Charles is a romantic; anyone in the paddock can tell you that. He loves elaborate dates, wearing jewelry his significant other gives him, sappy Instagram captions — the works. There's a glow about him when he's in a relationship, cliché as that may be. You always know when Charles is seeing someone.
Despite his outward cynicism toward Charles and his romantic nature, George secretly wishes it would be directed his way. He's not sure when it started; he definitely didn't feel this way when they were karting together. But sometime during George's first season at Mercedes, he began to fall in love with Charles.
He's never said anything, of course — can't even begin to imagine how that conversation would go. Poorly, likely. George sticks to teasing him and complimenting him when Charles isn't around to hear it. If he gets a little hard in his suit after battling Charles on track, that's no one's business.
All this to say, it kills him when Charles kisses his girlfriend in the middle of the paddock and says, "I love you," loud enough for everyone to hear.
Draco never said that he liked the insufferable Potter brat. In fact he can only remember the opposite.
'I hate him' to which Pansy agreed that he was one of her least favourite people which, in turn, made Draco snap that she hated everyone and everything and his hate for Potter was nothing like that thank you very much, Parkinson.
'He's annoying as anything'. Blaise had said that he'd rather spend three days with the extended Weasley family than eat a meal with him. Draco let him know that Potter has never even done anything to annoy you, Blaise, you wouldn't know.
'He insulted the names of me and my father'. Blaise and Pansy had given up. Crabbe frowned deeply, he said the thing that you say all the time. That doesn't matter, he dishonoured the Malfoys Draco had snapped back.
'He smells like hair potion and chivalry and dust'. Pansy and Blaise almost choked on their butterbeer. That's not even complaining anymore, it's just... Pansy sputtered off. Blaise shook his head in some kind of sharp, dangerously humoured way and laughed why the fuck were you smelling Potter? Draco didn't have an answer, he just glared at the two of them in turn.
'His teeth are too straight. I think he might've had them fixed'. No response. At all.
'I think I might not hate him'. Pansy squeed, that was something Draco had never thought he'd see. Blaise rolled his eyes and huffed out a breath that suggested mild entertainment and the word finally. Millicent Bullstrode shouted Merlin's fucking beard, Draco, you're only just working this out? Draco didn't have a clue how they'd worked it out before him.
"He's still a brat" Draco says. Pansy and Blaise groan. Harry is indignant, "I'm sitting right here!" Draco touches their legs together under the table "I'm not kidding, you are a brat." Draco smirks, "But I've had plenty of time to get used to that" Pansy and Blaise are somewhere between horrified and happy about the recent turn of events.
the thing about me is... i will write little vignettes. putting rose tyler in situations and whatnot. via dimension hopper, naturally.
this takes place right before that ending scene in the garden in the giggle. rated g, gen. rose-centric, guest starring the best dad, shaun temple. to read on ao3:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
the happy landing
The scrapes and aches of the warzone she left behind—a world falling out of orbit, a catastrophic end after eons of civilisation—are fresh, and so are the smudges around her eyes. Tears still mingle with days-old mascara. And yet, when she jumps again, it's into the most beautiful summer day she can imagine.
She doesn’t know where she is. She doesn’t even know where she expects to be. But the sky is scrubbed clean by recent rain, the forgiving soil dark beneath her boots. In her periphery, all is green.
Her first breath is dizzyingly rich, verdant and sultry with growth and flourishing. Not even the lingering taste of ash can taint its wholesomeness. As she sucks in oxygen like she's been starved of it, her legs give way with the force of her headrush, and she manages to catch herself against a nearby stone wall.
She is in a garden, somewhere.
Ivy tickles her fingertips, and she wants to dig her hands into it. Wants to fall to her knees and bury herself in this clean, perfect dirt. Instead, she takes several more measured breaths. She swipes away her tears and stands straight. And when she finally feels she must, Rose moves.
The garden is sprawling, bigger than the kinds she’s seen attached to posh city houses, so she can guess this must be the countryside. A countryside, anyway.
All her senses—even the ones she's only just begun to explore—tingle with the sense that this is right, this is Earth. This is home. But she pins down fledgling hopes before they can take flight. She’s been wrong before. Can’t be too careful.
Her nose pricks with the realisation that there's a fire somewhere close; she mistook it, at first, for the staleness of the world she's just left behind, but this is a warmer, more cheerful fire. It sizzles with a different kind of burning. A barbecue, her nose identifies before her brain can properly catch up. Someone is close, and cooking outside.
Her stomach pangs with hunger. The last thing she can clearly recall eating was a ration bar, guiltily nicked from a bunker on her way to the last human outpost. That was more than a day ago. Possibly longer.
As she walks through the expansive garden, following an emergent trail of smoke, she toys briefly with trying to identify the flowers she sees: there are so many, a vivid patchwork, and they'd certainly tell her something about where she's landed if she knew them. But she never had the chance to become a green thumb, in her past life or this one. She recognises the plants only vaguely, pausing at intervals to tip her nose toward one open bloom or other.
The sweet scents tickle her nose until she sneezes. It's loud, ricocheting all over the stone, echoing in the big open sky.
Rose goes perfectly still.
Over the garden wall, she hears a voice. “Hello?”
Wincing, she follows the curve of the wall for a few more steps, but the path has turned to gravel, and each crunch just makes her more aware of her own noise.
There's a scraping sound, probably tongs or something over a grill. “That you, Mel?” It sounds like a man. “If it is, you've come too early. Sylvia won't let me open the wine ‘til the brisket's done, and I can't get the brisket done ‘til I manage to scrape this infernal tofu off the rack. No idea how you’re s'posed to barbecue the stuff—it's like glue!”
By the time he's done talking, she's had time to round the bend more fully, where she comes upon an open wooden gate, waist high, looking in on another smaller garden.
It's a lovely, sequestered place, more tame and shaded than the relative wilderness she's wandered so far. There's a kind of pergola up overhead, laced through with vines. Grapes hang from them in bunches. And she's never been a particularly religious person, but she is imaginative, and this is not totally unlike how she used to picture the Garden of Eden.
Except for the barbecue, of course.
And the man in an apron that says Kiss the Cook, tongs in hand, staring blankly at her.
“Hello,” she says, giving a little wave. She tries and fails to imagine how she looks to this stranger, with tear tracks still down her face, coated in another planet’s dust.
“Hello.” He doesn't seem particularly suspicious of her. More like… curious. His eyes are dark brown, and kind, and observant, too. He looks like someone's father.
“Sorry, I was just… I was on a walk, and I got a bit turned around. What street is this?”
The man snorts. He looks less like someone's father and more like Mickey when she's bothering him now. “Oh, I dunno, probably la rue Something-or-Other. France, my wife says, she wants a little cottage holiday in the south of France. Mind you, none of us speak a word, and I need a map to find the nearest petrol station, it’s embarrassing! Would never happen to me in London.”
“France,” she repeats, smile blooming in wonder. “This is France?”
“Where exactly did you walk from?” His laugh is less baffled than she might have expected.
“Long way off,” she replies. “I'm on a sort of… journey.”
“Ah,” the man says wisely, with a shake of his tongs at her. “Gap year, is it? You're on walkabout. You lose your duffle?”
She nods. “Fell in the sea.” The lie comes easily, because it’s something she supposes she would do. Or something the Doctor would do, she thinks wistfully. Get caught up in an adventure and lose all his gadgets to the depths of the Mediterranean.
“Oh, that's rough luck. No offense, though, but don't say anything like that too loud near my daughter—it’s my worst fear, honestly, my Rose wandering off with nothing but a pack and a map.” He gives a visible parody of a shudder. “Not that she's exactly the type, you know, but kids change as they grow up, don’t they? You can never tell.”
Her smile only brightens further. So he is a father. And a good one, far as she can tell. She can tell by how his eyes crinkle up.
She asks, “Your daughter's called Rose?” He nods, and really, what are the odds? “So am I!”
The man isn't quite finished in his examination of her, that much is clear, but at the sound of her name, his eyes undergo a further softening. He sets his tongs aside and rubs his hands together.
“That's a funny coincidence,” he says. Then, in another moment, he seems to settle on something. “Look, why don't you join us for dinner? My family's all here, and I don't know how long you've been walking, but you're a pretty long way off from anywhere. I'm Shaun, by the way,” he adds with a self-deprecating smile at his own perceived rudeness. “Shaun Temple.”
Rose doesn't hesitate a bit. She is drawn by the scents of home, by a home more home than home. The effortless clarity of the sky, and the bees buzzing mildly... It’s like paradise.
She begins to feel every moment like the past few days of blood and loss and darkness are really going, gone, slipping off her shoulders, leaving her almost—very nearly—light.
“It's lovely to meet you, Shaun,” she says. It’s true. He is lovely to meet. She’s sure his wife will be just as lovely, and his daughter Rose, and whoever Mel is. “I'm Rose Tyler.”
MSR prompts you say? This is a bit weird but, an autopsy record has more than the autopsy on it. Mainly Mulder and Scully being ... well themselves. (Basically Mulder interrupts Scully mid Autopsy and she forgets to turn off the recording.) -disappears into the ether-
thinky!!! i had so much fun writing this, i hope you like it even if you don't really go here and i don't really know what i'm doing. <3 thank you for prompting me and for always being an incredible friend.
click here to read on ao3!
click here to send me another prompt!
warning for: lame ass gag names, brief objectification of a corpse, mulder being a sentimental dweeb (but what else is new), msr being sickeningly in love
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for posterity
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He finds it in a dusty box, crammed in beside VHS tapes and manila folders and a million other memories, and he can't help himself.
He presses play.
A static hiss. A crunch. The rush of movement through still, cloistered air.
He hears the recorder clicking into place, suspended over the gurney. He's seen it there before, hanging like a pendulum, poised to hear every word she speaks from every possible angle.
"11:32 p.m., August 1st."
Like so.
"Begin autopsy on unidentified white male, weighing… 198 lbs. in extremis. No immediately visible cause of death."
There's a puff of breath near the recorder, and he can picture her blowing it out between her full lips. Balanced on her tip-toes, leaning out over the body to get her closest approximation of a top down look.
"Subject appears to be between the ages of thirty-five and forty, and healthy. That is, he's in good shape."
He pops a potato chip between his lips with a crunch. She sounds flustered. Interesting.
"Uh, really good shape, actually. Well-developed pectorals, abdominals, and whew, that inguinal ligament—wait," she says, voice slipping out of its even, prim cadence, "what the hell am I saying?"
He snorts.
She sighs, and it's tinny but familiar. "Okay. Get it together, Dana… A visual examination of the epidermis shows multiple tattoos, relatively fresh. The newest, on the upper left thigh, is—" and her words go the tiniest bit muffled as, he assumes, she leans in close to the appendage, "—still slightly scabbed. Certainly less than two weeks old. It's in the shape of a… a reindeer head? A moose? Huh. How… cute."
Charmingly, she says it like being cute is an infectious disease an otherwise appealing corpse has been tragically inflicted with.
"Artifacts left at the scene suggest that the subject had some sort of fixation on body modifications, or perhaps needles in general. However, the extensive tattooed area makes it difficult to determine if injection of some kind played a role in his death, as initial findings suggest. I'll have to look beneath the surface. Beginning with a Y-incision…"
His nose wrinkles, and he's quite certain the next bit will put him off his chips, so he hurriedly presses the fast-forward button, zipping through a few minutes of audio.
It resumes on a splat.
"...heart weighs 520 grams, no signs of aching or breaking," she cracks to herself before clearing her throat. "Appears healthy."
He's always suspected she's like this when he isn't around for autopsies, looking over her shoulder and going green as a Painted Parakeet with car sickness, pitching theories at her like he's playing for the Mets. When she goes in alone, she tends to leave the morgue with a kind of tranquility about her—a counterintuitive freshness that even the stale scent of latex and bitter iron can't hide. Her smiles are a little brighter.
Perhaps, he considers, it is simply the opportunity to reconnect with what makes sense to her: anatomy, the body and the story it tells. Everything connected, with clear delineations of where each piece belongs along the way.
There is so little ambiguity in the arrangement of a person's organs. Mysteries cannot help but stumble forth to reveal themselves.
But it's equally possible Scully just likes her own jokes. Her achy breaky jokes.
"This is interesting," she interrupts him, as she so often does when he's on a roll. She doesn't even have to be physically present to do it. Her undercurrent of genuine excitement pricks at his ear. "There's some cirrhosis of the liver, atypical for someone who bears no outward signs of extreme alcohol usage or any of the other usual physical risk factors. Perhaps the subject was participating in regular steroid use, or—"
On the tape, a door swings open and closes on an exuberant thunk.
"Whoa! I didn't know we were getting a celebrity in." His voice crackles out from the speaker. "Or that Steve Reeves had so much ink."
"Steve Reeves is about seventy, Mulder."
His own startled laugh sounds very, very young and—he winces—tinged with an arrogance that can't be tamed, even by his partner's dry replies.
But past-him is too intrigued for self-consciousness. "You know who Steve Reeves is, Scully?"
"I have two brothers." Her tone has gone cool and inscrutable, the loss of her previous lightness palpable in a way that only a voyeur could sense. But she was always so careful with him, back then. "Do we have an ID yet?"
"No, not yet. Prints are still being processed. But the name given at the motel check-in desk was clearly false."
"Let me guess, 'Steve Reeves'?" Listening hard, he can practically hear her eyebrow twitching upward, the faint lift at one corner of her mouth.
"Try 'Mike Hawk.' Jeez, what's that a tattoo of?" he adds distractedly. "A Rorschach test?"
There's silence for a second on the tape, and he suddenly remembers this exchange. Vividly. "Oh my God," he mumbles, abandoning his chips in favor of rolling over on the couch.
He sets the recorder down cautiously, like it's a holy relic, and stares at it, grinning with his chin propped on crossed forearms.
"I don't get it."
"Don't get what, Scully?"
"Why would that be an alias?"
"Why would the name 'Mike Hawk' be an alias? Mike Hawk?" His words are tinged with an obvious grin. Probably smug, as is his wont. Some things never change. "Mike Hawk."
There's a snapping sound as Scully removes her gloves. He recollects how they caught on her fingertips, causing a bit of a struggle as she spoke. The beginnings of a blush had seeped into her cheeks, the sting of embarrassment her fair skin couldn't help but betray.
"Why do you keep saying it at me? It's a perfectly ordinary-sounding name, Mulder."
"Didn't you just say you had two brothers? Mike Hawk, Scully, come on. Known associate of the dirty devil Mike Hunt?"
"I think Mike Hunt was in my sixth grade class."
On the recording, he can barely speak with the effort not to laugh. But there was another feeling, too, in that moment, one he remembers well: a pulse of intrigue, of fascination, which used to catch him off guard. He never knew how to cope with the reminder that Scully the woman—a shadowy mystery, perpetually out of his reach—existed in cohabitation with Scully his partner, the woman he saw every day.
This was the person who threw wadded up bits of paper at his face when he fell asleep with his mouth open; who wore men's deodorant on the road just so, in a pinch, they could share. Back then, Scully using any word—even unknowingly—to acknowledge her own sexuality felt like sudden, blazing exposure to the Lost Ark. It was a miracle his face hadn't melted clean off.
But it was a line they'd taken so much care not to blur, even then.
Now, he listens as it all begins to deteriorate over a puerile joke.
"Listen, Scully, listen to the sounds. Mike," his past self says, stretching the syllable, "Hawk."
"I am listening! You sound ridiculous! What am I supposed to be hearing?"
"You're supposed to be hearing 'Mike Hawk'!" He chuckles quietly to himself. "I can't believe this. The smartest woman I've ever met doesn't know about Mike Hawk."
"Well, I wouldn't say that," she casually replies. "I did see you in a bathrobe once."
The words are so perfectly clear, and suddenly all the noise—the shoe-shuffling, the rush of water as she washes her hands, even the background hum of the refrigeration units—seems to stop.
An interminable second passes in which he wonders if the recording got cut off. But, no.
That's just how long it took him to put the pieces together.
He closes his eyes, picturing it: the pert angle of her stubborn chin, the smirking tilt to her lips. Sparkling amusement, tinged with an adorable hint of triumph.
His grin grows. Scully really does like her own jokes.
"Scully!" his recorded voice bursts out, suffused with delight and bafflement. There's a thread of horror there, too. And desire, but that's more or less a given.
Her voice is thrillingly deadpan as she pronounces, "Gotcha."
"I don't believe it!"
"Mulder, has anyone ever told you that you're endearingly naïve?"
"You little—you just wanted to hear me say 'my cock' over and over, didn't you?"
She clears her throat, a demure little ahem.
"That would be very unprofessional of me."
In sync, both his past and present self laugh, one compressed and crunched by time, the other ever-so-slightly roughened by the same.
"That's not a denial."
"No," she replies. "It's not."
God, he can barely believe this conversation was recorded for posterity. This, of all moments. The moment when he realized maybe Scully enjoyed their flirting. That maybe, when he pushed, she could be counted on to push back.
Even now, belly down on the couch in the privacy of his own home, his stomach clenches at the memory.
She's always been the better actor, between the two of them. He's convinced she could get away with anything, and she more or less has. But the warm undercurrent of invitation on that recording is unmistakable.
"Scully." Closer to the recorder now, he goes low and flirtatious, even as he cautiously asks, "Are you coming on to me?"
He doesn't hear her answer this time around; instead, his ears catch on the rattle of keys, the click of the lock in the front door. When he glances up from the little black box, there she is in the open doorway, auburn hair catching the light.
She's holding the brown bag of takeout in one arm and her purse and keys in the other, and before he can think, he's pressing the pause button on the recorder, shoving it under a pillow, and going straight to her.
"Mulder, what are—?"
Wrestling the bag out of her hands, he stoops his shoulders and catches her lips in a long, hard kiss.
She doesn't expect the force of it, but she's got the legs of something seaborn, unbending against his tide. She accepts the assault with parted lips, mouth already curving like she's laughing at one of her own jokes.
"You must be really craving that Pad Thai," she whispers.
"Nope." He isn't even embarrassed by his own breathlessness, how hurriedly he dives back in to breathe her air. "Just you." He feels the muscles move as her eyebrow jumps toward her hairline, same as ever, and it's like all the blood drains from his brain.
It's hard to help her shed her coat with one hand holding noodles and the other in her hair and the bulk of her back pressed to the door—but he likes to think he makes it work.
"Hey," she murmurs, freeing herself enough to drop a kiss on his chin, "this have something to do with what you just crammed between our couch cushions? You weren't digging through my old cassettes again, were you?"
His eyes light up at the reminder of that particular discovery. "I didn't even know they made erotic audiobooks, seriously. A whole avenue, Scully, a whole dimension of pornography I was completely ignorant of until you opened my eyes! But," he stops, shaking off his momentary distraction, "no, that's not it."
He pauses for another kiss, lingering again because he can.
"It was an old audio log, an autopsy you did on one of our cases."
"An X-File?"
He and the takeout make it to the couch, Scully only a beat behind, pausing to kick off her little heeled boots. She's been breaking them in, claiming she'll need them if they're going to be chasing lights together again.
"No, it was a case we took on as a favor to someone. I can't remember now… What was his name?" He snaps his fingers. "Ben… something. Ben Dover? Or was it Mike Hunt?"
And Scully—well, she just wouldn't be Scully if she wasn't immediately hip to his bullshit, attuned to it like a sniffer dog to a suspicious scent. Her gaze narrows, and he grins at the way her eyelids flutter in an attempt not to immediately and violently roll her eyes. She's had a lot of practice, but he truly is a hazard to her ocular health.
Her smile, though. She can't help herself. It spills out at the edges, softening the corners of her mouth, even as it carves her laugh lines deeper.
She smiles more now than she ever did back then, and he treasures each one. The twist of her lips always feels like he's pilfering extra helpings from some great cosmic store of joy. It's an untold pleasure to watch the wrinkles form, knowing how hard-earned her smiles used to be.
Now, she's happy. She gives them out for free.
"I remember that case," she sighs, flopping down beside him on the couch, kicking her socked feet up on the coffee table. "God, we were young."
"I was 'endearingly naïve,' if I'm to take your word for it."
"Did I say that?" Her lips quirk in wry amusement. "Doesn't sound like me. I must have been in love."
"Yeah," he agrees, stealing another kiss. "Must have been." She softens against him.
He's about to steal something else—second base, if he's lucky—when there's a muffled sound from under the pillow. The distinct sound of his own voice saying, "Mike Hawk" over and over again. Their disturbance of the couch cushions must have started the tape over.
Scully's snorted giggle parts their lips. Her eyes dance like sapphires under the sun. "Did we ever figure out the victim's name?"
"You don't remember?" He sits back, shaking his head. "Wow, Scully, you really love 'em and leave 'em. I thought you had a thing for the guy."
"The dead guy?"
"Yeah, who else? Don't try to deny it, it's all on the tape."
She just shrugs. "Well, if I did—which I can neither confirm nor deny—it's only because I had a lot of tension back then… for some reason."
The grin he's wearing is probably so goofy, and hell if he cares.
Someone once called him one sorry sonuvabitch, but all Fox Mulder knows is that he's lucky. So ridiculously, obscenely, deliriously lucky, sitting next to the girl of his dreams, his once and future partner—twenty years later, on a couch they bought together, in a house they call home.
Twenty years, and she still flirts back.
"The guy's name was Eric," he finally says, because he can't not. Especially when it's the truth. "Eric Shunn."
Scully's laugh is so loud and uninhibited it rings through the house. And he has the distinct pleasure of letting it go on a while before silencing it with his lips.
fallen leaves but it has to take place inside the TARDIS. any doctor + companion and/or pairing
hiiiii thank you for your prompt and for your patience <3 tbh, i loved this concept and i spent a fair bit of time on the execution, trying to get the vibe close to what i was seeing in my head. not sure if i succeeded. but i hope you enjoy it anyway!
i went with the tenth doctor for this one, set post-runaway bride, reflecting on the loss of rose.
to read on ao3, click here!
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When the time came, he let the TARDIS guide him there.
He never knew where it had been or would be. He never knew what it would be like either. That was part of the Solarium's charm: it was a place which could only be found when it wasn't sought. Its unpredictability made it what it was.
And it had been a night for unpredictability. But he'd delivered the bride safely home. Snow still sugared the shoulders of his suit when the halls began changing.
"I'm not ready," he felt himself say. The words echoed hollowly ahead of him, down funny sharp turns and looping passages. He was raw and exposed and though he was very alone, he didn't feel alone—he felt stifled by memories, ghosts crowding the edges of his vision.
He needed time. He needed more of it, reams of it, an endless fountain of it. He needed all the time there was, and more—because that's what it would take.
But he followed the lights anyway. What else could he do?
Down corridors and stairwells, he let the ship lead him. Up a spiral staircase. Behind a false wall. The TARDIS was rarely consistent, but she was kind: she let him take the long way 'round.
When the arched doorway finally presented itself, the weak light was already filtering out through the cracks. Dry, brown leaves skittered and hushed as he put his palm to the creaky wooden door and pushed.
Autumn.
Inside the Solarium, it was autumn.
Outside, too. The atmosphere beyond the high, domed glass and iron lattice work appeared blue—a pale, eggshell blue, verging on grey. Clouds melded seamlessly with sky. The chill of it was almost a visible thing.
Within the Solarium, everything was in its proper place: the sundial, made now of stone, though in the past it had been many things—wood, then ceramic, then glass, then gleaming quartz; the pond where nothing lived and nothing grew, but the water itself danced. The ivy still crept perpetually up the lattices.
And in the center of the room, the tree still stood.
The tree in the Solarium belonged to no particular genus, had no particular name, though he'd searched the TARDIS library to find one. The bark of its massive trunk was smooth and unobtrusive, marred only by the occasional scar of some long distant, unknown trauma. It never fruited, though he'd seen it in every season. Its leaves often changed shape or grew irregularly, patchy and strange.
And at present, it was an explosion of colour.
The Doctor said nothing.
Gold, gold. So many golden leaves hung from those broad branches. Shades varied from the palest sunrise to a hue so rich and dark as to be nearly orange. In some spots, clusters of browning, dead leaves hung, poised to fall.
His eyes avoided those patches, drawn instead to where the vibrant colour was thickest. It was the gold of hair, of puddled sunlight, of a young sun. In spite of himself, he began crossing the tiled floor.
The loose laces of his plimsolls disturbed the occasional fallen leaf, a crackling announcement of his presence. But he still approached slow, like he would meet a wild animal. He stepped cautiously over where thick roots had broken through the floor.
It was only when his hand began to lift, fingers extended, that he paused.
"I'm not ready," he whispered, scarcely a moment before a vibrant daisy-heart-yellow leaf broke free and fell—right into his waiting hand.
"I'll never get used to this. Never. Different ground beneath my feet," and she's jumping, bouncing on her heels, and she's smiling, and it’s lovely, "different sky… What's that smell?"
"Apple grass," he tells her, eager to share everything he knows.
"Apple grass… It's beautiful. Oh, I love this. Can I just say, travelling with you, I love—"
"No."
The Doctor's hand spasmed, and the leaf fell, taking with it the scent of a different world. Apple grass. Such a crisp, fresh smell. He could never smell it again without thinking of her.
His throat felt tight. He wasn't ready.
Yet how many times had he stood just like this and let the memories wash over him?
Often they were green—hopeful springtimes of gentle past, a balm when he needed it most. Reminders of the goodness which existed in pockets of the universe, waiting to be discovered.
Sometimes, they came frost-fanged and bitter, serrated edges cutting him to the bone. Regret was grey. Steel grey.
All his companions had bloomed and withered here, on these unreal branches.
But this—the season the tree offered him was too cool and serene for what he felt. This… gentle giving-way. There was a storm inside him.
She had not passed gracefully into another season; she had been torn from his world, and her world, and the TARDIS, and him. How could that be beautiful?
How could that be golden?
He moved in a rush, grasping suddenly at the nearest withered clutch of leaves. He was only just tall enough to reach, and when he closed his fist, he came away with—
Pleading. "Help her."
But he isn't moved. "Everything has its time," he says, "and everything dies."
—and,
"No." Sarah Jane stands firm. Sure in herself. "The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it's a world, or a relationship," and the guilt cuts him open as he thinks of her, the leaves on her tree; then he thinks of Rose. "Everything has its time—"
—and,
"Why don't you ever just say what you mean?"
"Rose—"
"It's always talking with you, but you never…" She shakes her head, hair catching the light of the console. He wants to hold her so badly he can barely speak. "Just tell me this, Doctor: you and me, is it ever gonna change? Will we ever…?" She drifts off, uncertain.
"Everything changes." It's not really an answer, but it's the best he can do. "I promise."
—and in a blink, his fist closed. The brittle memories crushed to dust in his hand.
They were still there, of course: in him, in the TARDIS herself, and they always would be. They would grow anew, changing shape over time. Even at the topmost parts of the tree, people who were long gone lived forever: his granddaughter, with her untameable smile; an old historian who loved cocoa and cake and driving him spare; a young boy who was so brave, and so clever, and so very foolish; an Edwardian adventuress who followed him into madness.
The companions of his many lives.
They crowded their way up into the highest branches. One day, Rose would live among them, a golden crown to this ancient tree.
But even that knowledge held no comfort.
"No more," he said, "please."
Around him, the room gave a faint, irritated huff—like a creaky groan and a hum at once. And from somewhere else, a wind stirred. Focused and strong. Pay attention, it seemed to say, or else did say, in its own language.
A leaf the colour of liquid gold wriggled and broke loose, and he knew better than to run from it. All he could manage was to stand his ground as it smacked, with unusual force, into his chest.
The image burst over him.
"Anything else?"
"Why don't you ask her yourself?"
He sees where the woman—the bride—is looking. Over his shoulder. His gaze follows her, and he feels all the air leave his lungs. There is an infinite space between one heartsbeat and the next. But it’s real. It’s really her. No hologram or vision or ghost. No memory.
In the darkness, a light. Blonde hair glinting, her eyes holding his. And then he's running. Running flat out.
She's all he can see.
The feeling inside him is like nothing else. Like being reborn.
Her smile crosses the distance, gilded and lovely, meeting him before his arms can reach her. But even before his touch lands, he knows he’s already home.
The Doctor blinked. A hand rose to wipe down his own face, smearing the tears he hadn't felt fall. His from another time.
His feet stumbled forward, and he caught himself against the tree's giant trunk.
"Not a memory," he whispered to the silence, in all its enormity, its electric potential. "Not yet."
Prescience, passed down to him by the brush of a leaf. This had never happened before.
But then, there had never been anybody like Rose before, had there? She'd left her mark on the TARDIS, on the vortex itself, every bit as much as she'd left her mark on him.
The pads of his fingers felt out a scar in the wood. One he hadn't seen before. It had an odd shape to it, an asymmetry that reminded him a little of an animal in profile: a jagged protrusion, and the swell of a haunch.
Something with its nose to the sky.
He traced it twice before he understood. The muzzle. The howling. His chest felt weightless, for a moment. Uncompressed by longing and grief, his hearts beat freely.
The Doctor, with his hand to the wolf, wheezed out a shocked laugh as he suddenly remembered that these leaves were also the colour of flame. Of timeless, endless burning, searing and rewriting.
"I bring life."
From its bark and its branches, from its roots and its high crown, the tree seemed to shiver out a very long sigh as he finally grasped its message. Everything has its time, it breathed. Its hope was golden.
The shades of it all swirled together and tangle, an infinite vortex, laden and dripping with life still to come, and it was beautiful.
The Doctor smiled, removed his hand, and turned from the tree.
Apple cider, and any variant of Tucker and Rose you’d like (I know you have a couple lol)
thinky! thank you so much for this prompt. i once again just sort of started another au with it, because i have no self control. i just love putting these two in Situations. or three, rather. wilf showed up in this one, for some reason. hope you enjoy (when you get your internet back, lol)!
read on ao3 here. or send me a prompt here!
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something for nothing
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"Hot," Rose asked, thrusting out her hands, "or cold?"
In each was a paper cup, the left one gently steaming while the older man glanced back and forth between them with his usual consideration.
"That depends. Is it chocolate?"
"Nope."
"Coffee, then?"
"No." She failed to stifle a grin. "Sylvia would have my head and you know it."
An extremely unnatural-looking scowl made its way across his face. "It's not one of those fancy 'steamer' things, is it? Those always end up tasting like plain old spoiled milk."
Rose shook her head in fond impatience. "Just pick one, will you? Or they'll both be cold."
His eyes narrowed beneath his bright yellow bobble hat. "Fine, then. Hot," Wilf finally declared. "But this had better not be like the time you put chewy stuff in my tea."
"Boba," she corrected. "And don't worry, only liquid in there. And some spices, of course."
At this, Wilf took a long inhale, his nose hovering just above the thread of steam. It was endlessly endearing, how dubious he was about the whole exercise.
Then again, she had just been a stranger who walked up and offered him eggnog, that first time.
It had been nearly a year ago, around the holidays, and she'd been leaving after another long, tedious shift at the café across the way. Her manager had given rare permission to close up early after Rose pulled a double, but she'd not taken advantage: instead, she'd satisfied an intense exhaustion-fueled craving for eggnog by whipping it up right there in the shop.
But she'd made a bit too much, and with no one to share it with, she'd spied the old man at his newspaper stall—such a merry figure, like Father Christmas himself in a heavy red-and-white striped scarf, packing up his stacks of paper like gifts bundled in twine. He'd looked so cheerful and so cold, with his red nose and fingerless gloves, that she went out and offered him a cup of still-warm eggnog. He'd kindly offered a copy of Radio Times in trade, and suddenly they were talking like old friends.
That had been the beginning of a ritual which she held to after nearly every shift she worked. She never emerged without two cups of something to share, and he always held aside a paper or magazine he thought she'd like. They didn't always chat, but they did undeniably enjoy one another's company.
Rose thought of him almost like an adopted grandfather.
She watched with amusement as he put his eye to the narrow hole in the lid like it was the lens of a telescope, trying to see the colour of the substance within. She bit down hard on her lip. "What can you see?"
"Not much," Wilf admitted.
"Drink it! I promise there's nothing odd in there—well, too odd, I mean."
He shook his head at her, but he was smiling as he went to take a sip. She waited, holding her breath—and was delighted when his eyes lit up.
"Oh, that's not bad," he proclaimed, "not bad at all!" As he took another sip, Rose finally lifted her own cup to her lips.
Ripe apple, cinnamon, nutmeg—a faint hint of smoke—even cold, it all burst over her tongue, evoking a sense memory disconnected from anything she'd ever personally experienced. It reminded her of campfire nights after crisp autumn days, falling leaves and waning grey skies. Days so perfect they could really only exist in films, or books, or daydreams.
"It's cider, but with a little—something! Very good, Rose," Wilf added warmly. "So, what's the secret?"
"An infusion of lapsang souchong while the cider's warming up." She was a little proud of that one. "And all the usual suspects—clove, cinnamon, a tiny bit of anise… I have more," she said, patting her thermos where it stuck out of her messenger bag. She'd planned to take it home and sip it with her feet up in front of the telly, but seeing how eagerly Wilf drank from his cup made her want to share more instead. "Want a refill?"
"Let me see to what I've got first," he said, after another savoring sip. "It's good stuff! Is it going on the menu?"
She scoffed. "Of course not. Nobody around here wants fussy cider. They just want tea, or else coffee, black, no sugar—god, if you only knew how many red eyes I make in a day…"
"Well, it is Westminster," Wilf reasoned, looking around at the street which, while presently quiet, was crowded with buildings still fully lit up at long past six. "There's always some crisis they're perverting."
Rose hesitated. "You mean averting?"
"I meant what I said," he replied with a chuckle. "Takes a lot of energy to play at running the world."
"Yes, well, I just wish they'd get a bit more creative with their drink orders while they do it. Civilisation won't end if one of them branches out and adds a shot of vanilla to their latte! And," she went on, voice hushing dramatically, "then there's the peacoats. They all wear the same bloody shapeless things. What is with that?"
"Speaking of peacoats…" Wilf coughed, clearly covering a laugh. "Evening, Mr. Tucker!"
Rose tripped over her own feet whirling around to see who he was talking to, and then nearly stumbled up again when she saw who it was.
Malcolm Tucker.
The Malcolm Tucker.
The scariest man in British politics, and possibly in Great Britain generally, stood about a foot away from her.
She recognised his face from Wilf's newspapers and the occasional clip on telly: fair eyes, humped nose, harsh lines bracketing a restless mouth, head crowned with tarnished silver hair. Under the flat, unforgiving light of the street lamps, he looked hyperreal. But even someone who didn't know his face would see evidence of his hand everywhere. He ruled the media with it. He puppeted the ministry with it.
And he was shaking Wilf's hand with it.
"Wilf, how the fuck's business?" he greeted, breezing right past her, smiling with the kind of familiarity that couldn't be faked. It even looked sincere. He brushed close enough that she could smell the wool of his coat, and she winced.
"Better, now that your mug's back out of the papers, sir!" Wilf laughed, and strangely, so did Tucker. "What'll it be today? We've got the New Statesman, fresh out this morning. There's an interview with your man, that baldy economist—"
But the other man brushed him off carelessly. "Oh, please, none of that, I'm off the clock."
"What brings you round, then?" For a second, Wilf's eyes darted sheepishly her way, and she could only goggle back in confusion. It was like he didn’t want to give something away, something secret. To Tucker, he said, voice low, "Celebrity Skin?"
Rose's jaw dropped. "Wilf!"
"Now, now, Rose, you can hardly fault the man! Just because he's in government doesn't mean he's made of metal."
"It's not him scandalizing me," she shot back with a laugh. "Wilfred Mott, I learn something new about you every day."
“Got to keep you interested, don't I?” Teasing though his tone was, there was also a glint of genuine pride as he added, “Or else I'll stop getting the best hot drinks in London hand-delivered to me!”
They were so busy sharing smiles that it took her a moment to remember they had audience. A rather intimidating audience. One of his iron-dark eyebrows was arched in something like humour. “That so?” Tucker said, eyeing her up and down.
“She’s more than just a pretty face, she is,” Wilf replied, and she felt herself flush. Whether it was from Wilf’s blunt, overenthusiastic praise or the assessing look she was receiving from the Prime Minister’s media enforcer, she couldn’t tell. “You should—oi, Rose, why don't you give him a little of that cider stuff? Mr. Tucker looks cold. Or maybe that’s just his personality.”
She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth, amused by the blatant ribbing. He’d accompanied it with a wink, and Tucker didn’t seem offended. In fact, his smile was back, spreading slowly, like it was foreign to his mouth.
“Not sure that's a good idea, actually,” she said.
“Why not?” asked Tucker, locking eyes with her for the first time. There was just something about his face; she knew she ought to be intimidated by him—and maybe she was, a little—but she was at least equally fascinated. He looked just like a man, ordinary.
Except not.
His gaze was too intense for that. Like it was used to cutting right through people. All day, people with glazed-over eyes muttered orders at her—barely seemed to even notice her. It was a startling change, to feel so… observed.
She blinked. “Do you usually risk drinks from strangers?”
“You're saying you wouldn't, if you were me?”
“If I were you—there’s an idea,” she dared with a breathless laugh. “If I were you, we probably wouldn't have quite so many bald, boring blokes in office. And things would probably get a bit more West Wing. But I wouldn't risk poisoning, no.”
“You're clever, then.” The smile that played around his mouth was a shade off the one he’d offered Wilf, but she liked it all the same. “Cleverer than me.” Her eyebrows jumped, and the corners of his lips only ticked higher. “I'd love a warm drink, if you can spare one. It's been a… very long day.”
And she didn’t know quite how, or why, or anything at all, but her hands just started moving on their own, sliding down the strap of her bag to the pouch with her thermos. She was actually going to share her drink with the Hitman of Downing Street, the thing that lurked under the beds of the ministers she saw on television.
You couldn’t make this stuff up.
“Easy, now,” Tucker drily warned. “No sudden moves. I might get clever.”
She chuffed a laugh. “Not likely.” But she slowed anyway, attention bouncing momentarily to Wilf—who was watching their exchange with a rapt and wildly amused expression—before she turned back to Tucker.
His eyes were more reflective of the colour of the sky than she’d ever imagined eyes could be. So blue and grey that it was like looking through the clearest water at the river stones beneath.
She couldn't quite shake off the observation—couldn't manage an appropriate amount of detachment as she withdrew the thermos and twisted it open. Concentrated steam burst free, smelling sweet and enticingly sharp, and she extended the mug out to him.
He took it. And when their fingers brushed over the warm metal, it hit her.
Attraction.
What she was feeling was attraction.
Her first thought was oh, Mum’s going to brick herself if I tell her. Which, of course, Rose wouldn’t. After Jimmy Stone and the complete fiasco he’d created in her life as a teenager, she knew better. But what would Jackie Tyler say about Malcolm bloody Tucker? He'd been working in politics for practically half Rose’s lifetime.
She could just imagine her mum's face, the repulsion and horror, and the picture was incongruous enough that it successfully pulled Rose out of her stupor. She withdrew her hand, feeling the cold snap of air instantly, more fiercely than she might have.
With a tense eye, she watched him lift the thermos to his lips. Watched him drink, slow and contemplative. He didn't seem particularly slow or contemplative by nature, so it must have been for her benefit. Her fingers made fists, which she wedged into her coat pockets.
He took another sip. Then proclaimed, “That's very good. Is that tea I taste?”
Her smile bloomed without thought or permission. “Secret recipe,” she said. “Now you owe me four pounds fifty.”
Those eyebrows leapt again before resettling even lower than before. He looked very intent. “You charge our mutual friend,” and here, he glanced at Wilf, “for cider, too, or is it just me who pays for the privilege?”
“Well, you know what your sort say—no such thing as a free lunch. Or cider,” she added, realising exactly what was about to come out of her mouth and doing nothing at all to stop it. “Wilf pays me back in magazines and good conversation. So what'll you give me, Malcolm Tucker?”
And god, she was actually doing it. She was flirting with him.
Beside her, Wilf was laughing into his fist. Part of her was embarrassed—or would be later—that she was making a fool of herself in front of the old man. He’d certainly rub her nose in it the next time she popped out with a drink. That was just what family did.
But there was another part of her, a much deeper and more untameable part, which insisted on saying, What the hell? Why not?
After all, this would probably be her only chance to tease one of the most powerful men in England. The prospect of pushing him, even a little, felt dangerous, rebellious. Deliciously improbable. And if there was a little extortion involved, well—he was hardly a man with clean hands.
One of those hands, she noted, slid into the pocket of that ridiculous peacoat—which was, she could admit, beginning to grow on her a little; it contrasted sharply against his skin and hair, so pale and severe—and he withdrew something small and white and rectangular. He extended it to her, but before she could take it, his hand snapped back. He seemed on the verge of smiling again.
Then, tipping back his head, he took another long drink from the thermos. A long, long drink.
She grinned, watching his throat bob. The bastard was draining the mug. Getting his money’s worth, she supposed.
She found she didn't mind. Her evening was shaping up to be substantially different than she’d expected.
Only when he'd finished with a faint hum of appreciation and returned the thermos did he give over the proffered card. It was simple, unremarkable white cardstock with crisp black text.
Malcolm Tucker
Director of Communications for the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
10 Downing Street, Westminster, London
Below were two phone numbers. One was crossed out, the smudged ink suggesting he’d done so recently. The second number was indicated as his personal line, and her breath caught. Was he mad, handing out this information to a veritable stranger? Did he know the trouble she could make for him if she started, say, making copies and handing them out with every cup of coffee she sold to his more politically repellant enemies? Of which there were many?
“Don't get clever,” he warned her, and there was a trace of real threat there. She felt it. It made her spine straighten and something senselessly warm unfurl in her belly. Then he said, mildly, “Call it an IOU.”
She looked up at the man before her and wondered if he was mad—or perhaps just fearless—or possibly, she guessed with a tilt of her head, he was lonely.
But whatever he was—and however much she needed to get her head checked for being so intrigued by it—there was only one way to find out.
Rose slipped the card into the back pocket of her denims, meeting his unwavering eyes the whole time, smiling to herself. She bit down on the tip of her tongue to prevent it spreading.
“Well,” she said, trying to sound tough, “it’s not exactly four pounds fifty. But it’ll do.”
Tucker smirked. And—oh, yeah, she thought. Mum’s definitely gonna lose it.
