Fic: Memento of you
Title: Memento of you
Author: psyfi_geekgirl
Characters/Pairings: Eleven/Rose, River
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Spoilers ahead for Season 5 finale!
Summary: How did the Doctor spend all of that time after the Big Bang, waiting to be remembered? What if the Doctor forgot who he was too after stepping through the crack in Amy’s wall during The Big Bang a la Memento?
Word count: 1,955
Disclaimer: I don’t own ‘em. “Not nobody, not nohow…”
A/N: Prompted by challenge 11 at then_theres_us (Crossover--with the film Memento). Well folks, this is my 1st attempt at a crossover. In the end, it might be more of a mashup? I’ve no idea what the rules are, but I had fun doing it anyway! Please to enjoy…
A man with floppy brown hair wakes up. His seafoam green eyes open and they survey the dimly lit, barren little room.
Ah. A motel room. But he doesn’t recognize it. As he gets out of bed he hears a muffled moan and is surprised to see a woman with black hair next to him, asleep on the bed. He doesn’t know who she is. Watching intently, he sees her wiggle a bit and then relax back into sleep. He studies the room and sees a tweed jacket and a blue shirt hung on the back of a chair. He puts them on and is surprised that they fit. They must be mine, he thinks. He rummages around in the pockets and finds a small stack of Polaroid pictures. On the top is a picture of the woman in the bed. A handwritten note on the white strip under the photo reads: Natalie: She has also lost someone, she will help you out of pity. As he looks down at the photo he notices writing on the back of his hand: Remember Rose Tyler. He rubs at it but it does not smudge or come off. Looking for something to remind him of where he is and how he got there, he quietly opens the drawer of the nightstand but finds only the Gideon Bible. He jams his hands in his trouser pockets and comes out with a scrunched up piece of fabric. He unfolds it: A bowtie. He stares at it.
This should mean something, he thinks. But what?
The black haired woman on the bed named Natalie stirs. “Hello, Sweetie. You ok?”
“Yeah…” he says suspiciously.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” She asks, simply, sitting up.
“No. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. But I have this condition, you see-“
“Yeah. I know. You’ve told me before. Can’t make new memories and can’t remember old ones. Like an amnesiac.”
“It’s not personal or anything. I just don’t remember you.” He fiddles with his coat cuffs.
“That’s ok. We haven’t really met yet anyway. We keep meeting out of order.” She says as she runs her fingers through her hair, untangling it.
“What do you mean?”
“Shh… Spoilers…” She slips off the bed. He sees she’s wearing a slip and he shyly looks away as she slides into the black dress that had been draped across the bed.
His mind is in a tumult as he urges his brain to remember the day’s events. Should he know this woman? Who is she to him? Why were they sharing a bed? But he can’t remember anything.
“Tell me about her,” Natalie prompts.
“About who?” he asks.
“About the girl on your hand.”
“Rose Tyler? Why do you want to hear about her?” He asks, still suspicious of her.
“Because she’s all you ever want to talk about and I like seeing you happy,” she explains.
“I can’t remember much,” he says with a sadness he doesn’t understand.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
He sits down at the edge of the bed, runs his hands through his floppy hair, and attempts to prod the edges of his memory with a metaphorical pointy stick. It all seems so murky, but at least he remembers this clearly: “I remember her blonde hair. She had a smile that could warm the coldest night and a laugh that could cheer the darkest soul. She was all yellow and candyfloss pink. I remember her standing on a beach with her hair blowing in the wind. She was crying. We were both crying. I wanted to go to her, to hold her, but I couldn’t. She was brave and brilliant and she was beautiful. She had the biggest heart of anyone I ever knew. She made me better, and… I loved her.” He smiles to himself.
“Keep going, is there any more?” Natalie encourages.
“Other memories are there, just under the surface. Others are half-filled in, ghost images, like a half developed Polaroid photo. Wait… The Polaroids.” He pulls out his stack and flips through them--a picture of greasy chips. He reads his handwritten note on the back: “We had chips on our first date.” He flips to another picture of a big, blue police box. Written on the back: TARDIS Type 40. My home. I “borrowed” it. Never let anyone take it. He flips to another picture of a tenement flat: The Powell Estates. And on the back, “Rose’s flat, empty. She disappeared after the Battle of Canary Wharf.”
“You have tattoos, too-don’t you?”
“Do I?” He asks, bewildered. “Are they cool?”
Natalie laughs a small, strained, sad laugh. “They’re a bit odd, but you called it your ‘Elegant Plan For Remembrance,’ do you remember?”
“No, I don’t. I told you, I have-“
“A condition. Yeah. I know. So you’ve said.” She walks over to him and slides her hands down his back and pulls the shirttails out of his trousers. He jumps with the feeling of her hands on him. “Easy, Tiger,” she teases. “We’re just going to have a looksee. I’m afraid that’s all we have time for today...” She helps him out of his jacket and to undo the buttons of his shirt; and pulling off his shirt, marvels at the black markings all over his arms and torso. Each one apparently done by different hands, different fonts and scripts, some are homemade. He examines each one as if he has never seen them before.
Written across his stomach-
The Facts:
Time can be rewritten
The Pandorica will open
Amy/Amelia is the key to the universe
Bowties are cool
And on his left wrist/forearm: Rule 1: The Doctor Lies
On his right bicep: 26-6-2010
Lastly he notices, in large stylized block letters on his chest: FLOW DAB
Standing in front of the dresser mirror, he looks up to see the full effect. He gasps when he sees, written across his chest:
BAD WOLF
In his mind, an image comes screaming into his memory-searing the edges of the fog he lives in-of a girl with glowing yellow hair and fire burning out of her eyes. She attempts the impossible, dissolves a Dalek fleet with the power of her thoughts and burns with the power of the time vortex churning behind her eyes. She is fierce and terrible and Judgment Incarnate. All she wants is to keep him safe. She brings life and death and sees into eternity. And her head is killing her…
Now memories of Rose rush back: He remembers the way she stood up to tyrants, made dark situations lighter, always asked the right questions and comforted the doomed. Like a Polaroid developing in his hand, he loved the person he watched her become as a result of traveling with him; and without having to ask her to do anything she was a perfect fit, just by sliding her hand around his. She smells of tea and chips, apple grass and half-dried nail varnish. He sees her tongue poke between her teeth when she laughs and the curve of her breasts under a purple shirt. He remembers the feel of her fingers in his hair and her lips on his-two stolen kisses-the only ones he would have, but would cherish throughout time.
“Rose!” He whispers. “How could I have ever forgotten her?”
“I’m sorry my love,” whispers Natalie as a tear runs down her cheek. “But this isn’t real. None of this is real. We’re stuck in a timeloop. The TARDIS is attempting to protect you, but it means that you will have to relive the last five minutes-over and over again-for the next two-thousand years or so.”
He blinks at her, staring at the bland walls of the motel room. “Natalie, we’re in a motel-“
“This isn’t a motel. It’s a spaceship, your spaceship,” insists Natalie. “And my name isn’t Natalie.”
“Oh great. I have amnesia and I’ve managed to hook myself up with a beautiful nutter-“
“Doctor!” She yells exasperatedly.
“Wait a minute-hmm? What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“No. No. That was something. You said ‘Doctor’”
“Yeah, so what?” says Natalie/Not Natalie dismissively.
“That means something, something important.” He’s frustrated, poking the back of his head, trying to dislodge a memory that is just out of reach.
“Yes. It does. Do you remember the Doctor?”
Her constant quizzing of him tests his final nerve. “River, who are you?” He bursts out, seriously annoyed.
“You remember me!?” River gasps, tears still in her eyes.
“Of course I do!” he shouts, wondering why he hadn’t placed her before. “But why do you look like that?”
“Transcription errors. The TARDIS is badly hurt. She’s doing the best she can. Don’t you see? The memories are all still there - Rose, the Doctor, Amy, me. You've just been programmed not to look, but you told me over one thousand years ago that if something can be remembered it could come back.”
“Is that it then? Will Rose come back to me if I remember her?” He asks excitedly.
She looks down at the floor. “No. I’m sorry. This doesn’t have anything to do with Rose.”
“But I remember her. She’s the only thing I clearly remember. We were on the beach-at Bad Wolf Bay. I burned up a sun to say goodbye! I don’t even remember who I am or where I am, but I remember her. I believe in her.” He begins to look for an exit to their tiny motel room. “I need to find her. She needs me.”
“No, Doctor, she doesn’t. She’s gone. You lost her. You left her.”
“But why is she the only thing I remember about my life!?”
River shakes her head sadly. “It’s where you stopped in the rewind. She’s the last thing you remembered before you stepped through the crack in Amelia’s house. She’s just a residual memory. That’s all.”
“But why would I leave all these notes to myself. All these clues if I wasn’t meant to find her?”
“Because you always said that her name kept you fighting, and you’ve been fighting for a very long time, my love. But it will be over soon. I promise.”
“So I won’t ever see her again?” he asks, his voice very small, like a child’s.
“No. I’m sorry.” She attempts to soothe him, but not fool him. “Not anymore. That song ended long ago.”
Something she says triggers him and he looks off, seeing but not seeing. “Oh, no. I remember now… I remember… Everything.” No fight left in him, the Doctor’s legs suddenly grow weak. He weeps into his hands out of despair. River helps him over to the bed and picks up his jacket, which she hangs with his shirt over the back of the chair. “Rest now,” she says softly, “you’ll need it for the fight ahead.” She tucks him into bed and strokes his face until he shuts his eyes. River removes her dress, throws it across the edge of the bed and slides into bed next to him, wearing her slip.
“Sweet dreams, my love. See you in a mo-. Maybe someday we’ll have our time to run.”
Together, they drift into nothingness. They are neither present nor past, alive or dead. They are everywhere and nowhere. The heart of the TARDIS explodes yet again, like she has for 1,894 years. The Doctor doesn’t know it, but he has only one cycle left to go, because somewhere in time, a memory that was planted long ago, is stirring.
Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.
A man with floppy brown hair wakes up. His seafoam green eyes open and they survey the dimly lit, barren little room. Ah. A motel room…
Author: psyfi_geekgirl
Characters/Pairings: Eleven/Rose, River
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Spoilers ahead for Season 5 finale!
Summary: How did the Doctor spend all of that time after the Big Bang, waiting to be remembered? What if the Doctor forgot who he was too after stepping through the crack in Amy’s wall during The Big Bang a la Memento?
Word count: 1,955
Disclaimer: I don’t own ‘em. “Not nobody, not nohow…”
A/N: Prompted by challenge 11 at then_theres_us (Crossover--with the film Memento). Well folks, this is my 1st attempt at a crossover. In the end, it might be more of a mashup? I’ve no idea what the rules are, but I had fun doing it anyway! Please to enjoy…
A man with floppy brown hair wakes up. His seafoam green eyes open and they survey the dimly lit, barren little room.
Ah. A motel room. But he doesn’t recognize it. As he gets out of bed he hears a muffled moan and is surprised to see a woman with black hair next to him, asleep on the bed. He doesn’t know who she is. Watching intently, he sees her wiggle a bit and then relax back into sleep. He studies the room and sees a tweed jacket and a blue shirt hung on the back of a chair. He puts them on and is surprised that they fit. They must be mine, he thinks. He rummages around in the pockets and finds a small stack of Polaroid pictures. On the top is a picture of the woman in the bed. A handwritten note on the white strip under the photo reads: Natalie: She has also lost someone, she will help you out of pity. As he looks down at the photo he notices writing on the back of his hand: Remember Rose Tyler. He rubs at it but it does not smudge or come off. Looking for something to remind him of where he is and how he got there, he quietly opens the drawer of the nightstand but finds only the Gideon Bible. He jams his hands in his trouser pockets and comes out with a scrunched up piece of fabric. He unfolds it: A bowtie. He stares at it.
This should mean something, he thinks. But what?
The black haired woman on the bed named Natalie stirs. “Hello, Sweetie. You ok?”
“Yeah…” he says suspiciously.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” She asks, simply, sitting up.
“No. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. But I have this condition, you see-“
“Yeah. I know. You’ve told me before. Can’t make new memories and can’t remember old ones. Like an amnesiac.”
“It’s not personal or anything. I just don’t remember you.” He fiddles with his coat cuffs.
“That’s ok. We haven’t really met yet anyway. We keep meeting out of order.” She says as she runs her fingers through her hair, untangling it.
“What do you mean?”
“Shh… Spoilers…” She slips off the bed. He sees she’s wearing a slip and he shyly looks away as she slides into the black dress that had been draped across the bed.
His mind is in a tumult as he urges his brain to remember the day’s events. Should he know this woman? Who is she to him? Why were they sharing a bed? But he can’t remember anything.
“Tell me about her,” Natalie prompts.
“About who?” he asks.
“About the girl on your hand.”
“Rose Tyler? Why do you want to hear about her?” He asks, still suspicious of her.
“Because she’s all you ever want to talk about and I like seeing you happy,” she explains.
“I can’t remember much,” he says with a sadness he doesn’t understand.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
He sits down at the edge of the bed, runs his hands through his floppy hair, and attempts to prod the edges of his memory with a metaphorical pointy stick. It all seems so murky, but at least he remembers this clearly: “I remember her blonde hair. She had a smile that could warm the coldest night and a laugh that could cheer the darkest soul. She was all yellow and candyfloss pink. I remember her standing on a beach with her hair blowing in the wind. She was crying. We were both crying. I wanted to go to her, to hold her, but I couldn’t. She was brave and brilliant and she was beautiful. She had the biggest heart of anyone I ever knew. She made me better, and… I loved her.” He smiles to himself.
“Keep going, is there any more?” Natalie encourages.
“Other memories are there, just under the surface. Others are half-filled in, ghost images, like a half developed Polaroid photo. Wait… The Polaroids.” He pulls out his stack and flips through them--a picture of greasy chips. He reads his handwritten note on the back: “We had chips on our first date.” He flips to another picture of a big, blue police box. Written on the back: TARDIS Type 40. My home. I “borrowed” it. Never let anyone take it. He flips to another picture of a tenement flat: The Powell Estates. And on the back, “Rose’s flat, empty. She disappeared after the Battle of Canary Wharf.”
“You have tattoos, too-don’t you?”
“Do I?” He asks, bewildered. “Are they cool?”
Natalie laughs a small, strained, sad laugh. “They’re a bit odd, but you called it your ‘Elegant Plan For Remembrance,’ do you remember?”
“No, I don’t. I told you, I have-“
“A condition. Yeah. I know. So you’ve said.” She walks over to him and slides her hands down his back and pulls the shirttails out of his trousers. He jumps with the feeling of her hands on him. “Easy, Tiger,” she teases. “We’re just going to have a looksee. I’m afraid that’s all we have time for today...” She helps him out of his jacket and to undo the buttons of his shirt; and pulling off his shirt, marvels at the black markings all over his arms and torso. Each one apparently done by different hands, different fonts and scripts, some are homemade. He examines each one as if he has never seen them before.
Written across his stomach-
The Facts:
Time can be rewritten
The Pandorica will open
Amy/Amelia is the key to the universe
Bowties are cool
And on his left wrist/forearm: Rule 1: The Doctor Lies
On his right bicep: 26-6-2010
Lastly he notices, in large stylized block letters on his chest: FLOW DAB
Standing in front of the dresser mirror, he looks up to see the full effect. He gasps when he sees, written across his chest:
BAD WOLF
In his mind, an image comes screaming into his memory-searing the edges of the fog he lives in-of a girl with glowing yellow hair and fire burning out of her eyes. She attempts the impossible, dissolves a Dalek fleet with the power of her thoughts and burns with the power of the time vortex churning behind her eyes. She is fierce and terrible and Judgment Incarnate. All she wants is to keep him safe. She brings life and death and sees into eternity. And her head is killing her…
Now memories of Rose rush back: He remembers the way she stood up to tyrants, made dark situations lighter, always asked the right questions and comforted the doomed. Like a Polaroid developing in his hand, he loved the person he watched her become as a result of traveling with him; and without having to ask her to do anything she was a perfect fit, just by sliding her hand around his. She smells of tea and chips, apple grass and half-dried nail varnish. He sees her tongue poke between her teeth when she laughs and the curve of her breasts under a purple shirt. He remembers the feel of her fingers in his hair and her lips on his-two stolen kisses-the only ones he would have, but would cherish throughout time.
“Rose!” He whispers. “How could I have ever forgotten her?”
“I’m sorry my love,” whispers Natalie as a tear runs down her cheek. “But this isn’t real. None of this is real. We’re stuck in a timeloop. The TARDIS is attempting to protect you, but it means that you will have to relive the last five minutes-over and over again-for the next two-thousand years or so.”
He blinks at her, staring at the bland walls of the motel room. “Natalie, we’re in a motel-“
“This isn’t a motel. It’s a spaceship, your spaceship,” insists Natalie. “And my name isn’t Natalie.”
“Oh great. I have amnesia and I’ve managed to hook myself up with a beautiful nutter-“
“Doctor!” She yells exasperatedly.
“Wait a minute-hmm? What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“No. No. That was something. You said ‘Doctor’”
“Yeah, so what?” says Natalie/Not Natalie dismissively.
“That means something, something important.” He’s frustrated, poking the back of his head, trying to dislodge a memory that is just out of reach.
“Yes. It does. Do you remember the Doctor?”
Her constant quizzing of him tests his final nerve. “River, who are you?” He bursts out, seriously annoyed.
“You remember me!?” River gasps, tears still in her eyes.
“Of course I do!” he shouts, wondering why he hadn’t placed her before. “But why do you look like that?”
“Transcription errors. The TARDIS is badly hurt. She’s doing the best she can. Don’t you see? The memories are all still there - Rose, the Doctor, Amy, me. You've just been programmed not to look, but you told me over one thousand years ago that if something can be remembered it could come back.”
“Is that it then? Will Rose come back to me if I remember her?” He asks excitedly.
She looks down at the floor. “No. I’m sorry. This doesn’t have anything to do with Rose.”
“But I remember her. She’s the only thing I clearly remember. We were on the beach-at Bad Wolf Bay. I burned up a sun to say goodbye! I don’t even remember who I am or where I am, but I remember her. I believe in her.” He begins to look for an exit to their tiny motel room. “I need to find her. She needs me.”
“No, Doctor, she doesn’t. She’s gone. You lost her. You left her.”
“But why is she the only thing I remember about my life!?”
River shakes her head sadly. “It’s where you stopped in the rewind. She’s the last thing you remembered before you stepped through the crack in Amelia’s house. She’s just a residual memory. That’s all.”
“But why would I leave all these notes to myself. All these clues if I wasn’t meant to find her?”
“Because you always said that her name kept you fighting, and you’ve been fighting for a very long time, my love. But it will be over soon. I promise.”
“So I won’t ever see her again?” he asks, his voice very small, like a child’s.
“No. I’m sorry.” She attempts to soothe him, but not fool him. “Not anymore. That song ended long ago.”
Something she says triggers him and he looks off, seeing but not seeing. “Oh, no. I remember now… I remember… Everything.” No fight left in him, the Doctor’s legs suddenly grow weak. He weeps into his hands out of despair. River helps him over to the bed and picks up his jacket, which she hangs with his shirt over the back of the chair. “Rest now,” she says softly, “you’ll need it for the fight ahead.” She tucks him into bed and strokes his face until he shuts his eyes. River removes her dress, throws it across the edge of the bed and slides into bed next to him, wearing her slip.
“Sweet dreams, my love. See you in a mo-. Maybe someday we’ll have our time to run.”
Together, they drift into nothingness. They are neither present nor past, alive or dead. They are everywhere and nowhere. The heart of the TARDIS explodes yet again, like she has for 1,894 years. The Doctor doesn’t know it, but he has only one cycle left to go, because somewhere in time, a memory that was planted long ago, is stirring.
Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.
A man with floppy brown hair wakes up. His seafoam green eyes open and they survey the dimly lit, barren little room. Ah. A motel room…