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slowpoke-fics · 3 years ago

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The Run | The Good Doctor pt 3

Fandom: The Walking Dead

Pairing: Negan x Reader slow burn

Summary: You had a bit more responsibility than you'd expected, not to say you didn't know what you were doing

Warnings: none really, cussing, ooc Negan, slow burn, it's cute, I miss some and am not perfect, read at your own risk

A/N: This is part three to the Good Doctor Part 3! Thank you for being patient and I hope to have part four up much quicker. I liked this even though it's just some logistical stuff and insight, here is part two!

Maybe he thinks he can fix me, sucks for him, I'm broken beyond repair.

When you woke up, Negan had his hand on your shoulder, you immediately grabbed the gun under your pillow, holding it under his chin. He immediately grabbed the gun and twisted it out of your hands, your eyes now fully open and awake. You didn't realize he was eye level with you, how hot it was for him to control your gun like that, how hot he was staring into your eyes, waiting for your next move. You were frozen, you're not sure he equated it with anything but sleep, but he was captivating.

He laughed, hands up, "Damn, doll, just trying to fuckin' wake you up without fuckin' scaring you, see that was fuckin' pointless," his eyebrows raised as he shook the gun by the barrel at you, "you want it back or not?" You shook your head in disbelief as you took your gun and put it down, shocked that you held a gun to someone for just trying to wake you up. "I-I'm sorry, I guess it was just-" Negan laughed, "No worries, doll, at least I know you can take care of yourself."

You smiled, throwing the blanket off of you and swinging your legs over the couch, “So,” you stood up and began folding the blanket, “what’s the plan?” He watched you fold the blanket, not trying to hide the fact that his eyes roamed your body. Taking in the battered bluejeans that hugged your body, the scratched and slightly torn tank top, your hair shining against the sun, really popping the color out. “We’re going to drive a little longer than I’d hoped but,” he huffed, “the towns supposed to have some more supplies left than we’d originally thought, we should be back by dark.” You shrugged, “Should be fun, are we ready to leave now?”

Negan leaned against the desk, you took all of him in. He was wearing his classic leather jacket over the tattered t-shirt and blue jeans that laid over his steel toe boots. He watched as you put your hair into a pony tail, shirt playing peekaboo with the skin on your torso, “Right after breakfast doll. You ready?” You nodded at him, heading to the door with him following close behind.

Once you had sat down for breakfast Negan started shoveling food down, a full plate compared to your half rations. You didn’t really have much of an appetite, worried about everything that could happen with Negan today. He didn’t seem to notice, and by the time you’d finished your small plate, he was already done eating too. He grabbed your plate so he could return it with his own. You picked up the bags and followed suit, following him out the door and to his truck.

The truck was huge. Had to have been able to fit half of Alexanndria's storage. You’d wondered how much he was planning to come back with. It started to make a little more sense when a small portion of his crew jumped into the back, probably for protection. You climbed into the truck after Negan opened the door for you, closing it once he’d known your feet were out of the way. Then proceeding to climb in his own side.

Negan started the truck, taking you in before he started rolling. Your legs crossed, fingers interlocked at the top of your thighs, thumbs picking at each other, ankle continuously moving. You watched the trucks behind you, following close, at least three others. Did all of them have people in the back? How big was this run?

You were clearly nervous and he hated that, he wanted to make you as comfortable as possible. He tried to ignore it, but after fifteen minutes of non stop thought through his head, he had to say something. "God damn doll," Negan bellowed, "you're gonna roll the damn truck if you don't stop shaking so much," Negan lightly rubbed your forearm, a foreign thing to you, "what're ya so fuckin' nervous about anyway princess?"

You shrugged, a look of uneasiness resting on your face at his nickname for you that didn't go unnoticed, "Just don't know how to act with your group, what're your run rules? Where do I not be in the way? Will I distract you and your men? I'm used to going solo, or with one or two people. There's so-" Negan had to stop your monologue, knowing you've asked these questions twenty times since yesterday. "Don't fuckin' worry about it," Negan smiled, "I made sure this was gonna be fun for you." Your eyebrows curled, needing him to explain.

Negan blushed? No way, you thought and left it alone. "What do you mean?" He shrugged, "You'll see, won't you doll?" You huffed, "Well that just makes me more nervous." Negan let out a hearty laugh, "Damn girl, pull at this old assholes strings huh?" He shook his head, "I'm your personal companion today," he giggled at your slap to his arm. "I don't need a baby sitter!" He raised he hands very quickly to show defense, "No! But, wherever you go, I do. Whatever you fuckin' say, that's law. Everyone else goes at your direction too," he paused, looking at you, "but you don't leave my fuckin' sight," his eyes bore into you, demanding confirmation. "Yeah, okay," you smiled lightly.

"So," Negan's fingers drilled the steering wheel as he hummed at you to continue, "what's in this place?" Negan shifted, "It's a little town, the rest is a surprise." He looked genuinely excited, and you wondered how this apocalypse had changed him as a man. He couldn't have always been this heartless. "Do I get any hints?" Negan hummed again, this time searching for something to give you, "You'll fuckin' like it." You shrugged, "Maybe." He glanced to your bag where you keep your notebook, a gentle reminder of his broken trust. "Oh," you cleared your throat, "hopefully." He beamed at you, "Come on lil' fuckin' firecracker," he pressed the gas a couple more times, gently swerving the car to play with you, "be more fuckin' excited! I'm fuckin' kidding!"

The rest of the way you could believe how different Negan was being. He was intently talking to you about the grid of the town, what his crew already know about, how his crew has already been briefed that you're running it, explained the teams to you and that you're header, leading the team leaders, and he's told you that he's confident you have this ability. You were shocked about him being completely different man that with other people. You were sure that you could be with the man sitting in the truck with you, and you were sure that you couldn't be with the man who murdered someone you considered to be your brother. You were torn between seeing his good and never forgiving him for killing Glenn, how could he do something so vile? You shook your head, drawing attention back to the road and off of your thoughts.

When you arrived, Negan placed his hand on your thigh, just barely touching you. "There is one rule," he smiled, "stay here." Negan was gone for no more than two minutes. He finally came to your door, opening it and revealing his many men standing behind him, "Make sure you're safe." He reached for your hand, dropping you down to the same man who stole from you in your clinic, you glared him hiding behind Negan.

Negan stepped out of the way, the man looking guilty, "Hello, Doctor Y/n," he cleared his throat, "I'm sorry for stealing from an honorable woman." He handed you a gum pack, missing a few pieces, and a small pack of skittles, "I couldn't find gum to replace what I'd stolen, so I hoped that the skittles would excuse my poor manners." You smiled hatefully at him, taking what was in his hand, "Apology accepted..." you waited for him to say his name, but Negan chimed in. "Brady," and he slapped the other man on the shoulder eliciting a smile, "and Simon." You smiled, reaching your hand out to shake Simon's hand, "I've heard." Negan smiled at you, "Good we're all fuckin' aquatinted," he roughly slapped Brady's shoulder, you didn't miss the wince he tried to hide, "these two travel with us period. So, Y/n," a bright smile, "what's the fucking plan?"

With that you noticed the other men had cleared a path for you, letting you view the town. At this point you took in the town, looking at the tiny shops and small streets. Negan wasn't kidding, it's a small town, surely the four trucks you bought could fit everything. You thought for a second, and it hit you, how much work he had put into this. You smiled to yourself, knowing that he wanted to make this go smoothly for you, hence the perfect amount of trucks, a grid, briefed men.

You walked a little behind you, looking at the different streets, looking at Negan, he smiled, giving you some confidence. "You said that you'd already separated these men by trucks? With their usual teams?" You whispered to Negan, "Yes ma'am, they're with their usual team leaders and already armored, just need you to tell them where to go n what to do."

"Okay, so here's my plan-" Negan put his hand up, gesturing to the men when you realized you should be talking to them. You cleared your throat, "Okay, so here's the plan," Negan's body was just barely pressing against you, standing behind you on your left side, his hands in his pockets, watching his men intently listen to you. How hard did he work on this for you?

"If you came in Negan's truck, you're with us on main," you motioned with your hand to have them move to the side, "Truck two-or rather-team two, you're going to our left, Combs Street, when you get to the library, we're looking for education books, if we have time and space after you've gotten everything else essential on the street, comb the library taking the fun books, that's a good part of life now." Negan nodded, liking your plan for education first, noting that the houses on the street might hold value, but acknowledging that we still need distractions like 'fun books' if circumstances allowed.

"Truck three, hit the residential area, on Langley Street," you continued when the men nodded their heads, "Truck four, hit the shops to our right on second street," everyone started moving and you shouted, "wait!" You cleared your throat once again, "Team leaders, I need you and your right hand man, everyone else stay put."

You pulled out the grid as the men surrounded you, "So you've got the left and right sides on your street, split in half, half on Side A, the left, half on side B, the right, this will increase the time we can spend in the houses and avoid stepping on each others feet. Every time you clear a house you call it in, for example, team four A, you would say 'Team Four, A1 clear, moving to A2,' or 'Team Four A Trapped, requesting Four B at A3.' I need you to do this so I can designate resources and men, keep up with the lives and walkers. No need for needless death, check in." Everyone nodded, you smiled, "Anybody have questions, comments or concerns?" The men shook their heads and you turned back towards the crowd, "Alright, everyone knows what you're doing, no-one goes anywhere alone or unarmed. Take everything useful. Do not let your guard down and watch your backs. Dismissed." At that the men dissipated, going on their own assignments.

"Was that okay?" You looked to Negan, the need for approval swimming through your eyes, Negan nodded, "I think it was great, Simon what about you?" Simon chirped up, "Oh yeah, couldn't have done it better myself, I don't make them check in that much but that's okay." You smiled at Simon, wondering how he could not worry about his men that much. You watched as Team One had already started moving toward the first building, them the first check-ins started.

"Team One, heading to A1," a pause, "Team One, heading to B1," another pause, "Team Two, heading to A1." You listened to the team list off their locations, smiling as everyone checked in. "Alright, doll," Negan leaned against the truck, "Where to first?"

#twd negan #twd fanfic #twd fanfiction #negan x y/n #negan angst #negan fluff #negan x you #negan imagine #negan fic #negan fanfiction #negan x reader #the walking dead fanfiction #fanfic #fanfiction #Jdm fanfic

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melancholydreadfuldream · 4 years ago

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hope is blood on broken glass

Fandom: Doctor Who

Summary: The Doctor found out what happened to a former companion after they left his care.

Warning: mention of torture.

The thing about being the companion of the Doctor is you can't stay with him forever. You would eventually have to leave the Doctor and the Tardis. You would have to try to put the pieces that is the life you have before the Doctor back on track.

The time the companion spend with the Doctor will change them for better or worse. They became changed by the experiences that sometimes they seek for a life that closely resembles those time with the Doctor. Like Martha who worked for UNIT, Jack for Torchwood, Sarah-Jane Smith who formed her own group, even Rose and the Metacrisis who also have a version of Torchwood in their world. They are all become a defender of Earth in their own way.

Some are able to somewhat returned to their mundane life and whether they were able to have a good life or not, well, the Doctor tried not to interfere or find out what happened to them. It wasn't necessary to add heartbreaks to see how they ended. But he always believe they will all be brilliant.

But you never felt that way.

UNIT has tons of file they collected about the Doctor and the companion he had over the years. They kept an eye on the companion from time to time.

(yn) (ln) was a companion of the Eleventh Doctor alongside Amy and Rory. But you left him after realizing you couldn't handle your unrequited feeling for him anymore. You felt less in his eyes, not as good as his fairy-tale princess, Amelia Pond, not as brave as Rory the Roman, not as brilliant as his beloved wife, River Song. The Doctor has his own family and that does not includes you, despite his assurance.

The last time you saw him, you had confessed your feeling for him despite knowing he didn't feel the same. For you, it might be the closure you needed to move on.

The Doctor couldn't say anything to you upon your confession and honestly you didn't expect him to. You had packed your suitcases, ready to leave the Tardis when he finally apologized to you. He hugged you and told you that you are brilliant and that you are one of his best friend. He didn't stop you from leaving, that hurts a little but you know it was for the best. The both of you could not handle the awkwardness after your confession. But he did tell you to call him should you need anything.

Life after the Doctor is as mundane as you thought it would be but that is your only option. And for a while, things just doesn't work as you wanted it too and you got so sad, so depressed. It was a year later, more or less, that life gradually less painful and more bearable. You finally got a stable job and the salary is good. You are okay.

On 14th December 2020, (yn) (ln) disappeared. UNIT case officer on the Doctor File assumed you were back with the Doctor until a missing person report is filed two weeks later. Even then, he still think you were out there, travelling with the Doctor. It won't be the first time a companion of the Doctor is reported missing by a family member as in the case of one Rose Tyler or in your case, your work friends.

Two years later, an FBI raid in New York revealed a strange basement on abandoned building where they found a bunch of people whom they assumed victims of human experiment considering their pitiful state.

The breaking news on the worldwide were talking about how these victims were actually the missing people from all over the world and they have been missing in various different years, ranging from two years up to seven years. Most of their cases has been dropped for the lack of trails of their whereabouts.

Martha Jones has worked for UNIT for a while now and has been privy to the Doctor File UNIT has collected over the years. She has read about your file and distinctly wondered what happened to you. She had asked Kate Steward once why she didn't contact the Doctor regarding your whereabouts.

Kate, too, has assumed the Doctor has lost you somewhere along the line of the adventure. After all, the adventures with him always consist of danger and there were many instant of the Doctor's companion files be labeled as missing or as to be assumed of the worst case scenario, dead. Also, she didn't make a habit of contacting the Doctor regarding a former companion, believing the Doctor has move on from them to new ones.

So, imagine their surprise, when a leaked list of the victim names from the FBI case suddenly showed up on the internet with your name among them.

Believing the case must be alien in nature, UNIT swoop in to take the case from the FBI much to their annoyance. And as Martha is charged to treat these victims, they really didn't know what to make of the case. Is it alien in nature or just plain old human cruelty?

These victims are all malnourished, you could practically see their bones through the skins. On their arms littered many scars from oh so many injections. Their wrists were marked with the heaviness of their shackles. All of their hairs has turned silver, presumably from the experiments. They weren't responding well with the new treatments and they weren't responsive.

You sat on your bed in your assigned room, staring blankly at the wall, unresponsive like the rest. That is until Martha mentioned the Doctor and you became hysterical, screaming and crying, scratching your skins till you drew blood. You were quickly sedated.

Martha and Kate started to consider to call on the Doctor, believing the Doctor might have some answers in regard of your reaction of him.

"He would want to know!"

"Would he?" Kate asked. "Look at her."

"I am looking! She need the Doctor!"

"Are you sure about that?"

"You really want to hide this from the oncoming storm?"

In the end, Kate relented to Martha's demand to call the Doctor.

Kate expected that they will get the Twelfth Doctor and his current companion, Clara Oswald, but instead a young woman in rainbow striped and a hoodie appeared before them, followed by three people they assumed her new companion.

"Martha Jones!" The Doctor smiled brightly as she went to give her a hug.

"Doctor." Martha is still eyeing the Doctor's current body. "What an upgrade."

"I know right?" She grinned. "Fam, this is Martha Jones, one of my best friends. And that is Kate Steward, UNIT leader." She introduced them. "They are Yaz, Ryan and Graham, my fam."

"Fam?" Martha raised an eyebrow teasingly.

"So what is the big emergency?" The Doctor asked.

Immediately the mood turned sombre.

"(yn) (ln)?" The Doctor repeated in shock after Martha and Kate explained everything to her. She glanced at your medical file and winced at what she read there. "I want to see her."

"You will but we have to warn you, she might not react well to you, well, to the Doctor anyway." Kate said.

The Doctor frowned.

7777

The Doctor, upon reading your file, know she has to prepare herself to see you at your current condition. She tried to school her expression as she walked toward you hesitantly, knowing your fragile state. It broke her hearts to see one of her best friends ended up like this. But she has to talk to you, get some answers from you.

She bend her knees in front of you and spoke softly to you, "Hey, (yn)."

You didn't even look at her. You were still mostly sedated.

"It's me, the Doctor."

That got a small reaction from you as you flinched harshly at the name.

The Doctor noticed this as she swallowed down hard. "I have regenerated. I am a woman now. You see?"

You glanced at her with a hint of curiosity but it was quickly extinguished.

"I'm sorry that this happened to you. Could you tell me what happened?" The Doctor asked gently.

You didn't answer.

The Doctor sighed in disappointment but as she made to move away from you, you whispered hoarsely at her. Your voice is small and filled with tremor. She nearly couldn't catch what you says.

"Where were you?"

"I... What?"

"Where were you? I called you. I called you. I escaped and I called you. But you hung up. They dragged me back. You didn't come for me. Where were you? Why didn't you come for me? I waited. I waited. I waited. But you didn't come." You whispered in a broken tone. "Why didn't you come?"

The Doctor and everyone in the room froze at what you said.

"Doctor?" Yaz called out. "What is she talking about?"

"I...I have no idea..." The Doctor answered in a shaky tone. "I..."

And then she remembered. You did call her in her previous incarnation. He was with Clara on urgent mission when he got your call just as he was about to left the Tardis, bearing some equipment he need to save the day. He was surprised to get a call from you but he was at the times in an emergency and honestly the call was mostly static. He was busy and told you to call him back again later and hung up. He hung up. He never called you back, too busy with another emergencies.

The Doctor blanched at the realization. Her hearts shattered with the knowledge she play a part in your misery. She could have save you. He could have save you. But she didn't. He didn't. The Doctor has unknowingly abandoned you to your fate, has not even realized you were missing.

"I am sorry. I am so sorry." She whispered to you.

You glanced at her blankly as you shut down again.

7777

"It wasn't your fault." Martha tried to convince the Doctor. "You couldn't have known."

The Doctor is feeling numb. She tried to focus on the rest of the victims but none of them in any condition or in enough of a coherent mind to talk. Between the sorrow and the guilt, she is furious at whoever did this to you. She vowed to find them and make them pay dearly for hurting you. You were still her friend, her companion and she has a duty of care. Whoever did this to you, they better be ready to face the oncoming storm, human or alien, they will all pay.

Martha tried to calm her down, sensing her anger at herself and at whoever did this. "What she need right now is you by her side, help her with her recovery, Doctor."

The Doctor know Martha is right but to be honest, she is afraid to face you. She doesn't know how you could ever forgive her for abandoning you in your time of need. She knew she could never forgive herself. River was right, the Doctor really couldn't handle the damage sometimes, no wonder River always hide her pain from her husband. The Doctor really is rubbish at this.

An alarm sounded surprising the Doctor from her lament. Martha is quick to deal with an emergency when seemingly two of the victims having seizures. When they were pronounced dead on the scene, the Doctor know she has to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible before the same thing happened to you. She will not lose you to this, not when she just found you again. And God help those who cause the Doctor to lose another companion for she will show them no mercy.

A/N: Just a short fic to pass the time. So this fic is also about Thirteenth Doctor having to deal with the 'mess' her previous incarnations unknowingly left behind. Originally I plan to make this longer with reader in a process of recovery but died halfway after reconcile with the Doctor but I just don't have the patience to write it hence I just left it at that.

#doctor who x reader #doctor who fanfiction #doctor who imagine #shiefenwrites

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torchwoodfanfests · 4 years ago

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Torchwood Bingo 2020 Masterpost

The masterpost is here - browse through every work submitted to the 2020 Torchwood Bingo Fest! You can also find most of the fanfiction in our AO3 Collection. Thank you to everyone who took part in out first ever fest. Your response blew us away; we had a total of 172 fanworks from 32 wonderful participants. Hope you all had a good time, and congratulations to everyone who got bingo!

If one of your works should be on this post but isn’t, please let us know and we’ll add it ASAP.

@shejustcalledmeafish

FANFICTION

To Love a Harkness

Coffee/Coffee Shop

Let’s Do the Time Warp Again

Time Loop, Black and White, Friendship, Secrets

Wrong Face, Wrong Time

Twelve/Frobisher confusion

Kiss, Bang

Bullet wounds

A Soul in Twain

Andy Davidson, Lois Habiba

Just the Messenger

Time Travel, Tarot Girl

Golden Days

Gold

Out of Order

Torchwood One, Prequel/Set Before Canon

Kiss of a Viper

Dancing, Betrayal

I’ve Got a Fascination (With Your Presentation)

Grooming/Bathing, Genderbend

World and Enough Time (Stories From the Loop)

Accidental Marriage, Cold/Warm, Bed Sharing, Plants/Vegetables

Commissioned

Human Monsters

Technician, Free Thyself

Timelord AU

Never Has He Ever

The Hub Goes On Lockdown

@princess-of-the-worlds

FANFICTION

Moments in Grayscale (and Eternity in Colour)

Anniversary, Cultural Differences, Immortality, Gifts, Water, Boeshane

i would’ve followed all the way, no matter how far

Psychic Power/Telepathy, Benign Alien Visitors, Canon-Compliant

silver lining

Fake Dating/Fake Marriage

found you made us in a star

Friendship

sing me like a choir

Kink/Sex Talk/Innuendo

the world is at my feet (i am standing on the ceiling)

Secrets, Torchwood One, Under the Influence (Alcohol, Drugs, Alien Pheromones, etc)

perfect premiere

Red, Pink

@torchwoodbutmostlyowen

POETRY

Photographs filled with Lense Flares

Rhys POV

@toshsato

FANFICTION

I Don’t Even Know What I’m Doing Tonight

Rarepair

the night-time is the hardest

Bisexuality, Friendship, Healing

I ain’t letting go

Music, Benign Alien Visitors, Dancing, Werewolves and/or Vampires

GIFSETS

Martha Jones

The Resurrection Gauntlet

Backstory, Camping

@iianto-jones

FANFICTION

On Family

Bullet Wounds, Domesticity, Immortality

Our Worlds Move On

Friendship

How Much of It You’ve Got Left

Interspecies Romance

@dinodina

FANFICTION

In Which Ianto May or May Not Be Fully Human

Domesticity, Meet the Family, Canon Character is an Alien AU, Interspecies Romance, Betrayal, Cold/Warm, CoE Fix-It, Mission-Related Trip, Myfanwy

Rosy-Fingered Dawn Flipped the Page of Life

Healing, Flat Holm, DW Companion, Crossover, Rarepair, Under the Influence, Amnesia, The Year That Never Was, Original Character

@aellesiym

ART

Canon Character is an Alien AU

Mary, Canon Divergent AU

Domesticity, Based on a Song of Your Choice

Werewolves and/or Vampires

@cxptained + @agent-harkness

FANFICTION

Burn Me

Immortality

Inside My Mind (Trying To Get Things Right)

Disability

@ultraviolet-eucatastrophe

FANFICTION

You’re gonna heal over (someday)

Doctor’s Orders, Hurt/Comfort, DW Companion Cameo

Take it on trust

UNIT

All some children do is work

Kids

By the green you shall know us

Con-man/Grifter, Green

Keep holding on

Team Bonding

Half-lives

Past Canonical Character Death

A place to start from

Torchwood One

But the blues are still blue

Big Finish Audio or TW Novel Tag/AU, Food, Curtain Fic/Ordinary Everyday Situations and Chores

@agent-sato

FANFICTION

I Know Not Everybody (Has A Body Like You)

Genderbend, Team Bonding, Hurt/Comfort, John Hart, Pining

Off The Grid

Harriet Jones/Mickey Smith

Imposters Among Us

Rhys POV, Human Monsters, Doctor’s Orders, Canon Character is an Alien AU, Under the Influence

@moonlightrhosyn

FANFICTION

For I Chose the World’s Sad Roses

Plants/Vegetables, Therapy

An Exile on Lemnos’ City Streets

Mary

My Favourite Kind of Rain

Gold

The Cordiality of Death, with his Metallic Grin

Canon Character is an Alien AU

@currently-very-asleep

FANFICTION

Ianto’s Funeral

Meet the Family, Dead

@captainawesome242

FANFICTION

It’s the Taking Part That Counts (but the winning is great too!)

Water, Fake Dating

If You Should Fall Upon Hard Times, If You Should Lose Your Way

Mental Health

Who Wants to Live Forever

Immortality

You’re the Better Half of Me (you’re the only half I need)

Mickey Smith, The Year That Never Was, Weddings, Family

Meet the Family

Public Displays of Affection, Kids, Confessions

@golyadkin

ART

Dancing

Meet the Family

Werewolves and/or Vampires

FANFICTION

What Comes Next

CoE Fix-It AU

@amlaich

ART

Harriet Jones/Mickey Smith

Under the influence

Martha Jones, AU/Canon Divergence

Immortality

@thirteeninafez

FANFICTION

Lost in Translation

Handcuffs

Porcelain Penguins and Other Such Knick-Knacks

Canon Character is an Alien AU

@asarahworld-writes

FANFICTION

hen night

Under the Influence

Gafr Siafft

Kids

@searching-for-arcadia

ART

Genderbend, Dancing

first, you must be buried (to understand light)

Canon Divergent AU, Mission-Related Trip, Exercise

Plants/Vegetables

Bullet Wounds

Ianto’s Criminal Past

The Hub Goes on Lockdown

@horselover107

FANFICTION

Team Tardis

Secrets

Date Night

The Child

Kids, Alternate Universe

Missing

Missing, Nosy Coworkers, Friendship, Future!Fic

Sibling Rivalry

Family

PLAYLISTS

Broken

Mental Health

Coffee: A Janto Mix

Coffee/Coffee Shop

@chandelle13

FANFICTION

Resurrection of the lost

Torchwood 4

Some secrets

Team Tardis, Family and Domesticity

With some help

Character Do-Over, DW Companion Cameo, Canon Divergent AU

Surprise!

Pets, Big Finish Audio or TW Novel Tag/AU

Once a year

Friendship, Curtain Fic, Blue, Comfort

Expect the unexpected

Anniversary, Doctor’s Orders, Date Night, Hurt/Comfort, Boeshane, Missing, Prequel/Before Canon

Things change

Bilis Manger, Canon Divergent AU

Annoyance

Gwen has some of Gwyneth’s powers

Unexpected Events

Pink, Fake dating/Fake Marriage, Undercover/Disguise

@my-random-fandoms

FANFICTION

The Animals Always Know

Pets

The Devil and the Time Traveler

Rarepair

EDITS

Weevils

@mathemagician7

FANFICTION

Returning to Torchwood

Old Friends, Big Finish Audio Tag

Physical Therapy

Therapy

Haunted By You

The Ghost Machine

To The Letter

Clothes, Gifts

ART

Almost Perfect

Genderbend

Mary

@itneveroccurredtomeatall

FANFICTION

Undercover On The Bachelorette

Undercover/Disguise

Black and White

Missing

Sabbatical

Future!Fic

Pollen

Sex Pollen

@garknessandbones

COMICS

Domesticity, Secrets

Dreams, Music

@celstese

PLAYLISTS

Heartache and Pain Tracklist

Diary, Betrayal, Friendship

A Different Doctor (Time Lord Owen AU Tracklist)

Music, Timelord AU, Prequel/Set Before Canon, The Year That Never Was

FANFICTION

Congratulations its a doctor!

Character(s) of Your Choice is/are Trans

Gwen and Rhys garden

Plants/Vegetables, Domesticity

Gwen Cooper gets her groove back

De-Aging/Aging Up, Date Night, Old Friends/Chance Meetings

ART

Clothes/Outfit

Fantasy, Undercover/Disguise

Grooming/Bathing

Bisexuality

@agent-jones

EDITS

Holiday Celebration

Domesticity

Family

Martha Jones/DW Companion Cameo

Rhys POV

Exposed (NSFW)

Human Monsters/Suzie Costello

Amnesia

Old Friends

Stars

Camping

Torchwood One

@i-really-should-be-writing

FANFICTION

Surrender my everything

Immortality, Based on a Song of Your Choice

Always With You

Psychic Powers/Telepathy

Lights in the Darkness

Hurt/Comfort, Family

@toshsatos

FANFICTION

poenitentia

Alternate Realities, Interspecies Romance

shining, she was, like moonlight

Anwen, CoE Fix-It AU

roughneck

Undercover/Disguise, Benign Alien Visitors

ART

Timelord AU

Crossover of Your Choice

@samantharyderthelionqueen

FANFICTION

Barbecue

Cooking, Interspecies Relationship

On Romance

Big Finish Audio or TW Novel Tag/AU

Sam’s Vision

Future!Fic, Psychic Powers/Telepathy

Serves You Right

Bullet Wounds

Skeleton-Knapper

Kidnapping

Slow Tango in Saint Lucia

Dancing

The Perfect Present(s)

Gifts

We Catch Aliens

Crossover of your Choice

What Families Do

Authority

ART

“Aunt Mei! Mama and Daddy are being gross again!”

Public Displays of Affection

Lust Flower

Sex Pollen

Myfanwy is Trans!

Myfanwy

“This Time I Won’t Let Go…”

Boeshane, Episode Tag/Missing Scene

Torchwood Said Nonbinary Rights!

Genderbend

Torchwood vs UNIT

UNIT

MOODBOARDS

“FRIENDS” moodboard

Friendship, Based on a Song of Your Choice

Janto blue moodboard

Blue

Towen black & white moodboard

Black and White

@this-is-quite-homoerotic

FANFICTION

Joke’s On Me

Anger

I’m holding tight cause it feels alright, my love, when I’m with you

Cold/Warm, Vegetables

Don’t You Know You’ve Haunted Me For Years:

Gwen has some of Gwyneth’s powers, Gifts, Bisexuality

You Got Me On Edge (Any Minute I Might Jump):

Exercise, Rarepair, Cultural Differences

EDITS AND MOODBOARDS

Blue, Gold

Black and White, Gold

Prequel/Set Before Canon

Clothes/Outfit

EDIT AND PLAYLIST

The Bad Old Days

Music

@hotchocolatedictator

FANFICTION

Little Green Men From Mars

Green

@violetmessages

FANFICTION

Sustenance

Plants/Vegetables

Clairvoyancy

Canon Character is an Alien AU, The Doctor Meets the Team

Tales from the Filing Cabinet

Mission Related Trip, Flat Holm

the hands on the clock keep ticking

De-Ageing/Ageing Up

#torchwood fan fests #torchwood bingo fest 2020 #2020 bingo fest fanworks #2020 bingo fest masterpost #torchwood fan fests masterpost

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saiilorstars · 4 years ago

Text

Metamorphosis

Ch. 5: A Companion’s Guide

Current Masterlist // Previous Story // Renata’s Masterlist

Fandom: Doctor Who // Pairing: 11th Doctor x OFC

Taglist: @ocfairygodmother @anotherunreadblog @maaaaarveeeeel @stareyedplanet @perfectlystiles @natalie-the-whovian

[If you would like to be added to this specific OC’s taglist, let me know!]

~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~

Chapter summary: The time travelers have to figure out who's behind the creature snatching people up while working with Liz 10 and in the end, Gabby has to urge Amy to look past the Time Lords’ anger to see what they’re truly all about.

The entire group had fallen into the chute and were thrown out only to land in a splash somewhere full of oddly colored liquid. The Doctor jumped back on his feet soon as he got his bearings, though he noted the flooring underneath was a bit odd. He flashed the sonic around to see where exactly the chute had brought them to.

"High-speed air cannon. Lousy way to travel!"

Renata thrashed the water before getting up. "You have got to stop throwing us down things when you've no idea where they lead!" She made a show by splashing some water to the side.

Despite knowing she was properly upset, the Doctor found it much too funny to be serious. She was covered in whatever liquid they'd landed in - he suspected a food refuse judging by the smell - and so all of her hair was sticking to her face. Her dress was pressed against her body again, something he'd begun to accept would be his downfall one day. She was trying to be angry but she kept scrunching her face and yelling about the horrible stench around them. Her kicking the food refuse was just a plus!

Yup. Completely, adorably, funny.

"Doctor, where are we?" Gabby was close to gagging with the odor around them.

"600 feet down, 20 miles laterally - puts us at the heart of the ship. I'd say... Lancashire. What's this, then - a cave? Can't be a cave. Looks like a cave!"

"WHO CARES WHAT IT IS! GET US OUT!" Renata shivered excessively. She might just throw up there and then.

Amy was still on her knees beside them. She kept touching the ground. "It's a rubbish dump, and it's minging!"

"Yes, but only food refuse!" the Doctor Doctor confirmed, not that it would make it better. "Organic, coming through feeder tubes from all over the ship."

"You are so dead," Renata threw him a murderous glare he chose to ignore.

"The floor's all squidgy, like a water bed," Amy pointed out. She'd been trying to figure out how best to describe what she felt and that was as close as it would get.

"But feeding what, though?" the Doctor asked while he took another read off the sonic.

"It's sort of rubbery, feel it. Wet and slimy!"

"Uh, Amy, let's not keep touching that," Gabby helped the woman stand up. "You never know what it could actually be."

And a moment later, the Doctor heard a distant moaning. He froze, letting his eyes dart to the dark 'walls' of the so-called cave. "Er...it's not a floor, it's a…" he put his screwdriver away and prepared the best way to explain his discovery. "So…"

Renata narrowed her eyes on him. With all her thrashing, she missed the moaning. The Doctor was grateful for it because now he had a few minutes to come up with a way that wouldn't get him killed.

"What is it?" she demanded a dangerously low tone.

"The next word is kind of a scary word." And it was a pretty scary moment for him right now. He moved closer to her, taking her sticky hands into his. "Take a moment. Get yourself in a calm place. Go 'omm'. Everybody! Omm!"

Gabby and Amy had no idea what he was doing but they would go along with it and see where it led. "Omm!" they collectively said.

"...it's a tongue," the Doctor had swallowed very hard, almost making it so that Renata couldn't understand him. Almost.

Her dark eyebrows arched up as her eyes widened. "A...tongue?"

"Aha...a great big tongue!" He couldn't help the excitement that crossed his face for a moment. It was a tongue! They were standing on an actual tongue! When could that ever happen!?

It was that same excitement that drove Renata mad. "I'm gonna kill you!" she pushed him away. "I hope you've enjoyed your small time in that incarnation because it's about to end!" She actually lunged on him, knocking them both to the ground. Her hands may have curled around his neck but she got a taste of the food refuse from their splash and nearly gagged on the side.

The Doctor was stunned that Renata had actually lunged on him, but he was close to laughing too. This new incarnation of hers was truly going to be an adventure. Perhaps it was a sign that things were going to change for the better now.

"Renata!" Gabby burst into laughter. Amy perhaps would've laughed if she wasn't still stuck on the fact they were inside a mouth.

Renata still narrowed her eyes on the Doctor under her. "You are so lucky there's witnesses!"

"I'm going to love you even more after this," he said before laughing. A blush bloomed across Renata's face, even more so when she realized their position.

Make a fool out of yourself why don't you? She quickly got off him and tried pulling her hair off her face. "How do we get out of here?" She reached for her pocket and took out her own sonic.

"What, you have one too?" Amy blinked at the golden-white sonic in Renata's hand. It even made the same sound as the Doctor's.

Renata gave a dismissive nod while she took a look at the readings. "This place is huge! Doctor, of all the places…"

"It's gorgeous!" the man exclaimed. She rolled her eyes in response. "Blimey! if this is just the mouth, I'd love to see the stomach." Of course soon as he heard the grunts in the back he regretted his words. "Though not right now."

"Doctor, how do we get out?" Gabby called to him. She would like if he didn't keep saying words that could get him killed by the mouth or Renata.

"OK, it's being fed through surgically implanted feeder tubes, so the normal entrance is…" the Doctor made a turn towards the white set of teeth properly shut. "...closed for business."

"We can try, though!" Amy said determinedly. She left Gabby's side only to take two steps and hear another grunt. "Or...not…"

"Oh, great, it's started," Renata lowered her sonic to her side.

Amy swallowed hard. Whatever was starting was her fault. "What has?"

"Swallow reflex." The Doctor said just before they were thrown back into the refuse. Renata yelled as soon as her entire body was covered in the refuse again. In a quick second the Doctor used the sonic on the walls to get another process started, one that he was sure Renata would thoroughly scream at him for.

"What are you doing?" Amy sat upright, too afraid to stand until somebody else did too.

"I'm vibrating the chemo-receptors!"

"Chemo-what?"

"The eject button!"

"How does a mouth have an eject button?"

As expected, Renata loudly screamed. "I really hate you! I hate this entire place and this entire ship!"

Gabby was about to ask for another explanation when they heard the creature growling and a wave of vile coming towards them. Oh, she might scream too.

The Doctor helped Renata stand up but she looked so close to murdering him he almost thought of letting her go. He winced at himself for that thought. "Sorry Renée. Only way out."

She would've indeed yelled at him had it not been for the terribly huge wave coming for them. "O-o-oh no…" Her hands suddenly clung to him.

"Right, then, this isn't going to be big on dignity," he tweaked his bowtie, not that it would matter in a couple minutes. "Geronimo!" He wrapped his arms around Renata's body to shield her from as much bile as he could.

Gabby and Amy tried cowarding behind one another, ushering the other one ahead before they would force each other to switch places. In the end, they all screamed as the bile collected them in its way.

~0~

When Gabby and Amy came to, everything was a bit distorted. They could see each other a few inches away but things were blurry. They could hear warbled voices in the background, going fast. It took a few minutes for them to realize they were lying on a hard, cold metal ground and that the voices they heard were actually Renata and the Doctor going back and forth in some conversation...or argument. Gabby wasn't sure.

"You really had to bring us there, huh? I always thought there was a wire in your head that's plugged into some box with the words 'act stupid' on the front!" Renata was watching the Doctor sonic the metal door that wouldn't open for them.

He looked over her shoulder at her, his expression a cross between wanting to laugh or be properly annoyed. "A box…?" The laughing was winning.

She huffed and folded her arms. "Being clean is something I love. I adore it. You know what I don't like? Being covered in sick! I was just thrown up like...like…" she groaned when no comparison came to mind. "It's just so terrible that I can't come up with the right word!"

"Ren?" Gabby called, alerting the pair she and Amy had woken up.

Renata turned around to help the girls stand up. "Don't worry. There's nothing broken, there's no sign of concussion and yes, unfortunately we're all covered in sick."

"And where are we?" Amy asked once she realized they were in a narrow room with, unsurprisingly, two Smilers.

"Overspill pipe, at a guess." Renata glanced back to see if the Doctor was anywhere closer to opening that door. He wasn't.

Amy crinkled her nose at the stench that seemed to be stuck on her. "Oh, God, it stinks!"

"Yeah, that's not the pipe," the Doctor paused scanning to shoot her an apologetic smile.

"Ugh! Doctor!" Gabby kept her arms away from her body. "This is by far the most disgusting thing that's happened to us!"

"Can we get out?" Amy wanted nothing more than to see a shower.

"One door, one door switch, one condition," Renata sourly said as she made her way up to the Smilers. She tilted her head at the smiling clown face. "It wants us to forget everything we saw. The audacity."

"Forget that we were inside the mouth of a creature? Honestly tempting," Gabby admitted after smelling a strand of her hair.

"Don't say that Gabbs," the Doctor gave up on the door for the moment. "There's a creature living in the heart of this ship and I'd like to know what it's doing there."

The Smilers knew the question was directed at it and, as a response, they turned around to show their angry faces.

"No, that's not going to work on us, so come on," the Doctor made a motion with his fingers for it to give the answer. "Big old beast below decks, and everyone who protests gets shoved down its throat. That how it works?"

Once again, the Smilers turned their faces, revealing an even angrier faces than the last.

Renata was exasperated with the Smilers by this point. "Would you just answer!?" She slammed her hands against the walls of their booths, at the same time expelling golden butterflies. With widened eyes, she backed away. "Oops…" she stared at her palms much like Gabby had earlier. "How does that work exactly?"

"At a first glance, seems like its connected to your current distressed state," the Doctor said, reaching for her closest hand. He examined it as much as he could with the naked eye, but there seemed to be no excess and it didn't seem to harm Renata like it had in her last incarnation.

"I got mad at the door that wouldn't open!" Gabby exclaimed, absolutely believing the Doctor's theory. "It must be when we're mad!"

"But not always, right?" asked Amy who had remembered the butterfly trick Renata showed her when the Doctor was examining the crack in her bedroom wall.

Renata seemed to read her thoughts and nodded with a smile. "Yes! But-" she dropped her smile as her eyes landed on the Smilers again, "-right now I'm beyond angry! I'm covered in sick because of a creature that's no doubt being tortured in the middle of this ship and some stupid clowns are holding back on us! So you better-" she threatened the booth with a pointed, glowing finger, "-start answering before you become Vortex dust!"

The booths opened up to let the two Smilers come out.

The Doctor quickly pulled Renata back, prompting Gabby and Amy to do the same. "May I just say, good response but terrible outcome?" he told Renata who agreed with a quick nod of her.

"Okay, what do we do now!?" Amy urgently asked them as the Smilers approached them. They were looking as terrified as she was and she took that as a bad sign.

Suddenly, the red cloaked woman had the door opened behind them and shot at the Smilers. They were momentarily stunned.

The Doctor whirled around, happy as ever. "Look who it is!? You look a lot better without your mask!"

The woman was showing her smiling face at them. Her eyes flickered past Renata to the humans. "You must be Gabby and Amy. Liz. Liz 10."

Neither girl could understand when this woman became their friend but would gladly take it!

"Bit late, aren't you?" Renata smirked at the woman.

"A thank you is in order!" the woman laughed. "Right. You know Mandy, yeah?" she moved slightly to let the others see the girl behind in the hallway. "She's very brave."

"How did you find us?" the Doctor asked her after realizing there was no the woman had been casually around the area.

"Stuck my gizmo on you!" the woman chucked a small device at him. "Been listening in."

"Let me see!" Renata took the device from the Doctor to study. "Oh this is great! It could come in handy to keep an eye on him!"

"HEY!" the Doctor was utterly offended. It didn't help that the others, including little Mandy, started laughing. "Seriously!?"

"Sorry, sorry," Renata apologized but she was still struggling to stop laughing. She held the device back to him, not even noticing when he swiped it from her hand with irritation.

"Anyways, you want to tell us what's a creature doing in the middle of the ship?" the Doctor looked directly at the cloaked-woman. "Oh, my bad, you also voted to forget."

The woman took the sarcastic jab calmly. She shrugged her shoulders and refuted the statement. "Never forgot, never voted. Not technically a British subject."

"Then who and what are you, and how do you know us?"

The woman tilted her head at him, giving him a smile asking him if he really needed to ask her that. "You're a bit hard to miss, love. Mysterious stranger, MO consistent with higher alien intelligence, hair of an idiot…"

"Oh, another insult? Seriously!" the Doctor was reaching his limit with all these sarcastic jabs. Why was it always him!?

Renata felt guilty for taking her own jabs. She always did them and poor Doctor always had to take it. It was their dynamic, sure, but sometimes she needed to reel it back. She reached up to move some of his wet strands of hair off his forehead. She felt his body stiffen but soon relaxed under her touch.

"Sorry my dear. You do have the hair of an idiot but I love it," she said with a soft smile.

Well, that made everything better for the Doctor. He wouldn't mind if he stroked his hair all day. Actually, he might ask her if she could do that later. With any luck, she would say yes and they could have one calm day together.

When Renata was sure their little disagreement was resolved, she drew her hand away - an action the Doctor almost pouted at - and turned her attention back to the woman. "So, you were explaining how you know him?"

"Both of you, actually," the woman said. "Did I not make that clear?"

"Right, except that doesn't make sense. We haven't met you."

"No, I've been brought up on the stories. My whole family was." The woman noticed the Smilers beginning to twitch behind them. "They're repairing." The group looked back to see the Smilers and quickly took a few steps away. "Doesn't take them long. Let's move." She took the lead down the hallway and continued explaining herself to the pair. "The Doctor. Old drinking buddy of Henry XII. Tea and scones with Liz II. Vicky was a bit on the fence about you, wasn't she?"

"What did you do, Doctor?" Gabby threw the man a curious glance.

The Doctor preferred not to explain considering it really was his fault. "Torchwood," he left it at that and hoped she and Renata would get the jist.

"Knighted and exiled you on the same day!" the woman laughed. The Doctor scowled at her back. So much for keeping it a secret!

"That sounds like you alright," Renata mumbled to him as she rubbed his arm comfortingly.

"And how could I forget Marchioness Renata? Good friends with Anne of Cleves, bit rocky with dear old Henry VII - I'd be too, don't worry - but nobody more rocky than Liz I, huh? Goes for you too Doctor!"

"I haven't even met her! Doctor, what did you do!?" Renata glared at the man in question.

"How do you know I did something!?"

"Because it had to be! Notice how she didn't say drinking buddies of Henry VII, right?"

"Well, but…but you were the reason we couldn't go back to any Henry VII era!"

"Hey that was both of us!" Renata snapped loudly and jabbed her finger into his chest.

Gabby couldn't help snicker at the reminder of that precise trip. Amy heard the laugh and raised an eyebrow at Gabby, asking her what she knew.

"Long story short..." Gabby pulled Amy a bit closer to speak quietly without being heard. Of course with Renata and the Doctor arguing, she didn't have to try so hard. "We met Anne of Cleves and her then-husband, Henry VII, who wanted Renata as his wife. The Doctor got jealous, made a whole thing about it and we had to run for it in the end."

Amy hid her laugh behind her mouth and turned her head at the Time Lords. They were still going at it strongly.

"I didn't do anything!" the Doctor was shouting.

"Don't lie to me! Martha also told me this Queen was particularly upset with you! And now she hates me too!?"

"I didn't!" the Doctor insisted but Renata wouldn't listen. Gabby and Amy both shared equally confused but curious glances with each other.

"Good story to come, I hope," Gabby snickered with the ginger.

It wasn't until the woman introduced herself as Liz 10 - Elizabeth X - that the Time Lords stopped arguing.

"And down!" Liz shot at the pair of Smilers behind them. "I'm the bloody Queen, mate. Basically, I rule." She led them into another corridor that would bring them to the base of a vator shaft. "There's a high-speed Vator through there."

The Doctor noticed two tentacles sticking out of a caged area, much like the one Gabby and Amy saw earlier. "There's these things. Any ideas?"

"Oh, we saw one of those up top," Gabby said as soon as she saw the caged area. "Right, Amy?"

"Yeah!" the ginger nodded. "There was a hole in the road, like it had burst through, like a root."

"It's all one creature," Renata said and shuddered. "The same one we were inside minutes ago, but now it's reaching out. It must be growing through the mechanisms of the entire ship."

Liz eyed the cage with newfound horror. "What? Like an infestation?"

"Someone's helping it. Feeding it…" the Doctor tried getting nearer to it but Renata yanked him back.

"Feeding my subjects to it," Liz muttered and stormed off. "Come on. We've got to keep moving." Mandy followed in a hurry and just as Amy and Gabby were going to do the same, they noticed the Time Lords staring at the tentacles with odd expressions.

"Guys?" Gabby called to them while Amy gestured that they needed to be following Liz.

"We should have never come here," the Doctor resolved with a sigh. The creature banged against the bars keeping it inside. He should have just ran those exams on Renata and maybe, just maybe, they wouldn't have caught sight of this ship.

Amy remembered the video she left for herself, warning her to get off the ship. Could it be related to the creature? And if so, why was it so urgent!?

~ 0 ~

Liz's bedroom was covered with a maze of glasses of water. It was a certain challenge getting around it but Liz was a master as she swiftly crossed the room to reach her bed. Sometime later would see the travelers cleaned up from showers, though Renata swore she would take a proper, long bath when they went home.

"What are these glasses for?" Gabby asked in a slight frustration after nearly knocking one over.

"To remind me every single day that my government is up to something, and it's my duty to find out what," Liz said in what sounded like a recital.

"Lovely mask," Renata eyed the porcelain mask sitting at the foot of the woman's bed. She knew the Doctor had already taken a quick study of it while she was in the shower, but she wanted to see it with her own eyes. "Guess you would need it if you're a queen going undercover to investigate her own kingdom."

Liz was dead serious as she watched Renata turn her mask over. "Secrets are being kept from me. I don't have a choice. Ten years I've been at this - my entire reign - and you've achieved more in one afternoon."

"That's him alright," Renata said without even gazing up from the mask. The Doctor stopped pacing behind her, his amused expression asking her how she knew that line had been directed at him. She glanced at him with a wink.

"So Liz, how old were you when you came to the throne?" he asked afterwards.

"40. Why?"

Amy's mouth nearly dropped when she heard that. She turned away from the mirror after putting her hair up. "What, you're 50 now? No way!"

"Don't let physical appearances fool you," Gabby said before throwing a thumb at Renata and the Doctor. "Ask them how old they are."

"Ask and it's the last thing you'll do," Renata calmly said while she studied the mask, though under her calm words there was a clear warning.

Amy chuckled and went to sit on the chaise with Mandy.

"Yeah, they slowed my body clock. Keeps me looking like the stamps," Liz added for humor.

"Do you always wear this in public?" Renata waved the mask at Liz. The woman nodded her head.

"Undercover's not easy when you're me. The autographs, the bunting."

Renata had on a strained smile before she glanced at the Doctor. He already knew.

"Air-balanced porcelain. Stays on by itself, cos it's perfectly sculpted to your face," he said quietly. Liz missed the knowing looks the pair were sharing.

"Yeah. So what?"

Renata met the woman's gaze a few seconds later with her strained smile stronger than ever. "Oh, Liz. So everything."

If they had been about to share what they knew worth Liz, they never got the chance. Four hooded men burst into the room, startling Liz out of her bed.

"What are you doing? How dare you come in here?" she rushed up to them in outrage.

"Ma'am, you have expressed interest in the interior workings of Starship UK. You will come with us now," one of the men dutifully announced.

"Why would I do that?"

The man's head then spun to show the face of an angry Smiler.

"Mm, that's why!" Gabby exclaimed in horror.

Liz was appalled as she stumbled away from the men. "How can they be Smilers?"

"Half Smiler, half human," the Doctor said, rather disgusted.

Liz didn't seem to share the same sentiment. She was beyond furious and anyone who was responsible would feel it. "Whatever you creatures are, I am still your queen. On whose authority is this done?"

"The highest authority, Ma'am," the Smiler, to his credit, did obediently answer.

"I am the highest authority!"

And that should be your first clue, Renata almost rolled her eyes. The human was too angry to even notice it.

The Smiler agreed with Liz, yet another clue that the woman missed, and announced that he would led her and the rest to the Tower of London. They were brought to a large stone room full of machinery. Only a few feet inside, Amy and Gabby noticed more of the creature's body was sticking out of grates.

"Where the hell are we?" Gabby wearily looked at the Time Lords.

"The lowest point of Starship UK," the Doctor said, giving the room a little spin. "The dungeon."

"Hawthorne!" Liz barked a gray-haired man who'd approached the group. "So this is where you hid yourself away. I think you've got some explaining to do."

"Excuse me," Renata called with a similar authoritative tone. "Why are there children down here?" Her question made Amy and Gabby realize there was a line of children doing hard labor around the room. "It seems hardly safe for them. Where are their parents?"

"Protesters and citizens of limited value are fed to the beast," Hawthorne replied with the most casual tone, easily enraging Renata in a second. "For some reason, it won't eat the children. You're the first adults it's spared. You're very lucky."

"You tried feeding children to the creature!? How dare you!?" She looked ready to lunge on him and it didn't seem like the Doctor would try to stop her.

The only reason he wouldn't join her was because his eyes had gone to the type of equipment around the room. One Time Lord for each problem.

"And you agreed to this!" Renata turned on Liz, startling the woman with the sudden change of direction her rage took.

"I did not!"

Renata's loud scoff made everyone around her flinch. "Yes, you did!"

Gabby pulled Renata back a few steps. "How could she? She's investigating her own kingdom, remember?"

"I remember, but she doesn't! This isn't even a dungeon room, it's a bloody torture chamber!"

"Ren, what are you talking about?" Gabby happened to look in Amy's way and saw the finger's mild fear. If she was in Amy's place, Gabby would agree the sight of angry Time Lady was fear-worthy. "Doctor?" she called to the man for some help.

"She's right," the Doctor agreed, speaking in a low tone.

Gabby recognized that immediately even if was in a new incarnation's voice. Oh great, they're both angry.

"Torture chamber of the Tower of London, except it's not a torture chamber, for this lot," the Doctor sourly went on as he strolled by the equipment. "I suppose it just depends on your angle." He came for Liz and, despite the woman's reluctance, he led her to an open well which was reply just a view into the engine.

Liz peered over the railing to see something huge and it was moving. "What's that?"

"It's your engine," Renata muttered, ignoring Gabby's please beside her to explain why she was so upset.

"Well, like I say, depends on the angle. It's either the exposed pain center of big fella's brain, being tortured relentlessly…" the Doctor trailed off.

"Or?"

"Or it's the gas pedal, the accelerator - Starship UK's go-faster button."

"I don't understand…"

The Doctor was getting frustrated with the lack of brains around him. The answer was right in front of Liz and she wasn't getting it! "The spaceship that could never fly, no vibration on deck. This creature - this poor, trapped, terrified creature. It's not infesting you, it's not invading - it's what you have instead of an engine. And this place down here is where you hurt it, where you torture it, day after day, just to keep it moving."

As if to help prove his point, an intermittent electrical beam shot down into the well, directly hitting the creature's exposed brain. Liz was stunned and she dared not look over the tails again.

"Tell you what," the Doctor hastily made his way up to another well to lift its grate. "Normally, it's above the range of human hearing. This is the sound none of you wanted to hear." He used the sonic on an extension that had come undone in the grate. A loud, piercing sound filled the air until the Doctor stopped it.

Gabby felt tears come to her face when she realized that the sound was like a cry, a cry of the creature. "It's being tortured nonstop?" Renata nodded at her and finally Gabby realized why the two were so angry.

Amy hadn't yet reached that level and she was suddenly wondering if she wanted to.

"Who did this?" Liz demanded to know from the workers. She was furious, just like Renata and the Doctor.

"We act on instructions from the highest authority," Hawthorne said, but Liz still didn't understand.

"I am the highest authority!" she snapped. "The creature will be released, now." But even with all her anger, nobody moved from their spot. "I said now! Is anyone listening to me?"

The Doctor slowly returned to her side and took out her mask from his pockets. "Liz. Your mask. Look at it. It's old. At least 200 years old, I'd say."

Liz could not understand what was so damn important about that mask. She recalled how long Renata had kept it under her eye. "Yeah, it's an antique, so?"

"Yeah, an antique made by craftsmen over 200 years ago and perfectly sculpted to your face. They slowed your body clock, all right, but you're not 50. Nearer 300. And it's been a long old reign."

Liz almost laughed at the absurdity. "Nah, it's ten years. I've been on this throne ten years."

"It's been the same ten years," Renata clarified as she started heading for a small table set not too far from where they entered.

The Doctor led Liz by the hand and since the woman was utterly confused, she let it happen. "The same ten years over and over again, always leading you... here."

Liz swallowed rough when she saw a screen with a two buttons in front of it, reading "forget" and "abdicate". She turned a hard glance on Hawthorne. "What have you done?"

"Well it wasn't him," Renata corrected. "He's only following your orders."

Hawthorne nodded in agreement. "We work for you, Ma'am. The Winders, the Smilers, all of us." He reached over to the turn on the screen and as soon as it came to life, a recording of Liz herself appeared. It was what brought Liz to sit down and truly listen.

"If you are watching this...If I am watching this, then I have found my way to the Tower Of London. The creature you are looking at is called a Star Whale. Once, there were millions of them. They lived in the depths of space and, according to legend, guided the early space travelers through the asteroid belts. This one, as far as we are aware, is the last of its kind. 'And what we have done to it 'breaks my heart. The Earth was burning. Our sun had turned on us, and every other nation had fled to the skies. Our children screamed as the skies grew hotter. And then it came, like a miracle. The last of the star whales. We trapped it, we built our ship around it, and we rode on its back to safety. If you wish our voyage to continue, then you must press the "forget" button. Be again the heart of this nation, untainted. If not, press the other button. Your reign will end, the Star Whale will be released, and our ship will disintegrate. I hope I keep the strength to make the right decision."

Amy felt sick to her stomach. "I voted for this?" She asked the Doctor and Renata despite already knowing the answer. Their grim faces just confirmed what she already knew. "Why would I do that?"

"Because you knew if we stayed here, we'd be faced with an impossible choice," the Doctor muttered with a growing sense of anger at the woman. "Humanity or the alien. You took it upon yourself to save us from that. And that was wrong." He turned completely to her and once Amy saw his face she backed a step. "You don't ever decide what we need to know."

Gabby sent Renata a look asking her to step in, but Renata did not move. She was just as upset but her method of expressing anger had always been to seal it away. Gabby really dreaded the idea of that trait following Renata into her new incarnation. Seeing that Renata wasn't going to help, Gabby moved to stand between the Doctor and Amy.

"Hey! She doesn't even remember doing it!"

Having Gabby in front of him didn't make his anger any less. "But she did it. That's what counts!"

"I'm... I'm sorry," Amy said, at a loss for other words.

"Oh, I don't care," he turned away, storming towards the equipment. "When I'm done here, you're going home."

Amy gasped. "Why!?"

"Doctor, that's being unfair!" Gabby called but he didn't stop for either of them.

"I made one mistake!" Amy argued as she moved to stand beside Gabby. She appreciated the girl's help but she didn't need anyone to fight her own battles. "One mistake that I don't even remember doing it!"

There was no telling if the Doctor was truly examining the equipment he would need for his new plan or if he was just distracting himself from looking at either girl. "Yeah. I know. You're only human."

Gabby's eyes widened. That one might have just hurt her heart. "Is that supposed to be an insult?" the Doctor said nothing more so Gabby turned expectantly at Renata.

The Time Lady had watched the entire argument unfold with no clear expression of which side she was leaning to. "We get it, we do, but Amy you shouldn't have chosen to forget on our behalf. You don't get to make that choice for us."

"I'm sorry," Amy insisted, hoping that at least Renata would be able to know she was being honest. All Renata did was nod though.

"What are you doing?" Liz asked the Doctor, taking a few steps towards the man but stopping when she got a better look at his darkened expression.

"The worst thing I'll ever do. I'm going to pass a massive electrical charge through the Star Whale's brain. Should knock out all its higher functions, leave it a vegetable. The ship will still fly, but the whale won't feel it."

"But that'll be like killing it!" Amy exclaimed. She didn't remember pressing any buttons but she knew, she knew for sure, that she had pushed the 'forget' button to spare them pain. She only failed to think about the creature.

The Doctor's hands slammed down on the machinery and glared up at the group. "Look, three options. One: I let the Star Whale continue in unendurable agony for hundreds more years. Two: I kill everyone on this ship. Three: I murder a beautiful, innocent creature as painlessly as I can. And then I find a new name, cos I won't be the Doctor any more!"

"But there must be something we can do, some other way," Liz said but that was the Doctor's patience had finally snapped from the thread it'd been hanging on.

"Nobody talk to me!" he roared, startling everyone into silence. "Nobody human has anything to say to me today!" After that, nobody tried to stop him anymore.

All except for one person.

'I think you may have hurt Gabriella's feelings back there…'

Nobody would notice the one second the Doctor momentarily stopped working. This was the first time Renata had spoken telepathically to him since he regenerated.

'You're that upset my dear that you've unintentionally lowered your mental shields,' Renata came up to stand on the other side of the equipment he worked on. 'Never really talked about connecting telepathically but since your door is open, I'm going to step in for a moment.'

'Are you not upset?' the Doctor raised his gaze to meet Renata's eyes.

'Oh no I am very upset. Amy did something terrible but...she did it with good intentions. I can relate to that. I'm sure you can too.'

The Doctor wouldn't give in so easily despite the kind face he had in front of him. 'They have been torturing this kind creature for centuries, Renata. How am I supposed to react!? Not everyone has your ability to bottle things in!' As soon as he thought - or said - those words, the Doctor closed his eyes with regret. His hands stopped working over the controls and drew back. 'I'm sorry. I didn't...I shouldn't have-'

Renata smiled lightly at his guilty self. 'No, no, that's completely fair. I did that a lot. But just to be clear, I'm not saying that you shouldn't be upset. I'm only saying, from personal experience, that you shouldn't push people away. When they do things like these, with good intentions, it's best to go back and see things from their perspective. I know it's hard, especially because of the circumstances but it does help.'

The Doctor smiled to himself, almost shaking his head. He always wondered how she could be so wise, even when they were younger. She always had the right words to ease something that could seem so impossible. 'I love you, you know. I'm glad I have you around...in this way.'

Renata reached over the equipment to grab his hand. 'Me too. And know that whatever you do, whatever you decide...I'm here.'

The Doctor swallowed hard as his eyes roamed over the equipment. The choice had already been made. He just needed to get through it.

~ 0 ~

Gabby and Amy sat on the ground together against the wall. They could do nothing to stop what was going to happen to the creature. All they could do was simply wait for it. Amy, however, felt like she was waiting for more than Gabby...because she was.

"I messed it up," she said quietly, bringing her hands up to her temples. "I messed it all up…"

Gabby could feel Amy's genuine guilt and put a comforting hand on the ginger's arm. "It was an honest mistake. Don't worry, you're not going home."

Amy scoffed quietly. "Oh please, you heard the man."

"You don't know him like I do. I mean...I don't know him like Renata does but I know him enough to know that he says a lot of things when he's angry. He's heartbroken."

Amy wasn't convinced. She had felt the Doctor's rage with one simple glare and she was not interested in being on the receiving end again. "If I make mistakes like that, maybe I shouldn't be around."

"We make mistakes, trust me. I did too," Gabby shrugged. Her eyes flickered to Renata who had drifted away from the Doctor to stop more children coming in from working.

Amy dropped her hands to her lap and questionably looked at Gabby. "You did?"

"Yeah, on my very first trip just like you. I pissed off Renata when I overstepped about something I heard about her. It was about her past and Renata is a very reclusive woman. I made the wrong choice by asking her, pestering her, until she snapped and threatened to drop me back on Earth."

Amy's eyes widened as she quickly glanced at Renata. The Time Lady was clearing off some soot of a child's face, trying her best to make the boy smile. She even bopped his nose with a glowing golden finger to enchant the boy. Amy couldn't see Renata acting the same as the Doctor when she was angry. Hell, she couldn't even picture Renata getting angry.

"She can get angry," Gabby said as if she read Amy's mind. Amy looked away from Renata with a light smile. "The Doctor's right, Amy, we're only human but that's not an insult. It does hurt a bit when he says it angrily," she sighed. "He's actually very fascinated with our kind. We're that good." She bumped shoulders with Amy, eliciting a smile from the ginger. "But you have to understand that even though they look young...the Doctor and Renata are actually very old. They've seen so many things that sometimes they snap. And our job as companions is to help them come back from it. We can't make them come back but we can try our best."

"So what can we do right now?" Amy helplessly asked as she cast another look at the Doctor. He was fervently working and had been for time now which meant the creature would be dying soon.

"I don't know. We better start thinking."

Amy blew a raspberry at their hopeless situation. "Great."

"Just look at the butterflies," Renata's voice carried over to the girls' spot.

Amy craned her head in time to see a few of the children 'awwwing' at a few golden butterflies fluttering in the air. A light smile spread across Amy's face as she recalled the same trick being used on her all those years ago. It had truly made her feel much less afraid of the crack. Renata gave the allusion of what a mother was.

Mandy had joined the group without neither Amy nor Gabby noticing when, but Amy did spot one of the creature's tentacles creeping out of a grate towards Mandy. Amy panicked and scrambled to get up but just as she straightened up, the tentacle only tapped Mandy's shoulder and then allowed the girl to pet it.

"Amy?" Gabby gently called to her but Amy was thinking suddenly.

"It won't eat the children…"

"The children screamed, then it came. It's the last of its kind."

Amy watched Mandy and a few other children pet the tentacle and it almost looked like the creature was trying to play with them.

"No, it's okay," Renata was soothing one of the younger children crying at the tentacle. "It won't hurt you. I'm here."

"There were, but there aren't...just us now."

Amy's eyes flickered to the Doctor after watching Renata conjure up a few more butterflies for the scared child. There was no doubt in her mind he would be trying to pull off some crazy stunt to make the scared child laugh too.

"Doctor says he never interferes in the affairs of other peoples or planets but then he does when there's children crying?"

"Oh, if there's a child crying he'd stop everything."

Amy then looked down at Gabby who was still trying to decide if Amy was alright. She'd stopped calling Amy's name but she was keeping a close eye on the ginger. Something was going on inside her head.

And indeed there was.

Amy felt like slapping herself for being so clueless! The Doctor was right, she had to have kept her eyes open! She should've noticed everything! "Doctor, stop!" she yelled and rushed towards Liz. Everyone, including the Doctor and Renata, stopped to see her taking Liz's hand and racing for the voting buttons.

The Doctor was quick to panic once he realized what Amy wanted to do. "Amy, no!" he went after them but he didn't make it in time. Amy had brought Liz's hand down on the 'abdicate' button. "AMY!"

The creature bellowed underneath them, rocking the entire ship.

The Doctor nearly fell back if he hadn't caught onto pillar. Renata's arms flailed trying to keep the children around her from falling back.

"AMY!" she yelled as upset as the Doctor.

Gabby had managed not to smack face-first to the ground, but she wasn't the same as the Time Lords. "No, let her! She's figured it out!" She had no doubt that Amy realized something none of them had. She would never put them all in danger like this. She didn't seem the type.

Amy laughed as if agreeing with Gabby. The ship slowly stopped shaking and actually returned to normal...with a few differences.

"We've increased speed," Hawthorne was stunned as he looked over their readings.

"Yeah, well, you've stopped torturing the pilot! Gotta help!" Amy dramatically flapped her hands around the room.

"It's still here? I don't understand," Liz moved over to Hawthorne's side to see the readings herself.

"The Star Whale didn't come like a miracle all those years ago. It volunteered!" Amy began to explain, growing more excited by the second. "You didn't have to trap it or torture it - that was all just you. It came because it couldn't stand to watch your children cry. What if you were really old, and really kind and alone? Your whole race was dead, no future. What couldn't you do then?" Amy started making her way towards the Doctor, her smile softening as she took in his guilty face for not realizing it before. "If you were that old, and that kind, and the very last of your kind...you couldn't just stand there and watch children cry." And just to really make her point, she purposely nodded at Renata who was surrounded by the children.

"Oh, she's good," Gabby smiled proudly at Amy.

~ 0 ~

Once everything was settled on the ship, Renata and the Doctor found it easy to slip away from the crowd. They'd wandered to the observation deck where they found such a beautiful sight of a starry space.

"It's funny how times change," Renata's soft voice broke their mutual silent wacth. "Last time I saw stars...we were fighting the Master. And we were hiding in a Vinvocci ship. Oh, and the world was ending." She let silence pass between them again when it truly donned on her where they were a short while ago, and what they were doing. "That was two days ago."

The Doctor said nothing at first as he reached for Renata's hand. "Two days ago seems like a very long time ago."

Renata side-glanced him with a small smile across her lips. "Doesn't it? Now we're here," she squeezed her hand around his and faced the stars again. "Looking at some stars, on a ship with a creature driving it…"

"Flying it, technically," the Doctor couldn't help make the correction but instead of getting annoyed, Renata chuckled.

"Flying it," she amended.

The Doctor gripped her hand again, licking his lips nervously as he turned to her and gently using their interlocked hands to turn her as well. "Renée, I don't know why I forgot about it but...would you consider connecting telepathically?" Renata's eyebrows slowly raised, her expression giving him the impression she would refuse. "I-I know we did it temporarily twice but this time, if you'd like, we-we could...officially do it. I would understand if you think it's too early, but...if I may give my opinion?"

Renata chuckled. "When don't you?"

He agreed with a sideways tilt. "Right. We've only just started a relationship but the truth is we've known each other far longer. What happened between us...it's been a long story. I've known you for my entire life even if I've only seen you in three of my incarnations. Most of my thoughts you know anyways, but I'd like it if you could see every part of me. Who knows, maybe if you see what really goes through my head you might realize I'm no good. But at least you'll have known who I really am."

"I know you," Renata said matter-of-factly. She slipped her hand out of his to bring it up to his cheek. "I've always known who you are. Of course I know I don't know all of your thoughts, or every you, but I know you. I know who you are." She stepped closer to him, leaving barely any space between them. "I would love to finally connect our minds. Who knows, you might see the real me…"

"I know you," the Doctor clarified just like she had. "My Gala."

Renata let out a small gasp at his brief Gallifreyan use. The last time she heard him say her true name in their language was centuries ago, too many centuries ago. "My Theta." The Gallifreyan just tumbled out but before the Doctor could fully process it, she'd pulled him to her for a kiss.

Their minds slowly opened to one another, inciting a slow, passionate kiss that they hadn't really shared yet. Memories from each other flooded their minds, ones that they knew - that they were both a part of - and others that were new. No secrets would be left uncovered because that was a thing of the past, something they promised each other going forwards.

~0~

By the time Gabby and Amy realized they were missing their drivers, Renata and the Doctor were already waiting for them by the TARDIS.

Amy nervously carried Liz's porcelain mask in her hands and held it out for the pair to take. "From Her Majesty. She says there will be no more secrets on Starship UK."

"My type of monarchy," Renata gingerly took the mask into her hands. "And leadership in general."

Amy smiled but anyone could tell she was bursting with questions about her stay.

"Amy, you could have killed everyone on this ship," the Doctor was the one to break the terse silence.

"You could have killed a Star Whale," she countered.

"And you saved it. I know, I know."

Renata curled her arm around the Doctor's arm and smiled at Any that kind, warm smile she'd gotten as a child. It was the one that told Amy things would be okay. "We're sorry. We may have rudely snapped. That happens sometimes."

At this familiar words, Amy glanced at Gabby and shared a knowing smile together.

"Why do I feel like we're missing something?" the Doctor asked Renata as he watched the two humans.

"Because you always do."

"Oi!"

"Don't worry, Doctor," Gabby put an arm around Amy's shoulders. "I've just been giving Amy some insight into the life in the TARDIS."

"You would," Renata gave her companion a proud smile.

"I wanted to be like Donna when I first came aboard," Gabby admitted and for a moment she, Renata and the Doctor dedicated a moment of silence to their missing friend, Donna Noble. She would forever leave a scar in their hearts.

"Thanks Gabby," Amy genuinely thanked her new friend because otherwise she may not have made it this first trip.

"Gabbs, I am sorry if I hurt your feelings," the Doctor said once he remembered the terrible look in Gabby's eyes after making his human remark.

Gabby shook her head with a chuckle as she came to give him a hug. "I like to think that I know you enough for these types of situations!"

"Still," he dropped a kiss to her head. "You're family. We don't fight."

Renata barely controlled the urge to scoff when she thought about her family. "We should go. I think we could all use nice baths."

"Mhm!" Gabby pulled away from the Doctor. "I've got some nice bath bombs, Amy! Bet you've never seen a bath bomb that shoots images into the air!"

"What?" Amy's eyes widened, making the others laugh.

"I bet you'll like the one with stars! My favorite is the butterfly one!" Gabby motioned to be followed in as she hurried into the TARDIS.

"Don't forget we need to run tests on you!" Renata called after the girl but it didn't seem like Gabby had heard.

Amy chuckled. "Do you always act like a Mum?"

Renata blinked at her and for a moment it looked like she would be saying something but instead she looked at the Doctor. "Why do they all say that?"

Now the Doctor laughed. "You really haven't figured it out?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh forget it." She turned around and disappeared into the TARDIS.

"Come along, Pond! Big day tomorrow!" the Doctor nodded at the TARDIS and missed Amy's wide eyed expression.

"Sorry, what?"

"It's always a big day tomorrow. We've got a time machine. I skip the little ones."

Amy found her breath once she realized he wasn't talking about her wedding. Her wedding. She shook her head and followed the Doctor inside. Renata and Gabby had no doubt disappeared into the corridors which gave Amy a motivation to ask, "You know what I said about getting back for tomorrow morning...have you ever run away from something because you were scared, or not ready, or just...just because you could?"

"Once...a long time ago," the Doctor came straight to the console. He started the TARDIS up and brought them into the Vortex.

"What happened?"

He turned with a smile. "Hello!"

Amy laughed. "Is that how Renata left too? Because I really can't picture that, you know."

The Doctor's smile faltered but it returned just as quick when he remembered how it was that she came aboard the TARDIS. That might make a good story for Amy. "Actually, I kidnapped Renata, stole her right off 1969."

Amy's eyes bugged out but there was a clear doubt on her face, only further confirmed by her scoff. "No way!"

"Yeah, I did! Nicked her off the ground and threw her over my shoulder!"

"Please, don't sound so regretful," Renata appeared by the corridor threshold, arms crossed and with a mock glare on the culprit. "I should've had the Shadow Proclamation on you when I had the chance!"

The Doctor just smirked proudly as he gave a little spin.

It was then that Amy realized he had not been kidding. "Wait, this actually happened!?"

"Oh yeah!" the Doctor said, once again spinning as he made a round on the console.

"Seriously, at least try to look a little sorry!" Renata walked up the glass steps to the console.

"Why would I be?" the Doctor stopped to smirk at her.

Renata mock-glared again and shook her head. "Amy, go on. Gabriella found the bath bombs." Amy nodded and hurried towards the corridor. "Not even going to apologize then?" she continued with the Doctor, but judging by his proud smile the answer was a no.

"I used to want to but now I changed my mind!"

"You're evil!"

"Smart!"

Amy laughed. "Okay, that's seriously funny!" And kind of romantic. She wouldn't mind if the same thing happened to her.

#ocappreciation #doctor who #11th doctor #fd: doctor who #dw #dw fics #dw imagines #11th doctor fics #11th doctor imagines #oc: Renata Cartwright #gabby gonzalez #amy pond #fic: metamorphosis

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chickensarentcheap · 4 years ago

Text

I Found- Chapter 1

A/N: Hey folks! This is little visit to the past in honour of the one year anniversary of Extraction and this fic itself. As of tomorrow, I will post two to three chapters A DAY until all are up. I know they’re a mess on my blog right now and people who don’t want to go to Ao3 can’t find all the chapters. I was going to thoroughly edit, but I thought ‘why not leave it as is?’. It’s a little more than 365 days old now and a lot has changed for both the characters and my writing itself. As my long time readers and supporters can tell you :). So keep in mind, this was my first foray into writing Tyler and it’s rough and it’s a little...not the me I am now...but it’s a fun ride, IMO.

Fandom: Extraction

Pairing: Tyler Rake and Esme Rake (Original Female Character)

Face Claims: Chris Hemsworth (obviously) and Rachel Bilson

Premise: Broken and bleeding. Weathered and in tatters. Two damaged and weary souls find one another when they least expect it. Wrong place, wrong time. Yet both powerless to stop it.

Summary: Eleven months after the events in Dhaka and his near death experience, Tyler Rake is a new man. A different man. Struggling with the demons of his past while balancing being a husband and a father.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23945782/chapters/57587218

It's been just shy of twelve months and his instincts are still keen; nerves rash and fresh, body and mind always on high alert. The proof to the old adage that old habits really do die hard.

A journey to the very brink of death. Weeks of lying in a hospital bed teetering on the threshold of this life and the next. Countless agonizing hours of rehab and physical therapy just to relearn the basics and get back onto his weary and battered feet. Once he was home nothing had been able to slow him down. He threw everything he had into healing. Every ounce of mind, body, and spirit. Pushing himself past the warnings and the limits that the doctors and specialists had set for him. Ignoring the advice on not to push himself too hard, too fast. He felt as if he didn't have a choice. He no longer just had himself to worry about; another human being with one on the way that was relying on him. Depending on him to take care of them. Provide for them. Protect them. So he had pushed himself to the brink of both exhaustion and physical and emotional collapse. Eventually finding himself back at at the gym and packing on the weight and muscle. Anxious for some semblance of the man he used to be.

He hears the soft rustle of blankets though the monitor on the nightstand and his eyes immediately snap open. Sleep was a strange beast for him these days. Nights where he could fall into a peaceful slumber and stay there until sunlight was streaming through the window, others where the pain was all encompassing and nauseating and he couldn't get comfortable, and those where he was haunted by the demons of his past. The latter didn't come nearly as often as they did before; managing to find some hint of internal peace with the things he had done and witnessed. Once in a while he'd find himself back on that bridge; assaulted by the smells of gun powder and lead. The acrid taste of blood on his lips. And he'd hear her voice and feel her hands; the way she cradled his face in them, the way she'd pulled his nearly lifeless body tight against her, felt those tears that fell on his skin. Thankfully he'd awaken and quickly discover that he was in the safety and comfort of his own home. His own bed. And he'd watch her as she slept; the way the moonlight painted her smooth skin in an ethereal glow and the slight smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. He'd watch her and listen to her breathe and he'd remind himself of just how far he had come. Gratitude spreading through him like a slow burning fire. Thankful for the second chance that he'd been given. For the love that he'd found during one of the darkest and most difficult periods of his life. She'd given him a reason. A purpose. And he wasn't going to take that for granted.

He groans as he rolls over onto his back. The pain isn't as bad tonight. There were times he could barely even move. Where the agony made him dizzy and nauseous and even the simplest of tasks seemed impossible to preform. Tonight it's a dull ache; a nagging pain that has settled deep into his bones and his joints but he has learned to deal with. Placing his hands behind his head, he waits and listens. The lights from the monitor dancing across the ceiling as life stirs in the room across the hall. He's gotten used to it; the little noises, the soft sighs, the slight fussing before she settles herself back to sleep. It wasn't his first rodeo after all; not his first foray into fatherhood. But it is the first time he's been able to be more hands on. Put his be all and end all into the nurturing. And this time he knows he will get it right. He's determined to make amends for the mistakes of his past. Moving on didn't mean forgetting. It didn't mean that the love and regret and the guilt weren't still there, lingering just under the surface. Sometimes the greatest homage to the dead was how the living continued. How they made up for the bad decisions they made and how those decisions had...in the end...helped shape them into a better person.

The sounds through the monitor continue and he sits up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and giving his body and brain time to adjust to full consciousness. Running his hands through his hair and over his tired face, fingers brushing against the various scars that serve as a lasting memory of his former life. A pair of sweats sit in a discarded pile by the bed and he reaches for them; softly muttering profanities at the various cracks and pops that his body makes at the simple task of pulling on his pants. Scar tissue, arthritis, remnants of shrapnel and bullets that couldn't safely be removed. All working together to be a complete pain in his ass. His wife moves behind him. Sighing loudly and contently as she rolls over onto her side. Not waking as her hand instinctively reaching out for him; finger tips brushing against his back just as he stands up.

He is out the door and in the hall before the first shrill cry erupts. Yawning and stretching noisily as he steps into the nursery. A cheerful room with soft yellow walls, pink, white, and purple stripped curtains and natural wood furniture. Teddy bears and dolls staring down at him from the perches on the shelves on the wall, accompanied by framed photos of baby animals and Disney characters. He'd never pictured himself a 'girl dad'; frilly dresses and the tiny socks with the lace around the ankles, and the little headbands that served no other purpose than being cute. He was rough and tumble. Always had been, even from an early age. So when he'd found out he was having a daughter he'd been terrified. He didn't know the first thing about taking care of little girls and doing their hair and healing their broken hearts. And for the first time in his life was actually scared of something. Or someone. A being that hadn't even been born yet but was already making a huge impact on his life.

“You'll be fine,” his wife had assured him when he'd expressed his concern. Watching from the couch as she stood at the kitchen table folding laundry. Including a newly purchased outfit and those tiny teeny socks that she had purchased just hours ago. She was so beautiful. Standing there with that chestnut hair tumbling down to her waist, her belly swollen with their child. HIS child. A child that had been conceived in the midst of all the chaos and uncertainty. “You've ridden this particular bike before,” she'd reminded him. “This isn't your first time going through this.”

“That was different. That was a boy. This is a girl. This is dresses and pig tails and tea parties and make up and other boys.”

“Tyler, that's years down the road. You can't worry about that stuff. Make up and boys? You can't dwell on what she's going to be like when she's a teenager.”

“I sure bloody well can. Because knowing my luck she'll end up just like her mother. Full of piss and vinegar and all kinds of trouble.”

“You always did know how to get yourself into heaps of it,” she'd smirked, and tossed a pair of balled up socks in his direction, just missing his head. “But you always managed to get yourself out of it too.”

“I knew you were trouble from the very second I met you, you know,” he'd said, as he got off the couch and wandered over to where she was so diligently working. Liking the way that simple white gold wedding band looked on her finger. He still hadn't gotten used to; it had only been a few months and even with that life growing in her belly, they were still very much enjoying being newlyweds. He liked it. Being a husband. He liked the simplicity and the comforts that came with the little things that took up their new life. Household chores and preparing meals and sharing a bed with the same warm body and beautiful face each and every day. Mundane to some. A welcome change and relief to him.

“I wasn't the one with the reputation for being difficult,” she'd reminded him. “I wasn't the one who was like a bear with a sole asshole even on his best days.”

“Yet here you are. Playing house with me. A good little wife. Giving me babies. So I must have done something right, huh?” he'd playfully nudged her with his elbow. “You stuck around. Through thick or thin. I put you through a lot of shit and agony and here you are. Here WE are.”

“You can't get rid of me that easily, Tyler Rake. You think you would have realized that by now.”

“Getting rid of you is the last thing I ever want.”

They'd stood in companionable silence; working quickly and efficiently together. Little boring tasks that they almost never got to experience. He'd never take things like that for granted again. And he'd grabbed a pair of her underwear from the fresh pile and hooking them around his finger, grinned as he swung them around.

“How'd we ever graduate to these, huh? These are not what I remember you wearing. You weren't wearing any the first time we...well...you know...”

“You're such a pig,” she'd grumbled, and tried to snatch them away. Frowning when he held them high above his head. Not an easy reach for a woman that only stood five foot three. “What is wrong with you? Seriously.”

“I thought you were trouble the second I met you. The way you shook my hand. The way you smiled at me. But I knew it for sure when I had you pinned against that wall and I put my hand down your shorts and realized that you weren't any underwear. Remember that? That first time? I knew I was in trouble but I didn't want to stop. I couldn't stop. I was surprised you were such a kinky little thing.”

“You've got issues. What is your major malfunction?”

“Nothing wrong with a little visit to the past. Especially when it involves being naked.”

“Would you stop?” she'd perched herself on her tip toes and frantically tried to grab the offending piece of clothing from his grasp. “What's gotten into you?”

“It's what hasn't gotten into you in a while,” he'd retorted, laughing when she'd directed a slap to his gut, his arms circling her waist when she'd lost her balance and tumbled into him. And they'd stood like that; her head against his chest, his eyes closed and his chin resting on the top of her head. Loving all those things about her that had become so familiar and comforting to him. The lingering scent of coconut shampoo that clung to her hair, the feel of her heart beating against him, those small and soft hands stroking up and down his back. This woman...the one that had seen him at his most fragile...who he owed his life to.

Her hands were on the back of his shoulders when she'd pulled away and looked up at him. Her eyes sparkling as she smiled. A smile he had once thought he'd never see again.

“I love you,” he'd told her. Three words that he had always hesitated on uttering before but now couldn't say enough. If Gaspar was still around he'd call him soft. Tell him he was whipped and a pussy and needed to get his balls back. But he wasn't around anymore.

A lot of people weren't.

“I know,” she'd said. “But not nearly as much as I love you.”

“Hey, this isn't a competition. And if it was, I'd win. I always do.”

“You have a very overinflated sense of yourself,” she'd chided.

He was her rock. He knew that. Even when he was still recovering and he was nothing more than a mere fraction of the man he once was. Even when she had to help nurse him back to health and he'd had to trust her completely with even the mundane things like feeding himself and brushing his teeth. But she'd stuck by him. Even when he felt humiliated that he even needed help with such things. Embarrassed that she was seeing him so vulnerable. Allowing her to see his tears of anger, frustration, and pain. She'd always said that he was the only one that made her feel safe and secure. Protected. Even when he wasn't at his best.

“Shit...” She'd grimaced when the baby had kicked her especially hard. Eyes closing and her forehead falling onto his chest.

“Even I felt that one.” He’d e'd move one hand from her waist to her ever growing stomach. Marvelling at the way he could feel their baby...his baby...moving inside of her. It may not have been his first time. Not his first child. But he was determined to enjoy every second of it and not take a single moment for granted. “See what I mean? Trouble just like her mom. Feisty as all hell. A boy wouldn't cause this many issues.”

“Boys come with a whole shit load of issues. After all, it was a boy that got me into this situation in the first place.”

“Come on now, I wasn't the only one that was having all the fun. You seemed to be enjoying yourself too. I didn't make this baby all on my own, you know.”

“It was fun,” she'd admitted. “It always is.”

“Yeah. It most definitely is.”

One of her hands came down to rest on top of his and they stood there together, feeling their child moving inside of her. Marvelling at all the kicks and wriggles. At the miracle that they had created. All because two people fell in love during the entirely wrong time and in the entirely wrong place.

“You need to take it easy there, sweetheart,” he'd spoken to his daughter, his hand moving in slow, comforting circles. “Go easy on your mum, okay? Daddy's already put her through enough to last a lifetime.”

“She listens to you already. She likes your voice.”

“Already takes after her mother. Isn't that one of the first things you said you liked about me? My voice?”

“It does funny things to my insides. Even now.”

“I like doing funny things to your insides,” he'd dropped a kiss on the top of her head and she'd looked up at him once again.

“I think we should go to bed.”

“It's only eight thirty.”

“I don't mean to sleep. I mean to do other things. Fun things. Things that help you sleep better.”

A slow grin had spread across his face.

He didn't need to be told twice.

*******

“What's going on in here?” he asks as he steps alongside the crib, where his tiny baby girl has managed to to shed herself of her tight swaddling and was preparing to whip herself up into a frenzy. She has his temper already; slow to anger but almost impossible to control once the fuse was fully lit. “What kind of trouble are you getting up to in here? How'd you get yourself into such a mess? Clever little thing, aren't you.”

The crying dies down. Settling down to a mere whimper. She recognizes her daddy's voice. His face. And she knows she's in good hands. The wailing replaced by an impossibly dramatic pout on someone so young.

“You really are your mother's daughter,” he says. “I recognize that look anywhere. How does a little one like you get yourself into trouble? Look at you...” he untangles the receiving blanket from between her legs and scoops her up from the crib. Lifting her to the safe and warm confines of his chest. A forearm supporting her bum, his palm on the back of her head. “It's okay now,” he croons, and presses a kiss to the side of her head. She has his hair; same texture and colour. His eyes. Even his nose and lips. He can hear his wife now. Complaining about doing all the leg work and going through all the pain, only to have the baby coming out looking just like him. “Daddy's here now. Everything is fine. You're okay now.”

After a quick diaper change, he carries her through the apartment and into the kitchen. That tiny little body laying perfectly along his forearm as he warms a bottle from the fridge. She fits so perfect in the crook of his arm; head nestled into the valley on his elbow, feet by his wrist. She's long. Lanky. Just like he'd been as a kid. “You're probably wondering why I'm out here doing this,” he speaks as he waits for the bottle to warm. “You know this is usually your mummy's thing. Getting up in the middle of the night. And I know she doesn't exactly use these silly things to feed you. But I thought we'd be nice and let her sleep. She does a lot for us, you know. She deserves to sleep.”

He sits on the couch as he feeds her; both feet on the coffee table, knees bent with her lying along his thighs. One hand holding the bottle and the fingers of the other exploring every inch of her. She is wondrous; big blue eyes and impossibly long dark lashes and freckles across the bridge of her nose. And has he talks to her in a deep and soothing tone, her gaze is focused intently on him. Eyes never leaving his, one of her tiny hands reaching for the hand that holds the bottle, all fingers curling around just one of his. He had forgotten what this was like. The pure magic of being a father. Knowing that you had helped create something so incredible. That you had played a part in bringing another human being into this world.

As crazy and fucked up as the world could be, that is. It gave him a sense of peace. The knowledge that when the end came, he'd go knowing that he had done something truly good and valuable with his life.

He stands and carries her over to the balcony window. Once again holding her with a forearm under her bum and a firm hand on the back of his head. “You see that out there...” he nods towards the skyline; twinkling lights of skyscrapers and glowing street lights and blazing stars. “...that can be a real scary place. There's a lot of really bad people out there. But there's a lot of really good people too. People that would protect you, no questions asked. People that already love you without even really knowing you. And somewhere out there, is some guy that's going to come into your life and probably break your heart. And you know what? That's okay. It's okay to get your heart broken. Because it makes you a better person. It makes you stronger. Even if you think it's going to kill you at the time.”

She stares up at him with those huge blue eyes. With so much wonder and trust that it it causes a lump of emotion to gather in his throat and blur his vision.

“You know, there was almost a time where this might not have happened. Where I might not have been here. Where it might have just been you and your mom. And if it wasn't for your mom, I probably wouldn't be here. She's something else, you know. She's the bravest and strongest person I've ever met in my entire life. And there were so many times where this could have been too much for her...where I could have been too much for her...and she could have just walked away. But she never did. She never gave up on me. Even when I was ready to give up on myself. She's the one you need to worry about, you know. She jokes around that I'm going to be the one that scares all the boys away but I have a feeling it's going to be her. She doesn't let anyone mess with the people she loves. She's a momma bear. She's ferocious and she's loyal and she will f...” he bites his tongue “...mess someone up if she needs to. I was even kind of scared of her when I first meet her. Not because she's scary looking or I was afraid she'd hurt me. Mind you, she probably could if she got mad enough. Like how she gets when I leave the toilet seat up in the middle of the night. She scared me because I'd never felt that way about anyone. At least not that quickly. You can be the strongest person in the world, but when that one person comes along, you can't stop it. No matter if the timing isn't right. No matter how screwed up things are. Even if it is the wrong place, wrong time. You're powerless. Your heart just takes over. The important thing you have to remember is that you let your heart and your head work at the same time. That's the only way things will be okay. Or at least that's how it worked for your mom and I.”

He adjusts his hold on her, bringing her up to rest against his chest. Fingers combing through her thick, silky hair, his other hand softly stroking her back.

“Your mom came into my life when I'd pretty much given up on everything. When I didn't even feel human any more. Where nothing mattered. She came into my life and rescued me. In every way a person can rescue someone. And I know she'll probably deny that if you ask her. She'd say that I'm the brave one. That I'm the one that rescues people. But she had the toughest job out of them all. I'm not the easiest person to love. And she knew that. Yet here she is. A year later and she's still sticking around. Still putting up with my crap. So I must be doing something right, yeah? She hasn't smothered me with a pillow in my sleep or put poison in my food or put a hit out on me.”

“You just had to ruin the moment,” that soft voice says from behind, and he watches her reflection through the window as she journeys over to them. Chestnut hair messy from sleep and falling loose to the middle of her back. She is heavier now; softer and curvier in all the right places. Having a baby will do that to you. But she's still the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. Even more so decked out in one of his shirts; the fabric hanging to well below her knees, sleeves rolled and bunched just about her elbows. “What are you two doing? It's late. Or really early. Depending on how you look at it.”

“We're just having a little daddy daughter bonding time.”

She squints her eyes and peers at the clock on the nearby wall. “It's ten after three.”

“Time means nothing when you have a baby. She doesn't know what time it is. And I barely sleep, so...”

“So what does this bonding time consist of? Shit talking me?”

“I only said that last part because I knew you were behind me. I said all good things, I swear. And I was telling her all my best stories.”

“Lord I really hope not,” she rubs his shoulders and presses a kiss to his back before sidling up beside him. “All your best stories are gory.”

“I'm saving those ones for when she's old enough to be able to kick someone in the balls if they're bothering her. So she doesn't have to rely on a brother to do it.”

“Not even two months into this and you're already contemplating another? Good luck doing that yourself. Let me know how it works out for you.”

The subject had come up once or twice. About whether or not this was a one off or there were other children in their future. After he'd lost his son and given up on life, he hadn't thought there'd be any other kids. It wasn't as if he lived the kind of life he'd be proud to bring a child into it. She'd been a complete surprise. They thought they'd been careful. Apparently they hadn't been careful enough.. But she wasn't a mistake. Far from it. A happy accident was more like it. Now that he'd gotten his feet wet again in the parenting pool, he was open to having more kids. He craved it, actually. Another two or three. And a modest house on a good parcel of land. Somewhere close to the beach. With a window that looked into the backyard that he could watch his children through. Where he could grow old and gray with the love of his life.

But he still had a lot of shit to deal with before any of that could happen.

She yawns loudly and steps in front of him; both arms wrapping around his waist she lays her head against him. “Are you okay?”

“Best I can be, I guess. Little sore. But what else is new.”

She just nods. She knows it goes beyond being 'a little sore'. She had seen the extent of his injuries. She'd lived out the horror right alongside of him. It had been his blood that soaked her that day on the bridge. But she also knows he isn't the type you fawn over. He doesn't like the attention. Feeling as if he's weak. Or that he may be a burden. He was still trying to get that confidence back. The ego takes a serious beating when you're left unable to do even the smallest of tasks for yourself. “You're having trouble sleeping?”

“When haven't I had trouble sleeping?”

“But it's worse now, isn't it. I know how many times you get up in the middle of the night. It's worse now.”

“Just a stage,” he assures her. “I'll be fine. How many times have we been through this, huh? How many times do I have to tell you not to worry about me?”

“A million. But I still won't listen.”

“That's never going to change,” he teases. “You didn't listen to me a year ago and you don't listen to me now. And you wonder why I say your daughter is going to be trouble.”

She grins up at him. “Why does she become just my daughter when you talk about trouble?”

“Because we both know who the real trouble maker is in this relationship,” he retorts, and presses a kiss to her forehead.

In silence they watch their daughter; the way her eyes shift between the two of them before slowing beginning to close, a yawn escaping her mouth. A surprisingly large one that ends in a tiny squeak. He's in awe of her. Of how tiny and fragile she is. How he'd managed to make something so amazing.

“She's beautiful,” he speaks around a lump of emotion that sits square in his throat. His emotions have been raw since that day in Dhaka. And even more so since becoming a father for a second time. He can hear Gaspar in his head again. Talking about how soft he was becoming. That he didn't even recognize him any more. That growing a heart this late in the game was going to be his biggest downfall and his most relentless enemy. “Like her mother.”

“She looks just like you.”

“I honestly don't see it,” he hopes he sounds a least a tad sincere.

His wife gives a derisive snort. “You have some seriously strong genes, Tyler Rake. Imagine if we had a boy? Probably be your splitting image. By the way...” she rubs his stomach and smiles up at him. “...you do the really big, strong man with a tiny baby thing very well. It's kind of sexy.”

“Just kind of? I was going for totally sexy. Insanely sexy. You might as well said mediocre sexy.”

“Don't expect me to stroke your ego at three in the morning.”

“Why not? Not like you've been stroking anything else lately.”

“Shhhh...” she places a finger over her lips. “...there's innocent ears in this room.”

“She's asleep. And even if she wasn't, she wouldn't understand what I was saying anyway. Besides, she's going to end up learning where she come from sooner or later.”

“Well let's make that later. Much later. And mediocre sexy? Really? As if you could ever be anything other than out of the world sexy.”

“You're lucky. I was going to have to file for divorce if you called me 'average sexy'.”

“You're too much,” she giggles, and dropping one of her arms from around his waist, runs the palm of her hand along the baby's hair. “And you're right. She is beautiful. She is perfect.”

“It's hard to believe sometimes, isn't it? That we made her? During all that craziness and all that madness, we actually made a life together. Surreal, huh? That something so beautiful could come out of all of that?”

“A lot of beautiful things came out of that. We just have a hard time recognizing what they are sometimes.”

He nods in agreement. Sniffling noisily and swallowing heavily when the weight of emotion becomes almost too much to bear. He's never had to hide this side of himself when it came to her. After all, she was the one who'd successfully bulldozed all of his walls to the ground. So it comes as no surprise to either of them when the tears finally do come; blazing hot against his skin, the taste of salt stinging his lips.

“Baby...” she turns to face him, reaching up to take his face in her hands. “...what's wrong? What...?”

“Nothing's wrong. I just...” he struggles to find the words, inhaling deeply and releasing a shaky breath. “...thank you...” he says. “...for her. For you. For us.”

“I think you played a pretty big part in her being here,” she reminds him. “It's not like I did this alone.”

“I don't deserve all of this. I don't deserve her. I don't deserve you. This...this life...” he shakes his head. “...this was meant for someone else. A better man than me.”

She chews pensively on her bottom lip and regards him through her own tears. He knows she won't let them come. She's been the one holding back lately. When they'd met, she'd been the high strung and overly emotional one. Always on edge. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. He'd been that calm, cool, and collected one. The one that held shit together when it threatened to blow apart. Talking her down off the ledge while trying to keep both of them...and eventually Ovi...alive. Since the baby she'd changed. Her motherly instincts and her love for their child could never be matched by anyone else. But she had closed herself off in other ways. She became the strong and silent one. The one who always held her emotions in check. He figured it was all that time she spent helping him get back on his feet. What she'd seen and had to endure would harden anyone.

But he'd be lying if he didn't say he wasn't concerned. If he didn't find himself wishing for that emotional and broken girl she'd once been.

She was out there. And he knew where.

She was still back in Dhaka.

Still standing on that bridge.

#Tyler Rake #Tyler Rake fan fiction #Extraction fan fiction #Chris Hemsworth Tyler Rake #Tyler Rake x OFC #Tyler Rake fan fic #Extraction fan fic #I Found-Tyler Rake/Esme Rake

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detectiveinchicago · 4 years ago

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Booth is back

Fandom: Chicago P.D

Pairing: UPSTEAD (Jay Halstead x Hailey Upton)

Requested by: @pagingmontgomery “could you write a hailey and jay drabble where hailey gets attacked, maybe by booth? your writing is amazing!”

Hey girl! I know you asked for a drabble but I had enough inspiration por a one shot. Tell me what you think.

Warnings: Violence, physical abuse. Bad language. Booth warning. Medical stuff might not be accurate.

Word Count: 1.819

Hailey and Jay had been hanging around each other for some time now. They were still partners and had tried to remain friends until they couldn’t do it anymore. They had been dating for almost three months, keeping him low-key in the District until they could see if they could really maintain the relationship to fill out the Human Resources forms and open up with Voight.

Honestly, Jay could say that he had been in a state of absolute happiness, knowing that at Molly’s he could smile at him, and then a few hours later he could make love to her in the bed. He had to admit that he had already been fantasizing about a relationship with Hailey, but those three months had been better than he had expected. The way they moved around each other was natural, everything just seemed to fit. They still had “their thing” where they comforted each other after a rough case.

His relationship with Hailey had nothing to do with the previous ones, Ally had been his first girlfriend, she was pure of heart but it was a teenage love, then there was Abby who had been his wife and a connection. Erin had been the complete opposite of Hailey, Hailey waited for him to tell her what was happening and although she pushed him, she did not push him to the limit like Erin. She understood that each one had their secrets. Then he had thought he had been in love with Camila, but after some time he had realized that no, that he had never been in love with her, he simply felt guilty for Luis’s death.

That night Jay had returned home after watching the game at Hailey’s place. The next day he had a medical check-up at Chicago Med first thing in the morning and his house was halfway to the hospital. However, when he was halfway home, he realized that Hailey had left her phone on the passenger seat, so he turned around to return it to him.

When he approached the entrance of Hailey’s house he saw that the door was half-open, something was wrong, Jay took out his gun and entered the house. He could hear noises of things exploding on the ground, they came from the floor above so he ran up the stairs without lowering his weapon. Once he was upstairs, he could identify that the sound was coming from Hailey’s room. The door was open and when he leaned out; he wished he hadn’t.

Ronald Booth was behind Hailey, trying to choke her while his girlfriend was trying to break free of his grip. They were fighting, so Jay had to risk it and take the shot; he raised his gun and shot the intruder in the head. Booth fell back and released his hold on Hailey, Jay reached over and took his pulse. He was dead.

Jay turned to see his girlfriend “Are you okay?” he asked approaching her, taking her face in his hands and checking her black eye.

“I’m fine” Hailey replied with a raspy voice.

She wasn’t okay, Jay could tell because her pajamas that consisted on an old Black hawks T-shirt and shorts were ripped. When he looked at his girlfriend’s leg he was horrified.

“Hailey, I’ve stabbed you” Jay said with horror in his voice “I need to call this in”

“My radio is on the kitchen table” She replied, shifting on the floor. Jay trotted down the stairs and grabbed Hailey’s radio to call an ambulance and patrol. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and called Voight too.

“What? Halstead it’s 3AM so I hope it’s important” Voight heard once he picked up the phone.

“Come to Hailey’s house, Sergeant, now” Jay informed him before cutting off the communication.

Voight would surely be mad at him for getting him out of bed at that hour but once he got to Hailey’s house he would understand; he went back upstairs. Hailey had moved to support her back on the bed.

“How are you?” Jay asked, taking a towel from the bathroom and walking over to her. The knife was still on Hailey’s leg, so she wrapped the towel around it.

“I thought it was your Jay, that you had changed your mind and decided to stay here” Hailey explained hoarsely “I should have asked to confirm, when I realized it was he was already in here”

“It’s okay, baby” Jay said, sitting down next to him and putting an arm around her shoulders.

“No one told me he was released from prison” Hailey added as Jay kept pressing on the wound “He kicked my ass”

“It’s not your fault Hailey” Jay replied giving her a kiss on the top “I love you” he added while listening to the sirens nearby.

Hailey was half awake, half asleep because of blood loss, so he looked at the damage that Booth had done to his girlfriend. Surely he was lucky to be dead because Jay wanted to kill him with his own hands. Hailey not only had a black eye but her arm and mouth were bleeding and he was sure that her wrist was not in a normal position, besides that he had swelled from hell. He’d blurted it out once and the son of a bitch hadn’t been lucky the second.

She yelled at the paramedics when they arrived and once she laid Hailey in their hands; she went down the stairs two at a time, only to find Voight getting out of his truck.

“What’s all this, Halstead?” Voight asked with a frown.

“Booth got out of prison, they released him or escaped I don’t know but I left Hailey and came back because she had left her cell phone in my car but when I came back I saw the front door open so I went in and Booth was trying to drown Hailey so I shot him “Jay explained quickly” He kicked her ass sergeant “he added.

“Well, I can’t say that son of a bitch didn’t deserve it” Voight muttered, “How’s Hailey doing?”

“She has a knife in her leg and several injuries,” Jay briefly reported as the ambulancemen pulled out with the stretcher carrying Hailey.

“I’ll call the team to help me here, you go with her to the hospital and we’ll see you there” Voight ordered him walking into the house.

“Before you get mad, let me say that Hailey and I have been dating for three months, everything is very recent and we wanted to see if it worked before we told someone” Jay confessed to his sergeant that he just turned around and looked at him with raised eyebrows.

“Halstead, I know” his Sergeant replied “I have been a police officer for over 40 years and a detective for over 30, you can’t cheat me, but I want your Human Resources forms on my desk as soon as possible”

“Yes, Sergeant” Jay replied, getting into the back of the ambulance.

The road to Chicago Med was slow and painful, Jay was sure that time had stopped as he watched the paramedic put oxygen on Hailey as she slipped in and out of unconsciousness. Upon arriving at Chicago Med, he saw his brother hurry to the ambulance.

“Jay?” he asked confused

“Long story, it’s Hailey” he informed her, getting out of the ambulance and out of the way of the stretcher.

The doctors started screaming, and Hailey quickly disappeared from sight. Jay couldn’t do anything but sit in the waiting room and see if his brother would show up soon with news. Half an hour later his brother appeared, only to inform him that Hailey was rushed to surgery with Dr. Marcel to see how the injury in the leg could come out having no long-term consequences and to see that the ribs that had been broken did not penetrate any organ. His brother sat next to him and put a hand on his shoulder for comfort. Jay briefly told him the story before his brother went back inside.

I was impatient. He had to admit it, it would be weird if he wasn’t and he was furious maybe if Booth had stayed he wouldn’t have assaulted Hailey and then realized that it was useless, Booth would have found some way to get into the house anyway of Hailey or to approach her. That son of a bitch deserved to be dead.

The team sent him messages asking if he had any news of Hailey. They were still at the crime scene finishing the paperwork. Surprisingly for Jay, the surgery was short because an hour and a half later Dr. Marcel came to inform him that Hailey had come out of surgery and that they had repaired the wound, it would take around two months, she would have to do a strong rehabilitation for the pain and mobility but that she would be fine. His Hailey was going to be fine.

“Can I see her?” asked Jay

“Yes, she’s sedated, but she’s awake” Dr. Marcel replied guiding him to Hailey’s room, Jay sat in the chair next to her bed while Hailey gave him a small smile.

“Hey”

“Hey” Jay replied, “How do you feel?”

“As I got hit by a truck” Hailey answered taking Jay’s hand

“Yes” Jay replied with a little laugh “I know how it feels”

“I’m sorry” he added with a little sigh

“What for?” Jay asked.

“Because of all this, I didn’t know that Booth was out of prison, I should have been more cautious” Hailey excused herself “I’m sorry”

“Babe, babe” Jay stopped her “Nothing that happened is your fault, Booth is a son of a bitch who wanted to ruin your existence, he will never touch you again, he’s dead” he added caressing her face. Hailey hated being vulnerable, she hated hospitals (not as much as Jay) and she hated Ronald Booth, hoping he was rotting away.

“Dr. Marcel told me I have a long recovery ahead of me before even talking about desk work” Hailey commented “You are going to have to find yourself a new partner”

“I’m sure Rojas will be more than happy to ride with me until you get back in action” Jay replied “I’m an excellent companion”

Hailey rolled her eyes “I must warn Rojas about how sensitive you are”.

“Me? Sensitive?” Jay asked pointing to himself “Babe hurt me”

Hailey gave a little laugh, her ribs throbbing giving her a twinge of pain but it didn’t matter. Ronald Booth was dead. She was alive and she had Jay. Everything was going to be okay.

#upstead #upstead one shot #upstead fic #upstead imagine #chicago pd #chicago pd imagine #chicago pd one shot #one chicago #one chicago imagine

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fanficnewbie · 4 years ago

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Afternoon Delight

OPEN HEART: SECOND YEAR - CHAPTER EIGHT

(ETHAN x FEMALE MC)

MC is Dr. Francesca Houseman *This entry takes place the day after Francesca leaves Ethan’s apartment, but before she helps Jackie rescue Kyra.

Word Count: 2675 Rated: Teen

A companion piece to: --Alan Weighs In --Sienna Weighs In Ch 8

Hello all! I guess you can say that I have been on hiatus right along with OH2. Honestly, their second break pissed me off and I needed to escape the on again/off again relationship I found myself in with this book. However, Ethan is my boo and I can never stay away that long. After finding some closure on some personal issues I’ve been dealing with, I felt the need to return to the fandom and my writing. I want to give a big thanks to @heauxplesslydevoted whose fanfics actually helped to stir my creative juices again.

This story takes place in a small but available window of time which allows for Ethan to give MC the leftover chicken dish, and discuss what happened the night before outside of his condo. It works perfectly fine as a standalone to the OH2 C8 storyline, but I did include hints from two of my other Ch 8 fanfics. So, if you want the “surround sound” experience, you can read those as well.

Otherwise, just thanks so much for your patience and continued support!

AFTERNOON DELIGHT

Francesca hesitated at the door, willing herself to go inside.

Despite the confrontation with Sienna the night before, she had gone to bed practically giddy with the memory of Ethan’s passionate kiss outside of his condo earlier that same evening. However, the morning had welcomed her with waves of discouragement and defeat. The last time Ethan has broken one of his rules with her, he left the Continent for two months. Francesca went through her morning routine unable to shake the feeling that this too, would not end well.

Trying to avoid Ethan at the hospital had been an exercise in futility as he was waiting for her in one of their patient’s rooms, ready to assess the progress of a new treatment plan. As they exited into the hallway, he explained that as promised, he’d brought her lunch and hoped she could meet him for a bite in a few hours. With no readily available excuses on hand, she had accepted. But instead of feeling buoyed by his follow-through, her sense of dread remained.

Unable to talk to Sienna about the latest developments, Francesca instead tried to imagine what she would tell her… Silly, if he was going to push you away again, he wouldn’t invite you to lunch. He saved you the chicken! Unfortunately, Francesca’s imagination was extremely adept at playing Devil’s Advocate, Not unless he wants to dump me again over lunch and is using the chicken to try and appease my feelings. Then Jackie’s unexpected voice chimed in, That checks out.

Francesca groaned against her betraying thoughts as she took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

Ethan’s muffled voice greeted her, “Come in.”

Grasping the handle she willed her stomach to stop churning and put on a bright face. Everything is normal, be normal, don’t act strange. She smiled as she crossed the threshold, letting the door close shut behind her. She took in the expanse of the office, decorated in rich wood tones. In the center stood a stately mahogany desk covered with files and spreadsheets, two chairs faced the large piece of furniture and a couch sat against the wall behind them. To the left, bookcases lined the walls, overflowing with medical texts and manuals on various policies and procedures. Ethan stood on the far right side of the room, next to a small round table with four chairs. She could tell he had moved the paperwork covering that space to the credenza behind it, making room for his lunchtime display.

Ethan looked up and his heart constricted. How was she always so damn beautiful? She stood by the door watching him warily, her hair was pulled back into an uncharacteristic ponytail, but a few rebel curls had broken free and lightly grazed her face. He secretly loved her in her white lab coat, it spoke to her brilliance, her status as one of the best doctors at Edenbrook. The blue dress she wore was also one of his favorites, although modest and professional, it somehow managed to accentuate every one of her curves.

Noticing she hadn’t moved, he motioned to his set-up and gestured for her to come over and her to sit down. She looked as nervous as he felt and he smiled to put her at ease, although it was clear that neither of them actually were. He had barely slept last night, all that had been on his mind was what he would say to her, how he would explain what happened.

Francesca crossed the breadth of the office and sat down as Ethan scooped some of the chicken and rice from the night before on dishes borrowed from the cafeteria. “I had to fight my father for the leftovers. This turned out better than expected.”

“It smells delicious but…”

Ethan looked up, “But?”

“Why are we doing this in Naveen’s office?”

Ethan chuckled as he sat down, “Well, I knew we couldn’t escape the hospital but I did promise you lunch, and this office provides much more privacy than my own. Naveen is in Board meetings all day and said I could use it.”

“Does he know I’m here?”

Ethan shrugged, “I didn’t feel the need to mention why I needed privacy. Before the budget crisis we were talking about frosting the glass in the Diagnostic Office. I understand modern design, but I always feel like I’m in a fishbowl.”

Francesca nodded and grabbed her napkin, twisting it in her lap. She wanted to agree with his assessment but couldn’t find the easy-going tone to continue the conversation. She hated that she suddenly felt so awkward in his presence. When he had set boundaries, as unwelcome as they were, she understood her position with him. But last night he had crossed those boundaries and as much as she relished his touch, now she felt unmoored. It was a very unexpected reaction. She had pined over him for months, wanting nothing more than his uninhibited affection. But deep down she knew that Ethan didn’t know how to be uninhibited, and that every forward step he took with her came at a dire cost for both of them.

Ethan looked up mid bite and noticed she was staring at her plate. “Is everything alright? You’re not eating.”

She looked up and forced a smile, “No, of course, I’m just happy you remembered to bring me some.” Ethan knew she wasn’t being fully transparent. He started to wonder if he had misread their encounter last night. He never expected her to be so dispirited. All this time he had been certain that she wanted him to act on his romantic interest in her, but suddenly he wasn’t so sure. They continued to eat in tense silence, until he finally spoke, “Francesca, about last night, I’m sorry that…”

“No.” Francesca surprised herself with her emphatic response but she knew where it came from. She was not ready to listen to Ethan explain away his actions and construct another wall between them. At that moment she wanted to get up and run out of the office, out of Edenbrook, and move far away from Boston. She wanted to turn back time so that she never met Dr. Ethan Ramsey, to when he was just an idea in her head, not the actual man sitting before her. She wanted to be in a time and place where the man who owned her heart no longer had the power to keep breaking it.

Meeting Ethan’s stunned face, she quickly dispelled her unrealistic escape plan and tried to cover for her outburst. “Um, I just meant that there was no need for you to apologize, of course you needed to talk to your dad. I’m glad you finally did. Are you guys better now?”

Ethan’s eyes betrayed a slight flicker of confusion as she changed the topic. He leaned back into his chair. “Um yeah, actually, it turned into a nice evening. He offered an in-depth explanation for his feelings towards my mother, and while I don’t think I’ll ever truly understand them, I’m at least in a place where I can respect him. He’s agreed to do the same for me, so it’s a good start, right?”

Francesca smiled genuinely, “It really is, I’m happy for you both.”

They continued to eat, the tension in the room mounting as Ethan lamented on how uncomfortable they suddenly were around each other. He started to second-guess every decision he had made over the past 18 hours.

Francesca took her last bite and realized that her excuse to leave had just presented itself, “Thank you Ethan, that was really great.” She put her napkin and fork down, preparing to leave the room when he placed his hand on her arm, stopping her.

“Please, wait.” She looked up, startled, as he reached into a bag and procured another small container. He smiled sheepishly as he handed it to her, “Dessert”.

Disappointed at her inability to leave, Francesca was still pleasantly surprised when she opened the container to discover a beautiful slice of cherry tart, “You made this?”

“Yes, my father and I made it last night after you left. We used the leftover cherries. He suggested I save you some as well. He likes you. He uh, he thinks you’re a good influence on me.”

Francesca bit her lip to keep from smiling, she liked Alan Ramsey too. Knowing how much he loved his son, it was comforting to know that he was on her side. At least one Ramsey male was honest about his feelings.

Resigned to staying a bit longer, she reached for her fork, “Well, please tell him that I said ‘thank you’”, taking a bite, her eyes widened. “Wow, this is delicious! The Ramsey men really do know their way around the kitchen. Another one of Nigella’s recipes?”

Ethan’s face lit up at the compliment, “No, this is actually a Ramsey original. We usually use raspberries but we figured the cherries would work. The trick is proportioning out the right amount of sugar to balance the sweetness or tartness of the fruit.”

Francesca found herself giggling at how animated he became while talking about cooking, it was a different and unexpected side of him.

Buoyed by the moment of brevity, Ethan decided to go for it, “So, I stayed up all night thinking about everything. Our history, our work relationship, our entanglements, our feelings for each other, and the truth is, I’m at a loss.”

Francesca’s stomach lurched as the conversation took the sudden turn she’d been avoiding, and Ethan slightly faltered as he met her guarded expression, “I just know that I kissed you last night because I wanted to, I’ve been wanting to for months and I could no longer hold back. I also know that I don’t want to keep preventing myself from kissing you anymore, but as for how it all fits in with everything else, I honestly haven’t figured that part out yet.”

Francesca sat in shocked silence as he reached for her hand, interlacing his fingers with hers. “I promise that I’m not trying to lead you on or cause further confusion. But despite everything, the complications remain and I’m still struggling with how to best deal with them.”

She stared at their entwined hands as she felt him watching her, nervously waiting for her response. Nothing she expected to happen had happened, but she still wasn’t sure what was happening.

Looking up, she cautiously met his gaze, “So, you’re not pushing me away this time?”

Even though it was deserved, Ethan grimaced at her expectation of him. What was ironic was that all the times he had kept her at arm's length, or tried to escape her completely, it was never his desire to do so. If it were up to him, they would have started their romance in Miami and things would have progressed from there. As much as he enjoyed his role as her mentor, he often wondered how different life would be for them if one of them had worked anywhere else. But then he’d always have to remind himself that Edenbrook is what brought them together, it was impossible to have one without the other.

“No, I’m not trying to create any more distance, but I also cannot make any promises as to how far we can take things right now. I want to move forward Francesca, I swear I do, but...”

“You’re still my boss.”

Ethan gave a reluctant sigh and nodded.

Francesca gently squeezed his hand, “I understand.”

Ethan was unable to hide his mild surprise that she wasn’t challenging him on this again. “You do?!”

She shrugged, “Yeah. I experienced something with Elijah and his intern that helped me to see what you’ve been saying about us all along. I still don’t like it, but I get it now.”

Ethan sighed, “Is there something about Elijah’s intern I should know?”

Francesca shook her head, “Nope, not at all. I handled it.”

Ethan’s eyes narrowed a bit, trying to figure out if he should trust her or not. In return, she gave him a coy smile, “So, wait…you just admitted that we’re allowed to kiss now, right?”

“Don’t try to change the subject, Rookie.”

Francesca leaned forward, elated by his confession, she was eager to see how far she could push him. “I’m just saying, we are locked away in an office, with…” she glanced at the clock, “about 10 more minutes to kill before Rounds. If you don’t want to stop yourself anymore, this is a pretty good opportunity.”

Ethan watched as Francesca’s shift in position exposed some of her cleavage and Elijah’s intern was immediately forgotten. He was instead consumed with memories of the night before, their bodies pressed together while he tasted her mouth. Warm heat pooled at Francesca’s core as his eyes darkened and he started to pull her towards him...his voice was suddenly low and commanding, “Come here.”

A thrill shot through her as she realized that he truly had turned a corner, his desire evident in the way his eyes freely roamed her over body. She moved from her chair to his, straddling herself in his lap as he snaked one hand through her hair at the nape of her neck and steadied her with another around her waist.

Their eyes met briefly as he pulled her down to meet his lips, Ethan swallowed Francesca’s satisfied sigh which immediately turned into a small moan and caused his grip on her to softly tighten. She grasped his shoulders as she fought for domination and balance, the warmth in her body turning molten as he deepened the kiss, pulling her tongue into his mouth and gently sucking on it.

The thin line they had been struggling not to cross for the past several months evaporated and the fact that they were still on-duty, at the hospital, no longer mattered. Francesca wound her hands around Ethan’s neck and settled further on his lap, barely resisting the overwhelming urge to grind against him. His hand flattened against the small of her back, slightly pressing her closer to him. Their lips separated only for the necessary time to inhale oxygen, otherwise they were interlocked in a kiss that seemed to defy the space/time continuum. Then Francesca’s phone pinged with an alert. It wasn’t until the subsequent ping, that they finally broke apart.

Flushed and breathless, Francesca pushed a loose curl from her face as she leaned back, “Rounds. I have to go meet Esme.”

Ethan’s grip on her loosened but he didn’t release her, “Go on, I’ll clean up here.”

Francesca nodded as he allowed her to stand up. She straightened out her clothes, and gathered her things, turning to him. “Thank you for lunch, it was...unexpected.”

Ethan stood up and pulled her to him for a brief moment, his lips lightly brushing against hers, “In a good way though.”

She smiled against his lips, “In the very best way.”

He released her again, only holding onto her hand, “We will figure this all out, I promise.”

She squeezed his hand before she let go, “I trust you.”

Francesca felt like she was walking on air as she turned and left the office. Suddenly a future with Ethan didn’t seem like the foolish dream of a lovesick colleague. For the first time since they had expressed any feelings or desire for each other, she truly believed that they actually had a chance at a professional and personal relationship. Her insides were bursting with joy...nothing can ruin this day.

Ethan sat back on the chair and lightly touched his lips, overwhelmed by how right it felt to have her in his arms. He knew he was wading into dangerous territory and for once, he didn’t care. All he knew was that he needed to find a clear path to creating an actual relationship with Francesca. He could finally admit to himself that he had fallen completely in love with her.

@i-bloody-love-drake-walker @senseofduties @octobereighth @jooous @fenekko @msjpuddleduck @perriewinklenerdie @polishchoicesfan @alwaysmychoices @binny1985 @cordoniansqueen @heauxplesslydevoted @a-i-n-a-a-s-h @sherlockedmcu @xxdangerouscapri15xx @paisleylovergirl @dr-nancy-house @humaumount @stanathanxoox @trappedinfandoms @padfoot0415 @thefluffyphotographer @oofchoices @crazy-loca-blog @yorit1 @hopelessly-shipper @lovebubblechoices @lifeof-liv @the-soot-sprite @mfackenthal @loveellamae @sharrybh20 @soft-for-drake @choices-lurker @cerisesayeed-ramsey @the-other-ramsey @princess-geek @flyawayboo @riverrune@ethandaddyramsey @queencarb @vika-rafa @ramseyandrys @togetherwearerapture @bellcat2010 @imescullen @teenytinytanya08 @ethanramseyyy @amy-choices @kinkypot @openheart12 @elwetritsche75 @htgawparksandrec @schnitzelbutterfingers @lilyvalentine @aworldoffandoms @paulfwesley

#open heart #open heart book 2 #open heart fanfiction #open heart fandom #ethan ramsey #dr ramsey #dr ethan ramsey #ethan x mc #choices #choices stories you play #choices fanfiction #choices fandom

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neetori · 3 years ago

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I’m kinda glad to watch Doctor Who NOW that this site has changed so much and the fandom is so dead. I don’t have to wait for new seasons or accidentally spoil myself because it went from being everywhere to non-existent. I was never into being part of fandoms so I didn’t really miss anything. If I want memes or fan content I just search for them.

Now to the main point, here’s my two cents on the show:

I only watched the new Doctor so of course I absolutely love the hell out of the ninth and tenth doctors. I’d go as far as to say you should only watch those two. There, I said it. Only bad thing I’d point out is Rose’s selfishness but I don’t care about that as much as I did now, in fact, I didn’t miss her when Martha and queen Donna entered the game but now? God do I need more of her. So happy to seer her in the anniversary ;;

I have conflicted feelings with the eleventh doctor. I’ll put it in a basic way:

What I disliked: the absence of aliens, of new designs and planets. Now they are almost always evil or misunderstood creatures they save in the last 5 minutes. The huge change in both directing and writing, I can’t get used to it and I missed the old style a lot. The eleventh doctor himself, like, he had his moments but, in the end, he is just not for me. If the other seasons took me three weeks to watch, these seasons took me months and I may have skipped an episode or two because of the sheer boringness. The christmas specials. No, didn’t like them, not sorry. The end of Rory and Amy, I thought it was unfair. You don’t like endings, well, you gave them an insipid one. Yes, they lived a happy life but...what the fuck you tell me that in the last minute. I don’t know, it was so weirdly handled, moving on. Most of the time they didn’t give an explanation I could understand or believe (if they gave one which sometimes happens with the twelfth and I hate it). Ninth and tenth explained everything no matter how complicated, it made sense. Everything revolving around the Doctor instead of the other way. He got too famous? I can buy it but not my tea.

You just can tell I saw that Sherlock video.

What I DID like: the anniversary, the companions and Riversong, her whole character and story. That’s it. Maybe I had a very slow start with Clara but she grew on me and now I really like her and her theme is cute and catchy.

Finally, the twelfth doctor. His first season was kinda meh. While I appreciated the change of character he has some ??? moments I don’t appreciate so much but ok, it was to be expected with the decaying writing. On the bright side? I’m enjoying the ninth season so far. It’s nice and I’m sure it’s because of the two part episodes. More space for story and characters.

I don’t know if I’ll ever write about DW here again. I doubt I’ll watch the thirteenth doctor with what little some friends told me and what I read about it. Maybe I’ll give it a chance maybe not, who knows. My naive wish is for this show to have a renaissance.

Ending this post with both my doubts and fears for Good Omen’s new season yet also happiness and gratefulness for more David Tennant.

#still haven't touched torchwood but have good expectations #and sarah jane #doctor who #giving my honest opinion and not giving a flying fuck #good omens surprise omake

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blazerina · 5 years ago

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Connected - Harper/Ethan/Allie (MC) - Open Heart

Connected – Harper/Ethan/Allie (MC) – Open Heart

Word Count: 2612

A/N: This story is based on this amazing song A Soulmate Who Wasn't Meant to Be – sent to me and requested by @unusualvisionsblog – thank you so much for the inspiration to finish this story. It took me a while but I’m really proud of how it all ended up.

Tagging my two fandom BFF’s @justanotherrookie and @parkerattano because they never fail to encourage and motivate me. Thankful for you ladies!

Lyrics to the song are below – I encourage you to listen while reading. It really sets the tone!

A Soulmate Who Wasn’t Meant to Be

I never should have called

‘Cause I knew you’d leave me

But I didn’t think

You could do it

So easily

I never should have held your hand

On that cold rainy night

‘Cause further along

It would cause another fight

Stranger

That’s all I see

When I look into your eyes

A soulmate who wasn’t meant to be

Stranger

Who knows all my secrets

Can pull me apart and break my heart

A soulmate who wasn’t meant to be

I never should have kissed

Kissed your hand

I’m under your control

I will never understand

I never should have said

I love you

Never said it back

So why do I still care for you?

Stranger

That’s all I see

When I look into your eyes

A soulmate who wasn’t meant to be

Stranger

Who knows all my secrets

Can pull me apart and break my heart

A soulmate who wasn’t meant to be

Wish I could go back to the day we met and leave you be

Sit and look pretty

Never should have called

Never should have held

Never should have kissed

Never should have said…

Stranger

That’s all I see

When I look into your eyes

A soulmate who wasn’t meant to be

Stranger

Who knows all my secrets

Can pull me apart and break my heart

A soulmate who wasn’t meant to be

Harper rolled over and pulled her phone off the nightstand to check the time. She had been awake for a while but could tell by the faint light coming in through her window, that it was getting close to the time she needed to get up.

She sighed heavily as she realized her phone confirmed her assumption. Harper blinked a few times to ensure she was fully awake, already annoyed with the day. She rolled over onto her other side and gently nudged her sleeping companion.

“Sam…Sam, wake up. It’s time for you to go. I have to get ready for work.”

The man next to her was clearly in no hurry to get out of bed. He faced Harper with his eyes still closed, reaching out for her.

“Baby, we don’t need to be in a rush…” Clearly, he thought he was smooth. And clearly, he didn’t know who he was dealing with.

“I will not ask you again to get out of my bed.” Harper declared. “I told you last night this was a one-time thing.”

She slithered out of the bed, keeping one sheet wrapped around her naked body. Making her way to her bathroom, she called out to him, “I expect you to be gone by the time my shower is done. You can see yourself out. Don’t leave anything behind because I’m not calling you back.”

The bathroom door forcefully closed behind her and Harper turned on the water. Pushing herself over the sink, looking more closely at her reflection, she studied herself, looking into her own eyes.

She never meant to become the kind of person who had a string of one-night stands. It wasn’t a part of her life she was especially proud of, but it served its purpose. She was too old to be asking herself who she was, or to be trying to find her identity. Those years were safely behind her. She owed it to herself to make up her own mind. She earned the freedom to stand by her own decisions without regret. The past was the past.

Part of her was relieved that she no longer had to share this portion of her life with the hospital. For far too long everyone from fellow doctors and administrators to volunteers and janitors, knew all about her every move. She was used to living in a fishbowl, but she was definitely over it. It wasn’t enough that she was proving herself to be a well-known and reputable medical professional, or that she was running one of the state’s largest and most prominent hospitals. Everyone needed to know about her personal life. She lost count of how many times people told her they couldn’t trust her if they didn’t know what she was “really like outside of this place.”

Ask anyone at Edenbrook about Harper Emery and you get a wide range of responses. Most people know her as a fine administrator and capable surgeon. Others are notoriously opposed to the way she performed as Chief and are thankful she’s been replaced by Naveen. Across the country she’s known for her expertise in surgery and her swift, decisive actions that have saved countless lives. A majority of medical staff see her as fair but firm, with high expectations and standards, not only for herself but everyone she works with.

Of all the things people have said about her, and the gossip she’s heard behind her back for years, there’s always one statement that sticks in her mind the most and haunts her every day. She can see it in their eyes when they find out; especially the interns when they’re finally told.

She walks down the halls and all goes silent except for the clacking of her heels on the cold stone floor. A small smirk appears on her face as people try to busy themselves with work before she asks them what they’re doing.

Despite all her achievements and the work she is proud of accomplishing, she’s come to terms with the fact that she’ll be remembered for one thing as she brushes past a group and someone inevitably whispers:

There goes Dr. Harper Emery. Former Chief of Medicine and former girlfriend of Dr. Ethan Ramsey. That’s all you really need to know.

Allie sat in the cafeteria staring dejectedly into her bowl of soup, absentmindedly stirring it every few seconds. Her head was propped up on her hand with her elbow on the table. Her long red hair was in a pile on top of her head. Her eyes tired. Her feet aching. Her mind elsewhere.

Lately she had been thinking about Ethan. That was nothing new. She hated how their situation was at present. He clearly wanted to be with her, practically reached out to her on numerous occasions, but something was stopping him. She heard time and time again that it was because of his care for her. That he wanted her to be the best doctor possible and he couldn’t do that and provide for her professionally if they were more than just colleagues. She rolled her eyes with disdain remembering how and when he said that word.

Professional.

It made her retch for a moment. She had already been working for about eight-hours of her twelve-hour shift and she wondered how she’d make it the next four. Allie turned her attention out the widow that overlooked a peaceful courtyard where patients or staff could go for a moment of quiet during the day.

She knew that her outlook on her relationship with Ethan had changed drastically over the past few weeks. At first, she thought she’d be able to handle it. Ethan’s decision made sense and she’d stop at nothing to make sure she could be the best doctor possible, but lately she’d been struggling. And right outside that window, sitting on a bench next to a patient in the courtyard, was the very reason why.

Dr. Harper Emery.

Allie didn’t know much about her past relationship with Ethan, only that she had one. And clearly it wasn’t an issue for him to be with her, so why was it such a big deal if she and Ethan wanted to be together instead?

In her head, Allie knew the difference. A subordinate and a supervisor is much different than two colleagues on the same level of the org chart, but her heart…her fickle-overly-emotional-prideful-too-hurt-to-admit-it heart, chanted to her over and over again:

You’re not good enough. You’ll never be her. There’s a real reason he didn’t want you. Do you honestly think you could measure up to that? She’s perfect. What would he ever see in someone like you?

It made it worse that Harper was the consummate professional around Allie. She was polite and welcoming, not warm, but still somehow hospitable. There had been a few times that she pushed back on Allie and challenged her, but nothing over the line.

Of course, it’s easy for her to do that.

The voice in her head reminded her.

She knows she’s got you beat in every category. You’ll never be competition to her.

Allie had even been watching Harper more intently when she worked with Ethan. There were so many little things that she had not noticed before. A few days ago, as Allie arrived for her shift, she noticed Harper helping him with his tie outside the cafeteria. A soft smile formed at the corners of her mouth as she straitened it for him and looked him in the eye.

“What would I do without you?” Ethan asked, his tone a bit too playful for Allie’s taste.

“Oh, you’d find a way to manage.” Harper responded. “After all, you’re Doctor Ethan Ramsey. You don’t let anyone around here forget it.”

Her composure as polite and calm as ever, Harper turned quickly on her heel and walked away. Allie swore Ethan’s eyes followed her all the way down the hall.

Allie knew that pining away for Ethan and obsessing over his every interaction with Dr. Emery would not serve her well. She needed to focus. But it was becoming more and more difficult. She was starting to lose confidence in herself and her abilities, which made her need and desire for Ethan all the more great.

He was the one who told her she could do anything. He was the mentor that taught her everything she knew about being a doctor. He was the one she needed. The one she was meant to be with forever.

All she had to do was convince him she was worth it.

Inevitably, the seed of doubt sprouted again in that arrogant-unstable-frustratingly-emotional heart of hers.

Who am I kidding? If Ethan couldn’t even make it work with someone as amazingly flawless as Harper Emery, how the hell do I stand a chance?

There they were. The two most prominent women in his life, chatting together in the hallway, right in front of his office.

Ethan told himself this couldn’t be good. Each woman on their own was difficult enough but seeing the two of them together made his pulse quicken. He felt his throat start to itch and he loosened his tie a bit, feeling a slight sting of anxiety in his stomach as he approached them.

“Dr. Emery.” He nodded. “Dr. Valentine.”

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Please, come in.”

“I told you.” Harper crossed her arms in front of her chest and raised one eyebrow in triumph, nodding towards Allie.

“Told her what?” Ethan asked, confused.

“We aren’t here to see you.” Allie explained. “We are discussing tomorrow’s surgery for Ms. Hogan. And as we were talk-“

Harper cut Allie off mid-sentence.

“I told Dr. Valentine that we should probably move this conversation elsewhere or finish before you returned, otherwise you’d think our presence at your door had something to do with you.”

“Sorry to inform you that it doesn’t…” Allie looked amused.

“I see.” Ethan responded shortly, his brow wrinkled, slightly irritated.

“You walked right into it, Ramsey.” Harper teased.

“Well played. I bid you all a good afternoon then. Seeing as how I’m not needed, even though you two purposefully stopped right outside my office. Let’s carry on with our work now instead of playing games, shall we?”

Ethan walked into his office and closed the door behind him, letting out a long sigh. The sight of those two, hearing their voices, the knowing way they mocked him, it was almost too much for him to handle. Harper was always quick to prove him wrong and reveled in any opportunity to do so.

He cursed himself for pursuing anything of substance with either one of them. He hated having regrets, but to see how things has ended up for all of them, he couldn’t help it. Nothing felt natural anymore – at least not for him. Everything was thought through and carried out with the utmost precision. His actions felt robotic as he made doubly sure not to make either of those women think he still had feelings for them.

Ethan was most careful to watch himself around Allie, as his time with her was the more recent and the most potent. It was challenging, though. He was drawn to her by a indescribable force. It took everything within him to pull himself away from her. In meetings, at the front desk, in the elevator, talking with patients, she always said or did something that made him weak in the knees.

It was killing him not to be able to see her after work, to spend time with her outside the office, to hear about her life beyond the walls of the hospital but he knew it was the right thing for her. If he had any desire to protect her or keep her safe and not hurt her any more than he already had, this is the way it needed to be.

Getting mixed up with a guy like him was bad news, just look at what it did to Harper.

Harper had always been the model of decorum; prim and proper, respected by all – but Ethan wasn’t stupid. He knew that now a part of her sterling reputation had been tarnished because of him. He heard the low voices whispering behind her back as she passed by. He was all to familiar now with the light in the interns’ eyes, how they lit up with intrigue when they found out that he and Harper had been…

What had they been? It was never anything real, which he blamed himself for. They had each other when they needed each other and that was about it.

Nothing substantial. Nothing with roots. Nothing that would last.

Nothing like…

His pager went off, rousing him from his diatribe of thoughts. Silently he opened the door and went to follow the page, not even noticing that Harper and Allie were still there, chatting away.

It was the end of another unremarkable day at Edenbrook. Harper was headed with her bag in hand towards the elevator doors, but they were closing too quickly.

At the last second, she made the decision to head towards the stairs, when a familiar voice called out:

“Harper. Come on, plenty of room in here.”

That voice would stop her in her tracks anywhere.

“Thank you, Ethan.” She smiled tightly as she entered the elevator with him. He held the doors open until she was settled and then pressed the button to close them.

Such a typical Ethan-move. Harper thought to herself.

Trying to win me over with his charm and chivalry. Don’t do it Harper, don’t fall for it. Not again. He’s not worth it.

Ethan focused his eyes straight ahead trying not to engage.

Leave her alone. You have to let her go.

Allie was ready to leave. The remaining portion of her shift had not passed as quickly as she had hoped. Nervous, yawning, grumpy and ready to soak her throbbing feet, she impatiently waited for the elevator to reach her floor. She could not wait to once again be reunited with her beloved bed.

The monotone bell rang out signaling the elevator’s arrival. She stepped in and surveyed the group of people also in the elevator. Parker from imaging. The really nice man in charge of housekeeping – she could never remember his name… – and Ethan.

Of course there was Ethan.

And Harper.

Lovely.

The nameless housekeeping man was first to exit. This ride was now officially long and uncomfortable. She wondered if Ethan and Harper felt the same.

A few floors later, Parker from imaging said a courteous goodnight and left the elevator.

Only four more floors to go.

All that remained was the three of them, each one with their eyes silently fixed on the numbers above the elevator doors. They illuminated, one by one, giving them hope that this uneasy metal box would deliver them from this situation soon.

Four…

The reputable doctor marred by transgressions with a colleague unable to forgive herself for wanting true love.

Three…

The world-renown diagnostician, somehow able to have so much and yet so little at the same time, feeling remorse for hurting two perfectly fine young women beyond repair.

Two…

An innocent second-year resident, thrown into a world she wasn’t ready for, caught up in confusion about her own feelings and comparing herself to someone she secretly admired and hoped to become.

One…

All three tired of being lonely, disappointed in themselves, and wanting nothing more than true, life-long companionship.

All three connected not by choice but by fate yet going home, once again, all alone.

#blazerina babbles #ethan ramsey #harper emery #allie valentine #open heart

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