〖 HUMAN NATURE 〗
THE SUN POURED IN THROUGH the cream curtains. In the distance birds chirped and a rooster even crowed. Valarie stirred in her bed, refuting the suns rising. A hand gently nudged her shoulder.
"Come on now, you know they will be cross if you aren't up before them again." Jenny warned. She chuckled as Valarie groaned to look at her groggily. She threw the blanket off of herself and shrugged out of bed. She stood, stretching in the long, white, nightgown the school had kindly provided her. She grasped for a wooden comb on the night table as Jenny, a older woman, dropped her folded black and white uniform on her bed. She combed her hair as she turned to Jenny.
"Has Martha already began for today?" She asked Jenny nodded. Valarie began to strip into her undergarments and don the maid uniform. She worked her hair back into a bun, failing to tame the brown hairs around her face as she did so. Valarie had worn the uniform for three months now but still couldn't find the comfort in it.
"She had breakfast duty today. Went to serve Mr.Smith bright and early."
Valarie flinched at that name. Mr. Smith. She shook her head with her eyes closed. She ran her hands down the floor length dress, smoothing it.
"I guess that will leave me with the boys hall. Sometimes when they walk by and leave new mud tracks on the floor I want to just hit them." She grumbled. She grabbed her shawl and wished Jenny a good day before exiting their quarters. The maid quarters was a cottage across the property that the all-boys school sat on and the bitter November air was not kind this early in the morning. She cursed with each step as the wind pushed against her body, only stopping to smile and greet each passing teacher who readied for the days lessons. Valarie had become used to the atmosphere of the school. The staff, for the most part, were kind. The students were not.
This proved to still remain true as Valarie entered the boys hall to be greeted by a student, a older boy named Jeremy Baines, shoving a mountain of dirty, putrid smelling laundry into her arms.
"Good lord, I didn't think you were ever going to come. No wonder I allowed all of this to pile up, I forgot we even had a staff. Also, my floor will need cleaning. I ask you do so before noon." He gave her a demeaning smile as he gazed down at her. Jeremy was a tall, slim boy who was around sixteen. He almost looked like what a actor would dress like if they were mimicking a rich brat in a play. He came from money, and acted like it. His friends laughed as they walked away. They all had a special joke that was being cruel to any staff that wasn't teachers. He especially loved to pick fights with Valarie as she was the only who in the past had stood up to his treatment. She sighed, turning her nose away from the pile. She began to move down the hall, bumping into someone shorter then her shortly after.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't even-"
The pile was cut in half as another student, a younger boy named Timothy Latimer, took some of the clothes from the top. He was a shorter, more frail boy who was the subject of Jeremy's regular torment. Due to this, he was much kinder then anyone there. He also regularly chatted with Valarie if he caught her, having seen her confront Jeremy over his bullying of him. Valarie smiled upon seeing his face.
"Oh, good morning Timothy." Timothy smiled at her, holding the pile to his own chest. She swatted a hand at him and motioned for him to hand her the clothes back. "Oh, give me those now." He shook his head, instead motioning for her to walk with him. She reluctantly followed as he began his path for the laundry room. Well, it was a room with open windows, access to running water, and a tin tub with the scrubber she would have to use to clean the clothing.
"How have you been, Ms.Scott?" He asked her.
"I've been alright. How have you been?" She turned to look down at him, noticing the faint bruise on his cheek. "Is Jeremy still pushing you around?" She asked with a more stern tone. Timothy looked away in embarrassment almost. His silence was his answer.
"Good lord. You can't let him treat you this way continuously. You know that? You are too smart to let him push you around like that. Making you call him 'sir' and what not." Valarie always felt a ball of anger in her gut when she would see Jeremy pushing Timothy around. Perhaps she saw some of herself as a child in him, but that was beside the point of it simply being wrong. She rounded into an open door, shutting it behind them and dumping the dirty clothes onto a bench. She took the pile from his arms and laid them down also, before leaning down and grabbing his face. He turned his head from side to side in confusion.
"Oh, come on now. Let me see what he did to you."
"Ms.Scott, I'm fine." Her eyes met his with an almost motherly glare, "It's healed for the most part." She rolled her eyes and pulled her hands back, pointing a finger at him.
"Next time he hits you, hit back."
"I cannot just hit him."
"Yes, you can." She laughed, standing up and flattening his hair out with her palm. She gazed at a clock before exclaiming he would be late to his first class of the day and shuffled them out back into the corridor. Timothy bumped into a lower torso and was gently knocked back into the front of Valarie. She set her hands on his shoulders, holding them.
"Oh, I am sorry." Timothy looked at the man.
"Mr.Smith." Valarie felt a lump catch in her throat as she looked at the man before her. He wore a nice, tweed, grey suit with what resembled a modern graduation cap made of the same material. Under his arm and pressed to the side of the brown vest he wore underneath it was a stack of books. He smiled kindly at her. She didn't like it.
"Oh, it's no problem. Now Mr.Latimer, you don't want to be late to my class again do you? And I am sure miss...." He trailed off, eyes settling on Valarie as he obviously struggled for her name.
"Ms.Scott, sir."
"Ms.Scott. I am sure Ms.Scott has things she needs to attend to." Timothy nodded, turning to Valarie and bidding farewell as him and John Smith disappeared down the hallway towards his class room.
When she was sure she was alone, she released a deep sigh.
No matter how long it had been, Valarie could not get used to the Doctor completely forgetting who she was.
She rubbed her temples as she gathered herself and shrugged her shawl off, draping it on a metal hook within the laundry room and shutting the door. It wasn't her day on laundry, and she wasn't going to do some snot-nosed teenagers because he tried to push it on her. She turned back to the corridor and froze as a new body entered it.
Joan Redfern.
She was a young woman, maybe in her mid-twenties. She was the schools nurse, with blonde hair in a messy bun and a long grey dress on with a white apron. She was gorgeous.
And she was the object of John Smith's affections.
Since they had arrived he was absolutely smitten with her. As if she was the brightest center of the universe to him. Joan was a sweet woman.
"Good morning, Valarie." She greeted to her as she passed.
Valarie was unsure if she was sickeningly sweet, or just seeing her made her stomach flip. She forced a smile.
"Good morning." Joan stopped and smiled.
"You need to see Timothy Latimer after his first class ends." Valarie always ended up turning their conversation towards students as she knew she simply could not talk about the Doctor with her.
"Oh?" She asked.
"He has a bruise on his cheek. And I have great reason to believe that Jeremy Baines left it there. Can you just make sure his head is alright?"
"Yes," Joan chuckled, "I can. I know you have quite the soft spot for that boy." Valarie smiled and nodded, peeling away and wringing her hands in front of her. She tried to recall the events that lead her into the situation she was in; wrestling with grief in her chest and what exactly made her feel that way. Why did all of this hurt so much?
The events that led her to the position she was now in were complex. She wasn't even quite sure what had chased them into the TARDIS in the first place, but it was out for blood. The Doctor was frantic beyond words, asking Martha and her if they had seen their faces. It was only worse when he had realized that 'The Family' was following them through the time vortex with some stolen tech. The situation was far beyond what she could comprehend. All she knew for certain was the Doctor had to hide.
He had became human in a sense. Took what made him alien and locked it away in a fob watch and gave them the strict instructions to not open it until the family died. That they were on limited time and that's why they were chasing them.They needed the Doctor's life, or lives as he had explained. When they died, the coast would be clear. Problem was he didn't tell them how long that would be. Now edging on the end of month three, Valarie felt this was life now. By the time he would be able to return, she would be a frail old woman.
Martha kept her head up most days, the two supporting each other along with Jenny who was blissfully unaware of who the two women really were.
Valarie had learned to ignore the man named John Smith. Regard when she must, but she left Martha to be the eye on him. She volunteered to keep a more outward view to ensure the family wouldn't come close to them.
She had tried at first, but as time continued and no end in sight she knew her only shreds of sanity depended on her avoiding him.
The day beyond that point had been a dull blur. Cleaning floors, clothes, and keeping her head down. She only got a seconds relief to have a drink with Martha and Jenny. She eventually drew cold and excused herself however, waving goodbye as she began her venture to the secluded area in the woods. It was a hut, abandoned for sometime now, and the walk was long. By the time she reached it nightfall had came. Valarie pushed the wet, wooden door open and looked around before shutting herself inside. She gazed upon the TARDIS, which had been hidden in the hut. She unlocked the door with a key stored on a chain she concealed around her neck and under the color of her gown. She opened the door and stepped within.
The TARDIS was asleep in a sense. The orange lights within were off except for the blue ones on the console.
"You're cold." She spoke to it as if it was alive. She walked up the console looking around. A few things had been moved. Martha had been in here last, no doubt. She walked towards a moniter, tapping it as it buzzed to life.
The Doctor's face was on the screen. It was him, just him. Not John, him.
"Martha, Valarie, I am leaving you instructions while I'm human. Follow them carefully."
She had viewed this tape so many times already.
"Number one, don't let me hurt anyone. Can't have that and you know how humans are."
John was a mild mannered man. No violent intent what-so-ever.
"Two, don't worry about the TARDIS. I'll put it on emergency power so they can't detect it and just hide it away."
It had remained hidden without even suspicion for a while now.
"Four, no, three. No getting involved in historical events."
Only time would tell with that one.
"Four, you. Don't let me abandon you."
A lump formed in her throat. She knew he hadn't, but it still felt as if he had. She chocked it back and reached for a knob. She turned it and watched the video speed up. She stopped it at the end.
"And twenty-three, if they find us you know what to do. Open the watch. Everything I am is kept safe in there. Now I will put a perception filter on it so the human I become won't think anything of it, to him it's just a watch. But don't open it unless you have to because then the family will find me." He stood up and reached to stop the video before pausing and sitting down again.
"Oh, and thank you."
The screen went to black before displaying symbols in blue that only he ever understood.
--
That night she laid in her bed, eyes fixed on the window as Martha got ready for bed before a mirror.
"I saw something tonight."
"Yeah?" Valarie replied.
"A meteor flew by." Valarie turned her head to her.
"Like a meteor, or..." She trailed off waiting for Martha's response. She turned to her and leaned against the wooden vanity.
"It looked normal. Except I could have sworn it had this odd green hue." Valarie sat up in her bed, eyes fixated on Martha.
"Do you think it could be the family?"
"No way to know except see what happens in the next few days."
"Should we...?"
"No, not yet." Martha noticed Valarie's confused gaze. "Don't jump the gun on this one, Val. I know you've been as antsy as me to have him back and get this all over with but for all we know I could've been seeing things. It's too uncertain and the risk is too high."
Valarie rolled over and faced away from her to the window. Her eyes fixated on the world outside and her thoughts wrestled with each other. A meteorite with a green hue? The same green hue the family had had on that ship months ago? If Valarie was searching for her excuse to bring him back, this was it.
--
As the courage in her chest swelled to a peak, and she readied herself to appear like a lunatic to him for a second before bringing the Doctor back against Martha's advice. Finally she turned the door knob and swung the wooden door open swiftly and pushed into the room with a confident air around her.
"Mr.Smith-"
She froze. He was leaned over, lips pressed against Joan's. He recoiled quickly, looking to Valarie with an embarrassed blush and annoyance on his face.
"Ms.Scott what have they told you about entering unannounced?"
"I'm sorry." She mumbled, immediately peeling herself from the scene and leaving as quickly as she had came. She shut the door behind her and made a quick pace to the door leading outdoors at the end of the hall. Her ears almost rung as a new emotion bubbled within. She snatched her coat and threw it on as she exited the building and rushed herself back to the maid quarters.
The next moments seemed a blur. She only had clarity as she entered the building and moved to sit on her bed. Her eyes began stinging as she sniffled, pulling her hair down from the tight bun and running her hands through her hair.
It felt dirty. She felt dirty. Not physically, but emotionally. She shouldn't have entered unannounced. Hell, she shouldn't have even been trying to bring him back yet and she knew it.
The last few months she had spent desperately not wanting to see the Doctor, or the man who wore him at least. It felt like a knife in her back when he would forget her name or give her a odd glance when he would catch her looking at him. How she would talk faster then a normal person with him, or talk to him a crude manners that only two close people would, or plainly talk over him. Her behavior from his perspective was wildly inappropriate. And she knew it seemed that way.
She even felt a bubble of jealousy when Martha told her he had seen her in his dreams. Why didn't he see her? Why was Martha, and daleks, and even past friends in his dreams but she wasn't anywhere to be seen? Was she just that unimportant to him? Was John Smith's attitude towards her a reflection of the Doctor's genuine feelings?
And him kissing her. Oh god. The image, only minutes old, was already seared into her mind. She kept replaying with over memories of the Doctor himself. She hid her face in her hands as hot tears stung her cold cheeks. She sobbed into what she assumed an empty room, jumping when the door open. Jenny stepped in and began to ramble about how offensive some of the boys had been to Martha. She looked to Valarie when she heard a sniffle and gazed upon Valarie's red, puffy face.
"Oh, darling." She sat next to her on the bed. She took her cheeks between her hands as she tried to refrain from crying any further but failed.
"Who hurt you?" She asked softly, with Valarie leaning into her neck and holding onto her shoulder as she tried to form coherent sentences. It spilled out as jumbles of 'I saw him.' and 'why doesn't he remember me?'
"Darling, what do you mean?" Jenny asked in confusion as she listened to the borderline pathetic ramble. Finally, a sentence that made some sense even without context came in silence between her sobs. It rolled of her tongue before she could process the words but when they did she knew them to be a truth she had tried to ignore for a while now.
"I love him."