A Brief Diversion

Tags

completed stories, doctor who, fanfiction, short stories, snowball fight!, winter

In honor of the first day of winter, I bring you this small offering. Enjoy!

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“What are we investigating again, Miss?” Benton asked, stumbling awkwardly on his snowshoes.

“Nothing much, Sergeant,” Jo replied, trying to steady him. “Frankly, I think the Brigadier just wanted us out of headquarters.”

“We can be a bit of a rowdy lot,” Benton admitted, laughing wryly.

“Except the Doctor, of course,” Jo said. “He takes everything too seriously!”

“We’re opposite ends of the spectrum,” Benton agreed thoughtfully. Jo shoved him playfully.

“There, all the science is rubbing off on you!”

“No, it’s just something I heard the Doctor say,” Benton said placidly. Jo giggled.

“Wait a minute, Sergeant—I’ve got an idea!”

“Are you two going to dawdle all day?” the Doctor called from up ahead. Jo squished snow in between her gloves.

“Not really, Doctor!”

The snowball smacked the Doctor squarely in the back of the head. He whirled around, brushing snow out of his hair and looking a little bit annoyed. “Really, Jo!”

Benton’s snowball hit the Doctor in the face. The Doctor spluttered, spitting out dog- and leather-flavored snow. Jo broke into a fit of laughter. The Doctor drew himself up.

“I can see I have no choice,” he said, and hefted a large chunk of snow from the side of the road at them. Jo and Benton dived in different directions and the game was on. They slid and scrambled around in the snow, ducking out of cover to fire off volleys at each other.

There was a brief ceasefire as a UNIT truck pulled up on the road. “You three were supposed to report in a half hour ago!” exclaimed Captain Yates. Four well-aimed snowballs knocked him flat on his backside, the Doctor making good use of both his hands ambidextrously.

Howling bloody murder, Yates dived into the fray.

Another fifteen minutes later, the Brigadier drove up on a motorcycle. Alstair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart had seen quite a few strange things in his time, but never anything quite so strange as UNIT’s scientific adviser holding a sergeant in a headlock, with his assistant clinging to his back shoving snow down the back of his neck, and a captain yelling like a banshee and pelting all three of them with snowballs.

Years later, Lethbridge-Stewart would remember the look on the Doctor’s face as the one and only guilty expression he had ever surprised out of the Time Lord.

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I Have Loved the Stars Too Fondly

Tags

a tale of two cities, a wrinkle in time, baroness emma orczy, c.s. forester, charles dickens, doctor who, horatio hornblower, j.r.r. tolkien, madeleine l'engle, original stories, short stories, star wars, the lord of the rings, the scarlet pimpernel

Call this a tribute to all my favorite characters–I was thinking back on all my favorites and I noticed that my very favorite characters all tried and failed at some point, but kept on trying. Their victories were by no means constant, and their successes were not always total.

So here is my tribute to Horatio Hornblower, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Martin the Warrior, the Doctor (though this sounds much more like Eight than like Eleven), Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Charles Wallace Murray, Meg Murray, Sydney Cotton, and all my other favorite characters.

Enjoy.

---

They all pity me. I can tell.

I’ve got all the scars and bruises and broken bones I earned by my trouble, I skirt the edge of madness, and sometimes I seem to be invisible.

Sometimes, they ask me why I’m like this.

“It couldn’t be helped,” I say.

After all, if I told them the full truth, they wouldn’t stop to listen.

Sometimes, when you reach out to touch the stars, you fall and fall hard. Not all your leaps of faith will be successes.

Of course, since they pity me, they’d never see the truth. The truth is this: I tried. I did my best and sometimes it just wasn’t enough. Reduced to this shell of a man as I am in their eyes, they would only see the futility of the struggle. Never its nobility.

The very core of the truth, condensed and concentrated, is that I do not regret one moment.

I do not grudge one bruise, one scar; not the shattered bones or the bleeding knuckles or broken skin. If I had my live to live all over, I’d do it all again. I’d risk it all. I’d step out without knowing if I had a safety net. I’d run farther and fight harder without knowing if I’d win or not. I would seize every chance, take every risk in hope.

I have lived more fully than any of them. The path of least resistance is not one that is by any means enviable. It’s safe, certainly—but it is not satisfying. Not to me, in any case.

I would not give up one second of this. I do not regret one moment of this.

Some things are worth failing for.

The Ones We Leave Behind Us

Tags

completed stories, doctor who, fanfiction, short stories

In honor of Father’s day: The Doctor goes to keep an old tryst. (Note: Cross-posted to Fanfiction and my Tumblr blog.) The author is not responsible for any excess of feels.

Enjoy.

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The Doctor appeared on Susan’s doorstep five hours and forty years late, though when she invited him inside she expected it had been longer for him. He took off his hat, awkwardly, looking as if he wanted to roll the brim between his long, slender fingers. “You look lovely, Susan,” he said, stumbling awkwardly over the words. Susan half-smiled.

“Good to see you too, Grandfather.”

His tie was askew and his hair was wild, as if he’d taken a dive through the vortex before getting dressed and hadn’t found the time to tame it again. Carefully, Susan replaced the long, soft curls into something resembling order and took his hand. “Shall we?”

The TARDIS was different from how it had been; instead of gleaming white, the walls honeycombed with roundels, there was an ancient cathedral-like room, lined with books and candles and clocks. “You’ve redecorated,” Susan murmured, brushing her hand along the edge of the wood and brass console. The TARDIS chimed a faint greeting. The Doctor ducked his head, shyly.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “It seemed like time for a change.” He stood there, leaning against the door frame, a slight figure all but lost in the gloom, the shadows at the edges of the enormous space. Susan felt an ache in her chest that could not be explained by her recent cold. The Doctor walked briskly across the open space and leaned the elegant cane against the console, throwing levers and pressing knobs.

They materialized in a broom closet and joined the party as inconspicuously as they could. “We’re overdressed,” Susan said in an undertone. A half-smile pulled at the corners of the Doctor’s mouth.

“Just a little.” He held out a hand. “Would you care to dance, Mrs. Campbell?” She didn’t say anything–she just gave him a little, sad half-smile.

They had one misstep–the Doctor tripped over a floorboard during a complicated step and almost dropped her, but caught her at the last moment. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Out of practice.”

At one point, when the Doctor momentarily left her to get some punch for both of them, one of the older gentlemen attending came across to speak to Susan. “Pleasant-spoken young man,” he said. “Is he your father?”

“My grandfather, actually,” Susan corrected him. The older man paled.

“Good lord.”

When it was time to go home, the Doctor landed at the end of the street and walked Susan to her front door. She paused in the doorway.

“Thank you for tonight,” she said, quietly. The Doctor ducked his head abashedly.

“I tend to forget a lot of things in this life,” he said, softly. “I thought it was time to… give you some closure. I’m not getting any younger.” Susan smiled sadly.

“Come here.” His coat smelled faintly of old books, lavender and honey. She pressed her face gratefully against it.

“I missed you,” he confessed.

“I know.”

Repeat

Tags

completed stories, fanfiction, short stories, star wars

Wow, it’s been forever since I posted any Star Wars stuff on here. Here, have a flash fiction.

Summary: A brief meditation on how history repeats itself. Warning: Dark, with visions of the past and future. Enjoy!

Repeat

                “He is… the Chosen One. Train him.” Qui-Gon reached up, stroking Obi-Wan’s cheek. Obi-Wan felt his skin burn under the touch, bubbling, blistering, crackling, curling up and away. This could not have hurt more if Qui-Gon had had only recriminations to offer.

I failed.

For the first time in his life, Obi-Wan Kenobi understood Xanatos.

The death of a father—it hurt. It should scar.

There was no way to respond to this. There was nothing that could ever compare to this.

He understood Xanatos. He hated it. It burned like poison on his tongue. And he was just as guilty as Xanatos ever was, his hands stained with the blood of his father’s killer. No different from Xanatos.

He could not forgive Xanatos, he wouldn’t. He couldn’t forgive himself.

This was the moment when Obi-Wan Kenobi fell from grace.

I failed.

The charred remains fell away, and he looked forward, through the ashes of the veil.

Around him the Temple burned. Bodies were heaped, scattered in a macabre vignette, like wilted, twisted flowers. He looked into the venomous eyes of—someone—friend, student, brother—I have failed you, I have failed you—I loved you!—and knew that this was what he was. The one who would plunge the galaxy into the dark with all the best of intentions.

Logically he knew that this wasn’t quite true, but the passion overwhelmed him, swamped him, overturned and drowned him.

Train him.

And then, he was walking away, into shadow, guiding the small hands that might offer redemption—back to Tattoine, then, Master Kenobi?—and he knew what he had to do.

Yes, Master.

Angel With A Shotgun: A Doctor Who Song Fic

Tags

completed stories, doctor who, fanfiction, short stories, song-related fiction, songs i hate, sorry-not-sorry

My train of thought whenever I dislike a song tends to be “Wow, bad theology… stuff I don’t agree with… I hate this song… who is this applicable to? Hum. HEY, LET’S MAKE EVERYONE ELSE HATE THIS SONG TOO!”

So today I’m delivering you some feels with a song that is happy and upbeat but which has surprisingly dark lyrics. So… does this even need a trigger warning? Well, trigger warning for–um, self-hate and stuff I guess.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

(No, I’m not. I’m just ferociously glad to have corrupted this song for you all. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.)

Angel with a Shotgun

I’m an angel with a shotgun, shotgun, shotgun,

An angel with a shotgun, shotgun, shotgun

“Charley, Lucy, C’rizz, Tamsin, Molly. Friends, companions all, I salute you.”

Get out your guns, battle’s begun.

Are you a saint or a sinner?

If love’s a fight then I shall die

With my heart on a trigger.

He could not turn back now. The sky was going dark as all the stars went out. Daleks and Time Lords alike—fighting each other—committed to the destruction of the galaxy. Their war raged through a separate time and through all of time and space, bitter, relentless, furious, leaving weeping scars in its wake and shattering reality into splinters. And when they were not fighting each other, they were planning worse.

He had been trying to help. But to help was no good any more. He had to fight in the war, to fight it to the bitter end—to the inevitable loss that waited there. Lose his own people or lose all of history? He hated to concede to a lesser evil, but innocents were his first concern.

They say before you start a war,

You better know what you’re fighting for.

Well, baby, you are all that I adore

If love is what you need, a soldier I will be

He did not look back as he stepped into his TARDIS—the ship damaged but still operational. He flew away from the carnage, into the heat of the storm.

He was the storm. And now was the time for the storm.

He did not look back, but he felt. Their hands over his, guiding. A tear squeezed from under one eyelid. He was shocked that he could cry any more, but he knew despite his hope that it would not save him now.

He was damned along with the rest of the universe. Sink or swim. Die… or kill.

The choice that would unmake the Doctor.

I’m an angel with a shotgun,

Fighting ‘til the war’s won,

I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back.

Sometimes, in awe of the distant might of the Time Lords, they would call him an angel. Perhaps they even saw him as one—descended from on high, a savior, a deliverer.

They could not be more wrong.

He was not particularly angelic, and death accompanied him everywhere. He could not save everyone. Every week, every month, a few more deaths around him would remind him, and Death would whisper in his ear that she was biding her time, waiting at the end of time, for him. She called him “beloved.” He did not know what that meant.

He used to joke, once, about being a Time Lord—having all the time in the world. But it was all a lie. He was just snatching them away from death for a few moments more in their short lives, the weight of all of Time rolling on ahead of them, their single hearts ticking down the days they had left and Death laughing in the corner with her hourglass.

Death had all the time in the world.

He was just a wanderer, doing what little he could, so little in the grand scheme of things—his hands stained with the memories he could not wash away.

I’ll throw away my faith, babe, just to keep you safe

Don’t you know you’re everything I have

And I wanna live, not just survive tonight

Still, there was no one else left to stand and fight now. And someone had to stand.

Sometimes to live meant to die. He’d accepted that long ago.

He was no longer innocent. He didn’t know what to believe in. But one thing he did knew—neither the Time Lords nor the Daleks could be allowed to succeed, or to fight on much longer.

He might die. He might lose faith. The concept—the legend—of the Doctor might be proven false.

But he would take the stand.

There was simply no one else left.

No. There were others. They’d gone home, they’d died, they’d forgotten him. Memento mori. Small, butterfly lives, here an instant and then gone in the wind. But he himself was not the stone of the mountain. Even oak trees fall when the rot gets into their hearts. And he was decaying. He was losing himself—no, not himself. Himself, he still had to live with.

He was losing the Doctor.

But he would fight for them. He would drag one last victory from the jaws of defeat, and then go willing to Death. For their sake.

Sometimes to win, you’ve got to sin

Don’t mean I’m not a believer

And Major Tom will sing along

Yeah, they still say I’m a dreamer

The combatants were still under the illusion of the Doctor—that comfortable, pleasant lie he’d told the universe for so long. They were still under his spell—deceived by the pretty lights and aery silks he’d drawn around himself. Underlying the Doctor, within, hidden by lights, within the shadows, there was the Storm. The Endless Storm, the Beginning—soon to be the Ending. The Relentless Storm. The Inexorable Storm. Irresistible, unstoppable.

The Daleks, perhaps, had seen it before anyone else. But that was their reward for their crimes—they saw the Storm, and they learned fear.

They called him the Oncoming Storm.

The only way to win this war was for all sides to lose. He could destroy them all. He knew he could. And he would, without hesitation, without mercy.

He left them one last warning—one last concession to the Doctor. No More. And Arcadia fell.

He came before the dawn and took the Moment from the vaults. None saw him to stop him—they only saw where he had passed.

Doctor No More.

He had to be. He would be their executioner.

They say before you start a war

You better know what you’re fighting for

Well, baby, you are all that I adore

If love is what you need, a soldier I will be

He allowed himself one last moment of hesitation, true to that pretty lie. To ask one last time if it was really worth it. The answer was always the same. No it’s not. I don’t have a choice. He would not allow himself to feel regret. Not until the deed was done.

He was doing it for the trillions of lives that would be saved—for the Gallifreyan might-have-been children, who now would never exist in this timeline—who now could not be ruined by the corruption in the hearts of their elders. All two point forty-seven billion of them.

If he was an angel, he was the Angel of Death—the angel that smites the wicked in merciless justice.

But he knew that he really was no angel.

He was only a man.

An angel might have saved them.

No… only God could save a soul. Angels didn’t have second thoughts.

I’m an angel with a shotgun,

Fighting ‘til the war’s won

I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back

I’ll throw away my faith, babe, just to keep you safe

Don’t you know you’re everything I have

And I wanna live, not just survive tonight

Oh, oh whoa whoa oh whoa

He knew already that he had doomed himself. Doctor no more. It was all too true, wasn’t it.

He was the Doctor no more. All that was left was the Storm.

And the universe would not have to contain the Storm for very much longer.

I’m an angel with a shotgun

Fighting ‘til the war’s won

I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back

Good men don’t need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many.

Am I a good man?

Heaven was for the righteous. Heaven would never accept him.

Maybe he could accept that.

He would fall, happy, if once the war ended. To save all those lives seemed too much to hope.

I’m an angel with a shotgun

Fighting ‘til the war’s won

I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back

I’ll throw away my faith, babe, just to keep you safe

Don’t you know you’re everything I have?

I’m an angel with a shotgun

And I want to live, not just survive

Live, not just survive

And I’m gonna hide, hide, hide my wings tonight

He hacked off the long, loose curls that had framed his face before. It felt as if he was hacking off those imaginary wings humans had so often framed him with.

All that was left was the soldier. The Warrior.

He didn’t care if Gallifrey was lost, if Gallifrey would not accept him again. It didn’t matter any more.

They say before you start a war

You better know what you’re fighting for

Well, baby, you are all that I adore

If love is what you need, a soldier I will be

“Charley, Lucy, C’rizz, Tamsin, Molly. Friends, companions all, I salute you. And Cas… I apologize…”

Don’t forgive me for what I am about to do. I don’t deserve forgiveness. But I am sorry.

“Physician, heal thyself.”

The Doctor was dead.

Auld Lang Syne

Tags

completed stories, doctor who, fanfiction, i'm sorry i'm so sorry, short stories

There was the happy one… now here is the tear-jerker.

Inspired heavily by what I’ve heard about the early Time War era and the audio dramas and also by the Tenth Doctor’s death…

I’m not even going to bother to apologize.

Auld Lang Syne

                It had one full year since she had rebooted her life.

Grace had never considered teaching as a possibility. Now, she was teaching a full class while also on the job, saving lives—in a hospital across town from Walker General. Occasionally, she also volunteered at a free clinic on San Francisco’s poor side.

When she’d first begun, Grace had wondered where she got the energy. She didn’t know whether it came from the burst of joy she found in her renewed life or from the mysterious man with whom she had spent her New Year’s Eve. All the same, she was grateful for it, and continually surprised by how it continued to perpetuate itself—an eternal fountain. True, she still had bad days and down days, but as a whole she was much better than she had been. It even seemed to be catching.

Of course there was a scandal when it became known that she had left Walker General. No one was quite certain exactly what had happened, but it was clear that a patient had died—albeit that the wildest rumors and conspiracy theories circulated concerning that patient. The hospital was under new leadership now, but its record as a whole had not advanced or degraded—if anything, it was simply more honest and transparent than before. As it should have been in the first place.

She had not seen or talked to Brian all year. It felt like a new start.

Grace sat thoughtfully in the window seat, sipping lightly at a glass of eggnog—left over from Christmas. She’d excused herself from the party early, knowing she needed the rest, but she didn’t want to go to bed just yet.

She started awake at the sound of someone rapping gently at the door. She hadn’t intended to fall asleep… Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was a few minutes before midnight. It was almost 2001. Grace got up and cracked the door open. Her jaw dropped.

“Doctor!” she said, surprised.

He stood uncertainly on her doorstep, looking more than a little bit lost—but that was all that he shared with the ditzy young man she remembered. The curls had been cut short, the jacket was gray, battered leather, and Brian’s old dress shoes had been replaced with scuffed military-style boots. It looked as if he was carrying the weight of worlds on his shoulders.

“Grace,” he said softly, somehow endowing that one word with oceans of feeling. Grace gasped. The power of his sheer presence certainly hadn’t changed.

“Won’t you come in?” she said politely. The man looked as if he was about to fall down.

He nodded. “Thank you.” He stepped inside, and she closed the door behind him.

“Are you all right?” she blurted out. He looked startled, as if he had been suddenly pulled from his own little world. Slowly, he shook his head.

“Just tired,” he said quietly. Subdued.

“How long has it been for you?” The Doctor shook his head again.

“I’ve lost track.” Grace was about to ask how that was possible if he was a Time Lord, but stopped herself just in time. He probably didn’t want to remember. She was still working on her bedside manner.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, suddenly alarmed. The last time he had turned up, trouble had not been far behind. In fact, it might be argued that trouble had been a little ahead of him then. The Doctor shook his head.

“It’s nothing.” He glanced at the clock. “New Year’s eve again? Happy new year!” The cheerfulness didn’t seem quite forced, but it seemed to be a little too abrupt of an about-face. However, Grace let it be.

“Happy New Year, Doctor,” she said.

“How has it gone? The previous year. For you, I mean. It was easy to find out all the big news stories, but that’s not what matters in the end… People forget about the small and precious things.”

Is that what you’ve come here looking for, Doctor?

“Well… Things are pretty normal.” Grace half-smiled. “I don’t know what the hell happened to Brian.” The Doctor laughed. “I haven’t set foot back in Walker General. I work at St. Peter’s now. But they’ve gotten a little less… what’s the British terminology? Shady?”

“Dodgy,” the Doctor said, laughing.

“Mm. Well, they’re not so dodgy over at Walker General. More transparent about patient deaths.”

“For anyone who didn’t regenerate in the morgue, that would absolutely be a good thing,” the Doctor said with a smile. Grace frowned.

“You’re not worried that someone might hear about that?” she asked. The Doctor shook his head.

“Life’s too short for worries or second thoughts. Besides, ninety percent of the human population won’t believe the stories and no one listens to the other ten percent anyway. If someone wants to track me down, they normally do it in an over-dramatic and theatrical way, by clipping a temporal tracer to the TARDIS or something like that. Not by looking into old hospital records and ghost stories.” The Doctor leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “They could just call.”

“You wouldn’t come,” Grace said, half-jokingly, half-accusingly. The Doctor laced his fingers behind his head and whistled.

“True, but they could,” he said. Grace couldn’t help but laugh.

“What about you? Where have you been?” she asked, hoping that the mood would last. There was barely a falter in the Doctor’s manner, but the warmth was gone from his words.

“Anywhere and everywhere,” he said, not looking at her. Grace inhaled slowly.

“It really has been years for you,” she said, staring. The Doctor nodded bleakly.

“I was running. It should have occurred to me to run back here sooner.” Grace swallowed. That wasn’t the tone of someone who was interested. It was the voice of someone who is being towed under.

“Did you find someone else to go with you?” she asked.

“Several someones… They all went home. Where they should be.”

“Would you like to tell me about them?” He looked surprised, as if he was trying to understand.

“Maybe… I don’t know…” Grace might not have been a psychologist, but it didn’t take one to realize that maybe, for this entire regeneration, the Doctor didn’t know what he really wanted or didn’t want, liked or disliked, as if he still didn’t really know himself. Like a lost child.

The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed.

“Why did you come here?” Grace asked, biting her lip. The Doctor glanced at her, eyes veiled, as if he was looking at her but not seeing her, looking far off into something else. It was more than just disconcerting. It was discomforting.

“They say that in the old days of Earth, the dignity of men was that they could know the time for their deaths… when death would come for them. When they should resist because they still had so much to live for, and when to accept it with grace.” Grace frowned slightly, not sure where this was going.

“Am I going to die soon?” The Doctor looked at her, surprised.

“No! No, of course not. It’s just that I have this feeling… if I didn’t say goodbye now, I never would. I don’t know if it’s a Time Lord thing or if it’s just me, but sometimes… I just know when I’m coming close.” Grace inhaled.

“You think you’re going to die?”

“No.” The Doctor’s face contorted. “And yes. I’ve never actually died so I can’t say, but a regeneration… If I had to say, I’d say that that’s what death feels like.”

“You think you’re going to die,” Grace repeated.

“It wasn’t my intent to be a wet blanket over your New Year,” the Doctor said, looking away. “I suppose I should know better now. Say goodbye and then run before I start spilling my hearts out.” From his expression, Grace would have said that right now the Doctor was very deliberately biting his tongue. “Something is coming. Any day now I’ll probably be called back along with all of Gallifrey’s prodigal sons and daughters. And there’s going to have to be a sacrifice before it’s all over. That’s the way it always is…” He fell silent. Grace exhaled.

“Well, good luck,” she said firmly. “Be safe—if you can.”

“I’ll try,” he said flatly. He stood up and moved toward the door.

“By the way… what happened to that coat?” Grace asked, suddenly. The Doctor paused.

“It lasted surprisingly long—after all, it was only a fancy-dress costume.”

A moment later, he was gone again. And Grace wondered at the back of her mind why she’d missed the opportunity to go with him.

Now Turns the Rolling of the Years

Tags

completed stories, cuteness, doctor who, eight is adorable and no one can deny it, fanfiction, humor, original stories, short stories

Now Turns the Rolling of the Years

                New Year’s Day, the year of Our Lord 2000, San Francisco. Just after midnight.

As Chang Lee ran off, the Doctor gave Grace a slightly shy smile. “It’s a bit cold for California, isn’t it?” he asked apologetically. Grace couldn’t help laughing.

“It’s just after midnight, and it’s winter time,” she pointed out. The Doctor slid out of the borrowed frock coat and draped it over her shoulders. It fit her just about as well as it did him.

“Maybe… before I go… would you like to get some hot chocolate?” he asked, hopefully, absently tucking a lock of chestnut hair behind one ear. Grace couldn’t find the heart to deny that wide-eyed, innocent look.

“Where are we going to find hot chocolate in the small hours of the morning on New Year’s Day?” she replied, not wanting to dash his hopes. The Doctor shrugged. The cool air didn’t seem to bother him at all, in shirtsleeves and vest as he was.

“I don’t know yet,” he said with a laugh, and offered her his arm.

---

 

Small groups of people made their way through the streets, cheering and blowing on party horns. At one street corner, Grace awkwardly accepted a pointed party hat that proudly read “2000” from an older man who seemed to be determined to make sure that everyone was enjoying themselves. The Doctor looked in dismay at his own small plastic top hat. “I need bobby pins,” he announced to the whole street. Grace winced, but fortunately no one took any notice. She took the hat from him.

“Here, let me show you how it’s done…” She snapped the elastic under his chin, tipping the hat at a jaunty angle. Tugging on the elastic to keep it from biting into his skin, the Doctor gave her a look of pure horror.

“You can not be serious,” he pronounced solemnly. Grace had to swallow down a laugh. The Doctor took the hat off and handed it to a young woman who happened to be passing by. “Humans are so strange,” he said. This time, Grace couldn’t help but laugh.

The next street over, they met with a group of drunks who, while harmless enough, tried to take them along with them. They ran through the snowless streets, the Doctor laughing merrily and Grace struggling to keep up. It was too easy to evade their pursuers.

Around the next corner was a small shop, still open, though there was no one inside. They stepped inside to catch their breath, and the girl at the counter, who had been dozing, started awake to the jingle of the bell. “Are you alone sleeping in this city of wakeful revelers?” the Doctor asked her, in fine dramatic style. The girl blinked at him, as if she thought she was dreaming still.

“What can I get for you tonight?” she asked, yawning. “We’re all out of most things, but we might be able to rustle something up.”

“Do you have hot chocolate?” the Doctor asked. Grace blinked at him. She’d forgotten the reason for their expedition. The girl nodded.

“It’ll be a moment. I have to heat up the milk.”

“May we come into the kitchen?” the Doctor asked mildly. Grace poked him.

“That’s rude,” she said firmly. The Doctor gave her a startled look. The girl raised her hand placatingly, yawning.

“It’s too late—or too early—for manners,” she said. “It’s warmer back there anyway. Come on.”

The kitchen was clean, neat, and utterly unremarkable, but cosy—a home kitchen made over for commercial purposes. An old-fashioned cross-stitch circle hung on one wall, proclaiming “Remember to Smile!” in bright colors. The girl yawned again as she stepped into the industrial refrigerator, emerging with a gallon of reduced-fat milk. She produced dark chocolate powder and crushed peppermints from a pantry.

“Not much business for a late night,” the Doctor observed. The girl yawned, once more.

“There never is,” she said. “But tonight they’re all at the bars. Which is nice, but I’d still rather go home. I was planning to sleep rather than wait for the ball to drop—until I got called in to work, of course.” Grace mouthed ‘I told you so’ at the Doctor. He gave her a wide-eyed look that clearly said ‘I found us somewhere with hot chocolate, didn’t I?’

“What’s your name?” the Doctor asked. The girl blinked at him, her hand frozen with the measuring spoons halfway out of the chocolate box. She smiled.

“Kaitlyn. Though, you could have looked at the name tag,” she said.

“I had to wear one of those for half a day once, years ago, back home,” the Doctor said conversationally. “There’s nothing quite as hearts-stopping as being addressed by your own name by people you don’t know at all. In the end I switched it for one with a name I’d made up. It was less terrifying that way.” Grace blinked. Here she’d been pumping the Doctor for any meaningful scrap of information about himself ever since she’d started talking to him, and now he gave the cashier at a little shop more than he’d given her the entire time. Kaitlyn smiled. “I’m the Doctor, by the way,” the Doctor said gently. Not to be outdone, Grace smiled her brightest.

“And I’m Grace.”

“You’ve got good taste,” Kaitlyn said, smiling at both of them. “Best hot chocolate in San Francisco—though I might be biased.” The Doctor laughed.

“Make that three cups, please,” he said. “My treat.”

On New Year’s Eve, Grace had met the most remarkable man she would ever know and had a bewildering adventure that no one would ever believe. On New Year’s Day, she sat in the back room of a small café, drinking hot chocolate with two people who might have been total strangers before, but whom she now felt as if she’d known all her life.

It was the little things in life, Grace realized, that she’d been missing all along; her love of opera, discovered anew (Kaitlyn was partial to Wagner), new friends, a cup of the best hot chocolate in San Francisco. They laughed together, sharing small stories and big dreams well past three o’clock.

On the last day of 1999, Grace Holloway had the biggest adventure of her life. On the first day of 2000, she had the second biggest.

She would never forget either one.

---

Hopefully you enjoyed my little New Years’ special!

It was inspired by the fact that the 1996 movie takes place around 1999/NewYear’s 2000, and is slightly AU to the end of the film. Not all adventures are scary!

Thanks for reading, thanks for sticking with me throughout 2015, and may God bless you in 2016!

See you all in the new year! 😀

 

Escape

Tags

c.s. forester, completed stories, doctor who, fanfiction, horatio hornblower, original stories, science fiction, short stories, yaaaay bush is awesome

I’m supposed to be working on the script for our Doctor Who fan production. Shame on me. But Paul McGann plays both the Doctor (the eighth one) and Lieutenant Bush and Bush in the movies just has this sort of wry, understated humor that was absolutely fantastic and I was sort of daydreaming and then this plot bunny came up. (Hornblower and Bush make such a dynamic team and are such awesome friends and if you dare to disagree with me I will find you and feed you to the Kraken.)

If you were wondering, this actually references some events from the books but is closer to the movies for characterization.

I give you: the Hornblower final frontier resistance AU you never knew you wanted! Late merry Christmas (and especially you, WriteFury! 😉 )

---

Escape

                I am determinedly angry today.

I would say I’ve never been this angry in my life before, but I’ve been angrier. There were bullies in the group home I grew up in and I learned righteous anger early. I still haven’t learned prudence, it seems.

But this morning I woke up, remembered, and decided to hold on to that anger. I am not going to die of gangrene here. There is no British Empire any more, and some would argue that there’s no reason to fight any more. That’s another thing I always have been, though—stubborn. Stubborn as an Old Earth mule.

I wouldn’t know an Old Earth mule if one fell on me out of an apple tree—which is another thing I have never seen. Child of the Frontier, me. Born and abandoned on Proxima Centauri X, the planet no one bothered to name, just numbering it after its star. I don’t even know if I’m remotely British in extraction. But the cause sounded right to me, and that’s why I’m here, right now—William Bush, Third Lieutenant of the HMS Resistance—before it was destroyed. Not even a citizen. And now a prisoner of war. Though Napoleon’s new Empire—New France, though it’s really only a pretense at a culture no one really remembers any more—wouldn’t call it that. To them, we’re anarchist upstarts.

The door creaks open and I look up, though there’s really only one person it could be. It’s a two-room suite in a prison that used to be a hotel, and the front room door has been sealed for the past few weeks, ever since they threw us in here and forgot about us. It’s not so bad… except that Horatio keeps banging on that front door and shouting that we need a doctor.

He might as well not waste his strength or wear his voice out. There is no one coming. The men out there—our jailers—aren’t even military men. They don’t have the same ancient code that we try to uphold. No civilian really understands a soldier. It’s a basic truth of the universe. Their security systems—stolen and smuggled out of Ganymede, no doubt—are good, but nothing else about this place is. They probably haven’t even posted regular guards. Horatio’s clever and I have almost twenty-four years of experience. We’ll find a way out of here.

Just as soon as my leg heals and provided I can fight off any infections that I’ll doubtless contract with no medical care.

Horatio Hornblower, twenty-three, from the Mars colony. Absolutely British, right down to the core. If I’m fighting because the cause was one I could believe in, he’s fighting for his home and the memory of his family. Not that he ever talks about them, but he had one. His father was a doctor who knew a Captain Keene, and I guess it must have seemed like the thing to do at the time.

He’s looking at me now. What is that expression? Is it concern or pity? I don’t want pity. I have no use for it.

“How are you doing?”

It’s almost like he’s never seen an injured man before. No, that’s not entirely accurate. This was… a friend, I guess, though we sort of empathized with each other, in passing—this is the first time we’ve ever had a sustained conversation. It’s rather pathetic, really—almost like he’s never had an actual friend in his life. Or like he’s not quite sure what he’d do if he found one.

“I’m going to heal, and we’re going to escape,” I say firmly. He nods, doubtfully.

“It looks bad.”

“I’m still going to survive. I’ve decided I’m not dying here, and I’m not about to change my mind.” That surprises a sort of snort out of him, and it’s a little bit funny.

“You know, there were veterans of the Taurus civil war, back at home… On Earth, they make prostheses. Good ones, too,” Horatio says hesitantly. I give him a level look.

“I hacked their Ethernet on our first day here. Those get bugs on almost a daily basis. No, I’m going with wood—something I can rely on. I am going to learn to walk again.” There’s a sort of admiration in his smile.

“How long do you think you’ll be?” he asks, sounding a bit less awkward, a bit more considerate, a bit more compassionate, and much more human. He sits down—backwards—on one of the ladder-backed chairs and laces his fingers, resting them on the top slat and his chin on them, brown eyes boring into me. I smile.

“I can’t say exactly, but I’m determined that it’s going to be less than a week,” I say firmly. He smiles.

“I have an idea for us to escape.”

This I Beheld (Or Dreamed It In A Dream)

Tags

completed stories, doctor who, everything, fanfiction, i regret everything, short stories

There’s some pretty messed up stuff in my files that has to do with Doctor Who. Lots of angsty stuff which needs lots of trigger warnings about self-hate. But this is the first time I’ve tried it with the Eighth Doctor. (Ten is so the king of angst…)

This is the result of things like Ten being angsty, me writing a script with Eight, weird things happening to Eight (1996-2005 was a very experimental era for Doctor Who allright, because there was no TV show running, just novels and an audio drama series), Eight getting whumped (IN CANON!), etc…

Blend it all for thirty seconds and then pour it all out on paper. That’s what this is.

I hope you enjoy… I don’t know if anyone will even relate… I don’t know if any of my followers even know the Eighth Doctor… or Grace Holloway… but this is AU since Grace decided not to travel with the Doctor. (Also, she’s a copyright problem… it’s complicated.)

Anyway, enjoy…

If you can…

*sinister laughter*

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This I Beheld (Or Dreamed It In A Dream)

                Grace blinked. Where was she? She couldn’t tell. Wherever it was, it was white, all white, too bright for her eyes to ever adjust… It wasn’t the light. There was no light. No darkness, either. Just white. It might have been black or gray, come to think of it. It was simple, blank space, a psychic blank space—now where had she heard that before?

But there were messages, too. Writing, all over the four square walls. The floor, also, the ceiling too. There were no doors or windows; no furniture. Just messages.

HELP ME STOP ME SAVE ME PLEASE PLEASE

Over and over again.

HELP ME STOP ME SAVE ME

Grace blinked. It was all the same thing, somehow.

HELP ME STOP ME SAVE ME PLEASE PLEASE FORGIVE ME CONDEMN ME HELP ME PLEASE

The messages were not, so to speak, in contrast to the walls, just as the walls were not any color, not even white or black, just mental blank space. Pure information, sorted by her mind into this form as her brain strove to make sense of the extra-sensory data. This whole room wasn’t real, it was a simulation she had made for herself.

HELP ME STOP ME SAVE ME GRACE GRACE GRACE PLEASE LISTEN I’M TRYING TO TELL YOU JUST LET ME KNOW I NEED TO KNOW I NEED YOU I NEED YOU I NEED YOU

Grace blinked. Her mind was no longer assailed with the extra-sensory data, free to let her back into her own body, into what her senses were telling her. The Doctor stared back at her, his face pale, looking like one of those kids who’d been pulled off the street still trying to shake off the effects of a bad trip…

Was that all that had been? A bad trip?

Their hands were still linked, the cuts in their hands bleeding into each other, the obscene men who had forced them into this for the sake of their vile religion still lingering around the edges of the gray cell. Grace blinked, more slowly than before, her eyelids drifting closed and then open again. She saw the flash of recognition in his eyes.

Faster than human eyes could follow, with literally inhuman strength, the Doctor flipped the table over, heaving it through the mass of their captors and into the opposite wall. He gripped Grace’s unwounded hand firmly, his still slick with blood, and pulled her from the room before the men could react.

---

Grace gently wrapped the Doctor’s cut hand with gauze, despite the fact that it was already scabbing over by the time they got back to the TARDIS. She got up to put the medical kit away, but he snagged her sleeve neatly between two fingers. His blue eyes were mildly curious, completely guileless. “What did you see?” Grace shook her head and kept her mouth tightly shut.

Say what you might about secrets among friends, she thought. But she was too invested in the Doctor to tell him everything.

Silence Will Fall: A Parody

Tags

completed stories, doctor who, fun stuff, humor, marvel, parody, short stories, the avengers, thor

Because no Internet life is complete without a parody of Mary Sue or badfic!

Enjoy! ;-D

Silence Will Fall

Xoehemina Wraithlight Spickl the Third rolled over and grinned at her true love. “Wakey wakey, Lokes!” she said in a sing-song nasal voice pitched at exactly the same key as nails on a chalk board. It was like birdsong and music all rolled into one—that is, if said bird was a crow with a five-year cold and a pack-a-day smoker and the music was played by a beginner violinist with a squint from London to New York.

Loki sat up gracefully on his elbow and smirked at his bride. “Good morning, my love,” he said. “Don’t bother to rise just yet… here, let me go and bring you breakfast in bed…”

Suddenly, an odd, wheezing hydraulic sound could be heard outside the window. Xoehemina perked up at the sound. She was a beautiful vision in off-white as she ran out onto the veranda like a flat-footed ostrich or an elephant with eczema.

“My soulmate cometh!” she proclaimed, waving her arms in a dramatic gesture like a chicken with hiccups and fell flat on her cute little backside. Loki helped her to her feet.

“You can’t mean this,” he said, his eyes filling with tears. Xoehemina turned.

“Lol, wut?”

“You can’t seriously be breaking up with me!” Loki’s voice rose to a crescendo and tears rolled down over his nose. Xoehemina turned around to pat his cheek as the TARDIS materialized before them.

“Oh, pish tush. It’s a time machine. I could be back yesterday!” she said cheerfully, snapping her fingers. The TARDIS made an angry, protesting sound as its doors flew open with a violent crash, but the sentient ship was unable to voice her annoyance to the fans and as such was frequently abused, like so. Xoehemina ignored the TARDIS’ protests as she waltzed gaily inside. She popped open her old pocket watch. “I left my hearts in Gallifrey.”

The doors flew shut behind her, the TARDIS making another angry sound. Xoehemina turned around and almost bumped into a tall, thin man who was looking at her, one eyebrow raised in a potentially frightening manner. Xoehemina fell flat on her backside again, spreading her arms wide. “Theta sugar! It’s me, your childhood crush Ashkanakxygr!”

The Doctor frowned at her. “Get off my TARDIS.”

“But, baby…” Ashkanakxygr pleaded, opening her violet eyes wide like muddy lagoons of stagnant seaweed. The Doctor pursed his lips.

“I have never met you in my life before. Leave my poor TARDIS alone and get out.”

“You have to remember me!” Ashkanakxygr shrieked. The Doctor flinched at the piercing sound. Ashkanakxygr was beyond paying attention. “We went to school together. We kissed for the first time when the moons were shining over the red mountains. My heart was broken forever when you ran away. Don’t you remember that?”

“None of it,” the Doctor said with finality. “You’re not a Time Lord. I would know you. I do not. For the last time, get off my TARDIS.”

“Pyrdon baby bear…” Ashkanakxygr began. She didn’t finish. The Doctor had pushed her out onto the surface of a barren planet, there to wail her heart out for all eternity. (Did I mention she was immortal?)

Back in his cell on Asgard, Loki snickered. Thor shuddered as he walked past his brother’s cell.

“Seriously, brother. Get a life.”

“But manipulating these half-witted mortals is so amusing,” Loki drawled. Suddenly, he reached down to his belt pouch. “Sorry, message waiting on my magic tablet.”

On the blank surface appeared a short message.

Loki. If you send another of your crowd after me ever again, I am letting Ace loose on you.

Loki cackled and turned back to his mischief. Thor went upstairs, wrote a quick note of apology, and gave it to Huginn to deliver. The raven would see that it reached the Doctor’s hand—eventually.

“What was that thing?” Donna asked distastefully as the Doctor washed and sanitized his hands for the fourth time.

“Maria Susare, commonly known as a Mary Sue, for some reason. They’re ancient creatures, pre-dating Time itself. They normally inhabit the Void and unknown parts of deep, empty space, where they prey on the unwary, but once in a while one will get lost and become every hero’s worst nightmare.” The Doctor shuddered violently, but caught himself. “They sometimes cause innocent, everyday people like us to behave contrary to our nature, and they often butt in where they’re not wanted. They’re parasites, and in their true form they are monstrous creatures with horns and teeth the length of my finger, claws and hideous bat wings which they use to disguise their horrible pink-and-black mottled skin. They’re horrible creatures that are only half-intelligent, fixated on certain ideas and unable to form new ones. They can not be reasoned with. A few brave hunters sometimes seek them out to slay them, but they must have found new sources of food, or they would have vanished from the face of the universe by now…” The Doctor grimaced in distaste. “This one was… rather… amorous.” Donna almost laughed at the Doctor’s discomfort, but quickly returned to seriousness.

“Well, what should we do about it, space boy?”

“We find their latest food source…” the Doctor’s voice deepened to an ominous drawl.

“And hope they aren’t already addicted.”