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Who: Martha Jones and Severus Snape (Jack Jones)
What: Running into the wife when she doesn't remember who he is. Yay angst.
Where: The inn.
When: TBD.
Notes: Martha's going to remember... eventually.
Warnings: Angst.

There were some things that a person got used to quicker than others, and given the travelling Martha'd done in time, adjusting to a new place was something that she'd had a leg up on. The fact that she'd found an organization like Torchwood (where she had been planning on going immediately after she resigned from UNIT) had helped with the adjustment without a doubt.

Being employed, being a doctor, was a brilliant thing and she was happy with having gainful employment. Her free time at the inn was coming and end, and despite the fact that Martha had been spending some time cottage hunting, she wasn't finding anything. Places just didn't seem proper, for reasons that she couldn't quite press her finger on. It was like there was a place she was picturing in her head and nothing else could hold up.

Carrying a box through the hallways, Martha had a pleased smile on her face. She'd find a place soon, and then she'd move and then she'd worry about going home. There was a large and person-shaped hole that she was assuming was Tom. After all, who else could it have been. Clothing shopping had been done, so she felt a bit odd in the black jacket, but at least the style was one that was familiar.

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"Of course we can," he replied flatly, as though that was never the problem. After all, there had been worse things. The time he lied. Sirius. They had managed through that; this would be comparatively simple, if emotionally frustrating.

He reach over to tilt her CiD toward him again, wondering just what Xenophilius could be doing. How long did it take to find dittany?

As if by magic-- or rather, literally by magic, but it's rather serendipitous all the same-- the CiD reveals nothing but the ceiling of a little Flyside apartment, and due to the fact that it is muted, there's no warning when--

Crack!

Xenophilius appears, a little off-balance and dazed as he occasionally tends to be when Apparating in a hurry. His wand is out, just in case, a long thin carved in the design of a narwhal horn, and fly-away white-blonde hair somewhat mussed, but that's a little usual too.

Most importantly, in his hand is a palm-sized vial, half-filled with liquid, and a little greasy to touch.

Martha's hands were still entwined with Severus's when there was the cracking sound of someone apparating in, and before he could pull away from her, she pulled from him. They were going to be planing a game, and Martha didn't want to blow it before it had begun. After all, she'd been the one to tell Howie about their marriage in their first day or so of doing it.

Swallowing, Martha remembered to offer him a bit of a smile before she moved forward towards him, one hand out stretched towards the bottle that was in his hand. "Hello, I'm Martha." Even though they'd met once already on the network. "I'm a doctor, may I have that, please?" First things first: stopping the bleeding, then afterwards they'd deal with the awkward of who was who to whom.

He should have known Xenophilius would simply...arrive. And leave his communicator sitting back in his flat. Sometimes, Severus wondered whether the man really was as barking as he seemed. Some of his behaviour seemed quite contrived, really.

Then again, perhaps he was just very good at being a madman. As Martha dealt with him, Severus turned his attention to the jumper currently serving as a makeshift bandage. He painstakingly unwrapped it, noting with cool detachment that there was a good deal of blood soaking it through.

"You can trust her," he tossed out dismissively. Just in case it needed to be said.

As she approaches, the vial is clutched to Xeno's chest in great uncertainty, more than ready to give it to Snape instead when he inches back a step, wand held out but pointing at no one. The word 'doctor' doesn't do much to reassure him - pureblood he isn't, and wizard supremacist he isn't either, but he is still a result of wizard culture insulation.

But he twitches a glance to Severus, and then down at the sight of blood. Even the smell of it is starting to soak in beneath the scent of books and dust. "What's happened?" he asks, in a little wonder.

But he is handing her the dittany essence, wiping his hand off on the front of his robes.

"He was splinched." Martha said the words quickly and clinically, as if doing so would remove some of the guilt she felt for causing him to lose his focus. If she'd not stamped down on his foot then... Well, there was nothing that could be done for that. The if onlys would do nothing but drive her mental.

Martha's experience with potions bottles had never left her hand feeling greasy before, and she had a moment of doubt of whether or not this would help. A quick look was flashed to Xeno before the doctor focused once more on her patient and the wound in his arms.

He was going to need a blood replenishing potion if this didn't work soon.

Wishing for the Barge, Martha pulled the stopper on the bottle and then put one hand on his arm above the wound. "You ready Sev..erus?" The second thirds of his name were added on as a bit of an afterthought, because she was reminding herself that people in ruses didn't need to hold a person's hand.

He frowned visibly at Martha's non-explanation of the events; he knew it was better to give less information than more (of course he knew), but he didn't particularly like being made to seem inept at something so mundane as Apparition. He wouldn't have been splinched if someone hadn't jumped on his foot and screamed in his ear.

And someone would have done neither of those things if he'd acted with a bit more decorum, he supposed. Served him right, then.

"Get on with it," he replied, not bothering to shoot her a warning glance about the slip-up. Part of him wondered if she would even be able to keep their secret - at least, this part. Perhaps not to preserve her life, but his own. In hardly mattered, of course, unless Xenophilius began asking questions - which he might not do.

Severus focused instead on dabbing away blood as she applied what he hoped was dittany.

It is, at least, dittany. Things of theory, earthier practices and pragmatic solutions were always Xeno's strengths over charming and combative practice (and as an unrelated aside, failing Magical Creatures by getting side tracked on the ones that didn't exist), and what had been the occasional hobby of herbology back home has blossomed into a means to pay his way, pardoning the pun. He stands anxious and watches the interaction, fingers knotted together once he's pocketed his wand.

"Nasty thing, splinching. It's a good thing you didn't put that in my mind before I came here, I'd've been tempted to take the bicycle. You were where the professor was before?"

Martha kept her face carefully composed, and she didn't lock eyes with him when he told her to get on with it like that. Fighting in front of someone who wasn't all that trustworthy to begin with wasn't going to solve anything.

Deja vu walked a cold path down Martha's spine and she could do this. Martha'd done it before in 1913, and she could do it now. Somehow now felt worse though. Now hurt more, to try and hide the way they felt towards one another.

Moving the dittany over Severus's wound, Martha focused on that for a moment rather than answering the question. "Yes, I knew him before."

Edited 2011-11-13 17:02 (UTC)

Severus shot a look at Xenophilius. It was jarring how the other man segued from one topic to the next; one moment talking about splinching, and the next, asking questions he ought not be asking. It was almost as though he was attempting to catch them off-guard; it was a good tactic, actually. One which was beginning to convince Severus that the other man was, indeed, saner than he let on.

His attention returned to Martha and the injury. It was painful (of course it was painful) but he was quite practiced at detaching himself from it. Living inside the pain rather than succumbing to it. It brought things more sharply into focus.

And right now, he could tell with painful certainty that Martha was not pleased with him. She hated lying, she hated when he lied. There had to be a better way - and didn't he owe her for what he'd done in the hall?

"Martha Snape-Jones, Xenophilius Lovegood." That should suffice. It would have to; that was the extent of the information he would be dispensing. "Did you distill this yourself?"

"Oh, we met a little on the networks, did we not..."

But Xenophilius is saying this while he configures what Severus just said, pale eyebrows going up as slightly cross-eyed gaze slants towards Martha. "So you did find someone you know," he says, with conspirational warmth for the pair of them as opposed to tripping over little details like the potions professor from school marrying a Muggle in the time it took for him to travel dimensions in three years.

The why of that seems less immediately concerning than the fact of it itself, and someone who sews together stories, both true and not, can put the pieces in place just fine.

Martha hadn't been expecting him to come out with it, at all. Her hands stilled for a moment, and her eyes went wide when he actually called her Snape-Jones. While it hadn't been her name for very long, it still made her smile to hear him say it, even though it was a little one. One side of her lip twisted upwards, half a smile just for him. After all, she was trying to be stealthy.

"I did." Martha said, looking over her shoulder with a smile as the dittany did it's job. "I'm incredibly lucky that way." She couldn't keep the warmth from her voice, and she then looked back to the wound. It was mostly healed, and Martha frowned for a moment. "I need to get a proper bandage from my room. I'm afraid this will leave a scar." There was guilt in her tone that she didn't bother to make the effort to hide.

"Thank you, Xenophilius. I mean it. I don't know what I would have done if you didn't have this."

When she smiled at him, Severus cocked an eyebrow at her as though challenging her to question his change of heart. Defiance was a good default for situations like this. With that, he turned his attention to monitoring her use of dittany and trying not to wince.

He wasn't going to say another word on the matter; at Xenophilius's comment, he simply inclined his head and let Martha do the talking. Thankfully, the other man seemed to be displaying a rare sense of decorum - one not possessed by most journalists, in Snape's experience. Next time, however, he would contact Claire Bennet to do the healing. Once he had ascertained that he could trust her, that was. Not that he wanted a 'next time' - after all, the circumstances were rather unique.

Severus passed a hand over the wound, then flexed his fingers as though ensuring they would work properly. The skin felt too tight and raw, but it was no longer a gaping wound.

"I suppose I owe you a good deal," he said finally, glancing at the other man. It wasn't a question - he might have been noting that he had a bar tab to pay. Xenophilius was not only protecting his identity now, but Martha's, as well. Not to mention answering hasty, somewhat panicked communications with dittany. Severus would have to pay this particular piper eventually.

Pale eyebrows raise again at the lavish thanks, as if not quite understanding the concept that not only would someone be slow to act, they might not act at all. "It's quite alright," he assures, mildly, looking back towards Severus; and understanding sets in there, about the weight of the secrets being held as well as the dittany proved. "I suppose," he agrees, unassuming. "If you're the kind of person to add things up in that way."

Xeno isn't, necessarily, being highly unpolitical and generally kind enough, but he that's as much protest as he can muster. Having allies, friends, people who owe things, is never a terrible possession in this world.

"I'll get along, then, if you like. If you've much to catch up on."

Martha definitely wasn't, and she was hoping that her early assumptions about Xeno were going to prove to be right. She didn't want him to be the one to sell them out--she didn't want anyone to sell them out, really. Martha just wanted to hold her husband and have him hold her and tell one another that the two of them were going to be just fine, even with everything else.

Especially with everything else.

"Thank you," Martha said again when it came to his offer of leaving them alone to catch up on things. They needed too. "I mean it, thanks."

Severus stood as the other man spoke, taking care not to jostle Martha, took up his wand, and moved to retrieve his coat from the floor. He would clearly have to find some way to repair the shirt he wore, but the blood on the coat would come out easily, he supposed.

He was quite prepared to allow Xenophilius to leave without another word said on the matter; however, Martha's thanks drew his attention away from the fabric, and he remembered that somewhere along the line, he had learned manners. Likely when Martha told him he wasn't very nurselike. Not the best of manners, but enough that he now gave Lovegood a curt nod - more thanks than most would receive from him.

Severus was, after all, the kind of person to add things up in 'that way' - and he might have thought whatever favor owed would be thanks enough.

It isn't often that Xeno can read a room and leave when it's appropriate. But in this one rather unique case, he can.

Something about marriage he can relate to.

"Oh, I believe you," he assures Martha, and, with a last flash of a smile to the professor, he flits his way out of the library with that sort of surprisingly light footed way of his, disappearing beyond the shelves and out into the rest of the Inn. Maybe he'll say hello to those there while he's here.

As soon as Lovegood had left, Martha had let out a sigh of relief. Now that the tension was starting to lessen a bit, she could feel the muscles in her back begin to unknit, and slowly became aware of the fact that she'd been carrying the tension there for a long time. Longer than since when he'd grabbed her in the hallway. At the moment a part of her was wondering if it'd been lingering there for the two weeks that her sleep had been bad and that she'd felt like a part of her was missing.

And now here he was with a fresh scar that was her fault, along with damage to his foot that she couldn't heal. Well, yet. Maybe the facility at Hellsing would have something that would permanently remove his limp. One less thing for her to worry about him here. One less disadvantage that he would have if the Lestranges happened to find him.

As if to reassure herself that he was here and whole and not some sort of fevered hallucination, Martha stroked her hand against his cheek. Her thumb moved in a slow circle, following the able to his nose and then back again. She was thinking now, wondering how long those charms took to apply, if she was going to be living with that image of Hix rather than her beloved Sev.

She wanted out of this library with the smell of blood. If there was one good thing it was that magic didn't have DNA testing, so hopefully the crimson that had seeped into the rug wouldn't give them away. "Can you apparate us to my room or would you rather walk?" Her arm tucked under his shoulder, ready to bare his weight if it needed baring.

Severus stared for a long while at the place where Lovegood had been; until now, it had been easy to disregard all thought of the past few days. He could focus on the wound in his arm and the pain in his foot and not allow his mind to stray to those first eight hours in the arrival room, the lapse in will to attempt an escape. To do so much as stand up.

Losing Lily had been horrifying. A living nightmare, to know he had been instrumental in the death of someone he had loved since he was a child. He had wished himself dead, and might have followed through on that impulse had Dumbledore not stepped in and given him a reason to continue, no matter how distasteful. And, as he had so often been told (and come to realize, himself) Lily had never been his.

Martha had. Whereas he never knew what might have been with Lily, Severus knew precisely what had been lost when he found himself wrenched from the Barge. When he attempted to contact her using the two-way mirror and found that he had both mirrors in his pockets. There would be no more lazy mornings, no more wagers or robes or drinking games. None of her smiles. He would never again be able to bear the scent of lemon and honey. No more towels on the floor or shoes in bed or whispered plans for the future in the darkness of their room. No more Martha. She might as well be dead, for all that he could reach her, and for eight hours in the arrival room, he had been unable to process any of it at all. It had been not only prudent, but easier to pretend to be someone else. Even if the name 'Jack' inspired a slew of painful memories, it was less painful to be him than Severus Snape.

Over the next few days, it had been as though the oxygen was slowly being sucked from the world. He felt both more caustic and hateful, and more indifferent. The tightness in his chest had become unbearable. And then she had passed him in the hall, giving him a flicker of hope. But she hadn't known him and his heart had broken all over again, and again when she mistook him for the Doctor.

He didn't feel her hand on his cheek; he didn't come out of his reverie until she tucked her arm under his shoulder in an attempt to steady him. Quite suddenly, he grasped her, pulling her rather forcefully into an embrace. He didn't dare close his eyes at first, but clung to her as he had only once before: as though she was his last lifeline.

"Sev," Martha's voice was soft when he grabbed her like that, and she wrapped her arms around him, just pressing as plush to him as she could. "I'm here. I'm here and I'm not going anywhere." Soft words of reassurance, as if she could chase the shadows and the specters of loss away from his mind. She was reminded now of all the times where they'd fought, of how she could almost always calm him by being there, by pressing her hand to his cheek and his lips to hers, or by sitting on his lap and just being there. A life line, a connection, and a promise that she wouldn't break. Don't you know how much I love you? Don't you know for how long I have?

Maybe it was harder for him to believe now that she had forgotten. A part of her was wondering if it was perhaps out of some sort of trauma that she hadn't remembered--that mentally she'd blocked it out. Or something had blocked it out. They'd both come here directly from the Barge; how could they be stolen without the Admiral's permission? He could make it so people were alive, so people could have second chances! How the hell could he have allowed this to happen without his consent.

"Always, Severus Snape." Martha spoke the words in the same tone that she'd used at their wedding, warm, bright, and filled with love. They would have always even if she had to cross hell and back to make certain that they did it. Whatever happened, whatever else anyone tried, Martha Snape-Jones wasn't going to allow anyone to do this to them again. "Always."

As though he had resigned himself to a death as was now presented with a very real, living, breathing person instead of a corpse, he couldn't believe it. Not even his hands on her shoulders and back could convince him fully that she was here and real and saying words he had wanted so badly to hear. It didn't seem out of the realm of possibility that he had suffered a breakdown and was imagining all of this - and worse, he didn't care if he was. If he had lost his mind and Martha was an hallucination, it was better than being sane without her.

Severus tightened his hold on her and buried his face in her neck, breathing her in, listening to her reassurances. He didn't give even a moment's consideration to how they had come to be here; all that mattered was that he had her. Other concerns could come later.

"I thought I had lost you," he managed weakly. He had said it already, but for some reason - inexplicable, incomprehensible, illogical as it may have been - it needed to be repeated. He needed her to understand that there was more to those words than simply what lay at the surface. He had told her so often what she was to him - his wife, his love, his redemption, his paradise - that surely she would understand how devastating it had been. But more to the point, it was an explanation for his behavior in the hall. Fear and desperation had driven him to act violently. Underlying all of the need for her to understand his panic was the need for forgiveness. Nearly losing her had caused him to do do her harm.

"You'll never lose me." She said quickly, and her voice was entirely certain. It had a note of unshakable belief, of complete undeniably. Once upon a time, in a world that was bleeding radiation and violence and blood, the faith in that voice had kept humanity going. The faith in that voice had united the entire human race into one field, one word, and it had saved everyone. Somewhere down the line, that unshakable faith that Martha Jones had in the Doctor had been altered, it'd been transfered, and it had been given to someone else entirely. Now Martha Jones, Martha Snape-Jones had faith in him and faith in this.

But she did know that he thought he'd lost her. It had been apparent to her with the way that he'd gripped her arm, the way that he'd been so angry. A million lifetimes ago, Martha had accused of him of lashing out, of being like this when he was hurt or scared. He could act like a wounded animal and snap. Martha knew that this had been that. That what had happened was that. And she'd forgave him as soon as she'd had those memories jammed into her brain.

"Sev," she said quickly, the nickname becoming second nature even in the few weeks that she'd been using it. "I'll always find you. I don't care how I have to do it, but I'll always find you. Please believe in me." And please don't fall so far into madness that I lose you. The thought was left unspoken for the moment, but she gripped him tighter, and pressed her lips to his chin, tasting him, feeling the warmth and the breath and his heart pumping. He hadn't done it, thank god, but she couldn't let there be a next time. Or the possibility of a next time happen.

He felt as though he had missed a step in the darkness - that sudden moment of instinctual panic, the way the stomach drops when your foot isn't planted in just the right way, or there isn't a stair where one is expected. Please believe in me.

He hadn't. He had completely lost faith in her, in spite of the fact that she had searched for the Doctor for four months even with the knowledge that he was dead. In spite of the year she had walked the Earth. Why had he thought she wouldn't do such a thing for her husband? A few days and he had begun to mourn her; a few more and he would have given up entirely, and she had been here the entire time. Hadn't he told her she gave him hope? Had he meant it only so long as their relationship was absolute, her presence tangible? When she walked out of a room, did hope go with her? It was like a subtle knife through the ribs.

"Forgive me."

"Of course, Severus. You don't even need to ask." She leaned over and kissed him softly, pressing her forehead to his for a moment, just holding him there. With her eyes closed and her arms around him, Martha could smell the sharp herbalness of him below the blood, and she realized that she'd been smelling it in phantom places since she'd been here.

Or maybe since he had been here.

"You're always forgiven. For everything." Her hand cupped his face when she pulled away a bit. "Can you apparate us back to your room? Or mine? I want to get this blood off you and have a look at your foot." And just be near him and touching him. Right now she just wanted to keep touching him, not letting him go.

Always forgiven. It should have worried him that she was so willing to overlook his errors, but instead, he felt a surge of sheer relief. She was patient and accepting and he wouldn't have her otherwise. She wouldn't be here with him now. When she moved to pull away, his arms tensed slightly against the action. He told himself he was being absurd, that she wouldn't vanish if he let her go, but what if?

He slowly loosened his hold, however, and gave her a nod. So long as she doesn't leap on his foot or scream in his ear again, he should be quite capable of taking them directly to his room. Without waiting for further prompting, he took her elbow, a crack resounding in the library with their departure.

His own room in the Inn was almost untouched. The bed hadn't been slept in; a chair stood by the window. There was barely any evidence that someone occupied it.

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HAHAHA my failure. sorry everyone. carry on.

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