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keep_counting) wrote2012-04-04 11:50 am
Fic: For Worse (Doctor Who)
Characters/Pairings: Eleventh Doctor, River Song, hints of River/Eleven and Rose/Ten
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Spoilers up to and including The Wedding of River Song, angst, timey-wimey nonsense
Genre: Angst/Hurt-Comfort/Friendship/Romance
Word-count: 855
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in relation to this.
A/N: Me trying to clean up Moffat's mess - basically, how I want it all to be explained
Summary: The coordinates for Amelia Pond's house are set into the TARDIS control-panel, appearing moments before the Doctor walks back inside, ready to regenerate. He put them there. Or he will. Years from now.
The coordinates for Amelia Pond’s house are set into the TARDIS control-panel, appearing moments before the Doctor walks back inside, ready to regenerate.
He put them there. Or he will. Years from now.
You see, it’s all just a bit wibbley-wobbley, timey-wimey
~
In retrospect, what the Silence is doing makes no sense. He dies at Silencio Lake in Utah, no matter what. It’s set. It’s always been set. A fixed point.
He killed her niece – Madame Kovarian that is. Not on purpose – for all that he might be ruthless and cold-blooded, he prefers not to think of himself as someone who would just…
It happens, anyway. Another planet, another being dead-set on ending the world, on using everyone else. And he has to stop it.
He wonders, sometimes, if it has become too easy to destroy so many lives. He tells himself it’s worth it: like killing one person to save five others. It’s a situation where the weight tips the scale, and five people weigh more than one.
Sixteen billion weigh more than five hundred. But when you say it, just like that….
Five hundred people killed in one day. By him.
Maybe he can understand why Madame Kovarian is so hell-bent on her revenge. In a way, isn’t he just the same?
That’s why it had to be Melody. Madame Kovarian didn’t want the Doctor to just die – if she had wanted that, she would have merely let the events at Silencio Lake unfold as they would have always unfolded. The Doctor getting shot by a mysterious being, rising from the lake.
No, she wants the Doctor to feel as much pain as possible. She wants the Doctor to look into the eyes of a loved one, and know that they are about to kill him.
Ironically, if Madame Kovarian hadn’t chosen Melody – if she hadn’t honed and honed until River Song emerged, obsessed with the Doctor in every aspect – he would have, most likely, actually died. There would not have been the warning sign, the giant omen written across the face of a sly woman, jumping in and out of his time-stream like she had always been there.
Curly hair and dark lashes, and she had saved his life.
Ironic, all that. That he should meet River Song just before she dies. That he shouldn’t know her, but then know her after that, know how to act and respond to her – discover what she was.
What a coincidence that he should land outside Amy’s house, a pre-destined thing, as if River Song, trickster goddess, had led him there herself.
Of course, River Song didn’t. Sneaky and brilliant she might be, but she didn’t have that kind of control of his time-stream.
It was the other way around.
He tells himself it’s worth it. Tells himself that he has saved millions of lives, that there is still so much to do, that the Silence, that dreadful organization will continue on and it is his job to stop them.
He tells himself that breaking Amy and Rory a little bit is alright: they live on now. They’re the ones that got away, the example he can use to convince himself that he is not as dark and twisted as the things he try to stop. He tells himself that, when it comes down to it, five hundred weigh the least on the scales and so Madame Kovarian’s sweet little niece dies. He tells himself that, when it comes down to it, the lives of his people are a worthy prize for every other being in existence.
He tells himself that the life of one little girl, doomed to forever follow in his wake, is a small prize compared to all the other lives that need saving.
He convinces himself that it isn’t just to save his own skin.
Because of course, coincidences don’t just happen.
~
He’s outside – the earlier him. Saying one last goodbye to Rose Tyler, before stumbling on, into the TARDIS, this regeneration-process so powerful that it will set the TARDIS on fire.
The coordinates are already set. He won’t notice until he’s doing repairs much, much later, and by then he won’t think of it. Not until he is standing in a lake, facing his not-quite-death there.
He only has a few minutes before he – the other him – sees him, and it only takes a few minutes to code the way to Amy’s house into the operating system. Fire or not, the TARDIS will get him there.
The Doctor leaves the TARDIS, just barely avoiding past-him and takes a slow walk back, not thinking of a little shivering girl in an orphanage or a curly-haired woman that should have never been, but now will always be.
He has a duty. He tells himself he’s not a coward for not trying to change anything. That he was always meant to do this, and so he has to do it. That the choices have been taken from him. It’s an excuse, but it’s one he clings to.
You see, it’s all just a bit wibbley-wobbley, timey-wimey. Or so he tells himself.
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And he is a master manipulater with a serious hero-complex!
Lol, that's true. Funny thing is, the manipulative side of his personality didn't strike me as such before Eleven, because I loved the Doctor so much. Now I notice it all the time and think 'alien bastard'.
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So true! And I think most of it is in the writing, because Ten - and even, to an extent, Nine - could be incredibly manipulative too, but because of the circumstances with River and Amy, the Doctor seems so much more of it now: because of the timey-wimey!
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I don't think they were as manipulative as Eleven, sometimes they manipulated but almost not on purpose, while I always felt Eleven knew how big his persuasion power was, and chose to use it. But perhaps I've forgotten things.
I don't know, it's probably because I don't find Matt Smith's Doctor loveable or endearing at all. I just think 'Ugh, douchebag, just leave', while when it was Ten I was all 'You excentric unperfect alien, I love you and all your flaws'. I'm biased, you see. ;) But the timey-whimey thing is true. I hated that he thought he could change Kiaran's life in A Christmas Carol, that was so immoral! That's when I started being critical towards Moffat.
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Well, to be fair, in a Christmas Carol it was that one life against all those on the ship; and Kiaran ended up having a better life for it. I just think that one little action is something any of the Doctor's would have done - I mean, he's destroyed all his people in order to save everyone else, messing a little with one life isn't that bad on the grand scale - and it turned out just slightly better for everyone. I'm more all over 'Day of The Moon' with making all the humans massacre the Silence without even knowing it. i have so many issues with that i can't even!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Funny thing is, I didn't mind about the Silence that much. They're plain evil and they deserved to be destroyed. But I agree it's a big manipulation from the Doctor and I'd rather they didn't make him do that, though it shocked me a bit less than Eleven thinking he has the right to re-write a whole person. What bothered me about the Silence is that Moff's script implies they've been there all along and manipulating humanity for ages, so potentially past Who stories with other threats could in fact have been the Silence's fault. I know it was supposed to be a big shocker, but it's not one I'm fond of. =/
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I just keep thinking that he didn't even give them a chance: I mean, the monsters from 'School Reunion' was giving the option to leave and find shelter another place and we know for a fact that they'd eaten at least one child - possibly more, considering that they'd been there for a while! And I didn't like the 'they've been there all along' either, as you point out. I actually raved a lot about that in my review post about the episode: I mean, Amy sees them three times and is already smart enough to figure out to take a picture of them, and yet the Doctor, with all his time spent on earth, has always been blindsighted by them? Nuh-uh, not buying it.
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I just keep thinking that he didn't even give them a chance
Exactly. But that's Eleven for you: people say Ten was horrible etc. but Eleven didn't try to talk to the Silence. So yeah, for Ten there was what he did to the Family of Blood, but he knew there was no way of bringing them back to the good side, so he did what he had to do. And Nine always tried to reason with his enemies.
and yet the Doctor, with all his time spent on earth, has always been blindsighted by them? Nuh-uh, not buying it.
Lol, exactly. It was shiny for two minutes, but it doesn't work.
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Exactly. But that's Eleven for you: people say Ten was horrible etc. but Eleven didn't try to talk to the Silence.
This exactly: because Ten and Nine did horrible, terrible things but it was always pointed out as being terrible, directly within the show. I don't get that feeling from Eleven. You have Joan and Queen Victoria and even some of the Companions point this out - the only one we really have on the show that condemn Eleven's actions are Rory, and that is only at the beginning when he's still all worried about Amy. Other than that? His methods are questioned, sure. It was just much more there in RTD's era, than I feel it now in Moff's.
(okay, did that make any sense???)
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It was just much more there in RTD's era, than I feel it now in Moff's. (okay, did that make any sense???)
It makes complete sense, and I agree! I've read meta from Eleven fans saying they like Eleven better because he doesn't get the God-like treatment Ten had, but personally, I see it the other way round. Is that very weird?
Ten was questioned all the time, by the companions, one-off characters, himself... That made me feel so much more empathy. I feel like Eleven is more praised and put on this pedestal of 'angsty fairy-tale hero' than the others...
the only one we really have on the show that condemn Eleven's actions are Rory, and that is only at the beginning when he's still all worried about Amy.
Well, to be fair, the "you're turning me into you" scene in The Girl Who Waited was pretty strong, and so was The God Complex, but otherwise we didn't get much of that in S6, especially not in the finale.
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I just reallyreally want someone to comment negatively on the whole River-situation in the show. I will love S7 forever if that happens!
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Also -- a show I used to love turned into crap, and absolutely broke my heart, with a storyline that went "So-and so has to die because of [bunch of stupid, horrible, pointless garbage that we just made up and that makes no sense at all]." I truly never knew that a show could hurt me that much!! Sad, but true. So now I guess I feel a soft spot for a storyline that goes "So-and-so DOESN'T have to die because of [bunch of stuff that we just made up and that makes no sense at all.]" If something has to make no sense, I want it make no sense in a feel-good way. :-)
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Just gorgeous.
*HUGS*
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Gorgeous! <3
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Thank you for addressing some of the more glaring plot holes of Season 6! In retrospect, what the Silence is doing makes no sense. He dies at Silencio Lake in Utah, no matter what. It’s set. It’s always been set. A fixed point.
I like fics that try to fix Moffat's mess. :D
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