First week of college: complete! I'm sure many of you are back in school as well, so why not unwind this weekend with a little Doctor/Master?
So many good things this chapter! John is no longer a prick and admits his love for Sam! Yay! Also, Martha Jones is badass.
Thanks to Thoschei and Osdrums are life, Just Another Fandom Fangirl, Akayuki Novak, damionsnonadventures, michaelapage77, antisocial-gallifreyan, Keith The Dark Lord, museoflaw, fandomsuponfandomsunleashed, meetmeyesterday, Mabudachi-trio, Millennium Ring, QuietPlace, Storylady35, thebellimelli, Shadowbat12, thethirteenthdoctor, TimeTravellingThestral, Grac3, AnonymousWhovian, and an unnamed guest for reviewing, and to anyone else who read. Enjoy.
"Make your decision, 'Mr. Smith'," mocked Jenny, jabbed her gun insistently at Joan.
John's brown pupils flicked back and forth, from Sam to Joan, all around the room, looking for a way out of this.
"Perhaps if that human heart breaks, the Time Lord will emerge," Baines sneered liltingly.
God, I wish I hadn't dropped that watch! Stupid, foolish human! Sam scolded himself.
Suddenly, the Family turned their heads, sniffing hard, and Sam heard a deep voice in his head echo "Time Lord..."
"It's him!" hissed Baines. Then, the commotion stopped as abruptly as it had started.
Sam dove at the opportunity while his assailant was distracted, twisted and maneuvered till it was him that had Mr. Clark, and aimed his laser gun at Baines. "Alright!" he called. "One more move and I shoot!"
"Oh, the English teacher is full of fire!" Baines cackled.
"That's right! And you can shut the hell up, mate!" Sam fired at the ceiling, with a loud BLLLLRG.
"Careful, Son of mine," Mr. Clark warned calmly, still twisted in Sam's grasp. "This is all for you, so you can live forever."
"Shoot you down!" Baines called out, aiming his own weapon at Sam, who stayed stoic.
"Try it," Sam goaded. "We'll die together."
Baines laughed at him softly. "Would you really pull the trigger? Looks too scared."
"I'm not the Doctor," said Sam. "Not even close. I'll kill you without a second thought. So..." He brandished the gun. "Do you want to risk it?"
Sensing the truth in Sam's words, the Family slowly put their guns down. Joan rushed to John's side. "Good. Very good," said Sam. "Martha? You and Mister Smith get everyone out of here."
"But...Sam..." John was staring at Sam as if really seeing him for the first time.
"I'll be fine, John, just go! Get your lady friend to safety," Sam ordered.
"Listen to him, all of you, get outside, now!" Joan said, grabbing John's hand and rushing the queue out of the building.
Sam, never taking his eyes off of the invaders for a moment, listened intently for the last sounds of screams and clattering footsteps running out into the village. Mr. Clark wriggled out of Sam's grasp and scuttled over to his Family, but Sam yelled out, "Don't try anything. I'm warning you, or Sonny boy gets it," he added, aiming straight at Baines.
Baines merely sneered. "He's almost brave, this one." The Family began advancing on Sam, who backed up, still holding the gun.
"I should have taken his form," commented Mr. Clark. "So much younger, so much spirit."
Sam swallowed as the aliens pressed closer and closer. "What happened to these humans?" he demanded. "Are they gone?"
"They are consumed," answered Jenny. "Their bodies are ours."
"You mean they're dead," said Sam.
"Yes," said Baines, sneering. "And they went with precious little dignity. You humans, all that cowardice, all that screaming."
Suddenly, something grabbed Sam from behind. "Get the gun!" shrieked Baines.
The thing wrestled the gun from Sam's hands. Not waiting around to see what it was, Sam raced out of the hall, not looking back.
As Sam hurtled out the door, he spied John Smith standing dumbly at the end of the walk. "What the hell are you still doing here?!" he shouted at the Time-Lord-turned-human as he ran in his direction. "Bloody hell, you're useless as a human. Come on!" Sam grabbed the ex-Doctor's hand and pulled him away with him.
"Sam-" gasped John, struggling to continue sprinting-as a human he had no respiratory bypass, so he was in need of extra oxygen. Meanwhile, Sam was conditioned for long term getaways due to his renegade life with the Doctor. "Sam...those people! Well, I mean, they weren't people! Not normal ones, anyway! What in the name of sanity is going on?"
"You should've listened to Martha and me, Doctor," said Sam. "Your dreams, about things being after you-those are the things! They're real, and we're all in great danger! Especially you!"
"Even if I believed that...even if it were true...why do you want so badly to help me?" John asked. "And why are you in my dreams? And why is it that when I kiss Nurse Redfern, all I can feel is...is..."
Sam stopped. He slowly turned around to look at the would-be-schoolteacher. The night around them was quiet except the lulled chirping of crickets in the woods and their combined panting as they respectively caught their breath. They had lost the Family, apparently. "What?"
John stared back at him, fearfully, hunched over slightly, nursing a stitch in his side from the mad dashing.
"Tell me what you feel, John Smith," said Sam, stepping toward him, to where there was only two or three inches between them.
John cast his eyes downward. "It's wrong. It's a sin, Tyler, I-"
"Say my name," whispered Sam, putting a finger under the Doctor's chin, making him look him in the eyes.
John licked his lips. His voice was barely above his breath, but Sam heard it.
"Sam."
Sam closed his eyes. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to John's, slightly shocked at first at the difference. The Doctor's alien lips were usually cool, but John's were human and warm. He smelled the same, like honey, and time, but that wonderful spark of electricity, of light, of life, wasn't there. It wasn't the Doctor. But it was enough.
John made a noise in the back of his throat, of confusion and self-loathing and contentment and desperation, all at the same time. Sam deepened the kiss, sliding his hand up John's coat and into his hair, anachronistically spiked up with gel. Sam felt John's muscles untense, as he reciprocated the kiss, bringing his arms to hang on Sam's waist and cup his back. Then Sam pulled away.
"Why am I feeling all these things?" John asked, his puppy eyes crinkled with sadness. "I hardly know you. And you're a...a man."
"I know that from your point of view, it doesn't make any sense," said Sam, unable to resist from petting his Time Lord's soft brown hair. "But soon-hopefully-you'll understand everything that's going on."
"How do you know that?" whispered John desperately. Then he straightened. "This has to do with the Doctor. The Time Lord. They kept calling me that. How could they know about my dreams?"
Sam exhaled. "I can't explain it at the moment. Your little human brain can't even imagine it right now. But just know that...the Doctor. He's real. And..." Sam took in a hiccupy breath. "I love him. He's...he's like a force of nature. He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night and the storm at the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever. He burns at the center of time and he sees the turn of the universe..." Sam smiled ruefully. "And he's wonderful. And I love him more than I can possibly say, and I hope to God you don't remember me saying all this when you wake up."
"I think I love you, Sam Tyler," said John, trembling. "And I want to be this Doctor person, if I am him. I want to be him if he's who you love."
"And you will, John Smith, you will be him. Soon, I hope," said Sam. "But for now, you have to be this. Until the threat is gone."
John straightened up. "Well then, what are we waiting for? Come on!"
"What? John? Where are we going?" said Sam, as John clutched his hand and pulled him in the direction of the academy.
"To get help!"
Once inside the school, John grabbed a bell and began ringing it loudly. The clanging echoed throughout the school. "What are you doing?" Sam inquired.
"Maybe one man can't fight them, but this school teaches us to stand together!" said John zealously. "Take arms! Take arms!"
Sam realized with horror what the human wanted to do.
One, don't let me hurt anyone. We can't have that, but you know what humans are like...
"You can't do that!" Sam shouted at him as the students and staff began to rouse themselves from their beds and rally out in the hallways.
"You want me to fight, don't you?" said John. "Take arms! Take arms!"
"I say, sir, what's the matter?" said one student sleepily as he came down the stairs.
"Enemy at the door, Hutchinson, enemy at the door. Take arms!"
Sam watched in horror as his Doctor organized troops for battle.
"I've got to find that watch," he whispered.
As the schoolboys assembled downstairs, preparing for the fight, Sam found Martha and Joan upstairs, tucked away safely in Smith's study. "Oh, bloody hell, there you are!" gasped Martha in relief, pulling him into a tight hug. "I was so scared that the Family-"
"It's okay, I'm fine. But it's the Doctor, Martha, he's organizing the children to fight the Family!"
Martha looked at him, aghast. "No, he can't! We've got to stop him."
"I tried, but he's a thickheaded human with thickheaded ideals. He won't listen to me!"
"Will someone please explain to me what on God's green earth is happening?" Joan exclaimed. "All your talk of time machines and travelers from other worlds and...and pocket watches! This is madness!"
"Yep. And it's happening right outside your front door, Matron," said Sam.
She looked at him hawkishly. "Tell me. In this fairy tale, who are you?"
Martha looked Sam, then back at the 1914 woman. "Just his friends," she replied.
"And human, I take it?"
"Human as they come," said Sam. "The Doctor rescued me from these plastic creatures. Well, I rescued him too. We rescued each other. And I've traveled with him ever since."
"The Doctor found me when I got stranded on the moon," said Martha. "The whole entire hospital I was interning at was just transported there. I'm training to be a doctor, you know. Not an alien doctor, a proper doctor. A doctor of medicine."
Joan laughed derisively. "Well that certainly is nonsense. Women might train to be doctors, but hardly a skivvy and hardly one of your color."
Sam's jaw dropped. Martha's eyebrows shot up as she glared at the nurse. "Oh, do you think?" she said, her voice suddenly poisonous.
"Oh, no, she didn't," said Sam.
Martha held up the back of her hand and jabbed the index finger of the other at each section. "Bones of the hand. 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."
Sam erupted in rapid applause. "Well said, old girl!"
"You read that in a book," said Joan, embarrassed.
"Yes, to pass my exams!" Martha said, smiling, proud of herself. "Can't you see this is true?"
Joan turned for the door. "I must go," she said.
"If we find that watch, then we can stop them," Martha said, stopping her.
Joan turned back to look at her and Sam. "Those boys are going to fight. I might not be a doctor, but I'm still their nurse. They need me." Then she rushed out the door.
"It's alright, Martha," said Sam, coming up behind her and comfortingly putting his arm around her shoulders. "We can find it ourselves."
But they searched and scoured the Doctor's study, but it was nowhere to be found. Martha gave a short scream of frustration and sent some pieces of parchment flying off John Smith's desk.
"It's no use, Martha," said Sam. "I dropped it in the garden, I know I did. Or somewhere along the way to the dance hall. This is all my fault."
"There's no time for assigning blame," said Martha. "We have to get that watch!"
"Alright," said Sam. "You stay here. I'll search the grounds."
"You're not going out there by yourself," protested Martha, grabbing her coat and throwing it on.
"Martha, you can't go out there, there's a war going on outside!" said Sam.
"So what?" said Martha. "I can take care of myself just as well as you can, Sam Tyler. Besides..." She smiled, chortling shortly. "I blend in in the dark better."
Sam couldn't help but laugh at that, despite the circumstances. "Martha Jones, you are a marvel. Never forget that."
They were going down the stairs when Sam felt it. Again. That same sensation he'd felt in the dance hall. He had a vision of the Doctor, drenched and righteously furious, standing in the midst of a water and firestorm. It was the H.C. Clements building, from when the Doctor had killed the Empress of the Racnoss. "Martha, someone's opening the watch again!"
"What are you talking about?" Martha asked.
"Don't ask me how I know, I just do. The point is, someone has the watch!"
Martha looked aghast. "What if it's the Family?!" she gasped.
"No," said Sam. "If it was them, we'd already know. We'd be dead."
"Well maybe it's the Doctor then," Martha reasoned hopefully.
"There's a perception filter on that watch designed specifically to make him not notice it, unless you showed or gave it to him directly. No, it's...it's someone who doesn't understand how to use the watch. Whoever it is, we have to find them. Come on!" Sam rushed down the stairs, Martha following close behind.
Sam and Martha came out of the school just in time to find the Sister, the little girl with the pink bow and the red balloon, confronting the soldiers. "Mister Rocastle! Please, don't go near her," said Martha shouted to the headmaster, who was beckoning for the girl to come with him.
"You were told to be quiet," ordered Rocastle, then added to Sam, "and you, Mister Tyler, where have you been, leaving the fight to these young men? Coward."
"Just listen to us. She's part of it. Smith, tell him," said Sam.
The Doctor swallowed. "She was-she was with-with Baines in the village," he stammered.
The headmaster rolled his eyes. "Mister Smith, I've seen many strange sights this night, but there is no cause on God's Earth that would allow me to see this child in the field of battle, sir. Come with me."
The little girl sized him up. "You're funny," she said.
"That's right. Now take my hand," said Rocastle impatiently.
"So funny." The girl produced a ray gun and vaporized the headmaster, turning him to green dust. She looked at all the boys, daringly. "Now who's going to shoot me? Any of you, really?!" she sneered.
John swallowed. "Put down your guns," he ordered.
"But sir, the Headmaster-" Hutchinson piped up.
"I'll not see this happen. Not anymore. You will retreat in an orderly fashion back through the school. Hutchinson, lead the way."
"But sir-"
"I said, lead the way." There was a finality to the human's voice. Sam couldn't help but smile. His Doctor was still in there somewhere.
At that moment, Baines slinked in, flanked by Jenny. "Well, go on, then. Run!" he roared, firing his gun.
"Come on!" cried Martha, fleeing.
"John!" Sam and John's hands met and linked together, and they ran into the building.
"Reanimate!" ordered Baines, and the scarecrow soldiers, which the boys had shot down, came back online, stalking them through the premises.
"Sam, we've got to get these boys out of here!" John called to him over the hubbub.
"I agree, and Martha and Joan as well," Sam said. "Looks like it's just you and me, John."
John smiled a little. "Just like old times."
Sam smiled back and nodded. "Just like old times."
John grabbed Sam's waistcoat and pulled him in for a kiss. But it was cut short at the sound of laser fire, and they were forced to scurry off.
They were getting the women and children out, when all of a sudden, Sam felt the essence of the Time Lord echo through his mind. Lord of Time, it roared.
John looked at Sam. "Sam, did you hear-"
"Yes!" said Sam. "You felt it too."
"I did," said John. "Is it-is it him? The Doctor?"
"Yes," said Sam. "It came from upstairs! Follow me!" He turned for the door, but found a mass of scarecrows standing in wait. Sam swiftly slammed it shut. "Not that way," he exclaimed, turning to run the other direction, John in tow.
The two of them crept to the edge of the woods next to the school. They peeped out from behind the trees. The Family was standing in front of the school, grouped around a familiar blue box.
"No," gasped Sam. "How did they find it?"
"Come back, Doctor!" called Mr. Clark. "Come home! Come and claim your prize."
"Out you come, Doctor. There's a good boy. Come to the Family," taunted Baines.
"Time to end it now!" added Jenny.
"You recognise it, don't you?" Sam whispered to John.
John swallowed nervously. "I've never seen it in my life."
"I'm sorry, John, but human you is not a good liar. You wrote about it. The blue box. You dreamt of a blue box," Sam insisted.
"I'm not..." John choked, staring from Sam to the TARDIS. "I'm John Smith," he said, his voice breaking. "That's all I want to be. John Smith, with his life, and his job..." John looked at Sam in desperation. "...and his love. Why can't I be John Smith? Isn't he a good man?" John let out a shaky puff of breath. "Isn't he enough for you?" he whispered.
"Of course he is, don't be ridiculous," Sam said, hugging him tightly.
"Then why can't I stay?" John sobbed.
"John...you're a good man. A bit of a prick sometimes, but a good man nonetheless," said Sam, consoling stroking his fingers through the human's brown hair. "But we need the Doctor," he breathed in his ear.
John pulled away from him. "What am I, then?" he asked, standing up and backing away.
"John..." said Sam, reaching out for him.
"Nothing," said John bleakly. "I'm just a story." He turned tail and ran off into the trees and the dark.
"John!" Sam whispered urgently after him. But the human was gone.
Sam sighed in frustration and turned around. To his surprise, there was a young boy standing right in front of him.
"Latimer," stuttered Sam, recognizing him as a student from Farringham. "You're supposed to be down in the village with Matron and Miss Jones."
"I know, sir, I just..." Latimer blinked his large brown eyes. He reached into the pocket of his uniform trousers...
...and pulled out the watch.
Sam took it in disbelief from his outstretched hand. "Where did you find this?" he asked.
"On the grounds," said Latimer. "It's Mister Smith's, isn't it? It...it called out to me. It tells me things."
"What things?" Sam asked, dropping down on one knee to be able to look the boy in the eye.
Latimer licked his lips worrisomely. "A war. Involving the whole wide world. I'm in it. All taking place in a year's time."
"World War One," Sam realized. "1914."
"So it's true, then," said Latimer.
Sam looked at the boy. God, he couldn't be more than 14. Sam nodded gravely. "Yes."
"Can the Doctor help us?" Latimer asked.
"How do you know the Doctor?" Sam asked him.
"The watch. It showed me him. He's so terrible...and so wonderful too. And you. You're his friend, aren't you?"
"Yes. I am," said Sam.
"The Doctor can save us," said Latimer, backing away. "You have to find him. You have to give it to him, so he can save us."
Sam stood up. "I will. I promise."
Latimer nodded, turned, and fled into the woods, toward the village.
Sam looked back at the direction John Smith had ran. Then he took off after his Time Lord.
