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Hershel Layton had just, unknowingly, handed part of his soul to Claire Foley.
“Wow! It’s beautiful!”
“Do you really like it?”
“Yes, I wanted one! Thank you, Hershel! I’ll treasure it!”
“I’m relieved hearing that. Choosing a gift like this can be difficult.”
“Isn’t it obvious that I would be more than happy? It’s a present from you, so it’s special…”
The present in question was a simple but elegant golden fob watch, which had been most difficult to find. Not only because it was a unique model, the only of its design, but because it had been hidden by a perception filter throughout the entirety of Hershel Layton’s life.
Sure enough, Hershel had spent two months visiting every clock shop in London, hoping to find the most adequate present, but none of them seemed enough for her. He always knew, in the back of his head, that there was a better option. The best option, that always somehow managed to avoid him.
It wasn’t until just the night before the date, when he had already given up on both the gift and the question for her, that he noticed it. He was reviewing his thesis when his hand touched something cold. He almost did what he did every other night, think “It’s just the watch”, and ignore it, and forget about it.
Almost.
This night was different.
“Cold.”
“It’s just the watch.”
“I’m touching cold.”
“It’s just the watch.”
“Still cold, is it something metallic?”
“It’s just the watch.”
“It’s just the watch.”
“It’s just the watch.”
“Is that a…?”
Slowly, slowly, really slowly, Hershel’s eyes diverted from the paper and clumsily focused on the object he had been touching. He felt like he was waking up from a very deep sleep. Like he had just undone some ancient magic spell.
It was a fob watch. There was a fob watch in his study desk. He had never seen but somehow always had known it was there. Why did he even have a fob watch? It was a family heirloom, or something he had bought in an antique shop long ago, surely. It hardly mattered where it had come from, really, because from the instant he had seen it, he knew it was Claire’s. It belonged to her just as naturally as he did.
He didn’t open it. Had he looked inside, he would have regained his Time Lord soul and remembered all his previous lives. His essence would have become time, and he would finally have understood why he kept dreaming of dawns with two suns and a brother who never was. He would have run to his old new TARDIS and he would’ve taken Claire with him. Far, far away, to see all of time and space.
But that night, he didn’t open it.
Claire did open it the next day, but Hershel didn’t look inside, so he remained as human as he was. He did, however, feel his soul calling out to him, crying desperately for him to be “The Professor”.
“Soon,” he thought. “Soon I will be.”
The watch, along with all his future plans, hopes and all his love, was destroyed at the explosion of the Institute of Polydimensional Research.
The scientist’s name was Descole. That was what he had said, but Layton knew it wasn’t true. Something deep inside him reached out, trying in vain to fit pieces that weren’t there, to find an inexistent connection. They had met somewhere before, he was certain, but he was unable to recall it, as even time itself had forgotten when the Scientist and the Professor had first crossed paths.
Despite having claimed that he was an irrelevant insolent tiny human brat, when it came to it, Descole gave his life to save Luke’s. Or so the professor had initially thought.
“You are regenerating,” he understood, seeing his rival’s hands light up, shining gold.
“You are remembering,” answered the masked man. “And yet you never opened the watch…”
“The watch… it was destroyed. It was an accident.”
“You really are unbelievable, Hershel Layton… You got that name from me, you know? Before the Scientist, I was Ershar.”
The lights disappeared for an instant before bringing the man alive again.
“Now go! I’ve failed. It falls to you to stop this madness and fulfil your Time Lord duties. No matter how human you might be.”
It took the professor a whole year to find his TARDIS. He had thought that now he knew what he was looking for, it would be simple, but neither the chameleon circuit nor the perception filter did easily give in.
It—not it, she obviously had to be near the college’s campus, as that was the first place he remembered seeing as a human. He had wandered around for a bit, disoriented, physically sick. Then he had met Clark, who had helped him with his ‘heat stroke’. They had been friends since.
His old mate was an important clue too. He had stepped into the TARDIS at some point, and she had recognized him as not-quite-the-Professor’s friend, linking his mind to the translation circuits. That’s the only way his ability to talk to animals could be explained, after all.
And so it was that the tree that Clark most often read under was bigger on the inside and welcomed the professor with an assortment of beeps and clicks that he could not decipher.
It was the very first time in a long, long life that Hershel Layton felt at home.