Fic: Small Things (1/1)
Title: Small Things (1/1)
Characters: Rory, Amy, the Doctor
Word Count: 1,302
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine. *sniff*
Spoilers: Spoilers up until 5x13, "The Big Bang".
Summary: When you’re in the TARDIS and saving the day, the small things can be easily overlooked. But then there are the other times. The nights when you know that the small things can make and unmake a universe.
Author’s Notes: First fic in forever and a day, and first shot at second person narration. (I still don't know how I feel about it... *pokes warily*) A wee bit of this idea came from the novel The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. That all being established, no beta and not British, so any concrit would be most appreciated. Thanks and enjoy!
You wonder, sometimes, how it is that you can remember being plastic when the world in which you were plastic never happened. It’s the same way you wonder how you could be dead and erased from reality one day, and then wake up 2,000 years later and be your old self again.
It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but you try not to dwell on things like that. Most of the time you’re able to convince yourself to ignore the details by making yourself believe that they don’t matter. It works more often than not, and when you’re in the TARDIS and saving the day, the small things can be easily overlooked. But then there are the other times. The nights when you know that the small things can make and unmake a universe.
See, the Doctor knows about the big stuff. The things so big that everyone understands how important they are. Things like time, and space, and adventure. These huge, amazing, bigger-than-life things Amy loves and that you’ve never been able to properly wrap your head around.
It doesn’t mean you aren’t learning to, of course, but at the end of a day of running for your life, living totally in the present by exploring the past, and mucking up the future by just bumbling along, you remember the weight of Amy’s dead body in your arms.
Which is confusing, because you were plastic back then. And plastic shouldn’t be able to feel. And even if it should, Amy never died in this version of the universe.
So how could you remember exactly how it felt as all of the warmth left her body?
Or the sky. You remember exactly what it was like, to gaze up at the night sky and see nothing but blank, blackness before you. No one else can remember that. How dark the evenings became. How the warmth went out of them, too.
What about the people you hurt while defending the Pandorica? The people you might have killed? The look on the raider’s face in the 1860s as you shoved him a bit too hard? Whose worn shoes caused him to slip over the ledge? Did he ever make that face, in this reality? Did anyone see the way his mouth contorted, the whites of his eyes, in a version of the world that had stars?
How about the girl with the braids and the thin woolen jacket who had been wandering around during the bombings? Had someone else found her as the world exploded? Had someone else shared a shelter with her? Given her an extra blanket and told her to run along when the all clear sounded?
Sometimes you rub at your right hand, where the hinge should be, and wonder if the burning sensation of molten fire spouting out of your palm is something you made up entirely. Some days you convince yourself that it was all a dream.
But then you remember the details. The coldness, and the dark, the whites of eyes and the sight of thin wool. The small things that are easy to overlook when you’re saving the day, everyday, by running about and causing a ruckus, but are impossible to miss when you’re standing vigil for 2,000 years, waiting for a miracle.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard for you, all of these details, if anyone else could remember even some of them. But instead there’s a grateful universe that had been snapped back from non-existence, a forgetful Earth, a Doctor who had bounced about time, and Amy. Who had spent centuries undoing the terrible thing you had done to her.
But in your head there’s 2,000 years of details that never happened. So many facets of a world that never was, spinning around in your somehow not-plastic skull with nowhere to go, and no one to share them with. After all, everyone loves to have a bit of those big things given to them. There’s a magic to the idea of the whole of time at your fingertips, to the vast reaches of the universe suddenly made accessible, of a life in which everything (not just a blue box) is bigger on the inside.
It is much more difficult to make the nonsensical penguins of the Nile majestic. Or to explain the wonder in a child’s face the first time they were told fantastical stories about stars. To take someone’s hand in yours, only to place it to the spot where you used to shoot lasers out of your fingers. This world-that-wasn’t is a lot smaller, and a lot darker, than the places the Doctor has shown to you and Amy, and even if your fellow travelers did want to see it, you have no way to take them there. The universe you remember collapsed in on itself - became utter negation. No bigger on the inside for you. Only thousands of years worth of half-remembered small things that never existed.
One night the three of you are on one planet or another. A place distant enough that there are no lights in the sky - the closest star so far away that there isn’t a flicker to be found in the vast night.
You stare at that sky for far too long while Amy and the Doctor bicker about the fashionable virtues of ponchos. You ignore them, unable to stop looking at the expanse of black before you. Not out of fear, or bitterness, or even dread, which are the sort of things a person used to the big stuff might be expected to feel when looking at a sight reminiscent of a broken universe.
Instead, you look out at the night and feel sadness for all of the forgotten details that never were. The staff of the Egyptian grandfather who stumbled into the under-hedge, the way the people first danced when they heard the Beatles on the radio, the notches on your old Roman sword, the way the women of the Renaissance styled their hair. You long for these small moments. You miss this particular existence they never had.
Even the bad details (the increasing chill as Amy grew colder, the horrific twist of the raider’s ankle) deserve more than the negation they were given. Small things, after all, want nothing but to be remembered. And you know how torturous an unremembered life can be.
“You all right there, Mr. Pond?”
The Doctor and Amy are at your side, Amy sending you a worried look as she gently takes your hand in hers.
“Rory?”
“Fine.” The warmth from her grip travels up your arm, and you see the concerned wrinkle on her forehead. “Just looking at the sky.”
She tilts her head up, stares with you. “It seems a bit eerie, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” the Doctor remarks. “There’s something beautiful about it, too.” He looks at you in that way he has, when he suspects more than he knows and knows more than he says. “What do you think, Rory?”
You allow a smile. “Very beautiful. Eerie, too. There’s no reason it can’t be both.”
“No reason at all.” Amy’s frown disappears even as her hold tightens, and you take a moment to feel the love she’s sending you, to appreciate it. “And remarkable all the same.”
Soon, you know, you’ll all be running for your lives again. The adventures of all that ever was and all that ever could be await you, and the three of you will be too caught up in the spectacle of all of those big things to be bothered by a beautiful and eerie sky.
But you will try to notice the details. The love in a touch and the chill of a vacant body.
You will remember them, especially if no one else can.
Characters: Rory, Amy, the Doctor
Word Count: 1,302
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine. *sniff*
Spoilers: Spoilers up until 5x13, "The Big Bang".
Summary: When you’re in the TARDIS and saving the day, the small things can be easily overlooked. But then there are the other times. The nights when you know that the small things can make and unmake a universe.
Author’s Notes: First fic in forever and a day, and first shot at second person narration. (I still don't know how I feel about it... *pokes warily*) A wee bit of this idea came from the novel The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. That all being established, no beta and not British, so any concrit would be most appreciated. Thanks and enjoy!
You wonder, sometimes, how it is that you can remember being plastic when the world in which you were plastic never happened. It’s the same way you wonder how you could be dead and erased from reality one day, and then wake up 2,000 years later and be your old self again.
It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but you try not to dwell on things like that. Most of the time you’re able to convince yourself to ignore the details by making yourself believe that they don’t matter. It works more often than not, and when you’re in the TARDIS and saving the day, the small things can be easily overlooked. But then there are the other times. The nights when you know that the small things can make and unmake a universe.
See, the Doctor knows about the big stuff. The things so big that everyone understands how important they are. Things like time, and space, and adventure. These huge, amazing, bigger-than-life things Amy loves and that you’ve never been able to properly wrap your head around.
It doesn’t mean you aren’t learning to, of course, but at the end of a day of running for your life, living totally in the present by exploring the past, and mucking up the future by just bumbling along, you remember the weight of Amy’s dead body in your arms.
Which is confusing, because you were plastic back then. And plastic shouldn’t be able to feel. And even if it should, Amy never died in this version of the universe.
So how could you remember exactly how it felt as all of the warmth left her body?
Or the sky. You remember exactly what it was like, to gaze up at the night sky and see nothing but blank, blackness before you. No one else can remember that. How dark the evenings became. How the warmth went out of them, too.
What about the people you hurt while defending the Pandorica? The people you might have killed? The look on the raider’s face in the 1860s as you shoved him a bit too hard? Whose worn shoes caused him to slip over the ledge? Did he ever make that face, in this reality? Did anyone see the way his mouth contorted, the whites of his eyes, in a version of the world that had stars?
How about the girl with the braids and the thin woolen jacket who had been wandering around during the bombings? Had someone else found her as the world exploded? Had someone else shared a shelter with her? Given her an extra blanket and told her to run along when the all clear sounded?
Sometimes you rub at your right hand, where the hinge should be, and wonder if the burning sensation of molten fire spouting out of your palm is something you made up entirely. Some days you convince yourself that it was all a dream.
But then you remember the details. The coldness, and the dark, the whites of eyes and the sight of thin wool. The small things that are easy to overlook when you’re saving the day, everyday, by running about and causing a ruckus, but are impossible to miss when you’re standing vigil for 2,000 years, waiting for a miracle.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard for you, all of these details, if anyone else could remember even some of them. But instead there’s a grateful universe that had been snapped back from non-existence, a forgetful Earth, a Doctor who had bounced about time, and Amy. Who had spent centuries undoing the terrible thing you had done to her.
But in your head there’s 2,000 years of details that never happened. So many facets of a world that never was, spinning around in your somehow not-plastic skull with nowhere to go, and no one to share them with. After all, everyone loves to have a bit of those big things given to them. There’s a magic to the idea of the whole of time at your fingertips, to the vast reaches of the universe suddenly made accessible, of a life in which everything (not just a blue box) is bigger on the inside.
It is much more difficult to make the nonsensical penguins of the Nile majestic. Or to explain the wonder in a child’s face the first time they were told fantastical stories about stars. To take someone’s hand in yours, only to place it to the spot where you used to shoot lasers out of your fingers. This world-that-wasn’t is a lot smaller, and a lot darker, than the places the Doctor has shown to you and Amy, and even if your fellow travelers did want to see it, you have no way to take them there. The universe you remember collapsed in on itself - became utter negation. No bigger on the inside for you. Only thousands of years worth of half-remembered small things that never existed.
One night the three of you are on one planet or another. A place distant enough that there are no lights in the sky - the closest star so far away that there isn’t a flicker to be found in the vast night.
You stare at that sky for far too long while Amy and the Doctor bicker about the fashionable virtues of ponchos. You ignore them, unable to stop looking at the expanse of black before you. Not out of fear, or bitterness, or even dread, which are the sort of things a person used to the big stuff might be expected to feel when looking at a sight reminiscent of a broken universe.
Instead, you look out at the night and feel sadness for all of the forgotten details that never were. The staff of the Egyptian grandfather who stumbled into the under-hedge, the way the people first danced when they heard the Beatles on the radio, the notches on your old Roman sword, the way the women of the Renaissance styled their hair. You long for these small moments. You miss this particular existence they never had.
Even the bad details (the increasing chill as Amy grew colder, the horrific twist of the raider’s ankle) deserve more than the negation they were given. Small things, after all, want nothing but to be remembered. And you know how torturous an unremembered life can be.
“You all right there, Mr. Pond?”
The Doctor and Amy are at your side, Amy sending you a worried look as she gently takes your hand in hers.
“Rory?”
“Fine.” The warmth from her grip travels up your arm, and you see the concerned wrinkle on her forehead. “Just looking at the sky.”
She tilts her head up, stares with you. “It seems a bit eerie, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” the Doctor remarks. “There’s something beautiful about it, too.” He looks at you in that way he has, when he suspects more than he knows and knows more than he says. “What do you think, Rory?”
You allow a smile. “Very beautiful. Eerie, too. There’s no reason it can’t be both.”
“No reason at all.” Amy’s frown disappears even as her hold tightens, and you take a moment to feel the love she’s sending you, to appreciate it. “And remarkable all the same.”
Soon, you know, you’ll all be running for your lives again. The adventures of all that ever was and all that ever could be await you, and the three of you will be too caught up in the spectacle of all of those big things to be bothered by a beautiful and eerie sky.
But you will try to notice the details. The love in a touch and the chill of a vacant body.
You will remember them, especially if no one else can.