Prologue: September, 2008

Martha Jones

She's running.

Martha Jones is always running.

Martha Jones feels her feet hit the ground, feels the dry coolness of South Dakota wind whip past her face, chafe her skin, feels muscles ache and cry out and feels joints protest the abuse.

Martha Jones has been running for months now. Three months, four, something. Running across the world, jumping only when she's had no other choice, jumping out of England and jumping out of Japan and jumping farther and farther away from the Doctor but it's what he told her to do so she keeps running.

Martha Jones ignores a stab of pain in her ankle and she runs.

Martha Jones has a vortex manipulator, instructions, stubbornness, and little else to her name. The clothes on her back, one last hair-band to keep her hair out of her eyes as she runs and runs and runs and doesn't stop because she can't stop because they're always right behind her and she hasn't gotten everywhere yet, can't get everywhere, how is she supposed to get everywhere? Everywhere in the world?

Martha Jones has one place she's supposed to get to tonight, and that place is in the middle of nowhere in South Dakota, but there are worse places to be, these days. There are worse places than nowhere. Much worse. In fact, nowhere is perhaps the safest place that there is, anymore.

Martha Jones has a mother and a father and a sister and two friends aboard an airship in England, trapped with a psychotic alien who's about to take over the whole world if she can't tell a story well enough. She's really afraid that she has three friends aboard that airship but she can't think about it or she'll stop running and cry and then the psychotic alien will win and that is unacceptable.

Martha Jones ignores the pain in her ankle again.

Martha Jones hears the crunch of acorns and twigs beneath her feet as she runs and hopes she's the only one who can hear it. She hopes that the spheres aren't listening or are farther away than she fears.

Martha Jones is running to see faces that won't light up in recognition, faces she knows and loves like family and is dying to see, people whose embrace she craves in these dark and lonely times, people who have fought at her side and laughed at her jokes and held her in her tears, whose grief she has shouldered and whose triumphs she has celebrated and who will not know her face.

Martha Jones is a name that has carried on the winds as far out as Nowhere, South Dakota, and she knows that one of the men she seeks will know it. The others will not. The others will not and that hurts more than her ankle.

(Martha Jones ignores the pain in her ankle.)

Martha Jones stops running.

Martha Jones suddenly knows the Toclaphane are not behind her.

Martha Jones sees the Toclaphane in front of her.

Martha Jones sees someone else in front of her.

And Martha Jones runs faster than ever.

Sam Winchester

Sam Winchester doesn't know what day it is anymore.

At first, he made sure to remember. He'd count the days on the top of his bunk and they'd move him. He'd transfer the count to his new bunk and they'd move him again. He'd write a tally on his arm and it would fade away. Two months in he got desperate and thought about carving the count into his skin but didn't want to waste his strength and health when he needed it so desperately.

Sam Winchester gets through the days by thinking about how much worse his brother's days are, and the grief and the anger help him ignore the pain.

The pain isn't so bad anymore. It's not like Sam is unused to work. There are so many people in the camps here who aren't used to physical labor like Sam is, and for them, it is torture. He tries to help them. Sometimes he gets away with it, sometimes they're both punished for it.

The only pain that counts is when he can't find Ruby for too long. She followed him here; said it didn't matter what Harold Saxon did, it didn't change Sam's destiny, his work. He couldn't afford to stop his progress. So she followed him, and when he can't find her in the camp, that pain he has trouble ignoring.

Sam Winchester wonders if Bobby is still alive, a lot. He wonders if Singer Salvage is still intact. He wonders if the man who'd come to be his father survived the Great Decimation he'd heard about.

He lets himself feel a little bit of relief that Dean didn't have to see this. As terrible a place as his brother has gone to, Dean would never have survived here, anyway. Dean couldn't have kept his head down and done what he needed to do to survive.

Sam Winchester wonders, so frequently that it's almost become a prayer, where the Doctor is, and why he hasn't stopped this yet.

But Sam Winchester is a fighter and a survivor, and Dean sold his soul to give Sam back his life, and Sam isn't going to waste that gift. No matter what happens, no matter how bad it gets, Sam is going to make it through this and wait quietly until the Doctor comes to save them, and in the meantime, save as many people as he can.

So when the soldiers come to take him to the overseer, Sam Winchester doesn't put up a fight.

Dean Winchester

Dean Winchester ignores the pain.

Dean Winchester barely feels the pain.

Because Dean Winchester has gotten out of Hell, and that is all there is right now.

Author's Note: I don't know why I can't go more than like three days without updating something. This is just a teaser; updating might be slower for this story than my previous stories in this 'verse, because this one's turning out to be pretty complicated. But I'm excited about it...

To remind, this story is fifth in a series. The order is currently "The Shadow Proclamation", "What Power", "A Mission Before Dying", and "The Child Eater". As always, I recommend going in order as I will reference earlier stories in this one.