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It is dark here, the air smells off. Not quite earth vegetation and not quite earth sounds. Cardiff rift, has to be, and she'd lost her phone earlier chasing a weevil. There is burning on the horizon, down below, in the lowlands. Earth burned like that once, she remembers the Pyrenées at her back, like this mountain range. She wonders what it is called, who caused the burning in the distance. Where and when she ended up.
But she'll need shelter first, learned to survive on a gutted planet, shudders, remembers the sound of his laughter. Takes stock of her supplies; one gun, torchwood issue, enhanced. One half-full box of matches. One bottle of water, still sealed, she is never without water these days, remembers when she used to go without. A packet of gum and a snickers bar. She looks back at the burning and decides to go up, into the mountains. It'll be colder, but there might be caves there, some place to sleep, figure out how and what.
An hour later she stops, briefly, she remembers walking and it comes back easily enough, even under these strange stars. Another hour and she freezes, hears voices, speaking English but with a guttural accent.
"The bastards are setting the villages on fire."
"Did we get any people out?"
"Some of the women and children, most of the men stayed, god-damned Cetas."
The men are human, a small armed group, they haven't seen her yet, but she doesn't have the luxury of a perception filter this time. The men move on eventually and she wonders whether they are the right side, or if there even is one here. She remembers black and white, but also endless shades of grey. Still, burning villages is not usually a peaceful act. She moves on, angled away from the soldiers. Another two hours pass, she is well into the mountains now. The sun is rising and now she can see properly, the vegetation turns out to be brownish. She stops, huddles down out of sight between a waist-high shrub and an oddly shaped tree, sleeps fitfully.
She wakes to a whinny not far away, it sounds earth-horse like, not like the horses of Centilac 2 which are six-legged and purple. Soft footfalls come closer, the horse picking its way carefully over the uneven terrain. She burrows under the shrub, ignoring its prickliness. She wonders if her footsteps are visible, she didn't have to worry about it back then, the Toclafane weren't big on thinking. Again a man's voice, alone this time.
"Easy boy, easy, let's see what we have here won't we. Are there any lone Cetas in the woods I wonder?"
She freezes, someone must've noticed her trail, of all the bad luck, miles and miles of bloody forest and she must have landed in the widely travelled part. She reaches for her gun, but doesn't really want to shoot this man. He hasn't hurt her yet and violence has never been her first response. 'Do no harm' goes deep still.
"I know you're there." The voice calls out. "I can just shoot that bush, you know, it won't stop my bullets."
She stands up slowly, gun pressed to the side angled away from the stranger. He looks human enough and can't be much older than she is. He also seems surprised, whether by her manner of dress, skin colour or sex she cannot tell, it may be all of the above or something else entirely.
"You don't look very Cetan, now do you girl, but you're hardly Barrayaran. Are you Betan then, bloody stupid thing coming here, there's a war on you know."
If the Doctor were here he would undoubtedly babble something, probably about Cetans, Barrayarans and Betans and alien species with similar names. He'd confuse the man with his dazzle and get away while the other was looking at the wrong thing, sometimes the Doctor could be remarkably like a stage magician. But she isn't the Doctor, she is Martha Jones and while she is quite fabulous all on her own, she doesn't have the Doctors way with words.
"I'm Martha." She says for want of anything better. "And I'm not from any of those places, I'm afraid I'm a bit lost actually. Can you tell me where I am?"
The man snorts and the horse prances a bit at the unexpected noise. He controls it easily though, obviously used to being on horseback.
"You're definitely lost, girl, the Dendarii mountains are hardly safe for anyone, especially a woman alone."
She bristles a bit at that, male chauvinism at its best, she's sure she has seen worse things than whatever can be hiding in these mountains. The man notices and snorts again.
"Spirited girl aren't you, where are you from then?"
No fool him and though he may be rude he doesn't seem to want to harm her. The rifle he is holding has lowered so it is no longer pointing at her and she discretely tucks her own gun away in the holster in the small of her back. He notices this too and his eyes sharpen though the rifle doesn't move.
"Not an unarmed girl alone in the woods, but an armed one. What are you doing here?"
The tone of voice has hardened and she will need to answer with something. She is searching for a plausible lie instead of the implausible truth, but doesn't seem to be able to come up with something that won't make things worse. She settles for the blunt truth, at least it will be easy to remember.
"Look, I really am lost. Just a bit farther from home than you'd think. Basically there's a rift in time and space running through Cardiff, on Earth, and I fell through the thing. Landed about four hours walk downhill. I saw fires in the distance and decide to walk in the opposite direction."
He is scrutinizing her now but doesn't seem entirely disbelieving, which is frankly more than she had hoped for.
"It's a strange story, but you don't look Cetan and don't sound Betan, and we do have some ancient tales..."
He stares into the distance for a moment and then dismounts. He loosens the horse's cinch and loops the reins through some of the shrubs. The horse lips at the vegetation dispiritedly, but seems to realize it's inedible.
"You can call me Piotr, girl."
"And you can call me Martha, not girl."
He barks a laugh and sits down on the ground, leaning against a tree-trunk. He motions for her to sit across from him on a moss covered rock.
"So now what?" She asks.
"Now we talk, you give me the long version of how you got here and I tell you about those burning villages."
So she tells him, about Cardiff, about the Rift, about Torchwood and Jack. She glosses over the Doctor and all that comes with him, but he seems to see the shape of things and looks vaguely sympathetic. Then he tells her about Barrayar, the time of isolation, the coming of the Betan survey and finally the Cetan invasion. He doesn't tell her about his role in the resistance, but he seems important and she wonders what he is doing here alone. She doesn't ask though, because he seems bone-deep tired, on the edge of despair, and something in the cast of his body or the expression on his face resonates with her. So she tells him a story, not about the Doctor this time, but about an ordinary girl who was almost a doctor and who walked the earth for a year that didn't happen and who, despite everything, succeeded in the end.
And when, not long after she finishes the story, she hears a familiar whoosh-whoosh sound and sees a flicker of blue through the foliage, she bids him good-bye. But before she disappears she turns back once more and says one final thing.
"Remember, just because the alien invaders think they've won, doesn't mean you stop fighting."
And the last she sees of him is an appreciative grin and an easing of the tightness in his body and as she happily greets the Doctor she wonders what Piotr will accomplish.