He's Fire And Ice And Rage

To murder my love is a crime
But will you still love
A man out of time

The Journal of Impossible Things

November 1, 1913

There are rules for traveling with the Doctor. The dream with them is fading fast, so excuse me if this entry is somewhat disjointed, I'm trying to place them all together.

Rule number one is no wandering off. He's dealt with this many, many times. Having a companion or friend or lover (sometimes they appear to all be the same) wander away and he has to go find them. I think he partially enjoys this, taking care of them. They all appear to mean so much to him.

Rule B. Rule number two. He wants to take control of verbal communications with other people or beings, saying "Let me do all the talking". Why he's so adamant to make sure he is in control of the talking, I don't know. Perhaps he does not find them intelligent enough to talk on their own.

For all his affection for his human companions, he appears to be oft uncertain of their intellectual capabilities. Perhaps this is because he is so very intelligent in comparison to them, or perhaps it is left over from when he was young. His world, while beautiful, is full of prejudice based on intelligence, class, race, even what house one is…"sorted" (? perhaps different reference?) into.

As I've lost the rest of the rules, let me move onto this world of his. Orange-coloured skies. I most definitely remember them. Silver leaves on the trees. The scope of the world is overwhelming. It's so utterly alien, so completely a different world. When I dream that I am him, sometimes I forget that he is an alien, that his life was so different. But…it was. He is a man out of time.

This is, no doubt, why he makes up these rules for his companions. It is as when I traveled to here from London. I had set up perimeters for myself while I adjusted. He, on the other hand, never takes the time to adjust. He is constantly in a state of motion, and thus constantly creates things he can and can not do.

He even has rules for himself, though I can not possibly remember any of them. Save one.

Do not become attached.

What kind of a tragic life it is, to travel the universe with those he loves and yet never allow himself attachment.

Muse: The Doctor (Ten) / John Smith
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 383

"You can't do this! It doesn't have to end this way!"

BLAM.

There's pain and it's blinding and he collapses backwards. Martha screams. Her hand goes to his chest, and he feels weak and burning and weak and---

"You don't have to do this," Martha's voice is significantly calmer, but she's so much calmer in these sorts of situations. All that medical training has paid off.

"Oh, but I do." His hand rises up, and a button on a red cylinder is pushed.

"We'll get it right next time."

+

Something is wrong with the world.

He can feel it.

Something's wrong with the way the trees are blowing, with the way the air feels. It's wrong. It's familiar, but since he's never been on this street before it can't be, but it is. The briskness of the November air bites his face with an extra sting of wrong.

He knows wrong well. He's fought wrong, and abandoned loved ones to terrible fates, all because of wrong.

"You all right, Doctor?" Martha's voice cuts through the haze. It's a machete to the proverbial jungle of wrong.

A bike rider zips through traffic, and the Doctor already knows that a newspaper will fall out of his bag. It does, landing five feet away on the pavement. It flops and lies there like a stick of butter on a skillet, fat and sizzling in the wrong of the world.

(  He steps forward and picks it up. It feels like it should burn, but it doesn't, and he doesn't know why he thinks it should. )

Muse: The Doctor (Ten)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 3,128

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

He blames Martha, of course.

It is her fault, he figures. Her and that curiosity of hers. He’s always liked that curiosity, but it seems to have gotten them into trouble nearly as often as his own. He wouldn’t show her the transcript, but she got a hold of the photos of the abandoned building and went on her own. The Doctor only just showed up in time.

( Well, sort of. Cut for spoilers to 3.10, 'Blink.' )

Muse: The Doctor (Ten)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 2, 568

Based on this ficlet by doctorsplusone.

Dear Rose,

My beloved Rose,

My beloved companion,

Rose:

It's me. Uh, just in case you didn't figure it out by the awkward writing style or the fact that if you're reading this you're in my TARDIS which I don't really ever expect to happen but if it did it would be rather splendid wouldn't it?

That last sentence was a bit of a run-on, wasn't it? I really should get one of those handwriting spell-and-grammar-checkers they sell on Plastastine 3.

Anyway, that's not the reason for this letter, of course. Because, really, writing a letter to talk about grammatically checking a letter, especially to someone one hasn't seen in a long time? Seems quite foolish, don't you think?

So! Yes, I'm here. And it would appear that I'm writing you some sort of a pathetic I-miss-you-and-need-to-get-it-out letter, the kind you see therapists make their patients write (not that I've ever been a patient, or a therapist for that matter, I've just indulged in a bit of Grey's Anatomy lately). However, despite those appearances, this letter is, in fact, merely a way for me to tell you that I’m okay.

Still got all my body parts, something I know you worried about. Two hands, two feet, all my toes. Lost all my blood for a while in between there, but it's back now.

=D

Look, that's an emoticon! I just discovered them. Doesn't work quite as well with handwriting, but I think they're rather brilliant. Expresses a big grin, and you can put a mental image of me with that grin of mine that looks sort of like a D but not really, there.

I've discovered a blue suit in the TARDIS wardrobe. Blue is the official color of mourning on I rather think it goes well with the new red converses I've purchased. At the advice of someone far wiser than myself, I also purchased some black ones, as well, for when I have to dress up.

But, really, other than that? I'm all right.

I am. I'm trying moving forwards, moving onwards, just like you'd expect from me. Just invited someone new to travel with me in the TARDIS, so I'm not alone. I know you wouldn't want that.

Her name is Martha. Martha Jones. She's Mickey's age, but she's training to be a doctor, so the common denominator in our names gives her and I a good bit to talk about. You'd like her. No, who am I kidding, you'd despise her. She's got the same stubborn streak as you, and if the two of you were traveling in the TARDIS, I can imagine the air conditioning would need to be replaced every few weeks from how heated your arguments would be.

All the same, I wish think it would've be nice to have you two meet. Who knows, right? Great big universe and all that.

Now, appearances again, it probably looks like I’m replacing you with her. That's not true, not in the slightest, Rose. Martha is very different from you. A companion, yes. Important, yes. But she's not Rose, and I wanted you to know that because I think you would worry about that and this is the stupidest letter I've ever written second only to that fan letter I wrote to JK Rowling.

That's really all for now. Cloister bell's going off, never a good sign.

I'll write you more when I have more time.

The Doctor

Muse: The Doctor (Ten)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 577

There's never any time.

The irony of being a Timelord, he supposes.

.There's a split second before a child becomes a man and another split second before he's holding his own grandchild in his arms. He watches buildings rise and stars fall, and he's standing on his home planet a split second before he wants to leave In the next second, he's handing the grandchild away (when did she grow to be a woman? Wasn't it just a split second ago she was a precocious little girl?) to be a bride. In a split second he leaves her and in the next he regrets it.

There's never any time.

Another second and he feels two hearts beat underneath his breast, as he's lost his first regeneration. Seconds tick by, and he gathers companions and loses them (and has them ripped away). Another second, and he's exiled. Another, he's back in his planet's good graces. Another, and suddenly he's elected President. Another, and he's on the run again. Things change so quickly, they move so fast. He can't keep up, it seems, all that irony is weighing him down.

There's never any time.

Another second ticks. He blinks away tears as memories of his home planet swim before his eyes. Wasn't it a second ago that he was resenting the ground beneath his Gallifrey-bound feet? In the same second, he finds a friend (a love), and before the next second ticks, he's attached, he's holding on for dear life. Wasn't it a second ago that he swore he'd never give his hearts to another? He falls in love in a split second (but it takes centuries to move on).

In a split second, he decides to trade his life for hers. (If another appeared, he'd do it again.)

There's never any time.

Another second, and she's screaming screaming falling and he can't catch her. It takes a split second, but she's saved, and in that instant, he's alone again. A split second and he's reaching for her, but he's just an image. Had he told her he loved her a split second sooner, she'd have heard him. He waits for the centuries to roll in, and eventually the hurt will heal.

There's never any time.

Another split second, and her hand is in his, and he's found a friend. Split second decision, of course, to give her just one trip. Several seconds, and suddenly she's more than just a passenger. A split second later, she's in his home, invading his life and he hates it. Another second, and he wouldn't be without her. Another second, and he is. There's no time to grieve or miss or feel, things just move too fast, and the irony of how much time he's had and how little he has never escapes him.

There's never any time.

He's old, now. Very old. Impossibly old, he might've said at one point. Washed up, used up. Dry and brittle, like the fabric of the universe. No friend to hold his hand this time, he's alone (but there are so many seconds in there that he's been alone, why does this one have to be any different?) No more time for split second decisions, his clock is ticked down to zero, and there aren't anymore sleeping forms in his mind to wake up, no more regenerations to be had. For a second, he wishes he wasn't alone.

There's never any time to fulfill wishes when you're a Timelord. He doesn't have time to see the irony in it.

Muse: The Doctor (Ten)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 590

The Last Great Time War: The Front Lines


Mistah Kurtz – he dead.
A penny for the old guy.

He's running. Run, run, run running. Shoes were lost somewhere behind him---what a pity, he loved those shoes. Grace gave him those shoes. Still running, still trying to get away. He climbs a tree, pulls into that half-monkey heritage that he doesn't like to talk about. His uniform is torn in about eight places, and he's bleeding. But he's alive.

( Only just. )

Muse: The Doctor (Ten)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: (not including lines from T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men") 984