there may be no golden fleece but human riches I'll release
XTC—"Jason and the Argonauts"
"Simon, is it ready yet? 90 minutes, this thing blows, and all the evidence is lost! You do want to get paid, don't you?" John resisted the urge to take over the task he'd given his assistant; the boy had to learn to do things right, to work under pressure. Instead, he walked over to the computer to check his readings again. He wanted to be absolutely sure that they were going to the precise spot of the anomaly. The last time he'd made a mistake he'd spent 3 months picking up litter in the parks as punishment for upsetting a group of children by digging up the park sandbox with them still in it. He'd finally found the Ring of Astrolophareous in one of his cleaning sessions, and it was in a different part of the park entirely.
He never felt right about these odd jobs for Torchwood, even when Ianto asked very nicely and offered him enough money to keep himself housed and fed, and Simon paid for another month or two. The only saving grace was the time that money bought him; a nice payoff meant he could stop taking in jobs and focus on his own pursuits until the money started running low again. He thought about the ring and how easy it would have been to slip it on that day, to see where it would have taken him—someplace new, somewhen unexplored. But by that point there was Simon, who'd proven to be enough of a tether to keep him around a bit longer. Good thing, too; the Astrolopharean princess had been upset enough about her missing engagement ring to increase the length of the Grand Canyon. The earth wouldn't have stood a chance if he'd made off with it. He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and paced around the room, thinking, thinking, thinking—
He stopped when he heard a loud crash. Bloody hell—couldn't the boy build a simple containment chamber by now? They'd been doing this for at least a year now; this wasn't the first time they'd had to find something that had fallen through the Rift so that Ianto could lock it away. At times he felt that he should destroy the artifacts, but a small part of him liked that they were there, hidden away in Torchwood's archives, like the attic he'd had on the TARDIS. He took in a deep breath and went into the other room to check on Simon's lack of progress.
His eyes were greeted by a familiar sight; dust and smoke filled the room, his apprentice was on the floor, and bits and pieces of the box were strewn about. He surveyed the damage and looked knowingly at Simon. The young man sighed and adjusted his glasses as he stood up and dusted himself off.
"I know, I know. Talcum powder before the acid, not after." Simon began cleaning up the mess. John chuckled as he left the room.
He got his kit together—he missed his TARDIS-enhanced pockets—as he mused on what to put in the backpack. He really had no idea what they were seeking; Ianto hadn't given him much more to go on than the energy readings, the time the object was supposed to explode, and some vague warning to be careful not to lose his head. Finding the location had been easy, really, and he wondered why Ianto had even bothered asking him to do it when he had plenty of agents at his disposal to take care of it for him. Of course, he really had no idea what he was after and it did need to be contained before it blew up, and he was pretty good at thinking on his feet…
Ego momentarily satisfied, he went back in to check on Simon's progress. He smiled at the young man working at the bench. Simon was smart, no doubt about it, a real wizard at putting things together. The difficulty was that beneath that sandy hair and those hazel eyes was a bit of a sequencing problem; sometimes he'd have trouble remembering the order of things and on days like this, when they were in a hurry, he'd forget to check his meticulous notebooks to ensure that he'd got things right. John saw the now-open notebook as the young man put the finishing touches on the device and reminded himself (for the umpteenth time) to make sure that he put up a big reminder for Simon on the wall to avoid future mishaps. Simon's bungled sequencing, John's overtaxed memory—ah, the curses of a Rift-addled human brain and a Time Lord's overstuffed one.
Equipment gathered and secured, the pair followed the energy readings to a small flat in a building that was eerily familiar to John. "The last time I saw this place," he mused, and he remembered when and why he'd been here before. He swallowed hard and stopped short. Simon ran into him. John still didn't move. "Sir? The time? We've got half an hour before this thing goes boom."
John shook himself out of his reverie and turned to face his assistant. "What? Oh, yes, the thing. 30 minutes. Well, best get to it, then. Don't need to see this place blow twice in my lifetime, do I?" Simon followed him, a puzzled look on his face.
John wondered what surprises were in store for him in the building. Was she, somehow involved? Would she be home? What was her life like in this world, who was she, where, when, would she have been his friend? The questions came rushing at him and through him and past him as he used his sonic screwdriver to enter one locked door and then another, and another until they were inside the flat they sought. It wasn't hers; he'd only entered it from the street that one time, and he clearly remembered the walk up to the top of the building.
"Right, 30 minutes. She probably doesn't even live here."
"Actually, that's 20 minutes now, sir," said Simon. Odd how he couldn't remember the order of simple instructions but could so accurately mark the passage of time—without a watch. John knew he'd need to peer into his head sometime to see what made him tick.
"OK, look about but don't touch anything, remember? We don't know what it looks like or what it does, well, apart from making you lose your head. What was Ianto on about with that anyway?" John scanned the room with the screwdriver and he followed the energy signal into a small room off the main entry. "Get the box ready, Simon. No time to waste." The young man followed him into the room.
The signal got stronger as he approached the center of the room, which stunk of sweat and beer and young, randy pheromones. On the floor was a pile of dirty clothes. He sighed. Was this item in the hands of an alien or a teenager? "Same thing, I suppose," he muttered. He looked around the room and saw the posters for rock bands on the walls, video game system, and a messy, half-made bed. The energy signal was strongest near the pile of laundry so he turned his attention to it. What was he looking for? He had to be careful; he didn't know how this thing worked or what it could do and this body was all he had. The pile of clothing, while smelly, looked innocent enough.
"10 minutes" whispered Simon. He held a clear box and a pair of tongs. "Have you got any idea what we're looking for?"
"Not a clue, not a clue, except for that business about—" Simon could see the light bulb go on in his boss's eyes.
"Yes!" John exclaimed, and, to Simon's horror, he dove into the pile and began rummaging through the clothes. He tossed them about, shirts, pants, undergarments, socks, until he got to the very bottom of the pile. The last item left in the center of the floor, hidden in the one place anyone with a nose wouldn't dare look, was a black felt bowler. John held out his hand to Simon and took the box and the tongs; he lifted the lid on the box, and used the tongs to pick the hat up and put it inside. He sealed the box with the screwdriver and looked at the hat for a moment. "Hmm. Looks innocuous enough—black felt hat, might fancy one of these myself. But—oh, what's this?" he whispered as he looked at the inside of the hat. Inside the hat brim was a silver metal strip with four small blue lights placed around it. "What do you make of it? Simon?"
"I almost thought you were going to touch it," Simon said, and John could see that his assistant had been fearful of his safety as he'd sifted through the clothes.
"Oh, sorry. Should've said something, only it came to me so fast. What a stupid thing for Ianto to say—Don't lose your head—but I guess he didn't really know what we were looking for either, just what it might do." He looked thoughtfully at Simon and remembered his own mortality. "Should probably be more careful in the future, shouldn't I?"
Simon nodded at him, just as he always did when these things happened. He'd been with Mr. Smith for 14 months, 8 days, 7 hours and 14 minutes. They'd had some version of this conversation so many times over that it was almost a comfortable habit, but every time John Smith rushed into something without thinking, with no regard for his safety, Simon wondered if this time would be the last one.
They heard a click at the door and then footsteps. John and Simon looked at each other and grinned. Another comfortable, if dangerous, habit; this was the fun part.
John used the screwdriver to lock the bedroom door while Simon opened the window and dropped to the ground. As John followed him down into the shrubbery, he smiled as he felt the adrenaline rush. Sure, Simon was great at putting things together, even when he got things in the wrong order, but he was even better at running.
###
Bowler secured in the office safe, John and Simon parted company for the day. They'd managed to elude their pursuer—a tall figure in a dark hooded sweatshirt, humanoid in shape, possibly even human—and they'd used a circuitous route to return to the office. A very long run, followed by a very long walk, with a stop for chips along the way. He'd have to talk to Ianto tomorrow about that hat; a quick scan with the sonic told him that it wasn't going to explode and that it was meant to hide something. In addition to the outright lies, Ianto's silence on this job troubled him. Most of his Torchwood projects were dangerous, but John knew enough about his old universe to generally piece together what was happening in his new one, and Ianto always gave him some context in which to operate. Ianto's silence, his own lack of knowledge, finding himself at Martha's building, and something about that metal strip on the hat gave him an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Don't be ridiculous," he muttered. "It's a hat with a crude damper device attached to it. Nothing to get excited about."
He unpacked his backpack and put away the tools. No messages, no new cases. While he sighed—he needed something, anything, to do—he was a little glad of it. This business with the hat could end up taking up some more of his time, and if it didn't, he'd have enough money to let him work on some of the side projects he and Simon had been cooking up. As he started taking things out for tea, he felt the effects of the run, a twinge in his back and the stiffness of his thighs. "Shower," he grumbled, "then tea."
A few minutes later he was standing under a hot stream of water, musing on his aging body—he was still getting used to it, the idea that he would die, that his body was already, inexorably, breaking down, decaying, and that there would be nothing, that in less than one second he would blink out of existence. Three years gone and what did he have to show for it? By human standards, not much. His business, if he could call it that, wasn't exactly a smashing success. Simon was good to have around, but John was the master to Simon's apprentice, and his attempts at making friendships had been disasters. His erratic temper—wild enthusiasm for the strangest things, intensely burning anger at injustices—coupled with his endless nervous talking acted as an effective friendship firewall. Nope, nothing to show for it, nothing at all.
It was a bare life, and while in the TARDIS that had been enough (would Simon have made a good travelling companion, he wondered?), standing still on earth was something he didn't want to—shouldn't have to—do alone.
It wasn't until he'd been faced with so many ordinary humans that he realized how extraordinary his former companions had been. But as much as he wanted to know about them in this world, he avoided them. His only contact with Torchwood was through Ianto, he stayed away from Ealing and Chiswick, and he never, ever set foot in the Royal Hope Hospital. He knew that people could be different in this universe, and he knew that he didn't want to be disappointed that the new ones wouldn't live up to his memory of the old. Jackie and Pete had managed, somehow, because they were each what the other had always hoped they would be. He believed theirs was the rare happy ending.
He stepped out of the shower, dried off, dressed, and made the tea, for one, as usual. Being so close to just the idea of Martha made his usual dull loneliness sharper.
He supposed it was inevitable; at some point he'd have to come into contact with someone. He had stayed in London, after all. He'd never worried about coming across Rose. The way they'd left things it seemed impossible that she'd ever seek him out again. But the others, the ones still alive in this time, well, they could be around any corner, couldn't they? And, the little honest voice inside him whispered, hadn't he been hoping that they were?
The flat was too quiet; perhaps a walk? He grabbed a light jacket, put on his trainers, and stepped outside. Maybe the street, the city, would provide enough cover, would surprise him with a contact that could stick or with something to think about other than her and them and the loneliness. Even being alone in the TARDIS had never really meant being alone, not like this, and as he stepped out on to the city street, as he felt the night pulse around him and the people rushing past, he kept pace with the movement, hurrying, almost running in an effort to be part of their rush, to flow with the only vortex he could access now, to be lost in the roaring stream.
It was no good, though. Even in this crush of people, he had nothing to hide behind now, nothing, not even his name. Being so close to her today reminded him that she was the reason he'd almost left John Smith behind; her John Smith lurked beneath his exterior, a dark marker of that one time he was truly, undeniably human. There was this moment with Donna when he'd been able to do what the Doctor had not; he'd seen, with remarkable clarity, exactly what Donna believed about herself, and he'd been able to reflect that for her, to speak what she couldn't and wouldn't say about her fears. He'd turned that unflinching honesty upon himself quite a few times in the past few years, and he hadn't always liked what he saw, particularly when it came to Martha and her John Smith.
He slowed his pace as he played back that time. The memories of Joan were like dear pieces of paper, singed on the edges by the fire of his transformation and the knowledge of how badly he'd hurt her. The memories of Martha shamed him. They'd both abandoned her, John Smith and the Doctor. She'd never stood a chance, not because of who she was, but because of who she wasn't. It was as if they'd each been looking at a negative image, defining her by erasing her, by making her less than she was because of what and who she wasn't. Neither of them saw her until they were absolutely forced to, and even then, even after she'd risked an abandonment she should never have had to consider, it was Joan—not John, not the Doctor—who'd proven her salvation.
After, when they were trapped in 1969, he could finally see her, but something had hardened in her during that time, had stiffened. On the outside she seemed the same, but she hid her light so far within that he'd expected her to leave him as soon as they got back to her time. Instead, she went with him to the end of the universe and found the Master. She'd seen her flat blown up, her family arrested, him tortured and aged, and what had she done? She had trusted him so completely that in the face of death and destruction and torture--in the face of certain annihilation--she had walked the earth and told a story, told it so convincingly, so truthfully, so sincerely that she gave the world hope and inspiration. And how had he repaid her, how must it have looked to her as he cried over the body of the architect of so much destruction? He was glad to see her go; he couldn't bear to look at her now that he could see her, see her more clearly than he'd seen anyone, because he knew that he could never make up for what had happened when he wasn't looking. But that hadn't been the end, had it, no, that was really just the beginning. Once he saw her, the Doctor had begun to see himself anew and the end result, well, for John anyway, was this exile.
The name hadn't just been too much of a familiar skin; it had been a punishment, a hair shirt and penance, a reminder that to be human meant to really see. He stopped and closed his eyes, calling her to mind. She was so tiny, but so strong. The more he thought about that journey she'd taken, how one small body could have done so much, the weaker and frailer his body felt.
He fell to the ground with a thump.
"Oi, mate, you ok?"
A hand reached down to help him up. He looked up to see what had knocked him over and found himself looking into a familiar pair of eyes. The other hand held a familiar mobile phone. The body was wearing a familiar red leather jacket, and the eyes were so full of concern and life that he couldn't speak. The universe felt very small and he struggled to breathe.
"Look Mum, I'll call you back in a minute," she said, hanging up the phone. "Are you alright?" she asked again. She took his left hand in hers, then his right, inspecting the scrapes from the collision of his hands against the hard cement. "You'll want to clean these cuts and dress them," she said, "but otherwise, you look ok."
He grinned at her, "So you're a doctor then? Brilliant!" The air between them hummed with his excitement. She was here, standing here, and she was the same—a little older, to be expected—but the same, the very same.
Her eyes appraised him as she slowly replied "Yes, I am a doctor, although I think anyone would have said what I just did."
"But no, they wouldn't, don't you see? The first thing, the very first thing that you did, well, apart from getting off the phone with your mum who must really be on a tear to distract and agitate you so much that you literally ran me down—me, the immovable object, standing stock still in the street—no, your very first instinct was to check me out for damage and to make a diagnosis." He paused and took a breath and she wondered how he'd managed that long without one. "That's why you're a doctor and that's just brilliant!"
She looked up into his eyes. In them she saw so much—joy? sorrow? loneliness?—it was difficult to sort it all out. Whatever was there, she felt a deep sense of trust, that she could trust him with anything. She didn't take that feeling lightly; her work had taught her to trust her instincts about people and they hadn't failed her yet. But how on earth could he know about her relationship with her mother?
She extended her hand. "I'm Martha Jones."
He took her hand, so familiar and new, and shook it gently. brbr"Nice to meet you Doctor Jones. I'm John Smith." It felt strange to say it to her, and he wanted to add "and I'm much less rubbish this time," but stopped himself. When was the last time he'd spoken to someone about something other than work?
"Would you like to get that cleaned up?" she asked, indicating the cuts on his hands. "I've got a flat in this building; I could run up and get some bandages."
He looked up and realized that he'd wandered himself back to her home. For a moment he'd thought that fate had led her to him; now he saw that he'd been moving toward her all along. He looked back at her and nodded. She went into the building and he busied himself looking at his trainers and the concrete.
"Just this one encounter," he lied to himself, "just this once." He smiled at the thought of her jacket—that very same jacket—existing in both spaces and her wearing it in both places, and the same smell of her and her eyes, and how in this other world she was still so much Martha Jones.
"But she's not the same and you can't pretend that she is. Just this once."
She came out of the building and wiped his palms with an antiseptic wipe, then applied the bandages. "There, all better now. I'm sorry I knocked you down. I really need to pay better attention to where I'm going." She smiled up at him.
He looked at her with laughing eyes and ran his bandaged hand through his hair. "Well, I wasn't exactly avoiding it, what with me standing here like a stone."
"About that—why were you standing here, anyway? Are you lost or looking for someone?"
"Nope, not lost and not looking for anyone in particular. Just out for a walk and a think and I guess I got lost in the latter. Sorry I got in your way. Sometimes I can't see what's right in front of me," he said and in his eyes now all she saw was loneliness. "I guess I'll be going then."
As he held out a hand to her, her mobile rang. "Mum" she whispered, clearly exasperated. Something in his eyes told her to keep him there. "Could you wait for just a moment? I promise I won't be long." She turned away from him and answered the phone. He tried not to listen, but couldn't help but hear the words "not a tramp," and "Leo's a grown man" and "you have to cut the strings, Mum, or you'll strangle him" before she hung up the phone and turned to back to face him. "Sorry about that. You know, families…" She smiled a bit and then continued. "I'm sure you know what that's like."
He scratched his head. "Actually, I'm sort of on my own at the moment. Well, not entirely—there is Simon—but he doesn't really count I suppose, although I can usually rely on him for Sunday dinners. But mostly it's just me, on my own, a complete unknown, like a roll—" He stopped when he saw the laughter threatening to burst from her face.
"Can you actually answer a question succinctly?" she asked.
"Yes. I. Can." he quipped. "Though I always seem to take it too far. Gets me into trouble sometimes" he said thoughtfully.
"Sounds like you need someone to tell you when to stop, then," she said.
"Perhaps I do, Doctor Jones."
Their eyes locked and they considered each other for that span of time that feels like eternity and promises even more. His mind was racing and he was trying to remember exactly why he'd made that rule about not contacting them, when he'd forgotten how lonely his life was, and how he was going to force himself away from her before he did something he'd regret later. It wasn't just the loneliness; it was her and he was here because something in him wanted to be here, with her, in this moment, in this time. He missed having a friend, and she'd always been a good friend to him, even when he didn't treat her like one.
Her mind was racing and she was trying to remember exactly why she'd sworn off strangely searching eyes, when she'd forgotten how lonely her life was, and how she was going to force herself away from him before she did something she'd regret later. It wasn't just the loneliness; ihe/i was coming and she knew she was supposed to be meeting him soon and something in her wanted to have a backup, now, just this once. She missed having a friend she could trust and he looked like he might be a good friend to her, at least for this one night.
Her voice broke the silence and made the decision for them. "Would you like to go for a drink? There's a pub round the corner; I'm meeting someone there later, but we could talk for a bit? Something tells me you'd be good to know." She raised an eyebrow as she waited for his answer.
Forward—had his Martha been like this too or was this one of many differences? He wanted to find out.
"I'd like that. I'd like that very much Doctor Jones."
"Please call me Martha. 'Doctor Jones' makes me feel like I should be running from snakes or large rolling stones." She winked at him and smiled. "Just give me a minute to run upstairs and change. I've been in these clothes all day."
She disappeared into the building and as he stood outside he realized that being at her flat meant that he was also at the hat owner's flat and that was very bad. How could he have been so stupid? He dove into the shrubbery that had been so obliging earlier and slowly peered up into the apartment he'd been in earlier that day. No sign of life inside, good, no lights on or anything. He scanned up and down the street—nothing. No one coming or going. A bit odd, since it was early in the evening and the streets had all been so full of life, but really, folks were probably having their suppers or a pint at the pub; this wasn't a street in the heart of the city. He considered going, but thought better of it. What if Martha was in danger?
"If you needed the loo you could have just asked," he heard her say and he sheepishly extricated himself from the bushes.
"I, um, thought I saw something in the shrub, something shiny. Thought it might be important, but it was nothing, just a bit of trash." He thought he saw suspicion in her eyes, but the look was gone so quickly that he brushed the thought of it away.
"Shall we?" she asked, indicating the direction of the pub.
He offered her his arm, as he'd done so many times before, and felt the familiar weight of her on his body as they walked down the street.
