People have started posting their cliche-swap stories, so I thought I'd better post mine.
Title: Reunion Author:Kathryn Andersen Universe: Doctor Who Characters/Pairing: Ninth Doctor/Nyssa Size: 1850 words Rating: PG Summary:She had expected her past to stay safely in the past, not come bounding down the hallway calling out her name. (AU)
Fun, and what appears to be a smiling acceptance of cliches - cheese used as building bricks for an amusingly enjoyable time-passer. All of which is to say I liked it. (Didn't see the earlier ending, mind you.)
Cliched or not, I loved it (which was kinda the point, no? *g*). And I even loved it with both endings, I just didn't get around to commenting on the first one! :-)
Yay! This was doubly hard because I don't actually ship Doctor/Nyssa at all; I was on the verge of giving up and going with Doctor/Romana (because I grok that easier), but then the next day I got some ideas that I thought might work, so I went ahead.
I changed the ending because, yes, while I liked the... unlikelihood of that ending, it really was going too far out of my comfort zone of the Doctor's characterization. So I rewrote it to something I felt more likely. I guess I treated the whole story as a "what-if": what if Five and Nyssa did really love each other but hadn't said anything? And the rest followed from there.
I feel like I'm the only person in fandom who doesn't love Nine, but I did like him in this story. Being paired with Nyssa brought out some of his better qualities. ;) Effective use of cliches, too!