(Untitled)

[emptyyourself]

Who: Severus Snape and Martha Jones
What: Medical examination / Stitches
When: Day 52
Where: The clinic.

Comments

[emptyyourself]

As he approached the office, he steeled himself. This was the first time he'd seen her (as an adult) since his arrival. He hadn't remembered her then - he'd found himself in town square feeling the wound in his neck and had immediately flashed back on Nagini. Everything that had occurred in between seemed like an hallucination - nothing more than a dream.

All of this was no doubt exacerbated by the fever he'd endured after. It had been the zombies, of course, and not Nagini. He counted himself quite lucky that they had been right all along, that the stitches held and the infection didn't seem to have reached him.

When he saw her, however, now in his right mind and with memories intact, it took all he had to remain neutral. If he made so much as one slip, she would know. It had been his decision to continue with the charade once she thought he had forgotten her; after what had occurred between them, it was better. This was the perfect opportunity to wipe the slate clean - even if it meant returning to the person he'd been before the Barge.

He glanced at the mask on her arm, then surveyed her uniform, then raised his eyes to her face. It was difficult; every harsh word pushed her farther away, but it was the way it should be. However, he managed a sneer.

"Have I interrupted something?"

[thegooddrjones]

When she saw him coming, Martha quickly swallowed and then composed her face quickly into the one of polite inquiry that she typically wore when she was acting in her professional capacity as a doctor. As a doctor at home, of course. Here, she was dressed as a nurse because West was a sexist arse. The only reason she'd slipped into this horrible white dress thing was because of the fact that she didn't trust West not to have locked the door unless she was wearing what he'd given her to wear.

Bloody hell would she have liked to have run into him again. Martha would slap West so hard his mother would feel it and his brain would ring.

When he sneered, she rolled her eyes. "Yes, sorry, I was in the middle of some sort of perverse fetish thing with West. I should probably thank you for it." She shoved the mask further up towards the short sleeves of the uniform before she unlocked the door. Bloody hell, she knew how ridiculous she looked and she didn't need Snape to tell her that. "If you would please take a seat on the table." Business now. So much business as Martha pulled the mask off her arm and went to the sink to wash her hands.

[emptyyourself]

Following her in, he wondered vaguely about the mask in his pocket - and, too, whether either of them needed masks, with the ones they were already wearing. He could see that she was playing a role, almost as much as he was.

But why? This was unlike her except in circumstances in which she felt hurt. Did she simply miss his friendship?

It occurred to him, then, that he was in a very beneficial position in more ways that one. Perhaps now that he'd pushed her away, he could wheedle information out of her.

As he seated himself as directed, he said - in a remarkable civil tone, "I do...appreciate your efforts."

[thegooddrjones]

Martha swallowed quickly, and then she dried her hands on a piece of paper towel before she started going through the office and collecting the things that she'd need in order to remove his stitches. It was odd and awkward for her, being around all of these things that weren't wrapped in plastic and pre-sterilized to be used. She did know they were clean though, despite the fact that she filled a silver basin with rubbing alcohol and the put it on a ceramic tray and pushed it closer to him.

Lights on and she watched him for a moment when he spoke in that civil tone. She blinked and was rather clearly taken back by it. A quick recovery time and a little smile before she nodded. "You're welcome. You really don't owe me a life debt, though." She stepped to him and gently touched his face, turning it upward so she could look at the bite in his neck.

"I was just returning one to you, sort of."

[emptyyourself]

Three inches down his neck and he was certain she would feel his pulse quicken at her touch. He had to get control of himself. She would know; she wasn't stupid.

He willed himself to be calm, focusing instead on her actions with the wound, but there was still the barest hint of a memory that he couldn't suppress.

"Were you?" he asked, thinking back, grateful for the distraction. He could recall nothing that would explain her words. Not that it mattered, of course. "Enlighten me."

[thegooddrjones]

Martha was rather good at making certain that her patients were distracted while she treated them. Having them distracted meant that she could work without having them fuss about such things. She picked up the scissors in her left hand, and the tweezers in her right, and was really very close to him as she bent over slightly.

"You saved my life twice, even if you don't remember it." Martha probably would have counted it as three times, really, but that was beside the point. She paused for a moment, before snipping the first stitch that she had applied. "This is going to hurt when I remove it. I'm sorry. Deep breaths, yeah?"

While she pulled as gently as she could, she continued. "We knew each other before, you and me. We were friends somewhere else. Saved me then by just talking to me. I would have gone mental and not slept and done something stupid like going home." That was saving her life, because it had made her better. "The second time, you did it here."

[emptyyourself]

He should have contacted the other doctor. This was a terrible idea. She was too close. He was going to forget himself, and the situation made it very difficult to deal with the ensuing anger. She was removing stitches, after all.

He winced at the first one, but kept silent. As he listened to her, he wondered if she meant the incident in level zero. He had seen the dark circles under her eyes, the lack of an engagement ring, and had encouraged her. Talked to her. Seen what apparently no one else had seen and been...whatever it was she had needed at the time.

"What happened here?" The first genuine question he'd asked her. He had no memory of ever coming here before.

[thegooddrjones]

Martha went silent for a moment, and she frowned as she pulled the second stitch just as gingerly. She had meant the time in level zero. "Oh, at least that time you weren't..." There was a little laugh before Martha worked quickly on focusing on doing this once more.

She didn't like to remember the time here. "West is a git," she began with a sigh, but her voice slipped into the same tone that she always used for storytelling. "He likes to do things that completely bugger up people here." The phone being one of those things, and had been the third time he'd saved her. But now she remembered why mentioning it to him was bad; mentioning it to him would be like sending him off to try and call Lily.

"Before, you didn't have any of their powers, no one did. And then suddenly, we woke up with different things, and I ended up with your magic." The third stitch now, moving quickly and carefully, then the fourth one. "I had no control over it. At first it was fun, you know, but as time went on it got increasingly worse." She took a deep breath and worked on the fifth. There was only two more after that. "The spells were more and more advanced and while I was getting upset, they became more dangerous."

[emptyyourself]

"You had my abilities?" he asked slowly, hardly believing it. If the location - the circumstances - had been any different, he wouldn't have believed it. However, West was a git, and he had little doubt she was telling the truth. He knew her well enough.

"Go on." He had a feeling, however, that he knew precisely what she would say had happened. He knew what he would do in that situation. Or thought he did, at any rate.

[thegooddrjones]

"Yes." Her voice was soft, and she stared intently at his neck for a very long time before she removed that last stitch. "I couldn't control it, and ended up transfiguring Rose into a cat and using the Cruciatus Curse on someone else, and then I killed a friend of mine. Then you took me to the old theatre and made certain that I was alright. Stayed there all night making sure I didn't hurt myself or someone else, even though I could have killed you." Her voice dropped, and Martha looked very sad and there was a look of loss on her face before she dropped the instruments in the alcohol, looking at the floor as she did so.

"So, no life debt for me, yeah?"

[emptyyourself]

He glanced at her, feeling the loss of her touch quite keenly at that moment. Yes, that sounded quite right - he would have done that, both to protect her and the others. He knew what he was capable of, and he had complete control of his magic. He would have known, too, what happened when he lost control.

"Was there more between us than you've suggested?" he asked, careful once more.

[thegooddrjones]

"Excuse me?" The question was asked quickly, and Martha turned back to him. Well, turned back was a bit too weak for what Martha had done. No, she whirled back towards Snape with her eyes wide. Martha Jones was horribly bad at lying, and she wasn't very good when she was evasive either. "Your tape was destroyed not long after that." There hadn't really been more, but there definitely might have been had he not disappeared. Probably would have been even.

[emptyyourself]

He inclined his head at that, scrutinizing her and ignoring the ache in his neck. She was avoiding the question, but there could be any number of reasons. She might not have wanted to mention what occurred before the zombie port.

Or something had happened here. After.

"That is not what I asked," he replied evenly.

[thegooddrjones]

Martha coloured a bit, and she took a deep breath before she avoided eye contact with him. When he looked at her like that, it was really rather hard for her to remember that this man hadn't been her friend for nearly a year, and that he hadn't been the one who had been here with her here and on the barge.

"I'm sorry, I can't imagine why you care, but no, there wasn't." Her face twisted into a very definite sign of regret for a moment before she looked away.

[emptyyourself]

He couldn't have missed the regret if he was blind; he didn't need to see it on her face. The blushing, the pain in her expression, all of it was like a neon sign: she regretted that there was nothing between them. He was silent for a moment, debating how far to push her.

How far would he have pushed her a year ago? If circumstances had been exactly as he was trying to convince her they were, how much would he have demanded to know? Everything, of course. And what she didn't tell him, he would have taken from her with Legilimency.

"But you wanted more," he said finally - not unkindly. A part of him asked just what he intended to do with this information, but he ignored it for now. It was easier to lie to her about his reasons than be honest with himself.

[thegooddrjones]

Martha turned away from him again, turning on the water until it was it's almost hottest and then tossing her hands below the spray. She scrubbed with an unnecessary vigor, as if it somehow would make the conversation end more quickly. The last thing in the world she wanted was Snape making fun of the feelings that she had for a version of him that wasn't him.

It was the fact that he'd asked her in a not unkindly manner that made her consider answering. "There would have been, if he hadn't left." Calling her Snape 'he' was Martha trying to remind herself that this Snape wasn't hers. There was no history for them. "But West burnt his tape, and he was gone."

Turning, she tried to look less upset that she felt, less like she was going to cry then she felt like she was going to do.