#timepetalsweek

[faint-glimmers-of-hope]

Donna awoke with a frown and the hum of a song ringing in her ears.

She had never been the kind of person to turn a blind eye and ignore an inconvenience (her neighbours knew this well, when they decided to drill together that horrid IKEA furniture one Wednesday evening and she appeared on their doorstep with her arms crossed and her deadly glare), and faithful to her principles, she got up.

Immediately she felt something in her stomach starting to boil because who the hell thought it was a good idea to give a fucking symphonic concert at 2am, do you think this is the Royal Albert Hall or something? And she was more than ready to slap her palm across Ziggy Stardust’s face and send him straight into his next regeneration if it was necessary.

The diabolical tune grew louder as she walked through the lengthy corridor, and Donna bristled and fumed. However, when she finally turned the corner to the console room and her hands were about to occupy their usual spot on her hips, something stopped her in her tracks.

She found them there.

She should’ve guessed he wasn’t alone; he was never alone these days.  

Oh.

They were dancing.

Or something like it.

Because there was barely any space between them and they stood so close that they were stepping over each other’s feet, but they didn’t seem to mind one bit. Because they swayed in a lazy, vague motion that hardly matched the rhythm at all. Because their eyes were closed and the hands were burrowed deep, clutching the fabric of his suit and her jacket. Because it was the sort of embrace she had only seen in cheesy films and cheap soaps that would make her roll her eyes away with annoyance. Because it was clear that the music was just a petty excuse and the dancing a farce. And because, to top it all off, for the most unfathomable of reasons, neither of them was wearing shoes.  

The sight brought a smile to her face, of all things. And she would never admit it to herself, but her frown softened just a bit. Her hand fell to her sides, and whatever anger that had been building up inside her died out like a candle.

It was an old song. Very old. It reminded her of long dresses and black and white Hollywood musicals, from the forties or fifties. Glenn Miller or Benny Goodman or something like that. It was one she was sure to have listened to somewhere, somewhen, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint the time nor the place. Her gramps would’ve known; he would love it. Probably there had been an evening, long ago, out in the hill, with his modern telescope and his archaic radio, when these very tunes had started to sound, filling the winter air, and he had fiddled shakily with the knobs and turned up the volume with his face alight with the excitement of a child at Christmas. Donna, listen! This, this is a classic! And he had probably told her the title, but she found she couldn’t quite remember.

It was beautiful nonetheless.

Even the buzzes and whirrs of the TARDIS seemed to have dimmed down in favour of the music.

Cheeky ship.

The song kept on playing and the dancers were all left feet. What a pair. And then, in an almost unnoticeable shift, she raises her head from his shirt and mutters something that the melody leaves clouded and obscure, and Donna can’t make out the words. But inexplicably, wonderfully, he throws back his head in laughter and she joins until they’re stifling the laughs on each other’s shoulder. And there it is again, that light. It’s only in rare occasions that she’s seen it, but there’s no mistaking that it’s there, in his eyes. Time slows down when the Doctor smiles, and right now the whole universe frozen, every planet and star still on its axis. Like a photograph.

Long time no see.

And Donna still doesn’t know much about her—only that her name is Rose and she lived in South London and that she’s been gone for a long time—but already she has no doubts: she’s bloody amazing.

She gave one last look at the scene: God, they were awful and sappy and embarrassing to watch, and they were beaming.

And as Donna headed back to her room, the hum of the melody didn’t quite bother her half as much as before. In fact, she found she didn’t mind at all.  

***

For the prompt “dancing” of Timepetalsweek :)

[sarahjaneadventures]

timepetals week [19-25th july - further separating posting times]   — day two: why do you keep leaving me behind?

[struggling-artist-nr987]

Time Petals Week Day 6

In every reality they’d find each other

[hey-there-juliet]

For Day One of Time Petals Week: Dancing.

"Well, I've got the moves, but I wouldn't want to boast."

[timepetalsweek]

TIME PETALS WEEK

It’s finally here! Thank you so much for submitting your ideas and voting, and now it’s time to actually do it! So let’s see how to actually do it:

What to do:

Everyday from july 19 to july 25 you have three prompts to follow: a picture, a phrase and a word, and they can be used to anything. Fanfiction? Noice! Fancams? Hell yeah?? Edits? Love them. Illustrations? Please. Anything goes.

Now you’ve noticed that there’s only six days with prompts, but there’s seven days in a week. Hmmm. Don’t worry, that’s only because the last day is prompt free. So if you wanna join the party with any new doctor x rose content you are making, you can use this day to share your work with us.

How to participate:

When you’re done with your contribution all you have to do is post here and tag the page using the tag #timepetalsweek, and it will be reblogged.

Oh, If you’re posting it on AO3 it would be cool to use the tag there too.

Attention: mature posts must be tagged #lemons too.

                                                            —–

And if you have any questions the askbox or the PM is always open.

[writingithink]

The Doctor’s Domestic Nightmare Pairing: Ten x Rose Rated: G Wordcount: 2,542 Summary: They visit Jackie to do some Earth-wedding planning. Notes: This is for Day 5 of @timepetalsweek ! I used two of the prompts, the picture prompt and 'family'. A fair amount of the other fics in this series get referenced in this one, but I still don't think you'd be lost if you haven't read them. Extra special thanks to @hey-there-juliet , the best beta ever <3 All mistakes are mine. I own nothing.

READ IT ON AO3 -> copy/paste link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25478851

The Doctor landed the TARDIS outside the flat this time. Anything he could do to make this whole thing go easier (and hopefully quicker).

“How long are we staying?” He turned toward Rose, who was still sitting on the jumpseat, doing something on her phone.

“Thought we might stay the night,” she slowly replied, attention obviously otherwise involved. “Mum’s been lonely.”

“What are you doing?”

Normally she was out of the ship in a heartbeat when they landed at the Estates. This time she didn’t look like she’d be moving anytime soon. Their bond wasn’t providing him with anything useful, just a mix of concentration, mild frustration, and sympathy. They had agreed to both put their barriers up decently high shortly after she woke up, when they started to create a stress feedback-loop in each other's heads. He sat down next to her and leaned over her shoulder to see that she was texting Jackie.

“You know, you can talk to her in person right outside these doors,” the Doctor felt the need to point out.

“No, no, however my phone works now, the sonic or the TARDIS or whatever, it, like- it blocked my texts until I woke up this mornin’. But if you look at the little time stamps, it’s sendin’ my replies as if I didn’t wait a month to answer. I’m texting my mum three days ago,” Rose explained.

“Oh. Huh. Must be the TARDIS. Have you been doing this all morning?”

“Yeah. The first text came through as being from about, I dunno … an hour after we left last time?”

“Well, knowing your mother, she’ll be outside the door any minute. Doubt you’ll have time to finish the week,” he admitted with a frown. The Doctor hoped that all of the guilt he was feeling at keeping the two of them apart was safely behind the walls he’d erected in his mind. Of course, traveling, being away from her mother, that was Rose’s decision (and one that he was immensely, immensely glad for).

But still.

He and Rose had talked, back when they were at the Olympics, after the Isolus. About things, family things, Gallifrey things that he didn’t want to talk about. Thankfully, with the bond, he was able to show her more than tell her, because the words wouldn’t come half the time - a real shock, with his gob. And he’d admitted to her how much he wished things had been different with his children. That he’d been more like them, or they’d been more like him - but they had taken after their mother, who was a very respectable Time Lady, and fit right in. Whereas he never had. Things had brightened up a little when he told her about Susan, but overall the whole thing had made them both very sad, very ill timed conversation to have on a honeymoon.

And now he felt guilty, much more so than usual, at the thought of Jackie being lonely while they gallivanted about time and space.

“I need to change,” Rose announced, jostling him as she stood and bringing him back to the present.

“What?”

“She’s made some appointments at some very nice places and I have to change. Ahh, I don’t even know what to wear!” she exclaimed, quickly exiting the console room but pausing at the entrance to the main corridor. “If mum shows up, can you stall her?”

“ What?!”

But his wife was gone, apparently off to change out of her jeans and hoodie. The Doctor sighed, circling the console, mentally calculating what repairs he might be able to make some progress on in the time that he would be waiting on her. It really was a shame that humans tended not to pick an outfit and stick to it - things would be so much simpler. Not that he didn’t enjoy all the fun, different things Rose wore. And she did seem to really enjoy dressing up for all of the different places they went to.

Just as he was considering perhaps changing his tie, knocking started up on the TARDIS door.

Oh, bloody hell.

He flinched, expecting a mental zap, but it never came. Right, they were blocking most things out. Ehh … 

The benefits of mental privacy - today, at least. Well, it was obviously necessary but he really didn’t like it. What did it say about him that he preferred to be telepathically reprimanded than to not be telepathically noticed at all?

Probably nothing good.

The Doctor shook his head as the knocking continued, and then jogged down the ramp, grabbing his coat as he went. He opened the door just wide enough to slip out, slamming it closed with his back as soon as he’d cleared it.

“Hello, Jackie!” he greeted his mother-in-law with a wide grin.

“Doctor,” she responded, crossing her arms. Ohh, and he’d been hoping she would have warmed back up after last time. Then again, what had been a month and a half for them had only been a week for her. “Where’s Rose?”

“She’s still getting ready. I never can tell how long it’s going to take her, so I may have landed us a bit, er, prematurely.”

“You’re not lyin’, are ya? She’s not in there sick, or injured, or- or-“

“No no no no no,” he quickly interrupted, waving his hands about, “I would never lie to you about something like that! Rose is fine. She’s just- just- picking an outfit or doing her hair or something.”

“Alright then,” Jackie said, finally seeming to relax … a bit. “Maybe I can give her a hand.”

The Doctor knocked her arm away as she reached for the door, and that was quite rude, wasn’t it? Definitely not doing anything to get back into her good graces, but if Rose was still texting and Jackie had her mobile on her, he wasn’t sure it would still work if her mum entered the TARDIS.

“If you go in, it’ll take even longer!” he insisted, not knowing if that was necessarily true but assuming it was. Jackie had never been in the wardrobe room, so he could only imagine. “Why don’t we head inside? Otherwise we might be standing outside the TARDIS for ages.”

“ You want to sit around the flat with me, no Rose?” She seemed skeptical, and he really couldn’t blame her.

“Yeah! Of course!” The Doctor pasted on what he hoped was a winning smile.

The things he did for his wife.

“Riiiight. Okay, then. Fine. She better be quick about it, though, otherwise we’ll be late. You shoulda waited for her to land that box of yours,” she scolded him as they headed up to the flat. He took the time to really look at her, and realized that Jackie actually looked quite nice today, for once not wearing one of her velour tracksuits.

It was too bad he couldn’t tell her that of course he’d waited for Rose before landing.

“Won’t happen again,” he said instead, hoping that was true.

They entered the flat and the Doctor was sincerely at a loss as to how to proceed. He projected everything that had happened to Rose, just getting an ‘okay’ in response. Her mental presence was frenzied, and he wished he knew how to be more helpful. The fact was, he had wandered into something very human that he had never thought that he’d ever be a part of.

“So, how’s it been?” Jackie called out from the kitchen.

“Hmm?” He wandered into the room to see her moving about, fixing tea.

“I said, how’s it been, the two of you. With your first week or however long it’s been for ya, dating.”

“ Dating?!” the Doctor repeated, and now she was facing him, looking at him like he was an idiot for some reason, but excuse her, what?!

“My daughter?”

“No, I know your daughter, but we’re not dating! We’re married!”

“Right, sure, so you’ve been sayin’, but the fact is you two weren’t even properly together before your alien voodoo ended up accidentally getting you hitched. You can’t go from nothin’ to married like that, relationship-wise, no matter what ya got goin’ on with your shared brain whatever you call it.”

What?

“Bond,” he found himself mumbling, “it’s called a bond.”

“Though if you ask me, you two did go on about like you were together, even if Rose was constantly denying it. I’m not blind, y’know. And it wasn’t just me, either. Ask anyone around here, watchin’ you too making doe eyes at each other.”

“ Doe eyes?! I don’t make doe eyes,” the Doctor denied, though he still was trying to process the whole beginning of her speech. “Wait, did you say alien voodoo?!”

His words fell on deaf ears.

“And don’t get me started on the constant touching. The both of you had to realize that normal friends, platonic friends, don’t carry on like that, clingin’ to each other.”

“Clinging?” He didn’t even have it in him to scoff anymore. This was exhausting. Jackie pushed past him, handing him a cup of tea as she went. “Erm, thank you.”

“Use a coaster,” she told him, pointing at the couch.

Forget the beast in the pit, this was hell.

“Right, yes, of course,” he nodded, quickly sitting down and placing his mug on a coaster as ordered. Ugh.

Still, it was better than the interrogation she’d given him the last time they’d been here. And at least this time Jackie didn’t seem to expect him to say anything at all. Though she had asked him a question. And people called him rude!

His mother-in-law took a seat in the chair with her own mug, giving him the same skeptical look that she had after catching him modifying her toaster. Thankfully, before she could start up again the door opened and Rose walked in.

And she was breathless, panting, having obviously ran all the way from the TARDIS.

And from what little he could get from her over the bond he could tell that she was incredibly stressed and anxious.

But she looked gorgeous.

Her hair was done in soft curls, and she had on a TARDIS blue dress and the same little pink heels she’d worn when they’d failed to see Elvis. He really needed to get back around to that. Might not have time until their second honeymoon, though. Too many different plans. The Doctor couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“Mum!” she exclaimed, immediately wrapping Jackie in a hug.

“Finally! Thought we’d miss our first appointment! I told him, wait ’til you’re done before gettin’ you here, especially if he’s going to cut it so close. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t pass his test, you know, the way he lands willy nilly, and a year late, don’t think I’ll forget that! Who in their right mind woulda given him a time machine if they knew he’d be carryin’ on like that,” Jackie nattered on.

Not a word, he bit out to Rose across the bond and was actually quite pleased with the resulting mental laughter (despite the fact that it had really been a dire warning).

“Sorry for takin’ so long. I think we should still be fine. We’re getting a cab, right?” Rose asked, and they both began heading right back out of the flat.

The Doctor picked up his tea, blew on it, and put his legs up on the coffee table.

“What are you doin’?” Jackie asked him, holding the door open. “Shake a leg!”

“What?”

“You’re coming with us!”

He looked at Rose, who mouthed ‘sorry’, pointed at her phone and shrugged before remembering that they could speak telepathically.

Mum never said she expected you to come with us until the texts from yesterday, she explained, and I was in such a rush to get here by the time I got those ones that it slipped my mind to tell ya.

“Oh … right,” he tried to cover, “I just … thought we were having tea. And you know how great I think your tea is, Jackie. Saved the world, your tea did. Well, helped my regeneration sickness, which amounts to the same thing in that situation. Free radicals and tannins, have I properly explained the benefits to you? You see-”

“Wait a minute!” Jackie interrupted him, staring at Rose’s hands for some reason. “Where’s your ring?!”

Ring? Ring. Oh bloody, fucking hell.

“Oh, we haven’t-”

Her mother didn’t even give Rose a chance to speak. “We’re to go to all of these places, wedding planning, and he didn’t even have the decency to get you an engagement ring?!”

Exchanging rings. He knew that one! It was a human marriage custom so pervasive that it remained a part of their wedding ceremonies throughout time and space. And he’d forgotten.

“We just haven’t had a chance to go looking yet, that’s all,” Rose lied. “If anyone asks, we’ll just say it’s off gettin’ sized.”

Jackie huffed before stomping out of the flat, his wife trailing behind. The Doctor sat for another moment, positively baffled at how this day was going, then bounded out of the flat after them. When he caught up to Rose, he took her hand and pulled her to a stop.

“I’m so sorry,” he told her, and really, he didn’t even know where to start.

“Doctor, it’s fine, I don’t care about rings and stuff.”

“Not just that, though. But still, that too! I’m sorry for- for not doing this properly, not dating you, jumping straight into everything. I waited too long to tell you how I felt, and now I’m completely rubbish at doing all of these human courtship and marriage things, and you deserve-”

“Doctor,” Rose interrupted him, putting a hand over his mouth. “Y’need to stop listening to my mum. We’re fine. We were fine before you left the TARDIS, and we’re still fine. Better than fine, even. We’re fantastic. And let’s get this straight now, I’m the one who gets to decide what I deserve.”

“And what’s that?” he asked, words muffled by the hand she still hadn’t moved.

You, she declared over their bond, barriers dropped so that a tidal wave of love and affection poured into him.

And then he effortlessly nudged her hand out of the way, pulled her even closer, and kissed her.

The Universe was not kind. It owed him nothing. If anything, he owed it. Because it gave him her.

The hand not clutching her lower back tangled into her hair as he deepened the kiss, his own barriers crumbling as he tried to express everything he was feeling in that moment. Her arms wrapped around his neck and it was perfect. Everything was perfect, and the Doctor had no idea why he’d ever thought otherwise.

“OI!!”

They sprang apart as if a bucket of water had been poured over them.

“None of that!” Jackie yelled from across the way. “Get a move on! I swear, this is gonna be worse than all of the lovesick mooning.”

He was mortified.

Rose’s barriers had already locked back into place, her face red.

Tell your mum I’m off to get your ring, he projected before running back to the TARDIS as fast as he possibly could.

[ask-the-almighty-google]

@timepetalsweek

So, This is a tiny snippet for Timepetals... I had what you could call a family emergency with someone in the hospital from a deeply-infected wound on their leg, and my house is in chaos, but I still wanted to participate this year, so I kind of looked at all eighteen prompts over the six day period and cherry-picked the ones I wanted to use because I know that I won’t be able to do any one shots or once a day postings with all the craziness going on...

The snippet I’m going to post under the “keep reading” button is part of a WIP chapter from my Fifth Doctor/Rose Tyler fanfic “Something of the Wolf” on Ao3 under the username of Aelwyn. It’ll be a while before I finalize this chapter and actually post it, hence the reason a piece of it is appearing strictly on Tumblr at the moment, but I think I did the prompts I selected justice...

For context, in this very long fic Rose meets Five when he’s dealing with a pack of werewolves in a rewrite of the Big Finish Audio “Loups-Garoux.” She herself is a Werewolf, and a special space type one at that, and by this point in the story they’ve been traveling together for around sixteen years. The setting is in Castle Benger, which is on the planet of Vulpana - a planet inhabited solely by a different species of Werewolf - but they have a good friend in Mags there.

But anyway, here’s the six prompts I selected...

1.) “After all this time, it was always her.”

2.) Wolves.

3.) A picture of Five and Rose.

4.) Wife.

5.) “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more than I want you.”

6.) Dancing.

...And underneath the “keep reading” insert you’ll find the story snippet. All credit goes to ask-the-almighty-google for Tumblr, or Aelwyn on Ao3 once this chapter eventually gets published in the future. Hope you enjoy.

They’d decided to have the ceremony in the castle gardens, and the Doctor tried not to fidget underneath the trellis arch as he waited for Rose to appear. “Relax,” Leela chuckled softly, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Of all the people I have known, I have never seen two souls as perfect for one another as the pair of you. This has been a long time in the making, Doctor. It does not matter that she is a Wolf of Leto any more than that you are a Lord of Time. It is as it is. And it is right.” “Forgot your people believed in the idea of soulmates,” he muttered, relaxing ever so slightly.

“Take her word for it old chap,” Alistair sighed contentedly. “From my perspective, you’ve been married for ages.”

“As encouraging as that is, Alistair, it’s also giving me future knowledge I shouldn’t have,” the Doctor chided, a soft smile turning up the corners of his mouth as he shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked slightly on his feet. He turned at the sound of a door opening and went entirely still mouth ever so slightly open but not drawing a single breath, as Rose walked across the grass toward him. 

The stars were shining and they made her loose, petal-adorned hair shimmer. Her whiskey eyes seemed to glow ever so faintly with a golden shine as they reflected the light of Vulpana’s four moons, and they saw only him as she walked toward him. It wasn’t a delicate walk. It was almost disturbingly predatory, the preciseness and fluidity of her movements decidedly Lupine as she stalked across the grass sending chills of anticipation and awe down his spine. Oh, but he was done for. Because, no matter where or when he was, after all this time, it was always her. Them. Finally, and permanently, together. Truth be told, the Doctor didn’t hear a word that Alistair said during the entire thing. He was barely aware of answering the questions correctly, of Leela claiming him as part of her tribe and consenting to the union or of Mags doing the same thing for Rose by claiming her as a member of her pack. He was only aware of Rose’s empathic presence in his mind, of her bright happiness soaking into him and warming every part of him. 

The vows said, Alistair helped them bind the handfasting ribbon and solidified the union in the eyes of Time. The last words were spoken as he knotted the ribbon, and the Doctor inhaled sharply as their timelines trembled with anticipation. Gallifreyan wedding receptions - at least the archaically-old-fashioned kind - held no formal sort of pomp and circumstance in them whatsoever. It was merely a garden party to round out the ceremony with dancing and food, casual and happy, and there was no special song for the new couple because their first dance held far more significance than following the generic steps to a common known melody. “You ready for this?” Rose whispered, already breathless with nervous excitement. “I am,” the Doctor breathed. She smiled at him before she put the blindfold over her eyes, and he chuckled before following suit. 

He used scent and touch to press his fingers to her temples, heard her gasp as he bound them just enough to let her sense their timelines. The first dance was so much more than the first public appearance of them as a married couple, and it was entirely unique to every single matrimony.

They were dancing to their timelines and tying them together, preparing to be one in the eyes of Time itself before a private permanent bonding of the minds later in the evening. The Doctor took a deep breath and let his Time Sense direct the movement of his feet. Due to the blindfold, his Time Sense was allowed to register Rose’s timeline in all of its undistracted brilliance. It burned a bright gold shining nearly white, and even from her position several feet away he could feel its heat against his own rolling over him in pulsing waves that kept time with her heartbeat. His own was cool and silvery-blue, sparkling like stardust and beating rhythmically in a double heartbeat staccato of the time signature of life. He was barely aware of his feet on the grass, of his torso and arms and legs turning and twisting effortlessly with the path of his existence. 

Oh, but he’d lived so long, and had such a while to go before meeting Rose... The Doctor gasped as he was drawn to her far before they had met, when he was but an adolescent that hadn’t grown into his new - and too long - academy robes. His fingers just caught the tips of her hair as she passed and he hissed at the shock of contact. He spun away again, nearly tripping over his feet from the limitations of trying to imitate a serpentine movement with a bipedal skeletal structure, and relived in a flash an excruciating amount of years spent in loneliness. His timeline brightened faintly as Susan joined, dimming again when she left. He spun and felt his forearm brush against her elbow as she continued on her own journey, and he ached to follow her warmth even as he was carried farther and farther away. She was the acceptance and welcoming and home that he had been denied on Gallifrey, what he had been running toward and never finding. 

Time moved, and he with it. So many places, so many times. Jamie, and Victoria, and Zoe. A suppressed memory of time spent in a Spanish hacienda just outside Seville that he wasn’t allowed to access, and his fingers brushed over her shoulder. They kept meeting, he drawn to her like a moth to flame, as she crossed his past from somewhere in her future. Still they danced, separate but for a few moments of bliss, until they reached the point in their lives when they collided. The Doctor sighed as he soaked in Rose’s healing warmth, feeling it like a gentle summer rain after the relived years of abandonment, and he felt over the empathic connection that she was letting herself be soothed by his calming and steady presence in much the same way. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more in all my lives than I’ve wanted you.

The dance took on a new tone as they moved in parallel tandem but never touched, drawing closer and closer together until they were circling each other in an ever-tightening, ever-slowing, spiral. At last, they cruised to a halt with one of his hands resting lightly at his waist and one of hers featherlight touching in between his shoulder blades. Their free hands were clasped tightly together, the fingers so flawlessly twined without any gaps, and as one they leaned forward to rest foreheads together.

[faint-glimmers-of-hope]

“In every reality they’d find each other“ 

some more fluff for the Timepetals week, because I’m a sap and I’m proud