After watching Doctor Who for the first time, I decided to write a fanfic about my favorite episode. I'm not sure if the fandom reads stories about something that happened ten years ago, but I'm posting it anyway.
John Smith always had a relatively calm mind. His life was a repeated pattern he could follow every day. Rarely had he faced a conflict he couldn't handle. Rarely had he been thrown into something so utterly wrong and destructive that he couldn't fathom a solution.
Now, his mind was shrieking. Thousands of voices all talking at once and pounding against his skull. His own frantic thoughts scattered across his brain as he processed the revelation he'd been given. Martha, begging him to open the watch. Joan, begging him to do the opposite.
And the watch itself, whispering at him, although it felt more like screaming.
Closer, it begged. Open.
"People are dying out there," Martha pleaded, her face flushed. "They need him and I need him."
Nobody needed John Smith. It was only the Doctor who could come in and save the day. It was only the Doctor who would appease the angry spirits outside. And it was only John Smith who could let it happen.
The conversation went by in a flurry, the conflicting words only stirring the storm in John's mind. He couldn't just give up the watch and stay as he was. He had to open it and let this Doctor consume him, everything he was, and everything he ever would be. The bombs outside, the cries of innocents, none of it would stop unless he did something.
Mercifully, Martha and Latimer left to give him a moment of peace, but there was still a war going on inside his head.
It disappeared the second he looked at Joan. She was holding onto him, her gaze like crystal water. He would have scoffed at himself before for letting a woman be the one to comfort him, but there was no time to care anymore. He expected nothing less of Joan Redfern.
"If I could do this instead of you, then I would," she said. "I'd hoped. But my hopes aren't important."
And neither are mine.
He remembered what Martha told him, that this Doctor took companions with him from all sorts of times. Because of his loneliness. And as much as he didn't want to suffer that loneliness, he would never feel that way if Joan came with him.
The thought vanished quickly like breath on a mirror. Joan would never want to live that life. She would never want to dive into danger every day. She would want to embrace the little moments in life, and live with as little worry as possible.
It was exactly what he wanted, but he had no choice. Joan did, and he knew she would stay. Why would she sacrifice her safety for this?
Besides, it wouldn't matter, would it? The Doctor was a completely different man, one who'd seen the whole of time and space. He would never care for Joan the way he did.
"He won't love you," John confessed.
"If he's not you, then I don't want him to." Joan's eyes were filled with so much love, it was almost painful to look at. "I had one husband, and he died. I never thought, ever again. And then you were so…"
He inwardly winced. Widows rarely led good lives unless they could find another husband. Most men wouldn't take a widow, but he didn't care. He wanted to be with Joan anyway, and he never would.
"And it was real," he said softly. He'd called his dreams of the Doctor a journal of impossible things. But in reality, this was the impossible thing. His life was nothing more than a story. But it was possible to him, and it always would be. "I wasn't...I really thought-"
"Let me see." Joan took the watch from his hands, clearing his mind of even more voices. "Blasting thing… Can't even hear it. It says nothing to me."
John felt happy for her. Just being around that watch was exhausting to him, and now he was going to have to take it back. He reached out to grab the watch, when the world faded.
The images flashed before his eyes instantaneously. Decades in the span of a second. He saw himself and Joan exchanging rings below an adorned altar. He saw them walking together through the woods. He saw his children, such beautiful children, growing up and leading brilliant lives. He saw a thousand memories, a thousand friendships, a thousand perfect moments he would never get to live.
And it was all a lie. The years he'd already lived, learning to walk and talk, being with his parents, getting this job, living and breathing. All of it meant nothing. He meant nothing. John Smith was just a story.
But how? How could these moments, these decades that were packed to the brim with experiences be nothing more than a lie? How could a person with hundreds of layers and words and years just be a disguise that was thrown on at the last minute?
"The Time Lord has such adventures," Joan said. "But he could never have a life like that."
John almost pitied the Doctor, then. He always heard the village children dreaming about adventure, and wishing for much more than this typical place. But to him, typical was all he needed. A life with as little worry as possible. A simple sunrise was far better than an exploding star.
But was it worth all the death?
"What are you going to do?" Joan asked.
John tore his gaze away from her. The words refused to come out of his throat. There was no point in trying. She knew exactly what was about to happen.
He stood up and took out the watch. Once again, whispers fluttered out of it, the thing almost exploding from the sheer power within.
It's time. Let me be free. Let me be free…
Let John Smith die for all time. Let a perfect life become just a throwaway memory. Let what could be become what could have been.
"I don't want to go," he whimpered.
He nearly berated himself for being such a coward. But no. All his life he'd been told he needed to be strong. No matter what happened. Bravery was always the best choice. And this is what bravery demanded.
John opened the watch.
Wings of flame seemed to burst before him. An all-encompassing storm that scorched every bit of skin he possessed. His heart seemed to be splitting in half. Every cell in his body, everything that made up the man who was John Smith, was ripped from its place and thrust into a new world. Something beyond time and space. Something alien.
Power. Through the pain, power gleamed deep inside of him. The power to create, and the power to destroy.
A blue box. His second home. The place that held his greatest victories and his worst failures. A doorway to the world. It held as much power as he held. Something greater than the universe. So much power.
Such a lonely child. Wandering around, looking for someone and finding no one. Feeling so out of place on his home planet, only to fall apart when it was gone. He would never again see the land below the burnt orange sky. And it was all his fault.
"I was so scared of the Doctor," Latimer whispered.
The knowledge of what had happened to the Time Lords had been written into his genetic code. It powered every decision he made. When he hesitated while trying to murder a monster, he would only think of them.
The first time he'd seen a Dalek after the war, he wanted to destroy it. He hadn't cared that it was changing, or that it was sparing them. He just wanted it dead. Rose had stopped him, but he would never forget how close he was to ending that Dalek. And he would never forget how they kept coming back, even as he suffered.
"Because I've seen him. He's like fire and ice and rage."
His last incarnation had been a broken man. The shadow of the Time War loomed over him. His loneliness still ached, but he almost felt that he deserved it. Everywhere he went, death followed. His constant companion.
He'd found people that had been able to cast light over the shadow. But the candle would always be smothered, and too quickly.
"He's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun."
This incarnation had been happier, the Time War's influence not as strong as it had once been. But that temper still burned in his blood. If anyone ever threatened who or what he loved, he would make them pay.
His last self had made it more than clear how he felt about the war. But this self hid it beneath jokes and smiles. They were genuine, but the rage would come out at any minute, stronger than ever. Even he couldn't predict it.
"He's ancient and forever. He burns at the center of time and he can see the turn of the universe."
Centuries of time and space, and yet everything always seemed the same. The same monsters struck, the same mistakes were always made. History decorated itself with new situations, but underneath, it was the same story.
He looked so young, but anyone who looked in his eyes could see the wisdom and the pain. Seeing the naivety of so many people, especially humans, was jarring. He was glad they had so much hope, but he felt dreadful for the disappointments they would face. So many evil deeds committed by people. So many evil deeds committed by him.
"And he's wonderful."
But after centuries of being hardened down, his soul still stood strong. The universe could repeat itself as many times as it wanted, but he could always find something new inside there.
He threw himself into so many dangerous situations, but it was all erased by the thrill of living. The pumping of his two hearts and the exhilarating realization that he was changing the world every day.
So many new worlds. So many cultures. How it excited him, watching how the slightest change in circumstances could create such fascinating places. Every species had something unique.
And people. Oh, people. Life. There was no real reason to be good, and yet so many people did it anyway. He remembered his first time learning about Earth. It had seemed like a place of sorrow and misery. A place where wars sprouted over the tiniest of conflicts, and so many lives were built in despair.
And yet. The underdogs would win eventually, every time. At least one hero would rise from the battlefield and weave the story for future generations. Humanity. So many things that should have held them back. But they always managed to break the chains and keep going on. They were stupid and brilliant. Even the most ordinary of them, even the John Smiths could change everything.
Every time he thought he was finished, and that the world had offered him all it had, a person would come in and give him something worth believing in.
And it was belief that was a part of him. The belief in all that was good, and all that needed to survive. He travelled through time, practically knocking on death's door to save complete strangers. Because there was nothing more beautiful to him than life. Never would he sacrifice a life unless he absolutely had to. And he would make sure anyone who died would be remembered for what they did, and how they rescued the world.
He would make sure John remembered. He go on many more adventures. Nine lives already lived, and the passion in his two hearts was blinding. A legacy of death followed him, but he was still building a legacy of life.
And it was with that peaceful thought that John Smith faded away, and the Doctor was reborn.