support group one: no one left behind

[hearnospeakno]

When: Friday 6:00 p.m.
Where: Attic Observatory
What: Community Support Group

As Nick promised on his open advertisements, there are chairs and coffee in the Attic Observatory. There's even a table laden with what food products Nick and co could round up.

The process of setting up for a group meeting felt enough like Boulder that Nick took a short break to lean, palms first, against a wall. It was a short, easily displaced moment, and he has no intention of lingering on it.

This is about everyone, one way or another. For all the people stuck here, and everyone new, and all those in-between. Nick left the purpose of the group intentionally vague. In the future, he assumes it'll have to be narrowed down and split up for the sake of different needs, but for this first coming together of the displaced in any non-official capacity he wants it to be open for everyone. It wouldn't be right, otherwise.

So all newcomers will find Nick by the attic observatory door, nursing a cup of black coffee next to a clearly printed sign:

Hi, I'm Nick. Welcome to the first Nexus Hotel Support Group. Whatever your problem, we'll listen. Help yourself to coffee and food.

Underneath the words, Nick has drawn and crossed out a mouth and ear, leaving an arrow pointed at himself. His pad of paper and pen are obvious on his lap.

Comments

[scaleshavefallen]

"Oh, good," I say, feeling actually, honestly relieved that the first new person I've met at this meeting isn't automatically expecting me to want to share my feelings. "I was a little worried that this was going to turn into group therapy, so we can talk about how being at the Nexus makes us feel." It's a little hard to keep my disdain for the process out of my voice. For someone as steeped in the psychoanalytic process as I have wound up being, I hate every second of it -- and now, with better reason than most, thanks to my recent experiences. "I don't want to talk about my feelings; I just want to find out where I can get pants that aren't covered in monkeys."

[legendthatwas]

"Y'know," said Martha, unable to keep herself from smiling just as playfully in return, "I really don't. Despite everything else I've seen and done, this has definitely got to be my first go at a support group, transdimensional hotel or not."

She settled a little more into her chair, wrapped her hand around her mug, and followed Larry's gesture with her gaze over to Nick, who was writing animatedly on his pad. Talking to someone. "And I know the feeling. You know Nick, then?"

Another puzzle piece to the mystery that was this place, if they'd known each other before.

[legendthatwas]

"If I'm being honest with you, that doesn't strike me as Nick's sort of thing," said Martha. "Not to mention that, being English, I don't really do the talking about my feelings with strangers bit. Ever." She grinned wryly at Monkey Pajama Man to indicate that it was indeed a self-deprecating joke. Odd, though, that he was so against the feelings bit; Americans tended to splodge theirs all over the place, in her experience.

"But unfortunately, I can't really provide you with intel regarding your--" she nearly echoed pants, felt her cheeks heat, and instead gestured towards the clothing in question. "The only reason I've got anything is because I'd been on my way home from Oxford Circus."

[themadmanwithabox]

"I don't think telling you would do anything," he muses idly as he takes a seat and crosses his legs, fixing his bowtie absently in an effort to continue to impress her. He could rely on the TARDIS to do it for him, but there are other laurels he can rest on just as easily. "As best as I can tell, it was a prison that fueled your fears to feed upon your faith," he says. "There was a room there for everyone. Unfortunately, the whole thing was defunct. We made it out."

"Not quickly enough," he adds, thinking of Rita and of Howie and Joe. And then, losing the Ponds to the monotony of real life. The Doctor's smile is weak, empty; hollow and filled with the loneliness that's started to seep in, given the last while of travelling alone. "I'm rubbish at taking care of my companions, at times, Martha Jones. I'm sure I don't have to tell you twice."

[digyourman]

"I do, yeah," Larry replied with a nod, his attention lingering on Nick, so skinny and unlikely, but with more conviction and clarity of vision than most people Larry had ever known. Larry blinked once, a deliberate movement like the snapping of a thread, and looked back to Martha.

"We knew each other back home. I was shocked as hell to find him here. Not that I'm sorry about that—" He held up a hand in punctuation. In truth, he was sorry, but for reasons that didn't bear getting into here. "That kid is amazing," he added, and then laughed. "He'd probably be pissed if he saw me calling him a kid. He really isn't."

[legendthatwas]

By this point Martha had found a suitable red maxi in light fabric (not quite chiffon, probably futuristic) and had put it on, along with a wrap, and was digging about for footwear. "To feed upon your faith?" she echoed, poking her head up before finally settling on some not-very-stylish-but-comfy Birkenstocks.

She was about to rummage some more, maybe ask if she could take some away to the hotel (asking him to take her home seemed wrong, like crossing the streams), when she detected the very familiar change in tone. Heading back down towards him, she said, not unkindly, "Well...I hope you don't want me to lie to you, Doctor."

[legendthatwas]

"Back home." Martha wasn't sure she wanted to ask--there was something about both Nick and Larry's body language, their gazes, the kind of thing you got a lot of in refugee camps. Not that she could ever explain knowing this, explain having been in a refugee camp, without everything that came with it.

"Nick is pretty amazing, I have to agree," she went with instead, and meant it. "He's got...drive. Not like the climbing the corporate ladder kind, but the giving a damn kind."

[themadmanwithabox]

"No, I think the time for lies is well over," he assures her, his hands folded in his lap as he offers her a polite smile. "Lovely choice, the TARDIS hasn't lost her touch, now has she?" he praises fondly. "Though, she is rather terrible about not giving me a fez when I ask for it. I think she's well aware how short a time it would last, given the predilection of my companions to shoot hats off my head," he scowls.

[legendthatwas]

"She hasn't," said Martha, who usually would have badgered him further about this sudden remorse--she wasn't sure why she wasn't. "Though I think she just has a fashion sense of her own that she wants you to stick to, perhaps. Or maybe she's just taking the piss."

[themadmanwithabox]

"She's sulking, is what I think," he accuses with his very own sulking expression, hypocritical to the extreme. He handles this with aplomb, however, making his way to the zig-zag plotter and wheeling the screen over with him. "Space Florida for Dr. Jones and some silver sand!" he says, slamming his palm down against a shiny bright red button on the console, forgetting the earlier serious conversation all-together.

[digyourman]

"Crazy, isn't it? You got people out there, they get bitter over the smallest setback, and then you've got Nick, who has all the justification in the world for being bitter, but does shit like this." Larry made a brief, sweeping motion to the room at large. "We were on this council thing together back home, Nick and me. I always kinda felt like a fraud, you know, never could figure out why I got voted on, especially next to somebody as good at it as him. But he made me want to be better at it, try to live up to the expectation."

Even now, after Las Vegas and everything that went along with it, Larry still wasn't convinced he'd fulfilled that promise. He paused, squinting briefly across the room again as he rubbed the back of his neck, and then turned to Martha again.

"How about you? I bet you've got some stories to tell." There was a quiet wisdom there in her eyes, unmistakable even to a stranger.

[legendthatwas]

"Admittedly, those of us who do get bitter end up wishing we were that easy-going," Martha agreed, and gave him what was really a self-deprecating wink. "But it's good just to know people like him, I think, a reminder that...well, a friend of mine would gush on and on about the resilience and brilliance of the human spirit." And notice the rhyme.

She watched Larry over the top of her mug as she took another sip of coffee, considered him--god, she would love to know the Larry and Nick story, she was sure it was probably epic, and maybe she'd get the chance--before responding. "I've got a few," she replied, quietly, "but most people aren't all that keen on hearing them. A little bit unbelievable, outside the comfort zone."

[digyourman]

That made Larry laugh; a short, amused burst of sound that was out of his mouth before he could rein it in. He hesitated, mouth open and halfway tilted into a smile, and then shook his head.

"This place is the first I've come to being in anything like an actual comfort zone in close to a year," he admitted, and canted his head one way and then the other like he was rolling something around inside, considering it.

"How about this," he began again. "You tell me a little and I'll tell you a little, and nobody worries about believability or comfort zones."

[legendthatwas]

"I don't think I've had a comfort zone in at least that long myself," Martha admitted--she wasn't sure why, she felt fairly comfortable around Larry and Nick. Maybe it was the way they looked, the seen it all kind of way. She finished her coffee, looked at the cooling dregs at the bottom of the mug as she considered his offer.

"Sounds like a plan," she agreed, after a moment. "So...I was travelling with this guy. And he said, where do you want to go, one trip, anywhere? And we went and saw Shakespeare. At the Globe."

After a second more, she looked up at Larry, eyes narrowing slightly in concern, and said, "The Shakespeare, himself. Tudor England."

[digyourman]

"And I'm guessing you're not from Tudor England," Larry replied with another, amazed little puff of laughter, although his expression registered more thoughtfulness than actual surprise. A year ago and he would have doubted the veracity of Martha's claim—What sane man wouldn't?—but now, it seemed incredibly naive to instinctively disbelieve.

"Must be nice, time traveling," he said, and grew briefly somber as he considered whether he'd go back now, given the choice.

"Guess it's my turn," he quickly added before Martha could reply, and then scratched at the back of his neck, squinting into the middle distance as he rifled through his mental catalog of impossible things.

"Might as well start with the big one," he settled on, focusing on Martha again. "Where Nick and I come from, nearly everybody's dead. Superflu. Only a handful of people were immune."

[legendthatwas]

"Definitely not," Martha said, lips quirking in amusement, gesturing up and down at her attire. "Pure 21st century girl, though the idea of 'modern' with regards to that's pretty relative, I've learned."

She paused, tensing a little bit, then swallowed firmly and said, "It's not always as fun as it sounds. Sometimes it's more trouble than it's worth--but that's weeks worth of stories, so." Gesturing a little, she waited for Larry to elaborate, and when he did, it was enough to make even Martha's somewhat-seasoned eyes go a bit wider.

"Oh," she said. "Things must have..." And she searched for a phrase that would adequately cover it, cover something beyond even the sickly feeling of what had happened with the Toclafane, with Japan even. Worse than decimation. "Gone ugly."

It explained a few things, though, of Nick and Larry.

[digyourman]

"That's one way to put it," Larry said, and though his smile was genuine, it was tempered by the sober knowledge in his eyes. There was no easy or logical way to explain the breadth of what had happened, of how bone-deep the ugliness went. Just the idea of the apocalypse was enough to be getting on with, he figured.

"It wasn't all bad, though," he added, expression softening, if a little sad. "We had a pretty big group of good people all settled together, starting over. That's how Nick and I met."

[legendthatwas]

Martha's gaze was sympathetic, but not pitying--she didn't really do pity much anymore, she'd found, and in this case... Well. In this case, it was a bit close to home to be abstract. "It's good that you had people, got a community together," she said. "Humans are meant to work together, it's part of the blueprints, I guess. We don't do very well, alone."

Actually, most beings didn't, even if they pretended otherwise. But she supposed you could trust yourself, and you couldn't always trust other people, even under fire. It was something she'd learned to adapt for, crosses and double crosses.

[digyourman]

"That's definitely true," Larry agreed, focus drifting first to his shoes and then back out to the murmuring group occupying the rest of the room. What better example than a group of people who just couldn't cope with life in a luxury hotel?

"You know, your turn was a lot more fun than mine," he added after a moment, and smiled back at Martha. "Who came up with this taking turns thing? Oh right, that was me." His smile quirked, self-deprecating but amused, and he leaned back in his chair.

"So now that I've been a sufficient downer, tell me something good," he said.

[legendthatwas]

"It was probably generally more fun," said Martha, "though not all of it was like the Bard, live in London. There was a lot of running for one's life. Also a pretty dull stint in 1969, which was not as fun a year as everyone implies. And...well. Worse stuff, but that's another story."

She put on a slightly hopeful half-smile and cleared her throat. "So, taking a good turn. Uh, well. I...I might have inspired a Shakespearian sonnet. Or two. He was taken with me, a little. Also with Harry Potter."

[digyourman]

"I can believe that," Larry replied, of the sonnets. He knew well enough that he himself was only a mediocre poet at best, but he could still recognize easy inspiration when he saw it. Martha was just that sort of woman.

"Harry Potter is a friend of yours?"

[legendthatwas]

"I still can't believe it myself, to be honest." Martha appraised Larry at his latter comment, then realised he and Nick could very well be from a universe without Hogwarts. "And no, not a friend--a character in a very famous book series," she explained. "Where and when I'm from. My friend and I recounted it to the Bard, a little; it seemed appropriate given the situation we were in at the time."

She still wasn't sure how the hell it wasn't a paradox.