flowsoffire: (One)
flowsoffire ([personal profile] flowsoffire) wrote2014-03-30 06:57 pm

Fic: Flickering (classic!Who)

Title: Flickering
Author: flowsoffire
Fandom: Doctor Who (1963)
Pairing/characters: First Doctor, mentions of Susan, Polly, Ben and the Master
Genre: General
Rating: K+
Word count: c. 350
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Summary: Dying feels like a rush of light-headedness, for the first time.
Author's note: Just another little One regeneration piece, written for the prompt "Weakness" on [livejournal.com profile] who_contest. Thanks for reading!



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His head swims. His feet fail him.

A haze descends upon his head, cold-warm and cottony, the feebleness something surreal. He can scarcely think, standing there with precarious balance and hammering hearts.

He has been sleeping. His dreams were queer ones; silver leaves and skies of bloody fire in flashes, childlike tinkling laughter and elusive faces. Time and space and wandering did not make the memories dim, never… yet they only return as flickers now, small shards of home, lost, seemingly. Lost but not; lost to him, in this flesh, with this voice, those hands.

He is viscerally afraid and very calm, perfectly calm. He manages to speak, to walk—to stagger to his ship. Ben and Polly’s questions echo as though from some great distance. They fared on their own today, for the most part, facing Cybermen as he drifted… he ought to be proud. He is.

Maybe… surely he will get to tell them, later… show them. A small promise it is, but it is there nonetheless and, for a moment, he holds on to the idea.

The hum of the ship welcomes him. TARDIS, Time and Relative Dimension in Space as Susan would reel out very fast, happy chuckle falling at the end like a light-hearted punctuation. TARDIS as they learned in the Academy—Koschei was the very first to try and build one, then. It might have been either of them. Koschei, back on Gallifrey, or maybe somewhere in the universe, similarly… he wonders if he felt this. If he wobbled and burned, inside, a slow fire; if he now wears an unfamiliar face… Regardless, he would be glad to see it. He has not, since the Monk, happened to meet anyone from back home, anyone who understands… viewing the universe with a deep if inured eye. It is too much. He never dreamed he would come to miss it, not in a thousand years.

But he stumbles, and his old bones meet the floor. Anything is welcome—anything to hold on to.

It starts slow and simmering, ethereal starlight spreading through his limbs.

The weakness leaves. Newness stands in its place, raw, bewildering.

[identity profile] a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com 2014-03-30 05:08 pm (UTC)(link)
I've already said something at FF.Net, but it bears repeating here -

This is brilliant!! What a unique and massively awesome answer to the prompt - and a highly fitting one, to boot! Genius, lovie!

*HUGS*

[identity profile] flowsoffire.livejournal.com 2014-03-30 06:22 pm (UTC)(link)
:D Thank you sooooo much, oh god ♥ All your squee makes me so happy ♥

*hugs you tight*

[identity profile] honeynoir.livejournal.com 2014-03-30 10:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Wheee more regeneration fic! More One fic! \o/

Agreeing with Mandy -- so brilliant! Love the "shards of home", Gallifrey, the parallells with DotD, Susan, the TARDIS, the Master!

He never dreamed he would come to miss it, not in a thousand years.
I see what you did there. Aweeesome!

♥♥♥

[identity profile] flowsoffire.livejournal.com 2014-03-31 06:10 am (UTC)(link)
More repetitive! *shuts up and hugs you tight* So glad you liked it! ♥♥♥ And all the specific things too, eeee :D

I see what you did there.
*grins*

*hugs* ♥♥♥
ext_13288: pre-raphealite (drwho)

[identity profile] paynesgrey.livejournal.com 2014-03-31 06:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Loved, loved, loved this. I love One, and it's wonderful to get a glimpse into his thoughts during regeneration. Wonderful job!

[identity profile] flowsoffire.livejournal.com 2014-03-31 06:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Yay! Thank you, I'm so happy you enjoyed :D Very fitting icon! One was my first classic!Doctor (and I've only seen him and part of Two thus far…) and he's just special and great ♥

[identity profile] h-comet.livejournal.com 2014-04-05 10:20 pm (UTC)(link)
So sadly optimistic and amazingly beautiful! Makes me just want to run up and hug him and tell him everything turns out okay. It may just take around ummm...a millennium or so. And he will be fantastic!

On another note, I do so worry about Susan's fate....It's pretty certain that was another timeline he left her in, and what would happen when her family grew old without her or she regenerated? Lol, sorry to get sidetracked!

Wonderful story! <3
Edited 2014-04-05 22:21 (UTC)

[identity profile] flowsoffire.livejournal.com 2014-04-06 07:33 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you! ♥ I'm so glad you enjoyed the story. I want to hug One, too, but I want that half the time :D

Haha, that's all right, random Whoniverse concerns are always welcome/interesting to discuss ;P That's a pretty good point. Time Lady with a human family, that's bound to be problematic :/ I also always kind of wondered about Susan and the War—if her family was on Earth, then she wouldn't have been caught in the destruction of Galifrey, but then again it happened a couple hundreds of years after she left her grandfather so we can safely assume she'd lost her family and returned home? :( Because else she would have survived and he could have found her.