Fic: "War to End Wars," Part Tres
Oct. 21st, 2008 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
watch_is_me'Verse: Personal canon.
Words: 365.
Prompt: Just me.
In my personal alternate universe canon thingie, the Doctor never reclaimed his human half in the equivalent of the "Human Nature" eps. So John Smith got to live his own, entirely mortal life. This is part three of a long story I've got drafted and am writing up this week, on how that life might have gone.
Part one is here and part two here.
Less than a year later, he left. His little Sarah, his Sarah Jane—Joan saw the pain in him, the sadness the separation brought him, would bring him, every moment he was away, as he left them at the station. She saw the way he held their baby, only a few months old, breathed in the sweet new scent of her hair, of her scalp, as though he could devour her, take her into himself, carry her within him, out into the battles he went to join.
He’d received a letter, several weeks earlier, a letter from one of his boys at the front. Peter Mackie, he said, did she remember Peter? The one eye a little bit lazy and the grin? A bold boy, always questioning.
Something in the letter had made him, finally, after months of reading the papers and his dark eyes watching her across a room, across the table at meals, choose the war. The letter, and Sarah Jane. Together. She knew that, felt it be to true, even though he would not tell her what the letter said.
He took it with him, to the war. He left his drafts and his full journals.
He laughed and kissed her one last time.
It meant so much to him to say that, she felt. The words were never casual, never simply a gesture, a form, a convention between husband and wife. They were always meant, and she wondered how he managed that. She loved him, of course, always, but she was only human and, some days, she said those same words, to him, without that force, that internal stop, the heart checked and the throat full, she sensed whenever he said them—said them to her, or whispered them, like a secret, to Sarah Jane.
But today… Today, her words felt like his.
I love you. Come back. I don’t want to be a widow again.
Part four is here.
Words: 365.
Prompt: Just me.
In my personal alternate universe canon thingie, the Doctor never reclaimed his human half in the equivalent of the "Human Nature" eps. So John Smith got to live his own, entirely mortal life. This is part three of a long story I've got drafted and am writing up this week, on how that life might have gone.
Less than a year later, he left. His little Sarah, his Sarah Jane—Joan saw the pain in him, the sadness the separation brought him, would bring him, every moment he was away, as he left them at the station. She saw the way he held their baby, only a few months old, breathed in the sweet new scent of her hair, of her scalp, as though he could devour her, take her into himself, carry her within him, out into the battles he went to join.
He’d received a letter, several weeks earlier, a letter from one of his boys at the front. Peter Mackie, he said, did she remember Peter? The one eye a little bit lazy and the grin? A bold boy, always questioning.
Something in the letter had made him, finally, after months of reading the papers and his dark eyes watching her across a room, across the table at meals, choose the war. The letter, and Sarah Jane. Together. She knew that, felt it be to true, even though he would not tell her what the letter said.
He took it with him, to the war. He left his drafts and his full journals.
Take care of them,he said.
I think they might be important.Oh, and here I was going to let Sarah use them for drawing paper.
He laughed and kissed her one last time.
I love you,he said.
It meant so much to him to say that, she felt. The words were never casual, never simply a gesture, a form, a convention between husband and wife. They were always meant, and she wondered how he managed that. She loved him, of course, always, but she was only human and, some days, she said those same words, to him, without that force, that internal stop, the heart checked and the throat full, she sensed whenever he said them—said them to her, or whispered them, like a secret, to Sarah Jane.
But today… Today, her words felt like his.
I love you. Come back. I don’t want to be a widow again.
Well, they say the third time’s the charm.Don’t. Come back.
I will. I promise.His eyes, as he left, said,
I have practiced leavetaking,and she wondered when.
