Title: Footnotes
Author: Ever1
Fandom: Doctor Who
Summary: Martha Jones will not be a footnote forever.
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst/Romance
Length: 800 word one-off.
Pairings: Unrequited Martha/Doctor, Doctor/Rose
Set: A scene from The Shakespeare Code
Warnings: None, that I can think of! Except again – potentially dodgy writing. Oh, and wanton Martha/Doctor angst.

Songlist: Looking For Trouble, The Remus Lupins

...Dear god, I’m insane.

A/N: My break is easing off! I’m so ecstatically happy! Well – this still took me far longer than it should have, but it didn’t feel as awkward, and I seemed to find the thread easier somehow…so, hurrah! Hurrah me! And then maybe I’ll finally be able to get ‘round to Compromise. Thank the lord.

Footnotes

“Are you going to stand there all night?”

It’s a good question; and it’s so matter of fact that for a second, she believes the nonchalance it suggests. Martha, however, is used to being lied to, and after a second – there it is. The tell-tale flicker of his eyes as he glances up at her, the frown in between his eyebrows. There it is, and she has a feeling that she had better get used to seeing it.

Martha doesn’t voice any of this, of course. He lies there, one leg crossed haphazardly over the other, fingers clasped comfortably over his waist, staring past her as she goes to the shabby little bedside and puts down the candle. When she turns around, she catches a flicker in his eyes again. He raises them to the ceiling, purses his lips, and breathes deeply.

Martha Jones knows that kind of look: eyes cast upwards and lips bitten. She used to see it very often when she was a medical student, accompanied in the background by her own voice mouthing consolatory murmurs and advocating steadfastness and endurance and promises, promises that it would not take long, but that it was necessary…

Bitterness forces its way up her throat. Is this how he feels about her, then? Is this what saving the world has become for him, without his Rose? Painful but necessary, like one of the medical test Martha is so used to having to administer…

Briefly, she wonders whether she should attempt to console him in the same manner – with words he himself has uttered; ever the doctor, ever the consoler: “It’ll pass, stay with me…”

He is staring straight ahead at the wall, jaw clenched, unmoving. Or perhaps he is steeling himself for the moment when she lies down beside him – or rather, for the moment that will inevitably follow, the moment where he will glance sideways and see dark skin and dark hair and remember how light Rose was…pink and yellow…

“Budge up a bit then.”

He moves without looking around, without even blinking, eyes never leaving the opposite wall, mouth never softening.

“Sorry. There’s not much room. Us two here. Same bed. Tongues will wag.”

She’s trying for levity – trying anything that might make him look around at her, but instead, he begins to talk again, and Martha begins doubt her own existence. His voice rings of monologue; if Martha had witnessed it, she might have been reminded of Shakespeare’s accusation of him: “this constant performance of yours”. He is performing, constantly, but not tirelessly, and every time he glimpses her face, Martha can feel him weaken.

As he talks, she can’t help but stare. There are so many things that are odd about this situation, and her feelings are the least, but she finds herself examining them, critically, as though the Doctor, perhaps, isn’t quite up to her usual standards. She stares for a moment at the pale, translucent webbing around the outside of his eyes and wonders, powerfully, how on earth she can find it attractive.

He slips sideways, cheek on the red pillow, eyes distant. Martha looks down at him from what feels like a great height. She entertains an idea: perhaps, by turning, by facing him, by bringing their eyes in alignment, she can force him to see her.

The candlelight’s steady, casting a shadow over his face. His arms are still crossed, wrinkling creases in his jacket, and for an instant, it feels very strange to witness a man going to bed with his tie still on. Barely breathing, Martha turns onto her side; and this time, his eyes follow her and find her.

“There’s something I’m missing, Martha.”

And for the first time, Martha is given a vague idea of where she stands: here. Here, in the corner of the Doctor’s eye; here, in the questions that aren’t quite rhetorical; here, in the easy, careless way he uses her name…she might just be a footnote to him, but she is a footnote that is indispensable. Perhaps not her, specifically – not in the way Rose was specific – but someone, anyone…someone to glimpse out of the corner of his eye, someone to mouth questions at without expecting an answer, someone whose name he can tail on to the end of sentences.

“Something really close. I’m staring it right in the face and I can’t see it…”

“I’m staring it right in the face and I can’t see it…”

No, he can’t. All he can see is what isn’t there.

“Rose would know.”

“Still, can’t be helped. You’re a novice…”

“Take you back home tomorrow.”

She closes her eyes. Was Rose, perhaps, a postscript to begin with? A – novice? An annotation that became something more?

“Martha, forgive me for this. It's to save a thousand lives, it means nothing. Honestly, nothing.”

Is there, then, any hope for her?

Martha Jones will not be a footnote forever.