Interdependent - Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Martha Jones-Smith sighed, leaning her forehead into her hand. A headache was threatening right behind her eyes, and she knew it would be full-blown in no time at all.
She could feel Mickey’s eyes on her. Her husband wasn’t as stressed as she was; but then, he didn’t know the man in the grainy photo taken from security footage from a camera in the secure UNIT holding facility just outside London. Not like she did.
She raised her head, looking at the picture once more. Her eyes stared at the image; while the hair was longer and obviously unwashed, and the body was thinner, it was very obviously Ianto Jones being escorted by an armed guard, the glint of metal at wrists and waist indicating shackles.
Martha had sworn he was dead. Jack had called her, not long after everything that had happened, and told her that Ianto had died in his arms. Martha had wept; she’d known him from the Year That Never Was, and he’d saved her life once before being captured by the Master and killed. After time had reset, she’d met him again when she’d worked with Torchwood, and they’d gotten on very well. Jack had also told her all about him during their brief time together on the TARDIS, and she’d confided that she’d met him as she’d walked the Earth, and they’d bonded over Ianto in a way they hadn’t done as Companions.
Jack had been distraught when he’d called to break the news, and he’d confessed to Martha Ianto’s last words…and Jack’s inability to say them back.
Seven months…and she was just finding out that Ianto was still alive, somehow, and was being held by UNIT under something called Project: Serpent.
It had been sheer luck that Martha had found out. It had been one of her friends at UNIT who’d accidentally discovered Project: Serpent, and had recognized the almost-unrecognizable form in the security shots. Shreela had been one of the assistants at UNIT New York, who’d survived the Daleks during the Stolen Earth incident, and she’d felt she owned Martha something for what had happened. For the very first time Martha was grateful for that, for her notoriety as having traveled with the Doctor, because Shreela had been at the right place at the right time, and had been one of the very few to see the Thames House footage. It was how she’d known who was in the photo.
She’d also known that Martha had been friends with Torchwood. And, it hadn’t mattered what mud had been tossed around after the 456, Shreela hadn’t believed that Martha would have been friends with anyone who hadn’t deserved it.
And so, Martha had ended up with a copy of the picture, along with the words ‘Project: Serpent’. She hadn’t even asked Shreela how she’d managed to get the evidence out of UNIT HQ.
“Damnit Jack,” she breathed, “you had to leave two weeks before we found out.”
“Captain Cheesecake always had shitty timing,” Mickey said, resting one of his hands on hers.
Of course, the first thing Martha had done was try to find Jack. She’d managed to track Gwen Cooper down, and the former Torchwood operative had given her the bad news: that Jack had left Earth, bowed under the weight of every one of his losses.
Martha hadn’t told Gwen. Perhaps she should have; but the other woman had confided that she was pregnant, and that she and her husband were going into hiding. Only a handful of people were friendly to Torchwood these days, even though it had been UNIT and the government that had been at the heart of the 456 fiasco.
They’d needed a scapegoat. Torchwood had been a convenient one, with no one willing - or able - to defend it.
Martha had tried. But no one had been willing to believe her, even when she’d invoked the Doctor and had revealed that Jack had, as well, been a Companion. The Doctor himself had taken a hit in the reputation, for not showing up when the Earth had needed him, and the cachet of having traveled with him just didn’t pull the weight it once had.
In the end, Martha had had to retreat, and she’d hated to do it. But there’d been no other alternative, unless she’d wanted to risk arrest herself.
But this…this was something else entirely.
“We have to get him out,” she said, her eyes not leaving the photo.
Mickey was quiet, and just as Martha was certain he wasn’t going to say anything, he answered. “You’re right. We don’t know what they’re doing to him, but it can’t be good.”
Not for the first time was Martha glad that she’d met and married Mickey, instead of Tom. She smiled at her husband. “I think you’d like Ianto. He’s a bit quiet, but can kick arse when he wants to.”
Mickey snorted. “Anyone who can keep Jack Harkness in line is okay in my book.”
Despite his words, Martha knew that Mickey really liked Jack, and that this was his way of showing it. Yes, he had - like her - been disappointed at hearing that he’d left the planet, but in a way Martha couldn’t blame Jack for going. She would never understand what it was like to be immortal, but it had to be terrible to keep losing the ones you loved. And staying on Earth would only remind him of his losses.
“We just need to figure out how we’re gonna do it,” Mickey went on. “When you quit UNIT you lost any sort of security clearance that could have gotten us in there.”
“And that’s a secured facility,” Martha pointed out. “I doubt even my clearance would’ve gotten us inside.” She’d hated the idea of the prisons, and it had been one of the many reasons she’d finally quit UNIT. She certainly hoped that the Doctor didn’t know just how bad UNIT had become; she knew he would never have condoned such inhumane treatment.
“I’m going to try to call the Doctor,” she decided, going for her mobile. The Time Lord might be able to use any sort of pull to get Ianto out, but certainly he could come up with some sort of plan…
That was, if he was answering his phone.
Martha said something very unladylike, and left a message.
“Up to us, then,” Mickey said, stating the obvious.
She tossed her mobile onto the table in disgust. “Why is it there’s no one around when you need them?”
“Look,” he said, once again taking her hand. “You and I can come up with something.”
“You have a lot of confidence in our abilities.” Martha felt useless. She couldn’t even save the man who’d saved her own life.
“There has to be a way to get in…” Mickey’s voice trailed away, and he stood, a thoughtful look on his face.
She watched him closely. Mickey might come off as some sort of idiot, but one couldn’t be a fool and lead a parallel Earth’s forces against the Cybermen. Martha could see his mind working, and she waited, tapping her fingernails on the table almost unconsciously.
“What if,” Mickey mused, “we get them to bring Ianto out to us?”
“And how do you propose to do that?” she asked acerbically.
Mickey got a sly grin on his face. “Leave that to me…”
**********
It turned out that a simple prisoner transfer request was all it took.
Of course, it meant Mickey had to hack into UNIT’s systems, and he managed to do it from an internet café just down the street from UNIT’s London Headquarters. Something about generating the order from the same communication node; Martha didn’t really understand it. Give her an alien toxin and she’d know her way around trying to cure it. But computers were a bit beyond her, except for normal, everyday usage. She could pay bills and shop online; but rescuing a friend from prison was something else entirely.
She was able to help him with the actual paperwork, however. Martha still knew enough about who was in charge where in order to make the forms look authentic. She wasn’t at all certain it would work, but it was worth a shot.
They added the order to the system, then tried to figure out the best route in order to waylay whatever would be used to transport Ianto to headquarters, where the paperwork ha d said to bring him under the guise of checking on the status of Project: Serpent, whatever that was. If they’d done anything to him…Martha knew once she’d gotten in touch with a certain ex-Torchwood captain and a certain Time Lord, nothing would stop either of them bringing UNIT down. Hell, the Doctor might anyway, if and when he discovered the truth.
This was the organization he’d been so certain she’d fit well into. He’d been wrong; there was no way she could condone some of UNIT’s practices, especially when it came to her friends.
“This is it,” Mickey murmured, closing the window with their map, and re-opening his check into UNIT proper. He’d done something…he’d tried to explain, finally saying it was like putting a block on the outgoing email from the internment facility, so they’d know if the order was accepted.
From what the screen was saying, it had been.
The response wasn’t very polite, but there was an acknowledgment of the transfer, as well as the time it would be done.
“We have three hours to get ready,” Mickey said, removing all of his footprints in the system, then closing down the laptop he’d used.
“How do you propose we get them to stop for us?”
Mickey smirked. “You still got that little mini number you wore to the pub right after I met you?”
Realization dawned on Martha. “You’re not suggesting…?” She laughed. “That’s so cliché!”
“The clichés work best; after all, that’s why they’re clichés. Besides, you have an arse that’d stop an alien invasion, let alone a military transport.”
“You know, it’s a damned good thing I married you, otherwise I’d have to slap you.”
“Hey, I’m a red-blooded man; I can appreciate a woman’s assets!”
Martha snorted. “You better not be appreciating any other woman but me.”
Mickey stood, wrapping an arm around her. “Appreciation doesn’t cover what you do to me, Martha Jones-Smith.”
“I really think you have been around Jack too much.” She smiled to take away any possible sting to her words, leaning forward and kissing him lightly. Then she pulled away reluctantly. “I need to change, and you need to get your gear ready.”
Mickey sighed. “You’re right.” He gathered up his laptop, and together they left the café, heading back to their flat.
**********
In the end, the whole rescue mission went easily…too easily, to Martha’s mind.
The transport had turned out to be a military-grade Hummer, painted black with heavily-tinted windows. She and Mickey set up in one of the residential areas that the transport would be traveling through, a car that Mickey had conveniently stolen for the rescue parked across the road, Martha hanging off the open bonnet with her rear in the air, the barely-there skirt riding up her thighs and leaving nothing to the imagination.
The Hummer had no choice but to stop, since it was far too large to get around the supposed broken-down vehicle. Once one of the soldiers had gotten out to push the car out of the way, it had taken Martha two seconds to have him unconscious on the ground, the hypodermic syringe with the sedative she’d prepared sticking up from the man’s shoulder.
Mickey, wearing a balaclava and dressed all in black, had come out of hiding to confront the Hummer’s driver, yanking open the passenger door and sticking his rather large blaster into the open vehicle. By the time Martha had joined him, the driver was also unconscious and handcuffed to the steering wheel, and her husband was grabbing the keys from the ignition. “Let’s get our boy, shall we?”
“Shouldn’t there be more soldiers?” Martha asked warily.
“Probably didn’t want to draw too much attention to themselves,” Mickey answered, moving around to the rear compartment. “This thing is armoured enough to withstand most rocket-based weaponry. And I doubt they expected trouble.”
Martha had to admit that made some sense.
She joined her husband as he pulled open the door, revealing an orange-clad form huddled in the back seat. Manacles encircled wrists, waist, and ankles, and a black bag had been pulled over the head. But there was no panic in the man’s movements as he tried to pull himself upright.
Martha clambered up into the back, yanking the bag from the prisoner’s head. Even with the long hair and scraggly beard, she would have known Ianto Jones anywhere. “It’s me,” she soothed him when he pulled away from her a bit.
Was it her imagination, or had Ianto’s eyes flashed?
“Martha?” he asked, blinking rapidly.
“Yeah,” she laughed a little. “We need to get you out of here before the guards wake up.” Mickey passed her the keyring that had been in the ignition, and she flipped through the keys, looking like something that would fit the shackles.
It took a few precious moments, but the cuffs were finally left in the floorboard as she helped Ianto from the Hummer. He was definitely thinner than she’d remembered, and he smelled as if he hadn’t had a bath in about a week, but she couldn’t help but hug him.
Ianto hugged her back, sighing. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she returned. Then she pulled back. “Come on, we need to go.” She took his hand, leading him toward their stolen car. “Oh, this is Mickey,” she introduced her husband. “Mickey…Ianto.”
“Good to finally meet you, mate,” Mickey said, moving around them in order to shut the bonnet and slide behind the steering wheel.
Ianto let Martha push him into the back seat and she climbed in beside Mickey, who took off in a slight bit of tire squeal. She turned in her seat to look at her friend…the friend she’d thought was dead. “What happened?” she asked.
Ianto sighed. “It’s a story I think should wait until Mickey isn’t driving.”
“That sounds ominous.”
He smiled at her slightly, almost apologetically. “How did you know where I was?”
She explained to him about her friend, and how she’d recognized him from both the Thames House footage and from the security video from the UNIT facility.
After she was done, Ianto reached through between the two front seats and clasped her hand. “Thanks again, Martha. You too, Mickey.”
Mickey had removed the balaclava, and grinned. “Any friend of Martha’s and all that. ‘Sides, we couldn’t leave you in UNIT’s hands.”
“Does Jack know?” Ianto asked.
Martha’s heart sank. “No…I’m sorry, Ianto, but Jack’s not on the planet anymore.”
Chapter Three