TITLE: The Weird Of The White Witch AUTHOR: Rebecca Ashling GENRES: Drama, Humour, Mystery, Romance UBER SETTING: Doctor Who SPOILERS: The Whoverse generally. RATING: 15 or PG-13 FEEDBACK: Yes, please! DISCLAIMER: Joss Whedon and his corporate affiliates own "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel". The BBC and its corporate affiliates own "Doctor Who", "Torchwood" and "The Sarah Jane Adventures". Terry Nation created the Daleks who are owned his estate. I own none of these and am writing this story for fun and not for profit. SUMMARY: The Doctor regenerates and things are, of course, never quite the same again. This time, more so than usual. AUTHOR NOTE: The title is a riff on the title of the novel "The Weird Of The White Wolf" by Michael Moorcock. One of our greatest fantasy authors. Read him.
THE WEIRD OF THE WHITE WITCH
Chapter Two: She Yelled
Aspirin. Acetylsalicylic acid. There was a whole bottle of it lying in wait by his bed as he awoke. Pills of the evil stuff, with a glass of water standing by. Toxic to Gallifreyan physiology, alas, but it was very thoughtful, very kind of Jo to provide it. Even though he had once emphatically told her it was pure poison to him. Such a silly girl! She meant well and... Whoa! Wait a minute! The Doctor felt suddenly ashamed of himself, the capillaries of his cheeks swiftly a-flush with blushy blood, his shame intense enough to make his face glow in the dark. Not Jo, Tara! Tara, Tara, Tara. How could he have possibly forgotten the name of the young woman who had so recently saved HIM from the monsters? From the monsters of monsters, from the Daleks, no less. True, he was somewhat neurally discombobulated but still... The Doctor gave himself a shrewd slap on the back of his head and, for good measure, boxed his own ears too.
It was all coming back to him now, those final fraught minutes on Station 5, before he had regenerated. The last of the Doctor's allies, Faith Lehane, had just been killed. His eyes had been closed as he awaited his own extermination. A fusilade of massed energy blasts from the confronting Daleks would have meant the end for HIM. Then the regeneration cycle would have been activated. Another volley of weapons fire in the middle of that... Well, that would have been the end of THE Doctor. About time, really. He truly couldn't have said he hadn't earned this. And he couldn't help but relish the irony of the Daleks being given free licence to commit genocide, all because he had been too squeamish, too chicken-hearted, to commit genocide himself, to sacrifice the paltry billions of Earth for the sake of the uncountable potential victims of the Daleks. Either way, the people of Earth had been doomed. It had all been funny in a bittersweet kind of way and you had to take your consolations whenever, wherever you could. But of much bigger, much greater comfort to him, that had warmed him from the tips of his ears to the tips of his toes? His beautiful, gentle, fantastic Tara was safe. Then filling the space station, there had been this pandemonium, the infernal racket of one thousand indignant, trumpeting mammoths having one thousand rectal probes shoved where the sun never shone, all punctuated by a THUD like the doors of eternity being kicked shut. The Tardis had returned, and he'd tasted true despair as his stubbornly devoted, usually blessed with commonsense, fantastic Tara had dealt herself back in the game. Hmmm, he couldn't quite recollect what transpired after that, he'd have to ask Tara later. But he was morally certain, utterly convinced in fact, that she had rescued him.
The Doctor seldom got the chance for a good, old lie-in after a regeneration. There was always seemed to be something that needed sorting out. Hapless innocents to be helped, terrible, geophysical disasters to be averted, brutish corporate, or governmental, leviathans whose nasty existences needed to be cut short, invaders to be firmly ejected from pastoral paradises, and just as firmly discouraged from dreams of reconquest, opposing factions of civil wars to be reconciled... Problems, problems, problems.
Anyway, he'd had enough kip. Time to take a look at himself in the mirror, time to make faces, examine his tongue, tug at his ears, pull his hair, squeeze his nose, have a thorough critique of his new physiognomy, moan at the unfairness of what he'd been given. One thing he did know, courtesy of that unfortunate wardrobe malfunction he had suffered earlier, he was smaller, a lot smaller. Other evidence: he was still wearing his tee-shirt and it swallowed him up like a hungry, cotton drashig. Also, Tara had considerately restored the modesty of his nether regions by redressing him in a pair of her shorts. They fit him pretty well. So, oh yeah, tiny.
Where was the mirror? Ah, other there where it usually was, at the foot of his bed, cunningly disguised by having his jacket draped over it. By Tara, presumably. That was worrisome. She evidently hadn't wanted his reflection to be the first thing he saw when he woke up. That bad, eh? He hoped his visage hadn't become too freaksome. Padding over to the mirror, he hovered indecisively for a few moments before giving into his curiosity. Curiosity, his fatal flaw. "Tally-ho!" he cried out, and uncovered the mirror.
Silky, red hair, huge hazel eyes with emerald flecks, soft, pale skin, a quirky, mobile mouth and... The Doctor froze in shock, made a tentative, tactile confirmation.
"What. The. Frilly. Heck!" She yelled.
_________________ the Inward Eye, the Sightless Sea, Ayala flows through the River in Me
Last edited by Rebecca Ashling on Sat Aug 03, 2013 2:48 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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