Doctor Who Ficlet: Himself
Title: Himself
Fandom: Doctor Who
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Eleventh Doctor.
Rating: G
Spoilers: The Time of the Doctor.
Summary: The Doctor can only be fully himself when travelling among the stars.
Word Count: 525
Written For: komadori’s prompt ‘Any, any, “When I look at the stars/I feel like myself”,’ at fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Doctor Who, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
The Doctor was never cut out for living his life tied to a planet. He grew up on one of course, magnificent, indescribable Gallifrey, and lived a long and largely happy life there, but there came a time when he began to feel constricted, even trapped. He knew there was so much more to the universe than his homeworld, but he had yet to see any of it, so he helped himself to an obsolete TARDIS and left to travel among the stars.
The vastness of space became his home, and though he travelled to countless planets, orbiting countless suns, he was never tempted to stay on any of them for very long. The stars called to him with their siren song, and he had to go; there were so many of them and so little time, even for a Time Lord. Out there was where he belonged, where he felt the most alive and the most… himself. Even during his exile on earth, amongst the humans, he’d known it was only a matter of time before he’d return to space once more, wandering from world to world, from time to time, seeing and experiencing everything there was first-hand.
Then came Trenzalore and the town called Christmas, and he had no choice but to stay, for the sake of the people who lived there, as well as for his own people, those of far-off Gallifrey. It was the only way. Over time, it began to appear to everyone who knew him that the Doctor had forgotten any life before the one he was living.
Appearances, however, can be deceiving, and the Doctor has an exceptionally long memory.
As the years and centuries pass him by, still he looks to the stars in the sky above Christmas and yearns to visit them again, because without them he is somehow less than he should be, less… himself.
In some ways, the brief dawn on Trenzalore is his favourite time if day. The light only lasts for a few minutes, but for those precious moments the stars are blotted from the sky. It’s the only time they don’t haunt him, don’t call to him, making his hearts ache for the way things were before, when he knew the freedom of the universe, when all of space and time stretched out before him, promising adventure and wonder and mystery and excitement and so much more. As the light fades, the stars reappear overhead once more, beckoning seductively, inviting him to return to them, so bright it’s almost possible to imagine he could reach out and grasp them, use them as handholds by which to pull himself up and away from this crushing, planet-bound existence.
He’s getting old now, and yet he hasn’t given up hope. He never will, not while breath remains; it’s not in his nature to do so. Someday, perhaps, if fortune smiles upon him, he will find a way to leave here without condemning the people of Christmas, and if he does, then maybe there’s a chance he can rediscover what it means to be entirely himself again, even if it’s only for a little while.
The End
Fandom: Doctor Who
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Eleventh Doctor.
Rating: G
Spoilers: The Time of the Doctor.
Summary: The Doctor can only be fully himself when travelling among the stars.
Word Count: 525
Written For: komadori’s prompt ‘Any, any, “When I look at the stars/I feel like myself”,’ at fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Doctor Who, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
The Doctor was never cut out for living his life tied to a planet. He grew up on one of course, magnificent, indescribable Gallifrey, and lived a long and largely happy life there, but there came a time when he began to feel constricted, even trapped. He knew there was so much more to the universe than his homeworld, but he had yet to see any of it, so he helped himself to an obsolete TARDIS and left to travel among the stars.
The vastness of space became his home, and though he travelled to countless planets, orbiting countless suns, he was never tempted to stay on any of them for very long. The stars called to him with their siren song, and he had to go; there were so many of them and so little time, even for a Time Lord. Out there was where he belonged, where he felt the most alive and the most… himself. Even during his exile on earth, amongst the humans, he’d known it was only a matter of time before he’d return to space once more, wandering from world to world, from time to time, seeing and experiencing everything there was first-hand.
Then came Trenzalore and the town called Christmas, and he had no choice but to stay, for the sake of the people who lived there, as well as for his own people, those of far-off Gallifrey. It was the only way. Over time, it began to appear to everyone who knew him that the Doctor had forgotten any life before the one he was living.
Appearances, however, can be deceiving, and the Doctor has an exceptionally long memory.
As the years and centuries pass him by, still he looks to the stars in the sky above Christmas and yearns to visit them again, because without them he is somehow less than he should be, less… himself.
In some ways, the brief dawn on Trenzalore is his favourite time if day. The light only lasts for a few minutes, but for those precious moments the stars are blotted from the sky. It’s the only time they don’t haunt him, don’t call to him, making his hearts ache for the way things were before, when he knew the freedom of the universe, when all of space and time stretched out before him, promising adventure and wonder and mystery and excitement and so much more. As the light fades, the stars reappear overhead once more, beckoning seductively, inviting him to return to them, so bright it’s almost possible to imagine he could reach out and grasp them, use them as handholds by which to pull himself up and away from this crushing, planet-bound existence.
He’s getting old now, and yet he hasn’t given up hope. He never will, not while breath remains; it’s not in his nature to do so. Someday, perhaps, if fortune smiles upon him, he will find a way to leave here without condemning the people of Christmas, and if he does, then maybe there’s a chance he can rediscover what it means to be entirely himself again, even if it’s only for a little while.
The End