The ground was dusty and yellow, the sky was dusty and a lighter shade of yellow. Martha Jones stepped out of the TARDIS, blinked the dust from her eyes and waited for the Doctor to explain.
"It's a pocket universe," he said, locking the TARDIS doors behind him.
"It's a what?" In the distance Martha could make out the faint sound of explosions, of gunshots.
"A pocket universe is an expired possibility. A possible future that's never going to happen so it folds in on itself. In and in and in and in until...Kaput."
"How did we get here?"
"Pocket universes are unstable, they intersect with reality. The TARDIS must have slipped through."
The gunfire was getting louder, closer. "Can you hear that?"
"That'll be the war," the Doctor answered nonchalantly, shoving his hands in his pockets and strolling away from the TARDIS. Martha rolled her eyes and followed him.
"What war?"
"Could be any, they're always having wars in this universe. There was the first war of independence, the Miranda wars, the second war of independence..."
Martha tilted her head; the gunfire had stopped getting louder. In fact it had stopped altogether.
"The third, fourth and fifth wars of independence, the-"
The Doctor fell silent with a choking sound. He'd been grabbed from behind. A large man, broad shouldered and brown haired in military-like clothing had an arm round the Doctor's neck. Martha, on instinct, went to run forward, she was stopped by the pressure of a cool metallic circle against her skin. Even her short tenure with the Doctor had taught her to recognize the pressure of a gun.
"I wouldn't do that," said a cool female voice behind Martha. "Who are you?"
Martha stayed quiet; a sharp jab with the gun convinced her to change her mind. "Martha Jones and this is the Doctor."
"Hello," said the Doctor twisting easily out of his captors grip. He turned to face the other man, massaging his throat, "you want to be more careful, if I didn't have a secondary respiratory system that would have hurt."
"That was the idea," the man drawled.
"Seeing as you know who we are, who're you?"
"Sergeant Malcolm Reynolds, and that there's Zoe."
Martha turned slightly and got her first glimpse of the mysterious Zoe. She was tall and handsome, dressed in the same military garb as the Sergeant; dark curls spilled form underneath the scrap of fabric she'd tied round her forehead bandana style. She didn't seem like she'd look particularly friendly even if she wasn't pointing a gun at Martha's head.
"Sarge, she said he was a doctor, and we got injured."
The Sergeant looked the Doctor up and down, "well lookee here, we got ourselves an Alliance medic."
Martha was vaguely aware of the Doctor speaking, trying to talk their way out of this but she was suddenly overcome with a wave of dizziness and nausea. The Doctor's chipper tones and the Sergeant's drawl faded in and out of her hearing, she sank to her knees, reaching out and catching the Doctor's hand. The Doctor was falling too. Martha was dimly aware of Zoe trying to catch her, but it was almost as though her fingers went right through Martha's arms.
Martha tipped forward; she could see the dry, dusty ground rushing up to meet her.
And she landed in the mud.
---
Martha raised her head and spat, expelling the muck that had gotten into her mouth. The ground was soaked and it was pouring with rain, Martha looked around for the Doctor who was already scrambling to his feet and trying to wipe the mud off his trainers.
"Well, if it isn't the amazing disappearing Doctor and Martha Jones," that voice sounded familiar. She looked up and recognised the soldier who'd been holding them at gunpoint a minute ago. He looked different, he was no longer wearing his military garb, his hair was longer and he looked malnourished.
"Haven't seen you in quite a number of years."
"Years, hang on Sergeant-?"
"Mal, war's long over, we're all just folk now."
"Mal, that was just a minute ago, we were with you in the desert just now."
"That prison brew will rot your brain," Martha was dragged to her feet, not roughly but not exactly gently either. Zoe, dirty and thin like Mal, had hauled Martha up by her collar.
That was the second time in as many minutes that Zoe had crept up on Martha, someone ought to put a bell on that woman.
"This is a prison?" the Doctor asked, finally giving up on the pointless task of wiping the thick mud off his white trainers.
"Internment camp," Zoe answered, "That's what the Alliance calls it, but yeah, it's a prison."
"And you say it's years since you've seen us?"
"Five years," Mal answered, "back at the start of the war on Whitefall, which I gotta say, neat trick, the vanishing into thin air like that."
"It was, wasn't it?" the Doctor answered, grinning.
"This way," Mal grunted, "Alliance is gonna be calling curfew in a minute, trust me you don't wanna be outside when that happens."
He nodded at Zoe and she fell into step beside and a little behind him. Bedraggled, undernourished and unarmed as they were they still moved like soldiers. Martha and the Doctor followed behind.
"What's going on?"
"I told you this universe is unstable already, space folding in on itself, timelines unravelling. Then we come along, time travellers full to the brim with vortex energy and we destabilise it even more, we're being bounced along the unravelling timeline." The Doctor thought for a moment, "kind of like a slinky."
"What about the TARDIS?" Martha squinted through the rain and huddled bodies, but there was no sign of the familiar blue box.
"It'll catch us up, or we'll catch it up." The Doctor sounded confident. Martha had learned to be scared of confident Doctor.
Before Martha could tell the Doctor that, she felt another wave of nausea and she retched violently onto the metallic grille she suddenly found herself standing on.
---
"Why am I not surprised?" Zoe said, pushing up the welders mask she was wearing and regarding Martha coolly. "You've thrown up on the deck, better clean that up before the captain sees."
With that Zoe caught up a mop that was leaning against the wall and tossed it at Martha.
Martha caught it, "Where's the Doctor?"
"Ow, ow, do you mind? Only that's my arm and I'm a bit attached to it," the Doctor was being frog marched down the stairs. Mal had his arm twisted behind his back. Both Zoe and Mal looked healthier, not to mention cleaner, than they had in the internment camp.
"How long this time?" Martha asked. Zoe and Mal exchanged a look.
"Three years," Mal answered, shoving the Doctor forward, he stumbled into Martha. Straightening up neither of them could fail to notice that Mal's hand was resting on the top of his gun, "Now, how did you two come to be on my boat?"
"Uh, we swam?" Martha guessed.
"Funny. We're out by the rim, ain't been planet-side in weeks. I'll ask again, how'd you come to be on my boat?"
"Oh, alright, we're travellers, time travellers. We seem to have accidentally got tangled up in your personal timelines. We're bouncing through your lives, just a little bit faster than you. And missing bits here and there, of course," the Doctor answered.
"Like a slinky," Martha added.
"They're drunks," Zoe said disdainfully.
"They ain't Alliance spies at any rate, even Alliance wouldn't hire folks this dumb." Mal moved his hand away from his gun and all four of them visibly relaxed. "Come on then time travellers, we're eating up in the kitchen."
Zoe cleared her throat, "Sir."
"Zoe?"
"Kaylee's taken apart Serenity's engine, most of it's in the kitchen."
"We're eating in the passenger bunks."
"Mal?"
"There something I can help you with Zoe?"
"Jayne's stowing his weapons down there."
"Then where are we planning on eating?"
"Sickbay," Zoe answered.
"Well, that's hygienic." Mal turned and headed up the stairs, Zoe went after him nodding sharply for Martha and the Doctor to follow her.
The Doctor offered his arm to Martha, "Shall we eat Miss Jones?"
Martha accepted it, "We shall, Mr Smith."
---
The Doctor let out a whoop of delight and threw himself into the pilots chair on Serenity's bridge. It seemed that the Doctor's moral stance on not participating in major jewel heists for fear of screwing up the timeline was considerably weaker when they were a) in another universe b) especially fun jewel heists.
Mal cleared his throat and the Doctor hopped out of his chair, he walked off the bridge and Martha followed him leaving the crew of Serenity to plot in peace.
"We've been here for weeks now," Martha hissed catching up with the Doctor outside the sparkly door to Kaylee's bunk. "I thought we were meant to be bouncing through this universe, catching up with the TARDIS."
The Doctor tilted his head, listening for something Martha couldn't hear. "The pocket universe is stable for the moment. Not for much longer though, we'll be on our way soon enough."
"And in the meantime?"
"We get to know the crew and participate in daring jewel heists."
---
Martha had to sidestep quickly to avoid barrelling into Wash as he exited the kitchen in a hurry. Stepping through the door she was faced with Zoe who was standing by the table looking with bemusement at the toy dinosaur in her hand.
"He likes you," Martha observed.
"Who, the pilot?"
"I think his name's Wash."
"I'll enlist in the Alliance army before I let that moustachioed son of a goat lay a finger on me."
"Yeah, right-" all things considered it was probably a good thing Martha's legs gave out from under her, making fun of Zoe was not usually an activity that led to a long and happy life.
Martha tumbled to the floor, her vision was blurry but she thought she saw Zoe reaching out to her before she-
---
Bounced.
Hang on, bounced? Martha looked around, she had landed on a sumptuous king sized bed in an equally sumptuous hotel room.
"I told you not to get me a present, dear." Standing in the doorway smirking at Martha was a blonde man. The lack of a moustache fooled her for a second but there was no disguising the silly grin and ugly shirt.
"Quiet, husband of mine," Zoe said, appearing in the doorway behind Wash and draping herself around his neck. "Hello, Martha, glad to see you alive."
"Hang on, husband, you two are married?"
"Yeah," Wash said, grinning like a fool. "It was a shotgun wedding, she had the shotgun, not me. I don't like shotguns."
Martha took another look around the swish room she'd found herself in. "So this is your..."
"Honeymoon," Wash confirmed, "time for some sweaty, naked fun."
Zoe turned, pushed Wash up against the doorway, grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him thoroughly.
Martha cleared her throat. Then cleared her throat more loudly. "Er, is there a bar in this hotel?"
Wash managed to pull his lips away from Zoe's long enough to say, without looking at Martha, "Ground floor, next to the lobby."
Martha was in the process of discovering that drinks in this universe came in three varieties; really alcoholic, really seriously alcoholic, and fatal when the Doctor found her in the bar.
"Where the hell have you been? I nearly had to watch Zoe and Wash have sex."
"Swap you. I've spent the past three hours listening to Mal's drunken views on Zoe's marriage, he's not a fan in case you couldn't guess."
Martha honestly couldn't tell if the dizzy, sick feeling was the result of another time jump or the drinks the barman had been pouring for her. She swivelled on the bar stool, slid to the ground-
---
And landed on her knees on rocky ground.
"Why am I not surprised to see you?" Martha looked up, Zoe was standing in the twilight looking very unlike herself. She was wearing a long white dress and holding a candle.
Martha scraped her palms scrambling to her feet, she could now see that Zoe was looking at three graves, she didn't recognize two of the names, but the third...
"Wash...I'm sorry."
"He died well, he was a leaf on the wind."
"That's..." Martha couldn't think of anything to say and trailed off.
"Are you really time travellers?" Zoe asked plainly.
"Yes, we can't really control it but when we get back to the TARDIS, that's the Doctor's ship, we might be able to save Wash. I could ask, at least-"
"No!" Zoe cut her off, "that wasn't why I asked. You have to live the life you're given, and Wash did."
Martha was getting dizzy, it was becoming difficult to stand. Zoe looked at her, but didn't reach out for her.
"If you see Wash again tell him I-"
---
Martha opened her eyes, the sky was dusty and yellow, the ground was dusty and a darker shade of yellow. The Doctor grabbed Martha by the arms and hauled her to her feet.
She blinked the dust from her eyes, in the distance she could make out a shape, a box. "Is that-?"
"The TARDIS," the Doctor answered with a grin. "Told you we'd find it sooner or later."
Martha squinted, two figures were heading away from the TARDIS in the opposite direction from the Doctor and Martha. "Who's that?"
"That's us," the Doctor said as though that explained everything.
"Say what?"
"That's us just after we arrived. This universe is near dead, the space has almost all gone, nothing exists outside this solar system. In order to preserve itself time has looped back on itself, the same ten years are happening over and over again."
"So Zoe and Wash, Mal, Kaylee?"
"Get to live their lives all over again."
"And when this universe collapses?"
"Then they'll have lived longer than even I would want."
"Come on," they'd reached the TARDIS, the Doctor pushed the doors open, "we've got our own universe to get back to. Our own lives to live."