Fake News/Doctor Who: The Eagle Has Landed, part 5

[ptahrrific]

Title: The Eagle Has Landed (5/5)
Rating: PG
Series: The Colbert Report, Doctor Who
Spoilers: Anything DW/TW/SJA is fair game.
Summary: The timelines of Jon, Stephen, Jack, Sarah Jane, and the Doctor circle and collide. Can they all wrangle happy endings when no two people reach 'the end' at the same time?

There's a Christmas special coming up, but this is the final chapter of the main story. To everyone who's been guessing, speculating, and theorizing, your questions are about to be settled. Also, you people are awesome.

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


The Eagle Has Landed
Part Five


New York: 2009

The more the three time travelers talked, the more Jon felt left out.

"It's got to be some kind of token," reasoned Sarah Jane. "Something to prove that he's been through this part of his personal timeline. What about a souvenir from your travels? Something unique, like the papilløn cocoon."

"No good," said Stephen, pacing up and down. "That's got to stay here so I can have been going to have found it when I was seventeen. And it's not like I shopped a lot—we only ever went to one mall, and I was locked up for most of the time we were there. Maybe some part of the TARDIS?"

"Absolutely not!" cried the Doctor, appalled.

"What about something anachronistic?" suggested Sarah Jane. "Anything harmless will do, as long as you can't get it in this era. We could go pick it up right now."

"Has to be something I'll remember," added Stephen, then stopped short. "Remember. Remember!" Spinning on his heel, he pointed at the Doctor. "That's it! 'You need to remember this.' Just like you said. Just like you will say, I mean. The word is 'peaches'!"

"'Peaches'?" repeated Sarah Jane. "Couldn't you get peaches anywhere?"

"Not just any peaches," said Stephen with a wild grin. "The best peaches in the galaxy. Which are . . . ?" He looked expectantly at the Doctor.

The Time Lord just looked blank. "I don't know. Which are they?"

"How can you not know this?" demanded Stephen. "It's one of the TARDIS presets!"

"Not yet, it isn't," said the Doctor, moving swiftly to the console. "We're creating it. Right now. Where are we going?"

"South Carolina, summer of 1981." Stephen rattled off the date, then an address. "There should be residual artron energy in the area from the TARDIS dematerializing. Better aim for a few minutes after that."

Jon realized he was staring. Since when had Stephen been so . . . knowledgeable?

The Doctor's hands flew over the keys, and with a terrific racket the central column of the console began to move up and down. Jon stumbled as the whole room shook around him.

"When you show me how to do this, in your future," continued Stephen, shouting over the noise, "I yanked a lever the wrong way and then ran off when we landed. Don't worry about it, and don't let Jack worry! Wait until the storm ends before you come looking."


⇔

Montana.

Stephen had intended to be vigilant. He really had.

But the crackling flames were warm and more than a little hypnotic. When a sharp knocking sound jolted him awake, though he could have sworn he had only drifted for a few moments, the fire had sunk low in the hearth and the noise of the storm was gone altogether.

Mr. Stewart was snoring lightly in spite of the noise. Rather than wake him, Stephen slipped out from under their shared quilt and padded over to open the door.

The Doctor only smiled a knowing smile when their eyes met, but Jack looked absolutely terrified. "Stephen!" he shouted, greatcoat billowing as he lunged across the threshold and pulled Stephen into a fierce embrace. "Don't you ever, ever scare me like that again! Do you hear me?"

"I'm sorry!" cried Stephen, clinging to Jack just as tightly, feeling the Doctor's arms go around them both. "I'm sorry I ran away. I'm sorry I scared you. But I'm okay, I promise. Mr. Stewart took care of me."

The two men looked up sharply, just in time to see Mr. Stewart stretch and yawn.

The Doctor was so startled that he let them go, looking as flabbergasted as Stephen had ever seen him. "Mr. Stewart?" he exclaimed.

"That's my name," said Mr. Stewart with a smile. "Hello, Doctor. Hi, Jack."

"You know them?" breathed Stephen.

"We've met," clarified Mr. Stewart.

"So we have!" agreed the Doctor. "Jack, take Stephen back to the TARDIS. Mr. Stewart and I need a moment alone."

Rather than drag Stephen away, Jack let his tight hold slacken, so that Stephen could easily have broken free if he wanted. "Are you ready?"

Stephen tried not to shudder. Shake it off, Col-bert. Be brave. You can do this.

"Yeah. I'm ready to go home."


⇔

South Carolina: 1981.
The Doctor is in his fourth incarnation. Sarah Jane Smith is 29. Stephen Colbert is 44. Jon Stewart is about a week shy of 47.

Stephen bounded back into the TARDIS with an armful of South Carolina peaches, golden and warm from the August sun. "I think I scared a squirrel for these," he remarked, handing one to each of his friends.

"A price worth paying," declared Sarah Jane upon taking a bite. "These are scrumptious."

"I can certainly believe these are the best in the galaxy," said the Doctor, through a full mouth.

"And definitely better than Georgia's," added Jon, in a tone that made Stephen not quite sure whether he was teasing.

There were two of the fruits remaining, and these Stephen held against his heart while the others finished eating. "Doctor, if this is really the first you've heard of our peaches . . ."

"It is," confirmed the Doctor, pulling some levers and setting the ship in motion.

Stephen sat quickly down against the wall. "Then you learned about them from me. But I'm only on the TARDIS now because I recognized it from when I was seventeen. And the reason I got on it back then was because it landed in the middle of the orchard that I just directed you to."

He looked over at Jon, who had braced himself quickly against the console as the floor started to shake. "And the reason we came to get these was because you needed something to bring me. But I'm only going to insist on you bringing something because I know you'll figure it out."

"I've got another," said Jon. "The fact that I am not a total dick these days can be partly traced back to the fact that you slapped some sense into me back in the nineties. And, unless I'm completely off the mark here, the reason you slapped me was because I failed to live up to your preexisting expectations that I would not be a dick."

I'm One Too, put in the Wørd in his head. You Went Looking For Me Because You Knew You Had Already Found Me.

"You seem to be a bit of a magnet for ontological paradoxes," remarked the Doctor. "It's as if the universe is determined to use you to prove that sometimes there is, in fact, a free lunch."

"Won't stop you from telling me that there isn't," said Stephen wryly. The phrase had stuck in his head all those years ago—though he had taken it literally at the time, repeating it when he was offered an actual meal by . . .

. . . by . . .

Oh. Oh.

And there's another, he thought. But I'm not telling the Doctor about this one. Not yet.


⇔

Montana: 2026.

"You, Mr. Stewart, are a terrible person," said the Doctor with a grin. "How many more of these are you planning to spring on me?"

Stephen Stewart spread his hands in mock surrender. "As far as I know, this is the last one."



"It had better be!" The Doctor laughed, then sobered. "Er, please don't take that wrong. It's not that I don't enjoy having you around—but I've been walking on eggshells for a month now, trying to take care of you without completely redirecting your personal history."

"And all that that implies," agreed Stephen.

"Exactly."

"Doctor . . ." Pushing away the quilt Sarah Jane had made, Stephen rose from the couch and walked over to join the Time Lord. "I know what that really means now. I know what happened to your planet. And you never tried to use me to tell yourself to save it. I can't imagine how hard that must have been."

The Doctor looked away. "Pretty hard, yeah."

Stephen was silent for a moment. "But you did it," he continued at last. "You're sending me home—that me, I mean—and here I am, me-me, alive and well and on the far side of it all. All the time loops are closing, with the universe still intact."

"We-ell," said the Doctor. "About that." He met Stephen's eye again, and now there was a ghost of a smile on his lips. "You were caught on tape in 2007."

Stephen frowned. "I had a nightly TV show in 2007," he said cautiously. "I was on a lot of tape."

"No, no, no, I mean you were caught on tape." The Doctor nodded towards him. "In that suit."


⇔

New York: 2009.
Stephen Colbert is 44. Jon Stewart is 46.

The night was dark and cloudy, so the blue light on the TARDIS roof provided most of the illumination in the park as Stephen placed the remaining peaches reverently in Jon's hands, then gave him a little shove. "Take these to my studio. I'll be there."

"The next time you see me," said Jon slowly, "I won't know anything about this, right?"

"That's right. And the next time you see me, I will have been dealing with that for a year and a half. All the more reason for you to hurry! Future-me has been waiting a long time."

"If I have this right," protested Jon, taking a step closer, "this you has been waiting a while already."

Stephen looked shiftily at him. ". . . maybe."

With his free hand Jon brushed an invisible speck of dust from Stephen's lapel, letting his hand rest on the fabric. "Can I at least give you something to tide you over?"

As before, Stephen froze. But this time he didn't run away.

When Jon pulled back from the kiss, he found the other man looking startled and a little sad. "Uh-oh. You didn't just decide that wasn't impressive enough to wait around for, did you?"

Stephen shook himself. "It was. Of course it was. I just didn't expect . . ."

He swallowed.

"Jon," he said solemnly, "you taste like home."


⇔

The South Pacific: 2008.

The hotel room was just as he remembered it. No surprise there: while he had been gone for months, his vacation spot had seen less than an hour pass.

Sarah Jane embraced him warmly. When she pulled back, her eyes were shining. "Goodbye, Stephen. It's been wonderful. Give my love to the Wørd, too."

"Against all expectations," added the Doctor, "you were fantastic." And he hugged Stephen no less tightly.

Stephen felt himself choking up. "Thank you," he managed. "Both of you. For everything."

The door of the TARDIS had almost closed behind them when the Doctor stuck his head back out. "If you don't mind one quick question . . . what was the actual last thing I said to you?"

Stephen smiled.


⇔

South Carolina: 1981.
The Doctor is in his tenth incarnation. Stephen Col-bert is 17. Stephen Stewart is 61. Jack Harkness is . . . well, somewhere around 170, if you really want to know.

Once Stephen had changed from the wool and flannel back into his summer clothes, the TARDIS materialized in the orchard, where the sun was sinking low on the horizon.

"Love you, kid," murmured Jack into his good ear, hugging Stephen for the last time. "I'll look you up when I get home. In the meantime, knock 'em dead. I know you can do it."

The Doctor just squeezed his shoulder. "Be fantastic."

And then he was walking on the grass under the old familiar trees, automatically, as if in a dream, until he heard the Doctor's voice again. "Stephen!"

He turned. The TARDIS cast a long shadow on the grass.

"Farewell," said the Doctor, "wherever you fare, till your eyrie receives you at the journey's end."

This was, of course, the polite thing to say among eagles.

"May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks," answered Stephen, who knew the correct reply.


⇔

New York: 2009.
Jon Stewart is 46. Stephen Colbert is 45 (and a half).

When the present-day Stephen opened the door to his office, Jon saw the differences immediately. The younger Stephen had had fewer lines in his face; this version had more grey in his hair. It had been a rough eighteen months.

And then the differences ceased to matter, as Stephen threw Jon up against the wall and began kissing him with the vigor of a man half his age.

After all the effort he had put into keeping those last two peaches safe, Jon was a little dismayed to see them hurled unceremoniously to the floor. But only a little.


⇔

South Carolina: 1981.

Jack looked guiltily at the grandfatherly man on the other side of the console. "I did say I would leave the TARDIS when 'Stephen' did . . ."

"It won't be much longer," the Doctor assured him. "He's only here for one last trip. Isn't that right, Stephen?"

"One last trip," echoed the older Stephen with a grin. "Allons-y!"


⇔

New York: 2009.

"Marry me," mumbled Stephen.

Jon shifted a little, not sure he'd heard right. They were, after all, lying in an awkward, half-naked heap on a couch not really wide enough for both of them, so Stephen's mouth was sort of crushed against his bare chest. "What?"

Stephen twisted his head to look up at Jon as best he could. "It's legal in six states. We're both available. Also, I love you. So make an honest man of me. Marry me."

"Um," stammered Jon. "This is a little sudden isn't it? I mean, a few hours ago I didn't think you were ever going to speak to me again."

"Well, think about it," said Stephen. "No rush. You can have all the time you need. By the way, how do you feel about Montana?"

Jon was saved from having to figure out what that meant when Stephen's phone went off.

"Let it ring," murmured Stephen, burying his face in Jon's chest again.

Jon reached out an arm and snagged the phone. "I'll just check who it is," he said, tilting the screen towards him and squinting at the text it displayed. "Huh. Who's 'Torchwood'?"


⇔

New York: 2007.

Truthiness And Relative Dimensions In Space... by sailorptah

Comments

[rebeccasmask.livejournal.com]

YAAAYYYY!!!! I am often amazed at your ability to work in bits from the show, and this was an excellent example. Also, you tricked me! Now I have to go back and see if there's any foreshadowing about Montana-Mr. Stewart. Great story!

[ptahrrific]

This clip was referenced back in part 3.5, so you had plenty of warning there XD

Thank you so much!

[punkishgrin.livejournal.com]

Amazing, again. I'm rereading this so that I can catch everything this time around. The twists and resolutions are executed so well, I felt a little breathless when it ended. And now I notice too late that you called them "the Stewarts" in at least one response, which should have been a big tip-off *headdesk*

I'm getting that little pull of regret that always comes with finishing a great series, but am really trying to remind myself that we've still got one part to go. There will be plenty of time for remorse after "Christmas Special." X)

Only Stephen could say it best, "Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow." :D

[ptahrrific]

Hey, that could have been referring to Jon and his wife! You never know! (...except, well, I guess now you do.)

You are too kind. Thank you =3

[rissaofthesaiya.livejournal.com]

I WAS RIGHT! Crazy Montana Theory - that is, that Mr. Stewart is future!Stephen and they moved to Montana because it's legal there - is not so crazy after all. I thought he sounded like Stephen in his very first scene, with the hot chocolate, but then you called him Mr. Stewart and I was like "Oh, well I was wrong about that then." Then I saw the word 'partner' and it hit me. :D I Called It!

I think the reason some people fell for him being Jon is that he's clearly mellowed out a lot since 2008. future!Stephen's voice seems almost like a combination of now!Stephen and now!Jon. Which in itself is awesome. There's nothing like a happy Stephen.

Gotta love paradoxes. Somehow it seems fitting that Stephen would create so many of them. It wouldn't do for something about his life to make sense.

I'd seen the 'time machines will prove the Bible right' clip before but never bothered to watch the clip AFTER that, and it's split up weirdly on the website, so I didn't see future!Stephen. That'll teach me to not pay proper attention to Americone Dream. And its peach-flavoured rivals.

You have officially redefined awesome with this fic. Can't wait for the Christmas special!


Oh yeah, and:

"Jon," he said solemnly, "you taste like home."

AWWWWWW.

[ptahrrific]

Fantastic!

By this point, future!Stephen has had 16+ years with Jon. Some things have rubbed off. The Zen included.

It wouldn't do for something about his life to make sense.

QFT!

I wanted to just link to that clip, before I realized the one at the website cut off before the punch line. But maybe it's for the best, because there wouldn't have been credits otherwise.

Thank you!

[gammaguilt.livejournal.com]

That's got to stay here so I can have been going to have found it when I was seventeen.

hahahahaha, time travel!

Stephen Stewart took me long enough to figure out! goodness! I didn't even realize the story was going to wrap up at this point-- it all seemed so entangled! and now it seems very much in place. (if they move to Montana, does that mean no more shows?)

thanks SO for the epic. cuz it was really wonderful. I am thinking back to the earlier adventures, like with Stephen getting tied up, and on the Psi Moon, and I feel nostalgic for them. that is how far this story went. I'm new to reading reading fics just this year, so my praise doesn't carry that much weight, but I truly enjoyed it.

(looking forward to the Christmas Special!)

[ptahrrific]

Indeed!

(if they move to Montana, does that mean no more shows?)

It's 17 years in the future. The shows will probably end, or be handed over to other hosts, in the next 17 years, no matter what happens. (Sad thought, I know...)

Your enjoyment is appreciated just as much as anybody else's. Thank you ^_^

[nhym.livejournal.com]

ZOMG speechless.

I just really really really love Ten in this one, he ended up such a sweetheart from being a butthead. I think my heart broke a little for him.

[ptahrrific]

Ten's had it rough. Glad it came out all right ♥

:D!

[jeethree.livejournal.com]

Ah-ha~ that was beyond awesome! And everything connects together so neatly- I'm definitely going to have to go back and reread this again.

Love the credits vid too!

Re: :D!

[ptahrrific]

Thank you! ♥

[sarcasticsra]

Oh, man, that was awesome. I did not see the Mr. Stewart thing coming at all. But now that I think about it, you mentioned earlier his hair being dyed, and I remember thinking at the time, "...wha? Jon wouldn't bother dyeing his hair. That's weird." I should've known! =P

The thing that keeps getting me, though? He took Jon's last name! Mr. Constant Validation gave up his last name because it was more important to him to have Jon's. Something about that gesture speaks volumes about his personal growth, I think. *cuddles Stephen*

"Jon," he said solemnly, "you taste like home."

Aww, Stephen.

(Stephen being a magnet for ontological paradoxes = pure genius. Srsly.)

[ptahrrific]

*Jon-style dramatic gesture* Foreshadowing! (Since f!Stephen had dark hair in his 2007 visit, that had to be described in some way that didn't make it too obvious...)

Mr. Constant Validation has, indeed, grown up.

Thank you ♥

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

This fic was totally awesome! As were all your other TDS/CBR stories, which I basically stayed up late to devour this week. You, madam, are single-handedly responsible for sucking me into YET ANOTHER fandom. I had never even considered the possibility that people wrote fic about these guys - AND YET.

[ptahrrific]

You're too kind. Thank you, and welcome to the fandom!

[shmanet-janet.livejournal.com]

so this is pretty much the most awesome thing that has ever happened. ever.

[ptahrrific]

♥

[writer-atdusk.livejournal.com]

wow. this fic reached epic levels a great deal of time agao, but this...this is beyond epic :D

I loved seeing Stephen in that suit in the BG of that clip, after seeing your illustration, its something future!Stephen WOULD do, and I love it XD

[ptahrrific]

The whole future!Stephen sequence was written with that clip in mind. It's amazing, the random plot hooks TCR throws out there.

♥!

[blowjobsalways.livejournal.com]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! And I have to say, I had no idea 'Mr. Stewart' was Stephen- I think it's because this story eats my brain in the best way possible.

Also: Jon reached out an arm and snagged the phone. "I'll just check who it is," he said, tilting the screen towards him and squinting at the text it displayed. "Huh. Who's 'Torchwood'?"
*explodes*

I really can't put how much I loved into words :)

[ptahrrific]

Aaaaawesome.

♥!

[robin-redbreast.livejournal.com]

This is so epic, I'm imagining you wrote pages and pages of timelines with arrows pointing backwards and forwards and trying to conjugate the subjunctive conditional past perfect tense (which I just made up).

[ptahrrific]

Heh. This is one story I'm not even going to try to diagram.

Thank you!

[canadian-plant.livejournal.com]

Ooh, fantastic end to the main story! I had not guessed that Mr. Stewart was Stephen, but I have to admit that that's much more interesting than it being Jon. And when Stephen realized it? Ha!

And that last line! I don't suppose Jack's going to show up in the Christmas special?

[ptahrrific]

Awesome. Thank you!

Wait and see >)

[quark101.livejournal.com]

This entire series is epic. ♥
And that ending. I so can't wait 'til the Christmas special.

[ptahrrific]

Eeeexcellent.

Thank you!

[fireflower314.livejournal.com]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I actually read this last night right before bed and was not nearly coherent enough to comment. I'll attempt to write something halfway decent now, at least.

I knew that Jon needed peaches, but I definitely didn't guess that that was why the Doctor had that preset to begin with. After this chapter Ten's behavior made so much sense, though. I actually hadn't spotted a lot of the paradoxes so I'm glad you spelled so many of them out in this chapter. They were all very well done. :)

And then. AND THEN. STEPHEN IS MR. STEWART!! You should have seen me when I read that, I definitely uttered a muffled shriek or two. I knew he and Jon were partners, but I'd assumed that Stephen was meeting future!Jon and that was part of why he's so drawn to him when- I was going to say when they first meet, but it's impossible to say when their first meeting really was, isn't it? *laughs* The fact that it was STEPHEN, though? YOU WIN EVERYTHING. \o/

I can't wait to read the Christmas special!

[ptahrrific]

I may not be the most coherent myself, but I'll try ^_^;

Have I mentioned that I love paradoxes?

I'd assumed that Stephen was meeting future!Jon and that was part of why he's so drawn to him when-

Hee! That would have been fun - each of them setting the other up to fall for him later. (Or earlier, depending on whose timeline you counted.) But this way, Stephen finally gets a chance to save himself.

Thank you so much!

de-lurking

[lady-ravaatris.livejournal.com]

Hi, I have been reading through your fics over the last few weeks (almost all of them, actually. I'm not creepy, I swear...I just enjoy a good story) and would just like to say that you are amazing

I love your characterization of Stephen, and how over the course of the story you gradually break down the walls he has set up for himself. The way you portray him is incredible. Like in the psy-moon chapters, how clearly you demonstrate his fractured mental state and show that there is a chance for there to be a reconsilation between the two warring halves of himself. There is definately a clear divide between who he thinks he should be, and who he actually is. I really like your version of him and how in depth you take us into his mind, and yet it's still understandable -- you present him clearly without having to spell it out for us.

Also, as someone who's only watched the latest version of Doctor Who, I was a bit nervous about reading fic about say, any Doctor other than Nine or Ten, but now all I want to do is torrent all the episodes with Four in it. Everyone was perfectly in character (as far as I could tell, I haven't seen much of Sarah Jane before, so I wouldn't really know...) and the diologue was always perfect.

One last thing, time travel and paradoxes are really, really, really, really really, really confusing, and you managed to make it all make sense. I bow down to your amazing writing skills.

P.S. I apologise for any incoherence in this comment. I haven't slept for a while and am running purely off of caffine, so if some of the things I wrote don't make sense, it's because I didn't proofread carefully enough...sorry? Also, I had a slightly more eloquent comment before, and then I accidentally hit the back button on the browser so it vanished. I haaate it when that happens...

P.P.S. your fics have actually completely changed the way I look at Stephen. When I watch him now I focus on how he deflects or rationalizes certain things, which was interesting to have on my mind when I read his book. So thank you for that.

Wow, this has gotten long...

Re: de-lurking

[ptahrrific]

Heh. Don't worry, they're here to be read =)

Analyzing character!Stephen has long been a weakness of mine (...as you may have noticed, reading my fics and all). And your description of him fits perfectly with what I was going for. Awesome.

Four is totally worth your time. Of course, I'm one of those people who recommends sampling every Doctor; but there's a reason Four tops almost everyone's list.

Maybe it's because I'm also highly caffeinated at the moment, but this made plenty of sense to me, and it's all great to hear ^_^ Thank you!

[infraredphaeton.livejournal.com]

....I love you.


That is all.

(well, you and Jon and Stephen.)

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

*WILD CRAZY MAD APPLAUSE*

I had so much fun beta-ing this story, by the way! :D You rock.

[lachatdelarue.livejournal.com]

Just finished reading all this (had managed to start on the beginning of this serial, and loving it, went back to read all of them, then read the last two parts of this one XD)... wow.

I came here from the Doctor Who fandom, knowing just about nothing about Stephen or his show, so I was attempting to google some of the obvious TCR stuff, and that helped some. At some point about halfway through, I realized I *totally* needed to watch some Colbert Report, so I found some and watched it, and everything made so much more sense then! And now I see the Word on the show as a big piece of digital psychic paper :D

I could go on and on about how awesome this has been to read, but honestly, my irrational fear of commenting to people I don't know is kicking in and if I don't hit 'post' now I'll probably not do it at all (yes, I'm strange XD)

[ptahrrific]

Believe me, there are few things a writer likes more than strangers de-lurking with praise =D

Glad you could be enticed to watch some TCR, and thanks for reading!

[lavinialavender.livejournal.com]

All caught up!

I'm really impressed by how you worked this whole series. It's really ingenious, having Ten pick up teenage!Stephen and Four pick up adult!Stephen, and actually working out all the paradoxes that would arise. It's also neat how both timelines work together as he's working out his sexuality. Very neat, and I am really impressed by how you handled it from beginning to end.

This is just a personal note - this is the closest I've ever come to RPS, and I found it really unsettling. Character!Stephen is pretty well defined from real!Stephen, but not so much for Jon, who's said himself he's just a little more adolescent version of himself on his show; most of the time, he's saying exactly how he feels. So it's...very disturbing to me to read that his marriage collapsed around this time right now (or the president-elect was assassinated before inauguration, oh my God Erin HOW COULD YOU WRITE THAT, I don't care what weird category of fiction it falls under). I was similarly distressed when I read The Colbert That Never Was, about what happened to Jon's family - very appalling, even though it WAS the year that never was. I don't know, like I said, this is my first brush with RP fiction.

[ptahrrific]

Thank you!

Sorting out the time travel has been all kinds of fun =D

And, yeah, welcome to the eternal dilemma of RPF. This is why some people just steer clear of it altogether, and why others will only read/write within certain limits (no death, no breaking up married couples, no involvement of non-public-figure relatives, and so on). I do think it's important to remember, though, that they're all "characters" on some level. I don't know Stewart, much less anyone in his family, and I don't claim to.

the president-elect was assassinated before inauguration, oh my God Erin HOW COULD YOU WRITE THAT

Don't blame me! This one is Doctor Who canon! (It wasn't Obama, either, just a generic white guy from an indeterminate party, so don't panic too hard.)

[(Anonymous)]

how adorable! heh, so that's Stephen Stewart in the end credits.
this is beautiful. if this were deviantArt i'd insert at least twelve hearts here.
"That's got to stay here so I can have been going to have found it when I was seventeen. <-- that kind of talk :heart:
"There should be residual artron energy in the area from the TARDIS dematerializing. Better aim for a few minutes after that." <--don't worry Jon, i'd be staring too.
Stephen and Stephen under Sarah Jane's quilt is so adorable :heart:
and Jack hugging Stephen and Doctor hugging both. again, adorable, though i'm a bit jealous.
and the squirrely reference to the beginning! :heart:
very romantic end, and good job with all the loop closing.
also, the bit about Jack's age. perfect finale.
it'd be nice if pundit-comedian marriage were legal in six states in a little over a year...
now to read all the omake ('extras' just doesn't seem a specific enough word)...
love and little heart emoticons,
your loyal fangirl,
Kagaya

[ptahrrific]

I almost drew Stephen and Stephen under the quilt, but there was no way to pull it off without either cropping it awkwardly or ruining the surprise. Alas.

Glad someone remarked on the squirrel reference!

Maybe I'm overly optimistic here, but there's no denying that the time of same-sex marriage is coming.

Thank you!

[seagullsong.livejournal.com]

Mr. Stewart? Aw, when I heard that, I was suddenly struck by all the different ways people nowadays are changing their names when they get married, and then by a vision of Jon announcing The Daily Show by saying:

"Thank you, and welcome to The Daily Show, my name is Jon Stewart-Colbert..." and that's as far as he got before complete insanity set in. : D

[ptahrrific]

Now that would be awesome.

[elincubus.livejournal.com]

I so should have seen the Mr Stewart thing coming. I mean Jon dying his hair?! that's just wrong on so many levels! XD
(And there were other little hints, but that one alone should have been sufficient)

And I have to say this whole series hardly confuses me, although my knowledge of DW and TW is limited to about one episode each. So I guess you doing something right there.

The only thing that really threw me off for a while were the references to the 2008 election. Who the hell is Winters?! But now that makes sense too.

But in spite of the great and plausible happy end, something does make me sad about this whole series. Little Stephen seemed to have made so much progress, I mean he even talked quite openly (openly for Stephen, that is) with Jack about having a boyfriend, but after he got back that obviously did not last long.
Makes me sad to think about how the following years must have been for him to completely regress like that.

[ptahrrific]

That does seem to be the point that tips everyone off :D

I'm glad this was easy to follow! And, yeah, the late President Winters was Whoverse canon long before the real-world election.

Little Stephen had it rough. He might have kept making progress if he had anyone else to trust the way he did Jack, but that didn't happen for a long time. So it all got suppressed -- but it was still there, latent, waiting to be eased out of its shell the next time he got off the planet for a while...just in time for him to hook up with Jon =)

And thank you!