Fic Rec: A Time for Peace
A rec from the Teaspoon for this Easter Monday: A Time For Peace, by Frostfyre.
The author's summary:
There is a time for everything, and a season to all things under heaven. In the light of a funeral pyre, the Doctor decides the time is come for him to make peace with some ghosts of the past...
The author had me enthralled right from the prologue, as the Doctor watches the Master's body burn:
Hope is a terrible thing. The writers never tell you how much it hurts. He’d known, even as the story of a pocketwatch tumbled from Martha’s lips, he’d known who it would be, and found himself caught between a terrible fear and an equally terrible despair. Yana was a good man-if he could only persuade him to hang on to that self, to deny the other...
But hope betrayed him. And the worst thing, the most terrible irony of all, had followed. All those battles, in which they had done their best to end the other, and in the end it had been he, the eternal architect of his enemy’s defeat, begging him not to die, to survive like he always had, not to leave him alone...Hope had lived again, that maybe with time and care they could be friends as they once had been, oath-brothers and allies.
Hope died with his enemy. He was alone. He would always be alone.
And then we have the visits: so far (the story's still a WIP), Barbara, the Brigadier, Ace and Hex, and Tegan's teenage daughter. Each one beautifully and affectionately told, and with moments that will bring a lump to your throat. There's one such moment in Ace's chapter, and there's this passage in the Brigadier's:
He talks steadily for two hours, and the Brigadier listens in silence. At last the Doctor reaches the end of his tale-his confession?-when the damage of the paradox machine was undone. He winds to a halt, his throat dry. He feels...numb. Empty as the Void. After a moment he says, “Do you remember...in the old days, with UNIT, how he seemed to pop up every time we turned around? I always wondered why he was so interested in a little, out of the way world like Earth.”
“It wasn’t Earth,” says the Brigadier softly.
“No, it wasn’t. It was because of me. Because I loved-love-this planet so very much, he wanted it. He told me-he said if he couldn’t have this world, then neither could I. And do you know what the greatest irony is? The Toclafane...he was still trying to give them their Utopia. Still trying to keep them from the dark and the cold. In his own, twisted way, he was trying to save them.” He laughs, but it sounds more like a sob. “And at the end, the only way left to hurt me was to die. Him! The great survivor, who spent so many centuries and lives in a quest for immortality. And he could have had it, or something close to it-without Gallifrey and the Matrix I’m not sure we’re limited to just thirteen regenerations any more. But he wanted so badly to hurt me, to win...” His hands clench, nails digging deep into his palms, but he’s too deep to feel that small pain. “It’s my fault.” Another sob-laugh escapes him. “He’s dead, Alistair. He was my best friend, and my worst enemy. I held him, while he refused to live. He laughed to see my tears...He’s dead, Alistair. And-and I’m alone again!”
The Brigadier holds him while he weeps like a hurt child, for loss, for the shattered dreams of childhood, for madness and darkness that devour the soul. For the grief that haunts every sentient being and which cannot be escaped. But when he comes at last to the end of the tears he no longer feels numb. Instead it is the emptiness of a drained wound, the weariness that comes from absolution rather than guilt. Healing, instead of gnawing stagnation.
As the Tenth Doctor comes to the end of his life, a story like this is the perfect retrospective of the Doctor's life in its entirety. There are a few minor errors and Americanisms here and there, but these are easily ignored in favour of the quality of the writing. Highly recommended!
The author's summary:
There is a time for everything, and a season to all things under heaven. In the light of a funeral pyre, the Doctor decides the time is come for him to make peace with some ghosts of the past...
The author had me enthralled right from the prologue, as the Doctor watches the Master's body burn:
Hope is a terrible thing. The writers never tell you how much it hurts. He’d known, even as the story of a pocketwatch tumbled from Martha’s lips, he’d known who it would be, and found himself caught between a terrible fear and an equally terrible despair. Yana was a good man-if he could only persuade him to hang on to that self, to deny the other...
But hope betrayed him. And the worst thing, the most terrible irony of all, had followed. All those battles, in which they had done their best to end the other, and in the end it had been he, the eternal architect of his enemy’s defeat, begging him not to die, to survive like he always had, not to leave him alone...Hope had lived again, that maybe with time and care they could be friends as they once had been, oath-brothers and allies.
Hope died with his enemy. He was alone. He would always be alone.
And then we have the visits: so far (the story's still a WIP), Barbara, the Brigadier, Ace and Hex, and Tegan's teenage daughter. Each one beautifully and affectionately told, and with moments that will bring a lump to your throat. There's one such moment in Ace's chapter, and there's this passage in the Brigadier's:
He talks steadily for two hours, and the Brigadier listens in silence. At last the Doctor reaches the end of his tale-his confession?-when the damage of the paradox machine was undone. He winds to a halt, his throat dry. He feels...numb. Empty as the Void. After a moment he says, “Do you remember...in the old days, with UNIT, how he seemed to pop up every time we turned around? I always wondered why he was so interested in a little, out of the way world like Earth.”
“It wasn’t Earth,” says the Brigadier softly.
“No, it wasn’t. It was because of me. Because I loved-love-this planet so very much, he wanted it. He told me-he said if he couldn’t have this world, then neither could I. And do you know what the greatest irony is? The Toclafane...he was still trying to give them their Utopia. Still trying to keep them from the dark and the cold. In his own, twisted way, he was trying to save them.” He laughs, but it sounds more like a sob. “And at the end, the only way left to hurt me was to die. Him! The great survivor, who spent so many centuries and lives in a quest for immortality. And he could have had it, or something close to it-without Gallifrey and the Matrix I’m not sure we’re limited to just thirteen regenerations any more. But he wanted so badly to hurt me, to win...” His hands clench, nails digging deep into his palms, but he’s too deep to feel that small pain. “It’s my fault.” Another sob-laugh escapes him. “He’s dead, Alistair. He was my best friend, and my worst enemy. I held him, while he refused to live. He laughed to see my tears...He’s dead, Alistair. And-and I’m alone again!”
The Brigadier holds him while he weeps like a hurt child, for loss, for the shattered dreams of childhood, for madness and darkness that devour the soul. For the grief that haunts every sentient being and which cannot be escaped. But when he comes at last to the end of the tears he no longer feels numb. Instead it is the emptiness of a drained wound, the weariness that comes from absolution rather than guilt. Healing, instead of gnawing stagnation.
As the Tenth Doctor comes to the end of his life, a story like this is the perfect retrospective of the Doctor's life in its entirety. There are a few minor errors and Americanisms here and there, but these are easily ignored in favour of the quality of the writing. Highly recommended!