Fic Post

[settiai]

This post is where everything happens. All stories/ficlets/drabbles go in the comments here. If your story's too long to fit in a single comment, please post it in your own journal and leave the link in a comment here along with your next pairing request(s). Make certain that you include the pairing you've written as the title of the comment, so that specific pairings can be found easily.

Please don't post any comments that aren't stories. That way, this post will show an accurate count of all the written stories. If you make a mistake or forget something, just edit your comment. If you write a story featuring a specific pairing but somebody posts their story before you post yours, please post it in the overflow post instead of the main one.

If you need help thinking of a pairing to request next or getting inspiration, don't forget The Doctor Who Random Pairing Generator. It includes all of the "main" characters from the various shows, audios, books, and spin-offs. People who aren't participating in the writing can list pairings here that authors can write and/or use as requests in this post.

The rules can be found on the community profile. The masterlist of all written pairings can be found here, while all requested pairings that are still open can be found here. If you want to leave feedback for one of the authors, please go to this post. Any other questions can be asked here.

Note: If you're writing a story for someone's request, please post it as a reply to their comment. Only create a new thread if you've written a pairing that nobody has requested yet.

Comments

Romana I/Barbara

[livii.livejournal.com]

It's just a flickering: something eating away at the corner of her brain during the dark, the cold, the endless nights of the resistance, underground.

But it grows.

She shakes it off; she's an old woman, now, and she has meals to cook and socks to darn and propaganda to write and battle plans to draw up. They've been alone for so many months now, and no matter how much she might dream desperately in the night, the Doctor is not coming for them. She can't afford to waste her time on idle fantasies of knights on white horses.

When the flickering materializes, she realizes she only had the colour right, of anything at all.

"This will pass," Romana says, as they hole up together in the kitchen long after everyone else has tucked themselves up in bed, to pass a long and restless night. Romana appears like clockwork, at the strike of two in the morning, day after day. Barbara prepares tea and has a steaming mug ready, the teabag thrice used and the milk long gone, but Romana clutches it gratefully, and drinks deeply.

"This will all turn to dust," Romana continues. "There are wars raging across the universe and I can see each one, in perfect clarity." Barbara gives her a rueful smile.

"Is it for naught, then? Are we fighting in vain?"

"Never," Romana replies, her eyes flashing bright and fierce. "Never. But time will turn; the flow of history here is not constant."

Barbara laughs, a slightly rusty sound. It feels wonderful to do so, to open up her throat and let her emotions spill out properly, she thinks. "I know of history, Romana," she says. "And it's all just time, always ticking away."

Romana just smiles: always mysterious.

"There's a girl coming," she says, "and a great forgetting. Hold on, Barbara. Be strong, until the time comes."

Barbara starts to protest, to query, but Romana is – like a flash, she's leaned forward and there are soft lips on her ear and sweet, nonsense words being spoken, straight to her brain, her heart, her fingertips. Barbara finds her eyes are closed and her mouth is half-open and for the briefest moment, she thinks she has been kissed and loved for a lifetime, or more.

She's startled into wakefulness by a door banging shut; the kitchen is empty. On the table is a note, with plans for a better hiding place, stronger weapons, reassurance, hope.

Romana does not return – just a passing thought, Barbara thinks, a fleeting fancy – but three days later, in their new safehouse, a girl appears, so young and strong and fierce, and Barbara can taste time on her, spilling out in her words and she knows that one day, this all will pass.