In the Freezing Rain

"Shit!" Joe sat forward. "Did you see that?"

Adam muttered something and slid out of the car. Joe followed more slowly and reached the front of the car in time to see Adam help the newcomer to her feet. The rain had lessened, but Joe’s hair, face and clothes were soaked within moments. Adam just looked even more drenched than before.

"Mademoiselle, ça va?" Adam asked.

"I'm okay." She cradled her head in her hands. "Oh, my head. He is so dead when this is over."

Joe exchanged a confused look with Adam.

She spoke the Queen’s English. Muddy brown and red rivulets trickled over her dark-skinned arms. Her hair, pulled in a bun, was matted and streaked with fresh mud, and her jacket and jeans had seen better days.

"You sure you’re all right?" Joe asked.

"Yes, I’m-" Her head shot up and her eyes widened. "Joe! Finally!" She laughed. "God, I had to make four jumps just to find you."

"Do you…know her, Joe?" Adam asked. His hands disappeared into his jean pockets as his shoulders hunched. His inherent shyness around strangers was coming to the fore, rendering him five times more timid than he was with Joe.

Joe sighed. "Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure."

She gave him the biggest grin he’d seen all day. "Oh, I’m Martha. Martha Jones." She turned. "And it’s…Adam…Pierson, isn’t it?"

Adam’s eyebrows rose even higher. Then, to Joe’s surprise and approval, some steel appeared in his expression. "How do you know my name?"

Jones winced. "It’s a bit of a long story, really. And it’ll have to wait. Have either of you got the time?"

She paused a second. When a reply didn’t come fast enough for her, she grabbed Joe’s left arm and pushed up the sleeve.

"Hey!"

Joe’s tattoo, the symbol of the Watcher organization, was visible around his watchband. He wasn’t about to point it out to her, and in any case, she didn’t appear to have noticed.

She stared at his watch. "We need to get out of here. We really need to get out of here right now."

"What are you-"

A note pitched so high caused his eardrums to ring painfully. He heard it clearly over the noise of the rain…and there was no rain. At least, there wasn’t any moving rain.

Joe focused until his eyes crossed. He blinked and looked again.

A tiny raindrop, just a little drop of water, was suspended in the air. There were more raindrops hanging in nothing, and they were everywhere. The rain had frozen in the air.

Curiosity was a trait that had landed him with a job in the Watcher Organization. It was what made him move his arm into the path of motionless drops. They splattered against his jacket and bare hand with as much force as a raindrop in motion. It was as if, at any moment, the drops might unfreeze and resume falling at the same speed as before.

It was impossible. "What the hell is going-"

Joe stopped and stared, again. Adam wasn’t moving. He was as still as a statue. He didn’t blink. Hell, he didn’t even appear to be breathing.

Before, Joe had been too distracted by Jones to pay close attention to his fellow Watcher’s expression. The frozen Englishman’s feelings were clearly visible. There was the wariness Joe had noted before…but there was none of the uncertainty, the mouse-like qualities Adam often portrayed.

Your mask is showing, Joe thought with a frown, or maybe I’m so rattled I’m seeing things.

He’d rather sort out the mystery that was Adam Pierson, possible Immortal-it was a normal pastime for him, one he’d had for years-than sort out why the world seemed to have halted like a scene on a video tape put on pause.

"Oh, this is just perfect," said Jones.

Joe jumped. She wasn’t frozen. She was still holding onto his wrist and he hadn’t realized.

He shook himself free. "What is going on?"

She was looking around, not with surprise and fear but anxiety and worry. He was willing to bet she was behind this. He just needed to work out how.

She shook her head. "There isn’t any time to explain."

"Like hell-"

"Shh." She scanned the trees, the road, the muddy puddles. "Do you hear that?"

The absence of motion in their surroundings meant an absence of sound. He heard, distinctly, the sound of scuttling. It was no louder than a faint scratching noise, but it quickly increased in pitch until he could hear what must have been a multitude of limbs kicking up leaves and moving aside blades of grass, of hard pinchers clicking against each other. The sounds were everywhere, or seemed to be.

Jones shouted something, but he couldn’t hear her; the scuttling sounds were too loud. Joe pressed his hands against his ears, but he couldn’t shut out the noise. Whatever was making the racket, it sounded as if it was right on top of him, Jones and Adam, but all he saw was a frozen landscape.

Jones pulled Joe’s arm down and looped her arm through his.

"What are you doing?" Joe couldn’t hear his own voice.

Jones yelled something in reply. He watched her lips. She was telling him to hold him.

"Hold on to wha-"

She jerked him after her as she stepped toward Adam and grabbed a handful of Adam’s shirt in a tight fist. Before Joe had a chance to correct his balance, Jones pressed a button on a device she wore on her wrist. Their surroundings changed, again.

As if he wasn’t spooked enough already, the French countryside faded away-sights, then sounds, then feeling. Black spots crowded his vision, and his heart nearly stopped as he thought that the thing making the noise had arrived. Black dissipated into red and blue, and Jones tightened her grip on his arm as the memories came.