Fic: By Any Other Name
Apr. 24th, 2006 10:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Title: By Any Other Name
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG, for bad words
Summary: The names we choose protect; the names we are given reveal.
A/N: It totally counts as revision cause I got to use legal history for one bit, oh yeah.
+++
“Tell her it’s a fucking fairy-tale.”
“Bad things tend to happen to wolves in those stories.” And she’s not the first he’s taken into the fold, not the first to be ignorant of her yellow eyes.
The woman in leather, black pits for eyes, takes another drag of her cigarette. “I read one about some kid catching the wolf, feeding it to her grandma in a pie.”
“That’s not the traditional version,” says the Doctor.
“And I ain’t got a scythe,” says Death. “But you cheated me last time, let Time get you instead. So be careful, Doctor. You and little red riding hood.”
+++
There’s a power in names that she’s never known. To understand, like books in a way (to cast out demons; to call down angels.)
Her name is Rose, given by her father, approved of by her mother. She keeps it. Uses it. And is never ashamed or afraid of it. Not at all.
He calls himself the Doctor (I swear by Apollo the physician, by Aesculapius, Hygeia, and Panacea…)
He does not speak of
(the little girl from the planet doomed by her father’s ghost, calling for his help across the void. And his unformed future self, the Watcher, saving her - and the boy - because he couldn’t let go of a childhood friendship)
…Time’s Champion, the Lord who knelt before a god, (he created, they created, the oldest civilisation) accepted her grace and her mission. Time’s Champion, who would sacrifice a pawn because he had given up his moral authority to a higher power, who would sacrifice a friendship because time storms were easy and this time round all the cards were wild.
And he cast away the name with his life, cast away the guilt which lingered only until…
He was John Doe for an hour or two, and the morgue was very, very cold.
(he’s never been a woman, but someone mistook him for Dr. Frankenstein once and said he was very good in The Mummy. It was the same day that he’d read about the Four Doctors in Bologna acknowledging another as their master and he’d made a note, just in case)
He had mentioned only once, since the burning, the Oncoming Storm, the dark name in the Dalek Empire. Hope, through death, the only freedom one could have from those mutants. And the Daleks never knew a time before their nemesis, never knew a hate greater than that which they held for their Destructor, for the one who killed their creator and their world and their people (death count, revise upwards).
For a time the name was a comfort, a cloak to his fear.
(“I am a citizen of the universe and a gentleman to boot,” said the old man who’d kidnapped a man and a woman and taken his granddaughter from the first home she’d ever found. The granddaughter that he‘d thrown from the castle so she’d stay with her Prince.)
And he will forget that he will be (has always been) The Lonely God, the being who feared the solitude of cold white silence so much that he stole the children of lesser species and took them to the darkest fires of the universe, let them fly or burn. Tempted them with sweets and played songs on a flute (“recorder!”) to lead them away (lead them astray) from all the cynics and preachers and doddering old men.
(and the thing in the pit had looked so ridiculous, no-one had taken it seriously until it had started to feed. On Earth, that sort of thing hadn’t mattered and even plastic daffodils could kill and he’d had all the papers and identification and stamps to prove that he was Doctor John Smith.
Only the slightest pang of sympathy - since he’d already been exiled once that year - for the enterprising new recruit who had tried to convince the Brigadier he was a Victorian exile called James McCrimmon. The Brigadier had met Jamie, after all, and he had never quite grasped the subtleties of time travel.)
And he was once the man behind the curtain, but they’d called him Merlin anyway, and Dorothee had found her way home in the end.
He was once Lord President of the Time Lords, but he’d seen what power did to his friends, his mentor, to the greatest legends of his people, and he’d run, a coward, but a moral one.
He was once Theta Sigma, and all the universe had shone with possibility.
Once a child who had loved his mother, her death and a daisy showing him how precious life was.
Twice a lover who danced with a woman he loved and each time believed that they would dance together forever.
Thrice a father who took, for a time, the name of each new child’s mother.
All the names given, all the names forgotten and unused and unwhispered.
And all the secrets they held. Safe. Discrete. Hidden behind a dozen different faces and the infinite spirals of time. Action and inaction and cause and effect and everything else that he shouldn’t have done.
Because
(he can’t spin straw into gold)
He can only be the Doctor.
Setting right the wrongs.
He is not trained in the art of healing.
+++
The Doctor waves the smoke away from his face. “Good luck following me.”
“Hey, easy to find, humans, they tend keep their faces and their names.”
“You’re a real charmer, you are.”
“So what part are you playing?” Death asks.
A shrug. “I’m the Doctor.”
“Cryptic bastard.” Stubs out her cigarette. “Doesn’t matter anyway. In the end, I’m still your happily ever after.”
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG, for bad words
Summary: The names we choose protect; the names we are given reveal.
A/N: It totally counts as revision cause I got to use legal history for one bit, oh yeah.
+++
“Tell her it’s a fucking fairy-tale.”
“Bad things tend to happen to wolves in those stories.” And she’s not the first he’s taken into the fold, not the first to be ignorant of her yellow eyes.
The woman in leather, black pits for eyes, takes another drag of her cigarette. “I read one about some kid catching the wolf, feeding it to her grandma in a pie.”
“That’s not the traditional version,” says the Doctor.
“And I ain’t got a scythe,” says Death. “But you cheated me last time, let Time get you instead. So be careful, Doctor. You and little red riding hood.”
+++
There’s a power in names that she’s never known. To understand, like books in a way (to cast out demons; to call down angels.)
Her name is Rose, given by her father, approved of by her mother. She keeps it. Uses it. And is never ashamed or afraid of it. Not at all.
He calls himself the Doctor (I swear by Apollo the physician, by Aesculapius, Hygeia, and Panacea…)
He does not speak of
(the little girl from the planet doomed by her father’s ghost, calling for his help across the void. And his unformed future self, the Watcher, saving her - and the boy - because he couldn’t let go of a childhood friendship)
…Time’s Champion, the Lord who knelt before a god, (he created, they created, the oldest civilisation) accepted her grace and her mission. Time’s Champion, who would sacrifice a pawn because he had given up his moral authority to a higher power, who would sacrifice a friendship because time storms were easy and this time round all the cards were wild.
And he cast away the name with his life, cast away the guilt which lingered only until…
He was John Doe for an hour or two, and the morgue was very, very cold.
(he’s never been a woman, but someone mistook him for Dr. Frankenstein once and said he was very good in The Mummy. It was the same day that he’d read about the Four Doctors in Bologna acknowledging another as their master and he’d made a note, just in case)
He had mentioned only once, since the burning, the Oncoming Storm, the dark name in the Dalek Empire. Hope, through death, the only freedom one could have from those mutants. And the Daleks never knew a time before their nemesis, never knew a hate greater than that which they held for their Destructor, for the one who killed their creator and their world and their people (death count, revise upwards).
For a time the name was a comfort, a cloak to his fear.
(“I am a citizen of the universe and a gentleman to boot,” said the old man who’d kidnapped a man and a woman and taken his granddaughter from the first home she’d ever found. The granddaughter that he‘d thrown from the castle so she’d stay with her Prince.)
And he will forget that he will be (has always been) The Lonely God, the being who feared the solitude of cold white silence so much that he stole the children of lesser species and took them to the darkest fires of the universe, let them fly or burn. Tempted them with sweets and played songs on a flute (“recorder!”) to lead them away (lead them astray) from all the cynics and preachers and doddering old men.
(and the thing in the pit had looked so ridiculous, no-one had taken it seriously until it had started to feed. On Earth, that sort of thing hadn’t mattered and even plastic daffodils could kill and he’d had all the papers and identification and stamps to prove that he was Doctor John Smith.
Only the slightest pang of sympathy - since he’d already been exiled once that year - for the enterprising new recruit who had tried to convince the Brigadier he was a Victorian exile called James McCrimmon. The Brigadier had met Jamie, after all, and he had never quite grasped the subtleties of time travel.)
And he was once the man behind the curtain, but they’d called him Merlin anyway, and Dorothee had found her way home in the end.
He was once Lord President of the Time Lords, but he’d seen what power did to his friends, his mentor, to the greatest legends of his people, and he’d run, a coward, but a moral one.
He was once Theta Sigma, and all the universe had shone with possibility.
Once a child who had loved his mother, her death and a daisy showing him how precious life was.
Twice a lover who danced with a woman he loved and each time believed that they would dance together forever.
Thrice a father who took, for a time, the name of each new child’s mother.
All the names given, all the names forgotten and unused and unwhispered.
And all the secrets they held. Safe. Discrete. Hidden behind a dozen different faces and the infinite spirals of time. Action and inaction and cause and effect and everything else that he shouldn’t have done.
Because
(he can’t spin straw into gold)
He can only be the Doctor.
Setting right the wrongs.
He is not trained in the art of healing.
+++
The Doctor waves the smoke away from his face. “Good luck following me.”
“Hey, easy to find, humans, they tend keep their faces and their names.”
“You’re a real charmer, you are.”
“So what part are you playing?” Death asks.
A shrug. “I’m the Doctor.”
“Cryptic bastard.” Stubs out her cigarette. “Doesn’t matter anyway. In the end, I’m still your happily ever after.”
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 10:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 10:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2006-04-24 02:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 10:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 10:30 am (UTC)Names have power oh yes.
Which, coming from an anonymous poster, is either ironic or eminently suitable. I'm not sure which.
Seriously though. I likes this.
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Date: 2006-04-24 02:38 pm (UTC)Thankee. :)
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Date: 2006-04-24 10:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 02:40 pm (UTC)Rah! Thank you. :D
And yes, I thought the Doctor was excellent in the Mummy.
Ah, but which one?
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Date: 2006-04-24 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 02:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2006-04-24 03:02 pm (UTC)Brilliant.
the being who feared the solitude of cold white silence so much that he stole the children of lesser species and took them to the darkest fires of the universe, let them fly or burn. Tempted them with sweets and played songs on a flute ('recorder!') to lead them away (lead them astray) from all the cynics and preachers and doddering old men.
Andandand. You're fab, you are.
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Date: 2006-04-24 04:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2006-04-24 03:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 07:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2006-04-24 03:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 03:58 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2006-04-24 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 04:56 pm (UTC)Absolutely beautiful. I'm really digging the vagueness of it all. And the conversation with death. very nice.
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Date: 2006-04-24 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 05:00 pm (UTC)except that i want to marry this fic.
i was going to copy my favourite parts but i might as well copy the whole thing.
but yeah:
Twice a lover who danced with a woman he loved and each time believed that they would dance together forever.
this broke me.
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Date: 2006-04-24 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 08:50 pm (UTC)And bits of creepy. I do love creepy!
The Lonely God, the being who feared the solitude of cold white silence so much that he stole the children of lesser species and took them to the darkest fires of the universe, let them fly or burn.
This sentence should be framed and hung on the wall.
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Date: 2006-04-25 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 08:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 07:15 pm (UTC)(Neil Gaiman writes Death as a woman and though I have read nought of his beyond Good Omens I am told he is very, very good, yes.)
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Date: 2006-04-24 09:06 pm (UTC)*is speechless from the beauty*
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Date: 2006-04-25 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 12:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 07:17 pm (UTC)Thank ye. :)
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Date: 2006-04-25 06:12 pm (UTC)It makes me think of a moment I've always loved in The Two Towers, when Gandalf is asked who he was, and he sort of muses and says "Olorin I was in my youth, in the West that is forgotten"--I can't remember the full quote, but the tone reminds me very much of this: there's an enormous sense of age, of the many people that one must be in a life so long, how different they all were, and how one's former selves are as lost as a friend that has died.
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Date: 2006-04-25 10:18 pm (UTC)