Fic: 2 Stories for the Series: Fragments
Title: Tastes of Reality
Series: Fragments
Author: jennytork
Fandom: The Who, Doctor Who
Characters: Keith Moon, Roger Daltry, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I do not own The Who or Doctor Who
Author Note: I wish I could claim ownership to this wonderful ficlet, but it must go to Miss Enola Jones AKA jennytork. She wrote this wonderful story in a spur of the moment on aim chat while I was showing her my first story for this series. She has given me permission to post this wonderful story. Series Archive here.
Spoilers: none
Summary: How Keith Moon became Keith Moon of The Who.
It was their second gig playing together and the Who were celebrating after. Their sound was complete now. "To Keith!" Roger laughed, toasting the lanky redhead who grinned crookedly through a face full of freckles. "The Gingerbread Boy who stole our hearts!"
"Not to mention battered your only drum kit into bits," Keith retorted, his bass voice teasing and his deep blue eyes sparkling with mirth.
"Hey, we won't go there," John rumbled, making them all laugh.
The laugh lasted until the door blew open. Thinking it was their manager, nobody paid much mind.
And then they saw the gun. "What the hell..." Pete gasped.
"You!" the man yelled. "Your band.... you're fakers! You're not one of us!"
Keith looked at the man's eyes. "Oh, f***, he's so high he doesn't know what he's doing!"
But there was no time to elaborate. The man's finger started squeezing the trigger.
Keith lunged, knocking John out of the way. His deep blue eyes went huge as he felt a searing pain shoot through the lower left part of his chest.
"Oh, HELL!" John screeched. "Keith's been SHOT!"
The gunman turned the gun toward himself then, and found himself charged by Roger and Pete.
Keith toppled forward into John's arms. "Keith?" he gasped, turning him over. "Keith, hold on...”
A wan smile formed on Keith's freckled face as his eyes -- glazing and half-masted -- looked into John’s. “This....wasn't how I.... wanted to tell you."
"Tell us what?" Pete asked after he and Roger had drug the man's unconscious form -- he'd not had a chance to shoot himself, they'd overpowered him and knocked him out -- into the hallway. They were alone.
They crouched beside him. "Don’t try to talk," John said, caressing his cheek. "Don't try to talk, okay? Just breathe."
"I'll....I'll be fine, John. B-but you have to let me go."
"I'll not let you go," John snarled. "You're not goin' anywhere!"
He shook his head. "If you're.... if you're touching me.... I'll t-turn into something b-based off you."
"You're not makin' sense," Roger said.
Keith reached and took Roger's hand. He pressed it to the right side of his chest. His own chest.
Roger's eyes went huge. "........there's a heart over here!"
"Your heart's on the right side?" John asked, his hand going over the left side of Keith's chest.
"Holy flaming HELL! He's got TWO HEARTS!"
"Let... let me go."
"No," John said. "No, I won't. You're my little brother and I'm gonna take care of you."
Keith shook his head. "I'll... my race... has a way of cheating death..... It’s.... it's
happening... I'll not leave you."
"Good," they chorused.
"I just won't.... won't look like this." He winced. "My last body... my last life... oh RASSI--"
And his body convulsed, light flaring from every opening in his clothing, from his mouth and ears and eyes. His voice rose in an unearthly scream.
And -- despite having to close his eyes against the onslaught of energy -- John held on.
The light ended in a wail and the body slumped against John's chest. The only thing visible was a shock of black hair.
"....black?" Pete was the first to recover. He reached out and turned Keith's face to them.
The eyes were closed, but the features were completely different.
He was smaller and broader. More evenly proportioned. The freckles were gone. His new features held high cheekbones and a smaller mouth.
"Bloody hell," Roger breathed. "He looks a lot like you, John."
"You called him your little brother," Pete breathed. "And he BECAME your little brother."
He groaned the voice a tenor that was shocking after the deep bass they had grown used to.
Eyes so brown they were nearly black opened. And opened. And OPENED.
"Shit, I've never seen eyes so wide," Pete breathed.
Those eyes flicked to him. "....hullo," he breathed. "....m'Keith."
"Yeah," John rumbled, grinning through his tears. "We know."
End.
Title: From the Ether - Epilogue
Series: Fragments
Author: jennytork
Fandom: The Who, Doctor Who
Characters: Roger Daltry, John Entwistle, Pete Townshend, TARDIS
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I do not own The Who or Doctor Who
Author Note: I wish I could claim ownership to this wonderful ficlet, but it must go to Miss Enola Jones AKA jennytork. She wrote this wonderful story in a spur of the moment on aim chat while I was showing her my first story for this series. She has given me permission to post this wonderful story. Series Archive here.
Spoilers: none
Summary: We had just left JD and Buck to their own devices in getting to England, it’s time to take a look at the other half of the story.
One of them -- a dignified-appearing gentleman with longish silver hair -- set down his drink and without a word, headed into his private bedroom. Bypassing everything, he moved to a ceiling-high cabinet and gently laid his hand on the ornate door.
His grey eyes widened in shock.
He moved to his bedside and dialed a well-known number. "Rog? She's humming. She's waking up."
He hung up the phone and shook. He knew Roger would contact Pete and they'd be there soon. He walked over and put a hand on the doors again. "He's back, isn't he, honey? After thirty years, he's back...."
Sitting around the table half an hour later, they just stared at each other. Pete's hand kept going to the key tucked under his shirt.
They had all been his companions. More than a band, more than friends, their drummer had taken them to fantastic worlds and fantastic times. Roger still bore the scar on his belly from a caveman's spear.
They had entered his ship many times over the last thirty years. It was like he had said -- dead. Cold. Lifeless. Dormant.
Now, each of them was hesitant to enter her. Afraid of what they might or might not find.
He had said it would be, rather it was John who finally got to his feet and headed to the bedroom again. Wordlessly, they followed him to the cabinet. It looked like it always had.
Taking a deep breath, John slid the key from underneath his shirt and fitted it into the lock. A single turn and he pushed the door to the cabinet inward.
And they walked in.
"Holy HELL!" Pete gasped his eyes huge. The rondels on the walls were lit. Every one of them glowed a brilliant white.
The blue and green column in the centre of the column was lit. Her essence seemed to be - singing.
"She's awake," John whispered.
Pete turned to him and let out a wordless cry.
John turned to face him, and his eyes went huge.
Roger looked at both of them, and his jaw dropped.
They all looked thirty again.
"Oh, yeah," Roger whispered. "She's awake." They had never aged the entire time they had traveled with him. He had speculated that if they resumed their roles as companions, she would take them back down to that age so their bodies could handle the rigors of that position.
They had their proof.
They left her to her joy and found that they remained young -- till John passed by a mirror and they saw the dignified old man reflected in it. "She knows what she's doin', all right," Pete breathed. "That perception filter's workin'."
"But where IS he?" Roger asked. "Why hasn't he contacted us yet?"
It was the next morning when the reality of what had happened sank in. They'd been in a holding pattern for thirty years -- waiting for their friend to return.
Pete growled as he came down the stairs. "We nearly DIED waiting for him. He doesn't tell us JACK SHIT, just leaves a f****g NOTE."
John looked up at him. "Now, Pete--"
"Don't you 'now, Pete' me! YOU were the one who nearly didn't live to see today! If we hadn't gotten you to that f*****g doctor..."
John stood up. "Pete. That's ENOUGH."
"It's not nearly enough!" Pete roared. "It's barely BEGUN!"
Pete's mouth opened to deliver the next diatribe, when a scone was literally shoved into it and a large hand was planted in the middle of his chest, over his wildly beating heart. Without a word, blue eyes blazing, Roger used the shocking strength he'd always possessed but rarely used nowadays and bodily SHOVED Pete to sit in a chair.
"Now you listen here, you f*****g tosser," Roger snarled, hands on the table behind Pete and literally snarling inches from his face, "Keith's got every reason in the world for doing what he did, and you know it. We're all put out because we missed him for thirty years. Well, hellfire, he was on HIS LAST LIFE. There WAS no more regeneration. There WAS no more turning from tall and gangly and ginger to wide-eyed innocence and raven hair. THIS WAS IT."
"And his regeneration was de-stabilizing, remember?” John said. "That's why he aged so fast at the end. Who knows what he looks like now. Probably a decrepit old man."
"THAT'D be irony for you," Roger shot as he sank into a chair. "Us young and vital and him having to mainline Geritol."
Pete choked on the remnants of scone, laughing till tears squeezed from his eyes.
"Anyways, there's an explanation for why he hasn't gotten to us, and we'll hear it soon enough. He's not forgotten about us," John said. "He promised."
Pete looked at him. "John," he said, his voice clogged with pain. "It's been THIRTY YEARS."
John met his gaze. "He. PROMISED."
And that was that.