It Takes an Ocean Not to Break - Chapter One
Title: It Takes an Ocean Not to Break
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: The BBC owns "Doctor Who" and all related characters; Marvel and Disney own "The Avengers" and all related characters; I own nothing.
Warnings: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Spoilers: "The Avengers" movie, "Doctor Who" seasons 3 and 4, "Torchwood" season 2
Summary: When Nick Fury first approached her with the job offer, Martha Jones thought it was the just another step in the process of moving forward with her life. Unfortunately, the past has a nasty tendency to rear its head at the worst possible moments.
Author’s Notes: I have so many thank yous for everybody who helped with this story. Thank you to akat24 for being my cheerleader and encouraging me time and time again. Thank you to avamclean and awesomegeek for looking over my story and giving me input and suggestions, and making sure nobody was too out of character. Thank you to stars_inthe_sky for betaing this fic for me, and thank you to therisingmoon for the fantastic artwork!
This story takes place roughly three months after "Thor", and is set post-Season 2 of Torchwood and mid-to-late Season 4 of Doctor Who. Portions of the dialogue come from "The Avengers".
The title of this work comes from "Terrible Love" by Birdy.
Chapter One
Sitting in one of the labs at UNIT’s New York City base, Martha Jones frowned as she looked over the papers in front of her. There had been rumors of a possible alien landing in New Mexico, but UNIT’s attempts to investigate had been stymied by a relatively new world intelligence agency called SHIELD.
The higher-ups at UNIT had petitioned to gain access to the site on jurisdictional grounds, but the World Security Council had blocked them, effectively cutting them out. Given that UNIT wasn’t held in the highest of regards recently, due to continued fallout over Harold Saxon and the failure to prevent the ATMOS incident, Martha really shouldn’t have been surprised. She’d heard the arguments that UNIT was an outdated agency and that there needed to be new agencies to guard against alien incursions.
While there were times Martha was less than satisfied with UNIT, that assessment was far too harsh. UNIT was still useful, and the research they did was invaluable to understanding the larger universe. It was particularly frustrating now, given that SHIELD didn’t have the knowledge base to fully assess the situation if aliens really were involved. They were biting off far more than they could chew, in Martha’s opinion.
The sound of approaching footsteps interrupted her thoughts. She looked up to see a bald, dark-skinned man in a black leather trenchcoat over similarly dark clothing walking towards her. An eyepatch covered his left eye with scars spreading out underneath, hinting at the past trauma. He carried himself with conscious authority, and Martha couldn’t help feeling intimidated by his sheer presence. A woman dressed in a black jumpsuit, dark hair pulled back in a bun trailed him as he walked through the lab like he owned the place. The other doctors and researchers had magically vanished, she noticed, leaving her alone with the pair. Martha had heard stories about him, but she hadn’t given them much credit. It seemed, however, that Director Nick Fury of SHIELD was just as intimidating as rumors made him out to be.
“Director Fury,” she said when he’d stopped a few feet from her table, resisting the urge to get to stand up and salute. ”To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Dr. Jones,” he replied, hands clasped behind his back. Nothing in his remaining eye hinted at what he was thinking. “What do you make of this?” He gestured to the woman, who stepped forward with a Stark Industries tablet in her hand. Martha took it and started skimming the information before stopping and reading through it a little more slowly, her eyes widening as she took it in.
These readings were like nothing she’d ever seen, not working with UNIT or traveling with the Doctor. The sheer amount of power, or at least its potential power if activated, was staggering. If she was doing her math right and her memory served her correctly, this could rival easily the TARDIS as the most powerful thing she’d ever seen.
“This says the artifact in question is dormant,” Martha said as she continued scrolling through the report. “How is it still emitting that much energy?”
“We’re currently trying to figure that out, Dr. Jones. It’s an ongoing project.”
“Why are you showing this to me? I’m a medical doctor, not a physicist,” Martha asked, putting down the tablet and leaning forward. “So why me?”
“I’ve read your file, Dr. Jones,” Fury answered as he leaned against one of the tables. “Most of it was redacted, of course.”
“Of course,” Martha agreed, although she doubted something like a classified file would stop Fury.
“But I couldn’t help noticing you’ve had experience with some powerful otherworldly visitors,” he continued, his single eye staring into hers. “You’ve dealt with things of this nature before, which is more that I can say for most people. We need somebody with your experience attached to the project to monitor what effects it may have on those interacting closely with the artifact. Somebody who won’t make a mess of things.”
“So basically, what you’re saying is that you’re trying to recruit me away from UNIT?” Martha observed, raising her eyebrows and looking between Fury and the woman, who just continued to stare at Martha icily. “Whatever this artifact is must be awfully important.”
“You have no idea, Dr. Jones.”
“Oh, I believe I do.” The TARDIS could easily navigate through space and time, which begged the question what might this artifact be able to do with its power.
The fact that Fury, a man notorious in the circles Martha moved in for wanting to keep things in-house, had come to her with this information and was asking for her help was nothing short of shocking, even given her mostly-redacted travels with the Doctor.
Glancing down at the readings, she bit her lip as she considered his offer. UNIT was a perfectly nice place to work at, but there was something missing. Something that kept from truly enjoying her position here. She’d had a taste of that when she’d gone to help Jack in Cardiff, and come to a fuller realization after her brief adventure with the Doctor and Donna and subsequent breakup with Tom.
The work she was doing was useful, but it didn’t bring that same rush that she had grown accustomed to in her travels. Even Project Indigo, the crown jewel in UNIT’s current research, didn’t bring more than a modicum of excitement for her. She had grown addicted to the adventure, to the adrenaline rush you got when traveling with the Doctor, and even though she had been burned for getting too close, it kept calling out to her. Traveling with the Doctor changed a person, and she could never go back to being the Martha Jones she had been before the Judoon on the moon.
How had Donna described that feeling you got when you stepped out of the TARDIS on a new world or in a different time period? Hamsters in your stomach? For the first time in a situation not involving the Doctor, Martha felt that sensation stirring inside of her.
“I’ll do it,” she said, finding her voice. “I’ll help with this project.”
Fury nodded, as if he had been expecting this outcome.
“Good. Now let’s discuss the details of your transfer to SHIELD,” he answered, pulling up a still and sitting across from her. “Agent Hill has the paperwork for you to sign when we’re done here.”
~*~*~
Three weeks later, Martha was escorted in a black SUV to one of SHIELD’s bases in the middle of New Mexico. It was a little later than she had anticipated starting her new job. The original plan had been two weeks, so that she could pack her things, settle her affairs at UNIT and transfer her responsibilities with Project Indigo to another doctor, but a phone call at three in the morning had changed that.
Martha had listened numbly as Jack’s hollow voice told her that both Toshiko and Owen were dead.
She had dropped everything and booked the next flight to London. It was only when she was waiting in the terminal at JFK did she remember she was supposed to be starting her new job in a few days. A phone call and a terse argument with Fury later pushed her start date back by a week so while she attended the funerals.
Ianto met her when she stepped off of the train in Cardiff, looking more worn than she last remembered. His suit hung on him, as if he had lost weight recently, and there were dark smudges underneath his eyes. Gwen wasn’t much better when Martha arrived at the Hub, and Jack...There was a haunted look in his eyes that she’d never seen before, not even after the year on the Valiant.
After the funeral services, Gwen and Ianto disappeared to be with their families, leaving Martha alone with Jack in his office. Martha waited until Jack had pulled out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses before asking, “Do you need me to stay, Jack?”
She would, if he would have her. Even with the excitement of starting her new position at SHIELD and finding out what that mysterious artifact was, there was no way she’d abandon a friend. Jack had been there for her the Year That Never Was, always willing to pick up the phone when she called after a nightmare, paralyzed and afraid to move in case it was real. She knew he had been to see her family when he could to help them through rough patches. Even without that, she would have dropped everything if he’d asked her to stay and help with Torchwood.
“As much as I appreciate the offer,” he answered, pouring the whiskey and not quite meeting her eyes, “I wouldn’t want to deny SHIELD the pleasure of your company.”
“Why am I not surprised that you already know?” Martha asked with a raised eyebrow as she took the offered glass.
“Because I’m that good,” Jack said with a shadow of his shit-eating grin before taking a long drink. “If half the rumors I’ve heard are true, then they’d be desperate to have somebody like you attached to whatever Nick’s got his hands on.”
“Thank you for the compliment, Jack, but my offer still stands,” Martha countered.
“I know.” Jack paused and looked at the glass in his hands. “Remember when we were talking right after the aftermath of the Valiant, about moving forward?”
Martha nodded. They’d talked a lot after time reset itself and the horrors of the Master’s reign were wiped from most people’s memories. They had avoided talking about what had happened during the year, instead focusing on what they would do next, two survivors trying to avoid touching upon past trauma. One of the things that Jack had told her, late one night after UNIT had first made her their offer, was that part of him regretted staying stuck in his past and not moving forward. The Doctor’s name was unspoken, but lay heavy between them.
It was partially this admission that spurred her to accept the post at UNIT and partially the knowledge that she would never be truly happy as a simple doctor. UNIT had been her moving forward and an opportunity to create her own identity, separate from the Doctor. SHIELD’s offer was a chance to further that process.
“Damn you for talking sense,” Martha said, giving Jack a wobbly smile. He returned it with one of his own, and they continued to drink in silent tribute to their fallen friends.
The sudden stop of the SUV launched Martha out of her memories and back into the present. They had reached their destination.
Making sure that she had the appropriate identification on her, Martha opened the door and stepped outside. She squinted against the glare of the afternoon sun reflecting off of the large glass windows of the surrounding buildings as she tried to get her bearings.
To her left, a sign announced that this was the western campus of a joint SHIELD and NASA project on dark energy. So that was the cover they were going with. Several large, sandstone colored buildings circled a courtyard emblazoned with the SHIELD logo, and in the distance Martha spied several large satellites.
All in all, there was nothing to distinguish it from other facilities NASA might have scattered throughout the country. Martha was sure that factor, along with the relative security the campus’ isolated location gave it, contributed to SHIELD’s decision to house the research here.
People moved to and fro from the various buildings, some turning to look at the new arrival. From the corner of her eye, Martha spied a man in a nondescript black suit and sunglasses approaching her. He looked familiar, but it wasn’t until he stopped in front of her that she was able to place him and her breath froze in her chest. It was Phil, her guide for part of her trip through the United States during her journey across the world, until...
“Dr. Jones,” he said, extending his hand for her to shake. “I’m Agent Coulson, SHIELD’s agent in charge for this project.”
“Pleased to meet you, Agent Coulson,” she replied, doing her best to keep her voice even and not let the shock show. It was relatively rare that she met people that she’d known in the other timeline. Rare enough that it was always a jolt to see a face, familiar and yet not, looking at her with no knowledge of had happened.
“I’ll be showing you to where you’ll be staying before giving you the general tour,” Coulson told her after a brief pause, long enough for Martha to get the impression that he’d noticed something. She didn’t expect anything less from Phil-from Agent Coulson. She needed to distinguish the two of them in her mind, the one she’d met back then and the one she was meeting now. She learned that lesson with Tom.
Martha could almost laugh at the irony. Even when she was moving forward with her life and starting something new, her past still found ways to sink its hooks into her and try to drag her back.
“Show me the way,” she answered, giving him a smile to hide her thoughts.
The tour proved helpful in distracting Martha from her memories, at least for a short time. Her room appeared massive after her apartment in Manhattan, certainly large enough for the scant possessions she had with her. The campus was relatively small, with most of the official scientific work housed in two of the buildings Martha had seen earlier. The others were offices and staff housing. Martha’s work was below ground, however, and as they descended in a hidden elevator Jack would have envied, Coulson gave her a quick briefing on what she would be working with.
“We call it the Tesseract,” he explained on the elevator ride down. “It was discovered by Hydra during the Second World War before it came into SHIELD’s possession. It wasn’t until recently that we had the capabilities to start researching in earnest, though.”
“For what?”
“Energy, Dr. Jones. Unfortunately, all of Hydra’s notes and equipment for tapping into the Tesseract were destroyed after the war, so we’ve had to start from scratch. That’s where Dr. Selvig and his team come in.”
Martha followed Coulson down a series of steps, pondering what he had and hadn’t told her. Based on the readings that Fury had given her weeks ago, there certainly was potential for this “Tesseract” to be used as a new energy source, but there was more to that she was sure. Despite attempts to wean the United States from foreign energy sources, there had to be another reason why an organization such as SHIELD was involved. She just wasn’t sure what it was yet.
The high ceilinged concrete room bustled with roughly a dozen scientists, some clustered around computers while others peered at numbers scribbled across boards. An older white man detached himself from the group to greet Martha and Coulson.
“Dr. Jones, I presume?” he asked. “Sent to make sure that the Tesseract doesn’t turn us into radioactive monsters?”
“Something like that,” she replied with a small smile. Coulson vanished while Selvig briefed her on the project and introduced her to the team. She filed away their names and memorized their faces for future reference.
Old habits died hard, and she was scanning the room in between meeting the other scientists for potential escape routes when she spied movement on a catwalk high above where they were standing.
“Who’s that?” she asked Selvig once the crowd had subsided. He followed her gaze and gave a grunt.
“Fury’s pet jackbooted thug,” he answered gruffly. “The Hawk. He’s here to make sure that this project isn’t compromised.”
“I’m touched he has such faith in our discretion,” Martha replied with a straight face. She wasn’t surprised by Selvig’s comment. A man like Fury trusted no one.
By the time they had left the lab for dinner in the mess hall, Coulson had reappeared from wherever he’d vanished to. (Her room had a kitchenette, but Martha didn’t know how she was going to buy supplies. Something told her that getting clearance to go into the nearest town to buy food would be a nightmare.) Martha was more prepared this time and she didn’t freeze when he pulled one of his trademark ninja moves to suddenly be walking in step next to them-she had seen Phil manage that particular feat plenty of times before.
After dinner and a quick visit to her laboratory, Martha began unpacking, although there wasn’t much to deal with. Some photos of her family, a few keepsakes she’d picked up through her travels with the Doctor, various odds and ends. It still felt like a luxury to travel with more than a knapsack.
Sitting on the edge of her bed, a mug of tea in her hands, Martha examined her room. It would do. It wasn’t home by a long shot, but it would do for however long she was stationed here. That’s all she could really ask.
~*~*~
Martha stared at the darkened ceiling, hands under her head as she tried to will herself to sleep. She had been at it for the last few hours, but it clearly wasn’t working.
The problem wasn’t the new environment. She’d learned to deal with that long ago. It wasn’t nerves about officially starting her job in the morning. She’d dealt with worse. No, it was just too bloody quiet.
Most people found the constant buzz of cities like London or New York to be unsettling, but to Martha, the never-ending noise was soothing. It was a reminder that everything was right with the world and that the nightmare was over and done with. This quiet, however, was an eerie reminder of her journey. It reminded her too much of the dying earth and nights huddled by herself as she moved from place to place. Even the small sounds of the base did nothing to break the silence’s hold on her.
Growling in frustration, Martha threw back the covers and stalked to her closet. She needed to go for a walk, something to clear her mind and possibly exhaust her body enough so that she could get some rest tonight.
Martha made her way out of the building towards the perimeter of the base. She kept walking, past the last building, past the satellite dishes, out into the moonlit desert. The cool night air nipped at her cheeks, and she was glad she’d had the sense to throw on a jacket before leaving. She was about thirty minutes out when she finally stopped and looked up. Despite everything she’d seen, the sight still managed to take her breath away.
The night sky stretched all around her, thousands of stars twinkling brightly in welcome. With no artificial lights to blot them out, they shone in full force with the waxing moon, giving the night a warm, navy glow. To her left, she spied the white streaks of the arms of the Milky Way and to her right the steady red glow of Mars. The slow movement of a blinking satellite moved across the sky, making its journey around the Earth.
So many stars, so many possible journeys and meetings just waiting to happen. A laugh bubbled in Martha’s throat as she sat down and stared in wonder at the view. It’d been so long since she’d stopped and just looked at the stars and embraced their presence. During that Year, the sky had been too often shrouded in dust from the Master’s factories, or she’d been in hiding or making her way from one camp to another. Afterwards, her city living hadn’t been conducive to stargazing.
She hadn’t realized how much she missed seeing them until now.
Martha most likely would have sat and watched the stars all night, waiting until the moon set and first blush of dawn touched the eastern edges before heading back to base. There was something calming about observing the night sky. It put her at ease and allowed her to forget, at least for a short while, all that was branded into her memory. But, like most perfect things, it wasn’t meant to last.
Despite almost a year of disuse, the skills she’d picked up had never truly faded. A slight scuff on the dirt behind her to the right was all the warning she needed to know that somebody had followed her. Heart pounding, she resisted the urge to try to blend into the landscape and instead slowly turned around to face whoever had followed her. One, she didn’t have the perception filter on her anyway. Two, it was doubtful her tail was actively trying to hunt down and capture her to bring before the Master.
“You do know you aren’t supposed to leave the base without permission, Dr. Jones?” The speaker was male, dressed in what Martha was starting to assume was standard dark clothing for SHIELD operatives. His face, while not classically handsome, was still attractive in a rugged, lived-in way. Broken noses did add character. The way he stood suggested he was a soldier. How he’d managed to sneak up on her suggested black ops or something similar.
“You seem to be at the advantage with knowing my name,” Martha said, keeping her posture relaxed and purposefully not responding to his statement. She wanted to know who she was dealing with first. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
This elicited a raised eyebrow and a step closer from her tail. “Agent Barton,” he answered after a pause. “Or, as Selvig likes to refer to me, ‘Fury’s pet jackbooted thug.’”
“Well, if the shoe fits, Agent Barton...” Martha replied with a glance down to confirm that Barton was, indeed, wearing jackboots.
“Cute. And you still haven’t answered my question.”
“I couldn’t sleep and I thought a walk might clear my mind,” she answered with a shrug, skirting around his original question. While nobody had explicitly said that going off base was prohibited unless permission was given, it was heavily implied.
“Most people find the silence soothing after moving here from New York.”
“Well, I’m not most people.”
He studied her for a moment before glancing back to the base, his intentions all too clear. Part of Martha wanted to sit down and refuse to move, just like her niece was starting to do when anybody tried to make her do something she didn’t want to. As satisfying as that would be, however, Martha settled for brushing off her trousers and starting the walk back.
Neither of them spoke until they reached the edge of the outermost building.
“Thank you for the escort, Agent Barton, but I can find my way back from here,” she told him, tucking her hands into her pocket. He wasn’t overly tall, but she still had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes.
“Of course, Dr. Jones. But next time you feel the urge to take a nighttime stroll, do your best to stay in the perimeter,” he replied, his voice serious but with a glint of humor in his eyes. “We wouldn’t want to lose any scientists out in the desert.”
“Probably not the best outcome,” Martha said with a straight face, agreeing to nothing. “Until tomorrow, Agent Barton.” She walked back to her room, humming “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday” under her breath.
Chapter Two
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: The BBC owns "Doctor Who" and all related characters; Marvel and Disney own "The Avengers" and all related characters; I own nothing.
Warnings: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Spoilers: "The Avengers" movie, "Doctor Who" seasons 3 and 4, "Torchwood" season 2
Summary: When Nick Fury first approached her with the job offer, Martha Jones thought it was the just another step in the process of moving forward with her life. Unfortunately, the past has a nasty tendency to rear its head at the worst possible moments.
Author’s Notes: I have so many thank yous for everybody who helped with this story. Thank you to akat24 for being my cheerleader and encouraging me time and time again. Thank you to avamclean and awesomegeek for looking over my story and giving me input and suggestions, and making sure nobody was too out of character. Thank you to stars_inthe_sky for betaing this fic for me, and thank you to therisingmoon for the fantastic artwork!
This story takes place roughly three months after "Thor", and is set post-Season 2 of Torchwood and mid-to-late Season 4 of Doctor Who. Portions of the dialogue come from "The Avengers".
The title of this work comes from "Terrible Love" by Birdy.
Chapter One
Sitting in one of the labs at UNIT’s New York City base, Martha Jones frowned as she looked over the papers in front of her. There had been rumors of a possible alien landing in New Mexico, but UNIT’s attempts to investigate had been stymied by a relatively new world intelligence agency called SHIELD.
The higher-ups at UNIT had petitioned to gain access to the site on jurisdictional grounds, but the World Security Council had blocked them, effectively cutting them out. Given that UNIT wasn’t held in the highest of regards recently, due to continued fallout over Harold Saxon and the failure to prevent the ATMOS incident, Martha really shouldn’t have been surprised. She’d heard the arguments that UNIT was an outdated agency and that there needed to be new agencies to guard against alien incursions.
While there were times Martha was less than satisfied with UNIT, that assessment was far too harsh. UNIT was still useful, and the research they did was invaluable to understanding the larger universe. It was particularly frustrating now, given that SHIELD didn’t have the knowledge base to fully assess the situation if aliens really were involved. They were biting off far more than they could chew, in Martha’s opinion.
The sound of approaching footsteps interrupted her thoughts. She looked up to see a bald, dark-skinned man in a black leather trenchcoat over similarly dark clothing walking towards her. An eyepatch covered his left eye with scars spreading out underneath, hinting at the past trauma. He carried himself with conscious authority, and Martha couldn’t help feeling intimidated by his sheer presence. A woman dressed in a black jumpsuit, dark hair pulled back in a bun trailed him as he walked through the lab like he owned the place. The other doctors and researchers had magically vanished, she noticed, leaving her alone with the pair. Martha had heard stories about him, but she hadn’t given them much credit. It seemed, however, that Director Nick Fury of SHIELD was just as intimidating as rumors made him out to be.
“Director Fury,” she said when he’d stopped a few feet from her table, resisting the urge to get to stand up and salute. ”To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Dr. Jones,” he replied, hands clasped behind his back. Nothing in his remaining eye hinted at what he was thinking. “What do you make of this?” He gestured to the woman, who stepped forward with a Stark Industries tablet in her hand. Martha took it and started skimming the information before stopping and reading through it a little more slowly, her eyes widening as she took it in.
These readings were like nothing she’d ever seen, not working with UNIT or traveling with the Doctor. The sheer amount of power, or at least its potential power if activated, was staggering. If she was doing her math right and her memory served her correctly, this could rival easily the TARDIS as the most powerful thing she’d ever seen.
“This says the artifact in question is dormant,” Martha said as she continued scrolling through the report. “How is it still emitting that much energy?”
“We’re currently trying to figure that out, Dr. Jones. It’s an ongoing project.”
“Why are you showing this to me? I’m a medical doctor, not a physicist,” Martha asked, putting down the tablet and leaning forward. “So why me?”
“I’ve read your file, Dr. Jones,” Fury answered as he leaned against one of the tables. “Most of it was redacted, of course.”
“Of course,” Martha agreed, although she doubted something like a classified file would stop Fury.
“But I couldn’t help noticing you’ve had experience with some powerful otherworldly visitors,” he continued, his single eye staring into hers. “You’ve dealt with things of this nature before, which is more that I can say for most people. We need somebody with your experience attached to the project to monitor what effects it may have on those interacting closely with the artifact. Somebody who won’t make a mess of things.”
“So basically, what you’re saying is that you’re trying to recruit me away from UNIT?” Martha observed, raising her eyebrows and looking between Fury and the woman, who just continued to stare at Martha icily. “Whatever this artifact is must be awfully important.”
“You have no idea, Dr. Jones.”
“Oh, I believe I do.” The TARDIS could easily navigate through space and time, which begged the question what might this artifact be able to do with its power.
The fact that Fury, a man notorious in the circles Martha moved in for wanting to keep things in-house, had come to her with this information and was asking for her help was nothing short of shocking, even given her mostly-redacted travels with the Doctor.
Glancing down at the readings, she bit her lip as she considered his offer. UNIT was a perfectly nice place to work at, but there was something missing. Something that kept from truly enjoying her position here. She’d had a taste of that when she’d gone to help Jack in Cardiff, and come to a fuller realization after her brief adventure with the Doctor and Donna and subsequent breakup with Tom.
The work she was doing was useful, but it didn’t bring that same rush that she had grown accustomed to in her travels. Even Project Indigo, the crown jewel in UNIT’s current research, didn’t bring more than a modicum of excitement for her. She had grown addicted to the adventure, to the adrenaline rush you got when traveling with the Doctor, and even though she had been burned for getting too close, it kept calling out to her. Traveling with the Doctor changed a person, and she could never go back to being the Martha Jones she had been before the Judoon on the moon.
How had Donna described that feeling you got when you stepped out of the TARDIS on a new world or in a different time period? Hamsters in your stomach? For the first time in a situation not involving the Doctor, Martha felt that sensation stirring inside of her.
“I’ll do it,” she said, finding her voice. “I’ll help with this project.”
Fury nodded, as if he had been expecting this outcome.
“Good. Now let’s discuss the details of your transfer to SHIELD,” he answered, pulling up a still and sitting across from her. “Agent Hill has the paperwork for you to sign when we’re done here.”
~*~*~
Three weeks later, Martha was escorted in a black SUV to one of SHIELD’s bases in the middle of New Mexico. It was a little later than she had anticipated starting her new job. The original plan had been two weeks, so that she could pack her things, settle her affairs at UNIT and transfer her responsibilities with Project Indigo to another doctor, but a phone call at three in the morning had changed that.
Martha had listened numbly as Jack’s hollow voice told her that both Toshiko and Owen were dead.
She had dropped everything and booked the next flight to London. It was only when she was waiting in the terminal at JFK did she remember she was supposed to be starting her new job in a few days. A phone call and a terse argument with Fury later pushed her start date back by a week so while she attended the funerals.
Ianto met her when she stepped off of the train in Cardiff, looking more worn than she last remembered. His suit hung on him, as if he had lost weight recently, and there were dark smudges underneath his eyes. Gwen wasn’t much better when Martha arrived at the Hub, and Jack...There was a haunted look in his eyes that she’d never seen before, not even after the year on the Valiant.
After the funeral services, Gwen and Ianto disappeared to be with their families, leaving Martha alone with Jack in his office. Martha waited until Jack had pulled out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses before asking, “Do you need me to stay, Jack?”
She would, if he would have her. Even with the excitement of starting her new position at SHIELD and finding out what that mysterious artifact was, there was no way she’d abandon a friend. Jack had been there for her the Year That Never Was, always willing to pick up the phone when she called after a nightmare, paralyzed and afraid to move in case it was real. She knew he had been to see her family when he could to help them through rough patches. Even without that, she would have dropped everything if he’d asked her to stay and help with Torchwood.
“As much as I appreciate the offer,” he answered, pouring the whiskey and not quite meeting her eyes, “I wouldn’t want to deny SHIELD the pleasure of your company.”
“Why am I not surprised that you already know?” Martha asked with a raised eyebrow as she took the offered glass.
“Because I’m that good,” Jack said with a shadow of his shit-eating grin before taking a long drink. “If half the rumors I’ve heard are true, then they’d be desperate to have somebody like you attached to whatever Nick’s got his hands on.”
“Thank you for the compliment, Jack, but my offer still stands,” Martha countered.
“I know.” Jack paused and looked at the glass in his hands. “Remember when we were talking right after the aftermath of the Valiant, about moving forward?”
Martha nodded. They’d talked a lot after time reset itself and the horrors of the Master’s reign were wiped from most people’s memories. They had avoided talking about what had happened during the year, instead focusing on what they would do next, two survivors trying to avoid touching upon past trauma. One of the things that Jack had told her, late one night after UNIT had first made her their offer, was that part of him regretted staying stuck in his past and not moving forward. The Doctor’s name was unspoken, but lay heavy between them.
It was partially this admission that spurred her to accept the post at UNIT and partially the knowledge that she would never be truly happy as a simple doctor. UNIT had been her moving forward and an opportunity to create her own identity, separate from the Doctor. SHIELD’s offer was a chance to further that process.
“Damn you for talking sense,” Martha said, giving Jack a wobbly smile. He returned it with one of his own, and they continued to drink in silent tribute to their fallen friends.
The sudden stop of the SUV launched Martha out of her memories and back into the present. They had reached their destination.
Making sure that she had the appropriate identification on her, Martha opened the door and stepped outside. She squinted against the glare of the afternoon sun reflecting off of the large glass windows of the surrounding buildings as she tried to get her bearings.
To her left, a sign announced that this was the western campus of a joint SHIELD and NASA project on dark energy. So that was the cover they were going with. Several large, sandstone colored buildings circled a courtyard emblazoned with the SHIELD logo, and in the distance Martha spied several large satellites.
All in all, there was nothing to distinguish it from other facilities NASA might have scattered throughout the country. Martha was sure that factor, along with the relative security the campus’ isolated location gave it, contributed to SHIELD’s decision to house the research here.
People moved to and fro from the various buildings, some turning to look at the new arrival. From the corner of her eye, Martha spied a man in a nondescript black suit and sunglasses approaching her. He looked familiar, but it wasn’t until he stopped in front of her that she was able to place him and her breath froze in her chest. It was Phil, her guide for part of her trip through the United States during her journey across the world, until...
“Dr. Jones,” he said, extending his hand for her to shake. “I’m Agent Coulson, SHIELD’s agent in charge for this project.”
“Pleased to meet you, Agent Coulson,” she replied, doing her best to keep her voice even and not let the shock show. It was relatively rare that she met people that she’d known in the other timeline. Rare enough that it was always a jolt to see a face, familiar and yet not, looking at her with no knowledge of had happened.
“I’ll be showing you to where you’ll be staying before giving you the general tour,” Coulson told her after a brief pause, long enough for Martha to get the impression that he’d noticed something. She didn’t expect anything less from Phil-from Agent Coulson. She needed to distinguish the two of them in her mind, the one she’d met back then and the one she was meeting now. She learned that lesson with Tom.
Martha could almost laugh at the irony. Even when she was moving forward with her life and starting something new, her past still found ways to sink its hooks into her and try to drag her back.
“Show me the way,” she answered, giving him a smile to hide her thoughts.
The tour proved helpful in distracting Martha from her memories, at least for a short time. Her room appeared massive after her apartment in Manhattan, certainly large enough for the scant possessions she had with her. The campus was relatively small, with most of the official scientific work housed in two of the buildings Martha had seen earlier. The others were offices and staff housing. Martha’s work was below ground, however, and as they descended in a hidden elevator Jack would have envied, Coulson gave her a quick briefing on what she would be working with.
“We call it the Tesseract,” he explained on the elevator ride down. “It was discovered by Hydra during the Second World War before it came into SHIELD’s possession. It wasn’t until recently that we had the capabilities to start researching in earnest, though.”
“For what?”
“Energy, Dr. Jones. Unfortunately, all of Hydra’s notes and equipment for tapping into the Tesseract were destroyed after the war, so we’ve had to start from scratch. That’s where Dr. Selvig and his team come in.”
Martha followed Coulson down a series of steps, pondering what he had and hadn’t told her. Based on the readings that Fury had given her weeks ago, there certainly was potential for this “Tesseract” to be used as a new energy source, but there was more to that she was sure. Despite attempts to wean the United States from foreign energy sources, there had to be another reason why an organization such as SHIELD was involved. She just wasn’t sure what it was yet.
The high ceilinged concrete room bustled with roughly a dozen scientists, some clustered around computers while others peered at numbers scribbled across boards. An older white man detached himself from the group to greet Martha and Coulson.
“Dr. Jones, I presume?” he asked. “Sent to make sure that the Tesseract doesn’t turn us into radioactive monsters?”
“Something like that,” she replied with a small smile. Coulson vanished while Selvig briefed her on the project and introduced her to the team. She filed away their names and memorized their faces for future reference.
Old habits died hard, and she was scanning the room in between meeting the other scientists for potential escape routes when she spied movement on a catwalk high above where they were standing.
“Who’s that?” she asked Selvig once the crowd had subsided. He followed her gaze and gave a grunt.
“Fury’s pet jackbooted thug,” he answered gruffly. “The Hawk. He’s here to make sure that this project isn’t compromised.”
“I’m touched he has such faith in our discretion,” Martha replied with a straight face. She wasn’t surprised by Selvig’s comment. A man like Fury trusted no one.
By the time they had left the lab for dinner in the mess hall, Coulson had reappeared from wherever he’d vanished to. (Her room had a kitchenette, but Martha didn’t know how she was going to buy supplies. Something told her that getting clearance to go into the nearest town to buy food would be a nightmare.) Martha was more prepared this time and she didn’t freeze when he pulled one of his trademark ninja moves to suddenly be walking in step next to them-she had seen Phil manage that particular feat plenty of times before.
After dinner and a quick visit to her laboratory, Martha began unpacking, although there wasn’t much to deal with. Some photos of her family, a few keepsakes she’d picked up through her travels with the Doctor, various odds and ends. It still felt like a luxury to travel with more than a knapsack.
Sitting on the edge of her bed, a mug of tea in her hands, Martha examined her room. It would do. It wasn’t home by a long shot, but it would do for however long she was stationed here. That’s all she could really ask.
~*~*~
Martha stared at the darkened ceiling, hands under her head as she tried to will herself to sleep. She had been at it for the last few hours, but it clearly wasn’t working.
The problem wasn’t the new environment. She’d learned to deal with that long ago. It wasn’t nerves about officially starting her job in the morning. She’d dealt with worse. No, it was just too bloody quiet.
Most people found the constant buzz of cities like London or New York to be unsettling, but to Martha, the never-ending noise was soothing. It was a reminder that everything was right with the world and that the nightmare was over and done with. This quiet, however, was an eerie reminder of her journey. It reminded her too much of the dying earth and nights huddled by herself as she moved from place to place. Even the small sounds of the base did nothing to break the silence’s hold on her.
Growling in frustration, Martha threw back the covers and stalked to her closet. She needed to go for a walk, something to clear her mind and possibly exhaust her body enough so that she could get some rest tonight.
Martha made her way out of the building towards the perimeter of the base. She kept walking, past the last building, past the satellite dishes, out into the moonlit desert. The cool night air nipped at her cheeks, and she was glad she’d had the sense to throw on a jacket before leaving. She was about thirty minutes out when she finally stopped and looked up. Despite everything she’d seen, the sight still managed to take her breath away.
The night sky stretched all around her, thousands of stars twinkling brightly in welcome. With no artificial lights to blot them out, they shone in full force with the waxing moon, giving the night a warm, navy glow. To her left, she spied the white streaks of the arms of the Milky Way and to her right the steady red glow of Mars. The slow movement of a blinking satellite moved across the sky, making its journey around the Earth.
So many stars, so many possible journeys and meetings just waiting to happen. A laugh bubbled in Martha’s throat as she sat down and stared in wonder at the view. It’d been so long since she’d stopped and just looked at the stars and embraced their presence. During that Year, the sky had been too often shrouded in dust from the Master’s factories, or she’d been in hiding or making her way from one camp to another. Afterwards, her city living hadn’t been conducive to stargazing.
She hadn’t realized how much she missed seeing them until now.
Martha most likely would have sat and watched the stars all night, waiting until the moon set and first blush of dawn touched the eastern edges before heading back to base. There was something calming about observing the night sky. It put her at ease and allowed her to forget, at least for a short while, all that was branded into her memory. But, like most perfect things, it wasn’t meant to last.
Despite almost a year of disuse, the skills she’d picked up had never truly faded. A slight scuff on the dirt behind her to the right was all the warning she needed to know that somebody had followed her. Heart pounding, she resisted the urge to try to blend into the landscape and instead slowly turned around to face whoever had followed her. One, she didn’t have the perception filter on her anyway. Two, it was doubtful her tail was actively trying to hunt down and capture her to bring before the Master.
“You do know you aren’t supposed to leave the base without permission, Dr. Jones?” The speaker was male, dressed in what Martha was starting to assume was standard dark clothing for SHIELD operatives. His face, while not classically handsome, was still attractive in a rugged, lived-in way. Broken noses did add character. The way he stood suggested he was a soldier. How he’d managed to sneak up on her suggested black ops or something similar.
“You seem to be at the advantage with knowing my name,” Martha said, keeping her posture relaxed and purposefully not responding to his statement. She wanted to know who she was dealing with first. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
This elicited a raised eyebrow and a step closer from her tail. “Agent Barton,” he answered after a pause. “Or, as Selvig likes to refer to me, ‘Fury’s pet jackbooted thug.’”
“Well, if the shoe fits, Agent Barton...” Martha replied with a glance down to confirm that Barton was, indeed, wearing jackboots.
“Cute. And you still haven’t answered my question.”
“I couldn’t sleep and I thought a walk might clear my mind,” she answered with a shrug, skirting around his original question. While nobody had explicitly said that going off base was prohibited unless permission was given, it was heavily implied.
“Most people find the silence soothing after moving here from New York.”
“Well, I’m not most people.”
He studied her for a moment before glancing back to the base, his intentions all too clear. Part of Martha wanted to sit down and refuse to move, just like her niece was starting to do when anybody tried to make her do something she didn’t want to. As satisfying as that would be, however, Martha settled for brushing off her trousers and starting the walk back.
Neither of them spoke until they reached the edge of the outermost building.
“Thank you for the escort, Agent Barton, but I can find my way back from here,” she told him, tucking her hands into her pocket. He wasn’t overly tall, but she still had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes.
“Of course, Dr. Jones. But next time you feel the urge to take a nighttime stroll, do your best to stay in the perimeter,” he replied, his voice serious but with a glint of humor in his eyes. “We wouldn’t want to lose any scientists out in the desert.”
“Probably not the best outcome,” Martha said with a straight face, agreeing to nothing. “Until tomorrow, Agent Barton.” She walked back to her room, humming “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday” under her breath.
Chapter Two