So this was what it was like to be entirely in control. It had been so long that Martha had almost forgotten the feeling.

She fisted the front of the Doctor's shirt and held him close, as if he would bolt from her presence the moment she let up and gave him the opportunity. Surely his usual modus operandi would be to at least attempt to distance himself, acting as though she was little more than someone to settle on because she was there, a poor second choice. Yet instead, for once he moulded himself easily against her, showing no signs of reticence. It seemed that he was more than content to remain exactly where Martha wanted him.

This was nothing like the only other time they'd shared this kind of close contact, when she'd only just met him and hadn't had a clue what to expect. He'd been the initiator then, and had defined the parameters – trying to enforce the idea that it should mean nothing significant to either of them – before it had even had the barest chance to grow into more. She'd been swept along for the ride, shocked and unaccountably pleased by his forwardness, and it seemed she hadn't ever quite been able to regain her footing with him since then. They'd never been able to be equals. Until now.

Now she was the one pressing her lips insistently to his as she trapped him up against the wall of the TARDIS console room, their tongues and limbs entwining in something close to synchronicity. She was the one who was guiding the pace of this coupling, insinuating herself between his thighs and learning the feel of his finally-willing body against hers. And she certainly was the one who would decide when – or even if – it would end. Perfection.

Strangely, it wasn't the fact that she was finally kissing the man she loved that gave her this overwhelming sense of satisfaction. It was that this time she wasn't sitting back and praying that the Doctor would humour her yearnings instead of dismissing them out of hand, or hoping that he might even actually take the initiative himself because he'd started to feel something deeper than almost grudging friendship. For once she wasn't letting opportunities pass her by.

She wasn't willing to keep just waiting. Martha was taking charge.

When she abruptly awoke to find that her arms were empty – tangled up only in her sheets, not another body – and that her lips weren't actually tingling from the caresses and playful nibbles of mutual passion, that was when she found that she didn't actually mind being alone with her thoughts anymore.

It appeared she'd conquered something, even if it had only been in dreams.

For the space of one treasured night the pain of unrequitement was vanquished, and somehow it was insignificant that her imaginings turned out not to be strictly reality. It only mattered that she awoke to finally feel whole again, for the first time since she'd realised that the Doctor was never going to notice her the way she'd so desperately wished he would.

She was suddenly reminded what it was to be Martha Jones, a woman who was more than capable of going after what she wanted against all odds but still standing tall regardless of whether or not she actually achieved her goal. She was something to be valued.

In the back of her mind there was finally an inkling that it wasn't the end of the universe that she couldn't be every inch that independent woman as long as she was lurking around two steps behind the Doctor, waiting for him to even notice she was there.

For in that case, it just meant she was going to have to step out from his shadow and find a place for herself to shine.

And she was so ready.

~FIN~