![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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. And we're here, at the end. Thanks for following me on this journey!
This one has 'handwriting'. I changed the font from the original to hopefully make it more readable.
Martha had gone into the woods to cry. All right, so they’d seen Mr. Smith and Ms. Redfern married, and that day had been happy. But she’d had enough of this time, didn’t want to be here a moment longer than she had to. And the fact that they’d stayed-she’d accused the Doctor of insensitivity in the past, and even though this was wonderful, fantastic Daniel Winters, he was still falling prey to the same emotion. “I feel we ought to stay, for once. For a while at least,” was all he’d say on the matter, and he wouldn’t elaborate. He helped out with the work, and was cheerful and improved her mood no end. But at the same time, she was miserable, in the moments alone when no one was around to see her expression.
With a suddenness that stopped her tears, she felt arms encircle her from behind and someone bend, just slightly, to kiss the top of her hair. “Hallo.”
She tried to stifle the tears, but she felt him shake his head. “No, don’t. I didn’t realize how much you were suffering. If I had, I would’ve been around more, or made us leave sooner. Just…let me be here for you.”
Martha turned around and let herself sob into his jacket, as his comforting presence reassured her that he cared, that he was there to help her. He held her tightly, aware of how much she had endured and how much pain she felt. But perhaps a special place in the universe was given to wounded people like him and Martha, just trying to make life a little brighter for everyone else.
The Doctor was alone at the TARDIS console. Martha was asleep on the chair, curled up underneath his jacket. He let a small smile cross his lips. Suddenly, everything was exactly as it should be-but he knew she’d overlooked something, and didn’t think he’d enlighten her.
He’d just written in his diary minutes ago. It was sitting, ink still fresh, in a corner of the console room.
‘She thinks everything’s fine. She doesn’t realize the sacrifice the Doctor made. Because she thinks I’m the same, and I’m not, really. I am the Doctor, a different version, a Time Lord that might have been, but part of me died back there. And I can’t even cry, though part of me wants to. There’s no turning back time, not on my own personal timeline. Suddenly everything’s different, and I’m seeing everything so differently. I’m not sure how the TARDIS feels about all this. I think she feels a bit sheepish, because she didn’t mean for me to be anything but temporary, but I’m here to stay. She’ll grow used to me, in time. I’ll even grow used to me, in time.
The thing is, for a second, I’m sure that the Doctor was there, and he made the choice. To give me and Martha the happiness that he was denied. He was too afraid of being burned. It’d been too soon since Rose. And by this point, he had very little faith in himself-he really was beginning to believe that all the pain, the horror, of everywhere he went was caused by his presence. He wasn’t willing to take the chance of ruining another’s life, even if it would give him, and the other, a few years of extreme joy. I wonder if he would be proud of me, of how I solved things. In the end, the Family of Blood got what it always wanted, only to find it wasn’t exactly how they imagined. I feel much the same. But I know where the Earth legend came from, the story of four fallen angels ordered to protect the Earth. I hope they’ll grow used to it in time. They may even like their new task-once they realize they’re stuck with it. If I recall, Gabriel told them to go be the heroes, and that amuses me. I’ve met Gabriel, and I’m nothing like him. I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad, and I have no way of knowing how the Doctor, the Doctor that was, would have felt. That path is sealed off, forever, and I have to keep telling myself that it doesn’t matter and if I keep comparing myself to my predecessor I’ll either go mad or become extremely depressed.
I’m a lot like ‘his Doctor’, the fourth regeneration. A lot more naïve, with a lot more faith in the world. I’m not quite as lacking in mercy or compassion as I used to be. It hurt so much to watch them scream, but I was giving them a chance at life, at retribution, and I honestly thought it was for the best. I think they’d enjoy that more over their other fates-stuck as a scarecrow for all eternity, trapped in a mirror, stuck in unbreakable chains, the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy… I’m learning to be nice. Again. And of course Martha helps. I’m so much in love-with the intensity of a Time Lord and the passion of a human. I seriously wonder if some transference took place back in my direction when the watch leaked into her.
Rose was a girl, full of life and light. Martha is a woman, on a more serious level, one that I wasn’t perhaps ready to face. My love for her scares even me sometimes. But at the same time, it’s something I realize I’ve been looking for for a long time. Even more, as a clone, I need acceptance, the feeling of belonging, and she provides that quite admirably.
I’m not quite a clone anymore. I may be part human. I’ve got the memories of a thousand-year old Time Lord with a previous life of three months and the body of a Gallifreyan. I’m not sure what I am now, though I suppose it might be better that way-if you ever know anything for certain, that’s when you get in trouble-aside from true love, because that has nothing to do with knowing intellectually and everything to do with knowing in your soul. If I thought I was unique before, not only a wanderer in a timeship, a fugitive on the Vortex winds, a rebel in a race that always followed the rules and never, ever fought the status quo, the last of a dead race…I’m not quite sure where I fit now in the grand scheme of things.
I’ll keep traveling. It’s what I do. Anything else is just secondary. Well…really, anything else besides Martha. I think we’ll visit Latimer again, someday, although I think not quite yet. Darling Miss Jones needs a little more space yet, although someday she’ll be ready to face all this again.
The forest has, very nearly, recovered. You couldn’t tell that the surrounding countryside was at all destroyed. It’s wild and full of life again.
Mr. Smith and Mrs. Smith live for a long, long time. I’d almost say happily ever after, except…well, it’s me. All of those we’ve known here not only survive the Great War, they’re heralded as heroes, and I’m not arguing.
Latimer and Hutchinson become fast friends. Together, the two of them meet an unremarkable *hah* man, Lord Brixton, and he shows them a strange, brave new world, in which they are pretty much dashing heroes. Already given medals for their bravery in the worst nights of mankind (the Great War), they go on to achieve more as people giving those who are worst off hope and the predators another thought about their chosen profession.
The Headmaster remains the teacher at the school, but softens up-just enough to tell the boys that he knows they’re human. They, surprisingly, behave themselves…mostly.
Everyone in the town remembers the lights in the night. Every five years, their ancestors go into the caves and light the lanterns, just as they did one, brave day when they all believed they were going to die. They had the strength to believe that, perhaps, they might pull through. And they remember the man with eyes like fire that saved them. The celebration is solemn, I’m told, but the very next day they hold a party to rejoice in their survival.
They also speak of the fallen angels, sent to the four winds to protect the world. They say that, if these angels ever return to their township, they will be welcomed in most happy honor. They witnessed them fall to earth. In their protectors’ anger and despair, the heavenly visitors hit out at all around them with bolts of celestial light, destroying the countryside, until the other angels had finally had enough and sent one of their own to stop the slaughter. Gabriel spoke to the others and conferred upon them the duty, and the fallen accepted, though not gratefully.
It makes a nice story if nothing else. The moment feels perfect-I’m sitting next to the console as my clever TARDIS winds her way through the Vortex, and Martha’s here, with me, even if she isn’t much conscious of it. Her smile while sleeping is beautiful, though.
Time Lords know that eternity doesn’t exist in many places. But if it did, it’d be here now, extending this perfection on into the night, because this moment feels like almost forever.’
