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What’s Left Unmended (Classic and New Who, rated PG)
Notes: The story that gives this Tumblr its name, in a way…
Summary: Things get left behind on the TARDIS; always have, always will. The Doctor keeps all of them, even things that hurt too much to look at…
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Every traveler will, at some point, collect a few physical reminders of their long voyages. This may be a conscious action, or it may happen rather by accident. A matchbook from a hotel, a printed napkin from a restaurant, a photograph of a famous landmark. All of these things and more may accumulate in the baggage of the longtime traveler.
The Doctor has his share of mementos. Items he picked up, clothes and ephemera left behind by companions. A jacket of Ian’s, a hair-band of Liz’s, a notebook that Sarah Jane tucked away and forgot, one of Romana’s hats. He has a scoop of ash from Pompeii and a cigar that Winston Churchill dropped.
Some of these things are carefully tucked away in compartments and drawers, perhaps with a tag or label attached, as if the Doctor would ever forget who or where or when they came from.
A Comfortable Existence (pre-Classic Who, rated PG)
Summary: They never thought of leaving Gallifrey…but they sometimes dreamt it…
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For a long time it has been just the grandfather and the girl living in the big house on Lungbarrow Hill.
Much of the rest of the family is gone, perished by accidents or illness or natural causes. So Grandfather looks after Granddaughter, and she looks after him.
Sometimes Grandfather tells stories about what life was like on Gallifrey when he was young. The stories are funny or sad or frightening, and the girl loves to hear them all.
The grandfather looks at the granddaughter sometimes and he sighs because she is, at least by the standards of their people, so very young. What will she do if anything should happen to him? She is so sweet and earnest. She’s intelligent too, because their family always has been, but she can be very naive. She also reminds the old man of her mother, his youngest child who died such a while ago. Like her mother (whose name she has,) the girl loves music and is also eager for new knowledge. Perhaps that comes from him.
It is a quiet, sometimes slightly lonely existence, but they are happy. The old man smiles when his granddaughter rushes to tell him of something new she’s learned at the Academy, and the girl laughs when her grandfather sings old songs he remembers from the days when he was very young.
Both of them, from time to time, have troubling dreams, dreams of taking one of the great ships of their people, the remarkable biomechanical constructions which can travel in time and space. Dreams in which they are lost, wandering through eternity. The dreams are troubling, but not frightening, because at least in the dreams they are still together, can still lean on each other.
The grandfather and the granddaughter tell each other most things, but neither tells the other about the dreams. And so their little, quiet life goes on.
Believe (Classic and New Who, rated PG)
Summary: The Doctor knows that the child of the past is the man of the future, but Alastair can’t be all he should without a little encouragement…
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The dark-haired, slightly pudgy little boy thought he had hidden himself away pretty well. There was an alcove built into the outer side of the crumbling wall that stood along the northern edge of the school grounds, just big enough for a very sad, lonely child to sit and have a good cry.
The boy shivered as a chill wind whipped along. He had on only short pants and a thin shirt. His cap was wadded up in his hands, and his jacket and tie had been taken by the older boys who had been chasing and tormenting him earlier.
“Hello, what have we here?” a grown-up voice demanded, and the boy leapt out of his hiding place and stood almost at attention.
The man who had spoken smiled, a kindly but somehow sad look; he was unfamiliar to the boy, with his slightly beaky nose and very close-cropped hair. But he had the short stole that most of the masters at the school customarily wore.
Visits (Classic Who, Eighth Doctor, rated PG)
Summary: On his way to the Last Great Time War, the Doctor stops to check on a few old friends, perhaps for the last time…
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He has visited most of them, his companions and friends, at times outside of his main association with them.
He does it to remind himself of things, of happiness and childhood and little things that need to be important to him. He visits them also to keep himself well steeped in sadness and old age and frivolity.
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Finding Your Way Home (Classic and New Who, rated PG)
This image floats around Tumblr a lot, and people react to it in a lot of ways…I, of course, react by writing a story.
She found it during one of her regular walks. Ever since David died, and then the four children one by one, Susan walked a lot by herself.
She was married to David for nearly 50 years and, even through he knew most of her secrets, noticed how she didn’t age like he did, they were happy. And yet still she spent much of her time waiting. Waiting for her grandfather and wondering if he would ever return as he’d promised.
And she did see him a few times in some of his different incarnations, and it was nice. But it was never the same.
And then one day she went into the woods alone, her body still tingling with the energy of the recent regeneration (the despair of missing David and the children had finally got to be too much and she had made an attempt at self-destruction) and she found the blue phone box leaning up against a tree and she knew it was not simply some mouldering artifact.
She paused at first, and then she felt the tears spring to her eyes and she ran, throwing herself against the side of the TARDIS, arms spread as for an embrace. And in spite of all her pain, she smiled because the ship was not dead. The dear old thing was still alive; she could feel it, the energy under its surface.
“Oh, you dear thing. You poor, dear thing. You’re so weak.”
But if the TARDIS wasn’t dead, that must mean…
“Grandfather?” she said, barely a whisper.
Then she turned, looked all around her, crying out.
“Grandfather! Grandfather, have you come back for me?”
No answer, and so she pushed open the doors of the TARDIS and went in.
The place seemed empty. It echoed with memories, her own and Grandfather’s and those of beings Susan had never known. And behind her, the doors closed, and somehow it was like being embraced by a long lost relative. She heard, or rather felt, a voice in her head.
“Welcome home, Arkytior-called-Susan.”
“You’ve remembered it all,” Susan said aloud, and again the feeling of a voice in her head, a peal of soft laughter.
“And how could I forget you when you were so often in His thoughts?”
“Where is Grandfather? Or when?”
“He has been away from me for a long time. What he last said was to wait for you, to wait for his dear girl, because surely if you were anywhen, you would find me.”
“But…how…is he…
“I don’t know.”
Suddenly the console, which had been silent and dead-looking, snapped to life. Susan rushed to it, looking at the switches and levers and lights. She knew a little about piloting a TARDIS, but only in the way it had been configured when first she had traveled with Grandfather. This was very different.
“Please, I don’t know what I’m to do. Please, take me to Grandfather. Anywhere, anywhen. I don’t care.”
There was no answering voice in her head this time, but things suddenly began to work. Buttons pressed themselves, switches flipped. Then there was that familiar sensation of moving into the Vortex, the strange liberating-enclosing sense of connection with all of time and space.
Susan closed her eyes, hoping that it would work. That she would find her Grandfather, the last bit of her family, again.
The bump-thump of the landing caught her off guard, but then Susan opened her eyes at last. There was nothing but stillness and silence.
Moving cautiously to the doors, she opened them and peered out.
She couldn’t be sure of the time, but a few clues gave her the idea that this must be London.
Stepping out and looking around, Susan continued to try to get a sense of her when. A sudden crackling sound drew her attention back to the old TARDIS.
As she watched, the ship shuddered, then crumbled to dust. As it disintegrated, Susan heard the voice in her head one last time.
“Goodbye.”
She knelt next to the little pile of dust and scooped a bit of it up in her hand.
“Thank you, old friend.”
A few people walking by noticed the young woman in her late teens or early twenties kneeling on the pavement; most assumed she was tying her shoe or something. But then an odd, coltish-looking man in a tweed jacket passed by, straightening his bow tie as he spoke animatedly to his companion, a woman with wildly curled red-gold hair.
“Oh please, sweetie,” the woman said, “he thought you were one of Herman’s Hermits.”
“Yeah, well, everyone makes a mistake now and again,” the man shrugged.
“I still say Ed Sullivan was brilliant.”
The man laughed, a single, chopped off barking sound. But then something seemed to catch his attention, and the woman’s as well, and they turned back.
They stared at Susan. Susan stood and stared back. It continued that way for quite a while until the man, squinting hard, approached the girl.
“S’cuse me,” he said, “but something…you remind me somehow…”
Staring into the man’s eyes, Susan suddenly knew him, and she smiled and frowned and started to weep all at once. She saw the man’s companion approaching them slowly, hand on hip in a way that spoke of reaching for a hold-out weapon. Might be best to say something. She looked back to the man.
“Hello, Grandfather.”
For a moment he looked so confused, and his face went through, conservatively, a billion expressions in a second.
“Su…Susan? My Susan?”
The girl nodded as the Doctor looked her up and down and squinted at her again.
“What’s our family name?” he asked quietly.
“Lungbarrow.”
“What was your mother’s name?”
“Same one I was given at birth. Arkytior.”
His face twisted one last time, perhaps with uncertainty, perhaps with memories of a daughter who died so long ago.
“Oh my dear girl,” he said, “can it really be you?”
Susan nodded, and that was all it took to convince him. He threw his arms about her and hugged her so tightly she thought he would never stop. And he picked her up and turned around with her and smiled to his companion as he set the girl back down.
“River! River, I want you to meet Susan. My granddaughter.”
River looked only slightly astonished as she reached out and shook Susan’s hand and the Doctor spoke on.
“And Susan, my dear little Susan, I want you to meet River Song. My wife.”
Post reblogged from In Time of Peril... with 2 notes
So I mentioned earlier that I’m seeing a section of Doctor Who fandom trashing the new girl, Jenna-Louise Coleman, because she’s apparently not some super-obsessed Whovian with an exhaustive knowledge of the history of the franchise…
It kinda makes me hope that some of us who have faith will do all we can to support her. Letters and cards of encouragement and that.
I know a lot of celebs get tons of mail and stuff, but it’d be a nice gesture, eh?
Reblogging this possibly once a day until a huge chunk of the fandom decides not to decry the new girl because she’s, ya know, new.
Source: in-time-of-peril