Missing Pages
I told you! My third day of unemployment and the fics are coming fast and furious.
Title: Missing Pages
Author: meself, fid_gin
Pairing: Implied Tenth Doctor/Rose (and probably Ninth Doctor/Rose if you squint)
Rating: PG13, for images of sex and violence
Disclaimer: I own nothing, all hail the BBC
Summary: The Doctor examines the two missing pages from John Smith's journal.
Notes: I'm quite sure someone must have already done this fic idea, but damned if I can think of one that I've read and I've been bitten by the plot-bunny so I'm running with it. Recently (as in, like, yesterday) read an excellent transcription of A Journal of Impossible Things and got stuck on trying to imagine what could possibly be on those two missing pages, which the Doctor could still conceivably have, as Joan only kept the journal. These were my best ideas, but I'd love to see some other more talented writers than myself take on the same challenge! Spoilers for Series Three, spoilers for Series Four including That Casting Spoiler and spoilers for rumoured snatches of dialogue overheard while filming That Spoiler. Does that make sense?
Torn pages. Two of them. The Doctor finds them in the depths of his pockets shortly after he and Martha return to the TARDIS.
He'd known they were there, of course. Had transferred them to his customary brown suit from where they had nestled in that awful tweed number John Smith had worn, folded in halves, fourths and finally eighths, taken from their hiding place within a drawer of his writing desk earlier in the evening when the Family had begun their attack on the school. The Doctor had hidden them there, with Smith's hands. John Smith himself had no idea where those pages from his journal had got to, no clue what he was doing when he frantically grabbed these scraps of paper shortly before he, Joan and Martha had made their way to the Cartwright house. Only that they were important, that they couldn't be found, by the Family or by any of the boys or other faculty who might later come looking. Now the Doctor slowly removes the folded slips of white stationary, knowing he'll regret, needing to see. How often does one get glimpses into one's own subconscious through the eyes of another being who has shared the same thoughts, unable to understand or put them to the right words but knowing, just the same, how important they are?
The Doctor wants, needs to know what the human-him saw.
Already knows on some level - it was him who tore the pages out, in an instinctive and unmindful action as John Smith, knowing on some level that these words were too painful, too frightening...too dangerous. Men had gone to madhouses for penning less, and he was already considered something of an eccentric among his peers - best not to push the envelope. What's contained in these pages would be conceived as the product of a disturbed mind.
He cranes his neck quickly to make sure Martha has really left the room; she'd sensed he'd needed a moment, which is correct, though not for the reasons she thinks. Yes, the Doctor feels some sense of pain and regret at the loss of Joan, but more for the loss of what he felt for her as a human: that easy, natural progression of attraction and love he's had just once. Never to be had again, but oh it was nice to imagine that he could. Terrifying in its allure, and for that reason he gave Tim Latimer the watch, fearing that the temptation may one day prove too strong.
Unfolding the pages now, and immediately words jump out at him in the nearly-illegible scratches of John Smith's atrocious penmanship: WAR...a war of planets, war across the ages or somehow of time...it took place in time...so much blood, hands are covered in blood...ten million ships on fire...planets burning, my whole family is burning and I am a murderer...I killed them. I killed them all. Drawings that accompany the text - a ball of flame he knows is Gallifrey, the twisted bodies of the dead, a cluster of discs that can only be a fleet of Dalek ships - words repeated, killed and fire and war. This page, and the reverse side of it, is a bloodbath, and it is almost too much. The Doctor considers crumpling them up before he reads any more.
He closes his eyes as he sets the first page aside, opens them again and cannot stop the small smile as he does, remembering John Smith's horror and embarrassed excitement at sketching the, he considers tasteful, depiction of a nude young woman on the following page. He'd drawn it in the still-dark hours of early morning, long before any danger of being interrupted by Martha or one of his students, when he'd awoken breathless and with a nearly painfully-hard erection, his one beating heart pumping overtime as completely inappropriate images and sounds still lingered behind his eyes and in his ears. The Doctor recognizes her, of course, remembers the moment and her languid pose: stretched out on her stomach in his bed, her head pillowed on her crossed arms, the side-swell of one breast visible...her legs crossed at the ankle and folded at the knee as she'd swayed them slowly back and forth over the lovely curve of her bottom, her face turned toward him and nearly obscured completely by her arm - only one heavily-mascara-ed eye and the corner of a teasing smile peeking out.
The drawing is horizontal, takes up nearly the entire page and is done with a loving attention to detail that conveys the importance the artist has placed in his subject. No words on this one, save one phrase across the bottom of the page. At the time, John Smith had not understood the drive to title this piece, intending to throw it away immediately - no, not throw it away, what if one of the cleaning staff found it? - hide it. The Doctor, on the other hand, comprehends the name of the drawing, and its significance:
I believe in her.
It is Rose, naked and half-asleep. After Krop Tor...after their escape from the beast in the pit. After he had made love to her, not for the first time, but with an intensity that had moved them both. He'd come so close to telling her he loved her, then.
The Doctor winces at the pain of the memory, quickly flips the page to see if there is anything more. He has every intention of keeping these forever - at the same time, doesn't know if he'll ever be able to look at them again.
Only words on the back, and he squints, trying to read them. Whips out his spectacles and even that doesn't help much. He recalls that he was still half-asleep when he wrote this, these words that made no sense to the human schoolteacher and make not much more to the Time Lord:
She was there, then she's here...she and the maid and the other woman - red hair? They have to save me...I'm dying or I'm already dead, couldn't change, can't remember why...she is coming back to save me, I can see her...she's... Much larger script: she's coming back.
The Doctor refolds the pages, tucks them into his jacket pocket.
Title: Missing Pages
Author: meself, fid_gin
Pairing: Implied Tenth Doctor/Rose (and probably Ninth Doctor/Rose if you squint)
Rating: PG13, for images of sex and violence
Disclaimer: I own nothing, all hail the BBC
Summary: The Doctor examines the two missing pages from John Smith's journal.
Notes: I'm quite sure someone must have already done this fic idea, but damned if I can think of one that I've read and I've been bitten by the plot-bunny so I'm running with it. Recently (as in, like, yesterday) read an excellent transcription of A Journal of Impossible Things and got stuck on trying to imagine what could possibly be on those two missing pages, which the Doctor could still conceivably have, as Joan only kept the journal. These were my best ideas, but I'd love to see some other more talented writers than myself take on the same challenge! Spoilers for Series Three, spoilers for Series Four including That Casting Spoiler and spoilers for rumoured snatches of dialogue overheard while filming That Spoiler. Does that make sense?
Torn pages. Two of them. The Doctor finds them in the depths of his pockets shortly after he and Martha return to the TARDIS.
He'd known they were there, of course. Had transferred them to his customary brown suit from where they had nestled in that awful tweed number John Smith had worn, folded in halves, fourths and finally eighths, taken from their hiding place within a drawer of his writing desk earlier in the evening when the Family had begun their attack on the school. The Doctor had hidden them there, with Smith's hands. John Smith himself had no idea where those pages from his journal had got to, no clue what he was doing when he frantically grabbed these scraps of paper shortly before he, Joan and Martha had made their way to the Cartwright house. Only that they were important, that they couldn't be found, by the Family or by any of the boys or other faculty who might later come looking. Now the Doctor slowly removes the folded slips of white stationary, knowing he'll regret, needing to see. How often does one get glimpses into one's own subconscious through the eyes of another being who has shared the same thoughts, unable to understand or put them to the right words but knowing, just the same, how important they are?
The Doctor wants, needs to know what the human-him saw.
Already knows on some level - it was him who tore the pages out, in an instinctive and unmindful action as John Smith, knowing on some level that these words were too painful, too frightening...too dangerous. Men had gone to madhouses for penning less, and he was already considered something of an eccentric among his peers - best not to push the envelope. What's contained in these pages would be conceived as the product of a disturbed mind.
He cranes his neck quickly to make sure Martha has really left the room; she'd sensed he'd needed a moment, which is correct, though not for the reasons she thinks. Yes, the Doctor feels some sense of pain and regret at the loss of Joan, but more for the loss of what he felt for her as a human: that easy, natural progression of attraction and love he's had just once. Never to be had again, but oh it was nice to imagine that he could. Terrifying in its allure, and for that reason he gave Tim Latimer the watch, fearing that the temptation may one day prove too strong.
Unfolding the pages now, and immediately words jump out at him in the nearly-illegible scratches of John Smith's atrocious penmanship: WAR...a war of planets, war across the ages or somehow of time...it took place in time...so much blood, hands are covered in blood...ten million ships on fire...planets burning, my whole family is burning and I am a murderer...I killed them. I killed them all. Drawings that accompany the text - a ball of flame he knows is Gallifrey, the twisted bodies of the dead, a cluster of discs that can only be a fleet of Dalek ships - words repeated, killed and fire and war. This page, and the reverse side of it, is a bloodbath, and it is almost too much. The Doctor considers crumpling them up before he reads any more.
He closes his eyes as he sets the first page aside, opens them again and cannot stop the small smile as he does, remembering John Smith's horror and embarrassed excitement at sketching the, he considers tasteful, depiction of a nude young woman on the following page. He'd drawn it in the still-dark hours of early morning, long before any danger of being interrupted by Martha or one of his students, when he'd awoken breathless and with a nearly painfully-hard erection, his one beating heart pumping overtime as completely inappropriate images and sounds still lingered behind his eyes and in his ears. The Doctor recognizes her, of course, remembers the moment and her languid pose: stretched out on her stomach in his bed, her head pillowed on her crossed arms, the side-swell of one breast visible...her legs crossed at the ankle and folded at the knee as she'd swayed them slowly back and forth over the lovely curve of her bottom, her face turned toward him and nearly obscured completely by her arm - only one heavily-mascara-ed eye and the corner of a teasing smile peeking out.
The drawing is horizontal, takes up nearly the entire page and is done with a loving attention to detail that conveys the importance the artist has placed in his subject. No words on this one, save one phrase across the bottom of the page. At the time, John Smith had not understood the drive to title this piece, intending to throw it away immediately - no, not throw it away, what if one of the cleaning staff found it? - hide it. The Doctor, on the other hand, comprehends the name of the drawing, and its significance:
I believe in her.
It is Rose, naked and half-asleep. After Krop Tor...after their escape from the beast in the pit. After he had made love to her, not for the first time, but with an intensity that had moved them both. He'd come so close to telling her he loved her, then.
The Doctor winces at the pain of the memory, quickly flips the page to see if there is anything more. He has every intention of keeping these forever - at the same time, doesn't know if he'll ever be able to look at them again.
Only words on the back, and he squints, trying to read them. Whips out his spectacles and even that doesn't help much. He recalls that he was still half-asleep when he wrote this, these words that made no sense to the human schoolteacher and make not much more to the Time Lord:
She was there, then she's here...she and the maid and the other woman - red hair? They have to save me...I'm dying or I'm already dead, couldn't change, can't remember why...she is coming back to save me, I can see her...she's... Much larger script: she's coming back.
The Doctor refolds the pages, tucks them into his jacket pocket.