Calufrax

And so I come to the end of another week's reccing here on Calufrax. It seems to have gone over very quickly this time, but I've still got one story to rec before I leave you to your own devices. Anyway, thanks those of you who have posted reviews on this week's recs and I hope we can do it again some time.

Story: Soon, Love, Soon
Author: Maggadin
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 1147
Author's Summary: Soon, love, soon/Such a wide, wide chasm of faith to leap.
Characters/Pairings: The Doctor (11th), the TARDIS, Romana (author-created)
Warnings: None, unless for some reason you have a real aversion to Doctor/Romana.

Recced because: Repeating yourself, they say, can be an indication of advancing old age. I hope not, because this is the second time this week I've recced a story featuring the Doctor and Romana, although this time we have a different Doctor and indeed a different Romana, and the two stories themselves are, I think, very different in tone and intent.

When I rec here, I often use these notes to pontificate on what I think good fanfiction is and the things fanfiction can do. And I think the idea of crossing different eras of Who is one of the things that a great many writers of Who-fic toy with at one time or another. I suppose such fics ultimately take their lead from the multi-teamup anniversary stories in the original series, principally The Five Doctors, although of course there was no (intentional!) shipping in that. I don't know whether the idea of Eleven/Romana is an obvious one or not, but there are quite a few examples out there by now and in just about all of them the pairing works very well indeed, and casts interesting sidelights on Eleven and his situation. And I think this fic is one of the very best examples.

I'll be honest, the author of this is a firm online associate of mine, but I know for a fact that I would be reccing this regardless of whether I knew the writer or not. This is one of only two stories she has posted on Teaspoon (the other a drabble), but on this evidence she needs to write more. I would describe this story as haunting, hallucinatory (and possibly some other words beginning with "h" if I could think of any); it hints things rather than states them and I find it extremely affecting indeed. In short, it's the sort of Doctor/Romana fic that has me going away shaking my head in admiration and quiet envy. If you're into this pairing, and even if you're not, I urge you to read this and leave encouragement for the author, and maybe she'll write some more.

( An excerpt )