Calufrax

Story: Winterlude
Author:Van Donovan
Rating: None, probably Teen
Word Count: ~12800
Author's summary: There is fun for all at a winter carnival.
Characters/Pairings: Second Doctor/Jamie, background Ben/Polly
Warnings: none, really

Recced because: One of the more difficult periods of canon to find fic for is Patrick Troughton's first season as the Second Doctor, where he travels with Ben and Polly as well as Jamie. This isn't really surprising: we don't actually have a full, un-burninated episode with the four of them. Half of them don't even have surviving episodes. (In fact, we only have one full surviving serial with Ben and Polly: The War Machines, where they join the First Doctor. The only companions that come off worse for surviving episodes are Katrina and Sara Kingdom. Even Steven and Dodo have more episodes extant.)

To find any fic at all for this underrepresented period in canon is a happy accident and to find a fic as good as Van Donovan's Winterlude is pure unbridled luck. Set during a fortunate lull in monsters, the Second Doctor and his companions attend a winter carnival together. Ben and Polly decide to go off together on that date they never got to have and so Jamie and the Doctor are left to explore the carnival together.

Van Donovan is well-known for his Classic Who slash fic. I think perhaps Winterlude is my favorite of them, though it can be quite hard to choose when they're all very good. Van's voices for his characters are absolutely spot-on, so much I could virtually hear Patrick Troughton and Frazier Hines as I read this fic. His characterization is similarly well done--Jamie is particularly well captured in all his stubborn pride--and Ben, Polly, and the Second Doctor are quite true-to-character as well. The awareness between the Doctor and Jamie builds slow and gradually and there's an immense sense of achievement when they finally kiss.