Doctor Who-Waiting For A Wounded Soldier [Fanfic]

Waiting For A Wounded Soldier

Exploring the universe is a young person’s sport, but The Doctor needs a seasoned soul to remind him when it’s time to come home (A rewrite of the ending for “School Reunion”)

At Belle Vue Park, Sarah Jane Smith approached the TARDIS. A glistening monument in a beautiful grove.

As she stared at the door, she was hesitant to knock.

It had been an emotional and draining couple of hours for her, reuniting with the traveller that she had spent much of her young adult life, seeing things no other journalist born to Planet Earth had the fortune to see, only to be unceremoniously deposited back on Earth. No farewell, no meaningful conversation.

No closure.

He’d tried a few times to make it up to her, an attempt to attend a Jazz session at the Royal Albert Hall led to an adventure with the insect-like Kalik who were abducting passenger trains, intending to feat on the occupants. She and The Doctor succeeded in thwarting the attack.

And then, she forgot. It seemed he forgot too.

She wondered why that was the case, perhaps forgetting had been an adventure all its own.

Perhaps it didn’t matter at this point.

He was here. Now. The Doctor had come back.

And in the wake of his return, great tragedy had been averted, and personal loss had occurred.

The greater tragedy involved the enslavement of children in an attempt by the Krillitane race to crack the code necessary to rewrite all of universal creation; they were thwarted by the heroic acts of her loyal robot dog K-9.

The personal loss had come with K-9 selflessly sacrificing himself to level the school and kill all the Krillitanes inside.

Sarah now stood before the primitive majesty of the TARDIS, completely humbled and emotionally broken, eager to see The Doctor one last time before he departed.

She wondered if he could even face her after forging her dog into a weapon to use against the enemy.

She was fine with that, she understood.

An apology wasn’t what she was hoping for.

Finally, The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS doors; he froze as Sarah approached him, her hands shaking, her face raw with longing and a need to communicate.

“Oh yes, right, hi, spot of tea?” The Doctor asked.

“Oh god yes” she said.

As she entered the ship for the first time in decades, observed by Rose Tyler and Mickey Smith, who were already inside awaiting their next adventure, she took note of its majestic coral appearance; it was as if she’d flown into a honeycomb.

“You’ve redecorated” Sarah said.

“You don’t like it?” The Doctor asked.

“Oh on the contrary, I love it, it’s just, not what I was used to from our time together”

“You don’t know how many times my old selves ha

“I thought you told me once that time lords can’t retain memories of meeting your other selves?”

“I take notes” The Doctor remarked.

“Really?” Sarah asked, excitedly curious.

“Notes. Pen to paper, like leaving reminders on the fridge. Rose, does the TARDIS have a fridge yet?”

“Mum won’t let me install the one we’ve got” Rose admitted as she made the tea.

“Oh she probably just hasn’t defrosted anything yet, give her time” The Doctor remarked.

“Did I hear you right? You’ve met other versions of you?” asked Mickey Smith.

“Tolerated would be a better word” The Doctor replied.

“Of course, it’s so simple, leaving notes to pick up on later; I wonder how much of your future you’ve learned?” Sarah inquired.

“Reminders for a time traveller are a bit like a spaghetti junction, lots of bends and turns that you need to navigate carefully otherwise you’re going in non-linear circles. What I did twenty years earlier may just be what I’m about to do tomorrow. It’s best me and the others stick to yesterday and compare what we did then with how we handle the here and now” The Doctor explained.

“Tea’s ready” said Rose as she headed back with a tray of hot mugs.

“Oh that hit the spot, thank you” said Sarah as she took a sip.

The Doctor downed his mug’s contents in one long gulp.

“Sure your throat won’t be too toasty?” said Rose.

“Nah, I’ve got a high tolerance for heat, I once survived the molten temperatures of the gravel pits of pavilore pits while hopping. Oh, and I also survived the angriest whopper from Burger King”

Sarah and Rose both giggled, The Doctor and Mickey both beamed at this.

“Yeah, that shows you’re cooking mate, you warmed both the ex and the latest both up to you, that tin dog may be gone, but you’re out of the doghouse” said Mickey.

The laughter stopped and all three of them stared coldly at Mickey.

“Oh, sorry” said Mickey, realising he’d been inappropriate.

The Doctor glanced over at Sarah.

“We’re about to head off now, but you could come with us, see the universe all over again with wiser eyes, maybe mentor Rose, give even Mickey the idiot a telling off that could last a lifetime”

Sarah’s eyes lit up, but the spark quickly faded as her sense of mortality kicked in.

She took one look at Rose and realised this was a sport for the young. There was no place for her.

“No. I can’t do this anymore. Besides, I’ve got a much bigger adventure ahead. Time I stopped waiting for you and found a life of my own” she said.

The Doctor glanced over to Rose, whose demeanour had surprisingly changed; she gave the Doctor an interesting look back, one that was apprehensive and remorseful, the Doctor’s eyes dug deep into her own, almost apologetically.

“Can I come? No, not with Ms. Smith, I mean with you lot. Because I’m not the tin dog, and I want to see what’s out there” Mickey added.

“Oh, go on, Doctor. Sarah Jane Smith, a Mickey Smith. You need a Smith on board” Sarah said.

“Alright fine then, only at your request, not his insistence. Rose, you on board?” The Doctor said.

“Rose, is that okay?” Mickey asked.

“No, great. Why not? “Rose replied, acting almost as if her day couldn’t get any worse.

Sarah smiled.

“Well, I’d better go” Sarah said.

“Catch you later” Rose muttered. Sarah wasn’t sure what she meant.

The Doctor and Sarah made their way out of the TARDIS, away from the prying eyes of envious companions and overexcited newcomers.

“Is Rose alright? She looked kind of…distant”

The Doctor stretched his arms and felt a tense tingle in the back of his neck, he scratched it slightly.

“Pure intuition I imagine. Knows what’s coming”

“Is what’s to come that bad?” Sarah asked.

“She’s ready, knows where she stands, that makes it a little easier”

“Make what a little easier?” asked Sarah.

“I’m really not good at this” The Doctor remarked as he fidgeted with his right trouser pocket.

“Don’t tell me you lost your key” Sarah said, laughing.

“No, not the key, something just as important, though frankly if I found myself stuck here, this would be even more easy to get through, because then I wouldn’t always have to say goodbye”

Finally, The Doctor pulled out a studded blue diamond ring. It had four sharpened edges, making it almost like a miniature star.

Sarah’s eyes widened in astonishment as The Doctor got down on one knee.

“You’re right Sarah, you’ve waited long enough for me, and I’m a fool now when I told you my other selves and I wrote ourselves little reminders, we stuck to dealing with yesterday, all our regrets and how to make up for them, as well as to prepare for them. This was always at the top of my to-do list”

He held Sarah’s hand tightly and squeezed it; his eyes stared intensely into hers.

“I came back for you one time, to say how sorry I was for abandoning you, we were going to listen to Jazz together, the perfect refuge from the blues, I realised then you didn’t need me so I stayed away, when I was drafted into the time war, I took that previous attempt at re-connection from you to keep you from worrying about me, so you wouldn’t be kept waiting for a wounded soldier…but seeing how far you’ve come, seeing how you’ve coped with my absence and how, through all of that, still willed yourself to move forward, I knew now was the time Sarah, to ask you to keep the faith, and to keep waiting, because I will come back, I will return from my weary travels with the latest model and I will come home to roost with you. Tried and true you. I know in the back of my mind there is another song waiting for me out there, but all I want is to come home to yours. Yours is the only one I want singing me to my inevitable sleep”

Sarah could do little to hold back her humbled tears or to keep the bravest man she ever knew from coming apart at the seams, all she could offer was the simplest answer to the question all men ask when reach this point of the procedure.

“Sarah Jane Smith, there’s only way I can make this promise mean something, will you…” he began

“Yes, you crazy old, wonderful man, yes” she said.

“My Sarah Jane” The Doctor remarked, his face a mix of sadness and content joy, he got up and whisked her up in his arms, cradling her in an ecstatic embrace.

The pair stared at one another, transfixed by their mutual love and admiration, trapped in a single moment in time neither wish would slip away from the,

A faint purring sound from the TARDIS engines prompted The Doctor into action; he carried Sarah over to the doors and urged her to let him carry her over the threshold. Sarah held firm on her intentions from earlier.

“I meant what I said Doctor, you’ve got the legs for eternity, I’m not that spry, but if there’s anything that needs handling on home soil while you’re not here to clean it up, I’m game for that. I’ll keep my neck of the woods safe, you keep whole worlds from toppling, go bedazzle dimensions and glue together cracks in time, just know when the time is right to come home. We’ll make this work, I know we will”

“Go get ’em Tiger” said The Doctor, kissing Sarah on the forehead and putting her down before charging through the TARDIS doors.

As Sarah watched the TARDIS dematerialized, she spotted a familiar metal dog come into view as it faded from sight.

“K9” she said.

“Mistress” said K9.

“But you were blown up”

“The Master rebuilt me” K9 confirmed.

“Yes, he does that. He rebuilds. Come on you, we’ve got work to do, my world needs to look it’s best for my soldier when he comes home”

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Danger Mouse-Older

DANGER MOUSE:

OLDER

(Contains Spoilers for “Melted”)

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“I’m never watching that film again” Pink Dawn vowed as the Mark IV darted across the arctic tundra en route back to London. She was tied to the back of the flying machine and was finding the wild winds difficult to tolerate, especially as they were messing up her hair.

“Well, at least Melted gained one fan to replace the one it just lost” came a voice from the intercom. Dawn frowned.

It was him.

Her co-star in her most recent misadventure.

“I’m not talking to you, you cut my adaptation to ribbons” she said in a sulk.

“Terribly sorry about that, it took me a little while to get into the part” Danger Mouse replied.

“I should have kept your dimwit sidekick in the role of Bumpsydaisy, he’d have stuck to the script, he loved the musical so much he had a precise knowledge of how it all went down” Dawn continued

“Penfold is many things, but a willing accomplice would never fit” DM replied, having faith that his sidekick would never be completely swayed.

“And what about your pitiful pal? I’d much rather spend the rest of this trip talking with a fan of the experience than some newcomer who only used a priceless moment as a means to an end”

“He’s taking a nap, I should know, I gave him a little something in his refreshment to send him to slumber land” DM revealed, adding a tenth pillow from the car’s compartments to the pillow fort that he’d been forming around Penfold to keep him asleep.

“You put him to sleep?” Dawn asked.

“Which means we can talk” DM continued.

“Talk?”

“That big number we shared was a means to an end, but I meant everything I said in that performance Dawn” DM revealed.

Dawn felt something shoot up her spine.

At first, she believed it to be a rush of blisteringly cold air from the sharp winds that coursed through the sky and all over her body, but this felt like an internal jolt associated with the feelings of anxiety and unnerving uncertainty.

Whatever he had just admitted to, she believed him.

“How could you have possibly meant it? What was it I said?” she asked, unsure of whether to hate herself for asking as she was seemingly giving in to the kind of conversation her captor was trying to have with her, and she was unsure of how to feel.

“The whole spiel you had about the world being as cracked as the people you meet, that touched me Dawn, it reminded me of how own shortcomings on the west end when I was trying for a career as a musician and singer. My voice and the people in my life at the time were all cracked and distorted, everything was held to an impossible quality standard. The worst examples of humanity judged me on my ability and rejected me. All I wanted was a chance to play in their pen”

“That’s exactly how we met, I wanted nothing more than to have someone play with me, to give me undivided attention and respect, even love” Dawn admitted.

“Look at the pair of us Dawn, we want to keep our egos close and demand everyone lavish attention on us in order to give those egos extra stroke, at the worst of time, we want to embrace love in its most selfish state, only thinking selflessly of others when we give in its highs or lows”

“Are you saying that, deep down, I wanted to personally stop the meltdown the planet was undergoing?” Dawn asked.

“Deep down, you wanted to be the hero, you wanted the redemption story. That’s what Melted was Dawn, a tale of love finding a way to cleanse the light of the darkness that was enveloping it. You wanted me to be your glue to mend the crack in your world, and I in turn needed you to be the light I needed to find my way out of my repressed darkness and take charge of my voice, to command a worldwide stage and make us both the heroes of the story. We brought the light of Melted into a world that sorely needed it. Love held back the ocean, it turned the tide, and we stopped the flood”

Dawn absorbed what DM had said, and rattled back with something she needed to hear. She hated herself for asking in light of the strength in the marvellous mouse’s words, but she needed to hear this from his lips.

“When you were saying ‘I can’t, I can’t’ earlier, you weren’t suggesting you couldn’t bring yourself to sing, you were afraid to admit something about yourself to me, a side that could get you in trouble with your superiors. I didn’t understand then, but I see it now. There was a hidden meaning to it, just as there was when I made my own intentions clear…when I demanded you play Bumpsydaisy. It wasn’t humiliation I wanted from you, I may have said that just to be cheeky, but it wasn’t what I wanted from you at all. It was the chance for you to reciprocate what I was already feeling”

Danger Mouse felt the unnerving cold shoot down his neck as the tension built, only for it to then steadily fade. He smiled.

Dawn understood.

“You’re right, you’re exactly right, I jumped at the part after I thought back to what Penfold had said about the character when he was telling me all about the musical. I feigned disinterest but it struck a chord with me, it got me thinking about how we first interacted, I couldn’t help myself, I even knew instinctively what your favourite game was on that day, it was hide and seek. That right there demonstrates synergy I haven’t had with almost anyone else, it wasn’t just a parental feeling either, it was something more”

“Who are you going to hide from if you try to seek me out after this?” Dawn teased.

Col. K’s hologram form suddenly formed before DM as he contacted the two.

“Ah congratulations DM, that performance was absolutely riveting. During your duet, Squawkencluck got so caught up in the moment she nearly jumped into my arms, completely forgetting I’m a hologram 50% of the time, she landed square on her butt, the poor woman. What’s your E.T.A? We have a nice soft cell waiting for young Dawn that’ll serve her well, at least until her father bails her out with his vast wealth and connections with suspected city council members looking for a Christmas bonus. Just a pity we can’t prove those connections. See you when you get here”

DM smiled, though he was quite uneasy, and turned off the hologram.

“Is what you feel worse than a prison sentence?” Dawn asked.

“To some people it might very well be, but I believe what I feel is something that travels with me, not something that hinders me. It reminds me there is good to come in my twilight years when you’re all caught up and we can truly embrace what we have with confidence we won’t be judged”

“Why tell me now? I could very well say something” she said.

“Dawn, you won’t tell. As you said, your intentions are clear. Right there, in your soul, and in your song, the understanding we share is tangible and real, and it’ll always stay there no matter how further egotistical we become or how much you continue to try to exact revenge on those who wronged you. We’re both opposites, and the same, and whatever it is we shared under the northern lights, rest assured it will stay with us from now until we retire from all of this”

“That’s probably why I’ll never watch the film again…it does nothing now but remind me of what we shared, and what we can never have for as long as age and our opposite experiences divide us”

“Youth is fleeting Dawn, it forever will be, if we can hold on to the hope time can heal those scars of ours, and provided our hearts aren’t pulled in other directions, then we can also hope act on whatever impulses linger in the farthest future”

“Said with such conviction…but you’re right, we need to give each other time, when I grow up, we’ll explore this further. I won’t tell, I’ll treasure our moment Mouse, but don’t think for a second it will go on to define where we stand as long as I’m still young. I’m still a spoiled, selfish little girl, and still every bit your worst nightmare”

“And I will be as determined to stop you for as long as you stay where you are…but know that, for that brief moment in time, when what we shared the fate of the world in both of our hands, we were wiser, and you? You were older”

 

Doctor Who-Checkmate [Fanfiction]

DOCTOR WHO:

CHECKMATE

(Contains spoilers for 11X10)

---

The Doctor couldn’t sleep, thoughts of guilt cut through her slumber, stirring her.

It had been all her fault.

Tzim-Sha Tof the Stenza had come close to wiping out the planet Earth, he had come close to setting himself up above the gods like so many of the could-of-been-kings she’d encountered over the centuries, and had he succeeded she would have the blood of billions on her hands.

All because she told him to go home.

She expected him to die, she expected him to touch down on home soil and be atomised courtesy of the DNA bombs she had planted on his person, but that didn’t quite happen.

He had arrived on another world, the home of the Uux, and he had manipulated them to serve him in good faith.

Faith was a word that weighed heavily on The Doctor’s mind.

She got up, feeling a chill as the ventilation caused a brief draft in her bedroom. She placed a nightgown across her bare skin and stuck her feet in a pair of pink furry slippers with the face of the Pink Panther on them, and walked out of the bedroom towards the console room.

There, she found Graham was up as well, clutching a hot water bottle and holding it close to his chest.

“Had a tough time of it too Doc?” he asked.

The Doctor tightened the pull on her robe and crouched down next to the console.

“Yeah, sort of, just thinking a bit. I like thinking, though it can get a bit much” she admitted.

“One shot” said Graham as he stared at the crystalline column, his eyes mesmerised by its tranquil rotation.

“Sorry?” The Doctor asked.

“I had one shot at him. Tim Shaw, or however you pronounce his name, I took all my rage, my grief over Grace, over what I lost, and I channelled it into that one moment, and that moment was mercy. I raised above it all Doc. I didn’t shoot myself in the foot, I reserved that for him”

The Doctor frowned.

“That was a joke Doc, it was his foot that took the laser bolt” he said, kneeling down and sitting beside her. He sighed.

“Yaz and Ryan, they sleep like babies, so much to live for, and me? I don’t know when my next session with cancer will spring on me. Just because you’re in remission doesn’t mean you’re free, you have to be vigilant every day. It’s always a fight. I wish I could call checkmate on it, on my own terms, but life is rarely as ripe with opportunity as that”

The Doctor nudged him on the shoulder and snatched the water bottle from his grip.

“Trust me Graham, you don’t want to play chess, not on the scale I did” she said.

“I don’t follow” said Graham, confused.

“There was a time where I didn’t stumble into things, where I was in control of not just my life, but other people’, life was a chess board and I knew all the pawns, they went ahead and took the hits while I protected all the other pieces, trying to make sure the board wasn’t swept clean. I told myself there would only be my hand that would part the red sea, I was proper blasphemous, I saw no need for gods when I could rely on my own reflection, cared so much about preserving order in the universe that I cared little about the chess pieces that bought into chaos…that applied to people that belonged on my side as much as it did for those on the opposing end”

The Doctor gently placed a caring hand on the right side of Graham’s cheek.

“Calling checkmate on my enemies meant forcing my friends to abandon their faith in me. I don’t want you to ever have that power Graham; you have something more precious than friendship…you have family. They may not be of your blood, but they’re bonded by your strength in spirit. Promise me you won’t ever consider a crap shoot with the universe”

Graham put his arms around The Doctor and held her tightly.

“I promise Doc, anything for you, you count me amongst the strongest, and I’ll prove just how durable I can be”

“Thanks” she said, ruffling his hair a bit before springing up.

“Now, I’d best get back to bed” she said.

“Need anything else? You may have cheered me up, but you look like you could do with a bit of a stirring speech yourself” Graham asked.

“No, not really one for speeches unless I’m making them, but you know, I really wouldn’t mind a good bedtime story…you could read me one of my favourites, Ava Twist. Fancy a go?”

Graham nodded and got up himself.

“Your move” he said, offering her his hand.

The Doctor, initially hesitant, eventually relented and placed her hand in his, and they strolled back to The Doctor’s bedroom.

Doctor Who-I Love Biscuits [Fanfiction]

DOCTOR WHO:

I LOVE BISCUITS

(Contains spoilers for 11×06 “Demons of the Punjab”)

The Doctor checked the systems of the TARDIS again, perplexed by the latest problem.

Her biscuit dispenser was broken.

She turned and twisted the knobs, switched some levers around, and pressed her foot down hard on the pedals, but she couldn’t produce one solitary custard cream.

She took out a sturdy wrench from a kit bag and took the apparatus apart, the first time she’d even tried to manually tamper with the dispenser since the TARDIS unveiled it to her upon rediscovering her ship.

She was sure the sexy thing wouldn’t approve much, she never liked to be mended, she rebelled at every instance of tampering, she’d sometimes land on the wrong planet or travel to an even farther off galaxy just to spite whoever thought perfection needed perfecting.

The Doctor wasn’t about to let the ship make her mind up for her, she was famished after that harrowing experience in India, she’d even put in a request for something to nibble when she was there setting up her apparatus.

The TARDIS let out a hefty wheeze and a groan as The Doctor took the dispenser apart piece by piece, turned the components around, and tried rearranging them in a different way.

With the new configuration complete, The Doctor operated the console once again and waited for the results.

She seemed to have made progress, only the biscuits were now coming out in crumbs, they were reduced practically to whole-wheat sawdust.

Graham wandered into the TARDIS carrying a large tin jar.

“Hey there Doc, thought I’d come and see ya” Graham said as he greeted her.

“Oh don’t bother me now Graham, I’ve got a hankering for a hob knob” she said, kicking the console in frustration.

“Well then you’re in luck, you know how you said you loved biscuit? I thought I’d give you a crack at my selection tin here” he said.

The Doctor swiftly turned around and feverishly opened the lid, revealing handfuls of chocolate biscuits.

“May time stand still, are those white chocolate?” she asked.

Graham nodded enthusiastically.

The Doctor plunged her hand into the biscuit tin and tore a portion of the biscuit off in her mouth.

“Can’t get enough of white chocolate digestives, rarest of the rare, they’re like edible stardust to me” she said.

“See, I do listen, now never ask me to pick up chicken poo again” Graham joked, placing his own hand into the tin just as The Doctor did. By chance, their hands graced the exact same biscuit and they found themselves staring with warm and wise eyes as they each considered handing the biscuit to the other.

“I think it’d be best if we parted ways on this one” said Graham.

The Doctor nodded as her cheeks glowed red.

“Yeah, divide and conquers the motto we’ll use here” she said, a blossoming smile etched on her face.

“Between you and me, this may be the one time in my life I’m glad things fall to pieces”

With a little bit of a pull, the two split the biscuit in half and place each of the portion they held in their hands into the mouth of the other.

Doctor Who-The Inconvenient Passenger [Fanfiction]

 

DOCTOR WHO:

THE INCONVENIENT PASSENGER

(Contains Spoilers For “Rosa”)

---

Graham observed the glamorous sight before him as the asteroid dubbed Rosa Parks drifted past the TARDIS.

He was less a mess of raw emotion like he was before, The Doctor had seen to that, and he was most grateful.

He had felt less like an inconvenient passenger on that bus where Rosa Parks, a most genuine of human beings and a historical and universal icon, had stood her ground and struck a moral chord in history, a minor victory that led to major steps for her people in the generations to come.

, In the timeline associated with Montgomery, many of his kind looked down on Rosa’s type of individual, a part of Graham felt ashamed by being raised in a period where the struggles for equality were large in scale, and even today, while things were better, there was much left to do, and so many things felt unchanged even from then.

Not being able to stand up for Rosa, despite all of the brave decisions and choices he, The Doctor, Yasmin and Ryan had made to ensure history was guarded and Rosa’s finest and bleakest hour was preserved, chilled him and made him feel inadequate as a champion for time.

He wondered what Grace would have done upon witnessing the situation?

She would not stand for it, she would have done something, made an impact, started the marches days, even weeks ahead of time. There would not have been a need for a statement as bold as Rosas’ if Grace had been leading the charge.

And he would have backed her; he could see it vividly in his tired mind’s eye. He and Grace, time’s champions. The prospect of that also delighted him.

And then he noticed The Doctor, mesmerised by the sight of the elegant star field surrounding her ship, her eyes twinkling as she counted every star orbiting the sun and the asteroids. She was relishing the sights and sounds of the universe almost as if she were experiencing them for the first time.

Graham smiled, there was much to admire about The Doctor, but also much to suspect.

He wanted to know what she was thinking, because just from reading her body language she was uneasy.

He chose to bring up a pressing subject that was weighing heavily on his mind.

“You don’t suppose that Krasco fella will find his way back through time do you?” he asked

“Don’t worry; I gave his manipulator a proper stomping. Wherever Ryan sent him, he’s staying put”

The Doctor looked a bit hesitant, and Graham picked up on this.

“You don’t sound very confident”

“Well, I was thinking of when I sent his little box of delights packing. You see, I tricked him into transporting his weapons and supplies across time and space, and, well, I’m a little worried they might be waiting for him when he arrives, depends on the settings on the device, which I know Ryan couldn’t have the know-all to check. It reminds me of a best friend I had years ago, a wry Scottish lass. Her husband was sent back in time by a statue, a living one, long story, and she reckoned she could be sent back to the exact same location he was”

“And she just jumped straight into it? This girl?” Graham asked.

“Yeah, its love, don’t ask me why, but it’s such an overpowering force that it dwarfs all reason, it makes us all mad, if it were a flaming pyre we’d jump straight into it just to feel its burn. It’s passion, and protest, and incredible, it damns us all and lifts our spirits to unprecedented heights” The Doctor said.

“Yeah, that’s what drove Grace. She fell for me, and in trying to protect me, she fell for us all” said Graham, putting his hand on The Doctor’s shoulder.

They stood transfixed at the sight of the cosmos, the inky black vacuum of space now lighting up the lingering fires in his own soul as well as The Doctor’s own.

Graham could read from The Doctor this sense of both great loss and readjustment, like she had went through this process several times and had been both tired and

“Is this what a crush feels like on the other end?” said The Doctor.

“Pardon?” Graham said.

“Just thinking…I haven’t been a woman in the longest time…maybe ever, and I’ve been working out the kinks. I reckon I had a bit of a foe yay moment with that Krasco chap when we were alone together, back when I sent his weapons packing. Just a passing fancy, nothing meant by it, he just looked the part, quite a rugged fellow. A pity about the racism and the mass killings”

“Still, just as well eh? You’d ought to be with someone more your type” Graham said.

“I’m not quite sure what my type is yet, maybe a type 40…”

The TARDIS emitted a slight purr.

“Oy, steady on you” The Doctor said, and gave Graham a longing look.

“Or maybe a type 50” she said.

“Here, steady on Doc, you’re younger than me” Graham said, laughing at her sarcasm.

“Yeah, I’m totally kidding…or am I?” she said.

She hadn’t forgotten about how snug they were back at the hotel posing as a couple to fool the snooping police officer looking for Ryan and Yaz.

“Been a while since I had an eye for someone a bit inventive…that was a smart sell you pitched to that cop, it reminds me of all the functions I rarely work with on this old thing. Maybe we should put it to good use sometime?”

“I didn’t know this place could pull off those tricks” Graham replied.

“There are a lot of new tricks it can teach a couple of dogs like us” The Doctor said.

Graham gulped; The Doctor smiled, and walked over to the TARDIS dispenser. Two custard creams emerged from it, she took them both and handed one to Graham.

She toasted his cream with her own, she pointed again to the asteroid.

“To Rosa, the indelible footprint” she said.

“And to inconvenient passengers” Graham awkwardly replied, feeling once again like he had become one all over again in an altogether different context.

He looked out at the heavens, and begged Grace’s forgiveness.

Doctor Who-Good Men [Fanfiction]

 

DOCTOR WHO:

GOOD MEN

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SAN FRANCISCO, 1969

The wailing cries and patter of tiny feet were music to a nurse’s ears and the key to warming her heart.

There was tangible outburst of mixed emotion at the hospital; there was much caution, concern, as well as joy.

Only a few days ago, man had recently touched down on the moon, and now seemingly another miracle had occurred in the form of several new arrivals, all left on the doorstep of the hospital, and their birth certificates listing names and addresses that belonged to patients that had recently experienced miscarriages.

It was a mystery as to why this was, who was behind the arrival of these miracle babies?

How did they know which parents had experienced their own personal tragedies?

As the staff prepared the new arrivals wing of the maternity ward, these questions were at the forefront of everyone’s minds, even as the nurses thrilled to the cradling and care of newborn life.

Someone else had caught wind of this too, a trim and slim looking man with a fetching tweed jacket and bow tie who had popped in to say a couple of things.

He was looking for someone.

The babies in the ward, some of them girls, were most excited, more than usual.

It was one of the first times they gazed upon a man.

A slim looking man with a fetching tweed jacket and bow tie had popped in to say hello.

“Hello sweetie” he said.

The babies cried, and kicked, and screamed, and gurgled, but the look on the man’s face became gloomier with each outburst of emotion on their part.

It wasn’t producing the desired result.

And the nurses were staring at him, making small talk among themselves as to why he was in the ward seemingly chatting up infants.

“Ok, not one of you knows what I mean by that, and this probably looks very wrong right about now, but before I take my leave, I’d rather an adult in the room answer a question for me”

“Can I help you sir?” asked the nurse.

“Yes, very much so…what is he doing here?” The Doctor responded.

“Excuse me?” the Nurse asked, a little perplexed

“And him, and him, him, him and him” The Doctor said, pointing to six of the babies in a row.

“I don’t know what you mean by this, these are new arrivals; you do know your way around this hospital don’t you?”

The Doctor produced his ‘credentials’ on the psychic paper, informing the nurse he was a Doctor from a local clinic sent to check on a specific arrival by the name of Melody Pond.

“I’ll talk to the orderly in charge Mr. Smith, he’s around here somewhere”

“Take your time”

The nurse took her leave to fetch the orderly.

“You shouldn’t be here; none of you should be in here…not in this place or time, who decided you of all people, ought to be made vulnerable?”

Several of the babies in a row stared at him with a mesmerising expression.

“Don’t give me the eye, I know you’re not regarded as average Joes” The Doctor responded.

“Sir? The orderly in charge of new arrivals as you requested” came the kindly voice of the nurse.

The Doctor turned only for a cold shiver to travel down every fibre of his being.

“Bruce, this is Doctor John Smith” the nurse said, making the formal introductions.

“Trying to pick out your favourite Asian child Doctor?” Bruce said, extending his hand for The Doctor to shake it.

The Doctor, not wanting to make too much of a scene, at least as long as the nurse was present, gripped Bruce’s hand lightly. He could feel Bruce tighten his grip in a vice like manner.

The Doctor did not cave in to the pressure, though his face was clearly strained by the pain.

Satisfied with this, Bruce released his grip.

The Doctor scrambled to think of what to best do next once the nurse had disappeared.

He had met this orderly before, in the same city, only several decades into the future. Bruce was a free man then, an innocent ambulance orderly who had become the latest in an endless list of victims at the hands of The Doctor’s arch rival.

This was no longer Bruce, he was forever The Master.

“Are you looking for someone Doctor?” Bruce asked.

The Doctor was hesitant to answer, if ‘Bruce’ knew that he was looking for the child that would become River Song, it would be quite a catch for him were he to intercept her before he could. The havoc they would wreak together scarcely bore thinking about.

“That can wait, I’d like to know where all these babies came from” The Doctor responded.

“Can I tell you a story of the birds and bees over a glass of fruit juice?” Bruce taunted.

“You know what I mean, we can speak baby, both of us, and we know these children are touched with darkness, some of them are a bit ego-centric, already telling me everything they’d like to do, babies always have some negative impulses to work through, but I unfortunately recognise some of them based off their voices and mannerisms. What do you see when you talk to them?”

“I see a bright future Doctor, I see good men”

“Really? You’ve picked a fine motley bunch. Let’s list them all shall we?”

The Doctor strolled along the ward, naming each child as he went.

Additionally, he also listed their crimes, or rather, their future crimes.

“Gian Lugi Ferri, in 1993 he will walk into the law offices of Pettit and Martin on the 34th floor of 101 California Street. Put on a pair of orange ear protectors, and will commence shooting at random with three semi-automatic pistols”

The Doctor looked over at the small group of babies that had given him a gander earlier.

“These boys are all members of the Joe gang, who on September 4th 1977, raided what was then the Golden Dragon restaurant in an attempt to assassinate the leader of Wah Ching, a rival gang. They killed five and wounded eleven with a barrage of bullets. It was labelled the bloodiest massacre in the annals of city history”

“Let’s not forget Dan White, who in 1978 acted under the influences of misunderstood pressure from conservative departments and constituents, and had a couple of spills with bad junk food. He assassinated Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. Infamously convicted of manslaughter and not murder after mounting what was known as the Twinkie Defence” Bruce added.

“He also dealt with severe depression” The Doctor snapped back.

“He was also once hailed as a hero in the news for saving a woman and her baby while on the job. He was already capable of the most incredible good, I almost refused to consider sending him back to start again, but then I remembered the strains life had put on him”

The Doctor walked back up to Bruce and grabbed him by the lapels of his black jacket.

“Some of the most heinous crimes committed in San Francisco, or will come to occur in San Francisco, monsters each of these children will become, and they’re all lined up, ready and waiting to be returned to their parents, but not their actual parents, by new ones. You’re trying to alter the course of history”

Bruce pushed The Doctor back with a firm ferocity.

“This is my good deed for the day Doctor; I’m giving these monsters a second chance before they have the opportunity to squander their first ones. They’ll go to people that can raise them well, people who thought they’d lost on their own chance to do right by a child”

“And I suppose you scouted them before hand? Followed them along their personal timeline and found they had perfectly inoffensive lives?” The Doctor said, his anger steadily growing.

“Are you proposing that they are effective in their own history by being who they are? Lost souls? Killers?” Bruce continued, knowing precisely which buttons to press where The Doctor’s morality was concerned.

“In a way, they sort of are. They are established in the web of life, they are fixed points, and they are historical fact. Unravelling the web of time is dangerous, but that’s never been lesson you appear to have ever learned”

“You think in such linear terms” Bruce said dismissively.

“Somebody has to, our people lost sight of it, you lost sight of it, and I’ve come close to losing sight of it, but in the end whatever will be, will be”

“Did your mother teach you that?” taunted Bruce.

The Doctor chose at this moment to turn the subject back to the delicate matter of how to best handle the situation going forward.

“I think you’d best leave, you know I won’t stand for this, I have to take these babies back” he said.

“Your good deed is to ensure evil carries on…a fitting karmic punishment for your sins that have been and for your sins yet to come” Bruce said, taking his leave.

The nurse returned to the ward just as Bruce departed, she looked at the haunted expression on The Doctor’s face, his features were paler, and his hands were visibly shaking, tightened into knotted fists.

He knew what to do, he would take them all back in the TARDIS, but first he had to get them off site in a most professional manner.

“Put in a phone call for me to the FBI, ask for Canton Everett Delaware, inform him an old friend needs help in shifting most of this ward’s contents with as minimal fuss as possible. They’re not meant to be here, and tell the expectant parents I’m sorry, but they’re going to have live out their lives wrestling with what could be, not will be”

After trying delicately to spin the awkward and tragic situation as best he could to her without creating the impression he was mad or complicated, the nurse held back fresh tears and took her leave to do as requested.

The Doctor looked on at the babies, all of them speaking in their infant language, some of them already tinged with the dark impulses that would later overtake them in life.

The Doctor pondered why The Master had, in the most twisted of fashions, opted to try his hand at a ‘good deed’, but with no consideration for the kind of rules good men like The Doctor maintained for themselves.

Perhaps it was to show the absurdity of trying to maintain rules in a universe that permits the very concept and execution of rule-bending, that it was steadily becoming easier to be right more in the well intentioned sense. He was trying to prove good men no longer needed rules, or at least not that many.

The Doctor felt like he was the last of a noble breed, and he had come close to abandoning all sense of that before, prior to the sacrifice of Adelaide Brook, the woman who stopped a time lord victorious in his tracks.

To honour her memory, her sacrifice, the rules would be maintained.

He just hoped that when the time would come for him to depart from this reality, his light and apposite footprint would not be washed away by the tide of those well intentioned, but morally in flux.

In the final hour, all good men must abide by the law.

Be it the law of time, life, or otherwise.

Doctor Who-We Can Only Fall So Far [Fanfiction]

 

DOCTOR WHO

WE CAN ONLY FALL SO FAR

(Contains Spoilers for “The Woman Who Fell To Earth”)

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The Doctor could hear whispers come from the crowds in the church as Graham gave his eulogy.

Several of Grace’s friends were trying to place where they’d seen her before, or if she were known to them at all.

“Which one of Grace’s friends is that?” came from one, a Mrs. Lindsey York, aged 52. She had a terrible lisp.

“She looks a bit like that kindly lady who stopped by over in 2006 to help settle the kids down” Yvonne Hooper, who worked with Grace at the Chemo clinic.

“Did you talk to her?” asked Lindsey.

“A bit yeah, she said she’d been travelling a bit and heard from a source some of the youngsters over the last few days were scared of their treatment. It’s strange how word got out that fast, or that it was important enough to share in the town. I don’t recall leaking any of it out. Mind you, she said she was in a different time zone when she heard all this”

“A different time zone? What like how for Americans it’s the break of dawn while it’s later afternoon here?”

“She talked a bit in riddles, but she meant well and the kids were all very happy with what she did” Yvonne concluded.

“That was ten years ago right?” Lindsey said, staring back at the Doctor.

“I reckon it was yeah, poor girl seems to have fallen on some hard times” Yvonne replied observing the ragged state of The Doctor’s attire.

Yasmin Khan could also overhear the conversations, and she felt quite sorry for the wayward soul standing at the back of the church trying to avoid the chatter. Almost as if she didn’t want to hear anything, like it was sensitive information or something.

Like she was trying to avoid being spoiled.

The look on the Doctor’s face indicated she’d heard as much as she wanted to, so Yasmin reached over to the two ladies and urged them to keep quiet while Graham continued to talk of Grace

Yasmin looked over at The Doctor and gave her a reassuring thumbs up, letting her know she needn’t be the centre of attention this day.

A part of her also wanted her to know she was forgiven for the crazy and tragic events of that evening.

It would have been so easy for Graham to have snapped at this strange person who had led him, Yasmin, Ryan and Grace through their fateful adventure that ended in triumph and tragedy, that there had been consequences to enjoying the thrills of the adventure too much, but Graham was too kind a soul to see the negatives in everything.

Not everyone was a cynical soul in this world, taking so much for granted and wasting their breath cursing out the well intentioned when their good intentions met with ill reward.

Yasmin observed The Doctor and realised her outer appearance needed to change, and in doing so, maybe she could change her outlook, which appeared solemn and tinged with guilt.

Yasmin decided she would suggest a change of clothes to The Doctor, and she welcomed it.

Sometimes we can only fall so far before someone reaches out to grab hold of our hearts and lift our spirits up.