Of dead team members, Slitheen eggs, and ridiculous foot chases...
Jack is not looking his best when he walks in. It's not anything about him physically that's really changed - though there is a bit of blood spattered on his face and coat and hands, none of it his. It's his expression, dark and closed-off, and rather pained
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She's been gone for three and a half months, which feel more like three and a half years. It's enough to change her. Amazingly, she's skinnier than she was the last time she was here. Her body looks more like a skeleton, but she has Asia and north Africa to blame for that. So many people in poverty already, there was nothing there, just death and starvation and pain and people struggling.
This entrance she's not scared and she's not running. No, she's walking. She's strong and determined and there might even be a little hope shining in her eyes. It's more for the benefit of the people she runs into than herself, but it looks incredibly sincere.
Martha opens the door just a little, seconds after it slams shut, and all she sees is him, "Jack?" It takes an instant to recognize the pain, the blood on his face, that something is very wrong in his expression so she wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him, hard, without another thought.
More happy to see him than she is to be in the Inn.
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He draws a slow, pleased breath as they step into the shower and the hot water hits him and God, he needed that more than he thought. He pulls her tight against his chest, the warmth of her and the warmth of the shower a silent reassurance that for now, in this moment, everything's the way it should be.
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Like stepping into another world. All of its own.
She slips her hands around the back of his neck. Her fingers slip down and massage around the top of his shoulder blades as she press a wet, heated kiss to the place where his jawline meats his neck.
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His own hands run up and down her back, slick with the hot water from the shower, and he pulls back from the kiss just long enough to say softly, 'Martha Jones, you wonderful woman... Do you know how happy I am that I met you?"
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Her smile is warm, nearly shy, which is difficult to pull off naked and in a shower, but she's Martha Jones so she manages it, easily enough.
"Hopefully, at least, half as happy as I am." She smiles, a little brighter, and presses a kiss to Jack's lips again, fingers continuing to massage with her fingers down his back.
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"Oh, I'd say twice, at least." His hands slip around her hips, tracing circles over the angles of her hipbones - too sharp, too defined, but he'll pretend not to notice - and then tracing slowly up her stomach to her breasts, remembering it all again, and a little surprised that it is just the way he remembered it, after sixty years.
The idea of seeing her and Rose and the Doctor again was all that got him through those sixty years sometimes and oh, was it worth it.
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"I don't know about that." She smiles against his skin, breathing in sharply, happily at the feel of his hands on her again.
He makes her feel safe. More than anything else. He makes her safe.
She kisses his neck, pressing her face against his chest as her fingers continue massaging down his lower back.
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He closes his eyes as he runs his hands over her, listening to the sound of her breathing... He imagines he can even hear her heartbeat, over the rush of water, but he knows it's just in his head, or his own heartbeat in his ears. If it is his own heartbeat... it's very, very loud.
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Her legs feel weak, suddenly, but she ignores it and slips her arms around his neck and kisses his chin and lips. The shower is safe. She doesn't want to leave the shower.
"Jack, what happened?" Her voice is soft, concern etched in the tone, and not demanding, but in the way that says she knows what happens when you hold it all in, too.
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"One of my team... Suzie... was in charge of a piece of alien technology. A glove that could temporarily resurrect the dead. She started using it a bit too much. It got into her head, and..."
He lets out a slow, shuddering breath, clenching his jaw hard. He'd liked Suzie. He cared about her, loved her in the way he does everyone he's close to for any extended period of time, and maybe a little more than that...
"She started killing people. Because it worked better with recent trauma victims. She tried to kill this girl Gwen... and then she shot me. And she shot herself."
He doesn't even care that she shot him. He'd wanted so badly to help her, and hadn't expected for a second that she might turn the gun on herself. He thought he knew her better than that.
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She kisses him, soft.
"Jack..." Her other arm stays around his neck and her hand presses down his back. Martha watches his face, water dripping down around him and blurring her vision, but not so much that she can't see the pain there. The pain she wishes she could take away. "Jack, it wasn't your fault. People are capable of going through so much and keeping it all locked up inside until it eats them up completely. Hiding that from everyone around them. Even you."
She knows that he knows about that. He's been alive so much longer than her, it's simply something that's learned with experience and perception into the hearts of others, which they both have.
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His eyes do open, and he does meet her eyes.
"I'm their leader. That's what I'm supposed to do. I didn't even notice she was murdering people, Martha."
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She kisses him, softly on his lips, slipping her fingers up into his hair in that protective manner of hers, at least, when it comes to him.
"I'm sure you had a lot on your mind as it was, like running the Team, which doesn't mean paying attention to what each member does on their own time."
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That doesn't stop the aching guilt in his chest, the feeling that he could have done more. Or anything at all.
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She sighs a little, putting both her hands on his face, and kissing him, again, putting all of the love for him she can muster into a kiss.
When she finally pulls away, wiping at his wet hair against his forehead, Martha meets his gaze again, keeping her voice just loud enough to be heard over the shower. "I know you'll still feel terrible about it. No matter what I say, but I hate to think of you overwhelming yourself with guilt for every death of everyone you love. Especially with how long you've lived, how many people you love, and how dangerous your job is."
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"I know. But how about this? I'll try to get over my god complex a little and not feel too guilty for it, and you... try not to think about it too much. You've got other things to worry about than me. Deal?"
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