[Truthplot - Timed to May 29]

[not_the_chav]

There was something off about today, Martha was certain. Something obtuse, difficult to pinpoint, and all the more frustrating for it. No one event had tipped her off, but rather the overall atmosphere not of the island, but of herself

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[sortofaman]

The Doctor had woke up feeling odd, and though he couldn't quite say how, he was rather chipper. Getting up to walk the dog, he answered the greetings from his housemates with honestly pleased responses, then jogged out the door, Atalanta panting at his heels and yipping pleasantly. It was a good morning.

Good enough that he greeted Martha Jones. "Good morning, Martha," he said. "How are you?"

[sortofaman]

"He needs you because he needs someone to feed on and use for nothing but his own wanks," the Doctor retorted. "If that's how you want to feel better about me, to be put away to nothing, then I don't see how there's any way I can stop you without looking like a hypocrite, but you deserve better than that."

[not_the_chav]

"D'you think I like this?" Martha demanded, reeling on him. "That I want to be this person? That it makes me happy? All you ever do is tell me how I should be, that I'm making the wrong decisions. You're never just there for me, you're not my friend and you're not the man I left behind. Why should I believe that you care about me at all? It's not about me. It's about you, and him."

[sortofaman]

"No, I don't think you like it, but when you started pushing me away from the very first moment I met you, and when you can't get out of my face every time we do meet, and when I can't find you the other half of the time, it's a little fucking hard to 'be there'," the Doctor snapped. "You have no reason to believe I care about you except that I'm telling you right now and I can't bloody lie."

[not_the_chav]

"You scare the hell out of me," Martha admitted, horrified even as she uttered the words. "It's easier telling myself you don't care, because then I don't have to be afraid that you'll reject me, that I won't be good enough. You've done it so many times, I don't think I could handle it again."

[sortofaman]

"I'm different here," the Doctor said, "things have changed, but I know how it is when you have someone set in your mind and I understand. I just don't know what to do for you anymore, and I don't know how to start if I tried."

His gaze was some combination of mortified and imploring.

[not_the_chav]

Martha sighed heavily and slanted her gaze away. "I don't know, either," she admitted without looking back. "Sometimes, I'm outside of myself. Watching myself. And I don't know who I am anymore. It's not your fault, but you're convenient. I don't know how to stop fighting, and there's no one else to rage against." She lifted her eyes to him again. "Do you know what I mean?"

[sortofaman]

"Yes," the Doctor said, "entirely too much, actually. I just...I'm afraid. I don't like being afraid, it makes me want to do things to compensate and those things are generally not very good."

Punching the Master, for starters. He had a reputation to think of now.

[not_the_chav]

"You know, don't you, that if things start to get bad, I'll call you?" Martha asked, watching him. "No matter what, even if I've told you the day before that I hate you. I'm not completely lacking sense. I know what I can handle and what I can't."

[sortofaman]

"I didn't, but I'm glad. Okay," the Doctor said, because he hadn't figured she would. "Just...please tell me that you won't take anything he says at face value?"

[not_the_chav]

"I don't," Martha insisted, and realised that she honestly meant it. "I never have. I've not forgotten." She couldn't, not really, not even if she wanted to. That bitter knowledge was always with her, lingering at the back of her mind.

[sortofaman]

The Doctor nodded, barely blinking as he looked back at her. "I just...needed to know," he said, voice soft like a whisper for no reason at all.

[not_the_chav]

It occurred to Martha then that it was easier to look at him when they were fighting, and perhaps that had been part of her anger, too. Just now, with that familiar, deep sort of sadness behind his eyes, just seeing him made her ache. In being hurt, she'd wanted to lash out and hurt him, but now that she could see that she had, she hated herself for it.

"Doctor," she began, and hesitated, uncertain of what she wanted to say, despite the compulsive honesty that had carried them through the conversation. She took a deep breath, a step forward, and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his neck. God, she thought, he smelled just the same, and it hurt even as it was a relief.

[sortofaman]

The Doctor was taken quite aback by this, but in the end all he could do--it seemed he physically had to tell the truth too--was hug her back. It was right, though he didn't know exactly what it meant. Gently, he slid his hand a little along her back, between the shoulder blades.