Commentary Meme for ambitious_woman
(I suppose I should have expected one of these to be full of massive angst. And then a lot of them were. Cause I really can't write a happy Eight, have you noticed? Which is all sorts of wrong because Eight is nothing if not happy. Well, if he's not happy he's sad, but that's beside the point. Well, that is the point, but it's one that's completely ruining this argument so just ignore this entire paragraph.
I actually had this sifting around in my files for weeks. I knew what it was, I knew what I wanted to write for it, but all the scenes kept getting mixed up in my head because they were five little vignettes and I didn't know how to organise them and then by the end of the week I was so sick of it I just killed the Doctor off because that's how writers work. I never said I was the most creative. In fact, if you do hear me saying that, it's probably because I'm just drunk or something. Not that I get drunk very often, but when I do, I'm drunk as a cold cup of water on a hot day. Douglas Adams joke. See? Creativity? Not my strong suit.
What's this thing about? Where's my dressing gown? What, commentary? Ah crap, I'm going for a smoke.)
Five things you want to do before you die.
Five: To fall.
The planet of Avor 14 was well and very high up on the Doctor's "List of Marvellous Places to Visit But Haven't Actually Gone Yet."
I do assume the Doctor has this list written down in his head, like five places he's always trying to visit but the TARDIS always misses to get him killed on a rocky outcrop somewhere. No offence to the TARDIS of course. Please don't materialise on my head.
With the introduction of the planet's new teleportation system, which now had the added feature of not accidentally teleporting a limb or five to Avor 3, where a race of ravenous and sharp-toothed animals had been thriving for a while on the disembodied body parts, Avor 14 was now bustling with tourists and fully intact people, much to the disappointment of the now dying race of ravenous and sharp-toothed animals and their ecological and environmental supporters. (All visitors should be aware of the 'Donate a limb' bins located next to all teleport pods. Please support the Creatures of Avor 3.)
(I thought that paragraph was funny. Which is probably why no one else did.)
The system was cutting edge, all spangly and shiny and really very good looking, the sort of good looking that made one completely entranced by its shininess and spangliness. There was nothing the scientists had left out of it, although considering the several years they had devoted to the pods, the rest of the planet's technology was severely underdeveloped. This was exhibited by the fact that they were still using telegrams as a way of communication.
(This probably developed a love of the word 'spangly' in my world. Isn't that spangly? Joss Whedon, eat your heart out. I'll see your awesome dialogue and raise you 'spangly'.
I'm also a bit of a nut (walnut, specifically), so when I wrote this, I kept thinking "Well, this planet can't be ahead of all the other planets, so if their teleportation system is all awesome, then everything else must be absolutely arcane." Which is the sort of thing I need to think about to distract myself from the crap writing.)
Of course, the real reason why Avor 14 was so marvellous was not because of its teleportation systems.
It was where you teleported to.
Avor 14's air currents were unique in the entire universe in that if you dropped from an area more than fifty feet above the ground, you would fall and land safely on the planet's grass without any use of parachutes or gravity dampeners.
It was, obviously, a great deal more exciting if you dropped from much further than a hundred feet, which was what the newly updated systems were for. They were designed specifically for the purpose of teleporting you to a location in the planet's sky, at a height which you would specify, with all the price of three Altarian dollars.
(I am a complete coward in many ways, I love the idea of sky diving, but I would definitely only be able to do it if someone shoved me off of the plane, prised my fingers from the door, from the railings, from the wings, and then just crashing the craft into a mountain to get rid of me in the first place. Planets like this make me happy for a while, before realising I just made it up.)
Why he hadn't gone already was a pressing issue on his mind, especially now as he pondered the reasons and came up with no particularly good excuses. He could hardly say that he didn't have the time - he had a TARDIS. Time was one of the things he had no lack of, and if he wanted to go, why didn't he?
(*coughCausetheTARDISisabitch?cough*)
Tossing his copy of Jane Eyre onto the already overflowing table filled with Emily Dickinsons, Keatses and P.G. Wodehouses, he dashed to the console, throwing down levers and flicking switches with the practised ease of a man with an unpredictable car who knew just how to flick the gear lever to make it unstick.
(Least he doesn't have to deal with third gear.)
Charley and C'rizz certainly needed a holiday. Since their time in the Cube and their experiences with the brain worm, well... they would most definitely welcome a planet that was not immediately doomed. And since Avor 14 had such an over-abundance of visitors, C'rizz would hardly make a lasting impression or even a noticeable one. Not being stared at for once, he thought, would do wonders for the Eutermesan.
(Well, let's face it. He does kind of stand out. Even more than the Doctor and that's saying quite a lot. I always felt sorry for him in 'Other Lives'. He always has to get left behind and I hate that. Poor C'rizz.
As for the brain worm... one of these days these writers have to run out of awesome ways for the Doctor to forget what the hell is going on. But then it probably wouldn't be as funny. I always consider Eight the most forgetful, he probably woke up one morning and accidentally came out dressed as Four cause he forgot he regenerated. And one of these days, I'm going to write that crack fic.)
He grinned happily like an idiot as he watched the time rotor churn and wheeze and skipped off to find Charley and C'rizz to tell them where they were headed to next.
He stopped grinning a little while later. (This was going to be some AMAZING recurring line, but that didn't work out, cause I had problems with it. As in, making it repeat. I'm not good at that unless I'm in real life, in which case I'll repeat quotes until your head explodes.)
The planet the TARDIS landed was not Avor 14 or anywhere even close. That, at least, was clear by the spears that were jabbing into their chests as they stepped out.
***
Four: To jump.
The TARDIS rumbled and shuddered to a stop.
The planet of Jextian Beta was known for having the largest quantum trampoline in three galaxies, which was reportedly "the best fun you could have in twelve seconds without being molecularly destabilised.”
(Order today!)
Why he was here now was a bit of a mystery, however, as this was falling a little bit out of his intended target. Considering the fact that he had set the coordinates for 19th century London, a city on a planet several octoplutillion light years away from the planet he was currently on, to the house of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to give him back his stethoscope, he had a suspicious feeling something was afoot. If he had landed at his intended location, he would have popped out, given the much treasured (and very useful) object back to its proper owner and uttered incredibly witty turn of phrase like "A Doctor's not a doctor without his stethoscope."
(Reflecting my lame excuses for funny lines into the Doctor, yes?)
... Well, perhaps not that one, but something wonderfully ingenious nonetheless.
He shot a sidelong look to a metal column and sighed, turning from the door and walking back to the pale blue light of the rotor.
(My TARDIS console is better than your TARDIS console. It has wood panelling! Beat that.)
He had discovered, in what was becoming really a very long millennium of time travelling (you usually picked up a few things here and there when you were doing something for that long), that nothing was as fun or as exciting without someone there to share it with. And although he understood the old girl’s attempts to cheer him up, he simply wasn’t up to the task of trying to feel better at the moment. Maybe he’d return one day, but preferably with someone by his side.
(Oh, angst angst, Doctor is alone cause C'rizz had to go and die and Charley had to inexplicably be confusing and say she was going to leave and then stay and then get picked up by his former self. YEAH WELL HE DOESN'T NEED ANY OF YOU!)
He patted the wooden panel for a moment before restarting the dematerialisation sequence.
(Shut up, Firefox spell check. Dematerialisation is a word. Even Firefox isn't a word to your spell check! Your dictionary has some very important gaps in it, I think!)
He was sure that Arthur would welcome his stethoscope anyway.
(I assume he got caught up in some murder mystery that involved aliens, and that's why Conan Doyle was so very spiritual at the end of his life. Damn, now I want to write that too. Is that where he gets the tank in Absolution from?
Also, this thing was short. I remember hating myself for that. I wanted a lot of these little scenes to be the same size, but I couldn't add much more to this without someone for him to bounce off of or getting him drunk and drive the TARDIS into a fourth dimensional tree. I remember he had some problems with that idea.)
***
Three: To fly.
(Is a bird? Is it a plane? No! It's a can't-possibly-be-only-900-years-old Time Lord!)
The planet of Casilrian had easily manipulated gravity.
(My brain at this stage: Can't... think... of any more... planet names...)
It seemed uniquely made, tied into one’s thought patterns so that they could rise and fall, with nothing below their feet and nothing artificial as rockets or levitation beams could achieve. It felt wonderful.
(Always wanted to write a planet like this. Flying is great, but you're never really flying, are you? You're being suspended by a hunk of metal.
If there was ever a planet ever solely designed for the sole purpose of recreating the ability to fly, Casilrian was it. They had forests you could brush the treetops of, seas to skim the surface of, even mountains that seemed to specifically created so that you could get tired of climbing it in frustration and float to the top in a clear defiance of certain mountain climbing rules. Not necessarily written down ones, but just some that everyone knew.
Like, “you shall not fly to the top”.
(None of this was funny, but I remember thinking it was at the time.)
Actually, he was fairly certain that was quite a big rule. Was mountain climbing even mountain climbing if you flew it? Was that mountain flying then? Well, that couldn’t be much of a sport, could it? It hardly used any exertion at all, although, scuba diving was considered a sport sometimes, though he had yet to grasp why.
He shook his head and redirected his attention back to the console, looking up at the blue column and frowning at the way the rotors seemed to be refusing to move.
He banged his fist on the console in one quick, sharp move and they jolted into movement again.
(He was the one who started this TARDIS abuse. Just like he was the one who started random snogging-girls-against-various-things. But we still love him, yes? I'm always kind of 'whut' when he doesn't do more of it in the audios. He'll do it to Dorothy one day, I assume.)
He grinned.
(Yay smile! I hadn't listened to the New Adventures at this time, so I did slightly write this as Lucie, but not, because I didn't know what she was like. And in the New Adventures the Doctor is such a downer, I mean seriously. Any more and he'll start writing letters to Daleks about how sad he is and please won't they invade the nearest planet so he can stop them or something. In any case, I think this is just some other companion now. Blonde, probably.)
He thought, for just this moment, that life was wonderful. The flowers grew, the sun shined, the air shifted in time to the beat of a bird’s wings and it was just simply marvellous.
Death, oh yes, there was death, but it seemed to have taken a vacation as of late, leaving him with a rare sort of jubilation that was straining to burst out of his skin.
Everyone lived during their last adventure. Granted, it had been well over twelve hours ago now, but he still had some of the thrill running through his veins, his inability to sleep only strengthened by new excitement.
(Apparently according to the Gallifrey audios, Time Lords do sleep, but I feel like the Doctor just doesn't want to, because he hates not doing something for more than ten minutes, and so doesn't.)
He wasn’t quite ready for that thrum to end, and he was sure that his companion wouldn’t mind. They needed a vacation, after all, and vacations weren’t only for reliefs after traumatising experiences.
(Wait, when was this?)
A celebration, then? Well, he supposed it didn’t matter.
His good mood continued for at least ten more minutes, accentuated by him bounding around the console, flicking switches that seem to take very deep offence in being flicked. He was only stopped from his dash around the column when a thundering ringing burst loudly through the room, drowning out all other noise and making him stop in his tracks.
He looked up, wide-eyed and staring, smiling dimming and fading until there was nothing left, slowly replaced by a sombre expression of a man who knew that what lay before him was war.
(Hate this line. Could I get more cheesy? Bring me a Ritz cracker to spread me out on, please.)
He was standing motionless in the area between the console and the doorway into the halls as his companion came rushing up to him, asking him what that obnoxiously loud tolling had been.
Their next stop was not Casilrian. Their next stop was her home. And her last.
(Oh dear. Here comes the angst. And the REAL shoddy writing.
The Daleks are coming, the Daleks are coming! Go to the Citadel and hang two torches...)
***
Two: To stop.
The planet of Arcadia was the home to several thousands of humans, attracting them from all parts of the universe with amber and bronze skies.
(Ugh, I recall distantly in that part of my mind I constantly try to pry out that I agonised for a long while what the Fall of Arcadia was for this prompt. Arcadia actually is a planet referenced in Doctor Who, a human colony. I finally decided that it was in the way of the Daleks' march to Gallifrey and that the Time Lords used it as their first stand, not even bothering to evacuate the humans before beginning the war. Because they're bastards. Don't worry, Romana probably got them out before she let anything happen.)
They couldn’t have known.
He ran.
He couldn’t help it at first, his mind wasn’t functioning properly and he could barely see his hands as they frantically ran over the console, dialling somewhere, anywhere, that would get him away, to get everything to stop for just one moment.
He had always been a coward; had they expected anything less from him?
None of the proximity alarms went off, none of other TARDISes followed him, either oblivious or not caring of the one who was running from the lines.
(I have since decided that the plural of TARDIS is just TARDIS, since it is an acronym. It probably makes me a dork that I've thought too much about that.)
He crumpled to the floor when the ship came to a stop, not because of any force or turbulence of their flight, but simply because his legs were suddenly too weak to keep him upright.
He felt like a coward. He was a coward. A coward who couldn’t kill but killed anyway, a coward who fled, a coward that was too afraid to die.
Trembling, his fingers slowly scraped through his hair, or what was left of it, anyway. His once long and curly locks had since been chopped away in the first days of the War, more of a symbol than of any practical use, other than to make it less likely for it to catch on fire.
(I am firmly under the belief that Eight cut off his hair at sometime or another. I typically think it's after the war started, not as short as Nine's, but basically what Paul McGann's hair is now.)
Fire.
Burning.
Stop, stop, stop, stop.
(--in the name of love... before you break my heart.
I thought I told you lot to read this with music.)
He clasped his hands suddenly over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to drown out the sounds and the visions, as he tried to forget, to ignore the ice cold gripping of his heart that screamed coward, now louder than ever.
Rasillon, please stop.
His hands pressed into his skull and the screaming only got louder, his eyes were squeezed so tight he could no longer tell if there was anything else but the darkness behind his eyelids and the buildings that were burning in front of him.
Why was his mind telling him that his hands were wet and smelling of iron?
(Maybe you shouldn't have slipped on that iron water.)
He screamed, he screamed to block out everything else, he screamed as though he was going mad because perhaps he was, perhaps he’d always been, but then surely this would be easier.
(Ack, too much angst. I'll just say something insightful and thought provoking. Or I would. Basically for this, I just remembered a time when I was under some severe depression, to the point I couldn't eat or sleep. I screamed a lot into my pillow and it is pretty cathartic. So I did it for him.
....
Asparagus.)
When he was done, his vocal cords now worn and hoarse, there was only the sound of the TARDIS there, humming low and offering comfort he had never ever deserved.
A few minutes later, a blue box would reappear on the surface of Arcadia.
Then tomorrow, Arcadia would fall.
(... into a nice comfortable bed...)
***
One. To save them.
In the end, it all came down to him. And a switch.
He nearly laughed, bitterly and acerbically, because he had almost been expecting this. It was ironic and amusing in the face of all that was happening, and a chuckle coughed its way out of his throat.
The switch was deceivingly small. Just a small metal stub that rose out of the panel, with no signs, no abstract colouring to it. It wasn’t red, it wasn’t big, and it wasn’t threatening at all.
(I hate big red buttons. Why would they have big red buttons saying "SELF DESTRUCT"? I mean what if someone was playing football in the same room and accidentally kicked it into the button? Then where would we be!?)
Except for the fact that it would, of course, destroy his entire race.
Except for that fact, of course.
Of course.
His fists clenched and his shoulders stiffened. He wanted to go back and yell at the entire Council for making him do this. Or what was left of it anyway. Most of them had fled when the War had started.
(Aaarhg, crappy writing! By the power of Christ I compell thee! Stand back, beast!)
Why? Why? Why always him?
(Because you're oh so very pretty. Yeah, about that pageant you entered a while back, we never told you what it was for...)
He had asked that question to every one of them when they had explained their plan.
Why me?
And they said that it was because… he was the one person who they knew would do it.
The only person that they were sure would understand what needed to be done and why.
Why me.
For the price of their race, the Daleks would be destroyed. They were losing a battle, and perhaps it was time that the reign of the Time Lords ended. But if they were all to die, they could not go without at least one final act.
(I always think Romana here. I think it's very her to put the universe in front of Gallifrey. I didn't listen to the audios at this point, but dear, does it make a difference. Now that I have heard the audios, the only thing that's changed is that I now imagine Narvin there too. I adore Narvin, seriously.)
He could never save them. He could not save everyone, that was a fact of the universe that he had come to terms with that in the oh so long years that had passed. But he had assumed, foolishly, naively, childishly, that at least Gallifrey would always be there. As a constant. A home when he had no other. He had assumed that he could at least save them.
He should have known better.
(Sorry, you lose. This is a losing ticket. We apologise for any inconvenience.)
Perhaps it would be for the best, he finally concluded, as he inspected the gleaming switch.
The lights flickered suddenly and the building shuddered as the glass walls of the Citadel could be heard crashing down outside.
All this suffering would end, and the universe would go on, never knowing the meaning of the word Dalek and what it stood for. They would be stuff of fairy tales and bedtime stories, the type of things told to children to make them eat their vegetables.
(MAST-I-CATE! MAST-I-CATE!)
Everything would end. Because everything was supposed to.
Even the Time Lords.
('Damnit, we should have taken the other exit.')
There seemed to be an eerie peace in him over the matter, a silence in his head that was almost frightening after such a long time of being full to an ear-splitting din.
Perhaps it was the thought that he was going to die.
Because he was, wasn’t he?
He was going to die.
The thought was almost uplifting.
(As a suicidal minded person myself, I always think the moments before death are of immense relief, so the fact that he wakes up in his TARDIS later, still alive, must have made him more than a little angry. I think of it... like that line in Stranger than Fiction where Emma Thompson's character is describing a picture of a woman who threw herself off a building. Her body was mangled but her face was of serene peace and Thompson comments on how she must have been so happy. I am of the opinion that the Doctor is more accepting of death than Time Lords are, especially of his own, which is another thing I have a problem with in Journey's End. He of all people would have accepted his regeneration. So wtf, RTD.)
His hand hovered over the switch.
And everything ended.
… and one you don’t.
To survive.
(That last line was why I wanted to write this prompt, so it pretty much revolved around it. That line had had perfectly in my head, it was one of those lines that you write really long things just so you can stuff it in there. And this was one of those. If I was happy about nothing else in this prompt, I was happy about the way it ended. Which is sort of ironic, really. I laugh at the Doctor's pain, I suppose, but then we all do. When's he not in pain? He's very Machiavellian.
So that was my commentary for this prompt. The clamps holding you to your chairs will now release, and the doors will unlock in just a moment.)
I actually had this sifting around in my files for weeks. I knew what it was, I knew what I wanted to write for it, but all the scenes kept getting mixed up in my head because they were five little vignettes and I didn't know how to organise them and then by the end of the week I was so sick of it I just killed the Doctor off because that's how writers work. I never said I was the most creative. In fact, if you do hear me saying that, it's probably because I'm just drunk or something. Not that I get drunk very often, but when I do, I'm drunk as a cold cup of water on a hot day. Douglas Adams joke. See? Creativity? Not my strong suit.
What's this thing about? Where's my dressing gown? What, commentary? Ah crap, I'm going for a smoke.)
Five things you want to do before you die.
Five: To fall.
The planet of Avor 14 was well and very high up on the Doctor's "List of Marvellous Places to Visit But Haven't Actually Gone Yet."
I do assume the Doctor has this list written down in his head, like five places he's always trying to visit but the TARDIS always misses to get him killed on a rocky outcrop somewhere. No offence to the TARDIS of course. Please don't materialise on my head.
With the introduction of the planet's new teleportation system, which now had the added feature of not accidentally teleporting a limb or five to Avor 3, where a race of ravenous and sharp-toothed animals had been thriving for a while on the disembodied body parts, Avor 14 was now bustling with tourists and fully intact people, much to the disappointment of the now dying race of ravenous and sharp-toothed animals and their ecological and environmental supporters. (All visitors should be aware of the 'Donate a limb' bins located next to all teleport pods. Please support the Creatures of Avor 3.)
(I thought that paragraph was funny. Which is probably why no one else did.)
The system was cutting edge, all spangly and shiny and really very good looking, the sort of good looking that made one completely entranced by its shininess and spangliness. There was nothing the scientists had left out of it, although considering the several years they had devoted to the pods, the rest of the planet's technology was severely underdeveloped. This was exhibited by the fact that they were still using telegrams as a way of communication.
(This probably developed a love of the word 'spangly' in my world. Isn't that spangly? Joss Whedon, eat your heart out. I'll see your awesome dialogue and raise you 'spangly'.
I'm also a bit of a nut (walnut, specifically), so when I wrote this, I kept thinking "Well, this planet can't be ahead of all the other planets, so if their teleportation system is all awesome, then everything else must be absolutely arcane." Which is the sort of thing I need to think about to distract myself from the crap writing.)
Of course, the real reason why Avor 14 was so marvellous was not because of its teleportation systems.
It was where you teleported to.
Avor 14's air currents were unique in the entire universe in that if you dropped from an area more than fifty feet above the ground, you would fall and land safely on the planet's grass without any use of parachutes or gravity dampeners.
It was, obviously, a great deal more exciting if you dropped from much further than a hundred feet, which was what the newly updated systems were for. They were designed specifically for the purpose of teleporting you to a location in the planet's sky, at a height which you would specify, with all the price of three Altarian dollars.
(I am a complete coward in many ways, I love the idea of sky diving, but I would definitely only be able to do it if someone shoved me off of the plane, prised my fingers from the door, from the railings, from the wings, and then just crashing the craft into a mountain to get rid of me in the first place. Planets like this make me happy for a while, before realising I just made it up.)
Why he hadn't gone already was a pressing issue on his mind, especially now as he pondered the reasons and came up with no particularly good excuses. He could hardly say that he didn't have the time - he had a TARDIS. Time was one of the things he had no lack of, and if he wanted to go, why didn't he?
(*coughCausetheTARDISisabitch?cough*)
Tossing his copy of Jane Eyre onto the already overflowing table filled with Emily Dickinsons, Keatses and P.G. Wodehouses, he dashed to the console, throwing down levers and flicking switches with the practised ease of a man with an unpredictable car who knew just how to flick the gear lever to make it unstick.
(Least he doesn't have to deal with third gear.)
Charley and C'rizz certainly needed a holiday. Since their time in the Cube and their experiences with the brain worm, well... they would most definitely welcome a planet that was not immediately doomed. And since Avor 14 had such an over-abundance of visitors, C'rizz would hardly make a lasting impression or even a noticeable one. Not being stared at for once, he thought, would do wonders for the Eutermesan.
(Well, let's face it. He does kind of stand out. Even more than the Doctor and that's saying quite a lot. I always felt sorry for him in 'Other Lives'. He always has to get left behind and I hate that. Poor C'rizz.
As for the brain worm... one of these days these writers have to run out of awesome ways for the Doctor to forget what the hell is going on. But then it probably wouldn't be as funny. I always consider Eight the most forgetful, he probably woke up one morning and accidentally came out dressed as Four cause he forgot he regenerated. And one of these days, I'm going to write that crack fic.)
He grinned happily like an idiot as he watched the time rotor churn and wheeze and skipped off to find Charley and C'rizz to tell them where they were headed to next.
He stopped grinning a little while later. (This was going to be some AMAZING recurring line, but that didn't work out, cause I had problems with it. As in, making it repeat. I'm not good at that unless I'm in real life, in which case I'll repeat quotes until your head explodes.)
The planet the TARDIS landed was not Avor 14 or anywhere even close. That, at least, was clear by the spears that were jabbing into their chests as they stepped out.
***
Four: To jump.
The TARDIS rumbled and shuddered to a stop.
The planet of Jextian Beta was known for having the largest quantum trampoline in three galaxies, which was reportedly "the best fun you could have in twelve seconds without being molecularly destabilised.”
(Order today!)
Why he was here now was a bit of a mystery, however, as this was falling a little bit out of his intended target. Considering the fact that he had set the coordinates for 19th century London, a city on a planet several octoplutillion light years away from the planet he was currently on, to the house of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to give him back his stethoscope, he had a suspicious feeling something was afoot. If he had landed at his intended location, he would have popped out, given the much treasured (and very useful) object back to its proper owner and uttered incredibly witty turn of phrase like "A Doctor's not a doctor without his stethoscope."
(Reflecting my lame excuses for funny lines into the Doctor, yes?)
... Well, perhaps not that one, but something wonderfully ingenious nonetheless.
He shot a sidelong look to a metal column and sighed, turning from the door and walking back to the pale blue light of the rotor.
(My TARDIS console is better than your TARDIS console. It has wood panelling! Beat that.)
He had discovered, in what was becoming really a very long millennium of time travelling (you usually picked up a few things here and there when you were doing something for that long), that nothing was as fun or as exciting without someone there to share it with. And although he understood the old girl’s attempts to cheer him up, he simply wasn’t up to the task of trying to feel better at the moment. Maybe he’d return one day, but preferably with someone by his side.
(Oh, angst angst, Doctor is alone cause C'rizz had to go and die and Charley had to inexplicably be confusing and say she was going to leave and then stay and then get picked up by his former self. YEAH WELL HE DOESN'T NEED ANY OF YOU!)
He patted the wooden panel for a moment before restarting the dematerialisation sequence.
(Shut up, Firefox spell check. Dematerialisation is a word. Even Firefox isn't a word to your spell check! Your dictionary has some very important gaps in it, I think!)
He was sure that Arthur would welcome his stethoscope anyway.
(I assume he got caught up in some murder mystery that involved aliens, and that's why Conan Doyle was so very spiritual at the end of his life. Damn, now I want to write that too. Is that where he gets the tank in Absolution from?
Also, this thing was short. I remember hating myself for that. I wanted a lot of these little scenes to be the same size, but I couldn't add much more to this without someone for him to bounce off of or getting him drunk and drive the TARDIS into a fourth dimensional tree. I remember he had some problems with that idea.)
***
Three: To fly.
(Is a bird? Is it a plane? No! It's a can't-possibly-be-only-900-years-old Time Lord!)
The planet of Casilrian had easily manipulated gravity.
(My brain at this stage: Can't... think... of any more... planet names...)
It seemed uniquely made, tied into one’s thought patterns so that they could rise and fall, with nothing below their feet and nothing artificial as rockets or levitation beams could achieve. It felt wonderful.
(Always wanted to write a planet like this. Flying is great, but you're never really flying, are you? You're being suspended by a hunk of metal.
If there was ever a planet ever solely designed for the sole purpose of recreating the ability to fly, Casilrian was it. They had forests you could brush the treetops of, seas to skim the surface of, even mountains that seemed to specifically created so that you could get tired of climbing it in frustration and float to the top in a clear defiance of certain mountain climbing rules. Not necessarily written down ones, but just some that everyone knew.
Like, “you shall not fly to the top”.
(None of this was funny, but I remember thinking it was at the time.)
Actually, he was fairly certain that was quite a big rule. Was mountain climbing even mountain climbing if you flew it? Was that mountain flying then? Well, that couldn’t be much of a sport, could it? It hardly used any exertion at all, although, scuba diving was considered a sport sometimes, though he had yet to grasp why.
He shook his head and redirected his attention back to the console, looking up at the blue column and frowning at the way the rotors seemed to be refusing to move.
He banged his fist on the console in one quick, sharp move and they jolted into movement again.
(He was the one who started this TARDIS abuse. Just like he was the one who started random snogging-girls-against-various-things. But we still love him, yes? I'm always kind of 'whut' when he doesn't do more of it in the audios. He'll do it to Dorothy one day, I assume.)
He grinned.
(Yay smile! I hadn't listened to the New Adventures at this time, so I did slightly write this as Lucie, but not, because I didn't know what she was like. And in the New Adventures the Doctor is such a downer, I mean seriously. Any more and he'll start writing letters to Daleks about how sad he is and please won't they invade the nearest planet so he can stop them or something. In any case, I think this is just some other companion now. Blonde, probably.)
He thought, for just this moment, that life was wonderful. The flowers grew, the sun shined, the air shifted in time to the beat of a bird’s wings and it was just simply marvellous.
Death, oh yes, there was death, but it seemed to have taken a vacation as of late, leaving him with a rare sort of jubilation that was straining to burst out of his skin.
Everyone lived during their last adventure. Granted, it had been well over twelve hours ago now, but he still had some of the thrill running through his veins, his inability to sleep only strengthened by new excitement.
(Apparently according to the Gallifrey audios, Time Lords do sleep, but I feel like the Doctor just doesn't want to, because he hates not doing something for more than ten minutes, and so doesn't.)
He wasn’t quite ready for that thrum to end, and he was sure that his companion wouldn’t mind. They needed a vacation, after all, and vacations weren’t only for reliefs after traumatising experiences.
(Wait, when was this?)
A celebration, then? Well, he supposed it didn’t matter.
His good mood continued for at least ten more minutes, accentuated by him bounding around the console, flicking switches that seem to take very deep offence in being flicked. He was only stopped from his dash around the column when a thundering ringing burst loudly through the room, drowning out all other noise and making him stop in his tracks.
He looked up, wide-eyed and staring, smiling dimming and fading until there was nothing left, slowly replaced by a sombre expression of a man who knew that what lay before him was war.
(Hate this line. Could I get more cheesy? Bring me a Ritz cracker to spread me out on, please.)
He was standing motionless in the area between the console and the doorway into the halls as his companion came rushing up to him, asking him what that obnoxiously loud tolling had been.
Their next stop was not Casilrian. Their next stop was her home. And her last.
(Oh dear. Here comes the angst. And the REAL shoddy writing.
The Daleks are coming, the Daleks are coming! Go to the Citadel and hang two torches...)
***
Two: To stop.
The planet of Arcadia was the home to several thousands of humans, attracting them from all parts of the universe with amber and bronze skies.
(Ugh, I recall distantly in that part of my mind I constantly try to pry out that I agonised for a long while what the Fall of Arcadia was for this prompt. Arcadia actually is a planet referenced in Doctor Who, a human colony. I finally decided that it was in the way of the Daleks' march to Gallifrey and that the Time Lords used it as their first stand, not even bothering to evacuate the humans before beginning the war. Because they're bastards. Don't worry, Romana probably got them out before she let anything happen.)
They couldn’t have known.
He ran.
He couldn’t help it at first, his mind wasn’t functioning properly and he could barely see his hands as they frantically ran over the console, dialling somewhere, anywhere, that would get him away, to get everything to stop for just one moment.
He had always been a coward; had they expected anything less from him?
None of the proximity alarms went off, none of other TARDISes followed him, either oblivious or not caring of the one who was running from the lines.
(I have since decided that the plural of TARDIS is just TARDIS, since it is an acronym. It probably makes me a dork that I've thought too much about that.)
He crumpled to the floor when the ship came to a stop, not because of any force or turbulence of their flight, but simply because his legs were suddenly too weak to keep him upright.
He felt like a coward. He was a coward. A coward who couldn’t kill but killed anyway, a coward who fled, a coward that was too afraid to die.
Trembling, his fingers slowly scraped through his hair, or what was left of it, anyway. His once long and curly locks had since been chopped away in the first days of the War, more of a symbol than of any practical use, other than to make it less likely for it to catch on fire.
(I am firmly under the belief that Eight cut off his hair at sometime or another. I typically think it's after the war started, not as short as Nine's, but basically what Paul McGann's hair is now.)
Fire.
Burning.
Stop, stop, stop, stop.
(--in the name of love... before you break my heart.
I thought I told you lot to read this with music.)
He clasped his hands suddenly over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to drown out the sounds and the visions, as he tried to forget, to ignore the ice cold gripping of his heart that screamed coward, now louder than ever.
Rasillon, please stop.
His hands pressed into his skull and the screaming only got louder, his eyes were squeezed so tight he could no longer tell if there was anything else but the darkness behind his eyelids and the buildings that were burning in front of him.
Why was his mind telling him that his hands were wet and smelling of iron?
(Maybe you shouldn't have slipped on that iron water.)
He screamed, he screamed to block out everything else, he screamed as though he was going mad because perhaps he was, perhaps he’d always been, but then surely this would be easier.
(Ack, too much angst. I'll just say something insightful and thought provoking. Or I would. Basically for this, I just remembered a time when I was under some severe depression, to the point I couldn't eat or sleep. I screamed a lot into my pillow and it is pretty cathartic. So I did it for him.
....
Asparagus.)
When he was done, his vocal cords now worn and hoarse, there was only the sound of the TARDIS there, humming low and offering comfort he had never ever deserved.
A few minutes later, a blue box would reappear on the surface of Arcadia.
Then tomorrow, Arcadia would fall.
(... into a nice comfortable bed...)
***
One. To save them.
In the end, it all came down to him. And a switch.
He nearly laughed, bitterly and acerbically, because he had almost been expecting this. It was ironic and amusing in the face of all that was happening, and a chuckle coughed its way out of his throat.
The switch was deceivingly small. Just a small metal stub that rose out of the panel, with no signs, no abstract colouring to it. It wasn’t red, it wasn’t big, and it wasn’t threatening at all.
(I hate big red buttons. Why would they have big red buttons saying "SELF DESTRUCT"? I mean what if someone was playing football in the same room and accidentally kicked it into the button? Then where would we be!?)
Except for the fact that it would, of course, destroy his entire race.
Except for that fact, of course.
Of course.
His fists clenched and his shoulders stiffened. He wanted to go back and yell at the entire Council for making him do this. Or what was left of it anyway. Most of them had fled when the War had started.
(Aaarhg, crappy writing! By the power of Christ I compell thee! Stand back, beast!)
Why? Why? Why always him?
(Because you're oh so very pretty. Yeah, about that pageant you entered a while back, we never told you what it was for...)
He had asked that question to every one of them when they had explained their plan.
Why me?
And they said that it was because… he was the one person who they knew would do it.
The only person that they were sure would understand what needed to be done and why.
Why me.
For the price of their race, the Daleks would be destroyed. They were losing a battle, and perhaps it was time that the reign of the Time Lords ended. But if they were all to die, they could not go without at least one final act.
(I always think Romana here. I think it's very her to put the universe in front of Gallifrey. I didn't listen to the audios at this point, but dear, does it make a difference. Now that I have heard the audios, the only thing that's changed is that I now imagine Narvin there too. I adore Narvin, seriously.)
He could never save them. He could not save everyone, that was a fact of the universe that he had come to terms with that in the oh so long years that had passed. But he had assumed, foolishly, naively, childishly, that at least Gallifrey would always be there. As a constant. A home when he had no other. He had assumed that he could at least save them.
He should have known better.
(Sorry, you lose. This is a losing ticket. We apologise for any inconvenience.)
Perhaps it would be for the best, he finally concluded, as he inspected the gleaming switch.
The lights flickered suddenly and the building shuddered as the glass walls of the Citadel could be heard crashing down outside.
All this suffering would end, and the universe would go on, never knowing the meaning of the word Dalek and what it stood for. They would be stuff of fairy tales and bedtime stories, the type of things told to children to make them eat their vegetables.
(MAST-I-CATE! MAST-I-CATE!)
Everything would end. Because everything was supposed to.
Even the Time Lords.
('Damnit, we should have taken the other exit.')
There seemed to be an eerie peace in him over the matter, a silence in his head that was almost frightening after such a long time of being full to an ear-splitting din.
Perhaps it was the thought that he was going to die.
Because he was, wasn’t he?
He was going to die.
The thought was almost uplifting.
(As a suicidal minded person myself, I always think the moments before death are of immense relief, so the fact that he wakes up in his TARDIS later, still alive, must have made him more than a little angry. I think of it... like that line in Stranger than Fiction where Emma Thompson's character is describing a picture of a woman who threw herself off a building. Her body was mangled but her face was of serene peace and Thompson comments on how she must have been so happy. I am of the opinion that the Doctor is more accepting of death than Time Lords are, especially of his own, which is another thing I have a problem with in Journey's End. He of all people would have accepted his regeneration. So wtf, RTD.)
His hand hovered over the switch.
And everything ended.
… and one you don’t.
To survive.
(That last line was why I wanted to write this prompt, so it pretty much revolved around it. That line had had perfectly in my head, it was one of those lines that you write really long things just so you can stuff it in there. And this was one of those. If I was happy about nothing else in this prompt, I was happy about the way it ended. Which is sort of ironic, really. I laugh at the Doctor's pain, I suppose, but then we all do. When's he not in pain? He's very Machiavellian.
So that was my commentary for this prompt. The clamps holding you to your chairs will now release, and the doors will unlock in just a moment.)