Chapter Text
Ian Chesterton quite disliked imagined flights of fancy, thank you very much.
Even as a young boy he didn’t hold with such nonsense like the other children did. Imagining fighting pirates and being dashing knights and slaying fearsome giants had been a waste of time, quite a waste of time indeed to young Ian. No, he had always preferred the logical, the factual, the real .
That was what Ian loved about the sciences. A theory could not be considered real unless it had been theorized, tested, proven right, its results duplicated. Science was real because you could prove it was real. It was why he had spent his formative years in his school's laboratory and library, memorizing formulas and theories, the names of the greats who had come before and studying those who were on their way, his own beloved teacher by his side guiding him with a friendly smile and an encouraging ‘well done, Chesterton’ after every accomplishment. Ian had wanted to spread that same joy to other young minds, minds who dreamt about beakers and formulas and theorems. So he had gone to university to further his studies, walking away just this past May, a proud Oxford man with a Masters in chemistry coupled with a Masters in education.
It was September now, and he was starting his first day at a new job. Coal Hill School, a secondary school, had offered a reasonable rate for a brand new teacher, and was only a short walk from his home in Shoreditch (which was just as well seeing as how he could scarce afford a car just yet).
Ian took a deep breath as he looked at himself in his mirror, combing his quaff of brown hair over for what felt like the twentieth time that morning. He fixed his tie, flattered out his wrinkle free shirt and pulled his jacket down, trying to ignore the nerves fluttering in his stomach.
“Right…” he breathed as he made sure his waistcoat was buttoned up. “You can do this, Chesterton.”
Picking up his briefcase, fixing his tie (again), he forced himself to leave his house and begin the short walk to Coal Hill.
Young students walked past or rode on their bikes, barely giving him a curious glance as they spoke to their friends about what they had done on summer holiday, what plans they had this upcoming weekend and the like. The nerves in his stomach twisted even more the closer he got to the large brick building. It was very large and very intimidating, yet rather generic all the same. A school cut and pasted from the unimaginative mind of an unimaginitive person when asked to describe what a school set in a quaint English town might look like. Gray stone piled three stories tall, long windows spaced evenly in rows, some already decorated with ‘welcome back’ messages for the students, and a brick staircase leading up to two wide sets of double doors. All in all it was remarkably practical with little left to the imagination; just what Ian preferred.
A tall thin man in a tweed jacket waited at the top of the stairs, giving a little wave as Ian approached him, hand outstretched.
“Good morning, Mr. Chesterton,” the man, Roger Kint, said with an Irish brogue. His smile was friendly, his handshake was firm, and Ian reciprocated as best he could despite his nerves threatening to swallow him whole.
Ian gave a curt nod of recognition. “Good morning, Headmaster.”
Roger led him into the halls of the school. “So are you ready for your first day?”
“Oh yes, quite. Nerves aside, of course.” As they walked Ian looked around the halls decorated with notices, trophy cases, announcements… The hallway was packed with returning students making merry and the occasional staff or faculty trying to make their way through the crowded throng.
“Don’t worry, Lad, you’ll do fine. Now, these are all the front offices. If you need something copied or any administrative work done, you just tell Mrs. Smuthers, and she’ll see it done,” Roger said with a nod towards an older woman with thick glasses sitting behind a desk typing away. My office is just through there, the same place you had your interview.”
“Right,” Ian said as Roger walked him down another hallway.
“Mens lavatory on the far side of the hall, womens on the opposite. And here… is your classroom; C3.” Both men stopped in front of a door with a small black plaque with white writing beside it saying exactly that. “I believe you’ll find it equipped with all the lab essentials you’ll need but if you require anything more don’t be shy in asking me.”
Ian resisted running his fingers along the plaque. This was his classroom, the place he will be molding young minds and generations of students to come. He almost felt a tear welling in his eye. “I’m sure I’ll get along just fine.”
“Now your neighbor in C4 also starts today, a Ms. Barbara Wright, history. She should be setting up her first class now.”
Ian gave a friendly smile. “Well I should be very glad to meet her.”
“Yes, she seems to be quite a lovely woman judging from her interview. Now ah… your fellow science professor across the hall, that was up until last semester Mr. Jason Perri. Good man, good head on his shoulder, fought in the war even. Taught the study of astronomy. But just last month he decided to take early retirement.”
“Have you gotten a replacement yet?” Ian asked. Already his mind was conjuring names of his uni mates, those who hadn’t been quite so lucky as him to land a job their first year out.
“We have.” There was something about the way Roger said it that made Ian think he wished he hadn’t. “She uh… well, why don’t you meet her?”
Curious and curiouser, Ian followed Roger into room D3, and immediately his jaw dropped to his chest. He wagered other rooms might have the occasional encouraging poster, an announcement for signups for the school play, maybe even some decorations associated with the subject. This room however was not just on another level but, quite literally, otherworldly.
Every inch of white wall had been coated in stars and planets. Nebulas, black holes, blue and pink and galaxies, whole universes… If that wasn’t enough the floor and ceiling both looked akin to a night sky, all with different constellations. It was as if they had stepped straight into the darkness of space itself and only them and the desks were floating through it.
“How on earth -?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Chesterton,” Roger said as slack jawed and wide eyed students began to filter in, their necks craning to look at the phenomenal decorations surrounding them, some almost afraid to step foot into the classroom, thoughts of plunging through the vastness of space not an all-together unreasonable fear given the level of detail.
Another curious bit about this room wasn’t the absurd decorations, but the fact there were two large desks at the front rather than just one. While the larger one was a jumbled mess of unusual tools and oddities, a pale violet coat hung off the back of the chair, the other was smaller and much more organized.
“Doctor Smith brought her own assistant,” Roger explained with a roll of her eyes when Ian asked why there were two. “She refused to sign on unless she could bring the girl on board. Thankfully both have offered their services free of charge so… we couldn’t exactly say no.”
Ian stared slack-jawed at the man. “They’re working for free ?”
“Hmm. Both refused the paycheck I offered.”
“That’s unusual.”
“She’s an unusual woman. Speaking of,” he muttered as Ian saw not one but two women walk through the door. His smile seemed much more forced than it had been when he met Ian. “Good morning Doctor Smith, Ms. Khan.”
The shorter woman dressed as normal as normal could be; a black wool skirt that fell just past her knees with a white Peter Pan blouse tucked into the skirt that complimented her darker complexion. She wore dark stockings with low heeled pumps, and a string of pearls fit elegantly around her neck. Perfectly normal, perfectly acceptable, perfectly ordinary.
The blonde woman however.. Blue culottes that were much too big for her, brown boots whose top half were left unlaced, a cotton t-shirt of all things and were those men’s suspenders?
Her hair was cut short and Ian did have to admit the way it framed her face was quite pretty, and she was rather beautiful if Ian had to admit, both of them were, but there was little to no bounce to it unlike most fashion forward women today. Granted the way she dressed, Ian highly doubted ‘fashion forward’ were evers words used to describe her. Even her earring was an oddity, a long chain traveling from the bottom of the lobe to the top of the ear and only one of them at that.
The blonde woman beamed at him, her smile showing a bit too much teeth but it was quite adorable if he was being honest with himself.
“Hi there!” Her heavy Yorkshire accent added a charming touch to her greeting.
“How do you do?” Ian asked with a polite inclination to her, as well as her friend.
“Oh I’m brilliant!” Her hazel eyes sparkled in excitement and her voice was filled with a genuine bubbling joy. “Always loved the first day of school, the start of new adventures, inspiring young minds. You know, all the things that teachers love. Which I definitely am by the way; certified and everything,” she said with an almost childlike taunting, all without taking any breath. “Anyway, this is my associate Yasmin Khan. I call her Yaz, but I’m allowed to ‘cause she’s my best friend.”
Yaz gave him a rather awkward smile as she held out her hand. She was far less excited than her associate. “How do you do?”
“Well, thank you,” Ian said, giving it a friendly shake before turning back to the blonde. “I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name.”
“Oh I’m the Doctor… Joanne Smith, I’m Doctor Joanne Smith,” she said quickly as if she had caught herself in a lie. “That’s my name, because of course I have a name that goes along with my title.”
Roger caught Ian’s eye, quaking his brow just so with a quite clear ‘see what I mean?’ expression painting his face. Ian turned back to the two women.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Doctor Smith,” he told her. “The names Chesterton. Ian Chesterton.”
Yaz gave another friendly hello while Joanne seemed to freeze. Her eyes grew round, and her mouth opened as if it had fallen open in shock.
“Doctor?” Yaz asked, voice thick with concern when the Doctor hadn’t moved for a moment or two. “Doctor, are you alright?”
“Should I go and get the matron?” Ian asked, looking from the slack jawed Doctor to Roger. “Here, why don’t you sit down?” he said, quickly grabbing her chair from behind her desk.
Women were rather breakable afterall. Intelligent, yes, quite so, Ian never had any doubts about that. One of his favorite advanced maths professors had been a woman. But women folk were, after all, the more gentler sex and in need of quite a lot of delicacy, an idea which Ian’s father had imposed upon him since before he could walk and he had strived to live up to every day since.
“Let me help you, Doctor Smith.”
At that word, Joanne finally blinked, and her mouth turned up into a wide grin, bright and beautiful. “Chesterton!” she cried out joyfully, taking an excited step back and forth, not quite sure what to do with herself. “Ian Chesterton!”
“Yes… that’s right.”
“Of course!” she beamed, her smile growing bigger every second. “Of course, why didn’t I think-! Yaz!” Joanne motioned wildly to the tall man standing before them. “This is Chesterton!”
At least for his sake, Yaz appeared equally confused as Ian was as to why Joanne was so excited. But she seemed to be far less interested in Ian then she was in Joanne’s well being. “Doctor, why don’t you sit down?”
“No, I'm fine! I am, I-.. I’m sorry, I just…” Joanne let out a sigh as she smiled. “It’s been a while.”
Ian looked between Roger and Joanne, looking for some kind of explanation. “I… I’m sorry, do we know each other?”
It was as if she had been plunged into a vat of icy water. Her smile died, and the exuberant joy left her eyes. “Right… Right, no, sorry, I… I’m sorry.”
“Are you sure you’re well, Doctor Smith?” Roger asked.
“Hmm? Yeah, I’m brilliant! Sorry, I… taught at Oxford for a spell. You were everyone’s favorite,” she said quickly. “Feel as if I already know ya.”
Ian wracked his brain. He couldn’t ever remember a Doctor Joanne Smith, and he certainly would remember a woman like her walking around. But then again he hadn’t taken any astronomy courses, (space had never interested him much), so it was entirely possible he had just never seen her in the vast and ancient halls.
The woman muttered an apology and Ian, never the one to let a woman stay embarrassed on account of him, gave her a warm smile. “It’s quite alright, Doctor. It’s just nice to know that I was being bragged about,” he said with a laugh.
Her lips fell into a warm smile. “Not nearly as much as you deserved, Chesterton.”
Roger cleared his throat and held his hands behind his back. “Now that we’ve all made our acquaintances, I do believe the bell for the first class is about to ring in a few minutes.”
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Doctor Smith, Ms. Khan.”
“You as well,” Yaz told him, hardly taking her concerned eyes off Joanne.
“See ya around,” Joanne said with a friendly wave and a friendlier smile.
“See what I mean?” Roger muttered in his ear as he gave a quick glance back. “Odd one that.”
“Yes, quite so, very much so,” Ian agreed. “Well, I’ll just keep my distance.” He let out a short laugh. “I doubt her and I will have much to talk about, after all.”