Thanks to everyone who showed an interest in this story! The language warning comes in effect for this chapter: gratuitous swearing ahead. There's also a scene that gets mistaken for attempted sexual assault. Nothing happens, and while I don't think it's triggering, I'm putting the warning here anyway. For those that don't know: mace and pepper spray are illegal in the UK. Farb Gel is a nontoxic alternative that's basically really strong dye meant to mark offenders.
The incident with the Judoon at Royal Hope Hospital isn't actually the first time Winter and Martha meet. Winter doesn't mean anything by it; she's just curious, that's all. She knows of her, but she doesn't know her at all. She wants to see what sort of woman Martha Jones is, more than just the stories and snippets she manages to dig up.
Speedy's is half a convenience store, a quarter of a café, three-sixteenths of a health hazard, and the rest the most boring job Winter ever works. The original owner is an elderly lady who no longer has the energy or mobility to mind the shop. She passed it down to her son some years ago, and as far as Winter knows, he's never steps foot inside other than to collect the money from the register. One of the other workers gives her a five minute rundown of how everything works and then goes back to ignoring her. They alternate off who mans the counter and who restocks, though she's left doing most of it on her own when he doesn't show up for his shifts.
Most of the people who happen to live nearby know better than to get their groceries from the store. Winter sees the occasional Proper Adult picking something up last minute that they absolutely need, and all of them wear the same face of barely disguised disdain. She never bothers to make conversation with any of them because there's no point. They'd all rather get in, get out, and then pretend like this corner of the world doesn't even exist once they have what they need.
The rest of her customers come largely from the medical school down the block and affiliated hospital. Martha is one of them, and the first time she comes in after Winter starts working is on a gloomy Saturday morning in May. She spends a good long while just staring at the shelves in the back with no expression on her face. A honk from the street snaps her out of it, and she eventually makes her way over to the counter.
Martha dumps two packs of energy drinks, a few protein bars, a bag of chips, and orders a large coffee. Her hands shake a little when she hands over her shopping bag and card to pay. Winter spies bags under her eyes and a slump in her shoulders. Despite all other signs of exhaustion and stress, her jaw is set determinedly, and her eyes are bright when they meet Winter's.
She packs Martha's things quietly. The bag is well-worn. One corner is fraying, and two others show signs of rushed stitching. She thinks it was once white or a light cream, but it's tanned from use with a few faded stains still lingering. The pattern is of stethoscopes and lab coats, and she can't really explain why, but it endears Martha to her just a little.
"Good luck," she says as Martha slings her bag over her shoulder.
She pauses midway to the door with a furrow in her brow. "What?"
"Exam season? You're a student at the university down the block, yeah? Most of our customers are," Winter adds when the suspicion doesn't quite clear from her face.
"Thanks…" Her eyes zero in on Winter's nametag, and she's a little glad that she picked a more normal sounding name to put on her application. Not that she can't swing "Winter" as a creative nickname, but that's not a story you just blurt out to strangers and she doesn't want to give Martha the slightest reason not to come back. "Aria. That's a pretty name."
The bell chimes behind her as the door closes. Unfortunately, it's the highlight of her day. A few other students amble in closer to noon, and one rushing nurse orders three of their limp-looking sandwiches to go, but that's it.
Winter suspects that sheer boredom plays a part in why the pay is so low. She has enough from previous jobs that she doesn't need to worry for a good long while so long as she doesn't make any questionable financial choices. Housing isn't a problem since she can stay on her ship, so it's mainly just food.
The week after Martha comes in, a man tries to hold up the store. It's near closing time on a Thursday, and predictably, there's no one else in the shop. David, the other worker who mentored her for those handful of minutes, is actually in today. He's also on his third fifteen-minute smoke break of the past two hours, in the alley out the back door behind the large dumpster.
Twitchy takes his time browsing the alcohol, filling his basket with the most expensive cheap brands they carry. When he's finally done, he brings his loot to the counter and that's when he pulls out the knife, demanding she pack his things and empty out the register. Winter almost thinks it isn't worth the effort to talk or take the would-be thief down. There isn't that much money in the register anyway.
But then he catches her eyes on the knife he keeps flicking around and has to go and be an asshole about it. "That's right bitch." He holds it up closer to her face, nearly slashing her when he indicates for her to look at him. The whites of his eyes are yellow and bloodshot. "Hand it over 'less you want me to carve that pretty face o' yours in."
He keeps talking, keeps calling her names like "Blondie" and "Bitch". "Oh, but you're a pretty bitch, aren't'cha? Yeah, I bet you'd scream real good when I—"She opens up the register and he doesn't wait for her to collect the cash. It's a stupid move for him to reach in \himself. One, it takes his eyes off of her, though she's sure her reaction time is faster than his anyway. Second, it lets her easily do this.
"Augh! You bitch!"
She doesn't listen as he curses her uncreatively, and finds satisfaction instead in the crunch of bone breaking. She pulls the drawer of the register back open and, before he can react, slams it shut again on his fingers. He howls a second time, right arm swinging out to try and get her with the knife. He's as uncreative in attacking as he is in swearing, and it's child's play to grab his wrist and twist until he's forced to let his grip go.
The knife clatters noisily on the counter. Twitchy tries to back away, cradling his injured hand to his chest. It's another dumb thing to do since his other arm is still in her grasp. "Lemme go, you crazy bitch! God, what the fuck is wrong with you? You're insane! Just wait'll I—"
"Until you what," she asks, twisting his arm down a little more. She doesn't go so far as to break it, but he cries out like she does. It's noisy and annoying, and Daniel has now moved into the twenty-minute mark of his break. Today isn't the first time he's done this—showed up only to be completely useless. He likes to boss her around and pretend that having seniority give him some sort of power. And it's not like she loves this job either, but at least she does what tasks are expected of her without endless complaining and expectations of praise.
Screeches of metal on concrete and a loud bang signal Daniel's return. He stops three steps into the front room and nearly falls over with shock. Drama queen. It's not like it's that surprising. He's not even the one who had a knife in their face.
"What the hell? Blondie, what d'you think you're doing?! You can't beat up a customer!"
Oh, now he chooses to be customer conscientious? What about two days ago when that businessman was chewing her out for not having the hand soap he wanted? It wasn't even that they ran out of it entirely, they just didn't have the right bottle size. But he still made a stink about it, yelling that he should have expected no less from a lazy teenager working a deadbeat job and see if I'm ever shopping here again!
She lets go. "Your friend's a freak," Twitchy says, cradling this arm to his chest as well. He looks like some parody of a blushing maiden trying not to get dirty. "I was only asking for some smokes, and look what that blonde bitch did to my hand!"
"What? Ariel—"
"Aria," she corrects. It doesn't surprise her that Daniel doesn't know her name, but she expects him to at least be able to read her nametag. It's four letters and one is repeated twice. "You were trying to rob us," she says to Twitchy.
He turns to Daniel, "Nuh-uh, man, the bitch is crazy, man. Just look at her—"
She snatches up the knife on the counter. Neither of them even notice until the blade is buried in the shelf behind the would-be thief. "Stop calling me a bitch," she says. He gulps audibly. "Now get out before I call the police."
Twitchy flees, nearly ramming into the doors in his haste to leave.
Daniel gapes like a fish at her. "Problem?" He shakes his head rapidly. "Put that back, will you?" She nods to the basket full of liquor still on the counter. He opens his mouth for a retort, but then glances between her and the knife and thinks better of it. He's not smart of enough to quit after that, but he is smart enough to never try bossing her around again.
It's a good thing Martha shows up the next day, because Winter is starting to forget why she's there in the first place. There's no exchange of words this time. Martha is with two fellow medical students. Exams must be over since they all look an amusing mix of relieved and despondent. She thinks Martha does well, and not just because she knows the other woman makes it into her second year of clinical training.
The next time, Martha's with her older sister Tish. They buy popsicles even though the temperature is rather mild for late spring. Tish complains about her manager at her newest job, and Martha sympathizes with tales about her horrible lab partner. They both dance around the topic of how they'll soon be aunts and how both their mum and dad want to be there for the birth.
There's no discernable pattern to their interactions after that. Sometimes Winter will initiate the exchange of pleasantries, and sometimes Martha will. They talk about the weather, about when some item or another will be back in stock, about the story on the news last night. Or they don't talk at all outside the customary bill and change.
Something happens one day, about seven months after she starts working at Speedy's. It's nearly Christmas, and they have a few lights up at the store, taped up along the wall behind the counter by Ally. Winter works with her more often than David now, and she doesn't mind much because Ally at least does actual work. But she's a busybody, always gossiping and going on about the latest celebrity rumors. She's also the type who thinks Christmas is a universal fact and bristles when anyone offers so much as a "Happy Holidays" equivalent.
But Ally, David, and Speedy's are only peripheral to what happens, and what happens is this: Winter almost gets caught.
She's careless and lets her guard down when she knows better. It's late, and she's tired and bored of the twenty-first century. For all it's oddities and charms, it's backwards and nonsensical and the lull, the normality, the sheer boring-ness of it all makes her skin bristle. It isn't like she doesn't know how to slow down. Winter takes breaks—she's been on a break for the past seven months—and she feels the urge to run building up inside her.
Pity she doesn't take her own advice.
She kicks herself for it later, running the scenario over and over until she can pick out exactly what went wrong and what she can do so it never happens again. For now, the world blurs as she's pulled harshly into the shadow of the back alley. She loses a shoe to the pavement, the sneaker slipping right off as she tries to drag her heels in and fails to find purchase. The hand forcing her arm behind her back is nearly as ironclad in its grip as the one shoving her face into the brick wall.
A hundred stings prick her cheek as she struggles to turn and face her attacker. He's a blur in her peripheral vision, and the only reason she knows it's a he is from his low laugh. His breath is heavy and damp on her neck. "Lookie what I've caught! I've been combing half the galaxy for you."
Blues and purples explode behind her eyes. Gagging slightly, she tries her best not to lose her lunch as the cloying taste of too sour cranberries coats her tongue and the back of her throat. Allucinari secrete hormones transferred by touch and activated when the other party hears them speak. It's a nasty feeling not dissimilar to a bad acid trip, or so Winter has heard since she's never taken acid nor been exposed to Allucinari hormones before now. It's almost as nauseating as being exposed to Saurian mushroom spores.
Mouth Breather behind her is cocky. Having a system designed to in incapacitate built into your biology is handy, but it's not the be all end all of techniques. Every tiny movement sparks more colors in her vision and it's starting to give her motion sickness, but she can still move. He's only thought to hold down one of her arms, so her left is free by her side. Unless some new lights have come on in the past minute, it's dark enough for her to move without him noticing right away. Allucinari also have terrible night vision, which only makes him ambush that much more poorly planned.
Her sword is in her back pocket. All it would take is one swing, and she can get the arm holding her down. Or his legs since they're practically pressed up against hers. She wants to gut him, to tear out his voice box and watch him choke on his own blood.
Instead, she swings her leg back and trips him. Spinning so her arm is no longer pressed against her back, she flips their grips so she holds his wrist instead and drags him into the wall. He falls face first into it, and the lenses of his goggles shatter under the force. Not quite so dumb then, she considers, though it makes no difference. She's about to draw out her cuffs—if he's not touching her then he can yell all he likes and it won't do a thing. She'll take him back to his ship, maybe pilfer his supplies if she finds anything worthwhile, then drop him off at the nearest Judoon outpost. Bounty hunting is illegal in Earth's airspace in this time.
"Hey!" The familiarity of the voice stops her in her tracks. Martha's wide eyes take the two of them in. Winter spares a second to be grateful that Allucinari are mostly humanoid. He's a hulking figure, easily past six foot five, and she has blood running down her face from being slammed against the wall earlier. Even with their positions flipped, she knows what this must look like to Martha.
Mouth Breather takes her moment of weakness to lunge at her. He doesn't get the chance to reach her because he suddenly has a face full of Farb Gel. The red is almost painfully vibrant against his pale skin, and she has a feeling that the dye is reacting badly to his biology. He screams and runs off, nearly tripping over some bins as he goes. Winter discretely shoots a tracker after him and stops Martha from giving chase with a shaky "Thank you."
"You alright," the other woman asks, checking her over. "Er, you work at the shop round the corner from the hospital, right? Um…"
Winter nods as something simultaneously rises and crashes in the pit of her stomach. The scrapes on her cheek and the bruises of her arm will heal without a problem. She's more shaken up than anything. If some two-bit amateur is able to track her down then she really has gotten careless. Sloppy. Stupid. What if it had been someone better? And what if it had been something less humanoid than an Allucinari? How could she explain that to Martha, who isn't supposed to suspect a thing about aliens until she loses her cousin next year?
She needs to go. Right now. She needs to get out of this time, this system, this galaxy that's making her go soft.
Martha looks unconvinced. "Are you sure?" Winter likes the way she asks the question. It's not condescending or belittling and she keeps her voice down. She doesn't press, doesn't reach out or take any steps closer. She'll make a good doctor.
Winter swallows around the lump in her throat and nods again. "Yeah," she says, clearing her throat and repeating it louder when it comes out completely unconvincingly. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just, I gotta go. Thank you—for helping, I mean. You scared him off."
"Do you want me to call the police?"
"No, it's fine. I just really have to go." She runs off before Martha can do something else humanitarian, like offering to walk her home. Tracking Mouth Breather without consulting the tracer she put on him is calming. He hasn't gotten far, and by the time she has him hogtied with duct tape slapped over his mouth, she feels more centered.
His ship is junk, and his belongings just shy of scrap. She doesn't even bother bringing him to the Judoon herself, just sets a course on his ship and leaves a note. The next morning, she resigns from Speedy's.
The next time Martha sees her, she'll have forgotten they've ever met. She might have vague memories of a blonde girl behind the counter at the shop she sometimes goes to, and she'll probably remember something of rescuing a younger girl from assault. Maybe the name "Aria" will evoke a sense of déjà vu, but that's it. People never remember Winter for long, and something about time traveling makes them forget even more. She thinks it probably has to do with residual energy from the Vortex, but it's not something she's interesting in studying or learning about.
To Martha and the Doctor, she's just another face in the crowd, just another nameless ghost.
That's fine, Winter thinks. She's not used to being remembered anyway, and forgetting keeps people safe.
You would think she learns from that, and she has, in a way. She takes more precautions now, and she never stays in one place that long again. There are a handful of encounters with the Doctor, sometimes on accident and sometimes on purpose. It's safer to stick to his earlier days, but that's not always what happens.
Inevitably, Winter gets curious again. Rose is younger than Martha, though she's not the youngest companion the Doctor has taken on. She's blonde and blue-eyed, but if there's a single colour that describes her best, it's pink. Bright, bubbly, energetic, and unmistakable when spotted.
She's why Winter is here, holding back the urge to scream. Before Rose meets the Doctor, she works in the clothing section of Henrik's Department Store. It's a large building that could use some expansion to their appliance section and less of their cosmetics. That department is largely taken up by an assortment of perfumes and colognes, which Winter can smell from across the floor. It makes working in the clothing section even more unbearable since they're right next to each other.
Early twenty-first century fashion, especially the 2000s, is horrid. Everything is too baggy or tight, and it looks like it was slapped together by a child who still doesn't understand the concept of clothes. Nothing is made to last, and the less she can say about the colours the better. Winter has a bit of a soft spot for fashion. She likes fitting in and dressing for the time if she can make the appropriate alterations. Even Victorian dresses are fine so long as she can still move in them. But this time, she puts her foot down, because if she caught in any of the clothes she's trying to help sell, it'll be when she's dead.
The woman who interviews her is called Sally—early thirties, straight brown hair, and wearing a ruffled blouse that's all too distracting due to its lime green colour. It reminds Winter greatly of the planet Thisca where a deadly poison of that exact shade wiped out most of the indigenous life. Sally speaks with a forced cheer that doesn't fool anyone, not even herself, into thinking she's actually happy. Her questions are rather straightforward: why do you want this job? Why should we hire you? Previous experience? What would you do if…
Winter answers most of them on autopilot. Her resume is entirely made up, but it isn't like Sally will bother to check any of her references so long as she doesn't make them too conspicuous. The most ridiculous part of the interview is when she's quizzed on fashion trends and terminology. Winter aces that section because nothing sticks in the mind studier than things you'd rather forget. All she has to do is pitch her voice and reword some replies so she sounds more pleased. The irony that she'll be selling clothes she doesn't even like when she's hired doesn't escape her.
Apparently, she's a much better actor than she gives herself credit for since the interview ends with Sally beaming. That, or Henrik's is desperate. Sally puts her in the fitting room, promising that she'll get the hang of things "in a flash. It's not hard, just count the items each customer has, hand them a number, and show them to an empty room. When they're done, take the stuff they don't want and put it on the rack here. Someone'll be by to put them back where they belong. Oh! And if anyone asks for an opinion, tell them they look great."
Sally leaves before Winter can event think of a reply. It's even less of a rundown than David gave her at Speedy's, though that may be because Sally talks faster. Winter pokes around, grateful for the slow morning. Twelve stalls, six on either side, make up the fitting room. There's a large rack already three-quarters filled with clothes in no discernable order by an empty chair. The wall next to it has numbered placards hanging, all out of order, and a quick peak inside the stalls tell her that no one's thought to empty them in a while. She wonders what the point of numbers then, if they aren't being properly used. It's a wonder they don't have more of a problem with shoplifting.
It takes her the rest of the morning and a good chunk of the afternoon to get things in the proper order. She runs out of hangers at one point, and is directed to the netherworld that is the basement for more. When she comes back from her lunch break, she sees that someone has dumped even more clothes onto her already full cart. So far, there's no sign of anyone coming by to collect the articles, so she goes around doing it herself. Sally chews her out when she sees that she's left her station and doesn't let her get in a word edgewise.
All in all, the experience is as frustrating as Winter expected. Retail is a thankless job and she can't wait for the day the building blows up, if only to destroy the clothes.
Rose flits in and out of her path throughout the day. They don't talk; there isn't time, and Winter wants to keep her distance. She's learned from her time with Martha, and she won't make the same mistake of getting close. Part of that is taken care of simply by the timing of when she's hired. In a few short weeks for linear humans, Rose will meet the Doctor and they'll be off. It's a short enough time that she should completely forget the new girl at her former job. If not, well, exposure to the Time Vortex should take care of the rest.
Rose smiles as she passes by, and that's their most noteworthy interaction. It doesn't stop Winter from observing the other girl though. Within the first couple of hours, it becomes obvious that while Rose hates her job, she gets on with most of her colleagues. She's also very disgruntled and loves her mum no matter how much she complains about how she nags. Her life is wholly unlike any Winter's experienced before, and she's got quite a variety of experiences under her belt.
She isn't sure if she likes it or not, but she's leaning towards not. The days are taxing and boring like how working at Speedy's was. They only vary by how busy she is or what food she eats. Maybe if she had a more mentally stimulating task, but there's only so many times she can rearrange the placards before she wants to scream. Some people are fit for this life, and she isn't one of them.
A break wouldn't be remiss. Sure she's only been at it a week, but it's been a week of excellence. Sally doesn't say anything, but Winter knows that the fitting room has never looked better and never will again. Besides, she'll still show up for work on Monday, her weekend just won't be two days like everyone else. She's thinking at least four, maybe five if things really get out of hand.
Or maybe longer. She has all of time and space at her fingertips.