speaking of fanfics...
zombie apocalypse au
--
It was hard to remember now when the world started to fall apart, but Rose wanted to. She had to remember, if only just so she had something to think about at night when the walkers stopped groaning.
She could however easily place the first time she’d ever fought a walker, with not much but a plank and luck. Thankfully, Mickey had arrived (they had originally planned a date) to smash the thing’s head in, and tell her that it was entirely possible that the world was ending.
The date was canceled, at any rate.
Mickey was somewhat right. The world was crumbling around them, but London seemed happy enough to continue on with their quiet pockets of people dotted across the city. They would welcome a new person every now and then, but the new ones always left. Currently, their group consisted of four- her mum Jackie, Mickey, herself and Jack.
Jack was an interesting one. They’d picked him up from in the rubble of a burning building, with no memory of the past few years. Some sort of head injury had clearly knocked him off his block, but Jack healed fast. Rose swore that every time she thought the man was dead for sure he’d keep popping up in a pile of finished walkers and grin.
Either way, it didn’t matter. They were glad to have a survivalist on their team, even if he kept flirting with them. It was in a joking way, but there always had to be someone to remind Jack that no, he really shouldn’t flirt with a walker, no matter ‘how much it moans back?’. She’d lightly slapped him teasingly for that one before jogging off to collect more perishables.
Jackie was surprisingly adept at disposing of the walkers, although there had been a period of time where she’d panicked about everything and was somewhat in denial. However, they were glad to have her there- not everyone they knew had made it, Jackie and Mickey being the only people she’d had contact with since the end of the world. She didn’t think of her neighbours and friends. Mostly because she didn’t want to think of her neighbours and friends.
Mickey.
They’d tried to keep the relationship going, but it was past them in the end, and they mutually decided that they’d be better as friends instead of lovers. Besides, it’s a little hard to be romantic when people you know keep dying.
These three were the only three Rose allowed herself to care about. Anyone else would have been far too risky for her.
There was a girl, once. ‘Lynda with a y’, as she was so fond of calling herself. When Rose asked why, she’d paused before telling her all about her friend Linda, with an I. Lynda didn’t need to explain what had happened to her. But she’d become so used to introducing herself that way that it stuck.
The two girls, although they did have a bit of a rocky start, soon became fast friends and quickly built a friendship like not much else in the apocalypse. Rose felt like everything was back to normal now, or as normal as an apocalyptic world could be, and it was, right up until Lynda’s face was ripped off by a walker and Rose had to shoot her corpse.
After that, she refused to build on with anyone that wasn’t in the core three, and made this fact explicitly clear. She most likely would have continued with this lifestyle for a long time, or forever, had the Doctor not come into the picture.
–
He’d screwed up so horribly the Doctor didn’t even dare to do anything else. If he screwed with the timeline even more he was sure the universe would rip apart. It didn't matter if he was an alien with a reputation stretching far beyond honors, absolutely nothing would come out a would-be failed attempt.
As he’d been trying to negotiate peace with two alien races dabbling in advanced evolutory biotechnology, there had been a misunderstanding that soon turned into war. Again.
And this time, Earth was caught in the crossfire.
The Doctor absolutely couldn’t forgive himself for this. Time was doing its best to heal itself amongst the ripped, shredded, atomised tapestry that had been twenty-first century Earth. But it was a slow process, and he suspected that the timeline would only finish fixing itself until about the third millennium.
Obviously he had tried to find something that could heal the planet. But the technology had been experimental, and Earth deemed a minor planet, not one of importance. Of course he had scanned the timelines, but nothing appeared that would be of help.
Now there were only small things healing one bit at a time. A couple finds each other, albeit under drastically different circumstances. Technology pioneers. Somehow. Actually, forget that last one.
It felt like it didn’t matter in the end, though.
Earth was now an apocalyptic no-go zone like something straight out of a book- zombies everywhere, innocents who should have gone on to do amazing things slaughtered.
As penance, he decided to do the one thing that he swore he’d never do as a young, naive Time Lord- the very opposite of what he'd sworn he'd do all those lives ago- ground the TARDIS. Right in the middle of London, in the middle of the apocalypse.
(Okay, maybe not in the literal middle. More onto a side street which he’d blocked off and cloaked so it was only accessible from the roof. But close enough.)
–
The TARDIS understood his motives, but didn’t agree. The Doctor only barely managed to, but didn’t entirely send her to sleep. She was still half-awake, mourning the loss of the Earth. It was horrifying, feeling herself being ripped away from futures that should have been- the Doctor should have been fighting off aliens, defeating the Daleks. The loss of her Bad Wolf.
However. It was entirely possible, as the Doctor personally theorised, that parts of the timeline would fix themselves (in different contexts).
There was still a chance that the would-have-been Wolf and her Madman would meet.
So the TARDIS lay quiet and allowed her Doctor to do what he’d always wanted to do, and would still do, save people.
–
Rose decided to check out another former convenience store, quietly mourning the loss of hot chips. Potatoes were now few and far between in this world, and she’d always loved the bliss of crunchy, salty, vinegar-drizzled carbs.
Shaking herself out of nostalgia, she opened the door and looked around. No walkers as far as she could see. She ventured deeper, managing to find tins that other survivalist groups had missed, buried underneath shelving.
Candied fruit. Rarity, that one, so she stuffed it in her bag and moved on. Pickles… well, Jack did like them. Rose grimaced at the sight of molding bread and continued down into the store. Distracted by the amount of foods, she bent down to pick up a bottle of jam and accidentally tripped over a fallen shelf, falling onto a piece of glass.
The shattering that the stupid pane made could’ve been heard for ages.
She swore under her breath and made sure there weren’t any cuts or bruises before turning around to the entrance to find five different walkers stumbling in.
Shit.
Rose was completely outnumbered. She immediately fumbled for a weapon, only pulling a long piece of metal bar from the floor. Rose should have bought something with her. She cursed herself again, wondering how she could have been so stupid as to assume she didn’t need anything considering the others were a few blocks away. She didn't dare scream in case there were more outside.
Rose looked for a door. There was one down all the way at the end, but no shot. The bottom half was covered with rubble and framing. She’d never take it down in time. The only way out was through these walkers, in a suddenly very small shop.
She desperately wished someone would help her get out of this mess, but nothing. No angel from the skies. She'd take a devil at this point. As long as she saw Jackie and them again.
Gritting her teeth, she readied her weapon. If anything, she’d go down fighting, and then hope that none of her friends saw her stumbling corpse.
-
The Doctor had been walking around, looking for others. He’d been somewhat picky, but right now was a little bored and wanted some action. Funny how that sort of thing used to happen to him all the time, until he plopped himself right into the middle of a zombie apocalypse and said zombies barely showed up at all. Well, there were a few round the corner, he supposed.
It was then that he noticed five of them staggering into a store.
Well, there was really only one reason why they’d be doing that.
-
‘Stop! Wrong way there,’ the Doctor muttered as he took her upstreet. ‘There's a few zombies down the road. Unless you fancy to be someone’s dinner, I doubt you’d like to keep going.’
She didn't fight him, allowing him to drag her along in a rare moment of trust and surprise.
‘Now it's easier to get away. By the way,’ he muttered, digging into his pocket and throwing a black ball into the middle of the undying, writhing mass, ‘run!’
As the two scuttled off towards (rather unknowingly, for the Doctor) Rose’s place, the funny little black ball only gave a small beep before exploding in a rage of golden light.
