nevermoreraven: Photo of ravens sitting in rafters (Default)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: Teen
DISCLAIMER: Other people have actually read this one before the internet.  Yes, I know.  It's weird.
Summary: This is a rewrite of the Human Nature/Family of Blood two-parter, because I really liked Latimer.  It's long.  I liked it pretty well at the time, as did the other readers, so let's see how well it held up.  ...so far, so good.  also I actually bothered to tab for once on this one.
It's not finished, but it's fairly close.

 

Baines was in the woods when he’d seen the flash of green, and went to find the cause of the disturbance.  To be truthful, he believed that that new, odd schoolmate of his was somehow behind whatever this was, and it was a test of his courage.  He could just see Winters howling with laughter when he returned, scared through.

If he’d been here, the Doctor would have pointed out one of the oddest truths of all-alien invasions, strange occurrences, wars, whatever the cause of the scare might happen to be, humans were likely to ignore it, pretend that nothing happened, look the other direction, or, in a last-ditch attempt, run away as fast as they could.  Nothing wrong with the last one, he’d say.  Done it plenty of times himself.  As long as you were running and alive, you could fight back, somehow.  Even so, words existed, brilliant words as a matter of fact, to be said about sticking around and gathering intelligence.  As soon as you added someone likely to laugh or dares or the thought of looking silly in front of peers, however…well, the human race summoned up its courage pretty quickly.  It might have been that fact that led Baines to his doom, or perhaps it was always going to happen.  Whatever the case, Baines walked forward, drawn to his death.

When he touched the air, and there was a green flash outlining something, he got the feeling he should have turned back.  He didn’t, though.

It was when the Family told him to sit in the corner until they were ready to possess his body that he finally realized that Daniel Winters didn’t want to trick, hurt, or scare him.  He’d simply been telling the truth.  And the sorrow in his eyes was because he knew warning him was no good.  In the end, Jeremy took comfort in the fact that he would be mourned.  He even got the silly feeling that, in spirit, Daniel was here, holding his hand, reassuring him before he died.  It might have been childish, but there, crouched in that spaceship, it didn’t feel at all out of place.  And it made him feel better, to know that someone did, indeed, care whether he lived or died, and would remember him when he was gone.

When the end came, when it became time to pass on, Baines was ready, as ready as any mortal when it came time to die.

 

Baines crawled back in through the window, and Daniel knew it was too late.  The head was cocked on its side strangely, the movements slightly off, as if the current occupant of the body wasn’t completely comfortable with it.  It was the mark of an alien, who, if he had to be frank, wasn’t doing such a good job blending in with the local population.  Tim noticed and managed to conceal his gulp of fear before anyone noticed.  He went back to shining shoes almost immediately.

The alien sniffed in both Winters’ and Latimer’s directions.  Tim didn’t even bother to look up, though he managed to keep cool.  Daniel felt his pride swell.  This human wasn’t all bad.  And he’d make a good friend-and ally-in days to come.

As for him, he didn’t bother to try to look away.  He began singing to himself, “Is there a hero somewhere, someone who appears and saves the day…”  He’d been cheeky in the past, and if he didn’t stay that way, it would be more suspicious than trying to hide under the guise of someone who he wasn’t.  ‘Guess what I tried to do the last time I did this?’ he thought to himself wryly.

He met Baines’ eyes with a challenging look.  It was the gaze he used on people to warn them-hey, don’t mess with me.  You don’t want to get the results.

Baines smirked, but couldn’t win the staring contest.  Eventually, he looked away, disturbed by what he saw in those ancient, wise eyes.  If he’d been paying attention, all the essential clues were there.  ‘Let’s be completely truthful,’ he thought to himself, ‘…even Martha’s figuring it out before him, and, bright as she is, she’s a human.’

The complete lack of fear, the rude remarks that he sometimes made, the babbling, the knowledge…it was so obvious.  Staring Son-of-Mine in the face.  But Dan was certainly glad that he hadn’t made the connection.

Daniel amused himself by guessing why Baines hadn’t figured it out, and thought by the end of it that he’d come up with a fair conclusion.  Baines had only smelled one Time Lord.  He certainly hadn’t formed an extremely thorough encyclopedia entry of one.  He was relying solely on scent-and since he smelled somewhat similar, but different enough that he ‘couldn’t possibly’ be the same, Baines hadn’t made the connection yet.

And because of that, the Doctor lived another day.  After patting himself on the back, he drifted off into sleep.

 

One of the teachers was sick, and so Mr. Smith had to fill in on the maths portion of the curriculum in the morning.  The pupils were doing their work fairly quietly, which was good-he was through the teaching segment of the program.  He wasn’t quite sure he’d been doing all of it right.

He kept an eye on his mysterious ‘cousin’.  The boy was earnest, although he appeared to be having a few problems with the exercise they’d been set, running his fingers every which way through his hair.  He smiled-the boy had been growing on him.  He was a bit charming, if a bit eccentric.  And he appeared to be a little bit standoffish.  He wasn’t really…uppity, just a bit oblivious.  He interacted with the other boys-when he noticed them.  He made a mental note to warn his ‘cousin’ of this failing.  Not being social was…well, it was bad.  Very bad.  People were meant to be social.

At one point, Daniel muttered to himself-it had the tone of a curse and sounded like, “Rassilon’s Tear!”  It was probably something he’d picked up in foreign parts.

“Winters!  The problems giving you any trouble?”  This was his turn to step in as an instructor, and he wasn’t about to shirk his duty.

“Well, the word problems, by its very nature…”  The boy trailed off and remarked, “I’m incredibly silly.  Yes, I am.  I was going to make a strange pun on how ‘problem’ is a synonym for ‘trouble’, but it doesn’t really belong here-it belongs in English class.  Yes, sorry.  I am.  Having trouble, I mean.”

“What section don’t you understand?” Mr. Smith asked, ignoring the snorts and teasing of the other boys.

“Well…actually, I understand all of it.”  That quieted them down immediately.  “Really, I do.  It’s just that…um, this is going the long way about it?  There’s a much shorter way to do it, although maybe a bit more complex…” His voice grew quieter, and then he sighed in frustration.  “This isn’t going to make any sense without a demonstration, is it?”

“Why don’t you do one?”  John Smith gestured at the board, secretly a little curious on what this enigmatic boy knew-and whether it had anything to do with the real way.

“Um…You sure?  Sir?  I…well, I’m not very good at explaining things sometimes.  I’ll probably end up confusing the lot of you before I’m done.”

One of the boys yelled out from the back of the classroom, “It won’t make a difference for me, mate!”

Daniel chuckled, just slightly, and shrugged.  “Okay…here goes….”

 

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