Written for livii as part of the second (almost annual) Chestertons ficathon.
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Once Upon A Time by atraphoenix [Reviews - 10]  Author's Notes: | |
Ian Chesterton was a scientist. He wasn’t supposed to believe in fairy tales.
As a child, he devoted a great deal of time to them, much to the chagrin of his sanguinely practical parents. Rather than learning his times tables, or even the chemical elements, he memorised Madame d’Aulnoy, Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm.
The playground became the dark forest and the other children, possessing an unerring ability to find and latch onto anything more exciting than homework, would race through it after him.
His family tried to discourage him, of course, but the natural course of childhood is difficult to redirect. Eventually, they stopped protesting and allowed him to carry on, determinedly secure in the knowledge that, one day, he’d grow up to be just as sensible and serious as they were.
He did.
The ideals he learned from the stories and games remained, however. Although he didn’t believe in witchcraft or fairies any more, he believed in what they represented. He believed that good always triumphed over evil eventually and that the winners always received a wondrous reward for doing the right thing.
Most importantly, Ian Chesterton believed in love. He believed in it as earnestly and wholeheartedly as he believed in Einstein and Newton and Aristotle, who replaced his formerly beloved authors when he reached his teens.
In retrospect, his view of love wasn’t particularly different from their scientific theories. Love was just another part of the universe, as ordinary as gravity.
A force.
He knew that it would start acting on his life sooner or later.
***
Gravity acted on everyone, but you didn’t feel it. It was perfectly natural process. Smooth and flowing and graceful. What you felt were the effects and, unfortunately, considerably less fluid.
Ian knew this. He had studied various forces, including gravity, in depth while at university. Somewhere along the line, he had started to assume that love would be the same.
But, in the end, love struck him just as suddenly and just as sharply as Newton’s proverbial apple. The process was flawless, but the effects hit him like a tonne of bricks and shook him to the core.
And, like Newton, he couldn’t put a name to the process straight away.
He found himself spending a lot of time wondering if Barbara Wright believed in love as fervently as he did, but, for some reason, didn’t quite make the connection.
The scientist within him did his best to rebel against the stories, and half succeed.
Cinderella went to the ball but lost her shining slipper. Belle picked her enchanted rose but ended up trapped in the castle.
Narrative convention.
As natural (and unavoidable) as gravity.
They weren’t magical. Their life wasn’t a fairy tale. Barbara wasn’t Rapunzel, trapped in her tower, or Little Red Riding Hood, skipping through the dark forest. She didn’t need rescuing, and he was no Prince Charming at any rate. It didn’t really matter. Everything worked wonderfully well when they were just being themselves.
Gravity.
Ian worried, occasionally, about how hard it was to have a fairy tale romance without the adventure that was supposed to lie alongside it.
Unfortunately, when they did start adventuring, there was no time for anything else.
Poisoned apples, and cursed spinning wheels.
No kisses just yet.
***
Every fairy story needs a heroine. A Cinderella to slumber in the ashes while waiting for her handsome prince or a Briar Rose to lie in a ruinous castle for a dreamless eternity.
Barbara Wright might have been a million miles away from the fairy princesses of Ian’s youth, but it didn’t matter, since they were a million miles away from Earth in any case. She was braver, and more beautiful, and more intelligent, than anyone he’d ever read about.
Ian was forced to reshape all of his views while travelling in the TARDIS, and this included his views on love.
He didn’t get to play the hero all the time. He managed it occasionally, of course, but Barbara and the Doctor took on the role just as often.
Narrative convention?
Madame d’Aulnoy hadn’t mentioned Sensorites, or Daleks, or Voord. This made it difficult to cultivate romance. Their life was so unpredictable and the romantic within Ian often protested at Barbara’s independence.
It definitely protested when she formed a worryingly close friendship with Leon Colbert.
Fortunately, it did not last. They came back to each other. They always came back to each other, no matter what they saw and what they experienced.
Planets in perpetual orbit.
Gravity.
Life onboard the TARDIS wasn’t easy and it wasn’t always beautiful, but that didn’t matter, because aliens were far more interesting than elves, on the whole, and Barbara herself was incomparable.
***
Even the greatest adventures have to end at some point.
The princess marries the prince and everyone lives happily ever after. The big bad wolf is slain. The wicked witch gets her comeuppance.
The two teachers find their way back to Earth.
Ian had never really considered what happened after the happy ending, but all of a sudden, he found himself living there.
***
A ripple of excitement was running through the schoolyard.
“I heard that she was in her car, and blocked the road so he couldn’t escape.”
“No, you’re wrong. Jackie was there, and she said Miss Wright tripped him up and held him until the police arrived!”
“Wow!”
“Not bad for a history teacher!”
Barbara had found it difficult to adjust back to an ordinary life. It was hard to carry on being an ordinary person — a teacher, of all things! — after saving the world, and playing the hero, so many times.
She seized the chance to relive that life, even for the brief of moments, without a second thought.
***
Ian found her in the staffroom, gazing out of the window and pretending, with little success, to mark the stack of books in front of her.
“Apparently you’re quite the hero,” he remarked, sitting down beside her. “If only they knew how much.”
Barbara smiled softly. “You don’t look particularly happy about it.”
He returned the smile, albeit a little distantly. “I just worry about you.”
It was strange how the idea of Barbara fighting Daleks no longer fazed him, but the idea of her taking on a potentially armed human burglar made him physically sick. What had seemed so real during their travels in the Doctor was now nothing more than a fairy tale. Human horrors were the problem now.
“There’s no need, Ian,” she said, looking at him with the faintest trace of amusement in her eyes. “You know I’ve dealt with worse.”
“That was different.”
She cocked her head at him. “How was it different?”
Because it wasn’t here and now, on Earth, in our time. Because it was during our adventures with the Doctor, and, although it was very real, it seemed less so.
“Because I’m supposed to be the hero. I’m supposed to be the one who rides in one a white charger and saves the day …”
He stopped, his words fading away as soon as Barbara took his hand in hers.
Perfectly natural. Uncontrollable.
“You are.”
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