Fic: Wheel of Fortune (Doctor Who)

[keep_counting]

Title: Wheel of Fortune
Characters/Pairings: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, River Song, Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond, implied Doctor/Rose and Doctor/River
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Spoilers for all six seasons
Genre: Angst/Hurt-Comfort/More angst
Word-count: 520
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in relation to this.
A/N: Written for isilienelenihin for International Women's Day 2012. She requested River, Rose, Amy - Ouroboros
Summary: He walks away from Rose Tyler and meets Amy Pond, and he blinks and she's standing with an empty blanket in her arms, asking 'Doctor, where is Melody? What are they going to do to my daughter?'

Rose Tyler sees him regenerate.

Of course, she sees him before he regenerates as well, but she doesn’t know that and he won’t know it until much later, of course.

But she sees him, and then she sees him regenerate, and then she sees him lost.

Of course, before all of that Rose Tyler was just a girl. And before she saw him regenerate, she saved the world, leading herself to this moment and him to the moment as well and…

She walks through the London-streets, hands tucked in pockets and he doesn’t mean to, but it hurts, his cells dying, seeing her. It just hurts, and she sees him and talks to him and…

It’s the first time she sees him and the last time he sees her, and it is sort of perfect, her face partly obscured by falling snow, pink jacket glowing in the dark and he is leaning against a wall with the words Bad Wolf painted on it, and he wishes he had all of that to come. But he doesn’t, Rose Tyler is over for him. It’s done.

He has River Song to come. And that’s not fair either, because she dies in a blaze of glory before he knows her, but after she knows him and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, if he hadn’t stepped into that library, then maybe their paths would have never crossed. And that makes no sense, because she already knew him.

He walks away from Rose Tyler and regenerates, and he meets Amy Pond and she smiles and is so little and sweet, and he blinks and she’s standing, torn and heartbroken and holding an empty blanket in her arms, asking him, ’Doctor, what are they going to do to her? What are they going to do to my daughter?’

And that’s not what she should be asking: what she should be asking is what he is going to do to her daughter, thousands of light-years into the future, when River Song dies so he can live, dies so he can go on and meet her so she can die for him, so he can live and go on and meet her so she can die for him, so he can live and go on and meet her…

”Tell you what,” he says, and Rose smiles and looks so young and the wall behind him is warm, the yellow words blazing in a golden light that sears into his back, badwolfbadwolfbadwolfbadwolf.

”What?”

”I bet you’re gonna have a really great year!”

”I have to let you go,” he tells Amy, because he can see it already, that little girl so willing, such a pawn in this joke of a game that he has only now realized he is playing. He is not a Lord of Time. Time is the Lord of him. ”Because you’re still brilliant.”

Because she isn’t spinning in a circle yet, she’s only nearing it and he has to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

”Oh, look at you, so young.”

”I bring life.”

”Goodbye,” he says as she kisses his forehead. ”Amelia Pond.”

Comments

[isilienelenihin.livejournal.com]

Wonderful! :D Seriously, it was brilliantly done. Squee!

I'm stuck on the whole "Ouroboros" symbolism with River right now. Rewriting "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead" just hits home how strange their relationship is. I'm primarily a Doctor/Rose girl (can you tell?) but the whole thing is timey-wimey and thus interesting. :D

[keep-counting.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, when you first gave me the prompt I had no idea how I was going to do it! But then I decided to do it from the Doctor's perspective, and focus on how these women's life have spinned in a circle around him, and how it's both kind of positive - getting to see Rose one last time, knowing that River was happy with him - and kind of negative - Everything Rose went through, River's death - and him wanting to stop the same from happening with Amy.

I'm so glad you liked it :D