#PS I will acknowledge Martha having concerns that maybe this is a fobwatched Ten - but it isn't

[crookedfivefingers]

NOTE 7/23: The actual first chapter of this fic is now significantly different! Just keeping this post here for archive purposes, I suppose 😂

NOTE 8/13: The first chapter is now up!

I had this thought about Ten and Martha traveling back to Venice in the 1700s.

Naturally, they wind up separated during the trip — which is how Martha eventually finds herself in the company of a charming, if hauntingly familiar stranger…

One who can’t seem to keep his eyes off of her.

Ten x Martha | Martha x Casanova

✨WIP snip from ch.1✨

In May of 1758, the many streets of Venice are packed for the annual Feast of the Ascension —but a day filled with food and laughter is cut short when Martha loses sight of the Doctor in the crowds.

By the time she’s finally able to break free and locate the missing Time Lord, she’s stunned to see him being tugged into a carriage by a beautiful young woman… A carriage that swiftly disappears down the road and out of sight.

Alone, hurting, and more than a little cross, Martha suddenly realizes that she’s stranded in an unfamiliar city… over two hundred years in the past. Bloody brilliant.

She can’t even remember where they parked the TARDIS at this point — not with the endless narrow alleyways and labyrinthine streets.

It’s a modest blessing, but she takes some comfort in knowing she’s at least dressed appropriately for the times, straightening her elaborate wig as she begins walking in the carriage’s general direction.

As time passes, the sun tucks itself away beneath the edge of the horizon, and the crowds finally begin to dissipate. Without the excess noise and foot traffic, Martha has more room to process the events of the evening, sort-of-searching for the long-lost carriage (but mostly brooding) as she puts increasing wear on her shoes.

After some time, the sound of music and laughter drifts into her ears, catching her attention to pull her from the darkness of her thoughts. She allows herself to be drawn towards it without hesitation, and not three minutes later, she’s standing at the edge of a ballroom in the Palazzo Pisani Moretta.

Partying shouldn’t be top of mind, of course — but after a full day of celebrating throughout the city, she can’t imagine putting any more stress on her aching feet. The poor extremities scream for reprieve in the wedge sandals that hide beneath her skirt, scolding her for not putting more thought into her choice of footwear.

To be fair, the move to enter the building isn’t entirely void of strategy. After all, the Doctor could be in here. Seems like just the sort of place his little date might like to mingle, she thinks with a healthy roll of her eyes.

To say the Palazzo is extravagant is putting it mildly. In addition to what may well be a few hundred elite guests in attendance, the spacious hall is adorned from floor to ceiling with finery, the glowing chandeliers illuminating marble statues and countless works of art. Servers in masquerade weave through the crowd with practiced ease, trays of nibbles and beverages balancing on splayed fingertips.

Feeling inspired, Martha snags a cup of wine as soon as she’s close enough to reach for one, downing half of the bitter, eighteenth-century swill with as much haste as her twenty-first-century taste buds will allow. She forces a smile through her grimace when the server looks to her for approval, still concerned with cordiality [even as she crashes a party wherein she knows no one at all].

Partygoers welcome her readily: happy socialites with hair as big and dramatic as the wig she’s been regretting picking out all day. The compliments they lavish her with almost make it feel worth the hassle, however, and in that moment, she’s grateful that the Doctor let her raid the wardrobe. It feels so much easier to exist in a time period without standing out — at least, more than she already feels she does as a black woman.

(The Time Lord really can be thick, can’t he?)

Over and onward, Martha decides to let loose as much as she can, keeping a wary eye out between little sips of murky, purple wet. It’s been at least three hours since she last saw her mate, and though the environment that surrounds her is intoxicating, she can’t deny the little pinpricks of worry that emerge in her gut.

Surely he wouldn’t just sod off for a shag... would he? Leave her all alone without a word?

Is that really something the Doctor is capable of after everything they’ve been through?

An image of his disappearance flitters across her mind’s eye: a flash of a woman’s smiling face as she drags him into her fancy carriage by the lapels, her giggles resounding off the stone walls as they slip away together.

Another image nips at the heels of the former, only this time, it’s the Doctor’s stony expression as he returns from across the field in Farringham, having just had a proposition rejected by Nurse Redfern. The same proposition he made the morning after finding out how his companion truly felt for him, easily filing that information away as a “non-issue.”

Alright, so maybe he can be a bit of a tosser. Great. Maybe he has no interest in being found just yet, being fully aware that Martha can handle her own.

Everything’s always on his terms, anyway.

Furthermore, and she hates to even think it in the first place, but: who’s to say he didn’t think slipping out unannounced was the only way to get away from her for the night?

Blimey. If that’s the way he really thinks of her...

No. No, no, no — those thoughts aren't helpful for anyone. Not right now.

Worst case scenario, Martha will find a kind local to seek shelter with before night’s end, though she prays it doesn’t come to that. The idea of even thinking about sleeping knowing the Doctor is just out there somewhere makes her stomach churn — even if he has got… friendly company.

Sigh.

Time for more wine, she reckons; her eyes flick about the crowd until she spots the closest server, and then she attempts to head in her direction.

While en route, a portly man in technicolor robes requests a dance, which she turns down as politely as possible. Then another guest — a dark-haired noblewoman about forty-five years old — stumbles on the mosaic when her heels catch the train of another woman’s dress, and Martha helps her to her feet.

All the servers carting wine around only seem to be getting further away, and it feels like a sign. Perhaps she shouldn’t be consuming any more alcohol — at least, not until she has a little more peace of mind.

To her surprise, she doesn’t have to wait long at all.

Through a sea of bobbing heads, swaying bodies shrouded in brightly-colored fabrics, and a thin haze of incense smoke, their eyes lock from across the room — and Martha briefly foregoes the right to oxygen.

She knows she should be relieved (or perhaps furious — definitely furious), but as her throat grows tight and dry, all she’s got the presence of mind to feel is the frantic fluttering of her heartbeat as blood roars in her ears.

The Doctor has never looked at her like that.

Temporarily immobile, she can only watch as he approaches her with deliberate, single-minded steps, the dance floor seeming to part naturally around him. He doesn’t falter or pause and he doesn’t need to; this man claims a route that no one capable of sight would dare interfere.

Somehow, in the last few hours, he’s wound up in a loose red tunic, tight black trousers — tights, essentially — and matching black boots. A black, silken band wraps around his neck, purely decorative, bringing the black from the rest of the outfit together to complete the look.

It’s an entirely different getup than the one she helped him pick out this morning, but let it be known that it’s no less gorgeous for it. Even his hair is different than she’s ever seen it, appearing softer and lighter with significantly less product than usual (if any at all), and he looks…

Bloody hell, he looks incredible.

When he arrives, he gets quite close — closer than Martha’s body and mind are anywhere near recovered enough to be prepared for — and she has just enough time to notice the color of his eyes when he takes her hand.

Are his eyes... blue?

The smile he fixes her with is slow and certain; it simmers just as the gaze he ensnares her with. He seems to reach right into her soul’s lowered defenses to bury himself at the thick of it, lifting her hand to his mouth to rest his gentle lips against her skin.

The touch is just jarring enough to wrench Martha out from the clouds as the realization hits her.

This man is not the Doctor.

“I hope you’ll forgive me,” he murmurs, his voice and cadence eerily identical to the one she knows. “If I'm honest, I just couldn’t resist your magnetism for another moment longer.”

His words, though softly spoken, seem louder than anyone or anything else in the room, effectively shutting the rest of the world out.

"Erm," Martha chokes, eyes wide. Stunned. "I-I, er..." She shakes her head slowly, her voice (and brain) temporarily evading her. It feels as though she's fallen through a crack in dimensions. Perhaps she has.

“Right — sorry," the man chuckles. "Bit rude of me. My name's Giac." He finally lowers her hand between them, flashing a wink, giving her fingers the softest of squeezes before letting them slip through his. "Though I must admit... I am far more eager to learn yours.”

Note: This is a post-Blink story in which Martha is seduced by Giacomo, inspiring clarity and an almost possessive jealousy within the Doctor. How ever will he handle it? I’ve also considered an eventual threesome, but should that happen, it will be strictly het Martha-worship. (Also, per the David Tennant miniseries, Giac is pronounced “Jack”)