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The Doctor watched as Martha Jones flopped onto the bed, her lean arms stretched up, her fingers curled as she shifted her weight around to get comfortable. The fabric of her purple cami was light, and it dragged up her stomach, riding up and exposing her smooth skin and the shiny metal of her piercing. She grinned up at him under messy strands of hair, doe eyes glinting slyly, and The Doctor quite nearly felt himself melt under her playful scrutiny. This bed wasn’t theirs, nor was it anyone else's, and if anyone deserved a rest right now it was the two of them. But The Doctor felt apprehension tug at his chest. Now felt different. If Martha felt the same way, she certainly wasn’t letting it show as she continued to stare back at him, her pretty smile beginning to waver the longer he remained listlessly silent. It was their first go around together since they’d argued in the rain, when those doe eyes had been dark, daring him to keep talking, to keep digging himself that grave. She was fresh now, intoxicatingly sweet. And she was waiting for him to act. He rolled his shoulders back, donning the mask of casual confidence he preferred when he didn’t want to approach how he felt about, well, anything really, shrugging off his jacket and hastily hanging it on one of the end bedposts before easing himself next to her. It was cool and dark, getting darker with every passing minute. He realized, in passing, that if it got too dark her face would get all fuzzy, and it twisted his hearts into knots. He wanted to see her for as long as possible, all of her. He moved an inch closer, and she brought her arms down. He watched as she moved, trying to pick apart every muscle twitch, every pattern in the way she carried herself. He noticed something spiraling and dark on her shoulder, crooked where you wouldn’t be able to see it unless she had her arms turned outward. Unsure how to call attention to it and flooded with a sudden feeling of a sharp mix of curiosity and anxiety, he reached out a hand to catch her arm. She made a small noise, but didn’t move it, simply meeting his eyes with a confused quirk of her eyebrow as she settled into place, propping herself up with her free arm.
“Issat—” he started with a smirk, touching his tongue to the roof of his mouth as he paused. “Martha Jones, you rebel you, I didn’t peg you for tattoos,” he joked, and she smiled, a satisfied air of mischief coloring her features.
He processed that she must’ve gotten it in the time between their argument and today, and the idea of her experiencing so much of the world without him stirred up an ache in the pit of his stomach. He swallowed it down, refocusing his attention to her moonlit face.
“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, Doctor,” she replied softly. “I can do things when I’m not…” she stopped, her expression touched with solemnity. “With you, you know.”
He nodded vigorously.
“‘Course you can, Martha,” he murmured, his voice suddenly quieter and thicker than he’d intended it to be. “I never thought anything else, you know,” he added quietly, and she dipped her head, more of her long, sleek hair falling into her face.
He cleared his throat, closing the space between them by another inch.
“May I…” he asked, slowly moving his hand down her wrist, running his fingertips along the raised points of her tendons till he reached the tattoo.
She nodded again, another smile pulling on her full lips. He gently traced the shapes with his fingertips, just barely touching her.
“It’s for my family,” she said, and he, not without a pronounced feeling of mourning, removed his hand from her arm. “The butterfly, of course,” she added, her voice lilting like a song in his ears in the hush of the night.
“Thanks, I can see just fine,” he noted, searching her face for that familiar spark she got when they bantered back and forth.
“Really? I wouldn’t have known…” she mumbled sarcastically, trailing off with another sneaky glance at his face.
He realized his smile had widened, but he made no effort to fix his face as he moved another inch toward her.
“Is that right?” he shot back pointedly, though he knew his glee was wild and unkempt.
“Mmh,” she replied, bending her arms so that they folded under her face, her hands clasped flat to lean against her cheek.
“Anything else you’ve been keeping from me, Jones?” he pried, and she shrugged, a coy, inviting gesture.
“Ohh, alright, am I supposed to find it?” he asked, and she rolled her eyes with a scoff.
“No, hold on,” she answered, her voice breathy.
For a reason he knew but didn't want to place, The Doctor felt a pang of disappointment. Martha twisted down to start rolling down the fold of her pants, and The Doctor’s breath caught in his throat. Clearly this translated into a physical reaction, because Martha laughed suddenly, her eyebrows crinkling inward as her eyes shone in the ever growing dark.
“Oh, my God, don’t even. It’s just on my hip, s’all,” she scolded, and The Doctor felt his face flush with heat.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d blushed, it wasn’t something aliens tended to do. And yet, here he was anyway. Blushing next to Martha Jones. The heat only felt heavier as Martha took her turn moving closer, silently communicating to him with a look as she took his wrist in her hand, holding it to her hip and partly onto her stomach.
“Ah, anterior pelvic bone, over here,” she almost whispered.
Right, medical school. He snorted to himself at her usage of medical terminology now of all times; it was so like her. He allowed her to guide his hand, her touch warm and comforting, until he found purchase against her side.
“Down, a bit,” she breathed, and he met her eyes again, not looking away as he moved his hand.
She inhaled through another grin, but she grew serious again as she prepared to explain the looping lines he’d begun to trace with his fingers. He looped his pointer finger up and down a few times as she spoke.
“It’s an Iris,” she explained as The Doctor forced himself to tear his eyes away from her sloping hips, though his hand lingered over the ink. She was agonizingly warm in the cool, damp room.
“What’s it mean to you?” he asked in earnest.
She tilted her head to the side, like she had to think about how she’d explain it to him. He twisted his mouth into what was almost a frown for a moment before hastily adding;
“Don’t try to make it anything, Martha. Tell me what it means to you.”
At that her face softened, and he knew he’d selected his words correctly. There were times where, truthfully, he didn’t. She was hard to figure out sometimes, a perfect picture of beautiful resilience that wound him up endlessly in a way that was both unfamiliar and irresistible. The longer he knew her, the more he desperately wanted to know more about her. She had a way like that. He snapped back to earth when she started talking, pressing his hand a little harder against her skin.
“It’s got a few different meanings, really. Trust, freedom of the self…” she went on casually, but to him, every word from her sounded like gospel.
He tried to replicate her effortless casual-ness as he resumed gently running his ring finger along the Iris.
“I like the freedom part, though,” she finished, and The Doctor bobbed his head in blind agreement.
“Sure, of course,” he managed to add, and she sighed.
“Are you going to keep your hand there all night, Doctor?” she asked, and he withdrew his hand quickly, prompting another quick bout of laughter from Martha.
He beamed at her as she recovered, reaching back downward to pull the waistband of her pants back up to its original position.
“Ehm, Sorry,” he muttered shyly, stumbling over the words.
She lightly slapped her hand across his shoulder before reclining back into the pillow behind her head without responding. He turned his head to watch her— he couldn’t help it. Her side profile looked luminous, the light of the moon tracing her brow, cheeks, and nose, outlining them in silver. Her eyelashes looked white against her face, and The Doctor smiled to himself. The Tardis was too far away for his liking, and the next day they’d surely struggle to get back to it, no doubt greatly endangering their lives in the process. But here, if just for a night, he felt blissfully at home.
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