Challenges 276-310 Drabbles
The last set of my drabbles for dw100 (for a while, at least, until I recover from having written this many drabbles in just a few months).
Challenges 1-50 Drabbles
Challenges 51-100 Drabbles
Challenges 101-150 Drabbles
Challenges 151-200 Drabbles
Challenges 201-225 Drabbles
Challenges 226-250 Drabbles
Challenges 251-275 Drabbles
Title: Everyone But Her
Rating: G
Character/s: Ten/Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 276: Admission. Set during ‘The Satan Pit’.
As the Doctor admits how much he believes in Rose, he muses that everyone and everything through all of time and space seems to know precisely how he feels about her. Except, perhaps, Rose herself. These moments when he expresses it so clearly never seem to happen when she’s nearby.
Reinette knew it wasn’t just the stars he was missing. Mickey knew he’d always be second-best. The crew of the Sanctuary Base immediately labelled them a couple. Even this nameless, speechless beast is well aware.
If he lives through this, he swears he’ll tell her.
He knows it's a lie.
Title: Going Out For Cigarettes
Rating: G
Character/s: Ten II/Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 277: Deception. Set in Pete’s Word post-‘Journey’s End’.
He’d always thought the ‘going out for cigarettes and never returning’ situation was a myth. He didn’t think that sort of thing could ever happen. Why would someone do that? Why wouldn’t they just tell people that they were leaving?
Honesty had never been his strong suit.
He really wished he could tell Rose that he just needed some time away, doing his own thing. But how could he really tell her that when he knew he couldn’t be equally honest in answering her inevitable question about when he’ll be back.
He doesn’t know whether he’ll be back at all.
Title: Some Mouthy Girl
Rating: G
Character/s: Nine, Amy
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 278: Child. Written pre-‘Rose’ for the Doctor (with references to that episode), and just a few months before the Doctor finally returns twelve years later in ‘The Eleventh Hour’ for Amy. The prompt of Nine running into Amy was from develish1.
Amy Pond. The name sounds innocuous, and her obvious youth (even for a human) is somewhat deceptive, but he’s certain she’s raving. She screeches like a Gymsha, has crazy eyes, and apparently enjoys imitating a nun; he hasn’t been away from early 21st century Earth for so long that he’s forgotten that real nuns don’t generally stick their tongues down other people’s throats.
Of course, Amy says he’s the insane one. She’s right. She’s not safe around him. No one is.
Stalking away, the Doctor vows that the next time some mouthy girl crosses his path, he’s going to run.
Title: Cuts Himself Shaving
Rating: PG
Character/s: Nine, Rose, Jack
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 279: Shave. Set after ‘The Doctor Dances’.
“Oh ho, and then there’s the Etraxia! You want a ‘superior race’ that doesn’t know its toes from its noses, I should take you to see them. They make even 21st century humans look like the greatest mathematicians of Logopolis.”
Jack came up behind her. “What’s he going on about? He’s been ranting for twenty straight minutes.”
“I did warn you,” Rose stated. “Cuts himself shavin’...”
“I thought you were joking!” Jack said.
“And don’t even get me started on the Montolumas!”
Jack burst out laughing. Rose joined him when the Doctor turned around and glared through the shaving foam.
Title: More Than Transitory
Rating: PG
Character/s: Rose/Jack, Nine
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 280: Stir. Set between ‘The Doctor Dances’ and ‘Boom Town’.
The Doctor obviously initially thinks that Jack’s just another of her pretty boys. It’s so different, though. She doesn’t want to just string him along, or revel in his flirtations. She pushes him away, secretly hoping he’ll push back. She wants it to be much more.
Maybe it’s different because while Jack is certainly pretty, he’s no mere boy.
When the Doctor finally really sees the intense way Rose watches Jack, the change is immediately obvious. He begins treating him as more than just some transitory passenger.
She thinks that Jack might appreciate that change even more than she does.
Title: A Woman’s Prerogative
Rating: PG
Character/s: Ten, Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 281: Entourage. Set after ‘Girl in the Fireplace’.
The Doctor can’t figure Rose out. One minute she’s inviting people aboard the TARDIS right and left. The next she’s glaring at him for letting Mickey join them (even though she suggested it not long ago), and she’s wearing that sad look that stabs him in the hearts because he wants Reinette to come along with them.
The Doctor likes to surround himself with people. He always has. But he hasn’t always wanted one person with him more than others.
If Rose wants it to be just the two of them now, for once he might be okay with that.
Title: An Enemy in Common
Rating: PG
Character/s: The Doctor
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 282: Predicate.
He’s the Doctor. He’s the last of a powerful species of overseers who had the ultimate authority over the universe. The Doctor didn’t always agree with the Time Lords about everything, but he never questioned that they had rights and dominion over the progression of time. Now that authority falls to him alone.
So when he declares that the war on Gavrox IV will end that night, he expects that they will listen.
The war does end, then, but only because the factions have found a common enemy; the alien who tries to assert himself over them.
The Doctor flees.
Title: Everything is Doubled
Rating: PG
Character/s: Ten/Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 283: Capacity. Set during Season 2.
“Two hearts. Everything is doubled,” Rose said softly, tracing her fingertips across the Doctor’s chest from right to left and back again.
“What?” the Doctor asked.
“I sorta thought that maybe you could never love some stupid little human like me,” Rose said.
“You’re not stupid,” the Doctor chastised.
Rose smiled. “That’s my point. You would say that. You don’t just love one stupid human; you love us all. Your hearts have a greater capacity for it, I think.”
The Doctor caught Rose’s wandering hand in his.
“And they’re doubly breakable,” she added.
The Doctor squeezed her hand in agreement.
Title: Never Settling Down
Rating: G
Character/s: Rose/Ten, Jackie
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 284: Settle. Set during ‘Army of Ghosts’.
Her Mum asks whether Rose is ever going to settle down. Rose barely hesitates to answer.
She can’t imagine the Doctor in a house filled with several small children, with a big lolloping dog tethered in the backyard. The fantasy (is it a fantasy or a nightmare for her?) doesn’t quite make it beyond the look of disgust and terror that he’d clearly displayed when they’d had to talk about mortgages on Krop Tor.
She doesn’t even know if she herself wants to settle down, but she never will regardless. She loves him too much to do that to him.
Title: The Tube
Rating: G
Character/s: Ten, Rose, Jackie
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 285: Public Transport. Set during Season 2.
“But we have the TARDIS,” the Doctor whined.
Rose grinned. “Honestly, Doctor, it’s just the Tube.”
The Doctor shook his head vehemently. “We’re going out to dinner with your mother, who’s wearing that scary look that means she’s either planning to slap me or planning to make us get married. It’s not just the Tube. It’s the long, long ride to hell. Dunno about you, but I don’t want to draw the punishment out any.”
“You just wanna use the TARDIS so’s you can ‘accidently’ steer us off course and miss dinner.”
Well. Damn her for knowing him so well.
Title: Identifying and Recording the Connection
Rating: PG-13
Character/s: Ten II/Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 286: Scarlet. Set post-'Journey's End' in Pete’s World.
Right now Rose Tyler’s face is flushed. The Doctor, being incredibly intelligent, has detected a trend attached to this strange little biological alteration of hers. She seems to run noticeably hotter whenever he wears his specs. What he can’t quite see, glasses or no, is how those things could possibly be connected.
One night she asks him to leave the specs (and his tie, interestingly) on after he’s flicked the bedroom light off.
Her moans are louder than he’s ever heard. Ah, he thinks. He’s identified the connection after all. He’ll have to remember to record it. Later. Much later.
Title: Ridiculous Displays of Faux Masculinity
Rating: PG
Character/s: Amy/Rory, Eleven
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 287: Predator. Set during ‘The Vampires of Venice’.
The vampire, fish alien from space, whatever, stalked towards Amy with a predatory look in his eyes and razor sharp teeth protruding from his mouth. She felt frozen, the same way she’d found herself unable to move with her eyes closed, stuck in a forest surrounded by Angels. Fight or flight had yet to kick in, and for that moment she was merely prey.
Then Rory stepped up and managed to save her, albeit in possibly the most ridiculous display of faux masculinity she’d ever seen.
The Doctor was right. Being in a life-or-death situation did result in gratuitous kissing.
Title: Keeping Him on His Toes
Rating: PG
Character/s: Nine, Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 288: Sterling. Set during Season 1.
She argued with him constantly, refusing to take his word for anything or let things lie, no matter how many walls he put up around himself. She was outrageously prone to getting into trouble, so that she managed to nearly get herself or both of them killed in most of the places they visited. She let pretty boys hang around, and cared a bit too much, and generally annoyed the life out of him half of the time.
He never wanted her to leave.
Rose Tyler was an exceptional companion. If nothing else, she kept the Doctor on his toes.
Title: Like a Bad Copy
Rating: G
Character/s: Rose, Ten
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 289: Substitute. Set during the 2005 Children in Need Special (just prior to ‘The Christmas Invasion’).
It was difficult to believe, even after he’d verbally proven that he knew things only the Doctor could possibly be aware of, that this odd man bounding about wrecking everything could possibly be the Doctor. Her Doctor had disappeared, and now some man who didn’t seem anything like him stood in his place, like a bad copy.
However much damage it did the TARDIS to get them there, Rose was glad they were headed back to the Powell Estates. With the one constant in her recent life just having up and left her, she really just wanted to go home.
Title: A Kiss, Some Straddling and a Realisation or Two
Rating: PG
Character/s: Amy/Eleven, River
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 290: Surprise. Set during ‘The Time of Angels’, and intended as something of an explanation for the end of ‘Flesh and Stone’.
A woman flew from the vacuum of space into the TARDIS, landing on top of the Doctor. Perhaps it was the strange vibe between them, or just the compromising position they were in, but for the first time Amy considered that the Doctor might just be a sexual being like anyone else.
She was surprised she hadn’t considered it until then. She’d been very young on first meeting him, she supposed, but she had seen him strip naked and still hadn’t thought of it.
A world of possibilities opened up. Best of all, she might not have to get married.
Title: Like a Human, But Better
Rating: G
Character/s: Ten II/Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 291: Ordinary. Set in Pete’s World, post-‘Journey’s End’.
The Doctor knows that Rose worries sometimes (just sometimes) that she’s not what he wants, or not good enough for him, or something equally ridiculous. Even after saving the world multiple times and now working for Torchwood, the way a lot of what he says goes over her head bothers her.
She thinks she’s too ordinary for him. Too human. She’s wrong. She’s special in just the right way.
He doesn’t want her to be like a Time Lady. He mourns them, but he’d still never liked his species much.
What he wants is Rose Tyler, exactly as she is.
Title: The Limitations of Psychic Paper
Rating: PG
Character/s: Ten, Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 292: Badge.
“But it’s fine!” the Doctor said. “See? We have badges. Well, a badge. It’s a more efficient use of resources to have just the one between us. It’s the new trend, honestly. It’ll catch on in no time.”
What looked to be the city’s entire police force just stared at him like he was... well, an alien. Hands twitched towards holstered guns.
“I think you’re makin’ it worse,” Rose whispered.
Later, locked up across from each other in separate men’s and women’s holding cells, the Doctor wondered why his psychic paper apparently worked on everyone other than New York’s finest.
Title: Cracked Wide Open
Rating: PG
Character/s: The Doctor, the Master
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 293: Menace. Set sometime long after ‘The End of Time’.
At one time the Master’s mental acuity would have far outstripped any other living being in the universe. That, however, had been before the last assault on the Time Lords had finally broken his mind.
The Doctor had thought that he’d died back then. Perhaps that would have been better.
The Master had always been a menace, a threat that needed to be controlled, but this... this wasn’t what the Doctor had ever wanted. This man, with his easy acceptance of everything the Doctor said and his cheerful demeanour, wasn’t the Master at all.
The Doctor found he missed him.
Title: A Nation or a Universe (The Decisions of Men in Power)
Rating: PG
Character/s: Eleven, Winston Churchill
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 294: Panjandrum. Set during ‘The Victory of the Daleks’.
As human leaders throughout time went, Winston Churchill wasn’t the worst of them. Not by a long shot. However, the man still had the ability to drive the Doctor nearly insane with his obvious self-importance.
“This isn’t just about Great Britain,” the Doctor tried to explain. “The Daleks could destroy the whole Earth. The whole universe!”
Churchill just shook his head irritably. “I’m charged with the protection of my nation, Doctor. I can’t care about the rest of it now.”
Humans in power and their lack of foresight. The Doctor gritted his teeth and resolved to fix the problem himself.
Title: A Shift in Self-Definition
Rating: G
Character/s: Ten II
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 295: Disparate.
The Doctor’s always been considered abnormal. As a Time Lord, surrounded by his own kind, he’d been an outcast. As a Time Lord without other Time Lords, though, he’d been even more painfully unique. Even when he’d changed himself fully into a human to hide on Earth for a time, he’d still been considered noticeably odd.
Now he’s something in-between - not quite Time Lord or human or anything else any universe has ever seen, for that matter - and as usual everyone can tell he’s different (strange) the moment they meet him.
For the first time, though, ‘different’ doesn’t mean ‘alone’.
Title: Saving Yet Another Life
Rating: PG
Character/s: Young Wilf, Ten
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 296: Dawn. Missing scene set at the conclusion of 'The End of Time Part Two'.
The dawn light has barely risen when Wilfred Mott sees an enemy soldier rising from his cover.
This is it, he thinks. The moment. The time when he has to take his shot, as much as he wishes it wasn't so.
He aims, and pulls the trigger, but in that time another figure has barrelled into the soldier and knocked him down. The bullet sails past both of them harmlessly. Wilf's killed no one after all.
An objective observer would think that the Doctor has just rescued a complete stranger.
He has. But really, it's Wilf's life he's just saved.
Title: Tiptoeing Down the Line
Rating: PG
Character/s: Ten
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 297: Flood. Set during ‘The Waters of Mars’.
Warning: contains an over-abundance of metaphors. ;)
The Doctor had been balancing on the edge of sanity since the Time War. Or perhaps since he was young, much like the Master. He’d always seemed less stable than other Time Lords, after all. But still, even though he’d occasionally put a toe in the wrong direction, somehow he’d never quite fallen.
On Mars, though, a flood of water had swept him over the precipice into a sea of his own self-importance. He’d grinned and strutted and flaunted his power-madness.
It took a woman’s death to push him back up safely onto that edge. He hated himself for that.
Title: Backing Down From a Dare
Rating: PG
Character/s: Ten, Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 298: Fun. Set during Season 2.
“Oh, come on then. You said ‘dare’. You can’t back down now.”
The Doctor can’t believe he’s playing an adolescent game with Rose. Well, yes he can. She makes him feel even younger than even she is. So though it should be surprising, it’s not.
“There is no way I’m piloting us to Tudor England just so I can moon Henry VIII. I like this head.”
It could only be worse if they’d chosen spin-the-bottle.
Well, no, with only the two of them that might’ve been much better. Maybe he could make her forget the dare by suggesting that instead.
Title: Too Stupid to Fall
Rating: PG
Character/s: Ten, Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 299: Tremor. Set during ‘The Impossible Planet’.
One earthquake, barely even a tremor compared to the devastating ground-shocks of the Grandite Cluster, signals his life’s end. It just takes him a while to realise it’s over.
He observes the gaping crevasse where his TARDIS should be with numb shock. Losing the TARDIS is like losing Gallifrey all over again. No, worse, it’s like losing one of his hearts. Or both, even.
No matter how Rose tries to make light, he won’t recover from this. It’s not just his home that’s gone. It’s himself. He’s dead in every way that matters. His body’s just too stupid to fall.
Title: Bigger Than You
Rating: PG
Character/s: Nine, Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 300: Ichor. Set during Season 1.
“Ow. Ow!” Rose cried out. “Stop touching it!”
The Doctor sniped, “Well, it wouldn’t hurt if you’d told me you were injured, would it? Yep, that’s definitely infected. There’s puss and discharge and -”
“Ugh!” Rose interrupted. “Gross. I get the point. Sorry for not tellin’ you, but you had bigger things to deal with.”
“Bigger things than you?” the Doctor asked. “Never. You get hurt, you tell me.”
“All right,” Rose grumbled. “I’ve learned my lesson, swear. Now, can you fix it?”
The Doctor helped Rose back to the TARDIS, muttering under his breath about apes the whole way.
Title: Hiding Away
Rating: G
Character/s: Nine, Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 301: Cool.
It takes the Doctor months to figure out where Rose goes when she’s not watching him pulverise the TARDIS console in an effort to fix things. He just knows it’s not to the privacy of her room, as he’d expected.
It’s only when he accidentally stumbles (literally) over her huddled under what seems like half of the Wardrobe Room’s contents that he realises she’s been hiding away from the cold, not from him.
It’s been far too long since he’s had to worry about the niceties of having a human onboard the TARDIS. Perhaps it’s time to make some changes.
Title: Marks and Claims
Rating: PG-13
Character/s: Ten/Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 302: Mine. Set during Season 2.
He claims her with caressing hands and sharp teeth, leaving a mixture of aching marks and fading gratification in his wake.
The strange pleasure/pain juxtaposition perfectly represents his feelings for her, though it’s obvious that she doesn’t even realise that there’s anything but happiness to be had here. He tries to show her the darkness and ultimate futility inherent in his need for her. But, in the end, it’s not something she can really understand. She’s only human.
He claims Rose now because one day she’ll no longer be his. All he can do is cling on while he can.
Title: Letting History Play Out
Rating: PG
Character/s: Ten, Five
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 303: Crash. Set during ‘Time Crash’.
He looks at his fifth self, who has just recently lost Adric. He thinks he knows grief. He’s seen nothing yet.
The Doctor considers warning his younger self of what is to come. Of preventing himself from being alone, the only Time Lord, with Gallifrey having burned years ago and the Master having died in his arms just yesterday.
But then, he might miss out on meeting Rose Tyler, and Martha Jones, and Peri and Ace and all those wonderful people he’s loved over the years.
He can’t do that, but he still wishes he could spare himself the pain.
Title: Knowledge of Cataclysms
Rating: PG
Character/s: Ten/Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 304: Fourth Doctor Titles, using ‘The Seeds of Doom’. Set between ‘Fear Her’ and ‘Army of Ghosts’.
The Doctor had been getting the feeling for a while now that something terrible was coming. As a Time Lord, he never ignored premonitions of that kind. Not when they were his own foresight, at least. He knew how knowledge of cataclysms could echo back through time.
It all converged on Rose.
The Doctor might not want to think about it, or admit it, but he’d been seeing the signs for a while now. The Beast in the Pit had only been the most outright expression of it. His time with Rose was ending.
He held onto her even tighter.
Title: The Limits of His Technical Abilities
Rating: G
Character/s: Rose, Ten II
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 305: Steam. Set in Pete’s World, post-‘Journey’s End’.
“Woah...” Rose breathed, stopping short in the doorway. Dustballs floated across her shoes like tumbleweeds. Steam filled the air.
The Doctor’s desperate look was buried under a layer of dirt. “Rose,” he said piteously.
“What did you do?” Rose asked.
The Doctor mumbled something.
Rose crossed her arms pointedly, waiting.
“I blew up the vacuum cleaner,” he repeated.
Rose’s laughter escaped before she could stifle it.
“You can save the world with a spatula and some cling-wrap, but you can’t even Hoover the place?”
The Doctor looked imploringly at her. Rose grinned.
“C’mon genius, I’ll show you how it’s done.”
Title: Through Time and Space
Rating: G
Character/s: Ten
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 306: Sail / Sale. Set during ‘Planet of the Dead’.
The Doctor remembers a time when he’d been unable to just zip away to avoid responsibility. Stuck at UNIT, no matter how good he’d been at talking his way out of it, they’d still often managed to foist the dreaded paperwork onto him.
Now, however, he’s not stranded in a job he barely tolerates. The TARDIS is just feet away, ready to sail off through time and space. Even UNIT realises there’s no chance he’ll stick around. He’s got better things to do.
There’s always someone else to deal with the clean-up. The Doctor thinks that Malcolm probably won’t mind.
Title: That Instinct Towards Destruction
Rating: PG
Character/s: Eleven
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 307: Charge. Set during ‘Victory of the Daleks’.
Even after all this time dealing with human violence, he still can’t even begin to comprehend it. The human race, or Great Britain more specifically, has once again laid hands on alien technology and decided that the best way to use it must be to kill their fellows more efficiently. Humans are about so much more than bloodshed, hatred and warfare; he knows that. But sometimes the Doctor watches them destroy themselves and wonders.
The Daleks are on Earth again, and Churchill’s instinct is to charge into battle with them. The Doctor hopes he can stop all this in time.
Title: Premonitions You Could Live Without
Rating: G
Character/s: Nine, Harriet Jones, Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 308: Bloom. Set sometime during Season 1, but also after ‘The Christmas Invasion’. It’s timey-wimey.
After having missed 12 months, he’s taking no chances with Rose on 21st century Earth; he’s not keen on another slap. He convinces Rose to stay behind in the TARDIS momentarily while he checks things out. He’s stunned she actually complies.
Harriet Jones seems to have long since passed the height of her leadership, which means they’ve arrived late. Again.
“It’s you,” Harriet breathes. “I mean, you you. You’ve changed back.”
He doesn’t apologise as he retreats. He’s not that kind of man. He wonders whether he will be in the far-too-near future when Harriet apparently meets a different Doctor.
Title: Watching Your Figure
Rating: G
Character/s: Amy/Rory
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 309: Ersatz. Set during ‘Amy’s Choice’.
“What exactly is this?” Amy asked, sounding disgusted.
Rory turned to look at her. “It’s chocolate. You said you wanted chocolate, right? I had to go out specially to get that. What’s wrong with it?”
Amy looked ready to explode. “Excuse me? Who exactly is lugging around your child? This isn’t chocolate, it’s that rubbish fake fat-free stuff. What, are you trying to say? That I need to cut back? This isn’t fat, it’s a tiny person inside me!”
Family life was Rory’s dream, and he loved Amy, but sometimes she made him want to hit his head against something.
Title: This Time (The Last Time)
Rating: PG
Character/s: Ten/Simm!Master
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 310: Roar. Set during ‘The End of Time Part Two’.
The Master lets out a reverberating roar and his life energy flickers dangerously. The Doctor wants to turn away. Knowing what’s going to happen is painful.
He isn’t sure that he can witness the man he’s both loved and hated for centuries die yet again.
But when the Master’s flame does finally burn out, the Doctor’s eyes are glued to the tableau. Of course they are. He can’t even hold the man in his arms as he dies this time. The least the Doctor can do is watch.
His hearts ache, but he doesn’t shed a tear. Not this time.
Challenges 1-50 Drabbles
Challenges 51-100 Drabbles
Challenges 101-150 Drabbles
Challenges 151-200 Drabbles
Challenges 201-225 Drabbles
Challenges 226-250 Drabbles
Challenges 251-275 Drabbles
Title: Everyone But Her
Rating: G
Character/s: Ten/Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 276: Admission. Set during ‘The Satan Pit’.
As the Doctor admits how much he believes in Rose, he muses that everyone and everything through all of time and space seems to know precisely how he feels about her. Except, perhaps, Rose herself. These moments when he expresses it so clearly never seem to happen when she’s nearby.
Reinette knew it wasn’t just the stars he was missing. Mickey knew he’d always be second-best. The crew of the Sanctuary Base immediately labelled them a couple. Even this nameless, speechless beast is well aware.
If he lives through this, he swears he’ll tell her.
He knows it's a lie.
Title: Going Out For Cigarettes
Rating: G
Character/s: Ten II/Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 277: Deception. Set in Pete’s Word post-‘Journey’s End’.
He’d always thought the ‘going out for cigarettes and never returning’ situation was a myth. He didn’t think that sort of thing could ever happen. Why would someone do that? Why wouldn’t they just tell people that they were leaving?
Honesty had never been his strong suit.
He really wished he could tell Rose that he just needed some time away, doing his own thing. But how could he really tell her that when he knew he couldn’t be equally honest in answering her inevitable question about when he’ll be back.
He doesn’t know whether he’ll be back at all.
Title: Some Mouthy Girl
Rating: G
Character/s: Nine, Amy
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 278: Child. Written pre-‘Rose’ for the Doctor (with references to that episode), and just a few months before the Doctor finally returns twelve years later in ‘The Eleventh Hour’ for Amy. The prompt of Nine running into Amy was from develish1.
Amy Pond. The name sounds innocuous, and her obvious youth (even for a human) is somewhat deceptive, but he’s certain she’s raving. She screeches like a Gymsha, has crazy eyes, and apparently enjoys imitating a nun; he hasn’t been away from early 21st century Earth for so long that he’s forgotten that real nuns don’t generally stick their tongues down other people’s throats.
Of course, Amy says he’s the insane one. She’s right. She’s not safe around him. No one is.
Stalking away, the Doctor vows that the next time some mouthy girl crosses his path, he’s going to run.
Title: Cuts Himself Shaving
Rating: PG
Character/s: Nine, Rose, Jack
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 279: Shave. Set after ‘The Doctor Dances’.
“Oh ho, and then there’s the Etraxia! You want a ‘superior race’ that doesn’t know its toes from its noses, I should take you to see them. They make even 21st century humans look like the greatest mathematicians of Logopolis.”
Jack came up behind her. “What’s he going on about? He’s been ranting for twenty straight minutes.”
“I did warn you,” Rose stated. “Cuts himself shavin’...”
“I thought you were joking!” Jack said.
“And don’t even get me started on the Montolumas!”
Jack burst out laughing. Rose joined him when the Doctor turned around and glared through the shaving foam.
Title: More Than Transitory
Rating: PG
Character/s: Rose/Jack, Nine
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 280: Stir. Set between ‘The Doctor Dances’ and ‘Boom Town’.
The Doctor obviously initially thinks that Jack’s just another of her pretty boys. It’s so different, though. She doesn’t want to just string him along, or revel in his flirtations. She pushes him away, secretly hoping he’ll push back. She wants it to be much more.
Maybe it’s different because while Jack is certainly pretty, he’s no mere boy.
When the Doctor finally really sees the intense way Rose watches Jack, the change is immediately obvious. He begins treating him as more than just some transitory passenger.
She thinks that Jack might appreciate that change even more than she does.
Title: A Woman’s Prerogative
Rating: PG
Character/s: Ten, Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 281: Entourage. Set after ‘Girl in the Fireplace’.
The Doctor can’t figure Rose out. One minute she’s inviting people aboard the TARDIS right and left. The next she’s glaring at him for letting Mickey join them (even though she suggested it not long ago), and she’s wearing that sad look that stabs him in the hearts because he wants Reinette to come along with them.
The Doctor likes to surround himself with people. He always has. But he hasn’t always wanted one person with him more than others.
If Rose wants it to be just the two of them now, for once he might be okay with that.
Title: An Enemy in Common
Rating: PG
Character/s: The Doctor
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 282: Predicate.
He’s the Doctor. He’s the last of a powerful species of overseers who had the ultimate authority over the universe. The Doctor didn’t always agree with the Time Lords about everything, but he never questioned that they had rights and dominion over the progression of time. Now that authority falls to him alone.
So when he declares that the war on Gavrox IV will end that night, he expects that they will listen.
The war does end, then, but only because the factions have found a common enemy; the alien who tries to assert himself over them.
The Doctor flees.
Title: Everything is Doubled
Rating: PG
Character/s: Ten/Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 283: Capacity. Set during Season 2.
“Two hearts. Everything is doubled,” Rose said softly, tracing her fingertips across the Doctor’s chest from right to left and back again.
“What?” the Doctor asked.
“I sorta thought that maybe you could never love some stupid little human like me,” Rose said.
“You’re not stupid,” the Doctor chastised.
Rose smiled. “That’s my point. You would say that. You don’t just love one stupid human; you love us all. Your hearts have a greater capacity for it, I think.”
The Doctor caught Rose’s wandering hand in his.
“And they’re doubly breakable,” she added.
The Doctor squeezed her hand in agreement.
Title: Never Settling Down
Rating: G
Character/s: Rose/Ten, Jackie
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 284: Settle. Set during ‘Army of Ghosts’.
Her Mum asks whether Rose is ever going to settle down. Rose barely hesitates to answer.
She can’t imagine the Doctor in a house filled with several small children, with a big lolloping dog tethered in the backyard. The fantasy (is it a fantasy or a nightmare for her?) doesn’t quite make it beyond the look of disgust and terror that he’d clearly displayed when they’d had to talk about mortgages on Krop Tor.
She doesn’t even know if she herself wants to settle down, but she never will regardless. She loves him too much to do that to him.
Title: The Tube
Rating: G
Character/s: Ten, Rose, Jackie
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 285: Public Transport. Set during Season 2.
“But we have the TARDIS,” the Doctor whined.
Rose grinned. “Honestly, Doctor, it’s just the Tube.”
The Doctor shook his head vehemently. “We’re going out to dinner with your mother, who’s wearing that scary look that means she’s either planning to slap me or planning to make us get married. It’s not just the Tube. It’s the long, long ride to hell. Dunno about you, but I don’t want to draw the punishment out any.”
“You just wanna use the TARDIS so’s you can ‘accidently’ steer us off course and miss dinner.”
Well. Damn her for knowing him so well.
Title: Identifying and Recording the Connection
Rating: PG-13
Character/s: Ten II/Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 286: Scarlet. Set post-'Journey's End' in Pete’s World.
Right now Rose Tyler’s face is flushed. The Doctor, being incredibly intelligent, has detected a trend attached to this strange little biological alteration of hers. She seems to run noticeably hotter whenever he wears his specs. What he can’t quite see, glasses or no, is how those things could possibly be connected.
One night she asks him to leave the specs (and his tie, interestingly) on after he’s flicked the bedroom light off.
Her moans are louder than he’s ever heard. Ah, he thinks. He’s identified the connection after all. He’ll have to remember to record it. Later. Much later.
Title: Ridiculous Displays of Faux Masculinity
Rating: PG
Character/s: Amy/Rory, Eleven
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 287: Predator. Set during ‘The Vampires of Venice’.
The vampire, fish alien from space, whatever, stalked towards Amy with a predatory look in his eyes and razor sharp teeth protruding from his mouth. She felt frozen, the same way she’d found herself unable to move with her eyes closed, stuck in a forest surrounded by Angels. Fight or flight had yet to kick in, and for that moment she was merely prey.
Then Rory stepped up and managed to save her, albeit in possibly the most ridiculous display of faux masculinity she’d ever seen.
The Doctor was right. Being in a life-or-death situation did result in gratuitous kissing.
Title: Keeping Him on His Toes
Rating: PG
Character/s: Nine, Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 288: Sterling. Set during Season 1.
She argued with him constantly, refusing to take his word for anything or let things lie, no matter how many walls he put up around himself. She was outrageously prone to getting into trouble, so that she managed to nearly get herself or both of them killed in most of the places they visited. She let pretty boys hang around, and cared a bit too much, and generally annoyed the life out of him half of the time.
He never wanted her to leave.
Rose Tyler was an exceptional companion. If nothing else, she kept the Doctor on his toes.
Title: Like a Bad Copy
Rating: G
Character/s: Rose, Ten
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 289: Substitute. Set during the 2005 Children in Need Special (just prior to ‘The Christmas Invasion’).
It was difficult to believe, even after he’d verbally proven that he knew things only the Doctor could possibly be aware of, that this odd man bounding about wrecking everything could possibly be the Doctor. Her Doctor had disappeared, and now some man who didn’t seem anything like him stood in his place, like a bad copy.
However much damage it did the TARDIS to get them there, Rose was glad they were headed back to the Powell Estates. With the one constant in her recent life just having up and left her, she really just wanted to go home.
Title: A Kiss, Some Straddling and a Realisation or Two
Rating: PG
Character/s: Amy/Eleven, River
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 290: Surprise. Set during ‘The Time of Angels’, and intended as something of an explanation for the end of ‘Flesh and Stone’.
A woman flew from the vacuum of space into the TARDIS, landing on top of the Doctor. Perhaps it was the strange vibe between them, or just the compromising position they were in, but for the first time Amy considered that the Doctor might just be a sexual being like anyone else.
She was surprised she hadn’t considered it until then. She’d been very young on first meeting him, she supposed, but she had seen him strip naked and still hadn’t thought of it.
A world of possibilities opened up. Best of all, she might not have to get married.
Title: Like a Human, But Better
Rating: G
Character/s: Ten II/Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 291: Ordinary. Set in Pete’s World, post-‘Journey’s End’.
The Doctor knows that Rose worries sometimes (just sometimes) that she’s not what he wants, or not good enough for him, or something equally ridiculous. Even after saving the world multiple times and now working for Torchwood, the way a lot of what he says goes over her head bothers her.
She thinks she’s too ordinary for him. Too human. She’s wrong. She’s special in just the right way.
He doesn’t want her to be like a Time Lady. He mourns them, but he’d still never liked his species much.
What he wants is Rose Tyler, exactly as she is.
Title: The Limitations of Psychic Paper
Rating: PG
Character/s: Ten, Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 292: Badge.
“But it’s fine!” the Doctor said. “See? We have badges. Well, a badge. It’s a more efficient use of resources to have just the one between us. It’s the new trend, honestly. It’ll catch on in no time.”
What looked to be the city’s entire police force just stared at him like he was... well, an alien. Hands twitched towards holstered guns.
“I think you’re makin’ it worse,” Rose whispered.
Later, locked up across from each other in separate men’s and women’s holding cells, the Doctor wondered why his psychic paper apparently worked on everyone other than New York’s finest.
Title: Cracked Wide Open
Rating: PG
Character/s: The Doctor, the Master
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 293: Menace. Set sometime long after ‘The End of Time’.
At one time the Master’s mental acuity would have far outstripped any other living being in the universe. That, however, had been before the last assault on the Time Lords had finally broken his mind.
The Doctor had thought that he’d died back then. Perhaps that would have been better.
The Master had always been a menace, a threat that needed to be controlled, but this... this wasn’t what the Doctor had ever wanted. This man, with his easy acceptance of everything the Doctor said and his cheerful demeanour, wasn’t the Master at all.
The Doctor found he missed him.
Title: A Nation or a Universe (The Decisions of Men in Power)
Rating: PG
Character/s: Eleven, Winston Churchill
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 294: Panjandrum. Set during ‘The Victory of the Daleks’.
As human leaders throughout time went, Winston Churchill wasn’t the worst of them. Not by a long shot. However, the man still had the ability to drive the Doctor nearly insane with his obvious self-importance.
“This isn’t just about Great Britain,” the Doctor tried to explain. “The Daleks could destroy the whole Earth. The whole universe!”
Churchill just shook his head irritably. “I’m charged with the protection of my nation, Doctor. I can’t care about the rest of it now.”
Humans in power and their lack of foresight. The Doctor gritted his teeth and resolved to fix the problem himself.
Title: A Shift in Self-Definition
Rating: G
Character/s: Ten II
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 295: Disparate.
The Doctor’s always been considered abnormal. As a Time Lord, surrounded by his own kind, he’d been an outcast. As a Time Lord without other Time Lords, though, he’d been even more painfully unique. Even when he’d changed himself fully into a human to hide on Earth for a time, he’d still been considered noticeably odd.
Now he’s something in-between - not quite Time Lord or human or anything else any universe has ever seen, for that matter - and as usual everyone can tell he’s different (strange) the moment they meet him.
For the first time, though, ‘different’ doesn’t mean ‘alone’.
Title: Saving Yet Another Life
Rating: PG
Character/s: Young Wilf, Ten
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 296: Dawn. Missing scene set at the conclusion of 'The End of Time Part Two'.
The dawn light has barely risen when Wilfred Mott sees an enemy soldier rising from his cover.
This is it, he thinks. The moment. The time when he has to take his shot, as much as he wishes it wasn't so.
He aims, and pulls the trigger, but in that time another figure has barrelled into the soldier and knocked him down. The bullet sails past both of them harmlessly. Wilf's killed no one after all.
An objective observer would think that the Doctor has just rescued a complete stranger.
He has. But really, it's Wilf's life he's just saved.
Title: Tiptoeing Down the Line
Rating: PG
Character/s: Ten
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 297: Flood. Set during ‘The Waters of Mars’.
Warning: contains an over-abundance of metaphors. ;)
The Doctor had been balancing on the edge of sanity since the Time War. Or perhaps since he was young, much like the Master. He’d always seemed less stable than other Time Lords, after all. But still, even though he’d occasionally put a toe in the wrong direction, somehow he’d never quite fallen.
On Mars, though, a flood of water had swept him over the precipice into a sea of his own self-importance. He’d grinned and strutted and flaunted his power-madness.
It took a woman’s death to push him back up safely onto that edge. He hated himself for that.
Title: Backing Down From a Dare
Rating: PG
Character/s: Ten, Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 298: Fun. Set during Season 2.
“Oh, come on then. You said ‘dare’. You can’t back down now.”
The Doctor can’t believe he’s playing an adolescent game with Rose. Well, yes he can. She makes him feel even younger than even she is. So though it should be surprising, it’s not.
“There is no way I’m piloting us to Tudor England just so I can moon Henry VIII. I like this head.”
It could only be worse if they’d chosen spin-the-bottle.
Well, no, with only the two of them that might’ve been much better. Maybe he could make her forget the dare by suggesting that instead.
Title: Too Stupid to Fall
Rating: PG
Character/s: Ten, Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 299: Tremor. Set during ‘The Impossible Planet’.
One earthquake, barely even a tremor compared to the devastating ground-shocks of the Grandite Cluster, signals his life’s end. It just takes him a while to realise it’s over.
He observes the gaping crevasse where his TARDIS should be with numb shock. Losing the TARDIS is like losing Gallifrey all over again. No, worse, it’s like losing one of his hearts. Or both, even.
No matter how Rose tries to make light, he won’t recover from this. It’s not just his home that’s gone. It’s himself. He’s dead in every way that matters. His body’s just too stupid to fall.
Title: Bigger Than You
Rating: PG
Character/s: Nine, Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 300: Ichor. Set during Season 1.
“Ow. Ow!” Rose cried out. “Stop touching it!”
The Doctor sniped, “Well, it wouldn’t hurt if you’d told me you were injured, would it? Yep, that’s definitely infected. There’s puss and discharge and -”
“Ugh!” Rose interrupted. “Gross. I get the point. Sorry for not tellin’ you, but you had bigger things to deal with.”
“Bigger things than you?” the Doctor asked. “Never. You get hurt, you tell me.”
“All right,” Rose grumbled. “I’ve learned my lesson, swear. Now, can you fix it?”
The Doctor helped Rose back to the TARDIS, muttering under his breath about apes the whole way.
Title: Hiding Away
Rating: G
Character/s: Nine, Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 301: Cool.
It takes the Doctor months to figure out where Rose goes when she’s not watching him pulverise the TARDIS console in an effort to fix things. He just knows it’s not to the privacy of her room, as he’d expected.
It’s only when he accidentally stumbles (literally) over her huddled under what seems like half of the Wardrobe Room’s contents that he realises she’s been hiding away from the cold, not from him.
It’s been far too long since he’s had to worry about the niceties of having a human onboard the TARDIS. Perhaps it’s time to make some changes.
Title: Marks and Claims
Rating: PG-13
Character/s: Ten/Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 302: Mine. Set during Season 2.
He claims her with caressing hands and sharp teeth, leaving a mixture of aching marks and fading gratification in his wake.
The strange pleasure/pain juxtaposition perfectly represents his feelings for her, though it’s obvious that she doesn’t even realise that there’s anything but happiness to be had here. He tries to show her the darkness and ultimate futility inherent in his need for her. But, in the end, it’s not something she can really understand. She’s only human.
He claims Rose now because one day she’ll no longer be his. All he can do is cling on while he can.
Title: Letting History Play Out
Rating: PG
Character/s: Ten, Five
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 303: Crash. Set during ‘Time Crash’.
He looks at his fifth self, who has just recently lost Adric. He thinks he knows grief. He’s seen nothing yet.
The Doctor considers warning his younger self of what is to come. Of preventing himself from being alone, the only Time Lord, with Gallifrey having burned years ago and the Master having died in his arms just yesterday.
But then, he might miss out on meeting Rose Tyler, and Martha Jones, and Peri and Ace and all those wonderful people he’s loved over the years.
He can’t do that, but he still wishes he could spare himself the pain.
Title: Knowledge of Cataclysms
Rating: PG
Character/s: Ten/Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 304: Fourth Doctor Titles, using ‘The Seeds of Doom’. Set between ‘Fear Her’ and ‘Army of Ghosts’.
The Doctor had been getting the feeling for a while now that something terrible was coming. As a Time Lord, he never ignored premonitions of that kind. Not when they were his own foresight, at least. He knew how knowledge of cataclysms could echo back through time.
It all converged on Rose.
The Doctor might not want to think about it, or admit it, but he’d been seeing the signs for a while now. The Beast in the Pit had only been the most outright expression of it. His time with Rose was ending.
He held onto her even tighter.
Title: The Limits of His Technical Abilities
Rating: G
Character/s: Rose, Ten II
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 305: Steam. Set in Pete’s World, post-‘Journey’s End’.
“Woah...” Rose breathed, stopping short in the doorway. Dustballs floated across her shoes like tumbleweeds. Steam filled the air.
The Doctor’s desperate look was buried under a layer of dirt. “Rose,” he said piteously.
“What did you do?” Rose asked.
The Doctor mumbled something.
Rose crossed her arms pointedly, waiting.
“I blew up the vacuum cleaner,” he repeated.
Rose’s laughter escaped before she could stifle it.
“You can save the world with a spatula and some cling-wrap, but you can’t even Hoover the place?”
The Doctor looked imploringly at her. Rose grinned.
“C’mon genius, I’ll show you how it’s done.”
Title: Through Time and Space
Rating: G
Character/s: Ten
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 306: Sail / Sale. Set during ‘Planet of the Dead’.
The Doctor remembers a time when he’d been unable to just zip away to avoid responsibility. Stuck at UNIT, no matter how good he’d been at talking his way out of it, they’d still often managed to foist the dreaded paperwork onto him.
Now, however, he’s not stranded in a job he barely tolerates. The TARDIS is just feet away, ready to sail off through time and space. Even UNIT realises there’s no chance he’ll stick around. He’s got better things to do.
There’s always someone else to deal with the clean-up. The Doctor thinks that Malcolm probably won’t mind.
Title: That Instinct Towards Destruction
Rating: PG
Character/s: Eleven
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 307: Charge. Set during ‘Victory of the Daleks’.
Even after all this time dealing with human violence, he still can’t even begin to comprehend it. The human race, or Great Britain more specifically, has once again laid hands on alien technology and decided that the best way to use it must be to kill their fellows more efficiently. Humans are about so much more than bloodshed, hatred and warfare; he knows that. But sometimes the Doctor watches them destroy themselves and wonders.
The Daleks are on Earth again, and Churchill’s instinct is to charge into battle with them. The Doctor hopes he can stop all this in time.
Title: Premonitions You Could Live Without
Rating: G
Character/s: Nine, Harriet Jones, Rose
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 308: Bloom. Set sometime during Season 1, but also after ‘The Christmas Invasion’. It’s timey-wimey.
After having missed 12 months, he’s taking no chances with Rose on 21st century Earth; he’s not keen on another slap. He convinces Rose to stay behind in the TARDIS momentarily while he checks things out. He’s stunned she actually complies.
Harriet Jones seems to have long since passed the height of her leadership, which means they’ve arrived late. Again.
“It’s you,” Harriet breathes. “I mean, you you. You’ve changed back.”
He doesn’t apologise as he retreats. He’s not that kind of man. He wonders whether he will be in the far-too-near future when Harriet apparently meets a different Doctor.
Title: Watching Your Figure
Rating: G
Character/s: Amy/Rory
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 309: Ersatz. Set during ‘Amy’s Choice’.
“What exactly is this?” Amy asked, sounding disgusted.
Rory turned to look at her. “It’s chocolate. You said you wanted chocolate, right? I had to go out specially to get that. What’s wrong with it?”
Amy looked ready to explode. “Excuse me? Who exactly is lugging around your child? This isn’t chocolate, it’s that rubbish fake fat-free stuff. What, are you trying to say? That I need to cut back? This isn’t fat, it’s a tiny person inside me!”
Family life was Rory’s dream, and he loved Amy, but sometimes she made him want to hit his head against something.
Title: This Time (The Last Time)
Rating: PG
Character/s: Ten/Simm!Master
Author’s Notes: Written for Challenge 310: Roar. Set during ‘The End of Time Part Two’.
The Master lets out a reverberating roar and his life energy flickers dangerously. The Doctor wants to turn away. Knowing what’s going to happen is painful.
He isn’t sure that he can witness the man he’s both loved and hated for centuries die yet again.
But when the Master’s flame does finally burn out, the Doctor’s eyes are glued to the tableau. Of course they are. He can’t even hold the man in his arms as he dies this time. The least the Doctor can do is watch.
His hearts ache, but he doesn’t shed a tear. Not this time.