Work Text:
Those Left Behind
Martha Jones looked out of the hospital window. Big, fluffy snowflakes were falling from the sky to form a white carpet on the pavement. The magic wouldn’t last for long, she knew, as cars, busses and pedestrian feet would soon turn the snow into a dark muck. For now, though, everyone was enjoying the unexpectedly beautiful December evening.
The last of her patients for this shift, a boy of 8 who had broken his arm when he had impulsively run his sled down the icy street and ended up being stopped by a lamppost, had walked out of the hospital proudly with a cast covered with images of cartoon dinosaurs.
She scrubbed her hands clean for a last time, then covered them with gloves and exchanged her white doctor’s coat for a warm burgundy one. As she walked pasted the head nurse and wished her a good evening, she added a matching scarf and beanie, and felt ready to face the evening air.
There was nothing quite like London before Christmas, she thought. People traveled here from all over the world to shop, to see the sights, watch a West End show and drink in the atmosphere. She hadn’t walked for even 2 blocks, and already she had heard at least five different languages coming from warmly-dressed tourists with smiles on their faces and awe in their eyes.
She was convinced that if Earth ever did become more acquainted with the rest of the universe – which she, more than most others had reason to believe – creatures would flock here from all corners of the Milky Way and the streets would be populated with aliens with shopping bags, peering at a road map with a lost look in their eyes, hailing a cab, or asking for directions to the National Gallery like all other tourists.
Martha Jones was strangely content with this vision of the future, but felt a twinge of regret in her heart that she’d probably not live to see it.
She took a slight detour, allowing her to pass by Covent Garden. She strolled lazily along the little stalls with merchandise. There was a man selling jewelry made of forks and spoons there. Another stall had long socks with brightly coloured stripes. Yet another was selling products geared at tourists: little replicas of double decker busses and monuments, as well as copies of Banksy's wall art, that looked a bit strange on a canvas.
A string quartet was playing at the café below, and as she approached the stairs while following the music, she saw something in the corner of her eye. Most people would have ignored it, but not Martha. She had travelled with the Doctor long enough to know that sometimes nothing was something.
"Well if it isn't Martha Jones, lovely as ever," a familiar voice behind her sounded. She turned around, and couldn't control the smile that lit up her face. Standing still in the crowd, just a few feet away from her, was Captain Jack Harkness. He was still wearing that long blue military coat, and that slightly-smug flirtatious grin on his face.
She ran to him and hugged him, unsure if that was the right response, but when his arms reciprocated the gesture, she knew it was the right choice.
"How long has it been, three years?"
"Four," Martha corrected him.
"Sorry, time flies when you're immortal," he grinned.
"Yeah, yeah, rub it in," she replied, feigning being offended. "So, how have you been? Last I heard you were in America."
"That was a while ago now. And not the best of experiences. How about you? How's Mickey?"
"Wouldn't know, we're not together anymore. But I assume no news is good news."
"I'm sorry it didn't work out," he said, with genuine empathy in his eyes.
"I didn't figure you to be the type to encourage monogamy," she joked, trying to lighten the mood.
"Guess I'm full of surprises," he grinned, "I think there's something incredibly sweet about people promising each other eternal love."
She shrugged, not knowing what to reply to that. She settled for: "So what brings you here? I take it it's not a coincidence."
He shook his head. "No, it's not. I have a proposition of sort for you. Let's discuss it over ice cream."
She wanted to remark something about how it's not exactly the season for it, but who was she kidding, it was always the right season for ice cream.
A little while later there were sitting on a bench outside, being snowed on, while holding a cone of ice cream. Her mint choc chip was truly excellent and Jack seemed to be enjoying his straciatella, judging from the positively obscene movement his mouth was making. He must have seen her looking and said.
"Hey now, don't say it. I'm supposed to do the lewd remarks."
She burst into laughter. "I wouldn't dare."
"So about my proposition. I want you to come see some northern lights with me."
"What, like in Scandinavia?" she asked.
"Place called Durness, about 120 miles north of Inverness."
"Scotland? There are no northern lights in Scotland. Hell, I don't think they’re anywhere in December."
"Exactly, said Jack with a playful glimmer in his eyes, "yet nonetheless, this Christmas there will be. Take the word of a time traveler on that.
"Oh," she said, and her face lit up. Really, she had missed this kind of adventure. This was all the sales pitch she needed. Besides, did she really want to be in London for Christmas, given recent history?
The next day Jack showed up in a four wheel drive in front of her house, still hours before dawn. It was the day before Christmas Eve. She had called her mother the day before to let her know she wouldn't be able to make Christmas dinner. Frankly, any excuse was good to get out of that one, and Martha had blamed it on an emergency in the hospital. Her mother sounded annoyed, but accepted the excuse as truth, and that was the end of it.
It wasn't quite like a trip with the Doctor - the lack of Tardis sort of gave that away - but it was more of an adventure than she had been able to have lately, and only now did she even realise how much she had missed it. There was a part of her, a usually repressed part that regretted parting with the Doctor.
It was strange, really, seeing Jack like this - in the driver's seat, navigating through 21st Century traffic. It's not how she ever would have imagined him. She still thought of him more as sort of a space-swashbuckler with guns instead of swords.
It was all so terribly normal - stopping for petrol, having cheese sandwiches - it was more like something you'd do on a road trip with our parents than on an excursion with an unaging time traveler.
They did not speak much, and yet they seemed very comfortable with each other. It wasn't an awkward silence at all. It was the kind of silence that was comfortable, the kind that exists between old friends that already know all of each other's stories. Which was strange, because there must have been so many stories...but perhaps they both knew there was no point in retelling. No recount of events could really ever capture the beauty of the Earth seen from the moon, or the thrill of meeting Shakespeare.
They could have made the drive in one day, if they had really tried. But with the days being short as they were this time of year, they chose to stay the night in a place called Pitlochry, in a hotel that had more resemblance to a castle than to an actual hotel.
It was beautiful there, and Martha thought this must be costing quite a bit of money, especially considering it was Christmas Eve. Hell, she was surprised that there were even empty rooms there, but Jack said he had connections there, taking care of worries about finance or availability. Perhaps she was just worried for nothing anyway. Perhaps most normal people were with their family now.
When they found a place to eat, sometime later in the picturesque town centre, those suspicions were confirmed. The cozily-decorated interior, with Christmas tree and seasonal light and all, was half empty. There were three large family groups there, having apparently chosen to have dinner together there, but they were the only part of two, and many tables had no occupants at all.
She ordered something with salmon, and he chose lamb, and it was all so surprisingly peaceful, not at all like the other situations she had seen him in. Or he had seen her in, for that matter.
While they had been lucky and their journey had been mostly snow-free, as the night started to fall, so did the snowflakes. It was nice here, and she wished the moment could last a little bit longer than it did.
They talked of everything and nothing, mostly just making conversation, but the as the evening progressed she talked about her divorce, he talked about his brother, until they finally ended up with the one subject they were avoiding: the Doctor. He had changed both their lives, for better or for worse - and here they were now, companions that were companions no more, finding new purpose. There was a sadness in both their eyes, and a missing in their hearts that the Germans would call "Sehnsucht".
As they walked out of the restaurant Christmas carols sounded in the distance, and he reached out a hand, quietly inviting her to dance. She looked a bit incredulously at first, then took his hand with a smile, and they danced in the snow on the mostly-empty street. The rare passers-by looked at them with surprise at first, but the expression with quickly changed to quiet approval and a smile, as they scurried on to wherever it was the were going on this day at this hour.
Back at the hotel, they danced their way down the corridor to their room, and Martha figured that maybe there could be contentment here on Earth, not just between the stars.
When Jack opened the door and her eyes surveyed the room she stopped in her tracks ad simply said: "Oh". The bed, large and with embroidered sheets, was a two-person's bed.
"Hey, I had nothing to do with it. The guy at check-in must have assumed that the two attractive people are here together," he said as his hand made scare quotes in the air, “and really, who can blame him? We do make an extraordinarily cute pair."
Martha rolled her eyes, but smiled nonetheless.
"Look despite me reputation, I can be a perfect gentleman. I don't sleep with all of my friends. I mean, certainly an above average number of friends, but not all."
"Yeah, that's because not all of them let you," she retorted.
He feigned being hurt, but took it in good humor.
An hour later they were actually both lying besides each other, eyes focused on the ceiling, like if there was a sky of stars that could be seen. He had put one arm around her, and she had let him. They were exchanging adventures now, not avoiding the Doctor as a subject anymore.
It was like that that she fell asleep, mid-sentence with her words already drawling. Her head rested on his chest and he let her, gently pushing her hair out of her face as he turned off the lights.
The next morning made her look at the town in a completely different light. When they had arrived the last evening, she couldn't have imagined how green the area really was, and she felt like their car was a lone ship in an ocean of hills and fields.
They had slept in that morning and hotel management didn't seem to care. At 11:30 AM, they still managed to get breakfast, and they took it leisurely.
Before he even started the car, he handed her a small package, wrapped in paper with golden stars on it.
"Merry Christmas, Martha Jones," he said.
"I...I didn't get you anything, “she stammered, "I didn't think..."
"I didn't expect anything. Sometimes the joy is in giving. Now go on, woman, open our gift."
As she unwrapped it, she still couldn’t tell what it was. It was a square object, made in a metal resembling brass. It has three holes - two round ones -one bigger, one smaller, and a very thin rectangular one.
"Is this alien?" she asked incredulously.
He nodded. "I have this dealer..."
"Never mind, I don't want to know....so what does it do?"
"It's an Akherlin camera. You could consider it a bit like a...alien Polaroid."
"Alien Polaroid?" she repeated as she looked at him as he had gone mad.
"Yes. It takes in instant picture. But with a twist. It shows the moment as you saw it, as you experienced it, not how it really was. It's just a trinket. But an amusing one."
"Well thank you," she said, as she put it in her coat pocket, "that's very sweet of you."
The continued their journey along miles and miles of green, making Martha feel as if perhaps she had ended up on an alien surface already.
When they arrived in Durness on Christmas day, the light was already fading. Jack drove as close as he could get to the beach, and took two blankets out of the car. Martha hadn’t even known he had brought them along, but it was a big car, and she hadn't really been paying attention.
They put the blankets down on moist sand, and sat down on them. The watched as the sun set behind the horizon over the water, and as the first stars appeared in the evening sky.
Martha was shivering despite her thick winter coat, and he once again put an arm around her, and she once again didn't protest.
She was almost going to ask what they were waiting for, when the first green-and-yellow flashes of light appeared above them.
"You were right," she said as her face lit up.
More colours appeared - from pinks to purples to blues, all dancing around and lighting up the firmament.
"But how?" she asked.
"I knew they'd arrive today. I've met them in the past. Well, my past. Their future."
"They...they’re aliens?"
He nodded. "Most races call them the Transients. They call themselves Hirash ay' Hurdin."
She looked at him questioningly.
"It means Those Left Behind. Story goes their world was dying. Pollution, no more resources - the air was barely breathable. The government sat together and devised an evacuation plan, but they couldn't take everyone. So they lied - taking the wealthy, the young, the strong, with the promise they'd return. They never did, though. The remaining populace had been left there to die. But they didn't die. Not all of them, anyway. They survived for centuries in horrible conditions - hoping, enduring, and building a fleet out of scrap metal. There’s ten thousand of ships in that fleet, and they communicate with lights. It’s how they make sure the stick together, because they swore never to leave a single ship behind. They're looking for a new planet to inhabit. They'll stop here, see there's intelligent life, and move on peacefully."
Martha was still looking up, wiping a tear out of her eye. "That's so sad. Do they ever find a home planet?"
"Not really," he said. "But by then, they’ll realize they enjoy the journey. They'll build whole cities of space stations. They'll bring forth the most important explorers and scientists of their time. One day."
Further down the beach, there was what seemed to be a ripple between two rocks. A small vessel uncloaked and a hatch opened as it set down on the sand. Four humanoids emerged, a bit smaller than humans were on average. There was what seemed to be a man and woman of adult age, an older man and a pubescent girl. They walked down on the sand and Martha could see them well now. Their skin was orange-ish and the sides of their face seemed to have a gill-like structure right before their ears. Their hair was dark, thick and long.
It was the woman who spotted them and approached them. She held a device in front of her mouth - some sort of translator Martha presumed.
"I'm sorry," the words came out mechanically, “we didn't know this planet was inhabited. We'll be gone shortly,"
Jack stood up and nodded. "I know who you are," he said, and the woman looked at him questioningly. "I have something for you,” That made her expression even more suspicious.
He walked to the car, and unloaded for crates from the back. Even Martha didn't know what they were. The alien woman was clearly looking for an explanation, too.
"They are seeds," Jack said, and almost sniggered at the idea of him handing out seed to people. "Plant them well, treat them right, and if a few ears they can feed our fleet."
"We are thankful," the woman said through the device, "Very much so. But why?"
"One day, one of you will do me a big favour," Jack said, "besides, it's a holiday here on earth. We're supposed to be kind to each other."
The woman did not protest, but smiled, and put her hands together in what could be seen as some sort of praying gesture, then bowed."
"May whichever Gods you worship smile upon you kindly. And may we help you, as you said we will, when the time comes."
Her companions helped her take the crates into the ship, then disappeared under cloak again.
The skies remained full of colour for hours to come, until they finally faded away.
In the pictures that Martha had taken with her "Alien Polaroid" the lights seemed even brighter, even more beautiful - and Jack…Jack seemed younger and more worry-free on those pictures than he ever did in real life.
Despite the cold, she felt warm inside, and so happy that she had come here. Perhaps, she thought, perhaps sometimes it can still work out all right for those who were left behind.