It's Fic Rec Friday!

Writer's Block Meme Day Three

From this.

Day One Is Here. Day Two Is Here.

Within moments, she is holding him. Warm, human arms that are far stronger than he remembers. Her hair is long and brushes the sides of his cheeks and she smells like gunpowder and worked leather. She smells the way he imagines he used to smell, back when he was freshly out of the War.

Her voice sounds like an echo. "I've got you, look. I missed you."

"Rose." Despite the pain, he still manages to smile. It's her. He's found her. It's very different from when they leave him, because then he knows they're where they want to be. This feels like something's finally been fixed, something's been found that was long since gone. "Long time, no see."

"Yeah. Been busy, you know." She smells like pain and gunpowder, even though the large weapon is cold as it falls against his side.

"Please don't die," she says, and her arms are secure. She smells familiar, she feels familiar, and there's so much familiarity that the newness of the wounds is really lost on him. It feels like nostalgia, not a mortal injury.

There is no pain, only a sense of return. A return to the place he once was, one regeneration ago.

Sensation shoots up his arms and his legs, but it's not powerful enough to be pain and it leaves dead nerve endings behind. It leaves dead nerve endings, dead tissue, dead---dead---dead---

He's about to die. There are a lot of ways he thought he would go, but this is not one of them. Not this regeneration. Not like this, at the hand of a single energy weapon. But even as she holds him, even as she clings to the life he's got left, he can feel his cells begin to change.

for theatrical_muse: Talk about the weather.

"It's brilliant!" the Doctor said excitedly, hopping from beneath the console with a wild grin. "Something I haven't seen in, well, since all the TARDISes died out in the Time War! You know, it's not the sort of thing I'd have imagined in such good con---"

He stopped mid-ramble and looked around the empty console room. Right. Right, of course.

More quietly, to the TARDIS, he continued. "But! If you're going to use one of these things, you should really make sure it's in the best condition, am I right? Of course I'm right! Heard far too many stories of TARDISes ending up with space viruses otherwise."

The inner console glowed warily, but the Doctor waved his hand. "Oh, nothing to worry about. I've already scanned it through twelve different testers. This is in top condition and should work perfectly once I've got it uploaded."

He paused. This was the point where any human companion would've asked 'Well, what is it, Doctor?' It was a natural thing, waiting for this sort of a response. Clearly, it had been too long since he'd traveled with someone. Or, perhaps, not long enough.

"Well, best load it up, then." He pressed a few keys, and the new program he'd acquired on his last landing zone shimmered into life on the TARDIS screen.

It was what the universal program dealers on Cenauri Delta called an 'app'. Which the Doctor could've only assumed meant 'TARDIS application program'. But! Such TARDIS apps were very rare, especially because a) there weren't any TARDISes left but the Doctor's, and b) the type 40 was an obsolete model. But, as he passed the vendors, there it was. A clip with an app on it! Brilliant! It didn't really matter what was on the app, as long as it worked.

He felt a sudden, strange sense of worry. This was the point where a companion would tell him it wasn't a good idea to upload something he didn't trust, wasn't it? Well, he'd have brushed them off then, too.

"Now Loading," a mechanical voice informed him. A tiny blue icon with a cloud on it appeared in the upper right corner of the TARDIS monitor. In swirly Gallifreyan font it said "Weather Satellite".

( Brilliant!' he said, gleefully. 'A weather app!' )

Muse: The Doctor (Ten)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 1,169
No apologies to G1. Your Weather Channel app is terrible.