Fic: Hollow World, Chapter 2
Apr. 19th, 2009 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
veldeiaTitle: Hollow World
Author: Veldeia
Fandom: Doctor Who
Spoilers: Takes place before Blink. Nothing worth mentioning, really.
Characters/Pairings: 10th Doctor, Martha Jones, OCs (later on). Gen.
Rating: PG
Genre/Category: Adventure, hurt/comfort, drama.
Warnings: WIP
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not making money. Will return everyone good as new once I'm done.
Summary: The 10th Doctor and Martha, stuck in a cave, utterly unprepared and separated from the TARDIS - what else could go wrong?
2. The Crystal Chamber
Martha advanced slowly, pausing after every step or two to listen closely and to point her torch at every nook and cranny around her. Of course, the light only showed her the very beginnings of the countless tunnels leading deeper into the rock faces by her sides. She took a closer look at some of them, and they all seemed level or sloping downwards, instead of leading up and towards the TARDIS.
Every now and then, she thought she caught sight of something, the slightest glimpse of movement at the edge of her vision, or a dark shape crouched in a crack, but once she got nearer, she was proven wrong, every single time. All she could find were oddly shaped rocks. Her breathing echoed loudly in the empty passages. The place was as barren as the Moon. If there was any life here, it was very shy and stealthy.
At first, she had thought they had landed on top of a cliff on the surface of some alien world, but the more she looked around, the more convinced she became that their situation was even worse than that. The darkness was too complete - if there were any stars in the sky at all, it would never be this dark. And then there was all the rock around them. She was sure that even under her feet, beneath the mud, there was more rock. She didn't think she was walking on alien ground anymore. Instead, she was under it, deep inside the planet, in a very big cave.
Not long after she'd left the Doctor behind, the strange smooth cascade of rock to her right changed into a normal rock face. Then, the passage she was walking in began narrowing. Finally, the two walls met above her head, forming a large tunnel. It kept shrinking, until she reached a point where the roof dipped to a level so low that she would've needed to move on all fours to fit through. She didn't exactly like that idea.
Just like she had never really been afraid of the dark, she had never been seriously claustrophobic, but she had never been in a place like this before. The thought of all that rock around her, the weight of it... Besides, if something should go wrong, there would be no one around to help her. Maybe she should just turn back.
She crouched to the ground and pointed the light into the low, round tunnel. Just ten feet ahead of her, it seemed to reach a wider space, and there, she saw something glimmering.
Slightly startled, she backed away behind a bulge in one of the walls.
"Hello? Anyone there?" she called out. There was no answer. As she listened, she realised she had left the sound of dripping water behind as well. It was a silence so profound that she might've been all alone in the universe.
She thought about the Doctor, lying unconscious and injured at the bottom of the chasm, and her imagination got the better of her once again. What if there were predators in this cave, vultures, or vampire bats - what if they could smell his blood? Then again, aside from that glint in the next room, which could be anything, she still hadn't seen one sign of life, no footprints, no droppings, not even anything growing in the rocky soil. She was being paranoid, almost literally afraid of her own shadow. Besides, she hadn't walked very far yet, probably a hundred yards or so.
Martha decided she'd better take a quick look at whatever was in the next room, and then return to the Doctor.
She moved on, both knees and her good hand on the ground, holding the torch rather awkwardly with her injured hand. Her ponytail brushed against the ceiling. Even ten feet felt like a very long distance within the low, narrow tunnel. Once she was through it, she saw -
Her breath caught in her throat. She stood up and stepped closer, trying to make sense of what she was looking at.
A huge crystal tree grew from the ground, touching the ceiling and a good part of the walls, filling most of the room she was in. It looked like it was sculpted out of ice, a bluish white, glittering in the torch light, but the sculptor must've been mad, because it twisted and turned in every direction, in countless curves and spikes. It was beautiful, and completely alien.
Whatever it was, it wasn't alive, though, as far as she could see, no more than the rock walls around it. There was no trace of anything living in this room, either, nothing but crystals and rocks. The chamber around the crystalline structure was round and big, though not as high as the first passage. The beam of her torch could just reach the ceiling and the walls, which had numerous tunnels in them.
Looking at all the openings, it came to her that she hadn't marked the one through which she had entered the room. She turned around. She hadn't walked very far from the wall, but right behind her, she saw three tunnels, and they all seemed similar.
Panic bubbling up inside her again, she took a few steps closer to the tunnels, looking for any clues. Once she pointed the light at the ground, she saw a clear set of footprints marking her path. She sighed out of relief. Lucky for her that the ground was muddy. If she ever ventured into any of the side tunnels, she would need to watch out. It would be very easy to get lost in this maze.
She turned to face the strange crystal tree again. She just had to linger and gaze at it for a little longer. It was so incredible that it did away with all her anxiety. After all, how could anything malicious be lurking in the shadows of something so magnificent? The Doctor would love this.
The Doctor - oh. The thought of him was a sobering one. She'd better go back. She could always return here later, with him. The route was easy to remember, after all.
Martha returned through the low part of the tunnel into the slowly widening section, which finally opened into the huge passage at the bottom of the chasm. Somehow, the distance felt much shorter on the way back.
Both to her relief and to her dismay, she found the Doctor exactly where she'd left him. Safe, but still unconscious. Bar the close encounter with the Plasmavore when they'd first met, every time she'd found him out cold, he had always bounced back right away, ready to start running. Now, he must've been passed out for over fifteen minutes.
"Doctor?" she tried once again, kneeling next to him and pointing the torch at him. As soon as the light hit his face, his features went from impassive to a disgruntled frown.
"Aagh! Point that thing somewhere else!" the Doctor complained, rolled onto his side, and covered his eyes with his arm.
Martha quickly aimed the beam elsewhere, and crouched closer to him. "You're awake!" she exclaimed. She was so glad to see him conscious again that she really wanted to hug him, but she settled for placing a hand on his shoulder instead.
"More or less, I should think." He scrambled to a seated position, moving slowly, as if not quite sure of his balance. Once he got there, he instantly bowed his head, pressing the heels of both hands against his forehead. "Oh, my head. That's not good."
"You must've hit it pretty hard when we fell, you've been out for quite a while. I was worried for you. How bad is it? Any nausea or dizziness?" Without thinking, Martha pointed the light at his face again.
"Oi! Don't do that!" he groaned, ignoring her question, pushing the torch away with one hand and using the other to shade his eyes. "A little light sensitive here. Well, more than a little." His hand went to the side of his head, his fingers gingerly examining the injury and her handiwork. "Why am I wearing a tie around my head?"
"I had nothing else to bind it with," she said, on the defensive. She looked at him closely. There was so little light that it was impossible to tell if he was paler than usual, but obviously, the wound was bothering him, and there seemed to be other symptoms besides pain.
"Oh, all right. For a moment, I thought it was a fashion statement. It was all the rage sometime in, hm, must've been the 38th century, I think. There were several different styles, too. I never quite got the hang of it," he babbled, working on unravelling the knot as he spoke.
"Wait, you really shouldn't," she tried, but he had already undone it, and hid the muddy and bloody tie in one of his pockets.
"It's quite all right, not bleeding anymore," he assured her. He brought his hand to the wound again, and grimaced. "Already on the mend, but it still stings, and itches, too. I guess I can only blame myself. That's what you get when you go caving without a helmet."
"We're not caving!"
"We're not? What are we doing in a cave, then?"
Martha was so surprised by the question that it took her a moment to react. He didn't sound like he was joking. Was he suffering from memory loss? It wouldn't be unexpected in a human with a head injury, but somehow, it was strange coming from him, since he always knew so much about everything, and -
"Sorry, what's with the silent treatment? Did I say something rude?"
"No, no, not at all," Martha replied quickly, even more perplexed. "Besides, I was barely silent for three seconds!"
"Three seconds?" the Doctor repeated, his puzzled frown mirroring hers. "Really? It felt like at least three hundred to me. Five minutes, that is. That's odd."
"You really don't remember what happened?"
He scrunched up his face even more. "The sixties. I remember we were headed for the sixties. Funny, I don't think caving was very popular at that time. Not that it's a very common sport where you come from, either, although give it a few hundred years... Anyway, the sixties. After that..." He shook his head slowly. "Where are we? What happened?"
"I was hoping you could tell me. I have no idea. I really don't think it's the sixties, though. For some reason, we landed right next to a gaping chasm, and fell into it."
"Ah. Makes sense, I guess. Explains the lack of proper gear," the Doctor said, still sounding somewhat confused.
Carefully moving the torch to her injured hand, Martha raised her good hand, holding up three fingers. "How many?" she asked him.
He blinked hard, squinting at her hand, put on his glasses, tried again, and huffed unhappily. "More than a human hand should have. Not good." He ruffled his hair. "Big bad bump on the head, blurred vision, amnesia, light sensitivity, time sensitivity - that adds up to... Right. Of course."
"Right, of course, what? What does it mean, Doctor? Are you all right?"
"Well. Not quite. It means," he began slowly and rather dramatically, "That I have got a concussion."
"Right," Martha said, relieved that it wasn't anything more sinister than that. In a human with similar symptoms, she might've come to the same conclusion. Time sensitivity was a funny one, though. "Is a concussion the same for a Time Lord as it would be for a human? Not too serious? You're going to be all right?"
"Of course I am," the Doctor replied, a tad too quickly to Martha's liking, ignoring the rest of her questions. "So, what's wrong with your hand?"
3. Chasm Passage
Author: Veldeia
Fandom: Doctor Who
Spoilers: Takes place before Blink. Nothing worth mentioning, really.
Characters/Pairings: 10th Doctor, Martha Jones, OCs (later on). Gen.
Rating: PG
Genre/Category: Adventure, hurt/comfort, drama.
Warnings: WIP
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not making money. Will return everyone good as new once I'm done.
Summary: The 10th Doctor and Martha, stuck in a cave, utterly unprepared and separated from the TARDIS - what else could go wrong?
2. The Crystal Chamber
Martha advanced slowly, pausing after every step or two to listen closely and to point her torch at every nook and cranny around her. Of course, the light only showed her the very beginnings of the countless tunnels leading deeper into the rock faces by her sides. She took a closer look at some of them, and they all seemed level or sloping downwards, instead of leading up and towards the TARDIS.
Every now and then, she thought she caught sight of something, the slightest glimpse of movement at the edge of her vision, or a dark shape crouched in a crack, but once she got nearer, she was proven wrong, every single time. All she could find were oddly shaped rocks. Her breathing echoed loudly in the empty passages. The place was as barren as the Moon. If there was any life here, it was very shy and stealthy.
At first, she had thought they had landed on top of a cliff on the surface of some alien world, but the more she looked around, the more convinced she became that their situation was even worse than that. The darkness was too complete - if there were any stars in the sky at all, it would never be this dark. And then there was all the rock around them. She was sure that even under her feet, beneath the mud, there was more rock. She didn't think she was walking on alien ground anymore. Instead, she was under it, deep inside the planet, in a very big cave.
Not long after she'd left the Doctor behind, the strange smooth cascade of rock to her right changed into a normal rock face. Then, the passage she was walking in began narrowing. Finally, the two walls met above her head, forming a large tunnel. It kept shrinking, until she reached a point where the roof dipped to a level so low that she would've needed to move on all fours to fit through. She didn't exactly like that idea.
Just like she had never really been afraid of the dark, she had never been seriously claustrophobic, but she had never been in a place like this before. The thought of all that rock around her, the weight of it... Besides, if something should go wrong, there would be no one around to help her. Maybe she should just turn back.
She crouched to the ground and pointed the light into the low, round tunnel. Just ten feet ahead of her, it seemed to reach a wider space, and there, she saw something glimmering.
Slightly startled, she backed away behind a bulge in one of the walls.
"Hello? Anyone there?" she called out. There was no answer. As she listened, she realised she had left the sound of dripping water behind as well. It was a silence so profound that she might've been all alone in the universe.
She thought about the Doctor, lying unconscious and injured at the bottom of the chasm, and her imagination got the better of her once again. What if there were predators in this cave, vultures, or vampire bats - what if they could smell his blood? Then again, aside from that glint in the next room, which could be anything, she still hadn't seen one sign of life, no footprints, no droppings, not even anything growing in the rocky soil. She was being paranoid, almost literally afraid of her own shadow. Besides, she hadn't walked very far yet, probably a hundred yards or so.
Martha decided she'd better take a quick look at whatever was in the next room, and then return to the Doctor.
She moved on, both knees and her good hand on the ground, holding the torch rather awkwardly with her injured hand. Her ponytail brushed against the ceiling. Even ten feet felt like a very long distance within the low, narrow tunnel. Once she was through it, she saw -
Her breath caught in her throat. She stood up and stepped closer, trying to make sense of what she was looking at.
A huge crystal tree grew from the ground, touching the ceiling and a good part of the walls, filling most of the room she was in. It looked like it was sculpted out of ice, a bluish white, glittering in the torch light, but the sculptor must've been mad, because it twisted and turned in every direction, in countless curves and spikes. It was beautiful, and completely alien.
Whatever it was, it wasn't alive, though, as far as she could see, no more than the rock walls around it. There was no trace of anything living in this room, either, nothing but crystals and rocks. The chamber around the crystalline structure was round and big, though not as high as the first passage. The beam of her torch could just reach the ceiling and the walls, which had numerous tunnels in them.
Looking at all the openings, it came to her that she hadn't marked the one through which she had entered the room. She turned around. She hadn't walked very far from the wall, but right behind her, she saw three tunnels, and they all seemed similar.
Panic bubbling up inside her again, she took a few steps closer to the tunnels, looking for any clues. Once she pointed the light at the ground, she saw a clear set of footprints marking her path. She sighed out of relief. Lucky for her that the ground was muddy. If she ever ventured into any of the side tunnels, she would need to watch out. It would be very easy to get lost in this maze.
She turned to face the strange crystal tree again. She just had to linger and gaze at it for a little longer. It was so incredible that it did away with all her anxiety. After all, how could anything malicious be lurking in the shadows of something so magnificent? The Doctor would love this.
The Doctor - oh. The thought of him was a sobering one. She'd better go back. She could always return here later, with him. The route was easy to remember, after all.
Martha returned through the low part of the tunnel into the slowly widening section, which finally opened into the huge passage at the bottom of the chasm. Somehow, the distance felt much shorter on the way back.
Both to her relief and to her dismay, she found the Doctor exactly where she'd left him. Safe, but still unconscious. Bar the close encounter with the Plasmavore when they'd first met, every time she'd found him out cold, he had always bounced back right away, ready to start running. Now, he must've been passed out for over fifteen minutes.
"Doctor?" she tried once again, kneeling next to him and pointing the torch at him. As soon as the light hit his face, his features went from impassive to a disgruntled frown.
"Aagh! Point that thing somewhere else!" the Doctor complained, rolled onto his side, and covered his eyes with his arm.
Martha quickly aimed the beam elsewhere, and crouched closer to him. "You're awake!" she exclaimed. She was so glad to see him conscious again that she really wanted to hug him, but she settled for placing a hand on his shoulder instead.
"More or less, I should think." He scrambled to a seated position, moving slowly, as if not quite sure of his balance. Once he got there, he instantly bowed his head, pressing the heels of both hands against his forehead. "Oh, my head. That's not good."
"You must've hit it pretty hard when we fell, you've been out for quite a while. I was worried for you. How bad is it? Any nausea or dizziness?" Without thinking, Martha pointed the light at his face again.
"Oi! Don't do that!" he groaned, ignoring her question, pushing the torch away with one hand and using the other to shade his eyes. "A little light sensitive here. Well, more than a little." His hand went to the side of his head, his fingers gingerly examining the injury and her handiwork. "Why am I wearing a tie around my head?"
"I had nothing else to bind it with," she said, on the defensive. She looked at him closely. There was so little light that it was impossible to tell if he was paler than usual, but obviously, the wound was bothering him, and there seemed to be other symptoms besides pain.
"Oh, all right. For a moment, I thought it was a fashion statement. It was all the rage sometime in, hm, must've been the 38th century, I think. There were several different styles, too. I never quite got the hang of it," he babbled, working on unravelling the knot as he spoke.
"Wait, you really shouldn't," she tried, but he had already undone it, and hid the muddy and bloody tie in one of his pockets.
"It's quite all right, not bleeding anymore," he assured her. He brought his hand to the wound again, and grimaced. "Already on the mend, but it still stings, and itches, too. I guess I can only blame myself. That's what you get when you go caving without a helmet."
"We're not caving!"
"We're not? What are we doing in a cave, then?"
Martha was so surprised by the question that it took her a moment to react. He didn't sound like he was joking. Was he suffering from memory loss? It wouldn't be unexpected in a human with a head injury, but somehow, it was strange coming from him, since he always knew so much about everything, and -
"Sorry, what's with the silent treatment? Did I say something rude?"
"No, no, not at all," Martha replied quickly, even more perplexed. "Besides, I was barely silent for three seconds!"
"Three seconds?" the Doctor repeated, his puzzled frown mirroring hers. "Really? It felt like at least three hundred to me. Five minutes, that is. That's odd."
"You really don't remember what happened?"
He scrunched up his face even more. "The sixties. I remember we were headed for the sixties. Funny, I don't think caving was very popular at that time. Not that it's a very common sport where you come from, either, although give it a few hundred years... Anyway, the sixties. After that..." He shook his head slowly. "Where are we? What happened?"
"I was hoping you could tell me. I have no idea. I really don't think it's the sixties, though. For some reason, we landed right next to a gaping chasm, and fell into it."
"Ah. Makes sense, I guess. Explains the lack of proper gear," the Doctor said, still sounding somewhat confused.
Carefully moving the torch to her injured hand, Martha raised her good hand, holding up three fingers. "How many?" she asked him.
He blinked hard, squinting at her hand, put on his glasses, tried again, and huffed unhappily. "More than a human hand should have. Not good." He ruffled his hair. "Big bad bump on the head, blurred vision, amnesia, light sensitivity, time sensitivity - that adds up to... Right. Of course."
"Right, of course, what? What does it mean, Doctor? Are you all right?"
"Well. Not quite. It means," he began slowly and rather dramatically, "That I have got a concussion."
"Right," Martha said, relieved that it wasn't anything more sinister than that. In a human with similar symptoms, she might've come to the same conclusion. Time sensitivity was a funny one, though. "Is a concussion the same for a Time Lord as it would be for a human? Not too serious? You're going to be all right?"
"Of course I am," the Doctor replied, a tad too quickly to Martha's liking, ignoring the rest of her questions. "So, what's wrong with your hand?"
3. Chasm Passage
