Fanfiction: What Might Be
Title: What Might Be
Author: bendingwind
Notes: [Doctor Who | K+/PG | 1836 words. hints at dark!Doctor]
Characters: River, Eleven
Summary: Reality slips away as he slides across the strands of time, lost, and waits for someone to save him. My (ahem) Holiday gift to spoiler_song. There is a possibility you will be confused by tenses.
“Doctor,” she says, laying a hand on his arm. There is blood spattered across the left side of her face, and he clumsily reaches out to wipe it away. It smears, and there seems to be more of it-numbly, he realizes that there is blood on his hand, as well. He’s only making things worse.
“Doctor,” she repeats, and he stares at her, his memory of The Events perfect, his heart refusing to quite comprehend. “Shhh,” she whispers, once she realizes she has his attention. “It’s fine now. Everything’s fine. But, Doctor,” she says, and her bright eyes harden, “This has to stop. Some days I don’t think you have any idea what you’re doing. Some days I don’t think you realize the effect you have on the universe. And some days I wonder if you don’t know and do the things you do, anyway.”
He still doesn’t quite understand, and so he shakes his head, feeling every single muscle of his neck move. It’s a strange sensation.
Gently, she takes his hand and leads him into the TARDIS.
I’m going to tell you a story, she says, only he isn’t sure that her mouth makes the motions that produce sound waves that then might travel through his ears and lodge in his brain. Don’t be silly, sound can’t hurt you. He wonders when she learned to speak like this, mind-to-mind. He wonders if she ever did.
In the year 4982, a small colony ship landed on Rafzan Eleven, the only planet in the Rafzar system far enough from its sun to support Earth-based life, and began a mining colony. It was more than mildly prosperous-each of its citizens lived in a comfortable house and had enough to eat and decent clothes to wear, which was more than most of the primitive colonies of the fiftieth century could claim. They continued like this for half a century, gleefully comfortable and proud in their prosperity, before they dug deep enough to discover that there was other sentient life on Rafzan. But they were happy, and arrogant, and they flatly denied knowledge as they killed the batlike species native to their adopted planet. Legend said that the gods struck them down for their pride and murderous hearts-a blue temple appeared one day in the middle of town, things happened (it was generally agreed upon that they were terrible things, but no one could ever remember exactly what they were) and Rafzan Eleven was left a barren husk, without technology and, worst of all, without any living humans over the age of seventeen.
Seventy years later Rafzan Eleven was more backward than even the least significant of the colony planets, and its people huddled together in the ruins of their world, unable to afford food from off-planet without their mining operations, and unable to grow enough to sustain themselves in the dry, barren land of their world. Among them was an orphan girl dressed in rags, utterly without hope.
“You weren’t-” he begins, but she holds up a finger to shush him.
“If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have had parents and a comfortable childhood,” she says, without accusation. “And I’m not the only little girl you’ve robbed of a childhood.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
Stand here. No, over a little bit. No, I’m not going to crash us, shut up and let me work. No, I’m not going to tell you where we’re going. Well, I am-we’re not going anywhere. Shut up and wait, would you? Honestly, it’s like watching a bratty five-year-old.
Don’t look like that. Here we go. Are you-oh, stop pouting, come here and look. Doctor. Doctor, you’re only proving my point. Look at the damn display. See, how difficult was that, really?
You’re not sure what you’re looking at? Pity, I thought you might guess. Well, it’s you.
Yes, of course you’re here, but you were there-and there and there and there-sometime. If you’d like I can program in fourth dimensionality so we can see greater detail regarding time, but you know how grumpy it makes the TARDIS to have her computers bogged down with so many computations, and I think this works just as well, don’t you? Best not to make her grumpy.
Stop being deliberately dense. It doesn’t suit you.
That purple, there and there and there-all over, really-those are the places that fell to ruin, to chaos, after you left. Yes, I know it’s a lot. You like to think you help things, but you’re really very bad with the long term. You dive in to save whoever looks as if they’re in trouble, without really stopping to think why they’re in trouble, and if there might be a compromise reached in the end that could help everyone.
The green is where things ultimately improved based on your actions. See how little of it? And the rest, all that orange, simply didn’t change for the better or the worse.
Don’t look that way. Don’t look that way. I know you mean the best, but you know what the laws were. You were meant to observe, not to interfere.
Yes, I know the laws died with the Time Lords. But you never stop to think, maybe there’s a reason the rules were there in the first place.
Shut up. I do follow rules sometimes, when I can see that there’s a reason for them.
No, it’s not my fault the rules are stupid and useless most of the time.
Look, you’re getting away from the point. The point is, you need to think more. You need to stop and consider the consequences of your actions. I know you can’t be sure what’s going to happen, only you can. I know everything about you, Doctor. I know what decisions you made and I know what happened afterward. I’ve made a study of you, you could say.
History can be changed.
“Doctor,” she will whisper in his ear, “Now would be an excellent time to have mercy. I know it looks like the Klertch are being persecuted, blah blah blah and your sympathies are all a-swarm, etcetera, but if you destroy the Gorgians this entire sector will fall into chaos within the century. Someday someone will figure out that they carry calming pheromones of some sort. Why not a truce instead?”
He will frown at her, questioning, and she will shake her head. Her eyes will fill with the terror of the future she lived, the time when the Doctor was lost in the sea of bloodshed he’d left behind him, and he will slowly nod his assent. He understands that she will do anything to stop that future from coming to pass.
Later, she will sigh his name as they sit in the library of the TARDIS. He will turn, eyelids heavy with success, limbs sprawled comfortably around the two of them.
“Hm?” A small smile will flicker across his lips.
“Once you apologized to me for what you did to Rafzan Eleven,” she will say, quietly. He will loop one of her curls around his finger and nod his assent.
A little girl named Sorry sat in the ruins of the library, huddled into a ball around a book. This was a place the other villagers never came-no one cared why they stayed stuck to the ground. The answer was obvious: because it was the ground. It was midwinter tonight, and Sorry was reading about another world, where sometimes there was a magical thing called Snow.
“What’s your name, then?” a voiced asked from behind her, and the girl leapt guiltily, searching for the source of the voice.
“Sorry,” she whispered, gazing up at him. He was clean, unlike the rest of the people in town, and wearing strange foreign clothes. No one on Rafzan Eleven was a foreigner.
“For what?” he asked, confusion flickering briefly across his features.
“No, that’s my name,” she said irritably, because everyone in town knew it was her name and they all made fun of her for it, “The first word out of your mother’s mouth is your name. Mother just about broke Father’s hand, they said, so she said ‘sorry’ and now that’s my name.”
“Names aren’t so terribly important,” he said, sitting next to her. She scooted farther away, and he smiled slightly. “You can always pick a new one if you dislike it so much.”
She ignored him, opening her book. It was dangerous, because he could be anybody out for anything, he might hurt her, but somehow Sorry didn’t think he would.
“What are you reading about?” he asked, nonchalantly. Mutely, Sorry held up the book so that he could examine the title.
“The Myth of Snow. It’s not a myth, you know. I’ve seen it.”
“Sure you have,” she said, dismissively, attempting to bring the book in even closer to her face in the hopes that he might leave.
“Come on, I’ll show you!” He grabbed her arm and began dragging her away. Sorry gasped and prepared to start screaming-if anyone ever tries to take you anywhere, Sorry, scream until help comes-when she caught sight of his face. He was grinning gleefully, practically quivering with excitement. There was something so innocent and childlike about him that it froze her. Nobody on Rafzan was like that. All the faces here were worn down with years of hopelessness, all the eyes empty of dreams, including her own. This man was different.
“Not a man precisely,” he said cheerfully, and she worried over whether he could read minds. “Bit of an alien, I’m afraid. Look awfully human though, don’t I? Or maybe you look Time Lord, hard to say. We did come first.”
She gaped at him as he dragged her to a blue box like the temple out of myth.
It was bigger on the inside.
“Where-where are we?” she asked.
“School!” he answered gleefully, “I picked one with snow, just for you. Very nice school it is. I don’t suppose your parents will worry?”
“They’re dead,” she mumbled.
“Excellent!” he said, and she wondered if he meant it quite that way. He danced around a console in the middle of the room as Sorry watched with interest (there was no working machinery left on her planet) and when he opened the door again, Sorry was looking out onto a world of white.
“I’m afraid I didn’t know what your name would be,” the man said, “So I’ve registered you under an assumed name. You don’t mind taking a new name, do you?”
Mutely, she shook her head.
He wakes with a start, his cheek stinging from the slap that woke him.
“Stop that,” River scolds, “You’ve been drifting on time strands. You know how dangerous that is.”
He shakes his head and stares up at her.
“River,” he asks, “where were you born?”
She looks at him, her eyes no longer shuttered with spoilers, and smiles.
A/N: Love ya all! I hope you enjoy this!
(also, I did write for the christmas exchange, if it doesn't show up by the time I get off work tonight ((On Christmas Eve! ARGH.)) I'll post it myself.)
Author: bendingwind
Notes: [Doctor Who | K+/PG | 1836 words. hints at dark!Doctor]
Characters: River, Eleven
Summary: Reality slips away as he slides across the strands of time, lost, and waits for someone to save him. My (ahem) Holiday gift to spoiler_song. There is a possibility you will be confused by tenses.
“Doctor,” she says, laying a hand on his arm. There is blood spattered across the left side of her face, and he clumsily reaches out to wipe it away. It smears, and there seems to be more of it-numbly, he realizes that there is blood on his hand, as well. He’s only making things worse.
“Doctor,” she repeats, and he stares at her, his memory of The Events perfect, his heart refusing to quite comprehend. “Shhh,” she whispers, once she realizes she has his attention. “It’s fine now. Everything’s fine. But, Doctor,” she says, and her bright eyes harden, “This has to stop. Some days I don’t think you have any idea what you’re doing. Some days I don’t think you realize the effect you have on the universe. And some days I wonder if you don’t know and do the things you do, anyway.”
He still doesn’t quite understand, and so he shakes his head, feeling every single muscle of his neck move. It’s a strange sensation.
Gently, she takes his hand and leads him into the TARDIS.
I’m going to tell you a story, she says, only he isn’t sure that her mouth makes the motions that produce sound waves that then might travel through his ears and lodge in his brain. Don’t be silly, sound can’t hurt you. He wonders when she learned to speak like this, mind-to-mind. He wonders if she ever did.
In the year 4982, a small colony ship landed on Rafzan Eleven, the only planet in the Rafzar system far enough from its sun to support Earth-based life, and began a mining colony. It was more than mildly prosperous-each of its citizens lived in a comfortable house and had enough to eat and decent clothes to wear, which was more than most of the primitive colonies of the fiftieth century could claim. They continued like this for half a century, gleefully comfortable and proud in their prosperity, before they dug deep enough to discover that there was other sentient life on Rafzan. But they were happy, and arrogant, and they flatly denied knowledge as they killed the batlike species native to their adopted planet. Legend said that the gods struck them down for their pride and murderous hearts-a blue temple appeared one day in the middle of town, things happened (it was generally agreed upon that they were terrible things, but no one could ever remember exactly what they were) and Rafzan Eleven was left a barren husk, without technology and, worst of all, without any living humans over the age of seventeen.
Seventy years later Rafzan Eleven was more backward than even the least significant of the colony planets, and its people huddled together in the ruins of their world, unable to afford food from off-planet without their mining operations, and unable to grow enough to sustain themselves in the dry, barren land of their world. Among them was an orphan girl dressed in rags, utterly without hope.
“You weren’t-” he begins, but she holds up a finger to shush him.
“If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have had parents and a comfortable childhood,” she says, without accusation. “And I’m not the only little girl you’ve robbed of a childhood.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
Stand here. No, over a little bit. No, I’m not going to crash us, shut up and let me work. No, I’m not going to tell you where we’re going. Well, I am-we’re not going anywhere. Shut up and wait, would you? Honestly, it’s like watching a bratty five-year-old.
Don’t look like that. Here we go. Are you-oh, stop pouting, come here and look. Doctor. Doctor, you’re only proving my point. Look at the damn display. See, how difficult was that, really?
You’re not sure what you’re looking at? Pity, I thought you might guess. Well, it’s you.
Yes, of course you’re here, but you were there-and there and there and there-sometime. If you’d like I can program in fourth dimensionality so we can see greater detail regarding time, but you know how grumpy it makes the TARDIS to have her computers bogged down with so many computations, and I think this works just as well, don’t you? Best not to make her grumpy.
Stop being deliberately dense. It doesn’t suit you.
That purple, there and there and there-all over, really-those are the places that fell to ruin, to chaos, after you left. Yes, I know it’s a lot. You like to think you help things, but you’re really very bad with the long term. You dive in to save whoever looks as if they’re in trouble, without really stopping to think why they’re in trouble, and if there might be a compromise reached in the end that could help everyone.
The green is where things ultimately improved based on your actions. See how little of it? And the rest, all that orange, simply didn’t change for the better or the worse.
Don’t look that way. Don’t look that way. I know you mean the best, but you know what the laws were. You were meant to observe, not to interfere.
Yes, I know the laws died with the Time Lords. But you never stop to think, maybe there’s a reason the rules were there in the first place.
Shut up. I do follow rules sometimes, when I can see that there’s a reason for them.
No, it’s not my fault the rules are stupid and useless most of the time.
Look, you’re getting away from the point. The point is, you need to think more. You need to stop and consider the consequences of your actions. I know you can’t be sure what’s going to happen, only you can. I know everything about you, Doctor. I know what decisions you made and I know what happened afterward. I’ve made a study of you, you could say.
History can be changed.
“Doctor,” she will whisper in his ear, “Now would be an excellent time to have mercy. I know it looks like the Klertch are being persecuted, blah blah blah and your sympathies are all a-swarm, etcetera, but if you destroy the Gorgians this entire sector will fall into chaos within the century. Someday someone will figure out that they carry calming pheromones of some sort. Why not a truce instead?”
He will frown at her, questioning, and she will shake her head. Her eyes will fill with the terror of the future she lived, the time when the Doctor was lost in the sea of bloodshed he’d left behind him, and he will slowly nod his assent. He understands that she will do anything to stop that future from coming to pass.
Later, she will sigh his name as they sit in the library of the TARDIS. He will turn, eyelids heavy with success, limbs sprawled comfortably around the two of them.
“Hm?” A small smile will flicker across his lips.
“Once you apologized to me for what you did to Rafzan Eleven,” she will say, quietly. He will loop one of her curls around his finger and nod his assent.
A little girl named Sorry sat in the ruins of the library, huddled into a ball around a book. This was a place the other villagers never came-no one cared why they stayed stuck to the ground. The answer was obvious: because it was the ground. It was midwinter tonight, and Sorry was reading about another world, where sometimes there was a magical thing called Snow.
“What’s your name, then?” a voiced asked from behind her, and the girl leapt guiltily, searching for the source of the voice.
“Sorry,” she whispered, gazing up at him. He was clean, unlike the rest of the people in town, and wearing strange foreign clothes. No one on Rafzan Eleven was a foreigner.
“For what?” he asked, confusion flickering briefly across his features.
“No, that’s my name,” she said irritably, because everyone in town knew it was her name and they all made fun of her for it, “The first word out of your mother’s mouth is your name. Mother just about broke Father’s hand, they said, so she said ‘sorry’ and now that’s my name.”
“Names aren’t so terribly important,” he said, sitting next to her. She scooted farther away, and he smiled slightly. “You can always pick a new one if you dislike it so much.”
She ignored him, opening her book. It was dangerous, because he could be anybody out for anything, he might hurt her, but somehow Sorry didn’t think he would.
“What are you reading about?” he asked, nonchalantly. Mutely, Sorry held up the book so that he could examine the title.
“The Myth of Snow. It’s not a myth, you know. I’ve seen it.”
“Sure you have,” she said, dismissively, attempting to bring the book in even closer to her face in the hopes that he might leave.
“Come on, I’ll show you!” He grabbed her arm and began dragging her away. Sorry gasped and prepared to start screaming-if anyone ever tries to take you anywhere, Sorry, scream until help comes-when she caught sight of his face. He was grinning gleefully, practically quivering with excitement. There was something so innocent and childlike about him that it froze her. Nobody on Rafzan was like that. All the faces here were worn down with years of hopelessness, all the eyes empty of dreams, including her own. This man was different.
“Not a man precisely,” he said cheerfully, and she worried over whether he could read minds. “Bit of an alien, I’m afraid. Look awfully human though, don’t I? Or maybe you look Time Lord, hard to say. We did come first.”
She gaped at him as he dragged her to a blue box like the temple out of myth.
It was bigger on the inside.
“Where-where are we?” she asked.
“School!” he answered gleefully, “I picked one with snow, just for you. Very nice school it is. I don’t suppose your parents will worry?”
“They’re dead,” she mumbled.
“Excellent!” he said, and she wondered if he meant it quite that way. He danced around a console in the middle of the room as Sorry watched with interest (there was no working machinery left on her planet) and when he opened the door again, Sorry was looking out onto a world of white.
“I’m afraid I didn’t know what your name would be,” the man said, “So I’ve registered you under an assumed name. You don’t mind taking a new name, do you?”
Mutely, she shook her head.
He wakes with a start, his cheek stinging from the slap that woke him.
“Stop that,” River scolds, “You’ve been drifting on time strands. You know how dangerous that is.”
He shakes his head and stares up at her.
“River,” he asks, “where were you born?”
She looks at him, her eyes no longer shuttered with spoilers, and smiles.
A/N: Love ya all! I hope you enjoy this!
(also, I did write for the christmas exchange, if it doesn't show up by the time I get off work tonight ((On Christmas Eve! ARGH.)) I'll post it myself.)