#anyway I think...I might start to get a little less rigid about letting myself dump nonfandom or fandom-adjacent posts here

[laundrybiscuits]

I've recently been tagged in a few WIP/"last thing you've written" type games, and…to be completely candid, I haven't been writing any kind of fic lately because I've become a little bit obsessed with analyzing the Broadway revival of Merrily We Roll Along.

Not for any particular purpose, I just saw it at the Hudson a little while back and have a lot of feelings about it! In my tiny scraps of spare time, I've been working on an essay about Merrily and inevitability that will probably end up rotting in my google docs*, because that's how I approach writing as a hobby.

There's just so much there, holy shit. I'm focusing particularly on "Franklin Shepard, Inc." because Radcliffe's Charley brings a frenetic, desperate vulnerability to the performance that reads so, so differently from earlier productions. Throughout the show, I was consistently blown away by the heavy lifting Radcliffe, Mendez, and Groff do in shifting the core tension from "art vs commerce" (fine but basic, and difficult to keep modern) to "how people prioritize different types of relationships in their lives."

In an effort to make this slightly less wildly off-topic for this blog: this has gotten me thinking about the way that platonic relationships are treated in narratives, particularly but not exclusively in fandom.

"Found family" is and has always been a popular trope, but I do think its current incarnation trades a lot on the underlying fantasy of relationship permanence. When we recategorize friendships as familial relationships, we're making a claim—whether or not it's justified—about the indelibility of those relationships.

That's not inherently bad (or, god forbid, problematic). I think it's very very natural, especially for those who don't necessarily have a lot of experience with the way adult friendships change over time. Why wouldn't you want something as precious and unique and amazing as a good friendship to stay with you forever?

Certain people can feel like pillars of your world, and it's fucking terrifying to think about that being yanked out from under you—or even worse, to think about your lives slowly shifting like geologic plates until suddenly you realize it's been weeks, then months, then years since you last really talked.

CHARLEY: We're not that kind of close any more, the way we used to be. And a friendship's like a garden. You have to water it and tend it and care about it. And you know what? I want it back.

It's a peculiar, particular kind of grief when it happens, because even though it's a fairly common human experience, it doesn't get socially acknowledged in the same way as e.g. a romantic breakup.

So yeah, it makes a lot of sense that found family is a popular trope in all kinds of media, not just fandom.

However...at this point, I've developed a knee-jerk wariness to the phrase "found family," because I've found it often correlates with a really flat, simplistic depiction of human relationships. In extreme cases, it simply recontextualizes a relationship within the socially acknowledged/acceptable framework of a stereotypical family unit.

This does a disservice to familial and nonfamilial relationships alike. Every family is different, so why do so many found families in media look the same?

(I was monologuing about this to my very patient girlfriend, and she pointed out that this also sets up a success/failure binary condition in relationships, where permanence is the arbiter of success in both romantic and nonromantic contexts. She is of course both beautiful and correct!)

I have friends with whom I can sometimes share a glance and know exactly what they're thinking. I even have a running joke with one friend about the sheer number of times we've said the same thing in unison over the last 15 years. I still need to be intentional about building those relationships, extending empathy when we differ, and carving out time to reconnect. Truly intimate long-term relationships of any kind involve disagreements, conflicting priorities, and negotiating and renegotiating boundaries.

Being "basically the same person" or "sharing a braincell" actually sounds super fucking lonely to me, personally, and it handily elides the difficult, essential process of keeping people in your life.

FRANK: Old friends let you go your own way. CHARLEY: Help you find your own way. MARY: Let you off when you're wrong. F: If you're wrong. C: When you're wrong. M: Right or wrong, the point is, old friends shouldn't care if you're wrong. F: Should, but not for too long. C: What's too long?

That's a more complicated and much more mature narrative to tell than "friendship will save the day!" Because it's not that common and there's not a deep bank of references to draw from, it takes a lot of effort and skill to depict well, and I don't blame creators for not wanting to let it suck up all the air in the room. However, I think it's important to acknowledge that platonic relationships can also be flanderised and flattened.

In the context of fandom, which has always traded heavily in Romance genre conventions, I would really like to see more thoughtful explorations of complicated nonromantic relationships. I'm not even talking about genfic here! I've actually been thinking about Stobin specifically because that relationship (rightly & understandably) tends to show up in any Steve-centric fic, including the vast ocean of Steddie fics, so it makes the issue slightly more visible than I've seen in other fandoms.

I'm not saying I want to see them fight, or not be friends, or not love each other fiercely and near-obsessively in the way that lonely teenagers can. I'm just saying I want them to be distinct individuals who view the world in very different ways, and choose each other anyway. They already have a complicated past; I know from personal experience that it's possible as a lesbian to be best friends with a guy who once made a little speech about how into you he was, but that little layer of history never quite goes away.

I don't want frictionless relationships in my life. I want people who will challenge me and whom I can challenge, in the context of love and trust. I want people in my life whom I have to work to understand, because my life is richer when I do. And sometimes, I want narratives that will reflect the grief of friendships that are no longer part of my life, despite the best efforts of everyone involved.

In Merrily, Charley sings, "Friendship's something you don't really lose—" but Radcliffe's thready, pleading delivery makes it all too clear: Charley already knows he's lying. The audience just needs to catch up.

*Other essays in that particular graveyard: understanding the cast of Peanuts through the lens of anomie, humor and subversive linguistic nationalism in 00s Singaporean TV, how to fix Miss Saigon. WHY am I this way.

[specterchasing-a]

Let The Words Fall Out || Alfie & Eddie

TIMING: Current

PARTIES: @yikesimonfire & @specterchasing

SUMMARY: Eddie heads over to Alfie’s apartment during a time when they could both use the company. One thing leads to another, and Eddie decides to be honest for both of their sakes. 

CONTENT: Internalized homophobia tw

There was no reason for Eddie to risk climbing from one balcony to another. Alfie agreed to let him come over, and would likely answer the door for him if he knocked. But his legs were already dangling on either side of the conjoined railing by the time he realized his options. At any rate, the balcony route felt more familiar to Eddie, something he appreciated now more than ever. He preferred things this way. It almost felt normal.

“Hey,” he greeted his neighbor as he slid the glass door open. Usually, his arrivals came with more panache, but recent events watered down his usual flair. Eddie considered Alfie for a moment, a sad smile pursing his lips. As expected, the atmosphere between them felt different now. He didn’t want it to, but when had he ever gotten a say in that sort of thing, anyway?

“So, we’re clear to be total bummers today, right?” Eddie questioned as he plopped down beside Alfie on the couch. “‘Cause, I gotta admit, I’m gonna have trouble if we’re supposed to play happy.”

“Hey,” Alfie croaked in response. After he told Eddie to come over, he’d taken up his usual spot on the couch. Waiting. His palms were sweaty by the time the other man sauntered in; fists clenched hard enough that his short nails bit into his skin. There was no denying that Alfie had a tendency to be rigid — standoffish, even — but the way he held himself now was something Eddie very rarely experienced. Halloween 2017, to be precise, not that Alfie was even remotely thinking about that now. No, he was too busy wondering if he was making too much (or too little?) eye-contact to be worried about how tense the rest of his body was. 

As Eddie joined him on the couch, Alfie forced a laugh and slackened his shoulders a considerable amount. The tension was still present, but with any luck it wasn’t noticeable. “Total bummers,” he agreed. “I couldn’t fake something like that right now, anyway. Not going to ask you to do it.”

Alfie’s lips pressed into a tight line as he glanced at Eddie. The sad look in his eyes reminded him of the last time they were alone together. Since then, Alfie’s jealousy had shed its skin to reveal tatters of guilt and sadness beneath. Did it show? 

“This whole Nell thing, it — it’s been rough.” Far worse than it would have been if things were normal between him and Eddie.

Eddie noticed as tension faded from Alfie’s frame, same as he noticed some of it remained. So, this was the new normal: fake laughs, forced eye contact, and regret. He felt the familiar itch to reach out and touch him in a way he hoped would be soothing, but he couldn’t do that anymore. It meant something different now, something less harmless. Eddie felt an awful surge of jealousy for the man he used to be, the one who could place a hand on Alfie’s arm and feel warmth instead of guilt. Now, he had to settle for busying his hands by twiddling his thumbs in his lap.

“Yeah, I bet,” Eddie said with a nod. He couldn’t look at Alfie for too long, not when every glance felt like prodding at open wounds. “I think I’m still in shock.” His mind was filled to the brim with rapidly swimming thoughts that picked at his peace of mind like underfed piranhas. It was all too much, too much to keep to himself.

“You can still talk to me about anything,” Alfie told him earlier in the day via text. Eddie desperately wanted to believe him, so he took a leap of faith.

“Bex is missing too,” Eddie blurted. “I think she is, anyway. Either that, or ignoring me.” He resented himself for not knowing which option he preferred. “And… something else happened too.” His eyes closed tightly for a moment as he recalled his conversation with Morgan. When they opened, his gaze turned to Alfie. He ignored how badly it hurt.

“I think I’m making a mistake, Alfie,” he confessed, his voice barely above a whisper.

Alfie bobbed his head in agreement. These days, he was all too familiar with the feeling of ‘shock’. Eddie and Bex. Eddie in his office. Nell’s strange behavior. Nell’s disappearance. Just because he could count it on one hand didn’t make any of it less disconcerting. “Bex is missing too.” Five fingers now.

“Oh,” Alfie very nearly whispered. Of course. Everything was always about Bex. It shouldn’t have come as any surprise. If he wanted to maintain a friendship with Eddie, he would have to get over hearing about her. Eddie needed him to; that’s what friends were for.

A sixth metaphorical finger was raised when the words “I think I’m making a mistake” fell from Eddie’s lips. Alfie’s brow raised, his head turning slightly towards Eddie with a look of confusion — and concern — etched into his features. “I don’t think they’re related,” he began slowly, careful of the words he chose. As far as Alfie was aware, Bex wasn’t part of Nell’s search-and-rescue mission. “But, with all of these portals opening and closing, I—” A soft sigh escaped him before his knees turned inward to Eddie’s own. “I can’t imagine she’s ignoring you, Eddie.” He wanted to tell him that he wouldn’t if he were Bex — if Eddie was his boyfriend. “Why would she?” he murmured instead. 

Alfie didn’t understand, but Eddie couldn’t blame him. Vague confessions rarely led to clarity, and the amount of information he dumped in his lap only made things murkier. He needed to choose his words more carefully to make sure he didn’t do more harm than he already had. Eddie nervously ran his fingers through his hair as he fell back against the couch. 

“No,” he said unhelpfully, shaking his head lightly as he recalibrated. “I mean, plenty of reasons, actually.” Morgan supplied him with a thorough explanation as to why Bex might cut ties with him. Bex didn’t seem to agree with her, but she didn’t have a view of the full picture, and Eddie trusted Morgan enough not to divulge a secret like his. Not yet, he hoped. If he was lucky, he still had time to prove he wasn’t as bad as she thought.

“But that’s…. I think something else is going on, something worse.” With Bex, the safe bet was always on the worst case scenario. “And that should be all I’m worried about. She’s my girlfriend, I should be consumed with concern, and—and I am.” He nodded as he spoke, relieved that the words felt true. “But there’s more to what I’m worried about than a few missed messages.” Eddie’s appreciation for his own honesty already started to wane.

“Last time I saw you in person, you said I owed it to myself to try being with her.” Eddie’s gaze fell onto Alfie again. “Let’s be honest, you only said that because it’s what you thought I wanted to hear, and you weren’t… wrong, but…” He trailed off, scanning Alfie’s face as silence overtook the conversation for the time being. Eddie found comfort in the familiar lines and curves he observed. He let out a breath. “This isn’t right,” he said. “I’m being selfish by making her play a part in the lies I tell myself.” Fear rooted itself in his eyes as he realized there was no coming back from what he was about to say. “Alfie, I’m gay.”

It was physically impossible, but Alfie was certain that his heart leapt out of his throat at Eddie’s confession. The words preceding it were a rollercoaster of emotions; sadness, jealousy, empathy, and a hint of regret. Of course Eddie was worried about Bex. After all, they were friends when Alfie first met her and he knew firsthand what it was like to be concerned for someone’s well being that he cared for platonically. In one fell swoop, whatever jealousy he felt towards Bex and Eddie’s relationship dissipated. Of course. Everything Eddie said weeks ago suddenly clicked. He shouldn’t have been so relieved. It was selfish to think that this changed anything, though. At the end of the day, Eddie was still just his friend and he needed to support him now more than ever.

Shifting slightly in his seat, Alfie offered a small smile. “Me too,” he blurted, a gentle laugh trailing behind. “You… already knew that.” His eyes searched Eddie’s for a moment as he wracked his mind for something more substantial. But words never came easy for Alfie — something Eddie was well aware of by now. Desperate to fill the silence, Alfie reached out and tentatively squeezed Eddie’s upper arm, never breaking their shared gaze. 

“I’m proud of you, Ed,” he dared to say. “I— I know that doesn’t make anything less terrifying for you, but I am, if that counts for anything.”

The fear in Eddie’s eyes shifted into relief upon hearing Alfie’s response. He let out a soft laugh that mixed with a restrained sob in the back of his throat. He didn’t expect to be met with rejection or scorn, not from Alfie, but he didn’t think comfort would be possible so soon. His gaze fell to their laps momentarily as his body relaxed. He was safe, he was okay, if only within the walls that surrounded him. That was enough, for now. His eyes quickly reclaimed their connection with Alfie’s, exuding voiceless gratitude as silence reintroduced itself. Eddie didn’t mind the quiet, for once.

His gaze flickered to Alfie’s hand as it reached for his arm before he leaned into the contact as much as he comfortably could, as if pleading for it to not end.

To say Alfie’s next words caught him off-guard would be an understatement. Eddie couldn’t remember the last time someone told him they were proud of him. Surely, this wasn’t the first time some expressed pride in him, but it felt an awful lot like a first. Tears bloomed in his eyes, two or three adventurous drops spilling down his cheeks, as he stared at Alfie with unbridled admiration. 

“You have no idea, do you?” he asked quietly. Eddie understood Alfie underestimating how important he was, but he wouldn’t abide by it. “Out of everyone I know, there isn’t anyone else I would rather hear say that to me.” Alfie ranked higher than Eddie’s parents when it came to people he wanted to impress; higher than anyone else he’d ever met. “You are the most important person in my life, Alfie, hands down. If it wasn’t for you, I might not even know this part of me existed.” Eddie realized he might be getting a little ahead of himself and took a moment to recover. “Not saying that I think you’re the reason I’m gay, pretty sure that would’ve been a thing either way, but… the way I feel about you, have felt about you, makes it a little less terrifying. With you, it just feels so natural, y’know? Like taking a breath, or checking the weather. How I feel about you shows me that I’m not broken, because who in their right mind could get to know you the way I do and not feel this way?”

“I am still scared, and I don’t know what’s next, but I do know that I’m an idiot for ever thinking this is something I could run from, or that I wanted to run from it in the first place.” Eddie’s voice shook as he spoke, exposing his lack of confidence, but he persisted in spite of doubt. “Being with Bex showed me how rare whatever it is that’s between us is, and it’s also shown me how much it hurts to live without it. I don’t wanna trade you in for something the world expects from me, not when I have a chance at being happy with someone who makes me feel like there’s a future worth sticking around for.”

The tears in Eddie’s eyes warned Alfie that he said something wrong, but his facial expression told a completely different story. His first instinct was to brush the tears away, although he questioned whether or not it was appropriate. Before he had a chance to decide what was proper, Eddie began showering him with compliments that rendered him speechless. Alfie’s brow knit together and his eyes searched Eddie’s face, as if he’d find more truth there than the words being spoken. As much as he wanted to believe each syllable that spilled from Eddie’s painfully beautiful lips, his mind was clouded with disbelief.

“How?” Alfie finally uttered with a small shake of his head. “After the way I’ve treated you, Eddie? I— How?” A knot formed in his throat as Eddie spoke and it kept his own thoughts from bubbling to the surface. “After that?” After the conversation in Eddie’s apartment. After he dodged straightforward answers with someone he considered his best friend? After years of playing hot and cold, all because he didn’t know how to cope with his feelings for Eddie? 

The hand against Eddie’s arm was quickly displaced to brush his hair back as remorse replaced the look of bewilderment on Alfie’s face. “You don’t deserve that— you didn’t— you never did,” he warbled. Soon after, his fingers moved away from Eddie’s face and reclaimed its position against his arm. “You’re right. I told you to try it with Bex because I thought that’s what you wanted to hear — because you were upset, and I’d already made it so much worse by not being supportive. Because you deserve something — someone good. Someone that makes you happy, and I…” Tears stung at his own eyes as he choked over his words. “I made everything worse, so how…? How?”

Considering the man he just confessed his love to was Alfie Ramirez, Eddie should have seen disbelief on the horizon. Even under the guise of friendship, getting Alfie to accept a compliment felt more like pulling teeth than telling someone they looked nice. It broke Eddie’s heart, the way he never saw himself as a person worthy of being told how phenomenal he was. And, he really was phenomenal. Despite their past and the way Alfie made Eddie question his significance, he kept hanging onto their friendship because the moments he knew Alfie valued him made uncertainty worth it when it reappeared.

“Do you have any idea how much hell I would raise if you pulled the same stunt I did?” Eddie asked with a shake of his head. His hand raised with a thumb extended and ready to wipe away Alfie’s tears. He sometimes forgot how priceless the small beads of liquid were, but that could be blamed on Alfie’s emotional state outweighing all else in his mind. If he could, Eddie would forge a future where Alfie never felt the need to cry again. “The whole town would burn.”

“You earned that reaction,” Eddie insisted. After a moment of nervous hesitation, his hand gently repositioned to cup Alfie’s cheek. “Don’t worry, I’m not saying I deserved how it made me feel or anything, but I think both of us were justified in how we acted, don’t you? So, maybe we weren’t graceful about it. Oh, well, this is life, not The Nutcracker.” He shrugged softly as his thumb gingerly brushed back-and-forth against Alfie’s skin. His heart raced faster than usual, the anxiety of his confession still present, but he willed himself to remain in the moment he currently shared with Alfie. There would be time to worry later. Now, he needed to play his part in making sure they landed on their feet after weeks of free-falling.

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re perfect. Stubborn, self-deprecating, reclusive, and you have the worst diet I’ve ever seen, but still perfect.” It felt freeing to admit to Alfie how he felt about him without worrying his secret might be discovered. Without the burden of stealth, Eddie felt more like himself than he had in a very long time. “All you’ve ever done is given me something to look forward to, whether it was feeling you close to me or hearing you say my name like you wanted to strangle me. I’ve never cared much either way because, deep down, I know what our foundation is built on.” And that was love. Now that he was free to be himself, it seemed like he couldn’t stop from overflowing with all the words that had been left unsaid over the years. It made him feel both excited and uneasy at the same time.

The notion that all of White Crest would be reduced to ash if Alfie got into a relationship elicited a chuckle from him. No matter how emotionally-charged the conversation was, Eddie still managed to make him laugh. The bastard. His eyes closed at the sensation of Eddie’s thumb against his cheek and he let out a content hum. It felt surreal. 

Naturally, Eddie wasn’t finished with his typical comic relief; something Alfie was more than happy to oblige. “For the record, Doritos are cholesterol free and have two whole grams of protein.” His lashes fluttered open as he shot Eddie an impish grin. But even in the midst of their banter, Eddie found a way to keep them on topic. 

Alfie wasn’t keen on believing everything the other man said about him, expertly deflecting each compliment with humor instead. That had always been their normal, after all. Even in high school, well before their friendship blossomed beyond acquaintanceship, passing comments from Eddie were brushed off with nervous laughter and self-deprecating jokes. During their more recent years as neighbors, Eddie came to know him better than most; arguably, better than anyone else in his life. But no matter how much more sincere the compliments became, Alfie could never fully accept them. He’d run the risk of falling for Eddie if he did, not that he was at all successful at delaying the process. 

For the first time, Alfie allowed himself to lean in to Eddie’s touch, turning his cheek towards the hand pressed against it. His breath quivered as a cocktail of emotions coursed through him; excitement, nervousness, relief. “Can we just… stay like this?” he said finally, still reluctant to accept Eddie’s songs of praise. He wanted to relish the moment without worrying about Nell or his curse — or worse yet, Bex. Right. Bex. Savoring the moment was a fool’s errand so long as she was still technically in the picture. This was fleeting — even if only for the time being. 

Eddie tittered at Alfie’s Dorito-inspired interjection. “In that case, I take it back, your diet is clearly the best it can be,” he said with a matching grin. If he wasn’t mistaken, things were beginning to feel like they did before the night at the bar. Better, actually, when he thought about it. Now, nothing stood between them except for his unfortunate relationship status. Eddie felt queasy at the idea of explaining to Bex why he couldn’t be with her, but he knew it needed to happen sooner rather than later. When he heard from her next (he couldn’t cope with thinking in terms of ‘if’), he would set the record straight. And he knew someone who could help him do exactly that, if that bridge hadn’t been reduced to ashes, at least.

When Alfie asked if they could stay the way they were with his cheek pressing into the palm of Eddie’s hand, the urge to kiss him was undeniably strong. He managed to refrain by promising himself to make up for lost time in the future.

“Of course, we can,” Eddie said as if it were obvious. “Just not yet.” His hand parted with Alfie’s cheek as he moved forward to wrap his arms around him. Clinging to him on the couch made for a mildly awkward position, but it was worth it to feel him close. “I know I’ve already kept you waiting for too long, but I need a little more time to clean up the mess I made. I don’t want anything I’ve done to take away from good this is.” His face nestled into the crook of Alfie’s neck. “I know exactly what I have to do.”

[abutterflyobsession]

Doctor Who AU: Part 12

the plot fails to progress because I’m tired

prelude/one/two/three/four/five/six/seven/eight/nine/ten/eleven/ao3

The sky was on fire.

But on the ground it was dark, shadows layered with a dim orange light.

And there was screaming.

Running.

The shadows seethed with people, people running for their lives.

A city stood dark against the blazing sky, buildings glowing a dull orange as they began to break apart, pieces falling, screams rising sharply in response, then cutting off when the rubble smashed into the ground.

Children.

Children were crying, lost and frightened, caught in a war that they had no part in making. Casualties of their elders' poor choices.

Nothing could save the children.

“No!”

The sound of the voice cast ripples across the burning world, washing away the flames, the sound of feet scrambling across the rubble fading away into silence.

The silence when the wind died down, letting the dust settle, leaving only the crunch of your boots on the ground, the dry sound as you swallow, holding your breath, afraid it would give you away.

The silence that isn't really silence.

It's full of the noise of your comrade's boots, the rattling of gear, the pounding of your hearts.

Waiting for the signal.

Waiting for the order.

Because it had been following orders.

There had been no way to know.

“No! Not that either!'

Ripples ran through the air, coolness breathing into the air like a sigh of relief.

Trees, old and tall, had grown up and blocked out the sky with their dense canopy. The quiet here was muffled by the dense growth of the forest. It was impossible to see more than a few yards ahead and when things moved out of sight it was impossible to know what they were.

“Now, this is very interesting,”

Bog twisted around and found that the Doctor was standing on a fallen tree, looking out over the small area of visible forest with a contemplative attitude.

“Yeah?” Bog asked, more to buy himself time to think than to actually prompt an answer. He had no idea where he was or how he had got there and if it was at all possible he wasn't going to give the Doctor the satisfaction of appealing to her for answers.

“Yes, because I would say this appears to be part of the Black Forest in Germany, but it feels far too big.”

Bog bit his tongue to keep from asking what she was talking about.

“This feels to be about the same time period the primrose stone was first cut. But four hundred years ago the forest did not look like this. At least, not according to history.”

Tired of the crick in his neck he was getting from looking up at the Doctor's perch, Bog swallowed his pride and asked, “What's going on?”

“Psychic feedback,” The Doctor picked her way down off the fallen tree, digging the toes of her boots into the moss that covered the soft, rotting wood, “Something activated a psychic data dump from your necklace, but the connection was bad and there was a lot of interference. So you might have picked up some trace memories--”

“There was a city. It was shining and silver . . . or, it would have been, except . . . everything was on fire . . .”

“Nothing to worry about. Just signals getting crossed.”

“None of this is real, then? But . . .”

“No more real than memories are.”

“I saw--”

“Yes, yes, I know, I was here too. Had to give things a nudge before you got stuck reliving old times.”

“Nudge?” Bog wondered how much the Doctor had picked up of his memory of his tour in Afghanistan.

“Poke at your subconscious. Play word association. Look, like this,” the Doctor picked a pebble off the ground, “I say something, like, 'school', and give you a little push--”

She tossed the pebble and it hit the air like the surface of a pond, shining ripples spreading out and distorting the forest. For a few seconds the forest was gone and Bog was standing in the hall of his school, fourth year, his knuckles throbbing from having punched Lucas Campbell in the face, driven to it after Lucas had made one too many cracks about Bog's looks.

The ripples settled and the forest was back.

“What are you doing poking around in my head?” Bog rubbed the traces of phantom pain out of his hand, “I don't remember inviting you.”

“You got pulled in by the data dump and I followed. It appears we are in a memory of your family's ancestral home. At least, their ancestral home on earth, anyway.”

“Grand. How do we get out? Weren't we just talking to your creepy ex in the art shop? And being abducted?”

“He'll wait. This is all in our heads so it's really taking no more than a few seconds. Less, since we've got my processing power to work with.”

“Don't you ever get tired of tooting your own horn?”

“Don't you ever get tired to keeping your eyebrows locked in a permanent glower? I swear, those things are the most aggressive eyebrows I've ever encountered. They're like attack eyebrows. You could take bottle caps off with them.”

The Doctor was standing on her tiptoes to inspect Bog's eyebrows.

He leaned forward, making her drop back on her heels.

“What about you?” He pointed a long finger at her, “Have you ever met a hairbrush in your life? You're like some tiny, angry, rumpled pixie. Probably so angry because you've never been able to get anything off the top shelf without someone giving you a boost.”

“My dear marsh man,” She smacked his hand away, “shelves have nicely spaced footholds built right into them. Why would I get a hand up when I can just climb the thing?”

“ . . . how many shelves have you pulled over on yourself in your lifetime?”

“The shelves in the TARDIS are built into the walls!”

“And why is that, I wonder?”

“Let's get back to the matter at hand, shall we?”

“Only because I take the change of subject as acknowledgement that I was winning this argument,” Bog said, folding his arms, still leaning over the tiny woman.

She pushed her face a little closer to his, twisting up her mouth as she searched for some appropriately cutting retort to put him in his place.

“Your eyes are very blue!”

Bog blinked, confused.

“It isn't fair.”

The Doctor spun around and stormed back to her fallen tree.

A branch caught her ankle and she crashed to the ground.

“Are you okay?”

“I am fine!” She popped back up, “This is just a psychic interface! I don't actually have nerve endings in here. The pain is literally all in my head.”

“Right.”

“All of this,” the Doctor staggered to her feet, yanking the edge of her coat off a grasping branch before spinning around with her arms thrown out to indicate the forest around them, “This is just an interface for the data your ancestors left for you. We should be able to access it and find out more about what your fashionable bauble is capable of.”

“So, it's full of information? Like a flashdrive?”

“If a flashdrive could contain what is possibly the entire history of your people, constructed from their memories with such care and detail that you can smell that the dirt is still wet from rain, feel the veins on the leaves . . . then, yes, 'like a flashdrive'.”

“Yeah, I've got mud in my boots. Could've done without that.”

“I am plagued by such tiny minds. Just try and access the information.”

“How, great and powerful time wizard?”

“Identify yourself.”

“Identify myself. Just, “Hey, Bog, here, any of my tree ancestors listening?”, or what?”

“Maybe with a bit more pizazz. Confidence, at the very least.”

“Uh. I'm a descendant of the . . . Cheem? Cheem. I'm a descendant of the Cheem and I hope that this interface isn't password protected.”

“Poetry.”

“I'm a singer, not an actor.”

“Despite your shortcomings as a performer, I think it worked.”

Bog followed the Doctor's gaze and saw that another person had appeared.

He was assuming it was a person, anyway.

The shape of it was human but the details were not. The face was rigid, lined with deep grooves, like patterns in tree bark. It's head swept back into a crown of wood, the bark of it layered, like it really was part of a tree, separating at the rings.

Bog stared at it.

It stared back at Bog, absolutely serene.

“He's waiting for you to ask a question,” the Doctor shoved her hands into Bog's back and pushed him toward the tree person, “Ask it about why the stone was cut up and what the yellow stone is.”

“Stop pushing!”

“Then stop just standing there gapping like a fish! I can only stretch five seconds so far!”

“It's only been that? You must be doing a prize-winning job because it's certainly felt like an eternity!”

“Ask. Questions.”

“Question: what's the plan?”

Dawn was spraying down the interior of the TARDIS with a fire extinguisher.

Sunny stood in the door, ready to duck out if anything else caught on fire or started spewing toxic smoke.

“Talk some sense into this bucket of defective quantum drives that my sister is so irrationally attached to!”

“Is it safe to use a fire extinguisher on an electrical fire?”

“It isn't electrical! It runs off of energy from the time vortex! And I don't know whether or not it's safe to use a fire extinguisher on that because my sister threw the user manual into a supernova!”

“Why?”

“Apparently they had a difference of opinion!”

The last fire put out, Sunny risked coming back inside, “Why does it freak out when Roland is nearby?”

“Not sure. Something is screwy about his time line, I think. And the TARDIS hates that sort of thing. She tries to do an emergency evacuation. Once she abandoned us at the North Pole and went all the way over to the South Pole. That was the worst hitchhiking trip ever.”

“Should I just nod and pretend I understand any of that?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Dawn put on her glasses and glanced over the monitors, “She's got safety protocols and a strong sense of self-preservation. Paradoxes, anomalies, the TARDIS sees them as danger and tries to get away. Roland might be existing twice in the same time line, or something like that.”

“But, aren't I doing that right now? Future me is at work right now, remember?”

“But that's pretty tidy. You're not trying to change the past, you're just preserving a time loop. If Roland—or whoever he is—is trying to mess with a fixed point in time . . . well, this makes the old girl unhappy.”

Dawn patted the console.

“Huh. I guess I kind of get that. What are we going to do? Figure out what important event he's trying to change? Do you have like . . . future history books?”

“Loads. But I've also got a lot up here, too,” Dawn tapped her forehead, “much more portable and easier to reference. From a historical point of view there really isn't anything big going on right now. Not in the next few months, even.”

“What is there aside from a historical point of view?”

“Oh, there are loads of smaller things that are important and don't make it into the history books. Little things that lead up to big things. They're harder to spot. Like, if somebody very important was going to do great things, then it is very important that their parents actually meet, or the important person would never be born.”

“Which means that Roland is possibly trying to sabotage someone's first date? That is . . . pettier than I imagined messing with history would be.”

“It could also be a poet not seeing a daffodil at the critical moment and never writing a great poem that touches the hearts and minds of the world. Someone cleaning out the petri dishes and never discovering penicillin . . . yeah. Our best bet is to shadow Roland and stop him in the act.”

“Except our ride is kind of not cooperating right now, remember?”

“So we'll need to use an alternative mode of transport. Luckily, my sister doesn't know that I know where she keeps that vortex manipulator! Like, a wrist-watch time machine!”

Sunny was starting to recognize that manic gleam in Dawn's eyes as a sign things were about to get, well, for lack of a better word, interesting.

“It's dangerous, isn't it?”

“Um. It might be a teeny-tiny bit . . . glitchy.”

“How glitchy. Lags a few seconds glitchy? Or stuck in Medieval Europe glitchy?”

“It tends to have very, very brief power outages. Very brief. You hardly notice. Except if you were traveling through the vacuum of space at the time . . .”

“I have a feeling this is what I was trying to warn myself about on the phone earlier.”

“Are you coming?”

“Heck, I know I make it back. Let's go!”