"I'm home!" shouted Martha - rather unnecessarily, as she had just slammed the door shut behind her. Surely it had been loud enough for him to hear. "You know," she continued, a little quieter as she put her coat and keys down on the table, "I don't know that being all alien and such is really that big of an obstacle. I mean, maybe you could get a job at some point so I wouldn't have to work these god-awful hours." She paused for a moment; no response. He was probably working.

She moved into the little living area where, sure enough, the Doctor was spread out on the floor, countless little pieces of whatever he was building or fixing or working on littered over the floor. He lay there on his stomach, feet precisely placed where they wouldn't be resting on top of anything delicate, sonic screwdriver in his mouth and bizarrely moving contraption before him. He seemed to be hitting it indiscriminately with a mallet.

"Good Lord, d'you have to make such a mess every time you want to tinker with one of your things?" Martha asked, crouching to get a better look at his machine. It looked sort of familiar, like maybe she'd seen an earlier version of it in pieces on the floor before, but she wasn't sure what exactly it was. Come to think of it, she was never really sure what any of this stuff was, even when he explained it to her.

"Martha," he said, his words garbling a little over the screwdriver, "I'm really, terribly sorry about this but I'm trying to rig up this camera all day and I lost track of the time and-"

"You forgot to get supper together, didn't you?" Martha interrupted. He didn't respond verbally, just jerked his head and eyebrows in that way he had - half apologetic, half unabashed, as though he knew it had been inconsiderate but he also knew it had been necessary. Martha decided to reserve judgment on that. She stood up, not wanting to die on this hill. "You know," she said, "living with you isn't a piece of cake exactly. We're always chasing after the Angels' victims and dashing about at the oddest times and you hardly ever remember to make dinner. You're lucky I don't mind much," she finished, moving back into the kitchen to scrounge up some canned soup.

"Martha!" he called a moment later. She poked her head around the lintel of the door and was surprised to find his face inches away from hers, probably en route to do what she had just done. She gasped a little, surprised. "You're right."

After several minutes cooking, which were made a little less dreary by the Doctor's small token of appreciation, she emptied the pot into two bowls and, thinking it would be easier to bring it to him than to coax him to the table, she set the bowls and some spoons on a tray. As she walked carefully back to where he now sat on their small sofa, trying not to spill the soup or step on any of the parts which still lay on the floor, she heard his voice drifting towards her. It wasn't unusual for him to talk to himself, but somehow he sounded much clearer than usual. She could easily make out the words he said.

"...time-traveller. Or, I was. I'm stuck in 1969."

Setting down the tray, Martha corrected him saucily, "We're stuck. All of space and time he promised me. Now I've got a job in a shop, I've got to support him!"

The Doctor looked at her, irritated. He pointed at the end table in front of him, which she now saw was supporting his camera from earlier. "Martha!" he said. She was clearly interrupting something important.

"Sorry," she apologized hastily, backing away from the lens. She left her tray on the coffee table, which he had moved out of the way to make room for his primitive camcorder, and tried to avoid the tension by going to get them a couple of glasses. He continued to talk after she left, with strange pauses in between every sentence. Martha moved slowly, trying to let him finish, hoping her little gaffe would blow over. What she had said earlier was true; sometimes it was difficult living with the Doctor. The Angels were terrifying. The entire time paradox of the situation had confused her over and over again, although she thought she'd finally worked it out. The shop where she worked was charming, but it was tedious going every day to make a bit of money so she could feed herself and the man she had said was a friend of her family's. She thought about her mum a lot. She knew that for her no time had passed, so she wasn't missing Martha yet, but Martha missed her. She'd almost forgotten how dreadful waiting was, living life one slow day at a time…

"Martha?"

Hastily gathering the glasses she'd set on the counter in her moment of thought, Martha went back out to the living room. She must have been thinking for longer than she'd guessed, because the camera and all the little trappings around the room had all been pushed off into a somewhat neat pile in a corner. Huh. That was unusually thoughtful of him. She set the glasses down by the bowls and sat next to the Doctor on the couch.

"Martha," he said again, and she looked up at him. He was almost staring at her, his always-intense eyes even more piercing than usual. She suspected it was the stress of coordinating his recordings that was making him act off. "I'm sorry. I really am, I didn't mean to snap at you earlier." He sighed and ran his hands through his already-at attention hair. "I'm going mad with all this stuff. Sally gave me the tools in 2008 and I know exactly what I'm doing and how to do it but … I can't help but feel lost without the TARDIS."

"Tell me about it," Martha agreed, breaking eye contact to roll her eyes skyward and pick up her bowl of split pea soup. She made a face as she smelt it properly for the first time, but stomached a warm mouthful with the comforting knowledge that after this they wouldn't have to eat it again. "You know what's going on and, in a way, so do I, but I've got to work and keep us in food and housing."

"I know," he said sympathetically. He lifted his glass and drained it in one sustained gulp. "I hardly ever say it, but I appreciate it. I really do." He set his glass down and placed his hand on her knee. Martha's eyes snapped to his face. She immediately hated herself; he was smiling gently, hand unmoving, ready to follow up on what he was saying. "You're brilliant. I'm glad that, if I had to be stuck here, you could be with me."

Smiling (she hoped not uneasily) and looking away, Martha took another hasty spoonful of soup and felt her stomach churning. Hoping to cover for her sudden awkwardness, she quickly said, "God, this is awful."

The Doctor took his hand from her leg to shovel a spoon of split-pea into his mouth, and his face twisted up comically. "Oh, Lord, you're right," he said. "Come on, Martha," he continued, rising from his seat and heading toward the kitchen, "we're going to dump this in the bin and then we're going to go somewhere where I can buy you dinner."

"With money I earned?" Martha laughed.

Rather than replying, he smiled her favorite smile and jerked his head in that way she loved, the way that meant he would lead her somewhere new, no matter whether it was an unfamiliar planet or some place around the corner she'd never been. "Allonsy, Martha," he said.

Everyone had asked off at the shop for July 21st, but since Martha had had some advance notice, she'd been the only one to get out scot-free. She'd come home on the afternoon of the 20th to a very excited Doctor. He'd taken some initiative and had somehow wrangled their telly into much better reception than 1969 could possibly have come up with on its own. He'd promised (very sweetly) to actually make dinner and, while Martha had taken a very relaxing and much-needed bath, he had followed through. When she came down around six, dressed in her pajamas and anticipating some cooking, he was setting out the shepherd's pie.

An hour later, after the food was eaten and the dishes done, the two of them settled in on the couch with a mug of tea each. Martha wasn't sure why they had both come to the unspoken conclusion that they should follow the progress on television for so long, even though they both knew exactly when Neil Armstrong would step out onto the moon's powdery surface. She secretly thought they had slipped a bit into their roles, and that they really felt like it was 1969. She certainly did sometimes. Although she would never admit it to him, it felt nice living a common life with him, just one day at a time; although, she supposed, it wasn't really a completely normal life, what with his urgency over the Sally Sparrow thing and his constant tinkering with his "timey wimey detector."

Martha hated even thinking that phrase.

Almost if he had read her mind, the Doctor turned down the volume on the TV. "One time, Martha," he began, putting his feet up on the coffee table and stretching his long legs out as far as he could, "Rose and I talked about what it would be like to get a proper house. Well, she called it that. A 'proper' house. Like the old TARDIS wasn't proper enough for her."

Martha forced a laugh. Sometimes when he talked about Rose it made her uneasy. She felt like a stand-in or understudy - good, but not good enough. "Well, why didn't you do that then?" she asked, maybe treading thin ice but not really caring. She wanted this moment, this night they would spend together waiting for mankind to take its first step into the stars, to be as natural as possible. She wanted it to burn in her memory, a point of searing normalcy in an ocean of strangeness.

His eyes clouded over as he stared at the newscaster, and Martha was more worried that she had made a mistake. "Oh, you know," he said, and his voice seemed deliberately light, "she had to leave. Multiple dimensions, uncrossable time streams, you know how that is."

"Right," Martha said, not really knowing at all. "Well, would your house have been anything like this one? Her working, you doing all sorts of strange things with your tinkering and all, I mean?"

He laughed. Martha loved his laugh. If she had to choose one thing, one reason why she was still patiently traveling with him, patiently waiting for something to happen that probably never would, it was the way he looked at her when he laughed. He seemed to forget about Rose, to forget about his planet and his lost friends, and to just plant himself in that moment of levity. It was wonderful. "I doubt it," he said. "You never met Rose, but if you had you'd know she wasn't the type to work if she didn't have to. She'd've forced me to go out and get a proper job, she would. Maybe she might've gone out at first, but the moment I found something worthwhile…" He shook his head. "She'd have come right home and never left again."

"And would she have made dinner every night, unlike some unemployed aliens I know of?" Martha asked. She was laughing. She liked Rose; she seemed to have had a good head on her shoulders. She wondered where she was now, wherever her dimension was.

"Probably," he replied. "Her mum was all about cooking and such, or at least the whole hospitality thing, and I reckon she would've thought I was rubbish."

"All she'd have to do was taste that shepherd's pie from earlier and she would've known different," Martha said. "I really didn't know you had it in you, though, so I wouldn't have blamed her."

"You would've liked Rose, Martha," he said, and something in his voice brought her up short. He reached over the small space on the couch between them and took her hand. His fingers were long and tender, as if he was in pain and felt sure he would break if he squeezed too hard. "You're both wonderful. Brilliant, even. Well, of course you know that."

"She sounds lovely," Martha offered, rubbing his hand with her thumb. She was gentle. "What … em, if it's not too much to ask, or anything, what else was she like?"

"Oh, she was great," he said, his fingers becoming stronger and more sure around Martha's hand as he spoke. "She was brave, and she was awfully silly sometimes, and she was just full of heart; strong, loyal, but independent … Oh, Martha, I wish you could have known her, I really do. She had this blond hair and used to wear all this makeup like I could barely see her face through it. Not like you," he added, meeting her eyes again as if pulling back from some other time, some other place. "I can see you perfectly."

Martha chuckled uneasily. "I guess what I do wear isn't doing its job," she said, instantly mentally kicking herself but willing to forgive herself. The Doctor never said anything like this. They were friends. Just friends. Never really talked about the other to the other, things like that. She liked it that way.

"I think it must be," he said, interrupting and further disproving her train of thought. "If it helps to show the real, true Martha Jones then I don't think it could do any better."

Martha smiled, a little more genuinely. "Thanks, then," she said. "And who is the real Martha Jones, do you think? Gotta make sure I think about it in the morning when I put on my mascara." She surprised herself; she was genuinely curious.

He just smiled, squeezing her hand but not letting go. "I think you know already," he said.

They sat in silence for a while. Martha puzzled over his cryptic statements for a while as the news teams blared and buzzed about rocket conditions they probably knew nothing about, but after enough repeats of the words "moon" and "fuel" she decided to drop it. With the Doctor, it was always better to take what you could get and not push your luck.

"Martha, do you remember that night when we were at that inn with William Shakespeare?"

Martha started. Clearly, she'd accidentally fallen asleep, and maybe he hadn't noticed, but he hadn't tried to wake her gently. She blinked a few times before checking her watch (11:49 PM) and turning to face him. He was still holding her hand, stroking it fondly and rather robotically with his thumb. He was looking off toward the ceiling, clearly somewhere else again. As Martha swallowed experimentally, she thought it was nice at least that his mind was somewhere she had been too.

"How could I forget meeting William Shakespeare?" Martha asked, chuckling a little hoarsely. The Doctor offered her the glass of water she'd refilled earlier and she gratefully took a sip; it was a bit more stale than she would have liked, but it did help.

"And we shared that wee small bed in that smelly hotel," he continued, almost as if he hadn't heard her, as if this and not meeting and saving the life of the most famous playwright in history was what he wanted to talk about. "That woman working there wouldn't stop giving us that evil eye…"

Trying her best to just go with his conversation, Martha offered, "Well, we must have been rather scandalous. What on earth did Shakespeare call me, his 'blackamoor lady'? And with a man I clearly wasn't married to. I'm sure they thought we were just the most outrageous people they'd ever met." She laughed again and continued, "Good thing they didn't know you aren't even actually a person, you alien weirdo."

He was frowning, and for a moment she thought he might have been offended about the "alien weirdo" comment. "What, do you think they knew we weren't married?"

"Didn't he say something about it?" Martha asked.

"Maybe," he said, "but I mean other than that. I mean if no one specifically noticed we weren't married, do you really think they wouldn't have just assumed we were?"

"Well, you hardly ever touch me," Martha said before she could catch herself. She looked guiltily down at their still-joined hands, but he seemed to be taking her seriously. In any case, he was frowning thoughtfully again.

"Is that true?" he asked, finally turning to face Martha. The hand he held suddenly felt very warm, and Martha shifted uneasily. She wondered if she could pass off her statement as leftover grogginess, but why bother? Maybe something good would come out of this.

"I mean, sometimes after a big event we hug, and sometimes you hold my hand when we're running, or sometimes like now when we're watching TV," she acquiesced, thinking maybe it would help keep things smooth if she acknowledged what effort he did make, "but there's no way that anyone would suspect we were married. Ever."

"Oh, come on, Martha," he said, leaning more toward her as their conversation continued. "We're affectionate, we've got that 'old married couple' thing going. What on earth don't we do that married people do?"

"Touch unnecessarily," Martha said, more sure of her position now. "Kiss, we never kiss. We shared a bed once in our entire lives. Doctor, we're not married and no one in their right minds would think we were."

"We kissed once, too," he said slowly, "or don't you remember it?"

Martha's heart thudded unevenly; it suddenly seemed like they were much closer than they had been before. Her hand, which had been cooling off, warmed right up again. "I remember, all right," she said, trying not to sound breathless. "You wanted to trick some strange alien rhino police into thinking I was an alien. That's not a real kiss at all."

He grinned. This made her heart beat even more erratically, and she doubted he was as oblivious as he acted. "You know what Martha?"

"W-what?" she asked, hating the hitch in her speech the second it left her mouth.

"You're right." He laughed. It sounded rather gleeful. He was still far too close to her, and the second that thought crossed her mind, he slid even nearer. His leg pressed against hers; it felt warm through her pajama bottoms. It wasn't too difficult to do the math; two hearts in one human-sized body probably made for a much more active circulatory system.

Martha wasn't sure what part of her brain was thinking all of that, because most of her was shutting down or screaming for help. She decided, once again, to just go with it, which was fortunate because his next question closed off all the parts of her brain that may have still been functioning.

"Do you think we should? Kiss again, that is."

He either was or was acting blissfully unaware of the effect he was having on her. Yes, she wanted to say, yes, I've been wanting to kiss you again ever since the first time but I haven't been able to say it…

"I feel festive, I feel human watching the moon landing on telly in 1969 in an apartment that you very generously provide for me and Lord knows we've had a bad and rather boring time of it since we found Billy."

This was true. All of it was true. What was she supposed to say?

The decision flooded her with relief and she relaxed, leaning in just a tad closer than before. "Yeah, all right," she said. "I think we ought to. It's been a downer of a few months and I think we could both use a little excitement." She paused. "Should we wait until they touch down?" she asked.

"Nah," he said, and without hesitating another second he moved forward and kissed her. For a moment his lips remained solid and unmoving against hers, and she was too stunned to even breathe, although she'd known what was happening. The first stirring came from the couch, where he finally released her hand, only to bring his to her face, his palm against her cheek, his long fingers brushing her neck, threading into her hair. Her eyelids fluttered closed and her now-empty hand moved blindly, searching for a part of him to hold on to; she reached his leg and her fingers clutched blindly at the pants he was wearing, her knuckles rubbing against the solidity of his flesh and muscle under the trousers.

This seemed to stir him into reality again and his lips began to move, more gently than she had thought possible, against hers. She responded in kind, trying to move slowly, making every effort not to startle him away. She couldn't believe what was happening. She thought of pinching herself, but just then his other hand swept around and beneath her cotton tee-shirt to press against the small of her back and the heat that burned there was real. She raised her other hand to tangle in his hair, seizing the handful she had imagined so many times as his tongue brushed against her lower lip and she opened to him, deepening the kiss.

After a moment, they broke apart. He was breathing as though he'd run a mile, she was barely breathing at all. "Martha," he said, and the word was a question. She couldn't speak, but she nodded, and he moved to kiss her cheeks, her jawline, his lips touched her earlobe and, to her embarrassment, she let out a cut off moan.

He glanced up at her, pausing with his lips tantalizingly close to her tender skin. Nervously she met his gaze, trying to be defiant, trying to dare him to go further or do it again, but mostly she thought she just looked sort of pleading. He seemed to like it, though, because slowly and without breaking eye contact, he lowered his lips to her earlobe again, his tongue sweeping out and ghosting across the heated skin so quickly she thought she might have imagined it. This time she couldn't control the noise that escaped her as well, and the higher-pitched moan rose from her throat and into the air like a heavy promise of what might happen next.

That one noise seemed to be all it took. He moved down her neck, more quickly this time, the hand beneath her shirt moving to her ribcage as he slowly lowered her so her back was against the couch, the hand on her face gently guiding her head to give him the best purchase against her delicate skin. Meanwhile, Martha felt as though she could not put her hands enough places. She ran them over his chest, down his arms, then up again to move once more over his chest, waist, hips, and legs. He was thoroughly on top of her; with every kiss he planted his body pressed closer and closer against hers. She could feel parts of him that she'd only ever dreamed of feeling before, and she could feel parts of herself slowly awakening that she hadn't felt in a long while. A soft, steady heat was slowly rising inside her and pooling low in her stomach…

Martha gasped as cold air hit the aforementioned body part; he had swept her t-shirt up, the hem resting on her collarbone. He didn't stop to ask if this was what she wanted, but he looked up to meet her eyes and that was enough. He reached behind her, arching her body up against his as he undid the clasp of her bra. Briefly, Martha was afraid. She wondered what Time Lord women looked like, what Rose had looked like. However, these thoughts were chased from her mind as he took one cold-hardened nipple into his mouth. Martha's skin erupted in goosebumps as her breath pulled from her body all at once. He was like fire, his tongue in the air was ice, and Martha felt distinctly surrounded and overwhelmed. With frenetic but determined motions, she grasped at the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head as he noticed what she was doing and separated from her briefly, returning his lips to her skin again as she dropped his shirt to the floor.

Feeling his naked skin against hers was intoxicating. Martha couldn't believe how she felt. She wasn't the type to get overwhelmed by men, but the Doctor was so much more than a man. As his mouth continued to move down her stomach, lower and lower as his hands deftly hooked inside her waistband, she was keenly aware of it.

He was not a man.

He glanced up at her again, locking eyes from right above her body as he slowly lowered her pants and underwear at once. Without breaking eye contact, Martha lifted her feet out of them, letting them slump limply to the couch. Fingers shaking, half afraid, half melting, she reached down and undid the fly on his trousers. She pulled them down to his knees, lacking the energy to yank them all the way off. He left them there, dropping his eyes again as he slowly circled her clit with his finger, rubbing her deliberately, probing gently. Martha reached under the waistband of his underwear, pulling it down as he did so, exposing his cock to the cold air and her naked body. She ran her hand up and down his length slowly, experimentally, almost in awe. She had thought about this so many times, she had never imagined that it would really happen… Yet here they were.

After a few strokes, his grunting breath and her impetuous moans filling the air, he pulled her thighs further apart, his fingers still slick against her skin. He cupped her arse, raising her up, giving himself a ramp right into her. He positioned his hips before hers, rubbing the head of his cock against her, feeling how slick she was for him. The room was hot, frozen in time; the newscaster was talking about fuel and Martha's eyes were wide open, fixed on the ceiling. Then, he pushed inside.

Time sped up again, now speeding up. He pulled almost all the way out, then thrust back into her, over and over, slowly then faster. Martha reached behind her head, gripping the arm of the couch, hearing the springs beneath them creaking. Her brain was bursting and empty at once; she was feeling too much. She had waited and hoped for this, she had wanted this, but she could never have imagined how good it felt. Everything was fast, but the moment stretched forever. The heat inside her rose and rose, filling her body and stretching jerkily further down her extremities with every pump. His weight was heavy on top of her and she relished it. The thin sheen of sweat that coated him shone in the light from the side table with every movement, his muscles and bones pressing out against his skin, his breathing heavy and ragged, low groans escaping his mouth as he buried himself deeper and deeper inside her. He was running, and in a moment of painful clarity Martha knew it. She forced the thought down, the warmth inside her rising and rising faster than ever before until, with a low, extended moan she came, her walls clutching at him, milking him until he pushed all the way in and let himself go, laid out at full length on top of her, his breath hitting her ear as he let it out in one long sigh.

He pulled out after a moment, rising on his knees so he could yank up his trousers and button his fly. He grabbed Martha's pajamas and underwear, gently lifting her legs at the ankles so he could partially redress her. After a moment that felt unbelievably tender, his fingers caressing her legs and waist, her eyes softly and sadly loving him, Martha sat up and put on her bra and shirt again. They didn't speak. They sat down again, next to each other as before but separate now. He didn't reach for her hand again, but his arm rested on the back of the couch, right behind her head. Things felt peaceful, but inside Martha was at sea.

What did this mean? Of course Martha didn't anticipate she'd made him completely forget his Rose in one instance of shared loneliness. As her head cleared, Martha resigned herself to admitting that was probably all it was. The Doctor was a lonely man, no matter who was with him. His friends were dead, his home the only place he couldn't travel, the woman he cared about locked away in another dimension, whatever that practically meant. She sighed, leaning her head back so her hair brushed against his arm. She was tired, exhausted with hopefulness, wondering if this would ever mean what she wanted it to mean.

"Martha."

With a strong sense of deja vu, Martha started awake again. She was groggy for a moment, but memory came spilling over her, waking her up and bringing her head around to meet the eyes of the man - the alien - she'd had sex with. He looked at her, his eyes so full of tenderness that she felt sad. "He's about to step out."

The moon landing.

She'd almost forgot. Though she'd seen it before, been on the moon with Neil Armstrong as mankind took its first step into the stars, she found herself riveted to the television, watching the man in the spacesuit descend the ladder. She thought about what he was feeling, something she herself had felt before: the overwhelming excitement, the evaporation of disbelief, and the powerful gratitude to whatever had brought him there. For him, it was science and American money. For her, it was the man sitting next to her on the couch. As she shifted, leaning forward to rest her arms on her knees and get closer to the screen, she realized that at some point his arm had come to rest fully on her shoulders. Rather than releasing her, he leaned forward as well. Garbled with emotion and drowning in her thoughts, Martha felt tears sting her eyes.

"Oy, what's wrong?" he asked. His voice was light but gentle. "Come on, Martha, look. New day, new moon to walk on. You love the moon landing!"

"I know," Martha said, her voice a little choked. "I love it so much." Words spilled out of her mouth just as the tears started to pour out of her eyes. "I love this. I love being with you, traveling with you. Hell, even now when we're stuck in barmy 1969 and I have to work in some batty head shop, I love it. I loved trying to piece together everything about Sally Sparrow, I love coming home and seeing your mess all over the room, I love having tinned food almost every night because we don't like cooking. Doctor, I'm so glad you wanted me to come with you, or maybe you didn't really but I'm glad you took me anyway." She stopped talking, tears streaming, not really sobbing but just letting them fall. He looked at her with the same unbearable gentleness she'd seen earlier, and he took her in his arms, wrapping her tightly in that same embrace she'd felt so many times, the one that before had always given her hope. Maybe there would be more. Maybe.

"Oh, Martha," he said gently, his chin moving against her shoulder with every word, "you're so human."

They slept on the couch that night, still seated, him still in his trousers, her sweating against his chest in the hot July heat. As Martha showered the next morning, she wondered idly to herself if that counted as the second night they had shared a bed.

"Martha! Martha!" She smiled as she tied her laces, readying for as lazy a day as she could manage out shopping for decent food. She'd resolved never to eat tinned again. He was probably downstairs, watching one of Sally's DVDs on the player he had somehow wrangled from an old VCR and his sonic screwdriver. He was constantly calling her to explain where aliens were present in movies and the human actors hadn't even known it, which she usually just nodded and smiled at. She didn't know whether he was being serious or not, but it was at least interesting to hear him babble on and on about whatever tangents he got on.

"All right, all right," she called, straightening and moving toward the living room. "Where was the Time Lord in The-"

She stopped dead in her tracks in the doorway. There he was, smiling bigger than she'd seen in a long time; and there, next to him, was the TARDIS. Blue, probably heavy enough to drop through their floor, and (most importantly) not surrounded by Angels. Martha's jaw dropped and he stood there, waiting for her real reaction.

"Wow," she said. It almost pushed out of her, an escaping exhale. They were leaving, probably without ever telling anyone where they went. Tomorrow she just wouldn't show up for work; she'd be among the stars. They wouldn't go to bed in their small, separate bedrooms; they'd sleep in whatever room in the TARDIS they wanted. Maybe they'd share an inn with another famous playwright. She would never know. They could see the moon landing again, from any perspective they wanted; but never, ever from that couch, the small sofa in the small apartment in 1969 where one of the biggest things in Martha's life had happened. They would never be frozen in time again. She inhaled.

"So," she said, "where are we going next, then?"

The Doctor's grin widened, and he pulled his key out of his jacket pocket. "Let's find out," he said. Swinging the door open, he ran inside; his laughter echoed out to Martha, who stood still in the doorway. He was back to his old self, and she should be happy. They could go visit Martha's mum, she could see Hippocrates, she could climb Mount Everest before any human was around to call it that…

But they would never make love again. He was the man he always was with the TARDIS: free. He didn't need her to work any more; he could support her now. He could be the one with transportation, resources, happiness. No more moon landings on television. No more sleeping on the couch. There were bigger things than Martha Jones out there.

She took a breath. She'd always known this was coming. Anyway, she thought, she should be excited. And, somewhere beneath her numbness, she was. They would be off into the stars… And, she couldn't forget, he had chosen her. He wanted her to come.

"Martha?" he said, and she looked up, a genuine smile on her face, to meet his eyes as he poked around the door of the TARDIS. He met her grin with one of his own. "You're brilliant. 1969 was brilliant. I'm never gonna forget this, you know." He chuckled, popping his head back inside as she followed him in, closing the door behind him. "Living like a human," he said, flipping the switch that would take them back into their lives.

And, in a corner of Martha's mind, there was hope.

A/N: I know, I know, I've neglected my longer stories. I'm preparing to go overseas, so I haven't got a lot of time, but I promise when I get over there I'll update more regularly (if I can). In the meantime, please enjoy this little tidbit! Happy holidays and I hope you're all having a wonderful new year!-TheGoldenAge