Stay Here; Fic!
Title: Stay Here*
Rating: Adult; R
Pairing/Fandom(s): Martha Jones/John Crichton; Doctor Who/Farscape
Summary: Martha Jones gets stranded in a whole new world.
A/N: Wow, I don't even remember how to do these set-ups anymore. Anyways, this was initially written as a big bang that didn't get completed. Damn. Anyways, It takes place early in season 1 of Farscape, before PK Tech Girl and about mid-way through season 3 of Doctor Who, before Blink. Farscape has changed slightly as Aeryn did not get sucked into Moya's starburst but rather, Tauvo Crais did. Its insane, I know, just bear with my cracky mind for awhile.
*Title is subject to change to something else when I can actually think.
Martha steps out of the TARDIS and into a darkened room. “Doctor, where are we?” She asks, looking back into the TARDIS. He had promised her a planet with cotton candy pink clouds and tall, tall trees but this looked more like an industrial warehouse from what she could see of it.
“Martha-“ The Doctor starts, turning back to the TARDIS console. “Something isn’t right…” He notices a blinking light on the dash as a loud VWORP begins to sound.
“Doctor?” Martha calls back, frowning as she watches him hit a bunch of buttons. Her eyes widen as she notices that the TARDIS is beginning to dematerialize right before her eyes. “Doctor!” She reaches out for him, racing back to where the TARDIS is.
“Martha! Don’t-“ The Doctor’s words on what Martha shouldn’t do are quickly cut off as the TARDIS disappears completely from view.
“… Doctor?” Martha says softer, walking over to where the ship just stood a moment before. The Tardis is gone.
It’s something she’s having difficulty processing completely. The Tardis is gone.
She can’t believe that the Doctor would just go and leave her stuck here by herself. She turns around, looking and expecting to see the TARDIS rematerializing somewhere behind her but no, still nothing.
Martha takes a deep shuddering breath as she turns slowly in a circle, taking in her surroundings. There is nothing familiar from what she can see, just stacks and stacks of boxes and gold walls.
“Where am I?” She asks softly, wrapping her arms around her body as she began moving forward, investigating further. Just up ahead she can see a curving hallway. She begins to move closer towards it before there is a commotion and a loud roar coming from the end of it. Her eyes widen and she begins to move away from the hallway, running to hide behind a crate.
“Its somewhere in here, right Pilot?” D’argo growls, leading into the room with his Q’alta blade.
“Yes, in the right docking bay,” Pilot replies back over the comms.
Martha’s eyes widen as she hears two voices speaking in languages she can’t identify or understand.
“Where are they?” D’argo growls over to John, looking for the person who is showing up on their scans.
John looks over the boxes, Winona at the ready. “Come out, come out wherever you are,” he calls out, keeping an eye out for any movement.
Martha looks over to where the voice she can understand is coming from. Her hiding spot isn’t going to last long, she’ll be found sooner or later and she might as well go with the person she can actually understand. Raising her hands above her head, she steps out from behind the large crates.
“Don’t shoot!” She says as quickly as she can.
D’argo snarls and trains his Q’alta blade on her and her eyes widen, hands going up higher. “I come in peace!” She adds, unable to take her eyes off of the man in front of her. He’s large and red and tentacled and doesn’t look like someone Martha would ever want to cross.
“Come in peace?” She says again, hoping he understands her but the man in front of her just growls again and moves closer. She squeaks and looks around for the person that she could understand.
“Woah, woah,” John says, coming over to D’argo. He still has Winona trained on the intruder but he’s not feeling quite as concerned; she hardly seems like she’s about to do anything dangerous. “She said she came in peace buddy.” John puts his hand on D’argo’s arm and gives the girl in front of them a small smile.
“Come in peace huh? We get that a lot around here. How do we know you are?” John asks, looking her over.
“Uh,” Martha deadpans, not quite sure how to respond to that. “I don’t have any weapons?” She offers with a shrug.
John nods slowly before slipping Winona back into his holster before stepping up and placing his hands on Martha’s waist. He begins to pat her down, taking time to check for any sort of weaponry. D’argo stands behind him, Q’alta blade at the ready and focused on her.
“Oi, careful!” Martha says, stepping back when John begins to run his hands up and down her legs. “I don’t have anything there, I think you can tell that.”
John, however, is frowning, staring down at her legs. “Those look like denim,” he says, cocking his head to the side.
“Uh, yeah. Pair of jeans, mate,” Martha replies, looking at John as if he’s slow.
“Where did you get a pair of jeans out here?” John demands, his eyes narrowing as he looks Martha over a bit more critically.
“I didn’t get them out here,” she explains slowly to John, feeling a bit worried as John’s face gets darker as she speaks. “I got them back home.”
John takes a moment, digesting the information before he continues. “Where did you come from? And hey, since we’re on it, why don’t you let us know how you got here.”
“This would be quicker if we could just throw her in a cell,” D’argo growls, glaring at Martha. She blinks and stares at D’argo before stepping back away from him. She can’t understand what it is he is saying to her but she does understand that tone which is quite obviously pissed off.
“Perhaps but then she might not speak at all Big Man and as the little lady said, she doesn’t have any weapons on her.”
“And you’re just going to take her word for it?” Another voice asks as Tauvo walks into the room, his own pulse pistol trained on Martha as well.
Martha’s eyes widen as another person arrives with yet another weapon pointed right at her.
“This isn’t my first rodeo here Tauvo,” John replies, not taking his eyes off of Martha. “I patted her down. She’s good.”
Tauvo grumbles and moves closer to them.
“What is he saying?” Martha finally asks, looking to John, as he is the only one she seems to be able to understand.
“Wait, you don’t get to ask the questions here. You showed up on our ship so you answer my questions first-did you say you can’t understand them?” John cuts himself off, asking. “How can you possibly be traveling in the Uncharted Territories without having translator microbes?” John’s mind boggles as he stares at her.
“Pilot can you get a DRD up here--?” He asks into his comm badge.
“There is one on the way commander,” Pilot replies. A small DRD scuttles around on the ground, making its way over to Martha. Her eyes widen a bit, surprised by what she sees.
“Its like a roomba on steroids,” she mumbles, checking the eyestalks out. She squats to give the device a better look when a needle comes up out of the top of the robot on an arm. “Woah, woah! What is that thing? What are you doing?” Martha asks worriedly. She stands and begins to move away from the DRD as quickly as she can.
“No, its cool. Translator microbes. I got them when I first got here. How you don’t have them already I don’t know.”
“You’re not stabbing me with an unknown needle full of unknown substances!” She mutters, glaring at the three of them.
“Oh come on,” Tauvo groans, shooting at the floor by Martha’s feet. “She’s as bad as you bloody human are.”
“Hey, hey! Don’t shoot her!” John shouts, training his pulse pistol on Tauvo for a moment before back to Martha. Tauvo rolls his eyes as she was never really in danger. In the confusion, the DRD moves forward and pricks the back of Martha’s ankle, injecting her with microbes.
“Wha-ow!” She cries out, reaching down to rub her ankle as the machine moves back and shuffles off.
“Now, you feel like answering some questions?” John asks, looking at Martha a bit softer. He remembers when he had first arrived here on Moya and had a hell of a time understanding anyone and anything.
“Not after you just stabbed me! What was in that?” Martha repeats.
“Translator microbes, like he said,” Tauvo mutters, rolling his eyes again. Martha blinks and cocks her head as she realizes that yes; she actually can understand what it is he is saying. “So you were saying about your whereabouts and how you got on our ship?” He reminds her.
“Oh. Um,” Martha stutters, looking back and forth between the three men. She’s feeling a bit woozy but she reaches out to steady herself on a box. “I came here with The Doctor,” she starts, making herself focus on her words as the edges of her vision start to get a bit blurry. “And he landed here and then there was trouble and-“ She breaks off, staggering slightly. “And then he vworped and I was here and-“ She breaks off again as she swooned and began to fall over.
“Woah!” John reaches out grabs her, catching her in his arms as she falls over. “Well, I guess we’re going to have to wait to get the rest out of her.”
Tauvo shakes his head and holsters his pistol. “Her constitution is worse than your own,” he mutters. “Take her to a cell, I’m going to check for this Doctor that she mentioned.” He walks off, beginning the search of the bay for anyone or anything else.
John looks over at D’argo over Martha’s prone form. “Cell?” He repeats, not really feeling as if that would be necessary. D’argo growls and jerks his head towards the door and John complies, following him with Martha’s body.
*
John sits down in the cell next to Martha’s body, a cell phone in his hand. He takes a moment to just enjoy how that phrase sounds to his mind: cell phone. Not communicator or hyperlink or tele-whatever thingy that they have out here and use as a communicating device but an actual honest to freaking-god cell phone.
He turns it back over in his hand before sitting it down next to Martha’s sleeping body.
His eyes roam back over her body, looking for any sort of tell-tale signs that might be able to confirm for him what he already suspects: that she’s from Earth. The cell phone, the denim, the unmistakably British accent, it all just seems too obvious to be anything else. But still, he supposes stranger things have happened out here in the Uncharted Territories and he’s not going to take his chances.
Martha groans slowly as she sits up, her head pounding and her throat dry. “Doctor? What happened?” She asks, her own voice raspy as she speaks.
“Careful there. You took quite a swan dive in the cargo bay, damn near nine-pointer,” John says quietly, reaching over to help her sit up.
Martha frowns; not immediately placing the voice, just knowing it wasn’t The Doctor. “Who’re-“ She starts to ask before recognition dawns. “Oh, that’s right. You’re the one that held me at gunpoint and shot me full of whatever was in that needle.”
“Hey, just doing my job,” John defends, holding his hands up as if to say it’s not his fault.
Martha purses her lips but looks over at him, finally getting a good look at him once she’s not too busy staring at big and red and tentacled and three different forms of guns, all pointed right at her.
“So. Translator microbes, huh?” She asks, turning slightly so she can stand. “Sorta explains how I couldn’t understand the other guys before anyways.” She stands and begins to move, walking around so she can clear her head.
“Still haven’t explained how you were traveling around out here without the microbes. Or really how you got on our ship in the first place,” John reminds her. He crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in his chair, giving her a helpful and friendly smile.
Martha walks over to the bars blocking the rooms exit, running her finger over them. “Am I in jail?” She asks him, turning to look back at him.
“That depends,” he responds simply.
“On?”
“On whether or not you plan to ever answer any of our questions,” he answers with a brilliant grin.
“Ah.” Martha turns away from the bars, nodding slowly to herself. She moves back over to where John is sitting and slides back onto the couch-like looking thing next to him. “Well, I didn’t have translator microbes because I’m not from around here,” she explains to John.
Inside, John can feel his own excitement growing.
“And well, everywhere else we went the TARDIS translated everything I needed anyways so it wasn’t something I really had to worry about.” She sighs and relaxes further against the couch, looking at the interesting coloured walls around her. “As for how I got here, that one is a bit more complicated.”
“Why don’t you try me,” John challenges. “You’d be surprised what I can understand. I’m not just all beauty, no brains you know; I got some stuff rattling around in this noggin of mine.”
“I wasn’t trying to say you didn’t, or couldn’t understand-“ Martha begins, feeling flustered as she tries to apologise to John before cutting herself off when she sees the huge shite eating grin on his face. She rolls her eyes but can’t help but chuckle softly.
“As I was saying,” she continues. “It’s complicated and I don’t even really understand how to explain it all but… I came here with The Doctor. He has this ship, its called the TARDIS-“
“You’ve mentioned that a few times,” John interjects.
“Yeah, it’s the ship I was traveling on before I came here. Its this big… blue box thing-“
“It’s a box?”
“Well no, its not really a box, it just looks like a police box. Its bigger on the inside-“
“Bigger on the inside? Than what?”
“Than it’s outside,” Martha explains patiently. “I don’t know how but that’s not the important part. The thing is it can travel through space and it landed here inside this ship.”
John blinks and has to take a moment. “So. You traveled through space with a man called “The Doctor”,” he says, utilizing his air quotes. “Inside a large blue box?”
Martha pauses to think it over before she nods in agreement. “Basically, yes.”
“And they say I’m fahrbot,” John mutters, having to stand up to process the information that Martha’s given him that makes no sense to him whatsoever.
“You’re from Earth aren’t you?” John finally asks, turning to look hopefully at her.
“Well, yeah. Where else would I be from?” Martha responds before shouting out, startled as John grabs her and pulls her into a huge hug.
“Oh man, it’s so good to see a fellow earthling-even if you are a Brit, no offense of course but these people out here they don’t know the Stooges or chocolate and man, no one is understanding anything I talk about and damn-“ He cuts himself off and finally lets Martha go before rambling on.
She wobbles a bit on her feet, looking at him curiously as she reaches a hand out to steady herself on the couch.
“So you’re from Earth then? When?” She asks him, curious to know more about where and more specifically, when, The Doctor seems to have deposited her.
“Er, when?” John repeats, confused by her question. “I guess, well, I left not too long ago and I guess it was sometime around May...” He begins, trying to think it through.
“No, I mean what year did you leave?” She clarifies for him.
“Oh. Uh, 1999. Why? Is it not 1999 anymore? I had a theory on time dilation for how time would travel differently on different galaxies depending on how close and how far you were from the original access point.”
“Um, no, that’s not it,” Martha said, shaking her head. “When I left it was 2007,” she told him quietly.
“Wait, what??”
“Well, it was the year 2007 and I left sometime in April…”
“You arrived here a few weekens after I do and it’s been a full 8 years since I left?” John demands, his voice rising higher as he speaks. He’s growing more agitated as he realizes that even if he does find a way to get back home to Earth, if it isn’t anytime soon he could go back and everyone he knows will be gone.
Martha frowns and shakes her head again, trying to think of the best way to explain it to him. “Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that,” she starts. “The TARDIS works a bit like a time machine.”
“A bit like? How much is a bit like?” John asks, eyebrows raising as he stares at her. He hasn’t decided if he’s believing this part of the story yet but he has to give her points for interesting.
“Okay, its exactly like then.”
“Right. So you got here, from Earth, with a Doctor in a large blue box that is bigger on the inside and oh, by the way, travels through time.” John stands up and runs a hand through his hair, trying to wrap his mind around all of that.
“So, I take it you’re not going to tell us how you actually got here?” He finally asks, turning back to look at her and grinning.
*
John leans his body against the side of Pilot's throne as the others discuss their new travel companion.
"We shouldn't trust her," Rygel decrees imperially, looking at all of them in turn.
"We should not be so quick to judge another," Zahn reminds them.
Tauvo snorts and shakes his head. "She showed up here without any of us knowing about it. She's already admitted she has a partner that has disappeared along with their means of transport. And, according to Crichton, she blatantly lied about how she got here. We should space her now an save us aggravation later."
"You've not found her ship at all?" Zahn asks, looking surprised. Tauvo glares back at her an scowls.
"We have not scoured the entire ship," he replies coldly.
"However, the unique energy signature Moya saw with her arrival has not been observed since," Pilot informs them.
John watches the others arguing, his thumb running over his bottom lip as his mind was busy thinking. He had kept the fact that Martha might be from Earth to himself. It was something he wanted to verify without help from the others. He didn't quite trust them yet, especially Tauvo.
*
Once she is finally alone, Martha begins to realize the implications of the Doctor actually leaving her here on an unknown space ship in the middle of an unknown galaxy without any method of communication or alerting him.
"He'll be back for me," she says quietly to herself as she paces her cell. "After everything he'd never leave me here." She knows the TARDIS malfunction was a fluke, something that he hadn't predicted-- couldn't have predicted-- but still, stuck so far from home with no way of getting home has a way of demoalising a girl no matter how she got there.
Sighing, she plops herself down on the couch-ish like thing to think and wait for whenever her captors will let her out, when something small and pointy pokes into her thigh.
"What...?" She reaches into her pocket to pull out a thin cylinder that looks a lot like the Doctor's sonic screwdriver. Its thin and silver with knobs up and down the shaft. At the top is a small blue light that's currently turned off. Frowning she presses one of the buttons and jumps when she feels it go off in her hand, vibrating all over and the top lighting up.
She almost drops the thing but manages to hold on to it. Looking up Martha notices the jail doors that are currently locking her in. A smile slowly spreads across her face as a plan begins to take form: she's busting out of there.
*
"She's not done anything to warrant being thrown in jail," Zahn debates. "Done nothing hostile."
"Except landing in the middle of our ship!" Rygel interjects.
"But we do not know why she did. Has anyone asked?" Zahn continues.
"Could she be believed?" Rygel continues.
"It seems--" Pilot begins to say, Tauvo cutting him off.
"Can a person showing up in someone else's ship unannounced and uninvited be anything but hostile?" Tauvo argues back.
"Yes and--" Pilot tries again.
"Look," John speaks up, pushing off Pilots throne. "I spoke with her, she's as batty as a home run derby full of Sammy Sosa's but she's not violent."
He looks at each one of them slowly before continuing. "And I showed up here accidentally, it's not insane to think it might not have been some crazy plan to end up here with Rygels smelly butt."
"So what are you saying John?" D'argo asks.
"We should let her out of jail," John says with a firm nod.
"I'm afraid that will be impossible commander," Pilot informs them.
"What? Why?" John demands, everyone quickly becoming alarmed.
"It seems our new friend has already left her cell," Pilot explains.
"Why didn't you say anything Pilot?" D'argo growls, demanding.
"I did try to tell you all," he says simply. “But you all insisted on speaking over me. As I was going to say, it seems Ms. Jones has found a way to let herself out of her jail cell. The DRD’s say that they do not see her inside.”
“Well, tell them to find her!” Rygel demands, his throne chair rising up higher as he speaks to Pilot.
“I would but it seems there is another pressing matter-“ Pilot continues.
“What else is it Pilot?” D’argo growls. He is already feeling annoyed at everything else that is going badly today.
“It seems there is a Peacekeeper convoy that has spotted us. They will be landing in the docking bay in 400 microts.”
“Frell,” Tauvo groans, grabbing his pulse pistol and spinning to run out Pilot’s den. “D’argo, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you come with me, a Peacekeeper convoy is not something we want to be messing with. And Crichton? You and Zahn find our missing prisoner and you’d better hope its before the convoy finds her.”
He runs out of the room, D’argo hot on his heels, his qualt’a blade already drawn.
“Come on bluey, looks like its oyu and me now,” John says, moving up off of Pilot’s throne to lead them out.
“What about me?” Rygel insists, looking at John plaintively.
“You… Stay back here. Give the orders Sparky, stay in command,” John replies, winking at Rygel before he slips out into the hallway.
Rating: Adult; R
Pairing/Fandom(s): Martha Jones/John Crichton; Doctor Who/Farscape
Summary: Martha Jones gets stranded in a whole new world.
A/N: Wow, I don't even remember how to do these set-ups anymore. Anyways, this was initially written as a big bang that didn't get completed. Damn. Anyways, It takes place early in season 1 of Farscape, before PK Tech Girl and about mid-way through season 3 of Doctor Who, before Blink. Farscape has changed slightly as Aeryn did not get sucked into Moya's starburst but rather, Tauvo Crais did. Its insane, I know, just bear with my cracky mind for awhile.
*Title is subject to change to something else when I can actually think.
Martha steps out of the TARDIS and into a darkened room. “Doctor, where are we?” She asks, looking back into the TARDIS. He had promised her a planet with cotton candy pink clouds and tall, tall trees but this looked more like an industrial warehouse from what she could see of it.
“Martha-“ The Doctor starts, turning back to the TARDIS console. “Something isn’t right…” He notices a blinking light on the dash as a loud VWORP begins to sound.
“Doctor?” Martha calls back, frowning as she watches him hit a bunch of buttons. Her eyes widen as she notices that the TARDIS is beginning to dematerialize right before her eyes. “Doctor!” She reaches out for him, racing back to where the TARDIS is.
“Martha! Don’t-“ The Doctor’s words on what Martha shouldn’t do are quickly cut off as the TARDIS disappears completely from view.
“… Doctor?” Martha says softer, walking over to where the ship just stood a moment before. The Tardis is gone.
It’s something she’s having difficulty processing completely. The Tardis is gone.
She can’t believe that the Doctor would just go and leave her stuck here by herself. She turns around, looking and expecting to see the TARDIS rematerializing somewhere behind her but no, still nothing.
Martha takes a deep shuddering breath as she turns slowly in a circle, taking in her surroundings. There is nothing familiar from what she can see, just stacks and stacks of boxes and gold walls.
“Where am I?” She asks softly, wrapping her arms around her body as she began moving forward, investigating further. Just up ahead she can see a curving hallway. She begins to move closer towards it before there is a commotion and a loud roar coming from the end of it. Her eyes widen and she begins to move away from the hallway, running to hide behind a crate.
“Its somewhere in here, right Pilot?” D’argo growls, leading into the room with his Q’alta blade.
“Yes, in the right docking bay,” Pilot replies back over the comms.
Martha’s eyes widen as she hears two voices speaking in languages she can’t identify or understand.
“Where are they?” D’argo growls over to John, looking for the person who is showing up on their scans.
John looks over the boxes, Winona at the ready. “Come out, come out wherever you are,” he calls out, keeping an eye out for any movement.
Martha looks over to where the voice she can understand is coming from. Her hiding spot isn’t going to last long, she’ll be found sooner or later and she might as well go with the person she can actually understand. Raising her hands above her head, she steps out from behind the large crates.
“Don’t shoot!” She says as quickly as she can.
D’argo snarls and trains his Q’alta blade on her and her eyes widen, hands going up higher. “I come in peace!” She adds, unable to take her eyes off of the man in front of her. He’s large and red and tentacled and doesn’t look like someone Martha would ever want to cross.
“Come in peace?” She says again, hoping he understands her but the man in front of her just growls again and moves closer. She squeaks and looks around for the person that she could understand.
“Woah, woah,” John says, coming over to D’argo. He still has Winona trained on the intruder but he’s not feeling quite as concerned; she hardly seems like she’s about to do anything dangerous. “She said she came in peace buddy.” John puts his hand on D’argo’s arm and gives the girl in front of them a small smile.
“Come in peace huh? We get that a lot around here. How do we know you are?” John asks, looking her over.
“Uh,” Martha deadpans, not quite sure how to respond to that. “I don’t have any weapons?” She offers with a shrug.
John nods slowly before slipping Winona back into his holster before stepping up and placing his hands on Martha’s waist. He begins to pat her down, taking time to check for any sort of weaponry. D’argo stands behind him, Q’alta blade at the ready and focused on her.
“Oi, careful!” Martha says, stepping back when John begins to run his hands up and down her legs. “I don’t have anything there, I think you can tell that.”
John, however, is frowning, staring down at her legs. “Those look like denim,” he says, cocking his head to the side.
“Uh, yeah. Pair of jeans, mate,” Martha replies, looking at John as if he’s slow.
“Where did you get a pair of jeans out here?” John demands, his eyes narrowing as he looks Martha over a bit more critically.
“I didn’t get them out here,” she explains slowly to John, feeling a bit worried as John’s face gets darker as she speaks. “I got them back home.”
John takes a moment, digesting the information before he continues. “Where did you come from? And hey, since we’re on it, why don’t you let us know how you got here.”
“This would be quicker if we could just throw her in a cell,” D’argo growls, glaring at Martha. She blinks and stares at D’argo before stepping back away from him. She can’t understand what it is he is saying to her but she does understand that tone which is quite obviously pissed off.
“Perhaps but then she might not speak at all Big Man and as the little lady said, she doesn’t have any weapons on her.”
“And you’re just going to take her word for it?” Another voice asks as Tauvo walks into the room, his own pulse pistol trained on Martha as well.
Martha’s eyes widen as another person arrives with yet another weapon pointed right at her.
“This isn’t my first rodeo here Tauvo,” John replies, not taking his eyes off of Martha. “I patted her down. She’s good.”
Tauvo grumbles and moves closer to them.
“What is he saying?” Martha finally asks, looking to John, as he is the only one she seems to be able to understand.
“Wait, you don’t get to ask the questions here. You showed up on our ship so you answer my questions first-did you say you can’t understand them?” John cuts himself off, asking. “How can you possibly be traveling in the Uncharted Territories without having translator microbes?” John’s mind boggles as he stares at her.
“Pilot can you get a DRD up here--?” He asks into his comm badge.
“There is one on the way commander,” Pilot replies. A small DRD scuttles around on the ground, making its way over to Martha. Her eyes widen a bit, surprised by what she sees.
“Its like a roomba on steroids,” she mumbles, checking the eyestalks out. She squats to give the device a better look when a needle comes up out of the top of the robot on an arm. “Woah, woah! What is that thing? What are you doing?” Martha asks worriedly. She stands and begins to move away from the DRD as quickly as she can.
“No, its cool. Translator microbes. I got them when I first got here. How you don’t have them already I don’t know.”
“You’re not stabbing me with an unknown needle full of unknown substances!” She mutters, glaring at the three of them.
“Oh come on,” Tauvo groans, shooting at the floor by Martha’s feet. “She’s as bad as you bloody human are.”
“Hey, hey! Don’t shoot her!” John shouts, training his pulse pistol on Tauvo for a moment before back to Martha. Tauvo rolls his eyes as she was never really in danger. In the confusion, the DRD moves forward and pricks the back of Martha’s ankle, injecting her with microbes.
“Wha-ow!” She cries out, reaching down to rub her ankle as the machine moves back and shuffles off.
“Now, you feel like answering some questions?” John asks, looking at Martha a bit softer. He remembers when he had first arrived here on Moya and had a hell of a time understanding anyone and anything.
“Not after you just stabbed me! What was in that?” Martha repeats.
“Translator microbes, like he said,” Tauvo mutters, rolling his eyes again. Martha blinks and cocks her head as she realizes that yes; she actually can understand what it is he is saying. “So you were saying about your whereabouts and how you got on our ship?” He reminds her.
“Oh. Um,” Martha stutters, looking back and forth between the three men. She’s feeling a bit woozy but she reaches out to steady herself on a box. “I came here with The Doctor,” she starts, making herself focus on her words as the edges of her vision start to get a bit blurry. “And he landed here and then there was trouble and-“ She breaks off, staggering slightly. “And then he vworped and I was here and-“ She breaks off again as she swooned and began to fall over.
“Woah!” John reaches out grabs her, catching her in his arms as she falls over. “Well, I guess we’re going to have to wait to get the rest out of her.”
Tauvo shakes his head and holsters his pistol. “Her constitution is worse than your own,” he mutters. “Take her to a cell, I’m going to check for this Doctor that she mentioned.” He walks off, beginning the search of the bay for anyone or anything else.
John looks over at D’argo over Martha’s prone form. “Cell?” He repeats, not really feeling as if that would be necessary. D’argo growls and jerks his head towards the door and John complies, following him with Martha’s body.
*
John sits down in the cell next to Martha’s body, a cell phone in his hand. He takes a moment to just enjoy how that phrase sounds to his mind: cell phone. Not communicator or hyperlink or tele-whatever thingy that they have out here and use as a communicating device but an actual honest to freaking-god cell phone.
He turns it back over in his hand before sitting it down next to Martha’s sleeping body.
His eyes roam back over her body, looking for any sort of tell-tale signs that might be able to confirm for him what he already suspects: that she’s from Earth. The cell phone, the denim, the unmistakably British accent, it all just seems too obvious to be anything else. But still, he supposes stranger things have happened out here in the Uncharted Territories and he’s not going to take his chances.
Martha groans slowly as she sits up, her head pounding and her throat dry. “Doctor? What happened?” She asks, her own voice raspy as she speaks.
“Careful there. You took quite a swan dive in the cargo bay, damn near nine-pointer,” John says quietly, reaching over to help her sit up.
Martha frowns; not immediately placing the voice, just knowing it wasn’t The Doctor. “Who’re-“ She starts to ask before recognition dawns. “Oh, that’s right. You’re the one that held me at gunpoint and shot me full of whatever was in that needle.”
“Hey, just doing my job,” John defends, holding his hands up as if to say it’s not his fault.
Martha purses her lips but looks over at him, finally getting a good look at him once she’s not too busy staring at big and red and tentacled and three different forms of guns, all pointed right at her.
“So. Translator microbes, huh?” She asks, turning slightly so she can stand. “Sorta explains how I couldn’t understand the other guys before anyways.” She stands and begins to move, walking around so she can clear her head.
“Still haven’t explained how you were traveling around out here without the microbes. Or really how you got on our ship in the first place,” John reminds her. He crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in his chair, giving her a helpful and friendly smile.
Martha walks over to the bars blocking the rooms exit, running her finger over them. “Am I in jail?” She asks him, turning to look back at him.
“That depends,” he responds simply.
“On?”
“On whether or not you plan to ever answer any of our questions,” he answers with a brilliant grin.
“Ah.” Martha turns away from the bars, nodding slowly to herself. She moves back over to where John is sitting and slides back onto the couch-like looking thing next to him. “Well, I didn’t have translator microbes because I’m not from around here,” she explains to John.
Inside, John can feel his own excitement growing.
“And well, everywhere else we went the TARDIS translated everything I needed anyways so it wasn’t something I really had to worry about.” She sighs and relaxes further against the couch, looking at the interesting coloured walls around her. “As for how I got here, that one is a bit more complicated.”
“Why don’t you try me,” John challenges. “You’d be surprised what I can understand. I’m not just all beauty, no brains you know; I got some stuff rattling around in this noggin of mine.”
“I wasn’t trying to say you didn’t, or couldn’t understand-“ Martha begins, feeling flustered as she tries to apologise to John before cutting herself off when she sees the huge shite eating grin on his face. She rolls her eyes but can’t help but chuckle softly.
“As I was saying,” she continues. “It’s complicated and I don’t even really understand how to explain it all but… I came here with The Doctor. He has this ship, its called the TARDIS-“
“You’ve mentioned that a few times,” John interjects.
“Yeah, it’s the ship I was traveling on before I came here. Its this big… blue box thing-“
“It’s a box?”
“Well no, its not really a box, it just looks like a police box. Its bigger on the inside-“
“Bigger on the inside? Than what?”
“Than it’s outside,” Martha explains patiently. “I don’t know how but that’s not the important part. The thing is it can travel through space and it landed here inside this ship.”
John blinks and has to take a moment. “So. You traveled through space with a man called “The Doctor”,” he says, utilizing his air quotes. “Inside a large blue box?”
Martha pauses to think it over before she nods in agreement. “Basically, yes.”
“And they say I’m fahrbot,” John mutters, having to stand up to process the information that Martha’s given him that makes no sense to him whatsoever.
“You’re from Earth aren’t you?” John finally asks, turning to look hopefully at her.
“Well, yeah. Where else would I be from?” Martha responds before shouting out, startled as John grabs her and pulls her into a huge hug.
“Oh man, it’s so good to see a fellow earthling-even if you are a Brit, no offense of course but these people out here they don’t know the Stooges or chocolate and man, no one is understanding anything I talk about and damn-“ He cuts himself off and finally lets Martha go before rambling on.
She wobbles a bit on her feet, looking at him curiously as she reaches a hand out to steady herself on the couch.
“So you’re from Earth then? When?” She asks him, curious to know more about where and more specifically, when, The Doctor seems to have deposited her.
“Er, when?” John repeats, confused by her question. “I guess, well, I left not too long ago and I guess it was sometime around May...” He begins, trying to think it through.
“No, I mean what year did you leave?” She clarifies for him.
“Oh. Uh, 1999. Why? Is it not 1999 anymore? I had a theory on time dilation for how time would travel differently on different galaxies depending on how close and how far you were from the original access point.”
“Um, no, that’s not it,” Martha said, shaking her head. “When I left it was 2007,” she told him quietly.
“Wait, what??”
“Well, it was the year 2007 and I left sometime in April…”
“You arrived here a few weekens after I do and it’s been a full 8 years since I left?” John demands, his voice rising higher as he speaks. He’s growing more agitated as he realizes that even if he does find a way to get back home to Earth, if it isn’t anytime soon he could go back and everyone he knows will be gone.
Martha frowns and shakes her head again, trying to think of the best way to explain it to him. “Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that,” she starts. “The TARDIS works a bit like a time machine.”
“A bit like? How much is a bit like?” John asks, eyebrows raising as he stares at her. He hasn’t decided if he’s believing this part of the story yet but he has to give her points for interesting.
“Okay, its exactly like then.”
“Right. So you got here, from Earth, with a Doctor in a large blue box that is bigger on the inside and oh, by the way, travels through time.” John stands up and runs a hand through his hair, trying to wrap his mind around all of that.
“So, I take it you’re not going to tell us how you actually got here?” He finally asks, turning back to look at her and grinning.
*
John leans his body against the side of Pilot's throne as the others discuss their new travel companion.
"We shouldn't trust her," Rygel decrees imperially, looking at all of them in turn.
"We should not be so quick to judge another," Zahn reminds them.
Tauvo snorts and shakes his head. "She showed up here without any of us knowing about it. She's already admitted she has a partner that has disappeared along with their means of transport. And, according to Crichton, she blatantly lied about how she got here. We should space her now an save us aggravation later."
"You've not found her ship at all?" Zahn asks, looking surprised. Tauvo glares back at her an scowls.
"We have not scoured the entire ship," he replies coldly.
"However, the unique energy signature Moya saw with her arrival has not been observed since," Pilot informs them.
John watches the others arguing, his thumb running over his bottom lip as his mind was busy thinking. He had kept the fact that Martha might be from Earth to himself. It was something he wanted to verify without help from the others. He didn't quite trust them yet, especially Tauvo.
*
Once she is finally alone, Martha begins to realize the implications of the Doctor actually leaving her here on an unknown space ship in the middle of an unknown galaxy without any method of communication or alerting him.
"He'll be back for me," she says quietly to herself as she paces her cell. "After everything he'd never leave me here." She knows the TARDIS malfunction was a fluke, something that he hadn't predicted-- couldn't have predicted-- but still, stuck so far from home with no way of getting home has a way of demoalising a girl no matter how she got there.
Sighing, she plops herself down on the couch-ish like thing to think and wait for whenever her captors will let her out, when something small and pointy pokes into her thigh.
"What...?" She reaches into her pocket to pull out a thin cylinder that looks a lot like the Doctor's sonic screwdriver. Its thin and silver with knobs up and down the shaft. At the top is a small blue light that's currently turned off. Frowning she presses one of the buttons and jumps when she feels it go off in her hand, vibrating all over and the top lighting up.
She almost drops the thing but manages to hold on to it. Looking up Martha notices the jail doors that are currently locking her in. A smile slowly spreads across her face as a plan begins to take form: she's busting out of there.
*
"She's not done anything to warrant being thrown in jail," Zahn debates. "Done nothing hostile."
"Except landing in the middle of our ship!" Rygel interjects.
"But we do not know why she did. Has anyone asked?" Zahn continues.
"Could she be believed?" Rygel continues.
"It seems--" Pilot begins to say, Tauvo cutting him off.
"Can a person showing up in someone else's ship unannounced and uninvited be anything but hostile?" Tauvo argues back.
"Yes and--" Pilot tries again.
"Look," John speaks up, pushing off Pilots throne. "I spoke with her, she's as batty as a home run derby full of Sammy Sosa's but she's not violent."
He looks at each one of them slowly before continuing. "And I showed up here accidentally, it's not insane to think it might not have been some crazy plan to end up here with Rygels smelly butt."
"So what are you saying John?" D'argo asks.
"We should let her out of jail," John says with a firm nod.
"I'm afraid that will be impossible commander," Pilot informs them.
"What? Why?" John demands, everyone quickly becoming alarmed.
"It seems our new friend has already left her cell," Pilot explains.
"Why didn't you say anything Pilot?" D'argo growls, demanding.
"I did try to tell you all," he says simply. “But you all insisted on speaking over me. As I was going to say, it seems Ms. Jones has found a way to let herself out of her jail cell. The DRD’s say that they do not see her inside.”
“Well, tell them to find her!” Rygel demands, his throne chair rising up higher as he speaks to Pilot.
“I would but it seems there is another pressing matter-“ Pilot continues.
“What else is it Pilot?” D’argo growls. He is already feeling annoyed at everything else that is going badly today.
“It seems there is a Peacekeeper convoy that has spotted us. They will be landing in the docking bay in 400 microts.”
“Frell,” Tauvo groans, grabbing his pulse pistol and spinning to run out Pilot’s den. “D’argo, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you come with me, a Peacekeeper convoy is not something we want to be messing with. And Crichton? You and Zahn find our missing prisoner and you’d better hope its before the convoy finds her.”
He runs out of the room, D’argo hot on his heels, his qualt’a blade already drawn.
“Come on bluey, looks like its oyu and me now,” John says, moving up off of Pilot’s throne to lead them out.
“What about me?” Rygel insists, looking at John plaintively.
“You… Stay back here. Give the orders Sparky, stay in command,” John replies, winking at Rygel before he slips out into the hallway.