or_timelords (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
or_timelords) wrote2009-02-13 04:51 am
or_timelords) wrote2009-02-13 04:51 am
Entry tags:
Not A Human Kind Of Love
A shortish ficlet about John Smith and Joan Redfern and John's decision to become the Doctor again. Thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
alex51324 for looking it over.
"What are you going to do?"
She's looking at him. Joan, the matron, Miss Redfern, the woman he loves. Thought he could love. A human. Like him.
Her eyes are dry; she's strong, because she knows he's already not John Smith anymore. As soon as he touched the watch, as soon as he registered its existence, he stopped being him and started being--someone else. A Time Lord, the Doctor, caught in this human shape.
And yet, he's not. He's human, always was, he knows this. Remembers his childhood, his mother and father, the watchmaker's workshop he used to visit as a child, watching his father repairing watches, the eyeglass pinched against his right eye, his brow furrowed in concentration. But even now, as he recalls them, those memories are fading, losing shape and turning into a photograph, colourless and blurry and--unreal. John Smith, just a figment. A living, breathing figment of an imagination so much bigger than anything John could ever grasp.
It's not fair, but then, what is? It was necessary, that's what the watch is telling him. You were necessary. And now your death is necessary. Used and discarded, a soldier in a war that began almost a millennium ago, a war fought for justice and love, although not John's kind of love.
Not a human kind of love.
"It's not up to me anymore." He shakes his head and looks away; why is she looking at him like that? Hard and closed-off, already shutting him out because she knows what's going to happen. The need of the many outweigh the need of the one, she knows this. And it's not just the many who died today, who are still dying right now during the time he's wasting making a decision that's already been made. It's all the others the Doctor is going to save, all the wars he's going to end, the peace he's going to bring. John knows there's always a price to be paid, he knows this because the Doctor knows this, and this time, it is him.
It's not a very great sacrifice, considering the stakes.
He gets to his feet, straightening his shoulders, and takes a deep breath. The tears have stopped now. He walks over to the table and puts the watch down. The whispering, a small voice in the back of his head, falls silent.
So easy to shut you up, Time Lord. So easy to make you stop.
"John." Joan's voice is still steady, and he thinks that she's the strongest one here. Not sacrificing herself, not sacrificing someone she made up on a whim. She's sacrificing her love, her hopes. She said it before, "my hopes are not important". It's terrible to think that she is right.
"I'll go," he says. "I will. I have to, it's not a choice." His voice is steady now as well, and that's not his strength; he's never been strong. That's the Time Lord's strength, and this might be a way John could find some justice in this. The Time Lord created him only to use him, but before John will let that happen, he will use the Time Lord, one first and final time. "I'll go, but before I do, I want to say goodbye to you."
They don't have much time. He knows it, she knows it, and the sounds of the bombardment of the village are a constant reminder. There's a bed in an adjacent room; the Cartwrights' marriage bed, and using it doesn't feel right, doesn't feel proper, but there's no time for proper. There's no time for romance, there's just time for this, this one single moment in time that the universe owes them.
She cries as he enters her. They are silent tears, squeezing out from under her closed eyelids, and he kisses them away, his own eyes clear now, dry. He kisses her cheek, the side of her neck and her collarbone, and then he rests the side of his head against hers, silent now. Silent and close.
He is still John Smith, still human, but only for her. Only for now.
Afterwards, she doesn't look at him. She stays as he leaves, neither saying a word. Back in the other room, he stands in front of the table, looking down at his journal, the journal of impossible things that seem so possible to him now, possible and almost mundane. He won't take it. It's not his anymore.
And there is the watch, lying next to it. He doesn't need to touch it now, John can hear the voice clearly enough. Pressing, urging, in the back of his mind, telling him to make the sacrifice, what is he waiting for, there's no time for this. There's a war to wage.
All is fair in both war and love. You should know this, Time Lord. But then, you should know a lot of things.
He does pick it up eventually. Of course he does, he would always have done it, there never was a question. Never was a choice. Because he is not human, he is not John Smith. He's more than that; more, and less. Different. So different from anything a human mind could ever imagine.
John Smith stands in an abandoned farm house somewhere in a forest in south England, holding a fobwatch, his thumb on the notch that will open it. The expression on his face is hard and distant, and his eyes are old. Older than they have any right to be.
"I don't forgive you, Time Lord." His voice is calm. "I never will."
alex51324 for looking it over."What are you going to do?"
She's looking at him. Joan, the matron, Miss Redfern, the woman he loves. Thought he could love. A human. Like him.
Her eyes are dry; she's strong, because she knows he's already not John Smith anymore. As soon as he touched the watch, as soon as he registered its existence, he stopped being him and started being--someone else. A Time Lord, the Doctor, caught in this human shape.
And yet, he's not. He's human, always was, he knows this. Remembers his childhood, his mother and father, the watchmaker's workshop he used to visit as a child, watching his father repairing watches, the eyeglass pinched against his right eye, his brow furrowed in concentration. But even now, as he recalls them, those memories are fading, losing shape and turning into a photograph, colourless and blurry and--unreal. John Smith, just a figment. A living, breathing figment of an imagination so much bigger than anything John could ever grasp.
It's not fair, but then, what is? It was necessary, that's what the watch is telling him. You were necessary. And now your death is necessary. Used and discarded, a soldier in a war that began almost a millennium ago, a war fought for justice and love, although not John's kind of love.
Not a human kind of love.
"It's not up to me anymore." He shakes his head and looks away; why is she looking at him like that? Hard and closed-off, already shutting him out because she knows what's going to happen. The need of the many outweigh the need of the one, she knows this. And it's not just the many who died today, who are still dying right now during the time he's wasting making a decision that's already been made. It's all the others the Doctor is going to save, all the wars he's going to end, the peace he's going to bring. John knows there's always a price to be paid, he knows this because the Doctor knows this, and this time, it is him.
It's not a very great sacrifice, considering the stakes.
He gets to his feet, straightening his shoulders, and takes a deep breath. The tears have stopped now. He walks over to the table and puts the watch down. The whispering, a small voice in the back of his head, falls silent.
So easy to shut you up, Time Lord. So easy to make you stop.
"John." Joan's voice is still steady, and he thinks that she's the strongest one here. Not sacrificing herself, not sacrificing someone she made up on a whim. She's sacrificing her love, her hopes. She said it before, "my hopes are not important". It's terrible to think that she is right.
"I'll go," he says. "I will. I have to, it's not a choice." His voice is steady now as well, and that's not his strength; he's never been strong. That's the Time Lord's strength, and this might be a way John could find some justice in this. The Time Lord created him only to use him, but before John will let that happen, he will use the Time Lord, one first and final time. "I'll go, but before I do, I want to say goodbye to you."
They don't have much time. He knows it, she knows it, and the sounds of the bombardment of the village are a constant reminder. There's a bed in an adjacent room; the Cartwrights' marriage bed, and using it doesn't feel right, doesn't feel proper, but there's no time for proper. There's no time for romance, there's just time for this, this one single moment in time that the universe owes them.
She cries as he enters her. They are silent tears, squeezing out from under her closed eyelids, and he kisses them away, his own eyes clear now, dry. He kisses her cheek, the side of her neck and her collarbone, and then he rests the side of his head against hers, silent now. Silent and close.
He is still John Smith, still human, but only for her. Only for now.
Afterwards, she doesn't look at him. She stays as he leaves, neither saying a word. Back in the other room, he stands in front of the table, looking down at his journal, the journal of impossible things that seem so possible to him now, possible and almost mundane. He won't take it. It's not his anymore.
And there is the watch, lying next to it. He doesn't need to touch it now, John can hear the voice clearly enough. Pressing, urging, in the back of his mind, telling him to make the sacrifice, what is he waiting for, there's no time for this. There's a war to wage.
All is fair in both war and love. You should know this, Time Lord. But then, you should know a lot of things.
He does pick it up eventually. Of course he does, he would always have done it, there never was a question. Never was a choice. Because he is not human, he is not John Smith. He's more than that; more, and less. Different. So different from anything a human mind could ever imagine.
John Smith stands in an abandoned farm house somewhere in a forest in south England, holding a fobwatch, his thumb on the notch that will open it. The expression on his face is hard and distant, and his eyes are old. Older than they have any right to be.
"I don't forgive you, Time Lord." His voice is calm. "I never will."