Work Text:
With the Doctor, it's a moment of weakness. The room they are in is small, cramped and dark. Martha is not expecting what she thinks is a rock to suddenly gape open, is not expecting the Aisil that emerges, all slimy body and shell-shard teeth. She stumbles back, her hand finding the Doctor's in the darkness.
She doesn't register what she's done until the Doctor squeezes her fingers reassuringly. Somehow that makes it worse--makes her feel little-girl and desperate. The Aisil is actually friendly, and she's being incredibly silly. She lets go of the Doctor's hand and apologizes:
"I'm sorry--I didn't mean to--. Sorry."
The Doctor laughs it off and doesn't seem to notice that her face is burning or that her heart is racing or that she can still feel the ghost of his touch--the calluses of his palms, the coolness of his skin, the firm strength in his long fingers. But Martha notices, notices how his hands dwell in his trouser pockets most of the rest of the day, how he seems vaguely guilty about something.
Martha hides her hands in her jacket pockets.
***
With Tom, it's just bad timing. They are walking home from a wonderful third date when he reaches for her, slides his fingers against her palm and gently grasps her hand. Martha's thoughts are miles--years--away, and she is so startled by the touch she almost jumps away, jerking free.
Tom says, with genuine concern, "Too fast?"
Martha shakes her head. If anything, she's been the one rushing through things, because she feels like she knows Tom already, even if she doesn't know this Tom. She kissed him early into their first date. She knew his favorite food and his favorite band and his brand of cologne and the name of his mother's little dog before he ever opened his mouth to tell her. (All the pleasant little things they fixated on, in the Year That Never Was. She must, she thinks, have seemed like a stalker.) She practically threw him into her bed when he came to pick her up for their second date, the sight of him provoking something of that lost year out of her: desperation, a need for human contact, an endless aching loneliness. The overpowering desire to forget, and remember, the Doctor.
It worries her, sometimes, how much she's still reeling from the Year That Never Was. How she's flung herself at "normal" life, hoping something will stick, be it school or the hospital or UNIT or this crazy thing with Tom.
Martha tries to make light of her rude withdrawal: "Sorry, I just--I've got a weird thing about holding hands. Makes me feel, um, a bit needy. Silly, isn't it?"
After the words are out of her mouth, she cringes--with how fast things have moved, he must think she's not actually interested in him, that she's only after sex, or something. She's not ready to tell him the truth. (Sorry, I knew you in another life. Sorry, I fell in love with you while we were bringing down a floating cyborg sphere together. Sorry, I didn't realize it until I watched you die for me, until a little bit of me--yet another little bit of me, there were so many--died with you.)
Tom smiles and puts his arm around her shoulders. Martha wonders why that's okay with her troublesome brain, but not something so simple, so innocent, as holding hands. "Maybe I am a bit needy when it comes to you," he says, and then he laughs. "Sorry, that was a bit cheesy, wasn't it?
Martha flushes.
"It wasn't. And you aren't. Needy, I mean. I mean, I feel like I'm needy, for wanting to hold hands."
"Oh? So you want to hold hands?"
Martha blinks. She starts to take her right hand out of her jacket pocket, where she buried it in shame. "I do..." She falters, hides her hand again. "But. Soon, all right?"
Tom's smile goes all crooked and unsteady, briefly, before it rights itself. "Don't worry about it, Martha." He squeezes her shoulders, kisses the top of her head.
Sometimes she wonders why Tom already seems to adore her, why he's taken to her so quickly, without the memory of the Year That Never Was. Maybe some part of him remembers? She can't decide if that would be good or bad.
Not for the first time, Martha says, "I don't deserve you, Tom." She tangles her fingers in a loose thread in her pocket, and they walk, not holding hands.
***
With Mickey, it's not an issue. When is there time to do something so silly as hold hands when they're running from aliens, from UNIT, from everyone in between? Fight, fuck, work, laugh? Yes. Hold hands? No. Soldiers don't hold hands, Martha tells herself. Isn't that what she is now? Defender of Earth. Freelance alien hunter. She can hold her gun as affectionately as she might hold any lover and pick off Sontaran scum from a half-mile away.
And yet, as she and Mickey sit cross-legged in the cargo hold of a Shri cruiser, on their way to knock out an alien attack drone, Martha's fingers toy with the laces of her boot and she yearns to reach over. To weave her fingers with Mickey's.
Did he hold Rose's hand, she wonders, though she knows better than to dwell on such things. Mickey was different then, she knows. And so was she. Mickey claims he was a bit of an idiot, rolling around the estate with Rose, going nowhere. Martha can't imagine it. Then again, Martha was dreaming of being a doctor, of maybe specializing in cardiology, full of silly college-girl ideals. And look at her now.
Martha looks at her hands, cradling the XQ SuperAuto 9900, and she wishes for her silly college-girl ideals back.
She wishes she could just hold Mickey's hand.
"What?" Mickey's voice makes her look up, at his frown, his furrowed brow.
"D'you ever..." she says. False start, try again. "Would you..." But she can't finish that either. Her fingers pluck and twist and tangle with her bootlace. His gaze drops to her restless hand. She starts to take her hand away, means to stuff it in her pocket, but Mickey covers her fingers with his own, stilling her. Grasps her hand gently. Pulls her hand over, against his knee, and holds it.
"Would I what, Mrs. Smith?"
She smiles, the corners of her mouth twitching against sudden, embarrassingly grateful tears. She squeezes Mickey's fingers and he squeezes back.
"Nothing," she says. "I just... Thought I forgot how to do something, but I haven't."
Mickey chuckles.
They sit in the cargo hold, fingers entwined, and Martha is happy.