Fic: "War to End Wars," Part One
Oct. 21st, 2008 12:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
watch_is_me'Verse: Personal canon.
Words: 502.
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 one of a long story I've got drafted and am writing up this week, on how that life might have gone.
He stood at the door to his office, one hand on the doorframe, watching Tim go, and she saw it in him, that lost quality, the sadness and uncertainty at the back of his eyes, as though there were something he should do, should say, should remember, but just couldn’t. Just barely couldn’t. As though he could change the world if he just had the words, words that he could never find.
Her heart went out to him, as it always did, to the strange man she had married—tall, thin, searching and never finding. She walked down the hall to his doorway, put a hand on his shoulder; and he turned, startled, unaware of her presence until the touch.
John. It’s his choice. You helped him make it.
It’s England. Their home. Their whole world. They feel they have to.
She reached up and took his hand where it had come to rest on the back of his neck, moved in close, held him. Felt the beat of his heart through the fabric of his suit, and counted her own heartbeat off by it.
They love it. They love it because of you and your lessons and this school and the sky outside and their friends and the lives they’ve lived here, the scrapes they’ve gotten into. It’s not small to them. It’s everything. Their universe.
She kissed him. He returned the kiss, quiet, gentle, heartfelt, and they returned to their work, the teacher and the nurse and the war beginning around them.
Part two is here.
Words: 502.
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 one of a long story I've got drafted and am writing up this week, on how that life might have gone.
He stood at the door to his office, one hand on the doorframe, watching Tim go, and she saw it in him, that lost quality, the sadness and uncertainty at the back of his eyes, as though there were something he should do, should say, should remember, but just couldn’t. Just barely couldn’t. As though he could change the world if he just had the words, words that he could never find.
Her heart went out to him, as it always did, to the strange man she had married—tall, thin, searching and never finding. She walked down the hall to his doorway, put a hand on his shoulder; and he turned, startled, unaware of her presence until the touch.
John. It’s his choice. You helped him make it.
I know. Oh, I know.The pain was there, in his eyes, the restless helplessness that made him toss books down on tables and pace their bedroom at night, running his hands through his mad hair—ever since the death of the Archduke, ever since the start of the war. Yes, even before that, he’d been distracted, at one remove from the world around him, but, now, it was worse. So much worse, and she worried for him.
He’s so young. He has so much promise. His poetry…have you seen it? He won’t show it to the boys, but it’s… He has a gift. A gift for peace, not for war.He put his hands on her shoulders, looked downed at her, and the distance between them ached. Oh, she loved him. Loved him and loved that she could love him, after her first loss. Loved him for resurrecting that part of her—loved him both in spite of and for his strangeness, his wandering mind.
It’s England. Their home. Their whole world. They feel they have to.
It’s so small, England. Too small. Too small a world to die for, why can’t they see…He ran a hand back through his hair, that familiar gesture, one that could mean so many things, and she saw the frustration in him. Such an expressive man, with his mobile face and flying hands, but so often he tripped over his own words, left his sentences half-finished, hanging in the air, as though they might find their meaning there.
She reached up and took his hand where it had come to rest on the back of his neck, moved in close, held him. Felt the beat of his heart through the fabric of his suit, and counted her own heartbeat off by it.
They love it. They love it because of you and your lessons and this school and the sky outside and their friends and the lives they’ve lived here, the scrapes they’ve gotten into. It’s not small to them. It’s everything. Their universe.
It shouldn’t be so small…I know, John. But it’s what they have.
She kissed him. He returned the kiss, quiet, gentle, heartfelt, and they returned to their work, the teacher and the nurse and the war beginning around them.
