FIC: "How the Winds Are Laughing" (Doctor Who)

[kerravonsen]

Here's my finish-a-thon story! I've spent hours tweaking it, and I'm impatient, so I decided I'd go ahead and post it.

Title: How the Winds Are Laughing
Characters: Donna Noble (plus Wilf, Sylvia, Martha Jones, the Doctor, and others who would spoil the plot)
Rating: PG
Spoilers: New Who S4 through to "Journey's End", "Runaway Bride", traces of S3 and Classic Who also.
Summary: Lance is dead, H. C. Clemens is dead, her place of work is closed down. Is this some kind of joke? If it is, it's not funny, and Donna is going to find the person responsible and give them a piece of her mind. (A post-"Journey's End" Donna-fixit story.)

( fake cut to story )

Comments

[ancientcitadel.livejournal.com]

Fabulous. It would take another Doctor to fix what Ten had done. :)

[kerravonsen]

8-) Thank you!

Interestingly enough, the other-Doctor thing didn't occur to me until I was about half way through writing the story. When I started, I was clear about the beginning and the end, but not the middle.

[butterflykiki.livejournal.com]

*loves story muchly* Wonderful use of the Fifth Doctor in there, and I love Donna's slow, constant efforts to figure out what happened, and yay! Love the ending, of course. *hugs Wilf too*

[kerravonsen]

Thank you!

and I love Donna's slow, constant efforts to figure out what happened
Yeah, that was one of the key parts of the story: that stubborn, tenacious Donna wouldn't take amnesia lying down. 8-)

[kalquessa.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, I'm totally going and posting mine, now! Or at least I will as soon as I can decide on a title. Which I may never do. But yay Finish-a-thon!!!

[kerravonsen]

8-)

[realdedanaan.livejournal.com]

This was a fantastic fic. I really enjoyed Donna's determination to dig to the heart of her problem and fix it herself. I also loved the interaction between Donna and Five.

Thanks for writing. ^_^

[kerravonsen]

Thank you!
When I started writing the story, I had no idea that Five was going to turn up! But he did, and it was good. 8-)

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think this turned out well! Good Donna, great Five, and generally a clever fixit idea. I liked the dreams a lot, too.

Poor Five, though, I feel for him, because that must have been an awful thing for him to have to experience, even if he did forget it afterward.

I do wonder just a little where Tegan was... Shouldn't she have been around somewhere? Not that I blame you for not including her, as I think she would have just been a distraction.

[kerravonsen]

Good Donna, great Five, and generally a clever fixit idea. I liked the dreams a lot, too.
Thank you! The dreams were fun to write. Part of my motivation in writing all the dreams was that many Donna-fixit stories mention strange dreams, but don't actually tell us what the dreams were.

I'm glad you think Five worked, especially since I had no idea when I started writing this, that Five would turn up! But it occurred to me that "what if, when Donna starts looking for the Doctor, that she finds a different Doctor?"

Poor Five, though, I feel for him, because that must have been an awful thing for him to have to experience, even if he did forget it afterward.
Yes. (hugs Five)

I do wonder just a little where Tegan was... Shouldn't she have been around somewhere?
Set between "Time Flight" and "Arc of Infinity"; Tegan wasn't on board the TARDIS. Big Finish actually took advantage of this teeny-tiny gap to set a whole lot of adventures with just Five and Nyssa.

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Set between "Time Flight" and "Arc of Infinity

Aha! That makes sense. :)

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for what I think of as "my" story! Though it's probably cheating to get a story from a ficathon when I'm not taking part myself. I've read it a few times over the past couple of weeks, but wanted to think it through properly before commenting.

I like the way that, right at the start, as well as doing "what she always did" - getting angry - Donna goes on to do what she always did after meeting the Doctor - trying to work the problem out herself.

And the subconscious memories begin to haunt her as soon as she enters the library, with the first dream kicking in after Sylvia unwisely mentions Lance's "black widow".

It took a couple of readings to realise how early on the Doctor's memories begin to combine with her own in Donna's dreams; I soon noticed when his lost daughter and granddaughter were mingling with her lost children, but on the very latest reading I wondered whether Donna would have known the significance of the Doctor's fob watch through her own memories - or sensed the parallel between the wiping of his memories through the Chameleon Arch and what has happened to her. And of course she later follows John Smith's example by keeping a diary of her impossible dreams (as well as the very practical and independent step of taking up yoga and learning breathing exercises).

I love the glimpse of the Doctor as White Rabbit leading her into Wonderland.

And the next dream blurs beautifully from Donna's own memories of Miss Evangelista to the Doctor's of Sky Silvestry, and back to 42...

Ha. The Doctor thinks he's done enough by wiping her mobile phone (though it's a bit clumsy wiping all the numbers), but he hasn't thought about her laptop. Ianto would never have been that careless. And "FindDoc" is inspired.

I like the way that Donna finally manages to remember the Doctor by going back to the beginning of their shared story, through the wedding dress, which pulls the whole episode back into her conscious. The earliest memory, and perhaps therefore the least dangerous to remember.

I'm not a great fan of the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa, but I can see that it makes sense to use them; Davison's been around recently, explicitly through Time Crash and implicitly through The Doctor's Daughter. And that means he has the advantage of knowing who Donna's Doctor is. And at this point it's becoming clear that the most painful and dangerous memories are the Doctor's, and that those are what she needs to lose. Adric, guilt, Gallifrey... I suppose the Fifth Doctor may be the guiltiest, apart from the Ninth.

I like the gradual developing relationship between Donna and the "new" Doctor, to the point where he's looking forward to meeting her in his future and she's ready to give him a hug. He's associated her with Tegan from the start, but it's lovely when he acknowledges that goes beyond their shared bolshiness and he starts to use "Brave heart" to her.

And Martha is so delightfully sensible, accepting that, whatever instructions the Doctor has given her, the situation has changed and she needs to check it out. The ready friendship between her and Donna was one of the pleasures of the last season, so it's good to see them back together, and promising to keep in touch.

I suppose I'm still left with the canonical puzzle that I had before: why couldn't the Tenth Doctor do what the Fifth did? I imagine Martha could have played the calm supervising role in the same way as Nyssa. For that matter, I don't know why he couldn't do what the Ninth Doctor did when extracting the Tardis from Rose's mind; I can't believe he was willing to sacrifice a regeneration for one companion and not the other. But perhaps I can see a solution now; could it be because his own memories from the Fifth Doctor, which were unblocked when Donna reminded him of their meeting, were seeping through just enough for him to know instinctively that to cure Donna in his present would interfere with his own timeline?

[kerravonsen]

Thank you for such a thoughtful and detailed response!

I'm going tick, tick, tick with so many of your comments, I'm so pleased that you noticed all these things!

but on the very latest reading I wondered whether Donna would have known the significance of the Doctor's fob watch through her own memories - or sensed the parallel between the wiping of his memories through the Chameleon Arch and what has happened to her. And of course she later follows John Smith's example by keeping a diary of her impossible dreams

Actually, I hadn't thought of that. I mean, it's true, but I didn't put it there deliberately.

I love the glimpse of the Doctor as White Rabbit leading her into Wonderland.
(grin) It seemed so fitting to do that in the dream of the English Country Garden.

And the next dream blurs beautifully from Donna's own memories of Miss Evangelista to the Doctor's of Sky Silvestry, and back to 42...
Yes, that's one of my favourite dream sequences, one of those things that happen while you write it, rather than planning it beforehand. Mind you, my beta suggested that I get rid of the "42" reference, because she thought it would be too confusing to the reader, but I didn't want to, so I ended up adding a few more sentences to the end part of the dream to try to make the connections clearer.

Ha. The Doctor thinks he's done enough by wiping her mobile phone (though it's a bit clumsy wiping all the numbers), but he hasn't thought about her laptop. Ianto would never have been that careless.
True, but Ianto has a lot more practice. I figure that the Doctor wiped her phone because he had access to it - it was in her pocket after all - but he didn't have access to her laptop. And his time was limited, that's why he wiped all the numbers, he probably just waved his sonic at it.

And "FindDoc" is inspired.
Yeah, I liked the FindDoc thing. Ambiguity, yay!

The earliest memory, and perhaps therefore the least dangerous to remember.
Exactly.

I like the gradual developing relationship between Donna and the "new" Doctor, to the point where he's looking forward to meeting her in his future and she's ready to give him a hug. He's associated her with Tegan from the start, but it's lovely when he acknowledges that goes beyond their shared bolshiness and he starts to use "Brave heart" to her.
Yes! You noticed that! 8-) Yes, the "Brave heart" thing was deliberate.

And Martha is so delightfully sensible, accepting that, whatever instructions the Doctor has given her, the situation has changed and she needs to check it out. The ready friendship between her and Donna was one of the pleasures of the last season, so it's good to see them back together, and promising to keep in touch.
8-) Martha didn't get a huge role here, but it was still important.

I suppose I'm still left with the canonical puzzle that I had before: why couldn't the Tenth Doctor do what the Fifth did? I imagine Martha could have played the calm supervising role in the same way as Nyssa.
It hadn't occurred to me that Martha could help, so I expect it didn't occur to Ten.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to convey my thinking on this, but my reasoning was that:
(a) Ten was hoping that Donna's brain wouldn't explode, so he put off doing something until it was almost too late; emergency measures are more clumsy
(b) He didn't have anyone to help him, unlike Nyssa with Five
(c) Donna's brain needed time to heal and for the memories to fade somewhat, before it was safe to take the slow-and-steady approach
(d) Human brains are different to Time Lord ones, so they probably process memories differently, and Ten might not have been aware that an alternative method might work.
(e) Ten's self-destructive subconcious prevented him from thinking of alternatives; I mean, Ten has a tendency to sabotage his own happiness.

[katherine-b.livejournal.com]

I'm so disappointed to see that the link to this story has broken! Is it anywhere else?

[kerravonsen]

I've fixed it now. Go! Enjoy!

[katherine-b.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thank you!