The Eye of the Storm
by ladysarahii (LJ
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Art by 19sunshine (LJ | comment) and Laura (LJ | e-mail | comment)
CHAPTER TWO
They all think Martha is dead. He lines them up like cattle, the entire family together with Jack. He pulls out the special wheelchair for the Doctor and they watch Japan burn.
They see the Japanese go about their everyday lives before the rockets are launched. You'd think that nothing drastic had changed in the last few months. The picture they are looking at seems so... ordinary. There is a sea of people walking down the streets of Tokyo as it starts to rain. As one, the people open their umbrellas and shudder against the sudden wind. The Master explains that there is a typhoon moving in, and it will hit later on in the day. "So I'm saving them, really," he says. They watch as several people place their umbrellas in plastic bags before walking into a department store. Then the Toclafane are launched. People scream bloody murder. The city of Tokyo is turned into chaos. He laughs and tells his guard to play 'Viva Las Vegas'. He sings along. "Viva Las Vegas, turning day into nighttime, turning night into daytime, if you see it once you'll never be the same again."
They hear the screaming above Elvis Presley and the radio crackles: "Sir, we've just got intelligence that Martha Jones is in the Yamanashi prefecture. Should we launch the missiles?"
"Of course," he says, cackling like a cartoon villain. He gestures towards the screens, and for one disorienting moment all they can see is red and yellow, unable to make sense of the images. Then it eases up and smoke spirals up from Tokyo, Kyoto, Nagoya, Satte, Hiroshima, Kofu... all of these cities--gone.
There are bloodcurdling screams, and they can hear words in Japanese that do not make sense to any of them, but are somehow understood anyway.
"Anyone know any Japanese?" he asks, a smile on his face. "Any Nihongo? They say 'Sayonara'. Anyone know what it means? Anyone?"
They all ignore him, but he responds with: "It's 'Good-bye.'" And then he laughs as soon as Elvis stops singing.
The last memory Tish can bring up is watching Mount Fuji go up into flames. The mountain is unbelievably massive, standing out in contrast among all of the others. It's beautiful, she thinks. There is a pause and everyone knows immediately what will happen next. Even she has to admit the view is spectacular.
Martha sat in the back of the room, taking her exam. Why was it always cold whenever she took a test? It was unpleasantly so, and she wished she had brought another sweatshirt. Her fingers were starting to become stiff and her wrist was starting cramp up. She was also starting to become rather hungry. Her stomach growled angrily and her head was buzzing dully with recovered information. At one point, she had to write a two page essay on something she thought she had forgotten long ago.
When the instructor told them that time was up, she breathed a sigh of relief. She was finished. No more exams, unless of course she failed. She didn't even allow herself to entertain the thought. Martha thought she'd done fairly well, anyway. Well, she'd definitely forgotten a few answers, but they weren't worth as many points. She handed him her booklet and went out into the cold October air.
The light of the sun was bright against her eyes and she blinked a few times to get over it. Then she looked up in surprise. Jack Harkness was standing there with his long coat, arms folded over his chest. "Took you forever," he said.
"Took me awhile to remember everything," Martha said defensively. "You try to write a two page essay on something you learned during your first year of med school."
He smiled at her and shook his head. "How are you?" he asked, opening his arms.
She came over and hugged him. It felt so good to see Jack again, to know that he was still doing well. "I'm fine. How are you?"
"Good as always. And you?"
"Great. There is one thing, though," he said as they broke off their hug. "I came because there's been a development downtown I think you might be interested in."
"I see you're not in a hurry, though, waiting for me like that. Something cross the rift?"
"Can't get anything past you. My team just left for lunch."
"Well, what is it?" Martha asked impatiently. "Are you just going to tell me about your team, or are you going to tell me why I'm supposed to be so interested in something that crossed the rift?"
"Follow me," Jack said, and turned with a swish of his jacket. She followed him quickly. He was walking so fast that she struggled to keep up with him. This was just like old times, she thought as she followed him through a dark alley. They went past a park where children were playing and laughing and then down another street. She had no idea where they were going. Jack was taking turns seemingly at random and she had never been to this part of London before.
Martha wondered what it said about her that she was secretly hoping alien life was trampling all over the streets of London. That couldn't be normal.
He finally stopped in front of an old, run-down building. "As you know, we use Cardiff as a base. But since we're here in London we have to make exceptions. We've been using this as a base in England." He opened the door and it squeaked. She saw that the building was dark and dusty, but held scientific equipment that looked as if it hadn't been used in a long time. She brushed dirt off her fingers after she shut the door behind her and sneezed. She wondered how this building had been in London for so long, completely untouched. "It's kind of worthless, actually," Jack continued. "I brought you here because you're the only one who would know the significance."
He picked up a large black ring. Martha shrugged, disappointed. "And why would that be significant?"
"Look carefully." He winked at her cheekily.
She rolled her eyes and he placed it in her hand. It was dusty, but in a different way to the room in which she was standing. It was as if it had fallen in a sandbox-- no, as if it had fallen into ashes. She examined it, rolling it around in her hands, trying to think of why this ring might be important.
"I thought you were smarter than that," Jack said, taking the ring back from her. "Remember Big Scary? He had this, too." He moved over to a box labelled 'scientific evidence' and then pulled something out from it.
Her mouth went dry yet again. Jack was holding a large, metal screwdriver.
"That passed through the rift? I thought the rift was only good for refueling TARDISes."
"Well, it's pretty good for that, too. But occasionally things pass through. That's what Torchwood does, keeps an eye out on the rift in case there are any signs of alien life. It's what keeps us separate from UNIT. UNIT sort of keeps an eye on everything and only really gets involved if alien life starts affecting humans. That's why UNIT threatened to show up when Saxon took power. They'd started to suspect the truth long before the rest of the world did, actually. But they couldn't really do too much. Torchwood only focuses on the rift; more specifically, the one in Cardiff. We fight crime, all that."
"Why did the Master's ring pass through the rift in Cardiff?" Martha asked. "That doesn't even make any sense."
"That's what you and I have to figure out: How his things are still active even though he's dead. They shouldn't be." He frowned and took the items gently from Martha. Then he placed them back into the box. "You get a holiday until you find out if you pass, right? How long, until December?"
Martha nodded.
"Well, then. We should get to work. Speak of this to no one. Not even my team can know. If they figure it out, they'd think we're mad. Remember, none of this happened for them."
"What are you doing in London, if this passed through the rift in Cardiff?"
"Well, when I said my team was on a lunch break, I might have been exaggerating. I sort of left them behind again, to come find you." Jack looked at her with a pained expression on his face. He looked at the table counter and then drummed his fingers mindlessly against the countertop. After a long pause, he adjusted his position so that one elbow rested against the counter and one hand came up to cover his eyes.
"You all right? Jack?" she walked over next to him and put an arm around his shoulders. This was so unlike Jack, all bent over like this as if in pain. Hadn't he wanted to go back to his team? Why was he here, without them now? Had this affected him the way it had affected her family?
"Yeah, I'm fine," he finally said, standing up straight and looking at her. "I don't know what came over me, actually. I'm just under a bit of stress at the moment, I guess."
"Ah," Martha said, standing next to him. She smiled at him, patted him on the back and said, "Well, we should get to work then, shouldn't we?"
He smiled at her and said, "Absolutely, Miss Jones. Where should we start?"
Martha came home hours later, feeling exhausted but pleased with herself all the same. Was this really what Jack did for a living? Martha was surprised to find that it was still exciting work, even after all those months spent with the Doctor. She slipped her key into the lock of her mother's house and pushed the door open.
Tish was standing there, wringing her hands tensely.
"Are you all right?" Martha asked. It wasn't the first time she'd asked this question, and here she was, bringing it up even though she knew she wouldn't get a straight answer. She sighed and leaned against the door, glaring at her sister.
"You said you'd be home four hours ago!" Tish said. "Where were you?"
There was no way she could tell her sister the truth about what she was doing. Even if Jack hadn't told her to keep it a secret, she knew Tish would not take the news well. "I had to take my exam, I told you. Then I met some friends and went to have a pint in celebration."
"So you spent four hours in a pub?"
"Look-- why are you giving me the third degree?" Tish had never been this overprotective, not even when they had been children.
"Because I worry about you when you're four hours late!" Tish snapped.
Tish looked furious. Martha walked towards her older sister cautiously. Her stomach gave a guilty squirm. She didn't like that she'd made her sister this way. "I-I'm sorry."
"You don't know what it was like! I spent a whole month thinking you were dead. I watched Mount Fuji explode because you were telling your stupid story to everyone. I spent weeks thinking he'd killed you."
Martha's heart pounded. It was this again. And it occurred to her that she really did not have a clue how to respond to that. "Well, he's dead, isn't he? He's not coming back. And I'm fine. Look. I'm here."
Tish's eyes filled with tears. Her hands were on her hips and it looked as if she was struggling for something to say, too. "Yeah, well, you just wouldn't understand, would you?"
"Try me," Martha snapped. Really, what her sister had said had gone too far. "I mean, I've got the time. Just tell me. That's all you need to do. I want to understand, but all you and Mum do whenever I bring it up is clam up and tell me I won't understand! Oh, and my 'stupid story' is what saved your life, remember?"
The two women stared at each other for a long moment. Tish opened and shut her mouth a few times. Then she whispered, "You know what? I'm tired. I'm going to bed."
"It's not even dinner time yet!" Martha yelled as her sister ran up the steps. "Here's an idea, why don't you stay downstairs and talk to me!"
It took her a good fifteen minutes to calm down after that. It wasn't like her to lose her temper. She'd even managed to keep calm with Annalise when she'd confronted her at Leo's birthday party. But really, that had been unfair. Tish had to know that Martha's experience hadn't been at all pleasant. And that she had genuinely been afraid that day in Japan. If it hadn't been for the help of some strangers, Earth would be gone now; she had very nearly not survived that experience. She had the scar to prove it.
Her mobile chose just that moment to go off. She fumbled around in her bag until she found it, picking it up just before it stopped ringing. "Hello," she said, a little more forcefully than she'd meant to.
"Erm, hello?" came the deep voice from the other end. "Is this Martha Jones?"
She paused. It was Tom Milligan's voice.
"Hi, Tom," she said, uncertainly.
"How are you doing?"
"I'm fine," Martha said, her voice softening considerably. This was the awkward part. She never really knew what to say in times like these.
"Good. Hey, I was wondering, if you're not busy this weekend, would you like to get a coffee?"
She frowned and thought for a moment. Even though Martha had seen him around the hospital several times in the past few months, she had never quite gotten over the shock at seeing him alive and well. He was supposed to be dead; she'd watched it happen. And now he was asking her out on a date. "I don't know, I--"
"Come on, if you don't say yes I might have to keep bothering you and no one would like that, would they?"
She found herself wanting very much to say yes despite herself.
"Please?"
She couldn't help but relent. "How about Saturday afternoon?"
"Sounds good. It would just so happen that I have the day off."
They hastily made plans for that Saturday and Martha hung up. Well, at least one good thing had come out of her day. She couldn't help but smiling for the rest of the evening, even when Tish came downstairs and grouched, "What are you looking so happy for?"
"Doctor from work asked me out on a date," Martha said happily.
Tish nodded quickly and frowned, looking at her feet rather than at Martha. "Look, I'm sorry I snapped at you before. I don't know what's got into me."
"It's okay. I'm going to ring up Mum to see what's she's planning on having for dinner. Maybe I can get a head start on it. She mentioned she might be held up late at work and I'm starving."
Martha walked into the kitchen, unaware that her sister was ready to talk.