for oncoming_storms: Prompt 64.3 - At a fete
She spots him, a tall and fair-haired figure, at the cricket match: a small charity affair, hardly worth the effort of walking from the school. And yet her feet somehow carry her along the path, towards the wide field of grass near the farm.
On the pitch, he resembles any other player, but there's some ethereal quality to his cricket whites. His bowling is impeccable and enthusiastic. He gives his all, every atom of his being solely dedicated to playing perfection. And through innings after innings, he seems to maneuver the pitch in complete wonderment. It's as if he can't quite believe his own existence, or his own luck.
That face.
She leaves the match mid-innings, her path clear. Back to the school, back to her quarters, back to fetch the last of his belongings.
The match ends as she returns, her arms desperately clutched around a linen-wrapped bundle. She watches from afar as handshakes and the good-natured ribbing of aristocracy are exchanged.
A boy, ginger-haired and sullen, half-heartedly flings the man's frock coat over to him. The man shrugs into it, tosses the boy a near-petulant look, but there is an ease of familiarity between the pair. Less master and servant and more...equals.
She knows that link; she's witnessed it before, once and only once before, between another man and another so-called servant.
She pushes through the crowd, needing assurance that the face she saw on the pitch was the same one peering at her from the page of that journal. The ring of images, different countenances but all extraordinarily the same man. She finds it difficult for her voice to form that word again. A single word, but it was his name, his everything.
John?
"Doctor?"
The man stops and turns towards her, his eyebrows raising expectantly. "Yes?"
Her hands fly to her mouth. The arch of his brow, his cheeks, his hair. "Oh, my goodness. You are him." It takes all her strength not to snatch at his elbow and drag him away. She immediately averts her eyes. "I'm staring. Forgive me."
"Doctor, shouldn't we--"
"Turlough," the Doctor murmurs, abating any further questions with a raised hand. "The Matron has obviously traveled all the way from the school to find me, and I think we'd be doing her a great disservice if we didn't hear her out. Don't you agree?"
"But we're missing the fete!"
"Which will continue on for the rest of the day, and I trust the Matron...Matron...?" He stares at her with his mouth slightly agog, awaiting her answer to his silent question.
"Redfern. Joan Redfern."
"I trust Nurse Redfern won't keep us too long, won't you?" His smile is pleasant, eager, and just the slightest bit awkward in her presence.
Nearly like a smile from that insufferably pleasant history teacher who held a terrible secret.
"Do you often drop in on cricket matches unannounced?" she asks.
"Oh, not as often as I'd like."
"A blue box appeared here once before. It brought violence to our little village. Many good people lost their lives and I believe I have the right to know if your appearance here means that this will occur again." Her words, dammed up for so long, all come in a rush. She's rehearsed them, over and over, for the inevitable moment of his return.
Whatever affability lay in the Doctor's face withers away, leaving behind a look that is at once old and ineffably sad. His eyes pull away from her, dip to his companion. "You're absolutely right, Turlough. Go and enjoy the fete."
Silence. Stoic and confused silence.
"We'll meet back at the TARDIS in an hour," continues the Doctor spiritedly.
"But..."
"All right. Two hours, I insist. Not a moment more." His smile is alarmingly amiable now, cushioning the brushing off as cordially as he can.
Turlough back-pedals. No words of protest or denial, just a swift eagerness to join the crowd. Once Turlough disappears among the revelers, the Doctor finally speaks.
"Matron, I assure you I've never been to this village before. The choice to come was a split-moment decision. This must be some sort of misunderstanding. Now if you'll just let me explain..."
"I've something of yours which provides undeniable proof." She sighs, a mournful little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "I've told a lie. The object is not entirely yours. It belonged to the man you became." She offers the bundle.
Intrigued, he undoes the knotted ends of cloth swiftly. "Ah. Well, I wasn't exactly expecting a diary." The Doctor flips the object over and over in his hands, judging its heft and its size.
"Don't you feel some sort of connection to it?" she asks.
"I'm afraid not." He looks sincerely crestfallen. "Should I?" He pages through it, back suddenly stiffening as he tilts the book off-kilter. He runs a finger along one of the illustrations, a squat metallic creature resembling a pepperpot. "Hello, old friend."
He clenches the book, his fingers flipping through the pages with deft precision. Images that suggest Cybermen. Aliens he knows nothing of. The TARDIS. And...the face of a girl. "I cannot allow you to keep this, you know."
"You brought death, Doctor," Joan says crisply. "You fled from hunters and sought refuge amongst the lowly humans you claim to admire. I think that as the closest thing your human self had to a friend, I should have the right to his journal."
"This contains knowledge of the future, the most intimate details of my future. It is dangerous, you cannot deny that. The fact that it could be snatched up by anyone without warning..."
"It is the only remnant left of the man you hid behind, the man who killed himself so that you might return."
"That man was a fiction. A...a...a creation of the TARDIS and the Chameleon arch. Random variables brought together and imprinted upon a blank slate. The identity construct is designed to be temporary, but...Oh, dear." He grazes his hand across the spine of the journal, the existence of the book growing more relevant to him with each passing second.
He studies her, his stare keen and sad-eyed. "You grew attached to each other, fell in love. And then he was snuffed out of existence. I'm sorry." The journal is handed back.
"Not entirely out of existence," she counters, hugging the book close, drawing strength from its presence. "I noticed it from the moment you stepped onto the pitch. Your ease with the cricket ball, the way you treat those under your care, and even now, as we're speaking, and I'm advancing towards you, you're backing away. And I'm quite certain that if we stood at the top of a flight of stairs, you'd be in very real danger of toppling down it." Triumphant, assured in her assessment, she stops.
He teeters, placing a foot behind to steady his balance. He cannot flee, cannot look away.
"He's in here somewhere." How shocking to find him so very close to the surface.
"What are you going to do with me now, Doctor?" She's inches apart from him as she brushes a hand against his arm, sensing his muscles tense up and flinch from a stranger's touch. "Will you offer to spirit me away in your ship? Request that I leave my home and my duties behind to follow you adventuring?"
His grin doesn't quite reach his eyes, as if he struggles not to wholly give in to sentimentality. "I wouldn't stoop to such levels of cruelty as that."
Her grin is much more melancholy. "But you have, Doctor. You will."
He backs off, challenge evaded. His hands, fidgety and nervous, seek out and eventually find the pockets of his trousers. "I'm not the man I will be," he explains, his head angling down and the fringe of his sandy hair sweeping across his wide forehead. "Nor am I the man I was. But, if possible..." His head raises, his gaze settling upon her again. "I'd like to start over?"
She inhales, ready to remind him that he has already said that to her, but her words ebb before they pass through her lips. His smile is much too sincere and much too familiar for her to protest.
Soft-hearted fool of a woman.
His right hand loosely curls into a fist in his pocket. In a swift and smooth motion, his hand lifts free and is offered to her. "I'm the Doctor."
Her grip is firm. "Joan Redfern. A pleasure to make your acquaintance." She pauses, strangely hesitant. He is not John, but she will accept the bits and pieces of him which are and pretend that for an afternoon at the fete, she has him back again. "Doctor."
Character: The Fifth Doctor
Word Count: 1485