who_contest | Magic

Magic, by

fannishliss, Nine/Rose, rated G, 500 words, for the Drabble Challenge: "Yes"

"Do you believe in magic?" Rose asks one day, seemingly out of the blue.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," he answers carelessly.

She rolls her eyes. "No," she says. "I mean magic."

"I haven't the foggiest what you mean," he says superciliously. He grabs the sonic spanner; the calibration he's working on is fighting him.

Rose sinks down cross-legged near the access hatch, distracting him from his work. What is she on about?

He works a while. She is thinking.

"You're a Time Lord," she says.

He grunts an assent.

"Like, of all time."

He doesn't even grunt.

"How can anything ever take you by surprise?"

She has no way of knowing how much her question stings. So many, many things have taken him by surprise. It's never good.

"Surprise is overrated," he finally says.

"So you know it all? You remember how everything is supposed to go? Or -- you predict it?"

"Bit of each I suppose," he says.

Rose frowns. The Doctor keeps on tinkering. She'll spit it out soon enough.

"How -- how do you live, knowing, like that?"

Most companions never ask this. They don't really want to know. But Rose wants to know everything.

"It's complicated," he hedges.

"Try me," she says, and she is listening with rapt attention.

"There's something called the uncertainty principle," he begins.

"Oh!" Rose exclaims. "Mickey explained this to me once."

"Mickey!" he scoffs.

"Yeah," she says defensively, and cuffs him lightly. "You can observe momentum or location of a particle, but not both. Right?"

"Mm. I'm observing you here and now. Where you end up, I can't know. Because my observation is of what's here, right now."

Rose frowns, but quickly gets it. "Or, you could watch from more of a distance, to see where I go."

The Doctor grimaced, not liking the idea of Rose at a distance. "Pretty much."

"So, did you have any idea we would meet?"

"Why would I?"

"Because you don't believe in magic."

"You're not making sense."

"Magic," Rose says. "The universe bringing you just what you need, just when you need it."

"And so modest too," he grins at her.

"Hush!" she laughs. "It's a simple question."

"What question?" he goads.

"Did you know you'd find me?" she asks. "Or were you flying blind?"

"Yes," he answers playfully.

"Oh you!" she laughs.

He tinkers a bit more, gathering his thoughts.

"Yes," he finally says.

"Mm?" she says.

"I was flying blind -- but I knew. I just knew. Somehow."

Rose looks down at him. He's looking up into the darkness underneath the console, tracing the wiring, listening to the symphony of the Tardis's various hummings.

"I knew you knew," she says, with certainty. "But I don't think it's a Time Lord thing at all. I think it's the way the universe works sometimes: magic," she insists.

The Doctor thinks about that moment, that precious moment when her hand first slipped into his. He'd felt the pull, the draw of something, to that very time and place, and then, there she was, so quickly, so deeply a part of him. Magic? Maybe. Maybe? Yes.

"Yes."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ahhh, beautiful. Just beautiful, sweetie!!

*HUGS*

thanks! so glad you liked it. :D

This is exquisite! I love how inquisitive Rose is and that she never lets the Doctor off the hook. Their dialog is like a dance in a way. They dance around each other with words. I really enjoy these quiet intimate moments between the Doctor and Rose.

Thank you for another lovely piece.

thanks Bloose! so glad you liked it.

I wanted to find a moment where the Doctor found enough good things around him to say Yes. So this is what came out. It's much quieter than Everybody Lives! but still very important to him. The chance that the universe might not be actively out to destroy him.

Great discussion on the nature of a Time Lord's understanding--always a fascinating topic. And the dialog seemed so very them, it could have been taken right from the show. <3<3

thanks so much for your lovely comment!

To me what seems to be the crux of being a Time Lord is the ability to perceive which things Must happen (fixed points) and which things he is free to change. So, he must be able to sense when he's approaching a fixed point. In this story I guess I'm trying to play with a type of point that's not so much fixed as Heavily Weighted. As a Nine/Rose shipper, especially considering the power of Bad Wolf, we might think that that moment when Nine and Rose link hands was fixed. But in a lot of ways it's more interesting if it isn't -- but that it was ringing out loud in the Doctor's Time Lord brain anyway. :D

I think that RTD etal didn't think through Bad Wolf, but fanfic writers and readers do. It's a fine line between a Time Lord who can look into the future and find his future there, and Predestination. Time is in flux is DW's way around Predestination (though I'm damned if I know what they all mean by fixed points - but that's another topic). Maybe even if the Time Lord can see and choose based on his time sense and his data, it's the Bad Wolf who has sprinkled magic into the universe. If Rose lives with the metacrisis Doctor... if Nine breaks through...if Ten decides to try to break through and does... and all of Rose's decisions upon his and before his...

They found each other at first and they will keep finding each other, in some form, some way, some space/time. Maybe how is determined in a logical way (though I personally would disagree). Why they look... as you said, the pull, the draw of something that is a part of him... is magic.

This is a wonderful story. Thank you.

My take on "fixed points" is that they are events which have made a resonance down through time, basically crux events. For example, maybe Vikings discovered North America, but there don't seem to have been great historical consequences from that, so that events around that discovery would not be fixed. Whereas, in 1492 there was Columbus, and that was a much more well-known and history changing event. If anything were to happen to prevent Columbus from sailing, that would threaten the "fixed point" of his famous discovery. Pete Tyler's death in this universe was "fixed" because it would become a very different universe if he lived-- something the Doctor could sense as a Time Lord, but Rose couldn't. Similarly, Madame Pompadour is a very important historical figure who has to live out her life in a certain way, or European history doesn't play out in the way it must. There's no way for the Doctor to explain his gut sense of crux events and persons to someone who's not a Time Lord -- it looks arbitrary, but it isn't. The final big one is Waters of Mars of course -- he knows Adelaide's death is fixed, but he wants so badly for her to live that he challenges the order of the universe -- and fails, because, simply, she *doesn't* live. It's the world of possibilities that the Doctor sees in the Vortex in PotW -- the stream of endless possibility, swirling around certain snags and stones that MUST occur -- with no real way of knowing WHY certain things are immutable -- doesn't it drive you mad? Time is always in flux, except for select things which aren't. = My head is killing me! I need a Doctor! :D

I actually think it holds together fairly well.

Awww! I very much enjoyed this! You have their dynamic down perfectly. Fantastic job!

Thanks so much for your sweet comment. I'm really glad you liked it. :)

Ah, good show of Rose's smarts.

And this line: So many, many things have taken him by surprise. It's never good. - pretty much sums up the Doctor's sadness when bad things happen, he's always trying to do so much good.

Thanks very much! :) One of my favorite characteristics with Rose is how perceptive she is. And, as often, she hits on one of the Doctor's key hangups accidentally on purpose. :D

Magic

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