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The Doctor was so excited to bring Steve and Bucky to the singing towers. The entire planet had a way of singing, and the melody was always beautiful and up lifting. Any ache that weighed on their heart, any sorrow that might have occupied their mind, were sure to be temporarily lifted by the harmonic energies of the planet. She'd already warned them not to be careful to open their mouth. Words had a way of coming out more song-like. It was impossible not to get swept up a bit by it all, but in a good way, she'd assured them.

But when she opened the TARDIS doors, the Doctor quickly realized something was off. The planet was still achingly beautiful as ever, its song thrummed in the air like a summer breeze. But the chords were all in minor. It was sad, so stunningly sad.

"Something's not right..." she started. A hand clasped over her mouth. No, no. She would have to be careful. Instead of being a temporary tonic for her sadness, she realized immediately it might magnify any discord in her heart. She hadn't even sung, but the way she spoke was rhythmic, the lead in to a melody she had no intention of singing.

♪ Well, then. Come along. We'll find what's wrong... ♪

She sucked in a breath and stopped herself, motioning to her companions instead. She was dressed for a trek in the mountains, where the sunset was beautiful, wearing the same riding pants she'd attempted on Steve and Jane's aborted second date. It had been on purpose, a signal of a second chance, but now that the planet's tune was all wrong she was starting to regret that choice.

Jane pointed her sonic into the open, and when it whirred, even the sound was pitch perfect. She walked in silence though her footfall carried the soft, sad rhythm perfectly.

Most people didn't notice. Time folded in on itself and with the exception of the very strong willed and the time travelers, it just felt like it had always been that way. The dance hall was filled with soldiers in their sharp brown dress uniforms, women dressed to the nines at the height of mid 1940s fashion, and a band blaring a swinging rendition of Sia's Titanium.

THE WAR OF THE ROSES HAS ENDED, proclaimed a banner. The light was golden with old fashioned bulbs. There were sharp red banners hanging from the walls representing the Tudor victory. And Peggy Carter was there, she always spotted Steve first, with her hand reaching for them. He owed her a dance, after all. He always owed her a dance.

It wasn't precisely like the vision. The darker details of men bleeding out or fighting didn't exist at all. But somehow Scarlet Witch's vision she'd activated in Captain Rogers had come damn close to the real thing.

"We can go home after this," Carter said after she pulled her man in. (Carter always got her man.) "The war is over."

On the other side of the dance hall was someone who didn't belong. Her dress was 10 years ahead of fashion, a sort of shimmering cream color that helped her blend in if it were for the golden leaf details. She was looking for someone named Bucky.

Peggy curled in close to Steve, letting him take the lead. "Love this song. I have it on my iPod."

The Doctor loved New York. There wasn't an incarnation of New York that wasn't exciting, from Old New York to New New New New York. The American New York was, naturally, the best incarnation of them all, even if she did look like a bit of a lost tourist. She dressed a bit like a Victorian governess with a tomboy's haircut. In a city like New York no one looked twice.

Not even at a man in an SSR t-shirt looking lost and afraid as black SUVs closed in on him in the middle of Times Square.

Luckily for him, The Doctor was not most people. She walked with a perfect posture and dignity that betrayed her young face. She wove through people like the TARDIS through time and managed to get to suspiciously specimen-like man before anyone else. Her hand was so gentle as it reached up to meet his shoulder.

"Are you alright?"

Despite how dire the situation looked, The Doctor appeared to be in no rush, examining him with sad brown eyes. After a moment's consideration she said, "Of course you're not. Come along, then. They can have you when you're good and ready."

She offered her hand like a question.

When he took it they ran. The Doctor had no idea where they were running to at first, but she could make out black SUVs tailing them. Steve could run much faster than she could, but with two hearts she had no problem keeping a fast pace. She noticed a stairwell leading down to a subway platform, and took it. It was a joyful thing to run. This time there were no monsters, no aliens, no invasions. Just a bunch of humans scrambling to figure out what had just happened. The Doctor laughed like the entire ordeal would simply be another funny story to tell.

The Doctor slept. And slept.

Occasionally she exhaled what looked like golden fairy dust. The clever princess in fairy tales, saving cursed princes from wicked monsters - that was her. The fairy godmother who came to people's aid in legend - also her. She looked the part now more than ever. When her eyes opened, she saw that she was back in the TARDIS. She couldn't remember how she'd gotten there either.

There was Steve, mending his shirt, wearing his trousers and white sleeveless undershirt. The Doctor looked confused a bit.

"...Did I miss something? Regeneration, takes more than a flashy light. Last time I nearly slept through an invasion and Christmas."

It was good to have Steve back in the TARDIS again. The Time Lord had no idea where she was going, so it seemed the smartest thing to do was head to a museum. She was still squinting at the console, the knobs were just as she left them, though sometimes she pulled the wrong one and the TARDIS made a mechanical protest sound and then the Doctor would apologize and try something else.

"There's no need to panic..."

Which meant there was probably a very good, very rational reason to panic.

"I'll remember how to land this eventually..."

She looked up at Steve and offered another one of her new smiles. She hoped they were good, the Doctor hadn't seen what they looked like yet. After a few more attempts, they landed. The Doctor was happy to see it was a museum. She stuck out her tongue for a few moments and tasted the air.

"Oh, Alafagoria! Distant future, well! Distant relative to you. Let's have a look, shall we?" The Doctor grabbed Steve's hand and dragged him out. Instead of stopping at the displays, the Doctor passed her judgement on them and swept him through the various exhibits quickly. "Wrong. No. Almost. No cigar. Next. Oooh, that was a lovely day. Nope! Wrong."

It was in the last room that the Doctor stopped and canted her head. "Now this could be promising..."

Perhaps it was because they'd separated her from the TARDIS. It wasn't as if a woman, alien or not, would be able to get far on foot on her own on a HYDRA base full of armed operatives. They'd taken her sonic screwdriver and psychic paper, too. What was the Doctor without her gadgets, after all?

Her things were held at one location, halfway across the world, and she was held in the other. There were doctors that wanted to cut her open and see how her two hearts really worked. The problem was the Doctor had seemingly given HYDRA something better than complete knowledge of her alien physiology. She was giving them secrets to alien technology, at least a decade ahead of its time.

HYDRA had discovered the Doctor's greatest weakness: boredom.

After the base was secretly liberated by SHIELD, they'd discovered it, too.

They hadn't meant to be cruel to the alien, but she was clearly too dangerous to release and was too valuable of an asset. They'd tried to keep her occupied in other ways. They gave her books to read: she could read a thousand pages in approximately five seconds. The only books she had any interest in re-reading had Harry Potter in the title. She liked music, particularly David Bowie and Lou Reed, but the music alone wasn't enough. Movies did nothing, she refused to sit through them.

The only thing that kept her from being depressed or panicked was the smart board and stylus that they'd put in her room.

She didn't just hand over dangerous technology to the enemy. It wasn't quite like that, just close enough. They were just jokes at first. Instructions to build amusing little trinkets. Some of them were pranks and set off hilarious effects. She was a tinkerer. It was the only thing that kept her mind occupied and stopped her complaining from having to, quote, live a boring life in order, unquote. The problem was some of those little in-jokes and mathematical formulas had practical applications that would be dangerous in the wrong hands.

They couldn't just let her go.

For SHIELD, for the sake of the world, it was better if she remained their guest.

The Doctor wanted a banana. Not just any banana, of course. The Gros Michel variety of banana was clearly superior to the modern Cavendish, despite having gone extinct. She impatiently tapped buttons and pulled levers on the TARDIS console, until hearing the delightful vwrop! vworp! of the landing.

"The Gros Michel," The Doctor explained, "is superior because it's still the flavor emulated in banana custards and candies. Superior flavor and texture, although sadly not very disease resistant. Lucky for us! Still in bountiful supply in 1941. Also jazz, I do like a big band every once in a while."

The Doctor looked up and realized she was speaking to an empty room. Right, Rory was gone. So was Wilfred Mott before him, and Micky Smith before him. She frowned, but was thankful that her forgetfulness was only witnessed by her time machine.

"So, bananas then," she said to herself. And unlike other times when the Doctor promised one adventure only to be brought into another by the TARDIS, she was almost a little disappointed to find herself in the exact destination she'd tried for: New York City 1941. The Doctor wondered what Churchhill was up to as she stepped out of the tiny blue box and locked up behind her.

Although a young woman in a man's dark suit and tie might have stood out, most humans were polite enough to look away. Her hair was down and hung plainly at her shoulders, strolling in reasonable low cut boot perfect for running. Perhaps she'd tried to emulate the Beatles' early look just a bit, but really who hadn't? Or, she paused to consider, perhaps it was the other way around.

A girl in a suit just taking a stroll. No adventure here. None. Nope.

London.

Nanshe knew it by the scent, by the feel, but mostly by the peeling paint on the wall that greeted her when she opened her eyes. This was her London flat, or at least, it had been before she'd been somehow overpowered by aliens and abducted from Earth to go traveling the stars.

There had always been other worlds. But none of those worlds had ever been Nanshe's to tend to. She didn't know why she'd been returned, and she frankly didn't care. She was home, unless this was some elaborate prank, and she was grateful for it.

Rolling from where she'd been lying - on the floor, it seemed - she got to her feet and walked around the familiar flat. She'd missed it. She'd missed it terribly. But she wondered if she was alone here. She wondered if Morpheus was still in the grasp of those interstellar creatures.

"Dream," she whispered, barely able to get the summons out past her lips. She knew that this was the moment when hope could flourish or die. She wanted one thing; she feared the other.

But nothing would tell her but time. She waited, standing in the center of her small living area, the dim London sun shining through the cracked plastic blinds.

When next he opened his human eyes, a large orange sun greeted him. His skin was warm from it, even under the clothing he wore, and that told him he'd been lying in it for some time. Rather than sit up immediately, he listened instead - not with those human ears, but with the innate ability of his race. He listened.

But around him, the only thing he heard was the dull static that meant animal minds along with one bright, shining, glimmering spark of hope. Relief. Sabev, though yet unconscious like he had been, was here -- and she was close.

Ilyien stood from the ground, then, and surveyed his surroundings. It was a largely negotiable forest, though the greenery and plant life were overall larger than he was accustomed to seeing. Was this another experiment courtesy of their alien captors? Ordinarily, Ilyien would have believed it thus. Given that Sabev was the only other life form close at hand, however, Ilyien wasn't positive.

It didn't matter, in the end. He was here, and she was close. Ilyien struck out into the forest, following inerrantly the beacon of her mind.

SHIELD kept extensive files on anyone with superhuman powers-alien, mutant, demigod, super-soldier, and everything else in between. There was a lot of interest surrounding those who currently resided at Xavier's School for the Gifted. Gifted indeed, Natasha thought to herself with a quiet little exhalation. She didn't necessarily believe all mutants to be bad anymore than she believed all humans to be bad. In her life, she'd seen that humans were just that-human. They all had the good, the bad, and the ugly inside. Powers or not, humans could do a lot of damage to each other and anything else they chose to hurt. But she'd also seen that there were some who were capable of good. She didn't believe that anyone was all good or even that she could trust anyone through and through, but she could see where some people might be good allies to have. She'd even seen some who believed so thoroughly in a cause or in protecting people that they would die for it. Even those that one might expect to have a greater self preservation instinct, like Stark. He'd taken her by surprise in a way that few had achieved in her life.

For now, she was reserving judgment on the newest potential asset for SHIELD. The orders were to get close to the subject and evaluate him to see if he would make a good addition to the organization. To see if he could be trusted.

Trusted. Fury did have a way with words. Funny, because he director didn't trust anyone. Not Natasha, not Barton, not even Hill. He had circles of trust. There were those who were more in the know than others and there was likely different pieces of information with different people in his inner circles. She didn't believe that anyone knew everything about the director or his initiatives. Nor did anyone in Natasha's life know everything about herself or her motivations. Hell, there were times when she wasn't sure she knew herself. Slipping on one identity after another made it easy to believe that lies that one told to get by. It blurred the lines on what was and wasn't the truth about herself.

It was easier that way.

Today, she was simply shopping at a store that was apparently frequented by the mark. It would seem that he was an artist. A gentle giant, perhaps. Or perhaps not. Artists could be temperamental, could they not? After the Battle of New York, she didn't have the luxury of losing herself in secret identities anymore. Not without extensive work to mask her own features and trademark red hair. After all, it was hard to hide when there were freaking action figures out there. She couldn't say that she was pleased with any of that, but it was the new normal and she'd roll with the punches. For today, she didn't have a mask or a wig. If she was recognized, it might make conversation all that much easier.

She moved through the store and waited for Mr. Rasputin to make his appearance. If the intel was right, this was about the time of day and the right day of the week for his trip. And if not? Well, she'd certainly had duller stake-outs.

There were months between the big night and this one. Aidan had been a good host, and it helped that the guy had a job. Dean had been forced to get a job to help out, even if the hunter continued to hunt. Aidan was helpful usually, but there were moments the murse got in the way. He had moments of being a little overprotective, more so now than before perhaps.

Sometimes those moments weren't even hunting related, like tonight.

"Hey, you didn't have to hit him. I could have done it." Dean smiled, head shaking at the memory of Aidan decking some guy who got a little handsy with the hunter's rear end. "I'm still pretty good at flattening some asshat." Dean's hand lifted in a fist, punching at the air. The hunter might have been a little tipsy.

"Though, gotta admit, I'm looking good." The jeans fit the curved hips. The shirt dipped to show just a hint of cleavage and rounded edge of a tattoo. No bra showed - not because the hunter wasn't wearing one but because the shirt didn't open that way. The shoes were functional, and the jacket was more fashionable than Dean would have worn before. It was tailored well enough to show that the the body beneath it was certainly female.

"You're just jealous I got the drink." The smirk on Dean's lips teased at the murse. "The chick wanted me along for a threesome. I'm the hot one. You scowl too much." Dean moved close to Aidan, hands lifting to poke a finger into each side of the murse's lips to make him smile.

"Would think it'd take me longer to get used to this hotness, than you." Dean hadn't started hitting on any men, but there was a strange small thrill at being this close to Aidan. A small thrill at Aidan's reaction at the bar, even if it aggravated the hunter. Dean was a woman who could protect herself.

Eventually, the planets blended together for Mary. It didn’t matter because there was always a new culture to learn. Always some threat or other to worry about. Her family was there, but Johnny wasn’t. She’d stopped hoping that she’d wake up and he’d be there a few planet hops ago. She’d even lost the hope that they’d eventually find a way to take the fight to the aliens and get them to send everyone home. Even if she was sent home, she wasn’t sure if it would be to her time period.

So when she woke up in a bed that smelled very strongly of Johnny’s shampoo, she thought at first that it was just another plan that the aliens had of screwing with her head. Once she had enough time to open her eyes and look around, she realized with a start that it was the motel room she’d been staying in before that angel spirited her away back into the past and started this whole nightmare.

It could be another fake Earth. The aliens had suckered them all in with that fake Electric City. She wasn’t going to just fall for it. Not this time. Not even when she got out of bed and spotted the all-too familiar cowboy hat on the table. Nor when she heard the hot water running in the bathroom.

She didn’t call out. Even as much as she wanted to. Instead, she just stared at the door to the bathroom. Waiting, perhaps, for someone to come out. Maybe this was just another forced roommate situation. If it was, then she really wanted to shoot whatever alien had put the cowboy hat here in the face. In spite of herself, her fingers stretched towards the hat, trembling. They hovered just a half an inch away, as if she couldn’t bring herself to confirm that it was just an illusion.

( Read more... )

The last Time Lady of Gallifrey stood before her TARDIS console, staring blankly at the display -- seeing nothing. Behind her dark and filling eyes, one piece of her life played on its horrifying guilty loop. She'd lost them before, either to love or change or will or anger or enemies or even the press of time, but never to the ignominious end of an accident. There'd been nothing noble or good about it. The cliff face was strong enough to hold them both. Sitting on it was nothing compared to the danger she and John Smith had gone through together. Daleks, Slitheen...

But in the end, what took her last Companion was standing up from the cliff face overlooking the Ruby Falls of Tresaluna. His foot slipped. The rock face under him crumbled. That look of surprise, then the flash of panic, his long-fingered reaching hand, the open 'O' of his mouth. Rose dropped her head, hissing in a breath that caught in her throat. It'd been four months, 12 days, 21 hours, and 32 minutes since he died. Sometimes she could push it aside and work. Sometimes...

A blaring alarm shook her out of her grief. Dashing fingers under black-rimmed eyes, Rose tugged the console at a better slant and whipped on her glasses. Squinting at the reading, she mumbled, "But tha's impossible." Energy readings like that wouldn't be seen on Earth for over a million years. Naturally, Earth, again. And again, as she pushed levers and smacked buttons, she'd come running. She loved them, loved their imperfectness and their brilliance, and most of all, the hope that clung to them even when there was no right for them to retain it. They were beautiful, every one of them. A half-smile touched her mouth as the TARDIS engines wheezed on toward their destination.

London, of course. She stepped onto the night-silvered grass of a park and headed for the street. The readings had come in bursts from what looked like it was a department store. The glass doors slid with a ding and an automated welcome voice. She ducked behind a rack of ladies clothing as she checked her sonic for a direction. Upstairs, then. The directory read 'Shoes' and 'Housewares'. Shoes first, she thought.

The librarian glared at the piece of paper in her hand. Why would the Tower send her here? She’d been a good employee; she’d done exactly as they had wanted, and now she was standing in the middle of the French Quarter, a hint of a pout on her lips. There was so much to feel here, so many stories that asked for her to follow.

She couldn’t read minds like the Fae and many of the faekin. Some in the Tower believed it was her unwillingness to learn, to stretch and grow. There were some who’d actually pushed her through exercises over and over, yet they never fully achieved the result they wanted. Niklas Wright could read patterns instead, which was often times more useful.

There were those who thought she was reading probabilities. Others thought she could see the future. Maybe it was instinctual, but instead, she read stories. She saw the world in so many stories, people, items, places. When she was younger, it was overwhelming, and her mother took her to remote locations. As she got older, and once she got over her mother’s passing, she became an asset. An asset who could traverse into the Dreamlands as much as read the patterns in people’s lives.

So, there she was, feeling as if she were being punished with the many stories that surrounded her. They wanted her to retrieve an item. They could have sent anyone, and instead, they sent her. She stood on the sidewalk and stared, not at anyone or thing in particular. She needed to focus. She really did.

( ---- )

She didn't have to stay at the Powell Estate. There were more memories in that flat than was comfortable, and it was empty when she went home at night. But with Mum living with Dad and her little brother now, it seemed right that someone live in the place they'd had as a family. She really should have moved out, should've found some other place... But she stayed. And, although she never admitted it to anyone, she had another reason for staying, too. It was where he knew she'd been. If he found a way across their worlds before she did, she hoped that he'd come here.

John Smith had taken an apartment close to Torchwood, after leaving. She'd done better with him lately, but there was still a strained distance between them. It was her fault; she knew it was. Every time she looked at him, the same restrained hope lingered in his expression. Lately, it was growing dimmer, and she knew that was her fault, too. She tried to be kind. She tried very hard not to blame him for what her Doctor had done -- tried not to blame him for his leaving her here. Most days, she managed.

Today wasn't one of those days. She raked a hand through her hair as she headed down the street toward her flat. Today, she'd shouted, and first he tried to blunt her temper with humor, and then, as the anger and the frustration and the despair spooled off her tongue, she watched him dim and dim, and then finally go silent. It wasn't his fault. But he could at least try to help her figure out the barriers between their worlds. He never tried. He never said a word when she explained this idea or that idea, never weighed in when she...

She growled and shoved her hands in her jacket, ducking her chin into her scarf. The wind was cold today, and her ears were ringing from it. She could almost imagine now the sound of the TARDIS engines in the howling of the London wind. Ah, if that were only truth and not a trick of her wishful imagination. She'd fallen for that trick far too many times, now, to be moved by it tonight.

And so, leaving the perfect tea table behind, she walked through the forest with her hand on Hannibal's arm. It was a strange thing to be the one to lead, but that was what the City brought to her -- many strange things. Beauty had long ago grown accustomed to the truth of that, if not the happenings that made it true.

The sun was coming down, and the forest cast long shadows over them as she found the path she'd used to come this far. She hummed a meandering tune as they progressed. It'd taken hours for her to walk to the clearing where she found this older version of the man. Although it shouldn't be, it was unsurprising when they almost immediately broke through the tree line and onto a City street.

"Ah!" she cried, gesturing with her free hand. "And there it is -- The City." And, because she knew it was a surprise when one first saw it, she edged a little closer to Hannibal, then, and rubbed his arm lightly. "It's really quite lovely," she assured him. "I can't wait to show you the cafe where we first met."

“So where to next?”

The children were tucked away for the night and Clara was ready for yet another adventure. This was her favorite part, the anticipation, not knowing what was coming next. She liked The Doctor and the adventure, but she liked the idea of the Doctor and adventure just as much.

“We’re going into the future! Further than I’ve ever been actually. Well! No, that’s not quite true. Been there once before. The TARDIS doesn’t like travelling too far out onto the edge of time, but for special occasions…”

“Any particular reason?”

The Doctor adjusted his tie uncomfortably. “Why? Does there have to be a reason? I thought you wanted to see a bit of the universe was all. This is a part I’ve barely seen--”

“Right. Sounds like fun.”

That made the Doctor chuckle.

“Fun! Of course, it’ll be fun! When do we not have fun?”

“Usually when we’re running and screaming for our lives.”

( Read more... )

Dreams were thick and heavy on the first night in the City. He kept waking from them, sometimes sweating, sometimes panting. His old past, his old future, and the great expanse of possibility now before him was a muddled mess in his head, and the result was the strangest of subconscious adventures. None of them were prescient; those visions came during the day.

But after creeping into the kitchen, moving as quietly as he could for fear of waking Oswin in her corner in the living room, and after a long and cool drink of water from the miraculous tap, Leto again returned to his bed.

This time, the dream was different. There was a dark-haired girl with dark and wide eyes in the center of a vast, grassy expanse. She was smirking at him, but in such a way that it seemed an invitation.

Leto tilted his chin to the left and walked toward her. She drifted backward without moving. He stopped, then, and held out his hand instead. "I will not harm you."

It seemed important to say. He knew the fear that his family inspired. The anger. The hatred. The worship. The wretched, blind worship. "I promise."

Rose spent more time at her dad's than she usually did. It was better than going home to an empty flat. But at night, when the quiet settled over her bedroom, she wondered if it were better that John Smith was gone. She missed... Every time she tried to finish that thought, it ended up so warped and confused that she'd given up. It didn't hardly matter, anyway. She finally accepted what John Smith was telling her the day he'd left: her Doctor didn't need her. Her Doctor was done with Rose Tyler. And now, so was John Smith.

It'd been eight weeks and three days since John Smith left. There was some relief in not seeing his face every day. Occasionally, she'd catch sight of him at work, sometimes escaping his notice, sometimes not. Both of them had lost weight, but the darkness under his eyes grew deeper every time she caught a glance of his face. They never spoke.

She wasn't proud of spying on him, of using her father's connections to clandestinely find his new address, to learn what he'd been working on... to check up on him. It was true that her Doctor had made John Smith an unwanted responsibility of hers. Now that he wasn't her responsibility anymore, she wanted him to be. No, that wasn't quite right... But she felt responsible, all the same.

So when she overheard that John Smith hadn't reported in for work the last two days, Rose made it an early day out and used that new address. She found the flat above the fish and chips place just a block away from Torchwood. From the street, it looked like nothing special. She swallowed her nervousness and headed up, knocking first, then ringing. When no answer came, she did it again.

Then she pulled out a credit card and jimmied the lock - a trick Mickey'd shown her years ago. She closed the door quietly behind her.

It was petty, and she knew it.

Walking slower and slower toward the Powell Estate, Rose was doing her best to make excuses for herself, but -- it was bloody petty and she needed to act like an adult.

As she grew nearer to the door to flat 48, Rose finally gave up altogether and stopped on the sidewalk. She leaned against the wall and shrugged off the fabric strap of her grocery bag. It took a few seconds of rooting around in the sack to pull out a clear plastic bag full of pears. There were so many, she had to support the bottom with her other hand or risk ripping the bag altogether.

Slipping the strap of the grocery sack over her shoulder, she carefully started toward the closest metal trashcan. She was making a face at a memory of hers when she arrived at the bin. The pears went in, then she pulled her grocery tote back up onto her shoulder.

Walking into her mother's old flat, knowing that only he would be in it now that Mum was with Pete and Toby, she braced herself to see her roommate again. The face was hard to look at, even now, months after her Doctor left them here. She let out a slow, collected breath when she closed the door, then hurried into the kitchen to put away the groceries.