#looking forward to more of these terrifying wonderful moments in s4 :)

[sweaters-and-vertigo]

“when can i come inside?”

“is this jim matthews? … your wife shouldn’t be digging that hole, jim.”

“you said this place couldn’t break you.”

“are you looking for these? take them! we get to keep randall, though.”

“you know victor, if you keep coming down here, one of these days we’ll make you stay!”

“that… was a hell of a song! that jade sure can play.”

[an0nymousmessenger]

When the Sun Rises Again

Five Hargreeves x Reader Synopsis: In which you see a familiar boy with a mannequin at a park after saving the world. Word Count: 2.7k tags. Fluff, Comfort, s4 epilogue continued, more than friends less than lovers A/n: A little continuation of the epilogue of when you see Delores in the end credits with an unidentified person ao3 link

On August 8, 2024, nothing out of the ordinary occurred. It would be no exaggeration to say that this day was completely normal. The sun was shining, and the weather was the best it had been in a long time.

The wind blew gently, rustling the nearby trees and bushes in this small sanctuary.

It was a nice afternoon in August, perfect for people enjoying their outings at a small, lesser-known park. Picnics dotted the grassy areas, and people strolled together, enjoying each other's company.

Laughter filled the air as children chased each other in a harmless game of tag. A couple walked their dog, deep in conversation. Nearby, a man led a meditation session among a group, while a woman sat with her daughter, braiding her hair.

The moment seemed fragile and almost unreal, at least to the eyes of the newcomer. It was a tranquility you weren’t quite used to, and you found yourself struggling to take it all in. Still, you continued forward, focused on one main objective.

You passed the meditating group, the mother and daughter, and many other familiar faces you didn't dare acknowledge. Everything seemed to slow, as if memories from a past time were beginning to overlap.

In the midst of all this, by a rather old but beautiful tree, a few gentle marigolds grew from within the ground, sprouting out enchantingly, showing off their petals to the world. They shined golden, and perhaps with a little magic too.

You took your hands in the pockets of your light jacket as you walked casually with your new sneakers through the grass.

Eventually, you stopped in your tracks, and stared at a specific pair, glowing in the summer’s light. You hesitated, your breath caught up in your throat as some unfamiliar feeling began to bubble in your chest, threatening to overspill.

You wondered if it would be okay to disturb them, questioning whether you should just stay still and take in the scene a little longer. Just for a while. After all, time was on your side this time.

You squinted, fighting against the bright summer glare.

You looked onward, afraid that if you closed your eyes even for a second, the scene in front of you would disappear—that the feeling of the wind and sun had been just your imagination. That the boy sitting there with a gentle expression, one you’d only seen a few times in your life, would vanish with the wind. Fleeting, and brief.

As if he were never there.

A sweet but deceiving dream.

Even if it were a dream, you would be satisfied because, to you, everything was fine. Everything was as it should be.

But alas, the tangy summer scent was real, and the reality you were currently walking through was undeniably real.

So incredibly real.

It was terrifying.

The sun’s warmth shone generously on the pair—a boy who seemed to be in his teens, accompanied by a rather unique mannequin that only had its upper body. They sat at a plain table, enjoying each other’s company.

The boy held a newspaper in one hand and a cup of black coffee in the other. Another cup sat by an empty seat, while the mannequin rested by a nearby tree.

At first glance, it almost seemed as if the two were having a pleasant conversation. The boy looked relieved, his shoulders relaxed, legs crossed in comfort as his dark eyes browsed the weekly news.

It seemed as if he had no worries on his mind, no stress or problems weighing on him. Although his eyes still carried that tired look. It was a look not commonly found in the kids his age. Some would even go on to suggest his eyes give off the feeling the boy was much older than he let on.

But even if that were true, they had nothing to prove such a statement.

You took in this sight with a little sigh, a mental click, as if forcing yourself to capture this moment and lock it away in your heart, hiding it carefully from the world before anything else tried to take it away.

Just in case.

Just for safe measure.

You looked around again before making your way toward the empty seat opposite the newspaper-reading boy. He wore a plain white collared shirt, the top buttons undone, paired with simple dark shorts, giving him a youthful yet old-fashioned look.

As you approached, the boy noticed you and looked up, raising a questioning brow, which greatly amused you.

You gave a small smile before asking in a rather level voice, “Is anyone sitting here?”

“Well, it’s not exactly occupied, now is it?”

A familiar tone of dryness, tinted with a grain of sarcasm, dripped from the boy’s reply.

Your smile grew as you pulled your hands out of your pockets and gestured toward the seat. “Then do you mind?”

The boy, usually armed with harsh and sharp remarks, shook his head.

You sat down and picked up the cup, noticing that it contained your favorite drink, as if the boy in front of you knew something you didn’t. As if he had almost expected you to come and find him.

You brought the cup to your mouth, took a sip, then another, before gingerly setting it down back upon the table, a warm feeling spreading in your chest. Then, you took another look around.

This time, your attention was mainly on the boy in front of you, who seemed a little out of place in such a peaceful setting. The wind gently tousled his hair and rustled his shirt, causing him to clutch the newspaper a little tighter, pretending to be uninterested.

You decided to also pretend you didn’t notice his occasional glances toward you. You pretended you didn’t notice the searching look in his eyes, a habit he tended to have when he hadn’t seen you in a while. A habit of his that you would keep to yourself, hidden away from the dangers of the world.

“It’s a nice day, isn’t it?”

The boy sighed, looking away while taking a sip of his black coffee. “If you say so.”

You leaned against the table, one arm supporting one side of your face as you put on what he dubbed your ‘shit-eating grin’. “Why don’t you play with the kids over there? You know, kids your age.”

With a sharp, unamused glare, he responded, "I'd rather chew on concrete," his voice flat and unamused.

You huffed in your seat. “Somehow, even on such a nice day, you still manage to make it old and boring.”

"Maybe if you raised your standards, you’d actually appreciate reading the newspaper and having a simple drink while at it. But I won’t hold my breath."

“Prick.”

“Amateur.”

You sat up, narrowing your eyes. “Hey, says the one who looks like a–”

“One more word and I’ll have you up in that tree over there.”

“...”

You smirked, leaning in. “As if you could stand being apart from my charming company.”

He rolled his eyes, but a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Aren’t we full of ourselves today?”

“What? Can’t I enjoy myself on such a lovely morning?”

He scoffed, glancing away from your teasing expression, and mumbled under his breath, “I suppose some people have to.”

You look at the boy, the way he was looking away from you as the tips of his ears turn a slight red. You twirl the cup in your hands that contains your preferred drink, the one you usually order when out and about, and can’t help but think to yourself:

What a liar.

Though, you guess you’ll cut the boy some slack, he after all has worked quite hard for way too many years to count. You’ll let him have this one, just this one.

And so, instead of teasing him anymore, you rest your hand on your elbows and stare at the scenery of the park, soaking in his presence and the fact that he is finally here with you.

He was here safe and sound.

Ah. You suppose you were both liars.

“You're doing it again,” spoke the boy out of the blue.

You turned towards him with a cheeky smile, “What exactly am I doing?”

“That ridiculous face.”

You rolled your eyes and stuck out your tongue, “Bleh,”

He gave you a disgusted look as if he couldn’t believe you’d done something so childish, but you couldn’t care less. After everything you’d both been through, you deserved to indulge in such small matters.

Certainly, it was not the end of the world, was it?

He sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose before muttering, “I can’t believe I somehow have to put up with you…”

And yet, he made no attempt to move. Instead, he seemed to settle even more comfortably into his park chair.

You paused for a moment, taking in his ‘I’m seriously done with you’ expression before adding, “Yeah, and I’m a grumpy teenager who’s emotionally constipated in apparently every timeline.”

The boy shot you an unamused glare. “I'm not.”

"Yeah, you are."

"Idiot."

His retort was lacking in bite, something you’d come to recognize as his way of showing that he couldn’t find anything harsher to say.

“Fine! Then ask her,” you said, pointing at the mannequin beside him.

The boy let out an exasperated sigh, clearly used to your antics, before turning toward the object of your pointing.

“Delores doesn’t think so.”

"Oh yeah? Is that what she really said?"

He put on a sly grin. "Why don't you ask her yourself and find out?"

You turned toward the mannequin, playing along. "Has he been mistreating you while I've been away?"

He took a sharp breath, his voice dripping with mock indignation. "How dare you insinuate such an outrageous—"

“Oh, you’ll live,” you muttered as you took another sip from the cup.

“Prick.”

“Ass.”

“Annoying.”

“...”

You and he shared a small staring contest before you broke into a fit of laughter. The childish insults hadn’t been lost on either of you despite the years. Even with his usual sharp and witty remarks, it seemed that your banter had devolved into a playful exchange, bringing you both back to simpler times.

He looked at you with an exasperated expression, but couldn’t hide the corners of his mouth from twitching upwards.

But of course, you were unable to see this, too caught up in your own little laugh. This also caused you to miss the way he had briefly looked at you, as if he too were saving this moment in his mind, causing his usually sharp persona to soften, if only slightly. He’d never admit it, not in a hundred years.

The laughter died down, and you noticed the silence that settled over you. You looked up at the boy, finding him already looking at you. A comfortable silence enveloped the three of you, including the mannequin, and you couldn’t help but let out a soft smile.

And he looked at your smile, one that he would never tell you that it made him want to look away as a burning feeling crept up his ears. He’ll never tell you he noticed the light in your eyes as you did so, the way your eyes looked at him made him feel some sort of way. He’ll never tell you it was that smile, along with everything else, that had him crawling through time to get back to you, to see it again.

To see you and his family again, alive and well.

He’ll never tell you that he missed that smile, and he often wondered when he would see it again. He would never tell you that he had gone to your favorite coffee shop and bought two drinks instead of one, he’ll never tell you he had been sitting here all morning, waiting.

Instead, you two simply shared the silence in the distance.

Perhaps at another time, you would do something about this silence, you would reach out, and touch upon all the things you two were too afraid to say.

Perhaps one day, this silence would allow the two of you to be vulnerable without hesitation and caution. And perhaps one day, you’ll be able to reach over to take and take his hand in yours, to invite him to dance with you in the late of night or rain. You’ll both wear a smile, perhaps a tired smile, but a smile nonetheless, and you’ll both be listening to the best 90s bangers of the ages on an old record player.

But at least for today, the two of you will take your time.

Because today, you’d enjoy each other’s presence and the trivial banter. After all, you had all the time in the world.

It had been a while since you last bickered with the boy, much less joked and laughed. It was nice. 

Really nice.

Was it sad to say that this was all you ever wanted? To sit down, share a drink, and talk about useless and stupid things? That you wouldn’t trade this for the world, that you would fight to keep this moment in your hands.

The boy looked back at you before straightening his newspaper, effectively regaining your attention.

“Stop zoning out.”

“My bad.”

He rolled his eyes, muttering something along the lines of how he didn’t go through all that shit just for you to start staring into space and feeling sad or whatnot.

Your foot brushed against his for a brief moment. At first, you meant to pull it back, but instead, you left it there to gauge his reaction. He didn’t move his foot away, and you couldn’t tell if he was ignoring it or deliberately letting it stay there.

You stare at him, silently, before a question tumbles its way from your mind and to your lips, “Are you happy?”

The question lingered in the air between the two of you, like an untouched subject that none of you had dared to ask in the past. It was out of reach back then, and there had been much more pressing things to be worrying about.

And maybe, just maybe, that between you and him, one of these days you can truly rest. It’ll be a day just like today, and the distance between the two of you will be like a distant memory, and you can once again lean on him, as you had always done, and he can melt into you, as he had once done before.

The boy looked away from you and into the distance, observing the lively park as the sun enveloped him in the warmth he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Nothing was out of the ordinary—if you didn’t count the teenage-looking boy drinking coffee with his mannequin and the newspaper he was reading in the middle of a park.

He looked down and smiled, the sun gently caressing his features as a genuine smile graced his face, but of course, it wouldn’t be him if he didn’t try to hide it as he answered in a soft uncharacteristic voice, “Yeah…yeah I am.”

You looked at him, seeing the way he was trying to hide his emotions, and rolled your eyes. It seemed no matter the time or place, he was still the same, and for that, you couldn’t have asked for more.

Perhaps, in a way, this meant the future was bright. That a time would come when this tranquility, so unfamiliar now, would become all you know. Even if today was just the beginning.

You took another sip from the cup and smiled.

“I’m glad.”

Extra.

"Hey, you should tell me where you got these drinks."

"What now?"

He rolled his eyes, feigning uninterest.

"Seriously! I know you bought these for me."

He continued flipping through the pages of the newspapers.

"Oh, did I? And what if I said they’re for Delores?"

You held up the drink.

"Delores prefers lattes, not this."

"Does she? How fascinating."

"Prick!"

He set the newspaper aside and gave you an amused look.

“Fine. I’ll take you there next time. Happy now?”

You don’t point out that this was his way of admitting he did buy the drinks with you in mind, but you’re too content to press the issue. You decided to let him off the hook... again.

[garciaswebhistory]

Crushed; Reader x Spencer

warnings: mentions of torture, rape, possible death

summary: the one time you take off a case and your boyfriend goes, he ends up as a hostage inside of a violent, religious cult

based around S4, E3 timeline “Minimal Loss”

Vacation time. An unknown concept of a job for an FBI agent, especially a BAU member. Every day, the air was sick with energy and adrenaline as the constant cases flooded in.

Of course, as you looked down at your wrapped up foot that had been itching like crazy for the past five and a half weeks, you realized how boring vacation was. Especially when your boyfriend had gone back to work, even though he hadn’t wanted to. 

But his job needed him and his brain more than you needed him to give you a massage every five minutes and follow you around like a lost puppy.

 Always a conference call, neighborhood serial killer, an issue with the public media, or the occasional terrorist kept everyone on their toes, and it was addicting. How or why would anyone ever want to leave?

Sure, seeing a dead body at least twice a month, or the occasional fear of being taken as a hostage was always there. The fact that your life was more at risk than others, or that it was more common to get shot than not on the daily?

 Again, good reasons. But that was what kept you coming back day after day.

You were 25, having joined the BAU three years ago, and like the adrenaline junkie you were with a thing for men in uniform, you fit right in. Not to mention your team that was more of a family then your biological relatives, and your wonderful boyfriend and now fiancé Spencer Reid.

He was 30, with a baby face, sharp jawline, and curly brown hair. He was a doll baby, sweet and sensitive but could take down someone if he had to. You two were just perfect for each other, and it was obvious to everyone who saw you two in the same room. 

You gravitate towards one another, smiling, winking playfully, giggling, and playing footsies. You two were like small children with one another… best friends and the love of each other’s lives.

Just two nights ago, he had proposed to you after 15 months, 2 weeks, and four days of being together (you knew this thanks to your lover boy computer), so you had given him the obvious answer. 

Some would have said that you were moving too fast, but that was just the life of a federal agent who put their lives on the battlefield for the sake of others on a regular occasion. Never once had you questioned him being your soulmate, and you never would. 

After him being kidnapped and shot multiple times, and you being raped and tortured horribly on separate occasions, life just was too precious for you to beat around the bush. Plus, even 

Rossi said that he knew what a failed relationship looked like, and that failed relationships didn’t cook with one another, draw faces on each other while sleeping, or put their lives at risk for one another. 

Again… soulmates. :)

Maybe that was why you had been so happy when you had taken a pregnancy test just minutes ago and had now found it positive. You ran to the couch, trying your best to ease your broken foot that was so close to healing. 

Grabbing your phone, you opened it to dial your boyfriend’s number when the tv in front of you caught your attention. You always kept the News on when Spencer was gone, fearing you’d miss something. Plus the missing people reports and traffic jams in your city were no news to you.

“Here I am, right outside of an underground facility in La Plata County, Colorado that is said to be hospitalizing a cult. Among the cult are women, children, and three child services agents held hostage who went in earlier to do a wellness check. Federal units are doing their best to get everyone out safely but so far the progress has been minimal. I will have more on this story as we continue this.”

You stopped cold, remembering JJ give the evaluation of the case to everyone just hours before you had to say goodbye to the team. It was a call from a teen girl about underage marriages and Cyrus, the cult leader, taking advantage of his young, female followers. The cult was on a ranch, and was its own society basically. 

You had wanted to go, but had been told to stay home by everyone on the team. Spencer had wanted to stay with you, but he was a valuable part of the plan. He was to go with Pretniss and a real child services agent to disguise themselves and not cause any panic. But now… He was a hostage.

You dialed Garcia’s phone, knowing that she would be the one most likely to have their phone and not be preoccupied, although that was already a long stretch. Fortunately though, you remembered that you were Garcia’s third favorite person after her boyfriend and Morgan. 

“Thank you for calling Fairy Godmother and Gizmos, your fairy godmother speaking.” She chimed in, sounding stressed but like she was trying to put on a brave face. “Hey, it’s Y/n. I’m sorry to call like this but I need to know what’s going on.”

You could head typing on her keyboard before she cleared her throat. “Alrighty, here’s what we know but it’s not much. Reid and Prentiss went in with another agent to check out the call and then there was a raid we weren’t aware of. Right now, they don’t have any reason to hurt any of them. I- What? Oh god, oh god.”

You suddenly became terrified, screaming into the cell phone as your eyes laid glued onto the tv screen. “Garcia? What? What is it?” You asked as you heard her heavy breathing on the other side. “Hotch gave me access to their radio so I can listen in, and… they just… Oh my god.” You hated the pause, wanting to both hug and kill her in that moment.

“One of the agents got hit in the raid, but they’re not saying which one. Hold on, I’ll forward you to Hotch.” You heard her clicking her keyboard even more. “Oh and Y/n? Whenever you get in touch with our boyfriend, tell him I’m going to kill him if he doesn’t come back in one piece.” 

“Not if I do it first.” You heard Garcia chuckle at your response, but you didn’t feel like smiling even though she was trying hard. Spencer was in danger. You stayed on the phone until you heard Rossi’s deep tone.

“Hello? Agent Rossi.” He picked up on Hotch’s phone, and for a second you thought Hotch was in trouble too. “Rossi! I… I need you to tell me what’s going on. The news isn’t giving me anything and I… I don’t know what to do. I knew I should have come.” You began crying, letting the hormones control you.

“Hey, listen to me. Reid needs you strong. We all do. Reid is in there, but we have no reason to think he’s been injured.” He tried to explain, but it didn’t help the tears streaming down your face. “What about Cyrus? He said one of them got hit.” You heard a sigh from Rossi and began crying even more.

“Yes, the agent Pretniss and Reid went in with died. But it wasn’t the cult’s doing. I don’t think they’re going to hurt him.” Rossi tried to make you feel better, and he did, but it only gave you more questions.

“What do they want with them?” You asked as Rossi sighed. You could tell he was just at a loss like you were. “If we get the women, children and our agents out, Cyrus knows that we will have no reason to hold back. He has to keep them alive or else he’s as good as dead.” 

“Just… bring him home Rossi. All of you better be at the agency tomorrow at 7 on the dot. Please. I’ll call you back if I hear something happens.” You began to hang up before you heard Rossi chuckle lightly. “Yes mam.”

You sighed in relief as you grabbed a pillow and hugged it against your body, squeezing it tightly. All the times you had taken Spencer for granted, telling him to go to work and not waste his time with you. 

Now, all you wanted was to be in his arms. You wanted to comb through his hair with your fingers and give him a massage for once. Did he know how much you loved him? Did he know how obsessed you were with him? How you would trade places with him right now without a second thought. 

God, you should have gone. Fuck your bad foot, you could stand there and watch. You could watch a building from a safe distance like all of them were doing. You could even go in, and maybe they would take it easy on you and not suspect anything if they saw you were injured.

Anything was better than having your one and only in a building of armed, mentally disordered people with secrets and something to die for. You gripped the pillow tighter, and began silently crying again. You just wanted him there. Was that too much to ask?

Finally, the News updated. “Live from the source. After speaking with the federal agents, it is known that one of the two alive hostages right now is an FBI agent. I am looking right now at the ranch, which is circled with SWAT vehicles. We can only hope that this won’t be the bloody battle it’s leading up to.”

You froze, dropping the remote and watching the back of it snap off, sending the two batteries rolling across the floor in opposite directions. Your immediate reaction was the call Rossi, and with your hand shaking, that’s exactly what you did. 

“We saw Y/n, we saw. I don’t know how they knew that but it’s… it’s not good.” Rossi confessed. losing your attention for a minute. “H- Is he going to die? Are they going to kill him? Rossi answer me!” You yelled into the phone, hearing muffled yelling but no answer.

“I’ve got to go Y/n. I’m sorry. I’ll call you back when any of us can talk.” And he hung up on you, leaving you feeling empty and alone on the couch that you had once sat on with Spencer, in the apartment you both paid for. You glanced at your stomach and sighed, putting your hand on it.

It looked normal now, but in just weeks it would become obvious. When would you take off work? When would you tell the team? Who would be the godfather and mother? When would you tell Spencer? Would you ever even be able to tell Spencer?

No. You slapped your hand. You can’t think like that. You have to be strong. For Spencer. For yourself. For everyone.

You held your legs to your chest and put your phone down, staring at the tv and then at your phone. Please give me an update. Please give me something. 

Hours passed, and although the News did hourly updates, the only change was that it was now nighttime. Finally, you picked up your phone and dialed JJ, knowing she’d be updated on everything and possibly free.

“Y/n? How are you holding up?” She asked, and you again were reminded why JJ was the BAU’s voice to the public. Her soft voice could almost convince you that your boyfriend and team’s life wasn’t at risk.

“Nobody is answering my calls and I’m so scared JJ. I… Just tell me straight. Please.” You explained as you heard her sigh on the other end. “Reid and Pretniss were questioned and Pretniss confessed that she was the FBI agent. She got beat up pretty bad.”

You felt relieved, but also guilty for feeling such. Poor Emily had confessed to save your boyfriend from a painful fate, and you would remember to give her a nice gift if and when she came back. 

“They gave us almost half of their people, and we don’t know why. Right now, we think they’re going to commit mass suicide. There’s no evidence that they’re going to hurt Reid. Just… Just relax.” JJ tried to comfort you, but you still felt uneasy. 

“I just… I…” You stared at the tv as they were doing another hourly update. It looked like nothing had changed. That was, until a large light hit your tv. You put on your glasses with regret of taking your contacts out, and then stared at the tv screen in horror.

A large explosion replaced where the church had sat, and it took a moment to register that the explosion had been the mass suicide JJ had just told you about. “Oh my god!!” You screamed, dropping your phone as you raised your hands to your mouth.

“Y/n? Y/n? Answer me!” You heard the phone click as JJ hung up, but you didn’t care. You stared at the tv, and couldn’t help but feel your heart drop. Spencer was inside. Pretniss was inside. JJ would have told you if either of them had come out. He would have called you surely.

“N-No.” You stuttered, unable to grasp the concept that he was gone. He was hurt. He was… dead. No… You were about to cry out, but your phone began buzzing, snapping you out of it.

You grasped it slowly and brought it to your ear with your shaking hand. “Hello?” You spoke, feeling your voice quiver from the sobs threatening to come out. “Y/n? It’s Hotch.” You nodded, realizing the let down when you realized it wasn’t Reid, but your boss.

“Everyone is okay. I just called to tell you that.” You froze, just holding the phone without noticing the man on the other line trying to get your attention. “What time are you getting to the airport?” You asked, already getting your shoes on. 

“Six thirty, why?” Hotch asked, but you had already hung up. You fixed your hair, put in your contacts, and grabbed the keys, ready to go.

The car ride to the airport was long, but the wait inside the building was even longer. Every minute felt like an hour, and every brown-haired man in the building looked like Spencer from afar. You just needed to see him. You wanted to see him.

You would have called him or texted him, but you now knew he was on a plane, and you just had to wait.

Finally, though, six-thirty came, and you prayed that Hotch would stick to his word like every other time. You waited at the gate, and after checking it three times in five minutes, you knew you just had to play the waiting game of misery. Around you, airport security and employees gave you pitiful glances as you paced, sniffled, and tried to hold yourself together.

Slowly though, you began to sink into your seat and drift off into a light sleep, only to be awakened by your boyfriend. “Hey Baby.” You murmured before closing your eyes again.

Wait.

“Oh my God, Spencer!” You jumped up and wrapped your arms around him, dangling like the shorty you were. “I… Oh my… I hate you so much.” Spencer laughed lightly, feeling your grip around him tightly. “I… I thought you died. I thought… I’d never see you again.” You began crying, finally letting all your emotions resurface. You felt his grip on you tighten as he lowered you back to your feet.

“You were inside and then I saw the bomb and I-” The tears kept you from talking as you buried your face into his chest. “I hate you so much.” You whispered, holding onto his shirt tightly. “Don’t ever leave me again. We need you here.” You looked up at him as he stared at you with confusion. “We?” 

You patted your stomach and grinned slyly. “I-I’m pregnant.” You confessed, watching his eyes light up with happiness and surprise. “Y-You’re kidding. That’s… Oh my god!” He looked overjoyed, lifting you up by the waist and twirling you around.

“I’m going to be a Dad!” He shouted, the few other people around the terminal giving applause. “Oh my gosh, there’s so much to do. So much to buy. So many people to tell. I have to read all those parenting books!” Spencer began to pace around before you brought him back to reality with a hug. “Just kiss me to start.”

[takadasaiko]

Spanning Years, Continents: Never Happier (a Veronica Mars one-shot)

A series of LoVe-centered one shots set between the end of the movie and the beginning of S4.

FFN II AO3

Summary: Logan returns home from deployment just in time to help Veronica (finally) move into her new apartment.

Never Happier

He hadn't been sure what to make of the fact that she hadn't found a place in Neptune for the whole six months that he had been deployed. She had had her things shipped over from New York, but most of them remained boxed up in her dad's guest room, waiting for a permanent home without any real promise of one. Not that he had a place of his own either, but with the long stretches of time that he was in another part of the world, it had always just seemed more practical to keep his things at Dick's. It wasn't like Dick didn't have the room and he tended to be over there a fair amount when he was stateside anyway. Veronica, on the other hand, had told him she was moving back to Neptune. That indicated a sort of permanent stay that should have warranted digs of her own and the way she kept sidestepping the answer had started to make him nervous.

It wasn't until Logan actually got back that he found the real answer, and he had teased her mercilessly for it.

"See, you say you were waiting on the perfect apartment to open up and all I'm hearing is you were waiting on me to come home so you wouldn't have to hire movers," he said as he passed through the doorway with his arms full of as many boxes as he dared to stack on top of one another.

"Rude," Veronica laughed from her place leaned against a bookshelf that hadn't found a home yet. She kicked out, her for nudging the back of his knee so that he just about lost everything. She shot him a sheepish grin as he turned. Like she knew she hadn't thought it through. Good thing there was nothing breakable in these particular boxes. "I do pay in pizza and beer."

"Really?" He dropped the load down in a corner. "Because I was under the distinct impression sex was part of my fee. Looks like you're on your own for that fridge."

He turned and found her there, that bright, playful smile he had missed tugging into place. She wrapped her arms around his neck and tipped up, her lips painfully close to his without actually touching. "I think we can come to some kind of arrangement."

Logan wasn't willing to wait. Instead he leaned in, the kiss playful as he picked her up off of her feet and there was no hesitation as she wrapped her legs around his waist so she had the leverage to deepen the kiss. "Shoulda started with the bed," he mumbled.

"You'd think we'd learn."

His kisses started traveling down her jaw to her neck, but he paused in place as they heard a shout from the beach below. "Dude, is someone moving in or is this free stuff?"

"We should probably finish getting the stuff in," he grumbled softly.

Veronica gave a loud, dramatic sigh as she slid back to standing and then started for the door. "Don't touch my shit! We're moving in!"

"We?" Logan echoed smally, but she didn't hear him. She was already terrorizing the poor surfers that had been loitering about down there. He stepped out onto the small porch just outside her front door and watched as she chased the two teens down the way, a smile tugging into place. She was beautiful, even hot and sweaty from moving, hair tied up and flushed from yelling. He leaned against the railing and watched in amusement. That fire had never died in her and he loved it.

"What are you gawking at up there, sailor?" she teased and he gave her a wink.

"Oh, just this crazy lady with a taser."

"They better be glad I didn't have my taser," she huffed and he started down the stairs. The sooner they got everything in, the sooner they could get back to remembering just how much they'd missed each other while he'd been gone. And for the last nine years or so, but hey.

A few more boxes and a fridge later they had everything inside and Veronica closed the door and cranked down the air conditioning, half collapsing next to the closest set of boxes. Logan disappeared into the bedroom to make sure the bed was put together. It was an adventure of its own and it shouldn't have been nearly as difficult as it turned out to be. He handled multi-billion dollar equipment in life or death situations with ease, but finding the correct screws for the headboard seemed to be outside of his skill set. Well, it wasn't like he'd put together a whole lot of furniture in his lifetime. Maybe it was just time for a break.

"You want me to order the pizza?" he called out into the living room where Veronica had gone strangely quiet. When he didn't receive an answer, Logan unfolded himself from the floor and his circle of useless and ill fitting screws to pad his way into the living room. "Veronica?"

She was seated on the floor with her back to him, her shoulders hunched forward and her focus fixed on something in her hands. She didn't react as he drew closer, her steps quiet but not silent, and he saw what had her attention.

Nimble, pale fingers caressed photos that had to have been twelve or thirteen years old, but he knew the faces well. "That was Lilly's sixteenth birthday party, wasn't it?"

His voice seemed to break the spell and Veronica looked back and up at him. "Yeah."

Logan took a seat with her, his brown eyes scanning the laughing faces of his high school girlfriend, best friend, and the girl that had grown into the woman he loved. They'd been so young. So free. Lilly's death had changed so much.

"I still miss her," Veronica said quietly. "It was strange in New York because no one there knew her. It's not that I missed her any less, just that no one could…"

"Get it?"

"Yeah."

"Is it okay to admit I miss her too?" Logan asked softly as he picked a photo out of the pile. Lilly was smiling brightly for the camera in one outstretched hand. Her other arm was around a fifteen-year-old Logan's neck as she pulled him in, a bottle of champagne held in that hand. They'd both been well past tipsy by that point.

Veronica made a small sound of acknowledgement and leaned into him. Logan shifted and wrapped one arm around her shoulders to give her more support in her lean. He pressed a kiss to her blonde hair.

"You think she'd be happy for us?"

It took him a moment to register the question. "Seventeen-year-old Lilly, probably not. But don't worry. She'd be pissed at me, not you."

His girlfriend laughed softly at that. "And now? If she'd lived? Do you think we'd still be together?"

"Yes." There wasn't a millisecond of hesitation in his answer and Veronica turned to look at him, those clear blue eyes of hers boring into his soul. He purses his lips together, digging deep for the courage to be raw and honest. "I've had a lot of time to think about a lot of things over the years. After you transferred to Stanford, when you went to New York, this deployment….. Nothing feels right without you. You may not have been the only one ever, but you're the one."

He watched, terrified of the response and wondering if it would have been better to opt for a more typical tease. The mood had been heavy enough without him dropping that on her, no matter how deeply he felt it. He watched as Veronica's expression softened slowly from curiosity to something like awe and she reached up to pull him into a gentle kiss. "Our story is epic," she whispered.

"Years and continents," he agreed and returned the kiss.

"I want to think she's happy for us," Veronica whispered.

"Me too, but she'd probably give us hell for being so sappy."

Veronica choked on a laugh and Logan flashed her a grin as she rocked back to settle on the floor again. She looked at the photos. "I haven't gotten much done."

"Yeah, we're going to need to call someone to put that bed together."

"Seriously?" He snorted and she grinned, nudging his shoulder. She stuck her hand out. "Give me the screwdriver and go order the pizza. I'll take care of it."

"Oh. You're supposed to use a screwdriver?" he teased and she swatted at him, barely missing as he popped to his feet. He found his phone on the counter as she started back for the bedroom.

"No spinach!" she shouted over her shoulder and Logan found himself smiling. He took one more glance back at the piles of photos that would be tucked back away by the end of the night and he hoped Veronica was right that Lilly would be happy for them. He knew he was. He'd never been happier than each new moment he lived knowing Veronica Mars loved him.

------

Notes:

I've had people recommending that I watch Veronica Mars for years, and I finally did. It took me far less time than it should have to binge the show from S1 through the movie and to the end of S4 (I refuse to acknowledge that the last 10 minutes or so of S4 exist and/or are canon). I've fallen hard for these two, and while I'm working on a multi chapter in another fandom I thought one shots would be a nice way to let some of the plot bunnies run free without needing to keep to a strict schedule.

So here we go. The first in a line of short ideas I have. The will all take place in the same 'verse and will be set between the end of the movie and the beginning of S4, but may not be in chronological order.

I'm hoping the fandom is still reading. If you are, please let me know what you think!

[lassieposting]

Tell us about Lucifer’s depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm, and past abuse. I mean I can see the self harm, both the obvious In cutting off his wings and the like as well as the unhealthy self medicating, and the abuse - which honestly comes across as a murky gray area, like some verges on abuse but isn’t quite- but the other things... I need them pointed out to me.

GLADLY, ANON

okay so, to cover my ass: this is just my personal take as someone with trauma & suicidal ideation who self-harms. other people with different trauma and different relationships with self-harm/suicidal ideation might see this whole thing completely differently. This post could be triggering, please pay attention to the triggers in the tags. I am not a professional psychiatrist, and if you are struggling please seek professional help. 

i’m gonna break this down into sections bc, surprise surprise, it got rly long

THE ABUSE:

Now, you’re absolutely right that this is kind of a murky grey area, because at this point we really only have one side of the story: Lucifer’s. And obviously, he’s biased. 

the family dynamics:

But let’s take a look at the family dynamics we see in-show. We’ve only seen a fraction of Lucifer’s family, but it’s still fairly obvious that the ways they interact with one another are unhealthy and tend towards abusive, especially when aimed at Lucifer. 

We have Amenadiel, who: 

Is obedient to his Dad on an almost brainwashed level until he falls. 

Blames everything - including his own actions/failures (i.e. saying Malcolm killing humans is Lucifer’s fault, even though Amenadiel himself raised Malcolm from Hell) on Lucifer.

Does not know how to respond to affection or praise, even though he clearly appreciates and enjoys them (i.e. when Trixie hugs him and says she thinks he’s good). This is the son who’s in God’s good books. And he still clearly doesn’t receive affection or praise often. 

Openly competes with Lucifer for Dad’s attention/love, to the point of rubbing it in his face when he discovers he’s the favourite

Is complicit in Lucifer’s abuse - taking him back to Hell (thereby isolating him), threatening him when he doesn’t want to go, and cutting off any attempt Lucifer makes at reaching out to connect with humanity - for billions of years to try and win his Dad’s approval. 

Straight up tries to have Lucifer killed.

Says he’d love to go to war (with Lucifer, and presumably with Hell as a whole). 

We have Uriel, who:

Takes it upon himself to enforce what he believes is his Dad’s will; he had no instructions from God when he came to Earth. 

Delights in getting the opportunity to beat up Amenadiel, and gloats about it. 

Threatens - and harms - the first good thing Lucifer has had in his life in eons as a way of bullying him into doing what Uriel wants.

When Lucifer complies, Uriel decides to kill both Goddess and Chloe, purely out of spite because Lucifer was “being difficult”.

(There is an interesting meta here on Uriel’s potential motivations that I really like, but this is looking purely at his actions.)

And we have Goddess, their mother, easily the most manipulative and emotionally abusive of the lot. She:

Admits to destroying things God cared about - attacking humanity with plagues and floods etc - out of malice and to get his attention. 

Happily releases Azrael’s blade into human hands, hoping for widespread human deaths, to get her ex to get back in touch. 

Plays Lucifer and Amenadiel off against one another like a pro for her approval. 

Only ever touches her children when she’s trying to manipulate them - there’s a good meta on that here. The one exception to this that I personally believe to be a genuine attempt to comfort (both him and herself) is when she hugs Lucifer after he’s just killed Uriel. 

Doesn’t actually care about what Lucifer wants - he’s told her outright that Earth is the only place where he feels wanted and respected, and she knows he has a life he enjoys and a woman he’s falling in love with, but she expects him to abandon Earth and go back to the Silver City with her regardless - to the point that she actively tries to dismantle his human life and kill his loved ones to leave him with no ties to Earth. 

The picture this paints to me is of two incredibly narcissistic parents who see their children as extensions of themselves rather than as people in their own right. If you compare Lucifer - who’s an asshole, but fundamentally a good man - to his siblings here, you can see that the two who stayed in Heaven have caught fleas from their parents - and part of Amenadiel’s redemption arc is him realising how toxic and damaging his family is, giving himself a damn good flea bath, and doing his best to be a better big brother to Lucifer and a better son to his mom (and, later, a better father to Charlie than his Dad was to him). 

angel life cycle

So apparently in canon, angels were created as adults. My personal headcanon is fuck that, baby angels, but we’ll go with the canon explanation for this, because honestly it still lines up with my theory. 

Even if you’re “born” with a mature adult body and adult-level speech ability etc, you still won’t have an adult’s wealth of life experience, or maturity, or social skills. You’re still going to have to grow and learn and experience situations to learn how to cope with them. 

Now, Tom Ellis has said in the past that he plays Lucifer as essentially having the emotional maturity level of a teenager, which I think is honestly perfect. For an immortal being - or at least a being with a lifespan of many, many billions of years - it’s actually fairly believable that the angels are (depending on the age gap between them) either still in the “adolescent” life stage or emerging into the “young adult” one. 

Lucifer says that he’s spent “most of his life” in Hell. If he’s only a young adult now, at ~11 billion years old, that means he’d have been a juvenile (in terms of life experience/emotional development, even if he was “born” with a fully mature adult body) when he was sent to Hell, and the reason he was sent to Hell is because he wanted free will and started “acting out”. 

Even if your 12-year-old is the most unpleasant, rebellious little shithead on the planet, you don’t kick him out of the house and spent the next decade sabotaging every attempt he makes to connect with people or improve his life. Because, you know. That’s your kid. You signed up to have him, that’s normal shitty teenager behaviour, and the chances are he’ll improve with age. God and Goddess went scorched earth on Lucifer because he was behaving in a completely normal way for a kid beginning to mature into a grownup. 

lasting trauma

Lucifer’s parents’ treatment has left some crazy deep scars. 

He uses a neglectful broken home as an analogy for his celestial family. And he does so incredibly smoothly; this is clearly an analogy he’s thought about before. Chances are he’s seen this dynamic on TV and identified very strongly with it. 

He talks about his mother abandoning him as his “lowest point”.  Not his Fall. Not any of the horrific things he’s seen in Hell. The point where he realised his mom doesn’t love him enough to protect him. 

He doesn’t understand what he did wrong. God punished Lucifer harshly for wanting to control his own life, because narcs often see their children’s developing independence as a threat to their own control over their kids’ lives. Obviously He wouldn’t see it like that, but he’s clearly never explained to Lucifer why what he did was “wrong”. This family has a chronic communication problem. 

He’s paranoid as fuck. He constantly suspects God of having a hand in the events happening around him, and any time it seems He is involved, Lucifer immediately sees whatever’s happening as an attempted manipulation. It never occurs to him that creating Chloe - someone immune to his powers who can really love him without any kind of supernatural influence - could be an olive branch or an attempt to give him what he actually needs. He doesn’t believe his Dad would ever do something positive to/for him. 

He’s so badly traumatized by his childhood that he reacts like this to being called by the name his Dad gave him. And he’s clearly doing well in therapy - he might not know the word for it, but he knows he’s being (unintentionally) gaslit here. He doesn’t handle it well, but he doesn’t put up with it either, refuses to accept being told to see his Dad’s abuse as a sign of love. 

He believes he’s unloveable. When Linda gently suggests that maybe Chloe kissed him purely because she likes him, he tells her that’s impossible and reminds her his powers don’t work on Chloe. He doesn’t think there’s any way someone could love him for who he is, unless he’s either giving them something or using his mojo on them. And it’s his family that’s conditioned him to think that way - look at Amenadiel alone, how many times he tells Lucifer he’s evil throughout the show, as casually as if he were telling him that his hair is brown. This is just a fact of the universe in that family: water is wet, leaves are green, Lucifer is irredeemable garbage. 

He doesn’t for a second hesitate to believe that his Dad wanted to kill him. Or that he would kill him given the opportunity. He even thinks Chloe is his dad’s attempt to get him killed for a bit. 

THE SELF HARM

the wings: 

The blatantly obvious one - and the most deliberate - is when he cuts off his wings. Now when Lucifer talks about this, he frames it as him taking back agency over his own life, freeing himself from his Father’s control, and making a statement about his intention to stay on Earth. 

But when you look at him, he doesn’t look victorious, or like he’s looking forward to starting a new life. Physical pain aside - and an amateur amputation would be agonizing - he looks almost like he’s grieving, gritting his teeth through something he feels he has no choice but to do. 

Someone did a fantastic meta that I thought I’d reblogged at some point that says something like “this isn’t the devil in his moment of triumph against god; this is an abused boy mutilating himself to spite his father”. I wanted to link it, but I haven’t been able to find it again (if anyone finds it, please let me know so I can add a link).  

the self-medicating:

I don’t think he realises this is a form of self-harm, and I don’t think he does it to hurt himself deliberately. But he comes to Earth to overindulge in all the things he can’t have in Hell, all the things he’s been cut off from. 

Touch and affection, which he gets through sex. Oblivion, which he gets by drinking. Euphoria, which he gets from drugs. Socialisation, which he gets from being surrounded by people at all times and partying it up 24/7.

It doesn’t matter to him that the touch is from a stranger, it doesn’t matter that the affection only lasts one night, it’s something and that’s more than he’s getting in Hell. He buries himself in those things to forget that he has to go back. He can bury himself in the next line or the next shot or the next attractive body and, just for a little bit, he can forget who he is.

Sending Lucifer to Hell in and of itself is cruel. Angels are clearly social creatures, and he’s been in solitary isolation for billions of years - it’s a miracle he hasn’t gone insane. Yes, he has the demons, but they don’t interact with him by choice and he’s not safe with them. Hell denies Lucifer everything a young person needs to grow into a stable, healthy adult. 

the self-sabotage:

We also see that he’s got a tendency to sabotage himself when he’s on a downward spiral. This usually comes out one of two ways - either:  

He tries to chase away the people who care about him. This comes from being so terrified of being abandoned and rejected again that he’d rather run them off himself than wait for them to inevitably (in his mind) decide that he’s Not Worth It and leave him. For example: 

He tries to push Linda away when he’s grieving after killing Uriel. 

He punches Dan in the face and gets himself thrown off the case by Chloe - she’s already warned him she would bench him if he didn’t pull himself together. 

He throws Chloe’s initial rejection in her face when he’s on his self-hatred bender in S4. 

He’s absolutely vicious to Amenadiel in this scene, when Amenadiel is trying to communicate that he loves Luci and wants to support him. 

Or he talks shit about himself. You can always tell when he’s having a bad time; he’ll start coming out with shit like, “I’m the devil, remember, I’m evil.” His real view of himself will slip out from under the mask of confidence and vanity. Chloe cuts right to the heart of this in S4; he’s been told so many times that he’s responsible for all evil that he now believes it. He blames himself, even as he vehemently denies having ever made anyone do anything. 

THE SUICIDAL IDEATION:

Jesus fuck, it’s a good thing Lucifer is in therapy. 

The first time we see him actively attempt suicide is in 1x13 when he’s being framed for shooting the street preacher. It’s a case of “the straw that broke the camel’s back” here - he’s been having a really rough time lately:

Groups of zealots are cornering him in the street accusing him of murders he didn’t commit 

Being accused of things he didn’t do is already a trigger for him

His own brother tried to have him assassinated.

His bodyguard and oldest friend betrayed him.

He’s just found out the detective makes him vulnerable. 

He knows Dan - and therefore probably other work colleagues as well - think he’s got something to do with the satanic murders. 

And now Chloe is turning her gun - and apparently her back - on him. She’s no different from anyone else. He was stupid to ever trust her, etc, etc, and now he’s spiralling.

She was the last rock keeping his head above the ocean at this point, and when she goes to arrest him, he goes under. We see that mania come out very quickly; he starts laughing hysterically and tries to goad an inexperienced uni into shooting him. He pretends to have a gun, knowing the cop will fear for his life and instinctively shoot. Since Chloe’s right there at the time, and he now knows he can be hurt around her, that’s attempted suicide. He wants to die. He even admits to Amenadiel he was trying to achieve “a good death…or at least a nice and messy one.”

No one ever addresses this bloody hell why

And then there’s the case with the shooter in the hospital. Lucifer’s grieving Uriel at this point, and he’s up to his eyeballs in self-loathing. He killed his brother. He really is the monster everyone believes he is. He’s spent the entire episode up to this point trying to make people punish him. He’s riled up Chloe at a crime scene and she’s told him off. He’s punched Dan, and Dan didn’t retaliate. He turned down Linda’s offer of continued therapy in a way that’s almost a challenge; he wants her to snap back at him. And when none of these little punishments are enough for him, he escalates and escalates and eventually he steps in front of the sniper’s intended victim and, again, goads him to shoot. He goes a bit further this time, though; he outright begs the sniper to shoot him, and reams the guy out when he says he didn’t think Lucifer deserved it. 

Again, he knows Chloe is there. This is a suicide attempt. He even admits to Chloe that he didn’t care about the intended victim, he was just trying to get himself killed. She doesn’t believe him. And it’s never addressed again, and I’m salty. 

Anyway I hope this clarifies some stuff for you anon? and I’m sorry it took so long to finish I rewrote this so many times for Maximum Sensitivity and kept including stuff and taking stuff out and it got SO LONG and i had to condense it and i have A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS OKAY I HAD A LOT TO SAY

[mittensmorgul]

Hm. I love Rowena and I think her and Sam's relationship is a delight, but I have to say I haven't noticed any particular /romantic/ cues for them? I don't hate the idea, I'm just... apparently not seeing what some other people are seeing, in canon. I'd be curious to see what specific moments are giving you that vibe as opposed to the enemies-to-friends/found family vibe I've been getting -- do you know if there are any S/R metas around, that would lay that out clearly?

Hi! I’ve heard this from a lot of people, and I’m just baffled? I mean, there’s at least as much of what I’d consider the beginnings of romantic interest as there was between Dean and Cas in s4-5-6 even… via a lot of the same tropes.

I don’t know if there’s been a proper meta on it, on the evolution of their relationship, but I guess I’m adding that to the unbearably long list of things I need to write in detail.

From their first meeting in 10.07, I wondered if there was some potential there. Rowena was a natural witch, and the history of the notion of “witch!Sam” has been floating around since he first demonstrated his demon blood powers back in s1. Here was a witch that was clearly being set up for a bigger antagonistic role in a season where she would clearly not be the Big Bad. I think a lot of people pulled the plug on that idea the minute it was discovered she was Crowley’s mother… and they just were never able to think of her in that kind of role again.

But she has a very long history with Sam, going back to the antagonistic allies-turned-whatever-the-heck-that-was at the end of s10, to her own self-discovery arc through s11 and s12, where she gradually (but almost exclusively with Sam) began to bond with the Winchesters.

Their conversation about Lucifer in 13.12 and their shared trauma over that, which Sam said he’d never even talked to Dean about… That… is groundbreaking for Sam. Considering every woman he’d ever had a relationship with in canon didn’t even know about ANY of the hunting, and yet he opened up to Rowena about something so deeply personal he’d never told another living soul? That was probably the spark for me in seeing the potential here. Literally in an episode where another pair of witches repeatedly used love spells to manipulate men to do their bidding, Rowena had this moment of naked honesty with Sam.

At the end of that episode, when Dean discovers that Sam gave Rowena the page of the grimoire that she’d wanted, Dean’s angry. Sam… trusted her, believed in her, despite saying if that decision went sideways, he’d “take care of it.” Because of what we learned in 13.19, that every single one of Billie’s books about Rowena end with Sam Winchester killing her… I mean… it’s kinda… a profound… sort of bond… they share…

She was heartbroken in that scene in the alley, when she realized that yes, Sam really could shoot her. And that moment was literally when everything changed. Sam… saw that look on her face.

You can see him feeling regret here, despite already knowing that he is “destined” to kill her. I mean… by the end of the episode (yes, Dean is there participating in the conversation, too, but this was so much between Sam and Rowena), they’re talking about changing their fates. And Rowena is now officially Team Sam.

This is also the episode where she has several opportunities to kill Sam, and yet doesn’t. She could’ve very easily rewritten her own destiny by killing him, but instead let go of one pain of her past (her guilt over Crowley). And in that moment she chose to move forward in a new way.

And since then she’s been in multiple episodes where she and Sam have paralleled Dean and Cas. I just don’t know why people refuse to see the same exact parallels they used to set up Sam’s two episode relationship with Eileen are being used between Sam and Rowena (and have been, on a much slower course than with Eileen).

She was brought in by Sam in 14.07 to help heal Jack, and Dean literally “fuzzed out” during some of those conversations. Sam was her primary contact there, despite the family feel of the episode. And then we have 14.14 where Rowena’s literally paired with Sam having some sort of heart to heart study session while Cas and Dean have their own… through the whole episode…

She stands up to Michael, terrified, and laughs at him anyway because Sam Winchester will be the one to kill her, not him. SAM WINCHESTER has effectively become her mantra that allows her to laugh in the face of her own death. I mean, that’s a freaking powerful thing. Not “oh the Winchesters” but SAM.

(this is starting to feel like attempting to explain destiel to someone who doesn’t see it… and I’m afraid I’m not doing a very good job of it)

She also fits every single one of Sam’s criteria for a relationship. She’s someone in the life. She understands his worst trauma and his struggle with magical powers. She understands his desire for security and stability. And even though she’s a witch, she’s a hunter by every definition they’ve ever given… she’s even died and come back to life (multiple times).

I need someone to tell me how this– and what I’ve shared here is literally off the top of my head and by no means the full meta I could write on this– doesn’t measure up to Sam’s relationship with Eileen. Sure, he doesn’t have a history of the “cuter” stuff they gave him with Eileen in 12.17, but that, to me, gives his relationship with Rowena even more weight in comparison.

I’ve read a lot of meta comparing Saileen to Destiel, trope for trope, the direct parallels. But that’s… small scale. Sam and Rowena, to me, parallels the bigger picture of Destiel. Maybe not point for point, but that wouldn’t really be fair to Sam, would it? Doesn’t he deserve his own unique thing, and not just a speed run through the destiel highlight reel? But the overarching, big picture evolution of their relationship is just as profound as what Dean and Cas have, and honestly that is the LEAST that Sam deserves, you know?

This is obviously not to say that I definitely think the show is going there, just as I wouldn’t say they’re definitely going there with Destiel. This is just how I see things now, and the potential I see for the future if they chose to take it there.

eta: a couple of links mel found to more structural meta on samwitch that may be of interest in addition to the added checklist item that they’ve both been possessed by an archangel now, as well (they have REALLY been pushing Rowena into being more of a hunter):

https://neven-ebrez.tumblr.com/post/183371417718/so-youre-right-about-michael-killing-the-au

and

https://neven-ebrez.tumblr.com/post/184229815703/i-really-liked-how-mary-was-portrayed-this-season

[sapphoshands]

end-of-year fandom meme!  how is it the end of the year though.  how.

1. Your main fandom of the year? i didn’t properly fall into it until july-ish, though i’d been watching earlier in the year, but nevertheless this category absolutely belongs to grace and frankie.  between the show itself, the actors, and the delightful fandom, i’m very thrilled to be in it. 2. Your favourite film watched this year? i saw a lot of truly fabulous films this year, and a lot of not-great-but-i-loved-them-anyway films, but regardless: this has to be wonder woman.  it wasn’t perfect, but it was wonder woman, on screen, and they got her right, and they got the amazons right, and i got to see it for the first time with one of my dearest friends, and i had tears of sheer joy pouring down my face almost throughout and for many subsequent viewings. 3. Your favourite book read this year? lord, this is bad, but i don’t remember anything that had a particularly profound effect on me.  our souls at night, by kent haruf, sat with me for quite a while.  but, wow.  a lot of this reading year is a blank.  that’s terrifying. 4. Your favourite TV show of the year? uhhhh grace and frankie, obvs. :P  with an honourable mention to one day at a time.   5. Your favourite online fandom community of the year? the little jane fonda appreciation society that’s convened around g&f, and the wider g&f community, are both just delightful. 6. Your best new fandom discovery of the year? g&f?  a fannish community that still writes thoughtful comments?  jane fonda’s very existence?  the ability to routinely write words that almost approximate the ones in my head?   7. Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year? the creative change on the wonder woman comic really made me sad.  the crew who followed greg and liam and nicola were... only okay... and now it is genuinely bad, and i am unhappy about that, especially since i loved the previous run so much and had had my hopes raised about it continuing.  i was also, like so many of my friends, pretty disappointed by a major choice star trek: discovery made. 8. Your fandom boyfriend of the year? ummm... boys... whyyyy????  like maybe comics steve trevor i guess?  greg threatened to give me steve feelings and he kinda did? 9. Your fandom girlfriend of the year? i don’t know whether i could properly put either grace or frankie in here. girlfriend?  idk if that’s the right term.  lorraine broughton from atomic blonde?  she and i would get on like a house on fire, and i did steal her hairdo (leading, hilariously and wonderfully, to a great conversation with one of my gay male friends about whether lesbians have the same ‘do i want to be them or do them’ problem with potential love interests - both, darling, both). 10. Your biggest squee moment of the year? wonder woman was pretty fucking big.  also the explosion of Feels surrounding the release of the grace and frankie teaser trailer in november. 11. The most missed of your old fandoms? i am too busy loving what i’m doing to miss anything.  i wish comics were being better, but my engagement with them is definitely more critical these days anyway. 12. The fandom you haven’t tried yet, but want to? i really can’t think of anything.   13. Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year? well, g&f s4 premieres in less than three weeks - horrifyingly soon, especially as i want to get the first chapter of a new fic out before then! - and oh, boy, i can’t wait / am increasingly terrified for that!  there are a bunch of movies i’m looking forward to - a wrinkle in time, black panther, proud mary, ocean’s 8, and i’m sure i’m forgetting some - and while i’m not sure i’ll be super-fannish about any of them i am anticipating them greatly.  and i’m going to SDCC, so, that is definitely a fannish anticipation. :D

[chocolatequeennk]

Forever and Never Apart, 26/42

Summary: After taking a year to recover from the Master, the Doctor and Rose are ready to travel again. But Time keeps pushing them forward, and instead of going back to their old life, they slowly realise that they’re stepping into a new life. Friends new and old are meeting on the TARDIS, and when the stars start going out, the Doctor and Rose face the biggest change of all: the return of Bad Wolf.

Series 4 with Rose, part 7 of Being to Timelessness; sequel to Taking Time (AO3 | FF.NET | TSP)

Betaed by @lastbluetardis, @rudennotgingr, @jabber-who-key, and @pellaaearien. Thank you so much!

We are finally to the Library, which gets a major rewrite. And that means this is still a prompt fill for @doctorroseprompts–imagine Doomsday didn’t happen, and rewrite one S3/S4 episode or scene.

AO3 | FF.NET | TSP

Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7 | Ch 8 | Ch 9 | Ch 10| Ch 11 | Ch 12 | Ch 13 | Ch 14 | Ch 15 | Ch 16 | Ch 17 | Ch 18 | Ch 19 | Ch 20 | Ch 21 | Ch 22 | Ch 23 | Ch 24 | Ch 25

Chapter Twenty-six: The Wolf and the Shadow

Rose smiled at the Doctor as he bounced and spun around the reading room. Figuring something out had soothed his earlier fatalistic outlook, though of course he would be happier if he could figure out where the Vashta Nerada came from.

She pivoted in a slow circle as she turned that particular mystery over in her mind. The one thing she’d picked up from the Doctor about the life cycle of the Vashta Nerada was that they laid their eggs in trees.

She laid her hand on the carved railing of the staircase. There was a lot of wood in the Library, she mused—much more than she’d imagined in a building so futuristic. It was almost as surprising as the paper books.

Oh.

Paper. Paper made from trees, which had been cut down from a forest somewhere.

“Doctor,” she said quietly, using the bond to get his attention rather than volume. He wheeled around and looked at her. “I think I’ve figured out where the Vashta Nerada came from.”

His eyes widened. “Where? They hatch in forests, and this entire planet is a city.”

Rose shook her head. “No, this entire planet is a forest.” She lifted her hands and turned slowly, pointing at the shelves. “You said all the books here were printed specially for the Library. Which means they were printed at once, likely on paper made from the same batch of wood pulp… cut down from the same forest.”

“Oh,” he whispered, turning in a circle. “These are their forests.”

oOoOoOoOo

Miss Evangelista stood up while Donna was still grappling with her memories and gestured to the walk that encircled the playground. “Shall we?” she asked, sounding exactly like the genteel Victorian lady she looked like.

“Mind if I join you?” another familiar voice asked as they stood up.

Donna spun around to look at her niece. “Jenny! What are you doing here?”

Jenny looked at her steadily, and Donna cringed when she saw something sad in the younger woman’s eyes. “Miss Evangelista and I talked earlier,” she explained. “And we agreed that this would be the best way to show you.”

“To show me what?” Donna looked back and forth between the two women, her temper sparking. “Listen, you,” she snarled at Miss Evangelista, “I don’t know who you are, but my niece had a very serious brain injury. If you’ve been messing with us both…”

“She is not your niece,” Miss Evangelista said calmly. “Think, Donna. Remember the person you were when you knew me before.”

Jenny put a hand on her shoulder. “Just… listen for a little bit longer, Donna, all right?” she pleaded. “If we get to the end, and you still think we’re bonkers, you can tell Doctor Moon I’ve relapsed and we won’t ever mention it again.”

Donna pressed her lips into a thin line and took a deep breath through her nose. “All right then. Talk fast.”

Miss Evangelista pointed at the children playing as the trio started their walk. “I suggested we meet here because a playground is the easiest place to see it,” Miss Evangelista explained. “To see the lie.”

“What lie?” Donna demanded. She could hear her children shrieking happily as Miss Evangelista tried to dismantle her whole world, and it made her even more snappish than usual.

“The children,” Jenny said gently. “Look at the children.”

But Donna couldn’t look away from Miss Evangelista. She told herself she was fascinated by the woman’s veil, but deep down, she knew she was terrified of what she’d see if she looked at the playground.

“Why do you wear that veil?” she asked. “If I had a face like yours, I wouldn’t hide it.”

“You remember my face, then?” Donna couldn’t be certain, but she thought Miss Evangelista was smiling behind the veil. “The memories are all still there. The Library, the Doctor, me. You’ve just been programmed not to look.”

Donna slowed down as an awful memory returned—the memory of this young woman, talking to her through death. “Sorry, but you’re dead.”

Miss Evangelista turned and looked straight ahead. “In a way, we’re all dead here, Donna,” she said, with the calm only the dead can achieve when talking about death. “We are the dead of the Library.”

“Well, what about the children? The children aren’t dead.” Donna looked at the playground, and something seemed off. The world is wrong. She pushed the thought aside and looked back at Jenny. “My children aren’t dead.”

She hated that there was even a hint of question in her voice.

Jenny pursed her lips and shook her head. “Ella and Joshua aren’t real, Donna.”

Donna waved her arms at Jenny, her body shaking with fear and anger. “Don’t you say that. Don’t you dare say that about my children!” She gestured at the playground where she could hear Ella and Joshua playing. “You were there when they were born! You held them!”

Jenny’s eyes, usually bright blue with excitement or happiness, now looked like the sky right before a storm. “Was I, Donna?”

“Look at your children,” Miss Evangelista interrupted. “Look at all of them, really look.”

Donna spun around to tell the other woman where she could take all of her comments about things being wrong, but as she did, her gaze landed on the playground, and she finally saw it. One little boy and one little girl, repeated over and over. Wearing the same coats, laughing with the same childish giggles, smiling the same toothy smiles.

“They’re not real,” Miss Evangelista pressed in a low voice. “Do you see it now? They’re all the same. All the children of this world, the same boy and the same girl, over and over again.”

“Stop it. Just stop it. Why are you doing this?” Donna glared at the other woman, who wouldn’t even let her see her face. “Why are you wearing that veil?”

Jenny watched with morbid curiosity when Donna yanked the veil off. She’d wondered the same question, but had managed to curtail the impulse to ask, thinking that Rose would call the question rude. Donna didn’t have Jenny’s mum’s voice in the back of her head, though, and obviously felt no compunction about unveiling their mysterious friend.

The loud gasp Jenny let out when Miss Evangelista’s face was revealed was quiet compared to Donna’s yell. With one eye three times the size of the other and the crooked mouth, it looked like someone had melted her face.

She looks like a Picasso, Donna thought, just barely managing to stem the hysterical laughter rising up.

Miss Evangelista readjusted her veil, then looked at them calmly while they gathered their wits again. “What happened to your face?” Jenny asked finally.

The young woman shrugged wryly. “Transcription errors. Destroyed my face, did wonders for my intellect. I’m a very poor copy of myself.”

“Where are we?” Donna asked. “Why are the children all the same?”

They were finally getting down to the most important part of the story, and Jenny leaned forward to take Donna’s hand. “The same pattern over and over,” she told her. “It saves an awful lot of space.”

Donna looked at the two of them, her forehead knit together. “Space?”

Miss Evangelista nodded. “Cyberspace.”

oOoOoOoOo

“Doctor,” Melody said, “what were you saying a moment ago about everyone being saved?”

He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and nodded firmly. “Right, yes. Here, let me show you.” He ran to a computer terminal, and quickly pulled up the archives from the day the Library had gone silent.

Once he had the record open, it was easy to find what he was looking for. “See, there it is, right there.” He pointed at the screen for the four people who’d gathered around him. “A hundred years ago, massive power surge. All the teleports going at once. Soon as the Vashta Nerada hit their hatching cycle, they attack. Someone hits the alarm. The computer tries to teleport everyone out.”

Melody peered at the screen. “It tried to teleport four thousand twenty-two people?”

The Doctor rocked back on his heels. “It succeeded,” he corrected. “Pulled them all out, but then what? Nowhere to send them. Nowhere safe in the whole library. Vashta Nerada growing in every shadow. Four thousand and twenty-two people all beamed up and nowhere to go.” He twirled his finger in the air. “They’re stuck in the system, waiting to be sent, like emails. So what’s a computer to do? What does a computer always do?”

Rose sucked in a breath. “It saved them,” she whispered.

The Doctor nodded, then looked for a surface he could draw on. His gaze landed on the mahogany table, and he ran to it and shoved the books out of the way as he pulled a marker out of his pocket.

“The Library,” he said, drawing a large circle right on the table. “A whole world of books, and right at the core,” he added another circle inside the smaller circle, “the biggest hard drive in history. The index to everything ever written, backup copies of every single book. The computer saved four thousand and twenty-two people the only way a computer can.” He added an arrow, pointing at the centre circle. “It saved them to the hard drive.”

Rose tapped her fingers over the centre circle. “And that’s where Jenny and Donna are?” she asked, her voice tight and not quite hopeful.

The Doctor put his hand over hers. “That’s where Jenny and Donna are,” he said, hoping as he said the words that he was right.

oOoOoOoOo

Jenny linked her arm through Donna’s as Miss Evangelista led them to a bandstand where they could talk a little more easily. “How are you doing, Donna?” she asked quietly. “I know it’s a lot to take in.”

“How am I supposed to believe this?” Donna countered. “We’re not even real? This isn’t my real body? But I’ve been dieting.”

Jenny giggled. “Well, we’ve actually only been in the database for…” She squinted and tried to count back. “A little over an hour. So, you haven’t been denying yourself for as long as it feels, if it makes you feel any better.”

Donna snorted. “Just a little,” she allowed.

Miss Evangelista turned to them, and even without being able to see her face, they could sense her annoyance. They both quieted, and she nodded sharply.

“Your physical self is stored in the Library as an energy signature,” she explained. “It can be actualised again whenever you or the Library requires.”

“The Library?” In the middle of trying to grasp what she was being told, Donna suddenly remembered the faceless doll Ella had made of her. “If my face ends up on one of those statues…”

Jenny laughed. “Of course you remember the statues. Oh, you hated those.”

Miss Evangelista gestured at the park around them. “What you see around you, this entire world is nothing more than virtual reality.”

The three ladies looked around slowly, then Donna looked straight at Miss Evangelista.

“So why do you look like that?” she asked, her voice soft.

“I had no choice,” the other woman said briskly. “You both teleported. You’re perfect reproductions. I was just a data ghost caught in the wifi and automatically uploaded.”

“And that’s why you’re able to interact with the program without oversight from Doctor Moon,” Jenny said, realising the answer to a question that had bothered her from the moment she’d met the virtual Miss Evangelista.

The veiled woman nodded, but Donna asked another question before she could speak.

“And… being uploaded to the computer made you clever?”

Miss Evangelista shrugged. “We’re only strings of numbers in here. I think a decimal point may have shifted in my IQ. But my face has been the bigger advantage. I have the two qualities you require to see absolute truth. I am brilliant and unloved.”

Jenny had only been alive for three months, but she had already seen enough to know the truth in what Miss Evangelista said. Even within the world of a virtual reality, no one would pay any attention to someone who looked like Miss Evangelista. It was one of the saddest truths she’d faced yet.

Donna squinted at the two of them. “If this is all a dream, whose dream is it?”

“It’s hard to see everything in the data core, even for me, but there is a word. Just one word. Cal.”

Jenny’s mouth dropped open. “But we know what CAL is,” she said. “Sorry, Mr. Lux was telling us about her when you… ah…”

“When I died,” Miss Evangelista said calmly. “Yes, now that you mention it, I do remember hearing the start of a conversation… but I was too focused on the opening in the wall to pay attention. Continue.”

“CAL stands for Charlotte Abigail Lux. Technically, she was his aunt—his father’s younger sister. She was dying when she was just a girl, so her father—Mr. Lux’s grandfather—built the Library, with a computer at the centre. He gave her everything she wanted, all the stories in the universe.”

Miss Evangelista nodded. “Then CAL is the data core, in a way. And it is her dream we have all been folded into.”

Donna’s head was swimming. The idea that she was just… just a string of numbers was hard to swallow. But harder still was the notion that nothing of her life was real. She had everything she’d ever wanted—a perfect life with a gorgeous man who adored her and two beautiful children.

Is that really everything you ever wanted? her subconscious niggled at her. You remember the travelling now. Don’t you miss the adventure?

Ella called out to her before she could tell her subconscious what it could do with that errant thought. “Mummy, my knee!”

Donna ran to her daughter, who had fallen off a swing and skinned her knee. “Oh! Oh, look at that knee,” she said as she knelt down besides Ella. “Oh, look at that silly old knee!” She scooped Ella up into her arms and cuddled her close.

“She’s not real.”

Donna’s head snapped back so she could glare at Miss Evangelista, who had followed her across the playground.

“They’re fictions,” the woman insisted. “I’m sorry, but now that you understand that, you won’t be able to keep a hold. They are sustained only by your belief.”

Jenny put her hand on Miss Evangelista’s shoulder. “I think you’ve made your point,” she said, her voice kind, but firm. “We know this isn’t real, but until we can find a way to get out of the computer, is there any harm in pretending it is?” She took Joshua’s hand and smiled at Donna. “Let’s go home, yeah?”

Donna nodded. “Yeah.”

She wanted to be surprised when she blinked and they were back at home, but the afternoon had destroyed her ability to believe Doctor Moon’s lies.

Joshua pulled his hand away from Jenny’s and wrapped an arm around Donna’s waist. “That was quick, wasn’t it, Mummy?”

“Donna.” Jenny’s tension-filled voice forced Donna to acknowledge her, and she turned around, trying not to see the red light or hear the alarm shrieking. “Donna, something is wrong.”

oOoOoOoOo

Rose held the Doctor’s hand tight as she let herself really believe they would find Jenny and Donna. They knew where they were; now it was just a matter of finding a way to retrieve their data signals.

Hope had barely had time to gain a foothold when red lights started flashing in time with a blaring siren.

“What is it?” Mr. Lux asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Auto destruct enabled in twenty minutes,” a recorded voice announced.

They all ran back at the computer terminal, which was flashing two messages: one, the countdown to the auto destruct, and the other, a warning of maximum erasure.

“Maximum erasure doesn’t sound good,” Rose observed, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.

“Yeah, not so much.” All those people on the hard drive, including Jenny and Donna, would be deleted. The Doctor shoved his hand through his hair as he stumbled back from the terminal. “In twenty minutes, this planet’s going to crack like an egg.”

“No,” Mr. Lux burst out. “No, it’s all right. The Doctor Moon will stop it. It’s programmed to protect Cal.”

Rose wanted to groan, because Sod’s law dictated that as soon as Mr. Lux assured them nothing could go wrong, it would. And sure enough, a moment later, the monitor went blank.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” the Doctor yelled. He jumped up on the table so he could look behind the terminal, and Rose saw him pull his sonic screwdriver out.

He can do this, Rose thought, biting hard on her lip. The Doctor will get the computer to work again, and then he’ll save everyone.

A different automated voice killed that thought. “All library systems are permanently offline. Sorry for any inconvenience.”

oOoOoOoOo

Donna sat down with her children on the couch and wrapped an arm around each of them. Jenny sat in the chair, and the sympathetic look on her face cut to the quick. “You just, you just stay where I can see you, all right?” She couldn’t stop the tears running down her face. No matter what she told her children, no matter how many precautions she took, she was going to lose them. “You, you don’t get out of my sight.”

“Is it bedtime?” Ella suggested innocently.

This time, Donna felt it happen—the computer glitch as they all moved from one room to another. At least in the children’s bedroom with the curtain closed, they couldn’t see the red light anymore. The alarm was still there in the background, though even it was harder to hear.

Ella and Joshua were tucked snugly in their beds, and she was sitting on Ella’s bed while Jenny was on Joshua’s. The two women looked at each other, resigned, fearful expressions of their faces, then Donna took a deep breath and faked a smile.

“Okay.” Donna pulled the covers up to Ella’s chin while Jenny did the same for Joshua. “That was lovely, wasn’t it? That was a lovely bedtime. Aunt Jenny made warm milk, and we watched cartoons, and then Mummy read you a lovely bedtime story.”

Ella looked at her, through eyes that were far too knowing for a child of seven. “Mummy, Joshua and me, we’re not real, are we?”

“Of course you’re real,” Donna lied. “You’re as real as anything. Why do you say that?”

Joshua answered first. “But, Mummy, sometimes, when you’re not here, it’s like we’re not here,” he protested, and the little lisp in his voice broke Donna’s heart, almost as much as his words..  

“Even when you close your eyes, we just stop,” Ella explained.

Donna had tried so hard to ignore the facts, but having them presented to her by… by the computer programs she’d thought were her children made it impossible. She blinked back tears as she looked from one to the other.

“Well, Mummy promises to never close her eyes again.” She smiled at Joshua, then turned back to kiss Ella on the forehead, but the bed was empty.

“No!” She jumped up and yanked the cover down, but the there was no little girl hiding in the sheets. She wheeled around to Joshua, but he’d disappeared too, leaving Donna standing in between two empty beds, begging the universe to give her her children back. “Please! No, please!”

She fell to her knees, pulling at the covers, trying to find her son and daughter, but they had vanished. Her desperate whispers escalated into shrieks of denial. “No! No, no! No, no!”

Jenny grabbed her arms. “Donna. Donna!” She shook her gently, and finally the other woman’s eyes focused on her. “You need to calm down!”

Donna drew back, a snarl contorting her features. “Don’t you dare tell me to calm down!” she hissed. “My children…” Her throat closed up, and she swallowed, then tried again. “My babies are gone!”

Jenny flinched. Right, not the best way to start. What would Mum say to get through to her? She nodded slowly, then tried again. “Okay, I know this is… horrifying,” she said slowly, trying to project Rose’s compassion. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to see your children disappear in front of your eyes. But maybe this is the start of us getting out of the computer. And if we get out of here, you can meet someone and have actual children of your own. Children who are real, that you share every moment of their lives.”

Donna sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “I don’t even remember being pregnant,” she admitted. “Not that I was particularly looking forward to feeling like a beached whale, but…” She sighed wistfully. “I did want some parts of it. Feeling my babies move. I never had that.”

Jenny nodded, relieved that the computer hadn’t managed to perfectly replicate every detail of life. “See, it’ll be better when you have the real experience. But for that to happen, we need to get back to the real world. So this… as scary as it is, this might be a good thing.” She nudged Donna with her elbow. “You know Dad and Rose are out there working like mad to get us back.”

Donna opened her mouth and Jenny held her hand up. “Both of us,” she insisted. “Donna, you’re like the older sister neither of them ever had. Why do you think the computer decided you were my aunt?”

Donna stared at her for a long moment, then a tiny smile crossed her face. “Look at you; only three months old and already smarter than me,” she teased. “All right, let’s go back downstairs and wait for the world to end so we can go home.”

oOoOoOoOo

Mr. Lux hollered over the warnings. “We need to stop this. We’ve got to save Cal.”

Rose snorted. “And how do you propose we do that?” she countered. “As far as I can tell, Cal is the one who’s trying to kill us!”

Mr. Lux shook his head. “I think the Doctor could stop her, if we got to the main computer.”

The Doctor’s eyebrows rose. “It’s at the core of the planet.”

Melody smirked and pulled out her screwdriver. “Well, then. Let’s go.” She ran to the middle of the room and pointed it at the Library logo. The large compass rose opened and a blue stream of light flowed up. “Gravity platform,” she said simply.  

“Melody Pond, I like you,” Rose declared as she stepped onto the gravity platform.

She could hear a note of relief in the archaeologist’s laugh, and a pang of sympathy went through her for the other woman. Despite the fact that Melody was older than her, currently, their relationship was very clearly one where she looked up to Rose and not the other way around. It must have been hard, feeling like she had to earn my respect all over again.

“Anita!” the Doctor called out, and the younger woman shuffled slowly towards them. Rose noted with some relief that she still had two shadows.

When they were all on the platform, Melody activated the command to transport them to the centre of the planet.

They had fifteen minutes left in the auto destruct countdown when they reached the data core. The Doctor ran in the direction of an orangish light, and soon he was staring in awe at a massive ball of energy. “The data core. Over four thousand living minds trapped inside it.”

“Yeah, well, they won’t be living much longer,” Melody pointed out bluntly. “We’re running out of time.”

“Yes, we can all hear the countdown,” Rose retorted. “So let’s not waste time pointing out the obvious.” She took a quick breath, then shook her head. “I’m sorry. I just want them back.”

The Doctor squeezed her shoulder, then ran past her down the corridor toward what he hoped was the main server room. He let out a sigh of relief when the multiple terminals filling the room confirmed his guess, and rushed to the nearest one.

However, he’d barely begun his attempt to get it to work when he was interrupted by the plaintive call of a young girl. “Help me. Please, help me.”

“What’s that?” Anita asked as they scanned the room for the source of the voice.

The Doctor looked at Mr. Lux, who had tears in his eyes. “That’s Cal,” the other man confirmed. He tugged off his gloves and reached for a lever in the wall. When he pulled it, a door opened on the opposite side of the room.

The group ran into a room filled with more computer processors and terminals, and the Doctor watched in astonishment as a Courtesy Node turned around to reveal the face of the same little girl they’d seen on the monitor upstairs.

“Please help me. Please help me.”

“It’s the little girl,” Anita said, apparently able to see well enough through her visor to pick out the girl’s features. “The girl we saw in the computer.”

“This is Cal,” Mr. Lux said quietly. “I told you my grandfather put her living mind inside the computer… Well, in a way, she is the computer. The main command node.”

“Help me. Please help me,” the girl continued to beg.

The Doctor stared at the command node, the pieces falling into place. “So Cal is in the computer, dreaming of the perfect life. But she’s also part of the Library, so when the shadows came and the alarm sounded…”

“The shadows,” CAL said, “I have to… I have to save. Have to save.”

“And she saved them.” The Doctor peered up toward the planet’s surface. They were even closer to the data core here than they had been before. “She saved everyone in the Library. Folded them into her dreams and kept them safe.”

“Then why didn’t she tell us?” Anita asked.

Doctor. Rose’s sharp nudge got his attention immediately. Anita only has one shadow.

The Doctor looked over at her and his hearts dropped. Oh, Anita.

The computer countdown reminded him that he had still-living people who were counting on him, which meant he didn’t have time to confront the swarm that had just killed Anita.

“Because she’s forgotten,” he said, in answer to the question. “She’s got over four thousand living minds chatting away inside her head. Imagine trying to keep track of that many individual thoughts at once. Even a computer can’t usually handle four thousand twenty-two processes at one time. We’ll be lucky if her memory of the truth is the only thing missing.”

“So what do we do?” Melody asked matter-of-factly.

There were only ten minutes left on the countdown, and that wasn’t enough time to think of a clever plan. “Easy!” He ran back to the terminal and opened a command line. “We beam all the people out of the data core. The computer will reset and stop the countdown.” The information he was getting from the computer wasn’t promising. “Difficult. Charlotte doesn’t have enough memory space left to make the transfer.”

“Easy,” Rose drawled. “Someone runs back upstairs, gets the TARDIS, and we use her memory space.”

Melody snorted. “Difficult. The Library is swarming with Vashta Nerada.”

The Doctor looked at Mr. Lux and Other Dave. “You two, go back to the surface. If I succeed, you’ll soon have four thousand people who need to be sent home.”

The two men looked at each other, then shrugged and turned around. Melody started to protest, but the Doctor put his finger to his lips and pointed to Anita. Melody’s shoulders slumped when she saw that her protege only had one shadow.

The Doctor’s hearts ached for the young woman who had lost three friends in a single day. “Melody, do you know anything about splicing two computers together, the way we’re talking about?” he asked, both because he needed her help and because he hoped it would distract her from her grief.

She pulled her gloves off and nodded. “Oh, yes,” she promised, sounding exactly like… well, him. “You taught me yourself. Said it would come in handy someday—I guess someday is today.” She looked at him pointedly. “But none of my fancy computer and electronic skills will matter if you don’t get the TARDIS here in time.”

The Doctor nodded and turned to Anita, who had crept closer to them while they’d talked. “What about the Vashta Nerada?” she asked.

“Rose, come here, love.” The shadows had been lengthening in her direction, and he wanted her outside their reach. When she was close enough to take his hand, he looked back at Anita. “These are their forests. We’re going to seal Charlotte inside her little world, take everybody else away. The shadows can swarm to their hearts’ content.”

“So you think they’re just going to let us go?” the Vashta Nerada asked, condescension dripping from their voice.

The Doctor swallowed the angry retort he wanted to give and set his jaw. “Best offer they’re going to get.”

Anita’s helmet tilted slightly. “You’re going to make ‘em an offer?”

In his peripheral vision, the Doctor watched Melody’s tall, willowy form move from one panel to another, using the computer terminals to bring up CAL’s memories while he and Rose handled the Vashta Nerada. He recognised every move she made and briefly congratulated his future self on training her well, before focusing on the Vashta Nerada again.

“They’d better take it, because right now, I’m finding it very hard to make any kind of offer at all.” Rose rubbed her thumb over his, and he took a deep breath before his temper got out of control. “You know what? I really liked Anita. She was brave, even when she was crying. And she never gave in. And you ate her.” The Doctor pointed the screwdriver at the visor of her helmet, and only a skull was visible. “But I’m going to let that pass, just as long as you let them pass.”

The voice deepened, gaining an dangerous edge Anita had never used. “How long have you known?”

He walked away from Rose to look Anita’s skull in the face. “I counted the shadows. You only have one now.” Anita’s neural relay flashed. “She’s nearly gone. Be kind.”

“These are our forests,” they said coldly. “We are not kind.”

The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m giving you back your forests, but you are giving me them. You are letting them go.” He turned his back on the swarm to walk to the gravity platform, painfully aware that the clock was ticking.

“These are our forests. They are our meat.”

The threat was obvious, but before the Doctor could even blink, he felt a flare of something stronger than anger over the bond. He checked Rose’s eyes as she stepped forward and thought he saw tiny flecks of gold dancing in her eyes, along with a determined glint that was all Rose. Not fully Bad Wolf, he thought, but something similar.

At the same time, the bond vibrated with her fury. He forced himself to watch quietly as she confronted the Vashta Nerada.

She held up her hand. “You’ve come far enough,” she ordered.

The Doctor turned back around and narrowed his eyes when he realised the swarm had one arm lifted and had slowly been extending itself toward him.

Power buzzed as the edge of Rose’s awareness as she stared down the swarm, but it stayed leashed for now. The TARDIS hummed in the back of her mind, and she smiled, knowing the ship was there if she needed any help.

Rather than stop, the swarm shifted direction slightly, moving toward her instead. Rose smirked and shook her head as she watched its progress. “If you’re smart, you’ll take the Doctor’s offer,” she said, her voice deathly calm. “You really shouldn’t have threatened my Doctor, but since he’s promised to let you go, I won’t harm you—as long as you don’t harm him.”

The swarm scoffed at the warning. “You are mortal, as is he.” The shadows moved another six inches closer to both her and the Doctor. “There is nothing you could do to stop us.”

The TARDIS sang in the back of Rose’s mind, and she knew exactly what to say to get the Vashta Nerada to leave them alone. A surge of confidence shot through her as she tossed her hair back over her shoulder and stared down the swarm.

“I’m the Bad Wolf. Do you really want to test what I can do to protect the Doctor?”

The song in her mind swelled, and to her surprise, the wind picked up around them. A moment later, the familiar grinding noise of the TARDIS engines echoed in the room. She heard the Doctor’s sharp intake of breath when he realised what was happening, but she didn’t dare look away from the Vashta Nerada.

The shadows paused when the TARDIS materialised only a metre to Rose’s right. The air in the room was tense as Rose, the Doctor, and Melody waited for the Vashta Nerada to consider their chances in light of that show of power.

Finally, the shadows receded. “You have one day,” they said before disappearing and letting the suit collapse.

The Doctor stared at Rose. “You… How did…” He ran his hand through his hair and chuckled hoarsely.

Rose shook her head. “I can’t take credit for the TARDIS. She did that all on her own. As for the rest…” She stepped closer to him and pressed her hand to his jaw. “I want you safe, my Doctor,” she said simply.

“Rose Tyler, Bad Wolf and protector of the Doctor.”

Melody cleared her throat. “As… um, touching and slightly terrifying as this is, we are running on a clock here. Maybe the two of you could get the TARDIS ready while I finish this up? Please?”

Rose smiled when the Doctor unlocked the door. “We’ll just go into the Vortex to give us time to get things ready. We’ll be back before you even notice we’re gone!” she called back over her shoulder.

While the Doctor moved to the controls to take them into the Vortex, Rose rested her hands on a coral strut. Thank you, she told the ship. The only response she got was a warm chuckle that made her feel like there was some detail she was missing, but Rose shrugged it off and turned back to the Doctor.

His attention was completely focused on the controls, and as they left the Library and reentered the Vortex, some of Rose’s exhilaration faded. “Are you…”

He let out a deep breath and looked up at her. “No. Not upset.” She opened her mouth, but he shook his head. “We don’t have time to talk about it right now. I’ll…” He ran his hand through his hair. “I’ll explain later.”

Rose shrugged and focused on the TARDIS. “Are you ready to save four thousand and twenty-two people, old girl?” she murmured while the Doctor ducked down below the console and pulled up a section of the grating. “We can’t do it without you.”

The TARDIS hummed encouragingly, and Rose leaned back on the jump seat to watch the Doctor work. There was still some kind of energy buzzing over their bond, and she tried to puzzle it out.

“You were terrifying and sexy as hell,” he said bluntly as he dug around in the storage compartment until he found the cables he needed and hooked them up to the console, ready to be wired into the Library’s mainframe. “The way you took charge and stared down the Vashta Nerada… I’m still trying to figure out how I can be absolutely petrified and completely turned on at the same time.”

Rose finally recognised the desire burning hot over the bond. It was so entwined with his fear that the sensations had merged to feel like something new and different—something she hadn’t been able to name until he’d explained it.

It was a heady combination.

But for now, she wanted to ease his fear. She was fine—she knew that instinctively. Rose watched him work, saw how hard he was focusing on what he was doing, and she knew how to shake him out of his fear.

She hopped out of the jump seat and leaned on a smooth section of the console only a few inches away from where he was working. The Doctor’s hands stilled and she reached over to touch his arm.

“Well…” she said, keeping her voice low and breathy. “If you’re debating which one to act on…” She trailed her fingers down his arm.

The Doctor jumped. “Rose!” His voice was a squeak. “We’re in the middle of saving four thousand people.”

To his surprise, Rose didn’t push her point, or remind him that time was meaningless in the Vortex. Instead, he thought he caught a glimpse of a satisfied smirk on her face as she turned away from him.

It only took him a moment to realise how artfully she’d managed to redirect his thoughts. Surprise over her actions had cleared his mind of his confusing reactions to her display with the Vashta Nerada.

He shook his head, then double-checked the work he’d done, now that he wasn’t fighting the urge to drag her to the medbay and run a whole slew of scans on her. After tweaking one wire, he spun around to the navigation panel and started setting the coordinates so they would land only a few seconds after they’d left.

That reminded him of the other mystery of the day—how had the TARDIS appeared, exactly when they’d needed her?

As he turned a dial, he felt the familiar hum of Rose and the TARDIS talking. He looked at Rose through the time rotor. She had her hand resting on the helmic regulator, just waiting for his signal. And as she waited, she was talking to the TARDIS, communicating with her on a level the Doctor could never achieve.

Oh, of course. The TARDIS had come to them today the same way she had when they’d needed to escape the Racnoss. She’d latched onto active huon particles and pulled herself to them.

“You’re being awfully careful with the coordinates,” Rose observed, breaking into his private thoughts.

“I want to make sure we land only seconds after we left Melody,” he explained as he tweaked a control.

“She’ll get us there,” she promised. “She wants Jenny and Donna back just as much as we do.”

The Doctor narrowed his eyes as he finished setting the coordinates, then stepped back and nodded at Rose. He could feel the connection between her and the TARDIS singing at the edges of his mind as she worked to send them back into flight. It felt… different, somehow. Stronger, maybe? Closer, like the TARDIS was just waiting for Rose to reach out to her.

They landed hard, and the Doctor shook his head, more than willing to set that thought aside. The traces of Bad Wolf lingering in Rose always made him uneasy. He’d been told, once upon a time, that the Bad Wolf could not be uncreated. It was a fact he tried to ignore.

“Your driving is getting better, Doctor,” Melody said when he stepped out of the TARDIS. She was still standing at the same panel she’d been working on when they’d left. “Or I suppose maybe it’s gotten worse as you’ve aged. You weren’t even gone for a full minute.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes and carried a cable over to her, while Rose dragged the power cord with her. “You know, those times when our landings are really atrociously bad are actually the exception, not the rule,” he pointed out.

Melody tossed her hair back over her shoulder. “Yeah…” she drawled. “But they’re so memorable.” She took the computer cable and began hooking it up to her panel. “How long did it take you?”

“About ten minutes.” The Doctor pointed at two panels. “Rose, can you get those open while I work with Melody on the memory boards?”

“What do I do after they’re open?” she asked as she used her sonic screwdriver to undo the bolts and slide the first panel out.

“There should be five rows of switches on each panel. Make sure that all the blue switches are toggled on, and the green ones are toggled off.”

Melody was shaking her head as the Doctor took the control panel next to her. “What?” he asked as he started rewiring the mainframe so it could handle the amount of electricity that would surge through it when they activated the upload.

“Nothing.” She looked up at him, a funny smile on your face. “It’s just… I know you’re not the Doctor and Rose I know, but listening to you talk… it’s like nothing has changed. The Doctor and Rose Tyler, always perfect partners.”

The Doctor looked up and met Rose’s gaze with a half smile. To his surprise, Melody groaned loudly. “If either of you say the word, ‘Forever,’ I swear I’m going to be sick,” she threatened.

Rose laughed while the Doctor sputtered, trying to find some sort of comeback to that. “Come on, you two,” she said as she flipped the last row of switches as the Doctor had instructed. “I’m ready over here.”

Melody and the Doctor exchanged a sheepish smile, and the Doctor pulled the connection from the TARDIS over to the Library’s motherboard. “Melody Pond,” the Doctor mused as he watched her expertly splice the cable in. “You are very good at that.”

Her eyes widened, and she smiled up at him. “Thank you, Doctor.” She bit her lip and bent over her work. “I’m getting everything finished except the last connection. I’ll do that at the end of the countdown,” she explained. “There'll be a blip in the command flow. That way it should improve our chances of a clean download.”

She spliced one more set of wires together as the computer warned them they only had two minutes left until the autodestruct. An awkward silence fell over the room after she stepped back; there were so many questions the Doctor wanted to ask, but if he’d taught Melody Pond how to connect two computer mainframes, there was no way he hadn’t taught her how to maintain timelines.

To his surprise, she was the one who broke the silence. “Why didn’t you and Rose warn me that our first meeting was out of order like this?” she asked quietly.

The Doctor sighed and raked his hand through his hair. “Because you didn’t know when we met you. We prepared you for it, though. Teaching you about avoiding spoilers and giving you the code words so we would trust you.”

Melody looked up at him. “But why not just tell me not to come to the Library?”

“Causality loop,” he explained. “Because we met you here, it’ll be impossible to avoid things that might set you on your path to becoming an archaeologist—even little things, like giving you your own sonic screwdriver. And because of your position, you were chosen to lead this expedition, and suspecting danger, you naturally asked us to join you, which ensured we would meet you here.”

“Basically, you met me here, so you had to make sure you would meet me here.”

The Doctor smiled at her succinct summary of his rambling explanation. “Basically.”

Melody wrinkled her nose. “Yeah… I’ve never really fancied the way time travel works,” she muttered.  

The Doctor frowned at her; there was something different about her voice… “You’re Scottish!” he realised, pinning down the trace of an accent that had slipped through.

“Autodesctruct in one minute.”

Melody shifted her gaze away from him. “No, but my mum is. I guess I have a bit of an accent when I’m tired or upset.”

The Doctor narrowed his eyes. He could see the faint lines around her mouth; she hadn’t wanted him to learn that piece of her past. Why would it matter if we know Melody’s mum is Scottish? He puzzled over that for a minute, then shrugged and let it go.

The computer started the final countdown and Melody took the two cables in hand. “My gloves should protect me from the sparks,” she told the Doctor.

“Well, the TARDIS infirmary can take care of you if they don’t,” Rose said as she took the Doctor’s hand.

Melody shook her head and laughed at them, then she connected the two cables in a flurry of sparks. The digital timer ticking down the seconds to the autodestruct froze on 00:01, and all three of them let out a breath of relief.

The TARDIS hummed loudly, making Rose and the Doctor both laugh. “I think she wants to take us all upstairs with everyone else.” Rose held the door open. “I won’t expect the bigger on the inside comment from you this time, Melody, but please tell me you said it the first time you walked inside.”

Melody winked at them as she ran her fingers over a strut. “Spoilers.”

Author’s note: When I was writing But Being Spent over two years ago, I realised that there's really no good reason the Doctor couldn't use the TARDIS to boost the computer power... except that the whole point of this story was to set River up as the Doctor's tragically lost future love. And if I didn't need her to be the person in his life that he already knew he lost, then I could feel free to save her life and let her go on living. So, here we have it--the great tragedy of the Library has been rewritten.

[thesschesthair]

prompt: angsty angsty tiff between Emma & Killian followed by yummy yummy make up ;)

Combining these and setting it at the beginning of S4. Maybe around 4x02/4x03

She was on her last nerve. The giant ice wall, various townspeople looking to her to fix problems or complain to, an ice queen looking to her for help finding her sister, her parents also looking for answers she didn’t have for questions she’d already asked herself, Regina refusing to speak to anyone and leaving her wondering if she’s about to fall off the edge back into villainous territory, and on top of that she had a pirate popping up at all the wrong times looking to progress with something she wasn’t entirely sure she was ready to admit to wanting. 

Emma was stressed. 

She’d just made it back to the station and had collapsed into her desk chair, finally glad to get a moments peace away from all the hundreds of problems that she was expected to solve. 

She was just beginning to feel her muscles relax when the tell tale sign of the station door closing jolted her. 

Just five damn minutes. That’s all i want.

Suddenly she was far more angrier and tense than she’d been; her temper flaring at the intrusion. 

“There you are! I’ve been looking for you.” 

Killian’s cheery grin was only making her irritation flare. She was not in the mood for this right now.

“What is it, Hook?” she asked, tiredly.

His smile faltered at her reception. “Nothing, love. I just came to see if you’re alright.”

“I’m fine.”

“Forgive me but you don’t seem it. Is there something i can do?”

“You could give me five minutes. But that’s just wishful thinking in this town.” she snapped. 

She knew she should stop. Count to ten. Gain some self control. But she was at boiling point and it was about to overflow. Killian was taken aback by her harsh tone, causing his own temper to flare up.

“Is that why i’ve not seen you all day? You’re back to avoiding me again? Swan, I thought-”

“For god’s sake! I am not avoiding you!” she yelled, slamming a file down on her desk. “I know it’s pretty easy for you to stroll around town all day with nothing to do, but I have to work, Killian! I can’t be there to fawn all over you all day or whatever it is you want from me!”

His face filled with hurt. Her angry tone was like a physical blow.

“Emma, I don’t want anything from you. I just wanted to spend a little time with you-”

“Well maybe I don’t!”

The instant the rage fuelled words left her mouth she knew they were a mistake. His mouth closed and his open expression shut down. His jaw clenched and his eyes grew hard.

“Message received.” He said no more as he turned and left the station leaving behind a guilty and regretful sheriff.

 She hadn’t meant it. Of course she hadn’t. He was just unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time yet again and he’d managed to take the punches all her anger had stored up. She had to stop doing that. She had to stop using him as a sounding board for her frustrations. She cared about him far more deeply than she’d be willing to admit and the thought of losing him terrified her. 

She saw him propped up at the counter when she entered the diner later that evening. He didn’t turn but the tightness in his face told her he knew she was there. 

Emma knew she had to apologise. 

David, Snow and Henry bundled themselves into a booth as she spotted his leather clad back disappear out the back entrance.

“I’ll be right back. You guys order.” she informed them before following Killian’s path.

He’d thankfully not gotten too far and she caught up with him in the hall.

“Killian, wait.” He didn’t turn but he stopped walking. “Look, i’m sorry about earlier-”

“It’s fine.” he brushed off quietly, still refusing to turn.

Emma stepped forward and put her hand on his shoulder, urging him to face her.

“No, it’s not. I was having a real bad day and took it out on you. I shouldn’t have. And I shouldn’t have said those things. I didn’t mean them-”

“Emma.” he started, his voice soft and uncertain. “Emma, if you don’t wish to be with me, tell me, love. I’d understand-”

“What?! No! Killian, no.” She stepped forward and cupped his face. “I want this, I really do.”

“Then why do you keep pushing me away? I’m not meant to be a burden on you, i’m here to help.That’s all i want. We’re meant to be a team.”

“We are. You’re right. I just… it takes me a while sometimes. I get so caught up in doing everything on my own that I forget I have people now that want to help me.”

He nodded, offering a small smile. But Emma wanted to tell him more. She wanted him to know she cared. That he was wanted. She ran both hands up the side of his neck to rest on his shoulders as she stared into his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I’m going to mess up from time to time, just… be patient with me?”

“Have I ever been anything but?” he teased causing her to smile.

She felt her emotions take over and herself becoming vulnerable as she took him in.

“Killian, I don’t want to lose you.

”“You’ll never lose me, Emma.”

“Promise?”

He answered with a soft kiss. It started slow but all too soon her hands were diving into his hair as he held her tighter against him. 

“Oh no. No you don’t!” Granny’s voice broke them apart. “This is a public hallway, you wanna do that, you take it upstairs.” 

They chuckled at the woman’s scolding, somewhat embarrassed to have been caught like school children. 

“Come on. We better go join the others.” she prompted, tugging on his hook.

“The others?”

“We’re a team that means having dinner with my parents and Henry. You gonna join us, Captain?”

“I’d love to.” he smiled. 

[proofthatihaveaheart]

end of year 2019 recs

this was meant to be posted two months ago and then it got buried in my drafts and i forgot that it existed while i started a new fic rec list for the first quarter of this year oops

[1 Borderlands, 1 Good Omens, 1 Life is Strange, 1 Marvel, 1 She-Ra, 9 Steven Universe, 1 Tangled, 1 The Adventure Zone, 1 The Last of Us, 2 The Umbrella Academy]

Borderlands

Burn Out by snufflyphoenix (VH1 gang, 5k):  As Mordecai and Brick prepare to ship out to Athenas as the Crimson Raiders' B Team with Not So Tiny Tina, Lilith worries about their safety and starts to wonder how she's going to manage without them now she's gotten so used to them always being with her again. She contemplates their relationship; how it's changed since when they first met and how they're going to manage going forwards with the world turned upside down again. [This fic balances tenderness and comfort and grief so well while capturing the dynamics between these characters and I just really love it.] 

Good Omens

Choose Your Faces Wisely by Poetry (Aziraphale/Crowley, 5k):  In a world where humans wear their souls on the outside, Crowley and Aziraphale learn to make their own. [Daemon AU! It’s well-written with lots of references, cool concepts about the daemons of supernatural beings, and strong character moments.]

Life is Strange

migratory animals by swapcats (Chloe/Max, 11k): “Here,” you say, tossing the photo her way. “Check it out. Blackwell was insane for kicking me out, right?”You give her your best grin. It’s not very good, but she’s not looking, anyway. She twists the photo in her hands, turns it upright, and does nothing but blink at it.For a moment, you’re scared she’s going to fall in. Not because it’s a photo -- it isn’t even of her, isn’t more than a few hours in the past -- but because you’re more convinced than terrified that she’s just going to up and vanish. If it’s not time-bullshit, then it’ll be her having enough of putting up with your bullshit; she’s got her family out there, over in Seattle, and you’ve got a beat up truck and a few thousand dollars to your name. [Road trip fic! Full of pining and a careful exploration of their traumas and healing, it serves as a perfect epilogue to their adventure]

Marvel

dance, dance (we’re falling apart to half-time) by gleesquid (Gwen/MJ, 4k): “We were going to go dancing. Peter and I, I mean. We could still go. You and me, that is, it’s not like we need Peter to dance, or any boys at all, and he’s not very good anyways –,”“Gwen Stacy,” Mary Jane said and Gwen faltered at the sound of her own name on foreign lips. “It’s like you read my mind.”Or: Gwen and MJ will always be each other's favorite dance partner. [A perfect fic about Gwen and MJ’s growing friendship and feelings, with lots of dancing thrown in. The build-up is fantastic and it’s romantic and it’s very much them.]

She-ra

I Can Make You Stronger by inkubusmb (Glimmer, 7k): "You can really make me that powerful?""You think of yourself only as a princess, but you're the child of a great sorcerer. You have a more powerful connection to magic then you've ever realized. Let me show you."Shadow Weaver couldn't be trusted. Glimmer knew that.But after losing her mother, she knew she had to get stronger. Strong enough to protect her friends from the same fate. Strong enough to destroy the Horde.And Shadow Weaver was the only one who could give her that power. [A neat character study of something that very well might happen in s4 - Glimmer learning magic from Shadow Weaver.]

Steven Universe

Before We Turn to Dust by Mintly (Ruby/Sapphire, 6k): Their days were dirt roads and endless blue sky. It would be freedom, except it wasn't. Sapphire is a quiet country storefront and Ruby dreams. [Human!AU set in a small rural town. The writing is beautiful, the relationship and yearning between Sapphire and Ruby comes through clearly, and the atmosphere shines. It’s really good and even if you’re not a human AU fan, you should check it out.]

Cleave by susan_voight, thingswithwings (Ruby/Sapphire, 8k): “Tell me a story,” Steven asks, as he shuts his eyes. Garnet, as far as she has the capacity for it, is surprised; Steven is seventeen, and while he still has a tendency towards whimsy, he hasn’t asked for this particular indulgence for years. Not since he was a lot smaller. Garnet feels a little angry at herself for not having noticed that earlier; she feels regretful, too, that she can never seem to see any part of Steven’s adulthood coming in advance. [Garnet tells Steven a story about Ruby and Sapphire and the time they had to separate for a mission. It’s absolutely lovely, a great study of their relationship and how they grow to be even stronger.]

Little Rebellions by CompletelyDifferent (gen, 58k):  Not all Pearls have the chance to run off to another planet and take up arms. Not all fights are grand and romantic. These are the little rebellions- little, but just as defiant. [A wonderful set of interconnected one-shots centered around themes of rebellion and freedom. And all the good world-building! I loved them all.]

Only Human by mllelaurel (gen, 23k):  When a malfunctioning artifact temporarily (they hope!) turns them all human, the Gems must face down a monster infestation, while dealing with the loss of their normal powers and their own sudden fragility. [This very much reads like a multi-episode arc and it’s absolutely delightful. The insecurities and vulnerabilities the Gems struggle with are ones that are always there, but they’ve been magnified and brought to the surface with their human state and it’s just really well-done.] 

Pushing By Like Hearts by mautadite (Lapis/Peridot, 13k): “Sounds like you’re really counting on that road trip magic.”(Peridot and Lapis do Midway City, and Empire City, and Plateau Ville, and all the places in between.) [Peridot and Lapis go on a road trip and it’s wonderful. Love the imagery, the development of their relationship, and the characterization.]

starwalker’s birthday by the_sockpuppet (Pearl/Garnet, 11k):  Garnet wonders if she is Rose’s replacement. Pearl wonders how Garnet could love her. [I love this fic and the way it navigates their relationship and all the insecurities they bring along to it. The focus is very much on communication and being open and working through things, and it’s very good.]

the meek shall inherit the earth by Ushio (Pearl gen, 958): "Where was her Pearl?" asks Blue Zircon. Well. She was holding the sword. [Even though this was supremely jossed, it makes for a good, poetic read.]

Waltz of the Nian by QuickYoke (Lapis/Peridot, 6k): Lapis doesn't understand fusion at heart, but she does know she's an unideal partner for it. Set after the season 3 finale. [A character study of Lapis and her relationship to fusion, and the moments when Lapis almost fuses with Peridot. It’s well-written and it handles the subject of trauma + navigating boundaries and intimacy beautifully.]

where we love is home by possibilityleft (Pearl/Garnet, 532): "You're looking at me differently now," Garnet says.Slight Pearl/Garnet. Post-regeneration for them both, Garnet and Pearl have a discussion. [Early rebellion days, a short conversation that holds a lot inside it.] 

Tangled the Series

strings by pathygen (Cassandra-centric, 19k):  The weight of the stone should be concerning, but it’s not. She’s never been unfamiliar with weight. [This fic is a fascinating exploration of what could happen with the Moonstone and the ghost. It’s also a fascinating story of becoming lost in your own anger and insecurity, how that can twist you and make you someone you’re not. It’s dark and painful and I read it in one sitting because I couldn’t tear myself away from what was going on. It’s also a slow build to the final confrontation, which is stunning and one of my favorite moments in any fics I’ve read this year.] 

The Adventure Zone 

tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by fishycorvid (Taako-centric, 28k): The funeral of one of the birds should have more attendants than this, some part of Taako thinks. But Magnus hadn’t wanted that, of course; he’d told Taako as much decades ago, just a few years after the Day of Story and Song. Taako had laughed then, told him he’d regret it when there weren’t any adoring fans weeping and tossing flowers into his grave. Taako isn’t laughing now, here in this clearing with the body that used to be his friend. (What comes after the end.) [As you might expect from the summary and warning about character death,this fic is painful. You will cry and your heart will hurt. But it’s also very well-written and a beautiful exploration of grief and having to live on and how sometimes things don’t work. Sometimes you pretend you’re fine but you’re not, you’re on a self-destructive spiral. That said, it’s also juxtaposed with some really lovely moments between Taako and his family, his friends. Highly recommend!] 

The Last of Us

landscape by januarys (gen, 854): It's the moments that define who they are, the spaces in between, and as the seasons fade into one. [A lovely stream of moments over the course of the game between Joel and Ellie.]

The Umbrella Academy

Keep Trying by pprfaith (Vanya & Klaus, 8k): At thirteen, a drunk Klaus goes wandering the mansion instead of locking himself into his room. Seventeen years down the line, he saves the world. In between, they're all just trying not to drown. (Klaus and Vanya against the world.) [This fic is lovely and healing and imagines a different world where things are still messed up because Reginald is the worst dad but there’s also support and comfort and learning how to trust.]

Try Again by pprfaith (gen, 57k):   They have outlived their father. They've managed to fix themselves. A little. Sort of. So from here on out, things should be peachy, right? [The Hargreeves get the healing and recovery they deserve, lots of good sibling dynamics, confronting what Reginald did to them, I really love this fic.]