Doctor Who | Such Spirit Through the Year
Jan. 1st, 2008 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eponymous_roseTitle: Such Spirit Through the Year
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eponymous_rose
Dedication: To my friends-list, with hopes for another wonderful year.
Rating: G
Word Count: 1800 (nine 200-word vignettes)
Characters: The Doctor, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright, Jamie McCrimmon, Jo Grant, Romana, Peri Brown, Evelyn Smythe, Ace, Charley Pollard
Spoilers: Minor spoilers for “The Chase”
Summary: Nine moments, nine stories. Worlds as they are, were, and someday will be. Beginnings, endings, and the lives that slip between the two.
I. New Year’s Day, 1966
It’s a cold, white world, and Ian smiles out at it, determined to be cheerful despite the rapidly growing load of snow that will undoubtedly have to be cleared at some point. His breath is fogging up the glass, but it’s creating a rather pleasing effect with the falling whorls of snow, so he lets it be. Artistry for its own sake.
“I’ve just realised,” Barbara says, “it’s been less than a month since we left the Doctor.”
She’s leaning against him, looking up as she speaks, and he imagines that her breath must be fogging up his cheek. “Really?” he says, attempting to inject just the right amount of incredulity into his tone.
She smirks. “Seems shorter to you too, then.”
“Mm,” he says noncommittally. “A little.”
They stare out in silence at the new year, and, after a moment, her hand finds his. “1966,” she says softly, reverently. “Imagine. And all the celebrations over.”
“Just another day,” Ian says. “A new one, a little bit brighter, but nothing terribly special about it.”
They stand at the window, hand-in-hand, until the first few people venture out into the fresh blankness, drawing silent footprints across the new snow.
II. New Year’s Eve, 1000
The Doctor glances up at the half-veiled moon, trying to identify the stars overhead, and grins in recognition.
“Where are we, Doctor?”
Jamie emerges from the TARDIS, staring about as though attempting to catalogue everything around him. The Doctor grins and beckons. “Oh, Jamie, you’ll quite enjoy this!”
They stand side-by-side for a long moment, watching their breath fog in the chill air. In an absentminded gesture, the Doctor shrugs off his coat and hands it to his shivering companion.
“We’re just coming to it, Jamie. Wait a moment.”
Jamie shuffles his feet, then awkwardly drapes the Doctor’s coat over his own shoulders. “Oh, aye,” he says softly.
And then, without any warning, the sky explodes.
Brilliant flares streak between clouds, setting off sparks with every contact, like jagged forks of lightning tracing impossible paths, obscuring the stars for a heart-stopping second, then receding with a low whistle, fading away into the quiet night.
Jamie gapes. “What-”
The Doctor turns, shoving his hands into his pockets with a self-effacing smile. “Bit of a schoolboy prank of mine. I’ve always been meaning to see how it turned out.” He grins more broadly and shakes Jamie by the hand. “Happy New Year!”
III. December 30th, 3989
“D’you know,” the Doctor says, waving Jo through a doorway with ill-concealed urgency, “I’d estimate it’s nearly New Year’s Day.” He pulls her to the nearby wall, just behind the door, and for a moment they’re both silent as the pursuing Karthrak’tar barge past.
“I think,” he adds, once they’ve started running again, “that they’ve got some interesting fireworks planned. Might be worth a look.”
“Doctor,” Jo says, then pauses as he tugs her into yet another dark enclave. “That’s just marvellous, really it is,” she adds, “but I think you’ve got your priorities out of order.”
“Do I really?” He grins as they dart down the next corridor. “Fortieth-century firecrackers are powerful enough to make excellent weaponry.” Before she can retort, he stops so suddenly that she ploughs right into him, and then she too can hear the approaching footsteps. They exchange an anxious glance, and he pulls her into the room on their left.
The Doctor taps her on the shoulder, and she turns to take in the chamber. “Oh,” she says softly. “I suppose that was all rather relevant, then.”
He beams at her. “Everything’s relevant, Jo.”
Stacked before them, floor-to-ceiling, are crates labelled “FIREWORKS”.
IV. December 29th, 1965
Romana sighs. “And you were going to show me Christmas! We’re at least a few days off.”
“It’s complicated,” he says definitively, throwing one end of his scarf over his shoulder. “Trans-temporal potholes bumped us up a bit, that’s all.”
Romana rolls her eyes. “If you’d just let me take a look at the chrono-shocks-”
“There’s nothing wrong with the chrono-shocks!” the Doctor protests. “The old girl’s in perfectly good working order.”
“Then it’s the pilot who’s a bit off-kilter.”
“Exactly! Then it’s the pilot who-” He pauses, glares at her, and stomps off down the street, drawing strange looks from the passersby.
She sighs and falls into step beside him. “All right, then. What’s so exciting about Christmas, anyway?”
“Pah,” he says, sulkily. “It’s dark and mysterious. And wonderful. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Sort of... looming?” she suggests. “Hovering at the edge of perception, perhaps bringing people together over something bigger than them?”
“Well, that’s a bit more dramatic than I’d have put it-” He pauses, she points, and they both stare up at the flying saucer hovering over London. “Oh,” he says.
“Happy Christmas, Doctor,” she says, and they dash off to sort things out.
V. December 28th, 284209
“Tell me again why we’re celebrating now?” Peri queries, staring out at what can only be described as a fluorescent green, polka-dotted hamburger some three miles wide. Every now and then, it flashes a dull violet, amid bursts of loud, synthesized music.
The Doctor leans back against the TARDIS with a faint grin. “It’s the New Year, Peri! Plenty to celebrate for the year 284210.” He pauses, considering. “Probably.”
Peri sighs. “And I suppose I’m gonna regret asking, but why exactly are they celebrating the new year four days early?”
With a little shrug, the Doctor comes to stand next to her. “This is the Re-re-renaissance. People everywhere are picking up old Earth customs that have nothing to do with anything they know. This-” And he waves a hand to encompass the whole tacky display. “-is their closest approximation to the New Year’s Day celebrations of your time.”
“And the date’s as near as they could figure,” Peri sighs. “All right, then. What exactly does one do at the dawn of the year 284210?”
The Doctor pauses dramatically, stares out at the giant strobing hamburger, and finally shrugs, looking baffled. “Haven’t a clue.”
VI. December 27th, 2020 B.C.
“Hang on, Doctor.” Evelyn looks up to make sure he really has stopped, then leans down to shake sand from her shoe. “I think-”
“Don’t say it!” the Doctor warns. “Don’t even start.”
She snorts indelicately, shoving her foot back inside the shoe with unnecessary force. “I really can’t help noticing all the sand, though-”
He shoves his hands in his pockets and forges ahead through the desert; she’s hard-pressed to keep up with him, but he slows down after a moment. She notices a smile flickering at the corners of his lips, but refrains from commenting.
After a moment, he sniffs. “I suppose it is rather funny.”
She pats him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Doctor. I’m sure a lot of other people looking for the famous Quebec City New Year’s Day extravaganza of 2020 accidentally showed up 4040 years early and in the wrong hemisphere of the globe.”
Now he glances back, finally meeting her eyes. “Really,” he says dryly.
“Oh, certainly. It could happen to anyone!”
“If that’s the case,” the Doctor says after a moment, “you won’t mind waiting a few thousand years?”
She laughs. “As New Year’s celebrations go, I’ve certainly seen worse.”
VII. Boxing Day, 1997
Ace scowls at the retreating back of a particularly pushy shopper, then, after a moment’s consideration, sticks her tongue out for good measure. Satisfied, she turns to see the Doctor’s small form all but eclipsed in a press of shoppers, and threads her way through them to catch up with him. “Professor?”
“What is it, Ace?” His attention has been seized by a model train that’s going round and round a styrofoam mountain.
“I’ve always been meaning to ask - what’s this Boxing Day thing all about, anyway? The name, I mean. I keep hearing different explanations.”
He mutters something about folk etymologies, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the price on the train set, then scowls. “Oh, well,” he murmurs. “Could be worse.”
Ace sighs resignedly, then leans forward to regard the train set. “I dunno. It’s a bit naff, isn’t it?”
The Doctor sniffs. “Simple, maybe, but it could certainly be improved.”
“Tell you what,” Ace pats him on the shoulder, then turns to dig in her pockets for money. “You wait out here.”
“Hm?”
She winks and steps into the store. “Let someone else play Father Christmas for once, Professor.”
VIII. Christmas Day, 1930
Charley leans back against the railing that surrounds the dock, taking a deep breath and staring out to sea. “This isn’t bad at all,” she says with a grin.
“You think so?” The Doctor laughs delightedly. “Look at that sailboat out there, Charley! Sailing on Christmas morning.” He tunelessly hums a few bars of I Saw Three Ships, and Charley is torn between snickering and joining in.
“Not too long ago, I’d have loved to be on one of those ships out on the horizon, sailing out to anywhere,” Charley says after a moment.
“Not too long ago?” the Doctor prods with a smile.
She smirks. “They’ve been rendered obsolete,” she says grandly, and they laugh, and then they’re both staring up at the sky, though there aren’t any stars visible.
“Every day,” she says. “Every day like this.”
When she turns to glance up at him, his smile has a hint of melancholy. “Every day, then,” he says lightly. “I think that can be arranged.”
He extends his hand, she takes it, and together they turn away from the ordinary-looking docks and step into the Nineteenth Grand Marketplace of Mai-tar IV, and from there to the future.
IX. Christmas Eve
It’s an ordinary door, wooden and painted blue, scorched and pockmarked in places from the ricochets of improbabilities and paradoxes, but otherwise intact.
But then, every door is a passage from one world to the next, from the outside to the inside, from the draughty night to the warm hearth, from the corridor to the prison cell. Every door and every day, marking out the hours and the metres and reshaping the vast, endless sweep of infinity into manageable portions.
He stands inside, undecided, leaning against an archway. “It’s a beginning, y’know,” he says, and his new voice is firm. “Just a start, that’s all.”
The terrible silence buzzes around him, and he turns for a moment, staring back into his impossible ship, at the scarred console and the reconfigured, almost organic construction. He wants to run a hand through his hair, but it’s close-shaven now, unfamiliar and cold.
His world hums around him, encouraging or warning or both, and he remembers, and still the emptiness rings in his mind, solid and real and terrible.
With a deep breath, he turns back to the entrance. “I suppose this is tomorrow, then,” he says, smiling in spite of himself.
The door opens.
Author:
eponymous_roseDedication: To my friends-list, with hopes for another wonderful year.
Rating: G
Word Count: 1800 (nine 200-word vignettes)
Characters: The Doctor, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright, Jamie McCrimmon, Jo Grant, Romana, Peri Brown, Evelyn Smythe, Ace, Charley Pollard
Spoilers: Minor spoilers for “The Chase”
Summary: Nine moments, nine stories. Worlds as they are, were, and someday will be. Beginnings, endings, and the lives that slip between the two.
I. New Year’s Day, 1966
It’s a cold, white world, and Ian smiles out at it, determined to be cheerful despite the rapidly growing load of snow that will undoubtedly have to be cleared at some point. His breath is fogging up the glass, but it’s creating a rather pleasing effect with the falling whorls of snow, so he lets it be. Artistry for its own sake.
“I’ve just realised,” Barbara says, “it’s been less than a month since we left the Doctor.”
She’s leaning against him, looking up as she speaks, and he imagines that her breath must be fogging up his cheek. “Really?” he says, attempting to inject just the right amount of incredulity into his tone.
She smirks. “Seems shorter to you too, then.”
“Mm,” he says noncommittally. “A little.”
They stare out in silence at the new year, and, after a moment, her hand finds his. “1966,” she says softly, reverently. “Imagine. And all the celebrations over.”
“Just another day,” Ian says. “A new one, a little bit brighter, but nothing terribly special about it.”
They stand at the window, hand-in-hand, until the first few people venture out into the fresh blankness, drawing silent footprints across the new snow.
II. New Year’s Eve, 1000
The Doctor glances up at the half-veiled moon, trying to identify the stars overhead, and grins in recognition.
“Where are we, Doctor?”
Jamie emerges from the TARDIS, staring about as though attempting to catalogue everything around him. The Doctor grins and beckons. “Oh, Jamie, you’ll quite enjoy this!”
They stand side-by-side for a long moment, watching their breath fog in the chill air. In an absentminded gesture, the Doctor shrugs off his coat and hands it to his shivering companion.
“We’re just coming to it, Jamie. Wait a moment.”
Jamie shuffles his feet, then awkwardly drapes the Doctor’s coat over his own shoulders. “Oh, aye,” he says softly.
And then, without any warning, the sky explodes.
Brilliant flares streak between clouds, setting off sparks with every contact, like jagged forks of lightning tracing impossible paths, obscuring the stars for a heart-stopping second, then receding with a low whistle, fading away into the quiet night.
Jamie gapes. “What-”
The Doctor turns, shoving his hands into his pockets with a self-effacing smile. “Bit of a schoolboy prank of mine. I’ve always been meaning to see how it turned out.” He grins more broadly and shakes Jamie by the hand. “Happy New Year!”
III. December 30th, 3989
“D’you know,” the Doctor says, waving Jo through a doorway with ill-concealed urgency, “I’d estimate it’s nearly New Year’s Day.” He pulls her to the nearby wall, just behind the door, and for a moment they’re both silent as the pursuing Karthrak’tar barge past.
“I think,” he adds, once they’ve started running again, “that they’ve got some interesting fireworks planned. Might be worth a look.”
“Doctor,” Jo says, then pauses as he tugs her into yet another dark enclave. “That’s just marvellous, really it is,” she adds, “but I think you’ve got your priorities out of order.”
“Do I really?” He grins as they dart down the next corridor. “Fortieth-century firecrackers are powerful enough to make excellent weaponry.” Before she can retort, he stops so suddenly that she ploughs right into him, and then she too can hear the approaching footsteps. They exchange an anxious glance, and he pulls her into the room on their left.
The Doctor taps her on the shoulder, and she turns to take in the chamber. “Oh,” she says softly. “I suppose that was all rather relevant, then.”
He beams at her. “Everything’s relevant, Jo.”
Stacked before them, floor-to-ceiling, are crates labelled “FIREWORKS”.
IV. December 29th, 1965
Romana sighs. “And you were going to show me Christmas! We’re at least a few days off.”
“It’s complicated,” he says definitively, throwing one end of his scarf over his shoulder. “Trans-temporal potholes bumped us up a bit, that’s all.”
Romana rolls her eyes. “If you’d just let me take a look at the chrono-shocks-”
“There’s nothing wrong with the chrono-shocks!” the Doctor protests. “The old girl’s in perfectly good working order.”
“Then it’s the pilot who’s a bit off-kilter.”
“Exactly! Then it’s the pilot who-” He pauses, glares at her, and stomps off down the street, drawing strange looks from the passersby.
She sighs and falls into step beside him. “All right, then. What’s so exciting about Christmas, anyway?”
“Pah,” he says, sulkily. “It’s dark and mysterious. And wonderful. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Sort of... looming?” she suggests. “Hovering at the edge of perception, perhaps bringing people together over something bigger than them?”
“Well, that’s a bit more dramatic than I’d have put it-” He pauses, she points, and they both stare up at the flying saucer hovering over London. “Oh,” he says.
“Happy Christmas, Doctor,” she says, and they dash off to sort things out.
V. December 28th, 284209
“Tell me again why we’re celebrating now?” Peri queries, staring out at what can only be described as a fluorescent green, polka-dotted hamburger some three miles wide. Every now and then, it flashes a dull violet, amid bursts of loud, synthesized music.
The Doctor leans back against the TARDIS with a faint grin. “It’s the New Year, Peri! Plenty to celebrate for the year 284210.” He pauses, considering. “Probably.”
Peri sighs. “And I suppose I’m gonna regret asking, but why exactly are they celebrating the new year four days early?”
With a little shrug, the Doctor comes to stand next to her. “This is the Re-re-renaissance. People everywhere are picking up old Earth customs that have nothing to do with anything they know. This-” And he waves a hand to encompass the whole tacky display. “-is their closest approximation to the New Year’s Day celebrations of your time.”
“And the date’s as near as they could figure,” Peri sighs. “All right, then. What exactly does one do at the dawn of the year 284210?”
The Doctor pauses dramatically, stares out at the giant strobing hamburger, and finally shrugs, looking baffled. “Haven’t a clue.”
VI. December 27th, 2020 B.C.
“Hang on, Doctor.” Evelyn looks up to make sure he really has stopped, then leans down to shake sand from her shoe. “I think-”
“Don’t say it!” the Doctor warns. “Don’t even start.”
She snorts indelicately, shoving her foot back inside the shoe with unnecessary force. “I really can’t help noticing all the sand, though-”
He shoves his hands in his pockets and forges ahead through the desert; she’s hard-pressed to keep up with him, but he slows down after a moment. She notices a smile flickering at the corners of his lips, but refrains from commenting.
After a moment, he sniffs. “I suppose it is rather funny.”
She pats him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Doctor. I’m sure a lot of other people looking for the famous Quebec City New Year’s Day extravaganza of 2020 accidentally showed up 4040 years early and in the wrong hemisphere of the globe.”
Now he glances back, finally meeting her eyes. “Really,” he says dryly.
“Oh, certainly. It could happen to anyone!”
“If that’s the case,” the Doctor says after a moment, “you won’t mind waiting a few thousand years?”
She laughs. “As New Year’s celebrations go, I’ve certainly seen worse.”
VII. Boxing Day, 1997
Ace scowls at the retreating back of a particularly pushy shopper, then, after a moment’s consideration, sticks her tongue out for good measure. Satisfied, she turns to see the Doctor’s small form all but eclipsed in a press of shoppers, and threads her way through them to catch up with him. “Professor?”
“What is it, Ace?” His attention has been seized by a model train that’s going round and round a styrofoam mountain.
“I’ve always been meaning to ask - what’s this Boxing Day thing all about, anyway? The name, I mean. I keep hearing different explanations.”
He mutters something about folk etymologies, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the price on the train set, then scowls. “Oh, well,” he murmurs. “Could be worse.”
Ace sighs resignedly, then leans forward to regard the train set. “I dunno. It’s a bit naff, isn’t it?”
The Doctor sniffs. “Simple, maybe, but it could certainly be improved.”
“Tell you what,” Ace pats him on the shoulder, then turns to dig in her pockets for money. “You wait out here.”
“Hm?”
She winks and steps into the store. “Let someone else play Father Christmas for once, Professor.”
VIII. Christmas Day, 1930
Charley leans back against the railing that surrounds the dock, taking a deep breath and staring out to sea. “This isn’t bad at all,” she says with a grin.
“You think so?” The Doctor laughs delightedly. “Look at that sailboat out there, Charley! Sailing on Christmas morning.” He tunelessly hums a few bars of I Saw Three Ships, and Charley is torn between snickering and joining in.
“Not too long ago, I’d have loved to be on one of those ships out on the horizon, sailing out to anywhere,” Charley says after a moment.
“Not too long ago?” the Doctor prods with a smile.
She smirks. “They’ve been rendered obsolete,” she says grandly, and they laugh, and then they’re both staring up at the sky, though there aren’t any stars visible.
“Every day,” she says. “Every day like this.”
When she turns to glance up at him, his smile has a hint of melancholy. “Every day, then,” he says lightly. “I think that can be arranged.”
He extends his hand, she takes it, and together they turn away from the ordinary-looking docks and step into the Nineteenth Grand Marketplace of Mai-tar IV, and from there to the future.
IX. Christmas Eve
It’s an ordinary door, wooden and painted blue, scorched and pockmarked in places from the ricochets of improbabilities and paradoxes, but otherwise intact.
But then, every door is a passage from one world to the next, from the outside to the inside, from the draughty night to the warm hearth, from the corridor to the prison cell. Every door and every day, marking out the hours and the metres and reshaping the vast, endless sweep of infinity into manageable portions.
He stands inside, undecided, leaning against an archway. “It’s a beginning, y’know,” he says, and his new voice is firm. “Just a start, that’s all.”
The terrible silence buzzes around him, and he turns for a moment, staring back into his impossible ship, at the scarred console and the reconfigured, almost organic construction. He wants to run a hand through his hair, but it’s close-shaven now, unfamiliar and cold.
His world hums around him, encouraging or warning or both, and he remembers, and still the emptiness rings in his mind, solid and real and terrible.
With a deep breath, he turns back to the entrance. “I suppose this is tomorrow, then,” he says, smiling in spite of himself.
The door opens.
Tags:
- character: ace,
- character: barbara wright,
- character: charlotte pollard,
- character: eighth doctor,
- character: evelyn smythe,
- character: fifth doctor,
- character: fourth doctor,
- character: ian chesterton,
- character: jamie mccrimmon,
- character: jo grant,
- character: ninth doctor,
- character: peri brown,
- character: romana,
- character: second doctor,
- character: seventh doctor,
- character: sixth doctor,
- character: third doctor,
- doctor who,
- fic
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 07:10 am (UTC)Beautiful. And that last one -- lovely and sad. :D
Happy New Year!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 06:03 pm (UTC)Happy New Year to you, too!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 08:33 am (UTC)And, oh, how Nine breaks my heart...
no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 06:05 pm (UTC)He does do that, doesn't he? *hastily puts up silly!Nine icon*
I meant for it to end on a less bittersweet note, but it was 11:30 and I'd promised myself I'd get it posted before midnight. *winks* (Not that I think it could've ended totally happily, anyway.)
Thanks so much for reading!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 10:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 06:07 pm (UTC)I don't have an angsty!Nine icon, do I? Oh, well.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 04:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 06:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 04:54 pm (UTC)Great work!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 06:08 pm (UTC)Whew, glad to hear it. Now I just need to write some Hex and Benny and Frobisher, and I'll have attempted most of the audio companions! :D
Thanks so much! :D
no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 04:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 06:08 pm (UTC)Thanks so much!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-03 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 07:34 am (UTC)The Doctor/companion pairings were a bit random, honestly - I was writing on a deadline, after all! - but I think it worked out okay. :D
Thanks so much!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-03 08:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 07:36 am (UTC)(I just adore that icon, by the way.)
no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 01:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 07:39 am (UTC)Four and Romana being seventy-six shades of awesome (ie. your characterisation is great)
Aw, thank you! I'm a bit startled at all the comments on that part - it was my first attempt at writing Four and Romana, and it practically seemed to write itself.
Well, in my head it does.
Yup, that was sort of intended - I wanted the first part to be able to tie in with at least one of the others, and Ian and Barbara just seemed to fit. *grins* Glad you spotted it!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 05:25 am (UTC)*toasts you* Happy New Year!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 07:41 am (UTC)And section V for its crack.
How obvious is it that I was totally stuck on that one? "I KNOW! Giant strobing hamburgers! IN SPACE!" It seemed a logical leap at the time. *beams*
*toasts you* Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to you, too! :D
no subject
Date: 2008-03-25 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-04 08:25 am (UTC)