Rumors

Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: End of DW S3
Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC

Friday, May 8th, 0537
The rumors began early, in the slave camps.

The Toclafane did not allow large groups to gather, not while working, but they couldn’t stop the whispers flying from one person to another as they passed. The words traveled next to chunks of metal along the assembly line, the dismantled detritus of the civilization that was. The words were fleeting, eventually leaving the line and skipping toward those who did other types of work. The metal continued, on its way to be reformed into something. What, no one knew. War machines, some said, rockets on the lake front, but there was no one in this work group allowed to travel that far from the camp.

Jess Connor heard it from Nick Srell and dutifully passed it on to Amanda Sampson, but it wasn’t until the morning started growing long that the words penetrated her waking thoughts, the part of the mind dulled by rote labor and terror.

Martha Jones, they said. Martha Jones is hidden in one of the houses. Arrived last night. Don’t let them know.

Jess worked, and let nothing show on her face, and waited for the time she would be allowed home, to see if these new rumors were true.

Friday, May 8th, 0919
Martha had been ushered in during the night by the ones that weren’t currently working. That her arrival was expected, and that there was small group of perhaps six waiting for her—a dangerously large number, she learned later, because here the Toclafane kept an even closer watch than they did elsewhere—no longer surprised her. She had been traveling for over ten months and she knew the stories that circulated. It was an ingenious idea, she’d realized not long after people had started to seek her out, because even now, with all mass communication gone and the people carefully censored and afraid, and with the knowledge that to speak of rebellion—to speak of her—was a death sentence if the wrong people overheard, even now people still told stories to each other. Now the story they told was the one she had passed on to begin with, and that was the one thing the Toclafane didn’t know about. It was an old lesson, the power of words, but one that was always overlooked. That gave Martha hope.

Friday, May 8th, 1600
She was kept in one of the fuller houses, perhaps under the assumption that one more in a crowd wouldn’t be noticed. Jess thought this very foolish, because the Toclafane always knew, but it was said Martha Jones had spent nearly a whole year evading the Toclafane.

And how was that? Jess chewed her lip as she walked home, her bones and muscles and soul exhausted from another twelve-hour shift, and from the twelve-hour shift yesterday, and from the thought of the twelve-hour shift tomorrow. She wondered how Martha Jones didn’t have to do this, why she was able to travel and stay out of sight. Even the ones who had thrown in their lot with the Toclafane, gave information to avoid being killed and perhaps for a slightly lighter workload, had no more freedom than anyone else.

Jess first saw her—a slight, weary-looking black woman with a British accent, perhaps in her mid-twenties, surrounded by those who told the stories and actually believed them—and what she wanted to say died in her throat. Instead, what came out was, “Welcome to what used to be a suburb of Chicago.” She was surprised she could still be sardonic, and at how steady her voice sounded.

Friday, May 8th, 1659
Martha told her story, the one she had been sent out to tell.

Friday, May 8th, 1923
Jess ran, screams erupting from her throat, hands covered in blood, ran toward the house where so many people were still gathered and listening to the words of hope that Martha Jones spoke. Fear and adrenaline combined to work Jess up to a real panic by the time she crashed through the door of the house, and she was glad that the Toclafane didn’t much bother with the people when they weren't working.

The conversation died as Jess came in. She was immediately surrounded by a dozen people, all of them exclaiming in surprise, checking her for wounds, asking her what had happened.

“Not me,” Jess managed through her gasps. She held up her bloody hands. “The Toclafane. One attacked my brother. Please, someone help, he’s cut up really bad, please!”

The people looked at one another. This part of town had no medical professionals. Once there had been a doctor, allowed to travel to different sections of the city, but no one had seen him for months. Jess looked at Martha Jones. “Please,” she begged. “You’re a doctor. All the rumors, they say you’re a doctor.”

Martha Jones, who had been almost the first one to reach Jess after she had barged in through the door, seemed to hesitate before answering. “I was a medical student. A long time ago.”

“You know first aid, then!” Jess cried. “Please, please help my brother!”

“Where is he?”

Friday, May 8th, 1929
Martha followed the girl—Jess, her name was Jess—out of the neighborhood and into a blackened, scorched bit of land that might have once been a cornfield or a factory or another neighborhood, and even further on, into a copse of straggly trees that had somehow been the only things in the area to survive the burning. She had her bag with her, everything she carried, because she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be going back to the safe house.

“There’s a shack in here,” Jess said, leading Martha into the trees. And indeed, there was a ramshackle hut set back from the field, its walls made of bare plywood topped with a corrugated tin roof. It looked hastily assembled, and it was a wonder that the Toclafane hadn’t found it. Jess had insisted only Martha accompany her, making the excuse that a large crowd would only attract attention. That hadn’t been Martha’s first clue that something was wrong with this scenario, but she had to let it play out. She had done her part here, and she could get away if necessary.

“We take people here sometimes, people who are sick,” Jess was saying, forcing open the shack’s tin door, which obviously hadn’t been used for awhile. “The Toclafane, they kill whoever isn’t well enough to work. We hide them here until they’re better.” She turned on a torch, making sure to keep the light tightly trained against the wall of the shack as she struggled with the door.

Martha nodded, and at Jess’s expectant look, walked into the shack. It was dark, the torch not enough to light even this small space. The walls seemed suffocatingly close and it smelled; Jess was telling the truth about sick people having been kept in here at some point. The torchlight revealed a sagging mattress in one corner of the room and a bundle of blood-stained bed linens in another. Martha was not at all surprised to see no one else there.

What did surprise her, though, was the click of a gun’s safety being flicked off. She had been expecting some kind of attack, but where had this unassuming, downbeaten woman found a gun, and more importantly, how had she kept it hidden? The Toclafane were using the lake beside the burned out, twisted husk of Chicago as a prime staging area for their rockets. The people here were kept under the most severe guard there was.

She turned, staring down at the handgun that Jess pointed directly at her chest. The woman gave her a grim smile that contained no traces of insanity. So much for that theory, then.

“Sorry,” said Jess. “I made up that story about my brother.”

Martha shrugged and tried to act calm, although that was hard with the gun. All the things she had seen, but no one could build up a resistance to fear. She wouldn’t let it show, though. “I figured that, when you said the Toclafane had injured him. The Toclafane don’t injure. They don’t bother with prisoners or warnings.”

“They said you were smart,” said Jess. “All the stories, all the lies.”

Martha decided to make Jess get right to the point. “So what’s this about?”

“It’s about us, the whole planet, the way it’s been treated,” Jess snarled. “It’s about the people who turned against their own kind to make their lives just a little bit softer by betraying us. It’s about finding them and holding them responsible, because they’re worse monsters than the Toclafane.”

Martha held up her hands slowly so as not to startle the woman. She had been faced with this situation before. “I’m not one of those.”

“No?” said Jess, her weary face twisting into a sneer. “How long have you walked the world, Martha Jones? Months, at least. You’ve been everywhere. The stories all say so. And yet never once have the Toclafane caught you. They’ve never seen you. The Master has decreed that all who speak of you and shelter you will be put to death, but even he can’t see you from his skyship. They watch us constantly, we can never get away. But you always do.” Jess paused and took a deep breath. The gun was shaking slightly, but its barrel remained firmly pointed at Martha. “The Toclafane don’t just not see you. They’re ignoring you. They have to be.”

“No,” said Martha, “they’re not.”

“You’re working for them,” said Jess, tears appearing at the corner of her eyes. “They’re sadistic bastards, they sent you out to give us hope just so they can take it away again.”

“I’m not working for the Toclafane,” repeated Martha, but she knew her words weren’t finding their way through Jess’s fear and paranoia. Who could blame her for feeling that way, after everything that had happened?

“I’m going to put an end to that,” said Jess, fiercely wiping her tears away with one hand while tightening the other’s grip on the gun. “No more Martha Jones, so we can stop pretending we’re not all in Hell.”

“Listen to me,” Martha pleaded, bringing her arms back down to her sides. She wouldn’t act like a prisoner. “Just listen. I’m just part of a wider resistance group that’s spread all over the world. I know that the idea of resistance may seem impossible, but you have to understand that it’s not like this everywhere. Not all the slave camps are so heavily guarded. Resistance camps have sprung up all over. We have our ways of avoiding detection.”

“There aren’t stories about anyone other than you,” said Jess.

Martha nodded. This was something she had expected, not the only downside to the mission she had been sent on, but one of the most heartbreaking. “I can evade them better than most,” she said, bringing one hand up to her neck to finger the string around her neck, the one that held her precious TARDIS key. “I’m only trying to help everyone, Jess.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Jess, swallowing hard.

“So that’s it, then?” said Martha. “You’re just going to shoot me and leave me dead in this shack?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Except you don’t look like a murderer, Jess.” Martha wouldn’t stop trying; as long as Jess didn’t pull the trigger there was still a chance she’d get through to her. “Please. I know you’re scared. I know things seem hopeless. Believe me, there are nights when I want to stop, where I just want to crawl into a corner and sleep and hope the Toclafane do find me so that I won’t have to wake up to what the world’s become. But I keep fighting, and you have to as well. Things will get better. We’ll win.” She still hadn’t convinced herself that the words were true, but she also hadn’t let herself fall into despair. “You’re not a murderer, Jess. I know you aren’t.” She took a deep breath. “If you are, and if you think I really am a traitor, then pull the trigger.”

Tears were falling freely from Jess’s face now, and she wasn’t bothering to wipe them away. The gun wavered as the seconds stretched on seemingly forever, and finally Jess pointed it down at the shack’s floor. “No,” she said so softly it was almost a whisper. “I can’t. I can’t shoot you.”

Martha briefly closed her eyes in relief. “I knew you weren’t a killer, Jess.”

“The Toclafane are the killers,” said Jess. She was looking at the gun and she seemed to be talking more to herself. “They’ll kill anyone they find with weapons. I’ll bet they’d even kill one of their agents.”

“What do you mean?” said Martha, but Jess took a step backwards so that she was standing right outside the shack, pointed the gun straight up, and fired.

“No!” cried Martha, lunging at her, but Jess just dropped the gun and the torch and fled, her long legs pumping, her black clothes blending into the darkness and soon disappearing completely. Martha thought about running after her, but she could already hear the whirr of the Toclafane descending, coming to see who dared keep a weapon. She wouldn’t have time. Sighing sadly, she removed Jack’s wrist device from her bag and pressed buttons until the shack and the night and the burned field and the sound of the Toclafane dissolved into nothingness.

Monday, July 2nd, 1200
Of course, a couple of months later the stories stopped. But by then Jess Connor didn’t remember that she had ever heard of a person called Martha Jones.

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