Hi there, lovely people! Thanks for the follows/favs for my first chapter. And an extra big thank you to FlamePumpkin32 and the anon reviewer for kindly leaving reviews, it means a lot. I hope you enjoy this chapter! :)
Time Knows No Boundaries ~ Chapter Two
Is it strange that I talk to myself
Is it weird that I hear someone else
What do I do
There's no more you
And I tell me you'll be coming home
Is it strange I believe them again
Voices in my head
'Voices In My Head' – Bruno Mars
.:*:.
"Martha!"
Martha snapped her head up at the sound of the loud voice and looked around blearily. Much to her chagrin, she had fallen asleep sitting at the table, and she flushed with embarrassment as other people sitting nearest in the little cafe were sniggering and giggling at her. Scraping back a lock of hair behind her ear, she met the gaze of her boyfriend, Elliot, sitting opposite her and offered an apologetic smile.
"Sorry, El," she muttered, rubbing her eyes.
"Don't mention it," he said with a small chuckle, taking a sip from his paper cup of coffee. "Have those bad dreams been keeping you awake again, babes?" he asked her, his brows furrowed in mild concern.
Martha stifled a yawn with difficulty before answering, "They're not bad, so much as just...weird."
Her gaze shifted unseeingly to the thronging crowd of people milling about the busy airport as she thought yet again about that strange disembodied voice. The curious incident at the antique shop a week ago had not, unfortunately, been her last.
During the days that had followed her trip there, Martha had taken to constantly studying the pocket watch she had purchased, weighing it in her hands and running her thumb over the already worn inscription which, after squinting at it, she could see were a set of initials: J.N.
This meant absolutely nothing to her but as she had been gently fingering the outer rim of the watch, a low but distinctly amused voice had said, "That tickles."
Then there was the time when she had been relaxing at home in her flat, listening to an album by Guns n' Roses – again whilst she had been handling the watch - and a voice had asked her "would you please be so kind to desist that infernal din?". This would normally happen in the evening, and Martha would just shake her head and put it down to being over-tired and not getting enough sleep.
However, during her hours of much-needed slumber, Martha had found herself plagued by curious dreams. The same hopeful words that had whispered to her at the antique shop were asked of her again... Can you hear me? ... Will you help me? Though this time, she could see the blurry outlines of a man. She could never see his face properly but Martha swore she dreamed he was wearing a uniform of some kind and he would be holding out an arm to her as though in a beseeching manner.
In the dream, however, when Martha had stretched out her own hand to grasp his, he would dissolve into nothingness before she could even touch him and that was when she would jolt awake, breathing heavily, gazing frantically around her dark bedroom searching for someone who wasn't even there. Then she would lie awake for hours afterwards, wondering about it, preventing her from further sleep. That had been the routine every night for the rest of that week. She would go to sleep, have the dream, stay up for the remainder of the night and be exhausted the next day.
But it was not just the voice and the dreams; whenever she was alone in her flat, Martha could feel... something...a presence of some kind. She could not explain it, not even to herself. Call it feminine intuition, instinct or an over-active imagination at work but Martha had had the distinct impression that there was something else in the room with her, apart from her beloved tabby cat, Blossom.
"If this keeps up," said Elliot, pulling Martha back to the present, "maybe you should go see the doctor about giving you something to help you sleep?"
Martha only shrugged in answer, taking a sip from her now cold coffee and grimacing. She did not much fancy the idea of having to rely on pills to help stop the dreams. She pushed any further thoughts about the situation aside for the moment, wanting to change the subject.
"So, what time's your flight leave again?" she asked Elliot, leaning over to deposit her abandoned coffee in a nearby recycling bin. He flipped his wrist over to glance at his watch.
"Any moment now, actually," he answered. "I should get a move on, y'know... "
Elliot was catching a flight to New Zealand to visit his family over there as he had not seen them for quite some time. Martha had been with her boyfriend for nearly two years now, and even to this day, she still could not quite believe her great fortune at having him in her life. They had been introduced by mutual friends at a party and Martha, jittery and nervous as she always was at parties, did not think she had made such a good impression on him at the time as she had been a little on the tipsy side and had managed to spill an entire glass of red wine onto his spanking new shirt. Something which Elliot still teased her about even now. So she had been as surprised as anyone when the handsome, dark-haired twenty-eight-year-old had asked for her phone number at the end of that night and were still together after all this time.
However, she could not pretend that she wasn't a little hurt that Elliot had not asked her to accompany him on his excursion to New Zealand; she had never been there nor had she met his family and would have loved to. But he had never even suggested the idea, and she certainly wasn't going to if he did not wish for her to come.
As she walked with Elliot to help with his hand luggage to the gate where he handed over his ticket and passport for the uniformed lady behind a desk to check, he turned to Martha.
"Now...promise me when I'm away, you'll get some proper night's sleep," he told her in a mock firm voice, waving a long finger at her. The redhead sighed and rolled her eyes a little though in a good-natured way. "I don't much fancy having a zombie for a girlfriend, alright?" he continued.
"Whatever you say, darling," she answered, enunciating the last word a little drily. Then she smiled and leant up on tiptoes to wrap her arms around Elliot's tall frame in a tight hug. "See you in a three weeks time, then. Look after yourself, won't you? Make sure you don't fall in love with some cute Kiwi chick..."
She heard him give an amused snort. "I will, and I'll try not to," he said, chuckling.
"And send my love to your folks, okay?" Martha continued, biting the inside of her cheek to stop herself from adding that she wished she could have come along to give Elliot's parents her love in person.
"Your ticket and passport, sir," piped up the woman from behind the desk, and Elliot disentangled himself from Martha to retrieve the aforementioned articles with a muttered, "Thank you." Then he ducked his head down to briefly capture his girlfriend's lips with his.
"Take care, babes," he said swiftly. "Love you."
"Love you, too," she murmured.
She watched him saunter through the gate and he turned back to wave to her, which she returned with a rather fixed, sad smile, before disappearing around a corner. Martha felt an odd sense of loss. This was going to be the first time that she and Elliot had been separated from each other any longer than a week in the two years they had known each other. She sighed and told herself firmly to get a grip; it was not like Elliot was going to be gone forever. All the same...she wished she had been going with him.
Jostled slightly by the maddening crowd in the airport, Martha meandered her way back to the entrance and stepped out into the chilly, autumn night air to hail a taxi to begin the rather lengthy journey back home.
One extremely uneventful drive later, she arrived at her flat. The lift was broken down (again) so she climbed the stairs to her humble abode. Once inside, she collapsed onto her squashy leather sofa, exhaling sharply, the strap of her messenger bag slipping off her shoulder as it crumpled onto a pile on the floor. She was exhausted from so many sleepless nights and felt oddly deflated after Elliot's departure, unsure of what to do with herself.
There was a quiet mewing noise and Martha's cat, Blossom, leapt lightly onto the sofa to greet her mistress, purring at the sight of her. Martha smiled fondly at the feline and stroked her behind the ears.
"Just you and me for three weeks, I guess, Blossom, baby," she murmured to her.
Hating the all-consuming silence weighing upon her ears in the absence of her partner, Martha grabbed the remote and aimed it across the room at the TV. After a moment of channel-hopping, she settled on one of the film channels. To her mild but pleasant surprise, one of her favourite films was being shown, Thor.
Perfect, she thought with a smile. Nothing quite like unwinding than with a movie involving exciting fantasy adventures with sexy demi-gods. She got up and put away her jacket and bag. Being amongst a sea of hot, sweaty bodies at the airport had left Martha feeling horridly grimy. So one welcome shower later, she changed into her pyjamas. Dimming the light switch in the living room and fetching a tub of chocolate-chip ice cream to snack upon, she sank back onto the sofa to lose herself in the world of Thor.
"So I am no more than another stolen relic, locked up here until you might have use of me?"
"Why do you twist my words?"
"You could have told me what I was from the beginning! Why didn't you?"
"You're my son...I wanted only to protect you from the truth..."
"What, because I...I..I am the monster parents tell their children about at night?"
This was one of Martha's favourite scenes in this movie but her eyes were now itching with tiredness and becoming droopy, so she wasn't really concentrating as the scene played out. She was once again fiddling absent-mindedly with the pocket watch in her hands and thinking...She had heard that mysterious voice in the shop and yet she had still felt compelled to buy this watch. Ever since then, she heard various comments and had those strange dreams. Why?
"Why?" she questioned aloud to herself. "Am I going mad or what?"
"Miss, I can assure you that you are not going mad," came that disembodied voice once again.
Martha stared at the watch with wide eyes for a moment and then shook her head dazedly.
"No, you are just a figment of my imagination, that's all you are. I'm supposed to be too old for imaginary friends. Now leave me the hell alone," she groaned sleepily, yawning widely.
She discarded the watch onto the coffee table where it spun a little on the surface, still open. Feeling too tired to even struggle her way to bed, Martha snuggled down into the soft cushions beside her, slipping into a deep and thankfully dreamless sleep.
He was now free! At long, long last, his saviour had acknowledged him. He was no longer confined to that impossibly small space which had served as his home for the past...well, he did not know how long he had trapped there but it had felt like an eternity. But now he was free. Wonderfully, gloriously free!
He straightened up to take a look at his new surroundings properly. He found himself in a small, cluttered room, occupied with pieces of furniture that were both familiar to him, and others not quite so. A cream-coloured settee took up most of the floor space with a smaller pine table sitting just in front of it. On the opposite wall stood a curious black rectangular object on yet another low pine table with various other apparitions he had never seen before.
Along the walls, which were also cream in colour, there were shelves and cabinets filled with books, ornaments and many, many other odd items. Several paintings hung on the walls, too; the biggest appeared to be just a canvas with no frame, depicting an elegant-looking woman with dark hair and a long black dress with the words "Breakfast at Tiffany's" written underneath.
The whole room had a pleasant, airy feel to it as the first signs of dawn were beginning to shine through the window. He could also smell a trace of some agreeable fragrance in the room, and when he inhaled sharply – after reveling at the fact that he could smell at all – he caught the intoxicating scent of cinnamon. Good Lord, he thought. When was the last time he had smelt something as delicious as that?
A faint hissing noise made him start slightly and he turned to see a silver tabby cat perched on the back of the sofa, staring at him suspiciously. Its back was arched slightly in defence, striped fur on end as it growled at him.
Keeping a safe distance away from the angry cat, the man crossed the room to peer out of the window and pushed aside one of the curtains hanging there; he remembered the views well from his home back in Somerset. But looking out over the narrow balcony outside of the window, the cityscape laid out before him was definitely not known to him.
There were several dull, greyish, rather ugly-looking buildings surrounding this one, and judging by their height, he was a few storey's high. In the distance, he could see more buildings of similar construction, with a few maple trees dotted here and there. He could also hear a faint rushing sound which seemed to be coming from a distant road just out of sight. Where on Earth was he? He had never seen a town such as this before. He felt a sudden pang of homesickness. Oh, how he missed the open countryside he so loved, rather than the noisy, smog-laden clamour of the city.
The joy that had swelled inside of him moments before at the knowledge of his newfound freedom had now dissipated, only to be replaced by something very close to panic. No... He must not panic, he just needed to keep a cool head. Being a cavalry officer demanded it at times like this. If anyone could tell him where he was, it was the young lady who was currently lying fast asleep on the sofa. He knew that he would just have to be patient, and wait for her to reawake before asking questions of his whereabouts. After all, he had waited this long, another couple of hours or so would do him no harm...
Martha shifted a little as the hazy morning ray of sunlight filtering through the gap in the curtains played across her face, pulling her into consciousness. She furrowed her brows as the bright light assaulted her closed eyelids with a sudden red glow and she made to roll over to try and escape the offending light. The first sound of the day which roused her from her slumber was Blossom's incessant meowing. It was a deep, growling mewing noise which the cat made whenever she wanted to be fed or was irritated by something.
"Okay, Blossom..." Martha mumbled, her eyes still firmly shut. "I'll get you your breakfast, don't keep on..."
Unfortunately, as she rolled over, she had forgotten she had fallen asleep on the sofa the previous night and landed on the very cold – and very hard – laminate flooring with a thud.
"Oooowwww... " came a muffled whine from the floor before Martha stiffly pushed herself up into a crouched position, muttering a string of well-chosen obscenities under her breath and making a mental note to have carpets put down instead.
Rubbing her arm from where it had hit the floor, she rose to her feet and looked over blearily to see that the TV screen had blacked out and gone into standby mode after being left unattended. Letting out a jaw-cracking yawn, she shuffled over to flick the power button to shut the TV down properly before flopping herself back down onto the sofa. Her gaze fell once again to the pocket watch sitting on the little table in front of her. As though some kind of magnetic force was compelling her to keep looking at the timepiece, Martha plucked it from the tabletop and held it up to her face to squint at the faded lettering there.
"J...N... " she murmured to herself absent-mindedly, her lips pursed in thought as she pondered, not for the first time, the possibilities of what these could stand for.
"My initials," came a sudden voice from behind her. "That was my pocket watch...But now it appears it belongs to you."
Martha's head shot up and she turned around so quickly, she cricked her neck painfully but she took no notice. There was someone else in the room with her!
