#maybe he's been raising daisy by himself for so long he's a bit rusty on how to interact with someone he's interested in?

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

thinking about dream daddy again and god brian makes me so mad

[bisexualkramer]

Hi! I participated in @pilesofnonsense‘s 2020 Rusty Quill Big Bang this year, and I’m so excited to share my fic with all of you!

I’d like to thank @aibari for betaing this monstrosity and @cthulu-time for making a REALLY COOL ART PIECE FOR THE FIC LIKE HOLY SHIT IT’S AWESOME!! It was such a pleasure to work with both of them!

Hope y’all enjoy it!

The End of All Things - A Magnus Archives Lord of the Rings AU

Part One: Fellowship

Part Two: Towers

Part Three: King

Summer had come to the Shire at last. The green grass was soft underfoot, as gentle as the breeze that danced through the air, bringing with it the scent of wildflowers and tilled earth. The skies were blue and filled with clouds that drifted lazily about. Children wove daisy crowns and danced through the streets in preparation for the midsummer holiday. The old dozed; the young worked; everything was peaceful and good.

Not that Jonathan Sims would have known. His summer habits were no different than his winter ones. He awoke before the sun rose—quite the feat, in those long days of summer—and trudged down the lane to the Shire’s old archives, where he dutifully toiled until after the sun had set. The only variation in his routine was the thickness of his jacket and the presence or lack of an old woolen hat, a gift from his gardener that had kept him from catching his death of cold for at least the past three winters. Jon, bless him, had never thanked the man for it, but he was still willing to wear it, and that was quite enough for Martin Blackwood.

On the eve of the midsummer feast, Jonathan was down in the archive basement again, digging through a waterlogged box of paper and finding the documents that needed to be replaced. The head archivist, Gertrude Robinson, sat beside him, dutifully copying down an old deed that had been damaged in a spring flood. They worked in a quiet tandem, satisfied with the comfortable silence that came from years of friendship.

Jon had been very young when his parents had died in a boating accident. His grandmother hadn’t been keen on raising another child, but there had been no one else to take him. He’d grown up a lonely child in the country, kept company only by books, until his grandmother had died, leaving him her house. He’d sold it immediately and moved to the Shire, and his job application to the town archive had been accepted within a week. He’d been working there ever since, though he’d only become one of Gertrude’s close assistants in the last couple of years. Still, the two got on like a house on fire, and Jon liked to think that Gertrude would ask him to take over when she eventually retired.

A knock at the door brought Jon out of his thoughts. A young man stepped in, his blonde hair falling down around his cheeks in ringlet curls that made even Jon jealous. He handed a sheaf of paper over to Gertrude with a smile.

“Thank you, Michael,” she said. Michael Shelley had only been working in the archives for a few months. He had a bad habit of leaving his red cardigan in the archives. Jon was beginning to suspect he was doing it on purpose, if only because of—

“Hey, guys?” asked a voice from the back. “I’ve found another one with water damage. Where are we putting it?”

“Bring it here,” said Jon resignedly.

Gerry Delano was a short, broad-shouldered hobbit with badly-dyed black hair that hung in greasy strings around his face. He had a permanent scowl that occasionally lifted into a smirk. Every time he spoke to Michael, Michael would erupt into nervous, grating laughter, which did little to improve Jon’s mood but seemed to make Gerry much cheerier.

Jon hated working with them.

Gerry dropped the box in front of them and exaggeratedly wiped the sweat off his brow. He met Michael’s eye and smirked. Michael giggled. Jon tried very hard not to roll his eyes.

“Right,” said Gerry. “Think I’m off for today. Anyone fancy the Green Dragon for a half-pint?”

“Oh, ah, that sounds fun,” said Michael. “Uh, would either of you care to join us?”

Jon scowled, but Gertrude shoved at his arm. “Go have fun,” she said. “I’m expecting a visitor soon. I don’t need you moping down here next to me.”

“But the deeds—” Jon began, only to be hauled to his feet by Gerry in a feat of strength that stole the words from his throat.

“None of that,” said Gerry. “C’mon. Besides, I think your boy’s usually there on Fridays.”

“My what?” Jon scoffed, but he was already being firmly escorted out the door.

“Lord,” said Gertrude. “Youth is wasted on the wrong people.”

...

The Green Dragon was always lively around the end of the week, but it was even more so before holidays. Gerry crept to the bar for drinks and brought them back to the table, cursing as he set them down.

“Nearly lost one,” he said, passing them around. “Anyway, cheers to another year in the archives.”

“Cheers,” said the rest of them absently.

Jon peered around the room as Gerry and Michael began to flirt rather obnoxiously. He felt his stomach drop as he accidentally met eyes with Martin from across the room. Martin’s expression brightened, and he began to head toward the table. Jon tried not to scowl.

The truth of the matter was, Jon had spent a very, very long time hating Martin. Martin had apparently been the gardener at Bag End since before the previous inhabitant had left (very mysteriously, and no one in town would say anything about it—there were rumors that he had been close with Gertrude, but she refused to say anything about it). Jon kept him on because his rates were good and it felt like the right thing to do, and not because he had often heard Martin chatting quietly with the bees while he worked, oblivious to Jon’s watchful eye on the other side of the kitchen window. As Martin approached, Jon quickly realized that the only remaining seat was the one next to him. He tried to ignore it when Martin’s leg brushed very lightly against his own, but couldn’t quite manage to get it out of his head.

“All right, Martin?” Gerry asked, giving him a smile.

Martin blushed a bit at the attention, which made Jon want to commit murder, or possibly arson. “I’m all right,” he said. “And you?”

The two of them struck up a friendly conversation, which they roped Michael into fairly quickly. Jon buried his face in his drink for a while before finally allowing Michael to draw him in with a well-aimed question about the old books he’d found in his home when he moved, which led to several hours of debate over the whereabouts of the mysterious owner, and then a conversation about Michael’s sister, who had sold the property, and then the state of the small library in Hobbiton, and soon Jon found himself ranting about the properties of various waxes for almost a quarter of an hour.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly when he realized no one had stopped him.

“No,” said Martin, his face flush with alcohol. “No, it was interesting. It was really interesting.”

“Christ,” said Gerry. “Right. I think I’m done for tonight.” He glanced at Michael. “Care to walk me home?”

Michael stuttered a response and pulled on his sweater, leaving Jon and Martin sitting beside each other.

“Well,” said Jon, just as Martin said “Anyway…”

“Oh,” said Jon.

“Sorry,” said Martin. “I mean, uh, go ahead.”

“No, no, it’s all right,” Jon stuttered. “You first.”

“Right,” said Martin. “Uh, I was just going to say it was getting late. Maybe we should go.”

Jon stared at him blankly for a moment before the words made it past his ears and into his head. “Oh, yes,” said Jon. “Of course. Yes.”

“Unless you don’t want to…?”

“No, it’s really fine. Absolutely fine.”

“Are you sure?”

Jon tried not to let too much annoyance creep into his voice as he said “Yes, Martin. I’m quite sure.” From the look on Martin’s face, he was fairly certain he had failed.

“Right,” said Martin. “Um… I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

“Yes,” said Jon. “Tomorrow.”

“Okay. Night, then.”

Jon gave him a thin smile. “Good night, Martin.”

The walk home was colder than Jon had expected. He wrapped his arms around himself, suddenly wishing he had brought a jacket to the archives that morning. The night sky was clear and star-filled, broken only by the slightest sliver of the moon. As he walked, a small group of fireflies flitted through the bushes by the side of the lane.

He passed by the archives on the way home. The lamps inside were still lit, and Jon could hear hushed voices from within. Never one to miss a chance to eavesdrop, he slowed his step and quieted his breathing, listening with all his might.

“… power grows ever stronger,” said Gertrude. “I’ve felt its draw for the last thirty years. I think soon I shall have to leave it behind.”

“I just hope we’re wrong,” said a familiar voice that Jon hadn’t heard in years. A silhouette appeared in the window, wearing a pointed wizard’s hat. Forgetting himself, Jon flung open the door with a smile.

“Sasha!”

She whirled toward him, her dark hair whipping out as she did. “Jon!”

Gertrude looked rather grumpy to have been interrupted, but Sasha’s eyes were full of delight. She wrapped Jon in a tight embrace, laughing all the while.

“It’s good to see you again, old friend,” she said. “I was going to stop by in the morning. I wasn’t sure if you were asleep.”

“Gerry and Michael dragged me out,” said Jon. Sasha’s face lit up at the mention of Michael’s name.

“I’m glad they’re getting you out of this dusty basement,” she said. “Don’t want you withering away down here, eh?” Her glasses and her many rings glinted mischievously in the lamplight.

Gertrude glanced at him over her reading spectacles. “I’m sorry to interrupt the reunion,” she said, “but I really do think we need to continue this discussion, Sasha.”

“All right, all right,” said Sasha. “Listen, Jon, I’ll talk to you at the festival tomorrow, yeah?”

“Very well,” said Jon. “I’m very glad to see you again.”

“I’m glad, too,” she said. “Take care of yourself, Jon.”

Jon turned to leave, then glanced back at Sasha. As she glanced at Gertrude, her smile vanished, and Jon’s heart filled unexpectedly with fear.

...

The midsummer festival was a full day and night of merrymaking, complete with the finest ales and pipeweeds that could be found in the Shire. People baked for days to prepare enough pies and pastries for the whole community. Everything was shared at the festival, from food to old stories. Even Jon, for all his curmudgeonly ways, could admit that it was a rather wonderful day.

A flowery banner had been erected across the entrance to old Eric Delano’s field, where they’d held the festival in memory of his late wife for the past ten years. (Gerry tended to complain about it, if you could get him drunk enough to recount the tales of his childhood with her—apparently, she’d been rather cruel, and he didn’t feel she deserved such a nice party.) Jon arrived in the early afternoon, far later than most of the Shire, as large crowds tended to make him nervous. It wasn’t long before he was accosted by Martin, who was camped in a corner, sipping at his ale.

“Oh, Jon!” he said, nearly knocking it over. “Hi! Nice to see you here.”

“Hello, Martin,” said Jon. He cast about awkwardly for something to say, landing on, “Uh, are you having fun?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Martin. “I was just helping set up this morning, and then I’ve been sort of running around with everything. D’you need anything?”

“No, thank you, Martin,” said Jon. “I was just, ah, going to see Sasha. Have you seen her or Gertrude, by any chance?”

“Uh, no,” said Martin. “D’you think they’re just running late?”

“I don’t know. I was hoping you would have seen them. I’ll ask around.”

“Okay,” said Martin. “Um, you’re here to stay, right?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, good! Because, you know, I was thinking we could get a drink—uh, with Michael and Gerry, I mean, and maybe Sasha, not just the two of us, haha, if that’s okay?”

“Yes, Martin,” Jon said distractedly, still searching the crowd for Gertrude and Sasha. “I’ll be seeing you.” He turned and began to shove through the crowd of hobbits once more.

He didn’t make it far. There was a large booth on the northern border of the property, near where he had come in, that sold beautiful pastries topped with intricate spiral designs. There were two people manning that booth. One was Michael, who was chatting with old Eric Delano by the fence. The other was his sister, Helen, who was handing out sweets to anyone who walked by with a smile and a nod.

Michael and Helen didn’t look very similar at all. In fact, they weren’t siblings by blood; their parents had married when the two were nearly twenty, and they’d instantly started to bicker like any other siblings. Contrary to Michael’s fair skin and hair, Helen’s skin was dark, and her hair was a deep black. The only similarity between the two was their hair. Both had hair that curled in tight coils around their heads. Michael kept his back in a ponytail with a fair bit of effort and oil; Helen let hers grow out around her head, leaving her with a spiral halo that could be quite disorienting if you looked at it for too long.

“Jon!” she shouted, waving him over. “Jon, over here!”

Jon rolled his eyes but made his way over to the stall. He and Helen had a somewhat tumultuous relationship; she enjoyed teasing him (though Jon likely would have said “torturing him), and he tolerated her jabs with the best humor he could muster on any given day. Often, this meant that he stormed away fuming, followed by her very distinctive cackle of victory.

It was as good a friendship as any, he supposed.

“Hi, Jon,” said Helen cheerfully when Jon arrived at her stall. “Here, try a hot cross bun.” She shoved the pastry at him forcefully and laughed when he took it and instantly swore at just how hot it was.

“Hello, Helen,” said Jon. “Have you seen Sasha?”

Helen pouted. “Don’t want to stay and talk to me, Jon? How very rude!”

Jon rolled his eyes. “Don’t give me that. I’ll come back later, if you like. I just need to speak with Sasha.”

Helen’s pout didn’t disappear, but she pointed a long, slender finger toward an innocuous tent that was hidden behind the many barrels of ale that had been prepared for that evening. “I saw her setting up in there,” she said. “I think it’s her fireworks, but I’m not sure. She didn’t even stop and say hello.”

“Right,” said Jon. “Well, I’ll be seeing you.”

He made his way quickly to Sasha’s firework tent, shoving through the crowds until he was able to duck inside. Sasha was there, thank heavens—Jon was just about ready to leave the party entirely if he had to talk to one more person.

“Jon!” said Sasha as she fiddled with the fuse of a long, red rocket. “I was looking for you earlier, but I couldn’t find you anywhere. Where have you been?”

Jon sighed. “Socializing,” he said, his voice dripping with disdain.

Sasha laughed. “Oh, come on,” she said. “You love it.”

Jon rolled his eyes, but he let his expression soften. “So what brings you back to the Shire?”

Sasha’s smile faded slightly around her eyes, which Jon noted and tucked away. “I needed to talk to Gertrude,” she said. “And I thought it would be nice to see everyone again. You know I miss you all when I’m on my travels.”

“Ah, your mysterious voyages,” said Jon. “Any chance we’ll get to hear some stories tonight?”

“Perhaps,” said Sasha, waggling her eyebrows.

“Speaking of Gertrude,” said Jon, “I should probably go and find her. I haven’t seen her all day.”

“Really?” Sasha asked. “She said she was planning on showing up early. Apparently, her and Eric had a bit of a fight last week, and she said she wanted to apologize before the festival really kicked off.”

“A fight?” Jon asked. “What about?”

“I don’t know. You know they haven’t been as close since Eric left the archives,” she said. “And he hasn’t been the same since the whole Mary thing, or since he lost his eyes.”

Jon hummed. “I’ll ask around, see if anyone’s seen her,” he said. “When are the fireworks?”

“Just after sundown,” said Sasha with a sparkle in her eye. “You won’t want to miss them.”

“No, I won’t,” Jon agreed. He glanced up at her. “I’ve missed you, too, you know.”

Sasha’s smile grew. “Oh, Jon!” she said, and she threw her arms around him. Jon squawked in protest as he was smothered by her flowing wizardly robes, but Sasha paid him no mind. She squeezed his shoulders tightly. “I know how hard that was for you to admit—”

“I am capable of talking about my feelings, you know.”

“—and I want you to know that I’m very, very glad to have you as a friend.”

Jon laughed, then pulled away, trying to extricate himself from a truly ridiculous amount of fabric. “All right, all right,” he said. “I’m going to go and find Gertrude. I’ll meet up with you later.”

“Go on and have fun. And, hey, try not to cause any trouble.”

Jon scoffed. “I do not cause trouble.”

“Sure, you don’t. Enjoy the party! Have some of Helen’s pastries. They’re delicious.”

Jon made his way out of the tent and back into the midst of the festivities. The sun burned in the sky, and the air was humid and heavy. Most of the party-goers had retreated to the relative shade of the small copse of trees in the northeast corner. Jon spotted Gerry sitting there with old Fiona Law, who was regaling a small group of children with a fairy tale that seemed to have put Gerry halfway to sleep.

“Gerard,” said Jon as he approached, “have you seen Gertrude?”

Gerry shook his head sleepily. “Figured she was with you,” he said. “She must have gotten caught up in the archives. Want me to go and look?”

“No, don’t trouble yourself,” said Jon. “I’m sure she’ll show up eventually.”

“Mm-hmm,” said Gerry. He closed his eyes once more. Jon left him to his nap.

It seemed the whole Shire had fallen into the afternoon daze. Jon took it upon himself to clean up some of the mess while everyone around him slept, then decided he could return to the archives and do some work before the fireworks that night. He doubted anyone would notice him leaving, sleepy as they all were.

When he reached the garden gate, a horrible, wriggling sort of sound brought him to a stop. He glanced around, looking for its source, and settled his gaze on a ball of silver worms that were intertwined so tightly with each other that they almost looked like one creature. Normally, Jon didn’t have a problem with worms–only spiders were enough to set him shivering–but something about the worms seemed wrong, reminding him of rot and decay and illness rather than good soil and the smell of summer. He suppressed a sudden bout of nausea and carefully stepped past them, keeping his distance as best he could.

Hobbiton was largely abandoned, as everyone was at the party. The sun had settled into that lazy mid-afternoon place where everything looked a bit like a dream. Jon brushed away a bit of sweat and then paused, hearing the wriggling sound once more. There were more of those silvery worms in the soil beside the main road, though not in nearly so high a concentration as the ones by Delano’s farm. Jon hurried on.

As he rounded the last corner, he heard something that made his heart drop in his chest: a panicked scream, coming from inside the archives.

Jon ran down the lane toward the scream. As he ran, he accidentally squashed a few silver worms underfoot. The sensation of their segmented bodies bursting against his toes made him shudder, but he did not slow his speed. He flung open the heavy wooden doors to the archives with a desperate groan, shoving against years of rust that had grown across the hinges.

Martin was pressed against the wall inside the door, clutching his chest as though trying to keep his heart inside. His face was white as a sheet.

“Martin?” Jon asked.

Martin whirled around, curls bouncing against his forehead. His eyes were wide, and his mouth was wider.

“Jon!” he said, clutching one hand to his chest.

“What’s the matter?” Jon asked urgently. “I heard a shout.”

“I— it’s—”

“For God’s sake, Martin, spit it out!”

“It’s Gertrude,” Martin gasped. “Jon, she’s dead.”

[lvcychen]

Tripdaisy + road trip

Wooooow would you look a that! I’ve written an actual fic for the first time in almost three years! That being said, I’m suuper rusty in terms of writin so this is probably... not great, lmao. Please bear with me. I’m so so sorry this prompt (along with MANY others) has been sitting in my ask box for so long. I’m not sure anyone really cares for this anymore, but it was still fun writing it, haha!

Here it goes:

Miles and miles of open road are stretching out before her, pink and golden rays of light from the setting sun reflecting in her rearview mirror. They are somewhere in what feels like the middle of nowhere – Wyoming, maybe? Or Nebraska? She can’t really tell anymore. – and it’s been hours since they came across another car. Without taking her eyes off the road, Daisy reaches for the button on the door and lets down the window to feel the evening air on her skin before it cools down.

Trip is asleep on the passenger seat next to her, his face turned towards the window, catching the last glimpses of sunlight. He looks so peaceful, Daisy thinks to herself, you would never guess that he had been shot less than 24 hours ago. Sure, it had been a clean shot to the upper arm, leaving nothing more than a flesh wound, but nevertheless, a chill runs down Daisy’s spine at the memory of watching him go down, and for a second, she can almost hear her own bloodcurdling scream resonating in her ears.

In midst of all the chaos of the mission, the two of them had gotten separated from the rest of the team, with no functioning communication and unable to make it back to the Zephyr before May had extracted the plane, leaving Daisy to tend to Trip’s wound on her own. And now here they are, in a stolen SUV, with stolen backpacks and a stolen change of clothes on the backseat, a Welcome to Nebraska road sign flashing by outside the window, as they’re crossing the country to rejoin their team on base.

“Do you need me to drive for a while?”

Nearly jumping out of her skin, Daisy swerves on the empty road for just a second before redirecting the car back into her lane.

“Jesus, Trip”, she hisses, “give a girl a warning, maybe.”

His chuckle is deep and quiet and it sends goosebumps crawling over her arms. “My bad”, he says, as he props himself up in his seat. There is a brief trace of pain in his voice, and it would’ve been inaudible to the untrained ear, but Daisy knows him well enough to catch it, anyway.

For just a moment, she lifts her eyes off of the road to glance at him. Trip’s jaw is tightened, the brows over his dark, glazed-over eyes furrowed, and his breathing comes out shallower than usual. He’s okay, Daisy has to remind herself at the sight of him, he’s safe and he’ll stay that way.

“Daisy?”

His voice once again has her snapping out of her thoughts. “Hm?”

“Want me to drive?”

She shakes her head with as much conviction as she can manage, despite the fact that she can feel herself getting tired and she knows she’ll need a break soon. “You got shot in the arm, Trip.” Though she hadn’t meant it to, it comes out sounding almost like an accusation. “I’m not letting you get behind the wheel.”

 “You can barely keep your eyes open.”

And just as he says it, she feels a yawn rising in her chest. She tries to suppress it, but it’s a lost cause. “I’m okay, really.”

Trip sighs, but his voice is soft, as always, and it prompts a feeling of relief to overcome her. He reaches out and his hand lands on her shoulder. “C’mon girl. You don’t have to pretend with me.”

His words are so simple, but they’re all it takes for her to let down her guard. She leans into his touch, and the fatigue washes over her body like a tidal wave. She yawns again, in full force this time, and mumbles: “I’m still not letting you drive though.”

“Dais-“, Trip begins to protest, but she won’t let him finish. Instead, she nods to the road sign they’re coming up on. “Look.”

The letters on the rusty, once-had-been-green sign are hardly recognizable anymore, but right next to it towers another, much newer sign, that clearly reads Western Wallflower Motel.

“We’ll take a room”, Daisy declares, her tone of voice not allowing any argument. “Get a good night’s sleep and continue driving in the morning. Deal?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

No fifteen minutes later, Daisy maneuvers the SUV into the parking lot in front of what has to be the tiniest, shabbiest motel known to mankind. The dull, purple paint is chipping off of the badly painted outside walls, the windows are lined with a thick layer of dust, and the lamps illuminating the building are flickering sporadically.

“This looks like a scene straight out of Psycho”, Daisy mumbles as she shuts off the engine. Without the car’s headlights, the place looks even creepier than it had just a minute ago.

Trip laughs while the two of them get out of the car. “Don’t worry, girl. I’ll protect you from any ghosts.”

Daisy halts mid-stretch, her eyebrows moving up towards her hairline. “Ghosts?”

Trip pulls the backseat door open to grab the bags they had hastily stuffed with giftshop shirts and sweatpants to sleep in. He shrugs his shoulders apologetically. “I’ve never actually seen Psycho.”

Still chuckling, they walk over to the glass door with a handwritten paper sign that reads Reception hanging on the inside. When they enter, the teenage girl sitting behind the desk doesn’t seem to notice them, too entranced by the bright light of her phone screen. Standing right in front of the desk, Trip clears his throat loudly in order to draw attention to them, but the girl only chews on her chewing gum harder. Trip and Daisy exchange a look, more amused than anything else. Then, Daisy reaches for the little metal bell on the counter and pounds her fingers down on it a couple times, drawing a series of shrill Ding sounds from it.

Finally, the girl peels her eyes off of her phone and raises her head. With a long sigh, she gets up from her chair and plasters a fake smile onto her face. “Welcome to Western Wallflower Motel”, she recites monotonously, “what can I do for you tonight?”

“Just a room for the night”, Trip explains, leaning himself over the counter slightly and flashing his best brighter-than-the-sun smile at the girl, “please.” Daisy has to hold in a laugh that bubbles up in her chest. She might think his move was ridiculous if it didn’t work on herself every single time.

Immediately, the expression on the teenager’s face become more genuine and Daisy could swear she sees a flush creeping up on her cheeks. “Of course, Sir. However, we only have a one-bed suite left for tonight. But I’m sure you and your… girlfriend won’t mind?”

Now a small snort does escape Daisy’s mouth. Sure, they like to flirt with each other every chance they get and Daisy has had an undeniable crush on Trip for longer than she’d like to admit to herself, but they’re not together together. Trip pretends not to hear her. Instead, all he says is: “We don’t mind at all.”

“Great”, the girl says and picks up one of the keys hanging on the wall behind her. “Your room number will be 201. There are towels up there for you and I’m down here if there’s anything else you need. You can pay in the morning.”

When they finally make it up the stairs and into the room, which is surprisingly clean and well taken care of, Daisy immediately drops down onto the bed with a huff of relief and closes her eyes for a short moment. The bed is a bit small, but she doesn’t mind that at all. She’d shared a bed with Trip before, and especially after the events that got them here, she’s glad for the opportunity to feel him close to her.

When she opens her eyes again, Trip is standing at the foot of the bed, one of their bags unzipped next to him, and his shirt tossed aside on the floor. He’s changed into one of the sweatpants that have the logo of the gift shop printed down one of the legs, but has apparently opted against a shirt. In the dim light of the motel room, Daisy can practically see the exhaustion written across his face, but what really catches her attention is the bandage in contrast to his dark skin. He must have redressed his wound – How long had her eyes been closed? – because the white fabric is wrapped around his upper arm much more neatly than what she had managed to do in the hurry they’d been in.

“Like what you see?”

Daisy shifts her eyes from Trip’s arm to his face, and is met with a smug grin. “You know I do”, she shoots back with a wink.

He tosses her a fresh shirt and says. “Let’s get some sleep.”

She doesn’t have to be told twice and quickly changes out of her dirty clothes and into the clean top.

They settle into bed easily, and as soon as they’re lying down next to each other, Daisy can sense the tension drain from Trip’s body as if someone had pulled the plug out of a bathtub. They’re lying close enough for Daisy to feel his breathing become more relaxed, and eventually turn slow and steady, making her think he had drifted off. She hadn’t consciously waited to fall asleep until he did, but it had been another act of reassuring herself that he was just fine, alive and breathing right beside her.

Just when she is finally ready to succumb to her own exhaustion, she hears Trip’s voice quietly in the dark: “Can I hold you?”

His words make Daisy’s heart flutter and her chest suddenly feels all fuzzy on the inside. Instead of an answer, she rolls onto her side, crawling closer to him, and tucks herself into his chest. Immediately, his good arm wraps around her middle and she can feel him bury his face n her hair, right where the crook of her neck is. His smell is so warm and familiar and an overwhelming sense of home floods through her. Blindly, she reaches for his hand and entwines her fingers with his.

Daisy is so grateful for this closeness, for the feeling of Trip’s skin against hers, the warmth of his breath on her neck. She’s grateful for the heaving of his chest against her back, a new proof of life every couple of seconds.

This time, they fall asleep simultaneously, tightly entangled with each other.

They can worry about getting home in the morning. For tonight, he is all the home she needs.

[lirlovesfic]

The Choice

A Doctor Who fanfic Summary: After GitF, the TARDIS brings the Doctor, Rose, and Mickey back to the estate to solve a problem involving the TARDIS herself. But when they see a familiar face, the face of someone who should not exist, they realize the problem is deeper than they thought and could endanger the Doctor’s very existence. Primary characters: Ninth Doctor, Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith, Jackie Tyler. Genres: Romance, mystery, adventure, drama, character study, HN AU, fobbed!Nine, sick TARDIS. Pairings: Nine/Rose, Ten/Rose Rating: Adult

Warning: None for this chapter

a/n: I am currently working on editing this chapter-by-chapter, with the hopes of completing a chapter a day until I catch up with myself. As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m doing it to try to get back into the swing of writing and to build some momentum in order to finish this. Also, there have been some tiny things nagging at me for a while (grammar, punctuation, etc.) so I’ll be correcting as many of them as I can find as I go. The story will not change. In fact, most of the changes are going to be so minor that I doubt anyone (besides myself) will notice. But to keep me on target, I’ll be posting it all here as I go, with links to the other websites it’s on. I hope you enjoy it.

This chapter: on AO3, on TSP, on ffnet

Chapter One—London, 7 July 2007

Present day…

Long blonde hair. Big brown eyes. A generous mouth…

John woke with a start to the sound of screaming coming from outside his window. Curses were being hurled back and forth, or maybe they were being volleyed. It was almost like a tennis match.

The neighbors were rowing again. There was always someone rowing in this block of flats. This time it was the unmarried couple, Rita and Chuck, two over and one down.

He tried to get back to sleep, to recapture the elusive dream. He dreamt about a lot of things ever since he’d woken up in the alley on New Year’s. His dreams were strange and bizarre, all about alien planets and stars, about fire and war, about the color blue and gigantic pepper pots of all things. But he mostly dreamt about the girl. The girl’s face haunted him, both when he was asleep and awake. He still didn’t properly remember anything, not even his real name, but the girl—the girl was the closest to an actual memory as he came. Maybe he knew her from somewhere. He couldn’t quite recall what she looked like when he was awake—just had a vague impression of blonde hair and big, expressive eyes—but he could when he was sleeping. Her face was clearest to him in dreams. With thoughts of her, he began to drift off…

Rita let out a string of expletives in a variety of languages, and John was jerked awake again. For a second, as Rita shouted, he wondered if she had been in the navy. That was the only possible way she could have learned a few of those words, and how to pronounce them in exactly that way. She even used the right syntax.

John groaned as he glanced over at the clock. Half four in the morning. Too early for him to get up. Too early in fact for them to be up. They were never up before eleven. This must be the tail end of whatever had been going on between them last night.

There was a lull in the arguing. Thanking all the gods of the Greek pantheon, he pulled the pillow back over his head and tried to get back to sleep again. A fool’s errand, he realized, as Rita almost immediately began to swear again. That was followed by a loud crash. Soup pot against something hard and probably breakable by the sound of it. Not the window. That would have shattered. This was either the drywall or perhaps the door. The doors in this block of flats were thin, easily broken, particularly the interior doors. And as part-time maintenance man in return for a reduction in the rent, he’d probably be the one who’d have to fix it.

With a heavy sigh, he hauled himself out of bed, slipped on his jeans and a lightweight jumper, and headed out the door.

A crowd had gathered to watch the spectacle. There were people everywhere: on the balcony, on the landing, in the courtyard, even on the balconies of the other buildings.

“This is better than last night’s EastEnders,” he heard someone say as he headed down the stairs to the floor below.

“What isn’t?” someone else replied. “Last night’s episode was horrible.”

With an eye roll, John pushed his way through the crowd to the arguing couple. Rita was standing in the doorway to her flat, clad only in a thigh-length T-shirt and fuzzy slippers, while Chuck, standing against the railing, was dressed in a buttoned down shirt, jeans, and some sort of high-priced trainers. As John drew close to them, he got a whiff of cigarettes and stale beer coming from Chuck’s general direction.

“Oi!” he shouted. “Knock it off!” At the sound of his voice, the arguing couple both quieted for a moment, almost as if they hadn’t realized they were the center of a spectacle. “Rita, Chuck, I’ll thank you to save the domestics for a reasonable hour. Other people have to get up in the morning.”

Rita tossed her long, black hair over her shoulder. “John,” she said. “That… that…” Her dark brown eyes flashed angrily as she gestured at her boyfriend. She slipped into Spanish, as she often did when upset. “Este pinche hijo de puta que no vale nada esta dentrando a las cuatro de la mañana y el cabron ni tiene la dignidad que dar una buena escusa.” She became more and more animated as she spoke. “¡Estoy segura que esta cogiendo una puta por ay!” She looked at her boyfriend in disgust. “Su verga ni esta tan grande para que todas estas putas se tiren en su camino.”

“Más despacio, por favor,” John replied in fluent and unaccented Spanish. “And in English this time. My Spanish is a bit rusty.”

“This… piece of shit… has been shagging the waitresses down at the pub, I’m sure of it,” she spat. “Then the bloody wanker has the nerve to come back here—at 4 am—and tell me it’s all in my mind!”

John turned to Chuck, a young man whose pointed nose and greasy brown hair made him look a bit like a weasel. “Is this true? You been sleepin’ around on her?”

“Yes, it is!” Rita interjected before Chuck could answer. “But why they’d bother with him, I have no idea. The son of a bitch can’t even get it up half the time.”

“Shut up, you slag!” he yelled. He lunged at her, and John caught him with one hand.

“Knock it off!” John ordered. Then he pulled a face as he caught a whiff of more than just beer and cigarettes. “What is that smell?” He took a big sniff and grimaced. “You definitely need a shower, for one thing. And for the second, unless you’ve taken to wearing women’s perfume, she’s right.”

Chuck shook John’s hand off his shoulder. “You’ve got it all wrong…” His voice trailed off and he didn’t continue.

John raised an eyebrow. “Seriously. ‘You’ve got it all wrong.’ That’s what you’re goin’ with?” He tapped his nose. “If there’s one thing this nose is good for, it’s smellin’ shite, and I’m smellin’ it now. And as for you,” he said, turning back to Rita, “I don’t know why you put up with him. If I were you, instead of throwing pots against the door, I’d be throwing his stuff out into the courtyard.”

“She can’t do that!” Chuck protested.

“Oi! I’m talking here!” John said to him. He turned back to Rita. “I’d toss him and his sorry arse out onto the street. You shouldn’t put up with that kind of behavior.”

“He’s right,” said an old woman who lived next door. She was wearing a floor-length dressing gown patterned with sunflowers, and her snow white hair was pinned up in pin curls. “I threw my second husband out for that and never looked back. Or was it my third…”

“It was your third, Gladys,” her sister answered. She was dressed almost identically in a floral dressing gown, only hers had daisies. She wore her steel grey hair loose around her shoulders. “Remember? He was the one who you told me always ate crisps in bed.”

“You’re right, Irene,” Gladys answered. “My second one was the one who—”

“Anyway,” John interjected before the women could continue to reminisce. “You,” he pointed to Chuck, “shut the hell up and find somewhere else to be, and you,” he pointed to Rita, “stop yelling and throwing things. And the rest of you lot, go back to your flats. I’m headed back to bed, and I don’t want to hear another word out of any of you.”

He glared at the crowd for good measure, and slowly they trailed off. With another glare at Rita and Chuck, John returned to his own flat.

Back in his bedroom, he stripped down to vest and pants and crawled back into bed. But after tossing and turning for almost half an hour he finally gave up, sleep having proved elusive after the confrontation. Damn, he thought with resignation. Might as well get up.

As he toweled off in the tiny bathroom after showering, out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of an unfamiliar figure in the small mirror above the sink. Startled, his heart pounded with the surge of adrenalin at the sight of a stranger in his flat. He momentarily froze, then slowly turned to face the intruder head on. The image in the mirror turned with him.

John snorted and rolled his eyes. It was his own reflection.

“You’re definitely losin’ it,” he said to his reflection.

He frowned and leaned forward, scrutinizing his appearance. For a split second, when he’d emerged from the shower he had expected to see a different face reflected in the glass. Older, wizened—no, younger, perhaps, with dark, curling locks. But no. His own steely-blue eyes stared back at him as he examined a largish nose and oversized ears partially covered by straight-as-a-brick dark hair. No curls here.

He ran a hand over his cheeks and chin, feeling the prickles of what, if he left it alone, would undoubtedly turn into a thick beard. For a moment, he considered shaving and then decided against it. Why bother, he thought. He had just shaved yesterday. Or perhaps it was the day before. No matter. Besides, no one cared what he looked like. Not even him.

He returned to the bedroom. As he dressed, this time in a denim work shirt rather than a jumper, his eye caught the sketchpad that he kept on the bedside table. He’d been trying to record images of his dreams, to see if by analyzing them he could somehow trigger his memories, but so far it hadn’t helped. Instead of clues to his past, the notebook was filled with rough sketches of metal men and spaceships and disjointed, unfamiliar faces.

But by far, the most common image was of the blonde girl.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, picked up the sketchpad and a pencil and began to work on the drawing he had started the day before.

Long blonde hair, big brown eyes, a wide smile…

Her nose. He couldn’t quite remember what her nose looked like. Cute, he thought. Feminine. Nothing like the hawkish beak he’d been born with.

He sketched in a smallish nose. Dissatisfied with the results, he erased and began again. Still not right. He frowned. Maybe work on her ears. Her ears… smallish, well, smaller than his at any rate. Then again, whose weren’t?

And for the next two hours he worked on a sketch of a girl he couldn’t remember ever having met before. But a girl, if she was real, who could possibly hold the key to whoever he was.

~oOo~

Mickey Smith sat on the jump seat in the TARDIS control room watching the Doctor at the mushroom shaped console in the center of the room. He was programming in their next destination: an alien planet, he had promised. One with a purple sky and green clouds and the best food this side of the galaxy. It might have been interesting, if he hadn’t been talking about it for fifteen minutes straight without taking a breath.

Bored with listening to his rambling monologue, Mickey glanced over at Rose. She stood nearby, leaning against one of the coral struts that stretched from the floor to the arching ceiling high overhead. Her arms were crossed, face carefully schooled to be completely expressionless. Having known her since childhood, and even dated her for a short time, Mickey knew that expression well. She was upset. But not the kind of upset that would result in a row. No, she was hurt. And he knew exactly why.

Ever since they had left the spaceship that had held portals to eighteenth century France, the tension between the Doctor and Rose had been so thick you could cut it with a knife. Oh, they were both ignoring it, pretending it didn’t exist, but neither of them were fooling him, or each other.

“Rose,” the Doctor said, “come here for a moment.” As she moved to stand next to him, he gestured at the controls in front of her. “Hold this button down while I begin the materialization process.”

With a small nod she silently obeyed.

Mickey wished she’d just yell, slap him, throw things… just something, anything rather than being quiet like this. This wasn’t the Rose Tyler he knew.

Oh, this is bad, he thought. The last time he had seen her at this way was…

The TARDIS gave a sudden lurch and an ominous sounding bell began to toll. Its deep bong bong bong echoed through the TARDIS so loudly that Mickey could feel the reverberations in his bones. The Doctor lunged at the controls, and Mickey saw something on the Doctor’s face he had never seen before: panic.

“What? What is it? What’s goin’ on?” he shouted.

“Somethin’ bad, Mick,” Rose shouted back.

“That’s the Cloister Bell. Only rings in dire circumstances. Looks like we’re gonna have to put off your visit to the Rhomulian cluster a little bit longer,” the Doctor said loudly, trying to be heard over the sound of the bell.

The TARDIS shook violently and jerked to a sudden stop. Rose and the Doctor, who had been hanging onto handholds built into the control panels, were thrown against the console. Mickey hurriedly grabbed onto the edge of the seat, barely preventing himself being flung to the floor.

The Doctor and Rose rushed out the TARDIS door. Mickey followed close behind. He bumped into Rose who had stopped short only a foot outside the doorway. Behind them, the Cloister Bell fell silent.

The TARDIS had landed on the pavement of a deserted city street. Its back was flush against a tall graffiti-covered fence that surrounded a dilapidated building. Across the street was a vacant lot, filled with weeds, abandoned car parts, empty beer cans, and other, less appealing things. Tall concrete buildings less than a block away loomed overhead, dominating the skyline to their right. In the distance, they could hear the sounds of city traffic and of a radio blaring rock music.

“Is this some sorta joke?” Mickey asked.

“We’re on the Estate,” Rose exclaimed in disbelief. “What are we doing here?”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor answered. He was walking around in a circle, staring in puzzlement at their surroundings. “And this is no joke. The Cloister Bell doesn’t ring for no reason.”

“Well, it looks pretty peaceful to me,” Mickey said. “No plastic people walking the street, no alien ships overhead. So where’s the big emergency?”

“I don’t know!” the Doctor snapped. He turned and stalked back into the TARDIS. Rose shrugged, and she and Mickey followed him.

Inside, the Doctor was squinting at a display screen on the console. It was covered with the circles and other geometric shapes that Mickey knew was the written form of the Doctor’s own language. Muttering under his breath, the Doctor pulled his glasses out of a pocket and put them on. He shook his head.

“I don’t get it. The TARDIS says that the emergency is here, in this place and time, and what’s more, involves the TARDIS herself.” He moved closer to the screen and his forehead furrowed. “And me,” he said in surprise. He took off his glasses, shoved them back in his pocket and turned to them.

“Well, we can’t leave here until we figure out what’s going on,” he said irritably. “Rose, why don’t you and Mickey look around a little, see if there’s anything going on out there while I examine the TARDIS a bit more.”

Rose stared at him for a moment and then bit her lower lip, a gesture Mickey recognized as meaning she was nervous, but he couldn’t imagine why: they were on the Estate.

Then the penny dropped.

“You’re leavin’ us here, aren’t you?” he accused. “Just like you did with Sarah Jane. You’re tryin’ to trick us into leavin’ the TARDIS, and then you’re just gonna take off.”

The Doctor’s jaw dropped. He gaped at them. “Is that what you think?” He turned to Rose. “Both of you? You think this is just some ploy to abandon you here?” Rose didn’t answer. “But I told you…” His voice trailed off as he stared at her. “I am not leaving you behind. Even if I wanted to—which I don’t,” that part was accompanied by a shake of his finger at both of them, “I wouldn’t be able to, because with the TARDIS in the state she’s in, she wouldn’t take off anyway.”

He fell silent. He searched Rose’s face and looked troubled at what he found there. “Mickey, would you excuse us for a minute, please?”

Mickey looked at Rose for confirmation. She nodded. As he left he caught snatches of their conversation.

“Honestly, Rose, how could you think—”

“Seriously? How could I think anything else after you—”

Evidently he had been wrong, Mickey thought. They were going to row.

With a small smirk of satisfaction, Mickey shut the door behind him to give them some privacy.

~oOo~

When Rose left the TARDIS a few minutes later, Mickey was waiting for her.

“So?” he prompted.

She didn’t answer. Instead she stalked off down the street. Mickey had to jog to catch up with her.

“What happened?” he asked. “What did he say?”

“Don’t want to talk about it,” she told him shortly. She didn’t look at him. “Just need to get out of there for a bit.”

“This isn’t the way to your mum’s,” he said. “And it’s not the way to my flat either. So where are we headed?”

“I… I don’t know,” she said. She came to a stop and turned to him. “I don’t want to face Mum right now, and I don’t want to go back to the TARDIS either.”

“All right,” he said slowly. “I have an idea. He was gonna take us to eat, and he didn’t. Let’s go ourselves then. Leave him here to do… whatever the hell he doin’ in there.”

“Mick…” Rose said. “I’m not really hungry.”

“Well, I am,” he told her. “So we’re goin’.” And with that, he took her arm and pulled her down the street.

Ten minutes later they were sitting at a small table at the back of Mickey’s favorite pub on the Estate, a table they had been very lucky to get. When they had arrived, they had discovered it was Saturday at lunchtime and the place was packed. As was typical, on the telly over the bar there was a game on, but for once Mickey wasn’t trying to keep sight of it. Instead, unlike every time they had gone to the pub while they had been dating, he was entirely focused on Rose.

“Honestly, Rose, I don’t know why you let him treat you like that,” he said.

“He doesn’t treat me any different than anyone else,” she told him.

“And that’s part of the problem. He should,” Mickey said. “Besides, he didn’t treat that fancy French bint that way.”

“He had to save her,” she said. “This is what he does.”

At this Mickey rolled his eyes.

“Seriously, Mick. Those robots weren’t supposed to be there. And I looked her up. She was really important in France’s history, influenced the revolution and stuff. If it wasn’t for her, who knows what would have happened? It’s his job to fix things like that.”

“Was it his job to snog her? And then brag about it? He threw it in your face, Rose. Not to mention the fact that who knows what the two of them got up to while he left us on the ship. He treated you like crap. Shitty boyfriend he turned out to be. Almost as bad as Jimmy.”

Rose gave him a look that said don’t go there. “I told you, Mick, we aren’t like that. We’re just friends. Who he snogs is none of my business.”

“‘We aren’t like that, Mick,’” he said mockingly. “‘We’re just friends, Mick.’”

“We are!” she insisted.

“Yeah, right. Pull the other one while you’re at it. If you’re just friends, I’m the Queen.”

“Nice to meet you, your Majesty.”

They were interrupted by a waiter carrying a heavily laden tray. Big baskets of deep fried cod and chips and tall pints of light gold cider were placed on the table in front of them. Mickey immediately tucked in, eating with gusto. While he shoved huge forkfuls of food in his mouth, Rose picked at the basket in front of her.

“Let’s just say I believe you,” Mickey said around a mouthful of food. “Which I don’t. But even if I did, he still abandoned us on that spaceship.”

“Mickey, he told me straight off, on one of our very first trips, that it was a new morality out there. I had to get used to it or go home.”

He shook his head and stared at her. “So that’s it then? Get used to it or go home? And you’re okay with that?”

“It’s worth it. Getting a chance to see what’s out there… it’s worth it,” she said.

“Rose, he abandoned us on that ship. Not just you. Us. We almost got killed by those robot things while he was off gettin’ drunk.”

“He didn’t know—”

The crowd in front of the telly let out a cheer, but neither of them paid attention.

“Maybe not,” Mickey said, raising his voice loudly enough to be heard. “But that’s not the point. You might be able to live with that, but I can’t. So if I have to get used to it or go home, I guess I should go home.” His eyes widened, as if he was shocked at the words that had come out of his mouth.

She blinked. “You’re… you’re gonna stay here?”

“I, uh, I guess I am,” he said.

Rose bit her lip. She hadn’t initially wanted Mickey to come with, but now that he wasn’t going to travel with them anymore, she realized she didn’t want him to leave. “I… I can’t stay.”

“I know.”

“I’m gonna keep traveling with him as long as he’ll let me. I can’t imagine anything that would make me want to stay here.” She looked up to see him frowning at her. “I’m sorry, Mick. I didn’t mean…”

“No,” he said. “We talked about this before. It’s been over between us for a while. It’s been over since that first day the two of you met, probably. Just one question though. Are the two of you really just friends?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Just friends.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘why’?” she asked.

“I mean, it’s obvious how much he cares about you, and I know how you feel about him…” he said. “Wait a minute. Does he know how you feel about him?”

“Yeah. Maybe… I don’t know.” She shrugged. “But it doesn’t really matter. He doesn’t do that sort of thing.”

“Oh, yes, he does,” Mickey argued. “I think Reinette proved that.”

She leaned across the table and slugged him in the arm. “‘S not what I meant. He can, he told me he can… don’t ask,” she said, holding up a hand and cutting him off before he could say anything. “He just doesn’t do… relationships. Too tough on him. He’s lost so many people, he told me so, and I don’t think he can bear to lose anyone else. Or maybe it’s that he can’t do relationships. Thing is, he’s alien. He looks human, but he’s not. He doesn’t react the same way to things as we do, doesn’t think the same way we do.”

“What if he was human, Rose?” Mickey asked. “What then?”

She took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. It’s not gonna happen. It’s not like he can just up and turn himself human. And why would he want to anyway?”

Another loud cheer came from the front of the pub, and this time Mickey strained his neck to try and see the match over Rose’s head.

“Go ahead,” she said indulgently. She jerked her head towards the television. “Might as well get caught up.”

Mickey grinned. “You’re the best, babe,” he said, picking up his basket and cider and carrying it to the bar.

With a sigh, she sprinkled more vinegar on her food and speared a chip with her fork. It was only halfway to her mouth before he was back.

“You gonna eat your fish?” he asked. He didn’t bother waiting for a reply, just grabbed it with his fingers and put it in his basket.

She rolled her eyes. “Not anymore,” she replied.

He grinned and gave her a kiss on the cheek before returning to the bar.

Later, after they had both finished eating and, more importantly, when the match was over, Mickey and Rose wandered back out onto the street.

“So you’re really gonna do this then?” she asked. “You’re really gonna stay?”

“Yeah, I think so,” he said. “I mean, it’s exciting an’ all, the aliens, the adventures, the runnin’ for your life, but it just doesn’t do it for me like it does for you.”

“It’s not always like that, Mick,” she told him. “There’s lots and lots of times when we’re just traveling, just going new places, seeing new things. Like that planet he was going to take us to.” She bumped his shoulder with hers. “Come on with us when we go. You’ll see.”

After a moment, Mickey shook his head. “My flat is still here. I’m gonna go see if I can get my old job back. After all we’ve only been gone, what, a day or two?”

They rounded a corner and stopped in shock when they saw the shop. It looked different somehow, newer almost. The sign in front had received a fresh coat of paint and the plate-glass windows were sparkling. From where they stood, it looked like the repair bays of the garage were full. The tiny car park next to the shop was filled, as was the street in front.

“Wow, I’ve never seen it so busy,” Mickey said in amazement. “For sure I’ll get my job back.”

Rose didn’t mention her suspicions that the changes that had taken place had to have taken more than a day or two to make.

The inside of the garage was as packed as the outside. Cars were indeed in every bay, and the waiting area in the office was packed with people. They made their way to the reception desk where the receptionist was on the telephone.

The receptionist/bookkeeper/office manager was Abhirati Mudali, the wife of the owner. Her name—which could be loosely translated as mother of five hundred children—suited her, as they had five children at home and appeared to have a sixth on the way. And very soon by the look of her.

“Mrs. Mudali,” Mickey said. “Where’s Mr. Mudali?”

“I don’t know,” she replied crossly. “Somewhere in there.” She gestured vaguely with her hand at the interior of the garage.

“Can we go find him?”

She shrugged. “You can try,” she said. As they turned to leave, she called after them. “And if you do manage to find him, tell him we need more help here unless he wants to have this one born in the office rather than in hospital!”

Like the office, the garage itself was also a study in chaos. People were everywhere. As Mickey searched for his former boss, Rose trailed along behind him. It was either that or go back to the TARDIS or go to her mum’s flat, and she really wasn’t in the mood to see either the Doctor or her mum yet. As much as she had protested to Mickey that she wasn’t upset by the business with Madame de Pompadour, it did bother her that the Doctor had been so quick to leave them behind on the spaceship. Not to mention how much it hurt that he had asked Reinette to go on a trip with them. She’d never forget the look on his face when he found out she had died waiting for him. As much as he denied it, she knew he had been crushed.

The business with Reinette following immediately after running into Sarah Jane just drove home the point to her that she was merely one in a long parade of people—women—in his life. And despite his claims she was different, that he’d never leave her behind, the truth was he had left her behind, her and Mickey both, almost immediately after that. That told her that not only was she just one of many, she wasn’t even an important one.

She tamped down the jealousy that was again threatening to overwhelm her. She had always been jealous of the attention he had shown other women, right from the very first, starting with Jabe at the end of the Earth. But her feelings for him weren’t the reason she was staying with him. That part of what she had told Mickey was the truth. Reinette had had it backwards. The Doctor wasn’t worth the monsters. The chance of traveling the stars in the TARDIS was worth whatever she had to put up with with him.

But she still wasn’t ready to face her mother right now. Her mother had a way of knowing what she was feeling by just looking at her, and she didn’t want to risk it all coming out.

All of a sudden she realized that she had lost track of Mickey. She looked around. She recognized a couple of the mechanics she had known from when she had been dating Mickey. There were a couple of others she didn’t know, and then there was the one that had his head buried under the bonnet of a midnight blue car she recognized as a Vauxhall of some type. His dark jeans and heavy work boots looked vaguely familiar, as did the shape of his back as he was bent over the engine, but there was really no way of knowing who he was unless she got a closer look.

Finally she spotted Mickey, deep in conversation with his old boss. She made her way across the room. Since she didn’t want to disturb them, she stopped before she actually joined them, but she still made sure she was within earshot.

“Please?” Mickey was begging. Neither of them seemed to notice her, which suited her just fine.

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Mudali said. “You were gone three months—”

“Three months?” Mickey asked in disbelief.

“And I couldn’t wait any longer. I hired someone else, a brilliant mechanic. He’s the reason that we’re so busy. People come all the way from Ealing to have him look at their cars. One even came from Reading. We’re doing so well I’m even thinking of expanding, having him take over here while I open a new shop across town.” Mudali paused thoughtfully. “We might be busy enough to take on another mechanic part time. I’ll let him decide. And you know he’s another Smith, in fact. Maybe you two are related.” Mudali laughed at his own joke. “Hey, Manchester, come here! There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Oi, I’m busy here!” the man shouted back. Even muffled by the rest of the sounds of the garage, as well as his head being halfway in the engine, it was obvious he had a strong Northern accent.

“Who’s in charge, eh?” Mudali snapped. “You come when I tell you to come.”

With an irritated groan the man stood up and turned towards them. Rose’s breath caught and her heart skipped a beat. She walked up to join Mickey, who was gaping at the sight of the mechanic.

“It can’t be,” he said in a low voice. “‘S just someone who looks like him a bit, is all. You can’t really tell under all that hair.”

Rose didn’t answer, still staring in shock at a prominent nose and overly large ears, features that—despite being hidden behind slightly too long hair and an unshaven face—she knew as well as her own. Her heart began to beat again, pounding wildly, almost painfully, in her chest.

“It can’t be him,” she whispered. “It can’t be. I saw him change myself.”

As the man crossed the room to join them, he stumbled over a large spanner that had been left in the middle of the floor.

“Oi!” he shouted to the room at large. “Who’s the stupid ape who left this lying here?”

“Oh my God,” Rose murmured. “It’s him. It’s really him. It’s the Doctor.”

[freaoscanlin]

Given Unsought, Part 1

A/N: This fic is something I’ve been working on and I’m pretty deep into it now. I’ll be posting the full thing on AO3 as soon as I figure out just a bit of it, but I thought I’d put the first part up now. This is a retelling of season three of Agents of SHIELD where Jemma came back from Maveth just a liiiiittle bit different. The final fic will be about 40-45k, and it’ll be broken down into weeks. Jemma/Daisy with mentions of other ships. Warnings for language, injury, isolation, past abuse. I’ll be posting the fic in chunks and tagged on my blog as “given unsought.” Thanks to @insidiousmisandry for encouraging this, you enabler.

Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.  The Twelfth Night, Act III, Scene I, Line 147

Week Four

In her years at SHIELD, Daisy had learned to evaluate the silence of the post-mission flight. The grim quiet of a failed mission had an entirely different flavor to the quiet of exhaustion after a successful op. And a truly successful op didn’t usually contain great stretches of time without talking. Bringing an agent back from the dead usually called for breaking into one of Hunter’s many secret stashes of beer on the quinjet and cracking open a cold one. If Bobbi was the pilot, she’d play cheesy eighties pop on the intercom and Daisy could get a dance party started in the hold.

She’d even twirled May once. That had been very, very strange, and Daisy still wasn’t sure she hadn’t dreamed that.

The flight from Gloucester should have been jubilant, full of dancing and music. They’d brought Simmons back. She was safe, and coming home, and Fitz—after months and months where Daisy had lost hope—had done it, the cheeky bastard. He’d gone to another world and had come back clutching his friend. By all rights, even though she’d drained all of her energy, Daisy should have been standing on her seat, holding a beer aloft and shout-singing Captain & Tenille with Mack. Instead, she sat quietly in the co-pilot’s seat and watched his giant hands as he moved them over the controls.

“Feeling okay?”

“Nothing sleeping for a year can’t fix.” She stretched out her arms, grimacing as her muscles creaked. “I still can’t believe Fitz did it.”

“Can’t you? He’s a determined one, our Fitz.”

Daisy nodded. She could have flown back on Zephyr One, but she hadn’t wanted to abandon Mack. Plus, she suspected that she’d only be in the way as Bobbi checked Simmons over. And maybe there was a desire to avoid more unnecessary medical checkups herself. Sure, she had the mother of all migraines, but the nosebleed had stopped. She’d be fine. “What do you think it was like over there?”

“Looked like it was pretty dusty.” Mack flipped a couple switches overhead.

Daisy glanced down at her front, still covered in dirt from the explosion of the monolith and hugging Jemma afterward. “Well, you’re not wrong.”

“We’ll find out more soon enough, Tremors.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m just impatient. I can’t believe she’s back. Like finally, something’s going our way.” Chasing down the rapidly expanding inhuman outbreak pattern had grown exhausting. Convincing Dr. Garner to let even one of the people onto her team of secret warriors doubly so. She’d fallen into the classic pitfall of being evaluated by him herself earlier that day and even though she hadn’t wanted to rail at it as much as she would’ve in the past, he did leave her feeling frustrated and annoyed.

But Simmons was back, and she was going to be fine, so that had to count for something.

“A much needed win,” Mack said, smiling as he agreed. “Seatbelt on, we’re coming in.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Pilot sir.”

Mack rolled his eyes at her, but she caught the smile he tried to hide.

The Zephyr had beaten them back to base. Though Daisy expected everybody to be busy with Jemma, Bobbi stood with her hip cocked and her arms crossed over her chest, waiting for the loading ramp to descend. Daisy groaned.

“Time to head to the lab. Coulson’s orders,” Bobbi said.

“I’m fine. I just need to sleep and I’ll feel like a human being again. Things just got a little shaky for a bit—ha. Literally.”

“You passed out twice,” Bobbi said, tilting her head. “We’ll put you on a bunk next to Simmons.”

Okay, that might not be terrible. With all of the science that needed to be run, it wasn’t like she would be able to see Jemma at all otherwise. Daisy followed Bobbi out of the hangar, both of them waving cheerily at Mack as he sarcastically called that, sure, he’d be happy to handle the post-mission checklist by himself, no problem.

“He loves us,” Bobbi said as she walked Daisy to the lab.

Bobbi had lied: they’d put Jemma off to one side of the lab and Daisy was led to the other and checked over by a SHIELD tech. With their leading inhuman biology expert on another planet for months, the rest of the lab workers had had to step up, and it just wasn’t the same. None of them ever gave her lollipops the way Jemma had sardonically taken to doing to keep Daisy from griping about getting poked so much. She wanted to complain, but Bobbi kept looking over and raising an eyebrow at her. Daisy decided it was easier not to cause a ruckus.

“Can I go yet?” she asked.

“Just a couple more tests, Agent Johnson.”

“Sameer, we’re poker buddies. You know all my tells, I think that entitles you to call me Daisy.”

For that, he took another vial of blood, though he assured her he would’ve done that anyway. Daisy grumped at him and leaned back on her cot. Movement on the opposite side of the room, near where Jemma still slept, caught her eye. One of the techs running blood tests did a double-take at something on his screen and began gesturing, wildly. Fitz and Bobbi immediately raced over. Daisy rose to her feet, too, only for Sameer to grab her arm.

“You probably should give them a moment,” he said.

“If she’s hurt—”

“They’ll figure it out much faster without distractions.”

As much as she hated it, he had a point. Daisy allowed herself to be pulled back, and sat down on the cot while Sameer ran the rest of his tests. She kept an eye on things, monitoring the way the surprised tech gesticulated while talking to Fitz and Bobbi. Fitz shoved him to the side and typed rapidly into his computer. Whatever he saw on the screen made him shove both hands into his curls and rest his hands on his head, elbows out.

Bobbi put a hand on his shoulder and said something to the tech.

“Something’s wrong,” Daisy said. “Something’s wrong with her—I need to—”

But Fitz stomped right past her when she stood up. Bobbi looked over, met Daisy’s eyes, and shook her head. She gestured for Daisy to stay put.

“She can’t expect me to just sit here when something might be wrong with Simmons,” Daisy said.

“Looks like she does.” Sameer rummaged in the pocket of his lab coat and held out a grape lollipop. “Will this help?”

“No.” But Daisy took it anyway. She flopped down, determined to stay until Bobbi gave her some answers. She missed the needle until Sameer had it in her arm. “What the—hey! What are you doing?”

“Dr. Morse’s orders. It’s just a sedative.”

Daisy felt her eyes begin to roll back into her head. “I’m cleaning you out next time we play poker,” she said and the last thing she saw before she slept was Simmons, curled up on a cot, asleep.

The only mercy when she opened her eyes was that her head no longer ached, but everything else pretty much sucked. Her mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton, her left arm had fallen asleep because she’d apparently laid on top of it for hours, and Mack hadn’t carried her back to her bed like he occasionally did whenever somebody (Bobbi) knocked her out. She’d apparently been kept in the lab, drooling into a pillow for all the techs to see. Not that there were many of those around at the moment.

Daisy rubbed her hand over her face and grimaced at the gritty sensation. She glanced at the clock, saw that it was just after four a.m., and groaned. “I’m quaking Sameer into a wall next time I see him.”

“I’d advise against that.” Bobbi’s voice sounded rusty. Daisy looked over her shoulder and saw her on the chair beside her cot, eyes open and arms crossed over her chest. The knee brace had been set aside for the night. “He was following my orders.”

“Yeah, well, don’t think you’re forgiven either, Barbara.”

Bobbi made a face and sat up. “Like you’d have gotten any sleep with that migraine you tried to hide. You can thank me later.”

“Thank. Right. That’s exactly what’ll happen.” Daisy sat up and stretched. She looked over across the lab, to the other cot on the far end. “Is Simmons okay?”

Bobbi paused for so long that Daisy swiveled away from Jemma to face her coworker. “Is something wrong? The planet wasn’t killing her slowly, was it?” Best to blurt out the worst possible option, get it out of the way, even while her brain hammered Not Jemma not Jemma not Jemma.

“No. Her body adapted to what we suspect is a lower level of oxygen, so that will cause a few problems in the short term. Her metabolism’s changed. But she’s healthy.” Bobbi folded her arms over her chest. “But there’s something else, though. She’s pregnant.”

The word slammed into Daisy so hard it might as well have been a punch to the face. “She got sucked into an alien planet and came back pregnant? Was it something in the air? Or was it the planet? Wait, how is that even possible? And is she okay? Is the baby okay? How far along—”

“Easy there, motor mouth,” Bobbi said, and Daisy abruptly shut up. Hysteria, she realized. That was what coursed through her veins. That, and adrenaline. “One question at a time.”

“How?” was all Daisy can manage.

“She hasn’t talked much, but as far as we can tell, it happened the usual way. As far as we can tell, she’s about four weeks along. That’s early to tell, but we’re SHIELD. Cutting edge is kind of our thing.”

“She wasn’t alone over there?”

“There was an astronaut with her. She didn’t say his name, but we’re assuming that he’s human.” Bobbi shrugged.

Daisy looked toward Jemma. In sleep, she remained twitchy, pale and drawn like she constantly awaited danger. For all they knew, she did. Daisy’d barely heard her say five words since Fitz pulled her out of the portal.

Speaking of…

“Guess there’s no need to ask how Fitz is taking it?” Daisy asked. Late one night, drunk off cheap tequila and sitting in the middle of the room he’d turned into a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream in search of Simmons, he’d confessed that he’d made his move. Daisy, not nearly as drunk, had found herself struggling to congratulate him, with no idea why. They’d be cute together, she’d said, when they got Jemma back. Of course they would be. They were Fitz and Simmons. FitzSimmons. They already had a smushname all their own without even trying.

And hell, Fitz’s mania had paid off, hadn’t it? Fitz had doggedly and methodically followed the steps to save her for months, while Daisy threw herself into finding inhumans so she wouldn’t have to think about the grief and fear waiting just around the corner, far too close for comfort.

“I don’t know,” Bobbi said. “He didn’t say much when he came back.”

She gestured. On the other side of the lab, Fitz had a studied frown on his face as he stared into a microscope. From the set of his shoulders alone, Daisy figured bothering him would be one of the worst ideas she’d entertained since trusting her mother.

“You know she asked him to dinner right before…” Bobbi trailed off.

“I know,” Daisy said. “Should I—I don’t know? Talk to him?”

“You can try, but I don’t think it’ll work. I’m sending Hunter to annoy the truth out of him if he gets back soon.”

Daisy raised her eyebrows. “You’re going straight to the nuclear option?”

“For a man whose talents are very annoying, he’s also very good at what he does.” They both paused when Daisy’s wrist-unit beeped with an alert. “See you later.”

“Um, if she wakes up, tell her I’ll stop by?” There was too much she wanted to ask, as she was burning with curiosity and kind of a weird sense of unreality and terror. Her friend was pregnant. With an actual human child. Well. Daisy looked at her hands. Maybe mostly human. Who knew? Daisy sent one last swift look at Jemma and left to handle whatever emergency had arisen on the inhuman front.

What the hell happened on that planet, and what would Jemma do now?

Week Six

For the next two days, her timing was so terrible, it might as well be one of their plans. She dropped by whenever she could get one of the other agents to cover the enforcement agency channels, but Jemma was always sleeping. Daisy busied herself with briefings and seeing Joey, and worked on trying to track Lincoln, who wasn’t answering her calls. Finally, she escaped and made it to Jemma’s bedroom, but there was no answer to her soft knock, so Daisy moved on to her own quarters two doors down and passed out face first into the mattress.

Coulson called her in before she was even fully awake the next morning, to a distress call in Tallahassee. It turned out to be a false alarm—just a kid with a lighter and some superstitious neighbors—but the mission still nearly went sideways three times. Daisy couldn’t deny that she was frustrated. Searching for other inhumans was beyond trying to find a needle in a haystack. More like a needle in a field full of haystacks.

And behind all of that a constant tattoo beat in her head: Jemma is pregnant, Jemma came back from an alien planet with a baby.

In the hangar bay after nearly five days in Florida, she stepped off the quinjet and frowned. “Why don’t you go on without me?” she asked Mack.

“Tremors?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “Got something on your mind?”

“Nah, I just—I just—” Stop babbling, Sk—Daisy. He’s going to know something’s up. “I think I’ll take a walk, clear my head before I get stuck in an underground base and feeling all claustrophobic. Or worse, somebody needs me to do something.”

Mack eyed her, but he nodded. “I’ll keep your paperwork warm for you.”

“My hero,” she said, and waved at the rest of the support team as they headed in for post-mission grub. Daisy moved back to her quarters to grab a set of civvies, pulling a dark beanie over her hair, and made for the secret exit that put her on Fourth Street. From there, it was only a few blocks to the bookstore.

She kept an eye out, just to be sure nobody tailed her, before taking a deep breath and stepping resolutely to the appropriate shelf. Wow, this area of the bookstore was huge. And there were so many books with similar titles. Daisy stared at the bookshelf.

Rows and rows of babies stared back at her from the covers. She picked up What to Expect When You’re Expecting because even a homeless hacker living in a van had heard of that one, and paged through. More than part of her felt ridiculous. It was absurd that she’d even be here looking at these books. Jemma had, like, a gazillion degrees, she was bound to know everything that went into pregnancy. But Daisy didn’t, and she felt kind of stupid about it.

Even worse, there wasn’t really a What to Expect When Your Best Friend Went to an Alien Planet and is Now Expecting. Unfair. There seemed to be every other super-specific topic of baby raising on these shelves. But that was Jemma Simmons for you. Always going above and beyond in the most endearing way.

Daisy selected a couple books that didn’t look as schmaltzy as the others, ones she suspected might be written with the fathers in mind, and carried them to the counter. She paid cash and made sure not to be memorable, neither staring nor avoiding the cashier’s eyes. When she left, she kept the beanie low.

At the next store over, she picked up a cloth shopping bag just in case the plastic bag they gave her wasn’t opaque enough. She also rooted around in a small gift section, as she didn’t want Jemma to think she was avoiding her or weird about anything. So a little trinket, that seemed like the ticket. A little blue vase of bright yellow daisies, cheerful and bobbing gently in the breeze of a ceiling fan, caught her eye, and Daisy paid for them almost without thinking about it. Books safely hidden, flowers in hand, she went home.

For once, she was in luck.

“Skye!” Jemma’s face lit up when Daisy stepped in. Then she looked down and away, sheepish. “Daisy. Sorry.”

Daisy held out the flowers. “It’s a multipurpose gift,” she said. “It’s pretty, and it’s a reminder. You can call me whatever you want.” She absolutely meant that. Everybody else had an adjustment period where they called her Sk-daisy, which was aggravating but at least they were trying. With Jemma, Daisy was so happy she was back that she didn’t care.

She studied her friend, pale and diminished but vibrantly alive, and words came tumbling out. “I can’t stay for too long, I’m tracking law-enforcement channels, but I’m really sorry that I haven’t come sooner. It’s—there’s just a lot going on.”

“And I’ve been sleeping.” Jemma’s voice cracked, but her smile felt real and familiar.

“Which is good,” Daisy said a little too fast. Sleep was good for the baby, right? It seemed like it would be. “Do whatever you need to do to get better. We need you. And I…” What did you say to somebody who comes back from another dimension with an amniotic passenger in tow? She sat down on the bed, glancing once at where Jemma’s hand resting on her abdomen. Absently, like an afterthought.

Jemma sighed. “Bobbi told you.”

“The tech who ran your tests wasn’t exactly discreet. Coulson fired his ass, don’t worry, but Bobbi told the team in case it got out. I know you probably don’t want to talk about what happened yet, but when you do, I’m here to listen.” Daisy set the bag of the books on the floor and sat on the bed, close to but not crowding her friend. Bobbi had warned her that Jemma still jumped at everything.

“I’d rather listen now, if that’s okay.” Jemma leaned forward. “The terrigen is spreading?”

“And so’s the paranoia.” Shoptalk. She could handle shoptalk. Daisy filled her in on the nightmare of the past few months, the way cocoons spread all over the world, with inhumans popping up—

“Like daisies?” Jemma interrupted, giving her a small, real smile.

“I’ll let you have that one,” Daisy said, unable to stop her laugh. “We found a new one a few weeks ago. Joey Gutiérrez. He’s very sweet. He just melts metal, like, poof, wow. I think once he gets a handle on it, he’ll be incredible. If we can ever get Dr. Garner to sign off on letting him be a full-time team member.”

At this rate, Andrew was never going to sign off on anybody for a secret inhuman team.

“And you?” Jemma asked, surprising Daisy. “How are you handling all of this?”

“I…” Daisy blinked. She hadn’t really thought about it. How was she handling Lincoln being a fugitive, the ads from politicians on TV, the fearmongering and spreading hate toward what she was? The message boards about “How to Hunt Inhuman Scum” that twisted her stomach into knots? Even at SHIELD, where she was insulated, a couple of the new agents still twitched whenever she walked into the room. “I’m handling it. I’ve been more worried about you, to be honest. You’re really okay?”

“I think so.” Jemma’s voice was soft, like talking too loud hurt her ears. “I just…there’s…some of it is hard to talk about and—”

She jolted like frightened prey when Daisy’s cell phone buzzed. “I am so sorry,” Daisy said.

“N-no, it’s okay. You should take that.”

Guilty, Daisy picked up the phone and answered. Lincoln’s voice, distressed and just as afraid as Jemma seemed, filled her ear. She gave Jemma one last apologetic look and, passing the daisies on the nightstand, hurried off go to handle yet another crisis.

Part 2.