#they tell him he's not A Real Doctor and he goes yeah! sure! i am not gonna try to be your definition of a real doctor either

[lilacerull0]

what i mean when i say that cameron is a better wilson to house than wilson is that house and cameron make better narrative foils because fundamentally they are the same and wilson and house are very different people. i understand this is a hot take.

[scrubbinn]

Mimic HRT: month 21 “Mended patience”

“Mx, are you alright? Is there something I could get you, water, earmuffs? You can ask if there's anything you need.”

“Huh? Oh, no water please. And I'm fine. It's just…”

“It's scary, right? Dealing with doctors I mean. I'd imagine being here is scary enough. Don't worry, everything will be ok. Now let's see… You're Jasmine, right? Jasmine Elwood? You use Gard/Graden neo pronouns, yes?

“Y-yes, that’s right.”

“It's a lovely name. You're a bit early, but I'll page Erian to check if he can see you now. You can take a seat if you like, and be sure to ask if you need assistance with anything.” 

“um, are you a therian? I'm in the right clinic, yeah? it's just, I thought there would be others working here.”

“I'm an otherkin. A mimic. Almost two years in at this point. I just like using my human form when I work. It's tough to maintain but it's harder to work a computer otherwise. I'm currently an assistant to Dr. Erian, and also the receptionist for the next few months after the last one suddenly quit. I swear the more I work here the more I wonder how this place managed to stay afloat for so long. Sorry, I don't mean to make this place sound bad or cheap. It's helped me quite a lot with becoming who I was meant to be. I'm sure you'll find exactly what you're looking for here.”

“...Thanks.”

“Oh, looks like the doctor will see you now. But one last thing before you go in. You can choose if you would like to meet Dr. Erian alone, or if you wish for an assistant such as myself to sit in with you to make sure everything is more comfortable-

“Yes. that. Please. Uh, if that's ok.”

“Sure thing! Please follow me.”

* * * 

“Hello. I'm Dr. Erian, and you would be Ms. Elwood, correct? Is that your actual family name? You'll need to use your real name or else there could be legal trouble. Eitherway, I’ve taken the time to read through most of the files that were transferred from your old provider. It seems you just entered your first year on a normal HRT which is good, we wouldn’t be able to give you this treatment otherwise. Now then, let’s take a look at the documentation you filled out for me. You should be grateful that we’ve now moved to an informed consent model due to certain clientele. Ahem, anyways, it says here you’re looking to become a golem? Odd, with your name I assumed you-

“Doctor. Please focus on the client, and don’t make assumptions.”

“Right. Well, switching from a carbon based lifeform to silicon is tricky and involves crossing not just a species threshold but also a biological one. Not to mention there could be a lot of damage to your body if anything goes wrong. Perhaps you could explain why you think you're a golem?”

  “I, um, I- I’m sorry. I’m just a little nervous right now. I have trouble speaking sometimes.”

“Speak up Ms, I couldn't make out what you were- ow. Mayday! May I remind you that-

“Sorry about that Jasmine. You can ignore him for now. Focus on me and let’s take some deep breaths together. In and out ok? In and out, there you go! Do you think you could tell me what being a golem is like?”

“Um, it’s just, it’s just who and what I am. I can’t really describe it. It’s the only thing I can see myself as. There's some days where I just lie outside completely still and let nature move around me. It's peaceful.”

“Ok! Did you get that doc?”

“Sigh, alright fine. At least it sounds like you've been living as your preferred species for a while now. I suppose we can move on to other topics. It will take some time to formulate the proper medication for something like this, but through modern magic and medicine, it can be done. Now, we'll need to go over some paperwork, mostly an acknowledgement of potential risk. You could no longer be considered human depending on legal changes. I'll give you time to look it over.”

“Um, do… Do you know what I might look like if I took this medication? I know what I am but I'm a bit scared something is going to happen.”

“I could show you if you want, I have an idea of what you might want based on what you've told me…

…Well, what do you think? Oh! Please don't touch, I'm not actually made of rocks and you might poke a tooth.”

“Sorry it's just. You look like me. The real me.”

“Well doc? Think we can make something like this?”

“I suppose so, it won't have the specific details, but the general shape is possible. Let's continue the discussion on your treatment first, and if you agree, then we can have a prescription ready in a month.”

* * *

“You performed Adequately Ms. Mulberry. Perhaps you'll actually make a decent assistant, and it seems Ms. Elwood will have a bright future thanks to this clinic. There aren't any other client meetings today, so I'll have you handling prescriptions to send out to pharmacies. Before that though, how has the progress gone on documenting your species?”

“If you mean my mimicry in general, it's going well. I'll have my findings on your desk next month. If you mean learning about the other voice I've been hearing. No luck there. It doesn't show up unless I'm feeling some kind of extreme emotion. Looking back it feels like it wasn't just one voice, but several. It's hard to figure out, some of the others in the THEMS group have some ideas as to what it could be.

“Being influenced by the thoughts of a third party with no medical experience isn't going to solve anything. Please look into it further on your own. I can't move forward with patenting this medication without knowing if this is a potential side effect, or if it's just something in your head..”

“That certainly didn't stop you with me. Look, I'm still going to work with the support group if they can help. Plus when I start my therapy sessions it's going to be something that'll have to come up at some point. Someone else is going to be involved in this. What you should be focusing on right now is Jasmine's treatment.”

“Yes I really should start working on her tre-

“You mean garden treatment. And stop saying Ms. It's Mx. Gard listed garden gender as a non-binary option.”

“Yes, whatever. I have a lot of things to keep track of. Can't keep up with every little detail about a patient. That's your job now, and don't go forgetting who's in charge here! Your little blackmail attempt amounted to nothing. So don't go cutting me off again! Not now, and especially not during client meetings! I have the power to fire you if I see a single slip up. Remember which of us is the doctor and which of us is the assistant. Now then, I expect a report of your mimic status by next week and you should hurry along to fulfill your duties to our clients.”

“What do you mean it amounted to nothing?”

“Excuse me? What are you saying?”

“I'm saying that I'm here right now aren't I? I don't mean that you gave me this job, I mean you gave me legal access to all those files I wanted. It's kind of crazy you didn't realize. I guess I hit the nail on the head when I assumed you'd see me as an opportunity to show other therians that you're on our side. But now, I have complete access to everything and I can legally be a whistleblower to the public here. If you ever hurt me again, I'll send out everything. And I won't even be affected. After all, I'm just an innocent assistant concerned for the safety of the general public. I'm sure with your reputation completely sunk, it wouldn't be hard to replace you. There's a number of other doctors that would kill to have your position. You wouldn't survive.”

“You're implying I still have a reputation to lose. I felt pity for you when you fought for the last spark of hope in your life, to see you squandering it on threats like this… Are you truly so vain that you feel the need to pretend your bluff had weight.”

“Erian, I'm saying this for your own benefit. If people knew what kinds of things you did in this clinic. I don't mean you'd lose your medical license or be run out of town. I'm pretty sure they'd come after your life. This isn't a threat, this is a warning. We're equals here now, whether you like it or not. I could be much worse, but I've decided to play nice.”

“...I see. Sigh, I'll die of stress from you at this point. Why even work here if you hate it and myself so much?”

“Mayday, the actual Mayday, wanted to work here before she forgot everything. She wanted to learn how to help people. I feel like I owe her that much. I don’t care if I have to step over you or any other bigot to reach that goal.”

“Of course you’d say something hokey like that. Always painting your actions as the only noble ones around you. You really are a monster the media made you out to be.”

“You're the one who made me like this. I had to relearn everything about playing human. Besides, you should have known something like this would happen eventually. If not me then someone would have found enough dirt on you. You're kind of sloppy when you hide evidence… Huh, I thought this kind of conversation would make me more angry, but this has been oddly calming. I suppose it's me no longer recognizing you as a threat. Congrats, now we know others mimics won't inherently hate you. At least not always. Now I just see you as potential food.”

“Food? Tell me then Ms. Mulberry, Did a part of you enjoy the taste of flesh?”

“Don't push it. How about you get back to work, I have patients to care for.”

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[cjlouwho]

got any more spinoff ideas/hc’s in that brain of yours? (including eli ofc bc im obsessed w him)

for anyone confused

Tommy and Eli go sightseeing on one of their days off because Tommy's been in Hawaii for 6 months and hasn't really ventured out at all. Eli takes him on a tourist day, but tells him that next time they're going to go out and see the real Hawaii. The places only locals know about. Tommy plays it cool, but he's secretly very excited.

When they (finally) start up a relationship, and it gets serious, Tommy gets scared. He feels the need to run. He's gonna screw it all up again, he knows he will! He tries to distance himself from Eli, but Eli won't have it. He tells Tommy, point blank, that this relationship is one worth fighting for. They've known each other for nearly 3 years at this point, have been dating for 9 months. He's seen Tommy's breakdowns, he's seen all the good, the bad, and the ugly. There's nothing to run from, because Eli loves it all. That's when Tommy realizes this is the first time he's let his own walls down in a relationship and Eli really does know him.

There's a catastrophic volcano eruption (because of course there is) and Tommy's team goes missing. There's a protocol to follow when searching for survivors, but Tommy screws the protocol and steals a helicopter to go look for them. He thinks he's going alone, but Eli sees him and hops in right before Tommy takes off. They rescue the team together.

Eli gets seriously injured while rescuing a child in the ocean and, while the child survives because of him, he's put on a ventilator. Tommy stays right by his side for 5 days. He's not someone who prays, but with a trembling lip he begs to anyone who might be listening to please let Eli be okay. If they have to take someone, take him instead.

When Eli does wake up and is cleared to go home, Tommy becomes his stoic self. He helps Eli in his recovery, making sure to follow every order the doctor gave. He's trying to play it cool, but Eli can see behind the mask. He takes Tommy's hand and pulls him in close. He tells him, "I'm okay." and Tommy kinda shrugs and says, "Yeah, I know. I know that." and then Eli repeats. "Tommy, I am okay." and Tommy falls apart then. He rests his head on Eli's chest and Eli holds him as he cries. Tommy wraps his arms around him, clenching his shirt in his fists and tells Eli he was terrified. Eli just kisses the top of his head and repeats, "It's okay. I'm here, I'm okay."

[ghost-bison]

why i don't like moffat's writing?

with rtd we had rose and martha and donna who were all amazing and by the end of their run (especially rose's and donna's cause martha's ending was satisfactory and somehow wholesome) you were left wanting more and being sad it was already over. amy and clara both outlived their welcome (especially clara even though i very much prefer her to amy).

like idk what moffat was trying to do with the amy/rory situation cause it could have been tied up in 1 series, and as for clara... well let's just say by the end (or beginning or middle if we're being honest) he was forcing her and her regurgitated storylines (stolen from both rose and donna) down our throats like a ripe lemon.

except there was no deep foreshadowing well embedded into the storyline like with donna and rose. no. just a constant reminder of "don't worry, the doctor will figure that out at some point" by the doctor himself which is not how the doctor is supposed to work. the doctor is thick and daft and too caught up in the chaos of his life to notice anything and that's what's so good about it.

and i mean yeah, he did do some mild foreshadowing thing with amy and the silence and all (how good it actually was, it's up to you to decide i guess), but bro i'd forgotten all of it by the time we knew what was going on cause it happened over two series and they had to use a flashback i think so that people would see how clever it was.

also this exchange in forest of the dead between ten and river:

"doesn't work like that"

"it does for the doctor"

"i am the doctor"

"yeah. someday"

brother, what were you trying to pull? what's this five-year-old behaviour? "my doctor is better than your doctor" literally how old are we. what a way to tell us the writing of the future series will suck. like i'm sorry but by this point we don't know river, there is no attachment to that character, we have never seen her in our lives. we don't gaf. by this point she's just an annoying lady telling one of the most epic, well-written, consistent versions of the doctor that he is no match to a future doctor written by a dude who's not like other dudes and whose self-insert is a little too on-the-nose. as well as his misogyny. (i love eleven he was hilarious, i just think he's a victim of bad writing and inconsistency)

every tenth doctor episode written by moffat, the only recognizable thing about ten is david tennant's acting. ten goes and falls for madame de pompadour over what? her boobies? even in classic who which was peak misogyny, the doctor wasn't like that. ten spent less than five minutes with reinette and you're gonna tell me that small minute was enough to make him fall for her? half of which she was a child, moreover? sure.

we can add to that donna's "if i had a face like yours i wouldn't hide it" to miss evangelista in forest of the dead yet again. why? how tf was that necessary??? i don't remember donna ever saying anything positive or negative about her own features apart from that. that was never the point. this isn't fanfiction. or how in that same episode miss evangelista became ugly in order to become clever. there's a real fkin pattern there.

how i miss the time women in doctor who didn't need to assault their men in order to be badass. a time when the doctor would have never forcefully kissed a married lesbian and made a sex joke after she rightfully slapped him. when bisexuality was taken seriously and not as a selling point. when doctor who was still doctor who

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s4 episode 19 thoughts

very tired. brain empty. only mulder and scully in there

i am sat for the evening, reading the episode description. i'm curious as to if a “technology of the future” mentioned is still going to seem futuristic after 30 years have passed since it first hit TV…

(author's note: yes. we still don't have instant freeze potion. and the main takeaway from this episode is that we shouldn't have instant freeze potion)

i wasn't sure what to expect with this one, but i thought it was pretty interesting! it posed some philosophical questions i hadn't really considered in the real world re: time traveling. in the end though, it was left ambiguous as to what would really happen at the conclusion of the episode, like always, and i think there is enough going on in this universe that for my own sake and the sake of mulder and scully, i am going to assume that time travel was cancelled.

but i liked this episode- apart from the frequent needles! eugh...

we open at MIT, where a guy is running. it looks pretty late at night. 

two people are yelling about a guy named mcfarland while this older man watches. the kids are ignoring this guy telling them that the street is dangerous because they instead want to be loud and argue or whatever, idc. 

this kid in the red jacket (later revealed to be named lucas) seems like a massive douche, and when old man proclaims that he is going to die at exactly 11:46, i feel no deep sadness on the matter. this guy is trying to save your life and you’re gonna treat him like he’s trying to get money off of you??? and be mean to him????

omggg self righteous MIT kids…. yeah i’ll say it. shut tf up!

the campus security officer takes the old man away, but he tells jason not to let lucas cross the street, because he won’t see the bus coming… jason seems shocked that the old man knows his name.

see, if i were jason, i’d take this grouch of a kid and make him wait it out. maybe go to a restaurant or something. if there is one that doesn’t require crossing the street. no ma’am. i will NOT ignore a death prophecy.

lucas is shutting down jason, saying they have nothing to talk about. but the bus approaches!!!!

and sure enough, lucas drops his papers at the predicted time….. and thus concludes lucas.

the bus driver says it looks like jason pushed him in front of the bus! i didn’t see that. but okay. 

intro time woo woo woo woo woo wooooooo

(seriously, it didn’t look like jason pushed him?? am i tripping? i mean, i replayed the scene just to make sure. and it did not look like a pushing occurred)

scully is looking at the photos from the accident, and we learn that lucas was a post-doctoral fellow, which perhaps explains his intense arrogance. although i imagine that sort of thing only really happens if you were a douche BEFORE the phd. it just gets worse after it has been conferred.

OH the tea is: jason was his ACADEMIC ADVISOR!!!! and the bus driver said he pushed him!!!!

damn. can you imagine??? i’m imagining this happening to me. everyone would be shocked.

also, shocked that jason was not a fellow student because he looked to be of doctoral candidate age. but he is actually dr. jason nichols, academic advisor in addition to the other roles i'm sure he plays.

but that's not the point.

and jason wouldn’t tell the cops what they were arguing about!!! suspicious…

mulder sits next to scully on the edge of the desk and they watch jason’s alibi tape- i bet it was a pain to ship that around

(at this moment i got a text and paused to answer it and it froze on a frame of mulder looking at scully as she ponders the case and oh my gooooood. oh my gooood)

“well, he goes on to tell a pretty convincing narrative and to give a rather detailed description of the old man” “what was he wearing, a long black robe and carrying a scythe?” <- she is smirking at her own stupid joke and i love her soooo much

mulder has a pencil behind his ear…. yeah. i love him too. they’re a package deal <3

and a further plot twist: the campus security officer that picked the old man up ALSO died!!

i see that it is now boston autopsy time. and i just prepared myself a meal. okay. we must pause and eat before continuing.

mmm that was yummy.

RESUME!

there has been internal disagreement about if they should cut or saw the campus security guy's body? now what the hell does that mean 

he’s frozen!!! as if elsa got to him….

she says something was inserted in his ear, which was a thermometer. and he was found on campus.

well, boston is just like that. you don't get your dunkin one day and you freeze about it.

oooo, this officer would drink and drive on duty!!! this is not good. bad bad bad thing to do. but it was only 28 degrees last night! not cold enough for a guy to get drunk and freeze to death in such a dramatic fashion.

again. boston. it’s like that.

his body is getting colder somehow! that makes no sense.

i love when mulder asks for scully's medical opinion :) she thinks maybe he drank some chemicals!!

BLEAUGH mulder makes a joke about hoping he can keep the body frozen until thanksgiving... nasssssty 😭

this provides no answers on the jason situation. if anything, it only raises more questions. time to go ask him!!!!

jason seems to think that mulder is lying about the guy being frozen to death which is a presumptuous thing… what exactly would he gain from lying about that lmao

oh tea…. the reason the two of them were fighting that night was because lucas was going to say that jason’s research data was falsified!!! and they were competing for the same grant… for cryobiology!!!

OHHHH HE STUDIES FREEZING BODIES. this is not looking great for him.

(we also see jason's girlfriend very briefly which becomes important later. her name is lisa. i did not write it down in my original notes because i did not know she would become a major character in the episode)

scully calls while mulder is doing the questioning, and says she found jason’s thumbprint on the security guard’s uniform!!! oh man. again. not looking great for jason. but i don’t buy that the story is that straightforward.

scully is so pretty………….

cut to a hotel where a man named yonechi is trying to check in, but the receptionist is saying there is no reservation under that name!!! this is very unfortunate for dr. yonechi.

and who comes in but OLD MAN FROM BEFORE!!!!!!! he is giving yonechi a key and says he came on behalf of dr. jason nichols…..

who is this old man… and what does he want…? he looks sick!!!! 

yonechi invites old man in and he shuts the door to his hotel room…. omg something is gonna go down… 

he says he owes so much to yonechi. now what does that mean? did he use his research for something?

“you found a way to substitute water with a sugar- trehalose” (sobs in humanities) what does that MEAN???

HEY WHAT, OLD MAN PUT THAT NEEDLE AWAY. NOOOO NO AWAY. NOT INTO YONECHI. 

YONECHI IS FREEZING TO DEATH. 

(my original notes there were far less readable, just know that)

damn, that prop of frozen yonechi is crazy. scully is investigating and i’m contemplating how it was made!!!

she notices the injection mark… and mulder says he was at the hotel with a man in his 70’s when he arrived!!! the mythical old man that jason has spoken of proves to be real!

scully is showing mulder “a nuclear magnetic resident spectra” (YESSSS TALK THAT SCIENCE SCULLY 🔥 IDK WTF IT MEANS) 

yonechi was injected with… something. scully strongly suspects jason (AKA dr. nichols) did the killing, but mulder wants to talk to someone else….

the girlfriend, lisa!!! jason’s dating someone from his lab!!!??? that feels weird. is that unethical? is she his employee? hm.

scully shows her the nuclear magnetic resident spectra and she grows quiet. yeahhh they're onto youuuu!

“lisa, you can tell us now, or we can subpoena your testimony in court” <- DAMN scully said you will NOT be hiding evidence from me!

STOP SAYING SCIENCE WORDS I DON'T GET IT

okay, so the stuff that was shot in yonechi: it’s a rapid freezing agent. i get that. jason thinks that if you do it fast enough, you can unthaw whatever you freeze better. but he hasn’t been able to test it because it doesn’t exist yet!!! 

well. i think something changed.

oooooo look at the virtual chemical… so high tech… watch it rotate… yeah, baby that’s the stuff.

it would be impossible for him to engineer the non-existent chemical synthetically… BUT SOMEONE CLEARLY DID because they found it in that guy!!!

but!!!! lisa reveals that yonechi might not be dead!!! so they put him in a tub of slime and then try to revive him

scully announces that this will not work, because his body temperature was at 8 degrees, and the lowest body temperature a human ever survived was 70. i love that she knows that. it warms my heart. even if it doesn't warm dr. yonechi's.

blehhh, they put some stuff in his chest and then bring out the shocky machine…. and he starts to come back!!!! omg???

but he starts to fight the machine (what does that mean??), and his temperature gets WAYYYY too high, and he’s gasping and screaming and i feel myself growing faint….

(god that scene was NOT fun to watch. it was actually straight up horrible)

AND THEN HE CATCHES ON FIRE???????

wait, is this the episode where we get that one line…..

(sadly this was not the episode with the spontaneous combustion line i have seen in screenshots💔)

the only guess they have as to wtf made yonechi burn up is that whatever it was that was used to freeze him provoked an opposite reaction when they thawed him out

rip dr. yonechi :(

lisa goes to talk to jason…… what does he know!!!!!

old man is on the bus next to her. RUN GIRL. SPRINT. use your youth as an advantage. he’s going after her and i’m wondering how tf he knew that other guy was going to die?????

NO DON’T STOP TO LOOK AT TIE DYED SHIRTS. ahh she is seeing him follow her in the mirrors and not just merely shopping... very clever

lisa goes up a bunch of stairs, which is arguably the best move to escape an old man, but he is still pretty fast. 

she confronts him… and he says HE CAN KILL HER, TOO!!!

bro... i know grant money is hard to come by, but COME ON!! 

he busts out the freezy needle and says he came here to kill her… but he walks away. who tf is this guy??????

he bruised tf out of her arm when he grabbed her!!! rude!!!!

scully once again reminds lisa to STOP HIDING SHIT and she confesses to FALSIFYING THE DATA TO GET THE GRANT!!!! OHHH GIRL!!!!! this is not good. and jason is covering for her. 

and the people who could have figured that she did that out are now dead!!!

HOW BIG IS THIS FUCKING GRANT, BRO???

she swears that she doesn’t know the old guy and that jason wouldn’t either, but scully comes at her with “if he would lie for you, what makes you think he wouldn’t lie to you?” <- ohhh she ate her up there 

mulder does his thing where he says “scully?” and tilts his head a little, which means "we need to talk about this out of earshot of the person we're questioning" and i love it very much

ohhh, someone thinks they’ve spotted the old man!!!

(really hate that composite drawing of him they’re using as reference)

woahh, that shot descended from the ceiling as they arrived to his hotel room… it was really cool. but he is not here!!

“i’m not sure if ‘living’ is the word i’d use on this place” <- after that other line last episode i just KNOW she needs to be comfy and cozy, which i respect immensely. get scully a blanket right away. i need her in a mountain of pillows. STAT.

she finds yonechi’s flight written down in a notepad, and mulder finds a picture of yonechi, lisa, and jason!! they must have had an ice science groupchat or something

mulder seems to think this is a photo from the future??? and that if lucas hadn’t gotten hit by that bus, jason’s research being falsified would be exposed and he’d never get to work with dr. yonechi.

of course, this is baffling. and i have to rewatch the scene to get a better understanding on what he is saying

she has had enough of his shenanigans “and if your sister is your aunt and your mother married your uncle, you’d be your own grandpa” <- LMAO she said you NEED to start making sense!!

“okay, so this photo that was never taken, when was it never taken?” <- BAHAHA this has been added to my mental list of top scully one liners

he says it was taken at least 5 years in the future when the mystery substance was synthesized in the future…. and the old man came back from the future to fix the past!!

well. time travel isn’t something we have entertained on here before. so that’s new. not sure how i feel about it when there is already so much going on in this universe.

HE SAYS THE OLD MAN *IS* JASON?? and that is how he knew all of the things!!!

i guess it does make sense… if you think time travel could exist…

(she looks at him with great skepticism) “although common sense may rule out the possibility of time travel, the laws of quantum physics certainly do not. in case you forgot, that’s from your graduate thesis” <- she looks annoyed at this LMAOOOOOOOOOOO 

if someone quoted my thesis back to me in an argument we’d have to start kissing sloppy style right then and there.

so wait this complicates things. she did a graduate degree AND an MD?? bro, how many degrees was she collecting!!!!! how long did it take!!! HOW OLD IS SHE??? how can all of his have been accomplished??? 

you don’t write a thesis for an MD, and even if you did it wouldn’t be in physics… maybe she did like a 4+1 program? she was speedrunning grad school? can someone who knows what her degree history looks like PLEASE explain this to me.

ohhhh and she argues right back… “the limits of human endurance would prevent such a trip from ever happening” get his ass!!

(he can quote her thesis but not remember her birthday… what is with this man??)

he says to show the picture to lisa and ask where it was taken, which i suppose would answer that question as long as she doesn't frequently have people take her pictures, in which case it might be hard to recall

old man seems very sick as he stumbles back to his spartan hotel room…. perhaps time travel makes you ill? and that is the limit of human endurance she has described??

OAUGHHHHH HE IS INJECTING HIMSELF WITH SOMETHING OKAY HELLO. I DID NOT SEE THIS COMING.

it seems to make him feel better. it makes me feel worse. but i suppose that is irrelevant.

gag gag gag gag. so he keeps internally freezing himself to feel better?

lisa comes in and asks “jason?” <- OHHH SHE CLOCKED HIM!!!! he says she made it possible!!!!

is this how we explore the multiverse in this world??? never thought we'd see the day. i mean, i guess weirder plot points have gone on than there being an x files multiverse, but i thought we had enough to deal with just on this planet, what with the murderers and ghosts and ghouls and all that

jason says she’ll meet a guy in ten years that has discovered “tachyons” (which is a real word, i assume, because my autocorrect fixed it for me) which are particles that can go back in time!!! but only for a few seconds and only at a temperature of absolute 0. 

the temperature thing seems very specific.

and then she’ll realize…. 

and he came back to kill her but couldn’t do it!!!! her hand is in his hand...

OH HE LIED!!! HE GOT HER!!!!!!!!! lisa is now FROZEN!!

while that is deeply sad, i am kinda glad he prevented time travel from happening in this universe. that would be a little too much.

mulder arranged for (young) jason’s bail to go show him lisa at the lab, and he straight up says right there that the old man they’re looking for is him. which had to be hard to hear

jason is being a dick as mulder tries to explain what happened…. he proposes that maybe his compound would allow for time travel by making people very cold and allow them to survive the temperatures of a wormhole. sure. i don't know enough about wormholes to dispute that.

jason seems to sober up a bit when he realizes that what happened to lisa is his fault in a sort of cosmic way, and not even mulder can come up with a witty response to that 

ooooooh, jason had to use a fingerprint scanner thingy to get into the lab, and it said he was already there!! a showdown of the jasons!!!!

mulder says please get to scully NOW as they’re trying to revive lisa and blehhh more needles stop with needles no needles please i ask so politely. scully is watching this go down and ordering her to put lisa back in the slime tub now!!!

scully you are so pretty…….

mulder is off to track down old jason, and i wonder if showing his FBI badge would really get him into all sorts of places such as this one, or if anyone would wonder if he was lying. anyway, the research assistant says that no one has come in. 

breaking lisa news: THEY RESUSCITATED HER!!! but jason wasn’t there!!!!

oh it really is jason vs jason time… who will win? the younger, inexperienced, but more sprightly jason? or the older and wiser jason with the weapon of freezing???

in the computer, all the files about jason were erased!!!! he is really trying to destroy his own work. mulder is running running running…

but young jason has found old jason! who is frantically typing. 

older jason's explanation of a world with time travel does sound pretty fucked up. but then young jason is beating up older jason trying to get lisa back. mulder arrives to say lisa is actually okay, and older jason stabs younger jason!!!

while mulder is trying to break through, the two jasons…. CATCH ON FIRE!!!

damn. mulder probably did not like to see that. i still consider his fear of fire canon. because i like it. i think it’s interesting.

scully is explaining to lisa, who is on a stretcher, how they saved her

scully is so sweet trying to explain she doesn’t know what was going on….. and has to tell lisa that jason is dead, and she is very sorry, but she’ll see her in the hospital 

mulder arrives!! he says they won’t find the second corpse- i guess that makes sense. if you die, i guess your alternate timeline self has to go with it.

oh my goodness, he's quoting her thesis again: “although multidimensionality suggests infinite outcomes in an infinite number of universes, each universe can produce only one outcome”

HE MEMORIZED THAT SHIT???

“i was 23 when i wrote that” oh my GOD SHE REALLY WAS SPEEDRUNNING DEGREES HUH???

so she must have done either a 4+1 or graduated undergrad in 3 years, 2 years for a masters, and then (insert however many years it takes to get an MD here)

no wonder she is so smart... damn, i love her.

so what implications does her proclamation on each universe having but one solution have?? will his compound and time travel eventually be discovered as scully’s thesis seems to predict??

cut to lisa at the computer… and thus ends our tale.

NOW WHAT DOES THAT MEAN.

so do we get time travel or not???

i actually liked this episode!! not the needles. but it was a super interesting concept and proved why we should probably not have time travel. something i already believed and now find myself agreeing with even harder.

it's kinda rare that i like an episode based off of its content rather than just the mulder-scully time the situation creates, so i'll give credit where credit is due.

i like to see scully be a smartass so this was a good day for me. AND that he has so much of her thesis MEMORIZED??? word for word???!! that is AMAZING. it really is like that though- sometimes you can quote a person's thesis rewriting einstein, but you cannot remember their birthday.

and maybe it was implied before, but i'm so happy to learn that scully got her masters when she was 23, and THEN went on to med school. that is the sort of information a fan like me needs to know to properly analyze a character, and it is fascinating! so she probably graduated early- either in undergrad or high school. and she got her masters in physics, right?! or something along those lines??

we forget how fucking smart she is because the narrative is skewed in mulder's favor with the whole "werewolves are real in this world" thing, but goddamn. she is really a genius who can tell you exactly how someone is dying and fix it, OR administer the death herself via her sharpshooting skills, AND gets stuck dealing with the bestie babble alien nonsense while she tries to figure out how to rationalize all of the universe's inexplicable phenomena through the lens of a scientist. AND she paid attention in catechism.

is she not one of THE best characters of all time???

[jxtina-86]

We'll Be Okay

So many decisions, so little time. I thought I had my mind made up, but now I'm not so sure. RomanReigns/Alexia. See here for the rest of the series/order to read.

Warning: Language/Hints of smut

Rating: MA

Italics = flashback

I flick through a magazine, barely noticing the photos or articles as they all blur into one. Glancing up at the clock on the wall, I realise I've still got another ten minutes till my appointment. Ten more painfully slow minutes.

Fumbling in my bag, I tug out my phone and stare at the time again, as if the clock on the wall is lying to me. It isn't. Unlocking it, I head straight for my messages even though I know there are none. The same goes for missed calls and emails. I chew my lip, dropping the phone back into my purse before crossing my arms over my now obviously swollen belly.

A small smile tugs at my lips as I stare down at the round bump protruding from my lower half. My shirt is snug, a reminder that I need to start purchasing some proper maternity clothes before I start to bust the buttons in my shirts and pants. My weekends are currently spent in stretchy pants and one of Roman's shirts, the cuffs rolled up to my elbows as I spend a few hours running errands and the rest of the time sparked out on the couch, exhaustion now a consistent factor in my life.

But I wouldn't change it for the world. No way. My hand sneaks down, resting on my bump as I re-call the shiny-eyed smile that broke across Roman's face when I told him. I could relive that memory a thousand times and not get bored. In fact, I do relive it, every time he comes home or wakes up next to me or just walks from the kitchen to the lounge to find me. That smile is a permanent fixture and every time I see it, my heart threatens to burst with love.

Love for him.

Love for Pumpkin.

When I found out, I was in shock. Mainly because I didn't want to believe it after what had happened before. I couldn't put myself or Roman through that again. I was so cautious, refusing to believe the test until Dr Ash confirmed it herself. Telling Roman made it all so real. Before that point, it still felt like a figment of my imagination. And to be honest, even when I watched him caress my stomach and we joked about a nickname for my then non-existent bump, it still felt too good to be true.

The first scan changed all of that. I can remember how tightly his hand squeezed mine as my breath caught in my throat as the sound of our baby's heart echoed out of the speakers. And there, on the screen, the fuzzy outline of what we'd made. There was no denying it anymore, no need to think that one day I would wake up and find out it was all a dream. I remember looking over at Roman, my eyes stinging as I saw the unshed tears in his eyes, his hand still tight around mine as he drew a shaky breath and the doctor made her excuses to give us a moment.

“You okay?” I murmur as the door clicks shut, my eyes still on him as I watch him stare, transfixed.

“Yeah.” His voice is soft, barely a whisper.

I squeeze his hand and his gaze drops down, to stare at our intertwined fingers. And then glistening dark brown orbs meet mine and I'm tugging him towards me, my fingers releasing his so I can raise both hands to brush away the tears that start to slide down his cheeks.

“Hey,” I choke, my own emotions taking hold. “This is supposed to be a happy moment.” I try to grin, but my own tears are now spilling free.

“Then why are you crying?” he shoots back as he cups my face and presses his forehead against mine.

“Because I'm happy.”

“And so am I,” he tells me, his lips brushing over mine again and again. “Thank you.”

I stroke the back of his neck, my face twisting from his to stare back at the frozen image on the screen.

“Thank you,” I breathe, but I'm not sure who I'm thanking. Roman for giving me Pumpkin, or Pumpkin for giving us something we never realised we wanted so much. Maybe both, who knows. All I know is that I am beyond grateful for this moment and for all future moments to come.

We took multiple copies of the scan photo, one for each set of parents and family and two for ourselves. Mine is carefully placed in the folds of my diary, the white edge always peeking at me, begging to be looked at every time I pull the book from my purse and every time I give in, a jolt of excitement passing through me as I run my finger over the image.

Roman's is wedged into his wallet and I couldn't help but grin when I caught sight of it one day and noted how worn the edges were, how the white had started to lose its colour. My heart swelled at the thought of him tugging it loose and staring at the image of his child in countless cars, airports, arenas and hotels.

So I decided to add to that one image. A selfie of Pumpkin and I each week, my face pulled into variety of comical expressions as I clutch my forever growing belly. I started to snap them on a Monday night, something for him to find on his phone after RAW, along with a little note about how proud we both are of him and more recently, about the small fluttering sensation I've been feeling in my stomach when his voice echoes through the TV.

He called me the first time I mentioned the latter. I could hear the raw emotion in his voice as he asked me to tell him exactly what happened and then there was a short gasp of silence and I heard him sniff and all I wanted to do was reach out through the phone and pull him back to me, close to me. I wonder sometimes if I'm doing the right thing, if telling him all of these things and sending him photos is doing more harm than good. All I want is for him to feel like he's right here with me, living every moment of this incredible journey we're both on. But at the same time, I realise how difficult it must be for him to watch from afar. And this is only the beginning and I worry, fuck, I worry so damn much about what it'll be like when Pumpkin is born and the changes in development will be coming thick and fast and Roman will miss most of them.

It's something that I've been meaning to talk to him for a while now, but I can never seem to find the right time. When he's home, we're too preoccupied in catching up with each other, rather than delving into anything too deep and scary such as how he'll rarely be home to see his son or daughter grow up. But I know it's a conversation we need to have. He's promised me a thousand times that nothing will change between us, but what we have is something that we have worked at tirelessly for years now; I have no doubt about our strength as a couple. Yet it doesn't stop the nagging fear about the strength of the bond between him and our baby. There is no doubt in my mind that Roman will be the best father any child could ask for, but I'm terrified that the long periods away from home will somehow have an adverse affect on him or her, that Roman will become some secondary figure in their life. And that is the last thing I want to happen.

I want our baby to know that their father loves them so fucking much, that they are the best thing that could ever happen in his life, that his life is complete now that they are in it. I want our baby to know how hard their father works to make sure they never go without, that he's fortunate enough to do something he loves in order to support all three of us. I want our baby to be as proud of Roman as I am, to know he does everything in his power to make sure we're happy, even if he's on the other side of the country.

Something bumps against my leg and I blink to see a blonde-haired boy staring up at me. His eyes are a piercing blue, a curious look playing on his face as he studies my own features before his gaze drops down to my belly. With a tentative hand, he reaches out and pats my bump and I can't help but let out a giggle as he frowns.

“Nathan!”

I glance up to see a heavily pregnant woman approaching.

“What did I tell you about running off like that?” she scolds, reaching for his hand. “I'm so sorry,” she tells me with an apologetic smile. “His little sister has been kicking up a storm recently when he touches my bump, but he can't understand why the same doesn't happen when he touches strangers bumps.”

She turns to Nathan, whose face is still scrunched up in confusion. “What did we talk about, huh? You can't go touching other ladies bellies, it's not polite, is it? And your sister is in here,” she points at her own incredible bump. “Nowhere else, right?”

She takes a seat opposite me, heaving Nathan up onto the chair next to her. Her eyes flicker down to my bump. “How far along are you?”

“22 weeks,” I reply with a smile.

“Your first?”

I nod.

“Boy or girl?” she asks and then she grins. “Or are you here to find out?”

“Perhaps. I'm not sure.” I rub my hand over my bump.

“What about your husband?”

“He's not sure either,” I chuckle and she smiles widely in response.

“Isn't he here?”

“He travels a lot. I had to cancel my last appointment as he got called away at short notice.” I have no idea why I'm spilling all this detail to a stranger in a waiting room, but it feels good to talk to someone who doesn't know mine and Roman's situation. “But his flight today has been delayed, so I'm not sure if he'll make it in time.”

She smiles sympathetically. “Mine missed the birth of this one,” she reaches out and ruffles Nathan's hair. “By minutes too. He was stuck in traffic and crashed through the door just as they were cleaning him up.”

“How far along are you with your second?” I ask as Nathan's hand creeps onto his mother's stomach. She grins down at him and I watch incredulously as her belly moves, her baby jolting into action.

“37 weeks. Weekly check-up time.”

I'm about to respond, when my name is called out.

“That's me,” I say as I get to my feet and grab my purse. “Good luck with the next few weeks,” I tell her, smiling at Nathan.

“Thank you. You too.” Her eyes flicker to behind me. “Is that your husband?”

My head instantly whips around, my heart pounding as my mind fights to keep my cool, to not believe it until I see him with my own eyes. But there he is, towering in the doorway as he waits for a young couple to exit. He flashes them his trademark smile before manoeuvring himself and his bags through the door. Casting his gaze around the room, his face breaks into a far more genuine smile when he spots me.

“Damn, your baby's gonna be super cute,” my new acquaitance pipes up.

I glance back at her with a shy grin. “Thanks.”

She winks at me with a knowing smile, her eyes darting to behind me and I look around to see he's in arms length. It takes all the strength I have not to fling myself at him. It's been a shorter stint apart than usual, but it doesn't change how much I miss being curled up in those arms of his.

“Alexia Reigns?” The nurse is calling again.

“Just in time,” I tell Roman as he wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me close, his lips instantly finding my forehead.

“Baby girl,” he breathes. “I'm so sorry.”

“What for?” I smile up at him as we pick our way towards where the waiting nurse stands, ready to show us the way to the consulting room. “Like I said, you're just in time.”

“I know. The taxi queue was insane at the airport and then the traffic...”

I reach up and squeeze his hand that rests on my shoulder.

“And I just wanted to be here to wait with you. We didn't get a chance to–” he starts, but the nurse soon interrupts me to tell me to get comfortable on the examination table and to roll up my shirt ready for the scan.

“The doctor will be in shortly,” she tells us with a brief smile before leaving us alone.

Roman takes my purse, placing it on top his bags as I ease myself onto the table and start to unbutton the bottom of my shirt.

“How you feeling?” His fingers brush against my arm.

“Good. Although I don't think you're gonna appreciate my new sleeping position.”

He chuckles. “You hogging all the pillows now?”

I nod. “One under the bump, one between my legs, one against my chest and the usual two under my head. I mean, I tried that one your mom got me, but it honestly just wasn't as comfortable.”

Cool air hits my skin as I ease up the tank top under my shirt, before fumbling with the waistband of my pants, pushing them down to rest just under my bump. I smile as Roman's hand carefully caresses the exposed skin, watching how his face seems to shift into an expression that only appears when his attention is purely devoted to Pumpkin. The first time I saw this look in his eye, of pure unconditional love, I knew that this worth all the agony and waiting. I never quite realised how different a love for a baby could be. I love Roman with all my heart and I would do anything for him, but that's a love that we've worked for and nurtured for years now. We haven't even met our baby and yet, we are already both head over heels in love and that love is only going to become stronger as time goes on.

“Lex,” he murmurs, his eyes flickering back up to meet mine. “I was thinking... Does it matter if we find out now or in a few months time?”

It's the question we've been asking ourselves since the beginning. Do we want to know or not? Does it matter if we're having a boy or a girl? Whilst we joke about the supposed benefits of each sex, when it comes down to it, we'd be happy, more than happy, either way. But we've both admitted the overwhelming urge to find out now, to be able to announce it to our families and friends, to help us make decisions on nursery colours and to buy toys and clothes in preparation for his or her arrival, along with the most important decision of all – a name.

For a while, I've secretly wondered if Roman wanted to know so he could prepare himself for how he should be as a father. A boy would naturally instigated a passing on of not only a family name, but of responsibility when he was older, becoming the man of the house so to speak in Roman's absence. Yet a girl would call for a more protective stance and I wondered if that's what he wanted to prepare for, the thought of leaving his girls every week and a fear that a girl would align herself with me more, creating that snag in the bond between him and her.

He has never vocalised these concerns, but the questioning look in his eye does little to ease my own worry. 

“It's up to you,” I tell him softly, my hand reaching for his. “I don't mind if we find out now or later.”

“No way,” he says with a wry smile. “You can't put this all on me.”

“I honestly don't mind.”

He narrows his eyes as he studies my face. “Yes, you do.”

I roll my eyes. “Fine. I don't want to know. I'm quite looking forward to finding out when Pumpkin finally arrives and the doctor announces the sex. I want that to spur me on in those painful moments that I have to do this, because not only am I going to meet my baby, but I'm going to find out if I've been given a boy or a girl.”

“But you said yourself it would make loads of decision a lot easier to make if we found out today.”

“Sure, but then I saw this cute idea online of a yellow and grey nursery...”

Roman chuckles, his hand pulling mine up to his lips. “And names?”

“It's not like we're any closer to choosing any for either sex. I think finding out would make it a lot harder.”

His mouth opens to respond, but the door is suddenly pushed open and Dr Ash enters with my file in hand.

“Alexia, good to see you again. And Roman, I see you made it in time,” she greets, reaching out to shake our hands.

“Just about,” Roman grins in response.

“Good...” she takes a seat next to the table, switching on the sonogram machine. “So, Alexia, are you still having trouble sleeping?”

“It's getting better,” I tell her. “Still a little uncomfortable, but I'm working on it.”

“Good... And the nausea has completely gone now?”

“Yes, at last.”

“Any changes since I last saw you, aside from the obvious?” She smile as she nods at my bump.

Roman almost manages to muffle his snort of laughter and I scowl. “My hormones are a bit up and down.”

“Understatement of the year,” he mutters under his breath and I squeeze his hand hard in response.

Dr Ash nods. “That's completely normal, Alexia. Your body is changing in more ways than one, it's natural for your emotions to change as well. And I'm afraid it's probably going to continue this way right up until the birth.”

“Great...” I mumble. “So completely natural to go from crying to horny in a matter of minutes.”

Dr Ash raises her eyes to meet mine, with a small smile. “Sounds strange, but yes.” She makes a note in the file and then reaches for a bottle of ultrasound gel. “I apologise if this is a bit cold.”

She squirts the gel onto my stomach, the coolness making me flinch slightly.

“So, I'll take some measurements, make sure growth is on track and check the heartbeat. Now, depending on position, I might also be able to tell you if you're having a boy or girl.”

“Yeah, about that...” I glance up at Roman.

The doctor pauses. “Is this something you're yet to discuss?”

“No, we've discussed it,” Roman starts.

“Many times,” I chime in. “We're in two minds.”

“It's not a problem. Lots of couples find it hard to decide.” She smiles as she adjusts the monitor, moving closer to place the scanner on my stomach. “I can always make a note of it and if you want to find out later, you can give me a call?”

Roman catches my eye. “Lex?”

“I guess...”

“I once wrote it down and sealed it in an envelope for one couple who weren't sure either,” she comments as she studies the screen. “They eventually decided to find out, but gave it to a cake-maker and told them to make an iced cake with either blue or pink sponge inside.”

I'm about to respond when I see a familiar blurry outline appear on screen. My breath instantly catches in my throat, just as it did the first time I saw this very same image. Only this time, it's bigger, more defined than 10 weeks ago. The outline is more distinctive, more recognisable as a baby. Roman's hand squeezes mine again as the doctor makes more notes in my file.

“Baby looks good, growth is on track. Heartbeat is normal too, so progress is as expected.” She turns back to us. “So, I have to have a closer look and this is the point where it's going to be obvious if you are having a boy or girl. If you're still unsure, I suggest averting your eyes for the next few minutes.”

I look up at Roman. “Hey, no peeking. We either find out together or we both wait, right?”

“Right.” He tears his eyes away from the screen and looks down at me, his gaze steady. “So grey and yellow, huh?”

I smile. “I picked out a cot and some other furniture too. Although I don't know how much of it I can put together-”

“Don't even suggest it,” he frowns. “I'll do it.”

I raise an eyebrow. “First off, when? And secondly, I remember very clearly the fiasco when it came to putting together our wardrobes.”

“That was all Dean and Seth.”

“They did a far better job than you did,” I remind him.

“I was distracted,” he winks and I feel my cheeks flushing, my skin prickling with heat as his eyes glow at the memory. Fucking hormones.

“Excuses, excuses,” I manage to muster up, desperate to look away but I can't. If I look away, I'll see the screen, but if I hold his gaze, I'll give myself away. Although judging by the smirk that's gracing his lips, I already have.

He leans down until his mouth is next to my ear, his voice a low whisper. “Nah, baby girl. Just the truth. And you still know damn well that was your intention all along.”

“I ain't that kinda girl,” I murmur haughtily, my eyes flickering closed as I feel his breath on my earlobe.

He chuckles as he stands tall again, his fingers gently pushing back a strand of hair. I watch as his tongue wets his lips.

“Right, all done.”

My eyes flicker back to the doctor and the screen, my heart sinking as I note the blank screen.

“I'm pleased to say that your baby is looking very healthy indeed. No need for any additional check-ups, but when we see you next time, we can re-assess if anything changes. And of course, if you notice any changes that don't seem to be in line with what we have already discussed, please let me know.” Dr Ash closes the file and hands me a tissue to wipe the leftover gel from my belly. “Any questions?”

I shake my head as I roll the waistband of my pants back up and start to move my tank top and shirt back into place.

“You said you could write it, the sex I mean, down for us,” Roman blurts out. “In an envelope?”

Dr Ash gives me a brief look. “Alexia?”

“I...” I look up at Roman.

“We don't have to decide right now whether to open it or not. I just want to know that if we decide to find out, we can find out right then and there, rather than waiting to make a call.” He holds out his hand to me as I ease myself down from the table. “I'm not gonna find out without you wanting too as well. I just think we need to talk about it more and having the envelope with us there and then, well it means we can do it before we change our minds again.”

I bite my lip. The thought is tempting, the small and ever so fickle part of my brain is softly nudging my more rational headspace, willing it to accept the envelope, promising to listen to all arguments for and against finding out.

“Lex, I'm not going to pressure you into finding out if you don't want to. I'll accept if that's what you want to do, I promise.”

I turn my gaze back to Dr Ash. “Can you write it down, please?”

She smiles. “Of course.” She reaches behind her for a notepad, rustling through a desk drawer for an envelope.

“Thank you,” Roman murmurs, his arm wrapping around me.

And strangely, it's not only his hand that's shaking when he reaches for the sealed envelope a second or so later. Mine is trembling too.

**

“You said you wanted to talk,” I mumble against Roman's chest as we curl against each other on the couch.

His hand trails down my back, lazy and soft. “We've got plenty of time for that, baby girl. No rush, remember? We can find out whenever we want.”

The envelope is propped up on the mantlepiece, 'Baby Reigns' scrawled across the front, a constant reminder of what we could be minutes, seconds even, away from finding out should the mood take us. It's been almost 24 hours since we left the doctor's and we are yet to have a proper conversation about the possibilities that lie before us. My eyes have been constantly drawn towards the envelope, but every time, I force myself to look away, to remember what I so adamantly stated yesterday. I want the surprise. I want the unknown.

My eyes haven't been the only ones that have been playing an endless game of cat and mouse with said envelope. I've noticed Roman's eyes linger on the mantlepiece more than once and each time, I held my breath, waiting for him to commence his opening statement as to why we should tear it open and see what lies inside. But he's said nothing, not a word. Not even when we were lying in bed last night, his fingers drawing endless circles across my belly as he nuzzled into my neck. Not even this morning as he wrapped his arms around me whilst I waited for the kettle to boil or when he joined me in the shower for a few brief moments, his kiss long and sultry, almost convincing me to call in sick just so we could finish what we started.

“You're back on the road tomorrow,” I point out softly. “And you know that we'll never get a chance to talk for long enough about this until you get back.”

“I thought you had your mind made up?”

“I do. But that doesn't mean that I'm not willing to hear you out. We have to decide together, right?”

“Right,” he agrees, his hand slides over my shoulder, squeezing comfortingly. “My previous point still stands though. What difference does it make if we find out now or later? It's still going to be either a boy or a girl, no matter when we find out.”

“Not true,” I look up at him. “What if Dr Ash got it wrong?”

“What the are the chances of that happening?”

“Not likely, but it can happen. What if the envelope reveals it's a girl, but it turns out that our son was just feeling shy yesterday? Or if it says it's a boy, but it just so happened our daughter's hand was scratching an itch?”

“We don't have to tell anyone else, Lex. It can just stay between us if you want.” His fingers brush against my cheek. “And we can still pick out names for both, just in case, still decorate the nursery in neutral colours if that's what you want. Nothing has to change.”

“But it will. Pumpkin will become a he or a she. I kind of like that I could be speaking to either.”

He chuckles. “You speak to Pumpkin?”

I blush. “Yeah... The pregnancy books suggested it.”

“What do you talk about?”

I shake my head. “I see what you're doing, you're changing the subject.”

He chuckles, ducking his head down to brush his lips across my forehead. “Never. I'm interested.”

Glancing down at my bump, I smile softly. “I talk about you.”

“Lex...”

“I talk about how much their Daddy loves his work, how he has to be away a lot but that doesn't mean he doesn't love them any less. I talk about how much he already cares for them, how he can't wait to meet them.” I raise my head again, my voice threatening to crack when I catch Roman's eye. “I talk about how proud I am of you, how much I love you, how much you love me too, how happy you make me, Ro.”

I reach up to stroke his cheek, cupping his face and pulling him down to me. Our lips brush against each other, tentatively at first, tender kisses ensuing until he wraps his arms around me and holds me to him, sucking firmly on my bottom lip before delving back for more. I gasp for breath as he lets me go for a second, only to moan into his mouth as he tugs me back for more, fingers in my hair, anchoring me to him. Not that I want to move away. No way. I want to stay here forever as he shows me how much he loves me in the way he holds and caresses me. There's no need for words, only actions, only the warmth of his mouth and the strength of his soul.

“Lex,” he breathes as he pulls back. “You're the best thing that has ever happened to me. And I don't want to spoil that by doing something stupid.”

I shake my head. “You would never–”

“But I am,” he continues, cutting me off. “I'm being selfish. I should be thinking like you, about how exciting it will be to not only meet our baby but to find out then and there if it's a boy or a girl.”

“Ro... You're not being selfish. You could argue that I'm the selfish one for not wanting to know.” I close my eyes and pray that I'm not about to realise my worst fears. “Why do you want to know? Tell me. Please.”

“I...” he stammers, falling into a brief silence before my heart starts to sink. “I want to know how to feel.”

I look up and fuck... His face is full of trepidation, his eyes aglow with something that looks like... Fear.

“You know I love you and you know I love Pumpkin,” he places a large hand over mine on my belly. “I'd do anything for either of you, I swear. But at the same time, I haven't got a fucking clue what I'm doing.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, but I think I already know the answer. 

“Lex, I have no idea if I'm the right person to be a father.”

Even though my worst suspicions have just been confirmed, it doesn't stop his words from stunning me.

“I've seen first hand what this industry does to families, it can tear them apart. It means that I'm going to end up spending more time away from my family, from you, from Pumpkin than I will here with the both of you. How the hell am I supposed to be a father when I'm never here?” He draws a shaky breath. “What if by not being here, our baby grows up resenting that? Resenting me...”

He trails off and I stumble over myself to correct him.

“That's never going to happen,” I tell him firmly. “We both know that you do what you do to provide us, to make sure we never go without, to ensure that we will always have a roof over our heads. Those are things that already make you a great dad, Ro. No child of yours is ever going to resent you for providing for them.”

“I spent a good few years as a teenager mad at my dad,” he murmurs, his hand still on my bump, his eyes down and avoiding my gaze. “He was never around when I needed him. My mom had to play both roles in my life and it was tough. I used to hate how he'd just come back after being on the road and expect everything to fall back into place, as if it was as simple as that. I watched my mom work to keep us all in check and for a while, it felt like he did nothing to contribute to that.”

“That's only natural,” I comfort. “You were a kid, you only saw one side of things. And you appreciate what your dad did for all of you now.”

“Of course. But I didn't see it then. It took me a long time to see it that way and sometimes I look back and realise that perhaps the only reason I changed my view on his decisions was because I'm where I am now. When I started on the road, I realised what he was putting himself through to provide for us.” He pauses. “What if our son never sees it like that?”

“And what about our daughter?” I challenge. “You don't think she'll see it like that? My mom raised me and my brother single-handedly. I sure as hell had a whole arson full of resentment for my dad.”

He frowns. “That's not what I mean.”

“I know,” I soften. “I do, honestly, Ro. But what I'm trying to say that if that's your reason for wanting to find out, I don't think those feelings are exclusive to just boys.”

“I just want to know how I'm supposed to react.”

I cup his cheek, my fingers brushing against his temple. “I'm scared too. I can read all the books I like, but nothing is going to prepare me for when they hand me our baby for the first time. I have no idea how I'm going to feel then. I hope I feel the same love I feel right now, but who knows? I'm petrified that I'm in love with an idea of what it's going to be like, rather than the reality. I'm terrified that I'm going to be a bad mother, that I'm going to do everything that I'm not supposed to.” I shift further up on the couch so that I can press my forehead against his. “You're not alone in this, Ro. I'm right there with you.”

“You make it look so easy,” he tells me. “You're a natural at this, Lex. Some days I still can't get my head around the fact that you're pregnant, yet you take it all in your stride.”

“I cried when I first realised my bump was visible,” I confess and his eyes widen. “It all felt too real and I didn't know how to handle it.”

“Baby girl...”

“And then,” I continue with a smile. “You came home a few days later and you were in such awe of it, touching it, kissing it. All the anxiety and insecurities that I was feeling just vanished in an instant. You made me feel proud of how my body was changing, excited for all the changes to come.”

His lips brush against mine briefly.

“You make me realise I can do this, Ro. You make me stronger by doing and saying things that make me feel a thousand times better, no matter what baby-related, fear-inducing moment or thought I've just had. And I want to do the same for you. I want to make you realise that you can do this too.” I pause. “Because I can't do this without you. I really can't. And that doesn't mean you always being in the same city or even the same house as me. You do plenty to make me feel like I'm not alone when you're on the road. And I just need to know that's not going to change.”

“Never, I promise.” He holds my gaze steadily, his thumb stroking my cheek gently before he cups the back of my head. “I got you, you got me.”

“Exactly,” I smile. “And I totally got you, Ro. Boy or girl, you can do this. I know you'll love whatever we have, I know you'll always do what's right for our family, whether you're here or in a city on the other side of the country, because that's what you've always done for me and I know that's what you'll do for Pumpkin.”

I rest my hand over his and then we both freeze.

“Was that...?” Roman starts, trailing off as there's another, barely there kick.

“Yes,” I giggle.

“Have you ever felt that before?”

“No,” I whisper, staring down at our hands before raising my eyes to meet his.

“Shit,” Roman murmurs. “That felt–”

“Weird,” I grin. “That was definitely not a flutter like I've felt before.”

We're both quiet for a few minutes, our hands still on my bump waiting for more, but it seems that the show is over.

“Looks like that was reserved just for you,” I tell him as I slowly start to get off the couch, a yawn taking hold of me as I notice how late it is. I hold out my hand to Roman. “You staying up or coming to bed?”

But he doesn't answer me, instead he captures my hand and tugs me to him, until I'm stood between his legs as he stares up at me. I watch with a small smile as he brings his face closer, his lips brushing against my swollen belly.

“I love you,” he murmurs, his eyes flickering closed as he wraps his arms around my waist and holds me to him. I can feel his lips moving, the soft vibration of his voice, but the words are lost against my shirt.

But I don't need to hear them to know what he's saying. My hand runs over his head, softly tugging at his hair until he raises his eyes to meet mine.

“We'll be okay, Ro. You'll be okay.”

**

Warm breath on my neck stirs me awake, a hand sliding over my hip, fingers teasing my inner thigh. I stretch, my back arching, my ass hitting something hard.

“Lexi...” Roman's voice is thick and gravelly. His hand moves back to my hip, gripping firmly as he holds me in place, slowly grinding his obvious arousal against my backside.

My fingers scrape against the pillow as I bite back a moan, my body awakening at a faster pace than my mind as I press back against him. He growls his approval, his hand slipping back to my thigh, his fingers teasing once again and my head rocks back, my eyes slowly opening.

Deep brown eyes greet me, full of a beautiful combination of sleep and lust. Gone is the timid nature that he used to approach me with in the early days of pregnancy, when he'd fight to handle me like precious china until I begged him to give me what I wanted. Now I don't have to ask, I don't have to plead. My wonderful, handsome, sex-on-fucking-legs husband is back, showing me exactly what he wants right now as he grinds purposefully, a wicked glint in his eye.

His fingers pluck at my panties in frustration and I'm right there with him, wondering why I made such a stupid decision when getting ready for bed last night. Roman, on the other hand, made the wise choice to wear nothing to bed as usual and I can feel the full length of his dick nestling against my ass cheeks, slipping back and forth with every movement. I grunt impatiently as his fingers slide inside the waistband of my panties for a split second and then retreat to tease me through them instead.

“Patience,” he mumbles, ducking down to capture my lips as he rubs his thumb in soft circles across my clit and then dips a finger further south, tracing my entrance through the material. I can already feel my skin prickling with heat as his tongue pushes languidly into my mouth and I greet it with the same ease.

“Please...” I gasp as he release me, his thumb continuing to tease, his fingers still exploring at a slow and steady pace.

He eventually gives in and I help to push my panties down my legs. I reach for him, pulling him back to me, but he shakes his head. Nudging the sheets away, he reaches for the pillows which have cocooned me for most of the night, but now lay strewn across the bed. He tugs one towards us, easing it under my side.

“Comfortable?” he asks, his hand stroking my hair, sending shivers up and down my spine. I nod, desperate to feel him against me again, but grateful for the way that he continues to make sure I'm okay. He smiles as he settles back behind me once again, gently rocking me so that my belly rests against the pillow, allowing me to move my upper leg higher on the bed.

Mornings have always been my time and pregnancy has just added to that. Even when he's not here, I wake up horny as hell, my mind having to do all the work to transport Roman back to our bed, whilst my fingers touch and tease until I'm screaming his name into my pillow. But today, I don't need to imagine.

He pushes my hair up, blowing warm air on the back of my neck as his fingers run from the top of my spine to the bottom, over as my ass and back between my legs. I hum in approval as one finger slides against my entrance and his corresponding groan tells me everything I need to know. I can feel it too, an intense warmth slowly brewing in the pit of my stomach, my thighs starting to ache as he swipes his finger back and forth. 

“Damn, baby girl... You get wetter every time...”

His words make me swallow hard, my head starting to spin as his finger dips inside me for a brief second.

“Ro...”

“That's it, Lexi... Fuck...”

His finger lingers this time, curling inside me until I cry out and he chuckles in satisfaction.

“More?” he questions with a groan and I nod jerkily as his thumb circles my clit. “Slow? Hard? Tell me, Lexi. Tell me what you want.”

“You,” I gasp. “Slow...”

He nuzzles my neck, my head rocking back again so he can kiss me again, swallowing my inevitable moan as his finger pushes back inside me and he starts to side in and out at a glacial pace. I can hear how wet I am, the sounds of my slick pussy filling the room along with my muffled moans and gasps for breath.

His other arm curls around me, his hand seeking out a breast, cupping it softly at first. His thumb takes a gentle swipe at my nipple and I flinch at how sensitive they've become.

“No,” I groan as he lets go instantly. “Just... Gentle...”

I need him, I need him like I've always needed him. I want to crash and burn in his arms. I want to scream out his name and feel him pull me close, holding me until I can catch my breath and open my eyes again. I want to feel him take my body and conduct it in the way only he knows how. His instincts always set me on fire, his hands, his mind, his whole being knows me inside and out and I never want to lose that.

“More,” I hiss and he obliges, two fingers pushing back inside me and I automatically clench them tightly. He growls, his dick jerking against my ass still and I feel light-headed at how full I'm going to feel when he's buried deep inside me.

“More?” he asks again, his thumb soft and slow on my clit.

I nod, my own hands clutching at his arms, afraid that he's going to drag this out. I can't take it. I can't take the teasing. I can feel my chest tightening, my eyes squeezing shut as I grind down on his fingers, hissing as they slide deeper inside me. My breath comes in short, rapid gasps as he pushes me closer and closer, his mouth at my ear.

“Fuck, Lex... Ride my fingers, baby girl. Squeeze 'em... That's it... Harder...”

I'm unravelling quicker than I ever imagined, my body shutting down, numbness creeping from my toes up my legs, taking hold of my entire being. All I can focus on are his fingers, between my legs, inside me, on my nipple, tugging it gently as I whimper and then howl, my lungs burning with the effort as my orgasm slams into me.

Roman's fingers slip from me and I watch in a daze as he licks them clean with a grin.

“Better every time,” he tells me, kissing me softly and letting me taste myself on his tongue.

And then I'm rolling, eased onto my stomach, pillows bundled beneath me as he tugs my hips up. I turn my head to the side, smiling as he reaches down to push the hair from my face.

“You okay, baby girl?” He asks, his voice rough with desire as he fists his dick with one hand, the other sliding over my back, down to my ass where he squeezes firmly.

“Yeah... Ro...” I lick my lips, watching his dick slide back and forth in his hand. “Please...”

He grins. “Ssh, you know I got you.” Leaning forward, he presses the tip against my entrance, slipping back and forth and then pulling back so I can see his dick shining with my juices. “How'd you want it? Slow? Fast?”

I shrug. “I just want it.”

He chuckles. “That's my girl.”

My hand reaches forward to grasp at the sheets, to hold myself steady but I still lose my balance as he pushes inside me. He's quick to correct me, his hands on my hips as he pushes further in, slow and steady, fighting to keep himself in check. He feels bigger than ever, my walls tight around him and I can tell from his muttered curse that he can feel that too.

He stills for a second, but I rock back, groaning as I feel my ass press against his pelvis.

“Please,” I choke out, my final plea before he gives me what I want.

His fingers dig in painfully hard as he struggles to keep it slow. But I don't want it slow. I want him to take what he needs as well. I need him to lose a little control, because when he comes undone, when he lets himself get taken over by his animalistic tendencies, that's when my own body lets go too. And I need that. I want to let go.

“Harder.”

He grunts, his hips rocking a little faster, a little rougher. But it's not enough. I twist my head back to face him, my hand moving to brush over his wrist.

“Harder,” I tell him through gritted teeth as I feel a hand slide over the base of my bump and sink south. “Aw, Ro... Fuck...”

His thumb rubs soft circles around my clit, moving closer and closer until I'm panting and begging. And then his arms are scooping under me, pulling me up right and I crash back against his chest.

“Fuck my dick, Lex,” he growls in my ear, a hand on my thigh, gripping firmly as the other seeks out my breast, finger and thumb working at my nipple until I'm fighting back the urge to cry from the onslaught he's currently inflicting on my body.

“Yes,” I manage to squeak out as he grabs my hand and pushes it between my legs. I let my fingers dip down, groaning as I feel his hard, slick length moving in and out of me at a fascinating speed. My back is sticking to his chest, sweat starting to cover my body in a thin sheen as he lets go of my breast and grabs roughly at my hair, pulling my head back so he can attack my neck.

It's fast and furious as we push and pull each other closer and closer. Words slip from his lips, spurring me on as he groans his appreciation for my pussy, my ass, my breasts. His hand slides over mine, pushing my fingers hard against my clit as I cry out, so fucking close to the edge.

And then I'm falling, tumbling into oblivion, my body freezing as another howl rips through me. He keeps thrusting hard, grunting against my neck, his teeth scraping against my skin as he holds me just so, until he starts to pulse inside me.

Still.

A hand on my bump. His lips on my shoulders. His hand dancing over mine, pulling it from my legs and up to his mouth where he kisses the tips of my fingers.

He grumbles softly when I finally pull away, turning to face him so I can kiss away his frown. But he lets me go, sighing as he sees the time and watches me rise on shaky legs and make my way to the bathroom.

When I return, the bed is empty, his shorts from last night gone from the floor as well. I dress and wind my hair up out of the way for the moment before heading downstairs. I can hear the low hum from the radio in the kitchen as I make my way through the lounge to grab my phone from my purse.

I pause at the mantlepiece, fighting the urge to look at the envelope. I take a step forward and then pause again, this time turning until my eyes are fixed on the scrawling handwriting.

Am I being selfish?

Is Roman right?

Would it make this easier if we knew?

I pull my eyes away, head for my purse, pull out my phone.

“Lex?” Roman calls out. “I made you pancakes.”

I grin, heading back past the mantlepiece.

It's only when I'm standing in the doorway of the kitchen that I realise that I'm holding the envelope in my hand.

“Lex?”

I look up, Roman's gaze flickering from my face to my hands.

“We... We don't tell anyone.”

His eyes widen. “No, Lex. You wanted to wait, you wanted–”

“We don't tell anyone,” I repeat, stepping forward, holding out the envelope. “Not Shiv, not Seth, not Becca, not Dean. Not even our parents. No-one.”

I press the envelope into his hands and he grasps it tightly.

“Lex–”

“Open it.”

“Are you–”

“I'm sure.”

His fingers tremble as he tears at the envelope. He holds my gaze as he draws out the slip of paper before lowering his eyes, a wide grin cracking his face in two.

“Boy or girl?” I whisper, but he doesn't answer me. He just hands me the slip of paper.

I stare at it, my brain barely recognising the letters that form the word. But slowly, it clicks into place and I can feel my own face breaking into a smile.

I look up and Roman is staring back at me, his eyes shining.

“Lex,” he breathes. “It's–”

“I know,” I tell him, as he pulls me into his arms. “I know.”

Fin x

[klm-zoflorr]

Incorrect quotes..... Parthogenesis

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Eren: This revenge shit is very unrewarding it turns out. I have lost all my friends and am devoid of the sweet sweet burn of anger now that I've accomplished my goal. Everybody hates me. I'm not allowed less than 50 meters from a government building. Help.

Armin: I TOLD YOU SO!

Eren: Well, good for you!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Commander Magath: *driving down the road*

Hange, driving up the same road: *yelling out the window as she passes him* PIG!

Commander Magath: *yelling back at Hange* BITCH!

Commander Magath: *rounding next curb, he crashes into a hug pig in the middle of the road and dies*

Ymir Fritz, watching on: Ah, if men would just listen

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Sasha: "sex" literally isn't real. "ohhh i just had sex" you "had" sex? where did it go? did it grow legs and run away?? idiot

Marcoco: Stop saying sex when what you mean is gender!!

Connie: I had gender with your mom

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Mikasa: Are you sure this is legal?

Annie: Why, are you taping this?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Hange: God I do not like a single thing about you

Zeke: Tell me more

Hange: This isn't sexting

Zeke: It's better than sexting tbh

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

*Mikasa getting ready for her date with Eren*

Levi: Tell him if he breaks your heart, I'll nail gun his.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Eren: Your future self is talking shit about you right now.

Annie: Joke's on her. I'll ruin her fucking life.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Jean: Connie, Sasha! How could you possibly have gotten into this much trouble in one day?!

Connie: It... It didn't take us the whole day...

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Hange: The bad news is you've lost a lot of blood

Sasha: What's the good news?

Hange: Well we've found most of it!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Grisha: *Calling the doctor* My wife is going into labor what do I do I have forgotten all of my medical training

Doctor on the other end of the call: Is this her first child?

Grisha: No this is her husband

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Kuchel: You are so incredibly full of issues, you should do something about it! Go see a shrink, I don't know!

Kenny Ackerman: Oh yes!

Kenny: I've always been a big fan of head shrinking!

Kuchel: That's not-... That's not what it means...

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Falco: Why is "dark" spelled with a K and not a C?

Zofia: Why not?

Falco: Because you can't "C" in the dark...

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Kenny, at the therapist: Well, that is disappointing

Therapist: What is?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Levi, at Mikasa's funeral: I need a moment with her... Alone. Please.

Everyone: Of course. *They leave*

Levi, leaning over Mikasa′s coffin: Okay, listen here you little shit. I'm not fooled by your cadaver palor and unnatural stillness. I know you’re not dead.

Mikasa: Yeah, no shit.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Connie: Me and Annie, we get along fine in my beat up honda civic. We just don't have room to disagree.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Sasha: It's been hard not having Ymir around. I never thought I'd miss being waterboarded so much.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

*Annie and Porco on their first day as coast guards*

Boss: 7 people died on your watch today

Annie, looking off into the distance: Yes but the coast is fine

Porco:

Boss:

Porco: They were all very mean and refused to tip. So, we just threw them back in the water.

Annie: Also you only found seven. We killed a lot more.

Porco: Yeah, but you didn't have to mention that tho

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Therapist: Kenny, you have a problem verbalising your emotions

Kenny: Can't say I'm surprised

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Hange: Love the train so much.... ...... I sit... ..... It goes........ ........ We arrive!!!!!

Connie: I understand that, but it still doesn't explain why we get to carry all the rails in 40 degree* weather while you sit in the shade and drink a monster energy on the rocks

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Carla: Can I have a private talk with you?

Grisha: Sure, as long as it’s not about tampons, because I just don’t understand them.

Hannes, wearing tampons as earplugs: How? It's so obvious what they're used for!

Carla: I asked for a PRIVATE talk with him!

Grisha: Oh, you just can't separate me and Hannes. We're a package deal!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Eren: Don't you think you're being a little dramatic about me letting your cactus die?

Floch: Dramatic? Perhaps a little.

Floch: Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to look out the window with a grimly satisfied expression.

Floch: I paid this skywriter a lot of money to write “Eren likes pineapple on pizza” in the clouds.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Levi: The sexual tension between me and self-destruction

Kenny: Nothing has sexual tension with you, kid

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Eren: You can diffuse any situation by saying, "are we about to kiss, right now?"

Historia: Eren, not only is that completely false and a ridiculous concept, but it's also not appropriate at all, we are at your trial for global genocide for fuck's sake-

Eren, leaning towards her: Are we about to kiss, right now?

Historia:

Historia, beet red: Nevermind.

Gabi: Can we PLEASE find another judge for this?!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Jean: I've got a joke for you. What's "Ereh" short for?

Armin: What for?

Jean: He's got little legs

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Annie: Im a lesbiab

Annie: Lesbiam

Annie: Less bien

Mikasa: Its okay take ur time

Annie: Girls

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Mikasa: Annie and me buried the hatchet, figured you could try doing the same?

Ymir: I don't bury hatchets

Ymir: I sharpen them.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Eren: I don't like being an adult

Carla: Yup I told you

Eren: You remember how you told me you put me in this world and you can take me out?

Eren: Take me out.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Mikasa: So, you want to be the Sun in my life?

Jean: Yes.

Mikasa: Good, then stay 92,935,700 miles away from me

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Mikasa: Eren, stop! This isn't you, you've gone mad with power!

Eren: Well of course I have.

Eren: Have you ever tried going mad without power?

Eren: It's boring.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Ymir: Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. One for your foe, one for yourself.

Zeke: What a stupid fucking quote. I'm killing way more than two people idiot

Eren: Don't even bury them. Let them rot.

Zeke: Plus it's not like I'm gonna bury myself anyways? Why would I provide free cleaning labor like that

Eren: Maybe you're supposed to die in the grave?

Zeke: I'm not gonna dig myself a grave so someone can push me in and I can die as the biggest idiot that ever walked this Earth

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Udo, watching Gabi: If you were religious, that would be straight-to-hell behavior...

Gabi, putting scorpions in Zeke's dresser after he called her a shitty little kid: I don't believe in heaven or hell, but I do believe in Revenge

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Armin, about Eren: If karma doesn't hit you real quick, I fucking will.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Falco: You know how in greek myths the people that die tragically sometimes get placed among the stars by the gods?

Colt: Yeah?

Falco: Call that a constellation prize.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Sasha, taking care of Reiner after he got injured: It's okay Braus, stay calm, stay calm

Reiner: My name isn't Braus, it's Braun

Sasha: I know, I'm talking to myself.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

*Pieck sliding $5 to the zookeeper*

Pieck: Maybe one of those penguins ends up in my car?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Historia: Fun fact: Blueberries are the only fruit named after a color

Armin: Starfruit

Historia: So close! That's a shape <33

Mikasa: Orange

Historia: Try again! <3 The color orange is named after the fruit.

Connie: Grape! "Gra" for gray! 🍇🤲😊

Historia:

Jean: You also forgot blackberries

Sasha: You idiot, black isn't a color.

Gabi: What about raspberries

Ymir: Green beans?

Falco: Lemons!! ♥️🥰☺️

Reiner: Wait aren't berries not fruit?

Historia: You all are so fucking stupid.

Zeke: What about dragon fruit

Historia: I am going to stone you

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Mikasa: Are oranges named orange because oranges are orange or is orange called orange because oranges are orange?

Connie: Which came first, the orange or the orange?

Historia: Orange was first used to refer to the fruit 1280 years ago but was not used as a color until around 1000 years ago.

Eren: What was the color called before then?

Sasha: There was no color, duh! Everything was black and white!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Hitch: "I'm kind of in a weird mental place right now" I say, as if there are times when I am not in a weird mental place

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Erwin, bleary eyed at 7am: Why are you opening all the windows?

Levi: We have to let air in

Erwin: But it's raining!

Levi: You're not made out of sugar, are you?!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

*Eren getting into Mikasa's car*

Eren: Let's go

Mikasa: Uh... Uh... Hi? Nice to see you too?

*Armin getting into the backseat*

Armin: Wait, she's our Uber driver?

Mikasa: Uber driver? I thought we were going on a date, Eren!

Armin: I thought this was a guy's night out!

Eren: There's been a change of plans.

Mikasa: You could have just asked?? You didn't have to trick us?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Porco: I'm not a 🚩 i'm more like a ⚠️ cause I do warn you, you just don't be listening

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Pieck: I'm not a 🚩 I'm a 🏁 cause you winnin' over there

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Hange: I don’t know the first thing about fashion. Pretty much all I can do is look at something and tell you if it’s clothes or not. This titan? Not clothes.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

*Thru the phone*

Erwin: Hey, I need your help, can you come back?

Hange: Uh, I can't, I'm buying clothes.

Erwin: Alright, well hurry up and come back to base.

Hange: I can't find them.

Erwin: What do you mean you can't find them?

Hange: I can't find them, there's only soup.

Erwin: What do you mean there's only soup?

Hange: It means there's only soup!

Erwin: Well then get out of the soup aisle!

Hange: Alright you don't have to shout at me!

*Silence*

Hange: There's more soup!

Erwin: What do you mean there's more soup?

Hange: There's just more soup!

Erwin: Go into the next aisle!

Hange: There's still soup!

Erwin: Where are you right now?

Hange: I'm at soup!

Erwin: What do you mean you're "at soup?"

Hange: I mean I'm at soup!

Erwin: What store are you in?

Hange: I'm at the soup store!

Erwin: Why are you buying clothes at the soup store?!

Hange: Fuck you!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Zeke: And then we'll be transported to the Paths dimension, and we'll meet Ymir Fritz, that's our long-dead ancestor...

Eren: I can barely tolerate the living, why would I want to commute with the dead?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Armin: Does necromancy only work on animals? What do you do if you accidentally necromancy a fence and then it starts growing branches?

Armin: WHAT DO YOU DO IF YOU NECROMANCY A BOTTLE OF SHAMPOO AND IT TURNS INTO AN ENTIRE PILE OF LIMES?

Armin: What if I accidentally necromancy a vaccine and then someone gets an armful of very live pathogen?

Armin: WHAT'S THE LIMIT ON DEADNESS? HOW RECENTLY DOES SOMETHING HAVE TO BE DEAD? COULD I NECROMANCY A DINOSAUR FOSSIL? WHAT IF I NECROMANCIED THE GROUND AND THEN DINOSAURS STARTED APPEARING?

Armin: WHAT IF I NECROMANCIED A LIMESTONE WALL AND IT JUST TURNED INTO A PILE OF MOLLUSCS? WHAT IF I MOLLUSCED A BUILDING? A MOUNTAIN?

Annie: Armin.

Annie: are u ok

Armin: NO

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Colt's contributions to meetings: What about the impact on civilian populations? Do we have enough ammunition, provisions in storage to not rely on outside help?

Falco's contributions to meetings: Do you think stars have feelings?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Grisha: It's been ten year since my beloved son Zeke died...

Zeke: I was never your beloved son! And quit telling people I'm dead!

Grisha: Sometimes it feels like I can still hear his voice...

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Historia: *wearing a shirt reading "cunt era"*

Eren: *wearing a shirt reading "I'm high as fuck and have a gun in my backpack"*

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Grisha: The bad news is that you have a really rare disease

Rod Reiss: Oh, no. What's the good news?

Grisha: Well, you get to name it!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Eren: What's a good starter vice for someone who wants to get into ruining their life?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Gabi: Smarties

Yelena: Heroin and mass murder

Levi: You're both at very different ends of the spectrum yet I don't think either of you understood the question

Levi: The real answer is Erwin Smith

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Zeke, getting up in the middle of a meeting: Pieck and I are not longer dating

Pieck: Zeke, that's a horrible way to tell people that we got married

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Zeke: My mother and I spent some quality time together. Got our hands dirty.

Pieck: Gardening?

Zeke: Grave-digging.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Historia: Food trucks but instead of food, it's therapy and they're called automofeels

Rod Reiss: I know you're my last living descendant but with that kind of suggestions, I feel like I'd be better off picking a manged rat off the street

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Floch: If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're impressed.

Yelena: But you do know better.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Eren: I wanna be a reverse tooth fairy where I rob people and then scatter human teeth on their bed

Sasha: a dentist

Eren: I don't know what your dentist is doing to you but I think you need to go to the police

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

*Pieck is coming back with McDonalds*

Zeke, reaching for his happy meal: Sorry, but there's no "we" in "fries"

Pieck: But there is an "I" *she steals all of his fries*

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Jean: Well, if you're not at least a little bit gay for your friends, then what kind of friend are you?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Mikasa: The feminine urge to be ominous & terrifying...

Hange: Mood

Mikasa: You are like if a moth was wearing clown shoes.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Eren: A fun fact about me is i have never forgiven anyone for anything

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Bertholt: Have you ever been told you can be a bit intimidating?

Annie: Yes, every day of my life since kindergarten.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Sasha: Being alive is great because there are so many different great vegetables you can sauté. But then there are also The Horrors

Falco: So true

Falco: Actually no. This is weird.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Uri Reiss: What is a sex drive where is the sex going does it even have a licence

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Levi, to Erwin: You're gay because you like men

Levi: I'm gay because I hate women just a tiny bit more than I hate men. We are not the same.

Hange: Yaoi vs shounen

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Annie: What’s it like being tall?

Historia: Is it nice?

Armin: Can you reach comfortably for the cupboards?

Reiner: I live in constant fear of the short people, who, in my experience, will climb four chairs, two boxes, a small coffee table, and six oddly placed stools to get what they want.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Eren: I don't know whether to bail you out, Mikasa, you've been in jail three times.

Zeke: Dad, Eren is cheating.

Grisha: Calm down, son.

Zeke: You are supporting him just because he bought you a hotel on Park Place

Eren: Someone has to take care of him in his old age? Who is going to do it but me? You?

Mikasa: *slyly knocks the Monopoly board off the table😼*

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Reiner: Hey girl ive been yearning for you the normal amount

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Grisha: Great. Here comes the woke mob to cancel me for killing and eating several people.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The 104th, Hange, Erwin, Levi, Grisha, Carla, Hannes wearing party hats, popping confetti cannons and cheering: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Eren: Uh. Thanks I guess?

Historia: You don't like being celebrated?

Eren: I prefer to be villified, my name invoking fear over a great cloud of darkness...

Carla: Muffins, Overlord?

Eren: Thamk you

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Connie: I like you lets go to hell together

Sasha: Hell? More like HELL P!! Ahah

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Rod Reiss: We need back-up with the military police!! Are you free?

Kenny: No actually, I am very expensive.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Connie: Since when are drapes flammable?

Historia: Since always, Connie! Drapes have ALWAYS BEEN FLAMMABLE!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Mikasa: I have yet to encounter a problem where a sword didn't factor into the solution at least in some way.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Parental figure: Don't go into the forest, it's full of lemon-stealing whores!

Teenage Hange: Ooh, spooky!

Teenhange: What specific parts of the woods are they in, so I can avoid them extra hard?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Reiner, in front of Sasha's grave: Rip i was always into you

Sasha, popping out from behind a tree: ? Worst confession ever

Reiner: You're not dead??

Reiner: I lied

Reiner: You are nothing to me

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

*Gabi and Falco looking over the bones of Rod Reiss*

Falco: What happened to him?

Historia: Ah well, he tried to outpizza the Hut

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Falco: I heard it's supposed to rain

Colt: Oh, yeah? But look at this sun!

Zeke:

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Pieck: Brr, getting a bit cold, uh?

Gabi: Yeah, it's supposed to rain later

Zeke:

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

*Zeke passing through next to Magath adressing the kids*

Commander Magath: We're not gonna do the lesson outside today, it's supposed to rain

Zeke:

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Annie: Galliard, mind helping me set up the tables outside for my mind reading scam?

Porco: Don't start this now, it's supposed to rain this afternoon!

Zeke: I heard it's never going to rain again.

Porco: What is the fucking matter with you

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Pieck: I decided I'm actually not gonna break up with you over your corny jokes, Porco convinced me otherwise.

Zeke: What a re-LEAF. I should get you flowers. I know it STEMS from a place of love, now our relationship can BURGEON out of bounds.

Pieck: I changed my mind.

Zeke: Ok, but Porco avocated for me?? Really?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Annie: Zeke? What was that message you sent me?

*Shows him the phone, with a garbled texting mess on it that reads as follows: pleusr bereing qi 2 auffce chabi goht pik 🏹. shi went hair glleiteur pin. kiuk houry aim worrded*

Zeke: "Please bring the key to the office back, Gabi is threatening Pieck at gunpoint, she wants her glitter pen back and I seem to be the only one worried about it."

Annie: I read serial killer diaries with better punctuation than this

Zeke: But do you have the keys?

Annie: No.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Annie: What about the bow emoji?

Zeke: They censored the gun on my phone

Annie: No, look there's the little water gun...

Zeke: It doesn't convey the urgency of the situation

Annie: Nothing in your message conveys the urgency of the situation since you need a degree in foreign languages to understand it

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Commander Magath: Do you have any children?

Dina Fritz: Yes, I have one that's just under two.

Commander Magath: I know how many one is

Commander Magath: Is he big enough to man a cannon yet

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Yelena: Blackmail is such an ugly word. I prefer extortion. The X makes it sound cool.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Reiner: Be myself?? The person who got me into this mess???

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Ymir: Will I find a purpose?

Annie, posing as a fortune teller: No.

Ymir: u didn't do the thing with the cards

Annie: *flips one card, maintaining eye contact* No.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Pieck: *unbuttoning shirt* Oh my god, it's hot as hell in here.

Yelena: Yes, but why are you unbuttoning my shirt?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Connie: You into cars?

Ymir: Yes, it truly was a masterpiece of a film

Connie: No i mean are you a cars person

Ymir: I'm a human.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Connie: I tried making my own Red Bull with crushed up caffeine pills, twenty-one shots of expresso, carbonated licorice water and gummy vitamins. The doctor said I'm lucky to be alive.

Connie, 24 hours before: I can perceive twenty-three spatial dimensions and am fighting my own soul. I'm winning by the way.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Levi: i am at a loss for words to describe how absolutely stupid this plan was!

Sasha, narrating: Despite being at a loss for words, the Captain yelled at us for the next thirty minutes.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

*Hange getting ready to go on an expedition in the titan forest*

Hange: If you hear me screaming bloody murder, there's a good chance I'm enjoying myself.

Levi: ...figured that one out

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Mikasa, when Eren leaves for Zeke's side: You're leaving me? I'm coming with you.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Gabi: What's the difference between Reiner and a magnet?

Gabi: A magnet has a positive side!

Reiner: Ah-Ah. Very funny.

Falco: A magnet would have laughed at this quality joke!

Reiner: I wish I were an household item

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Hange: You know, you look pretty fit yourself. What do you play?

Erwin: Anybody that gets close enough.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Mr. Xaver: I'm sorry Zeke, your dad was pronounced dead

Zeke: *tearing up*

Zeke: I've been pronouncing it wrong this whole time??!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Historia: I tried your "salad" thing today, and Ew. I only ate one of those red and white nasty apple things, and I couldn't handle it after.

Pieck: Radishes, Historia

Historia: Mini dirt apples

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Kenny the Boomer, looking at his dead phone: How do we bring this thing back to life? Magic? Live sacrifice? I know a guy in town-

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Floch, lovingly, to Eren: You inspire me to be so much worse

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Floch, interviewing people: What do you want for Christmas?

Annie: Uhhh... for me to be alive

Levi: You know those microfibers cloths they have at big stores?

Historia: I just want Captain Levi to have a great time. Cause, he's been really really sad and angry lately. And you know, that's all I really need, more happiness in the world.

Connie: I'll say I want a big booty hoe, sitting on my face right now. Blrrr!

Sasha: Free weed!

Eren: Uhhhh.... World peace

Mikasa: Dick

Hange: *Pouring everyone a big glass of her special cocktail* Mental stabilityyyy baby!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Jean: I'd roast you, but my mom says you can't burn trash.

Jean: *moon-walks out of the room*

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Annie: I'm not sure whose twisted idea it was to put hundreds of adolescents in underfunded dilapidated training camps, taught by people whose dreams were crushed years ago, but I admire the sadism.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Yelena: I've tried some eyeliner, thoughts?

Floch: Sorry but someone already has swag in this enimity and it's ME

Yelena: You? Cool? You are like if a moth was wearing clown shoes.

Floch: Where did you even hear that expression

Yelena: Idk

Floch: Well you look like you could stab someone with these anyways

Yelena: The clown shoes?

Floch: The eyeliner.

Yelena: That's the goal

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Zeke organising a play about his life: Porco, I think you should play the role of my father.

Porco: I don't want to be your father??

Zeke: That's perfect, you already know your lines!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Marcel: I don’t know why I do the things I do. Never did. I’m a damn mystery to myself. It makes my existence... Exciting, you know. You never know what's gonna happen. Am I going to jail, am I getting a medal for bravery? Am I driving on the highway at three in the morning to ruin my life and everybody in this town's again??

Ymir: Are you gonna get caught, cooked and eaten by a random girl in the woods?? Who the hell knows.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

*Porco, in his jock attire, yelling at the tv*

Bertholt: You're yelling like the players are actually gonna listen to you

Porco: You're in love with a girl who doesn't even know you exist

Bertholt:

Bertholt: Never talk to me again

*Bertholt goes to his room to try and glue back the shattered remains of his ego*

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Historia: I think my dad never loved me.

Zeke: HA! Loser. I always KNEW my dad never loved me.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Sasha, leaving the Training Corps in s2 to go save her family: There I go side questing again!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Flight attendant: Is there a doctor on the plane?

Armin: Yes, but I'm not that kind of...

Flight attendant: The pilots are debating the merits of the terminologies of "the dark ages" vs. "late antiquity" vs. "the early middle ages".

Armin: Okay. I'm here.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Bertholt: Annie... I need to tell you something.

Annie: Alright?

Bertholt: You're hot then you're cold, you're yes then you're no, you're in and you're out, you're up then you're down, you're right when it's wrong, you... I guess what I want to say is you're incredible and I care about you. You're so good... At everything. I deeply admire you. I could get lost in the blue of your eyes, I feel like I'm flying when I look at you. Your hair is a golden crown, which you deserve because you are a queen. Your laugh is rare and dry like an oasis in the desert, it's the only thing in the world that can quench my thirst. What I'm trying to say is... I love you.

Annie: Alright.

Bertholt:

Annie: Thanks. You... Uh... You always fill a room with your presence... Like a stately sequoia tree.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Sasha: *sees a ghost* omg are you dead

Ghost Gabi: Of corpse

Ghost Gabi: The other ghosts said they'll beat my ass because of this joke. Grave mistake.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Levi: Oh yes, my uncle is out of town, said something about tying up loose ends?

Uri Reiss:

Kenny: *tying up the ends of a black bag filled with a dead body*

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Falco: Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Gabi:

Gabi: I don't think you know what this sentence means

Gabi: But yes, it's a gun.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Connie: Are you alright?

Historia: I'm fine.

Connie: No, but really?

Historia: I mean yeah i carry around an immense sadness that destroys my will to live more and more everyday but like im fine

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Erwin: I rarely find cocaine jokes funny.

Erwin: But occasionally, an one-liner makes me snort.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Annie: We have an issue. Most of your bleeding is internal.

Marcel: Well, isn't that good news?! That's where the blood is supposed to be anyways!

Pieck: I don't think it's in the benefit of humanity as a whole to try to save him...

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Mikasa: I act as if I don't care if people dislike me. But deep down? I secretly enjoy it.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Yes, do believe good cop/bad cop is the essence of the MikAnnie dynamic

Yes, I know titans aren't supposed to leave bones behind. I'm gonna need you to get allll the way off my back about this!

Yes, I did watch the Wednesday series recently. It's a good show, innit? Full of punchy one-liners!

Yes, this end note is getting entirely too repetitive.

Yes, there's more?

*: 104° F for you eagle people

[gerrydelano]

i haven't been around long enough i don't think- can i ask for a summary of moonstained? who is ayla?

yeah, sure! especially since the last time i posted a summary, it was pre-editing so things are a bit different now. whee! thank you for asking ^_^

moonstained is, long story short, a three part series following the POVs of 4 different characters:

casey, a wolf shifter who lives a relatively normal and even boring life until he is nearly killed by a poacher on his way home from work

pruitt, casey's eventual partner and son of a black market dealer (i.e., serial killer) who kills shifters/hires people to do so (YIKES)

ayla, casey's transgender twin sister who goes through a radical change after a significant traumatic experience in book two

and philomena, an also-transgender PA introduced in book one who has some serious chutzpah and falls in love with ayla while they're both stuck in an underground fighting ring, ayla as a fighter and philomena as an undercover medic. waow!

i still have a lot of building to do with the third book in particular, but i've written the first one and sent it off to a professional editor and got AMAZING feedback that i am currently a bit too intimidated to apply LOL so i'm trying to get back in the swing of even just infodumping about the story so i can reconnect with it.

i'll just do the prologue + chapter one of book one!

it begins with a prologue to introduce casey and ayla at age 17, when casey got bit by his friend's little sister after rudely antagonizing her and kind of Earning Retaliation (he was being awkward because he has a crush on the friend, and had no idea what to do with himself other than be a shithead teenage boy. oops!) and he goes to the doctor a few days later after Illness Sets In and gets a confirmation of his soon-to-happen transformation, which sends his stepmom into a RAGE where she wants to sue the friend's family. he freaks his shit because NO? and ayla comes to talk to him; she's currently closeted at this point, and doesn't look so healthy about it. casey is the only one who knows her real name and gender at this point, because she doesn't want to come out to their parents after they reacted Poorly to casey's bisexuality a few years prior. the two eventually agree that they'd be better off if ayla goes through this shifter thing WITH casey, so that he can't get ganged up on by their parents/doesn't have to be alone in it, and she gets to be in a different-different body for a little while sometimes and experience some kind of release even if she thinks she can't transition. it's a selfish suggestion from casey, of course, because her life is hard enough as it is, but she's pretty sure she would have come up with it anyway eventually, too, because they're in everything together.

fast forward a few years and casey works at a museum as a tour guide, and he's so BORED. he loves the job it's a fine job but he didn't get through college and he doesn't think he can advance in any way and generally doesn't have an idea for what he wants to do with his future on a larger scale. he feels sluggish and stagnated and dissatisfied for no real particular reason if you asked him why. but today, he doesn't feel any of that. today, he just feels Watched.

he has a pretty weird day but by the time he has to leave, he's kind of panicking. something just isn't right and he Knows It but he can't do anything About it other than try to go home. you'd think he might tell someone he feels terrified that something is going to happen? noooo of course not. he has a bit of a history of Not telling people things he should because he's convinced himself he won't be taken seriously (thanks mom and dad.) instead, he tries to take an alternative route home, but it doesn't go well and he ends up cornered in an alley by a gunman who insists he at least partially shift (without explaining why. WE know it's because he needs to prove this kid is a shifter so he can take him somewhere else and make him fully shift and then kill/skin him. but casey doesn't know that!) casey in his panic actually starts to let his hands shift into claws, but before anything else can happen:

OOPS! in comes another guy, slitting the gunman's throat!

hi. what? Hi. What?

casey gets grazed with a silver bullet while the struggle takes place and falls on his ass and just watches this happen and is absolutely piss terrified but when it's over and the new guy just starts calmly cleaning up, he is eventually noticed and the guy is like. okay. you can run now. like... go away. run? now please? bye?

and casey is like uhhhhh i don't think i can move!

conversation partially transpires, and before he knows it, he's helping to transport this body to the guy's truck so that he can dispose of it. mind you, they're in the middle of the city. there are Magics afoot here; a veil was thrown down to hide the alley from passersby, there's a charmed tarp that looks like a rolled up carpet to people who aren't paying attention, it's a whole Thing. this guy is Prepared. Why is he prepared. What Is Going On.

casey does not get an answer straight away! he just kind of floats his way to this inlet and they lug the body onto a boat and eventually the guy notices how out of it casey is and brings him to a clinic he can finally cut him loose at, where casey meets philomena and she heals his silver burn with magic. he calls ayla to come get him, but he doesn't tell her what happened.

for like a month.

nice going, casey! ya fucked it up! ya fucked up!!!! as usual.

I WILL STOP HERE but that was chapter one. eventually, casey does find the knife guy again (pruitt) and they strike up a tense but kind of sexually charged relationship that turns into a lot more emotionally intimate stuff as time goes on and he learns more about pruitt's (tortured) life, etc. still, a very unwise relationship, and it leads to some serious consequences by the end and into the next books. wuh oh!

if you want to hear more/have any questions, hit me up!

[lunar-years]

i think roy’s the first person jamie’s ever told about his trip to amsterdam, and i know some people think he’s told georgie about it or at least that georgie knows something bad happened. but. now i’m curious about what jamie talked about in his session with doctor sharon. do you think he only went the one time? maybe focused on his dad’s physical/emotional abuse?

on the Amsterdam & Georgie front: I do have an explanation/reasoning for why i don't think he's told Georgie. I was just messaging someone about it yesterday! But in any case I am pretty convinced Roy was indeed the first person Jamie told. (However there's a really good alternative take in the fic I recommended about Jamie and Amsterdam, in which he does tell Georgie and it pans out in a specific way. That's the one argument for him telling Georgie that I've seen so far that really makes sense to me within a canon context, lol)

it is super interesting that you would bring up Jamie and therapy and Dr. Sharon though, because i was genuinely JUST thinking about this!!! I think a fairly common consensus is that the "don't speak to me like that" language we see in the Wembley locker room is a line direct from Dr. Sharon, and/or that Jamie is king of therapy etc. idk...I'm not convinced on either front. I'm not NOT convinced, either. I don't have a super strong opinion on it one way or another because I don't think there's really enough evidence to support either conclusion, but.

I will say, I personally think the one scene we get of Keeley taking Jamie down to Dr. Sharon's office is not enough to indicate Jamie loves therapy and keeps going back. Like, with Colin we get several small lines/details to show he's consistently seeing her, and we do not with Jamie, which is notable I feel. Yeah, he's shown to be all pleased to be talking about himself in the 2 seconds we see after he sits down with her, and it's a funny moment but... it's very superficial. Jamie likes talking about him in a certain surface-level way for sure, but he definitely keeps personal things about himself and his past close to his chest IMO. So to answer your question, yes I think it's a real possibility that he only went that one time.

As for what they spoke about...the reason Keeley brings him down there is very explicitly because he's complaining that no one on the team likes him, and I do thing that's what they discussed. That's also a problem that get resolves in the very same episode, and I'm not sure Jamie would have the self-insight at that point to be like "hmm maybe I should keep going back to therapy so we can dive into my Dad Trauma." Personally, I think when Jamie isn't immediately dealing with his father he is extremely good at putting him out of his mind and telling himself "that doesn't bother me anymore." He strikes me as generally being like, "Oh yeah i'm totally over everything bad that's ever happened to me! It's so not a big deal 🤪" deflection behavior. That is, until something happens that triggers him or he has another encounter with the man and then it's like...actually yeah that problem has never gone away and I've never actually dealt with any of it! So maybe he goes back for a session or two after Wembley, I could definitely see that. But I don't really think he keeps up with it once Dr. Sharon leaves.

I certainly do hope he returns to it after s3 though!

[ofpineapplesanddawns]

Vampire!Peter + Martin Whitly, Who Is The Real Monster, discussion prompted by rewatching Frankenstein because I am thinking many frankenstein thoughts always these days?

Absolutely hilarious that you sent me a prompt involving Frankenstein cause I was gonna rewatch a video tonight discussing the novel/Junji Ito manga version of it cause it's October and that means horror classics.

But I'll watch that later, I've got a one-shot to write.

On with the fic!

--

Peter shifted about on the couch, trying to make himself more comfortable without spilling his drink. Sure, he could put it on the table, but... nah. He just gave up and flopped on Martin's thighs and wiggled a bit.

"Really? All that for you just picking my lap, as usual?" Martin asked, though not sounding all that offended.

"Yep." Peter replied, loudly sipping from the silly straw in his cup. His attention was on the screen, watching as Victor Frankenstein moved about, talking about his creation, which was going to be brought to life shortly. "Hey, Martin, I've got a question."

"I'm sure you do."

"Why do people always call Frankenstein a doctor when the idiot never actually finished school?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like," Peter shifted to make himself more comfortable, "the book has it where he's still in college, basically. And this is a project he's working on in his fuckin' house, that he shares with other people!"

Martin chuckled, carding his fingers through Peter's hair. "Well, many medical professionals have done experiments at home."

"Not recreating a human body!"

"Not that you know of."

Peter turned up at him, giving him a stare. Martin laughed at this. "No, I'm not included. There would have never been a good time to have a reconstructed corpse in my busy home! Jessica would have found out the moment I brought in the first body part!"

"Or Malcolm would have."

This made Martin scoff. "Oh, possibly. I bring one girl home and suddenly I find myself in a cell for twenty years because my son was a little too curious."

Peter rolled his eyes and slurped his bloody mary that contained real blood. "Still though, why do people call him Dr. Frankenstein if he never even earned that title?"

"Well, I assume it's to separate him from Frankenstein the monster."

"I guess, but that's dumb."

"How so?" Martin asked, attention now on Peter rather than the movie where the monster's body is currently being brought to life. Peter had seen this scene enough times to not bother looking at the screen.

"It's... ya know, I mean. The monster is his own person, he's not Frankenstein! He learns to speak and read later in the novel through his communications with a family, before everything goes to shit cause, whoops, he can't have anythin' nice, no thanks to that bitch Victor. He even tells his creator that he is basically his Adam. Probably why people call him that when they talk about these two."

Martin shrugged. "I suppose so, he is a rather smart human-like being, even though the movies tend to not show that."

"Ehhh... I think Van Helsing did? Can't remember, it's been ages since I've sat down and watched that one sober." Peter finished off his drink, setting the cup aside to cross his arms. "But anyway, it's so weird that the movies kinda fuck up his character."

"The monster?"

"Yeah! He's smart, he's caring, but he is also angry, which they get right. I mean, I'd be fuckin' mad at my creator for bringin' me to life and then abandoning me. Oh wait, I have! Fuck my sire! Killed that bitch. Still, like, he's human, in his own right! No need to call him the monster."

"Ah, but does this play into the common question people have about him and his creator? Who is the monster and who is the man?" Martin asked, smiling. "I remember having a discussion about this once with Malcolm, he had been reading the book in school and it had him thinking about me."

Peter raised an eyebrow. "About you?"

"Well, at this point I was in my cell, so he knew that I was the Surgeon. But at the time, Malcolm had explained to me that he saw that how I presented myself to the world and the person hidden from it, the one that was dangerous, were like Frankenstein and the monster."

"Thought you'd be more Jekyll and Hyde."

"I thought so too, but he explained it as... oh..." He tapped his chin. "Ah, yes, he said that I presented myself as this brilliant scientist, who tried to keep up a normal life, and yet I hide from the world a creation made of horrible deeds through the pursuit of knowledge. And, like Victor Frankenstein, to deal with troubling thoughts. This 'creature' I created, the Surgeon, could pretend to be human, but was still a monster, even if he knew the right ways to be human, he just wasn't one due to who he was."

Martin then leaned back, smiling. "I think my boy was overthinking it, believing that I am both the man and the monster, as both of these characters are in their own right. It still sounded Jekyll and Hyde to me, but then again, Malcolm always did find ways to relate me to more conflicting philosophies and thoughts. What a clever boy."

Peter wasn't sure what to say to that, so decided to change the subject. "Did you know only one adaptation of Frankenstein actually brings up that the eight-foot tall man is hung like a fuckin' horse?"

"Only you would go from deep thoughts of humanity to thinking about someone's groin."

"It's Young Frankenstein, in case you're wonderin'." Peter grinned.

--

Personally, I have no idea who is the monster and who is the man, both are so very, very human and I think that's the point.

*jazz hands*

And yes, Peter is correct about that last fact. Also, apparently, the Universal movie is based on a play adaptation that changed so much of the original plot.

Just some fun facts right there.

[gwydionmisha]

The Damages

So it turns out everything the PT said to me except the part about how to put on a shirt post injury was misinformation. We went to the appointment so they could show me how to wear the real sling and I showed him the angle she had me where the Special fat people torture sling and he was like: That's not how you wear a sling, but they do it that way on TV a lot. O.o I'd had my entire arm in a stress position for two weeks while healing from shoulder replacement because the PT taught me to torture myself because she had no idea how slings work.

At some point late last week I started thinking of the way little kids play being a Doctor with stuffed animals. The way the PT handled my arm was about as accurate to medical practice as my sister when she was small taping up a stuffed animal's arm pretending it was broken.

She was so very, very confident in her ignorance.

All that dance and martial arts training I had made everything worse. My body is an absolute ruin that literally eats itself, but there is a particular kind of physical self discipline that is so ingrained it never goes away.

You tell me to hold a position or do a particular movement no matter how weird or awkward, I will study it and then work persistently until I get so I can do it over and over and over correctly or hold it as long as you need me to or whatever. I will work up slowly as I need too, but I do the thing over and over for longer and longer day after day after day.

This is why I did so well at pre-op physio. Doesn't matter if I hurt. Doesn't matter if I'm exhausted. I kept working the program right up to the edge of what I could do without doing damage that would slow progress. All those years as an athlete I'm good at telling pain that's just pain from pain that means stop.

You tell me it is essential to hold these incredibly difficult and painful positions to speed recovery, I slowly, persistently, relentlessly do terrible things to myself, which is a problem if the person giving orders has no idea what they are doing and is telling me the opposite of the correct things.

So then we go to the post surgical doctor appointment and have to explain it all again. The face of the PA and the little sound she made when I said the PT had confiscated the sling they'd put on me for a generic XL. The way her mouth went thin and expression hardened when I explained the PT had made very clear we had to do this because of my size and her fast and furious typing. The tone in the Doctor's voice when he said, "They took your sling?" (I used to sound like that when I was teaching and about to bring the hammer down on one of the instigator kids.) All the other careful questions from the Doctor.

I should be ready to do serious PT now. Instead I'm having to work my ass of with the goal of getting my arm back to as undamaged as it was three or four days after surgery.

I am furious. I did everything right and did my damnedest to do everything they told me until I physically couldn't because of the exponential damage. I endured two weeks of extreme sleep dep and stress positions on wounded limbs and blood circulation restriction for nothing. I could have been sleeping and resting the arm between short gentle physio exercises they didn't even hurt until the arm got too damaged to do them.

She stole all this from me and the time and effort it's going to take to get me back to where I could have been if the hospital had just handed us printed directions and sent me home instead of sending a PT to misinform me and make me wear the wrong sling.

So yeah, that sure is fun to live with.

I did tell them that I'm worried it could happen to someone else because they do a lot of shoulder replacements at the hospital. Problem is, I don't know her name. They did keep asking, because they also clearly don't want this terrible thing. Surely there must be records of who was on shift that day, mustn't there be?

They think there won't be real permanent damage, but Squirrel took me for an x-ray today to see if there is anything needing fixing because of Missinformation PT. I am worried about the possibilities of more procedures because I'm not convinced I should take even tramadol for a few months, and I need to let my stomach recover from all that tylanol.

The arm hurts of course, but I'm used to pain and am very, very good at enduring it. Which worked against me the last two weeks, of course, but in the ordinary run of things lets me function with daily chronic pain that would lay ableds flat. I have one of the best non-narcotic prescription arthritis meds, one not normally covered by medicare, but which my allergies give me access too. The Doctor was a little alarmed that my ordinary daily meds are my entire pain management plan at this stage of post surgical recovery, but while unpleasant, this is fine. Like within my normal range of how much pain I randomly wake up with and significantly less pain than say the week before surgery.

I think it's hard for ableds to conceptualize just how hard this level of chronic pain/illness is to live with. I think the permanence and extremity of it is hard to conceptualize if you don;t live with it and never had say cancer of a really bad accident with a long recovery.

So I'm back to slowly, persistently, relentlessly working the program. I can already straighten my arm and am back on pendulums. My arm, shoulder, hand, etc. have forgotten what natural resting positions, feel like, but I'm working on it. The stiffness and mild numbness in my hand are annoying, but supposedly temporary. The flexeril is really helping with the contracted, spasmed muscles in my back neck and shoulder and not having to prop the injured arm into a painful stress position during sleep is a lot easier. I am cleared to side sleep, but it pulls the incisions and the damaged shoulder too much, but soon, soon. I've already worked out a prop system for back sleeping that mostly supports the arm in a natural angle. I could have been sleeping like this this whole time. Makes me want to weep.

I'm still having to type with just the off hand. I'm better at it than I was, but it tires easily. I write a while, but need to rest it, and how much I can do at a time varies. This means it may still be a little while until regular service on things like the aggregate will resume. I will let you all know how it goes.

[stewardofningishzida]

Chapter 1: First Meeting

All right, guys. This is just for fun because it popped into my head and I wanted to amuse myself and maybe see where it goes. If someone likes it, maybe I’ll continue. If not, then eh. Since I’ve been a fan of Doctor Strange for a while, it might be funny to see/read what would happen if he landed here in our world. In this case, since I’m already a magnet for weirdness (please read my real life stories), he accidentally landed in my house. To avoid the whole “incursion” thing, let’s go with “this universe doesn’t actually have a Stephen Strange variant” or maybe “this universe has slightly different rules to it so an incursion wouldn’t really happen”. I’ll keep it ambiguous. Anyway, have fun.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *I’m browsing on the internet while sitting on my bed, half-asleep and bored out of my mind. Out of nowhere, I see a ring of golden sparks appear in front of my closet and look up, startled. Within 2 seconds, I’m on my feet and see a man fall through the portal onto my floor.*

Me: What the hell is this?! *I grab my replica of Sting from the wall and hold it threateningly.* Who are you and what do you want? You have 3 seconds to start explaining and it had better be good! *I’m trying to be intimidating just in case. He LOOKS like Doctor Strange and the portal was there a second ago, but things don’t work that way in this universe. So, how would this be possible. I’m silently questioning my sanity while trying to keep track of the potential home invader.*

*Stephen looks up at me, both confused and irritated by the experience. He gets up.* Stephen (sarcastic): Nice to meet you too. Where am I, exactly?

Me: Well, you’re sure as hell not supposed to be here. *I’m on the defensive.*

Stephen: First off, rude. Second, could you at least lower the movie prop? I’m not happy about this situation either.

Me: I will when you tell me who you are and what’s going on.

Stephen: Fine. I’m Doctor Stephen Strange and I just got shoved through an interdimensional portal by the guy I was fighting before I ended up in this mess.

*I stare at him, processing this. It looks like my brain is about to short-circuit.*

Me: H-How? Sorcery isn’t a thing here. You literally just broke the laws of physics…Okay…I’m clearly awake…So…Am I insane?

Stephen (snarky): I don’t know you, so it’s possible.

Me (glaring): Fine…Show me some more proof. Otherwise, I’m not going to believe some comic book character landed in my bedroom.

Stephen: Comic book character? *He gives me a weird look* Never mind. You want proof? Here. *He uses the Crimson Bands of Cittorak to grab one of my action figures across the room and drops it at my feet. I’m stunned into silence and lower my weapon.*

Me (small voice): Okay…

Stephen: Now will you tell me where I am?

Me: Y-Yeah…You’re not in your universe anymore. It’s still *an* Earth, though. Heck, you’re not even in New York either. *I explain where we are. Stephen listens.*

Stephen (sarcastic): Well, this has been fun, but I’ve got to get back to my world and deal with the latest unspeakable evil. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll be on my…Shit…*He looks at his hand and feels around his robes.*

Me: Your Sling Ring’s gone?

Stephen: Yeah. I-How do you know about that?

Me: Told you. In our world, you’re a fictional character from a comic book. We even have movies about you and others. A lot of people have read about your life and adventures.

Stephen: …Somehow, it’s not the weirdest thing I’ve come across, but it’s definitely not a pleasant piece of news.

Me: So…What do we do, then?

Stephen: We?

Me: Well, it’s not like you can just waltz outside with your outfit, magic blazing. Plus, you probably don’t have any documentation or anything for this universe. So, you’d have to create a whole new existence here. You’re not on record or anything besides in the movies and comics.

*He sighs, defeated for the time being*

Stephen: Fine…I’ll have to think of something.

Me: Sure. Meanwhile, I guess you can stay here. It’s probably your safest bet until things can be sorted out.

Stephen (begrudgingly): Thanks.

Me: Maybe Wong will find you or something.

Stephen: Hope so. What’s your name again?

Me: Steward. (I’m just going by my tumblr name.)

Stephen: Thanks for your hospitality, Steward. I’ll try to make this stay brief.

Me: Just don’t blow up the neighborhood, okay?

~~To be continued?~~

[starlightshadowsworld]

Okay quick question about Behind the Hockey Mask, how come Angle hasn't told anybody about her dad? Did Casey tell her not to, or did she learn not to tell?

The reason Angel hasn't told is mostly for the reasons Casey's never told anyone.

Both of them are used to this.

Angel was 2 when her mother died, now she's 7.

She doesn't remember life being any different.

To Angel her dad is sick.

That's what Casey believes and told her.

This what happens when dad is sick.

If anyone asks about him that's what she says.

Do people have speculations, especially say teachers when Casey goes to her parents evenings and school plays and is the one to pick her up?

Absolutely.

But Angel doesn't have so much as a scratch on her.

Arnold has never hurt his daughter.

And so their is no proof.

Casey has tried his best to sheild her from knowing about any of this.

But she knows.

But it's what happens sometimes when dad is sick.

He gets confused.

He gets angry.

She has to let him rest.

But... Their have been occasions when Casey has gotten hurt and Angel has witnessed it.

She froze.

A bloodsoaked Casey crawled over and held her in his arms.

Hushing her, rocking her in his arms that it's okay it's okay.

She's scared for him and no your hurt Casey... Dad hurt you.

And Casey smiles, he's missing a tooth and kisses her head that "dad's having a bad day today, but he's okay now."

"Are you okay?"

"I've got you hear Angel cake, your all I need." He says with a pained smile, using his non bloody hand to ruffle her hair.

"But you can't tell anyone about how sick dad is okay? That he gets like that."

"But why? Than they get dad to a doctors, that's where you go when your poorly and than you won't get hurt anymore."

"Your a real smart cookie aren't you? But, if that happens they'll take us away from each other. You'll have to go live with some other family, dad will be sent somewhere we can't find him and I'll be off somewhere else."

Grabby hands clench his hoodie.

"No!"

"So I need you to promise me you won't tell anyone."

"... Even Mr hippo?"

"Heh, okay you can tell him but no one else. And keep an eye on Mr hippo, I've seen him talk to Lady Jezebel at tea parties he loves to gossip."

Giggles "okay, I pinky promise."

I imagine the day the turtles find out, Angel grabs Casey's phone and calls April for help.

Because she's scared.

Because she doesn't know what to do because her brother isn't moving and her dad's left and Mrs Smith down the hall is out.

And she's met April, April's kind and sweet and makes Casey smile and he calls her Red and there best friends.

And friends help friends, right?

"Casey! Please tell me you changed your mind and are coming to movie night."

"...."

"Mikey wants you to know he even bought mint chocolate ice creams just for you."

"... I..."

"Casey? You there?"

"April...I'm Angel"

"Angel? Hey, what a suprise... Hey, hey what's wrong?"

"He won't wake up."

"Who won't wake up?"

"Casey. He won't get up and he's hurt and dad went out and I don't... Crying"

"Angel, where are you?"

"His room"

"Okay, okay I'm coming as fast as I can okay. You stay with him, is Casey breathing?"

"Y-yeah, your really coming?"

"Sure am"

She sees the others all getting up, no words are needed.

"I'm gonna bring some friends too. But he's going to be okay, I'm going to make sure of it."

"Please hurry."

[thegeminisage]

tng update time, brief because i am BUSY. two nights ago we caught "contagion" together, yesterday i watched "the royale" on my own, and just now i finished "time squared."

contagion: don't know why this one was recced by so amny people because it was VERY boring. because it had romulans in it? it's not even unwatchably bad or anything, i just...didn't care

did like that the romulan commander was a woman though. just like the enterprise incident. where's spock when you need him

the archaeology angle was stupid. "oooh i have to go i've been studying them since i was a lad" you literally do not have to go "well china was thought to be only a myth until marco polo traveled there" bitch, not to the fucking chinese. get a grip.

the fakeout data death...girl we know he's going to be fine! i did like him throwing geordi around though he made the little faces <3 and i was very proud of him for continuing to work when he had a little computer virus. aw. maybe less glad that picard didn't give him any extra priase for doing so but whatever we can't have high expectations for this ep

anyway it was all just very overly contrived. and i was bored.

the royale: this had a great setup because i love when star trek talks about nasa. that made me really excited for what turned out to ultimately be a holodeck episode

played this one on 2x speed genuinely (my deepest dishonor - bad ones get 1.25x, really bad ones get 1.5x, and horrible ones alone get 2x speed)

like, if you changed it a little, you could say the holodeck is broken and won't let you out until you pretend to be investors and win big in the casino! it's the same thing. i guess they didn't want people thinking the holodeck was dangerous and unreliable, which it is

anyway, i liked data blowing on the dice. that was all though

time squared: this one blew my tits clean off. amazing. 10/10. it's like the immunity syndrome, enemy within, and doomsday machine had a time traveling baby

there is like a little bit of time travel technobabble that makes no sense whatsoever. and i did get the final twist spoiled for me. but it doesn't MATTER. neither of those things mattered because i was still sitting there with my jaw on the ground after the end

like, one website called this one confusing. sure yeah a little bit. they were playing very fast and loose with both their own rules established in the episode and the greater rules of the franchise as a whole. but the point is the character arc

like. picard sees himself make a decision that will destroy his ship. he sees himself fail utterly to do everything he holds sacred - he did not even GO DOWN with his ship. he is facing a matt decker doomsday machine of a situation. remember when kirk pitied matt decker because he saw his whole crew die and was helpless to stop it but was also a little put off by him because he couldn't possibly imagine himself in that situation? but with picard IT IS himself. it's green shirt john crichton and black shirt john crichton. they're BOTH the real picard but one of them has been through something unimaginably horrible

AND WHEN THAT PICARD. ENDANGERS THE SHIP. like. IN COLD BLOOD our picard chooses to kill him. and in my personal interpretation he thinks of it as mercy. but like he still shot him while looking directly at him and NO ONE knows what he did because he DIDNT TELL THEM except he called the fucking doctor for some reason

like at the end he's just staring out of a window. and riker is like hi im here to let you talk about it! and picard doesn't talk about it and riker goes away and in the end he is just staring out of the fucking window and they just ROLL CREDITS a real "anyway! these are the voyages of the starship enterprise" of a situation aka what i always loved about tos episodes (honorific)

i THINK this is a cross-section of drag me to hell and there was no laugh track but further contemplation required. straight banger i fucking loved it

i still have to do "the icaurs factor" and "pen pals" alone, but then we get to do "q who" together WHICH IS THE BORG EPISODE i cannot wait. nobody tell me ANYTHING.

[sunnyie-eve]

21 || Can Make It

Series: Trust | Maze Runner (Thomas x OFC)

Word Count: 1.5k

Warnings: none

A/N: Might be a few mistakes

| MASTERLIST |

"Don't waste your breath, Teresa." Janson shows up. "He made his choice long ago." Soldiers show up.

"Back up. Tell them to back off. Tell them to back off!" Thomas grabs Teresa pointing a gun at her head.

"Hey, Thomas, come on. It's me. I've know you longer than you can remember. You're not gonna shoot her." Janson explains to him.

"You don't think so?" Thomas asks him still holding Teresa.

"Okay. Go on them. Shoot her. Prove me wrong. Shoot her." Janson puts his gun down waiting to see if he'll do it.

Teresa shoves Thomas back pulling a fire alarm making a door shut us away from them. We leave them going to find Minho. We walk through the halls and Doctors look at us but we keep walking till Thomas sees Ava and Janson finds us. We make a move shouting Minho's names hoping we find him.

"I'm almost out." Newt says as we hid behind a wall.

"I am out." I toss my gun to the side while Thomas keeps shooting.

Newt goes over to the solider on the ground getting a shock grenade tossing it at the men down the hall.

"Nice. All right." Thomas tells him so we get a move on again. "Let's go." We turn the corner runner into a soldier.

"You three freeze. Get down on the ground right now." He points his gun at us before getting knocked out by Minho because he throws him through a glass window.

"Minho." The three of us run giving him a hug.

"Is this real?" He looks at us but we have to end the reunion as more soldiers show up.

We end up running into a room where we had no exit. Minho and Newt barricaded the door and I look out the window seeing how high up we were. "I'm gonna be sick." My heart starts to pound.

The sound and light from a saw shakes up look at the door. "Any ideas?" Minho asks so we look at Thomas.

"Maybe." I start to shake my head as they find something to throw through the glass.

The four of us look down at the water, "Okay, it's doable. Just need a little running start." Thomas says making me laugh.

"Thomas, you remember my fear of heights. Right?" I walk over to him as he pumps himself to jump.

"I know and I'm sorry but this is our only option." Thomas tells me.

"You sure about this?" Minho looks at our only exit.

"Not really." Thomas says making us feel good about this.

"Nice pep talk." I glare at him.

"Yeah, we're all bloody inspired." Newt says as we stand in a read position.

The door busts open making us run and jump out of the building. "I HATE THIS!" I scream as we fall before landing in the water below us. We come up for air looking up from where we jumped.

"You okay?" Thomas helps me out of the water.

"I don't love you anymore." I say making him chuckle.

"You four, don't move." A group of soldiers point their guns at us.

"Oh, you gotta be kidding me." Thomas say as they move in on us.

As they get closer one shoots the others making me let out a sigh and by the look on Newt and Thomas's face they forgot about Gally.

"That was cool." I walk over to him as he comes closer to us taking off his mask.

"Thanks." He gives me a smile while Minho was shocked to see Gally. "Minho. You guys are nuts. Did you pee your on the way down?" Gally looks up then laughs at me.

"Fuck you." I kick his ass as we walk away.

"Well you have a fear of heights. I'm surprised you even did it." He says making me laugh.

"Gally, while we thought you were dead... I've had to do things that included heights. Run on a metal beam on a time limit, climbing up fallen buildings, sliding down a slanted floor that the bottom was an broken window... That over a deadly fall. If it's life or death... I'll push through my fear." I explain to him my adventures.

As we make our way through the city we try our best to avoid getting spotted. "Well, they're definitely pissed." Gally says as we stop to hide.

"How far are the tunnels?" Thomas asks him.

"Uh, maybe 12 blocks from here." Gally says as Newt starts to cough making me put my hand on his shoulder rubbing it.

"We can make, okay." I tries her best to stay strong because I didn't want to lose her best friend.

"Newt, how are you feeling?" Minho asks him.

"Terrible. It's good to see you though." He gives Minho a smile before he goes over to Thomas and Gally.

"Newt, we got Minho back... So now we are going to help you. You're first now." I grab his face to make him look at me.

"You sat alone." He smiles at me confusing me. What was he talking about?

"Hey, Newt. Come on, bud. We gotta get you up." Thomas takes Newt from me.

"Why are you helping us Gally? I put a spear through your chest." I look over at Minho talking to him.

"Yeah. Nobody's perfect, man." Gally last him on the shoulder making me laugh.

"Let's go, Minho." I help him up and we get going.

As we were making our way to the tunnels, Thomas and Minho hold up Newt, suddenly an explosion goes off making us stop in the middle of the road. "We're supposed to take down Wicked, not the whole damn city." Gally stares at the fire.

"Gally, come on." Thomas starts to walks with Minho and Newt.

"I know you were helping them and they took you in but we have to go." I place my hand on his arm making him turn to continue.

Soon the sirens start to blare. "Tunnels are right up ahead. Shit! Hey! Stay low! Stay low!" Gally tells us as we see a line of soldiers so we all duck behind something.

"Damn it!" Gally stops looking.

"What are they waiting for?" Minho asks right before an explosion happens followed by a crowd yelling.

As soon as the shooting starts Thomas grabs me keeping me in his arms trying to protect me as we all huddle together.

-

More explosions go off making them all lay down on the floor. "Get down, get down! Stay down! Stay down! We gotta go. We gotta go. Come on. Let's move, let's move." They all get up and Gally leads the way.

"Thomas! Try radioing for Brenda." Elizabeth tells him as they take cover in a building.

As he does that Liz and Minho stay next to Newt. "You can push through this. You're strong Newt." Elizabeth makes him look at her again and he shakes his head no. "Yes! You promised me best friends forever damn it!" She kiss his forehead as more explosions outside keep going.

"We gotta go. They're coming to get us near the tunnels." Thomas gets up grabbing Newt with Minho.

"All right. Okay, lets go. Come on." Gally gets ready and they head out.

"Come on, we can make it!" Liz looks back at the three struggling behind her. She hated to admit it but the way Newt looked... There was a slim chance of getting him the serum in time, but there was no way she was going to give up.

"All right. Newt, we're almost there." Gally tells him.

"Just leave me." Newt groans right before a car is blow back making them all fall backwards.

"Back! Back!" Gally tells them as a crowd of people run past them.

Suddenly they all hear an engine humming and look up knowing it was the others.

"Okay, that's them. We gotta go. We gotta go." Thomas says rushing to get Newt up.

"Go without me, man. You should just..." Newt coughs and wheezes.

"Minho, Elizabeth. You gotta run ahead, grab the serum, and get back to us as soon as you can." Thomas makes them look at him.

"I'm not leaving Newt's side." Elizabeth disagrees for herself.

"Whenever we have been running, you pass us up. You're fast so go." Thomas looks at her.

"He's right. I can cover you both." Gally gets ready while the two look at Newt.

"Thank you. Thank you, Minho." Newt grabs Minho.

"Hey, you just hang on. You hear me?" Minho tells him then Liz runs her hand through Newt's hair.

"You better keep that promise, Newt. I'll be back and we'll make you better." She kisses his forehead as tears fall from her eyes.

"I love you, Ellie." Newt forces a smile putting a pinky out.

"I love you too." She grabs his with hers before getting up running off ahead of the boys.

As Newt watches her run off his mind thinks back to the very first day her met her. Not in the Glade but before it when they were just little kids. Small little memories flashed through his eyes as he stared off into the distance. "Yeah, best friends forever." He puts a pinky out so she take it with hers. "Promise?" She looks him in the eyes. "Promise." He gives her a big smile as they lock it tight.

[legends-of-time]

Thorn Bush (Doctor Who Story)

Chapter 2: Tooth and Claw

Masterlist

A/N: It's weird how I have had the basic bones of Kathy's timeline written out for years and years and now here I am attempting to actually write it.

——

"Okay, you're telling your real! You're telling me that this..." Kathy swings her arms around gesturing to the console room of the TARDIS that she's standing in with the Doctor and Rose in front of her, "is real! You two are real! This is—"

Ten then quickly cuts her off. "YES!" Kathy shuts her mouth as she tries to stop herself from hyperventilating. "Blimey, I thought I had a gob."

"Oi!"

"You alright?" Rose then asks her worriedly.

"Yeah, yeah fine. Perfectly fine. Nothing wrong." Kathy ramble. Then a thought comes to her. "Wait when did we meet? You two know me. How?"

"Well... wait I can't tell you that! Spoilers! It's your personal timeline." The Doctor cries, seeming a bit tense. Kathy sees Rose looks mildly upset but it quickly goes and is replaced by a smile. What was that all about?

"Right okay, I know you can't tell me everything but you could at least tell me something, like who I am, what I am. Cause I'm pretty sure I have two hearts which isn't exactly human."

"Well, you haven't explained everything really but you did say to explain to you what we know when you first meet us..." Rose murmurs. "Y-you said that um your father was half Time Lord, half Apa-apalu- ugh can't say it! Doctor?"

"Apalapucian. They are dominant over your human side."

"Yeah that. But anyway, you said you didn't know anything else." Wait, what?!

"Hold on, does this mean I regenerate? Do I change faces?" Kathy asks well, more like demands.

"Well... not exactly." The Doctor says. "You explained that you don't heal the way I do, that your face stays the same because of your Apalapucia side."

"Huh..." Well, at least she knows now.

"Also, that bit about being from a different dimension. So, you basically know a load about us anyway." Rose then adds. "God that was a lot of information then, wasn't it?" She smiles cheekily.

The Doctor and Kathy laugh at that.

"Yeah... wait!" Kathy says startling the other two. "How many of you from your point of view have I met?"

"We'll only the current one," he points to his face smiling, "and my last one. No one before then as far as I know."

Kathy nods. That's good considering she hasn't really seen the show before that point.

"Right now, that is out of the way, how about we go somewhere?" The Doctor says cheerfully.

Rose laughs. "Why not? Kathy needs more evidence."

"I'm pregnant." Kathy blurts out as if they couldn't already see that from her stomach.

"It'll be fine. I won't take you anywhere unsafe. I promise." The Doctor reassures her but she doesn't believe him and she thinks her silence says everything. "W-well, uuuuhhhh, I-I'll try my best?" He awkwardly scratches the back of his head.

Kathy purses her lips. "Fine." Rose whoops.

"Well how about the 70s? Eh? You two could get charged." The Doctor proposes.

"Yeah, alright sounds like a laugh," Rose says. She goes to grab her bag to change into while Kathy just stands there watching the Doctor put the TARDIS into flight mode.

"Hello." Kathy hears the word spoken in her head that sounds like the Doctor. Kathy's head jerks up and she stares at him with wide eyes.

"What... I-how?" Kathy stumbles.

He smiles. "Because you are part Time Lord, it is a thing we can do. Did you get a certain feeling once we landed?"

"Uh... yeah I did. What was that? Can we seriously talk to each other in our heads?" Kathy questions trying to understand. It sounded pretty handy. Would her child be able to do this as well?

"Yeah, as well as sensing each other. It's quite faint though considering you're not full Time Lord. Unnoticeable usually unless you're looking, like a perception filter."

"Ah." She says in response. "Can I try?"

"Go for it."

Kathy closes her eyes to concentrate. "Potatoes." She opens her eyes and sees the Doctor scrunching up his face.

"Potatoes?! Is that really all you can think of?" He whines. She shrugs. He huffs and turns away.

It's not long until he starts speaking again. "Here look at this." The Doctor shows her a CD by a band called Ian Dury and the Blockheads that he must have picked up. "What do you think?" He grins.

"No idea who they are but sure," Kathy says.

"Ugh, no taste." He complains.

Rose enters the console room again and finishes zipping her bag up and shoves it out of the way. She stands, showing then what she is wearing, which is a rather short dungaree skirt. The outfit is suddenly very familiar. Is this the Queen Victoria episode cause if it is... oh Rose.

"What do you think of this? Will it do?" She asks. Kathy chews her lip but tries to smile encouragingly at her.

"In the late 1970s? You'd be better off in a bin bag. Hold on, listen to this." The Doctor bungs the CD in the player and some song by Ian Dury and the Blockheads blares out. The Doctor wanders around the controls. "Ian Dury and the Blockheads. Number One in 1979."

"You're a Punk!" Rose accuses as the Doctor continues moving, singing along. "That's what you are. A big old Punk with a bit of Rockabillly thrown in."

"Would you like to see him?"

Rose's mouth hangs open. "How'd you mean? In concert?"

"What else is a TARDIS for?"

Rose pulls Kathy into their funky little dance around the console, probably having noticed that she was just standing there and not getting involved.

The Doctor continues, "I can take you to the Battle of Trafalgar... the first anti-gravity Olympics... Caesar crossing the Rubicon... or... Ian Dury at the Top Rank, Sheffield, England, Earth, 21st November 1979. What do you think?" Yeah, definitely Queen Victoria.

"I think Rose wants Sheffield." Kathy pipes up.

"Right Kathy strap yourself in, you're pregnant," She goes to do just that, "Rose hold on tight." He pulls a lever just as Kathy tightens the straps and they both lurch forward as the TARDIS shudders and spins through the Vortex. The Doctor whacks the console with a hammer to the beat of the music, shouting. Kathy cringes thinking how the TARDIS is probably not enjoying that. The TARDIS makes a noise, probably agreeing with her.

"Stop!" Rose yells.

The movement stops and they both fall onto the floor, laughing their heads off.

The Doctor pulls himself up as Kathy then unbuckles herself and walks over to them. "1979. Hell of a year!" He pulls Rose to her feet. She then grabs Kathy's hand and she gets pulled along as they bound towards the doors. The Doctor grabs his jacket as he rambles, "China invades Vietnam... The Muppet Movie! Love that film. Margaret Thatcher... urgh... Skylab falls to Earth... with a little help from me... nearly took off my thumb."

The Doctor steps out of the doors, Rose and Kathy behind him into a field.

"I like my thumb. I need my thumb. I'm very attached to..." He falters as he notices that they are surrounded by Scottish soldiers on all sides, guns raised. He puts his hands up and Rose and Kathy follow suit. "...my thumb."

The guns click ominously.

"1879. Same difference." Ten mutters to himself.

"How?!" Kathy whisper yells at him but he simply shrugs.

The man on the horse next to them, who seems to be the leader of the soldiers, speaks, "You will explain your presence. And the nakedness of this girl." He gestures to Rose, who is standing between Kathy and the Doctor. Rose looks down at herself probably realising her outfit is inappropriate for this time period. Kathy, on the other hand, is a bit more so as despite it not being good quality, is wearing a dress that covers pretty much all her skin.

"Are we in Scotland?" The Doctor then says putting on a Scottish accent. Kathy always found this funny considering how the actor himself was Scottish.

"How can you be ignorant of that?"

"Oh, I'm... I'm dazed and confused. I've been chasing this... this wee naked child over hill and over dale. In't that right, ya... timorous beastie?" The Doctor 'explains'.

Rose then speaks with an absolutely hilariously terrible attempt at a Scottish accent. "Ooch, aye! I've been oot and aboot."

"No, don't do that." The Doctor tells her.

"Hoots mon!"

"Oh my god Rose please stop," Kathy says. She quietens.

"Will you identify yourself, sir?" Horse pointing gunman orders.

"I'm Doctor James McCrimmon. From the... Township of Balamory. Eh... I have my credentials, if I may..." He gestures towards his pocket and the man nods. They lower their hands whilst the Doctor fumbles in his pocket and produces the psychic paper. He shows it to them, moving it around as he talks. "As you can see, a Doctorate from the University of Edinburgh. I trained under Doctor Bell himself."

A muffled voice comes from the carriage behind the soldiers. "Let them approach."

The Captain, however, is still suspicious. "I don't think that's wise, ma'am."

"Let them approach."

The Doctor gestures towards the carriage and the Captain has no choice but to let them approach. "You will approach the carriage. And show all due deference."

The Doctor does an 'aye aye, Captain' sort of signal, and they approach the carriage. Kathy begins to get quite excited knowing she is going to meet her first historical figure. One of the footmen opens the door to reveal Queen Victoria.

The Doctor continues in his Scottish accent, "Rose, Katherine...," so he knows her full name as well, huh, "might I introduce her Majesty, Queen Victoria. Empress of India and Defender of the Faith."

Kathy curtsies as best as she can with her stomach. "Katherine... uh Davis Ma'am." Kathy had made the decision then that despite her new name, she still feels more connected with her old name and would introduce herself as such in the future when not with her life in the 6th century (cause that'll get confusing and messy).

Rose curtsies herself. "Rose Tyler, Ma'am. And my apologies... for being so naked." She laughs nervously.

Queen Victoria looks unshaken. "I've had five daughters. It's nothing to me." Kathy feels slightly upset with the mention of daughters. "But you, Doctor... show me these credentials." The Doctor obligingly hands the psychic paper over, and the Queen studies it for a moment.

"Why didn't you say so immediately? It states clearly here that you have been appointed by the Lord Provost as my Protector."

"Does it?" The Doctor asks surprised before quickly recovering. "Yes, it does! Good! Good! Um... then let me ask... Why is Your Majesty travelling by road when there's a train all the way to Aberdeen?"

"A tree on the line."

"An accident?" Kathy asks knowing the answer already. The Doctor gives her a look as if saying he knows that she already knows.

"I am the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Everything around me tends to be planned." The Queen says.

"An assassination attempt?" The Doctor assumes.

"What, seriously? There's people out to kill ya?" Rose wonders.

"I'm quite used to staring down the barrel of a gun." Victoria remarks.

The Captain comes over on his horse, behind them. "Sir Robert MacLeish lives but ten miles hence. We'll send word ahead, he'll shelter us for tonight, then we can reach Balmoral tomorrow."

"This Doctor, Mrs Davis and their... timorous beastie will come with us. Due to her condition, Mrs Davis can join me in the carriage." The Queen declares. Her eyes widen. She's going to be on her own with Queen Victoria?! Rose sends her a grin.

"Yes, Ma'am. We'd better get moving, it's almost nightfall."

A different footman offers his hand to help Kathy into the carriage and Kathy awkwardly shifts around, trying to get comfortable as the Queen speaks, "Indeed. And there are stories of wolves in these parts. Fanciful tales intended to scare the children. But good for the blood, I think. Drive on!"

And with that, they are in their way.

"Mrs Davis," the Queen says, drawing Kathy's attention to her after a short while, "I wonder why you are traipsing around with those two in your condition. Wherever is your husband?"

"Uh... away ma'am. On business. The Doctor is my companion, to keep me company while he's away." Kathy says, feeling proud of herself for coming up with that on the spot.

"Hmm. Is it your first? I could not imagine you would be leaving your children on their own."

The thought of her dead daughter makes Kathy's eyes water. "No, my second. B-but she died young, you see."

"Oh. I am sorry." She says apologetically.

"It's alright, you were not to know ma'am," Kathy says.

——

They arrive at Torchwood house with Kathy being the only one that knows the significance of its name.

One of the footmen opens the door of the carriage and helps Queen Victoria down then Kathy down.

Kathy walks over to stand with the Doctor and Rose.

"So, carriage ride with Queen Victoria..." the Doctor trails off invitingly.

"Eh it was alright," Kathy says casually with a grin. The two next to her chuckle.

Sir Robert emerges from a doorway and approaches her with one of the monks, that had taken over the house, behind him.

"Your Majesty." He bows.

"Sir Robert. My apologies for the emergency. And how is Lady Isobel?" She asks.

"She's... indisposed, I'm afraid. She's gone to Edinburgh for the season. And she's taken the cook with her, the kitchens are barely stocked... I wouldn't blame Your Majesty if you wanted to ride on." Sir Robert says. Kathy feels sorry for him as he clearly is being forced to do this.

The Doctor cocks his head to one side, watching him, he has also recognised that Sir Robert would rather the Queen stayed away.

Queen Victoria, on the other hand, responds cheerfully, "Oh, not at all! I've had quite enough carriage exercise. And this is... charming. If rustic. It's my first visit to this house. My late husband spoke of it often. The Torchwood Estate. Now, shall we go inside?"

Sir Robert is evidently reluctant, but the Queen does not notice.

"And please excuse the naked girl." She adds.

"Sorry." Rose mumbles. Kathy can't help but snicker at the situation and Rose nudges her in the side. Honestly, she's surprised that she hasn't had a meltdown over this whole thing, she must be in shock still or she's just weird. Probably the latter.

"She's a feral child. I bought her for sixpence in old London Town. It was her or the Elephant Man, so..." The Doctor says all Scottish again.

"Thinks he's funny but I'm so not amused." She looks pointedly at Queen Victoria. "What do you think, Ma'am?" Ah the bet, Kathy remembers that. It seems her not totally human brain, which means her memory is better cause she shouldn't remember this much usually.

The Queen looks unfazed by the comment. "It hardly matters. Shall we proceed? Sir Robert nods and they begin to make their way into the house."

"So close," Rose mutters. She then turns to Kathy, "Do I need to explain?"

"Nope," Kathy replies.

She laughs. "Of course."

"Makerson and Ramsey, you will escort the Property. Hurry up." The Captain orders.

"Yes, sir." They both respond. One of the soldiers takes a small wooden box from the carriage and carries it carefully to the house.

The Doctor looks at it interested. "What's in there, then?"

"Property of the Crown. You will dismiss any further thoughts, sir."

The Doctor pulls a face to Rose and Kathy.

The Captain continues, "The rest of you go to the rear of the house. Assume your designated positions."

"You heard the orders. Positions, sir."

The Doctor nods towards the house and he, Kathy and Rose follow the others.

——

Sir Robert guides them to the Observatory. There is what looks like an enormous telescope in the middle of the room.

"This, I take it, is the famous Endeavour." Queen Victoria says.

"All my father's work. Built by hand in his final years. Became something of an obsession... he spent his money on this rather than caring for the house or himself." Sir Robert explains.

The Doctor smiles, "I wish I'd met him, I like him. That thing's beautiful. Can I um...?" He gestures towards it.

"Help yourself."

The Doctor and Rose move forward to examine the telescope and the wheel next to it, Kathy trails after them.

"What did he model it on?" The Doctor asks.

"I know nothing about it. To be honest, most of us thought him a little... shall we say, eccentric." Sir Robert answers. The Doctor gives a dopey laugh. "I wish now I'd spent more time with him. And listened to his stories."

The Doctor, as he peers through the telescope, then forgets how to be polite, "It's a bit rubbish. How many prisms has it got? Way too many. The magnification's gone right over the top, that's stupid kind of a..." he trails off and walks over to Rose and Kathy seeing the looks on their faces and speaks quietly dropping his Scottish accent briefly, "Am I being rude again?"

"Yep," Rose replies.

"Just a little bit," Kathy adds using her fingers to mimic a small gap.

The Doctor quickly tries to recover as he stands, "But it's pretty! It's very... pretty." Rose pats him fondly on the arm.

"And the imagination of it should be applauded." Queen Victoria says.

"Mm! Thought you might disapprove, Your Majesty," Rose remarks. "Stargazing. Isn't that a bit fanciful?" Queen Victoria stares at her. "You could easily... not be amused, or something...? No?"

"This device surveys the infinite work of God." The Queen says instead.

Kathy presses her lips together in an attempt not to laugh while the Doctor shakes his head at Rose with a vague smile on his face.

"What could be finer? Sir Robert's father was an example to us all. A polymath. Steeped in astronomy and sciences, yet equally well versed in folklore and fairy tales." The Queen adds.

"Stars and magic. I like him more and more." The Doctor says. He wanders around the telescope to examine it some more.

"Oh, my late husband enjoyed his company," she walks over to Rose and Kathy, "Prince Albert himself was acquainted with many rural superstitions, coming as he did from Saxe Coburg."

The Doctor comes over to murmur in Rose and Kathy's ears, "That's Bavaria."

Queen Victoria turns to Sir Robert. "When Albert was told about your local wolf, he was transported."

"So, what's this wolf, then?" Kathy asks, trying to push everyone along a little though the Doctor probably would have asked anyway.

"It's just a story."

"Then tell it." The Doctor says possibly catching on to what she's doing.

Sir Robert glances around at the monk men very uncomfortably. He then speaks very haltingly, "It's said that..."

But he is interrupted by one of the monk men, "Excuse me, sir. Perhaps her Majesty's party could repair to their rooms. It's almost dark."

"Of course. Yes, of course."

"And then supper. And... could we find some clothes for Miss Tyler? I'm tired of nakedness." Queen Victoria says.

"It's not amusing, is it?" Rose asks pointedly. Queen Victoria glances around at her and decides to ignore this comment and turns back to Sir Robert. Kathy lets out a snort causing Rose to poke her in the chest.

"And despite her being the opposite, could Mrs Davis have a more proper dress for dinner. Sir Robert, your wife must've left some clothes. See to it. We shall dine at seven. And talk some more of this wolf. After all... there is a full moon tonight."

"So, there is, Ma'am." Sir Robert replies. He bows, and the Queen leaves the room followed by the rest of them.

——

Rose and Kathy go to one of the bedrooms to look for something to wear at dinner.

Rose goes to one of the wardrobes and opens the door, finding a brown dress which she holds up to herself in the mirror.

"Maybe not," Kathy tells her.

"Yeah." She immediately puts it back.

Rose holds a frilly blouse up to her then, they laugh, and she puts it back in the wardrobe. Kathy is soaking in the calm they have before everything kicks off.

Next Kathy pulls out a pretty blue dress and hands it to Rose.

"Yeah, that looks better," Kathy says. Rose holds it up to herself and twirls around a bit.

"Mmm... fancy."

Rose places the dress down on the bed, crosses the room and opens another wardrobe door. She screams as a young maid is crouched inside, breathing heavily with fear.

Rose and Kathy bring the frightened girl to sit on the bed.

"They came through the house. The incitements, they took the Steward and the Master. And my Lady." She shakily explains. Kathy squeezes her hand comfortingly.

"Listen... we've got a friend, he's called the Doctor, he'll know what to do. You've gotta come with us." Rose says.

"Oh, but I can't, Miss." The girl replies.

"What's your name?" Kathy asks her.

"Flora."

"Flora, we'll be safe. There are more people who've arrived downstairs; soldiers and everything, and they can help us. I promise. Come on. Okay? Come on." Kathy says comfortingly. She knows it may not be safe straight away, but she knows that Flora will be alright so technically she didn't lie.

Rose peers cautiously out of the door and seeing that the coast is clear, takes Flora's hand and leads her down the corridor while Kathy follows behind. Just around the corner lies an unconscious guard.

"Oh, Miss. I did warn you!" Flora cries.

Rose kneels and feels for a pulse. "He's not dead... I don't think, he must be drugged or something."

Suddenly something grabs Kathy from behind and the same is done to Flora. Hands stifle any noises they would have made and they are dragged away. Before Rose can react, she too is grabbed and dragged away. One of the Monks drags the guard away.

——

Three of them are pushed into the cellar and chained up with the rest of the servants and Sir Robert's wife, Lady Isobel. They leave and Kathy frowns after them. Do they not understand how to treat a pregnant woman?!

"Are you okay?" Rose quietly asks. Kathy nods and that is when she notices the figure who'll turn into a wolf sitting quietly in his cage.

"Don't make a sound. They said if we scream or shout, then he will slaughter us." Lady Isobel says sobbing.

"But... he's in a cage. He's a prisoner. He's the same as us." Rose says.

Lady Isobel's voice is full of fear, "He's nothing like us. That creature is not mortal."

The figure, the host, raises his head slowly and opens his eyes... which are completely black. Lady Isobel and her household staff whimper, and Rose and Kathy stare, scared.

After a short while, Rose stands. She's going to approach the Host. Kathy wants to join her but with her large stomach and all the physical strain she will go through, she thinks it best to rest and let Rose lead this.

"Don't, child." Lady Isobel calls.

Rose ignores her. She edges slowly towards the Host, chains rattling slightly. When she's as close as the chains will allow her, she kneels.

"Who are you?"

"Don't enrage him." One of the male servants calls, the steward Kathy thinks.

Rose continues. "Where are you from? You're not from Earth. What planet are you from?"

"Ohhh... intelligence..." The host whispers. Its tone creeps Kathy out.

"Where were you born?"

"This body... ten miles away... a weakling, heartsick boy. Stolen away at night by the brethren from my cultivation. I carved out his soul and sat in his heart."

"All right... so the body's human... but what about you? The thing inside?" Rose probes.

"So far from home." The host replies.

"If you wanna get back home, we can help."

"Why would I leave this place? A world of industry, of workforce and warfare. I could turn it to such purpose."

"How would you do that?"

"I would migrate to the Holy Monarch." It explains.

"You mean Queen Victoria?" Rose realises.

"With one bite, I would pass into her blood. And then it begins. The Empire of the Wolf! So many questions..." It suddenly lunges forward, making all of them jump and gasp. "Look! Inside your eyes! You've seen it too!"

"Seen what?" Rose asks, afraid.

"The Wolf! There is something of the Wolf about you!" Bad wolf. Kathy wonders if she'll be there for that.

Rose stares at him, breathing heavily. "I don't know what you mean."

"You burnt like the sun, but all I require is the moon." The doors of the cellar are thrown open and the moonlight floods in, over the Host's cage. He presses his face against the bars with a blissful smile. "Moonlight..."

The other prisoners shift around uncomfortably, not knowing what to make of this. The Host sheds his cloak. A wind blows through the cellar. The Host grasps the bars of the cage.

Kathy urgently turns to everyone knowing that she should get on with it. "Everyone! Stop looking at it! Flora, don't look. Listen to me. Grab hold of the chain and pull! C'mon Rose!"

Rose joins her in pulling on the chain. "Come on! With me! Pull!"

There are growling sounds emitting from the cage, and Lady Isobel is just staring at it in horror.

"I said pull! Stop your whinging and listen to us!" Kathy yells at them. Do they honestly think that being pregnant, she can do this with so little help?

"All of you! And that means you, your Ladyship! Now come on, pull!" Rose adds.

They all stand and help them pull on the chain, trying to free it from the wall. The Host is slowly transforming into a wolf. He screams in pain as his skin bulges horribly. His screams turn into growls as he begins to look more and more like a wolf.

"One... two... three... Pull!" Kathy and Rose yell.

They all tug on the chain, desperately trying to free themselves. The transformation is all but complete.

"One... two... three... pull!"

The werewolf's transformation is complete. It growls and flexes its claws as the prisoners scream.

"One, two, three, pull!"

And finally, the chain comes free. The Doctor kicks down the door to the cellar and enters with Sir Robert.

"Where the hell have you been?" Rose yells at him.

The Doctor turns and stares at the werewolf with wide-eyed awe as it grabs hold of the bars of the cage. "Oh, that's beautiful!"

Sir Robert turns to his wife, "Get out!"

The wolf begins to bend and break the bars, throwing the cage off. The household staff are all clamouring to get out of the room. The Doctor suddenly remembers the urgency of the situation and turns back to them.

The Doctor begins ushering everyone, "Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out!"

"Come on..." Kathy cries. "Doctor c'mon!"

The werewolf stands tall, free of the cage. He throws the top of it across the room, narrowly missing the Doctor who finally stops staring and makes a run for it. He slams the door behind him and locks it with his sonic screwdriver.

——

The Steward hands guns to all the men. "Arms... and your strife... ready everyone?"

Lady Isobel leaves with the maids as the Doctor is using the sonic screwdriver to relieve Rose and Kathy of the handcuffs. All the while he is rattling off what he thinks, "It could be any form of light modulated species triggered by specific wavelengths. Did it say what it wanted?"

"The Queen, the Crown, the throne... you name it." Rose answers. Kathy stays quiet as she still feels shaken at what is happening. She feels her child kick and she remembers it is not only her she's got to protect.

"Any hints?" The Doctor turns to me.

Kathy blinks at him, surprised for a moment. "Uhhh... well I- mistletoe is important?"

"Right." He nods.

There is a thumping sound from the direction of the cellar and they both look around. The Doctor ventures out into the corridor to investigate with Kathy and Rose behind him. The wolf has managed to knock down the door and is standing at the other end of the corridor. He and the Doctor stare at one another for a few moments before the werewolf growls and the Doctor runs back into the room. He grabs their hands and pulls them behind the line of men with guns poised and ready.

"Fire!" They shoot at the wolf, who stumbles back a few steps. "Fire!" Kathy flinches as they fire again.

The room with the firing squad is full of smoke. There is no sign of the wolf.

"All right, you men, we should retreat upstairs, come with me." Kathy notices then that the Doctor has lost his Scottish accent.

"I'll not retreat. The battle's done. There's no creature on God's Earth that could survive such an assault." The Steward says.

The Doctor angrily responds, "I'm telling you, come upstairs!"

"And I'm telling you, sir, that I will sleep well tonight with that thing's hide upon my wall."

"Please listen to him," Kathy begs.

"I'm sorry madam." He says and strides across the room to look down the corridor, checking for the wolf. The Doctor watches him, looking extremely angry and concerned. Apparently seeing nothing, he strides back looking mildly triumphant. "Must've crawled away to die..."

And he is lifted clean through the ceiling by the wolf and they hear him being devoured.

"There's nothing we can do!" The Doctor cries. He grabs hold of Rose and Kathy and pushes them from the room with him.

——

Kathy rushes into a room along with the Doctor, Rose and Sir Robert. The Doctor slams the door behind them and locks it with his sonic screwdriver.

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty!" Sir Robert yells.

Queen Victoria comes down the stairs, "Sir Robert! What's happening?"

The Doctor dashes off somewhere.

"I heard such terrible noises."

"Your Majesty, we've got to get out. But what of Father Angelo? Is he still here?" Sir Robert asks.

"Captain Reynolds disposed of him." Kathy briefly glances at her knowing that isn't true.

The Doctor comes back and speaks in his non-Scottish accent, "The front door's no good, it's been boarded shut. Pardon me, Your Majesty, you'll have to leg it out of a window."

He gestures through a door and Queen Victoria obliges with her head held high. Sir Robert follows and they find themselves in another upstairs room.

"Excuse my manners, Ma'am, but I shall go first, the better to assist Her Majesty's egress." Sir Robert says.

"A noble sentiment, my Sir Walter Raleigh." The Queen says.

The Doctor, however, is impatient, "Yeah, any chance you could hurry up?"

Sir Robert climbs onto the window sill and has to immediately dodge out of the way as he is shot at by the Monks standing outside.

The Doctor stares out of the window, eyes wide. "I reckon the monkey boys want us to stay inside."

"Do they know who I am?" The Queen exclaims.

"Yeah, that's why they want you, it's why they are doing this. The wolf's lined you up for a... a biting." Kathy tells her.

"Now, stop this talk. There can't be an actual wolf." The words are no sooner out of her mouth than howling rings through the house. All of them spin around, alarmed, and leave the room hurriedly. They run into a hallway and the wolf is battering on the door.

"What do we do?" Rose asks.

"We... run!" Kathy knows he was going to say this but that doesn't mean she doesn't grumble a little.

"Is that it?!"

"Again! Pregnant!" Kathy reminds him.

"You got any silver bullets?" The Doctor asks sarcastically.

"Not on me, no!" Rose replies.

"There we are then, we run. Your Majesty, as a Doctor, I recommend a vigorous jog." He jogs on the spot to demonstrate. "Good for the health. Come on!"

He grabs the Queen's hand and leads her from the room. They run as fast as they can up the staircase. Kathy is struggling to keep up with her stomach but the Doctor just pulls on her hand and cries, "Come on! Come on!

Having reached the top of the stairs, they run through the corridors, the wolf closes on their tails. It is nearly upon them, mostly Kathy and the Queen as both of them are at the back as they are finding the most difficult, ready to pounce when Captain Reynolds appears holding a gun. He shoots and the wolf reels backwards down the corridor. The Captain ducks behind the corridor where they are standing, out of breath.

"I'll take this position and hold it. You keep moving, for God's sake! Your Majesty, I went to look for the property, it was taken. The chest was empty." Captain Reynolds says.

"I have it. It's safe." Said woman replies.

"Then remove yourself, Ma'am. Doctor, you stand as Her Majesty's Protector. And you, Sir Robert, you're a traitor to the crown." He cocks his gun.

"Bullets can't stop it!" The Doctor warns him.

"They'll buy you time. Now, run!"

He positions himself at the end of the corridor, gun held ready. Queen Victoria and Sir Robert have already started running in the opposite direction, followed by the Doctor, and finally by Rose and Kathy as they stare at Captain Reynolds in dismay for a few seconds. The Doctor, Sir Robert and Queen Victoria run into the library with Kathy behind them. Rose stops outside the door and watches as Captain Reynolds shoots at the werewolf then pounces upon him and then rips him apart. Kathy grimaces at the sounds of his screams.

"Rose!" The Doctor rushes out into the corridor, grabs her round the waist and pulls her into the room just in time to slam the door shut.

——

Sir Robert and Rose help the Doctor barricade the doors with chairs and bits of wood. Kathy quickly sits down to rest; she can feel the baby moving so she knows it's okay though probably mildly distressed from all the moving.

"Wait a minute, shh, shh, wait a minute..." The Doctor urges. The wolf howls into the silence. "It's stopped." He stands on the chair and presses his ear against the door. There are sounds indicating the wolf has turned and left. "It's gone."

Footsteps can be heard padding around the outside of the room.

"Listen..." Rose murmurs.

The Doctor climbs quietly down from the chair and there is dead silence in the library as they follow the wolf's progress around the room, absolutely terrified. The Queen is shaking violently.

"Is this the only door?" The Doctor whispers to Sir Robert.

"Yes. No!" And he dashes to the other door with the Doctor and they barricade it shut.

"Shh!" Rose silences them.

They look around uneasily as they hear the sounds the werewolf is making, and then it stops. Footsteps pad away into the distance.

"I don't understand. What's stopping it?" Rose wonders.

"Something inside this room?" The Doctor says turning to Kathy.

"Not exactly," Kathy says, still feeling exhausted. Sir Robert sits on one of the chairs barricading his door and puts his head in his hands.

The Doctor's eyebrows furrow in confusion. "What is it? Why can't it get in?"

"I'll tell you what, though..." Rose says.

"What?"

"Werewolf...!"

"I know!" The Doctor exclaims.

Rose half laughs and they throw their arms around each other. Kathy glares at them feeling slightly annoyed. She now understands the fear that Queen Victoria felt... or is feeling... or will. God tenses are confusing.

"You all right?" The Doctor asks her.

"I'm okay, yeah!"

Queen Victoria stares at them, eyes wide.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am. It's all my fault." Sir Robert says from behind them, drawing their attention. "I should've sent you away. I tried to suggest something was wrong, I... thought you might notice. Did you think there was nothing strange about my household staff?"

"Well, they were bald, athletic... your wife's away, I just thought you were happy." The Doctor quips.

"Not the time Doctor," Kathy tells him. He pouts at that.

"I'll tell you what though, Ma'am, I bet you're not amused now." For god's sake Rose, not now!

"Rose!" Kathy exclaims at the same time the Queen says angrily, "Do you think this is funny?"

"No, Ma'am, I'm sorry," Rose answers meekly.

"What, exactly, I pray someone please, what exactly is that creature?" Queen Victoria demands.

The Doctor scratches his head. "You'd call it a werewolf, but technically it's a more of a lupine wavelength haemovariform."

"And should I trust you, sir? You who change your voice so easily? What happened to your accent?"

The Doctor then realises he has lost his Scottish accent, "Oh... right, sorry..."

The Queen has clearly reached the end of her tether. "I'll not have it. No, sir, not you... not that thing... none of it. This is not my world."

——

The Doctor touches the woodwork. Noticing the carving of mistletoe on the door.

"Mistletoe..." He murmurs. "Kathy, you said mistletoe! Sir Robert, did your father put that there?"

"I don't know, I suppose..." The man replies.

The Doctor begins thinking out loud, "On the other door, too... a carving wouldn't be enough... I wonder..." He licks the woodwork. Kathy pulls a face. "Viscum album, the oil of the mistletoe, it's been worked into the wood like a varnish! How clever was your dad? I love him! Powerful stuff, mistletoe. Bursting with lectins and viscotoxins."

"And the wolf's allergic to it?" Rose asks.

"Well, it thinks it is. The monkey monk monks need a way of controlling the wolf, maybe they trained it to react against certain things."

"Also stops them from being eaten," Kathy adds.

"Nevertheless, that creature won't give up, Doctor, and we still don't possess an actual weapon." Sir Robert moans.

"Oh, your father got all the brains, didn't he?" The Doctor says.

"Being rude again." Rose points out.

"Good. I meant that one." He strides towards the bookshelves.

"Well, you shouldn't." Kathy reproaches.

The Doctor rolls his eyes. "You want weapons? Kathy, what's the best weapon we have?" Points at her.

"Books?" Kathy answers though it sounds more like a question.

"Brilliant! We're in a library. Books! Best weapons in the world." He puts his glasses on. "This room's the greatest arsenal we could have." He pulls some books off the shelf and chucks some to Rose. "Arm yourself."

——

Kathy, Rose, the Doctor and Sir Robert are frantically flicking through the books, talking over one another.

Suddenly the Doctor jumps down from the ladder, holding a book which he puts down on the table. Kathy knew he had found it then.

"Look what your old dad found. Something fell to Earth. On the open page, there is an illustration of a rock falling to Earth from the sky." They gather around.

"A spaceship?" Rose questions.

"A shooting star." Sir Robert says reading the page. ""In the year of our Lord, 1540, under the reign of King James the Fifth, an almighty fire did burn in the pit." That's the Glen of Saint Catherine just by the Monastery."

"But that's over three hundred years ago. What's it been waiting for?" Rose asks.

"Could've been developing." Kathy hints to the Doctor and Rose hoping not to give it away to the other two in the room.

"Yes!" The Doctor exclaims. "Only a single cell survives. Adapting slowly down the generations. It survived through the humans. Host after host after host."

"But why does it want the throne?" Sir Robert asks.

"That's what it wants. It said so, the... the Empire of the Wolf." Rose says, glancing at Kathy to see if she's right. She nods back.

The Doctor speaks with foreboding, "Imagine it... the Victorian Age accelerated... starships and missiles fuelled by coal and driven by steam... leaving history devastated in its wake..."

Queen Victoria stands, "Sir Robert!" Sir Robert goes to her. "If I am to die here..."

"Don't say that, Your Majesty."

"I would destroy myself rather than let that creature infect me. But that's no matter. I ask only that you find some place of safekeeping for something far older and more precious than myself." She opens her bag; Kathy remembers what's inside.

"Hardly the time to worry about your valuables." The Doctor calls over to her.

"Sssh Doctor." Kathy hisses at him as she walks over to Queen Victoria.

The Queen doesn't look too pleased either. "Thank you for your opinion. But there is nothing more valuable than this." And she takes the Koh-I-Noor from her bag and holds it in the palm of her hand.

Rose looks at it amazed. "Is that the Koh-I-Noor?"

"Oh, yes... the greatest diamond in the world." The Doctor says. The Doctor and Rose shuffle forward for a closer look.

"Given to me as the spoils of war. Perhaps its legend is now coming true. It is said that whoever owns it must surely die." The Queen utters.

"Well, that's true of anything if you own it long enough. Can I...?" The Doctor holds out his hand for the diamond. Queen Victoria gives it to him. He pushes his glasses down his nose to look at it closely. Rose prods it, eyes wide while Kathy just stares afraid that if she'll even breathe on it, it would shatter. "That is so beautiful."

"How much is that worth?" Rose wonders.

"They say... the wages of the entire planet for a whole week."

Rose peers at it. "Good job my mum's not here. She'd be fighting the wolf off with her bare hands for that thing."

"And she'd win."

"Now that's an image," Kathy says despite not having even met the woman.

Rose laughs.

"Where is the wolf?" Sir Robert asks as he walks away. "I don't trust this silence." Kathy shifts nervously glancing up but she can't see anything yet.

"Why do you travel with it?" The Doctor asks.

"My annual pilgrimage. I'm taking it to Helier and Carew. The Royal Jewellers at Hazelhead. The stone needs recutting." The Queen answers.

"Oh, but it's perfect." Rose murmurs.

"My late husband never thought so."

The Doctor removes his glasses. "Now, there's a fact, Prince Albert kept on having the Koh-I-Noor cut down. It used to be forty percent bigger than this. But he was never happy. Kept on cutting and cutting."

"He always said... the shine was not quite right. But he died with it still unfinished." Queen Victoria adds.

"Unfinished... oh, yes!" The Doctor tosses the Koh-I-Noor back to Queen Victoria, who catches it. Kathy flinches. He begins to speak very fast, working it out, "There's a lot of unfinished business in this house. His father's research, your husband, Ma'am, he came here and he sought the perfect diamond, hold on, hold on..." He ruffles his hair violently in his eagerness to work it out. "All these separate things, they're not separate at all, they're connected! Oh, my head, my head! What if, this house, it's a trap for you, is that right, Ma'am?"

"Obviously."

"At least, that's what the wolf intended. But! What if there's a trap inside the trap?"

"Explain yourself, Doctor." The Queen demands.

"What if his father and your husband weren't just telling each other stories. They dared to imagine all this was true. And they planned against it. Laying the real trap not for you... but for the wolf."

A fine sprinkling of plaster falls from the ceiling. They all look up, and the werewolf is walking over the glass dome above their heads, looking down at them and growling.

"That wolf there..."

The glass of the dome starts to crack, the Doctor and Rose throw down their books and they all run to the door.

"Out! Out! Out!" The Doctor cries. Kathy cringes thinking about all the running she still has to do.

As the Werewolf crashes through, smashing the desk, the Doctor, Rose and Sir Robert destroy their barricade and run out into the corridor. The Doctor slams the doors closed.

——

The five of them run down the corridor.

"Gotta get to the observatory!" The Doctor says.

They careen around a corner, the werewolf close behind. Kathy is huffing and puffing as she goes, trying to keep up. The wolf is almost on Rose then and she screams but Lady Isobel and the maids appear and throw the pan of mistletoe water onto the wolf. The werewolf bounds back down the corridor away from us.

"Good shot!" The Doctor exclaims.

"It was mistletoe!" Lady Isobel explains.

The Doctor follows the wolf a way down the corridor with Rose behind him. Kathy takes this moment to rest.

"Isobel!" Sir Robert and Lady Isobel kiss as the Doctor and Rose make sure the wolf has gone. "Get back downstairs."

"Keep yourself safe."

He nods and they kiss again.

"You go." He tells her.

Lady Isobel and the maids go past Sir Robert and make their way back to the kitchen. "Girls, come with me. Down the Back stairs, back to the kitchen. Quickly!"

As they run off, Sir Robert stares after his wife. Kathy knows if everything goes as it was in the episode, he'll die but maybe she could change that?

The Doctor runs back. "Come on!" They set off running again down the corridor.

"The observatory's this way!" Sir Robert tells them.

They reach the central staircase and hurry up it as fast as they can but the werewolf is recovering and soon returns to the chase.

——

They finally arrive at the observatory, the Doctor in the lead. Rose and Queen Victoria step inside with the Doctor while Kathy lingers next to Sir Robert.

"No mistletoe on these doors, your father wanted the wolf to get inside! Get inside I just need time! Is there any way of barricading this?!" The Doctor exclaims.

"Just do your work and I'll defend it." Kathy looks at him in worry.

The Doctor seemingly ignores Sir Robert. "If we could bind them shut with rope or something!"

"I said I'd find you time, sir." Sir Robert says more assertively. Rose and Queen Victoria stare at him, aghast.

"No!" Kathy exclaims. "Maybe there's another way?!"

"Now get inside." And with that Sir Robert pushes Kathy inside.

"No no wait! Please no!" Kathy cries.

"Please Kathy think of your baby." The Doctor tells her as he tugs her inside.

Sir Robert closes the door and the Doctor runs to the Queen. Kathy stares at the door sobbing.

"Your Majesty, the diamond." The Doctor says, quickly turning to the Queen.

"For what purpose?" She asks.

"The purpose it was designed for."

Queen Victoria hands over the diamond from her bag. The Doctor runs over to the mechanism for the telescope.

"Rose!" Rose runs to the Doctor. "Lift it! Come on!"

The Rose and Doctor struggle to turn the wheel, but the cogs start to shift and the telescope to rise.

"Is this the right time for stargazing?" Rose says sarcastically despite straining against the wheel.

"Yes, it is." The Doctor declares.

Kathy cringes and covers her ears then as she hears Sir Robert's final screams from outside. Queen Victoria holds up her crucifix. The werewolf can be heard battering the door. The gears continue to grind while Queen Victoria murmurs a prayer under her breath.

"You said this thing doesn't work!" Rose says.

"It's a light chamber, Rose!" Kathy yells to her trying to distract herself from the panic and fear inside of her.

"She's right! It doesn't work as a telescope because that's not what it is! It magnifies the light rays like a weapon. We've just got to power it up!" The Doctor explains.

"With what? There's no electricity!"

The Doctor grunts and turns to the light chamber.

Rose then works it out. "Moonlight! But it needs moonlight! It's made by moonlight!"

"You're seventy per cent water but you can still drown. Come on!" The Doctor cries. "Come on!"

At last, it is properly aligned. Rose and the Doctor step away from the gears as the moonlight bounces off the prisms. Just as the Werewolf breaks through the door, the light spews forth from the end of the light chamber onto the floor far short of the werewolf. Kathy runs back as the werewolf advances on the Queen but the doctor dives across the floor and throws the Koh-I-Noor into the beam of light. A fantastic, prismatic beam of light hits the werewolf. He is lifted off the floor and hangs there, caught in the wash of moonlight. As they look on, the werewolf retakes human form.

"Make it brighter. Let me go." The host says quietly.

The Doctor slowly walks across to the light chamber and flicks a switch. With a final howl from the wolf form, the creature vanishes and the light shuts off. Kathy breathes a huge sigh of relief. No more deaths than what originally happened so at least she didn't make things worse.

The Queen, however, is staring intently at some wound on her wrist.

The Doctor notices her. "Your Majesty? Did it bite you?"

"No, it's... it's a cut." The Queen replies.

"If that thing bit you..."

"It was a splinter of wood when the door came apart."

"Let me see." The Doctor reaches toward her arm.

Queen Victoria pulls her hand away sharply. "It is nothing."

The Doctor stares at her, obviously not believing her.

——

The next day in the hall, Kathy, The Doctor and Rose step forward and kneel before Queen Victoria. Everyone is present including Lady Isobel, in black, and the maids.

"By the power invested in me by the Church and the State, I dub the: Sir Doctor of TARDIS." Quiet Victoria taps him on each shoulder with a sword.

"By the power invested in me by the Church and the State, I dub the: Dame Rose of the Powell Estate." She taps her on each shoulder with the sword.

"By the power invested in me by the Church and the State, I dub the: Dame Katherine of the Amore-burh." She taps Kathy on each shoulder with the sword.

"You may stand." They rise.

"Many thanks, Ma'am." The Doctor says.

"Yes, thank you," Kathy adds though she knows she is not happy with them.

Rose grins. "Thanks! They're never going to believe this back home."

"Your Majesty, you said last night about receiving a message from the great beyond; I think your husband cut that diamond to save your life. He's protecting you even now Ma'am, even from beyond the grave." The Doctor says.

"Indeed. Then you may think on this, also: that I am not amused." The Doctor groans whilst Rose looks jubilant and Kathy tries to hold in a snort as this bit is actually quite funny.

"Yes!" Rose cries.

"Not remotely amused." The Queen makes an effort to wipe the smirk off her face. "And henceforth... I banish you, Sir Doctor and Dame Rose."

The Doctor and Rose look stunned. Kathy is surprised. Why not her?

"I'm sorry...?" The Doctor eventually says.

Queen Victoria is very angry as she speaks, "I rewarded you, Sir Doctor. And now you are exiled from this empire, never to return. I don't know what you are, the two of you, or where you're from, but I know that you consort with stars, and magic, and think it fun. But your world is steeped in terror and blasphemy and death and I will not allow it! You will leave these shores and you will reflect, I hope, on how you managed to stray so far from all that is good. And how much longer you will survive this... terrible life." Queen Victoria steps away from them angrily. "Now leave my world. And never return."

She then turns to Kathy, "I hope you, Dame Katherine, will not fall too far into this life and bring your child into it. There is hope for you."

——

Kathy, Rose and the Doctor have hitched a lift on the back of Dougal's cart to get back to the TARDIS from the house. It comes to a halt in a field.

"Woah!" Dougal cries.

They jump off the back of the cart back in the highlands near the TARDIS.

"Cheers, Dougal!" The Doctor waves as they walk away and Dougal drives off.

"You know, the funny thing is, Queen Victoria did actually suffer a mutation of the blood!" The Doctor muses. "It's historical record haemophiliac. It used to be called the Royal Disease! But it's always been a mystery because she didn't inherit it. Her mum didn't have it her dad didn't have it, it came from nowhere!"

"Well, history says maybe her father was someone else." Kathy points out. "Some Irish guy in her mother's household. But maybe not in this world."

"What, and you two are saying that's a wolf bite?" Rose wonders.

"Well, maybe Haemophilia is just a Victorian euphemism." The Doctor says.

"For werewolf?" Rose asks in disbelief.

"Maybe!" Kathy replies. She is happier with this lighter conversation, it put her mind off Queen Victoria's words.

"Queen Victoria's a werewolf?" Rose is still in disbelief.

"Could be! And, her children had the Royal Disease. Maybe she gave them a quick nip." The Doctor adds.

"So, the Royal Family are werewolves?" Rose wonders. She clearly can't take it in still.

"Well... maybe not yet. I mean, a single wolf cell could take... a hundred years to mature... might be ready by... oooh... early 21st century...?" The Doctor hints.

"Nah! That's just ridiculous! Mind you... Princess Anne...!" Rose muses.

"I'll say no more." The Doctor says.

"That's mean!" Kathy laughs.

"And if you think about it... they're very private. They plan everything in advance. They, they could schedule themselves around the moon, we'd never know!"

The Doctor and Kathy snigger as they reach the TARDIS and he opens the door.

They bundle in as Rose keeps talking, "They like hunting! They love blood sports!" They laugh as the TARDIS starts to dematerialise. "Oh my God, they're werewolves!"

The two of them howl and cackle. Kathy creases over laughing as the two of them howl and cackle as the TARDIS flies away.

——

The Doctor opens the doors and Kathy follows him out to see that they had landed in the exact same area of the forest that she was last in before stepping inside the TARDIS.

"Now you better have gotten the year and date right," Kathy tells him.

He scoffs. "I promise! It's only been half hour since you left."

"Good cause it be difficult to explain otherwise." She replies with a smirk.

"Well, I suppose this is it then. Till the next time!" He speaks.

"Whenever that is. I suppose you don't know?" Kathy asks.

"Nah. How would I know? So far you've been all over the place!" He exclaims.

Kathy laughs. "Great to know thanks."

A thought then comes to her. "Wait, Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"You say I don't regenerate that same way you do but to be able to, wouldn't I need to look into that schism?"

He frowns. "You once told me that you had looked but you wouldn't say how... or showed you..."

"Oh... well that's confusing."

The Doctor then snaps out of his thoughts, "Well! Goodbye then."

"Bye Doctor."

——

A/N: Kathy may seem like she isn't doing too much right now but I feel like she'll be too afraid to change anything in case it turns out worse than it already will/did also she is adapting to the fact that yes the Doctor Who is real and it is confirmed she is not human. Also pregnant.

Please leave comments on how you're enjoying this story and what you think.