Chapter Nine: Soft Smiles
"Make your decision, Mr. Smith."
"Perhaps if that human heart breaks, the Time Lord will emerge," one of them contemplated. A click was heard before Mr. Clark, Baines, the little girl, Jenny, and Josephine turned towards the whisper of,
"Time Lord." The trackers sniffed.
"It's him!" Baines's gasped before Martha shouted and maneuvered herself and got the gun from Jenny, holding it up to the maid's head, a click sharp in everyone's ears.
"All right! One more move, and I shoot," she threatened.
"Oh, the maid is full of fire!"
"And you can shut up!" she shouted back before shooting the gun at the ceiling.
"Careful, son of mine. This is all for you so that you can live forever," Mr. Clark reminded.
"Shoot you down."
"Try it. We'll die together."
"Martha," Jo hissed, looking at her friend worriedly.
"Would you really pull the trigger?" he asked, never taking his eyes of Martha. "Looks too scared."
"Scared and holding a gun is a good combination. Do you want to risk it?" Martha replied, an edge to her voice. Jo looked between the two, unsure of what would happen. After a moment of silence, they lowered their guns and Matron ran book to the Doctor. "Doctor, get everyone out. There's a door at the side. It's over there. Go on! Do it Mr. Smith. I mean you!"
"Do what she said. Everybody out-now!" Matron followed, moving to help. "Don't argue Mr. Jackson. They're mad. That's all we need to know."
"Go!" Jo added pushing people out as well.
"Susan, Miss Cooper, outside! All of you!"
"Alright, come on. Move yourself, boy," John Smith snapped, finally coming to attention. "Back to the school, quickly!"
"And you. Go on, just shift."
"What about you?" The human with the Doctor's face asked. Josephine began to tear at her dress, pulling out the blade underneath until she had just a shirt.
"Mr. Smith, I think you should escort your lady friend to safety, don't you?" Martha replied. The human hesitated for a moment before nodding and running off, only giving a glance to Josephine as he left.
"And what about me, Martha? What about you?"
"I'll be fine, go watch the Doctor. Protect him, don't let him out of your sights." Josephine nodded, running out of the room before coming back.
"Okay, be safe, I'll see you soon!" Before running again.
-/JEL/-
When she got out, she found Mr. Smith holding Tim, a boy she had come to know due to his frequent visits for bruising salve. "Latimer, get back to the school. Tell the headmaster."
"Don't touch me! You're as bad as them!" he shouted before running off.
"Tim!" Jo called from next to John. Before running after him herself, distant calls of John and Joan from behind her.
-/JEL/-
A young boy with blonde hair and dripping eyes came into their infirmary one day. Matron wasn't there so Josephine was left to care for the boy. She didn't mind. So, she pulled him into the room and sat him on one of the beds, reaching for a basin and a cloth. The boy only stared as she inspected the wound on his knees, blood creeping out, staining his trousers. Jo tsked, grabbing some needle and thread as well to sow his pants back together. "How did this happen?" she asked, wanting to hear his confirmation. She could already tell he was pushed, not tripped.
"I fell down some stairs."
She looked up into his brown eyes. They were shades off from being chocolate, no they were brown like the burnt up wood from a fire, soft embers still flickering in and out from existence. "I know you're lying."
-/JEL/-
Josephine walked into the school, searching for Tim with the softest steps she could take. She cared for that boy, a little unsure why though. When she was young, she was picked on for her intelligence, for her vastness of knowledge. She could see some of herself in him.
"Hold me. Keep me safe. Keep me dark. Keep me closed." She heard, filtering in her brain, each word drawing her closer and closer to Tim, to the watch, to the Doctor. "The time is not right. Not yet, not while the family is abroad-Danger!-DANGER!" But…but she couldn't find him. It was too dark, there was noise everywhere, and shadows loomed like real people. She couldn't find him! Not in the dark! No in the-she spotted him, sitting on the ground, examining the watch. She was about to shout out for him, but a crowd of boys blocked her path and another boy got to him first, calling him a coward, and dragging him away.
-/JEL/-
"Mr. Latimer," Josephine huffed when she found the boy standing in the infirmary, "what did you do this time?"
Tim sighed and sat on one of the beds, tucking his knees under his chin. "Suzanne Wilkes came by today to see her father, Mister Wilkes, and he told her she could stay for one of the classes. She decided to sit down next to me and she kept pestering! She wanted to talk and I, of course, couldn't do that during a lesson. And then a bunch of the boys got angry that Suzanne sat next to me. They think she's very pretty."
"And you?" Jo asked, dabbing the cut on his cheek. "What do you think of Miss Wilkes?"
"I," Tim coughed, looking away. Jo tilted his head back to her; he looked down. "I think she is a very pretty girl."
Jo smirked, "Well, don't do anything too sudden, some girls scurry away easily." Tim glanced up at the nurse, nodding.
"Sure, sure, of course."
-/JEL/-
Josephine returned to Mr. Smith's room where Martha was. "I know it sounds mad, but when the Doctor became human, he took the alien part of himself and he stored it inside the watch. I mean, it's not really a watch. It just looks like a watch."
"And 'alien' means 'not from abroad' I take it," Matron guessed.
"No," Jo replied, making herself known.
"The man you call John Smith, he was born on another world," Martha expanded.
"A different species?" Josephine and Martha nodded, "Then tell me, in this fairy tale…who are you? Who are the both of you?"
"Just a friend. I'm not-I mean, you haven't got a rival, as much as I might…Just his friend." Matron looked at her fellow nurse.
"You could say friend, more like acquaintance-"
"Pshh, totally friends, trust me, Jo," Martha reassured. Josephine held eyes with Martha before nodding, going back to the subject at hand.
"And human, I take it?"
"Human. We're both humans. Don't worry. And more than that-I don't just follow him around. I'm training to be a doctor. Not an alien Doctor. A proper doctor, a doctor of medicine," Martha replied, looking around.
"Not a Doctor, not really, but I am a scientist," Jo added.
"Well, that certainly is nonsense," the Matron replied, going back to Martha, "Women might train to be doctors, but hardly the skivvy, and hardly one of your color." Martha stopped and gave her a look, Jo's hand clenched into a fist.
"Oh, do you think? Bones of the hand," she started, holding her hand up, "Carpal bones, Proximal Row: Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetral, Pisiform. Distal Row: Trapezium, Trapezoid, Capitate, Hamate. Then the Metacarpal bones, extending in three distinct phalanges: Proximal, Middle, Distal."
"You read that in a book," Joan Redfern refused, waving it aside.
"YES! To pass my exams," the doctor in training exclaimed.
"Can't you see? This is true," the scientist asked.
"I must go."
"If we find that watch, then we can stop them," Martha exclaimed, moving after the exiting nurse. Jo followed suit.
"Those boys are going to fight. I might not be a doctor, but I'm still their nurse. They need me, Josephine? Are you coming?"
"The Doctor needs us," she mumbled, looking away. Matron left the room and Josephine moved to comfort Martha, putting a hand on her shoulder; Jo added, "I'm going to go find Tim. Keep looking for the watch!" Before she ran out.
-/JEL/-
"What do you think of Mister Smith?" Tim asked one day, munching on an apple. Josephine was cleaning the dirt from the wounds on his knees. He actually tripped over his feet during a game. This time his injuries really were accidental.
"Well...I think…" Jo paused, collecting her thoughts, "He's a very nice young lad."
"You think?"
"Yes, he seems very well-versed and smart. Average, ordinary." They sat in silence for a while.
"Something's off about him."
Jo looked up, "Oh? What makes you say that?"
"There's something funny about him. He's a bit weird."
"A bit mad?" Josephine grinned.
Tim chuckled, pointing at the girl with his finger, "Exactly!"
-/JEL/-
Josephine was just walking up some stairs when a scene of the Doctor enveloped her mind. It was him, standing in the fire with an angry look on his face, screams calling out. It ended just moments later, leaving Jo standing there in shock, barely registering the little girl running past only to snap out of it when Tim barreled right by her. Following him, and lagging behind, Josephine Erica Lewis tracked Tim all the way up to the boy's dormitories, just in time to see him open the watch, a bright light shooting out.
"Lord of Time," it spoke.
"Tim, go!" Josephine shouted, startling him.
"Miss Lewis?" he wondered.
"Yes, now go! They're coming!" she shooed him, both heading for the windows and out to the grounds to escape into the woods.
-/JEL/-
"Tell me something about yourself, Miss Lewis," Tim asked one day, laying on the cot. This time he had a fever and was to stay the night.
"What would you like to know?"
Tim shrugged, loopy, "I don't know...what's your favorite color?"
"Huh," she paused, dropping the dirty clothes back into the soapy water. "I've never really thought about it."
"Really?" Tim sat up in the bed; Josephine pushed him back down.
"Yes, really, I'm a busy woman...hmm...perhaps it's the color of the sky, just before a storm is about to hit. Back when I lived in America-"
"I always knew there was something off about you."
"-the clouds would sort of cloud over and darken to this bluish grey color and the earth would feel nice and warm, a soft breeze running through my hair, and then...and then the cool rain would fall and everything would feel fresh the next morning."
"That was…" Tim peered over at her, "oddly descriptive."
"Yes, well," Josephine looked down at her hands, "that's a much better way to describe the color then just light grey."
Timothy looked up, eyes squinting, mouth lazily curved, "My favorite color is probably the autumn leaves." Josephine smiled, smoothing his hair back.
-/JEL/-
Tim knocked on the door, holding Jo's hand tightly. "I brought you this," Tim told Martha when she opened the door. "And Miss Lewis."
-/JEL/-
"Tim?"
"Yes, Miss Lewis?" the boy looked up from his book.
"Do you happen to know where I could find Mister Smith?"
"I think he's in his office, why?"
"I don't know," Josephine shook her head, pausing in the main hallway. A piece of paper was clutched in her hands.
"What's that in your hands?" Tim pointed to the paper and Jo numbly handed it over. He opened it up. "Were you planning to take him to the dance?"
Jo snapped out of her absent gaze, shaking her head and looking down at the boy. She scowled, snatched the paper from his hand, and marched away, calling back, "Of course not!" Latimer watched, sharking his head, before walking to his next class
-/JEL/-
"Hold it."
"I won't," John Smith refused.
"Please hold it," Josephine begged.
"It told me to find you. It wants to be held," Tim added.
"You've had this watch all this time?" Matron asked incredulously, "Why didn't you return it?"
"Because it was waiting…Then because I was so scared…of the Doctor," the boy told her.
"Why?"
"Because…I've seen him. He's…like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun-"
"Stop it."
"-he's ancient and forever. He burns at the center of time. And he can see the turn of the universe," Latimer continued.
"Stop it! I said stop it!" John begged. Josephine stared at the man in front of her, never taking her gaze off of him, never leaving the sight of the pain on his face.
"And…he's wonderful," the boy ended.
Matron pulled out the journal, "I've still got this-the journal."
"Those are just stories," John Smith refused to accept.
"Now we know that's not true, perhaps there's something in here," she offered.
An explosion went off in the distance.
"What the hell?"
"They're destroying the village," Jo whispered.
"The watch!" John muttered, going for it.
"Please don't John," the girl in a ripped dress and shorts begged.
"Closer…Closer…"
"Can you hear it?" Tim asked; Josephine nodded.
"Like he's asleep, waiting to awaken. "
"Waken me, little man…"
"Why did he speak to me?" Tim wondered aloud.
"Oh, low-level telepathic field, you were born with it. Just an extra synaptic engram, causing-" John Smith—the Doctor?-inhaled deeply, snapping out of it, "Is that how he talks?"
"Yes."
"That's him!" Martha exclaimed happily, hopefully, "All you have to do is open it, and he's back."
Another explosion went off in the distance.
"You knew this all along, and yet you watched while Nurse Redfern and I-"
"I didn't know how to stop you; we didn't know how to stop you," Martha interrupted, grabbing Josephine's hand. "He gave me a list of things to watch out for, but that wasn't included."
"Falling in love-that didn't even occur to him?"
"No."
"Then what sort of man is that? And now you expect me to die?" he questioned, voice breaking, tears almost spilling.
"It was always going to end, though. The Doctor said the Family's got a limited life-span," Martha explained.
"That's why they need to consume a Time Lord," Jo added.
"Otherwise," Martha continued, "Three months, and they die. Like mayflies, he said."
"So your job was to execute me."
"Mr. Smith, there are people dying out there!" Josephine tried to reason with him.
"They need him, and we need him, and I need him. 'Cause you've got no idea what he's like. I've only just met him; Jo's known him even less. It wasn't even that long ago, but…he is everything. He's just everything to me, and he doesn't even look at me, but I don't care. 'Cause I love him to bits-and I hope to God he won't remember me saying this."
Another explosion rang out.
"It's getting closer," Tim observed.
"Ah, I should of thought of this before; I can give them this-just the watch. Then they can leave, and I can stay as I am."
"You can't do that!"
"If they want the Doctor, they can have him."
"He'll never let you do that."
"And then if they get what they want, then-then…"
"Then it all ends in destruction," the Matron finished. "I never read to the end. Those creatures would live forever, to breed and conquer. War across the stars, for every child, Martha, Josephine, Timothy…Would you leave us alone, please?" Tim nodded, heading for the door, Martha slowly fallowing, and Josephine gave the Doctor one last look.
Another explosion sounded.
-/JEL/-
"Why did you come here? To this town."
"Well," Josephine wrapped his arm in a bandage, "I have this friend. He needed someone to help him out for a while before he got better."
"This friend...do you love him?"
"Oh no, we're just friends."
"So why move?"
"Because friends help friends when they need help."
Tim started, pondering her words before nodding.
-/JEL/-
They sat there, in the dark, watching the explosions go off. Martha and Josephine pulled Tim in for a hug. Jo hummed a soft lullaby that she remembered…from…somewhere.
-/JEL/-
"Miss Josephine," Tim's voice was nervous, unsure.
"Yes?"
"Have you...have you ever kissed anyone?"
"Yes, why?"
"I mean...like did you feel something after kissing them?"
"Well," Josephine sighed and sat down next to him on the bed. "The first kiss I remember was with one of my bestest friends."
"And…?"
"I don't care for him that way, never have, never will."
"So you haven't felt…"
"Fireworks? Sparks? Shoot stars? No," she chuckled, patting his head. "Why? Have you?"
"It was an accident I swear!"
Jo grinned, "Well? What happened?"
"I swear it Miss Josephine, Hutchinson was just messing around-and-he tripped-and-"
Josephine cackled falling to the bed, "That is priceless!"
Tim pouted, staring down at the nurse as she giggled.
-/JEL/-
Martha and Josephine stood at the door. Martha was back in her leather jacket and Jo was wearing a pale oversized sweater, dark jeans, and not her leather jacket. The Doctor was making his way up the green hills, his hair flat from the rain. "Right, then. Malto bene."
"How'd it go?" Jo asked.
"Time we moved on," he replied.
"If you want, I could go and-" Martha offered.
"Time we moved on," he gave her a look.
"Um, meant to say, back there, last night, I-I would've said anything to get you to change," Martha covered.
"Oh, yeah, of course you would. Yeah," the Doctor replied, trying to believe her. Jo could see that he didn't.
"I mean, I wasn't really-"
"-No, no, no."
"Good."
"Fine. So there we are, then."
"There we are, then, yes." Jo stood there a bit awkwardly.
"And I never said…thanks for looking after me, both of you," he added before pulling them into a hug. Martha embraced joyously while Josephine kind of…patted…his ribs with her extended arms.
"Doctor! Josephine! Martha!" a familiar voice called out.
"Tim Timothy Tim!" the Doctor replied happily.
"I just wanted to say goodbye," he said softly, "And thank you, because I've seen the future. And I know what must be done…It's coming isn't it? The biggest war ever."
"You don't have to fight," Martha told him. Josephine watched him with soft, concerned eyes.
"I think we do."
"But you could get hurt," Jo told him, worriedly. She didn't see the Doctor or Martha staring at her in surprise.
"Well, but so could you, traveling 'round with him, and you, Martha, but it's not going to stop you."
"Tim, I'd be honored if you'd take this."
"I can't hear anything," Tim astonishingly exclaimed, holding the watch to his ear.
"No. It's just a watch now. But keep it with you for good luck."
"Look after yourself," Martha said before giving him a hug and a kiss on his cheek. Tim looked over at Jo, with something close to tears in his eyes. She reached for the boy, dragging him in for a very close and long hug.
He may have not realized it, but over time, after countless visits and conversations with the woman hugging him, he thawed her heart. "Don't be afraid to show yourself to others, be outspoken, be smart, and if you choose to fight, be brave and careful and don't forget. Don't let me find out you've needed to visit Matron for 'falling down the stairs'…Be…be safe, Tim," she whispered, a single tear escaping as she kissed his forehead, letting him go.
"You too, Josephine, your own watch is waiting." Josephine Erica Lewis dragged Timothy Latimer into one more hug before letting him go. The Doctor smiled at her before she entered the TARDIS, going back to wave goodbye.
"You'll like this bit," she heard the Doctor say before closing the door and starting the TARDIS.
-/JEL/-
"Miss Lewis," Tim announced, entering the infirmary on night, "you are by far the nicest, sweetest, most caring woman I have ever met."
"Oh?" she looked up, a brow raised.
He pulled a flower from behind his back, "And as the nicest, sweetest, most caring woman I have ever met, you deserve the last, fully bloomed flower of the year."
Josephine smiled, accepting the daffodil, and bowed lowly.
"Why thank you, kind sir."
"You are very welcome beautiful lady."
-/JEL/-
Josephine, Martha, and the Doctor stood far away from the ceremony, fake flowers on their chests, watching the service before them. Josephine's eyes locked with Tim's. Soft smiles graced their lips.