I know that this is a whole knew chapter. I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter yet since I've not written it's partner chapter. I'll either come back and re-write portions of this chapter or this chapter in its entirety once I know where I'm going with the characterisation in the next chapter. Or, it will naturally go from where I currently and I'll just come back latter for English edits.
Chapter thirty-six
Torchwood Three had prepared for an alien incursion. The bunkers allowed Raven to set everyone she'd saved in the first wave up with a place to sleep dormitory style (by gender and profession, with the social workers (which she hadn't realised she'd saved) set next to the children who had been saved without parents), along with everyone that she saved in every successive wave. The military and police that she'd saved fell into their roles of keeping the peace and law even while in such a contained area, while several others took up responsibility for monitoring and reporting on other areas which Raven ultimately oversaw (farming/greenhouses, education, chores…).
From the actual base of Torchwood, Raven led several soldiers that she'd decided to trust in the resistance movement. She was the only one who ever left the base as she was also the only who wouldn't affected by the Master's mental manipulation. In her trips out, she'd sabotaged the Master, returned with more refugees and/or resources from England and always did something to bring attention away from Martha.
Martha was the only one of the three from the TARDIS who still had their coms still in as the other two had theirs removed within the first week of being on the Valiant. Using their coms, Raven was able to assure the other woman of other resistance members who would be able to lead her through the current country that she was in and to the people to help her in her mission. Raven was also the one to tell Martha of the bluff.
"What is Martha's true mission?" Corporal James, the solider that Raven had placed in charge of trying to get into Arch Angel Network questioned having heard the end of Raven's conversation with Martha.
Raven stopped, looking over the eight men and woman that she was trusting to help her protect the lives of humanity. They'd been under the control of the master for four months now, and they were looking aged in a way that they hadn't that first day she'd saved them all. Corporal James, Captain Davis, Sargent Travis and Sargent Jarret had all been in that first wave of survivals – dirty and bloody but hopeful and not knowing just how bad it was going to get. Three weeks later, she's managed to rescue Sargent Peters, Lieutenant Coll, Sargent Troy and Sargent Foley – they'd been less hopeful, beaten down but grateful and strong and determined. Now, despite not having lost any weight, they were pale and drawn from lake of true sunlight and their eyes were haunted from the horrors they were seeing from the surface.
"Come, there is a story that I must tell." Raven decided, knowing that it was time. Martha was doing her part to reach as many as she could, and Raven had nearly 6,000 civilians under her protection at the minute – that was a lot of minds and a lot of hope.
Returning to the large bunker room where she'd first gathered the civilians which had been set up as a play room/gym/social gathering place Raven took a seat with her back against a wall before using her phone's connection to the Torchwood system to trigger the 'call' system which let everyone know that there was a meeting.
Over the next fifteen minutes, the resistance of the safe haven that Torchwood three was providing trickled and took seats in front of her – following the example of her six. Once everyone was there, Raven offered them a kind, if tired, smile.
"Thank you for coming. I was asked a question that I believe you all deserve an answer to. I have kept you informed of what is happening on the surface, I have not lied to you about the state that our world is in or the fact that there is a team of us working to bring the Master to justice. What I haven't told you is how or who." Raven sighed. "You've heard the tale of the Nightingale, the woman who is walking the Earth, Martha Jones… she walks the earth not to find a weapon or form an army. She walks the earth, looking for the people, ordinary people you so that she can tell you of a story."
"A story? That's how you're going to beat the Master?" A teen blurted in disbelief.
"It's not just any story." Raven wasn't offended even as his friends motioned him to be quiet and to listen. "There is a man, a man of myth and of legend who has saved this world so many times but he never stays and he never asks to be thanks. He has travelled through human history – into our past when we were just in our begins to our far future when we have empires spanning across galaxies. No matter what is happening, he takes the time to save us – always. Even when we don't always deserve it. He doesn't have a name like you or me, but when the world was threatened there is only man I would turn to – only one man we could turn to, the Doctor."
"You've met him before," one of the teachers observed.
"Yes, when the ghost came. They were beings from another universe forcing their way into ours, but it took them a long time to force their way through the barrier. The Doctor's companion received a phone call, calling them home, but they arrived six weeks after the ghosts first started appearing and the panic had settled. Humanity had accepted the ghosts into their homes across the world so the Doctor wasn't stopped an invasion, he was repelling a hostile force that had taken over." Raven leaned back in her chair thoughtfully as he recalled the details she'd been by the Doctor and that she'd put together.
"I'd never liked the ghosts, never accepted them. The humans who had been helping them, however unwitting of their intentions, didn't want me to stop them for they wanted to use the power that the breach the ghosts were using as their own. So, they took me and contained me. If the Doctor hadn't come along, I would have died at the hands of those humans. But come he did, a little late as he sometimes is, but just in time. As the ghosts became men of metal, the Doctor had already begun to try and help humanity. he started by freeing me. Unfortunately… a second force had also into this universe and they were released – these were the Daleks.
The Daleks were old enemies of the Doctors, great and terrible beings that he had fought time and time again to a stop – saving so many people and so many civilians and so great personal costs. And this battle… this battle to protect humanity cost him just as dearly. He managed to send the men of steel and the daleks back through the whole in the worlds, saving as many as he could. But he lost his companion and the woman he loved for us. I saw his grief that day… the way he looked upon the burning city of London when the danger was passed with eyes older than I could even guess… he carried my broken body from that building and tended to me with tenderness and care despite his loss and I know he continues to watch over us."
Raven looked over the eyes that were staring at her with silent intensity.
"The Doctor tried to stop the Master before he could gain his power, but he was to light and all he could do was slow his take over and send out his companion into the world. Even now, he and my boss are the Masters captives on the Valiant – watching, waiting and planning. The Doctor will have one chance, when the Master moves into his final phase, to use the Master's plan against him and that is when he will need you to help him – to think of the man who has given more than any other for us so that he might save us one more time."
"Will you tell us more stories about the Doctor?" a young boy of six asked excitedly.
"Not now," Raven chuckled. "But I will tell a story every night I am on base. I will be here, six o'clock, to tell you of the amazing man called the Doctor."
"Are you ready Corporal James?" Raven set the last transmitted and its last defence, just encase it got tracked back, before leaning her back against a new rock formation that had formed from the breaking down and the destruction of metal.
"Yes, ma'am," the corporal's voiced confirmed over their secured lines which wasn't on.
"The resistance and Nightingale is underground?" Raven checked.
"Yes ma'am. Nightingale has just touched down in Russia and the resistance is hunkering for the next forty-eight." Sargent Troy confirmed.
"Alright, let's show the Master that we're not cowering after what he did to Japan. Corporal," Raven ordered.
"I'm in. Bringing down the satellite over the United Kingdom and brining it under our command." Corporal James confirmed. There was a minute of tense silence over the line. "A maintenance fault has been detected, but my breach of their system remains unnoticed. We're clear. You're turn ma'am."
"Time for the fireworks." Raven smirked as she activated the explosives which she'd and the resistance had set up on several scrap yards – the fire would warp the metal and delay production.
"Nightingale, this is Overwatch," Raven spoke softly encase she woke Martha from her rare sleep. With how dangerous it was out in the world outside, even in the resistance bases, she didn't feel safe letting her guard down and sleeping.
"I'm here, Overwatch. What do you need?" Martha whispered.
"I've arranged your passage to British shores, I'm bringing you home." Raven informed Martha from within the safety of Jack's office while watching her partner on the screen. He was filthy – covered in blood and dirt from the tortured the Master enjoyed putting him through when he bored – his arms were chained spread eagled to steam pipes. It broke her heart to see him like this, but she couldn't stop watching him because that would be like turning her back on him.
"It's nearly time, isn't it?" Martha questioned.
"Yes, it's nearly time. Everything is in place. The Doctor's ready. It's time to reach out to Docherty with that little disk and your cover story." Raven confirmed.
"Who's my contact on shore?"
"Milligan. Thomas Milligan. A Paediatric doctor." Raven said slightly apologetically.
"You normally send nurses my way." Martha questioned.
"I've made an impact in England. Qualified Doctors are the only medical professionals who can move outside of camps. Paediatric doctors are the safest to move as they are the least suspicious and I don't move them for the resistance very often." Raven explained.
"Will you be staying staff inside the base?" Martha questioned, worried.
"I can't. I've got men ready to re-establish the satellite when we need it, to broadcast the Master's grandstanding so we know when to send out the people but there is a few more places in England I hadn't reached with a large group of people that I want to get to. You'll touch down in Dover, Kent, and meat the people in Canterbury. I'm getting to the people in Derby." Raven glanced briefly away from the screen to glance at the clock, but she had time.
"When do you leave?"
"Tonight. I'm going by land, so it will take me longer. You're going down the coast on a boat. It ends in four days."
"The final countdown." Martha joked weekly. "How are they?"
"Physically, the Doctor's okay. But he knows who the Toclafane are and he's been silent since. Jack… he's still joking. Your family are clinging to each other tightly, traumatized but holding strong. Your brother is still safe, he's actually working as a night carer for the orphaned children."
Raven did her best not to burden Martha with the likely true situation of their metal health. The newly returned relationship between Martha's parents would fall apart once the situation was over. Martha would be dealing with her own mental stress and health problems when this was over, but she was the sort of person who would try and help her parents first.
"When this is all over, the Doctor and I owe you a trip to somewhere bright and sunny where you and Jack can relax and spend some time together." Martha promised in relief.
"We can go together." Raven returned. "I really need a hol..."
Raven sat up sharply when she saw the Master dance into the room where Jack was being held.
"Overwatch, what is wrong?" Martha asked when she didn't continue.
"I'm on screen, it's Jack. Nightingale, Harrington will take you from the Nice docks and through a relay into the safe hands of Tom. Stay safe." Raven ended her conversation with more abruptness than she normally would when talking with Martha but she couldn't to have a pleasant conversation with her friend when she could see what was happening to Jack.
"Jack," Raven sobbed softly when her partner was left alone and he bowed his head in exhaustion. "Just hold in there a little longer. It's nearly over. It's nearly over."