(no subject)
Title: Knowable
Author: Becky_H
Character(s): Tenth Doctor, mentions of others.
Genre: Gen, allusions to het and slash.
Rating: G
Spoilers The Sound of Drums through Last of the Time Lords.
Warnings: None.
Word Count: 350
Beta: None for this - it's super short, and primarily meant to be a writing exercise.
Prompt: Set2Music Prompt 31: Time will slowly pull me under
Summary: The Doctor reflects - on love, companions, the Master, and eternity.
Author's Notes: You're probably going to see more of these short, un-beta'd ficlets from me this month, as I work on NaNo. They get me going, and keep me thinking.
The problem with being in love with him is that he's an alien.
It should be obvious, but somehow it never seems to be.
Maybe it's because he looks so human, maybe it's just denial and not wanting to understand. Either way, the results are always the same.
They fall in love with him. They idealize him. They have expectations. He can't possibly live up to those expectations, because they're human and he isn't. Sooner or later, if he doesn't leave them or lose them first, they'll understand. They'll be disappointed in him, and they'll do the leaving.
It doesn't mean he doesn't love them; it means he can't know them.
He thought he'd been resigned to an eternity of 'good enough'.
Then he'd seen the Master again and, in spite of all the hell of that year, there'd been hope.
Lover, friend or enemy didn't matter as much as having someone who understood. Someone who'd had the same social conditioning, someone who understood the power of time. Someone who shared his pain, and infinity's loss, with the loss of Gallifrey.
Even just someone whose body language he understood rather than mimicked.
Someone he knew. Someone he thought he knew.
The Master's refusal to regenerate is like being punched. It knocks him more than the breath out of him, though.
It's the loss of hope for something better than good enough. It's the loss of possibility, of ever sharing more than a series of bright, joyful, moments. It's the loss of permanence and a sentence to eternity. It's being forced to accept that maybe he didn't know, hadn't seen and wasn't right.
He watches the body burn for a bit, then walks away. Into the dark, into the cold, and into good enough and for nows.
Maybe Jack being constant isn't such a bad thing. A quirk of Time, something that shouldn't happen, but at least there's someone there, who has always been and always will be and can't ever be blipped out of existence by bullets or diverging timelines, by beautiful, bright girls, or interfering, lonely gods.
Author: Becky_H
Character(s): Tenth Doctor, mentions of others.
Genre: Gen, allusions to het and slash.
Rating: G
Spoilers The Sound of Drums through Last of the Time Lords.
Warnings: None.
Word Count: 350
Beta: None for this - it's super short, and primarily meant to be a writing exercise.
Prompt: Set2Music Prompt 31: Time will slowly pull me under
Summary: The Doctor reflects - on love, companions, the Master, and eternity.
Author's Notes: You're probably going to see more of these short, un-beta'd ficlets from me this month, as I work on NaNo. They get me going, and keep me thinking.
The problem with being in love with him is that he's an alien.
It should be obvious, but somehow it never seems to be.
Maybe it's because he looks so human, maybe it's just denial and not wanting to understand. Either way, the results are always the same.
They fall in love with him. They idealize him. They have expectations. He can't possibly live up to those expectations, because they're human and he isn't. Sooner or later, if he doesn't leave them or lose them first, they'll understand. They'll be disappointed in him, and they'll do the leaving.
It doesn't mean he doesn't love them; it means he can't know them.
He thought he'd been resigned to an eternity of 'good enough'.
Then he'd seen the Master again and, in spite of all the hell of that year, there'd been hope.
Lover, friend or enemy didn't matter as much as having someone who understood. Someone who'd had the same social conditioning, someone who understood the power of time. Someone who shared his pain, and infinity's loss, with the loss of Gallifrey.
Even just someone whose body language he understood rather than mimicked.
Someone he knew. Someone he thought he knew.
The Master's refusal to regenerate is like being punched. It knocks him more than the breath out of him, though.
It's the loss of hope for something better than good enough. It's the loss of possibility, of ever sharing more than a series of bright, joyful, moments. It's the loss of permanence and a sentence to eternity. It's being forced to accept that maybe he didn't know, hadn't seen and wasn't right.
He watches the body burn for a bit, then walks away. Into the dark, into the cold, and into good enough and for nows.
Maybe Jack being constant isn't such a bad thing. A quirk of Time, something that shouldn't happen, but at least there's someone there, who has always been and always will be and can't ever be blipped out of existence by bullets or diverging timelines, by beautiful, bright girls, or interfering, lonely gods.