Notes/Details: This is my first foray into the Doctor Who fandom; so hopefully everything is up to par. Beta-ed myself, so all mistakes are mine and I would be quite happy if you pointed them out in a review so they might be fixed. All comments are welcome.
Temperate:
Tenth Doctor/John Smith Introspective
It is the height of summer, and John is unbearably hot in his many layers of cotton and wool. He knows he is not the only one suffering. His students have been restless ever since the frost melted early and the days began to grow too warm for even the cold stone walls of the school to keep out; but more often lately John feels stifled in his bare skin, as though his very blood was boiling him alive.
His head aches as well, product of a long day with too many things to deal with on his limited schedule. He often finds himself wishing for more hours in the day; when he looks up from an untold, but certainly long, expanse of time reading and realizes he has not yet eaten, or after one of the youngest boys, fresh from his mother's grasp, comes to his office with barely held back tears and homesickness because only John will understand.
Perhaps all of this is enough to explain it. He wakes often from dreams he can't remember; ones filled with fire and death, screams cut off with unending loneliness.
He is told that he needs more rest. Does he think himself greater than human, working all hours, day and night?
It is easy to laugh it off as the worry of tender female hearts, and it comes naturally to do so, from some instilled value not to be seen as weak. He knows well the failings of his mortality, he says, brushing off to some other thing which needs doing.
His maid bites her lip, and looks away from him as if she had asked something shaming instead of simply kind, but Nurse Redfern is the first to stare deeply into his eyes and ask in her measured, duly honest tone if he isn't so sure sometimes, but the words fade quickly, and she smiles.
John flushes, adding to that internal burn of heat sweeping over him, at the remembrance of the soft touch she had given him next. Her fingers had just grazed the back of his knuckles as she clasped his forearm lightly; admonishing him for being careless, and commanding him to try harder to rest.
He had stood transfixed at the sight of her, the feel of that brief touch of skin, and been overwhelmed with the desire to twine their fingers together and run as if they had no worries in all the universe. Instead he had torn himself away with undue haste, fear rising suddenly in his throat to replace the brief stirrings of love he he had felt (and still feels) for this strong, brilliant woman.
He was at a loss to explain why.
There were many things about his person and his past that John felt himself question, and he got less answers for it than his students did of his quizzes. That night when he finally slept, when the subconscious stretched it's brittle fingers toward the light of memory, John dreamed, and when he awoke he did more; he remembered.
End.
End Notes: Once again, I hope you enjoyed, and all reviews are appreciated.