Assorted Eleven Era Gen (everything gen set during Eleven's reign, except those involving specific characters and relationships that have chapters of their own)
Title: Strange Incidents Aboard the TARDIS
Author: Queen of the Castle
Rating: PG
Character/s: Eleven, Amy
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 42: Mischief. Setting during Season 5, so vague spoilers may be present.
At first the Doctor thinks that some creature having a laugh has somehow snuck aboard the TARDIS, like that time when the console room desktop theme kept turning orange. His towels disappearing every time he showers is inconvenient, not least because he has to trek back to his room in the buff.
Scans of the TARDIS reveal nothing on board which shouldn't be, however.
He really should have realised that the one other living thing that is on the TARDIS is just the sort to do this.
He hears her giggle when he's naked in the corridor and sighs.
"Amy!"
Title: Picking Up Provisions
Rating: G
Character/s: Eleven, Amy
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 56: Fisher. Set during Season 5.
"You want us to go fishing?" Amy asked.
"Fish custard, remember!" the Doctor said, catching his rod momentarily against the TARDIS door as he bounded outside into the drizzle. "We're out of fish."
"Can't you just go buy some?"
"With what money?"
The Doctor looked back at her, eager-eyed, and gestured for her to follow.
Amy rolled her eyes. "Does this look like a fishing outfit?" she muttered.
Well, better to let him get it out of his system, she thought. She crossed her fingers for an alien invasion to get her out of a day otherwise spent in monotony.
Title: Alone in the Light
Rating: G
Character/s: Amy, Eleven
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 75: Light. Set during 'Flesh and Stone'.
They kept leaving her. She should be worried for them, since they seem to have faded out of existence. It shouldn't bother her more that she's been left behind. She was nothing to them other than some girl they were protecting. It still does hurt, though. Because although she doesn't think the Doctor intended to leave her here alone by leaving without her, that's how she's ended up. She's alone, and the Angels are coming, and she can't even open her eyes.
She wonders whether, if that light reaches her, the Doctor will even recall that he left her behind.
Title: To Make the World Right
Rating: G
Character/s: Eleven
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 102: Silence. Set during 'The Beast Below'.
The girl cries silently. The Doctor wonders how even these terribly frightened people can stand to keep walking by. He can tell by their looks that they don't need to ask her what's wrong. Surely, though, that's not the only reason to stop. If they weren't so caught up in themselves, they might decide to comfort the girl.
They don't. But someone has to. And the greatest comfort, for a girl who can't cry out loud because of how wrong the world she lives in has gone, is obviously to make that world right again.
The Doctor's good at that.
Title: His Still Clear Conscience
Rating: PG
Character/s: Rory, Amy, Eleven
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 111: Live and Let Live. Set during 'The Big Bang'.
It took the power of Amy's mind, and the Doctor returning in the middle of his wedding reception, but Rory remembered.
Two thousand years. He remembered all of it, even though he'd never actually quite lived it.
He remembered being alone, with nothing to do but look after a cube with the woman he loved stored away inside.
Even more so, though, he remembered having to defend the box.
Rory Williams had never killed, no matter how hard they tried to beat him down to get to what he was protecting. He looked back at that now and was proud.
Title: Helping People
Rating: G
Character/s: Rory
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 117: Improbability. Set during 'The Hungry Earth'.
Do I look like the police? Rory thought with a bewildered shake of his head.
Granted, to the little family, it must seem improbable that some random civilian would stroll out of something clearly labelled 'police' just after they'd called for assistance.
Rory found that, for once, he didn't really mind the mistake. He liked that someone might immediately look at him and see a person who could help. That was why he was so interested in medicine, after all.
The Doctor travelled the universe helping people. Put that way, Rory could see why Amy might never want to leave.
Title: A Lingering Sense of Sadness
Rating: PG
Character/s: Amy, Eleven
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 127: Forgetful. Set at the end of 'Cold Blood'.
Amy seemed ecstatic. She also seemed miserable.
The Doctor understood how the two could converge. He frequently felt a plethora of emotions at once. Things could get complicated that way.
What the Doctor couldn't quite understand was why Amy might feel unhappy.
There was something there, on the edge of the Doctor's consciousness. The Doctor, being a Time Lord, saw the world very differently to simple humans, but even he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
He'd forgotten something that had made Amy terribly sad, and so had she. They'd forgotten.
That really couldn't be good, the Doctor thought.
Title: Obvious Differences
Rating: G
Character/s: Eleven, Craig Owens
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 130: Art. Set during 'The Lodger'.
Every now and then, the Doctor received a glimpse of how he appeared to other people. Most of the time he didn't care. It was his way or the highway (well, the Time Vortex), and anyone who couldn't accept that didn't interest him long term. But, seeing multiple different species across the universe and travelling with assorted humans, sometimes it struck him how different he must appear to them.
"It's art," he claimed.
Craig didn't believe it for a second. To him, the Doctor must have seemed insane.
Sometimes, he wished there was someone out there who actually understood him.
Title: Overpowering Disbelief
Rating: G
Character/s: Amy, Eleven
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 142: Overwhelming. Set during 'The Eleventh Hour'.
She's been waiting fourteen years for this moment. Fourteen years of other children snickering at her, and psychiatrists, and having to stay in Leadworth when she'd been so sure that she was getting out of there. The Doctor had offered to take her away. He'd told her five minutes. She'd stupidly believed it.
Fourteen years later, knowing how he lied, she's stopped believing almost everything he told her back then. But then she steps into the blue police box and sees how massive and strange it is inside.
She's overwhelmed. It's like magic, but it's also so real.
She laughs.
Title: Memories of Past Mistakes
Rating: PG
Character/s: Eleven, Amy, Adelaide Brooke
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 146: Riding. Set early during Season Five. References to 'The Waters of Mars'.
The wind catches Amy's laughter as they cycle on a tandem bike across the planet's capital city.
The Doctor remembers the last time he'd suggested that bikes would be a good idea. Jogging along beside him, slowly becoming more and more entrenched in the thrill of the danger that dogged the Doctor's whole life, Adelaide had finally admitted that he'd been right about that.
He'd made Adelaide come around to his way of thinking in so many ways. That's what had caused her death, in the end.
Amy knows nothing of any of that. He vows never to tell her.
Title: Not Quite What Was Expected
Rating: PG
Character/s: Eleven, River
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 154: Marriage. Set sometime long after Season 5.
When River Song whispered the Doctor's real name, he'd known that it meant that one day they'd be married. He didn't guess, though, that their marriage would be at gunpoint, with him feeling nothing but affectionate amusement for her.
She'd been flirtatiously running her hands over him, unheeding of his instructions to stop that already. The locals had arrested them for public lewdness and insisted they be married or executed.
He doesn't love her like that, but she's his best friend. He trusts her completely. So when the ceremony requires him to give her his name, he doesn't even hesitate.
Title: Museums
Rating: G
Character/s: Eleven
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 174: First Doctor Titles, using 'The Space Museum'. Set during 'The Time of Angels'.
Amy and River mocked him for his desire to visit the museums of the universe to see what had become of his past actions, but they didn't understand. He couldn't look back in on the people he tried to help directly, because seeing how their lives never went precisely the way he'd hoped was too depressing. It was easier when it was about artefacts, not beings.
Museums gave him distance, and perspective. They had a scale beyond the smaller picture of individual mediocrity.
Museums, unlike people, never made him wonder why he bothered travelling the universe in the first place.
Title: A Foregone Conclusion
Rating: G
Character/s: Sally Sparrow, Eleven
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 204: Nuts.
"Hello, Sally Sparrow. I'm the Doctor."
"But... what? The Doctor? As in..."
"Impossible time travelling alien; that's me!"
"But I've seen the Doctor. You're nothing like him."
"I've changed a bit. It's a thing. Go with it."
"You're completely mad, aren't you?"
"So I've been told. Are you going to let that stop you?"
"Stop me from what?"
"From travelling with me, of course." The Doctor gestured to the TARDIS. "I swear it won't leave you behind this time."
Sally couldn't help but think, looking at him, that he needed her to say yes.
As if she'd say anything else.
Title: Staying Constant
Rating: G
Character/s: Eleven, Amelia, implications of Doctor/Rose
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 208: Bananas. Set during 'The Eleventh Hour'.
He's eaten (and spit out) all sorts of foods, including an assortment of different fruits. He hasn't been able to try bananas, though. He asks for one, of course, but Amelia claims she doesn't have any. What sort of house doesn't stock bananas? Bananas are good.
Or are they still? He desperately wants to know whether these tastebuds are predisposed towards bananas. He's loved bananas for several bodies running now, and he hates to think that might change.
He's lost everything else. One thing staying constant would be nice.
And he'd shared his love of bananas with her. It's important.
Title: The Curse of the Immortal
Rating: PG
Character/s: Jack, Eleven
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 213: Watch.
They both know what it's like to watch everyone they love slowly die as (or before) their time comes due. It's the curse of the immortal that they can do nothing but watch.
It's been years for both of them since they last met, but it's as if no time had passed. Neither of them has changed on the surface. Not recently, anyway.
Jack sees the devastated expression on the Doctor's face and knows immediately that he's back here, with Jack, because he's lost someone yet again. He's come back looking for something constant. Jack can give him that much.
Title: Hormonal
Rating: G
Character/s: Eleven
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 244: Flummery. Set during 'The Eleventh Hour'.
Custard. Fish fingers.
In previous lives, he recalls eating these things and, for the most part, not minding either. They were good foods in their own right. Now he finds that the combination, which would disgust any of his other bodies (and seemingly any sane human being, as well), is the only thing he can stand the taste of.
For the first time, the Doctor understands the odd cravings that human pregnant women seem to develop.
Then the Doctor realises he's equating this new body with a hormonal expectant mother. That can't be a sign of good things to come.
Title: Taking His Chances
Rating: G
Character/s: Rory, Amy, Eleven
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 249: Quarantine. Set between 'Amy's Choice' and 'The Hungry Earth'.
"No, no. Rory, you don't want to go in there. Amy's very contagious. We don't need two sick humans aboard the TARDIS. That would be just... no."
"I'm a nurse. I'll take my chances," Rory said, pushing past.
"If it's so contagious, how come he didn't get sick, huh?" Amy asked, her outrage punctuated by a sneeze. "And another thing..."
"Oh." Rory turned to the Doctor. "She's doing that thing, isn't she? Where she gets on a roll with her ranting?"
The Doctor smiled slightly. "I did try to give you an out."
"And someone better get me soup! Pronto!"
Title: Swarming Like Bees
Rating: G
Character/s: Eleven
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 267: Pandemonium. Set during 'The Pandorica Opens'.
An overwhelming number of his enemies swarmed in the sky like bees circling an impenetrable hive.
Those foes of his should have been attacking each other. They should have been picking each other off like flies, or like the Cybermen and the Daleks had when they'd met at Canary Wharf those many years ago. He should have been left with just one enemy to face, which he just might have been able to take care of.
That wasn't happening.
There was a word for this level of insanity: pandemonium.
Oh well, the Doctor thought. He'd always worked best under pressure.
Title: A Nation or a Universe (The Decisions of Men in Power)
Rating: PG
Character/s: Eleven, Winston Churchill
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 294: Panjandrum. Set during 'The Victory of the Daleks'.
As human leaders throughout time went, Winston Churchill wasn't the worst of them. Not by a long shot. However, the man still had the ability to drive the Doctor nearly insane with his obvious self-importance.
"This isn't just about Great Britain," the Doctor tried to explain. "The Daleks could destroy the whole Earth. The whole universe!"
Churchill just shook his head irritably. "I'm charged with the protection of my nation, Doctor. I can't care about the rest of it now."
Humans in power and their lack of foresight. The Doctor gritted his teeth and resolved to fix the problem himself.
Title: That Instinct Towards Destruction
Rating: PG
Character/s: Eleven
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 307: Charge. Set during 'Victory of the Daleks'.
Even after all this time dealing with human violence, he still can't even begin to comprehend it. The human race, or Great Britain more specifically, has once again laid hands on alien technology and decided that the best way to use it must be to kill their fellows more efficiently. Humans are about so much more than bloodshed, hatred and warfare; he knows that. But sometimes the Doctor watches them destroy themselves and wonders.
The Daleks are on Earth again, and Churchill's instinct is to charge into battle with them. The Doctor hopes he can stop all this in time.
Title: The Decision to Fall
Rating: G
Character/s: River, Eleven
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 316: Vacuum. Set during 'The Time of Angels'.
River can't imagine not being able to do this. Not being able to make the choice to fall, knowing that she'll be caught.
She flings herself away from immediate danger into the vacuum of space, knowing there's no real danger for her there. She doesn't even have to gasp for air. He steps in at the exact moment that she needs him to.
She falls onto him, catching how shocked that makes him look, and knows immediately that for him it's once again early days.
Yet even now, he's always there for her. Even if he doesn't know why yet.
Title: Part of a Pair
Rating: G
Character/s: Eleven, TARDIS
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 327: Wildlife. Set sometime after Series 6.
The Doctor finds himself companionless, but certainly not alone.
She might no longer be a woman with wild hair and even wilder mannerisms, who would kiss him in the same breath as cursing him, but he knows his TARDIS is still the same underneath. When he talks to her, she understands him, even if it's in a very different way to how a human companion (or even he himself) understands words and concepts.
All she can do is hum at him, but that's all right. It's enough to remind him that he's never alone as long as he has her.
Title: The Blank Slate of Humanity
Rating: PG
Character/s: Eleven
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 332: Space Race. Set around 'Day of the Moon'.
He'd always wondered why humans were so obsessed with their moon. It's just a lifeless rock orbiting their planet, and there are so many more interesting things out in the depths of space.
He supposes he shouldn't be surprised that it's an alien plot, in the end. He's never met a race more willing to cede control to others than humans. It's enough that he wishes he could step in and...
But that would make him no better than the Silence, or the Daleks, or any of the other would-be conquerors.
He treads too close to that darkness as is.