Entry tags:

story: tardis

Title: I'm Your Moon (9/9)
Rating: PG
Series: The Colbert Report, Doctor Who
Spoilers: Anything through New Who S4/Torchwood S2 is fair game.
Summary: The most dangerous thing in Stephen's head doesn't look like a monster. Good thing there are so many people watching out for him: Four, and Sarah Jane, and the Wørd, and Jack, and Ten, and . . .

Before this serial ends, let me shove y'all in the direction of this ficlet, which is the reason Stephen's psi-moon has a tower, and this one, in which Ace Rimmer meets Tek Jansen.

Beta by the majestic stellar_dust. Table of contents, and footnotes, here.


I'm Your Moon
Part Nine


The psi-moon: 2,999,404 AD

As the Doctor started to pull him along through the forest, Stephen looked from him to Sarah Jane to the mysterious glowing stranger, who half-walked and half-floated beside the company. "I don't understand . . ."

"It's A Psi-Moon," said the stranger. "Everything Here Is A Physical Manifestation Of Something Inside Your Head."

Her voice, too, was familiar, but only with this piece of information did it all come together. "You're the—"

"The Wørd Made Flesh," clarified the Wørd with a wink.

His mind roiling with questions, Stephen latched on to one at random. "How come you look like a human? The last time you had a physical form, you were this little grub thing."

"I Blame Your Bad Influence."

"And Jack . . . ?"

Sarah Jane and the Doctor looked blank, but the Wørd seemed to know exactly what he was thinking—as she always did, whether he liked it or not. "Jack Isn't Here. That Was Another Part Of You."

In spite of his cold wet clothing and the chill of the night, Stephen felt a shot of warmth. I'm like Jack. At least, something in me is.

"Same With The Dragon," continued the papilløn. "And The Tentacle Monster, The Spiders, The Forest, The Darkness. It's All You."

Why couldn't she have quit while I was ahead?


⇔

Sarah Jane didn't know where a tentacle monster came into all of this, but Stephen seemed to understand what the Wørd meant. He started to protest.

"Hush!" interrupted the Doctor. "Do you hear that?"

They all came to a halt. Not far ahead of them was a low but even rhythm, like the sound of a great company on the march.

"Could we go some other way?" whispered Sarah Jane.

"The TARDIS Is Due North," replied the Wørd. "That's Where We Have To Go. Unless You Want To Go So Far South That You Come Around To North Again."

"That would take much too long," said the Doctor, looking worriedly at Stephen. "We'll just have to go through. On we go."

"This isn't me," continued Stephen quietly as they marched on, as if he hadn't been listening to a word of it. "I'm not like this. None of this can be me . . . ."

He was still talking when they stumbled out of the trees into a clearing, and came face to face with the marchers.


⇔

Now here was something Stephen could believe was part of him!

There were no freakish monsters in the small army before them, nor even a single human being who was less than perfect, save the inconsequential uneven ears. They were straight-shouldered and square-jawed, with every hair in place. And it didn't hurt that they all looked exactly like Stephen himself.

He couldn't imagine why Sarah Jane and the Doctor had suddenly gone all tense.

Admittedly, he did nearly panic when the ranks parted to let their leader through. The man's mount, armored like the soldiers in stiff leather adorned with the crests of eagles, was no war stallion, but the most massive bear Stephen had ever seen. "K-keep that thing away from me!"

"It's all right," said the man atop the vicious creature, patting its head. (Stephen ignored the fact that the bear, too, had a bent right ear.) "He's completely under control."

"Truthiness," snapped the Doctor. "Keep your distance."

"It's okay!" insisted Stephen, shrugging off the supportive arms of his companions. "He's one of the good guys! He's even got Captain America's shield, see?"

"That's right," said Truthiness, flashing them a winning smile. "No need to get so defensive. After all, we're only here to burn down the forest and destroy everything in it."

"Don't You Dare," said the Wørd.

Truthiness laughed heartily. "And why not? For years Truthiness Tower has suffered the indignity of being next to this disgusting place. It's high time we got rid of it once and for all."

"See, folks, this is an it-getter," said Stephen with a grin.

"Starting with you."

The bear growled hungrily.


⇔

Opposite his perfect double, Stephen looked even more disheveled than Sarah Jane had realized. His openmouthed shock, in contrast to the smug smile on Truthiness' face, made it all the more pronounced.

She moved to protect him again, the Doctor and the Wørd doing the same. This time he didn't shrug them off.

"Wh-what?" he stammered at last.

"The Forest Represents Stuff In Your Head, Remember?" said the Wørd. "Can't Get Rid Of It Without You Going Too." To Truthiness she added, "Don't Even Think About It."

The smile shifted all at once into a stern glare. "I never think at all," said Truthiness, eyebrows arched grimly at them. "I feel, in my gut, that this is the right thing to do."

"Well, if you feel we're going to let you get away with this, you've got another feel coming!" declared the Doctor.

"Oh, it's not up to you," said Truthiness bluntly. "It's up to Stephen."

Sarah Jane squeezed the man's shoulder protectively. "It's just like with the dragon!" she assured him. "All you have to do is tell him no!"

"It's not that easy, though," continued Truthiness. "Stephen hasn't been in the tower yet, but he can imagine it. Can't you, Stephen?"

Stephen, eyes wide, didn't answer.

"It's a mansion with many rooms. Glorious. Strong. Awe-inspiring. It's just how you would want it to be."

"It's perfect," whispered Stephen.

"That's right. Perfect. Because all the nasty imperfections and ugly truths are kept outside of it. But you've never managed to get rid of them—only to separate them out and keep them down. They're still in your head, still keeping you from being good."

Stephen was shivering openly now.

"We can't have any of that in Truthiness Tower. You've created a place so perfect that you yourself can never be allowed in."

"I—I can be good!"

"Not good enough! This forest, its creatures, all the things they represent—they're part of you, no matter how much you hate them. And you do hate them, don't you, Stephen?"

Stephen's breath came quick and shallow.

"But you don't hate me. How can you? I'm pure Truthiness. You can't escape the Facts of what you are. I can!" He swept out an arm to indicate the massed troops at his sides. (Sarah Jane had already picked out Piety and Heterosexuality in the crowd.) "We can make it all go away! Without you holding us back, we can build something really perfect—something made only of the parts of you you like—something worth liking! Why wouldn't you want that? What about the rest of this is worth preserving?"

"He's talking rubbish," said the Doctor vehemently. "Don't listen to another word—"

Stephen interrupted. "He's right."

Truthiness smiled triumphantly.


⇔

Sarah Jane and the Doctor both started to protest. The Wørd shushed them. Stephen was silently grateful.

"You're right," he repeated, louder this time. "I hate this place. I don't want to be anywhere near it. Usually I pretend it doesn't exist—I pretend I'm you!—and people love you, people who would think I was pathetic if they knew the truth."

The massive bear was licking its lips.

"But they don't care!" continued Stephen, nodding at the friends clustered around him. "They know I'm not perfect. They've seen me being weak and scared and uncertain. And they came looking for me anyway! They thought I was worth saving!"

Starlight began to show through the clouds.

"So who cares if I don't like myself?" demanded Stephen. "They like me!"



The sky cleared all at once, blinding them with dazzling silver moonlight.

Truthiness and all his company let out shrieks and ran, but it was too late. Wherever the light fell on them, it went straight through, as though they were no more substantial than colored glass—and, as they discovered when they flung themselves into the shelter of the trees, just as easily shattered.


⇔

The Library: 4961.
The Doctor is in his tenth incarnation. Stephen Col-bert is 17. Jack Harkness is too young for the Doctor, but that's not saying much.

"I don't like this," grumbled Stephen, mostly to himself. "Whose idea was it to cover an entire planet with books?"

"Can't be helped," declared the Doctor. He was at his most manic now, periodically stopping in front of an information drone and bouncing on the balls of his feet in front of it for a second before dashing off again. "Only way to have enough room for every book ever published." He darted down one of the aisles, voice echoing back to Stephen and Jack: "Of course, they could store this all electronically in a single house-sized computer, but what would be the fun in that? Aha! Here we are!"

Stephen looked doubtfully up at Jack, who shrugged. "I don't know what he's up to either."

"Come on, come on!" urged the Doctor, and the two followed his voice down the twisted row of shelves. They found him up a ladder, the soles of his trainers twenty feet from the ground, one hand rifling through an even higher row of books. "Here we go. Catch!"

In spite of himself, Stephen lunged for the falling volume, grabbing it from the air before it could crash to the ground and break its spine. Not that he cared what happened to a book, but still.

Well, now that he had the thing, he might as well look at it. "America: The Book," he read from the cover. "I like the title."

"I recommend page 192," the Doctor advised him.

Stephen obediently flipped the pages and read the headline that jumped out at him. "'Dressing Like A TV Journalist,' by Stephen Col—hey, that's my na—"

"Look sharp!" cried the Doctor, and Stephen would have been knocked on the head by a volume with a two-inch spine if Jack hadn't intercepted it just in time.

"People shouldn't make books that big!" he exclaimed shakily. "Those things are hazardous! Is it one of those with huge print and wide margins?"

"Tiny print," corrected Jack. "And, whoa, these pages are like tissue paper."

"Even worse! What could anyone possibly want to write that much about?"

"Looks like it's a biography of you."

Stephen gaped.

"Heads up!" called the Doctor, and was about to throw down another when Jack and Stephen both started frantically yelling that enough was enough.

"There are more?" breathed Stephen, as the Doctor slid down the ladder with a slender volume clutched in his hand. "How many books are there about me?"

"All of that shelf," replied the Doctor. "And the one above it, and the one above that. And these are just books that deal with you directly. This here," and he held out the third book, taking the first as he did so, "is an index of all the volumes in other sections of the library that mention you."

Stephen took it. His hands were shaking.

"Little Steve Col-bert," said the Doctor, shaking his head admiringly. "The boy who will be Stephen Colbert. Can't tell you too much now—you still have to go through the experiences on your own. But I promise you, your name is going to go down in history."


⇔

The psi-moon: 2,999,404 AD

Now that it was illuminated, the path through the forest was infinitely easier to follow. In spite of the exhaustion all around, the rest of the walk seemed to take no time at all.

"Oh, good, the TARDIS landed on its feet," said Sarah Jane as they approached the hill. On its summit stood the familiar blue box, in the midst of the shattered remains of what had once been a tower.

"She does that," said the Doctor proudly.

"There's one thing I don't understand, though," Sarah Jane continued. "We're on a moon, aren't we? How does it have moonlight?"

"That's a very good question." Shielding his eyes, the Doctor looked up at the satellite. "Dear me, those are certainly some unconventional rock formations. Puts Earth's Man in the Moon to shame. Stephen, I don't suppose you know that fellow?"

Stephen looked up at the sky for the first time since the clouds had lifted. His mouth dropped open.

"Know him?" he repeated. "That's Jon."

Sarah Jane and the Wørd both gaped.

The Doctor, naturally, didn't even blink. "If it has your friend's face, it's certainly part of the psi-moon," he said without missing a beat. "No wonder the initial earthquake was so violent. The original moon was spinning off a whole chunk of itself."

"Why would it do that?" breathed Stephen. "Are Jon and I, like, some kind of binary-moon system?"

"Do You Know What Those Words Mean, Or Did You Just Get Lucky?"

"Hey! I do listen to Neil DeGrasse Tyson sometimes."

"Maybe," offered Sarah Jane, "it means that, even when you can't see him, he's always there."

"Truthiness' troops went transparent in front of him," added the Doctor. "Could it mean that he sees right through you?"

"Maybe You Turn Into A Wolf When He's Full," put in the Wørd.

"Perhaps it's related to the tides," suggested Sarah Jane.

"Jon Makes Stephen Bulge In Odd Places?"

"Enough!" yelled Stephen, waving for silence before someone could make a joke about him and Jon getting moony around each other. (As if that would ever happen.) "You people are giving me a headache. Let's get off this rock and find some less psychoanalytical place to land. And this time, someone else gets to take the first step."

___

Wallpaper.