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locker_monsterTitle: The Other Side of the World (24/31)
Rating: PG
Characters: Rose, Martha
Timeline: Season three
Summary: Season three AU; After a fateful visit to Royal Hope Hospital, Rose finds herself lost in time and space with medical student Martha Jones. As they struggle to find a way home, they meet old friends, and old enemies, along the way...
Disclaimer: These characters aren't mine. Any borrowed dialogue belongs to Russell T Davies and the BBC.
A/N: A sequel to "The Other Side". It's not necessary reading; it just sets up the premise that it was the Doctor who was trapped in Pete's World, not Rose. And a shout-out to my awesome betas:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
joking and quean_of_swords. This story wouldn't have been posted without you guys.
Chapter One. Chapter Two. Chapter Three. Chapter Four. Chapter Five. Chapter Six. Chapter Seven. Chapter Eight. Chapter Nine. Chapter Ten. Chapter Eleven. Chapter Twelve. Chapter Thirteen. Chapter Fourteen. Chapter Fifteen. Chapter Sixteen. Chapter Seventeen. Chapter Eighteen. Chapter Nineteen. Chapter Twenty. Chapter Twenty-One. Chapter Twenty-Two. Chapter Twenty-Three.
Martha opened her eyes, and for a moment, she couldn’t remember where she was. Waking up disoriented was nothing new for her; they moved around so much that sometimes it was hard to recall what country they were in or where they had camped for the night. Searching her memory, her last clear recollection was of a biting cold and an endless vista of water. It took her senses a second to adjust and she soon became aware that she was seated in a Land Rover and the sun was just beginning to break over the horizon. Her unexpected dip into the ocean came roaring back to her.
She sat up straight in her seat and her joints popped in protest at being used again. Her clothes were stiff and uncomfortable, but dry. The heat being blown out of the air vents had helped and the warm temperatures had also lulled Martha to sleep. Looking out the window, all she saw was rolling countryside painted in amber and magenta hues.
“I didn’t want to wake you.” Martha glanced over at Sarah Jane and a small smile touched the woman’s lips. “It seemed like the three of you could use the rest.”
Looking over her shoulder, Martha couldn’t help but smile herself. Owen and Tosh slept soundly in the backseat. At some point, Owen’s head had come to rest on Tosh’s shoulder and he didn’t seem to mind the fact that this position put his neck at an uncomfortable angle. It was a rarity, all three of them asleep at the same time. Usually they slept in shifts to watch out for patrols or roaming Toclafane. Martha kept her voice low, not wanting to wake the pair.
“Thank you.” She had already thanked Sarah Jane at the beginning of the ride, but once didn’t seem like enough. Martha was acutely aware she owed Sarah Jane Smith her life. A whole year’s worth of struggle and toil would have been for nothing if she and the others had died on that beach.
“I should be thanking you,” said Sarah Jane. “You’ve risked a lot, trying to bring down the Master.”
It was her habit to deflect the praise, but now that she was back in England, Martha couldn’t help but think about all she had left behind. She was so close to seeing her family again. They were still in London as far as she knew, no doubt working in one of the Master’s factories building weapons, as did almost every human on the planet. The homesickness she had spent a year trying to ignore seized her strongly, making her heart ache. She hoped her family was safe.
“I had help,” Martha replied softly, staring out the window.
They drove along in silence for a minute or two, the rumble of the engine mingling with the sound of Owen’s light snoring. Martha had seen her fair share of countryside while travelling, but it looked different this time. It was just her imagination, of course, trying to apply meaning where there wasn’t any, but it was hard not to think that the grass and the hills were the most beautiful things she had ever seen. She may have wandered the globe for the past year, but she had been absent from her home for much longer.
“It’s strange. I was searching for you before this all started.” Sarah Jane’s comment drew Martha from her thoughts. The woman briefly took her attention off the road to glance over at her. “I found footage of you entering the TARDIS with Rose, the day you went missing from Royal Hope. I thought you were both lost for the longest time, but then the whispers began, about Martha Jones and how she was going to save the world.”
It was amazing, how quickly she had become a legend. Martha would have gladly dispelled all of the rumours, but her name gave people hope. She served as a reminder that the Master wasn’t all powerful. If he couldn’t stop one person, what could he do if thousands rose up? “She’s up there, you know, with him. We left a lot of good people behind.” Her gaze drifted to her slumbering companions.
“Your plan will work, Martha. We’ll make sure.” Sarah Jane slowed the Land Rover and turned onto a dirt road, heading towards a worn down house about half a mile away. As they drew closer, people began to emerge from the cellar to greet them.
Sarah Jane exited the vehicle first, approaching a ginger haired woman who had led the group from their shelter. Martha reached over to the backseat and gently nudged Owen and Tosh. Owen’s head slipped off Tosh’s shoulder, snapping him awake instantly. He rubbed at his sore neck while Tosh mumbled, “I think you drooled, Owen.”
The pair followed Martha out of the vehicle, their movements stiff from being prone so long. The conditions of their clothes, wrinkled and crusted with salt from the ocean, probably didn’t give the best first impression, but Martha could feel everyone looking at her. They numbered six in total, but it was enough to practically feel the weight of their expectations. The ginger haired woman was quick to usher the group back inside and the action endeared her to Martha even though she was a stranger.
“Abandoned farm house. That’s original,” muttered Owen.
“It’s better than sleeping in a ditch,” said Martha. “Or did you forget about Moscow?” Owen scowled but he didn’t comment further about their past escapade.
Sarah Jane stopped them at the cellar entrance before they could go any further. She gestured to the ginger haired woman. “Martha Jones. Donna Noble.” For a second, the name sounded vaguely familiar to Martha, but she couldn’t place why.
Donna looked Martha over with a skeptical eye, like she was sizing up an opponent for a duel. She seemed to be on the verge of saying something snarky when she turned to Sarah Jane and said, “About time you found her.” To Martha, she added, “We were going mad looking for the TARDIS.”
It was strange to think that someone had been looking for her while she and Rose had wandered the universe. Had she known, home wouldn’t have felt so far away.
The wooden stairs leading down to the cellar rattled under Martha’s feet as they descended. The space had been cleared of any clutter, leaving a functional area in the centre. Whoever had inhabited the house before the Master’s reign would have come home to find all of their belongings shoved against the wall or into the corner.
Spotting a work bench loaded down with tools, Tosh hurried over, eager to fix her equipment. Out of her bag she retrieved the box, her laptop, and the immobile Toclafane. Everyone immediately took notice of the sphere.
“You brought one back?” asked one of the group, a man in his late sixties dressed in an old army jacket. He eyed the Toclafane warily.
“It’s not transmitting or anything,” Martha assured him. “We just need some spare parts.” She looked to Tosh, who nodded in confirmation.
“Spare parts for what?” asked a black woman with a no-nonsense attitude to her.
Owen joined Tosh as the work bench, leaving Martha to explain. “When that lightning strike took down that Toclafane in South Africa, we used parts from it to create a sort of… deflector. That box,” she pointed to the very thing Tosh was working on, “scatters our bio signatures, making it harder for a Toclafane to lock onto us. It’s helped us to get halfway across the world with barely any trouble.”
Some of the apprehension in the room eased. The downed Toclafane had been a boon for everyone. Sarah Jane’s gun was probably built using the information stored within the sphere’s memory and Martha would have still been in the dark about the spheres’ true nature if it hadn’t been for that random incident. She still shuddered at the thought that inside the Toclafane was a shrivelled head from the future.
“It won’t do you much good when you’re wandering around London,” said the man. “It’s full of the Master’s soldiers.”
The man’s negativity seemed like the norm. Donna rolled her eyes while everyone else acted like he hadn’t said anything. Walking straight into the heart of the Master’s domain didn’t sound like the most brilliant plan, but it was the only solution Martha could think of. If everything else was going to work, she had to be in London. “I’ll take that chance.”
“There’s a doctor with the Resistance,” said Sarah Jane. “He has clearance to enter the city. He’s willing to get you in.”
“What about your friends?” Donna gestured to Tosh and Owen. The pair was taking apart the Toclafane, using their skills as a doctor and engineer in combination. “It sounds like you’re heading off alone.”
The television set pushed off to the side of the room suddenly crackled to life. Fleetingly, Martha thought it had a mind of its own, but then she noticed the aerial of the television had been modified, likely in an attempt to pick up any pirate signals. The picture on the screen started out as static but it slowly began to clear.
The Master’s face appeared from the static and Martha forgot all about answering Donna’s question. The picture was black and white, but she didn’t need colour to see the wickedness in the Time Lord’s eyes. She had spent a year trying to avoid his attention and every fibre of her told her to keep back, but she was drawn towards the television regardless. It had nothing to do with his hypnotic power. She wanted to look at the face of her enemy and grin. In that moment, she knew they were going to bring him down.
“My people. Salutations on this, the eve of war.” Not much of the Valiant bridge could be seen behind the Master. His visage nearly filled the entire screen he stood so close to the camera. It was a fruitless gesture, but Martha tried to see around the Master, hoping to catch a glimpse of Rose or Jack, or even Gwen or Ianto. Rumours abounded about the fates of her friends, but Martha hadn’t been able to confirm any of them.
“I know there’s been all sorts of whispers down there. Stories of a child, walking the Earth, giving you hope.” The disdain in the Master’s voice was delicious to hear and Martha felt a surge of joy that her travels had accomplished something. “But I ask you…” The Master grabbed the camera and shifted it to the right. “How much hope does this family have?”
The joy in Martha’s heart shattered as dread constricted her chest.
Their hands were bound and gaffer tape covered their mouths. The only way they could communicate was with their eyes and they were wide with fear and tears. Behind each of them was a soldier with a gun, the barrels aimed at the back of their heads. The Jones family stood stiffly, aware of their fates. Her mother and father, brother and sister.
Tears formed in Martha’s eyes, blurring her vision, but she couldn’t look away.
The guns were all fired at once, sounding like one shot. On the black and white screen, there were no splashes of red, but the bodies of her family still jerked and then fell limply to the floor.
The face of the Master loomed as he stepped up to the camera. Impossibly, his gaze found her, thousands of miles away. “Received and understood, Miss Jones?”
The television screen went dead as the transmission was cut, the hiss of static overpowering any other sound in the room.
Her legs threatened to give out on her and Martha swayed on her feet. She was aware of voices speaking to her but it was all just white noise, like the static on the television. She closed her eyes and tried to take a deep breath, but all she could see in her mind’s eye was the image of her family, gagged and bound because of her. Pawns, because the Master had no way to hurt her directly. She had thought them safe but that had been another innocent mistake on her part. No one was safe as long as she was determined to bring down the Master.
Her skin felt like it was on fire. The walls of the cellar were closing in on her. She needed to get out, now. Martha took one step but her legs crumbled underneath her. She landed in a heap on the floor, tears streaming down her face.
A gun shot, as loud as cannon fire, sounded in her head, over and over.
Rating: PG
Characters: Rose, Martha
Timeline: Season three
Summary: Season three AU; After a fateful visit to Royal Hope Hospital, Rose finds herself lost in time and space with medical student Martha Jones. As they struggle to find a way home, they meet old friends, and old enemies, along the way...
Disclaimer: These characters aren't mine. Any borrowed dialogue belongs to Russell T Davies and the BBC.
A/N: A sequel to "The Other Side". It's not necessary reading; it just sets up the premise that it was the Doctor who was trapped in Pete's World, not Rose. And a shout-out to my awesome betas:
joking and quean_of_swords. This story wouldn't have been posted without you guys.Chapter One. Chapter Two. Chapter Three. Chapter Four. Chapter Five. Chapter Six. Chapter Seven. Chapter Eight. Chapter Nine. Chapter Ten. Chapter Eleven. Chapter Twelve. Chapter Thirteen. Chapter Fourteen. Chapter Fifteen. Chapter Sixteen. Chapter Seventeen. Chapter Eighteen. Chapter Nineteen. Chapter Twenty. Chapter Twenty-One. Chapter Twenty-Two. Chapter Twenty-Three.
Martha opened her eyes, and for a moment, she couldn’t remember where she was. Waking up disoriented was nothing new for her; they moved around so much that sometimes it was hard to recall what country they were in or where they had camped for the night. Searching her memory, her last clear recollection was of a biting cold and an endless vista of water. It took her senses a second to adjust and she soon became aware that she was seated in a Land Rover and the sun was just beginning to break over the horizon. Her unexpected dip into the ocean came roaring back to her.
She sat up straight in her seat and her joints popped in protest at being used again. Her clothes were stiff and uncomfortable, but dry. The heat being blown out of the air vents had helped and the warm temperatures had also lulled Martha to sleep. Looking out the window, all she saw was rolling countryside painted in amber and magenta hues.
“I didn’t want to wake you.” Martha glanced over at Sarah Jane and a small smile touched the woman’s lips. “It seemed like the three of you could use the rest.”
Looking over her shoulder, Martha couldn’t help but smile herself. Owen and Tosh slept soundly in the backseat. At some point, Owen’s head had come to rest on Tosh’s shoulder and he didn’t seem to mind the fact that this position put his neck at an uncomfortable angle. It was a rarity, all three of them asleep at the same time. Usually they slept in shifts to watch out for patrols or roaming Toclafane. Martha kept her voice low, not wanting to wake the pair.
“Thank you.” She had already thanked Sarah Jane at the beginning of the ride, but once didn’t seem like enough. Martha was acutely aware she owed Sarah Jane Smith her life. A whole year’s worth of struggle and toil would have been for nothing if she and the others had died on that beach.
“I should be thanking you,” said Sarah Jane. “You’ve risked a lot, trying to bring down the Master.”
It was her habit to deflect the praise, but now that she was back in England, Martha couldn’t help but think about all she had left behind. She was so close to seeing her family again. They were still in London as far as she knew, no doubt working in one of the Master’s factories building weapons, as did almost every human on the planet. The homesickness she had spent a year trying to ignore seized her strongly, making her heart ache. She hoped her family was safe.
“I had help,” Martha replied softly, staring out the window.
They drove along in silence for a minute or two, the rumble of the engine mingling with the sound of Owen’s light snoring. Martha had seen her fair share of countryside while travelling, but it looked different this time. It was just her imagination, of course, trying to apply meaning where there wasn’t any, but it was hard not to think that the grass and the hills were the most beautiful things she had ever seen. She may have wandered the globe for the past year, but she had been absent from her home for much longer.
“It’s strange. I was searching for you before this all started.” Sarah Jane’s comment drew Martha from her thoughts. The woman briefly took her attention off the road to glance over at her. “I found footage of you entering the TARDIS with Rose, the day you went missing from Royal Hope. I thought you were both lost for the longest time, but then the whispers began, about Martha Jones and how she was going to save the world.”
It was amazing, how quickly she had become a legend. Martha would have gladly dispelled all of the rumours, but her name gave people hope. She served as a reminder that the Master wasn’t all powerful. If he couldn’t stop one person, what could he do if thousands rose up? “She’s up there, you know, with him. We left a lot of good people behind.” Her gaze drifted to her slumbering companions.
“Your plan will work, Martha. We’ll make sure.” Sarah Jane slowed the Land Rover and turned onto a dirt road, heading towards a worn down house about half a mile away. As they drew closer, people began to emerge from the cellar to greet them.
Sarah Jane exited the vehicle first, approaching a ginger haired woman who had led the group from their shelter. Martha reached over to the backseat and gently nudged Owen and Tosh. Owen’s head slipped off Tosh’s shoulder, snapping him awake instantly. He rubbed at his sore neck while Tosh mumbled, “I think you drooled, Owen.”
The pair followed Martha out of the vehicle, their movements stiff from being prone so long. The conditions of their clothes, wrinkled and crusted with salt from the ocean, probably didn’t give the best first impression, but Martha could feel everyone looking at her. They numbered six in total, but it was enough to practically feel the weight of their expectations. The ginger haired woman was quick to usher the group back inside and the action endeared her to Martha even though she was a stranger.
“Abandoned farm house. That’s original,” muttered Owen.
“It’s better than sleeping in a ditch,” said Martha. “Or did you forget about Moscow?” Owen scowled but he didn’t comment further about their past escapade.
Sarah Jane stopped them at the cellar entrance before they could go any further. She gestured to the ginger haired woman. “Martha Jones. Donna Noble.” For a second, the name sounded vaguely familiar to Martha, but she couldn’t place why.
Donna looked Martha over with a skeptical eye, like she was sizing up an opponent for a duel. She seemed to be on the verge of saying something snarky when she turned to Sarah Jane and said, “About time you found her.” To Martha, she added, “We were going mad looking for the TARDIS.”
It was strange to think that someone had been looking for her while she and Rose had wandered the universe. Had she known, home wouldn’t have felt so far away.
The wooden stairs leading down to the cellar rattled under Martha’s feet as they descended. The space had been cleared of any clutter, leaving a functional area in the centre. Whoever had inhabited the house before the Master’s reign would have come home to find all of their belongings shoved against the wall or into the corner.
Spotting a work bench loaded down with tools, Tosh hurried over, eager to fix her equipment. Out of her bag she retrieved the box, her laptop, and the immobile Toclafane. Everyone immediately took notice of the sphere.
“You brought one back?” asked one of the group, a man in his late sixties dressed in an old army jacket. He eyed the Toclafane warily.
“It’s not transmitting or anything,” Martha assured him. “We just need some spare parts.” She looked to Tosh, who nodded in confirmation.
“Spare parts for what?” asked a black woman with a no-nonsense attitude to her.
Owen joined Tosh as the work bench, leaving Martha to explain. “When that lightning strike took down that Toclafane in South Africa, we used parts from it to create a sort of… deflector. That box,” she pointed to the very thing Tosh was working on, “scatters our bio signatures, making it harder for a Toclafane to lock onto us. It’s helped us to get halfway across the world with barely any trouble.”
Some of the apprehension in the room eased. The downed Toclafane had been a boon for everyone. Sarah Jane’s gun was probably built using the information stored within the sphere’s memory and Martha would have still been in the dark about the spheres’ true nature if it hadn’t been for that random incident. She still shuddered at the thought that inside the Toclafane was a shrivelled head from the future.
“It won’t do you much good when you’re wandering around London,” said the man. “It’s full of the Master’s soldiers.”
The man’s negativity seemed like the norm. Donna rolled her eyes while everyone else acted like he hadn’t said anything. Walking straight into the heart of the Master’s domain didn’t sound like the most brilliant plan, but it was the only solution Martha could think of. If everything else was going to work, she had to be in London. “I’ll take that chance.”
“There’s a doctor with the Resistance,” said Sarah Jane. “He has clearance to enter the city. He’s willing to get you in.”
“What about your friends?” Donna gestured to Tosh and Owen. The pair was taking apart the Toclafane, using their skills as a doctor and engineer in combination. “It sounds like you’re heading off alone.”
The television set pushed off to the side of the room suddenly crackled to life. Fleetingly, Martha thought it had a mind of its own, but then she noticed the aerial of the television had been modified, likely in an attempt to pick up any pirate signals. The picture on the screen started out as static but it slowly began to clear.
The Master’s face appeared from the static and Martha forgot all about answering Donna’s question. The picture was black and white, but she didn’t need colour to see the wickedness in the Time Lord’s eyes. She had spent a year trying to avoid his attention and every fibre of her told her to keep back, but she was drawn towards the television regardless. It had nothing to do with his hypnotic power. She wanted to look at the face of her enemy and grin. In that moment, she knew they were going to bring him down.
“My people. Salutations on this, the eve of war.” Not much of the Valiant bridge could be seen behind the Master. His visage nearly filled the entire screen he stood so close to the camera. It was a fruitless gesture, but Martha tried to see around the Master, hoping to catch a glimpse of Rose or Jack, or even Gwen or Ianto. Rumours abounded about the fates of her friends, but Martha hadn’t been able to confirm any of them.
“I know there’s been all sorts of whispers down there. Stories of a child, walking the Earth, giving you hope.” The disdain in the Master’s voice was delicious to hear and Martha felt a surge of joy that her travels had accomplished something. “But I ask you…” The Master grabbed the camera and shifted it to the right. “How much hope does this family have?”
The joy in Martha’s heart shattered as dread constricted her chest.
Their hands were bound and gaffer tape covered their mouths. The only way they could communicate was with their eyes and they were wide with fear and tears. Behind each of them was a soldier with a gun, the barrels aimed at the back of their heads. The Jones family stood stiffly, aware of their fates. Her mother and father, brother and sister.
Tears formed in Martha’s eyes, blurring her vision, but she couldn’t look away.
The guns were all fired at once, sounding like one shot. On the black and white screen, there were no splashes of red, but the bodies of her family still jerked and then fell limply to the floor.
The face of the Master loomed as he stepped up to the camera. Impossibly, his gaze found her, thousands of miles away. “Received and understood, Miss Jones?”
The television screen went dead as the transmission was cut, the hiss of static overpowering any other sound in the room.
Her legs threatened to give out on her and Martha swayed on her feet. She was aware of voices speaking to her but it was all just white noise, like the static on the television. She closed her eyes and tried to take a deep breath, but all she could see in her mind’s eye was the image of her family, gagged and bound because of her. Pawns, because the Master had no way to hurt her directly. She had thought them safe but that had been another innocent mistake on her part. No one was safe as long as she was determined to bring down the Master.
Her skin felt like it was on fire. The walls of the cellar were closing in on her. She needed to get out, now. Martha took one step but her legs crumbled underneath her. She landed in a heap on the floor, tears streaming down her face.
A gun shot, as loud as cannon fire, sounded in her head, over and over.
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Date: 2011-03-31 04:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-02 01:46 am (UTC)