Infinite Haystacks (7/?)
Sorry about missing last week's post! I had some RL stuff that took up all my time, and then I got pretty sick yesterday and ended up staying an hour late at work today. It's Murphy's Law up in here right now.
I'm not incredibly pleased with this chapter. I didn't feel like I could find a good stopping place before launching into the next chapter, which really needs to stand alone. I actually had quite a bit of trouble with this chapter in general. It just didn't want to come together the way I needed it to. Next one up should be better, I promise!
As always, reviews are fed to my muse to keep her sated.
Title: Infinite Haystacks (7/?)
Author: cehlainz
Pairing: Rose/TenII
Rating: M
Spoilers/warnings: Post JE
Characters: Eleven, Jack Harkness, TenII
Word count: 1,422
Disclaimer: I own nothing. The characters and names all belong to their respective parties. Purely written for fun and personal entertainment.
Summary: There are some people the Doctor doesn't expect to see again. Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, the Meta-crisis clone of himself, to name a few. He expected them all to go on living their brilliant lives without him. He never thought he'd be called on when one of them goes missing.
The three men would have been alarmed to realize how much their thoughts echoed each other. Each was staring at the doors of the TARDIS, eyes wide and unblinking, as they pondered their lives just hours earlier. The Doctor had been happily engrossed in trying to track down new couplings for the aeromatic stabilizer drive before his TARDIS had chirped an odd noise at him. Jack had been, only hours before, sitting in a café sharing coffee with Mickey and Martha. Only the Meta-Crisis had been stewing in his worries and anxieties, a sensation not unusual for him the past week since Rose has vanished but not one he was in any way enjoying. But unlike Jack and the other him (he hated the word “originator” or “progenitor”, and while they may have originally, for a few brief minutes, been the same man all of their separate experiences since had made them undeniably different. Brother, maybe, would be the closest acceptable term) the Meta-Crisis Doctor’s mood had lifted rather than fallen at his day’s turn of events.
All three of them wanted to move, to jump to their feet and rush the doors, but none of them did. The TARDIS herself was oddly still. She seemed to be holding her breath, a ball of tenseness sitting hard in the back of three separate minds. She knew, of course, what lay beyond the doors. But She could also see all the what-ifs playing out along billions of possible timelines and She worried that her boys (She hummed a bit to herself at that, it had been too long since She’d had such a lovely brood of boys under her care) might not be able to perfectly grasp the one time line that ensured everyone had a happy ending. She could see a number of futures where this rescue mission didn’t succeed, and She could feel herself sitting on a street corner in London in the 21st century, quietly gathering dust - a monument for the Doctor who had died and the Doctor who had never existed. She could also feel herself full to bursting as She hadn’t been since the last day all her boys had stood together. Another timeline, another result, with her two Thieves, her Captain, and her Wolf standing together with their hands on her controls. She watched anxiously. The next move, the next man who spoke, the words he said, and the actions that accompanied them would kill some of the possible time lines, and branch into new ones.
“Yes. Well, good.” The Doctor said, breaking the silence, “We’ve landed. Not sure where, or when, but we have. And we’re hoping Rose will be here. Not too far away, I’d hazard. The TARDIS would have been drawn as close to Rose’s energy signature as possible.”
“Perfect,” the Meta-Crisis crowed, climbing to his feet, his travel sickness abating in a fresh surge of adrenaline.
“Doctor,” Jack said suddenly, and both men turned to face him. “Yeah, see, this might be a problem.”
Both Doctors glanced at each other. They didn’t need Jack to elaborate; they already knew the problem they faced. It was something they hadn’t discussed, hadn’t needed to. They knew that referring to each other and themselves would be a grammatical embarrassment, and could raise conflicts of identity. They had hoped that Jack would let them sweep it under the rug and they could skulk around the issue, but weren’t surprised he hadn’t let it lie.
“I understand that you’re both the Doctor, and I wouldn’t bring it up if I didn’t foresee a problem. One guy claiming it’s ‘just the Doctor’, while odd, could pass. But never two. I’ll need something. I could give you nicknames,” he said with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows. “But I have a feeling as cute as the two of you blushing and stuttering would be, now’s not really the time to try that out.”
The Doctor slicked a hand back through his hair awkwardly. He glanced at his clone out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t say anything. He understood better than anyone the importance of identity, of a name. He knew that the man standing beside him, looking like a delayed reflection, was both himself and someone else entirely. But that man identified himself as the Doctor, because he was. And he, the last true Time Lord of Gallifrey, would never ask that this other him be denied his identity. He might not be a good man, but neither was he cruel.
“Jack --” he began, deciding to tell the man to leave it be.
“James,” the Meta-Crisis interrupted. He pulled on his earlobe, cutting his eyes to the side. “You can call me James. I respond well enough to it, big Time Lord brain and all. If it makes you feel better.”
“James,” Jack said, rolling it around in his mouth as though he hadn’t already heard the Doctor refer to his clone in the same way. “James, John, and Jack. We could be a boy band.”
James rolled his eyes, but the Doctor looked at Jack seriously and replied “Only if I get to be the drummer.”
“All right, yes yes, we’re all possessive of names that aren’t really ours that start with ‘J’, can we go now?” James moved his arms in a wide, sideways gesture toward the door, eyebrows raised. The three stood looking at each other for a split second before James simply dashed towards the doors.
“Wait-“ The Doctor started, a finger pointing to the viewing screen, but cut himself off with a sigh as James glanced back over his shoulder with a mischievous grin. In a blink James was out the door of the TARDIS, leaving Jack and the Doctor looking after him bemusedly.
“Would it be giving him too much of the benefit of the doubt to assume he calculated the risks before just jumping out?”
“Probably.”
Jack laughed and ran his thumbs under his suspenders, releasing them with a snap before the two made their way to the doors. They glanced momentarily at each other before stepping out into ---
“London.” Jack said flatly. The Doctor couldn’t argue, glancing around the dark streets. The streets and buildings, even the smell of the air, all screamed 21st century London. They seemed to have parked close to a club, judging by the thumping bass echoing down the alley the TARDIS had settled in.
“Well,” the Doctor said judiciously. “I wasn’t quite expecting that. We were just here, weren’t we? Just a bit,” he spun in a circle, his short coat-tails flaring out behind him, “that way?”
“Why would the TARDIS make all that fuss just to put us back down in London? Was it just because of pulling James through?”
“Maybe,” the Doctor mused, pulling his screwdriver out and walking toward the opening of the alley. He was intent on the readings he was getting. They were odd. And a glance back at the TARDIS showed that her lights were a bit dimmer than normal. She’d tired herself out doing something.
“James,” the Doctor called, raising his voice just enough to carry. He assumed that his (twin? Clone? Son? No, definitely not son. And twin wasn’t quite right. Brother, maybe. That was the closest he could approximate) was within shouting distance. He hadn’t gone out much earlier than the Doctor and Jack had, and he would have just as quickly realized they were in London. “James, what do you make of this?”
“Uh, Doc, I don’t think he stuck around.”
The Doctor huffed and stomped to the end of the alley, looking both left and right onto the main sidewalk. “They never listen! Rule number one, don’t wander off! You’d think he of all people would remember that!”
“Well,” Jack drawled. “You have a tendency to wander wherever you want. Did you really think he’d be any different?”
The Doctor paused, before grimacing. “Touché,” he muttered. He would absolutely have to remember that James wasn’t a companion; he was The Doctor, 2.0 as it were. He would operate in the same way that The Doctor, with both his original hearts, would operate. And he couldn’t treat him any differently than he could honestly want to be treated were their situations reversed.
one, two, three, four, five, six
I'm not incredibly pleased with this chapter. I didn't feel like I could find a good stopping place before launching into the next chapter, which really needs to stand alone. I actually had quite a bit of trouble with this chapter in general. It just didn't want to come together the way I needed it to. Next one up should be better, I promise!
As always, reviews are fed to my muse to keep her sated.
Title: Infinite Haystacks (7/?)
Author: cehlainz
Pairing: Rose/TenII
Rating: M
Spoilers/warnings: Post JE
Characters: Eleven, Jack Harkness, TenII
Word count: 1,422
Disclaimer: I own nothing. The characters and names all belong to their respective parties. Purely written for fun and personal entertainment.
Summary: There are some people the Doctor doesn't expect to see again. Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, the Meta-crisis clone of himself, to name a few. He expected them all to go on living their brilliant lives without him. He never thought he'd be called on when one of them goes missing.
The three men would have been alarmed to realize how much their thoughts echoed each other. Each was staring at the doors of the TARDIS, eyes wide and unblinking, as they pondered their lives just hours earlier. The Doctor had been happily engrossed in trying to track down new couplings for the aeromatic stabilizer drive before his TARDIS had chirped an odd noise at him. Jack had been, only hours before, sitting in a café sharing coffee with Mickey and Martha. Only the Meta-Crisis had been stewing in his worries and anxieties, a sensation not unusual for him the past week since Rose has vanished but not one he was in any way enjoying. But unlike Jack and the other him (he hated the word “originator” or “progenitor”, and while they may have originally, for a few brief minutes, been the same man all of their separate experiences since had made them undeniably different. Brother, maybe, would be the closest acceptable term) the Meta-Crisis Doctor’s mood had lifted rather than fallen at his day’s turn of events.
All three of them wanted to move, to jump to their feet and rush the doors, but none of them did. The TARDIS herself was oddly still. She seemed to be holding her breath, a ball of tenseness sitting hard in the back of three separate minds. She knew, of course, what lay beyond the doors. But She could also see all the what-ifs playing out along billions of possible timelines and She worried that her boys (She hummed a bit to herself at that, it had been too long since She’d had such a lovely brood of boys under her care) might not be able to perfectly grasp the one time line that ensured everyone had a happy ending. She could see a number of futures where this rescue mission didn’t succeed, and She could feel herself sitting on a street corner in London in the 21st century, quietly gathering dust - a monument for the Doctor who had died and the Doctor who had never existed. She could also feel herself full to bursting as She hadn’t been since the last day all her boys had stood together. Another timeline, another result, with her two Thieves, her Captain, and her Wolf standing together with their hands on her controls. She watched anxiously. The next move, the next man who spoke, the words he said, and the actions that accompanied them would kill some of the possible time lines, and branch into new ones.
“Yes. Well, good.” The Doctor said, breaking the silence, “We’ve landed. Not sure where, or when, but we have. And we’re hoping Rose will be here. Not too far away, I’d hazard. The TARDIS would have been drawn as close to Rose’s energy signature as possible.”
“Perfect,” the Meta-Crisis crowed, climbing to his feet, his travel sickness abating in a fresh surge of adrenaline.
“Doctor,” Jack said suddenly, and both men turned to face him. “Yeah, see, this might be a problem.”
Both Doctors glanced at each other. They didn’t need Jack to elaborate; they already knew the problem they faced. It was something they hadn’t discussed, hadn’t needed to. They knew that referring to each other and themselves would be a grammatical embarrassment, and could raise conflicts of identity. They had hoped that Jack would let them sweep it under the rug and they could skulk around the issue, but weren’t surprised he hadn’t let it lie.
“I understand that you’re both the Doctor, and I wouldn’t bring it up if I didn’t foresee a problem. One guy claiming it’s ‘just the Doctor’, while odd, could pass. But never two. I’ll need something. I could give you nicknames,” he said with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows. “But I have a feeling as cute as the two of you blushing and stuttering would be, now’s not really the time to try that out.”
The Doctor slicked a hand back through his hair awkwardly. He glanced at his clone out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t say anything. He understood better than anyone the importance of identity, of a name. He knew that the man standing beside him, looking like a delayed reflection, was both himself and someone else entirely. But that man identified himself as the Doctor, because he was. And he, the last true Time Lord of Gallifrey, would never ask that this other him be denied his identity. He might not be a good man, but neither was he cruel.
“Jack --” he began, deciding to tell the man to leave it be.
“James,” the Meta-Crisis interrupted. He pulled on his earlobe, cutting his eyes to the side. “You can call me James. I respond well enough to it, big Time Lord brain and all. If it makes you feel better.”
“James,” Jack said, rolling it around in his mouth as though he hadn’t already heard the Doctor refer to his clone in the same way. “James, John, and Jack. We could be a boy band.”
James rolled his eyes, but the Doctor looked at Jack seriously and replied “Only if I get to be the drummer.”
“All right, yes yes, we’re all possessive of names that aren’t really ours that start with ‘J’, can we go now?” James moved his arms in a wide, sideways gesture toward the door, eyebrows raised. The three stood looking at each other for a split second before James simply dashed towards the doors.
“Wait-“ The Doctor started, a finger pointing to the viewing screen, but cut himself off with a sigh as James glanced back over his shoulder with a mischievous grin. In a blink James was out the door of the TARDIS, leaving Jack and the Doctor looking after him bemusedly.
“Would it be giving him too much of the benefit of the doubt to assume he calculated the risks before just jumping out?”
“Probably.”
Jack laughed and ran his thumbs under his suspenders, releasing them with a snap before the two made their way to the doors. They glanced momentarily at each other before stepping out into ---
“London.” Jack said flatly. The Doctor couldn’t argue, glancing around the dark streets. The streets and buildings, even the smell of the air, all screamed 21st century London. They seemed to have parked close to a club, judging by the thumping bass echoing down the alley the TARDIS had settled in.
“Well,” the Doctor said judiciously. “I wasn’t quite expecting that. We were just here, weren’t we? Just a bit,” he spun in a circle, his short coat-tails flaring out behind him, “that way?”
“Why would the TARDIS make all that fuss just to put us back down in London? Was it just because of pulling James through?”
“Maybe,” the Doctor mused, pulling his screwdriver out and walking toward the opening of the alley. He was intent on the readings he was getting. They were odd. And a glance back at the TARDIS showed that her lights were a bit dimmer than normal. She’d tired herself out doing something.
“James,” the Doctor called, raising his voice just enough to carry. He assumed that his (twin? Clone? Son? No, definitely not son. And twin wasn’t quite right. Brother, maybe. That was the closest he could approximate) was within shouting distance. He hadn’t gone out much earlier than the Doctor and Jack had, and he would have just as quickly realized they were in London. “James, what do you make of this?”
“Uh, Doc, I don’t think he stuck around.”
The Doctor huffed and stomped to the end of the alley, looking both left and right onto the main sidewalk. “They never listen! Rule number one, don’t wander off! You’d think he of all people would remember that!”
“Well,” Jack drawled. “You have a tendency to wander wherever you want. Did you really think he’d be any different?”
The Doctor paused, before grimacing. “Touché,” he muttered. He would absolutely have to remember that James wasn’t a companion; he was The Doctor, 2.0 as it were. He would operate in the same way that The Doctor, with both his original hearts, would operate. And he couldn’t treat him any differently than he could honestly want to be treated were their situations reversed.
one, two, three, four, five, six