who_contest | Long Way Down ('Light and Dark' entry)

Title: Long Way Down
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst/Missing Scene
Word Count: 600
Pairings or Characters: Eleventh Doctor, Vastra, Jenny
Spoilers: for events up to ‘The Snowmen’
Warnings: Hints at suicidal ideation, if you squint.
Summary: Grieving and alone, the Doctor makes his home in the sky.

This far from London the world is smokeless, the stars shining clear as they do inside his mind. By day the unfiltered light is blinding, and there is enough self-concern left in him that he fears to lose his balance. So he waits for the sun to recede again before testing the cloud cover, on hands and knees from the TARDIS door right to the farthermost edge. The city beneath is fainter than any star, and if he closes his eyes the only sound comes from the winds that serve as anchor. They nip at him, almost playfully, like wild animals yielding before a master- the closest thing to life for miles beyond and below.

It is as good a place to halt as any.

Staying, as it turns out, is easy, though Amy would smile to hear him admit it.

He has his books, and his tucked-away corner of home. The walls change of their own accord and he adapts with them: simple black necktie, heavy-lined coat and stovepipe hat with dust worked deep into the rim.

He has a standing invitation to tea every afternoon, and on the more monotonous days he takes it up. Madame Vastra wears her veil down as they greet each other, but he can feel the intensity of her gaze nonetheless, those bright reptilian eyes looking for an answering brightness and withdrawing disappointed.

When Jenny passes a saucer, her fingers halt a moment over his. The sympathy in them appals him; he pulls back, turns to stare at the far wall.

“You’ve been polishing the swords.”

“Just a minor skirmish last week”, Vastra says. “Oh, nothing that might interest you: common murder, or common enough in these parts. We handed the culprit to the relevant authorities.”

There is a hard edge to her voice, halfway towards a challenge. His new-old clothes cling to him with dew from the clouds; he shivers, just once.
“Good. Fine.”

And the strange, wondrous, terrible thing is that it is. When he turns his thoughts towards everything that he has lost, the hurt is as absolute as the void between the worlds, admitting no light or warmth; yet Time has found a way to move past it, past him, astounding in its indifference. He wants to laugh, to shout back across the emptiness: so this was all it took, was it? One little push, two human lives thrown irrevocably out of joint, and suddenly the strings that hold the whole tawdry sideshow together are made visible. For centuries now he has been playing a rigged game, and something in him was forever arrogant enough to imagine that he might come away the winner.

The silence in the parlour has dragged too long. It is still his cue to talk. Every pair of eyes is on him, but he has dispensed with an audience.
Perhaps he offers an excuse, or perhaps he does not need one. Time skips one beat, then another; he is above the city’s morass once more, the cold drawing the air from his lungs in frozen trails. Flat on his back, the stars seem nearly within reach; he picks a constellation at random and starts to name its occupants, in every language he can recall. They are no longer friends to him, merely witnesses to the inexorable turn of the universe. The dark sky encloses and does not beckon. When all is said and done, he is only exchanging one kind of exile for another.

The phone rings, tinny through the rarefied atmosphere. He holds his breath until it stops.

Tomorrow there may be snow.

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From:

but_can_i_be_trusted

So sad and beautiful. Well done.

templeremus.livejournal.com

Thank you. One of the decisions about Eleven's era that I think paid off in the long run was creating these gaps in the narrative where the Doctor carves his own path away from other people - you could see how much the loneliness of it had changed him when the story picked back up.

Edited Date: 2014-09-19 06:53 pm (UTC)

gallif-migrant.livejournal.com

I love how you show, realistically, just how depressed the Doctor would have to be to stop adventuring. Madame Vastra and Jenny wan to help him, but don't know how. Sad, yet beautiful.

Thank you. Eleven's level of self-critcism is often overlooked, I think. He's both profoundly aware of his own flaws and eager to avoid their consequences, but the Universe never lets him off the hook. Whether it's his mistakes with the Ponds or his failure to understand Clara as an ordinary human being, it all catches up with him eventually, and he bears the whole weight of it every time.

tangotabby.livejournal.com

Eleven's level of self-critcism is often overlooked, I think. He's both profoundly aware of his own flaws and eager to avoid their consequences, but the Universe never lets him off the hook. Whether it's his mistakes with the Ponds or his failure to understand Clara as an ordinary human being, it all catches up with him eventually, and he bears the whole weight of it every time.

THIS!!!! He makes my heart hurt.....

flowsoffire.livejournal.com

Oh god, this was absolutely stunning. Your writing is flawlessly beautiful, with the cool, shining, intricate purity and beauty of that faraway sky far above London. Your portrayal of Vastra and Jenny was perfect, and the Doctor's state of mind of course, with that fascinating distance. Hearing the cues, the calls, but not responding—and how oddly easy it was, to be still and silent, one push was all it took indeed to reveal the void within it all, the life he once had… Oh, it hurts in the most beautiful way. Beautifully done. I'm in love ♥

<3 Thank you. As someone who's struggled with depression on and off for some time now, that episode and the gorgeous image of the Doctor's retreat in the sky really struck a chord with me. Because the warmth and beauty of the world doesn't disappear in middle of a depressive spell; it just doesn't touch you any more. Grief that won't shift is like feeling homesick when you're already home; it's being in a familiar place and feeling a thousand miles away from anywhere. And it's looking inside yourself and really, truly believing there's nothing worthwhile left. I could see all of that in Eleven.

*hugs* ♥

Yeah, I get you. It was really movingly depicted too, and it felt so real. (That's the beauty and the irony of writing, really. It's basically the opposite of that feeling, as in it brings out the beauty of the world, the beauty of the little things, and makes them plain to the reader's eye—yet it cannot make the writer connect to it all. On a good day it helps, though. We still have that. ♥)

that episode and the gorgeous image of the Doctor's retreat in the sky really struck a chord with me. Because the warmth and beauty of the world doesn't disappear in middle of a depressive spell; it just doesn't touch you any more. Grief that won't shift is like feeling homesick when you're already home; it's being in a familiar place and feeling a thousand miles away from anywhere. And it's looking inside yourself and really, truly believing there's nothing worthwhile left. I could see all of that in Eleven.

This! OMG, all of this! Exactly right, and so eloquently stated. Eleven feels everything SO deeply; I can really relate to that, and it's part of why I'm so drawn to him rather than any of the other Doctors.

Thank you for this beautiful story that puts his anguish into words so well.

I especially loved this part:
And the strange, wondrous, terrible thing is that it is. When he turns his thoughts towards everything that he has lost, the hurt is as absolute as the void between the worlds, admitting no light or warmth; yet Time has found a way to move past it, past him, astounding in its indifference. He wants to laugh, to shout back across the emptiness: so this was all it took, was it? One little push, two human lives thrown irrevocably out of joint, and suddenly the strings that hold the whole tawdry sideshow together are made visible. For centuries now he has been playing a rigged game, and something in him was forever arrogant enough to imagine that he might come away the winner.

Ah, your writing is just brilliant!

<3 Thank you. While I adore Twelve, the Eleventh Doctor still feels like 'my' Doctor at this stage. His flaws were explored beautifully in this particular story arc- his selfishness and fallibility, his childish refusal to accept the basic unfairness of life - but it also illuminated the strength of his feelings for other people. He cares so much that it hurts, and it hurts so much he tries to run away.

Edited Date: 2014-10-07 07:03 pm (UTC)

a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com

*Shivers* such beautiful, bleak and deadly words...

So stark and haunted -

I am rendered jealous and in awe of your mastery once more.

Thank you for this fiction.

*HUGS*

<3 Thank you. I loved the idea of the deathly cold, faraway corner of the world that the Doctor had fashioned into his retreat in this episode: it was so utterly in keeping with the mood of the story and the distance he had created between himself and the demands of the Universe.

paynesgrey.livejournal.com

Wow, really lovely introspection here, and so sad. You captured his thoughts wonderfully, and the atmosphere seems so lyrical. Wonderful job.

<3 Thank you. It took me a while to start writing Eleven, maybe precisely because I love him so - there's always so much going on with Matt's performance, so many nuances that one only picks up with repeated viewing. He can convey volumes without saying a word.