entrancelogs | in the morning light [OPEN]

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in the morning light [OPEN]

Who: Martha Jones and OPEN.
Where: The grounds, near the gardens. (Also the clinic!)
When: 4/14 - 4/18
Rating: PG
Summary: Martha's determined to stay fit and be more prepared for any future dangers. The answer to that? T'ai chi.
The Story:
It's not that Martha's meant to slack off on her morning exercises. It's just that sometimes she has to work and ends up too lazy to get out of bed early enough to exercise before her shift. Either that, or there's an event that comes around and completely distracts her and throws her off of her routine.

Since February there haven't been any serious dangers that have hit the mansion, but that only makes her more convinced that something's coming, and soon. She's already given up one death out of five now, and she doesn't intend to let her life slip away from her again.

T'ai chi is more of a defensive form of martial arts, but it's a place to start, at least -- and with help from Blake, she's gotten decent at it. So each morning on this particular week, Martha forces herself out into the dewy mornings to train her body. She usually picks a spot out on the fields, not too far away from the gardens. It's also a way of clearing her mind, a meditation of sorts, and she finds that it puts her in a good place for the rest of the day.

Does she need to learn some actual offensive methods too? Most likely. But she hasn't quite worked herself up to ask around for that yet.

Later on in the day, Martha can be found in the clinic, as usual. She's just gone out of her way to make her shifts the afternoon ones, at least for this week, so that she can become more serious about her own training. Wonderland offers plenty of free time and she would rather make the most of it.

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Martha doesn't like to be reminded that the closets might one day stop working. She doesn't even want to imagine it, although she's stored plenty of supplies for that possibility. It's good that Ellen's also prepared for it -- everyone should be, really.

"Well, we've got to make sure there's a healthy supply of alcohol here, don't we?" She isn't quite able to keep the sarcasm out of her voice, but Martha means no harm by it. Everyone has their vices and so long as people aren't abusing alcohol, it's hardly her business.

She moves back over and pulls up a chair so that she's positioned facing Ellen's outstretched arm. "Local first," she says, preparing the syringe and then, after giving Ellen a moment to brace herself, she injects the wound with the anesthetic. "You're also a hunter, then? Jo seems to be very much involved in that."

Ellen's eyebrows shoot up. "Best damned field medicine there is, when you make it right." Which, Ellen does, and is planning to for the long run. "And makes a damned fine explosive." Weapons are also going to be needed. If half of what the future folks had warned them about is true, then Ellen wants to be prepared.

She smiles just a bit. "I am. Was for a long time, and ran the roadhouse while raisin' Jo." She shrugs her good shoulder. "It was a livin'. Take it your folks were docs?"

Alcohol certainly has its fair share of uses beyond pure inebriation, Ellen's right about that. But until they have no other choice, Martha would rather rely on the supplies and weapons they're able to take from the closets.

Everyone needs a way to pass the time, though, so if Ellen does that by brewing alcohol, then who is Martha to argue?

She grabs for an overhead light and moves it to sit directly above Ellen's wound. As she'd suspected, there are a couple of tiny shards still in the wound, and so she takes a pair of tiny tweezers to carefully remove them.

"No, no, they weren't, I just wanted to be a doctor ever since I was a little girl." She smiles and shrugs. "So what's the roadhouse?"

Ellen likes preparing for eventualities. She likes knowing that there's more than a few things for backup. She's been too close, too many times. This place offers too many possibilities to kill them all. she wants more than a few things on her side.

Ellen doesn't even twitch when Martha roots for the glass. She's not worried about the pain.

Ellen can't help but smile. It's fond and wistful and she misses the roadhouse like an ache.

"Bar, crash house, message center. I ran it for years. It offered protection for the hunters that roamed on through." She smiles a bit. "Home and work all in one." She looks down at her hand. "Will I lose it?" It's obvious she's being an ass now.

A home base of sorts, it sounded like. Or a place for people to pass through and find some shelter from the storm. It sounds nice, and Martha smiles to herself, at least up until that cheeky question.

At which point she laughs and shakes her head. "I'm so sorry, miss, but there's nothing I can do," she says, only half-succeeding at making her tone somber as she reaches for the needle and suture material, threading it and then leaning forward so that she can start stitching up the gash.

"So how do you get caught up in something like hunting, anyway? Seems like most people carry on without any idea that there are monsters out there." Though in Martha's case, more and more people have become aware of aliens being a real thing, seeing how the last few attacks on Earth hadn't exactly been subtle.

Ellen grins. "Too bad it's my dominant hand." So dramatic a sigh.

The question, though, makes her smile fade just the tiniest bit. "Most of those that get involved? Do so because it happens to them. Family member gets possessed, poltergeist takes up residence, vampires turn a loved one." She shrugs with her other shoulder. "The rest? Raised in it. Jo's fifth generation." They come from a long line of hunters.

She takes a deep breath, watching Martha's efficient movements. "Suppose it's not too different from any profession. You wanted to help people. That's what hunters do."

Martha notices the way that Ellen's face falls, even though it's subtle. Her own gaze drops back to the stitching, but she finds that talking while she works sets the patient at ease. It works every time.

It figures that someone would only get pulled into a world like that by force, because something awful happens and it's impossible to go back to pretending that everything is normal when it isn't. Martha sighs.

"Just a different way of helping, I suppose. Not that I haven't stopped my fair share of baddies." Martha wouldn't say she's ever hunted, though. She's come across people doing wrong and put a stop to them, but death is never supposed to be a part of it.

It still happens, though. The Master, for instance -- she hadn't shot him, but his so-called wife had put him down.

Ellen tries to twitch her fingers, but they're pretty dead from the local. Oh well, she's going to be one-handed most of the day. She'll just have to become a one armed bandit or something.

"Fair share huh? Do a lot of hunting in England?" She knows there are British hunters. She's never met one, but there has to be. She's pretty sure it's an international business.

"No, no! I mean, not exactly." This isn't the first time that someone's mistaken Martha for a hunter, though. Crowley had done the same thing, though her scope actually goes far beyond England. Or had, anyway.

"I met someone, did some traveling... well, outside of Earth. Encountered some aliens here and there, also had a few of them come home and try to make a mess. Humans, too, of course, let's not discount the damage that our own kind can do."

Martha shakes her head to herself as she continues stitching. She's learned plenty about humans while dealing with aliens, that's for certain.

"Met someone?" Ellen asks, her eyebrows rising. That sounds interesting. But then there's the rest of it. So, they not only have to worry about all the ghosts and goblins and ghouls of the world, but also about aliens.

Alcoholism should be a valid life choice.

"I've heard some stories that would make you cringe. Both human and not." She shrugs her other shoulder. "I can handle the ghouls and the ghosts and the horrible things they do. It's the humans that bother me."

Martha can definitely understand what Ellen is getting at. If it's monsters who are terrorizing them, well, it's simple enough to view them as mindless beasts and that at least makes sense. But when it's their own kind doing horrible things, that makes it about ten times worse.

Hence why the hellhounds hadn't been so bad, but when they all found out that Tom had been the one responsible for the killings (had broken into this very clinic and clawed her chest open) it had been an absolute mess.

Tom, who's sleeping in a bed behind some curtains on the other side of the clinic. Martha clenches her jaw and keeps working.

"I know what you mean. At least I can take solace in knowing there are usually five good people for each bad apple. Maybe more."

Ellen sighs. She wishes she had that much faith in humanity any more. "I'll let you keep that hope for me, huh?" Ellen asks, sorry that she's a downer, but she can't help it. Not with this subject.

"So, who'd you meet? Nice guy?"

Yes, Ellen is being nosy, but it has to be a better subject.

"I'll help you find it again, if I can," Martha says as she ties off the last stitch, because the idea of anyone living with that kind of outlook on life upsets her. They've got to be good and remain positive, to make up for all the bad, that's how she sees it.

At the nosiness, she smiles and shakes her head. "Well, he's actually an alien, though you wouldn't know it from looking at him. He calls himself the Doctor, and he's actually here in Wonderland. Have you run into him?"

Martha would not at all be surprised. The Doctor gets around, that's to be certain.

Alien. Sure. Why the hell not? She got angels; someone else got aliens. It all works out in a weird cosmic way.

"This place loves a few places, doesn't it?" She's noticed there's a few here alone, but then others - like her - who have an entire support system already in place. "I haven't had the pleasure. But unless he drinks a lot, doubt he'd find me many other places."

The bar is her home. She'd made the roadhouse that way, and is slowly making this place the same way. She knows it. It's an island of comfortableness in a sea of uncertainty. Or something equally profound.

"About done?"

"Don't think he's much of a drinker, no," Martha says with a laugh as she shakes her head. "He's a tall, thin bloke, usually has a pinstriped suit on, wears glasses when he wants to feel clever. He talks a mile a minute, you can't miss him." No doubt Ellen will run across the Doctor at some point, with the way he pokes his head into everything.

At Ellen's question, Martha nods. "Just about! Let me just..." And with that, she reaches for a cloth and dabs away some of the excess blood, being as gentle as she can. Once that's done, she takes some gauze and wraps Ellen's hand in it to protect the wound.

"I'm guessing you've had your fair share of stitches and know how to handle them, but if not, then feel free to ask. Should be about ten days, then come back and I'll take them out." Martha's more than willing to go through the details of how to take proper care with stitches, but she doesn't want to talk down to Ellen either.

"Nope, haven't met him. I'll keep an eye out, though."

Since Martha seems the good enough sort, ellen doesn't mind watching out for her friends. It's how the roadhouse had started: She looks out for this one, this one vouches for that one. Bill had once called it a spiderweb of a family, and that isn't far off. she finds herself doing the same thing here. This one, that one, a vouch here, a comment there...

At least she doesn't feel alone.

"A few here and there." Ellen admits, dryly. "Hazard of the job." Hunters, even if they're beyond good, always end up getting a scrape or a slice or something worse now and again. "Thanks for the help. I should get back to the still. You ever need a drink, stop by the bar. I'm there most days."

Hazard of the job is right. Martha imagines it's worse than Ellen makes it sound, considering she's no doubt gone after werewolves and vampires and the like.

She realizes that everyone here has their own life they're trying to live and a busy schedule, and that applies to her and Ellen alike. So she's not surprised when Ellen dismisses herself.

"I'll keep that in mind," she says with a nod. "Until then, tell Jo I said hi, will you?" Martha gives a quick wave. "And it's no problem at all, that's what I'm here for." Compared to some of the other things she has to deal with, a few stitches is nothing.

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in the morning light [OPEN]

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