Rec: Physician, Heal Thyself
Story: Physician, Heal Thyself
Author: Aiffe
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 4,051
Author's Summary: AU of Asylum of the Daleks. Oswin comes along as a companion, and the man who needs to fix things faces something he can't fix.
Characters/Pairings: Eleven, Oswin Oswald
Warnings: None
Recced because: After "Asylum of the Daleks," fandom turned out a number of good AUs in which Oswin the Dalek traveled with the Doctor, but this is one of my favorites. We don't see any more of their travels beyond the first day, when Oswin asks the Doctor to give her back her human voice, but the scene that takes place as he complies feels emotionally deep and very true to the awkwardness you'd expect from the characters in that situation. Oswin wants to be more than what she is, and the Doctor struggles with accepting her Dalekness and wanting to help her move beyond that. I'd love to see more of this AU, but the story as is feels self-contained and very satisfying.
Excerpt:
She shakes her ... well, head, he supposes, her eye drooping. She's shuffling back and forth slightly and he thinks that he's never seen a Dalek do that before, either, as if trying to tally all the ways Oswin Oswald is not a Dalek, to reassure himself. "You shouldn't have rescued me," she says.
He doesn't let himself agree. Instead, he steps closer to her, trying to still that nervous jitter in his legs, or pass it off as his usual sort of ridiculousness, and puts a hand on her casing. He knows she can feel it-Dalek casings have sensors for pressure and electrical currents. Not pain or pleasure, though, he muses. They'd never seen the point in either. Her eyestalk jumps a bit at his touch, orienting towards him but not quite looking at him. "You won't say that after we've been on a few adventures," he says. "These sorts of feelings you're having…there's no better cure for them than running. And if you run with me, they'll never catch you. Haven't caught me for a thousand years." This is much more honesty than he's given anyone, in all the time he's been running, but there wasn't anyone before who needed his honesty to live.
Author: Aiffe
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 4,051
Author's Summary: AU of Asylum of the Daleks. Oswin comes along as a companion, and the man who needs to fix things faces something he can't fix.
Characters/Pairings: Eleven, Oswin Oswald
Warnings: None
Recced because: After "Asylum of the Daleks," fandom turned out a number of good AUs in which Oswin the Dalek traveled with the Doctor, but this is one of my favorites. We don't see any more of their travels beyond the first day, when Oswin asks the Doctor to give her back her human voice, but the scene that takes place as he complies feels emotionally deep and very true to the awkwardness you'd expect from the characters in that situation. Oswin wants to be more than what she is, and the Doctor struggles with accepting her Dalekness and wanting to help her move beyond that. I'd love to see more of this AU, but the story as is feels self-contained and very satisfying.
Excerpt:
She shakes her ... well, head, he supposes, her eye drooping. She's shuffling back and forth slightly and he thinks that he's never seen a Dalek do that before, either, as if trying to tally all the ways Oswin Oswald is not a Dalek, to reassure himself. "You shouldn't have rescued me," she says.
He doesn't let himself agree. Instead, he steps closer to her, trying to still that nervous jitter in his legs, or pass it off as his usual sort of ridiculousness, and puts a hand on her casing. He knows she can feel it-Dalek casings have sensors for pressure and electrical currents. Not pain or pleasure, though, he muses. They'd never seen the point in either. Her eyestalk jumps a bit at his touch, orienting towards him but not quite looking at him. "You won't say that after we've been on a few adventures," he says. "These sorts of feelings you're having…there's no better cure for them than running. And if you run with me, they'll never catch you. Haven't caught me for a thousand years." This is much more honesty than he's given anyone, in all the time he's been running, but there wasn't anyone before who needed his honesty to live.