Commentary: tCbtS, chapter 17

[kalleah]

momacress requested chapter seventeen of The Calm Before the Storm, which tickled me. The whole purpose of this chapter was for them to have fun before they get serious and leave the monastery, and for me to geek out a bit. I think it worked fairly well on both those counts.

...

They spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the ruins, or rather, they did after Rose had persuaded the Doctor that he should wear more than just his socks and trainers to do so. She wasn't entirely sure if he was teasing or not, but the idea of him clambering atop half collapsed walls in the altogether made her nervous. "What about sunburn?" she had asked, eyeing his pale, freckled skin.

He had absolutely no qualms about being naked outdoors in the last chapter, and the mental image of naked!Doctor climbing around the ruins amuses me. And, as pale as he is, how could Rose not think about sunburn? That could be terribly unfortunate.

"Not a problem," he answered sagely.

Superior Time Lord skin, I suppose. I'll point to his freezing ordeal in 42 and assume a little UV radiation isn't going to be a big deal.

"Got some sunscreen in one of your pockets, then?"

Unfortunate Americanism, and I'm sure not the last. One of these days I am going to go back and re-edit this whole story. ::glares::

At that, with another mutter about laughing at a naked man not being at all polite, he had clambered into his clothes and fastened his tie with a puppy-dog look at her. She planted a wet kiss on the end of his nose in response.

"Minx," he said, affectionately, and offered her his hand, which she took willingly.

Poor Doctor. Of course, despite his many protests about Rose laughing at him while he's naked, I think he secretly likes the attention.

His explanations about building styles, masonry, carpentry, and a dozen other topics provided a constant soundtrack to the day, with Rose occasionally following along enough to ask a question. When she did, he was invariably delighted and gave her a more detailed explanation than she wanted. This is what he does, she thought good-naturedly. He rattles.

He stopped abruptly and pulled the sketch pad out of a pocket, earning a curious look from Rose, and sketched some of the walls and lines of the buildings. She studied the drawings over his shoulder, not sure what he saw in one fairly unremarkable brick column in particular.

Now, he's drawing again. I wrote this before S3 and Human Nature. I would protest that they used my idea, but … I kind of used theirs first. Oh well.

When she asked about it, he traced a series of four-sided shapes in the air in front of the column and the wall before it. "Just a coincidence, I'm sure," he said. "When it was built, the architect deliberately used the golden ratio for several rectangles in the church and other buildings here. Now, it's fallen apart, but it just caught my eye that its remaining parts are also composed of golden rectangles. A little touching, that the original aesthetic sense of the architect is still evident in the ruin."

"Golden what?"

The whole impetus for this digression came from one of the occasional Wikipedia reading sessions I got into. You know what I'm talking about. Everyone's done it. You look up one thing and then look at another article and before you know it you're looking at something entirely unrelated and bizarrely fascinating. I hadn't thought about the golden ratio since college. Anyway, if you want it.

"Golden ratio, golden rectangles." He squatted and drew a line in the earth with his finger. "Now this line, here, is composed of two parts, a and b. Follow?" Rose nodded. "The ratio of part a to part b is the same as the whole line is to part a. That's a golden section, this line. The golden ratio is the formula for the relationship, usually represented by the Greek letter phi." He wrinkled his nose. "In a golden rectangle -- that's what I saw here -- the ratio of the longer side is to the shorter side is the golden ratio. There's a lot of debate as to whether the Greeks and others intentionally used it in their architecture or whether they just stumbled across some geometry that happened to be pleasing to the eye." He winked. "I might have more information, but that would be telling."

The golden ratio is a remarkable coincidence, or illustration of a grand plan, however you choose to take it. The Doctor could have lectured for pages on it. Google it, and blame me for the time you lose.

"You told the Greeks about the golden ratio," said Rose, a little more than slightly confused.

"I didn't say that," said the Doctor cautiously, looking around as if for eavesdroppers, and stood, wiping over the line with one foot.

I love the "no Doctor here" act.

"I'll just say that the human brain is programmed to see the golden ratio as aesthetically pleasing. You look for it in faces, bodies, art, buildings. Actually, you're not the only species that's true for, which is quite interesting in and of itself. And, the ratio pops up in plant life, solar system formation, and a lot of other unlikely places. Geometry seems to be a more universal language than physics, and much more so than that crazy Esperanto your people came up with." He winced. "The TARDIS refuses to translate Esperanto, did you know that? I had to learn it myself once to keep a mining colony from being destroyed."

I do not know why I find Esperanto so damn funny, but I do. I also used it to skewer the reader's dear sensibilities in Voyages of Discovery, while Rose is separated from the Doctor.

"How long did that take you?" Rose smiled at him.

"One minute, forty-eight seconds."

"No," gasped Rose in mock horror. "Almost two whole minutes?"

"I hadn't had breakfast." He shrugged. "I'm not always at my best."

Show off. They both love it.

She laughed and swung into his arms, causing him to drop the sketch pad and pencil. "Oi," he protested. "Now it's got dirt on it. Have you no respect for art?" He released her and retrieved the items in question, exaggeratedly brushing the pad off and giving her a stern look. "Miss Tyler," he said. "You're in for it now."

"Oh?"

He put the pad and pencil away and leaped toward her, turning her back against him, wrapping one arm around her, and ticking her with the other while he mock-growled into her ear. She shrieked and wiggled. He gripped her fiercely. "Apologize!"

TICKLE FIGHT!

"Never!" He retaliated with more tickling until she refused to stand up, letting her knees go weak and pulling at his arms. He let go all at once and she dropped unceremoniously onto the ground with a thud, jarring her teeth together. "Ow," she said. The Doctor was immediately on one knee beside her, searching her face and body for any sign of obvious injury. He looked genuinely worried and Rose laughed to reassure him. "I'm fine, I'm fine," she said. "And I'm sorry I made you drop your pad."

It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Leave it to the Doctor to get worried about a possible injury sustained in a tickle fight.

He helped her to her feet and brushed the dirt from her bottom with considerable care. She picked a few leaves out of her hair. "Apology accepted," he chirped brightly. She gave him a wondering look. "Are you hungry?"

Rose started to make a witty rejoinder about his constant need to talk or have something in his mouth, but she remembered their encounter this morning and thought she couldn't go another round with him on sexual innuendo. "Sure," she said.

Ah, sex al fresco. I won't digress on that point.

He rummaged through his pockets. "Apples are around here somewhere. Oh, look, Rose!" He pulled out a metal spring with a few wires hanging off one end. "I've been looking for that for ages. Ah, here are the apples." She took one apple from him and watched him tuck the mystery part back in a pocket, wondering if he'd ever find it again.

He won't. He's also got two empty beer bottles somewhere in those pockets, and they shagged on it earlier without glass breakage (which would have been terribly unfortunate).

He crunched happily into his apple. Rose held the stem between her thumb and forefinger and twirled the apple around several times before it came loose with a pop. She gave the stem to the Doctor, just to see what he'd do, and he did indeed put it in his pocket, although a different one than the apples had come from.

"Is that the dustbin pocket, then?"

"Nope," he said. "Biological samples." He reached in and pulled out several green, waxy leaves. She looked at them, perplexed. "You saw me pick them," he reminded her. "When we first arrived." She still looked blank. "Camellia japonica, for comparison to Camellia sinensis. Don't you remember?"

"Oh, right. I didn't think you were still carrying them around."

"Absolutely. I haven't had time to run any tests yet."

He's a dork. Incidentally, the leaves are still floating around in Voyages, I think, so he never remembers to do any testing.

She ate her apple and regarded him. He held the camellia leaves in one hand and the apple in the other, and studied the leaves between bites. He seemed to come to some conclusion and tucked the leaves back into the pocket.

"What are you going to do with the apple stem?" she asked, curiosity finally getting the better of her.

"Toss it," he said, with a grin. She snorted. "What? It's not like I haven't studied an apple before. Really, Rose, you need to think these things through before you ask."

"I thought there were no stupid questions."

"Oh, I never said that. There certainly are stupid questions. And stupid question-askers, too, although you aren't one of them. That was just a poorly thought out question. If you'd met me just after I had eaten my first apple, and asked about an apple stem, I would have responded quite differently. So not a stupid question, just a few centuries too late to be meaningful."

There are entirely too many stupid question-askers in the world. But he's right; it's all about context.

Rose was taken by a curious thought, and wondered if this would be a stupid question. "Could I meet you then? I mean, a younger you."

"Not a good idea at all," said the Doctor. "Causality, all that. What if I recognized you later when we met at the shop? Catastrophe."

"Reapers?" she asked tentatively.

"Nah," he said, "nothing so serious as that, but a paradox that I'd prefer not to have to unravel. Besides, I don't think you would have liked that particular version of me very much."

The First Doctor, of course. One can debate whether or not Rose would immediately love the Doctor in all his forms, but I think she would have liked some of his incarnations more or less than others.

"I liked the last version of you."

It was his turn to snort. "And that proves there's no accounting for taste. Those ears, the angst, what in the universe were you thinking?"

"I thought you were funny." She smiled. "And sweet."

"Only a little, and I'll thank you not to mention that in public."

A Time Lord has to keep some semblance of pride. Bear in mind that this takes place after Fear Her, so he's been pretty substantially whipped by Rose already.

She hugged him tightly. He dropped his mostly eaten apple with a thump and wound his arms around her. "I like you now, too," she said, her eyes suddenly stinging.

"I know," he responded, nuzzling her neck. "I like you, too." A pause. "Even if you laugh at me when I'm naked."

"You laughed first."

"No, I laughed at your prudish human sensibilities about sex, not at your body. Never ever at that. I think I said a number of rather flattering things about your body. Actually, I know I did. And then you laughed at me."

Go back and read it. He's right, even if he was a bastard for the "close your eyes and think of England" joke.

Rose kissed his cheek. "I laughed at the socks. Your body," she hesitated. "Well, you're very attractive."

He sniffed imperiously. "That all you have to say?"

He's not above fishing for compliments.

"Foxy, even."

"You're not the one who said that."

"Do you have any idea how confusing it was to still miss the other you and want the new you just as badly?" she blurted out all in a rush.

Whoops. Fluff turned quite unexpectedly into angst. Well, it's bound to happen from time to time, and it's a valid question considering the conversation.

He leaned back and took her face in his hands. "Yes," he said simply. "I saw you struggle and I didn't want to interfere. I thought -- well, I thought it was a bad idea to get involved. We've covered that." He sighed. "Rose, I wanted you before I regenerated and I wanted you after, just differently. It's hard to explain. The body's different, the mind is different, but it's still me underneath, just with new likes and dislikes and quirks. But I came into this body wanting you and that's never changed."

Same sentiment that he expressed (although in an entirely unrelated AU 'verse) in my post-JE story The Quiet Chamber.

"Same here," she said.

He smiled a little knowing smile. "I didn't see much evidence of that at the start. You seemed quite eager to get the old me back."

"I thought -- I thought you were dead."

"I should have told you about it before," he said. "It's not the first time someone has reacted badly to my regenerating." The unspoken and it won't be the last hung in the air between them. "I scared you and I could have made it easier. I'm sorry for that."

Not that he learns from that mistake and warns any of his subsequent companions, but hey.

"Apology accepted," she said softly. He kissed her tenderly on the lips, and for a moment she almost remembered the kiss she had shared with the other him, the golden light and the music.

"We ought to be heading back soon," he said, some regret in his words. "We've got a long walk and should be back before dark. Jacob would worry."

"Mmm," she said, not moving, and truthfully, leaning closer into his embrace.

"You're not helping," he said. "This was quite a lovely place to spend an afternoon but I for one don't fancy spending the night here. For one thing, it's going to rain. For another, as you so delicately pointed out to me earlier, this coat of mine doesn't make a great bed."

We still have those glass bottles to contend with.

Rose had to agree, and they ambled off in the direction of the new monastery, hand in hand.

"So," she asked, "why did they move from this site to the new one? I mean, if you said they had been rebuilding on the new site for so long, why not just do it there?"

"Water," said the Doctor. "There was a bad storm that drove a great deal of salt water inland, and for several years, they ended up having to trek miles out of the way to get fresh water. When there was a fire here, it made much more sense to rebuild nearer a reliable source of water than to do it here and end up hauling so much."

The monastery was based on Mepkin Abbey, in coastal South Carolina, and while the Abbey has never relocated (and isn't that old), a hurricane can radically change the layout of the land and the availability of fresh water.

"Makes sense."

"Monks are generally quite practical. Well, except for the whole belief in a higher power and an afterlife."

Hee.

Rose rolled her eyes at him. "Don't be rude."

"It was a compliment! I said 'practical,' didn't I? And the faith, it's a nice dream, but a dream." He squeezed her hand. "I can think of worse failings to have."

Many times in this 'verse, he's expressed envy of someone of deep faith – that they can have such an abiding sense of purpose and a higher power, because it makes things so much simpler.

"Obviously, or Jacob wouldn't be your friend."

"Honestly," said the Doctor, "I'm not quite sure why he puts up with me. I unloaded several lifetimes' worth of angst on him in my last visit and refused to talk about any of it, for one. There's also that time when he was at university -- well, that's another story."

The university story will probably go untold for all time, but I have written a good bit of the Doctor's last visit to the monastery and will share it … eventually. It's Nine, right after the Time War. Angst probably doesn't do it justice, but the Doctor predictably glosses right over that.

"Oh, tell it," said Rose.

The Doctor shook his head. "Not today. Maybe another day. I was rather a cad, and I am rather enjoying your flattery, at least when you're not laughing at me."

Rose laughed. The Doctor, smiling, took it in stride.

Comments

[salienne.livejournal.com]

After reading this, I totally just want you to write commentary for the entire series of fics in this 'verse.

...That would probably take a bit too much time on your part, right?

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

After reading this, I totally just want you to write commentary for the entire series of fics in this 'verse.

HA!

...That would probably take a bit too much time on your part, right?

Just a little. It is a lovely distraction when I don't feel like actually writing anything, though.

[salienne.livejournal.com]

Hey, if you ever want to distract yourself and put the results up on your lj, I for one will not complain.

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

I'll keep that in mind. Anyway, if you want a particular chapter, just ask. ;)

[platypus]

"Got some sunscreen in one of your pockets, then?"

Wait, what's the Americanism? Sunscreen? Pockets? (Good thing you don't keep me around for Britpicking.)

One of these days I am going to go back and re-edit this whole story.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Well, I guess you can fix typos. Maybe. *twitch*

Seeing this chapter again reminds me that I could do with a re-read of the story. It's one of the quieter chapters where there aren't any huge revelations or steps forward in the relationship, and still it's wonderful.

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

Wait, what's the Americanism?

Sunscreen.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Well, I guess you can fix typos. Maybe. *twitch*

I meant for typos, Americanisms, and some minor editing stuff i missed along the way. No big deal. :)

Seeing this chapter again reminds me that I could do with a re-read of the story. It's one of the quieter chapters where there aren't any huge revelations or steps forward in the relationship, and still it's wonderful.

Thanks. :)

[platypus]

So what do they call sunscreen in England? The term does seem to be in use, from a rough search.

[sazzrah.livejournal.com]

We call it sun tan lotion. :)

[papilio-luna.livejournal.com]

Is that what we used to call it in the US too, or is this yet another confusing piece of fallout from having a Canadian father? (Honestly, the number of years it took me to figure out which words have "u"s in them and which don't is shameful)

[sazzrah.livejournal.com]

No idea about it's use in the US, but I know the phrase "sunscreen" isn't in use here. We know what it means, like many other Americanisms due to television but we don't use it ourselves. Maybe some Brits will say sun cream, but that's as close as it gets. I've never known it as anything other than suntan lotion personally.

About 'U'... Americans have something against the letter 'U'. You all have an incessant need to remove it from words where it was perfectly acceptable for it to be! Poor 'U'... gets no love.

[papilio-luna.livejournal.com]

Writing Who fic now and using British spellings, it sort of feels like coming home. I had to force myself to use the American spellings as a child but they always looked weird to me. But if I wanted to pass my spelling tests I kind of had to. Now that I've reverted back, it just feels so much more natural!

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

I always said "sun tan lotion" growing up and I think it's been a fairly recent change (say, the last fifteen years) to say "sunscreen." I guess skin cancer helped change the attitude. :)

[blackcat-1.livejournal.com]

Er, well I'm a Brit and I say sunscreen. So do lots of other people I know.

[sazzrah.livejournal.com]

Thats a new one on me blackcat, I've never heard anyone ever call it that in my 25 years of living in London. Maybe it's regional?

I really can't imagine someone like Rose ever using that phrase either, she's from the same neck of the woods as me and yeah, never heard it only on American TV. They don't even call it that on the adverts! lol

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

Well, I am happy to hear that my Americanism might not be quite as bad as I thought ... but when/if I make edits, I'll change it. Pshaw.

[sazzrah.livejournal.com]

I think its more a case of Americanisms bleeding into the British culture. Other ones I can think off the top of my head are words like "loser", "guys", "guess" in the context of "I guess so" etc... They just get adopted because we hear them so much on TV. "Sunscreen" is probably amongst them.

[platypus]

I always thought suntan lotion was stuff that made you tan more.

Forget Briticisms; I can't even do Americanisms right :).

[papilio-luna.livejournal.com]

Yay thank you!

I left you a review at Teaspoon just yesterday for this chapter, but in my current WIP I had the Doctor composing an ode to the Golden Mean in his head while relaxing and watching butterflies (if I'm not mistaken, butterfly eyespots are often golden ratio-y) and someone commented with "Hey, a little homage to Kalleah's story!" and I went "???" So then I had to go and read it.

I love Naked Outside with Socks and Trainers Doctor. I don't know why it's so easy for us all to imagine him as so uninhibited when in the actual show we all start flipping out if we can, like, see his forearm because you never see him anything less than fully dressed (aside from that one time ~glances at icon~). But there's just something about him that screams "Secret Nudist!"

Anyway, thank you very much again for your annotations. This really is the Best Meme Ever and so awesome for procrastinating!

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

in my current WIP I had the Doctor composing an ode to the Golden Mean in his head while relaxing and watching butterflies

I am such a dunce. I never realized you were the_tenzo also. Okay then. :)

[papilio-luna.livejournal.com]

It's my multiple personalities. Actually, it's that I have several IRL friends who read my LJ and they must never ever know I write fanfic (let alone Doctor Who fanfic) or else I will never hear the end of it. I know I should stick up for my fandom, but...yeah. I'm a coward. My husband barely even pretends to understand, I doubt that the people that I used to work with at the health food store would ever stop laughing. Fortunately, none of them are fannish in any way so I can put a discreet "fic journal" link on my LJ and none of them will know what it means.

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's that I have several IRL friends who read my LJ and they must never ever know I write fanfic (let alone Doctor Who fanfic) or else I will never hear the end of it.

I am 100% with you on that. LJ is quite purposefully separate from everything else I do online -- different username and no linking back and forth.

[blackcat-1.livejournal.com]

Same sentiment that he expressed (although in an entirely unrelated AU 'verse) in my post-JE story The Quiet Chamber

Amen to you. I see it as being very similar to the whole regeneration concept.

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

Amen to you. I see it as being very similar to the whole regeneration concept.

Ten -> Ten II was an incomplete regeneration, so I agree completely.

[larielromeniel.livejournal.com]

The university story will probably go untold for all time,

Awwwww!