multiversallogs | Today the guns are silent.

Entry tags:

Today the guns are silent.

Who: Martha Snape-Jones and Severus Snape. [Closed. Complete.]
What: A log of badassery, daleks and then horrors.
Where: Sobek Croix
When: Now.
Notes: None that I can think of.
Warnings:

Well, this week was certainly familiar. Martha Jones had gone firmly into companion mode as soon as the Hellsing shut down had happened. Everything was triage now, and treating as many people as Martha possibly could. It was easier to be in crisis medical mode. There was something familiar about it, like the world ending and the only thing that mattered was getting this person through this night, and perhaps the next. As many as they needed to until the world once more righted itself. After all, there were gods here, how could they keep allowing this to go on? Perhaps she really didn't want to know.

The portkey had taken care of the angel, thank goodness, because the last thing that Martha had been willing to do was to stay locked up inside of their home when this was going on. There was something inside of her that simply wouldn't allow her to do that. Perhaps it had been the angel outside her front door, but Martha was reminded of how many things there were from her world that people didn't have a point of reference too. And there were some things that a person needed one for and Martha's conversation with Steph had made that clear.

Familiar too was the way Martha was garbed. 'I am not a solider' solider outfit, plain, black with her larger on the inside backpack, filled with food and medical supplies. If she had lost some weight (to starving) and was minus a few tattoos, Martha Jones could have been a past version of herself.

Each step she took was purposeful, and there was no hesitation in it. Monsters were around them, and Martha didn't flinch. At least not yet. No, there would be time for flinching, but far away there was a sound so soft that Martha almost thought was a memory. Ex-term-in-ate.

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If there was something Severus had learned in the year that had passed for him on the Barge, it was that he ought not underestimate Martha's capabilities. He had seen her through a Mirrorverse, watched her warden a goddess, and, amongst other things which might have broken lesser mortals, run an infirmary. So it was that he didn't attempt to interrupt her natural instincts to protect and heal.

But he did follow along with a wand drawn. Particularly after the incident with the Angel. And if, on occasion, he shot her a disapproving glower or two for how she was neglecting herself - well. That was his natural instinct and she could bloody well deal with it.

He had forgone the Muggle clothing; his own robes were better suited to duelling, with plenty of room in pockets for potions she couldn't carry. He and Martha made an odd pair, he supposed. Not that he put a good deal of thought into it.

He took no notice of the sound; she had never told him about Daleks. His attention was on defense, not identification of weird noise sources; there were a good deal of strange noises going on at the moment and one 'Exterminate' didn't exactly beg for attention.

One of the things that was odd was having her own private bodyguard with all of this, particularly one who glower at her ever so often. Martha knew that he was worried and that it was in his nature to worry about her just as it was in her nature to do what she needed to do. But as long as they weren't fighting about things, then Martha was just fine with such withering looks.

Besides, it was nice to have him there when things looked bleak. It was something reassuring and grounding. This is what I'm fighting for. He was what was worth fighting for, especially considering that this was their home. It was where the two of them had decided to settle, to make a new life. It was where they had decided that they would move onto the next part of their life.

There was no place for monsters here, especially monsters like the ones that Martha had escaped from long ago.

The sound of a laser came now, just as familiar as the dead, robotic tones of the soulless creatures trapped in their tin boxes. It had been years since Martha had heard that sound (and even longer since she'd heard them in person, thanks to Davros and his bloody Timewar clip) but the sound slithered it's way down her spine, coating it in ice.

"EX-TER-MIN-ATE." Came again, and Martha moved into action, slamming into her husband and knocking him out of the way of the laser that went over their heads.

It wasn't often that Severus was caught off-guard - but there was something to his left which had warranted a closer look; the 'exterminate' was heard, closer this time, but discounted because there were closer things, more dangerous things than a word in the muddle, and wasn't that -

And that was as far as his thought process allowed him to go, because one minute he was on his feet and the next minute he was hit by something with roughly the same force and speed as a wrecking ball. She had caught him hard enough to send him sliding a few inches.

And, of course, his first reaction was indignation. "Have you lost your -"

And there was that word again, closer and louder and oh, bollocks, what was that thing firing at them? He didn't have time to contemplate the fact that Martha had very likely just saved his life; he shot off a blasting hex in the general direction of the thing while scrambling to disentangle himself from her and get to his feet.

It had been a solid hit, and once he was on the ground, Martha Jones started to move quickly to her feet, ignoring the indignation that was coming from her husbands mouth.

"Aim at the eye stalk.." She called over to him, completely calm and completely in control as she pulled the straps of the knapsack off over her shoulders. "They've got a forcefield and it'll probably just rebound. Their eye stalk is their weak point."

Steady hands as Martha reached into her bag and pulled out something extremely unlikely: a gun. Specifically, the gun that she'd gotten when things had been so bad following their arrival. Even more than that, Martha checked the bullets on the gun and clicked the safety off.

"If the ray hits you, you're dead. Don't get hit, love."

Her calm demeanor earned a faint smirk from him. It wasn't much, and it wasn't directed at her, per se - but this calm, controlled attitude of hers was definitely going to be examined later, when he wasn't trying to avoid death by technological horror.

Aim at the eye stalk. Well, that should be easy enough - he thought.

Except the blasting hexes weren't getting through the forcefield. Oh, he could distract the damned thing, but science was winning out over magic. Several other hexes were thrown its way, all to no effect.

Losing to an advanced toaster, he thought grimly. How humiliating. Well. At least he could draw it away from Martha. Perhaps he could draw it far enough away, Apparate, and regroup with her to find another way to combat it.

"Electricity." Martha called softly, and then she looked to the thing again. "Lightening can hurt it, depending on how exposed it's been to things." Wondering where in the timeline this thing was from, Martha wished that the Doctor could have been here.

Or maybe he would have made it worse, depending on how Davros and the Daleks in Manhattan had acted towards him. Hopefully this one was from past Canary Wharf and the Timewar. If so then this had decent shot of actually working.

Keeping her voice calm, she forwent the cover that had hidden her for long enough that she could get the gun out. "Dalek! What is your status?" There was a real authority in her voice, something that he'd never heard, not even during a crisis aboard the Barge.

Harder than trying to overpower this thing was trying to draw it away from Martha when she seemed intent on following. He started to snap at her, to warn her off coming any closer -

And for the love of Merlin, don't attract its attention!

But that tone was interesting; she never had struck him as the authoritative sort, and now - Wait, was that a firearm? Martha didn't carry firearms. Ever. Who the hell was this woman? More intriguing, where had she come by a gun, how long had she had it, and where had she been keeping it?

Clearly, he didn't know his wife as well as he thought.

All these thoughts and more in the span of a second or two. He kept himself at the ready, trying to divide his attention between her and the machine. He spoke to her calmly, a silky drawl in place of panic or concern. There wasn't room for those emotions just now. "Careful, Martha."

Martha didn't move her eyes towards her husband, but she inclined her head in the slightest bit. She kept her breathing calm and even; daleks could sense an elevated heart rate, and if it thought that she was doing what she was planning on doing, then it would kill her before her plan was set into motion.

The dalek looked ratty, and it's polish was rubbed off in places. This wasn't the pristine dalek that had been broken out of a timelock; this one was old, and battle-pocked. Looking more closely at the bumps, Martha thought that it might have been from New York, and it might have been one of the "Cult of Skaro, yeah?" It wasn't really a question, as she studied the dalek, and the dalek moved back a bit and away from her, the gun attachment twisting a bit. "Dalek Jast, I think."

"How. Do. You. Know. Who. I. Am. Hu. man?" The words were spoken as the dalek seemed to stare at her, the lights on it's head twisting with each word.

No weapons just words "I'm the person who can try and get you home."

Edited 2012-03-10 19:12 (UTC)

Well. This was an interesting, albeit odd, set of circumstances. Martha recognized the machine. Severus was beginning to wonder if perhaps the creatures drawn in to Baedal weren't so very random, after all; perhaps they were the product of memories, past interactions.

Perhaps a three-headed dog or a giant serpent might appear.

He prayed for the three-headed dog.

His wand was useless against their attacker, he decided - particularly when it was focusing its attention on Martha. He aimed at her, instead.

Daleks. Martha remembered how the Doctor had cursed them, how they'd always lived when he'd lost everything. At the time, Martha'd thought that he'd meant Rose, but she hadn't realized until after Saxon, and seeing him aboard the Barge that he'd literally lost everything because of them. More than simply a girl, or a mate, but his whole family and everything that was a constant in his life.

She wondered if Daleks other than Dalek Caan had ever experienced that sort of feeling.

The dalek almost seemed to blink at her, and Martha took another step forward, keeping her eyes on this thing's eye stalk. Once it had determined that she was above average intelligence and her genes were suited for their project. It was something that had given her nightmares even before she'd know what Davros had been trying to do.

"You. Have. Traveled. With. The. Doctor." It was easy to imagine the horror and the anger in the Doctor's voice, and Martha moved closer to it.

"I have. You're out of your time. You have two choices, Dalek. You can either wait here and do nothing until you're returned, or I'll make it so you never return to your proper timeline." Authority, and giving them a choice, just like the Doctor would do.

As she negotiated, something niggled at the back of his mind. Something important. He'd seen something, had been so focused on it before the machine appeared.

Whatever it was, he felt a growing sense of urgency, rather like panic. There was something he needed to do. A flash of something, seen out of the corner of his eye -

"Martha," he hissed, unsettled by the feeling. "Get on with it."

The dalek twisted it's weapons array in her direction, and Martha didn't blink. All it would take was that and this thing would shoot her and here she didn't have the means to go back in time or have the death toll waiting like a net to catch her.

"I'm giving you a choice, dalek." Martha quickly said once more in that same authoritative voice. "You've only got this one. Don't waste it." Genuine regret slipped into her tone, and Martha hoped that the dalek wouldn't do anything stupid.

But then it turned it's weapon towards Severus, and Martha was not alright with that. Doing that was cause for her to not give the dalek a chance anymore than she already had and quickly Martha fired a bullet point blank and into the dalek's eye stalk. Jumping back to avoid the spinning of it's plunger, she noticed the removed casing of the shell and fired into it there.

He advanced on the - dalek, that's what she was calling it - when it turned its weapons toward her. There was little he could do save distract it - and distract it, he did, apparently.

Several things happened at once: he readied himself to leap out of the way. The thing before him readied itself to fire. And Martha - did fire, from immediately beside it.

It was reckless and dangerous - he glared at her even as she fired on it again. The reaction from the dalek - an obvious powering down - gave him the time he needed to intervene. Suddenly, the emotions he'd been repressing came to the forefront. His hand went tight around her upper arm, as though he meant to shake her.

"Stupid - reckless - damn it, Martha, you might have been killed! What were you thinking?" Protecting him, of course. That's what she'd been thinking. He was useless against the monsters of her world, and she had just saved him. Twice.

Martha let out a breath when the dalek powered down, and she didn't even know if that was a good sign or a bad one. The dalek's weapon and plunger were both turned downward, and that was good enough for her at the moment.

She still had the gun if there was the return of the blue light to the eyestalk.

Her brow pulled up when he gripped her like that, and Martha frowned at him; if he'd shaken her, it would have been a fight like the two of them had never seen. Thankfully he didn't, and Martha watched him for a moment.

"If I hadn't, you would have been killed." Simply spoken, and entirely truthful. "And we got lucky, if this was a regenerated dalek, it would have killed you."

He looked apoplectic at her answer, his mouth set in a thin, furious line. His hand didn't clench at her arm, but his knuckles were turning white from the grip he had on his wand.

The desire was there to hex her for being so foolhardy...or simply because she'd given him a bad scare, though he would never admit to that. Of course, it was likely that she was aware of it anyway - one of those unspoken things between them, which kept her from slapping him in the same way it prevented him from harming her.

With a soft, disgusted noise, he let go of her and backed of apace, then gestured sharply at the gun with his wandhand (and therefore, his wand.) "Where did you get that?"

Edited 2012-03-11 01:04 (UTC)

Martha was aware of how he responded when she scared him like that. She knew how it had been when she'd been in danger aboard the Barge and there'd been at least something to bring her back, how each time she'd died it'd been like something between his ribs.

Here there was no death toll; just silence and going on without her.

Martha frowned at him even harder when there was that noise, and she moved back towards her backpack, shoving the gun inside of it before she started to redo the straps again. "When you demanded that I get one when we first got here." Bella, she meant. "I got it from Hellsing."

As she turned, so did he. He cast a glance around, the feeling of heightened awareness (missing something, he was missing something) still there beneath the anger which lay in the wake of his panic.

But he did stop and glance back at her with a calculating expression now. Hadn't she refused a firearm when he made that demand? There was no change in his attitude, but something about his entire demeanor suggested he wasn't quite as angry as he had been a moment before. A cessation of hostilities, so to speak.

"For a woman who eschews the use of firearms, you're remarkably competent with one." It...might have been a compliment, or he might simply have decided to take one last dig at her for frightening him.

"Just because I don't want to use one doesn't mean I can't. I was trained by
UNIT, Sev, and I was shown how to use one just in case." Martha herself wasn't sure which side the comment fell on, and she decided she'd treat it as neither and just explain.

Shrugging into her backpack, Martha looked around once more. His sense of worry was starting to be contagious, and the two of them were close enough to know the signs for if something was bothering him.

Other than the obvious, of course.

Taking a deep breath, Martha looked over to the dalek again, and she offered him a smile; ceasing hostility on her behalf as well.

"No need to explain," he replied silkily. "I wouldn't dream of revealing the truth of Saint Martha's capabilities."

If he couldn't lash out at her, he would do his level best to annoy her. Of course, 'Saint Martha' from him sounded almost like a pet name - and when she smiled, that might have been a faint smirk in return. Almost forgiven.

For saving his life and all.

He turned away again with a last disdainful glance at the dalek; something was going on, a tussle some distance away, and it distracted him from the conversation. Worse, it distracted him from Martha.

"Oh ho ho," Martha mock-chuckled in response to the comment about Saint Martha. "Look who thinks he's being rather clever." She was teasing him back, especially in response to that smirk. Knowing when she was almost forgiven, Martha decided to tease him back, not noticing the angel who was on the field of vision.

"You know, husband of mine," she said when he looked around. "You're quite lucky that I love you. If I didn't--" But what she might have done if she didn't love him was lost, as one of her breaths was taken here and now, and the next was taken back on the Barge.

The only sound was her bag hitting the ground in front of an angel.

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Today the guns are silent.

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