I have been recced!

[kerravonsen]

Whee! I was wondering why I was getting comments for Tempus Fugit (see also on my fic site) when it was posted a couple of years ago, and apparently it has been recced as one of a series of recs celebrating awesome female characters: http://siljamus.dreamwidth.org/113098.html

Yay!

It makes me want to write more about those two, except for this BIG problem: Carter would NEVER agree to travel with the Doctor, because she would consider it a dereliction of duty, an absence-without-leave. And it's no good saying "oh, make it like with Tegan and have him pick her up and then find it impossible to get her back to the right place-and-time" because she's so tech that she'd insist on helping to mend the TARDIS to fix whatever the flaw was that was preventing her return.

So I can't think of any GOOD reasons for Carter to stay, and that means I can't make her a companion, and that means I can't write any more.

So do any of you have workable ideas to get around this problem?

Comments

[dreamflower]

Well, she'd have to figure out what happened with the broken Stargate while the Doctor tried to figure out what happened with the TARDIS not working-- they'd have to cooperate to get back, and in the meanwhile (especially given the Doctor's love for trial-and-error) might end up other places than they meant to go-- like back to Earth!

Or it could be something cataclysmic: if she doesn't go with the Doctor and help him, something horrible would happen, oh, like say the destruction of Earth or an invasion of Daleks through a Stargate, or some other disaster that he would need her help to prevent...

[hawkeye7.livejournal.com]

That was my first thought too - to invert the story. But it occurs to me that there is no need to actually travel together when he can take the TARDIS and she can take the Stargate.

This was how I envisaged it

[kerravonsen]

I wrote this fragment not long after the original story was posted; it basically stalled after this, because, while I got Sam into the TARDIS, I didn't know where to go from there.
Note that I didn't feel the need to strand Carter; just getting her temporarily separated from the others was enough.

The staff-weapon blast hit the wall a foot above Samantha Carter's head. Damn! I've been spotted! When the Jaffa had turned up at the ruins, it had taken SG-1 by surprise. The team had scattered, hoping to lose the Jaffa in the maze of streets and broken buildings.

"This way!" A brown-haired head poked around a corner. "Run!"

He wasn't one of her team, but he wasn't a Jaffa either. She ran. He led her a fast pace, the certainty of his steps indicating he had a definite goal in mind, not just running away. Brown hair, brown suit, British accent - "Dr. Smith, what are you doing here?"

He grinned at her. "Nice to meet you again, Major Carter." A staff blast missed them by inches. "A bit more exciting than a conference, don't you think?"

"You might say so," she said dryly.

He dashed through a crumbling doorway, and she followed. He'd implied, the first time they met, that he had a time machine; she hadn't believed him at the time, but his presence on PX372 shredded her assumptions. If he had a time ship, or a space-time ship, could that be what they were heading for? Two doorways later, a splash of blue, glimpsed through another door across a hallway. Incongruous, anachronistic, a blue wooden potting shed with English lettering across the top. Dr. Smith - the Doctor, as he called himself - skidded to a halt in front of it, and brought out a key.

"This is your time machine?" Sam gasped, coming up behind.

He flashed another grin. "Yep," he said. "The TARDIS." He beckoned her inside.

She followed, and stopped short as she stepped across the threshold, jaw dropping. Metal at her feet, a squat and soaring toadstool out of a steampunk novel, columns of branching coral, golden and green light... impossible space. As she caught her breath at the paradox before her, he leapt for what was plainly a set of control panels, pushing buttons and turning dials. There was a rumble, the floor shook, and the lights inside the glass column in the centre of the room started moving up and down.

"There, we're safely away," the Doctor said.

His words dislodged her stunned silence. "It's bigger on the inside!" she gasped. "That's impossible! How does it work?"

The Doctor smiled. "It's dimensionally transcendental."

"But how does it work?"

The Doctor opened his mouth and closed it again.

Sam sighed. "You aren't going to tell me, are you?"

Doctor shook his head. "You might actually understand it. That would change history."

"And this is one of those times when it isn't safe to change history," she said.

"I'm afraid so."

Re: This was how I envisaged it

[dreamflower]

Oh, you've got a great start there-- now it just needs a little trouble with the TARDIS going where he wants it to.

After all, THAT'S been known to happen before!

[dreamflower]

Except the Stargate would be broken; or some peril would prevent her from getting to it. And then when the TARDIS is used to escape the peril, then they find out *its* not working quite right.

OR they could use the TARDIS to get to another Stargate location. And the Doctor's casual knowledge of where most of the Stargates are located rouses her suspicions and she decides to hang around and find out if he's a threat or not...though that's not really a Sam thing...