Déjà Vu (2 of ?) - Ten/Martha fic
Hello all! I've finally decided to revisit an old story I started writing absolutely AGES ago, which is now pretty much AU, sadly. If anybody's interested at all, unless you've got an exceptional memory, you'll probably want to revisit the first part of the story first, here. I'm hoping the second part isn't complete shit.
Title: Déjà Vu (2 of ?)
Author: voicelikehoney
Characters: Tenth Doctor/Martha Jones
Rating: PG (only to start. I plan to change that later)
Spoilers: Mild - a few references to Human Nature/Family of Blood and 42.
Summary: Martha asks the Doctor to take her somewhere he remembers.
Author's Note: I began writing this back in May when Ten/Martha was still a hopeful prospect. We can pretty much consider this AU for the middle of series 3 now.
What in hell did he think he was playing at?
She’d thought 1913 had put paid to this. A desperate evening in a darkened house, with a frightened man who wasn’t her Doctor; she’d ached for the human and longed for the Time Lord, and the human had named her: my executioner. And he’d been right; she’d tried everything she could think of to end that human’s life; the sonic screwdriver, the watch, the TARDIS – everything, up until that point, except the one secret, painful little truth she’d hugged to herself but tried so hard to deny every moment since the day they’d met.
She’d had no choice.
He’s everything to me. I love him to bits.
They’d fidgeted over that, when he’d become the Doctor again; they’d ummed and aahhhed and done that peculiar little awkward hot-potato dance over an issue that in any other circumstances she’d never have been so bold as to voice out loud – and he’d told her thank you and spread his arms wide and drawn her into an embrace that felt like peace and contentment, and she’d sighed and he’d smiled and they’d brushed aside those words as though they’d never been spoken.
But they’d both known she hadn’t been lying.
Ever since then, she’s done her utmost to act as the kind of companion it seems he wants: a friend and co-conspirator, a partner in crime, his vicarious conduit for discovering the pleasures of the universe afresh. It hasn’t been easy; there have been moments when she’s swallowed an acid word or a sudden lump in her throat; times when she’s wanted to slap him so hard she’d leave her finger marks splayed across his cheek; days when all she’s wanted to do is hide herself away in her room and cry – but she’s followed his example and locked away the pain, ignored it as best she could and carried on with him, always concentrating on the next destination, never letting herself dwell on what goes unsaid between them.
Unfortunately for her, today he seems determined to make her job that much harder.
When he comes back, it’s with his armour back in place, striding jauntily through the door with his hands in his pockets and avoiding her eyes; the temptation to throw a punch is very hard to resist, but she manages it - just. He seems as unconcerned, happy and airy as ever, and though she’s not at all surprised by his calm demeanour, part of her hates him for it while the rest of her bleeds at just how damn beautiful he is and how brightly he glows.
You are such a bastard.
It really isn’t fair. Everything about him arouses her, even the parts that make her want to spit nails.
His mind speeds away faster than any supercomputer on the Earth; she watches his eyes sometimes and sees the connections zinging off in fantastical patterns, hears him muttering to himself or the TARDIS, tries desperately to follow his miraculous mental leaps and flushes with success when she manages not to fall behind. He’s a genius, she knows that; there’s no possible way she could doubt it, and were it any other man but him she’d be worshipping at the altar but keeping a respectful distance.
But it is him … and that’s managed to create problems from the moment she walked through the TARDIS doors. He might very well be a genius – a feast for her hungry mind unlike any other being she’s ever encountered – but he also happens to be pretty much the most breathtakingly gorgeous man she’s ever known.
Emphasis on man; sub-emphasis on: frustrating as hell.
Hug or slug. Kiss or kill. Make love or war. She’s felt each and every one of those conflicts about him at one time or another. Even when she actually had slapped him, the him that wasn’t him, back in 1913, there’d been a fairly significant part of her that just wanted to gather him close and kiss away the sting.
But it’s his fault as much as it is hers. He’s an utter devil. He seems somehow to invite fantasies, just by breathing and existing in the same space as she does; he flirts and twinkles and drives her mad until all she can do is imagine ripping the tie from his neck, or sending the buttons pinging from his shirt, or discovering the wildness of his ever-dishevelled hair with her fingers. It’s completely and utterly maddening; he spends every day looking as rumpled as if he’s been shagged six ways to Sunday, but they’ve been as virtuous as a pair of vestal virgins from the moment he picked her up.
She makes herself relax when she realises she’s leaving little half moon indentations in her palms from the nails she’s digging in – just in time to throw herself at the nearest support strut as the TARDIS hits a particularly bad patch of turbulence.
Her efforts are in vain; she’s thrown violently to the floor and can’t bite back a cry of pain as her shoulder comes into heavy contact with a jagged outcrop of something that looks like coral on the TARDIS wall – but where in the past the Doctor might have bounded over to pick her up, he merely pauses on his way to grab his jacket and looks at her.
“Sorry about that – rough landing. You okay?”
She pulls a face, rubbing at her shoulder, and levers herself up gingerly from the floor.
“You know what? I think I’m going to buy you one of those ‘How am I driving’ stickers and slap it on wall outside. Then every time I end up on my bum I’m going to call the number on it and complain.”
Amusement glimmers behind his eyes. “And do what – demand to speak to the management?”
“Damn straight. I think with all the bruises I’ve racked up in here, I’d be well within my rights to demand a little compensation.”
He arches one expressive eyebrow at her and heads for the door. “Sorry; if you were after suing me for my worldly goods, I’m afraid I’m something of a pauper – well, at least in monetary terms.”
Unable to stop herself, her eyes travel down his body as he walks in front of her.
Who said anything about money?
Very much like the rest of him, his behind is rather lovely; pert and firm and the temptation to goose him has been nothing short of irresistible so many times since she’s joined him, even though she’s a sensible girl and she doesn’t do that kind of thing. And he has just about the longest legs on a bloke she’s ever seen. She’s even been jealous of the TARDIS a few times, as ridiculous as that sounds; he’s damn near humped that console a few times in the past, right in front of her, and she’s barely known where to look.
“Martha?”
She jumps, cursing internally, her eyes flying back up to meet his; he has his coat on, one hand resting on the door handle, and is regarding her with a rather arch expression on his face.
“Are you coming? I thought you were curious; this is what you asked for as your birthday treat, after all …”
All lingering feelings of embarrassment disappear in the flash of excitement she feels at his words; the same flash she feels energising her every time he nods her towards the TARDIS door. She can’t think she’ll get used to this, or ever have enough of it; the thrill of the unknown, the temptation to always look just a little further; the rush of never knowing what each new dawn will bring. Which is odd, considering that she’s always been the stable, sensible, no-nonsense head-on-her-shoulders member of the Jones family – the one everybody looked to in a crisis, the one who was always mature – but all that had changed just a few short months ago, when her workplace ended up on the Moon and she’d ended up following one strangely unfazed Mr Smith out onto a balcony to look at the Earth.
Now she feels his wanderlust coursing through her blood, and she loves it.
Pausing only to dust off her jeans, she scampers over to the door. “Sorry – yes, I’m ready.” His hand still clasps the door handle; she nods at it, feeling that familiar rush of little-girl Christmas Eve anticipation. “May I?”
He smiles lopsidedly at her, his eyes impish and warm and something close to comforting but not quite there, and lets his fingers slip free of the handle, bowing a little and taking a step back. “Be my guest, Miss Jones.”
She opens the door.
The heat hits her like a slap in the face and the light blinds her; her body’s hugged in sauna-warmth that reaches through the TARDIS doors to the cooler air inside, and for a moment she’s afraid he’s taken her back to a moment they’ve lived before, only minutes away from scorching death on a ship stranded hopelessly in time and space. The thought isn’t a pleasant one; she’s dreamed of that time more than once and woken sweating, the sound of his screams echoing in her ears – but screwing up her courage, she shades her eyes with one hand and peers out, squinting into the light.
She can hear something; muffled, heavy, like distant thunder.
thump. thump. thump.
Hesitating with one hand still on the TARDIS door, she listens, curious.
thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
What is that?
Thump. Thump.
It’s getting louder. Behind her, she feels rather than sees the Doctor lean over her shoulder for a better look.
Thump.
“Um … Martha …”
Thump.
She blinks, coughing, straining to work out what it is she’s hearing; the hot air is thick and laden with dust. She can’t see. So bright.
Thump. Thump.
“Doctor? What is it?”
He doesn’t answer. She looks back over her shoulder; he’s frowning, peering out into the light himself, listening intently. With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, she remembers Jurassic Park and the approach of the T-Rex. She wouldn’t put it past him to have taken her back to the Cretaceous period, or somewhere equally as inhospitable.
Please don’t let me be hors d’oeuvres for a dinosaur …
Heart beating fast, she steps over the threshold, looking around for the source of the sound, feeling the heat burn through the sole of her shoe.
Sand.
Thump.
The next few seconds are one extremely confused blur – a blur that consists of a sore head from the cry of alarm close to her ear, a sore middle from the forceful arms that yank her back inside the TARDIS, a sore backside from its impact with the floor, and a sore temper from all of the above.
Glad to have some form of release for the suffocating panic rising in her chest, she rounds on the panting figure squashed beneath her, whacking at his shoulder in annoyance.
“OK, mister - what in hell do you think you’re-”
And then the light is shut off, and she’s choking, her mouth filled with acrid dust that billows into the air through the TARDIS doors, stinging her eyes and skin – and acting on instinct, unable to do anything else, she hurls herself closer to the Doctor, covering her ears and yelling as a terrifying, ear-splitting trumpeting noise splinters through the air like some ancient pagan war-cry …
Title: Déjà Vu (2 of ?)
Author: voicelikehoney
Characters: Tenth Doctor/Martha Jones
Rating: PG (only to start. I plan to change that later)
Spoilers: Mild - a few references to Human Nature/Family of Blood and 42.
Summary: Martha asks the Doctor to take her somewhere he remembers.
Author's Note: I began writing this back in May when Ten/Martha was still a hopeful prospect. We can pretty much consider this AU for the middle of series 3 now.
He doesn’t reappear again in the control room for a good half an hour; she’s grateful for the time alone to regather her shattered wits.
What in hell did he think he was playing at?
She’d thought 1913 had put paid to this. A desperate evening in a darkened house, with a frightened man who wasn’t her Doctor; she’d ached for the human and longed for the Time Lord, and the human had named her: my executioner. And he’d been right; she’d tried everything she could think of to end that human’s life; the sonic screwdriver, the watch, the TARDIS – everything, up until that point, except the one secret, painful little truth she’d hugged to herself but tried so hard to deny every moment since the day they’d met.
She’d had no choice.
He’s everything to me. I love him to bits.
They’d fidgeted over that, when he’d become the Doctor again; they’d ummed and aahhhed and done that peculiar little awkward hot-potato dance over an issue that in any other circumstances she’d never have been so bold as to voice out loud – and he’d told her thank you and spread his arms wide and drawn her into an embrace that felt like peace and contentment, and she’d sighed and he’d smiled and they’d brushed aside those words as though they’d never been spoken.
But they’d both known she hadn’t been lying.
Ever since then, she’s done her utmost to act as the kind of companion it seems he wants: a friend and co-conspirator, a partner in crime, his vicarious conduit for discovering the pleasures of the universe afresh. It hasn’t been easy; there have been moments when she’s swallowed an acid word or a sudden lump in her throat; times when she’s wanted to slap him so hard she’d leave her finger marks splayed across his cheek; days when all she’s wanted to do is hide herself away in her room and cry – but she’s followed his example and locked away the pain, ignored it as best she could and carried on with him, always concentrating on the next destination, never letting herself dwell on what goes unsaid between them.
Unfortunately for her, today he seems determined to make her job that much harder.
When he comes back, it’s with his armour back in place, striding jauntily through the door with his hands in his pockets and avoiding her eyes; the temptation to throw a punch is very hard to resist, but she manages it - just. He seems as unconcerned, happy and airy as ever, and though she’s not at all surprised by his calm demeanour, part of her hates him for it while the rest of her bleeds at just how damn beautiful he is and how brightly he glows.
You are such a bastard.
It really isn’t fair. Everything about him arouses her, even the parts that make her want to spit nails.
His mind speeds away faster than any supercomputer on the Earth; she watches his eyes sometimes and sees the connections zinging off in fantastical patterns, hears him muttering to himself or the TARDIS, tries desperately to follow his miraculous mental leaps and flushes with success when she manages not to fall behind. He’s a genius, she knows that; there’s no possible way she could doubt it, and were it any other man but him she’d be worshipping at the altar but keeping a respectful distance.
But it is him … and that’s managed to create problems from the moment she walked through the TARDIS doors. He might very well be a genius – a feast for her hungry mind unlike any other being she’s ever encountered – but he also happens to be pretty much the most breathtakingly gorgeous man she’s ever known.
Emphasis on man; sub-emphasis on: frustrating as hell.
Hug or slug. Kiss or kill. Make love or war. She’s felt each and every one of those conflicts about him at one time or another. Even when she actually had slapped him, the him that wasn’t him, back in 1913, there’d been a fairly significant part of her that just wanted to gather him close and kiss away the sting.
But it’s his fault as much as it is hers. He’s an utter devil. He seems somehow to invite fantasies, just by breathing and existing in the same space as she does; he flirts and twinkles and drives her mad until all she can do is imagine ripping the tie from his neck, or sending the buttons pinging from his shirt, or discovering the wildness of his ever-dishevelled hair with her fingers. It’s completely and utterly maddening; he spends every day looking as rumpled as if he’s been shagged six ways to Sunday, but they’ve been as virtuous as a pair of vestal virgins from the moment he picked her up.
She makes herself relax when she realises she’s leaving little half moon indentations in her palms from the nails she’s digging in – just in time to throw herself at the nearest support strut as the TARDIS hits a particularly bad patch of turbulence.
Her efforts are in vain; she’s thrown violently to the floor and can’t bite back a cry of pain as her shoulder comes into heavy contact with a jagged outcrop of something that looks like coral on the TARDIS wall – but where in the past the Doctor might have bounded over to pick her up, he merely pauses on his way to grab his jacket and looks at her.
“Sorry about that – rough landing. You okay?”
She pulls a face, rubbing at her shoulder, and levers herself up gingerly from the floor.
“You know what? I think I’m going to buy you one of those ‘How am I driving’ stickers and slap it on wall outside. Then every time I end up on my bum I’m going to call the number on it and complain.”
Amusement glimmers behind his eyes. “And do what – demand to speak to the management?”
“Damn straight. I think with all the bruises I’ve racked up in here, I’d be well within my rights to demand a little compensation.”
He arches one expressive eyebrow at her and heads for the door. “Sorry; if you were after suing me for my worldly goods, I’m afraid I’m something of a pauper – well, at least in monetary terms.”
Unable to stop herself, her eyes travel down his body as he walks in front of her.
Who said anything about money?
Very much like the rest of him, his behind is rather lovely; pert and firm and the temptation to goose him has been nothing short of irresistible so many times since she’s joined him, even though she’s a sensible girl and she doesn’t do that kind of thing. And he has just about the longest legs on a bloke she’s ever seen. She’s even been jealous of the TARDIS a few times, as ridiculous as that sounds; he’s damn near humped that console a few times in the past, right in front of her, and she’s barely known where to look.
“Martha?”
She jumps, cursing internally, her eyes flying back up to meet his; he has his coat on, one hand resting on the door handle, and is regarding her with a rather arch expression on his face.
“Are you coming? I thought you were curious; this is what you asked for as your birthday treat, after all …”
All lingering feelings of embarrassment disappear in the flash of excitement she feels at his words; the same flash she feels energising her every time he nods her towards the TARDIS door. She can’t think she’ll get used to this, or ever have enough of it; the thrill of the unknown, the temptation to always look just a little further; the rush of never knowing what each new dawn will bring. Which is odd, considering that she’s always been the stable, sensible, no-nonsense head-on-her-shoulders member of the Jones family – the one everybody looked to in a crisis, the one who was always mature – but all that had changed just a few short months ago, when her workplace ended up on the Moon and she’d ended up following one strangely unfazed Mr Smith out onto a balcony to look at the Earth.
Now she feels his wanderlust coursing through her blood, and she loves it.
Pausing only to dust off her jeans, she scampers over to the door. “Sorry – yes, I’m ready.” His hand still clasps the door handle; she nods at it, feeling that familiar rush of little-girl Christmas Eve anticipation. “May I?”
He smiles lopsidedly at her, his eyes impish and warm and something close to comforting but not quite there, and lets his fingers slip free of the handle, bowing a little and taking a step back. “Be my guest, Miss Jones.”
She opens the door.
The heat hits her like a slap in the face and the light blinds her; her body’s hugged in sauna-warmth that reaches through the TARDIS doors to the cooler air inside, and for a moment she’s afraid he’s taken her back to a moment they’ve lived before, only minutes away from scorching death on a ship stranded hopelessly in time and space. The thought isn’t a pleasant one; she’s dreamed of that time more than once and woken sweating, the sound of his screams echoing in her ears – but screwing up her courage, she shades her eyes with one hand and peers out, squinting into the light.
She can hear something; muffled, heavy, like distant thunder.
thump. thump. thump.
Hesitating with one hand still on the TARDIS door, she listens, curious.
thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
What is that?
Thump. Thump.
It’s getting louder. Behind her, she feels rather than sees the Doctor lean over her shoulder for a better look.
Thump.
“Um … Martha …”
Thump.
She blinks, coughing, straining to work out what it is she’s hearing; the hot air is thick and laden with dust. She can’t see. So bright.
Thump. Thump.
“Doctor? What is it?”
He doesn’t answer. She looks back over her shoulder; he’s frowning, peering out into the light himself, listening intently. With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, she remembers Jurassic Park and the approach of the T-Rex. She wouldn’t put it past him to have taken her back to the Cretaceous period, or somewhere equally as inhospitable.
Please don’t let me be hors d’oeuvres for a dinosaur …
Thump. Thump.
Heart beating fast, she steps over the threshold, looking around for the source of the sound, feeling the heat burn through the sole of her shoe.
Sand.
Thump.
The next few seconds are one extremely confused blur – a blur that consists of a sore head from the cry of alarm close to her ear, a sore middle from the forceful arms that yank her back inside the TARDIS, a sore backside from its impact with the floor, and a sore temper from all of the above.
Glad to have some form of release for the suffocating panic rising in her chest, she rounds on the panting figure squashed beneath her, whacking at his shoulder in annoyance.
“OK, mister - what in hell do you think you’re-”
And then the light is shut off, and she’s choking, her mouth filled with acrid dust that billows into the air through the TARDIS doors, stinging her eyes and skin – and acting on instinct, unable to do anything else, she hurls herself closer to the Doctor, covering her ears and yelling as a terrifying, ear-splitting trumpeting noise splinters through the air like some ancient pagan war-cry …