The Man With No Name (fanfic)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
The storm. It's coming.
—River Tam

The Man with No Name (also goes by A Life Less Extraordinary) is a completed crossover fanfic of Firefly and Doctor Who written by Frostfyre7.

Taking place about six months after the The Movie, the Serenity crew is strapped for cash and takes on the ridiculous job of hunting down an alien. Meanwhile, after the events of The Runaway Bride, the Doctor decides to go someplace completely new, and finds himself having to convince Mal to take him on as a passenger. So long as their ship has enough room for a blue storage shed...

Tropes used in The Man With No Name (fanfic) include:
  • Alien Blood: The Doctor's blood is a paler shade of red than a human's.

Simon: His blood is the wrong color!
The Doctor: Is it?

  • Alien Invasion: Right after the colonies left, Earth was hit with a bunch of these. The Doctor claims it's probably why the colonies have been cut off for so long.
  • Always Lawful Good: Mokshar. Their bodies are somehow evolutionarily programmed to stop working properly if they break their own Actual Pacifist-based religious laws. The Big Bad, however, is pissed off enough by the Time War that he manages to subvert this... initially.
  • Back from the Dead: At one point, Mal dies, but comes back to life.
  • Bad Liar: The Doctor laments his inability to lie convincingly in this regeneration several times.
  • Balancing Death's Books
  • Bar Brawl: Early on, the Doctor wears his usual attire (a brown coat) into an Alliance friendly bar. Much to his confusion, he is quickly punched out a window.
  • Badass Boast:

"Yes, I think war is a fool's game. Yes, I believe life -- all life -- is precious. But tell me something, Vharaj -- did you ever listen to my enemies' tales of me? If you did, it's obvious you weren't paying attention. The Daleks do not have emotion, Vharaj. They don't know fear. But do you know what they called me? Ka Faraq Gatri. It means Destroyer of Worlds. I am the Bringer of Darkness, Vharaj. The Oncoming Storm. I've watched worlds and galaxies fall, and rise, and fall again. I fought the Vampires at the dawn of Creation, and I may yet witness the end of the Universe. I brought about the destruction of my own race, the deaths of my children, my grandchildren, my siblings, my friends, all in the name of peace, to save this Universe. So you tell me, Vharaj: what do you think I am capable of?"

The Doctor: You must be mistaken, Leftenant. The lady and I were just out for a stroll. You must have mistaken us for someone else.
Security Mook: Then how do you explain the blood all over you?
The Doctor: Um...I got mugged? Really, you should do something about that, streets aren't even safe... You're not buying that for a minute, are you?
Security Mook: Not so much.
The Doctor: Well, it was worth a try. Still, kept you distracted, didn't I? And that worked very well indeed.

  • Jayne proceeds to open fire*

Big Bad: You cannot escape, Doctor!
The Doctor: I can't begin to tell you how often I've heard that line over the centuries.

  • No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: After Mal is captured by the Big Bad, some of his underlings try to convince him to join them over coffee. To their credit, it was really good coffee.
  • No Name Given: The crew is less than amused that the Doctor refuses to tell them his name.
  • Not That Kind of Doctor: When Jayne says they're going to use their doctor for treatment, the Doctor says he doesn't do surgery.
  • Oh Crap: Mal thinks this when he realizes the enemy might be keeping him alive in order to torture him.
  • One Steve Limit: River Tam, not River Song.
  • Operation: Jealousy: Played with. Kaylee pretends to like the Doctor in order to make Simon jealous, but it's only to screw with his head. Well, that and she's quite happy to stare at his butt on general principles.
  • Out-Gambitted: Well, of course. This is what the Doctor is for.
  • Perpetual Poverty: The Serenity crew are in even more dire straits now; since the Miranda incident in the Big Damn Movie, they've got bounty hunters after them and people are even more reluctant to hire them.
  • Pregnant Badass: Zoe's pregnant with Wash's baby at this point.
  • Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Comes up when River mentions that the Doctor is too old for her. Mal, believing himself to be about the same age, feels rather put out by this.
    • A bit meta, but Nathan Fillion and David Tennant are less than a month apart age-wise. Were the Doctor human and the both of them the same age as their actors, Reynolds would be right on the money.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The Big Bad to the Doctor (see also Hannibal Lecture).
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Mal and the Doctor.
  • Relationship Upgrade: Mal and Inara are engaged by the end.
  • The Sixth Ranger: By the end, the Doctor has more or less fulfilled this role.
  • A Storm Is Coming: The last thing River says in chapter one, almost by trope name.

River: The storm. It's coming.

    • The joke here being that in the new series the Doctor is kind of a bogeyman to lots of baddies, especially the Daleks, and one of the more frequently heard of the names they have for him is The Oncoming Storm.
  • Strange Girl: Even a millenia-old alien is weirded out by River.
  • Super Speed: Vharaj can dodge bullets.
  • Tagalong Kid: When the crew hunts Reavers terrorizing a town, a kid comes along as a guide and manages to kill one. He ends up killed himself in a later attack offscreen.
  • Talkative Loon: The Doctor comes off like this to the crew (mainly because there's no companion there to tell him to shut up), which often gets on their nerves. Eventually Mal concludes he's an escaped reader like River largely because of this.
  • Techno Babble: From both sides.
  • Tempting Fate: While infiltrating the enemy stronghold.

Inara: They seem to be expecting an auditor.
The Doctor: Good. No one will get too fussed when we go about asking nosy questions then.
Inara: As long as the real auditors don't show up, we should be alright.
The Doctor: *winces* Oh, did you have to say that? Now they're bound to turn up. I swear, everyone has to go and jinx it all, saying things like 'It can't possibly get any worse' or 'Ooh, it's unsinkable!'

Mal: She said, and I quote, 'A Storm Is Coming.'
Inara: That's...vague.

Mal: Kaylee, find something for the doc to do. He don't need to be fussin' the whole time we're gone.
Kaylee: He and I can–
Mal: I don't want to know. Some things I really, really don't need to hear, little Kaylee.
Kaylee: I was gonna say 'we can finish up some repairs in the kitchen'. Why, what did you think I was gonna say?

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