Like a Cheap Human Novel
Rating: G
Prompt: #082 - If
Claim: The Time War
Table: Here
Spoilers: Takes place right after The Doctor's Daughter
Characters: Tenth Doctor
Summary: When Martha is gone, and Donna has left for bed, and the TARDIS is quiet again, the Doctor spares a moment to sit down and imagine how things might have turned out if his daughter had lived.
When Martha is gone, and Donna has left for bed, and the TARDIS is quiet again, the Doctor spares a moment (a brief one) to sit down and imagine how things might have turned out if his daughter had lived.
He sits in the living room (the hidden one, not the one frequented by his companions), in front of the fireplace and a fire that’s nursed and regulated by the TARDIS and always just right. His hands are clasped in his lap and he’s sitting perfectly still as he stares at the empty armchair and imagines her sitting inside it. And they would talk. Not yet. Not this moment, had she been here. But someday. Perhaps when Donna has left him. Perhaps even later.
Or maybe just when the situation called for it, and he could no longer keep quiet.
It’s all hypothetical now, because she’s dead and gone back to the world of unfulfilled possibilities. But if she was here, the Doctor thinks, he would like to tell her of Gallifrey. Because she’s never seen it and never would have seen it, would never have called it home, but she has been a Time Lady, technically, and somehow that would have given her the right to know.
He would tell her of the good things first. They would spend nights in front of the fire, like a father and a daughter from a silly human novel, and he’d leave out all the things that might spoil the image. (Unless she asked directly. Then he might be tempted to let it slip. He’d expect her to ask many questions. She was so much like him.)
Eventually he would tell her of the war, and she would be very quiet and listen without interrupting, as he told her of his crimes, and how everything is gone now. When he was finished, silence would fill the room for a long time, with only the sound of wood breaking in the flames to be heard. Eventually she would leave the room without a word, or maybe she would have found words of blame, while he stared at the floor, not at her. Perhaps she wouldn’t have known what to say, or how to react. He doesn’t know, but he knows he’ll never find out. Because he won’t, and she can never prove him wrong, he likes to imagine that she would just had given him a hug and told him it was all right.
She has been a Time Lady, technically, and that would have given her the right.
-
If Jenny had lived, the Doctor would have taken them to Earth in the thirty-fifth century, her and Donna, and they would have watched the northern lights over Florida and he would have gotten them all the ice-cream they could eat.
December 3, 2008
Prompt: #082 - If
Claim: The Time War
Table: Here
Spoilers: Takes place right after The Doctor's Daughter
Characters: Tenth Doctor
Summary: When Martha is gone, and Donna has left for bed, and the TARDIS is quiet again, the Doctor spares a moment to sit down and imagine how things might have turned out if his daughter had lived.
When Martha is gone, and Donna has left for bed, and the TARDIS is quiet again, the Doctor spares a moment (a brief one) to sit down and imagine how things might have turned out if his daughter had lived.
He sits in the living room (the hidden one, not the one frequented by his companions), in front of the fireplace and a fire that’s nursed and regulated by the TARDIS and always just right. His hands are clasped in his lap and he’s sitting perfectly still as he stares at the empty armchair and imagines her sitting inside it. And they would talk. Not yet. Not this moment, had she been here. But someday. Perhaps when Donna has left him. Perhaps even later.
Or maybe just when the situation called for it, and he could no longer keep quiet.
It’s all hypothetical now, because she’s dead and gone back to the world of unfulfilled possibilities. But if she was here, the Doctor thinks, he would like to tell her of Gallifrey. Because she’s never seen it and never would have seen it, would never have called it home, but she has been a Time Lady, technically, and somehow that would have given her the right to know.
He would tell her of the good things first. They would spend nights in front of the fire, like a father and a daughter from a silly human novel, and he’d leave out all the things that might spoil the image. (Unless she asked directly. Then he might be tempted to let it slip. He’d expect her to ask many questions. She was so much like him.)
Eventually he would tell her of the war, and she would be very quiet and listen without interrupting, as he told her of his crimes, and how everything is gone now. When he was finished, silence would fill the room for a long time, with only the sound of wood breaking in the flames to be heard. Eventually she would leave the room without a word, or maybe she would have found words of blame, while he stared at the floor, not at her. Perhaps she wouldn’t have known what to say, or how to react. He doesn’t know, but he knows he’ll never find out. Because he won’t, and she can never prove him wrong, he likes to imagine that she would just had given him a hug and told him it was all right.
She has been a Time Lady, technically, and that would have given her the right.
-
If Jenny had lived, the Doctor would have taken them to Earth in the thirty-fifth century, her and Donna, and they would have watched the northern lights over Florida and he would have gotten them all the ice-cream they could eat.
December 3, 2008