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Tweak says, "What, and YOU'RE so smart?"

got2haveasmith (got2haveasmith) wrote in vas_captio_rpg,
@ 2009-07-14 11:00:00

Entry tags:

!dropped, day 15, location: carnival, sarah jane smith, shannon rutherford

Day 15: Late Morning
Who: Sarah Jane Smith and OTA
What: returning to the fold...not that she knew she was out of the fold
Where: The edge of town, near to the Carnival
When: Day 15, 11:30 a.m.
Rating: PG (?)
Status: Active

Something was poking into her leg. Something blunt and annoying. Sarah Jane blinked, feeling oddly groggy, and moved her hand to bat whatever it was away. Her fingers brushed against wood just as her vision finally focused, and she found herself staring at twigs and dirt. She pushed herself up into a sitting position with a start, eyes wide, breath coming more rapidly than it needed to. How had she ended up out in the woods? She searched her mind, but couldn't recall going near the woods at all that morning. It never occurred to her that it wasn't the day she thought it was. She'd never lost time inside the prison, after all.

She patted down her jacket, making sure her journal and pen were still tucked inside the large pockets. That was some comfort, knowing they were still there. It helped her focus, reminded her that everything so far had been real, and not just her imagination. Much as she wished it had been. Then, she glanced at her hands, and blinked, mouth falling open slightly. All the cuts, the glass shards, were gone. Her hands looked completely healed. No splinters, not even a chipped fingernail. She hauled herself to her feet, waiting for the twinge from her hip in protest from where she'd banged or over-extended it the day before during the earthquake, but felt nothing amiss. Now, Sarah began to worry, and to think. There was no way something like that could heal that quickly. Was there? Did their captors have access to technology that would allow them to do such a thing? It was possible, she supposed.

She glanced up, noting the sun was high overhead. It must be nearly mid-day. That meant people would be up and about. She looked around to get her bearings, and realized she wasn't too far from the Carnival. Squaring her shoulders, she began tromping through the thinning trees, making her way toward the derelict fun park. Surely someone would be poking about there, and would be able to help her figure out what on Earth was going on.

"Hello?" she called as she approached. Best not to sneak up on people in a place like this. Too many frayed nerves as it was. "Hello, is anyone about?"

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ballerinadreams
2009-07-15 05:33 pm UTC (link)

While she'd meant to go to the thrift store first and make her way back around to the museum by walking in a giant circle, the air was too damn cold. She'd headed to the gas station first. Stuffing as much food and water as she could into her pockets - hoodie front pocket definitely included - Shannon pulled the blanket she had wrapped around herself in nice and tight. The stupid thing was supposed to have been a way for her to carry more food...but it was too cold for her to use it for its original purpose.

Coming back out of the gas station and feeling a little shunted and downtrodden by the fact that Jay wasn't there, Shannon looked out toward the carnival at the sight of movement in the short distance. She heard a female voice calling out and the accent hit Shannon first. That voice narrowed it down to Sarah Jane, Martha Jones, and newbies, as far as she knew. The physical appearance had Shannon leaning toward Sarah Jane rather than either of the other two things.

"Hello?" she called back. "Sarah Jane, is that you?" Well, not the most subtle or smooth way to find out, Shannon thought, but it'd do the trick. The blanket was pulled in tighter still as she moved forward, weighed down by food. She was going to have to make a pit stop for sure to drop all of this stuff off.

...maybe after she had some warmer clothes, she could make the circle back around after all and just get even more stuff. Yeah! Then, she could bring the blanket with her again and use it the way she'd meant to this time. All the more shit she could carry, the better. She might even ask Jack, Ianto, or Sam to come along and help her, since she already felt like she weighed a thousand pounds and she was barely carrying anything.

As she drew nearer, she could see that it was Sarah Jane and she wondered where the other woman had been staying after the museum collapsed. Probably in the gym with everyone else, Shannon thought, but she wouldn't have known any better, since she'd been too scared to go in there to look. "Long time, no see," she said with a small smile. "You know the museum's back up...you can come back if you want. I don't think the Doctor's living there anymore, though," she said with a hint of disappointment she wasn't going to bother hiding in her voice.

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got2haveasmith
2009-07-16 01:10 pm UTC (link)

Hearing a voice behind her, and one that apparently knew her, Sarah Jane turned. American accent, blonde hair. That had to be Shannon. She turned, wrapping her jacket a bit more tightly around her as a breeze blew by, and headed toward Shannon, intending to meet the woman part way.

Sarah smiled, then blinked at Shannon's greeting. As far as Sarah knew, she'd seen the other woman yesterday, before the earthquake, and then in glimpses during the aftermath. Her next words confused Sarah even more. "Back up?" she repeated. "But how? It was completely flattened yesterday?" Sarah Jane frowned, trying to make sense of everything, a sense of dread filling her belly. "Wasn't it?"

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ballerinadreams
2009-07-17 07:50 am UTC (link)

Shannon's smile faltered and she furrowed her brow slightly. "No..." she said slowly, drawing the word out. "It was back up, like, two days ago, maybe three? I lose track...every day feels like the last unless something awful happens," she admitted. When Sarah Jane frowned in return and looked confused by her statement, Shannon looked sympathetic.

The thought of Dean the first day she'd met him sprang to mind immediately. "This is gonna sound a little crazy, but..." she paused. Sarah Jane clearly knew who she was and it wasn't like Shannon thought she was as memorable to Sarah Jane as the Doctor probably was for Dean, but... "Check yourself...? See if you've got any new, uh...tattoos? What's the last thing you remember?"

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got2haveasmith
2009-07-17 06:20 pm UTC (link)

Two or three days.... Sarah Jane's frown deepened. This was more than just losing track of time. This was lost time. Something had happened to her, and she had no memory of it. "The last I remember was the day after the earthquake, walking around and looking at all the rubble where the buildings had been."

She raised an eyebrow at Shannon's suggestion. But, it made sense. If something had happened to her, there might be proof of it. She nodded and shrugged out of her jacket, letting it drop to the ground, and began rolling up her sleeves to check for any sort of markings. "Has this sort of thing happened before?" she asked. "Where people can't remember days, or aren't seen for days and suddenly reappear?" Given that Shannon had said "long time, no see," it had to have been a few days.

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ballerinadreams
2009-07-17 06:43 pm UTC (link)

At Sarah Jane's response to the question, Shannon's eyebrows arched and she shook her head. "Jesus. No...the earthquake was, like...almost a week ago," she said apologetically. Not quite a week. Maybe five or six days, by Shannon's count. Definitely sounded like Dean, Shannon thought; maybe worse.

"Well, I know it sounds weird," Shannon said quickly when Sarah Jane raised an eyebrow at her. "It's just that Sam's brother, Dean, woke up with the Doctor on my first day here and then, like, three or four days later or something I ran into him in the carnival and he was all dizzy and out of it. He only remembered the Doctor. Nothing else. Do you feel okay?" she asked. "Oh, and he had a tattoo on his bicep. It said Expired, I think."

Sarah Jane wanted to know whether it had happened before and Shannon had already confirmed it had, but suddenly, she wondered if it happened to anyone else that she didn't know about. "I don't know if it's happened to anyone else, though. Maybe?" The very idea that it was more than just Dean and Sarah Jane made Shannon pretty uneasy. She didn't even want to think about it...

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got2haveasmith
2009-07-17 06:57 pm UTC (link)

"A week?" Sarah Jane repeated incredulously. She shook her head, glancing down at the ground, and tried to wrap her mind around the idea that she couldn't account for at least three or four days of her life. She lifted a hand to her head and pressed it to her temple, feeling a pressure begin to build under the skin.

Her head snapped up when Shannon explained what had happened to Dean. It certainly seemed to fit with what had happened to her, based on the scant concrete information she had. She twisted her arms this way and that, scanning for any markings. "I feel fine, which strikes me as odd considering. And I don't see any markings." Of course, something could have been placed on a bit of skin not casually exposed, but Sarah didn't want to think about that at the moment. "Does Dean still have this tattoo, or was it a temporary one?"

She looked up at Shannon, offering the woman a shaky smile. "I hope it hasn't, for everyone else's sake. It's...unnerving, to say the least." Ah, British understatment. It was horrifying, if Sarah Jane admitted it to herself, but she forced herself to keep thinking analytically about it, rather than just react to the happenings. It did no one any good to lose control of rational thought, after all, and she'd never puzzle it out if she reverted to a screaming girl. "Well, if I've missed a few days, as it seems I have, what exactly have I missed? The museum's been rebuilt, you said? Are all the buildings back up now?"

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ballerinadreams
2009-07-17 07:07 pm UTC (link)

Shannon nodded, frowning. "Like five or six days, yeah," she admitted quietly. She felt badly for Sarah Jane and couldn't even begin to imagine what was going through the other woman's mind when Shannon was sharing that information with her. It had to be a lot to take in. Shannon chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully as she watched Sarah Jane look quickly back up at her at the mention of Dean's experience.

"Well..." she said slowly, "maybe they've...evolved their process." Shannon shrugged as her brow furrowed. God, she hoped not. She hoped like hell that Sarah Jane hadn't had to endure anything awful while she'd been gone. A wave of guilt washed over Shannon when she thought about the fact that she hadn't even had the wherewithall to notice that Sarah Jane had been gone at all. Some friend and roommate she was... "I haven't talked to or seen Dean since we--" she started and then stopped herself, wrinkling her nose and blushing. It had been longer than that, but she hadn't bothered to pay attention to whether the tattoo was still there. "I haven't talked to Dean in a while. I don't know," she finished.

Shannon's brow knit with sympathy again. "The very least," she agreed quietly. "Yeah, everything's back to normal. Any injuries people had have healed, too..." she said, hand moving reflexively to her side. "It's like it never happened..." Except, it had.

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got2haveasmith
2009-07-18 03:04 am UTC (link)

She would have to make a more thorough examination of her person later, Sarah Jane decided, just to make sure. In a way, perhaps it was a good thing she couldn't remember anything of the last few days. If they had been bad, she at least didn't have to dwell on them, have the experiences chasing circles round her head. But, for someone like Sarah, it was almost more torturous to not know. How could one deal with things if they didn't know what had happened?

She caught the backtracking in Shannon's explanation, but decided against commenting on it. That was something personal, it sounded like. "I'll have to ask him when I meet him," she said, keeping her tone light.

Sarah Jane ran a hand through her hair, brushing out bits of leaves she hadn't noticed were stuck, and shook her head slightly. "How long did it take to put everything back to normal?" she asked. Her brow darkened at the idea that it all looked like the earthquake had never happened. She didn't like the idea of their captors having that much power at their disposal. Destroy and rebuild on a whim? What sort of people (and Sarah considered the term loosely) were in charge of this place? "I noticed my injuries had healed," she said, holding up her hands. "They were full of glass splinters before."

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ballerinadreams
2009-07-18 07:21 pm UTC (link)

With a small smile, Shannon nodded. "Or you could write him on the journals. I'd introduce you, but I don't know where he even stays anymore, honestly..." she admitted. Part of her wanted to push Sarah Jane to ask because it might be significant if her experience was similar to Dean's, but the other part knew it wasn't really any of her business past what she'd already said.

"We woke up one morning and everything was back to the way it was when I first woke up here," she replied. "It was kind of weird. Like it literally hadn't ever happened," she explained. "I don't really know how I feel about that..." she admitted. "The thing is...I want to just be relieved and be done with it, but...it's also sort of making me really uneasy. Some people had really bad injuries, you know? And they're just...gone. Is it even possible for that to happen overnight?"

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got2haveasmith
2009-07-19 06:37 pm UTC (link)

"That might seem less forward," Sarah Jane said, nodding at the idea. It would be terribly rude to introduce herself only to ask about something that personal, but perhaps written it wouldn't seem so bad. "I'm sure I'll run into him sooner or later," she said. She didn't want to impose.

Sarah listened to Shannon's explanation carefully. It was disturbing, to say the least. She wanted to say that no, it wasn't possible, except that it had apparently happened. "It...isn't probable, for any sort of creatures we know," she said slowly. "But we know so little about the people holding us here. They can keep the Doctor trapped, and that takes talent. Whoever they are, they must be very powerful, and very technologically advanced. Who's to say what is and isn't possible for them?" A more sinister thought crossed her mind. What if it wasn't just a day? What if their captors had managed to make everyone forget the days of reconstruction and rebuilding and healing, and just let them all assume it had happened overnight? She decided to keep that thought to herself, for now at least. There was no reason to alarm Shannon with her wild ideas. She'd ask the Doctor later, see what he thought.

"We should be glad, at least, that everyone's healed up so well. With the conditions here, and the limited resources, it would have been a very difficult recovery for some of the injured," she said. Spin it positive. She was good at finding a positive even in a dark situation the majority of the time.

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ballerinadreams
2009-07-19 08:45 pm UTC (link)

Shrugging, Shannon gave Sarah Jane a weak smile. "Might be less awkward in writing, too, actually," she said thoughtfully. If she was in Sarah Jane's shoes, even knowing Dean already, she'd have felt more comfortable asking him over the journals than talking to him in person about it.

Shannon's eyes were downcast, then, as Sarah Jane answered her question. She had a feeling that the response would be vague at best. "You sound like him," she said with a small smile, looking back up at Sarah Jane. "Like the Doctor. I can take it, you know; the truth. It's not possible, is it? What's your theory?" she asked bluntly. She wondered if Sarah Jane thought there was more to it. Shannon, herself, was starting to wonder if maybe they'd been knocked out for far longer than they'd originally thought. Maybe this time around it hadn't been a few hours; maybe it had been a few weeks...or months. The thought gave her the willies and she shivered again, tightening the blanket around herself.

"Yeah," she agreed, nodding. "Right, yeah, totally. You're right." Shannon didn't feel very positive about it now that she was really thinking on it, especially since Sarah Jane could remember even less.

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got2haveasmith
2009-07-20 01:18 am UTC (link)

Sarah Jane nodded, agreeing with Shannon's rationale. Far less awkward in writing than in person.

She wasn't entirely surprised to hear that she sounded like the Doctor. She had spent the better part of three years traveling with him in her youth, and was doing her best to continue his legacy on Earth. And he'd taught her well. She looked Shannon squarely in the eyes. "It could be possible," she said with a sigh. "But we can't know for certain, given the information we do have on them. It just seems far more likely, to me at least, that we were kept out for longer than we think. My disappearance aside." The missing time disturbed her more now that she'd given voice to her theory. Why make her miss more than the time everyone else had, if that were the case?

She reached out and squeezed Shannon's arm as the other woman shivered. "Whatever happened, we're fine right now, right? They haven't beaten us yet." She offered a smile, hoping to reassure the other woman. She had no idea what Shannon had been or where before she'd ended up here, so she couldn't think of anything more than a vague reassurance. "We'll figure out a way home, and be rid of this place soon, I'm sure of it."

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ballerinadreams
2009-07-20 04:38 pm UTC (link)

Nodding silently, Shannon took a deep, shaky breath. "Yeah..." she agreed when Sarah Jane suggested that they might've been kept unconscious much longer than it seemed like. "That's what I'm starting to think, too." She thought maybe she'd seen someone else bring up the same theory, but she couldn't remember who or even if she had; it might've just been floating around in her own mind for longer than she realized.

Shannon gave the other woman a small smile when she offered Shannon a gesture of comfort. Nodding, Shannon sighed. "Yeah, not yet," she agreed, thinking to herself, yet being the operative word. "I hope you're right," she added when Sarah Jane tried to reassure her that they'd be home soon.

"Come on, let's get back to the museum; it's too cold out. We can finish talking there," she finished with a small huff in place of a laugh.

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