#yes i like angst but clive really did deserve to live

[mistress-light]

Well, maybe I am now convinced that Clive did survive.

[alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer]

seventeen (paris, 1901)

this is inspired by "seventeen" by MARINA! i recommend giving it a listen! the way she sings the chorus honestly gives me chills, it really makes me think about how young alastair was when all of this was happening. sorry in advance for the angst!

cw: toxic relationship, bullying

Read on AO3 | Masterlist

Could never tell you what happened

The day I turned seventeen

Seventeen, Alastair thought. The number sat happily in his mind. It wasn’t a particularly special number. He still was not an adult in the eyes of the Clave, but he took comfort in the number. One year older.

When he was younger, he thought of his birthdays and the years passing optimistically, imagining that in the future there would eventually be a day where he felt like the age of his body matched the age of his mind. Now, however, he doubted that day would ever come.

Adults liked to tell him he had an ‘old soul.’ Parents always commented on his maturity. Not his parents, of course, but when he visited the boys from school or his family found themselves at some gathering of sorts, those were the words he always heard. Oh, Alastair is so mature for his age.

Perhaps that was his problem, he’d always thought. That was the reason he could never make friends the way that Cordelia did. The reason he never got on well with people his own age. He was never any sort of teacher’s pet in school, but he always found it easier to converse with adults nonetheless. He felt far more comfortable with Charles than he ever did with any of the boys from the Academy. It was all because he had an old soul, and his peers did not.

As he grew older, however, these designations made less and less sense to him. He did not feel as if his soul was old at all. In fact, most of the time, he felt more like a thirteen-year-old pretending to be a thirty-year-old than anything else. Now, he was certain that he would never feel like his physical age fit the rest of him. Still, seventeen was a nice number.

Alastair didn’t have strong feelings about birthdays. Most of the time, he simply did not wish for the attention. Back before he went away to school, birthdays were never much of an ordeal. They were far too busy with his father’s health to spend much time, money, or energy on something as relatively insignificant as a birthday. Still, he and Cordelia had a habit of making each other presents for their birthdays. His was in early autumn, September, and they’d spend the day outside, wherever they were living.

They’d collect the prettiest flowers and stones and anything else they could find, then build whatever they could make out of what they had. A castle out of clay; a crown out of twigs. It was nice; it was special. It was theirs.

Then, Alastair went away to the Shadowhunter Academy. He was not excited to spend his fourteenth birthday alone. He missed Cordelia dearly, and the bullying did nothing to help. On the morning of his birthday, he’d gone to the mess hall, attempting to contain both his excitement that there would be letters waiting for him and his anxiety that there would not.

When he arrived, however, the boys were waiting for him, Clive and Augustus and the rest. Clive was in the front, holding an opened envelope. He twirled a flower stem in his fingers, the petals clearly torn off. He could see a few other broken flowers, crushed at his feet. Augustus was beside him, holding out a letter for the others to see, already mocking the writing on the page simply because he could not read it.

Alastair would never read it either, whatever his mother had written him, nor would he read Cordelia’s letter. In fact, he would not remember most of that day at all, only the bruises after.

He did not write to them after that, and when he returned for the winter holidays, conveniently the same time as Cordelia’s birthday, he let the occasion pass without a word. When she asked him if he’d received the flowers she sent to him, he told her he didn’t.

She did not send him anything for his fifteenth birthday.

He spent his sixteenth birthday at home again, but it did not matter. He’d already put far too much distance between him and his sister. He considered trying to apologize for the way he’d treated her, promising to do better, but when the day came, he’d spent the entirety of the night before searching for their father who always decided to go on a bender a few weeks after they arrived in a new city. He’d wistfully wished himself a happy birthday at some early morning hour, gone to bed, and decided it simply was not worth the effort. The only thing he wanted for his birthday was for it to no longer be his birthday anymore.

Today, he was finally seventeen. He’d received two letters at the Paris Institute the day before, one from his mother, wishing him well on his travel year, and the other from his sister, though it was short and he was fairly certain their mother had forced her to write it. There were no flowers, and he did not deserve them. The boys at school may have hurt him, but the way he continued to treat her in the years after was entirely on him. He thought for a moment that he should find her something in Paris, a book or a piece of jewelry so beautiful and thoughtful that she would need to forgive him. He did not believe he deserved her forgiveness, though.

Charles was away visiting his family in London, so Alastair would spend his seventeenth birthday alone. He doubted Charles even remembered it anyways, or that he would have wanted to do anything special for it if he had.

Thus, he did what he did any time he needed some cheering up: he started by visiting various bookshops across the city. He did not typically purchase much from them, but he found the atmosphere comforting. His father was an avid reader and was always severely critical of his son’s tastes in literature. He had many opinions over what was worthy of reading and what was an utter waste of time. Any time Alastair attempted to choose a volume to purchase for himself, he inevitably felt his father’s voice creeping up in the back of his mind. He wasn’t certain whether he preferred the books that the voice favored or the ones it didn’t. Nonetheless, he disliked anything that reminded him of his father, so he resigned himself to casual browsing, purchasing books as gifts for others, and only ever buying for himself what he had the space to hide.

After, he’d take himself to an art exhibit or the Louvre. He was fairly certain he could spend weeks in the Louvre and never grow tired of it.

When he finally returned to the Paris Institute that evening, he’d felt content that at the very least, his birthday was not as terrible as the ones preceding it. As he entered the building, he was startled to see Charles’ coat in the cloakroom. He quickly hung up his own belongings and went to the dining room where dinner was already being served. Charles was there, politely chatting in French with the head of the Institute, Jean Beauvale.

“Monsieur Fairchild!” It felt odd to address him so formally, but while it may be appropriate to address Charles by his first name in English, it was not in French. “You’ve returned from London.”

“Yes, I just got in a few hours ago,” Charles responded. “How was your day?”

“Yes,” Monsieur Beauvale added. “You must tell us how you spent your day off.”

Alastair always felt like this question was a bit of a trap. He knew that Shadowhunters viewed art and literature as a waste of time, but at the same time, he did not want to show a lack of appreciation for the culture. In the end, he simply commented on the beauty of the city and the language, thankful that he could spend a bit more time learning about France.

A servant arrived then with a bottle of champagne, and Monsieur Beauvale proposed a toast. This was how Alastair learned that the Beauvales would be traveling for several months, and Charles would serve as interim head of the Institute. “That is not the only thing we have to congratulate you for, is it,” he added.

Charles grinned a humble, sympathetic politician’s grin. “Oh, thank you, Monsieur. Yes, it’s true, Ariadne Bridgestock and I are to be married,” he announced.

Alastair felt his blood run cold. He bit the insides of his cheeks, forcing a smile and a congratulations. The rest of the meal dragged on, though Monsieur Beauvale and Charles did not seem to sense any tension. When it was over, Alastair promptly excused himself and returned to his room. He suddenly wished desperately that he had purchased a book earlier, anything to take his mind off of this awful truth. Charles was to be married. He was marrying a woman. Of course he was, why would Alastair have ever been enough for him? Still, he felt as if he’d at least been owed a warning.

He heard a knock at his door, but he did not respond to it. “Alastair,” he heard Charles say gently. “Please allow me to explain.”

He should have refused. He should have told him to leave and been done with the whole ordeal. When he looked back on this moment years in the future, he’d wish he did. However, he was lonely, and it was his birthday, and thus he let Charles inside.

“I know you’re upset,” he began.

“I’m not upset,” Alastair said quickly.

“Right,” he responded. “Anyways, this is merely what needs to be done to please our families, both mine and Ariadne’s.” Of what Alastair knew of the Fairchilds, he had a hard time believing that they cared that much about Charles’ romantic life. “This is what I need to do if I wish to secure a position in the Clave, a real position, not simply interim head of an Institute. It means nothing, I swear it. She has no interest in me. It’s merely an arrangement; it’s not real.”

“Not real? You mean, you’re not getting married?” Alastair asked, not fully believing Charles’ words.

“No,” he said quickly. “I mean, perhaps, one day far, far in the future, I will need to, but I have no intention of getting married right now. I am merely doing what I must, you understand that, don’t you?”

“I suppose.”

“You know what the world we live in is like. We must do what we can to ensure our success in it.” Satisfied with Alastair’s reluctant acceptance, he pulled a long, thin box from his pocket. “I have a present for you.”

Alastair blinked. “What?”

“You didn’t think I would forget your birthday, did you?” Charles handed him the box, already smiling in anticipation.

He slowly untied the string securing it, and uncovered a fine, ornate dagger made of stunning Damascus steel. He must have paid handsomely for it. He knew that Charles did not understand his collection of blades, why someone, a warrior, would collect weapons with no intention of using them, but the dagger was gorgeous, each element of it expertly chosen. Alastair could not keep himself from smiling.

“I knew you’d like it,” Charles said, pleased. “Alastair, you know how deeply I care for you. I would never do anything to hurt you. I swear, everything I do is so that you and I could be together.”

Alastair looked at him in stunned silence. He’d never heard those words before, but he’d hear them many, many more before their relationship finally came to an end. At that moment, Alastair felt as if Charles’ words were true. He felt as if there had never been anyone to care for him as much as Charles cared for him, and there never would. He felt as though the key to everything he desired lay within this man. The way he was looking at him, this beautiful dagger in his hands, how was he to feel anything but loved?

He’d look back on it years down the line and wonder how long Charles must have planned that moment, if he’d organized his trip and his engagement all around Alastair’s birthday so that he could have an excuse to give him such a very expensive gift, whether the existence of it was merely a ploy to distract him from the reality of his engagement. If it was, it worked.

That night, Alastair held no doubts in his mind that Charles’ words were anything but the full truth, even as he left him cold and alone that night to return to his own room, only ever staying until he himself was satisfied. Many months would pass before Alastair would even begin to question that night, when he would begin to wonder whether it was the beginning of the end.

The rise of a king and the fall of a queen,

Oh, seventeen

Seventeen

thanks for reading! taglist (lmk to be added/removed or if you only want to be tagged in certain fics):  @stxr-thxif @satanisanauthor @zosiaenrique @lifewouldbebetteronmars @littlx-songbxrd @dianasarrow @eugeniaslongsword @bookswitchcraftandcats @jamesherondaleofficial @thomas-gaypanic-lightwood @livingformyself @anarmorofwords @foxglove-airmid @writeforjordelia @sapphic-in @jem-nasium @fortheloveofthecarstairs

[hellostarlight20]

I Will...8/10

Ten x Rose Rated T Telepathy (telepathic marriage bond) Angst Fluffy laughter Not exactly a rewrite Dimension Hopping Rose JE fixit Happy ending! Beta’d by the ever fabulous MrsBertucci, without whom this chapter would be a mess of messiness. AO3 and TSP and on Tumblr Chapter 1 , 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Part of the The Adventures of Bad Wolf and the TARDIS…and their Doctor series 

…survive

“I think I figured it out.”

Rose blinked out of her headache-tired-overworked stupor and looked to Mickey. But he snored at his desk, head pillowed on his arms while Malcolm Taylor frowned at his white board, marker between his lips, hands and face covered in black and red ink.

“Rose?”

Rose blinked again and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “Martha?”

“I’m sorry, I woke you.” Her friend sounded contrite, and Rose immediately shook her head. Well that was a mistake. One she didn’t want to make again.

“No. Well, yes. But it’s fine. I needed to be up anyway.”

Martha snorted. “In how many hours?”

Grimacing, Rose looked around for a glass to get water, and forced stiff, aching muscles to move. Her back creaked, her shoulders tensed, and her legs flopped like jelly. Wonderful. Tingling fingers, numb toes, pounding head—check, check, and check. Well, nothing changed in the last few hours.

“A couple more,” she admitted. “But you know I’m always here for you.”

“Yeah.” Martha was silent for a few minutes. “Did I tell you I heard what happened in Japan?”

Rose stilled, glass beneath the water cooler. “No.”

Even her telepathic voice dreaded the answer. Goosebumps danced along her skin and slithered down her spine.

“I was the only survivor.”

She closed her eyes and slid to the floor. The glass crashed to the tile, startling Mickey awake and Malcolm from his work. Rose barely noticed.

“I’m sorry.” She swallowed hard and wiped the tears she didn’t bother to stem. Mickey suddenly knelt beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Martha.”

“What happened?” Mickey demanded, face ashen, eyes wide.

Rose rested her head on his shoulder and grasped his hand. Aloud she said, “Martha’s alive. Nothing’s changed. I’ll tell you the rest later.”

Mickey held her and despite her heartache for her friend and the sickening knowledge the Master killed millions as indiscriminately as he blinked, Rose immediately returned to her telepathic conversation with Martha. “How did you hear?”

“The Master,” she spat. “He broadcast it worldwide. Said he destroyed Japan to get to me.”

“He’s going to be so disappointed when he finds out you lived.”

“Good,” Martha said so viciously Rose was surprised the word itself didn’t cut the Master.

“What was it you said when you woke me?” Rose asked, wiping her eyes and taking the tissues Malcolm offered.

“I figured it out. I know how he came to power. You said the Doctor had something to do with Harriet Jones’s abrupt and involuntary resignation, yeah?”

Rose sat up and nodded to her friends, they looked at her oddly—as if they didn’t believe her and Rose didn’t blame them—but they returned to their work. It wasn’t as if they didn’t know she spoke telepathically across universes to both the Doctor and Martha. They’d been in this room with her for the previous year. They knew.

“Yes.” She stood and searched for a broom to clean up her mess. “What about it?”

“If the Doctor caused her resignation, then there was an opening for Prime Minister. That was a year or so, linear time. But, if he brought back the TARDIS—he being the Master—then could the two overlapping TARDIS…es—what’s the plural of TARDIS?”

“I—” Rose blinked and stepped into the hall in search of a broom— “I don’t know. TARDIS stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space, nothing about a ship. Time and Relative Dimension in Spaces?” She snickered and heard Martha do so as well, which was her entire point. Her friend needed a spark of humor. “Maybe TARDIS is plural? Time and Relative Dimension in Space Ship? So, it’d be TARDIS Ship? TARDIS Ships?”

Rose waved it off. She finally found a small cupboard with a broom and dustpan, a mop that didn’t look as if it’d ever been used, and hundreds of boxes of tissues. Boxes stacked to the ceiling, three-six-nine deep and twice that wide. Every box Torchwood ever bought looked as if it resided in this small cupboard.

“I don’t know,” Rose said and honestly didn’t know if it was in answer to Martha’s TARDIS question or the tissues. “I’ll ask her once I get back.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Martha sounded tired, emotionally drained and physically exhausted. It’d been nine months for her, nearly the one year she had to complete her circumnavigation of the world. Magellan had nothing on her. Magellan—Cook? Who was the first sailor to circumnavigate the world?

She wanted to ask the Doctor but they’d agreed she wouldn’t initiate contact. He’d open fully to her whenever he believed himself safe from a telepathic attack from the Master. At the moment, closed off their link.

“TARDIS—singular and plural,” Martha decided and returned to her theory. “Anyway, so if the Master brought back the TARDIS to the same time, would the Doctor be affected? You said he and the TARDIS are bonded, so would having the same TARDIS in two separate locations but the same time have affected him?”

Rose turned her back on the tissues and headed for her lab. It was a maze of barely lighted hallways in Sub Basement Thousand. She sighed and trudged back to the jumper room. It was only Sub Basement Ten, but the lift ride to the level took forever.

She and Mickey had argued that putting them so low within Torchwood Tower meant they had a better chance of destroying the tower, but Malcolm insisted, in the unlikelihood of a catastrophic event, the worst that’d happen was either Rose or Mickey—or whoever physically used the dimension jumper at that time—would be the only one to suffer.

Pete denied their request and threatened to snitch on them to Jackie if anything did happen. For his ‘help’, Rose and Mickey threatened to blame it all on Malcom and make him the brunt of Jackie’s wrath.

“I mean it’s a good theory,” Rose agreed. “It’d explain a lot about that year, too,” she muttered. “But I’m sure the Doctor has crisscrossed his timeline more than once and he’s never mentioned anything about side effects.”

“That he knows of,” Martha added, then sighed. “Just a thought. I had a lot of time to think on the boat ride from Kumamoto to Hawai’i.”

“I’m sorry, Martha.” Rose leaned on the keycard-guarded door to her lab. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again.

She sniffed. “Not your fault. And they’re not dead.” Her voice broke. “Not really. The people I made friends with, the ones who protected me at the cost of their own lives. The ones who smuggled me off Kyushu Island—I’ll make sure they don’t remember any of this. The Doctor’s plan will work.”

Rose straightened, reinvigorated by her friend’s strength. “Yes. Yes, it will. You’re right, Martha.” She pushed open the door and cleaned up the broken glass. “When the Doctor opens our link again, I’ll ask about your family. I don’t know how long it’s been since he last told me about them, but it’ll be the first thing I ask.”

“Thank you,” Martha said, voice weaker. “Any word on Leo?”

“Not that I’m aware of, no. He escaped but good.” Rose grinned and dumped the glass into the rubbish. “The Master is still searching for him, I know he taunts everyone about how he found Leo and killed him, but there’s no body. The Doctor believes the Master is lying, trying to break your parents. I don’t think anyone can find Leo Jones or his family.”

“Good.” Martha let out a long breath. “Good. Now then,” she said in a chipper change of subject. “Tell me about the test jump. Did it work?”

“If by worked you mean did I jump into the right universe—no. Well,” Rose hedged, “maybe. Mickey thinks it was, but it wasn’t Cardiff. Was in the middle of a marketplace of some sort, I don’t know where—was only there a minute, barely got my bearings before the jumper pulled me back.”

“If Mickey’s calculations are anything like the Doctor’s, that doesn’t surprise me.”

Rose snickered and looked to Mickey who had resumed his computer calculations, Malcolm periodically yelling corrections at him.

“I’m going to tell him you said that.”

“Go ahead. With any luck by the time I return to London you’ll be on this side of the Void.”

“Martha Jones, you’re one optimistic woman.”

“I have to be. The world is burning, anything else isn’t an option.”

**** “Don’t jump.”

Rose stared at him. She and the Doctor stood in the TARDIS’s console room, the normally soothing hum of the ship now a weak sound that skipped. The sound slashed through her and pierced her skull.

The location, as much as she loved every inch of the TARDIS, did nothing for her, either. Rose wanted to be in their bedroom, or their grotto, or someplace soothing and comforting. Since reestablishing their bond, or as much as possible given the distance between them, and keeping their renewed communication secret from the Master, the console room became their default locale.

Now, tired, aching, depressed, Rose stared at her husband. “What?”

“I want you to,” the Doctor hurried to say and wrapped his arms around her. The feeling was weak, as if it really were a telepathic projection through the Void and nothing more. “But if you jump before Martha reverses time, you’ll just be pulled back to the other universe.”

“Even if I’m on the Valiant?” Rose leaned back and met his gaze, torn between anger and fear and dread and depression and loneliness. “You said you wanted Martha on the ship when time reverses so she’d remember what happened.”

“If I could have all of them forget, I would.” His hands tightened on her back, but he almost instantly loosened them. “Francine, Clive, Tish—they don’t deserve any of this.”

“If they forget, they won’t have learned,” Rose whispered. “Shouldn’t that be their choice?” Her mind raced with possibilities. “We’re refining the coordinates, Malcolm and Mickey think they have it. They think my next jump will be…back.”

“And the stars?” He framed her face, brushing hair off her cheeks. “What about them?”

“We—me, Martha, Mickey, and Malcolm—think it has to do with the Master’s paradox.”

“Possible.” The Doctor looked up, tongue behind his teeth in his classic thinking position. “I don’t have any other explanation. But why are the stars disappearing in your universe, too?”

“If he—” Rose licked her lips— “if he succeeded. If Martha—if she doesn’t…he threatened to punch through the universes, yeah?”

The Doctor stilled, face pale in the sickly light from the TARDIS. His hands dropped from her arms and everything in him screamed in defiance though he spoke not a word.

“No.”

“You don’t think—”

“No,” he interrupted. “I won’t let that happen. Martha will succeed and she will be back on the Valiant in time, and I swear to you, Rose. I swear the Master will not succeed. I won’t let him.”

Rose grabbed his hand, but their connection weakened. “Doctor!” She pushed through his reticence and forced him to solidify their bond. “Don’t you dare! You hear me? Don’t you do something you’ll regret.”

His eyes caught hers, the swirling anger of a thousand storms. “I won’t regret it. If he’s not stopped now, I see it—if I don’t stop him, no one will. He’ll return again and again and again.”

“Doctor!”

He kissed her forehead and wrapped her in telepathic love. “I love you, my hearts. And to keep you safe I’ll do whatever I need to. Understand?”

“Don’t,” Rose insisted, fear stealing her breath and making her shake. “There’s another way.”

“Not this time.”

**** “He’s hoping when time reverses, you don’t remember any of this.” Mickey snorted. “Like to see the TARDIS let him get away with that.”

She almost smiled. “He can’t hide it from me.” But she remembered how he’d hid Jack. “Not this. He thinks he can, but I won’t let him”

“He’s trying to protect you, Rose.” Mickey handed her a cup of herbal tea and she pressed the hot mug to her pounding temples. It helped for a minute, but never long enough.

“There’s a difference between protecting me and lying to me.” She met Mickey’s gaze and saw his resignation there. “And he’s wrong.”

Mickey kissed the top of her head and nodded. “But with time reversed and the bond reasserted, you’ll be all right then?” She nodded and he sighed. “Good. In that case, make sure both the Doctor and Martha know all the progress we’ve made here. I don’t fancy doing all this work again.”

Rose smiled. “You won’t remember doing it.”

He glowered at her. “I’ll remember.”

She stood, kissed Mickey’s cheek and turned to her small room. She had some thinking to do, and a good meditation always helped.

Rose decided to listen to the Doctor, Martha, and Mickey. They insisted it was for the best to remain on this side of the Void until time reversed and the Year of Hell was forgotten by all but a few.

He didn’t fool her, she knew what he was about. Rose didn’t know if Martha understood, but the look on Mickey’s face told her he knew the Doctor better than the Doctor probably wanted.

So Rose pushed herself to leave her lab and spend time with Jackie, Tony, and Pete. Her head still hurt like someone stabbed her with a pickaxe and motion made her nauseous, but spending time with her family helped her heart and eased her loneliness.

Both the Doctor and TARDIS believed this Year of Hell would reverse across all dimensions once the paradox broke. She needed to spend time with her family while she could before jumping back, but the migraines and motion sickness made that difficult.

Even weak, tiring easily, and unable to tolerate the louder of Tony’s toys, Rose struggle through it all.

And then came the end.

Rose hunched over the toilet, Jackie holding her hair back and Tony curled at her side. The Master did something to the Doctor, Rose didn’t know what, the Doctor refused to say, but in the aftermath, his psychic barriers weakened. They had been for a while as he integrated himself into the Archangel Matrix.

Matrix—that sounded familiar, but the harder Rose tried to place the word, the harder her head pounded.

“He’s there,” she mumbled.

“Who is, sweetheart?” Jackie ran a flannel beneath the water and held the cool cloth to the back of Rose’s neck.

“The Master. He’s there. Trying to break through the Doctor’s mind.”

“How’s that?” Jackie offered her a glass of flat fizzy drink. “I thought he was trying to break into the TARDIS, like you did only not.”

Rose didn’t bother correcting her mum. Jackie’s explanation was close enough. She debated the drink then took it, sipping the flat beverage, too drained to even grimace. At least when she next vomited she’d have something in her stomach.

“He wants to get to me.” She met Jackie’s gaze and, though her arms wobbled, pulled a worried Tony onto her lap. “Thinks he can and by doing so he’ll control the Doctor.”

Jackie scoffed. “Does he know what you did to yourself?” Her voice remained low but used the same worry-angry-resigned tone she used when Rose first admitted what happened. Seemed a lifetime ago now. “Does he have any idea the power of that ship of the Doctors?”

“He’s not sane.” Rose rocked Tony, partly for his benefit, partly for hers. The motion soothed the both of them. She looked up and met Jackie’s soft gaze. “I’m afraid the Doctor’s going to kill him.”

“Good.”

Rose jerked and Tony whimpered. “Mum!”

“Rose, I’m sorry he’s the Doctor’s friend—or used to be. But sometimes friends go bad. If he doesn’t kill this Master, and honestly what kind of ridiculous psychological problem does he have to call himself that!”

Jackie slid to the floor and leaned against the sink. She brushed Rose’s hair off her forehead and rested her hand on Tony’s back.

“He’s a danger to Earth.” Jackie sighed. “He’s dangerous to the whole universe—all the universes. You know that, Rose.”

“He’s the only other Time Lord who survived the War, Mum.” Rose closed her eyes and rested her cheek on Tony’s head. His warm little body helped the shivers now wracking hers.

“And how did he survive?” Jackie snorted. “Ran away he did. Coward that he was. No. If the Doctor doesn’t…end it all,” she added tactfully, “then what’s to say this Master won’t return? Again and again and again.”

“The Doctor’ll have another Time Lord,” Rose insisted. “He won’t be alone.”

“Rose!” Jackie’s loud snap startled both Rose and Tony, who whimpered from his nap. “Don’t you dare talk about yourself like that. You think you aren’t enough? You think the Doctor needs another Time Lord to not be alone? What about Martha? And Sarah Jane, hmm?”

Rose opened her mouth but Jackie ignored her.

“I won’t have you talking about yourself as if you’re less than a psycho who thinks destroying the Earth is the way to come back from the dead.” Jackie huffed. “You already found a way back to Himself, and I know you’ll go as soon as it’s safe.” She sniffed back tears. “I wish we had more time, but I know what it’s like to miss the one you love.” Jackie hesitated then nodded. “You just remember, you’re good enough for the Doctor. Too good if you ask me.”

Rose smiled weakly at the same words her mum used when she and the Doctor told Jackie what Rose had done as Bad Wolf. Well, Bad Wolf and their subsequent bonding. It’d been hard to tell if Jackie was more annoyed over what Rose had done to herself as Bad Wolf or that she and the Doctor married without her there.

Still a tossup, as far as Rose could see.

“Now come on.” Jackie stood and took Tony before helping Rose to stand as well. “Let’s get the pair of ya to bed. You can nap with Tony then we’ll have dinner in the back bedroom.”

They’d rearranged the bedroom nearest Rose’s room in the mansion as their new dining room when Rose moved back in. It was small, quiet, and dark. Perfect for her current condition.

“How long do we have?” Jackie whispered as she carried Tony into the main bedroom.

“Still a few months,” Rose promised. “Few weeks for Martha to return to London then when time reverses the Doctor will have to go over all the advances we’ve made so the jumper can work.”

“We’ve time then.”

Rose stopped her mum just as Jackie turned for the door. “As Bad Wolf, I saw a lot—everything. If there’s a way back here, I saw that, too. Or I created one. I won’t be gone forever, Mum. I promise.”

Jackie smiled and sniffed back tears. “Get some rest, sweetheart. We’ll take what time we have and enjoy it to the fullest.”

**** Time reversed. The Doctor didn’t kill the Master, but when poor Lucy shot him, he also didn’t do anything to stop her. As he, Jack, Martha, Francine, Clive, and Tish watched the Master die, the Doctor reached out for Rose.

“You’re okay,” he breathed.

“Course I am.” She kissed him. “What happened? One minute I had the migraine from hell, you and Martha were both shouting at me, and the next it felt as if that never happened.”

He took her, telepathically of course, in his arms and kissed her. “I’ll explain everything. I promise. First I have to burn the Master’s body.”

“What?” Rose pulled back. “Doctor what the hell happened? Wait. Wait…” she stared at him, wide-eyed. “What happened?” She shook her head even as he pulled back. “Just…take Jack with you. Martha, too. All the Jones’s.”

“What?” The Doctor narrowed his eyes. No, he sensed no residual memory from the Year of Hell, as Rose and Mickey dubbed it. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I just know they need to be there.”

He took them. Rose had been right, they’d needed to be there as much as he had. It wasn’t closure, not really, but it was a start. When the Doctor would’ve left, when he would’ve trusted the pyre to burn itself out and the Master—his oldest friend and greatest enemy—destroyed, he stayed because they needed to.

Jack found the ring. “This didn’t burn.” He tossed it at the Doctor. “Time Lord metal doesn’t burn in Earth fire?”

The Doctor stared at it for a moment, then his fist clenched around it. “No.” He cleared his throat and raised his head to look at—at his friends. “Thanks.”

“A piece of your home world.” It was Tish who said it, her weary voice soft and understanding.

“Yeah.” His fingers dug into his palm, tighter and tighter around the ring. The Gallifreyan ring that housed the Master’s consciousness. The ring he missed and would’ve left.

“Let’s go home.” Clive stepped back as the fire burned itself out. They’d stood there for hours and hours. “I need a shower.”

Martha laughed, a short, hard sound. “Yeah. Sounds great. But there are some people I have to see first.”

The Doctor took Clive, Francine, and Tish home where they immediately called Leo. Then he, Jack, and Martha traveled the world and visited those who had helped Martha on her walk. Hundreds from every country. She cried when she saw them and they didn’t recognize her, but Rose pointed out to him that they were happy tears.

“I knew they’d forget,” Martha said, weeks later, as Jack handed her a cup of tea. “I’m glad they did. I’m glad they’re still alive.”

“But you’re sorry they won’t remember you.” Jack sat next to her and nodded, staring at the Doctor. “That’s what happens to legends, Martha. The story lives on even if the people themselves are forgotten.”

“I’ll miss talking to Rose, too.” She continued to carry the watch, though now that the TARDIS was healthy again, it didn’t work as a transit to speak with Rose any more. “Kinda got used to having her always there to talk to.”

The Doctor pushed off the counter and crossed to the table. “She misses you, too.”

“She remembers?” Jack demanded.

“No.” The Doctor tugged his ear. “Not really. Not like we do. But a part of her does, the part connected to the TARDIS. She has echoes of memories and one of them is talking to Martha.”

“When is she coming back?” Martha asked, sipping her tea.

“Soon.” The Doctor grinned widely. “We have some things to discuss.” He looked at Jack and sighed. “She’s still mad at me, well mad again, for leaving you behind. Once I explain everything…then she’ll jump back.”

“Everything?” Jack asked sharply. “You’re going to tell her about the Master?”

“I promised.” The Doctor sighed, shoulders sagging. “I should’ve told her about you when we bonded, but I pushed what happened so far into the back of my mind, it never occurred to me. I promised I’d tell her everything.” He shifted, uncomfortable, and admitted, “Rose even made me promise to have Martha smack me if I didn’t.”

Martha laughed, her first real laugh since they landed in Cardiff a lifetime or two ago. It made the Doctor’s hearts swell. When Jack joined in, he relaxed and some of the tension knotting his shoulders eased.

“Come on.” Martha stood and rolled her shoulders. “Drop me off at Mum’s. I…I have to make sure they’re all right, you see.”

He stood as well and nodded. “I understand. What about you, Jack?”

“I spent a lot of time thinking about my team,” he admitted. “I have responsibilities. I need to get back. But let’s drop Martha off first. I want to say goodbye to them, too.”

“Rose,” the Doctor called out, “when I’m finished dropping Martha and Jack off, we’ll talk. I promise, my hearts.”

“We better.” She still sounded angry, but understanding, too. He’d told her a little—the basics about the paradox and time reversing—when he piloted the TARDIS for Martha’s round-the-world trip.

“Everything,” he promised. “It’s a lot, but whatever you want to know, it’s yours.”

“I know that, Doctor,” she sighed. “I knew that before we bonded. I don’t need to know every day of your lives, but I need to know why you kept what I’d done to Jack a secret. Before we bonded, after, it doesn’t matter. You lied every time I asked.”

“I know. And we’ll talk. Let me drop Martha and Jack off, then I’m all yours. Always.”

She snorted, but it was in amusement not anger. “You already are.”

He grinned as he set the coordinates. “Only yours, my hearts.”

The problem was, as soon as he dropped Martha off, he ran into his past body. The Doctor refused to even remember what Jack said to his previous self. He knew he blushed clear through that body and the next from all the innuendo.

And then there was the Titanic. After they took care of that, the Doctor finally dropped Jack off in Cardiff and parked the TARDIS in the Vortex.

“Now then,” he said and lay comfortably on their bed. “Let’s start at the very beginning.”

“A very good place to start,” Rose sang back.

The Doctor grinned and opened his mind to hers. “Let’s get you home, my hearts.”

[mantra4ia]

Broadchurch 3x08 Reaction’d *spoilers* [aired 4/17/16]

Non spoilers: 11/10 Millarhs! Yes, yes the show finally went there. All stops shattered. Just send them all the BAFTAs.

Pre-episode thoughts: I am not ready, I will never be ready, why is this happening, what did I do to deserve this? If Law and Order and NCSI can have ridiculous longevity, why can’t I have more Miller & Hardy? [spoilers and some profanity ahead]

The “Pull over” line is perfect. Now I have to remix it with Sherlock and From Dusk till Dawn.

Oh for f---’s sake, don’t split up! Nothing good ever happens when the protagonists split up.

Miller: “do you think [Ed’s telling the truth?” / DC Hartford: “I just don’t know anymore.” / Me: Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve just witnessed an historic full circle. Miller just pulled a Hardy, Hartford just pulled a Miller, and I feel as though the torch has been passed and Ellie needs that DI promotion now!

Changing my bets: money is on swaggery young shit with the laundry now.

Hardy: “I still enjoy those moments when some cocky bastard trashes his own alibi without realizing it.” ME TOO Hardy, me too

Hardy: “I’ll fiddle with that too” I have never laughed so hard! When Hardy/ Tennant delivers those lines with a a straight face, I’m convinced Broadchurch wants to be a comedy instead of a crime drama.

“I have sat across from you in all these interviews, I’ve listened to every word, watched your reactions, I’ve studied your body language and I think there’s still something you are not telling us...and I can’t for the life of me understand why.” I’ll be honest, I heard not a word of that, I was distracted by David’s brilliant facial expressions.

OMG - I knew one of the Broadchurchers was a ‘witness,’ but never for the life of me would I have thought Ed. Nice writing Chibnall, drop hints that make us suspect the what, and then throw a curveball of who and how.

Ed: “I failed her” Me: MAN, is that a blow to the head!

3x01 Miller “ He [Hardy] makes a really strong cuppa tea, must have smoked and killed his taste buds” vs 3x08 Hardy: “It’s times like these  I wish I still smoked” / Miller: “I knew you smoked.” Soft touch, very smooth.

Ellie drinking a disgusting energy drink during a case (which she probably got from Tom) is now canon. Fan life is good!

“Very good Miller, you should do this for a living.” Millarh count, check.

SWAGGERY LITTLE SHIT! God I love wish fulfillment.

Hardy “You have a moral and legal duty to tell us the truth!” (spittle flying everywhere in a distracting fashion) Go on Hardy, stitch him up!

Oh no, what if Clive’s son had Clive’s phone?

SHIT, IT WAS HIS CLIVE’s SON AND SWAGGERY!

Leo: “I’m letting you borrow her” “She does what she’s told” “Not too good, she’s supposed to save that for me” / Me: Oh Ellie, take a hammer to town on this wee boy. Drop kick his a-- into the middle of next week. Please, please, make my year. Hardy can help!

“Do as you’re told” NOOOOOO! You did not just poison that Doctor Who line for me Chibnall. I will destroy you!

Clive: “Say it was me.” OH come on, someone stop punching me with every line! Stop punching me with the theme of parents and children. First Ellie and Tom “You have to be better than your dad,” then Trish and Ian and their daughter, where she is actually better and more mature than Ian. And Hardy and Daisy where he would burn the world for here. And then Clive and Michael, where Clive tries to become a better man and nearly burns down his whole world for his son. THIS IS GOING TO END ME!

I could have 60 more minutes of Ellie across the table from Leo Humphreys in the box just burning him to ash and still want more. It’s Miller’s world and we all just live in it with the sole purpose of giving Olivia Colman her rightful accolades.

“I didn’t ask, is that rude?” Light his world on fire, please.

“I didn’t want to get greedy / I go everywhere equipped.” For as much as I detest the character of Leo Humphries, I have so much respect for that actor Chris Mason. To handle such heavy material takes commitment. But what really drove it home for me was when he talked about grooming Michael. “He seemed lonely, I thought this might help...it’s beautiful.” He made us believe it. He did NOT.Miss.A.Single.Beat.

PS: this seems inconsequential compared to Trish’s storyline, but I love what this episode meant for the Latimer family. All those feelings finally brought to the surface, and yet despite it all, still love. Still that couch, still Beth falling asleep on Mark. It’s a great portrayal of how complex love and family love is.

PPS: “I’m going to start my own youtube channel.” EVERY PRAISE Maggie, I’m subscribing right now.

I KNEW IT. From the first scene with Maggie and Paul together this series, I knew she would get people into that church.

Miller: “We could go to the pub” / Hardy: “Nah.” / Me: Way to NEVER break character, even in the end. Also Me: But I need a hug!

“See you tomorrow” - the most hopeful line in all creation.

“Let us all consider how we may spur one another on (Hebrews 10:24) ...All any of us really want are Love and Good Deeds.”

Post Episode thoughts: Am I disappointed? Yes on a couple of fronts, though that doesn’t lessen my joy with the episode. 

Why hasn’t Ellie gotten a promotion, or at least public recognition for her work yet? The finale would have been perfect for that.

I’m annoyed that we didn’t see Clive’s wife’s reaction to her son being charged, because I would have liked to draw some parallels there. 

I’m annoyed that we got dialogue between Hardy and Daisy, but no dialogue between Tom and Ellie. (again, a missed parallel opportunity, I needed some closure / perspective on all the mother-son angst between them)

I’m gutted that the Hardy hug that I wanted him to share with Miller ended up being shared with Daisy. Albeit, Hardy and Daisy hugging and Daisy saying how proud she is of her dad, that was fitting, right and beautiful. 

I’m annoyed that most of the central characters are scattering to the winds to continue leading rich and wonderful lives that we’ll never get to see. I suppose it’s that way with any show realistically, but it strings because these characters are so alive and I’m so invested. 

I’m wrecked that the last shot of Miller and Hardy were them walking in opposite directions of one another (I wanted the ending scene with both of them on that bench, framed in shot). I felt personally affronted that he didn’t go out to the pub for a drink with Ellie (and/or presumably the team). If anything, if he can’t go out for a drink because he still isn’t fully acclimated to Broadchurch despite giving in and being part of the town and not hating it, then he should have at least pulled out a concealed flask (don’t tell me that’s not in character, it absolutely is) and offered it to Miller. Still, I’m hopeful. I waiver back and forth between BroTP and OTP shipping Miller and Hardy as a non-nuclear family; that said, I’m glad that their relationship, whatever it is or would be, is allowed to develop organically and not in a box with a label and a heavy writer’s hand, and the finale was no different. Even though they go farther and not closer in the same shot, they still from first to last episode, are learning more and more about each other. Hardy is staying, and Miller will ‘see him tomorrow.’ In perspective of many other central characters parting or leaving, that promise is all the more powerful. Though the shot separates them, Hardy and Miller are still standing and still together. That significance is not lost on me. 

At the core of it, I’m heart broken that there’s still so much to know, so many unexplored opportunities that could easily fill another season. I know we needed to do footwork to catch the guilty party, but there aren’t enough hours in the series to properly do that and catch all the character relationships that I want! I don’t need everything wrapped in a neat bow, I want things left to dream about. But I want, on screen and therefore canon, more backstory with Miller and her dad, more Daisy and Chloe together in school now that the Hardy family are official Broadchurchers, Paul giving Tom a last talking to before he leaves town that helps them both, DC Hartford back on the next case with more discernment / Miller-ism. All these normal, non case related snapshots that could have/ would have been, but aren’t. To know that if I want them I have to write them myself makes me weep.

I don’t think I’ll see such a emphatic, compelling ensemble of actors for quite some time, but I’m alright with that. Great actors are abundant, great actors coming together in the right parts, in harmony: that’s a rare, special thing that is a privilege to behold. This is what TV should be. Thank you, past and present, to the entire cast of Broadchurch! It’s been an honor.