#;;yells

[harknesstm]

🎉

NEW NEW JERSEY -- 3605

Jumping timelines was an old hat to him, as he pinballed around time and space on what was a glorified grief bender. He shouldn't have done it. But it had been well over five hundred years for him, and his anger had dissipated in favor of desperate nostalgia towards certain people he was inextricably tied to. He still looked the same, and he wondered if the Doctor could feel that he was different. The five hundred odd years was on top of the two thousand buried under Cardiff. Was he older than the Doctor now? Maybe. It didn't matter.

"How is she?" He asked before knocking back a drink that wouldn't affect him, one arm rested on the bar as he smiled affectionately at the mere mention of the Tardis. If there was anyone he missed, it was her. Him too, if he wasn't lying to himself.

His eyes flicked upwards, knowing damn well the fireworks here were from the three moons the circled the planet. Making it look like they were exploding. It was something to see.

It wasn't the time or place or fireworks that made his chest ache. It was the sudden reminder of who he had been and what he had lost.

"Here we go!" Three, two, one; and the sky caught fire. He laughed with delight, glass turned upside down on the bar before both hands came up either side of the Time Lord's face and he kissed him; equal parts blind tradition and centuries of loneliness in the act.

[voiicefound]

@steadyfire SC

Sometimes, it was freeing. Walking alone, just with a few guardians. No one watching her critically, no one to breathe down her neck. Beta would find her, as he always did. But not yet. For now, she simply walked; doing as she pleased as she went, safe with a mask and the dead believing she was one of them.

A small suburban street, and she let the small pack of a dozen walk ahead of her as she stopped; fingers brushing the concrete as she picked up a fallen newspaper from before this. Not that she could read it properly, but she could flip through and look at the pictures. People smiling on paper, like they had never known hunger or despair. Like they had never lived in her world. Perhaps they hadn't.

Automatically, her gaze swept around; glancing over empty street and empty doors and-- not empty roof. Lydia's eyes fell on the boy on the roof, pausing a moment in shock at being seen before slowly breaking from the pack.

As the pack continued, she stood below the roof, head tilted up behind her mask. -- "Are you lost too?" She stage whispered up, one step back just so he could definitely see her. "It's not safe without a mask." Concern rather than criticism. "They'll get you."

[harknesstm]

@bertievi

The roaring twenties were a shade less roaring in the UK, but so far nineteen twenty-one had panned out alright. It might not have been the vibrant speak-easy scene of New York, but it wasn't dull. Especially not when he had co-opted Torchwood Three and took it upon himself to handle things that the rest wanted to turn a blind eye to.

Or that they didn't want to handle. Like dealing with the king. Given that Jack could shout down a brick wall if necessary, it was the best arrangement for everyone.

It wasn't often that he wasn't spatially aware, but he was reading a sealed file and wasn't paying any attention when he turned a corner; bumping squarely into someone in the halls of Sandringham.

"Clearly the universe is telling me I'm working too hard." He offered lightly, by way of apology, smiling and stepping aside. "Try not to hold it against me."

[harknesstm]

Cardiff, 2508

He shouldn't come back again, not to Earth and not to San Junipero. Much more time had passed for him than had on Earth and much more than had in here. Time didn't mean much in artificial reality. But he had been skipping through timelines for-- a very long time.

But he always came back, like a moth to flame, everytime. Dashing himself against the rocks and then wondering why he violently drowned for years afterwards. Until he returned again. Over and over and over.

He always found Ianto in the 2010s, in the artificial night. This time was no different.

"Hello, stranger." Jack smiled, sitting down beside him in the tacky faux-leather booth and putting a drink in front of him. It was all real as long as you let it be, wasn't it?

@iclearupyourshit

[griefprofiled]

@betaofthedead // charmaine & beta

"Like I said, I don't like killing kids." Sitting at the table she'd had moved into the cell that the girl had formally been in, she repeated the words she'd said at the gate with a gun to her head. Blunt and even, no fear as she looked at him. The walkie-talkie in her hand lifted. "Shaw." Upon release of the button, Lydia's voice came through. Please don't kill me.

"That being said, I will." Not a hint of blinking in the statement, even if she sounded genuinely remorseful for it. Did she want the kid dead? No. Sometimes you had to do things you didn't want to, though. That was how this worked. Same way people died when you blew up the senate or white house. Acceptable losses. You could weep over casualties or you could win, there was no in between and there never had been; not at the metaphorical grown ups table.

"I think you give a shit, I can work with that." You didn't send just the muscle to get your kid back. You sent someone you trusted to get the job done. Someone who gave a shit. "I'm guessing you've been around a while. Probably watched that little girl grow up. Am I right?" Shrewd question, absolutely expecting to be right. You didn't get that trusted overnight. You earned that, over time.

"So you can come to the table and we can talk this out like adults, or you can listen to her bleed out." Walkie-talkie tilted both ways in the air as she pushed the chair opposite her out with a foot under the table. "Knives left at the door, we're not children."

[griefprofiled]

[starbxrsts]

@starkozuxspin