doctor6 | Entries tagged with tm

Over the last year, did things go pretty much as you'd expected or planned, or did your life take a significant, unexpected turn? Overall, was it a good year or one that you want to put behind you as fast as you can? (canon or fanon)

"Days, weeks, years. Decades. Millennia. It's all relative and constant. Think of Time as a river, constantly flowing. Stand on the bank of the river and watch it rush by. Beyond the bend ahead, just out of sight, is the future. Or behind you, where a curve ides the past. The river is still there, out of sight. Flowing and rushing at the same time you stand upon the shores of the Present.

"While most beings can only look at the current and dip their toes into the present, I can ride the whole of the river. First future then past then Now. The present as you know it may well be the distant past to me. Or might never happen at all, if the river were to change it's course by fair means or foul.

A calendar year is linear and means nothing to a Time Lord."

Evelyn Smythe arched an eyebrow at the Doctor. "Are you quite finished?"

"All I'm saying," he concluded with an air if impatience, "Is that the question doesn't apply to me."

"I've heard better excuses from my students," replied Evelyn with a wry smile.. "If you don't want to answer the question, just say so!" She turned her attention back to the monitor and the image of Big Ben on a crisp, winter night. "I'll be perfectly happy to sit here and enjoy New Year's by myself if you find it so very confining to your Time Lord sensibilities." She looked at the bottle of champagne sitting neglected on the console and tried to hide her disappointment. It had seemed such a good idea at the time.

She heard movement behind her and expected he was taking the easy way out. Until a moment later the tall, ginger-haired man in the riotously colored coat stepped past her and picked up the bottle.

"You're staying?" she said.

"Why not?" he replied diffidently, popping the cork with a deft twist. "No one likes to drink alone," he continued as he poured the golden liquid into two crystal flutes.

"I'm sure I could manage," she sniffed.

"I'm sure you could do anything you set your heart to," he replied gently and offered her a glass.

"Is that flattery or an apology?"

"It's the truth." He allowed himself a tiny smile. "And perhaps a bit of an apology."

The minute hand on the face of the clock moved to Midnight and Big Ben solemnly tolled the passing of the old and the arrival of the new.

"Happy New Year, Doctor," she said.

He sighed, rolled his eyes, then conceded, "Happy New Years."

All's well that ends well, wasn't that how the saying went? The Valeyard defeated, the Matrix Key returned to the Keeper, the Panopticon saved and the High Counsel with it (although there was bound to be a shakeup after the Master's revelations). As a result, the Trial was over and his freedom (long with his TARDIS) restored.

Most important of all, he now knew the truth about Peri's fate.

Standing alone in the Courtroom, the Doctor looked at the empty monitor. In his mind's eye he could still see her death, played so vividly for judge and jury by the infallible Matrix.

The tampered with Matrix.

The Trial had literally pulled him out of Time on his way to rescue her from the laboratory, and her fate had weighed heavily on his conscience.

He knew now that the images had been false renderings, planted by the Valeyard. Peri was alive! Alive and well and living happily with her new beau.

Relieved and overjoyed, still there was an air of sadness about him. He didn't regret that Peri had found a better companion than himself. Only that he'd never had the chance to say goodbye.

"Good morning, Peri!" said the Doctor brightly as his companion shuffled into the control room.

"What's so good about it?" she grumbled, her hands cupped around a steaming mug of tea.

"What's so bad about it?" he replied. Punching a series of controls, he indicated the wall monitor with a grand sweep of his hand. It came to life with a picture of an endless sea of velvet set with twinkling stars. "There? You see? A million beautiful sunrises over a billion planets throughout the cosmos. "It's a beautiful morning. Or evening. Depends entirely on where you are, doesn't it?"

Plumping herself down on the seat of a wicker peacock chair in a corner of the control room, she glowered at him over her tea. "I don't get it. How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"This! Waking up so cheerful!" she demanded, as if it were a personal affront. "I mean, yesterday we were nearly frozen to death in some nasty metal catacombs and then we were chased by Cybermen who got into the TARDIS and very nearly tore us into little pieces and AREN'T YOU TIRED?"

He blinked at her, clearly taken aback by her outburst. "Well no, actually. I'm not. In fact, I feel rather refreshed."

"That's exactly what I mean! After all of that, how can you possibly sleep enough to be Mister Happy Sunshine every morning?"

"Ahhh. I see." He looked at her sympathetically. "I don't need nearly as much rest as you do. That's not an insult to your tolerance, incidentally. Just the facts of a different physiology."

"Alien, you mean."

"In a word," he agreed. "Sleep and rest to me are two entirely different things to me."

Peri frowned, mulling this over. "Okay. So Time Lords don't need sleep."

"Not in the way you'd define it, no."

"Fine. I get that." She glowered at him accusingly. "But do you have to be so cheerful before the rest of the universe is awake?"

Did you know that there are over five hundred thousand planets in the cosmos that are perfectly suited for fishing? Five hundred twenty-six thousand forty-eight to be exact. There's nothing quite so relaxing as spending a lazy afternoon on a grassy bank beside a stream. My fishing pole and thou, O glorious Gumblejack. One sentient being against nature, may the better being win. I intend to visit each and every one of those five hundred thousand planets and cast my line in their crystal blue (or green or magenta) waters.

What was it Henry once said? "Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink, I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains."

I wonder how many fishing holes I can discover in an eternity.

"Who in the 'ell do you think you are, poking your nose into our affairs?" demanded the Magistrate, his round face flushed with anger as well as the aftermath of having been forced to run several kilometers. "We was fine!" he managed, finally catching his breath. "We was peaceful! Nothing goin' wrong 'ere, til you came along! Now lookit what y've done!"

The Doctor, not the least bit winded, was watching the corridor with sharp blue eyes. If it had been up to him, they'd still be running toward the Citadel. In his experienced opinion, this pause for the Official to catch his breath was not necessarily a wise one. For one thing, he insisted on making the kind of loud, blustery noises that always came with Government office. "I suggest you save your breath for another sprint instead of using it to attract every living thing in the Northern Hemisphere," he said tersely.

"Where do you get off talkin' to me like that?" raged the Magistrate. "What gives you the right to come bargin' in, smart as ya please, and tellin' us how to be living our lives? Why us? Why couldn't you leave well enough alone?"

"Because 'well enough', as you call it, was subjugating your people without their even knowing it," he snapped.

"We know what we're doing! We're not some backwater civilization on a rock in the middle of nowhere! We're a trade planet! We've got commerce! We've got --"

"Problems," said the Doctor. "You've got --"

"OBJECTIVE IS IN SIGHT!" cried an electronic voice that reverberated down the corridor. A metallic eyestalk could be seen coming around the farthest corner. As it saw the two fugitives the voice exclaimed, "DO NOT MOVE! DO NOT MOVE!"

"I suggest we discuss my meddling later." The Doctor began to slowly back away, looking quickly over his shoulder at the next junction. "Right now . . . I suggest that we . . . RUN!" He grabbed the startled Official by the hand and dragged him around the next corner, out of sight.

"STOP! STOP!" shrilled their pursuer. "OR YOU WILL BE EX-TER-MI-NATED!!!"

The Dalek resumed it's relentless pursuit.

Talk about a time you realized that someone close to you was not the person you thought you knew.

There can't possibly be anyone quite as close to you as yourself, can there? No one else could possibly know you better. Your likes and dislikes, what makes you happy or angry. Your deepest, darkest secrets and heartfelt desires. To thine own self be true, isn't that the old adage?

Unless you happen to be one of the few species in the cosmos capable of total regeneration. I don't mean the sort of regeneration that happens when a lizard loses a tail or a Deluvian Slimedevil loses a fin. Those are merely extensions of the host, grown back after a period of time. When a Time Lord regenerates, it's more than just the reparation of cells and tissue or the replacement of extremities. It is a complete and utter metamorphosis, both physically and psychologically. While the basic ideals remain the same, the thought processes and personality can change somewhat dramatically. Take my previous incarnation. We're nothing alike. Complete opposites. As a matter of fact, he -- I -- was bordering on neurosis! And what in the name of Kasterborous ever possessed me to fancy cricket?

You see? You never quite know what you're going to get after a regeneration. I am still quintessentially the Doctor. And yet I am a complete stranger, even to myself.

How best to describe betrayal? Unfaithfulness. Treachery. Perfidity. Duplicty.

Davros.

A brilliant but amoral scientist who used genetics to commit genocide. Everything Davros did, he did in the name of his people, the Kaleds. Instead, he destroyed them. Changed them. Mutated them. In his mania to create the perfect Kaled, he instead gave birth to one of the most ruthless races in the Cosmos.

Davros did more than betray his home and his people. He betrayed every being and every civilization that ever fell -- or will fall -- to the Daleks.

I should like to think my greatest strength is my intellect. At the risk of sounding a braggart, I am a genius. However. Intelligence alone can be programmed into any number of sophisticated computers. Any android will readily assure you of that.

I, on the other hand, am not a computer, and therein lies my true strength. Compassion. My ability to feel as well as to think in any given situation. My capacity to care about the welfare of others and the inevitable outcome of my actions. I can recount any number of occasions when I chose empathy over intellect, in spite of what logic insisted should be the recommended course of action. In other words, I went with my hearts. No, it isn't very logical. But it has proven most effective against emotionally deficient adversaries, like daleks and cybermen.

Peri asked me once how I could be so heartless in the face of another's apparent suffering. How could I be so cold and detached from the plight of others? She was understandably angry at the time and I don't blame her one bit for the sentiment. Come to think of it, Tegan and Sarah Jane have also accused me of being unsympathetic. "Inhuman," to be exact. They forget sometimes that I am not human. While I may appear to be homosapien, I am far from it. I am an alien in more than just physiology, but it's often hard for them to think of me as more than just an eccentric scientist with a rather unusual spacecraft.

That said, I am not without feeling. It pains me to see any single being or civilization made to suffer the cruelties of others, be it Dalek, Cybermen, Sontaran, or home grown terror. But I must keep my emotions under strict control. Especially the truth of how much my companions mean to me; not only their safety but their friendship. There have been too many times that I would have liked nothing better than to comfort them or hug them or confide how important they are to me. Sometimes to my very existence. And while I will, upon rare occasion, demonstrate some affection for them, I refrain from anything that might be considered overly emotional or "human." If my companions were to discover how truly important they are to me, then so, too, might my enemies. And that is a risk I will not take. Not so much for my sake as for those souls brave and adventurous enough to travel with me, and to call me friend.