Round Three Reviews - Part 23
Today's Featured Stories include:
*
Early Days by sahiya Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Fluff
Fandom: New Who
Characters: Ninth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness
Rating: All Ages
Details: Single-part ficlet, just under 4000 words, hurt/comfort, complete
Why It Rocks:
The Doctor and Rose had a very intense relationship. Well, yes, duh. The thing is that intense relationships have a habit of making other people feel pushed aside. This was true as much during the Ninth Doctor’s run as it was during the Tenth’s; Mickey noticed and, by Boom Town, had given up trying. Even Adam admitted that it would take a better man than him to come between Rose and the Doctor.
What happens when a better man than Adam comes along? How does Jack manage to find his place in Team TARDIS? Sahiya takes a popular period in Nine’s era - the ‘missing time’ between The Doctor Dances and Boom Town - to tell us her version of how the trio (or, more accurately, perhaps, the Doctor and Jack) moved from the mutual suspicion in the immediate aftermath of Jack’s rescue to the fun, flirting and trust of the trio’s time in Cardiff.
Close to two weeks after joining Team TARDIS, Jack’s having a really bad time:
It had been one of the more miserable nights of Jack Harkness's life.
He and Rose both ate something that disagreed with them on a planet they’ve just visited. Rose was violently ill, and Jack humiliated himself by throwing up copiously not long afterwards. Not too surprising, of course; they’re both human, despite Jack’s 51st-century genetics and, no doubt, inoculations, so it’s likely enough that they’d react the same way. It’s how the Doctor reacts, though, that’s very telling:
The Doctor, of course, had swooped in immediately to gather Rose up, cradling her against his chest protectively. He'd shepherded Jack into the ship and ordered him to bed, saying he'd come find him as soon as he knew what was wrong with Rose - and, presumably, with Jack as well - before disappearing into the depths of the TARDIS.
It’s probably not too difficult to guess that the Doctor doesn’t actually come back to see to Jack. And, several hours later, having been horribly sick repeatedly in the meantime, feeling dehydrated and wishing he could just die and have it all over with, Jack’s trying to give himself a saline IV - because it’s not as if there’s anyone else around to help him with it.
It’s bad enough, from a reader’s perspective, that the Doctor is clearly so single-mindedly focused on Rose that he doesn’t even remember that there’s a second passenger who’s every bit as sick. What’s worse is that Jack doesn’t even expect any better than to be left alone to cope:
He hadn't looked in on Jack even once in the last four hours - not that Jack had expected anything else. Rose needed him more, and Jack could take care of himself. He'd been on the ship less than two weeks anyway, it was no skin off their noses if he died, and he didn't have any right to ask for more. Or to wish, in his lowest moments, for the touch of a cool hand on the back of his neck and a few murmured words of sympathy.
So Jack clearly sees himself relegated to second-best, unimportant next to Rose. It’s a common experience for some of the Doctor’s companions, of course; even if - like me - you’re a fan of Rose, it’s not too hard to acknowledge that it’s not exactly fair of the Doctor to behave like this. But, wait. How much of this is the Doctor thinking that Jack’s not important, and how much of it is Jack’s own interpretation?
Well, we get the Doctor’s point of view a little later, and discover that Jack’s partly right:
[Rose had] needed him, and so he'd been there, without a second thought - not even for Jack, he realized with some guilt. The man was a former Time Agent and very used to handling himself. The Doctor was sure he'd be fine, especially once he'd run Rose's blood through an analyzer and realized they were having reactions to a certain organic compound common to the food on the planet they'd just left - unpleasant but not lethal.
Still, he probably should have looked in on Jack once or twice throughout the night. He'd just not been able to tear himself away from Rose while she'd been so ill. Jack couldn't possibly have expected anything else, and the Doctor was sure that if he'd asked the man, he'd have more than agreed.
But this isn’t a story about the Doctor’s callous treatment of companions who aren’t Rose. It’s a story about Jack becoming part of the team, and in particular the Doctor’s acceptance of Jack. So of course the Doctor finds Jack; of course, the Doctor realises that Jack’s sicker than he thought; of course, the Doctor makes amends and takes care of Jack just as diligently as he has of Rose. Even if Jack’s so sick by this time that he can’t help imagining the worst:
"What exactly do you think I'm going to do to you, lad?" Jack shook his head mutely. The Doctor squeezed through the doorway of the medlab into the hallway beyond. "Need to be getting back to Rose. Can't leave you on your own to get even sicker. Only one option."
Jack's mouth twisted. "Airlock?"
The Doctor chuckled darkly. "Don't give me any ideas," he said, and pushed open the door to Rose's room.
I’ll happily confess here that hurt/comfort is my absolute favourite story genre, and this is why I love Early Days so much: it feeds that craving of mine in every way. We get the hurt. We get the comfort - in spades. And we get to see the trio start to bond, taking the first steps towards becoming the very close friends they clearly are by Boom Town.
Plus, of course, the Doctor and Rose realise, and acknowledge, that their absorption in each other is not only impolite and unwelcoming; it’s also wrong - and dangerous, given how sick Jack was.
Rose felt suddenly chilled. The Doctor had taken care of her . . . but who had taken care of Jack?
No one. Jack had been left to fend for himself.
There is plenty of room for three in the TARDIS, and Early Days is the perfect story to prove it. It’s also the perfect story to curl up with, your favourite beverage by your side. It definitely deserves its nomination - and perhaps, even, your vote.
*
A Domino Falls by Mary_Pseud Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Short Story
Fandom: Classic Who
Characters: Two, Jamie, Victoria, various OCs
Rating: Teen
Details: Five chapters and an epilogue; part of the Damnatio Memoriae series, also nominated. Rated Teen, but there's talk/innuendo about sexual habits and violence, so be forewarned.
Why It Rocks:
I'll admit it's not often that I read Classic Who stories - and yet, every time I do, I find myself wanting to learn more. Not only about the Doctor and the companions mentioned, but about the places and people referenced within.
A Domino Falls is no exception. The Doctor, in his second incarnation, is traveling with Jamie McCrimmon, a name New Who fans will recongize as the pseudonym the Doctor takes on in "Tooth and Claw". Jamie really was a Scotsman, from the 18th century as it turns out. The Doctor is also traveling with Victoria Waterfield, a young woman from the Victorian era.
What makes the story the most interesting, however, isn't the Doctor or his companions - rather, it's the situation they find themselves in. The Doctor is mistaken for the newly-arrived judge overseeing the trial between two Naglons attempting to escape their homeworld. Why? Well....apparently, they would like to be married. Just without the sex part.
[The Doctor] looked up at the Naglons, and swallowed, before he could say, "My dear people, I owe you an apology. I didn't realise the sort of cultural pressures you were under."
"What sort of pressures?" Jamie asked, and then flinched a little at the look the Doctor showed him; grieved and ashamed, both.
"It appears that it is traditional on Naglon for the female to be, well, extremely violent towards males."
A now a quick word: I can't decide if the story is meant to be about marital abuse, or not. I don't think it is, not really - and yet, every kind of relationship comes into play in so many ways throughout the story. First, you've got the relationship between the two companions. You figure you're one of two humans with a Time Lord, you're going to form some kind of bond with each other. I get the idea that Jamie and Victoria's bond is something akin to a brother-and-sister type relationship. It's actually kind of interesting, considering that Victoria is from an era more modern than Jamie - and yet, she automatically will follow his lead:
Jamie clenched his fist in front of her, and then made a striking motion, several times. Victoria remembered: Brot had told them that if they had to fight the Naglons, they should try to punch them in the sides, where a human's lower ribs would be. Victoria made a rather weak smile, and clenched her fist in turn.
And later, when Victoria does punch the bad guy - a weak punch, to be sure, but aimed at exactly the right spot and successful in that it allows the trio to get away:
"Young lady, you were magnificent!' The Doctor beamed at her, and even Jamie looked impressed.
"Thank you, Doctor," she said, and gave a little nervous laugh. "I didn't know I had it in me."
"I did," said Jamie, and grinned at her look of incomprehension.
It's clear that the relationship between the three of them is very much of a family unit: proud father, strong brother, very capable younger sister. This is, of course, assuming you ignore the very slight nod to Doctor/Jamie at the end: but even that relationship is an interesting one indeed, where you're not entirely certain if the men are actually aware of it, or if it's just a matter of UST on all sides.
"...I could tell, just from the way they were with each other, that they cared. That they loved each other. Isn't that strange?"
"Strange and wonderful." The Doctor placed his free hand over Jamie's on the lever, and squeezed it a little. "Strange and wonderful."
But the relationship that I found the most interesting wasn't between the crew of the TARDIS, or the Naglons they've rescued. It's actually one which we don't see very much of - the one between the Naglon charged with bringing the runaways home: Therri. He's failed in his mission, yes - but instead of being punished, he's being given the sort of rewards Jack Harkness might have enjoyed: the chance to mate with a whole bunch of Naglon females, all in one massive...ah...orgy.
Except let's remember: Naglon females? Not so much with the nice.
A Paramour of the Inner Council was the consort of the entire Council of females. If he was lucky, or perhaps unlucky, he would survive the first mass mating.
No Paramour had ever lived more than six matings, and very few survived for that long.
"My son - name him Tragan." Therri raised his head and stared at Morriw with a face striped blue with grief. "And love him, if you can. Because I will probably not even see him born, or touch his face, or see him walk or grow or live."
It's not often that you get a bad guy who you can detest the entire story - and then you get to that very last line, and guh, it hits you square in the stomach. Because this is what I'm not talking about in this review, in a story that's primarily about sanctioned spousal abuse: I'm not talking about society being as much a trap as it is a comfort. In many ways, although Therri was a symbol of the Naglon society's belief that spousal abuse is proper, he's also very much a victim. His promotion to the rank of Paramour is seen by some as an honor - but it's clear that he knows exactly what it means. It's not an honor, nor is it really a "promotion". It's punishment veiled as such. It's only at the end, perhaps, that Therri is able to see that.
The Doctor says that someday, the Naglons will realize the shortcomings of their society. Having convinced one of them that spousal abuse is wrong, it won't be long before others believe it as well - just as you push over one domino, the rest in a line will fall. But as Mary says in her author's notes, a domino is also another name for a mask - meant partially as the physical masks that the Naglons use to make their escape, and of the symbolic mask that Therri wears without knowing it. The mask falls - just as his belief in his society is torn away.
In short, vote for A Domino Falls. There are a thousand different cultures in the universe waiting, and not all of them can possibly be to our liking - nor can we hope to change every one of them. What we can only do is view them and see how they are reflections of our own society. Every society wears a mask they show to the world; the key is knowing not only what the mask says about you - but about what it does to you in the wearing. This fic has a dozen masks all of its own; and every one is entirely deserving of your vote.
*
The next two fics are part of the same series.
The Sun Rising by jlrpuck
Category: Romance
Fandom: New Who
Characters: Rose Tyler
Rating: Teen
Details: One-shot, the first part of a series featuring an AU version Peter Carlisle from Blackpool.
Why It Rocks:
Good writers can write characters from a series they love into fanfiction, and make it believable.
Great writers can combine characters from two different shows and make them work believably together.
Outstanding writers can take both of those characters, in the alternate universe they created in the first crossover, and make yet another alternate universe out of them, effectively saying, "If I change this thing and this thing in the alternate-universe backstory of these fictional characters, I think this is what would happen"-and then make all of us believe it would happen, too.
Puck is one of these few outstanding writers.
He was a widower, a professor of history at one of the more venerable Scottish universities.
She was an heiress, permanently single and working a job on the side to keep from going mad with boredom.
He never thought he’d look twice at another woman, let alone want to marry one.
She never thought she’d find love again, let alone with someone who looked like him.
In this version of her Peter/Rose stories, Peter Carlisle's mother did not die when he was a child. Consequently, the parts of his life that led him to become a police officer did not happen, and instead, he followed the career path Puck thinks would have been more likely to interest him. (Given his penchant for ruins in her original Peter/Rose universe from The Way of Things and its sequel, And So Things Go (link goes to the review from Round One), that's not a bad choice.)
Rose, meanwhile, is the same Rose we know from the other Peter/Rose 'verse, with one major difference: because Peter hadn't been on the Kendal police force when the Torchwood team had been up there (and I won't say any more about the plot of that fic, because I want you to go read it if you haven't already), there was no-one to run interference with the uncooperative police chief-which means their investigation, while successful in its main mission, hadn't quite had a happy ending. One of her team died; she herself was injured so badly she had to retire from field work. Consequently, she now plays the part of Vitex Heiress, including charity work, which is how she ends up at a cocktail party at the university, and how she meets Peter. Here is someone she has to talk to-because he's on the committee utilising the Vitex donation for a new science research institute to be housed at the university-who looks just like the love she lost, whom she's finally accepted will never be coming to get her from the other universe.
They shake hands and speak a few awkward sentences to each other, and Rose disappears, never having learned that Peter's actually a widower, not a married man. She retreats back to London, and desperately tries to forget him.
Which doesn't work too well-not for him, and not for her.
I could spend pages describing the rest of the plot for you, but there's really no point; you've figured it out by now. Boy and girl meet, boy and girl are separated by misunderstanding, boy and girl get together in the end: a plot that's as old as time. And yet, as with so many other iterations of this basic storyline, it's the way Puck goes about it that fascinates. This is the story of an attraction that transcends miles and years; of two people who have both loved and lost, finding their new start with each other; of a lonely widower and a lonely heiress who connect across a crowded room, and somehow end up making it work together.
It's not easy, and it's not pain-free, but Puck's stories never are. Is it a match made in heaven? Perhaps; perhaps not. But it doesn't need to be. They work at it, these two: they never take their relationship for granted. The series this story spawned shows that effort, as well as the periods of joy and love that come with it. This fic is a sort of synopsis of the early part of their relationship (which is described in more detail in subsequent stories), like the blurb on the back of the book that drags you in to read the rest. The best part, of course, is that the rest isn't complete yet; and with luck, Puck will continue to keep us in Professor/Heiress stories for a long time.
In short, vote for The Sun Rising. It's about two people in mourning who find each other, despite all the odds; about an attraction that's strong enough to hold together over months apart; about making a life together, despite all the baggage of the years before you met. It absolutely deserves your vote.
*
The Canonization by jlrpuck
Category: Rose Tyler, PWP
Fandom: New Who
Characters: Rose Tyler, OC.
Rating: Mature
Details: More from Puck's Professor/Heiress series, featuring an AU version Peter Carlisle from Blackpool.
Why It Rocks:
With this fic, Puck has moved considerably on from The Sun Rising, though this is still set within Rose and Peter's first year together. Its original title was "An Alternate Thing, Story Four," but as of this writing, The Canonization has become Story Nine, out of a total of twelve. And if we're very, very lucky, there will be more on their way once Puck's finished posting her current chaptered fic. Yes, Puck, that's a hint.
In this lovely little PWP ficlet, Peter and Rose have been lovers for some time, and have become comfortable enough with each other for them to feel safe acting out their fantasies.
Peter tugged tentatively at the fabric binding his left wrist to the headboard. It had been Rose’s idea; she’d suggested it over dinner, after he’d had a few glasses of wine, and he’d agreed-certain that he’d be able to distract her before they ever got this far.
He shouldn’t have underestimated his Rose. He’d thought he was seducing her, distracting her; instead she’d got him out of his shirt and vest and onto the bed, and had tied his wrist to the headboard with an alacrity that bordered on alarming. He’d fought down the worry that flooded through him, his fear of not being in control in bed asserting itself briefly before he forced himself to relax. This was Rose; he loved her, and she him. She’d not hurt him; he could trust her.
He would trust her.
Peter, in this 'verse, is generally the dominant one in bed. I don't mean in the role-playing sense; he simply prefers being in control. Giving it up is, frankly, a bit frightening for him. Trust is, of course, one of the hardest things to give in any relationship, and the easiest to lose-and yet, without it, no relationship can survive.
This Peter and this Rose don't have the same issues that Puck's original Peter and Rose have, but they do have their own. And, like every relationship, intimacy grows out of trust-real intimacy, that is, not just physical intimacy. This is one of Puck's real strengths as an author: showing us the way relationships grow, realistically. They don't grow just from the happy times-the holding hands in the park, or giggling through a movie on the sofa, or finding the many places in the house where a quickie can be had. They grow through adversity, through quarrels, through fear . . . . and, yes, sometimes, through trusting your partner to tie you to the bedpost. Or trusting you not to untie yourself, even though you can.
He was so close to freeing himself-but froze as Rose watched him. Her gaze was seductive still, and dark-but it also was so very young, and hopeful, and full of trust and love for him. She trusted him not to untie himself; trusted that he’d not do anything until she released him. He couldn’t betray that trust, as much as he might want to be the dominant partner in bed at that moment.
Hot as the smut in this story is-and it is, believe me-it's that trust that is the hottest part, at least for me. The intimacy of allowing yourself to be completely vulnerable-especially Peter allowing himself to be completely vulnerable-is incredibly intense. For this man, who has always been self-reliant, in control, dominant (though not dominating, certainly), to willingly give himself over to his girlfriend is an amazing act of faith.
And, of course, let's not forget Rose's side of this, either.
“Thank you,” she finally whispered, looking up to him. The vulnerability was back.
“For what?”
“For...this. For letting me. I know you don’t like it-not being in charge.”
As Puck herself says in the comments to this fic, this Rose is significantly more damaged than her counterpart from The Way of Things. Things Happened in Kendal in this universe, some of which I touched upon in the previous review, some of which I have not (and you'll have to read the ficlets to find out exactly what). Very Bad Things, in fact, which have, both literally and figuratively, scarred Rose for life. She lost a lot of her confidence in herself-or, more accurately, had it knocked out of her in the most horrific way possible. This is no longer the Rose who, less than a day after having agreed to travel with a strange alien in a blue box, started to rush out into nineteenth-century Naples still in her twenty-first-century clothing. This Rose is cautious, quiet, thinks twice and three times before doing anything, and still has a hard time believing she's been so lucky as to find Peter. To ask him if she can tie him up is a strong step in the right direction for her: it means she's starting to find her confidence again, at least with him.
I think what makes Puck's fics so wonderful (and so popular) is that she's able to capture that new-relationship feeling: that glorious, terrifying, slow comprehension of who this person you love really is. Another author said once that one falls in love with who one thinks one's beloved is, and then gets to know them slowly over the years. Through Puck's fics, we can watch this happening with Rose and Peter, in both iterations, and that little voice deep in the back of our brain resonates with memories of the times we ourselves have done this (as so many of us have). Whether those relationships ended well or badly for us is not the point; the point is that most of us have been there, and can watch this slow progression of love with a smile on our faces, silently egging them on.
In short, vote for The Canonization. It's got all the things a good smutty story should have: naked!Peter Carlisle, hot sex, Scottish accents, and of course Robbie Burns. It's got love and lust and fear and trust (ooh, that rhymes!), and azriona would have my head if I didn't mention leopards in here somewhere. But more than that, it's got the simple truth of a man and a woman, in love with each other. It definitely deserves your vote.
*
Nine Plus One by Persiflage / persiflage_1 Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Doctor/Martha
Fandom: New Who
Characters: Nine, Martha
Rating: R
Details: Seven one-shots linked in a series about Nine meeting Martha instead of Rose. For Martha, pre-S3; for Nine, post-Rose, without Rose, obviously.
Why it Rocks:
The Doctor's life is one lived purely by chance. I mean, we're talking about a guy who doesn't have a real good handle on driving his ship in the first place - and in the second, his companions find him more often than he finds them.
So who's to say what would happen, exactly, if Four had met Donna? Or if One had stumbled across Sarah Jane Smith? Or - as Persiflage shows us - Nine had met Martha Jones?
But unlike most fics where the Doctor is paired with a different companion at a different time - Persiflage has done something particularly curious, and kept Rose Tyler in the story. Nine meets Martha just after the events of Rose - but doesn't offer her all of Time and Space. In fact, he doesn't even tell her he's a Time Lord. His relationship with Martha is about as different from his relationship with Rose can possibly be. We never see the Doctor and Rose together, until the very end, but we follow the Doctor through the in-between times during the first season, so we "see" Rose through his thoughts. I get the idea that his life with Rose is much the same as what we've seen in the show - namely, that there's a certain amount of affection between them, but none of it is physical.
[Martha] intoxicated his senses until he wanted to lose himself in her. He knew that it was dangerous, and that he could, and mostly likely would, hurt her (not that he wanted to hurt her, but he knew what his life was like), yet he couldn't seem to help himself. She made him forget about the guilt he felt and the burdens he carried; he could have lost himself in Rose and he might have done that, if he hadn't met Martha before he'd had a chance to get to know Rose properly.
I kind of feel that it's as if the Doctor is playing a game, almost. He's got his fantastic life with Rose, aboard the TARDIS, seeing and saving the world. He can be the hero with Rose - but with Martha, he doesn't have to be. He only needs to be John, a man who loves her. A human man - not the savior of the world, or the Oncoming Storm. It's as if he's trying to live the day-to-day life he's never been allowed - or perhaps trying his hand at really running from the Time War and what he did in it.
With Rose, the Doctor throws himself back into the same-old, same-old, trying to find contentment the same way he always did. He's running away with Rose. But he's running away with Martha too, in a far more extreme way, because he's not only running from the reality of being the last of the Time Lords - he's running away from the idea of Time itself.
The time he spent with Martha represented the kind of normality he hadn't had since the days when Susan had been attending Coal Hill School, and after all the trauma of the Time War he was desperate for the occasional bit of normality. In a way, he liked pretending that he was just an ordinary bloke with an ordinary job, and a gorgeous girlfriend (whom he was quite sure was far from ordinary).
Could the Doctor have wanted normality after the Time War? Oh, absolutely - I think, in a way, his travels with Rose were one way of achieving it. But so too is the time he spends with Martha - only a normality of a different sort. The question is, in the end, which normality the Doctor will choose - to spend his life in the stars, or to spend it with Martha. It isn't terribly likely that he'll have both.
In short, vote for Nine Plus One. It's a curious look at what might have happened, had the Doctor met Martha Jones first - not just to the two of them, but everyone around them as well (because the ripples go out, as ripples do, to touch everyone else involved as well). It will leave you curious from one story to the next, how it'll all end, and trust me, your heart will pound when you get to the twist at the end of Season One. You'll find yourself entranced, and I think you'll agree that this fic very much deserves your vote.
*
Cicatrice by infiniteviking Link goes to Teaspoon
Categories: Second Doctor, Ficlet
Fandom: Classic Who
Characters: Second Doctor, Ninth Doctor, Ben Jackson
Rating: All Ages
Details: Angst, Character Study, Introspection; complete ficlet nearly 1400 words
Why It Rocks:
It's a meeting between the Second Doctor and the immediately post-Time War Ninth Doctor.
This story opens with No man is an island, entire of itself; / every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main from John Donne's 'Meditation XVII', and proceeds to demonstrate how very true this is for the Doctor, with so many incarnations of himself around the universe.
The Doctor's second incarnation is often seen as child-like, and a bit of a bumbling fool (particularly in such stories as The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Evil of the Daleks and The Dominators), but this is simply an act which he uses to deflect attention from his true abilities. While the Second Doctor looks scruffy, with his shabby clothes, a recorder sticking from his coat pocket, and Beatles-style haircut (he's often referred to as the 'Cosmic Hobo'), the bluster and panic he often displays hid a clever, calculating, and occasionally manipulative, man who is both heroic and morally upright. He may flail around, crying 'Oh my giddy aunt' at moments of stress, but don't let that fool you - he still has the same inner core of steel as any of his other selves because that core is fundamental to the Doctor's nature.
So far, canon has told us very little about the Time War - apart from the fact that it destroyed Gallifrey, and all the Time Lords (apart from the Doctor, and the Master who was in human form), and it also - or so the Doctor believed - destroyed all the Daleks. The Doctor also believed that it was Time Locked, and at the end of Season 4 we learned that a Time Lock is a mechanism whereby an event (or a series of events) is rendered inaccessible through time travel. However, the Time Lock only prevents entry into the Time War through the Time Vortex itself, which means that the events of the Time War were not erased from history, and can therefore still be referenced by those who knew of the destruction of the Daleks and the Time Lords. (Of course, the exception to this Time Lock is Dalek Caan, who used an emergency temporal shift which took him through the Time Lock, allowing him to rescue Davros, at the cost of his sanity.)
'Cicatrice' opens with the second Doctor en route from one adventure to another (where doesn't actually matter), as his companions (Ben, and two unnamed others - probably Polly and Jamie) sleep soundly in their rooms aboard the TARDIS. The Doctor suddenly becomes aware of something disturbing - something unusual is tugging at his senses (and remember, the Doctor has considerably more senses than us humans), so he and the TARDIS take a detour to an unnamed alien planet in order to investigate.
Once there the Doctor's sense of unease and something not-right deepens as he finds that the landscape through which he's walking isn't entirely real, and if he listens carefully, there is an echo where there should be none... a distant echo of dread and regret.
Tracking the echo to its source he finds:
A man […] curled in a cranny on the opposite bank. At first the Doctor mistakes him, a tangle of denim and the matted remains of finer fabrics, for a spill of textured earth among the rocks. He steps closer, his breathing quickening as the outline becomes more clear: limbs drawn in upon one another, hands closed like claws over nothing, a Time Lord lying like the dead, his mind quiet and cold.
and he can't help speaking aloud: "You're dormant, aren't you?" he murmurs. "Locked in your own little world... you can't hear me, can you? You can't hear anything."
The Doctor tries to wade the stream to go to the other Time Lord's aid, and finds the way is barred - the other man is literally locked in his own little world. Nevertheless, the Doctor goes to his aid, eventually pushing through the Time Lock that's protecting the second Time Lord - who is, in fact, a later incarnation (his Ninth):
His skin is dry, written over with ashes. His close-shaven head is bowed toward the ground; his lips are parted, but he does not seem to breathe.
We're not told exactly what the Doctor does to help his older self, but when next we see him he flinches, clambering to his feet, the arid landscape around him softened by an impression of faint woodwind notes and the dust of something blue, and Ben, waking finally aboard the TARDIS and seeking out the Doctor sees a momentary ancientness in the Doctor's pale gaze, as wild and remote as the heart of a star.
Vote for this fic because it is poetic and beautiful, giving us a tiny glimpse of how the Ninth Doctor might possibly have been aided in his recovery from the devastation of the Time War by his younger, more care-free self.
*
Today's Reviews were written by:
wendymr: Early Days
aibhinn: The Sun Rising; The Canonization
azriona: A Domino Falls; Nine Plus One
persiflage_1: Cicatrice
*
Early Days by sahiya Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Fluff
Fandom: New Who
Characters: Ninth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness
Rating: All Ages
Details: Single-part ficlet, just under 4000 words, hurt/comfort, complete
Why It Rocks:
The Doctor and Rose had a very intense relationship. Well, yes, duh. The thing is that intense relationships have a habit of making other people feel pushed aside. This was true as much during the Ninth Doctor’s run as it was during the Tenth’s; Mickey noticed and, by Boom Town, had given up trying. Even Adam admitted that it would take a better man than him to come between Rose and the Doctor.
What happens when a better man than Adam comes along? How does Jack manage to find his place in Team TARDIS? Sahiya takes a popular period in Nine’s era - the ‘missing time’ between The Doctor Dances and Boom Town - to tell us her version of how the trio (or, more accurately, perhaps, the Doctor and Jack) moved from the mutual suspicion in the immediate aftermath of Jack’s rescue to the fun, flirting and trust of the trio’s time in Cardiff.
Close to two weeks after joining Team TARDIS, Jack’s having a really bad time:
It had been one of the more miserable nights of Jack Harkness's life.
He and Rose both ate something that disagreed with them on a planet they’ve just visited. Rose was violently ill, and Jack humiliated himself by throwing up copiously not long afterwards. Not too surprising, of course; they’re both human, despite Jack’s 51st-century genetics and, no doubt, inoculations, so it’s likely enough that they’d react the same way. It’s how the Doctor reacts, though, that’s very telling:
The Doctor, of course, had swooped in immediately to gather Rose up, cradling her against his chest protectively. He'd shepherded Jack into the ship and ordered him to bed, saying he'd come find him as soon as he knew what was wrong with Rose - and, presumably, with Jack as well - before disappearing into the depths of the TARDIS.
It’s probably not too difficult to guess that the Doctor doesn’t actually come back to see to Jack. And, several hours later, having been horribly sick repeatedly in the meantime, feeling dehydrated and wishing he could just die and have it all over with, Jack’s trying to give himself a saline IV - because it’s not as if there’s anyone else around to help him with it.
It’s bad enough, from a reader’s perspective, that the Doctor is clearly so single-mindedly focused on Rose that he doesn’t even remember that there’s a second passenger who’s every bit as sick. What’s worse is that Jack doesn’t even expect any better than to be left alone to cope:
He hadn't looked in on Jack even once in the last four hours - not that Jack had expected anything else. Rose needed him more, and Jack could take care of himself. He'd been on the ship less than two weeks anyway, it was no skin off their noses if he died, and he didn't have any right to ask for more. Or to wish, in his lowest moments, for the touch of a cool hand on the back of his neck and a few murmured words of sympathy.
So Jack clearly sees himself relegated to second-best, unimportant next to Rose. It’s a common experience for some of the Doctor’s companions, of course; even if - like me - you’re a fan of Rose, it’s not too hard to acknowledge that it’s not exactly fair of the Doctor to behave like this. But, wait. How much of this is the Doctor thinking that Jack’s not important, and how much of it is Jack’s own interpretation?
Well, we get the Doctor’s point of view a little later, and discover that Jack’s partly right:
[Rose had] needed him, and so he'd been there, without a second thought - not even for Jack, he realized with some guilt. The man was a former Time Agent and very used to handling himself. The Doctor was sure he'd be fine, especially once he'd run Rose's blood through an analyzer and realized they were having reactions to a certain organic compound common to the food on the planet they'd just left - unpleasant but not lethal.
Still, he probably should have looked in on Jack once or twice throughout the night. He'd just not been able to tear himself away from Rose while she'd been so ill. Jack couldn't possibly have expected anything else, and the Doctor was sure that if he'd asked the man, he'd have more than agreed.
But this isn’t a story about the Doctor’s callous treatment of companions who aren’t Rose. It’s a story about Jack becoming part of the team, and in particular the Doctor’s acceptance of Jack. So of course the Doctor finds Jack; of course, the Doctor realises that Jack’s sicker than he thought; of course, the Doctor makes amends and takes care of Jack just as diligently as he has of Rose. Even if Jack’s so sick by this time that he can’t help imagining the worst:
"What exactly do you think I'm going to do to you, lad?" Jack shook his head mutely. The Doctor squeezed through the doorway of the medlab into the hallway beyond. "Need to be getting back to Rose. Can't leave you on your own to get even sicker. Only one option."
Jack's mouth twisted. "Airlock?"
The Doctor chuckled darkly. "Don't give me any ideas," he said, and pushed open the door to Rose's room.
I’ll happily confess here that hurt/comfort is my absolute favourite story genre, and this is why I love Early Days so much: it feeds that craving of mine in every way. We get the hurt. We get the comfort - in spades. And we get to see the trio start to bond, taking the first steps towards becoming the very close friends they clearly are by Boom Town.
Plus, of course, the Doctor and Rose realise, and acknowledge, that their absorption in each other is not only impolite and unwelcoming; it’s also wrong - and dangerous, given how sick Jack was.
Rose felt suddenly chilled. The Doctor had taken care of her . . . but who had taken care of Jack?
No one. Jack had been left to fend for himself.
There is plenty of room for three in the TARDIS, and Early Days is the perfect story to prove it. It’s also the perfect story to curl up with, your favourite beverage by your side. It definitely deserves its nomination - and perhaps, even, your vote.
*
A Domino Falls by Mary_Pseud Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Short Story
Fandom: Classic Who
Characters: Two, Jamie, Victoria, various OCs
Rating: Teen
Details: Five chapters and an epilogue; part of the Damnatio Memoriae series, also nominated. Rated Teen, but there's talk/innuendo about sexual habits and violence, so be forewarned.
Why It Rocks:
I'll admit it's not often that I read Classic Who stories - and yet, every time I do, I find myself wanting to learn more. Not only about the Doctor and the companions mentioned, but about the places and people referenced within.
A Domino Falls is no exception. The Doctor, in his second incarnation, is traveling with Jamie McCrimmon, a name New Who fans will recongize as the pseudonym the Doctor takes on in "Tooth and Claw". Jamie really was a Scotsman, from the 18th century as it turns out. The Doctor is also traveling with Victoria Waterfield, a young woman from the Victorian era.
What makes the story the most interesting, however, isn't the Doctor or his companions - rather, it's the situation they find themselves in. The Doctor is mistaken for the newly-arrived judge overseeing the trial between two Naglons attempting to escape their homeworld. Why? Well....apparently, they would like to be married. Just without the sex part.
[The Doctor] looked up at the Naglons, and swallowed, before he could say, "My dear people, I owe you an apology. I didn't realise the sort of cultural pressures you were under."
"What sort of pressures?" Jamie asked, and then flinched a little at the look the Doctor showed him; grieved and ashamed, both.
"It appears that it is traditional on Naglon for the female to be, well, extremely violent towards males."
A now a quick word: I can't decide if the story is meant to be about marital abuse, or not. I don't think it is, not really - and yet, every kind of relationship comes into play in so many ways throughout the story. First, you've got the relationship between the two companions. You figure you're one of two humans with a Time Lord, you're going to form some kind of bond with each other. I get the idea that Jamie and Victoria's bond is something akin to a brother-and-sister type relationship. It's actually kind of interesting, considering that Victoria is from an era more modern than Jamie - and yet, she automatically will follow his lead:
Jamie clenched his fist in front of her, and then made a striking motion, several times. Victoria remembered: Brot had told them that if they had to fight the Naglons, they should try to punch them in the sides, where a human's lower ribs would be. Victoria made a rather weak smile, and clenched her fist in turn.
And later, when Victoria does punch the bad guy - a weak punch, to be sure, but aimed at exactly the right spot and successful in that it allows the trio to get away:
"Young lady, you were magnificent!' The Doctor beamed at her, and even Jamie looked impressed.
"Thank you, Doctor," she said, and gave a little nervous laugh. "I didn't know I had it in me."
"I did," said Jamie, and grinned at her look of incomprehension.
It's clear that the relationship between the three of them is very much of a family unit: proud father, strong brother, very capable younger sister. This is, of course, assuming you ignore the very slight nod to Doctor/Jamie at the end: but even that relationship is an interesting one indeed, where you're not entirely certain if the men are actually aware of it, or if it's just a matter of UST on all sides.
"...I could tell, just from the way they were with each other, that they cared. That they loved each other. Isn't that strange?"
"Strange and wonderful." The Doctor placed his free hand over Jamie's on the lever, and squeezed it a little. "Strange and wonderful."
But the relationship that I found the most interesting wasn't between the crew of the TARDIS, or the Naglons they've rescued. It's actually one which we don't see very much of - the one between the Naglon charged with bringing the runaways home: Therri. He's failed in his mission, yes - but instead of being punished, he's being given the sort of rewards Jack Harkness might have enjoyed: the chance to mate with a whole bunch of Naglon females, all in one massive...ah...orgy.
Except let's remember: Naglon females? Not so much with the nice.
A Paramour of the Inner Council was the consort of the entire Council of females. If he was lucky, or perhaps unlucky, he would survive the first mass mating.
No Paramour had ever lived more than six matings, and very few survived for that long.
"My son - name him Tragan." Therri raised his head and stared at Morriw with a face striped blue with grief. "And love him, if you can. Because I will probably not even see him born, or touch his face, or see him walk or grow or live."
It's not often that you get a bad guy who you can detest the entire story - and then you get to that very last line, and guh, it hits you square in the stomach. Because this is what I'm not talking about in this review, in a story that's primarily about sanctioned spousal abuse: I'm not talking about society being as much a trap as it is a comfort. In many ways, although Therri was a symbol of the Naglon society's belief that spousal abuse is proper, he's also very much a victim. His promotion to the rank of Paramour is seen by some as an honor - but it's clear that he knows exactly what it means. It's not an honor, nor is it really a "promotion". It's punishment veiled as such. It's only at the end, perhaps, that Therri is able to see that.
The Doctor says that someday, the Naglons will realize the shortcomings of their society. Having convinced one of them that spousal abuse is wrong, it won't be long before others believe it as well - just as you push over one domino, the rest in a line will fall. But as Mary says in her author's notes, a domino is also another name for a mask - meant partially as the physical masks that the Naglons use to make their escape, and of the symbolic mask that Therri wears without knowing it. The mask falls - just as his belief in his society is torn away.
In short, vote for A Domino Falls. There are a thousand different cultures in the universe waiting, and not all of them can possibly be to our liking - nor can we hope to change every one of them. What we can only do is view them and see how they are reflections of our own society. Every society wears a mask they show to the world; the key is knowing not only what the mask says about you - but about what it does to you in the wearing. This fic has a dozen masks all of its own; and every one is entirely deserving of your vote.
*
The next two fics are part of the same series.
The Sun Rising by jlrpuck
Category: Romance
Fandom: New Who
Characters: Rose Tyler
Rating: Teen
Details: One-shot, the first part of a series featuring an AU version Peter Carlisle from Blackpool.
Why It Rocks:
Good writers can write characters from a series they love into fanfiction, and make it believable.
Great writers can combine characters from two different shows and make them work believably together.
Outstanding writers can take both of those characters, in the alternate universe they created in the first crossover, and make yet another alternate universe out of them, effectively saying, "If I change this thing and this thing in the alternate-universe backstory of these fictional characters, I think this is what would happen"-and then make all of us believe it would happen, too.
Puck is one of these few outstanding writers.
He was a widower, a professor of history at one of the more venerable Scottish universities.
She was an heiress, permanently single and working a job on the side to keep from going mad with boredom.
He never thought he’d look twice at another woman, let alone want to marry one.
She never thought she’d find love again, let alone with someone who looked like him.
In this version of her Peter/Rose stories, Peter Carlisle's mother did not die when he was a child. Consequently, the parts of his life that led him to become a police officer did not happen, and instead, he followed the career path Puck thinks would have been more likely to interest him. (Given his penchant for ruins in her original Peter/Rose universe from The Way of Things and its sequel, And So Things Go (link goes to the review from Round One), that's not a bad choice.)
Rose, meanwhile, is the same Rose we know from the other Peter/Rose 'verse, with one major difference: because Peter hadn't been on the Kendal police force when the Torchwood team had been up there (and I won't say any more about the plot of that fic, because I want you to go read it if you haven't already), there was no-one to run interference with the uncooperative police chief-which means their investigation, while successful in its main mission, hadn't quite had a happy ending. One of her team died; she herself was injured so badly she had to retire from field work. Consequently, she now plays the part of Vitex Heiress, including charity work, which is how she ends up at a cocktail party at the university, and how she meets Peter. Here is someone she has to talk to-because he's on the committee utilising the Vitex donation for a new science research institute to be housed at the university-who looks just like the love she lost, whom she's finally accepted will never be coming to get her from the other universe.
They shake hands and speak a few awkward sentences to each other, and Rose disappears, never having learned that Peter's actually a widower, not a married man. She retreats back to London, and desperately tries to forget him.
Which doesn't work too well-not for him, and not for her.
I could spend pages describing the rest of the plot for you, but there's really no point; you've figured it out by now. Boy and girl meet, boy and girl are separated by misunderstanding, boy and girl get together in the end: a plot that's as old as time. And yet, as with so many other iterations of this basic storyline, it's the way Puck goes about it that fascinates. This is the story of an attraction that transcends miles and years; of two people who have both loved and lost, finding their new start with each other; of a lonely widower and a lonely heiress who connect across a crowded room, and somehow end up making it work together.
It's not easy, and it's not pain-free, but Puck's stories never are. Is it a match made in heaven? Perhaps; perhaps not. But it doesn't need to be. They work at it, these two: they never take their relationship for granted. The series this story spawned shows that effort, as well as the periods of joy and love that come with it. This fic is a sort of synopsis of the early part of their relationship (which is described in more detail in subsequent stories), like the blurb on the back of the book that drags you in to read the rest. The best part, of course, is that the rest isn't complete yet; and with luck, Puck will continue to keep us in Professor/Heiress stories for a long time.
In short, vote for The Sun Rising. It's about two people in mourning who find each other, despite all the odds; about an attraction that's strong enough to hold together over months apart; about making a life together, despite all the baggage of the years before you met. It absolutely deserves your vote.
*
The Canonization by jlrpuck
Category: Rose Tyler, PWP
Fandom: New Who
Characters: Rose Tyler, OC.
Rating: Mature
Details: More from Puck's Professor/Heiress series, featuring an AU version Peter Carlisle from Blackpool.
Why It Rocks:
With this fic, Puck has moved considerably on from The Sun Rising, though this is still set within Rose and Peter's first year together. Its original title was "An Alternate Thing, Story Four," but as of this writing, The Canonization has become Story Nine, out of a total of twelve. And if we're very, very lucky, there will be more on their way once Puck's finished posting her current chaptered fic. Yes, Puck, that's a hint.
In this lovely little PWP ficlet, Peter and Rose have been lovers for some time, and have become comfortable enough with each other for them to feel safe acting out their fantasies.
Peter tugged tentatively at the fabric binding his left wrist to the headboard. It had been Rose’s idea; she’d suggested it over dinner, after he’d had a few glasses of wine, and he’d agreed-certain that he’d be able to distract her before they ever got this far.
He shouldn’t have underestimated his Rose. He’d thought he was seducing her, distracting her; instead she’d got him out of his shirt and vest and onto the bed, and had tied his wrist to the headboard with an alacrity that bordered on alarming. He’d fought down the worry that flooded through him, his fear of not being in control in bed asserting itself briefly before he forced himself to relax. This was Rose; he loved her, and she him. She’d not hurt him; he could trust her.
He would trust her.
Peter, in this 'verse, is generally the dominant one in bed. I don't mean in the role-playing sense; he simply prefers being in control. Giving it up is, frankly, a bit frightening for him. Trust is, of course, one of the hardest things to give in any relationship, and the easiest to lose-and yet, without it, no relationship can survive.
This Peter and this Rose don't have the same issues that Puck's original Peter and Rose have, but they do have their own. And, like every relationship, intimacy grows out of trust-real intimacy, that is, not just physical intimacy. This is one of Puck's real strengths as an author: showing us the way relationships grow, realistically. They don't grow just from the happy times-the holding hands in the park, or giggling through a movie on the sofa, or finding the many places in the house where a quickie can be had. They grow through adversity, through quarrels, through fear . . . . and, yes, sometimes, through trusting your partner to tie you to the bedpost. Or trusting you not to untie yourself, even though you can.
He was so close to freeing himself-but froze as Rose watched him. Her gaze was seductive still, and dark-but it also was so very young, and hopeful, and full of trust and love for him. She trusted him not to untie himself; trusted that he’d not do anything until she released him. He couldn’t betray that trust, as much as he might want to be the dominant partner in bed at that moment.
Hot as the smut in this story is-and it is, believe me-it's that trust that is the hottest part, at least for me. The intimacy of allowing yourself to be completely vulnerable-especially Peter allowing himself to be completely vulnerable-is incredibly intense. For this man, who has always been self-reliant, in control, dominant (though not dominating, certainly), to willingly give himself over to his girlfriend is an amazing act of faith.
And, of course, let's not forget Rose's side of this, either.
“Thank you,” she finally whispered, looking up to him. The vulnerability was back.
“For what?”
“For...this. For letting me. I know you don’t like it-not being in charge.”
As Puck herself says in the comments to this fic, this Rose is significantly more damaged than her counterpart from The Way of Things. Things Happened in Kendal in this universe, some of which I touched upon in the previous review, some of which I have not (and you'll have to read the ficlets to find out exactly what). Very Bad Things, in fact, which have, both literally and figuratively, scarred Rose for life. She lost a lot of her confidence in herself-or, more accurately, had it knocked out of her in the most horrific way possible. This is no longer the Rose who, less than a day after having agreed to travel with a strange alien in a blue box, started to rush out into nineteenth-century Naples still in her twenty-first-century clothing. This Rose is cautious, quiet, thinks twice and three times before doing anything, and still has a hard time believing she's been so lucky as to find Peter. To ask him if she can tie him up is a strong step in the right direction for her: it means she's starting to find her confidence again, at least with him.
I think what makes Puck's fics so wonderful (and so popular) is that she's able to capture that new-relationship feeling: that glorious, terrifying, slow comprehension of who this person you love really is. Another author said once that one falls in love with who one thinks one's beloved is, and then gets to know them slowly over the years. Through Puck's fics, we can watch this happening with Rose and Peter, in both iterations, and that little voice deep in the back of our brain resonates with memories of the times we ourselves have done this (as so many of us have). Whether those relationships ended well or badly for us is not the point; the point is that most of us have been there, and can watch this slow progression of love with a smile on our faces, silently egging them on.
In short, vote for The Canonization. It's got all the things a good smutty story should have: naked!Peter Carlisle, hot sex, Scottish accents, and of course Robbie Burns. It's got love and lust and fear and trust (ooh, that rhymes!), and azriona would have my head if I didn't mention leopards in here somewhere. But more than that, it's got the simple truth of a man and a woman, in love with each other. It definitely deserves your vote.
*
Nine Plus One by Persiflage / persiflage_1 Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Doctor/Martha
Fandom: New Who
Characters: Nine, Martha
Rating: R
Details: Seven one-shots linked in a series about Nine meeting Martha instead of Rose. For Martha, pre-S3; for Nine, post-Rose, without Rose, obviously.
Why it Rocks:
The Doctor's life is one lived purely by chance. I mean, we're talking about a guy who doesn't have a real good handle on driving his ship in the first place - and in the second, his companions find him more often than he finds them.
So who's to say what would happen, exactly, if Four had met Donna? Or if One had stumbled across Sarah Jane Smith? Or - as Persiflage shows us - Nine had met Martha Jones?
But unlike most fics where the Doctor is paired with a different companion at a different time - Persiflage has done something particularly curious, and kept Rose Tyler in the story. Nine meets Martha just after the events of Rose - but doesn't offer her all of Time and Space. In fact, he doesn't even tell her he's a Time Lord. His relationship with Martha is about as different from his relationship with Rose can possibly be. We never see the Doctor and Rose together, until the very end, but we follow the Doctor through the in-between times during the first season, so we "see" Rose through his thoughts. I get the idea that his life with Rose is much the same as what we've seen in the show - namely, that there's a certain amount of affection between them, but none of it is physical.
[Martha] intoxicated his senses until he wanted to lose himself in her. He knew that it was dangerous, and that he could, and mostly likely would, hurt her (not that he wanted to hurt her, but he knew what his life was like), yet he couldn't seem to help himself. She made him forget about the guilt he felt and the burdens he carried; he could have lost himself in Rose and he might have done that, if he hadn't met Martha before he'd had a chance to get to know Rose properly.
I kind of feel that it's as if the Doctor is playing a game, almost. He's got his fantastic life with Rose, aboard the TARDIS, seeing and saving the world. He can be the hero with Rose - but with Martha, he doesn't have to be. He only needs to be John, a man who loves her. A human man - not the savior of the world, or the Oncoming Storm. It's as if he's trying to live the day-to-day life he's never been allowed - or perhaps trying his hand at really running from the Time War and what he did in it.
With Rose, the Doctor throws himself back into the same-old, same-old, trying to find contentment the same way he always did. He's running away with Rose. But he's running away with Martha too, in a far more extreme way, because he's not only running from the reality of being the last of the Time Lords - he's running away from the idea of Time itself.
The time he spent with Martha represented the kind of normality he hadn't had since the days when Susan had been attending Coal Hill School, and after all the trauma of the Time War he was desperate for the occasional bit of normality. In a way, he liked pretending that he was just an ordinary bloke with an ordinary job, and a gorgeous girlfriend (whom he was quite sure was far from ordinary).
Could the Doctor have wanted normality after the Time War? Oh, absolutely - I think, in a way, his travels with Rose were one way of achieving it. But so too is the time he spends with Martha - only a normality of a different sort. The question is, in the end, which normality the Doctor will choose - to spend his life in the stars, or to spend it with Martha. It isn't terribly likely that he'll have both.
In short, vote for Nine Plus One. It's a curious look at what might have happened, had the Doctor met Martha Jones first - not just to the two of them, but everyone around them as well (because the ripples go out, as ripples do, to touch everyone else involved as well). It will leave you curious from one story to the next, how it'll all end, and trust me, your heart will pound when you get to the twist at the end of Season One. You'll find yourself entranced, and I think you'll agree that this fic very much deserves your vote.
*
Cicatrice by infiniteviking Link goes to Teaspoon
Categories: Second Doctor, Ficlet
Fandom: Classic Who
Characters: Second Doctor, Ninth Doctor, Ben Jackson
Rating: All Ages
Details: Angst, Character Study, Introspection; complete ficlet nearly 1400 words
Why It Rocks:
It's a meeting between the Second Doctor and the immediately post-Time War Ninth Doctor.
This story opens with No man is an island, entire of itself; / every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main from John Donne's 'Meditation XVII', and proceeds to demonstrate how very true this is for the Doctor, with so many incarnations of himself around the universe.
The Doctor's second incarnation is often seen as child-like, and a bit of a bumbling fool (particularly in such stories as The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Evil of the Daleks and The Dominators), but this is simply an act which he uses to deflect attention from his true abilities. While the Second Doctor looks scruffy, with his shabby clothes, a recorder sticking from his coat pocket, and Beatles-style haircut (he's often referred to as the 'Cosmic Hobo'), the bluster and panic he often displays hid a clever, calculating, and occasionally manipulative, man who is both heroic and morally upright. He may flail around, crying 'Oh my giddy aunt' at moments of stress, but don't let that fool you - he still has the same inner core of steel as any of his other selves because that core is fundamental to the Doctor's nature.
So far, canon has told us very little about the Time War - apart from the fact that it destroyed Gallifrey, and all the Time Lords (apart from the Doctor, and the Master who was in human form), and it also - or so the Doctor believed - destroyed all the Daleks. The Doctor also believed that it was Time Locked, and at the end of Season 4 we learned that a Time Lock is a mechanism whereby an event (or a series of events) is rendered inaccessible through time travel. However, the Time Lock only prevents entry into the Time War through the Time Vortex itself, which means that the events of the Time War were not erased from history, and can therefore still be referenced by those who knew of the destruction of the Daleks and the Time Lords. (Of course, the exception to this Time Lock is Dalek Caan, who used an emergency temporal shift which took him through the Time Lock, allowing him to rescue Davros, at the cost of his sanity.)
'Cicatrice' opens with the second Doctor en route from one adventure to another (where doesn't actually matter), as his companions (Ben, and two unnamed others - probably Polly and Jamie) sleep soundly in their rooms aboard the TARDIS. The Doctor suddenly becomes aware of something disturbing - something unusual is tugging at his senses (and remember, the Doctor has considerably more senses than us humans), so he and the TARDIS take a detour to an unnamed alien planet in order to investigate.
Once there the Doctor's sense of unease and something not-right deepens as he finds that the landscape through which he's walking isn't entirely real, and if he listens carefully, there is an echo where there should be none... a distant echo of dread and regret.
Tracking the echo to its source he finds:
A man […] curled in a cranny on the opposite bank. At first the Doctor mistakes him, a tangle of denim and the matted remains of finer fabrics, for a spill of textured earth among the rocks. He steps closer, his breathing quickening as the outline becomes more clear: limbs drawn in upon one another, hands closed like claws over nothing, a Time Lord lying like the dead, his mind quiet and cold.
and he can't help speaking aloud: "You're dormant, aren't you?" he murmurs. "Locked in your own little world... you can't hear me, can you? You can't hear anything."
The Doctor tries to wade the stream to go to the other Time Lord's aid, and finds the way is barred - the other man is literally locked in his own little world. Nevertheless, the Doctor goes to his aid, eventually pushing through the Time Lock that's protecting the second Time Lord - who is, in fact, a later incarnation (his Ninth):
His skin is dry, written over with ashes. His close-shaven head is bowed toward the ground; his lips are parted, but he does not seem to breathe.
We're not told exactly what the Doctor does to help his older self, but when next we see him he flinches, clambering to his feet, the arid landscape around him softened by an impression of faint woodwind notes and the dust of something blue, and Ben, waking finally aboard the TARDIS and seeking out the Doctor sees a momentary ancientness in the Doctor's pale gaze, as wild and remote as the heart of a star.
Vote for this fic because it is poetic and beautiful, giving us a tiny glimpse of how the Ninth Doctor might possibly have been aided in his recovery from the devastation of the Time War by his younger, more care-free self.
*
Today's Reviews were written by:
wendymr: Early Days
aibhinn: The Sun Rising; The Canonization
azriona: A Domino Falls; Nine Plus One
persiflage_1: Cicatrice