#echo: 'your droid is making some weird noises. what's wrong with him?'

[porghater]

beans has modified his laugh.exe to be interspersed with short, harsh bursts of low-pitched static - his best impression of freja, who snorts when she laughs

[candytuftgirl]

Somnia

A Secret Santa fic for Amylion! (My dumbass couldnt find your tumblr ashfg).

I hereby present this... mess. Probably not what you were asking for (definitely not; Im so sorry I just realized I didnt use the prompts they were going to come up later on RIP) and maybe a tinsy bit cringe-worthy.  There was supposed to be more, but yeah; here’s some good-natured kid Leia and Dad Vader, with a pinch of prophetic dreams for zest.

Well, I tried. 

(Also, this one shot was not beta’ed, I die like the horrible mess of a writer I am)

The hallways are dark.

The shadows that surround a few illuminated viewports create frightening monsters, if one had the right imagination for it. What was worse was that she was alone. There were no droids, white masks or suit-people in sight.

If she were younger, maybe she’d ask a droid to accompany her on this late night journey. But no; she was a big girl now (Seven! That was two fingers more than a whole hand) and besides, her daddy didn’t really like them much.

He didn’t like a lot of things, but there were some he disliked more than others. And she noticed, which was why she was walking alone, in the dark, the metal caging her in from the side. And she’s not scared. Not at all.

Still, if she squeezes Mr. Catty just a bit too tight that was just because he was shivering so much.

The big silver doors are in view soon enough, and she shuffles a bit faster when she notices them. It doesn’t even take a moment before they silently open. She walks in, the doors close and the familiar whirring noise echoes all around her.

“Leia.” Her daddy steps out of the dark, his breathing machine the only constant source of sound in the room. He’s tall, dark and shiny- just like he was when he put her to bed. It calms her; and Mr. Catty.

He absently waves a finger, turning the lights on as he steps closer to her small form. “Angel, what’s wrong?”

She doesn’t answer. Instead she walks over with her bare feet (she was going to get a scolding for that for sure), Mr. Catty firmly in hand and looks up at her father’s dark mask. The staring only lasts a moment.

There’s a small hitch in the constant whirring noise, like an exhausted little sound, and her father firmly picks her up and sits himself down on a nearby chair. She’s on his knee, one black gloved arm still around her while she makes herself comfortable, and now it’s just her father’s strange mask that stares down at her.

Leia doesn’t hesitate. “I had a strange dream daddy.”

She didn’t dream often, but when she did, she always dreamed of strange things. A cave filled with crystals, shining so brightly she swore she heard them sing. An underwater city, beautiful; but there were fish people standing on top of buildings, crying, screaming: “Traitor, traitor!”.

A moon made out of metal, with a heart that screeched in pain.

Everyone always said her dreams were silly, and she was making too much of a fuss about them. Overactive imagination, her retelling a version of a story she read somewhere; one suit-man even accused her of lying once! The more she talked about them, the less everyone who heard them believed her.

Sometimes, Leia thought that if it weren’t for her daddy, their gentle reprimands would turn scathing.  

She knew she shouldn’t have shared her dreams, knew most never believed her, but she couldn’t help herself; they all felt so real to her in a way. Why couldn’t other people understand that?

She knew better now. All the droids and suit-people dismissed her worries so she dismissed them as well; except for her daddy.

He never said she was making things up, and he always listened.

“It was a dry place.” Leia began, fumbling with Mr.Catty’s stuffed legs. She tried to remember. “Like, really dry. Everything was orange and the ground was bright and smooth; with all these little pebbles on them.” She shook her head lightly. “Oh no, they were even smaller than that: tiny, little pebbles. And there were no trees, or rivers, or-“

“A desert.” Her father stated, quickly cutting off her rambling. “You were dreaming of a desert.”

She scrunched her little button nose up at him. “A desert? Like, dessert?”

“No. A desert is a barren wasteland, largely inhospitable, dry and covered in sand; the tiny pebbles.” He explained, and she files away this new revelation in her mind. “I believe the chocolate waffles you had for breakfast this morning don’t fit the same description.”

Uh-oh. She cringed, fumbling her fingers around her stuffed toy. “Oh- you know about that?”

So she might have eaten sweets for breakfast this morning. Really, though, it hadn’t been her fault! She was alone with the droid in the kitchen, and it did ask her what she wanted for breakfast. And she really didn’t want to eat porridge filled with fruits, vitamins and all the “healthy necessities her body required to grow”. Besides, she was sure chocolate waffles made her grow more than that mush anyway.

“We will discuss your punishment tomorrow.” Leia made a face at that; she really didn’t want to scrub her room clean. Again. Her father’s mask turned towards her wriggling feet. “Where are your socks?”

“-So anyway.” She continued undeterred. “I was in a desert. But I wasn’t alone. There was a boy there too.”

Her father straightened a bit more at that. He always did, whenever she dreamed of someone. “What kind of boy?”

She shrugged. “A boy. I guess he was like me- except, well, he’s a boy.” Leia thought about him for a bit; the boy that inexplicably drew her attention more than any scary dream ever had. “He was blonde, with blue eyes- and his clothes were too big.”

She furrowed her eyebrows in concentration, trying to recall the image of a boy in large white sleeves chasing furry creatures across the ground. “He was kinda scruffy looking.”

“Language.” Her father quietly added, though it was more of an automatic response than anything. “Is that all?”

“Umm, he was chasing some weird rat; I guess he was playing a game and-“

“I mean, was there anyone else in the dream?”

Leia shook her head, expression serious as she looked up at her daddy. With her chubby cheeks and button nose, she looked far too adorable to emulate any kind of sobering face but that hardly stopped her from trying. Like a little queen waiting for her adviser’s opinion, she stared at her father while he thought about her dream.

Her father’s mask stared off in a vague direction, head tilted as he considered what she said. The longer he remained in that position, the more Leia’s heartbeat echoed in her head. This is important then. Daddy must think so too.

It didn’t scare her; it made her strangely giddy. Like that boy was a puzzle piece, something she unknowingly needed to complete the distorted picture in her life.

“It’s nothing like your… usual visions.” His rough voice brought her back from her daydreams. Black mask meeting her large chocolate eyes, her father stated his final judgment. “No. I do not believe it really means anything, angel. Maybe it really was just a dream.”

Mr.Catty made a straining nose from the pressure of her tiny fingers.

In hindsight, this information was wonderful. She often came to her father, crying her eyes out because she hated all the scary dreams she was having, and she didn’t want them anymore. The fact that this dream might have been just that; a dream, not a nightmare, not reality…

Leia hated it.

“No daddy!” She yelled suddenly, wiggling free and sliding down to the floor. It caught her father off guard, too surprised to stop her.

With red cheeks she stared up at him, and all his black glory. “He was real. I know he was.”

“Leia…”

“No!” She threw Mr. Catty to the floor, angry tears appearing in her narrowed eyes. “You think I’m making things up! Like everyone else!”

“Leia.”

Her father got up, voice cold as the atmosphere in the room shifted. No longer approachable, but massive; He stared down at her in the oppressive silence, hands on his hips, looking like a mountain that would break the earth before it would bend.

A scary sight, one that many feared. Leia was no match for that; small, with her chin trembling, and wet, sloppy tears already rolling down her cheeks. She couldn’t even compare.

Still, she refused to back down.

She knew her daddy was angry, and he was probably going to be even angrier the more she continued this staring contest; but- I’m angry too!

After all, out of all the people in her life, it was her father who was supposed to believe her no matter what. The fact that he didn’t, that he thought it was all a dream…

That hurt her.

The staring continued. The tension rose. Before she knew it, the temperature in the room dropped some more. She vaguely wondered if she was going to freeze up. Like those poor people in the vacuum of space, ones that fell under fire and drifted out of reach into an asteroid field. No one went back for them. Nobody even tried.

Would her father leave her like that, all alone? Here in this room, like a sculpture? Would she be able to see? Move? Become a statue for eternity?

It was a daunting thought, the coldness seeping through her jammies and into her skin now. She couldn’t stop shaking; the fear was swallowing her, but she wouldn’t-

It wasn’t until she glanced at Mr. Catty laying on the floor that realization set it and the fear stilled. Eyes straying away from the black void of her father, she took a few steps to her fallen toy, the coldness subsiding as well.

Gingerly picking him up, she muttered a quick apology to her favorite friend, facing her father as the tears roamed unchecked now.

“I-I’m sorry Daddy…” The hiccuping made it harder to speak. “But, but-“

She was full on sobbing now, and just like that, the atmosphere in the room shifted back to normal. The coldness subsided, the warmth came back and she couldn’t stop crying.

Her father made that whirring exhausted little noise, before slowly bending his knees in a crouch so they were more at eye level (Leia didn’t like how he towered over her so much, so piggybacks were still an often occasion).

It was a bit comical to see her tall and menacing father lost as to what to do, his tiny daughter shaking and desperately trying to rub away all the evidence of her uncontrollable tears.

“Oh no, angel not your-“ The warning was too late, as she blew her nose into her sleeves. They were icky already, but she kept smearing her tears in them. Her father quickly battered her attempts away. He looked around, his shoulders slumping some more. 

Soon enough, she was blowing into a soft and leathery like material; her father sacrificing his shiny black gloves, gently wiping away the grime and the snot from her small face.

He was probably going to make that sad little whirring noise about that later, but for now, he remained composed.

“Calm down, angel.” He spoke as gently as he could with his distorted voice, his own version of Sssh, sssh- don’t cry now. 

“I’m sorry, daddy.” Leia stared at his black, droid like mask with her puffy eyes. She made a few more hiccuping noises, before croaking out the truth she knew in her heart. “But… but he’s important.”

“The boy from your dream?” She nodded. “How so?”

“Be-because!” She wiped the remains of her tears away, frantically trying to explain to her father the underlining importance of it all. It was so clear to her, didn’t he understand? “I saw him, daddy. I saw him jump around rocks, kick rats; fix- or maybe he was breaking- droids-!“

Another memory appeared in her head, one that makes her smile. “And he stares at the sunset daddy! Like you stare out the viewport. He must be real.”

This knowledge didn’t seem to appease her father; if anything, it seemed to do the opposite. The coldness in the room came back with alarming ferocity, before it changed into something incredibly hot, like a blazing sun- and then she could breathe again.

Her father’s shoulders slumped lightly, before he started to reach out his hand to her. He stopped, probably remembering the sobbing incident, and pried his gloves off, gently laying his hands down on her small shoulders. Leia tried her best to not shiver from the cold metal prosthetics. They glinted in the light, fake fingers squeezing her softly.

(Once, a long time ago, when she was still curious about her father’s strange suit, she had asked him if he was a droid. She couldn’t see it, but she just knew her daddy became very sad, and she instantly felt bad about it.

“No, not completely” he said.

She never asked again.)

“Leia.” He had her complete undivided attention. “The dream you had was real. But it was only a vision of the past.”

“The past?” She repeated, blinking as her father retracted his hands from her. But that would mean… “Really?”

“Really.”

The boy she dreamed about was real, as real as her heart in her chest. But it was a boy from before, not now. A boy from the past.

She felt an uncomfortable weight settle inside her.

“How do you know?” It couldn’t be true- the boy she saw was here, now, like she was- and he was important. She just knew it. “Did you… know him?”

“Once.” Her father looked away, like when he looked through viewports at the stars; like the boy. “I knew him, once.”

Her father was many things, but he wasn’t a liar.

She sagged with that newfound knowledge, tired and sad all at once, Mr.Catty limp in her hold. A boy from the past- it hurt her in a way she couldn’t explain, like a goal she could see as plain as day evaporated just beyond her reach. He had seemed so real (was he still real?), and now…

Just a boy from before. It felt like the truth.

And yet, there was still a part of her that believed differently.

There was shuffling in the background, her father’s loud stomps echoing in the room. Looking up, she saw him searching for something in his sleek metal closet. He only had one in his room.

Or was it an office- that term would perhaps better serve to describe his room (he didn’t even have a bed; sometimes Leia thought the plush chairs and sofa were there only for her benefit).

Most would have called it an office- if it wasn’t for the large bacta tank standing at the other end.

She opened her mouth when he walked back to her, but he stopped her new bouts of questions by deftly picking her up- new and shiny, clean black gloves in place.

“Enough. It’s late.” That was his order-voice now. The one that didn’t allow protests. She slumped a little in his hold.

The walk back through the shadowed corridors wasn’t as scary as before, and Leia rested her cheek on her father’s broad shoulder as he swallowed the distance between their rooms in short time.

He put her back to bed, exchanging her star shirt for a clean one with lothcats, and tucked her in. Opening her closet, he made sure to look inside before closing it again. A nightly ritual for checking monsters. No matter how many times he assured her that there was nothing scarier than him around, Leia insisted. That late-night holo she saw still made her shiver.

Besides, her daddy wasn’t that scary.

Smoothing down the hair on her head, Mr.Catty snuggled up beside her, he straightened and pointed a finger at her in warning (like he did at the suit-people, though his voice wasn’t so cold): “Now, sleep.”

He left. She shifted to find a more comfortable position, obeying the silent order and closing her eyes. Before drifting off, she repeated the words she knew rang true in her head; her heart.

The boy is real. Like me. I know it.

[shastelly]

Distance - March Klance Prompts from MonthlyKlance - Day 14

Author’s note:  Sorry for falling behind, been fighting a stomach bug, my mom had knee surgery, kid had a class field trip, and honestly was feeling a bit overwhelmed and needed some sleep and a break.  Coming back to ya refreshed and ready to write :)

Three thousand five hundred and forty meters, that's how far away Lance was when the Galra soldier got the drop on me.  That's how far he was when his voice whispered through my com.

 "Don't move."

 My heart pounded and muscles tensed with the need to move, to defend myself and my team from the threat I could feel at my back, but then, even before I could finish that though a loud pop sounded and something heavy thudded on the ground behind me.  Over two miles and I turned around to see the Galra, wicked blade still in hand, with a perfect hole between his eyes.

 I look back in the direction I knew Lance was and whispered over the com, "Thanks."

 "Got your back, Samurai," echoed back to me.

 Pidge and Hunk were kneeling a few meters in front of me.  Allura was on the other side of the street.  We weren't even in place yet, there wasn't supposed to be any resistance yet, I had not expected Lance to make that kind of shot.  I guess, maybe I had underestimated his ability. He'd whined as much at the mission prep, but we'd dismissed him.  A kernel of guilt wormed its way in my gut.  He'd found a suitable spot for a sniper nest at about half that distance away from his drop off point from the one I’d picked.  The one he was headed to required he move a significant distance alone, but we hadn't expected resistance in that area, of course we hadn’t expected resistance in the area I was in either.  

 "Keep your eyes open, Sharpshooter, if we have unexpected company here, you could there."  I hissed in concern.

 "No worries, just using my ninja skills to bypass the unfriendlies." came the reply.

 Shit, bypass, meant leaving people at his back.

 "Impact on your escape route?" I snap.

 "Could be interesting?"  His nervousness edged into his attempt at humor.

 "Quiznak." Why couldn't anything go as planned?

 "I got this, I'm good."  Lance muttered.

 "I don't like it."  I really didn’t.

 "I know, but so far, there isn't anything here that says no go to me.  I got this."  He restated firmly.

 "Okay, but you let me know as soon as it changes, right?"  I asked just a touch desparate.  I trust Lance for a lot of things but telling me when he's in trouble isn't really one of them.

 "Would I risk this beautiful body?"  Lance asked mock indignation dripping through the com.

 "Yes!" I, Hunk, Pidge, and Allura all answered at nearly the same time.

 Lance made some sort of sound, but wisely chose not to comment further.

 I'd like to say the plan had been simple, but in truth it hadn't.  We had received word from the Blades that there was a high-ranking political prisoner on this world.  We have hopes that it could be one of the Holts or Shiro, but either way, high ranking prisoner seems worth extracting.  The prison, according to the intel, is in the basement of one of the bombed-out buildings in the center of this dead town, that sort of looked like Chicago, if the buildings in Chicago were green and Lake Michigan was yellow, oh and if it had been bombed and destroyed about a thousand years ago.  

 Due to the obscure location and top-secret nature of the facility, the guard was supposed to be relatively small, with very few patrols in the city surrounding, most concentrated in the two-block area surrounding the prison.  The plan then was for Lance to take up a cover position in a ten-story building about 1000 m from the prison.  It had a covered garden on the roof and Lance would be able to move all around the building without risk of being seen by anyone from the ground or the air.  Lance had originally picked a twenty-story building about 1600 m away where he had argued he could switch floors or sides of the building easily as it was all glass, but I had been concerned about the distance and him having to move so much. We had dropped him off at a site that provided a direct route to the building and then the rest of us were on the ground team, move in and take the prison and free the prisoner.  

 Except now we had met their third patrol since the one that got a drop on me. Lance had mentioned at least one as far out as he was.  Either their intel was bad, or something had changed.  I was getting a very bad feeling about the whole situation.

 Two thousand meters, the distance to the cloaked Green Lion on the shore of the weird yellow lake.  Hunk had pondered whether it was natural or pollution.  As he had said, it wasn't a very nice kind of yellow.  Pidge called it Piss lake, and I honestly couldn't argue with her, it smelled too.

 "I've reached the building.  Starting up. I won't have good eyes on you." Lance warned.

 I nodded to Allura who had point and she nodded back.  She had heard and understood.  I had asked the others to go radio silence as we made our way through the city and I would maintain contact with Lance to reduce chatter and our chance of discovery.  I was bringing up the rear, so in theory it meant I shouldn't risk discovery.  Of course, that hadn't played out exactly like that a few dobashes ago, but I stand by the theory.

 "Okay, Lance, let us know when you reach the top.  We are still two thousand meters out."  I returned.

 The rubble was thicker here and moving had to be slow or we would be causing a lot of noise and dust.  Given the patrols we'd observed, that didn't seem like a good idea.  Allura held up her hand and we all took cover.  Allura practically blending with the wall.  I think she may have actually used her shifting ability like a chameleon.  Pidge just disappeared and Hunk, well he found a door to duck into, subtlety and sneaking were not his things.  I crouched behind a large chunk of building as the patrol moved through the street. All droids, six of them.  The feeling of something being wrong was building. Droid patrols were hard to miss, even in this environment with the buildings.  They were too routine, timed - there was no reason this shouldn't have been included in the intel.  So again was it a change or bad intel and at this point bad intel pointed to betrayal.

 "Guys, I'm not liking this."  I muttered into the coms.  "The intel stinks, either they've been warned we are coming are this has been a set up all along."

 "I'm there."  Pidge whispered.

 "Me too."  Hunk chimed.

 "The problem is if it's just that they know we are coming, is the prisoner still real?"  Allura asked.

 And that was the real question at this point.  It was a trap, but what was the trap baited with?  Would I walk into a trap for Shiro?  Hell yes.  Would I lead the team into one for him?  I didn't want to have to answer that.

 "Keith, if we can get closer, I can scan for the prison.  I can get a good reading on the basements of these buildings and about four buildings ahead.  So, either I'll see it, or see where I'm being blocked, or I'll see nothing." Pidge offered.

 "Okay, move forward, eyes open."  I decided.  We needed more information I told myself.

 "Eyes in the sky."  Lance chuckled.  "The patrol is well past, you are clear to move."  He was more than a little winded and I wondered if he had run up the whole ten stories.

 One hundred meters to target we had run into three additional droid only patrols, and now we found our first actual soldiers.  

 "Patrol, and this one had two live ones in it."  Lance called.  We dove into hiding.

 "Hunk, I can see you man, try the doorway behind you and to your left." Lance advised the yellow paladin. I watched him scurry to the new location, hand tightened around my blade fearful of hearing the patrol coming.  

 "Further back, Hunk."  I heard Hunk sigh and movement.  "Okay, good, you're good Buddy."  Lance seemed relieved.  I felt my grip relax.  If Lance couldn't spot him, then he was safe.

 The patrol made its way slowly through the street and we managed to go undetected. The two live soldiers kept their eyes roaming but did not see us.  I let the rest of my body relax when they were a block past us.

 When they were three blocks and had turned the corner, Lance gave us the all clear to move.  This was about the point I had expected to run into patrols, but the feeling of wrongness wasn't leaving.  The guards were too alert.  They didn't look like guards assigned to patrol a prison that no one knew about. My skin crawled.

 "Pidge, before we move, can you run a scan here, just see if you can get a read on what's ahead?"  I asked quietly.

 "Yeah."  A few moments passed.  "The terrain matches the intel we received.  I picked up on at least six patrols moving in the about hundred-meter radius I can pick up their signatures.  That won't account for any patrols that might not have droids.  This isn't lightly guarded, this is locked up tight."  Pidge worried.  I knew she wanted this as bad as I did, probably worse as even if it wasn't Shiro it could be a family member.

 "Lance, what do you see?"  I asked.

 "Be still and I'll look around."  He ordered.  "Okay, confirm, five, no six patrols, all mixed droids and live.  They do seem to be circling a central point, that matches the intel…give me a dobash or two."  We could hear movement from Lance.  He must be changes angles for another view on the target. "Something's wrong."  He muttered.

 "What? What do you see?"  I whisper.

 "I can't put my finger on it.  I'm seeing it, but I just feel something wrong.  Sorry, I'll let you know if it comes to me.  I'm moving back.  Wait till I'm in place, okay?"  Lance moved again and after a dobash or two.  "Okay, you are clear to move.  Plan to stop at the next block to wait out the next patrol."

 Fifty meters to the target and the second patrol had passed.  Lance had shifted to his secondary location now and was covering our final approach.

 "Clear."  Lance called.

 At this point I could see the target.  The building was leveled.  There was a stairway behind about a two-foot wall, all that apparently remained of the previous building.  

 "Okay, how close for the scan, Pidge?"  

 "I can try here, but about ten more meters would be better."  She whispered back.

 "The building on the right, with the long windows."  Lance spoke through the coms.  "It is clear, and you could take some time to get the scans done and not worry about patrols."

 "What if someone goes in?"  Hunk murmured into the coms as they entered the building.

 No one answered him and Pidge began her work.

 "What if…"  Lance mumbled something.

 "I didn't copy Lance, what was that?"  I felt my gut churning at this point my instincts said run.

 "It's just what Hunk said, what is they go…Quiznak!  Get out of there.  It's a set up.  It has to be. That is what was bothering me.  No one has gone in or out of that quiznaking stairway!"  Lance snarled.

 Just as he said that Pidge echoed, "It's just a basement, just like all the others in this area, and it’s empty," concern coloring her tone.  

 "This is a trap, nothing more."  Allura stated flatly disappointment coloring her tone. "There was never anything here to find.  We need to pull out and contact the Blade.  Their agent has either gone to the other side or been discovered."

 I cringed. Blades didn't get turned, but they did get killed, far too frequently, "I'll send them a notice as soon as we reach Green."

 "Lance, you read, that's a fall back."  I turned as I spoke checking the door.  

 "Okay, you have a patrol, that needs to pass, and then…this is a really bad trap, I mean did they think we were stupid and would just come in guns blazing, where is the trap?"  Lance worried.  "Be still while that patrol passes, let me get a look around."

 We waited as the patrol outside went past - ten droids and two galra this time.  As soon as it was far enough past, I made my way over to Pidge.  

 "Anything change on the scan?"  

 "What, no the basement is still a…what…wait a minute?  That was the only patrol in my radius?"  Pidge looked up shocked.

 "Quiznak!"  Lance nearly yelled.

 "What?"

 "I found your patrols.  They are surrounding Green.  She has her particle shield up, but there are at least 100 droids and probably twenty flesh in blood soldiers around her."  Lance spat the words.  He knew they'd been played.  "I should have been watching where they went.  I'm sorry Keith."

 "Not your fault."  I reassured. The last thing I needed right now was him taking blame.  "Lance, I…have you checked your neighborhood?"  The bad feeling was starting to get a lot worse.

 "I…no."  A brief pause in which I really hoped he'd laugh and tell me I was wrong.  "Oh, fuck."  

 "Lance?" I breathed.

 "I'm surrounded."  He stuttered. "They have the building surrounded, probably twenty droids and five soldiers at least.  I'm going to have to move.  I've got incoming up the stairs.  I can't cover you."

 "The quiznak, Lance, get out of there, we will worry about us."  I snarled.

 "Yeah, I'm going to try some rooftop jumping with the jet pack, see if I can get clear of them and get down.  I don't know if I can get to you."  He sounded unsure, nervous.

 "The jet pack is a good idea."  I assured. "Don't worry about finding us. We'll get to you."

 "Pidge, can we contact the castle?"  Allura was asking in the background.

 "I can't get a signal out.  They must be blocking us."  Pidge snarled in frustration.

 "Okay, going."  Lance's voice called over the com.  "I've got company coming up the stairs."  I could hear the sound him running and breathing heavily, and the background of shots being fired.

 Fifty feet was approximately how far Lance had to jump between buildings.  The jet packs could do that no problem, I had jumped much further.  However, Lance was being shot at.

 "Ow." Lance whispered between breaths.  "Okay, made it to the next roof.  I need to keep going.  I'm going to try to get ahead of them enough to get to the ground and get better cover. I'm not enjoying target practice when I'm the clay pigeon."

 "Lance, are you hit?"  Somehow, I knew that answer before I even asked.

 "Armor caught most of it," he muttered.

 "And what it didn't catch?" I rolled my eyes at his avoidance.

 "Pretty good graze on my leg, not critical, but," he paused.

 "It's slowing you down."  I answered. "Look try to head toward us and we'll head to you.  Okay?"

 "Yeah. Got to make another jump."  I could hear him breathing harder and the tension in his voice was clear.  "Shit."

 "Lance?!"  Lance generally didn't swear much more than quiznak and if he did there was usually a good reason.

 "…dio…damage…d…" and static filled the com.  

 His radio is just damaged I told myself, he's fine, just damage to the radio in his helmet on his head, no need to be concerned.  I turned to the concerned eyes of the team.  

 "Okay, we're going for Lance first.  Pidge see if you can track him.  Sounds like his radio is out, so it would be good to have a way to pinpoint him. We'll want his help getting Green and getting out of here."  As I spoke, I could see them pulling themselves together, pushing their own fears and concerns to the side.  We would do this for Lance.  We only had approximately 1000 meters to go.

 TO BE CONTINUED

   This story will be continued in Day 16 Rivalry

[freereignastarwarsstory]

Chapter 13: BX Blitz

Disclaimer: We (@zazabelle and @draksisreborn) own nothing but our OCs. Star Wars belongs to Lucasfilm and Disney. Please review and enjoy this latest installment. 

It had been nearly two hours in Nar’Shaada time since Soron and Cenden had left on their mission from Beebs. The sky had opened up in those hours and raindrops fell steadily across the hull of the Raving Titan where Soron’s crew waited patiently for their return.

Nek and Vis sat in the lower engine room of the ship listening placidly to their own thoughts while Nek began laying out the pieces for the data table they’d gone to Tiss’sharl to collect. Near him, Vis sat on the floor with her eyes closed, mumbling to herself. Scrolls with notes and lightsabers lay strewn around her with the orb placed in her lap. 

Nek stood back for a moment to examine his work. He’d mostly bought parts needed to build a targeting computer on an old Republic warship; metal casings, crystalline screens, and bundles upon bundles of wires were placed in piles on the floor.

“The pieces are all there, I just need to figure out in what order to put them together.” Nek’s mumble to himself was nearly lost in the hiss of the rain battering the walls around them.

“I get that.” Vis finally sighed and opened her eyes, “I have all these notes and theories about what in the world this orb thingy could be for… But nothing makes sense.” 

“Kid, nothing’s made sense since Cenden joined this crew, and things just got even more confusing with you being here. I feel like I’m just along for the ride at this point.” Nek said in a similarly down-trodden tone.

“Well, you’re here for a reason. We all have a part to play in this, I just wish I could more about what this is.” Vis grumbled holding up the orb, “Any ideas?”

Nek wasn’t sure if she was talking to him on that last part but he decided to respond anyway, “If I actually manage to build this data table we can access information from your temple anytime so... that’d be helpful right?”

“But look at all this stuff we figured out back at the temple!” She said picking up one of her many scroll pieces covered it nearly unreadable handwriting, “You said, as playing the part of the orb, ‘I try to pick up the data from incoming holocrons but I have no antenna.’” Vis read off the scroll, her freckles shifting to the same deep orange as Nek’s eyes, “You continued on to say ‘So it can’t pick up anything because it hasn’t been given the ability to hear the message yet! But once the antennas are installed we could pick up on the data of any holocron in the galaxy!’ That sounds so smart doesn’t it!?”

“You… Recorded our conversation?” Nek responded hesitantly.

“Yeah! What do you guys think I’m normally doing writing in all these blank scrolls?” Vis asked with a tilt of her head.

“I guess I don’t normally pay attention to people unless they’re talking to me directly.” Nek laughed.

“I think I do that too, so it’s ok!” Vis responded jovially.

“But you do have a point. We did figure out a lot from just being in the temple for a few days.” Nek pointed out.

“Exactly! And now everything’s gone stagnant!” Vis sighed, her freckles growing brighter orange.

Holding the white crystalline orb close to her face, she took a breath.

“Soron’s kinda put a lot of faith in me and I act like I know a lot but none of this is an exact science, and I THOUGHT that my mind would be ‘opened more to the Force’ or something through training with Cenden, but he hasn’t even started that, and I’ve just been feeling really weird since our fight on the train, like there’s somewhere I need to be, or something I need to be doing, but I don’t know where to go next, and-”

“Vis?” Nek cut her off.

Vis’ word cut short, she realized she was rambling and fell silent.

“Let’s just uh, focus on what we can do right now, ok?” Nek suggested. The Devaronian stood awkwardly like he didn’t quite know what to say, but knew he had to say something. 

The girl’s freckles shifted to blue as she let out a breath and nodded. Nek moved to sit on the floor near the schematics he’d drawn up for the data table’s parts. Vis crawled across the room and plopped down next to him, the orb still in her hand. Looking over the paper, her eyes narrowed. 

“What’s that part do?” Vis said pointing with her free hand to a central chamber in the data table’s main body piece.

“That, in a normal targeting computer, is where the main circuit board for the computer is stored and operates off of the ship’s power supply. But sometimes they’d put a power-cell in there for backup power,” Nek explained as he held up the blueprints so Vis could get a better look, “But as for what it’s used for here, I won’t know until-”

The echoing of metallic footsteps cut off Nek’s sentence as the tall thin form of BX entered the lower engine room.  “Hey! Perfect timing!” Nek proclaimed to the droid before turning back to Vis, “I won't know what’s stored in that chamber until BX gets here and shows me some of his scans of the table.”

Nek motioned for the droid to come and stand near them. BX silently complied and stood over the pile of parts before projecting data on the scan he’d run back at the temple. The blue transparent light of the hologram unfolded into view from the droid’s eyes, displaying an x-rayed scan of the inner workings of the data table with some parts labeled to show they’d been identified, with other pieces flashing red to depict they were foreign objects to the robot’s memory banks. One of those pieces flashing in red was the centralized chamber.

Nek noticed this and cursed under his breath, running his red-taloned hand over one of the horns on his head, his finger hesitating to scratch along a chip in his horn, “This is going to make things more difficult.” Reaching forward he touched the flashing red image of the hologram to enhance it. 

The chamber was the same wide rectangular shape of the targeting system in Nek’s schematics, but there wasn’t a circuit board or a power cell in there. Instead, there was a cylindrical shape, like some sort of pipe lodged in the chamber’s space.  “See if I knew what that was, I’d know what’s powering this thing. My guess is that this actually was a Republic warship targeting computer that someone scraped together to open holocrons, which is really impressive, don't get me wrong, but that makes the design… difficult to replicate when it seemed the original mechanic was just running off of trial and error testing.”

Nek went quiet in thought as he stepped back to examine the piece as a whole. The three in the room thought for a moment while the rain still drummed away outside, the noise reaching a crescendo in the quiet.

BX suddenly made a move. Still projecting the hologram of schematics, the droid bent into Nek’s pile and began rearranging the parts to align more symmetrically.

“Hey guys…?” Vis responded to the droid’s movement, her spots growing purple, “If the person who made this thing could open holocrons, then why build it at all? What were they trying to do?”

“Maybe they couldn’t open holocrons.” BX’s deep metallic voice suggested, the droid still focused on organizing.

“And not only that but from what I’ve seen, this thing doesn’t just open holocrons, it organizes them by what the original user placed in them.” Nek continued, “Those things can hold infinite information from the Force, right? But info can also be placed inside of them. So this table seems to bring up the actual data that was stored in the holocron, not just floating around in its infinite hard drive space… Or something.”

Vis’ looked wide-eyed at the two, her mouth agape, “You guys are geniuses.” She marveled.

“I guess we are,” Nek replied.

“I have to write this down!” Vis said nearly belly flopping onto her pile of paper where she began to scribble furiously while mumbling to herself. 

The girl lost in her flurry of activity and Nek moving on to begin making notes of his own on his schematics. BX finished his organization of the parts, his gaze looking up to the glowing red projection of the unidentified object. 

The old commando droid’s circuits began to click. Dropping the data table scan, his attention turned to the girl surrounded by paper and lightsabers. BX bent down, his metal claw-like hand reached and grabbed one of the lightsabers just as a voice from a level up called out,

“HEY! LOOK SHARP! TRANSMISSION COMING THROUGH FROM SORON!” Lerti commanded loudly as the hatch installed above the lower engine room flew open. 

The Mandalorian slid down the ladder, and whiter light from the main hall of the ship flooded down in a beam into the dimmer red light the engine room supplied. 

BX rose, the lightsaber still in his hand. 

At Lerti’s order, Nek and Vis stood from their writings hastily and gathered around BX who stood at their attention. 

“Alright, connect the transmission BX,” Lerti said as she pressed a flashing indicator on her comlink. 

They heard the blaster fire before Soron’s holographic form even had a chance to come into view. 

The Shistavanen captain crouched behind what looked to be metal shipping containers that were serving as cover against the actual rain and the rain of blaster fire bearing down on him. 

“HI SORON!” Vis’ erupted loudly.

“HI VIS!” Soron yelled back with as big a smile as he could manage while he stood from his cover for a moment to return a few rounds of fire before crouching back, blaster bolts ripping through the air around him, “So! The mission is taking a LOT longer than expected!”

Soron shrank back. Two shot flew by, he just barely dodged them. “How are you all doing?” Soron’s voice battered against the explosion of activity around him as he repeatedly blinked the downpour out of his eyes.

Lerti let out a humored scoff, “Did you call just to check up on us? Or was there actually a reason for you calling?” 

“Oh, does a captain really need a reason to call his favorite crew members?” Soron said with a smile in his voice as his now stone-cold face turned and focused fire against something that could be heard crying out in pain.

“You need backup, don’t you?” Lerti guessed, voice dropping to a complete deadpan tone.

“Well, the mission is a bit more… Complicated! Than expected!” Soron mused, pausing in between certain words to fire a few more rounds.

“ZHIS WOULD BE OVER A LOT SOONER IF I COULD GET A DECENT SHOT IN!” Cenden’s angry accent shot into the audio feed.

The old temple guard suddenly backed into view holding his blaster close to his chest. Cenden’s blonde hair plastered to his forehead, both he and Soron looked like battered wet rags. Cenden attempted to look over the crate to his back before ducking under a bolt that nearly replaced where his head used to be. 

“Soron, Nek and I will be there soon, just send over your location,” Lerti interjected.

“Ooo! Cenden! Just use your lightsaber to deflect the bolts!” Vis added.

“I know how sabers work-!”

“Cenden!” Soron cut him off, “Just do it! It’s Nar’Shaada! Who’s going to care!?” Soron yelled above the storm. 

“No one’ll care as long as you make sure Grakkus the Hutt doesn’t hear about it.” Nek pointed out with a smile on his lips.  With a silent sneer, Cenden reached into the sopping folds of his armored tunic and produced the severed lightsaber the old Jedi still carried with him. 

Flipping the opening backwards, the blade ignited in the gloom. The yellow light shining off the raindrops around them gave the appearance of sunlight from between the clouds. Cenden stood from their hiding spot with the blade running along his forearm in a reverse-grip. The blaster bolts began to deflect off of the saber’s yellow light and Cenden crouched, readying himself to launch forward into the fray once more.

“WAIT WAIT! THIS CAN BE LIKE REMOTE TRAINING SESSION!” Vis shouted her suggestion as she watched Cenden seem to jettison into the air and out of the hologram’s line of sight. “Dangit! Soron! Tell Cenden to come back and do that again! I wanna try and copy him!” Without waiting for a response Vis spun to grab her saber off the floor, tossing the orb into BX’s other free hand.

POP!

With an enormous crackling sound and a flurry of sparks, the message projecting from BX’s eyes burst to nothingness. 

Vis and Nek screamed and Lerti retreated with raised fists, but all they saw was smoke coming off of his metallic body. The droid went suddenly limp, and fell with a lifeless crash to the ground, the orb and lightsaber still locked in his hands.

All was quiet save for the battering of the rain while the three stood in bewildered silence. 

Lerti’s comlink suddenly began to blink again, but she made no move to answer it, her eyes making only a sharp glance in Vis’ direction. Wide-eyed, the girl slowly shrugged, her freckles changing to the same bright yellow as Cenden’s lightsaber, “It wasn’t my fault…? I think?” 

Lerti’s hand went to the comlink, just Soron’s voice came through this time.  “WHAT HAPPENED!?” Soron yelled, voice still spitting rainwater.

“I think... Vis just broke BX.” Lerti responded slowly.

“Sorry!” Vis almost yelped, her hand flying to her mouth for her teeth to munch on.

“WHAT!? Did you just say-” He fired three shots, “BX is broken!? AGAIN?!”

“Wait, something’s happening.” Nek said as he kneeled down next to BX. The droid’s body began to twitch, a few more sparks sputtering out before his eyes exploded with a green light like he was projecting a holo-message. 

“Whoa!” Nek jumped back as the light began to take shape.

The green light formed into a perfect sphere which shook and glitched a bit with each jolt of BX’s body. The orb seemed to be spinning slowly, like a planet in orbit. It spun only for a few moments before a white dot appeared on one side of the surface. The dot began to blink and spark. BX’s deep metallic voice caused the crew’s insides to jump as he began to speak, deeper and more machine-like than usual as he started repeating a sequence of numbers and letters. 

“Grid Coordinate: S-12, Sectors: 33.4484° N, 112.0740° W…”

“What is going on!? Is something important happening!?” Soron spat over what sounded to be static building up between the comlinks.

“Soron? I’m not sure what’s going on, BX is relaying coordinates- Can you hear me? Soron?” Lerti attempted to speak.

“I- Hear- Lert-?” Static consumed the rest of his words. That’s when Vis noticed the glow of the orb in BX’s hand. Her eyes also shifting over to see the lightsaber in the other. It was far older than any of the others she had seen, even in the temple, covered in rust so its key components were almost entirely obscured.

Freckles shifting to the same bright green of the hologram, Vis gasped and began to shake her hands excitedly as she spun in a circle, “Oh my gosh, OH MY GOSH! It’s the orb! It’s the kyber crystal! AAHHH! WE CRACKED IT!! NEK!” 

“That’s what’s powering the data table,” Nek said piecing together Vis’ fragmented sentences, “That’s the power conduit BX couldn’t identify! So, the orb’s extracting coordinates off of the kybercrystal in the saber!?” 

“I don’t know how that’s possible but we are back in the game! Thank you, my guide!!!” Nek and Vis high-fived over BX’s twitching body before Lerti cut in, motioning for them to be quiet as she listened intently, 

“S-12… These coordinates are on Nar’Shaada.”  Just as the words left Lerti’s mouth, her comlink began blinking again. This time she answered right away, Soron’s voice coming through loud and clear this time. 

“We got-” He suddenly yelled as the sound of a fist connecting with someone’s face could be heard, “Cut off back there. I think the storm is messing with the SIGNAL!” The sound of Soron’s fist slamming across another jaw again came over the audio.

Lerti was quiet for a moment. Her eyes shifted thoughtfully to Vis who had bent down to examine the glowing orb before Lerti let her own spheres turn to examine the glowing green image still emitting coordinates in front of them. Her face scrunched thoughtfully before she leaned her finger into the comlink’s mic,

“Soron... are you still needing that backup?” Lerti asked tactfully.

“We seem to be doing BETTER at the MOMENT!” Soron said, still fist fighting. 

“That’s good because I think we have a heading for one of those ‘Force mission’ things, and it’s only a few city blocks away from here.”

Soron’s struggle continued for a moment before he finally responded back, “Wait, really!? Of course, this happens when I’m NOT there.” Soron sighed, “I’ll ask how this happened- When I get back- But for now you- Nek, and BX go- Check it out… If you can get him operational that is.” Soron spoke very quickly in between huffs as it sounded like he was running.

Lerti eyed the smoke coming off the droid, “We’ll see.”

“And let me make this clear; no matter what, DO NOT BRING VIS THIS TIME. We don’t know where those coordinates lead, I just want you three to scout out what we’ll be walking into when we do it for real.” Soron instructed rapid fire.

“Aww… I wanna come on a Force mission…” Vis pouted to herself.

Whether Soron could hear it or not, he added, “And Vis. I need you to stay behind and run further examinations on the kyber orb and figure out how these coordinates are being transmitted and why.” 

Vis instantly brightened up, “Can do!” A pressure built up in the room as Vis reached forward and the orb was wrenched from BX’s hand, the Force gently guiding it into her grasp.

“Why thank you.” Vis curtsied with her enormous coat to the invisible energy field. Only a moment after the orb left the droid’s metal claw, the smoke rising from BX’s hull died down enormously, but the droid still lay unmoving.

Noticing the levels of smoke drop, Lerti leaned back to the comlink, “You sure you want us to head somewhere without you? Shouldn’t we wait?”

“As much as I’d normally agree with you, Cenden and I have only just made it on location and secured it.” Soron explained through suppressed huffing. The static noise that came through the comlink’s background had gone silent save for the rain. The fighting had come to a close for now. “The more we place our immediate focus on what it is that we’re supposed to be doing with all of this new information the faster we’re going to get answers that give us context.”

“Alrighty then, as soon as we see if we can get BX up and moving we’ll head out-”

As if to the que of Lerti’s words, BX’s hull suddenly gave another loud “POP!” and Nek that had leaned in to examine the droid nearly jumped to the ceiling in surprise as BX shot into sitting position.

“UNKNOWN ERROR. DIAGNOSTICS INCONCLUSIVE. POSSIBLE MALWARE DETECTED.” BX announced, his voice slowly rising in pitch back to it’s usual level as the droid’s systems restarted.

Lerti smiled, “And we’re set to go! We’ll keep you updated.”

“WHOOP WHOOP!! BX is NOT DEAD! Up top!” Vis cheered as she high fived the orb this time.

Another voice suddenly came over the comlink, “Wait, did I just hear that we’re not getting backup?” 

“Beebs is sending her guys to help us from here, we just needed to secure the tunnel’s opening…”

The crew didn’t hear the rest as Lerti released her thumb from the cylindrical device’s sensor. 

“You heard the mission; Nek, BX? You two and I are going to that set of coordinates. Vis, you’re staying here to… do whatever it is that you do.”

“Yeah I am!” Vis replied as she spun and began collecting her papers and lightsabers off the ground. 

A slight whirring could be heard as BX raised his arm to call attention to Lerti, “I actually did not hear my mission statement, I think I may have experienced a glitch in my system… What coordinates are we proceeding to?”

Nek glanced down thoughtfully at the lightsaber still clutched in the droid’s hand. 

“So… we can only see the coordinates when BX is holding the orb…” Nek gasped, “I just had an idea.”

“That’s a first. Tell me on the way.” Lerti said impatiently, pushing forward as she grabbed Nek and hauled BX to his feet as the three left the dim red light of the engine room, leaving Vis to hum to herself a song that didn’t exist.

[electricbluebutterflies]

93 from that list for damerey

Inevitable post-TLJ emotional-breakdown fic because why the hell not. PG-ish and also on AO3.

“You’re more than that.”

She came from nothing. She is nothing.

The words echo over and over in Rey’s head. She knows, in some part of her heart, that they’re not true. But at the same time they are, at the same time there are very good reasons that was an effective way to shut her down, and she can��t shake the feeling that maybe all of this is more than she was meant for. She could’ve lived and bred and died on that scavenger planet, and maybe she should’ve.

It’s been about a week and she’s not sure what day it is or what planet she’s on or which of the General’s decades of political connections the Resistance is currently taking advantage of. She’s not sure when she last ate or slept, and it’s been hours if not days since she last talked to another human being. Finn, who should’ve been her anchor, is a little busy hovering by Rose’s bedside. (Whatever the hell is going on there, Rey is hesitantly happy for them, but she really hopes it works out.) So she’s alone, and she hates it now that she has something to compare it to, and her brain is an infinite loop of her negative traits, and her old life has never looked so appealing.

She’s curled up in a ball in a hallway where no one would think to look for her even if someone somehow noticed she was missing, has been for hours and has no plans to move anytime soon. Most likely, she’ll cry herself to sleep here. She’s beginning to already, soft sobs that go unheard, and so this is what being lonely feels like. The whole damn galaxy has confirmed what she already knew about herself, and it’d be a dangerous pain if she had the energy to do something about it but thankfully she’s too damn tired and-

“Rey? What the...”

There’s another person approaching her, and from this distance Rey isn’t totally sure who but they sound worried. She turns her body away, tries to make the tears stop, fails. Shit. This is the last thing she needs right now, for yet another person to realize how useless she is. (Throwaway daughter of a feral planet. She was stupid to ever dream of being more.)

“Hey, can you hear me?”

She turns her head, figuring she might as well get this over with, and of course it’s someone who she hasn’t failed yet. Not that she’s had much of a chance, she reminds herself - an awkward introduction and a couple formalities in passing don’t count for much - but what little time they’ve spent together, Poe has seemed unspeakably kind and polite and that’s a little bit of a problem. It’ll hurt more when he realizes what he’s dealing with, that much she’s sure of, knife-pain that won’t kick and-

“What do you want?” she growls.

“Okay if I sit with you for a bit?”

She doesn’t suppose he’s actually asking, but she motions to the space beside her all the same and watches as he gracefully drops down, close enough to touch her but doesn’t. She’s just a little bit fascinated with how he moves, purposeful without sharpness, unlike anyone else she’s had the chance to observe. She wishes she could say that, but it’d be awkward, and she’s already done so much damage, and-

Shit. She’s crying again. Pathetic.

“Hey. What happened? Talk to me. Please.”

Everything in Rey’s body wants to fucking run, or perhaps say something venomous enough to get it all over with, but there’s so much gentleness and concern in his voice that she figures she doesn’t have a choice about this either.

“I’m nothing. That’s not... that’s not gonna change.”

She feels more than watches a surge of protective anger in him, and she’s almost flattered to be the cause of it. “Is that... did he say that?”

“Yeah. But he’s not wrong.”

Poe shakes his head, still looking all kinds of worried and a little territorial in a way that Rey thinks might somehow work in her favor. “Nope. Completely wrong. You’re more than that.”

“You don’t know me,” she growls.

“I don’t need to. I have a good eye for people, and you seem-”

“Not everyone can be right all the time.”

He laughs, like that’s a common correction he gets. “Fine, I slip up too, but... not just me. You give people hope.”

“And then I fail them.”

“There are still fighters. The Resistance still means something. And I’m pretty sure part of that is because of... whatever you are.”

She rolls her eyes. “Even you don’t know what to do with me.”

“See, that there is the problem. You think you’re a weapon, Rey. I don’t see you as that. I see a person who’s been through the worst month of their life and still, somehow, is able to wake up and keep moving forward. You’re the most resilient person I’ve ever met.”

“And yet somehow that isn’t a weapon,” she laughs. If he’s trying to cheer her up, it’s working, but-

“Nah, not a weapon. Because I also know that you've been acting weird enough that my droid told me I needed to come down here and check on you because you’re not doing well.”

“And for a moment I thought you actually cared,” she hisses.

“Hey. Shhh. It’s not-”

“You could just say how useless you think I am. You don’t have to pretend you-”

“I do not think you’re useless, Rey. But I also don’t think that matters right now. Okay, fine, I came down here because the angry beeping noises were getting annoying, but I’d asked him to keep an eye out for you. Figured you could use a little looking after.”

“And that’s not useless how?”

Poe takes a deep breath, like he’s summoning patience he doesn’t normally have. “Because contrary to everything you currently think, there is nothing wrong with needing other people. And there is a lot wrong with running away and not letting anyone try to help take your weight.”

“I don’t... I don’t know how.”

“It’s okay.” He reaches across the space between them and cautiously laces his fingers around hers. “You can learn. I have faith in you.”

“R-really?”

“Yeah. I know you don’t feel it right now, Rey, but there are a lot of people who believe in you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re still fighting.”

She breaks down yet again, but this time without the familiar blanket of shame. Instead, something else, confusing and wordless but less painful than she’s used to feeling. She lets herself drown, lets herself collapse against the body next to her and lets him catch her. Maybe, maybe she could get used to this.

It hits her, as she remembers to breathe again, that every other time she’s wrapped herself around another person has been after a near-death experience. She supposes this is a little different, and she’s not sure if that’s even okay but she figures it has to be because she’s still here. She’s allowed to be like this and she’s allowed to cling to someone she barely knows and-

“You’re more than this, Rey,” he breathes. One of his hands is on the small of her back, the other tangled in her hair, and she wants so many more moments like this. She wants this kind of warmth without the sadness, whatever that would look like. She wants...

“Thank you. You didn’t have to-”

“I wanted to. That okay?”

She’s not sure if she can answer that question, but she lets herself cling just a little bit closer and she supposes that’ll do.

[chasingthecosmos]

Call Me But Love

Fandom: Doctor Who Rating: T Pairing: The Doctor/Rose Tyler, Twelfth Doctor/Rose Tyler (The Doctor/Clara Oswald, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswald) Chapters: 18/40 Read on AO3 here.

“‘Oh, dear. Looks like we might have picked up an extra passenger,’ the Doctor grumbled to himself. His gaze raised to Rose’s once more and she was struck by the sheer intensity of it and the way that he managed to look at once so familiar, and yet so different from what she was used to. ‘Best find something to hold on to,’ he warned her ominously.”

A Season 8 & 9 AU centering around Rose Tyler and her newly-regenerated Doctor as they both struggle to maintain their relationship in the face of some unknown force that seems to be drawing them together. Will they be able to solve the mystery of who is pulling the strings before it’s too late?

This is a direct sequel to “By Any Other Name” and might be a bit confusing if you haven’t read that first.

“I need to speak to whoever’s in charge here,” the Doctor demanded, scowling darkly at the female droid before them and attempting desperately to regain some shred of dignity once more.

“I am in charge,” Missy insisted pointedly.

“Well, who’s in charge of you?” the Doctor continued to press.

“I’m in charge of me,” the droid replied simply.

“Who repairs you?” the Doctor growled with a frustrated huff.  “Who maintains you?”

“I am programmed for self-repair,” she explained in her robotic monotone.  “I am maintained by my heart.”

Rose nearly stumbled backwards over her own two feet as the droid suddenly elbowed past her once more in order to stand directly before the Doctor, her hand grabbing his wrist and bringing his palm up to rest against the center of her chest with a dramatic, eager gasp.

“Is everything in order?” she asked, her tone low and suggestive in a way that made Rose’s blood begin to boil.  The only thing that kept her biting retort in check was the shock of fear that she could feel shoot through her bondmate’s thoughts as the niggling sensation in the back of the Doctor’s mind suddenly began to grow and coalesce into a single, loud warning alarm.

Doctor?  Rose asked curiously through their bond.   What's wrong?

He didn't have an immediate response for her that made any sort of sense.  He just continued to radiate a sense of growing discomfort that made Rose's skin itch and her heart beat unevenly in her chest.

“Who maintains your heart?” he breathed quietly as he met the droid’s gaze with a weighted expression on his face, searching the creature’s eyes for the answers to the many desperate questions that Rose could feel running through his head.

“My heart is maintained by the Doctor,” Missy replied with a sly smile.

Another spike of uneasiness echoed within the Doctor's mind that made Rose's stomach twist uncomfortably as he stared hard at the droid from under his thick, furrowed brows and asked, "Doctor who?”

The droid flashed him a pointed smirk before she twisted her head and called out rudely, “Doctor Chang!”

Missy was off without another word, bustling down the hallway of the eerie mausoleum without a backwards glance to retrieve whoever the mysterious Doctor Chang was.  The Doctor, however, remained as he was, his hand raised in the air before him while he stared at it in wide-eyed, curious wonder.

Doctor? Rose tried again, pulling forcefully against his thoughts as she slowly stepped forward and wrapped her fingers around his outstretched hand, gently bringing his arm back down to his side once more.

Be on your guard, Rose,  he warned her silently, his fingers nervously squeezing against hers as he turned and stared hard down the hallway after the welcome droid.   Something’s not right here …

Doctor, what is it? Rose asked tentatively, her bondmate’s nervousness making her feel unbalanced and fidgety.

Do you feel it? he asked, suddenly turning to lock his intense blue gaze on hers as they continued to stand hand-in-hand before one of the watery graves lining the walls.

Feel what? Rose asked searchingly.

The Doctor gritted his teeth together as he mentally reached for Rose's presence in his mind and gently guided her towards the corner of this thoughts that were currently screaming a red alert at him.  It was almost as though another entity was pounding against his mental defenses while at the same time stubbornly evading detection. It was like nothing that Rose had ever experienced before, and it made her shiver with a haunting sense of trepidation.

What is that?  she asked curiously.   Is this some weird Time Lord thing?

I don’t know yet,  the Doctor admitted as he glared back down the hallway once more and set his gaze on the two figures who were now walking eagerly towards them,  but I intend to find out.

---------------------

The room that the curious Doctor Chang led them to was a strange sort of lab filled with mismatched, posh equipment and yet another glass tank filled with what he referred to as “dark water”.  However, that was really the least of Rose’s concerns as the young, bespectacled doctor explained to them the truth behind the three words that his institute was based on and the horrible reality of their situation began to settle over her in waves.

“Fakery!” the Doctor declared angrily, before Rose could get a word in edgewise  “All of it - it’s a  con , it’s a racket!”

Personally, Rose was inclined to agree with him, but there was no denying the voice of Danny Pink that suddenly rang out through the room around them, calling her name in pained desperation as he attempted to reach across the expanse of death that lay between them and find her once more.

“Clara?  Clara, are you there?”

“Danny!” she breathed in quiet disbelief.  “I can hear you, is that you?”

However, before Rose could get any sort of information out of the strange, disembodied voice, the signal connecting them was suddenly disrupted and Danny’s voice faded into indiscernible white noise.

“This isn’t possible,” the Doctor reminded Rose quietly.  “The dead  don’t come back.”

You sound pretty sure of yourself,  Rose snapped in silent response as she whirled around to fix a glare in his direction.   I’ve seen you do far more than that before.  How many times have you faced impossible odds and seen them through?  How many times have  you,  yourself, come back from the dead, Doctor?

Rose … the Doctor attempted to reason with her.

However, his words were cut off as the signal was boosted, the connection reestablished, and suddenly Danny’s voice was calling out for Clara again from the clear monitor on Doctor Chang’s desk.

“Clara, can you hear me?” he asked breathlessly.

“Yes, Danny, I can hear you,” she responded without a second thought.  “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, yeah, I can hear you!” he answered back eagerly.

I don’t like this … the Doctor reminded Rose silently through their connection.

“What do I do?” Rose asked him expectantly, turning to meet the Doctor’s intent, blue gaze.  She wasn't sure what to believe in that moment, but Danny's voice was so clear and so eager to hear from her again, and Rose found herself wishing more than anything that this could really be as simple and harmless as it seemed.  She had seen far more ridiculous things during her time with the Doctor, after all. Just this once, couldn't things be easy for them? Didn't the universe owe them that?

Doctor, he’s there - that’s  him, she insisted warily.   He could still be alive.  We could still save him …

The Doctor's responding sense of sympathy for Rose's current turmoil made her jaw clench in determination as she stubbornly refused to accept his soft, reassuring thoughts.  She didn't want his sympathy right now, she wanted his support. She wanted his clear and honest opinion and then she wanted to sort this whole mess out and get to the bottom of what was going on here.

“Question him,” the Doctor ordered her simply, when he at last resigned himself to his bondmate's stubborn will with a small sigh.  “Ask him questions only he’d know the answer to. Be sure.”

“And what are you going to do?” Rose asked hesitantly.

“I’ve got to check out those tanks,” the Doctor replied distractedly.   And that droid,  he added silently.  “There’s something that I’m  missing  …”

Be careful, Rose warned him as he turned and commanded Doctor Chang to follow him out of the room and leave her alone with the monitor that was currently still projecting Danny’s panicked, fearful voice into the room around them.

You, too,  the Doctor replied just as warily.   Be  sure  Rose - don’t just hear what you want to hear.  There’s something deeper going on here, and for whatever reason, it’s centering around you.  Be cautious. Make  sure  it’s him.

--------------------

Unfortunately, no matter what Rose thought to ask, there was simply no way of being absolutely certain that the voice currently speaking with her was actually connected to Danny himself.  In fact, as Rose continued to speak with him at length, she began to realize how little she actually knew about the man in question. How could she possibly be sure if it was really him or not?

The sensation of the Doctor’s rising panic on the other side of their mental connection certainly wasn’t helping matters, either.  Rose could practically hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears as she attempted to calm her bondmate and reason with Danny both at the same time.

It’s Missy,  the Doctor realized suddenly, the force of the revelation making it sound like he was shouting the words directly into Rose’s head.   It’s been her all along.

Doctor, what’s going on? Rose asked desperately as she raked her hands through her hair and nervously bit her lip in consternation.

Cybermen,  he replied, the terror behind the single, horrifying word making Rose’s heart skip a beat in fear.   Cybermen and Time Lord technology.  No, it can’t possibly be …

“You’re a Time Lord,” Rose heard the Doctor mutter breathlessly through their connection as he looked the lady in the purple dress up and down with a sharp, assessing gaze.

“Time Lady, please,” Rose heard Missy reply loftily, “I’m …  old-fashioned .”

Rose shot to her feet without needing to hear another word, whirling around in an attempt to chase after her bondmate before she realized that there was a large, silver cyberman already looming over her, the dark water tank that had been sitting at her back completely drained and leaving behind a single metal suit.

“ Doctor !” Rose called out desperately.

The center of London …  the Doctor replied distractedly.   Hundreds of cybermen right in the center of London …

Doctor, what are we going to do? Rose asked as she began slowly backing away from the giant silver monster that was currently standing motionless before her, its dead, black eyes staring straight through her.

The Doctor’s only response was a single, two-syllable name:  Master …

It took Rose a moment to place the name, but the emotions that followed behind it and the memories that bubbled up from within him and overflowed through their bond were clear enough, and she understood immediately who had been behind all of this - the person who had been pulling the strings from the very beginning, leading her and the Doctor together ever since she had returned to this parallel universe.

The Master?  she asked, her own terror quickly rising to match the Doctor’s.   How is that possible?

She knew of the Master through conversations with the Doctor's duplicate in her parallel world, but even though they had been married for nearly seven decades, Rose had never been able to convince her husband to give her much more information about him (or  her  ?) other than the name.  The Doctor could go on for hours about different alien species ranging from the fascinating to the terrifying, but he never seemed to want to divulge much about his old friend other than to say that they grew up together and he (  she ?) had been haunting the Doctor's travels ever since he left Gallifrey.

Rose, I’m so sorry, the Doctor replied desperately as she felt the connection between them waver as their combined, overwhelming emotions threatened to silence it completely.

Stay inside - stay  safe.   I’m going to get us out of this, he reassured her vehemently.

Sorry, dear, but that’s never going to happen,  Rose reminded him as she squared off against the encroaching cyberman and raised her chin stubbornly into the air as she stared the creature down and refused to so much as flinch.   I’m coming to help.

Rose watched in silent trepidation as the cyberman before her slowly seemed to revive, it’s mechanical parts whirring slightly before it suddenly snapped its head up and pointed it’s weaponized arm threateningly in her direction.

“Stop!” she cried out, jolting in fear despite herself as she did her best to face off against the deadly mechanical creature looming before her.  “You can’t kill me.”

“Incorrect,” the cyberman stated plainly.

“No, no, no, that would be a  very big mistake,” Rose insisted chidingly as she crossed her arms against her chest and raised an imperious brow at the thing.  “You don’t know who I am.”

The cyberman paused only long enough to do a quick scan before it began advancing on her once more.  “You are Clara Oswald,” it stated matter-of-factly. “You are human. You are unimportant.”

“Ha!” she huffed dismissively.  “You might want to scan again, there, big guy.  Clara Oswald is a cover story; a disguise. There is  no  Clara Oswald.”

The cyberman paused once more as the weapon on it’s arm powered up and whirred to life.  “Identify,” the cyberman insisted.

“Oh, you lot really  are slow, aren’t you?” she muttered, rolling her eyes condescendingly as she shifted her weight into a petulant stance and shook her head at the creature.  “I’m not Clara Oswald. Clara Oswald has never existed.”

“Identify,” the cyberman repeated pointedly.

“Have you got records of Canary Wharf in your databases?  Do you have memories of the last time the cybermen tried to come to earth?” Rose continued haughtily as she strolled casually closer to the dangerous silver monster.  “Ever wonder what happened to them?”

“Identify,” the cyberman commanded once more, its robotic tone managing to sound even more threatening than normal as it matched her movements and took an intimidating step closer to her.

“I’m the Bad Wolf,” Rose replied ominously, facing the cyberman and staring it straight in its dead, black eyes.  “I’ve turned daleks to dust and pulled cybermen into a never-ending hell. I exist across all of time and space. I know everything that has and is and will happen.”

She tilted her head to the side and flashed the metal creature a sharp, feral grin.  “Long time, no see,” she murmured threateningly. “Did you miss me?”