulate noises slurred out of her, hiccupping gasps and croaks and whimpers that seemed to rip from the bottom of her stomach. Her brain was gone to a chemical bombardment, a red-hot miasma of serotonin and beta-endorphins: information scattered, awareness blurred and narrow, her perception distorted to quivering tunnel-vision. There was nothing but the pressure of his fingers, stroking into her aching centre, the high-voltage throbbing right up her brain stem, the sinful wet sounds he was wringing from the inside of her shorts.

The gentle, wandering thrusts grew tighter, more focussed, his fingertips hitting inside her with rhythmic precision. She dug her nails into his shoulders. Jolted, over and over, violenter each time, as though she was being cattle-prodded, ecstasy shocking through her again and again. Until she whined so hard she couldn't draw air and ground down into his touch with all the strength she possessed – shivering, shuddering, very nearly imploding on the spot.

Her thighs clamped hard around his hand, her mouth falling slack, eyes glossing over completely as she shook through the fiercest, fastest orgasm of her life. Gripping hard and sudden at his fingers from within, seizing around them, little fits of hot breath heaving past her hanging lips as she squeezed over and over in deep, desperate contractions.

As white-hot light rose behind her eyes and all of her went to superheated liquid, very, very distantly, she was aware of the Doctor's voice, mumbling lowly, encouraging, "There you go, that's it…"

Which, if anything, only made her come harder: thrown into spasms of hot, clenching, faith-shaking euphoria, so powerful it throttled the very thoughts from her mind. It was a whole different kind of possession. A veritable cataclysm in her body, months of want and longing and love finally, finally brimming over.

When her lucidity reconstituted, she found him regarding her with unprecedented intensity.

"Okay?" he said, a second time, eyes searching hers.

It took her a moment to remember how to move her tongue about and form syllables. "Mmmm," she groaned softly, sluggishly releasing the death-grip she'd taken on his shoulders. She felt stupefied – almost hungover, as he took his hands out of her shorts.

Martha's breathing caught, eyes widening as he pulled one arm from around her and lifted his hand towards his face – the intent of the motion stunning her.

The Doctor paused at her little gasp. Looked at her for a moment, seeming to consider.

"Do you mind?" he asked, unusually politely. Sleeve rolled up, fingers gleaming with her arousal, hovering not an inch from his mouth.

"Uhm," she breathed, eyes wide. "No."

"Right, good." And he stuck his fingers in his mouth, promptly, casually licking them clean – as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

Which wasn't necessarily the astonishing bit. He'd a terrible habit of tasting things he shouldn't – it unfortunately seemed to be a preferred method of 'analysis' for him, and she was always telling him he was going to get an incurable infection, sticking mysterious, often organic materials in his mouth the way he did. He always ignored the counsel, and would carry on licking whatever grotty unidentified substance they'd run across (putting her off the idea of kissing him for at least a full week, after each such incident).

The tasting wasn't the shock. It was the deep, appreciative, "Hmm," that resonated in his chest. Precisely the same sound he made when he was licking the butterknife clean at breakfast (still unmoved by her protests that it was savage and something no properly housebroken person did), lapping up whichever spread had gone on their toast.

She stared, panting softly, not quite certain she was conscious. Watching him mouth at his fingers with a decided satisfaction, sucking her fluids from his skin – holding her eye all the while.

He took his digits out his mouth with a wet, lingering pull.

"Lovely," he pronounced.

Martha had the very distant, almost ethereal realisation at that moment: oh, right, I'm going to hell.

And she wasn't the only one. Right about then, she came around to a decided firmness pressing into the back of her thigh.

She felt completely incredulous at the sensation, and looked down between them fuzzily, her face registering earnest shock.

He wanted her.

Not as a companion, not as a shield to boredom and loneliness, not now – but in the base, familiar, human way that a man could want a woman.

The very idea seemed surreal. Positively ludicrous, in fact.

Vaguely dazed, feeling as if nothing around her were truly tangible anymore, Martha shifted her hips forward tentatively, angling herself forward on his lap.

The Doctor tensed and his nostrils flared. The ridge digging into her softness twitched, swelled harder.

It was real. It couldn't be happening – and yet it was.

At the astonishment on her features, he gave another quirk of his eyebrow. A little shadow of a smirk that seemed patiently amused. "All right?"

It was a blessing she couldn't process much, at the moment. Had Martha been able to in any way contextualise that she'd just been asked, by the Doctor, if his getting hard against her was all right, she'd likely have started smoking at the ears from the trauma of it.

She merely nodded – still so deliciously high on endorphins she felt like she was living in slow motion. Then she sat back a bit, balanced on his knees, eyes fully dilated. "Can I…"

"What?"

She felt warmth in her cheeks. "Can I touch?"

"Course," he said, and smiled a bit goofily. "Sort of the point, isn't it?"

Her hand was more than slightly unsteady as it drifted down the front of his dress shirt, her fingertips bumping over the still-fastened buttons. When she reached his waistband she hesitated, licking her lips, gently brushing her fingers along the edge of pinstripes.

There was a considerable tent in the front of the trousers: the tight blue fabric bent around a full erection, jutted along the seam. She knew from months of studious lusting that he'd never been particularly slack in this department, but to behold such a strainingly obvious bulge inside the bespoke tailoring, the actual contours of him – it melted her inside-out.

It was hard, ostensibly, for her. In response to her, desire for her. It wasn't impossible that he'd been imagining someone else while touching her, of course… but she felt it was unlikely. She also wasn't entirely sure she cared so much anymore, actually in the moment with him.

She reached forward and, holding her breath, stroked it through his trousers.

Under the fabric was a jerk, instantly: a reflexive twitch at just the nervous, gentle wisp of her fingertips.

Martha raised her eyes, and found the Doctor watching her fixedly. His eyes were half open – darker than sin beneath the lashes.

She touched him again, rubbing a bit this time. Felt a sensation like someone had set off sparklers in her stomach when his jaw tightened visibly and he shifted his posture.

"Is this all right?" she breathed, tracing her fingers over the firm line of his shaft.

His groan was so soft it made prickles rush over her skin.

The sound of his voice rumbling that way made everything inside her tighten, and she groaned back, just as gentle, grasping him through the snug fabric as best she could, rubbing the hardness against the inside of her hand and massaging him through the cloth. Air hissed thinly through his teeth and she felt his cock rise further in his trousers.

On a rush of sudden boldness, she unhooked his button and dragged the zip down. A pair of plain burgundy underpants greeted her beyond – and he really colour-coordinated his pants with his tie and trainers, bless.

The silhouette of his cock was clear through the stretchy elastic, all of him compressed, right down to a damp, darkened smear on the maroon where his head was leaking. She felt a rush in her blood at the sight.

The first thought she had, blunt and rather crude in its sincerity: she wanted him in her mouth. Such was the intensity of the urge that she actually had to swallow, felt herself salivating instinctually, like some twisted Pavlovian response to the sight of him, like someone was ringing a bell inside her head.

But – this wasn't exactly a recreational shag. And she'd no idea what he'd do if she got to her knees on the carpet and tried such a thing on him. She imagined he might actually stop her, remind her what the point of their present activities was. Which would be so devastating there'd be little sense in trying to save her life afterward, as annihilated as she'd be by the reminder.

So Martha stowed her rather untoward impulses, and instead preoccupied herself with pulling his pants down in the front.

He was as human here as everywhere else. A dark, thick shock of curls – then, all at once, there was his cock, heavy and flushed and maddeningly gorgeous (because of course it bloody was), arching up from the tangle toward his shirttails. His breath picked up a hint as she bared him to the open air.

She leant precariously on his lap, wobbling a little, and grasped the bag of condoms, dragging it over from the foot of the bed. She plunged a hand inside and pulled out a box at random, tearing it open. Foil packets flowed from within, and she ripped one off, trying to grip it properly with her thumbnail to open the bleeding thing – she'd always been rubbish at this.

Martha swore mildly at the packaging. The Doctor took it from her and deftly peeled it open in one go. "Which kind is this?" he asked.

"I don't know." She grabbed the condom, gave it a quick once-over. "Does it matter?"

"Not in the Otesian Cluster, I suppose. But then, some people are into that sort of thing, you know. Not me," he offered. "Just – other people."

She'd no idea what he was on about – which was perfectly normal, all things considered. She reckoned there was no reason why he ought to be any less all over the place during sex than he was ordinarily.

Carefully, tongue pressed between her lips, she reached between them and gently stretched the rubber onto his tip – feeling his posture stiffen at the first contact.

He hissed a long breath through his teeth, hips flexing, entire body tensing hard as she started to roll it down on him. She smoothed the sheath of the condom all the way down, feeling his cock jerk again in her hands and hearing him grunt a little – trying not to be so delighted by his obvious sensitivity.

"These?" he said curtly, and grasped the waist of her shorts. "Off as well?"

He was pulling them down before she'd actually gotten out the, "Yes, off," a definite sort of tense briskness to the tug – as though he were trying not to seem quite as urgent as he was.

Martha was obliged to move her legs for a moment, to turn herself and let the garments tumble to the floor. Half an hour ago she'd nearly fallen to pieces over the prospect of being half-naked in front of him; curious, how a brain-reformatting orgasm could ease a person's self-consciousness.

Grasping her by the waist, the Doctor gathered her back into his lap unceremoniously.

Were she not quite so keyed up, she'd have told herself he was merely impatient to get it over with, fallen into a fresh vat of drowning self-pity. But it was quite clear to her now that his impatience was a product of desire. There was an unmistakeable intensity to his eyes, a tension in his grip as she bestrode his thighs again, knelt on the edge of the bed.

"Ready for it?"

Jesus help her, was he really going to make her answer that? As though he couldn't see her muscles tightened so rigidly they trembled – as though she hadn't been ready for it since the very moment he'd laid eyes on her? Since he'd blessed her with that dark, conspiratorial little wink from a hospital bed; since he'd waltzed up to her on Chancellor Street and took his tie off, with that blasé, charmingly confident, "Like so!"

"Yes." It came out on the softest breath imaginable, just slipping through her teeth.

"Right. Good." He pulled her in closer, up, guiding her a bit higher on her knees. Then he shifted forward and grasped his cock, holding it at the proper angle.

And suddenly the moment was there, rather without warning.

"You can…" he started breathlessly, gesturing with his brows in a clear, go on, then.

Putting her hands back on his shoulders, Martha bit the corner of her lip and eased herself down slowly.

"Ah…" The sound lifted helplessly out of her as she came down on him – pupils blown wide, breath sticking choked in the back of her throat as his cock parted her folds, spreading her from beneath, sliding in just enough to burn.

The Doctor gasped tightly, hands snapping to her bum as though magnetised.

And in that delicate, hair-trigger moment, in a plunging, starting jolt of surreality – their eyes locked.

Wide, seeking, brown on black. Pools of dawning, kindred alarm. Hundreds of times, in the heat of crisis, when all was nearly lost and hope out of sight, they had exchanged this very same look; that round-eyed realisation.

Oh, we're in it now.

And they were. No going back. His eyes on hers, the head of his cock clutched just an inch within her slippery hot sex: their faces a mirror of the other's slack surprise.

The Doctor looked then exactly how she felt. Completely, utterly gobsmacked.

His eyes widened, ever so slight. He searched Martha's face, suddenly looking uncertain. "Are you…"

"Okay, it's okay, just…" She gave a soft, involuntary hiss and lowered herself down further – tensing as her folds pulled apart further, as the resounding stretch at her entrance became a throbbing, deeply-seated ache. A strangled little "Oh," croaked out of her, barely a wisp of a sound.

"I'm – sorry," breathed the Doctor, compulsively, a little knit between his brows; like he wasn't quite sure if he was. "I'm so sorry, it should get a bit better in a…"

"No, it's okay." Her eyes closed so tightly she saw spots, breath racing as she pushed down, teeth gritting slightly. There was more of him pushing into her, thick and solid and fuck, he put her ex-boyfriend to shame; spreading her so slow and relentless she felt every last millimetre seat itself deep and tight inside her.

It was painful, yet she was swollen and drippingly slick all the same – so urgently turned-on her back muscles were literally quivering with it. She felt her core pulling, muscles stretched tight, quaking internally with the strain.

"Just give it a minute," he whispered, voice a bit rougher, and stroked both her trembling flanks over her vest top – cock pulsing subtly, warmer than the rest of him, frigid all the same against the molten heat wrapped around it. "We'll be just fine in a minute…"

The full slide of his shaft along her walls had her teeth gritting, her fingers squeezing his shoulders as her head hung forward, as she breathed harshly around the urge to whine and pant and moan.

And then at long last, just when she thought it might be entirely too much, she felt a dull, angular pressure as prominent hipbones pressed into her bum: as she finally sat flush on his thighs. All of him lodged gorgeously, agonisingly deep inside her. Buried to the hilt. Immersed in her.

Her lips moved in a silent, reverent fuck – one that took all the energy in her body not to voice.

"Martha?" His voice came from somewhere deep in his chest; tightened in a way she didn't recognise, a way she'd never heard him sound before.

"Yes," she managed, soft, fighting the urge to hiss the word.

"I'm afraid I might… I don't want to hurt you, but you've got to relax for me."

"I'm trying," she all but whimpered – dimly aware that she was likely leaving bruises on his shoulders.

"All right," he said, "let's just… recalibrate a bit."

Grasping her waist, he lifted her up off him, disengaging himself. He did so a bit too swiftly for comfort – and Martha squeaked, swearing under her breath.

"Sorry, sorry," he said.

He half-guided, half-hefted her properly onto the bed, moving her with a peculiarly effortless strength. "This might work a bit better," he muttered, and climbed onto the mattress with her, ushering her up until her back touched a pillow.

She laid back, exhaling, faced with the rather unusual spectacle of him crawling over her. With the exception of where his trousers were lowered, he was still fully clothed – even down to the tie and socks. And it was quite Doctorly, to have a shag fully-clothed. She hadn't really expected him to get his kit off. Then, she hadn't expected him to do half the things he had, come to think of it.

"Feel free to think of England," he told her, shuffling between her knees. "I won't take it personally."

She scoffed lightly. He knew bloody well England wasn't where her thoughts were – and the little smirk on his face just proved it. "Just get on with it, please."

"As you like. Deep breaths, got it?"

"Yeah."

As he situated himself, grasping his cock and lining it up, he said to her, "Now, we'll need to be more careful this way, in case I faint."

And he pushed into her, just the slightest bit.

"F-faint?" Her voice issued several octaves too high; body threatening to arch clear off the bed. "Ah…"

He pressed her right back down, hands pinning her hips; mouth hovering breathy at her ear. "Yes, faint. When I… when the energy transfers. Elevated blood pressure, vital regenerative drain – could trigger some vasovagal nonsense. I don't want to crush you, but if I do, just give me a good wallop over the head to bring me round. That usually does the trick."

She didn't have remotely the coherence level to sort out what he was saying – entirely distracted by the spine-melting revelation of the Doctor entering her. "Faint?" she tried again, bewildered.

"Oh, don't worry about it," he muttered. "You've got to relax, Martha. Just focus on…"

"I told you, I'm trying."

In spite of how desperately wet she was, she was wound like a kite string in a cyclone – not to mention, fresh off of two years of abstinence – and there was unavoidably resistance, even in this position. The inevitable quandary encountered by any large object trying to fit itself into a small and squeezing space.

The friction made her teeth clench. His gentle pushing lacked enough leverage to insert himself any deeper; all it succeeded into doing was rocking him in place, stimulating her nerves madly, making her bite her lip and hold her breath so tightly she thought her chest might explode. She struggled to marshal her breathing, heartrate well and truly out of control – positive she was on the brink of hypertension. God help her, this was it. Not cancer, not heart disease, not alien gunfire or malignant sun: this was how she died.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said.

"I'm fine, just – just do it properly," she panted, eyes closed tight.

He put one tentative hand on her hip, grasping – the other went to her shoulder as he bent forward a bit, bracing, the tip of his tie just dangling above her cleavage. He searched her eyes, seeming to inspect her for readiness.

Then he sighed, almost seemed to wince, and gave a deep, sincere thrust.

Her mouth forced open involuntarily. Which might've been humiliating, if his hadn't done the very same: his lips falling open with a helpless little hitch of breath as his cock buried in her, sinking all the way inside.

It was genuinely, stunningly painful, and not even a bit less delicious for it.

She couldn't help it. She bit her lip so hard she tasted salt and every muscle below her waist clenched, body threatening to wind sideways as she was pried open from the inside out. Her legs instinctually tried to press shut, thighs clasping blind around his hips.

"Oh," he panted softly, seeming jarred good and proper. For a second his eyes fell shut; his pale skin was beginning to flush, blood rushed to the high crests of his cheekbones as her walls gripped him.

"Oh my God, oh my God," she breathed.

"You're not relaxing," he grated.

"I can't, ah…"

She felt his hand wandering – and a reedy, high pitched breath tore out of her, hips jolting softly as he started to probe her clit again. She pushed down against his fingertips, uncontrollably chasing the blinding-hot ripple of pleasure.

"Easy," he whispered deeply, kissing her shoulder, "easy, that's it. Just let it…" Cool fingers grasped at her arse, before he ran a hand down the back of her leg and cupped the underside of her knee, easing her thighs apart wider; pushing to an angle so deep it made her twist and gasp gutturally, so deep she felt him near her navel. "Just let it get into you, attagirl."

"God." It choked out of her, sharp and desperately tight, her voice caught small and half-strangled in her throat. She'd never felt this way in her life. This stretched, this full, this impossibly on-edge. "Oh, my God, Doctor…"

"Mmm," he commiserated softly, eyes lidded and heavy, cock throbbing faint inside her as he set about stroking her hips, kissing along her clavicle. "That's it, there we are."

"Feels so… good," she whispered through bared teeth, head pressing back into his pillow, "so… fucking…"

"Good," he breathed – and started to grind into her slightly, hips barely shifting. Even just the barest friction made her writhe and shiver, her feet planting on the bed for leverage.

He began to find a rhythm, bodies pressing, his hips canting slow and suffocatingly firm. Every time he rocked forward she gasped, felt herself stretch wider, burn slicker.

It was almost unthinkably intense, and even the Doctor let go of a soft, faltering moan as he rocked himself languidly in and out. "Martha, you feel brilliant."

"Fuck," she said harshly – her ability to communicate in polite English having vacated her.

"Yes, exactly," he panted.

There was a squeak in his bed. As she made the short, steep rise to a second orgasm – it seemed to her absurd that a bed in a spaceship should have a noisy boxspring, but there it was, creak, creak, creak, every time he thrust up into her, forcing her closer and closer.

Two orgasms on the heels of one another – she'd heard about it, never experienced it for herself. She had no time to actually reflect on that fact before her thighs were squeezing shut and she was swearing so heartily her mother might've disowned her: tensing, coiling, bursting again.

A flood of heated bliss crashed through her. It filled her belly and her cheeks and rose behind her clamped eyelids. Her hips lifted and her head fell back, breath stolen from her lungs, every limb pulling tight and straining as her muscles squeezed rhythmically, spasmodically around his cock.

And all of a sudden it was far too much.

She whined a little, reaching down for his wrist, pulling his hand away from where he was touching her – so very sensitive it felt as though she'd just come out of hot, hot water.

"I can't stop," he whispered, almost at a hiss.

Whether it was an apology or a reminder, she wasn't sure. She didn't care. "No, s'okay…" she assured, head rolling back on the pillow. "It's okay."

"Shouldn't be… long," he managed. His mouth hung a scant centimetre or two over hers, his breaths huffing warm right on her tongue, close enough to taste. Both their lips had fallen slack, and with the steady rock of their bodies, they were just touching, just a whisper, the soft skin brushing a hairsbreadth apart.

Well into the delirium brought on by her hitherto unprecedented second orgasm, she acted thoughtlessly: every muscle in her neck straining, her jugular standing out as she struggled to lift her head to kiss him.

His tongue thrust deliciously over hers; taking her rather innocent and chaste attempt at a kiss and turning it properly smouldering. It was only their third since the genetic transfer – and it came amid the hard, smacking sounds of a fuck that was already well under way.

Not exactly a traditional progression, as relationships went… but she wasn't complaining.

Her leg hooked around his waist, wrapping desperately as she let out a few little not-quite moans. He never stopped moving, gripping at her eyes with his and pushing deep inside her – his breath coming in hot, low spurts as he slid to her core again, and again, and again, so hard her body jostled back on the sheets.

The Doctor bared down, forearms braced on either side of her head as he set about fucking her properly, little huffs of air knocking through his clenched teeth every time he drove forward, pressed in. The length of his loosened tie dragging against her body, silk slipping up and down between the valley of her breasts. And he was teetering closer; she could tell. Where his weight had felt cold atop her, now there was a strange, almost unnerving warmth coming off him. His breaths were turning to grunts. His hips met the backs of her thighs in deep, rolling jolts, the soft slap of bodies loud and rhythmic and so wet in the air it felt like the pinnacle of filth. Martha could not think of another experience in her life this desperate, this formative, this raw.

She knew it was a means to an end. She knew it would never happen again, knew it meant nothing, knew he would move on from it without so much as a second thought – but fuck, if this was her consolation prize, then so be it. Having him inside her, hitting places her fingers would never reach. Watching the face of the most brilliant man in the universe, the man she loved, twist in pleasure; memorising the deep knit of his brow, the way his lips looked hanging slack, hearing his voice break over moans each time he pushed all the way inside her…

Her hands were everywhere, buried in his hair, running up and down his back, pulling at the backs of his thighs. She whispered vague pleas to vaguer deities at half-second intervals – and then she looked up into his eyes, her expression distantly beatific, as for a third effortless time, she came.

Her face turned scrunching, eyes fluttering; before she quite knew what had hit her, she was crying out, hips lifting up off the bed. She burst hot and sudden and devastating, actual tears welling over with the intensity of it, heaving little whines as her cunt rippled and heat broke through her insides in blinding flashes.

A slurred whisper of his name drifted out of her, her mouth agape as she gave into the stilted, convulsive shudder all over again. She groped thoughtlessly at his hair, finding tight, trembling fistfuls of it, pulling at the roots as she writhed.

She heard him growl, felt him shove into her harder with the clawing at his locks. The sensitivity of her body was so incredible now that the onslaught of spasms that rippled through her almost felt numb.

The Doctor didn't stop moving, not once. Not because he intended to pummel her through it, particularly, but because his wherewithal to be a solicitous and considerate partner in this precarious endeavour had long-since dissolved, leaving nothing but a desperate, tightly-coiled, untapped ferocity in its stead. He shoved her through the third orgasm, teeth bared like an animal, hands fisting and pulling the pillow on either side of her head so harshly it threatened to tear out from beneath her.

Martha had gone a quivering, well-wrung, bone-deep kind of limp. She could hardly hold her eyes open nor her mouth closed, vision hazed over, breaths and thoughts slurring alike as she rocked with the frenzied propulsion of his body. All her strength virtually gone, her body was beginning to jolt backward on the sheets, impelled further away by every strike of his hips.

He was obliged to grab her hips to hold her in place as he fucked her. He wasn't obliged to tug her harder and rougher into him, slamming her forward onto his cock, but as it somehow happened he was doing that anyway – and from that moment on Martha could no longer mentally engage with what was happening.

She saw stars and blurs, and let her mind sail away on the lulling one-two-three, one-two-three staccato rhythm of his fucking, let herself give entirely into the way it was melting her. All she could do was gaze at him heavily, drinking in everything about him as he wound up to his peak. The tightness of his teeth, the borderline snarl that scrunched his nose and eyes as he desperately pushed for ecstasy. Felt a bit like she was dreaming, when he hissed to her, body tightening, "Ohhh, it's gonna start…"

Entertained the idea that she really was dreaming, when she saw the strange, almost ghostly light rising in his hooded eyes.

"Doctor…?"

He felt hot and feverish, hips snapping forward as he fucked her without restraint. There was a thick golden haze seeping between them in the bed, glimmering faintly in the fashion of faerie dust: dashes of orange rippling under his flesh, rippling like embers beneath the straining tendons in his throat. The heat was highest, most terrifying where his hands clutched her hips – and she looked down in alarm, blinking to clear her vision, her pulse skipping at the sight of his illuminated skin, his veins alight.

"Doctor," she repeated, voice raising, "what's happening to—"

He plunged his head into the pillow, burying it in her shoulder as his pelvic muscles hardened and bucked: his whole frame going rigidly stiff. She heard grunts and growls straining from his throat, felt a subtle pulsing deep inside her. He came so forcefully she heard his teeth grinding with it, body riveted by little violent starts as his cock throbbed tight within her.

The heat began to dissipate, swiftly, as did the frightening glow – and then there was only the Doctor, giving soft, shuddering gasps, hips rocking lazily against her as he came down.

And there was a strange feeling inside her.

Not that feeling, no – almost a lightening, of sorts. An abrupt absence. As though a weight had been lifted from her chest; one she hadn't even realised was there.

"What was…" she started, puzzled, trying to make sense of it.

Then the air squished from her lungs and she gave a muffled yelp as the Doctor's full weight abruptly crumpled against her – every part of him going limp as he fainted dead away.