Children of Time Awards, Part Thirteen
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.
In Part Eight, I reviewed To An Outsider's Eye, A Thousand Languages, Dancing Bananas, and Autumn Days That Make You Feel Sad.
In Part Nine, I reviewed Aftermaths, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Contagious, That Quiet Part, and More than an Echo.
In Part Ten, I reviewed I Ching, A Sky Without Zeppelins, I Believe in You, Dancing at the Sugar Shack, and Ten Times the Doctor Didn't Say "I Love You" (and One Time He Did).
In The Special Drabble Edition, I reviewed all nine drabbles nominated.
In Part Eleven, I reviewed Passing the Torch, Tidewater, Without a Doubt, Nothing But Sand, Fabric, and The Still Lost series.
In Part Twelve, I reviewed Out of Joint, So Close, The Loved 'verse, Cheating Time, and Diamond Sea.
Today I'll review:
The Long Path (series) by melissa228
Threshold by Aibhinn
No Wanderin' Off by jlrpuck/shrak
Incurable by rosa_acicularis
Therefore, without further ado:
Why You Should Vote For This Fic:
The Long Path (series) by melissa_228 Link goes to Teaspoon
Characters: Handy, Rose, Jackie
Rating: PG, except for the last story which is Adult
Details: Five one-shots, all post-JE, angsty, mostly Handy's POV (one is second-person).
Why It Rocks:
There's a lot of post-JE fic out there where the Doctor and Rose are happy and cheerful - there's some angst, sure, but it's usually mostly gone, overwritten by joy and love and understanding.
This is not that fic.
Now, I wrote a post-JE fic ( Pages from a Broken Book), and it's fairly angsty. But it does end on a good, hopeful note. The thing is - when writing it, there was a moment that I thought about sending it in a different direction. Because there's this moment, after the TARDIS has left the beach, when the Doctor steps up to Rose, and takes her hand, and she looks at him - there's this moment, when you think she might, just maybe, she might reject him.
It's something we shippers don't like to think about, much. Rose and the Doctor, if not aboard the TARDIS, then at least together.
Except life doesn't work that way. Not always. And what the Doctor intends - doesn't always go so smoothly.
This series follows that line, just about from the beginning. Rose rejects Handy before they're even off the beach. There's no words between them, but there's something deeper. It's not just Rose, either. Both of them are in turmoil - but though Handy is aware of Rose's pain, he's too conscious of his own to help her. He's too much lost, to help her find her way.
He used to be a Time Lord. Now he is nothing. Just a human. Not even that. He’s just a human walking around like a bad carbon copy of someone else. He’s nothing. An anomaly. A genetic mistake. Nothing.
He might have been the Doctor once, but he's not any longer. This is only brought to home when Rose begins to call him John - she won't call him anything else. Having everything stripped away from him - home, world, biology, name - leaves him feeling bereft. He might think of himself as a Lost Boy - but he's not a boy, even if he is only two days old. He's far more sinister than that, or so he's been told.
He feels like Captain Hook, being chased all around by horrible, stifling time. He looks up at the sky for a moment, wondering where the TARDIS is right now. For a brief moment he wishes he had his own little pirate crew so he could track down Peter Pan, gallivanting up there in the universe. Bring him back down to Earth. Make him sorry he gets all of time and space. Punish him for his freedom and his immortality.
Really, he and Rose could cling to each other, if they wanted. They both had something precious in their grasp for a brief time, only to have it snatched away. Rose had her Doctor, she had her hug, she was happy. Handy had his TARDIS, his Rose, and a world to explore.
Now, they're both stuck - in a rut, in a never-ending cycle of waking up and finding each other in the kitchen at 2am. And the Doctor might once have thought he wanted the 2am, finding a cab home - but the reality is different. The reality is that at 2am, he and Rose meet awkardly in the kitchen, and not quite knowing what to say. The reality is that he is not the man he used to be - and he knows it, to the point that he's willing to ask her to destroy the last vestiges that make him recongizable.
“You mind giving us a haircut?...I just need it chopped off, chop chop.”
You obediently go over, sitting down without a word. She combs her fingers through your hair making it stand up on end.
“Love the hair,” she says quietly.
Slowly, they're becoming people they don't recognize. Not the sweet and comfortable old-married-couple we like to think they'd be - but the bitter ones, the ones who can't stand to even look at each other, because they remind each other of what once was. And when it ends - as they know it should - it ends with not a bang, or a whimper, but with words most hurtful. Essentially, they've become each other's nightmares - looking at Rose, Handy sees what he can't have. Looking at Handy, Rose sees a man she thought she knew. And each of them remind the other of what they're afraid they know is true.
Handy to Rose: "I had to kill to protect the universe. You endangered multiple universes. You could have killed every species. But who cares, because Rose is bored with Earth. He left me here to distract you. Because he knew he couldn’t trust you anymore.”
Martha leaves the Doctor, because she knows she must. Handy leaves Rose, because he knows he cannot stay without killing them both - not physically, but emotionally. They're stunted, the two of them, irrevokably broken. It's an outcome that neither of them really saw, but only because they didn't want to look.
In short, vote for The Long Path. It's a sad, poignant look at what might be. It's a path most of us are afraid to consider, because it sparks of reality. It's an honest depiction of our deepest fears, and in doing this, Melissa has done a very brave thing. For this alone, she deserves your vote.
*
Threshold by aibhinn
Characters: Nine, Ten, Rose
Rating: R
Details: Two-part fic (the first follows Dalek, the second follows The Christmas Invasion). Smutty smut smut.
Why It Rocks:
Ah, to make love to a Time Lord. Because sometimes, they regenerate. Whch means that you get to have the first time all over again.
And there's something about a first time, isn't there? There's a little awkwardness, and shyness, and just general all-round adorability of two people who are performing what is essentially an extremely ridiculous act, when you think about the nitty-gritty of it. First you get naked, then you go about fitting Tab A into Slot B, and you have to try and do this without putting elbows into eyesockets or squashing various bits of the other person or saying something completely stupid like, "Oh my God, who has a mole there?"
Disclaimer: Not that I would know anything about such tom-foolery. Shut up.
I kid, but what Aibhinn has given us is an entirely sweet and tender look at the Doctor and Rose doing just that - discovering each other for the first time, both times that they do it. The first time really is a first time for them - and comes on just as suddenly and unexpectedly as you'd imagine. Nine certainly doesn't expect it, although he welcomes it when he realizes what this particular love-making means - it's not just him and Rose in bed together - it's him-and-Rose, together, body and soul - and mind, because the mental link that forms is something that takes him by surprise, more so than the fact that Rose is willing to form it.
Shallow and easily-broken the link might be, but it's a link. That’s never happened with a human before. Never knew it was even possible, in fact. But here it is, happening. The vast, dark emptiness within him has a candle-bright spark in it, a spark that's already done more than she could ever know to begin to heal the billions of hairline cracks in his heart, each of them an empty space where a Gallifreyan mind had once been.
The link, of course, serves as a conduit for the sensations, but not just that. It's a bridge between them for emotional ties, as well. And it's a two-way bridge - Rose knows that the Doctor is lonely, and in need of not just her, but her compantionship. But it's the depth of that need that gives her pause - and in the end, further resolution:
He's burning, she can feel it: need so profound it's nearly agonising. And not just the physical need, either; the ache is one of sheer loneliness as much as it is anything else. Her heart breaks just a little.
It's this link, therefore, that sustains them after his regeneration - it's the link that tells Rose, more than anything, that the man who stands before her really is the Doctor. Except what she sees and what she knows aren't so easy to reconcile.
...she could feel his thoughts skimming the surface of her mind. Their flavour was different, their texture altered in some indefinable way, but she could still sense them, all of them, including the love for her he'd never been able to verbalise.
If the first love-making was about discovering each other the first time - the second is more about discovering themselves - or at least, the Doctor rediscovering himself, and rediscovering Rose in the bargain. After all, he is who he is, this time around, because of Rose, essentially, and doubly because of his love for Rose. He might have admitted to himself before that he loved her - but it wasn't quite so tangible as a new body to go with.
It terrifies him, this love. The things he'll do in defence of Rose are too frightening to contemplate, and the knowledge that she'll leave him someday is a physical pain, sharp as a dagger to his hearts.
And really, that's what it comes down to, for the Doctor. Nine may have been saved by love, but Ten was forged by it. That Rose was the recipient and guardian (of a sort) of that love just compounds matters. He's not just making love to Rose - he's thanking her, too.
Which is what makes this two-parter interesting to read now. It was written and posted a year and a half ago - well before we learned about Handy being left behind on Bad Wolf Bay with Rose. At that point, this story was sure to leave the reader with a sense of sweet melancholy - that the Doctor and Rose shared this link, and relished it, and were unable to use it in their final goodbye.
And yet....
He can't give her forever, and he can't give her a normal life. But he can, and will, give her everything that's in his power to give. He hopes it's enough.
Would Handy have this link too? When he takes Rose's hand on Bad Wolf Bay, can they still feel each other's thoughts? The Doctor might not be able to give Rose that normal life - but can he?
Yes, Aibhinn, consider that a hint.
In short, vote for Threshold. It's lovely and sweet and smutty. It's got guilt and sorrow and joy and desire. It's got Adam and Jackie sleeping in other rooms (thank God). If we're lucky, there will be a third part. Unless there already is, in which case I'm sure Aibhinn will slap me any minute now. It absolutely deserves your vote.
*
No Wanderin' Off by jlrpuck Link goes to Teaspoon, where Puck is known as shrak
Characters: Nine, Rose
Rating: PG
Details: One-shot. Just a wee bit cracky.
Why it Rocks:
There are two lovely things, at least one of which, that really should appear in all Doctor Who Fanfic. The first is Naked Jack. No Wanderin' Off, sadly, does not have Naked Jack.
It does one better. It has Naked Doctor. (Specifically Nine.)
Now, most of us know Puck not from her Doctor, but from her Peter or her Rose. Here, we see Puck actually tackle the Doctor, and it's a treat. She has an excellent feel for Nine - who, despite how we tend to write him, was not all broody and dour all the time. He was actually fairly cheerful, when he was in the mood, and prone to just as much joking and grinning as we tend to expect from Ten. And really, even when he's not so funny - he's still funny.
If Rose didn’t know better, she’d think he was sulking; she fought back a giggle as she remembered the Doctor saying, truculently, Time Lords don’t sulk, not a week earlier. After which point, he’d gone back to sucking the skin on the side of his hand, his gaze sullen.
Rose, too, is right on target. Rose is still young here, still wide-eyed and innocent. She knows the Doctor has lost everything, and she's sensitive to it - but she's still going to poke fun at him, every chance she gets.
During the Doctor's lecture: “Or you could be zapped by-”
“Zapped? That a technical term, then?”
And so their conversation goes - back and forth, equal and opposite. There was something about the interplay between Rose and Nine that's vastly different from what we see Rose and Ten share later. Rose and Nine are almost shy with each other, in a way that we don't get to see after the regeneration, when they're more comfortable. The first few trips, after all, are something akin to the first couple of dates. The jokes are sweetly teasing, and testing too - they're trying to figure out the boundaries, without actually going over. They're learning how to play.
“Here’s me, jumping for joy.” The Doctor gave a pathetic little hop, before raising his hands to near his ears and wiggling them.
Rose giggled, and was rewarded with an indulgently muttered, “Humans,” followed by a roll of the eyes.
In short, vote for No Wanderin' Off. It's got Naked!Doctor, Giggly!Rose, a few lessons on why one shouldn't wander off, and...some wandering, of both body and attention. It's just enough cracky to be sweet and funny without being over the top, and it's got a very true-to-life Doctor. It's a fun read that will leave a smile on your face, and it very much deserves your vote.
*
Incurable by rosa_acicularis
Characters: Ten, Rose
Rating: PG-13
Details: One-shot, takes place after Love and Monsters, vaguely pre-smut, but not actual smut.
Why it Rocks:
So, as we're all aware, I'm running disasterously short on time for these reviews. And unfortunately, that means that there are some fics I'm reading which I'd dearly like to savor, and think about, before actually reviewing.
Incurable is definitely one of those fics.
On the surface, it's a late-night chat between the Doctor and Rose. But really, I've got the distinct impression that it's more. The Doctor and Rose start off by talking about love - but I don't think they're talking about love. I think they're tallking loss, and falling, and heartache, and sorrow. I think they're talking about what's left when love, once present, is gone.
I think they're talking about the opposite of love - not hate, but fear.
It's obvious, from the get-go, that the Doctor and Rose love each other here. Rose wakes to find the Doctor by her bed, and is neither startled nor amused. She's more resiegned to his late-night presence, and even acknowledges later that this sort of thing has become commonplace. The Doctor, likewise, sees nothing inappropriate about it, although he's hesitant to actually join her under the covers. They love each other, yes - but it's not physical. Not yet.
It's in the way they talk to each other, too - jokingly, back and forth, light-hearted insults and ribs.
He released her hand and lightly rapped his knuckles against her forehead. “Good, solid human brains. I’m quite fond of them.”
“I’ll pass the compliment on to the rest of the species in the morning,” she said drolly.
Rosa shows us these two as friends, very much so - completely on the same wavelength with each other, as long as they keep the conversation light. It's only when the conversation turns to important things - what Rose is thinking about, for instance - that they become hesitant and flip with each other. Rose wants to know about love - but for the Doctor, love isn't about having. It's about what's gone.
The Doctor on love, hurting: He pressed his hand to her chest, just below her breasts, the heel of his palm resting hard against the curve of her ribs. "Here. A constant, throbbing ache just beneath the bones. It twists and sings and you learn to crave the fall, to taste wanting like salt on your tongue. And when the inevitable happens, when you lose what you love, it burns."
In a way, this is why the Doctor has kept Rose at arm's distance all this time - it's not that he doesn't love her, because he does. It's that he's afraid of what will happen when he loses her. For the Doctor, love and pain have almost become synonymous. And in explaining this to Rose, she recongizes it. She's had her own love, her own loss, after all - and like the Doctor, she's kept herself at arm's length.
For the Doctor, arm's length is about the fear of loss. For Rose, arm's length is about keeping things in their proper places. Because she knows, if she were to actually fall for the Doctor - if he were to fall for her - their worlds would be so completely muddled, she might just lose herself in them, and their world ceases to become recognizable, knowable, quantifiable.
Says Rose, “Lines aren’t just about keeping people out. Sometimes you have to keep something for yourself, just in case...maybe some people can do that - hold back, not let themselves get pulled in. Maybe I could have, if I’d tried harder. I don’t know. I just know that sometimes I look at you, and it...hurts.”
But this is the conversation - about fear, and loss, and everything that leads up to and follows after love. Love comes with its own monsters, after all - that's the point of it, I think. And love, by necessity, comes with loss.
Think about it this way - there's a concept in economics called opportunity cost. (I love this concept.) Basically, it says that by making a decision to do one thing, you're losing the options that might have been available to you had you chosen the other thing instead. You choose an apple, you lose the orange. It's the same with love. Falling in love with someone, you lose the ability to be only yourself. And if it's mutual - you lose a freedom you once had. You gain a whole bunch of stuff, of course - but there's a loss there too.
Rose, having seeing the loss Elton has suffered in Ursula, is trying to quantify the respective losses with loving the Doctor. She didn't see the love - just the aftermath of having had it. She remembers the love she shared with Jimmy and Mickey, but more prevelent is the loss that followed.
“[Elton] loved [Ursula]. I could tell, the way he said it - he thought he’d lost her forever, that he had nothing left, but he really wanted me to know that she was good with a tambourine.”
And that's what it comes down to, with love, and loss. That's what you remember, afterwards, the small things. In the days and hours after a loss, you can't remember the big picture of a person's life - it's too much, too painful. It comes back in bits and pieces, just as you're able to handle them. You only remember what you can, as you can.
Both Rose and the Doctor know a loss is coming. The Beast has made his proclamation now, and even if the Doctor says it lied, it's still in the air, unspoken. Rose knows her time with the Doctor won't last forever - and the Doctor knows that at some point, even in the best case scenario, he'll have to deal with losing her.
But still...it's not about fear, or loss, or drawing lines between them. It's about everything they didn't discuss, and everything they did. And I don't think the Doctor ever studied economics, anyway.
“I’m an old man, Rose. Old men don’t have pillow fights.”
“They do, actually,” she said, smiling down at him. “They just lose.”
In short, vote for Incurable. It's a conversation about everything and nothing important. It's got excellent jokes and some quiet, darkly intense moments. It's got kissing, and cuddling, and fear, and longing. It's probably not half as deep as I've made it out to be, but it's sure fun to pretend it is - and if I'm right (and I'd like to think I am), it absolutely deserves your vote.
*
On to my Final Thoughts
Not that I'm normally superstitious (at least, not about the number thirteen), but I think this post broke me. (Not the stories in it, so don't go taking that the wrong way.) Unless I have a renewal of energy this evening, this post will be the last of the Children of Time reviews - at least, the last of the reviews before voting closes. I'll still go back and try to get the rest of the nominations ----- but after the New Year. At the moment, I don't think I should really look at another fanfic, for fear of seeing connections that simply aren't there.
Maybe, in an odd way, thirteen is a good place to stop. It's appropriate to Doctor Who, anyway, what with the thirteen lives he's got. And like the Valeyard, this last go did seem to go a little bit out of control. (Well, I think it did. We'll see if you all agree)
Assuming I have time what with packing and fudge and all, I'll write a final write-up this evening, because when all is said and done, this has been an absolutely amazing experience, even if I did lose my mind there for a few hours last night. And I do have some additional thoughts to share, but they'll keep for now.
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.
In Part Eight, I reviewed To An Outsider's Eye, A Thousand Languages, Dancing Bananas, and Autumn Days That Make You Feel Sad.
In Part Nine, I reviewed Aftermaths, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Contagious, That Quiet Part, and More than an Echo.
In Part Ten, I reviewed I Ching, A Sky Without Zeppelins, I Believe in You, Dancing at the Sugar Shack, and Ten Times the Doctor Didn't Say "I Love You" (and One Time He Did).
In The Special Drabble Edition, I reviewed all nine drabbles nominated.
In Part Eleven, I reviewed Passing the Torch, Tidewater, Without a Doubt, Nothing But Sand, Fabric, and The Still Lost series.
In Part Twelve, I reviewed Out of Joint, So Close, The Loved 'verse, Cheating Time, and Diamond Sea.
Today I'll review:
The Long Path (series) by melissa228
Threshold by Aibhinn
No Wanderin' Off by jlrpuck/shrak
Incurable by rosa_acicularis
Therefore, without further ado:
Why You Should Vote For This Fic:
The Long Path (series) by melissa_228 Link goes to Teaspoon
Characters: Handy, Rose, Jackie
Rating: PG, except for the last story which is Adult
Details: Five one-shots, all post-JE, angsty, mostly Handy's POV (one is second-person).
Why It Rocks:
There's a lot of post-JE fic out there where the Doctor and Rose are happy and cheerful - there's some angst, sure, but it's usually mostly gone, overwritten by joy and love and understanding.
This is not that fic.
Now, I wrote a post-JE fic ( Pages from a Broken Book), and it's fairly angsty. But it does end on a good, hopeful note. The thing is - when writing it, there was a moment that I thought about sending it in a different direction. Because there's this moment, after the TARDIS has left the beach, when the Doctor steps up to Rose, and takes her hand, and she looks at him - there's this moment, when you think she might, just maybe, she might reject him.
It's something we shippers don't like to think about, much. Rose and the Doctor, if not aboard the TARDIS, then at least together.
Except life doesn't work that way. Not always. And what the Doctor intends - doesn't always go so smoothly.
This series follows that line, just about from the beginning. Rose rejects Handy before they're even off the beach. There's no words between them, but there's something deeper. It's not just Rose, either. Both of them are in turmoil - but though Handy is aware of Rose's pain, he's too conscious of his own to help her. He's too much lost, to help her find her way.
He used to be a Time Lord. Now he is nothing. Just a human. Not even that. He’s just a human walking around like a bad carbon copy of someone else. He’s nothing. An anomaly. A genetic mistake. Nothing.
He might have been the Doctor once, but he's not any longer. This is only brought to home when Rose begins to call him John - she won't call him anything else. Having everything stripped away from him - home, world, biology, name - leaves him feeling bereft. He might think of himself as a Lost Boy - but he's not a boy, even if he is only two days old. He's far more sinister than that, or so he's been told.
He feels like Captain Hook, being chased all around by horrible, stifling time. He looks up at the sky for a moment, wondering where the TARDIS is right now. For a brief moment he wishes he had his own little pirate crew so he could track down Peter Pan, gallivanting up there in the universe. Bring him back down to Earth. Make him sorry he gets all of time and space. Punish him for his freedom and his immortality.
Really, he and Rose could cling to each other, if they wanted. They both had something precious in their grasp for a brief time, only to have it snatched away. Rose had her Doctor, she had her hug, she was happy. Handy had his TARDIS, his Rose, and a world to explore.
Now, they're both stuck - in a rut, in a never-ending cycle of waking up and finding each other in the kitchen at 2am. And the Doctor might once have thought he wanted the 2am, finding a cab home - but the reality is different. The reality is that at 2am, he and Rose meet awkardly in the kitchen, and not quite knowing what to say. The reality is that he is not the man he used to be - and he knows it, to the point that he's willing to ask her to destroy the last vestiges that make him recongizable.
“You mind giving us a haircut?...I just need it chopped off, chop chop.”
You obediently go over, sitting down without a word. She combs her fingers through your hair making it stand up on end.
“Love the hair,” she says quietly.
Slowly, they're becoming people they don't recognize. Not the sweet and comfortable old-married-couple we like to think they'd be - but the bitter ones, the ones who can't stand to even look at each other, because they remind each other of what once was. And when it ends - as they know it should - it ends with not a bang, or a whimper, but with words most hurtful. Essentially, they've become each other's nightmares - looking at Rose, Handy sees what he can't have. Looking at Handy, Rose sees a man she thought she knew. And each of them remind the other of what they're afraid they know is true.
Handy to Rose: "I had to kill to protect the universe. You endangered multiple universes. You could have killed every species. But who cares, because Rose is bored with Earth. He left me here to distract you. Because he knew he couldn’t trust you anymore.”
Martha leaves the Doctor, because she knows she must. Handy leaves Rose, because he knows he cannot stay without killing them both - not physically, but emotionally. They're stunted, the two of them, irrevokably broken. It's an outcome that neither of them really saw, but only because they didn't want to look.
In short, vote for The Long Path. It's a sad, poignant look at what might be. It's a path most of us are afraid to consider, because it sparks of reality. It's an honest depiction of our deepest fears, and in doing this, Melissa has done a very brave thing. For this alone, she deserves your vote.
*
Threshold by aibhinn
Characters: Nine, Ten, Rose
Rating: R
Details: Two-part fic (the first follows Dalek, the second follows The Christmas Invasion). Smutty smut smut.
Why It Rocks:
Ah, to make love to a Time Lord. Because sometimes, they regenerate. Whch means that you get to have the first time all over again.
And there's something about a first time, isn't there? There's a little awkwardness, and shyness, and just general all-round adorability of two people who are performing what is essentially an extremely ridiculous act, when you think about the nitty-gritty of it. First you get naked, then you go about fitting Tab A into Slot B, and you have to try and do this without putting elbows into eyesockets or squashing various bits of the other person or saying something completely stupid like, "Oh my God, who has a mole there?"
Disclaimer: Not that I would know anything about such tom-foolery. Shut up.
I kid, but what Aibhinn has given us is an entirely sweet and tender look at the Doctor and Rose doing just that - discovering each other for the first time, both times that they do it. The first time really is a first time for them - and comes on just as suddenly and unexpectedly as you'd imagine. Nine certainly doesn't expect it, although he welcomes it when he realizes what this particular love-making means - it's not just him and Rose in bed together - it's him-and-Rose, together, body and soul - and mind, because the mental link that forms is something that takes him by surprise, more so than the fact that Rose is willing to form it.
Shallow and easily-broken the link might be, but it's a link. That’s never happened with a human before. Never knew it was even possible, in fact. But here it is, happening. The vast, dark emptiness within him has a candle-bright spark in it, a spark that's already done more than she could ever know to begin to heal the billions of hairline cracks in his heart, each of them an empty space where a Gallifreyan mind had once been.
The link, of course, serves as a conduit for the sensations, but not just that. It's a bridge between them for emotional ties, as well. And it's a two-way bridge - Rose knows that the Doctor is lonely, and in need of not just her, but her compantionship. But it's the depth of that need that gives her pause - and in the end, further resolution:
He's burning, she can feel it: need so profound it's nearly agonising. And not just the physical need, either; the ache is one of sheer loneliness as much as it is anything else. Her heart breaks just a little.
It's this link, therefore, that sustains them after his regeneration - it's the link that tells Rose, more than anything, that the man who stands before her really is the Doctor. Except what she sees and what she knows aren't so easy to reconcile.
...she could feel his thoughts skimming the surface of her mind. Their flavour was different, their texture altered in some indefinable way, but she could still sense them, all of them, including the love for her he'd never been able to verbalise.
If the first love-making was about discovering each other the first time - the second is more about discovering themselves - or at least, the Doctor rediscovering himself, and rediscovering Rose in the bargain. After all, he is who he is, this time around, because of Rose, essentially, and doubly because of his love for Rose. He might have admitted to himself before that he loved her - but it wasn't quite so tangible as a new body to go with.
It terrifies him, this love. The things he'll do in defence of Rose are too frightening to contemplate, and the knowledge that she'll leave him someday is a physical pain, sharp as a dagger to his hearts.
And really, that's what it comes down to, for the Doctor. Nine may have been saved by love, but Ten was forged by it. That Rose was the recipient and guardian (of a sort) of that love just compounds matters. He's not just making love to Rose - he's thanking her, too.
Which is what makes this two-parter interesting to read now. It was written and posted a year and a half ago - well before we learned about Handy being left behind on Bad Wolf Bay with Rose. At that point, this story was sure to leave the reader with a sense of sweet melancholy - that the Doctor and Rose shared this link, and relished it, and were unable to use it in their final goodbye.
And yet....
He can't give her forever, and he can't give her a normal life. But he can, and will, give her everything that's in his power to give. He hopes it's enough.
Would Handy have this link too? When he takes Rose's hand on Bad Wolf Bay, can they still feel each other's thoughts? The Doctor might not be able to give Rose that normal life - but can he?
Yes, Aibhinn, consider that a hint.
In short, vote for Threshold. It's lovely and sweet and smutty. It's got guilt and sorrow and joy and desire. It's got Adam and Jackie sleeping in other rooms (thank God). If we're lucky, there will be a third part. Unless there already is, in which case I'm sure Aibhinn will slap me any minute now. It absolutely deserves your vote.
*
No Wanderin' Off by jlrpuck Link goes to Teaspoon, where Puck is known as shrak
Characters: Nine, Rose
Rating: PG
Details: One-shot. Just a wee bit cracky.
Why it Rocks:
There are two lovely things, at least one of which, that really should appear in all Doctor Who Fanfic. The first is Naked Jack. No Wanderin' Off, sadly, does not have Naked Jack.
It does one better. It has Naked Doctor. (Specifically Nine.)
Now, most of us know Puck not from her Doctor, but from her Peter or her Rose. Here, we see Puck actually tackle the Doctor, and it's a treat. She has an excellent feel for Nine - who, despite how we tend to write him, was not all broody and dour all the time. He was actually fairly cheerful, when he was in the mood, and prone to just as much joking and grinning as we tend to expect from Ten. And really, even when he's not so funny - he's still funny.
If Rose didn’t know better, she’d think he was sulking; she fought back a giggle as she remembered the Doctor saying, truculently, Time Lords don’t sulk, not a week earlier. After which point, he’d gone back to sucking the skin on the side of his hand, his gaze sullen.
Rose, too, is right on target. Rose is still young here, still wide-eyed and innocent. She knows the Doctor has lost everything, and she's sensitive to it - but she's still going to poke fun at him, every chance she gets.
During the Doctor's lecture: “Or you could be zapped by-”
“Zapped? That a technical term, then?”
And so their conversation goes - back and forth, equal and opposite. There was something about the interplay between Rose and Nine that's vastly different from what we see Rose and Ten share later. Rose and Nine are almost shy with each other, in a way that we don't get to see after the regeneration, when they're more comfortable. The first few trips, after all, are something akin to the first couple of dates. The jokes are sweetly teasing, and testing too - they're trying to figure out the boundaries, without actually going over. They're learning how to play.
“Here’s me, jumping for joy.” The Doctor gave a pathetic little hop, before raising his hands to near his ears and wiggling them.
Rose giggled, and was rewarded with an indulgently muttered, “Humans,” followed by a roll of the eyes.
In short, vote for No Wanderin' Off. It's got Naked!Doctor, Giggly!Rose, a few lessons on why one shouldn't wander off, and...some wandering, of both body and attention. It's just enough cracky to be sweet and funny without being over the top, and it's got a very true-to-life Doctor. It's a fun read that will leave a smile on your face, and it very much deserves your vote.
*
Incurable by rosa_acicularis
Characters: Ten, Rose
Rating: PG-13
Details: One-shot, takes place after Love and Monsters, vaguely pre-smut, but not actual smut.
Why it Rocks:
So, as we're all aware, I'm running disasterously short on time for these reviews. And unfortunately, that means that there are some fics I'm reading which I'd dearly like to savor, and think about, before actually reviewing.
Incurable is definitely one of those fics.
On the surface, it's a late-night chat between the Doctor and Rose. But really, I've got the distinct impression that it's more. The Doctor and Rose start off by talking about love - but I don't think they're talking about love. I think they're tallking loss, and falling, and heartache, and sorrow. I think they're talking about what's left when love, once present, is gone.
I think they're talking about the opposite of love - not hate, but fear.
It's obvious, from the get-go, that the Doctor and Rose love each other here. Rose wakes to find the Doctor by her bed, and is neither startled nor amused. She's more resiegned to his late-night presence, and even acknowledges later that this sort of thing has become commonplace. The Doctor, likewise, sees nothing inappropriate about it, although he's hesitant to actually join her under the covers. They love each other, yes - but it's not physical. Not yet.
It's in the way they talk to each other, too - jokingly, back and forth, light-hearted insults and ribs.
He released her hand and lightly rapped his knuckles against her forehead. “Good, solid human brains. I’m quite fond of them.”
“I’ll pass the compliment on to the rest of the species in the morning,” she said drolly.
Rosa shows us these two as friends, very much so - completely on the same wavelength with each other, as long as they keep the conversation light. It's only when the conversation turns to important things - what Rose is thinking about, for instance - that they become hesitant and flip with each other. Rose wants to know about love - but for the Doctor, love isn't about having. It's about what's gone.
The Doctor on love, hurting: He pressed his hand to her chest, just below her breasts, the heel of his palm resting hard against the curve of her ribs. "Here. A constant, throbbing ache just beneath the bones. It twists and sings and you learn to crave the fall, to taste wanting like salt on your tongue. And when the inevitable happens, when you lose what you love, it burns."
In a way, this is why the Doctor has kept Rose at arm's distance all this time - it's not that he doesn't love her, because he does. It's that he's afraid of what will happen when he loses her. For the Doctor, love and pain have almost become synonymous. And in explaining this to Rose, she recongizes it. She's had her own love, her own loss, after all - and like the Doctor, she's kept herself at arm's length.
For the Doctor, arm's length is about the fear of loss. For Rose, arm's length is about keeping things in their proper places. Because she knows, if she were to actually fall for the Doctor - if he were to fall for her - their worlds would be so completely muddled, she might just lose herself in them, and their world ceases to become recognizable, knowable, quantifiable.
Says Rose, “Lines aren’t just about keeping people out. Sometimes you have to keep something for yourself, just in case...maybe some people can do that - hold back, not let themselves get pulled in. Maybe I could have, if I’d tried harder. I don’t know. I just know that sometimes I look at you, and it...hurts.”
But this is the conversation - about fear, and loss, and everything that leads up to and follows after love. Love comes with its own monsters, after all - that's the point of it, I think. And love, by necessity, comes with loss.
Think about it this way - there's a concept in economics called opportunity cost. (I love this concept.) Basically, it says that by making a decision to do one thing, you're losing the options that might have been available to you had you chosen the other thing instead. You choose an apple, you lose the orange. It's the same with love. Falling in love with someone, you lose the ability to be only yourself. And if it's mutual - you lose a freedom you once had. You gain a whole bunch of stuff, of course - but there's a loss there too.
Rose, having seeing the loss Elton has suffered in Ursula, is trying to quantify the respective losses with loving the Doctor. She didn't see the love - just the aftermath of having had it. She remembers the love she shared with Jimmy and Mickey, but more prevelent is the loss that followed.
“[Elton] loved [Ursula]. I could tell, the way he said it - he thought he’d lost her forever, that he had nothing left, but he really wanted me to know that she was good with a tambourine.”
And that's what it comes down to, with love, and loss. That's what you remember, afterwards, the small things. In the days and hours after a loss, you can't remember the big picture of a person's life - it's too much, too painful. It comes back in bits and pieces, just as you're able to handle them. You only remember what you can, as you can.
Both Rose and the Doctor know a loss is coming. The Beast has made his proclamation now, and even if the Doctor says it lied, it's still in the air, unspoken. Rose knows her time with the Doctor won't last forever - and the Doctor knows that at some point, even in the best case scenario, he'll have to deal with losing her.
But still...it's not about fear, or loss, or drawing lines between them. It's about everything they didn't discuss, and everything they did. And I don't think the Doctor ever studied economics, anyway.
“I’m an old man, Rose. Old men don’t have pillow fights.”
“They do, actually,” she said, smiling down at him. “They just lose.”
In short, vote for Incurable. It's a conversation about everything and nothing important. It's got excellent jokes and some quiet, darkly intense moments. It's got kissing, and cuddling, and fear, and longing. It's probably not half as deep as I've made it out to be, but it's sure fun to pretend it is - and if I'm right (and I'd like to think I am), it absolutely deserves your vote.
*
On to my Final Thoughts
Not that I'm normally superstitious (at least, not about the number thirteen), but I think this post broke me. (Not the stories in it, so don't go taking that the wrong way.) Unless I have a renewal of energy this evening, this post will be the last of the Children of Time reviews - at least, the last of the reviews before voting closes. I'll still go back and try to get the rest of the nominations ----- but after the New Year. At the moment, I don't think I should really look at another fanfic, for fear of seeing connections that simply aren't there.
Maybe, in an odd way, thirteen is a good place to stop. It's appropriate to Doctor Who, anyway, what with the thirteen lives he's got. And like the Valeyard, this last go did seem to go a little bit out of control. (Well, I think it did. We'll see if you all agree)
Assuming I have time what with packing and fudge and all, I'll write a final write-up this evening, because when all is said and done, this has been an absolutely amazing experience, even if I did lose my mind there for a few hours last night. And I do have some additional thoughts to share, but they'll keep for now.