Back to Ten and Martha with me! I haven't written anything expressly for the two of them in what feels like "a while," and I was getting kinda agitated! It's weird how much I miss them when I'm gone!

There's not much to say here except this story will be only slightly shippy, but very sci-fi/mystery-y. There will be a few feels, a bit of humor, but mostly running, investigating, yelling, running for their lives... stuff like that. Are you in?

We begin sometime after "Journey's End."

Also, I'm not a medic - please be kind!

Perhaps I'll have more to say later, but for now, just enjoy!

ONE

"Oh… my… God," Martha Jones mused, as she gaped at the tableau before her. Interestingly, even the very, very well-seasoned Chief Medical Officer of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce had ever seen anything like this.

To her left, a crew of two-dozen trained military men (and a few women) practically hopped backwards, retreated, and swore.

"What's the matter?" the officer next to her asked. It was the cheeky Sergeant Everdeen, a young, cuttingly clever black man who had been assigned to her charge. Whatever she needed, he was to get it. "Never seen a dragon breathing fire off the roof of the Leeds City Museum before?"

"Well, maybe once," she said, absently. "But I'd eaten this mushroom salad my friend Scorpion had made, and I think there was something in the wine."

"What?" Everdeen cackled. "Really?"

"Of course not," she replied, never taking her eyes off the dragon. "What do you take me for?"

"Did you ever really have a friend named Scorpion?"

"No!"

He laughed.

She felt a little guilty for her sarcasm, since, as it happened, she had seen some pretty weird stuff. And she did have some pretty weird friends.

"I saw a monster that was really an evolutionary reject fall from the bell tower of Southwark Cathedral, though," she offered.

"An evolutionary… wait, what?"

"Never mind."

There was a pause, then the young man asked, "Well, what d'you reckon we ought to do?"

"I'm a doctor. It's a dragon. There's not much I can do. Unless someone's in shock, which… you know… fingers crossed, eh?"

The museum was surrounded on all sides by UNIT, and they fooled themselves that the dragon was contained. A lieutenant was shouting into a megaphone that they needed to stand their ground until further notice.

"Help is imminent," the Lieutenant insisted. "I repeat, help is imminent. But there are multiple sites of unexplained phenomena… other things are taking precedence."

"Help," Everdeen scoffed. "Yeah, right. We are the help. Who'd they call, Torchwood? Pfff."

"Dr. Jones?" her radio crackled just then. "You're needed."

She pulled it off her belt and said into it, "This is Martha Jones. What's happened?"

"I can't get a straight answer out of anyone. All I know is that there's loads of blood. Pools of it. Splatters of it."

"Oh, God," she groaned. "Tell me where to go."

"Leeds Town Hall," said the voice.

"Can you get me there?" Martha asked Everdeen.

"It's my job, innit?" he asked, motioning for her to follow him.

They dashed twenty yards to a jeep, and hopped in. She held on for a short, bumpy ride around the corner to Town Hall.

There, a crowd had gathered, as well as a squadron of UNIT officers. Martha held out her credentials and numerous people obliged her by stepping out of the way.

When she reached the middle of the chaos, she saw on the little plaza in front of the building, a big, messy pool of blood, and three people standing nearby, all splattered with it. Leading away, there were the prints of a barefoot human, who, it appeared, had simply walked away, dragging something big.

"Find me at least two more medics," she ordered Everdeen. "I'll need three full kits, including blankets and stretchers. Go!"

He saluted, and disappeared back into the crowd.

Two officers were standing nearby when she approached the three patients at a jog.

It struck her as odd that they were standing, and not kneeling to help the victims…

Then she realised, they weren't victims. They were witnesses. The three people covered in blood were sitting still, and upright, rather catatonic. The blood was not theirs.

"I'm Dr. Jones, what's your name?" she asked the officer standing nearest.

"Sergeant Gainey," he said.

"What's happened here?"

"A lion was decapitated," he said, shrugging. "That's their story, and they're sticking to it."

"Excuse me? A lion?"

"Yes, ma'am. That's what this woman says," he told Martha, gesturing to a woman hugging her knees. "A lion walked into the square. A man very closely matching the description of Conan the Barbarian appeared a few seconds later, whereupon the two scuffled, culminating in the brutal, and messy, beheading of the feline in question. After that, the man walked off, round the corner, carrying the dripping bloody head of the lion in one hand, and dragging the body with the other. Meanwhile, this lot, as far as I can tell, stood, watched, became traumatised, and now you're up to speed."

Martha stared at him for a few moments, while he looked back at her, practically daring her to doubt him. After all, though, it wasn't his story, and she realised that. And with what she'd already seen…

"Okay, she said with a sigh, I've got Sergeant Everdeen looking for more medics. Would you mind sticking by, just until they get here?"

"No problem."

"Who else saw what happened?"

"Dunno. Just these three, far as I can tell."

"I find that hard to believe," she said. "A lion gets beheaded in the middle of the city, and only three people see it? I suppose we should try and find other witnesses… but that's not really my department. Well, it just became my department. Can you see what you can do about that?"

"I'll give it a go," Sergeant Gainey said. He radioed his colleagues not to let anyone leave the perimeter they'd set up, that people needed to be questioned, especially if there had blood on their clothes, or seemed unusually detached.

"Also, has anyone checked to see if the local zoo is missing any animals?" Martha wondered.

"Someone's on that right now," he said.

Martha knelt between two of the people currently sitting on the ground, trembling. "Hi there. I'm Dr. Jones."

"Hi," said the woman, meekly, on her right. The two men said nothing.

"From what this man has told me, the three of you might be in shock," Martha said. "That can be quite serious, but fortunately, that's why I'm here. We're going to see that you get taken care of, okay? More people are on the way to help, but for now, I need you to…"

At that, the gathered crowd let out a collective gasp, then all separately began snapping photos, exclaiming with surprise, et cetera. They were all looking in one direction: up at the clock tower of Leeds Town Hall, and Martha followed their gaze.

"Oh, come on," she groaned, when she saw a person climbing the columns, high above the street. To Sergeant Gainey, she said, "Let me borrow your binoculars."

Gainey handed over his UNIT-issue binocs, and Martha studied the individual now climbing the historic building.

She was wearing what looked like a gold bathing suit, with triangles cut out at the waist, and shiny shells barely concealing her truly impressive breasts. She had muscular arms and legs, and wore boots that laced up all the way to her knees. She had flaming red hair, exaggeratedly supple lips, and dramatically almond-shaped eyes. Over her shoulders, there was an X-shaped weapons holster, and when she moved a certain way, Martha could see that she carried at least two medieval-looking swords across her back.

"This is ridiculous," she said, handing the binoculars back. "Take a look."

Gainey looked. "What the fuck? This looks like a D&D player's wet dream!"

"You've got a way with words, soldier," she commented. Then she sighed, and admitted, "But you're not wrong. I wonder what…"

Again, her thought was interrupted, this time by a sound. A grinding, screeching, familiar sound…

"Oh, what now?" the officer asked, exasperated, annoyed, and the like.

Martha said, nothing, but she looked around, searching for the source of the sound. She knew it well. It was the sound of the fabric of the universe and the Time Vortex slipping, scraping by the heart of an otherworldly vehicle.

But it didn't seem to be getting any closer. Then again, that could just be a result of the din of humanity around them.

"What's that?" a woman nearby asked. Martha saw her pointing to the corner of the Town Hall, where the faint outline of a blue box was materialising on the roof.

So that's why it seemed so far away. Because it was.

Predictably, then, a man stepped out of the box. He was tall, thin, had dark hair, and wore a blue suit. His gait was relaxed, as he walked across the roof with his hands in his pockets.

"Oh, I see. That's the Doctor," Sergeant Gainey said to her, assuming she didn't know. "Independent contractor."

"You don't say," Martha said back. She chuckled inwardly. She'd heard the Doctor described in myriad ways, but independent contractor had never been one of them. It seemed a comically mundane for him.

The climbing woman unsheathed and held out her weapon as the Doctor approached, and he put up both hands in a gesture of disarmament.

And he spoke to her. No-one could hear what was being said, but then the woman spoke back, and made warrior-like gestures.

After half a minute or so, the woman climbed down, and stood on the platform at the bottom of the clock tower, and continued talking with the Doctor.

He stepped closer, and she retreated… so he stopped.

Martha had already turned back to her three patients, and begun checking them for injuries, asking questions, and assessing them for shock. After a minute or so, two more field doctors turned up. Martha kept one eye on the proceedings on the roof, and managed to get her patient on her feet, and walking toward the EMT tent.

It took the Doctor about the same amount of time to talk the red-haired warrior into the TARDIS, and then dematerialise from the roof.

"Dr. Jones?" said yet another voice over the radio at her hip.

"This is Martha Jones, go ahead," she said, as another doctor walked away with all three patients.

"Someone has been hurt," said the voice. "I couldn't get an accurate description… it sounded like Lieutenant Spinney said a man with a sword but that sounds daft…"

"No, I've heard the same thing. What's happened?"

"I guess he stabbed someone? Slashed someone?"

"Shit! Where?"

"In front of Leeds Cathedral," said the voice.

"Thanks," she said, and she picked up one of the med kits, and looked about. Sergeant Everdeen and his Jeep were nowhere to be seen in this throng of people who had gathered. She called out, "How far's the cathedral?"

A few people nearby said two blocks, so she began to jog, following the trail of lion's blood, away from the scene.

It took her only two minutes or so to find the mêlée in question.

On the sidewalk in front of the cathedral, there was a crowd gathered. There was also a man dressed in brown leather britches, an X-like weapons holster (like the red-haired climber, a bare chest, and a Prince Valiant haircut, standing in a threatening stance, holding aloft the dripping head of a lion. He had a build like the Pyramids at Giza, only inverted, and he growled at the onlookers, as though he were an animal.

There was also the headless body of a lion lying nearby, and an injured bystander, now bleeding from the femoral artery, onto the sidewalk. He was turning pale.

A man was kneeling behind him, holding him, putting pressure on the wound, softly whispering reassurances that he'd be okay.

Over the radio, there were crackles of Lieutenant Spinney ordering all available officers to the cathedral scene.

Martha fell to her knees beside the injured man, immediately asking the man holding him, while digging in her medical bag, "How long ago did this happen?"

"Two minutes, give or take," said the man. "His BP his dropping… fading off quickly. Too quickly for comfort. Stay with me, Jacob! What's your middle name, mate? Who's the Prime Minister?"

Absently, she noted, oh good, he's a medic.

"How did it happen?" she asked, pulling on some surgical gloves

"He tried to help," the man explained. "Tried to talk to the lion guy to show he was unarmed, and got slashed through the femoral for his trouble."

"Why are these people still here?" she wondered, now tearing open a sealed packet, containing a rubber tourniquet.

"Well, you know what humans are like," the man chuckled.

"Don't I ever," she said, absently, eyes on the wound. "Okay, I'm going to need you to move your hand like this…"

The man did as she wanted, just half a moment before she showed him. Again, she noted, he knows what he's doing – that will make this a right sight easier.

"He's losing consciousness," he said. "Jacob! Jacob, no, don't you dare fall asleep! Jacob, listen, are you married? Yeah? What's your wife's name? Oh, husband? Brilliant! What's his name?"

"Good, good, keep him going…" Martha said, tying off the tourniquet just so, to slow the bleeding. "Because step two is a bandage, but step three is to get some aspirin into him to slow the bleeding further. Hopefully we can get him stabilised, and to the General Infirmary before he bleeds out."

Martha dug back into her bag, and produced a roll of gauze. With help, she wrapped the bandage about twenty times around the wound, and as expected, the fabric began to soak through, though not as quickly as if the bleeding were being allowed to run rampant.

"Okay, Jacob, next thing is aspirin," she said to him. He very faintly nodded.

"Need water?" asked the man.

"No, just…damn it!" she cried out.

"What?"

"All the drugs are secured in a separate compartment in the kit, and the bloody lock is jammed!" She tried two more times to pry it open, then let out a scream of frustration, before getting to her feet, and shouting to the crowd, "Does anyone have any aspirin on them? Check your purses, check your pockets…"

"Oi! Dr. Jones?" said the man's voice, now crouching near her kit. "I've got it open."

"Thank God! How did you do it?"

"Sonic screwdriver," he answered.

"Thanks. Now, Jacob, I'm going to need you to swallow some pills for me, okay? I'm going to crush them first so they'll be fast-acting, so it's not going to taste good. Can you swallow?"

Jacob nodded faintly, and swallowed, showing he could do so.

Martha used a special tool to grind up the pills, then he said, "Lay him back, please."

The man laid Jacob back a bit, and held his head at just the right angle, so that the good doctor could pour powder and water down his throat, with his cooperation.

It was then that about a dozen UNIT officers arrived, and began to try and force the lion-beheader into submission. Among them was Sergeant Everdeen, and one other doctor, who were navigating a stretcher down the street, having heard that someone was attacked with a sword.

"Fantastic, thank you," Martha said.

"An ambulance is on the way. I'm going to go help that lot," Everdeen told her, and ran off to be a soldier.

The second doctor knelt and took Jacob's shoulder and knee, and looked at the man who'd been helping, and said, "On three?"

The two of them hoisted Jacob onto the stretcher, and pushed him toward the road that connected with Town Hall, just in time for an ambulance to arrive. They put him in the back, quickly briefed the EMT, then sent him off.

And only now, as they were walking back toward her, did Martha notice that one of them was wearing a blue pin-striped suit, covered in blood, along with red Converse on his feet, and a deeply familiar, subtle smile aimed right at her.

As usual, I'm needy. Reviews are love!

Thanks for tuning in!