"There was an accident with a contraceptive and a time machine."
I’m not usually much for cracked-out theories, but I’ve seen this one floating around and it’s exactly my particular flavor of twisted.
Yet another ABC Ficlet. Specific spoilers for ‘The Parting of the Ways’ and vague spoilers beyond that:
Momentous
He's looking at her like she's a revelation. She’s seen that look before, but she’s not allowed to remember it.
She closes her eyes and says it again, "It's not your fault."
He isn’t even listening. He just says, “You sound like…”
He breaks off and continues to stare.
"It isn't your fault” she continues. “You don't lie, you just... make promises you can't keep."
And somewhere very deep in her memory, she can hear her mother saying the exact same thing. Now, as then, the man in question doesn’t really hear. He’s too busy in his own head, which happens often. He’s realized something and it’s probably something universe-shaking and important, which is why she lets it go.
She begins to suspect, though, as time goes on, that maybe it’s something a little more personal, after all. Then again, with the Doctor, the personal, more often than not, is universal. Or, at least, very, very big.
He talks to himself. He always has, but now she listens. He’s leaning against the console when she stops to listen this time. He laughs, high and nervous, running a hand through his hair. He’s muttering to himself, a little manic, “Everyone eventually turns into their parents. Just usually not literally.”
“What are you talking about?” It’s the first time she’s asked.
"You wouldn't understand," he protests, turning his face away from her.
But maybe she does. There's a blank space in her head where he lives; a burning blackness where she keeps his life and death.
Maybe she doesn't remember all the details, but, somewhere deep down, she does understand. He’s a part of her, in her flesh and in her head, and for the first time ever she wants to be free of him - just as its beginning to occur to her that she might never be.
She begins to put the pieces together when they find themselves back in 1987. Same time, slightly different place. He won’t tell her why they’re there, but she can see that he’s testing the world for weaknesses, checking for cracks in the foundation. He’s trying to figure out if this is where it all went wrong.
She doesn’t point out that, if it is, they’re probably just making it worse by being there again. Instead, she makes him take her somewhere else, and the next place they go she lets herself get captured by interstellar slave traders.
When he rescues her (he always rescues her), he grips her chin in one hand and looks at her with something like accusation on his face.
“I’ve risked worlds for you,” he says, a little too intensely.
There isn’t a little boy born who wouldn’t tear the world apart to save his mummy.
She takes a sudden step back from him, and he drops his hand to his side.
Once they’re safely away, it takes three glasses of some odd-tasting, alien wine before she can get to sleep that night. She doesn’t sleep much, anyway, mostly because he doesn’t. She sits up with him long into the night that isn’t night. But when she does sleep she remembers this much:
There were lights behind her eyes, and voices in her head: his/not his, hers/not hers and something else all together.
I am the Bad Wolf; I create myself. I create the one who is, but who is still yet to be.
She’s the sun, chased by wolves and devoured into night. She is the wolf, the mother, giver of life. She can feel Jack’s breath in her lungs.
She wakes up with a gasp, to find the Doctor lying beside her. He’s never done that before; he’s never even come into her room without asking first. He’s lying on top of the blankets, wide awake and watching her.
“You want to know,” he says. It isn’t quite a question. “’You want to know what I know, and I don’t want to tell you.”
“I already know-“
He kisses her then, but she pulls away.
“This has already happened,” he says, his pupils wide and dilated. He dips his head toward her again and tangles his fingers in her hair. “This has all already happened, and it will happen again.”
“What if I don’t want it to?” The words surprise her almost as much as they surprise him.
“Would you really change everything? Would you really do that to me?”
She might. She considers it.
“It’s too much. You shouldn’t want me to do this.”
But he does, and she can see it all clearly now: everything he is and was and will be. for livii
Yet another ABC Ficlet. Specific spoilers for ‘The Parting of the Ways’ and vague spoilers beyond that:
Momentous
He's looking at her like she's a revelation. She’s seen that look before, but she’s not allowed to remember it.
She closes her eyes and says it again, "It's not your fault."
He isn’t even listening. He just says, “You sound like…”
He breaks off and continues to stare.
"It isn't your fault” she continues. “You don't lie, you just... make promises you can't keep."
And somewhere very deep in her memory, she can hear her mother saying the exact same thing. Now, as then, the man in question doesn’t really hear. He’s too busy in his own head, which happens often. He’s realized something and it’s probably something universe-shaking and important, which is why she lets it go.
She begins to suspect, though, as time goes on, that maybe it’s something a little more personal, after all. Then again, with the Doctor, the personal, more often than not, is universal. Or, at least, very, very big.
He talks to himself. He always has, but now she listens. He’s leaning against the console when she stops to listen this time. He laughs, high and nervous, running a hand through his hair. He’s muttering to himself, a little manic, “Everyone eventually turns into their parents. Just usually not literally.”
“What are you talking about?” It’s the first time she’s asked.
"You wouldn't understand," he protests, turning his face away from her.
But maybe she does. There's a blank space in her head where he lives; a burning blackness where she keeps his life and death.
Maybe she doesn't remember all the details, but, somewhere deep down, she does understand. He’s a part of her, in her flesh and in her head, and for the first time ever she wants to be free of him - just as its beginning to occur to her that she might never be.
She begins to put the pieces together when they find themselves back in 1987. Same time, slightly different place. He won’t tell her why they’re there, but she can see that he’s testing the world for weaknesses, checking for cracks in the foundation. He’s trying to figure out if this is where it all went wrong.
She doesn’t point out that, if it is, they’re probably just making it worse by being there again. Instead, she makes him take her somewhere else, and the next place they go she lets herself get captured by interstellar slave traders.
When he rescues her (he always rescues her), he grips her chin in one hand and looks at her with something like accusation on his face.
“I’ve risked worlds for you,” he says, a little too intensely.
There isn’t a little boy born who wouldn’t tear the world apart to save his mummy.
She takes a sudden step back from him, and he drops his hand to his side.
Once they’re safely away, it takes three glasses of some odd-tasting, alien wine before she can get to sleep that night. She doesn’t sleep much, anyway, mostly because he doesn’t. She sits up with him long into the night that isn’t night. But when she does sleep she remembers this much:
There were lights behind her eyes, and voices in her head: his/not his, hers/not hers and something else all together.
I am the Bad Wolf; I create myself. I create the one who is, but who is still yet to be.
She’s the sun, chased by wolves and devoured into night. She is the wolf, the mother, giver of life. She can feel Jack’s breath in her lungs.
She wakes up with a gasp, to find the Doctor lying beside her. He’s never done that before; he’s never even come into her room without asking first. He’s lying on top of the blankets, wide awake and watching her.
“You want to know,” he says. It isn’t quite a question. “’You want to know what I know, and I don’t want to tell you.”
“I already know-“
He kisses her then, but she pulls away.
“This has already happened,” he says, his pupils wide and dilated. He dips his head toward her again and tangles his fingers in her hair. “This has all already happened, and it will happen again.”
“What if I don’t want it to?” The words surprise her almost as much as they surprise him.
“Would you really change everything? Would you really do that to me?”
She might. She considers it.
“It’s too much. You shouldn’t want me to do this.”
But he does, and she can see it all clearly now: everything he is and was and will be. for livii