Fic (1/1) Doctor's Orders (Warning - character death). WoM spoilers

[catsfiction]

“…and thus the whirligig of time brings its revenges.”

Shaksespeare, Twelfth Night, Act V

It was funny how you could convince yourself you were over somebody until the moment you saw their face again. Then you realised you’d been avoiding that face for nearly fifty years, just so you could keep that illusion intact.

It was just after

Comments

[anomoly_fetish]

Explains why the Year that Never Was is all Jack's fault in the first place... :/

[catsfiction]

I don't know about that, but I'm fascinated by the idea that CoE might be post-2009 and that as a result of the events of the two-parter the Doctor's exiled from this universe. Hence his non-appearance.

Of course, if Jack does something to change that...

[anomoly_fetish]

I just hope that this doesn't mean that the Doctor will literally "die".

Would explain why they're "starting over" with NEW TARDIS and all that... Jussayin'. *shivers*

[catsfiction]

Well, I'm sure he won't be shot on screen, it's a family show after all. But I do think he might be taken away for a while. I'd feel more comfortable with that explanation of his absence from CoE than with any other one.

[tempusdominus10]

OUCH. Good job.

Makes you wonder, doesnit? Waht if he really WILL ask?

[catsfiction]

I'd be surprised if it went that way, though I could certainly imagine it being quietly assumed that someone took care of the body of Adelaide at least, and he's the obvious person to call.

[wendymr]

Well, except that Adelaide's history did change to say that she died on Earth, so that would have to be public knowledge.

[teastainedbird]

Someone must have took care of Adelaide's death, at the very least to explain how she ended up on Earth when she should have been on Mars.

[joking]

"It was up to him to figure out what must have been going on in the Time Lord’s head, what made Adelaide Brooke and her crew worth breaking the rules for when Alice, Stephen and ten percent of humanity’s children hadn’t been."

This line chilled me to the bone. Of course Jack would consider this the ultimate betrayal: the Doctor broke the laws of time, but not for him.

[catsfiction]

Exactly. Jack has been betrayed so many times = on Satellite Five, by the Doctor mourning the Master rather than thanking him, and now this...I just don't think even Jack could overlook this latest kick in the teeth.

[achuislemochroi]

“That one’s for Ianto,” he said, as the Doctor collapsed bleeding onto the snow. “Too bad he wasn’t blonde.”

Ouch. I can see why Jack thinks that way, to an extent, but ouch.

[wendymr]

When I BRed this, my jaw hit the floor when I realised the Doctor was actually asking Jack to assassinate the three of them. But, yes, that was exactly what he meant: he wanted Jack to clean up his mess by killing people :(

And then when Jack shot the Doctor too I think my heart skipped several beats. I never expected it - and yet it makes so much sense. For Ianto, maybe; I think it's more, from Jack's perspective, that he knows this Doctor is now quite probably insane and absolutely dangerous.

This isn't a story anyone could say they love - because of the subject-matter - but it really did have an impact on me. Very well done; extremely vivid and plausible. And should you want to write a sequel where the Doctor regenerates and Jack interrogates him at gunpoint I'd be thrilled to read it!

[catsfiction]

I like that ambiguity at the end - that it just might be revenge. But my personal view is that Jack would shoot the Doctor to contain his danger - after the Master his tolerance of megalomaniac Time Lords would be zero.

But he's also human, and I think he'd relish that moment when the Doctor believed he'd done it for Ianto.

What really amazed me was that nobody ripped me apart for writing this. I expected people to react against Jack as dark and murderous, but things have reached the point now where it's seen as an inevitable development of what went before.

[wendymr]

I don't think Jack's the dark and murderous one here; it's pretty clear that he's killing the other three at the Doctor's orders. Killing the Doctor: well, as you said, he's containing the severe danger of a Time Lord completely flipped and gone megalomaniac. He's angry, hence his apparent lack of concern as to whether the Doctor will regenerate or not, but I think we all know that once his anger subsides a bit he will want the Doctor to regenerate, and any anger in his subsequent interrogation will be underlaid by real concern for what's happened to the man he used to love.