Fic: The Journal (Ten, PG)
Title: The Journal
Author: aibhinn
Characters: Ten
Spoilers: Family of Blood
Rating: PG
Summary: Nine hundred years of time and space, of terror and hatred and death, love and laughter and joy. His past, trapped within a leather cover.
Warnings: None
Author's note: Angsty angst, with a bit of a sort of happy-ish ending. Lots of introspection about John Smith/Joan, and some about past Ten/Rose and Ten's friendship with Martha. Thanks to larielromeniel, wendymr, and dark_aegis for super-fast, super-awesome beta jobs over IM last night. This was a bunny that just wouldn't let go.
The Doctor idly flips switches on the TARDIS, making adjustments she's perfectly capable of making herself. He knows she's only allowing it to give him something to focus on besides the adventure they've just completed.
Adventure. He laughs hollowly. He said that once, didn't he? One of the last things he said to Rose: It's the one adventure I can never have. An ordinary life, day after day. Marriage, children, growing old and passing on, content in the knowledge that his life has been well-spent. Content in the knowledge of being loved, and having loved.
He almost had it. It was so close, that life. John and Joan Smith and their children. An ordinary-enough couple, living and working and loving, and at the end of it all, dying. Resting.
Not something he's ever done, that. The dying, yes; the resting, no.
In his mind's eye, he can see Joan. The hope in her expression when she was hinting that she wouldn't say no to an invitation to the village dance; the surprise and delight in her eyes when he'd kissed her the first time; the way she'd inclined toward him just slightly as they danced, allowing herself to stand just a bit closer than was strictly proper by the mores of the time.
The look on her face when he asked her to come with him.
He still isn't sure why he did it. Give it a try, he said. Him! A try at loving a human-living a human life! How could he even have considered offering her that?
Another face swims into view: champagne blonde, hazel eyes, full lips, tongue between her teeth as she grins. He groans and turns around, leaning back against the console railing and rubbing his face with both hands. Yes, that's why. Because of Rose. Because he came so close to honestly wanting that life with her-to allowing a human to have her 'forever' with him-and that hope had been ripped away from him. Joan isn't Rose, but she's clever and attractive and kind and generous and gentle. And a part of him, the part that is, and will always be, John Smith, does love her still.
But he isn't the John Smith she fell in love with, and he never really can be.
He's lonely, Martha said. She thinks that's why he asked her to travel with him. And she stays because she loves him, though she knows without a doubt that he cannot love her as she wants him to. Rather like him and his offer to Joan, come to think of it.
Is that really why she's with him? Out of pity?
He doesn't want that. Doesn't need someone staying with him out of pity. He's a Time Lord; he's been alone for longer than most humans can conceive. Maybe he should take her home-let her get back to her schooling so she can become the doctor she's always wanted to be.
He won't, though, he knows. He won't because he is, at heart, a selfish being. And because she's right. He is lonely.
He reaches into his pocket and draws out a familiar object: a bound journal, this one blank. Pulling out a pencil as well, he sits down on the jump seat and begins to sketch. Two blondes, one young, one older; a young black man; an older, ginger bloke, balding.
His punishments for the Family of Blood had been grotesque, but he knew full well the most horrific part of them: that he had pulled them away from each other. Sometimes, family is the only thing that makes living real.
And he almost had it again.
Can you change back?
Yes.
Will you?
No.
A tear spots the page. He blots it carefully and goes on. Rose again, by herself this time. Joan. The children John Smith might have had with her, who now would never be born. Martha. Young Latimer. The list goes on, faces appearing on the white pages, sketched from his mind's eye. Everyone he cared for in that life as John Smith; everyone he cared for in his life before Canary Wharf. Beyond that: others he traveled with, in other lifetimes. Jack. Ace. Tegan. Sarah-Jane. Leela. Romana. His wife. His daughter. Susan.
More pages, more images: the Academy; his room; his roommates; the Panopticon. The Cybermen; the Daleks; the Gelth; the Slitheen. He works feverishly now, hardly aware of the passage of time, documenting the whole of his life in pictures. So much to see. So much to remember.
Until, at last, he stops dead, staring. The journal is full. Nine hundred years of time and space, of terror and hatred and death, love and laughter and joy. His past, trapped within a leather cover.
He looks at it for a long moment, realising that his face is wet with the tears that have been dripping steadily since he began. He wipes his cheeks, then opens the book, carefully rips out three portraits, and takes them back to the bedroom that he hardly uses any more. He props them on his bedside table, then falls gracelessly onto his bed.
When he awakes from blessedly dreamless sleep a couple of hours later, Joan, Rose, and Susan smile at him from his past. He smiles back and goes into the bathroom, ready to start a new day.
Author: aibhinn
Characters: Ten
Spoilers: Family of Blood
Rating: PG
Summary: Nine hundred years of time and space, of terror and hatred and death, love and laughter and joy. His past, trapped within a leather cover.
Warnings: None
Author's note: Angsty angst, with a bit of a sort of happy-ish ending. Lots of introspection about John Smith/Joan, and some about past Ten/Rose and Ten's friendship with Martha. Thanks to larielromeniel, wendymr, and dark_aegis for super-fast, super-awesome beta jobs over IM last night. This was a bunny that just wouldn't let go.
The Doctor idly flips switches on the TARDIS, making adjustments she's perfectly capable of making herself. He knows she's only allowing it to give him something to focus on besides the adventure they've just completed.
Adventure. He laughs hollowly. He said that once, didn't he? One of the last things he said to Rose: It's the one adventure I can never have. An ordinary life, day after day. Marriage, children, growing old and passing on, content in the knowledge that his life has been well-spent. Content in the knowledge of being loved, and having loved.
He almost had it. It was so close, that life. John and Joan Smith and their children. An ordinary-enough couple, living and working and loving, and at the end of it all, dying. Resting.
Not something he's ever done, that. The dying, yes; the resting, no.
In his mind's eye, he can see Joan. The hope in her expression when she was hinting that she wouldn't say no to an invitation to the village dance; the surprise and delight in her eyes when he'd kissed her the first time; the way she'd inclined toward him just slightly as they danced, allowing herself to stand just a bit closer than was strictly proper by the mores of the time.
The look on her face when he asked her to come with him.
He still isn't sure why he did it. Give it a try, he said. Him! A try at loving a human-living a human life! How could he even have considered offering her that?
Another face swims into view: champagne blonde, hazel eyes, full lips, tongue between her teeth as she grins. He groans and turns around, leaning back against the console railing and rubbing his face with both hands. Yes, that's why. Because of Rose. Because he came so close to honestly wanting that life with her-to allowing a human to have her 'forever' with him-and that hope had been ripped away from him. Joan isn't Rose, but she's clever and attractive and kind and generous and gentle. And a part of him, the part that is, and will always be, John Smith, does love her still.
But he isn't the John Smith she fell in love with, and he never really can be.
He's lonely, Martha said. She thinks that's why he asked her to travel with him. And she stays because she loves him, though she knows without a doubt that he cannot love her as she wants him to. Rather like him and his offer to Joan, come to think of it.
Is that really why she's with him? Out of pity?
He doesn't want that. Doesn't need someone staying with him out of pity. He's a Time Lord; he's been alone for longer than most humans can conceive. Maybe he should take her home-let her get back to her schooling so she can become the doctor she's always wanted to be.
He won't, though, he knows. He won't because he is, at heart, a selfish being. And because she's right. He is lonely.
He reaches into his pocket and draws out a familiar object: a bound journal, this one blank. Pulling out a pencil as well, he sits down on the jump seat and begins to sketch. Two blondes, one young, one older; a young black man; an older, ginger bloke, balding.
His punishments for the Family of Blood had been grotesque, but he knew full well the most horrific part of them: that he had pulled them away from each other. Sometimes, family is the only thing that makes living real.
And he almost had it again.
Can you change back?
Yes.
Will you?
No.
A tear spots the page. He blots it carefully and goes on. Rose again, by herself this time. Joan. The children John Smith might have had with her, who now would never be born. Martha. Young Latimer. The list goes on, faces appearing on the white pages, sketched from his mind's eye. Everyone he cared for in that life as John Smith; everyone he cared for in his life before Canary Wharf. Beyond that: others he traveled with, in other lifetimes. Jack. Ace. Tegan. Sarah-Jane. Leela. Romana. His wife. His daughter. Susan.
More pages, more images: the Academy; his room; his roommates; the Panopticon. The Cybermen; the Daleks; the Gelth; the Slitheen. He works feverishly now, hardly aware of the passage of time, documenting the whole of his life in pictures. So much to see. So much to remember.
Until, at last, he stops dead, staring. The journal is full. Nine hundred years of time and space, of terror and hatred and death, love and laughter and joy. His past, trapped within a leather cover.
He looks at it for a long moment, realising that his face is wet with the tears that have been dripping steadily since he began. He wipes his cheeks, then opens the book, carefully rips out three portraits, and takes them back to the bedroom that he hardly uses any more. He props them on his bedside table, then falls gracelessly onto his bed.
When he awakes from blessedly dreamless sleep a couple of hours later, Joan, Rose, and Susan smile at him from his past. He smiles back and goes into the bathroom, ready to start a new day.