jadesfire | Fic: A Life of Joy and Peace

Er. This was a

bringthehappy prompt, chosen for me by

rustydog Suffice it to say, I think something went a bit wrong...

The prompt was Doctor Who; Martha; music. The story comes with a two-tissue warning. I don't think it's suitable for posting to the Happyfest somehow.

Title: A Life of Joy and Peace
Author:

jadesfire2808
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Set between 'The Sound of Drums' and 'Last of the Time Lords'
Words: c.1850

Summary: In the ruins of the world, Martha walks. But sometimes, she has to stop.

A Life of Joy and Peace

Getting out of Japan had been hard. The whole damn journey, all the walking, the travelling, the dragging herself onwards, it had all been hard, but Japan? It wasn't that Martha couldn't leave, it was that every instinct in her wanted to stay. She walked past ruined hospitals, bodies hanging out of the windows and strewn across the street outside. Men, woman and children, indiscriminately killed with force that even she hadn't imagined. The evidence of a madman's reign, laid out for her in flesh and bone. She didn't think all of them were dead, but she couldn't stop to check.

At the coast there were thousands of people, all like her, all trying to get out. She wanted to stand at the back of the crowd, wait her turn just like the rest of them, but then her Resistance contact spotted her, and she was hustled through the crying masses, some of them trying to touch her as she passed. It was hard not to flinch away.

Crossing America was even harder than rural China had been, and not only because of the security patrols. That was easy; in the ruined cities, there was always plenty of rubble to hide in or behind or under. People took her in, fed her with food they couldn't spare and sent her on with a name or an address or, on one memorable occasion, a motorbike. It had run out of petrol twenty miles down the road, but it had been the thought that counted.

She felt a pang of guilt at just leaving it and walking on, but there was no way to return it, no way to refill it and no one to pass it on to. Laying it down in the road with not a little regret, she set off again on foot, the steady pace that she could keep up all day and usually had to.

The next town - the next place that had once been a town - was only a couple of hours walk, but she was overheating by the time she got there, perspiration soaking her shirt and running freely down her face. She hadn't even made it out of California yet, and she knew that Nevada would be worse. Either she needed to find some transport, or she was going to have to start travelling by night, at least until she got further north and to a more temperate climate. It wasn't like there was anything left further south anyway.

The town had been a decent size once, she guessed. The road she was walking on had been a highway, still littered with the occasional burnt out car or truck, skeletons of the past, when people had actually been able to travel freely. To live.

Despite the heat, Martha shivered.

There were more cars in the town, some rusting away while others looked as though they were just waiting for their owners to return for them. The buildings were a mixture of modern concrete and old-fashioned looking wooden frontages, as though the city had got stuck in the nineteenth century somehow. It was pretty. It had been pretty.

She didn't see any people until she reached what had probably once been the main street, a small group of them coming out of a half-burnt shop, forming a loose group in the middle of the road. Martha knew a road-block when she saw it, though.

Keeping her hands by her sides, she walked slowly towards them, trying to work out who was in charge. She had a name, a possible contact, but who knew if it would do her any good.

"Welcome to Nevada City," the woman at the front of the group said, folding her arms across her chest.

Martha frowned. "I thought this was California."

"It is." The woman was tall and thin, her hair greying and her face deeply lined. From experience over the last few months, Martha guessed that she was in her late thirties. Hardship like the Master had inflicted on the world could do a lot more in a lot less time.

"Then I'm looking for Marcus Whiler. I'm Martha Jones."

There was some whispering from behind the woman, stopping when she half-glanced over her shoulder. At least she'd unfolded her arms, which was a good start.

"I'm Faith Whiler. My husband died two weeks ago." She tilted her head a little. "We've been expecting you."

Everyone was always expecting her. It was more than a little unnerving, every time. But they always accepted her as well, some willingly, others with fear in their eyes, terrified of being caught with the most wanted woman on the planet.

Here, in Nevada City, CA, there was no fear. It felt as though the people had had it burned out of them a long time ago. They cooked her dinner, showed her where she could sleep, and nodded politely as she told them of the Doctor. Of what they needed to do and when they needed to do it.

Faith nodded when Martha said she was going to need a different way to travel.

"Don't want to try to get across Nevada on foot," she said thoughtfully. "You'll burn up."

"Any suggestions?"

"There's lots of abandoned cars out there, a few gas stations around town that we haven't tapped yet, and we have some full cans that we siphoned out of the cars in the street. We can always switch to kerosene, anyway. Stay off the main roads. They have patrols on them."

"Thanks." Again with the guilt. Martha had taken so much from everyone she'd met. An hour of their time. A plate of their food. The last of their safety.

As if sensing what she was thinking, Faith lowered her voice a little, leaning in close. "You're really walking all the way round the world just to tell people about this guy? It's really going to make a difference?"

"It really is." Martha forced herself to smile. "And I'm not all the way round yet."

"But you're going to." Faith's eyes were searching Martha's face, looking for something. "You're going all the way back."

"All the way home." The word stuck in her throat as always, but whatever showed in her eyes seemed to satisfy Faith, because she sat back again, nodding.

"Okay. I'm living in a world where flying metal balls kill people. I'll believe you."

"It'll make a difference, I swear." Impulsively, Martha put her hand out, grasping Faith's. "I can't explain how, but it'll make a difference."

Faith held her gaze and her hand for a long moment, then she nodded again, squeezing Martha's fingers before letting her go. "Lord knows we've little enough to hope for at the moment. But if you tell me it matters, then it matters." She tilted her head a little, just as she'd done when they first met. "You should get some sleep."

As she lay on the uncomfortable mattress, still sweating in the heat of the night as she tried to catch some sleep, Martha forced herself to push the guilt aside, locking it up tight in the box where she kept those feelings. Every impulse that made her want to stop, to lie down and just not get up again went in there, along with the nagging feeling that this was all going to be in vain.

Even now, she could feel the clamminess of Jack's skin as he pressed his Vortex manipulator into her hands, the gentle warmth of the Doctor's breath as he whispered in her ear, her family's eyes on her as she pressed the button that would take her away from the Valiant. It was still so real, so vivid that she had to open her eyes in the darkness, trying to force the images from her mind.

She sat up carefully, feeling more than a little disoriented. The memories were like a dream, clinging to her even as she struggled to her feet. For all that she hated them, they were what kept her going, and she couldn't afford to forget. But she wished she didn't have to remember all the time.

Wrapping the blanket around her, Martha carefully opened the door to the room she'd been given, not wanting to wake anyone else. At the top of the stairs she paused, tilting her head and trying to listen. It sounded like someone else was up, moving around downstairs. As she put her foot on the top step, Martha froze.

Since the world had gone to hell, she'd noticed that everything was quieter by night. There were no cars on the road, no hum of electricity constantly in the background, and the curfews kept everyone at home, scared and silent. Which meant that the sound she was hearing now seemed to cut through the night, impossibly loud in the stillness.

It was a lone voice, a woman, singing softly at first, then lifting in volume as she was joined by another singer, then another. Within a few lines, Martha couldn't tell how many people were singing, their voices blending seamlessly. She knew the tune, but she was hearing the words for the first time again. Before she really knew it, she was sitting on the stairs, leaning her head against the banisters and just listening, as the singers filled the house with their music.

She remembered hearing voices like this before, all joining together in comfort and hope and love. She remembered being with the Doctor, and why she was here and what she was doing. She remembered that he trusted her, and she trusted him, and that there was not a soul on this earth who could stop her from what she needed to do.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found.
Was blind but now I see.

They sang just that first verse, over and over, until Martha was mouthing the words along with them, unable to find her voice past the lump in her throat. She wasn't ready when the song faded away, the silence suddenly loud in her ears and she found herself holding her breath.

It was a relief when they started singing again, a tune she didn't know this time although it sounded like a lullaby. Gentle and simple and easy, just like the first, and she didn't want it to ever stop. As though they'd heard her, the singers kept going, one song becoming two, becoming a medley of songs and voices, merging and twining into one another so that she felt cradled in their embrace. She closed her eyes, sinking into the melody, letting it envelop and surround her like a blanket. This time when she closed her eyes, she heard her mother's voice, joining the others as they returned to where they had started, words and tune and voice together soothing her gently into sleep.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come.
Tis grace has brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home.

The title is also taken from "Amazing Grace" by John Newton

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not quite a BringTheHappy fic no, but wonderful!

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