Rec: Pendulum

[temporalgrace.livejournal.com]

Story: Pendulum
Author: Ponderous
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: 2440
Author's Summary: He may travel in a police box, keeping order, or what passes for it in these timeless times. But inside his own mind, order is exactly what he’s out of.
Characters/Pairings: Martha Jones, Rose Tyler, The Doctor (10th), The Master (Simm). Lightly shippy across the board for everyone, and hence a little unclassifiable.
Warnings: none

Recced because: Poetic and haunting, this is an incisive character study of the Doctor and the lies he tells himself (and others) in order to survive his desperate loneliness. This is the Doctor laid bare, needy, imperfect, even unintentionally cruel, yet still a sympathetic, brilliant character.

He clutches the phone to his ear and makes offers, many stupid offers, and if the man on the other end won’t see reason, that is only because the Doctor isn’t offering him any. But he has to try. Because this is it, this is all there will ever be. And the phone is hot against his ear, the conversation devolving into the typical madness, but what does it matter, because forever is back, drumming all around him. Forever has come for him again.

Comments

[ponderous77.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the rec! It means a lot to be listed on this great comm. That was a hard story to write, but a really necessary one for me. After the fallout from Last of the Time Lords, I really just wanted to see more fair and balanced treatments of the Doctor and his companions, and when I didn't see enough of that as a fic reader, I had to become a fic writer!

[temporalgrace.livejournal.com]

This was your first story? Now I'm even more impressed. You did a beautiful job.

[elliptic-eye.livejournal.com]

Heartily, heartily second this rec—Pendulum is graceful and cutting, and basically just gorgeous.

[temporalgrace.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised it wasn't recced before, but there really is a lot of great stuff hiding away on Teaspoon.