Title:The Time is Now
Fandom: Doctor Who
Spoilers: Episodes 8 and 9 of season 3
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, including several sentences that are direct quotes from the show.
Pairings: Unrequited Tim Latimer/Hutchinson
Summary: Tim once told Hutchinson about the future. Now he's living it.
Notes: In "Human Nature" and "Family of Blood" Tim looks after the Doctor's fob watch while he's human and sees the future. In case you were wondering.
This is the first story I've written, I think, that I meant to write in second-person. Because first person narrative didn't work and I wrote it in third person but didn't like it, so I switched.
Also, forgive the title. I was distracted by the idea of Martha/Matron
And we gave it time
All eyes are on the clock
But time takes too much time
Please make the waiting stop
And the atmosphere is charged
In you I trust
And I feel no fear as I
Do what I must
-"The Time is Now," Moloko
"One minute past the hour," he mutters in his sleep. "It's now. Hutchinson, this is the time. It's now."?
You watch him from the other side of the tent, and remember words spoken long ago. "We go to battle together... We fight alongside... I've seen it."
You try to ignore his sobs when he wakes.
You don't remember the Doctor, Mr. Smith, not really. The things you remember are only snatches, a shock of brown hair, a gun in your hand, the name "Baines."You have an idea of the events, though, because Tim is a talkative drunk.
"I saw so many things, Hutchinson," he murmurs. "Terrible things, great things. And he..." Tim trails off and you squeeze the neck of your bottle as his gaze moves beyond you. "He was always there...so terrible. So amazing."
You stay silent.. It is nothing you have not heard before.
"I saw us. We were fighting...you were injured."
You know that already, too. You know of the shriek of gunfire and the Doctor's fob watch and "This is the time." You know of what Tim dreams when he says your name over and over.
"I don't know what happens next," he murmurs, glaring morosely at his bottle. "I don't know whether...whether I'll ever see him again, or..."
He trails off, and you contemplate his hunched form.
You reckon that this is what the Doctor does. He comes to Earth and steals people's hearts and makes them nothing but yearning, animated cadavers, desperate to find him again.
Regardless of who they leave behind.
Tim keeps the Doctor's watch close to him, at all times. He marches into battle carrying it on his chest, taking foolish chances just to be able to look at it, check the time. You cover for him, for you know that eventually the time he sees will signal your doom.
When the shriek of gunfire has faded to a distant roar once more, Tim spends several minutes looking at the watch, cleaning it until he can once more see his conflicted face on it. You sit across him and watch and think of a man with brown hair who taught you how to shoot a gun, who almost caused the end of the world, and who gave Tim hope of meeting him once again when he gave Tim a watch.
When the hour does come, you welcome it. You hear the familiar words coming out of Tim's mouth and you think, Finally. No more waiting. Then Tim is shoving you to the side and you go and wince at the shriek in the air. You wonder, for a moment, whether that will really be the last sound your hear. Not Tim's voice saying the words you have been expecting, no, you think, your hearing will be drowned out by the sound of flying metal.
You always expected to hear Tim's voice, and then to feel pain. You heard the words, and you felt the pain (like fire through your injured leg, sending flames through your body), but the world doesn't end. Tim is speaking again (you never expected that. You always assumed...always imagined, that the last words Tim said would be "This is the hour.") and he tells you can move so you do, leaning against his so slight frame. Walking away.
A confused laugh bubbles up inside your chest, and Tim looks at you but he understands, for what he expected to happen did not, too. His Doctor isn't here, but they are, the two of them, standing on a field of battle surrounded by the dead and the wounded. You've built the moment up so much, in your thoughts before you feel asleep, listening to Tim moan about watches, that you find it almost disappointing to still be alive. It was supposed to end, you think.
Tim looks at you again, eyes wide with a mixture of euphoria and sadness and you laugh until he joins in, high and pained but amazed. Your combined laughter is lost in the sound of battle, but you barely notice your surroundings. It was supposed to end, you think.
But it didn't.
On a promise
A day dream yet to come
Time is upon us
Oh but the night is young
I've been empty too long
The tender night has gone
And the time has gone
And the night is young
The night is young.
Let's make this moment last.
-"The Time is Now," Moloko