Sam the Storyteller

The Tin Box: A Story With Pictures

2009-10-12T23:32:07Z

Title: The Tin Box
Rating: PG-13 (all images are worksafe)
Summary: Jack goes down in history. And he has the photos to prove it.
Author's Notes: Thanks to Gypsy, Foxy, Amandr, Nick, Claire, Spider, C, and Thad for providing photos, inspiration, and encouragement (AND BETAS, JESUS). I know not all of these manips are perfect, but I learned a lot while doing them. If you click on each photo, there's a link to the same photo at my gallery, with commentary on my process and my thoughts. Some are more sublime than others.

I. Ellis Island, c. 1895

Every time I have guests visiting me in New York I take them to the Ellis Island exhibit. It's an interesting place to go, but secretly it's just my excuse to look at the photo that has been my favorite for so long I've come to think of it as mine.

I'm not sure why I love it, but I think I find it romantic. The man on the right is supposed to be a guard: it's titled "Ellis Island Guard Jim Harding supervises immigrants disembarking". But look at how he's looking at that woman, the one who's laughing. He looks like he's already in love with her. She looks like he just made the best joke ever, and she's so happy to be in America laughing with a handsome policeman.

I tried to look him up once, but there aren't many records from that time. I like to pretend he fell in love with the woman and helped her get through immigration, you know, maybe greased a few palms, and married her in New York and they raised a bunch of kids. I know it's not very likely, but I like the idea.

I hope someone's got this photograph in their attic or a family bible or something, and the caption on that copy reads "Grandma and Granddad, first meeting".

He's so handsome, isn't he?

II. New York, C. 1911

"Who was she?" Gwen asked, accepting the photo Jack passed to her from within the little tin box on his desk.

"What do they teach you in school?" Jack replied, looking mildly annoyed. "That's Emma Goldman."

"Who's that then?"

Jack blinked. "Mother of Anarchy? Intellectual and essayist? She was a major political activist in America."

"Oh," Gwen said, studying it. "She looks angry."

"She had a lot to be angry about," Jack replied.

"How did you meet?"

"I was in New York for a while, after Haymarket."

"Haymarket?"

Jack waved a hand. "Labour rally in Chicago that went south. A lot of people were killed. I was there -- I was killed, actually -- and afterwards I went to New York to speak about it. We met while I was lecturing there."

Gwen grinned. "Jack! You're a labour sympathiser, aren't you."

"I am," Jack said. "I saw what they did to the workers."

Gwen studied the photo again. "You look like you love her."

"I did. Do. Did," Jack said, then frowned, a little confused. "I did. She was beautiful."

"She doesn't look it here."

"She was. Beautiful, stubborn mind; gorgeous woman. Freethinker. Just my type," Jack said, holding out a hand for the photograph.

"Why are you showing it to me?"

"I'm going to Chicago next week. It's the anniversary of Haymarket. I have work to do there. You're in charge while I'm gone."

"And...?" Gwen lifted an eyebrow.

"And I wanted you to know why I'm going," Jack said with a shrug.

III. Petrograd, 1916

"Listen, you can't just go around healing incurable diseases," Jack said.

"Ivan, I am doing good work for the boy," Grigori said. "Your job is not to pass judgment on me. Your job is to guard me."

"And I am," Jack said. "But I don't think -- "

"You are not employed to think. What did your Torchwood say? They said, keep me safe. My ship is coming for me. Just another year, and they will be here."

"There's a limit to what I can do," Jack exploded. "If someone tries to kill you and I'm not there, you're going to get killed, Grigori."

"But the boy suffers," Gregori said.

"Yeah, and his mother -- "

"Hst!" Grigori held up a hand. Alien hearing; they waited for almost twenty seconds before a man passed outside the door to his chambers. Jack tried to remember that he was just a guard, just a Torchwood lackey, and he didn't have the right to backtalk a stranded member of the Krnalla Royal Family, waiting for a belated ride from a passing Krnalla ship.

"I can help the child. What's the harm?" Grigori said, when the coast was clear.

"To him? Nothing. To you? People are starting to talk, Grigori. There are dangerous words in the wind," Jack said, flicking his fingers through the air. "Just promise me if I come to you and tell you to run, please, run. I can get you to Cardiff; we'll keep you safe there."

Grigori leaned back and laughed. "The king and queen love me, Ivan. I am safe here."

IV. England, c. 1940

On the fiftieth anniversary of Elizabeth II's ascention to the throne, a young woman arrived at Buckingham Palace. The young woman showed a certain badge, said a single word, and was ushered into the Queen's presence. She bowed, offered Her Majesty a small envelope, and withdrew.

Inside was a thick sheet of cream paper, folded in half over a photograph. The writing on the paper was familiar, though time had faded the memory somewhat. It read:

To Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas Queen, Defender of the Faith,

Deepest congratulations on fifty years of sovereignty. May you rule another fifty. I hope you have memories of yr. obt. srvnt. that are as fond as his are of you. I always have, and always will, adore my queen; I beg her to remember a certain RAF Captain who had the pleasure of serving and guarding her in a time of great difficulty for the nation.

You will always be Lilibet to me.

With regards,

Captain Jack Harkness
RAF

V. Livadia Palace, Yalta, 1945

Once in a while, Jack considers shuffling through his little tin box and putting all the photographs in order. Sometimes he wonders if he should do it before he forgets what order they should follow. Yalta -- that was '45, wasn't it? Bodyguard for Churchill, the Immortal Man the perfect person to take a bullet for the PM, just in case there was one at Yalta with his name on it.

He remembers running into Roosevelt one night, sitting outside after the talking and the politicking and the negotiating and the dinners (they were great dinners). There he was, the president of the United States, sitting on a bench with his cane nearby, contemplating a cigarette.

"Light that for you, sir?" Jack asked, producing matches.

"You're a godsend," the Great Man answered, and Jack touched the lit match to the end of it. "You're Churchill's man, aren't you? Bodyguard, right?"

"Yes, Mr. President."

"You sound American."

Jack grinned. "I've been a lot of kinds of people in my time."

"Haven't we all. What're you doing working for the British, huh? America needs strapping men like you."

"The uniforms are nicer," Jack said. Roosevelt laughed, coughed, laughed some more. "Are you all right?"

Roosevelt gave him a narrow, studious look. "Churchill ask you to ask me that?"

"Human decency tells me to ask you that."

"Huh. Human decency. Didn't know such a thing existed anymore."

"Yeah," Jack said. "I used to think that too, but now I think it does."

"How do you know?" Roosevelt looked intrigued. Jack put his hands in his pockets, bowed his head, thought about it.

"I have faith," he said finally. "And I've seen the best and worst people can be. Sometimes you have to do some rotten things, Mr. President, but sometimes you get to do great things, too."

Roosevelt smoked in silence for a while.

"What the hell is a philosopher like you doing packing a gun for a politician?" he asked finally.

Jack shrugged and laughed. "I go where I'm needed, Mr. President."

VI. London, 1952

Torchwood was only briefed on the Sontaran incident after it happened. After the briefing, Owen found Jack sitting in his office, drinking a neat scotch and staring at a photograph from the box he kept locked in his desk drawer.

"It's not the first time it happened," Jack said randomly, as Owen leaned in the doorway.

"What, the Sontarans invading?" Owen asked.

"Killer smog. Sounds funny. It wasn't," Jack said. "Sometimes I still feel my throat burn."

VII. Love, c. The Afternoon

"Top five film stars you'd shag," Owen said. "And...go."

"Liam Neeson," Gwen said.

"Tom Cruise, before he was crazy," Tosh said. "And Ingrid Bergman."

"Ingrid Bergman?" Owen asked.

"What? She was gorgeous," Tosh replied. "I'm allowed."

"I wouldn't for Ingrid Bergman. I would for Drew Barrymore," Gwen said thoughtfully. "Oh! Or Eva Mendes."

"Having a moment," Jack announced.

"Who'd you shag, Jack?" Gwen asked.

"Who I would, or who I did?" Jack asked.

"You've shagged film stars?" Owen asked.

"Ianto, no sitting out," Jack said, as Ianto brought the coffee to the sofa where they were sitting. "Top five film stars."

"Halle Berry, Billie Piper, Matt Damon, Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn," Ianto said promptly.

"Is that by date or preference?" Owen asked, snorting.

"Humphrey Bogart?" Tosh asked.

"Watch Sabrina and tell me you wouldn't," Ianto replied.

"Audrey Hepburn," Jack said dreamily. All four of them looked at him.

"You didn't," Gwen said.

"He did," Tosh crowed.

"It was like having sex with the definition of sophisticated," Jack told them. He glanced up at Ianto and saw him blushing, just slightly. Ianto was, quite clearly, having a moment of his own. "She's in a different kind of top five, for me."

"I can't believe you shagged Audrey Hepburn," Owen said, envy in his voice.

"Put her on the list, she's worth it," Jack told him smugly.

VIII. Carnaby Street, c. 1962

"Oh my god," Ianto said, covering his mouth.

"Look, I trusted you with -- "

"Oh my god!" Ianto repeated, and burst out laughing. "Are you wearing a pimp coat?"

"They weren't called pimp coats then," Jack said, snatching the photo out of Ianto's hand. "They were the fashion. You're a slave to fashion, if you'd been a Carnaby Street dandy in the sixties you would have killed for that coat."

"Yeah, I'd have killed a yeti," Ianto said, still laughing. He fell back on his elbows, almost upsetting the box resting on the bed. Jack, who had often snickered at his own vanity in that photo, smiled and admired the line of Ianto's throat, the way his chin tilted back towards the ceiling. Naked and laughing, eyes bright, pleased with the world.

"I have met famous men and women of letters and politicians and film stars and you pick the one picture where I'm wearing a stupid coat," Jack said, but he rummaged in the box and then crawled forward until he was lying next to Ianto, holding up a different photo. "What do you think of this one?"

Ianto's eyes glazed over a little. "I didn't know you were that flexible," he said hoarsely.

"Want to see if I still am?"

IX. Berlin, 1963

"Captain Harkness!" the president said, lifting one hand to catch Jack's attention. He had a glass of wine in his other hand, as per at these state gatherings. Jack was charmed by the pretty ginger politician, and not at all unhappy to abandon the boring woman he was talking to in order to stand next to John F. Kennedy.

"Captain Harkness, I wanted your opinion," the president said, greeting him with a firm handshake and that trademark dazzling grin. "We were just discussing how the speech is likely to go down in America. As an American living overseas, what did you think of it?"

Jack rubbed the back of his head. "Well, I liked it," he said, giving his best Dumb Soldier impression. "I think you made a lot of progress, Mr. President."

"I sense some hesitation," Kennedy said. "Go on, Harkness, tell me what you thought. Both barrels."

"It's not much," Jack said. "It's just, you know. Outside of Berlin, you know what ein Berliner is?"

From the expressions on the faces of the Germans nearby, they did. Kennedy's grin didn't falter.

"What's that, Captain?"

"It means a doughnut, sir," Jack said.

Kennedy went through a range of emotions in the blink of an eye; disbelief, dismay, annoyance, and then he laughed, loud and so very American, and even his laugh sounded like it had a Boston accent.

"Well, you can't deny I'm sweet," he said with a wide grin.

"No sir," Jack agreed. "Can't deny that, Mr. President."

X. New York, 1965

"I didn't even know Illya had friends," Solo said. "Then this Harkness character turns up, with even less in his dossier than Illya, and they pal around like they grew up together."

"Maybe they did," April suggested.

"Not likely," Solo replied. "I think Illya killed anyone who could tell us anything about his past."

"Maybe they're lovers," April said. Solo blinked at her. "What? It happens. Have you seen Harkness in action? I think he'd chase anything, skirts or trousers. And Illya's very pretty."

"What's he got that I haven't got?" Solo demanded.

"Why, interested in Harkness yourself?"

"Like what you're picturing?" Solo grinned. "I'm not interested in men, though, so if it's in your head that's where it's staying."

"Anyway, Illya has an aura of mystery," April said. "Obviously Harkness knows how appealing that is. Leave them alone, Solo; Harkness is here on a job, he'll be gone soon enough."

"He'd better," Solo muttered.

XI. Washington DC, 1969

"Jack, I have to ask," Tosh said, pointing to the computer screen. Jack leaned forward, squinted, and then chuckled.

"Yeah, that's me," he said. "I have a copy of that in my desk, somewhere."

"That's Richard Nixon," Tosh said.

"Yep."

"You look like you're taking him seriously."

"We all did, at the time. I wasn't there for him, though," Jack said, tapping the left side of the photo. "You know who that is?"

Tosh gave him a sardonic look. "Yes, Jack. Henry Kissinger."

"Gold star for you, Toshiko. He was an alien."

"What?"

"Nice guy, not a drop of human blood in him. I had to come over to the States to make sure he wasn't causing any trouble, usual Torchwood business. Nixon asked if he could meet me. Wanted to pick my brain."

"You have had a really weird life, Jack," Tosh said.

"Pot calling the kettle, Tosh," Jack replied, and ran off to see if Owen was done with his latest autopsy yet.

XII. Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll, c. 1973

Oh let the sun beat down upon my face, stars to fill my dream
I am a traveler of both time and space, to be where I have been.

Oh pilot of the storm who leaves no trace, like thoughts inside a dream
Heed the path that led me to that place, yellow desert stream
My Shangri-La beneath the summer moon, I will return again
Sure as the dust that floats high in June, when movin' through Kashmir.
Oh, father of the four winds, fill my sails, across the sea of years
With no provision but an open face, along the straits of fear.

XIII. Washington DC, 1976

"You can't use that photo," my editor told me.

"Why?" I asked. "It's a great shot."

"See that guy? The one on the right?"

"Yeah, it's what makes the picture!"

My editor shook his head. "You can't use it. That's Harkness. He's the man who doesn't exist. I know you're new, but someone in the press corps should've clued you in."

"What do you mean, the man who doesn't exist?" I asked. "There he is. Laughing his ass off."

"And that's reason number two you can't use it."

"Come on, boss, it's a little funny," I protested. "He's the one person there who's reacting the way everyone else in America secretly reacts when they see President Ford fall down again."

"Look, let me give you a word of advice," my editor said. "Harkness comes and goes. Nobody knows why, and nobody asks, because those that do tend to have accidents. Not lethal, just...accidents. So you can't run a photo of him in the paper. And you can't run a photo of someone laughing at the president."

He was right, of course. I mean I don't even have the photo anymore. That night, Harkness showed up on my doorstep. He took both copies, and the negatives.

It was a great photograph, though.

XIV. London, 1984

"Jack," Ianto's voice over Jack's comm was tinny. It was also a little worried, but it didn't have that we're all going to die overtone to it, so Jack didn't answer until he was done chewing.

"Yeah?" he asked, wiping his mouth.

"CCTV nine. I think someone's looking for us."

Jack turned around and cued up one of the monitors to CCTV 9, also known as the Liftcam. Someone was standing on it, bouncing a little, studying it carefully. Blond hair, a long trenchcoat, a blue suit --

Jack let out a whoop of pleasure. "John fucking Constantine!"

"Sorry?" Ianto said, sounding a little like Jack's shout had deafened him.

"John Constantine!" Jack said. "I showed you the photo of us, remember? I've known him since he was your age. He's a complete asshole, he's always putting his nose in where he's not wanted. Every time we meet we have a fistfight and then fuck like bunn -- uh. But that won't happen this time," he finished quickly.

There was a laugh down the comm. "Right, Jack. He's fit; just ask me along, I have no objections."

"You are my favourite," Jack said fervently, and ran into the atrium to cue the lift.

XV. Washington Naval Yard, 2006

"I just had a call from a psychopath," Owen announced.

"Takes one to know one," Jack said, and Owen snapped a clean surgical glove at him. "What'd they want?"

"She said you said to call me about the fingerprint holographer we're not supposed to have for another twenty years," Owen said.

"Ah," Jack grinned. "Abby."

"Might've been her name. She talked fast. I said I had to clear it with you. Who is she?"

"American woman," Jack said. "Works for NCIS out of Washington. Her boss is hot. I was there in '02, when they found a dead Marine. Turned out to be an alien. Before your time."

"Hot boss?" Owen asked.

"Jethro Gibbs," Jack said with relish. "Wouldn't let me get within ten feet of him, more's the pity. Silver fox. Think I'd look good grey?"

"I think you'd look like an arse," Owen said. Jack shrugged.

"Package it up, send it off," he said. "Wait, no, before you do, check with me. I'll put a love note in for Abby. And maybe one for Gibbs," he added with a grin.

XVI. Chernobyl, Present Day

I traveled all sorts of places. This planet is too small. The whole world is...like a graveyard.

Still. I have lived so many lives. It's time to find another one.

END

WIAD Final Round: Writ In Water

2009-10-06T16:04:35Z

Title: Writ In Water
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "Time isn't an archive, with neat little files and labels. It's just this...heap of things that happened. You pull something off the bottom, you knock some things over. That's why we live with our messes."
Notes: Written for the final round of writerinadrawer. Thanks to 51stcenturyfox for beta sparkles.
Theme: Getting clean; added element, a board game.
Word Count: Less than 4500
Score: 1 (+12, -11). Won the round and, thus, the game.

Here lies one whose name was writ in water.
-- Gravestone epitaph of John Keats

"Hnefatafl," Tosh said.

"Gesundheit," Ianto replied, without looking up from the muddy objects before him. He heard Tosh chuckle as she sat down across from him at his worktable.

"It's what you and Owen recovered this morning," she said, indicating the little carvings. "Hnefatafl. It's an old Norse game, like chess."

"Norse or not, it reeks of bog," Ianto replied.

"You should be careful," Tosh advised, offering him a figurine from her pocket. He took it and set it aside in the "clean" box. "I tested that one. The residual Rift energy is off the scale. They might age you before your time," she teased.

"Torchwood's already working on that," Ianto remarked.

"You're grumpy," Tosh said, as she slid off the stool. "I'll leave you to it."

"I smell of bog too!" Ianto called after her.

"You'll get used to it!" she called back. Ianto smiled and bent to his cleaning again.

The thick, erratically-checked wooden board they'd pulled out of the wetlands west of Cardiff was slowly drying nearby, pressed flat under a towel and a load of old pig-iron weights. Ianto, meanwhile, was dealing with the game pieces: small bearded blokes in pointy helmets, some with spears, all showing a hand-carved individuality. Likely, according to Tosh -- he consulted the report she'd left -- from the 11th to 12th century, before they fell through the Rift.

Not terribly interesting, except as a historical object, and his mind drifted as he cleaned the figurines. He thought about the work he still had to complete after this, the voicemail from Rhiannon that he should return but wouldn't, and the dinner he and Jack had planned that morning. Jack had wanted to know if he preferred Indian or Greek; he'd replied that he might want real old-fashioned Welsh food, root vegetables and seaweed, which had made Jack laugh.

He set a newly cleaned figurine down on the board and felt something trickle through his fingers, wet and gritty -- but when he lifted his hand to study them, they were dry. Weird. Still, they handled high levels of Rift residue all the time. However wary Gwen might profess to be, none of them had ever shown signs of being ill from it.

Although, on consideration, perhaps gloves were in order while he cleaned.

He was about to go find some when the Rift alarm went, and after that crisis was averted there was feeding time for the Weevils and Myfanwy,
and then Jack insisted that he leave the rest of the work until morning so he could have a feeding time himself. That night the Rift went balls-out insane, and for two days the half-cleaned Hnefatafl game lay uncared-for on the worktable.

When he finally had a moment to catch up, he found that the game board had dried out flat and relatively unblemished. He set it on the worktable and, on a whim, placed the clean pieces randomly around it. There weren't enough to fill the checks on the board, though he knew they'd collected every piece the Rift had dropped. Perhaps some hadn't made it through --

He hesitated as he set the last piece down. He was sure there had been nine in total, but now there were ten on the board. He picked up the piece he'd just placed, and another piece disappeared.

Ianto put it down again, then snaked his other hand out (as if an inanimate object was going to run away) and captured the disappearing piece when it reappeared.

When he touched the little figure, darkness and heat enveloped him, steam-humid, and the thick dull noise of engines rang in his ears. He found himself no longer in the Hub's quiet sub-levels but in some kind of boiler room, filled with pressure valves and the tang of engine oil...

And Jack. Strung up in chains between two pylons, head hanging low, hair greasy and clothing stained and ripped. He was alone, slump-shouldered in the kind of defeat that Ianto wasn't aware Jack even knew existed.

He stepped forward and his shoe creaked on the metal grating. Jack's head snapped up, eyes searching, hyper-vigilant. When he saw Ianto, he laughed.

"Of all the hallucinations in all the spaceships in all the world, you had to walk into mine," he said, and laughed again, and dropped his voice to a stage whisper. "I see dead people."

Ianto felt the Hnefatafl piece fall from suddenly numb fingers. As it clattered to the floor, the heat and noise vanished. He found himself standing once more at the work table, with nine game pieces on the board in front of him.

***

He would have gone to Tosh with it, but he wasn't sure it wasn't a hallucination. He could have asked Owen to find out, but Owen was an unsympathetic ear at the best of times. Gwen would have told Jack, and he couldn't tell Jack. Jack was proud, and the despairing bow-shouldered man in that engine room had been a mockery of his Captain.

Besides, Jack saying he was dead, whether it was in the future or some alternate reality, was...well...creepy.

The day after the encounter in the engine room, Ianto consulted Tosh's research and laid out the game pieces in proper configuration, two opposing armies in black and blond wood. Only the pale soldiers had a king; the goal of the dark soldiers was to keep the king from getting where he wanted to go. It was intricate and confusing, a half-memory of another time, re-created from old documents and oral history.

It was also, apparently, the Rift's idea of a twisted logic puzzle. Sometimes he could put a figure in place on the board and another would appear. If he moved that new piece, two more might appear -- or two existing pieces would disappear. He fiddled with it for ages, but there were never quite enough to fill the board, and there was one piece still forever absent -- left with Jack in that engine room of torment, he assumed.

"Ianto!" Jack's voice, booming across the Hub, distracted him from a new piece in the logic puzzle (one dark soldier that made two pale ones appear). Jack was bounding towards him, all shiny smile and good hair. "Everyone's gone. Whatcha up to?"

"Finishing documentation on a recovery," Ianto replied, stifling the urge to sweep the board and pieces into a nearby carton and lock them away.

"Finish later," Jack ordered, sliding an arm around Ianto's waist from behind, nosing against the back of his neck.

"You are the boss," Ianto replied, relaxing into the embrace.

"Yes, I am," Jack said in his ear. "Ten minutes. Boardroom."

The boardroom. They hadn't really...explored the boardroom fully. So many inopportune windows. Or opportune, depending on your point of view.

"Yes, sir," Ianto agreed, and Jack released him, running up the spiral staircase on some other mission. Possibly he was whistling. Ianto smiled. One of the good days, then.

Without thinking about it, he reached out to toy with one of the game pieces. He twisted his fingers around the figurine's helmet, picked it up...

...and found himself standing in knee-high grass, under a grey morning sky. It'd been late evening, last he checked.

Another hallucination, or another journey. He looked down at the figure in his hand. He could drop it, and go back to the Hub and Jack, but perhaps there was a Jack here, too, and he was as curious as anyone about Jack's secrets.

There was a road nearby, at the bottom of the hill where he stood, and he headed in that direction. After all, it was a sunny, peaceful day, and how much could go --

He heard a shout in the distance and scanned the ridge of the hill. Three figures were visible against the sky, one running ahead of the others, arms windmilling as he barreled down towards the road. Another runner, just behind him, stumbled and fell. The third vaulted over his fallen comrade and continued to give chase -- it must be a chase, given the desperation on the face of the young man drawing close to Ianto and the road.

The second pursuer tripped and fell as well, and Ianto had only a moment to register that their intended victim's face was familiar before the man ran past him, onto the road.

More than familiar, actually, and Ianto realised who he was even as he moved to shove the man aside, tumbling with him to the tarmac to prevent a bright red convertible from plowing them both down. As they landed, he could feel the figurine shake free of his grasp, and the last thing he saw before he returned to the Hub was the startled, very much alive face of Eugene Jones.

Nothing seemed different, once he'd got his bearings again, except that he was missing another game piece. Perhaps it really was a hallucination -- or perhaps he'd just avoided treading on the metaphorical butterfly.

Jack hadn't even noticed his absence, though it wasn't as though he'd been gone for long. Besides, Jack had other things on his mind.

"You're distracted," Jack said, fingers digging into Ianto's hips as he pressed him down into a boardroom chair. "Something on your mind? Nervous about the windows?"

Ianto met Jack's bright blue eyes, felt the skin of Jack's chest under his fingers. Warm, lovely skin. He smiled.

"Nothing that can't wait," he said, and turned all his attention to the Captain.

***

"Gwen!" Ianto called the next morning, catching up to her on the Plass. He passed her a coffee from the carrier in his hand. "Good morning."

"Morning, Ianto," she said, beaming at him. "Special treat?"

"Balming a guilty conscience," he replied.

"What'd you do?" she asked.

"More what I haven't done. Can I ask -- do you remember..."

He trailed off as Gwen opened the door to the Information Centre, because suddenly the question seemed stupid.

"Remember what?" Gwen asked.

"Nothing. Forgot what I was going to ask," he said. "Morning, Eugene."

"Morning, Ianto!" Eugene said cheerfully, emerging from the back room, weighed down by a large pile of files. He stopped suddenly, horrified. "Oh! God! I forgot the -- with the -- Ianto, sorry! I'll get that as soon as I...well, it'll take some time, but -- "

Ianto watched, trying not to betray his shock, as Eugene kept babbling about things he'd forgot to do and swore he would get done and had to do right now but he could do the other thing later and --

"Put him out of our misery," Owen groaned, pushing past Ianto into the Information Centre. Eugene lapsed into silence, looking sheepish.

"Get on with your work," Ianto managed -- not unkindly, he thought. "Check in when you're done."

"Thanks!" Eugene called after him, as Ianto followed Gwen and Owen down the corridor beyond the secret door.

"He's never going to get over you mysteriously saving his life, is he?" Gwen asked, snickering.

Ianto resolved that he was definitely going to tell Jack about this. Right after he did some documentation of the phenomenon. A proper documentation this time, with film and a Rift activity monitor and a written report.

Although...it had been a good thing, hadn't it? Poor Eugene should never have died, and he seemed genuinely useful. It wasn't interfering in history, just tidying it up. Ianto pictured himself with a rag and a spray-bottle, wandering through the past, scrubbing out little
stains here and there. It amused him.

Except that if he did try again, with all the monitors and equipment and records, he'd have to tell Jack, and all that potential would disappear. So maybe he shouldn't record anything just yet.

He waited until the others had gone to lunch, promising he'd join them at the cafe as soon as he finished a report. As soon as they were gone he set out the board, shuffling the pieces around, shoving them into squares at random. It was like the board was half-stuck in the Rift, struggling in its own non-sentient way to get out. That made sense; if a figurine from it existed only half-in reality, it could pull someone anywhere through the Rift.

Which was dangerous, of course, he knew that, but he'd come through unscathed once, and Eugene's presence didn't seem to be destroying the universe. So...perhaps just one more try.

A new piece appeared, then, one he hadn't seen before, with a chipped helmet showing a knotty burl in the woodgrain. Ianto rested his fingers on it, sliding them down to the base, and then casually picked it up.

Sunlight glared in his eyes. He could hear a siren in the distance, but before him was the serene spread of the Plass. The fountain with its usual waterfall, the opera house, the --

The bright blue police box sitting directly atop the invisible lift.

Ianto raised his head and sniffed and caught a familiar smell: the scent of destruction, smoke and charred metal. From here he could see the half-destroyed remains of an apartment block that Abbadon had trod on, months ago now; it had only survived a week before a wrecking crew tore it down. Cardiff had a long history and a very short memory.

Which meant this was only a few days past the raising of Abbadon, and below his feet --

No. Behind him. Behind him was Jack, running across the Plass. Making for the blue box, and oh, this was it. This was the moment Jack left them. This was the single act that flung Jack into some dark place, the reason Ianto had to take Jack's good days where he could and watch helplessly during the bad ones.

Of its own accord, his arm shot out and caught Jack's shoulder. Jack whipped around, momentum carrying them both into a mutual orbit, but Ianto got his other hand on him as well and yanked hard. Jack nearly came off his feet, his headlong flight for the police box thwarted.

"IANTO," Jack shouted, jerking away. "What the fuck -- "

Too late. Jack was turning to the blue box, but it was gone.

"That was -- " Jack looked despairing, so hopeless that for a moment Ianto regretted the instinct. But only for a moment. "Why would you do that? Do you know what you've done?"

"Better than you do," Ianto said, holding up the game piece between two fingers. He dropped it before Jack could speak again, and found himself back at the worktable.

He waited warily, unwilling to move too far until he knew what changes he'd wrought. It would be better, wouldn't it? It would have to be, without the bitterness of Jack's abandonment and Jack's own dark places after he'd returned.

"Made it back in one piece?" a voice said, and Ianto flinched, turning quickly. Jack stepped out of the shadows of the Hub. "Knew as soon as we found that thing it was going to be trouble."

"I was going to document it," Ianto tried.

"Sure, eventually," Jack said. His voice was hard, on the angry side of uncaring. "So, Ianto," he added, circling the table and resting his palms flat on it. "What kind of a world are you from?"

Ianto gave him a blank look.

"You changed history," Jack said. "Your own personal history, which is stupid. But you're not stupid, so either this thing has you in some kind of thrall, or what happened to me when I left was -- "

"If you'd ever told me, maybe I'd know," Ianto interrupted with a snarl. "If you'd told me where you went I could have helped. All I knew was that for three months you'd hardly eat, for six months you've woken screaming half the time. So tell me, Jack, what sort of thing does that to you?"

Jack didn't back down. "Guess now we'll never know."

"Fine by me," Ianto retorted.

"You're not Ianto anymore," Jack said in a low voice. "You're his Ianto, not mine. So. Stay the hell away from me."

Ianto opened his mouth, but found he had nothing to say to that. Jack was already turning, walking away.

It took two days -- two days of not asking how Owen and Eugene had died, of being kept at arm's length by a calculating, bitter Jack -- before Ianto realised Jack hadn't confiscated the game board.

Why? He obviously thought it was dangerous. Why wouldn't he lock it up, or put it to his own uses?

He got his answer the next time the Rift flared. For a minute, just for him, reality split in half. Two different teams stood in the Hub, looking at the Rift alerts, sometimes passing near or even through each other. Ianto had barely time to register this before he realised there were two of him, too, both inside his head. He could feel other sensations, hear other thoughts, and his mind said Oh, that's interesting, right before he passed out.

***

The second time the Rift flared up he was alone, and the stabbing pain of having two of himself in one head at one time made him stumble and retch.

The third time, he saw dark shadows and the flash of teeth.

The fourth time, Gwen saw something too, and wouldn't let it go until Jack agreed to study what was happening. Ianto chose to keep quiet, and Jack didn't call him on it.

"I think..." Tosh said, studying printouts and reports in the boardroom, "Well, I think two realities are crossing paths. It's like time is branching, but it can't sustain the branch, so it collapses. Maybe something artificially altering a timeline? Hard to say."

Ianto saw Jack staring at him, but when the others looked up, Jack turned his head away.

"Okay," Jack said. "Let's prep for Rift flares. Make sure we're all conscious of the fact that what we see is real, but not our real. Gwen, work on contingency plans. Tosh, see if you can track back to when the whole thing started. I'm going to ask around at the hospitals, see if anyone's been admitted with symptoms that might match Rift-psychosis."

"I'll come with you," Ianto said.

"No," Jack said simply, and left the room.

"How long have you two been fighting?" Tosh asked, after the door shut behind Jack. "Honestly, whatever you did, say you're sorry."

"I don't think that's going to fix it," Ianto answered, turning to the window to watch Jack stalk across the Hub. "I was just trying to make
our lives a little...cleaner. It didn't work so well."

"Well, stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something," Gwen said. "I'm tired of Jack sulking."

Ianto shifted his gaze from Jack to the worktable where the Hnefatafl game sat. "I should," he said quietly.

He had to go back to the board. This was a mess, his mess, and he had to fix it. Still, he barely understood the game board to begin with, and he had no control over where it took him. What could he do?

He waited for a day and a half, while they all danced along the edge of a Rift that was beginning to crumble time itself. When he finally summoned the courage to face the game, he found Jack standing across from him, studying it as well.

"What is this, a lesson?" Ianto asked.

"What do you think?" Jack replied. "You want to travel in time, you learn the consequences. Time isn't an archive, with neat little files and labels. It's just this...heap of things that happened. You pull something off the bottom, you knock some things over. That's why we live with our messes."

"Some things don't wash away," Ianto said.

"Then hard luck," Jack answered. "You should know that already."

Ianto fell silent. After a minute, Jack turned from him to the board and began rearranging the pieces, slowly at first, then with increasing speed as the figurines began to appear and disappear. Ianto watched, awed, as Jack worked his way in forty seconds through something it had taken him days to figure out.

"Time travel," Jack said, as he worked, "is tricky. You have to have an understanding of fourth-dimensional mathematics, branched calculus -- which doesn't exist yet -- logic, scale, and spatial physics. And you have to be..." he lifted his hands off the board, "...naturally good at these things."

Ianto looked down. All the figures were there on the board, even the ones he'd dropped. He rested his hand on the pale king figure, but Jack gently lifted his wrist and placed it on one of the black figures at the edge of the board instead. Ianto closed his hand and lifted it up.

The smell hit him first, the musky, standing-water smell of bog. The sky was grey, glare making him squint, and the air was the usual cold damp of a Cardiff autumn.

Even so, this was not Cardiff, nor anywhere near it. A low haze to the east might be the city, but out here it was all wilderness.

Familiar, in fact, from a day spent scouring the wetlands for traces of an artifact that had fallen through the Rift. He and Owen had gone out to collect up whatever was there --

In the distance he thought he could see the SUV, a black blot on the road, speeding down the twists and turns of the road, Owen having egged Ianto into driving faster than was strictly necessary. If that was the Torchwood SUV, then somewhere in this area the game board was lying in a shallow puddle, and a handful of carved figurines were half-covered in the mud, waiting to be raked free. He had no time to find all the pieces and, even if he could, the Rift energy detectors would lead himself and Owen straight to him.

But the pieces and the game board were wood, and in the water would split and rot. Left alone, they wouldn't last long, and the temporal energy would dissipate back into the Rift itself.

He made a decision, and stepped into the road.

The SUV screamed to a halt when they saw him standing there; he watched, seeing it through his other eyes as well, as he and Owen climbed out of the car, guns drawn. He waited patiently for them to come close enough to speak.

"Ianto?" Owen asked, but it wasn't him that Owen was asking.

"Don't know," the other Ianto replied.

"Oi!" Owen called. "Ianto Jones! You fall through the Rift?"

"Not exactly," Ianto said. The other men glanced at each other, questioning, and then the other Ianto holstered his gun. "I'm here to send you back."

"Back where?" the other Ianto asked.

"Back to the Hub."

"You from our future, then?" Owen asked. "Isn't this a paradox?"

Ianto paused. Was it? No -- he was stepping across dimensions, back to the place that had once been his home. As messy and difficult as it had been...it was better, perhaps, than where he was now.

"Not a paradox," Ianto said. "But you need to leave here. The Rift's not safe in this place."

They were close enough to touch now, and his other self stared at him with wide, nervous eyes. Ianto reached out, knowing the fracture it would cause, knowing it would seal his own fate irrevocably. He took his counterpart's wrist and pressed the game piece into it, so that each of them held a portion.

The sky split open, and a dark-winged shadow burst through.

"Go or die," Ianto said, and released the game piece as his counterpart and Owen ran for the SUV. He looked up, spread his arms, and let the shadow take him.

***

"Fuck me," Owen said, as they flew down the road to Cardiff. "What the hell just happened?"

Ianto checked the rearview mirror again. As they ran for their lives he had seen just enough that he knew what he'd have nightmares about tonight, but he couldn't not look as a shadow with broad batlike wings and sharp claws ripped his own body to shreds and vanished in a spray of blood.

"No clue," Ianto said, turning back and dropping the little figurine into an evidence bag Owen offered. "Warning, I suppose? See if Tosh has any new readings for that area. I'll call Jack and let him know what happened."

"Are you sure that's wise?" Owen asked, and Ianto hesitated over the dial button. "You know. Time travel. Maybe you shouldn't know about it. Maybe Jack shouldn't."

Ianto glanced at Owen's face, which was deadly serious, and then back at the road, nodding. "Right. Tell them we couldn't find anything. Incinerate the...whatever-it-is."

"And you?"

"I'll just...keep this to myself."

"Suits me," Owen said, and dialed Tosh's number. "Tosh darling. Favour from you," he said into his headset, as he passed the figurine back to Ianto. "Nah, nah, didn't find anything. Check and see if there's been any more activity in the area? Ta..."

***

"You're distracted," Jack said, and Ianto felt a shiver of inexplicable deja-vu run up his spine. He looked up from his plate and summoned a smile, waiting until a server had refilled their water glasses before speaking.

"Not really," he said.

"Something happened on that recovery today," Jack said, but it was a guess -- he always narrowed his eyes when he was guessing.

"Just an empty field," Ianto lied. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," Jack said, around a mouthful of chicken. Ianto tapped the corner of his mouth. Jack sheepishly wiped his own mouth with a napkin.

"When you...travelled," Ianto said, unwilling to put too much detail into where, when, or with whom, "Did you ever get the urge to...fix something?"

"Can't do that. Very first rule," Jack said seriously. "It never solves the problem. It just spreads the mess around."

"Oh," Ianto said softly.

"Why the sudden interest in...travel?" Jack asked.

"No reason," Ianto said -- then, impulsively, "Come back to mine tonight."

Jack nodded, but he looked confused. "Sure. Any particular reason?"

"Because I want you to."

"What's got into you?" Jack asked, smiling. Ianto shrugged.

"Moment of clarity," he said. "You never know how much time you have."

"True," Jack said, and then he reached out and touched Ianto's wrist gently. "Look, something else we learned -- some mysteries weren't meant to be solved. Whatever happened, let it go."

"It's not easy."

"It's not meant to be," Jack said, and then he grinned wide. "Come on. We'll distract ourselves tonight. You get the car. I'll take care of the bill."

END

WIAD Round 10: The Harp Of My Country Survives

2009-10-01T03:06:56Z

Title: The Harp Of My Country Survives
Rating: PG
Summary: Gwen catches Jack and Ianto in a private moment, long after both of them have left.
Notes: Written for round 10 of writerinadrawer. Thanks to 51stcenturyfox for beta sparkles. Frankly I didn't think I had it in me to write this kind of story, this exploration of the grief Gwen must have experienced and the way she might recover Torchwood as a part of that process. But, well, here it is.
Theme: Photograph (find or take a photo your character has in their possession); added element, a song title.
Word Count: Less than 1500
Score: 10 (+11, -1). Won the round.

"Smile for the camera, Ianto."

Ianto -- tinged blue-green and slightly see-through -- straightens and pulls his shoulders back, fiddling with his tie. He smiles, but it's halfhearted.

"Come on, you can do better than that."

Ianto checks his cuffs, speaking with his head bowed. "What am I supposed to say?"

"Anything. Say anything you want. Tell your secrets!" Jack's voice, disembodied, betrays amusement. The blue-green Ianto looks up with a shy, sincere smile this time.

"What would those be, then?" he asks. "Jack, what do you want a video for, anyway?"

"It's not a video," Jack's voice protests. "This is advanced futuristic technology! It isn't a Britain's Got Talent submission. Although, on second thoughts, sing us a few bars of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau."

"I'm not singing, Jack."

"Well, say something."

"Mm," Ianto grunts, looking almost suspicious. He lets his hands fall back to his sides, then shoves them in his pockets. "I dunno, hi?"

Jack groans. "Ianto."

"What? It's two thousand nine, it's a Tuesday, I'm Ianto Jones," Ianto says. "Turn it off, Jack. Take a photo if you want one so badly."

"Photos don't move," Jack declares. "You can't hear them. They fade."

"Oh, is it movement you want?" Ianto asks, and darts forward, disappearing. The sound remains: scuffling, a thud as Ianto knocks Jack down or maybe Jack pulls Ianto down, Gwen can't tell. She can hear Jack's full-throated clear HA! of triumph, and Ianto's laughter, breathless, struggling -- perhaps Jack has him pinned. There's a soft moan, she can't identify whose, then Ianto's voice again.

"Turn it off, Jack, I'm not making pornography," Ianto says. With a blip, the recording cuts out. Gwen looks down at the wrist-strap in her hands, wondering if there's a button she needs to push to save it or something. She glances around casually to make sure no-one saw the hologram, but the Plass is deserted.

She hadn't meant to go poking around in Jack's strap. She'd just wanted to pull the tech out of the charred scraps of leather that were left, but the screwdriver she was using slipped and hit a button and then there was Ianto. A hologram, not quite life-sized, fidgeting and scolding and smiling at the invisible Jack recording him.

Ianto Jones, young forever now, caught in thirty seconds of awkward trying-to-please, of flirting with his boss, of shy confusion as to why Jack would even want this. She wonders where they were when Jack recorded it, horsing around like boys, wrestling and laughing.

She wonders if Ianto suspected why Jack would want it. She wonders where Jack is.

Maybe if she knew the right buttons to press she'd find other lovers Jack's had, in the past and in the future that is a part of his own personal past. Jack's held so tightly to his people, but he can't always have done or he'd just -- he'd go mad. Maybe he did go mad. Loss after loss after loss, and maybe the child she knows he killed isn't his first grandchild. Maybe Steven's mother isn't Jack's only daughter.

God, maybe she's the one going mad.

"Sweetheart?"

Gwen looks up from the strap to find Rhys standing over her with two cups of tea. She sets the strap carefully across her thigh and accepts one of the cups, scooting over so he can sit on the chunk of concrete that she and the cleanup crew have appropriated for tea breaks during the salvage. Ten feet away, the enormous tent over the yawning maw of the blast crater flaps in the wind. Tourists still gawp; the locals have got used to it.

They're clearing the debris slowly, though at the moment most of the UNIT engineers are on a convoy to the dump or incinerator. It's given Harwood's good business, anyway, and Rhys is always around, ostensibly to oversee UNIT's use of the rented lorries.

They uncovered the morgue yesterday. The biohazard team swept in pretty quickly. All those who lay in state now lie in ashes, for the protection of the public. They found a drawer door with Tosh's name on it, and asked her what they ought to do with it; there's not even anything left of Owen. Ianto's is the only body that remains to Torchwood, and it's in a cemetery Rhiannon picked, outside Cardiff. Gwen felt she owed Ianto's family that much. It wasn't like she had a place to put it.

This is her life now: Rubble, rubbish, salvage, and most of the people she loved always just out of reach.

"What is it?" Rhys asks, nodding at the strap.

"It belonged to Jack," Gwen says quietly. They'd found it dangling from a piece of rebar thirty feet above the Hub floor.

"Oh?" Rhys's face hardens. "Into the skip, then?"

"No, love," she says, leaning against his shoulder. "Don't be that way. Not today."

Rhys puts his arm around her, kissing the crown of her head. "Sorry."

Gwen leans into the embrace, but her mind won't be still. She has one photograph of Ianto -- well, she has one photograph with Ianto in it. She snapped it by accident while documenting a recovery of some harmless Rift debris, not even realising she'd taken it until she printed the photos for the hardcopy file. Jack must have noticed, because he's looking right at the camera, but he's half cut-off and for once not dominating the image.

Ianto's closer to centre, leaning back to glance at Jack, a cup of bad corner-shop coffee in one hand. He looks like he blames Jack for the shit coffee and the Cardiff overcast, but can't be bothered to actually be angry. She'd thought it was funny, and it was already printed anyway, so she shoved it in her bag and forgot about it for ages. It had ended up in one of the shoeboxes of photos in the closet at home.

Gwen cups her hands tighter around the tea, warming her fingers against the chill off the bay. She's grateful she doesn't have more than a photo of Ianto, really. She wouldn't want his voice, the way he moved and laughed and smirked, always in her mind. Grief is partly forgetting, losing the sting of freshness, because the more you remember the more you know you've lost.

Retcon has its appeal, sometimes. The idea, anyway, of being able to forget the last two and a half years, of being able to wipe the slate clean. She won't, she knows that; she owes it to the others to remember them. Still, she's not going to torment herself with the perfect clarity of the hologram in Jack's strap. A photograph is proof that memory is imperfect, and it'll wash away the bitterness of seeing Ianto fidget with his tie and knowing she won't ever see that again.

The lorries are back, and the salvage crews are filing into the tent for another few hours of sifting and loading. Time she was there too, helping clear away the old Torchwood and slowly piece together the new one. She's hoping to speak to some of the UNIT people when this is over, see if any of her particular favourites want to join up.

"Rhys," she says, and presses the strap into his hand. "Can you find a new wristband for this?"

"Course," he replies, brow furrowing. "Any hurry?"

"No," Gwen says. She kisses his forehead -- oof, bending down is getting difficult -- and turns away. Tonight they'll have dinner and sit on the sofa and watch telly. Maybe after a little while she'll get him to take down the box of photos from the top shelf of the closet so she can find Ianto, coffee in hand, leaning back to look at Jack, annoyed but maybe a little too much in love to actually be angry.

She hopes, wherever Jack is, his memories are fading too.

WIAD Round 9: We Have No Protocol For This

2009-10-01T03:06:18Z

Title: We Have No Protocol For This
Rating: PG-13
Summary: What, you thought bodyswap machines would be fun sex toys?
Notes: Written for round 9 of writerinadrawer. Thanks to 51stcenturyfox for beta sparkles. I'd been writing really sort of dark fic, and I thought I'd do something light and bantery for a change. This resulted in my second ever negative score. Oops? :D
Theme: Bodyswap; added element, a piece of candy.
Word Count: Less than 1200
Score: -1 (+1, -2)

"I think," Gwen said, sitting forward on the sofa nervously, "That Owen's the only person actually enjoying this."

"Oh, I don't know," Jack answered, briefly trying to cross his arms and then giving it up. "Toshiko's enjoying shouting at us, aren't you, Tosh?"

"STILL FURIOUS," Tosh yelled, without looking up from the tiny remote control on her desk. She'd pulled the back off now, which probably meant progress, but she had that I'm about to solder something look on her face. Dangerous waters, Jack decided. "How many times have I told you -- "

"Tosh touches first," Jack sighed.

"And when Tosh doesn't touch the alien artifact first? When people put shiny wristbands on their wrists without asking Tosh first?" Tosh asked.

"Gwen and Jack swap bodies," Jack continued.

"It might have been mind control that made them do it!" Owen's voice drifted up from the med bay. He put his head out briefly. "You did say you don't remember it?"

"We got the call, we got in the car, the next thing I remember is waking up in Gwen's body," Jack said. "Driving back here was fun."

"Rhys is going to kill me," Gwen moaned.

"You'll probably come back," Jack offered. Gwen shoved him and he nearly toppled over. She looked horrified.

"Jack! Sorry!"

"It's fine, it's fine, I'm just top heavy," Jack said, righting himself and dusting down his -- Gwen's -- arms. "You're more wiry than you look, from the outside. Let's armwrestle."

"Jack, take this seriously!" Gwen insisted.

"Wow. Am I always that scary when I scold people?" Jack asked, fascinated.

"Got it," Owen called, just as Ianto appeared from the other side of the Hub with coffee, because when panic set in one could depend on Ianto for hot drinks. Owen pushed past him and stood in front of the couch, hands on his hips. "Okay. I have good news and bad news."

"Worse news than this?" Gwen asked, snapping Jack's suspenders over her chest. Jack frowned. He was sure he'd felt a twinge against his own chest. Well, Gwen's...chest...

In the fifty-first century they had words for this kind of thing. Not so much, in the twenty-first.

"That's the bad news," Owen said. Gwen rolled Jack's eyes.

"The good news is, your consciousness is not inherently transferred," Owen said, brandishing a printout. "So when I tell you to lift your arm..."

Jack reached over and lifted the arm of his own body.

"...funny, Harkness," Owen remarked. Behind him, Ianto smirked. "When I tell you to lift your arm, your body's brain puts out the signal -- it's just Gwen's body's arm that lifts, instead of yours. So I'm guessing you are psychically controlling each others' bodies. Here's where it gets interesting," he added, and shoved a piece of chocolate in Jack's body's mouth.

"Eurgh -- gah," Jack said, trying to spit out a taste from food that wasn't there. Gwen, in his actual body, was chewing thoughtfully.

"Everyone likes chocolate. It's chocolate. What kind of person doesn't like chocolate?" Ianto asked the air. "Oh, right, our fearless leader."

"It's disgusting," Jack said, wiping his -- Gwen's -- tongue with...Gwen's fingers. "Why am I tasting it?"

"I can hardly taste it at all," Gwen said.

"Yeah," Owen nodded. "I'm not sure what kind of nerve tampering this thing does -- Tosh?"

"Working," Tosh called. Oh, God, the soldering iron was out.

"Anyway," Owen continued, as Gwen mercifully swallowed and the taste went away, "you still share some sensation with your actual body. The stronger the sensation, the more you feel it. I'm guessing pain would cross over the strongest."

"Why?" Gwen asked. "What possible point..."

She trailed off as she caught the thoughtful look on her own face.

"I've heard about this," Jack said slowly. "It's useful for prisoners. Keeps them off-balance. Hence the remote. Guard keeps the remote, swaps people over when he wants to confuse them..."

"I should think it would be very useful in an interrogation situation," Ianto observed. Everyone looked at him. "Well. Pain transference. Two for the price of one. Plus you wouldn't ever lose consciousness."

"That's sick," Gwen said.

"What, you thought this would be a fun sex toy?" Jack asked. "We never get the fun sex toys," he added.

"Stop talking about sex toys while you're in me!" Gwen blurted.

"Not helping," Ianto murmured.

"Meanwhile, back in Torchwood," Owen snapped, "If Tosh can figure out how to adjust the settings on the remote, I think we can hook you up to some biofeedback and get you unswapped. Or were you enjoying that brassiere?" he asked Jack. Jack looked down, caught Gwen glaring at him, and looked up defiantly.

"It has its functions," he answered. Owen threw up his hands in defeat.

"So..." Ianto said, as Owen grumbled off to set up the biofeedback machines. He seemed lost for words to express what he was thinking. Jack had a few ideas, many of them interesting, and judging from his face, Ianto did too.

"Nobody's having sex until this is fixed," Gwen announced.

"But theoretically," Ianto tried, "if I did, you wouldn't really -- "

"No!" Gwen said. Ianto bit his lip and nodded at Jack's body. Gwen looked down at Jack's body's lap.

"JACK," she cried, and he ducked away from the shove just in time. "Stop thinking whatever you're thinking. Think about horrible things. Make it go away!"

"I'm not controlling it! Maybe it was the sex toys," Jack protested.

"You brought up the sex toys!" Gwen hissed.

Jack was opening his mouth to reply when there was a loud noise from Tosh's direction. He had a disorienting moment where he seemed to be both looking directly at Tosh and turning his head to look at her, which resulted in him trying to turn back and forward at the same time, and sent him sprawling against the hard wooden arm of the sofa.

"I think I fixed it!" Tosh called excitedly. "Jack?"

"Here!" Jack said, raising his own hand, his own blessed hand. The little metal bracelet on it clattered to the floor. Next to him, Gwen was pulling hers off hurriedly.

"Already?" Owen demanded, putting his head out of the medbay doorway. "You're no fun, Tosh."

"I like Toshiko best today," Jack announced. "Give her the rest of the chocolate. I need to go brush my teeth. Yuck."

As he walked past (oh it was good to walk in his own body again) Ianto leaned towards him and muttered, "Missed opportunity."

"My teeth aren't the only thing I need to take care of," Jack muttered back suggestively.

It was amazing how fast Ianto could clear away the coffee things, given the proper motivation.

WIAD Round 8: Tuesday The 17th

2009-10-01T03:04:50Z

Title: Tuesday the 17th
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Ianto and Jack begin to reach an understanding in the aftermath of Cyberwoman.
Notes: Written for round 8 of writerinadrawer. Thanks to 51stcenturyfox for beta sparkles.
Theme: Use a title from Psych, the TV show; added element, one fruit and one vegetable
Word Count: Less than 1000
Score: 2 (+3, -1)

"Going somewhere?"

Halfway out the front door to his flat, Ianto started skittishly and dropped his keys. He turned, door still open behind him, to find Jack Harkness standing on the landing. Jack had his hands shoved in his pockets and was gazing at him with a sort of slow serenity that missed nothing.

Well, not anymore, anyway.

"Just to the shops," Ianto muttered, bending to pick up his keys. "No food in the place."

Jack tilted his head slightly to look around him -- shit, the door was still open --

"Yes, I see," he said, taking in the wreckage of the flat, the smashed glass and crockery, the books lying where they'd been thrown, the blind on the window dangling crazily from one bracket. Jack cocked an eyebrow at him. "Out of bananas?"

"Spinach," Ianto replied.

"It seems to inspire violence, not getting enough iron," Jack remarked, nodding at the mayhem.

"Why are you here, Jack?" Ianto asked, losing his patience. He hadn't seen the man for days and Torchwood could get fucked for all he cared; they'd killed his girlfriend, three times if you counted London, which had to be some kind of record. And then Jack had sent him off without even doing him the courtesy of executing or retconning him.

Execute her or I'll execute you both, hadn't he said? But Ianto hadn't shot Lisa. And Jack hadn't shot Ianto. And now here they were.

Jack looked down, managed to make eye contact for a moment, looked away again.

"Let's talk inside," he said.

"I don't -- " Ianto began.

"Look, you think I never trashed a place?" Jack asked, and seemed to think that was a valid argument.

Inside, glass crunched under Jack's boots as he walked to the window. Ianto stood near the half-empty bookcase and waited. He'd been pulling Lisa's books off the shelf; he noticed he'd missed two. He wondered what would happen if he just picked them up and threw them now.

Eh. Moment had passed.

Jack turned around -- oh, his dramatic coat, swirling against his legs -- and got that look on his face. The one that said he had intended to say something deep and meaningful, and was now being forced to replace it on the fly.

"How are you?" he asked.

Ianto gestured at the mark on the wall where the hideous glass...swan...thing (gift from Lisa's mother) had impacted before shattering.

"I've been better," he said.

"Get it out of your system?" Jack asked.

"My girlfriend's dead. You don't get it out of your system," Ianto snapped. Silence. He reached out and tilted one of Lisa's books off the shelf, letting it fall. Jack stared at it with disconcerting focus.

"I'm sorry," he said, as if that was going to help. Then he looked up again. "When did she die?"

Ianto stared at him in disbelief. Jack's face was so carefully blank. If he was playacting the role of an ignorant friend, ready to offer condolences, Ianto really was going to kill him bare-handed right here. Jack was big but he wasn't invulnerable.

But -- no, that wasn't what Jack was doing. He was looking for an answer. And Ianto was not a good liar; he was just good at not inspiring questions he'd have to lie to answer. Jack would know if he were lying.

"On a Tuesday," Ianto said. "The seventeenth."

"Where was that?" Jack asked, soft, almost predatory.

"Torchwood Tower, Canary Wharf, London," Ianto mumbled, studying the remains of a coffee mug (Lisa's favourite). "A few months ago."

When he looked up, there was something very close to sympathy in Jack's face. He considered picking up the last of Lisa's books off the shelf and throwing it at him.

"This," Jack said, sweeping a hand, taking in the littered floor, the broken blind, the books, "this is okay. You're angry because a monster took someone you loved, and you're trapped here, and I get that. You have no idea how much I get that, Ianto."

What did one say to something like that?

"But you understand what happened, I think, now that -- " another gesture at the mess. "People who are angry at me don't generally take it out on...is that a Hummel boy?" he asked, crouching to gather up some chips of porcelain.

Lisa had bought the Hummel figurine for him during a trip, as a gift. She had, very clearly, picked out the most hideous, awkward one she could find, a little boy dressed like a chimneysweep with a look of constipated frustration on his face. He had exploded quite remarkably when hurled against the coffee table.

"Well, it was," Ianto said, and let a short hysterical laugh escape before he'd realised it. Jack, half the figurine's arm between his fingers, glanced up. The sharp knowledge in his eyes made Ianto cover his face.

To his credit, Jack didn't try to console him or give him a hug or anything mortifying like that. He did pull Ianto's hands down and replace them, in a way, with his own -- thumbs along his cheekbones, fingers tilting his jaw up just a little.

"Take your time," he said. "Grieve, okay? When you're ready, you still have a job if you want it."

He was almost gone -- at the door, already halfway through it, when Ianto turned and called out, "Why?"

Jack paused, then looked back.

"Tuesday the seventeenth," he said. "That was the right answer."

WIAD Round 7: Four Uniforms

2009-10-01T03:02:56Z

Title: Four Uniforms Jack Harkness Wore (And One He Never Did)
Rating: PG
Summary: Jack has worn any number of uniforms, but some he won't wear.
Notes: Written for round 7 of writerinadrawer. Thanks to 51stcenturyfox for beta sparkles. This story was especially popular among some of my friends, and I am still teased by Claire that nothing I write will ever compare to Uniforms. :D
Theme: 4 + 1; added element, colours of the rainbow. This was also an optional round.
Word Count: Less than 1000

I. Cadet

There were ten of them in the changing room, all unabashedly naked, not that with Dorin you could tell. She'd had trouble getting a DU.2 that didn't chafe her pelt, but she looked good in the final cut.

Jacky and Ivan, inseparable as always (just as well, given Ivan's wildness) were helping each other into the complicated trousers when Kepo looked up and shouted "KE OFFICER ON DECK PO" and everyone straightened to attention, half-dressed as they were. Ivan's dick was hanging out, of course.

The officer on deck turned out to be Strap Commander Neilson, who surveyed the half-dressed cadets impassively.

"At ease," he barked.

Ivan took the opportunity to do up his trousers.

"I came to speak to you here, before the graduation ceremony, because here is where you put on those uniforms," the strap commander announced. "You won't wear your parade dress often; we don't even issue battle-dress, and there's a reason for that. But when you put on the red shirt and trousers and the gold collars you become Time Agents. That is a prestige few will ever carry."

Jacky glanced at Kepo, who looked especially edible. He was quivering with pride and eagerness, and the red set off his green skin nicely.

"There are those who will tell you myths about the DU.2," the strap commander continued. "They'll say it's red to hide the blood or to blend in with fire or because Time Agents are vain. Ignore them. Most cultures see red as a sign of sin, of passion you shouldn't have. People don't wear red, have you noticed?"

They shook their heads.

"Yes, well. If you're ever in a jam, it might help to know that. When you travel -- by strap or otherwise -- keep your eyes open. When you're in trouble, try to wear red, so others can find you. It might not help at all, but who knows?" he shrugged. "Might save your life."

Jacky shifted uneasily.

"Welcome to the Time Agency," the strap commander finished. "May God have mercy on your souls."

II. CO

After Lucia left him -- after she took away his daughter, the child he never wanted until he had her -- Jack begged to be sent away from Torchwood. He wouldn't try to contact the Doctor, he swore, just please...a few months, enough time to be shut of the memories.

This wasn't what he'd had in mind.

The flight suit fit, of course, like it was made for him. The olive-green made his skin seem to glow. He knew he looked good, and he was surrounded by good-looking men, all of whom wanted to please him. But all he could see in the RAF cadets were little boys. Being sent up in big fucking machines. To die.

Well, if they were going to die, they were going to die right. He owed them that much.

"Okay, hot shots," he said, thumbs hooked in his belt. "My name is Harkness. It's my job to turn you into pilots. I'm not your friend. I'm not your father. I am the best airman in the RAF."

They looked scared. God, they were kids.

Well, he'd been a kid once.

"So," he said, and broke into a wide, dazzling grin, "let's teach you baby birds how to fly, huh?"

III. Child

Boeshane was brittle and dry, all duns and umbers and grey brush. The brightest thing in Jack's world was a red bowl his grandmother brought along when they came to the colony, decades ago, when his mother was a child. The bowl was beautiful, and Jack wasn't allowed to touch it.

Still, he treasured equally the dull wood and sand, the pale clothing the colonists wore. A sensualist from childhood, Jack loved to see and touch and taste. He lived for the days the sun, setting over the ocean, turned the world to gold.

Yellow was the brightest colour they were allowed, after the Creatures came. Vivid shades drew too much attention.

Jack's prize possession, a bright yellow tunic, was for special occasions only. When he put it on, his chest could burst from pride as he strutted amongst his friends, all in their loud canary yellow.

The last time he remembered wearing it was going to a dance, with his best friend's hand in his left, and Gray's hand in his right.

IV. Captain

Jack never wears yellow anymore.

Blue was the colour of mourning, on his planet. Even blue was forbidden, after the Creatures. That's his colour now. Blue shirts in a row, indigo-grey coat, charcoal trousers on the rack.

"You'd look good in something bright," Ianto said to him once.

"I look good in everything," Jack replied. "I like blue."

"Why?" Ianto asked, fingers curling in on his own shirt-cuffs, coral pink and gorgeous.

"I just do," Jack answered, and turned away.

V. Consul

"It's beautiful," he said, fingering the embroidered cloth.

"Toga Picta," his handler announced, letting the fabric fall in folds. "Worn by Praetors, Consuls -- nobility. You'll get everything you want in a toga like this. What name are you wearing?"

"Gaius Aulus," he answered.

"Try it on," his handler said. 'Gaius' stroked the purple cloth again, fondled a shoulder-clasp covetously, and shook his head. She frowned. "What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing," he said. "But I can't wear it."

"Whyever not?"

"It's not who I am."

"Oh, here we go again," Ivan -- Brittanicus Baltus, in this incarnation -- moaned. He was already struggling into a royal purple under-tunic. "I'm a soldier," he mocked in a falsetto.

"I am," Gaius insisted. "This is noble clothing. Put me in armor. Something more common. I couldn't pull off being a nobleman."

His handler looked depressed, and he did feel sorry for her. But this beautiful royal toga -- he'd only ruin it. He always did.

"I'm just not nobility," he said. "I never will be. Make me a soldier. That, I can be."

WIAD Fanfics: Rounds 1-6 Archival Post

2009-10-01T03:01:13Z

This is the archival post for rounds 1-6 of the writerinadrawer challenge. With special thanks to:

thefannishwaldo for running this and being a fantastic hardworking mod
51stcenturyfox for blowing BETA SPARKLES all over every entry
And all who read and voted, both for your praise and for your criticism.

Title: I Went To The Animal Fair
Rating: G
Summary: Torchwood contemplates the capture of an escaped zoo animal.
Theme: Drabble; added element, zoo animal.
Word Count: 100 Exactly
Score: 12 (-1, +13). Won the round.

"Ever been in a zoo when an animal got free?" Ianto asked, staring up at the...the giant anenome floating in Britain's sky. "I have. School trip. Springbok escaped. They kick."

"So...they're more afraid of you than you are of them?" Gwen suggested.

"I was going with terrified animals are dangerous, actually."

"Okay!" Jack called, patting the giant net-launcher. "Ready to help the people of Klathon retrieve their prize Dvvnvvtvv for the Galactic Sanctuary?"

"Will it try to eat us?" Ianto asked. Jack hesitated.

"Possibly?" he ventured.

Ianto sighed. "I'll just add zookeeper to our job descriptions, shall I?"

Title: Show Me Your Schematics
Rating: PG
Summary: Jack bribes a young mechanic into helping him with a problem with his Spitfire.
Notes: I regret, with this one, the low wordcount. I wanted to tell a much more complete story instead of what seems like just a scene; the idea was to show Jack introducing someone to the wonders of the universe, as an exploration of how long he has spent at this kind of thing.
Theme: Favor. One of our characters needs a favor from someone; added element, a city foreign to your character.
Word count: Limited To 400
Score: 3 (-1, +4).

"Gremlins," Harkness announced.

"Sure, why not?" Henderson said, closing the Spitfire's engine casing and wiping her hands. "Nothing wrong with your engine."

"It's gremlins," Harkness replied.

"Sir?"

"Gremlins, rigger."

Henderson frowned. "Gremlins don't exist, captain. I mean, mythical imps that mess with engines?"

"I know how it sounds. Why do you think we're doing this after lights-out in an empty hangar?"

She blushed.

"My reputation precedes me," Harkness laughed. "What's the time?"

Henderson checked her watch. "Minute to midnight."

"Great. Watch the Spitfire."

"What?"

"Watch," he whispered in her ear. She obeyed, perplexed. After a few seconds there was a glimmer of movement along the fuselage, another on the propeller. Sparks flew.

"What -- " she started. Harkness clapped a hand over her mouth. The sparks were coalescing into tiny silver creatures, creeping around the plane. One raised a claw, shoved it through the engine case, and...twiddled.

"Gremlins," the Captain repeated, releasing her.

"Where'd they come from?" she asked, furious and awed.

"Don't know. Maybe they're aliens," he said casually. "Nicosia is a pretty town but it's a little far from the kind of help I usually have, which is why I'm showing you this. I need your help getting rid of the infestation."

"My help?"

"You're the best mechanic on base. Someone who knows Spitfires intimately," he replied, with a hint of a grin.

"Why?" she asked.

"To rig a trap. You have roaches, you put down bait. Same theory."

They watched as the gremlins continued their inspection, one of them dropping into the cockpit to toy with the throttle. Finally, Henderson cleared her throat.

"But it's just your plane," she said.

Harkness looked offended. "Just my plane?"

"You know what pilots say. If you tick off the gremlins they'll come after you next. I'm not bringing down gremlins on the entire wing," she said.

"I give them the wonders of the universe..." he muttered. "Fine. What's it worth to you?"

She put her hands on her hips. "Flying lessons."

Instead of spouting the usual flyboy shit about incompetent female pilots, he nodded. "Cheap at the price."

Her jaw dropped.

"You'll be good at it," he added. "Come on. I have schematics to show you."

"Is that what they call it?" she asked tartly. He laughed loud enough to startle the gremlins, who scuttled into dark corners.

"Business first," he said, draping an arm over her shoulders. "Fun later."

Title: Keep Calm And Carry On
Rating: PG
Summary: The Torchwood archives are covered in signs, but at first Ianto doesn't understand why.
Theme: Signage; added element, a hand gesture, sign or signal.
Words: Limited to 500
Score: 5 (+5). Won the round.

Jack -- "Call me Jack, everyone does" -- assigned Suzie, his second in command, to give Ianto a first-day "orientation". Ianto privately thought this was a joke, because after a brusque lecture on safety she stood him at the door of the archives and abandoned him.

"Go explore," she said, gesturing at the maze of rooms and corridors. "Be back at half-eleven to order lunch."

Independence and initiative valued at Torchwood Three: Check.

Of course, he diverted his attention elsewhere, pleased with this autonomy. Until he'd moved Lisa in, he didn't really look at the archives. When he did, it was too late to ask Suzie anything; she thought he'd been exploring for days.

It was the strange signs on the walls that bothered him, mostly. One demanded to know if he was wearing clean underwear, with a jaunty drawing of Y-fronts beneath it. Another was hung under a bulbous thing with wires dangling like tentacles. The sign was obviously from elsewhere, but it made its point: TOUCHING WIRES CAUSES INSTANT DEATH. Underneath, black humour: $200 Fine.

There were dozens of them, at least one in every room. They baffled him. Some mad former archivist? Jack's idea of humour? Suzie, fucking with him?

He grew used to them as time passed, though, and eventually came to regard them in a friendly light. His favourite hung in the central workroom: NOTICE. THANK YOU FOR NOTICING THIS NEW NOTICE. YOUR NOTICING IT HAS BEEN NOTED. AND WILL BE REPORTED TO THE AUTHORITIES.

But he still didn't realise what their function was until the day he was fetching "That green powder, you know, it's in a yellow vial?" for Jack, and accidentally dropped it.

The cork burst free and the powder flew up, catching him in the face. He coughed and felt the world tilt dangerously. The walls began to undulate. All sound disappeared into a sucking black hole between his ears.

Hallucinogenic, then. Brilliant.

The floor vibrated beneath him. There was no way he'd get out; he couldn't even tell doorways from shadows, and there was something...there...

A flash of yellow -- he blinked -- the y-front pants were staring him in the face.

Ianto burst into hysterical laughter, but some part of him knew that the y-fronts led into the hardware room. In the hardware room was the "how not to use a toilet" sign....

He giggled and stumbled forward. The signs wouldn't lead him wrong. They were a guide, a reality check, something his predecessor must have hung as a memory device.

He fell into the workroom finally, groping for the intercom toggle. It dodged and laughed until he managed to yank on it.

"Little help, please," he mumbled, collapsing.

A few minutes later Jack and Owen charged in to find him on his back, staring at the NOTICE NOTICE, laughing himself sick.

"What's so funny?" Jack asked, as Owen declared Ianto stoned but not terminal.

"Archivist humour," Ianto snickered. "Don't worry, you're not supposed to understand it."

Title: I Know The Voices Dying
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jack decides a paradox might be a way to solve his little immortality problem, and at the moment he doesn't care who he takes with him.
Notes: This is a little more disjointed than I would have liked; I wanted him to have more time to discuss paradoxes with Elisia, and I wanted his thought process to paint a more complete picture for the audience of a totally broken man, someone who has turned so far inwards that there's no discernable difference between him and a sociopath. I Know The Voices Dying is a line from TS Eliot's Prufrock.
Theme: School and lessons; added element, a common school supply
Words: Less than 500
Score: -2 (-4, +2)

On the few occasions that paradoxes had come up during Jack's time in the TARDIS, the Doctor been terrifyingly intense in his hatred of them. Rose, often fearless, lived in horror of the Reapers. Jack himself had seen the Master's perverse Paradox Machine and loathed it instinctively.

The Time Agency, on the other hand, had never much bothered with temporal manners. Cocky spawnsabitches that they were, the Agency meddled, mingled, and fucked around, with the result that agents occasionally winked out of existence. Sometimes they took a planet with them. Eh, such was life; someone could always fix it later. A shrug and a murmur of "Paradox" was the best eulogy the dead got.

What none of them had seen was the cascade effect it would have, all those little misdemeanors mounting up slowly to wipe out most of the Agency in one shattering event horizon. Or perhaps someone had known; the more Jack thought about the Agency shutting down, the more sense it made. There must have been a cover-up beforehand, because someone had known it would happen.

Him.

Those missing two years were insignificant now, in the face of his long life, but he'd lay odds they went missing because Jack Harkness saw a pattern and tried to warn the Agency, with inevitable results.

In that case, they deserved exactly what they got.

***

When Elisia caught up with him, months after he'd left Gwen and Earth, weeks after he'd acquired his own small but serviceable ship, Jack reckoned they were the only two humans in contemporary space. She told him, standing at gunpoint in his cargo bay, that they were the only two Time Agents left at all.

"Which is why I need you, Punch," she said, as if they were still friends and that nickname was hers to use. "I've heard the stories. Time turns around you."

"John's been tattling," he said.

"John's dead. Paradox'd out."

"And you have a plan?" he asked, ignoring the twinge in his gut.

"Come with me. You understand what happened. We'll go to the forty-ninth, the founding of the Agency. If we can teach them how to prevent it at the start, we can save them. It'll set all the paradoxes right," she said desperately.

"Or," Jack mused, "we could do nothing. Let it die."

Her eyes widened. "But that's -- "

"Murder? Kinda. Another paradox? Only until we all wink out of existence," Jack said. "The universe will fix it. I for one will be glad to go."

He flicked a switch. A door slammed between them. Elisia screamed as he airlocked her.

***

It should have been the end. Without any further action, the entire thing should have reset. No Agency; no Jack Harkness in 1941; no immortality; no murdered grandson; no slain lover. Just blessed, blissful oblivion.

But it never happened. He still lived.

As it turned out, the immortal was paradox-proof. A joke of the universe; a cosmic slap on the palm with a ruler.

No easy fixes.

Lesson learned.

Title: The Water's Fine
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Ianto takes a leap of faith.
Notes: I have to admit that I kind of stole the 'something on my face' line from a fic I'd been beta-reading, without meaning to. SORRY FOXY.
Theme: Unexpected Side Effect; added element, advice from your mother
Word Count: Less than 700.
Score: 4 (-1, +5). Won the round.

There are, of course, many things made difficult and awkward in the workplace by a liaison with the boss. It blurs all the lines, for a start, though the lines at Torchwood were pretty blurry already.

As much as Ianto expected trouble when it became obvious he and Jack were enjoying some extracurriculars, most of it never materialised. Some smart remarks from Gwen; some taunts from Owen. Tosh at least seemed happy for him, in that Please Don't Let's Talk About It way that single people are happy when their friends get involved.

If they even were "involved", and Ianto was never sure, which made him even less eager to Talk About It. Uncertain of his professional status, hovering between librarian and secret agent, Ianto wasn't any more grounded by the shifting sands of a never-defined personal relationship in which Jack held all the cards. Jack was the boss, the one who'd done this before. And whatever he felt for Ianto, he was almost the only thing Ianto had left.

Sooner or later it would probably result in a full mental breakdown, this lack of definition to anything in his life.

Sometimes he had restless dreams, especially on the nights Jack stayed at his flat -- as if the anxiety of wondering whether he would be there in the morning (so what if he wasn't? But it did matter) carried over into sleep. His mother, all but faceless for as much as he could remember of her, telling him that the cold water wouldn't be so bad if he jumped in, the plaster wouldn't hurt as much if he ripped it off quickly.

Well, he'd never been a master of subtle metaphor.

At first he thought he should just ask Jack, pin him down to a definition, and fuck Jack's dislike of labels. Or he ought to end it, before it ended him, because being so close to someone so untouchable was dangerous. But if he and Jack were over, then all he had was a job that would get him killed, a shabby flat, and a caffeine habit that would kill him if the job didn't.

Slowly, the idea occurred to him that definition was not, perhaps, necessary. Things needed labels. Objects had form. A chemical reaction could be quantified, but he and Jack couldn't. After Lisa he hadn't ever wanted to be so gutted again, but it wasn't really up to him. Why bother giving it a name in some vain attempt to prevent it falling apart?

In at a leap, then. If this was what he had to hold to, he would hold to it. If it killed him, it was better than a half-life wondering. In the end it didn't matter what Jack thought he was, in Torchwood or in his bed.

A week after he'd made the decision, he caught Jack watching him discreetly as he brought up the afternoon coffee.

"Something on my face?" he asked. Jack leaned back and stretched.

"A smile," Jack said. "You're smiling."

"Am I?"

"Uh-huh. In fact, for the last four days you've brought me a cup of..." Jack paused to sip from his mug, "...delicious coffee, and you've...smiled. Plus you've been kind of mouthy lately."

Ianto quirked an eyebrow. "Apologies, sir. I shall endeavour to be grim and silent as before."

"Don't," Jack said, without the laugh Ianto was angling for. "I like it. Ianto Jones smiles. Because he's thinking of me?"

"No," Ianto answered, collecting the debris of Jack's lunch from the desk.

"Come on, Ianto. A little of that was for me. Huh? Right?" Jack cajoled. Ianto felt his smile widen. This time Jack did laugh. "I knew it. Euphoria is a common side effect of sleeping with me."

"Must be those pheromones," Ianto murmured.

"Must be," Jack repeated, his voice dropping low and seductive. "Of course, if you have time now -- "

"Coffee service," Ianto said, already at the door.

"Cruel!" Jack moaned. Ianto paused and then walked back, swiftly, and pressed a kiss to Jack's lips.

Hold to what you have; worry about the rest later.

"It isn't nice to call me names," he said, and disappeared out the door.

Title: In Loco Parentis
Rating: PG
Summary: Jack is retconned back to childhood, and Ianto does what he has to in order to fix it.
Notes: This was the subject of some hot comment action. The biggest problem people had with it was the idea that Retcon Doesn't Work That Way, but my more pressing concern was how flat it was. The wordcount bit me on the ass again in this; I wanted to go into much more detail about Jack's feelings and reactions, and about the team reacting to Ianto's initiative-taking. C'est la vie.
Theme: Amnesia; added element, a television show.
Word Count: Less than 700
Score: 3 (-7, +10)

When the explosion hit, no-one but Jack was in the Hub.

Later, as they reviewed the CCTV, they saw him entering the chem-lab; after a few minutes a bright flare lit up the tempered-glass wall, obscuring Jack from view.

The logs showed that the automated systems worked just as they should: they scrubbed the air, unlocking the door when it was safe. CCTV showed a confused-looking Jack staggering out, making it to the sofa before he collapsed.

The next morning Ianto found him there, fast asleep. Strange, really; he did have a bed twenty feet away.

"Jack," he said, loudly. Jack's eyes flew open, startled and confused. "Are you all right? Jack?"

"Up an at 'em, Jack," Owen called. "Late-night Star Trek marathons are no excuse for oversleeping."

Jack pushed himself against the back of the sofa nervously.

"My name's not Jack," he said.

Ianto paused, then reached out and sifted a few grains of fine white powder from the crease of Jack's sleeve.

***

Retcon overdose was Owen's diagnosis.

"He must've been making a batch. That much'd fry any normal person's brain," Owen said, pointing to a freeze-frame of the explosion.

"It'd wipe them back to infancy," Tosh agreed. She glanced at the sofa where Ianto was crouched near a terrified Jack, speaking softly.

"Or," Gwen said, as she joined them, "to your early teens, if you're Jack."

"How is he?" Tosh asked.

"Frightened. He doesn't know why he's here, who we are. He's scared of his own body. It's not the one he's used to."

"Can you fix it?" Tosh asked Owen.

"Did we have an antidote for Retcon last time you checked? No," Owen said. "I say we take advantage and interrogate him."

"Look at him," Gwen said softly, ignoring Owen. "I've never seen Jack like that."

As they watched, Ianto said something and Jack nodded hesitantly. Ianto patted him on the leg, then stood and walked away.

"Is he making coffee?" Tosh asked.

"I could go for a cup," Owen said. Tosh glared at him. "What?"

Gwen gave him a dark look and joined Ianto at the coffee machine, where he was steaming milk.

"All right?" she asked.

"I've been better," Ianto said. "You know, when he dies, it all resets itself. Usually, I mean. Scars disappear and all."

"You don't think we should kill him, do you?" she asked, horrified.

"Just an idea," Ianto said. He poured the milk into a mug and carried it up the steps to the sofa, putting it carefully in Jack's open hands. "Here you are. Hot milk. Probably not what you're used to -- "

"It's sweet," Jack remarked. "Tastes like nuts."

Owen's head jerked up and he glanced at Gwen, which was when she began to catch on. Too late; Jack had already taken a second deep drink.

"Ianto -- " Gwen began, but Ianto was busy taking the cup from Jack's shaking fingers.

"You drugged me!" Jack said, looking wounded.

"No," Ianto said gently, as Jack collapsed backwards. "I'm sorry, Jack."

They all watched, stunned, as Ianto cupped his face, holding him steady. Once the convulsions had subsided, he let go.

"You poisoned him," Gwen accused. "He was a child, Ianto! He trusted you!"

"I know," Ianto said.

"You didn't even bother asking."

"You would have said no."

"Since when do you have access to cyanide?" Owen interrupted. "And why would you keep it near the coffee?"

Ianto didn't bother answering. Minutes passed in silence until Jack jerked forward, gasping. Ianto caught his shoulders.

"Goddammit," was Jack's promising first word. "I knew that batch looked off."

He glanced around at his relieved team, frowning. "What?"

"You blew up the chem-lab," Owen said.

"And I'm still here," Jack drawled. "What, did you think this time my number was up? 'Cause it never is."

"No," Gwen said hastily. "Just glad you're fine, that's all."

Jack rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and stood up. "Okay, let's get to work. I'll clean up the lab. Sorry about that."

Possibly Gwen was the only one who noticed the guilt on Ianto's face.

"It's not easy to do," he murmured, watching Jack walk away. "It just had to be done, that's all."

The Ten Commandments Don't Apply To Angels

2009-09-15T17:41:53Z

Title: The Ten Commandments Don't Apply To Angels
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Fandom: Supernatural (Spoilers through the premiere of S5)
Summary: Dean keeps insisting Castiel do things that humans do; sometimes Castiel is grateful for this, and sometimes...not so much. Mild Dean/Castiel.
Notes: BETA CREDIT to 51stcenturyfox and girlpearl, who rock. I suppose this is something of an AU. It'll probably be jossed by Thursday anyway. But it was fun to examine the concept of how an angel might cope with human life. Also, yes, I know the commandments are out of order. Cope.

sadcypress has podficc'd "The Ten Commandments Don't Apply To Angels", and you can find the recording for download here. It's a great emotive reading and the audio is very clear, so I hope you enjoy it and let her know how she did!

***

I. Thou Shalt Not Kill

Castiel has been Fallen -- he refuses to think of himself as human -- for about eight weeks, and he is seriously considering breaking one of his Father's commandments.

Oh, he's not really going to kill Dean. But by the philosophy of many churches, which Castiel has learned about from Sam's books, to think of the deed is to commit the deed. And there are times he just wants to shut. Dean. Up. Angels smite. They smite wrathfully!

Dean leans back on the counter stool in the diner and elbows him in the ribs for the millionth time (actually only the two hundred and secondth time -- he's kept count -- but Castiel understands the power of exaggeration).

"The waitress is checking you out," he says. "Score us some free pie."

"That would be wrong," Castiel says flatly.

"Ask her out!"

"Ask her where?" Castiel inquires. His face is bland, because they both know it's an excuse, but Castiel has no stirring of affection for the woman who, at the end of the meal, leaves her phone number on the check she passes him.

Dean hoots and laughs about this for days.

It's been a long eight weeks.

II. Thou Shalt Not Steal

"This is how you earn your way?" Castiel had asked them, at the start of it. "Theft? Grift? Lying?"

"Hunting don't pay," Dean said, and Sam made that Hey, I didn't ask for this face. "Like you didn't know? I thought angels knew everything."

This is a jab, and it hurts. Castiel had never thought about how these two young men made their way in the world.

"Angels don't pay for things," he said.

"Great. We're angels," Sam said to Dean, and they grinned at each other in a way that set Castiel's new teeth on edge.

III. Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Goods

Castiel knows he will never be to Dean what Sam is to Dean. He doesn't want to replace Sam.

He just wants them to look at him that way too sometimes. He wants Dean and Sam to see him, but especially Dean.

He spends every waking moment with them and yet he has never ever felt so lonely.

IV. Thou Shalt Remember the Sabbath and Keep It Holy

"Look, you're human now," Dean said.

"I am not," Castiel said. "I'm Fallen."

"Yeah, but basically the same thing, right?"

Castiel shakes his head.

"Okay, fine, whatever," Dean says. "You're in a human body. You gotta do human stuff."

Castiel remembers the first time he -- and they -- realised he would have to eat. He had felt empty, but perhaps humans felt that way all the time, divorced as they were from the heavenly host. And then he had felt pain, and yearning for something, and he'd quietly bent over in the back seat of the Impala, holding his arms against his stomach. Surely it would pass.

"Hey, could you eat?" Dean said to Sam, in the front, and then turned around to the back seat. "I could eat. Hey Cas, are you -- "

The Impala had slammed to a stop and then Dean and Sam were there with him in the back seat, asking what was wrong, and Castiel didn't know. But they gave him water and a Clif Bar and he'd felt better. Perhaps that was how people felt, after Communion.

He didn't know about bathing, either, except in a theoretical "And then she washed his feet" kind of way. At least Dean had realized that if he didn't understand hunger he wouldn't understand much else, and that night he'd shown him how to get the little pools of shimmery shampoo out of the bottles. Dean had crouched by the bathtub in the horrible motel, sleeves rolled up, barefoot, while Castiel experimentally "washed his hair" for the first time.

Castiel didn't know it could feel so awful to be unclean, or so good to be clean.

And how could an angel not know the glory of clean skin?

V. Thou Shalt Honor Thy Father And Thy Mother

Castiel prays, every night, but it's a hollow thing; when he prayed as an angel, someone would answer, even if it wasn't necessarily the answer he wanted. Now, there's just yawning silence.

"Were you praying?" Sam asks him.

"Yes," Castiel says.

"I pray too," Sam says.

Sam Winchester did unspeakable things to and with a demon. He has killed. He is unholy in every possible sense of the word.

And yet...he is not damned. Perhaps there is hope for Castiel too.

Dean just snorts at them from the table where he's cleaning his gun.

"God-botherers," he says, shaking his head.

"I love my Father," Castiel insists.

"Fuck your dad, I haven't seen him around lately," Dean retorts.

Somehow, Dean always knows the right thing to say.

After that, Castiel still prays, but he doesn't really hope for an answer anymore.

VI. Thou Shalt Not Take The Lord's Name In Vain

The first time Castiel is injured, really injured, he's so stunned by it that he can't think. The pain lances up his arm and doesn't go away when he tells it to, it just keeps on stabbing, oh god, it's a thousand times worse than hunger-pain, it's a hundred times worse than stub-your-toe pain, it hurts so much.

"Cas -- ? Jesus, Cas," Dean yells, but Castiel is curled tightly around his wounded arm, rocking back and forth because that's all he can do, keening in pain and misery. Why would God allow His favored to feel this way? Why would his Father allow his human brothers and sisters to hurt and hurt without end, without respite --

Castiel passes out.

He comes awake and the pain is still there, but far away. For a minute he feels like an angel again.

"Dean," he murmurs. Dean is his responsibility, especially if he's an angel --

No, he's not. He recognises the tubes and wires, the white starched bed linens. He is in a hospital. They have put drugs in him. That's not fair. He didn't want them to put drugs in him. But they do help with the pain.

"Fucking shit, Cas," Dean says -- oh, Dean is there, that's good. "I thought you were going insane."

"No," Castiel says. "It hurt."

"I know," Dean replies, and rests a hand on his bandaged arm. "It'll go away."

"When?" Castiel asks, hating how pitiful he sounds, like the littlest of the children that God has clearly abandoned. Dean smiles, at least, and not in pity either.

"Man up. It'll be over soon," he tells him, but it isn't. Weeks later, his arm still twinges when he lifts it to rub shampoo out of his hair, or put a shirt on, or shoulder the rifle that Sam bought for him when they were passing through Texarkana.

Castiel learns to swear, because somehow it helps with the pain, and cursing his Father for the pain is the only vengeance he has left.

VII. I Am The Lord Thy God; Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me

Castiel has never seen his Father. He sees pictures of Him now, or at least what humans think He must look like: in Sam's books, in churches, on the television even.

"Alanis Morisette: hot God, or hottest God?" Dean asks.

"That's blasphemy," Castiel says, because he doesn't really get the whole "hot" concept, even though Dean and Sam have tried to explain it to him. He feels no desire for women, and certainly not for a woman pretending to be his Father in some terrible film.

He looks and looks, but he never sees a God anywhere that looks like he thought his Father would.

Still, he thinks about it less with each passing day. Sam and Dean are always teaching him new things. Sometimes he watches them and learns what not to do, but that's uncharitable.

Sam bought him the rifle in Texarkana, from a pawnshop, and taught him how to disassemble and clean and reassemble it. Dean taught him how to pack shell casings with rock salt and about the different calibers of the firearms they handled. Dean taught him how to shoot, too, arm alongside his, voice in his ear, and Castiel felt like he must do well at this, he must make Dean proud. He wanted to be a good student, and he told himself there was no shame in that. After all, what else could it be, this desire to please Dean Winchester?

At the end of the day, he thinks about how he was brought into existence knowing how to be an angel.

He had to be taught how to be a person.

And God wasn't there for that.

VIII. Thou Shalt Not Lie

The lies come so easily to him, in the company of the Winchesters. They teach him how to defraud credit card companies ("They're all thieving assholes anyway, it's not really stealing") and pose as a cop or a detective or even sometimes a doctor ("Confidence. Confidence, Cas, come on") and how to charm information out of unwilling and frightened people. He's very good at it; Sam says it's natural talent, Dean says it's Castiel's big baby blues.

"Chicks fall for that like dominos," he says.

"I'm not interested in chicks," Castiel replies.

"Everyone's interested in chicks. Listen, you do know what sex is, right?"

"Of course," Castiel says, affronted.

"Ever had it?"

"No!"

"Ever seen someone having it?"

"Dean, no."

"Well, I don't know. Ever dream about having it?"

"Dean!"

"Hey, I like sex," Dean says, and his eyes light up. "You know what we gotta do? We gotta get you laid."

Thus began eight weeks of it -- the nudges, the winks, the talking-him-up to women, but Castiel doesn't think about women or dream about women (dreams are so frightening; angels never dream).

Castiel has never lied to Sam and Dean since they took him in. Except for the one lie, not really even so much a lie, because he didn't say he didn't dream about sex.

Just...not sex with women.

Sometimes Castiel wonders if he'll go to hell when he dies.

IX. Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife

They end up in Chicago for a little while, and Castiel is unsettled by how much he likes it. He has seen every possible sin, as an angel, and he thought he knew the Mind of Man pretty well, but nine weeks in a human body have convinced him that angels know nothing of mortals, even less than mortals know of angels. He could never go back, and he thinks often of Anna's courage in recovering her grace. It's not that he loves being human, it's just that...

Well, angels are such pricks, and they don't understand anything at all.

So he likes it, the seething throb of humanity that is the city. He goes walking at night, wearing a borrowed revolver from Sam in a shoulder-holster because Dean knows Cas can take care of himself but also that it pays to be smart. Dean had a date with "a hot librarian" and Sam had a date with the library, so Castiel is at loose ends that particular night.

He ends up in some cafe on the north side, with tiny spike-haired waiters and two women laughing at each other over a slice of shared cake in the corner. He's not sure why he's here.

But he sees two men standing outside, fingers twined together, and there's an empty hollow in his chest -- like hunger-pain, only not. Like when he thinks about his lost grace, only somehow more real. Because Grace really is just a thing, and people are actual real people, and he wants what those men have.

He walks back to the flophouse hotel in the dark, past the gay bars and the late-night cafes. He's sure he could go into any one of them and find someone and try to fill up the hollow place; he's an attractive man with big baby blues and he knows how to charm.

But he has seen mortals try that before, and perhaps for some this is the way, but not for him. The hollow place has a name, so it's not just a yearning. It's a loss, a loss waiting to happen.

He knows what he wants; he just can't have it.

X. Thou Shalt Not Adulter

He reaches his breaking point sometime in the tenth week. Sam's gone off to get some food and he and Dean are cleaning the guns in companionable silence when Dean says, "So, are you scared of doing it wrong or something? Because we could get a hooker."

Castiel grits his teeth. "I am not afraid of sex. Or women. Or indeed venereal disease. Or unexpected pregnancy."

"That's good, because you'd look like crap pregnant."

"I do not want a hooker," Castiel says.

"Look, you'd be way less frustrated -- "

Castiel slams down the cleaning cloth. "I AM NOT INTERESTED IN HAVING SEX WITH A WOMAN," he shouts.

Dean's eyes go wide, but he bounces right back. "Hey! Angel-voice! Volume down!"

"I am not interested," Castiel growls. "Did it ever occur to you that not every single person you encounter is attracted to the opposite sex? Has it never crossed your hormone-riddled mind that perhaps I don't find women appealing? That I am in fact grappling with something that most people who claim to believe in our Father say is a sin?"

Dean's face goes hard and cold, the way it sometimes does, and Castiel despairs.

"What's your dad got to say about it?" Dean asks. "Yeah, nothing, that's what I thought. Since when do you care what we mere humans think, Cas? You want to go fuck a dude, go fuck a dude, see if I care."

And he turns back to cleaning, but he's -- Dean is sulking. Angry. Dean is --

"So, what, you got one in mind?" Dean asks, furiously reassembling the sawed-off.

Dean is jealous.

Castiel leans back, calculating, studying. Finally. Finally it makes sense. And maybe if he's clever, Dean will look at him and see him.

"Yes," he says. "I do. But until now I wasn't aware he was available."

Dean's head snaps up sharply.

"It was my job to guard and protect you," Castiel says softly. "It was my -- job to love you. It wasn't as easy as I thought, at first. But it was my duty, and then it was the only thing I cared about. When I fell you took this duty on yourself. You and Sam didn't have to care for me."

"Sure we did," Dean mutters.

"No, you didn't, and I didn't deserve it. But you did it anyway. You and Sam cared for me. But I loved you, Dean."

Castiel's first ever kiss is messy. There's...there's a lot of saliva, and he's not sure what to do with his tongue and he bites Dean's lip by mistake. But it's also vital and beautiful and human.

When Sam gets back with dinner, there's a sock hanging on the knob of the motel room.

"Fucking finally," he mutters, and goes to sit on the hood of the Impala and eat his cheeseburger.

Protective Custody; Southland, PG-13

2009-09-15T17:41:09Z

Title: Protective Custody
Fandom: Southland (Spoilers for S1)
Rating: PG-13 (profanity)
Summary: Fuck you, Cooper likes saving people.
Notes: BETA CREDIT to 51stcenturyfox.

***

Ben Sherman's in the hospital.

It's not John Cooper's fault.

Except, you know, it kind of is. It's not like Cooper was even within shouting distance of the kid when it happened, but he's his training officer. That makes everything that happens to Sherman his fault in a kind of abstract way.

The thing is, he's never met anyone who needs less training than Sherman. All rookies need to get slapped around a little, and this one's no exception, but Sherman's already basically Coop's partner, and once he gets his impulses under control he's going to be fucking awesome. So yeah, okay, technically Sherman is in the hospital and technically it is Cooper's fault but he really doesn't feel too bad about it. Except where he worries about the kid with any energy he has to spare while he does the paperwork and clocks off and gets his ass over to the hospital.

Man, Sherman looks like shit.

Cooper doesn't go inside the darkened room, because someone else is sitting in there already, but the light from the hallway shows just how much trouble you can get into when a crackhead comes after you with a baseball bat during a bust. He's got a black eye, a raw-scraped cheekbone, one arm in a sling (but no cast, at least) and a thing on his collarbone that might be a bandage or might just be tape holding down some medical bullshit, Cooper can't tell.

He stands outside the doorway and watches for a while, not so much wondering if he should interrupt as waiting for a change, and he'll go from there, because he's good at waiting. When the change does happen, he decides to wait a little longer.

Sherman's eyes open and he looks around, confused, until whoever-it-is touches his hand, and then -- ahh, there's his boy, that laser focus flickering up into Sherman's eyes so fast you'd think he'd blinked, instead of passed out.

"Dad?" he asks. Cooper swears inside his head.

"Hey, kiddo," Sherman's father says, leaning forward so his face too catches the light. Cooper considers shooting him in the back of the head, but murder trials are boring and they put you on paid administrative leave. He hates missing work. Plus, prison et al.

"The hell you doing here?" Sherman asks.

"What, I can't come see you when you're sick?"

"No," Sherman mutters. He tries to roll over and groans. Have fun with that, kid; wait till you're forty and it's every day.

"I heard you were hurt," Sherman's dad says, and Cooper almost feels sorry for him, until he remembers who walked out and let who get his ten-year-old ass kicked by drug dealers. "I wanted to see you."

"Yeah, well, you saw me. Fuck off," Sherman replies. Good kid.

"I know you think I don't care, but I do," his father says. Cooper rolls his eyes. "I'm proud of you."

Sherman is silent, looking away -- anywhere but his father's face.

"I am. I brag about you to my friends. I mean, you know where their kids are?" Sherman's father ticks them off on his fingers. "Prison. Rehab. House arrest -- "

"Says something about the kinds of friends you have," Sherman rasps. "Get the hell away from me."

"Not until we talk about a few things," his father says, and Cooper finds himself knocking on the open doorway without thinking about it. Both men look up sharply; Sherman winces. Sherman Senior frowns.

"Officer Carter, right?" he says, and then he's all smiles, offering his hand as he stands up. Cooper looks down at it. Sherman's watching Cooper.

Well, isn't this just a fucking kitchen-sink drama.

"How you doin', kid?" he says, turning away from Sherman's dad.

"Cooper." Sherman's found a smile somewhere, but there's desperation in his voice. "Sorry to stick you with the paperwork."

"Yeah, I'll take that out of your ass later," Cooper says. He turns his attention back to Sherman Senior. He's a cop, he prioritizes; check the kid before you deal with Daddy. Get Daddy out of the room. "John Cooper. Kid looks tired. Why don't you let me buy you a cup of coffee?"

"Ben and I have some things to talk about," Sherman's dad says.

"Bijon, you gonna be dead by tomorrow?" Cooper asks. Sherman frowns -- they must have him on the good drugs -- and shakes his head. "Good. Then it can wait."

"Officer Cooper, I have things to discuss with my son," Sherman's dad says.

Oh, this is gonna be good.

"And I think he told you to fuck off," Cooper replies.

"What did you say?"

"I said," Cooper raises his voice as if speaking to someone slightly dim or slightly deaf, "Your son...told you...to fuck off." He lowers his voice again. "Now you can leave, or I can throw your ass out."

"I'm his father," Sherman Senior declares.

"Congratulations, you can come," Cooper remarks. Sherman, behind them, is so quiet and still, eyes darting back and forth. "Or could twenty years ago, anyhow."

"Get out," Sherman's dad says.

"No," Cooper says.

And then of course, because this is a domestic in a twisted kind of way, Sherman's dad starts shouting about his parental rights and Cooper just keeps repeating that Mr. Sherman needs to leave and his poor kid's lying there, pleading, Coop, please, please, sir which Cooper would take as a cue to leave himself, except he knows what's being asked, because it's the way kids say things when they can't say them.

And then Sherman's dad shoves him.

In the half-second between the shove and Cooper regaining his balance, all sorts of thoughts go through his head. Now that this asshole's thrown the first punch, there are a lot of things he can do. He could still shoot him, but administrative leave is really boring. He could kick his ass, but they've been cracking down with the Excessive Force charges lately. He could book him for assault, but the guy's a criminal defense attorney. That's not really going to work.

What he does, in the end, is bounce back with his weight forward, spin the other man around by one shoulder, and armlock him. He kicks Daddy's legs out from under him and hauls him outside, and several nurses look up in alarm as a uniform drags a screaming man out of a hospital room.

Security is there pretty fucking fast for a pair of rent-a-cops, and Cooper shoves Sherman's dad into their arms.

"Get him out of the hospital. Don't let him back in," he tells them, and they obey without question. Man, a cop could really get away with murder in this town if he knew how to go about it right.

Inside the hospital room, Sherman is agitated -- trying to sit up, studying the tubes and wires hooked up to his body, swaying back and forth when the drugs make him dizzy. Cooper puts a hand flat on his chest and pushes him down, and Sherman goes as soon as he sees who it is. Cooper leaves his hand there for a moment, until Sherman gentles and quiets under it.

"Sir," he mumbles, but he looks up at Cooper with...gratitude, with the look that's the reason Cooper keeps training rookies, a sort of wholehearted but wary devotion. And lingering behind that, Cooper sees shame and relief in equal parts, like he sees in every little kid he ever pulled out of harm's way. Yeah, fuck you, maybe it's dysfunctional that Cooper likes to save people, likes being liked for pulling an abusive parent off a six year old or dragging Sherman's asshole dad away from him when he's bedridden and drugged.

Cooper puts up with enough bullshit in life that he's okay with having a hero complex.

"Thanks," Sherman adds.

"No problem. Go to sleep," Cooper says, and pulls up the chair Sherman's father had been sitting in. His back's going to punish him for it tomorrow, but once you take responsibility for a rookie they're kind of yours for life.

"Yessir," Sherman slurs, already only half-conscious.

Cooper leans back carefully and settles in for the night watch.

Laocoon's Children: The End Of The Story, Part One

2009-08-12T18:29:51Z

I've been meaning to go back to Laocoon's Children for a long time. I've talked about my hesitation and the reasons for it here (spoiler warnings for Torchwood S3, btw), and I decided finally, in the end, it's too much. There's too much to write, and I want to focus on my own original writing now. But I've felt guilty leaving it unfinished, so I wanted to post my notes.

Turns out I had a lot more notes than I expected. I even had scenes to share. I ended up having to separate it into two posts; there's a link at the bottom of this one to the second half.I spent most of today collating them and assembling them, and I may do Legion of Ghosts this weekend. Needless to say there are spoilers for the Harry Potter books in both sections.

This is a summary of what I had been planning to write, to finish this project. Some of it is a bit vague, and some of it has been adjusted to take in the last two books, which were published after this plotting was finished. I hope you enjoy it; I present it both with pride for what it is, and with my apologies that it isn't all it could be.

THE RIVER HOUSE:

A couple of the River House stories went unfinished, so I thought I'd toss those in first.

TYRANNOSAURUS WAS A BEAST:

Harry's tenth birthday yields a particular surprise; a rare trip outside of Llangynog district, to the Natural History Museum in London. There is, of course, a secret door that leads to the Wizarding wing, which has MOVING dinosaur skeletons and lots of snakes for Harry. The gist of this story was that Remus had invited Snape to come see Harry, so Snape slunk around the exhibits watching Harry have a good time, and was satisfied that the boy was being properly raised.

THE LOST OWL:

Lucius Malfoy beat Sirius to finding Peter after the deaths of the Potters because Remus, who was meant to leave for Rome the previous day, sent Sirius on a wrong turning. Remus didn't leave because his ticket-money was late; his ticket-money was late because the post owl went astray; and the post owl went astray because it was knocked off course by a mysterious broomstick-riding figure. That's really all there is to this one -- it's just a vivid description of the reason that the two stories, canon and Laocoon's Children, branched. I'll come back to this one in the summary of book seven.

And onwards we go...

BOOK THREE: The Rest Of The Story.

I do have the opening of chapter 27, quite a bit of it actually.

***

With no plans to retaliate against the Twins for their prank during the Qudditch game, May stretched out before Harry as an unending month of study and work, swotting for exams in June and practicing Quidditch for the Cup against Gryffindor. Padma was too busy studying to help them plot pranks of any kind, and Neville swung wildly between studying madly and worrying incessantly. Harry dreaded to think what a wreck Neville might become when they had OWLs and not just regular Hogwarts exams.

He spent a lot of time with Draco, out on the Quidditch pitch, generally when neither of their captains could catch them though Madam Hooch insisted on being present when any student was practicing. The Dementors liked to drift over and skulk in corners, though they didn't like her whistle and would generally disperse if she blew it.

Draco needed help learning to react to the precision flight of the Firebolt, and Harry just plain loved to fly on it. Draco had already said he could borrow it for the Cup, so it was just as well he was learning too -- the Firebolt was meant for adults in professional play, and could be tricky about braking and sudden turns.

"Well, that bollockses the rest of the afternoon," Draco said, leaning on Harry's Nimbus and staring up at the clouds beginning to gather over Hogwarts. Harry, dismounting the Firebolt carefully, followed his gaze. "It's going to rain soon."

"We can practice in the rain, it'll be good," Harry said. "The Cup's two days away, what if it rains during the game?"

"Sod that, I'm not getting rained on for the sake of you winning the Cup," Draco answered with a grin. "Come on, Harry, let's go inside and get something to eat."

"Time to go in, boys," Madam Hooch called, forestalling any argument Harry could have made. She brought her broomstick down next to them and dismounted. "You've done good work, Potter, but Professor McGonagall thinks you're neglecting your studies. Mustn't ignore lessons for Quidditch; you might play for England in a few years' time but you'd better have an education when you get out of it."

"I study!" Harry protested.

"Good; now study more. Think how ashamed Professor Lupin will be if you don't pass your Defence exam," she said, giving them a gentle shove. Harry sulked a little as they hung up their broomsticks, until a thought crossed his mind.

"Do you suppose Madam Hooch knows about Remus and Sirius?" he asked Draco, stepping back outside. The promised rain had begun, just a drizzle for now but intensifying every minute.

"Maybe," Draco said. "Doubt it, though. Why would she know?"

"She's friends with McGonagall. McGonagall definitely knows. I don't think it's as big a secret as they think it is," Harry added. "I mean, people must be able to put two and two together."

"Why should they? That kind of thing doesn't happen a lot in the Wizarding World."

"Says who?" Harry demanded. "It's just not talked about, but I bet there's loads of men like my parents."

"Well, don't snarl at me about it, I couldn't care less. If people don't talk about it then they probably don't even know much about it, so they don't think about it. Anyway, the people who do add it up probably keep shut about it because they'd be accused of thinking about it too much."

"Now I'm thinking about it too much. You don't reckon the kitchen has cold butterbeer, do you? This rain's awfully humid," Harry complained.

"Bet the elves would go down to Hogsmeade and get us some," Draco said. "In fact...Dobby! Dobby, are you around?"

There was a soft pop, and Dobby appeared in front of them so suddenly that they had to stop walking. He was holding a dish in one hand and a towel in the other, obviously in the middle of doing the washing-up.

"Master Draco summons Dobby?" he squeaked excitedly.

"Well, not if you're busy," Draco said, eyeing the plate.

"Dobby is just doing the washing, but Master Sirius Black is not at home, and Dobby can wash it later," Dobby said. "What is Master Draco requiring?"

"We're going up to the library," Draco said. Harry glanced at him, frowning. They weren't supposed to have food in the library. "I need you to bring us something."

Dobby bowed, nearly dropping the plate.

"Please go down to Hogsmeade...here," Draco dug a Galleon out of his pocket. "And get us some butterbeer? And then very, very quietly bring it to me in the library? But put the plate back first."

"Butterbeer, quiet in the library," Dobby said determinedly. "And put the plate back first. Dobby will be doing it, Master Draco!"

"Thank you," Draco said, and Dobby disappeared again. The rain began to fall harder, and Draco pulled the back of his jumper over his head, protecting his face. "Come on Harry, we'd better run for it."

Behind them, the grass began to bend and ripple as the rain fell in earnest.

***

The day of the Cup match dawned clear, despite the heavy rain that had begun on Friday and poured throughout Saturday. Rosmerta took it as a good sign; lots of people would be in town for the match, and if it was clear but muddy they would want to stay in one place to drink. She put mud-brushes at the entrance to the Three Broomsticks, scrubbed the place until it shone, and listened on short-wave Floo broadcast as the game got underway. Rosmerta was not an enormous follower of the game, but its outcome generally affected her income, so she made a point to have the matches on when she was likely to get a crowd. People began to arrive during the game too, of course, but on a day like this most would either be at the match or (wisely) at home and under good cover.

"Reckon that Flint fellow be recruited?" one of her regulars asked, sipping his drink at the bar. On the floo broadcast, the game entered its second, determined, and score-tied hour.

"I don't see why," she replied. "From all I've heard, he's not terribly good, is he?"

"Nah," the man answered. "Made a good go of the team, though. Slytherin been well-night unbeatable this year, eh?"

Rosmerta shrugged just as Lee Jordan's voice, coming over the Wizarding Wireless, picked up in tempo and pitch. Both of them listened intently as the noise began to grow to include the shouts of the crowd in the stands. When the shouting deafened Jordan entirely, Rosmerta switched it off and smiled.

"Stick around," she said. "Sirius Black will be here soon, and you don't want to miss it."

People did begin to arrive a short time later, trickling in at first as the early-leavers arrived and then pouring in as the honoured guests, parents, and professors who had remained behind to congratulate their students realised that what they really wanted was a hot drink to stave off the damp and somewhere loud to re-live the game. A couple of seventh-year students crept in as well, having snuck off from school, and Rosmerta kindly ignored them as a sort of graduation-gift.

HOGWARTS HOGWARTS HOGGY WARTY HOGWARTS
SOMEONE HELP US PLEASE

The door burst open and a crowd of people pushed their way inside, shaking rain from their heads and stuffing umbrellas into the Quick-Dry Charmed Umbrella Stand near the entryway. Sirius Black was in the middle of the group, conducting a pair of seventh-years in a version of the school song that Rosmerta heard far more often than the hallowed halls of Hogwarts every would. Professor Lupin leaned on his shoulder, looking a little less exuberant than the rest, hand clenching Sirius' cloak tightly.

WE'VE BEEN HERE FOR SEVEN YEARS
IT'S TIME WE BUSTED FREE!
OUR HEADS HAVE HAD THEIR FILLING
WE'RE BORED OUT OF OUR SOCKS
AND NOW WE'D LIKE TO FILL OUR THROATS
WITH FIREWHISKEY SHOTS!

She began lining up glasses on the counter as they crowded around the bar, hooting and grinning. A few grim-looking Gryffindor parents in the back seemed as though they were trying to be good sports.

WE'D LIKE TO FIND SOME WOMEN
AND SHOW THEM WHAT WE KNOW
WE HAVE THE FINEST WANDS AROUND
AND THEY KNOW HOW TO -- OH!
HOGWARTS HOGWARTS HOGGY WARTY HOGWARTS
SOMEONE HELP US PLEASE!

The rest of the bar burst into applause. Sirius bowed deeply; Rosmerta saw Remus Lupin stagger as Sirius' arm suddenly threw him off balance.

"Drinking already, Professor?" she asked, over the noise.

"Bad example! Never. I've been ill," he replied. He certainly looked it; his cheeks were flushed with excitement but his skin was pale and his bright eyes were slightly sunken, as if he hadn't been sleeping quite right.

"That's right," Sirius said, turning back to the bar. "Rosmerta. Beautiful corrupter of my youth. Something hot and bracing for Lupin, and a round of firewhisky shots for any who want them. My Harry's won the Cup!"

"I heard," Rosmerta grinned. "I thought you might be by. I never thought I'd see the day you celebrated a Slytherin victory, Sirius Black."

"Tease me now, while I'm in a good mood," he said cheerfully. "And toast, will you?"

"I most certainly will," she said, pouring a small glass of firewhisky for herself and holding it up. Lupin picked up the hot toddy she'd made him and touched rims; Sirius tipped his shot glass against hers.

"To Harry Potter," he said. "The fastest, smartest, keenest boy to ever ride a broomstick!"

"Harry Potter," Rosmerta agreed, taking barely time for the shot before someone tried to get her attention at the other end of the bar.

Slytherin green was everywhere and the parents of Slytherins tended to be wealthy people who wanted interesting drinks; if Gryffindor had won she could have poured beer until dawn and everyone would have been happy, but by the time she'd set up the charms to mix drinks and colour the vodka green and distribute the rum only to those who could really and truly handle rum, Lupin's glass was dry.

"Another hot toddy for you, luv?" she asked.

"Easy on the firewhiskey," he said, nodding. "And nothing stronger than butterbeer for Sirius."

"Oi! We've won the Cup. It's practically traditional to get roaring drunk and mortify myself in public," Sirius replied.

"When you're seventeen, perhaps. Can we settle for only a little drunk and skip the public mortification?" Lupin asked. He coughed, and Sirius looked guilty, though Rosmerta couldn't see why Sirius Black should feel guilty that Professor Lupin was ill.

"Well, I suppose the rest of 'em can do the drinking for me. Sure you're all right, mate?" he asked.

"I'm fine," Lupin said, as Rosmerta pretended to busy herself with the hot water for the toddy. His voice dropped lower and she could only make out a few words; see the Cup from Lupin, and something about two days before from Black. Still, Lupin did seem to perk up a little as he sipped his drink, and Black took advantage of the packed pub to lead another scurrilous anthem.

Oh, there was a maid who loved young Will,
A farmer in Hogsmeade town,
But she was a student on the hill,
And ne'er was allowed to go down, go down,
Sing whack-fol-a-riddle-alla-tay!

So she took the kit of a local boy,
And a fair young lad made she,
But her hair she could not hide away,
For a hat she was in need, in need,
Sing whack-fol-a-riddle-alla-tay!

"I'm quite fond of this one," Lupin said to Rosmerta, as Sirius bellowed the nonsense words. "It's not very clever or original, but it's one of the few where nobody dies of love or gets stabbed in a duel."

Rosmerta, who had been noticing that Sirius Black's hand was in the small of his best friend's back and creeping downward, glanced up at him.

"What do you suppose whack-fol-a-riddle-alla-tay means?" she asked.

"Couldn't tell you. Probably they meant to go back in and put in real words later."

She took up a hat laying on a shelf,
And placed it upon her head,
Did she know not it was a Sorting Hat,
She did not know, she did, she did,
Sing whack-fol-a-riddle-alla-tay!

And her young Will saw her on the road,
A fair boy he thought was she,
So out he called, will ye rest, young boy,
Under the tall oak tree, with me,
Sing whack-fol-a-riddle-alla-tay!

Young Will took hold of the fair boy's sleeve,
And kissed him on the cheek,
And the Sorting Hat cried IT'S YOUR TRUE LOVE!
And Will shouted, OH BUGGER ME! BUGGER ME!
SING WHACK-FOL-A-RIDDLE-ALLA-TAY!

Rosmerta saw Lupin laugh and toast to the singers with the last of his toddy, but it looked suspiciously as though Sirius Black was the only person in the entire room that he personally gave tuppence about. Before she could ruminate on what precisely this might mean, a flashbulb popped and Sirius turned suddenly.

"You!" he said, pointing with an empty shot glass at the photographer in the doorway. A woman was standing just behind him, quill and parchment in her hand. "Sod on off out of here before I break that!"

"Ah, you can't keep the press out," the woman behind the photographer called.

"Watch me!" Sirius retorted, and with a flick of his wand the door closed on the camera and, once the horrified photographer had pulled it out of the repeatedly-slamming door, latched itself. The rest of the room broke into applause.

"One more round on me," Sirius said, even as he took his cloak off the hook by the door.

"Leaving already?" someone called.

"I'll let you lot carry on till dawn," Sirius said with a laugh. "Come on, Lupin, let's get you home, and then I'm off to see if the Cannons have recruited Harry yet. Besides, that Skeeter's bound to skullk round the back. Tell her for me," he said, and the room fell silent, "Tell her for me that if she can write one coherent word about Quidditch on her own, I'll pay her thirty Galleons."

Rosmerta smiled fondly on the pair of friends as they left. She had watched many students grow up and go off into the world and come back to celebrate their childrens' triumphs in her pub, but it had to be said that there was nobody quite like Sirius Black.

***

"How're you feeling?" Sirius asked, as he and Remus walked slowly down the rutted road towards the house overlooking Creadonagh Valley.

"A bit tired, but not too bad," Remus replied. "I'm grateful I shan't have to teach on Monday. Ollivander's coming up on Sunday to get my notes, by the by. I've told him I'll meet him at Hogwarts."

"You couldn't have him come down to the house?"

"I think we've been indiscreet enough lately, don't you?" Remus asked gently. "We'll have all of Saturday together, and I won't be gone long on Sunday. And you can look after me and stuff me with food all day on Monday." He shivered a little as the wind blew against them, and Sirius threw his arm around his shoulder.

"Did you see Harry looking for us after he won?" Sirius asked, trying to keep Remus' spirits high. "Did you see him wave the cup at you?"

"I'm fairly sure he was waving it at you," Remus replied.

"Us, then."

"Us," Remus agreed, stopping at the crest of the gentle slope that led down to the house. He shaded his eyes against the orange glow which was all that remained of the sunset. Sirius ran his fingers up the back of his neck, threading them through his hair. Remus closed his eyes and smiled.

"Reckon we'll have to begin closing it up soon," Sirius said. Remus opened his eyes, glancing at him. "Bound for Betwys Beddau in a few weeks. Strange life, eh?"

"Wouldn't trade it," Remus said, thinking of the dreams he'd had, dreams in which he was always cold, and Sirius was never there. He leaned forward impulsively and kissed Sirius -- a kiss that drew on until Sirius gently stepped back, stroking his cheek.

"Me either. Come on, I'll -- did you see that?" Sirius asked suddenly. Remus glanced at him.

"See what?"

"I thought I saw something in the hedge..." Sirius released him and put a steadying hand on his shoulder before crossing the road to investigate, wand at the ready.

"Probably just a bird or something," Remus called. "Leave it alone, scavenger."

"I'm sure it was bigger than that," Sirius replied.

"Well, then a deer, maybe. Sirius, come away from the undergrowth," Remus said, unsteadily joining him and tugging one shoulder. Sirius, peering into the blackness, shook his head.

"Lucius Malfoy's still out there," he said reproachfully.

"Yes, and if you go hurtling through the darkened forest after him you're liable to get yourself killed. Then I'd have to fill out all this paperwork, and pick you out a burial plot, all of which is an enormous waste of my very vaulable time," Remus said, as Sirius reluctantly moved away and began walking down the road once more.

"Don't bury me somewhere," Sirius said. Remus rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"That wasn't the conversation I wanted to have."

"I mean it, though. Don't Muggles donate their bodies to Science? I want to do that. I'll donate my body to Magic," Sirius said. "Besides, it'll be one up the nose of my family."

"Your family -- Sirius, your family is me and Harry and the Tonkses."

"Well, you know what I mean." Sirius kicked a rock, which thumped down the road and collided with their front door. "All the Blacks are buried in a giant crypt. Dad used to take us there sometimes."

"I remember you saying something about that at school. Isn't your mum there?" Remus asked. He did not have pleasant memories of Mrs. Black.

"Last one ever, far as I'm concerned. When I die, call up St. Mungo's and ask them if they have any use for a handsome daredevil animagus."

"You're so sure I'll outlive you?" Remus asked, unlocking the door.

"All right, what do you want done with your carcass when you die?"

"I don't want to think about it, thanks."

"You won't have to! You'll be all lazy and quiet in your casket and I'm going to have to think about it," Sirius replied, slipping out of his shoes and helping Remus out of his heavy cloak.

"Let's talk about something else," Remus said. "Weren't we discussing Betwys Beddau?"

"Yes, and I've had an idea," Sirius said, flopping down onto the sofa in the living room. "I'll make you a deal."

"Nothing good ever starts with the phrase I'll make you a deal."

"Hear me out! I'll buy a shop in Hogsmeade next year and open it up, but in return, you have to be a gentleman of leisure all summer long. No bookstore clerking, no tea-pouring, no gainful employment."

Remus sat in the large soft chair by the window, relaxing joint by joint, eyes closed. "I like to work. What would I do with all the spare time?"

"I can think of one or two things," Sirius answered, flopping down on the floor next to his legs. Remus' hand strayed down to stroke his hair. "Maybe more than two."

Remus could feel himself dozing off, slipping away from the house and Sirius into blissful darkness. His muscles wouldn't hurt when he was asleep; if he could, he'd sleep until the full moon was over and school was finished, and they were on the train to Betwys Beddau.

He woke in the dark, uncertain where he was at first, conscious that he'd dozed off in the chair -- or had he been in the Forest already when it happened? He was in the forest now...

He pushed himself up off the leafmould that carpeted the Forest floor, the sharp damp bark cutting into his palms, dirt clinging to the skin of his chest and hips. He drew his legs up under him, finding himself naked, vulnerable...weak. Subject to the cold, his body already shaking with fatigue, the sun in entirely the wrong place. Only a minute ago it had been going down over Creadonagh Valley...

And now it was rising in the east, cutting through the trees.

No, he hadn't fallen asleep in the chair, he had been...standing for the Change, and Harry had been there, and so had Sirius.

He moaned and pressed his hands to his face, rocking back and forth. It was one of those dreams, the dreams where he touched a man across some invisible divide, where he looked in on a cold and dark world where he was always scrabbling and struggling and starving. He wished desperately to wake up; he had no desire to share in the other man's misery. He wished he would go away, or die, or something. He wished he could die now.

No, the other him wished he could die...he had betrayed Sirius and Harry, and he had ruined everything. They'd had Peter right where they wanted him and Sirius was going to go free and he'd be allowed to take Harry away from the horrible people who were raising him, and then he, stupid, stupid Remus Lupin, had forgotten the potion and ruined it all.

He felt his body bend back to the earth, pressing his face against his arm, and hot tears poured down over his skin, helpless tears of wrath and frustration.

"Moony?"

He looked up, but it wasn't Sirius standing there; strangest of all strange things, it was Albus Dumbledore. And he was speaking in Sirius' voice.

"Moony," Albus Dumbledore said, in Sirius Black's voice. "You're a disaster, mate."

He opened his eyes, again, and looked up at Sirius, clean shaven, the hollows in his cheeks filled out, eyes bright, silky curly hair falling in his face. His Sirius.

"You've been napping. Come on, up to bed with you," Sirius said, and Remus banished the other poor bastard from his mind, allowing Sirius not only to support him up the stairs but to gropingly feel his bum on the way.

***

The Cup match had been played and it was difficult for the teams especially to remember that there was nearly another month of school still to go; Harry found himself restless, and knew that his teammates were as well. Even the normally quiet Draco strained at the restrictive leash a little, and the professors in general had trouble keeping control over their classes.

Defence Against the Dark Arts, however, was the most well-behaved class in the history of Hogwarts. The Monday after the full moon saw Ollivander substitute teaching -- the Ollivander, who not only already knew the names of everyone in the school but what wands they used and what the core was. He was strange and eerie and the children, even the big seventh-years, stood in complete awe of him. He taught faithfully from Professor Lupin's notes, drilling the students for their exams, but at the end of each class there would be fifteen or twenty minutes to spare, and he would lean back against the desk and give short, oddly mystical lectures about the properties of wands and their relationship to their makers and users.

"Many of you have heard me say," he said, while Harry passed a note to Neville about pick-up Quidditch that afternoon, "that the owner does not choose the wand, but the wand its owner. This is one of many things in your life for which no proof will be provided, and must be accepted on faith. That being said, and this being a class in which you are taught to defend yourselves in, amongst other things, duels,

***

And that's where chapter 27 ends. I don't remember where I was going with Ollivander's lesson but I am sure it would have been awesome. This chapter was going to cover final exams, as well, and end with Draco being kidnapped by Lucius (in the same way Ron was kidnapped by Sirius at the end of the real book).

In Chapter 28, Harry and company were going to follow Lucius' trail back to the Shrieking Shack. In the Shrieking Shack I'd planned for a quite terrifying visual of Lucius stroking Draco's head, being very paternal towards him, creepily paternal, as he waits for Harry to arrive. He wanted Draco back, of course, but Harry is his real target because Harry can be used to find the Dark Lord. Lucius explains also that he's an animagus, a white snake -- Peter, who is in-fucking-sane, came to him as a rat in Azkaban and taught him animagery, and that's how he escaped.

There's a fight, in which Draco is more or less useless because he's scared out of his mind, but Padma and Harry manage to escape when Padma grabs Harry and gives the time-turning a quick flick.

In Chapter 29, Padma and Harry face down the dementors on their way from the Shrieking Shack to Hogwarts, in an attempt to get help. They manage to make it only as far as Remus and Sirius's house. Remus and Sirus, of course, go charging into the fray and get their asses kicked, because Peter is incredibly strong. The problem is that Peter wants to slaughter Remus, Sirius, and the children, including Draco, because he only needs Harry. Peter and Lucius begin to infight, and the adults manage to get free and stage a second attack. Peter, reluctantly, flees; Lucius manages to escape as a snake, leaving Draco behind. It's also admitted at some point during this that Lucius is the one who gave Draco the Firebolt.

This is a scene from when they give chase, after Sirius has been wounded. They're in the forest and encounter some centaurs...

***

Remus stood slowly, holding up his hands. Several of the centaurs notched their arrows.

"We don't mean to trespass," he said slowly.

"You," the dark-haired one said. "You are on Centaur grounds."

"I know, and I'm sorry. Look," Remus held out his wrists. "You know the scent. We've been here before. You know we don't interfere with the Centaurs."

Harry held his breath. Remus swallowed and continued.

"We were chasing a trespasser," he said. "Peter Pettigrew."

Silence. In the quiet of the forest, Harry could hear the bowstrings tightening.

"The man who destroyed the Mirror of Ynitsed," he blurted, clutching Sirius' shirt tightly. A low murmur rippled through the herd.

"That's right," Remus agreed. "We were hunting him. If you find him he's yours, but there are children -- look," he said, gesturing at Harry. "My -- my foal. And three others. And my mate -- "

"Your mate?" the dark-haired one scoffed.

"Yes. He's hurt. Please. Do what you like with me, but give them safe passage. The children and my mate. Please," Remus said. Harry had never heard Remus beg before. "Please -- "

There was the twang of an arrow being loosed, but at the same time the thud of hooves on groundcover, and Harry heard a sickening thud as the arrow found flesh. He waited for Remus' scream of pain, but it didn't come; instead, when he looked up, a pale white body stood between Remus and the herd.

"Get out of the way, Firenze," the dark-haired centaur snarled. A palomino centaur, his hair white-blond and tied back with a leather strap, stood shuddering in front of Remus. As Harry watched, he reached backwards and pulled the arrow out of his flank.

"We do not shoot colts," he said, snapping the arrow in half. Harry saw blood dripping down one leg.

"That -- half-breed is not a colt!"

"He is protecting his get, the same as we would," Firenze answered defiantly. "He did not come here to defy us. If you kill the man and his get, you will have to step over my body to do so."

Several of the bows lowered. Firenze turned his head.

"Is it true you came hunting the man who destroyed the mirror?" he asked.

"I swear to you," Remus said. Harry felt Sirius' heart speed up, and knew that he was waking. He pressed one hand over his mouth in warning.

"And the children?"

"Victims of the man. Take me as a hostage if you don't believe me, just let Harry go."

"There will be no hostages, werewolf," Firenze said. "I remember your scent. Twenty years ago I remember a hunt with your pack. You were a cub then."

Sirius moved his arms. Harry leaned close to his ear.

"Don't move," he whispered. Sirius nodded and fell still.

"Any Centaur who harms a child in this forest will answer to me," Firenze said loudly. His voice echoed back eerily. "The colt will go now."

Harry felt Remus pull him away, and he struggled.

"Go, Harry," Remus whispered. "Run. Run fast and don't look back. We'll come for you. You promised you'd do as I told you. Run!"

He shoved Harry and the momentum put his feet on the path; once moving he could no more have stayed and fought than he could have sprouted wings. He heard crunching behind him, hooves on dead leaves, but he didn't dare turn around.

***

The time travel in this version is purely to free Buckbeak, and sort of a side-plot; Padma also gives up the time-turner like Hermione did, though I think I possibly planned to have it confiscated from her for misuse, I can't quite recall.

At the end of the third book, Remus and Sirius get outed. Skeeter had snapped a photo of them kissing -- you saw that in the earlier scene -- and intends to blackmail Sirius with it, but her plan backfires. This I have written as a scene, starting from the moment Sirius loses his patience for blackmail.

***

"Hell with this," Sirius said, and crossed the space between himself and Skeeter with startling speed. He plucked her up by her robes as if she weighed nothing at all, and her feet dangled a few inches off the ground.

"You listen to me and you put this in that bloody gossip rag of yours, or so help me I'll squash you like the insignificant insect you are," he said, while she struggled in his grip. "I am Sirius Black, paterfamilias of the House of Black, godfather of the Boy Who Lived. I am in love with -- there -- that man, Remus Lupin, and if anyone comes near him or my son or me I will kill them to protect my family. If my son suffers, I will kill them, if my lover suffers, I will kill them, and if anyone so much as dares to say a word against me the wrath of the house of Black will descend on them and everyone they love."

Behind her, Rita's quill was moving madly. She opened her mouth and he dropped her, covering her lips with one hand and still holding onto her robes with the other.

"You tell the world who I love," he said. "You tell the world that man is not a valet or a tutor, he is the man I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. And then you make bloody godsdamn sure they know what I'll do for the people I love. And if you don't tell the world that I love my family and I don't care who knows it, I will kill you. I will kill you. This is not an idle threat."

He released her and she staggered backwards, wiping her mouth.

"The scoop of the century," she said, catching her breath.

"You want a scoop?" Sirius roared. "YOU WANT A SCOOP? You bleeding sore, you fester on the populace? You think I'm the only homosexual in Wizarding Britain? There are thousands of men who would kill to be in my bed. There are women by the score who are going to read what you say on the front page of that cheap bumwipe you work for and turn to their wives and kiss them over breakfast. There are men who will come up to me on the street and kiss me on the mouth. There are boys fifteen years old who will read your words and go up to the boy of their dreams and ask them to the dance because Sirius Black likes men too. You want a scoop, you neutered kneazle? You'll have a bloody sexual revolution! And I say bring it on! So you had better say it, or I will buy the Prophet and burn it to the ground and bury you in the ashes. I will end you."

He snatched the quill and parchment out of the air and thrust it at her. When she hesitated, he drew close again.

"Take it, or I'll choke you with it."

She snatched the parchment out of his hands and bolted.

"READ THAT AND REMEMBER!" he shouted after her, as she ran.

With the roar of his pulse dying in his ears, Sirius caught his breath and became aware of a deep, impenetrable silence. He looked behind him; Remus was standing a few paces away, Harry in front of him. His arms were wrapped protectively around Harry's shoulders, and both of them were staring at him in jaw-dropped amazement.

"I swear to god if you don't kiss me -- " Sirius began, but Remus had already come forward and cut him off in mid-breath with a kiss.

"I love you," Remus said.

"Yeah, well, read the Prophet tomorrow and you'll know what I think about you," Sirius replied, and Remus smiled. "Harry, c'mere."

Harry came forward, smiling uncertainly. Sirius pulled him into the embrace, stroking his hair. They stood there until Remus began to laugh.

"This is not how I expected to come out," he said, around his laughter. "Front page of the Prophet!"

"Well, it was that or take out an advert, and adverts are expensive," Sirius replied, breaking down and laughing as well.

"Ex -- ex -- " Remus tried to get the word out and couldn't. "The front page," he gasped. "Bring on the sexual rev -- revolution..."

"The only homosexual in Wizarding Britain!" Harry hooted. "Men are going to kiss you on the mouth!"

"They'd better not," Remus added, and rested his forehead against Sirius'. "I'LL END THEM!" he added, and burst into laughter again. "Did you call her a neutered kneazle?"

"And a fester on the populace," Harry said.

"Good use of the word populace. Full marks for vocabulary," Remus said, wiping his eyes. "Oh, Sirius. You are trouble wrapped up in skin. Tomorrow's going to be a nightmare."

"I don't care."

"Well, then I don't either." Remus took his hand and kissed his cheek. "Take me out to dinner."

"With pleasure."

"I just have one question..." Remus said, as they began to walk.

"Only one?"

"Did you seriously use the word lover?"

***

The next morning, Sirius was woken with a tremendous hangover by Andromeda banging on his bedroom door.

"SIRIUS AEDELBERT BLACK!" she shouted. "REMUS JOHN LUPIN! YOU COME OUT HERE RIGHT THIS MINUTE!"

"Oh god," Remus moaned. "Make it go away."

"I can't," Sirius replied.

"I think I'm still drunk."

"I'm not. Stay here."

Sirius threw a dressing-gown around his shoulders and pulled some trousers on, opening the door. Andromeda thrust a fistful of Howlers under his nose.

"They're going to explode soon and I won't be responsible," she said. Sirius took them and flung them out the window.

"Let 'em," he grumbled. "Where's tea?"

She held it out to him with her other hand, and he kissed her cheek. She leaned around his shoulder.

"Remus, get up."

"Can't," Remus groaned, burying himself in the blankets.

"Remus, you want to see this."

Sirius heard bedsprings creak, and then the rustle of clothing. He gently shoved Andromeda out into the hall and felt Remus touch his shoulder, following blearily.

They emerged into a living room full of owls. They were perched on couches and chairs, on the light fixtures, on the mantelpiece. Somewhere in all the piles of owl were Harry and Dora, Anne, Julian, Ted, and the rest of the werewolves.

When the owls saw him, as one they dropped the letters they were holding and flew out through every available window. Feathers drifted down in the silence that followed.

"They were waiting for you," Andromeda said. "Though a bunch already left."

"What time is it?" Remus said.

"Noon or so."

"Jesus Christ!"

"You're such a Muggle," Sirius said, leaning back to kiss him. Harry, sitting in the middle of a pile of opened envelopes, snorted.

"I like this one," Anne said to Harry, passing it across.

"Dear Mr. Black," Harry started.

"Oh no..." Sirius said.

"This morning I read the newspaper," Harry continued, "And then I kissed my wife. Best wishes for the wedding. Love, Andrea."

"Wedding?" Remus asked in alarm.

"I think it was figurative," Sirius said. "Do you want to get married?"

"No, and even if it were legal, werewolves need special pass. Do you?"

"No."

"Fine then. Living in sin forever," Remus said, flopping onto one of the recently owl-infested couches.

"Dear Mr. Black, this morning I read the newspaper and then I kissed my wife. Just because. Yours sincerely, Eric Jackson," Dora said. "Well, that's nice of him."

Julian held up another. "Dear Harry Potter, Will you go to the dance with me. That's a bit sick, he's only thirteen," he said. "Still, well-intentioned I'm sure. Oh, the kid's only fourteen himself. That's all right."

"Dear Mr. Black and Mr. Lupin, I think you are -- well, not all of them are kind," Ted added hastily. He picked up another and opened it. "Here we go. Mr. Lupin, I knew you weren't a valet and we all had bets on when everyone would find out. I won the pool. We think you are adorable. I am a..." he squinted. "Bad handwriting...oh! I am a barman at the Owl's Roost in Knockturn Alley and if you ever want a drink ask for Nathan. You can bring Mr. Black too."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sirius asked.

"Some people like a well-groomed man," Remus said loftily, taking a handful of letters from Ted. "Here's one for you, Sirius, and there's a photog -- oh, my." He tucked the photo back in the letter and hastily put it in the envelope.

"This one's from Anthony," Harry said, eyebrows rising.

"Who's Anthony?" Andromeda asked.

"He just left Hogwarts, he was in Ravenclaw."

"Anthony Leeson?" Remus asked. "Let me see."

"Tall bloke, messy hair?" Sirius asked.

"That's the one, he played Beater for Ravenclaw for two years. Dear Professor Lupin, I fancied you for six months..." Remus blushed. "...but now that I know you have a boyfriend I've decided to fancy someone else instead. I reckon you'll get a lot of letters so if you get any from people who like Quidditch and Herbology please forward them. Cheeky bastard. Too clever for his own good by half."

"They're still coming," Ted said, as another letter flew in the window. "And there's Howlers, too."

"Let 'em howl," Sirius replied.

"It'll be trouble sooner or later," Remus said. "I did warn you."

"Well, every time someone's nasty to us, show 'em a letter," Sirius said. "Go on then, give me one." He unfolded the letter and scanned it. "Merlin, this one wrote a novel."

Dora burst out laughing, and everyone looked at her. She waved an envelope that was marked TRANSATLANTIC EXPRESS.

"You've been asked to Fire Island for the summer," she said, giggling. "Apparently the American papers covered it too, or someone in America gets the Prophet."

"And....an advert for a bath house in Exeter. I had no idea bath-houses even still existed," Ted said.

"When did you go to a bath-house ever?" Andromeda asked.

"Never, my own," Ted assured her.

"Dear Sirius Black," Harry said, holding a thick piece of parchment and frowning. The others heard the tone of his voice and fell silent. "My daddies say they would vote for you for Minister for Magic. They said I should write to you because this morning Daddy Alex brought over all his boxes and he's moving in with us and they say it's your fault. I hope you have a nice day. Sincerely, Maggie." He offered it to Sirius. "She's five."

Remus rubbed his eyes.

"Are you crying, you big nancy?" Sirius asked.

"I'm hung over," Remus replied, sniffling.

"Budge down," Sirius said, prodding him, and sat down next to him.

"It's not a revolution," Remus said. "After a few days things'll die down and go back to the way they were. You know that, don't you?"

"Not for Maggie and her daddies," Andromeda said. "Or for you, I guess."

"Slow revolutions are better," Sirius decided. "Pass us some letters, Harry." From below, the indistinct sound of bursting Howlers drifted up, but they were too far away to be heard clearly. "I want to see if there are any more naughty photographs. I think I'll send them to Rita Skeeter."

***

All this being said, Remus does end up leaving Hogwarts, mainly because he has Harry to consider. Dumbledore is more than willing to keep him on and fight for his rights, but Remus feels it's better for Hogwarts if he steps down.

Continue Onwards To Books Four, Five, and Six.

Laocoon's Children: The End Of The Story, Part Two

2009-08-12T18:29:01Z

This is the second half of a post about Laocoon's Children, the first half of which is here, along with the explanation for it.

BOOK FOUR: THE CRUCIBLE

I have to admit I had very little idea of what to do with book four. I do know that Snake is at this point going to get too big to be carried around easily, so he goes to live in Snape's snake-room.

I know that I was planning on having Barty Crouch Jr. come to the school as an inside agent of Lucius and Peter, but the plot was a little less....well, let's face it, less stupid. The reason Lucius and Peter wait until the end of the year to capture Harry again is that they have to, because it takes a lot of spellwork to set up what they want to do.

I was going to introduce some amusing little touches here and there, but window-decoration is most of what I have: things like tomtens (Scandinavian elves) serving as valets for the Durmstrang kids, and the slight war between the Hogwarts house-elves and the Tomtens. I'd toyed with the idea of Dobby falling in love with one. I also wanted to play with the sophistication of the Beauxbatons students, making them a bit more permissive than the Hogwarts kids -- I had planned a scene where Fleur makes a pass at a totally oblivious Padma.

Interpersonally, Neville is formally adopted as a member of the Tonks household in book four -- until now he's been essentially a long-term foster child, but Ted and Andromeda are both looking to the future and they want to secure the family name for him. There may be some back-and-forth about this because Neville doesn't want to abandon his biological parents, but he loves Ted and Andi a lot.

This causes Sirius to consider adopting Harry, something he's never wanted to do because he wants to be Sirius, not Dad -- he doesn't want to step into James' shoes. Harry himself is ambivalent because of the Black inheritance laws, which would be complicated by this. If Sirius were to die without adopting Harry, the Black estate would legally HAVE to go to Draco as the next male heir, but if Harry is adopted that estate HAS to go to Harry. Essentially it's a case of Neville, Harry, and Draco all being potential heirs to the estate, as well as best friends -- Neville through Andromeda, Draco through Narcissa, and Harry through Sirius. Draco's somewhat jealous over this, because Harry would get the inheritance (ie, the power Draco needs to break away from his mother) as well as a loving home.

Draco has other things to worry about however, because he's been working really hard on Transfiguration. Everyone has always thought he's really bad at it, and there is some truth to that, but only because he's actually really good at it. Draco's always had a natural flair for Transfiguration but he's never done well in class because he can't do consciously what he does instinctively. McGonagall's been well-aware of this for some time -- that Draco will be a genius at it if she can get him trained in the basics -- and all of his hard work is starting to pay off. He's a bit absentminded with the group in fourth-year because he's working with McGonagall on the Animagus transformation. In part because he desperately wants to be like Sirius, who he sees as everything he isn't: strong, charismatic, witty, someone that people love on sight.

Anyway, about 2/3 of the way through the book he achieves it...becoming a white ferret. :D

Initially some of my betas objected to the idea, because ferrets are kind of mean and sneaky, but they're also clever and good at hiding -- and by the end of the fifth book, especially, Draco can be cruel and vicious when he wishes to be. Draco's also still dealing with the fallout from being abducted by his father, and tends to shy away from pranks where they go out after hours or alone because he never wants to be far from a teacher.

Fourteen is a time of Grate Hormones and that is definitely going to start affecting the kids. Draco has had a crush on Padma practically since they met, in one way or another, and in book four actually summons the courage to ask her to the Yule Ball. I do have a snippet of this scene:

***

"All right," Harry said. "Well, we'll draw lots for Padma, and the losers will just have to find someone else."

"No," Draco said suddenly. Neville and Harry looked at him.

"Why not?" Neville asked. "It's only fair that way."

"We can't draw lots for her," Draco replied.

"Sure we can," Harry said. "Long as you don't go doing something stupid like telling her we did it."

"Even if we did, and I wouldn't do that to her, it's too late," Draco said. "She's already been asked."

"What?" Harry and Neville said in unison. "Who asked her?" Harry added. Draco looked down at his hands.

"I did," he said. "And she's said yes."

There was a long moment of silence while Harry and Neville digested this unexpected news. Finally, Harry turned to Neville.

"Right," he said. "I'll go rock-paper-scissors with you for Parvati."

***

Draco in the end gets Padma to set Parvati up with Harry, which is not entirely successful because Harry still isn't interested in girls. Harry and his parents all think that this is probably just late-blooming, but given a scene I wanted to write where Harry has some serious sexual tension with Cedric, it should start to become obvious that Harry Isn't Interested In Girls.

There's an interesting scene I was working on where Padma wears a gorgeous formal sari to the ball, but Parvati turns her nose up at it and wears an incredibly frilly, hideous dress, which isn't helping Harry's interest in girls at all. I never really dealt with Neville's romantic entanglements this early, but I think essentially he's the Neville of the books, shy around girls and working hard to keep up in classes. From the Yule Ball, Draco and Padma do begin a very quiet, very casual relationship, which we'll see expanded on in book five.

So much for the kids. In book four Remus and Sirius do open another bookshop in Hogsmeade, and are struggling with various things -- being Out in a very conservative world, trying to help Harry with the Triwizard Tournament and with being the very famous son of two (now) very famous gay men. I hadn't fleshed this out much, I admit. Much of the adult interaction in this book comes in the form of Remus and Sirius worrying about Harry and trying to be good parents to a teenager, as well as becoming surrogate parents for the others; I also had a subthread of McGonagall being furiously jealous of them because she's been basically married to Madam Hooch for years and is envious that they can afford to be Out. Dora and Snape, of course, are busy trying to help and protect Harry as well, but also working on their own really fairly new relationship.

The labyrinth scene at the end of book four, in this case, is used by Lucius and Peter to capture Harry and help him find Voldemort. The labyrinth itself becomes a magical sort of scrying tool; Harry has to find his way out of it, and at the end lies Voldemort, the Voldemort that Peter in the real books found dying and weak. Harry triumphs, of course, and I intended to have Cedric survive, but Peter and Lucius have found Voldemort now.

One side effect of this kidnapping is that Narcissa insists not even Sirius and Remus can protect Draco; she demands he be returned to her at the end of the summer, so Draco has to go back, after almost two years without her, and live in the horrible Malfoy mansion again.

BOOK FIVE: THE ORDER ASCENDANT

I have the opening of book five written, actually.

***

"Parvati, answer the door!"

Parvati Patil, fifteen and very much a fifteen-year-old, rolled her eyes as if getting up from the couch and walking ten feet to the door was an imposition on her civil liberties that was not to be borne. The doorbell rang again.

"PARVATI!"

"Yes, dad," she called, setting aside the magazine she was reading. It was pouring down rain out; only salesmen and fools went out in this weather.

Draco Malfoy stood on her doorstep. Well, fools then.

"Hi, Parvati," he said. "Can I come in? It's pissing down out."

"Sure," she said. "Padma's out, though."

"Yeah, I know -- her last letter told me your mum was taking her to Cornwall for the week-end," Draco said. "Sorry, I'm dripping on your floor..."

"It's fine, we have drying charms," she replied. He shrugged out of his sodden overcoat and hung it on a hook. Underneath, he was dry but dressed very strangely; trousers were a concession to travelling in the Muggle world, but he wore a high, stiff collar and a formal black coat over his crisp white shirt.

"Just come from the opera, have you?" she asked.

"Cheek," he replied. "Your dad's around, isn't he?"

"Who is it, sweetheart?" Ram Patil asked, poking his head through the doorway from kitchen to living room. "Draco, hello."

"Sir," Draco said, smoothing down his wet hair.

"Here, let me -- " Ram flicked his wand out of his sleeve and idly dried the boy off. "Caught out, were you?"

"Started to rain when I left the train station," Draco replied.

"I'm sorry you've come all this way for nothing; Padma's gone for the week-end..."

"Oh, yes, I know, sir," Draco replied. "I came to talk to you."

The older man stared at him, looking concerned. "To me, Draco?"

Draco glanced at Parvati, who looked very interested in the goings-on. Ram followed his gaze.

"Right -- well, come into the library then," he said, jerking his head towards the stairs. Draco followed him up, Parvati remaining curiously downstairs.

The little room off the landing was well-lit, even with the blue and foggy light coming through the wide windows; the Parvatis had electricity, which Draco was only passingly familiar with from the River House in Betwys Beddau. Ram sat down comfortably in one of the chairs and waved Draco into the other.

"I'd prefer to stand, sir," Draco said. Ram grinned at him.

"All this state, Draco -- it must be something serious," he said. The young boy before him wasn't any older than his daughters, but he was well-grown for fifteen; slim and serious, with a sharp, foxlike face and white-blond hair that could rather use a haircut. And those clothes...

"You see -- well, sir," Draco began, "My family's very big on Tradition, Mr. Patil. English Tradition, I mean -- pureblood tradition, I guess you could call it," he added apologetically.

"Yes, I'm aware," Ram said. "I suspect this has something to do with Padma, Draco, but you'll have to explain it to me a little more fully than that."

Draco nodded. "It's customary, sir, to give honourable notice of intent -- which is to say I've come to ask you as the paterfamilias for your permission to court your daughter."

Ram blinked.

"I'm prepared to make the usual oaths of chastity and temperance if you want them -- "

The older man, who understood the onus of tradition, tried not to laugh. Chastity, temperance, and courting. Oh dear.

"I don't think that will be necessary, just yet," he replied. "Do sit down, Draco."

"Yes, sir," Draco sat and tapped his fingers nervously on his well-pressed trousers. Ram smiled reassuringly.

"And according to Tradition, Draco, what ought I to do now?" he inquired.

"Question me about my intentions, activities, breeding, and wealth," Draco replied promptly. "And then give or refuse your consent."

"We aren't discussing arranged marriages or anything like that, are we? I'm fairly certain your mother would have to broker that particular deal," Ram said.

"No sir. Just courting, sir."

"Which consists of?"

Draco frowned. Apparently the definition of courting was not something he'd prepared ahead of time.

"Taking her to Hogsmeade," he said. "And studying with her. Fighting with people who don't like her. I mean, I do all that anyway, but this would be in a sort of...more exclusive setting."

"I see. I suppose your intentions are honourable?"

"Yes, sir. I like her very much, Mr. Patil."

"I'm sure you do. It's difficult not to. Well, let's see, breeding I think I'm already aware of -- " he hesitated when Draco frowned, and realised his gaffe. "You'd like to give explanation for your father, I suppose."

"I've dissociated myself with him; my parents are fully divorced," Draco said. "I have declared myself his enemy and am prepared to act accordingly."

"I'm sorry, Draco," Ram said gently. Draco bit his lip and inhaled sharply. "Very well, that leaves wealth."

"On my majority at seventeen I will receive a one-third share in the Malfoy family interests, including retail property in Knockturn Alley, investments with Gringotts Bank, and the Malfoy estate, currently held by my mother," Draco recited. "At the age of twenty-four the share rises to two-thirds with the remaining to my mother while she lives. In addition, I am partial heir to the Black family, with properties and investments to be distributed at the discretion of our paterfamilias, Sirius Black."

Ram listened to the young man -- still a boy, really -- recite these statistics, but he didn't really hear them. He was thinking, quite suddenly, of the burden Draco carried. The burden, he supposed, that Padma had equal part in, along with Potter and that Longbottom lad.

He smiled at Draco. "Has Tradition been satisfied, young Malfoy?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Very well; I shouldn't mention this to Padma if I were you, since I believe it's out of date to have the menfolk arranging womens' lives for them, but as far as I'm concerned you have my consent if you need it that badly. Now," he added, as Draco opened his mouth to speak, "let me indulge in a little tradition, please."

Draco sat back, watching warily.

"If you hurt my daughter -- oh, I don't mean spats and breakups, those things happen when one is fifteen -- if you abuse her, injure her, or are cruel to her, you will find yourself hanging by your ankles from the nearest tree," Ram said. "I won't say what you can and cannot do with my daughter, Draco Malfoy, but so help me if my brilliant child has an unexpected baby, the only thing saving you from death will be the fact that you will need to be alive in order to support her."

"I -- " Draco's mouth opened and shut. "I wouldn't -- I would never -- we've hardly kissed!" he blurted. Ram realised he may have reacted more strongly than the situation warranted.

"I believe that," he said. "I do. But you ought to know beforehand that Patils do not brook with their family being maltreated. Not that I think this matters, really; if you hurt Padma she's likely to hurt you back herself before I can get to you."

"Yes, sir," Draco said, regaining a little composure. "She -- yes, that's true."

"There's that done, then. Will you stay for tea? Sarasvati left samosas, Padma's told me you like them."

Draco looked glum. "I'm afraid I can't -- mum's expecting me home soon."

Ram sensed a lie in what he said, but he didn't press; Padma had also told him that Draco and his mother had myriad problems between them, and that was none of his concern.

"I do have a letter for Padma..." Draco dug a slightly creased envelope out of his pocket. "Would you give it to her when she gets back?"

"Of course," Ram said, accepting the letter and rising to see Draco to the door. Parvati was dancing with anticipation and curiosity, but a look from her father warned her not to ask questions. He offered Draco an umbrella, which was accepted gratefully, and helped him into his overcoat.

"Safe travel home," he said.

"Thank you, Mr. Patil," Draco replied. He offered his hand, manlike, and Ram shook it.

But when the blond boy was out the door and halfway down the street, Ram took the envelope up to the bedroom he shared with Sara and studied it. It was unsealed, and while Ram was a trusting father he was no fool either. He opened it and unfolded the parchment inside.

July 2
Malfoy Estate

Dear Padma,

Sorry to come while you were gone, but it couldn't wait and I had to get out of the house while mum was gone to even come to London. I wish I could have seen you though. I'm giving this to your dad to give to you because I'm not allowed to use the owls anymore without mum reading through my letters first, coming and going. Please explain things to Harry and Neville so they don't write anything bad to me, because Mum will read it.

Mum found the last letter you sent and we had an enormous row about it. She doesn't think I should be writing to girls, she's got plans to arrange a marriage for me with some distant cousin. Five years ago I would have said fine -- three years ago, even. That's tradition and I'm supposed to respect her wishes but I can't anymore. She doesn't like you writing to me either, she said awful things that I won't repeat but -- well, Pureblood to her mind means English, or European at any rate. I know you're as English as I am but she's stupid about stuff like that. You're more important than tradition.

I miss you like anything and all I want to do is sneak up to the music room and sit with you like we did last year. I had Dobby sneak a bunch of stuff out of the house so I don't even have the photograph we did at the Yule Ball but I think about it all the time. You looked so pretty. Don't I look pale, too? I was terrified.

It's going to be awful, not being able to write to you for two months, but I'll see you at the platform when school starts and once we're on the train it won't matter who we are, will it? And when I'm seventeen I'll be rich and there won't be anything mum can do about it. I'm going to buy a house in India and study Eastern Magic like your mum does. But I'll come visit you while you're at Oxford, promise.

Anyway, I hope your salamander is doing ok. When you go to India to visit your gran in August will you take lots of pictures for me?

Your boyfriend,
Draco

Ram sat in the bedroom with the letter and thought long and hard, until Parvati gave up in disgust and fixed her own tea. Then he made a copy of the letter, refolded it, and locked both copies in his desk drawer. Padma could have the original when she got home. He didn't know how Sara would take to the idea of Padma dating a young white boy, the son of an infamous lunatic, but if she didn't like it she could read the letter for herself.

Draco was an upstanding kid, if a little wild, and he was a Hufflepuff. He had a good head on his shoulders and was interested not just in Padma but in her life -- her heritage. Possibly as much as Padma was, and certainly more than Parvati was. Moreover, he would be a wealthy man one day and he respected Padma. Ram swelled with pride at the thought of his daughter studying at Oxford. She hadn't even confided that dream to him.

Yes, Draco Malfoy certainly had his consent to court his daughter.

***

I admit that I don't have much of a plot outlined for the rest of the books, and I am finally realising why.

One of the effects of writing an AU like this, which parallels the books, is that you start to see very clearly where the plot holes, the patches, and the failures are. I wrote a bit about this when I was working on book two. Comparing where Laocoon's Children was headed to where the rest of the books went, I can see a sea-change between the first four and the second three, with Goblet of Fire as the turnpiece.

In the last three books, I suspect JKR realised that Voldemort couldn't be the only big bad; there weren't three books left in that idea. So she had to shift some of the antagonism from Voldemort to the Ministry. In a way it works because when you're fifteen-sixteen-seventeen you are rebelling against authority and there's a lot of impotent anger at the seemingly pointless restrictions placed on you as a young adult. It's what makes the last books so difficult to read, at least for me, all that rage and all that restriction and at the time it seems like there's nothing you can do about it. But regardless, they are very difficult books to read because they introduce this horrific police state that can't really be fought against effectively. That's not where I would have taken Laocoon's Children, especially since a major theme of the story up until now has been how Harry could have flourished if he'd had a loving and supportive parental group to guide him. At the same time, are there three more books' worth of story in the battle against Voldemort?

I suspect in book five of Laocoon's Children a major theme would have been a battle Remus had to fight, because he returns to teach Dark Arts now that Crouch is gone. The Ministry certainly doesn't want the Boy Who Lived to be raised by a pair of homosexuals, so Remus teaching at Hogwarts is one way to secure his parental rights over Harry. This would be a major fight, both externally and internally -- every move Remus made would be watched by the public and by the government, and he would face a lot of discrimination from Hogwarts itself. Harry would have to have a hand in that too, giving him a very clear look at the kind of thing Remus has had to deal with all his life.

I think Harry would still start to see visions connected to Voldemort, who don't forget at this point is still very weak. Instead of that useless, ridiculous prophecy, Voldemort would need something in the secure archives of the Ministry for Magic that could revive him, bring him back to his full power. That's what Harry will be seeing, the quest for that item.

I certainly didn't intend that Sirius would die, though I think he would survive only because Remus would begin to have screaming nightmares about him dying, and thus be well-informed enough to be there to save him before he could be hit by the Avada Kedavra -- in LC canon, don't forget, Remus can take a direct hit from an Avada Kedavra and survive. But in saving Sirius he allows Voldemort the time to get hold of the item he needs and revive himself, so there's also a guilt there: he saved the man he loves, but put the world in danger.

Harry and Snape's relationship would also definitely have to change in this. For one thing, Harry would be made captain of the Quidditch team, which is a heavy responsibility. More than that, however, there are the legilimency lessons to consider. I think with Harry less antagonistic towards Snape, and Snape more as a mentor, we would get the story of Snape's history much sooner. Bearing in mind that LC was written and plotted well before books six and seven came out, I'm not sure how to incorporate Snape's crush on Lily, but I would imagine this is where that story would be told. Snape and Harry are coming to see each other, in book five, more on the level of fellow-soldiers than as teacher and student, so it's something they'd have to work through, and something that Snape would have to deal with as well because -- this is the love of his young life, and now he has a new love for the first time in years. How does he explain to Dora that the woman he loved as a boy is Harry's dead mother?

Most of the concrete notes I had made at the time I was writing were relationship notes, to be honest. Not necessarily romance, just relationships. Harry and Sirius are still discussing formal adoption, and I did have a scene in my mind where Sirius takes Harry to the Black family tomb to explain to him what happened to his family, especially Regulus, and how if Harry is adopted it's more than just inheriting money. Harry becomes the presumptive paterfamilias of the House of Black, with rights and duties to perform.

I sort of had Padma and Draco ticking along as a couple, with all the troubles a couple faces, especially an interracial couple. Harry, meanwhile, is definitely coming to realise that he's not a late bloomer, that he's interested in boys, which is complicated by Sirius teasing him that he has a crush on Padma -- because Harry is actually hugely jealous of Padma since he fancies Draco. There's a scene I never wrote, which was nonetheless often at the forefront of my mind, where Harry finally blows up at Sirius and goes off for a sulk, leaving Sirius totally confused about why Harry's angry with him over some gentle teasing. Remus catches on a bit quicker and has a heart-to-heart with Harry where Harry finally admits he might be gay.

I was a bit hesitant to do this at first, because I truly dislike the Everyone Is Gay! trope, but it makes sense to me that if a child were gay, they'd be more likely to be open and comfortable with it, or even realise it, if they had gay parents. I think this shows in some of the arc I had set up for Remus, where he really does worry for a while that it's somehow his fault. A side-arc resulting from this is that Harry takes up with Neville, who is sort of casually bisexual; he's a bit reluctant, but he and Harry fool around a little.

Fifth year is OWLs time and I'm not sure how those go -- Padma of course does extremely well, but Neville gets inches from a nervous breakdown and needs a heart-to-heart from Remus to set him right again. Harry is sort of...uninterested in academic achievement, so he basically does average, and Draco is likewise average except for being able to demonstrate his Animagery. He's on the actual books as an Animagus, unlike Sirius, so he can be aboveboard with it. I suspect he might be offered a scholarship to a special school for Transfiguration and turn it down.

At the end of the book I do know that Draco, having battled his father outright and at least for a little while had him at his mercy, feels strong enough to reject his mother and send her packing, much as Sirius did when he himself was fifteen. When she comes to collect him directly from Hogwarts, he publicly repudiates her on the platform, in front of the school, and renounces his claim to the Malfoy inheritance. Remus manages to stop him before he renounces the Blacks, as well, which means he's still blood of the Blacks and can still go back to Betwys Beddau with them.

I have one little snippet from book five, hardly worth posting, but I found it and I suspect it goes somewhere near the end, when Remus is watching them play Quidditch and thinking about the Order.

***

But out here on the pitch, they weren't men and women about to face danger, they weren't soldiers. They were just children, playing a game. With other children in mufflers too big for them, in gloves and knit hats, cheering on their team.

Just bloody children...

***

BOOK SIX: SOLDIERS AND PRINCES

You need to bear in mind, again, that books six and seven didn't exist when Laocoon's Children was begun. We knew that book six would be called The Half Blood Prince, which is where I took Soldiers And Princes from as a title. So from here what I have is a mixture of my own notes and what I now know about the last two books, or can remember from the single time I've read each of them. I literally have no plot outline at all for book six.

Here are some of the things I know. Snape and Dora get married in book six, probably a sort of hasty war-wedding analogy; marrying because they might die any day and they want what little they can grasp. I suspect this would have been the opening -- everyone attending the Snape-Tonks wedding, which allows me to reintroduce the characters and what they've been doing all summer.

I know that Draco has been in Betwys Beddau, where he got a summer job because he needs the money. He's too proud to accept much from Sirius, having already accepted his protection. His job, I think, was probably low-paid intern at the Betwys Beddau weekly newspaper, as a sort of lead-in to the career I'm going to give him later. Harry has spent the summer carefree, except for missing Neville, and living with Draco has more or less destroyed the crush he had on him. :D Neville has been working at Tonks & Tonks with an eye towards going into magical tailoring, and Padma spent her summer taking classes in Diagon Alley, so that she could have a leg up when they begin their sixth year.

At the wedding, Neville also runs into Ginny and immediately falls for her, which wrecks his growing relationship with Harry. I have the two of them messing around for a while before Harry finds out and is crushed, leading to a rift between the friends, but it's patched over relatively quickly when they realise they have to stand united or Voldemort's going to win easily.

I have in my notes that Tonks finds a copy of Salazar Slytherin's journal, translated by Phineas Nigellus in the 17th century, but I'm not sure where I was going with that. I also have a note that the Music Room the children know about can be charmed to "play" everything that's going on in the castle, but you have to be trained to pick out the bits you actually want to hear, and I have a note to "use that" but I didn't know where, even then.

One solid arc I wanted to put in was Remus's visions intensifying and becoming inceasingly upsetting. At one point he sees himself in a relationship with Tonks, which is baffling to him because he's never fancied women. Makes things awkward for a while. :D

I had not counted on anything approaching Horcruxes at this point, especially since I'd essentially ALREADY INVENTED THEM for Amid My Solitude, which was also written before book six. I was envisioning the clashes between Voldemort's forces and the Order simply increasing in scale and intensity. I had also planned for Remus to continue teaching Dark Arts, not counting on Slughorn being key to book six. But in the end -- is he, really?

So I imagine that book six would have a similar plot to the real book six: finding out about Tom Riddle's past, and about the horcruxes. I also have it in my notes that Remus knew about them (ala my fic in which he studies them at school) but I don't know where that was going either.

I think it's key that in book six Dumbledore would not die. That entire subplot sucked, and there's no reason to 1. make Draco evil at this point or 2. kill Dumbledore. The point of killing him was to take away Harry's last real vestige of support, but Harry already has a strong support in LC -- the Tonkses, Snape, Remus and Sirius, and the support of the other Houses in the form of his friends. So killing Dumbledore is pointless.

BOOK SEVEN: HERE BE DRAGONS

(At the time I didn't know what the title of book seven would be, so I titled it appropriately.)

I very strongly want to keep Harry in school for book seven. I think taking him out of school and sending him on the run was a mistake and a waste of time and good storytelling. In rewriting this book, I would base everything out of Hogwarts, a Hogwarts under siege from Voldemort's forces -- subtly at first, of course.

I had the opening written in a way -- it's present-tense, which I would have altered, but I was planning to open it with Oliver Wood, newly-recruited by the Order, coming to bring Harry news as Harry shelters in Betwys Beddau. This begins a sort of dance that Oliver and Harry engage in all year, circling each other. Harry fancies Oliver, but he was burned by his half-relationship with Neville and he knows how hard it can be for a gay man in the wizarding world. Plus he can't think about this shit now, he has a war to win, and yet he wants it. Oliver, on the other hand, is merely sort of in awe of Harry and also feels that perhaps Harry is a bit young for him, despite knowing that he's falling for him. Here's the opening.

***

The cottage in Betwys Beddau is safe, which is why they're there, but when Oliver touches down he thinks it's awfully morbid, as well. He likes the moors and the heath as much as the next cityborn Scot, but out here it can't be much fun for the kids.

He hasn't seen Harry in years, except in photos, and to him Harry's still one of the kids, with his curly little black head bent over a book next to Draco, or further back, eight-year-old Harry afraid of the wind outside the tower and clutching Frog tightly for comfort.

There's a young man standing on the porch, and Oliver doesn't realise it's Harry until one of the callused hands grips his and Harry smiles and tosses his hair off his forehead.

"Good of you to come," he says. "You're looking well."

"Harry?" Oliver asks, because this whip-thin rangy man with a smile like a shark isn't the Harry he recalls at all.

"It's been a few years," Harry agrees. He looks tired, and he moves like a -- more like a snake than a panther, with muscles that seem to slide under his skin. It isn't natural to move that gracefully. "Come inside, there's tea and sandwiches."

"Ta," Oliver replies, unnerved.

But inside, it's warmer and brighter and Remus is in the kitchen with Draco, frying sausages while he assembles turkey-and-cheese sandwiches. When Harry turns back to re-introduce him, the smile is more genuine. Oliver sees that Frog has been placed in a position of honour in the bookshelf, next to all seven Standard Books of Spells, and he smiles back.

***

In book seven, along with the quest for the Horcruces (as in Cartographer's Craft) Harry is searching for items of power to help him in his fight. Possibly these powerful items are drawn from the diary of Slytherin that Dora finds. At any rate, they're not quite the Deathly Hallows, which baffled me and never made all that much sense. I was toying with Harry finding Excalibur, oh so British, but I also did have firm plans for them to locate something called the Servant's Key.

***

"What is it?" Harry asked, eyeing the iron ring cautiously. Snape continued to pull roots and filth away from an object on one end.

"A tool of some power," Snape replied. "It's known as the Servant's Key."

"What does it do?"

"There's an ancient belief that it will summon an army," Snape said with a shrug. "When England is endangered. You find them all over the country -- the beliefs, that is -- about various things. This one is wizard-forged, so it may actually be true. For the Dark Lord to be able to summon an army instantaneously would be disastrous; it's good we've found it first."

***

I was toying with the idea of Snape also getting into Voldemort's good graces by presenting a supposedly "brainwashed" Draco to Lucius and Voldemort. I'm not sure Draco could pull this off but I like to think he could. It's part of a theme of trinity that I was exploring for the last book, two trinities: Lucius-Sirius, Draco-Harry, and Voldemort-Remus as father, son, and spirit. With Draco's defection at the end, Voldemort's power would be weakened.

He would still be strong enough to lay a full-on siege against Hogwarts, an idea I had long before the battle of Hogwarts in the real book seven. I wanted to actually divert the siege from Hogwarts to the Creadonagh Valley, which is the valley that Sirius and Remus's house in Hogsmeade looks down on. That house would become a base of operations for the Order, and the final battle would take place in the valley itself.

While Voldemort's forces are amassing, so are Harry's. The Servant's Key, as it turns out, does summon an army -- of House-Elves. Draco's veneration by the House Elves has been leading up to this all along. There's a code amongst the House-Elves that if the country is in danger they can abandon their duties to fight for its safety. Which would be well and good, but they're not sure they actually want to. Draco is the one who has to talk them into it, because they do adore him. But I was really always very disappointed with JKR's treament of House-Elves, so another attachment to this code is that those who fight for Britain's safety are freed afterwards. I want the House-Elves to go free, and I think it's important that they make the decision for themselves.

***

"Harry," Padma said, looking out the window, "I think Draco's army finally arrived."

The others ran to the window and stared down at the road. There were easily twenty-thousand bodies on the march; they were walking in formation, weapons of various sorts slung over their shoulders, up the path. And they were singing as they went.

"An army of House Elves?" Harry demanded, staring at the little green creatures that were moving with such military precision.

"Why not?" Padma asked, grinning. "Draco's always said house-elves could do anything."

***

Before Harry can defeat Voldemort, however, one of the relics he's unearthed tells him that there's something he has to do. He's known for a while that the Forbidden Forest can not only transport people to different places but also to different times, and at Christmas -- or rather Yule, the longest night of the year -- Harry knows that he has to go into the forest to ensure that this world actually exists.

For some time, Remus has been building a sort of vision of the world he dreams about, a terrible dystopia where Sirius and Dumbledore are dead, he himself has spent years struggling to survive, and Harry is a fugitive. Remus is seeing the canonical books as a kind of horror story. He knows that their world will cease to exist and that world will be the one that triumphs, unless they can find the point where the two worlds diverged. Which, as we who have been reading know, is the "lost owl" that never made it to Remus and thus kept Remus in Britain, allowing him to prevent Sirius from going after Peter.

Harry realises he has to divert the owl on its course, and the only way to do that without a time turner is to go into the Forbidden Forest. This is the plot of the never written Lost Owl short story -- Remus stops Sirius because he never left Britain; he never left Britain because he never got the train ticket; he never got the train ticket because the owl was knocked off-course by a strange hooded figure on a broomstick.

In the Forest, of course, Harry meets his counterpart -- the canonical Harry of book seven, grieving, lost, and battle-weary. I wrote this scene years ago, long before we knew that Harry would have to go into the forest to die in book seven. It is in many ways the crowning scene of Laocoon's Children, and not just because I'm in it. :D

In this scene, Harry has met his counterpart. He's trying to find a way back sixteen years, to the night the post-owl was sent; Harry is (well, now anyway) trying to find his way to the place where he meets the ghosts of his family. They meet the Author, as well as a few other alternate realities...

***

"Shh, do you hear that?" Harry asked the other boy, who stopped and cocked his head, listening alertly. There had been birdsong in the little clearing, but now a pattern was emerging, underneath the birds, coming from one of the trees. As they listened it evolved into a tune, a simple, lilting thing.

Harry hesitantly walked the few feet towards the tree it seemed to be coming from, looking up in the branches. A fair-haired man was sitting on a low bough, and when he saw Harry he stopped and smiled.

"Hello," he said, easing himself off the bough and dropping eight or ten feet to the ground. "Harry. Harry."

He might have been mistaken for a student in the Muggle clothing he wore -- a white Oxford shirt and dark trousers, black shoes. No robe or tie, though, and no Hogwarts crest on his shirt. He carried a small Muggle penny-whistle pipe in one hand.

"Never did learn much skill on it," he said, glancing at the whistle. "Funny, isn't it? Everything's patterns, you know, ways of fitting things together, but some patterns are so much easier than others. Music...not so easy."

"Who are you?" Harry asked.

"Mmh, that should be obvious..." the man's blue eyes scanned the shadows at the clearing's edge. "You may as well come forward," he called. "It's all right, no-one's going to be hurt here."

Harry glanced over his shoulder and saw two or three people come out of the trees from a few different directions. One was Firenze, looking sleeker and much more glossy than Harry recalled him, and with him came a dark-haired man about his own age, which Harry recognised as Sirius, a much younger Sirius, the Sirius of photographs in albums, wearing a red cloak.

A middle-aged man with a narrow, handsome face and grey edging through his hair emerged next, and then -- Remus, looking even more old and careworn, with pale white hair. It looked like he leaned on Dora's shoulder for support, and Dora -- Dora was visibly pregnant.

The pale-haired man smiled and walked past Harry and his counterpart, offering his hand to Sirius first.

"Hallo, Sirius," he said warmly. "How's the map? Firenze, you look well. Looking after our young Tutor, are we?"

Firenze nodded. The young man clapped Firenze on the shoulder, a move that would have terrified Harry, and turned to the middle-aged man who stood alone.

"Tom," he said softly. Harry's companion gripped his arm.

"That's Tom Riddle," he hissed.

"But not Lord Voldemort," the young man called back without looking. "Just Tom Gaunt, Professor Tom Gaunt, eh?"

"So they say," Tom replied. "Pleasure to see you again."

"Pleasure's mine. And here we have -- hullo Tonks, feeling all right?"

"Yes, thank you," she said quietly. "He's not, though."

"Mm, fatherhood weighs heavy on the soul." This was directed at Remus, who smiled with odd pride and glanced at Dora possessively.

"Lighter than you'd think," he said.

"That's the spirit, then. Hup!" called the man, as a final figure ran into the clearing. He caught the little boy in his arms and lifted him up, propping him on his hip and carrying him back to the tree, where both Harrys still stood.

"That's not my Remus," Harry said, pointing to the white-haired man.

"And that's definitely not my Sirius," the other one added, but he looked at the young man with hungry eyes.

"No -- they're mine," the blond man said. Harry studied the young boy in the man's arms, carefully. "Yes Harry -- here you are."

"That's me?" Harry asked. His counterpart was silent.

"This is you." A smile, and a tweak of the young boy's nose. "He has an appointment with a big black dog at Sandust Books tomorrow. Harry -- you," he said, pointing to the other Harry. "Have you found your way?"

The other Harry shook his head.

"It's all right, kid," the man said, gripping the other Harry by the back of the neck. "It'll be okay, I promise. You'd better go soon, though. The world's depending on you."

"It isn't fair," the other Harry protested.

"I know," the man said. "And I'm so sorry. But it'll be okay. You'll know that someday. As for you," he continued, moving on to Harry, "Have you found the owl yet?"

"Not yet," Harry said.

"Well, you'd better do it soon. This one," he tightened his grip on the boy, "Is depending on you. You have one chance to change history -- you won't be allowed to decide where and when, we never are. But how...how is always up to you."

"Who are you?" Harry asked. The young boy in the man's arms wrapped his arms around his neck and looked out shyly at everyone gathered in the forest.

"Isn't it obvious?" the man grinned. "I'm the Storyteller."

"The what?"

"There is a singular world," the Storyteller said. "His was created first -- that other Harry there, he comes from it. He isn't mine. In fact tonight, he's the only one in the forest who isn't. But you, Harry -- and these others -- are my handiwork, my stories, sculpted from a mould another made. They weren't mine, not back when the world was created, but they are now. You're one of them too; that's why you're here. After everything you've done, every story...well. I wanted to meet you. Just once. Here, where the centre holds."

He carried the child to Tom, Tom Gaunt, who accepted the young boy from his arms.

"Take him home safely," the Storyteller ordered. "In the morning this will just be a dream he had. Firenze?"

The centaur bowed his head and gestured for Sirius to come along. They set out back into the forest and were gone as soon as their shadows faded.

"Remus, how goes the war?" the Storyteller asked.

"We're winning," Remus answered.

"Hold onto that then. Off you go -- you too, Harry, and remember what I've said."

The other Harry nodded, looking confused, and after a lingering look at Harry he set off through the trees, in the direction the Storyteller had pointed.

And then it was just Harry and the Storyteller.

"If you follow the polestar, you'll end where you need to be," the man said, with a kind look. "Good luck, lad. You'll need it."

"Can't you come?"

"No! Dear me, no, that would never do. I shouldn't want that," he said with a laugh. "Besides, I have promises to keep. I'm due to watch the sunrise with a dear friend, from the tallest tree in the forest."

"But -- "

"Ah ah, Harry. Run on now." The man swung himself back up into the tree, and gestured with the little whistle for Harry to get a move on. "Go with my love."

***

Ultimately, of course, Harry does knock the owl out of its course, ensuring that his universe will continue to exist. When he returns, only Oliver is still awake, and they share a romantic moment before the sunrise.

The next day, Harry triumphs in the battle against Voldemort, leading his fellow students, some of the teachers, an army of House-Elves, and a last-minute cavalry of the Centaurs. I think a couple of flying motorbikes might be involved, too. :D

EPILOGUE: THE VALLEY HOUSE

I never really considered writing an epilogue, but I did have some idea of where the children would go from here, and the adults too. Remus and Sirius stayed on in Hogsmeade, Remus teaching and Sirius running a bookshop in the town. Dora and Snape eventually had a child, who I can now see is Theodore Snape, not an orphan at all but a smart-mouthed, sarcastic metamorphmagus who I have no doubt thrived as a Ravenclaw. Tonks & Tonks became Tonks & Son when Neville joined the family business as a tailor, settling down with Ginny in the upstairs apartment of the Black family home. They proudly employ an all-werewolf staff and shut down for three days out of the month, which makes them exclusive and very desireable as clothiers.

Draco Black, having discovered a flair for writing, eventually becomes a scholar and novelist like his hero Graveworthy, and divides his time between a flat in India and a townhouse in London where he makes sure things run smoothly for his wife, Minister for Magic Padma Patil, who always wears the latest Tonks & Son fashions. She recently signed legislation giving new legal status to the Union of Independent House-Elves, of which Dobby is the president.

Harry Potter and Oliver Wood go on to a life filled with excitement as they captain two separate Quidditch teams, and have made a pact never to talk about the games at home.

Apparently JKR has said that Remus and Tonks had to die so that their child could grow up a, well, I guess a HAPPY ORPHAN, to show that in the world Harry made in canon, someone got a better life than Harry did as a kid. That's...kind of a dumb reason for two of my favourite characters to die. Which is why in Laocoon's Children, Harry and Oliver adopt a child, A HAPPY ORPHAN IF YOU WILL, and given the great brotherhood of their parents this child grows up best friends with the Longbottom-Weasley brood.

I think I would have set this epilogue in the Valley House where Remus and Sirius live, a family reunion crowded with people: Sirius the amiable paterfamilias holding court with Ted and Andi, who are enjoying the retired life; a couple of werewolves from the shop playing cards with Severus and Dora; stroppy young Theo sulking about how embarrassing family reunions are until Harry plonks down his son in Theo's lap and makes him babysit, since even Theo can't resist making faces at a toddler. Padma would be in the kitchen arguing politics with Ginny while Draco and Oliver help Remus cook dinner. Harry would be blissfully in the middle of it all, tasting everything and stealing kisses from Oliver and laughing at Longbottom's kids getting underfoot.

And outside, maybe, Ellis and Dumbledore could have a pint together as they watch the sun set over Creadonagh Valley.

I think that's rather a nice epilogue, don't you?

And that's the end. Thanks for reading, everyone, and I am sorry I can't make this live for you. You have been amazing.

On The Run From The Lunar Mafia

2009-08-09T16:03:38Z

Title: On The Run From The Lunar Mafia
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Summary: Gareth David-Lloyd's quiet evening is interrupted by time travel. And robots.
Notes: This is without a doubt the most ridiculous thing I have ever written. I was actually going to make it a semi-serious piece, and then...this came out. I don't even know, you guys.
BLAME: hija_paloma is to blame for this, as illustrated here. 51stcenturyfox beta'd this hard. cruentum convinced me to post it. THEY ARE BAD PEOPLE.

***

At first Gareth thought there was something funny in his beer.

While it wasn't actually unusual for John Barrowman to come bursting into a room without knocking, it was slightly more unusual for him to immediately dive under the bed. Especially in a hotel room. Granted, it was a con, and all kinds of crazy bollocks happened at a con --

Gareth slowly leaned over the edge of the bed and peered underneath it. That was definitely John, with a hunted look on his face, cowering amidst the dust bunnies.

"All right then?" Gareth asked, slowly.

"Pretend everything's normal," John hissed, and shoved him in the head. Gareth sat up, considered things, and went back to studying the con schedule for the following day.

About ten seconds later, a woman also burst into the room without knocking. She had blue hair.

"Did a man come through here?" she demanded.

"Er?" Gareth managed.

"Tall bloke, dead sexy, brown hair," she said.

"No," Gareth replied. "Can't say as I have seen a tall dead sexy bloke recently."

"Do I know you from somewhere?" she asked, squinting.

"Telly?" Gareth suggested.

"Tell who?"

"The telly. I'm on it occasionally."

"Whatever," she sniffed. "Sorry to barge in."

And she was gone. Gareth carefully did not move until there was a slight rustle under the bed and John wriggled out on his elbows.

"Are you implying I'm not sexy?" he asked, before he was even upright.

"Not interested," Gareth answered, without looking up from the con schedule. "Fan of yours?"

"Uh. Yeah," John said, and for a practiced actor he was a terrible liar. Gareth glanced up. "Sort of. Actually not a fan at all."

"What'd she want?"

"JOHN," someone bellowed, and again, without knocking, for the third time in three minutes, someone came through Gareth's door.

"Don't they lock hotel room doors anymore? I'm sure I had a keycard given to me," Gareth complained. Scott paused in the entry, then quickly shut the door.

"Bila's here," Scott blurted.

"Thanks, I noticed," John drawled.

"Who's Bila?" Gareth asked.

"Nobody," the other two answered in unison. Gareth decided he needed another beer.

"What do we do?" Scott asked.

"As if I know?" John demanded. "Gareth, you couldn't give us a little privacy, huh?"

"Look, this is my hotel room," Gareth announced, growing increasingly annoyed. "And if you two want a quick shag you have quite a nice room of your own. Nicer than mine, in fact."

"No time for this," Scott said impatiently. "She'll be back, you know she will."

"Maybe we could go off the balcony," John suggested, jerking his thumb at the sliding door at the other end of the room. Scott started for it, and Gareth was just getting up to phone the con organisers because really this was ridiculous, when the door burst right off its hinges and blue-haired Bila was back.

"GOTCHA!" she shouted.

Several things happened at once.

Gareth found himself yelling in surprise, something on the lines of "FUCKING HELL." Scott cleared the bed in a single jump, which was fairly impressive. John grabbed Gareth's wrist. Scott took something small and glowing out of his pocket. Bila raised a gun. There was an impressive bang --

And suddenly they were not in fact in a hotel room anymore. They were standing on a beach. And the sun was out.

Gareth made the only possible inference he could.

"Great," he moaned. "I suppose I've died, then."

"Don't be a drama queen," John replied, letting go of his wrist. "Just a little transtemporal jump, that's all."

Gareth stared hard at him. "Are you dead and insane?"

"Nobody's dead," Scott assured him, tucking the little glowing thing back in a pocket.

"When are we, Scott?" John asked.

"Oh, I'd say about 1200 BC," Scott replied.

"We were just in LA!" Gareth blurted.

"Technically we still are," John assured him, kicking around some sand with his bare feet. "About two thousand years before it became LA. Breathe that fresh clean air. Good for the lungs."

Definitely something funny in that beer.

"Well, she'll never track us here, anyway, I routed us through Mars," Scott continued, looking rather smug, all things considered.

"Mars?" Gareth demanded. The other two men exchanged a look.

"He's your coworker," Scott said.

"I'm shit at this," John replied.

"You'll never get better if you don't practice."

"Why would I want to get better at it?"

"Sorry, can we go back to the fact that I'm apparently hallucinating?" Gareth managed. Scott gave John a sharp shove.

"Fine," John said, turning to glare at Scott. "Listen, this is going to sound insane."

"Oh, you think?" Gareth asked.

"You know how Russell said he based Jack Harkness on me?" John said slowly.

"Yes..."

"Well, he did. Base him on me."

"And?" Gareth prompted.

"No, like really," John said. "Jack Harkness. Me."

Gareth frowned. "Time-traveling superhero Jack Harkness?"

"Yup."

"Captain Jack Harkness?"

"Love the way he says that," Scott said to John.

"In the flesh," John said.

"You travel in time?" Gareth asked, just to be sure.

"Well, yeah."

"If you tell me Scott's real name is Ianto Jones I'm going to shit myself," Gareth said.

"Ianto Jones isn't real, Gareth," John said with exaggerated gentleness. Gareth scowled. "That's Scott. He's my husband."

"You're Time Agent Captain Jack Harkness and we're standing on a beach in 1200 BC," Gareth said.

"Yup." John rocked back and forth a little, looking pleased with himself.

Gareth crossed his arms. "Prove it."

"What?"

"Prove it."

"What more proof do you need?" John said, exasperated. "Look around you!"

"So what, you just dropped into the twentieth century and decided to make a television career?" Gareth demanded.

John and Scott both looked embarrassed.

"We're in Witness Protection," Scott said reluctantly.

"WITNESS PROTECTION?" Gareth shouted. "YOU'RE ON THE TELEVISION! Like a billion people watch you swan around pretending to be someone you ACTUALLY ARE, when they're not watching you ice skate in a reality show. Who's protecting you, MI-incompetent?"

"Look, the Lunar Mafia is three thousand years in the future, I didn't think they'd check back this far, okay?" John snapped.

"Oh, of course. You're on the run from the Lunar Mafia. Captain Jack Harkness is in hiding from the Lunar Mafia. And on the television." Gareth dropped into the sand, pulling his knees up to his chest. "John Barrowman is actually a time-traveler and he's hiding out from the moon crooks. And now he's kidnapped me to a beach twenty-two hundred years in the past."

"Er," Scott said, then faltered when Gareth glared at him.

"Yes?" Gareth said sharply.

"Is now a good time to tell him I'm a robot?" Scott asked John.

Gareth burst into hysterical laughter. "Of course you are. Of course you are. Scott Gill's a robot! Your robot husband. This is my husband, the robot. No, it's legal in the UK! There are no laws at all against time-travelers marrying robots."

"He's fully sentient," John said, annoyed. "It's not like he's my sex droid or something. And yeah, actually, it is legal in the UK, about three thousand years from now."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be insensitive," Gareth hooted with laughter. "Oh Jesus. Do you fight aliens? No, wait. Is Russell really the Doctor? Say he's the Doctor."

"He's not the Doctor," John said.

"Are there aliens though?" Gareth asked. "Real aliens?"

"Not in this timezone," Scott muttered.

"Look, the less you know, the better," John said.

"You might have thought of that before time-kidnapping me! Jesus, will you listen to me?" Gareth said, throwing his hands in the air. "Time-kidnapped! That blue-haired woman, what was she then, some kind of Lunar Mafia assassin?"

"You can make fun all you want, but the Lunar Mafia knows I'm immortal -- "

"IMMORTAL," Gareth shouted.

" -- and they want to lock me up and do tests on me, this is serious!" John said. "If the Time Agency can't catch her, we're going to be stuck here for a while."

"I sunburn easily," Gareth said, sobering. "I don't want to live on a beach before the advent of sunscreen."

"Not to worry," Scott interrupted, touching a finger to his ear. "Getting a transmission now."

"In your finger?" Gareth asked.

"In my ear," Scott retorted.

"Oh, excuse -- " Gareth broke off as John shushed him. They waited expectantly, watching Scott stand very still, one finger in his ear.

"Right, that's our cue," Scott said, letting his hand fall. "We're in the clear. Agency got her. She shouldn't have tried it at a con, there were Time Agents crawling all over that place."

"The uniforms blend in," John said, before Gareth could ask.

"So, up you come," Scott grasped Gareth's wrist and pulled him effortlessly to his feet. "We should get back a few minutes after we left."

He took out the little glowing thing again, as John got a firm hold on his shoulder.

"One, two, three -- "

***

Gareth started awake, in his bed, in the hotel room.

The lights were still on, and he was still wearing his clothes; he must have fallen asleep sitting up.

Oh, fuck's sake. A dream, then, that's all it had been. A very fucked up dream. No more beer before bed.

He didn't notice a few grains of sand tumble out of the cuff of his trousers, as he stood to walk to the bathroom.

END

The Harkness Variations

2009-07-25T15:35:42Z

Title: The Harkness Variations
Rating: PG-13 (violence, innuendo)
Summary: Ten ways Jack's life could have been different -- some better, some worse, for him and for others.
Warnings: Character death. #10 has very, very mild CoE spoilers (translation: Not THAT character).
BETA CREDIT JESUS: 51stcenturyfox beta'd the hell out of this.

***

THE HARKNESS VARIATIONS
Or
Ten Ways Things Could Have been Different

I. 1941

He'd missed snagging the ambulance vessel by mere minutes; a war salvager had got there ahead of him. By the time Jack caught up with them their comms had gone silent, and when he boarded he found all hands dead, their faces contorted into the smooth glassy surface of an EVA helmet.

Jack decontam'd four times before he re-entered his ship, and decided perhaps his volcano-day con had run its course.

In the records of a 1941 wartime hospital, there is a strange demise listed for one Jane Doe, blonde, age approximately 20 years.

Cause of death: fall from a barrage balloon.

II. 1973

"Delivery," the uniformed man grunted, setting a large carton on the table of the film library's office. "And pickup."

"Pickup?" the archivist drawled. "No film to pick up here."

"Oh yeah," the man flashed a clipboard briefly. "Swappin' out new film reels for your old stuff."

"I thought we were wiping those."

"New trade-in program from the film company. We'll take 'em off your hands," Jack Harkness, time-traveling antique dealer, beamed sunnily.

"Next lot, a complete set of the missing Doctor Who episodes, originally thought to be lost in the early seventies. What am I bid for this priceless archive?"

III. 5121

Jack said all the right things. He raged at the Time Agency for stealing two years from him, threatened to quit, and made a half-hearted attempt to find out what he'd done. Once they'd slapped him on the wrist for that, he played the meek reformed agent and accepted his minor demotion with a humble expression.

He wouldn't for worlds have told them that the Retcon didn't take, now that he knew the Agency's filthiest secrets. With some judicious whispering and a little well-applied pillow talk, he could be director of the agency in ten years.

Well, maybe twelve.

IV. 2001

It wasn't that he didn't like Rose and the Doctor. He just wasn't made for settling down, even by their loose definition of the phrase. When they stopped off in Cardiff in the twenty-first century, he left a note on the TARDIS console and quietly slipped away for good.

There was a woman, Suzie Costello, who started out a one-night-stand (quaint term!) and ended recruiting him for this thing called Torchwood. Jack had never put his life expectancy at more than a few years longer so, when she killed him and tested the glove on him, he wasn't very surprised.

V. 1963

He wasn't going honest. He was doing recon in the era, waiting for a valuable shipping pod that was supposed to crash down in the next few months. The teaching job was a cover, an excuse to go specimen-hunting in the greenbelt where the pod was going to land.

But he found he liked his students. When he wore the name Ian Chesterton he felt so...respectable. Besides, Barbara was fun. And it'd been a long time since he'd played the slow-seduction game.

When she suggested they find out what was up with Susan Foreman, he thought, Sure. Why not?

VI. 200,100

Jack gasped awake -- back to life -- in the empty gamestation. He didn't hesitate; he could feel the time vortex thrumming in him and Rose's silent call -- Come on, Jack; come, come.

"Anything you say," he muttered as he ran. He reached the control room and dove across the floor, landing just inside the closing TARDIS doors.

He never asked why the Doctor hated him after that. Why tempt fate? Being the Doctor's immortal dog was better than being anyone else's god. He'd stay as long as he was allowed.

The Doctor would get used to him, surely.

VII. 1999

Jack left the Hub on December 31st hoping when he came back the party would be swinging. Then he realised that he'd left his sidearm in his locker.

By the time he returned, Terence was dead and Anya wounded. Jack gave her enough cover to slam the archive door shut, locking Elise and Zimmer safely inside.

"You can't stop this, Jack!" Alex shouted.

"He just went nuts," Anya whispered.

Jack took Alex out with a single shot to the head. More merciful that way. Torchwood London sent a replacement.

Toshiko Sato died in a UNIT prison during an escape attempt.

VIII. 2006

Tosh had flu and couldn't go to London for the research Jack needed. Grumbling, Jack went himself.

Jones, the gorgeous research assistant they assigned him, was clever and quick. When Jack grabbed his ass he just turned and quipped, "My cash is in my coat pocket, Captain."

"You should come work for me," Jack said. "I need an archivist."

"I have a girlfriend."

"I like threesomes."

Neither Ianto nor Lisa could resist the pay, though. Or, once they realised Jack wasn't joking, the sex.

The day Torchwood London was destroyed, Jack gathered them both close and held them for hours.

IX. 5087

Jack felt Gray's fingernails scrape his palm as he stumbled and fell. He pulled his brother up by the collar of his tunic, hauling them both into the shadow of a brittle-rooted tree. He stroked his hair and hummed songs as the Creatures culled their homeland.

"Oh, thank god," his mother said, when they returned. She abandoned their father's corpse and wrapped them both in her arms.

Jack couldn't go to war; he had a brother to look after. He went to university instead. His first best-seller was a touching story of life for two brothers on the Boeshane Peninsula.

X. 2010

"In 1965, these aliens made contact," Jack said, lying on his side in Ianto's bed. "They wanted twelve children. I was supposed to deliver them. Orphans. I went along with it, for a while. Halfway to the rendezvous point I shot our entire escort and took the kids home."

"What happened?" Ianto asked.

"Plague 1966," Jack replied. "Twelve million people died."

Ianto's eyes closed. "Because you said no."

"Yes."

"I'm so sorry."

"Sometimes you have to make a hard decision. Sometimes you decide wrong."

"Why are you telling me this?"

Jack traced Ianto's lips with his thumb. "Because I can, I suppose."

Price; Torchwood, PG-13

2009-07-07T17:01:02Z

Spoilers: Children of Earth, Day One
Rating: Uh. Um. Strong PG-13? Ianto/Gwen/Jack.
Summary: Surely, given that Ianto had made his own peace with Jack and Gwen's bizarre sexless love affair, they had known they were having it.
Notes: BETA CREDIT!! 51stcenturyfox beta'd this leik whoa for me.

***

The child was beautiful, almost ethereally so -- of course every parent thinks their child is the prettiest baby in the world. But Ianto wasn't exactly his dad, and even the nurses at the hospital had said what a lovely baby he was. Price had huge, brilliant blue eyes and a narrow, well-formed face even as a baby, and he smiled all the time -- widest at Rhys, almost as wide for Jack. He charmed total strangers, rarely cried, slept through the night early, was almost never bothered by the usual colics and colds most infants suffer.

Obviously, Ianto thought, the boy was Jack's.

***

He'd been crying in the archives that day, not that he would have admitted it, or did admit it even when Gwen found him. It was only that he'd come across a research file of Tosh's, and he'd taken it and turned to go up to the Hub's atrium to pick a friendly mock-battle with Tosh. They were always in each others' way, Ianto mucking around in the computer's code to improve the database, Tosh disturbing his files in the Archives when she went looking for cross-references. He could go up and make a smart remark about messy techs, and she'd call him anal-retentive, and --

But he couldn't, because she was dead.

He'd never get to again. And he was used to the feeling of loss, he'd survived loss before and heavier than this, but each time he thought of missing Toshiko or Owen the walled-up grief from Canary Wharf pounded a little harder against his careful partitioning. His pretty life in London was gone, Lisa was gone, all their little relationship codes and quirks forgotten by everyone but him. Tosh and Owen were gone, and some stranger would step in to replace them, which was very hard. And before he knew it, he had leaned his forehead against a shelf of boxes and was crying.

"Ianto, are you down here? Jack wants you upstairs for lunch. Well, ordering lunch, I think he's afraid of the pizza place, I don't know why he can't call them himse -- " she broke off. "Ianto? Are you all right?"

Ianto hastily wiped his cheeks, a fraction too late -- Gwen was in the doorway already, looking at him in concern.

"S'the dust," he said, indicating his eyes. He looked around and took a deep breath as she approached. "Really should bring a broom and some rags down here and do a thorough clean..."

Gwen rubbed his arm reassuringly. He would probably have been more embarrassed, but Gwen adored comforting people, so really in a way he was doing her a favour.

"Come up for lunch," she said, and tugged him away from the sad file of Tosh's research and the dust in the archives.

So he had gone up for lunch, but Jack had seen it too. Jack pressed his thumb to Ianto's chin and curled his finger under, holding him still and steady with the lightest touch -- Jack was good at that -- and kissed him. And Jack said he was sorry.

It was. Well. It was surreal. They hadn't really talked about Owen and Tosh, or about all the other people who must have died on Jack's watch, and whether Jack blamed himself for all of those. But Jack said he was sorry, and Ianto nodded and ordered their food and when it came they ate and talked, once, honestly. And Jack started it.

"I've kept track," he said, chewing on a bite of pizza, eyes lowered so that neither of them could catch his gaze. "I used to keep count, but I -- can't count, I lost count. It kills me. The database has a statistics function. So it always knows." He looked up but away from them, out over the Hub. "They ought to be counted. Someone ought to remember."

"It still hurts," Ianto said, half a question. "I should think by now..."

Jack gave him a sharp look. He hadn't meant to imply, but -- "I should think by now you'd know some way to...stop the hurt."

Jack snorted. "Yeah, well, alcoholism has its downsides."

"But it's reassuring though," Gwen continued. "Our records. You. We know we'll be remembered by someone. Even if nobody knows what we do."

"Sometimes I'm afraid of forgetting them," Jack whispered, and Ianto slid a hand around his leg, curling his fingers at the side of the kneecap. Daring really, because he still didn't know where they stood, but Jack had always seemed to take comfort in touch.

"Well, sometimes I'm afraid of dying," Gwen replied. Jack snorted. "And anyway you've less reason to remember me, haven't you?"

Ianto looked at her, confused, and then at Jack, who gave him a perplexed frown before looking back at her. "Why?" Jack asked.

"Oh, you know. You and Ianto. Well, I mean, it seems reasonable, doesn't it? I don't mind, you know, ordinarily. Only sometimes I think maybe...he means...more to you," Gwen faltered over the last words, and Ianto could see there was no regret of the fact in her voice, and certainly no malice. Gwen honestly thought -- had grappled with the idea and, he could see, come to terms with it -- that Jack loved Ianto more. He could have laughed, because...well...

"But it's obvious," he heard himself blurt, before he thought about it. "He loves you more."

He felt a horrified blush creep up his throat, and looked in panic from Gwen to Jack, back to Gwen, to Jack...Jack looked startled, and Gwen looked bewildered. Surely, given that he'd made his own peace with Jack and Gwen's bizarre sexless love affair, they had known they were having it.

"Okay, first of all," Jack said, recovering a less surprised expression, "Neither one of you gets to tell me who or how I love. Secondly, this isn't a competition."

"No, I know that -- " Ianto started, but Jack waved a finger at him.

"Third, I love you both. Like Tosh, like Owen. When I worry about forgetting them -- and you -- I worry about all of you."

"Yes, Jack," Gwen said softly, an undernote to Ianto's hurried, "'Course you do."

They bent back to their food, ashamed, but Jack kept studying them, until finally he sighed.

"Twenty-first century labels," he growled. "I hate them."

Which would have been an end of it -- oh, Jack's off on one of his rants about how backwards we are again -- except that Jack leaned across the table and kissed Gwen hard on the mouth and, well, Ianto wanted her to know that Jack really did love her. Obviously she hadn't realised Ianto had almost stepped back in favour of her, once upon a time.

So, a threesome did seem to be a logical solution at the time.

Ianto won ten quid off Jack, too, in a bet they'd made about Gwen's bed manners ages ago. Not a screamer, but more brilliant than expected.

He was oddly surprised at how unashamed he was, how little guilt he felt for Gwen's betrayal of Rhys, but then it hardly was. It was just...Torchwood. Inside Torchwood, this was comfort, reassurance, a process for grieving. Best on-the-job grief counseling ever, really. And he remembered what it felt like to see Jack with Gwen, hell, he remembered what it was like to bury his face in her throat and come inside her, Jack inside him. So many possible combinations, and they'd gone for it like their sanity depended on it, which maybe it did.

But he also remembered condoms and caution. And -- the last thing before they slept -- Gwen lying on her side, head pillowed on her arm, watching with enormous dark eyes as he and Jack fucked.

Even as he was licking sweat from Jack's shoulder, even as Jack pulled him up for a sloppy off-centre kiss, a child of one of them had been forming in Gwen's womb.

***

But it was ridiculous that Price should be his child, because, well, who was he compared to Jack Harkness? And Price had all of Jack's easy charm, and was so beautiful.

So Ianto never thought about it, or if he did it was mostly to be concerned that Rhys would suspect, when Price grew older and his baby-blue eyes didn't darken. But then Rhys's mum had blue eyes, didn't she? Or was it Gwen's mum? Anyway, he suspected Rhys wouldn't care in the slightest. He doted on the child, adored him, bragged about how bright he was. Ianto saw Price often enough, over for dinner or in passing as Rhys dropped Gwen off for work, or once in a while if they ran into each other on the street. Jack made it a point to visit and play with Price and compliment Gwen and Rhys on their son. Perhaps Jack assumed the child was his own child, but he insisted whenever Gwen broached the topic, however obliquely, that Rhys was Price's "real" father. After all, Rhys was the one raising him.

"But biologically," Gwen said once, in frustration. Jack gave her a level look.

"Does it matter?" he asked.

Not to Ianto. Nor, obviously, to Jack. Gwen...well, she didn't have unfettered access to the medical equipment anymore since the new doctor came in, but DNA tests could be bought through the mail and when Ianto found his spare hairbrush missing from his locker one afternoon (and then returned the next morning) he figured Gwen would do the test and confirm it was Jack and hopefully not pester them about it overmuch. After all, what kind of a father could Jack possibly be? Much better all round if it was Rhys --

A week later he found Gwen sitting at the end of the little walkway that led to the Tourist Centre, staring out into the bay. He sat down next to her, waited for her to speak or get over herself.

"Do you know," she said slowly, "if Price were Jack's son, I thought, it's a bit romantic, isn't it? Not in the sense of Jack and me, I don't want that, I love Rhys. But -- raising the child of an immortal man, even if it is unfair to Rhys, someone who's got genes that shouldn't even exist for thousands of years. Romantic, yeah?"

"I suppose," Ianto said.

"I mean, if it had just been anyone -- some random bloke -- then it'd be, I dunno, tawdry. Shameful. I'd have had to tell Rhys then, because it wouldn't have been...special."

Ianto stared at the water, highly unsure of where this was headed.

"But if it was you, I thought, well. You're an ordinary man. You aren't immortal. You put too much sugar in your coffee."

Ianto chuckled. "Only the bad stuff."

"You're a snob about some things. And not very good with people."

"Thanks," he said.

"But you're my best friend, you know? Sometimes you're all that makes this job bearable. So it wouldn't be romantic, or shameful, or anything really, it'd just be...something we once did. Something we made, that's beautiful. He's my whole heart, he is."

"So?" Ianto said. "What did the test say?"

She glanced at him. He gave her a funny little smile. "I know everything. It's Jack, isn't it? He's too pretty to be anyone but Jack's."

"No, sweetheart," she said. "He's your son."

He wasn't sure if he'd expected a kick in the chest at the news, or to lose his head entirely, but neither happened. A last puzzle piece clicked into place, utterly different from the image he'd been expecting, but...

Well, of course he thought Price was the most beautiful child in the world. Parents always thought that of their babies. And now that he thought on it, Price did have a bit of a snub nose on him. Ianto himself had been a pretty calm baby, so his dad always said.

"That's all right then, isn't it?" he said, and pulled her close, arm around her shoulders, her head on his. He stroked her hair, kissed her forehead, and let her go.

"Come on, work to do," he said, standing up and offering her a hand. "Got to make the world safe for the little ones."

Inside, Jack was waiting for them; he caught them holding hands before they broke apart, and grinned.

END

Sing Morning Out Of Night; Who/TW/SJA, PG-13

2009-06-24T19:50:13Z

Big Bang is up!

For those just joining us, TARDIS Big Bang is a fic-and-art festival where writers submit a fanfic of 20k words or more, and then artists illustrate or vid the fic. You can find a more complete linkslist over at Copperbadge, but if you just want to find my fic and art they are located here:

Title: Sing Morning Out Of Night
Fandom: Torchwood, New Who, Sarah Jane Adventures
Rating: PG-13 (mostly for dark themes; no explicit sex)
Summary: A strange deck of Tarot cards, a dying TARDIS, and UNIT's invasion of a coastal Welsh village lead Torchwood to investigate the disappearance of the Doctor, with some help from Sarah Jane and Luke Smith. This is a new incarnation of the Doctor, however, and none of them are prepared for what they find as they unravel the mystery.

TARDIS Tarot card by caersmane
Book Cover by mad_jaks
Back Cover by mizz_destiny. (slightly spoilery, this one)

laurab1 also did two images not linked formally from Big Bang:
Jack with the TARDIS
Laughing Doctor Fourteen

Enjoy!

In Every Minute; PG-13

2009-05-30T13:22:10Z

Title: In Every Minute
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jack will live forever, but that's no reason not to live for now. Shortfic.
Notes: Thanks to 51stcenturyfox and cruentum for betas.

***

"You spent five years with John Hart," Ianto says once, in the dark.

He does that, sometimes; waking in the morning, or lying awake at night, or after sex (once in a while, before). He'll just say something, random and disconnected. Jack used to wonder if he had some kind of mental disorder left over from watching all his friends die horribly -- some little glitch that sometimes sent him slightly off-track from ordinary people.

He suspects, now, that Ianto just thinks Jack is following his leaps of logic from one subject to another. There is a lot Jack knows that nobody in this time can or will ever know, but his people are broken in very special ways, and Ianto might actually be better at deduction than Jack is.

Still, when Ianto brings up John Hart, Jack just snorts a laugh and rolls onto his back in Ianto's bed, arms lax and slung over his head.

"Five years? No," he says.

Ianto turns his head, a moving shadow. "No?"

"Not even close."

"But he said, that time in the bar..." Ianto trails off expectantly. Jack smiles. He waits, wondering if Ianto will ask more, but Ianto just watches him, eyes dark and half-lidded, patient. So patient, this one.

"What did we say?" Jack asks, prompting, gentle.

"Two weeks," Ianto repeats. "Except two weeks was caught in a time loop, so it was five years. Like having a wife, he said. And he was the wife."

"It was five years for who?"

He can hear the slight shift in Ianto's breath when he works it out.

"You were together for two weeks, while the rest of time looped around you," Ianto says. "So when you came out, five years had passed."

"Very good, grasshopper. Make a Time Agent out of you yet," Jack says, and half-means it. If he wanted to, he could spend ten minutes tomorrow making arrangements, and a recruiter from three thousand years in the future would come and offer Ianto Jones a job. It's happened before; with all of time at their feet, humanity of Jack's era can choose the brightest from all of history, not just the linear ones.

But he wants Ianto here with him. Selfish, perhaps. Still, Jack has so little that he holds to what he has. He believes that Ianto would choose to stay if he had the choice, and anyway the Time Agency always did fuck with timelines too much.

"So why the jokes about wives? Or was that just posturing for us kids?" Ianto asks. Jack lifts a hand to drag his knuckles down Ianto's chest.

"If you were a kid, we wouldn't be here," he answers, aware his voice is low and rough, the way Ianto likes to hear it. Ianto isn't distracted.

"The wives?" he says pointedly. Jack rubs his eyes with his other hand.

"Five years is a long time. Well, it was -- will be, in the then that hasn't happened yet. Five years ago text messages were the wave of the future. Who had a mobile ten years ago?"

Ianto blinks at him sleepily.

"Imagine what it was like for us," Jack elaborates. "Out we came, into a world we hadn't seen in five years, a world that had moved on. We were timelocked from going back -- long story. We only had each other for a while. It felt...safe, being with him. We were partners. We were the only ones who knew how it felt." He closes his eyes. "Like being married."

"Oh," Ianto says softly. He's silent for a while. "You've lost a lot of time."

Jack turns, at that, to look at him. "Hm?"

"Five years here, two years there -- that's what you said to me once, isn't it?" Ianto's gaze is steady. "They say when we're little time seems slower because we've had so much less of it. When you're five, a year is a fifth of your whole life. When you're ten, it's a tenth." He frowns. "We must seem so fleeting to you now."

"You still matter," Jack insists.

"Blink and we're gone," Ianto muses. Jack pushes himself up enough for the streetlight's glow to catch his face through the half-open curtains of the flat. He blinks deliberately. Ianto, to his surprise, bursts out laughing.

"So I'm morbid," he admits, looking up at Jack with a mixture of adoration and fear that is -- heady, and still makes Jack's pulse jump. "I know. Enjoy it while you can, eh?"

"Something like that," Jack agrees, because Ianto is young and missing the point, but hopefully he will understand before he dies.

Jack is old, so old, and yet he still lives every second. Ianto will be one moment in his long life, but inside of that moment it still feels like it could be forever. Just as it does with any lover, and has with all of those in the past.

It would be vastly unfair to remember the pain and not the pleasure, after all.

"Something like that," Ianto repeats his words sleepily, drifting off.

Jack counts the heartbeats in his lover's chest until it becomes abstract, a reassuring rhythm, and then he, too, sleeps.

I Make No Promises As To Historical Veracity

2009-05-16T13:53:37Z

Title: I Make No Promises As To Historical Veracity
Rating: PG
Summary: Ianto copes by inventing the coffee machine. Gwen copes by crossdressing. Shortfic.
Notes: Written in response to rm posting a steampunky coffeemaker and demanding a Torchwood steampunk AU. Which is not really AU so much as an unexplored branch, really. The original comment is on that post, this is the expanded and enhanced version.

***

The workbench in the tiny flat filled most of one end of the sitting-room. Gwen wasn't sure where he'd acquired it, but Ianto had his secrets and ways. It made her feel a little like she was back in the Sherlock Holmes stories she'd read as a child, though she was by no means certain that either of them were Sherlock Holmes. A pair of Watsons, getting through as best they could, she supposed.

The flat served their needs, anyway, and the rent was cheap. Two bedrooms, a sitting room, meals fixed by the wife of the landlord and not unappetising, if a little heavier than they were used to.

Ianto was bent over the broad wooden table, working busily away. Most days when she came off shift -- was it a week now? Two? -- he would still be at work, but she'd pulled the short straw for an overnight. She counted back, and realised it was the first time she'd seen him in nearly three days.

"What are you doing?" she asked, as he fitted a piece of piping to a glass beaker. Ianto merely lifted his head from the workbench and gave her a nod of greeting before turning back to his work.

"I have decided that I am not," he said, returning to where he was adjusting strange dials, "going to be stuck in the nineteenth century without proper coffee. I can cope with the mediocre food and the intolerable hygiene, but not without coffee. Not anymore!"

"Where can you get the -- "

"Beau Brummel!" Ianto continued, wrathfully, screwing a clamp shut over a beaker. "He may have inspired generations of male fashion but have you encountered the man?"

"No, but Iant -- "

"Because I have! He came into the shop yesterday. He's repulsive and backwards. This whole century can kiss my arse. I'm building a teasmade next. And if I can get the right chemicals, a proper refrigerator. And a stun gun," he added thoughtfully.

"But what about the beans?" Gwen asked.

"Beans?" Ianto turned to look at her blankly.

"Coffee beans."

"Oh," he waved a hand. "They import them. They're not complete savages. Only mostly. Jack had better find us and get us back through the Rift soon," he added. Then he paused. "Sorry. How was your night? Anything interesting happen?"

"Well, I went out for breakfast and George Sand invited me to dinner," Gwen said slowly. "She was having breakfast too."

Ianto raised his head slowly and turned to regard her. She shifted uneasily from foot to foot, cursing the uncomfortable police boots she was wearing.

"I think it was in the spirit of transvestite solidarity," she said.

"Well. Erm. You do look brilliant in that uniform," Ianto offered. Something hissed and spat deep in the bowels of the coffee machine he was building. "And in another few days you can ask her to have coffee with us. How's the job?"

"Coppering is coppering," Gwen shrugged, then caught his meaning. "Oh! No, nobody's figured out I'm a woman yet. Except Sand. What...about you?"

"Tailoring is tailoring, I suppose," he replied, but he muttered "Stupid Beau Brummel" under his breath. "I tidied the flat, by the way, and I'm almost done with your waistcoat and trousers."

He turned back to his work but didn't actually start working; instead he paused, then slowly straightened and looked at her.

"Wait. Does this make me the wife?" he asked finally.

Gwen grinned and kissed him on the cheek. "But you're such a good wife, Ianto."

Interrogation

2009-02-15T14:49:59Z

Title: Interrogation
Rating: Light R
Summary: After Jack returns and John Hart departs, Ianto and Owen both get to confront Jack about his immortality in their own way. (Jack/Ianto)
Notes: Something that occurred to me recently was that none of the Torchwood agents except Gwen really had the opportunity to process Jack's immortality when they found out about it, and they would naturally have questions when he returned. Thanks to mcgonagalls_cat for betaz!

***

The first word Owen said to Ianto after John Hart didn't blow up but did walk through an open rift was: "Dibs."

Ianto, who was following Jack to...well, to wherever Jack was going...turned his head but kept walking. "Sorry?"

"Dibs. On the Captain," Owen whispered.

Ianto half-smiled. "I'm sure he'll be thrilled."

"Funny. We have six hours of time-loop to take advantage of. Before Gwen drags him off again or Tosh catches another Rift spike or you distract him with coffee, I want half an hour with him."

"What are you going to do, kill him?"

"No. And also you have to help me."

Jack had stopped on a corner outside the parking garage, as if he were trying to figure out where to go next.

"Why?" Ianto asked.

"Okay!" Jack said, rubbing his hands together. Owen, who had been about to speak, snapped his mouth shut. Jack continued, oblivious. "We can't go back to the Hub. We have to clear out of here pretty fast. Who's got a spare secret headquarters on offer?"

"Can't go home," Gwen said. "Rhys is there. If I go home, he won't phone me, and..." she made a looping gesture with one hand.

"Mine's a bit close to the Hub for comfort," Tosh said. "And we went past it on the way to the bar. Risky for another hour or so."

"Don't look at me," Owen said. "I left a girl at mine when I went out on the call."

Jack gave him a momentary good for you look, then glanced at Ianto.

"I...was...at the Hub," Ianto said slowly. "All night. Well, or, out and about. Mine is a safe bet, so long as we're quiet and don't answer the phone."

"Good! Sleepover at Ianto's. Sweeter words, never spoken, all that jazz," Jack said, turning back to the street. Then he hesitated. After a few seconds of awkward waiting it became evident that Jack did not, in fact, remember how to get to Ianto's flat.

"It's not very far," Ianto said finally. "And we probably shouldn't use a cab."

"Lead on," Jack made a grand after you gesture. Ianto gave Gwen and Tosh a reassuring look and turned left. Jack, looking slightly relieved, followed. Owen darted around Jack and caught up with Ianto.

"What are you doing?" Ianto asked in a low whisper. Gwen and Tosh were talking with Jack, behind them, something about a welcome-back party. Jack was no doubt making remarks about clothing being optional.

"Okay," Owen said. "Think back. Jack bolted and the next day the PM-to-be sent us off to Tibet. What was the first thing we did after we got back from the Himalayas?"

"Went to a pub and got drunk," Ianto said promptly.

"Fine, the second thing."

Ianto looked thoughtful. "Got shouted at by Gwen for coming in with hangovers?"

"Between those two." Owen waited until it was obvious Ianto didn't get it. "We talked about Jack. Remember? You were going to punch him and I was going to tie him down and run tests on him. Which you didn't, by the way."

"Neither did you." Ianto frowned. "Also, I was dru...oh. Oh."

"Yeah. Help me get Gwen and Tosh out of the way for half an hour and you can have him for the rest of the night. All the punching you want. I'll help tie him down if you like."

"Not usually necessary, thank you," Ianto said absently. "You might wait a day or two to start playing Mengele with him."

"I just want to ask him some questions."

"Yes, he's so good at answering those," Ianto drawled.

"I can make him," Owen said grimly.

"You can't, but it'd be fun to watch you try. Why me, though? Gwen would be more help."

"You are a daft moron," Owen said. "You have to help me because you're the one he wants to get alone."

"Ianto," Jack said, catching up with them and slinging an arm equally around Owen and Ianto's shoulders, interrupting them before Ianto could react or reply. "You look like you're plotting something. Stop corrupting Owen, he's too good for this world."

Owen raised his eyebrows at Ianto across Jack's shoulders. Ianto nodded.

"I've often said he should find some other world to inhabit," he remarked, as they slowed to a halt. Gwen and Tosh came up behind them, hesitating on the edge of Ianto's vision.

"You seem like you're getting along okay," Jack observed.

"Conditional ceasefire," Owen said.

"Conditional on what?" Jack asked.

"You being gone," Ianto said. Jack flinched. "Now we'll have to renegotiate. By the way, unless you let go of me, I can't get my keys out. We're here."

Jack reluctantly released them and stepped back, shoving his hands in his pockets. Ianto unlocked the front door, held it for them as they entered, pushed past them in the foyer, and led the way up a flight of stairs to his flat.

It seemed tiny with five people in it, but at the same time having someone else in his flat pointed up how little he himself was there, and how perhaps he ought to really have a proper try at furnishing it one of these days. Owen studied the battered sofa while Gwen drifted to the window in the living room and Tosh perched on a chair at the small dining table, which was currently doubling as a workspace and bookshelf.

"Coffee," Ianto decided. "Gwen, can you help?"

"Of course, love," Gwen replied, turning and joining him in the kitchen. He moved quickly but subtly, so that he was blocking the door and she was on the inside.

"I think there's some biscuits too." He pointed to a high cupboard -- then, out of the corner of his eye, caught Owen bending to speak to Tosh, pressing something into her hand. Tosh looked annoyed, but a few minutes later the front door opened and closed as she left.

"Your kitchen's not very well-stocked," Gwen remarked. Ianto was busy measuring beans into the grinder and watching Owen and Jack talk quietly at the window.

"No," he said absently. "I was going to get groceries tomorrow."

"That's a lie," Gwen said cheerfully. "You're just never here."

"It's my secret method for success," Ianto confided to her. "I plan to make my millions by only eating on Torchwood's tab."

"What I mean is, that'll stop now that Jack's back, won't it?" she said. He stepped backwards and opened the fridge door to pass her the cream, just in time to block her from leaving the kitchen.

"Coffee cups in the cupboard," he said. Gwen nodded and went to get them. "Why would you say that?"

"What?"

"That I won't be at the Hub as much now that Jack's back."

"Well, one more person to take a shift. And you don't have to haunt the place waiting for him anymore."

"I wasn't haunting anywhere," Ianto said, annoyed. Gwen patted his arm. "I wasn't."

"Well, then, now that he's back he'll make you go home more often."

He couldn't see much more than body-language, from here. Jack looked stiff and awkward, Owen leaning into him with his usual on-the-case slouchy fascination.

"So," Gwen continued. "If we all stay here tonight, who's sleeping where? I don't think we should let Jack have the bed, he doesn't deserve it."

"Once you know Rhys has called you, you can go home, can't you?" Ianto asked. "That'll be nice for you. And Tosh'll be able to go home as soon as she knows we're not in the area anymore. The other us, I mean."

"All-boys sleepover?" Gwen raised her eyebrows.

"Stay if you want, it's no concern of mine what Rhys thinks," Ianto answered evenly.

"Mm. Point."

"Besides, Owen's girl is probably going to get tired of waiting for him. I'll send him off when you go."

"Still leaves the question of who gets the bed," Gwen said, but something in her tone made him glance at her as she watched the coffee percolate. She gave him a smug grin.

"As you say, perhaps Jack ought to be relegated to the couch," he answered smoothly.

"Coffee's almost ready," she prompted.

"Looks like Owen's having words with Jack," Ianto said, making a final gamble. "Best have a cup in here first."

"Why's Owen get first crack at him?" Gwen asked.

"Because you'll spend all tomorrow debriefing him on everything that's gone on, and because this is much better coffee than Owen deserves," Ianto said. He poured her a cup, added sugar, and offered it to her. She looked at him over the edge of it, measuring him in that disconcerting way she'd developed since taking over in Jack's absence, and sipped.

"You make it really hard to be angry at you," she said.

"It's the face." He pointed to his face. "Butter wouldn't melt in my mouth, you know."

Gwen grinned at him. "I thought it was the narcotics you were slipping into the coffee."

"Oh, well. A little chemical joy never did any harm."

"Honestly though, what do you think they're saying?" Gwen asked, peering past him. Ianto gave them a cursory glance. Looked like Owen was getting frustrated.

"I reckon Owen wants to find out what makes Jack tick. Well -- what makes him stop ticking and then start again."

"I keep forgetting none of you knew," Gwen remarked. "You won't get any answers out of him about that. I tried."

"I don't care," Ianto shrugged. "Owen does, though."

There was a buzzing noise in the living room. both Owen and Jack jumped, Jack's hand automatically going to the weapon at his hip. Ianto set his coffee cup down and walked to the front door, pressing the TALK and DOOR buttons simultaneously.

"It's open, Tosh," he called into the intercom, without bothering to push LISTEN to hear if it was her. Soon after, the front door opened and Tosh reappeared with a large brown paper bag.

"Owen bought us Chinese," she said, setting it on the table and opening the stapled-shut top of the bag. Ianto gently maneuvered her out of the way, into one of the dining-table chairs, and began passing around the food. Gwen sat in the other chair, Owen in a rickety wing-chair near the window, and Jack snatched a carton of fried rice with an almost religious expression on his face before sprawling on the sofa.

"We had a deal," Ianto said softly, handing a styrofoam bowl of spicy soup to Owen.

"Working on it," Owen muttered back. "Food first."

"So," Jack said, shoveling the rice into his mouth with characteristic enthusiasm, "in all the confusion, I didn't ask, but just how busted am I?"

It was almost comical how everyone looked at him at once. Even Owen stopped with a piece of chicken halfway to his mouth.

"Very," Ianto said, because someone had to say something. Jack gave him a curious look. "We're considering demoting you."

"Oh yeah?"

"You're probably going to have to depend on how much we missed you to prevent us from remembering how annoyed we are at you," Tosh put in.

"You let them get pretty noisy while I was gone," Jack said to Gwen. "I approve."

It was all very amusing and friendly, but there was an undercurrent of real resentment, too. Ianto knew that Jack was navigating difficult waters. Not that he deserved anything less; as it was they were going to let him back in with far less effort than most people would demand.

"I'd like to make a suggestion," he said. Everyone looked at him. "I'd like to suggest that we suspend this discussion."

"Until?" Jack asked.

"Uh...the end of time?"

"Which discussion exactly are we suspending?" Jack asked.

"Whether you're fit to command, where you went, what you did, what we did," Ianto said, ticking off each point on his fingers.

"It's the glad-to-see-you-again thing," Tosh added. Ianto loved Tosh. She always took the hint and usually could be counted on to get his back on a moment's notice. "And it's not funny, not really."

"Ianto's trying to say you should stop being charming because you're afraid we hate you," Owen said.

"Because we don't hate you," Gwen put in.

"Speak for yourself," Tosh replied. "But we won't let it get in the way of liking you."

Jack blinked at them.

"You can't have it back the way it was," he said slowly. "Things have changed. You've changed. I know I have."

"Yeah, but do we have to talk about it?" Owen asked.

Jack glanced at each of them in turn. "Motion seconded?"

Tosh raised her hand.

"All in favour?"

Everyone but Gwen put their hands up. Gwen sighed and raised hers, too.

"Motion carried. I won't be charming, you'll pretend you're not angry at me, and we won't talk about it. Well, see? We're working as a team again already," Jack said.

"Talking of," Owen set his empty soup cup on the table, "I need a ride home eventually. Tosh, you safe to go back yet?"

Tosh checked her watch. "Should be. Walk me back to mine, I'll give you a ride."

Ianto sometimes loathed, just a little bit, how much advantage Owen took of Tosh's good nature and affection for him. On the other hand, Owen had promised, and while Ianto wasn't sure what he'd do with that much time alone with Jack, he knew in an unconscious sort of way that he definitely wanted it.

"Gwen?" Jack asked. "Rhys call you yet?"

Gwen took out her mobile and switched it on. "Looks it, yeah. About fifteen minutes ago. I'm not far, I'll walk."

"Keep to side streets," Jack advised, helping Tosh on with her coat. She turned and gave his hand a squeeze. Jack grinned. "Stay safe out there. Take the night, get some rest."

"You're not going anywhere," Owen said, zipping his jacket. It was half a question, and oddly insecure coming from Owen.

"Nope. See you tomorrow morning," Jack said. Owen and Tosh were already out the door; Gwen stopped, gave Jack a searching, soulful look, and then followed.

When the door had closed, Jack sat down on the couch again, picking through the other boxes of food strewn around the coffee table. Ianto began clearing away the empty containers and the half-full coffee cups. He was just reaching across his dining table to pick up Tosh's when he felt Jack's hand on his arm.

"Let me help," Jack said. "You have your hands full."

Ianto lifted an eyebrow, but let Jack clear up the dining table and followed him into the kitchen. He poured out the coffee, set the cups in the sink, threw the cartons away, and found Jack blocking the exit to the kitchen not unlike he himself had been doing to Gwen earlier.

"The little runaround you and Owen just pulled," Jack said, leaning against the door-frame. "That was subtle. You two seem close."

"We've had to be," Ianto reminded him.

"What was the deal? What do you get in return for the half-hour alone he got with me?"

Ianto shrugged. "The rest of the evening."

Jack looked startled, as if that were the last thing he'd been expecting. The look lasted slightly too long before a slow, familiar smile spread across his face.

"Why, Ianto Jones," he said, pushing away from the wall and coming forward, stopping well into Ianto's personal space. "Why would you want that?"

Ianto didn't answer; he was trying to breathe and keep his head clear.

"And what are you going to do with me now that you have me?" Jack continued. Ianto swallowed.

"I have questions too," he said. Jack froze even as he was swaying forward. His nose brushed Ianto's cheek.

"I should have expected that," he said, breath warm on Ianto's skin. He leaned back. "I thought we agreed not to talk about where I was. You suggested it."

"That was a favour to you. I don't need to know where you were. That's not what I want to ask about."

Jack tilted his head. "Oh?"

Ianto nodded. He reached up and straightened Jack's collar slightly, smoothing one of his coat-lapels. He leaned in close, whispered in Jack's ear.

"You can't die," he said. Jack stiffened. "Or, I suppose -- you can't stay dead."

"It's not as great as it sounds."

"It sounds horrifying," Ianto agreed, and felt Jack relax a fraction, shoulder easing under his hand. "But I have questions."

Jack leaned into him slightly.

"Make you a deal," he said to Ianto.

"Seems to be my night for those."

"Take me to bed and I'll tell you what you want to know."

Ianto leaned back and gave him a skeptical look. "You never tell anyone anything."

"Take me to bed," Jack repeated, "And I'll tell you what you want to know. Where I was -- it gave me a new view on the trust I don't place in people. So. Take me to bed. I trust you to ask the right questions, and not to ask the wrong ones. I'll answer you."

Ianto slid his hand down Jack's arm, twined their fingers together.

"Done deal," he said. It occurred to him that he was selling himself for Jack's secrets, but he ignored the thought. After all, he'd done worse before. It wasn't like he didn't want this, and Jack apparently needed it. And it was a good excuse for both of them. He could have Jack and still be angry with him; Jack could talk to someone about his life without having to pretend he didn't want to, having to pretend he couldn't.

Ianto wondered, as he took Jack's coat and hung it on a hook in the living room, if he was ever likely to have a normal relationship again.

Probably not.

Jack was sitting on the bed when he walked into the bedroom, working at his boot laces, braces off his shoulders. Ianto pushed him back gently, then knelt to take the boots off.

"Optional question," he said slowly.

"Okay," Jack said.

"Wherever you went -- taught you to trust me more?"

"Yes," Jack said, one hand stroking Ianto's hair as he lifted his other foot to strip off his boot and sock.

"Why?"

Jack's hand kept moving, gentle -- but with an almost tangible desperation.

"I saw...things that test who a person is, things that teach you who you are. I know how far I can trust you to stand on my side," Jack said.

"How far is that?"

"Pretty goddamn far, Ianto. Come here."

Ianto stood, expecting Jack to stand as well, but instead he just slid back on the bed and looked up at him. Ianto could take an invitation when given -- he straddled his thighs, let Jack cup his face and kiss him, run his fingers through his hair again.

"It's been a long time," Jack said. "Long time since I could touch anyone like this."

Ianto began to ask how long, but stopped; Jack was trusting him not to ask questions that couldn't be answered. Instead, he bit Jack's lip gently and pressed forward to rest his hands on the bed, forcing Jack to lean back on his elbows.

"Has it always been this way?" he asked Jack, tilting his head. "Were you born this way?"

"No," Jack replied, kissing him quickly.

"When did you find out?"

Jack's eyes clouded. "A long time ago."

Ianto frowned, wondering...

"How old were you?" he asked.

"Thirty-five, I think. I was jumping in time a little, I'd lost track."

Ianto blinked. "Can't have been too long then, can it? How old are you now?"

Jack's face went...smooth, unyielding, unemotional. "A hundred and seventy. Give or take a decade."

It felt like a kick in the chest. A hundred and seventy years old. It had been strange enough to be ten years younger than a lover, which had been a guess at best.

Jack was seven times his age.

Jack was also staring at him, looking worried and almost fearful. Ianto dipped his head, nuzzled at Jack's collar, reached up with one hand to unbutton his shirt. Jack let him, tilting his head back and sighing softly.

"How much of that in Cardiff?" Ianto asked, kissing the underside of his jaw.

"About a hundred, maybe a little more." Jack reached up, balancing on one elbow, and tugged on Ianto's tie. "I can't tell you much about where I was before then. Timelines."

"Fair enough." Ianto leaned back, let Jack sit up and work the tie loose, unbutton his shirt. "Do you remember what happens when you're dead?"

"Not in this world," Jack said fiercely, shoving Ianto's shirt off his shoulders. When they kissed he bit Ianto's lips.

"What do you remember?" Ianto asked, struggling a little as Jack held him in place, wondering if he'd be bruised tomorrow.

"Darkness," Jack hissed. "And then light -- like being strafed. With fire."

"I'm sorry," Ianto mumbled against Jack's forehead, lifting up so that Jack could slide his trousers down.

"Doesn't matter," Jack said. He ran a hand down Ianto's chest, appreciative, almost covetous.

"Doesn't matter that it hurts?" Ianto asked. "Or doesn't matter that I'm sorry?"

Jack pushed him just enough to slide him off the edge of the bed. He kicked his clothing away, tugged on Jack's trousers to get them off as well.

"Either," Jack said, looking up at the ceiling. "I don't want pity."

"Who said that was pity?" Ianto replied, dropping to his knees. Jack caught one hand under his jaw and lifted it, shaking his head.

"You can't ask questions if you're doing that," he said, a half-smile on his face. "But that's really your choice."

Ianto smiled and let Jack guide him up onto the bed again, sitting lightly over him.

"What do you want?" he asked.

Jack lifted an eyebrow. "In general, or here in bed?"

"Either," Ianto echoed his words, down to the inflection. Jack laughed a little, but it didn't sound very honest.

"I want..." Jack rolled, pushing him down on his back. He looked suddenly possessive, and the desperation that had been shuttered away before was now there in full force. "I want something fast."

Ianto grinned. "In general or in bed?"

"In bed," Jack said. He leaned forward and Ianto wrapped his arms around his shoulders for leverage, arching in time with the rhythm Jack was setting. Skin against skin, messy but fast, which he could appreciate -- however long it had been for Jack, for Ianto it had been as long as Jack was gone, and he had no problems with fast. God, Jack smelled good, felt good, his hands...

"Were you born then?" Ianto asked, as Jack's hips bucked down against his.

"Born then?" Jack seemed confused.

"The past -- what, eighteen...hundred something..."

Jack chuckled. "Math's failing you?"

"Were you?"

"No," Jack answered, breath coming short and fast. "I told you when I'm from."

"What?" Ianto asked, momentarily distracted. Jack wasn't; he kept moving, kissing a line down Ianto's jaw, biting his earlobe.

"I told you -- when I'm from," he repeated. "The third time we met."

Ianto let his head fall back, considered it. The only time Jack had ever mentioned anything like that, back then, was --

"Fuck," he said. "I thought you were joking! Or -- or wearing some kind of -- " he moaned. "Fifty-first century pheremones..."

"You have no idea," Jack growled, amused, and bit his shoulder hard. The spike of pain made him twitch and struggle against the heavy weight on top of him, but Jack kept him steady, kept him grounded.

"Coming back," Ianto managed. "Does it make you -- feel -- alive?"

"No," Jack replied. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple. Ianto licked his skin -- oddly sweet, like the scent of Jack when one got too close. Apple-sweet.

"What do you want, Jack?" he asked again, around a gasp.

"Ianto," Jack murmured.

"What do you -- god -- what do you want?"

Jack pressed his forehead to Ianto's shoulder. "I wanted -- wanted to be -- fixed -- I wanted to be normal -- "

"What do you want?"

"I don't know," Jack moaned. He was shaking -- sobbing or aroused, difficult to tell with his face hard against Ianto's neck, hidden there. "I don't -- "

He stiffened, a half-suppressed yelp hoarse in his throat, and Ianto's own orgasm took him just as much by surprise a second later. He clenched a hand in Jack's hair, waited for him to relax -- the soft slump of muscle, the sprawl of Jack's body over his. Not unfamiliar, nor truth be told unwelcome.

Instead, Jack kept shaking. Clinging to him, shaking, short harsh breaths that would drive him over into hyperventilation soon. Ianto pulled his head up and kissed him, forced him to breathe through his nose -- deep, calming. When the kiss broke, Jack ducked his head and thudded it against Ianto's chest.

"I waited here for him for a hundred years," he said finally. "I waited for him to come back and fix me."

Ianto's heart broke for him, just a little, as angry as he was that Jack had abandoned them. He knew what it was like to hope for help, to hope that someone would fix what was broken even when you knew, really, that nothing could.

"He said he couldn't fix me at all. He said I shouldn't exist. And I don't know what to do now."

"Well," Ianto said thoughtfully, after a minute, "A glass of water and a washcloth would be nice."

Jack lifted his head, confused.

"Get off," Ianto said gently, as if speaking to a child. "I'll bring you some water."

Jack nodded, wiped his face and rolled to one side. One of Jack's hands traced his skin, ribcage-hip-thigh, as Ianto got off the bed and walked to the bathroom. The water seemed strangely loud as it ran into the glass.

When he returned, Jack sat up and took the glass, let Ianto wipe the sweat from his shoulders and -- well, other things -- from his body, before lying down again. Ianto sat on the edge of the bed, wondering what he should do. Material needs were really more his thing.

Jack cleared his throat hesitantly. "Thank you."

"We made a deal. I haven't any complaints."

That got him a slight smile. "I know. But..."

Ianto raised an eyebrow, turning just enough for his face to be visible.

"I didn't mean to do this," Jack said. "Not like this. I know you're angry I left. I would be too. I get that. I'm going to fix it. I am," he said, as if convincing himself. "I'm going to set things right with everyone."

"Tosh will have questions too. Owen will probably have more," Ianto said, as Jack tugged a corner of the blanket up over his body. "Gwen will no doubt press you on where you've been."

"Already has."

Ianto snorted. Jack grinned.

"Was she a good leader?" he asked.

"She wasn't you." Ianto plucked at the blanket. "There's no point comparing."

"Ianto."

He glanced back at Jack.

"Whatever...this was, tonight, it wasn't what it should be," Jack said cautiously. "It's not going to be this way. I don't want it to be. We can't go back, so we have to go forward. Works for us just like it works for the team. Do you understand?"

"Depends on what going forward means," Ianto said.

"Well, it means me buying you dinner at some point. Taking you to a movie...not fucking it up."

"Can I ask one more question?" Ianto said. Jack looked wary. "Optional answer."

"Go ahead."

"Do you want to die?"

Jack flinched as if he'd slapped him. Ianto kept his eyes on Jack's.

"Nobody who's seen death wants to die," Jack said quietly. "I want to be able to grow old. Make a life with someone. Stop...living through the centuries, watching everyone around me disappear. I don't want to be the only one anymore. And you can't help that, and he can't fix that, so it doesn't really matter."

"Jack -- "

"But I don't want to die. Not right now. Not yet."

Ianto nodded. Jack rested his head against one of the pillows, eyes closing. Ianto slid down onto the bed next to him, studying his still face. He was almost sure Jack was asleep, miracle in itself, when he spoke again.

"I watched you die," Jack said. "Where I was. Where I went. I had to watch you die. They brought you in and told you, kill him or kill yourself. You knew I wouldn't stay dead, you knew it wouldn't matter, but you still put the gun to your own head and pulled the trigger. And I thought, why would you do that?"

Ianto considered this information, feeling more detached than he probably should. "They sound like bastards. I probably knew I was going to die anyway."

"Yeah. That's what I thought after a while. You smiled when you did it. I just think..." Jack sighed. "I think you were showing them that they couldn't control you. I think you were being...yourself."

"Sounds like me," Ianto agreed. "Welcome home, Jack."

"I'm so glad none of you are dead anymore," Jack said, words slurring a little as he dropped into sleep.

Ianto lay awake for a long time, watching.

END

Good Boy; NCIS, R.

2009-02-14T20:06:06Z

Title: Good Boy
Rating: R for violence (no sex)
Summary: Tony needs Gibbs. Gibbs has his uses for Tony, too. This is dark and pretty gristly.
Author's Notes: Set basically in the same universe as the NCIS/Dexter crossover. I'm...quite disturbed that this came out of my head, in fact.

***

Snapshot:

He grows up in a house with everything but love. Sad story, but true.

He runs wild on an estate. Kills squirrels. Crack shot.

Snapshot:

His first real kill. Junior at boarding school.

He never takes souvenirs, already aware he's going to be a cop. Too dangerous to keep evidence around. While he takes them down he plays a movie instead. He prefers black and white, he discovers later, because when he watches the movie later the memory comes back in overwhelming technicolour.

And Bogart, but he's not sure why.

Snapshot:

First police job. He has to move on when things get intense, people get a little close. He bounces around for years after that. Never letting anyone get too hot on his trail. Nobody really suspects. He's very careful when he kills. And he kills scumbags, so the police don't even care too much.

Snapshot:

NCIS. Recruitment. Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

Tony recognises something -- something of the predator in Gibbs. And oh how he wants to please him, because Gibbs challenges him. Whacks him in the back of the head but indulges his quirks. Makes him feel like more.

He doesn't kill for almost a year and a half. He fights it off as long as he can, because of Gibbs. He can be better than this. He can watch the movies, that'll be enough.

For a while.

Snapshot:

His first kill as an NCIS agent. He can't resist. He picks a petty officer that everyone knew willfully killed civilians in Iraq. During peacetime occupation. Even Gibbs hasn't got much nice to say about the guy.

Tony takes the photos and takes them to Abby in the lab. When she brings them up, when he shows them to her, he's so excited he's practically climbing the walls.

"You're really into these, huh?" she asks. "Oooh."

"Oooh?" he says.

"I like this one," she says, pointing to his work his work! "It's going on my wall."

"Really?" He's so pleased. She beams at him.

When he comes down to the lab, for months after, it's like killing all over again. Every time they investigate one of his kills, he gets to take the photos. It's such a high.

Snapshot:

Third kill as an NCIS agent. Just after Cate Todd's death. He's angry, and hurting for Gibbs because Gibbs blames himself, and Tony gets sloppy.

Two weeks later, that's when Gibbs comes to him.

"Stand there," Gibbs says, and Tony stands very still in the dark, empty office after everyone's gone. Gibbs circles him once, steps up into his personal space, and smacks him hard on the back of the head.

"Thank you, boss," Tony says quickly. "Why am I thanking you?"

Gibbs just stares at him.

"Boss, seriously, what'd I do?" Tony asks.

Stare.

"Boss?" He's scared now.

"Willa Macintosh," Gibbs says softly, and Tony's guts go cold.

"Who's -- " he starts, and Gibbs smacks him so hard he jerks forward. Gibbs props him with a hand on his chest.

"Don't lie to me."

Tony fumbles for a minute. "What do you want me to say, boss?"

"I asked some questions," Gibbs said. "And followed my gut. And I found out about Willa. And the others. So I want you to answer me when I ask you this."

Tony nods, swallowing.

"Was she your first?"

"Yes," Tony says. Gibbs steps back and picks up a notebook on his desk. Gives it to him. Gives him a pen.

"Make a list," he says.

"Boss, I -- "

"Make a list," Gibbs says, iron in his voice but still almost...gentle. "I want to know all the names. And what they did."

Tony's head snaps up.

"You're not the kind of man who picks 'em at random," Gibbs continues. "You killed them because they did something. I want that list on my desk tomorrow. You bolt tonight, I'll find you and kill you myself. You still here tomorrow, we'll talk," he says, and walks away.

Snapshot:

"You never, ever kill again without my permission. I will tell you where and when."

"How?"

"You'll know."

Snapshot:

Once in a while Tony knows he's going to be sent after someone but he gets a little ahead of himself and he doesn't wait for the signal, for that look in his master's eyes that says it's Tony's turn to run loose. Gibbs never says anything, just looks disapproving and whaps him on the back of the head a little harder than normal.

But when he does let Tony off the leash, when they know someone did something bad and can't prove it in court, when Gibbs wants blood and Tony gets to play, oh yes. Only three times in two years and it's so good. It's all Tony needs.

Then Gibbs is gone -- hurt, amnesiac, gone to Mexico. Suddenly Tony's the boss. He wishes Jenny understood, he wishes he had someone to tell him what to do, because Jenny's stupid little undercover job is good but it isn't enough, nothing's enough and he's lost.

He fights and fights and fights and considers whether it wouldn't be better for everyone if he killed himself, or Gibbs for abandoning him, or everyone. But he does the job, and he watches the movies, and he plays Jenny's little games but soon it's not going to be enough --

Then it's not. And there's an innocent woman but she's close and convenient and Tony's so sorry afterwards. But there's nobody to be sorry to.

Snapshot:

Gibbs comes back.

"Boss, we need to talk."

Gibbs sits back and looks at him. He stands and gestures for Tony to follow him, and they go driving and Tony confesses, confesses it all. When he's done talking, Gibbs ups the speed on the car by about twenty miles an hour.

"I abandoned you," he says finally. "Not your fault. Blood's on my hands."

He turns to look at Tony, and his eyes are very sharp.

"You've got your absolution, DiNozzo. We go on from here."

"Yes, boss," Tony says, and tight tension unwinds in every muscle.

Master's back.

Snapshot:

Jenny's dead and Tony has his orders.

Agent Afloat.

Trapped.

Snapshot:

"You do someone on a carrier, you're gonna get caught," Gibbs says to him. "Every time you get shore leave, call me. You hear me?"

"Yes, boss," Tony says. He's miserable. He's being sent away. He knows it's because he fucked up, he lost Jenny, but it's so hard.

"Hey, DiNozzo," Gibbs says, and Tony forces his eyes up. Gibbs is looking at him with something almost like affection. "I'll find suspects for you. Get shore leave, call me. You do not do anything on that carrier. I'll get you through this."

"Thanks, boss," Tony says. His fingers twitch.

"Keep your weekend free," Gibbs adds. "You and I have work to do."

Snapshot:

Gibbs takes him hunting before he has to leave for the USS Ronald Reagan. Gibbs. Takes him hunting. Looking for a scumbag who deserves to die. It's the best weekend of Tony's entire life. No Ziva, no McGee, no Abby or Ducky. Just him and Gibbs.

And when they find the man they're looking for, Gibbs shows him how to set up a sniper's blind. Shows him how to take aim. Lets him pull the trigger with Gibbs' hands on his, helping him.

It's not a close-up kill and he doesn't get to have all the fun he normally has, but it's still his favourite.

"Look after yourself, DiNozzo," Gibbs says later, as Tony lifts his bags and prepares to board. Tony smells sawdust, and remembers the hunt.

Snapshot:

He hasn't seen Gibbs, actually seen him, in four months, and when Gibbs and Ziva turn up in Cartagena Tony is so relieved.

Gibbs brings him home. Home to Abby with photos of his kills on the walls of her lab, home to NCIS, home to dry land and millions of people where one murdered scumbag won't draw too much attention.

"Please, boss," he says, between cases. "Please, the next one? Please?"

Gibbs looks at him.

"Only if necessary, DiNozzo."

It's another two months before he's allowed off the leash. He didn't even know he had that much self-control. After, it's such a relief, and he ends up for the first time ever in Gibbs's basement, shaking and drinking bourbon while Gibbs works quietly nearby.

When he's finally calmed down, Gibbs looks up at him. Walks to where he's sitting on the stool at the workbench, and strokes his hair once.

"Good boy," he says quietly.

Tony beams.

See? Someone loves him. And that's all he really wants.

END

Style (Dexter/NCIS)

2009-02-11T02:31:42Z

Title: Style
Rating: PG-13 for gore and violence
Summary: Dexter makes a friend.
Fandoms: Dexter, NCIS

***

I knew the first time we met that he was a kindred spirit. It's something about the eyes, and the way we move.

Local NCIS stole a case from us when we found out he was a Marine, and they kept hitting a dead end so they asked for some hotshot from DC. They got the hotshot they wanted, too: Tony DiNozzo, all swagger and classic films and handsome sharp smiles. I kept my hand in the case because I'm better at spatter than their guys and they knew it, which is why I got to meet Agent DiNozzo, and give him the grin -- the one that says, I know what you are.

We both figured out who it was pretty early on. There was a guy, and a little girl who got raped, and her dead Marine daddy. We were still looking for proof the guy raped the girl and killed her dad when we both realised it was a race.

Not to catch him and convict him. Oh no. Just a race to find him. A private race. Between Dexter and DiNozzo.

He got there first.

Well, I wasn't far behind, actually.

I walked in when he was elbows-deep in the guts of a living man. I liked DiNozzo; he's got flair, so I let him live even though he was poaching on my territory. He got scared, of course, until I picked up a knife and said, which is pretty snappy if I say so myself, "Mind if I cut in?"

After we finished having our fun, we had a few beers (he brought a cooler). "Rule Fifteen: never drink on the job; wait until after. That's what my boss says," he said to me.

"I like his style," I said. "He teach you how to cut like that?"

DiNozzo shook his head. "Nah. I watch a lot of autopsies. And I have this friend, Abbs. She likes crime scene photos, the gorier the better, she's always got something new to show me. She's seen some of my work. Doesn't know it though."

"You keep a kill count? Souvenirs?"

"Can't afford to." He laughed then. "You know what's funny? I've been accused of murder like...three times. And none of them were ever my hit. They've tossed my place, they've put me in cuffs, they've interrogated me for three murders I never committed. One time they thought I was a biter."

"Are you?"

"Ew, and no," he said. I shrugged. Takes all kinds. "I've killed eighteen scumbags who richly deserved it, but I didn't shoot my girlfriend's dad either. Even if he probably deserved it too. So," he added. "You like blood."

"Yeah. You?"

"I like classic film," he said contemplatively. "So, where do you dump around here?"

"I got a boat. Want me to handle it?"

He lit up with a smile. "Would you? I was worried about that."

"Sure, no problem."

"Hey, listen, I really didn't mean to steal your thunder here. You come up to DC sometime, I'll give you a tour, we'll have some fun."

I gave him my business card.

"You really don't keep any souvenirs at all?" I asked, as we parted ways.

"It's all up here," he said, tapping his temple. "Be seeing you, Dex."

"Seeya, DiNozzo."

I Were The Heavens; Torchwood, PG

2009-01-07T04:05:15Z

Title: I Were The Heavens
Rating: PG for language
Summary: A sixteen-year-old boy from Boeshane is going to win the war. The Time Agency has a vested interest in children like him -- and so does the Admiral of the Fleet.

***

The boy walked with a soldier's swagger, though he couldn't have been fully out of adolescence yet. Not a march, precisely; back stiff, shoulders set, a cocky tilt of the hips as he moved. Part of it was surely the nuskin bandages that Levy knew were strapped tightly around the boy's ribcage, extending up along the left side of his neck and down his half-mangled right arm.

"You wanted to see me, sir," the boy said, standing to attention in front of the table.

"Sit down," Levy replied, kicking a chair out for the boy to sit in. Brown hair, bright eyes. Someone's darling. A heartbreaker already. "What's your name, kid?"

"Lo," the boy said.

"No surname?"

"No, sir."

"How long's your colony been out?"

The boy shrugged, a difficult maneuver. "My parents a -- my parents were second-generation."

"What's your colony?"

"Boeshane," with a proud note in his voice.

"Lo Boeshane," Levy noted it in the digital pad. "Your parents are dead?"

"Yes, sir."

"Any family I can contact for you?"

The boy gave him a grim smile. "No family, sir."

"Friends? Godparents?"

"You'd know better than I would, sir. I haven't seen Boeshane since my mother died. I hear it was strafed."

"Not as badly as some. When did your mother die?"

"Two years ago, standard time."

"You should make up a list of people who might still want to hear about you. At least let me know what county you were settled in."

"Peninsula, sir. South County."

Levy smiled. "I hear there's good fishing in South County."

The boy just watched him. Levy sighed. Around them, doctors and nurses and fellow patients were covertly watching -- bending to their meals, whispering to each other, tipping their heads. That's the boy. That's Admiral Levy. What do you think he knows?

"Do you know who I am, Lo?" Levy asked.

"Admiral Levy, sir. Hundred and thirty-first fleet. Last news we had was that you were in combat two systems over from us."

"You're young to be a soldier. What division were you with?"

"Forty-third."

"Guerillas. Not surprising. They shanghai kids now?"

"We volunteered." Lo's uninjured hand spasmed -- a tight clench and a forced relax. "I volunteered."

"Forty-third's been destroyed. Presumed, anyway."

"I can confirm that."

"I think you can confirm more than that, Lo Boeshane," Levy said, giving him a level stare. "Do you know why I'm here?"

"I didn't think Admirals generally gave debriefings," Lo said sardonically.

"You flew a captured Fleet fighter out of an enemy carrier ten minutes before the Fleet blew it to hell," Levy said bluntly.

"Yes, sir, I did." The boy took a scribepad out of his pocket.

Levy waved it off. "It can wait."

"With all due respect, sir -- "

"I know what the doctors and the other soldiers have told you, but believe me, it can wait an hour. I want to hear what happened from your mouth first."

Lo nodded and swallowed. "We were flying a small operation, bombing the Flyers in scouts."

"Fleet issue?"

"Salvage."

"Rustbuckets."

Lo gave him a sudden, bright grin. "Yes sir."

"Go on."

"The Flyers crippled the right engine and pulled us in. Me, my copilot, two other ships that I saw. The last thing we saw was the carrier taking fire. Most of the forty-third was on board. Couple of scouts might have got away."

"You were actually in a Flyer ship."

"Yes, sir."

"You know a lot of people will think you're telling a lie."

Lo shrugged. "Fuck 'em."

"What happened next?"

"We popped the cockpit when we got inside and..." Lo gave a bitter laugh. "We tried to run. Like we were going to get somewhere. Me, my copilot, and our wing captain were taken to a holding cell and isolated. The specs are on the scribe."

"You've seen Flyers, actually seen what they look like?"

Lo nodded soberly.

"Well?"

"They're a little taller than us, generally, from what I saw. Tripedal, with one retractable limb. Four claws on each foot. Round trunk, three muscular boneless extensions at the top with prehensile flanges, optical organs in the trunk. They speak using a membrane with an outer tongue," Lo said, and lifted his head, lowering his jaw. He moved his tongue against his upper palate, demonstrating. "No teeth," he added, lowering his head.

"Did you see your copilot and captain again?"

Lo's eyes flickered. "We could hear each other through the walls. They weren't really right walls, more like barriers. Like we were in the same room but couldn't see each other. The Flyers came for the wing captain first. I don't know what they did to him. He didn't come back."

"And your copilot?"

That same odd spasm. Lo looked away.

"I don't think that's relevant, Admiral."

"Why don't you let me decide what's relevant, Lo."

"Because you haven't seen them, sir, and you don't know what I know," Lo replied. His eyes were cold and flat. Levy decided to humour the kid.

"What do you know, then?" he asked.

"I know how you can win the war, sir."

Levy sat up a little. "You know their weak point? Ship vulnerability?"

The boy shook his head. "Their ships don't have vulnerabilities."

"So you're saying they don't have weak points."

"Not technologically," Lo said. "Physiologically."

"If we can't get to them -- "

"Sir, if there's anything being captured and tortured and the only person ever to fly away from a Flyer ship has taught me, it's that you don't need to breach a hull to destroy something," Lo snapped. He could have been a militia drill sergeant, dressing down a recruit. His voice cracked like a whip.

Levy drew in a breath. "You were tortured, son?"

"I'm a Corporal, Admiral. I'm not your goddamn son," Lo snarled. "Do you want to win the war?"

"No, Corporal, I thought I'd like to lose it and let the Flyers just have their fun with my entire race," Levy snarled back.

"Then you're doing a fucking great job of it."

Levy waited for Lo to realise what he'd said, to stop breathing hard and ease back into his chair slightly, before he continued.

"I want to win this war as much as you do, Corporal," he said. Lo lifted his chin a little at the use of his rank. "What do you know?"

Lo drummed his fingers on the table and leaned forward. He began to talk, and after a few seconds Levy began to listen.

It was a badly-told story, leaping from point to point with no logical links inbetween, but with all of the information it made sense. And it was very useful. At the end of it, Lo was shaking. A doctor wandered over, seemingly at random, and placed a hand on Lo's good arm.

"I think that's enough for now, Admiral," she said softly. "The boy's still healing, and he needs his rest."

Lo watched Levy carefully until the Admiral nodded.

"Go and sleep, Corporal," he said. "In the morning I want you to meet some friends of mine. You've done well. I'll contact the authorities on the peninsula and let them know where you are."

"Thank you, sir."

"Oh nine hundred tomorrow. Eat a good breakfast," Levy nodded, and watched as the doctor led Lo away, casually sliding her hand down his arm to twine her fingers in his.

***

The next morning, Corporal Lo Boeshane presented himself at the Admiral's temporary office in service greys. Levy didn't ask where he'd got them. His insignia cords and pilot's straps were crisp and perfectly fitted, hair brushed and clipped in a style closer to guerilla than Fleet, but after all that was what Lo was. He looked like he was about thirteen years old.

"Officers," Levy said, turning to the screen on the wall where most of the Fleet's brass were tele'd in. "This is Corporal Lo, forty-third guerilla militia out of Boeshane."

"Officers," Lo said crisply.

"How old -- " one of them began, and Levy cleared his throat sharply.

"The Corporal comes to us as the only survivor of Flyer...hospitality. He has some pertinent observations and is to be treated as an intelligence consultant. Questions will be taken after he is finished. Corporal...?"

Lo gave him a nod of acknowledgement and faced the screen.

"I spent two months on a Flyer ship," he said. "I interacted with them constantly. I began to notice that I rarely saw the same Flyer more than two or three times, and they seemed to have a high mortality rate outside of combat. Flyers breed like fu -- like rabbits, and they die constantly. They have very fast reflexes, which is probably how they've been able to outmaneuver us. They seem to live sped-up lives."

He glanced at Levy, who gave him an encouraging look.

"Flyer lifespan is about a week and a half, two weeks tops. I did not escape from the Flyer ship. They let me go. I believe they eventually released me because they had forgotten how long I had been there. After...certain events, I was left alone for long periods of time."

One of the strategic commanders extended his fingers in a silent request. Lo nodded at her.

"How do they manage such a high level of continuous technology if that's the case?" she asked.

"Time from birth to maturity is almost nonexistent. Information is passed on quickly. The younger learn from the older. But if you've got five generations passing in two months, things can get a little...warped," Lo said.

"How does this help us, Corporal?"

Lo looked like he was trying to be patient with a small child. "If information isn't constantly reinforced it gets lost. They didn't see me all the time so they forgot I was a threat. They probably thought I was too infirm to do them any harm, given how long I'd lived. To them."

"Tell them what you suggest, Lo," Levy said softly.

"If we continue to constantly attack them they'll continue to remember that we're a threat," Lo said. "They have superior firepower and technology."

"We can't very well stop attacking them," a Fleet commander burst out.

"Nosir, I know that," Lo replied. "But if we focus our efforts on defending the colonies and ships, they'll forget we have offensive capability. They'll think all we can do is defend. If we pull back and blockade them from the colonies for a year -- even six months -- when we attack again they'll be totally blindsided."

There was silence from the conferenced brass. Levy let it spool out, pleased that Lo didn't speak either.

"How do we know they haven't broken you?" an Admiral in dress blacks finally asked. "Planted this idea in your head?"

"It does seem to put us at a disadvantage for the next six months," the tactician added.

"You don't," Lo replied. The tactician frowned.

"Admiral, would you dismiss the corporal for a moment?" she asked.

"Go on, Lo. I'll call you back when we're ready for you."

"Officers," Lo said, and left the room. Levy turned to the waiting faces.

"This can't be true, Levy -- " "He's just a child -- " "He might be lying for the hell of it -- "

"Excuse me," the tactician interrupted.

"Go ahead, Ania," Levy said.

"I have an idea. We can test the boy's theory easily; we'll set a blockade up at Boeshane. The whole Boe system, if we need to, it's only one system and they already have a toehold there. Test it out for a month, see what happens. Don't tell the boy. Set up another blockade with orders to attack if the Flyers buzz it. If they think their plot has worked, they won't be expecting the offensive. We can tell from their tactical reactions whether they anticipated blockades. If Lo's story is true, his advice is sound. He's one hell of a find, Levy."

"I'm aware," Levy replied.

"I'll make the arrangements. Tut!" she added, when the others moved to speak again. "Might I remind you I'm strategist for this entire sector. You can obey me or you can resign."

"Ania -- " several voices began, and she shushed them.

"We are doing this, officers. Levy, pleasure as always. Commandant Ania out."

One by one the faces winked off the screen. Levy opened the door and jerked his head. Lo rose from his seat on the bench across the hall and hurried inside.

"I can't actually tell you what their decision was," he said, when Lo glanced curiously at the darkened screen. "But I'll be leaving soon. I want all the specs you have, technological and physical, before I depart."

"What about me, sir?" Lo asked. Levy blinked at him.

"What about you?"

"My orders, Admiral."

"Your orders?"

"I'm not decommissioned."

Levy shook his head. "You are going to stay here, Corporal, and heal and rest. You're overdue for shore leave, for a start."

"But I want -- "

"I'm sorry, was the military interested in what you wanted?"

Lo bowed his head. "No. Sir," he said venomously.

"I'll be back for you in a month. Stay out of trouble. Play a hologame or something. You're sixteen, Corporal. Try to act your age."

"Sir."

"I didn't hear you, Corporal."

"Yes, sir."

"Better. Dismissed. Lo -- " he added, as the boy turned to go.

"Sir?"

"Good job."

Lo turned away. "Good job doesn't bring my copilot back, sir."

Then he was gone.

***

A month later, an odd newsbite bolted across the net about a huge rout of Flyer ships at Boeshu, one planet out from Boeshane. Lo was eating breakfast when he saw it, and he smiled. He'd had pals who'd died at the first siege of Boeshu; he imagined their ghosts fighting behind the Fleet ships, in wispy white ghost rustbuckets, and the image pleased him.

Two hours later, Admiral Levy sat down next to him on a couch in the hospital library and rested his arms on his legs, lacing fingers in the space between, eyes straight ahead. Lo, facing him, watched curiously.

"You have a decision to make, Lo Boeshane," Levy said quietly. "One choice means that two years from now, the entire galaxy will know your name."

"I don't know that I want the galaxy to know my name," Lo said cautiously.

"Uncommonly wise."

"Thank you, sir."

"The other choice is not appealing, I think. On my recommendation, you will be demobbed -- "

"Demobbed!" Lo said, outraged. "But I wa..."

He shut his mouth with a snap when Levy turned his head.

"You will be demobbed with a medical discharge under the auspices of the hundred and thirty-first. You will join the next medical transit ship to the Home System."

Lo bit his tongue trying not to talk. The Home System was eight or nine systems away. He'd never get back to the fighting.

"You will be entered as a third-year student at Quantico Station. Do you know what Quantico Station is?"

"F...Fleet Officer Training," Lo said, struggling to get the words out.

"That's correct. I thought you might bypass the shoe-shining and floor-scrubbing and go straight to the military history and command training. FOT Quantico will babysit you for two years. By then the war will either be won or the Flyers will have reached the Home System and we will all be dead. If you breathe a word of what I just said to a soul, you'll find yourself inconveniently airlocked."

Lo nodded.

"At the end of your second year you will be offered a commission with the Fleet and you will turn it down."

"...I will?" Lo asked carefully.

"Yes. And here is why," Levy said, turning to face him fully. "If you do well at Quantico there will be a fully paid veteran's scholarship waiting for you with the Agency Academy on the Cascade Rift. You will accept the Agency scholarship and after a year of training with the Agency you will accept a commission as a Time Agent. Have I made myself clear?"

"Why?" Lo blurted.

Levy smiled at him.

"What do you think I am, Lo?" he said, and pulled up the long sleeve of his dress blacks. There was a thin leather strap underneath. Lo stared at it.

"The Agency has a vested interest in children who win wars," Levy said. "Not so much in children who want to be famous."

Lo chewed on his lip. "Three more years of school," he said.

"I doubt Quantico will be much of a trial. A little history, some refinement on your piloting, whatever language and mathematics you missed by volunteering before your voice broke. Lots of fun to be had, though. Pretty boys and girls in cute uniforms," he added with a smile. Lo smiled hesitantly back. "The Time Agency takes only the most elite students. And then all of space and time will lie at your feet. A fair reward. Fairer than being an aging poster boy for a war people will have forgotten by the time you're thirty."

He carefully laid two objects on the couch between them. A passport on Lo's left, a pilot's armstrap on Lo's right.

Lo thought of his copilot, tortured to death in front of him. He thought about being famous for being the one who didn't die. He thought about how you couldn't chase ghosts forever.

He picked up the passport.

"Good man," Levy said. "Your transport leaves tomorrow morning. With any luck, I'll see you at your Quantico graduation."

"Sir," Lo said, studying the passport. Lo Boshane. Student. Planet of Origin, Boeshane. Peninsula. South County.

"I didn't hear you, Corporal."

"Yes, sir," Lo repeated dutifully.

Levy collected the armstrap and left.

***

A tall, ginger-haired man was standing in Levy's quarters when he arrived from the library.

Such a fashion victim. Black twenty-first century trousers with fraying cuffs, leather boots, white tunic (late twenty-eighth from the look of it), and a perfect windsor-knotted black necktie over the tunic's banded collar.

"You're mucking about with time," the Doctor said. Levy sighed and dropped into a chair, propping his feet on the table.

"It's what I do," he replied.

"You know how dangerous -- "

"It's interesting," Levy continued, casually, as if the Doctor hadn't spoken. "When I was at the Time Agency -- first time round -- it wasn't any secret that an Admiral had taken an interest in me. There were remarks made about how alike we looked. It's the jawline, I think. Anyway, plenty of people thought he was my father. Hell, by the time I grew out of gangly and into the perfection you see before you," (the Doctor snorted), "I half-believed it. It's not like parentage really mattered by then. I thought it would have been nice to have a father," he added wistfully.

"What have you done?"

"Nothing that I hadn't already. I looked Levy up, the real Levy," Levy said, undoing the buttons on his dress-black coat. "He died four years ago, but I know he's the one who sent me to the Agency. So I jumped back a year or two, stepped into his place, hid the body, claimed I was him and I'd had reconstruction because I was feeling old. Mortals will buy anything if you say it with a smile."

"You're talking to a mortal, Jack Harkness," the Doctor pointed out.

"Well, some mortals, then," Levy answered. "This is what happened. Sometimes you own time, sometimes you're time's bitch. I have to do it because I did it because I do it because I have to do it. But keep your innocence if you want to, gorgeous. It suits you."

"Jack -- "

Levy stood up, circled the table, and got as close as he dared. The Doctor didn't recoil. Getting mellow in his dotage, perhaps. Or perhaps just getting used to the universal constant.

"Call me Lo," he said.

The Doctor arched an eyebrow.

"Lo Boeshane," the Doctor replied.

"Lo Boeshane. Unsung hero of the Flyer war, Quantico valedictorian, Time Agency scoundrel -- Doctor's companion -- Torchwood's lapdog, Torchwood's bulldog, Torchwood's top dog, Managing director of the Library, King of Gethane System, executed as a traitor in the Planetary Civil War, Colonist of Deshane, Professor of Earth History at Kethsai University, Admiral of the Fleet."

"Quite the resume."

"I get around."

"Yes, I know."

Levy grinned. "I know how it feels. Like an itch in the back of your head, like a wrongness. It's not for very long, though. Blink of an eye to me. Don't like it, jump on three years. Lo Boeshane the Younger will be on his chosen path, and I'll be history, very literally."

"This is a dangerous time, Lo. Living two lives simultaneously."

Levy leaned close and kissed the Doctor, just below the temple. "Always looking out for us humans." He leaned back and smiled. "Go on with you, kid. Catch up in a few years."

"Don't think I won't," the Doctor answered, pointing a finger at him.

"I look forward to it. Say hello to Jenny for me."

"I'll give your regards to Ianto, too."

Levy laughed delightedly. "God! Please do. Kiss him for me. What a spitfire he was."

"Goodbye, Lo."

"G'bye, Doctor. Catch you around."

"You always do," the Doctor said. Levy watched him step inside the TARDIS (scrunched into a corner in a way that shouldn't be possible) and listened to the familiar, pleasant whine of its disappearing.

Then he went to find dinner, and maybe the companionship of that doctor he'd had a fling with the first time round.

END

Star of my life, to the stars your face is turned;
Would I were the heavens, looking back at you with ten thousand eyes.
-- Plato

The Gift Of The Mad Guy (Doctor Who, PG)

2008-12-22T03:19:09Z

Summary: The Doctor joins some Kings of Orient following a star, helps a quartet of sociologists, gets thrown in prison, meets shepherds (ditto: talking sheep), finds a baby in a stable, uses Christmas carols for nefarious ends, and learns The True Meaning Of Camel.
Notes: I can't take credit for the turtles; it references an urban-legendy anecdote, by way of Stephen Fry on Quite Interesting. Thanks to hija_paloma for beta-reading.

The Gift Of The Mad Guy
A Doctor Who Christmas ~~Special~~ Fanfic

"Hey. Mister."

The Doctor had found, as time wore on, that his senses were sharpening. His tenth body had a particularly keen sense of taste. Also a good ear, or he probably would have missed the sound entirely in the crowded marketplace.

"Mister, hey, mister, c'mere."

He stopped, casting about for the source of the voice. He'd set his destination at random and had no idea which planet he was on, and was consciously ignoring what time it was; there were humanoids, and things were for sale, so nothing could be too wrong with the universe.

"Mister, over here."

He turned the other way and almost collided with a woman selling figs. Beyond her, five malevolent-looking quadrupeds were tethered to a wooden rail. Camels -- dromedaries? Camels? You go about calculating the quantum waveform-collapse point of neutron stars with no trouble, but the old one-hump-or-two thing is always a toss-up. Like whether you're supposed to feed a cold and starve a fever, or starve a cold and feed a fever. Really ought to get that one down, being a Doctor and all.

They must be camels, he decided, and also made a mental note to scare up a new Companion at some point because rambling on like that in his head was much more unsettling than doing it aloud to someone else.

He glanced around and then strolled casually over to them.

"Were you talking to me?" he asked the nearest one politely.

The camel rolled its eyes. "Do you see anyone else around here who speaks Hrnuf?"

"Oh!" The Doctor beamed, suddenly. "You aren't camels or dromedaries. Big relief, I can tell you."

"Told you," said the ca -- the Hrnu next to him. "I smelled it on him a mile off."

The Doctor sniffed the air delicately.

"Time travel," the first Hrnu said. "Smells like pomegranates."

"Brilliant! I never knew that," the Doctor said. "I'm the Doctor."

"Gene. That's Maud, Mildred, and Cornelius." Gene the Hrnu Not A Camel nodded his head expressively.

"What about h....er?" the Doctor guessed, pointing to the fifth one.

"He's a camel," Gene said impatiently.

"Well, he's still got a name, hasn't he?"

"We just call him Sticks," Maud said, flaring her prodigious nostrils.

"Why do you -- " the Doctor got a good look at the legs on the fifth member of the retinue, then decided he didn't really need to ask.

"Listen, could you do us a favour?" Gene continued.

"Sure, sure," the Doctor agreed. "Blimey, do these lot know you're here?" he added, jerking his head at the humanoids going about their business.

"Do we look like idiots?" Cornelius asked. "They're humans."

"Ah," said the Doctor, wondering vaguely why he always ended up with humans. Probably some great universal reason, unknowable to less cosmic minds. Destiny, fate, kismet. Or maybe the TARDIS just really liked humans. "Why are you here, anyway?"

"Oh, you know..." Cornelius trailed off.

"Students?" the Doctor asked knowingly.

"Sociology," Maud said. "It's our internship."

"Studying humans?"

"Good god no," Gene said. "We thought the camel population might be interesting, but they're -- "

"Really, really not," Cornelius said.

"No knowledge is wasted," Gene scolded.

"You must be Professor Gene," the Doctor said.

Gene preened a little. "I like to think of myself as more of a mentor, really..."

"Until he gets us lost," Maud remarked to no one in particular.

"My point," Gene announced, turning to give her a glare, "is that we've got two days to get to our ride and -- "

"Oi! You there!" came another voice, and the Doctor turned to find two men in expensive-looking robes bearing down on him. "What do you think you're doing with our camels?"

"The fuzz!" Mildred whispered, and all four of them bent in unison to the hay-bale nearby. Sticks looked around vaguely and then began chewing on his tether rope with placid indifference.

"Hiya!" the Doctor said cheerily. "Just admiring your fine examples of...camel...dom. Dromedaryism?"

"How do we know you're not a thief?" one of the men asked.

"Well, you don't," the Doctor admitted. "But honestly if I were going to go round stealing livestock I'd hardly do it in broad daylight in the middle of a market, would I? Place isn't exactly built for high-speed camel chases, after all."

The men looked at each other.

"Then what...were you doing?" one of them asked curiously.

"Told you, admiring your camels. Fine lot," the Doctor said, and smacked Maud on the shoulder. A puff of dust rose up and she snorted and gave him a look that said there would be words about it later. "You must just be passing through yourselves. I'm the Doctor. And you are...?" he held out his hand.

The taller of the two shook it. "Jasper. This is Mel. Sorry for shouting, but you can't be too careful these days."

"Oh, I think you can always be too careful. The trick is in being just careful enough," the Doctor observed. Mel, who was shorter and had the air of peering over the rims of glasses even though he wore none, tilted his head.

"That sounds like an epigram," he said. "You said you were a doctor?"

"The," the Doctor said. "The Doctor."

"Is there only one in your country?" Jasper asked.

The Doctor bit his lip. "These days, yeah," he said. "Anyway. Nice camels. Where are you gentlemen headed?"

The pair exchanged looks.

"We're astronomers," Jasper said finally. The Doctor kept his smile fixed in place, waiting for them to continue. "We're researching a phenomenon."

"Superstitious twaddle," Maud mumbled into her hay.

"A comet?" the Doctor asked, ignoring her.

"A what?" Mel said.

"There you are!" came a new voice.

"This is getting to be quite the conference," the Doctor murmured, as a young man carrying a wicker basket approached.

"I have been combing the markets for you two," he said. "Gossiping with foreigners as usual, I suppose."

"As foreign as they come," the Doctor said. "I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor, this is Balthasar," Jasper sighed. "We were just discussing astronomy, Balthasar."

"We don't need any horoscopes told," Balthasar said.

"Oh, I don't tell horoscopes," the Doctor replied. "Also, that's astrology. Anyway, I'm dead good at camel-wrangling. Don't suppose you're in need of a groom for these fine animals?" he added, this time remembering to give Sticks a slap instead of one of the others. Sticks promptly tried to bite him. The Doctor jerked back just out of reach, and the Hrnus shoved Sticks around to the other side of the pole. Balthasar had a hand over his mouth, apparently trying to hide his grin.

"But you don't know where we're going," Mel said.

"Neither do you," the Doctor rejoined.

"He has a point," Jasper said to Balthasar.

"We know where we're going, we just don't know when we're stopping yet," Balthasar said. "Anyway, he looks sturdy enough. Can you cook?"

"Course!" the Doctor said indignantly. "Well. Not cook so much as...reheat. And by reheat, I mean pull the tab on the little..." he trailed off, realising he'd lost them. "Yes. Yes I can."

"Good, you're hired," Balthasar said.

"What's in the basket, anyway?" Jasper asked. Balthasar slung it into a pack sitting on the ground nearby and heaved the whole thing onto Maud, who swore loudly in Hrnuf.

"Language," the Doctor murmured.

"Stuff," Balthasar replied to Jasper.

"Stuff?" Jasper asked.

"I bought some herbs and incense," Balthasar said, giving Jasper a look. "Right; your first job as stable boy is to get this lot saddled and try not to lose any fingers."

The Doctor gave the Hrnus a warning glance and picked up one of the peculiarly-shaped saddles. Beaming, he began settling them on the aliens' obedient shoulders.

***

Riding a Hrnu was not the most comfortable of experiences, but he soon settled into the jostling, rambling gait as well as he was likely to. The trio of humans were not exactly great conversationalists; they did talk a lot, but it was all philosophy and the most egregiously bad science the Doctor had encountered in some time. The Hrnus were fun, though.

"This is the life," Gene announced, as they plodded through the empty scrubland. "Fresh air, nice hot climate...reminds you of home, doesn't it?"

"Reminds me of the last three weeks," Cornelius said, and jostled Jasper extra-hard. "Not that I'm not having fun, Gene, but I'm ready to move on."

"Only two more days," Maud said. "Besides, it's better than being cooped up in some space station lab or a classroom."

"We're seeing the universe!" Gene enthused. "Meeting new people!"

"Sticks isn't people," Cornelius said.

"Technically he's a camel," the Doctor remarked, and then winced when the three humans glanced his way.

"What did you say?" Jasper asked. The Doctor opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again.

"I said, where...I'm from...we believe...camels," he said finally. The Hrnus snorted with laughter. "That's right. The whole world is the hump on a camel's back."

"Interesting," Balthasar looked thoughtful. "As in...just a hump? Or is there a camel attached?"

"Oh, you know...theology," the Doctor waved a hand.

"If it were -- and I'm not saying it is -- then surely there's another hump out there somewhere," Mel remarked. "With other people living on it, maybe?"

"Could be, could very well be," the Doctor agreed.

"Unless," Jasper put in, "It's a dromedary, not a camel. Then there's just one hump."

"Oh, is that how it goes?" the Doctor asked. "Must remember that."

"If there were just one hump, that'd be upsetting," Mel mused. "Alone in the camelverse."

"Dromeverse," the Doctor corrected.

"But it isn't, really," Balthasar said, looking annoyed. "The world, I mean. It's round. Everyone knows that."

"You'd be shocked," the Doctor murmured.

"I hear some people think it rides on the back of a turtle," Jasper announced.

"What does the turtle stand on?" the Doctor asked.

"Another turtle, so they say."

"And that turtle?"

"Well, that's the problem, isn't it," Mel said. "Every turtle stands on the back of another turtle."

"But what does the last turtle stand on?" the Doctor pressed.

"It's turtles all the way down I'm afraid," Jasper said sadly. "Infinite turtles. That's why I can't be having with it."

Gene and Maud were in hysterics. The Doctor gave the humans a smile and pulled gently on the reins to Gene's bridle, slowly dropping back from the group.

"It isn't nice to laugh at humans," he said, when they were far enough back that the others couldn't hear.

"It's just so hard not to," Gene replied. "Turtles! Honestly."

"Well-respected mythological creature, your average turtle," the Doctor said. "Also delicious in soup."

"Nice going getting a job with them, back there," Gene continued. "Much obliged."

"My pleasure. What exactly did you need from me, anyway?" the Doctor asked.

"Well, it's just that they made Mel the navigator and he gets a little lost. They tend to hit us with sticks if we try to lead them the right way. We thought you could, you know, nudge them a little."

"Oh, sure, right, I can do that. Where are we headed?"

"Southwest, from here -- there's a signal beacon, we're bound that way. You'll see it tonight, can't miss it," Gene said.

"Wouldn't want to," the Doctor smiled. "You don't mind me riding like this, do you?"

"Not at all. Good for the backbone," Gene said. "How's the ride?"

"Oh, no particular complaints. How'd you hook up with this lot, anyway? They're weird even for humans."

"They were going the right direction," Gene answered. "And they're amusing. Good story to tell the folks when we get back home. Aren't you a human?"

"Nope. Your standard one hundred percent alien, me."

"We thought maybe you were a Time Agent."

"Known a few. Not the best occupation for humans, to my view."

They rode in silence for a few minutes, until the Doctor realised something and started laughing.

"What's so funny?" Gene asked, tilting his long neck around so that he could get a look at him.

"Nothing -- it's just, I always end up with blondes," the Doctor said, ruffling the yellow hair on the Gene's hump.

***

They made camp at a small oasis as the sun was setting, efficiently and quietly, the humans setting up tents and starting a fire while the Doctor helped Gene, Maud, Mildred, Sticks, and Cornelius out of their saddles.

"Anything else I can do for you lot?" he asked, as they shook themselves and stretched. Sticks gave him the stink-eye.

"Fine thanks; just make sure Mel's holding the map right-side-up," Gene told him. "And don't eat the couscous, it smells like it's off."

"Ta," the Doctor said, and joined the humans at the fire.

"I will say this, you're not bad with the camels," Balthasar said, as Jasper hauled a pot of water to the fire and settled it to boil. "You're not Doctor of Camels by any chance, are you?"

"No, just easy to make friends with," he said, leaning back against the willowy trunk of a tree. "You don't exactly seem like the camel-wrangling type yourself. Must be a pretty important astronowhatsis for you to hurry all the way out here for it."

"See for yourself," Jasper said, pointing over his shoulder. The Doctor turned.

"Ooh," he said, staring upwards. It was obviously Gene's signal beacon, nothing more than a galactic bus-stop sign, but in the star-littered sky it shone out brilliantly and beautifully. Even when they meant them for the most mundane uses, people sometimes made the most amazing things.

"We've been following it since we left our homeland," Balthasar said quietly.

"It's an omen," Mel added.

"Omen of what?" the Doctor asked, not looking away.

"God knows," Jasper said. "Big trade in prophecies right now, back home. Some say it's the end of the world, some say it's the coming of God, some say it's the sign of a new emperor being born."

"What do you say?" the Doctor asked, turning back.

"We say we want to find out," Balthasar said. The Doctor grinned. "What?"

"That's the one thing I never get tired of. Human curiosity," he said. "You just keep poking the universe with sticks. It's lovely, really. Terminal, sometimes, but lovely nonetheless."

"Well, if we don't poke, how are we going to learn anything?" Jasper asked.

"Exactly!" the Doctor laughed. "Good show. So what do you do for fun? Round the campfire, I mean. Shall we have a sing song?"

"I don't sing," Mel said.

"Couldn't carry a tune if you handed it to him," Balthasar whispered, leaning over to the Doctor.

"Cards, then?" the Doctor asked.

"Cards?" Jasper asked.

"Rummy, poker, three-card-supernova...well, probably not yet, but Rummy's not too hard..." the Doctor dug in his pockets. He was sure he'd put a pack of playing cards in one of them -- it was a handy thing to have around. His interior coat pocket produced the sonic screwdriver, a left-handed glove (he'd been looking for that, but he'd already thrown out the right-handed one), and a small flask; his back trouser pocket proved to have a small rubber duck in it, but no cards. The humans watched with growing amusement as he stood and rifled his front pockets. TARDIS key, bit of string, random stopwatch -- Jack was probably looking for that -- couple of coins...

"Aha!" he said, when his hand finally closed around the slick deck of cards. "Here we are!"

"Oh!" Balthasar laughed. "Fortune-telling cards! I thought you said you didn't tell fortunes."

The Doctor looked down in surprise. What he'd taken for a pack of ordinary playing cards were, in fact, a 32nd century deck of Tarot cards, printed during a renaissance in the superstitious arts.

"Brilliant," he said. "Let's play Emperors."

The humans gathered around and listened intently as he explained the rules, then ran them through a test-game so that they could ask questions. By the end of the night they were playing with, if not strategy, then at least a bit of finesse.

"All right, stable-boy," Balthasar said, as the Doctor handily won a round and gathered up the chips of incense and gold they'd been gambling with. "We've got an early day tomorrow. You're bedding with the camels."

"Right-o," the Doctor said, thinking cheerfully that four warm Hrnus and a camel were probably going to keep the desert-night chill out of his bones a lot better than the dying fire the humans had built.

"Sharping them, eh?" Gene asked, when the Doctor approached, counting out his gold chips from the little knots of myrrh among them.

"I never sharp. I can't help that I have superior intelligence," the Doctor said loftily. "Now, budge up, delicate physiognomy here, clear a warm spot."

***

The next morning, Gene woke him just at sunrise with a nudge of his head and a loud braying "Hello, sunrise!"

"Is it?" the Doctor asked, squinting around in the darkness. When he finally located the right direction, he did see a hint of light peeking over the horizon.

The Hrnus were all getting to their feet, shaking dust out of their coats and bobbing their heads in the direction of the light. Solar worshippers, their race; nice to say hello to the sun when you could, though it made for some awkward times once they'd got out into space and there were suns practically everywhere you looked. The Doctor leaned against Gene's warm, shaggy side and waited for them to finish.

Peaceful, this; probably what he'd needed, a bit of a break, bit of a camping trip -- very human, camping, only race in the universe that did it, but still. Nice. Watching the sun as this half of the planet turned out of shadow and into the light, listening to the low hums and grunts of the half-awake Hrnu sociologists, anticipating another day of companionship and perhaps a few more card games with the Humans.

Then someone hit him in the head from behind with something heavy, and he fell over about the same time Gene tried to take off running.

Figured.

***

When he woke, he was lying on straw in a dark, stone-walled room. Stone-floored too, by the feel of it, which the straw didn't do much to compensate for. He sat up with a grunt and looked around.

"I am going to hex them, I am going to put such a curse on them," someone was saying, and the Doctor made out a vision in the darkness -- Balthasar, to judge from the robes, sitting crosslegged and doing something obscure with his hands.

"For God's sake, Balthasar, put your headdress back on." That was Jasper, who sounded about as well as the Doctor felt.

"Oh, I'm sure they won't be back anytime soon, these kinds of people leave you down in here for years," Balthasar said sulkily. "I'm sure I'm quite safe. Hah!"

Hair -- Balthasar was braiding long locks of his dark hair...

Well. Not his dark hair, so much, the Doctor realised. Her hair.

"Oh," the Doctor said. The other three looked at him.

"Tell anyone and I'll gut you," Balthasar said calmly.

"I believe you," the Doctor agreed. "Is there anyone around to tell? Where are we?"

"Prison," Mel replied. He was tinkering with something in a far corner -- a gate, with a heavy lock on it. "The king's guards got the drop on us."

"What did they do with the camels?" the Doctor blurted. All three of them looked at him strangely. "I, well, you know, you get...attached."

"Attached," Jasper repeated, raising an eyebrow.

"Now now, enlightened people don't judge," Mel said to him.

"Uh-huh," Balthasar sniffed, tying the end of the braid with a bit of leather and winding it up in a neat coil. Jasper passed her a large sheet of silk and she wrapped it around her head, knotting it neatly. "Well, we don't know what they did with the camels, but rest assured if you get us out of here you can have them."

"I'm telling you, it's weird," Mel said. "They didn't even bother searching my pockets."

"Mel, no offence, but I wouldn't try searching your pockets either," Balthasar said. The Doctor pushed himself to his feet and began investigating the door. Solid metalwork, double-bolted pin-hinges, big old lock. He felt in his pockets and was startled to find his screwdriver was still present.

"HELLO!" he called down the prison corridor. "HEY! MYSTICAL WISE MEN HERE, WE WANT OUT! AND OUR CAMELS!"

No reply.

"Well then," he said. "Soon have us out of here, just got to calibrate for -- "

There was a slam as an iron keyring whacked against the bars. The Doctor jumped back, startled, and then dodged Mel, who was fleeing for the opposite wall in terror. The Doctor looked up into a face that had probably seen many battles in its time, and also was missing half its teeth. He let go of the bars completely.

"Well, by all means," he said, gesturing at the door. The guard unlocked it roughly and shoved it inward.

"King wants to see you," he said.

"The king, or someone named King, or -- ?" the Doctor began, but Jasper stepped on his foot pointedly as he passed. The Doctor waited until Mel and Balthasar were out as well before he followed.

"They're taking us to see the king," Balthasar whispered to him.

"Why?" the Doctor whispered back.

"Dunno? Maybe he thinks we're trespassing," she said. "I mean it, Camel Doctor, don't tell about me."

"I'm really not that interested in it," the Doctor replied in a hushed voice. "I mean, I assume it's because you're an independent-minded and high-spirited young person who wants to shake off the shackles of the patriarchy and prove the gender bias is a fraud, and why shouldn't you, and besides nobody bothers the young men like they do the young women when they travel, or if they do it's a lot more subtle. Anyway, it keeps life exciting and makes for very good stories someday."

Balthasar blinked at him.

"Or you just like wearing mens' clothes?" the Doctor tried. She beamed.

They were ushered into a receiving room of some kind, high-ceilinged but lacking some of the splendor that the Doctor generally associated with kings. A small, piggish-looking man was seated on an elevated chair.

"Chair means king," the Doctor muttered under his breath. Jasper drew himself up to his not inconsequential full height, and Mel gave the king his best over-the-glasses-I'm-not-actually-wearing look. Balthasar glared.

"My apologies, priests," the king said, after a moment. "When I instructed the guards to bring you to me, they interpreted my orders a little...liberally. I hope you have not been too badly maltreated."

"Oh, no, just a few coshings," the Doctor said. Balthasar elbowed him sharply. "Ow!"

"I'm sure Your Highness meant nothing by it," Jasper said calmly. "We would, of course, have come willingly if we were summoned. Your, er, palace lies on the road we are journeying along."

"Speaking of which, about my camels -- " the Doctor started, but Balthasar elbowed him again. "Ow! Seriously!"

"Stabled with my horses, not to worry," the King smiled at him. "You're very outspoken for a camel boy."

"You have to excuse the man, he's a trifle simple," Jasper said quickly. "Very good with the animals, though."

"I understand you've come from afar," the King continued. "Following the new star in the sky?"

"Yes, sir," Mel said.

"Why?"

"Well, we'd like a closer -- "

"I'd prefer you didn't lie to me, really," the king interrupted. Jasper and Balthasar exchanged looks. "You're coming to see the newborn king, yes?"

"Well, not so much king," Jasper said slowly. "You're the king."

"Yes," the king said. "I am."

"But there is a rumour about a child born under the star, and obviously that's very interesting," Mel supplied.

"Obviously," the king nodded. "I'm very interested in it myself. That's why I wanted to speak to you."

"That's what this is about?" the Doctor hissed at Balthasar. "Babies? I got coshed over babies?"

"We don't know much about it, I'm afraid," Jasper was saying to the king.

"Nor do I, but you're obviously more...mobile than I am at the moment. Court concerns, you must know how it is -- you're nobles in your own land, aren't you?"

"Scholars, your highness," Mel answered.

"I'd like you to find this child and, well, look him over a bit, find out what the story is," the king said. "Nothing you weren't planning on doing anyway, is it? And then, on your way back, I strongly suggest you accept my invitation of a hospitable bed for the night, in return for which you might tell me what all the fuss is over."

The other three looked at each other, and then Jasper nodded.

"Seems fair enough," he said.

"Brilliant!" the Doctor clapped his hands. "Now, lead me to the camels."

***

"Hoo boy, am I glad to see you," Gene said to the Doctor, when the barn door opened. "Come on, chop chop, doors open."

"Sorry, I was unavoidably unconscious," the Doctor said. "You're a clever sentient species, why couldn't you get the doors open yourselves?"

"I don't know if you've noticed but all the technology on this planet is designed for opposable thumbs, which I do not have," Gene pointed out.

"Is that the Doctor?" Cornelius called from a distant stall.

"Yep, won't be a minute," the Doctor said, undoing the complicated bolt on Gene's door and moving one down, to where Sticks was stalled. He studied the camel, who managed to chew his cud menacingly at him, and then kept going, releasing the other Hrnus before returning to very, very carefully let Sticks out. He gathered up their reins and led them out into the afternoon sunshine, where the humans were waiting.

"Happy now?" Balthasar asked him.

"As a camel in sand," the Doctor replied, hauling himself up into the saddle on Gene's back. "Allons-y!"

"Eh?" Jasper asked.

"Oh, nothing."

"They must have carried us a fair piece," Mel said, squinting at the map. "Although to judge from this, in the wrong...."

He stopped as the Doctor gently reached over, took it out of his hands, and turned it right-side up. "Oh! Are you sure?"

"Very good sense of direction," the Doctor assured him.

"Thank you," Maud grunted.

"My pleasure," the Doctor replied. The humans had stopped even bothering to look at him strangely.

"This way," Mel said, pointing east. The Doctor leaned over again, grasped his sleeve, and tugged it westward.

"Doctor, camel boy, and navigator. Your surprises never end," Balthasar said.

"Neither do yours," the Doctor replied. She laughed as they set out once more.

***

That afternoon they rejoined the crowded main road, riding high and aloof above the scattered groups of people walking or riding donkeys and horses west. The Doctor, perplexed, rattled Gene's reins a little to get his attention.

"H'm?" Gene asked, lifting his head.

"What's with all the humans?" the Doctor inquired. "It's like there's some kind of migration."

"I don't pay attention to politics," Gene replied. "Something to do with a census. They're all daft, you know. Totally resistant to categorisation. One of my colleagues is studying them, he's a bit daft himself, and he says they're a complete mystery even to him."

"I know the feeling," the Doctor said. "Maybe they're following your signal beacon too?"

"Do you think so?" Gene sounded amused. "That'd be pretty hilarious."

"Well, you never know. Mel!" the Doctor called, nudging Gene to catch up to Maud and Mel. "Where are we?"

"Outside Breadville," Mel replied. "I think."

"Breadville?"

"I don't name them," Mel replied testily.

"Real beds tonight?" Jasper said.

"If there's any room at the inns," Balthasar answered, gesturing at all the people on the road.

"Well, we've roughed it before. Besides, our phenomenon looked very close last night. All we need is a roof and a reference point," Jasper replied.

"Excuse me!"

Gene and the Doctor both looked up; the other Hrnus did as well, but the humans didn't seem to notice.

"Hallo up there!" the voice called again. A young man with a shepherd's crook in his hand came alongside of the camels. There was a lamb slung over his shoulders; he looked to be a well-built sixteen, or perhaps a weedy eighteen. Behind him, a small herd of sheep were following, kept in line by two more shepherds.

"Hallo," Gene said amiably.

"Hiya!" the voice again, and the Doctor realised it was the lamb on the young man's shoulders. "Are you a Hrnu?"

"We are. Who're you?" Gene asked.

"I'm a Br'eni," the lamb said. "Are you on the road to Breadville?"

"Stopping there tonight. You hitching a ride with the transit ship?"

"That's us!" the lamb gave him a cheerful look. "Listen, my boy here's dead tired, don't suppose I could hitch a ride with you for a little while?"

"I'm not so tired," the young man said. The Doctor blinked. "I can carry you a bit longer."

"Nonsense, you're all but worn out."

"Up you come," the Doctor ordered, reaching down for the lamb. "And if you can get up on Sticks, you're welcome to ride," he added to the human.

"Oh, thank you," the boy said. "I'm Christopher."

"I'm the Doctor," the Doctor answered, pulling to a halt and stopping Sticks as deftly as he could. The young man clambered up nimbly and nudged a few of the sheep with the long end of his staff. He waved to the other two shepherds, who grinned and waved back. "So, you can hear talking sheep?"

"He's slightly psychic," the lamb confided.

"Well, that's handy. Are these all Br'enis or are you blending in?" the Doctor asked the lamb.

"This is my family. We're on holiday, we're catching the transit ship and these shepherds just started following us," the lamb said. "I told Christopher where we were going, he said it sounded like a lark."

"Didn't realise it was going to involve so much walking," Christopher said.

"Hey! Camel Doctor! Who's your friend?" Balthasar asked, as they came alongside.

"This is Christopher. He has a talking sheep," the Doctor said.

"He only talks to me." Christopher lifted his chin proudly.

"Really? Are you a shaman?" Balthasar asked.

"I might be! What's a shaman?"

"Sun's setting!" Jasper shouted from up ahead. "Come on, I can see Breadville from here! Get a move on, Doctor!"

"So I said to him, Shepherd Boy, do you know what I know?" the lamb explained. "And he agreed to come with us, and so these other blokes followed us. Hey, by the way, did you see the king on your way in?"

"We did, we did," the Doctor said.

"He stopped us too. And we couldn't very well say we were just passing through to catch a spaceship, so I told Christopher to tell the king that there was a special event going on in Breadville, some new king being born, I thought he'd rather like that. But I don't think he does, so much."

"No, perhaps not," the Doctor agreed. Christopher and Balthasar had drifted off a little, and were talking interestedly with each other as the humans, Hrnus, Br'enis, one camel, and a Time Lord picked their way along the road.

"I tell you what, I don't trust that bastard," Gene said. "Listen, once we're gone, you tell the humans not to go back and tell him where the kid is, if there is a kid, okay?"

"They've figured that out," the Doctor assured him.

"He's a creep," the lamb declared.

"Truer words were never spoken."

"There it is!" Gene said, in a satisfied sort of tone. The Doctor looked up from the lamb riding crossways on his saddle and found that they were nearly at the gates of a clay-brick city, with a sign outside proudly proclaiming WELCOME TO BREADVILLE.

***

Jasper and Mel weren't very interested in Christopher and his talking lamb. They had more important things on their mind: namely, a roof over their heads and a meal in their stomachs. There were five or six inns in Breadville, but the little band of humans and aliens had arrived late in the day, and even private houses were turning people away.

"We've been booked up for four days," one of the innkeepers told him. "Tell you what though, go down a few streets and knock on the door of the Lucky Breadstick, I hear he's putting people up in the halls and yards. Plus, he's got a new tourist attraction."

"Really?" the Doctor asked. "What's that?"

"Dunno, some religious thing. See, you know the star? Well, it shines right down on his stables, and you wouldn't believe how many people are off to see it."

"Thanks," Jasper said. "We'll just trot along and see if he's got a place, eh?"

"What kind of a name for an inn is the Lucky Breadstick?" Christopher asked, as they got underway again.

"I was just thinking that!" Balthasar agreed.

"On we go then," Jasper gestured to the shepherds to nudge the flock ahead, and they paraded down the dark street, following the light of the signal beacon, until they reached a cul-de-sac and a large mud-brick building with a pair of breadsticks painted above the door. Even as they arrived, a woman stepped through the doorway and crossed her arms.

"Listen, we've got people sleeping in the hallways and four or five in our own living room," she said. "There's folks out in the barn. If you're looking for rooms we are dead out."

"Even somewhere to put the camels?" Jasper asked hopefully.

"And the sheep," Christopher added.

"Oh, for God's...right, okay, go round back. You can camp out with Marian and her husband if they say it's all right," she grumbled. The humans dismounted, and the Doctor carefully passed the lamb back to Christopher before sliding down off Gene.

The back of the inn consisted of a large closed stable, bathed in white light from the star, and a wide yard with tethers for the camels. The Doctor hurriedly began removing saddles and packs, loosening bridles on the Hrnus so that when the transit ship picked them up they could get them off easily. The woolly Br'enis clustered around the Hrnus, near the door of the stable. The Doctor made sure Sticks was tied up tightly.

"There's a king in there, they're saying," one of the shepherds whispered to him, as the Doctor unpacked a camel saddle-bag.

"So I hear," the Doctor said drily. "Jasper, what are you doing?"

"Getting a reference point!" Jasper answered, hoisting himself onto the low eave-roof of the stable. "I think -- "

"JASPER!" Balthasar shouted, as Jasper tumbled straight through a rickety set of planks and into the closed stable. "For god's -- JASPER!"

"I'M ALL RIGHT!" Jasper called. "JUST FINDING A -- hello!"

With a creak and a clank, the stable doors began to slide aside, revealing Jasper on one door and a tall, dark-haired man with his shoulder against the other. Everyone in the yard -- shepherds, sociologists, tourists, astronomers -- looked up.

"Jeez," the dark-haired man said, leaning against the wide frame of the door. "Did you bring the whole zoo?"

The Doctor put his hands on his hips, narrowed his eyes, and sighed.

"Jack," he said. "What on Earth are you doing here?"

Captain Jack Harkness dusted his hands and grinned. "Hiya, Doctor," he said. "Wanna come meet the family?"

***

The Hrnus had slipped their bridles, but nobody seemed to notice; they poured into the barn along with the Br'enis, followed by the humans. When the Doctor finally pressed through the throng he found almost everyone crowded around a tiny baby in a crude crib stuffed with straw.

"Hey, give him a little space," Jack was saying, pushing one Br'eni back with a hand on its fuzzy forehead. "Listen, I'm serious now, this has been going on for three days, he's nothing special. Well, I mean obviously he is, he's my son, but -- "

"Oook at his wee feetsies," Mel said, then looked suitably embarrassed.

"He's awfully wrinkly," Balthasar observed.

"That's the way babies are," Christopher replied.

"I'm sorry, is there another way up onto the roof?" Jasper said.

"Human babies are so weird," Maud remarked to Gene.

The lamb put his small hooves up on the edge of the crib and peered down at the child, who against all odds was still asleep. The Doctor craned his neck to find still more humans were standing at the edge of the crowd, looking hesitant.

"Jack Harkness, if you weren't too big to thrash..." the Doctor warned, edging around to where Jack was trying to shove Cornelius and Mildred back a few feet. Too late he realised Jack was probably going to offer to be thrashed anyway, not to mention a remark on his size --

"Tell it to the jury," Jack said wearily, instead. The Doctor paused, then forged ahead.

"This is awful. You're breaking the timeline of one of the major events in human history!"

"What?" Jack asked.

"And since when did you start time-traveling again, anyway?"

"I'm not time -- okay, seriously, shepherds, herd your damn sheep please," Jack called. The Br'eni, abashed, backed up a little. "I'm not time-traveling!"

"Jack, this is Anno Domini," the Doctor hissed. "The actual Year Of Our Lord."

Jack looked at him, perplexed. "What?"

"Look around you! Holy baby, star in the sky, Mother Mary -- "

" -- Marian -- "

"Fine, but still! Camels, sheep, wise men, shepherds, the whole bit! You're in a stable! What have you done with Joseph?"

Jack blinked at him, then burst out laughing.

"It's not amusing, Jack!"

"Oh, no, seriously," Jack wiped tears of mirth from his eyes. "Doctor, that's not Jesus Christ, I promise you. That is my son in the -- "

"Manger?" the Doctor prompted.

" -- well, okay, maybe there are some similarities, but that's not my fault. I swear, I'm still on the slow path."

"Then how do you explain all this?" the Doctor waved his hand. "Jack, these people were willing to consider the idea that the earth travels through space on the back of a camel's hump."

"You came here pretty much straight from Cardiff, twenty-first century, didn't you?" Jack asked.

"Well, I took a few side trips."

"So I've met you again, but you haven't met me again...this might make more sense in another few hundred years, at least for you. Anyhow," Jack added, elbowing through the crowd, "This isn't Earth. It's a little place called Landfall. You're in the forty-ninth century."

"I am not," the Doctor protested.

"You so totally are," Jack pointed a finger at him. The Doctor frowned, took out his sonic screwdriver, and adjusted the setting, listening to the blue tip of it carefully.

"Oh," he said. "So I am. Didn't check before I left."

"See?" Jack looked smug. "We wouldn't be here ourselves if I hadn't had to set down for refueling and then Marian went into labour...listen, this is a devolved little planet, they don't remember the original space colonists coming here."

"Gene, is that true?" the Doctor asked, turning to the Hrnu. Jack looked curious.

"Pretty much," Gene said. "We thought their camels might be devolved Hrnus, too."

"Well. This is just all very archetypal," the Doctor crossed his arms. Jack gave him an indulgent smile.

"Doctor, come meet my wife," he said.

They found Marian sitting with Mel and Balthasar, the shepherds keeping the Br'enis from getting too close. Balthasar had a small sack of incense she was showing to Marian, offering it to her as a gift. Jasper had already casually placed a box of gold in the baby's crib.

"For nappies and such," he said, when Jack looked askance at the box. Christopher leaned over the crib and waggled his fingers at the waking baby, who cooed and spastically waved an arm. As Jack and the Doctor approached, Marian looked up and her face lit with pleasure.

"Hi, sweetheart," Jack said, bending to kiss her forehead. "Feeling all right?"

"Brilliant," she replied.

"Livestock not bothering you?"

"No, of course not," Marian smiled curiously at the Doctor. Her speech held a slight trace of accent -- Irish, perhaps. Jack had a thing for accents.

"Like you to meet an old friend of mine," Jack crouched next to her and gestured up at the Doctor. "This is the Doctor."

Marian looked at him and burst out laughing. "You're the Doctor?" she asked. "Oh, it is nice to meet you. You didn't tell me he was so tall, Jack."

"Well, he wasn't, last time I ran into him," Jack replied.

"Jack's told me all about you," Marian offered him her hand. "I'd get up, but childbirth really takes it out of you."

"No need," the Doctor shook it, casting an amused look at Jack. "So, you managed to pin this one down, huh?"

"He pinned me down," Marian said. "About two minutes after we met."

"Married long?"

"Three years," Jack said proudly.

"Good time to start a family, I suppose," the Doctor cast a wary glance at the child. "Jack, I didn't think you could -- "

"We had a hard time concieving," Marian said. "Ended up using in-vitro. Even then they had to clone from Jack's blood, instead of...well, the natural source for that kind of thing."

The Doctor turned to the little baby. Jack was such a fixture in time, a dark blurred spot that never moved or changed, and the universe could probably support one of those. But two...

He glanced at Marian for permission, then bent and picked the child up, cradling him carefully. He looked human enough, and when he stroked a finger over the child's tiny nose he felt nothing unusual. A slight sense of skewed time, perhaps, but that wasn't necessarily uncommon; he'd felt it before, mainly in humans who'd changed history, or would change history, or were changing history.

"We named him Kaz," Jack said, holding out his arms. The Doctor placed Kaz in them cautiously. "It means 'gift'."

"Your language?" the Doctor asked Marian, who nodded. There was a warm puff of air over the Doctor's shoulder, and Gene's head appeared from behind him.

"Transit ship's leaving in a few," Gene said. "Everyone's supposed to go out to the yard. You coming?"

"Got my own ride -- thanks though," the Doctor said under his breath.

"Well, nice to meet you, Doctor," Gene said. "Take care of yourself. Thanks for all the help."

"My pleasure. Get on with you then," the Doctor said to him. The Hrnus and Br'enis began to slowly leave the barn. Jack was busy cooing over his son and showing him off proudly to the other humans -- more had come in, crowding forward, some of them hesitantly leaving little bundles and boxes in a camel-pack next to the crib.

"Who's he?" Marian asked the Doctor, pointing to Christopher. "He's cute."

"Shepherd lad. Traveling with a bunch of alien tourists, they're just about to board."

"Thought so, something looked a bit weird about the camels," Marian said. "So. You're the one who got away."

The Doctor blinked. "Come again?"

"Jack's Doctor. He never mentions it but he's told me all kinds of stories. You drop in on his life, have an adventure or two, run off. I wish you wouldn't try any adventures this time, though, if it's all the same; he's got a baby now and Kaz is bound to fuss if Daddy dies too often."

"So he's told you."

"Oh yes. I imagine it's bound to make for difficulties in sixty years or so, but he's a good man. I've definitely dated worse."

The Doctor laughed. "Nice to see him settling down."

"For a given value of settling," Marian said, as Jack offered a handshake and a broad, sexy smile to Christopher the Shepherd. "It's an open relationship," she confided.

"I...half-expected that," the Doctor confided back. He watched as a middle-aged woman elbowed her way through the humans and leaned up to say something in Jack's ear. Jack's face changed, almost instantly; he nodded, thanked her, and held Kaz tighter in his arms.

"Trouble on the wind," the Doctor said, just as Jack pivoted and returned to them, settling Kaz in Marian's lap.

"We've got to get out of here," Jack said, glancing around. "Some tinpot little king followed you here and there are guards at the gates. They want Kaz."

"What? Why?" Marian asked.

"I don't know!"

"They think he's a king," the Doctor said. "See, I told you this was trouble."

"Why would they -- "

"Because there's a bloody great star shining down on his birthplace and humans are mental!" the Doctor retorted. The other humans were beginning to scatter. Balthasar ran up to them.

"We have some camels," she said. "You can take Sticks, he's mean in a fight. Come on, the king's after you."

"Marian..." Jack looked hapless. She propped herself on a wooden rail and stood.

"I'm fine, but the ship's not fully refueled," she said. "We'll have to do a bunk, Jack."

"Where's your TARDIS?" Jack demanded.

"Two days east by camel," the Doctor said apologetically.

"Well, we have enough energy to get us that far, anyhow," Marian decided. "The ship's at the river, it's not far."

"You've got a boat?" Balthasar asked.

"Sort of," Jack said.

"We'll come along," Christopher volunteered.

"Right, okay -- Marian, take Kaz, go with them," Jack ordered. "I'll stay here and -- "

"You bloody well will not, Jack Harkness," Marian retorted. "You're not the boss of me."

"Is now really the time to have this argument again?"

"I outrank you!"

"She was an admiral," Jack growled to the Doctor.

"Well, then you'd better follow her orders," the Doctor answered. "Go with your family."

"What are you going to do?" Jack asked.

The Doctor grinned at Jasper and Mel, who were already picking up large, heavy boards. Christopher passed Balthasar his equally large and heavy shepherd's crook.

"Cause a distraction," he said.

Jack looked at him, smiled, and then grabbed him and kissed him on the mouth.

"Knew you'd help," he said. Before the Doctor could react, Marian was also kissing him. Humans were such hormonal creatures.

"This way," Christopher said, hauling Sticks along. Jack helped Marian up into the saddle, passed her the baby, and swung up behind her. Sticks grunted.

"Be good," the Doctor told the irate camel. Christopher gave the reins another tug and led them out through a side-gate.

"So," Jasper said conversationally, peering out into the yard full of aliens and the Royal guards beyond. "How many of the guard do you think we can take out?"

"Do you know how to fight?" Mel asked the Doctor.

"Better," the Doctor said. "I know how to think. GENE!" he called. Gene lifted his head. "What's the countdown?"

"THIRTY SECONDS!" Gene shouted.

"Brilliant! Give me a count from ten!"

"Aye aye, Doctor!" Gene called, even as a band of large, heavily-armed men approached him. The Hrnus bared their teeth. The Br'enis, as one, pissed on the ground. Some kind of declaration of war, the Doctor recalled.

"Let us through," one of the men said. "We're here on official royal business."

"Kiss my arse!" Balthasar called, holding up the stick threateningly. The Doctor sighed and rubbed his face with his hands.

"You'd better not," he said, pushing through the Br'enis. His shoes were going to be ruined. He took the staff from Balthasar. "See, I'm the boss here, and I say, no kings allowed."

The guards laughed.

"You and what army?"

"Oh, I don't need an army," the Doctor said. "I'm the Doctor."

He closed his eyes, stamped the staff into the dirt, and began the only invocation he could think up on short notice.

"Chestnuts, roasting on an open fire!" he shouted. "Jack Frost nipping at your nose! Yuletide carols being sung by a choir, and folks dressing up like Eskimos!"

The guards were backing away, looking wary.

"Deck the halls with boughs of holly! Fa la la la la!" the Doctor continued.

"Ten seconds!" Gene called.

"The holly and the ivy when they are both full grown!"

"Nine!"

"Of all trees that are in the woods -- "

"Eight! Seven!"

" -- the holly bears the crown!"

"Six!"

"HERE COMES SANTA CLAUS!"

The guards had begun a cautious second advance. Balthasar swung at them with a handy board, driving them back a few feet.

"FIVE!"

"GOOOOOOOOLDEN RINGS!" the Doctor yodeled.

"FOUR!"

"O COME O COME EMMANUEL!"

"Who's Emmanuel?" Jaspar shouted to Mel, who shrugged as Gene called out "THREE!"

"KINGS OF ORIENT ARE! BEARING GIFTS, EVEN!"

"TWO!"

"SLEIGHBELLS RING, ARE YOU LISTENING?"

"ONE, TAKEOFF!" Gene called.

The Doctor waved the staff in a high arc and shouted, "ANGELS WE HAVE HEARD ON HIGH!"

There was a crackle of noise in the air. The Hrnus and Br'enis lifted off the ground and floated in the air for a minute, as the forcefield caught them, and then with a horizontal flash of light they disappeared.

The guards took to their heels.

"Wow," Mel said to the suddenly empty yard. "I mean. Wow."

"Who's Emmanuel?" Jasper repeated.

"No time, sorry," the Doctor said, tossing the stick to Balthasar. "If they have pickets Jack and Marian are done for. Come on!"

He took off running in the direction Christopher, Sticks, and the fast-growing Harkness family had gone. Behind him he could hear Mel and Jasper panting; Balthasar was keeping up, beaming as they ran.

"This is great!" she shouted, turning her face into the cold desert wind that was beginning to blow.

"I know!" the Doctor cleared a low fence with a leap and kept going.

By the time they reached the others, near the banks of a river, Jasper and Mel had fallen far behind. There was firelight in the distance, growing larger by the moment. Jack had dismounted and was holding Kaz protectively.

"It's on the far side," he panted, pointing to a bare patch of earth -- a cloaked ship, probably a small one. "Can camels swim?"

"I don't know!" the Doctor retorted.

"I'll take him," Balthasar said, and grabbed the reins from Jack, giving Sticks a swift kick behind one of his knees. The camel shambled forward and stepped out into the river, striking for the far side. Alongside of him, Balthasar had one hand on his throat and the other on Marian's arm as she kicked through the current.

Jack thrust Kaz into the Doctor's arms. "I'll go ahead, hold onto me, I'll pull you across."

"Oi!" Christopher called, ankles-deep already. "Coming or not?"

The Doctor looked at Jack. Jack gave him a swift grin. "Just like old times."

He tugged the Doctor forward, into the chilly water, and began to swim. The Doctor wrapped an arm around his neck and held on. Kaz, high and dry in his arms, started to cry.

"Daddy's here, Kaz, it's okay," Jack called over his shoulder, taking a mouthful of water for it. He sputtered and kept going. "Rock him! He likes that!"

"Excuse me?" the Doctor asked. "Does now look like the time for parenting lessons?"

There was a surge of movement from beneath and Jack looked around to see Christopher taking some of the weight, paddling along like an expert. The Doctor closed his eyes and twined his fingers in Kaz's baby blanket.

With a jolt and a cry of triumph from Jack they reached dry land again and staggered up, dripping and shivering. Jack coughed, spat into the sand, and held out his hands immediately for Kaz.

"You're cold and wet," the Doctor told him. "I'll carry him."

Marian was already standing in the hatch of the ship, only her top half visible. "Come on! All of you!"

"Bring the camel!" Balthasar added. "The Doctor's got attached!"

Sticks was standing on nothing and looked very annoyed by it. Jack, bustling up the side of the ship, put his shoulder under the camel's hindquarters and shoved sharply, then helped Christopher up as Sticks disappeared. The Doctor clambered up, placed Kaz in his mother's arms, and dropped down into --

"The ISS Donkey," Jack said, waving an arm perfunctorily around as he dove for the controls. "Strap in and get to know her. Marian!"

"Transferring power to solar cells," Marian said, flicking switches. "Engines warming."

"This is GREAT!" Christopher observed. "Where are we?"

"Spaceship," Jack said. "Welcome to your cultural heritage. Marian?"

"Just putting the baby in," Marian said, placing Kaz in a baby-basket and strapping him down. She dropped into the chair next to the Doctor and buckled up. "Fire away, Jack!"

"Love to hear you say that," Jack said, lifting a small, metallic yoke out of the console.

"Why do you call her the Donkey?" the Doctor asked Marian.

"She bucks," Marian replied, and then the ship jerked into life. The deck began to vibrate.

"I see what you mean," the Doctor said.

"Wait for it -- "

There was a bray of displeasure from behind the cockpit as they leapt from hovering to movement in an instant. The Doctor turned to see Sticks leaning against one wall, still trumpeting his discontent.

"Doctor, you want to set us a course?" Jack asked, and the Doctor unbuckled long enough to slide up behind him and enter the coordinates of the TARDIS into the console.

"And to all a good night," Jack added, as the ship banked overland low enough to blow out the torches of a Royalist mob standing on the edge of the river. As they blasted past they saw Jasper and Mel gazing up at the ship in wonder, beaming and waving.

***

They put down the next morning, just outside the city where the Doctor had originally landed. Balthasar and Christopher tried to coax Sticks back onto solid ground while Marian gave the baby his feeding. Jack and the Doctor watched, Jack resting one shoulder companionably on the TARDIS.

"You're always in the right place when I need you," Jack said.

"Of course I'm always in the right place," the Doctor replied. "I take your meaning though."

"Taking off?" Jack asked, tilting his head at the TARDIS.

"Thought I might. You know me, never one to hang about."

In the background, Sticks tumbled to the sand and snorted. Balthasar started laughing.

"I do know that," Jack said. "Hey, so the last time you saw me was on Earth, in Cardiff?"

"Mmhm."

"So..." Jack frowned. "Donna wasn't long ago for you, was she. Donna was the redhead, right?"

The Doctor nodded, unwilling to meet Jack's eyes.

"You'll meet me again, then," Jack said. "I can guarantee that."

"I could pretend to be surprised."

"If you would. And go easy on me, I had a lot of growing-up to do."

The Doctor nodded. Jack touched him, just two fingers under his chin, redirecting his gaze to Jack's face.

"If you came here from there, then I'm older than you now," Jack said. "I've done a lot of living, Doctor."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. Jack smiled.

"Take a tip from an old man. Don't think about the future too much. Your future."

The Doctor tilted his head at Marian and Kaz. Jack nodded.

"There's always going to be pain in the future. You're always going to lose people. So why think about it too much? Enjoy it while you got it. The now is everything, Doctor."

"Jack, I'm a Time Lord -- "

"The now is everything," Jack repeated.

"I don't know if a Time Lord can live like that."

Jack smiled. "It's easier than you think. MARIAN!" he called.

"Yes?"

"How much more charging?"

"I think we're ready," she said, walking up to them and handing Kaz to Jack -- along with a spit-up towel. "We can go anytime."

"What about them?" the Doctor asked, pointing to where Christopher and Balthasar were helping Sticks to his knobby feet.

"What about them?" Jack asked with a knowing grin, propping the baby on his shoulder. "They seem like good people. Fond of running. Come on, sweetheart," he said to Marian. "We've got places to go, grandparents to surprise."

"Jack, I will come when I am ready and not before. Thank you, Doctor," Marian added.

"Oh, Jack!" the Doctor called, and Jack turned around, leaving Marian to walk on towards the ship. The Doctor reached into his pocket and tossed him the small bag holding his winnings from the card game. "For the baby."

"Thanks," Jack said. He tucked the bag away and turned back to the ship, waiting patiently for Marian to lead the way up the ramp and into the hatch. With a blast of heat and a roar, the ship lifted off. Christopher and Balthasar shaded their eyes, watching it go.

"A space-ship," Christopher said excitedly, running up to the Doctor. "That was incredible."

"Are there a lot of those in the sky?" Balthasar asked. "There are all kinds of legends about how our ancestors came from them..."

"There could be more than one?" Christopher demanded.

"There are," the Doctor said, thinking of Jack and how he'd always expected a younger man to defer to his wisdom. Perhaps turnabout was more than fair play. He took a deep breath. "Want to see?"

"See?" Christopher asked.

"Sure. Want to see the stars?"

"Yes," Balthasar said promptly.

"Right then. Step inside," the Doctor said, and elbowed the door open. He knew what the other two were doing behind him as he walked to the console. They were exchanging concerned looks about getting into a phonebox with a stranger. They always did.

"Coming?" he called.

"Oh fine, I'll go first," Balthasar said, and walked into the TARDIS.

"LEAVE THE CAMEL!" the Doctor yelled back to Christopher. There were footsteps on the metal grating as Christopher boarded.

The door closed.

***

On a bare patch of earth outside of a market city in the desert, on the planet called Landfall, a camel watched thoughtfully as a small blue wooden box lifted, began to spin, and flew off into the sky.

The camel spat, shrugged (a complicated move, for a camel) and shook his head. Then he wandered towards the nearest farmhouse, cropping up weeds and small plants along the way.

"What do you mean, there's a camel outside?" someone said in the house. "Whose camel?"

"Nobody's," another voice said.

"It must be somebody's!"

"Maybe not. Weren't you saying we needed a camel? It's obviously a gift from the gods."

A crowd of children poured out of the house and ran over to the camel, who stood patiently while they clambered onto his back and began tying grubby ribbons around his knees.

"It's a miracle," one of the children announced.

"Hey," Jack said to Marian, as they made their way towards home and Kaz's new grandparents. "You ever hear of the Miracle of the Camel?"

"No," Marian said. "What's that?"

"Just an old festival my family used to celebrate. Don't know what made me think of it."

"Well, don't look at me. Here, I'll take Kaz for you."

Jack smiled. "No, I can hold him for a little longer."

"Landfall seemed nice," Marian said, watching as the small blue planet dropped away. "We should go back someday."

"Maybe when Kaz is a little older."

END

Author's endnotes:

Breadville is an homage to Bethlehem, which translates literally (so the Internet tells me, and it's never wrong) to "House of Bread".

The original wise men who came from the East aren't named in the Bible, but ~~the internet~~ common rumour says that their names were Gaspar or Caspar or Jasper, Melchior, and Balthasar.

Saint Christopher is the patron saint of travelers, a folk hero who carried Jesus across a river on his back during the flight to Egypt.

Bactrian camels have two humps. Dromedaries only have one.

You should starve a cold and feed a fever. (Actually you should feed both, but that's folk wisdom for you.)

Ordinarily I don't make a big deal out of fanfic awards, but I was really pleased and proud when The Gift Of The Mad Guy won at smith_awards for best New Who Gen, because it's all done anonymously and you get reviews, which to my mind makes it more balanced somehow. Plus, this banner is awesome. So!

The link will take you to the page where Mad Guy was reviewed.

Wonders Never Cease; R.

2008-11-13T01:05:21Z

Title: Wonders Never Cease
Rating: R for safety. TEH SEX OMG.
Summary: Kissing the Doctor isn't like kissing other people. Coda to 3.02, The Shakespeare Code. Doctor/Will Shakespeare.

He knows how little room there is in there
For crude and futile animosities
And how much for the joy of being whole,
And how much for long sorrow and old pain.
-- Edwin Arlington Robinson, "Ben Jonson Entertains A Man From Stratford"

William was working.

Well, when was he not, really?

Sometimes he didn't much like being himself. So many words, so little time, the pen so slow, the mind so quick...he didn't even notice the groaning, whirring noise. It wasn't until the latch clicked, of all things, that he finally looked up.

There was a large blue box in his bedroom. It had doors, and someone was peering out of one.

"Safe to come out?" Sir Doctor of TARDIS asked.

"Doctor," Will said with a smile. "Is it? One should ask you. You would know better than I could tell."

The Doctor stepped out, still wearing his strange alien garb -- really alien garb! -- with a small black book in one hand.

"Is the queen of Freedonia with you?" Will asked.

"Erm, no. Left her in a pub for a bit. Couple of parsecs away, just thought I'd nip back. No sign of the queen, I hope?"

"Just the author, I'm afraid." Will set his quill in the inkpot and stood, circling his desk to lean against it. "And what can a humble boards-strider do for Sir Doctor?"

"Oh, well." The Doctor looked sheepish. "I was wondering..."

"Yes?"

He held out a small, leatherbound book. Will took it and flipped through it. Each page had a signature, a date, and a name beneath it in what he assumed was the Doctor's writing.

"Something of an amateur autograph-hunter," the Doctor admitted. Will laughed.

"Who is Victoria Regina?" he asked.

"Oh, a girl I met."

"Well," Will said, dipping his quill in the inkpot and shaking it gently, "I think I can make an exception. Just this once, mind you."

"Fantastic! Thank you. And..." the Doctor stepped up next to him and extended one arm with a small black box in his hand. "Say cheese."

"Cheese?" Will asked, glancing at him. The box flashed brightly and spat something out.

"Nothing like a polaroid," the Doctor said. "Humans. Who'd have ever thought of something like a polaroid? Only humans."

He offered the slip of thick paper to Will, who stared at it until his eyes watered. Eventually, a portrait appeared.

"A magic box that paints portraits," he said, delighted.

"Close enough," the Doctor temporised.

"Will wonders never cease?" Will asked, turning to look at the Doctor. It brought them close together, their faces inches apart,

"They haven't yet," the Doctor said, and Will leaned forward. "Erm, wait, that might not -- "

Kissing the Doctor was not like kissing an ordinary person. There was the moment of humanity, the press of lips and rasp of skin on skin, breath stolen and given, but then --

Time rushes past and the temptation is far too great. Take his hand; go into the ship with him, the source of power and life. See other worlds. Touch, taste, smell the air in another lifetime. Talk of death! He knows of death already, understand the loss of sons. Understands pain, understands how to laugh through the pain until the laughter is real --

Grasp him by the crown of the head, press him into the wall like an older actor once did when Will was a boy. A lithe body against his, delicate fingers fumbling with the drawstrings of his doublet, the Doctor saying his name.

Will. William.

Bare skin, pale and near-translucent, like a spirit. Kissing the Doctor is not like kissing an ordinary person. More fire, more passion. More need. Masks stripped away. Will never liked masks. Clothing discarded, the Doctor returning the kiss now, demanding everything, demanding all. Only a genius could answer that but Will is a genius and Will is a man. The Doctor's hands clutching his shoulders, Will's own hands on that alien skin, a double-triple heartbeat.

William, please --

Nobody makes the Doctor beg, but Will could. Will could burn the stars down with the Doctor, and never breathe a word of it to anyone. And when the Doctor throws his head back and cries out, lost in Will, the stars do burn away...

" -- be a good idea," the Doctor finished, as they parted. He licked his lips. Will caught his breath.

"I saw all of history," he said.

The Doctor smiled at him and dropped him a wink.

"Don't blab," he replied.

***

"Did you have a nice trip?" Martha asked.

"Sure. Enjoy your drink?"

"Yeah, though I'm not certain pork-flavoured vodka is the way to go."

The Doctor grinned. "All ends up in the same place. Shall we?"

"Where did you go, anyway?"

"Oh, you know. Errand or two, that's all."

END

Bar TARDIS; G.

2008-11-13T01:03:36Z

Title: Bar TARDIS
Rating: G
Summary: When Rose starts feeling a little too much kinship for the banana tree in the kitchen, the Doctor takes her for a quiet drink. A really quiet drink.

First posted 4.7.07

There is a cyborg banana tree in the TARDIS kitchen.

Banana trees don't grow well in most climates, the TARDIS interior included, so sometime in the distant past the Doctor rigged up some implants that feed it properly and make sure it's extracting enough sunlight from the out of doors, whenever they're on a planet. Banana plants also move -- Rose thought this was bollocks, but it turns out they really do walk around, just a little. So if the banana plant is unhappy where it is, the implants help it get to where it wants to go. Rose sort of knows how it feels. She lives in the TARDIS too, but she needs sunlight and space to move around in.

She's never had as much space as she does now, after the Doctor picked her up. Like a banana tree. Not that she's not grateful, and she's sure he likes her more than the banana tree (well, pretty sure), but once in a while she looks at the tree, carrying little implants it was never meant to have, and she thinks, "Yeah. Me too."

One night the Doctor catches her talking to the banana tree and gives her a one-eyebrow look that means he's wondering why she's acting....well, so much like him.

"What you need," he says, "is a drink and a bit of quiet."

"That's not likely to happen, is it?" she asks.

"How d'you mean?"

"Well," she says, "trouble sort of follows us, doesn't it?"

Then he cocks the other eyebrow. "I can think of somewhere it won't."

He changes course mid-travel, which means riding the mix manually, the Doctor and the TARDIS working together, all the way to their new destination. When they step outside it's night on some new planet that --

Well, most planets smell like something. Grass or smog or something. This one has no smell, and the air is sterile. And there's only one building, and it is a pub.

"This is Bar TARDIS," he says.

"The planet?"

"No, the pub. Come on."

The pub is bigger on the inside than the outside. Rose senses something very strange is going on.

"This is the one place in the universe where nothing changes," he says, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking so pleased with himself. "Nothing happens. Nobody dies. Nobody really lives, either, mind, but some prefer it that way."

"How...?"

She sees it then; the familiarity of the place. The circular console in the middle is a bar with a shaggy-haired man behind it, serving drinks, standing where a column ought to be. Instead of the detritus the Doctor's picked up on his journeys, there are dim booths and tables filling the control room.

"It's a TARDIS," she says. "Another TARDIS."

"Yup," the Doctor skips down the steps and walks to the bar. "Two please. Whatever's on tap. Oh, and I brought this." He offers the barman a wine bottle filled with glowing amber liquid. "It's not credits but it ought to cover the tab."

The barman stares in disbelief. "Too right. Where'd you get this? You could buy a planet for this. A really nice one, I mean, not some crappy little moon or something."

"I pick things up," the Doctor answers.

"You want some chips?" the barman asks, taken aback by the Doctor's barter.

"Just the beers, thanks."

"What is it?" Rose asks, as the barman pours. "And where did you get it?"

"Wine. Finest vintage in the world. Grew it myself."

"You never did."

"Sure I did. You know the poky little stairs behind the broom cupboard?"

"The one in the kitchen or the one near the jukebox?"

"We have a jukebox?" he asks, looking excited. Once in a while, Rose feels a bit like a chaperone for a particularly bright ten-year-old. "No, I'm thinking of the one by the big...stuffed thing."

"It's a woolly mammoth, and you said you were getting rid of that."

"I like Charlie. Where were we?" The beers are up; he sips his happily.

"Broom closet."

"Right." He grins. She loves that grin. "The stairs behind it. If you go up and make a left on the landing, second door on your right."

"Wine cellar?"

"Nah. Vineyard!"

"We have a vineyard?" she asks.

"Yup."

"On the TARDIS."

"You're always so surprised by these things. Why are you so surprised by these things?"

It's a good question. She rubs her forehead. "I really couldn't tell you."

"Aa-nyway. The grapes are only good every few decades, and the last pressing mostly got broken when we made that dodgy landing on Gh'Zhalkenu. Only a few bottles left, but I don't even like wine very much, so it's no use to me. Still, drives the values up."

"So that's..." she purses her lips. "TARDIS wine?"

"Doctor's Specialty. Sounds like some kind of fake cure for baldness, doesn't it? Drinks well, though."

She looks around, uncertain how to answer that. There are other people drinking here, mostly alone or in pairs. Nobody's talking to anyone, not the way you usually do in a pub. The Doctor leans over her shoulder.

"Nothing ever happens here," he says, voice low in her ear. "See that bloke over there? He'd like to chat you up. He'll think about it -- but he won't. Or he might find someone who wants to be chatted up, and then he would, if he liked the look of them. Nothing ever happens here unless it does."

"Sort of Zen."

"Not really, but I'm not in the mood for comparative religion. This is the place between time," he says, gently. "A long time ago, this TARDIS died. Someone -- probably one of my people -- found it drifting, or perhaps it was theirs. They brought it down gently. Inside, time doesn't pass. That's what it means, when a TARDIS dies, but usually they're destroyed."

"But we're still moving and talking."

"Time isn't moving round us, though. Oi," he adds, to the bartender. "How long've you been here?"

"Dunno," the man answers. "You lose track after the first few centuries."

"Don't you get bored?" Rose asks.

"Nah. M'writin' a novel."

The Doctor nods and turns away from him with a grin, spreading his hands as if to say, You see?

"Isn't it sort of...morbid? Drinkin' inside the dead?" Rose asks.

"Can't think of a better afterlife, myself," he says. "It's -- sad, but not terrible. It's a memory of another..." he laughs a little, "...another time. Someone must have loved you," he adds, touching the bar affectionately. "Someone must have loved you very much. Couldn't bear to wreck you."

"Sort of like those old historical places they turn into parks or museums or things."

"A bit, yeah." His mouth twitches unhappily.

"How do they build TARDIS...es?" she asks.

"They don't. If they did any old person could have one. You've got to earn a TARDIS."

"I thought all your people had 'em."

"No. Oh no. I mean, a lot did, I suppose. But a TARDIS isn't just a tool. It's a decision. You get your little seedling and it grows..."

"You grow a TARDIS?"

He's lost now in some other world, but she doesn't want to pull him back. He's quieter than usual. Maybe it's that time isn't passing.

"You grow it, and you learn what it thinks and feels, and after a while you can start carving. That's the hard part. Have you ever met Michaelangelo?"

She actually has to stop and think about this.

"No."

"He says he doesn't sculpt things. He just frees them from the marble. It's like that. Then, one day..." he smiles. "It starts telling you what it needs. Everything else just becomes...background noise. You work yourself right into exhaustion, helping it become what it was meant to be. But when you're done..."

"Freedom," she murmurs.

He looks at her, surprised. "Yes. Freedom."

"Nother beer?" the barman asks. "Or some peanuts or something?"

The Doctor passes his glass across. Rose has hardly touched her own.

"Have you ever been here before?" she asks.

"Yeah, well. Not for a while. It makes me think. The other kind of thinking. You know what I mean." He pauses. "I wonder who grew it."

Rose slips her hand in his, briefly, squeezes and is rewarded with a smile. They drink and don't talk much, and it's good, really. He was right; he usually is.

When they return to the TARDIS, their TARDIS, the banana plant has decided it likes the hot bit near the sonic frigidaire better than the little empty spot next to the sink. Rose pets it as she passes.

"Where to now?" the Doctor asks. "It's your pick."

"Can we stay here for a bit?" she replies.

"Course, I suppose, but there's not much to see out there."

"I wasn't thinking about out there," she says. He gives her a mild, questioning look. "I want to see the vineyards."

END

The Impressionist Mechanism

2008-11-01T14:40:35Z

Title: The Impressionist Mechanism
Rating: PG
Fandom: Harry Potter (PoA film specific)
Summary: What possesses a relatively sensible grown man to buy spine candles for a children's classroom?
Notes: First posted in Copperbadge and never archived here, I found it when resurrecting Copperbadge and thought I would repost. I believe it was written for a fic contest on FictionAlley, having to do with "visuals from the PoA film" which had just come out.

First posted 6.14.2004.

***

Remus Lupin liked people. On the whole, he thought they were a good sort, but it wasn't just that he liked people because they were interesting. He liked the physical human body, the shape and strength of it, even though his body wasn't human anymore, not really. He liked watching people who talked with their hands, using gestures to emphasise words. He liked watching trained runners sprinting, and trained dancers dancing.

What he liked most was the shift and curve of the spine under the skin of a bare back, the way muscles rippled across it. Science classes, before Hogwarts, taught him that the spine was central to the nervous system, almost as important as the skull and brain. During one of his father's quests for a cure, Remus had learned a lot about the line of the spine and the way it affected the body's nerves, the way all muscles were interconnected, and how that connectedness altered during the transformation from man to beast.

Vertebrae themselves were lovely, weren't they? A perfectly functional interlocking set of bones that were formed in beautiful abstract shapes, like a machine built by an impressionist artist. As a student, rambling through the wilderness around Hogwarts, he'd once found a nearly complete skeleton of an owl who'd met some sort of unfortunate end. He'd studied the spine a long time before respectfully kicking a bit of dirt over it as a burial.

When Professor McGonagall took him into Hogsmeade for his first shopping trip as a proper Hogwarts Professor, she pointed out that the candles in the Dark Arts classroom needed restocking. One of their first stops was at Illumos, the Hogsmeade candle shop, since electricity didn't work in the castle.

"Something properly eerie, I think," she said, as they drifted through the shelves of plain white pillars, specially designed dribbly-candles, divining tapers, trick tea-lights, and other charmed wax creations. "Dark Arts does have a reputation to maintain, after all."

"Hmm," he answered, unwilling to purchase frivolous dragon-shaped candles or ones that shot two feet of flame in the air, even on the Hogwarts supplies expense account.

"Black is always effective, I've found," she was saying, but something on the overstock shelf in the back caught his eye, and he slipped past a large cabinet full of grinning skulls and house-elf heads to pick up one of the cut-rate candles, running his fingers over the sinuous shape appreciatively.

"How about these, do you think?" he asked, turning to her and holding it up. She raised an eyebrow.

"No-one can deny they're appropriate," she said reluctantly, "but perhaps a little too macabre..."

"Oh, I don't think so," he answered. "There's lots of them and they'll last a long time, and it's a lovely shape, and anyway they're dead cheap. Look," he added, "the vertebrae are even marked, so you can tell which one you're looking at. Light source and anatomy lesson all in one."

He lit one with a pinch of his fingers and a flick of the wrist, and grinned at her over the flame. She smiled back, the indulgent, I've-been-sweet-talked smile she used to give him when he made jokes to get his mates out of trouble, back when he'd been her student. She blew out the flame, and gestured at the shelves.

"Have them sent up to the castle, then," she said, and he made his way to the till. "Don't dilly-dally, Lupin, you've more supplies to buy..."

The shopkeeper smiled at him and agreed to box up all their spine-candles and have them delivered to the Dark Arts Classroom, Hogwarts Castle, care of Professor Lupin.

Pleased with his first act as a proper Professor, he followed McGonagall out into the late-summer afternoon, and onwards towards the Scholars' Shop, where he could buy a pot of red ink for marking student essays with.

END