Another entry in my Planet Mondas Publications fan label, a Simpsons fic I wrote back in the summer of 2015. Time spent evolving as an author persuaded me to look over the original work and tighten it up a bit, also cut down the number of chapters so I could increase the page count from what chapters do remain.
I hope you enjoy, out of the three more full length Simpsons fics I’ve written over the years , this was always my favourite
Parties are meant to be filled with lively people, full of joy and song, and jokes. You’ve got to have jokes, for jokes are beautiful. They’re legal lies, weaved in all too telling truth.
It’s an easier method today than it was when it belonged to the then-unreachable tomorrow.
The public vote on special apps, the most well told jokes are fed through an algorithm highlighting the names of noone important as well as the percentage that are. Virtual zeroes and heroes.
The algorithms are a bit like a thermostat. If the joke is popular, the celebrity or non-celebrity it targets will steadily rise in recognition and appreciation. Eventually, if the joke becomes overused, ages badly, or becomes too repetitive, it ‘cools off’.
The real world reacts accordingly and adjusts, placing another big name at the top of the ranks, and drops the celebrity or noone made light of to a lower ‘temperature’
If they drop way below, everything about them is frozen, their assets, their perks, everything.
Once you’re made light of, once you experience the burn, it’s hard to crawl out of the cold.
Let’s give you one such example.
The person at this particular party is a bit of a local hero, a comedian who gets by on telling observational jokes about people he knows. He’s never mean-spirited about it, he doesn’t attempt to assassinate their character, and he just describes their mistakes in a way that keeps everyone laughing. He exaggerates a bit. But just a bit.
He meets a woman at this party, another comedian, this one is strikingly fit, for a smoker at the very least, and she likes to socialize in a shell suit. She’s the ironic kind of comedy. It’s her gimmick, she loves it, and people embrace her.
But she likes to bring celebrities down to our level, and she always goes for the more offensive jokes.
The man is fascinated by this, he wants to get to know her better, he strikes up a conversation, and he notices things about her behaviour. The way she talks, the way she moves.
She gets a little tipsy; she spills some of the drink across her shell suit.
His glass of wine wasn’t empty, but already he felt full. He could take control of the room. Right now. It’d be easy.
Tell people about what he’d just witnessed; give them something to laugh about.
He had respect for her though, and he found her quite attractive.
The two talked, the two struck up a connection, the two fall for each other, as they must.
Their connection goes beyond the party; the subsequent months see them bring a life into this world, a daughter.
This girl’s journey would be shared by the father on the club scène. The local hero found that simply telling the truth about life with a six month year old crawling about in her own filth and throwing up on the mother in bed were the sort of humorous anecdotes that gave rise to his and her notability and appreciation figures
A nobody became a somebody, and with it came perks. What a time to be alive.
What doesn’t stay alive, what doesn’t stay alight, is the burn. Eventually, it all cools off.
Children grow, children evolve, and the fun in how they deal with their growing pains soon becomes an all too harsh reminder of the everyday struggles people experience from day to day. Everyone is bullied, everyone argues, everyone leaves.
Everyone then seeks an answer to where their life is headed next, but some don’t seek that at all. Some instead seek escapism.
The joke can be a kinder fiction, or it can be a comically crass reflection of reality. Most of the time it’s the latter.
When it ceases to be even that, it can only become the former, and society is not tailored to appreciate that anymore.
So the daughter cools off, she loses her perks; her boyfriends cut ties with her. She can’t even attend school. She can’t even stay with her family.
The man and woman are way too busy keeping other zeroes and heroes in the algorithm to notice. Their field of expertise keeps the wheel turning.
The daughter fails to understand that, and takes a dive off the nearest bridge.
Love is always wise, unless it’s a wisecrack.
Now thought Sarah.
It has to be now.
Clyde, Luke and Rani were out of the town, out of the country, the conditions were ideal to release herself from her obligations, without anyone bearing witness to her pain.
She could feel the illness course through her body, she didn’t care to give it a name, for it was alien, and intrusive, and quite, quite fatal.
She didn’t know when she had contracted it, or whether or not it was some alien menace wreaking a terrible and exact revenge for the times she had thwarted them.
Perhaps it was even The Trickster’s final surprise?
Whatever it was, it was bringing to her physical form the fateful, fearful stench of indignity. Of suffering. Of death.
She did not want her son to gaze into her eyes and see such little in the way of hope staring back at him. She wanted Luke to forever be in control of his own life, and to live it to its fullest.
For without life, everything stops, and it is all so sudden.
Her legs buckled, she clutched her stomach tightly.
“Mr. Smith, I need you” she whispered as she took in a sharp intake of what could be her final breath.
A loud, omnipresent fanfare resonated around the attic as a mighty supercomputer came to life and folded out of the fireplace in front of her.
“What are your instructions Sarah Jane?” it asked.
“I wasn’t referring to you for once dear friend”
“You called me by name” Mr. Smith replied.
“Plenty of Smiths in this world, even out there in this universe” Sarah responded.
The wind in the attic suddenly picked up, and a wheezing, groaning noise could be heard all around Sarah’s ears.
“Forever late than never” she said as a majestically simple, battered blue box materialised in front of her.
The door to the box opened, and he stepped out.
Sarah’s eyes widened, astonished at the latest form.
One most familiar.
All teeth, all curls, all smiles, and an otherworldly aftershave that knocked her for ten.
She had encountered many of his faces since then, and had heard from her friend Dorothy he’d even changed gender at last, now he stood restored to how she knew him best, teeth and curls.
“Did you miss me Sarah Jane?” he asked, raising an eyebrow and expressing himself with a devilish grin.
“I thought you’d died…this version of you” she said.
“Oh no, no, never, a trick, YES, a trick, never knew I had it. OhSarah, I never knew it was one I had up my sleeve. I got a job you know, as a curator, ah but I got bored of that, that’s the usual business, can never stay in the same spot, one should never say nor stay forever”
Sarah laughed.
“You? A curator? Don’t talk nonsense, you muck about in history, you’re not fit to teach it”
“Not fit? Not fit? You’ll find I’m well fit, all systems go”
The man offered her his hand,
“Come along Sarah, you called to me, here I am. What are you in need of?”
“At first I wanted to say goodbye…I thought it right you see, since this time, it’d be forever” Sarah said, holding back small dots of tears that were forming in her eyes.
“Have you not been listening Sarah? Have you ever? Never say forever” he said with a quaint and soothing whisper.
“Everything has it’s time Doctor…everything ends, but if I’ve learned anything from you, is that nothing can kill a spirit as untamed as mine. Now, more than ever, I want to see it all, experience the world, and more beyond it”
The Doctor wrapped his arm around Sarah’s shoulder, she rested her head on his, and together they looked towards the attic skyline, staring out at the stars, some of them were dancing around another in a most peculiar pattern, gliding up and down, towards each other .
They backed away slowly, extra bright bursts could be seen detaching themselves from the tips of their corners.
It was not a waltz, a thing of beauty to be spectated upon, it was almost as if war had been declared.
“Are those really stars or imploding star ships?” she asked.
“I was so sure they were stars” said The Doctor, not even the remotest bit upset Sarah spoiled the moment.
For the first time in the days that had followed the diagnosis of the cruel virus, Sarah finally chose to defy its grip on her demeanour, and let out a heartfelt and incredibly joyous laugh.
“You mean I can detect an ongoing space war miles away?” she said, almost fainting from the exuberance of the laugh, wanting to fall away and be caught by The Doctor.
The Doctor joined in the merriment, “Maybe you could help me bring some authority to a lawless land?”
“So I’m to become your deputy again? I’m ill you know, contagious, it’d be like germ warfare if you brought me aboard”
The Doctor and Sarah kept their eyes trained on the igniting stars…and, as brightly as they had begun, their light gradually diminished, and they faded all too swiftly from the blackened battlefield.
“They must have found themselves caught in their own crossfire, both sides have decimated the other” The Doctor realised.
The mood changed again to one of sombre reflection, one for aliens that had given in to the spoils of war, and only spoiled their own embrace of life.
He turned to the TARDIS, he turned to Sarah, he turned to the regular starscape staring back at them both from the attic’s visible roof.
“Not too long ago, by your calendar, I had a family, they taught me everything, oh it was nothing Sarah, but everything all at once. They were terribly nice you know, one had a virus inside of him too, a regular old thing, could cure it in an instant, but I chose not to…because you learn how strong a person you love is through the struggle, the quality of life is in the fight Sarah, it’s in surviving every day knowing the bomb could drop tomorrow, and daring the throw of the dice. I told the first earthling I ever kissed, oh I blush, ah but I do, and it wasn’t Romana oddly enough. I told her I could make her dreams come true today, never forever, but in the immediate moment. That’s what time is for a time lord…the moments, tomorrow we can make today, we never say forever, because we say it now”
He snapped his fingers, the TARDIS lit up from the inside, a sparkling white.
“A chance to see the stars a bit closer Sarah Jane?”
Sarah smiled, the kind of smile that tells someone you will follow them for all time.
“Yes Doctor, I’d like that very, very much”
She gave Mr. Smith a final set of instructions, to eventually shut down both itself and Bannerman Road, and to wait. Wait patiently, for the next adventurer to come along, and begin the escapades all over again, where a new family of friends will make the impossible come alive.
And maybe, if they were lucky, they would get to meet her, The Doctor, and yes, even the latest one, and be promised the fulfilment of their dreams in the most immediate moment.
Tomorrow made today.
And their story went on.
As for Sarah’s illness? For every second it continued to linger, it was never quite able to catch up to Sarah on her flight through eternity, never able to deliver the swift and final blow.
Death was constantly kept back.
Always an hour short, always a day behind.
Forever late than never.
“Has she made contact yet?” Yasmin asked as the TARDIS rocked back and forth as it tumultuously buffeted.
“She’s still fiddling with the telly” Dan said, pointing to the franticly busy time lord as she worked her fingers delicately
“Dan, that’s a highly sophisticated trans-galactic imaging booster signal” Yaz said, correcting him
“Well it looks like a telly to me” Dan replied. Yaz rolled her eyes.
“Look, what am I supposed to be doing here? I’m just a plasterer from Liverpool; I’m not some co-ordinator. How do you manage all this with the Doctor?” Dan asked
As determined as she was to focus on the current situation, Yaz felt obliged to give Dan a handy tip of the trade.
“You want to look impressive? Then try to look busy” she suggested.
“What?” Dan asked, befuddled.
“Look busy, pretend you know every inch of this console, pretend you know exactly which buttons to press, take a lucky guess if she asks you anything, Oh, and always make her feel important”
With one final tinker, the signal was ready to boost and The Doctor conveyed a message to anyone within the sound of her interplanetary voice.
“Can you hear me? We don’t have a lot of time, the flux is coming, and it’s bringing with it the Sontarans, Weeping Angels, creatures known as the Ravagers, and enemies from across the universe. This is the fight of our lives!”
Dan seized his opportunity.
“Doctor, we need you”
“It’s coming. Be ready” The Doctor replied, and turned off the signal. The booster could not divert too much power from the TARDIS at this delicate juncture, as The Doctor feared she may lose control of the vessel entirely and be flung backwards or forwards through the vortex.
She ran up to Dan and Yaz, inspecting their work.
“You two have done a smashing job keeping the old girl sturdy, I sent a quick message out into the universe; hope they caught my best side. I’ll take over from here”
Dan stepped aside so The Doctor could work away at the console. As he began to walk away, The Doctor tugged at his coat
“Hey, not so fast, I want to show you how to properly work the thing. Consider it your reward for looking busy, and thanks, always nice to feel needed”
“Thanks Doc” Dan said, giving Yaz a wink. Yaz shook her head, feigning annoyance, but gradually giving him a smile back.
zaredit 
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