The Watch on the Heath (2/2)
Who_Daily Link: < a href="http://persiflage-1.livejournal.com/232304.html">The Watch on the Heath by < lj user=persiflage_1> (Characters: Martha, Jack, Mickey, Third Doctor, Liz Shaw, the Brigadier, UNIT, OCs | Rating: PG-13 | Spoilers: TW S2, DW S4, Classic Who S7)
Title: The Watch on the Heath
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Martha, Jack, Mickey, Third Doctor, Liz Shaw, the Brigadier, UNIT, OCs
Rating: PG-13 (for some violence)
Spoilers: Season 7 Classic Who, Season 4 New Who, Season 2 Torchwood
Summary: Martha meets a much earlier UNIT team.
Disclaimer: I occasionally wish that I did own it!
Author Notes: I wrote this fic for the smith_n_jones fic challenge. The prompt (from yahtzee63) was Third Doctor, joyriding in Bessie. This fic's set between "Inferno" and "Terror of the Autons" for Three and his UNIT, and after DW S4 and Torchwood S2 for Martha, Jack, and modern UNIT.
Betas: The lovely fourzoas and catholicphoton
~~~~~~
Back to part 1
35 years earlier
It took them all day to track down the Drenkians' hiding place in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city. The Doctor had given Martha the tracking device, showed her how to calibrate it in response to the signal it emitted, and then begun driving through the city streets in a methodical manner. While he drove, they talked: he asked her questions about her family, her medical training and about her travels with his future self, promising that he would make himself forget whatever she told him once she had returned to her own time.
In return he told her about some of his travels, the companions who had been with him on those journeys, and even a little about his early life on Gallifrey. Martha listened to those parts of the Doctor's stories with rapt attention, knowing her own Doctor would never tell her as much about his planet, not now that Gallifrey was gone. Apart from that one occasion when they'd been on New Earth, and she'd more or less bullied him into talking to her, she had respected his reticence on the subject.
When they did finally discover where the Drenkians were holed up, Martha felt a pang of disappointment that this meant the end of their conversations. But she pulled out the bulky radio she'd been given and contacted Liz, who then contacted UNIT HQ to request backup, while Sergeant Benton drove over to join them.
He and Liz arrived only a few minutes before two jeeps, crowded with soldiers, also turned up, and everyone gathered around the Doctor for a quick briefing on the plan of action with regard to the aliens they'd come to apprehend.
They slipped quietly into the warehouse, everyone moving stealthily. The aliens were gathered in an office on the ground floor of the warehouse, and Martha was relieved they weren't in the less-accessible first floor office she could see above their heads.
"Why are there no guards?" asked Martha softly.
"I would suggest that they weren't expecting to be found, even though their drop-off had been disrupted," the Doctor answered, equally softly. "Aliens often do underestimate you humans."
He opened the office door. "Good evening everyone."
The Drenkians looked, for the most part, like humanoids, apart from their sickly green skin and their faces, which reminded Martha of a tapir with its mobile proboscis, the saggital crest that in Earth mammals was usually indicative of very strong jaw muscles, and the small, oval ears. She saw that their legs were thicker than a human's and ended in four-toed hooves, and their arms were well-muscled.
The humans and Time Lord stared at the Drenkians, who stared back; it was hard to be sure, with their faces, but Martha got the impression that the Drenkians were not happy with UNIT's presence at the warehouse. Her impression was confirmed when the half dozen aliens all pulled weapons from behind their backs: she guessed they'd been holstered on the belts they wore.
"Now really," began the Doctor, an impatient tone in his voice. "This will do you no good."
The Drenkian at the front of the group lifted its proboscis, showing its teeth, before speaking. "We disagree," it answered, and before anyone could move, it fired.
Martha gave a cry and pushed the Doctor and Liz aside, but the shot, from some kind of energy weapon, hit her right shoulder. She felt like someone had hit her with a bulldozer, and she remembered the time she'd been shot by a Clade in the Wild West: somehow, to her surprise, this felt even worse. She was vaguely aware of the sounds of regular gunfire from the UNIT men, and the shouts of the Doctor, and she saw Liz looking down at her in concern before she passed out.
* * * * * *
Martha came to with a stifled moan as Benton and Captain Yates lifted her onto the backseat of Bessie, where Liz was already seated.
"Whu?" she asked muzzily, unable to get her tongue and mouth to work properly.
"Shh," Liz said, gently brushing a hand across Martha's brow. "You're going to be fine. The Doctor's already taken a look at your injury, and he says you'll be fine in a couple of days."
"Drenkians?" asked Martha anxiously, forcing the word out.
"They're being taken care of," Liz assured her. "Now don't try to talk any more. We'll take care of you, and everything else."
Martha gave her a weak smile, then her eyes slid shut again.
* * * * * *
It was about three hours after she'd been shot that Martha fully regained consciousness and found the Doctor sitting beside her bed. She gave him a puzzled frown, momentarily confused about where she was, and then the remembrance of what had happened over the last day and a half resurfaced.
"Hello my dear, how are you feeling?"
"Sore and tired," Martha answered thickly, feeling as if her tongue was twice its normal size. She tried to reach out for the jug of water beside her bed, then moaned as pain stabbed through her body.
"Let me do that," the Doctor said. He poured half a glass of water for her, then carefully slid an arm under her shoulders and lifted her so that she could drink it more easily.
She slurped at the water initially, struggling again to get her mouth and tongue working properly. She was uncomfortably aware that some of the water wasn't going into her mouth and she found herself wishing that the Doctor wasn't seeing her like this. She hated looking weak in front of him, even if she was feeling weak.
"Better?" he asked gently.
"Yes, thanks." She found it slightly easier to talk now.
"I'm sorry you were shot," he said. "I'm afraid the energy weapon favoured by the Drenkians is designed to cause a temporary paralysis on the lower settings, as well as causing actual tissue damage."
"My fault I was shot," Martha answered. "Don't apologise."
"Yes, well, I'm still sorry that you were shot. Your action was swift and timely - your reflexes were even faster than mine, and it's not often that's the case."
She looked away from his intent gaze. "I was in a situation once where my reactions had to be swift or I'd have been dead, and my life wasn't the only one at stake." She had no intention of telling him anything else about the year that her Doctor had rewound - she knew enough about time travel to know that it would be a bad idea for this Doctor to know too much about his future.
The Doctor obviously sensed that Martha didn't want to discuss it further, because he began telling her how they had dealt with the Drenkians after she had been shot, and after ten minutes he told her that she should get some more rest. He got to his feet, then reached out and cupped her cheek for a moment.
"Get well soon, Dr Jones," he said quietly, then left.
Martha felt tears prickle in her eyes and swallowed hard. Her relationship with this incarnation of the Doctor seemed so much less complicated than what she had with the later one, and while she knew that the Time War had affected him in ways she could barely begin to imagine, she couldn't help wishing that her relationship with her Doctor was a little more like this.
* * * * * *
The next morning the Doctor visited Martha again, and noticing her glum expression, reached out to pat her hand.
"I'm doing everything that I can to persuade the Drenkians to send you back to your own time, my dear," he told her.
"I can't image they're very keen to help me, though," Martha observed. "Not when I'm the person most responsible for messing up their operation."
He gave her a rueful look. "Unfortunately that is true. The Brigadier has told them that it will be better for them if they do assist you, but I don't hold out much hope."
"So I'm stuck here, until either my Doctor or my friend Jack comes to get me, assuming either of them can or will." She frowned. "You know that I'm here now, so your later self must also know, so he'll come and get me, won't he?"
The Doctor sought to comfort her. "I'm sure he will, but - " He paused, rubbing one long finger over his top lip, a gesture Martha recognised as indicating his discomfort.
"But what?" she asked, feeling her anxiety increase.
"Well, Time Lords aren't supposed to have any dealings with their past or future selves, so when it does occasionally happen, I always make myself forget about it afterwards."
She gave him a stricken look, then rolled onto her side, away from his steady gaze, not wanting him to see the tears that were threatening to spill down her face. Since she'd been shot she had been feeling desperately homesick, and the lack of anything to occupy her was just exacerbating the problem.
"I'm sorry, my dear, I will continue to do everything that I can to get you home." He patted her shoulder, then Martha heard him walk away.
She swallowed hard, trying to subdue her misery and anxiety; she was annoyed with herself for getting herself into this mess. And she was worried about Jack - the fact that he hadn't turned up almost immediately after she had been flung back in time worried her considerably as she could only think of two reasons for his non-appearance: either he'd been injured after she'd ended up here, or the device that had sent her here had been damaged. But she was sure that he would have contacted the Doctor for help if the gadget had been broken, which made it more likely that he had been injured trying to stop Barnes and Mallory.
* * * * *
When the Doctor returned to his lab he found Liz and the Brigadier in anxious conversation.
"How is she?" asked Liz.
"Anxious and upset, and trying to hide it," answered the Doctor as he joined them. He turned to the Brigadier. "Any success?"
The Brigadier's expression darkened. "None," he answered. "They refuse point blank to assist Dr Jones in returning to her own time because of her 'interference' in their business affairs."
"Business," snorted Liz angrily. "Why can't you, the future you I mean, come and get Martha?"
The Doctor looked uncomfortable. "I can't guarantee that he will remember this event in the future," he answered. "It's against all the Laws of Time for individual Time Lords to have anything to do with their past or future selves. If the Time Lord High Council doesn't wipe the minds of individuals involved, then we do it voluntarily."
"So what are we going to do?" demanded Liz. "We can't just do nothing."
"We won't," the Doctor assured her. "You can help me to work on the TARDIS again, and I will also send a plea to the Time Lords to assist Martha. She's done valuable work both here and in the future, and I would hope they would recognise that and assist her to get to her own time again."
"I'll leave you two to it, then," the Brigadier said. "Let me know if you need any help from my men."
"Thank you."
The Brigadier went out, and the Doctor hurried over to the corner where the TARDIS stood, then turned and spoke to Liz. "I'm going to contact the Time Lords. I should only be a few moments, and then we'll get back to the calibrations we were working on before."
She nodded her understanding, then turned back to the workbench and began looking for the notes she'd been making two days ago.
* * * * * *
35 years later
Jack and Mickey had been working for about sixteen hours, only stopping to use the bathroom, or to fetch some coffee or food, when a sergeant came in with a message that Colonel Mace wanted to see Jack.
"While I'm gone, why don't you go and get us both something to eat," Jack suggested. "I'm sure the sergeant here will show you were the mess is." He glanced over at the sergeant, who nodded agreement.
"All right. I could do with stretching my legs a bit more," agreed Mickey. He followed the sergeant out, and Jack headed off to the Colonel's office.
"Come in Harkness, sit down." Mace gestured at the chair on the other side of his desk, and Jack sat down, wondering what was on the Colonel's mind.
"I thought you'd like to know that I decided to get one of my men to check the archives from thirty five years ago, and they found this." He passed a buff coloured file across the desk to Jack, who accepted it eagerly.
He read the contents eagerly, a broad grin breaking out on his face. "Fantastic!" he exclaimed, looking up.
"So, now we know that Dr Jones succeeded in helping to stop the Drenkians' operation, and that you will get their device working again so that you can go and fetch her home." The Colonel accepted the file back from Jack, who had got to his feet again.
"Thank you for getting the files checked, sir."
Mace nodded, and Jack hurried back to the workroom to let Mickey know, his excitement at the news making him feel more energetic again. They would get the device working, and he would go and get Martha back: it was all just a matter of time.
* * * * * *
35 years earlier
Martha passed the next two days in sleeping or talking to whoever stopped by the Infirmary to talk to her: her most frequent visitors were Liz and Sergeant Benton, although the Doctor visited twice a day to keep her abreast of what he and Liz were doing in their attempts to get her back home. Even Captain Yates turned up once to bring her some magazines. However, the most surprising visitor arrived late in the afternoon of the second day.
"Hello Dr Jones." The Brigadier stood beside her bed, his back ramrod straight and his swagger stick tucked under his arm.
"Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart." Martha saluted him clumsily, her shoulder still a little stiff from her injury.
"At ease," he said, his lips twitching upwards into a brief smile. He sat down beside her bed. "I apologise for not catching up with you sooner. Things have been a little hectic here of late."
"I understand sir," she answered quickly. "To be honest, I didn't expect to meet you. When I met you a while ago, I mean the older you, you didn't mention that you had met me before."
"I suspect the Doctor warned me that I should not mention it until it had happened in your personal timeline," the Brigadier suggested, mindful of his conversation with the Time Lord a couple of days earlier.
"Probably," Martha agreed.
"Well I'm glad to know that I shall have such a capable and resourceful young woman on my staff, although - " He broke off, rubbing a finger across his moustache. "I suppose by your day they'll have pensioned me off somewhere. Don't answer that," he added hastily. "I'd rather not know."
She nodded her understanding. "Mum's the word," she agreed.
"Anyway, I just thought I'd pop in and see how you're recovering, and to remind you to let my men know if there's anything else you need. I understand the Doctor and Liz are doing everything they can to work out how to send you back to your own time."
Martha nodded. "I know, and I'm very grateful."
"I hope it's soon for your sake. I know you must be anxious to get back."
"I am, although I've quite enjoyed my visit to this time period. Could have done without being shot, of course."
The Brigadier nodded. "Glad to hear it. Look after yourself, once you get back, and look after the Doctor as well. He always seems to need it."
Martha smiled. "He does."
He got to his feet, then offered his hand, and she shook it. "Until we meet again, Dr Jones."
"Farewell Brigadier."
They exchanged salutes, then he strode out, leaving Martha smiling in pleasure at having met the younger Brigadier. She still desperately wanted to go home, but she was getting used to the waiting.
* * * * * *
Several hours later Martha was startled from a nap by the arrival of Sergeant Benton. "Miss Jones, we think someone's arrived to fetch you," he said, slightly breathless from hurrying to bring her the news.
"The Doctor?" she asked.
Benton shook his head. "No, we think it's your friend Jack. The Doctor picked up a temporal disturbance on the Heath again, in the same area where we found you. He and Miss Shaw have gone to investigate."
"Thank goodness!" Martha sat up. "I'd better get dressed."
"Can you manage?" he asked, gesturing at her shoulder.
"I can," she assured him.
He nodded and went out again. Martha began to dress; her shoulder was still a bit stiff, but it would loosen up the more she used it, and she was glad to realise that she no longer suffered the weird tingling in her limbs that had been caused by the paralysing effect of the Drenkians' gun. Feeling as if she had pins and needles all over her body had been an incredibly uncomfortable sensation.
Once she was dressed, she began to pace slowly around the Infirmary, trying to walk some strength back into her legs after her enforced bed rest. As she walked, she thought about Jack's promise to take her out for dinner and dancing - she didn't think she'd be quite up to dancing for a couple more days, but going out to dinner seemed like a nice idea. Since the loss of Owen and Tosh, and the business with Davros and the Daleks, she and Jack had become far closer. She was quite certain that he was just waiting for her permission to do more than flirt and tease, and since she and Tom had ended their engagement, she'd been feeling increasingly tempted to give him that permission. So far, though, she'd held back; now she wondered just why she had. She knew, because Ianto had told her himself, that Jack sharing her bed would not be an issue to the young Welshman, so it wasn't out of loyalty to Ianto that she was refraining from inviting Jack to take things further.
* * * * * *
Half an hour after Benton had brought his news, the door to the Infirmary opened and Jack hurried through it, rushing across to where Martha was sitting beside her bed.
"Martha Jones, am I glad to see you," he said, pulling her into an almost-crushing hug.
"I'm glad to see you too," she answered quietly, clinging tightly to him in relief.
"Are you ready to go?" he asked.
"As soon as I've said my farewells," she answered, then realised that Liz, the Doctor and Benton were all standing by the door.
Jack walked back across the room with her, one arm about her shoulders in a protective manner, although he let her go when Liz moved forward to hug Martha. She shook hands with Benton, who promptly went back to the radio room, and then she turned to the Doctor. He offered his hand, and she took it, then moved forwards to hug him, and Jack saw that he looked startled at her gesture.
"Thank you for everything, both of you," she said to the Time Lord and Liz.
"You're welcome," Liz answered, before she too went away.
"Thank you for all you did too," the Doctor said. "Take care of yourself, in the future. It's been a pleasure meeting you."
"And you," Martha answered. She shook hands with him again, then he too left.
"Okay?" Jack asked solicitously, seeing her sad expression.
"Yeah." She reached up and rubbed her eyes, then turned to her friend. "Let's go."
"Gladly," he answered. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders again, then pulled the Drenkian device from his coat pocket. "We just walk forward through the portal," he told her as he activated it, and with a few steps they moved forward through time from 1974 to 2009, arriving in the workroom where Mickey and Jack had been working.
35 years later
Mickey seemed genuinely delighted to see Martha back, hugging her energetically, then pulling away with an embarrassed expression. Jack was quick to sing Mickey's praises to her, explaining that he'd done most of the work in repairing the Drenkian device so that Jack could fetch her home again.
"Leave it out, Captain Cheesecake," Mickey said, looking pleased but embarrassed by Jack's praise.
"Captain Cheesecake?" asked Martha, laughing.
"Not now," growled Jack. "Come on, we'd better go and see Colonel Mace, let him know you're back."
"I'm off home," Mickey said. "Gonna go and get some proper sleep."
"Thanks for all your help," Martha said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek that made him grin hugely before he went out.
The Colonel debriefed Martha, allowing Jack to sit in, before he dismissed them both, instructing Martha not to return to work until the day after next.
"We've managed without you for the last three days," he told her when she protested, "we can manage one more. I want you to be fully fit again before you return to work, Dr Jones, so don't come in tomorrow. If you do, I'll see to it that you're escorted back home again, understand?"
She gave him a snappy salute. "Yes sir!"
"Good." His expression softened. "You've earned a day off," he told her.
"Thank you sir."
Martha led Jack out of the Colonel's office, and headed back to her own to collect her things. "Are you coming back to my place?" she asked. "I thought we could get a take-away and catch up."
"Definitely. I'm not letting you out of my sight any time soon, sweetheart," Jack answered emphatically.
She smiled. "Come on then." She took his hand and led him out to the car park.
* * * * * *
The empty take-away cartons were spread across the coffee table in Martha's sitting room; the two friends had just finished eating their meal and recounting their individual experiences of the previous three days, when Jack's mobile phone rang.
"Hello?" He listened a moment, then passed Martha the phone.
"Who is it?" she mouthed, taking it from him. He just shook his head, so she spoke. "Hello?"
"Martha!" exclaimed the Doctor. "I was just about to go and fetch you from 1974."
"Well you're a bit late, Time Lord," she said, emphasising the last two words.
"Yes, well, sorry. I had left your phone, well, my phone now, I suppose, aboard the TARDIS and I've been a bit busy with um, well, things."
"You ran into trouble, didn't you?" she asked, barely suppressing the urge to laugh at his sheepish tone.
"Well, a bit, well, more than a bit, well, okay, a lot," he conceded wearily.
"It must have been a lot of trouble if it's taken you three days to get back to the TARDIS again," she observed. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, thank you. Are you, though? Jack left me two frantic messages about you being flung back in time."
"I was. Some humans were working with some aliens, illegally trafficking in other aliens, and I got caught up in it. I take it you don't remember this? Your third self said you might not."
There was a pause before he spoke. "The Drenkians?" he asked.
"Yes."
"I do remember now," the Doctor said. "I'm very sorry Martha."
"Forget it," she said. "Jack came and got me, so I didn't need you after all."
There was a pause and she wondered if she'd said the wrong thing. "You never have needed me," he said quietly. "You have always been brilliant, Jack too."
Martha noted the tone of pride in his voice, but she could hear sadness there too. "We might not need you to rescue us," she said, "but we value your friendship. Don't forget that."
"I won't," he promised. "Anyway, I'm glad you're back safe and sound. Take care of yourself, and Jack too." He hung up before she could say anything else, and Martha passed the phone back to Jack.
"You okay sweetheart?" he asked as he accepted the phone.
She nodded. "Yeah. He says we're both brilliant."
"Too right we are," Jack answered, smirking.
"Mr Ego," she teased, pushing the Doctor's sadness to the back of her mind.
"Not ego," he answered, "just a statement of facts. One of these days I'll prove it to you."
Martha leaned against his shoulder. "One of these days, I'll let you," she said.
He shifted, turning to look at her. "Do you mean that?"
She nodded. "Yeah." She looked away for a moment. "I think it's time I moved on, but I don't want to rush into anything. I got together with Tom too soon after I left the Doctor, and that didn't work out, especially with him going off to work in Africa." She shook her head. "I don't begrudge him following his heart in his work - it's what I've done, after all. But it turns out that I don't handle really long distant relationships very well."
"You think a relationship with me would work better?" he asked.
"I don't honestly know," she answered. "But you'd only be at the other end of the motorway, not on another continent and in another time zone, so it might be easier."
Jack leaned forward and kissed her deeply. "I'm willing to try if you are," he told her when he released her.
"I am." She kissed him back and felt his arm wrapping around her, pulling her closer.
"I look forward to it," he said, resting his forehead against hers. "But for now, I'm going to leave you to get some sleep and head back to Cardiff. I'll give you a ring tomorrow, see how you're doing."
"Okay."
They got to their feet and went out into the hall where Jack shrugged into his greatcoat, then he pulled Martha into a tight hug. "I'm glad you're back," he said.
"I'm glad to be back," she answered fervently. She gave him another quick kiss, then opened the door and let him out. "Drive safely."
He gave her a salute, then walked away, and Martha closed the door feeling a little more light-hearted than she had. She didn't know how things would work out with Jack, but she looked forward to finding out.
Title: The Watch on the Heath
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Martha, Jack, Mickey, Third Doctor, Liz Shaw, the Brigadier, UNIT, OCs
Rating: PG-13 (for some violence)
Spoilers: Season 7 Classic Who, Season 4 New Who, Season 2 Torchwood
Summary: Martha meets a much earlier UNIT team.
Disclaimer: I occasionally wish that I did own it!
Author Notes: I wrote this fic for the smith_n_jones fic challenge. The prompt (from yahtzee63) was Third Doctor, joyriding in Bessie. This fic's set between "Inferno" and "Terror of the Autons" for Three and his UNIT, and after DW S4 and Torchwood S2 for Martha, Jack, and modern UNIT.
Betas: The lovely fourzoas and catholicphoton
~~~~~~
Back to part 1
35 years earlier
It took them all day to track down the Drenkians' hiding place in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city. The Doctor had given Martha the tracking device, showed her how to calibrate it in response to the signal it emitted, and then begun driving through the city streets in a methodical manner. While he drove, they talked: he asked her questions about her family, her medical training and about her travels with his future self, promising that he would make himself forget whatever she told him once she had returned to her own time.
In return he told her about some of his travels, the companions who had been with him on those journeys, and even a little about his early life on Gallifrey. Martha listened to those parts of the Doctor's stories with rapt attention, knowing her own Doctor would never tell her as much about his planet, not now that Gallifrey was gone. Apart from that one occasion when they'd been on New Earth, and she'd more or less bullied him into talking to her, she had respected his reticence on the subject.
When they did finally discover where the Drenkians were holed up, Martha felt a pang of disappointment that this meant the end of their conversations. But she pulled out the bulky radio she'd been given and contacted Liz, who then contacted UNIT HQ to request backup, while Sergeant Benton drove over to join them.
He and Liz arrived only a few minutes before two jeeps, crowded with soldiers, also turned up, and everyone gathered around the Doctor for a quick briefing on the plan of action with regard to the aliens they'd come to apprehend.
They slipped quietly into the warehouse, everyone moving stealthily. The aliens were gathered in an office on the ground floor of the warehouse, and Martha was relieved they weren't in the less-accessible first floor office she could see above their heads.
"Why are there no guards?" asked Martha softly.
"I would suggest that they weren't expecting to be found, even though their drop-off had been disrupted," the Doctor answered, equally softly. "Aliens often do underestimate you humans."
He opened the office door. "Good evening everyone."
The Drenkians looked, for the most part, like humanoids, apart from their sickly green skin and their faces, which reminded Martha of a tapir with its mobile proboscis, the saggital crest that in Earth mammals was usually indicative of very strong jaw muscles, and the small, oval ears. She saw that their legs were thicker than a human's and ended in four-toed hooves, and their arms were well-muscled.
The humans and Time Lord stared at the Drenkians, who stared back; it was hard to be sure, with their faces, but Martha got the impression that the Drenkians were not happy with UNIT's presence at the warehouse. Her impression was confirmed when the half dozen aliens all pulled weapons from behind their backs: she guessed they'd been holstered on the belts they wore.
"Now really," began the Doctor, an impatient tone in his voice. "This will do you no good."
The Drenkian at the front of the group lifted its proboscis, showing its teeth, before speaking. "We disagree," it answered, and before anyone could move, it fired.
Martha gave a cry and pushed the Doctor and Liz aside, but the shot, from some kind of energy weapon, hit her right shoulder. She felt like someone had hit her with a bulldozer, and she remembered the time she'd been shot by a Clade in the Wild West: somehow, to her surprise, this felt even worse. She was vaguely aware of the sounds of regular gunfire from the UNIT men, and the shouts of the Doctor, and she saw Liz looking down at her in concern before she passed out.
* * * * * *
Martha came to with a stifled moan as Benton and Captain Yates lifted her onto the backseat of Bessie, where Liz was already seated.
"Whu?" she asked muzzily, unable to get her tongue and mouth to work properly.
"Shh," Liz said, gently brushing a hand across Martha's brow. "You're going to be fine. The Doctor's already taken a look at your injury, and he says you'll be fine in a couple of days."
"Drenkians?" asked Martha anxiously, forcing the word out.
"They're being taken care of," Liz assured her. "Now don't try to talk any more. We'll take care of you, and everything else."
Martha gave her a weak smile, then her eyes slid shut again.
* * * * * *
It was about three hours after she'd been shot that Martha fully regained consciousness and found the Doctor sitting beside her bed. She gave him a puzzled frown, momentarily confused about where she was, and then the remembrance of what had happened over the last day and a half resurfaced.
"Hello my dear, how are you feeling?"
"Sore and tired," Martha answered thickly, feeling as if her tongue was twice its normal size. She tried to reach out for the jug of water beside her bed, then moaned as pain stabbed through her body.
"Let me do that," the Doctor said. He poured half a glass of water for her, then carefully slid an arm under her shoulders and lifted her so that she could drink it more easily.
She slurped at the water initially, struggling again to get her mouth and tongue working properly. She was uncomfortably aware that some of the water wasn't going into her mouth and she found herself wishing that the Doctor wasn't seeing her like this. She hated looking weak in front of him, even if she was feeling weak.
"Better?" he asked gently.
"Yes, thanks." She found it slightly easier to talk now.
"I'm sorry you were shot," he said. "I'm afraid the energy weapon favoured by the Drenkians is designed to cause a temporary paralysis on the lower settings, as well as causing actual tissue damage."
"My fault I was shot," Martha answered. "Don't apologise."
"Yes, well, I'm still sorry that you were shot. Your action was swift and timely - your reflexes were even faster than mine, and it's not often that's the case."
She looked away from his intent gaze. "I was in a situation once where my reactions had to be swift or I'd have been dead, and my life wasn't the only one at stake." She had no intention of telling him anything else about the year that her Doctor had rewound - she knew enough about time travel to know that it would be a bad idea for this Doctor to know too much about his future.
The Doctor obviously sensed that Martha didn't want to discuss it further, because he began telling her how they had dealt with the Drenkians after she had been shot, and after ten minutes he told her that she should get some more rest. He got to his feet, then reached out and cupped her cheek for a moment.
"Get well soon, Dr Jones," he said quietly, then left.
Martha felt tears prickle in her eyes and swallowed hard. Her relationship with this incarnation of the Doctor seemed so much less complicated than what she had with the later one, and while she knew that the Time War had affected him in ways she could barely begin to imagine, she couldn't help wishing that her relationship with her Doctor was a little more like this.
* * * * * *
The next morning the Doctor visited Martha again, and noticing her glum expression, reached out to pat her hand.
"I'm doing everything that I can to persuade the Drenkians to send you back to your own time, my dear," he told her.
"I can't image they're very keen to help me, though," Martha observed. "Not when I'm the person most responsible for messing up their operation."
He gave her a rueful look. "Unfortunately that is true. The Brigadier has told them that it will be better for them if they do assist you, but I don't hold out much hope."
"So I'm stuck here, until either my Doctor or my friend Jack comes to get me, assuming either of them can or will." She frowned. "You know that I'm here now, so your later self must also know, so he'll come and get me, won't he?"
The Doctor sought to comfort her. "I'm sure he will, but - " He paused, rubbing one long finger over his top lip, a gesture Martha recognised as indicating his discomfort.
"But what?" she asked, feeling her anxiety increase.
"Well, Time Lords aren't supposed to have any dealings with their past or future selves, so when it does occasionally happen, I always make myself forget about it afterwards."
She gave him a stricken look, then rolled onto her side, away from his steady gaze, not wanting him to see the tears that were threatening to spill down her face. Since she'd been shot she had been feeling desperately homesick, and the lack of anything to occupy her was just exacerbating the problem.
"I'm sorry, my dear, I will continue to do everything that I can to get you home." He patted her shoulder, then Martha heard him walk away.
She swallowed hard, trying to subdue her misery and anxiety; she was annoyed with herself for getting herself into this mess. And she was worried about Jack - the fact that he hadn't turned up almost immediately after she had been flung back in time worried her considerably as she could only think of two reasons for his non-appearance: either he'd been injured after she'd ended up here, or the device that had sent her here had been damaged. But she was sure that he would have contacted the Doctor for help if the gadget had been broken, which made it more likely that he had been injured trying to stop Barnes and Mallory.
* * * * *
When the Doctor returned to his lab he found Liz and the Brigadier in anxious conversation.
"How is she?" asked Liz.
"Anxious and upset, and trying to hide it," answered the Doctor as he joined them. He turned to the Brigadier. "Any success?"
The Brigadier's expression darkened. "None," he answered. "They refuse point blank to assist Dr Jones in returning to her own time because of her 'interference' in their business affairs."
"Business," snorted Liz angrily. "Why can't you, the future you I mean, come and get Martha?"
The Doctor looked uncomfortable. "I can't guarantee that he will remember this event in the future," he answered. "It's against all the Laws of Time for individual Time Lords to have anything to do with their past or future selves. If the Time Lord High Council doesn't wipe the minds of individuals involved, then we do it voluntarily."
"So what are we going to do?" demanded Liz. "We can't just do nothing."
"We won't," the Doctor assured her. "You can help me to work on the TARDIS again, and I will also send a plea to the Time Lords to assist Martha. She's done valuable work both here and in the future, and I would hope they would recognise that and assist her to get to her own time again."
"I'll leave you two to it, then," the Brigadier said. "Let me know if you need any help from my men."
"Thank you."
The Brigadier went out, and the Doctor hurried over to the corner where the TARDIS stood, then turned and spoke to Liz. "I'm going to contact the Time Lords. I should only be a few moments, and then we'll get back to the calibrations we were working on before."
She nodded her understanding, then turned back to the workbench and began looking for the notes she'd been making two days ago.
* * * * * *
35 years later
Jack and Mickey had been working for about sixteen hours, only stopping to use the bathroom, or to fetch some coffee or food, when a sergeant came in with a message that Colonel Mace wanted to see Jack.
"While I'm gone, why don't you go and get us both something to eat," Jack suggested. "I'm sure the sergeant here will show you were the mess is." He glanced over at the sergeant, who nodded agreement.
"All right. I could do with stretching my legs a bit more," agreed Mickey. He followed the sergeant out, and Jack headed off to the Colonel's office.
"Come in Harkness, sit down." Mace gestured at the chair on the other side of his desk, and Jack sat down, wondering what was on the Colonel's mind.
"I thought you'd like to know that I decided to get one of my men to check the archives from thirty five years ago, and they found this." He passed a buff coloured file across the desk to Jack, who accepted it eagerly.
He read the contents eagerly, a broad grin breaking out on his face. "Fantastic!" he exclaimed, looking up.
"So, now we know that Dr Jones succeeded in helping to stop the Drenkians' operation, and that you will get their device working again so that you can go and fetch her home." The Colonel accepted the file back from Jack, who had got to his feet again.
"Thank you for getting the files checked, sir."
Mace nodded, and Jack hurried back to the workroom to let Mickey know, his excitement at the news making him feel more energetic again. They would get the device working, and he would go and get Martha back: it was all just a matter of time.
* * * * * *
35 years earlier
Martha passed the next two days in sleeping or talking to whoever stopped by the Infirmary to talk to her: her most frequent visitors were Liz and Sergeant Benton, although the Doctor visited twice a day to keep her abreast of what he and Liz were doing in their attempts to get her back home. Even Captain Yates turned up once to bring her some magazines. However, the most surprising visitor arrived late in the afternoon of the second day.
"Hello Dr Jones." The Brigadier stood beside her bed, his back ramrod straight and his swagger stick tucked under his arm.
"Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart." Martha saluted him clumsily, her shoulder still a little stiff from her injury.
"At ease," he said, his lips twitching upwards into a brief smile. He sat down beside her bed. "I apologise for not catching up with you sooner. Things have been a little hectic here of late."
"I understand sir," she answered quickly. "To be honest, I didn't expect to meet you. When I met you a while ago, I mean the older you, you didn't mention that you had met me before."
"I suspect the Doctor warned me that I should not mention it until it had happened in your personal timeline," the Brigadier suggested, mindful of his conversation with the Time Lord a couple of days earlier.
"Probably," Martha agreed.
"Well I'm glad to know that I shall have such a capable and resourceful young woman on my staff, although - " He broke off, rubbing a finger across his moustache. "I suppose by your day they'll have pensioned me off somewhere. Don't answer that," he added hastily. "I'd rather not know."
She nodded her understanding. "Mum's the word," she agreed.
"Anyway, I just thought I'd pop in and see how you're recovering, and to remind you to let my men know if there's anything else you need. I understand the Doctor and Liz are doing everything they can to work out how to send you back to your own time."
Martha nodded. "I know, and I'm very grateful."
"I hope it's soon for your sake. I know you must be anxious to get back."
"I am, although I've quite enjoyed my visit to this time period. Could have done without being shot, of course."
The Brigadier nodded. "Glad to hear it. Look after yourself, once you get back, and look after the Doctor as well. He always seems to need it."
Martha smiled. "He does."
He got to his feet, then offered his hand, and she shook it. "Until we meet again, Dr Jones."
"Farewell Brigadier."
They exchanged salutes, then he strode out, leaving Martha smiling in pleasure at having met the younger Brigadier. She still desperately wanted to go home, but she was getting used to the waiting.
* * * * * *
Several hours later Martha was startled from a nap by the arrival of Sergeant Benton. "Miss Jones, we think someone's arrived to fetch you," he said, slightly breathless from hurrying to bring her the news.
"The Doctor?" she asked.
Benton shook his head. "No, we think it's your friend Jack. The Doctor picked up a temporal disturbance on the Heath again, in the same area where we found you. He and Miss Shaw have gone to investigate."
"Thank goodness!" Martha sat up. "I'd better get dressed."
"Can you manage?" he asked, gesturing at her shoulder.
"I can," she assured him.
He nodded and went out again. Martha began to dress; her shoulder was still a bit stiff, but it would loosen up the more she used it, and she was glad to realise that she no longer suffered the weird tingling in her limbs that had been caused by the paralysing effect of the Drenkians' gun. Feeling as if she had pins and needles all over her body had been an incredibly uncomfortable sensation.
Once she was dressed, she began to pace slowly around the Infirmary, trying to walk some strength back into her legs after her enforced bed rest. As she walked, she thought about Jack's promise to take her out for dinner and dancing - she didn't think she'd be quite up to dancing for a couple more days, but going out to dinner seemed like a nice idea. Since the loss of Owen and Tosh, and the business with Davros and the Daleks, she and Jack had become far closer. She was quite certain that he was just waiting for her permission to do more than flirt and tease, and since she and Tom had ended their engagement, she'd been feeling increasingly tempted to give him that permission. So far, though, she'd held back; now she wondered just why she had. She knew, because Ianto had told her himself, that Jack sharing her bed would not be an issue to the young Welshman, so it wasn't out of loyalty to Ianto that she was refraining from inviting Jack to take things further.
* * * * * *
Half an hour after Benton had brought his news, the door to the Infirmary opened and Jack hurried through it, rushing across to where Martha was sitting beside her bed.
"Martha Jones, am I glad to see you," he said, pulling her into an almost-crushing hug.
"I'm glad to see you too," she answered quietly, clinging tightly to him in relief.
"Are you ready to go?" he asked.
"As soon as I've said my farewells," she answered, then realised that Liz, the Doctor and Benton were all standing by the door.
Jack walked back across the room with her, one arm about her shoulders in a protective manner, although he let her go when Liz moved forward to hug Martha. She shook hands with Benton, who promptly went back to the radio room, and then she turned to the Doctor. He offered his hand, and she took it, then moved forwards to hug him, and Jack saw that he looked startled at her gesture.
"Thank you for everything, both of you," she said to the Time Lord and Liz.
"You're welcome," Liz answered, before she too went away.
"Thank you for all you did too," the Doctor said. "Take care of yourself, in the future. It's been a pleasure meeting you."
"And you," Martha answered. She shook hands with him again, then he too left.
"Okay?" Jack asked solicitously, seeing her sad expression.
"Yeah." She reached up and rubbed her eyes, then turned to her friend. "Let's go."
"Gladly," he answered. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders again, then pulled the Drenkian device from his coat pocket. "We just walk forward through the portal," he told her as he activated it, and with a few steps they moved forward through time from 1974 to 2009, arriving in the workroom where Mickey and Jack had been working.
35 years later
Mickey seemed genuinely delighted to see Martha back, hugging her energetically, then pulling away with an embarrassed expression. Jack was quick to sing Mickey's praises to her, explaining that he'd done most of the work in repairing the Drenkian device so that Jack could fetch her home again.
"Leave it out, Captain Cheesecake," Mickey said, looking pleased but embarrassed by Jack's praise.
"Captain Cheesecake?" asked Martha, laughing.
"Not now," growled Jack. "Come on, we'd better go and see Colonel Mace, let him know you're back."
"I'm off home," Mickey said. "Gonna go and get some proper sleep."
"Thanks for all your help," Martha said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek that made him grin hugely before he went out.
The Colonel debriefed Martha, allowing Jack to sit in, before he dismissed them both, instructing Martha not to return to work until the day after next.
"We've managed without you for the last three days," he told her when she protested, "we can manage one more. I want you to be fully fit again before you return to work, Dr Jones, so don't come in tomorrow. If you do, I'll see to it that you're escorted back home again, understand?"
She gave him a snappy salute. "Yes sir!"
"Good." His expression softened. "You've earned a day off," he told her.
"Thank you sir."
Martha led Jack out of the Colonel's office, and headed back to her own to collect her things. "Are you coming back to my place?" she asked. "I thought we could get a take-away and catch up."
"Definitely. I'm not letting you out of my sight any time soon, sweetheart," Jack answered emphatically.
She smiled. "Come on then." She took his hand and led him out to the car park.
* * * * * *
The empty take-away cartons were spread across the coffee table in Martha's sitting room; the two friends had just finished eating their meal and recounting their individual experiences of the previous three days, when Jack's mobile phone rang.
"Hello?" He listened a moment, then passed Martha the phone.
"Who is it?" she mouthed, taking it from him. He just shook his head, so she spoke. "Hello?"
"Martha!" exclaimed the Doctor. "I was just about to go and fetch you from 1974."
"Well you're a bit late, Time Lord," she said, emphasising the last two words.
"Yes, well, sorry. I had left your phone, well, my phone now, I suppose, aboard the TARDIS and I've been a bit busy with um, well, things."
"You ran into trouble, didn't you?" she asked, barely suppressing the urge to laugh at his sheepish tone.
"Well, a bit, well, more than a bit, well, okay, a lot," he conceded wearily.
"It must have been a lot of trouble if it's taken you three days to get back to the TARDIS again," she observed. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, thank you. Are you, though? Jack left me two frantic messages about you being flung back in time."
"I was. Some humans were working with some aliens, illegally trafficking in other aliens, and I got caught up in it. I take it you don't remember this? Your third self said you might not."
There was a pause before he spoke. "The Drenkians?" he asked.
"Yes."
"I do remember now," the Doctor said. "I'm very sorry Martha."
"Forget it," she said. "Jack came and got me, so I didn't need you after all."
There was a pause and she wondered if she'd said the wrong thing. "You never have needed me," he said quietly. "You have always been brilliant, Jack too."
Martha noted the tone of pride in his voice, but she could hear sadness there too. "We might not need you to rescue us," she said, "but we value your friendship. Don't forget that."
"I won't," he promised. "Anyway, I'm glad you're back safe and sound. Take care of yourself, and Jack too." He hung up before she could say anything else, and Martha passed the phone back to Jack.
"You okay sweetheart?" he asked as he accepted the phone.
She nodded. "Yeah. He says we're both brilliant."
"Too right we are," Jack answered, smirking.
"Mr Ego," she teased, pushing the Doctor's sadness to the back of her mind.
"Not ego," he answered, "just a statement of facts. One of these days I'll prove it to you."
Martha leaned against his shoulder. "One of these days, I'll let you," she said.
He shifted, turning to look at her. "Do you mean that?"
She nodded. "Yeah." She looked away for a moment. "I think it's time I moved on, but I don't want to rush into anything. I got together with Tom too soon after I left the Doctor, and that didn't work out, especially with him going off to work in Africa." She shook her head. "I don't begrudge him following his heart in his work - it's what I've done, after all. But it turns out that I don't handle really long distant relationships very well."
"You think a relationship with me would work better?" he asked.
"I don't honestly know," she answered. "But you'd only be at the other end of the motorway, not on another continent and in another time zone, so it might be easier."
Jack leaned forward and kissed her deeply. "I'm willing to try if you are," he told her when he released her.
"I am." She kissed him back and felt his arm wrapping around her, pulling her closer.
"I look forward to it," he said, resting his forehead against hers. "But for now, I'm going to leave you to get some sleep and head back to Cardiff. I'll give you a ring tomorrow, see how you're doing."
"Okay."
They got to their feet and went out into the hall where Jack shrugged into his greatcoat, then he pulled Martha into a tight hug. "I'm glad you're back," he said.
"I'm glad to be back," she answered fervently. She gave him another quick kiss, then opened the door and let him out. "Drive safely."
He gave her a salute, then walked away, and Martha closed the door feeling a little more light-hearted than she had. She didn't know how things would work out with Jack, but she looked forward to finding out.