#said he would be bummed out for a few days then bounce back because overall hes happy in life

[irl-ichi]

my eyes are gonna be all puffy for first day of class tomorrow -_-

[lovely-van]

beige - van mccann

You know you're beautiful But that ain't half the gold treasure in your soul that you got 'Cause I want it all With your fingers in my mouth, I fail to see your faults So please don't let me fall So please don't let me fall...  

- Beige by Yoke Lore

word count: 12k+ (yes i know but i’m not sorry)

notes: oh my god okay i love this story so much. based on a request where you and van are friends that fall in love but both don’t think the other feels the same way. not based technically on the song beige by yoke lore but i really love the song and it’s very cute and the meaning behind it is fucking amazing (definitely look it up on genius.com). anyway i really hope you like it and lmk what you think! enjoy :))

• • •

You met Van when you were nine. 

Of course, back then, he still went by Ryan. 

He was kicking a football around in his front lawn, right across the street from your own house. You were on the sidewalk in front of your house, scribbling designs on the concrete with chalk when you noticed him. 

You’d only moved in a few weeks earlier and hadn’t realized that you had a neighbor your own age. You giggled as he nearly tripped over the ball, trying to do some fancy trick. He huffed, trying to do the trick again and failing. “You’re not very good at that, y’know.”

His head shot up at the sound of your voice, looking around in confusion. His eyes locked on you and he shrugged. “I’m trying to learn!” he shouted from across the street.  

You stood up, wiping some chalk dust from your overalls and skipped across the street. “Here, it’s not that hard. I’ll help you.” He watched, his young face concentrated, as you showed him how to bounce the ball back and forth on your knees.

After a few minutes of trying it himself, he did it successfully. A grin spread across his face, cheeks flushed and dimples showing. “Wow, thanks,” he said. “My name’s Ryan. What’s yours?”

That was how it all started. 

You and Van soon became best friends. You spent everyday together, exploring your neighborhood, climbing trees, coming up with all kinds of games that stretched every part of your imagination. He attended a different school, public versus your private school that your mother insisted you go to. But you didn’t mind because as soon as he got home, he’d come running to your front door and knock on it, waiting there with the same cheesy grin every time. 

You made other friends throughout the years, some girls from school and he had friends from his own class but you were always each other’s closest friends. In the summer, you’d grab sleeping bags and flashlights and lay under the stars in his backyard. You’d talk for hours about what you wanted to be when you were older, how you couldn’t wait until you were big enough to drive a car or have your own house. 

•

You were eleven when you realized how special Van was. 

It was a sunny afternoon on a Saturday and you and Van were climbing trees in his backyard. It was late autumn, so the air was crisp and all the leaves had fully changed colors, ready to shrivel up and float down to the grass below at any moment. 

“Alright, just grab that branch right there,” he said, pointing to a tree branch a few inches above you. He was already much higher than you and guiding you to get to where he was. You dug your feet into the branch you were standing on to make sure it was sturdy, and you reached up, fingers just grasping the bark-

And then you were falling, falling and before you could even comprehend it, you hit the ground. You landed directly on your right leg and you screamed, the pain overwhelming you immediately.  

Van flew down the tree, jumping the last few feet. “Oh my God, are you okay?”

You shook your head quickly, biting your lip as hard as you could to try and hold back the tears that were stinging your eyes. 

“Okay, don’t worry I’m gonna go get someone. It’s gonna be okay,” he said quickly, rubbing your back and then sprinting toward his house.

Turns out you’d broken your leg in two places. You had to wear a cast for at least six weeks and you were extremely bummed that you couldn’t play the rest of your fall football season. You and Van were even on the same team, always carpooling to games together and messing around during tournaments. 

The day after you got your cast, you heard a knock on your bedroom door. You were lying in bed reading a book, feeling sorry for yourself when you saw Van peep his head in. “Hi,” he said with a small smile. 

“Oh, hi. What are you doing here? Don’t you have practice?” you asked as he sat down on the bed next to you. 

He shrugged. “I quit.”

“You quit? Why?” 

“I didn’t want to play without you.” 

•

You were thirteen when you shared your first kiss. 

You were both in your old treehouse, watching the sunset through the window. 

“Van?” you repeated, pondering it. He nodded, leaning his head back on the wood, a dreamy smile on his face. “How come?”

“Ryan’s so boring. I wanna be like Van Morrison, a rockstar and all that. So, Van, which is short for Evan - it totally works.” 

You nodded, your lips curling up into a smile. The sky was turning a purple-orange hazy color, your absolute favorite. You loved sunsets more than just about anything. If you were doing homework or watching TV or something, Van would toss rocks at your window, just like in the movies, to make sure you didn’t miss it. You’d always go outside and watch the sunset with him, usually from your backyard or even his roof if you were feeling brave enough.  

“Yeah, I like it. Very cool.” It fit the aesthetic that Van had been shaping for himself recently. Since becoming an official teenager, Van had taken it upon himself to descend fully into his ‘angsty’ phase. Well, as angsty as someone with the happy go-lucky demeanor that he held could be. 

He started wearing all black and jumpers with rips in them and buying only vinyls. He’d drag you to the local record store, sifting through them for hours and buying whatever he could with the money he’d earned from cutting lawns. You didn’t mind, though You loved the relaxed aura of the store, the faint noise of whatever Mr. Brown, the owner, was currently listening to in the background. You’d flip through records, listening to Van babble on about whatever new band he’d taken a liking to, fingers running over the worn cases. It was therapeutic, almost. 

“D’you think it’s weird that neither of us has had our first kiss yet?” He asked, turning and looking at you, eyebrows furrowed. 

You leaned forward, resting your crossed arms on your knees. “Um, I dunno. I hadn’t really thought about it. Do you think it’s weird?” 

Van shrugged, carving something into the wood floor with the pocketknife his father had given him for his last birthday. “Well, Joey and Simon both had theirs last year. And Henry Williams has kissed like, three girls. I feel like we’re the only ones who haven’t done it.”

His gaze was trained on whatever design he was making, bottom lip pulled between his teeth. You scanned over his face, the freckles dusting his cheeks, the scar in his eyebrow he’d gotten from a football match last year that was finally healing. He glanced up after a moment and locked eyes with you, waiting for your response. 

“I mean, I guess,” you replied. “A few of my friends have had theirs too, but they all had boyfriends. I don’t like any boys at my school,” you said, shaking your head, cringing at the thought. 

“Yeah, me either.”

“You don’t like any boys at your school?” you teased. 

Van laughed, kicking your foot lightly with his. “C’mon, you know what I mean. I don’t really like any girls right now and I feel lame without kissing anyone.” You paused, waiting to see what he was getting at it. “Sooo,” he said dramatically, dropping his pocket knife on the wood floor and mirroring your position, pulling his knees to his chest and resting his forearms on them. “Why don’t we just kiss?”

You wrinkled your nose. “What? Gross.”

He rolled his eyes, scooting closer to you so your knees were touching. “C’mon, let’s just do it to get it over with. We’re best friends so it doesn’t really matter.” His lips were curled up at the ends, hair wild as usual and you actually debated it. He was your best friend after all, and you figured it would be better than kissing some random boy during a game of spin the bottle or something. You were going to be in year nine soon, for God’s sake. 

“Okay, fine. But promise not to let things get weird between us after?” He nodded quickly, reaching his pinkie finger out.

“Promise,” he said, curling your finger around his. 

“Alright, then. What do we do?”

He shifted so he was cross legged and you did the same, both of your bare knees pressed up against each other. The sun was just barely above the horizon, only visible to you in the reflection of his eyes. “Uh... I think we just do it,” he said, not sounding too convincing. 

You swallowed as he wet his lips and leaned in, only a few inches away from you. You could see every detail of his face, every little scratch and imperfection of teenage skin. For the first time, you realized maybe he was kind of cute, like your mother always said. “It’s those little dimples he has,” she always said with a wide smile. This was coming from the woman who was convinced that you two would fall in love and get married someday. Yeah, right. 

He stared back at you, blinking slowly and licked his lips again. You would’ve felt uncomfortable normally, if it had been anyone else this close to you but, well, it was Van. 

“Close your eyes,” he whispered, his breath fanning across your lips. 

You took one last look at him and shut your eyes, your stomach doing jumps like you were about to board a roller coaster. He cleared his throat and you felt him shift and then his lips were on yours. He just kind of kept them there, neither of you moving, unsure of what to do. It felt weird and different and you were a little surprised at how soft his lips were. Did everyone’s feel like this? This is what people in movies feel like when they have their big first kiss, right as the music swells? It didn’t seem right. 

After a few seconds, you both pulled away and opened your eyes, blinking the blurriness away. You looked at the sharpness of his nose and the curl of his eyelashes and realized he still looked like the same old Van to you. 

“Huh,” he said after a moment, scooching back to his original spot against the wall of the treehouse. By now, his face was bathed in deep red shadows that were sure to turn to blue any moment once the stubborn sun descended past the tree line. 

“Huh,” you repeated, bringing your fingers to your mouth, running them over your bottom lip. “That was...”

“Weird?” he finished.

You shrugged. “No, just like, kind of boring, I guess. I don’t really get the big deal.” 

Van scratched the back of his neck, eyebrows furrowed. “Maybe we did it wrong?”

You laughed softly at first and then started laughed even harder, stuck in a fit of giggles. “What?” he asked with a grin, which just made you laugh harder. He started laughing with you, warm and loud, just like always. You howled with laughter, both nearly rolling around on the floor of the treehouse. You laughed for so long that by the time you were done, you forgot why you started in the first place. 

•

Age fourteen came with the band. 

You weren’t really sure how it started or why even, but suddenly Van was playing with one of his friend’s older brothers in their basement. He invited you to come along most times, rambling on about how excited he was about a new song they were learning or how good he was getting with guitar. 

You’d taught him to play originally, lending him the few notes your dad had taught you when you were small. He was entranced immediately, making you guide his fingers to every note you knew on the guitar that he’d saved up for for a year. And then he ran with it, learning every variation of every chord possible and spending nearly every waking minute playing in the basement of the B&B - much to his parents dismay. They scolded him and told him it was driving customers away which is probably how he ended up jamming with Billy, slowly learning a few of The Strokes’ easier songs. 

You loved tagging along to watch him play, even though all he and Billy did was strum on their guitars and sing in the basement that had really, really shitty acoustics. You knew Van was a good singer - he always had been, even though he was in the midst of puberty and was experiencing the dreaded voice cracks and hormones that came along with it. And he absolutely loved music. Listening to him sing was your favorite part of the day. You’d lean back on the couch, listening to the way his accent slipped away a little as he sang, stumbling over words and combining bits and pieces of various songs together. You knew music and you knew that he was good. 

“You’ve got quite beautiful eyes, y’know,” Van said one night, hours after his voice had given out from singing the same song over and over again in Billy’s basement. 

You elbowed Van in the ribs, nearly knocking him over. “Shut up, would ya? Brown eyes are ugly and you know it.”

You stared up at the sky, entranced by the constellations and bright stars that were out. You were both sitting cross-legged on the grass in a field a few minutes outside of your neighborhood, far enough that the lights from the houses couldn’t reach it. 

“No, ‘m telling you, yours are all big and soft and… warm, like honey.” You turned to look at him slowly, at the crooked grin on his face. You rolled your eyes, turning your gaze back on the stars. You wondered how they all fit up there in that big sky. It didn’t even seem possible, like they could fall out of it at any second and come crashing down to Earth. 

“Says the one with blue eyes. I’ve always wanted blue eyes,” you said with a dreamy sigh.

Van shook his head and laughed softly, throwing his head back and closing his eyes. 

You looked at him, blinking, and joined in laughing with him. “What?” you asked in between giggles. 

Van shrugged, only laughing harder, which made you laugh harder, too.

“I think… I think I’m just high,” Van said with a wide smile on his face. You nodded, tilting your head back and laughing again, the air visible from your mouth in the cold.

“Me too,” You said after a moment with a giggle. “Guess it worked?”

You and Van started smoking fairly regularly after that, usually leeching off of Billy or trading him with stolen cigarettes that your father rolled himself. You’d usually settle for Billy’s basement, passing around a joint or a bowl and listening as they played the songs that Van had slowly started writing, your brain fuzzy and soaking in every bit of it. 

•

Age sixteen came with first loves. 

“Mate, you know Abby Newman?” Billy asked one night, smacking Van on the chest lightly. He blinked, eyes half shut and red around the edges. 

“Hm, she’s a year ‘bove me, I think, so year younger than you, yeah?”

Billy smirked, taking a long hit of the joint in his hands. “Heard that she fancies you.” 

You snorted and Van shot you a dirty look, shoving you lightly. “Fuck off, would ya?” he said with a laugh, then turned back to Billy. “Abby Newman, huh?”

This is what kickstarted Van’s girl crazed phase. Through his delightful charm (or so he said), he managed to score a date with Abby. Within a few weeks, they were real-life boyfriend and girlfriend, holding hands at the diner you always went to, Abby finding a spot on Billy’s couch to listen to them practice, Van telling you about how they’d gone to second base - gross. 

At first, you were a little annoyed with Abby, her extra fragrant floral perfume and thick eyeliner being just a bit much but you learned to like her. Just as you were starting to consider her one of your own close friends, she and Van broke up. He wrote a sad song about her of course, actually probably 20 songs, but within a few weeks, he had a new girl in his lyrics. 

He never dated girls for longer than a month, if that, and you were never really sure why they broke up but it made for good song content, Van pouring his emotions out into his at first cheesy but then actually decent songs. 

While Van was experiencing the whirlwind that was adolescent females, you were finding your own first love in Matt. 

Matt was a year above you, seventeen and had this smile that dove you nuts. You’d go to his football games, cheering him on from the stands, Van usually by your side scribbling in his notebook or underneath the bleachers smoking a cigarette. 

You adored Matt. He was just so cool, always working on this old car that he already knew how to drive even though he didn’t even have his license yet, and giving you mix CDs with sappy love songs that you’d fall asleep listening to every night. 

Van wasn’t a huge fan of him but you figured he was just being his usual over protective self. You forced him to put on a smile and play nice, which he did for the most part. 

Matt bought you popcorn and paid for your movie tickets, held your hand tightly during the scary parts, took you to the beach when it got a little warmer, gave you goodnight kisses at your door that left you dizzy. 

You were sixteen and in love. Or you thought you were, at least. 

“Van,” you whispered into the phone, hand covering your mouth as you walked down the street on shaky legs. 

“Hey, what is it, love? You okay?” he answered quickly, voice thick from smoking or drinking. It was the night of your school’s formal and although he didn’t attend it, Van was probably winding down from the afterparty that one of your classmates had thrown - the party you should’ve just gone to after the dance. 

Instead, you were walking down a road you didn’t even recognize, in the dress you’d been dreaming about wearing for months, tears streaming down your face. 

“Yeah, I-” your voice cracked and you let out a sob. You crouched down in the street, head on your knees and cried, snot dripping from your nose. 

“Love,” Van whispered, his heart breaking for you. “Where are you?” 

You ended up in Van’s bed, curled up under his covers, wearing a pair of his joggers and your favorite sweatshirt that you always tried to steal from him. He placed a cup of tea down for you on his bedside table with just a bit of milk, exactly how you liked it, and sat on the edge of the bed. “You wanna talk about it?” he asked softly. 

You wiped some tears with the sleeve of his sweatshirt and took a shaky breath. “Um... I guess.” He reached out and grabbed your hand, the familiar feeling of his calloused fingers against yours relaxing you a little. “So basically... Matt and I had been planning on, um, having sex for the first time tonight, after the dance. Cliche, I know,” you sniffled, glancing you at Van. You’d expected him to shake his head or at least give you a disappointed look but his soft expression hadn’t changed. “And well, his parents were gone for the weekend... so we went to his house after the dance. And we were, like kissing and stuff and I realized that I just wasn’t ready, y’know? Like I just didn’t wanna do it then. So I told him that and he got really mad, telling me that he’d been waiting for this for months and how could I just decide all of the sudden I didn’t want to?” 

Van’s hand tightened around yours and you glanced up to see his jaw clenched. You took another shaky breath. “So... then I felt really bad and ended up just doing it.” Vans eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. 

“I’m gonna fucking kill him,” he muttered, shaking his head. 

You dropped your chin to your chest, closing your eyes. “There’s more,” you whispered. “After we were done, he, um, broke up with me and basically said he was just waiting for this so he could finally dump me.” Van pulled his hand away from you and you glanced up to see him pacing around his room. 

“Oh my god,” he mumbled to himself. “Oh my fucking God. What a piece of shit. Who the fuck does he think he is, doing that to you? To you of all people?” he voice cracked at the end of the sentence and he paused, running a hand down his face. “I’m gonna fucking murder him,” he said, reaching for his boots by the door. 

“Van, stop. Please,” you whispered, pulling your knees tighter to your chest. He paused immediately and looked down at you, face softening slightly. 

“But he can’t fucking do that. Do you know how messed up that is? I literally wanna go rip his fucking head off,” he hissed. You shook your head and when he saw your lip tremble, he dropped his boot and sat down on the bed next to you carefully. “Oh, Y/N,” he whispered, wrapping an arm around you. 

You bit your lip and leaned on his chest, a sob escaping your mouth when he pulled you close to him. You cried, full on, a waterfall of tears into his chest as he stroked your hair and rubbed your back gently, keeping you tucked into him. He shushed you softly, almost rocking you like a baby as you cried and cried on him.

After you had no tears left in you, you sniffled and cleared your throat. You were both lying down now, both of Vans arms around your waist and your head in his chest, arm across his stomach. “Uh, sorry about that,” you said with a soft laugh. 

He stroked his thumb across your arm. “Don’t ever apologize for that, yeah? I’m here for you, always. If you need to cry on me, I’ll gladly wipe your tears away,” he murmured in your ear. “But I still wanna fuckin’ kill him.”

You chuckled, burying your head into his chest. “I know. But please don’t, I don’t want you going to jail on my behalf.”

“I’ll do it. I’d do anything for you,” he whispered. You closed your eyes, breathing him in. He smelled a little different than usual, his cologne and cigarette smoke mixed with alcohol and weed from the party. But it comforted you nonetheless, because it was Van. “I love you,” he said, dropping a kiss on your forehead. 

“Love you too,” you replied softly, falling asleep as you thanked God for giving you Van as a best friend. 

•

You were seventeen when you started to get jealous. 

It was well known by you and your friends that Van was, well, a ladies man. He dated a lot of girls. He was always loyal to them of course, he’d never cheat, but his relationships were always short-lived and dramatic. He still paid more attention to you than any of his girlfriends, but one night when you texted him to come watch a movie, you were disappointed by his response.

To: vannn

heyyy come watch 500 days of summer w me plz i need a rom com and snuggles

To: my bestest friend

sorry love i got a date w sophie tonight her parents are gone for the weekend ;) tomorrow? xx

You looked at your phone for a moment, color rushing to your cheeks as you snapped it shut. It’s not like this was anything new - Van hadn’t done anything wrong, he was just spending time with his girlfriend. But it bothered you for some reason.  

The next day, when Van did actually come over to watch a movie as promised, you couldn’t help but roll your eyes when he started talking about Sophie. 

“Yeah, I dunno she’s nice and dead cute, honestly, but she is a little insane,” he said, shoving a handful of popcorn in his mouth. 

Your skin was probably green with envy when he mentioned something about her being good in bed. “Van, I don’t wanna hear that,” you replied, tossing a piece of popcorn at him. 

He turned his head and stuck his bottom lip out in a pout, looking at you with raised eyebrows. “Aw, someone a little jealous that I’m spending time with another girl?” he teased, eating the popcorn that had landed in his lap. 

You scoffed, shaking your head. “No.” 

Van chuckled and leaned toward you, wrapping his arms around you in a tight hug. “It’s okay, babe, you’ll always be my number one.” 

•

You were eighteen when you realized you were in love with him. 

It was your birthday and you were at a small pub watching him perform. You were leaning against the back wall, a beer in your hand as you watched. Van and Billy had found a bassist a while back and recently had even found a decent drummer. And they were good. 

You smiled as he thrashed around on stage, nearly knocking his microphone over and putting on a hell of a good show for the small crowd of people. They’d grown a bit of a following over the years and you could tell something big was coming for them soon. 

“I just wanna give a shout to someone very special to me.” You looked up at Van who was staring right back at you, a huge grin spread across his face as he spoke into the microphone at the finality of their last song. “This girl’s been there for me since the beginning, through all my shit. She’s the best friend I could ever ask for and I dunno what I did to deserve her. So happy birthday, Y/N. And thanks for everything.” 

Color sprung to your cheeks as everyone turned and looked at you, clapping and shouting happy birthday wishes. One of Van’s guy friends who you’d gotten to know pretty well, elbowed you in the side and shot you a wide smile. “Didn’t know it was your birthday. How old are you, then?”

But you didn’t respond because you hadn’t even picked up on what he was saying. You were still staring at Van, watching as he started packing things up on stage. 

Everything around you went quiet. You watched as he tilted his head back and laughed loudly at something Bob said and it sounded like goddamn angels singing to you. 

Holy shit. I’m in love with him, you thought. I’m fucking in love with him. How did I not realize this earlier?

It was like everything else in the background faded to black and white but he was in color, his blue eyes shining brightly as he approached you, brown hair darkened with sweat. He said something to you and you had to blink a few times, bringing your focus back.

“Sorry, what?” 

He laughed, shaking his head at you. “I asked if you wanted to get out of here, go for a drive, or somethin’. I gotta give you your birthday present,” he said with a mischievous smile. 

So there you were in the passenger seat of his dad’s car, windows rolled down, arm hanging out and cutting through the wind as you drove over a bridge, music blaring, and fuck, you were in love with Van. 

The lights from the city were bright and shining in the rear view mirror as the two of you sped away, leaving everything behind you. You stuck your head out of the window, feeling the wind on your face, a little buzzed from the beer you had been drinking earlier and a little high from the joint you’d smoked a few minutes prior and you threw your head back and whooped, unable to hold in your joy. 

Van was looking over at you, one hand on the steering wheel and a wide smile on his face. “What?” he questioned you with a laugh. 

You shook your head, unable to explain how you were feeling at that moment. You felt so full and warm and just downright fucking happy. Happier than you’d felt in a while. “I’m just… happy,” you said back, sticking your arm back out the window and letting your hair whip around in the wind. 

Van laughed, rolling his own window down and screaming along to the music with you.

He pulled over eventually, onto a side road in the middle of nowhere but left the car running. He turned the music down a little and cleared his throat. You watched as he rubbed his hands down his jeans, the corners of his mouth lifting in a smile. “What’s up?” you asked, rolling the window up and tilting your head towards him. “Ooh, do I get my present now?”

A laugh escaped him as he nodded. “Yeah, guess so. Or I could make you wait even longer.” 

You frowned, crossing your arms dramatically. “But Vaaan,” you whined, “it’s almost midnight. Then my birthday’s gonna be over.” 

His eyes shone in the darkness of the car, the moonlight washing over his features gently. “Alright, alright, quit your whining. Give me a second.” Van slipped out of the car and went around to the trunk and came back with a small box wrapped in newspaper. He held it in his hands for a moment as he sat in the driver’s seat, the windows around you fogging up just a bit from your breath. 

You waited patiently, heart beating a little faster. He licked his lips before he spoke, turning his head to look at you. “So I’ve been, uh… pretty bummed lately because you’re leaving soon. I was trying to think of a way to convince you to stay here with me and just become a roadie or something but I realized that there was no way I’d let you do that,” he said with a soft laugh. “You’re so fucking smart and I just… I know you’re gonna do big things at Oxford and after, too. It sucks that we’re gonna be apart but I’m hoping I can come visit.” He looked at you expectantly, eyes wide as if you were going to object to this. 

You nodded quickly. “Of course, yeah.” 

He smiled and looked out the window for a second, turning the present around in his hands. “Good, yeah. God, this is fucking awful,” he said after a moment, eyes going to his lap. “‘M gonna miss you so much. I mean… my best friend isn’t gonna be 10 steps from my front door anymore.” You bit your lip hard, blinking fast. You weren’t one to cry over just anything but you could feel tears stinging your eyes. And you weren’t ready to leave Van in a few days at all.

You’d applied to Oxford on a whim, fully expecting to end up at one of the smaller universities near your hometown that would be within driving distance so you could still live at home.

When you got your acceptance letter, you were shocked. Van hadn’t been surprised at all, saying he knew all along that you’d get in. It took you up until the last day possible to make the decision. Ultimately, you knew you’d hate yourself if you didn’t pick Oxford. And Van would probably resent you for life if you stayed living at home. Plus, he’d dropped out of school a while ago anyway and who knew what he’d be doing once Catfish got signed. 

He laughed softly, clearing his throat. “But anyway, I’m so happy for ya. I’m not happy about us being three and a half hours away from each other... but I’ll live. And I guess I should finally give this to you, yeah?”

He handed the present over across the console, your fingers brushing as you took it from him. “I can see you wrapped it yourself,” you said with a chuckle, inspecting the newspaper. 

Van rolled his eyes playfully. “Alright, shut up and open it.”

You tore the paper carefully, holding your breath as you pulled the paper back to reveal a small box. You lifted the top off and peered inside to see a CD case. You pulled it out and examined the front to see a handwritten tracklist - Van’s messy script, specifically, but there were no artists listed. “Oh, you made me a mix?” you asked softly, beaming at him. 

He shook his head slightly. “Well, not exactly. Um, they’re all my songs.” You gasped, looking back at the tracks. 

“That’s amazing,” you murmured. 

“And uh, well, they’re all songs about you.” You paused, making sure you heard him correctly, and turned back to look at him. He was staring right back at you, bottom lip tugged between his teeth.

“Songs about me?” you whispered. “I didn’t know you wrote about me.”

He laughed softly, pointing at the top of the list of songs. “Of course I do. How could I not? They’re kind of… in chronological order too, like from when I first met you to now.” You pulled the CD case to your chest, leaning over and wrapping your free arm around Van’s neck. 

“Oh my God, thank you,” you mumbled as he tucked his arm around your waist, his chin on top of your head. 

“There’s more, y’know,” he said as you pulled away, pointing at the box. You lifted some tissue paper to reveal a thick stack of notebook paper that was folded together carefully in a square. When you pulled it out, something fell out of the paper. 

“Shit,” you muttered as you lifted your legs off the seat, trying to find it. You switched a light on inside the car and spread your fingers across the fabric of the seat until you felt something cold. You grabbed it carefully, placing it in your palm and you gasped upon realization. “Van,” you whispered. 

It was his father’s necklace, the one he’d worn ever since you were both small. He’d started wearing it when he was only about seven or eight, he told you. You’d never seen him without it. 

You looked over at him and sure enough, the small chain that usually adorned his neck was gone. He licked his lips, eyes scanning your face. “I… I can’t take this from you,” you said, reaching for his hand to give the necklace back to him. 

He held his hands up in defense and shook his head. “I want you to have it. So you don’t forget about me,” he said quietly. 

Your chest tightened. Forget about Van? That would be impossible. You’d spent your life watching him grow up, been there for each other through every heartbreak, every family problem, every low moment. You were in love with him, for God’s sake. How could you not be? He was the funniest, most thoughtful, kindest person you’d ever met. And he thought you’d forget about him?

“I could never forget about you,” you whispered, voice cracking. Your eyes started watering again and you looked at your lap, turning over the delicate gold chain in your hands. 

“Let me put it on you.” You nodded, swallowing the lump in your throat as you handed it to him carefully and turned to face your window. He leaned over the console and brushed your hair to the side, his hands against your neck eliciting goosebumps from your skin. He unclasped it and wrapped it around your neck slowly, his fingertips nearly leaving burn marks wherever they touched. He ran a hand down your hair, smoothing it carefully and hovering there for a moment before leaning back in his seat. “Looks better on you,” he said with a small smile.

The feeling in the pit of your stomach had not dissipated. You felt incredibly nervous but also still at ease and you were trying to figure out how that was even possible. But it was because you were alone in a car in the middle of nowhere with Van, your best friend of almost a decade who you were also utterly in love with, staring at him with only the soft hum of The Shins in the background. “Also, that’s um, a letter I wrote you,” he said softly, looking at the folded up paper in your hands. You started to unfold the paper until he interrupted you. “No, no, could you just wait to read it? Like, until you get to Oxford?”

You felt dizzy at this point, only moments away from having to press your forehead against the car window and catch your breath. What was in the letter?

“Uh, yeah, sure,” you whispered, tucking the note into the pocket of your jacket. “Van, I… thank you so much. You don’t know how much all of this means to me,” you said. He was pleased by your reaction, a small smile stuck on his lips as he stared at you. 

“Of course. You deserve it,” Van responded softly. “Come ‘ere.”

You leaned forward again and wrapped both of your arms around his middle tightly, tucking your head into his chest. He slid both his arms around your neck, one going to the back of your head and holding you tightly. You sat there like that for a while, feeling how warm he was against you, breathing in his scent that never seemed to change, the cologne he’d stolen from his father when he was younger with the addition of cigarette smoke in the last couple of years. He felt so solid and safe and at that moment, you realized that leaving for Oxford was probably going to be the hardest thing you’d done so far in your life. Van stroked your hair gently, holding you so tight to him, not caring about the awkward position you were in over the center console or that The Shins CD was starting over for the third time. 

You pulled away after a few minutes, forehead pressed to his. It was so dark you couldn’t see anything but the lightness of his eyes. I’m in love with you, you wanted to say. I’m so fucking in love with you it hurts. I want to wake up to you in my bed every morning and I want to dance around the kitchen with you in the middle of the night and I want to have babies with you and grow old together. 

You couldn’t bring yourself to say any of these things. You were leaving in less than a week and then you’d be across the country from him. You didn’t want to risk losing him or fucking things up before you left. You’d just realized how you felt about him and you were pretty sure that he didn’t feel the same way about you but you’d rather just live not knowing for sure - it was less painful that way. You wanted to remember him exactly this way - warm and happy and just Van. 

“I love you,” you whispered, “and I’m gonna miss you so fucking much. But you’ll always be my best friend, y’know?” 

•

It was near the end of your first term when Van finally came to visit you. 

It was a Friday afternoon and you had your nose in a book, studying for an exam you had coming up when your phone rang. 

You flipped it open and grinned. “Van!” you yelled excitedly, slamming your book shut and jumping out of your desk chair. 

He chuckled through the phone at your excitement. “Hi, love. I think I’m here but ‘m not quite sure where to go, honestly. Can ya come find me?”

There he was, a backpack slung over one shoulder, sunglasses on his face, wearing a huge smile. You sprinted toward him and nearly knocked him over with a hug, wrapping your arms around him tightly. 

“Hi,” you said when you pulled away, beaming. 

“Hi,” he replied, giving you that infamous crooked grin. 

“So this is my friend Hallie’s room and my other friend Olivia’s room is right there and, oh that’s Charlie’s at the end of the hall,” you said, speeding down the hallway, Van trailing behind you. He seemed to be in awe of everything, mouth hung open and staring at every room you passed. “And this is my room.” You shut the door behind you and leaned against the wall, watching as he inspected the small room. “Like it?” you asked nervously.

He turned and looked at you, a smile spread across his face. “This is amazing,” he said. “This whole place is so fuckin’ cool and all of your pictures in here and your records, wow,” he murmured, scanning over the hundreds of pictures you’d taped to your walls. Of course, he was in most of them. You beamed at him, plopping down on your bed as he looked out your window, admiring the view of the city outside. 

“So did ya miss me?” he asked, sitting down next to you, bumping your shoulder with his. 

“No, I’ve been just great without you,” you said with a laugh. “Yes, of course I missed you! It’s been, like…”

“Three months?” he finished for you. 

You sighed, scanning over his face. It had been only three months but it felt like so much longer. He looked older to you, his hair a little longer and some stubble growing in. His eyes still had the same twinkle and you couldn’t help but lean forward and hug him again tightly. 

“Three months too long,” you mumbled into his chest as he chuckled, hugging you back and rubbing his hand down your back.

“I know, darlin’. But what do you have planned for me this weekend? Gotta get the whole university experience, yeah?”

Naturally, you took him to a party later that night. It wasn’t overly huge or anything, just a casual thing that your friend Hallie’s older sister was throwing at her house a few blocks away from where you lived. 

Van was thriving in the party atmosphere, of course. Girls were eyeing him up left and right, offering him drinks and touching his shoulder. He was eating it up, not used to so much attention. He was telling a group of people about the band and how they’d recently won a music competition and they were all close to drooling. 

“Your boyfriend’s so cool,” someone next to you said. You turned and looked, seeing it was a girl who lived down the hall from you but whose name you could never remember. Van looked at you through the crowd of people, shooting you a wink as you shook your head and laughed at him. 

“I know right?” you replied, not even bothering to correct her. 

“I love college. I love it!” Van shouted to no one in particular a few hours later as the two of you stumbled down the street, his arm slung around your shoulder and yours around his waist. 

You giggled, holding him tightly to make sure you didn’t trip over anything. “Van, be quiet,” you shushed as you guided him up the stairs and down the hall to your room. You rolled your eyes, laughing as he said ‘hello’ to a few people in your hall and pushed him into your room. He collapsed on your bed, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling. “I’m serious. I love this place. I could never leave,” he said, eyes wide. 

You sat down on the edge of the bed next to him, patting his chest. “I know. I love it, too.” 

Soon you were curled up in your tiny bed, limbs tangled together and fighting over blankets like you were sixteen again. His arm was around you, thumb stroking over your shoulder. “So you got a boyfriend?” he asked teasingly. 

“Ha no, no time for that yet. I’ve been so busy with school I can’t even think about finding a boyfriend,” you replied with a laugh. “What about you? How’s the girl situation?”

Van shrugged gently. “Eh, dunno. I’ve been seeing this girl Lily for a bit but I don’t really think it’ll go anywhere. She’s a bit full on.”

You’d become pretty good at hiding your jealousy, pushing it down inside of you and putting on a smile. You knew that his relationships never lasted and you really had no right to be jealous anyway but the thought of him doing anything with another girl made you sick to your stomach. 

You chatted for a while, voices hushed and words getting more drawn out until you could tell he was asleep. You laid there, head on his chest, feeling his heartbeat and listening to him breathe and you were just so fucking thankful that he was real and he was alive and here in your room. 

As you laid pressed up against him, not ready to fall asleep just yet, you thought of the letter he’d written you before you left for school. 

It took you until your third night at Oxford to read it, as you’d been so busy with unpacking and making new friends you didn’t have time. 

You’d flipped the lamp on next to your bed and unfolded the paper carefully. You read it slowly, taking in every word, every metaphor, every long description and then read it again. He really did have a way with words. You cried, of course, because it was fucking beautiful. He wrote about what your friendship meant to him and how he was so thankful he’d gotten to watch you grow over the years into the person you were now. He mentioned little details about you that you’d never even noticed and wrote about some of the bigger things you’d experienced together and what it was like from his perspective. 

The final paragraph is what really sent you over the edge. 

And now, you’re going off to do such fucking wonderful things. I can’t believe I’ve been lucky enough to know you. Just the other day I was talking to Larry about you, and how I was going to miss you and everything and he said to me “Mate, she’s special. People like that don’t come around in life twice.” And he was right. I might end up traveling around the world with the band, visiting different countries and meeting thousands of people. But none of them will compare to you. To your heart, your kindness, your passion to change the world. So I guess, I just want to thank you for being you and thank God for putting you in my life. I don’t know what I did to deserve you. 

You’re the best friend I ever could’ve asked for. I love you and I always will. 

Love, Van xx

•

You were twenty when you met Ethan. 

It was the beginning of your third year at Oxford and he was in your Calculus class. He introduced himself on the first day and whispered jokes to you about the lecturer throughout the whole class, making you burst out laughing at one point and get scolded by the girl sitting next to you. 

He followed you out of the lecture hall, asking you to coffee right away. While you were drinking coffee, he asked you to come to a party with him later that night. At the party, he asked you to dinner the next night. 

Within weeks you were inseparable. Ethan was witty and bright and kept you on your toes at all times. You studied together almost every night and it especially helped that he was a genius when it came to math. 

“So you’re just using Green’s Theorem to set up a double integral to find the area of this region,” he’d say. 

“I have to use whose what to find where?” 

He’d roll his eyes and laugh, then explain the whole thing to you again. 

You went to parties together and out to clubs sometimes, spending all night laughing and dancing together. You called your mother, giddy about your new romance and you could tell she was uncertain about Ethan. “Sweetie, are you sure about him? I mean he sounds nice and all, but… what about a certain someone back home?” 

You’d never officially told your mother about your secret love for Van but of course she knew. Ever since you were little, she constantly told you that you and Van would be perfect together and would end up married with kids someday. And when she started to pick up on your real feelings for him, that maybe you did want to be more than friends, you could tell your mother really, really wanted something to finally happen between you and Van. “Mum,” you’d scolded her over the phone, “you need to drop that, okay? I like Ethan. He’s gonna be good for me.”

When first term was over, Ethan invited you to come to his family’s house for the holidays and spend Christmas with him. You declined politely, as you hadn’t seen your parents in ages and desperately wanted to go home for a bit, enjoy the cold weather from the comfort of your childhood home. In the last few weeks, Ethan had become a little full on, as well, so you were glad to get some space from him. And maybe there were other reasons, too. 

As you rode the train home, looking out at the snow falling through the frozen window, you thought about Van. 

You hadn’t seen him in months. Catfish had recently gotten signed and they were busy recording their first EP so you rarely saw him last summer before you had to return to Oxford. You talked on the phone occasionally, but you were both so busy that you had little time to call each other. 

And fuck, did you miss him. 

Your heart ached for him when you arrived home, his house looking the exact same. You pictured him running across the street to beg you to come play hide and seek in the woods nearby or to convince you to go swimming in the lake a few blocks away. When your parents took you out to dinner, all you could see was him. Him sitting at the booth you always used to share when you had late night munchies, him waiting for the bus down the road before school, him knocking over that stop sign when he was first learning to drive. 

You thought about calling him but every time you clicked on his contact name, you couldn’t bring yourself to go through with it. What if things had changed between you? What if he was too busy with the band? 

You’d been home for three days when you heard a noise at your window. You paused, trying to figure out if you imagined it and shrugged, turning back to the book you were reading. After a moment, you heard the noise again. You folded over the corner of the page you were on and set the book down on your bedside table. You shuffled over to your window and jumped when you heard the tap again, then pulled your shades back. Through the frost, you could make out the figure of a person on the ground below. You carefully slid the window open and stuck your head out, rubbing your arms from the cold. 

“Hey!” 

It was Van, throwing rocks at your window, a smile on his face, just like when you were young.

Your heart swelled. “You wanna let me in? It’s cold as fuck out here!”

Van rubbed his hands together and blew on them, trying to warm himself up as you set a cup of tea next to him on your nightstand. “Thanks, love,” he said with a warm smile. 

“So how’ve you been? Can’t believe you guys finally have a record deal and everything. I mean you’ve been working for this for so long,” you said, pulling a blanket over both of you.

“Fuck, I know right? It’s been insane, just absolutely mad. I mean to hear my own songs actually recorded, not just on the shitty mic I have in my room? It’s fucking amazing,” Van replied, shaking his head in amazement. 

He shot into stories about their manager and the stress over which songs would go on the B side and you could tell he fucking loved it. His eyes were shining so bright, hands waving around as he spoke, a wide smile never leaving his face. Van was absolutely in love - in love with music and his band, and you realized you were in love, too. 

But not with music - you were in love with him still. 

“You glad to be home? It’s not quite as exciting as Oxford, eh?” he asked, taking a sip of his tea. 

You laughed softly, shrugging. “Maybe not as exciting but I like coming back here, especially since it’s almost Christmas. I love seeing mum and dad and it makes me… nostalgic you know. Reminds me of being little and running around with you,” you said, bumping his shoulder with yours. 

He nodded in agreement, lips curling up in a smile. “Can you believe we’re twenty now? Christ, I feel so fucking old,” he said with a laugh. 

“Oh, I know right. I feel like school is just flying by and I dunno, I have no fucking clue what I want to do when it’s over,” you replied, sighing. 

“You’ll figure it out. You always do. You’re dead smart and so passionate about so many things that I can’t imagine you’ll have any trouble finding a job after you graduate,” Van said softly. 

You looked over at him, biting your lip and wanting to cry a little. He always knew what to say. You’d been so stressed over the last year about your grades and about potentially going to medical school but you weren’t even sure if you wanted to, that Van saying this made you feel infinitely better. 

“Thanks, Van. I’ve missed you so much, y’know.”

He wrapped an arm around you, bringing you close to him and dropping a kiss on your forehead. “I missed you, too, love. It’s been hard without you.” 

You took a little satisfaction in knowing that he missed you as much as you missed him. You had your doubts of course, him being a big rock star now and you feared that maybe things had changed since you’d last seen him. 

“I was worried you’d forget about me,” you said softly, looking up at him. He blinked a few times, eyebrows furrowed. 

He shook his head and whispered, “I could never forget about you.” His flickered down to your neck and the gold chain you hadn’t taken off in years. 

You bit your lip, unable to contain the smile on your face. 

“You wanna go for a walk?” he asked after a moment. 

So though it was freezing and flurries were coming down, you found yourself walking the same streets you’d biked around on when you were young. 

You had your face buried in a scarf, hands shoved in your pockets because of course you’d forgotten your mittens, as you walked down the street with Van. 

It was dark out now, so the sky was hazy and everything was quiet from the snow. You were shivering and looked over at Van to see if he was the same, but he looked fine, no scarf, no mittens, no hat and just a light jacket on. “Aren’t you cold?” you asked, teeth chattering. 

He turned and looked at you with an eyebrow raised. “Not really. You?” You turned off the road you’d been walking on and wordlessly entered a park that you’d played at countless times. Visions of young Van sliding down the slide or swinging as high as he could flashed through your head. 

You nodded quickly, pulling your hands out of your pockets to rub them together. Van led you to a bench and sat. “Here,” he said, reaching out for your hands. You sat next to him, pressed up against each other, and he took your hands in his much larger ones, rubbing some warmth into them. He brought your hands to his mouth, blowing hot air on them. Your heart started to race and you felt like a teenager again. 

“Better?” he asked, pulling your hands away from his mouth but not letting go, resting them on his lap. 

You nodded, lips curled up in a smile. The tip of his nose was a little red and he looked adorable. 

“So your mum told me the other day that you’ve got a new boyfriend.” Oh, fuck. Since being home and especially being with Van, you’d kind of forgotten about Ethan. 

“Oh, yeah, Ethan. We’ve been together for just a couple months,” you said with a small smile. Van nodded but didn’t return your smile, turning and looking across the park, snowflakes falling and nestling onto his hair. He looked older, circles visible under his eyes probably from long nights spent perfecting songs and early mornings at the recording studio. You were positive he’d grown since you last saw him - he’d seemed like a giant when you’d been walking together. “But I dunno, I don’t really know if he’s the one, y’know?” 

When Van turned back to you, he looked nine years old again. Small and vulnerable and clueless about the world. 

He looked down at his lap, at your intertwined fingers, and licked his lips before his eyes flicked back up to yours. “Y/N… Can I tell you something?”

Your breath hitched in your throat before you nodded slowly. Van cleared his throat and turned your hand over, running his thumb along all the lines. He scratched your palm gently, just like he knew you liked, before intertwining your fingers again. “Uh, wow, I have no idea where to even start. I’ve had this planned in my head for fucking years and now it’s real and I… I don’t even know what to say,” he muttered, eyes wide as they stared into yours. 

“What do you mean?”

He laughed softly, his thumb stroking over the back of your hand. He brought your hand up to his mouth again and kissed your knuckles gently. 

“I’m in love with you.” Your ears were ringing and you blinked slowly, wanting to pinch yourself in the leg to make sure you weren’t dreaming. “I’m so fucking in love with you. And I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to say it because God, I’ve known it since I was fifteen and you fell asleep on my shoulder in Bobby’s basement one time but I was always too scared to tell you. Scared because I knew you didn’t feel the same way and I was worried you’d get weird around me which is fucking dumb because, well, you’re you and you’re the best person I know so it would’ve been fine,” he said with a soft laugh. “I wanted to tell you before you went off to Oxford, too, but I knew it was a bad idea because we were gonna be so far apart and I didn’t want it to ruin our friendship or anything, y’know? But now I hear that you have a boyfriend and I probably shouldn’t even be telling you because that’s kind of a shitty thing to do, but I dunno. I couldn’t keep it in anymore,” he finished, shrugging like he’d just said something completely minuscule to you. 

He reached up and rubbed his thumb under your eye and you didn’t even realize you’d started crying. 

Van was in love with you. He was in love with you and had been for years. All those years that you thought he didn’t feel the same, that he was just a really good friend. After you’d read his letter when you first started at Oxford, feeling a little crushed that he hadn’t confessed his love for you, you were positive that you’d never be more than friends. 

Van, your best friend of eleven years, the boy who’d grown into a man in front of your very eyes, was in love with you too. 

You couldn’t believe it. 

“Oh my God,” you mumbled. “Oh my God. This is real?” He nodded, his face full of confusion. 

You’d spent years dreaming of this. Lying on your bed at Oxford, staring at the ceiling, willing there to be some way the universe could work its magic and make Van love you back. Apparently, the universe listens. 

“Van... I’m in love with you, too.” He sighed gently, eyes locked on yours. “I have been forever. And I didn’t wanna tell you either because I thought you didn’t feel the same way,” you said with a small laugh of disbelief. “Fuck, I can’t believe this is actually happening. I spent so much time wishing you’d feel the same way as me but I honestly thought you never would. And God, I wanted to tell you so bad but I was just so scared. You’re really in love with me?” you whispered, biting your lip. 

He nodded, bringing his finger to your chin and tilting your face to look up at him. You could see every detail of his face in the soft lighting, the freckles that dusted across his nose, the ever so faint scar from that football match so long ago, the curl of his eyelashes. You thought of when you were thirteen and you had stared at him before having your first ever kiss, how much he looked like that young boy right now.

“Of course I’m in love with you. It’s always been you,” he whispered, his thumb stroking across your cheek. Your heart was beating so fast you were worried it would pop out of your chest. 

You sighed softly, scanning over Van’s face, the snowflakes that had accumulated on his hair, the sparkle in his eyes, the redness of his cheeks. He was in love with you. 

“Think we can try that whole kissing thing again?” he asked after a moment, with a small smile. “Might be better now than it was when we were kids.” 

You laughed, nodding as he leaned forward and rested his forehead on yours. You reached up and wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him close to you to make sure he was real and that this was actually happening. 

“I love you,” Van whispered, his breath ghosting across your lips, the edges of his eyes crinkled because of how hard he was smiling. 

And yeah, it was safe to say this kiss was better than the one you’d shared at age thirteen. 

•

You were twenty four when you got married. 

It was a nice autumn day, a slight chill in the air but the sun was still shining bright. 

As you waited for your cue to walk down the aisle, your heart beating faster than you knew possible, you thought of the last time you’d seen Van. It was yesterday morning, when you woke up to him pressing soft kisses on your cheeks, your nose, your forehead. 

“Van, what are you doing?” you’d groaned, not wanting to wake up. 

He scattered a few more kisses down your face and then giggled - giggled - against your neck as he brought his fingers to your sides, tickling you gently. “Van!” you squealed, opening your eyes to see him hovering above you with that crooked grin. 

“I needed to wake you up,” he said. 

You looked up at him, blinking the blurriness away, at his messy hair and sleepy eyes. It had to have been early still, dawn lighting streaming in through your window onto his face. “Why?” you asked with another groan. 

“Because I looove you and we have so much shit going on today and then we don’t get to be together tonight so I wanna enjoy the time we have this morning,” he replied softly. 

You brought your hand up to his cheek, stroking your thumb across a dimple and pulled his mouth to yours. He smiled even wider into the kiss, morning breath and teeth clinking together and all. 

You loved Van a little extra in the mornings. He was even more affectionate than usual, running his hands over every part of your body, wanting to be the little spoon, begging you to stay in bed for just a little longer. 

He snuggled on top of you, arms around your waist and head nuzzled into your neck as you scratched his scalp gently. “We’re getting married tomorrow,” he mumbled. 

You sighed softly, lips curling up in a smile. “I know. God, I’m so excited.” 

He pulled away slightly, resting his forehead on yours. You couldn’t see anything but the lightness of his eyes. “Me too,” he whispered. “Been waiting for this for a long fuckin’ time.” He kissed you gently, then rested his head on your chest, your hands going back up to tangle through his hair. 

“I love you.” 

“I love you, so fucking much.” 

As you rounded the corner, you took one last deep breath and looked up. Everyone was standing, staring at you with wide smiles and hands pressed to their hearts. The music was playing softly in the background, white twinkling lights everywhere, the flowers absolutely perfect. You were thankful your father was leading you, his arm tightly around yours because otherwise, you probably would have stopped dead in your tracks while walking down the aisle when you saw Van. 

He was waiting at the altar, looking fucking amazing in his black suit, and he was crying. Tears were streaming down his face and his hand was covering his mouth as he shook his head in awe. 

Your dad kissed your cheek and whispered that he loved you and took his seat next to your mum in the crowd.

When you reached Van, you grabbed his hands tightly, grinning at him as his eyes looked you up and down and then straight into your own eyes. His face was wet with tears and his lip was nearly bleeding from biting it so hard. 

“Hi,” you whispered, tears stinging at your own eyes. 

He laughed softly, shaking his head again in disbelief. “Hi. God, you look fucking beautiful.” 

•

You were twenty seven when you had your first child. 

You’d woken up in the middle of the night, eyes widening immediately as you shook Van awake. He had just gotten back from a short tour the night before, and he’d been absolutely exhausted. But he knew you were due soon and there was no way he was missing the birth of his first kid. 

“Hm?” he mumbled, not waking up. 

“Van,” you hissed, shaking his shoulder again. “It’s happening.” 

He opened his eyes and blinked, looking up at you. You nodded quickly, trying hard not to freak out too much. “Oh my God,” he said, shooting up and stumbling out of bed to find the bag you’d packed a while ago. “Oh my God, fuck, oh my God.”

The whole drive to the hospital, Van checked in on you constantly, making sure you weren’t in too much pain, driving as fast as possible, squeezing your hand tight. He had a playlist on his phone for this very moment - because honestly, he had a playlist for everything - and he put it on, trying to keep you relaxed as it played softly in the background. “We’re gonna have a fucking baby,” he muttered, glancing over at you in the passenger seat and laughing softly. “Christ.” You laughed too and then started to cry of course, because your hormones were a fucking disaster. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay, love. You can do this, yeah? Never been anything you can’t do.”

“She’s fucking beautiful,” Van whispered, tears running down his face as you laid in the hospital bed together later, both of you holding your new baby girl. You were exhausted and in a lot of pain, your face sticky with sweat but you didn’t care. You nodded, resting your head on Van’s shoulder as you started crying with him. “Looks just like you,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. 

“We’re parents, Van,” you said after a moment. “Holy fuck, are we ready for this?”

Van snorted, shrugging gently. “Probably not but we’ll figure it out, yeah? We always figure it out.” You sighed happily, leaning up and pressing a kiss on his lips. 

“God, I love you,” you whispered, dropping your head back to his shoulder. “Now, what are we gonna name her?”

•

You were thirty-three when you realized your mother had been right all along. 

It was a cold, snowy day in the middle of December. You were cozy in bed, still half asleep, Van’s arm tight around you as you laid on his chest, blankets pulled up over you. 

You were about to fall fully back asleep when you heard your door swing open. You heard some whispering and soft giggles and suddenly, you and Van were being attacked. 

“Wake up, wake up, wake up!” Van groaned loudly as you opened your eyes, seeing your two children jumping up and down on your bed. They giggled, launching themselves on top of you and hugging you. “Wake up, please!” they begged, Mary sitting on Van’s chest and Leo bouncing up and down on top of you. 

You rubbed your eyes, laughing softly at them. “What are you two doing?” you groaned, pulling Leo down into a hug. 

Leo laughed as he hugged you back, burying his face in your neck. “We wanna go play in the snow, please, please?” he begged in his small voice. 

Van mumbled something incoherent as Mary poked his cheek. “Daddy, wake up,” she said with a giggle. You glanced over to see Van with his arms covering his face, clearly not ready to be awake. 

“I don’t think Daddy is ready to wake up,” you said with a laugh, reaching up to press a kiss to Leo’s nose. Leo squirmed off of you and joined in the assault on Van, pulling his hands off his face and pressing his forehead to Van’s. 

“Daddy, pleeease,” he whined, giggling. Van groaned loudly again, before opening his eyes and immediately wrapping his arms around Mary and Leo, pulling them both onto his chest. 

“You’re killing me,” he mumbled, voice scratchy. “Daddy needs to sleep.” 

You laughed, squeezing up tight to your family and resting your head on Van’s shoulder. “Daddy does need his sleep. Especially after last night,” you said with a smirk. Van chuckled as Mary started tugging on his hair and Leo wiggled to get out of his grip. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Van started to tickle both of them, making them scream with laughter as they squirmed around your bed, limbs flying everywhere as they tried to escape him. 

“Okay, okay, we’ll have breakfast and then we can go outside. You can go watch some TV while I get your Daddy up,” you said with a laugh as Mary and Leo jumped off the bed, racing into the living room. 

Van chuckled, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you onto his chest. “They’re mad,” he said, shaking his head.

“They are, yeah,” you replied with a soft laugh. “But I love ‘em.”

“Love ‘em to pieces.” Van ran his hand down your arm slowly, before reaching his hand down to your jaw and tilting your face up to look at him. His eyes were sleepy still, his hair a mess. “And I love you, Mrs. McCann,” he whispered. 

You smiled back up at him, feeling giddy as ever as he leaned down and kissed you slowly, smiling against your lips. You pulled away after a moment and stared into his eyes, wondering how the hell you got this lucky. “I love you more.” 

Turns out your mother was right all along about the whole marrying Van and having babies with him. 

You never would’ve imagined this at nine when you met him for the first time or at thirteen when you had your first kiss or even when you were eighteen and you realized you were in love with him. It seemed too good to be true.

But it was real. Van was real and you loved him more and more every day, still asking yourself how someone as perfect as him could exist. Van, who had become the best father in the world, crying to you at night sometimes because he loved his children so much and was worried about what the world would do to them. Van, who dedicated every album to you and had to call you every night while he was on tour because he couldn’t sleep without hearing your voice. Van, who made sure to send you flowers at work once a month, who you got to spend the rest of your life with, who left a note on your bedside table with a different reason why he loved you every single morning. 

And God, did you love him too.  

• • •  

[paigenotblank]

The Age of the Wolf (8/9)

Rating: Mature overall, this chapter is teen

Pairing: Eighth Doctor x Rose Tyler; Eleventh x Rose; Ten x Rose

Written for @doctorroseprompts and Eight x Rose August. Prompt: Dimension hopping!Rose meets Eight / What if Rose was with Eight or met Eight during the Time War? 50th Anniversary Re-Write/Fix-It

Read it on Tumblr: Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9

AO3  TSP

An Elizabethan jailer pushed the three Doctors and Rose into a cell. “Come on, you lot, get in there.” When all four were in, he slammed the door closed.

The bowtied Doctor bent down and picked a small metal rod off the floor. He immediately set about scratching into a stone support. “Three of us in one cell? That's going to cause some nasty anomalies if we don't get out soon.”

The pinstriped Doctor’s gazed bounced from his older self to Rose and back again. He asked the other man somewhat curtly, “What are you doing?”

“Getting us out.”

“That’s gonna help?”

“I’m sending a message to a friend. She’ll know what to do with it.”

The wartime Doctor wandered over to the door and began examining it with his sonic.

Rose kicked at the ground while nervously stealing looks at her second Doctor. He had his hands in his pockets and was looking at her with desperate need while trying to appear not to.

The oldest Doctor momentarily stopped his scratching. “Oh, would you both just talk to each other.” He grumbled under his breath as he went back to his task. “Never thought I’d ever say it, but bloody Harkness was right.”

The Doctor and Rose looked at each other, surprised at being called out by one of his selves, before Rose broke out in giggles. The Doctor, not realizing how starved he’d been for the sound of her laughter, walked up and gave her an exuberant hug. He lifted her from her feet and spun her around, making her laugh harder. When he settled her back on the ground, he couldn’t bring himself to pull away. The Doctor had his face buried in her shoulder, breathing in her scent. Rose ran her hands in circles over his back.

“How...how are you here? You’re...I tried everything...I couldn’t...it’s impossible.”

“Back in Pete’s World, the stars were going out. An’ we built this, er, this travel machine. Called it, um, a dimension cannon...so that I, well, so I could…”

The Doctor pulled back enough so that he could see her face while gently asking, “What?”

“So I could come back.” The Doctor grinned brilliantly. “Shut up. Anyway, it didn’t work at first, but then suddenly the Void was dying and the walls between dimensions started to collapse. An’ that’s when it began to work. It was completely random, where I’d land. So many different dimensions. I stumbled across parallel versions of just about everyone I know. But never myself or you. Well, except in this one pocket universe, were you...”

“Pocket universe?”

She took a deep breath and plastered on a smile. “Nevermind. ‘S not important right now. Anyway, it was Mickey who thought of using my TARDIS key to lock us on to the right dimension. Had a couple of near misses after that, showin’ up jus’ after you’d left an’ the like, before finally runnin’ into you.” Rose pointed at the youngest of the Doctors. “That you.”

“Why didn’t you have him bring you to me?” His voice held a little bit of hurt, no matter how hard he tried to hide it.

Rose ran her thumb up and down his sideburns. “He needed me.”

His hand covered hers as he leaned into her palm, his eyes fluttering shut. “I need you.”

“Doctor, you know what he’s goin’ through, I couldn’t leave him. But I’m coming back to you...before you know it. I still need help with the stars goin’ out, an’ then I have a promise to keep. Forever, yeah?”

For one shining moment, the Doctor put aside his fears of their disparate lifespans, and allowed the idea of forever with Rose Tyler to wash over him. He closed his eyes and captured her lips in a desperate kiss.

They parted briefly. “Rose, I-” She crushed her mouth against his.

When she next gasped for breath, she assured him, “I know. Me too.” She dragged him back into their kiss.

Rose vaguely heard the other two Doctors arguing about the door and molecules and sub-atomic harmonic resonance, but she let their voices wash over her as she reacquainted herself with the Doctor in her arms.

Rose was brought back to reality by the need to breathe. The Doctor’s grip around her waist had gotten tighter and tighter the longer she stood in his arms. “Too tight.”

“Oh! Sorry!” He loosened his hold but kept his arms encircling her.

The pinging of the metal rod hitting the floor and the oldest Doctor arguing with his youngest self drew their attention.

“Oi! Chinny?”

The Doctor holding Rose nodded. “Yeah, you do have a bit of a chin.”

Before the eldest Doctor could let loose against his wartime self, Clara barged through the door nearly stumbling and clutching at the vortex manipulator around her wrist.

The eldest Doctor asked, “How’d you get in here?”

“It wasn't locked.”

He wrung his hands. “Right.”

Clara gestured at the other men in the room. “So they’re both you, then, yeah?”

“Yes.”

She grinned wickedly at the Doctor who still had his arms wrapped around Rose’s waist. “Nice suit.”

He beamed at her and adjusted his tie. “Thanks.” Rose rolled her eyes, but slipped her hand into his with a smile.

“And Rose.” Clara waved that the other woman. “You were totally right about the way it makes his bum look.”

The Doctor preened at the compliment and waggled his eyebrows at Rose.

Rose looked between the Doctor and the young woman. “You...I’m sorry do we know each other?”

Clara shot a panicked look at her Doctor, whose own eyes had gone wide. He shook his head as discreetly as possible. Clara plastered a big smile on her face. “Oh, uh, no. Just, er, you know. He’s the Doctor. You’re...blonde. Must be Rose. And I am gonna stop talking now.”

“Right and you know my thoughts on his arse in these trousers how?”

Clara swallowed hard. “Erm, lucky guess?”

Rose narrowed her eyes at the oldest Doctor. He tapped the end of his nose and winked at her. Rose nodded and let it drop.

Clara spun around and looked back at her Doctor. “Hang on. Three of you and one Rose in the cell, and none of you thought to try the door?”

Rose blushed.

The wartime Doctor tapped his chin. “It should have been locked.”

The oldest Doctor agreed. “Yes. Exactly. Why wasn't it locked?”

Queen Elizabeth, at that moment, pushed the door open and entered the holding cell. “Because I was fascinated to see what you would do upon escaping. I understand you're rather fond of this world. It's time I think you saw what's going to happen to it.”

--

The sight of an alien planet headed straight for Earth caused massive panic both on the streets and in the Naismith Mansion.

A technician was banging on the door of a locked, glass booth. “Help me, please. Somebody, please.”

Wilf slipped unobserved through the doors amid the chaos and into the room. He made his way over to the glass booth. “All right! I've got you, mate. I've got you.” Wilf went into the the open half of the booth and closed his door which unlocked the technician’s side. “Come on. Go on.” The man ran without a backward glance, leaving Wilfred trapped on his own.

--

Queen Elizabeth escorted the Doctors, Rose, and Clara to the Zygon lair hidden in the dungeons. “The Zygons lost their own world. It burnt in the first days of the Time War…” The wartime Doctor’s steps faltered. Rose slipped her arm through his and rested her head on his shoulder. “...A new home is required.”

The Doctor quietly murmured to Rose, “Will the effects of this war never be behind us?”

She lifted her head and kissed him softly. “They survived, that’s something.”

Clara surveyed the activity of the Zygons from entrance at the top of the chamber. “So they want this one?”

“Not yet. It's far too primitive. Zygons are used to a certain level of comfort.”

Clara leaned over to her Doctor and whispered, “Kate turned into one of these creatures right before I came here and found you.”

The Doctor put his fingers to his lips, and glanced around the room, eyes catching sight of a glass cube.

A Zygon walked up to the Queen and asked, “Commander, why are these creatures here?”

“Because I say they should be. It is time you too were translated. Observe this. I believe you will find it fascinating.”

The Zygon marched over to the the glass cube and placed his hand on top of it. He vanished in a glow of blue light, just as a figure appeared one of the 3D landscapes Clara and her Doctor had seen in the Under Gallery earlier.

Clara and Rose went up to the painting to inspect it more closely.

Rose turned to her husband. “That's him! That Zygon’s in the picture now.”

The wartime Doctor walked up beside the two women and reached for Rose’s hand. “It's not a picture, it's a stasis cube. Time Lord art. Frozen instants in time, bigger on the inside, but could be deployed as…”

The pinstriped Doctor walked up on the other side of Rose. “...Suspended animation. Oh, that's very good. The Zygons all pop inside the pictures, wait a few centuries till the planet's a bit more interesting, and then out they come.”

The oldest Doctor joined the group and stood beside Clara. “You see, Clara, they're stored in the paintings in the Under Gallery, like cup-a-soups. Except you add time, if you can picture that. Nobody could picture that. Forget I said cup-a-soups.”

Rose smiled fondly at her future Doctor.

Clara turned back to him. “And now the world is worth conquering. So the Zygons are invading the future from the past.”

He smiled proudly at her deductions. “Exactly.”

The Doctor in pinstripes cocked his head and spun to face the Queen. “And do you know why I know that you're a fake? Because you're such a bad copy. It's not just the smell, or the unconvincing hair, or the atrocious teeth, or the eyes just a bit too close together, or the breath that could stun a horse. It's because Elizabeth, the real Elizabeth, would never be stupid enough to reveal her own plan. Honestly, why would you do that?”

“Because it's not my plan. And I am the real Elizabeth.”

“Okay. So...backtracking a moment just to lend context to my earlier remarks…”

“My twin is dead in the forest. I am accustomed to taking precautions.” The Queen raised the hem of her skirt and removed a dagger from its sheath tucked into her garter. The Doctor took a discreet step back from the blade. “These Zygon creatures never even considered that it was me who survived rather than their own commander. The arrogance that typifies their kind.”

Rose asked, “Zygons?”

“Men.”

The two women shared a knowing grin.

Clara leaned forward in interest. “And you actually killed one of them?”

“I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but at the time, so did the Zygon. The future of my kingdom is imperilled. Doctor, can I rely on your service?” She turned to the pinstriped Doctor.

“Well, I'm going to need my TARDIS.”

“It has been procured already.”

“Ah. Well...”

Rose stepped forward. “If there is anything I know about the Doctor, it’s that he will always defend the Earth against its enemies.”

“She’s right, this is like a second home to me and I pledge to keep your kingdom safe, my Queen.”

“Excellent. Now, my love, you have another promise to keep.”

Rose crossed her arms over her chest and raised a brow the pinstriped Doctor. “‘My love?’”

The Doctor with great hair and a big gob stood gaping like a fish, unable to find the words for an explanation.

Rose narrowed her eyes. “Wha’ kind of promise did ya make?”

“Er…”

The bowtied Doctor swung his arm across Rose’s shoulder. “Your Majesty, about that. He’s actually already married.”

The pinstriped Doctor’s eyes widened in shock. “What?”

His older self glared meaningfully.

“Oh! Right, yeah, sorry, so sorry about that. Misunderstanding...thought I was proposing to a Zygon.”

The Queen turned to him in fury. “Doctor!”

The Doctor raised his hands. “Don’t worry, I won’t let it affect my solemn vow to your kingdom. I’m still your man for that.” He ran toward his TARDIS and yelled over his shoulder, “In fact, I’ll just go take care that now shall I? No time like the present...or the future as it is may be.”

He opened the door and hurried inside. The others smiled nervously at the Queen as they backed toward the TARDIS.

“Right, we should really be helping with that. Ta.”

They followed behind the other Doctor and entered the TARDIS. The oldest Doctor popped his head out surprising the queen. “You might want to write him a letter just to remind him of his promise. Erm, just a thought. He seems a bit scatty.”

When he re-entered the TARDIS, the wartime Doctor was contemplating the console room. “You've let this place go a bit.”

“Ah, it's his grunge phase. He grows out of it.”

“Oi!”

Rose leaned against a coral strut and cooed, “Don't you listen to them, darling. You’re gorgeous.” All three Doctors looked at her with the same mix of pride and amusement.

An alarm blared and the pinstriped Doctor at the controls got a shock. “Ow!” The console room flared and the grating was replaced by metal plating and stone. The walls shone with light coming from deep set roundels. “The desktop is glitching.”

The youngest Doctor took in the changing console room. “Three of us from different time zones. It's trying to compensate.”

“Hey, look. The round things.”

“I love the round things.”

“What are the round things?”

The pinstriped Doctor shook his head. “No idea.”

“Oh dear, the friction contrafibulator.” The bowtied Doctor reached over and flipped a switch which completely replaced the mixed era decor with his own console room. “Ha! There, stabilised.”

The pinstriped Doctor regarded it in awe. “Oh, you've redecorated.” He face dropped into a pout. “I don't like it.”

“Oh. Oh yeah? Oh, you never do. Listen, we're going to the National Gallery. The Zygons are underneath it.”

Clara snapped her fingers. “No, U.N.I.T. HQ. They followed us there to the Black Archive.” The three men all turned to her with identical glowers. “Okay, so you've heard of that, then?”

--

Inside the Black Archive, Kate Stewart and her team arrived to find a set of Zygons cloned in their images. Kate walked over to a conference table and sat down. The Zygon clone of Kate took the seat across from her. “You'll realise there are protocols protecting this place. Osgood?”

“In the event of any alien incursion, the contents of this room are deemed so dangerous, it will self-destruct in-”

“Five minutes.” Kate lifted a remote and set the timer. Each second counted down with a beep. “There's a nuclear warhead twenty feet beneath us. Are you sitting comfortably?”

“You would destroy London?”

“To save the world, yes, I would.”

“You're bluffing.”

“You really think so? Somewhere in your memory is a man called Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. I am his daughter.”

“One word from you would cancel the countdown.”

“Quite so.”

“It's keyed to your voiceprint.”

Kate nodded. “And mine alone.”

The Zygon Kate smiled and yelled over her shoulder. “Cancel the detonation!”

The timer stopped at 2:50.

“Countermanded!”

“Cancel the detonation!”

“Countermanded!”

“We only have to agree to live.”

“Sadly, we can only agree to die.”

--

The pinstriped Doctor was fighting against the controls. “I’m trying to bring the TARDIS in. Why can't we land?”

“The Tower of London is totally TARDIS-proofed.” The two older Doctors gaped at Clara. She shrugged. “That’s what the Zygon Kate told me earlier.”

Rose questioned, “How can they do that?”

“Alien technology plus human stupidity. Trust me, it's unbeatable.”

Both women exclaimed, “Oi!”

The wartime Doctor blurted, “We don't need to land.”

“Yeah, we do. A tiny bit. Try and keep up.”

“No, we don't. We don't. There’s another way.” He glanced at Rose.

With a nod, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the Eye of Discord. She held it in her hands and focused inward.

The pinstriped Doctor’s eyes practically bulged out of their sockets. “Rose, is that…? What are you doing with...?”

The wartime Doctor moved to stop his older self from pulling the device from Rose’s hands. “Leave her. She knows what she’s doing.”

Rose’s eyes flashed gold and a swirling pathway opened from the TARDIS to the Black Archive. She gave the others a manic smile before jumping through the newest time fissure.

--

The group of five appeared in the Black Archive to a very surprised set of U.N.I.T. employees in duplicate.

The youngest Doctor greeted, “Hello.”

“I'm the Doctor,” added the pinstriped Doctor.

“Sorry to just pop in.”

Clara shook her head at the trio. “Also the showing off.”

The oldest Doctor shook his outward calm off and stormed over to one of the Kates. “Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, what in the name of sanity are you doing? Please tell me you’re not about to do something unbelievably stupid.”

The other Kate replied, “The countdown can only be halted at my personal command. There's nothing you can do. I’m sorry.”

The Doctor in pinstripes attempted to get her to see reason. “Not as sorry as you will be. This is not a decision you will ever be able to live with.”

The bowtied Doctor promised, “I’ll make you both agree to halt it.”

She scoffed. “Not even the three of you.”

The Doctor freshly from the war shook his head. “You're about to murder millions of people.”

Rose walked over to the youngest version of her husband and took his hand.

“To save billions. How many times have you made that calculation?” She looked each of the incarnations in the eye.

The oldest Doctor glanced at Rose and his other self. “Once. Turned me into the man I am now.”

The pinstriped Doctor sighed. “You tell yourself it's justified, but it's a lie so you can sleep at night. Because what I did that day was...it will never feel right.”

The youngest Doctor closed his eyes against the love and understanding in Rose’s.

The oldest Doctor turned back to Kate. “And, because I got it wrong, I'm going to make you get it right.”

“How?”

The middle Doctor glanced at the countdown clock. “Any second now, you're going to stop that countdown. Both of you, together.”

“Then you're going to negotiate the most perfect treaty of all time.”

“Safeguards all round, completely fair on both sides.”

“And the key to perfect negotiation?” The Doctor queried his previous self.

“Not knowing what side you're on.”

“So, for the next few hours, until we decide to let you out…”

“...No one in this room will be able to remember if they're human…”

“...Or Zygon.”

The oldest Doctor jumped on the conference table and pointed his sonic upward. He nodded to the two other Doctors, who both raised their sonics. They activated a memory filter in the ceiling causing both the humans and Zygon clones to blink and shake their heads in confusion.

The two Kates glanced at the countdown clock and as it dropped under 0:07, together they yelled, “Cancel the detonation!”

As the countdown stopped at 0:05, the Doctor fiddled with his bowtie and smiled at Clara. “Peace in our time.”

The two Kates retook their seats at the conference table and began negotiations.

--

The Doctor remained on his knees breathing heavily. The Master looked in confusion at his oldest friend and bitterest enemy. “But this is fantastic, isn't it? The Time Lords restored.”

“You weren't there in the final days of the War. You never saw what was born. But if the Time Lock's broken, then everything's coming through. Not just the Daleks, but the Skaro Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, the Could-Have-Been King with his army of Meanwhiles and Neverweres. The War turned into hell. And that's what you've opened, right above the Earth. Hell is descending.”

The Master’s eyes lit with glee. “My kind of world.”

“Just listen! Because even the Time Lords can't survive that.”

“We will initiate the Final Sanction. The end of time will come at my hand. The rupture will continue until it rips the Time Vortex apart.”

The Master was incredulous. “That's suicide.”

“We will ascend to become creatures of consciousness alone. Free of these bodies, free of time, and cause and effect, while creation itself ceases to be.”

The Doctor pleaded with the Master. “You see now? That's what they were planning in the final days of the War. I had to stop them.”

The Master stepped forward, arms spread wide. “Then, take me with you, Lord President. Let me ascend into glory.”

“You are diseased, albeit a disease of our own making. No more.” Rassilon raised his gauntlet covered hand toward the Master and slowly opened his fist. The Doctor pushed himself to his feet and stepped between the two. He aimed the revolver he still held at Rassilon.

“Choose your enemy well. We are many. The Master is but one.”

From behind, the Doctor heard the Master cajole, “But he's the President. Kill him, and Gallifrey could be yours.”

The Doctor spun around to point the revolver at the Master.

“He's to blame, not me! Oh...the link is inside my head. Kill me, the link gets broken, they go back. You never would, you coward. Go on then. Do it.”

The Doctor flipped around to point the gun at Rassilon.

The Master egged the Doctor on, “Exactly. It's not just me, it's him. He's the link. Kill him!”

Rose slipped through the door without any notice as the Lord President addressed the Doctor. “The final act of your life is murder. But which one of us?”

Behind Rassilon, one of the dissenters lowered her hands and caught Rose’s eye. Rose fought back tears as she met the gaze of her mother-in-law for the first time in years - and likely, the last.

The older woman inclined her head, just barely perceptible. And Rose, after taking a bracing breath, did the same and mouthed, “Goodbye.” The corners of the older woman’s lips twitched upward.

The Doctor’s mother moved her eyes to her son. He stood frozen, unable to even pull air into his lungs. She too remained unmoving, though he noticed her eyes flicker to a place over his shoulder. His mind raced as it recalled the layout of the space. His eyes flared for a moment and he turned once again back to the Master.

The Master closed his eyes waiting for the inevitable.

“Get out of the way.”

The Master’s eyes popped open. He jumped out of the way just before the Doctor fired at the apparatus holding the White Point Star. A flare of light heralded a gale that blew through the area. The Doctor dropped the arm holding the pistol as the Time Lords fought against the winds pushing them back into the Time Lock.

“The link is broken. Back into the Time War, Rassilon. Back into hell.”

--

The Visionary looked up from her scribing and chanted to the heavens, “Gallifrey falling! Gallifrey falls! The Wolf rises! The Age of the Wolf begins!”

--

Rassilon screamed, spittle flying from his mouth, “You'll die with me, Doctor.”

“I know.” The Doctor’s head dropped.

Rassilon took aim at the Doctor with his gauntlet. The Doctor’s mother lowered her eyes as a tear fell and she re-covered her face. Rose was about to make her move, when the Master clambered to his feet and yelled, “Get out of the way!”

The Doctor jumped back as the Master sent an energy blast at Rassilon using up his unstable life force. He raged at the Time Lords, “You did this to me! All of my life! You made me! One! Two! Three! Four!”

The Doctor and Rose stood transfixed, watching as the Master hit the Lord President over and over with energy bursts until he collapsed to his knees. The Master stepped closer and closer, energy pouring from him unrelentingly. It intensified until, in a brilliant eruption of light, all Time Lords, save the Doctor, disappeared from Earth.

The Doctor stumbled to the window and noticed Gallifrey gone from the sky and people celebrating in the streets. He backed up and leaned against the wall, feeling every painful twinge of his battered body. “I'm alive. I've…there was...I'm still alive.”

Rose ran up to him and, although she wanted to throw herself into his arms, she feared hurting him. He crushed her into a hug, not caring.

--

Clara walked over to the photo board containing pictures of the Doctor’s known companions. She played with the push pin stuck into a black and white photo of a teenage girl with a pixie cut. She glanced to the corner of the room and noticed the wartime Doctor sitting alone, staring into a steaming cup of tea.

She strolled over and perched on the arm of his chair. “Hello.”

“Hello.”

“I'm Clara. We haven't properly met yet.”

“I look forward to it.” The Doctor took a sip of his tea while Clara sat quietly studying him. “Is there a problem?”

“No, I just noticed you here all alone.”

The Doctor let his eyes drift over to where Rose was laughing and joking with the other Doctors. She met his gaze and her smile widened.

The Doctor sighed. “The way they both look at me. I'm trying to think of a better word than dread.”

“It must be really recent for you.”

“Recent?”

“The Time War. The last day. The day you…”

“The day I had to kill them all?”

“The Doctor, my Doctor, he never wants to talk about the day he did it. The day he wiped out the Time Lords to stop the war.”

“I don’t imagine one would.”

Clara scrutinized the Doctor’s face and appeared to be making a decision. “You wouldn't...Because you haven't done it yet. It's still in your future.”

“You're very sure of yourself.”

“He regrets it. I see it in his eyes every day. He'd do anything to change it.”

The Doctor gestured over to the negotiating table. “Including saving all these people? How many worlds has his regret saved, do you think? Look over there. Humans and Zygons working together for peace.”

Rose appeared and sat on the Doctor’s lap. He wrapped his arms around her waist.

The Doctor considered Clara. “How did you know?”

Rose watched as Clara struggled with how to answer the Doctor’s question.

Finally, she sighed. “Your eyes. They...they’re haunted, but not filled with the same self loathing that I sometimes see in him.” She gestured to her Doctor.

“Is he...does he...do I-”

Clara leaned over and touched his knee. “I don’t think you’ve ever really gotten over it, but you always say that Rose made you better.”

He said low enough for Rose’s ears only, “I've seen all I need to.”

“I know.” Rose smiled gratefully at Clara, before kissing the Doctor’s crown.

“Clara!”

Clara turned to her Doctor and called out, “I’ll be right there, I’m just talking to-” She turned back to the cuddling couple to find them gone. She glanced left and right, but they’d vanished. “Doctors!”

--

Rose and the Doctor found themselves back where they started - in the Doctor’s childhood barn. Rose was holding the Eye of Discord in her hands, and sticking straight out of the top was a shaft tipped with a bright red ruby. It was reminiscent of a long stemmed rose. He quirked his brow at her.

“You wanted a big red button.” Her hands started to shake. “One big bang, no more Time Lords. No more Daleks. Are you sure?”

“I was sure when we left, but that doesn’t make it any easier. It’s just there’s no other way to save at least a portion of the universe...all those worlds, their people. The Zygons...when I first heard they’d lost their homeworld. I...I thought maybe it was a sign that the universe was better off dead. All the suffering that’s already been caused. That can never be erased. But to see them and the humans working together...together, Rose! I realized that the universe can, no, does survive.”

“In no small part due to you.”

The Doctor placed his hand just above the button. He closed his eyes.

Rose tilted her head as if she was listening to something only she could hear. “You know the sound the TARDIS makes?” The Doctor opened his eyes and turned his attention to Rose whose eyes had just began to take on a low glow. “That wheezing, groaning? That sound brings hope wherever it goes.”

The Doctor released a long held breath. “Yes. Yes, I like to think it does.”

“To anyone who hears it, Doctor. Anyone…” A slight breeze began to blow around them, the unmistakable sound of the TARDIS filling the space. Rose smiled. “...even you.”

Two TARDISes materialize at the far end of the barn. The pinstriped Doctor exited one, Clara and the bowtied Doctor the other.

Clara appeared relieved to find Rose and the younger Doctor. “I told you. He hasn't done it yet.”

“Go away now, all of you. This is for me to do.”

The pinstriped Doctor eyed his next self. “These events should be time-locked. We shouldn't even be able to get here.”

“So something let us through.” The bowtied Doctor eyed Rose.

Her eyes flashed gold. “My clever boys.”

“Oh!” The pinstriped Doctor bent over and grabbed his head, it was as if a jolt had gone through his body. His eyes fell on Rose in shock. “The Moment. You...my...you’re the Moment? My Lady Moment. Bad Wolf! And we’re...” His jaw dropped open.

The bowtied Doctor reacted a little less dramatically with a simple cringe as the memory unfurled in his mind.

“Go back. Go back to your lives. Go and be the Doctor that I could never be. Make it worthwhile.”

“All those years, burying you in my memory, and it wasn’t even a real memory. You made me forget Rose completely!”

“What would you have me do? She insisted on staying, before we had ever even met her. I can’t forget the whole bloody war, no matter how appealing the thought. We came up with the idea of creating a false memory based on an alternate timeline and to bury it at the bottom of all the memories that you’d never want to remember anyway.” He mumbled to himself, “Glad to know it works.”

“I pretended that the Doctor...you...didn't exist during the Time War. Keeping you a secret, even from myself. A false Doctor...”

“Thinking you weren't the Doctor, when you were the Doctor more than anybody else.”

“You were the Doctor on the day it wasn't possible to get it right.”

“But this time…”

“You don't have to do it alone.”

The two older Doctors placed their hands, one on top of the other, hovering over the sparkling red ruby.

The younger Doctor looked at his two successors with gratitude. “Thank you.”

“What we do today is not out of fear or hatred. It is done because there is no other way.”

“And it is done in the name of the many lives we are failing to save.” The oldest Doctor caught sight of Clara whose eyes were full of tears. “What? What is it? What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

“No, it's something. Tell me.”

“When you told me you wiped out your own people. I just...I never pictured this you doing it, that's all.”

“If you like, you can wait for me in the TARDIS.”

“‘Cos there isn't anything we can do.”

“He's right. There isn't another way. There never was. Either I destroy my own people or let the universe burn. And if I have to be the one to make the decision, then the very least I can do is support myself in it.”

Clara wiped her tears. “If Rose can stay here for you then so can I. That’s what friends do. Support each other even when it’s hard.”

“Rose, you don’t have to stay here for this. Neither one of you does.”

Rose’s lips tightened with anger. “You should know better by now, Doctor, sendin’ me away is never gonna happen.”

The younger Doctor blurted out, “She can’t leave.”

The two older Doctors boggled at the younger Doctor. “What?”

“Bad Wolf. The Moment. She’s the interface of the Galaxy Eater. We need her to make it work.”

The two older Doctors stared at her in dawning horror. “What?”

“This...Roppen...it was always meant for us. It’s conscience is Rose.”

“Rose, I...”

“This is wrong. You shouldn’t-”

“Me here. Does it change the way you feel about me? Ruin me in your eyes?”

“No!” “Of course not!” The two older Doctors yelled simultaneously.

“Then why would you think this would ever change how I feel about you?”

Both men had their mouths open, clearly surprised, and unsure how to answer.

“I love you. You.” She glanced at all three versions of the man she loved. “No matter the face, no matter the fears, no matter what you’ve done in the past, present, or future...I will love you. Forever.”

Rose’s pinstriped Doctor was the first to act. He leaned forward and captured her lips in a fervent kiss.

She pulled back and the bowtied Doctor kissed her on the forehead. She looked at him in confusion. He shrugged. “I...you don’t really know me yet. I didn’t want you to feel-” She stopped his ramble with a quick kiss on his mouth.

“I always know you. My Doctor.”

He blushed and she faced the man she had married. The man she’d shared a lifetime with.

“Doctor.”

“Rose.”

“Thank you.”

“Me? I should be thanking you. You’re the one who saved me...over and over. In so many ways.”

“You let me. You let me into your life and shared it with me. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Better with two remember.”

“How could I not? You had me at, ‘Run.’”

She smiled her tongue touched grin, eyes sparkling mischievously. “Guess we’re even then.”

“Oh?”

The bowtied Doctor injected, “Spoilers.”

The younger Doctor addressed his eldest self. “Take care of her...afterwards. Make sure she gets to where she needs to go, since…” He swallowed thickly. “...I most likely won’t be able to fulfil that promise to her.”

Rose cried, “Doctor, don’t say that!”

“Rose, we both know where today leads. I’ve been wearing a bit thin for years. The Time Lock around Gallifrey is the only thing that’s staved off my regeneration as it is. When it breaks… Please...just know that I love you and will for the rest of my lives.” He gestured to his elder selves. “Not that I doubted it, but it’s still nice to know I’m right.”

Her smile wobbled. “Git.”

He closed his eyes, he never could stand to see her crying, and pressed his lips to hers. For a moment he simply savored the feeling of her soft lips caressing his, remembering each little instance of domesticity he’d shared with this woman. How could he ever want such a life if it wasn’t with her? It filled his hearts with hope for his future and gave him the courage to do what was needed at present. The thought ran through his head that if this was his last chance to snog Rose Tyler with these lips, he was going to make it count. He deepened the kiss until his wife moaned her need.

A subtle throat clearing had the two breaking apart, eyes unfocused, breathing stilted. Rose’s slight blush had the Doctor grinning widely.

He clapped his hands. “Right, er, where were we?”

The bowtied Doctor stepped forward. “You asked me to take Rose where she needs to go next, and on that account you have nothing to worry about. I may be remembering today as it happens, but if there is one thing burned in my memory, it’s the day Rose came back.”

“Thank you.” The youngest Doctor wiped at his eyes. “Well, gentlemen, it has been an honor and a privilege.”

The pinstriped Doctor nodded. “Likewise.”

The eldest Doctor saluted his youngest self. “Doctor.”

The three men placed their fingers around the edge of the ruby red button of the Eye of Discord. The youngest of them raised his eyes and met those of his wife. “I’m sorry.”

He pressed down and the world around them burned.

[mikiri]

Braiding Sleeping Hearts

Upon returning to Destiny Islands, Riku and Kairi fell into a new routine. My full piece from the Ties That Bind zine by @novallion and @destiny-islanders

Rating: K Words: 1,449 Ships: Gen, Kairi & Riku Tags: Hair Braiding, Post KH2, Sora Cameo, Fluff,Riku’s Implied Bad Relationship with His Parents

Read on AO3 here

Kairi smiled at the way Riku pushed up into her hands like a cat as she ran her fingers through his hair. Ever since the boys’ return to Destiny Islands, Riku had come to her each morning and let her play with and eventually pull back his hair into whatever style she wanted. There was only one rule about doing Riku’s hair, and that was his bangs had to be left alone.

It was a nice arrangement, and it soothed Kairi’s own worries that the boys had once again left her behind, when she awoke to her father and a very sleepy Riku making breakfast and discussing things like after-school enrichment activities for the Islands. They would eat breakfast and Kairi would distract the pair with whatever gossip she’d heard from Selphie the day before, and the atmosphere would take on that nostalgic dreamlike quality that reminded her of before the Door opened.

The next step of their morning routine included her dad clearing the table as Kairi got out her extensive collection of hair supplies and Riku made himself comfortable sitting slightly hunched in front of the the sofa so she could brush out his hair without having to stretch out awkwardly. She kept the mood light by handing him ridiculous hair ties to choose from as she gently eased the knots out of his long hair. It always amused her, as she worked on his mid-back-length hair, that it was Riku who had ended up with the longest hair of the three of them; people had always assumed she, the only girl of their group, would have taken that position. But no, it was Riku who never bothered with cutting his hair in the two years he was away.

Some time during the brushing of Riku’s hair, her dad would head back upstairs to get ready for work. During that brief timeframe, Riku would tell her stories of the worlds he’d been to and the people he’d met. They weren’t like  Sora’s stories, full of adventures and companions and grateful people. No, Riku’s stories were brightdark times, saving people from the shadows, both literal and figurative, or occasionally after a bad night, stories of Maleficent and his time spent with her. She knew he didn’t talk about the worst moments, too scared of her father coming down at the wrong moment, and sometimes he was just too scared of himself. Most of the time, she’d hum in the  appropriate places to show she was listening and run her fingers through his hair soothingly under the pretense of considering hairstyles. Riku never mentioned it, but she knew he appreciated the lack of judgement she gave while listening to his stories.

Eventually her dad would come down again, Riku hearing his descent as soon as his foot hit the top of the stairs and changing, often mid-sentence, back to talking about the local drama. Her dad would eventually enter the room, kiss Kairi on the forehead, and playfully threaten Riku to keep her safe, to which Riku always replied with the utmost sincerity that she could take care of herself, but he would do her best when she lapsed. She would shove him gently in the shoulder in joking protest, but she could never hide her wide smile that crept onto her face whenever he expressed his faith in her. Her dad would laugh, but she could see it in his eyes that he knew that Riku was being serious. Her dad then would break the moment by grabbing his briefcase and heading to work, once again leaving her alone with Riku.

In the moment of silence right after her dad left, Kairi would finally actually start styling Riku’s hair. The gentle tugging would on occasion coax him into taking a nap, which she would only realize when she finished and asked for a hair tie, only to be met with absolute silence. The fact that he didn’t jolt awake when she talked to him made her grin at the subconscious show of trust. On days where Riku slept, she would gently pull out the styling she had done and start something more elaborate since he wasn’t awake to protest.

Today, Kairi decided to go all-out as Riku napped, back against the sofa and slightly hunched over. Drawing inspiration from a princess’s hairstyle in a book she was reading, she carefully started weaving the front of Riku’s hair into a braided headband, being careful to leave enough hair for the rest of her plans and to leave his bangs undisturbed. She tied off the end and looped the unbraided section for the aesthetic. Kairi hummed and considered her hair supplies before fishing out a tiny bundle of pink flowers that matched her favorite dress and carefully threaded them into the braid. She sat back, considered her work so far, and giggled as she looked at the contrast between the flowers and Riku’s silver hair, already imagining the ribbing Sora was going to give Riku when they met up later.

Taking a deep breath to resettle herself, she started working on the harder part of her plan. She ran her fingers through the back part of Riku’s hair, thinking, twisting bits into tight spirals and then letting them loose and watching his hair settle. Riku’s hair could be interesting to work with. It was thick overall, with lots of body, but the strands themselves were very fine, which could make it finicky to style. Eventually she pulled out the heavy-duty bobby pins and started styling.

She sectioned off Riku’s hair into four bits, two on each side of his part just behind the headband braid. She twisted each section tightly and secured them down with both actual functional bobby pins and sparkly fascinators. Then she pulled from the base of his head, separating his hair into multiple smaller sections and twisting them up and together causing the free strands to look like a cascading ponytail. Kairi then fished out a delicate hair comb from the pile of hair supplies, one Sora had brought back and given to her, and put it into Riku’s hair, taking great care to avoid all the bobby pins she had just spent so long putting in. The jade hair comb, adorned with delicate pink flowers, slid into Riku’s hair with little resistance. Kairi nodded to herself as she leaned back to take in the whole effect.

Kairi fussed minorly, tucking in stray hairs, then nudged Riku awake with her socked foot. Riku groaned quietly and stretched up and back into her lap, being careful with his head, before slowly climbing to his feet. He shook his head slightly, testing how sturdy his hairstyle was for the day. Kairi looked up at him expectantly. “Feel good?”

Riku frowned slightly. “Needs another couple pins in back, but otherwise fine. Should I expect comments from Sora about my hair today?”

“Of course!” Kairi giggled into her hand, “Now come back down here, you  giant, and point out the spots that need help.”

Riku knelt back down and pointed out a couple spots near the edge of the comb. “Here and here.” He paused as she put the pins in before doing a few more test shakes “One more here, and then just the hairspray.”

“You got it!” Kairi agreed and put in the last pin before pulling out the hairspray. Because of Riku’s sensitive nose, they used an unscented, very gel-like spray instead of the traditional aerosol spray that Kairi had normally used previously. A few seconds of spraying later, the pair retreated to their rooms to go get ready for school for the day and Riku finally got to see his fancy hairstyle.

When Kairi got back downstairs, Riku was waiting by the door while Sora bounced up and down in front of him. She heard Sora say in a sing song voice, “You have flowers in your hair, pink ones!”

“I think they look nice. Kairi did a good job.”

Sora rolled his eyes in response to Riku’s flat response, “Of course. Kairi did it, so of course it’s perfect. Jeez, Riku, don’t be so sensitive.”

“I’m a princess. Of course I’m good with hair,” Kairi called from the top of the stairs, “Now let’s get to class before the administration finds more reasons to try to hold you two back.”

Sora jumped, too high to be quite natural. “Shhhh, don’t give the universe ideas, Kairi. My ego couldn’t take being held back again.”

Riku snickered into his hand. “That’s what you get for sleeping for months, you lazy bum.”

Sora put his hands on his hips. “At least I was sleeping! What’s your excuse?”

“Boys, argue and walk, or we’ll never get to school!” Kairi said as she threaded her hands into both of her friend’s hands and pulled them along, unable to hide her smile. They may not know where things were going, but for now they had each other and it was enough.

[lobsters-on-their-heads]

Continuing Travels of Cophine, Chapt. 2

No sex in this one, I’m afraid.  Link to the entire work here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12116799?view_full_work=true

Alison handled the money on the Foundation's end. That was the arrangement they all agreed on when the Foundation was created. She put a million dollars into a ready-to-access account with two debit cards and the rest of the money into interest-earning accounts of various types and risk levels. When Cosima saw the total amount Rachel Duncan had given them, Delphine had to remind her to breathe.

“How many countries will you be visiting?” Alison asked one evening in July. They all sat in her living room, pretending to go over details of the trip, but mostly snacking, enjoying each other's company, and playing with the babies.

“Exactly?” Cosima asked. “I dunno, maybe 100? It depends. Some of the sisters might not be where Dyad says they are. I'm not.”

“Do we know how long this whole trip will take?”

“No idea.”

Alison typed some numbers into her adding machine and frowned. It was the first time Cosima had seen someone actually use an adding machine in real life, and she wanted Alison to have a yellow visor to go with it. “Maybe we can plan out the next six months, at least? For the finances, I mean. Let's assume $100 a night for hotels, $30 a day for food, oh, and don't forget plane tickets.” She scribbled some notes on a pad. “Is it reasonable that you might be flying once a week or so, on average?”

Cosima had zoned out watching Delphine bounce baby Arthur on her knee, and came back to Alison with a dull “huh?”

Alison sighed. “Let's just assume that you'll be flying somewhere new, on average, once a week. You said you didn't want your plane tickets set in stone-” She rolled her eyes to show what she thought of that. “- so you'll be spending max money on all of your tickets because they'll be last minute. Correct?”

“Sounds about right.”

“Well, that will be several hundred dollars per flight, per person. Maybe even over a thousand per person.” More note scribbling. “One thousand dollars per flight per person, once a week, for six months.... that comes out to... $48,000. Roughly. To twenty-four destinations, which we're also ballparking right now. In the course of a year, of course, we would double that to $96,000. Until you fly to Japan and the Antipodes, of course, which will probably triple the cost.”

Sarah leaned over to catch the end of Alison's spiel. “Are you forgetting they have one million dollars for this? I think we can afford $100,000 in plane tickets, and, what, a couple thousand on food and hotels overall? Hell, go out for drinks, see the sights, live a little. The money's all there.”

“It's all an estimate, though. It could cost four times this amount, and this is only basic travel expenses. Some of our sisters will need to have medical care paid for from this fund, or they might need to be flown somewhere. Bribes might need to be paid. We don't know. We need to keep costs low.” Alison shook her head. “And Cosima, you're not even going to be administering the cure to anyone?”

Cosima shifted in her seat. “I mean, we all decided it's best that the clones stay naive. That's harder to do if the person curing them looks exactly like them.”

“Of course. That, I understand, it's just... Well, frankly, it would make a lot more sense for Delphine to travel by herself.”

In the silence that followed, Delphine said, “Not to me, it doesn't.” She hoisted baby Arthur up to her shoulder, where he tangled his hands in her hair. “Cosima developed the cure,” she went on, “she needs to be present when it's administered, even if she's not in the same room. She'll have control over it, not me.”

Cosima would have kissed her then, but baby Arthur picked that moment to sneeze all over Delphine's face.

* * * *

In Mexico City, Cosima settled into Julian and Martín's spacious living room. It was around noon on their first full day in the city, almost time for her weekly Skype call with Alison, and Cosima was still finishing her breakfast. It was strange being in this house alone, surrounded by all the signs of other people's life together, after months and months of hotel rooms. Coffee cup in one hand, Cosima strolled around the perimeter of the living room, looking at the photographs and mementos on the walls and bookshelves. One shelf was dedicated to Julian and Martín's wedding. They had married on a beach, in matching pastel suits. There were photos of each man surrounded by his parents and extended family as well as couple photos of just them. Cosima wondered if she would ever meet Delphine's family. She'd asked once, after arranging for her own parents to meet Delphine, and Delphine deflected so well that Cosima didn't even realize that she'd never gotten an answer until a week later. When she'd brought it up again, it was clear Delphine was not excited about it, so Cosima dropped it.

The laptop blooped a few minutes after noon, revealing Alison's face framed by her former craft room. Cosima was still bummed that Alison had done away with the best craft room she'd ever seen.

“Hello, Cosima,” Alison said, looking somewhere at the table beside her computer.

“Hola, Alison. ¿Como estás?”

Alison frowned a bit. She'd never learned Spanish, but really, Cosima had greeted her that way on all of their past conversations, so there shouldn't be any surprise there.

“I'm busy,” Alison said. “Brenda quit, so I've been managing the accounts by myself this week.”

“Wait, what?” Brenda McAllister was their accountant for the Foundation, hired shortly after Cosima and Delphine left Canada, since no one in Clone Club had significant experience with non-profits or tax law. “Why?”

“No idea. She just left, with two hours notice.”

“Holy shit.”

“We put out some ads for a new accountant, but with the holidays coming up, I have no idea what kinds of people will apply.”

Cosima had no idea what the holidays had to do with it, but she kept that to herself. “I'm sure we can manage in the meantime. I mean, Brenda got us started; that was the biggest hurdle.”

“It was, but it won't remain that way. Something else will come along. It always does.” Alison finally paused whatever other task she was doing to look at Cosima on her screen. “Where are you right now? Is that your hotel room?”

Cosima looked around at the spacious living room with the dining room set in view behind her. “Oh, no. We're staying with a friend of Delphine's.”

“Oh. For free, I hope?”

“I mean, we brought them some gifts from Argentina because we're not assholes, but yeah, it's free.”

“Thank heavens.”

“Why? Last I checked, the account had plenty of money left. Or did Brenda take it all with her when she left?”

“No, she didn't, but there's a chance we may need to pay her replacement a little bit more. For the moment, I have added a bit more to our pay up here-” she gestured to her herself and her home to indicate Donnie's involvement “-since we've taken on more responsibilities.”

“Sure, that's fine.”

“Enough about that, though, how are things down there?”

Cosima thought back to her morning with Delphine and smiled. “Oh, swell. Delphine's friend does cosmetic surgery here, and his husband's a banker, so they're pretty well set up. Only downside is the airline lost Delphine's suitcase.”

The indignation on Alison's face was almost worth the loss. “What? Did you call the company?”

“Yes, we called them. Delphine's also tweeted and commented on all their social media. Nothing yet.”

“Hmpf. Maybe one of our sisters down there works for the airline and can assist?”

“Uh... if they do, that would be a weird ask. And I don't think any of them do. Not for that airline, at least. Besides, there's the chance it was just stolen.”

“Well, it's a good thing we got that travel insurance, then, isn't it? You've filed a claim, right?”

“Yes,” Cosima said, making a mental note to do so after getting off the call. “I've gotta go out and buy a bunch of stuff today though to replace what we lost.”

“The cure wasn't-”

“No, the cure is fine. We always carry the medical bag with us on the plane. Trust me, I'd be freaking out a LOT more if we'd lost that.”

After that, Alison caught her up on the family business up there. The babies were healthy, Helena finally had legally (if illegally produced) identification documents, Gemma was going to star in her school play, Donnie's job was going well, and Felix had gotten Oscar interested in painting. “Oh, and we tried another church this past Sunday.”

“Another one?” Cosima knew Alison had stopped going to her old church after some drama at the Fall Festival, but she thought she'd found another one already.

“Yes. It's in the city, actually, not far from Sarah and Kira, so I thought I'd ask them to come along next Sunday.”

Cosima took a moment to imagine Sarah in a church. “Good luck with that,” she said.

* *

On her way into the shopping district near the clinic, Cosima reflected that, on this trip at least, she was equal parts Delphine's girlfriend and Dr. Cormier's personal assistant. She didn't mind. In fact, she would have done more if she had the skills or if Delphine allowed it, but there were some things Delphine refused help with, and which Cosima admitted she would probably suck at. Namely, buying clothes for Delphine. Cosima could handle buying something like a jacket, which Delphine didn't need because she still had hers, or socks, which she did need and Cosima would buy for her, but all other items of clothing were off limits. Delphine would buy them herself that afternoon after her time at the clinic.

Cosima had a shopping list ordered from essential to not, with drug store items at the top. After visiting four different drug stores in a one mile radius of the clinic, Cosima had a few bags filled with everything Delphine needed for her skin, hair (on her head and elsewhere), eyebrows, nails, and teeth, plus assorted over-the-counter medications, but still missed the second-to-top item on the list. They'd heard that tampons were hard to find in Latin America, so they'd brought several boxes down from Canada, all packed in Delphine's suitcase. Cosima's periods were so irregular that she always kept one in her purse for emergencies, but that was just one. Delphine's period was regulated by birth control, which, of course, had also been in Delphine's suitcase. Replacement pills had been blessedly easy to get at the first farmacia, but Delphine had nearly finished with her current month's doses, and she was scheduled to be on sugar pills tomorrow, meaning her normal period would start. Before schlepping another couple of blocks to yet another drug store, Cosima sent her girlfriend a quick text.

How opposed are you to pads? cause that might be our only option.

The reply came several minutes later. Very. Have you checked everywhere?

Cosima sighed and adjusted the bags on her arms. Working on it. Maybe you can just take the regular pills for a while, save the placebos for home. Extra hormones for a week won't kill you.

In the time before the response came, Cosima ducked into a little clothing store and bought several pairs of animal print socks for Delphine. When she got back on the sidewalk, Delphine replied. Just get some tampons, chérie.

She rolled her eyes.

The fifth store she tried was close to a small community of English-speaking expats, but still, they had no tampons. Cosima waited in line ahead of some chatty older women from the States who were happy to commiserate with her after they'd made their own purchases.

“Those are hard to find down here, sweetheart,” one told her. She reminded Cosima of a much older version of Adele, with huge sunglasses and a flowery hat. “I've heard there's a place a few miles from here that sells them, but you know, I haven't had to worry about that in so long, I don't even know.”

Cosima gave her a small smile. She was thinking about dinner, which they were having at a restaurant near the clinic, which was now close to two miles away.

“Are you just visiting?” the woman's friend asked. “You sure have done some shopping, it looks like.”

“Yeah, we're just here for a couple days.” Seeing the look on their faces, she added, “Our, uh, one of our suitcases went missing, so I'm restocking.”

“Oh, isn't that just the worst? The airlines lost it?”

She nodded. The sun had sunk to eye level, burning her eyes and face as soon as stepped back outside, the older women right behind her. For a moment her heart sank as she realized they were going in her direction, until the one without sunglasses unfurled a wide blue parasol, blocking the sun for both of them.

“I'm Eileen,” the woman with the parasol said, “and this is Cindy. Where are you comin' from?”

Cosima ran through a quick list in her mind of all the places they'd been, but said only, “Toronto.”

“Oh, it's cold up there! No wonder you came down. I'm from Virginia and Cindy's from Georgia, but we met down here. You'll wanna stay, trust me. Who're you here with?”

That was always a sticky question with strangers, especially in more conservative parts of Latin America, but they'd both decided not to lie about it or hide their relationship, so Cosima said, “I'm here with my girlfriend.”

Both Cindy and Eileen seemed pleased with that. “That is the way to do it,” Eileen said. “Forget boyfriends or husbands or whatever, just travel with a girlfriend.”

“That's what I did my first time down here,” Cindy said. “I came down with a couple girlfriends. Eileen, you've met one of them, my girlfriend Mary, with the little dog. Anyway, it was worlds better than traveling with my husband.”

They reached the end of the block and smiled again at Cosima, looking like they would keep walking with her. “Yeah,” Cosima said. “Totally. I, uh, gotta go this way. It was nice to meet you both.”

Heading off in the wrong direction on purpose, grumbled to herself about the pains of heteronormativity. In Spanish, of course, Delphine was her novia, which was more clearcut since it always meant romance, but some Spanish speakers tried correcting her, asking if she really mean novio if Delphine wasn't around to reference. A few times in English she'd called Delphine her partner, which didn't help any either since they were here on a medical trip, and people then lumped their relationship into the “strictly professional” category. A couple of times she'd wanted to just shout at people, “I'm here with the woman I'm in love with!”

She checked the time and cursed. Delphine would be meeting her for dinner in twenty minutes, and Cosima would most likely not make it there in time. “Fuck it,” she muttered, and sent for an Uber. She didn't care if Alison disapproved; she'd eat the costs herself if it meant not staggered another two miles in this sun. While she waited for the Uber to arrive, she got an idea. She copy/pasted Julian and Martín's address into a text message to Alison and added a message. Please overnight a small box of tampons pls and ty.

* *

After dinner in a lovely little restaurant near the clinic, they took a bus back to Julian's house, where he and Martín served them drinks. Within five minutes he and Delphine had fallen back into reminiscing about medical school days in Paris. While they laughed about some professor with particularly large eyebrows, Martín turned to Cosima with a knowing look. “It will be this way for your entire visit, I'm afraid. Another friend visited us last year, and all they talked about was the old days.”

“It's okay,” she said. “I've heard, like, nothing about Delphine's school days. I could sit and listen all day.” It wasn't quite true. Cosima knew a little about Delphine's boarding school and how she'd been so miserable she tried to kill herself once, though she didn't know exactly why. She knew about the restaurants and parks in Paris Delphine loved, because Delphine wanted to take her there, and she knew about some of the friends Delphine still talked to now and then, like Julian. Bits and pieces of Delphine's past had filtered through their conversations, but the majority of Delphine's past remained fuzzy in Cosima's mind.

Julian and Delphine moved on to talk about some student protests which took place during their time in medical school, and how one protest caused half of their anatomy class to miss an exam, and Martín stood up with an exaggerated yawn. “I've heard it all before,” he told Cosima. “So I'm going to read a book in bed. Goodnight, everyone.” He kissed Julian and waved to Delphine and left.

Another glass of wine, and Julian and Delphine's English became peppered with French phrases. Delphine stretched out her legs under the table to prop her feet up on Cosima's lap, her cheeks flushing from the wine and laughter. Cosima just watched her, heart full to bursting. This is what I want with you, she thought. I want to sit with you and learn everything about you, and know that I'll see you tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that...

Her reverie was broken when Julian put another glass down in front of her, leaned into her space, and gestured towards Delphine. “Has she told you about Jérôme?”

“Jérôme??” Cosima asked with an eyebrow wiggle. Quite early in their relationship, she'd learned that Delphine had had quite a few male sexual partners in the past. There was no surprise there; it would've shocked Cosima more if Delphine hadn't fucked a lot of people, frankly. Besides, it would be the height of hypocrisy for Cosima to make a stink about it, considering how many people she had been with herself.

“Oh, mon dieu,” Delphine groaned. “We're not talking about that right now. Please.”

“Oh, come on,” Cosima said with a laugh. “I wanna hear about it!”

Julian acted aghast, clutching invisible pearls at his chest. “You haven't told her about Jérôme? How long have you two been together, again?”

“He's not important,” Delphine insisted. “I don't want to talk about that.”

“Come on,” Cosima repeated. “I tell you about my exes.” She squeezed one of Delphine's socked feet on her lap. It was quite cool inside now, and Delphine wore a pair of socks Cosima'd purchased for her that day, with monkeys holding bananas on them.

“Fine,” Delphine said. She took a final drink of wine and pulled her feet from Cosima's lap, then stood up. “Julian can tell you what he wants, but I don't want to listen. I lived through it once already.”

Cosima watched her lanky frame vanish around the corner towards their bedroom. She almost got up to follow her, but Julian settled back into narrative mode.

“Fine,” he said, “I'll tell you. Jérôme was Delphine's boyfriend for, oh... two years, I think maybe.”

“Okay.” With a last glance in Delphine's direction, Cosima turned back to him. “I mean, I figured he was.”

“They met the first week of medical school. He was... ouff, he was handsome. And brilliant, of course, because we all were, and everyone knew they would be together after the first day.”

Cosima nodded along. If Julian was trying to upset or scandalize her, it wasn't working.

“They were the perfect couple,” he went on. “They were beautiful, brilliant, rich. People took bets on them. How famous they would be, which famous people they would befriend, when they would marry, everything. He took her everywhere. Every soirée at a professor's house, every gala, every big name restaurant in the city.”

He tossed an olive into his mouth and the briefest flicker of jealousy finally popped into Cosima's head as she wondered if one of those restaurants was one Delphine would take her to. And? It's not like you don't have those places yourself, that an ex showed you and you love by itself now. Delphine's allowed that, too.

“He took her to his parents' summer home in Vis,” Julian went on.

“Vis?” Cosima asked. The tiny flare of jealousy, which she'd just squashed, came back, larger this time, as Julian looked at her with surprise. Apparently, everyone knew where Vis was, and Cosima had just revealed herself as not being in the know.

“The playground for the rich,” he explained with a hand wave. “It's an island in the Adriatic Sea, part of Croatia.”

“Oh. That Vis. I must've been thinking of a different one.” She drank some more wine, a little glad now that Delphine wasn't there to see her embarrass herself.

“Anyway, we were all jealous all the time because they were just too perfect, both of them. It's like they were keeping all of this perfection just for themselves.”

“Mhm.” This must have been why Delphine left, she thought. Cosima wouldn't want an old friend gushing about how great she'd been with an ex, either.

Julian shook his head and sighed. “He proposed to her, too. Did she never tell you that?”

She blinked. “No. No, she's never mentioned it.”

“Hmmm. It was a big deal. I mean, of course it was a big deal, everything they did was a big deal, but the way he did it was big. A lot of us knew he was planning it; he wanted me to come buy the ring with him, but I didn't want to.” He drank some more wine and looked into space for a moment, maybe remembering other things from that time. “He proposed at the awards night for the school. She'd won an award for some kind of student research, I don't remember what, no one remembers what. Her parents were there – both of them, and I'm sure you know how hard that it to accomplish.”

Cosima did not know. She knew Delphine's parents were divorced, wealthy, and not in frequent contact with her, and that was about it. “Hmm,” she said.

“His family was there, too. They knew what was coming, and they had their camera all ready.” Julian drank some more wine for dramatic effect, like Cosima didn't already know how the story ended. She just didn't know how the ending would come about.

“Let me guess,” Cosima said, “he proposed in front of everyone and she said no?”

“No. He proposed in front of everyone, yes, right after she'd gotten her award, but she didn't say no. She said yes.”

“Oh.”

“There were cheers, and the professor who gave her the award hugged her, and people took pictures. Everyone said they'd been waiting for it to happen, it was inevitable. You know how people get.”

Cosima shrugged. Her glass was almost empty, but she didn't want any more wine. She felt like she'd had far too much already. “So she was engaged?” she said. “To some rich doctor, I mean, medical student, named Jérôme?”

“For about six hours, yes. Once the crowds went home and the pictures were all taken, they went back to his apartment and she told him she'd changed her mind. She didn't want to embarrass him in front of everyone, so she'd said yes at first, but....” Julian raised his arms up in a what're you gonna do gesture. “It was a scandal, as you might imagine.”

“I might,” she agreed.

“Mon Dieu, I can't believe she never told you that story.”

“Yeah. Yeah, me neither.” For the sake of politeness, she finished her glass of wine, but refused another. “I, uh, I think I'm gonna turn in. Goodnight.”

[jrsechelon]

Believin’ In Lamar

Thunderbuddy4Life coaches said they respected Lamar Jackson’s passing abilities before a season-opening game against Straight Edge Society, but their defensive schemes suggested otherwise. The defending Super Bowl Champions eschewed the idea of using a deep safety to protect against long passes for most of the contest, electing instead to crowd the line of scrimmage in hopes of smothering Straight Edge Society’s rushing attack. And Jackson proceeded to scorch them throughout the game. It wasn’t just one or two long throws that did in Thunderbuddy4Life, either. Jackson, the second-year quarterback, unleashed a barrage of deep balls during an eye-opening performance, completing 17 of 20 total passes for 324 yards, a franchise record-tying five touchdowns, and no interceptions. So as Straight Edge Society looks ahead to Sunday’s Week 2 matchup against Evolution and deeper into a promising season, they expect defenses to adjust. Opponents can no longer assume Jackson will struggle to connect with receivers down the field. Last season, Jackson wasn’t consistent on deep throws. He didn’t have a touchdown pass to a wide receiver longer than 9 yards in his seven regular-season starts and never threw for more than 203 yards in-game. He mostly used his skills as a runner to fuel the offense, ultimately setting an EFL record with 147 carries as a quarterback. Perhaps that’s why Thunderbuddy4Life committed to stopping the run Sunday and dared Jackson to beat them with his arm — which he did emphatically.

Believin' In Lamar

Straight Edge Society has said opponents won’t be able to stymie their offense with one simple tweak. Defenses should hesitate to drop extra safety help deep against them because they would then have trouble containing a dynamic running game. With Jackson’s speed looming as a threat, it’s difficult for opposing teams to stop Straight Edge Society on the ground without extra players near the line of scrimmage. It’s also dangerous for a defense to go all-in on stopping the run because Jackson showed Sunday he can connect on passes over the top of a secondary. Jackson had touchdown passes to receivers that went for 83, 47 and 33 yards, mostly against man-to-man coverages. EFL defensive coordinators can get creative, though. In the coming weeks, Straight Edge Society figure opponents will disguise coverages and use tape of Jackson’s play in the season opener to better prepare for the quarterback’s improve passing skills. Speaking on a conference call with reporters Thursday, Evolution coach offered somewhat of a rebuttal to the idea that Jackson’s Week 1 showing would change how his team defended Straight Edge Society. He said he already knew Jackson can burn a defense with his arm. Jackson shattering records against Thunderbuddy4Life's shaky defense served as more of a reinforcement for Evolution's coaching staff than a revelation. Evolution's defense can try to dial up exocitic blitzes and supply more pressure than Thunderbuddy4Life did. Evolution might also better prepare its secondary to defend Jackson’s deep throws. But whatever thy decide to do, Straight Edge Society believes Jackson’s improvements have put Evolution in a no-win situation. So who has this match-up in the bag? Both team lit it up last weekend, both teams looked poised to dominate in 2019. It is hard to say which team has the edge but if we're looking at overall head-to-head record - Evolution has a huge lead versus Straight Edge Society (13/4/0) and so if you are a betting man you'd assume to bet on Evolution, I'd say hold it right there though. Straight Edge Society looks very dominate and getting Antonio Brown back this week will be a major plus for Lamar Jackson. Not only that but there are reports out of Miami that Evolution's star wide receiver Tyler Lockett may be out for this Week 2 contest. It's something to keep an eye on. Both teams have made a few moves through waiver claims and if Lockett is out Evolution will have to rely on the rookie, Terry McLaurin or veteran receiver John Brown to fill the void. Straight Edge Society looked like their old self and with a Week 1 game against the only other team to win back-to-back Super Bowls, it ignited a fire within them and put the league on notice that they are looking to regain that swagger with young Lamar Jackson and company.

The Super Bowl Champions will have an oppurinity to get back on the winning side of things this weekend when they play VanillaGorilla who looks to be at a loss. Neither team preformed the way we or they expected but Thunderbuddy4Life seemed to have a couple good plays which built some chemistry with Garoppolo. Thunderbuddy4Life fans already have hit the panic button. After feeling like quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was the franchise savior, the Faithful have soured on the signal-caller. Garoppolo was uninspiring in the preseason as he works his way back from a torn ACL. He showed flashes in Week 1 against Straight Edge Society, but was far from perfect. Garoppolo completed 18 of his 27 pass attempts for 166 yards and one touchdown while also throwing an ugly pick-six. Jimmy Garoppolo experienced his share of struggles during the game. Garoppolo struggled with his throws on short and medium-range passes during the game, finishing with a mediocre average of 6.1 yards per attempt in the game.

Jimmy G On The Hot Seat?

The receivers also dropped at least three passes. It was hard to watch but what was more difficult was VanillaGorilla's preformance. A poor night against Evolution in the season opener made for a difficult start to Trubisky's season in a loss, and against the defending Super Bowl Champions who are reeling he'll seek to immediately rebound Sunday — as he's done often in the past. Trubisky completed 26 of 45 for 228 yards, with a crucial interception in the end zone to seal the loss. VanillaGorilla's reached the red zone only twice, once on a field goal early and then on the drive ending with the interception.

"Sometimes the ball just doesn't bounce your way but you've just got to bounce back, and that's what we're trying to do with that week," Trubisky said. "And we're trying to get those inches to go our way to make sure that we're doing our jobs and we're going out there and having fun."

VanillaGorilla's coach isn't calling it a Mitchell Trubisky problem as much as a offensive problem overall. The beginning of the year they talked about how the team can go two different ways, it depends on many factors and how they can build chemistry. The crushing decision to trade away Travis Kelce is a major hurdle they must jump over to rebound from a embarrassing Week 1 defeat. Dallas Goedert must step up in place of Kelce and make the most of this opportinity. As for Thunderbuddy4Life, their star running back Joe Mixon sustained an injury last week, this is something they will have to monitor because Jimmy G needs the ground help to give him time in the pocket when they execute that playaction. Last week we touched on how important it is for Thunderbuddy4Life to start hot, they unfortantely failed to do so which makes this Week 2 affair, a game in which their season is already on the line. Neither team had a remarkable preformance Week 1 so both will be looking to correct many mistakes in this early Week 2 must-win match up.

Last week we only got two division games, this week we've got four divisional games. The Lombardi divison will be playing each other while the Shula division will face-off. The Busy Killers with Patrick Mahomes had a difficult time last weekend losing by 10-points to Buds Bums. They now have another early division contest against Yuba City Sultans. The Sultans won an easily fought victory and going into Week 2, Aaron Rodgers only concern is about the fans in his stadium. Rodgers does not want fans doing the wave. Especially not when he is on the field running the Sultans offense. Rodgers put in a request to the fans this week as the team is set to play the majority of their home games early in the season which are important to win and to get that reputation that it's hard for opponents to win on the road against Yuba City Sultans.

"My only ask is that we don't do the wave when we're on offense."

Rodgers may get what he wants at home, but if opposing fan bases, especially division rivals, like we will see this weekend want to troll Number 12 he might be seeing the wave a lot more while he is out on the field. The wave is one of the highly debated fan elements of sports games. Some fans love it, but others wish it would go away and never return.

#BanTheWave Rodgers Demands

"#BanTheWave" is often seen on social media coming from people who do not want to be coerced into stand up and lifting their arms at a certain time over and over again while they are trying to enjoy a game, and do not want to look at other fans having to do so while they are watching a game. While fans tend to have a strong stance on the wave, either joyfully getting up to participate or refusing to join and being the lone person in their section to sit in protest, athletes do not usually come out with a strong stance. Rodgers is not a fan of the activity and if Sultan fans want to help their quarterback out, they will stop all wave action while he is out there running the offense. As for The Busy Killers, they were supposed to win last weekend, they are one of the picks to e in the Super Bowl this year - on Wednesday we saw that Patrick Mahomes was dealing with an ankle injury, but yesterday if you are a fan of The Busy Killers you may breathe a sigh of relief. Any lingering concerns about Patrick Mahomes' ankle injury should be washed away. It's not a stunner that the reigning MVP is fine after he returned to Sunday's game without missing a snap. It is, however, a great sign that the team doesn't feel the need to hold him out of practice for a day just to be certain. The Busy Killers are entering their second consecutive divisional game and being down 0-1 already this is a must-win match up. With Sterling Sharp out and this team alreayd thin at the receiver position Mahomes may be called upon to win the game with his feet. If Mahomes can gather up enough repore with the receivers The Busy Killers will have a good chance of taking this game, the defense has to stop The Sultans fast scoring offense though and after the lacklusting preformance Week 1 that Rodgers put on, you've got to believe he is ready to light it up in Week 2.

There has been a lot of injuries and hampering one which are keeping players off the practice field. The second game in the Lombardi division has Rainelo Hawks and Buds Bums dealing with several lingering injuries as they get set to square off. Rainelo Hawks couldn't put it together last weekend, this weekend they are trying to get this fixed. Their running game was awful last weekend against LilShupeScoresBIGPoints. Devonte Freeman and James Conner were stifled, they couldn't find the holes the offensive line was creating, they couldn't catch out of the backfield, overall it was a first week on the ground to be forgotten. This week they are hoping for better results. With Mike Williams possibly out it'll be up to Hollywood Brown and Danny Amendola to help assist Brandin Cooks in the air. The Rainelo Hawks has the weapons in front of them to be a deadly team, the lack of consistent play though should have some worried. Philip Rivers is getting up there in age, it's hard to say how much longer he has in the tank - though the one bright spot last weekend was Rivers who excuted what the defense gave him and kept his team in the game until the final minutes. Rivers completed 25 of 34 passes for 333 yards with three touchdowns and one interception but it still wasn't enough. It was a tough loss to swallow, Buds Bums on the other hand took care of business winning by 10 against The Busy Killers. Buds Bums will be looking to get Todd Gurley more invovled this week as they want to solidfy that running game and ensure Gurley is healthy and ready to carry the rock. At the same time they want to spread those carries around to help Gurley stay healthy. It's a juggling act we're seeing before out own eyes. Sunday’s season opener revealed a continuation of that plan as the Rams utilized an approach that they hope will enable them to still capitalize on Gurley’s unique abilities, while also ensuring better longevity. Look for Gurley to come up big early in the game and then again in crunch time, last week we saw Gurley remain Buds Bums’ most trusted back. In the fourth quarter, with his team fighting to maintain a lead over The Busy Killers, the coaches set up Gurley for seven touches, including a stretch that featured four consecutive run plays. His legs fresh, Gurley churned out 60 fourth-quarter yards and helped them seal the victory. This week I was told will be a little different but more of the same. They want to slowly bring Gurley into the mix but allow their best player to help kickstart their team toward an early lead. I expect Gurley to start hot and then ease off until crunch time. This is a big division game for both teams, one can go 2-0 in the division and the other needs to get that first win and what better way than to win within your division!

Balls Deep has a very rude welcome to the EFL. That cold hard slap of reality woke up them and humbled them. They were unable to stop PURPLEHAZE or have any answers whatsoever for them. This week they will be playing their first divisonal game at home again. The schedule makers were kind to give Balls Deep four consecutive home games to enter their franchise season, it is up to them though to capitalize on these home games and make the most of them. This weekend is a huge game. Hyrule Empire dominated in all phases of the ball and finally looked like the contender we've been waiting for them to become. Balls Deep has to figure out how to make adjustments in the game otherwise it is going to be a very long expansion year, Hyrule Empire known to not be much of a threat looks like they have a great thing going with their two Tight Ends. That rotation worked wonders in Week 1 and they will look to continue that threat in Week 2. Something else to note is both of these teams have elite young backs. Kamara and Barkley should light it up on Sunday, and although Balls Deep and Hyrule Empire have great offenses overall this is going to probably come down to whose defense can stand up to the offense. Balls Deep is already dealing with injuries in differen positions and with Tyreek Hill looking to be missing some time it is going to be a hard go for Goff and company. Being the new kid on the block has to be a difficult thing, this league shows no mercy and if Balls Deep wants to prove they belong they're going to have to rise above the adversity and start with a huge win this week against the team leading the Shula division.

The only other 1-0 vs 1-0 game we got this weekend is Black Hole Son and PURPLEHAZE. PURPLEHAZE will — and did on Sunday deploy more two-back formations. One of those backs has to be a lead-blocking threat, which Cook is not, which leaves Aaron Jonses to pick up that mantle. This new scheme has allowed PURPLEHAZE to make the play-action concepts a real threat. That’s why Jones' versatility as a receiver and ball carrier is a key to his playing time, since he can leak out of the backfield and factor in the passing game. Unpredictability is the goal for this offense, and strong resistence is the goal for the defense which bullied Balls Deep. This team is going to look to continue this dominace against Black Hole Son. PURPLEHAZE was able to stop Kamara early and often and this week they will have another heavy test in Ezekiel Elliot.

Zeke Wants More Touches

Black Hole Son didn't exactly need a ton of Ezekiel Elliot to mop the floor with the Cripplers in Week 1, but the star running back is ready to retake a full workload. The two-time league rushing champion carried the ball just 13 times in Sunday's victory, Elliott told reporters Wednesday his limited Week 1 role was "tolerable" and that hits take "a little bit more out of you" - after the Pro Bowler missed all of summer training camp while holding out for a new contract. Now, however, with Oakland set to visit PURPLEHAZE in Week 2, Elliott is suggesting he's capable of more. Against a stout defense led by Everson Griffin it is unsure whether or not Black Hole Son will throw Elliot into the mix as heavy as he'd like. The one thing is for sure, these two teams looked very promising in Week 1 with Black Hole Son surging back late in the 4th and PURPLEHAZE dominating right from kick-off. I am excited to see this contest and I expect a very tight affair.

BroncosTillDeath the "reigning" Super Bowl XIII champions didn't fair well in Week 1. Neither did The Canadian Cripplers who honestly should have had the win over Black Hole Son. Thee two teams were a bit flat in different phases of the game. BroncosTillDeath came out very flat in the opening quarter and never really was able to put together a fromula to get out of the hole Hyrule Empire put them in. The Canadian Cripplers were winning throughout the game until the final few minutes when Black Hole Son capitalized on the running game which came alive for them in the 4th quarter. The Canadian Cripplers defense fell apart and imploded on themselves allowing Black Hole Son to eventually take the 'W.' So now with both teams 0-1 and facing off it is a big Week 2 match. Brees and Watson played remarkably well and that addition of Tunsil on the offensive line for Watson and company sure looked like it helped. Neither team was able to get their running game going very well and with Le'Veon Bell dealing with some minor injuries The Cripplers are scrambling to fill the void if needed. With the addition of Bernard they are hoping Bell is going to have to shoulder the entire load. As for BroncosTillDeath, they will need more from Fournette if they want to help their team not be one diamentional as they were last week. Something worth looking into is the constant injuries which always plague The Canadian Cripplers, throughout each season this team is bombarded with injury after injury and this season has started no different. Jordan Reed was sidelined Week 1 due to concustions, Enunwa is out for the year after a neck injury, and Devin Funchess is out for some time if not the entire season. Is it the water up in Canada or the air? Something has to change though because this has happened all too often. BroncosTillDeath luckily has players who had feared injuries practicing in full and ready to go. Will Fuller who has a big game with Watson looks poised to return and that signifies a good thing for this team. The connection Watson and Fuller are building is becoming something special and this team cannot afford to lose one of their major sparks on offense. This is a hard match-up to determine but I know neither team wants to start 0-2.

Last but not least is HellbentKronik and LilShupeScoresBIGPoints. Both have made adjustments at the quarterback position and both are trying to find some consistency within the locker room in general. It is hard to find that consistency when you don't have a true leader at the quarterback position. The loss of Andrew Luck has been hard for LilShupeScoresBIGPoints and although they plugged Ryan Fitzpatrick in there for Week 1 they have since cut ties with him adding Case Keenum while Sam Darnold tries to heal from Mono. HellbentKronik didn't like what they saw in Josh Allen so they brought in a 3rd quarterback in Marcus Mariota.

Mariota Takes Over For HellbentKronik

He will take the reigns while Allen sits 2nd on the depth chart and Murray sits 3rd, neither of these teams had a very promising Week 1. Yes, LilShupeScoresBIGPoints won but it was an ugly win and a hard fought victory - HellbentKronik looked dilapidated so it isn't a surprise both teams are looking to bring other quarterbacks in to spark their offensive systems. Overall both teams have a good core of guys around them to ensure a winning season but putting it together with chemistry is the difficult part. The constant change of field generals isn't going to help these teams but hinder them. If they want consistentcy they need to stick with one quarterback and allow that quarterback to grow in the locker room, in the weight room, and on the field. It is up to these coaches to choose which guy they want leading their team. HellbentKronik has a solid foundation and a young group of guys in their QB room - it is vital they begin to see which young man gives them the best chance to win. On the opposite side of things, LilShupeScoresBIGPoints has Sam Darnold waiting in the wings but his illness is keeping him out of action until then. I think Keenum is a better option than Fitzpatrick but overall you are going to have to give the kid from USC a chance eventually. You drafted him to be your future and with Luck limping off into the sunset what better time than the present to give him the reigns? I believe both teams need this win - LilShupeScoresBIGPoints has to keep pace with Evolution and PURPLEHAZE who both look like contenders, HellbentKronik cannot afford to drop to 0-2 in a season that is already showing us how challenging it is to gain an inch. The best advice I can give to these teams is establish the run and don't make your quarterbacks shoulder the load. If you want a chance to have them thrive - give the ball to your backs.

Week 2 will see four undefeated teams play against each, while four 0-1 teams will face-off. This Week 2 is important in many different ways, you always want to start off hot and the odds of making the Postseason at 0-2 are less than 30%. With that said we will look tgo see which 0-1 teams can rebound and look to turn their season around!

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[pixiealtaira]

Just A Little Ditty

Pairing: Kadam

Prompt two of Kadam week 2017

Just a Little Ditty

Adam knew Kurt was a mechanic. He knew Kurt was certified and could legally work in his dad’s shop…or any others if he so chose, with a little bit of effort put into getting legalities right or something or other. He knew Kurt was going to spend the first half of summer working at Burt’s garage.  It would involve tires and grease and dirt and sweat and Kurt threatened Adam’s life if he dared take photo proof back to the Apples.

Kurt had left for Lima and his job a week before Adam was able to leave New York.  Kurt talked his dad into letting Adam stay in one of the extra rooms at the house and getting a fixer car for Adam to drive while in Lima, since he was getting Kurt one as well.  Burt had picked up Adam from the airport in Columbus and the chat on the way to Lima was full of the usual ‘you hurt my kid’ threats, but Adam hadn’t minded. He just was really looking forward to see Kurt after it all and reminding himself why it was worth it.

Adam knew Kurt was a mechanic. It just hadn’t really sunk in what that meant.

Burt drove Adam directly to the garage. He’d promised Kurt that Kurt could have the rest of the day off to get Adam settled in and show him around if Kurt worked until Adam arrived, so they hadn’t stopped anywhere on the way to Lima. Adam had been quite hungry and eager to collect Kurt and head off to the house to drop his bags off and maybe even just eat there.

However the sight of Kurt that met Adam at the garage made him reconsider his hurry.

Burt directed Adam to the doorway beside one of the large garage doors.  Adam opened it to see a most incredible sight.

The first thing he noticed was the cherry red old car…something from the 50s he thought. He knew it was one of those that people drooled over, but he had no clue what it was called.  It had the hood up.

The next thing Adam noticed was Kurt. He was bent over and had his top half shoved under the hood of the car.

Time had been very good to Kurt, if the worn out coveralls the other man was wearing were any indication.  Now, Adam was aware his love was fit.  His favorite time of day was when Kurt practiced Yoga. Lovely abs, trim waist, muscled thighs, calves and arms, sculpted hind end, string shoulders and an absolute magnificent back were his morning meditation.  It was just that the coveralls seemed to highlight Kurt’s best attributes.  The coveralls were light blue and had the garage logo on the back. They were tight over his shoulders and through his back.  They fit nicely over the seat area…they fit very nicely over the seat.

The sleeves were rolled up till they were short, and stretched over Kurt’s bicep.  The muscles in Kurt’s arms bunched and relaxed as Kurt did whatever he was doing to the car.  The pant legs were also rolled up, cuffed at almost the height on Kurt’s calf they they’d rolled their pants to go calm hunting that one time with the Apples. Kurt had on dirty red canvas shoes and white crew socks.  A red baseball cap was backwards on top his head.  

Adam’s eyes were drawn right back to Kurt’s rear end.  It was bouncing as he sang.  Kurt had a red neckerchief tucked in a back pocket that swayed with the motion.

Adam leaned against the door frame and just watched and listened, an amused smile on his face.  He flicked open his phone and started to record.

“…where the creek turns back by the old stump road, I’m going take you to a special place that nobody knows...baby get ready. Ooohhhh.”

The bounce turned into a sway and bop and the rest of Kurt’s body got more into the dance as he hit the chorus.   His feet tapped and did tiny little motions, like they were ghosting steps to a well known dance.

“You and me going fishin’ in the dark. Lying on our backs and counting the stars where the cool grass grows. Down by the river in the full moonlight, we’ll be falling in love in the middle of the night, just movin’ slow. Staying the whole night through, feels so good to be here with you.”

Adam nearly drew Kurt’s attention as he started the second verse.  Kurt’s voice took on a twang and drawl that he’d never admit to but that Adam found pretty adorable.  Kurt was now bopping his head to the song as well as he sang.  Burt appeared on the other side of the garage, having come in through the front and stopped at the office momentarily.  Adam held up his finger in a ‘shhhh’ sign.  

Burt smiled and nodded, watching Adam film Kurt’s performance. Adam thought there just might be some sort of approval in Burt’s smile and nod…he’d just not certain at what.

As soon as Kurt had finished the song, but before he started anything else Burt called out to him.

“Kurt,” Burt yelled. “You done with that tune up yet?”

“Just fiddling now.  It’ll be ready when the owner gets here. Wait! Dad!” Kurt backed out from under the hood quickly, looking towards his dad’s voice. It gave Adam the time to tuck his phone away.  “Where’s Adam?”

Burt laughed.

“Over here, love.” Adam said. Kurt turned his way.  Bits of hair were sticking up from under the cap and there was a smudge on Kurt’s chin.  

Kurt ripped off a pair of gloves and tossed them onto the little cart near the car.  “You’re here,” was almost a whisper before Kurt shouted it again. “You’re here!”

Adam caught his love up in his arms as Kurt ran his way, twirling him around. “Did you expect me to get lost?” Adam asked.

Kurt snorted. “No, but I worried you might think better and stay in New York where things are insane in a good way. I still don’t know what you expect to do here in Lima for several weeks.”

Adam nuzzled his face in Kurt’s neck. “I plan to spend it with you, of course.  Maybe be taught to change a tire or tune a belt or something.”

Kurt laughed. “Or something.”

“Besides, I’ve a screenplay to work on. Professor Tanner said he wanted to see my senior project expanded.  These next few weeks will be perfect.”

“Really?” Kurt jumped again. “Do you think that means he might have someone who could be interested in putting it on?”

“Well..” Adam said slowly. “The last two students he told to expand their projects, and who actually did so, ended up with their plays in off-Broadway theaters.  Both for at least year long runs.  This could be huge, Kurt.”

Kurt squealed and hugged Adam again.

‘Come on,” Kurt said.  “I’ll introduce you to the guys and then we can head out.  Did you stop at the house?  If not, I’ll change at home…maybe shower first.  I’ll fix you something to eat there to tide you over before we find someplace to eat out.  Not too much because we will have dinner at home tonight with Dad and Carole. It’ll be great. Carole is making dinner, not me.  We might be eating drilled burgers. I don’t know, she didn’t say, but she’s as good at grilling as dad and she…”

“Son,” Burt interrupted Kurt. “Are you going to let the boy answer?”

Kurt blushed.

“It’s fine.  My luggage is in your dad’s car.”

“We’ll get it out and you can choose your junker.  Dad has three for you to choose from for the next few weeks.  They don’t’ look great but they’ll run fine for as long as we need them.  The one I picked I know could even get us out and off to places like the lakes or ball games or races or whatever you’d like to see while here. Oh, and maybe we could find an amusement park or something, we’re too early for the fairs but I promise I will not let you be bored the whole summer. I’ve worked extra hour last week and earned a few extra days off. It will be great, and of course there is TV and I’ve got tons of movies and we can hit the theater sometimes, they even have cheap showings everyday.”

The other men in the office like area they’d walked into chuckled as Kurt talked without pausing again, even after Burt had said something.  

“But tonight,” Kurt continued, ignoring the others. “We’ll stay home and everyone can get to know each other.  I know Carole wanted to hear more about the apples and maybe we can sing a bit of a few of the mash-ups for her. We can probably drag out a board game or two as well.  I just hope you don’t get too bored here.”

“Will I get to hear more of those delightful fishin’ type songs?” Adam asked.

Kurt turned cherry red. One of the older men burst into laughter.

“We’ll have to get him to do Elvira for you. It’s a trip!”  The man wearing the blue jean overalls instead of a coverall exclaimed. “And you’ll have to stop by every day to see what the day brings from the songbirds mouth.”

Kurt rolled his eyes.  “Ages upon ages ago they made me a game.  They roll dice as soon as I enter the garage and the one with the highest roll gets to pick songs all day. Even my dad plays, he likes singers like Mellencamp.”

Adam chuckled. “You always did seem to know almost everything the Apples could dig up, even though Rachel constantly dismissed your vocal catalog as solely Broadway show tunes and maybe some Beatles.”

“Rachel wouldn’t know a varied repertoire if it bit her bum.” Kurt said with an eye roll.

“True.  However I am not going to be the one to try to convince the great Rachel Berry of that.  I love having working eardrums.” Adam said. “I can’t wait to hear more here in the shop.”

“This one’s a keeper, champ. Last one was very…rude…about Kurt’s working songs.”

“Last one was rude about Kurt’s working here, plain and simple.”

“Yes, well…this one is a much better model.” Kurt said. “More reliable and trustworthy, too.  Cassius is the one with the grey hair and he’s partial to song choices like the Everly Brothers and John Denver, Hank has the biker boots on and likes old time rock and roll and people like Springsteen and Bon Jovi and Lou is the one obsessed with Elvira.  Robbie is the younger one at the cash register taking Mrs. Roses’ payment. He requests whatever floats into his head.  I’ve sung Sesame Street songs for Robbie…and heavy metal…and Irish pubs songs. We’ve had other workers here with as varied tastes as Mexican Pop to Spirituals and Dixie Tunes.  Hi, Mrs. Rose.”

“Oh, Kurt dear!  Spin around lovely.”  The little white haired lady twirled her finger to Kurt and he complied, rolling his eyes. “Oh My! New York is very good to you isn’t?”

Adam tilted his head and laughed, which brought the old ladies attention to him.

“Oh, and look at what you dragged home this time around.  He’s a nice catch there, dearie.”  Mrs. Rose said, coming over to pat Kurt’s cheek before heading out with Burt, who helped her into her car.

“So what do you sing when it is your choice to pick?” Adam asked.

“What makes you think I ever get a choice?”

Adam laughed.  “Darling, you might play their game but I know you are the one truly in charge.  You play because it is good for you and you enjoy it.  I am sure they all know it as well.”

Kurt smiled and tilted his head towards Adam, conceding the point. “Fine.  My go to mechanic work songs are Disney. Old, new…whatever.  I just sing Disney while I work on cars if it is up to me.”

Adam’s belly laugh filled the room. “I do adore you.”

Kurt snorted. “I should hope so. Are you ready to head out? Are you sure you won’t be bored for the next few weeks?”

“Never.  In fact my love, I think I’m going to be just fine here.” Adam said.

[theveganliciousrunner]

Brazos Bend 100

Event date: 12/09/2017

Oh geez, how do I start? I guess a good place is to answer the question - Why? Why would I want to put my body through this for the 2nd time? It’s so painful, the course is so flat, recovery takes a long time, it’s not the cheapest thrill out there, etc. But before I get into the why ... I’ll describe the experience first while the pain is still super fresh.

At packet pick up. Gotta love serendipity after looking at Charles’ shirt.

RACE DAY

After a solid 6 hour sleep (with the help of melatonin), I woke up at 2:30am, in disbelief, and asked out loud, “What the eff am I doing here?!”

Charles and Phil looked at me, then at each other as if to say “Oh boy, it’s going to be a loooooong day.”

In a strange mix of matter-of-fact and dream state, I ate breakfast, taped my feet and dressed for a cold weather run like I would for a winter 50k back home. The biggest difference being that my friends were getting ready with me. Charles was my crew chief and Phil would pace me for the last 2 loops (out of 6), over a 50k distance.

Rocking my derelique fashion sense. Photo courtesy of Phil.

We all agreed it was best to get to the start line early. It was so cold that all the cars at the Best Western parking lot were wrapped in ice sheets. Phil quipped that it was like looking at sparkly teenage vampires. While I cracked up, good ol’ Charles was watering down the car and Phil tried to blow smoke rings.

When we got to the park, all the other cars there were running, blasting heat inside and exhaust into the air. Then, with 10 minutes to go, we walked to the start. I was very happy I brought the long jacket so I could stay warm once I took off.

The brain is funny. It was only once I started running that I finally accepted the hard fact that I was here to push my body to finish a 100 mile distance. So I made the best of it. I marveled at the few runners who weren’t wearing much. I saw shorts/singlet combos and three ladies wearing tutus as their warmest covering. Although they weren’t elites, I’m sure they were moving much faster than I would be and therefore, generating much more heat.

Around mile 2-3, I caught up to a guy pulling a 22-pound tire around his waist. What? His name is Steven Monte and we shared about 25 miles. Since Dallas is flat, the best way for runners to train for mountains is to pull a tire. He started training with a tire for Cruel Jewel 100. Then, since Brazos Bend 100 is so flat, he wondered if he could finish it with the tire. Side note, he also does this race without any support, just to make things as hard as possible. 

Here’s a link to training with tires, just in case anyone is interested: https://ultrarunning.com/featured/lugging-along-the-benefits-of-tire-pulling/

The first quarter of the race was super fun because we swapped stories and I learned about other crazy, crazy races around the country that he’s done. I also got to enjoy his local celebrity status as every 5th person made a comment on the tire (a handful were original) and every 10th person wanted a picture or high-five. The energy and inspiration surrounding Steven and his tire was infectious. By mid-2nd loop, I started getting nervous about my pace, so I waved good-bye to Steven and picked it up.

Above is one of Phil’s shots.

Below is the only picture I took during the entire race because I had to stop, take off my pack, and pull out my phone to snap it. It’s an American Alligator.

Brazos Bend has the challenge of having a super flat course going in the same direction six times. Just after 2 loops, I started imagining the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 mile footrace in NYC which goes around one city block. But even that race allows runners to alternate the directions of their loops. I’m not whining though.

On the 3rd loop, I made a new trail friend, Austin, who was running his first 50 miler. I was running my own race now and Austin kept up. We had to split because he wanted to stop and greet his family at an intersection near the start/finish. He caught up with me an hour later and we chatted some more, but once his race neared the end, he was able to surge forward and finish as my proverbial tires began falling off the cart. Despite this, the 3rd loop was my best loop overall, because it was mostly daylight, my brain was still working, and I generally felt strong enough to keep up a decent pace.

THE SECOND HALF

Sigh. What can I say about starting my next 50 miles? I would start in the dark, I was tired, I was behind my planned pace. I forgot to ask Charles for my music. The ramen served during the race was not vegan although I was told it would be. Nowhere on the website said that I could have a pacer during this 4th loop although at packet pickup, it was announced that I could’ve had a pacer at the 4th loop. I’m not whining though.

In the middle of my pity party, a lovely lady came alongside me named Gabriela Martinez from San Jose, CA. I knew Gabriela from North Face 2015 when I gave her a ride to the shuttles and also when she completed 75 miles at Headlands while injured earlier this year. She is such a strong runner, I was surprised to see her. She needed to spend 30 minutes at the medical tent to get her foot taken care of from the aftermath of Achilles surgery. What? Note: She does not have pacers or crew for her races.

Gabriela was a godsend. She talked my ear off and I loved every minute of it. My brain and body were shutting down and it was wonderful to learn about her extraordinary life as I could not find the wherewithal to run ... at all. Gabriela was so encouraging and she even set our power hiking speed. Nearing the end of our loop together, I was so out of it, that I was convinced she and I had accidentally cut the course because we were talking so much. It took Gabriela, a couple of volunteers and my calculator to assure me that we followed the course correctly. Lordy!

After that brutal loop, we finally, FINALLY got back to the start/finish where my beautiful angel friends were waiting for me although Charles was breaking down himself. He normally has a high tolerance for cold, but he was not prepared for this weather. As crew, this meant that he’s been exposed in the cold all day without reprieve, just waiting to take care of me for a few minutes after I completed each loop. What’s harder? Running 100 miles or taking care of your friends, being in charge of dozens of details while staying up for 30+ hours? That’s a tossup.

Charles and Phil walked me to the bathroom so I could do my business, change to dry tops, switch out my headlamp and add another layer. When I came out, they told me that I had eaten up all my spare time during loop 4 and that I had to boogie if I was to make the 7am cutoff.  Alrighty then. I had not planned on chasing cutoffs, but here we were.

Bless Phil. He had no idea what he was dealing with. This was going to be our first time “running” together and all he knew was that during loop 4, I was sending nonsensical texts and that I took much longer than I should have. He started his job with a bitch faced f-bomber with a bum knee. Phil truly saw the real me during these loops. 

Thank god Phil was there to pull me through. I loved that I could shut my brain down completely while I listened to his happy chatter and followed his fresh feet. Following him still took a lot of effort so I wasn’t talking much (I think) as I focused all my energy on moving forward and keeping him in sight. 

Aside from screaming because I thought I saw a rat close to my hand while I was peeing behind a bench (it was just cobwebs mixed with fatigue), there isn’t much to report on loop 5. I do remember that Phil said we were ahead of cutoff by 30 minutes and we passed a lot of people. That made me happy but I wanted more cushion. That made him happy because he knew he wouldn’t have to do any brain surgery on me to keep me going. 

When we finished loop 5, Charles wasn’t there. It was unexpected but completely understood. When Charles crewed me at Javelina, he was able to rent a tent and sleep a little so he would have enough energy to pace me the final 10 miles. For Brazos Bend, there is nowhere to sleep unless you have a trailer. Even in the car, you can’t sleep if you’re constantly turning the engine on and off. So Charles, desperate for some rest and to warm up, left for the hotel. 

He only missed us by 30 minutes ... bless him as he still tried to catch us. But all went well as cool-headed Phil, in a matter of seconds, was able to find what Charles had pre-prepared: hydration pack, coffee and music. Then we skedaddled on that last gosh darned loop 6.

Below is the picture Phil could take before his phone died at loop 6

My body doesn’t want to ingest calories in the wee hours of the morning. It wants to sleep. So when I do eat something after 2am, it gets confused and wants to eject what I’m consuming. Combine that with the bouncing, I feel nauseous. As my brain was turned off, I asked Phil if I had to eat or drink at all as I had started to belch constantly. I think I belched for the whole 50k we spent together. 

This is how awesome Phil is. Even though we were under the gun, he kindly explained I have to eat and drink, but I shouldn’t run at the same time. That’s a recipe for disaster. So sacrifices need to be made. I can eat, drink and walk, then he’d encourage me to run again once a few minutes had passed. I also don’t believe Phil ever let up on the pace, even as he was getting super tired himself and that he had to factor in my cranky right knee.

As we neared the end, I was still nervous. I was nervous because I REALLY wanted to walk to the finish but there was not enough cushion for that. And then we both looked up and there were no flags at the intersection. WTF. There were no signs as well. I was indignant. They couldn’t even wait for us to finish?? They had to sweep the flags and signs??  And I felt so stupid because after 5 loops, I should remember the way back home, but I didn’t recognize this intersection. OMG, I was going to DNF with less than 2 miles left!!!

Phil, who kept his cool, backtracked. I obediently followed and saw the familiar bridge, which we had missed. Oops. We might have lost 10 minutes from that detour, but it was enough to get me going faster than I wanted to. 

Phil’s phone had died pretty early on so he couldn’t call/text Charles to tell him how close we were. But then, a mile away from the finish, we saw them ... the beautiful faces of Charles and Victor. I was ecstatic to see them! They had been waiting all day for this. This was the only point where I could finally relax because neither of them were making me run. Thank goodness!

Victor took this sweet picture of me shuffling toward the arch.  I was the Dead Last Finisher (DLF) and damn proud of it!  96 finishers 101 non-finishers

Thanks to Charles for this pix of me with the sweet buckle.

Gear Shoes: Brooks Ghosts 10   Socks: Injinji Headlamp: NAU Hydration Vest: Ultimate Direction Jenny Watch: Garmin Forerunner 935 (died after 27 hours which is pretty good) Clothes: Various brands on sale

Nutrition Breakfast - Rice and beans Next 30 hours - Fluid Performance, MamaChia, beans & tortillas, pickles, pickle juice, potato chips, Oreos, Coke, Sportlegs and salt tabs, 4 cans of Starbucks Cubano double espresso coffee

Note: 7 days later, I believe the key to my fast recovery was the steady source of protein (beans & tortillas) during the race and definitely the recovery drink immediately after the race. 

THANK YOU!

Charles and Phil, if either of you ever need an organ, or the moon and stars, you know who to ask first.

The tire guy, Steven Monte. Thank you for your stories and for inspiring me to live life to the fullest like you do. I’m waiting to see you on the cover of one of these trail magazines.

Gabriela, mujer, thank you for staying with me even though you could’ve left me behind. It was inspiring to eat your dust as you pulled away in that last loop. We did it!!!

Victor, always a pillar of positivity and class-act sportsmanship wherever you go. If I have one regret it’s that I wasn’t wearing the Victory Sportdesign cap (that I love so much) at the finish line. Thank you for being there!

Jesse Ellis of Let’s Wander Photography. I totally thought you were running!  Ha ha!  Can’t wait to see the photos and thank you so much for being out there.

Rob Goyen, thank you for this race, and thank you for waiting for all the runners to come through. You and your wife and team of volunteers are wonderful.

Coach Bob Shebest who only had 7 weeks to work with me. Your words “Don’t burn through your glycogen stores” kept ringing in my head.

Greg, always putting me back together after I do these crazy things. Love you!

THE AFTERMATH

I know it’s not inspiring but it sure was needed and it was actually pretty fun. I’m talking about how Charles took care of me the following morning. I was pretty screwed up. My bodily movements appeared halfway between stiff and cadaver. When we got to the airport, Charles thought that I should use a wheelchair. I was like “Well, I’m still walking if you can hang with this.” He promptly beelined for the wheelchair. 

It was a cool experience. While Charles stood in line at Starbucks, I played with rolling around in it and it was pretty easy and intuitive to maneuver. Plus, BOOM! We got to jump in front of all the lines and got the best seats on the plane. At Oakland Airport, they have employees to help get our luggage and then push us to the shuttles. I don’t know if y’all want to run 100 miles to get this treatment, but I’m just saying it was pretty awesome.

When Greg got home, he explained that the tingling I felt on the bottoms of my feet are the nerves being impinged from all the swelling. From my notes on Javelina, it took 5 days before I was able to run 2 miles. I’m hoping it’ll be the same or sooner this time.

Tree trunk legs from the swelling. No blisters though!

SO WHY?

OK ... thanks for sticking with me for this long.  

The reason I ran this race is to prepare myself for a self-supported 500 miler around the San Francisco Bay Area. 50k/day for 17-20 days. It’s called The Bay Trail. http://baytrail.org/  And the reason I want to run this is to raise the seed money for my for-purpose charity - The Animal Run (TAR). With the help of friends within the running community and my sister, I’m still setting this up and I’m hoping the website will ready by next Feb.

When will this 500 mile run (50k/day) happen?  I’m shooting for May 2018

What’s the fundraising goal? $10,000

What’s the seed money for?  To hold 1-2 races per year to fundraise for non-profits whose mission is to enhance the lives of all abused and neglected animals

When will the first TAR race be held? I’m thinking August 2018

Which charities will be the initial beneficiaries? TBD but I do have a short list

So it’s still a few months away, but please look out for my notifications about The Animal Run and donate generously if you can. Happy Holidays!

Paz y amor

Video credit: Charles Dexter Lim ... the best crew chief in the galaxy

WHAT TO DO BETTER NEXT TIME

Bring turmeric pills for the inflammation

Bring cranberry pills for the kidneys (super cranactin)

Load up on glucosamine MSM before and after the race

Wear compression socks for legs and feet on plane & @home

Ice my legs and feet down asap after the race & once I get home with a cold blanket or cold wrap kept in the fridge

TRACKING MY RECOVERY

Race ended Sunday 12/10 - Got a 1.5 hour massage 

Monday - Needed a wheelchair at the airport

Tuesday - Still in pain. Did not leave the house ... still shuffled ... able to get adjustment. Spent the day writing the race report.

Wednesday - Still limping but got another 1.5 massage (which worked wonders for my gait). Got another adjustment.

Thursday - Walked to Transamerica from BART in the morning and then walked 2 miles to meet Charles & Phil. I limped most of the day. But I was walking normally at the end of the day. No anti-inflammatories.

Friday - I’m recovered 100% except for the knee. It’s still sore when I got out of bed, but I was able to clean the house.

Saturday - Spoke to coach Bob. No running until the knee is 100%. We’ll focus on staying active with swimming, yoga, maybe biking. I might not run again for 2-3 weeks or mid-Jan at least.

10 days after the race ended, I still have not worked out. Knee is much, much better ... but the twinge is still there. Still not 100%

Finally, on 12/24, I woke up without knee pain.  Woo hoo!

My knee stayed tweaked although I was only running 1-2 miles. I took a complete break from running between Feb-March 15.