Title: Blips on the Radar
Author: Elizabeth Wilde ()
Rating: PG
Pairings: Rory/Amy, Ten/Rose, Jeff/Amy, Jack/Doctor
Summary: A series of vignettes written by tuning in to Pandora (and switching to my iTunes about halfway through) and writing until the song was done.
Spoilers: Through season 5.
Genre: vignette,
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own any Doctor Who characters nor the songs used. I am making no money from this, just enjoying myself.
Distribution: My site at http:/www.biteyourtongue.net/wilde
Author's Notes: These are not meant to be in any particular order - just random and fun. Each fic is marked with its genre and/or pairing so that folks can read only what is interesting to them.
1 • "Mad World" by Alex Parks • [PG - angst]
It got easier every day but never less strange. No matter how she tried to understand and accept, the place was always simply not right. Rose Tyler shouldn't have existed, and every moment the young woman in question could feel that fact. She missed her real life.
Some days she wished that the Doctor had never flown in out of the sky in his blue box to save her life. She would have probably died at the shop along with everyone else there. Died and been gone and forgotten by everyone but her mum. Mickey would have moved on quickly no matter what his protestations to the contrary might have been if confronted with the idea. He had never needed her as much as either of them thought.
Rose lay back in her bed and shifted once again in an attempt to get comfortable. Without the mad man in the box, Rose knew that her life was only worthy of forgetting. For that reason alone, she was never able to really hate whatever had brought him into her life or what had taken her out of his in the end.
2 • "Acoustic #3" by Goo Goo Dolls • [Rory/Amy - PG - angst, romance]
No one really understood why strange, beautiful Amelia Pond had ended up with Rory. His nose was ridiculous, he was a bit of a dork, and not a single other girl at school seemed to want to look twice at him.
The part that the world never saw was the way they were when there was no one else around, when Amy would cry out in her sleep. Rory was always there, always soothing and whispering and assuring her that it would be alright. He was the only one who ever seemed to believe her stories and the only one who felt the pain that they held for her whether they were true or not. For her the Raggedy Doctor was certainly real, and what else mattered?
At some point between the holding and the helping, they both noticed that they'd stopped being just friends quite awhile ago, and neither of them really minded.
3 • "One Thing" by Finger Eleven • [G - general]
"It wouldn't help to change it," the Doctor observed one day from out of the blue. He met Amy's gaze across the TARDIS console and offered her a faint, sad smile. "Going back and finding you in time instead of coming back late."
"Oh." Amy's brows knit, and she idly flicked a switch without really knowing what it did. "Yeah. Right."
"It wouldn't because sometimes things happen precisely when they should."
There was a beat of silence and then, "Yeah."
Noting that the girl still sounded a long way from convinced, the Doctor tried again, "Some things don't *need* to be fixed. Amelia Pond was always supposed to be the girl who waited. You were always meant to grow up to be you. You wouldn't've been the same Amelia otherwise."
Amy rolled her eyes but managed a smile at that. "Would you really mind so much?"
Seeing that he'd won whatever argument he'd been having, the Doctor smiled back, no trace of sadness in the expression any longer. "Oh, yes. Very much."
4 • "One Love" by Glee Cast • [PG - romance - Rory/Amy]
"You're such a dork." Amy rolled her eyes as Rory danced around the room.
He offered her a broad smile and grabbed one pale hand in his own, spinning Amy away from the bed and onto the dance floor - otherwise known as her dorm room. "You love a dork."
Amy rolled her eyes again but couldn't help smiling as Rory lifted her hand so that she could twirl next to him. "I love a dork," she admitted readily enough. "Lots."
"You love dancing with a dork."
"I do. Even if you can't dance." It was true. Rory moved with all the grace of a drunk monkey. And she still loved every second. "I love dancing with a dork. Love you," she murmured as the movement slowed and they became far more interested in kissing than the music.
5 • "Where Do Fallen Angels Go?" by Aerosmith [G - gen]
Sometimes he couldn't keep his mind on the present, and that was no real surprise. There were so many other places for it to be - the past, the present, all of time and space. The Doctor closed his eyes and let the hum of the TARDIS fill him. She whispered softly. He had never questioned why it was always she. It just was. She was.
One hand lovingly caressed the console before him. His fingers touched knobs that he knew, buttons he'd pressed a million times. Everything was always familiar, even when it was new. That was how well they knew each other. "Ready for another adventure, old girl?" The sound that echoed through the control room sounded like a purr in the Doctor's ears, and he smiled. "So am I." He threw a switch and laughed as the ship began hurtling through space and time. He had no idea where she was taking him, and that was half the fun.
6 • "Yellow" by Coldplay [G - angst - Ten/Rose]
He had never let himself become so... involved. It was awkward. It honestly was. It was strange wanting someone who wasn't there. He always missed his companions when they moved on. Even Ian and Barbara's departure had left him with a strange sense of something being missing.
That was nothing like it was with Rose. Nothing. When she was taken, the color went out of things. The only color he could think of was yellow, the bright straw yellow of her hair. He missed her too-heavy eye make-up and the way her nose wrinkled up when she thought he was doing something ridiculous. He missed her. He missed the sound of her voice and her laugh.
The Doctor had fallen in love, and that simply wasn't supposed to happen. It wasn't for a reason. He was the last of his kind, and even if Rose hadn't been pulled away, it never would have worked the way she needed it too. He told himself that it was better to mourn now than later. This way he knew she was somewhere living a full life that he hadn't taken that away from her out of a selfish need to keep her by his side.
He ran a hand impatiently through his wiry brown hair. It was better. It had to be.
7 • "You Are Not Alone" by Michael Jackson [G - angst]
Jack sat stock-still in the hallway. He had no idea what to do. He had no idea why he wasn't dead. /Yes I do,/ he realized. He had felt it whether he officially knew anything or not. He'd felt the warm touch, a gentle laughing presence that he associated with Rose and her wild hair and easy smiles.
And now they were gone and he was alone. Alone with a station full of bodies. Jack swallowed hard and closed his eyes. He tried to reach out in the hopes that he could somehow lock onto that shining warmth again. It eluded him, having obviously vanished along with Rose and the Doctor when the TARDIS disappeared.
"So," Jack asked the empty air in front of him, "what now?"
8 • "Tell Me Why" by Black Lab [G - Jeff/Amy (one-sided)]
She honestly didn't notice him in the slightest. Well, she did, just not the way he wanted. Jeff tried. He honestly did. He'd even brought Amy a bouquet of irises - her favorite - on Valentine's Day. She'd laughed, told him he was a "sweet little thing" and smiled bright as the son. She'd then proceeded to go to the school dance with Rory anyway because he was, as she said, her "best mate."
Jeff knew he would never be that. Rory had staked his claim already and that was fun. He just couldn't puzzle out why there wasn't room for him to be something a little more or a little different. A school went on, he got taller, broader, began spending as much of his free time on sports and football as he did pursuing Amy Pond. Plenty of girls wanted him by the time they were finishing out the years. They did. He even went out with one or two of them, but they weren't Amy.
Try as he might, Jeff couldn't get her out of his head, but by the time they were all going off to uni or finding jobs, it was too late. Rory had finally managed to worm his way into not just Amy's daily life but her heart as well. Jeff withdrew, frustrated, lonely, started spending as much time with his lap top as he did with anyone else. He wasn't meant for brooding, though, and that grew old fast. By the time the Raggedy Doctor materialized and threw him into the spotlight in a way he'd never expected, Jeff was ready for something more than coming in second.
For a shining moment, he was the Doctor's "best man," and he was ready.
9 • "If It Wasn't for the Nights" by Abba [G - angst - Doctor/Jack (one-sided)]
Normally Jack Harkness didn't let himself think about the Doctor. He kept the man's hand, yes, and had a piece of TARDIS on his desk and, okay, a good half his reason for being any part of Torchwood was to find the man. He just didn't think about it.
At night things began to bleed through. Jack slept very little, but when he did, his dreams were filled with mad smiles and the Doctor's very particular brand of spectacularly crazy bravado. Those left him waking with a smile on his own face. The harder dreams to shake off were the ones where he was left abandoned, alone, and miraculously alive. Even harder than that were the dreams when he recalled the thrilling spark of actually kissing the Time Lord.
Jack hated night time. He hated sleeping. He rolled onto his side, eyes stubbornly open despite the rest of his body protesting the continued consciousness ardently. He needed rest whether he wanted it or not. After years of learning to cope, Jack would have considered himself very good at it if it wasn't for the nights.
10 • "Ain't No Sunshine" by Paul McCartney [G - angst, romance - Rory/Amy]
Rory's fingers ran over the textured surface. The Pandorica was beautiful in a way, but he'd learned to hate it. More than hate it, he loathed it. It held the one thing in the entire universe he wanted, and the one thing he couldn't have. Yet. He would. Amy would be fine and things would be fixed and everything would be the way it should be. He knew that, but it didn't really help. The fact was that without her the world blended into a swirling vortex of gray and black and lonely nights and days and Rory wanted nothing more than release from all of it.
As the light drained from the sky, Rory rested his head against the box and sighed out his pain into the wind. "G'night, Amy. Wake me if you need me." It was stupid, and he knew it, but he said the same thing every night. It was one of the small rituals that gave him comfort and helped him see things through to the next night and the next. No matter how much it hurt, Rory knew that nothing would keep him from it. If anyone in the universe was worth the pain, it was Amy Pond, and so he curled up against the Pandorica and watched the stars come out.