[Creative Muses] Response

Do or do not. There is no try. – Yoda

“Doctor, I don’t see at all why we can’t go see the next film at all. We are in a time machine, aren’t we?” Sarah Jane sighed, tilting her head to give her best friend a pleading look. “It’s about time we actually go to a future where we don’t have to spend hours running for our lives, isn’t it?”

The Doctor blinked, confused. “Isn’t that what we spent the extra hours here for already, Sarah? So that you could have your ‘mundane and human enjoyment,’ as I believed you phrased it, in taking me to the pictures?”

“But we only did that after being chased all around York by misplaced Time Vikings,” she retorted, crossing her arms over her chest in a defiant posture. She leaned back against one of the walls in the control room, staring at him with annoyance in her eyes. “Honestly, Doctor! I’ve already seen two of the films now. Can’t I see the final one?”

“In about two years time-”

“From now!”

“So?” Despite the indignant tone in his voice, the Doctor still looked somewhat guilty. He dipped his hat downward slightly, digging in to his pocket to pull out his yo-yo. Once obtained, he began to move it up and down, taking every opportunity to avoid Sarah Jane’s burning glare.

As the yo-yo completed its seventh oscillation, he at last looked up with a twinkle in his bright blue eyes. He cleared his throat, straightened up, and almost smiled at a still pouting Sarah. When he spoke again, it was in a very implausible American accent: “‘This one a long time have I watched. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh! Excitement. Heh! A Jedi craves not these things.’”

It took Sarah a few seconds to realize that he was mocking her. Her draw dropped in infuriated astonishment as she muttered a small and angry “oh” of surprise. One foot stamped hard on the ground of the TARDIS. Her eyes widened, even more so when the Doctor gave her one of his annoying toothy grins. Oh, the arrogant…arrogant Martian!

Well, she decided seconds later, if that was the way he was going to play it then two can play at this game. Not quite possessing a Timelord’s memory, it took Sarah seconds more to recall a quote she remembered rather preferring as they watched the film.

“Do or do not, Doctor,” she retorted before sticking her tongue out at him. “There is no try. And I am going to go see this third movie, so there’s no use trying to get out of it. There is another? Han in carbonite? You really can’t expect me to wait all those years, can you?”

He stood there in silence for a few moments, looking rather Yoda like in his contemplation (in Sarah’s still irritated opinion). Finally, the Doctor shrugged and stuffed the yo-yo back in to his coat pocket. “I suppose that participating in the human ritual of movie going once more won’t be that trying of an experience. I was rather partial to the film myself, actually. Especially with the idea of the Force. Imagine, a whole energy field binding the galaxy. I myself know it to be quite a preposterous idea, but you humans-”

“Doctor,” she cut in, warningly. “The next film, if you please.”

“Ah, but Sarah-”

“Don’t you but Sarah me,” she began, only to be silenced by a finger placed on her lips. She looked up at his smiling face, suddenly highly confused. The confusion lingered as the TARDIS doors began to open and Sarah Jane peered out on to the busy sidewalk of the Eastend of London.

“We’re already here.”

[The Ten Spot] Triumphs

013. TEN (best/biggest) triumphs or victories

As a preface, there are quite a lot of ‘triumphs’ that I feel like I can chose from. This comes especially after travelling with the Doctor for as long as I have, and well, not to be arrogant, helping to save Earth and other worlds countless times. We’re still travelling together, and I’m sure if you ask me this again in ten years, the list will change. Until then, I’m presenting those triumphs that stand out most in my memory to date:

1. Scoring the winning goal during my second year of secondary school that got my team into the county finals. I was rather in to field hockey at that time, and even today that goal still means a lot to me. It proved that despite my height, or lack thereof, I was just as good a player as all the other girls on the team.

2. Being named editor of my university’s magazine for my final year there. I worked hard to achieve that post, and it was wonderful to see that the years of dedication meant something to the professors at Nottingham. Especially when I beat out Benjamin Basil for the post, that prat!

3. Scooping Arthur Gold. It was a short little article on a controversy involving a local drug dealing by a formerly respectable politician. Gold was convinced that he had stolen my lead after snooping about the files on my desk, but I showed him a thing or two. That article also earned me my column in Metropolitan.

4. Helping Sir Edward defeat Irongron and Linx, the Sontaran. Oh, all right. The Doctor did have a lot to do with that victory, but it was my first time travelling to the past and I did manage to convince Sir Edward of a thing or two before the Doctor ever showed up.

5. Watching Thalira, queen of Peladon, take my words on women’s lib to heart. I’ve been a staunch feminist for years and written many articles on the topic, but I had never actually seen the effects my words could have before. It was quite an accomplishment, for Peladon and myself.

6. The first time I got to rescue the Doctor, for a change. It wasn’t much, I suppose, but I still savour the look on his face when I marched him right out of prison. We were on Antari 7 and he had gotten confused for a serial murderer after attempting to help the latest victim. I managed to talk the judge and jury into seeing that the Doctor wasn’t the dangerous criminal they all thought him to be. And of course, it helped that a local and I managed to find the real villain instead.

7. This one will seem rather pale in comparison to some of the other triumphs I’ve previously listed, but I was rather smug the day that I finally managed to beat Harry Sullivan in a game of poker. It took weeks and months of practice, but it was worth it when Sergeant Benson started laughing loudly as Harry stared in disbelief. I made quite a bit of money that night.

8. I don’t know if this truly fits on this list, but I consider it a rather important victory that I helped to participate in no matter what anyone else might think. We were on Skaros – Harry, the Doctor, and I – sent back by the Timelords to prevent the Daleks from ever evolving. And he did get that opportunity, to destroy the Dalek embryos and achieve genocide all at the same time. I reminded him of all the horrors the Daleks would commit, practically trying to convince him to connect the wires on purpose. It felt horrible, even if they were Daleks, but in the end he decided to argue with me like always. And he didn’t. I couldn’t have been prouder.

9. Finding a home for those poor children that Dr Ross had altered and Mr Beckinridge enslaved in setting up his underwater telephone lines. Even in the 19th century, it turned out, people could be such monsters! But we helped put a stop to Dr Ross’s barbaric experimentations in the end. More than that, though, was the look of pure joy on the merchildren’s faces when we brought them to the oceans of Florana. It was a complete triumph over a madman’s horrid and careless view on life.

10. Hearing the Doctor call me his best friend for the first time.

[Milliways] OOM: James' Flat, London, 2006

After their discussion days ago regarding moving the wedding up to ...well, to sometime relatively soon, Sarah Jane had promised to start looking in to details (as long as he would do the same, of course). But that had been days ago, and since then Sarah Jane had no more opened the wedding magazine she had brought than even began looking at the calender for a date.

Instead, she busies herself today with working on an article for a small London newspaper. The magazine sits somewhere on the table, buried under notes and photographs and books. It rests there, almost forgotten, as she works and wonders.

How long has it been since her last trip with the Doctor? Sarah thumps her pencil against the table, and when she reaches for the calender, it's not to look for a wedding date at all.