Gallifreyan Nature: Chapter 14

[nevermoreraven]

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.

 

Mr. Smith frowned to notice how hyper his servant was this morning.  She was practically fizzling with energy, more than he’d ever noticed her having.  The cheerfulness practically lit up the room.

Baines ran into the room.  The first thing Smith noticed was the extremely urgent manner.

“Baines, you know I’m in my nightgown.  I would like you to knock in deference to your teachers…” John was going to give his student an earful, but Baines shook his head.

Martha noticed something wrong.  Baines was just a little stiff-like he’d suddenly been turned into a wooden puppet, for instance.  Something was definitely way off.  Her suspicion?  Aliens.  Specifically, the Family.

“Sir, you need to know this!” He led them out to one of the front windows.  “Sir, I saw your servant,” he stated the last word with a sneer that made Martha’s hackles rise, “…and your cousin, Daniel Winters, kissing.”  He sent a triumphant, evil glance at Miss Jones, and she instantly hated his guts.

However, John Smith was staring at her, appalled and stern.  “Is this true, Martha?”

Dan fell into the room’s floor, pushed by the Headmaster.  He got back to his feet, spluttering and ready for a fight.  “I’m afraid it’s true, Smith.  I saw them myself from my study window.  They kissed for quite a while.  While such an atrocity makes me weep, your cousin strikes me as just the type to try something like this.  His natural dislike of authority might just translate into such an abomination.”

“Martha, what were you thinking?” Mr. Smith admonished her, and instantly she glared at him instead of Baines.  “Martha, you’re…you’re a servant.  You’re not supposed to intermingle with the kind of boys that would be attending this school.  You’ve behaved yourself before this.  I can’t think what’s got into you.”

Stupid, bigoted human, Martha couldn’t help but think.  She was glad she’d known a certain Time Lord.  So much better than her own species, so much brighter and more brilliant.  They were going to do awful things to Dan now, worse beatings, or even more painful actions, and it was all her fault.  She shouldn’t have kissed him.  She should have pushed him away.

Meanwhile, the Headmaster was talking to her Doctor.  “We’ve known Martha for a while.  She’d known to be a…wayward servant.  I’m sure she put these ideas in your head, boy.  Renounce her, and your sentence will be lenient.”

The Doctor drew himself up to his full height, eyes flashing in anger.  “And you’ll, what?  Dismiss her?  In a world like this, she can’t survive.  She was in your protection, Smith!  And you’ll just throw her out like so much garbage, just because she has the presumption to think of herself as a human being?  Or will you beat her, like you beat me, lashing that poor, beautiful, frail body?”  This was the anger of a Time Lord-he was literally spitting the words out, lashing at the closed minds he saw around him.  It made the Headmaster and the teacher flinch, for this was the true wrath, unleashed completely as he railed against minds as resistant to change for the better as those on his own planet.  For his part, he hit a mark with those last words.  Mr. Smith literally flinched.  Somewhere deep inside he knew that what was happening was wrong, but he felt powerless to stop it.  Making this right was up to him, then.  He hesitated, feeling that he had to use some words in praise of his companion.  “You’re wrong about Martha.  She’s so much, and you just ignore her, like she’s not even important, but she’s more important than you’ll ever be.  My Martha?  She’ll save the world, you’ll see.”  He took a deep breath, but his next words were forceful, stronger than he’d ever felt, unyielding as steel, speaking the words he knew Martha would scream at.  “It was my fault.  I led her on, encouraged her fancies.  I just wanted her to know that she wasn’t alone, that someone in the world cared.  Since you obviously don't care one whit for her welfare...”

“What?!  No, it was all me!  Please, Mr. Smith, you have to see the truth…!”  As he knew she would, Miss Jones started to plead with her ‘master’, trying frantically to save him.  But he wouldn’t let her.  He had to save her world, before it fell apart.

He knew Smith would believe his story.  It would fit with the daydreamy impression he’d had of his ‘servant’-once companion.  And the Headmaster would believe his teacher’s conviction.

“Why did you ever think such dalliances were acceptable, Winters?” the Headmaster wondered, still sickened by the thought of a servant and a member of the upper class.

“Lord Brixton traveled, remember?  They have different ways of doing things in other countries.”  He was fighting again, the sword moving like lightning.  He had an answer for everything, she thought desperately.

“What about the girl you left at home?” Smith asked more gently, trying to bring his pupil to his senses.

Dan smiled at her, the beautiful smile of the Doctor that she’d grown to love so much.  “They’re very alike, only the girl I left behind would never notice me, never care.  She does.  You have no idea how lonely it is, and I hope you never do, sir.”  The last statement was fervent, ever so much sincere.  The others wouldn’t understand his words, think them an exaggeration, but Martha knew he meant every word.  He was so much like the Doctor, and that meant that he missed his homeworld, his people, his way of life.  It was why he needed a companion to travel with him, why he needed her.  He was younger, less afraid of being burned because he probably hadn’t been yet.  Lonely, because he was one of the last of his people, which these humans would never understand.  They didn’t even know that he was an alien, let alone how special he was.

The Headmaster shook his head in disgust.  “You’re dismissed, Winters.  Your Lord Brixton will be compensated some of your tuition, along with a warning to watch you with the servants around.”

If he meant the last statement as an insult, it didn’t really work.  He wasn’t the least repentant, bringing up his chin as he stared at them, proud and tall.  “I don’t blame you.  You’re only behaving according to your time period.  That being said, this is one of the most closed-minded eras in history I can think of.  Even in Rome it was okay.  Well, that’s what Marcus Aurelius told me.”

Martha smiled slightly, knowing that he’d decided to throw off the rest of his disguise now that he wouldn’t be around, even as she felt the cold jab of fear that he’d leave and she’d never see him again.

Dan managed a jaunty smile and a wave at Martha before walking away, completely dignified.  His hands were in his pockets, still, and somehow he still managed to whistle sweetly despite everything that’d just happened.