for handysparehand: A change of location...

[martha_jones]

Following this.

When she woke up, she was surrounded by white. It was like waking from a dream in a cloud. Her body felt weightless, calm. She blinked and tried to focus. She was in a small, round room with bone-white walls and lying in a soft-fur bed as white as the rest of the room. Martha's dress had been replaced by a white tunic and skirt and her knee had been bandaged.

She put her hand to her leg. It didn't hurt.

Where was she? Where was Nameless?

A thin creature that looked as though it were made out of glass stepped into the room and raised a hand. It spoke to her in low, calm tones, but Martha couldn't understand it. After a moment, it gestured to a bowl of food, then turned and left.

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[handysparehand.livejournal.com]

He rolled over, exhausted. He could feel light from somewhere, but he wasn't ready to wake up just yet. He heard low muffled voices, and he wished they'd go away.

"Ten more minutes," he mumbled, burying himself a little more in the bed he was in. It felt a bit different, and he wondered if he maybe he was in a hotel. He couldn't quite remember. He just wanted to keep sleeping.

Except the bed was made of....fur. That was unusual wasn't it? Who had beds made of fur. Not the sort of people he knew, he didn't think. There were a few strange - but no. No, there was a party, wasn't there, and a hole and falling, and oh god, was this what happened when you died. He couldn't be dead, because, well he just couldn't.

He sat up, the weightlessness frightening. That didn't seem like a good sign when someone was worried about being dead, nor was the whiteness of it all. Or the, oh god, was he wearing a toga? Why was he wearing a toga? This wasn't good.

His eyes bounced around the room, finally landing on Martha. Martha! "Martha?"

[imnot-hisgirl.livejournal.com]

Martha spun around. Next to her on the bed was Nameless, looking a bit ridiculous in the tunic that he'd been dressed in, but looking alive. She threw her arms around him in a tight hug.

"You're all right!" she said, holding onto him. "I thought we'd been separated or---"

She pulled away, shaking her head. "I feel...fuzzy. A bit off. Like waking up from a really deep sleep."

Or sedation, her mind supplied. She listed off the different sedatives that could cause this sort of disorientation mentally, then disregarded each and every one. She was on a different planet, maybe even a different plane. The things she knew were irrelevant.

"How do you feel?" she asked Nameless.

[handysparehand.livejournal.com]

He let out an indelicate oof as Martha held onto him.

"Fuzzy is a good word for it."

He stood up on the bed when Martha pulled away, and stepped around her to look around their room.

"We're alive, I think. That's a plus. Would be even better if we had real proper clothing."

He picked up the bowl on the floor and sniffed it, then put it back down. He paced the room for a minute, everything still feeling fuzzy. He was trying to get back some sense of solidness, but it still felt much too hazy and dream like. He could make himself more aware, just moving and thinking, that would have to work, wouldn't it?

"I heard voices, was there anyone else here?"

[imnot-hisgirl.livejournal.com]

"Whoever brought us here," Martha said. "Long, bony creatures. They looked transparent, like they were made out of glass."

She stood as well, running her hands along the smooth wall. It was a material unlike anything she'd seen before. Hard and smooth like marble, but organic like a leaf.

"I couldn't understand them," she admitted. "But they didn't seem to want to hurt us. Bandaged up my leg." She flashed him her knee as proof.

[handysparehand.livejournal.com]

He gave her a smile. "Well that's good. Can't have you hobbling around forever."

He moved to stuff his hands in his pockets, then realized he didn't have any. He wasn't quite sure what to do with them, so he held them behind his back.

"Long bony creatures, like they were made out of glass. That could be quite a few things. Anything else distinguishing? Body language, intonations, smells, sounds, anything?"

[imnot-hisgirl.livejournal.com]

Martha shook her head and sat back on the soft white bed. "No, they just...they spoke with low tones, like a cello. Smooth, slow. And they gave us that. I think it's for us to eat."

She stood again, smoothing down her tunic and feeling very silly without her military clothes. Still, it felt clean and so did her skin, her hair. They'd been bathed, mended, and placed here in this...room (or was it a cell?).

"Did we end up on another planet, do you think?" Martha suggested. "When we fell through the rift. Or maybe another dimension? A very...monochromatic dimension?"

[handysparehand.livejournal.com]

"A cello?"

He picked up the bowl again, sniffing it once more. "I'm not eating that."

He looked up at the ceiling than around at the walls. He began feeling them as Martha had earlier, feeling for an opening or gaps somewhere.

"I - I don't know. Is there a doorway somewhere? How did they come in?"

[imnot-hisgirl.livejournal.com]

Martha shook her head. "I don't know. It was just here, and then it wasn't. Teleporter, maybe?"

She hopped off the bed and knelt down, trying to look under it. No clothes, no phone. Oh, Tom. She'd promised she'd call him when she got back from the party. Nothing to worry about, she'd said. That's how it always was. Nothing to worry about, and then she'd vanish.

She shook her head, and then got back to her feet. Whether she liked it or not, she'd trapped them here. Her own slowness, her own inability to keep hold of the ground.

"I'm sorry," she said.

[handysparehand.livejournal.com]

"Maybe," he said backing away from the wall and giving up on searching for an exit.

He slid to sit on the floor, letting out a sigh. He still felt incredibly ridiculous in the tunic they'd put him in. He looked up at Martha, confused.

"Sorry? For what?"

[imnot-hisgirl.livejournal.com]

"Getting us trapped here," she said. "Again."

The fuzziness seemed to fade, replaced by a deep hopelessness settled like chocolate syrup over a bowl of frozen guilt. The internal metaphor did nothing but remind Martha that she was starving, too.

She sat across from Nameless, leaning against the side of the bed. "First Paris, my choice. Now this. If I'd just held on a little tighter..."

[handysparehand.livejournal.com]

"Don't start that. I was the one who actually fell first. We could get caught up in the blame game all day if we tried. No one's to blame, except maybe whoever brought us here to begin with. And the tux perhaps. Might actually be a good thing they did take our clothes."

He leaned his head back against the wall. It was humming. He could feel it, the walls were alive. An odd feeling overcame him, nostalgia and homesickness and a small amount of happiness that felt wrong under their circumstances.

He turned around, sitting on his knees, body and palms and an ear pressed against the wall listening and feeling the sensation of walls being alive once again.

[imnot-hisgirl.livejournal.com]

"Maybe if we were in Rome," Martha said with a smile. He looked a little silly in the toga, but she was certain she did as well. Alive, though. At least they were alive.

She moved to her knees, mimicking his motions against the wall.

"What is it?" she asked. She could feel a slight vibration along the smooth surface. She had thought of it as a leaf earlier, was it carrying something the way a leaf currented water?

[handysparehand.livejournal.com]

"It's alive," he said grinning. He pushed himself up to a stand, circling the room as he felt the walls.

"Can't you feel that? That's, that's brilliant!"

His hands pawed up the walls, and then he lay flat on his stomach on the floor, his ear resting against it as well.

"The floor is, too. This entire place, it's alive! You can feel it too, can't you?"

He stood up, petting a bit of the wall again and letting out a small sigh. It felt oddly like a care package sent while far away from home. Some small piece of familiarity that had been gone for so long. It wasn't the same thing as home by no means, but it was a familiar feeling he had missed for far too long. That feeling of being surrounded and enveloped in something alive.

[imnot-hisgirl.livejournal.com]

Martha stared at the wall in amazement, then put her hand flat against its side, feeling the warmth. She could feel it contract slightly, like someone taking in a shallow breath. She gasped and stood, backing away from it.

"Are we in a TARDIS?" she asked. It wasn't possible, though. Hadn't the Doctor said they'd all died?

She spun to look at Nameless. "Maybe we fell back in time as well as space? Maybe we've landed on the---on Gallifrey? Before the War?" She looked back at the space where the glass creature had stood. Nameless would've recognized it from his home world, back when he was the Doctor, wouldn't he?

[handysparehand.livejournal.com]

He frowned, some of the joy deflated. He backed away from the wall, a hand lingering for a moment then withdrawn. He still had that urge to stuff his hands in his pockets, but had to settle for holding them behind his back instead.

He shook his head. "It's not a TARDIS or anything to do with the Time Lords. I'd know if it was." He would know, wouldn't he? How would he not know? "I don't know what it is, but I do know this doesn't have anything to do with Gallifrey."

He moved back towards the bed and flopped down on it. He lay with his hands resting underneath his head and staring at the ceiling. He watched the ceiling ripple just slightly, transfixed for the moment.

[imnot-hisgirl.livejournal.com]

"But it's alive," Martha said. "This room. This whole place."

She took a breath, held herself a little taller, and then spoke. "Excuse me, but can you please let us out?" she asked the room. It probably couldn't understand her, but there was no harm in trying, was there?

Like the ceiling, the wall seemed to ripple, eventually forming a shape about the size of a door. Martha stepped towards it and pressed her hand to it. It felt like cold porridge, gritty and soft, but her hand could go through it. She pulled it back. Her hand was clean, but the indentation from her hand remained.

"Look at this," she said, pushing her hand back to the wall.

[handysparehand.livejournal.com]

He closed his eyes.

"Lots of things are alive. Doesn't make it a TARDIS."

He tilted his head to the side and opened one eye to looked out at Martha as she spoke. He let his eyes close and his head roll back again. His mind raced through the possibilities, trying to piece together where they were.

He opened his eyes again as Martha called to him.

"Wha-" he stopped as he watched her hand pass through the door. He grinned then, rolling out of bed. "Well, at least we've found the exit."

He put a hand through as well, pulling it out again. He gave Martha a grin, then lifted an eyebrow.

"Right then, off we go," he said, moving through the wall.

[imnot-hisgirl.livejournal.com]

"Oh, don't you even think about going anywhere without me, Mister," Martha said, catching his arm as he moved in and following him. She held her breath as the cold grittiness covered her arms and face, swallowing her as though she were stepping into a pool of it.

It was illogical, she decided afterwards, to hold her breath. After all, she had no idea how deep the wall went. It could've been the entire length of the planet for all she knew. But after a moment, she felt warm air on her arms and she was stepping out of the other side.

She opened her eyes.

"Where are we?" she asked in awe.

[handysparehand.livejournal.com]

His eyes adjusted to the suns. Suns plural. Twin ones, it seemed and red grass and burnt orange skies and there off in the horizon was a Citadel in a glass dome on a -

But if he looked from another angle there was a row of houses like you might find on Earth and a primary school and a bus stop that he knew for some reason would take him to Strathclyde if he ventured to get on the bus that stopped there. Not too far away he could even see a hill, where either he might find a hermit telling tales to scare children or a grandfather with a telescope staring at the stars. One or the other or maybe both but this --

"This isn't right. I don't know what this is, but this...it's..."

His voice drifted as he watched the sunlight hit silver leaves, making it look like a forest set on fire. It might not be right - but it would be nice if it was, he thought.

[imnot-hisgirl.livejournal.com]

"London," Martha said, "This is London. How did we get back here?"

She looked out to the street by her home. She welcomed it, grinning brightly at the familiar landscape. The building behind her was white and organic and strange among everything else.

She reached out for Nameless's hand and took it. "We can contact UNIT from my flat..."

[handysparehand.livejournal.com]

"Don't," he said, standing his ground as Martha took his hand.

He looked around, the landscape still drifting in and out of itself, as if between two worlds, and when he saw the white building behind him it made it all the more worrisome.

"This isn't London. It isn't anything. We should go back inside."

He didn't want to be here, the familiarity was too appealing. The desire to get lost in whatever this was.

He tugged her, moving back towards where they just came from. He wasn't ready to allow himself to get consumed by this, he couldn't let himself do that. He couldn't allow it to happen to Martha, either.

[imnot-hisgirl.livejournal.com]

"Isn't anything? What are you talking about? Look at the sun, the buildings!" She looked out to the world, then back to her friend.

What else could it be? She thought of Paris that wasn't Paris, and how things Saxon made the people of Earth see in order to make them afraid. And being home, now, in the middle of springtime----

Wait. Spring. It was winter. This wasn't right. She took a step back, towards Nameless.

"What is this place?"

[handysparehand.livejournal.com]

"I don't know, I just know it isn't real."

He looked around the scene, the temptation to just not care sinking deeper and deeper into his mind and chest and everything else.

"I don't think it's a good idea for us to be out here. Come on."

He was close enough to the wall that he could touch it without Martha moving along. He placed a hand gently on the wall, and it was solid. He released Martha's hand, moving both hands along the wall now, feeling around for some opening. He walked along it, still looking.

"What?"

His gaze traveled upwards, taking in the mass of the thing.

[imnot-hisgirl.livejournal.com]

Martha turned, too, pressing her palms against the wall. She slammed her fist against it.

"It was soft a moment ago," she speculated. She then called out: "Please let us back in!"

The wall stayed solid for Martha. She turned back to look down her hometown street. It looked so inviting, and she thought about the comfortable clothes that belonged to her and the soft bed and how safe it all felt.

"We need to figure out where we really are," she said with a confidence she did not feel. "No point in hiding."

[handysparehand.livejournal.com]

"We're nowhere," he said frustrated. "How do you figure that out?"

He kept up his task of seeking out some kind of doorway or opening along the wall. He probably sounded petulant. He didn't care. As long as he was focused on this, he didn't see the strange mix of worlds swirling around out there beyond them.

[imnot-hisgirl.livejournal.com]

"Well, all right," Martha snapped back. "I'm trying to help us, here! And we can't get out of this if we go back to hiding in a safe white room with---"

She looked down at herself to gesture to the togas, but found she was back in her jeans with a red shirt. She touched the material. It felt soft and familiar, in the same way that the city felt familiar.

"There has to be somewhere else we can go."