This chapter gave me a bit of trouble, sorry for the delay!
Disclaimer: I own only the packing boxes I get to haul back to school. And I will trade them for chocolate bars.
Miss Me Yet?
Chapter 7: Suspicions, Screwdrivers and Songs
Cally continued to watch the Doctor and Martha bicker, occasionally adding her own teasing to the mix. Her team on Atlantis liked to do the same thing, though their teasing usually bounced from who'd done what horribly embarrassing thing on a mission. Some things were universal constants. She just had to make sure never to bring up M7C-836 around the team physicist. At least not while you wanted hot water and reasonable room temperature.
She snorted as Martha stole the Doctor's scone, only to have him steal it back again when she was up getting more tea.
"Not to be nosy," Cally said, taking a sip of her own tea. "But you two seem close."
The Doctor rubbed a hand through his hair. "Yes, well." He said, drawing out the second word. "When you've traveled around and been through a lot, it tends to happen." He grinned.
Cally felt a slow smile drift across her features as her friends on Atlantis flashed through her mind. "Yeah, I know what you mean."
"So what did you do before you started to lurk around the display cases?" The Doctor asked curiously, putting his elbows on the table and resting his head on his hands. It made him look adorable and almost childlike.
Cally smiled wanly. "Sorry, most of it was classified. I flew aircraft for the most part." The Doctor noticed that her smile had gone all wispy, as if she was remembering something. In fact, Cally was reminiscing over the smooth flight of Puddlejumpers. Not that the Doctor knew that.
She looked at him curiously. "So what do you two do that allows you to travel a lot?"
The Doctor smiled. "Ah! That!" He started to rummage around in his pockets, pulling out ridiculous odds and ends. String, glasses, random coins, a clown's rubber nose, spools of wire. He pulled out a long cylindrical object as well, with a curved attachment on top, almost like crystal. When he pressed a button, the top attachment started to glow and the whole device, Cally guessed that was what it was, hummed softly.
"What is this?" Cally asked hesitantly as the Doctor handed it over to her, then continued to pat his pockets almost aimlessly.
"It's a special type of screwdriver," he told her, pulling a card cover out of his breast pocket. "Delicate and annoying to fix."
"What can it unscrew?" Cally stared at the glowing object. Her last encounter with a glowing object had been bad enough.
The Doctor grinned proudly. "Just about anything."
Cally would have to see it to believe it.
The Doctor opened the card cover to show her a card that said: Doctor John Smith, Historian, Ph.D. It listed the name of a University in the south of England and contact information. "We do a lot of traveling for my research. Martha is my assistant."
Cally nodded understanding and watched him gather up the things that had littered the table just as Martha returned. She looked knowingly at the Doctor as he tried to put the things he carried back into the proper pockets. She spotted the device, what she knew to be the sonic screwdriver, in Cally's hands and tried not to look as surprised as she felt. Cally saw it and while it didn't register immediately, her mind filed it away for future reference.
"So are you studying to be a historian too?" She asked Martha politely as the other woman added milk to her tea.
"No, I'm studying to be a medical doctor. I'm just along for the ride." Martha grinned, imagining what her life would be like without the Doctor, who plucked the sonic screwdriver from Cally's hands with a murmur of thanks.
"A medical doctor?" Cally's mind flashed back to the Expedition's Chief Medical Officer, Carson Beckett. "That's always interesting work! And," She said with a mischievous smile, "if you're in the military, you can boss us Marines around. You wouldn't believe some of the escape attempts we've had from our base infirmary."
"Escape attempts?" Martha didn't know if she was joking or not.
"Yeah. Lying in a bed for a period of intense observation is not one of my favorite pastimes. Sorry." Cally grinned impishly.
"Last time I was sick I ended up wearing my friend's mum's boyfriend's bathrobe." The Doctor laughed. "The man kept fruit in the pockets! Can you imagine? Fruit!"
Cally laughed as the man continued to rant, then caught sight of her watch. She glared, then sighed. "Sorry, I have to go back to filing. It was nice to meet you both."
"Likewise!" Martha shook Cally's hand while the Doctor just waved and they watched her place her dishes by the trash bin and leave the Café.
Outside the Café, five minutes after Cally had left, Martha pulled the Doctor into a corner of the Greek exhibit.
"What were you using the sonic screwdriver on her for?"
The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver and looked at it frowning. "There was something – off about her. I needed to know what it was."
Martha looked skeptical. "Well?"
"She has a large amount of naqahdah in her blood."
The aspiring doctor looked confused. "What? I've never heard of naqahdah!"
The Doctor had grown serious and he pocketed the screwdriver, heading off through the Greek exhibits towards the Assyrian exhibits. "That isn't surprising, seeing as its not a mineral native to Earth."
Martha froze for a moment, eyes widening with the shock of what the Doctor had just told her. "You mean she's been off of the planet?"
"More than once, if the level of naquadah in Cally's blood is any indication."
Martha jogged to keep up. "But that's impossible!"
The Doctor raised his eyebrow at her. "You've been traveling with me how long, and you still say things like that?"
Martha huffed, but the Doctor kept talking. "The thing is, you're right."
Martha stopped again. "I am?"
"In this time period, yours, the farthest you humans should have traveled into space would be your upper atmosphere, the International Space Station, the Moon certainly, but nowhere where naquadah exists."
Martha nodded. "So she's been off the planet?"
"Far off the planet. The question is how and why."
"And why she's here now." Martha added. She liked the woman she'd just met, but if the Doctor thought that something was too suspicious.
"Right!"
"So what's the plan?" Martha smiled widely, feeling the excitement she usually did when another one of their adventures began.
"We're volunteering."
"For what?"
"Filing!"
Martha stared. "You're joking."
The Doctor grinned, didn't reply, and walked away, his coat drifting along behind him.
"You are joking aren't you?" Martha called after him.
Cally gulped, palms sweating. She'd told Myles that she had an appointment and had left half an hour early. In reality, she'd gone back to the bar, the one that held live talent nights. She had, in a moment of complete lunacy, signed herself up to perform. At the moment, Cally was trying to figure out why she'd done something so completely and undeniably stupid.
She'd picked up guitar on Atlantis, more to pass her free time with. She hadn't taken lessons, and no one had ever actually heard her play. So, once again, this seemed like such a bad idea. Cally didn't even know is she was good or not.
Even a Wraith battle would probably be less stressful than this. Well, not by much.
Cally climbed the steps of the small wooden stage and crossed to the diminutive stool in the center of the stage in front of the microphone. She couldn't see the people in the crowd because the floor was too dark. Which was probably for the best. Cally just hoped that no one in the crowd carried over ripe vegetables on their person, since at this low visibility, she'd never be able to see them coming.
The clapping died down, and Cally cleared her throat. "Hi. My name is Cally Everet, and I'm going to play for you two songs. The first is about a hope that a lot of us share, the second-" She gulped again. "Is about a city I'm kind of attached to."
She strummed the acoustic guitar she was cradling and it softly responded to the drag of the pick across the strings. Cally took a deep breath, like she was preparing to take off in a Puddlejumper, and started to sing.
Another letter, with the same three words as another that sat in the Atlantis mailroom, postmarked for the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, lay in a mailbag in an airplane, far above the Atlantic Ocean.
Under the same sky, a box rocked slowly.
Thanks for the reviews! It keeps my email inbox alive and kicking! All are appreciated!
ifiwalkthesun: Thank you! It'll be very interesting when they try to open it!
Pandora of Ithilien: The Torchwood team is on its way! Well, they will be soon. They are amazing aren't they? When the box comes, the team will appear.
WingedIsis16: Yup! That slowing accumulating dust bunny will be joined by a few more, and the letters play a huge part close to the end.
