FIC: Five Steps in the Musical Education of Fitzgerald Kreiner

[luciazephyr]

This fic is going to make no sense if you aren't familiar with the Eighth Doctor's books. Yeah, I've been sucked back into the DW fandom. Don't kill me, _dahne_, I'll try to keep the fannish noise to a minimum.

Title: Five Steps in the Musical Education of Fitzgerald Kreiner
Fandom: Doctor Who EDAs
Summary: Five Things fic, Eight/Fitz, Fitz/OMC. With all of time and space in his grasp, Fitz picks up a few lessons about his chosen craft.

Notes: I have not read Year of Intelligent Tigers or Halflife yet (saving them, as I hear they are the best EDAs), but hopefully I have read enough to piece together some decent character voices. Also, this works as a prequel to a much bigger fic I hope to write, but let's not count our chickens before they hatch, yeah?

Thanks to polaris_starz for all her wonderful help. And sorry about all the Hitchhiker references, people. Couldn't resist.

1. The Beatles

It would have been a gross neglect of time-space travel to not introduce Fitz to the most important band of his era. Being from 1963, he'd only heard a tiny portion of the band's output and was baffled on the occasions where, hundreds of years into Earth's future, their name kept popping up.

"I liked 'Twist and Shout' as much as the next bloke, but was it really that big a deal?"

Next thing Fitz knew, he and the Doctor were crammed inside a broom closet in London's Abbey Road Studio. It was already a small affair, half full of cords and spare microphones and some equipment Fitz couldn't begin to identify, though some of the console boards looked like they were capable of launching a missile. He had no idea the inner workings of the music biz were so technical.

The Doctor was making quite a racket, moving from wall to wall of the closet, a stethoscope in his hands, listening to each of the walls with a single-minded intensity that was oddly missing from the times he was saving the planet from the menace of the week.

"Here!" He crowed suddenly, reaching out to grab Fitz's arm and yank him towards the back wall. "They're doing the medley, oh Fitz, this is perfect!" He was blissfully unaware of Fitz swearing as he collided with a shelf, pressing his ear to the wall. "Come here, come on, listen here."

What Fitz heard, he'd find out later, was the last work of a band the Doctor referred to as one of Earth's cultural treasures. It reverberated in his skull, bouncing around for days after: boy, you're gonna carry that weight, carry that weight a long time, and a steady drumming that felt more like his own pulse than his heartbeat.


2. David Bowie

It was hard to tell time in the TARDIS-- which Fitz found ironic and a bit hilarious, all things considered-- but it was approximately three weeks after the Abbey Road trip and Fitz was still playing the guitar solos of "The End" any time his mind wandered and left his fingers to do as they liked on the guitar. Soon enough, the Doctor was sick of it.

"You could just ask me to stop, no need to throw a tantrum," Fitz said, dodging a vinyl case as it flew over his head. The Doctor was buried in a back corner of the Library, ankle deep in records, tapes, and CDs, along with some other media that Fitz couldn't begin to identify, but presumedly they held music. Somehow.

"We just need to give your subconscious some other music to think about, that's all. Something equally likely to get stuck in your head, hopefully dislodging all that Beatles," The Doctor said, looking at the back of a case before tossing it aside as well. "Or I could forcefeed you a stick of cinnamon."

"... A what? Why? What?"

"Oh, old remedy for having things stuck in your head. Apparently eating a full stick of cinnamon gets rid of them."

"Have you ever tried it?"

"Goodness, no. That's disgusting, Fitz."

Fitz had to agree, so the old wives' remedy was right out. He began to wander off, figuring that eventually the Doctor would finish trashing the music shelves. He didn't get far, as the Doctor called out in joy over whatever he'd stumbled upon and dashed to the console room, grabbing Fitz's hand on the way.

Ten minutes later, they were planted in Santa Monica, sometime in the early Seventies, and the Doctor, still dragging Fitz around with an iron grip on his hand, lead him out into the stuffy but tension-filled air of an auditorium. Even knowing nothing of what they were going to see this time, Fitz couldn't deny the electricity of the venue, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up on end.

The sat up in the rafters, of all things, the Doctor insisting on the best view. The best view included being what felt like a hundred feet above the audience seating. Fitz tried very hard not to look down and kept holding onto the Doctor's hand.

The lights dimmed and some thin man with crazy hair walked out on stage.

"Oh god, is he an alien?"

The Doctor's blue eyes were wide and slightly impressed. "How could you tell?"

"Dunno, just... look at him! He's alien, definitely. Have to be an alien to wear something like that."

The Doctor laughed. "Oh, Fitz. You have no idea. Everyone in the glam rock movement dresses like that."

Fitz looked down at the musician, frowning at the sequins and crazy make-up. "What, really?"

"Really." The Doctor laughed some more, cheerful and light. Knocking his shoulder against Fitz's, "Now, quiet, you're going to want to hear this."


3. Zeta Beta Fractal

It took an even shorter amount of time for the Doctor to tire of hearing the strumming of "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" breaking the quiet of the TARDIS. So they shot off toward the 51st Century to take a look at what the future of humanity was listening to.

The music tour was cut short when the TARDIS got caught in a tractor beam of a nearby planet. It played havoc with the navigational system and the Doctor pronounced them grounded until he could take the console apart and fix the system.

After watching the Doctor spend two hours in the Library looking for the TARDIS operating manual, Fitz wandered out to look around. It was a civilized world, Asgard, and he was pretty certain it was safe. So long as he didn't say anything completely daft like 'what could possibly go wrong,' he would be fine. Probably.

Two days later, they were still grounded but Fitz didn't mind much. The luck of landing in the cultural center of the Asgard planet meant Fitz could find plenty to fill his time with. His battered old electric guitar was a relic of Earth music history and carrying it around on his back opened plenty of doors, all leading to interesting things. Especially once he stumbled into the music district.

"I'm afraid the repairs may take a few more days," the Doctor said, apologetic and smeared with whatever the TARDIS had instead of grease.

Fitz didn't even pause as he headed out the door, but called back, "Hey, no problem, you can't always be a miracle worker. I got that mobile thing you gave me, call if you need."

"You're... going out?"

"Yeah, for a while. I'll be back... uh." Fitz scratched the back of his neck, thinking. "Sometime. Don't wait up for me!" He jogged out, missing the curious look on the Doctor's face.

He didn't want to stay on Asgard, mind. Over the past however long he'd been traveling with the Doctor, he'd discovered the Time Lord's need for movement and constant perpetual motion was contagious. But he had a gig playing with this local Asgard band, the Zeta Beta Fractal. The name was out there, but as members of the Old Terran Rock Revival genre, they were close enough to Fitz musically and they sounded great.

And he was learning tons of stuff. Techniques and trends that were so far out of Earth's reach. If he went back to the Sixties, back to the time and place he probably should consider home, Fitz could start seven music revolutions before breakfast. He told the lead singer, Marcoi♠, as much, which the Asgardan found hilarious.

"Shame going back and doing that would likely change the course of human history and get you arrested by the Time Agency."

"Would be great fun in the meanwhile though," Fitz laughed. He was laughing a lot lately, just enjoying the fevered atmosphere of music and innovation, learning so much so quickly.



"Fitz Fortune, former lounge singer, current interstellar rock star," Fitz informed the Doctor cheerfully over a pot of Oolong, brandishing the poster he'd taken home with him after the day's rehearsal.

The Doctor plucked it from Fitz's hands, running his fingers over the digitized paper, tracing Fitz's stage name where it was written under Zeta Beta Fractal's logo. "With guest guitarist Fitz Fortune," he read aloud. "You're going to play a show with them?"

"Yeah, tomorrow night." He nearly choked on his tea as a thought occurred to him. "That's not bad, is it? I'm not going to wreck the universe by playing a gig, right?"

"No, no, of course not. We're far from any fixed points of history here. I'm just... surprised."

"Why? Mark says I'm good enough for it."

"Mark?"

"Lead singer. Asgardan guy, 'bout my height, kinda blue, tendril hands? He's a genius with the Asgard instruments. You know they play that horn thing buy putting their whole tentacle inside the-"

"Fitz." The Doctor shot him a look that cut off Fitz's gushing. "Be careful. Asgardans don't just hand over credit to other species after a week of knowing them. This is highly unusual."

"You saying Mark's a racist? No, no," Fitz held up a hand before the Doctor could correct him. "Speciesist. He's not like the others. He and I are are thick as thieves."

"I understand you think so, but..." The Doctor sighed. "You're excited for this and I'm happy for you, but be careful. If something happens, we still can't take off until tomorrow night at the earliest."

"Got it, Doc. I'll avoid any interplanetary conflicts, just for you."



There was no interplanetary conflict, but the Doctor had been right to be suspicious Fitz found after the concert. It was the biggest he'd played by far, and to Asgard it was a tiny arena. The adrenaline high was more intoxicating than Eskoni tobacco, and he was vibrating with joy once they got backstage.

"That was amazing," he gasped at Marcoi♠, falling against his friend, simultaneously exhausted and completely wired.

Marcoi♠ grinned, his pitch black eyes glittering in the dim light. "You were amazing, Fitz."

Fitz grinned hard enough his cheeks hurt. "Hey, you showed me half that stuff. You're a great teacher."

"You're an even better student." Marcoi♠ slidled close to Fitz, their sides pressed together as they stumbled towards the dressing rooms. The alien was like a furnace, radiating heat through his clothes and the long arm tentacle he had laid loosely around Fitz's neck. It should have been uncomfortable, that much heat right after dealing with the crowded stage, but Fitz leaned back into Marcoi♠, giddy and gasping in breaths heavy with the Asgardan's slightly sweet smell- not cologne, something about pheromones most species had developed in the 51st Century.

Fitz loved the 51st Century.

Fitz laid his guitar to rest on the floor of Marcoi♠'s room and slumped on the tiny bed after his friend pushed him that way, balance long gone. He flopped over against the pillow, tired but pleased. "Mark, I think I love your planet."

"Good. I'm glad, Fitz." Marcoi♠ sat next to him, winding his arm around Fitz's neck again, a smile on his turquoise lips. The tip of his tendril slid into Fitz's hair, dragging lazily through the mess.

It was about then that Fitz remembered the intriguing biological fact that Asgardans tasted things with their tentacles. "Uh. Mark?"

"Fitz?" Marcoi♠ kept smiling at him, but now Fitz could see the tint of possessiveness in his face and colored. Oh god.

"L-listen, Mark, I'm flattered that, uh," Marcoi♠'s other arm was winding around his torso, "Well, you taught me a lot, and I'm really gateful. You have no idea, really, but," and Fitz tried to slip off the bed and perhaps crawl away but those prehensile arms were strong and he felt a bit like a mouse caught in a python's coils, "and you're plenty handsome, I mean in an alien way, I guess, but the Doctor's expecting me back soon, so maybe I should- mmph!"

And it all kind of went downhill from there.



Fitz pounded his fist on the Doctor's door, thump thump thump THUMP THUMP THUMP-

The door swung open. "Do you have any idea what time it is, Fitzgerald Kreiner," the Doctor said grouchily, hair a curly mess and bedclothes disheveled from slumber.

"Yes, I do. I also know Time Lords don't really need sleep, so wake up, we're fixing the TARDIS now."

The Doctor's irritation folded like a house of cards into puzzlement. "Did your show go badly?"

"It was perfect, the alien girls were all over me. Can we get to it now? Where's your sonic?" He pushed into the Doctor's room, searching for the device himself.

"I thought you liked Asgard."

"I did. I had a smashing time." He grabbed the screwdriver off the floor and slapped it into the Doctor's hand, dragging him by the other hand into the console room. "How soon can we get this finished, you think?"

"Did something happen?"

"Doctor." Fitz abruptly turned around and pushed the Time Lord against the half-dismantled console, glaring sharply at him. He was just about to tell him off when he noticed the Doctor's gaze was down, focused on his neck where his shirt was still a bit open, clavicle exposed and spotted with red from... well.

"Oh. Oh." The Doctor said meaningfully. "Oh, I see." He looked up at Fitz, earnest and concerned. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Do I want to talk about how I accidentally became some Asgardan's alien boytoy? Are you really asking me that?"

The Doctor had the decency to look a little abashed. "I believe I am, yes."

"Just fix our ship, please?"


4. Halycon

Fitz had succeeded in hiding in the corner of the ballroom, tucked up behind a pair of columns, out of sight of everyone. The brighter the light, the darker the shadows, and with the Halycon's plasma generators saved by some quick thinking and some fast legwork on the Doctor and Fitz's parts, there were plenty of shadows to lurk in.

So, lurk he did, tugging at the collar of his suit, feeling the tie around his neck like it was a... all right, he refused to think 'noose' because even he wasn't that much of a cliche. But the silk tie was heavy and distracting, sealing him up inside the suit which, while it fit perfectly, tailored by the Halycon Royal Family's personal designers, felt wrong on his skin. He hated formal wear with a fierce passion.

But the Doctor had asked nicely and the servant girls had giggled encouragingly as they helped him with the braces. Fitz would never admit it, but he could be a bit susceptible to vanity.

But now, with the lights and the music that was sorely lacking in electric guitars and drums, he felt constricted. The temptation to just leg it and leave the Doctor to his long overdue reward was hard to resist. If there wasn't an open bar, Fitz would have retreated to the TARDIS and filled her with the loudest rock and roll he could find. He probably could find that data chip with Disaster Area's latest glass-shattering album on it...

"There you are." There was a cool breath against his ear and Fitz stubbornly did not turn around and give the Doctor the satisfaction of knowing he'd startled him. "I've never known you to play the wallflower, Fitz."

Fitz shrugged, continuing to look out the window into the Halycon night. Absently, he started toying with his shirt cuff, unbuttoning and rebuttoning it over and over. Standing still so long waiting for this affair to end left him with a build up of nervous energy. "Not my scene, really. Bit too posh, you know?"

"Is that so? I just assumed... you seem to gravitate towards alcohol and music, and there is plenty of both here." Perhaps annoyed at the lack of acknowledgment he was receiving, the Doctor drifted into Fitz's line of sight, staring him hard in the eye.

Fitz looked down, putting more focus on his fidgeting than strictly necessary. "Yeah, if you call that music. How can an alien planet in the Betelgeuse system have music so similar to sort of stuff we had before humanity realized what good tunes were?"

"Well, it began back in-"

"Rhetorical, Doc."

"Ah. Right. The story wasn't that interesting anyway. Not worth spending the evening on it. It is such a nice evening too..." The Doctor's hand darted out, catching Fitz's. "Stop that."

Fitz rolled his eyes, sighing petulantly. He gave in a little and met the Doctor's gaze. "Look, I'm fine. What are you doing hanging around me when you finally are getting some of the recognition you deserve? Go and have some fun or something!"

"It's your ball too, Fitz."

"No, it's not. Anyone wanting to do me a favor would not throw me a fancy dress party." Fitz made a face. "I don't even know what people do at these things."

"I already told you, the aforementioned alcohol, music-"

"Still not real music."

"-and dancing."

There was an odd shift in the atmosphere, like Fitz could hear a pin-drop, yet none of the sound of the ball faded. Fitz's looked down again-- well, down further, the Doctor was a bit short, comparatively-- and realized they were still holding hands. He hadn't noticed, really. He'd learned to not pay as much attention to the Doctor invading his personal space as he would to a human. But at the moment, it didn't feel like the usual alien way he didn't understand personal space. It was awkward in a way Fitz, as a human who did have all those trappings about physical contact, picked up on easily.

Fitz rubbed his face with his free hand, the other still firmly held. The Doctor didn't seem keen on letting it go. "You dance?"

"Of course I can dance. I've been around the universe a few times; there are few things I can't do."

There was a shade of the Doctor's massive ego there, and Fitz bit down the instinctive snide remark he had in mind. He could spare him for tonight, just a small thanks for not getting them or anyone else killed over the last few days of mayhem and oncoming doom.

"I'm sure. And you have a whole planet in your debt. Someone would be glad to go waltzing with you." He gave the Doctor what he hoped was an encouraging smile. Encouraging him to go bother someone else and leave Fitz to his dark, mysterious brooding.

The Doctor tipped Fitz's chin up, looking piercingly into his eyes, like he could read his very thoughts, etched into the grey of his irises. That weird awkwardness became more obvious and Fitz leaned away. "What?"

"Would you dance with me?"

It would have been the perfect time for a double-take if the Doctor didn't have him pinned so securely with that steady gaze of his. "What?"

"I said, would you-"

"I heard what you said! Don't play dense, you know what I mean!" Fitz looked around nervously, half expecting someone to leap out and yell 'gotcha' at him. "What's this all about?"

"I don't see why you're upset," the Doctor said, his tone sad, but his fingertips were turning Fitz's head back to look at him again. "I thought you loved music. Dancing must surely go along with that."

"Yeah, uh. Maybe for people who can actually dance," Fitz managed, mind admittedly more focused on thanking the cosmos the two of them were still shielded from the crowd by the pillars because he was certain this looked questionable to say the least.

Then again, the Halcyon Royal Family did give them a room together, so maybe there weren't as many questions as Fitz thought.

"I just told you I could." He said this with the air of someone who was being infinitely patient with a person who wasn't very bright. Savior to seven alien races per month or not, the guy was a jerk. Why no one but Fitz could see it eluded his understanding.

"This may come as a shock, Doctor, but I wasn't talking about you," Fitz replied, finally jerking his chin out of the Doctor's grip.

The Doctor blinked, surprised, and that was satisfying in its own way. Good to see him taken aback. "Do you mean you can't?"

"Did I ever say that I could?"

"Not explicitly, but I just assumed..."

"Well, yeah. No. I can't, as it so happens." Fitz hazarded a smile. "Not all of us have been around the universe a few times."

"No, I suppose not. No. No, no, no, no. No." He shook his head harshly, curls bouncing around merrily.

"No?" Fitz offered with a laugh.

"No indeed." Without another word, the Doctor dashed off, rounding the pillars and heading back into the ballroom proper. It was surprising, but Fitz just watched the violet velvet blur vanish before shrugging. The Doctor was a lightning rod of epiphanies, thoughts hitting him out of seemingly nowhere. He got used to moments like this, being left in the dust as the Doctor darted off to act on whatever happened to cross his mind.

Fitz let out a sigh of relief and slumped back against a column, searching through his pockets for a fag. Smoking indoors would probably be looked down on, but considering he did just help save the planet from plasma reactor meltdown, he figured he deserved it.

He eventually dug out a cigarette from his pockets and made to light it. The lighter fell to the floor, snapping shut with a metallic clink when Fitz's wrist was suddenly seized and pulled. "Ow, hey, watch it-"

The Doctor-- because who else would it be, really?-- ignored him, pulling him along and out one of the glass side doors. The two ended up outside, standing on a balcony just off the ballroom. Crisp, cool night air caught in Fitz's hair, ruffling it out of its carefully combed style and back to its default disarray. Fitz shivered.

"Lost my zippo." He made to go back inside.

"I'll get you another one," The Doctor promised, leaning in deftly to catch Fitz's other hand as well.

"No, you won't. You hide them so I won't smoke in the console room. Don't think I don't notice, and what are you doing?"

"Hush, no more talking." The Doctor nudged the door shut with his foot, as if afraid Fitz was going to bolt, which was quite worrying. Fitz opened his mouth to reply but instead yelped when the Doctor kicked his feet apart. "Shoulder width apart."

Fitz's mouth went dry. "Oh, no. You're not doing this. I can't dance, Doctor. I'm never been able to dance."

"When was the last time you tried? And it's quite simple. I'm hardly going to teach you a foxtrot or anything complicated." He turned big blue eyes up at Fitz. "Why, don't you trust me, Fitz?"

Oh, that just wasn't fair. Fitz couldn't help but backpedal. "I do. You know I do."

"I just wanted to teach you something is all. You're acting as if I'm asking you to leap off the balcony." And the Time Lord was pouting a little and it just was not fair. "I just hoped-"

"Oh, stop it, all right." Fitz groaned, shutting his eyes. The Doctor's face lit up with a smile, his battle quickly and decisively won. "I can't believe I'm this easy."

His smile turned from smug to genuinely kind. "Fitz, you are a great many and varied number of things, but easy is not one of them. Now come here."

Fitz stared at their feet for a moment as the Doctor pushed and positioned him the way he wanted. "I really don't like you."

"Now, Fitz, it's not nice to lie." A moment's pause. "And kindly stop trying to step on my toes."

Fitz laughed, loose and apparently not at all easy. He closed his eyes and squeezed his hands, letting the music flow from the Doctor into him.


5. A red guitar, six notes, and the truth

There was a trick, or rather, a knack to being a human from the 1960s traveling around time and space with a temporally sensitive alien. Fitz was well versed in it and knew it better than his own name.

The trick was to not stop and think about what you were seeing. If Anji were around, she'd probably take the opportunity to point out that keeping Fitz from thinking wasn't a hardship, but she wasn't around, was she? Probably because she didn't get the knack, the trick of living the life Fitz had been living for... a long period of time. It was hard to figure out just how much of his life was spent in the TARDIS.

Really, he wasn't even sure how old he was. If he let himself consider that fact, he'd probably panic a bit.

So, he didn't. He didn't dwell on the impossible things that became his new mundane. Fitz just sat with his legs hanging out of the TARDIS, bare feet swinging to and fro in the endless vacuum of space, staring out at the Beryllium Dust Storm they were lazily orbiting.

It was the simple things that forced Fitz to sit still and pay attention. Some mineral in the cloud was completely foreign to Earth according to the Doctor, and when the sun hit it just right, it burned a color never seen before by humans.

He was looking right at it. He could have been stunned or thrilled or baffled, but instead he sat, fingers idly tuning the guitar in his lap.

Last week he'd met a squadron of Judoon on an interstellar yacht. Now, long after the fact, he wished he'd gotten one of them to scan him. He wasn't sure what their little catalogs would say about him. Fitz hadn't thought of himself as human for a long time.

When you got right down to it, wouldn't a human react to sitting half-suspended in the expanse of space, witnessing an impossible color for the first time in the history of creation, wouldn't they do something?

Fitz just ran his thumb over one of the guitar strings, listening to it slowly hum, and thought about a procession of six notes and a few lines of lyric.

He felt brand new and uncategorized. He'd seen the universe and instead of going mad or running away, he kept on. Put a gun to his head, yes, sure, he'd freak out a bit, but stand him on a point of a cube-shaped world and he'd try to balance a coin on it before going off to have a smoke.

He heard footsteps behind him as the Doctor approached, sitting down on the threshold of the TARDIS next to him. "You're very quiet, Fitz," he said in a voice just above a whisper.

"Yeah." Fitz strummed out a few chords, the same six notes as always.

"Are you working on that song of yours again?"

"Hm." He grew thoughtful, giving the casual question a great deal of thought. "I think it's a work in progress. Bit like me, huh?" Fitz looked sideways at the Doctor, stare deep and unwavering. "You know what I think?"

"I confess that I don't. I hope very much you will share though." Any other day, that would have seemed sarcastic to Fitz. Not today though.

"I think I get it now. What you're doing. What we're doing. I think maybe..." He hummed to himself, playing something soft and slow from memory. "I think some of these things we see, they're so amazing, if we stopped and stared slack-jawed like anyone else would, that'd be it. Gotta keep moving and prove the last impossible thing is nothing compared to the one we'll see next. And sometimes I think we're going to run out of stuff to see and that'll be it and we'll be stuck. But," Fitz laughed without realizing he was smiling, beaming like an idiot as he babbled on, "we won't, will we? There's a whole bloody universe out there and we can see it all if we wanted."

"Does it scare you," the Doctor asked with some strange urgency in his tone. "Does it sometimes make you just want to go home, to find a way to hide from the expanse of it all?"

"I think it used to." He looked back out at the dust storm. It was beautiful. So beautiful and he had no words to describe it to anyone. No way to convey it to another soul second-hand, to let them share in it. It was his and his alone.

Or maybe he could find the right words. Just maybe, knowing all he did and having witnessed all the things he had, he could do it.

One two three four five six, he played, giving a sound to the sight laid out before him.

"And now?" He could feel the tension in the Doctor's voice, as though he'd been waiting to ask this for a long time.

"Like our friends Paul and John said," Fitz said, awe in his voice like this was as much news to him as it was to anyone else, "I think I can carry that weight."

They sat together, two aliens who had no place in the universe besides a battered old police box that was bigger on the inside, who both knew that this was a perfectly all right way to live.

The Doctor's curls brushed Fitz's cheek as he leaned in. "Did I tell you about that incandescent mineral in the Beryllium Dust Storm?"

"No, you didn't," Fitz lied amiably. He put one arm around the Doctor's shoulders. "Go on. I'm listening."

Comments

[lcsbanana.livejournal.com]

I really like this. :)

[lullabee-lj.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love this! They're so cute together... perhaps it's because I'm so bad at it myself, but I'm really impressed with the Doctor's characterization. And you've done a good job with Fitz, too, and I love how they're almost a couple, but Fitz is a little too reluctant and the Doctor is a little too weird, so they're not quite there yet...

But I'm going to be a little nitpicky on a few details.

1. Fitz's full first name is "Fitzgerald". You've misspelled it "Fitwilliam" in the title, and I think you've got it down as either that or "Fitzwilliam" elsewhere.

2. The Doctor's irritation folded into a deck of cards into puzzlement. "Did your show go badly?" I think you may mean "folded like a house of cards"?

3. Also, you've got "suspenders" in part 4. A Briton's "suspenders" are an American's "garters", and an American's "suspenders" are a Briton's "braces". I'm pretty sure he's wearing what he'd call braces.

[lucia-tanaka.livejournal.com]

1.. Please excuse me while I go kill myself out of shame. I know why I did that- the damn Fitz Fort thing in Unnatural History, fffffff. oh god, I'm all read in the face because of my complete shame.

2. ... Yeah. :fixes:

3. That's actually an American-British vocabulary difference I hadn't heard before. :changes:


What I take from this, besides the aforementioned total and utter shame, is that I need to not be so quick to post. Jesus Herbert Walker Christ. Thanks for reading it even with all the embarrassing mistakes.

:goes to bury herself in Fear Itself for a few hours:

[settiai]

*cough*

You still have folded into a house of cards instead of folded like a house of cards. Just so you know.

[lucia-tanaka.livejournal.com]

:long, drawn out sigh:

brb, jumping off cliff. oi vey.

[settiai]

Personally, I blame Fitz. Out of all the stories I've written, the ones featuring him have had the most technical errors that slipped through. It's his fault, I swear!

[lullabee-lj.livejournal.com]

I know! He's just trouble. I wrote two kinkmeme fics with him involved, and he somehow sneakily kept his undies on when I didn't want him to in both. Plus, there was a disappearing hair ribbon and he got into bed with the Doctor twice without getting out of it. Oh, behave, Fitz.

[polaris-starz.livejournal.com]

... ahh, I fail at editing, apparently. I should have caught the bit about Fitz's name. *headdesk*

[lullabee-lj.livejournal.com]

Oh, no! Don't be so embarrassed. They weren't the kind of mistakes that detracted from the story. And it's Fitz's own damn fault that he changes his name so often.

But, yeah, taking a while to get a story beta'd or to just read it over when you're not tired of looking at it or something does tend to help. But, then, sometimes I feel like I need to get a story posted before I commence to hate it, but this is so good you shouldn't have that problem...

[lucia-tanaka.livejournal.com]

I have that issue massively. I write something and I wanna post it now now now now and I'm impatient as a big ol' impatient thing.

I swear, should I get up the nerve to write the big Fitz'n'Eight'n'Amy'n'Eleven thing, I will not be this sloppy. I'm not usually like this. :tears at hair:

[settiai]

Oh, wow. This was absolutely lovely.

[cosmic-celery.livejournal.com]

This is lovely! I love when people use music to help describe Fitz.


(and you should totally cross-post this to the Fitz comm, act_three)

[thought-goddess.livejournal.com]

Aww, this is lovely.

"There was an odd shift in the atmosphere, like Fitz could hear a pin-drop, yet none of the sound of the ball faded. Fitz's looked down again-- well, down
further, the Doctor was a bit short, comparatively-- and realized they were still holding hands. He hadn't noticed, really. He'd learned to not pay as
much attention to the Doctor invading his personal space as he would to a human. But at the moment, it didn't feel like the usual alien way he didn't understand
personal space. It was awkward in a way Fitz, as a human who did have all those trappings about physical contact, picked up on easily."
I can't explain why, but I really liked this bit, the way something that they've both written off as an everyday sort of thing is suddenly not.

And Fitz! Playing The beatles! <3

[neveralarch]

Oh, this is really nice. I like the feel of it.

[arcadiaego.livejournal.com]

Lovely!

[my-skwid.livejournal.com]

I love Fitz fic. This was lovely.

[wishfulaces.livejournal.com]

I think my favorite bit--and there are a lot of them--but I think my favorite favorite is in the end of the very first section, when Fitz hears the Beatles, and you get that sense of awe and excitement and wonder and knowing that this is something. So I loved that you referenced back to it at the end. :)

In sum: yay for Fitz!

[sunnyrea.livejournal.com]

Lovely, very nice feel and so 8 and Fitz. The ending was such a nice calm spot. Loved it!

[roachpatrol.livejournal.com]

This story is incredibly sweet. I think you got them both perfectly, and the way it ends is so wonderful. I love it.