Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Martha Jones knew she was right, she had every reason to feel the way she did. Still, it didn’t make things easier. She’d been avoiding him for a few days now, carefully maneuvering around his schedule, or what passed for one. It wasn’t hard, not really. She got up before dawn most mornings, slipped out quietly, and didn’t come back until it was dark. Work, work, work, double shifts, some nights triple. Not entirely intentional, but she didn’t mind the excuse. The truth was, she had to afford the tiny studio flat they’d managed to find.

It was barely more than a box with plumbing, tucked in the back of a half-leaning building in a neighborhood that didn’t ask too many questions. The landlord, a kind-eyed black man with graying sideburns and a quiet understanding of things left unsaid—had taken pity on them, even shaved a bit off the rent when he saw Martha’s face and heard their made up story. “Two young ones, trying to find your feet,” he’d said, handing over the keys. Still, discounted or not, rent was rent, and 1969 wasn’t kind to a woman like her. Especially not one pretending to belong in a time she absolutely didn’t.

He never seemed to sleep, she noticed. That… wasn’t new, exactly, but it became more noticeable with every passing night. They hadn’t been traveling together long, just a few months, but the strangeness of it still lingered. There was a kind of silence that stretched between them now, not unfriendly, but charged with something unspoken. He was always up, always out. Sometimes she’d hear the creak of the floorboards as he paced outside the window at two or three in the morning, fiddling with that makeshift gadget he’d cobbled together, muttering about signals and timelines and something “not aligning yet.”

And she, well, she tried to pretend everything was normal. That this was fine. That she wasn’t unraveling, just a little, each time she came home to a dark room and the hum of that ridiculous little machine. He didn’t notice, of course. He never did. He’d smile when he saw her, ask how her shift had gone, maybe ramble about another false signal or a name in his notebook that almost matched. Then he’d disappear again, chasing shadows and waiting for something or someone that hadn’t arrived yet.

Sometimes, she caught herself watching him through the cracked blinds, the yellow streetlight casting him in pale gold. He looked like someone who belonged to another world entirely. And maybe he did. But he was her only link to getting out of this one. She missed the TARDIS. Missed home, whatever that even meant now. She missed feeling like she was more than just someone trying to survive a decade she wasn’t born into. Most of all, she missed feeling like she had a choice.

She’d been listening to the ticking of the clock for what felt like ages now like a heartbeat she couldn’t quite ignore. Martha lay curled on her side, facing the wall, the covers pulled all the way up to her nose like a makeshift barrier between herself and the rest of the world. Or maybe just between herself and him. She hadn’t dared move much, not even to shift the stiffness in her shoulder, partly to keep up the illusion of sleep, partly because she wasn’t quite ready to face the day, not just yet.

She knew he was awake, of course. He was always awake. The scratchy sound of a page turning had started at least fifteen minutes ago, maybe longer. It was the same as always. He’d chosen one of the half-battered paperbacks they'd found at that secondhand shop last week, something with a title she didn’t recognize and probably written long after 1969, if she had to guess. But it didn’t matter. He devoured books like oxygen, like they were lifelines, and right now he was sitting up in bed, legs crossed, back resting against the peeling wall, fully alert in that maddeningly eternal way of his.

And he was right next to her. Right there. Just sitting quietly reading, like it was the most normal thing in the world to be crammed together in a tiny one-room studio flat in the middle of a decade neither of them belonged to.

He probably thought she was still asleep. He hadn’t said anything. Hadn’t nudged her or asked if she was getting up soon. And maybe that was the most infuriating thing, he just accepted it. Accepted that Martha Jones, world-weary medical student turned accidental time traveler, might want to sleep in. As if she hadn’t already heard the second alarm chime. As if she wasn’t very much awake now, hyperaware of every shift he made beside her, of the faint scent of old paper and ozone that seemed to cling to him no matter how long they’d been stranded here.

She’d mumbled something, when he first stirred and the clock struck again, about wanting to sleep a little longer. Blame it on muscle memory, the voice of a student who’d dragged herself through too many early lectures after too few hours of rest. He’d taken her at her word, didn’t question it, just gave her that soft nod he did sometimes, the kind that said he understood more than he let on. And then he’d let her be.

But now, lying here under a blanket that she had entirely monopolized, he never complained, not once, and she’d noticed he hadn’t pulled any of it back over himself, she couldn’t help but feel the strange weight of it all. The silence between them was comfortable, sure, but laced with something else. Something she couldn’t name.

Today was supposed to be one of her rare days off from work, a precious pocket of freedom carved out of the long weeks of double shifts and exhaustion. And that meant, exploring. With him. With that brilliant, impossible man who made even the dullest street feel like the edge of some vast, hidden galaxy. They had a kind of routine, those days. Sometimes he’d take her to the library and they’d pretend not to be too strange, sometimes they’d chase rumors of strange lights in the sky, or odd people with odd stories. Sometimes they just walked. But always together.

And yet this morning, something in her hesitated. Not because she didn’t want to go. No, it wasn’t that. She wanted to go, to be out there, to walk beside him like they always did, investigating odd flickers of temporal energy, listening to strangers’ stories, trying to make sense of a decade that wasn’t theirs. But it was getting harder to keep up the act. Harder to pretend she wasn’t quietly fraying at the edges. And even harder to accept that maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t noticed at all.

She took a breath and finally pushed the blankets aside with a heavy sigh, the cool morning air brushing against her skin. “What are you reading?” she asked, her voice still rough from sleep as she swung one leg out from under the covers.

The floor was cold beneath her foot, the kind of cold that made you instantly regret not wearing socks, but she didn’t flinch. Instead, she tugged at the waistband of her pyjama pants, which were far too big and clinging on for dear life by the grace of a fraying drawstring. They were an old pair she’d found in a charity bin when they first landed here — men’s, probably — and the shirt she wore wasn’t hers either. Some faded concert tee from a band that hadn’t technically formed yet.

A year ago, she would’ve been mortified to be seen like this in front of a man. Especially one she liked. And she did like him, a lot more than she wanted to admit, even to herself. Not that it mattered. She’d never say it out loud, not even under duress. And even if she did, he probably already knew. Or maybe he didn’t. He was brilliant, but frustratingly blind in very specific ways.

“Ah! You’re awake!” he exclaimed, his voice full of that too-loud morning enthusiasm only he could manage at 7 a.m. It echoed off the narrow walls, as if they weren’t in a glorified closet of a flat. She immediately grimaced and reached down for the pillow that had fallen to the floor sometime in the night, tossing it at him with a sharp, “Shh!”

He caught it midair with a grin, like this was all part of some ongoing game only he was winning. “Sorry, sorry,” he said, in a tone that suggested he wasn’t sorry at all. “Didn’t want to wake the whole street, I promise. But it’s a very exciting chapter. This bloke thinks Atlantis was actually a colony of time-traveling Venetians. Ridiculous, obviously, but his footnotes are fascinating.”

“Yes, I’m awake,” she muttered, rolling her eyes as she walked past him toward the cracked mirror that hung a little crooked on the wall. Her reflection met her with a tired, slightly smudged look. Eyeliner she hadn’t properly scrubbed off the night before, hair escaping the bun she’d lazily thrown up when she collapsed after her shift. She raised both arms to tie it back again, twisting the curls into something passable, her fingers working through muscle memory.

Behind her, he flipped a page with that signature rustle, still grinning to himself.

Martha watched him in the mirror for a moment, just briefly. Sitting there cross-legged on the bed, hair a little messier than usual, still in his shirt and trousers from yesterday because he probably hadn’t even changed. And for just a moment, she wanted to say something. Anything. About how strange it was to wake up next to him. About how strange it wasn’t. About how it felt to be living in borrowed clothes in borrowed time, next to someone who always seemed to be everywhere but here.

But instead she just sighed softly and said, “Let me guess. You want to go chase another signal this morning?”

He looked up at her, eyes bright. “Of course! Unless you want to sleep more. I could give the Venetians another go.”

She shook her head, pulling her jumper over her shirt. “Let me have tea first. Then we’ll talk time colonies.”

He beamed. “Excellent. I’ll boil the kettle!”

And just like that, he was already halfway to the corner where the kettle sat, cheerfully humming some tune she couldn’t name.

And she followed, because what else could she do?

Chapter Text

The day had been spent following another half-baked lead, energy readings, strange flickers in the air near a phone box that turned out to be nothing more than a dodgy lightbulb and a man with a fondness for tinfoil hats. It was exhausting, pointless in that way that only time travel gone wrong could be, but he’d called it “progress” with that infuriating optimism of his.

And then, just as the sun started to set and her feet were aching in her boots, he turned to her with a grin that spelled trouble and said, “Let’s call it a date night, yeah? Cinema, popcorn, mild danger. What more could you want?”

Martha had rolled her eyes, but of course, she went.

He insisted on them playing the part properly, “newlyweds,” he’d whispered as they passed their nosy neighbor, the one who always narrowed her eyes at Martha like she was something stuck to the bottom of her shoe. So naturally, he wrapped an arm around her shoulder, gently tugging her closer, and she traitorously rested her head on his chest without even thinking.

It was warm. And steady. And just for a second, she let herself imagine it wasn’t pretend.

She’d chosen a mini skirt that morning, paired with knee-high boots and a fitted turtleneck that hugged in all the right places. She wasn’t trying to impress him—well, not exactly—but she wasn’t not trying either. He hadn’t said anything when he saw her, just glanced over, tilted his head, and smiled like he was seeing her for the first time. But then he just said something ridiculous about boots being impractical for running and offered her his coat, which she refused because she was still trying to win something she hadn’t admitted to playing.

“So I said, ‘Martha, dear…’” he said now, mimicking some posh, overdone voice as they stopped to chat with a group of women on the stoop of their building. The ladies laughed, clearly enchanted by his eccentric charm and vintage suit. Martha laughed too, because that’s what she was meant to do, even though the joke barely made sense.

And then he did it.

He leaned in and kissed her cheek, quick but deliberate, just long enough to make her breath catch and just short enough that no one could call it anything more than a casual gesture. She blinked but kept her smile on. Her heart was absolutely not racing. Not at all.

“Well, we have to be off, ladies,” he chirped, giving them a two-finger salute. “Got ourselves a date!”

Martha forced herself to echo, “Bye,” with a small wave. She kept it light, bright, the perfect picture of a woman happily in love. Then they turned the corner, and the moment they were out of sight, she slipped her hand out of his.

She felt him glance sideways at her and then he stuffed his hands into his coat pockets like he hadn’t noticed anything at all. But she had. She always did. The pause was small, forgettable, if you didn’t know him. But she knew the way he paused. That soft, uncertain glitch in his rhythm, like something had skipped in the great machinery of him. He didn’t ask why she let go of his hand. And she didn’t offer an explanation.

There was nothing to explain. Not out loud, anyway.

She looked back once, just to see if he was still there. Still following. He was—of course he was—hands in pockets, head tilted as he studied the flickering lights of the makeshift outdoor cinema ahead. The crowd had already started settling onto picnic blankets and benches at Hyde park, couples sharing umbrellas or hot drinks. Somewhere, a projector whirred quietly into motion. The film hadn’t started yet.

They found a patch of grass that wasn’t too damp and sat down, him cross-legged, her lying back with her arms folded beneath her head. The sky was iron grey above them, heavy and restless. The kind of sky that promised rain and didn’t break its promises.

He opened the umbrella without needing to be asked, held it at just the right angle so that the two of them stayed dry beneath its dome. His arm brushed hers. He didn’t move it.

The film started. Some old black-and-white thing, all dramatic violins and perfectly timed gasps. She wasn't watching.

“You’re quiet,” he said, voice low, just loud enough to carry over the soft hum of the projector. “That’s not like you.”

She kept her eyes on the sky. “Just tired.”

He accepted that too easily. “Long shift?”

“Long week.”

There was silence again, but not a comfortable one. Not quite.

“You don’t have to come out with me every time,” he added after a beat. “You can say no, you know.”

She turned her head, met his eyes in the dark. “And leave you to chat up half the neighborhood by yourself? No chance.”

He chuckled at that. “Jealous, are we?”

She smiled, tight, but teasing. “Of course. All that charm and no supervision? It’s a public safety issue.”

He laughed. It lit his whole face.

She turned back toward the screen, but her heart felt heavier now. He didn’t hear what she was really saying. He rarely did.

She didn’t want to sit through another film pretending everything was fine. She didn’t want to smile politely every time he threw an arm around her for show. What she wanted—what she really wanted—was for it to not be pretend. To sit like this and have it mean something. To let herself reach for his hand and not have to wonder what story they were performing today.

But she didn’t say any of that. She couldn’t.

Instead, she shifted a little closer under the umbrella. The rain began, soft and steady, a quiet rhythm over canvas and shoulders and grass. He adjusted the umbrella without a word, tilting it more toward her side.

The movie blurred in the background. People around them started grumbling and laughing about the weather. A couple behind them got up to leave. She stayed.

“I like the rain,” she said, softly.

He tilted his head toward her, curious. “Yeah?”

She nodded, eyes still on the sky. “Makes the world quieter. Slower. Like everything pauses, just for a second.”

He didn’t reply right away. Then: “I used to think that too.”

There was something almost tender in the way he said it, like he wasn’t talking about rain at all.

There were nights—quiet, in-between nights—when they’d sit together on the narrow balcony of their tiny flat. The rain would come in sheets, soft at first, then insistent, drumming on the rusted railing like a rhythm only they could hear. He’d rigged a tarp overhead, barely effective, and Martha would wrap herself in one of their worn blankets, feet curled beneath her on the folding chair.

Somehow, he’d coaxed life out of a battered record player he’d dragged home from beside the rubbish bins. “Classic Earth craftsmanship,” he’d declared with mock seriousness, proudly dropping the needle on a scratched soul album she’d picked up for cheap at the market. The music was warped, skipping now and again, but the crackle and fuzz made it feel more real. More there.

On those nights, something in him loosened.

He would speak—not in riddles or rapid-fire technobabble—but plainly. Gently. Sometimes he’d tell her stories of his home, that far-off place with twin suns and red skies that only showed up in his voice when he forgot to guard it. She’d listen, silent and still, feeling like he was letting her peek behind the curtain just long enough to remind her there was a person behind the performer.

He’d smile in that way he did when he thought she couldn’t see it. And for a few rare moments, he’d seem human.

And then it would be over.

Something in him would shift. The quiet would make him fidget. He’d glance toward the door like the stillness had become too loud. And before she could say anything to hold him there, he’d be gone off into the night with his coat flapping behind him, some invented errand or impossible signal calling him away.

And she would stay behind, holding the moment like it was something breakable. Left with the echo of his voice and the ghost of his presence. Left with her feelings, which never seemed to matter as much as the silence he left behind.

That’s what hurt the most. Not that he left. He always left. But how easily he moved on from it, from her. While she was still sitting in the feeling, heart open, waiting for a conversation that never came.

At the screening, under the flimsy cover of their shared umbrella, she tried to shake that ache. The rain had grown heavier, beading on the dark fabric above their heads, tapping out a syncopated rhythm that matched her thoughts.

“You know,” she said softly, eyes on the flickering black-and-white figures ahead, “you’re very hard to read.”

He turned his head toward her, curious. That little half-smile playing on his lips again, like he’d just been complimented. “I think that’s part of my charm.”

She looked at him, really looked. His profile was cast in silvery light from the screen. The line of his jaw. The faint furrow between his brows when he was thinking, which was almost always. He made the world spin faster. And sometimes, when he wasn’t paying attention, he made her spin, too.

“It’s exhausting,” she said after a beat, not quite whispering.

He blinked, thrown. “What is?”

But she didn’t answer. Not because she didn’t want to. Because she didn’t think he’d hear it, not really. Or worse, he’d hear it, understand it, and still do nothing.

So she turned back to the film, pretending to watch the actors fall in love in monochrome. They always made it look so simple. A glance. A smile. A kiss that meant something.

The Doctor sat beside her, close enough that their knees touched. He shifted the umbrella again to keep her dry. She felt the movement, the small kindness. It should have meant something.

But it didn’t.

The rain kept falling, soft and steady, and in the hum between words, she sat still—wishing, not for the first time, that he would stop being such a beautiful mystery long enough for her to believe he wanted to be understood.

Not by everyone.

Just by her.

Chapter Text

Martha Jones, you are brilliant.

That’s what he’d said as they tore around the corner, their feet slapping the damp pavement of a near-empty London street, the echo of danger still far too close behind them. Her chest ached with a strange cocktail of adrenaline and laughter, both catching in her throat like bubbles rising too fast. She had lied smoothly, instinctively, and oh so convincingly. It had surprised her, just how easily it came now. She was getting good at this: weaving fictions on a whim, slipping into personas like second skins, building a wall of clever words to keep her and the Doctor alive.

And he was proud. She saw it, even if he didn’t say it. Well, other than calling her brilliant again. It rolled off his tongue like a truth too obvious to challenge. His hand found hers, firm and warm, fingers curling around hers like a lifeline, and they had bolted.

No turning back.

They ran through London’s midnight veins, past shuttered shops and flickering lampposts, their shadows stretching long and strange behind them. They crossed a bridge—she barely noticed which one—too wrapped in the shimmering reflection of the moon on the Thames, the city lights painting golden streaks across the water. His hand still clutched hers, anchoring her to the moment, to the ground, to him.

He ran faster, always a step ahead with those ridiculously long legs, and she tried to keep up, breath hitching in her chest. She was still in her shop girl outfit, the apron stuffed hastily in her bag, the hem of her skirt brushing against her knees with every step. He had waited for her outside her shift, said he needed help, said he’d explain on the way. He never really explained, not until they were already in trouble.

And now they were here, breathless and rattled, climbing the stairs of the night bus. They didn’t have tickets. The driver let them on anyway, whether out of pity, or suspicion, or maybe just to avoid the hassle. Martha nodded her thanks, avoiding his eyes, her body still electric with the aftermath of flight. They sank into the back row. The seats were cracked and sticky, but it felt like a sanctuary. Her legs ached. Her lungs still fought for air. The city blurred past outside the window, the fogged glass making everything look distant and dreamlike.

She leaned back and stared at the ceiling of the bus, lit with dim, flickering yellow light. The Doctor sat beside her, fingers drumming softly on his thigh. Always moving. Always thinking. Already onto the next step.

Their flat was over an hour away by foot. Neither of them had the energy to make that walk, not tonight. They had just barely escaped with their lives.

She turned her head, watching him through the corner of her eye. He was gazing out the window, his face unreadable. The streetlights painted gold across his skin, and for a second, just a second, he looked young. Not ageless. Not ancient. Just young, and tired, and beautiful.

Her heart ached.

Because he’d called her brilliant. Because she had been brilliant. Because for one heartbeat of a moment, they had run together and survived something again, and it had felt like everything was possible. And now the city moved on outside, indifferent. The night crept closer. The danger faded. But her feelings, those didn’t go anywhere. They sat with her, quiet and aching, in the back row of a midnight bus.

And he still held her hand. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“God, if we were a second too—” she began, still catching her breath.

He reached over, pressed a finger to her lips gently, not to silence her, but to redirect.

“We weren’t,” he said, voice like a grin. “We’re alive and out ran them. That’s the important bit.”

She smiled despite herself. Always onto the next thing. Never letting the fear settle long enough to take root. That was the Doctor. Moving forward like a current you couldn’t stand still in.

He said things like that all the time. Pet names that weren’t really pet names. Not like lovers had, but… other kinds. Words that meant something, and didn’t. Brilliant, he’d called her. Star. The future Miss Doctor Jones, he’d once teased in front of a postman, and she’d laughed too loudly. And even though she told herself not to read into it, every time he said her name like that, warm and proud and soft, it carved something deeper inside her. Something she didn’t always know how to live with.

Because she did try. She gave it everything she had. She showed up. She ran. She held the line.

And he noticed. That’s what mattered.

They sat at the very back of the bus, tucked into the curve of the last seat where the fluorescent light above flickered and buzzed. The windows were fogged slightly from the damp of the night, city lights smeared into blurs as they moved. She leaned her head back. The kind of tired that was more than physical sank into her bones. A quiet ache. But the thrill that remained. Like a heartbeat. Like something she wasn’t ready to let go of.

They didn’t speak. For a moment, it was just the hum of the road and the weight of what they weren’t saying. He stared out the window, fingers tapping out a rhythm on his knee. She glanced at him, eyes tracing the line of his jaw, the curl of his hair just above his collar. She memorised it. Like she always did when she thought he might vanish again.

She didn’t plan to do it.

It just… happened.

Maybe it was the way the city lights flickered like stars through the grimy bus window. Maybe it was the afterglow of adrenaline still burning warm in her chest. Maybe it was the way he said her name—Martha Jones, you are brilliant—like he meant it. Like he always meant it. And maybe it was the silence that settled between them now, the kind that wasn’t awkward, not really, just full of things unsaid.

She looked at him.

He was still watching the window, like he could see something more than she could. Something beyond the smudged glass and city blur. His expression was soft, his profile half-lit by the passing streetlamps. The hand in hers was still there, steady and warm and thoughtless in the way someone breathes. It didn’t seem like he noticed he was still holding it. Or maybe he did.

Maybe that was the problem.

Martha turned slightly, shifted toward him just enough that her knee brushed his. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. His fingers twitched once in hers, but he didn’t let go.

So she leaned in.

Soft. Slow. Barely more than breath.

Her lips touched his, just the edges, just enough for her to feel the shock of it like a heartbeat under skin. He tasted like rain and breath and the kind of silence that comes after running. And she thought—maybe, maybe—he would kiss her back.

But he didn’t.

He didn’t pull away. He didn’t lean in. He just… stilled. Like time had stopped around him, caught mid-thought, mid-motion, like he hadn’t decided yet whether he was allowed to exist in this moment. And that was somehow worse.

Martha pulled back, barely, just a breath between them now. Her face burned. Her hands curled awkwardly in her lap, like they didn’t know what to do without the motion of running. She didn’t dare look him in the eye. Couldn’t.

“This is our stop…” she said, her voice too bright, too sharp against the quiet hum of the bus engine. She stood before he could speak, before he could say something kind or cruel or worse—nothing at all. She cleared her throat. “Let’s go?”

He blinked, finally turning to look at her. His mouth opened, then closed again. And then—just like that—he stood and followed.

She walked ahead, not waiting. Her boots slapped the pavement louder than they needed to. Her heart beat against her ribs like it was trying to escape.

Behind her, she heard the soft thump of his shoes hitting the curb. He was there, a few steps behind. Not close enough to touch. Not far enough to forget.

The bus pulled away with a hiss.

She didn’t look back.

The walk was quiet.

He didn’t say a word, and neither did she. But she felt his eyes on her when they turned the corner by the chemist’s. It was that soft, searching look he got sometimes when he thought she wasn’t paying attention. The one that made her stomach twist. The one that made her hope.

God, she was such a fool.

She didn’t know what had made her do it. The kiss. Maybe it was loneliness. Maybe it was exhaustion. Or maybe it was that she’d spent too many nights next to him, sitting too close in silence, pretending she didn’t want to reach out and feel something real. And for a moment, on that bus, she had wanted it to be real more than anything.

She reached into the pocket of her coat, fingers closing around the loose coins she’d carried all day without thought—just enough for a lukewarm tea or something stronger, if she fancied lying to herself for a while longer. The corner shop was still open, the flickering “OPEN” sign buzzing against the window, casting a pinkish halo onto the rain-slick pavement. She didn’t need anything, not really. But standing there on the street, with the cold biting at her collar and her breath ghosting in front of her face, she needed somewhere to go that wasn’t back to him.

She had one foot on the threshold when she heard it. Her name.

“Martha.”

Just that.

No teasing, no clever twist on her last name. Not “Martha Jones, my star,” or “the future Dr. Jones,” or any of the usual titles he liked to toss around like they didn’t mean something. Just Martha. Soft, uncertain. Like a question.

She stopped but didn’t turn fully to face him. Her fingers hovered at the edge of the shop door, cold metal against her knuckles. She kept her eyes on the glass, the distorted reflection of herself staring back: tired, rained on, windblown, trying very hard not to fall apart in a fluorescent-lit doorway.

Behind her, his voice came again, quieter this time. “I don’t… do relationships.”

The words weren’t meant to wound. But they did.

There was something serious in the way he said it. No performative sadness. No practiced apology. Just the flat truth, dropped between them like a pebble into a pond—small, but the ripple would follow her home.

She nodded, once. “I know.” Her voice didn’t shake, though her stomach did. “You go ahead, yeah? I’ll be there in a minute.”

And he didn’t argue.

Of course he didn’t.

He turned and walked off into the night, back toward the flat they shared, but didn’t call home at the same time. Not really.

She stepped into the shop. The bell above the door gave its tired jingle, more out of habit than sound. The fluorescent lights inside buzzed low, humming over rows of limp snacks and faded newspapers. The man behind the counter barely looked up, too used to faces that came in late with hollow eyes and no appetite.

She wandered the aisles aimlessly, not even sure what she was pretending to want. A drink, maybe. Or chocolate. Something to give her hands purpose. But what her fingers found instead, tucked away behind a dusty box of cough drops, was an old packet of cigarettes. Her hand closed around it like it belonged to her.

She hadn’t smoked since she was seventeen, back when doing something stupid was still glamorous and heartbreak hadn’t felt so permanent. She was a Doctor. She should know these things are bad for her. She could almost see that girl now, young, still in uniform, sprawled out on the park bench behind her school with a borrowed lighter and a head full of dreams far too big for the postcode she lived in. That girl didn’t know heartbreak. She only knew crushes and waiting outside concerts and imagining what real love might feel like.

Martha bought the cigarettes.

She didn’t think too hard about it. Didn’t think at all.

The man didn’t blink as she handed over the coins, didn’t ask for ID, just slid the change back across the counter with the same blank stare he gave everyone who walked in trying not to be seen.

Outside, the air was colder than she remembered. Or maybe her skin had gone too warm with the ache in her chest. She leaned back against the shop wall, just out of the path of the flickering sign, and wrestled with the old cellophane and cardboard like muscle memory.

The first drag was awful.

It tasted like ash and regret and chemicals she didn’t remember being so sharp. She coughed hard into her hand, eyes watering instantly, the sting hitting her throat like punishment. Her eyes burned—not just from the smoke—and she gave a half-laugh, bitter and broken, wiping the corners of her eyes with her sleeve.

“Didn’t picture you as the smoking sort.”

The voice with a disappointing ring to it came from her left, sudden and far too familiar.

She startled, nearly dropping the cigarette. Her heart lurched as she looked up and of course it was him. The Doctor. Leaning there like he hadn’t just walked away, arms crossed, his expression unreadable, that bloody coat wrapped tight against the wind.

She blinked at him, too many emotions crashing at once to sort them.

He wasn’t smiling. Wasn’t teasing.

Just watching.

“I’m not,” she said eventually, turning her gaze back to the street. She took another drag, coughed less this time. “Guess I just… needed to feel something familiar.”

He didn’t say anything. The silence stretched between them, not awkward, but charged. Heavy. The rain had slowed to a mist, clinging to her curls and the collar of his coat. She didn’t dare look at him again.

“I used to think I was smarter than this,” she said quietly. “Falling for someone who could never…” She stopped herself. Let the words dangle. There was no point in finishing them.

He didn’t correct her. Didn’t deny it. Didn’t tell her she was wrong.

Just stepped closer.

And for a moment, just a breath of time suspended between everything they said and everything they didn’t. She saw something shift in his eyes. Something quieter than usual, stripped bare of the playful pet names and the spark of cleverness he so often wore like armor. There was a gentleness there, something uncertain and aching and long buried, peeking out through a crack he hadn’t meant to show her. It wasn’t love, not the sort of love she had foolishly allowed herself to imagine, not the kind she tasted on her own tongue when she let herself think about what they were, but it was still something real. It was care. It was guilt, maybe. It was the deep and silent recognition that she mattered to him, even if he didn’t know how to say it, didn’t know what shape that care was supposed to take, didn’t know how to hold her heart without breaking it.

She reached out slowly, deliberately, and placed her hand in his, not as a question, but as a quiet declaration. She didn’t ask for anything with the gesture. She didn’t look at him, didn’t press for a reaction. Her fingers simply slid into his like they had done a hundred times before, only this time slower, softer, weighted with all the things she couldn’t find the right words for.

And he didn’t pull away.

But still, she froze. Just for a second. Because even in that stillness, even in the simplicity of their joined hands, she could feel the fault line running between them. There was affection there, yes. A shared history. Unspoken trust. But also distance, impossibly wide and unbearably quiet. And she hated herself for hoping it could be bridged.

The city seemed to pause with them. The air had turned cool, crisp with midnight. A few faint stars glimmered in the dark sky above, peeking between the thinning clouds like tiny witnesses to a conversation that hadn’t yet finished unfolding. Somewhere in the distance, a fox walked past them. A car passed on a faraway road. The ordinary world rolled on, indifferent to what sat heavy between two people who had seen things no one else could understand.

She let go of his hand and dropped the cigarette to the concrete. Ground it out beneath the sole of her boot like it had never mattered. It never really had. Adulthood rebellion.

“I don’t expect you to be something you’re not,” she said, finally, her voice calm but not cold. Just tired. Weary from the pretending, the holding back, the hoping that one day she might be enough to change the trajectory of a man who had seen the universe and still didn’t know how to love her. “But I can’t keep pretending I don’t care. Because I do. I have. For longer than I want to admit.”

He didn’t speak right away. Just looked at her, eyes dark and unreadable beneath the shadows of the streetlamp. And when he finally did speak, the words came quietly, like they cost him more than he wanted her to know.

“I do care about you, Martha.”

She laughed, softly, not bitter but not light either. It was a laugh with edges. “Just not like that.”

He opened his mouth—maybe to argue, maybe to deny it—but no sound came. His gaze flickered upward toward the stars, as if the answer might be waiting for him somewhere in their cold and ancient light, as if the universe itself might offer him an escape from the truth resting heavy between them.

“It’s not that simple,” he murmured.

“It never is,” she said.

And still, she didn’t walk away.

Because even if it wasn’t enough, even if he could never give her the version of him that she wanted, the version that chose her with certainty. she still wanted to stay. Still wanted the fragments. The laughter. The wild nights beneath foreign skies. The soft hum of his voice when he called her brilliant like it was the most obvious truth in the world. She didn’t want to need him, but she did. And he didn’t want to hurt her, but he did, just by being who he was.

He took a step closer.

Close enough that she could feel the warmth of him, the electric current that always lived beneath his skin. His expression was unreadable—soft, maybe, or sad, or both. He reached out with a hand that hovered near her cheek, hesitating just long enough to be noticed, then gently, carefully, rested it against her jaw.

And then he kissed her.

Not passionately. Not like a man consumed with want or certainty or devotion. But gently. Almost solemnly. Like someone offering comfort. Like someone trying to apologize without using words. His lips were warm, unmoving, and stayed just long enough to be felt, just long enough to say something she couldn’t quite decipher. Not a promise. Not a beginning. But maybe a thank you. Maybe an I’m sorry. Maybe an I see you. Maybe something in between all those things.

When he pulled away, his hand lingered for a moment longer before falling to his side.

She didn’t cry. She didn’t speak. She just stood there, blinking at him, heart full and hollow at once.

And he looked at her like he wished he could be different.

Like he wished he could be hers.

But he wasn’t.

Not really.

Still, she stayed beside him.

Because even though that kiss wasn’t love, it was something. A moment. A flicker of warmth in the dark. And sometimes, when you loved someone who couldn’t love you back the same way, you took what you could. You clung to the spaces in between.

Because love—real love—wasn’t always about being chosen. Sometimes, it was just about showing up anyway.

And she wasn’t done showing up.

Not for him.
Not yet.