There's a place called home I can almost see.

[toldastory]

Who: Martha Snape-Jones and Jack Harkness.
What: Seeing an old friend for the first time in a long time.
Where: The train station near the inn.
When: Following this.
Warnings: None.


Jack. Funny how if she could have picked someone from her world to show up here, it definitely would be him. No, not the Doctor with all the background and drama that could come with him (especially now) and not her family (she wouldn't want them here with no way of getting home) but Captain Jack Harkness. He was someone whom she didn't need to worry too much about adjusting, and she knew that of all the people in her life, he would probably handle it the best.

Martha had never really gotten over her habit of walking far too quickly than she should for her legs; there were good things about walking with people who averaged a foot taller than she did. However, there's a more certain note to her step, and the coat that's she's wearing is long and billowy, her own version of a (substitute) hero jacket. (Someday, she'd get back to her actual jacket. Someday.)

Someday was quickly becoming a worrying concept. Normally, Martha was fairly good at being hopeful and knowing that they couldn't stay here forever. But following the holidays and the fact that it was another Christmas away from her family, and away from her life, some of the cheerfulness was fraying. This was different from the Barge; there she could chose, but here there was nothing but being stuck. However, as soon as Martha saw him, her lips spread into a brilliant grin and she tore off running towards him.

Comments

[animpossiblething]

The ability to land, tumble, or be thrown bodily into new situations and to look never out of place (and thus vulnerable) wasn't one that Jack had been taught, though it was once he'd been refining through nearly constant use since the days he wouldn't get up after getting blown into messy bits. Playing the bumbling tourist could be a useful disguise if you weren't one in fact, but Captain Jack instead walked to the station with the broad-shouldered, long-legged confidence of someone who knew what he was doing here.

It helped to whittle things down. Strange lands with no immediate escape, not even to just live until interstellar transit happened? Yeah, kinda intimidating. But: Jack knew he was going to meet Martha, and Martha was brilliant and one of the few people he felt truly was his equal in the domains of saving-the-day and getting-things-done, so the rest of the issues at hand seemed as minor, peripheral problems.

Besides, he looked ugly when he panicked, and all he had to bring to the problem-solving table was good-looks and charm, so it was incredibly easy to buckle down anything bad and instead let the anticipation of seeing Martha Jones once again.

Once sighted, he rather shattered his blasé disguise by laughing joyfully and running, coat billowing, to collide with Martha and sweep her up in a hug, pulling her clear off the ground and twirling around with her twice.

"Oh, Martha, it is so good to see you," he breathed into her hair.