Doctor Who | Venusian Lullaby
Apr. 2nd, 2008 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eponymous_roseTitle: Venusian Lullaby
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eponymous_rose
Word Count: 1021
Rating: PG
Characters: Third Doctor, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
Author's Note: Crack-fic is reaching epic proportions, so I've gone with this instead - I meant to just fix it up based on the draft I had kicking around, but wound up rewriting it entirely insofar as it's salvageable. It may not be an obvious change, but my writing's shifted enough that I'm not really comfortable with anything written before January. Weird!
Spoilers: Set extremely early in the Third Doctor's era. Makes oblique references to The Scales of Injustice.
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is by no means a patient man.
He stands sometimes on the front lines of a new alien incursion, or at the entrance to the laboratory, or at his front door, and feels as though he is perched at the edge of some dread precipice with infinity spiralling down below; he wants to jump, to feel the wind scream past him, to forget the ground and know only forever. More than anything, he wants to fall.
He never does.
It’s been hours since he should have been home. Fiona will be livid, he expects, but there is paperwork to be done and sometimes he wonders whether she’s frightened at his absence or whether even that scrap of emotion has given way to their terrible, shared apathy. The phone is on his desk; he stares at it and doesn’t ring her.
And just when he goes back to his papers, the singing starts again.
It’s a vague, meandering melody, and for a time he listens, tapping his pen on the desk in a feeble attempt to lend rhythm to the shapeless song. It wavers and weaves through what is probably considered a tune by modern standards, never seeming content to maintain a single underlying meter, but it's the words frustrate the Brigadier most – they so closely resemble English that he starts to ascribe meaning to them in a futile effort that is equally engrossing. He turns his attention back to the requisition forms, but the pen blots the paper; he crumples it and tosses it into the wastebasket with a sigh.
Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, husband and father, would be content to let the matter rest, to go home and leave the Doctor to his toneless warblings, to smile at his wife and kiss his daughter goodnight and embrace the pretence of normalcy.
But it’s the Brigadier who stands from his desk and prepares himself to tell the Doctor off.
The Doctor, the Brigadier reflects as he strides towards the laboratory and the source of the noise, is not an easy man to rebuke: any attempts at recrimination are inevitably met with a certain disbelieving, condescending stare – not to mention his worrying tendency to sulk when provoked. And the Brigadier pretends that this is why, instead of blustering in with general pleas for silence, he hesitates in the corridor and peers around the half-open door to the room beyond.
The Doctor is still singing softly, his back turned to the door, tinkering with something round and electronic and probably damnably clever and yet utterly useless. But the singing stops for a moment, and the Brigadier straightens, scrabbling for some excuse as to why he could possibly be lurking outside the laboratory door.
The Doctor merely peers more closely at his gadget, scratches his chin, and resumes singing.
He looks tired, the Brigadier realises, noticing for the first time the lines under the Doctor’s eyes, his pallor, the almost imperceptible shaking of his hands as he reaches for a smaller screwdriver. His voice quavers on the higher notes, sinks to a mumble at the lower ones. The Brigadier feels a chill as he realises that he can’t remember the last time the Doctor has left the laboratory.
There is a quiet desperation about the man, a sort of caged energy that isn’t entirely unfamiliar, but then he has, as far as the Brigadier has managed to glean, been not so much exiled as imprisoned by his own people, confined to Earth. And there are moments, terrible windows of opportunity, where he knows the Doctor would disappear without so much as a goodbye, given the chance.
Unbidden, the Brigadier’s glance flickers to the Doctor’s TARDIS, the phone box somehow incongruous in the corner of the laboratory. The door is ajar, as it nearly always is, and for a brief instant the Brigadier can see the edge of the cliff before him, can hear the rush of air and the scream of freedom.
He looks away; it is an impossible machine, and he does not deal with impossibilities.
The Doctor reaches the end of his song, stares contemplatively at the little mass of wires and circuits before him, then clears his throat and launches into something quieter, more gentle, almost soothing. The Brigadier is leaning against the doorframe, fighting down a halfhearted smile, before he notices the haunting undertones. There is a darkness to the melody, a shadow lurking beneath the warmth. He shivers and draws away.
“Oh, and Brigadier,” the Doctor calls distractedly, as though continuing an extant conversation.
The Brigadier freezes, like a child caught out past his bedtime, then grimaces, squares his shoulders, and pushes the door open. “Yes, Doctor?”
“Do try and get some rest,” the Doctor says, without looking back. “You’ve already taken to hovering, and you’ll be more useless than usual tomorrow if you’re asleep on your feet.”
The Brigadier clears his throat. “The same to you, then, Doctor. My scientific advisor’s no use to me if he’s asleep on his feet.”
The Doctor glares over his shoulder, but then the corner of his lip twitches and he breaks into a reluctant smile. “Thank you, Brigadier. You can go now.”
There are questions crowding through the Brigadier’s mind, a dozen unanswered queries that flood to his lips. Silently, he snaps to attention, gives a salute that is only half mocking, and turns back down the corridor.
As he leaves, he hears the Doctor call after him: “Good night, Alistair.”
And when Alistair finally returns home and steals into his daughter’s room, he finds himself humming the alien, nameless tune, equal parts gentle and frightening. She stirs, and for a moment his daughter’s wide eyes meet his, sleepy and smiling and questioning. And then she smiles and calls him a silly Dad and tells him the song is beautiful and that Mummy was crying at dinner.
Wordlessly, he hugs his daughter goodnight, and another precipice, beautiful and terrible, is yawning out before him in all its impossible glory.
The Brigadier steps away from the edge and goes down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.
Author:
eponymous_roseWord Count: 1021
Rating: PG
Characters: Third Doctor, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
Author's Note: Crack-fic is reaching epic proportions, so I've gone with this instead - I meant to just fix it up based on the draft I had kicking around, but wound up rewriting it entirely insofar as it's salvageable. It may not be an obvious change, but my writing's shifted enough that I'm not really comfortable with anything written before January. Weird!
Spoilers: Set extremely early in the Third Doctor's era. Makes oblique references to The Scales of Injustice.
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is by no means a patient man.
He stands sometimes on the front lines of a new alien incursion, or at the entrance to the laboratory, or at his front door, and feels as though he is perched at the edge of some dread precipice with infinity spiralling down below; he wants to jump, to feel the wind scream past him, to forget the ground and know only forever. More than anything, he wants to fall.
He never does.
It’s been hours since he should have been home. Fiona will be livid, he expects, but there is paperwork to be done and sometimes he wonders whether she’s frightened at his absence or whether even that scrap of emotion has given way to their terrible, shared apathy. The phone is on his desk; he stares at it and doesn’t ring her.
And just when he goes back to his papers, the singing starts again.
It’s a vague, meandering melody, and for a time he listens, tapping his pen on the desk in a feeble attempt to lend rhythm to the shapeless song. It wavers and weaves through what is probably considered a tune by modern standards, never seeming content to maintain a single underlying meter, but it's the words frustrate the Brigadier most – they so closely resemble English that he starts to ascribe meaning to them in a futile effort that is equally engrossing. He turns his attention back to the requisition forms, but the pen blots the paper; he crumples it and tosses it into the wastebasket with a sigh.
Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, husband and father, would be content to let the matter rest, to go home and leave the Doctor to his toneless warblings, to smile at his wife and kiss his daughter goodnight and embrace the pretence of normalcy.
But it’s the Brigadier who stands from his desk and prepares himself to tell the Doctor off.
The Doctor, the Brigadier reflects as he strides towards the laboratory and the source of the noise, is not an easy man to rebuke: any attempts at recrimination are inevitably met with a certain disbelieving, condescending stare – not to mention his worrying tendency to sulk when provoked. And the Brigadier pretends that this is why, instead of blustering in with general pleas for silence, he hesitates in the corridor and peers around the half-open door to the room beyond.
The Doctor is still singing softly, his back turned to the door, tinkering with something round and electronic and probably damnably clever and yet utterly useless. But the singing stops for a moment, and the Brigadier straightens, scrabbling for some excuse as to why he could possibly be lurking outside the laboratory door.
The Doctor merely peers more closely at his gadget, scratches his chin, and resumes singing.
He looks tired, the Brigadier realises, noticing for the first time the lines under the Doctor’s eyes, his pallor, the almost imperceptible shaking of his hands as he reaches for a smaller screwdriver. His voice quavers on the higher notes, sinks to a mumble at the lower ones. The Brigadier feels a chill as he realises that he can’t remember the last time the Doctor has left the laboratory.
There is a quiet desperation about the man, a sort of caged energy that isn’t entirely unfamiliar, but then he has, as far as the Brigadier has managed to glean, been not so much exiled as imprisoned by his own people, confined to Earth. And there are moments, terrible windows of opportunity, where he knows the Doctor would disappear without so much as a goodbye, given the chance.
Unbidden, the Brigadier’s glance flickers to the Doctor’s TARDIS, the phone box somehow incongruous in the corner of the laboratory. The door is ajar, as it nearly always is, and for a brief instant the Brigadier can see the edge of the cliff before him, can hear the rush of air and the scream of freedom.
He looks away; it is an impossible machine, and he does not deal with impossibilities.
The Doctor reaches the end of his song, stares contemplatively at the little mass of wires and circuits before him, then clears his throat and launches into something quieter, more gentle, almost soothing. The Brigadier is leaning against the doorframe, fighting down a halfhearted smile, before he notices the haunting undertones. There is a darkness to the melody, a shadow lurking beneath the warmth. He shivers and draws away.
“Oh, and Brigadier,” the Doctor calls distractedly, as though continuing an extant conversation.
The Brigadier freezes, like a child caught out past his bedtime, then grimaces, squares his shoulders, and pushes the door open. “Yes, Doctor?”
“Do try and get some rest,” the Doctor says, without looking back. “You’ve already taken to hovering, and you’ll be more useless than usual tomorrow if you’re asleep on your feet.”
The Brigadier clears his throat. “The same to you, then, Doctor. My scientific advisor’s no use to me if he’s asleep on his feet.”
The Doctor glares over his shoulder, but then the corner of his lip twitches and he breaks into a reluctant smile. “Thank you, Brigadier. You can go now.”
There are questions crowding through the Brigadier’s mind, a dozen unanswered queries that flood to his lips. Silently, he snaps to attention, gives a salute that is only half mocking, and turns back down the corridor.
As he leaves, he hears the Doctor call after him: “Good night, Alistair.”
And when Alistair finally returns home and steals into his daughter’s room, he finds himself humming the alien, nameless tune, equal parts gentle and frightening. She stirs, and for a moment his daughter’s wide eyes meet his, sleepy and smiling and questioning. And then she smiles and calls him a silly Dad and tells him the song is beautiful and that Mummy was crying at dinner.
Wordlessly, he hugs his daughter goodnight, and another precipice, beautiful and terrible, is yawning out before him in all its impossible glory.
The Brigadier steps away from the edge and goes down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-04-03 06:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-03 06:38 am (UTC)Seriously.
;)
no subject
Date: 2008-04-03 09:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-03 01:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-03 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-03 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 05:51 am (UTC)Beautiful, but sad, yes. (I'm building up my characterization of the Brig!)
Interesting parallels to NewWho- not just the 'urge to fall', but I felt a jolt at the reference to Third's exile from Gallifrey; I thought of Gallifrey's destruction 'later' and how it would induce a similar...loneliness? desperation? in the Doctor.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-10 06:29 pm (UTC)