[nsw-fic] Doctor Who: Beyond Death

[Alkonium]

The Doctor was dying. He knew that. He had been particularly careful with this body, but the Master had to be stopped. And he was, but the Doctor paid the price for it. He had breathed in all of the gas, and it was slowly killing him, but everyone else was safe. He had saved the universe one last time. He was able to get out of the facility, but collapsed on the ground soon after. So this is how it ends. He thought to himself. He could see the TARDIS from here, and realised that Katie would be stuck on this planet without him. "Doctor?" He heard a familiar voice, and saw Katie running towards him. "You're hurt." She said to him. "Oh, worse than that." he replied, already accepting his fate. "Don't talk like that, we just need to get you into the TARDIS." She tried to reassure him that he'd be alright, but she doubted it herself. Still, she hoisted him up, and helped him walk the rest of the way to the TARDIS. As they entered, the Doctor inadvertently pulled a lever on the console, and caused the TARDIS to dematerialise.

 

"Doctor, tell me what happened, and I can help." Katie asked the Doctor, who had fallen to the floor of the console room. "The only way to stop the Master was to get rid of the gas, and the only way I could do that was to breathe it in. I'm dying." The Doctor explained. "There has to be something that can be done!" Katie exclaimed, desperate to keep the Doctor alive. "No, not this time. Once I'm dead, Emergency Program One will activate, and take you home." The Doctor told Katie, but her attention was focused on his hands. "Doctor, your hands." She pointed out, prompting the Doctor to examine his hands, at which point he noticed the telltale orange glow about them. "Impossible." He commented, but as perplexed as he was, he somehow found the strength to get on his feet. He then stretched his arms out wide, and an orange flame-like energy started to fly out of his hands and his head. Through the "flames", Katie could see the Doctor's face changing, until the process finished, and a new man stood in his place. Looking confused, he simply said, "I should be dead."

BEYOND DEATH

by

Alex G. Denby

 

"Doctor, is that you?" Katie asked the strange man wearing the Doctor's clothes. "Yeah, it's me." The Doctor replied, still a bit bewildered that he was able to regenerate. "What do you mean you should be dead?" Katie then asked. "As you know, I'm a Time Lord. When dying, Time Lords have the ability to change their entire body in order to survive, in a process we call regeneration." The Doctor explained. "If you knew about this all along, why were you so sure you were going to die?" Katie asked, slightly angry, and suspecting that the Doctor only acted like that to scare her. "Because, Time Lords can only regenerate twelve times, but I just did it for a thirteenth, which should be absolutely impossible." The Doctor told her. "Any ideas on how it was possible, then?" Katie inquired. "No, but intend to find out." The Doctor replied. "How? Time Lords are pretty hard to come by." Katie pointed out. "I'll figure something out." The Doctor commented. "Maybe we shouldn't dwell on it, and just be glad you're still alive." Katie suggested. "Yeah, you're right. Now then, let's have a look at the new me, the me who shouldn't be." The Doctor replied, his mood changing almost instantly.

 

Leading Katie down to the TARDIS wardrobe, the Doctor began examining his new body, starting with the hair, and immediately acting slightly upset. "Hmm, I'm not ginger anymore. Still, it was fun while it lasted. I do seem to end up with dark brown hair a lot. Green eyes, never had those before. Bit of stubble, maybe I should finally sport some facial hair. Roughly the same height, that's good. Broader shoulders, but I'm also somewhat thinner. Interesting. Since I'm roughly the same size still, I could stick to this outfit, but I'm not sure it's really my style. What do you think?" He asked Katie, not noticing that his coat was starting to unravel. "I'm not sure you have much choice." She commented, at which point he noticed. "I see your point. I'll just be a moment. I'll meet you back up in the console room."

 

Katie was nervously watching the display when she heard the Doctor enter the console room. Just as she had expected, he had changed his clothes, but to a completely different style. He looked much more casual than his previous self, but still eccentric. "What do you think?" He asked. "I think it suits the new you, but there's something else I need to ask you: do you know where we're going." Katie answered, and immediately gave a question of her own. "What do you mean?" The Doctor inquired, slightly confused. "Just before you regenerated, you pulled some lever, and we dematerialised." Katie explained. "I must not have noticed." The Doctor commented. "Well, do you know where we're going?" Katie asked again. "Not in the slightest. More fun that way though." The Doctor finally answered, excited about where the TARDIS might materialise.

 

This is mainly my idea of what might happen on Doctor Who when the actor playing the Thirteenth Doctor calls it quits, and possibly the premise behind a fanseries I may or may not eventually make. This is the post-regen, Doctor, except not ginger.

[Tysyacha]

Your descriptions are fantastic here, as well as the tenderness in the relationship between the Doctor and Katie. Good thing the Doctor regenerated with all his memories!

[Darth InSidious]

Banality put into words. Quite aside from your irritating and irregular paragraphing, you completely fail to do what you set out to do. You explain nothing; you tell us the Doctor is going to change his outfit to something "similar but a bit different", and then fail to describe either. You give only cursory detail of either of his appearances.

 

Neither Doctor has the slightest shred of personality; for that matter, Katie has no personality, either. Scratch out the names. Is there anything to tell us who's saying what? No, not really.

 

The backplot to the Doctor's death is uninteresting -you've done nothing interesting dramatically for the final end. Aside from which, if the gas is going to destroy the entire universe, how does the Doctor breathe all of it in?

 

You then waste time recapping the base premise by having the Doctor vomit backplot all over his cardboard companion.

 

You wasted a lot of words saying very little. All I take from this is that you think the Doctor's final regeneration should lead to a completely unexplained further regeneration in a pedestrian episode with a bland companion and that you have nothing original to say on the subject at all, and indeed, lack the ability to say it in an interesting way.

 

0/10 - fails on its own premises and judged on its merits. Read some Lawrence Miles. I suggest Alien Bodies as a good place to start.

[machievelli]

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