#rory williams I am also so so so sorry | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

riversofmars · 3 years ago

Note

OMG Vastra and Jenny's wedding! Please write that! Maybe they 'never' got around to it because multiple Doctors and multiple Rivers showed up and therefore don't remember. Haha. Pretty please?

OMG I love this! Yes, of course I will! It's utter chaos, I hope you like it. I was having a good laugh while writing :D

Rating: G

Word Count: 2200

Read on AO3 or blow

The Big Day

“Strax!“ Madame Vastra’s voice carried through the corridors of 13 Paternoster Row.

“Yes, Ma’am?“ Strax stuck his head into Vastra’s study, and the lady of the house looked around.

“There you are. I need you to get Jenny as well,“ she instructed.

“Now, Ma’am?“ Strax frowned.

“Yes, Strax right now,“ she retorted with a sigh.

“You do realise what day it is?“ The butler prompted. It had taken him a while to find her as the study was not where she was supposed to be.

“Yes, Strax I am fully aware what day it is. But the fate of London, planet Earth and, frankly, Time itself makes no exceptions, not even for one’s wedding day,“ Vastra groaned in annoyance. She had been in her bed chambers getting ready for the big day when her advanced hearing had picked up on a series of alarms sounding from the study. She had considered ignoring them, this was meant to be the happiest day of her life after all, but her sense of duty had gotten the better of her.

“Very good, Ma’am…“ Strax nodded. “But perhaps we might try to… solve the problem by ourselves? I’m afraid Miss Jenny might be awfully disappointed if she were to see you before the ceremony,“ the commander pointed out. While he couldn’t pretend to understand the meaning behind all these seemingly random Earth traditions, he appreciated that they bore some significance to Jenny.

“Strax…“ Vastra sighed, she didn’t need him making her feel any more guilty than she already did. All she wanted was for this to be the perfect day for Jenny and already things were going wrong.

“Earlier she threw a shoe at me when I requested her help in serving tea,“ Strax explained.

“Do you think maybe that has something to do with the fact that you asked her to work on her wedding day?“ Vastra couldn’t help a smirk of amusement, she would have enjoyed seeing Strax trying to duck a shoe flying his way.

“I hadn’t considered it, Ma’am,“ the Sontaran mused. “I shall file that under human mating rituals: no work on the wedding day.“

“Right, okay, I suppose I should apply the same principle to fighting alien incursions. Let’s see if we can deal with this discreetly, without Jenny…“ Vastra decided, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“Perhaps I might be of some assistance!“ Strax and Vastra whirled around to see Professor River Song flash a stunning smile at them. She shook out her hair that fizzed with the energy of vortex manipulator travel.

“Professor Song!“ Vastra took a moment to recover from the shock. She stared in surprise at the archaeologist who smoothed down a beautiful navy gown. Guests weren’t meant to arrive for another few hours. Vastra herself hadn’t even changed yet.

“Sorry, I am a bit early but I was in need of a quick getaway and set the coordinates in a hurry… but sounds like I might have been just in time?“ River grinned.

“Well, uh…“ the lady of the house struggled for words.

“So what seems to be the problem, I’m happy to help,“ the professor carried on pleasantly as she looked around the study. “I’m sure there are things you’d rather be doing right now.“

“How about some tea?“ Strax interjected.

“Champagne if you don’t mind. Or is it a bit early for that too?“ River retorted.“What time is it anyway?“

“You see, that seems to be the problem,“ Vastra said, pointing to a clock on the mantelpiece. It had stopped.

“I thought something didn’t feel quite right,“ River checked the time on her vortex manipulator as well.

“It’s not just the one clock, I have checked them all, they’ve just stopped,“ the Silurian carried on.

“Well then, there is nothing for it, we must locate the source of the time distortion so we can get on with this lovely day. You’re only meant to get married once. Getting caught in an alternate reality or a time loop or something to that effect would be awfully inconvenient,“ River clapped her hands together with enthusiasm. As someone with first-hand experience of weddings outside the fabric of time, she felt best equipped to deal with things.

“And how would you suggest we start?“ Vastra asked.

“Well, there really only is one question we need to ask ourselves… where is my plus one? I am fairly certain one of them is responsible for this,“ River put her hands on her hips. “He’s not arrived yet, has he?“

“Which one of them did you bring?“ Vastra questioned, and the professor ran her hand through her hair.

“Ah well, I thought I would see whichever one of them turns up…“

“Oh…“ Realisation dawned on Vastra what sort of temporal disturbance they might be dealing with.

“Was I supposed to bring one in particular?“ River asked, and the Silurian shook her head.

“Well, no. No, it’s just…“

“Ah…“ River came to the same conclusion as the detective. “Yes, I see what you mean…“

“It would make sense…“ Vastra crossed her arms in front of her chest.

“Could you please stop communicating telepathically?“ Strax intervened, and the two women looked around to him.

“More than one Doctor in the same place and time,“ Vastra explained while River produced a scanner from the small clutch bag she was holding.

“Dimensional engineering isn’t just useful for TARDISes, you know,“ she smirked in response to their confused expressions and started running a scan. “The disturbance isn’t far from here, in fact… just…“ She pointed to the ground beneath their feet. “Below us.“

“The Siluritum,“ Vastra sighed. Of course. The cavern below 13 Paternoster Row was where they would be having the ceremony and reception.

“Come on!“ River grinned, heading towards the door. “Or would you rather stay and continue getting ready…?“ She turned back to Vastra, looking her up and down.

“I would rather make sure my wedding does not equate to the end of the universe,“ the detective retorted as she followed.

“What should I do, Ma’am?“ Strax piped up.

“Reassure Jenny that everything is absolutely fine and that everything is going off without a hitch,“ Vastra decided it was best to keep her bride in the dark for as long as possible. Surely, the situation would be easy enough to rectify and with any luck, she would never need to know. “Do NOT let her venture downstairs.“

“But what if she…“ Strax carried on, and Vastra interrupted him:

“Use your initiative Strax: lie.“

“This way…“ Vastra indicated, and River followed. As they descended the stairs to what any ordinary visitor would have presumed the basement, the air was not only getting hot and moist as Silurians preferred it, it also seemed to be fizzing with energy. Reality was slightly out of whack, and the first TARDIS came into view at the bottom of the stairs.

“Now this is going to be fun,“ River commented as they stepped into the impressive cave - decorated for the occasion with the most luscious flowers - and they spotted another dozen TARDISes. There was room enough but evidently not time and reality enough to accommodate them or their numerous owners.

“Alright, can everyone just calm down so we can work this out?!“ One of the Doctors shouted in a thick Scottish accent. “As the oldest one here, I can assure you, none of you are meant to be here, I’d remember!“

“If our time streams are crossed, you wouldn’t remember, actually!“ Another Doctor shot back, who River liked to refer to as Pretty Boy.

“I think this is all some big misunderstanding,“ yet another Doctor - donning particularly well-grown celery for the occasion - pointed out.

“You’re gonna have to help me here…“ Vastra mumbled to River as they hovered in the doorway.

“Who are all these people?“ A young girl enquired of the Doctor next to her.

“Susan Foreman, Doctor’s granddaughter…“ River whispered to Vastra who looked back at her bemused.

“Does that make you a step-grandmother?“

“Shut up…“ River elbowed the Silurian who smirked but then she pointed out all the companions' names to her as they watched them bicker.

“Doctor, you didn’t mention you used to be so handsome…“ Amy Pond was currently in the process of eyeing up several of the Doctor’s previous incarnations while their Doctor just groaned in annoyance, and Rory Williams tried his best to keep her from making acquaintances.

“Handsome? Really?“ Donna Noble shot back, obviously disgusted at the very thought while Pretty Boy smugly straightened his tie.

“So they’re all you?“ Sarah Jane Smith asked, bewildered.

“It would appear so…“ her Doctor retorted, tangling his long scarf around him, while soothing down a suit. To their credit, everyone had dressed up for the occasion.

“Doctor, what are we doing here?“ Liv Chenka threw her hands up in the air, fed up with the bickering.

“We’ve been invited to a wedding,“ her Doctor replied with a wide grin.

“Who’s wedding?“ Ace McShane interjected.

“I don’t know but I love a good wedding, don’t you?“ her Doctor grinned, straightening his hat.

“You don’t even know Vastra and Jenny yet!“ The Doctor that River liked to nickname “Eyebrows“ shot back.

“Is that who’s getting married? Lovely, best put that on the card…“ Pretty Boy instructed Donna who rolled her eyes at him.

“Do you think perhaps it’s time to…“ Vastra looked at River.

“What?“ The professor had been engrossed in watching the spectacle in front of them but the detective certainly had a point. “Oh yeah, yes, let's!“

“Excuse me, everyone!“ Vastra called out and everyone looked around. Before the Silurian could carry on, however, there was an energy discharge, knocking everyone off their feet. Suddenly, another TARDIS appeared in their midst.

“Sorry, sorry! Are we late?“ Another Doctor, northern with blond bobbed hair, stuck her head out.

“Now, this is getting more interesting by the minute!“ River raised her eyebrows intrigued, as she clambered back to her feet.

“River!“ the blond Doctor exclaimed, a wide grin spreading across her face. The other Doctors - surprisingly even the ones that didn’t really know who she was - mirrored the expression upon lying eyes on their wife..

“Professor!“ Vastra elbowed River who took delight in the attention suddenly devoted to her. The air was humming with energy, if another TARDIS decided to pop up now, things would surely go very wrong indeed.

“Right, everyone, this is getting a tiny bit complicated…“ River announced, though somewhat half-heartedly as she made eyes at her numerous husbands and wife, so Vastra decided it best to take things in her own hands:

“And by tiny bit complicated the professor means to say you are disrupting the very fabric of time.“ She put her hands on her hips, her voice stern. “In my house. On my wedding day. And as I would like to actually get married later today, it would be nice if time could carry on and not break, not today.“

“Oh right.“ The Doctors exchanged concerned glances.

“Yeah, I suppose that wouldn’t be very good, would it…“

“So if you wouldn’t mind parking your TARDISes elsewhere,“ Vastra carried on and there were more nods from various Doctors:

“Right.“

“Sure.“

“Naturally.“

“But… which one of us gets to stay? We’re all invited,“ it was the oldest Doctor that spoke up. She was looking at River with stars in her eyes, and it melted the professor’s heart. She evidently hadn’t seen her in a long time and was keen to stay.

“Ah yes, that may have been an oversight on my part…“ River admitted sheepishly as she had sent a message on the psychic paper. One that had clearly reached all of them.

“Well, I think there’s only one thing for it,“ a voice sounded from the doorway, and everyone whirled around. Jenny crossed her arms in front of her chest in amusement as she watched the peculiar scene in front of her.

Everyone was at a loss for words but Vastra in particular. Jenny was wearing a stunning wedding dress of white lace, her hair was pinned up with white flowers and her bright smile was the most dazzling thing of all.

“Darling, it’s…“ Vastra was going to say that everything was alright and dealt with. She was going to say that it was far too early for her to be down here. She was going to say that they shouldn’t be seeing each other yet, but all she could manage was: “You look beautiful.“

“And you’re not changed yet,“ Jenny smirked. “You better, as soon as time carries on.“

“We will have this sorted in a minute, Jenny, I’m so sorry about this.“ River said but the bride just laughed.

“I should have expected today wouldn’t go off without a hitch,“ she commented. “Just as… extraordinary as the rest of our life.“ She smiled at Vastra who gave a soft chuckle as well.

“You said there was one thing for it? What solution did you have in mind, my love?“

“Well I suppose, to keep things fair, we will have to repeat the ceremony a few times, won’t we. So everyone can attend.“ Jenny grinned as Vastra’s face fell.

“Are you serious?“

“Well, it’s only fair. Don’t tell me it’s such a hardship to keep kissing me,“ Jenny winked to a chorus of cheers. She wrapped her arms around her wife-to-be who allowed herself to be pulled into a hug.

Suddenly there was another discharge of energy.

“Alright everyone, move your TARDISes!“ Vastra exclaimed, and the Doctors jumped into action. “It’s gonna be a long and beautiful day.“ She smiled at Jenny and pressed a loving kiss to her lips. The first of many they would share that day.

#Doctor who #fanfiction #prompt #river song #thirteenth doctor #madame vastra #jenny flint #fluff #crack #banter #space wives #yowzah #paternoster gang #dw fanfic #femslash #multiple doctor #strax

46 notes · View notes

abundanceofsoph · 2 years ago

Text

SkyFire 3: Chapter 16

The Glamour Friendship Test: August 2018

Word count: 1k

SkyFire 3 MASTERLIST

-LOUIS TOMLINSON-

Friends with Aurora

“Friendship Test?” Louis scoffed. “Nah I can’t stand her you know what I mean. She’s a right pain in the arse… Wait, did she also take the piss or was she genuine in hers?”

“She said very lovely things about you,” a crew member yelled from off screen.

“Well fuck, now i’m just gonna look like a right prick,” Louis laughed. “In all seriousness though, I love her. I feel very protective of her and she feels like another little sister.”

- AURORA STYLES-

Friends with Louis

“We met 5 years ago at the American Music Awards,” Rori started. “He was incredibly drunk so I don’t think it really counts, but we met again when my now husband invited me to dinner at Louis’ house about a month later.”

“She’s an easy one to love,” Louis said. “She was so nervous to be meeting all of us and I just felt protective over her almost straight away so I took her under my wing and she’s been there ever since.”

“The running joke is that Louis is hardwired to adopt everyone he meets to be his new little sibling, and I’m definitely no exception to that. I grew up as an only child but if anyone asks, he’s definitely my big brother.”

“Our friendship certainly started because she was dating one of my best mates, but it’s so much more than that now. She’s family.”

“We’ve been mates for 5 years now,” Louis continued. “She's been there for me for some of the biggest moments of my life and I’ve been there for hers. I’m bloody lucky to have her.”

“I’m pretty confident that when you asked Louis these questions he took the piss and was a sarcastic little shit so I’m going to try not to be too emotional or serious now, but I genuinely don’t know what I would do without him. From the moment we met he made me feel welcomed and safe. He was a constant source of humour and joy whenever I joined the band on tour, and ever since he has been one of the people in my life that I can rely on the most.”

- EXERCISE ONE-

Give each other compliments

“Are we doing serious ones?” Rori asked as she held her pen ready to write.

“You’re asking me?” Louis laughed.

“Fair point, that’s on me,” Rori chuckled.

“Aurora Louise Styles,” Louis started in mock seriousness before immediately breaking into a goofy grin and chuckling. “You have the biggest heart and you are one of the kindest and most loving people I’ve ever met.”

“I thought we weren’t doing serious ones you arsehole,” she said before she threw her notepad at him and hastened to come up with genuine compliments on the fly. “In that case, Louis William Tomlinson, you are fiercely loyal and incredibly protective of the people in your life. I admire the way you make the people you love feel safe and valued.”

“I am in awe of your talent. You write the most incredible music and I am always impressed by your lyrics.”

“I was going to say the same thing,” Rori laughed. “You’re one of my favourite people to write with.”

“I think you are incredibly brave to be a person in the public eye given how minging your face is,“ Louis continued with a loud laugh, unable to maintain the serious tone they had both slipped into.

“I think you are incredibly brave to still be pretending to have a singing career when your voice is like a dying cat,” Rori countered.

“Well that went off the rails fast,” someone said from behind the camera.

“Sorry,” Rori replied with a sheepish grin. “We’re British, it’s not in our nature to talk genuinely about our feelings.”

“It’s a stereotype for a reason, innit?” Louis agreed.

- EXERCISE TWO-

An unspoken truth

“What’s something you’ve never told the other person but you want them to know?” someone from behind the camera asked. They both turned to look at each other hesitatingly.

“Ummm…” Rori started.

“I’ll go first love,” Louis offered. “After my mum died, you were my rock and I never told you how much it meant to me.”

“Lou…” Rori replied, blinking hard to try to clear the tears welling in her eyes.

“You and Harry dropped everything to drive straight to Donnie and you cooked and cleaned for us. You kept our heads above water and you knew exactly what I needed without me needing to ask.”

“Fuck Lou,” Rori gasped, a few tears rolling down her cheeks. “This was supposed to be fun.”

“Sorry love. Your turn now though.”

“Ok, after Columbia…” she stumbled for a moment, trying not to cry. “After Columbia you helped me piece myself back together. For a while after the shooting and after my amputation surgery I was feeling really low and I was feeling lost. When you flew straight to New York, you made me realise I was going to be ok. You were there for me when I needed you most. I don’t think I will ever stop being grateful for that.”

- EXERCISE THREE-

Hug each other for 1 minute

“Alright, get over here,” Louis said, spreading his arms wide. “Perfect timing for a big hug after all that.” Rori fell into him, wrapping her arms around Louis' middle while his own went around her shoulders. She buried her face in his chest and let out a breath.

“This is nice,” she said, breaking the silence after a little while.

“It is,” Louis agreed. “You’ve always given great hugs.”

“Right back at you.”

They both stood there, holding onto each other until the timer ended.

- REFLECTION-

“You know this was really nice,” Aurora said. “We’re not usually very good at being genuine with each other without it becoming sarcastic or just making it a joke, but I liked being able to be real with you for a bit.”

“Me too,” Louis agreed. “Definitely didn’t think we’d get into the heavy topics there.”

“Me neither but it was nice to have a moment to appreciate each other.”

“You’re so right.”

“Thank you for having us Glamour,” Aurora wrapped up, looking straight at the camera. “You can see more of Louis and myself every week on The X Factor, starting September 1st on ITV.”

NEXT CHAPTER

OR CONTINUE READING ON AO3

#skyfire #skyfire fic #harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #dad!tony #step dad steve rogers #tony stark #best friend louis tomlinson #aurora stark #iron dad #harry styles fluff #x factor fanfic

4 notes · View notes

dear-ao3 · 5 months ago

Note

it's race week irw tae ,ce sek

and yes, that is george, as in george russell. the artist of this lovely graphic. graphic design is his passion.

anyway. today is august 3, 2024 and welcome to spa.

no no not like a bath spa. spa-francorchamps, the race track in belgium. the last race before summer break. the longest track on the calendar and usually a notoriously rainy trip

but before we could get there. silly season was back once again. shape of a haas contract, form of esteban ocon

thats right, the rumors were true. esteban ocon is going to haas and he will be teammates with ollie bearman. and i am pretty sure that he signed a multi year contract.

so haas has confirmed their driver line up. five seats still remain as we head into summer break: vcarb, sauber/audi, alpine, mercedes and williams (and maybe red bull?). this is about standard. usually most teams will want to have this all squared away before summer break so they can spend the back half of the season focusing on the world championship, but its not unheard of to do this. toto wolff has dragged out signings before (with george) and we know from last weekend that he intends to do that again this time.

the following drivers are all still jobless: logan sargeant, zhou guanyu, valtteri bottas, carlos sainz, daniel ricciardo

and then these guys are also in contention for a seat: liam lawson, mick schumacher, and kimi antonelli

and someone else lost their seat this week. but not a driver, a team principal. the alpine team principal, actually.

they released the following statement:

"bwt alpine f1 team can confirm that bruno famin will move away from his current role as team principal of the f1 division by the end of august. bruno will be in charge of all other motorsport activities of the renault group at viry-châtillon. a new team principal will be announced in due course"

bruno, by the way, had only been team principal for about a year, after his predecessor, otmar szafnauer, had been announced to be leaving Last Year at spa. bruno was team principal for an interim period and then promoted to full time real team principal

this is wholly unsurprising, actually. first because alpine is Probably Definitely Almost Certainly stopping their collaboration with renault for engines (and go to mercedes or ferrari) and bruno had ties to them (i think?) also alpine has had a shit ton of staffing changes, including their technical director and head of aerodynamics and pretty much all of their senior staff this year. also lets not forget: flavio briatore is back as a consultant. and as nico rosberg pointed out last week: he has a lot of say apparently.

so have alpine done anything good this week? well they did a deadpool/wolverine livery:

esteban had a deadpool helmet and pierre had a wolverine one

and now why would alpine do this? well alpine has (in my opinion) one of the most baffling list of investors, including but not limited to:

rob mcelhenny (known as a writer for its always sunny in pennsylvania, and kaitlin olson's husband)

michael b jordan (the actor from the black panther, not the basket ball player)

rory mcilroy (professional golfer and 3x pga tour winner)

patrick mahomes (quarterback for the kansas city chiefs football team and 3x Super Bowl champion)

travis kelce (another kansas city chiefs football player (i dont know his position and im not googling it sorry i only know the mahomes position because my ex boyfriend liked him), 3x super bowl champion and taylor swifts boyfriend)

ryan reynolds (owner of mint mobile the phone company, the 2010 sexiest man alive, board member of the match group (which operates like every dating app ever) and also literally deadpool)

so obviously alpine did this probably as a sponsor deal promotion thing because one of their investors is literally The Movie Itself. this was though great for esteban ocon who got to celebrate the public announcement of him leaving alpine with dressing up like a super hero, and he is a massive marvel and comic book nerd (i think he actually did a deadpool helmet a few years ago and gave it to ryan reynolds)

but enough about alpine, lets move on to red bull

first and foremost, max came into the weekend with a 10 place grid penalty. this was because they changed the engine on his car. i dont know exactly How engine regulations work but i Think (and please know i didnt look this up this is just what i pieced together from hearing christian horner and various sky presenters talking) that every car gets an allotment of engines that they can use during a season/set period of time and that allotment is four (?) and you can use more than that but you have to take a grid penalty for changing the engine. and there are strategic reasons for this, mostly because engines wear out and some tracks you need more power at. spa is not necessarily one of these tracks, but it was speculated that they put the engine in and ran it at practice and then swapped it back out after the first practice day to use at a different race (and they wouldn't take another penalty because they had already put this engine in the car, theres not rules against swapping around your engines as long as youre not putting in a new one, it has to be one thats already been used or within the allotment and weigh the same). or at least i Think so.

anyway. it was strategic to have the penalty taken here because spa, unlike other recent tracks, is an easier track to pass on. michael schumacher once won this race from 16th place and i think max himself has won it from 11th. that was last year (and maybe even the year before that?) when he took the very same engine penalty at this track. so just cause max has a 10 place grid penalty, dont count him out here.

max also responded to the curfew red bull supposedly imposed upon him and said "its not that i have a ban or whatever. i also dont need to tell them what they do int heir private time during the weekends. and thats the same for me" he also then later said "i mean, ive won three world championships. i think i know pretty well what i can and i cannot do"

yuki also told the press that "apparently, even what helmut says, red bull can play around with anything he wants. even the contract is almost nothing. to be honest i didnt read it (his new contract) properly"

and of course, the checo seat replacement rumors continue. he has denied them and says the wants the speculation to stop. however, liam lawson and daniel ricciardo will be doing a filming day in imola after spa and whoever performs better will likely get checos seat if he gets replaced. and why, you might be asking, is yuki not in contention for the seat?? despite the fact that hes been consistently doing better than daniel?? well as everyones been saying "he has ties to honda" (because hes japanese) (red bulls current engine provider) and they are on track to replace honda with ford so it aparently doesnt make sense for them to promote yuki? or so it seems. yuki originally got into alpha tauri (vcarb) because red bull was switching to honda and honda wanted a japanese driver in one of the cars (im pretty sure). so by that standard i am personally inclined to think that theyre just being racist. which is unfortunate because yuki is a great driver and i hope he does get a shot in red bull.

max also called checo very handsome and said (along with daniel) that he would not fit in an f1 car at 53

in more fun news, max was quizzed on cat breeds and he knew almost all of them:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing)

instagram

and to make it fair, they also quizzed checo on dog breeds

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing)

instagram

moving on. williams.

there are some Rampant Rumors running Wild down at williams and that rumor is that team principal james vowels and logan sargeant are no longer on speaking terms. the rumors are not confirmed and there isn't a really reliable source (the source is actually indy car driver marcus ericsson who "heard from some of his american friends" that logan isn't having a great time at williams and then he also said that logan and james arent talking on a podcast)

logan responded to this saying that "marcus ericsson has a reputation of talking about other people without ever even having a conversation with me in his life. so yeah. its doesnt carry any weight. its not true."

in any case, it seems like logan is due to get replaced with continued rumors of him not making it through the season still circulating as well. whos replacing him? well we dont know. carlos is back on the table but carlos is still on the table everywhere (even at mercedes again aparently) and i think valtteri is still an option as well as probably a few other people.

but despite that and whatever the fuck else is going on at williams, they decided they needed to have an egg and spoon race.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Williams Racing (@williamsracing)

instagram

and in said incredibly baffling video, alex albon gave us all some enlightening advice: "life isn't always about winners and losers. its about...eggs."

alex albon also attempted to draw the olympic rings and failed epically at it. he then accused (jokingly) williams of purposefully making him and logan look like idiots in the pr videos. hes not wrong.

down to mclaren for our government mandated mclaren update. they didnt really do too much, tho oscar did call lando short in a video that i cannot find right now. you'll just have to trust me as you have been for this entire post. because i really could be lying about all of this. i doubt that youre clicking on all of my links. they could all be rick rolls and you'll never know. dont believe everything you read kids.

ah heres the video

anyway lando was asked about his actions from the week before (u know the whole Not Letting Oscar Pass business) and he said he should have "just let him pass straight away. its such a stood thing that i didnt because we were free to race" he also said "the fact that i kind of clouded over oscar's race win, first race win in formula 1, is something ive not felt too proud about. the fact that we have a 1-2 and that was barely a headline after the race, nothing was really spoken about it...." and finally: "oscars done a lot for me in the past and helped me in many races. he drove a better race than i did, he got a better start and mine sucked so...he deserved it."

so it seems all is good between the two of them?

tho oscar liked every other drivers comment on his post congratulating him on his win Except for lando's, and then liked landos several days later

zak brown aparently had a bet with oscar that if oscar won he would get a mohawk. and this was his solution for the hungarian gp win (which he was not present for btw he was dealing with indy car cause he deals with all the mclaren teams not just f1)

oscar was less than impressed:

valtteri, meanwhile, was asked at the press conference what he would have done in lando's position, would he have given the place back?

and valtteri said: "obviously i would give the place back because i am an amazing team player"

this of course was a dig at germany 2018, back when valtteri was at mercedes and lewis's teammate and was told by james vowels to stop attacking lewis in the infamous "valtteri, its james" radio.

he also got a bum squeeze from lewis at the drivers parade

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1)

instagram

kevin magnussen gave haas the most backhanded compliment, saying that "upgrades we've had this year, they've actually worked. thats the first time in haas history that we've brought upgrades to the car that made it faster." kevin has been a haas driver for all but one year that the team has existed btw (and that year was 2021 when he was briefly replaced by nikita mazepin and then he got fired for probably finding the russian Ukrainian war on the side of russia three weeks before the 2022 season started) so he knows a thing or two about haas upgrades. that also says a lot about gunther steiner, the previous and disgraced ex haas team principal.

speaking of ex disgraced team principals, mattia binotto, the ex ferrari team principal (who is largely credited with a decent amount of charles's suffering) is making a reappearance on the grid as the chief operating and chief technical officer of sauber (which will become audi) so essentially, he is one of the team bosses.

everyone was curious if this was going to affect carlos sainz's decision about where to sign, because he is still unemployed and binotto was his team principal for 2 years at Ferrari, but he didnt really give an answer, as per usual. he was too busy pretending to speak french:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Scuderia Ferrari HP (@scuderiaferrari)

instagram

anyway. aside from that. there were some announcements in regards to regulations changes for 2025. this is Different than the regulations that were announced for 2026 last month and theres a few important things:

points system will remain the same

there will be an increase in pre season testing

the minimum driver weight has been increased by 2kg

the last one is actually really important. and i will stumble my way through the explanation.

so. there have always been minimum weight regulations for the cars and prior to 2019 it was the weight of the car without fuel (including tires), the driver and the drivers kit all had to equal at least the minimum weight. this was a problem for two main reasons:

drivers who were smaller had a bigger advantage because they weighed less so they could have slightly more weight to put on the car/ move around blah blah

drivers were literally starving themselves or doing insane things to cut their weight to make the cars performance better (see: nico rosberg circa 2016 cutting his socks, stripping his helmet of paint and stopping cycling to loose weight in his legs to go faster to beat lewis)

so that wasnt great.

in 2019 they introduced a new regulation for weight which was that the driver's weight would be weighed separate from the car's weight. the driver weight was the weight of the driver, the seat and their whole kit and that whole combined thing needed to weigh at least 80kg minimum and then that weight is added to the weight of the car to equal at least the whole car's minimum weight.

so presently the driver's weight needs to be at least 80kg and that gets added to the car's weight and both need to equal at least 798kg

with the weight of the seat and the kit, this means the driver needs to be around 77-78kg at Most (that is 171 pounds for my fellow americans). this is particularly difficult for taller drivers (such as esteban ocon, alex albon and george russell who are all over 6 feet tall) (average weight of a 6 foot male being 160-196lbs (72.5-88kg) and yes they are athletes at the top of their field so its likely theyre not really average weight but this is just so you get an Idea)

so, as ive mentioned, all of the drivers are on specific diets and workout plans etc but the taller drivers do have a harder time because of the weight cap with some of them being right at the max, which isn't really great (lets recall a few races ago where george's race engineer told him to basically loose weight despite the fact that he has one of the strictest diets of anyone on the grid because of his height).

the good news is! for 2025 the driver weight minimum has gone up to 82kg, bumping up the minimum car weight to 800kg, meaning the drivers can now be 79-80kg. this was introduced to promote driver health and tbh, good for them

now that that business is out of the way. spa.

spa is a track that has seen a lot of shit. its a very long track, the longest on the calendar, 4.352 miles long (almost double the length of some tracks) and has a lot of elevation changes and is is almost always raining here at least a little.

spa saw the most recent driver death in f2 in 2019. (though there was another death in 2023 in a lower level of formula racing) if you dont want to read this (there will not be in depth detail, skip to the next colored heading)

as i have said, spa is dangerous in the rain and a grand total of 49 people have died at this track across various events since the 1920s

anyway though, 2019.

it was lap 2, a driver named alesi had a puncture and crashed at the radiation curve, several people behind him braked, but a driver named antoine hubert didnt see the accident and clipped one of the slower moving cars. he hit the barrier and then was struck by another car piloted by juan manuel correa at about 130mph. hubert ended up dying in the accident and correa broke both of his legs and had a spine injury, as far as i know he has recovered.

several of the younger drivers in f1, especially pierre and charles, had been good friends with antoine. charles won his first f1 race the next day and dedicated his win to antoine. every year since charles and pierre and others have paid tribute to antoine at spa.

this year all of the drivers paid tribute to not only antoine but also dilano van't hoff who died last year in the formula regional european championship at spa. he was involved in a multi car collision in the wet.

other interesting races at spa include the 2021 race, which was red flagged for several hours due to rain and everyone pretty much just fucked around in the garages for hours. this was also the same year lando crashed in qualifying in a massive rain storm after being on track for pole position. george also managed to pretty much secure his mercedes seat at that same qualifying because he watched lando's line during the red flag and absolutely sent it to hell in his williams (which was a SHITBOX) and ends up p2. it was also his first f1 podium because only 2 laps of the race were completed and it was behind a safety car, so no passing

also up there is the 1998 grand prix which had probably the most hilarious looking start to any race ive ever seen (everyone slid into eachother because david coulthard spun and managed to take out 12 people, no one was seriously injured) and this is also the race where michael schumacher nearly killed david coulthard

now no, this did not occur on track, but rather off the track.

lets briefly set the scene here.

coming into the race, schumacher (then a 2x world champion) was 7 points (13 under the current point system) behind mika hakkinen, though he took an early lead to the race following the restart and it looked like he was going to overtake hakkinen in the championship (the two were rivals)

so halfway through the race, schumacher is starting to lap people, one of those people being david coulthard who was running in ninth after some crashes and repairs and whatever. coulthard was also, notably, hakkinen's teammate at mclaren that year.

the Ferrari team principal at the time, jean todt, actually left the ferrari pit wall to walk to the mclaren pit wall to make sure that coulthard would move out of schumachers way when he inevitably lapped him, because this was aparently a thing you could do at the time.

regardless, coulthard managed to do anything But get out of Schumacher's way and moved off the racing line at exactly the worst time. schumacher ended up crashing into him at 140 mph in the poor visibility and his ferrari ended up losing a wheel, the front wing and most of the nose. somehow though, schumacher made it back to the pits and jumped out of the car with one mission: kill david coulthard.

why did he want to do this? well. simply. he thought that this was literally a plot by coulthard and mclaren to kill or at least injure him to benefit mika hakkinen and take him out of the title fight against hakkinen (hakkinen had also retired earlier in the race)

this is where we get this infamous photo of schumacher on his way to presumably kill coulthard

this was After he had already fought past all of the ferrari mechanics. despite everyone's best efforts he did get to coulthard and yelled "you tried to fucking kill me!" at him. the two drivers were barely restrained from fighting eachother and reportedly coulthard said that had michael tried to come and fight him, he would have given him a "glaswegian kiss" (headbut designed to break someones nose).

in any case, the two eventually got over it and coulthard admitted years later that the accident was his fault but it was not done on purpose.

what does this have to do with the 2024 belgian gp? virtually nothing its just a bonkers story.

speaking of! lets get into it.

as predicted, it was a very very wet run of practice. i only watching practice 3, which had pretty much no track time because of rain and a crash by lance stroll that red flagged everything for awhile.

and in case you're wondering what the visibility situation was well i guess keep wondering because i thought i saved a video of an onboard but aparently i didnt. it was rainy. like a lot.

"take yourself off for a spa weekend, they said. what about some water therapy for a saturday, they said" crofty said. crofty was in fact correct.

considering pretty much nothing happened at fp3, we got some interesting commentary for awhile, including commentary on a nearby karting race at a kart track that the drones briefly showed, a beautiful spider web and a shot of a guy sitting on the side of what could only be described as a cliff cave to watch the race. ted told us that he "sought exposure because i want to feel the rain on my face," they talked about using a field of cows as weather radar (aparently this is a thing?) and someone (i think crofty) said "well forget the weather radar, the cows have stood back up, that means the rain is stopping soon." they also debated max orange versus mclaren orange (theyre virtually the same color) both of which were out in full force because technically both lando and max are at least part belgian (and so is lance stroll, but they didnt mention this) despite neither of them racing under the belgian flag, they argued over how to pronounce a french word that i will definitely misspell, the talked about the corner names and the current football stats and how the cameras kept panning to puddles.

the most interesting thing that got brought up was the speculation that red bull had swapped max's engine out for an older one after taking the penalty because the team had broken curfew the night before.

aside from that thrilling commentary. yuki ended up with 60 place grid penalty for changing slightly more power unit things than max did and would be starting at the back of the grid. and oscar said over radio that he had "turned into a skateboarder" in one of the turns after he had gone off the track. and in practice 1 alex albon went 3rd fastest, just 7 tenths off of oscar in p2.

and with that riveting practice session done: qualifying

and please note, i was really tired when i watched this and my notes are a little lacking, but it was also a thoroughly standard qualifying session

it was wet and there was a risk of rain. everyone was on inters.

and incredibly, alpine was doing insanely well. like maybe there had been more than just a paint job on their car (they did in fact have upgrades)

checo as we know needed a good qualifying. there was one very hilarious moment in q2 when danny rics managed to knock him out, but then checo ended up going faster. he ended up only making it into q3 by .003 seconds, just barely beating alex albon.

and q3 saw the return of a beast, the beast being charles leclerc, who managed to put his ferrari up in p2, right behind, yep you guessed it, max verstappen.

"call that pole, kinda?" max joked over the radio because he would be getting the 10 place grid penalty.

still though, he was interviewed where he said "i dont know how quick were going to be, i hope were in the mix"

charles said that he was "not expecting it" and the conditions were tricky

and checo ended up in p3 and said it was "really difficult" but he had a "good feeling about tomorrow." which was good, because he needed a good qualifying to keep his seat and he got one. this was, by the way, checos highest start since china. china was race 5, spa is race 14.

the most hilarious thing to come out of this tho was the lestappen yap session

it went like this:

max: its better than expected, the weather in like, qualifying. i guess ts gotten bad

charles, ignoring him: which set of tires did you keep for tomorrow? you have two sets of....?

max, immediately: yeah, two medium, one hard

which is Hilarious.

yes, tire type is pretty public knowledge they talk about it on the broadcast and everything, but still the fact that max really just openly was like oh yeah sure here u go! with Zero hesitation makes it funnier.

and so, we were onto the race and it was dry, thank god

first, as i said, it is easier to overtake here than it is at other tracks, so dont count anyone out. second, it is pretty darn standardly a two stop race, but tire strategy is still important

unlike in 1998, everyone survived lap 1. charles was still leading on his inherited pole position. checo though had already been overtaken by hamilton and lando had taken a little trip into the gravel. max, as predicted, had already gained three positions.

"were going to find out just how fast that red bull is today," martin said.

charles's lead did not last very long though because lewis overtook him on lap 3, becoming the second person to lead the race.

zhou started moving very slowly on lap 4, it seemed like he was loosing power and was trying to desperately make it back to the pits. but then the problem seemed like it had fixed itself? "control alt delete and off he goes!" ted said, absolutely done and dusted.

by lap 6 lewis was over a second in front of charles and out of his drs zone, but there was "something moving down by my legs," he said on radio

and welcome back, sebastian vettel because this was almost an exact copy of sebastian vettel's radio during practice 2 at the 2018 Brazilian gp where he said:

"theres something loose between my legs, apart from the obvious. so something flying around my feet. around my feet. i mean, id be proud if it was what you think it is, but its not!"

(the thing turned out to be a small screw)

meanwhile, aparently zhous problem was not control alt delete because he lost the hydraulics and had to retire on lap 7.

and heres were the tire strategy came in. mercedes, ferrari and mclaren all had two sets of hard and one set of mediums, red bull, as we knew from the lestappen yap session, only had two mediums and one hard. the hards were preferrable because the undercut is strong here (you want to pit before the people youre trying to pass)

carlos was the only one to start on hards and he was doing quite well, so maybe that was the right choice.

people started pitting on lap 8 for the hards. people being nico, followed by alex, logan and daniel. williams had a beautiful double stack.

max had made it up to 8th place by lap 2, but he was still stuck there behind lando. on lap 11 he decided that he had had enough of this and pitted for hards to undercut lando.

george had the same idea, but he pitted for hards on lap 11 to undercut carlos

george came out 13 and max came out 14, but george was able to pass yuki quickly and take p12.

this made all of the front runners (and bottas) nervous and lewis checo and oscar all decided to pit on lap 12. max was still behind yuki in 14th.

charles hopped on the radio and attempted to once again fix the ferrari strategy by saying "if we are getting undercut, lets go long"

ferrari ignored him and pitted him on the next lap. he came out in fifth.

this left carlos, still on his hards, leading the race by 4.356 seconds, followed by hamilton, leclerc, piastri, perez, russell, verstappen, norris, albon, ricciardo, alonso, ocon, gasly, bottas, hulkenberg, stroll, sargeant, magnussen and tsunoda

it was still anyones race to win and everyones race to loose.

carlos boxed on lap 20 and came out 8th, putting lewis back in the lead.

george was able to get past checo and took p4. this left checo right in front of max and gave red bull a dilemma. did they tell checo to let max past because max was faster? and lando was trying to pass max....

instead of dealing with that dilemma, red bull decided to box checo on lap 22

hamilton was still leading by 1.865 seconds, followed by charles, oscar, george max and lando. and lando was actively chasing max for 5th. but he locked up and lost a bunch of time.

back at the back of the grid though, logan held his own against yuki fantastically, who tied and failed to get past him. williams tho wrecked it by pitting him pretty much right after.

"the tires are still good" lewis said on lap 25.

"thats the kind of radio call we used to hear from lewis when he was dominating championships" martin said wistfully.

but someones tires were doing better than lewis's and that someone was george, who said over radio to "think about the one stop" on lap 27, right after leclerc pitted.

lewis then pitted, leaving oscar leading the race. again, it was still really pretty wide open, four different people had led it so far.

carlos was right in front of lewis and the commentators theorized that he could be told to disrupt lewis to help charles, but he didnt really do that.

oscar meanwhile took the fastest lap, but he still needed to pit again.

"last lap was purple," oscar's race engineer said.

"it goes without saying," oscar said, "but clean air is king"

max had pitted again, this time to undercut george. lando pitted again to try and get max. lando was on the hards and max was on the mediums,

then oscar pitted, leaving george as our fifth race leader.

oscar also overshot the box and nearly ran into the front jack man, who rescued the whole operation

george though, was aparently staying out. lets remember that he had boxed on lap 11. it was now lap 32. he was leading by 7 seconds. and he thought he could win. lewis though was second and on the fresher tires. so it was going to be a fight to the end.

"i think that lando is pushing behind me, let me know what you want me to do" max said, the epitome of politeness and grace over the radio this week, on lap 33.

lando had in fact been told to push because the "tires are robust" and he was only eight tenths behind.

oscar overtook charles on lap 36 for third position, lewis was aparently threatened by this and thought that oscar could be the one to win the race.

george was now 3.880 ahead of lewis who was 3.587 ahead of oscar.

crofty pointed out on lap 37 that "george could still win this race, there are no team orders from mercedes." but there was speculation that George would be told to let lewis past if and when lewis got to him because he was gaining on george and going slightly faster.

and where did checo end up in all of this? well he was passed by carlos in lap 39, stuck down in 8th. "not a stellar race for sergio" martin said.

Hamilton did start to close on george on lap 40. "just make sure you give eachother plenty of space" came the radio message. so no team orders. they were free to race. and race they did.

george's tires were 30 laps old, lewis's tires were 14 laps old. oscar was 3.8 seconds behind lewis and gaining. but he was too far back to challenge the mercedes 1-2

coming into the final lap, george was just barely holding off against lewis

"its the russell hustle against hammer time!" crofty said as they headed into the final lap

george was .548 seconds ahead of lewis who was .811 ahead of oscar. it was the closest non-safety car finish between the top three since 2016

and george managed to hold lewis off in the most insane tire master class since monaco. all of his last 20 laps were in the 1.47s range

GEORGE RUSSELL WINS THE 2024 BELGIAN GRAND PRIX!

"boys again! what a performance!" he shouted over the radio "oh yes! great strategy! you guys are the best! cmon!"

toto called him the "tire whisperer"

this made three wins in four races for mercedes, and made george the first driver other than max to win more than one grand prix in a season since checo at the beginning of 2023.

and! this was the fourth 1-2 of the season with a different team. red bull, ferrari, mclaren and mercedes all had a 1-2 now. the last time that this had happened was in 1960.

max did though manage to extend his lead because he came in just ahead of lando

Gunther steiner did the post race interviews and whoever was on the sound team did an absolutely ass job because you couldnt hear anything. he did ask lewis if he thought that he could win the championship though, and lewis laughed and said "no"

so instead, enjoy some pictures of george right after he got out of the car in quite possibly the most interesting celebration ever:

lewi, by comparison, came out of the car and sulked

they caught toto right before the podium and asked him how george kept lewis behind and he said, honestly "we didnt think it was possible"

he was also on the phone in the garage before the podium, FaceTiming with susie, his wife and head of the f1 academy

it was also the tenth consecutive podium for mclaren. this is pretty impressive when you remember that there have only been 14 races so far.

the cooldown room was insanely funny. george took awhile to get there and it was just lewis quietly raging in the corner because he really really had wanted to win and oscar kind of sitting there awkwardly and not knowing if he should say something. he didnt say anything.

the podium though was a vibe especially for mercedes. the cameras even cut to kimi antonelli trying to get a piggy back ride from lewis's engineer, bono.

george was positively pleased, right chuffed and absolutely gobsmacked.

he and lewis even held up the i think it was the race director??? who joined them on the podium

and! over on the mclaren side, mark webber was there to support oscar and looking like an absolute proud dad after he hadn't been there last week for his win

so. lets get a quick update on the points:

our top 4 in the constructors championship are

red bull: 404

mclaren: 361

ferrari: 340

mercedes: 284

and our top 10 in the drivers championship are

max: 275

lando: 197

charles: 174

oscar: 164

carlos: 160

lewis: 143

george: 141

checo: 128

fernando: 47

lance: 24

and with that, lets get into the post race show where they agreed that this was "george's best victory in f1 to date" it was his third. but it was still his best.

his tire degradation was half as much as what everyone else's was, and he stayed out for 34 laps, remember. on the longest track on the calendar. this was also following mercedes completely redoing their set up because the upgrades that they had brought actually made the car slower.

even zak brown had to congratulate mercedes, saying "pretty awesome race, hats off to mercedes....impressive of max to hold off lando on mediums"

the commentators even said that mclaren should essentially take notes because this was how to do a proper 1-2 without screwing over either of the drivers. helmut marko also aparently said that mclaren needed to make a real number 1 driver call over the break and make it be oscar because lando keeps making mistakes.

this is now also been four races since the last time that max won, which is the first time that this has happened since 2020. but everyone usually brings in one (or two) more big set of upgrades and that could still flip the championship

and they interviewed one christian horner who said "i thought max drove a good race....checo....we need to have a look at that" this is because, if you will remember, max started p11 and ended p5 while checo started p2 and ended p8. "you never want to go backwards" horner said.

max said pretty similarly. "it was very difficult to pass....plenty of things to analyze....we know we have work to do and we want to do better." he acknowledged that "its not realistic to think that we can go from p 11 all the way to the front again, those days are behind." he later said that "our biggest worry is not with my teammate, but with the car"

checo said that it was "not great for us" because "we didnt have the pace today" but continued to shut down any seat rumors despite the fact that we know that liam and daniel are testing next week

they also interviewed carlos who revealed that he had been on a one stop strategy, which is why he had stared on the hard tires. and, very predictable he was asked about his seat for next year. he said "you guys need to understand no, it's been a long first half of the season for me having to deal with... a season with ferrari" which is first of all funny as shit. but he then said " in every week the race changes (with teams he wants to sign with) "im going to take my time"

they speculated that he was going to williams though

speaking of williams, james vowels was asked again if they were keeping logan and he said "silverstone, Budapest, he was where we needed him to be in terms of growth pattern, thats what im looking for. this weekend hes off the pace." and he again hinted logan might not make it through the season.

and they talked to yuki came in p17 and said that "well considering i started from zandvoort i think that p17 isn't bad"

charles apparently said post race: "i had a crack on the tear off in the last 20 laps. it didnt do anything for performance but i couldnt see well in my right mirror." and he still managed to hold max behind him and finish p4. it was also ferrari's 10,000th championship point that they have gotten in their history, the most our of any team.

they of course also talked to mercedes

george said that he was "really realxed" during the race and was "comfortable with [himself] and the car" and "proud to get the 1-2"

lewis was slightly less thrilled, likely because of the fact that he thought he was going to win, or get team orders to win. but he did say he was "happy for the team" and when asked about the possibility of him doing a one stop he said "i had my own strategy" but he also said that the team getting a 1-2 was amazing heading into the break and offered a "huge congrats to the team" in true lewis style

he was also to hilariously bitchy in some of the other interviews, saying things like "i was trying to get close obviously but george did a great job going long on the tires. every stint i had tires left but the team pulled me in so....unfortunate but it is one of those days" and "i mean, george wasn't really in my race, for most of it and so if the strategy had been done right he wouldn't have been in my race and we wouldn't be having that but it's great" and "yeah... it is what it is, it's done. i'm moving forward, i'm going into my break, i'm gonna have a great time." and that he did. he left the paddock almost immediately after he was done with interviews and hopped on a flight.

george posted this instagram post immediately post race:

and in entirely unrelated new sebastian vettel entered a 150km bike race (and came in 44th) under the name sebastian sprater (his wife's last name)

and leo learned how to swim

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Leo Leclerc Saint-Mleux (@leo_leclercc)

instagram

and max and daniel left the track together in a helicopter

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Max Verstappen (@maxverstappen1)

instagram

and i think that just about does it. relatively chill race weekend tbh, considering that this is formula 1. so the next race weekend is a month from now on august 23-25 in zandvoort, the dutch grand prix. in the meantime, factories are getting shut down for summer break after a few testing things happening next week so thats that everyone, congrats on making it this far on the update post and ill see you in about a month, enjoy your-

wait a minute.

what's that?

george's car is taking a long time at the weighing station?

well surely that means nothing, sometimes that happens, its probably not anything-

oh.

oh i see.

thats probably not great? surely they wouldn't-

oh!

well then!

yes, so, turns out george russell's car was underweight. as i talked about up top, the car and the driver must combined weigh at least 798 kilos. george's car came up a kilo and a half short (about 3.3 pounds).

and you might be wondering Oh Why Did They DSQ Him??? Why Not Fine The Team???? well lets remember back to austin last year when both lewis and charles were DSQ'd for having like .001 more millimeters of wear on their floor than they were supposed to. the rules exist for a reason and you dont want to be caught getting around them

(also considering that merc didnt drain the fuel entirely they probably knew that the car wasn't legal)

they weighed the tires new and used to see if that was the difference and it seemed to be. mercedes officially blamed it on their error and cited the lack of a cool down lap in spa (because its long) so the cars can't collect marbles (bits of rubber) onto the tires to up their weight before weighing. mercedes also said that george did not get a weight advantage from this. but 1.5 kg is a lot. remember all that stuff nico did (like strip the paint off his helmet to loose only like 80 grams to go .002 faster) to beat lewis? surely weight must be involved somewhere.

this is also now three races in a row that they've screwed over george. in silverstone he retired due to water pump problems, in hungary they didnt fuel him enough for qualifying and now his car is under weight. here was their official statement:

george was obviously disappointed, naturally. his best f1 victory had just been snatched from him and given to his teammate through no fault of his own. he posted this

(peep the three red hearts from alex albon?)

so since george was DSQ'd that meant that

a record breaking 105th win for lewis! now he was the only driver to have more than one win in the season besides max! but remember, he instantly hopped on a flight so he didnt know this was happening.

this meant that oscar got bumped to p2

and charles got bumped to p3.

charles actually refused to leave until it was announced. and after receiving the news he said:

"yeah of course, obviously you never want to do a podium with a disqualification of one of your colleagues. they have done an incredible job today and it’s not the difference of the weight that made him win. they won because they were the stronger team today. however in these type of things, it’s difficult to do an exception and it’s understandable that they got disqualified but it’s unfortunate because he has done an incredible job as well as mercedes. but it’s part of racing."

it was funny tho Charles inherited pole and then also inherited a race in.

lewis said something similar on his instagram story

and damon hill, the 1996 world champion, even said:

and i think that just about does it.

so heading into the summer break we have the constructors championship standings:

red bull: 408 mclaren: 366 ferrari: 345 mercedes: 266 aston: 73 vcarb: 34 haas: 27 alpine: 11 williams: 4 stake: 0

the drivers championship standings:

max: 277 lando: 199 charles: 177 oscar: 167 carlos: 162 lewis: 150 checo: 131 russell: 116 fernando: 49 lance: 24 nico: 22 yuki: 22 daniel: 12 ollie: 6 pierre: 6 kevin: 5 esteban: 5 alex: 4 guanyu: 0 logan: 0 vaktteri: 0

the the following seats still open:

vcarb williams mercedes stake/audi alpine and perhaps the elusive red bull seat.

and so, provided nothing terribly earth shattering happens before then, i will see you all in a month for zandvoort :)

Sorry i tried to scroll past but, i know nothing about f1 other than max verstappen is fast, my dad doesnt like lewis hamilton, fast car goes in a loop and sometimes expodes. Could you give me a crash course in f1 drama? Im very intrigued. Whats the tea as it were?

a terribly loaded question, but i will do my best. i’ve talked about some of the drama before like the red bull second seat and the chronicles of haas but allow me to briefly try my hand at explaining the nightmare that is the upcoming silly season

under the cut we go

silly season is when the drivers go through contract renewals, extensions and switches. usually it’s confined to the first half of the season (march-july) but it has been known to extend all the way to the last race of the season and they like to switch people around at random sometimes. driver contracts are complex, there’s a lot of money involved and basically You Are The Face Of The Team so if you have a shit season then you make the team look bad. but at the same time you could have a shit season because you have a shit car. it’s sticky stuff.

so. there are only twenty seats in formula 1. 10 teams. each team gets two drivers. (there’s also reserve drivers but we’re not going to get into that). who ends up with a contract is largely up to the teams, they can pull the contract out from under people they can also cut you mid season. they’ve done it before.

of the 20 drivers on the grid, 14 of them have contracts expiring at the end of the year. yes. 14. you see how this could get complicated.

so let’s meet the teams.

red bull racing. they came first this year (and last year) in the championship. like aggressively first. like they won the championship by over 350 points. they are definitely the team to beat. but if you end up with a seat at red bull, you do have to deal with max verstappen being your teammate and he won all but three of the races last year. he’s the golden boy. red bull are also notoriously silly when it comes to contracts and famously swap people mid season who aren’t performing.

mercedes. merc is home to 7 time world champion lewis hamilton and they have won the championship a great many times, though not since 2021. they are kind of in their flop arc and their car the last 2 years has been pretty garbage, but they have still made it work because they were able to come in second last year.

ferrari. god help the poor little meow meows with a ferrari contract. ferrari is a notoriously great team and they’re trying to get back to the top again but their strategy every single time has fallen short. to the point where their drivers are the ones doing the strategy in their cars while driving. they came in third last year and have been decently consistent at getting first in qualifying and then getting beat by max verstappen on race day.

mclaren. they’ve definitely worked their way up over recent years. they ended fourth last year and have had some championship wins before but not nearly as many as say merc and ferrari. their team ceo (owner? director?) is a little interesting and their car started out a pile of flaming hot garbage at the beginning of the year but they did manage to get their shit together.

aston martin. they are owned by canadian billionaire lawrence stroll, father of lance stroll (one of the drivers for the team). they’ve undergone several name changes over the recent years (force india, racing point, etc). they positively slayed at the start of the season and then one day they sucked. they finished fifth in the championship.

alpine. the frenchest french team. they’re (i think?) still partially owned by the french government. both of their drivers are french. (their drivers also hate eachother but we’ll get to that. just know they’re in the middle of a modern french civil war). they had the opportunity to have a good rookie driver (oscar piastri) this past year but in a thrilling twitter battle, he publically flamed the shit out of them and went to mclaren instead (and slayed). they're usually solidly middle of the pack. they ended sixth in the championship.

williams. williams has been one of the back of the grid teams for the last many years but they have finally started to get their shit together and don’t quite suck as much as they used to. all of the points this year were scored by only one driver though (except one but we’ll get there). they came in seventh.

alpha tauri. they are the sister team of red bull. so technically redbull owns both teams (meaning they can swap drivers between teams. they like doing this.) they’ve just kind of been There for awhile but they did slay towards the end of the season when one of their drivers led the race for several laps. basically tho, this team is the gateway to redbull. they came in eighth.

alpha romeo. recently renamed to stake f1 team (but sometimes they are going to be called kick sauber. this is a whole other drama post and i’m not getting into it). they’re also just kind of there. generally unproblematic. seems that really great drivers who get ixed out of a contract for a younger driver end up here or young drivers who are in their early years are here before they go to a better team. they ended ninth this year.

haas. oh haas. goofy team. they suck. point blank they suck. they keep loosing sponsors because they suck, they don’t win ever (one time they came first in qualifying last year). they cursed themselves in australia in 2018 by not tightening their tires and its been downhill ever since. they came 10th. their team principle got let go (fired?) who’s to say today.

so those are the teams. it is important to note that:

-there is a cost cap. each team is allowed to spend no more than 135m per year.

-not all cars are equal. some things are standard. they all undergo the same testing. but the cars are all very different. so you can be a good driver but stuck in a shitty car. which makes it impressive if you are doing well in a shitty car.

let’s meet our drivers!!!

starting with the guys who’s contract is not ending in 2024:

max verstappen. 3 time world champion. 26 years old. general beast on the track. he dominated the whole season. he’s currently racing for red bull and has a contract with them through 2028.

lewis hamilton. 7 time world champion. 39 years old. he drives for mercedes. he will not leave mercedes until he retires. he really really wants to win an 8th world championship and is willing to stick it out a few more years as long as merc still believes in him. his contract expires in 2025.

george russell. the other merc driver. 26 years old. hes aggressively british and says thinks like blimey unironically. walking meme. got his merc seat in 2022 right when they entered their flop arc by getting his tractor of a williams to finish second in qualifying in the middle of a rainstorm. his contract expires in 2025.

lando norris. mclaren driver. 24 years old. he has notably never won a race in his five years of formula one (mostly because right when his car finally was good enough max verstappen was 20 seconds ahead of anyone) but he is regarded as Very Good. he has only ever driven for mclaren. and even though there is another year left on his contract there is mass speculation that he will not renew his contract with mclaren after it expires and he may move up to one of the top teams (red bull, merc, ferrari) (tho i think he doesnt hate himself quite enough to go to ferrari). his contract expires in 2025.

oscar piastri. the other mclaren driver. 22 years old. this was his rookie season and he positively slayed. like people compared his rookie season to lewis hamiltons rookie season. he also had the positively funniest start to his rookie year because alpine announced that he would be driving for them (he had been their reserve driver and in the alpine academy) and he posted a tweet that basically said yeah thats false i never singed anything with you and im going to race with mclaren instead (he dodged a bullet) and then alpine tried and failed to sue him for $4m USD. he signed a contract extension with mclaren this year and his contract expires in 2026.

lance stroll. aston martin driver and son of the aston martin owner. hes doing ok, tho there was conspiracy that he wanted to quit and have a tennis career awhile ago. but basically since his dad owns the team it seems that hes guaranteed a seat for as long as he wants one.

so now. moving onto the good shit. the people who have contracts expiring in 2024. hold onto your hats people.

charles leclerc. (everyones favorite slutty little soup can). 26 years old. he is currently at ferrari and he has been since 2019. notably, he was given the longest contract in the history of ferrari after a stellar rookie season at sauber (renamed to alpha romeo, renamed to stake f1) where he got the tractor of a car consistently into the points. having the longest contract in the history of ferrari was a flex at the time, but now its likely how he will introduce himself at therapy sessions. ferrari have fucked this man left right and center up the ass with a plastic lunchroom spork. hes talented, he can drive, and he can drive well. but the strategy that ferrari has absolutely sucks. either something is wrong with the car (see him blowing out his gear box on the formation lap in monaco, his car completely crapping out and spinning into the barrier in brazil before the race even started) or they fuck up his pit stops or put him on the wrong tires and honestly its just frustrating. but will he leave??? likely not. you'd have to pry ferrari out of his cold dead hands and at this rate that might be where this is headed though there has been some minor speculation of him going to another team like merc or red bull, but merc doesnt have any open seats and red bull is a whole other dumpster fire of drama. ferrari are going to have to pay him a boatload of money to make him stay.

carlos sainz. the smooth operator. 29 years old. ferrari driver. previously carlos was at toro rosso (renamed to alpha tauri), renault (renamed to alpine), and mclaren before signing with ferrari. he has been at ferrari since 2021 and has voiced that he would like to stay with them for however long he can. there is speculation that lando might replace him at ferrari (but landos contract is not up until 2025) and there is also some speculation that alex albon might replace him. while charles is clearly the golden boy at ferrari, carlos is slightly slower but also definitely consistent. he was THE ONLY non red bull driver to win a race this past year, in Singapore after max verstappedn was knocked out of qualifying by alpha tauri reserve driver liam lawson (more on him later) and because he basically came up with his own strategy in the car while he was driving.

sergio perez. aka checo. red bull driver. 33 years old. and oh boy here's where we open the can of worms. checo was previously at racing point (renamed aston martin) and it was very near the end of the 2020 (?) season and he was out of a contract. he had a bonkers race where he was knocked to the back of the grid and then overtook everyone and somehow ended up winning (there is more to that story but just trust me) and christian horner, red bull team principle, mr ginger spice and definite disney villain called him and said congrats sir you have a seat at red bull! well. fast forward. hes been causing problems. problems as in crashing a lot, generally not doing great and pissing the crap out of red bull. it is basically guaranteed at this point that he will not be getting a contract extension. there was actually talk this year of him losing his seat mid season to one of the alpha tauri drivers, because remember, red bull owns both teams and they can switch them whenever they want to (and they have!) but ultimately this did not happen. even though checo has a seat at red bull until the end of 2024, its mass speculated that he is going to get switched with an alpha tauri driver, probably daniel ricciardo (more on him shortly) mid season because there is a speculated clause in daniels contract that says that if checo isn't performing well in the first few races daniel is getting his seat.

daniel ricciardo. 34 years old. alpha tauri driver. man oh man what a guy. outside of being the prankster of the paddock, he has one of the most batshit careers of anyone currently on the grid. he started out at red bull and was showing real talent and skill and was on track to win things (and was!) and was there until the end of 2018 when max verstappen (his teammate) started getting preferential treatment and also red bull started having a lot of problems with their engines (which were being outsourced from Renault (now alpine) and another team on the grid) and well very very long story short he made the surprise move of the century and decided to sign with Renault (which makes no sense they're the one with the engine problems) and was there for 2 years before moving again to mclaren where he was reportedly not treated very well and had a hard time driving the car so they mutually ended his contract with them early and he basically retired at the end of the 2022 season and became a red bull reserve driver. then halfway through the 2023 season alpha tauri ixed one of their drivers, nyck de vries, because he wasnt doing well and promoted daniel back up to a full time driver at alpha tauri (which we know is only a step down from red bull) but then he broke his hand in a crash in zanvort (?) and then he was replaced for a few races by formula 2 driver liam lawson (who we will also talk about) and then he came back to finish out the season in alpha tauri after he was cleared. daniel has admitted openly that he never should have left red bull and he was given bad advice to do so. hes towards the end of his career at this point and its well known that he Really Really wants to finish out his career at red bull again. he and max have already been teammates before and they do work well together and daniel is great driver (see his comeback in texas (or maybe it was brazil?) this year). so. Pretty Sure that daniels going to get either an extension at alpha tauri or go up to red bull. thats what we all want. get this man in a red bull we need him there biblically.

liam lawson. now technically liam is not actually a formula 1 driver. hes a formula 2 driver, but he was daniels replacement for five races and there has been some speculation and some confirmed news about him so hes getting included. when he was racing for f1 he was at alpha tauri. hes 21 and looks like he belongs in the movie grease. no one was expecting him to slay in formula 1 and he positively knocked everyones socks off. the scene: Singapore. which, if you'll recall, is the one race that a not red bull driver won. this was largely because liam lawson slayed the absolute game in qualifying. the qualifying part of racing determines what order the cars start in on the grid for the race and theres three parts, the first two parts the bottom 5 drivers each time get knocked out and then the top 10 complete for the last 10 spots. liam lawson knocked BOTH max verstappen and checo perez out of qualifying in the second round by going very slightly faster than them, effectively fucking up red bulls race and allowing carlos to win. and he also scored points in that race, which no one was expecting. now thats all fine and dandy, but here's the speculation: hemlut marko (im pretty sure) (who is somehow decently involved in the decision making at red bull though i couldn't tell you how) said that he thinks that liam lawson will be in an f1 seat no later than 2025. meaning that he will probably get offered a contract this year. and hes already raced for alpha tauri. red bull have sunk a good amount of money into him. they clearly want him. so if he gets offered an alpha tauri seat in 2025, that means theres a good chance danny rics is going to red bull. do you SEE how the plot here is THICKENED

yuki tsunoda. age 23. currently at alpha tauri. and fun fact, the only alpha tauri driver to race there the whole year. he had three separate team mates. he is slaying and hes often slept on. he has a bit of a temper and likes to shout on the radio and also hates working out (they had to force him to move to italy or something to work out, long story) but hes been kinda killing it. he led several laps in the abu dhabi race this year and hes decently consistent. people think theres possibility that he could get moved up to red bull on account of the fact that he is younger than daniel and clearly has more years in him,, but there is also possibility that he might not because red bull like to make stupid decisions. and if he doesnt get moved up to rebel, will he stay with alpha tauri? we don't know.

alex albon. age 27. currently a williams driver. alex albon is another one with a batshit career. he started out his rookie year in 2019 at alpha tauri then got moved up to red bull halfway through the year when red bull decided that pierre gasley wasnt doing a good enough job (more on him later) and stayed with red bull for a solid year and a half until he lost his seat in 2021 to checo. he has been with williams for the last two years and is basically carrying the team. like. williams as a team scored 28 points this year. and alex albon scored 27 of those 28 points. and as we know, williams is still kind of in their shit arc (though they are doing much better. they didnt score any points for a solid 2 (?) years. so this is an improvement.) and if you can get a shit car to perform you catch the eye of bigger teams. now, alex has already been a red bull driver. and he was on the cusp of podiuming two separate times when lewis hamilton ran into him. this (among a few other things) basically killed his chances at getting resigned at red bull because he wasnt ""performing"" and red bull are bitches who love to win. but some people think that red bull should give him another shot. like daniel, hes already been max's teammate and he can definitely drive. but theres also talk he might go to ferrari because ferrari think that he might compliment charles's driving style (or something). but going to ferrari at this point is kind of suicide. so.

logan sergeant. age 23. the only american on the grid. the other williams driver. he just finished his rookie year. he scored a grand total of one single point this season, in texas, and it was because charles leclerc and lewis hamilton both got disqualified because the floor of their car had more wear (by literally less than millimeters) than it was allowed to, bumping him up from 12th to 10th. he has never done better than alex albon. he was also the very last driver to get a contract for 2024, with williams waiting until i think december of 2023 to announce his contract extension. clearly, hes on thin ice. but people have also said that he needs time to get used to formula 1 (other people have pointed out that oscar piastri slayed his rookie season this year and this statement about needing time is largely false). where logan ends up next year though will largely depend on how well the 2024 season goes for him.

fernando alonso. 42 years old. many people like to point out that oscar piastri is actually younger than fernando's racing career. he won tiktok creator of the year (somehow) and is also a 2 time world champion. he retired a few years ago, just to show back up again and slay. during the first half of the season when aston martin had a zoom zoom car he killed it, and then they had problems on top of problems and he didnt do well. except for that one race in brazil where he came in third, beating checo by literally .05 seconds. he hasn't really made any hints about retiring a second time and he is kind of carrying aston Martin right now (he scored 205 points this season, coming in 4th and tying in points with charles leclerc, lance stroll only scored 74 points this year.) and they did have their best year yet this year. (though they are relatively new).

pierre gasley. 27 years old. french. drives for alpine. the french team. previously he raced with toro rosso (now alpha tauri), then got promoted to a red bull driver in 2019, then halfway through the season they decided he wasnt doing a good enough job and he got demoted back down to alpha tauri. then he won a race with alpha tauri just to stick it to red bull. after the great oscar piastri contract twitter war, he was signed as alpines second driver, with Esteban ocon being the other driver (more on him soon). estie bestie and pierre (both french) were childhood friends and now hate each other for unknown reasons and basically feuded on the track for most of the season. french civil war at alpine. he scored 62 points in 2023 and came in 11th. not really sure where he will end up, it is possible that he will stick it out at alpine.

esteban ocon. 27 years old. also french. currently driving for alpine. another one with a silly bonkers career. he started out at force india and had a baller few seasons there but his teammate at the time was checo, and checo didnt really cooperate with him too much and caused some drama that cost estie bestie some places and some points. max verstappen also beat him up in the garage once. thats not really relevant but it did happen. anyway, after the owner of force india was arrested for .... i don't remember what maybe it was embezzlement or bankruptcy or something money related, the team was backed by lawrence stroll and became racing point. but all of that happened mid season and lawrence was basically like look ill back you guys for now but next year my son gets a seat (lance) so one of you two (checo and estie bestie) have to go. and ultimately they let estie bestie go even though he was more consistent because checo had more sponsors and they needed money. so he was out of formula 1 for a few years (but was a merc reserve driver) and then went to Renault, which then became alpine. he did come in 12th though overall this season, just behind pierre. so. will alpine keep both him and pierre and keep the civil war going? whos to say.

nico hulkenberg. 36 years old. haas driver. in his 200+ f1 races he has never been on the podium and he really really wants to be on the podium. unfortunately this will never happen in a haas because haas fucking sucks. and everyone knows it. he is getting towards the end of his career though. though! stake f1 will become the mario Andretti and audi team in 2026 (don't question it) and they have supposedly voiced interest in nico. so we will see if he hangs on that long to end up at audi. for now tough, hes definitely hating it at haas. though, haas are going to have a different team principle next year so maybe that will change things. i have a sneaky feeling through that haas will probably end up with another 2 rookie drivers because everyone else is smart enough to not race for them.

kevin magnussen. 31 years old. haas driver. hes another deeply interesting character. he has had one podium. in his rookie season. in his first race. and none since. kevin started at haas in 2017 and then left at then end of 2020 when he basically got kicked off because the team needed money and they wanted to bring in drivers with more sponsorships. these drivers were mick schumacher and nikita mazepin. so kevin basically was forced to retire after the 2020 season. this went decently well for haas. until russia invaded ukraine right before the start of the 2022 season and, well, nikita was Russian and it was never distinctly proven that his dads company (who was sponsoring the team) wasnt also funding the invasion. so nikita got fired and they were literally like 2 weeks out from the start of the season, down a driver. who are you gonna call? kevin magnussen! and hes been back ever since. but hes clearly getting annoyed with haas. there was one great clip from this year where his car caught on fire and he kind of just stared into to, clearly hoping it would burn for a long time. so the likelihood of him extending his contract is looking slim.

valtteri bottas. 34 years old. currently a driver for stake f1 (alpha romeo, kick sauber, whatever you wanna call it). previously, he was a mercedes driver and notoriously helped lewis hamilton win a great many championships, until he lost his seat to george russell in 2022. there was a rather awkward part of the 2021 season where valtteri knew that he was out of a merc seat the following year and kind of just chose violence. he slayed. then he went to alpha romeo, grew a mullet and made a calendar of his ass. quite the glow up if you ask me. hes also very interested in cycling. honestly though, i have my own personal speculation that hes going to retire at the end of this year.

zhou guanyu. 24 years old. driver for stake f1 (alpha romeo/kick sauber, etc etc). hes doing alright. he just finished his second season, in his first season he was majorly out qualified by valtteri but this past season he managed to out qualify him a good 6 times. which is decently good for the tractor of a car hes driving. its possible that he could get a contract extension, but like logan, its probably going to depend on how the 2024 season goes for him.

and thats all the drivers. theres also a few others i didnt talk about, like some other f2 drivers who want seats and mick schumacher, who is currently a merc reserve driver, all of which could be contenders for f1 seats. but one things for sure. this is going to be the silliest fucking silly season.

feel free to add on and peer review me

#not a tag #from saph #written while the power was out actually #strange expense #f1 #saph explains silly season 2024 #formula 1 #belgian grand prix #Instagram

3K notes · View notes

the-al-chemist · 2 years ago

Note

Hi Al, happy fwf! How are you? I have a question? If you had to chose a song to describe each of your next gen kids what would it be?

P.s Yesterday I was looking in your blog and I noticed we shared Dante's name. My Dante is also next gen , but he is Cora's son and a hufflepuff so they don't have many things in common. This was completely unintentional, I chose the name because The Divine Comedy is one of my favourite books and I didn't know you had an Oc with this name. I can change it if you want, I am really sorry. Please don't get mad about it 😔

Nela 💜

Hi Nela! Thanks for the ask! 💛 I’m tired but very well, thanks.

I actually have a playlist almost done for my next gen kids, I just keep forgetting to finish and post it! However, if I had to pick just one song for each of them, it would be:

Saffron Summers - Ride A White Swan by T. Rex

Wear a tall hat like a druid in the old days

Wear a tall hat and a tatooed gown

Ride a white swan like the people of the Beltane

Wear your hair long, babe you can't go wrong

Dante Lopez Briarwood - Let Me Entertain You by Robbie Williams

I'm a burning effigy

Of everything I used to be

You're my rock of empathy, my dear

So come on let me entertain you

Rory McTavish - Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega

So what can I do? I really beg you, my Lord

To me is flirting it's just like sport, anything fly

It's all good, let me dump it, please set in the trumpet

Zadie Taylor-Allen - Electricity from Billy Elliot the Musical

Then suddenly I'm flying

Flying like a bird

Like electricity, electricity

Sparks inside of me

And I'm free, I'm free

Cleo Hexley - Pompeii by Bastille

But if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?

And if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like you've been here before?

Also, DW. Dante is a great name, and pretty common around these parts (it’s also @whatwouldvalerydo’s Jonathan’s middle name!)

#happy ffwf!#next gen harry potter #saffron summers #dante lopez briarwood #rory mctavish #zadie taylor allen #cleo hexley

1 note · View note

renee-writer · 3 years ago

Text

Love Never Dies Chapter 76 Julia Claire

AO3

A few hours later, when mama and daughter had a chance to bond and the baby was content with a full tummy, Jamie goes to get the family to meet her.

Marsali and Fergus have brought their bairns. Brianna and Rabbie brought the younger children back. All were anxious to see the newest Fraser, though the twins are a bit confused.

“You are to meet your sister.” Rabbie explains to them. He carries them, one in each arm. William frowns.

“Bree is our sister.”

“I am, little squirt, but mama just had another sister. A baby.”

They walk in and Bree walks up and glazes in amazement at her baby sister. “Mama, da, she is perfect.”

“Isn’t she!” Claire lifts the chestnut haired, blue eyed baby into her big sister’s arms.

“Oh, hello. I am Brianna, your big sister. I am so glad you are here safe and a lass. We were getting outnumbered.” Rabbie chuckles. He carries the twins over to her.

“See William and Lambert. This is your sister.” Lambert, in his way, looks at her in awe.

“So wee.” His mama laughs.

“She is to you.”

William, quickly figuring out that this lass makes them no longer the babies, frowns.

“We don’t need a new baby. Take her back.”

“Now, William James, we won’t be doing that. This baby is God’s gift to our family.” His Da’s stern voice quiets him. Claire knows what he needs.

“Rabbie, bring them to me.” He lifts his eyes. Is she sure? She nods. He carries them over and sits them on the side of her bed.

“Be careful lads. Your Mama’s sore.” He instructs.

“Did the baby make you sore?” William looks at the baby in his Da’s arms with suspension.

“Yes she did. But you did too, as did Bree and Rory. Children make their mamas sore when they are born.”

“Sorry mama.” Lambert cuddles against her.

“It is alright my darling.” She hugs him close. “William, you and Lambert will always be my babies. Same as Bree and Rory. A new baby doesn’t take that away. A mama and da have an endless supply of love for their children. New babies don’t mean there is less love for you.”

“Oh. I didn’t know.” He also cuddles against her.

Rory enters with his brother and Marsali and his nephew and niece. Ian and Jenny and their brood, including the newlywed, Wee Jamie and his bride, follow. The room is full of family. It is made complete when Murtagh enters. Bree has handed her sister to her da. When all are gathered, he clears his throat.

“Now that all her family are here, Claire and I would like to introduce you to Julia Claire Fraser.”

A soft ‘awe’ goes through the room. Rory walks up and Jamie sits so he can see her. “She is so beautiful.”

“Thank you lad.”

“For Grandma Julia.” Bree breathes. “I was named for Granny Ellen and grandsire Brian. William carries grandpa Henry’s name. Now Julia completes it.”

“Aye.”

“We managed to get your late uncle William, your da and, my Uncle Lamb also.”

“I think it is wonderful. Family names.” Marsali comes up to see the baby. Joanie, in her arms, reaches for the baby. “Not a dolly, Joanie. Gentle with the baby.” Germain, a curious four runs up to see what has entranced his mam. Fergus follows.

“Petite soeur. Petite beauté.” He greets his baby sister.

“Ouí papa.” Germain stills his restless energy at the sight of the baby in his granperé arm’s.

One by one they come up to see the baby. Jenny pronounces Julia Claire a perfect name for her beautiful niece. Leah, Wee Jamie’s new bride, gets teary eyed. The anticipation of having her own shines in them.

Then Murtagh walks up. Jamie places her in his arms. He breaths out a prayer for her before promising to be by her side the same as he was for all Jamie’s bairns and grandbairns.

The twins have fallen asleep by their mama. Jamie and Fergus carry them to bed. Their family slowly leaves. Bree and Rabbie and Fergus and Marsali are spending the week with their parents.

Jamie lays the baby in her arms and she nurses her. Then they both fall asleep. Jamie needs sleep too but is loath to leave his lasses. He is content to sit and watch them sleep.

#my writing #outlander fanfic #love never dies #julia claire #jamie and claire #cannon divergence #outlander fandom

7 notes · View notes

singledarkshade · 4 years ago

Text

Reunited Family

Summary: It's been a year since Amy, Rory and Jonas became a family. The Doctor appears suddenly with news that will change everything for them forever. Sequel to Foster Parents, Settling In And New Grandpa, Big Sister, Meeting The Doctor and Surprise Family. Author’s Note: This is the final main story in the series, I have had a good bit of this written for a long time. Although I may add a few mini fics set during the series at some point.

Enjoy.

Walking out the clothes shop, Amy frowned confused to find the Doctor standing waiting for her.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded.

The Doctor smiled, “Hello to you too, Pond.”

Shaking her head, Amy hugged him tightly. It was almost a year since they’d seen him, after they’d had to tell him there was no more travelling now that they had Jonas.

“Don’t get me wrong, Doctor,” Amy said, “I am so happy to see you but showing up like this, something’s going on.”

He nodded, “Come inside and I’ll explain.”

Entering the TARDIS, Amy smiled happy to be back inside the ship which hummed slightly hello. Placing her bags down just to one side, Amy headed to the console where the Doctor was waiting for her looking serious.

“Okay, Raggedy Man,” she stated, “What’s going on?”

The Doctor rested his hands on her shoulders, “I found Rip Hunter.”

Astonishment filled her and all Amy could say was, “What?”

“I found Rip Hunter,” the Doctor repeated, “Jonas’ father. I…” he trailed off, “I wanted to talk to you first.”

Amy nodded understanding, she loved Jonas, but Rory had created a deep bond with the little boy, and she knew losing him would be heart breaking, even if it was giving him back to his own father.

But Amy also knew that Jonas deserved to have his father back.

“Okay,” she said softly, “Then we go get him now.”

The Doctor frowned in confusion, “You’re not going to tell Rory first.”

“No,” Amy shook her head, “I don’t want him to have time to think about it. This will be easier on him.”

Nodding the Doctor hit the lever and the TARDIS entered the time stream.

Rip sat exhausted.

Using the Time Core against Mallus had pulled him into what was basically a prison just attached to the time stream. His courier was completely dead and there was nothing he could do to fix it. He would see the Waverider pass him every so often but had no way to contact Gideon. There was also no way to measure how long he’d been here. He wasn’t hungry or thirsty even after he struggled to escape. All he felt was exhaustion. Rip feared that soon he would just slip into unconsciousness and die here alone.

It felt like he was back before he’d been found by the Time Masters. The unwanted child who was nothing but dirt on people’s shoes.

A strange noise began to fill the small bubble he was in, a wheezing noise that sounded like nothing he’d ever heard before growing louder by the second. He had no weapons and there was nothing within the prison but that didn’t mean Rip would go down without a fight. Ready to protect himself, Rip watched in bemusement when a blue police box appeared before him.

The door opened and Rip jumped, staring at the man who looked out. Floppy brown hair, tweed jacket and a bow tie, the man let out a cry of excitement.

“Amy,” he called behind him, “You are not going to believe this.”

Stepping out the door, the man stepped to one side and a red headed woman appeared staring at him.

“This is bizarre,” the woman breathed, before giving him a smile, “Rip Hunter, I presume.”

Confused Rip nodded, “Yes.”

“I’m Amy Williams,” she introduced herself, “And this is the Doctor.”

Rip looked at her, his eyes drawn over her shoulder where he could see a room that should not exist within the tiny box.

“Time Lord,” Rip breathed in realisation.

Amy indicated the strange man she’d introduced as the Doctor with her thumb, “That’s him.”

“I have to admit,” Rip returned his attention to Amy, “I am a little confused why you’re here, not that I don’t appreciate what I hope is a rescue.”

Amy smiled, “How about we get out of here and I’ll explain.”

Rip let out a sigh, “That is a wonderful idea.”

The small kitchen was not what Rip was expecting after seeing the control room. It reminded him of the kitchen in his mother’s house, warm and comforting. The Doctor was sitting quietly while Amy made them tea.

“We stopped allowing him to make the tea after he decided to try flavours,” Amy explained as she handed Rip a mug.

“Some weren’t bad,” the Doctor protested, taking his mug from her.

“Rory was sick after trying one,” Amy reminded him, taking a seat at the table with them.

The Doctor grumbled but said nothing else, drinking his tea.

“Who is Rory?” Rip asked.

Amy smiled, “My husband. And that’s a good way to ease into what I have to tell you.”

Rip frowned confused but stayed silent waiting.

“This is my husband, Rory,” Amy pulled up a photograph on her phone and turned it to show him,

Rip stared at his doppelganger, “Okay.”

“You’re distantly related,” the Doctor spoke up, “Space time multiplicity.”

“Anyway,” Amy continued, “Rory is a nurse and just over a year ago, Rory was at work in the hospital, and he found a little boy who thought Rory was his father.”

Rip’s mouth went dry, and he tried not to feel any hope waiting for Amy to continue.

“Jonas is safe,” she pulled up another photograph and passed her phone to Rip, “He’s healthy and will be so happy to see you.”

Staring at the photograph of his long-lost son, Rip’s eyes filled with tears his hand covering his mouth.

“It’s okay,” Amy reached out and gently squeezed his arm, “We believed you were dead and, although Jonas took it hard, he’s coping. He will be so happy to have you back.”

Rip managed to swallow the lump in his throat and whispered, “I have no way to thank you.”

Amy smiled, “You don’t have to. We got to have the most amazing little boy as part of our lives.”

The Doctor stood suddenly, “And we should head back to the house. Allow you to see your son.”

*********************************************

Rory checked the time to see how long before Amy would be home from her Saturday afternoon shopping trip.

“Jonas,” he called, “Do you want to help me make a cake for your grandma’s visit tomorrow?”

The little boy nodded, he enjoyed baking with Rory. It was something he used to do with his dad and Rory wanted the little boy to continue to associate it with good memories. Rory’s own grandmother had taught him how to bake and Amy, who had a major sweet tooth, always asked him to make her the chocolate cake his gran taught him. Plus, during his time guarding the Pandorica, he’d studied with the best chefs picking up what he could.

They pulled together all the ingredients and soon Jonas was mixing the chocolate batter, with not too much covering him. After pouring it into the cake tin, Rory slid it into the oven and smiled at the little boy.

“I think we did great work,” Rory told him.

Jonas nodded, “Amy will be happy.”

Rory chuckled and quickly cleaned Jonas up so he could go back to his toys. The sound of the TARDIS arriving stunned him and he automatically pulled Jonas close protectively. The blue box landed in the back garden and Rory frowned confused when Amy walked out of it. With Jonas holding onto him, they walked to meet her.

“This is the best way to do this,” Amy murmured when she kissed him hello before crouching down to Jonas. The little boy gave her a hug and Amy kissed the top of his head, “Jonas, I have a big surprise for you.”

She rested her hand on his shoulder and faced him towards the TARDIS. The door opened and Rory stared in amazement.

Rip bounced nervously as Amy left the ship to speak first with her husband, his eyes on the monitor showing his baby boy standing there whole and healthy. Slightly taller than when Rip had last seen him, but still his little boy.

“Jonas,” Amy’s voice came, “I have a big surprise for you.”

On his cue, Rip froze until the Doctor placed a hand on his back to propel him forward. The moment he stepped into the garden, Jonas’ joyful voice filled the air.

“Daddy!!!!!”

A second later Rip had his son in his arms, holding onto him tightly as tears streamed along his face.

“I thought you were gone,” Jonas whispered, “I missed you, Daddy.”

Rip grimaced, “I am sorry, little man, I am so sorry, and I will never leave you again. I promise.”

Jonas cuddled into his shoulder, and Rip gently rubbed his back. Looking up he saw Amy standing with her husband, his doppelganger, who was wiping his eyes.

“Hey,” Rip murmured, pulling back from his son, “Why don’t you introduce me to your new friends?”

Jonas grinned, squirming to be put down he grabbed Rip’s hand, “This is Amy and Rory. Rory found me in the hospital and is related to us.”

Offering his free hand to the other man, Rip said, “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“You too,” Rory smiled as he shook Rip’s hand.

“Jonas,” Amy spoke up, “Why don’t you show your dad your room?”

His son grinned and began to pull him towards the house. Rip gave the couple and their friend a quick nod as he was dragged away. The house was nice and tidy, it was clearly a family home. As Jonas led him upstairs, Rip looked at each picture hanging on the way up. One of Amy and Rory on their wedding day, the rest were of Jonas.

When they entered the room, Rip smiled as Jonas bounced about showing all the completed robotic kits, the books and other things around the room that were his.

“And this,” Jonas picked up a toy dog, “I called her Gideon.”

Rip smiled, “She’d like that you thought of her.”

“She did,” Jonas nodded, “She’ll be really happy you’re here.”

“What?”

Jonas grinned, “I let her know Amy and Rory were looking after me. She sent them a communicator.”

Relief filled Rip that he could easily let Gideon know he was alive and with his son once more. Looking at his little boy, Rip sighed, “I am so sorry, Jonas that I wasn’t there when you needed me, but I promise from now on, I will always be here.”

Jonas threw his arms around Rip who smiled at being able to hold his baby boy once more.

A knock on the door made Rip look up to see Amy standing there.

“Jonas,” she smiled, “Why don’t you help Rory make dinner, let your dad have a shower and freshen up?”

When Jonas looked over at him, Rip nodded and pressed a kiss to his son’s forehead, “I won’t be long.”

Jonas hesitated for a moment before he bounced away. Rip took a shaky breath looking round when Amy sat on the bed beside him.

“You look a bit overwhelmed,” she said softly.

Rip felt tears prick his eyes, “I never thought I’d ever see him again. I thought he was dead. I held his body and died inside. But he’s here…”

Amy rubbed his back comfortingly as he trailed off, “Have a shower, I’ve left you some clothes out. You and Rory appear to be the same size,” she smiled, “Once you’re dressed come downstairs and have dinner.”

“I…”

“We can sort everything else out later,” Amy continued, “For now, just be with your son.”

*********************************************

Jonas sat at the table looking at the door nervously, waiting for his dad to appear once more. Rory frowned at how worried the little boy looked but was pulled away when he heard what the man at his side was saying.

“We’re not having fish fingers and custard for dinner,” Rory turned to the Doctor, “I’ve made proper food.”

“Well, that’s boring,” the Doctor dropped into the seat beside Jonas with a pout.

Jonas laughed, telling him, “Rory makes nice food.”

“I know,” the Doctor said, “But not my favourite.”

Amy appeared at the door and Jonas looked round her.

“Your dad will be down once he’s had his shower,” Amy soothed, gently squeezing his shoulder.

“Okay,” Jonas said before whispering, “He will, won’t he?”

Rory moved to his side, “Of course he will,” he assured, “Jonas, your dad is so happy to be back with you.”

“He has missed you so much,” Amy added, “He’s just having a shower and changing clothes before dinner.”

Jonas smiled as they hugged him tightly.

Rip closed his eyes as he let the water batter down on him, he had no idea how long he’d been trapped in the time prison and was relieved to be free finally. Seeing Jonas, alive and thriving was the most incredible thing. Rip knew he could never repay the couple who had taken Jonas in for all they had done for his baby boy.

After a few minutes he washed himself and his hair, drying before putting on the jeans and t-shirt Amy had left out for him. Taking a quick breath, he headed down the stairs hearing the chatter and laughter coming from the dining room.

He nervously opened the door, unable to stop his smile as Jonas came running over to him.

“Hey,” Rip hugged the little boy, “I’m here.”

Jonas beamed up at him, “Rory made dinner. He is the one who can cook, Amy doesn’t cook much. But she does make good toast.”

Rip laughed, as did the others in the room at the little boy’s announcement.

“At least I make good toast,” Amy elbowed her husband who was smirking at her.

“Grab a seat,” Rory told them, “Dinner is ready.”

Dinner was nice. As promised Rory could cook and while they ate Jonas told Rip all about his school. Rory and Amy every so often reminded the little boy of things to tell Rip and a strange jealousy settled in Rip’s chest. He did his best to ignore it, it wasn’t their fault he hadn’t been there for his son and forced himself to focus on his little boy, not his idiocy.

“Daddy,” Jonas bounced suddenly, “Grandma is coming tomorrow, she’ll be happy to see you.”

“Grandma?” Rip asked, he tried to remember from the load of information he’d been given if that was Rory or Amy’s mother.

Jonas nodded, “Grandma Mary comes to visit.”

“Your mother,” Rory clarified, picking up on Rip’s confusion.

“Mother?” Rip breathed, before noting, “Why do I feel there is a story behind that?”

Amy chuckled, “Because you’re right but we’ll tell that one later.”

Finishing eating, Rory and Amy cleared the plates while the Doctor chatted with Jonas. Rip watching how comfortable his son was in this place with these people. It had always saddened them that he and Miranda couldn’t give Jonas an extended family.

“Where’s Daddy going to sleep?” Jonas suddenly asked.

Rip winced, he hadn’t thought about that himself but before he could say anything Amy replied.

“Well, he can sleep on the couch if he wants,” Amy smiled at him, “Or if he doesn’t mind sharing then your bed should be big enough for both of you tonight.”

“With me,” Jonas said instantly before Rip could say a word. At his son’s hopeful look, Rip nodded. He was more than happy to have his son close to him all night long.

“Don’t worry,” Rory said as he placed a bowl with ice cream down, “It was the spare room before it was Jonas’ room. We never changed the bed so it should be comfortable for a few nights.”

*********************************************

Amy and Rory watched the TARDIS disappear. The Doctor had hugged them both before bouncing away as though they saw each other every day.

“I’m sorry I didn’t warn you,” Amy said as Rory wrapped his arm around her, “But when the Doctor told me he’d found Rip, I knew we had to rescue him then and there.”

Rory sighed, “I’m glad you did. I’m just worried where Rip is going to take Jonas to live now.”

“Me too,” Amy leaned against him as they reached the living room and sat together, “But I think that might not be a snap decision. He seems a little shell-shocked.”

Rory nodded, “Considering everything, that’s to be expected. I think we just have to do our best to help him and not borrow trouble.”

Amy kissed him, “Tea?”

“Good idea.”

Jonas had changed into his pyjamas and bounced into his room now he’d brushed his teeth. Rip smiled as he watched his son, Amy and Rory had stepped back so Rip could put his son to bed. When he made it home being included in Jonas’ bedtime routine was one thing he looked forward to. Picking the book up from the bedside table that Rory was reading with Jonas, Rip smiled to see that it was Treasure Island, one of his favourite books. He’d read it during his first few months in the Refuge and had hoped to share it with his son. Miranda knew this and never read it with Jonas in the hopes one day Rip would be able to.

“You like living here, don’t you?” Rip said as Jonas climbed onto the bed beside him.

Jonas nodded.

Rip smiled, “That’s good.”

“Are you going to call Gideon and tell her you’re here?” Jonas asked.

“Not tonight,” Rip told him, “I’ll let her know tomorrow.”

Jonas chewed his lip and Rip began to worry, “What’s wrong?”

Wide eyes looked up at him, “Where are we going to live now, Daddy?”

Rip gently stroked his son’s hair and kissed his forehead, “I’m not sure yet but don’t worry about it. Because wherever we live you will always be able to see your new family. I promise.”

Jonas nodded.

“Okay,” Rip smiled, “Let’s see where you and Rory are up to.”

Rip watched Jonas sleep, the little boy snuggling into his pillow as he hugged his toy dog close. It was the most amazing thing to see his son alive, safe and happy. The couple who had taken his son in were wonderful, and Rip knew he couldn’t just pull Jonas away from them. He was settled here, and it wouldn’t be fair on Jonas to make him move again.

Finally he shook himself and, after pressing a kiss to his son’s hair, left the room. He could hear Amy and Rory talking in the living room, Rip needed to talk to them tonight.

“May I join you?” Rip said, opening the door seeing them on couch drinking tea.

“Sure,” Amy smiled, “Do you want some tea?”

Rip shook his head, even he had his limit, “No, thank you.”

“I take it Jonas is finally asleep,” Rory noted with an amused smile, “How many chapters did you read?”

“Three,” Rip replied, “He was fighting sleep for a good part of it, so the last two will probably need repeated.”

The couple chuckled.

“I want to thank you both again,” Rip said, taking a seat across from them “There is nothing I can do that can repay you for how you not only took Jonas in, but you have cared for him like he is your own.”

Rory caught Amy’s hand before saying softly, “We lost a child. It was a good fit.”

“I have one more thing to ask of you,” Rip continued, “And that is your assistance in finding a place for us to live as close to here as possible.”

They stared at him, and Amy breathed, “Seriously?”

“I can’t take Jonas away from you,” Rip told them, “His life has already been uprooted and he loves you both so much. I won’t let him lose the new family he found here with you. Unfortunately for you it means putting up with me as well now.”

They chuckled all jumping when the door burst open, and Jonas ran in fear covering his face.

“Daddy,” he cried running to Rip, who pulled him up onto his lap, “I thought you were gone again.”

Rip hugged him, “I’m just talking with Amy and Rory.” Jonas buried his face against his shoulder and Rip rubbed the little boy’s back turning to the couple, “I think I will retire for the night with Jonas.”

Managing to stand with Jonas in his arms, Rip nodded to Amy and Rory who said goodnight before he carried his son who was clinging to him upstairs.

*********************************************

Rip woke feeling rested properly for the first time in a long time. He could feel Jonas attached to him and opening his eyes smiled to see the sweet face of his son. Rip never thought he would feel peace like this ever again. Only Miranda was missing.

Sliding out of bed, Rip could hear someone moving outside the room then heading downstairs.

“Daddy?” Jonas sleepy voice made him turn to see his son looking up at him blearily.

“It’s okay,” Rip soothed, “I’m just going to be downstairs.”

Jonas slid out of the bed with his toy dog in his hand, Rip watched him wander out of the room but rather than go downstairs he headed into the other bedroom. Rip watched Jonas climb in beside Amy, who smiled hugging him before they both closed their eyes.

Shaking his head in slight bemusement, Rip dressed quickly and walked downstairs finding Rory in the kitchen.

“Morning,” his ‘twin’ smiled, “Kettle is boiled, help yourself to whatever you want. Is Jonas still asleep?”

“He climbed in beside Amy,” Rip said as he made himself a mug of tea.

Rory nodded, “That’s normal for the weekend. I’m usually up first even when I’m not working. They both like to sleep in.”

Rip smiled softly as he took a seat at the table across from the other man, “So did Miranda,” he quickly moved on to ask, “I’ve been wondering, how did you contact my mother?”

“We didn’t,” Rory grimaced slightly, “Some of your friends appeared one day demanding we let Jonas go with them because you would want him to live with people you knew.”

“You refused.”

Rory nodded, “I had no idea who they were and told them I would only let a relative Jonas knew take him. So, they brought your mother,” he grimaced, “Your friends are not very subtle.”

“Subtlety has never been one of their qualities,” Rip nodded before asking, “What happened?”

“Mary dismissed them and came in for a chat,” Rory smiled in memory, “And she decided it was best that Jonas stay here with us, but she would be visiting. Which she has and we always look forward to seeing her. My dad gets along well with her, and they plan their next adventure with Jonas after each day out.”

Rip smiled, “I haven’t seen her in a long time,” before noting, “My life is not very linear.”

“Time travel really does mess with your sense of normality,” Rory agreed, “The fact Jonas understood that meant we didn’t have to hide anything from him about our lives.”

Rip frowned confused, “Like?”

“You remember I said we lost our daughter?” Rory asked softly.

Rip nodded.

“Well, it turns out we grew up with her,” Rory continued, “And she is now older than we are.”

“Long story?”

“Very.”

Rip chuckled before he sighed, “I need to contact Gideon, Jonas said you have a communicator.”

“Yes, that was a shock,” Rory chuckled before explaining, “He built the original one from bits of his robotic kits and using some of the crystals we got at the science centre. I nearly had a heart attack finding him talking to this strange woman. Thankfully, after she explained who she was, Gideon sent us a proper one. She has been an amazing help, letting us know things you and Miranda would do with Jonas so we kept things consistent, and she helped us choose his school.”

Rip smiled, “Gideon has always been special. She kept me in one piece for many years and she loved Jonas from the moment he was born. Even though she insists as an AI that isn’t possible.”

“The communicator is on the top shelf of the bookshelf in the living room,” Rory told him.

Rip found the communicator and placing it on the coffee table he took a seat. Taking a deep breath, Rip hit the button and waited.

Gideon’s human form appeared before him, and she stalled from whatever she was going to say.

“Captain?” she whispered.

“Hello, Gideon,” Rip smiled, “I have missed you.”

She studied him for a moment, “You are safe once more and you are calling me from…”

Rip nodded when she trailed off, “I’m with Jonas.”

“Mr and Mrs Williams have been wonderful to him,” Gideon assured, “I did my best to assist them.”

“I know,” Rip whispered, “They told me.”

“I will come for you, Captain,” Gideon said, “If you order me to.”

Rip shook his head, “I won’t order you to do anything, Gideon, I would only ask, and that is something I can’t ask of you.”

“Rip?”

“I would love to come back to you, but Jonas needs me,” Rip whispered, “And I need to be with him.”

“He always loved being on the Waverider,” Gideon reminded him.

Rip smiled sadly, “He does and so do I, but I can’t take him away from here. He has school and friends,” he shrugged, “I can’t take him from Mr and Mrs Williams. He loves them and I won’t tear him from another home.”

Gideon nodded softly, “You are doing the right thing, Rip and I am very proud of you.”

“Once I find a house, I’ll ensure it is accessible to you,” Rip promised.

“I look forward to that, Rip,” Gideon told him.

Hearing noise above him Rip sighed, “I have to go, Jonas is up, and my mother is visiting today.”

“I have missed you, Captain Hunter,” Gideon said softly.

“I missed you too,” Rip smiled.

*********************************************

Mary smiled to herself as she walked up to the blue door looking forward to spending the day with her grandson and the couple who had taken him in. She had come to know Amy and Rory quite well in the months since they met, putting them in the same category as her son and daughter-in-law.

“Hello, Mary,” Amy smiled in greeting when she opened the door before Mary could even knock.

Mary hugged the redhead, “It’s wonderful to see you, dear.”

“Grandma!!!!!!” Jonas came speeding towards her catching her in a hug, “We have a surprise for you.”

Surprised Mary laughed, “You do?”

Jonas nodded and grabbed her hand, “Come on.”

Glancing at Amy who shrugged, Mary allowed her grandson to pull her through the house to the living room. Entering the room, she stalled to see the man standing there.

“Michael?” she breathed, glancing to one side where Rory was watching just to check.

“Hello Mother,” he smiled slightly.

Walking to him, Mary opened her arms and he hugged her tightly, “Oh my boy, you’re safe.”

“I’m sorry,” Michael whispered.

Letting him go, Mary took his face in her hands, “You’ve only ever done what you thought was right, my dear one. I’m just happy to have you back safely.”

“Are we still going to the zoo?” Jonas asked, “I want to show Daddy the lion we adopted and the penguin that dances.”

Amy laughed, “I think if your dad and grandma agree then we will.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” Michael crouched down to hug his son.

Mary smiled at the sight before clapping her hands together, “If we’re heading to the zoo, we should get going.”

“Come on, Jonas,” Rory said, “Let’s get everything together to go.”

Amy and Rory left the room with Jonas, Mary took her son’s hand who smiled at her.

“Thank you for letting him stay here,” Rip breathed, “I know Sara wanted you to agree to him being moved.

“The moment I met Amy and Rory,” Mary replied, “I knew Jonas belonged here with them if he couldn’t be with you. They have been wonderful to him.”

Her son nodded, “Now I have to find a place to live close to them, so he doesn’t lose another family.”

Mary squeezed his arm, proud of him for accepting the couple as part of Jonas’ life.

“Well,” she said, “I suggest you leave that to one side for just now and we enjoy our day at the zoo.”

Michael nodded.

When Amy, Rory and Jonas arrived back ready to leave, Michael took his son’s hand while talking with the couple about how they would explain the relationship if they met anyone they knew.

Watching her son with his own and the couple who had taken Jonas in, Mary smiled knowing that Michael had a new family, whether he liked it or not.

#fic #crossover #doctor who #rory williams #amy pond #eleventh doctor #legends of tomorrow #rip hunter #jonas hunter #gideon #mary xavier

11 notes · View notes

apples-r-rubbish · 4 years ago

Text

Institute (13th Doctor x Reader) Part 1

Summary: After a weird encounter on a victorian street the doctor is drawn to you a fellow time traveller AN: HI!! this is a 13 x fem! reader as I started this a while ago and it would’ve meant very heavy delays if I had altered it Word count: 1.6k Warnings: death mention

(PART 2) (PART 3) (PART 4) (PART 5) (PART 6) (PART 7) (PART 8) MASTERLIST

The doctor stepped out of the TARDIS, rubbing her hands together “C’mon gang, let’s get a shift on. Lots to see, lots to do.” She said taking the lead and walking ahead. The victorian streets were cobblestone, and covered in mud, “Doc, I thought the victorian era was supposed to be more, I don’t know? Glamorous.” Graham sighed

“Oi! This is real history, you can’t believe everything you see in movies. They’re more historically inaccurate than you’d think,” The doctor snapped jokingly

“Then why’s she wearing jeans?” Ryan asked, gesturing towards you. The entire group turned to look at you.

“Another time traveller probably. I’m not the only one knocking about time and space. She’s definitely not a time agent because she would be dressed era appropriate, so I assume she’s just passing through,” She rambled. Whilst she talked about the intricacies of the time agency you approached them.

“You do understand it is rude to talk about someone, and not include them, regardless, of how well you know someone, Doctor, Ryan, Graham, Yaz,” You interrupted

“Who are you? Sorry, time travel, you should know what it’s like, nothings ever in the right order. Especially with people,” A confused expression fixed on her face

“Oh, of course, that makes sense. It’s all coming together,” You said glaring at the vortex manipulator and sticking your hand out to her “My name’s (Y/N). (Y/N) (L/N).”

“That’s a lovely name. A really lovely name,” The doctor said smiling widely, Ryan and Yaz chuckling at her.

“You’ll see me again,” You said kissing her on the cheek “That’ll make more sense eventually, I promise,”

“Do you happen to know an archeologist by any chance?”

“I think I know the one you’re referring to. We happen to be friends I’ll have you know,” You blinked staring off into the distance for a second “Well, if you haven't met me yet, I should get going,” You said tapping the travel device and slamming your hand down against it. You vanished.

“Well that definitely was one of the more confusing interactions we’ve had,” Yaz frowned. Electricity fizzed and you reappeared behind them, “Sorry, sorry,” You said making them jump “Doctor, when you see me next, give me this, it’ll make sense to her, maybe. Anyway, onwards,” You handed her a heavy ring as you spoke, ”I’ve always wanted to die on a foreign planet.” And before she could respond, you vanished into thin air once again.

“How- How did she do that?” Graham asked “And what did she mean? Die on a foriegn planet,”

“Vortex manipulator, nasty way to time travel, bad for the kidneys,” She frowned “as for the death bit, I don’t know,”

It’d been 3 months since the doctor had met you. She had tried to search for you and found nothing. She’d bored the fam to death rambling about time and the way it worked and who you could be and things she’d done to try to track you down. Nothing seemed to work, at one point they’d tried to stage an intervention which did not help as it merely gave her a platform to theorise. Until one day they arrived on Earth.

“Right gang, this is an abandoned building, middle of London. 3 hours to get some stuff done before we set off again,” the doctor said as she pushed the door open. The building outside the doors was definitely not abandoned. It looked like an office, floor to ceiling windows and a beautiful view of London outwards, a desk opposite them.

“Are you sure you’re right? This looks awfully officey for an abandoned building,” Ryan commented with a frown. The room was large, there were a variety of chairs placed around the room, along with a few futuristic looking lights

“No, it’s definitely Earth the gravity feels right,” The doctor answered, she licked her finger and lifted it into the air, “It’s earth, middle of London, Wednesday and it’s 11:02am,” She said a smug smile framing her face, wiping her finger on Yaz despite her protests. A door opened, you stepped out looking younger than the version in the victorian street, dressed in a suit, the opposite to how you were in the street.

“Hello, you’re the doctor, and I presume these are your companions? Assistants? Friends? Whatever you call them now,” You said extending a hand out to the timelord

“Yes, I am and yes they’re friends,” She said taking it “So you’re (Y/N) (L/N) then? What is this place?”

“Yes I am. It’s my office, I’ll explain on the tour, follow me, this way,” You said taking the lead and exiting the room

“We can’t tell her about what we saw, it runs the risk of collapsing reality or potentially ruining a fixed point, which is very, very bad, specifically 4 suitcase fulls and a bus journey full of bad,” The doctor explained in a hushed whisper to the other three

“But what if we could save her? Stop her from believing she’ll die on another planet?” Yaz asked empathetic as always

“Look, we can’t, I’ve tried that before and it ends up worse, we can’t do that. We can’t choose who lives and who dies,” She said glaring at all of them before snapping back to her usual sunny disposition and following you out of the room, the others trailing behind

“We always knew you would visit us at one point, it was inevitable given what we deal with,” You stated

“What is this place? Is this some kind of database an information hub? Why didn’t it show up on TARDIS scanners?” She asked, her list of questions increasing

“No, we’re an institute. Future tech, didn’t want you interfering. We help people, or we try to. London’s best kept secret, used internationally, U.N.I.T. doesn’t even know we exist. It didn’t show up on scanners because we planned for you and we knew that, of we wanted to do our jobs properly we couldn’t have interferences be it human or otherwise, especially not from you,” You replied

“What exactly are you the institute of?” Graham interrupted

“Formally, rehabilitation of former time travelers and people who come into contact with aliens. Informally, cleaning up after the Doctor. We’re The Bad Wolf Institute, formerly known as The Trenzalore institute, but Captain Harkness insisted we change it, after an old friend of yours, I believe”

The doctor froze in her tracks “Sorry? The Bad Wolf institute?”

“Yes, Jack was very insistent, pitched it to Me and she seemed to like the concept. The meeting of human and alien so to speak,”

“Did you just refer to yourself in the third person and first person?” Yaz mumbled

“No, Lady Me founded the institute and is formally the director of it, however, when she is away with one of your former friends or running trap street, I become acting director,” You explained opening a door and ushering them inside “She did claim she was trying to protect the world from you. She kept her word Doctor.” Inside the room was sectioned off areas of ground and a locked cabinet. “Vortex manipulators,” You answered the moment the doctor opened her mouth to ask “Called in a favour from Jack and Torchwood, he owed us after the 456 issue, but we took care of it. Use them to jump planets and time, smooth over any damage you’ve done, better us than the time agents, you know what they’re like.”

“Isn’t that a violation of time having them in the 21st century considering they were invented in the 51st century?”

“Yes, however, we’re erased from future narratives, we’re ghosts in the future, barely echos of echos,”

The doctor stopped suddenly, “How can I trust you? Hm? How do I know you aren’t lying? You could be a trap, a trick,”

“I can pull out a file on any former companion and read it to you. Amy, Rory, Jack, Martha, Clara, Rose, Harry, Donna, Jamie, pick a name and we’ll find it,” Your tone was neutral, but your face wasn’t harsh.

“Too general, anyone from U.N.I.T can do that, I need something more specific,”

“I was the rep assigned to Amelia and Rory Williams, the Ponds. Visited her, 1946, New York, made some connections for her. Hooked up with an adoption agency, her and Rory adopted a son. She also repeatedly referred to you as raggedy man, and told me you used to eat fishfingers and custard which is something we didn’t have on file. We didn’t add it, you’re allowed some secrets, old man, no matter how vile it sounds,” A smile gracing for face at the last words

“Sorry? You used to be a man?” Graham asked. You chuckled at that, the formal facade finally slipping.

“Yes? That’s what you take away from that Graham? I believe you, no one other than her calls me that.” The doctor nodded at you, pulling the weighted silver ring from one of her many coat pockets “Oh before I forget, someone told me to give you this. They said it was important.”

You examined the ring for a second, a small chuckle escaped you “This was my mother’s, it went missing not long after she died. Never found it, searched the whole house, nothing,” You explained, slipping it on to your finger. “Thank you, I presume it was me then. My future must be in safe hands.”

“How did you- How did you work that out?” Ryan asked

“Time travel, it’s weird,”

“Want to come with us?” The doctor said unexpectedly

“Not especially. I have an institute to look after while Me runs Trap street, ask me again one day and I might just say yes,” You sighed a small wink directed towards her at the end of your sentence “Leave the TARDIS here as long as you’d like, no harm will come to it here.”

And that’s where it began.

#13th doctor #13th doctor x reader #doctor who x reader #13th doctor/reader #13th doctor/you #13th doctor x you #doctor who self insert #13th doctor self insert

107 notes · View notes

saiilorstars · 4 years ago

Text

Falling in Temptation

Previous chapters • Sequel to Stars Dance • Fairy Tale Memoirs (Companion story)

Ch. 29: A Pond, a Williams or a Reynolds?

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

Chapter summary: Tying up loose ends means the time has come for River Song to give up her daughter so she'll grow up to become the one and only Avalon Reynolds...who will travel the stars...and ultimately (and inadvertently) lead to her own mother's creation. And, to the Doctor’s misfortune, it’s his task to see it through.

Taglist: @ocfairygodmother @anotherunreadblog @maaaaarveeeeel @stareyedplanet @perfectlystiles

[If you’d like to be added to this specific OC’s stories/edits, send me a message!]

A newborn baby girl gurgled as a nurse passed her to her mother. Her bright blue eyes were glued to her mother, whose eyes nearly matched, while she listened to her first poem.

'A little fairy comes at night,

Her eyes are blue, her hair is brown'

with silver spots upon her wings,

And from the moon she flutters down.

She has a little silver wand

And when a good child goes to bed

She waves a hand from right to the left

And makes a circle round its head.

And then it dreams of pleasant things,

Of fountains filled with fairy fish

And trees that bear delicious fruit

And bow their branches at a wish.

Of arbors filled with dainty scents,

From lovely flowers that never fade,

Bright flies that glitter in the sun

And glow-worms shining in the shade

And talking birds with gifted tongues

For singing songs and telling tales

And pretty dwarfs to show the way

Through fairy hills and fairy dales.

A little fairy comes at night,

her eyes are blue and her hair is brown

With silver spots upon her wings

And from the moon she flutters down'

"You remember that nursery song?" Amy questioned as soon as River finished the nursery. She sat on the side of the bed while Rory sat on the other side.

"Yeah," River nodded distractedly. She couldn't take her eyes off her beautiful baby in her arms. She so small. It was unbelievable to think who this baby would grow up to be.

"You're alright?" Rory asked her after a few minutes had gone by in silence.

"Father, I am beyond alright," River looked up with a smile. "Look at her, she's beautiful. And she's mine." As if to comment, the baby gurgled at them.

"I know she is," Rory peered down at the newborn with a similar smile. "But I also know, we know, what's coming…"

"And what's happened," Amy finished for him.

River had 'killed' the Doctor and as the law demanded, she was to be incarcerated as soon as the hospital discharged her. Her daughter's fate was still to be decided. Stormcage allowed for a child to remain with their parent until they were of age. River had yet to say what she wanted.

"Have you named her yet?" Amy asked as she reached over to toddle with the baby's small fingers. She looked remarkably like River did when she was a baby, except her granddaughter had that tuft of bright orange hair on her head.

"Well, Avalon," River nodded. "Because of her father. Oliver wanted her to be named after the Arthurian legend. He was such a nerd sometimes…" She felt the tears pricking her eyes but she pushed them away. She didn't want to cry yet, that was coming later. "And Harmony."

"For Melody," Rory smiled, knowing the story all too well. It was so odd watching it happen in front of him.

"Avalon Harmony...Pond," River knew exactly what was coming with that sentence and she laughed when Rory huffed.

"Uuh, no," Rory shook his head, "That would be Williams. She's a Williams," he looked at baby Avalon with a soft smile, "You're a Williams."

"Pond, she's a Pond," Amy said with a dead serious face.

"One would say she's a Reynolds," Lena appeared at the doorway, smiling softly at them. "And she's one wonderful, tough sister." River smiled at her and couldn't help. but try to peek around to see if someone else was with her. Lena shook her head. "Avalon's outside. She says it's too dangerous to be in the same place as her younger self. Plus, she thinks it's weird."

"No, that makes perfect sense," River nodded. That was actually very responsible of Avalon.

Lena came forwards and took a peek at the baby. "She's so cute. Hard to believe she gets a mouth on her later on." Her comment caused a series of snickers between them. "So, what are you going to call her?"

River pulled the pink blanket just a bit from the baby's face. She was falling asleep again. Such an innocent little thing she was. "Well, I want to name her as Avalon Harmony Pond."

"The newest Pond," Amy chuckled when the baby yawned. "And what a sleepy Pond she is!" She fiddled with the tiny hand resting over the blanket.

"What a lovely Pond she will be." The Doctor had arrived in the room with a familiar cot in his hands. Just looking at it froze Any and Rory but River only stared at it, close to tears.

It was getting time to decide; decide what had already been decided.

"Wait, what if...well," Amy started suddenly, exchanging gazes with Rory. "We were talking earlier, and...we sort of came up with an alternative."

Rory agreed with a nod, "We, um...we take Avalon in," he nodded to the baby, "I mean, we have a house, a life on Earth. We could take her and raise her and still bring her to you every day."

River took the alternative into consideration, but her eyes landed on the Doctor. He wasn't saying anything. This was all on her. "If she grows up with you two, her entire history will be rewritten. It's as the Doctor said. She needs to exist so that I can exist...and I need to exist, so that she can exist. We are one complicated space-time loop, aren't we?" Her sour smile helped nothing.

"I just don't want you to go through the same thing I had to," Amy curled her hand around River's arm. "Because that is not a pain you can get over. I look at you now and it still hurts to know that I couldn't raise you."

"I know...but time's already happened." Every time she came to the same conclusion, a deep pain stabbed her heart. "I'm choosing to give her up just like I already had. I am not abandoning my child, I am giving her up so that she can grow up with a much better life. She'll have a family with the Reynolds, she'll have siblings…" She partially looked up to see Lena smiling sadly at her, "She'll have a Mother in Emmalina Reynolds. She'll get to discover that she wants to write, that she would love to travel. I want her to have dreams. I don't want her to be trapped in my prison cell. She didn't commit a crime." And technically, neither had she but the world needed to believe otherwise.

"River, she didn't exactly have the best of lives living in leadworth," Lena felt compelled to remind River seeing as she herself was a big culprit of Avalon's stunted life in the small town. "She had to take care of me, she had to deal with the small headed people of Leadworth."

"I know," River sighed, closing her eyes. Tears still leaked through. "But it would still be a far better life than the one she would live with me until her 18th birthday."

"I guess that's it then," Amy said quietly, rubbing her hand down River's arm. "I'm very proud of you. And I'm very sorry."

River nodded. "Could I just have a moment with her please? Five minutes."

"Of course," Rory nodded. He gave her a side hug and got up from the bed with Amy.

Together, the others left the room but the Doctor left behind the small cot on the side. The only sound in the room afterwards was the small clock ticking and the occasional noises the baby would make.

"It's so unfair that we only just met," Rover said with a sigh. She carefully pressed the baby's hair down. It seemed like even as a newborn, Avalon had already inherited her mother's bushy hair. "But if there's one thing that I need you to understand it's that I'm not abandoning you. I'll always be in the corners, watching over you and making sure you're safe. Every time you wonder why you didn't fall, or why you fell asleep without a blanket and you wake up with one...it'll be because of me. I'll take the long way and wait for you to grow up so I can tell you who I am."

The baby slowly opened her eyes, as if she knew she was on the receiving end of a very important talk.

"I just want you to understand that I love you so much. I know things in Leadworth won't be easy but this is really the best pathway for you. You will be brave and you will be strong. And just so we're clear, if anyone tries to mess with you, you have my full permission to deal with them accordingly." River was able to smile when the baby gurgled. It was like she understood. "One day, you and I will be mother and daughter, I promise. You just have fun in the meantime, maybe travel the stars or something. I think you'd be very good at that."

She held her daughter close to her, careful not to squeeze her...but she wanted to soak up every moment she had. She couldn't imagine what her life would be like without her daughter and she wasn't eager to find out. She wished things could be different but their lives were never meant to be ordinary. The Pond cycle continued.

When the group returned it was a very silent moment. River held onto her baby as much as she could until the Doctor held his arms out for her. He despised being on the other end. He was taking a mother's child away, the exact thing he never wanted to do to either of them. He was responsible for Amy losing her own baby and now he was doing the same again. How terrible was he?

River ultimately let her baby go but it was almost like the Doctor had to rip the infant away because otherwise the moment would've happened for ages. As soon as the baby was in his arms, Amy and Rory grabbed River's hands. She squeezed them as she fought off the stream of tears going down her face. She looked up only once and it was in time to see the Doctor leaving the room with her baby. When the door closed behind him, she burst into sobs.

~ 0 ~

"Big brother, can I come with you?" Lena was already tailing the Doctor down the hospital hallways. The question was a formality.

"Why would you want to be a part of this, baby sister?" The Doctor was making quick strides down the hallway and Lena saw it. He was trying to get the hell out of there as if that would make everything less terrible.

"Because clearly present-Avalon can't be with you right now and Amy and Rory are with River! Someone's got to be there with you, otherwise you're going to blame yourself!" Lena finally understood what Avalon had been trying to do back in Leadworth. The Doctor on his own for 200 years was his own type of punishment that released all the dark, self-loathing thoughts. She didn't want that to happen, not again.

"Lena, I have to do this on my own."

"No, you don't!" Lena finally grabbed his arm to stop him just outside the hospital. He wanted to keep the TARDIS out of the hospital in case there were any Silence nearby. She slowly turned the Doctor around and briefly looked down at the cot in his hand. Baby Avalon was fast asleep again. "You're going to go back in time to see my dad just before I was born so you can give him Avalon. Obviously he can't see me but that doesn't mean I can't be there when you come back to the TARDIS. Someone's got to give you a big hug, right?"

The Doctor smiled softly at her. "Oh baby sister, you are too good for this world."

Lena took that as a "yes". She took his free hand and gripped it. "You're not alone anymore, remember? Avalon said so and you'd be a fool to fight with my sister...your wife." She winked at him and laughed at his reddened face.

They crossed the hospital doors and while Lena followed quietly in that time, she couldn't help make her last question. She could already see the TARDIS poking out from the alleyway the Doctor hid her in. "What's going to happen, now? With...all of us?"

"Well, I think it's time for me to stay away for a while," the Doctor said, "You know, just be quiet and not be too out there. Amy and Rory deserve some time off. And you, I think maybe it's time you started thinking about what you want to do. Didn't you mention that you wanted to be a teacher?"

Lena playfully rolled her eyes. "Maybe. I don't know. But what about Avalon? Present Avalon, I mean…"

"Avalon, well..." he took a breath in, stopping when it got to him. Lena watched him go through the struggle of making yet another decision about Avalon. "...I need you to give her a message."

"A message? Really?" Lena would not hide her disappointment that he's choosing not to face her.

"I'm not strong enough, Lena…please, can I give you a message for her?" Lena was halfway nodding when she shook her head. "Lena—"

"You should just tell her yourself," she folded her arms, wearing a much too smug expression on her face. It was odd, really, but the Doctor followed her gaze behind him and found Avalon standing in front of the TARDIS.

"Did you really think you could get away from me again?" She was smirking proudly. She saw this coming even before the Doctor arrived at the hospital. She wasn't going to let him go like that again.

Lena took the cot from the Doctor and smiled at him. "I'll just head into the TARDIS."

Avalon's smirk faded as she saw her baby self in the cot. Her heart wrenched at the sight. River had given her up and now she was on her way to live with her uncle and aunt...

"You can go see her," the Doctor said once Lena disappeared inside the TARDIS. His voice was quiet as he was unsure of what to say to her. "River, she's...she's fighting it."

Avalon nodded silently. Her thoughts and feelings towards River were all scrambled at the moment. "I'm sorry for her," she managed to say. "And yet I'm thankful for her. They were going to throw me into that suit. I was terrified…" She could remember everything now with the time lines being scrambled and merging at one point. River had made the choice to take her place in the astronaut suit. "She saved me."

"She loves you Avalon and regardless of how you feel about her, the truth is she did not abandon you. She didn't leave you like you thought." The Doctor watched her nod with a clear struggle on her face. She was fighting off her own tears. He pulled her into a hug. She let herself be covered in his arms while she rested her head against his chest. "You've been through so much, Ava. I'm really sorry. I don't think I'll ever finish apologizing."

"I wish you did because it's not your fault. It's Kovarian's fault." She tilted her head up to meet his gaze. "I love you, Fairy Tale Man. I married you. You don't run off on me again."

"I love you too," he cupped her face, wanting nothing more than to kiss her senseless for hours but once again Time was against them. "I have to go for some time." Just as Avalon opened her mouth to argue, he added, "The Silence is still out there, Ava, and they're watching. They would know that I'm not dead if you disappeared with me."

"But I don't want you to leave me again," Avalon gripped his jacket as if he would run out right now. "What if I never see you again?"

"I will come back for you," the Doctor promised her. "You are my wife and I love you. I cannot live without you. I have no idea how I'm going to do it, to be honest, but it has to be done in order for everything to work out."

"But—"

"It's not forever," he leaned his forehead against hers. "It's a...it's just a moment longer. Just hang on a bit more and then we'll be off together."

"Do you promise?"

"I swear it. Cross my hearts." The Doctor pulled away from her to show her how crossed his fingers over his hearts. She smiled at the gesture. "You have no idea where I'm going to take you but rest assured that it will be fantastic!"

Avalon knew it would be. She was a very impatient woman but if he truly meant for them to finally be together then she would wait. It kind of ran in her family after all. Waiting. "Okay," she ultimately said, nodding lightly. She swallowed hard and looked at him. "I'll wait for you but please don't forget me."

"Forget you?" The Doctor almost laughed at the absurdity. "Do you know why I figured a way to weasel out of a fixed point in time?"

"Because you wanted to stay alive?"

"Well, yes, but for you! You, Avalon, made me want to keep living!" He snaked an arm around her waist again and lightly swayed them. "You asked me to find a way and I did my very best to do so."

"A robot," Avalon mumbled and scrunched her face. "I kissed a robot."

"Yeah, that was...interesting," the Doctor admitted, preferring not to think about it. "But here we are and now I just ask for a tiny bit more time."

"Okay," Avalon nodded. "I'll be...somewhere, waiting for you."

"Travel a bit, darling, on your own. Leadworth was never for you. It was a pit stop. Go out and see something," the Doctor smiled at her, cupping the side of her face. "Do things. And write them down."

In another time Avalon would've refused that idea, whether because she would want to take care of Lena or simply because he wouldn't be there, but right now that sounded really good to her. She'd discovered far too many secrets, remembered such terrible moments, that to go back to Leadworth like nothing happened was out of the question. She needed to do something else, she just wasn't sure what it was. Yet.

"Can I just ask for something before you go?" she asked quietly.

"Anything," the Doctor nodded.

"We got married, and even though you were inside a robot of yourself...our kiss wasn't real. You haven't technically kissed the bride yet…" She purposely trailed off for him to finish the idea. She smirked as his eyebrows raised with realization.

"Oh, you are very right…"

"Aha…"

"Can't have that…"

She shook her head. "Nope."

The Doctor straightened up with his arms to his sides. He met her gaze with affection. "Avalon Reynolds — Pond — can I—"

"You may kiss the bride," Avalon nodded, her expression softening with nothing but love for him.

The Doctor didn't need more than that. He held her head and pressed a kiss to her lips. His fingers gently brushed her skin while their kiss deepened. It would be their last kiss for a good while but never the last one, and that's what he worked so hard for to get. They parted slowly and very little. If they spoke, their lips would still meet.

"The end: the epilogue," Avalon whispered with happy tears. This time she knew that it wasn't the end. It was just the break between stories. Their first one had ended and soon they would sound another one. She couldn't wait for that one.

"I have to go," the Doctor said. He was studying her, committing her to memory for the dark moments he would surely go through later on. He couldn't be alone but he would try really hard not to fall into the darkness. He had a princess to come back for.

"See you later," Avalon said, giving him one last kiss. "And stay away from pretty people."

The Doctor laughed. "Right. Same for you. No flirting, especially with that Jack Harkness!"

Avalon laughed with him. "Sure."

"The Sapling will be around."

"I think that'll do me some good...seeing my...our son," Avalon felt different saying that now. While the Doctor was gone, the Sapling would be their companion. He was the only creature in the world that was half her, half Doctor. Their child. And now more than ever Avalon would want him around.

The Doctor eventually let her go and started for the TARDIS. It was a bittersweet moment but far better than the last time they did this. He would come back for her. Avalon waited until the TARDIS de-materialized before turning to the hospital. She had someone to visit.

~0~

"You okay, big brother?" Lena asked once the TARDIS was off. She stood beside the cot when the Doctor nodded and walked over, directly coming for the baby. "She's awake. Kinda fussy."

"Hm, I bet she is," the Doctor mused on what kind of baby Avalon would be. Melody was a sassy one even as an infant, surely Avalon would follow in the same steps.

"Was this really your cot?" Lena asked after a few minutes passed by. The Doctor had just watched the baby with no indication of what he was feeling. He was being tough again!

"Yes," he nodded. "And, once upon a time, my kids' too."

Lena gasped and met his gaze with her widened eyes. "Really? So these were your first stars—" she gently touched the hanging mobile, smiling when Avalon squealed at it, "—and your children's too? Not to mention Melody's...and now Avalon's. It's like a tradition. Wonder if it'll keep going…" She purposely smirked at the Doctor and he did his best to avoid looking at her.

"Very funny baby sister," he murmured then reached inside the cot. "Come here you," he gently picked the baby up into his arms. He couldn't get over how small Avalon was. She was so innocent. There were no thoughts inside that little head of hers except for the basic ones an infant would have. This was surely her quietest moment ever.

Or so he thought.

Lena heard the baby gurgle and suddenly the Doctor was scowling. "Are you seriously making fun of me?" He asked the baby incredulously. "You are a newborn and you are still making fun of me?"

"What's happening?" Lena stared at him like he was crazy.

"Your sister is making fun of my bowtie," he frowned down at the baby. "That is not nice."

The baby gurgled again. 'You're too loud. My Mummy wasn't loud.'

The Doctor huffed. "Would you stop that? I will have you know that I speak at a regular volume!"

'Stop yelling!'

"I am not yelling! You're being mean, Avalon!"

Lena watched the conversation progress into an actual argument and she didn't know who to laugh at first. The Doctor, who was over a 1000 years old, was arguing with a newborn. On the other hand, a newborn who couldn't even hold anything had just picked a fight with a thousand year old man. That was certainly Avalon Reynolds.

The TARDIS hummed to cut the argument short. The Doctor rolled his eyes at the box but it was enough to snap him out of the argument.

"You are definitely Avalon Reynolds," he tickled the baby's stomach. "I've got a story for you, Avalon. Would you like to hear it?"

'My Mummy sang to me. Can you sing to me?'

"Uh, I'm not that good at singing. But you will be! One day!"

Lena watched him go towards the console, deciding to stay quiet as he had his moment with the newborn. He started telling her a fairy tale. She didn't recognize it but now that she thought of it, she did remember that Avalon really liked the fairytale of the Bean, the Straw and the Coal. What really warmed Lena's heart was when he started to sing for a little bit, a very tiny bit just for Avalon. It was a nursery, and if Lena was right, it was the same nursery that River sang to Avalon earlier.

'A little fairy comes at night,

Her eyes are blue, her hair is brown'

with silver spots upon her wings,

And from the moon she flutters down.'

It soothed the newborn self as the TARDIS started taking them to New Earth where they would meet a past version of Ryland Reynolds. The story was about to begin (again).

~0~

Avalon gently opened the door of River's room and found Amy and Rory hugging River. When River saw it was her coming in, her entire face lit up but it soon faded. Avalon wouldn't know if it was because she wasn't that baby anymore or maybe she was just mad at everything that'd been said on the pyramid.

There were no words that came to Avalon in that moment. It was truly the first time she was completely speechless. She had no idea how to act around River and much less in this moment. All her life Avalon firmly believed her biological mother abandoned her. It fueled her anger for years and years. It made her cling to Emmalina even more. What she saw right now was nothing like what she'd been picturing. River was desolate, her face stained with so many tears that her face shined under the room lights. She was clutching her parents arms, truly nothing like the past versions of River that she'd seen. Those versions were always so cool and adventurous, brave beyond belief.

"I'm...I'm sorry," Avalon said. She had barely come into the room, taking caution to stay away from River. She might not even be invited but River had yet to say anything. "I had no idea that this was the way things happened."

"That I wasn't going to abandon you?" There was a slight edge to River's tone but any anger she felt disappeared when she looked up and saw her daughter. She was all grown up. Her baby was gone. "I told you that I wasn't going to do it and I didn't. I gave you up because I wanted you to live happily."

Avalon's eyes flickered to Amy and Rory, their expressions bearing sympathy for both of them. They'd witnessed their daughter giving away her own daughter but they had also witnessed the chaos that their granddaughter had to go through because of that very choice.

"I'm sorry," Avalon bit her lip. She blinked rapidly when the tears started stinging her eyes. "It's always my fault bad things happen to people who care about me. I try to stop it but I just make things worse. All this time I thought I was better off without my mother and the reality is...you would have been much better off without me. All of you."

"That is not true," River frowned. Beside her, both her parents nodded with agreement.

"C'mon," Avalon continued. "If I hadn't existed then you could've just ran from the Silence. Kovarian would've had no leverage on you. Hell, Oliver would've stayed alive. I've been ruining lives even before I was born."

"Avalon, quit talking like that," Rory scolded but it just made her move onto him and Amy.

"Rory, you would've been a rich man if you hadn't used all that money to bail me out each time I got arrested. And Amy would've had less migraines if I wasn't around."

"Get over here right now," River demanded in such a hard tone that Avalon actually winced. "Sit!" She commanded and patted a spot on the bed. "Now!"

Avalon swallowed hard before coming over as directed. She took a seat at the foot of the bed.

"Now you listen. Push all that hair behind your eyes," River actually waited for Avalon to do so. "You are very loved. You have always been. You've got a difficult personality but we all love you senseless. I can't imagine my life without you."

"It's the same for us," Amy agreed. "How could I have gotten through my 4 psychiatrists without you? Or the first date with that one?" She jerked a thumb over at Rory.

"Yeah, and you were the best football player in the field," Rory chuckled. "Definitely the toughest. You've been my Ava way before the Doctor. I can't imagine what life would be without you."

"You're our baby Pond," River smiled softly. "Our new Pond."

Rory groaned beside her. "Williams, dammit. She's a Williams!"

Avalon chuckled as he got into an argument with Amy about it. "I'm a...Pond," she said slowly, letting the name sit in her mouth for a moment. It was an odd thing to see the trio before her and knowing she was truly part of their family. She was a Pond. The Doctor must have had a lot of fun with that. She almost rolled her eyes imagining the secret jokes he had with himself while she didn't know.

"How about we talk for a few minutes?" River suggested to her, though she did it quite nervously. Avalon, however, nodded within the second. It was only fair.

"Will you be okay?" Amy asked her as she got off the bed. River assured her that she would be. Her daughter was right there now.

"We'll be right outside," Rory promised them as they left the room.

"You're going to jail, aren't you?" Avalon's tone had turned meek when she asked the question.

"Yes, I am," River answered her. She wished she could touch Avalon but she knew that her daughter wasn't there yet. It'd be a long time before she was.

"But it's not fair, you didn't do anything."

"Shh, to the world, I have."

"But you took my place," Avalon bit her lower lip. "You did it so that I wouldn't have to."

"And I would do it again," River said, shocking Avalon with the level of determination she said it with. "Make no mistake of that. I'm only sorry for the pain you went through. I'm so sorry about Oliver. He was really excited about you, he loved you."

Avalon swallowed hard when she thought about her father. She has held him during his last moments of life. "Can I...ask how you two met?"

"Well of course," River smiled. "We were students at the university. He was failing mathematics miserably and he was studying in the library. He was so loud that I had to tell him to be quiet. Imagine me, telling someone they're being too loud." Avalon briefly smiled. She could imagine that happening. "Anyways, we bickered for a while and then suddenly he was asking me out for a cup of coffee. He loved this little coffee shop around the university. He played shows in it all the time…"

Avalon's face lit up with recognition. "I know! Uncle Ryland showed me videos of that place. I want to visit it soon."

"I'm sure the owner would recognize you. Oliver must have talked about you in his shows at least a dozen times." River's smile saddened as seconds passed by. "I didn't think I would ever have a serious relationship with him. I just went out on a couple dates with him. You yourself were an unexpected moment." Even when the Doctor had told her that one day she would become Avalon's mother, she didn't think it would happen while she was still in school.

"You mean you didn't plan for me?" Avalon asked quietly, her eyes lowering to the bed sheets. "I was like...a mistake?"

"No!" River snapped. "I said you were unexpected but do you really think that I would call you a mistake? That Oliver would call you a mistake? Avalon Reynolds, for a woman who's the first of her kind - who knows more than most of us - you are quite dumb sometimes." River slowly chuckled at her reaction. She saw Oliver's pout there for a second. "You are my daughter and by far the best thing I have done in this world."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes," River answered automatically, leaving Avalon silent. "You are the best of me. I only ask that you please let me be part of your life when you're ready."

Avalon wondered what that would be like. She'd spent so much time hating the fictional cruel birth mother she made up when the truth was from it. River wasn't cruel. She didn't abandon her, she sacrificed herself and gave her up to live a better life. "I...I think I would like that," she said slowly and watched the way River's face brightened. She was very hopeful and it was quite shocking for Avalon. "I don't think I'm at a place to call you 'Mum' though…" She was afraid of what River might do or say to that but she had to get it out before River made any assumptions. She knew now that everything she thought of her birth mother wasn't true but the fact was she had grown up far away from River, always seeing Emmalina as her mother.

River took it with a silent nod of her head. It was a fair starting point for someone who grew up thinking a certain way about her. She could work with that and maybe one day Avalon would call her 'Mum' too.

#ocappreciation #fd: doctor who #doctor who #11th doctor #river song #11th doctor fics #11th doctor imagines #dw imagine #dw fics #doctor who fics #dw imagines #dw fic #oc: Avalon Reynolds #fic: falling in temptation

10 notes · View notes