"Suddenly, in an underground mortuary, on a wet night in Cardiff, I hear the song of a nightingale." ~Captain Jack Harkness (Torchwood)
Nightingale
Jack had known Martha Jones for a while. A lot longer than anyone on the Torchwood team would believe. After all, they had sort of spent a year together trying to save the world. Well, he'd been in chains most of the time, and she'd been walking the Earth alone, but still. As a result, they were better acquainted than Toshiko, Gwen, Owen, and Ianto would ever know.
"No, you can't send me, they'd recognize me." Owen shook his head at the idea of sneaking into PHARM to see what they were up to. They needed an agent inside that knew medical training.
"No offense Owen, but I wasn't talking about you." Martha gave him a slightly smug smile, showing off her brilliant white teeth. Jack stared at Martha for a minute.
"No way."
"I've been in way worse situations and you know it." Martha murmured quietly, the lights in the room highlighting her dark skin as she had a stare down with Captain Jack.
Owen stared in astonishment. Martha stood there in her black coat and her curtain of black hair tied loosely. It glistened slightly in the lights. She looked stunning, and extremely noticeable. No way in hell was she going to pass off as a normal person.
Jack glanced at each of his teammates. He could see Owen shake his head vehemently behind Martha's back. Behind him, he could see the worry in Gwen's eyes, and the stark fear in Tosh's. It was clear she was fighting with herself. She was desperate as the rest of them to get inside and hack into PHARM. But she was terrified that Martha would get hurt, or what was left of Tosh's equipment would fail. Tosh was one to count all the variables in an equations and she knew there were way too many negative ones. She said nothing. If she'd wanted to, she wouldn't have the words. Ianto seemed in deep thought. He knew that they needed someone in there. And they couldn't use Owen; they needed someone they knew who had medic training. So, with an internal sigh, he gave Jack an imperceptible nod.
"Ok." Jack gave in, walking out of the room, running a hand through his short dark brown hair.
"Jack can I have a word?" Owen had followed him. "Look, I know you're buddies from way back or whatever but we can't just send her in there!"
"I'd trust Martha Jones if the world depended on it." Jack gave an ironic grin. He leaned toward Owen and whispered: "in fact, I did." And without another sound, the leader of Torchwood wandered off.