Fic: Heroes and Heretics
Title: Heroes and Heretics
Author: minerva_fan
Pairing/Characters: Ian/Barbara, Three
Rating: PG
Word count: 6,300-ish words
Summary: Adjusting to life back on Earth isn't easy for Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton.
Notes: Written for dynapink in the the_chestertons ficathon, who wanted early married life with the Chestertons, and a possible encounter with a future Doctor. Thanks to livii for her encouragement when I hit a roadblock even Barbara couldn't smash through with a lorry.
A/N: Updated 3/27/2008 to include a new scene that had to be in there. Thanks to fey_spirit for suggesting it. (Hint: It's almost at the very end.)
Gossip
The wedding was just for show, they said. Recompense to their families for the crime of eloping two years earlier.
It was a good enough cover story to explain their absence, and it at least changed the tone of the gossip Barbara and Ian were enduring. Now instead of the teachers who had run off to live together in sin, they were the foolish pair who had eloped and traveled the world in an adventurous, but ultimately selfish bout of romance. She had attained certain notoriety amongst the women at the school, garnering amused and knowing glances from the married teachers, and reactions ranging from jealousy to outright admiration from the unmarried ones. Barbara Wright, by sheer virtue of gossip, had gone from a rather dull, ordinary schoolteacher to a Woman of Mystery.
She tried to wear it well, tried to bear up not only under the strain of gossip but Ian’s complete and utter inability to be upset by it. He seemed to think it funny, knowing as he did that they couldn’t have been better chaperoned, that their adventures were hardly of the amorous type, and that their love - far from being a passionate whim - had grown slowly and deeply over the course of two very difficult years. Ian took it better, or hid it better, and when he held her in the evenings, alone in their flat, it was his strong arms that got her through the indignity of it all.
It was funny, of course, in an ironic sort of way. It was actually, when she thought about it calmly, quite hilarious. But as she stood before the seamstress’s mirror, surrounded by the accoutrements of the trade, the cloth and thread, pins and patterns, admiring the delicate lace and satins of the oh so traditional gown, Barbara Soon To Be Chesterton struggled against resentment and a sense of unfairness. She hated the pretend nonchalance she was forced to assume, hated the fact that any hint of typical bride-like jitters was greeted with smug indifference by family and friends. “Oh, it’s just a formality, Barb! You’ve already done the hard part.” Winks and smiles abounded, as if their “dirty little secret” were now a communal thing, easily accessible to bridesmaids and schoolboys alike.
She wanted to be breathless with excitement, heart fluttering at every detail, each flower, each frill. She wanted to worry about the wedding party, about her hair, about her shoes, about what she should wear to bed on their first night together.
That was the biggest irony of it all. With all the innuendo and gossip skuttering about, despite all the winks and chuckles, the irony was that Ian and Barbara had actually decided to wait for their honeymoon. This man who was her downfall as a Nice British Woman had never slept with her, except in the actual sense of the word. “The hard part” was very much ahead of her, and the very thought of consummating her relationship with Ian had her stomach in knots.
Barbara laughed at the image in white staring back at her, a deer in the proverbial headlights. Reaching over, she took a fold of cloth the seamstress had left on the stand and tucked it wickedly under the dress to form a very specific-looking bulge over her abdomen.
“It would serve them right,” she told the mirror, then laughed again at her own silliness.
Nerves
“I thought it was bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding,” Ian asked, making room on the couch for his bride to be. She eased under the blanket, snuggling up next to him in what had become a delightful habit for them. Ian breathed in her cinnamon scent, her fresh, wholesome Barbara-ness, and wondered again exactly what he’d done to deserve all this happiness.
“It’s only on the day of the wedding, and only in the gown,” she yawned, her words warm against his throat. “Besides, I thought you weren’t old-fashioned.”
“Being old-fashioned would have meant spending tonight at Roger’s place, instead of here with you-“
“Ghastly!”
“And it would have meant missing your performance tonight.”
Barbara glared at him, her eyes slightly hooded and dark with annoyance. “Every bride is guaranteed, by law and tradition, at least one emotional breakdown on the day before her wedding. And if the Universe didn’t want that tradition to be upheld, the Universe would not have allowed our florist to put the wrong color of carnations into the arrangements and not tell me until this afternoon.”
Ian chuckled, loving this side of his practical bride. Barbara was Barbara, so much more capable and powerful than anyone in this place knew, but he rather enjoyed her moments of vulnerability. “You know,” he teased, kissing the top of her head. “I rather envy normal bride-grooms and their ignorance of this sordid process.”
“A normal bride-groom would be sleeping off a bender at his best mate’s right now, instead of listening to his fiancée wax eloquent on her floral troubles,” she said ruefully. “You’re right to be envious of them. I’m envious of them.”
“I can’t think of any place I’d rather be,” he whispered, pulling her tightly against him. “Floral troubles or not.”
She laughed softly, kissing the line of his jaw. “You know, we haven’t even said our vows yet, and we’re already an old married couple.”
“Complete with household budget, chores, and responsibilities,” he added. “All we need is a dog and a baby, and we’re living the dream.” To his utter amusement, Barbara blushed at the mention of a baby. She could be so unpredictable sometimes. Utterly practical, unfazed by Daleks and Neanderthals alike, yet she could be flustered by the mere mention of having a baby with him. “We do intend to have a baby at some point, don’t we?” Now he was really teasing her, because of course they intended to have children. They were mature adults, and they'd had more than one frank discussion on the matter. "I mean, we do intend to try, yes?"
She blushed again, but had the dignity not to avert her eyes. “Of course, I’d like that very much.” The look in her eyes showed him quite clearly that she intended to enjoy the process of trying as often as possible.
Now Ian blushed, because Barbara's skin was soft under his gaze, and her body was clearly outlined in the thin gown she wore. He was holding her closely enough to remember exactly what would be happening tomorrow night, just down the hall in the tiny bedroom they used in shifts at the moment, an egalitarian division of sleeping arrangements designed to maintain the appearance of a married couple without ever actually breaching their unspoken sense of propriety.
And he realized, terribly, without warning, that he wanted to be with her right in that very moment, their own personal morality be damned, and that he didn’t know how he was going to get through the day tomorrow, and all those people smiling and his friends winking at him like he already knew the taste of her skin and the feel of her body.
Ian knew in a flash of insight that that was the real reason he’d refused a bachelor party. If one of them said even the smallest thing, made even the most innocent joke about the wedding night or the “fact” that it would be business as usual, he might hit them. These last few months had been torture for him, for them both, so close, so in love, and yet choosing in the most frank and mature fashion to wait, to do it right, to hold at least to one social convention.
And the irony of it was that neither of them had made the decision out of regard for social mores or guilt. It was simply a choice they made, a dignity they wanted, an honesty between them that marked the legitimacy of their real marriage, the one that started tomorrow, the one for them alone, regardless of what they told the world.
“It’s going to be perfect,” he said to her, one hand flat against her hip, the other lifting her chin to gaze into her dark eyes. “The wedding, that is. All this work, all this effort-I never would have understood it had we had a traditional courtship. The wedding, the flowers, your dress, your hair-all of it is going to be perfect, and our life is going to be good. I promise you, darling. I’ll make it good.”
And he smiled, because Barbara gave him that look she’d given him on Skaro, when she’d jumped that chasm, when he’d held her so tightly. It was a look of complete and utter trust, and the mere sight of it made his heart melt inside his chest.
Practice
Barbara yawned contentedly, feeling the tendrils of her dark curls playing against her cheek. The storm had destroyed her hair, drenching them both as they laughed their way from the car to the flat, blissful and silly in the rain. In desperation, she'd washed the whole thing out, combing out the last of the style and taking her chances that he'd find the unruly mess of waves that remained primitive and exotic for their wedding night.
She needn't have worried. The look Ian had given her as she'd emerged into the bedroom would have sent any woman's ego floating out of the solar system. Shyness had given way to lust, and all hints of exhaustion from the last few weeks had dissipated in the sheer joy of finally truly being together as true husband and wife.
She yawned again, fighting sleep as Ian dozed lightly next to her. Normally, she would be cataloguing her experiences, committing them to memory in order to have them later. Normally, after a day of such activity, Barbara's thoughts would be abuzz with memories, sights and sounds and scents intermingling in her conscious mind, weaving a tapestry to enjoy when she was older.
But Barbara didn't want to think. Her memories would be there for her, she knew, and now was not the time for weaving or cataloguing. Now was the time for rest, for listening to the thud thud thud of her husband's heart beating just below her cheek.
She was amazed at how soothing a heartbeat could be, how comforting the scent of human skin, how precious the warmth of another body was. She brushed her lips against Ian's bare chest, thrilled with the shiver her touch evoked in him. Darting her tongue just a little, she tickled his collarbone, grazed her teeth against his flesh.
"We're not going to make a baby that way," he mumbled, indicating the used prophylactic in the dustbin next to the bed.
"We said we'd try," she scolded, a smile playing against her lips. "We didn't say we'd try tonight." She knew he was teasing her. In truth, they'd discussed their future quite clearly over the last few months. Children were definitely in their plans, but neither was ready to take that burden up just yet.
"Practice runs?" He opened his eyes, winking at her and sending blushes all through her body with his suggestive smile.
"We should get the process completely down before we…" She couldn't complete the sentence because he was tickling her, just behind the ear, tugging gently at her hair and biting her earlobe. "We should…"
"We will," he assured her and pulled her back under the covers for another practice session.
Loss
She'd been acting so strangely, and he blew it. He should have seen it for what it was, for what it might have been.
Barbara was his wife, his best friend, his other half. When she hurt, he hurt. When she was afraid, he was there to help her carry her burden.
"Idiot," he muttered to himself, pushing through the door toward the room where they'd put her. "Idiot, idiot, idiot."
"Mr. Chesterton?" It was a young nurse who stopped, blonde and no older than twenty or so. She could be one of his former students, but Ian's mind wasn't on the past, or students, or recognizing faces. His mind was on one person only.
"My wife?"
"She's in with the doctor. It will be a few minutes before you can see her." She hesitated, her eyes averting slightly. "Did they tell you…?"
He nodded grimly, still in shock, still in dismay at what he'd learned. Barbara had been rushed from her classroom to hospital early in the afternoon. Barbara had started bleeding. Barbara had fainted in class.
Barbara had lost the baby.
It was the first he'd ever heard of the pregnancy.
Ian rested his hand against the wall, a leaning, angular shadow against the harsh hospital light. Tears wanted to come. Rage wanted to come.
He'd fought the Daleks, the Voord, the Zarbi…nothing had ever frightened him more, nothing had ever triggered the surge of outrage in his heart.
His child was dead. His wife was struggling for her life.
This was not why he had fought. This was not why he had survived so many trials, so many tribulations. He couldn't lose her now, now that he finally had her in his life. He couldn't go back to his lonely existence again, now that he'd known her love.
"Mr. Chesterton." It wasn't a voice he recognized, and he didn't bother turning around. "Son, look at me."
Something in the voice caught his attention, something commanding. He turned to see an older gentleman, white wavy hair, prominent nose, kind eyes. He had the air of authority about him, and Ian found himself gratefully relinquishing control of the moment. "Are you a doctor?"
The man nodded gravely, but said nothing.
"My wife?"
"Will be fine," the doctor assured him. "She will recover, but she will need you now more than ever. She will need your love, son."
Ian fought back the tears. "I know." But he didn't know how he would find the strength. He didn't know how he would find the courage. The end of the world was one thing, but this was his world, his and Barbara's. "I love her," he choked.
"I know."
The door to Barbara's room opened, and a dark-haired physician walked out. "Mr. Chesterton?" When Ian nodded, he motioned towards the door. "You can see her now. I've given her a sedative, so she may be a little drowsy."
He didn't wait for the rest of it. He was in the door, across the tiny room, at her bedside. Barbara looked so small, pale and weak. She blinked once, then took his proffered hand. Tears began to flow down her cheeks, but she did not sob. "I wanted to wait until I was sure," she whispered, and Ian began to cry again, sitting in the chair next to the bed and holding her hand against his lips. "I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry."
"I love you," he said simply, because it was all that mattered.
Blood
Barbara found it impossible to believe she could become any less patient with the situation, but as she waited for the doctor to bring in the results of her most recent blood test, she actually felt herself getting more restless with each breath.
“Idiotic,” she grumbled to no one in particular. Her bag was at her feet, opened to reveal a folded stack of papers she’d not had the energy to mark. She knew she shouldn’t be wasting time, that she could very well have already gotten these essays done had she been more responsible. But she had even less patience for student essays these days than she did for doctors. “Barbarians, morons, and liars.”
She wasn’t really talking to anyone. There was no one there to talk to. After thirty minutes of waiting, Ian, bless his heart, had gone in search of someone in charge. If he was as frustrated as she, at least he had the decency not to show it around her. She was grateful for his restraint, although she half suspected he might get more than a little bit pushy with the staff once he was out of her earshot.
Barbara reached down and idly pulled one of the pages from her purse. It was on the French Revolution, and the very first few paragraphs were enough to discourage her. “Well, Margaret Standish, you’ve digested the accepted curriculum adequately,” she said with a tinge of disgust in her voice as she read on. “You will undoubtedly do very well in school, and learn absolutely nothing about what really happened during the Revolution.”
The merciful click of the opening door saved her from any more reading. Ian walked in, followed by Doctor Malik, a dark-skinned young man in a white lab coat. Her husband immediately came to her side, taking her offered hand and sitting in the chair next to her. “Sorry it took me so long. I had to get a little testy,” he whispered, taking the paper from her lap and tucking it back into the bag.
“Thank you for waiting, Mrs. Chesterton. I was checking with the lab when your husband…” He cast a discouraging look at Ian, who had the grace to smile and rise above the young man’s arrogance. “Spoke to me. As I began to tell him, we’ve run a comprehensive battery of tests on your blood, and as yet have found no conventional causes for the imbalance you’re experiencing.”
“And I told him, of course, that he needs to run more tests,” Ian inserted.
Barbara groaned slightly, but grudgingly agreed with him. Two miscarriages in just over a year had pretty much ruled out the idea of an easy pregnancy, and she worried that maybe she might never have children. She'd spent their first anniversary huddled in the loo, sicker than she'd ever remembered being, fearing correctly that her second pregnancy would end no better than the first. The fact that medical science couldn’t seem to find a cause for her hormonal disorder, couldn’t even fully define it, was more than frustrating. It was terrifying.
Malik seemed unfazed by Ian’s words as he shuffled through her medical file. “When the conventional fails to produce results, we must turn to more unconventional methods.” He closed the file and looked up at Ian and Barbara. “I would like to refer your case to a colleague of mine, Dr. John Smith. He’s attached to the government, but has occasionally assisted in civil matters of interest. He’s not a medical doctor per se, but seems to have a knack for resolving unorthodox cases.”
Ian and Barbara exchanged quick glances at the name. It was one of the Doctor’s aliases. And while neither could imagine him working for the British government, the unorthodox part certainly fit. It was Ian who recovered first. “Yes, yes, of course, we’d like to see the Doctor, if you think he could help.”
“I think he couldn’t hurt. Frankly, Mr. and Mrs. Chesterton, I’m at a loss.” He leaned over his desk to pick up the receiver on his telephone. “I took the liberty of asking him to meet us here today, on the chance that you would agree. Elizabeth, will you please ask Dr. Smith to join us? Thank you.” He replaced the receiver, smiling encouragement at the couple before him. “I know it seems impossible right now, but I assure you. Dr. Smith is one of the most brilliant researchers I’ve ever had the honor of meeting.”
Barbara held her breath. Her skin was tingling, that tell-tale sensation she always got when something enormous was about to happen. It was him. She just knew it. She knew it in her heart. The Doctor had come to help. For the first time in months, she felt hope.
That hope dashed to the floor when the door opened and a tall man in his late 50’s strode in. Wavy white hair, prominent nose. He was handsome, in a dashing older man sort of way. Instead of a lab coat, he wore a fitted velvet smoking jacket and ruffled shirt. He exuded charm and was by no means anything like what she would have called eccentric.
And he was not, by any stretch of the imagination, their Doctor.
“Hello, Barbara. Hello, Ian. I’m John Smith.” She kept her face a mask, and smiled politely as he introduced himself to them. Help had not come, and all she could look forward to was another battery of useless tests. The older man eyed her narrowly, seeming to see straight through the falsity into her very heart. "You seem disappointed, Mrs. Chesterton?"
Barbara opened her mouth, but found she could not speak. She turned helplessly to Ian, who merely said, "We thought you might be…a friend of ours."
The doctor, if insulted at all, didn't show it in his expression. "It's a common name," he said, and left it at that.
“Doctor,” Ian began. She could see him struggling, the same struggle she had, to hide his disappointment. She’d been so sure, so positively sure, the Doctor would come. Could her instincts be so wrong? “Thank you for coming to talk to us,” her husband continued. “I know it’s out of your way.”
“Nonsense, my boy,” the doctor said, opening the file. “I’ve reviewed the case closely, and I have a few questions.” He looked up, piercing eyes studying them. “I’m told you and your husband traveled recently, Mrs. Chesterton. Did you by any chance travel to primitive locales?”
Barbara looked at Ian. How primitive did he want? Prehistoric times? Ancient Rome? The Crusades? “Yes,” she said demurely. “Yes, you could call some of the locations we visited primitive.”
He nodded, clucking his tongue softly. “I suspected so. I’m sure my colleagues have provided excellent treatment, but this is a matter for a researcher, not a physician.”
“What exactly is your degree in, Doctor Smith?” Ian was showing the telltale signs of skepticism, his arms folded across his chest, his head slightly aslant.
The doctor smiled mysteriously. “Oh, I hold many degrees, young man, in various and sundry disciplines.” He turned back to Barbara. “Now, did you experience any other symptoms, any other ailments since you returned from your travels?”
“No,” Barbara said simply. “I’ve felt perfectly healthy, not even a cold.” I just keep miscarrying my babies, she added silently.
He took her hand, gently, patiently, as if he could hear the sadness in her unspoken thoughts. “I know this has been difficult, Barbara, and I am the last person on Earth who wants to ask you to give more blood, but-“
“But you’re going to ask me for more blood,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Of course, I’ll give it. If you think you can help…”
“I would like to run a few tests of my own. It’s possible your problem is microbial, and if we can isolate the cause of the imbalance, we may be able to come up with a treatment. I only wish I’d found out sooner. Perhaps, we could have solved this mystery before you and your husband suffered so dear a loss.” He smiled at her, and Barbara felt it again, the feeling that the Doctor should be here, that he would know what to do. But this man exuded confidence, and despite herself, she felt a little trickle of hope coming back into her heart.
Career
“I don’t understand why you stay if you’re so damned miserable.” It was an old argument, and one that was getting older by the moment. He understood of course that Barbara had it harder than he did. The discrepancy between what they had experienced and what she was forced to teach grated on her, and any attempts she made to suggest a different approach were treated as near blasphemy by the school administrators. Each month she grew more and more restless, yet any time he suggested she quit, Ian was met with an icy stare and rolled eyes. “We can afford it, Barbara,” he continued his losing battle. “I’ve done the math, checked and rechecked our finances. We can live on my salary, especially if I get the headmaster position. You can-“
“What? Stay home? Be a traditional housewife, knit scarves a mile long, host garden parties?” She shook her head, knocking the last of the papers off the table with a flourish. She’d swept most of them away minutes earlier in a fit of disgust, thus prompting the argument. “Oh, I’m sure you’d love that.”
“Don’t be this way, Barbara. You know I value your career. You’ve a sharp mind, and have worked very hard. I hate to see you in this environment.” It was true, every word of it. Barbara, the Barbara he knew, the Barbara he’d fallen in love with, thrived on challenge, on freedom. To be stifled, socially and intellectually, was death to her, and he was watching her die more and more every day she went into that school and taught their lies. If he had a magic wand, he would make it better, he’d make them open their minds, he’d find a way for her to express all the amazing and wondrous things they’d seen in their travels. But he wasn’t a magician, and try as he might, they still lived in a fairly provincial area of a fairly backwards world and worked in a profession not exactly known for its innovation and spirit of inquiry.
She paused, seeing the expression on his face, the honesty in his eyes, and sighed deeply. “I’ve been a regular pill lately, haven’t I?”
“I think it’s the booster shots,” he said, talking about the treatment regimen. The injections suggested by Dr. Smith were working, miraculously, bringing her blood hormone level back to almost normal in a matter of weeks. But the shots took their toll on her, reducing her some nights to tears as her muscles ached and her cramps grew exponentially through the course of the treatment. “Thank goodness there are only two left. The cure seems to be much more painful than the illness, doesn’t it?”
“But hopefully, once it’s done, I’ll be able to carry a pregnancy to term.” Her voice was soft, sad. Neither of them ever said it, but it seemed that their travels with the Doctor had cost Barbara the most dearly. Some ancient microbe had wreaked havoc on her reproductive system, reality had destroyed her faith in history, and two years of adventure had made the life of a British female in the mid 1960s seem tedious and stifling by comparison. It was cruel, he thought for the thousandth time, to have one’s mind opened so much, and then to have to forcefully shut it in order to survive.
“You need to quit teaching,” he murmured. “They don’t deserve you. You should be writing history books, for heaven’s sake.”
“Ian…”
“You know more, you’ve seen more, than any of those stuffy old bastards.”
“So have you,” she said, moving over to his side, pulling him down to sit next to her on the couch. “You’ve seen things that would boggle most modern scientists’ minds, but you don’t seem to have the same trouble I do.”
“Well, it’s different in the sciences. They expect a certain degree of audacity. You may be called a heretic by the mainstream, but if you stick it out long enough and provide enough empirical data to support your crazy ideas, you can earn at least a modicum of respect from the scientific community.”
She kissed his cheek, snuggling into his arms. “Historians don't like heretics. They don't want truth when the lies are more comfortable and support their journal papers." She laughed at Ian's rolled eyes, grateful for her husband's good humor, grateful that he allowed her to vent without judgment or scolding. "Besides, there's no proof. Most of the eras we visited didn’t have adequate records, and even if they did, the records were usually maintained by the power figures, and often tilted to show the approved point of view. Then you add centuries of corruption by various parties-the churches, political factions, even scholars themselves-and you have no reliable data to prove anything. And even if you can find reliable data, half the people won't believe it because it flies in the face of their reliable data.” She pouted. “The fact is, I can’t even prove that our experiences were typical. All we have is one piece of a very complex puzzle.”
“It’s frustrating,” he agreed. “Somebody ought to do some scholarly research, really turn the academic world on its ears.” Her eyes rolled slightly, but at least she grinned. “Of course, that person would have to be attached to a university, would have to have a really stunning thesis to pursue…say, on the Aztecs…ancient Rome...”
“Stop. I’m not going back to school.”
“You are wasting yourself at Coal Hill…”
“And once I have my last injection, I plan to work very hard on getting extremely pregnant.” She teased him with her nose, nuzzling into the crook of his neck. Their arguments could be loud and frustrating, but making up seemed almost worth it. “You will need to help me with that one, my darling husband.”
“All the more reason to start on your studies now.” He took her shoulders firmly in hand, facing her with a serious expression. “Barbara, I mean it. You are dying at that school, and no amount of arguing will convince me otherwise. I know you can do this. If anyone can turn the world of history on its ear, my lovely heretic, it’s you.”
She sighed, leaning slightly to kiss his hand on her shoulder. “I will think about it.”
“That’s all I ask. Really think about it,” he added, pulling her into a warm embrace.
“Okay, I’ll really think about it.”
He smiled, enjoying the feel of her in his arms, and knowing that he wasn’t going to let her back down. She was going to be happy, even if he had to force her.
Schedules
"Ian, I have an 8 am meeting with Jim Gleick, and then I'll be at the library until three." She hurried through the flat, calling to her husband as he continued to get ready for work. "Will you be able to stop off for eggs after school? I'm making a cake this weekend, and we're almost out."
"Sorry, love, I've got teacher evaluations this afternoon."
"Damn," Barbara said, searching madly for her keys. "Okay, I'll…" She did a quick mental rundown, trying to find some place in her schedule to fit the grocer. "I'll find a way. You will be at La Trattoria at seven, right?"
Ian walked through the door, his shirt half buttoned, tie hanging loosely across his chest. "Of course I will be at La Trattoria tonight. Seven sharp, with roses in one hand, and a bottle of vino in the other for my beautiful wife on our third anniversary."
She paused, amazed that the sight of him in this state could still turn her on. She brushed the curls from her face, tucking them behind one ear as she gazed appreciatively at her husband. "Happy anniversary, darling," she whispered as he crossed the room to kiss her. For the briefest of moments, her nerves calmed, her pulse returned to normal, and all was right with the world. She kissed him again, slowly, deeply, and sighed as he held her tightly. Content, she rested her head against his chest. "Ahh, now my day can begin."
"Not without those," he murmured, pointing behind her to where her keys lay on the floor just below the cabinet door.
"My hero!" she cried. "I've been scouring this place for ten minutes. I thought I'd be late."
"Ye Olde Academe driving you mad, eh?" he teased, watching her derriere with pleasure as she bent over to retrieve the keys.
"Who," she asked, standing upright and reaching for her handbag. "Whoever thought taking the accelerated course was a good idea?"
"I seem to remember a scraggle-toothed soothsayer cornering us in a pub near Ealing and telling us not to waste our time with the standard program, that you could do this in a year."
Barbara grabbed the labels of his shirt and pulled him into a hard kiss. "When I've gone completely mad, I want you to find that soothsayer and pummel him on my behalf. That's my final wish, got it?"
"Absolutely. Now off." He patted her bottom as she headed to the door. "And don't worry about the eggs. I'll bring them home before heading to the restaurant."
"I love you," she called behind her. "My hero!"
Ian laughed, then set about trying to find just a bit of breakfast for himself before he headed off to school and his duties as the youngest headmaster in the history of Coal Hill School.
Beginning
"Idiot," he muttered to himself, pushing through the door toward the room where they'd put her. "Idiot, idiot, idiot." Ian couldn't believe he'd missed the call. He'd warned everyone, on pain of death, to bring any call concerning his wife to his immediate attention. And now…
A nurse stopped him. "Can I help you, sir?" she said. She was one of the older ones, the battleaxe types who wasn't going to give him an inch unless he belonged there.
"Ian Chesterton. My wife Barbara is in labor."
Her entire demeanor softened, and a smile creased her unhandsome face. "Ah, so you made it at last. They're prepping her for delivery. Down that hall, take the elevator to the second floor, then turn left. Tell the charge nurse who you are, and don't be slow about it." She shook her head as he sprinted down the hall. "First-timers," she laughed, then went back about her business.
Ian was out of breath when he finally made it. He was told in no uncertain terms to scrub up and hurry, and when he finally made it to Barbara's side she was in the throes of a particularly nasty contraction. "Barbara," he murmured through the mask. He'd seen so many things, so many horrors in his travels. But the sight of his wife in such pain, even a miraculous pain like childbirth, was almost overwhelming.
She groaned, catching his eyes, holding them until the worst of it was gone. When she finished, collapsing against the bed, he came to her side, putting his gloved hand on her damp forehead. "I thought you wouldn't make it," she gasped, half sobbing for air. "I thought you wouldn't be here."
"A fleet of Daleks couldn't keep me away," he said, grabbing her hand as another wave of pain wracked her body. "They're coming pretty close together," he added, worried.
"That's why I'm in delivery, you oaf!" she choked out through the contraction.
Ian winced at her grip, but had the grace not to begrudge her temper. After all, he'd had the easy part of this-aside from a few bouts of sympathetic morning sickness and several midnight ice cream runs, he'd really suffered very little through her pregnancy.
"Mr. Chesterton, you're going to have to wait outside," the nurse said as she began to prep the tray.
"No!" Barbara clutched his hand tightly, begging with her eyes. "Please, don't go." Another contraction hit, and her fingers clamped like steel around his.
"I'm sorry, Barbara," the nurse said. "Hospital rules. Only hospital staff in the delivery room."
"It's barbaric," she cried. "Please, let him stay."
"It's all right, my love." Ian leaned over to kiss her through the mask. "Be brave. I'm here, just outside those doors. You know me. If anything happens, it would take the entire army to stop me from getting to you. I love you so much."
Tears were mingling with the perspiration on her face and neck, but her eyes were locked with his, and she knew that, rules be damned, Ian would kill to be at her side if need be. Without a word, she steadied her wobbling lips, sniffed deeply, and nodded for him to go.
"I'll be right outside that door," he reminded her as the rest of the delivery staff entered, hurrying him out as Barbara went into the final stages of labor.
Support
The Doctor adjusted his mask, smiling against the clean fabric as he watched Ian leave, stubbornly complaining the entire way as the nurses shusshed him out of the delivery room. He'd forgotten how barbaric hospital procedures could be in this day.
As he made his way into the main delivery room, he nodded to the medical technician. "I'm Doctor Smith. I consulted on Dr. Chesterton's case, and am here to observe the delivery. For purposes of my research."
The tech nodded, and continued on with her duties. Barbara was in the throes of a particularly nasty contraction, and it was everything for the Doctor not to intervene. It was important that she not know it was him--why, he wasn't sure. But he wanted her to go on with her life, with their lives, unmuddied by thoughts of space and time and surly old Time Lords.
When the contraction subsided, he moved to her side, catching her eyes as she gasped for breath. "That was very well done, my dear," he said.
"Doctor...Dr. Smith?" She smiled tiredly, then groaned as another contraction began. Grabbing his offered hand, she howled as the baby made way, as it were, for final descent. "I'm so glad you're here," she choked out in the increasingly small spaces between contractions. "Doctor, I'm so grateful you're here."
She looked up at him, his brave Barbara, never one to shirk from adventure, never one to back down from a challenge, and the Doctor felt a surge of pride he'd not known for centuries. "I wouldn't miss it for the world, Barbara."
The Future
"Push," Ian urged, and Barbara followed his lead. The baby's head was just beginning to show. "Don't forget to breathe."
"How could I possibly…forget…Ow!"
The midwife nudged Ian out of the way, and nodded again to William. Anne had insisted on a home birth, and on including not only her husband, but the future grandparents she now considered her own mother and father. Barbara and Ian had found the entire process was exhilarating.
"You're doing wonderfully, sweetheart," Barbara encouraged, trying desperately not to remember her own pain so many years ago when she gave birth to her first and only child. "You can do this."
William was a wreck, a total wreck, but he held himself well as his wife struggled to bring their daughter into the world. When it was finally done, when the cord was cut and the baby was safe and clean and snug, it was as if all the world had stopped. Ian and Barbara watched their children, their grandchild, with the same wonder they had felt all those years before when they stepped out of that little blue box into a world of mystery and danger. Ian kissed his wife of thirty years, happy and content as their family welcomed its newest member. "Oh, the stories we're going to tell that child," he whispered.
"She won't believe them any more than her father did," Barbara teased.
"But we'll tell them anyway, won't we?" He chuckled, then held his breath as William brought their granddaughter over and placed her tenderly into Barbara's waiting arms.
"Hello, Grandma. Meet Elizabeth Barbara Chesterton. Your new granddaughter.
The End
Author: minerva_fan
Pairing/Characters: Ian/Barbara, Three
Rating: PG
Word count: 6,300-ish words
Summary: Adjusting to life back on Earth isn't easy for Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton.
Notes: Written for dynapink in the the_chestertons ficathon, who wanted early married life with the Chestertons, and a possible encounter with a future Doctor. Thanks to livii for her encouragement when I hit a roadblock even Barbara couldn't smash through with a lorry.
A/N: Updated 3/27/2008 to include a new scene that had to be in there. Thanks to fey_spirit for suggesting it. (Hint: It's almost at the very end.)
Gossip
The wedding was just for show, they said. Recompense to their families for the crime of eloping two years earlier.
It was a good enough cover story to explain their absence, and it at least changed the tone of the gossip Barbara and Ian were enduring. Now instead of the teachers who had run off to live together in sin, they were the foolish pair who had eloped and traveled the world in an adventurous, but ultimately selfish bout of romance. She had attained certain notoriety amongst the women at the school, garnering amused and knowing glances from the married teachers, and reactions ranging from jealousy to outright admiration from the unmarried ones. Barbara Wright, by sheer virtue of gossip, had gone from a rather dull, ordinary schoolteacher to a Woman of Mystery.
She tried to wear it well, tried to bear up not only under the strain of gossip but Ian’s complete and utter inability to be upset by it. He seemed to think it funny, knowing as he did that they couldn’t have been better chaperoned, that their adventures were hardly of the amorous type, and that their love - far from being a passionate whim - had grown slowly and deeply over the course of two very difficult years. Ian took it better, or hid it better, and when he held her in the evenings, alone in their flat, it was his strong arms that got her through the indignity of it all.
It was funny, of course, in an ironic sort of way. It was actually, when she thought about it calmly, quite hilarious. But as she stood before the seamstress’s mirror, surrounded by the accoutrements of the trade, the cloth and thread, pins and patterns, admiring the delicate lace and satins of the oh so traditional gown, Barbara Soon To Be Chesterton struggled against resentment and a sense of unfairness. She hated the pretend nonchalance she was forced to assume, hated the fact that any hint of typical bride-like jitters was greeted with smug indifference by family and friends. “Oh, it’s just a formality, Barb! You’ve already done the hard part.” Winks and smiles abounded, as if their “dirty little secret” were now a communal thing, easily accessible to bridesmaids and schoolboys alike.
She wanted to be breathless with excitement, heart fluttering at every detail, each flower, each frill. She wanted to worry about the wedding party, about her hair, about her shoes, about what she should wear to bed on their first night together.
That was the biggest irony of it all. With all the innuendo and gossip skuttering about, despite all the winks and chuckles, the irony was that Ian and Barbara had actually decided to wait for their honeymoon. This man who was her downfall as a Nice British Woman had never slept with her, except in the actual sense of the word. “The hard part” was very much ahead of her, and the very thought of consummating her relationship with Ian had her stomach in knots.
Barbara laughed at the image in white staring back at her, a deer in the proverbial headlights. Reaching over, she took a fold of cloth the seamstress had left on the stand and tucked it wickedly under the dress to form a very specific-looking bulge over her abdomen.
“It would serve them right,” she told the mirror, then laughed again at her own silliness.
Nerves
“I thought it was bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding,” Ian asked, making room on the couch for his bride to be. She eased under the blanket, snuggling up next to him in what had become a delightful habit for them. Ian breathed in her cinnamon scent, her fresh, wholesome Barbara-ness, and wondered again exactly what he’d done to deserve all this happiness.
“It’s only on the day of the wedding, and only in the gown,” she yawned, her words warm against his throat. “Besides, I thought you weren’t old-fashioned.”
“Being old-fashioned would have meant spending tonight at Roger’s place, instead of here with you-“
“Ghastly!”
“And it would have meant missing your performance tonight.”
Barbara glared at him, her eyes slightly hooded and dark with annoyance. “Every bride is guaranteed, by law and tradition, at least one emotional breakdown on the day before her wedding. And if the Universe didn’t want that tradition to be upheld, the Universe would not have allowed our florist to put the wrong color of carnations into the arrangements and not tell me until this afternoon.”
Ian chuckled, loving this side of his practical bride. Barbara was Barbara, so much more capable and powerful than anyone in this place knew, but he rather enjoyed her moments of vulnerability. “You know,” he teased, kissing the top of her head. “I rather envy normal bride-grooms and their ignorance of this sordid process.”
“A normal bride-groom would be sleeping off a bender at his best mate’s right now, instead of listening to his fiancée wax eloquent on her floral troubles,” she said ruefully. “You’re right to be envious of them. I’m envious of them.”
“I can’t think of any place I’d rather be,” he whispered, pulling her tightly against him. “Floral troubles or not.”
She laughed softly, kissing the line of his jaw. “You know, we haven’t even said our vows yet, and we’re already an old married couple.”
“Complete with household budget, chores, and responsibilities,” he added. “All we need is a dog and a baby, and we’re living the dream.” To his utter amusement, Barbara blushed at the mention of a baby. She could be so unpredictable sometimes. Utterly practical, unfazed by Daleks and Neanderthals alike, yet she could be flustered by the mere mention of having a baby with him. “We do intend to have a baby at some point, don’t we?” Now he was really teasing her, because of course they intended to have children. They were mature adults, and they'd had more than one frank discussion on the matter. "I mean, we do intend to try, yes?"
She blushed again, but had the dignity not to avert her eyes. “Of course, I’d like that very much.” The look in her eyes showed him quite clearly that she intended to enjoy the process of trying as often as possible.
Now Ian blushed, because Barbara's skin was soft under his gaze, and her body was clearly outlined in the thin gown she wore. He was holding her closely enough to remember exactly what would be happening tomorrow night, just down the hall in the tiny bedroom they used in shifts at the moment, an egalitarian division of sleeping arrangements designed to maintain the appearance of a married couple without ever actually breaching their unspoken sense of propriety.
And he realized, terribly, without warning, that he wanted to be with her right in that very moment, their own personal morality be damned, and that he didn’t know how he was going to get through the day tomorrow, and all those people smiling and his friends winking at him like he already knew the taste of her skin and the feel of her body.
Ian knew in a flash of insight that that was the real reason he’d refused a bachelor party. If one of them said even the smallest thing, made even the most innocent joke about the wedding night or the “fact” that it would be business as usual, he might hit them. These last few months had been torture for him, for them both, so close, so in love, and yet choosing in the most frank and mature fashion to wait, to do it right, to hold at least to one social convention.
And the irony of it was that neither of them had made the decision out of regard for social mores or guilt. It was simply a choice they made, a dignity they wanted, an honesty between them that marked the legitimacy of their real marriage, the one that started tomorrow, the one for them alone, regardless of what they told the world.
“It’s going to be perfect,” he said to her, one hand flat against her hip, the other lifting her chin to gaze into her dark eyes. “The wedding, that is. All this work, all this effort-I never would have understood it had we had a traditional courtship. The wedding, the flowers, your dress, your hair-all of it is going to be perfect, and our life is going to be good. I promise you, darling. I’ll make it good.”
And he smiled, because Barbara gave him that look she’d given him on Skaro, when she’d jumped that chasm, when he’d held her so tightly. It was a look of complete and utter trust, and the mere sight of it made his heart melt inside his chest.
Practice
Barbara yawned contentedly, feeling the tendrils of her dark curls playing against her cheek. The storm had destroyed her hair, drenching them both as they laughed their way from the car to the flat, blissful and silly in the rain. In desperation, she'd washed the whole thing out, combing out the last of the style and taking her chances that he'd find the unruly mess of waves that remained primitive and exotic for their wedding night.
She needn't have worried. The look Ian had given her as she'd emerged into the bedroom would have sent any woman's ego floating out of the solar system. Shyness had given way to lust, and all hints of exhaustion from the last few weeks had dissipated in the sheer joy of finally truly being together as true husband and wife.
She yawned again, fighting sleep as Ian dozed lightly next to her. Normally, she would be cataloguing her experiences, committing them to memory in order to have them later. Normally, after a day of such activity, Barbara's thoughts would be abuzz with memories, sights and sounds and scents intermingling in her conscious mind, weaving a tapestry to enjoy when she was older.
But Barbara didn't want to think. Her memories would be there for her, she knew, and now was not the time for weaving or cataloguing. Now was the time for rest, for listening to the thud thud thud of her husband's heart beating just below her cheek.
She was amazed at how soothing a heartbeat could be, how comforting the scent of human skin, how precious the warmth of another body was. She brushed her lips against Ian's bare chest, thrilled with the shiver her touch evoked in him. Darting her tongue just a little, she tickled his collarbone, grazed her teeth against his flesh.
"We're not going to make a baby that way," he mumbled, indicating the used prophylactic in the dustbin next to the bed.
"We said we'd try," she scolded, a smile playing against her lips. "We didn't say we'd try tonight." She knew he was teasing her. In truth, they'd discussed their future quite clearly over the last few months. Children were definitely in their plans, but neither was ready to take that burden up just yet.
"Practice runs?" He opened his eyes, winking at her and sending blushes all through her body with his suggestive smile.
"We should get the process completely down before we…" She couldn't complete the sentence because he was tickling her, just behind the ear, tugging gently at her hair and biting her earlobe. "We should…"
"We will," he assured her and pulled her back under the covers for another practice session.
Loss
She'd been acting so strangely, and he blew it. He should have seen it for what it was, for what it might have been.
Barbara was his wife, his best friend, his other half. When she hurt, he hurt. When she was afraid, he was there to help her carry her burden.
"Idiot," he muttered to himself, pushing through the door toward the room where they'd put her. "Idiot, idiot, idiot."
"Mr. Chesterton?" It was a young nurse who stopped, blonde and no older than twenty or so. She could be one of his former students, but Ian's mind wasn't on the past, or students, or recognizing faces. His mind was on one person only.
"My wife?"
"She's in with the doctor. It will be a few minutes before you can see her." She hesitated, her eyes averting slightly. "Did they tell you…?"
He nodded grimly, still in shock, still in dismay at what he'd learned. Barbara had been rushed from her classroom to hospital early in the afternoon. Barbara had started bleeding. Barbara had fainted in class.
Barbara had lost the baby.
It was the first he'd ever heard of the pregnancy.
Ian rested his hand against the wall, a leaning, angular shadow against the harsh hospital light. Tears wanted to come. Rage wanted to come.
He'd fought the Daleks, the Voord, the Zarbi…nothing had ever frightened him more, nothing had ever triggered the surge of outrage in his heart.
His child was dead. His wife was struggling for her life.
This was not why he had fought. This was not why he had survived so many trials, so many tribulations. He couldn't lose her now, now that he finally had her in his life. He couldn't go back to his lonely existence again, now that he'd known her love.
"Mr. Chesterton." It wasn't a voice he recognized, and he didn't bother turning around. "Son, look at me."
Something in the voice caught his attention, something commanding. He turned to see an older gentleman, white wavy hair, prominent nose, kind eyes. He had the air of authority about him, and Ian found himself gratefully relinquishing control of the moment. "Are you a doctor?"
The man nodded gravely, but said nothing.
"My wife?"
"Will be fine," the doctor assured him. "She will recover, but she will need you now more than ever. She will need your love, son."
Ian fought back the tears. "I know." But he didn't know how he would find the strength. He didn't know how he would find the courage. The end of the world was one thing, but this was his world, his and Barbara's. "I love her," he choked.
"I know."
The door to Barbara's room opened, and a dark-haired physician walked out. "Mr. Chesterton?" When Ian nodded, he motioned towards the door. "You can see her now. I've given her a sedative, so she may be a little drowsy."
He didn't wait for the rest of it. He was in the door, across the tiny room, at her bedside. Barbara looked so small, pale and weak. She blinked once, then took his proffered hand. Tears began to flow down her cheeks, but she did not sob. "I wanted to wait until I was sure," she whispered, and Ian began to cry again, sitting in the chair next to the bed and holding her hand against his lips. "I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry."
"I love you," he said simply, because it was all that mattered.
Blood
Barbara found it impossible to believe she could become any less patient with the situation, but as she waited for the doctor to bring in the results of her most recent blood test, she actually felt herself getting more restless with each breath.
“Idiotic,” she grumbled to no one in particular. Her bag was at her feet, opened to reveal a folded stack of papers she’d not had the energy to mark. She knew she shouldn’t be wasting time, that she could very well have already gotten these essays done had she been more responsible. But she had even less patience for student essays these days than she did for doctors. “Barbarians, morons, and liars.”
She wasn’t really talking to anyone. There was no one there to talk to. After thirty minutes of waiting, Ian, bless his heart, had gone in search of someone in charge. If he was as frustrated as she, at least he had the decency not to show it around her. She was grateful for his restraint, although she half suspected he might get more than a little bit pushy with the staff once he was out of her earshot.
Barbara reached down and idly pulled one of the pages from her purse. It was on the French Revolution, and the very first few paragraphs were enough to discourage her. “Well, Margaret Standish, you’ve digested the accepted curriculum adequately,” she said with a tinge of disgust in her voice as she read on. “You will undoubtedly do very well in school, and learn absolutely nothing about what really happened during the Revolution.”
The merciful click of the opening door saved her from any more reading. Ian walked in, followed by Doctor Malik, a dark-skinned young man in a white lab coat. Her husband immediately came to her side, taking her offered hand and sitting in the chair next to her. “Sorry it took me so long. I had to get a little testy,” he whispered, taking the paper from her lap and tucking it back into the bag.
“Thank you for waiting, Mrs. Chesterton. I was checking with the lab when your husband…” He cast a discouraging look at Ian, who had the grace to smile and rise above the young man’s arrogance. “Spoke to me. As I began to tell him, we’ve run a comprehensive battery of tests on your blood, and as yet have found no conventional causes for the imbalance you’re experiencing.”
“And I told him, of course, that he needs to run more tests,” Ian inserted.
Barbara groaned slightly, but grudgingly agreed with him. Two miscarriages in just over a year had pretty much ruled out the idea of an easy pregnancy, and she worried that maybe she might never have children. She'd spent their first anniversary huddled in the loo, sicker than she'd ever remembered being, fearing correctly that her second pregnancy would end no better than the first. The fact that medical science couldn’t seem to find a cause for her hormonal disorder, couldn’t even fully define it, was more than frustrating. It was terrifying.
Malik seemed unfazed by Ian’s words as he shuffled through her medical file. “When the conventional fails to produce results, we must turn to more unconventional methods.” He closed the file and looked up at Ian and Barbara. “I would like to refer your case to a colleague of mine, Dr. John Smith. He’s attached to the government, but has occasionally assisted in civil matters of interest. He’s not a medical doctor per se, but seems to have a knack for resolving unorthodox cases.”
Ian and Barbara exchanged quick glances at the name. It was one of the Doctor’s aliases. And while neither could imagine him working for the British government, the unorthodox part certainly fit. It was Ian who recovered first. “Yes, yes, of course, we’d like to see the Doctor, if you think he could help.”
“I think he couldn’t hurt. Frankly, Mr. and Mrs. Chesterton, I’m at a loss.” He leaned over his desk to pick up the receiver on his telephone. “I took the liberty of asking him to meet us here today, on the chance that you would agree. Elizabeth, will you please ask Dr. Smith to join us? Thank you.” He replaced the receiver, smiling encouragement at the couple before him. “I know it seems impossible right now, but I assure you. Dr. Smith is one of the most brilliant researchers I’ve ever had the honor of meeting.”
Barbara held her breath. Her skin was tingling, that tell-tale sensation she always got when something enormous was about to happen. It was him. She just knew it. She knew it in her heart. The Doctor had come to help. For the first time in months, she felt hope.
That hope dashed to the floor when the door opened and a tall man in his late 50’s strode in. Wavy white hair, prominent nose. He was handsome, in a dashing older man sort of way. Instead of a lab coat, he wore a fitted velvet smoking jacket and ruffled shirt. He exuded charm and was by no means anything like what she would have called eccentric.
And he was not, by any stretch of the imagination, their Doctor.
“Hello, Barbara. Hello, Ian. I’m John Smith.” She kept her face a mask, and smiled politely as he introduced himself to them. Help had not come, and all she could look forward to was another battery of useless tests. The older man eyed her narrowly, seeming to see straight through the falsity into her very heart. "You seem disappointed, Mrs. Chesterton?"
Barbara opened her mouth, but found she could not speak. She turned helplessly to Ian, who merely said, "We thought you might be…a friend of ours."
The doctor, if insulted at all, didn't show it in his expression. "It's a common name," he said, and left it at that.
“Doctor,” Ian began. She could see him struggling, the same struggle she had, to hide his disappointment. She’d been so sure, so positively sure, the Doctor would come. Could her instincts be so wrong? “Thank you for coming to talk to us,” her husband continued. “I know it’s out of your way.”
“Nonsense, my boy,” the doctor said, opening the file. “I’ve reviewed the case closely, and I have a few questions.” He looked up, piercing eyes studying them. “I’m told you and your husband traveled recently, Mrs. Chesterton. Did you by any chance travel to primitive locales?”
Barbara looked at Ian. How primitive did he want? Prehistoric times? Ancient Rome? The Crusades? “Yes,” she said demurely. “Yes, you could call some of the locations we visited primitive.”
He nodded, clucking his tongue softly. “I suspected so. I’m sure my colleagues have provided excellent treatment, but this is a matter for a researcher, not a physician.”
“What exactly is your degree in, Doctor Smith?” Ian was showing the telltale signs of skepticism, his arms folded across his chest, his head slightly aslant.
The doctor smiled mysteriously. “Oh, I hold many degrees, young man, in various and sundry disciplines.” He turned back to Barbara. “Now, did you experience any other symptoms, any other ailments since you returned from your travels?”
“No,” Barbara said simply. “I’ve felt perfectly healthy, not even a cold.” I just keep miscarrying my babies, she added silently.
He took her hand, gently, patiently, as if he could hear the sadness in her unspoken thoughts. “I know this has been difficult, Barbara, and I am the last person on Earth who wants to ask you to give more blood, but-“
“But you’re going to ask me for more blood,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Of course, I’ll give it. If you think you can help…”
“I would like to run a few tests of my own. It’s possible your problem is microbial, and if we can isolate the cause of the imbalance, we may be able to come up with a treatment. I only wish I’d found out sooner. Perhaps, we could have solved this mystery before you and your husband suffered so dear a loss.” He smiled at her, and Barbara felt it again, the feeling that the Doctor should be here, that he would know what to do. But this man exuded confidence, and despite herself, she felt a little trickle of hope coming back into her heart.
Career
“I don’t understand why you stay if you’re so damned miserable.” It was an old argument, and one that was getting older by the moment. He understood of course that Barbara had it harder than he did. The discrepancy between what they had experienced and what she was forced to teach grated on her, and any attempts she made to suggest a different approach were treated as near blasphemy by the school administrators. Each month she grew more and more restless, yet any time he suggested she quit, Ian was met with an icy stare and rolled eyes. “We can afford it, Barbara,” he continued his losing battle. “I’ve done the math, checked and rechecked our finances. We can live on my salary, especially if I get the headmaster position. You can-“
“What? Stay home? Be a traditional housewife, knit scarves a mile long, host garden parties?” She shook her head, knocking the last of the papers off the table with a flourish. She’d swept most of them away minutes earlier in a fit of disgust, thus prompting the argument. “Oh, I’m sure you’d love that.”
“Don’t be this way, Barbara. You know I value your career. You’ve a sharp mind, and have worked very hard. I hate to see you in this environment.” It was true, every word of it. Barbara, the Barbara he knew, the Barbara he’d fallen in love with, thrived on challenge, on freedom. To be stifled, socially and intellectually, was death to her, and he was watching her die more and more every day she went into that school and taught their lies. If he had a magic wand, he would make it better, he’d make them open their minds, he’d find a way for her to express all the amazing and wondrous things they’d seen in their travels. But he wasn’t a magician, and try as he might, they still lived in a fairly provincial area of a fairly backwards world and worked in a profession not exactly known for its innovation and spirit of inquiry.
She paused, seeing the expression on his face, the honesty in his eyes, and sighed deeply. “I’ve been a regular pill lately, haven’t I?”
“I think it’s the booster shots,” he said, talking about the treatment regimen. The injections suggested by Dr. Smith were working, miraculously, bringing her blood hormone level back to almost normal in a matter of weeks. But the shots took their toll on her, reducing her some nights to tears as her muscles ached and her cramps grew exponentially through the course of the treatment. “Thank goodness there are only two left. The cure seems to be much more painful than the illness, doesn’t it?”
“But hopefully, once it’s done, I’ll be able to carry a pregnancy to term.” Her voice was soft, sad. Neither of them ever said it, but it seemed that their travels with the Doctor had cost Barbara the most dearly. Some ancient microbe had wreaked havoc on her reproductive system, reality had destroyed her faith in history, and two years of adventure had made the life of a British female in the mid 1960s seem tedious and stifling by comparison. It was cruel, he thought for the thousandth time, to have one’s mind opened so much, and then to have to forcefully shut it in order to survive.
“You need to quit teaching,” he murmured. “They don’t deserve you. You should be writing history books, for heaven’s sake.”
“Ian…”
“You know more, you’ve seen more, than any of those stuffy old bastards.”
“So have you,” she said, moving over to his side, pulling him down to sit next to her on the couch. “You’ve seen things that would boggle most modern scientists’ minds, but you don’t seem to have the same trouble I do.”
“Well, it’s different in the sciences. They expect a certain degree of audacity. You may be called a heretic by the mainstream, but if you stick it out long enough and provide enough empirical data to support your crazy ideas, you can earn at least a modicum of respect from the scientific community.”
She kissed his cheek, snuggling into his arms. “Historians don't like heretics. They don't want truth when the lies are more comfortable and support their journal papers." She laughed at Ian's rolled eyes, grateful for her husband's good humor, grateful that he allowed her to vent without judgment or scolding. "Besides, there's no proof. Most of the eras we visited didn’t have adequate records, and even if they did, the records were usually maintained by the power figures, and often tilted to show the approved point of view. Then you add centuries of corruption by various parties-the churches, political factions, even scholars themselves-and you have no reliable data to prove anything. And even if you can find reliable data, half the people won't believe it because it flies in the face of their reliable data.” She pouted. “The fact is, I can’t even prove that our experiences were typical. All we have is one piece of a very complex puzzle.”
“It’s frustrating,” he agreed. “Somebody ought to do some scholarly research, really turn the academic world on its ears.” Her eyes rolled slightly, but at least she grinned. “Of course, that person would have to be attached to a university, would have to have a really stunning thesis to pursue…say, on the Aztecs…ancient Rome...”
“Stop. I’m not going back to school.”
“You are wasting yourself at Coal Hill…”
“And once I have my last injection, I plan to work very hard on getting extremely pregnant.” She teased him with her nose, nuzzling into the crook of his neck. Their arguments could be loud and frustrating, but making up seemed almost worth it. “You will need to help me with that one, my darling husband.”
“All the more reason to start on your studies now.” He took her shoulders firmly in hand, facing her with a serious expression. “Barbara, I mean it. You are dying at that school, and no amount of arguing will convince me otherwise. I know you can do this. If anyone can turn the world of history on its ear, my lovely heretic, it’s you.”
She sighed, leaning slightly to kiss his hand on her shoulder. “I will think about it.”
“That’s all I ask. Really think about it,” he added, pulling her into a warm embrace.
“Okay, I’ll really think about it.”
He smiled, enjoying the feel of her in his arms, and knowing that he wasn’t going to let her back down. She was going to be happy, even if he had to force her.
Schedules
"Ian, I have an 8 am meeting with Jim Gleick, and then I'll be at the library until three." She hurried through the flat, calling to her husband as he continued to get ready for work. "Will you be able to stop off for eggs after school? I'm making a cake this weekend, and we're almost out."
"Sorry, love, I've got teacher evaluations this afternoon."
"Damn," Barbara said, searching madly for her keys. "Okay, I'll…" She did a quick mental rundown, trying to find some place in her schedule to fit the grocer. "I'll find a way. You will be at La Trattoria at seven, right?"
Ian walked through the door, his shirt half buttoned, tie hanging loosely across his chest. "Of course I will be at La Trattoria tonight. Seven sharp, with roses in one hand, and a bottle of vino in the other for my beautiful wife on our third anniversary."
She paused, amazed that the sight of him in this state could still turn her on. She brushed the curls from her face, tucking them behind one ear as she gazed appreciatively at her husband. "Happy anniversary, darling," she whispered as he crossed the room to kiss her. For the briefest of moments, her nerves calmed, her pulse returned to normal, and all was right with the world. She kissed him again, slowly, deeply, and sighed as he held her tightly. Content, she rested her head against his chest. "Ahh, now my day can begin."
"Not without those," he murmured, pointing behind her to where her keys lay on the floor just below the cabinet door.
"My hero!" she cried. "I've been scouring this place for ten minutes. I thought I'd be late."
"Ye Olde Academe driving you mad, eh?" he teased, watching her derriere with pleasure as she bent over to retrieve the keys.
"Who," she asked, standing upright and reaching for her handbag. "Whoever thought taking the accelerated course was a good idea?"
"I seem to remember a scraggle-toothed soothsayer cornering us in a pub near Ealing and telling us not to waste our time with the standard program, that you could do this in a year."
Barbara grabbed the labels of his shirt and pulled him into a hard kiss. "When I've gone completely mad, I want you to find that soothsayer and pummel him on my behalf. That's my final wish, got it?"
"Absolutely. Now off." He patted her bottom as she headed to the door. "And don't worry about the eggs. I'll bring them home before heading to the restaurant."
"I love you," she called behind her. "My hero!"
Ian laughed, then set about trying to find just a bit of breakfast for himself before he headed off to school and his duties as the youngest headmaster in the history of Coal Hill School.
Beginning
"Idiot," he muttered to himself, pushing through the door toward the room where they'd put her. "Idiot, idiot, idiot." Ian couldn't believe he'd missed the call. He'd warned everyone, on pain of death, to bring any call concerning his wife to his immediate attention. And now…
A nurse stopped him. "Can I help you, sir?" she said. She was one of the older ones, the battleaxe types who wasn't going to give him an inch unless he belonged there.
"Ian Chesterton. My wife Barbara is in labor."
Her entire demeanor softened, and a smile creased her unhandsome face. "Ah, so you made it at last. They're prepping her for delivery. Down that hall, take the elevator to the second floor, then turn left. Tell the charge nurse who you are, and don't be slow about it." She shook her head as he sprinted down the hall. "First-timers," she laughed, then went back about her business.
Ian was out of breath when he finally made it. He was told in no uncertain terms to scrub up and hurry, and when he finally made it to Barbara's side she was in the throes of a particularly nasty contraction. "Barbara," he murmured through the mask. He'd seen so many things, so many horrors in his travels. But the sight of his wife in such pain, even a miraculous pain like childbirth, was almost overwhelming.
She groaned, catching his eyes, holding them until the worst of it was gone. When she finished, collapsing against the bed, he came to her side, putting his gloved hand on her damp forehead. "I thought you wouldn't make it," she gasped, half sobbing for air. "I thought you wouldn't be here."
"A fleet of Daleks couldn't keep me away," he said, grabbing her hand as another wave of pain wracked her body. "They're coming pretty close together," he added, worried.
"That's why I'm in delivery, you oaf!" she choked out through the contraction.
Ian winced at her grip, but had the grace not to begrudge her temper. After all, he'd had the easy part of this-aside from a few bouts of sympathetic morning sickness and several midnight ice cream runs, he'd really suffered very little through her pregnancy.
"Mr. Chesterton, you're going to have to wait outside," the nurse said as she began to prep the tray.
"No!" Barbara clutched his hand tightly, begging with her eyes. "Please, don't go." Another contraction hit, and her fingers clamped like steel around his.
"I'm sorry, Barbara," the nurse said. "Hospital rules. Only hospital staff in the delivery room."
"It's barbaric," she cried. "Please, let him stay."
"It's all right, my love." Ian leaned over to kiss her through the mask. "Be brave. I'm here, just outside those doors. You know me. If anything happens, it would take the entire army to stop me from getting to you. I love you so much."
Tears were mingling with the perspiration on her face and neck, but her eyes were locked with his, and she knew that, rules be damned, Ian would kill to be at her side if need be. Without a word, she steadied her wobbling lips, sniffed deeply, and nodded for him to go.
"I'll be right outside that door," he reminded her as the rest of the delivery staff entered, hurrying him out as Barbara went into the final stages of labor.
Support
The Doctor adjusted his mask, smiling against the clean fabric as he watched Ian leave, stubbornly complaining the entire way as the nurses shusshed him out of the delivery room. He'd forgotten how barbaric hospital procedures could be in this day.
As he made his way into the main delivery room, he nodded to the medical technician. "I'm Doctor Smith. I consulted on Dr. Chesterton's case, and am here to observe the delivery. For purposes of my research."
The tech nodded, and continued on with her duties. Barbara was in the throes of a particularly nasty contraction, and it was everything for the Doctor not to intervene. It was important that she not know it was him--why, he wasn't sure. But he wanted her to go on with her life, with their lives, unmuddied by thoughts of space and time and surly old Time Lords.
When the contraction subsided, he moved to her side, catching her eyes as she gasped for breath. "That was very well done, my dear," he said.
"Doctor...Dr. Smith?" She smiled tiredly, then groaned as another contraction began. Grabbing his offered hand, she howled as the baby made way, as it were, for final descent. "I'm so glad you're here," she choked out in the increasingly small spaces between contractions. "Doctor, I'm so grateful you're here."
She looked up at him, his brave Barbara, never one to shirk from adventure, never one to back down from a challenge, and the Doctor felt a surge of pride he'd not known for centuries. "I wouldn't miss it for the world, Barbara."
The Future
"Push," Ian urged, and Barbara followed his lead. The baby's head was just beginning to show. "Don't forget to breathe."
"How could I possibly…forget…Ow!"
The midwife nudged Ian out of the way, and nodded again to William. Anne had insisted on a home birth, and on including not only her husband, but the future grandparents she now considered her own mother and father. Barbara and Ian had found the entire process was exhilarating.
"You're doing wonderfully, sweetheart," Barbara encouraged, trying desperately not to remember her own pain so many years ago when she gave birth to her first and only child. "You can do this."
William was a wreck, a total wreck, but he held himself well as his wife struggled to bring their daughter into the world. When it was finally done, when the cord was cut and the baby was safe and clean and snug, it was as if all the world had stopped. Ian and Barbara watched their children, their grandchild, with the same wonder they had felt all those years before when they stepped out of that little blue box into a world of mystery and danger. Ian kissed his wife of thirty years, happy and content as their family welcomed its newest member. "Oh, the stories we're going to tell that child," he whispered.
"She won't believe them any more than her father did," Barbara teased.
"But we'll tell them anyway, won't we?" He chuckled, then held his breath as William brought their granddaughter over and placed her tenderly into Barbara's waiting arms.
"Hello, Grandma. Meet Elizabeth Barbara Chesterton. Your new granddaughter.
The End