30 Days with Martha Jones: Spirit
Who_Daily Link: < a href="http://persiflage-1.livejournal.com/192918.html">30 Days with Martha Jones: Spirit by < lj user=persiflage_1> (Characters: Martha Jones, Owen Harper | Rating: G | Spoilers: Torchwood 2.06 - 2.13, Lost Souls)
Title: 30 Days with Martha Jones: Spirit
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Martha Jones, Owen Harper
Rating: G
Spoilers: Torchwood 2.06 - 2.13, Lost Souls BBC radio play
Summary: 30 Days in the life of Martha Jones
Disclaimer: I occasionally wish that I did own it!
Author Notes: I signed up to do mini_nanowrimo this year, and snagged 30 random prompts from doctorwho_100 which will form the basis of the 30 fics I write. Each fic will feature Martha and at least one other Whoniverse character, and the prompt will be included in the title of the fic.
Index Post
~~~~~~
As Martha pored over the data she'd obtained regarding a strange outbreak of unseasonable hayfever in and around Newport, she vaguely wished that she wasn't on her own the Hub: Mickey had gone back to London the evening before, having agreed to join Torchwood on a trial basis; Gwen had gone home to Rhys; and Jack had taken Ianto out for a meal. She refused to completely monopolise Jack while she was visiting so they had an arrangement that he and Ianto would go out for a meal, or to the cinema, or something else perfectly ordinary and normal on at least one of the evenings that she was in Cardiff. Sometimes the two men even went on a double date with Gwen and Rhys while Martha stayed at the Hub to 'mind the shop'. When Jack had protested against this idea, she had insisted that it was important for their mental and emotional health, and that had been the end of the argument since he always deferred to Martha on medical matters.
On the whole she didn't mind being alone in the Hub: she was generally too absorbed in her work to fully register that she was on her own, and she tended to hook up her iPod to a computer to play music while she worked. But this evening it was bothering her a little to know she was alone because she'd woken at three that morning from a very vivid dream about Owen's deaths. She could understand dreaming about his first death, after all she'd been there and he'd stepped in front of her to stop Copley from killing her, saving her life for the second time that evening, but she couldn't understand why she had dreamt of his second death at the Turnmill Nuclear Power Station. It was as if she had been there, in the room with him.
Martha's Cardiff flat just before 3 am
"Yes! Rock and roll!" cried Owen in relief as the fuel was safely channelled into the bunker. His smile faded though when the computers began beeping and he heard Tosh call out.
"Oh no! Owen, get out of there!"
He looked up and then at the dials on the machine as Tosh spoke again. "There's a power surge in the system! When that hits, it'll trigger an emergency lockdown!"
Red lights began flashing and alarms to sound, and only then did he begin to run for the door, which closed before he could reach it.
"No! NO! Tosh! Toshiko! I can't get out! Not like this. Not like this! I'm not going yet. Get me out of here, Tosh! Get me out of here! I've died once, I'm not doing it again! Where's Jack? Where's Gwen, Ianto, John? You want to watch the dead man die again?"
Tosh's voice was breathy when she spoke. "Owen, just stay calm."
"Oh why should I do that? Where's the fun in that? I'm gonna rage my way to oblivion." He began to scream loudly, and Tosh's voice was barely audible as she asked him to stop.
"Why? Give me one good bloody reason why - one good reason why I shouldn't keep screaming," he demanded fear and fury filling his mind.
"Because you're breaking my heart," Tosh answered.
That had stopped Owen's screams, and he'd been calmer as he spoke, saying a final goodbye to Tosh, and apologising for not going on their promised date. Martha had 'heard' Tosh and Owen discussing how he would die, and then their conversation about Tosh covering for him in only his second week with Torchwood. Shortly afterwards her vision had whited out, and she had woken, sweating and shaking with terror.
She scrambled out of bed and rushed to the bathroom where she threw up, just reaching the toilet in time to spare the floor. Then she flushed the toilet, rinsed out her mouth, and fetched her dressing gown before going to the kitchen where she made a cup of tea.
The Hub, 9 pm
Martha straightened up, then stretched her back, rubbing at her aching muscles as she realised she'd been sitting in the same position for the past hour. "Time for a coffee," she muttered to herself as she slipped off her chair and headed up the stairs from what she persisted in thinking of as the Med Bay, although everyone else called it the autopsy area. As she reached the main area of the Hub she thought she heard someone say her name, and she looked around, surprised, but there was no one there. She shook her head, then carried on towards the coffee machine and the kettle, knowing she didn't have the energy to wrestle with Ianto's coffee machine.
As she reached the coffee machine she heard a whisper of sound behind her and turned quickly: there was no one there, but she thought she caught a glimpse of a familiar white coat.
"Jack? If you're messing about and trying to scare me, I'm going to seriously kick your arse for you!"
There was no answer, so she shook her head and turned back to the coffee machine, and the kettle beside it, preparing herself a mug of strong coffee.
"Martha."
She jumped, startled, as someone spoke her name right behind her, but again there was no one there. She stared around the room, beginning to feel a little freaked out now.
"Who's there?" she demanded, loud and strong. "Jack, if you guys are winding me up, I should remind you that as a doctor I have ways and means of making your lives very uncomfortable to pay you back."
"Martha, it's me, Owen." The voice spoke right in front of her and she swallowed hard before speaking.
"Owen's dead. Twice over. And I don't believe in ghosts."
"Neither did I," answered Owen's voice with a slight chuckle.
"You're not here," Martha said firmly turning back to the kettle.
"Then who are you talking to?" His tone was reasonable.
"I'm not talking to you," she snapped. "You're not here."
"Technically, I'm not," Owen agreed, "but you are talking to me."
"What do you want?" she asked evenly, as she remembered the business with the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland a few months ago, and how Ianto had thought he'd heard Owen, Tosh and his girlfriend Lisa; she wondered if this was the same creature.
"I came to thank you for looking after the others for me, and to say goodbye," Owen said.
Martha frowned. This didn't sound like the creature Ianto and Gwen had met in the tunnels at CERN.
"You don't need to thank me," she said gently. "Are you really Owen?"
He chuckled again. "The first time we met, you told me you'd come to finish my post-mortem. You were a bit snippy with me, to be honest, and I wasn't very impressed. But then I discovered how strong you are, like Jack, and how much courage you have. You didn't freak out that much when I came back after Jack used the Resurrection Glove on my corpse. You sewed up my hand for me after I cut it on the scalpel."
"It really is you," she said wonderingly.
"It is. Goodbye Dr Martha Jones. Thank you for everything you've done for Torchwood." She felt the air shift slightly in front of her, and then she knew, without knowing how she knew, that she was alone again.
The next moment she heard Jack's voice and she rushed across the Hub to meet him, tears flowing down her cheeks.
"Martha?" he asked, sounding worried as she wrapped her arms around him. "What is it?"
"Owen," she gasped, "he was here."
"What?" asked Jack, startled.
"His spirit, or ghost, or something," she said, "he came to say goodbye, he said."
Jack pulled back a little and put his hands on her shoulders, looking down at her with his head on one side.
"That's impossible," he said firmly.
"Is it?" she asked, lifting a hand to rub her wet cheeks. "He talked to me, Jack, mentioned things that only we could know about."
He shook his head, not knowing whether to believe her or not. "I think you should probably go home to bed," he said gently.
"Fine," she said wearily, "but I didn't imagine it."
She allowed him to walk her back to the computer workspace where she'd left her coat, and then to take her back to her flat. She knew Jack wasn't convinced and she didn't blame him for being sceptical, but she was too tired to argue about it. She had been awake since 3 am since she hadn't been able to go back to sleep after her dream.
To be continued...
Title: 30 Days with Martha Jones: Spirit
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Martha Jones, Owen Harper
Rating: G
Spoilers: Torchwood 2.06 - 2.13, Lost Souls BBC radio play
Summary: 30 Days in the life of Martha Jones
Disclaimer: I occasionally wish that I did own it!
Author Notes: I signed up to do mini_nanowrimo this year, and snagged 30 random prompts from doctorwho_100 which will form the basis of the 30 fics I write. Each fic will feature Martha and at least one other Whoniverse character, and the prompt will be included in the title of the fic.
Index Post
~~~~~~
As Martha pored over the data she'd obtained regarding a strange outbreak of unseasonable hayfever in and around Newport, she vaguely wished that she wasn't on her own the Hub: Mickey had gone back to London the evening before, having agreed to join Torchwood on a trial basis; Gwen had gone home to Rhys; and Jack had taken Ianto out for a meal. She refused to completely monopolise Jack while she was visiting so they had an arrangement that he and Ianto would go out for a meal, or to the cinema, or something else perfectly ordinary and normal on at least one of the evenings that she was in Cardiff. Sometimes the two men even went on a double date with Gwen and Rhys while Martha stayed at the Hub to 'mind the shop'. When Jack had protested against this idea, she had insisted that it was important for their mental and emotional health, and that had been the end of the argument since he always deferred to Martha on medical matters.
On the whole she didn't mind being alone in the Hub: she was generally too absorbed in her work to fully register that she was on her own, and she tended to hook up her iPod to a computer to play music while she worked. But this evening it was bothering her a little to know she was alone because she'd woken at three that morning from a very vivid dream about Owen's deaths. She could understand dreaming about his first death, after all she'd been there and he'd stepped in front of her to stop Copley from killing her, saving her life for the second time that evening, but she couldn't understand why she had dreamt of his second death at the Turnmill Nuclear Power Station. It was as if she had been there, in the room with him.
Martha's Cardiff flat just before 3 am
"Yes! Rock and roll!" cried Owen in relief as the fuel was safely channelled into the bunker. His smile faded though when the computers began beeping and he heard Tosh call out.
"Oh no! Owen, get out of there!"
He looked up and then at the dials on the machine as Tosh spoke again. "There's a power surge in the system! When that hits, it'll trigger an emergency lockdown!"
Red lights began flashing and alarms to sound, and only then did he begin to run for the door, which closed before he could reach it.
"No! NO! Tosh! Toshiko! I can't get out! Not like this. Not like this! I'm not going yet. Get me out of here, Tosh! Get me out of here! I've died once, I'm not doing it again! Where's Jack? Where's Gwen, Ianto, John? You want to watch the dead man die again?"
Tosh's voice was breathy when she spoke. "Owen, just stay calm."
"Oh why should I do that? Where's the fun in that? I'm gonna rage my way to oblivion." He began to scream loudly, and Tosh's voice was barely audible as she asked him to stop.
"Why? Give me one good bloody reason why - one good reason why I shouldn't keep screaming," he demanded fear and fury filling his mind.
"Because you're breaking my heart," Tosh answered.
That had stopped Owen's screams, and he'd been calmer as he spoke, saying a final goodbye to Tosh, and apologising for not going on their promised date. Martha had 'heard' Tosh and Owen discussing how he would die, and then their conversation about Tosh covering for him in only his second week with Torchwood. Shortly afterwards her vision had whited out, and she had woken, sweating and shaking with terror.
She scrambled out of bed and rushed to the bathroom where she threw up, just reaching the toilet in time to spare the floor. Then she flushed the toilet, rinsed out her mouth, and fetched her dressing gown before going to the kitchen where she made a cup of tea.
The Hub, 9 pm
Martha straightened up, then stretched her back, rubbing at her aching muscles as she realised she'd been sitting in the same position for the past hour. "Time for a coffee," she muttered to herself as she slipped off her chair and headed up the stairs from what she persisted in thinking of as the Med Bay, although everyone else called it the autopsy area. As she reached the main area of the Hub she thought she heard someone say her name, and she looked around, surprised, but there was no one there. She shook her head, then carried on towards the coffee machine and the kettle, knowing she didn't have the energy to wrestle with Ianto's coffee machine.
As she reached the coffee machine she heard a whisper of sound behind her and turned quickly: there was no one there, but she thought she caught a glimpse of a familiar white coat.
"Jack? If you're messing about and trying to scare me, I'm going to seriously kick your arse for you!"
There was no answer, so she shook her head and turned back to the coffee machine, and the kettle beside it, preparing herself a mug of strong coffee.
"Martha."
She jumped, startled, as someone spoke her name right behind her, but again there was no one there. She stared around the room, beginning to feel a little freaked out now.
"Who's there?" she demanded, loud and strong. "Jack, if you guys are winding me up, I should remind you that as a doctor I have ways and means of making your lives very uncomfortable to pay you back."
"Martha, it's me, Owen." The voice spoke right in front of her and she swallowed hard before speaking.
"Owen's dead. Twice over. And I don't believe in ghosts."
"Neither did I," answered Owen's voice with a slight chuckle.
"You're not here," Martha said firmly turning back to the kettle.
"Then who are you talking to?" His tone was reasonable.
"I'm not talking to you," she snapped. "You're not here."
"Technically, I'm not," Owen agreed, "but you are talking to me."
"What do you want?" she asked evenly, as she remembered the business with the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland a few months ago, and how Ianto had thought he'd heard Owen, Tosh and his girlfriend Lisa; she wondered if this was the same creature.
"I came to thank you for looking after the others for me, and to say goodbye," Owen said.
Martha frowned. This didn't sound like the creature Ianto and Gwen had met in the tunnels at CERN.
"You don't need to thank me," she said gently. "Are you really Owen?"
He chuckled again. "The first time we met, you told me you'd come to finish my post-mortem. You were a bit snippy with me, to be honest, and I wasn't very impressed. But then I discovered how strong you are, like Jack, and how much courage you have. You didn't freak out that much when I came back after Jack used the Resurrection Glove on my corpse. You sewed up my hand for me after I cut it on the scalpel."
"It really is you," she said wonderingly.
"It is. Goodbye Dr Martha Jones. Thank you for everything you've done for Torchwood." She felt the air shift slightly in front of her, and then she knew, without knowing how she knew, that she was alone again.
The next moment she heard Jack's voice and she rushed across the Hub to meet him, tears flowing down her cheeks.
"Martha?" he asked, sounding worried as she wrapped her arms around him. "What is it?"
"Owen," she gasped, "he was here."
"What?" asked Jack, startled.
"His spirit, or ghost, or something," she said, "he came to say goodbye, he said."
Jack pulled back a little and put his hands on her shoulders, looking down at her with his head on one side.
"That's impossible," he said firmly.
"Is it?" she asked, lifting a hand to rub her wet cheeks. "He talked to me, Jack, mentioned things that only we could know about."
He shook his head, not knowing whether to believe her or not. "I think you should probably go home to bed," he said gently.
"Fine," she said wearily, "but I didn't imagine it."
She allowed him to walk her back to the computer workspace where she'd left her coat, and then to take her back to her flat. She knew Jack wasn't convinced and she didn't blame him for being sceptical, but she was too tired to argue about it. She had been awake since 3 am since she hadn't been able to go back to sleep after her dream.
To be continued...