Drabble: Clocks. (PG, Ten/Rose-ish, Regeneration.)
Monday, October 6th, 2008 09:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
orange_crushedClocks. PG-ish, vaguely Doctor/Rose. This is just a short, spacey, sad drabble about the possibilities of regeneration. Don't read if you're not feeling up to thoughts of Tennant leaving... ever. Heaven knows I'm not really up to it.
"We did it," the nice person tells him, feeling that this will somehow encourage everybody. "We did it, and the rockets are going up and they'll finally find us. You saved us. You can't die."
"You and what army ?" he asks, drunkenly.
Sometimes, it's a relief.
It's a relief because it hurts- it hurts it hurts it hurts and to his starring eyes the world is like thirty different worlds and all of them hurt- and he can't stop thinking about standing on the roof of the estate after Christmas and teaching her to swear in any alien tongue he could remember. Does she swear like that now, still- holding a kitchen knife and sucking her thumb and muttering t'klla t'ko under her breath like a crazy woman ? Does Donna still flirt with waiters ?
"Mister, are you hurt ?" someone asks him. "Can you move ?"
"I was at Pompeii," he says, to nobody. "I went to the mall- there were robots. Jack's got a dinosaur. Basement in Cardiff. I met Charles Dickens. He had a funny beard. Oh, there's so many places to die."
"You're not going to die," says that young voice, making itself heard again over the departing sound of rocket engines. "Don't you die."
He might really, this time. There's no telling what happens to the body of a time lord who's already split a great big chunk of himself off and given it as a gift to the only person who wouldn't be disgusted by something like that. Rassilon. He might really just die. He might really just turn into a big pile of sparkles or a corpse and oh by the beards of the founders, why is there a chunk of metal in his thigh ? The blood seeping into his pants is nice and warm. "Don't close your eyes," begs the young companion that he can't quite see anymore. There seems to be cotton wool over his eyes, filling his mouth. "We did it," the nice person tells him, feeling that this will somehow encourage everybody. "We did it, and the rockets are going up and they'll finally find us. You saved us. You can't die."
"You and what army ?" he asks, drunkenly.
He can feel his fingers curling up and that's alright, really, he's tired of these fingers. They were born to fit hers and never will again and that's an ugly, maudlin thing to face at the moment. He'd rather not. He'd rather think about clipping new fingernails that are funny-shaped and maybe even dirty. Martha would be disgusted with him- she always used to complain that he didn't wash his suits enough. Maybe he'll stop washing altogether, or take dust baths like a sparrow. Fun.
His eyes, quite of their own volition, begin to close. The TARDIS protests a little in his head. "Yes, I know, it's alright," he murmurs, in her direction. "I promise to be just as demonstrative in my next body."
She feels quite close.
I want you safe, my Doctor. The feeling drowns him and re-makes him and he'll live again, this time- and it has never left him, not really, not this sensation. Not since the awe and the flood and the time he saw inside the TARDIS, inside himself, inside everything. Inside her, her complex winding heart. It was like a clock, really, after all. There was time, endless time, and hands that met. I can see everything. What good sense it had all finally made. If only for a second between this one and the next.
That second is all there ever is.
"What's wrong with you ?" somebody yells, above him. "Stealing a dead man's wallet is still a crime !"
Sometimes, it's a relief.
"We did it," the nice person tells him, feeling that this will somehow encourage everybody. "We did it, and the rockets are going up and they'll finally find us. You saved us. You can't die."
"You and what army ?" he asks, drunkenly.
Sometimes, it's a relief.
It's a relief because it hurts- it hurts it hurts it hurts and to his starring eyes the world is like thirty different worlds and all of them hurt- and he can't stop thinking about standing on the roof of the estate after Christmas and teaching her to swear in any alien tongue he could remember. Does she swear like that now, still- holding a kitchen knife and sucking her thumb and muttering t'klla t'ko under her breath like a crazy woman ? Does Donna still flirt with waiters ?
"Mister, are you hurt ?" someone asks him. "Can you move ?"
"I was at Pompeii," he says, to nobody. "I went to the mall- there were robots. Jack's got a dinosaur. Basement in Cardiff. I met Charles Dickens. He had a funny beard. Oh, there's so many places to die."
"You're not going to die," says that young voice, making itself heard again over the departing sound of rocket engines. "Don't you die."
He might really, this time. There's no telling what happens to the body of a time lord who's already split a great big chunk of himself off and given it as a gift to the only person who wouldn't be disgusted by something like that. Rassilon. He might really just die. He might really just turn into a big pile of sparkles or a corpse and oh by the beards of the founders, why is there a chunk of metal in his thigh ? The blood seeping into his pants is nice and warm. "Don't close your eyes," begs the young companion that he can't quite see anymore. There seems to be cotton wool over his eyes, filling his mouth. "We did it," the nice person tells him, feeling that this will somehow encourage everybody. "We did it, and the rockets are going up and they'll finally find us. You saved us. You can't die."
"You and what army ?" he asks, drunkenly.
He can feel his fingers curling up and that's alright, really, he's tired of these fingers. They were born to fit hers and never will again and that's an ugly, maudlin thing to face at the moment. He'd rather not. He'd rather think about clipping new fingernails that are funny-shaped and maybe even dirty. Martha would be disgusted with him- she always used to complain that he didn't wash his suits enough. Maybe he'll stop washing altogether, or take dust baths like a sparrow. Fun.
His eyes, quite of their own volition, begin to close. The TARDIS protests a little in his head. "Yes, I know, it's alright," he murmurs, in her direction. "I promise to be just as demonstrative in my next body."
She feels quite close.
I want you safe, my Doctor. The feeling drowns him and re-makes him and he'll live again, this time- and it has never left him, not really, not this sensation. Not since the awe and the flood and the time he saw inside the TARDIS, inside himself, inside everything. Inside her, her complex winding heart. It was like a clock, really, after all. There was time, endless time, and hands that met. I can see everything. What good sense it had all finally made. If only for a second between this one and the next.
That second is all there ever is.
"What's wrong with you ?" somebody yells, above him. "Stealing a dead man's wallet is still a crime !"
Sometimes, it's a relief.
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Date: Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 04:25 am (UTC)that's exactly where my eyes fogged up and needed to be cleared so i could finish. was so impatient with myself. didn't realize i was dying until the end. uuuuugh.
oh, it's all lovely, yes, but (and, okay, might be wrong here, but it's *my* reading and *my* interpretation and *my* broken heart) him being equal measures of pissed and scared he'll lose the feeling of Rose is just gut-punchingly good. and having to reassure the TARDIS that he'll do his best to come back -- and WTF THERE'S SHRAPNEL IN MY THIGH, HOLY FUCK.
yeah.
the things you think about when you're pretty sure this is the moment you're going to die.
i'm assuming that's Rose, or it could even be Donna, sliced her thumb open, all tomato seeds and red like you don't see in food, pissed and hissing in an alien language, sucking the wound and using the curse for the next week until she's tired the words out and the meaning mixes with all the others. and yet another moment of Donna we'll never be able to experience. didn't realize until she was gone that she wasn't just one big, broad personality, she was minute little important things that all measured up to Fucked Up Yay! and Serious Jesus Business all at the same time.
and that he can't have any of that back. and that when he comes back, he likely won't ever be the same spaz he was before. he'll flail the hands and they won't feel right, so he won't bother doing it again. shoes won't look right on the feet and we'll never see them again. might have some calm, reassuring presence that would simply never have fit the other ones and in this body it will just have to do. and maybe, one day, it will fit well in places that Ten didn't but (same as Nine for me) no matter how well it fits, it will not be the same and it will not be as full.
god, that's fucked. god, i wouldn't want that to happen.
fics like this that make me hate the River Song episode. i keep thinking, fuck if he gets to start looking older (more bitter?) than THIS-- well, i'm not sure i can HANDLE what's to come, in that case. he's got reality separating him from so much of what he loves on so many sides, it's a wonder he hasn't given up on coming back during a previous death. like his life is as precious as any little pest's, and yet is replaceable, and YET STILL is way the fuck more important than some entire groups of beings.
geeze. and if he kept going for so long that our feeling for Rose was almost completely forgotten or eclipsed by others? that
fucking feels goodhurts, man. oh, HELL. and MOAR. and i'll be in my CORNER, ignore the meep-ing.no subject
Date: Thursday, October 9th, 2008 03:47 pm (UTC)<3's the Doctor.
i keep thinking, fuck if he gets to start looking older (more bitter?) than THIS-- well, i'm not sure i can HANDLE what's to come, in that case.
That's exactly what her comment made me think. I mean, OMG, Tennant's already been playing him more world-weary and broken, I can't even imagine what he'd be like if he suffered much more than he already has. I really, really don't want Tennant to go- like, ever- but I do want the Doctor to be able to live a happy life, in whatever form he's in. I would rather that he gets a fresh start, in some ways, than see him get dragged down or changed into a character I no longer recognize.
Anyway- yeah. <3