#story: the gallifreyan archives

[brokenhardies]

Doctor Who OC Masterlist

inspired by @children--of--time

Jane Smith/James Smith

Species: Time Lord/Human hybrid (clone) Place of Origin: Unknown, presumably Gallifrey Story: Life on Mars? Pairing: Ryan Sinclair (5th only), Rose Temple-Noble (5th & 6th? only) Face Claim: Multiple A half human, half Time Lord clone of the Doctor created by Tecteun. They were brought to Earth and dropped on the doorstep of Sarah Jane Smith, one of the Doctor's companions, and raised by her for 14 years. Their first incarnation met their father while their mother was investigating Deffry Vale High School

Kata/The Librarian

Species: Time Lord Place of Origin: Gallifrey Story: The Gallifreyan Archives Pairing: The Doctor Face Claim: Multiple Kata was chosen to be an Archivist, meant to analyse and teach Gallifreyan History, as well as to be in charge of ancient technologies - such as the Moment. She and the Doctor became friends during their time at the Academy, but their relationship soured during the Time War. During the Time War, she was sent down to Earth alongside a Dalek and taken to Van Stattens museum, where she reunited with her childhood friend

Luna Archibald

Species: Human - Time Skipper Place of Origin: New York Story: Fate, Coincidence & Luck Pairing: None Face Claim: Chloe Rose Robinson An American teenager who was supposed to die in an accident, but was rescued by the Eleventh Doctor. This means that she exists in a sort of Schrödinger's cat like situation - on the one hand, Luna is dead, but on the other hand, she's alive, and linked to the Doctor's timeline. However, she never meets him in order, always meeting him in different incarnations and on different adventures - and to make things interesting, the Doctor recognised her, which was the reason he saved her life

Taglist

@darth-caillic​ @sterling-writes​ @wonderguards​ @reirvival​ @arrthurpendragon​ @foxesandmagic @eddysocs @superspookyjanelle (want to be added or removed? send an ask or a dm!)

#ocapp #ocappreciation #ochub #queerocs #doctor who oc #OC: Jane #OC: James #story: life on mars #OC: Kata #OC: The Librarian #story: the gallifreyan archives #OC: Luna #story: fate coincidence and luck #luna & kata are both plot bunnies right now #i came up with luna while i was at the shops and thinking of #having an oc who jumps through the doctor's timeline #similarly to celery long scarfs fezzes and other questionable fashion choices #i also have a concept for a sisterhood of karn based oc who is paired with the master/missy #buuuut i dont really have any ideas for her outside of that lol #kata is very much a bunch of lizzexx's ocs stapled together -- she has a similar 'inspired' back ground to proffy #is linked to the time war and the moment like mac #and is met in the same episode as angel #tbh im not sure if she's going to be paired with the doctor #or if theyre gonna be close friends lol idk just yet

[doctornolonger]

The story of Tegorak

In one mysterious passage of Lance Parkin’s The Infinity Doctors, two members of the Chancellory Guard visit a long-forgotten room called Archive Chamber 403:

The room, like many in this part of the Capitol, was filled with dusty display cases and ancient lacquered cabinets. Raimor knew that this was part of the Citadel that dated back to the time of Rassilon. It was still possible to see that from the angle of the roof, the quality of the masonry, the shape of the room. The brickwork and panelling along one wall was recent, a partition perhaps only ten millennia old, but it couldn’t hide the room’s heritage: in former times this had been an open balcony which had overlooked the old starharbour. Since then this room must have been a hundred things, from the office of a high‐ranking Ordinal to student lodgings. Nowadays no one ever came here, except the patrol. […] One comer was dominated by a vast suit of armour. A rusty plaque informed anyone who read it that it had once belonged to Tegorak, although the name meant nothing to Captain Raimor.

The name “Tegorak” means nothing to the book’s readers, either – unless those readers are lucky enough to be familiar with an obscure fanzine called Apocrypha. We’ve joked about the idea of Doctor Who apocrypha, but this is the real deal: Adrian Middleton never wrote an official story, but his work in Apocrypha from 1993 to 1995 impacted some of the Wilderness era’s most influential authors, leaving his subtle mark on everything from Big Finish’s Gallifrey to – of course – Faction Paradox.

Copies of Apocrypha were shared with me by a generous friend who was researching some of these references, and as I make my way through the issues, I’ll be posting about all of the various ways they influenced later stories at my #Doctor Who Apocrypha tag. But for today, our topic is Tegorak.

Below the cut you can discover Tegorak’s full story, posted online for the first time. Travel with me to millions of years back in time, just 50,000 years after Morbius’ rebellion, 160,000 years before the birth of the Doctor…

Relevant entries from Apocrypha

THE INVASIONS     -12,188,000/-12,150,250 (112,000/149,750 Q)

After thousands of years separated from the rest of the galaxy, the Time Lords found that, for each culture that died, more new ones would arise. With the expansion of so many civilisations, Time Lord secrecy could not be enforced. A string of increasingly dangerous attacks upon Gallifrey were launched by successive cultures, all of whom knew of the legend of the Time Lords.

BLACK MOUNTAIN     -12,150,250 (149,750 Q)

As invasions against Gallifrey became more frequent and, potentially, more dangerous, a young Arcalian Cardinal named Tegorak rose to prominence.

Tegorak (whose name meant “Black Mountain”) called for a positive means of defending Gallifrey. In the midst of a particularly nasty invasion by a race known as the Sybarils, the old President was killed, naming Tegorak as his successor. Thus, at 330, Tegorak became the youngest President ever. Taking up a sword and donning the battle armour of an ancient Gallifreyan Warlord, he was forced to carry the battle to the steps of the Citadel itself. The last of the Sybaril invaders [pictured below – ed.] fell as an emergency meeting of the High Council was called.

THE GREAT CRUSADE     -12,150,204 (149,796 Q)

President Tegorak decreed that the preservation of Gallifreyan society could only be achieved by setting up a line of defence surrounding Kasterborus. To do this, all planets within the constellation would need to be controlled by the Time Lords. Recruiting a small army from the normal Gallifreyan populace, he took his fleet to the worlds neighbouring Gallifrey. There he recruited a vast mercenary army, establishing a number of defensive outposts.

Resentful of the new President’s policies, some worlds in Kasterborus moved against the Time Lords, having to be dealt with in what was described as a ‘necessarily bloody manner’.

THE BETRAYAL     -12,150,200 (149,800 Q)

While Tegorak was away the Matrix Lords made contact with Chancellor Garlan, ruler of Gallifrey in the President’s absence. Projecting images of a bloody future in which Time Lord society would be supplanted by the mercenary followers of Tegorak (who would go on to form a vast cosmic empire), the Matrix Lords convinced him that Tegorak would have to die.

Garlan dispatched an assassin to kill the President. The attempt failed, and Tegorak returned to discuss the attempt on his life with his fellow Time Lords. In the mean time, Garlan had convinced the remainder of the High Council of the threat that Tegorak now posed. So, when the President arrived to address the Panopticon, he was shot down by his fellow Time Lords.

THE ESCAPE     -12,150,200 (149,800 Q)

Avoiding death by use of the Presidential Time Ring, Tegorak returned to his TARDIS where he was forced to regenerate. Fearing his bloody revenge (he was easily capable of destroying Gallifrey), Garlan turned to the Matrix Lords for guidance. Rassilon himself intervened, and laid a trap for Tegorak, preventing him from taking any action against Gallifrey.

WHERE DO ‘BLACK MOUNTAIN’ AND ‘THE GREAT CRUSADE’ COME FROM?

Essentially, these are creations of my own, taken from a storyline that I have. Basically, Rassilon cannot, in Gallifrey’s 12 Million year history, be the only hero of Time Lord society. Black Mountain is the Gallifreyan equivalent of Alexander the Great, carving out a space empire to guarantee the safety of his own people. He is Julius Caesar, Charlemagne and King Arthur, an allegorical character who did nothing but good for his people, and who was repaid with betrayal by his closest friends.

Commentary

With the exception of my editorial comment (marked in brackets with “– ed.”), the quotes above come from Apocrypha issue 2 pages 4, 5, and 29. Regarding the dates next to each event, I’ll share Middleton’s original explanation in a future post, but the short version is that “-12,150,200” means 12,150,200 BC, and “Q” refers to years after Rassilon’s founding of Time Lord society.

Besides the namedrop of Tegorak in The Infinity Doctors, I don’t think the “Black Mountain” has been mentioned in any other official Doctor Who sources – although please tell me if I’m missing something!

But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t had any impact. Just one page before Apocrypha introduces Tegorak, it summarizes the story of another outsider Lord President who was exiled and then gathered a mercenary army to attack Gallifrey: Morbius, from the Classic serial The Brain of Morbius. It’s hard not to notice the parallels – and I think there are clear signs that the Tegorak story influenced later depictions of the Morbius Presidency.

The full discussion of that will have to wait for a future installment, though. There are more Apocrypha puzzle pieces to collect first!

#Doctor Who Apocrypha #for archiving purposes #no copyright infringement requested #will remove upon request #effortpost #the infinity doctors #lance parkin #tengorak #gallifrey #time lords #morbius #the imperator #archival

[pagerunner-j]

All right, all right. This is a bad idea! I've been trying not to cross these streams for a long time! But: fuck it. Who fics ahead!

--

Long story short: I used to write under another pen name. I stopped using it and deleted my old journal after some personal crap, which still makes me feel sad and stupid, and I'd wanted at the time to scrub the slate clean. Some of what's still kicking around under my old username, though, includes stories at whofic.com, which predates AO3 and still exists, doing its Whovian thing.

So after recent fandom flashbacks, I've been rereading my old stuff. Which has been...interesting!

Obligatory disclaimer: oh, god, do I want to edit everything. These date back as far as 2005, and so certain old habits linger, like the fact that I hadn't yet gotten over my torrid love affairs with the semicolon and the ellipsis. I want to fix the occasional dips into overwrought nonsense. I'm also looking at some of the more adult content and thinking, "Okay, that went from 0-60 a wee bit fast. Calm the hell down, self."

BUT: there's also stuff here I like! And about which I'm thinking "crap, I used to be good at this," because I can never leave myself alone!

Anyway, here's a few stories from the "this does not shame me" pile, plus notes:

Gen

Translations (Ten/Rose) Original description: There are some things the TARDIS doesn't translate, and some secrets of the Doctor's left unexplained. Rose is setting out to find out why. 

Probably the best thing of mine on this archive, and one of the most developed narratives. The sneaky, sneaky merchant, whose storyline never quite gets resolved (on purpose), was one of my better ideas. The other was Rose interpreting the TARDIS console's layout as looking like a Gallifreyan word. And, for that matter, Rose's name looking like an actual flower. Thank you, DW designers, for a completely impractical but extremely cool-looking written language. Also, the fact that the marketplace has thirteen floors, and they were on the tenth? Yeah, yeah, that was on the nose. I note that since then, the showrunners have thrown the Doctor's thirteen-regenerations limit out the window, for perfectly understandable reasons, but it was still kicking around at the time.

Roundabout (Nine/Rose) Original description: Time and possibilities keep turning. an exploration of the Doctor and Rose's relationship throughout the series. Spoilers for all [first season] episodes.

The other one that I'd file under "hey, you wrote a story! And it's not bad! Good job, self!" file. I really loved Nine and Rose, and I went to town with it here. I also got completely self-indulgent in a few places. As one does. The scene at the club is my favorite on that account. This quip of Jack's to the Doctor was, among other things, a sidelong nod to a few of my feelings about American polarization, and believe me, It's worse now: "It's Saturday night. We're in one of the last great cities of post-Dissolution America. And the most handsome man in the club has just bought you an Electric Comet. Do yourself a favor. Get drunk." Also, the reason Rose thinks she knows the music that's playing is that it's 110% a quote from a Billie Piper song. I don't think anybody ever noticed, but it's there.

Outgeniused (or: How to Get Fired From the Apple Store in Three Easy Steps) (Ten, OC) Original description: Kate Stowe's seen a lot of strange problems come up at the Genius Bar, but this one qualifies as the strangest she's seen yet. Presenting a bit of shameless insanity, featuring the Doctor, a race of aliens with quite inconvenient taste, and several unorthodox ways to break your iPod's warranty. (In other words: crackfic ahead!)

I really wasn't kidding about that last line. This one is unabashed ridiculousness, inspired by your author doing a seasonal stint in Apple retail that left a goddamn mark. Sadly, the Doctor never swung by my store. A lot of real-life tidbits did make their way into this story, though. And despite all odds, it's got a plot! Fun facts (for nerds): the product line was accurate as of the time I wrote this. The iPod shuffle disclaimer I was talking about? That was absolutely a thing. And my favorite line is still the Doctor apologizing for not getting AppleCare, because I had to pitch that to so many people. I have never once bought it for myself. No regrets. Don't tell Tim. Also, apparently the UK really has gone all-in on Black Friday since I wrote this. I have to ask: why? Why must you import the worst of our capitalistic excesses? You really didn't have to! Le sigh.

The Naughty Bits

A Matter of Timing (Ten/Rose) Original description: In matters of love, sex and the technicalities thereof, somebody better be thinking ahead. Rose/Ten, post-Journey's End.

Short, sweet, and silly. This one's about Rose and the clone of Ten off in their parallel universe, and exists for the sake of the conversation they're having, which is in part about the mechanics of that whole cloning thing. Although it's mostly about the sex. Which they are absolutely and enthusiastically having the whole damn time. ("Haven't ever seen that on a clock" is still my favorite line.)

Slightly Psychic Confessions (Nine/Rose/Jack) Original description: Getting caught with slightly psychic paper in one's hands can be a dangerous thing indeed.

Like it says on the tin. 90% of the reason this was written was so I could play with the props, and the dialogue (both spoken and psychically transcribed) is the part I most enjoy, although I've been told the rest of it's pretty okay too. ...yes, the rest of it is a threesome. Stop looking at me like that.

Selfish Dreams (Ten/Rose) Original description: Wherein solutions to lingering nightmares lead to a different sort of sleeplessness. Slightly spoilery through "The Satan Pit."

Sometimes I get creepy, even with characters I love and will ship forever. This one was mostly me thinking through some of the...potentially fraught...implications of Ten's psychic abilities, and is one of my "I guess I'm preoccupied with nightmares and dreams, because I'm gonna come back to that in a few different ways" stories in this archive. Anyway, none of what they're up to here is what I'd consider a good idea. At least Rose enjoyed herself, though.

Forgetting the Nightmare (Nine/Jack) Original description: In which neither the Doctor nor Jack can get any sleep, but for very different reasons.

As I was saying. This is about a plot point from the show I'd forgotten about since writing this: Jack's two years of missing memory. (So, yes, apparently mine's missing too. It's been A LONG TIME, okay?) He's having some issues coming to terms with that. So how do I decide to have them address it? Boinking on the TARDIS floor, apparently. ...ahem. Anyway, as is the case with a lot of the shit I wrote, it's a little emotionally messy. It also hints at a few things that are still very much up for interpretation. Less in need of puzzling out is that yes, the two lost years are represented by the two burned-out lights on the console they're trying to fix, because I am occasionally as subtle as a brick.

Beyond Locked Doors (Ten/Reinette) Original description: A glimpse into Reinette's memories and dreams throughout the events of "The Girl in the Fireplace."

Yeah, this is one of those that dips into being overwrought, and yes, my inner editor is bitching at me about sacrificing clarity in the process. But writing from Reinette's POV was a fun exercise. It's a very different flavor from everything else here. Also, just to get this stated, you still can't tell me that the "dance with me" line in the show and those two disappearing off screen together wasn't also Moffat being subtle as a brick with his metaphors, so I still feel justified in writing this one. The (implied) sex was canon and I will die on that hill.

So Brief, In Bloom (Ten/Reinette) Original description: Wherein the Doctor thinks of other ways this could have gone.

And now...things go south. I'm pretty sure I'm the only weirdo who cared about this story. It is, let's be fair, also weird. This is about Ten being haunted by the idea of what might have happened if he did get Reinette to come along with him, and what the ramifications of that change might be. Not overtly stated, but it's there, is that in this alternate timeline, Rose didn't take well to this idea, and eventually left. The result is some Seriously Conflicted Feelings. And some ill-advised attempts at banishing them. I once got a comment on my old journal from somebody who didn't understand the last line. it's oblique on purpose, and you're invited to imagine your own version, but what was going on in my head was that back in the actual timeline, Ten absolutely had his way with Rose against that very same wall to try to scrub the idea of the other timeline out of his head. Considering that the wayward strand of hair he found could have belonged to either her or Reinette, though? It...didn't exactly help.

A Laugh Like Thunder (The Master/Lucy) Original description: The Master and Lucy on the eve of destruction, thinking of what's to come. (Spoilers through "The Sound of Drums.")

I'm including this here solely because I'd forgotten about it until I trawled back through my archive, and was thus smacked upside the head with the facts that A: it existed at all, B: this thing went places, and C: I started it off with, "On the eve of destruction, the Prime Minister tied his wife to the bedposts and began to think of another man." Go off, self.

#doctor who #fics

[justahumblememefarmer]

Ultimate Doctor Who Poll Round 2 - Matchup 21

Episode Summaries under the cut

7: The Day of the Doctor - 50th Anniversary Special: The Doctor is brought by UNIT to a gallery with Kate Stewart, where he and Clara see a Gallifreyan 3D painting, which reminds him of the last day of the Time War. Back during the Time War, the War Doctor steals a weapon called The Moment, said to be so powerful it developed sentience. He plans to use it to end the Time War. The moment's consciousness appears in the form of Rose Tyler and offers to show the Doctor his future if he destroys Gallifrey, opening a portal.

The Eleventh Doctor is brought into the Under-Gallery where there is a letter from Queen Elizabeth I warning him of danger and a painting of him in his Tenth Incarnation, as well as other 3D paintings of landscapes with the glass holding the paintings broken and the figures that were in the landscapes having escaped from the paintings. In the past, The Tenth Doctor deals with a Zygon impersonating Elizabeth, unsure of which is the real one.

Portals open for both Doctors and the Eleventh Doctor jumps through, landing in front of the Tenth. The two Elizabeths run off in opposite directions, and then the War Doctor comes through the portal, surprising both the other Doctors. The queens soldiers surround them, with one of the Elizabeths ordering their capture, having killed the other one.

Imprisoned in the Tower of London, the Doctors sort through their feelings on the time war while they try to figure out a way to escape. The Eleventh Doctor starts carving time-space coordinates into the wall. While initially unable to use the sonic screwdriver to open the primitive wooden door, they realize that if they use the War Doctor's screwdriver to scan it and perform a calculation to disintegrate the door, by the time he is the Eleventh Doctor, the centuries it will take to make the calculations will have passed.

Back in the present, a UNIT agent realizes that the figures from the paintings are hiding in the gallery and are revealed to be Zygons, who copy her. Kate Stewart brings Clara to the Black Archive of dangerous alien tech held by UNIT, which has devices to wipe the memory of it's staff every single day to protect it. Kate shows Clara Captain Jack's old vortex manipulator and receives a picture of the coordinates the Doctor had carved into the wall. The Zygon replacements show up, and Kate is revealed to be one as well. Clara takes the vortex manipulator and goes back to save the Doctors. As they prepare to disintegrate the door, Clara opens it, revealing that it was unlocked.

Elizabeth arrives, to take them to the Zygons lair to show them their plan. She reveals that the Zygons lost their planet in the Time War and want to invade Earth, but arrived when it was too primitive. They plan to store themselves in the paintings using stasis cubes and emerge when the Earth is more advanced.

The Doctors return to the present where the human Kate and other UNIT agents have gone to the Black Archive to deal with the Zygons. Kate threatens to detonate an explosive device there to stop the Zygons, which would also destroy London. To negotiate peace the Doctors activate the memory wipe devices, making everybody unable to remember if they are human or Zygon so that they can work out a fair treaty without knowing which side they are on.

Having seen his future selves deal with these problems *because* they regret destroying Gallifrey, he asks the Moment to take him back to do it himself. The Tenth and Eleventh Doctors arrive in their TARDISes and say that he shouldn't have to make the horrible choice alone and that they will do it with him. Clara begs them to find another way and reminds him that he named himself the Doctor to save lives. The Eleventh Doctor has an idea and disables the moment.

The Doctors position their TARDISes around Gallifrey, and retroactively start calculating how to freeze it in time. Just like the Zygons with the painting, they freeze Gallifrey in a moment in time, making it appear to the universe that it was destroyed, while the vanishing planet causes the Daleks to destroy each other in the crossfire. Gallifrey is saved and the Tenth and War Doctors leave in their TARDISes, knowing that due to their timelines being tangled with their future self they won't be able to remember this encounter, and will still think they destroyed Gallifrey.

The Doctor looks at the painting of Gallifrey while Clara waits in the TARDIS, and the gallery curator, who looks like the Fourth Doctor, informs him that Gallifrey survived. The Doctor, excited, goes off to find Gallifrey.

122: The Woman Who Lived - Season 9, Episode 6: The Doctor visits the immortal Ashildr, who now goes by Lady Me, having forgotten her original name over the centuries. She still has the limits of human memory, so she has a massive library of diaries. She begs the Doctor to take her with him, but he refuses. She does convince him to help her with a robbery she's staging, an alien jewel from a rich couple. Her and an alien accomplice of hers plan to use the jewel to open a portal so they can escape from Earth. Once obtained, the alien opens the portal to allow his species to invade the Earth. While initially dismissive of normal human life compared to her own, Me finds that she still cares when the aliens begin their attack and begs for the Doctors help. He closes the portal and Me decides to remain on Earth, to look after the people that the Doctor abandons.

(Beat #135: Cold War in Round 1)

#doctor who #ultimate doctor who poll #my post #polls #11th doctor #clara oswald #10th doctor #war doctor #12th doctor #lady me #ashildr #matt smith #jenna coleman #david tennant #john hurt #peter capaldi #maisie williams #the day of the doctor #the woman who lived #rose tyler #billie piper

[howlingaround]

[ Doctor Who ]

Spoilers for "Day of the Doctor"

I love that episode and its probably the best one ever

BUT

I still think its stupid how the entire planet of Gallifrey was saved

I kinda wished that the twist was that the Doctors managed to save the Gallifreyans (but not the actual Time Lords) by placing them in the No More painting

By the time it ends up in the Undergallery / Black Archive, the Gallifreyans are already gone, setting up the future mystery

(Maybe theyre in Ireland ... thats a reference to the TV show doing a joke about people assuming Gallifrey is in Ireland)

The Daleks meanwhile get defeated, not by the crossfire caused by the planet going missing, but the planet being destroyed - without people on it

Its still a sacrifice, the planet is really gone, but the people are still saved

Yes this is like Marvel movie Thor: Ragnarok, and I did actually watch it, and i did like how the prophecy had to be fulfilled, and i wished Day of the Doctor did the same

"But how did the Gallifreyans espace the painting?" The three Doctors did escape as well, i guess they have a special relationship with Time?

Does the Stasis Cube has a setting? How did the Zygons escape? I dont know

I just feel like bringing the whole planet along cheapens the whole Time War story

#Doctor Who #My Stuff

[best-enemies]

Summary: The Deca has the mission to end the discussion that has been haunting gallifreyan philosophers, artists and intellectual for thousands of years: who was the top in Omega and Rassilon's relationship?

New story alert! I wrote this one back in 2020 and re-reading it for this translation was a delight. I don't recall exactly what started this but I'm pretty sure that there was some joke about Omega and Rassilon and all I could think of was that this is exactly the kind of discussion the Deca would have. Things, of course, escalated quickly. I had a lot of fun writing and then translating this story. If you read, please check the tags first! I'd really appreciate your thoughts on who's the top in the relationship too lmao. Who do you agree with? Hope you like the story :D

#most unhinged thing i've ever written #i live for crack humor though #so i'm dropping this one here in case you guys need a laugh #the deca #doctor who academy era #academy era #thoschei #doctor who #doctor who eu #theta sigma #koschei #ushas #this is ushas' pov btw. as usual #magnus #mortimus #drax #jelpax #millennia #rallon #did i leave anyone out #VANSELL #lmao #my fics #rassilon #omega #rassilon/omega walked so doctor/master could run

[newgrean]

Star Doctor and the Kythians

What legends and stories do the Gallifreyans hear growing up? In this AU, ancient Gallifreyans revered forces of nature and a pantheon of living stars. Some Time Lords choose to name themselves after one of these stars upon graduation from the Academy. Here is a story of the star named Doctor who saved a city in the trees from the storms of the Wind.

#Doctor who #doctor who fic #doctor who fanfiction #Gallifrey #Gallifreyan culture #Gallifreyan legends #Gallifreyan myths #original characters #star Doctor #newgrean #soli deo gloria

[theorphaninthetardis]

Chapter Thirty-Seven

A half an hour later a cheer can be heard from the main area of the Hub. Sophie exits the office, gazing at the Doctor as she hugs Yaz, leaping up and down. "I take it it's done?" Sophie calls down.

"Yep," she responds, looking around the Hub, "Where'd everyone go?"

Jack comes to join Sophie at the railing, "They went home, it's getting pretty late. Your companions are down in the bunks, they seemed pretty knackered so I offered them a place to sleep. You should get some sleep, too."

The Time Lady rolls her eyes, "I don't need that much sleep." She turns to Yaz, "You should get some sleep though."

The policewoman nods, and Jack points her in the right direction. The Time Lady heads for the archives again, and Jack doesn't even try to stop her. "Y'know, you should get some sleep."

"'M not tired."

Jack watches as she turns back to his office, moving back to organising his paperwork. "You should tell her."

He moves back to his chair, wheeling it up to his desk. "What, and risk her hating me? Risk losing my best friend. Yeah, fat chance."

"Kid, this is eating you up inside. You barely ate dinner, you're not sleeping, and your cleaning my desk. This isn't good for you."

"It's better than losing my friend," her hand is shaking as she moves another styrofoam cup off his desk.

Jack stands from his chair, striding around the desk. He takes Sophie's hands in his own, looking into her eyes, "Kid, nothing you could do, nothing at all, could make the Doc hate you. If he was willing to forgive me for my mistakes, then she would forgive you."

Her eyes are wide as she gazes into his eyes. She closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. Jack releases her wrists, and she wraps her arms around him. He doesn't hesitate to return her embrace.

***

Sophie exits the Captains office, finding the Doctor sitting in one of the wheelie chairs, seemingly brooding. "Hey, Doc?"

She jumps, turning to see Sophie leaning against the TARDIS, "Jackie Lyn! I thought you were sleeping like everyone else, or maybe that Jack had..."

"Jack was, uh, he gave me some good advice." Sophie grabs another wheel chair, moving it so that she's sitting opposite the Gallifreyan. "I, uh, I have something really important to tell you. I know it may change our relationship. H*ll you may even hate me."

"Hate you? No way."

"Don't make promises until you hear the whole story, Doc." The Time Lady rests her elbows on her knees, her head in the palms of her hands. She looks at Sophie with rapt attention, and the woman takes a deep breath. "I know that you know there are lives that you don't remember, faces you can't remember wearing, but I do. I remember every face you've had. I know you, and I've known all of you. I'm sorry that I couldn't tell you." She looks up, meeting the Doctor's eyes, seeing the tears forming in the corners, "I-I wanted to tell you, but-but I couldn't. I-I had to-to keep it a secret, to-to protect you. I- I am so, so sorry, Doctor, Theta. I," she looks back down at her lap, blinking furiously to hold the tears back, "I really wish, I wanted, I'm sorry."

The Time Lady's eyebrows knit together, and she takes one of Sophie's hands in her own, pulling her wheelie chair closer. "Sophia Jaclyn McCoy, how could you think I would hate you? You are my best friend. I knew you must've known. No matter what face I have, or what I look like, one thing is for sure, you are there. I understand that you had to keep it a secret, heck, I probably told you to. Jackie Lyn, I love you, and I will always love you." She stands up, pulling the human to her feet. She pulls her into a hug, holding tight.

"See, I told ya there was nothing to worry about," Jack says, walking down the stairs.

The Doctor grins widely at him. Sophie pulls away from the Time Lady, "I think I'm gonna go see Myfanwy. I'm not really tired, spent all day sleeping."

"Have fun," Jack says as she walks past. He reaches into his coat pocket, pulling out a large chocolate bar, and a can of sardines. "She loves chocolate, and it's about time she eats. Be careful alright."

Sophie smiles and nods, sprinting up the staircase. Jack moves to stand next to the Doctor watching her leave. "You know, you two were up in your office for a long time, I thought that maybe, what with you being you..." she trails off.

Jack makes a face of disgust, "No, no f*cking way. Sophie is a kid. She's like my sister, or my daughter or something. No way would I even think about that."

"Yeah, that's what I told myself. You're a lot of things, Jack Harkness, but I couldn't see that being something you could do. Sophie may be amazing, but she's like a sister to me too, or maybe a child."

"Does that mean we're co-parenting?" the immortal asks, raising his eyebrows.

The Doctor laughs but the smile falls off her face a few moments later. "This is it, Jack."

"What?" he asks, turning to look at her face.

"Oh, I know Sophie filled you in on my life right now. Graham and Ryan, this is it. This is our last trip together. They want to leave. I understand, really I do. And I'll still have Yaz, but it's just..."

"It's hard," Jack supplies, "I get it Doc. But at least you're not alone, right? And you're always welcome here."

"Great, nice to know the sewer is an option."

"Oi, I can revoke the invite!"

"I'm joking, and you know it."

"Yeah."

#Doctor Who #Doctor Who fanfiction

[tlv-dd]

Time Fracture

The interactive adventure is honestly quite tangential.

Due to the nature of this event, every showing will be somewhat different, and the attendees are split across several routes, I'm unsure how many, after the prologue portion.

A book I received with my VIP pass includes two documents, one a letter to you from The Doctor, saying that you have done this multiple times, and to look out for those who are on their first journey. The other is a formal letter from Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, explaining the appearance of the Time Fracture in WW2, and the history of it.

Prologue

The volunteers are welcomed to UNIT HQ, the site of Operation Time Fracture by UNIT soldiers and a number of scientists, including Drs Courtney and Yates from the Field logs, as well as Drs Sullivan, Leeson and Shaw. The volunteers are welcomed into the hub, where Courtney's Portal Stabilisation Gateway is being readied for a test run, the plan is to send 2 volunteers through the Time Fracture, to 1940, and discover the Time Destructor hypothesised to be responsible for the Fracture opening.

In the Black Archive, Dr Shaw tells a group of volunteers that they believe the Time Fracture actually originated in the future, and asks their help in convincing the others to change Operation Time Fracture's parameters.

In addition, one(?) volunteer can be contacted by Davros and given a device to help him invade Gallifrey.

A video message from Kate Stewart plays, outlining the mission, and as preparations are made to open the Time Fracture for the chosen volunteers to start their journey, Daleks suddenly attack UNIT HQ. Most of the scientists go to fight them off and are exterminated, while Dr. Courtney aims to protect the volunteers. The Daleks breach the control room, and are only repelled by the TARDIS materialising around them. A video screen plays a message from the First and Thirteenth Doctors, who aren't willing to risk disrupting the Time Fracture by entering themselves, ask the volunteers to enter and find the pieces of the Time Disruptor to find a way to stop it, Dr. Courtney activating the gate and sending everyone through.

Act 1

This is where the story branches the most, and some areas you just won't see. There are 2 gates, and then once through, you wind up with one of a handful of roaming characters and will be take to a few destinations.

Guides:

Captain Steven Davies of Victorian era Torchwood, on managing to return him to his office you find it merged with the present day Hub, where there is a piece of the Time Disruptor and a receipt to pick up a Kerblam package, retrieving it you find a USB with a message from River Song imploring the volunteers to solve everything, then Davies takes the volunteers to one of a couple of locations and leaves them to be picked up by another guide.

2 different incarnations of the same Time Lord, who are aiming to stop schemes to save Gallifrey at the cost of the rest of the universe. In my case one of them picked my group up after Davies left us.

I see a mention of Time Agents, but I never encountered any.

Time Lady Zoria, a Gallifreyan Agent working to gather the pieces to the Time Disruptor.

Brian the Ood, assassin hired to eliminate Zoria and possibly retrieve the Time Disruptor pieces.

And static locations.

Borlls' Salvage and Export Emporium, where the Pigman owner hordes junk including a Time Disruptor part.

Elizabethan England, where Elizabeth I and William Shakespeare have been joined by Sir Robert, the time displaced Sgt Robert Dudley, who warns that the queen has the Coronet of Rassilon.

Karn where a member of the Sisterhood tells of how Ohila found Dudley after he first fell through the fracture, and sent him on, and points the volunteers to Brian.

Leonardo Da Vinci's workshop, where he wears an eyedrive due to periodic harassment by a Silent. He created the Time Disruptor for Zoria, but believed it to be a Temporal Restorer to undo the damage, but the fact that it is to be detonated on Gallifrey means it will instead cause the Time Fracture.

Zoria winds up killing both Borlls and Dudley to get Time Disruptor parts, and everyone winds up having to flee when Cybermen emerge from the Cyber Tombs of Telos.

(Somewhere is Time Fracture there is specially filmed video of the Fugitive Doctor, but I don't know what story is behind it.)

Intermission

Everyone is gradually brought to Space Liner ZZ1 where there is musical entertainment and drinks. One Time Lord manages to get the destination set to Gallifrey to stop the Time Disruptor. Zoria finds the last piece of the Time Disruptor, and gets in a shootout with Brian, before fleeing, him following after. The Time Lords gather their groups and guide them in willing a route to appear to get them to Gallifrey faster. Leading the group through a side door, the Volunteers find Brian's body, meaning Zoria has the completed Time Disruptor.

Act 2

The Time Lords lead you through the Henriks basement, where to save you from Weeping Angels they stay behind. You make your way through the Kassaavin realm, up the Heaven Sent tower, and into the Under Gallery, where the regenerated Time Lord leads you through the Gallifrey Falls No More painting to Gallifrey.

There the survivors of the High Council are debating the use of the Time Disruptor and whether to reassurect Rassilon. A new Romana is specifically against both, and expels Zoria from society after she presents the Time Disruptor, the members of the High Council who sent her out casting her aside. The Volunteers are added to the High Council for an emergency session for the debate, eventually the ritual to resurrect Rassilon takes place and he activates the Time Disruptor, immediately afterwards Davros leads a Dalek assault on the Capital.

All the Doctors make contact, and guide the volunteers in releasing Artron Energy into the Time Fracture and closing it, saving the universe.

The Volunteers are returned to UNIT HQ, where their actions have prevented the Time Fracture from existing, with the UNIT staff unsure what happened.

(Continuity Notes: This is the Time Fracture used by the TARDIS to bring the Doctor to the Dark Times. Presumably the appearance in London was a result of the disruption in time caused by Adelaide Brooke being alive on London rather than dead on Mars. Brian's death here means this cannot be before his involvement in Time Lord Victorious, and yet his ending leaves him in the Dark Times and planning to retire from assassin work, while he here dies.)

#time lord victorious

[riversmithmelody]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: The Doctor/The Master/River Song, Thirteenth Doctor/River Song, Missy/River Song Characters: River Song, Missy (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor, Susan Foreman, Irving Braxiatel Additional Tags: Reunions, Happy Ending, Fluff, riverdoctorpromptweek, Sunsets, Happily ever after only means time Series: Part 6 of River & Doctor Prompt Week 2021 Summary:

“Everyone is asleep even mother.” Susan said and there was humor in her voice. “Well Hope and Melody are still in the kitchen and talking about stuff I don’t want to know about, but they don’t count.” River shot her granddaughter a look that was more fondness than the warning it probably should have been.  “Don’t be mean to your sister.” She scolded lightly and Susan beamed.  “Grandfather would be proud of me.” She countered and River didn’t need to ask which one Susan meant. She just shook her head.

*** River waits for the sun to set and her spouses, but this time she isn't alone and she knew's she's loved.

--

This kind of is a continuation of my first Prompt "The Price of Freedom" Excerpt beneath the cut!

River watched as slowly, the sun set. Turning the bright orange sand of the Gallifreyan desert into a bloody red sea. Once upon a time she had feared this. Sunsets and what they brought, because after all there was only one night left with her husband. Her beloved idiot, before her story would end. She never anticipated that her story would only begin with a sunset.

It started with 24 years and ended with her waking up in the cluster of Gallifrey with the voice of a woman in her head.

Thank you for showing me love .

The words still rattled her from time to time. She would wake up to them. With the taste of time vortex on her tongue and the happy laughter of a child in her ears. Especially after first Theta and then Koschei left her alone on Gallifrey to see the universe and live the live River already had lived through. Still the voice haunted her more and more often the closer they came to the Time War.

“Aunt Patience's!” A cheerful voice called and River turned just in time to catch the little body of her youngest niece.

“Hello darling.” River said and pressed a kiss to the Child's cheek.

“Aunt Patience's grandfather said I would meet my uncles today?” The child Ana as everyone called her, because nobody liked the name her parents had given her, was Brax’s youngest grandchild and like everyone in the family, beside her own kids and grandchildren, just called her Aunt Patience.

River’s smile faltered a bit and she sighed. “I sure hope so, but then remember what I told you my dear. My spouses do tend to forget that they have a time senses. Ana giggled and wiggled out of River’s grip to run over to the other children of the family.

“So it’s time?” Brax’s voice was calm and yet River could hear the slight excitement in it. He might not like to admit it, but he sure as hell was excited to see his little brother again.

“Mhm���” River muttered. It wasn’t the first time they stood here together. Next to the barn River had turned into a house for herself and her family. Looking at the desert for the whole night waiting for the sound of brakes and a blue police box. River sighed and leaned back against her brother-in-law. They had come a long way until here. Casual touched off affection. Nights curled up together in the hope of finding comfort. His spouse had died in the time war and River, who had been already alone for so many years at that point, had offered him the comfort of understanding. Their family hadn’t said a word about the closeness between them.

Understanding after all, everyone had lost someone. No matter how much research River had done. No matter how long she had talked to the high council. She hadn’t managed to save everyone.

It was one of the perks of being an archeologist with a focus on the Time War and more importantly Gallifrey. River, who was a child of the TARDIS and connected to every single TARDIS in Time and Space, had made the impossible possible and found a safe place for the children to hide. For everyone who wasn’t equipped to fight,she had found a hide out. She had saved billions of people by finding the cave system beneath the desert and hiding her people in there. And yet there had been so many lives lost. No matter how much regeneration energy was filling the air.

“Two-hundred and twenty-four years after the move.” River muttered. “That was mothers message that day. Meet me at sunset 240 years later.” River sighed and relaxed even furthering to Brax, when his arms came around to embrace her. “24 it’s…him. Only he would use that number. Only he knows the meaning of it, especially combined with the sunset.”

Brax hummed and then called out for the children to stop it. River smiled. In the beginning she hadn’t told anyone about the message she had gotten from the TARDISes when Gallifrey had been quantum locked. It was too personal and at the same time she had given up hope of seeing them again. But then just about a hundred years after the move as everyone called it, her husband had come. Her husband with the eyebrows. Furry burning in his eyes. Challenging Rassilon and eventually, banning him from their planet. River had watched all of it, from the shadows smiling. She had told the old man that he shouldn’t challenge her husband and shouldn't use his friends as pawns, but of course she was only a halfling. Not a full Gallifreyan no matter how many lives she had saved. River had watched her husband and led him through the Cluster, after all that was her territory. Nobody knew the cluster better than her. She had lived in it for centuries after all. Hidden away by Cal, until the voice had freed her.

Only after her husband had fled with another stolen TARDIS had River found it in herself to hope. Hoped to see her spouses again. After all he already had done it once, why wouldn’t he do it again? So River had waited for the 240th year to arrive and then spent every day next to her home staring at the dessert. Waiting night after night for them to arrive.

After a few weeks Brax had started to stand next to her and after she had told him what she was waiting for. Who she was waiting for, the rest of the family had started to stand with them. Rivers children first. Her two brilliant daughters, although one of them was a boy now. Then her grandchildren. Susan, who almost bounced with excitement over the thought of seeing her grandfather again. Hope next and then Melody. Melody, who never had met her Grandfather, even though he left long after the Doctor and Susan. The rest of her grandchildren, nieces and nephews soon started to play around them in the sand filling the silence with laughter and happiness. It was so much better this way. No heavy silence and sadness, that had been with her in the nights she had stood here alone.

“Stop worrying.” Brax muttered and then shouted for his grandson to stop harassing his cousins. River giggled and shot him a look.

“He’s becoming more and more like Koschei.” She teased and her brother shot her a look.

“Don’t you dare bring that up. It’s worse enough that Tony somehow managed to be nothing like his father, but Melody is the worst kind of mix of you and Koschei.” River only grinned. Oh yes her granddaughter was a whirlwind of mischief and trouble and she was way too clever for everyone's nerves.

“He will be so damn proud of her.” River muttered and looked away from the gangle of children to look back at the blood red sky.

“They will come soon.” Brax promised, but there was doubt in his voice. River understood, Brax hadn’t seen the way the Doctor had fought no matter the odds. River had seen him try and find a solution for her ending for years. Cal was connected to the internet and so was the TARDIS. She had spent centuries watching her husband brood over plans. Had seen them all fail and yet he never stopped.

“They will.” She said and it sounded so much more believable from her.

“Mother?” Rory came up the hill with a smile on her face. “The council just failed again to change the protocols.” Her daughter said once she was close enough and River started laughing. Brax too was smiling and Rory beamed with them.

“Did you take a picture of their faces?” River asked, still giggling and Rory nodded.

“Of course mothers, who do you think I am?” River brushed through the brown curls her daughter had in this regeneration. Rory looked so much like her fathers fourth regeneration this time around. Unlike Tony who was a perfect replica of his fathers first face down to the stupid goaty.

“Grandmother?” Susan came up to them now too. “I’m taking the children into the house.” She said quietly holding her little sister, Jane, in her arms. The four years old was peacefully sleeping against Susans shoulder. River nodded.

“Do that Susan.” She said and gently brushed a smudge of dirt from her grandchild's face. “Use the large living room and set it up so everyone can sleep there.” Hope, who had come up behind her sister, smiled brightly.

“Can we build a blanket fort again?” She asked and River nodded, winking st them.

“Of course. Your uncle and I will stay a bit longer.” Rory went back with her daughters to help bring all the children inside and River watched the large group disappear into the house.

#riverdoctorpromptweek #River Song #doctor who #fluff #sunset #Happily ever after #missy doctor who #river x thirteen #thirteenth doctor #just me indulging in my OT3

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Practice Makes Perfect: a Twelfth Doctor short story by The Saddleman

(Rather than post this little bit of fluff to AO3 I thought I’d post it to Tumblr first, instead.)

---

The Doctor stared across the table at his companions, Bill Potts and Nardole. Nardole was fiddling with an old-style salt shaker with a shiny metal screw-off top.

“So why are we here, Doctor? This diner has a nice Elvis-retro vibe, and it’s kinda odd to find a place like this in Bristol, but I thought we were supposed to be heading off and saving a planet,” said Bill.

“You know what the Doctor’s real name is, don’t you? It’s High Gallifreyan for ‘Distracted by Any Shiny Object He Sees,’” Nardole said as he continued to fiddle with the salt shaker with the shiny metal screw-off top.

The Doctor shrugged. “I think I’ve been here before, during that time when my memories got all fuzzy, before I met...him.” He nodded dismissively at Nardole, who kept fiddling with the salt shaker with the shiny metal screw-off top. “Don’t forget to toss some over your shoulder when you spill it.”

Nardole scoffed. “Spill what-” The shiny metal screw-off top he’d been fiddling with finally unscrewed and the shaker deposited a neat little pile of salt on the table in front of him.

“Now you’ve done it,” Bill said, her eyes crinkling with amusement. “Better grab a pinch and toss it over your left shoulder before the bad luck sets in.”

Nardole scowled. “I’d like to toss both of you over my left shoulder. Wasting our time, especially when I still have to check in on ...” he glanced over at Bill before cutting himself off. “Stuff.”

“Check in on what?” Bill picked up on the aborted sentence.

“I said stuff.”

Saved by the server. “Ah, here’s our meal,” the Doctor interrupted as a young woman in a retro-style blue waitress uniform arrived at the table, skillfully balancing a tray holding three ceramic ribbed bowls. “Bill, uh, you pay. I seem to have left my wallet in the TAR-er-car.”

“I always pay!” Bill protested.

The waitress chuckled as she placed the bowls on the table. “My boyfriend used to do that to me all the time. Don’t worry about it. Opening day special. It’s on the house.”

The Doctor didn’t look up at her, but he nodded and said “Thanks” as the young dark-haired woman stepped away. His attention was drawn to the meal that had been placed in front of him. It looked oddly familiar.

“What is it,” Bill asked. “You act as though you’ve never seen a souffle before.”

“Is that what this is?” Nardole said, looking at his plate disapprovingly. “I thought it was a biscuit with a glandular condition.”

The Doctor picked up his fork, unsteadily. “You live as long as I have, you get deja vu, sometimes before the fact. Just something about this souffle looks familiar.”

“Maybe you’ve eaten it before?” Bill suggested, unhelpfully.

The Doctor shrugged it off with a smile. “This is why we’re here, believe it or not. I got a message in the TARDIS saying to come to these co-ordinates and order the souffle. I can never resist ambiguousness. Or ambiguity. Pick one.”

“You delayed our trip to Spiridon for a souffle?” Nardole said.

“Eat up, Nardy. Never say no to free food,” sighed Bill.

The three dug into their souffles. Immediately, the Doctor and Bill’s eyes lit up.

“Doctor, this is bloody amazing!” Bill said with her mouth full.

All the Doctor could do was nod in agreement as he was too busy savouring the taste.

Even Nardole cracked a smile. “OK, I agree. This is pretty good. For human food.”

“Pretty good?” the Doctor finally said. “This is the best souffle I have ever tasted! Incredible!”

Not far away, standing behind the counter, pretending to rearrange some dishes as she observed the trio, with particular interest in the slim, grey-haired man who led the group, the waitress’ face lit up with a grin that could have illuminated a star system.

“Practice makes perfect, Doctor,” Clara Oswald quietly said to herself.

----

Other fan fiction by The Saddleman (i.e. me) can be found on Archive of Our Own

#whouffaldi #whouffaldi fan fiction #twelfth doctor #clara oswald #bill potts #nardole

[bystander3]

Gallifreyan Rim: A Tale from the Time War (Pacific Rim AU) (16,012 words) by Bystander3

Chapters: 8/?

Fandom: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio), Pacific Rim (2013)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Major Character Death, Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Relationships: Leela/Romana II

Characters: Romana II, Leela (Doctor Who), Irving Braxiatel, Narvin (Doctor Who)

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Time War, Angst, Drift Compatibility, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Jaeger Pilots, Kaiju, Leela vs Dalek violence, malnourished war prisoner, Panic Attacks

Summary: During the Time War, Time Lords in giant robots battle giant monsters bred by the Daleks. Romana and Leela could become one of the greatest jaeger piloting teams of all time – but they’ll have to learn to trust each other again first.

I’ve finally posted another chapter of my Gallifrey/Pacific Rim fusion AU story! This one goes some emotional places folks!

Chapter Summary: Time is running out for Romana and Leela, still trapped inside the mindscape of the Drift. Romana tracks Hound!Leela through the war-trenches of a Vampire Planet. But also, Leela goes to therapy? Kind of? And finally, Romana is forced to talk about her feelings, or else they both might die alone in the dark! 

Chapter 1: Prologue

Chapter 2: “Calibration” or “Talking with Sticks”

Chapter 3: “Interlude” or “Coffee and Freudian Psychology”

Chapter 4: “First Drift” or “Why PTSD & Giant Robots Don’t Mix”

Chapter 5: “Chaos” or “Putting the Shatter in Shatterdome”

Chapter 6: “Negotiation” or “Ends and Means”

Chapter 7: “Confinement” or “The Darkened Hallway” 

Chapter 8: “Devolution” or “The Mud-Filled Trenches” –New!–

Follow the links to read on AO3. Leave me a comment there and let me know what you think!

#Big Finish #Gallifrey #Leela #Romana #Doctor Who #Pacific Rim #fan fiction #alternate universe #jaegers #kaiju #drift compatible #Narvin #Irving Braxiatel #AO3

[classicwhostuff]

okay so i just rewatched day of the doctor and i have to admit it’s still pretty fuckin good lol. like, i picked up on a lot of small weird issues but the overall story and plot was fucking fantastic!

(this ended up longer than i though it would, whoops haha. feel free to read this rambling review (?) of day of the doctor)

it has some really funny jokes, i love kate and osgood and unit to death, bringin back the zygons was a great idea, it was seriously so much fun. i loved that we finally found out what happened with queen lizzie. tom baker was brilliant. i really liked clara in this! also the different theme at the end??? love it.

here are some random examples of the things that just sort of nagged at me during the watch: why did the war doctor write “no more” in english and not gallifreyan? why did the gallifreyan child have a bunny stuffed toy? does gallifrey have bunnies?? wait a second, didn’t sarah jane break in to the black archive that one time?? (that one isn’t a nitpick, it’s just funny as fuck cos they’re bragging about security but sarah jane said fuck you) that wall of old companions is great, but how the fuck do they know about kamelion or sara kingdom??

and the biggest thing actually tears me apart is the ENTIRE LACK OF PAUL MCGANN. it’s so irritating because i really love john hurt and his portrayal of this doctor, but i still don’t think that this doctor should even exist when the eighth doctor is RIGHT THERE! it’s strange. he would have been fantastic!!! but also john hurt was fantastic too!!!!!

so overall it’s actually really good and holds up really well which uh kinda surprised me not gonna lie. and although this story is surely missing some paul mcgann, i had fun!! zygons and queen elizabeth 1, yay!!

#doctor who #day of the doctor #dotd

[labyrinth-archive]

And We Dreamt of Far-Off Stars Fandom: Doctor Who Ship: Eleven x Clara Length: 11,700 words Also on Ao3 Locked away in a watch tower with neither stairs nor door, there is a girl, fated to stay inside, watching over Mother Rassilon’s archive, all the while dreaming of far-off stars and the world outside her tower and of the galaxy far beyond even that. And then, one day, she catches a thief trying to steal a TARDIS.

(A Rapunzel retelling x Whouffle)

Suspended in the sky, threaded together by seventeen suns and a string of stars, lies Gallifrey. And on Gallifrey, beneath its burning orange sky and twin suns, there is a tower, with neither stairs nor door. But it is not just any old tower. It is a Gallifreyan watch tower, built to look over the gated, twisting maze of archives containing the High Council’s relic collection. And in that tower, there is a girl, who has never once stepped outside. The job she was trained for since birth is far too precious, for she must stay and keep watch for intruders, standing guard over the labyrinth of sheds and shelves and boxes. Her job is to watch the world, not be part of it. The duty of keeping watch over the archives - according to Mother Rassilon and the High Council, at least - is an honor. And the girl - Clara - is not allowed to leave her tower, nor cut her hair, for according to ancient custom, the length of her hair symbolizes her years of service to Gallifrey. (And her hair is long, so, so long already. And each day it seems to Clara that her hair grows inches longer and the room walls grow smaller and the tower gets far too tiny to try to contain her in.) Of course, just because she can’t see the world doesn’t mean she doesn’t try to recreate it in her tower. Inside, she has sixty-seven self-made mobiles hanging from her ceiling, mini galaxies hanging on strings, made of paper stars and painted planets. She also has a long silver spyglass (made for looking down at the archive and searching for intruders, but if Clara’s honest, she finds herself pointing it skywards and scanning the stars more often than not), an old guitar she never quite figured out how to play, and a whisk and a pan for making soufflés. She also has exactly eleven books and she’s read them thousands and thousands and thousands of times. Her favorite one is a book called One-Hundred-and-Once Places to See, and on its cover is a sketched out galaxy embossed with bits of black and gold. And inside...inside lies the universe. It tells her of entire worlds made of water, of sparkling constellations strung together by stars and supernovas, of planet-wide festivals and colorful comets and where to go to see the best sunrise in all the universe. But Clara’s favorite part is what can be found on page fourth-two, because on that page lies the meteor shower on the planet of Akhatan. The meteor shower happens only once every thousand years, and when the metallic meteors fall through Akhatan’s atmosphere, they turn into shooting stars that burst and burn into colorful flames in the dark night sky. They look, according to story from a local recorded by the author, like bright, floating paper lanterns, burning up from the inside out. Lantern Stars, they’re called, their beauty only seen once every thousand years, but talked about for eternity. And the thing is, if Clara’s done the math right (and she’s had nothing but time to do the calculations and check them again and again), it’s the thousandth year, and the Lantern Stars will fall tomorrow. It’s a sight she’ll never get to see from where she’s trapped in her tower. Oh, but she dreams. She dreams of burning nebulas and roaring oceans, of lavender skies and diamond snowfall and so many wonders she knows just be out there. But most of all, she dreams about the Lantern Stars, and what it might be like to sit on Akhatan and stare up at the sky, watching them blaze brightly in the darkness. So she pulls out her paper and uses the last bit of twine she has left in the tower to form origami Lantern Stars and hang them from her ceiling. And she promises herself that one day she’ll get to see the real ones. # It is early afternoon, the twin suns are bright and high, blazing over the outdoor archive and the Gallifreyan desert outside, and inside, Clara is pulling a carefully baked soufflé out of the oven. (Or, more accurately, she’s pulling out a burnt black soufflé.) And that’s when she gets a visitor. “Clara,” a voice calls from outside her window, from somewhere down below. “Clara, let down the lift.” Quickly, Clara tips her failed creation out of her soufflé pan and into the trash, and then hurries to the lift, turning the key and unlocking the failsafe, then lifting the levers and lowering it in a rush. Slowly, the lift rises, and Mother Rassilon’s figure appears in the window, her silhouette casting a black shadow over the tower floor. “Clara,” Mother Rassilon says, nodding as she sets down Clara’s monthly sack of supplies. “Anything to report?” Clara stands at attention almost automatically, her spine straightening, posture stiffening. Mother Rassilon was a general, a member of the Gallifreyan High Council, and her deep red robes that fell to the floor and the golden headpiece she wore had a habit of reminding you exactly how much power she had. “No break-ins,” Clara says. “Area’s secure. Permission to speak freely, ma’am?” Mother Rassilon huffs out a breath through her nose and makes an, irritated sharp snapping sound with her tongue. “Must we do this every time I visit?” “Yes,” Clara says immediately, because that’s the thing about her. She’s stubborn. So stubborn even Mother Rassilon, high-ranking Gallifreyan official, is resigned to having to listen to her. “Clara, you are not getting out of service.” “I know that,” Clara presses. “I know you need me in this watch tower. I know this was the job that was decided for me. And I’m not asking to leave it forever, just for a day.” “Clara, a thousand Gallifreyans before you have grown up in this tower, have stood guard in this tower without a break. Are you saying you deserve more than all of them? That you’re better than every single one of them?” Mother Rassilon asks, and as Clara’s trying to form an answer that doesn’t make her look selfish or vain, Rassilon strikes again. “Clara, look down at your hair. Go on, look at it.” And Clara does, glancing down at her dark brown locks that cascade over her shoulders in waves and fall past her knees. “Your uncut hair represents your years of privileged service to me, to Gallifrey. That long hair is an honor, Clara, as is your position in this tower,” Mother Rassilon reminds her. “You may only cut it and leave as soon as your twenty-five years of service are complete. You are under obligation to be here for one more year.” One more year. So close and yet so far, and by then, of course, the Lantern Stars would be gone, not back again for another thousand years. “Now,” Mother Rassilon says, smoothing down her velvet, wine-red robes. “Is there anything you need me to bring you with next month’s supplies?” “I’m out of string,” Clara says, almost absently, as she tries to come up with better arguments in her mind. “Ah, yes,” Mother Rassilon says, and for a second there’s a flicker of annoyance in her eyes. “Your mobiles. Have you not grown out of making those yet?” Clara purses her lips for a second, eyes narrowing, “I thought the stars coming to me was a better idea than me going to the stars.” Mother Rassilon blinks, takes a sharp breath, “Right. Well. I shall bring you some string the next time I make a delivery. And perhaps a new book, if I can find a suitable one.” Clara nearly snorts at that. Last time Clara pressed to leave, Mother Rassilon had brought the soufflé pan hoping to distract her. But while Clara’d been pleased with it, it hadn’t worked. Nothing could possibly distract her from wanting to see what lay beyond her tower walls. Mother Rassilon must sense the war going on in Clara’s mind and see the anger in her eyes, because she suddenly switches tactics, softens her voice, says, “You are part of something so much bigger than yourself. You are a part of history, part of what makes this society work. Gallifrey needs you, Clara, do you understand?” And Clara likes the idea of being part of something bigger than herself. That she’s a cog that helps the clockwork run, a star that makes the constellation brighter. Or, at least, this is what she tells herself, as she lies awake in her bed at night, staring up at the stars hanging from her ceiling, all the while dreaming of other worlds. Because the thing is, Clara has had twenty-four years to run through an escape plan in her mind, and each time, it fails. Her tower is stairless and doorless and high up in the sky, and the only way in or out is through the tiny lift. And the lift won’t work unless someone’s in the tower to unlock it and operate it. Clara’s tried tying triple knots and switching out the serrated cogs and even jamming a paintbrush in the wheels and keyholes but it just won’t work. And the thing is, even if Clara could get out of the tower, she doesn’t know what the next step would be, where she could possibly run away to. Everyone on Gallifrey had their role to play, everyone has to serve where they’re assigned for their allotted time. No one would not help her or hide her, and it’d only end in punishment for her. And Clara...Clara knows of Gallifreyan punishments. It’s in chapter twenty-five of one of her books. It talks of confession dial prisons and forced regeneration and other terrible, terrible things. None of which Clara feels are worth the risk for just a few seconds outside her tower on the archive lot. Besides, she tells herself, just another year, and she’d be free. And the Hundred-and-One Places to See would be waiting for her. And so she says, “Yes, Mother Rassilon,” and lowers her down the lift. # Clara peers through her silver spyglass, watching Mother Rassilon’s retreating figure, and then, out of habit, she does another survey, her eyes sweeping over the archive. And that’s when she sees it. There’s something out of the corner of her eye, blurred and darting between and behind the crates and disappearing behind the pillars. Clara tries to focus her spyglass, eyes narrowing at the shape in the shadows. The blur is all white and grey and brown and based on the flapping motion it’s making, she thinks it might be a bird. But then the shape moves again, slipping behind one of the covered sheds, giving her a brief but clear glance, and she sees that it’s positively, absolutely, definitely not a bird. Birds don’t wear bow ties. Clara leans forward, focusing her spyglass, and finds that the fluid, flapping motion she had thought were white wings are really white shirt sleeves and the intruder she sees is all long limbs and floppy hair, and she can’t help but run her gaze over the length of his body, pausing over the fit of his vest and the way his shirtsleeves were rolled up past his forearms and how there’s an untied bow tie hanging loosely around his neck, by the open first few buttons of his shirt. And then there’s that grin, mischievous and glittering and mesmerizing, even from this distance, and it nearly throws her off her guard. (Perhaps it’s a bit ridiculous to be staring at the cut of the clothes on a thief, or noticing his height or smile. That, Clara knows, is not the type of information Mother Rassilon would want in a report and yet Clara can’t help but mentally note it and file it away in a corner of her mind.) Then intruder pauses and he seems focused, like he’s looking for only one thing, as his eyes search the area. He’s a thief, Clara deduces after studying his movements, coming for something specific. She reaches up, wrapping her fingers around the brass warning bell’s rope, ready to ring it, but if she’s being honest, she’s also curious about what a man like that would be thinking of stealing. It’s then that the thief looks over his shoulder, startled by something, and then slips into the shadows, disappearing from view, and Clara watches, eyes narrowed, muscles tense. But he doesn't reappear, and slowly, her fingers unwrap from the warning bell’s rope. Perhaps the thief heard Mother Rassilon opening the gate to leave and thought it was someone opening the gate to come in. Clara’s seen intruders like that before, ones who look menacing or daring but who run off at the slightest sound. They’re not even worth ringing the bell for. Clara moves to the window on the other side of her tower, stands on her tiptoes and leans as far out of it as she dare to, looking at the scene down below. But there’s no movement, save for a few tumbleweeds she sees being blown about by the breeze, scattering out over the pavers and in-between the maze of storage sheds. She pulls back, goes back to the flats of her feet... And that’s when she hears the lift. The creaking noise, the metallic sound of the cogs clicking and spinning, of the rope slithering through the pulleys is unmistakable. Clara’s heard that sound every month of her life, after all, she knows what it is. Which is why she knows it should be impossible that she’s hearing it. Only someone in the tower can unlock the lift, can make the it lower and rise, and she’s not doing a single thing, the lever’s still in its proper place, the ropes untouched by her hands, and yet the cogs are turning like clockwork, the lift on its way up to her window. Clara is as fascinated as she is fearful, and she presses herself back against the wall behind her little wood-burning oven, watching. Her pulse is screaming and her mind is spinning and cautiously, curiously, she peers forward to watch as the thief appears in her window. He looks around in surprise at her tower, slips inside... And then she knocks him upside the head with her soufflé pan. # The thief lies unconscious on the tower floor, a tangled mess of long limbs and brown locks, and Clara stands above him, gripping her soufflé pan, staring down. There’s adrenaline pumping through her, her ribcage screaming at her heavy breathing, her lungs pushing against her corset and the laces down the front of her chest on her dress, and testing her skills, she reaches out and pokes his foot with her own. But he doesn’t stir a bit, he’s completely out cold. “Well,” she says aloud, sounding just a bit proud. “That turned out better than the soufflé did, didn’t it?” Clara sets the pan down, giving it a pleased pat, goes over the warning bell, wraps her fingers around the rope and then... Then nothing. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t pull it. She just stands there, thinking, staring at the thief on the floor, her mind ticking away with the seconds. She should ring the bell, get him arrested. That was her job, after all. But, but, but: He knew how to work the lift while riding it, without needing to unlock the safety barriers first, without needing anyone in the tower to operate it. And the fact that he has that knowledge is tantalizing, enthralling, too tempting to let slip through her fingers, so she takes her hand off the warning bell... And she plans. # Clara ties the thief to a chair with twine from one of her mobiles, a model of a solar system she‘s ripped down from her ceiling, the mini moons and suns still attached, and she binds his wrists in front of him with a separate string of stars she had hanging above her bed. (Clara knows that the little strung together galaxy from her ceiling isn’t really suitable, but it’s available, and she hadn’t been planning on having to tie up a thief on such short notice. It’ll just have to do, like her soufflé-pan-turned-weapon, which she’s actually quite proud of.) And then she waits for him to wake up. And she waits and she waits and she waits. She’s just starting to think that maybe she hit him a little too hard, when he finally speaks. “Ah, the Lantern Stars of Akhatan,” the thief says. “I’ve heard of those.” Clara raises her soufflé pan warningly, but the thief’s not even looking at her. His head is lolled back, and he’s staring up at the mobile on her ceiling with a sort of dazed curiosity. “They only rain down once every thousand years,” he continues, studying her artwork of it with a nearly scientific sort of fascination. “Bursting into blazing color and burning up before they ever reach the ground.” Clara’s a little shocked that he knows this, a bit surprised he can recall it so easily, that the information can just slip off the tip of his tongue. The only reason she knows the information so well, after all, is it’s from one of the few books in her tower, and she’s had her whole life to reread that passage over and over, backward and forwards while she dreamt of the stars. But that fact about him, as interesting as it may be and as nice as his voice sounds as he says it, is not exactly important at the moment. Clara clears her throat, stands to her full height of five-feet-two-inches, and sternly levels her soufflé pan at him. “What are you doing up here?” The thief brings his gaze down from the ceiling, his eyes landing on her, and Clara does a very good job at staying stony-faced while his eyes sweep over her, widening as they land on her soufflé pan. “Hang on, is that what hit me?” He asks, and he somehow manages to sound inherently curious and utterly offended all at once. “You knocked me out with a soufflé pan?” “I did and I’ll do it again if I have to,” Clara warns. “So behave.” “You knocked me out with a soufflé pan!” he repeats, a bit incredulous, making Clara wonder again if perhaps she hit him a bit too hard. Then, looking her up and down once more, he adds, “How did you even reach my head? You’re hardly half my height.” Never mind. After that unnecessary exaggeration, Clara doesn’t feel very bad about how hard she hit him. “What are you doing up here?” she repeats. “Ah, right, well,“ he shifts about in the chair. “Quite simple, really. Slipped in through the gate, heard someone, needed a hiding place, thought your tower looked nice. Didn’t expected to be attacked with brute force and a baking instrument and then trussed up like a turkey, but that’s life, I’m afraid.” He has an odd way of talking, rambling and blabbering but fast, as if he’s trying to pack too many words into a single run-on sentence before he runs out of air, and Clara doesn’t quite know what to make of it. “How did you get up here?” Clara asks. “There are no stairs nor door.” “Really?” He looks a bit intrigued. “Why not?” Clara raises her soufflé pan warningly. “Alright, alright,” he says, still managing to flap his hands around in a placating gesture despite his wrists being bound. “I rode up on the little lift. I do love a lift.” “Yes, I know that, but it can only be used after being unlocked and operated by someone in this tower,” Clara says, gesturing to the set of copper gears and pulleys by the window. “Or so I thought, so how did you do it?” “Ah, yes, well,” he says, trying to move about again in the chair, “why don’t you untie me and we can have a pleasant sort of conversation about it?” And then he starts doing this...this thing with his face. His tilts his head down, but then looks up, up through his lashes, up right at her, and when he shifts ever so slightly, the shadows in the room play over the angles of his face, falling over his high cheekbones and highlighting the sharp line of his jaw. Still, Clara’s not impressed. (Okay, fine, maybe she’s just a tiny bit impressed, and maybe her heartbeats quicken ever so slightly under the intensity of his gaze and maybe, maybe, maybe she has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling, but only because he looks utterly ridiculous. It’s absolutely not because she thinks he’s cute.) “What are you doing?” Clara asks. “A smolder. According to my friend, Jack Harkness, it’s supposed to work well on all species. Is it working?” “Not really, no.” “Ah, thought not,” he mutters half to himself, dropping the expression from his face before sighing. “You’ll find the answer to your question in my vest‘s inner left pocket.” “This had better not be a trick, or - “ “Or you’ll smack me upside the head with your blunt baking instrument, I got it.” Hesitantly, she steps toward him, and his eyes track her measured movements as she leans in closer and slips her hand beneath his vest, between the material and the warmth of his chest, and then she pulls out a device made of copper and cogs. Curiously, Clara turns the slim device over in her hands. It looks like something magnificent, glittering like gold and glowing at the end like it’s trapped the light of a star. “Sonic screwdriver,” the thief says, and he sounds just a little bit proud. “Ah, breaking and entering.” “Breaking? I didn’t break anything. Sonicing and entering. You’re the one who tried to break my jaw with a soufflé pan. It still hurts, by the way.” “Sorry,” Clara says. “But that’s what you get in the burglary profession. You were trying to steal from here, after all.“ “Borrow,” he interrupts. Clara blinks, wondering if she misheard him, “I’m sorry?” “Borrow,” he repeats empathetically, and he bounces the chair just a little bit closer to her. “I was always going to bring it back.” Clara raises an eyebrow skeptically. “I had,” he says, still managing to somehow gesture wildly even with his wrists tied, “a plan.” Clara slowly gives him a once over, her eyes landing on his bound wrists. “And how’s that working for you?” He ignores this, but he also looks to Clara like the type of man who would call having half an idea and a sense of gumption a plan. Still, he’s captured her curiosity now, whether she likes it or not, and she can’t help but ask, “What were you trying to borrow, then?” His eyes search hers for a minute, and then he smiles. It’s slow and wide and just a little bit sly, like he knows some sort of secret, “You don’t know what you’re really keeping watch over, do you?” Despite herself, the corners of Clara’s lips twitch up, “Tell me, then.” “Have you ever heard of a TARDIS?” His words are unexpected and unprecedented, like a bombshell or a bolt out of the blue, and Clara falters for a minute, forgetting to breathe. There are exactly eleven books in her tower, you see, and one of them is old and leather-bound with fading ink and dog-eared pages. And in that book there is a chapter that talks about the best ships in the universe, about how there’s whole worlds contained in one starship, about how they can take you backwards and forwards in time, and from one end of the universe to the other. And the chapter reads exactly like a fairy tale, except it’s not, it’s real. “How could a TARDIS be here?” Clara asks. Because that was another thing the chapter had said, that these magical ships were few and far between, that there were so few made because they were so costly and created only to be used by specially sanctioned members of the Gallifreyan government to keep guard of time. Mother Rassilon didn’t even have the honor of owning one, as far as Clara knew. “I heard whispers of a TARDIS that disappeared because it was found faulty,” the thief tells her. “The Chameleon Circuit inside is broken and it can no longer transform its appearance. I’m guessing it’s this one, that it got taken away and locked up in here.” Locked up in here, just like her. “Chameleon Circuit,” Clara repeats, rolling the odd phrase over her tongue. “You know the ship’s specs and you came in here to steal it, and I don’t see a gravitational beam or a tow ship, and the only other way to get it out of here is to pilot it out, which means you know how to fly it.” The thief grins, and it’s enigmatic, electric, made up of excitement and making her hearts tumble. “The thing about it being a time machine,” he says, “is that you could be halfway across the universe and back again without anything more than a second ever going by.” “You can bring it back to the moment right after you’ve taken it,” Clara says, catching on to his train of thought. “If you did it just right, it’d look like the TARDIS never left the archive.” “Exactly.” Her pulse hums at the possibility, and Clara feels stupidly giddy, her breath catching in her chest as laughter threatens to spill across her lips. This was a ticket out of her tower, a chance of a lifetime, an opportunity to leave without risking Mother Rassilon’s wrath. Because, yes, she’s got a job to do and she’s part of the constellation that makes up Gallifrey, but if one of the stars in that many splendored string just slipped out for just a moment - just one moment - before coming back, did it even matter? If no one ever knew she was gone, was there even any harm? A TARDIS was here, right under her nose, and now a pilot was too. And what were the odds of that - of out of all of time and space and out of every star that ever was and every other place they could possibly be - that the two of them and a TARDIS would find themselves at the exact same place at the exact same time? And Clara Oswald has never believed in unshifting destiny and fate designed by the stars, but she does believe in taking chances, and so she says: “I’m untying you.” The thief looks taken aback, “What?” “I’m untying you,” she repeats, circling around to the back of his chair and undoing the knot that’s there, “because you can’t very well fly the TARDIS like this, can you?” “I thought you were against thieves.” “Thought you said we’d only be borrowing it,” Clara counters quickly. “We?” “You’re taking me with you.” “Why?” “Gratitude for letting you go?” “No, no, no,” he says, leaning forward in the chair and tilting his head to peer up at her, his eyes searching hers as Clara reaches down and pulls his still-bound hands toward her and begins to untie them. “Not why would I take you, why would you take off with me?” Clara pauses, and without really meaning to, she finds her eyes drifting toward the ceiling, and the thief follows her gaze, up to the carefully painted Lantern Stars on a string. “Ah,” he says, and she can hear the smile in his voice. “It’s all about seeing them isn’t it?” “I’ve read the same page about them over and over and over again,” Clara says. “Committed it to memory and recited it in my sleep and saw it in my dreams, have you ever done that?” “Can’t say that I have.” “Okay, well, I know that they’re out there, waiting for me, that the whole universe is all out there, breathing and burning and being and calling out to me, and I can hear it,” Clara says, overcome with a deep, unquestionable, unquenchable longing for the world she knows lies beyond the lines of the horizon. “I can hear it. Do you have any idea what that’s like?” She tears her gaze away from the stars on the ceiling to look back down at him, but finds that he’s already looking at her, and there’s something in his eyes that’s soft as he stares back at her. (Clara doesn’t know it yet, but this, this is the moment he falls in love with her.) “I know exactly what that’s like,” he says. Clara holds his gaze for just a second longer, and then she hands him back his sonic screwdriver and says, “Let’s go then.” He laughs, taking the screwdriver from her, his eyes alight with mischief as he turns and leaps up onto the window’s ledge to work on the cogs and pulleys and Clara, meanwhile, walks toward her shelf. She picks up her book, One-Hundred-and-One Places to See, and turns to the page that holds the Lantern Stars. “Soon,” she promises quietly, running her finger down the black and white print and the colorless sketches. Soon she’ll know exactly how brightly they glow and what colors they burn with against the night sky and what it feels like to be surrounded by floating bursts of starlight. And then she tucks the book under her arm, along with her handy soufflé pan, and pulls herself up onto the window ledge next to her newfound partner. He glances down at her, “Bringing the soufflé pan, are we?” “I’ve got to keep you in line somehow.” “You’re the boss,” he says, as he steps down from the window’s ledge, into the tiny wooden lift and Clara follows him. “The good news is that I’ve got the pulley ready to release without anyone having to manually be left in the tower to let it down.” “What’s the bad news?” “I can’t really control the speed.” Clara swallows, staring down. They were miles and miles up in the sky with nothing below them but air and the ground. And the idea of dropping straight down makes her hearts hammer and her stomach twist, and for a second she almost feels like saying to forget it, feels like scrambling back into her tower where she’s safe and there’s a solid floor beneath her feet. But there were also no stars in the tower, and if she had to trade security in for wonder, then it was a deal she had to take. She nods, steeling herself, feeling much more nervous than she allows herself to look. “I’m the Doctor, by the way,” the thief says. “What’s your name?” Clara listens to the wind whistle as it winds around her tower and she thinks that right now isn’t really the time for introductions, that he’s just trying to distract her from the free fall they’re about to do. But right now a distraction is welcoming. She turns to look up at him, and for the first time, she realizes how close he’s standing to her, how in the light from the suns, his eyes look like a wondrous watercolor made up of green and gold. They remind her of a breathtaking nebula she saw in one of her books, and she swallows hard before pushing the thought from her mind. “Clara,” she says. “My name’s Clara Oswald.” “Nice to meet you, Clara,” he says. And then he holds out his hand, and when she takes it, he whispers, “Geronimo.” And then they’re falling. # They hit the ground in a glorious crash that nearly bounces them back upwards, and Clara finds herself being shaken like a coin in a jar, jolted and jostled about. And as she tries to find her balance, the lift tilts, tipping her forward, and she trips on the hem of her dress and falls onto the ground, her hair flying everywhere. She feels the Doctor’s hands clasp lightly around the curve of her shoulders before sliding down to her arms, helping her up. “You okay?” the Doctor asks, parting her wild curtain of hair and peering down at her face. “Yes, thanks,” Clara says, hazily righting herself, trying not to trip on her dress again. “You?” “King of Okay,” he says. Clara’s lips twitch as she picks up her fallen book and soufflé pan, carefully tucking them back into place under her arm again, “That’s what you’re going with?” “Right. Rubbish title. Forget I said that,” he says, wrinkling his nose, before changing the subject. “Come on, someone might’ve heard that crash landing.” And then he’s taking her hand, pulling her behind him, and she’s running as fast as she can, hair flying, hearts pounding as he leads her through the winding maze of walls and crates and pods and vaults, dodging left before swerving right, his turns getting seemingly sharper as he gets closer to his destination. “This is it,” he announces suddenly, bringing her to a halt just as quickly as he’d pulled her into running, and Clara stumbles into his shoulder at the abrupt stop. She’s about to say something, but when she peers around him, she sees the bluest blue she’s ever seen. It is more vibrant than any of the pictures in any of her books, prettier than any of the colors she’s painted with. The shade is darker than the evening sky, but brighter than the night, and it is beautiful. “Just give me a second to get her open,” the Doctor says, and Clara nods, ripping her gaze away from the TARDIS and turning around to keep an eye out. She grips her soufflé pan in her fist, starts to make a survey for danger... ....And that’s when it all hits her. The evening sky and the burning red glow from the setting suns, the air that smells so amazingly fresh and the warm summer wind that’s sweeping strands of hair back off her shoulders. And it is just the base of her tower, just the archive lot. There is nothing surrounding them but bricks and crates, high gates and brass locks, but it is new, seeing them all from this angle, seeing them up close and in person and not from a distance or through the tiny circle of her spyglass. And it is wonderful. “Clara? Hello, Clara?” Clara shakes her gaze away from the sky, brings it back down to the Doctor, who’s standing in front of the open TARDIS door, staring back, and there’s something that looks like concern or curiosity in his eyes. (Clara wouldn’t really know. Mother Rassilon’s never looked at her with either.) “Clara,” he says again. “What’s wrong?” “Nothing, nothing’s wrong,” Clara says shaking her head, because maybe, for once, everything is right. “I just...it’s all...” He studies her face, and slowly, understanding lights up his eyes. “You’ve never left that tower,” he says. She shakes her head, “No. I’ve been in that tower my whole life. I’ve never left archive.” They stand there for another second, and then he smiles and says, “Well, then, Clara Oswald. I think it’s about time you did.” # They’re crashing. Again. Clara holds onto the TARDIS’ railing, being rocked and thrown about, trying not to scream as she asks, “What’s happening?” “We’re flying,” the Doctor shouts gleefully. “We’re crashing,” she counters. “I thought you knew how to fly this thing!” Everything is all spinning colors and glowing lights, swirling floors and whirling, watercolor walls and Clara finds herself wondering if this is what being a falling star would feel like as it burned through the atmosphere and crashed to the earth.   “I took lessons!” he shouts, struggling to hold onto the console as the TARDIS plummets through the vortex. “Did you?” “Well, a lesson. From a class.” “Please tell me you passed it.” “I passed it.” “Are you lying?” “Possibly.” “To make me feel better?” “Is it working?’ “Not really,” Clara says. “Why would you steal something you didn’t know how to fly?” It’s then that he pulls another lever down and the TARDIS levels out, and slowly, Clara’s fingers unwrap from the bars as he says, “See? I do know how to fly it. In fact, I’m landing it now.” It’s as he says this that there’s another jolt. The TARDIS hits the ground with a thundering thud and Clara’s skirt tangles in her legs, knocking her toward the hard TARDIS floor. The Doctor lurches forward, making a mad grab for her, his arm snaking around her waist, his hand falling right above the curve of her hip to steady her, but the momentum drags them both down anyway, and he falls onto the ground and then she falls on top of him. For a second Clara’s knocked senseless, shocked and speechless as her body lies over his, her hands on his chest, her two palms resting right over his two hearts, and she can feel his twin heartbeats even beneath his vest, fast and fluttering and matching her own. Her eyes find his, and when they do, she feels his chest suddenly move beneath her as he takes in a sharp intake of breath. And then he says: “I wish you’d take that dress off.” She blinks and then he blinks, and she can physically see him rethinking his sentence, see the second his words register in his mind, and then he’s blushing, backtracking, desperately trying to correct himself. “I didn’t, I didn’t mean -“ “I know,” Clara rushes, their conversation coming out in an anxious, rapid fire string of words. “Because you tripped again, and - “ “I understand. I do.” “Good,” he says, nodding, his head banging back against the floor. “Good.” For some reason, they find that they haven’t risen from their current positions to have this conversation. For some reason, his hand is still curled against the curve of her spine. “Right,” she says. “Well, then. I mean, we’ve landed. We’d better -“ “Quite.” She rolls off of him and he scrambles up, and the both of them do an admirable job of avoiding direct contact as they walk around the console. There’s a beat of silence as they both stare at the white TARDIS doors, and then the Doctor says: “Everything you’ve ever wanted and dreamt of right outside these doors. Are you ready?” Clara grins. There are butterflies in her stomach and buzzing in her brain and she’s ready. She’s definitely, definitely ready. “Clara Oswald,” the Doctor says, throwing the doors open wide, “feast your eyes on the Lantern Stars of the Akhatan night.” # There are no lantern stars. It’s definitely not night. And Clara’s not sure it’s even Akhatan. It’s beautiful, though, breathtakingly so. They’ve landed in the middle of an autumn wood, and the world is painted in warmth, and Clara’s eyes grow wide as she takes in the sight of trees filled with red and gold leaves beneath a deep sapphire sky. A slight breeze is ruffling through the leaves, making them wave like water, and somewhere off in the distance, there is birdsong. “Right,” the Doctor says, and from behind her, she can feel him fidget, imagines him waving his hands about awkwardly. “Not Akhatan. Near it, though.” “Not just the Chameleon Circuit that’s a bit off, is it?” Clara asks, not taking her eyes off the sight that’s in front of her. “Navigation’s a bit knackered too.” The Doctor’s saying something else now, rambling on about coordinates and steering, but Clara’s no longer listening. She puts one foot outside and then - Crunch. On instinct, Clara snaps her foot off the ground, reflexively taking a step back, and the Doctor’s hands catch her around her shoulders as her back bumps into his chest, his fingers warm even through the fabric of her dress. “Clara?” She smiles, eyes wide, and looks down, down at the ground that looks like a painted masterpiece of flamelike orange and yellow and red. The forest floor, she realizes, is covered with a myriad of dry, fallen leaves. Clara’s never seen an autumn like this, but she puts it together quickly, connecting the dots and grinning as she steps forward again, listening to the crunching sound coming from beneath her feet. “Never knew they made that sound,” she says in wonder, watching as the breeze stirs the fallen leaves, scattering them into a different multicolored pattern and blowing them across her feet. And it feels like freedom, the wind in her hair and the world in her grasp and the tower far behind her. This is the start of something, she knows, and even if she goes back to the tower, she can’t go back to who she used to be. Not after she knows that there are places in the world that look like this. A ruby red leaf floats down on the wind, dancing by her, and Clara plucks it from the air, twirling it’s stem between her fingers. The Doctor stares at her, smiling faintly, eyes sweeping over her, like she’s a puzzle he likes but can’t quite figure out. “What’s the leaf for?” “It’s not a leaf,” Clara says. “It’s Page One.” # The next stop isn’t Akhatan. The next three aren’t either. # “She’s trying her best,” the Doctor says, running the palm of his hand lightly over the levers and multicolored flickering lights. “I think we’re getting closer each time.” “Or maybe you’re just making a habit of getting us lost,” Clara says. Except she’s not mad, she’s grinning as she says it, and he’s grinning back, and it’s like they’re perfectly in sync sometimes. There’s this look in his eyes he gets when they’re hurtling into the unknown, a sort of hunger, like he’s just dying for the taste of adventure. If Clara looked in a mirror, she’d see the same thing. # “Exterminate.” They’ve just landed somewhere that’s night, but that’s definitely not Akhaten, and the voice that screams through the darkness makes Clara grip her soufflé pan. “Who’s that?” The Doctor’s eyes dart around the dark night nervously, “They don’t like me.” Clara’s about to ask who exactly it is that doesn’t like him, but then there’s the sound of creaking, like something made of metal is marching toward them. “Who’s that?” “They don’t like me either.” And now there’s a rattling noise and a hiss riding toward them on the wind, and something about the sound makes Clara hold up her soufflé pan like a shield, ready to protect them both. “Who’s that?” “Let’s just assume for the moment that everyone here doesn’t like me!” the Doctor says, and he drags her back inside the TARDIS. “Try again?” Clara asks back pressed against the inside of the shut door, soufflé pan clutched to her chest. “Try again,” the Doctor says. And then they’re off. # “Sorry about that,” the Doctor says, after their eighth wrong landing. “Well,” Clara says, “I did want to see the world.” (And neither one of them notices how long they stand there, smiling at the other.) # When Clara opens the TARDIS doors for what might be the tenth time, there’s a gasp on her lips that comes with the sight in front of her. And it’s not Akhatan or the Lantern Stars. In fact, what she sees outside is something simple, Clara supposes, something every day and ordinary, maybe even a nuisance for most. But for her it’s magical, nearly mind-reeling, and there’s an awed sort of feeling in her soul as she stares ahead. “Ah,” the Doctor says, coming to stand in the doorway behind her. “Rain.” Rain, Clara repeats to herself silently, her eyes scanning the sky. There’s light rain falling from grey clouds all across a green field, empty except for the TARDIS, and the tall blades of grass sparkle with dewdrops and ripple and roll as they’re dusted with rain, and Clara finds she can’t look away. “Well, we’ve landed closer this time, so sort of on-target,” the Doctor continues, unaware of how Clara’s currently losing her mind. “Never-mind, just one more try and we should have it right. Won’t even be a long hop. Ready, Clara? Clara?” It’s then that Clara can feel his eyes finally fall on her, and for a moment, there’s just the sound of falling rain against the wooden TARDIS roof, and then he says, very softly, “You’ve never seen rain before, have you?” “I’ve seen it from my window,” Clara says, still entranced by the sight. “It hardly ever rains where my tower is, but every so often a wet desert storm will sweep over the sand outside. I’ve seen it four, maybe five times. But I’ve never...” She trails off there, taking a tentative step out of the TARDIS instead. And she stands there, feeling a cool raindrop nestle in her hair and then another and another and another, and for a minute, she goes still as a statue, watching as raindrops dot across her skin like watery constellations. And then she’s moving and laughing and spinning, arms spread out like a pair of wings as she throws her head back under the sky full of rain and lets it wash over her, lets it soak into her skin and dampen her dress. The sensation is entirely new, amazing and exhilarating, and she spins in place again, enjoying the way the raindrops fly off her fingers like glitter. Happiness and laughter dance around in her chest because it feels good, so, so good to be alive, and after spending all those years locked in a tower, she had no idea that alive could feel like this. When she spins around again, she finds herself surprised, finds she nearly collides with the Doctor who’s joined her outside, under the rain-filled sky. She laughs quietly, looks up at him, and then all of her laughter turns to something softer, something quieter, because that’s when she realizes just how close they are, how they’re suddenly face to face and how neither one of them’s stepping away. It’s like everything about him is sharper, clearer. Clara can see each speck in the hazel nebula that makes up the color of his eyes and how his shirt is soaked, plastered onto the broad slope of his shoulders and the way beads of water run along his skin, down the curve of his neck, and cling to the tender hollow of his throat and the sharp edge of his collarbone before falling beneath his vest. He inhales sharply, and Clara can see it, feel it, and his gaze is flickering from her eyes to her lips, and he looks hesitant, cautious, but he’s not moving back and neither is she. So they stand there, silent as the rain falls around them, and then the Doctor starts to speak. “Clara,” he says, her name nothing more than a whisper, “I -“ But whatever he’s about to say is lost to time, because all at once, there’s a bang, like steel against steel, and the darkness is suddenly lit up like the dawn. Clara jumps, gasps and grasps at thin air, as if trying to find her trusty soufflé pan. “It’s okay, it’s lightning and thunder,” the Doctor tells her, his hands reaching out for her waist, holding her still before she can take off to fight against a non-existant foe. “Comes with the rain sometimes. Sorry. Suppose I should’ve warned you about that.” “Right,” Clara says, fight-or-flight mode fading just as suddenly as it had started, leaving her awkward and flushing and flustered. “Right. I should’ve...I’ve heard about it of course. Read about it.” The Doctor nods vigorously, strands of wet, deep brown hair falling against his forehead at the sudden burst of movement. “Of course.” “Different in a book.” “Right, well, yes,” the Doctor nods again, almost awkwardly, as if he’s eager to fill the air with words, because he knows silence would be much worse than his clumsy replies. “It would be.” She curls her fingers around his wrists where they rest on her waist, and she can feel the fast, fluttering thrum of his pulse beneath his skin, though she doesn’t know whether it’s from the suddenness of the thunder or from whatever just happened between them, and Clara lets out a shuddery breath, crossing her arms and closing her eyes. What had just happened between them? she wonders, wishing she knew what the Doctor had been about to say and do.  But she figures she’ll never know, because instead of saying anything else, the Doctor coughs, clears his throat, holds his hands awkwardly in the air for a moment, fingers pointed upward. “Guess we’d better get back to the TARDIS,” he says. “Right,” Clara says. “To the TARDIS.” And then he offers her his arm, and they walk back in silence, and as they trek through the rain, Clara knows that something between them has changed. # Akhatan. They’re on Akhatan. Really, actually, properly on Akhatan. The name circles through Clara’s mind like a whirlwind, spinning faster and faster and faster as she stares up at the sky stretched out above her that’s a glorious gradient fading from the palest blue to the darkest. The light is leaving quickly and soon it’ll be night, she tells herself, soon she’ll be under a sky raining stars. She bounces lightly on the balls of her feet, filled to the brim with anticipation, bursting with excitement, and then she feels the Doctor come up beside her. “Come on,” he says, nudging her shoulder with his own, “you really didn’t think I’d let you see the Lantern Stars from all the way over here, did you, Miss Oswald?” “We’re not watching from here?” “Course not, terrible view. Let’s go,” he says, holding out his hand. Clara narrows her eyes, but finds she’s grinning despite herself, “Where are we going?” And as she slides his hand in his, he says: “Page two.” # Page two, as it ends up, is a boat out on the water. The water is clear and still and dark velvet blue, a reflection of the night sky above, and Clara sits, trailing her fingers anxiously in the water as she watches the sky, not quite believing that after all these years, she’s actually here. “I’ve been staring at this page in my book for twenty-four years,” she says into the silence. “I know each word on it like I know the back of my hand. I’ve dreamed about the stars a billions times, built it all up in my mind, and I can’t believe I’m actually about to see something I’ve thought about my entire life.” “It’ll be everything you’ve ever dreamed,” the Doctor promises her, as if he’d burn the stars himself for her, just to make sure she gets to see what she wants to. “It’ll be more than that, even.” “I know, it’s just...this is the one thing I’ve wanted, the one thing I’ve wished for,” Clara whispers. “What happens when this page is over?” She turns to look at him, and as his eyes search hers, there’s a sort of gentleness to them she hasn’t seen before, one that makes her almost ache at the tenderness that’s there and wonder if it’s a look he has only for her. “You turn the page,” he tells her as he reaches out across the boat and takes her hand in his, his thumb ghosting softly against it. “You go on to the next one.” The next page. Clara’s grip tightens around his hand, and she wants to tell him something, something important, because she knows what she wants her next page to be. Knows it like she’s known it her whole life, like it’s written into her skin, and she’s about to say something, to tell him, and then: Out of the corner of her eye, she spots a light in the sky. Clara swivels toward it, breath hitching in her throat as she rocks the boat with her sudden movement, nearly tipping them over as she focuses on the single spark in the dark. And then there’s another spark, and another, and another almost like someone’s thrown firecrackers into the air, and then: The sky is filled with living color. The stars are raining, and they burn in every color. They’re blazing, dissolving, alight with flame. They dissipate into deep blue, into lavender and pale pink, and then they burn into silver and sea green, glow red and gold. And their radiance reflects off the water below, sending a shimmer across the surface, making it look like Clara’s floating in a sea made up of sparkling stars, as if she herself is awash and aglow with starlight. It is captivating, enchanting, and she is utterly spellbound and suitably awed, wordless and wonderstruck, because it’s like she’s slipped in-between the pages of one of her books and found herself inside a fairy tale. No, Clara corrects herself, it’s better than any fairy tale she’s read and it is so much better than how her book described or what she’d dreamed up in her head. It is so much brighter and so much more beautiful and just so much more. More, more, more. She turns to the Doctor, smiling at the reflection of the stars that’s washing over his skin, that’s making him look like he’s got stardust in his eyes, and she sees that he’s already been watching her instead of the sky. “Don’t go back to the tower,” he says suddenly, the string of words coming out in a single exhale, a brief rush of breath. “Stay with me. In the TARDIS. There’s a whole wide universe out there, and we could run forever.” Clara’s not sure what expression she’s expecting to see on his face. A careless one, maybe, or a joking one. Perhaps that devil-may-care look she’s seen him wear when he’s piloting the TARDIS and he’s grinning and his eyes are glittering and he’s getting a high off of running toward danger. But he’s not wearing any one of those looks. Instead he just looks...honest. Open and raw and maybe a little scared and Clara feels such a surge of affection for him that a smile slips across her face unbidden. “Why, Doctor,” she says lightly, teasingly. “Is this a proposal?” “No, I - “ He blushes bright pink, nearly matching one of the burning stars above, and then he’s protesting and stammering, awkwardness replacing his calmness. And when her smile grows wider, goading him, he huffs at her. “Shut up.” Clara laughs, and he can’t stay mad at her when she does that, can’t ever stay mad at her anyway, so he starts again. “The thing is, Clara,” he says, and there’s that look in his eye again, the soft one that makes Clara’s pulse stutter, “You - ” And then everything fades to black and falls apart. # Clara’s head is heavy and hazy, like there’s a deep fog inside she can’t find her way out of, and when she tries to open her eyes, the world is a dark, dizzying, painful blur of light and shadow. Though it hurts, she lifts her head... And finds that she’s back in her tower, looking right into the eyes of Mother Rassilon. “You were out for quite a while after I stunned you,” Rassilon says cooly. “It’s about time you joined us.” Clara jerks away, trying to step backwards on instinct, but she is wrenched forward, jolted painfully back into place, and she bites her tongue to keep from screaming. There are black spots swimming in front of her eyes and stinging in her muscles and a fire in her head, like it’s burning up her skull to embers and ashes, and when she looks to the side, she sees why: Mother Rassilon’s bound her by her own hair. Clara’s long tresses are hopelessly tangled, twisted and braided in knot after impossible knot, tying her down to a chair by the tower’s little stove. And even worse than that, the Doctor is there too, next to the TARDIS, with one arm tied to the bed, just out of Clara’s reach. “It’s okay, Clara,” the Doctor tells her, before turning in his binding and shooting Mother Rassilon a look that’s both dark and knife-sharp. “Everything’s going to be fine.” “Ever the optimist, aren’t we?” Mother Rassilon says with a humorless smile, before turning back to Clara. “I would’ve tied you up ages ago, if I’d known you’d be so much trouble. Saved myself the trip of having to come and fetch you and bring you back here myself. At least you left clues as to where you went. Your beloved little Lantern Star mobile pointed the way like a beacon.” Clara’s hair is pulling at her scalp and she’s holding onto the back of the chair for support, but somehow, through the pain, something registers, and Mother Rassilon’s words don’t seem quite right. “Yourself?” Clara asks, taking in a shaky inhale. “You’ve got armies under your command and as you’ve pointed out before, I’m one cog in a collection of many. Why didn’t you send someone else after me?” Mother Rassilon blinks, lips parted ever so slightly, and it’s like seeing a ripple in a lake before it smooths back over. And it’s only a little movement and it’s only for a moment, but it’s enough to tell Clara she was right about it being wrong. “It’s because of the TARDIS, isn’t it?” the Doctor asks, except it’s not really a question, not when it sounds like he already knows the answer. He gestures toward Rassilon with his one hand that’s not tied down, “It’s not the council’s TARDIS, it’s yours and you’re hiding here. Wait a second, no, it’s not even yours, is it? You stole it.” “I deserved it,” Mother Rassilon snaps, the anger rolling off of her like sea waves. “I’m a ranking member of the High Council and yet they wouldn’t give me one. Said they were too precious, too limited, only to be given to certain assigned officials to guard time itself.” She’s getting angrier now, words coming out harder with each sentence she speaks, “So I stole a faulty one, off the repair line, just to have it, just to know it’s mine. Because I deserve it. I am owed it. Do you know how long I’ve served, how much of my life I’ve given to Gallifrey?” She laughs, and it’s angry and mirthless sharp. “And it was going fine, until you two, the madman and the impossible girl, had to go interfere. Not that you’ll be able to interfere for much longer.” And as she says this, Rassilon reaches up the sleeve of her robe and reveals a gun, and Clara inhales sharply, her muscles stiffening, her body feeling like it’s somehow turning both hot and cold. “A blast of this and you’ll start to regenerate,” Mother Rassilon says, tilting the gun to its side, lighting it gleam dangerously in the light. “Another blast while you’re regenerating, before your body can finish healing itself, and well, that’s it. Had to bring you back here to dispose of you, of course,” Mother Rassilon  continues. “There’d be too many questions if anyone went looking for either of you and saw your bodies next to TARDIS landing marks. But now I’ll get to say that a thief broke in and killed our dear little Clara, and then I killed him. Are you afraid, yet Clara? Because if you aren’t, you should be.” “I’m not afraid,” Clara says fiercely, a fire in her kindling. She’s panting and her pulse is pounding, but she looks Mother Rassilon right in the eye and says, “I’ll leave that to you.” Mother Rassilon’s breath hitches for just a second, and she’s shaken, thrown by Clara’s words, nearly confused, and Clara smiles, says, “It scares you, doesn’t it? That you have all this power and here you are, still acting out of fear.” Mother Rassilon breath shudders and her hand shakes. Clara’s hit a nerve, gotten under her skin, and in return, Rassilon swivels the gun to the Doctor. A sharp and sudden coldness overtakes Clara. She whips her head around to face the Doctor, forgetting that her hair’s still tied to a chair and pain rips through her, but Clara can’t care, not now, not when her stomach’s twisting in fear and her eyes growing wide, because she can’t watch him die. She can’t. But Mother Rassilon pulls the trigger, the end of the gun fizzes with an orange flare, and then - Then instead of the Doctor, Mother Rassilon’s covered in a burst of orange energy. Clara stares, stunned, shell-shocked, mind spinning around as Rassilon falls to the ground, gold regeneration energy starting to engulf her. The blast was deflected, Clara realizes, reflected and thrown back. But how? How did the Doctor do that? Clara turns, sees the Doctor holding a familiar object up to his chest with one free hand. “Soufflé pans,” he says, grinning like mad. “Who knew, right?” Clara let’s out a shaky gasp, covers her mouth with her hands. “See?” He says, “Told you everything was going to be just fine, didn’t I, Clara? Now let’s get out of here before she finishes regenerating and - “ He doesn’t get to finish his sentence. Instead he is interrupted by two blasts directly to the chest. And it’s like everything is both blurry and clear, in slow motion but moving too fast, because Clara sees the Doctor falling, collapsing, hitting the floor and not getting back up. And turning, Clara sees Rassilon, leaning against the lift, looking half-dead, golden regeneration energy still radiating off of her. Rassilon’s shaking, determined and angry, and she rests heavily against the wooden lift, looping her arm in-between the slates to steady herself as she levels the gun right at Clara. And Clara lurches, lifts the chair still attached to her hair, and with every ounce of strength she has, she hurls it and herself into the lift controls, pushing the chair into it, her body crashing down against the cogs, and she cries out, bruised and bleeding - But it breaks. The cogs in the controls burst out, falling to the floor in a metallic scream, the ropes running wild, the levers shaking and sputtering, and the lift falls. And Mother Rassilon goes with it. Clara’s breathing is ragged and her pulse is raging and her mind is spinning, but she has no time to think, no time to consider what just happened. Instead she blindly reaches out for the knife she knows rests on her stove nearby, hacking her hair off from the chair. She slices the knife through the tangled mess mindlessly as she frees herself, going as quick as she can, her hair coming out in jagged ends that reach her shoulders. She doesn’t have time to cut anything better. The knife barely makes it through the last bunched up brunette knot, and then Clara’s turning, running toward the Doctor, collapsing to her knees next to him, her hands falling to either side of his face. “Doctor,” she says, thumb brushing across his cheekbone. “Doctor, can you hear me?” He’s breathing, but it’s weak, barely enough to blow a feather away, and he opens his eyes just a sliver, barely seeing her beneath his lashes. “Anything happens while you’re regenerating and suddenly you can’t anymore. Gallifreyan biology,” he says disdainfully, almost breathlessly. “It’s all a bit rubbish if you ask me.” “It’s going to be okay, just stay awake,” Clara says, because there’s simply no other solution she can possibly accept. This isn’t how their story ends, it can’t be. “Just...just stay with me.” But he’s slipping away, she can feel it, can feel him sliding out of her grasp and going into a darkness she can’t follow him into. “It’s okay, you’re okay,” Clara says like a chant, like maybe if she says it enough it’ll come true. “I’ve got you. I’m here.” She thinks maybe she says it too late, that maybe he doesn’t hear her, but then he looks up at her one last time. “Oh, Clara Oswald,” he says, his lips twitching up into a slow, sad smile. “You were my next page.” A cry twists in Clara’s throat, cutting her chest and stealing her breath, as she remembers how the leaf was page one and the boat was page two, and how - in that moment on the water, under the silken sky as he’d told her to turn the page to the next one - in that very moment, she knew that he was her next page. “And you were mine,” she whispers. Then he shuts his eyes. And they don’t open. And Clara feels like she’s a girl made of glass that’s splintered and shattering, shaking and screaming and crying, because this, this is worse than dying. This can’t be happening, she thinks as she sobs, it can’t be happening. (“It is,” the universe whispers back to her, “it is.”) Her thumbs brush across his cheeks and she bows her head over his chest, and she sobs and she thinks and she thinks and she thinks. Get killed in the middle of regenerating and your own regeneration energy won’t work, but what if someone else’s regeneration energy could work? What if, what if, what if? Clara presses her palms against his skin, squeezes her eyes shut against the tears, and presses her forehead to his. She tries to concentrate all that she is on the Doctor, tries to envision golden energy transferring from her to him. Because maybe it’s not too late, maybe she can resuscitate him, maybe this will work, maybe, maybe, maybe. All of Clara’s hopes are pinned on a maybe, but maybe is all she has. But nothings happening. There’s no golden glow coming from her fingers, no sign of any kind, and she’s crying harder now, but she doesn’t stop trying, because the thing about Clara is, she’s stubborn and she doesn’t give up, not until she has what she wants. I have to save him, she thinks, staring down at him. Let me save him. And then one of her tears slides down her face and falls onto his... And then there is a glimmer of gold. Clara’s breath catches beneath her breastbone and she stares down in wonder as two more of her tears fall onto the Doctor and dissolve into golden flames, and then, ever so slowly, a golden shimmer starts across his skin. “Doctor?” His name is a gasp on her lips and her heartbeats are catching in her chest, and she’s hoping, desperately, desperately hoping, and never has she ever begged the universe for a favor like she is now. She watches, wishfully, tensely, as the gold shimmer moves into the air to spread and swirl over his body like a yellow, star-filled nebula. It’s healing him, she realizes, restoring him, and she holds her breath, clutches onto his vest, waits and then - Beneath her fingers, she feels his chest begins to move. “Doctor,” she says again, and she can feel his heartbeats growing stronger, and then he’s coughing, wheezing, and she’s helping him up. His eyes flutter open and he looks around and down at her, and then slowly, slowly, slowly, he reaches up and gently wipes away one of her tears with his thumb, and the simple act is enough to unarmed her, calm her, let her know that everything’s going to be okay, and a smile spreads across her face as she stares down at him, her breath shaky with sudden relief. And then he opens his mouth, and says: “That was a yes, earlier, by the way.” Clara gives him a watery laugh and a little shake of her head, and stars, it feels so good to hear his voice even if he’s not making any sense, “Yes what?” He tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear, lets his fingers linger in her hair, “Yes, that was a proposal.” Clara replays his words in her head, thinks back to the conversation they had on the boat before being interrupted about running away and then she’s laughing and moving, and they’re crashing and colliding. His arms come around her automatically, catching her as she falls against him, and then she’s kissing him. And she feels him smile against her lips and then he’s pulling her closer and kissing her back. And she’s aware of everything and of nothing. She’s lost track of the time and the tower’s faded away, but she’s keenly aware of how achingly gentle his hands are on her and the way they wind through her hair and how she is breathless and speechless, kissed senseless, as her hands hang onto the front of his vest. He is starlight and summer rain, every good thing she’s found, and he’s her next page, her new adventure, and she knows it can’t get any better. And then he’s laughing against her lips, breaking away, burying his face in her hair, and she can feel his warm breath on her ear as he leans in and jokingly whispers, “So I take it your answer’s yes?” # They go everywhere. They race all across time and all over space, taking in wonder after wonder and wonder. They see collapsing nebulas and burning supernovas, spinning comets and colored rain, canyons of ice and cerulean eclipses. It’s freer than she’s ever been, better than any story she’d ever dreamt up in her head, and they visit each one of the Hundred-and-One Places to See, adding their own pages along the way to the leaf that’s page one, the leaf from the very first new planet she’d been on. They add a pressed alien flower as page five, an ancient gold coin as page fifty-four, a ring as page ninety-nine, and when they’ve visited each place on the list and the book is nearly bursting, full of extra pages and milestones and memories, the Doctor says: “So, which page was your favorite?” And as he pulls her in close, she says, “You.”

#doctor who #whouffle #eleventh doctor #clara oswald #eleven x clara #souffez #clara x eleven #elevenclara #whouffle fanfic #eleventh doctor x clara #clara x eleventh doctor #whouffle fic #souffez fic #whouffle fanfiction #souffez fanfiction #the doctor x clara #clara x the doctor #my fic

[fandomtrumpshate]

“other”-type fanworks roundup

So what’s an “other” fanwork, anyhow? These are fanworks which, although they are deliverable digitally, do not fit neatly into any of our five standard categories for digital fanworks (fic, art, video, podfic, or fan labor.) We’ve got about a dozen of these offers this year, and we wanted to tell you about each of them indvidually, since “other” is not exactly an illuminating category.

We have an any-fandom offer to create digital cross-stitch out of an existing piece of fanart. (Please note that this creator is only willing to work with SFW art.)

We have not one, but TWO any-fandom offers to format your fic like a printed book! Both creators will send you PDF files that are print-ready. Here is the first offer, and here is the second (which also includes the creation of a photomanip cover.)

We have a couple of offers to create an original song or piece of music. One of these offers is any-fandom, though the creator notes that they are particularly interested in LGBTQ themes. The second offer is specifically for Good Omens, the Adventure Zone, or the Magnus Archives, from someone who prefers to focus on female characters.

We have several different kinds of fic remix offers. Four of these are offers to remix an existing fic into a poem, and one is for a prose-to-prose remix. Three of these poetry offers are from the same creator, and include seven fandoms (and several subfandoms for each): Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Dr Who, Good Omens, Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, Check Please!, and Rivers of London. The fourth poetry offer is for Sherlock Holmes, Good Omens, or Harry Potter. The prose remix offer is open to stories in Sherlock, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries or She-Ra.

We have several creators offering to compose fan poetry or filks. These three offers encompass different fandoms (including one any-fandom offer), different rating levels, and different poetic structures, so if you’re interested in poetry, take a look at all three: here, here, and here and here.

We have two people offering to make games! The first offer is for a game made in Twine or Knytt, and is open to Gravity Falls, Knytt or fairy tales fandoms. The second is an any-fandom offer that is more focused on teaching you to make your own game and helping you produce your first one. (This one straddles the border with fan labor, but we’re putting it here for roundup purposes.)

We have an offer from a fandom stats-master to do fandom statistics on a topic of your choice. This offer includes an option on in-depth analysis of those stats.

We have a creator who will a) translate your teen-or-under fic into a conlang (Quenya, Gallifreyan, Dothraki, or High Valyrian) and incorporate that translation into a motion graphic video. This creator is a professional designer, and is willing to consult with the bidder on the aesthetic elements of the video. This offer is open to Doctor Who, Tolkien, and Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones fandoms.

And finally, we have two auctions that aren’t in the main “other” category, but are in fan art: other because they don’t quite fit in with the usual fan art offerings: one creator who will create digital paper dolls of your favorite Marvel or Star Trek characters, and one who will design a set of printable planner pages using any fandom you like as a theme.

#fth 2020 #fan poetry #fan music #remix #fandom stats #and so much more

[ao3feed-anastasia]

Chapters: 3/20 Fandom: Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who, Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally, Anastasia (1997) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Thirteenth Doctor, The Doctor | Theta Sigma (Doctor Who: Academy Era), The Corsair (Doctor Who), Jack Harkness, Graham O'Brien, Grace O'Brien, Madame Kovarian (Doctor Who), River Song, Irving Braxiatel, The Silence (Doctor Who) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Anastasia (1997 & Broadway) Fusion, im only writing this beause i love this story so much and the whoniverse as well, child theta is so adorable, Not Beta Read, I beta 5 minutes before i post or at midnight, and only once i never read through twice, Fluff, Found Family, thirteen being snarky, jack harkness flirting, Amnesia, hurt near the end Summary:

The time-lords of Gallifrey used to rule over the most advanced civilization in the known universe. The time-lords adhered to a strict "no interference policy" and used that as a reason to refuse to share technology that would help improve the universe and the normal Galifreyans as well. An organization took this response into their own hands and killed all members of the twelve great houses of Gallifrey that the time-lords belonged to.

Or so they thought. When one little girl is thought to have gotten away, a few members of the Gallifreyan underworld try to find her to redeem a reward from her remaining family. When the rumors of her survival are spread, those who want the permanent extinction of the time-lords try to find her before anyone else can to ensure that they are ended.

An Anastasia AU with characters from the Doctor Who universe.

#queue: this is an old fic that was not posted automatically