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“Hello? I was told that this—

“… Oh, God.”

It was big. Mind-bogglingly big. Maybe even bigger than the TARDIS, at least it felt that way. But after the initial shock of the podpop routine, Martha found herself strangely bored. A giant spaceship traveling to save the universe and every dimension in-between and it felt as mundane as walking down the street. Where was that adventure she had when she went with the Doctor? Even alien streets seemed amazing and alive. Maybe it had just been him. What a jerk. But exploration now kept her busy, and the thing that instantly drew her was the idea of a Medbay. So here she was.

“Right, then, anyone here? Anyone at all?"

Her voice echoed through the cavernous room, solidifying the fact that she was currently alone. She frowned but continued forward, if no one else would help her she would just help herself. That's how she was. She wandered over to the nearest bed, examining the alien tools around it.

“… You probably don’t have a manual, do you? No, that would be simple. Nothing to do but dive in.”

She picked up the nearest device and began examining it. She was going to be a pro here, a sudden determination filled her. She couldn’t save her world, but she could do something now that mattered.

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"If there are manuals, nobody's bothered to let us know about them." The accent would be familiar to Martha, at least. Since Faiza was from Essex. "Been a bit of trial and error. And asking the Emergency Medical Hologram. But I think we're getting somewhere."

She smiled, offering her hand. "Hello. I'm Dr. Faiza Hussain."

God, it felt good to hear something familiar. The second she turned to see Faiza she was close to hugging the woman. But she restrained herself, no need to cause freakout on first impression. Instead she took the woman's hand and gave it a warm and firm shake.

"Martha Jones. Maybe they're just lost somewhere, this place is giant. You sure you've gotten every nook and cranny?"

"Ah! A fellow countrywoman." Faiza's smile widened as she shook Martha's hand firmly as well. "You must be from the recent pod pop. I'm afraid I wasn't able to get down there. With the head of the department on the planet, I'm sort of in charge down here."

The faux-panicked look was just for show. She was handling it fine.

"We've looked everywhere we can think of. Admittedly, there may be a few places we've missed. Though we couldn't guarantee that what we found would be in English anyway." Faiza shook her head. "Anyway. We're muddling through. Haven't had a major medical emergency in...a couple of weeks, at least."

"Well, when there was a country." A bit of a pang hit Martha's heart, but she shook it off. Move ahead. That's what she did best. "But good of you to take over! I hear there's quite a few down there on planet ..."

Like the Doctor. She swore, when he got back she was going to smack him or kiss him. Maybe both. But there her brain went again, sidetracked.

"What sort of medical emergencies are we talking about? Like, random alien limb removal or treating a cold?"

"There will always be an England." Faiza smiled at that. "It's not the land itself, but the hearts of her people that make it." She paused, then sighed. "I think I'm trying to take over Brian's place as team pep talk giver. Only I'm rubbish at it." She shook her head ruefully. "And yes, there are. Doctor Henderson and Nurse Williams are the main ones from the department, though we have a few of our general medics there as well. Oh. And one of our healers, Sakura." She hoped the healer was well. She worried about her friend.

Best on with other business. "We've not hat a lot of removal of limbs, thankfully, though we've had some. No, this last medical emergency stemmed from a very odd clock that basically had the people who heard it aging backwards."

"Now that sounds a bit cheesy." Martha gave a laugh, as peppy as it was it was pretty bad. Even though, it was something heartwarming. "But thanks."

There were others here then, good. With a place the big she gathered that the more the merrier actually applied. Hell, after the competition of getting into a hospital it seemed this ship was doing her more good than not.

"A clock that aged people backwards? Now that's just ... well, amazing. But it must have been a nightmare. How did you manage to fix that with medical practice?"

Faiza smiled and shrugged. "You should hear Brian when he gets going. But I suppose he's allowed. Keeping morale high is good for him."

When your powers apparently depended on your level of confidence, morale was fantastic.

She let out a breath, mouth twisting wryly. "We didn't, actually. It required the intervention of a race called the 'Time Dragons'. Grateful though we are to them, they were...pretty pompus." Then again, when you had that much power, maybe you could afford to. "We were mostly taking care of people who aged too far backward or aged to a time where they were badly injured. Or, in the case of one girl, to a time when her heart was failing."

"I...I'm here!" Miranda said, coming in as quickly as possible when she heard someone calling. Oh God, what if it was someone who was sick, or injured? She couldn't take care of patients on her own yet! She'd have to find someone who was more senior, get them to look at whoever it was...

Except then when Miranda found the person, she looked in perfectly good health and was curiously inspecting some of the medical devices. "Ah...are you alright miss?" Miranda asked, hesitant.

"Oh! Yeah, of course. Actually, looking to help. See, back on Earth- er, my planet, I was a doctor. Just got my license when everything went to hell and I wound up here. And that was a huge chunk of my life, getting that thing! Years of schooling gone down the drain all because ..."

Martha trailed off at the last word and gave a pause. She was rambling and this poor girl already looked harried before she started yapping away. She shook her head quickly and held out her hand.

"I'm Martha Jones and I'd like to help if I can."

"Oh, that's wonderful! I know that we can always use more doctors, I'm sure if you talk to Doctor Hussain she'll be glad to...uh, 'down the drain'?" Miranda said, looking confused. Why would anyone think of their medical training like that?

"I...I'm Miranda Lotto. I'm a trainee nurse. It's nice to meet you, Doctor Jones."

"Oh, well, I mean I hadn't gotten to be a full-fledged doctor for long before. This."

She motioned to the ship with a hand, hoping it would be enough for Miranda to get. She still couldn't quite comprehend much of how everything happened other than Earth was gone. Besides, Miranda had to have gone through it too.

"Pleased to meet you, Miranda. Good to see that there's still people working toward healing others."

"Oh, I...I'm sorry," Miranda said, somber. "At least...at least you can still use what you learned here? I mean...I guess it's not really any consolation, but...but you'll be useful, and needed..."

Then she blushed, a little embarrassed at the compliment. "Th...thank you, but I'm only a trainee. There's lots of other healers and medics and doctors here, and they're the ones who really do all the work."

"As long as I'm needed that's great. I'd hate to have barged in here just to be refused a job."

That was a sudden relief. She would have work, it was guaranteed she would have something to keep her busy here. She didn't know what she would do with herself if she was stuck twiddling her thumbs. And after hearing about the missions, she figured her work would be cut out for her.

"But I'm sure you do too, right? God knows even when I had to just get coffee as an intern I was doing something."

"Well...I do hold a lot of things," Miranda admitted. "And Rory - he's the nurse that's training me - he's always getting me to go and fetch things for him. And...um...sometimes I'll put on bandages? But only when there's someone else watching, just in case I don't do it right...but I can't really heal people. Not for real."

She was always grateful for her ability to take away injuries temporarily - but she often wished that she could do more. That she could head forever, and not just for while her Time Record was active.

Jaime didn't make a habit of hanging around the medbay too much, but he occasionally popped in to make sure no one he knew had ended up there for some reason. He grinned at the sound of someone new though and slipped into the next room to see who it was.

"No, I don't think anything in the ship comes with a manual."

"Of course not. Sometimes I swear it's only humans that plan for convenience. Uh, no offense if you aren't human. Even if there was a manual I doubt I could read it."

She delicately placed the tool she was holding back where she found it and crossed her arms, looking over the new arrival. He seemed a bit young for medical staff, but maybe something else?

"Are you a med student or something?"

"Ah, no. Future med-student, maybe? I do want to be a dentist. Technically, I'm a high school student. Also a superhero, but that's more like an after-school activity. And in-school. And at night. Pretty much whenever, actually. . ." Jaime trailed off.

"Oh, uh. I'm Jaime." He offered a hand.

"Martha," she said, offering her own hand in return with the raise of an eyebrow. Did he say ... superhero? Sure, it could be just an overly-dramatic way of saying he is neighborhood watch or something, but considering the things on this ship, it could be more.

"Wait, when you say superhero, do you mean the knickers over your tights and the cape?"

"I don't do the cape thing. Or the undies over tights, actually. But yeah, I'm a cape, you could say." He smiles and shrugs.

"I'm not really one of the big names, honestly. Not like Superman or Batman or someone like that."

He wasn't kidding. Well, then, that was certainly something. Granted they visited different universes, different dimensions. Perhaps in his they actually existed. Which gave her a thought with his last comment.

"Wait ... do you actually know Superman and Batman? Or are they those types that just ignore everyone else because they're so much better?"

Anwei was sitting at a terminal towards the back, trying to figure out how to make a patient's database records consistent when they might change age/gender/shape/blood type/species during the course of treatment. The database was having some trouble attaching that many variables to one person.

To give her eyes and back a break, she stood up and stretched - and saw an unfamiliar person at the front of Med Bay. No one was on the admissions schedule, so maybe this person was a drop-in. Or just curious.

"Good day," she called. "May I help you?"

"Oh, hello!"

Finally, someone there. Martha set down the tool she held and walked toward the woman, getting a good look-over. She seemed to know her place here, maybe a doctor?

"My name is Martha, I'm a new arrival. I heard this was the medical facility, I thought I could help out."

Anwei is mentally calling down every blessing on you, Martha.

"Well, we always need new people. I'm Anwei, and I'm the admin and database maintainer. So if you do end up working here, I'll be the person getting the records in order."

She smiled, a little wider than a human but not so wide as to frighten. Hopefully.

"I'm afraid we are a little short of people on hand to talk to right now; the Chief Medical Officer, Doctor Henderson, and a number of other personnel are on a mission."

"Oh, nice to see the desk jobs still exist here. Although I bet you get a really nice desk."

Martha was used to seeing things that weren't exactly human, so as unnerving as such a smile could be Martha ignored it. It was clearly polite.

"I heard about the mission from someone else. Well, sort of. I heard that there was a mission. The details were sketchy."

"Oh, a very nice desk. It does tend to pulse a bit at times, and the veins make it hard to write flat on it, but it's yet to groan when I put too many papers on it." She didn't think it had vocal cords. "Very comfy for sleeping on, if you have to."

"Stacy has some sort of locked-in mission schedule; crew members are assigned and sent to various planets, to perform various tasks. The current one is a bit distressing." The corners of her mouth turned down. "It seems the planet we were sent to, Galilee, has a marking system for anyone who is cloned. And several of the crew members tripped the clone detection system."

Imagine the chances of a future companion bumping into a past companion of the Doctor? Naturally, River doesn't recognize Martha. Not by appearance. But there's something about her that had made her follow her all the way to the med bay. Something she couldn't put her finger on. She felt like she'd seen her somewhere before.

"Excuse me. Are you new here?"

She recognized that amazed and vaguely overwhelmed look.

Despite the things she went through in the year that never was, constantly watching her back, the overwhelming sensation of something so out of place and new kept Martha's mind distracted and River's stalking unnoticed. The sound of a voice made her whirl around in surprise before a smile of greeting warmed her face.

"God, I hope I'm not that obvious."

"We've all had that look on our faces the first weeks here." River smiles, trying to put Martha at ease. "It's a lot to take in, even by my standards." Her standards of weird and awesome stuff are quite high, by the way. "My name is Doctor River Song."

"By now I should be used to just getting whisked away, honestly. But it's nice to see I'm not alone."

Martha offered her hand to shake, the sound of the word 'doctor' ringing all the Pavlovian bells of due colleague respect.

"Nice to meet you, River, my name's Martha Jones."

"Martha Jones." River tests that name on her lips, frowning a second or two in thought. That named sounded so familiar. Then, suddenly it all began to click into place. She was a former companion of the Doctor. "Do you by chance know the Doctor?" She couldn't be sure when exactly Martha had been taken out of her time line.

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Late, so LATE

DON'T EVEN WORRY my tagging is like SLOOW DOWN

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