It's All Been Done
an excerpt

From Part I, Chapter III.

“Are you going to let me apologize?” the Doctor asked, frustrated but unmoving from where he was slouched in the doorway. Martha stopped to turn and look at him, a tin of biscuits in her hand.

“For what?” she asked, and swallowed back the palpable sense of déjà vu.

For one white hot moment, the Doctor hated the woman standing in front of him. Hated her wide-eyed curiosity that was barely masking the vulnerability beneath, hated that he could still smell her on his coat. He hated her for doing this to him.

“Being an ass,” he answered, then immediately clarified lest she think that was too broad a statement. “You were amazing. I assumed you’d know.”

To Martha’s credit, she still had a hold of the biscuit tin, and her hands were steady. “Oh,” she answered, the word lilting, as if he’d just informed her of the weather or what he ate for dinner the night before. The Doctor found her reaction patently unsatisfying and arched his brows in silent expectation of more. He’d just poured out his heart, and got “oh?”

“Bit late, aren’t you?” she finally continued, faltered a few seconds, and then turned back to the cupboard. She’d not even been after biscuits and had no idea how in the hell the tin had ended up in her hand. The Doctor didn’t immediately reply, and she assumed he’d fallen into a sulk. When she turned round again, having dispatched with the biscuits, she nearly yelped in surprise to find that he’d been standing just behind her for possibly the entire time.

“Sorry,” he offered with an awkward rub against the back of his neck. “For startling you, I mean, not- Well, no, I’m sorry about the other, too. Being late.”

“Oh.”

“I seem to remember you having a more advanced vocabulary.”

Martha hesitated. “Should I be saying something else?”

The Doctor opened his mouth as if about to pontificate, and then clapped it shut again and pulled a face. “Come to think of it, I don’t know. I’ve not really done this before.”

“Apologizing.”

“Yeah.” His brow furrowed like it did when he couldn’t work something out. “It’s a bit odd.”

“Nine hundred something years, and you’ve never apologized before? Come on. I’ve heard you apologize loads of times.”

“Not like this,” he somberly pointed out with one slow blink.

“Oh,” Martha said, and upon seeing the bemused look on his face, hastily added, “OH. How… interesting.” The Doctor smiled.

“It’s not, really, is it?”

“No, actually, it’s rather, well…”

“Sad.”

“Maybe a little.”

“One doesn’t negate the other, though.”

“No, it’s really not that interesting.” Martha wrinkled her nose, and he chuckled.

“You might be biased. Seen lots of very interesting things.”

“No, I don’t think so, I think you’re just boring.”

“I always suspected.” He was grinning again, and Martha was smiling, a beaming sort of smile that lit up her face more than any others had in a year. For that one moment, standing in the middle of Tish’s kitchen, she almost felt right again. Like laying the foundation to rebuild upon.

But then he had to go and ruin it. Patience had never been the Doctor’s strong point.