#but I wanted to get it out before 6x11 aires

[chaosandwolves]

Hold on

Eddie's control over his emotions had been integral to his survival in the past. But the second Eddie's eyes fall on Buck's limp body suspended mid air, the second his brain has caught on to what this means, to what this could mean, all the control in him evaporates. Buck's name tears from his throat without his doing.

Read on AO3

3,2k words, 6x10 and 6x11 coda

They know. They all know the second Buck's limp body comes into their view. 

Eddie knows, too. And Eddie knows that Hen, Chim and Bobby know what this sight means just as much as Eddie does. 

But Eddie refuses to accept it. He lets the reality ricochet off himself and throws it back at the universe. 

No. This is not acceptable. 

He doesn't accept the harsh statistics cause this is Buck and Buck always comes out ok at the end. 

It doesn't HAVE to mean that… Buck's heart is strong, stronger than most. The lightning must've simply knocked him out. Just for a moment. 

The thing is that ever since that day where he had found out about Mills, ever since everything crumbled in him, ever since all that control he so desperately had hung on to exploded into blind rage and despair and fell apart and landed onto nothing but fear; ever since then something in Eddie has been cracked open. Just like Frank had said. The box he'd built around all the pain had exploded. 

He knows what it is. He's talked around it in therapy and when Frank asked him, "What did this control serve? Why did you feel the need to hide behind it?" he finally understood. 

Growing up, it was always expected of him. To be the strong one, the one to keep his cool and to fill in the role of his father when he wasn't around, or even when he was. 

Thinking about this, it might've already moulded him for the army: Bite down, swallow the emotions, carry on. 

It's what he needed to survive. 

To survive the news that Shannon was pregnant which meant that he had to let go of the hopes and dreams he'd stored away somewhere in the back of his heart, to make room for Shannon and a kid and do what was expected of him. 

To survive the news that their son, the only person he allowed himself to fully open his heart to, has CP. 

To survive the tours. 

He needed the control in order to make the decision to move to LA so he could give Christopher a better life. 

Chris was all that mattered. 

And then came Buck. 

Buck who, after a short-lived misplaced hostility started to have Eddie's back like no one else before. 

Buck who saw his son and directly made room for him in his big heart. 

Buck who learned about his struggle and introduced him to Carla. 

Buck who had saved his son. 

Buck who goes to the zoo with Chris and makes homework with him and has running jokes with him which Eddie doesn't understand. 

But even with Buck there, Eddie still had to hang on to that control. 

He couldn't afford to pause and think about things. 

He couldn't allow himself to break into the bad things of the past when the present demanded all of his attention; when his son and team needed him to function. 

But somewhere in a hidden corner inside him, he knew he had it coming. 

Maybe that's why he listened to others and asked Ana out. 

It's easier to just do what's expected of you or even what people expect will be good for you rather than following your own heart. 

Especially if it leads you to a place or a person that deserves the full you and not the you that's so desperately grasping the last bits of control to their chest. 

He had known that the shield he had built around him had become thin and fragile with time. 

Being shot gave it a crack he wasn't able to mend anymore. Then the panic attacks and Chris' worry rattled it so violently that he could feel the control slipping and slipping. 

But control is what had allowed him to survive. 

Until it all imploded and he found himself crying on his bedroom floor with a bat in his bloody hands. 

And then Buck was there, willing to pick up the pieces and ready to give him reasons to replace the surviving with living. 

That's how Eddie slowly found the courage to loosen the desperate grip he had on his control. 

Eddie didn't lie when he told his father that he wants to become better for himself. 

His life has been exhausting. Always keeping up the facade, always the strong one, no weakness allowed; not in front of anyone else anyway. 

But then he watches Buck, how he loves and feels so freely and so much. 

He witnesses Booby taking care of his kids and his team in every way possible. 

Feels the enormous strength and compassion Hen holds for every patient and every person in her life. 

He laughs at Chim's remarks and silly jokes and his heart warms when he sees the unconditional love he has for his daughter and partner and family. 

And Eddie wants this for himself. He wants to feel free and not anchored to the ground by his self made chains. 

He wants to be open, wants to share and wants to let in. 

And it's Buck who's made this possible. And it's Buck who he's let in first. 

Eddie knows he won't ever be able to wear his heart on his sleeve like Buck does and that's ok. But he wants to fill that hole inside him that the ever present control had ripped open and left him with. He wants to heal. 

It's not that the habit of controlling his own emotions just vanished. But overall it somewhat softened. 

His survival doesn't depend on it anymore. 

He's still able to keep it together though, in order to do his job. He'd be a bad firefighter and paramedic if he wasn't able to keep a basic level of control. 

But the second Eddie's eyes fall on Buck's limp body suspended mid air, the second his brain has caught on to what this means, to what this could mean, all the control in him evaporates. 

Buck's name tears from his throat without his doing. 

His body is almost too slow to follow his frantic brain as he scrambles to get up the ladder. 

A bitter rational voice in him tells him that he should prepare himself in case he's too late, that he can't save him, that the lightning took Buck from him. 

But Eddie doesn't care. He shuts that god awful voice up and counters it by shouting for Buck as loud as he can. 

His only focus is to get to Buck and his name leaves Eddie's lips in a desperate mantra. 

When he's finally at the top of the ladder the frantic thoughts in his brain tumble over themselves. His first instinct is to bring Buck closer to him, so he tries to pull him up but the rain makes everything slippery and he doesn't have enough leverage from this angel to pull Buck's dead weight up to him. 

And Buck doesn't move, doesn’t respond to his frenzied shouts. 

He needs him to move, to do something. 

Eddie knows he won't respond. But he has to try, has to reach him somehow, has to remind Buck to fight. 

"Can you hear me?" He feels like his brain is falling apart trying to understand what he sees and doesn't see in front of him. It's like his mind is melting when he tries to force Buck to answer through the sheer power of his will. Come on, talk to me, talk to me. Please. 

But he's not moving. He's not moving. 

"Buuuuck!!!" His name rips from Eddie's throat again. He puts his all into it. Desperate to reach Buck, to wake him up. 

He knows he has to lower him to the ground. Everything in him recoils at the thought of letting Buck out of his proximity but he's not answering and as frantic and free falling as he feels, Eddie knows what he has to do to give Buck a chance. So he shouts for more slack and does his best to lower Buck down at a steady yet fast pace. 

All the while he's trying to persuade Buck in his mind to 'Hang on, hang on, please hold on.'

As soon as Buck is transferred to the gurney, Eddie hurries to make his way down to him. 

Telling himself that Buck is ok, that he'll be fine. 

When he finally makes it to the ground, he's even more frantic. Before he has properly reached them, he yells at Bobby, Hen and Chim, begs them to give him Buck's status, "Talk to me, talk to me!" 

But as soon as he's at Buck's side, Bobby pulls him away.

But it's too late. Eddie's seen him. 

Eddie's seen his too still face, no bright eyes glinting at him, no crooked mischievous grin on full lips, no familiar voice reciting to him all the facts there are to know about storms and lightning like it had done the rest of the day. 

It's not right. This is not right. 

It's all so wrong. 

The silence on Buck's lips is breaking him as Buck's name falls from his own. 

But Bobby pushes him away, pulls him along and tells Eddie to drive and forces him to move. 

Eddie feels wild as they're walking back to the front of the ambulance. 

He'd never fight Bobby, doesn't question his commands but oh how he wants to right now. 

He knows that Hen and Chim will do everything they can, that they won't give up, that they're good at what they're doing. Yet, all he wants to do is push Bobby away and get in the back of the ambulance to do something.

He should be with Buck. He owes it to Buck to save his life and he just can't bear the thought of Buck being alone right now. 

Eddie knows he's not being reasonable. Buck isn't alone; people who love him are taking good care of him at this very moment. 

But they're not Eddie. It's his place, his responsibility to be at Buck's side. 

He promised Buck. Buck is his partner; they are supposed to have each other's back. 

And he once promised Chris, too; to always look after Buck. 

And he's failed. Eddie has failed his son, has failed Buck. He didn't see it coming, couldn't even pull Buck up to him. 

Eddie knows that Bobby was right to push him back and make him be the one to drive. He's at least doing something that way while Chim and Hen are working on Buck. 

And Eddie can feel it; feel it all crumbling around him at the edges and he's sure Bobby can see him falling apart. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Eddie knows that Bobby is suffering, too. Buck is like a son to him. 

Eddie has to control himself enough to get to the hospital as fast as he can; for Bobby, for Buck. 

So he wipes his mouth which feels like it's foaming and pulls himself together enough to be able to climb into the driver's seat. 

It's really funny how life plays out, isn't it? A lightning strike was the reason why he was buried alive; the reason he made Buck Christopher's legal guardian in case something happened to him. 

Because Buck loves Chris like he's his own. 

And now Buck is about to have an actual biological child which really will be less his than Christopher is and the lightning hits again; 

possibly taking Buck from them, robbing Buck of the chance of being a father. 

Somewhere out there someone probably would call this all poetic and theorize about the universe and destiny. 

Eddie, however, is angry. 

He's angry at the universe, angry at the storm, angry at himself. 

Cause he didn't plan for this. It's never been a question to him if Buck would still be there in case something happens to Eddie himself. It was always a given. 

After all, it's been Eddie who's had multiple brushes with death. Buck was always supposed to live, to survive. 

Eddie, though…. If he's honest with himself he's been anticipating death's cold claws closing around his heart ever since they went down in that chopper. 

And he wouldn't care much if it wasn't for Chris. 

But when Buck had told him that day, that it would've been better if it had been him who was shot, when he so clearly revealed how little he values his own life, Eddie had to tell him. He had to make sure that Buck would fight, for himself and for his son. 

It gave him a certain kind of peace knowing Buck would be there, Buck would survive. 

He never planned on the possibility that Buck wouldn't be there. 

Buck has been their safety net. He's saved Chris, he's saved Eddie. He's been their friend, confidant, partner. 

He's always had their backs. And now, now Eddie had failed to have his. 

And that's just not acceptable. It's not what Buck deserves. It's not enough.

Eddie really had thought he loved Shannon and he did and it hurt when she died. 

They were friends once and she's Christopher's mother, how can he not love her?

But he understands now that this love wasn't the love he wanted it to be or that he thought it to be. 

No. That kind of love is something that has grown over the past few years. He didn't even understand or realize it at first but as he sees Buck's lifeless body on the gurney, he knows. He's known it before somewhere deep down and he's been content with leaving it there. But now it's risen to the surface and he can't push it back, he doesn't want to. Because it belongs to Buck and he's not going to deny him this, he's not going to withhold it from him. Buck deserves this kind of love. 

Eddie doesn't care if it's reciprocated. It's his to give and Buck's to receive. 

The second he brings the ambulance to a halt, he's out of the door and at its back. As soon as the door is opened and the gurney is being moved out, Eddie's hands are on Buck's chest to keep the compressions going. 

When Chim motions to take over again, he doesn't budge.

This is his place. This is where he needs to be right now. It's him who has to pump the life back into Buck's heart. 

Opposite him Bobby rattles down the facts of who they're bringing in and what happened before Chim orders to shock Buck. Eddie barely lets go, leaving only the smallest bit of space between him and Buck. He watches Buck's chest being lifted off the gurney by the force of yet another electrical shock coursing through his body. The second Chim needs to press his fingers against Buck's pulse points doesn't seem to pass and Eddie feels like he's sinking into tar like nothingness. 

But then Chimney declares, "He's got a pulse!" And Eddie's knees almost buckle. 

He doesn't care about the tear falling from his eyelashes. 

The doctors and nurses take over and Eddie almost grabs for them, for Buck. He knows though that they are the ones who are more qualified now. 

So he lets go and just watches Buck being wheeled into the ER. 

Eddie doesn't quite pay attention to what Bobby is telling the nurses beside him but when the doctor says, "We do our best" as they’re disappearing around the corner with Buck he can't help himself. 

His anger and own helplessness push the words up his throat before he can think about it, "Do more!" 

Because that is what Buck deserves. Best is not enough. Because Buck is always doing more than 'best' and somehow Eddie needs to fix this imbalance right there and then. 'Best' can’t ever be enough. Not for Buck. 

Buck deserves the world because he is so integral to Eddie's world and to the lives of the rest of their family that it would all crumble and burn without him in it.

And then Buck vanishes out of his view. 

For a moment Eddie can't move, his eyes fixed on the corridor in front of him, his brain not able to process any of it. 

But when Bobby moves he forces himself to do the same. 

None of them is able to say anything. The shock and horror of what just happened clearly written on all their faces. 

Eddie drags himself a few steps back struggling to not completely break right there and then. A few more tears fall from his eyes as he's trying to blink them back while he wraps an arm around Chim who in turn pulls him into his side and Eddie takes a deep breath in to keep himself from falling apart when Bobby places his arm around Eddie's shoulder from the other side. 

For a long while they just stand there arm and arm. None of them able and maybe not willing to accept the reality that Buck's life is now in the hands of strangers behind closed doors. 

That their Buck is not with them. 

That they all just had a lifeless Buck under their hands, his dead body.

The horror of this sudden realization knocks the breath out of Eddie's lungs and his knees buckle. 

Bobby and Chim catch him and Hen is in front of him in an instant. 

He can't decipher any of their words over the rushing noise in his ears. 

His uniform suddenly feels too tight and he tries to pry it off with his hands. The hands that just had to pump blood through Buck's heart cause it wasn't doing that on its own anymore. 

Black spots start to dance in his vision. He feels hands on his cheeks and suddenly Hen's face comes into a blurry focus. 

Somehow her words make it through to him, maybe it's her tone, so gentle and warm, "Eddie, you're having a panic attack. I need you to breathe with me." 

And Eddie?

Eddie laughs. Of course he has one right now. Of course. 

They're about to call for someone to bring another gurney but the images of Buck's body unmoving in front of him flash up before his eyes and he croaks out a, "No. No. 's ok." 

And for some reason they don't argue with him. Instead, Bobby and Chim guide him sideways, sit down on the ground with him and don't let go while Eddie does his best to follow Hen's instructions and to pull himself back together. 

In the back of his mind he thinks of Chris and then a rapid sequence of half formed thoughts rush through his brain and it feels like his heart is shattering. 

He feels like a little boy crying for his mother when all he can think is that he just wants to be at Buck's side, wants to hear his laugh, wants to see his smile, wants to watch him and Chris getting excited over one of the animals in the zoo; he wants to hold his hand. 

His still uneven breath hitches and it's all he can do to turn into Bobby's chest when he starts crying as Buck's name leaves his throat in a choked whisper for one more time. 

[canonicallyobserving911]

Buck & Eddie: Eddie KNOWS Buck!

The title of episode 7x5 is "You don't know me" (it could change) and when I read it, all I could think about is something I haven't been able to forget since 6x4 aired. It was Buck’s conversation with Connor and IMO, it was weird and superficial for REASONS I might explain in a future post.

Anyway, Buck's overall arc in Season 6 was about him trying to be at ease while not making the same mistakes (which started at the end of 5x18). In 6x1, he wanted to be interim captain, then he went on to search for happiness in 6x2 followed by his decision to be Connor's sperm donor in 6x4 and that led to the comment included in the scene below, "I know those things about you". But the question is, does Connor really know Buck? 🤔

Reminder, based on the things that were shown in CANON in 4x5, Buck and Connor never really knew each other. They were acquaintances who met while they were in Peru and that was after Buck left Hershey when Maddie told him to "Go and be happy". During their conversation while Buck was bartending, Connor "suggested" Buck move to L.A. with him and the guys he knew because they were "kind of like a family". It's important to note that Connor said it after he stopped listening to Buck while he was trying to explain something to him.

Who always listens to Buck? EDDIE!

Now on to Season 7.

In the recent TCA interview, with regards to Buck’s self-discovery journey, OS commented that Buck’s sperm donation for his friends "hasn't necessarily played in any kind of conscious way so far" within the first 5 episodes (see below).

So the question is, could Buck tell Connor, "You don't know me!" in a conversation about the baby in 7x5 and it have something to do with Buck’s self-discovery journey? It's possible since as mentioned above, Connor doesn't really know Buck. Let's be real... when Connor reappeared they hadn't seen each other in three years and the attributes Connor mentioned about why he asked him to be his sperm donor instead of him going to a sperm bank aren't necessarily HEREDITARY.

Reminder, Buck likes to make things about himself and he likes to fix things. Therefore, the way things played out in 6A made it seem like he was making things about himself with the sperm donation too.

Here are a few of the comments that have been said to Buck and about him by his family.

In 3x1 and 3x2 (they replayed some of the scene from the end of 3x1 at the beginning of 3x2), Chris said, "You're going to be ok kid" after Buck told him he hopes he finds a job he likes and somethimg that makes him feel like he matters when he grows up. This happened after Buck quit the 118 but before the Tsunami.

In 3x6, Hen told Bobby, "I think Buck makes everything hard on Buck. The boy has two settings... zero and shut up before I smack you". They were discussing Bobby letting Buck work again after the lawsuit.

In 3x9, Eddie said, "So we're making this about you again?" while they were in the kitchen after Buck apologized for the second time following the lawsuit.

In 3x16 Chimney said, "So it's all about you?" when Buck was telling the team about Red.

In 3x16, Maddie said, "So you don't think this business with Red is hitting a little too close to home? A lonely hero firefighter who's pining for his lost love."

In 4x5, Athena said, "You never give up, that's what being Buck means to me" after he stayed in the warehouse fire against orders.

In 5x4, Eddie said, "You're the guy who likes to fix things" after Maddie and Chimney left.

In 6x11, dead Bobby said, "Aww kid, if what matters to you most is the way people see you... then you haven't learned a damn thing" in Buck’s coma dream.

They all know how Buck likes to make things about himself and at various points, they've said it in some form or another. Family won't hesitate to tell the people they love the truth unlike those who want to get what they can then leave like Connor did. And that's one of the reasons why I think Buck didn't talk to anyone about the sperm donation because if he had, they would have told him the truth. He did talk to Hen and even though she didn't discourage him, she did caution him about the possible ramifications of it except he was adamant about doing it and he wouldn't listen to the universe when it kept screaming at him.

Does Connor know Buck? NO!

The person who does know Buck is EDDIE!

Eddie not only knows him, HE SEES HIM! He also listens to him, he takes care of him and he's the one who's been there for him. In 6x1, he helped Buck see another side to Bobby's decision about interim captain. In 6x6, Eddie was the one who reassured him that Karen would be fine without a spleen. The list goes on and on but 9-1-1 made it a point in Season 6 to show the GA that NO ONE knows Buck like Eddie does and that continued even in 6x15 when Buck said that BS about ND seeing him.

No one believed it and it's possible Buck didn't believe it either.

The point of this post is that Buck’s breakdown may finally happen in Season 7 and it might have something to do with the sperm donation 👀.

Reminder, he didn't have one in season 6 even though he died and I think all of these things are related and could lead to it.

If Buck does have a breakdown, who's going to be by his side? EDDIE!

The same way Buck was by Eddie’s side after Eddie’s breakdown.

I said I wasn't going to speculate and I hadn't planned on it but I have so many thoughts about what could trigger Buck’s breakdown and I've been debating whether I'll post them. But I just might now that everything seems to be pointing in that direction.

Will Buck finally breakdown in season 7? Only the showrunner, writers and producers know the answer to that question.

[princessamericachavez]

911 6x11 Coda

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“So this dreamland of yours,” Eddie says after a comfortable silence filled only by the background noise of the sports commentators, “what was it really like?”

“Super freaky,” Buck huffs a laugh. “I told you already.”

“No,” Eddie drawls the word with playful annoyance. “You told us the saccharine version because Christopher was there. Or because you didn’t want someone else to know the details. I don’t know,” he shrugs. “All I know is you aren’t telling the whole story.”

“I am,” Buck tries, but can hear the uncertainty in his own voice.

Eddie finally peels his eyes off the tv screen to pin him with a knowing look.

“Buck, I know you. You were holding back. Which… fine, you don't owe the entire world details about whatever was going on in your brain during a coma. I get it. But, c’mon, it’s me. Spill.”

Buck bites the inside of his cheek. There are details he really doesn't want to reach the others. He doesn’t want to upset anyone with the fucked up things his subconscious came up with. But… yeah, this is Eddie. Somehow, it feels wrong not to tell him.

“Bobby was dead.”

Even now, in the real world, having seen him just a few hours ago for lunch, the words get stuck in his throat. Buck hates the way his voice shakes with the ghost of heartbreak, still remembers the sensation of the world crashing down around him when Chimney (fake Chimney) told him. He tightens the grip of his beer, letting the sting of his wounded hands ground him in this reality.

Eddie arches his eyebrows. “What happened?”

“He… fell off the wagon. No one noticed, until it was too late.”

“Because you weren’t there?” Eddie’s expression turns critical. “Buck, you do know Bobby’s sobriety isn’t your responsibility, right?”

“I know. I know. The world doesn’t revolve around me,” he rolls his eyes, taking a sip of his beer to wash down the bitterness. “But you… you didn’t know Cap before. Before you joined, for a while, he was… different. Too reserved. Like- like he thought if he didn’t get to know us, we’d be better off or something.”

He can see the confusion in Eddie’s eyes while the information sets in. He can’t blame him. This Cap, this Bobby, is so different it’s almost impossible to reconcile him with the one he first met.

“Anyway,” he tries to lighten the air, “I guess I was annoying enough to break him out of his shell a little, or make him laugh. Or maybe I’m just giving myself too much credit.”

Eddie lets out a noncommittal hum. “Guess I can see that.”

It feels good to have said it, to let it out, to have someone else know. He trusts Eddie’s discretion and knows that, if Bobby’s death comes to haunt him in his nightmares, he’ll at least have someone to tell. He’s ready to return his attention back to the game when Eddie pops a sudden question:

“And me? What was I like?”

“I told you.”

“Angry, yeah,” Eddie frowns. “So that’s it? Without you I’m just… angry guy?”

Buck laughs, shaking his head, and is about to change de subject when he notices that Eddie looks bothered by the statement. As if whatever Buck’s subconscious said about him was a big offense.

“It wasn’t about me,” he offers.

Eddie pins him with another look meant to strip him bare of his secrets. Buck looks down at his hands, unable to meet his eyes:

“You- you lost Chris. To your parents. Big messy legal battle. Hen- Hen said they declared you unfit to be a single dad and a firefighter.”

Eddie takes a big gulp of beer with his eyes on the screen.

“Oh, yeah… that’d piss me off.”

To Buck’s relief, he sounds lighthearted about it. He guesses it’s easier when it’s just a made up crazy reality in someone else’s dying brain, when it didn’t feel so real and definitive as it did to him.

“Guess no one else there introduced you to Carla.”

“And you weren’t there,” Eddie points, “to fight for him.”

“No, I wasn’t…”

Eddie nods, still staring at some point in the distance, clearly not watching the game. Buck waits him out, let’s the idea settle, because he knows his silences enough to guess this one prefaces a statement.

“And you didn’t meet me there?” He finally asks and, again, he seems offended with Buck’s subconscious.

Buck feels the need to defend himself:

“To be fair, you would’ve just called me crazy and called the cops on me or something. I mean, Chim and Hen were ready to roll with it, but you don’t even believe in jinxes. What do you think you would’ve said if a guy you’ve never met before showed up claiming to be your best friend from another life?”

Eddie laughs, really laughs, and Buck finds himself smiling too. On retrospect, he kinda wishes he had searched him out, just to have another ridiculous scenario to tell him about now.

“No, that’s- that’s true,” Eddie shakes his head, still smiling. “Probably would’ve dragged you to the nearest psych ward. Still…” he trails off.

“Still what?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugs. “I feel bad for that Eddie. Sounds like he could’ve used a Buck in his life.”

Buck is past feeling guilty for leaving those subconscious versions of his family behind (except for Chris, he’s never getting over that one), but he’d be lying if he said he hasn’t been running through scenarios in his head, wondering what could’ve happened if he’d stayed. (Aside from, obviously, being dead and all that).

“Yeah, I guess so,” he sighs sipping his beer. “Still, I don’t know how much I could’ve helped. I mean, of course, I would’ve tried to help you- him get Chris back. But I’m not sure how that’d work without the whole legal guardian thing, you know? I mean, m- maybe I could’ve found Ca-“

The cushion hits him square in the face and nearly makes him spill his beer.

“Hey! What’s that about?! I’m convalescent here!”

“That’s not what I meant."

“No?”

“No!” Eddie rolls his eyes, exasperated for some reason Buck doesn’t understand. “I mean… yeah, if I was in that position, of course, I’d want help getting my son back. But that’s not it…”

Buck scratches the back of his head, squinting at Eddie like it’ll somehow help him read between the lines of whatever he’s trying to say.

“Then what is it?”

“I just-“ Eddie stumbles with his words and sighs. “I just meant... it sounds like he could use a friend.”

What good would that do?

Buck doesn’t say it, but his face must betray the thought by the way Eddie’s mouth twists with annoyance.

“Buck, all your help with Chris, introducing us to Carla, you being part of his life, helping me raise him… of course, it means a lot. I don’t think I could’ve done this without you.”

“But?” He prompts.

“But,” Eddie says slowly, looking him in the eye, “that’s not all that matters. I mean, you’re my best friend, man. Even without all that, I’d want to be friends with you, hang out, laugh, do shit all on a Sunday night. That matters too.”

Just being Buck.

“Oh.”

Eddie looks away, takes two big gulps of beer, like they can wash down the emotional weight of what he’s trying to explain.

“I’m just saying,” he says, eyes still on the game they are both ignoring. “If I was going through that, it sounds like hell… I’d want a friend like you by my side. You’re a very good friend.”

Buck ducks his head to hide the heat of blood rushing through his entire face. “Uh, well, thanks… I- uh, I appreciate it. You’re a great friend too.”

He tries to picture Eddie without him. Tries to picture himself without Eddie. Both options seem impossible.

“Well, good thing we met," he decides with a grin, raising his beer lightly against Eddie's.

"Good thing you didn't die," Eddie says, and though he tries to hide it behind a sip of his beer and a distant look at the tv, Buck can feel the heaviness hidden behind that sentence. It only hits him at that moment... Eddie was maybe a little too close to finding out exactly what his life without Buck would be like. "I mean," he goes on with a shrug, "sucks for that other Eddie, but I'm not much of the sharing type. So I'm glad you came back."

"Of course," Buck smiles, trying to match the false lightness in his tone. "You're stuck with me."

"Good," Eddie nods a single time like the matter's settled. "But I'd rather not be stuck with this couch."

"It's so uncomfortable!" Buck chuckles, glad that someone finally brought it up.

"So uncomfortable!" Eddie agrees, finally meeting his eyes.

"My mom's always had the worst taste in furniture."

"Oh, so it runs in the family."

"Hey!" Buck pretends to be offended and throws the cushion back at his smug grinning face.

He misses by quite a bit (something to worry about later). Instead, the cushion knocks the beer bottle clean out of Eddie's hand and spills the dark liquid all over the couch's white fabric.

Buck and Eddie look at the growing stain. They stare at each other, silent, frozen with the sudden panic of two little kids about to be reprimanded by a grown-up. Except, there are no parents here...

...just two grown men who burst out laughing at the exact same time, bent over in a fit of giggles so loud that it drowns out the game's final touchdown. Not that anybody was watching, anyway.

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Just thinking about the universe and catalysts and paths diverging so you can learn and grow before merging again!

Eddie got buried under 40feet of mud and had to take a different route to get back to the surface (even ground)- he was buried under his trauma and couldn’t get out by going back the way he came so he had to forge a new path. Which we then saw him do through seasons 4 and 5.

Then there’s Buck climbing that crane after Eddie got shot but metaphorically speaking, he never came back down. The idea of detachment from the world - you can still see it and you’re still part of it, but you’re not actively participating in it (Which is also a metaphor for donor not dad!). It connects in really interestingly with touch points of Bucks storyline since the well - his searching for something (a way down) while we keep seeing scenes happening involving height/ high things - the train rescue, then he met Abby on a hill overlooking the city (the same metaphor)blimps, walkways collapsing, the fact we’ve been out on bucks balcony a few times even the fact we’ve seen the firefam up on the roof of the firehouse!

It’s so interesting how the two arcs are paralleling each other and counterbalancing each other at key points - starting from the well. It’s the same trigger points for them both and how Buck tried to dig to get to Eddie but couldn’t because Eddie needed to find his own way back to the ground, and how Eddie is going to try to get to Buck but won’t be able to, because Buck needs to find his own way down (by this I mean separate from Eddie as if he’s in a coma he won’t be getting down on his own in the literal sense!)

It also therefore stands to reason that the flashbacks (or coma dream for Buck) will counter balance each other as well. Eddie’s flashbacks showed him his family - the one he was building and made him realise that Buck is a central part of that and I would argue, allowed him to recognise and accept that Shannon, whilst an important relationship in his life and someone he loved, was also toxic for him and that he could put that part of his life to rest. Bucks coma dream will conversely (most likely as we don’t actually know at this point) show him what life would be like without Eddie and Chris in it (fully expecting 6x11 to be an Eddie free episode because his absence is more telling and important then his presence!) and how what he thinks he wants and what he actually wants (and is already on his way to getting) are two different things - that the fantasy childhood he’s been dreaming of wouldn’t necessarily lead him to a happy adult life - that what he has fought to build is far better.

The universe is taking matters into its own hands to get him down - it might have been happy to let Eddie take a longer route to get back to the ground, because Eddie was making progress but Buck has been stuck in the air ultimately in stasis so it’s going to be a quicker route to the ground as it just shocks (literally and metaphorically) him into action and to getting back to the ground.

We’re so close to them both being in the same place at the same time that I’m vibrating at the epic story unfolding

[honorarybuckley]

6x11 coda

buck’s new couch is wrong. eddie’s not sure he’s ever described an inanimate object as right or wrong before but there is no other word to convey his feelings for the new piece of furniture.

it’s too big for the space, overpowering the room and forcing buck to remove his beloved chair entirely. it doesn’t match any of the other decor in the loft, and the fabric is soft and plush but the couch itself is stiff, wholly uncomfortable, and uninviting. so yeah, it’s all wrong.

at the tail end of his recovery period, buck had finally convinced his parents to return home and back to their regular lives, their continued presence having become stifling after the first week or so. while they were here eddie thought it best to keep his distance. he has done his best to be supportive, knowing how much buck craves a good relationship with them, but there’s still something about the buckley parents that rubs eddie the wrong way no matter how much they appear to have changed. the image of buck’s face the last time they were here is etched in his memory and makes him more than a little protective over his friend’s happiness.

it’s not the only reason he’s been distant though if he’s being honest. sometimes when he closes his eyes he still sees buck hanging lifeless fifty feet in the air. still sees him hooked up to machines, always so still and quiet. sometimes he sees him laughing and joking in his hospital bed like his heart hadn’t been dead beneath eddie’s hands only days earlier and he feels so angry he has to bite his tongue or he’ll scream. it’s irrational, he knows. frank says he and buck need to talk about it but instead, eddie’s kept his feelings locked up tight. old habits die hard and all that shit.

he found himself driving across town after dropping christopher off at a friend’s house this evening and didn’t hesitate until he was turning onto buck’s street. the smile on buck’s face when he answered the door was enough to settle his racing heart though. buck was still under strict instructions from the doctor including a ban on alcohol so in lieu of that eddie gets to work making them each a cup of tea, buck’s voice washing over him in soothing waves from the living room.

“so what did i do in this dream of yours?” he asks as he carries the mugs back to the couch. buck’s nose scrunches as he accepts one and eddie fights back the familiar urge to kiss him on the forehead.

“um, you," buck pauses, placing the steaming mug on the coffee table, grabbing a coaster as an afterthought. he scratches the skin next to his eye with his thumb and avoids looking at eddie entirely. "you weren’t there.”

“i wasn’t?” he’s not entirely surprised. he’s heard bits and pieces of the dream from buck and the others since he woke up and no mention of him or christopher. he tries not to read anything into that.

buck makes a noncommital sound and plays with the drawstrings of his hoodie. eddie waits. “no," buck glances up before looking away quickly. his words trip over themselves he spits them out. "apparently because i wasn’t there you never met carla, and you lost custody of christopher and you got the nickname angry guy.”

eddie takes a sip of his tea, letting his mind make sense of what he’s just heard. he opens his mouth not sure what he’s about to say but before he can buck sits up, hands waving around wildly, and continues. “look i know that’s ridiculous and the world doesn’t revolve around me. i know that i don’t have that much of an effect on–”

eddie stops him. “yes, you do.” buck looks at him so sad and hopeful that it hurts to look at directly. eddie sets his mug beside buck’s and rubs his hands on his knees trying to gather all of what he wants to say and pushing aside the things he knows he can’t.

“look, i’m a good dad,” he says with a still tentative confidence, “but i know that i probably couldn’t do this without carla. without the 118.” without you, he doesn’t say. “i’m not ashamed to admit that anymore, and i wouldn’t have any of it if you hadn’t introduced us or talked to bobby about chris coming around the station.”

buck opens his mouth, about to interrupt until eddie holds up a hand to stop him, finally looking him in the eye. “it’s a fact, buck. i don’t know where chris and i would be without you.”

buck’s face crumples, his eyes filling with tears. a million things are conveyed without any words as they watch each other. buck is the first to look away. he leans forward and grabs his abandoned mug, warming his still-healing hands before finally taking a sip. silence falls over them, only slightly awkward.

“i hate this couch.”

“i had a panic attack.”

“what?” they both say. buck’s fingers run across the couch next to him, and eddie motions for him to continue before he can ask eddie to repeat himself.

“yeah, mom wanted to take a photo of the three of us. i don’t think i have a photo of just the three of us, you know? anyway, the flash went off and i just,” he pauses, looking to eddie for the words, “froze,” he settles on.

eddie’s mind goes back to the department store, to the feeling of something crushing his lungs as his heart tried to break his ribs. he pictures buck collapsing, sees him hanging dead fifty feet in the air. he shakes his head.

“i had to lock myself in the bathroom so they wouldn’t know what was happening.” and that just about breaks his heart.

eddie remembers being surrounded, overwhelmingly so. ana’s hand on his chest, christopher crying his name, the store clerk calling 911. a sea of worry that confirmed the repetitive thought that something was wrong. buck didn’t have any of that, didn’t trust his parents in that moment and eddie can’t really blame him.

eddie settles his hand on buck’s shoulder, squeezing gently and waiting for him to relax. “have you called dr. copeland?”

buck’s face screws up in discomfort even as he leans into eddie’s touch. it’s enough of an answer.

“you know you have to, right?” all he receives is a resigned nod. eddie will make sure to bug him about it more later but for now he won’t push. silence befalls them again but this time it feels like a door has been opened. maybe they can finally talk about the things they’ve been avoiding for years now. maybe eddie can be brave enough for the both of them, to fall through the door and know buck is on the other side ready to catch him. maybe--

“so you hate the couch, huh?”

eddie’s eyes dart to buck’s whose face betrays nothing. eddie squirms, unsure what to say now. the hand still holding buck’s shoulder falls to the cushion between them. he knows buck’s mom picked out the sofa, and eddie is thrown back to his earlier thoughts on buck’s parents and how he’d rather avoid the topic altogether. let it become one more thing they don’t talk about.

a smirk grows slowly across buck’s face and eddie lets out a sigh of relief, gently shoving him and basking in the warmth of buck’s laugh. he listens as buck begins a rant about how he wishes he could burn the whole thing down. the open door gently closes again but eddie knows they’ll get there someday.

[kmze]

Thoughts on 6x01 - 6x11 THE BEST! Full disclosure this is my favorite season and rewatching it I remembered why because the show is just flowing like it rarely did the past few seasons and it's because the show went back to simple mythology and character moments. The prison world is new but not outlandish and the show takes it time explaining it so you get it. Tripp and his vampire hunter crew is something done a lot before but the twist of using the anti-magic border was a fresh take. The Gemini coven is great too because we were gradually introduced to the characters and the mythology so it's easy to follow. Everything just clicks! Bamon and Steroline are both awesome dynamics getting tons of focus and I don't even hate DE! The season definitely moves slower than ones in the past but IMO that is a good thing. There's so much care given to character moments and I really enjoyed a lot of the dialogue for everyone, to me this is TVD at it's peak, it worked for the same reasons S2 did. All my gushing below!

6x01

That guy was like “I have seen what they do to black characters on this show absolutely not you go check” lol.

Liv is the best, forever mad she died she would have loved her niece Lizzie. LivTyler (yes I know it’s commonly referred to as Parkwood but I do what I want) was such a cute ship they were like early Forwood if Caroline was cynical.

Elena being a drug addict to see Damon was a choice…

Caroline gets intense reactions out of Stefan too as seen here. Sorry not sorry but if you can’t see him breaking his phone from gripping it just by seeing her name didn’t mean she affected him the most I can’t help you. He could take Ric and Elena’s call because he knew he could fool them, but Caroline he can’t, not even over the phone.

Oh suddenly Elena hates being a vampire again RME. Gee I wonder if this is for plot reasons since they knew Nina was leaving (or at least knew it was a possibility) and they wanted her to end her story human.

Bamoncakes!

6x02

Um I’m pretty sure it is Matt’s house since his name is on the deed if we want to get specific here Jeremy.

Stefan has zero tact with Ivy LMFAO like why are you in my house unless we’re having sex. Truly such a jerk.

The Bamon 1994 Prison World plot was SUCH A GOOD IDEA! Rewatching you definitely feel how repetitive stuff gets and it felt like the world building became too extreme but this was so different. They went a simpler way to do a mystery plot and I actually think it helped the show have one of its best seasons ever (personally my favorite). Also the fact that they put two characters together who always had an air of animosity between them but also kind of an understanding and let that chemistry do its thang! It’s just so good!

Someone should tell Damon and Bonnie you’re not supposed to look directly at the sun during a solar eclipse.

The awkward dinner party is cracking me up! Between Enzo going out of his way to make Stefan uncomfortable and the passive aggressiveness between Stefan and Caroline, to Ivy’s complete confusion I don’t know what makes me laugh more.

You tell him Carebear!

That damn necklace lol it just keeps coming back! I’m not as annoyed about them saying Elena fell in love with Damon in 3x01 like I used to be anymore. I think because I don’t really and truly don't care about the triangle AT ALL (and I don't have to knowing the ending)! Elena is so wishy washy it makes sense, like yep she loved them both at the same time.

6x03

I know this is unpopular but I genuinely love when Stefan is just a dick LMFAO! So much of Stefan in the earlier seasons was like romantic compassionate facade, but like deep down he’s kind of a jerk! And he loves having vampire powers as you can see here, he's just a weirdo masochist and wouldn't allow himself to use them as punishment for giving up on Damon.

Oh they baited SE big time with that scene in the hallway!

I do enjoy watching Stefan and Caroline become more and more uncomfortable about Elena’s voluntary brain damage. "It's important that we let Elena live her new, happy, problem ignoring, zombie life the way she wants" LMFAO

Caroline I love you to death but sorry girl, lying is not a new thing for Stefan! Being a liar is completely on brand for him.

CRYING at Tyler walking away as soon as he saw Caroline was ready to fight Elena. He was like nope I know that condescending judgmental tone very well, deuces!

HIYA KAI! FINALLY a good villain again!

Did Liam just insinuate that Elena’s type is red flags because CTFU! Liam you were great I’m glad you survived.

The scene where Bonnie gets her magic back to save Damon from Kai is so (!!!!) what a moment!

I love how Stefan just spills his guts to Caroline about all his bullshit coping methods as soon as she corners him. Yeah he walks away (and I know antis love using it in their gifsets) but the whole scene you see how hard it is for him to look her in the eye. Also definitely felt some jealousy from Elena watching it all unfold, which girl take a seat!

6x04

Why is Kai eating jelly with his hand!?!

I’m sorry but Stefan had the WEIRDEST SYSTEMS EVER!! Two on full display here with his constant desire to push his animal diet on others who aren’t bloodoholics, and getting health insurance (???) to start over. Stefan being like you can be anyone you want because this lunatic just loves pretending to be a different person every few decades. He’s just so insane, I become more and more aware of it as the show goes on.

The fake Stelena proposal is so hilarious I love how they keep upping each other in soap opera drama.

*heavy sigh* I'm not sure if they cast Monique before they cast Gail so they had to cast a black woman since Monique is biracial and we know Zach was white but it's like again AGAIN the black woman dies a painful death.

Bonnie and Kai have really good chemistry I’M JUST SAYING!

Damon murdering a pregnant woman was definitely the worst thing he ever did. I do love the shots in this scene with Bonnie eating pancakes look at Damon telling him there’s hope for him. The writers are really feeling this story.

Kinda feel like Stefan only agreed to show Elena his “moving on system” because she had brain damage and he figured he could trick her. Almost got away with it too!

6x05

Man the little look between Stefan and Caroline when he’s like “you’ll never have to deal with me again” “is that what you think I want” gets me every-time! Such a subtle moment.

HA! Alaric’s story throwing shade at Elena was funny!

Caroline how did you fall for that!

CTFU at Damon yelling “BONNIE” after she murders Kai and taps her on the shoulder. Like dammit what did you do but also it’s okay please don’t hurt me.

You go Caroline invoking the D-word to get Stefan to pull his head out of his ass. Love when she says "who are you right now?!" you done fucked up Stefan! This meta explains it well.

Liv killing that guy to save Tyler from triggering his werewolf curse was a great scene.

Elena amazed at modern medicine is so hilarious WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER! You mean people can be healed without vampire blood? This is brand new information!

And look at that! Stefan finally admitted he’s not handling anything well after he made Caroline give up on him.

6x06

The Dalaric scene is funny, I enjoyed that.

Jo and Elena’s friendship was cute. Really wish Jo had lived she was such a nice addition to the show. Just a great character all around.

Stripping a vampire of their magic with the border makes a hell of a lot more sense than the cure ever did!

I’m over everyone apologizing to Elena because she chose to compel away her memories of Damon. Play stupid games win stupid prizes!

I love how Stefan jolts out of his seat when he sees Caroline! Kinda like when he got down on one knee to propose before she even turned around lol. The shot of Stefan dejected and lowering his head in front of the lamp store is gorgeous.

6x07

Caroline is so excited to get to be anti-Delena again! Like finally Elena is on her side!

The way Caroline says “good bye” trying to close the door on Stefan cracks me up. He even tried using his old tricks of “I’m here to protect” you and Caro told him to kick rocks! What's wrong Stefan never had to actually work for forgiveness before huh?

Great job so far this season mixing up the “special events contrived to get a bunch of characters together” formula. They’ve used new locations and since they can’t enter MF it’s not all the characters in one spot so feels less contrived.

If Stefan didn’t have feelings for Caroline’s he had every opportunity to STFU after she told him to. But he didn’t he kept pushing.

The Bonkai scenes are straight from a horror movie and I have to say bravo they are so unsettling to watch.

Enzo does have a flair for the dramatic surprise death.

Caroline's speech is my favorite speech ever on this show because I just love how vulnerable yet strong she is in her opinion, which is so rare for women on this show. I have no time for the criticism of it either and how it's "regression" kindly eat a dick. This is a HUGE moment for Caroline because she's saying I don't care about being THE ONE, I've been the one (with Tyler) and now I want THE ONE for me. Caroline being in love with Stefan more than any of her other love interests has nothing to do with him putting her first or him being the one who treats her the best it's about the fact that she wants him because he makes her feel THE MOST! And that's what her list was about, she says yeah I thought you were worth having a thing for how could I not?! Because during her darkest time he told her she’d get through it and protect her and he did, and it’s why should couldn’t imagine Elena would let someone like him go. And while she's so confident in her feelings she's also not going to sit there and not get the respect that she deserves. Caroline is very aware of Stefan's bullshit (they are best friends) and he needs to earn back her trust if he wants it, but she's fine either way. And you notice that when Stefan uses manipulation to see her (asking her Mom for help, saying he's there to protect her) she give him shit, but when he's honest with her (that he pushed her away the most) she starts to thaw. I mean this is SUCH a drastic change from S3 when he terrorized Elena for half a season and then got sad over her kissing Damon and she just like got over it. Fuck around and find out Stefan! Love Caroline’s styling here, it’s the same colors she wore in 6x03 but now she’s more covered up, because she’s put a wall up to protect herself (just like the song lyrics). WHAT A MOMENT!

Damon and Elena don’t even bother me this season. They’re just kinda there but they don’t interfere with stuff I like and Damon isn’t the worst person in the world.

Damon finding Ms Cuddles!! So many great scenes this season.

6x08

The flashbacks to Kai murdering his family is another instance of fantastic horror aesthetic used this season, feels like I'm watching a slasher film

Bonnie’s poor wig!

Caroline’s styling has been absolutely amazing so far! Her hair is always gorgeously curled and I really like her eye makeup.

Stefan’s face when he finds out Damon was invited to Friendsgiving and he wasn’t ASCSGGXHVFJFJK!

Damon’s pure joy at mocking Stefan for not realizing Caroline had feelings for him is such good brotherly teasing. And Stefan keeps getting more and more bitter, I don’t get how people can’t tell he’s all sensitive because he’s afraid he lost Caroline forever. He kicked a fucking teddy bear people!

OMG THEY TOTALLY FORGOT A MUNDANE WAS IN THE ROOM!

This LivTyler scene is so cute it reminds me of the S2 Forwood scene, I definitely think it was meant as a parallel. I know people always think that’s a bad thing and they’re ripping off scenes but I’ve come to see it as more of an homage in certain circumstances, this would be one of them.

The way things are shot this season is so nice, more than any other season I feel like I’m getting scene after scene with moody lighting, great music and closeups. The leftovers scene is like this, the lighting is great and there’s that one nice scenery shot of them standing in the hallway. There’s a lot of care put into the scene like Stefan keeps moving closer and looking her in the eyes when he tells Caroline he pushed her away the most, which is the opposite of earlier when he kept moving away and not looking at her. The moment where he opens his mouth in awe and become speechless is great too really sells that epiphany moment of oh yeah I do have feelings for her.

6x09

Serious question are Damon and Stefan homeless right now? I have not seen them in an actual apartment

I mean you kind of did complain when he ruined it Damon but I approve of you constantly giving him shit about it.

I do not think Tyler would oppose saving Bonnie like he did to protect Liv. Especially because Liv wanted to do it she wasn’t doing it via duress.

YES Elena tried to make it about herself and Damon was like, don’t care let’s go save Bonnie.

I love the sassy way Stefan opens the diner door.

Enzo has killed two women of color this season for truly NO REASON besides being mad at Stefan and I'm just like... this is really the best we could do for Bonnie's true love?

Why don’t they met Bonnie halfway?!

I really hate that they made Bonnie stay stuck in the prison world until friggin episode 15. She should have gotten out now her friends should have actually saved her for once.

6x10

Stefan with the Christmas light LMFAO like a puppy!

Matt keeps saying Enzo’s gonna be dead and listen show stop threatening me with a good time if you won’t deliver it!

We might have been able to know if vampire blood could cure cancer if someone didn’t BURN ALL THEIR DAD’S RESEARCH on it for no fucking reason!

The snowglobe! Love how this became one of their "things" because both of them ended up being people who no matter where they went Mystic Falls was home and they always found their way back there. They always find their way back "home" (each other).

I hate sad Christmas Bonnie but the shot of her at the Christmas tree in 1994 intersped with Jeremy at the Christmas tree in the present is very nicely shot and sweet.

I think JP made a point to fix DE this season after Dries dragged them through the filth last season. The fact that Damon walked away from Elena and didn’t lash out felt specifically like they were righting that from last season. This is probably my favorite Damon season and while I’m 100% in the Bamon camp (and I’d argue Bonnie is the one who actually got through to him on changing) he is being very sweet with Elena and I swear I’m not being condescending.

6x11

OMG that is some next level foreshadowing with Damon saying he let Ric turn his house into Hogwarts!

Finally Elena using her vampire powers to defend herself!

I really love that Luke keeps taking Liv away from Damon & Co. because he is not here for her being their new go-to witch for all their problems. Stand your ground Luke!

Of course Caroline conducts her experiment on a black guy since he’s going to die a painful death.

The Delena scene where she jokes with him about dying (like her weirdo ex lol) is really funny and cute but it’s also so beautifully shot! Paul did a really great job with this episode but that scene in particular was just really stunning.

PORCH SCENE FINALLY ITS BEEN SO LONG

I cannot with the way Stefan takes Caroline’s hand and she gasps and looks at him like he’s a fucking Disney Prince! She’s so so so in love with him!

Lines that made me laugh

Damon: Sorry I killed Bonnie. But she was the most annoying person in the world. She wouldn't shut up. She just kept talking. (so funny but even Bonnie knows that's not true you luff her!)

Kai: 555-HIYA-KAI No way I'm giving those digits up (LMFAO I agree Kai as someone old enough to remember pagers)

Matt: I’m sorry I was confused about which vampires we like and which ones we don’t ASXSDGXDHGCB (HE'S GOT A POINT!)

[aspecbuddie]

What are wips 12 15 and 17 about??

(sorry it took me so long to answer this!)

12. tsunami - bobby and buck

I answered this one here the other day :)

15. 6x11 coda - buck and athena

Athena goes to see Buck in the hospital after he wakes up and she finds out that he knows she yelled at him while he was in the coma. I can't remember where I wanted to go with this one oops 😅 but have a snippet anyway

“You yelled,” he says, eventually. Athena freezes, eyes wide. “What?” “You yelled at me to wake up,” he continues, looking a little more sheepish about it. “At least, I… I think you did.” “I did,” she admits. Honestly, she didn’t think anyone would find out about that. Had been surprised when she found herself yelling at the unconscious figure in front of her. “You heard that?” Buck smiles a little, a hint of embarrassment crossing his features. “Uh, yeah. It’s a long story that I’ll tell you another time. But yeah, I heard you. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you yell like that before.” She frowns at him. “Oh you’ve definitely heard me yell before Evan Buckley.” “Yeah but not… not like that.”

17. exhausting - buddie 4x05 au

When Buck gets back to the firehouse and his parents are there at the end of 4x05, the conversation goes a little differently. Eddie offers to stay close while they talk and overhears them call Buck exhausting, and he suddenly remembers calling Buck that in the grocery store and spirals a little about it.

Buck is apologising. Of course he is. Buck says ‘I can’t imagine what that must have felt like to not be able to save someone you love’ and Eddie wonders if he’s thinking about the tsunami, about those hours that he doesn’t talk about but Eddie knows were spent searching for Christopher, about that half-minute Eddie spent trying to comprehend the enormity of what Buck was saying before his son appeared right before his eyes and everything was okay again. Buck is insisting they call him Buck, and Eddie can’t help but be a little proud. Except the atmosphere has changed; gone is the hopeful air surrounding Buck’s condolences for his own brother, in it’s place the same tension that had been in the gym while Buck worked out his anger after the second dinner. He can’t see their faces, but has no doubt there is some eye-rolling going on. Buck mutters something Eddie can’t quite catch and Phillip is gesturing in a way that suggests he’s trying to prevent causing a scene in public, and then Buck is staring at Margaret, who’s words Eddie somehow hears clear as day. “God, Evan, you’re exhausting.” Eddie’s eyes fly up, expecting to meet Buck’s. But Buck’s eyes are glued to the side of the kitchen island, jaw clenched. Rage grips at his own chest. He’s not sure who he’s more angry with: himself or Buck’s parents.

ask me about my WIPs

[walkingstackofbooks]

TNG 6x10 and 6x11 Chain of Command, Part 1 & 2 thoughts (rewatching, so possible future spoilers for DS9 too)

I’ve temporarily paused my DS9 re-watch after 2x20 Maquis Part 1 to go through all the Cardassian episodes in TNG to get a better picture of the build up: 4x12, 5x03, 6x10, 6x11, 6x20 and 7x15.

6x10 Part One

Watching Jellico on 1.5x speed makes him even more aggressively brusque

I can't remember if Jellico's genuinely good at his job or if he's very, very bad

The trouble is, he wants people to work for him. Picard has people work with him.

Once again, I had kind of forgotten till I re-watched just how much I liked Picard

(I just looked up what the Ferengi was called to make my next comment, and genuinely hadn't caught on that he was Solok, who they were looking for! I was wondering why he was so dedicated to calling Solok extraordinary XD)

(Huh, another fun fact - Solok was supposed to be Quark, but DS9 was a few weeks too late in airing for there to be a crossover!)

Daimon Solok kind of looks like Pel?

I don't mind woman using their charm, and that ear stroke wasn't egregious as some... but still, I hate ear stroking ferengi to get your way with them

I cannot tell if Jellicoe is an idiot or very clever

"If the Cardassian Union truly wishes to discuss peace, they can send someone who can negotiate in a civilised manner." Fuck OFF, you're hardly being civilised!!!

Ok, so there was some strategy...

"Well, I'll say this for him. He's sure of himself." "No, he's not." Oh fuck, that's concerning

IT'S A TRAP

That gul looks far too pleased with himself

Action scenes are VERY silly on 1.5x speed XD

Ohhh the next one will be the torture episode right? 😬😬😬

6x11 Part Two

Oh gosh, I was not expecting him to divulge information like Beverly's involvement straight away!

Any action Picard took should be said to be his own, not on behalf of the Federation - Isn't that the defence you should be using?

Yes, it's nice Will's worried about his captain, but tbf the Federation shouldn't withdraw from the sector for Picard. He knew the risks.

Data in red is so damn weird

Madred's child just casually being there is so chilling. Jesus.

Cardassian history is interesting, once being a peaceful people with a rich spiritual life before the military took over

They've discovered the plan!

I don't trust this "you can go" routine

Ohhhh

Oh no

That is the way to torture him. Mention Beverly

Picard walking back to the chair is so similar to Sisko walking back the box in Paradise

Jeeez, the breaking of the egg next to Picard bald head sure is kind of visceral

"Ah! You called me Picard."... "You are six years old. Weak and helpless. You cannot hurt me." What a king!

Crew sticking up for crew :) Geordie pushing for Riker to pilot the mission. :3

This exchange though - go go go Riker!

>>Jellico: "Let's drop the ranks for a moment. I don't like you. I think you're insubordinate, arrogant, wilful, and I don't think you're a particularly good first officer. But you are also the best pilot on the ship.

>>Riker: "Well, now that the ranks are dropped, Captain, I don't like you, either. You are arrogant and closed-minded. You need to control everything and everyone. You don't provide an atmosphere of trust, and you don't inspire these people to go out of their way for you. You've get everybody wound up so tight there's no joy in anything. I don't think you're a particularly good Captain."

"Do I wanna know how close that was?" "No." XD

Ohhhhhh. Oh Picard. Oh, you poor poor thing. He's going to say five isn't he?

JUST IN TIME gosh it's weird being grateful for Cardassians

"There are four lights!". You hero.

"Welcome home, Jean-Luc... Just the way you left it, maybe a little better." Oh, fuck off already Jellico. Though thank you for being involved in Picard's rescue, I guess.

Immediately meeting with Troi, yes, good idea, you definitely need counselling

Oh, Picard <3

These are good episodes. Jellico is infuriating and it's harrowing to watch Picard, but it's a damn good story.

[lovecolibri]

911 is literally just treading water. Most all plot lines have been resolved in an episode or two. Like Athena’s episode was great, Henren’s episode was great, but it’s also… sewn up. Finished. The only continuing storyline is one we all hate (Buck’s bio baby blunder). Eddie has had not much really to do. Madney getting back together was pretty much a nonevent. The radio silence on Bobby is finally bearing fruit but oh, it’s about a character we’ve never seen before and have about 30 seconds investment in.

They can’t seem to decide if they want to be a procedural, in which case they need to invest more in new and interesting calls and disasters. (It doesn’t have to be a tsunami! We know it can’t all be as wild as that. That doesn’t mean don’t try at all!) Or if they want to be character-driven, in which case they need to allow for actual character growth, not just Buck running in the same goddamn circle over and over. Istg, after the slog of BT and ending the season with him having finally decided for himself and looking so relieved I thought he’d grown and was so excited to see what came next for him, and nope. What happened in the four months after we left him looking so relieved and at peace after the breakup to make him worse than before? This is somehow even worse than cheating on his ill-suited girlfriend and moving her in. It’s character assassination 😭.

It’s like if they’re saving it for the back half they fucked up by lowering the stakes in the first half. The show’s ratings are still ok-ish but showing signs of trouble ahead and you can’t afford to count on everyone still being interested in March.

*I know this is from like, November okay? Don't look at me*

*siiiiigh* You're so right nonnie! I'll be honest, I did not watch 6x03. I couldn't watch live and then hearing what all happened I made the choice to nope out of that one. If I wanted to watch Law and Order SVU, I would do that, thanks. That said though, I get that it was a powerful episode for Athena and I am DISAPPOINTED she didn't talk to Hen about it and it hasn't come up again or affected her storyline in any capacity outside of that episode, and it's pretty much like that across the board. 6x11 was a lot about Buck and Bobby's relationship however Bobby had a HUGE thing the next week, and Buck is still struggling with his own recovery and they have not had a scene outside of work together or even talking about what major thing is going on with the other to anyone else! And ya'll know how I feel about Bobby's storyline involving a character we've never seen until he was dead and his whole story got retconned back to season 1 in flashbacks in one episode. Thanks, I hate it.

Nothing is holding any weight or carrying over, the emergencies in 6b have been somewhat better (6x10 by far had the most true 911 feel), but are steadily going back downhill and we are getting weirdly lots of calls with only part of the team on shift? Which after season 5 was ALL about how they cannot work without their partners, and the previous 4 seasons was all them on shift together just feels SO weird and off to me and I don't like it at all. And them doing nothing with the sperm donor arc but turning it into a joke that drug out all of 6a and then acting all *shocked pikachu* face when people hated it so much just makes me want to throw things because it EASILY could have been avoided! And they COULD have gotten so good and delicious drama out of it! But they have all these good set ups for all kinds of delicious drama for multiple characters that they do nothing with (the Chim abduction and possible Buck getting hit by the car comes to mind), and then complain that they are struggling to fill time and come up with plots, and they end up pulling THEE most random shit out of the air that involves sidelining characters with random side characters instead of doing things that involve the mains together! It's just...SO frustrating and they really need to do something about KR for real.

[snowbellewells]

Self-Promo Sunday: “Into the Unknown With You”

Another one shot from my assorted collection “Of Swans and Swords and Hopeful Hearts” - this one playing with some of the ideas I would rather have seen in 6x10 and 6x11, it certainly diverges from canon at that point...

Summary: As Emma searches for a way back home from the Wish Realm, help comes from a surprisingly welcome source...

{One more Author’s Note: The “awfully big adventure” bit is a tiny nod to J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.}

Can also be found on AO3 or ff.net 

“Into the Unknown with You”

by: @snowbellewells 

‘No, no, no!’ Emma’s mind reeled horrifically as she stared at the spot where only moments ago the portal had been whirling, her way home to her son and her pirate wide open. She wanted to scream; it couldn’t just be gone, and yet, a second too much hesitation, and the chance was lost. She looked to Regina anxiously, her fists clenched so tightly she felt the impressions her nails cut into her palms. It was all she could do not to rail at Regina, this whole twisted world, and her own bad luck.

‘What now?!?’ she wanted to demand, wanted to shake her former nemesis turned tentative friend, but one glimpse at the other woman’s stunned, disbelieving face staring across the shoreline at her presumed dead True Love, and Emma knew it would be a lost cause. Having stood beside a grave in grateful stupefaction at her own love’s miraculous return to life not so long ago, Emma couldn’t find the heart to remind Regina just yet that she had spent the last day preaching that none of their surroundings or those they encountered in the Wish Realm were real, and hurry her along. She too found herself blinking dazedly at this other – very convincing – version of Robin Hood for a few moments.

Even if her heart was still crying out for her home and her family, for Henry’s soft hair tickling her nose when she placed a kiss to the top of his head, and Killian’s arms enfolding her, she didn’t know where to go in this topsy-turvy version of the homeland she had never actually lived in, and so she had to wait – more impatiently by the minute – until one of these two, either queen or thief, snapped out of their spell and led the way…

As it turned out, Robin Hood was not the sort of outlaw who would truly do harm to two ladies passing through his territory. He wouldn’t have even made to steal their jewels and furs once the same trance that had overcome Regina seemed to strike him mute as well, but Regina offered him a pouch of coins that had been strapped to her waist and a ruby ring, pressing it into his calloused palm with a quirked smile and the assurance that “she insisted, she was much more partial to his cause than he knew”.

Emma wanted to snort at the ridiculous understatement those words were, and she only barely managed to hold back a roll of her eyes, which she sensed the thief saw but let slide with a conspiratorial wink.

Before she could make an argument for trying to catch up to Gold – or Rumplestiltskin here, she supposed – or ask where they were going to find another bean, it was evening, they were entering a forest in the gathering dark, and soon they had been welcomed to sit around a roaring fire with Robin’s motley crew, and even been offered the ale and venison passed around the circle as if they were part of the merry band.

“Now,” the archer began, seated beside Regina, his boy nodding drowsily on his lap. He looked around her to meet Emma’s gaze head on. “You must be thinking that I owe you an apology. Clearly you were about to leave this place, and because of me, you missed your ride.”

She tried to shrug it off nonchalantly, not wanting to get them kicked out in the cold, or to lay blame on him for something he couldn’t have known, but instead, to her own mortification, she felt hot tears stinging in the corners of her eyes. Though her sight grew glassy, Emma refused to let them fall. “So,” she tried for flippant, even if it fell horribly flat, “does that mean you know where we could get a replacement bean and want to help us get it?”

“Actually, Princess Emma,” Robin winked, a knowing sort of mischief in his eye, “I just might.”

~~~OuaT~~~~~CS~~~~~OuaT~~~

The following morning dawned misty and cool, but fair, and Robin greeted Emma at the simmering coals of the previous night’s campfire with a welcoming grin, Regina at his side on the stump they used for a seat, looking as soft and at ease as Emma had ever seen her, her head resting on his strong shoulder seemingly still half asleep. She and Regina had talked at length the night before, and at long last Emma had accepted that Henry’s adoptive mother wasn’t returning with her yet. “I know he isn’t the same Robin, that this whole place is built on a whim, but I’m not losing him again,” she had whispered vehemently. “There has to be another way to get back…one that he could take as well…if he wanted to…” The emotion welling in Regina’s dark eyes had been raw enough that Emma finally consented to go on without further fighting to change her mind, only giving a nod in affirmation when Regina had asked, “You’ll explain to Henry? Tell him I mean to return as soon as we both can?”

“Ready, your Highness?” the sandy-haired outlaw asked, breaking into Emma’s recent memories once more and looking down at her from where he now stood at the ready. “We should make the harbor by noon, if we set out now.”

“The harbor?” Emma asked breathlessly, dazed for a moment by what this could mean. Her heartbeat kicked up in both anticipation and dread. Surely he wasn’t here too…was he?

“Yes,” Robin answered her spoken question with an amiable nod as he kissed the back of Regina’s hand in farewell and turned to head off with Emma on his heels. “I happen to know a pirate with whom I sometimes trade my less than lawfully acquired goods. He might have just the sort of thing you need to return home…”

~~~OuaT~~~~~CS~~~~~OuaT~~~

The sound of gulls crying and wheeling overhead and the creak and groan of the wooden docks as they reached the edge of the shore town and neared the sparkling blue harbor was enough to take Emma’s breath away. Robin took a step forward to lead her down the docks, already offering to make introductions, but Emma stopped him with a gentle hand on his arm.

There before them, as recognizable as always, was the Jolly Roger, bobbing proudly at anchor. Though most might be intimidated by the sight, Emma drew in the first full breath she’d had since remembering herself in this strange realm – as if she had gotten her first real glimpse of home at last. He might still be the vengeful Captain Hook in this reality, but somehow she wasn’t afraid. He would never truly hurt her – and she only wanted to be at his side again without further delay.

Reassuring Robin that she could take it from there, Emma bid him goodbye. Though he looked uncertain, the archer took her at her word and left her with his best wishes. If she clutched his hand a moment longer and a bit tighter than would be normal and bid him be safe a little too fervently – well, she didn’t have to explain herself to anyone here…

At her first step onto the gangplank, a shudder of recognition ran through her, as if the vessel itself was welcoming her back aboard, shivers skittering along her spine. At first glance, the ship seemed deserted, her crew perhaps gathering supplies or unwinding at the nearest tavern, but the air around her wavered, charged suddenly, letting her know she was not alone. Emma felt even before she heard heavy footfalls on the planks or that deep, commanding voice at her back, asking who went there, that she had not gone undetected by the ship’s captain.

Turning, her eyes found him, hungrily drinking in the details; altered, but still without doubt the man she loved. The dark hair was windblown and unruly, practically begging for her fingers to delve into its soft abundance and brush the fringe back off his forehead. Though the strands might be shaggier and generously shot through with grey, it made him no less attractive to her starving eyes. In fact, she only wanted to stare at him all the more, to catalogue every difference, trace the deeper crow’s feet around his eyes and the added lines on his forehead. Those fathomless blue eyes were lined so liberally with the kohl she hadn’t seen him use for some time in their modern Storybrooke life that she almost wanted to chuckle at the effect until she registered the way the blue of his gaze also looked paler – as if washed out by too many tears shed alone and without comfort, or dulled by pain held back because he couldn’t afford to let it show.

Brandishing his moniker, and that dastardly, flirtatious mask he had long since let drop around her, to full effect, Captain Hook stepped well into her personal space. “And who might you be?” he questioned, breath warm on the shell of her ear as he leaned in, hook lifting the heavy rope of her golden braid and tucking it back over her shoulder. It was an achingly familiar gesture and he stood much too close for calm comfort, sending her pulse fluttering again, and yet no recognition lit his gaze as he studied her; the fond devotion she had come to rely on more than she could say was utterly absent, making her heart ache and crack in her chest.

“Princess Emma of Misthaven,” she answered as sturdily as she could, raising her chin and meeting his eye with as much confidence as she could muster. “I had hoped to speak to you on a delicate matter of some importance.”

“A delicate matter, is it?” he asked, his enunciation and the way his tongue caressed his words seductively had not been altered or diminished in the slightest, whatever else had changed. He stood back to his full height, fingers in his waistband, hips thrust forward and looking every bit as sinfully irresistible as he ever did, complete with that wide-open, chest-exposing red vest she had witnessed once in their trip to the past through Zelena’s portal. If she hadn’t known him so well, she might have been fooled by the bravado, but knowing his heart as only a True Love could, she saw the emptiness behind the lascivious look, the pain within the façade – the proper, honorable lieutenant he had been, hating the persona his course had forced him to adopt. Even as he ran his tongue across his lower lip, letting his eyes trace her curves from head to toe almost lewdly, she could see the regret clouding the pupils and the wistful longing – as if he could sense what might have been.

Unable to stop herself, Emma reached forward impulsively, grasping both his hook and hand tightly as she spoke, “Yes, very…but just maybe…I was meant to find you. Maybe you’re the only one who would believe me.”

~~~OuaT~~~~~CS~~~~~OuaT~~~

Another hour found them below deck in his cabin, seated at the scratched, weathered wooden table which had served him in his lonely meals for ages, Emma’s hand still clinging to his hook where it rested on his thigh, but the other reaching up tentatively to trace that faded scar she knew so well beneath his eye. Hook – though more and more her Killian with every passing moment – had scooted closer to her on the roughhewn bench, blinking in awe as she saw hope returning to his face. He appeared both afraid to believe her words, but also desperate for them to be true.

“So you’re telling me that all of this around us – this whole life – is an illusion?” he asked haltingly, not daring to move his eyes from her face, as though he thought she might disappear as quickly as she had come to him.

“Well, yeah, basically,” she tried to explain. “Or more like…it’s a possibility that didn’t actually come true. There’s this v-villain in my home, in the real timeline that I come from, who made a wish that reset things, and I was sucked into it. I have a son, family and friends, a-and another version of you…who’s my True Love…there missing me. And I have to get back to them.”

“There’s another me?” he breathed, and where anyone else would have been skeptical, he looked merely stunned, wanting. “And…we’re…together?”

“Yeah, we are,” she whispered, laying a hand over his rapidly beating heart and drawing comfort from its rhythm. She already felt stronger, more certain, even with this iteration of her pirate. Her watery smile quirked up into a bit of a smirk at one corner, “And don’t worry, he’s still devilishly handsome.”

Her captain’s eyes fell to their joined hand and hook in his lap, huffing out a laugh at her words. “More so than I, I’d wager,” he murmured.

Emma hummed under her breath, reaching out to run her fingers along a grey streak in his longer hair. “I don’t know about that,” she offered. “There’s something pretty appealing about this model, grey hair and all.”

“You flatter me, Milady,” he teased, that voice still a sinful purr rumbling from his chest as he lifted her hand to press a kiss to its back. Still, emotion welled up beneath the flirtation, making his magnetic gaze all the harder for her to escape. She was blinking, nonplussed and floundering for some audible response, when he straightened and pulled her to her feet with him. “Enough lollygagging then! I’ll prepare the old girl to set sail. It’s time we got you back where you belong!”

For a moment, Emma was stunned anew. This full-on piratical version of her True Love, who didn’t really even know her and had no reason to do anything she said, had not only chosen to believe her story, but was going out of his way to help her – just as he had ever since he turned his ship around to take her to Neverland. The lump in her throat was almost too much to speak around, but Emma managed to croak out, “You really would give anything to help me, wouldn’t you?” even as she shook her head in disbelief.

“Aye,” he affirmed, looking a bit like he was marveling at that fact himself. “I am not sure I fully understand, nor can I explain it to you, but I sense that I would – that I am almost compelled – to help you in any world or time you would appear to me.”

“Thank you,” was all she could really say in response, her wondering smile nearly blinding him with its brilliance.

“Come then,” he offered her his arm, his speech all business again, even while the pointed tips of his ear flushed, clearly uncomfortable with the gratitude and praise. “Above deck, and we’ll be off. I know someone who deals in nigh impossible to procure objects.”

~~~OuaT~~~~~CS~~~~~OuaT~~~

Standing beside him at the helm just a few short hours later, wind in her hair and the salt spray on her face, it struck Emma that though she was desperate to get home, to make sure her son, her family, and her Killian were alright, she didn’t want to simply abandon this pirate captain beside her. She didn’t know what would happen to him, if he would find something to live for, something to be part of, or if she was dooming him to his quiet desperation…even if he might simply vanish into nothingness with the rest of this ill-fated wish. She didn’t know what happened next, to be completely honest. Laying a hand on his forearm, she gazed up into his face, swallowing hard. “I don’t know what becomes of you, or this realm, when I leave here and go home,” she admitted. “I’m not sure if you all just go on like it never happened, if you cease to exist, if you wander here aimless forever…I just…I don’t know…”

Covering her hand with his, he guided the ship with no more than his hook rested capably on the wheel. “Worry not, Princess,” was his confident response, fervent resolve painted over his strong, careworn features. “We shall still set things right, as they should be. Whatever comes after this – infinity or oblivion – will be an awfully big adventure.”

Tagging: @kmomof4​ @searchingwardrobes​ @whimsicallyenchantedrose​ @laschatzi​ @jennjenn615​ @tiganasummertree​ @optomisticgirl​ @spartanguard​ @therooksshiningknight​ @thislassishooked​ @winterbaby89​ @darkcolinodonorgasm​ @hollyethecurious​ @artistic-writer​ @stahlop​ @elizabeethan​ @donteattheappleshook​ @wefoundloveunderthelight​ @apiratewhopines​ @lfh1226-linda​ @xsajx​ @ineffablecolors​ @drowned-dreamer​ @thisonesatellite​ @kday426​ @ultraluckycatnd​ @xhookswenchx​ @hookedonapirate​ @blowmiakisscolin​ 

[travllingbunny]

Why do you think the script has changed in 6 seasons? Because even the "I'm proud of you" line seemed out of character. As if it was a preparation for all this ridiculous S7. It is strange that Clarke was absent in the finale with Gabriel, Octavia, Bellamy. It looks like everything started from here. 611 or 612.

I don’t think that line was out of character. That’s more or less how Clarke and her relationship with Murphy and other characters was always portrayed. Since S3, she’s been very forgiving of people. She was even nice to Echo in the S4 finale.

Jason apparently changed his mind about putting Bellarke together in 6x11. But we don’t know if that meant they wouldn’t get together in S7. The hug near the end of 6x13 was incredibly shippy, especially with the song that was used, the visuals, all. 

I didn’t think it was that strange that Clarke was absent in the last scene. They wanted to focus on Octavia, Hope and Bellamy’s reaction to her disapperance. I think the decision to pretend Bellarke was never romantic was made between season 6 and 7. Just before S6 aired and while it was airing, the cast and crew were more openly pro-Bellarke than ever (Marie, JR Bourne, the two new actresses playing Delilah and Jade all talked about shipping Bellarke, Bob and Eliza were more openly saying Bellarke-friendly things at cons). But after the finale aired, Jason gave his infamous “People have misinterpreted” interview. That’s also when they were starting to work on season 7.  And that was before Bob asked for time off.

That’s why season 7 suddenly shifted the attention from Bellarke relationship to Clarke worrying about her “friends” with no further specification, and we had them call each other “Best friend” every second episode. 

I don’t know at which point Jason decided to start sidelining Eliza.

The decision to kill off Bellamy, and in such a terrible way, was made at some point during season 7. It seems it was made at the last moment, while shooting or possibly even reshooting parts of 7x13 (January - February). We know they barely had any time to rewrite the script for 7x14. I’m curious what the initial scripts the writing team finished in December 2019 were like. 

[lee-em-dee]

A Season 6 Bellarke Recap [a.k.a. the Receipts]

Before the finale airs, I thought we were due for a recap of some of the major B/C moments of Season 6, episode by episode.

6x01 “Sanctum”

[a.k.a. “It’s not crazy.”]

This felt like such a turning point for Bellarke, particularly on Bellamy’s end, because you can finally see him starting to fill in the blanks of their relationship. Clarke is so tentative and reticent about addressing the radio calls. Bellamy recognizes her vulnerability, understands the significance of this admission. And by assuring her “it’s not crazy” that she depended on him for six years, he reveals that he relied on her memory just as much, thus affirming the strength and stability of their relationship. Devotion is the name of the game.

6x02 “Red Sun Rising”

[a.k.a. “I don’t need you anymore.” + “This time, you die. Not me.”]

Talk about Foreshadowing™. This episode allowed audiences to get into the heads of each character (sans body snatching) and fully grasp what it is that drives/haunts them. Case in point, during Bellamy’s red sun psychotic episode, his compulsive need to protect and save his people is underscored, as is his deep-seated fear of being abandoned by/losing Clarke. This illustrates how, to a certain extent, Bellamy is terrified of how much he depends upon Clarke, knowing fully well the toll her death took on him for the past six years.

6x03 “The Children of Gabriel”

[a.k.a. “She is. She can speak for us.” + “We’ll bring Madi back. I promise.”]

Though the two are separated for the majority of this episode, Bellamy and Clarke’s “Together” partnership and co-leading dynamic are back in full force. Theirs is a relationship built on trust and mutual respect, a fact made very apparent when Bellamy doesn’t hesitate to allow Clarke to unilaterally conduct diplomatic affairs in Sanctum while he reconnects with their people. Likewise, Clarke entrusts the safety of her daughter to Bellamy in spite of the calamitous series of events that transpired in Season 5. It’s truly a redressal of S5, and it establishes how a relationship as profound as theirs is only strengthened by past disputes, betrayals, and grievances.

6x04 “The Face Behind the Glass”

[a.k.a. “You’re my family, too.” + “You’re too important to me.”]

I found this moment particularly significant when juxtaposed with the B/C dynamic in Season 2. Clarke’s “You’re too important to me” is very reminiscent of her S2 “I can’t lose you, too,” only this time around Clarke doesn’t attempt to diminish Bellamy’s value to her and, instead, recognizes that her love for him is a strength, not a weakness. She conveys to him how deeply she regrets abandoning him at the pits (much like her abandonment of him at the gates of Arkadia in S2), vowing to never lose sight of the fact that he is and always will be family to her.

6x05 “The Gospel of Josephine”

[a.k.a. “How are we on different sides of this?”+ “Who are you?”]

The strength of B/C’s relationship is even further bolstered with Josephine acting as a foil character to Clarke. Bellamy and Clarke know and understand each other so well, and her absence is glaringly obvious to Bellamy when he recognizes how uncharacteristically out-of-sync they are. He is the first and only person to have figured out that Clarke had been bodysnatched purely from knowing who she is as a person—her mannerisms, the way she speaks, the way she thinks, the things she values most (the same cannot be said of her own mother, but c’est la vie).

6x06 “Memento Mori”

[a.k.a. “...the hardest decision of his life: he will not take revenge.”]

Bellamy reveals the depth of his love for Clarke not by being consumed with his desire to exact revenge on her murderers, but rather by pushing aside his rage and grief in order to honor her. His inconsolable, bereaved, emotionally volatile state screams at him to perpetuate the cycle of war and violence, yet he overrrides his natural bloodthirsty instincts, all for Clarke. Bellamy is a fighter, and him choosing not to fight to preserve Clarke’s legacy is precisely why his love for her must be true and abiding—a love that stands the test of time and transcends death.

6x07 “Nevermind”

[a.k.a. “You’re too afraid to face him.” + “I’ll take your deal.” vs. “We’re gonna get her back.”]

The noticeable absence of Bellamy in Clarke’s mindspace (save for the drawings of him on her cell walls) is very weighty, especially when accompanied by Mindspace Blodreina’s spiel about Clarke‘s subconscious being unable to conjure Bellamy up due to fear. Fear that he will always resent her for her mistakes, fear that he views her as a selfish monster. It’s evident that Clarke values Bellamy’s perception of her to an unparalleled degree. Pieces of him are scattered throughout her mindspace (notice how a sketch of him is hanging in the area of her mindspace that symbolizes home, happiness, security, and family). He is literally ingrained in her head. This makes her decision to sacrifice herself to Josephine all the more meaningful. It is only when Clarke assumes Bellamy had given up on her without a second thought that she, herself, gives up. What she doesn’t get to see is how devastated he had been by her death and how determined he is to get her back when he discovers she’s still alive.

6x08 “The Old Man and the Anomaly”

[a.k.a. “You only care about Clarke.” ATTA BOY, JORDAN]

Bellamy is a man on a mission, and he’ll stop at nothing to save Clarke, regardless of the fact that doing so potentially endangers his people and their prospects for peace. While it’s inaccurate to suggest that Bellamy “only [cares] about Clarke,” you cannot deny that in this precarious situation she takes priority above all else. Saving Clarke is more important to Bellamy than ensuring that the peace deal for his people is fleshed out without a hitch. “He’d do anything for her. To protect her. Just makes sense.” Yet another S2 parallel. Bellamy will do whatever it takes to bring Clarke back, consequences by damned. If that entails leaving his people to fend for themselves, then so be it.

6x09 “What You Take With You”

[a.k.a. “Your people are in trouble. I guess you care about her more.” + “Now that’s a weird relationship, isn’t it?” + “I won’t let you die.” + “I’m not leaving you.”]

This episode was truly an ode to the history between Bellamy and Clarke—a complex history characterized by its highs and lows, by reconciliation and betrayal—but a history of devotion, nonetheless. Bellamy’s interactions with Josephine are enlightening, to say the least. The clinical way she breaks down the complicated relationship between Bellamy and Clarke is not only a testament to who she is as a person (i.e. a psychopath) but also to how deeply B/C must care for each other. In spite of everything that’s happened between them, their love and devotion to one another remains. Josephine leaves no stone unturned when it comes to recounting the bad and the ugly aspects of Bellamy and Clarke’s relationship, yet she redacts all of the good (those deep, intimate, emotional moments must be difficult to comprehend through the eyes of a psychopath). Everything about this episode—from Bellamy’s heartfelt “I won’t let you die,” to the terror and desperation in his eyes when J!Clarke is on the chopping block, to Clarke’s adamant “I’m not leaving you”—affirms that their bond is unbreakable.

6x10 “Matryoshka”

[a.k.a. THAT SCENE]

It takes real acting chops to simultaneously rip my heart in half and stitch it back together, yet, within the span of two measly minutes, Bob Morley accomplished the feat seamlessly. When Bellamy is confronted with the reality that Clarke is dead on that operating table, his greatest fears in 6x02 paradoxically come alive before his very own eyes. “I’m not losing her again.” “I need you.” “I’m not letting you go.” The shift from denial to desperation to devastation is as breathtaking as it is heart-breaking to watch. Speaking of the heart, what elevated the CPR scene to a caliber rivaling that of poetic cinema was its overt symbolism. Bellamy is Clarke’s heart. Clarke is Bellamy’s heart. When she’s trapped in her own head, it’s Bellamy’s voice that brings her back and jumpstarts her fighter instincts. When her heart’s stopped beating, he pumps it for her. He’s begging for her to come back to him because she is his touchstone, his other half. “The heart and the head.” “The head and the heart.” In other words, we belong Together. In other words, I love you, and I don’t want to live without you.

6x11 “Ashes to Ashes”

[a.k.a. “You saved me.” “So how do we save everyone that I left behind?” + “For Monty.” “For Monty.”]

The guilt sets in for Bellamy as he begins to think about the potential repercussions of his actions. Leaving everything behind to save Clarke was purely a heart move, and now that he’s got Clarke back, his head is starting to punish itself for shutting down and abandoning his people. Bellamy is off kilter and guilt-ridden. His plans for a peace deal fell apart, and he’s terrified that he won’t be able to protect his people just as he had failed to protect Clarke before (a 6x02 callback). Now, more than ever, it’s evident that Bellamy relies on Clarke to center him. She is his voice of reason, the head to his heart—a heart that, in a lot of ways, beats for her, as evidenced by his adamant refusal to allow her to jeopardize her life by acting as the inside man. Objectively, he knows her plan is the smart play and the only way to ensure that they “do better” per Monty’s charge, but he can’t risk losing her again. Bellamy eventually conceding to her plan illustrates how ideologically-attuned they are now. They’ve never been more Together, and, above all else, they uphold faith in each other.

6x12 “Adjustment Protocol”

[a.k.a. “I left them.” + “What took you so long?”]

Though this was definitely more of a fast-paced, plot-driven episode, the flashes of Bellarke peppered throughout are very telling, teeing up a major emotional moment for them in 6x13. While waiting for Clarke to shut down the shield, Bellamy is once again plagued by guilt for leaving his people behind without a second thought. Octavia’s verbal consolations do little to ease his mind, which goes to show how tormented he is by his actions. He genuinely believes dropping everything to save Clarke was a selfish decision on his part because he couldn’t bear to live without her. It wasn’t so much about Clarke needing Bellamy than it was about Bellamy needing Clarke.

He needs her. Not just as a co-leader, not just as a partner. Bellamy needs Clarke. His person. Never mind that his people may need him. If Clarke’s in trouble, he’ll go through hell and back to save her.

Pivot to the Becho reunion. Bellamy’s just been reunited with his girlfriend, the person he’d entrusted to protect his people while he went off to galavant around the woods with J!Clarke. The pure relief on his face upon being reassured that Echo okay is apparent. He left her behind, she was in trouble, but now she’s okay. He’s comforted by her presence in the same way that he’s comforted by the knowledge that a member of his family is safe.

But that look on Bellamy’s face when his eyes meet Clarke’s and everything around them seems to melt away? That’s more than relief. That’s yearning. That’s devotion. That’s “You came through. I knew you would.” That’s love.

[boompowkablam]

Favorite Fic Rec- List # 3

WALKING DEAD LIST

Just a list of some of my favorite stories. I’m gonna act like I remember how to link stuff it will be great. Pairings are going to be Daryl/Glenn and Daryl/Jesus. Maybe a Daryl/Rick thrown in IDK .

     How These Days Grow Long  By Never_Says_Die

This work is COMPLETE!

Written in response to a prompt on The Walking Dead kink meme:

Rick & Co. are finding it increasingly difficult to deal with Daryl's outbursts, his racist remarks, and easily-ignitable temper.  They are in fact, considering just cutting their losses and telling him he has to leave when they come across another group of survivors...one of whom is very, very special to Daryl.

AU in which Glenn and Daryl have been in a relationship for a few years before the ZA, and were separated when Atlanta was overrun.  Each think the other is dead, and Glenn ended up with a different group of survivors while Daryl ended up in the quarry camp.  Story also assumes Merle would've turned his back on Daryl for getting involved with Glenn, so they parted ways long ago.

Action , Adventure, Love , Suspense,Sadness,Longing, Its just everything you want from a fic. Word count 100,538. Pairing Daryl/Glenn

     The Diary of Glenn By  ornategrip

Seasons 1 and 2, as seen through Glenn's diary.

This is so funny I love it! I wish I could make a podfic for it like whoa.

Word count 4,938. Pairing Daryl/Glenn

     Ghosts Among Us  By  TWDObsessive

Daryl sees the dead.  Not the walkers, the twice-dead once they become ghosts.  It started since the turn and he assumes it’s his body’s reaction to the walker infection they all carry.  One by one he experiences losses of loved ones and each of them come to visit him.   And they all seem to be guiding him to Rick.

This was really good but also really sad to me. Mind the tags so you don’t read something upsetting . Word count 6,422. Pairing Daryl/Rick

     Picking Up the Pieces  By  Riastarstruck

When Rick works night duty while recovering from the shooting, he becomes friends with Daryl, the young guy working community service as a janitor in lieu of prison time.

"If you found an animal in an alley and it was raining and you approached it, it would try to bite you. But if you could get it inside and feed it and take it somewhere warm, it would follow you forever. He's got that kind of vibe to him." -Norman Reedus on Daryl Dixon

This one is cute but also makes me feel sad even though it’s not sad.

Word count 21,161. Pairing Daryl/Rick

     While the World Falls Down  By  oleanderedits @oleanderedits​

They were supposed to have ten days to dispute the quickie wedding they'd had the night they'd been drunk. The world went to shit three days later. Part 1 of a series re-write focusing on Glenn, Daryl, Merle, and Maggie as what it means to be 'Family' is stretched, twisted, and redefined by circumstances no one should have to live through. Covers Seasons 1 and 2 and mostly follows the canon storyline.

This is hands down 100% my absolute favorite walking dead fic. It is so good I have read it so many times now. I seriously can not get enough of it.

Word count 48,284. Pairing Daryl/Glenn , Glenn/Maggie , Daryl/Maggie , Daryl/Glenn/Maggie.

     Friction Match  By  vegarin

It's the end of the world. You can be anyone you choose to be."  Daryl Dixon, at the end of the world.

I am not sure what it is about this story that makes me love it so much! I am working on a podfic for it right now so at some point I’ll have a link up for that.

Word Count 24,769. Gen no Paring.

     Fall Into Your Arms. By  doctorkaitlyn @banshee-cheekbones

“I am done with dating.  And I mean it this time.”

Glenn is sick of his friends setting him up.  He’s sick of going on bad dates and he’s sick of getting his hopes up and never hearing anything back.  In all the time he spends not going on dates, he can do things that he actually enjoys, like sleeping or marathoning a television show or trying to find a better job.

He is done with dating.  Seriously.

At least, that's what he says before he meets Daryl.

This is so cute and awkward I love Glenn’s bad luck.

Word Count 4,549. Pairing Daryl/Glenn

     Dear Mr. Hawkeye  By  Psmith73 

@psmith73

AU. Glenn is a struggling student neck-deep in debts. One day while trying to earn some money he gets himself in serious trouble. An anonymous benefactor offers him help in return for weekly emails describing events of his life. Jean Webster's "Daddy-long-legs"/TWD fusion. COMPLETE.

This is really good I dont know why I want to say human disaster Glenn but im  gonna. I think its cause it references marvel hawkeye but also Glenn kind of is.

Word Count 20,552. Pairing Daryl/Glenn.

something keeps pulling me back to you  By  wardeness

 Daryl Dixon sat on the steps of his porch, elbows resting on knees as he sharpened his knife. Katydids called around him in a chorus of chirping crickets, the sound only interrupted by the rhythmic scratch of metal on stone. The heavy air—a sure sign rain was coming, Daryl predicted—felt moist and honeyed against his bare arms. The evening was calm. Peaceful, even.

 Peaceful, that was, until Jesus appeared.

AU after 6x11. Slow burn.

Super cute .Super fluff.

Word Count 64,037 . Pairing Daryl/Jesus

Daryl's Addiction By  DestielHardcoreLove @bugandkitlove

Paul had no clue what was going on.  It seemed as if every time he turned a corner he would find Daryl on his knees with someone different from the community.  He didn't know what to make of it, what to even think but he did wonder how to get on it himself.

This was just really funny to me. Instead of talking I’m gonna make sure you catch me blowing the town.

Word Count 7,702. Pairing Daryl/Jesus

  Against the Dying of the Light  By   LottaCharlene

After escaping Terminus, Rick's family is at their strength's end. When the walls of yet another community loom over their heads, they must decide if they take the risk to seek refuge in this new community. They are met with a strange tradition that they are still willing to follow through for the sake of their family's well-being. Soon enough, they realize that they found a place that they could call home again. But the peace is treacherous and yet again they have to fight for their freedom and the lifes of the people they love.

Unexpectedly, Daryl is the one that has to fight for more than just his family.

So very good and sweet and sad and Gregory is a nut sac but you already knew that. Also I fucking love arranged marriage fics.

Word Count 108,454. Pairing Daryl/Jesus.

 Ripples on a Black Shore  By  Mugatu

For Daryl Dixon the world ended days before it did for almost everyone else, and it was heralded with a prerecorded phone message instead of a bang.

An AU fic where Daryl met Paul several years before the apocalypse.

Kind of sad but with a happy ending.

Word Count 200,540. Pairing Daryl/Jesus.

 Cross Your Fingers  By  starclipped

Daryl finds himself wrapping his fingers around Paul’s wrist before a bandage can be pulled from the tattered box. And Paul peers at him when their skin touches, fierce eye to fierce eye, with… with such veneration. Daryl wouldn’t know that feeling if he saw it, he thinks he’s seeing it now and he can’t believe it, but he can sure as hell feel it; rolling off his hippie ninja in waves, seeping into Daryl’s soul. A gasoline soaked rag, simply waiting to be set aflame. That's what he's become. He swallows the foreign emotions that suddenly make him feel too big for his body.

So very good and kind of sad worth the read for sure!

Word Count 204,186. Pairing Daryl/Paul

 Finders, Keepers  By  Joel7th

Jesus came to Alexandria to do trade and to see a certain grumpy hunter. However, he didn’t see said hunter; instead, just outside the walls of Alexandria he found a black cat – wait, was that really a cat?!

I found this so funny!

Word Count 10,148 . Pairing Daryl/Jesus

 All you need is twinkling stars and ancient cities  By TooRational  @toorational

Daryl Dixon of all people turns out to have the Ancient gene.

Go figure.

Or: The unlikely tale of a redneck from Earth and a Runner from the Pegasus Galaxy, and how they fell in love.

I fucking love Stargate Atlantis Crossovers and this was amazing !!!!

Word Count 16,454. Pairing Daryl/Jesus

 Help Wanted  By  Scababagorn

Daryl Dixon hasn't believed that he deserved to be who he really is. He hasn't ever felt safe enough. Is the reason that so many of the people he loves are dead. And then, suddenly there is a man named Jesus. And he likes to call Daryl "Dixie"

Cute,cute, cute I love it!!

Word Count 22,618. Pairing Daryl/Jesus

 if the world should break  By  transstevebucky @gaydaryl

It's not like Daryl hates the guy. It's exactly the opposite.

Very cute. Be mindful of the tags daryl gets outed without his permission.

Word Count 36,343. Pairing Daryl/Jesus

 Misunderstandings in a Car Crash By  Neeka

Misunderstanding. [mis-uhn-der-stan-ding]

Noun 1. Failure to understand correctly; mistake as to meaning or intent

Warning: Does not mix well with love and may lead to heartbreak

Dude like super sad face for like half of this but it gets less sad .

Word Count 18,614 Pairing Daryl/Jesus.

 Breaking the Cycle  By  AidaRonan @bisexualstarbucky

Daryl's life seems to follow a cycle of pain and violence. So when he starts falling for his new roommate, he's more than wary about what it might mean.

But sometimes breaking a cycle means making a choice.

So very cute a little sad also be mindful of the tags.

Word Count 7,416 . Pairing Daryl/Jesus

 Fables of the Reconstruction By  Mugatu

It’s more than two years after the end of the world and six months after the war with the Saviors when Daryl Dixon returns to Alexandria.

This is just so good holy crap and glenn lives which makes it even better!!

Word Count 91,918.  Pairing Daryl/Jesus

 You're Like Me (a goddamn idiot)  By  yellowhairedrobot

Jesus tilted his head to the side. “If I tried to kiss you right now, would you kick my ass?”

“Yes,” Daryl answered, way too quickly.

This is funny and gives me extreme second hand embarrassment.

Word Count 6,395. Pairing Daryl/Jesus

 the streets are full of strangers  By  smilebackwards @smilebackwards

When Deanna asks Daryl to leave Alexandria, he meets Paul on the road a little earlier.

I would like to say cute-meet . lol its very good and very cute.

Word Count 11,563 . Pairing Daryl/Jesus

There is also a podfic for this.

     [Podfic] the streets are full of strangers  By  Boompowkablam   @boompowkablam

Length 1hr 7 mins

  a heart that's on loan  By  smilebackwards @smilebackwards

Aaron and Daryl discover Hilltop on one of their scouting trips and find that the community has an interesting throwback custom for establishing alliances: marriage.

I LOVE ARRANGED MARRIAGE AND THIS IS THE BEST ONE!

Word Count 11,686.  Pairing Daryl/Jesus

 Just Another Day  By  PezzieCoyote                   

What if Daryl was the one in charge? How would things be different? And what secret is he hiding?

Supernatural elements you know besides the zombies .

Word Count 9,950. Pairing Daryl/Jesus

  Escape  By   AbigailHT, TooRational  @toorational @abigailht

  By the time the song starts drilling into his head worse than the headache, he's come to the conclusion that he can't do much.  There's no way to get out unless someone unlocks the door, and even if he could, he has no idea where he'd go once he's out anyway. Nor has he any idea who has him. Or why. Or where. Or where home is. Or—Basically, he doesn't know anything, and even the things he does know are mostly instinct and completely unverifiable anyway.He's contemplating sitting back down again — he'll have to do it at some point, if only to preserve his strength, but the cold, and the dirt, and he's naked, his skin crawls at the mere thought — when the song shuts off abruptly.

Or: The Saviors' latest prisoner isn't quite what he seems.

Its just like everything you ever wanted out of Jesus in the show. So good a tiny bit sad.

Word Count 6,894. Pairing Daryl/Jesus

There is a podfic for this.

  Escape  By  Boompowkablam @boompowkablam

Length  45 minutes.

[smallblueandloud]

in blackwater woods

pairings: eleven/rose, amy & rose, amy & eleven, amy/rory

summary: there's a normal-looking blonde woman in the doctor's room, and amy really has no idea what's going on. but she's going to figure it out. (a rewrite of doctor who 6x11, the god complex)

notes: i only started plotting this after @doctorroseprompts prompted episode rewrites with rose literal years ago. this fic has been in the works for... a long time, and thank you so much to those who kept being enthusiastic and excited about it <3 the title is from the mary oliver poem of the same name. i kept her line breaks, just added a few more of my own

read it on ao3 | more of my doctor who writing | more of my writing

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

 of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

-

Amy opens the door of the TARDIS and steps out, breathing deep. Behind her, inside, the Doctor and Rory are discussing medical politics of the 23rd century - a conversation that’s lasted on and off for several weeks now. She’s reasonably interested in medicine, but only when Rory’s the one doing the explaining, and that’s mostly because she gets to see him being passionate about his favorite subject.

She has no trouble, then, with tuning them out in favor of paying attention to where they’ve landed. Landing in a new place and experiencing it for the first time is her favorite part of travelling.

She looks around. Then she frowns.

“Doctor?” she calls, turning back to let her voice carry.

The two inside don’t stop arguing. It’s not surprising, she supposes, given that they’re both interested in what they’re talking about. But it makes her feel suddenly and powerfully alone. “Rory?” she calls, a little louder.

They stop. “Amy? What’s wrong, love?” asks her husband.

He and the Doctor are suddenly at her shoulders. At her right, Rory puts a hand on her shoulder. On her left, the Doctor says, “What’s wrong, Amy?”

Her loneliness vanishes, just as quickly as it had appeared, and the familiar exasperation takes its place. “The people are six hundred feet tall, he says. You have to talk to them in hot air balloons and the Tourist Information Centre is made of one of their hats, he says. I don’t see any hats, Doctor.”

Here’s the issue: they’re indoors. Amy was promised Ravan-Skala’s sky festival, an event that only happens once a year, on the planet with no buildings. But the corridor they’ve landed in is definitely in a building - not to mention carpeted, sort of dim, and rather like any cheap hotel you could find at home.

“There’s something creepy about this place,” says Rory, his hand tightening on her shoulder. She reaches up and squeezes it.

“Exactly,” says the Doctor, moving forward as he clasps his hands together. He spins around to face them, pointing at both her and Rory. “Why is that?”

Amy frowns, looking at him as she tries to figure out what feels so off about wherever they are. This is a familiar game, though she’s never been very good at it.

“Where are we?” asks Rory.

“Great question!” he says. “Not on Earth, that’s for sure. The air tastes slightly different - can you tell?”

“Yeah,” says Amy, sniffing. There it is. There’s a vague hint of... something in the air, nothing she’d ever smelled before. “And if we’re not on Earth, but this place looks exactly like a cheap hotel on Earth-”

“Exactly!” exclaims the Doctor, waving his hands in tight circles in front of him. “Who would go to all the trouble? Why?”

“Let’s figure it out, then,” says Amy, starting to grin. The Doctor smiles at her and spins around, pointing forwards. “Onwards!”

-

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

 of the ponds,

-

“I don’t understand,” says the Doctor, pacing back and forth. He waves a pad of paper as he passes her. Amy exchanges a skeptical glance with Rita, the practical medical student, as Rory frowns at Joe’s dead body. “Lucy Hayward saw what she used to be scared of. Joe saw the dolls - bloody creepy buggers - which he didn’t seem bothered by at all. But what do they have to-”

“I don’t-” starts the nervous guy. The Doctor stops pacing abruptly, turning and moving in one smooth movement until he’s directly in his personal space with a finger in his face. “What is it, Howie?”

“I don’t think it’s just what she used to be scared of,” he says. “I don’t- I mean- I saw my room,” he says, in a rush. The Doctor nods, moving away, as if finally grasping how unnerving it is to have a half-mad alien in your face.

“I saw my room and it’s what I’m scared of now,” Howie gets out. “My worst fear, I guess.”

“And it wasn’t the CIA covering up aliens?” asks Amy, realizing a second too late how insensitive that sounds. Rory shoots her a sharp look from his seat across the aisle, next to the man himself, and she winces.

“No,” says Howie, looking straight into her eyes. Before she can muster up the ability to apologize, he continues: “I don’t want to talk about it, and I don’t think I need to. But- Doctor, I think- we see our worst fears in there.”

“Yeah,” says Rita, suddenly. Everyone jumps. “I saw mine too.”

Amy frowns. From what she’s seen in the hour since they lost the TARDIS, Rita has struck her as incredibly competent, practical, and able to take everything in stride. If she succumbed to temptation and looked in her room, the rest of them don’t stand a chance of resisting.

She sneaks a glance at the Doctor, who seem to be doing a quick mental calculation. As she watches, he seems to add two and two and end up with something unpleasant - he pales considerably, and then turns so she can’t see his eyes any more.

“Don’t look at me like that,” says Rita, to the room at large. “It’s impossible to avoid. And it’s-”

She hesitates, which only makes Amy more nervous. She hasn’t hesitated once, even with the alien revelation, since they got here.

“It’s terrifying,” she says, finally. “I mean, obviously, but you don’t realize how bad it’s going to be. It’s like that woman said. You have no idea what it’s going to be, but when you see it-”

“-you realize it could never be anything else,” finishes Gibbis. Amy glances at him, and sees that he’s avoiding eye contact.

“You saw it too,” she realizes.

The Doctor turns back, wagging his finger at the three strangers. “All of you have. We’re the only ones that haven’t, so far.” It doesn’t sound like a question, but she knows he’s fishing for a response, making sure he has all the data.

“Right,” says Rory. Amy nods.

“But we will end up seeing it,” says the Doctor. He still looks pale. “Eventually. Right, Rita?”

“Yes.”

“But you can’t plan for it,” says Howie. “I don’t- I don’t think anyone can predict what it will be for them.”

“I can’t,” agrees Amy, surprising even herself. She doesn’t usually like sharing excessively personal things - but it’s true. She’s noticed, though, that people thrust into situations like these tend to make generalizations or assume rules in order to have some semblance of control, so it probably isn’t always the case. She glances at Rory.

Sure enough, he shakes his head. “I think some can,” he says. “I can.”

The Doctor wiggles his hands, but doesn’t say anything.

No one says anything, in fact. Amy considers going across the aisle to sit with Rory, but doesn’t want to step over the dead body, so instead she watches the Doctor, who seems to be getting stiller and stiller as he considers something. Finally, he says, “Would you say-”

He swallows. “Would you say that they-”

He’s watching the wall. Amy has a bad feeling about this.

“Would you say that the fears acted as they should’ve?”

“What?” says Howie.

The Doctor turns around. “Oh, come on. You know what I mean. If your fear was a person, did the thing in the hotel room know everything that the person should have? Was their personality the same?”

Gibbis shakes his head. Howie shrugs.

“Yes,” says Rita.

The Doctor turns to look at her. “You’re sure? Think carefully. This is important.”

“I’m sure,” she says.

“Would you say,” he says, “that it acted out of your control? Knew things you don’t know? Acted in ways you couldn’t predict?”

“Yeah,” says Howie. Gibbis is still silent. “I mean, I’ve pictured that scene a thousand times. But I’m not creative like that. I couldn’t have come up with what they said.”

“Right,” says the Doctor, exhaling. “Right.”

Amy knows, suddenly, what he’s planning on doing. Not why - god knows why he does half the stupid things he does - but that’s a question for later.

“I know how to figure this out,” he says. “I mean- I don’t know how. That’s the whole point. I’m using my phone-a-friend lifeline. Rita, how long did Joe have before he started being all-” He hesitates. “Joe-like?”

“A few hours, at least,” says Rita. She seems to have calmed down a bit. Amy admires her for that, and wishes she could have some of that serenity for herself. “We have a few hours before we go crazy. What do you need us to do?”

“Right,” says the Doctor, pointing at her. “Excellent. Good thinking. Except I don’t need you, Rita, for this part. I don’t need any of you, except-”

He hesitates, turning slightly towards Amy before aborting the movement.

He’s her best friend.

She takes pity on him, or maybe she decides to make his life harder. She meets Rory’s eye, and he nods at her. Go.

“You’re not going alone,” she says. “I’m going with you.”

The Doctor stares at her. “You don’t even know what my plan is,” he says.

She stares at him. Don’t make me say it, she thinks.

“You said it yourself,” adds Rory, helping him save face. “Make sure someone else can see you at all times. Amy should go with you.”

Amy closes her eyes, briefly, and thanks whoever’s in charge of Earth that Rory exists. Then she reopens her eyes and levels a look at the Doctor.

Time stretches out between them as she cows her favorite alien into submission.

Finally, he looks away, clapping his hands. “Fine. Pond with go with me, to my- to where I’m going, while her husband and the rest of you stay here. Rory,” he says, pointing at the husband in question, “you’re in charge, since you’ll be the only one who hasn’t seen their room. Don’t be cruel, don’t be irrational, but whatever you do, don’t let them leave. Got it?”

Rory gives him a thumb’s up, shooting a small, private smile at Amy. “Got it. Same to you, love.”

“Yeah,” says Amy.

“We can talk shop,” says Rita, giving them a smile of her own. Amy’s got to hand it to her - she’s holding up remarkably well, at least compared to Howie, who’s looking slightly green at the prospect of the Doctor leaving, and Gibbis, who is on his knees and seems to be praying.

“Awesome,” says Amy. She turns to the Doctor and offers him her arm. “Lead the way,” she says, because she’s not sure he’ll ever start moving if she doesn’t.

He slips his arm through hers. “Thank you, Pond,” he says, quietly enough that no one else can hear.

He starts to walk, seemingly without any doubt as to the direction. He seems confident, like this is just another normal day, but Amy knows better. His hand is shaking.

-

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

 nameless now.

-

It seems like they’ve been walking for hours. Logically, it’s been more like ten minutes, but Amy’s well aware that they’re on the clock, and the Doctor seems to be, too. He keeps getting slower as they get closer to where they’re going, though, which only makes it feel like they’ve been walking for longer.

His hand is still trembling, more violently than ever. She hates seeing him like this - when he’s scared, the stakes are bad, and she doesn’t want to think about that right now - so she casts about for a question to ask him. When he goes into lecture mode, he detaches himself from the situation, and it always calms him down.

After a few minutes, one hits her.

“Doctor?”

He startles violently, having been lost in his own thoughts. “Wh- Yes, Pond?”

“How do they determine the room numbers?”

“What?” he says.

She gestures around with the arm that he’s not holding. “I mean. No one knew we were coming, but you still have a room. That means everyone in the universe has a room, right?”

The Doctor makes a doubtful noise, but he at least seems to be considering her question. She continues: “Then what basis do the numbers have? Do the numerals have a significance or something? But then you’d need a number unique to every being.”

“Yes,” says the Doctor. “Good question. I don’t know.”

She frowns. The chase is the best part for him - he loves considering and discarding possible explanations, usually out loud where she has to hear them. For him to give up so easily...

It’s concerning, but she doesn’t say anything. If a good question like that one won’t bring him out of it, nothing will.

They make another left, and then another right, go straight through a four-way intersection, make another right, and suddenly the Doctor stops in front of a door.

Neither of them say anything. Amy’s usually the one to push the Doctor to do something difficult, but she can’t bring herself to make him go inside. Instead, she watches his face as he considers what’s in front of them.

Sure, it’s the room housing his worst fear. But what is he thinking? Why are they here?

Finally, he says, “Birth order.”

“What?” she says. He disentangles his arm from hers.

“The room numbers. They’re based on birth order, must be.”

“How do you know?” He doesn’t answer, but she barely notices, too busy examining the numbers of the doors in front of them.

They’ve arrived at number 436535.11. To the left, there’s 436535.10.2, 436535.10, 436535.9, and so on. She frowns.

“How can people have decimal places?” she asks. “If it’s birth order?”

“Different fears,” he says. “Different stages of life, so to speak.” He gestures at 10.2. “In there, I think there’s probably a dead body. Either that, or rejection.”

“How can there be a room filled with rejection?”

The Doctor shakes his head. She’s surprised to see that he’s smiling, a little. “Never mind.” He shrugs. “Chances are just as good that it’s Jackie in there, anyway.”

She decides not to ask as he turns back to his door, number whatever point 11. The discussion of the other doors seems to have calmed him down enough that he’s ready to go inside, and she doesn’t want to cause more delay.

He takes a deep breath and reaches out, turning the handle and opening the door just enough for him to see inside without letting her see anything. His smile grows into something almost... almost...

Fond?

“Of course,” he says, quietly enough that she can barely hear him. “Did you really think it would be anything else?”

“Doctor?” she asks. He ignores her, pulling the door open fully and walking inside.

Amy knows the Doctor is brave. Things that still make her wake in cold sweats barely make him pause when they’re right in front of him. Whatever his worst fear is, then, is probably going to instantly turn up in her own room, wherever it is in this cursed hotel.

She doesn’t want to go inside. But he’s her best friend, and he’s already taken the plunge, so she takes a deep breath and follows him into the unknown.

-

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

 in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

 is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

-

There’s a blonde woman in a blue leather jacket standing at the window, facing away from them.

She seems mostly harmless - doesn’t even turn around, making Amy think that she didn’t hear the door open at all. But the Doctor stops as soon as he catches a glimpse of her.

Amy sneaks a glance at him. His hands are shaking, worse than before, and he’s paled again.

She looks back at the woman, but doesn’t see anything particularly fear-worthy. She turns back at the Doctor.

He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and runs his hands over his face. When he exhales and pulls them away, he seems reasonably collected, but Amy stops herself from relaxing too much.

This is his worst fear, Amy reminds herself. Whatever she is, it’s worse than anything else he’s ever come up against.

“Doctor,” she whispers. He doesn’t respond, so she looks over at him. He doesn’t seem to have heard her - all of his attention is focused on the woman in front of them. He barely looks like he’s breathing.

“Doctor!” she whispers, again. “Snap out of it!”

Thankfully, this time he hears her, blinking rapidly as he’s pulled out of his trance. “What is it?”

“What are we dealing with here?”

She doesn’t mean to rush him, but she’s only now realizing that they should have planned some kind of course of action for confronting this apparition, and it’s making her panicky. She’d spent the entire walk so worried about him that she’d forgotten they were about to confront a monster, and she needs to make up for lost time. Fast.

He blinks, again, and finally tears his eyes away from the woman. “What?”

“What kind of alien is she?” asks Amy, urgently. “What did she do? How many people has she killed? Is she going to sprout a plunger and start saying exterminate? Wh-”

She’d only said that last part because she tends to get wittier when lives are on the line - it’s not out of any real expectation that he’ll actually appreciate her joke. He’s facing his worst fear and all.

To her surprise, though, the Doctor interrupts her by chuckling. “Amy,” he says, fondly. “What are you talking about?”

Amy shoots another nervous glance at the woman, who still doesn’t seem to have heard them.

“This is your worst fear,” says Amy. “It’s for a reason. I would have guessed the Daleks, or maybe my daughter - your goddaughter - getting into the stash of booze, so she has to be worse.”

“Amy,” says the Doctor. He looks at her, then back at the woman, then back at her. His mouth is moving, but he isn’t making any noise. His hands start to move - seemingly of their own accord - but he still doesn’t make a sound. Her suggestion was apparently insane enough as to render him speechless.

She considers hitting him to snap him out of it, but is distracted by movement on the other side of the room. The woman’s shoulders are tenser than they were when they walked in, and her head is slightly cocked - she’s listening to them. Amy resolves her initial impression of her. Clearly she pays attention, and is restrained enough to not attack them outright.

She turns back to the Doctor, who is still waving his arms about like a madman. Amy understands the urge to laugh hysterically when faced with terrifying situations, but this is really too much. She pokes him in the shoulder.

“Doctor,” she says, and nods at the woman.

The Doctor straightens, the smile slipping off his face. “Of course,” he says, suddenly deadly serious. Amy feels butterflies in her stomach and quashes them determinedly.

“Amy,” he says, formally, gesturing to the other woman like they’re at a ball of some kind. “Let me introduce you to Rose Tyler.”

On cue, the woman turns around. Everything about her posture screams military, or at least, well trained by a serious organization. Her arms are crossed, her hair is pulled out of her face, and she’s wearing a no-nonsense expression. Amy can see how she would be a threat.

She strides towards them and stops in front of the Doctor. He closes his eyes and allows her into his personal space, closer than anyone’s ever tried to get before. Amy’s hand makes an abortive movement to stop her - but the Doctor would say something, if he didn’t want her so close.

Right?

Or is he that scared?

“Doctor,” greets Rose Tyler. She’s significantly shorter than him, but it still feels like she’s in his face. “Nice to see you.”

She turns towards Amy. It’s not particularly sudden, but she jumps anyway.

“You’re the one travelling with him these days, I take it?”

Amy glances at the Doctor, who opens his eyes and nods at her. She takes a deep breath. “Yeah. Me and my husband, and sometimes our daughter.”

“Wow,” says Rose. Strangely, it doesn’t sound sarcastic, the way Amy would expect someone evil to say it. It just sounds... normal.

She turns back to the Doctor, dropping her arms to her sides. “You’ve gone completely domestic, haven’t you?”

Scratch that. She sounds teasing.

The Doctor takes a deep breath and then- he-

wraps his arms around Rose, lifting her up with the force of his hug. Amy can’t catch much of what he says, except that there’s a missed you in there as he gently swings her from side to side.

Rose laughs, bright and sunny, and says, “Put me down!”

“Never,” says the Doctor, swaying her back and forth before he does in fact put her down. He’s grinning, wide, and Amy has never seen him this excited. It still seems off, somehow - but there’s no way he would hug an enemy.

As Rose straightens her jacket, Amy tries to get the Doctor’s attention without it being too obvious, but he’s too caught up in staring at Rose to notice anything she tries. She abandons her frantic hand waving and considers. This information changes everything. When the Doctor had been so nervous- when he hadn’t been able to tear his eyes away from Rose- it wasn’t fear.

The Doctor is enamoured with this woman.

Amy almost laughs. Of course his worst fear is an ex girlfriend. Facing the consequences of his actions, and all.

Rose finishes rearranging herself and looks back up at the Doctor, grinning wide. The Doctor smiles at her, although his face has lost all the joy of their reunion. It seems like he’s remembered where they are, suddenly, and it’s hit him like a bucket of cold water to the face.

He reaches down to cup the side of her head.

“Rose Tyler,” he says, his voice quiet. “What do you remember?”

Rose narrows her eyes at him. “What?”

“You are a projection of this hotel created for me,” says the Doctor, his voice turning cold, more or less. It’s still wavering. Amy can see how he’s struggling, but she’s not sure Rose can. “And I need your help.”

Her suspicions are confirmed when Rose steps back, out of his grasp. “Really?” she asks, the smile leaving her face. “Okay, we can do that.” Suddenly her expression is as frosty as his. “I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I was created from your memories, so the last thing I remember is watching the TARDIS leave me- leave us on that bloody beach.” She laughs, bitter. “That’s because that’s the last thing you remember about me.”

“Rose-” he says. “I didn’t-”

“No,” she says. “You’re right.” She sighs. “I shouldn’t- I’m not-”

She opens her mouth as if to ask a question, but he interrupts her. “I need you to focus.”

He’s looking over Rose’s head. Amy shifts, slightly, and sees the expression on his face. He’s torn, the way he gets sometimes when he’s looking at someone who’s going to die and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. “We need your help to figure out what’s going on here.”

Rose can’t see his face, though. She flinches. “That’s what you think of us, isn’t it?” she says. “I’d forgotten. But we’re nothing but apes to you, right? Apes with creativity. It’s what I am to you. A good problem solver.”

There it is, thinks Amy. Worst fear - a fight with an ex. Granted, it’s a pretty ugly fight already. Both of them are trying to hurt each other, now, and when you love someone that feeling is more painful than anything else in the world.

And she knows his treatment of his friends is a sore spot for him.

“We’re not doing this,” he says, his voice hard. Obviously Rose is rehashing an old argument. “We’re not- you’re not real. Rose Tyler doesn’t exist in this universe. All I need from you is her brain. So use it to help us.”

Rose adjusts her stance, crossing her arms again. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she says, in the same tone. “You need to give me some information before I can.”

The Doctor summarizes their findings in a few sentences, getting less cold and more animated as the story goes on. “And so we have four humans, one Tivolian, and one Time Lord, none of whom know what is going on and four of whom are going to go absolutely bonkers in worship to some Him in the next few hours-”

“How does this place know their worst fears?” asks Rose. “How am I here? Was it planning on you?”

“I don’t know,” says the Doctor. “Ditto. And no. We were planning on going to Ravan-Skala. Do you remember? I told you about it, once. We were going to...”

Rose ignores him, her posture shifting into something more tense, even as his voice trails away. “You say one person’s already died?”

“Yes,” says the Doctor, looking away from her. He seems hurt, and Amy’s hackles go up, even though it’s probably understandable for Rose to shy away from more friendly conversation, since their last one devolved so quickly. “Rory - that’s Amy’s husband, he’s a nurse - and Rita - she’s a new one, a medical student - are probably looking at the body now.”

“Ah,” says Rose. Amy realizes what seems so familiar about her posture: it’s military, again. She’s slipped back into the mission mode she was in when they first walked in.

It hits her that she should probably wonder what kind of organization Rose was in. Because it seems like the argument’s already over, and all of his fear - because it was fear, at least when he was standing outside the door - can’t have been for something that short. Anyway, the Doctor’s worst fear wouldn’t be- it wouldn’t be a three-minute argument, right? It has to be deeper.

What can it be?

“How did they die?” asks Rose. The Doctor frowns. Amy thinks back and realizes they hadn’t bothered to figure it out.

“I mean,” says Rose. “Knowing how they died has to give us some clue of what happened.”

“That’s... right,” says the Doctor. His face drops and suddenly he looks terrified.

Amy blinks. What the hell happened?

She’s not sure, but he looks like he’s on the urge of hyperventilating. He looks, somehow, like all of his worst fears were just fulfilled, and she realizes he hasn’t looked like this since they came into the room.

This, then, is why Rose is here. Whatever this is.

She makes a quick decision. She needs to get him out of here, if anything to give him some breathing room and ask him a few questions. If he’s this worked up from a single sentence... And they have a lead to follow up on, besides.

“We need to go and ask Rory and Rita, then,” she says. Both the Doctor and Rose jump, as if they’d forgotten she was in the room with them. As they turn to face her, Amy shrugs, feeling see-through. She compensates with extra bravado. “We’re running low on time, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” says the Doctor, his expression changing from fear into confidence. Amy hates it when that happens - it means he’s figured something out, gotten ahead of her. “But we need to figure out what’s going on, too, or at least come up with a viable theory. Amy, you need to stay here.”

“What?” asks Amy. There’s no way she’s letting him go out there on his own, not as his time runs out. Plus, she doesn’t want to be left alone with-

“We need to keep working on this problem,” says the Doctor, becoming more animated as the idea becomes more viable. “We have a lead, but that doesn’t mean we know anything. You and Rose can figure it out together, I know it, and she can’t- you can’t leave the room, right, Rose? So you have to stay here with her, Amy. It’s going to be- it’ll-”

He pauses.

“Why are you making that face at me, Amelia Pond?”

Amy wrinkles her nose at the sound of her full name.

Rose glances at her, then looks away. “She doesn’t want to be alone with me,” she says. “I turned up here, after all.”

“Ah,” says the Doctor. He turns to Amy, takes a deep breath, and looks her straight in the eyes. “It’s going to be fine,” he says, running his knuckles across her cheek - almost paternally. “I trust Rose. She’s not going to hurt you.”

Then why is she your worst fear?, Amy wants to ask, but now that he’s closer she can see the look in his eyes. He’s only a few feet from the breaking point, and she doesn’t want to push him further.

“Anyways,” he says, quietly. “I’m the only one who can find my way back. Otherwise I’d send you.”

“Yeah,” she whispers, trying not to worry too much. He’s a pseudo-immortal Time Lord - he’ll be fine. “Okay. Go ahead. We’ll be here.”

The Doctor pulls back, a manic look slipping onto his face. “Excellent!” he says, clapping his hands together. “I’ll be back! No one wander off!”

“Right,” says Amy, glancing at Rose.

Rose looks around. “Couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

“Precisely!” say the Doctor, giving them both finger guns as he backs out the door. Then he closes it, and Amy is left alone with Rose Tyler.

“Right,” she repeats.

-

To live in this world

 you must be able

to do three things:

-

Amy turns to Rose.

She’s not sure what she’s expecting. Rose doesn’t seem to be evil, or particularly harmful, even inadvertently. She seems to be important to the Doctor, yes, but that doesn’t mean anything. Daleks are important to the Doctor. So are bananas, for that matter.

“So,” she says, trying (and probably failing) to sound casual. “Any ideas?”

If anything, Rose has good problem solving skills. She’d said it herself, earlier. Of course, the one time she’d demonstrated them, the Doctor had nearly had a panic attack, but Amy’s sure it’s fine. And Amy’s own reasoning skills aren’t half bad, either. They just need to use them.

By working together.

Amy’s not particularly known for her cooperative nature. Bloody hell, are they screwed.

Rose frowns. “Did you notice anything odd about the other people in the hotel? The Doctor doesn’t usually think to check this, or at least the him I knew didn’t, but if someone’s faking it- or planning on-”

“Sorry,” interrupts Amy. “You knew a different regeneration of him?”

Sue her. It was practically an invitation to ask about Rose’s past with the Doctor. Amy knows they’re low on time, but she has a feeling that the key to this is getting more information.

“Two, actually,” says Rose, absently. She still looks thoughtful. “Or possibly there’s a clue in how they talk when they go crazy? Are they being controlled? Are they acting out of character? Or are they speaking of their own volition? Do they want it?”

“I dunno,” says Amy. “I mean, I haven’t really seen any of them being controlled. By the time we got here, Joe was already crazy-”

“No video footage?”

“No,” says Amy. “Listen- I need you to pay attention to me.”

Rose instantly turns to Amy, her gaze sharpening. “Yes?” Amy half expects her to finish with soldier?, but apparently Rose can still talk to civilians.

“I don’t have enough information,” says Amy. “You have to tell me: why are you in the Doctor’s room?”

Rose stares at her for a second. Then she frowns. “I don’t see why that matters.”

“It does,” insists Amy. “Look, I know you still have questions, but take my word for it: I don’t have any other information about the victims. The only other lead we have is the hotel itself, and you’re a primary source. So-”

She sits down on the bed and pats the coverlet next to her.

“What’s your story?”

Rose sits down next to her, slowly. She’s still staring at her.

“Well?” prompts Amy.

Rose sighs and looks up at the ceiling.

“I used to travel with him,” she says, slowly. “I- I got lost. I was trapped in a parallel universe for a few years. I got back in time to help him save the multiverse, and then he dumped me right back at-”

She sighs. Her voice had gotten louder, but she takes a deep breath and gets it back under control. Her posture stays relaxed, though - fallen from the military posture she’s had since her confrontation with the Doctor.

She’s Amy’s age. It’s an odd thing to realize, because she seemed so much older, like she’s on the Doctor’s level. But she looks about 21 or 22, maybe 25 at a stretch.

“I don’t think I’m his worst fear,” says Rose, eventually. “I mean- I don’t- I love him, you know, and he loves me, or at least he used to, enough to break all of his rules. And I think he might still-”

Her hands close over the coverlet.

“It isn’t me,” she says, after a pause, sounding sure of it. “It’s- I think he’s terrified of losing me, the way he already did. And not- I mean- he’s done it on purpose. He’s chosen to lose me three times, now, at least, and he does the same to everyone else. So it’s not just that. It’s-”

She hesitates. Amy finds herself feeling curious about what the answer is, and not just because it will help her understand something about her famously private best friend. There’s something intriguing about this woman who claims the Doctor likes her best, made sadder by the fact that he refuses to acknowledge who she is. She’s obviously unique in some sense, if she’s in his room, and she seems as real as any other-

She isn’t the real Rose, though, argues part of her brain, and Amy flushes in remembered shame. She’d listened to that voice when encountered by the Flesh clone of the Doctor, and then it turned out that Amy herself was a clone, too. She’s spent enough sleepless nights feeling guilty over her treatment of him - and her hypocrisy - to know better now.

Speaking of which, though: it’s odd that the Doctor didn’t make the connection, too. He’d been so insistent that the Flesh Doctor was real and everything. He’d make the same argument for this Rose, right?

Unless it isn’t about his principles. Which, okay, yeah, probably pretty obvious, but it’s still important. He’s denying that Rose is real for another reason.

What is it? It should have to do with his fear... right?

“How long did it take him to come here?” asks Rose, suddenly. “I mean, once he realized-”

Amy thinks back. “About four minutes.”

Rose nods. “There is is. It’s- he- he’s always going to do that, I think, and that’s what scares him. Once he knows he can see me, he’s going to, and damn the consequences.” She stops, and frowns. “Huh. I don’t think I understood him this well before.”

“But now you do?”

Why would the room’s creation have extra knowledge? Is it to somehow make them scarier?

“Yeah,” says Rose, frowning again. “I think- it’s because of his expectations. He imagines that I must know him pretty well by now, because of my husband.”

Amy decides they’ve gone far enough down the rabbit hole and doesn’t ask. “So you think his worst fear is you? But not you, specifically, but his dependence on you?”

“Yes,” says Rose.

“Because he has faith in you,” she says. “He always thinks you’re going to help him save the day.” It reminds Amy of Gibbis. When they’d left, he had been on his knees, praying to the god of benevolent conquerors or whatever.

And now that she’s thinking about it, the others had been doing similar things. Howie had been talking about the X-Files, or something, to reassure himself that problems like this are solvable. Rita had kept anxiously putting her hands next to each other, palms up, as if her subconscious had already started praying. The Doctor’s immediate running to Rose isn’t so unexpected, in retrospect.

“Yes,” says Rose.

Of course it makes sense. Religion exists to reassure people when they don’t know what’s going on (basically all the time, for everyone, but oh well). But if everyone copes in approximately the same way, and the victims all end up praising Him-

Could it be connected? Does the hotel want them to pray, or at least fall back on faith?

Why would something want that?, thinks Amy, and wanders back into her mental archive of Doctor-related conversations for an answer. He’d mentioned, once, something about something like-

Oh, yeah. He was telling her all of the times that the Earth was saved with no one the wiser - initially a ploy to show her the necessity of waking up early, somehow - but after about ten minutes he’d gotten quiet and said, “And then there was the Year That Never Was.”

Amy hadn’t had any idea of what he was talking about (which was expected, considering the conversation topic), but even she had heard the capital letters. “What?”

“The Earth was saved by a singular, spectacular woman,” the Doctor had said. “And the power of belief.”

Belief is powerful.

Amy blinks. Joe had just- he’d just dropped dead, like a string was cut. But if the power of his belief, all that kept him alive and kicking, had been seized, somehow...

“Rose,” she says. “I’m not very good at medicine, but I am very good at figuring out mysteries.”

“The Doctor only takes the best,” agrees Rose.

“Of course,” says Amy, even too distracted to make a joke, or possibly take a bow. “What if the hotel is harvesting their belief?”

Rose frowns. “What?”

Amy stands and turns to face her. “Think about it. The Doctor came straight to you because he has faith in you, right? The others who are still alive also turned to whatever they believe in. The hotel has to have planned on that. And before the victims died, they kept saying ‘Praise him’, like they were worshipping something.”

“So faith is involved. Obviously, if people are seeing what they fear the most.”

“Yes,” says Amy. “Obviously.” She uses air quotes. “Not everyone’s para-military, or whatever organization you come from, you know.”

She grins at Rose, to show there’s no hard feelings, and keeps talking. “But why show people their worst fears and cause that belief?”

“This could be a prison of some kind,” says Rose. “The Doctor’s no saint. I mean, you and your husband haven’t even been drawn to your rooms - if you were brought here by accident, just because they wanted him, it would make sense.”

Amy shakes her head. “I don’t think it is. Why would the people die, then?”

“Torture and then execution?”

“Stop poking holes in my theory!”

Rose smiles, holding her hands up in surrender. “I’m only playing devil’s advocate!”

“Sure,” says Amy, looking at her mock-doubtfully, before moving on. “Anyway, why would they keep saying ‘Praise him’?”

“That’s true.”

“And you’re right,” says Amy. “It’s just a theory. But the Doctor mentioned something about the power of belief, once, and how it saved the world. If it’s that powerful, can’t it be used as a- a power source, or something?”

Rose’s smile melts away. She’s left with an expression of regret and pain. She looks like she’s remembering something - that, and she just realized something about their current situation. “Yes,” she says, quietly. “That’s true.”

Amy’s curious, and anyway, they can’t do much else without getting the Doctor’s information. “Were you there? What happened?”

Rose takes a deep breath and looks away from her. “Someone took over the world with a paradox,” she says, quickly, “and trapped the Doctor, powerless, on an aircraft carrier, forcing him to watch as he wiped out the human race. His companion at the time - a medical student named Martha, smarter than he was, usually - walked the Earth, trying to stay alive and pass on his story, so that when the time came the concentrated power of our belief would free him and then paradox could be undone, destroying that timeline.”

She’s gone back to mission mode. Amy realizes she does it to take a mental step back from what she’s describing.

“Are you... are you from that timeline?” she asks. It would make sense for a tough military person like Rose to be from an apocalyptic Earth.

Rose shakes her head, grinning a little. “Nah. I’m from London, same as any other regular person. I was- I was travelling around on my own at the time, trying to find the Doctor, and I ran into Martha. I helped her out for a few weeks, kept watch while she slept so she would be alert enough for her stories. I slept while she told them. I didn’t think it was Earth - didn’t think something so horrible could happen to my planet - and the details she’d mentioned just made me miss the Doctor even more. If I’d stayed awake, I might have-”

She inhales sharply, then closes her eyes and exhales.

“It’s past that time now. But her stories must have worked. Which means- yes, your theory is definitely possible.”

“It depends on how the people died,” says Amy. “There must be some way to tell if their belief was somehow harvested. We’ll just have to wait for the Doctor to-”

On cue, the door bursts open.

-

to love what is mortal;

-

“Amy!” says the Doctor, striding inside. He closes the door behind him, smiling wide. “Rose Tyler!”

There’s something off about his eyes. Amy realizes she’s not sure how long it’s been since he went back to the others. How much time does he have left?

“Hi,” she says.

“Hello, Doctor,” says Rose. She smiles at the Doctor, but it’s muted. “Did you get back to the others?”

“Yes!” says the Doctor, looking thrilled. “We found out how they died! Well, I didn’t really, it was mostly Rory and Rita-”

Here we go, thinks Amy. She’s worried to death about this man, but can he please shut up for even five minutes at a time?

“-have I mentioned how incredible she is? Of course, Rory is great, but Rita’s only a few involuntary statements away from going crazy, and she’s never been off-planet or in a life-threatening situation before, and she’s solving mysteries about alien causes of death-”

Amy shoots him a look, crossing her arms. He clears his throat. “Anyways. Joe died of... Get this, Amy! Nothing was wrong with him.”

She frowns. She’s not a medical expert, but it seems-

She looks over at Rose, who shrugs.

“What?”

The Doctor flaps his hands excitedly. “Exactly! He just stopped functioning, like he ran out of energy, or something.”

Amy has to resist the ridiculous urge to smile. It’s a terrible situation, but she may just be right about what’s causing it, and she’s proud of her ability to figure these things out. “You mean if he’d had a protein shake, he’d still be alive?”

The Doctor shrugs. “Probably not. Rita said he’d mentioned eating about an hour before getting here, so he probably wasn’t hungry. Rory says - he’s got more experience with this sort of thing, Rose - it’s likely his energy was sucked out of him on purpose. Since Joe was acting so weird, he thinks whatever made him Joe was taken, somehow. If we truly have souls, taking them would kill us, pretty quickly. Rita’s seen heart attack victims at her hospital, and she says the symptoms are similar, and that it seems like defibrillation would’ve had a positive reaction, and it’s fascinating, really, I could-”

Amy turns to Rose, arms crossed. Without looking at him, she says to the Doctor, “So what you’re saying is that something sucked out their energy and possibly their soul for their own uses-”

Rose throws up her hands. She’s grinning, slightly, and Amy knows it’s only out of worry for the Doctor that she’s not full-out laughing. “Fine, Amy!”

The Doctor frowns at both of them, half upset at being interrupted and half at missing the joke. “What?”

“We’ve figured it out,” says Amy. “The last thing we needed was the medical evidence. The hotel is harvesting people’s energy, somehow.”

“Ah,” says the Doctor, the smile dropping off his face. “That- that would make sense.”

“Yeah,” says Amy, inclining her head at Rose. “Pretty obvious, in retrospect.”

“How- how would it do that?” asks the Doctor. He’s starting to look nervous, and it scares Amy. His real superpower is hiding his emotions: when he gets too anxious to do that, they’re really in trouble. “I can feel it coming. I’m not sure how, but it is. Keeping busy seems to help the others, but for me - the more frantic I get, the faster it comes.”

He shrugs, trying and failing to seem nonchalant as he looks away from them. “I suppose I’ll provide a lot of energy.”

Rose walks up to him, slowly, and puts her hand on his shoulder, facing away from Amy. It’s the first time she’s touched him this whole time, and Amy doesn’t miss the small tremor that runs through him.

She’s figured it out, Amy realizes. If they’re being killed by their faith, the Doctor-

“You will,” says Rose, quietly. Amy feels like she should turn around or something. He’s never like this with her - even when he’s sure they’re going to die, he’s manic and hopeful until the end. It’s Rose’s presence that’s made him this delicate, and it feels wrong that she’s watching.

She doesn’t turn away, though.

“You will provide a lot of energy. But not for the reason you’re thinking.”

The Doctor furrows his brow and looks at her.

“It’s belief, Doctor.”

He swallows, his Adam’s apple working. “What?”

“Showing people their worst fears makes them think of what they believe in,” says Rose. “When they focus on their belief, they have more energy, and that energy is easier to harness. You’ve done it before, although to a much smaller extent. Remember-”

“-Martha?” finishes the Doctor. He looks up, away from Rose’s face. “Of course I do. I could never for- I will always remember.”

“Good,” says Rose. “She deserves it. But- Doctor, you’re a prime candidate. Do you see why?”

The Doctor looks back to her face. Something must click, because the confused lines on his forehead clear. “Oh.”

“Yes,” says Rose. “You came- love, I’m sorry, but you came running straight to me. The source of your fear was your faith and the hotel only made you believe in me more and-”

“But I've seen a lot of this universe,” says the Doctor, quietly. It sounds like he’s quoting something. “I've seen fake gods and bad gods and demi-gods and would-be gods, and out of all that, out of that whole pantheon, if I believe in one thing, just one thing, I believe in-”

“Stop it,” says Rose, her voice shaking. “Don’t do that.”

“I will always do this,” says the Doctor, his voice going faint with horror. His worst fear, thinks Amy. “I will always-”

“You need to stop it!” says Rose, her voice getting louder. She still sounds shaken. “It puts you in danger! You’re about to die, Doctor! You can’t keep running towards me when you spot the barest hint of a chance-”

The Doctor raises his voice to match her volume. “Tough luck, Rose Tyler!” he shouts. He steps backwards, away from her. “Because I will always need you! I need you enough that I saw you when I had to make the hardest choice of my lives! The only reason I was able to make that decision was because you were there. I hadn’t even met you yet, but the worst weapon my people had ever made knew that your face was its best chance to convince me not to commit geno-”

Rose takes her own step back. She shakes her head, like she understands what he’s saying but doesn’t want to believe him. “What?”

“Yes,” he says. “You were there.”

She turns around to look at Amy as if she can’t handle what he’s saying. Amy has no idea what he’s talking about, but she nods at her. Keep going. It’s a good, important thing she’s telling him - he seems unable to find closure for anyone he loses, just locks it up inside. If Rose can convince him to let go of her-

Rose turns back to the Doctor. “You didn’t need me,” she says. “You could have done it.”

“You don’t know that,” says the Doctor.

“Yes, I do,” she says. “I believe in you. You would have done it because it was the right thing to do, no matter how much it hurt you.”

The Doctor stays silent. Rose sighs. “Doctor, I mean it. You don’t need me. You need to let me go.”

“No,” he says. “My worst fear is the fact that I’ll always come running, and that I will never be able to do anything without you. But- Rose, I can’t just kick you out of my life. Ten tried. It didn’t go well for him, emotionally.”

“I’m not telling you to,” she says. “Lord knows, I never want you to forget about me, and I definitely don’t want you to repeat what he did. But you didn’t need me for this. Amy figured it all out on her own. All she asked me for was our history, and you could have given her that. Doctor-”

She sighs.

“You need closure. You’ve been doing just fine without me for so long, and this- this open wound, it can hurt you when you least expect it.”

It reminds Amy of times he’s frozen at the wrong moment, reminded of someone he’d lost centuries ago. Rose is right.

“Or someone could manipulate it,” says Rose. The Doctor looks hurt, like what she’s saying is a betrayal of everything he’s known about her. Amy isn’t sure if it’s the general betrayal of you’re making me deal with my emotions or if it’s a deeper issue. “You need to heal.”

The Doctor frowns at her, opening his mouth to argue before hesitating.

Oh, thinks Amy, realizing what’s happening. Rose is breaking his faith in her - and at the same time, his fear of her - in the most loving way she can manage, both by making him realize he needs to move on and making it easy for him to do so.

She’s probably been planning it since they figured out what was going on in this hotel. It’s why she’s looked so nervous - nervous and sad - this entire time.

It makes Amy want to cry. It’s a good thing, and the right thing to do, but it feels like the end of something that has defined him.

“Of course Amy figured it out,” says the Doctor, eventually. “Amy’s spectacular.” Warmth blooms in Amy’s chest, the way it always does when he compliments her.

Rose sighs.

He shrugs. “And that’s why I take companions. I can’t do this alone, Rose.”

“Of course,” she says. “But you don’t need me.”

“No. Not like I did. I got so used to needing you that when I stopped-”

He brushes a strand of Rose’s hair out of her eyes. She laughs a little. The sound is wet.

“You have a point,” he says. “About the letting-go thing. I suppose. I guess- I only need-”

With his hand still in her hair, he leans down and whispers something into her ear. When he pulls back, Rose is crying, fully and openly, loud enough that even Amy can hear it.

“Do you think that’ll do it?” she says, eventually. “Is that- is that all you needed to tell me?”

The Doctor looks down, taking Rose’s hands in his own. “Just this more,” he says. “I will always miss you. I will never forget.”

“Good,” she says. “I’m sure the real me knows that too.”

Then she reaches up and flattens his hair. “Go on, then,” she says. “Go fix this. Save the others and get out of here.”

“Will do,” says the Doctor, smiling at her one last time. He grabs Amy’s hand on the way out.

Just before they leave the room, Amy glances back. Rose is smiling at them, still crying. As Amy watches, she wipes her eyes, winks at them, and then closes the door behind them.

-

to hold it

 against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

-

Later, in the TARDIS, after they’ve set the Minotaur free (via death) and taken everyone home (all alive), Amy walks into the library holding a steaming cup of tea. She’s in her pajamas and looking forward to a book - a common late-night custom of hers, when Rory has already gone to sleep and she’s waiting for her internal clock to realize the hour - and is surprised to find the Doctor sitting on the couch. He almost never goes into the library.

“Hey,” she says, sitting on the loveseat, adjacent to him. “I never see you here.”

“Yes, well,” he says, closing his book. It’s an old, dog-eared copy of Pride and Prejudice. “Rose and I used to spend almost every evening in here. I thought- I thought it would be fitting to come back. Make some new memories, and all.”

“Yeah,” she says, reaching out to grab his book. He doesn’t stop her, so she flips open to the cover page.

Rose Tyler is written in the top left corner. Amy traces the loops of the letters and looks back up at the Doctor, who’s watching her with a fond smile.

“Tell me about her,” she says. Now that they’re finally out of danger, she can finally ask all the questions she wants without having to relate them back to the mystery. “She wasn’t always military, was she? What was she like?”

“Oh, Amy,” says the Doctor. He grins at her. “She was wonderful.”

-

and, when the time comes to let it

go,

to let it go.

[aislinceivun]

Table of contents with summaries for The Cat and His Boy.

The summaries may include spoilers, so I don’t recommend first-time readers to check this out. I wrote this up more as a guide for those who want to re-read just specific parts of the fic rather than go over all 100 chapters again :’D 

which includes me, even I can’t always tell which chapter title goes with which event, and on AO3 you can only skim through the chapter titles really xD

1. EASY – As Natsume sleeps, Madara studies the Book of Friends.

2. PLEASANT – This new body of his has some interesting reactions.

3. SIGHT – If Natsume lost the ability to see them, what would Madara do? inspired by ch10 / 1x08

4. DELICIOUS – Youkai don’t necessarily need to eat, but they can still hunger.

5. ROUTINE – Madara has a daily routine, now.

6. NIGHTMARES I – Natsume’s nightmares are not about ayakashi.

7. CLAIMED – The mid-ranks apparently noticed that Natsume smells a bit different.

8. FAMILY I – The Fujiwaras clearly adore Natsume. So why does he still have doubts?

9. SCENT – Natsume’s scent wraps around him the same way his own scent clings to the boy’s skin.

10. REPLACED – Madara can’t believe Natsume replaced him. inspired by 1x11 (which is based on special #3, though this particular moment was anime-only)

11. WARNING – The horse-faced bastard has “concerns”.

12. PROMISES – Madara may have forgotten about an old deal.

13. STRANGE – Madara isn’t familiar enough with the reproductive habits of humans to know what this means.

14. DEAL – How Madara really got that sealing mirror. inspired by ch18 / 2x07

15. UNFAMILIAR – Arguments are familiar. These other moments are… not.

16. DOWNPOUR – Madara doubles as a rain shelter.

17. CONNECTION – Madara and Tanuma share a moment.

18. BEAUTIFUL – Reiko was beautiful, Madara objectively knows as much.

19. RAGE – Red rage and bloodlust. inspired by ch26 / 3x07

20. CONCERN – Even when healing, the prospect of Natsume hurt wakes him in the night. inspired by ch27 / 3x09

21. DENIAL – Hinoe is wrong. (She isn’t.)

22. NIGHTMARES II – These days, Natsume’s nightmares are about his precious people getting hurt.

23. CHASTISED – Natori, chastised by a brat. What a sight.

24. FROZEN – Madara is immobilized by a talisman. It brings back unpleasant memories.

25. EMBARRASSING – Curse that damned squirrel!

26. LIES – They share words they both understand to be lies. inspired by the anime version of ch36 / 4x02

27. PHOTO – A familiar stranger. inspired by ch44 / 4x11

28. BRAIDS – Madara did not sign up for this.

29. APPEARANCES I – Madara briefly considers his humanoid youkai form. inspired by ch51 / 4x06

30. STUDYING – Madara didn’t want this getting out. But—surprisingly—they don’t make a big deal out of it.

31. MUSINGS – Perhaps, in another universe, Natsume Reiko and Natsume Takashi exist at the same time.

32. FAMILY II – After a run-in with a kemono resembling Madara.

33. HIGH – Natsume inhales a bit too much youkai incense.

34. WEAK – The Chuukyuu pair laments on how weak humans are. inspired by special #12 / 5x11

35. CHOICE – Madara didn’t really think about it when he went for Natsume instead of the Book. Somehow, that just makes it worse.

36. CALL – He intended to ignore her call, but… it’s been a while. Well before Reiko’s time. Why not?

37. QUESTIONS – Humans find acquiring long-term mates important, and Natsume is afraid of being left alone. So he should be looking for one, shouldn’t he?

38. UNEXPECTED – Madara finds Natsume dozing against Hinoe’s shoulder. They’re wearing matching flower crowns

39. SHIFT – “It was quiet without you.” inspired by ch70 / OVA “Party of Fun & Games”

40. STUCK – Madara is stuck in his true form for a week.

41. REASONS – Madara was waiting for Natori to say something. inspired by ch73 / 6x11

42. CRUSH – Shibata keeps stealing glances at Natsume with pink cheeks. Madara finds it incredibly amusing. inspired by ch74 / 6x03

43. BIRTHDAY – Last summer, Madara saw how the Fujiwaras celebrated, and he didn’t care.

44. MEMORY I – Many summers ago.

45. INTRODUCTION – Apparently, Natsume’s recklessness has been rubbing off on Tanuma.

46. BOUND – Even without his memories, the boy seems to be able to hear the things Madara is not saying. inspired by ch78 / 6x01

47. WISTFUL – An ayakashi has been following Natsume around.

48. SOFTENED – Natsume has affected more than he knows.

49. WARMTH – He really has no business teasing Misuzu about going soft. inspired by ch82

50. FAMILY III – These people are not his, not like Natsume is… but Madara claimed them anyway.

51. GUEST – The moment the door slides open and he smells the guest, Madara knows. inspired by ch97

52. NOSTALGIA – Madara picks up a scent he wasn’t expecting to find on Natori.

53. APPEARANCES II – Tsk. Fancy, posh bastards who only accept kemono youkai when they appear civilized.

54. BRIBES – Taki drags Madara-as-Reiko on a shopping spree.

55. TREASURE I – A truth forcibly pulled into the light.

56. TREASURE II – It’s not the Book.

57. BELONGING – Ayakashi have no place in busy cities.

58. PAST – Madara will not apologize for who he is.

59. TROUBLESOME – Why does Natsume have to have youkai and exorcist friends, again?

60. ALMOST – “Oi,” he grunts, strangely unsettled.

61. NIGHTMARES III – For him, it’s a first.

62. FEAR – Madara has realized two things.

63. MINEFIELD – A familiar faraway expression.

64. KISS – “I didn’t like it,” Natsume whispers.

65. HELPFUL – It’s not that Madara is nice. He just appreciates her culinary skills.

66. HILARIOUS – “Run that by me again?”

67. THIEF – Madara wanted those damn macarons.

68. TENDER – “I knew you cared,” he says, all soft and smiley.

69. NAMES – Names have power.

70. TEASING – Takashi only has himself to blame.

71. SEALED I – An exorcist sets her eyes on Madara.

72. SEALED II – It’s dark and tight and even worse than he remembered.

73. SHAKEN – Madara didn’t take it this bad the last time.

74. VOW – Rather than stiffening at finding Madara like this, he just frowns. “Nyanko-sensei…?”

75. STORIES – The kids chatter about their post-high school plans.

76. PICKLE – “Oh! Who’s this?”

77. STRENGTH  – Apparently, some ayakashi believe him to be weak now.

78. STARSTRUCK – “It’s never occurred to either of you to tell me?”

79. SPEECHLESS – “Sensei! Are you okay?!”

80. SACRIFICE – His mind screeches to a halt.

81. GRIEF – Madara’s heart is all twisted up.

82. COMFORT – Tanuma and Taki spend the afternoon huddled up on the porch with Takashi.

83. GUILT – Madara is painfully aware that this is the result of his failure.

84. WORRY – Takashi is struggling, and all they can do is watch.

85. FAMILY IV – Watching them, Madara feels equal parts achy and warm.

86. CONDOLENCES – Matoba manages to shock them.

87. ONWARD – Life goes on.

88. SOARING – Madara could stay in the air with him forever.

89. NIGHTS – These days, nights are better. (Mornings are even more so.)

90. PLANS – “Let’s go on a trip together.”

91. FOOLS – Circumstances bring the four of them together for a night.

92. FRIENDS – Madara is fond of Takashi’s friends. Even if he’ll never say as much out loud.

93. PRESENT – Madara takes Takashi to a place he hasn’t visited in a long time.

94. CELEBRATION – “We heard you can finally drink alcohol!”

95. NOTEBOOK  – Madara snoops around and reads Takashi’s first short story.

96. VISION – Another name gone. Another memory received.

97. MEMORY II – Family? He had no answers for her. Not back then.

98. ANAMCHARA I

99. ANAMCHARA II

100. ANAMCHARA III

[ship-obsessions]

The 100 Season 6 Speculations

Okay, so first of all I want to say I’m loving season 6 so far. Give me all of the delinquent interactions. I’m also obsessed with the Bellarke crumbs they are ALREADY GIVING US and how their repressed feelings for each other were shown (although not directly) in 6x02. A while ago I saw on Twitter that a reviewer compared The 100′s 6x02 episode to Motel California in Teen Wolf and now I totally see it. The way the plant toxin affects the delinquents parallels the werewolves being affected by the wolf’s bane... and the focus on the main group of delinquents (specifically Clarke, Bellamy, and Murphy) parallels the focus on the original core 4 in TW (Scott, Stiles, Allison, Lydia). I absolutely LOVED the core 4 dynamic in TW and I’m already loving this trio dynamic between Clarke, Bellamy, and Murphy. Give me more episodes like this! (and maybe add Raven after her and Clarke make up).

That said, I watched the first two episodes when they were leaked, so I’ve been DYING for the next episode 6x03. (Note: I’ve also been streaming them again since they’ve officially aired, so I’ve watched each one like 4 times). Since new content is finally coming next week, I wanted to get out some of my random speculations for what’s coming up later this season even though we literally know so little about this new planet, these new people, the creepy children, etc.. Of course, being curious (like a psychopath), I went through all of the season 6 episodes on IMDb to see what (if anything) it could tell me. I’m sure someone else has probably already done this, but I found some interesting things I needed to put out there...

6x03 

We already have a name “The Children of Gabriel” as well as a description (Clarke tries to win over the leaders of Sanctum in order to let her people stay. Meanwhile, Bellamy, Octavia, and Echo discover a new threat while on a mission to retrieve the transport ship.), so we have somewhat of a gist of what is coming next week. I don’t think they will fully go into the backstory of these “children of Gabriel” but we obviously know the geneticist from the flashback was named Gabriel and the actor, Ian Pala, is only listed for 2 episodes on his personal page and one of those is Sanctum (uncredited). So I’d assume this means we won’t get another flashback of him specifically or the origins of his “children”. But I do think when Clarke meets Russell and the other people somehow this backstory/history (at least a shortened version) will be explained. We know that the episode titles are all explicitly mentioned or referred to in the episodes themselves somewhere, so that’s my reasoning there.

However, I noticed one other small thing in the cast list that stuck out as strange/interesting. Sarah-Jane Redmond’s character (aka the Sanctum hostage that tried to hijack the mothership) is named Taylee in 6x02 but Tilly in 6x03. At first I thought it could have been some kind of error (idk) but it’s listed the same way on her personal IMDb actor page. Is she playing twins?? Is there validity to this clone theory I saw floating around and read about in the Hypable review?? Either way, I’m definitely interested in whatever that’s about. 

Also, I’m excited to meet JR Bourne’s character this episode! We obviously know he is Russell Lightbourne but after all my research (lol I’m taking this WAY more serious than I ever took school), I’m wondering if he’s not just a descendant of the Lightbourne’s but is actually a clone or somehow has the same consciousness from Mr. Lightbourne (Josephine’s dad) in 6x02 (again saw this in the Hypable article around a similar flame storyline theory since Becca created Eligius tech as well). It’s worth noting that we don’t actually know the character’s real name and Sean Maguire is just credited as Mr. Lightbourne -- no first name. Hmmmmm

6x04

Again we have a name “The Face Behind the Glass” and a short description (Clarke embraces the traditions of Sanctum and tries to make amends for her past actions.), but not much else... (or do we??) This episode is probably where we will see Clarke dancing in the room painting and maybe even the lanterns floating in the sky (ie. Sanctum tradition?) -- I’m thinking several “happy” moments with her. I also have a theory -- going out on a limb here -- that it is where we could see the whole “flashback” scene of Clarke in Mount Weather from the trailer. It’s probably not an actual flashback but some kind of hallucination or psychosis thing again, (or maybe even a dream?) but maybe that is where the title comes from -- she’s literally looking at herself from behind the broken glass in MW’s contamination rooms. OR we’re not quite there yet and it’s referring to the stained glass-looking red window/door thing that Emori was trying to open before going crazy in 6x01. 

The kicker for me in this episode’s listing was Jordan Bolger’s credit as Shaw, who we all saw die in 6x01. In what capacity is he coming back? Maybe it’s Raven’s hallucination or even a dream? I could see them showing us her full reaction once she knows what really happened to him, but I’m not sure how or in what way he would come back at some point in the episode (I say “come back” because the actor will actually appear). It will be super interesting how the sci-fi elements work on this new planet. We’ve already seen the eclipse-induced psychosis but what other strange things will occur or happen to our characters? If they are all facing their demons (ie. Clarke with Mount Weather and Octavia with Blodreina) I wonder how those scenes will be played out.

6x05

Again Jordan Bolger is credited... is Miles Ezekiel Shaw back again??? What is going on? 

6x06 - 6x07

I didn’t really notice anything super strange in episode 6, but GUESS WHO IS CREDITED FOR EPISODE 7: none other than Chris Browning as Jake fucking Griffin. Maybe this is another flashback or memory or hallucination -- assuming by Clarke.

Note: Madi is not credited to appear in 6x06 or 6x08 so I’m thinking her “kidnapping” or whatever happens with the creepy person who is holding her captive in the woods happens in 6x07. Or maybe it’s even earlier in 6x05?

6x08

In episode 8, the cast list introduces 2 notable new characters: Josephine VII and Hope. Okay, so with Josephine VII it could be some descendant of the original Josephine Lightbourne in the 6x02 flashback, but it could ALSO be another hint at this clone and/or flame consciousness theory. But Hope... where have we heard that name before? Oh yeah, Diyoza’s unborn child. But Diyoza hasn’t even had her baby yet and in the promo trailers it looked like she was shot (and possibly killed?). Also, this actress who plays Hope is like 6 years old, not a newborn baby. It’s still weird to me though because what are the chances there is another character -- another child, no less -- with that same name Diyoza mentioned she was planning to give her baby. Just seems a little too coincidental to me.

6x09

Okay, I’m going out on a limb here, but THIS MIGHT BE THE ICONIC RAVE SCENE FROM THE TRAILER. Stay with me... I was originally thinking this would happen earlier in the series when I saw this in the trailer, probably like everyone else, but in the IMDb cast list there are 5 “dancers” credited. I mean it is more logical for a rave scene to happen early in the season (because usually all the good things or happy stuff comes in the first half of the season and NEVER this late), but what else would “dancers” be credited for??? The 100 doesn’t do dance numbers LOL. Anyway this idea has me shook because if it is this late in the season, there is a better chance that Bellamy and Echo have ended things by this point and that super short blurry speck in the bottom right corner of the rave dance scene could be Bellamy (you know what I’m talking about). Will they actually make my LIFE and have Bellamy and Clarke dancing at that rave together? Seems way too good to be true, but I had to throw the possibility out there. I mean who knows, my Bellarke-owned ass can always hope for the best. 

After the slim possibility of that amazing possibility, here’s a scary thought to consider (sounds kind of like the show itself), this is the last episode of the season that credits Lola Flanery as Madi... WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO HER. Does whatever experiment being done on her in the promo trailer kill her? Pls don’t hurt Clarke’s smol child.

6x10

So here is where I started low key freaking out because the cast list dwindles DRAMATICALLY for credits this episode. We only have Eliza as Clarke, Shannon as Jordan, and Luisa as Emori out of ALL of the main characters we know and love. Something major has to happen for everyone else to suddenly become absent from this episode. And I’m a little scared to know what that is.

6x11

Okay thank god, the main characters are all back on the credits list for this episode. ALSO there is a new actor credited as young Echo. OMG an Echo flashback?! Will we finally understand who she was and why she is the way she is? Will I even care to get invested in her this late in the game?

Also, IMDb lists that this is the episode Bob Morley directs!

6x12 - 6x13

Our other mains are gone AGAIN from the cast list. It’s back to only listing Clarke and Jordan among the characters we already know. WTF is going on. I need answers NOW. To reiterate, I’m saying that IMDb doesn’t list Abby, Bellamy, Octavia, Raven, Murphy, Echo, Kane, Madi, Miller, or Jackson in episode 10, 12, or 13 (+ Emori in 12 or 13).

I’m honest to god just hoping that IMDb isn’t fully updated with the entire cast list in these last episodes yet -- is that a thing? pls tell me it is -- because if we don’t have a finale that includes Murphy, Raven, or most of all, BELLAMY... I swear to God I will riot. Of course, I’m hoping no one dies (obvi), but now that we know there is a season 7, could J Roth be trying to kill us with some dramatic cliffhanger where Clarke and Jordan are separated from the rest of the group? (PSA: STOP SEPARATING CLARKE FROM EVERYONE). But if so, why would this absence of all of those other characters be TWO WHOLE EPISODES? And during the two part finale of all things. UGHHH my mind is spiraling, someone pls calm me down.

On the plus side, 6x12 lists Antonio Negret as the director for the episode and we all know he brought us the brilliant (yet angsty AF) episode 5x08 last season where Bellamy poisoned Octavia to save Clarke. But if Bellamy isn’t even in this episode WHY SHOULD I EVEN BOTHER CARING.

What’s left that I missed? Probably a lot LOL. I tried going back to watch what I might have missed from the extended trailer but I couldn’t find the video ANYWHERE. It’s like disappeared from YouTube (says it is “unavailable”). What is that about?

Anyways, the scene with everyone together in the house (standing at the bar, shot looking at us) has to be in one of the episodes where all main cast members are credited -- I don’t think it will be the next one so maybe 6x04 or 6x05? Same thought for the Madi/Clarke reunion, I feel like that is in the same episode. I also have no idea when in the season Bellamy is going to strangle Russell with Clarke and Murphy in the room (again my favorite new trio!). And that being said I’m confused on JR Bourne because he was all hyped up as a new character this season but he’s only credited in the next episode 6x03. Does the strangling take place next week? It can’t right? Because Bellamy is off with Echo and Octavia on the other mission and Clarke is the only one in the castle. Also if 6x04 is Clarke trying to embrace the traditions of Sanctum and make amends, there is no way she could do that the episode after Russell (the leader of Sanctum) is killed. 

Sorry for the crazy rambling and this long AF post, but I have so much on my mind after this speculation deep dive. I need to just go to bed.