Friday, December 28, 2012

Doctor Who fanfic: Counting with Fairies


Takes place immediately after Big Finish story "Dark Eyes." 
Synopsis: Molly O'Sullivan has left to go back to the war, but Dr. Sally Armstrong was alive again, thanks to Molly's changing history for the better.  Sally is a scientist and when the Doctor lets her pick where in time she wants to go, she chooses to see Pascal Blaise's first mechanical calculator.  Seems a straightforward enough of a request for the Doctor, but nothing with him ever goes quite to plan.  Fairies are appearing in 17th century France, making the locals very nervous.
Story in progress, enjoy and review.

Chapter 1
The Doctor watched Molly disappear behind the tent city that surrounded the once stately châteaux.  He stood at the threshold of the TARDIS and listened to the cries coming from the hundreds of wounded soldiers in those tents.  It took nerves of steel to work in those makeshift hospitals, but it took guts to voluntarily go back when you've had a taste of freedom from those horrors.  And that is just what Molly had - guts, and lots of them.

He closed the door and went back to the small table where Molly had left her farewell note to him.  He frowned and almost a moment later, he smiled.  Molly O'Sullivan.  She had infuriated him more than once in their short time together, but she had also made him laugh.  A true genuine laugh.  He had not truly laughed like that in a very long time.
He had been sent to save Molly and he had done just that.  The Daleks had not succeeded in killing her.  But she had saved his life several times.  He could think of two separate occasions where she had actually dragged his unconscious body away from the firing range of the Daleks.  She had saved him from a botched blood transfusion that most certainly would have killed him if it had gone on a few minutes more.  And she had helped him to clear his lungs of the horrible mustard gas that he had been directly exposed to on the battlefield.  The more he thought about their short time together, the more instances he could think of where she had been the one to save him.

Of course, he smiled to himself, she had inflicted quite a bit of pain on him as well.  She had punched him twice in the face.  The first punch had been powerful enough to knock him out.
Molly had been hard working and brave.  She stood up to anyone who stood in her way, but she was also kind and willing to extend a hand of friendship.  She was never a victim, even though life had not been easy for her.  She stood up for what she believed in and wasn't afraid to call the Doctor out if he showed any signs of hypocrisy.  He had preached hope to her, but he had been unable to believe in it himself.  Molly had even once called him a "flaming idiot," which should have made him angry, but considering the circumstances and hearing her say it in her down-to-earth Irish lilt, the insult was rather comical and perhaps, just perhaps, very slightly true.

Despite her stubbornness and the exasperating way she was always messing about with the console controls, he had liked Molly.  She had known a hard life of work and servitude and now was in the thankless position as a World War I VAD, but it had only made her stronger and she worked harder for a better life.  In the end, she had left him.  He had planned on taking Molly with him, to travel with him, but she had a strong sense of duty and love for the soldiers she helped to care for.  She left the Doctor a farewell letter and had snuck out of the TARDIS, returning to the horrors of war.
The Doctor went to the console controls.  He set the TARDIS in flight in the vortex.  He decided he would go back for Molly one day.  Perhaps when the war was over.  Of course it would be easy for him to travel a few years ahead in Earth's history and just go right to the end of the war and pick up Molly.  He could do that in his sleep, but he decided he needed a little time away from Molly.

One side of his face was still a little tender from the last punch she had thrown him.  He wanted to travel with Molly again, but not just yet.
He picked up Molly's letter again and re-read it.  "I realize now that with everything Kotris did undone, my Kitty will still be alive."  He read that line several times before its meaning really sunk in - everything that had happened while he and Molly had been together had all been undone when Kotris had died.  That meant that Dr. Sally Armstrong at the Ides Scientific Institute would still be alive. 

The Doctor had felt so terrible after watching a Dalek kill Sally.  He had watched way to many people die at the hands of the Daleks over the many centuries of his life.  Dear friends and family had been killed by them right in front of his eyes.  Some of the deaths were still so recent for him and the holes left in his hearts from their deaths were still so fresh, that after he watched Sally fall, he was ready to give up.  He had come unglued and suicidal.  He gave himself up to the Daleks ready to accept his extermination.  If Molly hadn't been there with her common sense, he would have died right next to Sally.  Now the thought made him shiver with horror.
Sally.  He would go see Sally.  She had wanted so much to go with the Doctor and experience time travel. 

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