Doctor Who Drabble: Left Behind

[bk_forever]

Title: Left Behind
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ninth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness.
Rating: G
Written For: Challenge 402: Abandon at dw100.
Spoilers: The Parting Of The Ways.
Summary: There’s nothing the Doctor can do for Jack.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Doctor Who, or the characters.




The Doctor can feel what Rose has done, it’s as though a massive boulder has been dropped into the timestream, causing everything to divert around it, and even at this distance the sense of wrongness is so disorienting he can hardly bear it.


He was able to draw the energy of the Time Vortex out of Rose and into himself, she’ll be fine, but Jack… What’s done is done, there’s no way of reversing it; the vortex is too much a part of Jack now, and the Doctor is about to regenerate.


So he runs. It’s what he does best.



The End

Comments

[pfyre.livejournal.com]

Yeah, so much for the Doctor being a good man. A good man does not leave people behind. At the very least he should have gotten a message to Jack explaining what happened - to Rose, to the Doctor and most of all what happened to Jack. Instead he ran away from Jack with nary a pause. He lied to Rose. He left Jack stumbling in the facts of Jack's own new reality. He let Jack think he was not worthy of the same consideration as Rose. I will never forgive the Doctor for his cowardice, his casual cruelty towards Jack. Sorry, guess I'm more than a bit bitter and salty in regards to the Doctor's attitude and treatment of Jack. Thank you for this fic.

[bk_forever]

Well, so am I. The Doctor was cruel and heartless when it came to Jack. He deserved better from the person he was willing to sacrifice his life to help.

Thank you!

[pfyre.livejournal.com]

Hell, Jack wasn't just willing, he actually sacrificed himself on the gamestation/satellite - he died. He was dead. Though the Docgor basically spit on his sacrifice as well as the other humans on the station that died fighting the Daleks. I realise we're all supposed to feel sympathy for the Doctor being forced to chose between sacrificing the humans in Earth or allowing the Daleks to enslave and subjugate the humans below. Problem is that being as indecisive as he was when facing the Dalek forces just sort of dismissed the brave, willing sacrifice of the humans on the game station along with Jack's as unimportant. *sigh* As mentioned even the current Doctor disregards and disrespects Jack.

[bk_forever]

I know he did, he cared about the Doctor and about what the Doctor was trying to do, and was wiling to do whatever it took. He died, Rose brought him back, and the Doctor just left. It was disgusting =(

[pfyre.livejournal.com]

Alot of that attitude towards Jack I think
originated with RTD. His continuing obsession with Eve (swear-to-god if he could he would BE Eve) turned his attention and attitude away from virtually anyone else most especially anyone more popular than her (i.e. John). The following DW & TW showrunners followed in his footsteps and attitudes. Hell, Torchwood was originally named Excalibur and was supposed to STAR Eve Myles. Unfortunately for RTD TPTB at the Beeb responded: "Eve who?" So RTD retooled it to Torchwood starring John but secondary lead Eve Myles - with shitload of promotion trying to point the spotlight on her - most especially since she was/is God's gift to acting, don't ya know?! *gag*
.
Unfortunately RTD and so many others were also obsessed with Billie Piper's Rose. Personally I like Billie, but Rose has never been the be all end all companion that she came to be wriiten as. Did I cry when Rose was left in the parallel 'verse? Yep, but the same time I was relieved she was gone because they had crossed so many lines with her character in regards to the Doctor.
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Don't get me wrong it was totally a game-changer when the reboot brought a more up-to-date reality to Doctor Who. It was no longer just a children's series that adults held with fond nostalgia but rarely admitted to being a current fan of. Instead it was fun and dealt with a myriad of issues and themes meant for children and adults.
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But as we've witnessed for every stellar turn of character, backgrounds and themes and storylines, too many have been wrong-footed or just plain wrong or resonated in purely nails-scratching-on-a-blackboard cringe-worthy overdone, overplayed and stayed just way too long. Rose and Clara both come to mind as characters that had such brilliant original beginnings but ultimately went so far off the mark....
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Hell, by the time Amy Pond left I was more than ready for her exit. BBCAmerica had taken to adding a completely annoying, completely unnecessary Beginning titles tag with Amy describing who she was and who the Doctor was etc. And it made her sound like THE companion - the best, etc.
When I complained to BBCA they told me that it had been decided American audiences NEEDED the intro/explanation - meaning Americans were just too stupid to get it without an explanation. Funny
how many of us had been watching since early Doctor eps on PBS WITHOUT any sort of intro in the opening titles. So that helped sour me on her. *sigh*
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Anyways back to Jack - it always seemed he was all too easily dismissed and overlooked by RTD and othe PTB. He wasn't even included in the opening titles yet one ep Christmas companions get included. Again dismissed as unimportant...
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Unfortunately as nice as it was to have Jack in the latest season - in the end it seemed more a waste of time and effort since within the series arc what he warned about was quickly, easily dismissed as not important enough to be heeded by Jodi's Doctor.
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It's kinda of sad and irritating that such a fan favorite character has been so poorly treated by TPTB with DW and TW. In many ways they're treating the audience as unimportant and easily overlooked. *sad sigh*

[bk_forever]

Sadly it's often the case that the TV people have no respect for viewers and think we have to have every little thing spelled out for us. It's why show like Torchwood have an audience identification character t be the audience's way in to the show, in Torchwood's case of course it's Gwen because she's like us, an outsider just learning about Torchwood. She'll ask all the questions the audience would ask and through her we'll learn the tings we need to know while we root for her and wish we could be her. Except of course we don't and the character is totally unnecessary. With good writing, audience identification characters are surplus to requirements.

I think RY+TD resented that he couldn't permanently kill Jack so he made him suffer in every way possible. I know JB does't like to make waves, thins it's his job to play the character as written, but I really think he should have spoken up about the way his character was repeatedly abused for 'entertainment'.

[pfyre.livejournal.com]

Too true RTD really did seem to resent Jack. After all he killed every other Torchwood team member including pretty much all of Torchwood One and Suzie. If he could've killed Jack that would have left Gwen as the only remaining Torchwood agent - which would've given RTD his ultimate goal of a show that showcases/features his favorite extraordinary actor Eve.
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Despite his hands-off attitude about Torchwood: Miracle Day that he wouldve heartily endorsed it if they HAD permanently killed Jack. That honestly was my only real fear when we watched MD - that they'd use the circumstances of MD to get rid of Jack. After all they had Gwen why would they need Jack? It was also nauseating some the major retconning they did about Gwen's abilities and experiences as a constable [still kills me that they had her acting all superior even the first series in regards to her experiences - it was worse in MD]. Though they did get her to admit the fact that she survived when the rest of team except for Jack had died that she felt special and validated.

[bk_forever]

Yeah, I opted not to waste 10 hours of my life on watching MD. The plot was nonsense and contradicted everything we knew about Jack and his immortality anyway, plus it made Gwen the perfect heroine who can do everything without any training. Who needs that?

Of course Gwen feels she's better than the others because they died and she didn't. What she doesn't get is that they sacrificed their lives for the greater good while she would never put herself at risk for anyone, she'd expect them to die to save her.

[pfyre.livejournal.com]

There were some good things, moments in MD. Unfortunately they didn't come near to balancing out the bullshit and lack of logic and common sense that the rest of MD encompassed. There was one scene in MD where Jack is talking to a man he'd recently met and had come to care for - they're about to investigate what Torchwood had sent him to handle (timeframe was early 20th century) - he mentions the Doctor obliquely and how he liked traveling with companions that it looked fun and Jack was teary-eyed. It hurt to watch because we know how Jack was abandoned by the Doctor yet you hear and see in Jack's voice and face how much he missed the Doctor and still cared for him.
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When RTD or Moffatt or Chibnall casually dismisses John it just stomps on my last nerve. John is a damn good actor. Is he perfect? No. On the other hand, he has imbued Jack Harkness with a depth and richness that we NEVER got from Eve and her cow-eye performance of Gwen.

[bk_forever]

John is first and foremost a stage actor, so he has that larger than life way of acting that you need in order to reach the back rows of a theatre, but in his scenes with Ianto and Tosh, who are played by both more restrained actors, I think they brought out the best in his performances.

Eve on the other hand is a soap actress, all OTT and overly dramatic but with little range. There's no subtlety in her performances and she uses practically the same expression for every emotion.

[cynthia2015.livejournal.com]

No surprise Christopher Eccleston did cross country.*refers to running*

[bk_forever]

Chris is quite athletic.

Thank you!

[cynthia2015.livejournal.com]

I bet he was better at the hurdles than I was at school.

Gosh it hurt when I knock one, trying to get over it.:(

[bk_forever]

I never did hurdles at school, but when I ws a kid I used to build jumps in the garden and pretend to be a horse, lol! I was a pretty good jumper!

[cynthia2015.livejournal.com]

Awww! That sounds so cute. You got to do it for fun! :)

I played horsey as a little kid in the playground during little lunch at school. Life was so simple back then.

[bk_forever]

I miss being so young and carefree. I was seldom bored, I was very good at entertaining myself.

[cynthia2015.livejournal.com]

You must have a good imagination. Sometimes I was a loner in primary school. But I always had my brother for company at home.

[bk_forever]

I've always had a very vivid imagination. Writing fanfic has finally given me an outlet for it.

[cynthia2015.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear it!

Fun times.:)

[bk_forever]

I certainly have fun with it!