ladymercury_10: (Default)
ladymercury_10 ([personal profile] ladymercury_10) wrote2010-06-29 09:42 pm
Entry tags:

Waves

Title: Waves
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Eleven, Amy
Word Count: 469
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I own no Who, as usual.

Summary:The important thing, he thinks, watching Amy paddle in the sea, is to keep your head above water. Concentrate on the fixed points.  Post -"Cold Blood."

The important thing, he thinks, watching Amy paddle in the sea, is to keep your head above water. Concentrate on the fixed points. It’s early and the water’s cold, but he promised her the beach before they go on. As she turns onto her back, her face and knees appear above the surface like tiny convexities in a world of grey. Her arms windmill over her, sometimes off by as much as 5 degrees from the prescribed angle with the surface.

He doesn’t remember when he started sounding like such a geometer.

Time can be rewritten. It was a promise once, and then a plea. Now it makes his stomach turn. He’s watched things disappear before, seen people vanish from world and time. Being the only one who remembers is only a shade away from madness.

Amy draws herself up onto a large, algaed rock. Local maximum, he thinks automatically. He almost calls to her to be careful, then lowers his hand. For all he knows, it could be out of his control, anyhow.

Times like this all he wants are equations. Some things are constant. Some things can’t change. Theorems don’t wait around for certain people. Ask Newton, or Leibniz. (He’s spoken with both.)

Cosine squared plus sine squared is one. Cosine squared plus sine squared is one.

Even this sort of hope is flimsy at best. He’s seen his share of non-Euclidean spaces, used some very nice metrics where basic operations simply don’t hold. Still, the thought is reflexive, and he doesn’t try to stop it.

E to the i pi plus one is zero.

The sun flares on the horizon. For a moment, the sea is a meadow of red grass lapping in the wind. He forgets to watch for Amy.

X is equal to negative b, plus or minus the square root of b squared minus 4ac, all over 2a.

When he was a small boy learning algebra, he thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful. He thought everything was beautiful. Left to see it all.

Sine of zero: zero.

It’s too much power and he doesn’t want it. Wishes for one blinding moment that he were a boring academic. That he’d never run away.

Cosine of zero: one

Amy walks up the beach to where he stands. He doesn’t meet her eyes, instead watches the wind whip her hair into curves he can’t quite parameterize.

He fingers the ring in his pocket. Lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

Cosine of zero is one

On a graph of things, he’s a pinprick like anyone else–just harder to fix to one spot.

is one

So is she. She takes his hand.

is one–

[identity profile] ladyneocotica.livejournal.com 2010-07-09 12:46 am (UTC)(link)
My comment will be incoherent but I will try my best!

You write the Doctor absolutely beautifully. All that overlapping, charging knowledge and the constant struggle to make sense of everything. It's a breath of fresh air to read something like this.

And I don't think I need to point out just how adoreable the ending is!

[identity profile] ladymercury-10.livejournal.com 2010-07-09 02:15 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)

[identity profile] intrikate88.livejournal.com 2010-07-09 12:59 am (UTC)(link)
Ooh, I love this. The concepts all come together so very well, sounding very Doctor-ish, and it all works beautifully.

[identity profile] ladymercury-10.livejournal.com 2010-07-09 02:15 am (UTC)(link)
Thanks! :D
elisi: (Eleven/Amy (foreheads) by meathiel)

[personal profile] elisi 2010-07-21 08:48 am (UTC)(link)
This is absolutely gorgeous and so the Doctor, and reminded me of another favourite fic of mine, which does something very similar: Calculus. But where that fic is set post-Doomsday, and quietly reflective on how in the end everything turns to zero, your fic does something much more wonderful, and grasps onto life. ♥

[identity profile] ladymercury-10.livejournal.com 2010-07-21 02:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you for the lovely compliment. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Etherati writes some of my favorites as well, so I'm quite flattered by the comparison. :)

[identity profile] thette.livejournal.com 2010-08-06 08:53 am (UTC)(link)
I liked it, except that cosine of pi is minus one.

But that also works, post Cold Blood.

[identity profile] ladymercury-10.livejournal.com 2010-08-06 03:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Shoot, I already fixed that once! Haha, I guess my trig tables have seen better days. Thanks for pointing that out.

[identity profile] jennifergale.livejournal.com 2010-09-25 07:16 am (UTC)(link)
Okay, I think I can breathe again. THIS IS JUST GORGEOUS. Absolutely beautiful.

Amy walks up the beach to where he stands. He doesn’t meet her eyes, instead watches the wind whip her hair into curves he can’t quite parameterize. My favorite line. But the ending is just brilliant.

[identity profile] ladymercury-10.livejournal.com 2010-09-25 01:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you muchly. That means a lot.

Eleventy fic recs.

[identity profile] pingback-bot.livejournal.com 2010-10-31 04:17 pm (UTC)(link)
User [livejournal.com profile] elisi referenced to your post from Eleventy fic recs. (http://elisi.livejournal.com/550649.html) saying: [...] Waves [...]
promethia_tenk: (Default)

[personal profile] promethia_tenk 2010-11-01 08:52 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm wondering how I managed to miss this one! Thank goodness elisi put it in her recs. The more inter-disciplinary Doctor Who fic gets, the happier I am :-)

[identity profile] ladymercury-10.livejournal.com 2010-11-02 12:02 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)
ext_1373932: (Agreement →)

[identity profile] redjaywrites.livejournal.com 2012-09-07 06:34 am (UTC)(link)
Maths shouldn't work in fics XD somehow you manage it.

[identity profile] ladymercury-10.livejournal.com 2012-09-07 07:10 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you so much! That means a lot, actually. :)