Doctor Who Fic - Not Here
Title: Not Here
Rating: NC17
Fandom: Doctor Who
Timeline: Set within 3x12 - The Sound of Drums.
Summary: Jack and Martha find some peace with their feelings for the Doctor. Jack/Martha/Doctor.
A/N: Many thanks to daera23 for the quick beta.
The chill in the night air made Martha wrap her coat a little tighter around her body. Her stomach grumbled; it must have been at least five hours since they ate sandwiches in that cruddy old alley, but there was nothing to do about it now. They were hiding in the bushes along the edge of the tarmac; the plane carrying the American President due to land in less than an hour.
The Master would be here. All they had to do was wait.
The grass was cold and itchy, scratching her as it wound its way under her jacket and above the waist of her jeans. She tried not to look around. Every time she glanced at either of them, her eyes slid off their bodies, twisting her stomach like she was in a boat at high sea. The Doctor to one side, a foot away, wrapped up in his own thoughts, Jack leaning against her other side, allowing her to share his warmth.
Martha shivered and focused on a nearby rock just to stop from feeling seasick.
“Do you want my coat?” Jack whispered, moving in a little closer until she could smell his sweat and aftershave. They mingled together into a warm, musky scent that made her lightheaded. He felt so strong and real beside her; she couldn’t help but sink in a little closer. Truth be told, she didn’t want to help it. Everything was unraveling around her, everyone she held dear was in danger, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. She had to place her trust in the Doctor, that he could save her family and make the world right again but trusting in other people was never something she was very good at.
She trusted herself, because she could control her actions. She knew that she could do whatever needed to be done to affect a given situation. It was one of the reasons why she wanted to go into medicine. She knew she could study, learn and diagnose. She trusted herself to do those things so she could save lives.
She could do that.
The one thing she couldn’t do; however, was control the Doctor, not even a little. They’d been flying around the universe together for months now and he seemed more alien to her today than the day they had met. Even now as they lay sitting in the grass, just out of sight of the guards, he was close enough to touch if she just reached out her arm, but he might as well have been on the other side of the moon. She had no idea what he was thinking.
The Doctor stared off into the distance, his glasses long since tucked away into his jacket. Even without them though, she got the sense he was seeing further than she could ever imagine. He was so still she almost thought he wasn’t breathing. She let her eyes slide off his form and back to the rock, half hidden in the grass.
Jack put a hand on her arm, calling her attention to his question and she shook her head. The cold she was feeling wasn’t going to be countered by adding an extra layer of clothes.
He rubbed her arm in comfort as if he understood and risking a glance at his face, she realized that maybe he did. The vertigo quickly kicked back in when as she tried to decipher the knowing look in his eyes, but she managed to hold his gaze.
“How do you do it,” she whispered, her eyes watering from the effort.
“Love him, trust him or put up with him?” Jack asked just as quietly.
Martha shrugged, finally looking away. “Any of them. All of them. I don’t know.”
His hand moved down her jacket until his fingers intertwined with hers.
“Everything I do, I do because I want him to be proud of me. He saved me. A hundred years ago-eighty years ago-a million, whatever. I almost destroyed this planet, but he fixed my mistake-fixed me. When I was traveling with him, I started to remember all the things I’d stopped believing in a long time ago. He has this habit of making you want to be the best person you can be.”
“It sounds like you’ve succeeded,” Martha said, glancing again quickly at the Doctor. But he hadn’t moved an inch, and maybe he couldn’t hear their conversation above the wind.
Jack snorted sadly, pulling his hand away and tucking it close to his body. “I’m everything he despises. Just a cheap imitation of him.”
Frowning, Martha forced Jack to look at her to explain. “I don’t see that at all.”
“For everything I’ve done to better myself, I’ve always taken one step forward and two back. Even forgetting the catastrophe of a con I tried to pull when we first met, everything I’ve tried to do since then has failed in some way. When the Daleks were attacking Satellite Five, I tried to lead the defenses to give him as much time as I could so he could finish the delta wave, but I wasn’t strong enough to hold them back. I died and there wasn’t anyone left to stand in the way. Because of that, I can never die now; in his eyes I’m an abomination; my very existence contradicts the natural order of things. I suppose my involvement with Torchwood is just the icing on the cake. I’m oh-for-three so far.”
“He doesn’t hate you,” Martha said honestly, reaching down to retake his hand. What little she could read about the Doctor told her she was right. When she found Jack’s hand buried in the folds of his coat, she squeezed it until he opened it up for her and was then surprised when he grasped her fingers desperately. “You’re the only one who gets around his whole evasive attitude. He tells you things, he trusts you to understand them. He hardly tells me anything at all…Sometimes I think I’m just taking up space, someone he can talk to so he’s not talking to the wall.”
She hadn’t meant to say the last part and now she bit her tongue in dismay. She wasn’t fishing for sympathy.
“Don’t underestimate yourself,” Jack said kindly, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb. His touch felt nice and surprisingly reassuring.
“I don’t,” she replied, breathing him in. “I know I’m smart and capable, and able to understand all the horrible and complicated things he needs to talk about, but I’m honest as well. All this time I’ve just taking up space for...” she broke off her sentence but Rose hung in the air unsaid. “It’s my family who’s been taken, and I couldn’t even get a straight answer on who the Master is.”
Suddenly, she felt a hand on her chin; slowly bring her face up to his. “We’ll find your family. As for the Doctor…” Jack trailed off, studying her face as if it were no trouble at all. “It’s not you, you know. He’s always been a little distant. And we’ve also caught him at a bad time.”
When her eyes skimmed his body and face, the perception filter slid them right off again and she had to struggle to keep them steady. The more she looked at him, into his eyes which mirrored a haunting need she could feel in herself, the worse the slipping and sliding feeling became until her head was pounding from the strain.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered, bringing his mouth to her ears, teasing her cheek with his lips. “It will help.”
She did as she was told and instantly the headache receded. “We’re not really here, are we?” she asked. She could feel him shake his head.
“We’re invisible to the world and he’s got his own demons to deal with,” Jack replied, kissing her ear and trailing his lips down her neck. “He’ll come back to us when he’s ready.”
Martha moved her head, giving him room to maneuver as he kissed down her neck. Jack moved slowly, so as not to disturb the perception filter protecting them, but each caress made her flush with unexpected heat.
Had it really been so long that she was ready to snog an essential stranger in the middle of an open field? She brought her hand up to Jack’s face and risked opening her eyes for just a second. Jack’s blue eyes were staring at her, with lust yes, but also with a shared pain that pierced her soul.
“You’re beautiful and smart, Martha Jones,” Jack said forcefully. Martha closed her eyes and leaned forward, placing her lips on his, melting into his mouth when he opened it. It was like a curtain lifting in her mind and she suddenly felt whole again. The burning in her blood returned with the same force she was used to day in and day out before the Doctor ever came into her life.
The simple truth was they could both love the Doctor because he was amazing but they didn’t have to punish themselves if he didn’t recognize the same quality in them.
Jack sank into her, his tongue skimming along her lips, teasing and licking as if she was worth taking the time to taste and so she opened her mouth and gently touched her tongue with his. His breath caught in his throat.
She felt a sudden, undeniable need to try and heal Jack, to give him something back for helping her realize her misstep and for all the pain and time he’d lost since meeting the Doctor. She wanted to return the favor he’d just given her.
Smiling, she brought their mouths back together, harder, kissing him with everything she had.
Breaking apart only long enough to catch their breaths, she risked opening her eyes again for a peak at his face. It was a horrible sensation, having to fight her eyes to see what was right in front of her, but Jack was looking down at her with his eyes wide, full of want and hunger, smiling at her like she was the most amazing thing in the world and it was worth the discomfort. She was so caught up in his expression that at first she almost missed the shift in his glance thinking it was the perception filter playing tricks with her. But his whole body tightened beside her, making her sit back as she followed his gaze behind her to the Doctor who was staring at them both.
“Do you really think now’s the time for that?” the Doctor said harshly, his face unreadable.
Jack leaned back on his arm, never taking his eyes off the Doctor and Martha had no idea how he did that. Back and forth she glanced, as well as she could, but she never saw either of them flinch.
With only the slightest of pressure, Jack pushed her forward, motioning for her to scoot closer to the Doctor. Though there was only a foot at most between them, she moved awkwardly with Jack following right behind until she was sandwiched between them.
The Doctor’s face didn’t change, though she was pleased to note he took his eyes off Jack long enough to give her a glance.
“Time slips away from me as well,” Jack said, running his hand through her hair and then reaching across her with his other hand to grab the Doctor’s hand. “You more than anyone should know this is a moment we're never going to get back. Things are never going to be the same as they are now. Why can’t you let us have this, have you, just for this minute? Are we that unworthy of you?”
It might have been her imagination-the Doctor’s perception filter momentarily moving further out of whack, or it might have been that she couldn’t bring herself to look at him but suddenly she didn’t want to force the issue; didn’t want the Doctor to answer the question because if he did then she would know for sure if he was just always being obtuse or if she really wasn’t good enough for him.
She normally considered herself brave, but right now she was scared the answer would be worse than not knowing. So she shook her head. Right at this moment, all she wanted was a little hope. “No, no, no. It’s okay, Doctor. You don’t have to answer, you don’t-”
“I couldn’t do it,” the Doctor said, his expression softening and sadness tinged his voice.
Martha stopped talking. The Doctor looked at them both sadly, and then focused his attention on Jack. “The delta wave, back on Satellite Five. You gave me more than enough time to finish it Jack, but there wasn’t enough time in the universe for me to refine it, and I couldn’t do it-it’s not that you weren’t strong enough to survive. It’s that wasn’t strong enough to kill. I let you and all those people die defending me for nothing.”
“You heard us,” Martha said, heat rising to her cheeks as she struggled to remember everything they’d said.
The Doctor gave her an odd smile. “Of course, I’m sitting right here.”
“Oh dear,” Martha rubbed her forehead and Jack laughed into the side of her neck.
“Don’t you see? It’s not the two of you who aren’t here, it’s me. I’m not who you need me to be; I can’t give you what you want and have it mean what you want it to mean. That’s not who I am.”
Jack slid out from behind her and made his way up the Doctor’s legs, pushing him down onto the grass and dragging Martha with him. There was no one around, the security guard had passed this way ten minutes ago but Jack still moved slowly, hiding them in the long grass.
“Does your body work the same way we do?” Jack asked with a sly grin, working his way down the Doctor’s body, stopping to bare Martha’s midriff and give her a messy wet kiss on her navel.
The Doctor looked surprised to be on the floor, and then even more surprised to find himself tangled between them. “Aside from my apparent ability to judge an appropriate time for things, there’s my intellect, two hearts, respiratory bypass system, and internal body temperature-”
Jack laughed and apparently decided that was the answer he liked because he didn’t waste any time shimming down the Doctor’s body and hips, leaving Martha face to face with the Doctor, alone.
From what little she could actually see, she was surprised to see him looking so young. The moon was out in full tonight, and she reached out to touch his face, stopping short only when she remembered that in a few minutes everything could change and she could lose what little she had. Her eyes kept sliding off his face and this close to him; she couldn’t look anywhere else without seeing some part of him, not without cranking her neck. But she wanted to see him. She wanted to know if this was okay, she wanted to make sure he wouldn’t hate them later for this imposition. But most of all, she wanted to see him look at her like she was real, like it meant something that it was her lying next to him and not just a wall.
She cursed her eyes for watering and the tears that welled up making her seem weak. She hid her face in her arm hiding her embarrassment. “I’m not crying,” she said in her defense.
“I know,” the Doctor replied, gently touching her face, and bring her out into the open.
Barely able to see, Martha tried to wipe at her eyes but instead, the Doctor took her hand and brought it towards his chest. He put her hand through the string that held the TARDIS key around his neck, and then brought her hand up to his face, placing it on his cheek.
Instantly, the Doctor’s face came into focus, leaving her blinking. “But…”
“Our perception filters have combined,” the Doctor said with a small, quirky little smile and she almost laughed in relief to see his face so open; the shield he’d kept so firmly in place between them was gone.
“Why now, what happened?” the words stumbled out of her mouth and she was too relieved with his mood change to worry about making much sense. A reed of grass poked out from the Doctor’s hair.
The Doctor gave her a sort of shrug, completely different from his earlier refusal to answer her questions and she figured it meant he didn’t actually know. She was used to his mood swings, and just glad to be on the positive end of one for now.
The Doctor opened his mouth to say something, ready to start babbling-she could just tell when all of a sudden his expression changed and he stared down at Jack in shock. Martha followed his gaze and watched as Jack got the Doctor’s trousers open and pants pushed aside. The perception filter that Jack wore still affected her eyes, pushing them aside so she couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, though it wasn’t hard to figure out. The Doctor arched his back, throwing his head back in surprise and amazement and Martha helped him lie back down, taking care not to slip her hand out from the string. She watched the sensations play across the Doctor’s face. For once, every single emotion was visible to see, the Doctor’s masks shattered with the first lick of Jack’s tongue.
She held the Doctor’s face, felt his warm hand slip under her jacket and blouse and touch her skin for the first time.
“Jack,” the Doctor stammered out, reaching with his free hand for Jack’s head, repeating Jack’s name until he stopped and looked up. The Doctor lifted Jack’s head and brought him closer to him.
“You don’t have to do this, Jack,” the Doctor whispered, and Jack threaded his hand under the Doctor’s string as well. “You don’t have to service me. I’m nobody’s master and you deserve so much more than what I can give you.”
“Don’t you see, I’m not servicing you,” Jack said, leaning forward and kissed the Doctor fully on the mouth. Martha watched in envy as Jack seemed to know exactly what he could take and how. When they broke apart, the Doctor was breathless. “I just want you to let me do this, please,” Jack begged.
When the Doctor didn’t say anything further, Jack started making his way back down. Stopping long enough to plant a kiss on her as well, Martha tasted the Doctor on Jack’s tongue and the combination was incredible. She watched as Jack took the Doctor back into his mouth, depriving Martha of a good look again but the Doctor instead pulled her close. Squeezing her until she almost couldn’t breath, she held him, held his face, let him hold on to her while Jack teased him and worked him up until she could see the breaking point on his face.
Throwing his head back, Martha was barely able to kiss him in time to swallow his scream, riding his slim body up as he arched and came, shuddering violently until he let go of her and she had no choice but to let go of him as well. He collapsed spinelessly onto the grass, smiling like he had no idea what else to do.
Martha tried to swallow her disappointment and frustration, tried not to be too bitter that the only time she’d gotten up the courage to kiss him, it hadn’t been a real kiss at all.
“I-” the Doctor started and then stopped several times in a row. “That was-Wow.”
She forced a smile and made a move to get up. Somehow, wrapped up in the moment she’d managed to practically fall on top of him and sooner or later he was going to mind the weight. But Jack came up behind her and pushed her back down, maneuvering them both until she was lying back on top of the Doctor with the lower half of her body between his legs.
“I hope you don’t mind lying there while I help Miss Jones out a little, do you?” Jack asked.
Underneath her, the Doctor smiled as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “Not at all.”
Pushing her hair out of the way so he could whisper in her ear, Jack transferred his hand from the Doctor’s perception filter string to her own. “We have to be subtle so no one will see, but I want to take you, right here, right now, with you lying on top of the Doctor. I want to slide inside your tight warmth and make you come so hard you never forget this night and I want to do this now. Will you let me?”
At the words, Martha instantly felt a wetness growing between her legs, and she knew that right now, she wanted nothing more than to have Jack inside her. She nodded, using her free hand to try and unbutton her jeans. It was awkward since she couldn’t take her hand out from the Doctor’s keystring, but the Doctor surprised her by reaching between them and undoing the jeans for her. He even helped Jack shimmy them down her legs, taking her knickers along, and touching the skin of her thighs as they went. The Doctor didn’t touch anywhere else, just a soft, careful caress on her thigh as he brought his other hand up to her face, running his thumb across her cheeks as Jack’s talented hands pushed her legs apart as far as they would go. She didn’t dare remove her jeans completely but she managed to work one leg free to give Jack more room.
Jack ran his fingers lightly across her flesh, slowly spreading her apart until he could dip his fingers inside. She didn’t need a lot of foreplay; she knew right now this is what she’d been waiting for since Jack had landed in front of the TARDIS, a trillion years ago. The moment Jack pushed a finger inside, she gasped at the sensation, suddenly overwhelmed. It had been far too long…
Jack didn’t give her time to reminisce. He added another finger; thrusting in and out and all the while the Doctor never took his eyes off of her. Martha felt naked. She had most of her clothes on but the Doctor could see everything that was written across her face. She’d never felt so exposed but watching the Doctor’s reactions to her expressions, she’d never felt so real either.
Jack whispered in her ear. “You’re so wet. You want us both, don’t you?”
Martha could only nod, scared of what he meant but at the same time, trusting Jack not to push her too far.
He removed his fingers and right away she leaned back, desperate for more. Then she felt him fiddling with his trousers, and within seconds, he was lying on top of her, pressing her between him and the Doctor, and she could feel his erection hard against her ass. He entered her slowly, giving her time to adjust, sliding in further and further until she felt so full she thought she thought she couldn’t take it anymore.
“Look at him,” he said loud enough for the Doctor to hear as well. He started thrusting back and forth, short, shallow thrusts so as not to destroy the effect of the perception filter in case anyone happened to glance in their direction and notice them among the grass. “Look at him and imagine it’s him inside you as well.
Martha shuddered as the Doctor’s eyes got wider, turning into deep pools that she could sink into as Jack thrust into her over and over. Short, shallow thrusts that nonetheless filled her and rubbed the sweet spot inside. She felt the temperature rising, felt like she was suddenly boiling from heat, desperate for something more, something to coalesce the feelings running though her, yet unable to move to get it. She was essentially trapped between them, at the mercy of whatever they did or didn’t do.
She tried to rub herself against the Doctor’s leg, realizing she wanted more friction and that’s when the Doctor got his wild little grin again. Moving his hand from her thigh, he brought it around so it was between them and slid it over her delicate flesh until he found her clitoris. It was like an electric shock, focusing all the tension in between her legs. Then everything came together; Jack’s thrusts raising her higher and higher, driving her towards the spot the Doctor was rubbing until she didn’t think she could take it anymore.
“Martha,” the Doctor drawled out her name, focusing her attention on his face, and his perfect lips. “Let me be with you now. Come to me Martha.”
At the sound of her name, her tension wound higher, suddenly snapping like a wire being pulled from too much pressure, plummeting her down a hundred stories until she was in freefall, her muscles clenching around Jack, making him stiffen behind her until he called out her name and sunk his teeth into the back of her neck.
Falling, falling, it felt like she was falling forever. When the waves of pleasure finally started to subside she realized that the Doctor had helped her down all the way, kissing her so gently she hadn’t even realized it.
Giving her a final kiss, she took the moment to memorize it; imprinting the feel of his lips on hers before he rolled them to the side, letting Jack roll off first and depositing her on the soft grass beside him.
Martha stared up at the nighttime sky and the few stars they could see because of the city lights. Between them, Jack and the Doctor each held one of her hands and she felt light enough to float away.
Suddenly, movement from the edge of the tarmac caught her attention and just as she was about to make a grab for her pants, the Doctor clenched her hand and whispered at her not to move.
The guard looked around, completely nonplussed, and then resumed his walk around the grounds. Breathing out a sigh of relief, Martha slowly put her clothes back in order and by the time she was presentable, both Jack and the Doctor were as well, their perception filters once again acting independently to keep them from being noticed.
“People will start arriving soon,” the Doctor said, and Martha could make out no hint of the intimacy they’d just shared except that the brittle edge they’d been subjected to just hours before seemed to have been smoothed away.
With a quick glance over her shoulder to the patch of grass they’d laid in, Martha was hard pressed to see any indication that they’d been there at all.
Jack reached out and gave her hand a squeeze, guiding her towards the apron where the meeting was likely to take place. Bending his face towards her ear, he whispered as they walked. “No one can stop time, not him, not me. All we can do is live with what we’ve done and who we’ve become. He can’t be what we need him to be, but we will always strive to be what he needs us to be. In the end, I suppose that’s not such a bad thing to be.”
Rating: NC17
Fandom: Doctor Who
Timeline: Set within 3x12 - The Sound of Drums.
Summary: Jack and Martha find some peace with their feelings for the Doctor. Jack/Martha/Doctor.
A/N: Many thanks to daera23 for the quick beta.
The chill in the night air made Martha wrap her coat a little tighter around her body. Her stomach grumbled; it must have been at least five hours since they ate sandwiches in that cruddy old alley, but there was nothing to do about it now. They were hiding in the bushes along the edge of the tarmac; the plane carrying the American President due to land in less than an hour.
The Master would be here. All they had to do was wait.
The grass was cold and itchy, scratching her as it wound its way under her jacket and above the waist of her jeans. She tried not to look around. Every time she glanced at either of them, her eyes slid off their bodies, twisting her stomach like she was in a boat at high sea. The Doctor to one side, a foot away, wrapped up in his own thoughts, Jack leaning against her other side, allowing her to share his warmth.
Martha shivered and focused on a nearby rock just to stop from feeling seasick.
“Do you want my coat?” Jack whispered, moving in a little closer until she could smell his sweat and aftershave. They mingled together into a warm, musky scent that made her lightheaded. He felt so strong and real beside her; she couldn’t help but sink in a little closer. Truth be told, she didn’t want to help it. Everything was unraveling around her, everyone she held dear was in danger, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. She had to place her trust in the Doctor, that he could save her family and make the world right again but trusting in other people was never something she was very good at.
She trusted herself, because she could control her actions. She knew that she could do whatever needed to be done to affect a given situation. It was one of the reasons why she wanted to go into medicine. She knew she could study, learn and diagnose. She trusted herself to do those things so she could save lives.
She could do that.
The one thing she couldn’t do; however, was control the Doctor, not even a little. They’d been flying around the universe together for months now and he seemed more alien to her today than the day they had met. Even now as they lay sitting in the grass, just out of sight of the guards, he was close enough to touch if she just reached out her arm, but he might as well have been on the other side of the moon. She had no idea what he was thinking.
The Doctor stared off into the distance, his glasses long since tucked away into his jacket. Even without them though, she got the sense he was seeing further than she could ever imagine. He was so still she almost thought he wasn’t breathing. She let her eyes slide off his form and back to the rock, half hidden in the grass.
Jack put a hand on her arm, calling her attention to his question and she shook her head. The cold she was feeling wasn’t going to be countered by adding an extra layer of clothes.
He rubbed her arm in comfort as if he understood and risking a glance at his face, she realized that maybe he did. The vertigo quickly kicked back in when as she tried to decipher the knowing look in his eyes, but she managed to hold his gaze.
“How do you do it,” she whispered, her eyes watering from the effort.
“Love him, trust him or put up with him?” Jack asked just as quietly.
Martha shrugged, finally looking away. “Any of them. All of them. I don’t know.”
His hand moved down her jacket until his fingers intertwined with hers.
“Everything I do, I do because I want him to be proud of me. He saved me. A hundred years ago-eighty years ago-a million, whatever. I almost destroyed this planet, but he fixed my mistake-fixed me. When I was traveling with him, I started to remember all the things I’d stopped believing in a long time ago. He has this habit of making you want to be the best person you can be.”
“It sounds like you’ve succeeded,” Martha said, glancing again quickly at the Doctor. But he hadn’t moved an inch, and maybe he couldn’t hear their conversation above the wind.
Jack snorted sadly, pulling his hand away and tucking it close to his body. “I’m everything he despises. Just a cheap imitation of him.”
Frowning, Martha forced Jack to look at her to explain. “I don’t see that at all.”
“For everything I’ve done to better myself, I’ve always taken one step forward and two back. Even forgetting the catastrophe of a con I tried to pull when we first met, everything I’ve tried to do since then has failed in some way. When the Daleks were attacking Satellite Five, I tried to lead the defenses to give him as much time as I could so he could finish the delta wave, but I wasn’t strong enough to hold them back. I died and there wasn’t anyone left to stand in the way. Because of that, I can never die now; in his eyes I’m an abomination; my very existence contradicts the natural order of things. I suppose my involvement with Torchwood is just the icing on the cake. I’m oh-for-three so far.”
“He doesn’t hate you,” Martha said honestly, reaching down to retake his hand. What little she could read about the Doctor told her she was right. When she found Jack’s hand buried in the folds of his coat, she squeezed it until he opened it up for her and was then surprised when he grasped her fingers desperately. “You’re the only one who gets around his whole evasive attitude. He tells you things, he trusts you to understand them. He hardly tells me anything at all…Sometimes I think I’m just taking up space, someone he can talk to so he’s not talking to the wall.”
She hadn’t meant to say the last part and now she bit her tongue in dismay. She wasn’t fishing for sympathy.
“Don’t underestimate yourself,” Jack said kindly, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb. His touch felt nice and surprisingly reassuring.
“I don’t,” she replied, breathing him in. “I know I’m smart and capable, and able to understand all the horrible and complicated things he needs to talk about, but I’m honest as well. All this time I’ve just taking up space for...” she broke off her sentence but Rose hung in the air unsaid. “It’s my family who’s been taken, and I couldn’t even get a straight answer on who the Master is.”
Suddenly, she felt a hand on her chin; slowly bring her face up to his. “We’ll find your family. As for the Doctor…” Jack trailed off, studying her face as if it were no trouble at all. “It’s not you, you know. He’s always been a little distant. And we’ve also caught him at a bad time.”
When her eyes skimmed his body and face, the perception filter slid them right off again and she had to struggle to keep them steady. The more she looked at him, into his eyes which mirrored a haunting need she could feel in herself, the worse the slipping and sliding feeling became until her head was pounding from the strain.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered, bringing his mouth to her ears, teasing her cheek with his lips. “It will help.”
She did as she was told and instantly the headache receded. “We’re not really here, are we?” she asked. She could feel him shake his head.
“We’re invisible to the world and he’s got his own demons to deal with,” Jack replied, kissing her ear and trailing his lips down her neck. “He’ll come back to us when he’s ready.”
Martha moved her head, giving him room to maneuver as he kissed down her neck. Jack moved slowly, so as not to disturb the perception filter protecting them, but each caress made her flush with unexpected heat.
Had it really been so long that she was ready to snog an essential stranger in the middle of an open field? She brought her hand up to Jack’s face and risked opening her eyes for just a second. Jack’s blue eyes were staring at her, with lust yes, but also with a shared pain that pierced her soul.
“You’re beautiful and smart, Martha Jones,” Jack said forcefully. Martha closed her eyes and leaned forward, placing her lips on his, melting into his mouth when he opened it. It was like a curtain lifting in her mind and she suddenly felt whole again. The burning in her blood returned with the same force she was used to day in and day out before the Doctor ever came into her life.
The simple truth was they could both love the Doctor because he was amazing but they didn’t have to punish themselves if he didn’t recognize the same quality in them.
Jack sank into her, his tongue skimming along her lips, teasing and licking as if she was worth taking the time to taste and so she opened her mouth and gently touched her tongue with his. His breath caught in his throat.
She felt a sudden, undeniable need to try and heal Jack, to give him something back for helping her realize her misstep and for all the pain and time he’d lost since meeting the Doctor. She wanted to return the favor he’d just given her.
Smiling, she brought their mouths back together, harder, kissing him with everything she had.
Breaking apart only long enough to catch their breaths, she risked opening her eyes again for a peak at his face. It was a horrible sensation, having to fight her eyes to see what was right in front of her, but Jack was looking down at her with his eyes wide, full of want and hunger, smiling at her like she was the most amazing thing in the world and it was worth the discomfort. She was so caught up in his expression that at first she almost missed the shift in his glance thinking it was the perception filter playing tricks with her. But his whole body tightened beside her, making her sit back as she followed his gaze behind her to the Doctor who was staring at them both.
“Do you really think now’s the time for that?” the Doctor said harshly, his face unreadable.
Jack leaned back on his arm, never taking his eyes off the Doctor and Martha had no idea how he did that. Back and forth she glanced, as well as she could, but she never saw either of them flinch.
With only the slightest of pressure, Jack pushed her forward, motioning for her to scoot closer to the Doctor. Though there was only a foot at most between them, she moved awkwardly with Jack following right behind until she was sandwiched between them.
The Doctor’s face didn’t change, though she was pleased to note he took his eyes off Jack long enough to give her a glance.
“Time slips away from me as well,” Jack said, running his hand through her hair and then reaching across her with his other hand to grab the Doctor’s hand. “You more than anyone should know this is a moment we're never going to get back. Things are never going to be the same as they are now. Why can’t you let us have this, have you, just for this minute? Are we that unworthy of you?”
It might have been her imagination-the Doctor’s perception filter momentarily moving further out of whack, or it might have been that she couldn’t bring herself to look at him but suddenly she didn’t want to force the issue; didn’t want the Doctor to answer the question because if he did then she would know for sure if he was just always being obtuse or if she really wasn’t good enough for him.
She normally considered herself brave, but right now she was scared the answer would be worse than not knowing. So she shook her head. Right at this moment, all she wanted was a little hope. “No, no, no. It’s okay, Doctor. You don’t have to answer, you don’t-”
“I couldn’t do it,” the Doctor said, his expression softening and sadness tinged his voice.
Martha stopped talking. The Doctor looked at them both sadly, and then focused his attention on Jack. “The delta wave, back on Satellite Five. You gave me more than enough time to finish it Jack, but there wasn’t enough time in the universe for me to refine it, and I couldn’t do it-it’s not that you weren’t strong enough to survive. It’s that wasn’t strong enough to kill. I let you and all those people die defending me for nothing.”
“You heard us,” Martha said, heat rising to her cheeks as she struggled to remember everything they’d said.
The Doctor gave her an odd smile. “Of course, I’m sitting right here.”
“Oh dear,” Martha rubbed her forehead and Jack laughed into the side of her neck.
“Don’t you see? It’s not the two of you who aren’t here, it’s me. I’m not who you need me to be; I can’t give you what you want and have it mean what you want it to mean. That’s not who I am.”
Jack slid out from behind her and made his way up the Doctor’s legs, pushing him down onto the grass and dragging Martha with him. There was no one around, the security guard had passed this way ten minutes ago but Jack still moved slowly, hiding them in the long grass.
“Does your body work the same way we do?” Jack asked with a sly grin, working his way down the Doctor’s body, stopping to bare Martha’s midriff and give her a messy wet kiss on her navel.
The Doctor looked surprised to be on the floor, and then even more surprised to find himself tangled between them. “Aside from my apparent ability to judge an appropriate time for things, there’s my intellect, two hearts, respiratory bypass system, and internal body temperature-”
Jack laughed and apparently decided that was the answer he liked because he didn’t waste any time shimming down the Doctor’s body and hips, leaving Martha face to face with the Doctor, alone.
From what little she could actually see, she was surprised to see him looking so young. The moon was out in full tonight, and she reached out to touch his face, stopping short only when she remembered that in a few minutes everything could change and she could lose what little she had. Her eyes kept sliding off his face and this close to him; she couldn’t look anywhere else without seeing some part of him, not without cranking her neck. But she wanted to see him. She wanted to know if this was okay, she wanted to make sure he wouldn’t hate them later for this imposition. But most of all, she wanted to see him look at her like she was real, like it meant something that it was her lying next to him and not just a wall.
She cursed her eyes for watering and the tears that welled up making her seem weak. She hid her face in her arm hiding her embarrassment. “I’m not crying,” she said in her defense.
“I know,” the Doctor replied, gently touching her face, and bring her out into the open.
Barely able to see, Martha tried to wipe at her eyes but instead, the Doctor took her hand and brought it towards his chest. He put her hand through the string that held the TARDIS key around his neck, and then brought her hand up to his face, placing it on his cheek.
Instantly, the Doctor’s face came into focus, leaving her blinking. “But…”
“Our perception filters have combined,” the Doctor said with a small, quirky little smile and she almost laughed in relief to see his face so open; the shield he’d kept so firmly in place between them was gone.
“Why now, what happened?” the words stumbled out of her mouth and she was too relieved with his mood change to worry about making much sense. A reed of grass poked out from the Doctor’s hair.
The Doctor gave her a sort of shrug, completely different from his earlier refusal to answer her questions and she figured it meant he didn’t actually know. She was used to his mood swings, and just glad to be on the positive end of one for now.
The Doctor opened his mouth to say something, ready to start babbling-she could just tell when all of a sudden his expression changed and he stared down at Jack in shock. Martha followed his gaze and watched as Jack got the Doctor’s trousers open and pants pushed aside. The perception filter that Jack wore still affected her eyes, pushing them aside so she couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, though it wasn’t hard to figure out. The Doctor arched his back, throwing his head back in surprise and amazement and Martha helped him lie back down, taking care not to slip her hand out from the string. She watched the sensations play across the Doctor’s face. For once, every single emotion was visible to see, the Doctor’s masks shattered with the first lick of Jack’s tongue.
She held the Doctor’s face, felt his warm hand slip under her jacket and blouse and touch her skin for the first time.
“Jack,” the Doctor stammered out, reaching with his free hand for Jack’s head, repeating Jack’s name until he stopped and looked up. The Doctor lifted Jack’s head and brought him closer to him.
“You don’t have to do this, Jack,” the Doctor whispered, and Jack threaded his hand under the Doctor’s string as well. “You don’t have to service me. I’m nobody’s master and you deserve so much more than what I can give you.”
“Don’t you see, I’m not servicing you,” Jack said, leaning forward and kissed the Doctor fully on the mouth. Martha watched in envy as Jack seemed to know exactly what he could take and how. When they broke apart, the Doctor was breathless. “I just want you to let me do this, please,” Jack begged.
When the Doctor didn’t say anything further, Jack started making his way back down. Stopping long enough to plant a kiss on her as well, Martha tasted the Doctor on Jack’s tongue and the combination was incredible. She watched as Jack took the Doctor back into his mouth, depriving Martha of a good look again but the Doctor instead pulled her close. Squeezing her until she almost couldn’t breath, she held him, held his face, let him hold on to her while Jack teased him and worked him up until she could see the breaking point on his face.
Throwing his head back, Martha was barely able to kiss him in time to swallow his scream, riding his slim body up as he arched and came, shuddering violently until he let go of her and she had no choice but to let go of him as well. He collapsed spinelessly onto the grass, smiling like he had no idea what else to do.
Martha tried to swallow her disappointment and frustration, tried not to be too bitter that the only time she’d gotten up the courage to kiss him, it hadn’t been a real kiss at all.
“I-” the Doctor started and then stopped several times in a row. “That was-Wow.”
She forced a smile and made a move to get up. Somehow, wrapped up in the moment she’d managed to practically fall on top of him and sooner or later he was going to mind the weight. But Jack came up behind her and pushed her back down, maneuvering them both until she was lying back on top of the Doctor with the lower half of her body between his legs.
“I hope you don’t mind lying there while I help Miss Jones out a little, do you?” Jack asked.
Underneath her, the Doctor smiled as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “Not at all.”
Pushing her hair out of the way so he could whisper in her ear, Jack transferred his hand from the Doctor’s perception filter string to her own. “We have to be subtle so no one will see, but I want to take you, right here, right now, with you lying on top of the Doctor. I want to slide inside your tight warmth and make you come so hard you never forget this night and I want to do this now. Will you let me?”
At the words, Martha instantly felt a wetness growing between her legs, and she knew that right now, she wanted nothing more than to have Jack inside her. She nodded, using her free hand to try and unbutton her jeans. It was awkward since she couldn’t take her hand out from the Doctor’s keystring, but the Doctor surprised her by reaching between them and undoing the jeans for her. He even helped Jack shimmy them down her legs, taking her knickers along, and touching the skin of her thighs as they went. The Doctor didn’t touch anywhere else, just a soft, careful caress on her thigh as he brought his other hand up to her face, running his thumb across her cheeks as Jack’s talented hands pushed her legs apart as far as they would go. She didn’t dare remove her jeans completely but she managed to work one leg free to give Jack more room.
Jack ran his fingers lightly across her flesh, slowly spreading her apart until he could dip his fingers inside. She didn’t need a lot of foreplay; she knew right now this is what she’d been waiting for since Jack had landed in front of the TARDIS, a trillion years ago. The moment Jack pushed a finger inside, she gasped at the sensation, suddenly overwhelmed. It had been far too long…
Jack didn’t give her time to reminisce. He added another finger; thrusting in and out and all the while the Doctor never took his eyes off of her. Martha felt naked. She had most of her clothes on but the Doctor could see everything that was written across her face. She’d never felt so exposed but watching the Doctor’s reactions to her expressions, she’d never felt so real either.
Jack whispered in her ear. “You’re so wet. You want us both, don’t you?”
Martha could only nod, scared of what he meant but at the same time, trusting Jack not to push her too far.
He removed his fingers and right away she leaned back, desperate for more. Then she felt him fiddling with his trousers, and within seconds, he was lying on top of her, pressing her between him and the Doctor, and she could feel his erection hard against her ass. He entered her slowly, giving her time to adjust, sliding in further and further until she felt so full she thought she thought she couldn’t take it anymore.
“Look at him,” he said loud enough for the Doctor to hear as well. He started thrusting back and forth, short, shallow thrusts so as not to destroy the effect of the perception filter in case anyone happened to glance in their direction and notice them among the grass. “Look at him and imagine it’s him inside you as well.
Martha shuddered as the Doctor’s eyes got wider, turning into deep pools that she could sink into as Jack thrust into her over and over. Short, shallow thrusts that nonetheless filled her and rubbed the sweet spot inside. She felt the temperature rising, felt like she was suddenly boiling from heat, desperate for something more, something to coalesce the feelings running though her, yet unable to move to get it. She was essentially trapped between them, at the mercy of whatever they did or didn’t do.
She tried to rub herself against the Doctor’s leg, realizing she wanted more friction and that’s when the Doctor got his wild little grin again. Moving his hand from her thigh, he brought it around so it was between them and slid it over her delicate flesh until he found her clitoris. It was like an electric shock, focusing all the tension in between her legs. Then everything came together; Jack’s thrusts raising her higher and higher, driving her towards the spot the Doctor was rubbing until she didn’t think she could take it anymore.
“Martha,” the Doctor drawled out her name, focusing her attention on his face, and his perfect lips. “Let me be with you now. Come to me Martha.”
At the sound of her name, her tension wound higher, suddenly snapping like a wire being pulled from too much pressure, plummeting her down a hundred stories until she was in freefall, her muscles clenching around Jack, making him stiffen behind her until he called out her name and sunk his teeth into the back of her neck.
Falling, falling, it felt like she was falling forever. When the waves of pleasure finally started to subside she realized that the Doctor had helped her down all the way, kissing her so gently she hadn’t even realized it.
Giving her a final kiss, she took the moment to memorize it; imprinting the feel of his lips on hers before he rolled them to the side, letting Jack roll off first and depositing her on the soft grass beside him.
Martha stared up at the nighttime sky and the few stars they could see because of the city lights. Between them, Jack and the Doctor each held one of her hands and she felt light enough to float away.
Suddenly, movement from the edge of the tarmac caught her attention and just as she was about to make a grab for her pants, the Doctor clenched her hand and whispered at her not to move.
The guard looked around, completely nonplussed, and then resumed his walk around the grounds. Breathing out a sigh of relief, Martha slowly put her clothes back in order and by the time she was presentable, both Jack and the Doctor were as well, their perception filters once again acting independently to keep them from being noticed.
“People will start arriving soon,” the Doctor said, and Martha could make out no hint of the intimacy they’d just shared except that the brittle edge they’d been subjected to just hours before seemed to have been smoothed away.
With a quick glance over her shoulder to the patch of grass they’d laid in, Martha was hard pressed to see any indication that they’d been there at all.
Jack reached out and gave her hand a squeeze, guiding her towards the apron where the meeting was likely to take place. Bending his face towards her ear, he whispered as they walked. “No one can stop time, not him, not me. All we can do is live with what we’ve done and who we’ve become. He can’t be what we need him to be, but we will always strive to be what he needs us to be. In the end, I suppose that’s not such a bad thing to be.”