FIVE
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The lift doors opened with a polite ping and she waited for him to walk out first. She stepped out slowly, watching a totally different kind of prison guard. These were tall, round aliens, hovering around the decking like kids' building cylinders on an air-hockey table.
"Amazing," she breathed to herself.
The Doctor was already half-way down the gangway, heading off toward the cells down the left side of the huge hall. "Well come on then!" he called over his shoulder, and she hurried to catch up. "Right, you have to understand that they sometimes keep some of their inmates sedated," he said quickly. "Don't be surprised if –"
"Doctor, it's fine," she said quickly, eyeing a tall, thin cylinder following them. The normality and completely innocuous feel to the shape made her skin creep instantly. "Let's just get her out and run like hell."
They hurried down the gangway, their feet thumping on the metal grating and echoing round the passageway. Suddenly the Doctor stopped, and Martha, her attention diverted by the blinking lights above each cell and doorframe, bumped full into the side of him.
"Get ready to catch," the Time Lord said simply.
She heard pressurised air releasing. She looked around quickly, realising they were standing outside a door that looked disturbingly like a walk-in fridge at any kitchen in a fast-food restaurant back on Earth.
The Doctor was pulling on the door. The handle gave and the door began to arc outwards toward them slowly. He swung on it and stepped to one side. Martha was pushed round too, her hands reaching into the clouds of steam to grab someone coughing and spluttering.
They were slightly heavier than she had anticipated. She staggered as the coughing, flailing human grabbed at her for support.
"I thought you wirnae coming!" a voice cried, indignant, and she waved steam and jets of hot air away from her face, pushing the person to stand up straight. "Do you huv any idea how long I've been in there?"
"Yeah, sorry mate," the Doctor said quickly, grasping an arm and pulling it free.
Martha pulled on the other arm, and was surprised to come face to face with the Doctor's new travelling companion.
"Oh! Hello there," a cheeky, friendly face said, and she smiled. "And who might you be?"
"Martha Jones," she said, looking up into the pale face and green eyes. "You?"
"Fergus Campbell, at yir service, Miss Jones," the young man said eagerly, his hand on her forearm squeezing slightly.
"Mister Campbell," the Doctor said on a warning, but Martha grinned, she couldn't help it. "Time we were off."
"Aye, yir not wrong there," Fergus breathed, letting go of Martha and turning to look up slightly at the Doctor. "Well you look like shite!" he said unexpectedly. "You huvnae learnt not to lick foreign-looking crap, then?"
"We can discuss this in the TARDIS," he said archly, as Martha burst into laughter.
Fergus looked at her, surprised. "Honestly, Miss Jones, there's no telling the wee bastard," he said cheekily, shaking his head. "Has he tellt you 'bout Gerimin Five?" he barrelled on.
"Mister Campbell!" the Gallifreyan interrupted. "This will still be hilarious while we're watching the Time Rotor whiz away like a yoyo on Red Bull, I assure you. Now come on," he snapped.
"Can we no just go back the way you came in?" Fergus smiled back, undaunted.
"Those lifts only go up," the Doctor said. "We need the others."
Fergus favoured Martha with a large, friendly wink, and then she felt herself being pushed. She realised it was Fergus nudging her along politely, a light hand in her back. She looked at the Doctor but he was already pulling away in front, apparently oblivious to whether they accompanied him or not.
"So, Fergus, is it?" she asked, turning to look at the new man.
He hurried to walk next to her. "Aye, Fergus sings the blues," he said proudly, and then she heard in stereo from the young Scot and the Time Lord in front of her, "in bars of twelve or less!"
"Oh my god," she grinned. "So what are you then, new drinking partner-come-Mr Fix-It?"
"Aye, that's right," he said. "You'd be surprised how many Tennant's Extras yir man there can put away."
Martha just look forwards again at the back of the Time Lord's head, then back at Fergus. "You're right, I'd be gob-smacked," she said dryly. She looked up at the Doctor's back. "I didn't think you drank, mister."
The Doctor turned to walk backwards, and Martha noticed his normally paler face looking slightly red.
"On occasion," he allowed, apparently annoyed at their lack of progress in reaching the lifts again. He avoided her gaze suddenly and turned back round, steaming off.
"Oh, I like that! Occasion, he says!" Fergus crowed, laughing. "Try every Friday night a new bloody pub quiz! In a new system!"
"No!" she breathed, chuckling.
"Pardon me for interrupting, but we are supposed to be looking for lifts!" the Doctor cried over the top of them, his eyes sweeping the hall like it owed him a new screwdriver.
"Aye-aye, Skipper," Fergus said quickly, turning much more serious.
Martha watched him as they came to a stop in the large, hangar-like holding bay.
He was anywhere between twenty and twenty-five, she thought, quite tall, average build. His light brown, almost blonde hair was quite short, and he didn't appear to have had the opportunity to have shaved in the past few days. He scratched his chin as he turned in a circle, oblivious to Martha taking in his navy blue Franz Ferdinand t-shirt under a faded green short-sleeved shirt, currently open and not really matching his deliberately-scruffy Diesel jeans.
She was unsurprised as to his footwear, except these were tartan Converse, laces sprawling as if undone, the white fronts of them scuffed and battered. She looked up at the Doctor, finding him running a hand through his hair and looking a little perturbed.
"I think…" he began, but Fergus put a hand out and grabbed the Time Lord's shoulder.
"Left," he said quickly, and the Doctor swung his head round. Martha thought she noticed a slight wobble in his lanky frame, but dismissed it as a doctor's inability to be off-duty.
"Go," the Doctor said quickly, and Fergus looked at Martha, inclining his head cheekily in the right direction. The three of them aimed for the lifts quickly.
A loud jangling sounded for a second or so but they didn't pause to look up as they listened.
"Prisoner escape from level three. All security personnel to level three," a female voice boomed.
"Aw shite," Fergus heaved, and the three of them sped up as the cylindrical guards began to turn in their direction from the other side of the hall. The Doctor put his hands on their shoulders from behind, stopping them.
"Mister Campbell," he said abruptly, and Fergus looked round. "You two get back to the exit door. I'll catch you up," he said, shoving something at him.
Fergus grabbed it and nodded. "You can count on me, Skipper," he winked, and the Doctor patted his shoulder quickly. "Just make sure ye get to that exit door soon – and fir Christ's sake, don't lick anything!"
"I'll try not to," the Doctor said dryly, and Martha grinned. "And you," he said to her directly, "make sure he doesn't get into trouble."
"I'll do my best. Let's go," she said, pulling on Fergus' hand.
The Doctor winked at her and turned away quickly, and suddenly was running back toward the guards. She looked up at Fergus, and they turned and pelted their way to the lift.
They slammed at the buttons, keeping their faces away from the cameras. The lift doors opened and they fairly leapt inside, Fergus lifting his hand and producing the screwdriver. He pointed it at the camera inside and it jerked and sparked. He slapped the button and the lift shot off downwards.
Martha let go of his hand politely. "So… Been with the Doctor long?" she asked gamely.
"About a year. I was at Uni, working for the IT department. Ah was there one night, just working on a new intranet for the science building, when he walks in, tells me he needs to use some computers, and just helps himself," he smiled.
"And you let him?"
"I did not!" he snorted indignantly. "I'd spent three years o' my life putting them computers together; you think I was going ti let him cannibalise 'em?" he grinned.
The lift stopped and he waited for the doors to open. They stepped out, back into the large hangar full of receptionists, assorted beings and now, security guards.
He took her hand and pulled her through the crowd quickly, both of them keeping their heads down.