Children of Time Awards, Part Eight
As you know, the Children of Time awards are up for voting. And as there's so many fics up in each category - and only one vote per category, I'm going through the fics in a mad attempt to figure out how on earth I should vote.
I figured my notes might come in handy to the rest of you.
In Part One, I reviewed Chaos Theory, Six Stages, and Not One Line.
In Part Two, I reviewed The Devil You Know, Wolf Moon, Dulce et Decorum Est, and Passing Notes.
In Part Three, I reviewed Non-Linear Love Story, And So Things Go, and What Doesn't Kill You.
In Part Four, I reviewed You That Way, We This Way, Human Nature, Teach Me More, Coming Around, and Passing the Torch.
In Part Five, I reviewed I Had No Idea I Had Been Traveling (series), 9.8 Metres Per Second Squared, First and Last, and Tender Moments That Don't Last.
In Part Six, I reviewed 7 Words and a Metaphor, Illyria (series), and The Unsexy Sex.
In Part Seven, I reviewed The Bliss series, The Doctor Got Abducted, Ulysses, and There is No Peace That I've Found So Far.
Today I'll review:
To An Outsider's Eye by hippiebanana
A Thousand Languages by madlori
Dancing Bananas by time_converges
Autumn Days That Make You Feel Sad by starletfallen
Therefore, without further ado:
Why You Should Vote For This Fic:
To An Outsider's Eye by hippiebanana132
Characters: Jackie, Rose, Ten
Rating: PG
Details: one-shot, Jackie's POV, concurrent with S2
Why It Rocks:
For the past few seasons, Hippie took on a seemingly gargantuan task: write a Doctor/Rose story for every episode aired. The result was two sets of Doctor/Rose one-shots - mostly unconnected with each other, but each in some way reflecting the episode with which it was paired.
To An Outsider's Eye was written after Midnight - and really, you should start to pick up on the connection just by the title alone. Midnight, after all, is about how the Doctor is seen by those around him, particularly without a human companion to temper him. To An Outsider's Eye is about how Jackie sees the relationship between the Doctor and her daughter.
What's interesting, however, is that it's less about how the Doctor feels for Rose - which is painfully clear, even to Jackie, who is undeniably biased - than it is about Rose learning to accept/love him. Right from the start, Jackie sees that the Doctor, even with a changed face, loves her daughter:
She sees the look on his face, sees him smiling at Rose as she puts on a paper hat from their cracker, sees her watching him as he dons glasses for the first time. For a moment, she looks hurt, confused; she bites her lip before walking up to him, stopping just short of touching like she’s not sure where their boundaries lie anymore.
Just as in Midnight, we see how the Doctor is perceived - except in this story, it's not Jackie whose perception of the Doctor is the focus: it's Rose's perception which is important.
Rose's feelings for the Doctor are pretty much straightforward - at least, as far as Jackie sees them. Girl loves Doctor, Doctor changes, Girl struggles with new Doctor. Girl learns to trust Doctor again. Old story, often told. But seeing it from Jackie's POV - and in the snippets she's allowed in which to observe them - is a slightly different light. Jackie, after all, couldn't care less about how the Doctor fits into the equation. She's much more concerned about Rose.
You have to assume that Jackie knows Rose best. I mean, think about it: your parents get to see just about every aspect of your life as you're growing up, and until this point, there was very little life that Rose had led without her mother over her shoulder. (Jimmy Stone notwithstanding, because even then, Jackie was able to see, if not participate.) But like a child going off to college, there are parts of Rose's life that Jackie no longer is able to recognize and identify. Watching your child in love for the first time (and I mean real love, not Jimmy Stone love), is probably extremely unsettling for a parent. Heartening, in its own way, because it's a good thing to see, but most likely absolutely terrifying, because now there's a whole new way for your child to be hurt.
He’s from outer space and she is a human girl from London. They are worlds apart, but sometimes she gets that feeling about them that she gets when she rewatches Bridget Jones or thinks about her own husband: they fit.
Does Jackie actually believe her daughter and her Doctor are a couple? Well.....yes and no. She's still trying to figure it out. And while Rose is trying to decide how she feels about the Doctor, Jackie is doing the same.
They can’t be a couple. They don’t even fight.
In short, vote for To An Outsider's Eye. It's poetic and finely-tuned. It works on a few different levels. It's voyeurism without the squick, and has several lovely illustrated-with-words images that will burn into your memory. It's got coats and fireworks and Christmas twice over, and it absolutely deserves your vote.
*
A Thousand Languages by madlori
Characters: Ten, Rose
Rating: PG-13
Details: one-shot, married!fic, AU in a world where Doomsday didn't happen, Rose's POV
Why It Rocks:
The problem with starting up an Award system like this, after so many years of fic, is that there's always the chance that some older fic will be lost in the shuffle. But somehow, some brilliant person remembered this, and we get to savor it over two years later.
(Yeah, I know, two years isn't that long. But that still makes this among the oldest of the fics nominated.)
The fic centers on what Rose thought might be true about life with the Doctor, but isn't necessarily so - and specifically, what she thinks about what is coming in their relationship. However, nothing quite goes the way she thinks it will - but since when does life follow what we know ought to happen? Rose has spent two years following the Doctor; she never realizes that this particular issue would be up to her.
He straightened up and plucked her hand from his face to hold it to his chest. How long they just stood there looking, she’d never know.
Finally he spoke. “Is it time?”
Time. Imagine the Time Lord asking her about time. But this was a question that only she could answer.
Ah, lovely pre-Doomsday days....(this fic predates it by about two months)....when we were all happy and cheerful and thought the Doctor and Rose would be together forever. Remember those days? Those were good days. I wasn't part of the fandom then, but I suspect that angst was not something authors had to deal with on a regular basis (whereas now, we have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner).
This fic, however, has a bit of that darkness, in the form of loss. Rose, though she's gained her Doctor, loses her preconceived notions about what life is like with him. (And I don't mean that life is bad with him - it isn't. But it's not what she expected.) Of course, married life never really is what you'd expect, and this is a sort of marriage Rose can't quite comprehend. Nor is it one she can quite put into words:
What she doesn’t say is that she’s happy in a way that can’t be talked about, she loves him in a way that can’t be said out loud, and her life rolls on without comment or description because it doesn’t fit inside words, none of it does. She just puts her head on her mother’s shoulder, feeling that she’s made it smaller by saying even that much; then she sees him watching them through the doorway, and in his eyes she feels it grow too large again, and she says nothing more.
The Doctor and Rose's relationship, after all, is built partially on things not said: the Doctor never tells her about Gallifrey, about regeneration (before it happens), about Jack being a fixed point in time. The Doctor tells Rose stories, but they're just a cover for what is really said between them. Nothing is ever really spoken aloud, except in reference to something else.
And Rose has her secrets, too. One day, left in London while the Doctor is on a solitary trip, she's visited by Thirteen - and while with him, witnesses his death. Not his regeneration, though she hoped - but his actual factual death. But even this isn't quite what Rose envisioned, because afterward, she is taken home again, and a few days later, her Doctor returns, brilliant and exuberant and alive. Rose might not know how exactly their life together will go, but she seems to be the constant for him. He'll always return to her - will always return to her, actually, in his future and her past. (Oh, the timey-whimey of it!)
But he is everywhere. At this moment, even as he dies, some version of him is somewhere doing what he does. It will be so tomorrow, and the day after that, and until the end of all things. She thinks of him at the end of Time, sure that he is there, seeing that it all goes off according to plan. She thinks of him at the beginning of Time, watching as the universe that he will guard, shape and guide is born. Of all that has ever existed, he is the only constant, and his death is irrelevant.
In short, vote for A Thousand Languages. It's short, it's brilliant, it's angsty in all-too familiar ways. It's got shaving and ice cream and rings and funeral pyres, and other Doctors popping up in just the right spots. It's well-worth the trip down memory lane, and it's not at all what you expect - but it is worth your vote.
*
Dancing Bananas by time_converges Link goes to Teaspoon
Characters: Ten, Donna
Rating: PG
Details: very short one-shot (about 400 words)
Why It Rocks:
One of the reasons I love the character of Donna Noble is that she didn't really take the Doctor seriously. I mean, she did take the things he did seriously, and the places he showed her, and she certainly was aware that life on the TARDIS was a dangerous thing. But the Doctor himself? Basically, Donna saw him as a great big goof.
This fic is no different. In less than 400 words, T-C has shown us exactly what a typical exchange between Donna and the Doctor must have been - well, perhaps not typical, because I doubt that Donna barged in on the Doctor while he was getting dressed every morning. But had she done, this would have been her reaction: which is to say, none.
“Good morning! Don’t mind me, just need your hairdryer,” she said, heading for his dresser.
The Doctor stood, frozen in place, one leg in his trousers, his dancing banana boxers on full display. “Don’t you knock?”
Any other companion, upon finding the Doctor with his trousers around his ankles, would have stammered and stuttered and been frozen into place. Not Donna. She has a goal - the hairdryer - and she doesn't waver. She doesn't even comment on the boxers - and T-C is smart enough to realize that we're all grinning like banshees about them anyway.
Then, there really isn't anything to be said about dancing banana boxers. (Except, perhaps, if anyone knows where I can buy my husband a pair.)
What's exceptionally wonderful about this ficlet is that Donna is so perfectly comfortable, and unconcerned about having walked in on the Doctor - but the Doctor is so disconcerted that he can barely speak. And just when he thinks he's safe - Donna returns, with her only real dig of the story, and it's far from the dig you'd expect.
(As in, not about the boxers. Or what they contain.)
In short - because heaven forbid my review be longer than the fic - vote for Dancing Bananas. It's got bananas, and boxers, and hat boxes, and the TARDIS stealing things, and Donna just generally being brilliant. It's got dancing of an entirely different nature, and it absolutely deserves your vote.
*
Autumn Days That Make You Feel Sad by starletfallen
Characters: The Doctor, Donna
Rating: PG
Details: one-shot, post-JE but vaguely AU as well. Written for the still_brilliant Donnathon, which is an awesome name for a challenge involving Donna, if you ask me.
Why It Rocks:
Confession: I read this fic about a week ago, and did not review it at the time. Actually, there's a couple I've read, and haven't reviewed yet, because I couldn't figure out how, exactly.
And then today, I clicked on this link, looking for another fic to wrap up this morning's post.
And then...I just...got it. You know? Weird like that. But for some reason, today, this resonated with me. So here we go.
At the very end of JE, Donna knows what is happening to her - and worse, she knows what is going to happen. It's probably one of the most painful bits of that episode, is watching the Doctor take Donna's memories away, in order to save her. It's an act of sacrifice on his part that in a very real way, has got to hurt far worse than locking Rose in the other universe, because at least he can content himself that Rose has Alt!Ten. Donna won't have anything.
Actually, what Donna won't have, is the Doctor removing what she's only been so recently gifted.
He didn't change anything. He didn't erase anything, or lock anything away. Oh, if she'd had a human brain, or the brain of almost any other species in the universe, she would've well and truly forgotten him, but he hadn't taken into account the fact that while her body is still (plain, boring, mediocre, not-too-bright, but good with numbers, for a girl who never got her A-levels, and isn't that a plus?) human, her mind isn't.
Donna, of course, knows her time is short, and plays along. She pretends disinterest in Mr. Smith, she talks with her girlfriend on her mobile, and when the coast is clear - she runs. She doesn't know where, or why, but only that in moment, it's all going to end. She'll burn, and she doesn't have time to spare on the pleasantries. The most important thing Donna has learned is the larger picture - it's more important that the Doctor believe she is alive and well than it is for her to gain any comfort by saying goodbye. It's more important that she simply disappear, than it is to have a proper farewell.
And so, Donna runs.
This won't be the first time she's sacrificed her life for the sake of others. It's almost easier this time, since she knows she won't live anyway.
But this is the lovely thing - it's not over. She runs - straight to him. But not the Doctor we know. This Doctor is older, calmer, and there are deep reserves of strength in him now that she doesn't remember being there before.
Donna's story has to end - and in a way, Donna's story does, on a busy street in London. But it also keeps going, in a different form, with a different Doctor. Much how in A Thousand Languages, Rose realizes that the Doctor is eternal --- Donna is eternal too. Somewhere out there, we've got Donna, even if it's not quite the Donna we recognize.
In short, vote for Autumn Days That Make You Feel Sad. It's a quiet look at Donna's frantic last thoughts. It's sweetly sad and golden, and it has the right sort of bittersweet ending. It's got an Irish brogue and golden fire, and it very much deserves your vote.
*
On to Part Nine, where I review:
Aftermaths by Kaethel
Don't Ask, Don't Tell by Wendymr
Contagious by shining-moment
That Quiet Part by dave7
More than an Echo by samfeasor
That'll do for this morning, I think - I may have another installment up tonight. If not, there should be one in the morning.
Also, I just did a quick count. I have 57 stories left to read. And ten days in which to do it. This should be interesting.
I figured my notes might come in handy to the rest of you.
In Part One, I reviewed Chaos Theory, Six Stages, and Not One Line.
In Part Two, I reviewed The Devil You Know, Wolf Moon, Dulce et Decorum Est, and Passing Notes.
In Part Three, I reviewed Non-Linear Love Story, And So Things Go, and What Doesn't Kill You.
In Part Four, I reviewed You That Way, We This Way, Human Nature, Teach Me More, Coming Around, and Passing the Torch.
In Part Five, I reviewed I Had No Idea I Had Been Traveling (series), 9.8 Metres Per Second Squared, First and Last, and Tender Moments That Don't Last.
In Part Six, I reviewed 7 Words and a Metaphor, Illyria (series), and The Unsexy Sex.
In Part Seven, I reviewed The Bliss series, The Doctor Got Abducted, Ulysses, and There is No Peace That I've Found So Far.
Today I'll review:
To An Outsider's Eye by hippiebanana
A Thousand Languages by madlori
Dancing Bananas by time_converges
Autumn Days That Make You Feel Sad by starletfallen
Therefore, without further ado:
Why You Should Vote For This Fic:
To An Outsider's Eye by hippiebanana132
Characters: Jackie, Rose, Ten
Rating: PG
Details: one-shot, Jackie's POV, concurrent with S2
Why It Rocks:
For the past few seasons, Hippie took on a seemingly gargantuan task: write a Doctor/Rose story for every episode aired. The result was two sets of Doctor/Rose one-shots - mostly unconnected with each other, but each in some way reflecting the episode with which it was paired.
To An Outsider's Eye was written after Midnight - and really, you should start to pick up on the connection just by the title alone. Midnight, after all, is about how the Doctor is seen by those around him, particularly without a human companion to temper him. To An Outsider's Eye is about how Jackie sees the relationship between the Doctor and her daughter.
What's interesting, however, is that it's less about how the Doctor feels for Rose - which is painfully clear, even to Jackie, who is undeniably biased - than it is about Rose learning to accept/love him. Right from the start, Jackie sees that the Doctor, even with a changed face, loves her daughter:
She sees the look on his face, sees him smiling at Rose as she puts on a paper hat from their cracker, sees her watching him as he dons glasses for the first time. For a moment, she looks hurt, confused; she bites her lip before walking up to him, stopping just short of touching like she’s not sure where their boundaries lie anymore.
Just as in Midnight, we see how the Doctor is perceived - except in this story, it's not Jackie whose perception of the Doctor is the focus: it's Rose's perception which is important.
Rose's feelings for the Doctor are pretty much straightforward - at least, as far as Jackie sees them. Girl loves Doctor, Doctor changes, Girl struggles with new Doctor. Girl learns to trust Doctor again. Old story, often told. But seeing it from Jackie's POV - and in the snippets she's allowed in which to observe them - is a slightly different light. Jackie, after all, couldn't care less about how the Doctor fits into the equation. She's much more concerned about Rose.
You have to assume that Jackie knows Rose best. I mean, think about it: your parents get to see just about every aspect of your life as you're growing up, and until this point, there was very little life that Rose had led without her mother over her shoulder. (Jimmy Stone notwithstanding, because even then, Jackie was able to see, if not participate.) But like a child going off to college, there are parts of Rose's life that Jackie no longer is able to recognize and identify. Watching your child in love for the first time (and I mean real love, not Jimmy Stone love), is probably extremely unsettling for a parent. Heartening, in its own way, because it's a good thing to see, but most likely absolutely terrifying, because now there's a whole new way for your child to be hurt.
He’s from outer space and she is a human girl from London. They are worlds apart, but sometimes she gets that feeling about them that she gets when she rewatches Bridget Jones or thinks about her own husband: they fit.
Does Jackie actually believe her daughter and her Doctor are a couple? Well.....yes and no. She's still trying to figure it out. And while Rose is trying to decide how she feels about the Doctor, Jackie is doing the same.
They can’t be a couple. They don’t even fight.
In short, vote for To An Outsider's Eye. It's poetic and finely-tuned. It works on a few different levels. It's voyeurism without the squick, and has several lovely illustrated-with-words images that will burn into your memory. It's got coats and fireworks and Christmas twice over, and it absolutely deserves your vote.
*
A Thousand Languages by madlori
Characters: Ten, Rose
Rating: PG-13
Details: one-shot, married!fic, AU in a world where Doomsday didn't happen, Rose's POV
Why It Rocks:
The problem with starting up an Award system like this, after so many years of fic, is that there's always the chance that some older fic will be lost in the shuffle. But somehow, some brilliant person remembered this, and we get to savor it over two years later.
(Yeah, I know, two years isn't that long. But that still makes this among the oldest of the fics nominated.)
The fic centers on what Rose thought might be true about life with the Doctor, but isn't necessarily so - and specifically, what she thinks about what is coming in their relationship. However, nothing quite goes the way she thinks it will - but since when does life follow what we know ought to happen? Rose has spent two years following the Doctor; she never realizes that this particular issue would be up to her.
He straightened up and plucked her hand from his face to hold it to his chest. How long they just stood there looking, she’d never know.
Finally he spoke. “Is it time?”
Time. Imagine the Time Lord asking her about time. But this was a question that only she could answer.
Ah, lovely pre-Doomsday days....(this fic predates it by about two months)....when we were all happy and cheerful and thought the Doctor and Rose would be together forever. Remember those days? Those were good days. I wasn't part of the fandom then, but I suspect that angst was not something authors had to deal with on a regular basis (whereas now, we have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner).
This fic, however, has a bit of that darkness, in the form of loss. Rose, though she's gained her Doctor, loses her preconceived notions about what life is like with him. (And I don't mean that life is bad with him - it isn't. But it's not what she expected.) Of course, married life never really is what you'd expect, and this is a sort of marriage Rose can't quite comprehend. Nor is it one she can quite put into words:
What she doesn’t say is that she’s happy in a way that can’t be talked about, she loves him in a way that can’t be said out loud, and her life rolls on without comment or description because it doesn’t fit inside words, none of it does. She just puts her head on her mother’s shoulder, feeling that she’s made it smaller by saying even that much; then she sees him watching them through the doorway, and in his eyes she feels it grow too large again, and she says nothing more.
The Doctor and Rose's relationship, after all, is built partially on things not said: the Doctor never tells her about Gallifrey, about regeneration (before it happens), about Jack being a fixed point in time. The Doctor tells Rose stories, but they're just a cover for what is really said between them. Nothing is ever really spoken aloud, except in reference to something else.
And Rose has her secrets, too. One day, left in London while the Doctor is on a solitary trip, she's visited by Thirteen - and while with him, witnesses his death. Not his regeneration, though she hoped - but his actual factual death. But even this isn't quite what Rose envisioned, because afterward, she is taken home again, and a few days later, her Doctor returns, brilliant and exuberant and alive. Rose might not know how exactly their life together will go, but she seems to be the constant for him. He'll always return to her - will always return to her, actually, in his future and her past. (Oh, the timey-whimey of it!)
But he is everywhere. At this moment, even as he dies, some version of him is somewhere doing what he does. It will be so tomorrow, and the day after that, and until the end of all things. She thinks of him at the end of Time, sure that he is there, seeing that it all goes off according to plan. She thinks of him at the beginning of Time, watching as the universe that he will guard, shape and guide is born. Of all that has ever existed, he is the only constant, and his death is irrelevant.
In short, vote for A Thousand Languages. It's short, it's brilliant, it's angsty in all-too familiar ways. It's got shaving and ice cream and rings and funeral pyres, and other Doctors popping up in just the right spots. It's well-worth the trip down memory lane, and it's not at all what you expect - but it is worth your vote.
*
Dancing Bananas by time_converges Link goes to Teaspoon
Characters: Ten, Donna
Rating: PG
Details: very short one-shot (about 400 words)
Why It Rocks:
One of the reasons I love the character of Donna Noble is that she didn't really take the Doctor seriously. I mean, she did take the things he did seriously, and the places he showed her, and she certainly was aware that life on the TARDIS was a dangerous thing. But the Doctor himself? Basically, Donna saw him as a great big goof.
This fic is no different. In less than 400 words, T-C has shown us exactly what a typical exchange between Donna and the Doctor must have been - well, perhaps not typical, because I doubt that Donna barged in on the Doctor while he was getting dressed every morning. But had she done, this would have been her reaction: which is to say, none.
“Good morning! Don’t mind me, just need your hairdryer,” she said, heading for his dresser.
The Doctor stood, frozen in place, one leg in his trousers, his dancing banana boxers on full display. “Don’t you knock?”
Any other companion, upon finding the Doctor with his trousers around his ankles, would have stammered and stuttered and been frozen into place. Not Donna. She has a goal - the hairdryer - and she doesn't waver. She doesn't even comment on the boxers - and T-C is smart enough to realize that we're all grinning like banshees about them anyway.
Then, there really isn't anything to be said about dancing banana boxers. (Except, perhaps, if anyone knows where I can buy my husband a pair.)
What's exceptionally wonderful about this ficlet is that Donna is so perfectly comfortable, and unconcerned about having walked in on the Doctor - but the Doctor is so disconcerted that he can barely speak. And just when he thinks he's safe - Donna returns, with her only real dig of the story, and it's far from the dig you'd expect.
(As in, not about the boxers. Or what they contain.)
In short - because heaven forbid my review be longer than the fic - vote for Dancing Bananas. It's got bananas, and boxers, and hat boxes, and the TARDIS stealing things, and Donna just generally being brilliant. It's got dancing of an entirely different nature, and it absolutely deserves your vote.
*
Autumn Days That Make You Feel Sad by starletfallen
Characters: The Doctor, Donna
Rating: PG
Details: one-shot, post-JE but vaguely AU as well. Written for the still_brilliant Donnathon, which is an awesome name for a challenge involving Donna, if you ask me.
Why It Rocks:
Confession: I read this fic about a week ago, and did not review it at the time. Actually, there's a couple I've read, and haven't reviewed yet, because I couldn't figure out how, exactly.
And then today, I clicked on this link, looking for another fic to wrap up this morning's post.
And then...I just...got it. You know? Weird like that. But for some reason, today, this resonated with me. So here we go.
At the very end of JE, Donna knows what is happening to her - and worse, she knows what is going to happen. It's probably one of the most painful bits of that episode, is watching the Doctor take Donna's memories away, in order to save her. It's an act of sacrifice on his part that in a very real way, has got to hurt far worse than locking Rose in the other universe, because at least he can content himself that Rose has Alt!Ten. Donna won't have anything.
Actually, what Donna won't have, is the Doctor removing what she's only been so recently gifted.
He didn't change anything. He didn't erase anything, or lock anything away. Oh, if she'd had a human brain, or the brain of almost any other species in the universe, she would've well and truly forgotten him, but he hadn't taken into account the fact that while her body is still (plain, boring, mediocre, not-too-bright, but good with numbers, for a girl who never got her A-levels, and isn't that a plus?) human, her mind isn't.
Donna, of course, knows her time is short, and plays along. She pretends disinterest in Mr. Smith, she talks with her girlfriend on her mobile, and when the coast is clear - she runs. She doesn't know where, or why, but only that in moment, it's all going to end. She'll burn, and she doesn't have time to spare on the pleasantries. The most important thing Donna has learned is the larger picture - it's more important that the Doctor believe she is alive and well than it is for her to gain any comfort by saying goodbye. It's more important that she simply disappear, than it is to have a proper farewell.
And so, Donna runs.
This won't be the first time she's sacrificed her life for the sake of others. It's almost easier this time, since she knows she won't live anyway.
But this is the lovely thing - it's not over. She runs - straight to him. But not the Doctor we know. This Doctor is older, calmer, and there are deep reserves of strength in him now that she doesn't remember being there before.
Donna's story has to end - and in a way, Donna's story does, on a busy street in London. But it also keeps going, in a different form, with a different Doctor. Much how in A Thousand Languages, Rose realizes that the Doctor is eternal --- Donna is eternal too. Somewhere out there, we've got Donna, even if it's not quite the Donna we recognize.
In short, vote for Autumn Days That Make You Feel Sad. It's a quiet look at Donna's frantic last thoughts. It's sweetly sad and golden, and it has the right sort of bittersweet ending. It's got an Irish brogue and golden fire, and it very much deserves your vote.
*
On to Part Nine, where I review:
Aftermaths by Kaethel
Don't Ask, Don't Tell by Wendymr
Contagious by shining-moment
That Quiet Part by dave7
More than an Echo by samfeasor
That'll do for this morning, I think - I may have another installment up tonight. If not, there should be one in the morning.
Also, I just did a quick count. I have 57 stories left to read. And ten days in which to do it. This should be interesting.