Title: Five Times the Doctor Wanted to Kiss Martha Jones in 1969 [And the One Time He Did]

Characters/Pairings: Ten/Martha

Genre: Fluffy and Somewhat Angsty Romance

Rating: PG-13 [pretty tame, mentions of drugs and Iron Butterfly]

Spoilers: Up through S3's "Blink"

Summary: A 1969 fic that pretty much does as it says on the tin.

Beta: persiflage

Disclaimer: Sadly, I own nothing related to Doctor Who et al, or things like this would be canon.

Author Notes: I am working on putting my fic from Teaspoon over here, so you'll see some old stories like this popping up. This one is from July of 2008, so some of you might have read it already. This was my first Ten/Martha 1969 fic and my first "Five Times"-style fic. This is dedicated to Jay, who prompted me with the idea. I hope you all enjoy it – fluff is not one of my strong suits, but I always love a challenge. Thanks so much to persiflage who beta'd this piece. Any other mistakes are all mine. Feedback is happy-making, so please leave a word or two [even if I am a bit slack in responding, your comments always make my day].

[1]

A Precious Thing

Ice and snow caked against the Doctor's trainers as he walked, wetting the fabric as it melted, and words echoed all around him – 'the snow and ice have come too soon' and 'things are strange' and 'maybe this is the world ending?'

He wanted to tell them – those people moving past him, dancing the dance of that Ordinary Life he sometimes wishes for yet also sometimes hates the very idea of – that this is all normal, that things move on, people move on, but there is a part of him that doesn't believe it.

(There is a part of him that thinks since he is stuck in the past for now that ramifications might echo throughout time, like a pebble rippling against the surface of a lake, and the world might just be ending after all.)

Everything is just that little bit out of step and he's not felt so alien in the longest time. He tried to play the metaphoric hand he's dealt – tried to get a job (and failed) and set up a temporary residence for Martha and himself (helped enormously by the intervention of her rapport with potential landlords as his own attempts proved awkward at best).

In an effort to blend in more, he contemplated on getting a dog or a cat, or a house with a garden where he could play croquet or have tea parties or whatever it is that humans do – all the picture postcard of a Life of Domesticity – but settled on what they could get with the money they have.

The money they have is not much in this time and place – obtained from a plethora of items sold that had been stowed in his (dimensionally transcendent) pockets – and while the Doctor never worried much about money before, he had to admit that he was a bit worried in those first few weeks in 1969.

The first night in their new flat was frightening and exciting and intriguing, all rolled up into one. He and Martha sat eating large bowls of chicken and rice soup (from a tin, with added pepper which made the Doctor sneeze and then laugh and then sneeze again) on the floor of their sitting room. As they sat atop a tattered, itchy rug and their battered television (found discarded on the street, repaired by his sonic screwdriver) murmured in the background, they chatted about their respective days and all the jobs he couldn't get and the one job that she could.

There she was before him, his Martha Jones, always taking such perfect and wonderful care of him – perhaps too much, perhaps he doesn't deserve her, he thought, reprimanding himself – always balancing him out and softening his sharp edges.

He surreptitiously watched her as she spooned steaming soup into her mouth, her lips delicately pursed as she blew against the hot liquid to cool it, and he found himself suddenly compelled by her, thinking that – at least in that very moment – she might just be the most precious thing in the universe.

[2]

The Siren's Song

"How are you doing?" the Doctor asked as he carried in a large wool blanket (borrowed from their helpful new landlord, Mr. Waterson) into the bedroom where Martha sat curled in her pajamas under three heavy blankets on the bed.

He was trying not to be overly concerned, to be honest, knowing that if he were to show worry that it would only fuel Martha's worry as well. Still, it was proving rather difficult to stay completely calm.

"Still very cold," Martha answered, shivering as he wrapped the new blanket around her.

They'd run out of coal for their heater that morning. It was their first week in their new flat and Martha (used to central heating) and the Doctor (used to the TARDIS) both were still trying to get used to regulating the heat in their home.

Driven to distraction by building his timey-wimey device, The Doctor had not managed to make it out in search of some temporary replacement coal while Martha was at work and it was still a day away from their weekly delivery. He felt terribly guilty for what he'd (not) done and was scrambling to make up for it.

In the middle of winter with the wind blowing heavily outside, the Doctor feared for the worst. He could withstand the cold temperature himself – his biology used to the lower temperatures – but Martha was different, she was human. The Doctor sat on the bed facing her, worrying his lip as he tried to think of a better solution. He couldn't let Martha be this cold all night – or worse, succumb to hypothermia – he just couldn't.

"Right! I have an idea!" he finally exclaimed, standing up and motioning for her to do so as well. "Up! Up!"

"I hope it's a good one," Martha said through chattering teeth as she stood, keeping one of the blankets wrapped around herself for warmth.

"Do I ever have anything but?" Martha gave him a skeptical look. "Anyway, I'm going to need your assistance with the mattress. We're going to carry it into the kitchen."

Martha shrugged, tossing the blankets onto a chair near the bed, and helped him with pulling the mattress from the bed frame, through the sitting room, and, finally, into the kitchen to lean it up against the pantry.

"Stay here, I'll be back in a moment," he said, rushing back to the bedroom to grab the blankets and pillows.

Moments later, the Doctor was back, balancing precariously on a chair as he hammered what he deemed to be the thickest of the blankets over the archway leading into the kitchen. "You see, I think if we turn on the oven and trap the heat in the kitchen by covering this doorway, we'll at least be warmer. There's a bit of a nasty draft from that window over there by the sink, but I think we should be much better off in here."

"Are you sure it's safe?" Martha asked, worried. The Doctor looked back at her and she gestured toward the oven. "I'm not sure how much I trust the oven. I mean, I barely trust it to cook dinner, yet alone leaving it on all night while we sleep beside it."

"Well, I'm not going to sleep myself. I might rest, but I'll stay awake and keep an eye on it. It'll be okay," he replied and then turned back his task.

The Doctor wasn't entirely sure that he trusted the oven either, if he were honest. It was a rickety old electric oven that had certainly seen better days. Still, it was their only real hope at this point.

Plus, the Doctor had to admit, he was enjoying the prospect of sharing a bed with Martha after generally sleeping on the couch instead (his doing, of course, as he'd shied from the temptation). He shook his head free of the thought.

Once he was finished, they laid out the mattress on the floor, pushing the kitchen table and chairs into a far corner of the room. Martha set up the blankets and pillows on the bed and the Doctor turned on the oven, opening it slightly to let the heat out.

"One more thing," the Doctor said, slipping under the blanket in the doorway and out to the sitting room.

He grabbed his copy of Homer's "The Odyssey" from the coffee table. The television they had was often on the blink (probably either due to or in spite of his almost daily tinkering with it), so there were several evenings that week when the Doctor would read to Martha instead, as she sat on the couch with him. She would curl against his side, head on his shoulder, and sometimes she would even fall asleep to his words. It was something so simple, yet so pleasant that he contemplated continuing the tradition even when they returned back to life on the TARDIS.

He returned to the kitchen with the book, holding it up for Martha to see. "Can't forget this," he said, sitting down on the mattress beside her. "Unless you wanted to go right to sleep."

"No, I love it when you read to me."

The Doctor lay down beside Martha, letting her have two of the remaining blankets and settling for just the last one for himself. He could still see her shaking from the cold, so he lifted his arm to invite her to lie against his side. She moved to press herself against him, laying her head on his chest. He couldn't help but sigh at the contact.

"Now where we? Oh yes, with Circe and Odysseus," he said, flipping the book open to where they had left off and began to read.

"First you will come to the Sirens who enchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song…"

About an hour or so into reading, he could feel the weight of Martha's body grow heavier and her breathing deepen and knew that she had fallen asleep. He simply lay there quietly for a few moments, setting the book aside, and reached up to lightly stroke Martha's hair.

Usually if she had ever fallen asleep with him, it was on the couch and he would either gently wake her to help her into bed or, in the rare times that she would not stir, he would carry her to bed himself. It felt almost strange and wonderful to know that he didn't need to move her anywhere this time and, in fact, he could stay with her the whole night just as they were.

Staring up at the ceiling, the light fixture shining in his eyes began to bother him though. He decided that Martha would also likely sleep better with it darker, so he reluctantly slipped from her embrace to stand and turn off the light.

It was almost completely dark in the kitchen now, only a faint shine from the street lamp outside lighting things. The Doctor crawled back into bed and Martha murmured, rolling toward him. He wrapped his arms around her as he lay on his side. He could still feel her shivering slightly, the heat from the oven helping, but still leaving things somewhat cold. He decided to pull her flush against him in an attempt to warm her more, wrapping the blankets around them both to cocoon themselves.

The soft sighs from Martha, her fist curled against his chest, and her light breaths on his neck were causing stirrings (perhaps inevitable) within him. It had been a very long time since he'd held someone so close – at least for any time longer than a hug. It was suddenly easy to remember why he'd made himself sleep on the couch and why he always did his best to keep Martha at arm's length (physically and emotionally) – he could easily see himself getting entirely too attached to her, even falling in love. The latter was not an option in his mind – he felt falling in love always got him into trouble and he couldn't bear the pain of falling in love with a human only to lose them, even if it was just due to their oh-so-brief lifespan.

The Doctor thought of Odysseus and how he'd tied himself to the mast of his ship so as to not be drawn away by the luring song of the Sirens. He mused a bit about how he was doing much the same thing in his own life – tying himself down, holding himself back, because he knew that if he were to just let himself go with Martha, he would be completely lost in his feelings for her.

The thing was, like Odysseus, he didn't put beeswax in his ears to silence her "song." Perhaps he couldn't bear to ignore her beauty completely – that even though it pained him to think of falling for her, it pained him just as much to not let himself live in her light either.

Martha stirred next to him, pulling him from his thoughts. "This is nice," she murmured against him.

"Yes," he sighed, "very nice."

"Much better than the last time we shared a bed," she said more clearly now, but still muffled from the material of the shirt he wore.

The Doctor's breath hitched at the memory of their night at the Elephant Inn, so soon after they'd first met. He'd hurt her that night and he knew it. He had laid in the dark trying to think of ways to apologize, to explain to her that he was often rude and oblivious but ultimately meant no harm. The screams outside had interrupted his opportunity for an apology though, words falling through the cracks as they simply moved on to their next adventure.

"That was a bad night. Things are better now," he offered.

"Yes."

The Doctor leaned back slightly, reaching to tip Martha's chin up to look into his eyes, to make sure she saw him as he spoke. "I'm very sorry for that Martha. I was wrong. I have been wrong about so many things."

She looked at him with surprise and he noticed tears welling up in her eyes. He wanted so much to kiss her, to make love to her, to lose himself in her beautiful song. His desire moved through him, filling every inch of him, making him feel as if he were about to burst.

He held his breath, though, pushing all the desire down deep within him, doing his best to deny its very existence. You can't fall in love, you'll only lose her, he said to himself.

He reached up to stroke Martha's cheek, watching her expectant expression, seeming to urge him to act on those desires he was denying himself. He blew out the deep breath he'd been holding. "Go to sleep," he whispered, slipping his hand to her neck to gently pull her head against his chest as he repeated, "Go to sleep."

Martha probably never knew, but the Doctor cried as he held her that night.

[3]

Lost weekend

A few weeks into their stay, there was a party in their building, and like the close small community they were, everyone was invited to attend.

They were all like a little family, the Doctor often thought.

There was old Mrs. Craddock upstairs who was arguably a bit crazy but regaled anyone who would listen with such wonderful stories of her travels all over the world when she was working as an archeologist (the Doctor himself spent many hours sitting with her on her couch, exchanging stories while sharing tea and cucumber sandwiches).

There was Raynebow and Hickory down the hall with their transcendental meditation and experimental cooking, and Mr. Jenkins who, while an accountant by trade, had always wanted to be an opera singer instead and would serenade everyone with mellifluous arias in the stairwell (for the better acoustics, he'd say, but everyone else thought he simply wanted more of an audience).

And of course, there was Tom Waterson, their landlord, who was a young, bookish fellow who mostly hid away in his flat reading things like the works of Kant and Locke, but would also occasionally sit outside on his balcony and debate philosophy and politics with the Doctor late into the evening until Martha would call him home for dinner.

All of them traded stories and cooked for one another and borrowed sugar and just shared. It wasn't Utopia, with the flats in disrepair and the electricity often on the blink, but sometimes the Doctor would just stop and smile at it all, thinking: yes, this is not so bad, this is not bad at all.

The party – at Raynebow and Hickory's flat – was filled with all manner of people from the building and their friends as well as a group of rather entertaining and bohemian students from Raynebow's acting classes. The air was thick with marijuana smoke and In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and the large cup of punch the Doctor had just drunk greedily from certainly had something else in it.

"I've always loved this song!" the Doctor announced, a bit too loudly as he, rather dramatically, tossed his cup into the rubbish bin. Alcohol often had exaggerated effects on his system and he was beginning to feel, for all intents and purposes, rather drunk.

"It is a classic," Martha replied, taking the last few swigs of her own drink, much more slowly than him.

"Always felt a bit bad about Philip Taylor Kramer, though," he said, disposing of Martha's cup and pulling her to him.

Martha yelped in surprise. "He was the one that disappeared mysteriously, yeah?"

"Yep," he said, holding her hand in the air as he clasped it next to them and began to dance, hip to hip, with her.

"Do you know what happened? Don't tell me it was aliens."

"Okay, I won't," he said with a boisterous laugh, snorting a bit through his nose in the process.

"You don't mean – "

"The Jroragha, from what I heard. Nasty buggers. I don't know all the details, though, mostly just rumors heard in space bars."

Martha shifted to put her arms around him, resting her cheek against his chest. "Life with you is always so interesting," she murmured.

The two of them fell into silence, moving slowly to the music.

"This is nice," the Doctor finally said.

"What? Iron Butterfly?"

"No, this," he stroked her back, "Sometimes I just want to lose myself, have a bit of a Lost Weekend. I never do that anymore, always running and running and running."

"Lost Weekend? Like John Lennon and May Pang? Lennon was rather intoxicated during that time – "

"Keep your voice down, that won't happen for another four years," the Doctor reprimanded, sotto voce, pulling away from her slightly to look down at her. He smiled and wagged his finger at her as she returned his gaze.

"Well, as I said Lennon was reportedly rather drunk most of that time, so maybe the Lost Weekend suits you," she whispered back with a teasing wink.

"That's where they got the name from, alluding to the drunkenness in the film of 'The Lost Weekend.' Or at least that is what May told me. She was a beautiful girl, May – so charming, but just a little lost herself. Anyway, the film was about a man who descends into drunkenness due to writer's block, but in actuality, in the novel, it was because the protagonist was being tormented by a homosexual incident when he was younger. Compelling stuff, though a bit sad. People shouldn't be tormented by such things, I should think, especially when so many have been there."

"Right, like you would know anything about that."

"Ms. Jones, you would be surprised at what I know and what I've done," he smirked, thinking back to his times at the Academy, all those times with –

"I thought you lot were asexual or something."

"Asexual?" his voice went up an octave despite himself, "No, no, no. We're just, I don't know - "

"Picky? Hard to get?"

"Refined," he countered with a huff.

"So, that's your problem. No wonder you never just lose yourself, you're too caught up in…refinement to just let go."

"You seem pretty sure of that, Martha," he said quietly, trying to not lose himself in her eyes as the alcohol toyed with his inhibitions, "Maybe I can let go whenever I please."

"I somehow doubt that, but thanks for playing."

His hands moved up to her hair, seemingly of their own volition, and before he knew it, he stroked his fingertips through it. His hearts had begun beating quickly – thump, thump, thump – as he saw her lips part slightly and her eyes darken just so. He stared at her mouth for a long moment, suddenly remembering the softness of those lips when he'd kissed her on the moon – they were slightly more chapped this time, from the cold, but also faintly wet from her tongue furtively darting out to slip across them.

Something in him stirred, and he found himself moving closer to her, head moving down towards hers, closing the distance between them. It was almost as if he could no longer hear the music around them – 'Don't you know that I love you?' – as it seemed drowned out by the rapid beating of his hearts and the blood rushing loudly in his ears.

He opened his mouth slightly, just a few more inches to go before lips met lips and tongues met tongues when –

"The cops are here!" someone called out, breaking the spell. The two of them jumped back from one another, both blushing and looking rather flustered.

"Come on," the Doctor said, reaching down to grab Martha's hand. "I know a safe way out. Always be sure to find the best exit when you are in a place, Ms. Jones, because you never know what's going to happen!"

They started to run. "Especially with you around. Again with the running and running," she exclaimed.

They'd slipped out a side door of the flat, running in the opposite direction to everyone else who was either tempting fate with the front door or slipping out the fire escape. Thankfully no one was around once in the hallway and they were able to quietly slip unnoticed back downstairs to their own flat.

Once inside, Martha settled on the couch, suddenly looking tired. The Doctor, on the other hand, was bursting with energy, always excited by any sort of adventure or incident – things that rarely happened these days. "I'm going out to check on what's happening," he said enthusiastically, bouncing from one foot to the next.

"Change your clothes at least, you smell like a bad mixture of a bong and rum, they'll arrest you for sure."

"Rum! That's what that was in the punch! I love rum, especially in Bananas Foster! Once in New Orleans, I was at Brennan's and – "

The Doctor stopped when Martha yawned widely at him, her eyes drooping more and more. "I'll change," he added quietly.

A moment later he was back in the sitting room wearing a blue kurta and some thin, brown drawstring trousers that their neighbor, Raynebow, had given him as a housewarming gift. Martha seemed to stifle a laugh at his ensemble and he felt mildly affronted, but dismissed it as he quickly slipped outside into the night to check on the commotion.

"Don't get arrested," Martha called out after him.

By the time he returned – a little disappointed that the cops were there for a building nearby instead – Martha was asleep on the couch. He quietly made his way over to her, reaching down to lift her into his arms, and swaying a bit as the alcohol was still taking effect.

She stirred a little as he carried her, but seemed to stay asleep as he quietly walked her into their bedroom and laid her on the bed. He removed her shoes and for a moment considered changing her clothes into pajamas as well (and the thought thrilled him unexpectedly), but something inside him stopped him.

Instead he pulled the covers up to her chin, tucking it around her before pushing a lock of her hair out of her eyes. Something coiled in his belly as he looked down at her – moonlight coloring her features with a luminous glow – and he leaned down toward her.

Slowly – ever so slowly – he inched closer, his eyes on her lips as he descended, before, in the last moment, he caught himself again. He turned slightly, so that he was cheek to cheek with her instead.

"Sleep well, Martha Jones," he whispered near her ear, leaving the room a moment later.

[4]

Imaginary Stars

The Doctor kicked the coffee table in anger just as Martha walked in the door, returning home from her day at work.

Martha simply looked at him without a word – avoiding confrontation with him as she often did during those days, knowing he was like a caged animal ready to snap at any moment – and then turned to put her bag down and hang her coat up on the peg by the door.

A moment later, she was in the kitchen. Another moment after that, she was back, this time holding two mugs of hot chocolate, handing one to him as she sat down next to him on the couch with a patient smile.

The Doctor ran his hands through his hair, pulling at it until it stuck up in a tangled mess on his head. "I just can't seem to get it to work," he finally said quietly, gesturing helplessly to the mess of invention spread across the table before him.

"You will. You already have, in a way. At least, that's how this whole time travel thing works isn't it? That's what those notes from Sally say at least, yeah?"

The Doctor never liked to admit it – even to himself, really – but there was always something so soothing in the timbre of Martha's voice, especially in moments like this when he felt as if he was spinning out of control. Maybe it was her training as a doctor, tones learned to calm skittish patients, or maybe that was just her personality, underneath it all, but it eased him like nothing else.

"Yeah." He sighed.

"We should have a picnic."

"A picnic? Martha, it's raining and freezing outside, not the most ideal circumstances for a picnic, I should think."

"You aren't the imaginative sort, are you?" she said with a laugh. "Wait here."

Martha disappeared into the kitchen again and the Doctor had to admit that he was intrigued with what she might be planning. She was always so full of surprises, something that he had noticed more and more now that he finally had time to really get a good look at her. He'd always been too distracted before, their adventures through time and space taking most of his focus instead.

She soon reemerged balancing two small plates of food in her hands along with a tablecloth tossed over her arm. She stood in the middle of the sitting room. "Here, lay the table cloth on the floor, please," she nodded over to him.

The Doctor jumped to his feet and took the tablecloth from her arm, spreading it on the floor. He then grabbed their mugs of hot chocolate and the two of them sat down together atop the tablecloth as Martha handed the Doctor a plate with a cheese sandwich and a banana (two culinary favorites of his).

He looked at her quizzically. "Thank you?"

"So, where do you want to be?" Martha asked, not missing a beat as she smiled widely and leaned back on her elbows, "Anywhere in the universe, you pick and we can pretend we are having a picnic there. Bit of a distraction, a holiday, you know? We could go to Mars - do people have picnics on Mars? Anyway…anywhere you want to go, we'll be there."

The Doctor leaned back on his elbows next to her, mirroring her, and looked up at the ceiling. "Such a beautiful day, look at the stars," he said, going along with the charade and pointing to imaginary stars above them.

"Yes, they are beautiful. A perfect night for a picnic, I'd say."

The Doctor looked over at Martha, watching her profile as she gleefully looked up at the ceiling. He wondered for a moment what she was imagining as she laid next to him and he couldn't help but remember that same look of wonder on her face on the balcony on the Moon when they first met. She'd been so beautiful that night, the Earthlight on her skin and her eyes gleaming – it had been no wonder that he didn't want to let her go, carrying her through hospital corridors and seducing her into traveling with him.

He sighed a little at the memory, but was pulled back to the present as he studied her face as it was now. She looked wearier these days, somewhat more weathered than when he first saw her at Royal Hope. 1913 had been hard on her, traveling with him had been hard on her, yet she still remained by his side despite it all. The stress of the day, of failed experiments, soon eased from him, leaving him as he sighed at how happy this one simple human made him.

"So, where are we, Doctor? If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be?" Martha asked quietly, turning to face him.

He watched her lips move as she spoke, suddenly loving the way her mouth formed around words like 'Doctor' and 'anywhere.' She had told John Smith that he never saw her, but what she didn't know was that, in truth, sometimes it felt like he saw too much of her and it made his hearts hurt and swell simultaneously. In those moments he didn't know what he wanted more - to kiss her or to keep running from her.

This time he chose to look away, up at imaginary stars – stars that he hoped to show her someday.

"Here. I want to be right here," he whispered.

[5]

Heat

"Ding!"

Martha and the Doctor were sitting on the couch playing cards on her day off when the now-completed timey-wimey device suddenly alerted them. Both of them froze in surprise, before the Doctor grinned widely and the two of them quickly jumped up, grabbing the device and their jackets.

They found Billy Shipton a few minutes later and then a few hours after getting him settled into a flat in their building, Martha and the Doctor sat across from one another at their kitchen table, grinning and drinking cups of coffee.

"I can't believe it, this means we're going home soon," Martha mused, her face bright.

"Yep, it's only a matter of time now."

Martha got up and moved her chair around to sit next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "It's been good, though," she said shyly, "I mean, considering."

The Doctor looked over at her. She was right – despite all the stresses of being stuck, he'd enjoyed quite a bit of their stay (more than he cared to admit, really). He knew when they returned to the TARDIS – to his lifestyle – though, that things would most likely revert back to how they were before.

Or that they would need to, for his own sake.

He felt he was getting too attached to Martha – living in one another's pockets – and he needed to be distracted by his old life again. "Yes, it has. Thank you, Martha. For everything."

Martha smiled up at him sweetly and worries about distractions faded from his mind as his hearts began to race at the sight of her. He stared into her eyes – eyes so young and bright with so many possibilities – and when he saw himself reflected back, smiling, he wondered for a moment if that was how she saw him. He wished for a moment that he could be that happy smiling man for her all the time, taking away her cares and troubles.

Looking down at her lips, he slowly began to move toward them, his mind focusing on nothing but a sudden need to press his mouth against hers. An inch from one another, breath caressing skin, and they were suddenly pulled from the moment by a knock at the door.

The Doctor jumped up, trying to calm himself and quietly chastised himself for almost kissing Martha. Once at the door, he opened it and saw a bewildered Billy Shipton.

"Sorry, I was just about to go the bed and I realized I had no idea how the heater works. Could you please show me?"

[6]

Home

The Doctor quietly woke up Martha, smiling down at her as she squinted up at him in the half-light of the room. "Martha," he whispered, caressing her cheek, "the TARDIS is here."

"Really?" she asked, an almost childlike wonder in her sleepy tone.

"Yes, we can go home now," he replied, sliding under the covers next to her.

Martha shifted to face him, her brow slightly furrowed as she regarded him. "It's so strange, I've waited so long for this day to come, but now that it has – "

"I know." The Doctor felt it too. As much as he wanted – needed – to move on again, there was a part of him that wanted to stay with Martha in this dirty old flat for just a bit longer.

"It's all going back to normal, all going to change," Martha whispered, biting her lip as sadness crossed her features.

"What do you mean?"

"You…we'll start to travel and see the stars again and…you won't see me anymore."

His breath hitched, afraid that she had somehow known his thoughts about reverting back to being with her as they were before. As true as it might be, hearing the words spoken aloud gave them a frightening power that made even him wince.

"We'll always have this," he offered, reaching up to push an errant hair from her eyes.

"And what is this, Doctor?"

"A life I can never have, I'm afraid."

"You are always running and running. Do you ever stop and wonder what you are running from? Do you ever look behind to see it?"

"I – "

"No matter, back to business as usual," she said with an exasperated groan.

"Martha, please don't be like that, I don't want it to be this way," he pleaded.

"Of course you do, it's all of your own creation. You make yourself miserable and lonely. I've tried to help with that, but you don't ever accept it. Part of me is getting tired of even trying."

"Please…don't," he whispered.

"Don't what, Doctor?"

"Get tired of me."

Martha shook her head, closing her eyes tightly with another groan, before opening them and looking at him again. "You are the most confusing and frustrating person I've ever met. Why don't you ever do what you actually want in your life? I mean, what you really want? Are you punishing yourself for something?"

Her words stung. "You can't always get what you want, Martha," he replied quietly.

"Whatever, Doctor. You don't even try."

"What if the things I want will only serve to hurt me in the end, what about that, eh?"

"I guess you have to weigh that hurt against any happiness it might bring in the meantime."

"Everything – everyone – moves on in my life, Martha. That is one of the downfalls of my life, you see, always losing everything and everyone."

"What do you mean, Doctor? Who or what are you going to lose?"

He swallowed hard. "You."

"I'm right here."

"But not forever."

"Maybe I don't want forever. Maybe I just want right now, with you." Martha reached under the cover and took his hand.

"You make it sound so simple," he replied with a mirthless laugh.

"It is simple. Just you and me – together, here, now."

"Martha Jones, you are going to be the death of me."

"Well," she moved her hand from his to press it against the middle of his chest, "at least I know how to revive you."

"Yes," he agreed, reaching up to hold her palm against his racing hearts. "You always did know how to bring me back to life."

The Doctor leaned forward, eyes on hers, as his face was mere inches away from hers. "Let's never forget this."

"Never," she breathed.

The Doctor closed the distance between them, finally pressing his mouth to hers, relishing in the moment and how he was finally able to kiss her. Martha's mouth opened to his, letting his tongue slide past her lips, and they kissed languidly in the bed for several long moments.

Finally pulling from the kiss, breathless, the Doctor spoke softly. "Let's go home."

"Already there," Martha said with a sigh.

"Here in 1969?"

"No," she paused, biting her lip, "with you."

The Doctors hearts swelled at her words. He knew he was going to muck it up as he always did, hurt her even when he tried so hard not to, but in that moment he simply focused on her before him and what they had right now.

His peace would be fleeting – it always was – but for now he let himself be consumed by the joy of it.

Home, with Martha - it was all he needed.