#I am buckling down and finishing a damn wip I’ve had for two years now

[the-bi-space-ace]

Listen. I have a WIP document titled: My Dad Didn’t Love Me But Echo’s Loves Him and not only do I find that hilarious but this is also my way of telling you that I have a fic planned for Father’s Day.

[annacwrites]

the wip list

Alright, gang. Buckle up. This is going to be a long one, and at this point I can’t even bring myself to be sorry about it. I meant to put this off but then I started thinking about it, so here we are (at 1:05 in the morning when I have to work at 8:30, what am I doing?). 

I’m going to break this down in a couple of ways—fanfiction vs. original fiction, fandom (if it’s a fanfic), series/universe (if it’s in one), and then the individual books themselves (if I have the ability to do that, because quite frankly, for some of these I don’t because I have no idea what the titles are or where I’m splitting the story yet).

Also, “WIP” is an incredibly broad term here. In some cases it means I’ve already written the whole thing but I plan to 100% rewrite it (and haven’t started yet). In some cases it means I’ve written half of the thing but haven’t finished yet. In some cases it means I have it all outlined but haven’t started writing yet. In some cases it means I haven’t really touched an outline on paper yet but I have it all worked out in my head. Take the “in progress” part of WIP with a grain of salt.

(Putting this whole thing under the cut because it is so freaking long. I apologize if the read-more doesn’t work on your dash. Idk what tumblr is doing.)  

Starting off easy—the fics:

Harry Potter: (JKR can fuck off with her transphobia and cultural appropriation and all the other stupid and fucked-up shit that she’s done/promoted but, as I said to my friends, she can pry my next-gen fanfics from my cold dead hands. Cursed Child is not canon in my life because I’ve never read it and I don’t care what nonsense she came up with.)

The “In Your Arms I’ll Stay” universe (Tedtoire/Scorose): 

The first fic in this universe is the first fic I ever finished. 110k words followed up by a ~137k word sequel. It is a disaster and a half but it’s also my baby and I fully intend to rewrite it one of these days. It is full of standard Tedtoire trope-y nonsense—best friends since childhood! two-year age gap! jealousy about other relationships! obliviousness!—and at 15 I thought it was a really good idea to try to turn it into a mystery too, which is a mistake that I have every intention of rectifying because it was unnecessary and I just didn’t know how to do drama and tension back then. 

Anyway. It will probably be two parts again when I rewrite it because one part per school year just works, yeah? We’re covering Vic’s fifth/Teddy’s seventh year and Vic’s sixth year/Teddy’s first year out of school over the course of these parts.

Within this universe we also have Heartbeat and Bone, which is a Scorose fic that I’ve written probably 75% of already but have no intention of actually finishing before I rewrite it. I want to get the stories in the right order so that I can get details straightened out, so Teddy and Victoire get the rewrites first and then I’ll be revisiting this fic. Also full of trope-y nonsense (and my continued acceptance of the headcanon that the Heads have their own dormitory at Hogwarts, because it’s just too much fun that way).  

some things were meant to be (Tedtoire):

Oh god, another fic with a cliché title taken from Can’t Help Falling In Love. I have zero regrets because it fits them perfectly.

This one is... half-done? I fully intend to finish it but I need to finish the outline first. It was my 2019 NaNoWriMo project and I am 100% just writing it for the lols (and because Teddy and Vic are like... my comfort ship where writing is concerned). I wanted to play with a different universe and change up their relationship and roles at school a bit, but once again... trope-y nonsense. It’s unavoidable with them. There is obliviousness everywhere. 

Star Wars: (it’s Reylo, okay? It’s Reylo. I don’t want to hear it about how the ship is ~so terrible.~ That is literally the furthest thing in the world from a hot take, you can’t say a single thing that I haven’t heard before, and I’m a grown adult and can do what I want. Bite me.)

looking for the map that leads me home (Reylo): 

Stole the title on this one from We Take Care of Our Own by Bruce Springsteen, because why the fuck not, right? 

To put it simply: musician AU. To put it a little less simply: he’s got a dead career, she wants to have even the slightest shot at one, Rose is the best, Poe’s a singing heartthrob, Finn is a love-struck goofball. You know, all that fun stuff. The entire thing is based on a playlist that I made and every chapter has a song that acts as its theme. I haven’t touched it since January 2018. I want to finish it eventually but it’s not really at the top of the priority list. 

There’s a few other fics from other fandoms that I’ve started and never finished but the odds of me touching them again are like... nonexistent, so I’m not including them here. I’ll update this post if anything changes on that front (but it probably won’t).

Now for the complicated part—the original fiction:

Maker’s Magic 

This is a trilogy (or at least, it’s supposed to be). This is also a rewrite of the first story I ever finished—the fantasy novel that I wrote for my first-ever Camp NaNoWriMo back in August of 2011, when I had literally no clue what I was doing at all and essentially stole the plot structure from The Obsidian Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey and built my own story around it. This is not a good way to write a piece of fiction that you want to publish, kids, but it is a damn good way to get your feet wet when you’ve never really written before.

I am reworking this story entirely from scratch. The characters are... kind of the same as the original story. Kind of. Maybe. I’ve changed a few names and merged a few people together and scrapped some others and entirely shifted the backstory of pretty much everyone, but... they’re definitely still the same, right? 

Basically, at this point the plot is really only similar to The Obsidian Trilogy in that we’ve got a trilogy, we’ve got some elves, and it’s your standard good vs. evil fantasy story (in its own unique fashion, of course). I’m still working out the details of this rewrite, but this is kind of the Holy Grail of all of my writing projects and the one that I’m most concerned about getting right, so I’m anticipating that I’ll be in it for the long haul on this one. I’m hoping I might be able to get a draft of the first book done this year, but... we’ll see.

(I also don’t want to give too many details about this project, ‘cause it’s the one that I’d really like to maybe publish one day, so...)

The Willow Hill universe

This started as a single story plus a standalone sequel set in the same universe, conceptualized when I was fourteen and missing horseback riding terribly (so yes, it is a story for all those Weird Horse Girls™ out there). I wrote a good portion of it, then deleted it, then rewrote the entire thing, then deleted it again a few years ago because I was no longer satisfied with the writing quality (after hitting top 100 on the Teen Fiction list on Wattpad way back when, so... I didn’t do too badly as a 16-year-old, but the writing still sucked). I’ve been promising a rewrite to my Wattpad followers since 2016 or something like that (2014? Whenever the hell it was that I deleted it the second time) but haven’t delivered at all.

I now envision this universe as a duology plus the aforementioned standalone sequel, except it’s not entirely fair to call it a YA duology in that the first book is definitely YA, but the second is more romance-y?

I originally just revealed the main character’s endgame relationship in the epilogue of the story, but I love both her and her boyfriend and their relationship so much that I decided that I’m going to be self-indulgent and write the story of them actually falling in love with each other, so that’s book two (so really, you don’t actually have to read book two to understand anything, I’m just writing it because I want to and it’s also kind of a present to anyone who read the original story when they were also a teenager and is now an adult who wants to read other stuff). 

Book one is now about the teenage struggle of crushes and trying to figure out what it is that you actually want out of your life and what you value (I say “now” because it was definitely way more self-insert-y the first time I wrote it and it is decidedly not at this point). It’s also sort of a love letter to trainers who are amazing and the kind of person we should all be so lucky as to be coached by.

These characters are my comfort characters where original fiction is concerned since they’ve been bouncing around in my head for the last ten years or so, and I’m hoping I can get at least the first book rewritten in the next year-ish, partly because I’ve been promising it for so long, and partly because I just really enjoy this world and I want to get back to it again.

The Coffee Shop Chronicles

AKA, I lived in one coffee shop on my university campus for pretty much the entirety of my college experience and it was a very inspiring place to be, so this has less to do with coffee shop AUs and more to do with the fact that I met several of my favorite human beings on this earth over a vanilla chai latte and mutual sass with the baristas.

(One of said baristas is very near and dear to me and introduced me to another regular who is now a very good friend with the statement “You’re both sarcastic assholes. You’ll love each other.”) 

None of the characters in this universe are based on actual human beings whom I know, but I liked the idea of the campus coffee shop serving as this thing that tangentially connected all of these people to one another, much in the way that I am tangentially connected to god knows how many people via my barista friend. Essentially, the idea is that the stories in this universe are all standalone, but the characters sometimes cross paths with one another at Caffeinated, so it’s sort of... Easter-egg-y in terms of who pops up where in which story. 

Currently I only have two stories in this universe that are legitimately plotted out, but there is room for any number of spin-offs based on whichever characters show up in those stories (or don’t—that’s the fun of it being a coffee shop. The barista is the only reliable character). Those two stories are as follows:

Chance Encounters (title so totally subject to change, also stealing the terribly summary from the Wattpad draft that never saw the light of day):

For Bennett McGuire, things with guys just didn't seem to want to go her way. From the disasters that were her attempts at dating in high school to the problem that had been Elijah Becker, she hadn't exactly had the best luck. With all that in mind, it made perfect sense to swear off dating until she finished college—that is, it made sense until one frozen day in February when Gordon Evans walked into her life. After that, who was to say what would happen?

What’s Your Metaphor? (once again, enjoy the terrible summary from the Wattpad draft that never was. I am cringing reading it but also too tired to come up with anything better):

"What's the point?" 

It's a question asked widely, for all sorts of reasons, and it's one that April Hayes didn't know the answer to any better than anyone else. All she knew was that she had her plan, and she was going to stick to it, because it was the only thing that seemed to have any sort of logic to it in her life. The things she thought, the things she believed—well, they all fell before the plan, because she didn't have time to ask herself "What's the point?"

That is, she didn't have the time to know the answer—her answer—until one guy by the name of Drew Collier showed up and made her consider things that she had never even thought of before.

High Blood

Yinz can go read my WIP introduction post for this one. It’s a fantasy story. Just for the hell of it, here’s the summary from said WIP introduction post: 

At the age of seventeen, Thessaly of Averak had a choice—take the crown of her people and her place as her father’s heir, or set it aside to become one of the High Warriors, dedicated to protecting their people and the country that her long-dead ancestor Enred built after leading its citizens out of a long and bloody war. Amidst raids and famine at the borders, she gave up her crown to better serve the people that her family rules.

Ten years later, all is quiet. At least, all is quiet until Beca’s pendant is stolen by a thief who disappears into the night on the journey back from the summer palace, Tess gets herself stabbed, and the discovery is made that the rock-solid foundations of their family’s claim to the throne—and the peace that depends upon them—are laced with hairline fractures.

(I didn’t write anything to speak of for Camp NaNo July 2020 and actually wound up deleting my project for this on the NaNo site because my dad was hit by a car while cycling the Friday before the weekend when I was planning to write like... 30k words to catch up, so obviously I gave up on that plan (he is doing well now, thank you for asking). I’m hoping I’ll get around to this one eventually because this particular universe arguably has the most potential for having multiple stories set in it, fantasy-wise.)

Emerson’s Lights

Natalie Flynn has been best friends with Evan Acheson practically since birth. They've stuck together through thick and thin, from her braces in seventh grade to his jump to stardom as a singer-songwriter their freshman year of college. 

She’d do anything for him, but spending a week with him on tour involves a lot more than she bargained for, culminating in the turn of events that is Caleb Blake, lead singer and primary songwriter of opening act Emerson’s Lights, moving into her house for the better part of a month.

She always knew there would be complications being the best friend of a rock star, but this? This was one that she didn’t bet on.

(Aka, girl meets boy in a band trope. Yay.)

(NaNoWriMo 2020 project)

The famous musician story (this thing doesn’t have a title right now and I’m not even going to try)

Stupid, trope-y nonsense idea that I came up with for my own personal amusement and nothing else. I’ve written a few chapters of it but genuinely have no idea where this falls in the hierarchy of things that I want to get done. Long story short, she’s in grad school for history, he’s a famous musician in town recording for a new album, they meet in the library, she pretends she has no idea who he is, and shenanigans ensue.

And that is where I think I’m going to leave it. There’s four other stories that I can think of off the top of my head that I could theoretically add to this list, but they are legitimately just ideas right now so they can be added at a later date when they’ve manifested themselves a little more strongly. There’s also another quartet in the Willow Hill universe that I came up with in high school that could theoretically be added but I think I might just steal those character names and give them their own little world instead. We’ll see.

Basically, if you didn’t get the point from this list: I am working on a lot of things, and when I say I’m writing, it could mean literally anything on this list (or any of the other ideas that I have floating around). The stories/universe here are the most likely candidates for my time, depending on whether I’m doing a deep dive into my writing or just playing around with something fun, and hopefully (god, hopefully) I’ll be able to move one or two of these to a “completed works” list in the next year(ish). 

(Or at least, as complete as a draft ever gets before you start going in on it again.)

[hydrospanners]

Justw ondering what your writing process is like?

It’s me, ya girl, coming at you with an answer twenty years after you asked the question!!! Sorry for the delay; I’m actually really excited to answer this! And I’m excited to be excited to answer this!!!

I am a Perfectionist, Anon. It is not a good quality. For most of my life, I was so petrified by the possibility of someone seeing something I hadn’t polished within an inch of it’s life that I wouldn’t even acknowledge I had a process. I wouldn’t mention I was writing something until it was completely done out of fear that they might want to talk to me about it when I hadn’t finalized everything and I might not represent my very best possible creative work. Also I never really thought of myself as being enough of a writer to have a process. That seemed too good for the likes of me!

But here we are now, in the Year of Our Thor 2019, and I am psyched to tell you every detail of my process and show you a side by side of my first draft and final product!!! That is so much progress for me, Anon, and I didn’t even realize I’d made until you sent me this so thank you!!!

(This is going to be long--please hold your gasps of surprise--so I’m putting the rest under a cut. Seriously I just finished writing this post and it’s an absolute BEAST.)

So my process!! I’m actually trying to make some changes to it to be more supportive of my efforts to kick the Perfectionist habits, but right now it basically looks like this:

1. There is an idea. Often times it comes from a question, like “How would Rea deal with what I’m feeling right now?” or “Is this a problem in space?” or something like that. Other times it comes from a snippet of dialogue that occurs to me while I’m listening to a song or watching tv or driving or in the shower or something. Sometimes it’s as minor as a gesture or a mood. Sometimes I’m just trying to exercise a certain muscle as a writer. This fic sprang up out of me wanting to work on describing settings. Wherever it comes from, I have the idea. I open a new Google doc and I slap down as much of the idea as I have developed.The lines of dialogue or the question I want to answer or just a few sentences about what I want to show or what I’m trying to achieve.

2. Time passes. I might work on the fic in feverish fits and starts, obsessing over it for three days and then ignoring it completely for three weeks. I might not look at it at all. The fic sits fragmented in my WIP folder and marinates. Usually this happens for about 1-3 years after the fic’s initial conception. I’m not joking about this. I think my average time for completing a fic is 2 years. The reason for that is the aforementioned Perfectionism.

3. I get tired of looking at in my WIP folder and/or I commit to some kind of special event/holiday thing. Fictober rolls around and I go on a kick of completing and editing the stuff in my WIP folder or I just get annoyed with myself for not completing things or it’s suddenly Arbor Day again and I have that tree-related fic I started two years ago that I could finally finish! This is when I buckle down and Write The Damn Thing. Once it’s written, I do an immediate edit and then I try to sleep on it for at least one night before going back and editing again. After that I usually like to sleep on it at least one more night before hitting publish. Sometimes I don’t have the self-restraint for all of this or I’m doing an event where I’ve committed myself to publishing something every single day, so the timeline gets compressed to a few hours between edits instead of a full day.

As for my writing set up, I’ve really leaned in to writing wherever I am and whenever I can. That’s more or less why I only write fic in Google Docs even though I passionately love Scrivener. (All my original work, which is more involved, is done on Scrivener.) 

I do a lot of writing in the quiet, early hours at work when I don’t have work to do. I do probably my most efficient writing when I hit a diner or coffee shop after work and settle in with my iPad and a snack. I can’t distract myself with doing chores or playing games like I do at home, and working on my iPad makes it annoying to switch tabs and apps and do other stuff while I write. Plus I’m eager to get home and take my pants off so that motivates me to let Perfectionism go and write something bad just to hit my goal so I can leave. At home, I’m usually on the couch with my iPad because I get too distracted at my desk on my PC with two enormous screens making it so easy to do other stuff instead of write while telling myself I’m doing other stuff at the same time as writing.

As you can see!!! I spend most of my “writing time” just trying to make myself at all!!!! It’s really daunting to overcome the fear of writing something bad and big parts of me would rather not write at all than endure the pain of failing at creating what I want to create so thanks Perfectionism!!!

I also have a really, really bad habit of editing while I write. I won’t say I’m the world’s worst editing-while-writing writer but I’m definitely top 100. (Bottom 100?) It’s a huge reason why I have those 1-3 year gaps between start and finish and why my first drafts come out so choppy. My inner editor has me rewriting before I’ve even finished writing and redirecting and it’s so disheartening I can only do it in fits and starts and you can clearly tell the places where I took a two month break before coming back to a fic.

But I’m working on this!!! Like I said, I try to go out and write as much as possible because the desire to be at home without pants on often overpowers my fear of Being Bad and makes it so much easier to give myself permission to write badly. That is the goal. Write Badly. I’m working on it and I’m making progress but I have a long way to go still. For now I have to rely heavily on supports like controlling my environment but one day I will be able to write absolute drivel on demand!! The dream!!!

And now, for your entertainment and to celebrate the fact that I am now somehow able to do this at all, I give you the first draft of the forsythias chapter from fill my lungs with sweetness, including the masterful original title:

??oil?????

Doc slips his hand from the inside of his jacket as he rounds the corner and walks straight into the steel-melting heat of Kira’s glare. Or maybe that’s just the extra sun. Hard to tell on Tatooine.

“Done shopping, Your Highness?” She asks, rolling her eyes at him before she’s even finished asking the question. “Think we can fit saving some lives into your busy schedule?”

Doc just laughs, patting the little bulge in his breast pocket. “People expect a dashing hero when they’re being saved, Junior. I’d hate to disappoint.”

“No one cares how waxy your mustache is when they’re bleeding out,” Kira says. “Ugh. Let’s just go.”

Vii is waiting for them by the speeder, having an improbably good-natured chat with a Gamorrean at least three times her size. They seem to be actually smiling at her, which is something he knows from medical school is technically possible but never expected to see. Kira’s inching her fingers toward her laser sword, always ready to leap headlong to the worst possible conclusion, but Doc waves her off.

He congratulates himself that, despite the withering look she gives him, Kira lets her hand fall. She trusts him at least as far as Vii’s well-being is concerned.

(He isn’t sure how he feels about how everyone seems to know just how deep his interest in her well-being goes.)

“Making friends?” He calls out, keeping his walk casual and slow and his hands clearly visible and clearly far from the blaster at his hip. The Gamorrean’s smile fades at his approach, replaced with the kind of slow-moving suspicion Doc is more used to seeing there.

Vii, however, does not stop smiling. Instead, she turns that smile on him. Brighter and more blinding than both of the suns combined.

“Gorzzak was just telling me about some problem spots in the canyons,” she says, her voice as light and tinkling and utterly sincere as ever. “Nice of them, isn’t it?”

And the thing that he still can’t believe, no matter how many times he sees it, is that it really is nice. Because he’s sure that Gorzzak really did point out all the spots he would normally use to lure unsuspecting travellers into ambushes. He’s sure that Gorzzak, even with only three neurons to rub together, has been absolutely dazzled by the obvious shine of Vii’s heart, just like everyone is.

Doc swallows, his throat starting to feel unbearably thick. Probably from all the sand.

“Very nice,” he agrees. “But I’ve got something even better.”

“How is your mustache wax a gift for—“ Kira stops as she catches sight of his eager grin, her face screwing up in an expression he’s starting to think she saves just for him. “Disgusting,” she mutters, her voice low enough that Vii won’t hear. It isn’t the best-kept secret, but Kira, for all her faults, loves Vii too much to shatter her illusion of secrecy like that. Not even to make a dig at Doc.

Vii watches as he reaches into his breast pocket, her expression openly anticipating the surprise, her glowing eye wide and perfectly prepared to be delighted with him. It’s such a refreshing change of pace, how eager she is to be happy with him. To like him. She never makes him work for it and honestly he doesn’t always know what to do with that.

But right now he does.

He produces the little flask of oil with a flourish and his signature self-satisfied grin. Kira would call it his sleazy smirk, but how can he be expected to think of Junior when he’s got Vii in front of him, beaming like this wretched planet’s third sun.

Doc doesn’t entirely understand everything that happens to him when she radiates like this. When she unleashes the full force of her joy on him and he feels thoroughly cooked from the inside out.

“It’s the good stuff,” he explains. “Imported from Corellia. I’ve only been once, but I remember everything was coated in a fine layer of oil so they probably know a thing or two about making it. Anyway, I know how the joints can lock up with all this sand around. Thought you could use some… lubrication.”

This last point is made for Kira’s benefit, and her revolted snort does not disappoint him.

“The doctor is on call, Gorgeous. Anytime you need oiled up, my hands are ready.”

[perfectlyrose]

a cup of sugar, a pinch of magic (1/?)

Summary: It's just another night spent baking instead of sleeping for John Smith, owner of The Blue Box Bakery, when a mysterious blonde woman knocks on the bakery door hours before opening time. He never expected that letting her in would draw him into a world of magic and shadow organizations or be the start of a life-changing love.

Pairing: Nine x Rose ||  Word Count: 3850 || Rating: All Ages (for now)

Note: So I swore I wouldn't start a new WIP until I finished one but... well... here I am. Buckle in because I think this is going to be a long one. -- tagging @doctorroseprompts for Fantasy month and also the bread prompt

AO3

John pushed the heels of his hands into the dough, putting all his strength behind it as he worked to get it to the right consistency. Kneading bread dough was therapeutic in the way he could focus on doing just this one single thing, putting mind and body both towards a single goal and shutting out the rest of the world for a bit.

He was starting to get a reputation for his breads in the neighborhood, was starting to get people coming into the shop specifically looking for certain ones. No one had to know that the days he had the most variety were products of nights spent avoiding the nightmares that lived in his head.

Today there would be a lot of bread. Probably would be quite a few of the fussy little miniature cakes that sold well when he could find the time to make them. Detail work would be a good follow up to making bread.

He’d been working for a couple hours and his kitchen was covered in various breads and cakes and sweets in varying stages of baking, cooling, and being decorated when a sharp knocking cut through the quiet. John’s head whipped up, brows drawing together as he glanced at the clock. It was three in the morning on a Wednesday, not there weren’t usually many people wandering about looking for a bakery at this time.

John grabbed a towel to wipe his hands with and headed out into the bakery proper to see what the fuss was about. He had the lights in the shop low but it was just enough to make the glass cases shine and still leave the corners shadowed.

He turned his gaze to the front windows. A blonde woman was at the door, arms wrapped round her middle as she glanced up and down the dark, empty street. John frowned as he took in the fact that she was only wearing a vest top and jeans even though it was the middle of winter and the middle of the night on top of that.

His decision to let her in was made the second he laid eyes on her. At the very least, he could offer her a spot to sit in the warmth of the bakery for a bit. Maybe some food as well.

He strode over to the door and unlocked it, pulling it open and letting in a blast of cold air.

The woman hesitated as she looked up at John, fear apparent in her eyes.

John didn’t think he looked all that intimidating with an apron on and flour all over him but he was bigger than her. Years of working doughs and hauling sacks of flour and sugar and trays of food had maintained and built muscle that he belatedly realized was on display with the sleeves of his jumper pushed up. He offered her a disarming smile, trying to convey that he was not a threat.

He stepped back, pulling the door open wider and gesturing into the shop with one hand. “Come on, it’s a lot warmer in here and I’ve got a few croissants that should be about warm that I can share.”

She took a small step forward then stopped. “I don’t have any money.” Her voice was hoarse like she hadn’t spoken in a while or had spoken too much and too loud recently.

He shrugged. “Don’t need money to help someone out. Please come in.”

She pressed her lips together and then nodded stepping inside Blue Box Bakery.

John shut the door behind her and locked it back. She jumped at the sound of the lock.

“You can unlock and leave at anytime you want,” he reassured her. “It’s a deadbolt operated from the inside, no need for a key if you’re going out.”

“Thank you,” she said, quiet voice perfectly audible in the almost silence of the bakery. “You didn’t have to let me in.”

He snorted. “Wasn’t going to leave you out in the cold. Come on back to the kitchen, I think I promised you croissants.”

He led the way back behind the counter and then into the kitchen, pretending not to notice the way she stole a few glances back out the windows or the way some of her tension dissipated the moment the kitchen door swung shut.

“Oh my god, it smells amazing in here,” she said, inhaling deeply. “Is that cinnamon I smell?”

“Good nose. There’s cinnamon swirl bread in the oven.”

He opened one of the ovens and used the towel he’d slung over his shoulder to pull out a tray with three croissants on it. They were leftover from yesterday and he’d been warming them back up to eat but he thought she needed them more.

He slid the tray onto a clear spot on the counter before turning to grab a plate from a cabinet. John plucked the croissants off the baking tray and dropped them onto the plate, muttering as he burned his fingertips on the hot pastry. He shook his hand out as he set the plate down near the blonde, giving her a sheepish grin.

“You’d think after a year or so of baking professionally I’d have built up more heat tolerance,” he quipped.

The smile that broke over her face was wonderful to behold. “Might should invest in some tongs so you keep the feeling in your fingers.”

“Got some, just never remember to use the damn things,” he said easily, turning back to check on the breads and pull a sponge out of the oven that was probably already overbaked.

“I’m John Smith by the way.” He didn’t look behind him to see if her silence was due to a return of her hesitance or because she was in the middle of a bite. “I own this place.”

“Are most bakers already up and baking at three in the morning?” the blonde asked, ignoring the opportunity to share her own name.

John turned to face her, eyes flicking down to the crumbs on her plate, all that was left of the croissants. “Nah, I’m just an insomniac who lives above his shop so when I can’t sleep, I come get started on the day’s baking. No one’s complained about the extra pastries yet.”

“I certainly wouldn’t,” she said, another smile blooming. “Those were delicious.”

“You should try a fresh one when I get them going.”

“Might just do that.”

“I could get you a cuppa, if you’d like,” he offered.

“If you show me where the kettle and tea are, I can make us both one. Least I can do when you let me in from the cold and fed me the best croissants I’ve ever had.”

John showed her where the kettle had a tiny corner of counter space with tea and mugs in the cabinet above it and then left her to it. He pulled the cinnamon swirl bread and set it on a cooling rack before going to check on the doughs that were still rising. None of them looked ready yet so he turned his attention back to the blonde who was pouring boiling water into the mugs.

“You any good at baking?” he asked.

She snorted. “Pretty much anything I touch in a kitchen ends up burnt so…”

He raised his eyebrows. “Gonna have to ask you to stay away from the bread dough then.”

The blonde laughed and his heart tripped over itself. “Not a problem.”

John grabbed milk out of the fridge as she brought mugs over to a clear spot on the counter. He poured a splash in his before offering it to her. She added a dash of milk and then took the spoon he was using for sugar to add a spoonful and a half to her cup.

Her eyes fluttered closed as she took her first sip. “Mmm, s’been awhile since I had a proper cuppa.”

John mulled over his words for a moment before opening his mouth. “Look, I’m not going to ask why you were out on the street in the middle of the winter in a vest top and no jacket. Not any of my business. But like I told you earlier, I live above the shop. So if you need a place to sleep and take a shower, make a few more cuppas, you’re welcome to use my flat.”

She froze, mug halfway to her lips. “I don’t want to put you out.”

He shrugged. “I’m going to be down here baking and then running the shop. I can give you the key and then you can lock the door behind you and have full run of the place for the day and I won’t bother you. Might even have some frozen dinners you can microwave without burning the place down.”

She set her mug down with a quiet thunk, keeping her hands wrapped around it. “Why are you being so nice? You don’t even know me.”

“Because it seems like you need help. Know what it’s like to be looking for a hand to help you get on your feet, me. Nice to be able to try and do the helping this time.”

“The world doesn’t work this way,” she argued. “It’s not this kind.”

“Not saying that it is. I’m just saying you knocked on the right bakery door on the right night and sometimes, luck works that way.”

She was opening her mouth to say something else when a banging sound cut through the quiet. The blonde jumped, almost spilling her tea as her face drained of color. Her eyes - more gold than brown now - were wild with fear when they met his. “They found me. Oh god, I didn’t think they’d find me this fast.”

“Calm down. I’m not letting anyone else into this shop, you got that?” John dug in his pocket and pulled out a key, pressed it into her hand. “Go through the door in the back of the kitchen and straight up the stairs. My flat is the door on the left. I’ll let you know when we’re clear down here.”

She nodded and took off, mug of tea still in one hand, the key in the other.

John took a deep breath, counted to ten and then walked back out into the shop for his second late night visitor.

There were two men at the door. They were dressed in black and had military-straight posture. John felt his own spine straighten instinctively, old habits reasserting themselves.

The men stood with a tilt to their stance that, to John’s trained eye, said they were carrying weapons of some sort under their jackets on their left hip. One of the men was sweeping the street with his eyes, searching for any signs of movement while the other locked his gaze on John.

He took his time getting to the door. He flipped the lock and opened the door just enough to accommodate his shoulders, making it very clear that they were not welcome to enter. “We’re not open,” John said shortly.

“Have you seen a woman around here tonight? About five foot five, blonde?” The man in front and the shorter of the two asked.

“No. I’ve been in the kitchen for the last couple hours and you’re the only people I’ve seen.”

“What are you doing up at this hour, anyways?” The other man asked, turning narrowed eyes on John.

“Insomniac, me. Good quality for a baker.”

“Mind if we have a look around?”

John crossed his arms over his chest. “I do actually. Pretty sure you can see the whole shop from where you’re standing and I don’t let people back into my kitchen, especially not when I have things baking.”

“You’re certain no one else has been around here tonight?”

“Nobody in the shop but me. If someone was lingering about outside I wouldn’t know about it. Barely heard your knocking over the ruckus I was making back there.”

The men were still suspicious, he could see it in their eyes, but he knew they didn’t have any proof that he was lying. “If you see a blonde woman wandering around tonight, don’t let her in. She’s dangerous.”

John raised his eyebrows. The blonde had seemed more scared than anything but he knew well enough that scared could make you feral, make you dangerous. “Got a number I can call if I catch sight of this dangerous fugitive?”

The man in the back reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. John took it and put it into his apron pocket without reading it. He kept his gaze locked on the two men memorizing their faces in case they decided to come back. The taller one had a permanent pinched expression and a narrow face with slicked back dark hair. The shorter one had a muscled build that John didn’t particularly want to test himself against and a blonde buzzcut.

“Bread’s going to burn if I don’t get back to it. Night gentlemen,” he said, moving back so he could shut the door.

The blonde man stopped him, slamming his palm against the glass. “I think you need to rethink letting us see the kitchen.”

“I think you need to get your hand off my glass or I’m going to make you clean it yourself,” John shot back. “I have no reason to let you on my property.”

“I think avoiding trouble should be incentive enough,” he said with a sneer, not moving his hand.

“Seems to me that letting you in would be inviting the trouble in.”

“If you’ve got nothing to hide, let us look around,” the taller man said.

John’s mouth quirked up into a smile that had no warmth to it, only warning. “No, thanks. Goodnight.”

He reached out and knocked the blonde’s hand down with a quick motion and closed the door, locking it up once more. John waved at the men still standing outside of his bakery and then headed back into the kitchen.

John pulled his bread out of the oven and set it to cool and then finished his already cold tea sitting on the counter. When about ten minutes had passed, he poked his head back out to see if the men were still out front. Deciding it was all clear, he ducked back into the kitchen, made sure everything was out of the ovens, then walked out the back door.

John checked the back alley to make sure they weren’t lurking back there and then mounted the stairs, taking them two at a time.

He knocked on the door to his flat softly. “It’s me,” he called out. “They’re gone, no sign of them still hanging about.”

He heard her moving on the other side of the door and stepped back so that she could see through the peephole that he was alone.

The deadbolt moved with a soft snick and the door swung open, revealing the blonde mystery woman. Her face was still pale, eyes still wide.

John stepped inside and closed and locked the door behind him, flipping on the lights as well.

“You got rid of them?” she asked, looking him straight in the eye.

“Yup. Told them I hadn’t seen anyone of your description, refused to let them into my shop, generally didn’t make any new friends in the process.”

She wrapped her arms around her middle like she needed the extra support to stay upright. “Were they only looking for me?”

He nodded. “Did you have someone with you earlier?”

She looked away. “Yeah, couple people. We split up so it wouldn’t be as easy to track us but I guess they didn’t find a bakery to hide in.”

“Maybe they found somewhere else to lay low.”

“If Torchwood didn’t ask about them, they’ve already found ‘em.”

“Torchwood?”

She looked back up, brow furrowed in confusion. “That’s who came around looking for me, yeah?”

John dug in the pocket of his apron and pulled out the card he’d asked for. One side had a honeycomb T, the other side read “Torchwood: Scientific research for the betterment of Britain” along with a phone number.

“That’s cryptic,” he muttered. He looked back at the blonde. “You were right. Torchwood.”

“They gave you a card?” she asked.

John shrugged. “I asked for a way to contact them so that I knew who they were.”

“Clever.”

“Not just a pretty face,” he joked, mouth quirking into a half-smile. “Why don’t we move in to the couch? Could do with getting off my feet for a bit.”

He eased past her and walked towards his sofa. It was battered and a rather offensive shade of yellow but it was the comfiest thing he’d ever sat on and he was attached to it. John plopped down with a sigh and propped his feet up on the coffee table after tossing his apron on it.

“They don’t tell you when you decide to open a bakery that it’s hell on your feet,” he said.

The blonde carefully lowered herself down on the other end of the couch, pulling her knees up to her chest and leaning back against the arm. “I would think it would be obvious. Gotta stand in the kitchen and then in the shop. Can’t sit when you’re in customer service.”

“Sounds like you know the drill.”

“Might’ve worked in a shop once upon a time,” she admitted. “Splurged on those gel inserts for my shoes and never regretted a single penny.”

“I’ll have to look into that.”

“You should.”

John let the silence stretch until some of the tension drained from the blonde’s shoulders.

“You know they tried to tell me that you’re dangerous,” he said.

“They would say that,” she scoffed. She propped her chin up on a fist, met his eyes. “I’m not dangerous to you.”

“I know.” He paused, trying to decide if he should say the rest of what was in his head. He’d promised not to press for her story but that was before a couple of military grunts from a research facility he’d never heard of had come knocking on his door. “But you might be dangerous for them.”

“Yes.”

“Why are they looking for you?”

“Because I escaped their lab and they hate losing a test subject.” Her gaze was unflinching and her voice was steady. “Usually when they lose one, it’s because they went to far and killed them or sent them into a nervous breakdown or a coma. We were the first ones that escaped, I think.”

“These people are experimenting on humans? Government approved?” John asked, a crease forming in his brow.

She laughed, harsh and bitter. “The government knows, they just don’t care. Not officially sanctioned, I don’t think, but they and Torchwood don’t exactly consider us human so it doesn’t matter.”

John outright frowned. “Not human?”

She bit down on her bottom lip. “So, um, but there’s a certain percentage of people that seems to be growing that can do what most consider… magic. I’m one of those people.”

John blinked. “Alright.”

“You’re… okay with that? Just like that?” she asked, incredulous.

“Would you like me to freak out a bit more?”

“Not particularly, but I was expecting you to.”

“I heard some rumblings, rumors, about magic right before I left the army. It was something more than just the usual soldier superstition so, not surprised that there’s something to it. The world’s a strange enough place for it to be true,” John said.

“You were in the military?”

“Once upon a time,” he said, echoing her words from earlier. “I was a doctor.”

“Not anymore?”

He shook his head, mouth thinning into a hard, straight line. There were things he didn’t want to talk about either. “I’m a baker now.”

“Quite the shift in profession.”

“Needed a change.”

She nodded, understanding in her eyes. Before she could put voice to more words, she interrupted herself with a yawn.

John smiled. “Think you could use some sleep.”

“I think so too.” She uncurled herself, putting her feet on the floor. “Could I sleep here tonight?”

“Of course. Already said you could.”

“That was before you knew about the magic,” she wiggled her fingers at the word, “and before Torchwood came knocking.”

“Neither of those things changed my mind.”

She reached over and put a hand on his knee. “Thank you. I mean it. Not many people would be this kind.”

John put his hand over hers and squeezed gently before letting go. “Let’s get you set up for the night.”

“I promise I’ll tell you the rest of my story tomorrow, once my head’s not so fuzzy,” she said. She got to her feet and stretched, the crack of her spine audible to John.

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to. I owe you that much for saving me.”

John didn’t argue. He didn’t think she owed him anything but he was keen to know what had happened to her before she showed up at his door.

He led her to his bedroom and got out an old tee shirt and a pair of flannel bottoms. “These will probably drown you but should do for the night. Sheets were washed a few days ago and I haven’t slept much lately so, should be serviceable enough.”

“It’s perfect, thank you.”

“The bedroom door has a lock, loo is just here in the hall. You’re free to poke around and help yourself to any food you find. I’ll be down in the shop if you need me. If you decide to slip out, I’d appreciate you leaving a note so I know you left on your own,” he rattled off, uncharacteristically verbose. Her own reluctance to talk seemed to make him want to fill some of the silence.

“I’m not going to do a runner. At least not today,” she said with a smile.

John nodded. “Alright. I should get back to work then. Cakes are waiting and they aren’t patient things.”

He turned and walked towards the doorway, trying to figure out how he was going to focus on his baking when he knew she was up here sleeping in his bed, when he was busy wondering about her history with Torchwood. Already he could feel the urge to turn back around and continue their conversation, to give into whatever magnetic pull emanated from her.

He kept walking until her voice broke the quiet, just as he reached the door of his flat.

“Rose,” she said, and he turned around to look at her. She was leaning against the doorframe of the bedroom, the stack of clothes he’d given her clutched to her chest. “My name’s Rose Tyler.”

She flashed him a small smile before closing the bedroom door and engaging the lock.

Rose Tyler. John mouthed the name, liking the way it rolled off his tongue.

There was no one to see his smile as he walked back to his kitchen so he didn’t bother trying to dim it one single iota.