Fic: Noticing the Noticing.
Jan. 25th, 2010 01:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quitehomoeroticAN: This is written for the wonderful ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rude_not_ginger mun to hopefully put a smile on her face. It's set within the two immortals verse at some point in the future. It's a little silly, hopefully fun!
When people who are around each other a lot change how they behave with one another it can be hard for the people themselves to notice. After all, the people in question share company so much that noting the change themselves can be difficult, even if they're aware there is one.
It can be harder still when the pair in question are both very stubborn by nature. Stubborn to the degree that they will both (to anyone but themselves) deny that they have changed at all. Even if they're fully aware that they have.
So it's perhaps that stubbornness then that means the Doctor and Captain Jack Harkness assure themselves that nothing will be noticed when Martha Jones comes to visit. Well really, how could she notice something when there's nothing to notice?
But Martha isn't so foolish, and she notices. She notices before she even enters the TARDIS.
1.
Ring ring ring. Ring ring ring. Ring ring ring.
Martha stands in her kitchen with her laptop open and her mobile phone to her ear. She waits.
Ring ring ring. Ring ring ring. Ring ring ring.
"Hello?"
"Docto--," she stops. Frowns. "Jack?"
"Martha Jones. Voice of a nightingale! And that's me. Least last time I checked. This a social call or--"
Another voice chirps up from the background. The Doctor's voice. And Martha can tell even from the tone he's likely running around as though his feet were on fire.
"Is that Martha?"
"Yes it's Martha."
"Oh that's ni--- 300 meters to impact!"
Jack's attention returns to the phone. "Look we're kind of in the middle of something here but, is there something you need?"
She lets out a breath of a laugh. "Something in the water, Jack. I'm at Mum's. I--"
His voice cuts her off, "Yup, water, Mom's, got it. See you soon, Martha."
The phone line goes dead and Martha pulls back just staring at the phone. Well that was surreal.
2.
"So when we pick Martha up we should probably... You and I, should probably..." the Doctor's words trail and he tugs lightly on his ear, looking incredibly uncomfortable. Jack watches him with a thinly veiled amusement.
He thinks he ought to put him out of his misery. "I know."
"Right. Good. Good. That's goo-- Not that I want to-"
"I know."
"Well. Long as we're on the same page then. And we're-- I mean it's not like we have anything to worry about anyway. It's not like we act--" he waves a hand idly, "you know."
"Exactly. There's nothing to notice. It's not like we act--"
"Well we don't. Not at all, no!"
"Exactly! So there's nothing for her to notice. And I mean, even if there were..."
"Nahhh. Nah there's not. I mean, she won't. And we'll just..." the Doctor sniffs, "you know."
"I know."
Jack smiles at the Doctor and the Doctor smiles back. Both of them confident that what they say is true.
Really, for such intelligent men, they can be very blinkered at times.
3.
Back on the TARDIS in a way is the same as ever. The Doctor runs around the console, pressing buttons and pulling levers. She never did work out what those did, she supposes she never will now, this is just a passing visit after all.
But while the Doctor runs, and smacks bits of the console with his mallet, Jack stands at the monitor, eyeing it and frantically keying in information.
"Got the--"
"Yup."
"And the--"
"Working on it."
"And what about the--"
"Already there."
She watches them because it's interesting. They're working together perfectly in time. And when the Doctor moves around to poke away at another piece of the console, Jack has already swivelled the monitor around and moved with it to step out of his way, almost as though he had expected it, even though he hasn't in all that time even once turned his head to actually look at him.
"Look at you pair," she laughs, amused at their little pattern. They really must have been travelling together a while.
And in unison they both stop what they're doing, look up, and ask, "What?"
Oh yeah, she's definitely amused.
4.
For all the adventure in the TARDIS there are still very average, very mundane tasks that have to be done. Eating, important and sometimes even enjoyable, depending on the menu, and of course sleeping. Because of course the TARDIS isn't just a bigger-on-the-inside box that takes the Doctor and whoever he happens to have on board from A to B, and it would be a mistake to believe that every journey happens in the blink of an eye; it doesn't. TARDIS journeys can at times be as long as any flight, and so those times with little to do but wait are best used for what TARDIS travellers get little chance to do. Sleep.
Martha has been on board a day. A day spent collecting mineral samples from a rock formation on a cliff face in Cornwall. It is, after all, the reason she called the Doctor in the first place. Who knew rocks in 1972 Cornwall could have anything to do with water in 2012 London?
But now after collecting the samples they are en-route to The White Moon of Hassicot Four where the Doctor suspects the rock originates from. The flight, on this occasion is a long one.
"Right then! On our way!" the Doctor beams one of his biggest smiles.
Jack stands at the console and looks at the screen then to Martha. "Should be there in about nine hours," he nods at her.
"Yep!" The Doctor confirms. "Nine hours, eighteen minutes and twelv-- no, nine seconds! Brilliant!" He beams a smile at the both of them and presses another button on the console, dropping the room into a half light.
"That'll be bedtime then?" Martha says with an amused smile. "You know it's worse than living with Mum with you sometimes."
"Oy! I can turn this round and take you right home, you know!"
"Ignore him," Jack says, "he's tired, you know how he gets." When his head is turned from the Doctor he smirks and winks in Martha's direction. She laughs.
"Stop it!" The Doctor protests in his best I-am-protesting voice. Neither of them take any notice of it.
"Go to bed," Jack tells him. He's still smiling. "I'll be in-- going myself, in a minute." He falters with his words, and Martha quietly notes it to herself. Jack thinks she doesn't spot it.
Martha thinks the Doctor looks defeated. Or at least he knows it's best not to argue. Like maybe he's had conversations like this enough times before to know better. She watches as he turns and heads from the console room with his hands in his pockets. She watches too how Jack turns his head to watch him go, and how when his head turns back, he's smiling.
Interesting.
5.
"The hills on The White Moon of Hassicot Four are made of minerals from a firestorm that three millennia ago happened because of a nitrogen explosion in a element blast thirty miles from the moon's surface. It rained down and crystalised on entry. These things are all remnants of the blast pattern."
"Right. And you know that how exactly?"
"The Doctor told me."
"Ohhh. Course he did, right."
Martha smiles a knowing little smile and Jack turns his head to her with a frown.
"What?" he asks with his own laugh, "What's that mean?"
"Just... never saw that one coming. Not even from you, Jack."
He frowns. It's gone right over his head. That makes her laugh too.
"Where is he then?" Martha asks as she looks back over her shoulder.
"Parking," Jack replies as though that makes perfect sense.
"Parking?"
"Parking."
"Right."
They reach a ridge and stop as a clump of green crystalline minerals comes into view, peering out against the white of the rocks beneath it. It seems to shine in the half light that seemed to illuminate the air itself as it bounces off the white ground.
"Gotcha."
Martha smiles and ducks down to try and remove a lump of the crystal. Jack stands beside her, back straight and hands behind his back. Alert. Like a guard dog.
"You disappeared, Jack," she says as she tugs on it, pulling against the rock to try and free it up.
"I had to go."
"So he came back for you then?"
"Something like that."
"And you've been with him ever since?"
His eyes twist down towards her now, and the corners of his mouth turn up into an almost smile.
"Something like that."
She turns her head back up to him with a semi amused smile on her face. "Are you just going to stand there looking like you're waiting for someone to sculpt you or are you going to come and help me? This thing won't budge."
Without replying Jack moves and squats down next to her. He reaches out for the crystal and gives it a tug but no, it doesn't come loose. So from his pocket he pulls his sonic screwdriver and starts to loosening the crystal at the join.
"Where did you get that?" Martha frowns.
"Where do you think?" he asks her in return, sparing just a moment to raise an eyebrow in her direction.
"What, like, he lent it to you, right? Right?"
He smiles, just a little. "Something like that."
"No. You're kidding! He gave it to you?"
Jack doesn't answer, he just smiles. Enigmatic as ever. He shoots her another wink as the crystal comes free.
"Right. Here we go then. Back to the TARDIS, come on."
"Jack!" She wants an answer, but he stands and already starts off in the direction they came.
With a step up from the ground and a quick dust down of her knees, Martha starts to follow him. "Jack!"
Jack just carries on walking. "Keep up will you!" To himself, he smiles.
6.
"One trip, I said! One! I should have known! One I said but no it's all 'ooh what's this on the radar' and 'we'll only be five minutes' and two days later here I am covered in mud and oooh it's a good job Mickey understands! And you can stop your grinning too, Harkness, you're as bad as each other, you pair!"
The Doctor and Jack stand in the TARDIS console room beside each other as Martha paces back and forth in front of them, telling them in no uncertain terms just how annoyed she is with the pair of them. But like a pair of naughty school boys they just stand there with grins on their faces. The Doctor has his hands in his pockets and rocks back and forth on his heels, and Jack holds his arms crossed over his chest and has a grin as wide as a kid in a sweet shop.
Jack responds first though to Martha's telling off, and attempts to straighten his face. "Sorry," he says, all mock solemn.
He sticks his elbow out slightly, into the Doctor's ribs, "Ow! What was tha-- Oh right, sorry, yes, sorry." The Doctor attempts a similar solemn look, as though they've been taking lessons from each other, and Jack starts to laugh again under his breath, setting off the Doctor too.
"Oooh you're hopeless, both of you. Right well I'm going to clean this-- I don't even want to know what it is, off, and then I'm going to bed. I want you to send this thing home and by the time I get up I want it to be my flat outside the door, you got that?"
"Got it."
"Yes Ma'am."
The Doctor and Jack look at each other again and again start laughing.
"I give up," she says, "I really do." She turns and heads from the console room and away back to her room. As she walks away she can still hear their laughter in the background and to herself she smiles and thinks maybe, she doesn't mind.
7.
Martha can't sleep.
She's been trying maybe an hour, maybe two, but try as she might she just finds herself tossing and turning. The Doctor will still be awake, she suspects, given he rarely seems to sleep, and from what she'd learnt of Jack she doubts he'll be anywhere near bed either.
She's right.
She looks for them in the console room and she's surprised when they're not there. They're not in the kitchen either or anywhere else she thinks to find them. Maybe they've gone out, she wonders, but no they wouldn't do that while she was there alone, would they?
She walks the corridors and wonders if maybe she's got herself confused somewhere along the line; the doors all are a bit samey in this place after all.
She's about given up hope when she finally locates them. A room she's not been in before (or at least not that she can remember, it's hard to keep track when all the doors are the same and rooms have a habit of moving, after all).
Behind the door she hears laughter between muffled voices, distantly recognisable as Jack and the Doctor. She raises her hand to knock the door but for some reason stops herself, letting it hover over the door and instead turning in towards it a little, pressing her ear towards the door.
The words though are too difficult for her to make out, but the laughter becomes a little more pronounced, and it's mixed with another sound, something like music in the background. She feels, then, as though she's intruding, so finally she taps the door, just gently.
The laughter comes to an abrupt stop and the door is quickly opened. The Doctor stands there and Martha does all she can not to laugh.
He stands there with his tie loosened around his neck and the first couple of buttons on his shirt open, his hair looks even more dishevelled and gravity defying than usual, and his suit jacket is buttoned up with the button in the wrong hole. She can also see the bottom part of his shirt, haphazardly tucked in and poking out from under his jacket.
"Everything all right?" he asks her as though he's worried something might be genuinely wrong.
"Me?" Martha asks, amused as she decides the Doctor's lips look a little red too. "Me? No I'm great I'm fine I'm just... Having fun are you?"
She tries not to laugh. She really really tries.
The Doctor attempts obliviousness, but she's sure it's that and nothing more, after all he can't think she's that daft can he?
"Us? Oh we're just..." he sniffs, "unwinding."
And at that she does laugh. "Oh I bet you are."
The Doctor stares at her as though he's waiting for her to say something again but then he realises it's his turn, and he backtracks by speaking quicker and louder."Oh! Right! D'you want to come in? We're just--"
"No, you're all right," she laughs again and thinks she'll let him off his squirming by cutting him off before he comes up with an explanation. "I'll leave you boys to it. Don't stay up all night, Mister."
She waves her hand a little and turns, walking away, and when she's out of sight she covers her mouth with a hand and laughs.
The Doctor stays in the doorway until she's out of sight, and when she is he shuts the door and turns back to Jack and nods, "Nah she didn't notice. So where were we?"
8.
It's morning and Martha is about to leave the TARDIS and return home. She's glad of it, but sad too, there's always a sadness in leaving the TARDIS, always a little bit, even if it's just that little bit of her mind that won't grow up with the rest of her.
She heads towards the console room but stops short of entering it. The Doctor and Jack are already there and she stands for a moment to watch them as they talk about something. They watch each other as they speak, and she notices that they really look at one another. Eyes looking into eyes. Even from her distance she can see it seems unguarded. To her it's a look that seems strange on both of them, but at the same time it fits them well. Like it was something that was missing before.
As they continue talking Jack reaches out and places a hand to the small of the Doctor's back and the Doctor doesn't seem to mind. He doesn't move from it or flinch or pull a 'what are you doing' face. In fact, he smiles. And that seems a different smile too.
It's fascinating in many ways, and she thinks she could quite easily stand there watching for quite some time. But then these are her friends, and it's not an intrusion she wants to make. So as she continues to step into the room she does so with obvious footfalls, loud enough for them to hear and not to be taken off guard. They move apart, as she expects, and Jack's hand drops away to his side.
"We there then?" she asks with a smile.
The Doctor smiles back at her and nods, "Almost. Ready to go?"
"Yep! Just got to fetch my bag."
"Jaaaack," the Doctor says idly elongating his name and not actually looking at him as he speaks to him, "go and get Martha's bag."
Jack's expression twists and his back straightens as his hands shift to his hips. "You're kidding, right?" he asks incredulously. "Tell me you're kidding. What do you think I am, the porter?"
"Ohhh," the Doctor turns his head to the side and frowns slightly, "just get the bag and stop arguing. You arguing, always with the arguing. Just for once it'd be nice if you did something I asked without the arguing!"
"I don't argue," Jack corrects. "You argue." Jack huffs and points a finger at the Doctor before looking back to Martha, "I will get the bag, but not for you, for Martha. And you better not make a habit of this, right?"
"Whatever you say," the Doctor says non-committally as he smirks an overly self-satisfied smirk. Martha watches how the Doctor turns his head to watch Jack go, and how when his head turns back, he's smiling.
Interesting.
She steps over towards him and leans sideways against the console as the Doctor looks at the screen.
"So how long then?" she asks with a slight smile.
"How long what?" he frowns both at her and at something on the screen.
"You and Jack," she says pointedly.
The Doctor stops. He doesn't reply for a moment, just stuck still, and then, overly casually, with a sniff, "Don't know what you mean."
"Yes you do, how long?"
The Doctor's eyes turn towards her, but he still doesn't answer.
"But you look after each other, yeah?"
This time, he answers, overly breezy, "Yeahh. Yeah we do, yeah."
And there, for just a moment, he lets her see just a fraction of a smile. She smiles back at him.
"I'll go help Jack with that bag."
9.
The TARDIS door clicks closed behind Jack as he steps inside.
"Francine and Clive say hi," he says with a nod.
"Aww, the Joneses!" the Doctor replies with a delighted smile and a wrinkle of his nose. "I love the Joneses. Great they are. Well apart from the slapping me. Mothers, always the mothers. Don't ever introduce me to your mother, Jack."
"You know you could have gone and said hi yourself," Jack reminds him, leaning himself against the console.
The Doctor looks down again. "Yeah, weeeell, stuff to do and all that, you know."
"I know."
"That was all right wasn't it? Martha and that, I mean, she didn't notice or anything," The Doctor says as he lifts a hand and tugs lightly on his ear.
Jack nods defiantly and replies with a casual confidence, "Oh yeah it was fine. Just like we said it'd be. See!"
"Yeah."
There's a pause of utter silence between them and Jack crosses his arms over his chest before speaking again, still with that slight frown.
"She didn't... uh... say anything to you, did she?" Jack asks, thinking back to that conversation on the moon.
The doctor sniffs and thinks about the conversation before she left. "Nahhh," he lies. "Why? She say something to you?"
"Nope," Jack lies too.
They both look at each other, and at the same time, they smile. They both know that the both of them are lying. They don't need to say it.
"Clever one that Martha Jones," Jack says with a slight smirk.
"Yeah, she is," the Doctor says back with a smirk of his own. "Must be all that time she spent around me."
"Ohh that must be it, yeah," Jack smiles, amused.
The Doctor puts his hand on the handbrake and a slow grin spreads across his face as he looks at Jack. "Off we go?"
"Off we go." And Jack smiles back.
Maybe they don't mind that she noticed. But they don't need to admit that, do they.
Word count: 3561
rude_not_ginger mun to hopefully put a smile on her face. It's set within the two immortals verse at some point in the future. It's a little silly, hopefully fun!When people who are around each other a lot change how they behave with one another it can be hard for the people themselves to notice. After all, the people in question share company so much that noting the change themselves can be difficult, even if they're aware there is one.
It can be harder still when the pair in question are both very stubborn by nature. Stubborn to the degree that they will both (to anyone but themselves) deny that they have changed at all. Even if they're fully aware that they have.
So it's perhaps that stubbornness then that means the Doctor and Captain Jack Harkness assure themselves that nothing will be noticed when Martha Jones comes to visit. Well really, how could she notice something when there's nothing to notice?
But Martha isn't so foolish, and she notices. She notices before she even enters the TARDIS.
1.
Ring ring ring. Ring ring ring. Ring ring ring.
Martha stands in her kitchen with her laptop open and her mobile phone to her ear. She waits.
Ring ring ring. Ring ring ring. Ring ring ring.
"Hello?"
"Docto--," she stops. Frowns. "Jack?"
"Martha Jones. Voice of a nightingale! And that's me. Least last time I checked. This a social call or--"
Another voice chirps up from the background. The Doctor's voice. And Martha can tell even from the tone he's likely running around as though his feet were on fire.
"Is that Martha?"
"Yes it's Martha."
"Oh that's ni--- 300 meters to impact!"
Jack's attention returns to the phone. "Look we're kind of in the middle of something here but, is there something you need?"
She lets out a breath of a laugh. "Something in the water, Jack. I'm at Mum's. I--"
His voice cuts her off, "Yup, water, Mom's, got it. See you soon, Martha."
The phone line goes dead and Martha pulls back just staring at the phone. Well that was surreal.
2.
"So when we pick Martha up we should probably... You and I, should probably..." the Doctor's words trail and he tugs lightly on his ear, looking incredibly uncomfortable. Jack watches him with a thinly veiled amusement.
He thinks he ought to put him out of his misery. "I know."
"Right. Good. Good. That's goo-- Not that I want to-"
"I know."
"Well. Long as we're on the same page then. And we're-- I mean it's not like we have anything to worry about anyway. It's not like we act--" he waves a hand idly, "you know."
"Exactly. There's nothing to notice. It's not like we act--"
"Well we don't. Not at all, no!"
"Exactly! So there's nothing for her to notice. And I mean, even if there were..."
"Nahhh. Nah there's not. I mean, she won't. And we'll just..." the Doctor sniffs, "you know."
"I know."
Jack smiles at the Doctor and the Doctor smiles back. Both of them confident that what they say is true.
Really, for such intelligent men, they can be very blinkered at times.
3.
Back on the TARDIS in a way is the same as ever. The Doctor runs around the console, pressing buttons and pulling levers. She never did work out what those did, she supposes she never will now, this is just a passing visit after all.
But while the Doctor runs, and smacks bits of the console with his mallet, Jack stands at the monitor, eyeing it and frantically keying in information.
"Got the--"
"Yup."
"And the--"
"Working on it."
"And what about the--"
"Already there."
She watches them because it's interesting. They're working together perfectly in time. And when the Doctor moves around to poke away at another piece of the console, Jack has already swivelled the monitor around and moved with it to step out of his way, almost as though he had expected it, even though he hasn't in all that time even once turned his head to actually look at him.
"Look at you pair," she laughs, amused at their little pattern. They really must have been travelling together a while.
And in unison they both stop what they're doing, look up, and ask, "What?"
Oh yeah, she's definitely amused.
4.
For all the adventure in the TARDIS there are still very average, very mundane tasks that have to be done. Eating, important and sometimes even enjoyable, depending on the menu, and of course sleeping. Because of course the TARDIS isn't just a bigger-on-the-inside box that takes the Doctor and whoever he happens to have on board from A to B, and it would be a mistake to believe that every journey happens in the blink of an eye; it doesn't. TARDIS journeys can at times be as long as any flight, and so those times with little to do but wait are best used for what TARDIS travellers get little chance to do. Sleep.
Martha has been on board a day. A day spent collecting mineral samples from a rock formation on a cliff face in Cornwall. It is, after all, the reason she called the Doctor in the first place. Who knew rocks in 1972 Cornwall could have anything to do with water in 2012 London?
But now after collecting the samples they are en-route to The White Moon of Hassicot Four where the Doctor suspects the rock originates from. The flight, on this occasion is a long one.
"Right then! On our way!" the Doctor beams one of his biggest smiles.
Jack stands at the console and looks at the screen then to Martha. "Should be there in about nine hours," he nods at her.
"Yep!" The Doctor confirms. "Nine hours, eighteen minutes and twelv-- no, nine seconds! Brilliant!" He beams a smile at the both of them and presses another button on the console, dropping the room into a half light.
"That'll be bedtime then?" Martha says with an amused smile. "You know it's worse than living with Mum with you sometimes."
"Oy! I can turn this round and take you right home, you know!"
"Ignore him," Jack says, "he's tired, you know how he gets." When his head is turned from the Doctor he smirks and winks in Martha's direction. She laughs.
"Stop it!" The Doctor protests in his best I-am-protesting voice. Neither of them take any notice of it.
"Go to bed," Jack tells him. He's still smiling. "I'll be in-- going myself, in a minute." He falters with his words, and Martha quietly notes it to herself. Jack thinks she doesn't spot it.
Martha thinks the Doctor looks defeated. Or at least he knows it's best not to argue. Like maybe he's had conversations like this enough times before to know better. She watches as he turns and heads from the console room with his hands in his pockets. She watches too how Jack turns his head to watch him go, and how when his head turns back, he's smiling.
Interesting.
5.
"The hills on The White Moon of Hassicot Four are made of minerals from a firestorm that three millennia ago happened because of a nitrogen explosion in a element blast thirty miles from the moon's surface. It rained down and crystalised on entry. These things are all remnants of the blast pattern."
"Right. And you know that how exactly?"
"The Doctor told me."
"Ohhh. Course he did, right."
Martha smiles a knowing little smile and Jack turns his head to her with a frown.
"What?" he asks with his own laugh, "What's that mean?"
"Just... never saw that one coming. Not even from you, Jack."
He frowns. It's gone right over his head. That makes her laugh too.
"Where is he then?" Martha asks as she looks back over her shoulder.
"Parking," Jack replies as though that makes perfect sense.
"Parking?"
"Parking."
"Right."
They reach a ridge and stop as a clump of green crystalline minerals comes into view, peering out against the white of the rocks beneath it. It seems to shine in the half light that seemed to illuminate the air itself as it bounces off the white ground.
"Gotcha."
Martha smiles and ducks down to try and remove a lump of the crystal. Jack stands beside her, back straight and hands behind his back. Alert. Like a guard dog.
"You disappeared, Jack," she says as she tugs on it, pulling against the rock to try and free it up.
"I had to go."
"So he came back for you then?"
"Something like that."
"And you've been with him ever since?"
His eyes twist down towards her now, and the corners of his mouth turn up into an almost smile.
"Something like that."
She turns her head back up to him with a semi amused smile on her face. "Are you just going to stand there looking like you're waiting for someone to sculpt you or are you going to come and help me? This thing won't budge."
Without replying Jack moves and squats down next to her. He reaches out for the crystal and gives it a tug but no, it doesn't come loose. So from his pocket he pulls his sonic screwdriver and starts to loosening the crystal at the join.
"Where did you get that?" Martha frowns.
"Where do you think?" he asks her in return, sparing just a moment to raise an eyebrow in her direction.
"What, like, he lent it to you, right? Right?"
He smiles, just a little. "Something like that."
"No. You're kidding! He gave it to you?"
Jack doesn't answer, he just smiles. Enigmatic as ever. He shoots her another wink as the crystal comes free.
"Right. Here we go then. Back to the TARDIS, come on."
"Jack!" She wants an answer, but he stands and already starts off in the direction they came.
With a step up from the ground and a quick dust down of her knees, Martha starts to follow him. "Jack!"
Jack just carries on walking. "Keep up will you!" To himself, he smiles.
6.
"One trip, I said! One! I should have known! One I said but no it's all 'ooh what's this on the radar' and 'we'll only be five minutes' and two days later here I am covered in mud and oooh it's a good job Mickey understands! And you can stop your grinning too, Harkness, you're as bad as each other, you pair!"
The Doctor and Jack stand in the TARDIS console room beside each other as Martha paces back and forth in front of them, telling them in no uncertain terms just how annoyed she is with the pair of them. But like a pair of naughty school boys they just stand there with grins on their faces. The Doctor has his hands in his pockets and rocks back and forth on his heels, and Jack holds his arms crossed over his chest and has a grin as wide as a kid in a sweet shop.
Jack responds first though to Martha's telling off, and attempts to straighten his face. "Sorry," he says, all mock solemn.
He sticks his elbow out slightly, into the Doctor's ribs, "Ow! What was tha-- Oh right, sorry, yes, sorry." The Doctor attempts a similar solemn look, as though they've been taking lessons from each other, and Jack starts to laugh again under his breath, setting off the Doctor too.
"Oooh you're hopeless, both of you. Right well I'm going to clean this-- I don't even want to know what it is, off, and then I'm going to bed. I want you to send this thing home and by the time I get up I want it to be my flat outside the door, you got that?"
"Got it."
"Yes Ma'am."
The Doctor and Jack look at each other again and again start laughing.
"I give up," she says, "I really do." She turns and heads from the console room and away back to her room. As she walks away she can still hear their laughter in the background and to herself she smiles and thinks maybe, she doesn't mind.
7.
Martha can't sleep.
She's been trying maybe an hour, maybe two, but try as she might she just finds herself tossing and turning. The Doctor will still be awake, she suspects, given he rarely seems to sleep, and from what she'd learnt of Jack she doubts he'll be anywhere near bed either.
She's right.
She looks for them in the console room and she's surprised when they're not there. They're not in the kitchen either or anywhere else she thinks to find them. Maybe they've gone out, she wonders, but no they wouldn't do that while she was there alone, would they?
She walks the corridors and wonders if maybe she's got herself confused somewhere along the line; the doors all are a bit samey in this place after all.
She's about given up hope when she finally locates them. A room she's not been in before (or at least not that she can remember, it's hard to keep track when all the doors are the same and rooms have a habit of moving, after all).
Behind the door she hears laughter between muffled voices, distantly recognisable as Jack and the Doctor. She raises her hand to knock the door but for some reason stops herself, letting it hover over the door and instead turning in towards it a little, pressing her ear towards the door.
The words though are too difficult for her to make out, but the laughter becomes a little more pronounced, and it's mixed with another sound, something like music in the background. She feels, then, as though she's intruding, so finally she taps the door, just gently.
The laughter comes to an abrupt stop and the door is quickly opened. The Doctor stands there and Martha does all she can not to laugh.
He stands there with his tie loosened around his neck and the first couple of buttons on his shirt open, his hair looks even more dishevelled and gravity defying than usual, and his suit jacket is buttoned up with the button in the wrong hole. She can also see the bottom part of his shirt, haphazardly tucked in and poking out from under his jacket.
"Everything all right?" he asks her as though he's worried something might be genuinely wrong.
"Me?" Martha asks, amused as she decides the Doctor's lips look a little red too. "Me? No I'm great I'm fine I'm just... Having fun are you?"
She tries not to laugh. She really really tries.
The Doctor attempts obliviousness, but she's sure it's that and nothing more, after all he can't think she's that daft can he?
"Us? Oh we're just..." he sniffs, "unwinding."
And at that she does laugh. "Oh I bet you are."
The Doctor stares at her as though he's waiting for her to say something again but then he realises it's his turn, and he backtracks by speaking quicker and louder."Oh! Right! D'you want to come in? We're just--"
"No, you're all right," she laughs again and thinks she'll let him off his squirming by cutting him off before he comes up with an explanation. "I'll leave you boys to it. Don't stay up all night, Mister."
She waves her hand a little and turns, walking away, and when she's out of sight she covers her mouth with a hand and laughs.
The Doctor stays in the doorway until she's out of sight, and when she is he shuts the door and turns back to Jack and nods, "Nah she didn't notice. So where were we?"
8.
It's morning and Martha is about to leave the TARDIS and return home. She's glad of it, but sad too, there's always a sadness in leaving the TARDIS, always a little bit, even if it's just that little bit of her mind that won't grow up with the rest of her.
She heads towards the console room but stops short of entering it. The Doctor and Jack are already there and she stands for a moment to watch them as they talk about something. They watch each other as they speak, and she notices that they really look at one another. Eyes looking into eyes. Even from her distance she can see it seems unguarded. To her it's a look that seems strange on both of them, but at the same time it fits them well. Like it was something that was missing before.
As they continue talking Jack reaches out and places a hand to the small of the Doctor's back and the Doctor doesn't seem to mind. He doesn't move from it or flinch or pull a 'what are you doing' face. In fact, he smiles. And that seems a different smile too.
It's fascinating in many ways, and she thinks she could quite easily stand there watching for quite some time. But then these are her friends, and it's not an intrusion she wants to make. So as she continues to step into the room she does so with obvious footfalls, loud enough for them to hear and not to be taken off guard. They move apart, as she expects, and Jack's hand drops away to his side.
"We there then?" she asks with a smile.
The Doctor smiles back at her and nods, "Almost. Ready to go?"
"Yep! Just got to fetch my bag."
"Jaaaack," the Doctor says idly elongating his name and not actually looking at him as he speaks to him, "go and get Martha's bag."
Jack's expression twists and his back straightens as his hands shift to his hips. "You're kidding, right?" he asks incredulously. "Tell me you're kidding. What do you think I am, the porter?"
"Ohhh," the Doctor turns his head to the side and frowns slightly, "just get the bag and stop arguing. You arguing, always with the arguing. Just for once it'd be nice if you did something I asked without the arguing!"
"I don't argue," Jack corrects. "You argue." Jack huffs and points a finger at the Doctor before looking back to Martha, "I will get the bag, but not for you, for Martha. And you better not make a habit of this, right?"
"Whatever you say," the Doctor says non-committally as he smirks an overly self-satisfied smirk. Martha watches how the Doctor turns his head to watch Jack go, and how when his head turns back, he's smiling.
Interesting.
She steps over towards him and leans sideways against the console as the Doctor looks at the screen.
"So how long then?" she asks with a slight smile.
"How long what?" he frowns both at her and at something on the screen.
"You and Jack," she says pointedly.
The Doctor stops. He doesn't reply for a moment, just stuck still, and then, overly casually, with a sniff, "Don't know what you mean."
"Yes you do, how long?"
The Doctor's eyes turn towards her, but he still doesn't answer.
"But you look after each other, yeah?"
This time, he answers, overly breezy, "Yeahh. Yeah we do, yeah."
And there, for just a moment, he lets her see just a fraction of a smile. She smiles back at him.
"I'll go help Jack with that bag."
9.
The TARDIS door clicks closed behind Jack as he steps inside.
"Francine and Clive say hi," he says with a nod.
"Aww, the Joneses!" the Doctor replies with a delighted smile and a wrinkle of his nose. "I love the Joneses. Great they are. Well apart from the slapping me. Mothers, always the mothers. Don't ever introduce me to your mother, Jack."
"You know you could have gone and said hi yourself," Jack reminds him, leaning himself against the console.
The Doctor looks down again. "Yeah, weeeell, stuff to do and all that, you know."
"I know."
"That was all right wasn't it? Martha and that, I mean, she didn't notice or anything," The Doctor says as he lifts a hand and tugs lightly on his ear.
Jack nods defiantly and replies with a casual confidence, "Oh yeah it was fine. Just like we said it'd be. See!"
"Yeah."
There's a pause of utter silence between them and Jack crosses his arms over his chest before speaking again, still with that slight frown.
"She didn't... uh... say anything to you, did she?" Jack asks, thinking back to that conversation on the moon.
The doctor sniffs and thinks about the conversation before she left. "Nahhh," he lies. "Why? She say something to you?"
"Nope," Jack lies too.
They both look at each other, and at the same time, they smile. They both know that the both of them are lying. They don't need to say it.
"Clever one that Martha Jones," Jack says with a slight smirk.
"Yeah, she is," the Doctor says back with a smirk of his own. "Must be all that time she spent around me."
"Ohh that must be it, yeah," Jack smiles, amused.
The Doctor puts his hand on the handbrake and a slow grin spreads across his face as he looks at Jack. "Off we go?"
"Off we go." And Jack smiles back.
Maybe they don't mind that she noticed. But they don't need to admit that, do they.
Word count: 3561
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Date: 2010-01-25 05:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-25 06:40 pm (UTC)I am so very very pleased. TARGET ACHIEVED = A HAPPY GEM.
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Date: 2010-01-25 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
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