The Sofa of Reasonable Comfort

In contemplating my unfinished stories, I came across this fragment which I believe is as finished as I'm ever going to get it.  This came about in that very speculative time between Planet of the Dead and The Waters of Mars, when one of the popular theories was that RTD was going to wipe the Doctor quite clean and start us out in the Moffat era with a true reboot, not just a regeneration.  Clearly, that didn't happen, but I did play around with what it might be like to have the Tenth Doctor dealing with the thought that saving the universe (in whatever form the danger manifested) meant losing his memories and self.  I'm giving you this much preface because there isn't much of that explanation in the very short story itself, and I wanted to share a bit of a lost fragment.

Enjoy (I hope).

( Forget )

Another story in The Journey After series, set sometime after Listen and before Life on the Moon or Vintage.  There is a reference to a conversation from The Private Universe.  That being said, it's reasonably stand-alone, so those of you with no knowledge of the other stories should follow just fine.  Mostly, it's smut.  Yay, smut.  Thanks to platypus for beta work.

( The Doctor was trying to take in his surroundings, and entirely of its own volition, his attention kept circling back to one very distracting fact: Rose was wearing a skirt. )

It's been a long time since I posted anything, but it has always been my plan to keep writing Ten II and Rose in The Journey After series.  This is set vaguely around the timeframe of Vintage. Thanks to nonelvis for some brief beta work a million years ago when I started this. Spoilers for Journey's End, of course, but no other warnings.

Title from Erin McKeown's song "Life on the Moon."

Maybe someday we can live on the moon
but because we can, doesn't mean we have to

( Your moon. Still not our moon, or even the rather more impersonal this moon. Rose thought – well, that would come in time, wouldn't it, or would he always be a little distant, a little not quite part of this world? She wasn't sure which one she should wish for. )

I love Terry Pratchett so much for saying what he did in his recent guest blog for SFX.  The highlights (at least for me):

The Doctor himself has in recent years been built up into an amalgam of Mother Teresa, Jesus Christ (I laughed my socks off during the Titanic episode when two golden angels lifted the Doctor heavenwards) and Tinkerbell.

ILU TERRY.  If he'd noted the striking similarity between the aged Doctor and Dobby, I'd have fallen off the sofa laughing.

Doctor Who’s science is pixel thin. I’m sorry about this, but I just don’t think that you can instantly transport a whole hospital onto the moon without all of the windows blowing out. Oh! You use a force field, do you?!

One commenter quoted Arthur C. Clarke ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"), which I think is valid.  After all, the sonic screwdriver may be a magic wand, the TARDIS a magic carpet, and the Doctor a wizard, but if it's entertaining, I don't give a flying fuck if it's real science.  After all, I just listened to a podcast in which a very reputable scientist tried to break string theory down to the layperson.  The inner workings of the TARDIS make a great deal more sense to me.  Let's not also forget about the physicists who think the future is trying to prevent the LHC from creating the Higgs boson.  It may be provable (or not) but it's still deliciously cracky.

That being said, I will continue to agonize over my own pseudoscience in my Doctor Who fanfiction, thank you very much!  :)

Commentary for Listen, as requested by nonelvis . If anyone's interested in a commentary, fire away.

( Commentary )

For those of you mourning Ten and in angst following The End of Time, I give you a splendid, laugh-out-loud series of macros from orange_crushed featuring our favorite world dominator.  Spoilers for the episode, of course.

 io9 is full of spoilers and speculation in general, and the comments on this are wanktastic, but this was too funny not to share.

Play Along At Home: Doctor Who "End Of Time" Bingo Cards

More Ten II/Rose in The Journey After series, set following following Needful Things. Thanks to platypus for beta. Spoilers for Journey's End, of course, but no other warnings.

( In the wee hours of the night, the Doctor became fuzzily aware that Rose had untangled herself from him. )

This is fourth in a series featuring Ten II and Rose, following immediately after Tenses and Pronouns. Obviously, there are spoilers for Journey's End. Thanks to nonelvis and platypus for beta work. Adult content in this part.

Part One
Part Two

( With the rucksack that contained several days' worth of clothes and all of his earthly possessions on his shoulder, the Doctor followed Rose and Anna to the lift and out into the modern chaos that was the ground level of One Canada Square. )

This is fourth in a series featuring Ten II and Rose, following immediately after Tenses and Pronouns. Obviously, there are spoilers for Journey's End. There is also adult content.

Thanks as usual to nonelvis and platypus, who provided their usual excellent beta input including much gnashing of teeth over the appropriate title. In the end, the title is borrowed from a Crowded House song, which does not feature at all in the story.

( Despite his assurance to Rose that he was the same man, he felt like a stranger to himself in a way that he never had before. )