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lizbeeTitle: (he wasn't there again today)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: G
Characters: Eleven, Amy, (Rory)
Warning(s): Spoilers for the end of "Cold Blood".
Summary: To be remembered is to be immortal. The Doctor knows what it's like to be forgotten.
(he wasn't there again today)
by LizBee
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away...
Hughes Mearns
It takes Amy over an hour to find the Doctor. It turns out that he's in the wardrobe room, sitting on an old-fashioned steamer trunk, staring blankly at a mud-stained kilt bundled into a rough ball on the floor.
"If it's cross-dressing you want," she says, sitting beside him, "that's fine, but I draw the line at mud-wrestling."
He almost smiles at that, and she's glad, because she may not know his name – and thank you, Dream Lord, for planting that nasty seed of a doubt along with nightmares of a second-rate university degree and an office job and Friday nights spent in nasty meat-market bars with spray-tanned friends – but she knows when he's hiding something darker behind his innocent-what-who-me-I'm-just-a-nice-lunatic-who-saves-planets routine.
"Whose was it?" she asks more gently.
"My best friend." She raises her eyebrows, and he smiles and nudges her shoulder with his. "One of my best friends."
"Where is he now?"
"He went home. To live out his life. What there was of it."
"We could go and visit."
She knows at once it's the wrong thing to say.
"No," he says. "No." He pulls his knees up to his chest and leans against her, the way she always thought a best friend would, if she'd ever had a proper best friend. "Do you know," he said, "it's a terrible thing to be forgotten. Memory is … a kind of immortality."
"Don't you practically live forever?"
"I'd trade a few years to be remembered."
"Is that the real reason you go to museums?"
She never knows what to say in these serious moments. She thought they were joking when they told her that her parents were dead, and maybe, inside, she's still laughing. There's a space inside her where a grown-up should be. She doesn't know how to be a proper person, she's never had anyone to show her how. No one she could trust.
The Doctor takes her hand.
"Don't ever forget me," he says.
"Four psychiatrists," she tells him, "and I still believed in you. Even when I hated you for not being real, I believed in you. I'm not going to forget. Ever."
It's the closest she's ever come to saying, I love you to anyone.
His smile almost reaches his eyes, and he kisses her on the forehead.
"Come on, Amelia Pond." he says, standing up and holding his hand out, pulling her to her feet. "It's a big universe out there. Let's see if we can't make a few happy endings.
end
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: G
Characters: Eleven, Amy, (Rory)
Warning(s): Spoilers for the end of "Cold Blood".
Summary: To be remembered is to be immortal. The Doctor knows what it's like to be forgotten.
(he wasn't there again today)
by LizBee
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away...
Hughes Mearns
It takes Amy over an hour to find the Doctor. It turns out that he's in the wardrobe room, sitting on an old-fashioned steamer trunk, staring blankly at a mud-stained kilt bundled into a rough ball on the floor.
"If it's cross-dressing you want," she says, sitting beside him, "that's fine, but I draw the line at mud-wrestling."
He almost smiles at that, and she's glad, because she may not know his name – and thank you, Dream Lord, for planting that nasty seed of a doubt along with nightmares of a second-rate university degree and an office job and Friday nights spent in nasty meat-market bars with spray-tanned friends – but she knows when he's hiding something darker behind his innocent-what-who-me-I'm-just-a-nice-lunatic-who-saves-planets routine.
"Whose was it?" she asks more gently.
"My best friend." She raises her eyebrows, and he smiles and nudges her shoulder with his. "One of my best friends."
"Where is he now?"
"He went home. To live out his life. What there was of it."
"We could go and visit."
She knows at once it's the wrong thing to say.
"No," he says. "No." He pulls his knees up to his chest and leans against her, the way she always thought a best friend would, if she'd ever had a proper best friend. "Do you know," he said, "it's a terrible thing to be forgotten. Memory is … a kind of immortality."
"Don't you practically live forever?"
"I'd trade a few years to be remembered."
"Is that the real reason you go to museums?"
She never knows what to say in these serious moments. She thought they were joking when they told her that her parents were dead, and maybe, inside, she's still laughing. There's a space inside her where a grown-up should be. She doesn't know how to be a proper person, she's never had anyone to show her how. No one she could trust.
The Doctor takes her hand.
"Don't ever forget me," he says.
"Four psychiatrists," she tells him, "and I still believed in you. Even when I hated you for not being real, I believed in you. I'm not going to forget. Ever."
It's the closest she's ever come to saying, I love you to anyone.
His smile almost reaches his eyes, and he kisses her on the forehead.
"Come on, Amelia Pond." he says, standing up and holding his hand out, pulling her to her feet. "It's a big universe out there. Let's see if we can't make a few happy endings.
end
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 11:37 am (UTC)Aw man! Jamie! And Rory! And Amy! And Amy's dream! And the Doctor!
Awwww!
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Date: 2010-05-31 11:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 11:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 12:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 12:43 pm (UTC)slightly betterlonger reply: Very well done. You knew exactly the right place to stick the knife in, and to just the right depth that I had read the sentences before I quite twigged to the context. Creates a nice little gap/dissonance thing between what you know as the audience and what Amy knows as someone who doesn't, it all sweet and then the bottom drops out from under you with the 'oh, of course' thing. :)no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 12:46 pm (UTC)Gorgeous.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 12:47 pm (UTC)Gorgeous.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 01:08 pm (UTC)(But in a good way)
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Date: 2010-05-31 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 02:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 03:11 pm (UTC)leans against her, the way she always thought a best friend would, if she'd ever had a proper best friend
(btw, on a second read, I think these two lines
The Doctor takes his hand.
"Don't ever forget me," he said.
need correcting for gender and tense, unless you're going for some meaning that's gone right over my head)
no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 03:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 04:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 05:01 pm (UTC)(This is just lovely. Thank you lots and lots.)
no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 06:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 06:01 pm (UTC)But I think you've got the poem wrong. It's from "Antigonish" by Hughes Mearns:
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away...
It's often attributed to Ogden Nash, probably because it has a similar style.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 07:07 pm (UTC)"Four psychiatrists," she tells him, "and I still believed in you." ♥
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Date: 2010-05-31 07:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 08:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 09:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 09:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 10:12 pm (UTC)