5x03: Scavenged Pieces
5x03: Scavenged Pieces
(London, Earth, 2009)
She takes care of her family first; calls them, makes sure they're all right. Tries Tom, but he's in Africa and receptionless, was supposed to be for the next month until Martha's stay in New York was over. She hopes he'll be on the next flight back. She goes home to her empty flat, fixing herself a bit to eat in the silent kitchen, and wonders if this is how the Doctor felt after she left him. Well. She smiles to herself. He has Donna, and Rose now. Good on him. She calls her mum back. "Let's do family dinner," she says. "Celebrate the world not ending, yeah?"
Leo's more quiet than usual at dinner, looking thoughtful and mostly making sure food makes it into Keisha's mouth instead of her clothes, but Shonara's more than willing to talk aliens with Tish, and Mum and Dad are arguing about the relative hideousness of the bedroom wallpaper and exactly how bad Annalise's taste really was. Martha eats her food and basks in the endless chatter.
In the morning she goes to what's left of UNIT's London HQ.
It's a complete disaster; nearly everything's fried, and Martha doesn't have the technical knowledge to retrieve the backup systems. About thirty members of personnel survived, Colonel Mace among them, to Martha's considerable relief. The first quiet moment she finds, she takes Mace aside. "Sir? I need to talk to you about the Doctor."
"First things first, Dr Jones," Mace says. "Is Project Indigo still viable?"
Martha thinks of the Doctor disabling Jack's vortex manipulator yet again. She does her best to hide a smile. "Absolutely, sir. If we can salvage the backups, I should be able to explain the base code."
He nods. "Now, the Doctor?"
"Yes, sir. He strongly suggested we destroy the Osterhagen weapons, sir."
"That's not up to me," Colonel Mace tells her. "We'll have to take it upstairs." He pauses. "Metaphorically. We had to pull the poor fellow out of retirement, but there's nothing for it."
Martha follows Mace out of the half-destroyed main space and into an office just down the corridor. The man in question, she's surprised to see, either isn't a general or doesn't look like one; he's wearing an old army jacket sans insignia and his entirely white hair is very neatly combed, despite his obvious exhaustion. He looks up from a mess of papers surrounding a laptop and fixes first Colonel Mace, then Martha, with a fiercely intelligent stare. "Yes, Colonel?"
"Dr Martha Jones, sir," Colonel Mace says. "She's here to discuss Osterhagen. Dr Jones, General Sir Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart."
"Retired," the General adds, with a sigh. "Until quite recently. Thank you, Colonel. Come in, Dr Jones."
Mace salutes and leaves Martha alone with the ex-retired General. He types something into the laptop, peering at it while Martha tries not to shuffle her feet. "Please take a seat," he says at length. When Martha does so, he looks up at her again, and smiles suddenly, a staid and slightly quirked affair that makes Martha want to smile back. "According to your file, you're a recommendation of the Doctor's."
"That's right, sir," Martha says. She's used by now to UNIT personnel who have heard of the Doctor.
"Capital fellow," Lethbridge-Stewart says. "And I see no matter how much he changes, his taste in assistants remains consistent." At Martha's raised eyebrows, the smile grows a little. "Only the best, Dr Jones."
"Then you've met him, sir?"
"Oh yes. We've known each other most of our mutual lives, to my occasional horror. Now." Sir Alistair gives her a politely expectant look, which doesn't quite quell Martha's bitten-back smile; but then, she doesn't think it's supposed to. "What about Osterhagen, Dr Jones?"
"The Doctor strongly requested the weapons be destroyed, sir," Martha repeats.
"Of course he did." Lethbridge-Stewart leans back in his chair, considering. "I expect this came about in conjunction with someone nearly using them?"
"That's right, sir. Me." Martha shudders a little. "And I know it's important to have defenses in case the Doctor's not here to stop something huge, but -- sir, it didn't need using against the Daleks in the end, and I reckon there's nothing worse than that."
"I do believe you're right." The General sighs. "There will of course be a great deal of bureaucratic red tape and nonsense, but that's the sort of thing one must deal with in exchange for the world not ending."
"Indeed it is, sir," Martha says with a grin. "Thank you. Er." She hesitates. "Actually I was wondering if I might resign, sir."
His eyebrows go up slightly. "Surely you mean transfer."
Martha blinks. "No, I --"
"Torchwood and UNIT have a certain business relationship, Dr Jones," Lethbridge-Stewart says. "More cordial than not, at the present moment."
"I didn't say I was going to Torchwood," Martha says in surprise.
"Ah." Sir Alistair hesitates only fractionally. "That Captain Harkness fellow let me know over the phone. Transferred on salary at the end of the month, does that sound reasonable to you?"
"More than," Martha says, still a little taken aback. "Thank you, sir."
"Of course," Sir Alistair says, with another of those courteous little smiles. "I hope to see you again, Dr Jones."
"Thank you, sir," Martha says again, and goes.
(Cardiff, Earth, 2009)
"We ain't gonna be able to fit too many more in the cells," Mickey says, sitting down with a thump. At Jack's questioning look, he elaborates, "Weevils. Like space cockroaches."
"Oh, not at dinner," Gwen protests. She and Rhys are just in with the takeaway, to celebrate Tom and Martha's official start at Torchwood, now they're settled into a flat and it's more or less official.
"I don't mind," Rhys says cheerfully. "Pass the chicken? Cheers, Ianto. Can't you put 'em back through?"
"Haven't figured out a way yet," Jack says, a little pointedly, to which Mickey says, "Working on it!" and throws a plastic fork halfheartedly in Jack's direction
In the past week alone they've had a lot more than Weevils. There's been nothing else living, for which Tom and Martha are both a bit grateful; alien autopsies were not really on their list of things to do while moving to Cardiff. As though to make up for this, however, and in something suspiciously close to mocking Tom and Martha while they try to move in all their assorted junk from London, the Rift's been dropping bits of alien tech right, left, and centre. Ianto's been monitoring Rift activity as close to twenty-four seven as he can, Mickey and Jack on Weevil duty, while the rest of them feverishly catalogue space junk of increasingly sophisticated make. Today alone they've tagged and filed some sort of laser gun, some slightly radioactive ballast, a weird hexagonal thing that beeped at random intervals while doing nothing else of note, and, bizarrely, what looked like a metal hairnet.
"Do we have any idea what's causing it in the first place?" Tom asks.
"Probably still overexcited from proximity to the Rift in the Medusa Cascade," Jack says around a mouthful of noodles.
"Charming," Gwen says, grinning. "Anyway, we'll have to be careful. Weddings near the Rift are a really dangerous idea at the best of times."
"Hey," Martha protests, "don't jinx it!"
"Sorry," Gwen says, still grinning. "So! Are you going to change your name? I just couldn't bear the thought of not being Gwen Cooper. Couldn't imagine it."
"I dunno," Martha admits. "Rhys, rescue those noodles for me before Jack eats them all, yeah? Martha Milligan has a bit of a ring to it. On the other hand, two Dr Milligans around the place might get a bit confusing."
"Hey, the more the merrier," Jack puts in, possibly in revenge for his kidnapped noodles.
"So how did you two meet, anyway?" Ianto asks with pointed diplomacy.
Tom and Martha exchange a look.
"Well," Tom says, "the way I know it, I was working at a pediatrics clinic in Camden and some alien bastards decided to start sneaking into kids' bedrooms and inject them with a controlling fluid so they'd go around at night collecting bits of quartz. I didn't know it at the time, obviously. All I knew was children were coming in looking like death warmed over from too little sleep, and with the weirdest blood readings I'd ever taken."
"UNIT got involved," Martha puts in. "Monitoring all sorts of strange activity -- you know that bit. Well, they sent me over cos I was high up in medical. Tom was the only one who'd noticed anything seriously weird was going on."
"We caught some of the aliens together," Tom said with a grin. " UNIT took care of them. Well, I'd believe anything after that, wouldn't I? Still didn't expect she'd ask me out, though." He turns the grin to Martha.
"Back up a moment to the quartz," Mickey interrupts. "What the hell did they want quartz for so bad they were drugging kids?"
"Civil war, would you believe it," Martha says. "They're all deadly allergic to it. That's why they had the kids go out and collect it for them. Kids, obviously, cos they can't fight back as well as grown-ups can."
"So when you say UNIT took care of 'em --" Mickey says, and at Martha's nod he nods too in great satisfaction. "Right. Sorry. Then you went on a date."
Martha shrugs. "It sort of went from there. I just got lucky, I guess."
She sees the contemplative way Jack is looking at her and raises her eyebrows in a silent shut up, Jack. He grins and says, "Anyone going to eat the rest of those noodles?"
What Martha isn't going to explain to Mickey and Ianto and Rhys and Gwen, of course, is the way Tom's first meeting with Martha hadn't been Martha's first meeting with Tom. She doesn't like talking about the year that wasn't, not if she can help it. Tom knows, though.
Not forced by circumstance to become a revolutionary, he's by nature a cheerful and self-effacing sort of man, disinclined to shave very often and expecting nothing more out of life than to better the world out in any small way he can, either the children at the clinic or the project in Africa he took after catching a bit of a wanderlust bug having heard some of Martha's adventures in time and space. Because Martha told him. Not right away, of course, but thwarting aliens together had been the perfect reintroduction. Martha hadn't particularly planned to run into him, but she was so delighted to find him alive and well, in the flesh as well as over the phone, that she'd asked him out to dinner then and there. On that first date, she'd discovered he loved a lot of the same books she did and was trying very hard not to become too enthusiastic a sci-fi geek just because he'd seen real aliens. Martha laughed, confessed her love for the Harry Potter books, and told a few alien stories from UNIT. A week later they slept together, and Martha didn't think of the Doctor once the entire time -- which she didn't even realise until she woke up the next morning and discovered Tom in the middle of muddling about her flat making breakfast.
She told him a while later how she'd come to have her UNIT job, and about traveling with the Doctor. It was easier than she'd expected to omit her crush from the story; it was easier than she'd expected to make Tom understand that her love for the Doctor was wonder at the universe and admiration for the things he did. Tom listened, and Tom believed her, and Tom told her she was lucky with such fervency that all the small hurts Martha tried so hard not to store in her heart started smoothing away.
The day Martha realised she loved Tom, just as much as she loved the Doctor and with no comparisons that needed to be made, she sat him down and she told him about the year that wasn't, about how she'd left the Doctor, about how she'd really met Tom. He listened, and held her, and kissed her very gently, and said, "You're the single most amazing person I've ever met."
And in two weeks they're getting married.
It'll be in London -- Martha's managed to convince Jack that the Rift can go unmonitored for an entire afternoon -- Tom's family is invited, mother and sister and nephew and assorted relatives and friends, Martha's massive extended family and mates from school and even a couple people from UNIT who've pulled through. Martha doesn't want it to be fancy, but she's suffered through an afternoon of wedding dresses with Mum and Tish, and the rest of it's up to Mum and Mrs Milligan. Martha figures she'll phone the Doctor on the morning of, so he doesn't have time to think up some way to get out of it. (Well, she supposes he does have the time, but she's hoping he won't think of that.)
That's for worrying about later; now Martha helps the rest of the team clean up the remains of the takeaway. She follows Ianto to the monitors. "Ianto," she says, "we're all moved in now. I can take tonight's shift. Seriously, get a bit of sleep."
"I don't mind," Ianto says mildly.
"Yeah, well, I think Jack's starting to," Martha says, and when Ianto relents and smiles, she does too. "I thought UNIT was a bit mad, but you really outdo yourselves here with the constant work."
"Ah, but we get it done," Ianto says, and leaves Martha at the monitors wondering if most of the conversation had actually been accidental innuendo.
Gwen and Rhys head home. Mickey hovers around talking to Jack until he notices Ianto; then he clears out too. Jack and Ianto vanish shortly after. Tom comes to join Martha at the monitors, two cups of coffee in hand. "I know," he says at Martha's look, "hell to circadian rhythms, and we'll build up a tolerance."
"Also I hate coffee," Martha says, accepting the cup and taking a sip. She makes a face. "We could watch in turns."
"Less fun," Tom decides, settling in against her.
"Mm." Martha cradles her coffee in her hands, staring sightlessly at the CCTV of the Plass. Then she blinks and sits up straight, staring. Standing just in front of the Water Tower, and apparently screaming at the top of her lungs, is Donna Noble. A slightly crumpled and very anxious-looking old man is hovering at her side. Martha's on her feet in an instant and to the paving-stone lift in the time it takes Tom to look closely at the footage and say, "Who's --?"
Martha reaches the surface of the Plass in time to hear Donna shouting, "-- don't let me in right now so help me -- oh. Hello, Martha!"
"It's easier trying through the visitor's centre," Martha offers. "Where's the Doctor?"
Donna laughs, a terrible half-wild sound. Martha sees she's paper-white and shaking, and that the old man next to her has tears in his eyes. "Right here," Donna says, tilting her head a little. "You're a doctor, yeah? I need to get my hands on any alien tech Torchwood's got, and I have maybe five minutes."
"Get on," Martha tells her, and both Donna and the old man come crowding onto the paving slab with her. It starts down. "Five minutes before what?"
"Before my brain --" Donna says, and drags in a shuddering breath. "Before I die. Time for questions after I'm saved, yeah?"
"Got it," Martha says, hearing her own voice switch into steady steel-edged panic. "What can I do?"
"Have you got a sort of -- ooh, a thing sort of halfway between a book and a curling iron?"
"No," Martha says at once, her brain shying away from attempting to picture this.
"Twisty ladder thing? About two feet high? No?"
"Blimey," Martha says, mostly from shock, "you still sound like him. And no, we don't have one of those either."
They come to a grinding halt on the floor of the Hub. The old man pulls off his hat and clutches it in his hands, staring around him. "Here," he says, "this is where you fight them aliens?" Then he visibly pulls himself together and says, "Never mind that. Save my Donna first."
"Right," Martha says. Tom's come over. He doesn't ask questions, but he does give both their guests a confused once-over. "What else?" Martha asks Donna.
"Er, thing that looks like a metal hairnet?"
"N -- yes!" Martha turns to Tom. "Tagged five-fifty-seven in the back room, just in today."
"Right," Tom says, and dashes off.
"What else do you need?" Martha asks.
"Big glass of water," Donna says. She's shaking so hard now that Martha and the old man between them have to help her into a chair. "Nothing else, that's enough. Hairnet, glass of water."
Martha nods and runs to the kitchen. Her thoughts have decided to start counting loudly down from sixty, although she has no idea if it's been near five minutes yet, or even if Donna was only guessing. She gets back with the water at about the same time Tom does with the metal hairnet thing; Donna grabs the water first, and gulps the whole glass down messily without pause. She hands the glass back to Martha, gasps, "Hairnet -- stand back --" jams the proffered hairnet onto her head, and at once bursts into blue-white light too bright to look at. Martha, Tom, and the old man all stumble back, clutching together.
It dies down, and when the afterimages have faded, Donna's still sitting there, upright and gasping and certainly not dead. "Bit more water, if you could?" she whispers.
Martha dashes off to refill the glass, and when she returns and Donna's drunk the water, rather less hastily, a round of introductions are made. The old man is Donna's grandfather Wilf, less rattled than he might be. Martha takes to him at once.
"But what happened?" she asks at length.
So Wilf and Donna explain: Donna's brain unable to contain a Time Lord consciousness, the Doctor's emergency erasure and his warning to Wilf; the aliens called Ffsoehi that appeared to Donna and triggered a recollection, Wilf's madcap drive to Cardiff. "Torchwood was the only thing I could think of," Donna explains. "Figured you might've picked up something that would give me a less final sort of solution than the Doctor's."
"Why didn't he just bring you here, then?" Tom asks reasonably.
"S'pose he couldn't think of it," Donna says, shrugging. "Time Lord brain, human gut instinct -- I can think of all sorts of things he can't. And, well, what you had wasn't as sophisticated as I would've liked, but it did the job."
"What did it do, sweetheart?" Wilf ventures.
"It's supposed to pack huge bits of information up very small," Donna says. "ICD. Information Compacting Device. Forty-third century. Very clever. I mean, really it was invented so that people could have whole encyclopedias on access in their minds. Now I got a Time Lord one! Convenient."
"And it won't --?" Wilf asks.
"Shouldn't," Donna says, shrugging. "I dunno. Ooh, this is brilliant."
"And the water?" Martha asks.
"Oh, there's all sorts of precautions and safety procedures you're supposed to do before you use an ICD," Donna says offhandedly, "to make sure you process the information at a safe rate. I didn't have time for that, so I drank the water and bam! instant superconductor in my head."
Martha doesn't say That could have killed you; it's self-evident, and didn't happen. "Want something ... not water?" she ventures. "Wilf, that's a long drive. We've got a bit of food in the back."
"Yes please," Wilf says, with all the enthusiasm of a man suddenly remembering his appetite after a brush with death -- but before they can make for the kitchen, a familiar mechanical wheezing fills the Hub, and all of them, even Tom who doesn't recognise the sound, turn in time to see the TARDIS fade in.
The Doctor sticks his head out, eyes a bit wild, and catches sight of them. "Oh," he says, and relaxes a little, then double-takes. "Donna?"
Donna's mouth twists into a smile. "Hello, Doctor."
"Oh no no no," the Doctor says.
"Oh yes yes yes," Donna returns, rolling her eyes. "All fixed, spaceman!" She holds up the metal hairnet.
"An ICD?" the Doctor says in great disbelief. His eyes go wide. "You didn't! You did! Oh, that's clever. Well. Extremely dangerous. Well. Brilliant, though."
"Oh yes," Donna says again, grinning now. "Whatever keeps us running into each other, Doctor, I don't think it's quite finished yet."
"I suppose not," the Doctor says slowly. "No." He blinks and looks around at the rest of them. "Hello, Wilfred! Martha! Er --"
"Thomas Milligan," Tom says. "You must be the Doctor. I'm Martha's fiancé."
"Are you?" the Doctor says. He still looks distracted. "Good, good."
"Are -- are you off again, Donna?" Wilf asks after a moment, looking a little lost.
"Yeah, Gramps." Donna just looks at Wilf for a moment, then leans in and gives him a tight hug. "Sorry about making you drive all the way from London and back."
"Don't worry about that," Wilf says firmly. "Just stop in now and then."
"Course." Donna smiles at him with great fondness before turning to Tom and Martha. "Great to meet you, Dr Milligan. Martha. Thank you both."
"Any time," Martha says. "Although I hope you won't need to do that again."
"Cheers." Donna turns to the Doctor. "Although I thought you would've --"
"Locked on to you instead," the Doctor says. "But if your signal's not interfering --"
"We'd better go, then," Donna says, and the Doctor says, "Right. Quick then," and in a moment they're both back in the TARDIS and it's fading out of sight.
"We only heard about half of that conversation, didn't we," Tom observes.
"Just smiling and nodding's best," Martha says. "It probably wasn't that important. C'mon, Wilf, we'll walk you back out to your car."
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