Recent Entries

Current Location: Room 445

Entry tags:

March 15, 2074

She wakes to the sound of knocking, not particularly loud, but insistent. She rolls over, frowning, and glances at the luminous numbers of the clock on her bedside table. It's the middle of the night. She screws up her eyes in preparation for the light and hits the switch above the bedside table. The light above her bed flicks on and floods the room with brightness.

"Martha!"

That's Jack's voice. He wouldn't wake her at this hour unless it were important. She leaps out of bed and grabs her dressing gown off the hook on the back of the door. She wraps herself in its folds and pulls open the door.

Her jaw drops. He looks awful; his face is pale and drawn, and there's a bloodstained bandage wrapped tightly around his shoulder.

"Oh my god!" she cries as she steps back, pulling the door open wider to let her friend in. "What happened to you?"

She turns on the main light switch and closes the door behind Jack.

"Sit down."

Current Location: Jones residence, London

Entry tags:

Earth, London, 4.21.08/4.22.08

... Into the cool spring twilight of the UNIT base. Her boots hit concrete, and she zips up her jacket against the cold wind. She doesn't realise she's holding her breath until she lets it out, slowly. She looks around, turning on the spot, taking stock, but she already knows the correct conclusion: she's back exactly when and where she was before she arrived at the Outpost.

There's a certain dreamlike quality to it all as she takes her phone out of her pocket and finishes listening to the phone message that was so suddenly interrupted. As she completes the walk to her car she started ten days before. It's hard to concentrate on the drive to Tish's place.

She shouldn't be surprised that everything's just as she left it. After all, she heard from Marron that it was when he went back to his home. But she still can't help feeling that there's something strange about no time having passed at all. Whenever the Doctor brought her back home, at least a little time had passed. A few hours, a few days.

Here, none has.

And she smiles and pretends everything is normal as she and Tish plot out a plan of attack to calm their mother down. As they implement it through the family dinner, exchanging significant looks across the table. As she puts in her nightly phone call to Tom, and spends the evening just as she would any other.

It's all so normal.

She doesn't say anything to anyone about what's happened to her over the past ten days. They'd probably believe it, but ... she doesn't want to worry them. More than that, she doesn't want them to know she's been gone. The temptation's there, but the much stronger temptation is to call Jack in Cardiff. Because he's been to the Outpost too, and because even if he hadn't, she knows he'd believe her. But she's not sure that would be a good idea: she's from the future of the Jack she met at the Outpost. Who knows what's been happening in the past month for him? And the one thing she doesn't want is to call and find he's not there, that something's gone wrong and maybe he never comes back from the future. No, this is a matter where she'll have to shelve her curiousity.

The other person she very deliberately doesn't call is the Doctor.

It's a long night, with very little sleep; though it was early evening London time when she arrived, it was morning on the Outpost. So she lies in bed, trying to sleep, and when she gives that up, she just lies there thinking. There's certainly enough to occupy her mind until 5:30, when she gets up and dresses. She packs some favourite clothes, a few photographs and books and other things just to make the trip a little more like a vacation and a little less like being stolen from her time and place.

At five past six, she walks down the hallway from her room, duffel bag in one hand and her best medical kit in the other ... and finds herself back in the little room at the Outpost.

Current Location: UNIT Headquarters, London

Entry tags:

(no subject)

It’s six o’clock, and finally, Martha can go home. She closes down the last file and shuts down her computer. With nods and goodbyes and well-wishes for the evening ahead, she farewells her colleagues, slips into her jacket and, handbag in hand, heads for the lift. It’s only a short walk to the foyer; it’s rather impressive in wood and sleek metal, and a little futuristic as befits the, as she’s heard it described, “acceptable face of intelligence-gathering on aliens.”

Martha smiles and nods to the guard on duty and holds her security pass up to the scanner on the door. The scanner flashes green and when the door slides open, she steps out into the early spring twilight. She zips up her jacket and flips up the collar around her neck, shoulders hunched over for warmth; there’s a cold breeze that promises rain to come. This being London, that’s not especially surprising.

She pulls her phone and car keys out of her handbag as she walks. She flips open the phone and turns it on. 1 new voice message. There’s a little flutter in her stomach; did Tom call while she was working? It’s been a while since they’ve spoken, perhaps understandably. Africa’s a long way away. But when she dials her voicemail, it’s not Tom’s voice that greets her, but her sister’s.

“Oh, Martha, you’re not going to believe it!” Tish sounds like she’s not sure whether to be amused or dismayed. That tone of voice never brings good news. What it usually brings is tidings of some new family crisis. “Mum’s hitting the roof again, apparently Dad’s done something, and he’s in trouble like you wouldn’t believe. You know what she’s like.” Martha rolls her eyes. Tish is right about that; Martha knows exactly what their mother’s like when she’s in one of her moods. “It’s going to be crazy when you get home tonight. Want to come around to my place for dinner instead? We can come up with …”

The call drops out.