FIC "Frozen" (Doctor Who)

[kerravonsen]

This is a sort of missing scene for "Utopia" so There Be Spoilers. Just trying to get inside the Doctor's head, I am. And posting this before it becomes irrelevant (i.e. before the next episode airs).

Double-drabble (200 words)

The sky was empty, with a hollow blind vacancy. "This isn't just night," the Doctor said. "All the stars have burnt up and faded away... into nothing."

"They must have an atmospheric shell," Jack surmised. "We should be frozen to death."

"Well, Martha and I, maybe," the Doctor replied, eyes still scanning the blackness. "I'm not so sure about you, Jack." The Doctor turned his head, staring at the Captain.

Their eyes locked. But seeing wasn't believing. The senses that screamed wrongness to the Doctor weren't his eyes. To his eyes, Jack looked the same as he ever had; dashing smile, handsome as a Hollywood superstar, even that anachronisic coat of his. Exactly the same. And that was the problem. Frozen as he was at the moment of his death, Jack would never change, never grow, never die. To the Doctor's time-senses, it was like looking at a zombie; an unnatural necromancy. Time was stagnant in Jack; there was no line of life, no branching of possibilities, just a tangled knot of nothing, looping back on itself. Even vampires were more alive to Time than Jack was.

No wonder the TARDIS had flinched.

But he himself, what would he do?

Comments

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Oh! I like that. It feels really creepy - feels better than the bit in the episode!

[kerravonsen]

Thank you!

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Eww. But, yeah, after a second viewing, y'know, I think that pretty much is exactly what's in the look on the Doctor's face when he steps out of the TARDIS and looks at Jack the first time. Whatever it is he's seeing, it does creep him out. (I'm still not entirely sure whether that's the entire reason or not, but I do believe that explanation as far as it goes.)

[kerravonsen]

(nods)

I'm still not entirely sure whether that's the entire reason or not, but I do believe that explanation as far as it goes.

Well, considering that I'd been content with "left him behind because he went wacky because of the regeneration and/or thought he was dead", I'm happy with the "creeped out" explanation.