It has always been a love of mine to see the Doctor interact with historical figures from Shakespeare to Dickens (They were too nice to Dickens.) Orwell, partly because of his politics, has been omitted thus far, at least on television. So in lieu of that hopefully future episode, here is Orwell and The Doctor.
Ok, just this squiggly bit and...
Dun
The all too familiar controlled and consistent crash of the TARDIS as it landed. The Doctor smiled when the controls, for a second, were looking at him.
The Doctor looked at her sheepishly. "Well, I know. You don't like being lonely. Neither do I."
He looked down and for a second focused on his hands. They were so many things. Young, spindly, stained with blood of the past and the ravages of over a millennium. It was wrong to still see them so spotless, he thought.
But he looked up from them to find the screen flashing to life. He had aimed for 1849 only to find electric lights in the far edge of a dark room.
"Oh no, old Girl. I wanted 1849, you've sent me..." He looked open armed around the TARDIS. "...somewhere else"
He leaned on the console and spoke rapidly to himself, to remind him of something forgotten.
"Somewhere, post-1890. Wrong place, wrong time."
He ran to the other end of the console, seeking his screwdriver. He pinched it only to hear the TARDIS moan, lights turning on and off.
"Well if I left it you would have taken it, you silly girl. Might have ended up in the cricket closet again." He spoke pleadingly.
The door opened without prompting and the Doctor turned around, looked to the door, turned back to the console and addressed it again.
"Oh, alright. 5 minutes and then we go." He raised his arms. "5, ok? Edgar Allan Poe isn't going anywhere but...but I want to be there."
He checked over his Bowtie and caressed his Tweed jacket onto his shoulders.
Hands through sleeves. Check the wrists. He flicked the mirror onto him. Yes. Yes, cool.
He slipped his Screwdriver into his pocket and paddled on two feet towards the door. He had heard nothing from the outside except a clock ticking away.
How apt.
Quietly he pushed through the door and closed it behind him. The room was musty, with the stale presence of smoke.
He sniffed once. Hmm. Tobacco, faeces and something green. Lovely.
There were rows of beds on each side of the phone box. On the walls was a lack of much needed paint. The only light was a waning and struggling light bulb forced to light at the end of the beds in front of him. Farthest from the door.
Some beds were occupied, others not. They were spaced somewhat apart with apparatuses dealing with breathing and other kinds of medicine. It was all slightly out his reach.
No blood filled buckets so...late 19th century up to...19-something.
There was what seemed to the Doctor to be a very outdated electric fireplace. That was key.
That's later. This place looks old and ratty so World War II then.
Sure of himself, he top toed down the row of beds. The light still glared uncomfortably on his eyes and he had to strain to see a rather sick-looking matchbox-shaped figure on the farther bed.
Very gaunt, he thought.
Then, the light lowered and The Doctor was confused for a moment.
"Who is it?" Croaked a voice into the musty air.
The Doctor stopped and looked down at the person. He found a man, with black hair and a white, frail face. It looked older than the body it inhabited, the lips were slightly upturned and dry. A silvery blue tinge shaped the whole thing and the eyes were almost black dots, but with a touch of human blue. They peered, curious and suspicious, out of crater-like walls.
The Doctor knew instantly that this face was prematurely aged and had seen a great deal too quickly. If he were peering at a Time Lord, regeneration might be in order.
"Oh sorry, I'm the Doctor and this is a hospital. I like hospitals."
"Yes. Sorry."
The figure crawled himself up to a sitting position before giving way to the most horrific coughing. On and on it went as the Doctor busied himself with snooting around.
The figure breathed into a cough once more before finally resembling comfort, seated as he was in the bed.
"I'm The Doctor. Not your Doctor just...er...just A doctor."
"I detected that in your fashion. You really do stand out."
The Doctor fiddled with his jacket. "Oh, thanks. Just a bit cool, y'know? Plus sometimes the best way to blend in is to stick out."
The doctor took a chair from the far end of the room, talking as he went.
"So you, what's your story then, eh? Got a nasty thing by the sounds of it."
He almost dropped himself into place at the foot of the bed. "What is it then?
"TB."
The Doctor looked at him cluelessly.
"Tuberculosis."
He flashed with recognition and smiled before composing himself just as quickly. He rubbed his hands together slowly and stayed on task.
"So is it fatal?"
The man looked away from him towards the ceiling but said nothing. The Doctor spoke in a lower tone.
"Oh ok. I'm sorry." He said softly.
The man looked back to him. "Where are you from? You aren't from here."
The bowtied creature was about to say so when he realised where he was.
"Ah, this is a hospital so at the risk of sound mad I'm going to say..."
"Northampton?" The man butted in.
"Yes, yes. Northampton. Better than the other directions of Hampton. Surprisingly little ham."
"Uh huh."
The two were still. The maligned bedded one kept his hands to his sides.
"Oh, sorry, what's your name?"
"Eric Blair. A pleasure." Eric shook the Doctors hand as hard as he could. "I'm a writer."
"Writers!" He clapped his hands softly. "I haven't spoken to one of you since JK. Tell you what, fabulous woman but her work, so-so."
Eric was doused with confusion. "JK who? I haven't heard of them. Are they a woman writer?"
"Well, female author, yes. She's still another 40 or 50 years away" He explained.
"What do you mean?"
The Doctor threw his hands to his head and held them there.
I can't believe I didn't ask.
"What year is it?" he said, taking a full second with each word.
"Its 1949?" He answered at a loss. "September."
The Doctor was excited suddenly from memory. "Oh I like this month. The Berlin Airlift ends. Total success. Mind you, ALOT of planes and so on, can't be great for the air."
"I have been trying to keep track of things in Berlin. Everything is happening so fast and I can't keep up, being stuck in here." Blair muttered.
"How long have you been here?" The Doctor asked.
"I've been here a few days. I've been in hospitals for the last year and nine months."
The Doctors hearts plucked with pity.
He flexed his arms and pouted towards Eric. "What do you do Eric? To ignore the boredom? What do you do?"
"I write. And read. Finished a Novel not long ago. It was terrible, not enough edits. I could only go through it twice."
The Doctor became interested. "Which Novel? Is it a new one? No wait, I mean new for the 70's or...is it new?"
Eric chose to ignore the mysterious Doctors mannerisms.
"It was published a few months ago. I called it The Last Man in Europe but they changed it."
"What did they call it instead?"
Eric looked at his counterpart at the end of the bed tensely. As he spoke, he stared down the Doctor.
"1984. The year its set in."
1984!
"Wait, sorry, are you...are you George Orwell?"
Eric shifted in his bed and nodded gently.
"Yes, I am George Orwell."
The Doctor practically rocketed from his seat. "Oh George, George Orwell! That is COOL! I'm such a fan of yours. I mean, mostly a fan, some of the stuff on women is a bit...eh, but you are a literal legend! Really!"
George had not moved. A soft, near inaudible Thank you was all he could muster. His voice was a whisper of what it once was.
"You came up with so much that humans are still using. Like, 'Big Brother', 'Newspeak' and 'Doublethink'" The Doctor strode up to Orwell and shook his hand for the second time, slightly too hard.
"So you have read the book. Thank you, for your deliberate over-praise."
The Doctor kneeled down to be at eye level with the bedridden writer.
"See, you don't know but you become such an icon." The Doctor practically gawked over the bedridden writer.
"If I do, it will be for the wrong reasons. No communist devotee of mine has left me without feeling disappointed because of what I am."
The Doctor smirked and carried himself back up to the ground on both feet and stood clutching the rails at the foot-end of the bed.
"Oh Orwell, Orwell-Orwell-Orwell!".
Right ok, got it, he's Orwell and its 1949, September.
The Doctor suddenly frowned as he looked towards Orwell, regaining his posture and composure. Orwell noticed.
"Are you alright, Doctor? You seem to be mad." He quipped.
The Doctor still said nothing. He knew what was coming. It was in his brain. The cubic centimetres in his skull held knowledge that meant more to no one but George.
"George I-"The Doctor took a gulp of air. "I want to show you something."
George looked up at him and smiled weakly. "Well, before you do, tell me: Who are you and what do you do? And why are you in London?"
Orwell. Always so direct. I love it.
"Well, this may be hard for you to believe, George but I am a Time Traveller. That blue thing over there is my box, I'm a mad man and I am inside it. Not right now but nominally." His voice and pace rose and fell and his changing tenors echoed over the whole room. George looked at him with a dull grin and refused despite his wish, to laugh.
"Prove it."
The Doctor answered his challenge.
He walked towards the TARDIS, point back at George and almost losing his footing as he dragged himself in one direction and faced the other.
"I'll be right back, stay where you are and...don't panic."
Stepping inside the TARDIS, he gave it a quick trip into the future.
Two weeks. Get a newspaper, two weeks old.
Retrieving the newspaper and getting chased away from the shops, The Doctor returned to Orwell, paper in hand. He waved it to the Writer.
"Hehe, see? Read it and don't weep"
He tossed it to Orwell but he didn't even try to catch it. He was puzzled.
"How did you do that? How did you make it disappear?"
The Doctor stepped closer until the harsh light no longer obscured Orwell's features.
"Oh, it's a TARDIS. Moves through time and space. It's like a universal jack-in-the-box"
Orwell eyed the Doctor suspiciously. For a moment they shared eye contact before the Doctor remembered what he was doing.
"The paper, George, the paper. See the date." He gestured to it.
Orwell gave it a moment's look before putting it down.
"Not impressive, Doctor. This could easily be faked and with blue police boxes that can apparently 'disappear' I am not prone to gullibility."
The Doctor became frustrated and found himself wanting.
I'll take him somewhere.
"Oh all right, all right George. Ill prove it better. Stand up."
George did not move.
"You can stand up?"
"It's not trouble standing, Doctor, but catching my breathe. If I stand up too long I can't stop coughing."
"Ah, ok. Sorry it's just; do you want me to show you something?"
"Like?"
"How about the earth? From Space I mean. Or maybe 400 BC? I have a bone to pick with Socrates. I've been putting it off for 9 regenerations but now that I've remembered-"
"The future."
The Doctor almost missed him.
"Sorry, I was monologing again. Do that sometimes. What did you say?"
George sat up with a wince from pain and spoke with a curiosity he hadn't felt in some time.
"Show me England in 20 years. Or 30. I want to see where it all goes."
"Ok."
"And Doctor, do you possess anything that would help me move?"
Yes, Brilliant! But wait, is he just playing me for laughs. No! Why would he do that? Orwell; many things, funny, not really one of them.
"I have just the thing, give me one sec." Off he ran back into the strange and tiny blue box.
"Okay old girl, we've got the master of cynicism with us and I say we lift his spirits with some air. People like air."
He slinked off into one of the possibly hundreds of thousands of rooms to find those one object.
Oxotron should work. Small, easily attached, no long term damage. Considering...
After getting lost in the hall of medical 'stuff' that Ten had named, he finally found it. It was a small object looking like a stethoscope. The top part had two thin metal prongs that attached to the throat to make the voice easier to find. The thicker box on the end attached to the torso and optimised the respiratory system. At least enough for mobility.
Satisfied, The Doctor went upstairs...or down, maybe sideways. The way he went took him back to the console and out into the hospital again.
"There we are."
George looked at the object with mixed interest and unease.
"Is it...is it safe?"
The Doctor looked at it, up to George, and then back down at the Oxotron.
"Probably, probably."
The Doctor stood and stared at Orwell for a moment, to see his reaction. If he assented, it meant his mortality was waning in his own mind but if it wasn't, he would ask more questions.
"I accept, Doctor."
The Doctor hid his mixed glee and fear with an overpowered smile that George smirked at himself.
"You act like a child but your eyes have seen a good deal, haven't they?"
The Doctor began applying the Oxotron to his chest. The main pack first and then the small appendage to his throat. The whole process took less than a moment. The Doctor deliberately waited, hoping to use George health against him. That he would drop the question. But he didn't.
Oxotron attached, The Doctor took out his screwdriver. He was intent on switching it on but Orwell stared at him. A stare of a far too many yards for a man of 46. The Doctor caved.
"Yes, they have." He fiddled with his hands and looked downward like a child admitting to a lie.
"But what I've done and seen George, it's nothing compared to you."
The Doctor looked up to find Orwell still eyeing him uncomfortably. "You want to know why I am going with you, Doctor?"
The Doctor lowered the screwdriver momentarily. "Why?"
George leaned back, smirked ever so slightly and softened his gaze.
"Because I try wherever I can to find an objective truth. And hard though this is, I realise that you would not lie so stupendously, expect me to believe it and also know who I am."
George spoke with a slight rise in intonation that was weakened considerably by his voice. As he feared, George had an urge to cough and, by now, it had reached a fitful stage.
'GUUH!'
The Doctor suddenly remembered what he was doing. "Right, sorry. Screwdriver, ok." He spoke as if he were speaking to himself from the outside.
Aiming carefully, he activated the screwdriver, it produced its special sound and in a moment, without any fluff or buster, the Oxotron activated and for a moment both The Doctor and Orwell wondered what had changed. Then Orwell suddenly found he could breath slightly easier. He touched his neck, searching for his vocal chords.
"Will it-"
"No, just the breathing. It doesn't affect the voice. Sorry." The Doctor replied, factually but with sadness that George saw.
"It's alright. I'm feeling strangely aware of my chest. Like there is a piston in my lungs, powering away."
George noticed that his pain was reduced, his breathes got longer and the air suddenly seemed less at a standstill.
"I feel much better, in point of fact."
The Doctor could not stop grinning. "You can thank future Martian explorers. Compact and easy. Works for about half an hour against the Carbon atmosphere but on good old earth? Practically a lifetime."
"Oh, I will stand up, I think."
The Doctor watched without interference or fear as the aged 46 year old Burmese-born writer, bedridden since 1948, stood upright and with an air of health he hadn't had for decades. He had stood before, but only for quick walks.
The Doctor gave him an expectant look. "Well, what d'you think, eh?"
George smiled as well as he could with his prematurely thinned lips. "I feel like I could march in Spain again, or walk in the country somewhere nice."
George noticed The Doctor practically skipping with his feet.
"Sorry, George, good old George, it's just...you haven't seen the best part." The Doctor gasped.
George looked down at his garments. "Do you mind if I change?"
"Oh, not at all, no. I found this cool outfit in a hospital too."
George rolled his eyes ever so slightly. "Cool? You sound English but you sometimes drop American words into your sentences."
The Doctor had no defence. "Well...you know, language changes George. You of all people know that."
As George stuck on more fashionable clothes, the Doctor with his eyes away, focused on the TARDIS.
"Yes Doctor. And it is changing for the worst. Any phrases that aren't some American recycling are some kind of political catch-all. Language is being moulded so that we don't have to think to use it, Doctor. And we should never stop thinking."
"Yes George, if only there was a word for that, eh? Simple, easy word that makes you think of language manipulation the moment you said it."
Now dressed, George turned round to look the Doctor down. "I think you missed the point of what I said."
The Doctor felt he was being slightly unfair. "No George, I just have a much more unique perspective."
George and the Doctor were standing in the middle of the corridor and for the first time, were of equal weight to the other.
"You are tall, aren't you?"
George nodded.
"I have a friend who is quite tall. A woman. Red hair. About my height."
"Yes well, it's hard to hide away when people hunt for me. Being 6 foot 2 inches is like being a tall poppy."
The Doctor suddenly dropped into incredulity and gesticulation. "George! Far too easy a metaphor! And you are the one that's always writing about how we think and write in lazy ways. If so George, tall poppy?" The Doctor acted almost insulted. "I have heard that before."
George looked timid in response to the Doctors charade and mumbled. "Sorry, it's been a while. I'm not my best."
The Doctor then turned sympathetic. "Oh all right, George, all right. It's ok. Got a bit caught up in the..."
"...In the what, Doctor?"
They stood for what seemed like twenty seconds but both men felt it was longer. Orwell because of the clock he had been forced to hear since he arrived and the Doctor because he hated consecutive, forward time. Without distractions, it would drive him mad.
"Anyway George, things to do, people to see. Things to see, people to...well, you get the picture."
The Doctor moved like a knight on a chessboard to the TARDIS door. He crashed through it and into the console room. George stood awkwardly for a moment, wondering where all the light was coming from only to find the small chinned Doctor return, head popped out like a child's toy soldier.
"Well, come along, George, come along!"
George stood firm as he got more used to his lungs working properly. He had a limp glint in his eye.
"Doctor I am not comfortable with the idea of us sharing such a tiny space."
The Doctor slinked back into the TARDIS, shouting back as he did. "George, such a homophobe. Your great failure as a man, if you ask me."
There was a distant electronic sound and Orwell could hear the Doctor muttering an apology, but not to him.
The Doctor then began to spout of about Orwell himself as well as talking what to Orwell was only nonsense. As he did, George eased closer to the blue box. Its paint was pleasant on the eye and George took the time to read the sign on its front.
..."And furthermore, they really miss the point a lot with you because you did as well. Socialists, communists, conservatives, all of them wanted a bit of you but in the end..." George wasn't listening. It was at first a chance angle. He saw, suddenly, that he could see very far off into what looked to be a circular room. He instantly was on guard and fascinated. Hand on the doorframe; George Orwell looked head on into the TARDIS.
To George, the sight was half-miraculous, half- horrifying. He was scared instantly to see so many different things, little things, moving about and functioning, all in the control of one man he had known for half an hour to be a child dressed as a man.
He became very uneasy of the Doctor and stepped inside slowly, holding on to whatever he could.
"Ah, finally, taking it in, I see. Don't bother trying to be witty or sarcastic. I have heard all of them"
The Doctor was running around in circles, prepping the TARDIS. Orwell stood and took it all in. He was almost excited, his lungs giving him breaths of air he had only dreamed of. But he was very uneasy about the Doctors intentions and abilities.
"Doctor, how big is this..."
"Spaceship, George. And I'm not actually all that sure. More than the earth's surface, I think but then, who is going to measure it? She probably knows but she is hard to talk to."
"She knows? Your ship?" George questioned.
"Yes. The TARDIS. She's a living working machine. The soul of the universe in one place. She's seen the end and the beginning, all the possible universes, one where you're left handed or right, one where I'm dead at 4 years old, others where the Daleks become pacifists."
The Doctor stood back and looked at his oldest, dearest and most loved friend. "She sees all of it, at once, forever. Giving her directions doesn't always work but she is usually better at picking locales than me."
"So time is like a...force that can be altered?"
"Sort of. It's nothing like that, but for the purposes of the layman..."
George was still looking around the TARDIS and then found himself without something he knew he would need.
"Err, Doctor, I just need to retrieve my diary, is that-"
"Oi!" The Doctor dramatically snapped his fingers and watched the door clamp shut well before Orwell even climbed down from the console. The Doctor then jumped right in front of the disappointed Orwell and spoke straight to his face.
"I know of you, Eric Arthur Blair. And I know that you write meticulously, daily. And let's just say I know you don't write about this."
George took pause as the Doctor retracted his head back, still facing the Time Lord.
"Do you kill me? With your time travel? Do I die on Mars in 2004 or some such nonsense?"
The Doctor was quite abruptly on the defensive. He knew it and turned around, pretending to be at work.
"Erm, no. Sorry can't tell you that."
"Why not?"
"Because by knowing your future you change it, by definition." He lied.
George was for a moment very unsure of anything. This wild creature in his blue box that sounded English but clearly was not, so far as he knew, might know when he died. George thought it best not to pry, but he was too curious.
"When do I die, Doctor?"
George wandered right up to him and gave him the hardest stare he could. The Doctor almost shrivelled under the man's black slits. He was determined suddenly. It reminded the Doctor of himself.
Yes, because NOW is the time to flatter myself.
"George Orwell, one of the most important writers who ever lived. I can't tell you. And the reason I can't tell you is because if I do I could create a rift." He said rapidly.
George was not satisfied. "A rift?"
"A rift or tear in Time. Time is a force, right? Well what I would be doing is destroying that force. And then, everything would tear apart. Imagine a universe with no life, no time."
"Are you making this up Doctor?"
The Doctor controlled his growing anger. "No George, I am not lying. If I tell you when you die, you will make me take you there and you will cause a rift and even if you don't..."
The Doctor flipped around and leaned on the console.
Trenzalore
"When you go to the point in time or space where you die, it just might be the actual reason you die. Say you die on mars in 2004 and say I knew it. If I take you there in the TARDIS, it WILL happen. If I don't, you never go there and live to be 101 instead." The Doctor took his turn to stare down George. "Understand?"
George spoke even more quietly than normal. "I don't understand fully. But I am willing to go on not knowing everything."
George laughed silently. "You did invite me, after all."
The Doctor paused for a moment, turned to face to the side of console parallel to George. He thought for a moment how dangerous it could be having George with him.
His death is a fixed point. His influence is too great to change it. In 4 months on January 21st, he dies. I can't change it.
The Time Lord sighed. To master time was not always a gift. Yes, you could attend a man's every birthday and have only 86 days pass, but you couldn't stop the big things. Not without a lot of deception and risk. The Time War still happens, Hitler still causes World War II and George Orwell still dies in 1950.
Then, that sentence that drove him on came back; reminding him of who was on board and of what was possible, even in the face of horrific inevitability.
Until then...
"Yes, George, I did invite you, I did. Now, all of time, space, all of earth, the moon, anywhere else you care to think of. Still want the future? The past, perhaps?" He thrust his hands outward as if in embrace.
"Where to?"
George barely thought for a moment before deciding.
"I want to hear a voice Doctor. A voice I have not heard for a long time."
"Well, spit out a name then." Said the Doctor, goading him on.
George looked at his host with sincerity.
"My own."
Authors Notes:
Well well. My first Doctor Who Fic. This fic will not be lasting too long. I have another very long term project I'm working on and with Doctor Who, I wish to take baby steps in fan fiction.
All reviews are appreciated and Thank you.