#and given that they include a literal cat burglar she is no longer the only feline

[televinita]

Companions...as companions

(or, “things that have been in my drafts since early 2020″)

Back in December, I got overwhelmed by feelings and wrote a random little concept sketch re-imagining The (Tenth) Doctor as a regular human and the companions as various pets, summarizing each one's place in his life ("Donna is a dog he reluctantly fostered for a friend, still reeling from the loss of Rose. She's bigger, older, a bit more stubborn and independent, but he finds himself fond of her anyway. Until she gets adopted, and he has to let her go (enter Martha). A year later she's back in need of a home, and this time he doesn't hesitate.”) I also got sassy about the ending, because it wasn’t THAT serious. "And then Rose comes back, dirty and footsore but HOME, and he lives his best life with his 3 best girls forever and ever, the end.”

Last night I reread it and suddenly went, "What if I cleaned up the writing and made this a real fic," and now I'm a thousand words deep and it's getting elaborate. Nine is standing in for this doctor’s father (wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey), because he had Rose first. I'm also trying to decide if I should stick with the idea of Martha being a cat because Independence (her dynamic is just so different from how R&D pledged their lifelong devotion to traveling with him, and he treated her differently too), or if making her the only non-dog Others her too much and I should just make her a super-smart and elegant breed. But on the bright side, since Ten is a goddamn neverending tragedy and the original version saw me tack on a "SAD ALTERNATE END" section just to stab myself in the face (“At the end of a series of short-lived fosters there's Wilf, sweet old elderly Wilf who looks like Donna, and is there by his side when the cancer finishes wearing him down, too young by half, at 40"), now he gets a full life and the Companion Farewell Tour becomes a shameless Titanic-style/Rainbow Bridge escort of dogs from days past. ...which ALSO makes me cry, but for better reasons.

(And there at the end of time is Rose, younger than he’s ever seen her, crossing over with him when everything goes dark and light at once.)