Follows this.

The warm air of the Pacific hit the Doctor as he pulled open the door to the TARDIS. A beach, as promised. It was about time he managed that. He'd always been so preoccupied with this disaster or that disaster, he'd often forgotten the little things in life, like watching the sun set over an ocean.

"Hawaii, as promised," he said, grinning to his companion. "The island of Maui, to be precise. Should be April 5, 1973. And not a bad landing, either."

He nodded back to the TARDIS, sitting comfortably in some soft, silty sand. It would be good for them, Jack and him, to stay somewhere touristy, he thought. To take away from the strange but very real fact that time had been altered, removing Jack and the Doctor from each other's timelines.

Jack must've meant a lot to the Doctor, considering how loudly his emotions rippled back to him.

"Had planned to land us in the morning," he said. "But! The nightlife in Maui can't be that bad, don't you think?"

As best_served_hot reminded me yesterday, Gallifrey One is about a month and a half away and I know that quite a few RPers will be attending the L.A. bash! Since we're all going to be pretty much in the same place and pretty much the same time, I thought we could make a mini-event of it! Or...something!

For those who don't know, Gallifrey One is the Los Angeles Doctor Who convention running from February 26-28, 2010.

( Cut for Gallifrey One blathering! Also, polls! )

EDIT: Since there were some issues with this (for some reason) cause of it's locked status, it's now non-flocked, but all of the poll information is private.

THE HMS ABSOLUTELY F*&!ING RIDICULOUS ROUND ROBIN!

Other parts: Part One

"You know, if you could just take the time to understand how very practical steam is in a ship."

"A space ship can't use steam. You've got to just have them on there for show."

"For show! I'm not from the species that puts spoilers on sportscars, Jim."

"Hey, those look cool."

"Or spaceships."

"What?"

"I've seen the modifications you make to the Enterprise."

"I would not!"

( 'You know, there is a hotel right there,' Dorothy said. )

i.

Regeneration is like dying.

Pain floods his system, it crashes through every cell. He feels himself crumbling, dying from the inside out. He can feel regeneration energy struggling to flow through his system. He can feel it, he's dying.

And it hurts. Oh, god, it hurts so much.

But it's not death. Not really. He's just going to sleep, in his own mind. To sleep in a room in his mind without windows or doors. To rest.

That will feel good, he thinks. To rest. This regeneration started out so happy, so full of life. But struggle and battle and heartsache left him crippled, a hollow shell of a man. He's too cold, now. Too cold and too cruel. Regeneration would be best. He can start over. Start anew.

And it's worth it, sacrificing himself for someone he loves.

He doesn't cry; he just tries to smile through the pain.

"You were fantastic," he says. "And you know what?"

She stands there, shaking her head, unsure.

"So was I."

It's good, he thinks, having her here. At least he's not alone.

And he's gone. Pulled away by light and energy. It's like a curtain pulls back in his mind, like another layer of him has been peeled away.

There he is. Bright-faced and big-haired and grinning as though he wasn't racked with pain seconds earlier. It takes him a moment to associate where he is and he grins over to Rose.

"Hello---Oh." He runs his tongue along his wider molars. "New teeth. That's weird."

( It's just the beginning. Cut for spoilers to S.5 'The End of Time, Part Two.' )

Muse: The Doctor (Ten)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 2,010 <==Surprisingly appropriate

The holidays always take it out of me! Sorry for being so sparse on my tags and slow on my prompts! I'll get caught up in 2010, I promise!

But! Tonight, I will be partaking of Rock Band, highly caloric food, and it's my year to be the DD, so I have to be prompt. Talk about one hell of a year end. I lose my Doctor and I can't even drink about it! But I'll be back tomorrow evening, ready to write up spoiler-heavy posts (under cuts, of course) and discuss what I anticipate will be the best episode of David Tennant's reign.

Until then, be well, eat fruit, and remember to watch The End of Time, Part Two on January 1, 2010 at 18:40 on BBC One, and on January 2, 2010 at 830/730c on BBC America.

Happy New Year! And remember: It's Twenty Ten, not Two Thousand Ten.



( And my obligatory hiatus'd image...but this one has a spoiler for End of Time, Part One, so it gets a cut. )

• God that was strange to see you again
Introduced by a friend of a friend
Smiled and said 'yes I think we've met before'
In that instant it started to pour,
Captured a taxi despite all the rain
We drove in silence across Pont Champlain
And all of the time you thought I was sad
I was trying to remember your name… •

1763

He lands on her birthday.

It's quite by accident, of course, he's not even supposed to land along her timeline at all. But most things in life, well, in his life, are by accident, happenstance, or chance. He's come to accept these sort of things.

It's still disarming to see her again. He walks around the corner of a hallway and she turns as well and there they are, standing in the same space.

"Reinette."

"My Angel."

With a wave of her hand, the two women she was addressing leave without question. She turns back and looks up at him, her face at once angry and anticipating. She is young and old as well, and it is a tribute to her beauty that he can't figure out what year he's landed to visit her.

"I had often wished you would visit again," she says. "But I had often imagined it under different circumstances."

He looks down at his clothes. The blue suit he wears is torn at the sleeve and knee, and the tie around his neck is askew. The TARDIS had been parked out in one of the gardens, unfortunately near where a fire-breathing Graske had taken up residence. He'd meant to take a quick look 'round before heading back to the TARDIS. But, well, he walked into a piece of his own history before then. He's come to accept these sort of things.

"Well, never a chance to slow down," he says. "You know me."

She smiles thinly, and coughs into a small handkerchief. Tuberculosis takes her in the end, he thinks, seeing the bloodstain on the white fabric. But she was sick (is sick) for a very long time prior to that. A silly, stupid illness that could've been cured not even two hundred years in the future. Time is so short for them. Truncated, sliced away. There's not enough time to see anything, or do anything, and even a life as fantastic and accomplished as Madame du Pompadour will be lost to time.

But not lost to him.

He wishes he could tell just how long it's been for her. It has been so very, very long for him. Has he left her waiting by the fireplace? How could she look so calm, talk to him so sweetly, if she knew (knows) he has already left her?

Or perhaps she doesn't know how old he is. Perhaps, for the first time, they are on the same timeline, both old and both lonely for a long while without each other.

One of the women reappears and gestures to Reinette, who ignores her. If anything, the gesture appears to put her out more than interest her.

"They are planning for the ball, tonight," she says. "For my birthday." She takes in a breath. "You'll come. You'll dance with me." There is no question in her voice.

"I don't dance anymore," he says.

"Which is what you said before," she replies, her lips very slightly turning upwards, pleased by the challenge his refusal gives her.

"I only dance with the stars, now," he says.

"A noble pastime," she says, nodding to placate him.

"I don't dance with people," he insists. "I don't love them, not anymore. I dance with time and space." He dances with universes and unrealities, he rewrites history and undoes time. It's what he's become, now. He's not the same man who sipped watered-down wine at the Yew Ball and danced with a pretty woman simply because he wanted to.

Her smile changes, very subtly. He can see the lines in her eyes, the creases in her smile. She's much older than she was when he left her at the fireplace, he decides. She may not show it on her face, but it's there, in her eyes.

"Time and space is all that you love?" she says, her words crisp and delicate 18th century French vowels. "You must be aware that it will never love you back."

They're both far too old to be dancing, he thinks. Far too old to be playing. He needs someone to stop him, and she deserves the stars. Deserves them at least once.

"Come with me," he says.

He reaches out a hand to touch her face, but she moves back, very slightly, leaving the warmth of her skin in the cold December air. He can feel the streams of her timeline in her wake, touch the fragile strands binding her to this December, what must be the last December she spends alive.

He's shattered fixed positions in time before, but he'll never quite accept that he can.

"Dance with me," she says.

They stand together here, but timelines away from each other.

• There's one thing I want to say, so I'll be brave
You were what I wanted
I gave what I gave
I'm not sorry I met you
I'm not sorry it's over
I'm not sorry there's nothing to save

I'm not sorry there's nothing to save… •

Muse: The Doctor (Ten)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 851, not including lyrics from Star's "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead"
Mike says it's romantic and depressing, so it must be one of my stories. =|

Dear Russel T. Davies,

( Cut for spoilers to S.04, 'The End of Time, Part One'. )

•happy • holidays!•

Happy Holidays, everyone! It's about time for me to get my little caboose to bed so that visions of sugar plums can dance about in my head and all that. And you should, too! What are you doing up at this hour?!

I won't be online at all tomorrow, and possibly part of the 26th, as I'll be out of town and may end up getting iced out of town, as well! But, we'll see! I'll catch all my belated holiday tags and finish up those last few drabbles when I get back!

But! Until then, be safe, be well, eat fruit, and remember to watch The End of Time, Part One on BBC One at 6pm on December 25th and on BBC America at 9pm on December 26th!

And for goodness' sake, no spoilers!



And for those of you who don't know, Hamlet will be airing on Boxing Day! So that's two awesome Christmas shows in one neat weekend.



( Also, my spouse made a video that is funny, but spoilerly for previous Christmas episodes... )

FOR THE DRABBLE MEME.

• So hold her
You may think you know her
I used to be her lover
Yeah, I'm the one who broke her

You'll be her one and only
Don't you ever leave her lonely… •

Rose Tyler is sixteen and in love with Jimmy Stone.

Jimmy Stone is a poser rock band wannabe moron and is lucky Rose Tyler even looks in his direction.

The Doctor shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be in this time, in this place. But he is, because time is idiotic like that. Time doesn't work the way the Doctor expects it to.

And so, he's in a bar, trying desperately to stay hidden as sixteen year old Rose Tyler is waving goodbye to Jimmy Stone at his job. When one lands in London in 2004, one should expect to hide from at least a few people. The Doctor peers over his shoulder from where he sits, watching his young companion walk away. He misses her. Misses the person she will be, when he watches her fade from view on that beach in Norway.

But he's not staring. He's just hiding. Well, it starts out as hiding, of course. Then, this lanky, nineteen-year-old fool walks in, ready to start his shift as a bartender. What the hell did Rose see in him? Well, what does Rose see in him?

He knows Jimmy Stone is the reason she never finished her A Levels. He knows she considers him one of her biggest mistakes, but she never told him (will never tell him) why.

So, the Doctor sits at the bar.

This is not his most clever moment, no. But he's curious.

He watches the boy pull a pint for him. Takes in the ugly leather jewelry and the chipping black nail polish. For a sixteen year old, maybe that look is cool. Maybe he's not as much of a loser as he looks.

He's no Time Lord, that's for sure.

Jimmy places the drink in front of the Doctor and turns away. What would the Doctor say to him?

But he doesn't have to think of what to say, because some bulky man walks in, obviously a friend, and starts up a conversation right on the topic the Doctor wanted to talk about.

"Break it off with her yet?" the newcomer says.

"Nah, nah, she'll figure it out," Jimmy says.

The Doctor barges in, taking a drink from his glass. "Breaking up with your girlfriend? Blonde out there? She seemed awfully pretty."

Jimmy doesn't even bat an eye to the Doctor's intrusion, probably used to that sort of thing while working at a bar. "Not my girlfriend. My girlfriend's in Surrey. And yah, breakin' up with her next week. When I get 'round to it."

"For the blonde?"

Jimmy and the other man laugh. "Nah, that's not worth the breakup. That's just Rose. Turns out she's leavin' school, comin' to stay with me, so she thinks. Sixteen years old, dumb as a hat, but she's good for a laugh."

The Doctor feels his hands clench around the glass. Rose is a lot of things, but dumb isn't one of them. "Really?" he says, his voice a forced calm.

"Yeah," Jimmy says, leaning casually by the Doctor. "You know the difference between a toilet seat and a sixteen year old girl from Powell Estate?"

The Doctor has a bad feeling that Jimmy's about to tell him.

Jimmy laughs. "A toilet seat doesn't follow you 'round once you've used it!"

The Doctor's not entirely certain what happened next. At some point the glass in his hand shattered, and Jimmy wound up on the floor with a bruise on his jaw in the shape of the Doctor's fist. Jimmy is stunned that a man so much older and thinner than he is could hit with that level of strength.

The Doctor doesn't hit people. It's not who he is. He doesn't get frustrated to that point. He gets disgusted, but not to the point of violence. But this bastard took Rose's future from her, used her, and then dared to insult her like this.

And the Doctor can't go tell her to stay away from him. She has to suffer through her mistakes and suffer through this piece of scum.

"You know what?" the Doctor said, picking a piece of glass from the palm of his hand. "She'll be the most important woman in the world one day. And you'll still be nothing. Funny, how time works out."

And as he leaves the bar, he passes by a pretty sixteen year old girl, running in to check on her boyfriend after hearing a commotion. She turns as she enters the door, glancing to his back for just a moment.

She doesn’t know him yet. She'll never know why he did this.

Funny, how time works out.

Muse: The Doctor (Ten)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 741