#yes he’s named Vincent after Van Gough

[mhyinart]

I drew a ROTTMNT OC so you know I’m in deep.

Introducing Vincent aka Vinny Hamato!! Something about Leo having a son and “getting a taste of his own medicine.” Is very delightful to me. Plus Raph finds it extremely entertaining.

[legends-of-time]

Thorn Bush (Doctor Who Story)

Chapter 6: The Pandorica Opens

Masterlist

14th Century

It takes another century for Carlyle and Ashildr to get around to it and decide to get married, officially making the latter Kathy's daughter.

It is within the first half of the 14th century when the Black Death arrives in Europe while they are living in France. Carlyle and Ashildr have three children: Essie, Jean and Rue (their names reflecting the country of their birth). They were unexpected Ashildr had believed she had not wanted children but then she realised how much she loved her daughter. Kathy hoped that as Ashildr's children are not fully human this time round, maybe they would survive but this is lost as while Kathy and Carlyle don't get sick at all and Ashildr does but survives, Kathy's grandchildren do not.

When they fell ill, Kathy soon realised that they did not have all the same genetics that she and Carlyle did when they don't heal the way her and Carlyle do. Even though they have the second Mire medical kit, they ultimately decide not to use it on either of them.

Kathy then Carlyle both individually had a human parent making them partly human, Carlyle more so, as well as Ashildr's human genetics, the children were too human and not enough Time Lord or Apalapucia. Ashildr tells Kathy that she will keep this in her diary detailing the loss to remind her to never have any more offspring.

It is not long after that Kathy meets someone new.

"Hi, honey." Kathy spins around in her home where she is currently living in Italy. River Song stands there in a stretchy black outfit and clutches a rolled up piece of paper. Is this the Pandorica/big bang?

"Uuhh hi? River?" Kathy says cautiously. She hasn't met the woman before so she doesn't know how to react.

River smirks softly. "I see your confused. I'm right in thinking this is the first time you're meeting me."

"Yes." Kathy replies slightly relieved they are getting on with it.

"So you already know a lot about who I am already." River says.

"Yeah but probably not everything. I don't know anything about the relationship between us." Kathy wonders how much her presence has changed things but from what River is implying, what she saw in the show holds true and Amy and Rory are still her parents.

"You're right. But I can't tell you anything you don't know." Kathy feels annoyed by her answer but understands.

"Spoilers?"

"Yes."

"How did you know to come to this point in my timeline?" Kathy asks her.

"You told me I do." River tells her smirking.

Kathy rolls her eyes. "Of course I did. Another thing to add to the list."

Carlyle walks in. "Mom, who's this?" He asks noticing River.

"River song." Kathy tells him. "I think I mentioned that she might turn up." She had told him all about her foreknowledge.

"Oh right." He walks up to River holding out his hand. "Carlyle Arantxasson."

River shakes it. "I know."

Kathy snorts. Of course she does. "You should go back to Ashildr, she still needs you."

Carlyle nods. "Right yes. I'm assuming you're leaving for a bit."

"Seems so if River explains."

"Right. Goodbye mom, nice meeting you River." Carlyle turns to leave.

"Nice seeing you again." River winks.

He goes and Kathy turns to her. "How did you get here? Are you in prison currently?"

River smirks. "Yes but I got out then bought a vortex manipulator." She lifts her arm showing it. Kathy raises an eyebrow wondering how she did that.

"Churchill had informed me of a painting by Vincent Van Gough that is a message to the Doctor so I broke out of prison and broke into the royal collection in 5145 and Liz 10 allowed me to take the painting." River explains, showing Kathy the painting by spreading it out on the table. Kathy wonders if she'll meet any of these three historical figures though she knows for certain that she's right about which episodes this is.

"You really need to stop being so illegal." Kathy reprimands her as she analyses the painting of the exploding TARDIS. It is somewhat unnerving.

"I wonder who I learnt that from." River remarks. Did she mean Kathy?

Kathy shakes her head. "We need to get the Doctor there." The explosion will and is happening. Getting the Doctor to the right place will save everything.

——

They cannot get hold of the Doctor so Kathy makes the decision to deface the oldest cliff face on the oldest planet in the universe – planet one. Really she was being a hypocrite for telling River off for illegal activities then Kathy pulls her into graffitiing.

In large letters, it reads "HELLO SWEETIE" with ΘΣ meaning Theta Sigma, the Doctor's nickname, and ΦΓΥΔζ as the co-ordinates at the bottom.

They travel to the correct time 102 AD/CE England and set up camp with a Roman Legion though Kathy knows they are Autons. River uses her lipstick to convince them that she is Cleopatra VII and her sister, the future Arsinoë IV.

——

102 AD/CE

Kathy senses that the Doctor had arrived (likely with Amy as well) so they sent a hypnotised soldier to go and take him to their tent.

The Eleventh Doctor, younger than the one she had previously met, walks into the tent with Amy behind him to see River, dressed as Cleopatra, and Kathy, dressed as Arsinoë, being waited on by two servants.

"Hello, sweetie." River greets. Kathy does a little wave trying to cover up how excited she is to meet Amy.

"Kathy! River! Hi." Amy utters in surprise.

"You graffitied the oldest cliff-face in the universe." The Doctor reprimands them.

"You wouldn't answer your phone." Kathy counters.

River claps her hands and the servants leave. She then holds out the scrolled canvas.

"What's this?" The Doctor asks.

"It's a painting. Your friend Vincent." The Doctor snatches the painting and begins to unroll it.

Kathy stands with River following. "One of his final works." The Doctor spreads it out on a table and they all gather to look. "He had visions, didn't he? We thought you ought to know about this one."

They examine the painting. It depicts the TARDIS exploding in Vincent's usual style.

"Doctor? Doctor, what is this?" Amy questions. "Why's it exploding?"

"It's a warning." Kathy replies. The Doctor sits down, his thoughts heavy.

"Something's going to happen to the TARDIS?"

"It might not be that literal." River says though Kathy knows that is not true. "Anyway this is where he wanted you. Date and map reference on the door sign, see?"

"Does it have a title?" The Doctor asks.

"The Pandorica Opens."

"The Pandorica? What is it?" Amy asks.

"A box. A cage. A prison. It was built to contain the most feared thing in all the universe." Kathy explains to her.

The Doctor paces. "And it's a fairy tale, a legend. It can't be real."

"It is real, it's here and it's opening." Kathy tells him. "And it's got something to do with your TARDIS exploding." The Doctor pulls out local maps.

"Hidden, obviously. Buried for centuries. You won't find it on a map." River tells him.

"No. But if you buried the most dangerous thing in the universe, you'd want to remember where you put it." The Doctor says.

——

They are riding on horses towards the Salisbury Plain to Stonehenge. River and Kathy have changed into something a little more "modern".

"Come on. YA!" The Doctor yells.

They run inside. The Doctor uses the sonic screwdriver on some of the stones lying on the ground. River takes out a scanner and types in some information while Kathy uses hers to scan the area. River had given the scanner to her saying that Kathy herself had told her to.

"How come it's not new?" Amy asks.

"Because it's already old. Been here thousands of years. No-one knows exactly how long." Kathy explains.

"OK, this Pandorica thing. Last time we saw the two of you, you warned us about it, after we climbed out of the Byzantium." Amy tells them.

"Spoilers!" River puts a finger to her lips.

"No, but you both told the Doctor you'd see him again when the Pandorica opens." Amy insists.

"Maybe we did. But we haven't yet. But we will have." Kathy says before calling out to the Doctor. "Doctor, I'm picking up fry particles everywhere." River had given her a rundown of how to use it plus she had been doing a bunch of reading since she last saw the Doctor from books in the TARDIS.

"Energy weapons discharged on this site." River adds.

The Doctor stands on a large stone in the centre. "If the Pandorica is here, it contains the mightiest warrior in history. Now, half the galaxy would want a piece of that. Maybe even fight over it." He jumps off the stone and puts an ear to it. "We need to get down there."

——

It is nighttime by the time they are ready. River places a device on the corner of the large stone. They had placed large standing lights placed around the area.

River walks over to the Doctor and Kathy. "Right then. Ready." River presses a button on her scanner and the rock slides to the side revealing stone steps underneath. The Doctor steps forward as River takes a torch from her pocket and switches it on.

"The underhenge." He mutters. The Doctor takes out his sonic screwdriver and uses it as a torch as they enter.

The Doctor steps out of a narrow passage and uses the screwdriver to light a torch. Kathy goes to the opposite wall and brings a torch over to light it. The Doctor lifts a large board that was acting as a lock across a huge set of doors. With a nod and a smile to River, they push open the doors and find themselves in a cavernous room. In the centre stands a large box with an intricate circular pattern on each side.

"It's the Pandorica." The Doctor utters.

"More than just a fairy tale." River adds.

The Doctor walks forward and steps on something, He looks down to see the arm of a Cyberman. Kathy's eyes flicker around as she knows there is a Cyberman sentry somewhere. The Doctor continues towards the Pandorica and places a hand on it.

"There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior. A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world." The Doctor says as he feels the outer shell of the Pandorica. Kathy winces knowing that the Pandorica story is actually referring to him, it's for him.

"How did it end up in there?" Amy asks.

"You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it." The Doctor walks around to the other side of the Pandorica as Kathy hands Amy her torch as she and River take out their scanners.

"I hate good wizards in fairy tales. They always turn out to be him." River complains.

Amy looks around. "So it's kind of like Pandora's Box, then? Almost the same name."

"Sorry, what?" The Doctor calls.

"The story. Pandora's Box, with all the worst things in the world in it." The Doctor puts his torch in a holder then uses the screwdriver on the Pandorica. "That was my favourite book when I was a kid." The Doctor stops and walks over to Amy, a concerned look on his face. "What's wrong?"

"Your favourite school topic, your favourite story. Never ignore a coincidence, unless you're busy. In which case, always ignore a coincidence." The Doctor walks back to Pandorica.

"Yeah I don't think that's wise." Kathy remarks. She looks at Amy worriedly.

"Busy." The Doctor replies.

"So can you open it?" River asks.

"Easily." The Doctor answers. "Anyone can break INTO a prison, but I'd rather know what I'm going to find first."

Kathy looks at her scanner. "We're not going to have to wait long cause it's already opening. There are layers and layers of security protocols in there, and they're being disabled, one by one. Like it's being unlocked from the inside." She places the scanner on the Pandorica.

"How long do we have?" The Doctor asks.

"Hours at the most." River reads from her scanner.

"What kind of security?"

"A bunch." Kathy answers. "Deadlocks, time-stops, matter-lines."

"What could need all that?"

"What could get past all that?" Rivet counters.

"Think of the fear that went into making this box. What could inspire that level of fear?" The Doctor rambles. "Hello, you. Have we met?"

"So why would it start to open now?" River asks.

"No idea. Any hints Kathy?"

"Maybe think about why the signal is being sent out and who can hear it." She replies.

"Hmm good point cause how could Vincent have known about it? He won't even be born for centuries." Amy suggests.

The Doctor takes out the sonic screwdriver once again and uses them on the stone pillars. "The stones! These stones are great big transmitters, broadcasting a warning to everyone, everywhere, to every time zone. The Pandorica is opening!"

"Doctor... everyone, everywhere?" River asks.

"Even poor Vincent heard it in his dreams. What's in there, what could justify all this?" The Doctor ignores her as he rambles.

"Doctor, everyone?"

"Anything that powerful, I'd know about it. Why don't I know?" The Doctor complains.

"Doctor!" Kathy shouts getting his attention. "You said everyone could hear it. So you have to think, who else is coming?"

"Oh."

"Oh? Oh, what?" Amy questions not getting it.

"Of course." River presses her scanner against a pillar. "OK, if it is basically a transmitter, we should be able to fold back the signal."

"Doing it." The Doctor uses his sonic on all pillars.

"Doing what?" Amy asks.

"The Stonehenge is transmitting, for a while... so who heard?" Kathy explains to her.

"OK, should be feeding back to you now. River, what's out there? Getting anything?" The Doctor calls.

"Give her a moment." Kathy tells him.

"River, quickly, anything?"

River looks at her scanner stunned. "Around this planet, there are at least 10,000 starships."

"At least?" Amy gapes.

"10,000, 100,000, 1 million, I don't know. There's too many readings."

"What kind of starships?" The Doctor asks.

A Dalek transmission comes through. "Maintaining orbit."

"I obey. Shield cover compromised on ion sectors."

"Daleks. Those are Daleks." Amy says.

"Scan detects no temporal activity."

"Soft grid scan commencing."

"Reverse thrust for compensatory stabilisation."

"Daleks, Doctor." Kathy says. She's scared as she hasn't met any Daleks yet or any of the other aliens that have arrived to defeat the Doctor.

"Launch preliminary armaments protocol."

"Yes, OK. OK, OK, OK." The Doctor paces. "Dalek fleet. Minimum, 12,000 battleships, armed to the teeth. But we've got surprise on our side! They'll never expect three people to attack 12,000 Dalek battleships, 'cos we'd be killed instantly. So it would be a fairly short surprise. Forget surprise."

"Doctor, Cyber-ships." River announces.

"No, Dalek ships, listen to them, those are Dalek ships." The Doctor insists.

"Yes. Dalek ships AND Cyber-ships." Kathy adds.

"Well, we need to start a fight, turn them on each other. It's the Daleks... they're SO cross..."

"Sontaran. Four battle-fleets." River reads.

"Sontarans! Talk about cross, who stole all their handbags?" The Doctor exclaims.

River continues reading from the scanner. "Terileptil. Slitheen. Chelonian. Nestene. Drahvin. Sycorax. Haemo-goth. Zygon. Atraxi. Draconian. They're all here. For the Pandorica."

The Doctor turns to the Pandorica. "What are you?"

The ground begins to shake and the Doctor runs to the stairs, Kathy, River and Amy following. They look up to the sky and see lights from a number of ships flying above them.

"What do we do?" Amy asks.

"Doctor, listen to me! Everything that ever hated you is coming here tonight. You can't win this. You can't even fight it. Doctor, this once, just this one time, please, you have to run." River cries.

"Run where?"

"Fight how?" River counters.

The Doctor takes out binoculars and looks back the way they came. "The greatest military machine in the history of the universe."

"What is? The Daleks? " Amy asks.

"No!" Kathy cries as cheerfully as she can. "The Romans!" The Doctor snaps his fingers in her direction gleefully.

——

Kathy decides to join River in her recruiting. They ride back to the Roman encampment. However, their way into the tent is blocked by two guards.

Once inside, they are being guarded by two soldiers as the Commander paces.

"So, I return to my command after one week and discover we've been playing host to Cleopatra and Arsinoë. Who are in Egypt. And dead!" The Commander exclaims.

"Yeah funny that but I can tell you that had nothing to do with us." Kathy remarks. The ground shakes again as a ship flies overhead.

"The sky is falling, and you make jokes. Who are you?" The Commander demands.

"When you fight Barbarians, what must they think of you?" River asks instead of answering.

"Oh, riddles now?"

"Where do they think you come from?"

The Commander draws his sword. "A place more deadly and more powerful and more impatient than their tiny minds can imagine."

River pulls out her disintegrator gun and uses it on a cabinet. The Commander and guards are stunned and point their weapons at Kathy and River.

"Where do we come from? Your world has visitors. You're all Barbarians now." River declares.

"What is that? Tell me, what?" The Commander questions.

"A fool would say, the work of the gods. But you've been a soldier too long to believe there are gods watching over us." River tells him.

"There is, however, a man." Kathy says. "And tonight he's going to need your help."

"Sir?" A voice calls from the entrance to the tent. Rory. Well, plastic Rory but Rory all the same.

"One moment." The Commander goes to the entrance to the tent where he holds a whispered conversation with Rory whose face is in shadow. They turn to look at Kathy and River. "Well, it seems you have a volunteer."

——

She doesn't get an option to talk to Rory as he is soon leaving with 50 volunteers to go to the Doctor and Amy.

Kathy stays with River. Maybe she can help, protect her. She knows she can't stop the explosion. She's glad she made this decision as she wouldn't have been able to get out of Stonehenge judging by the ships surrounding it with their beams of light on it.

Kathy and River watch from a distance on horseback.

River calls the Doctor on her communicator. "You're surrounded. Have you got a plan?"

"Yes! Now hurry up and get the TARDIS here. I need equipment!" The Doctor rudely yells.

River rolls her eyes and rides off with Kathy sniggering behind her. They enter the TARDIS and immediately go about setting the coordinates to take it to the Doctor. It's great how they automatically work well with one another.

"OK..." River pulls the lever and the TARDIS dematerialises with a jolt.

"What's the matter with you?" Kathy questions. Though she kind of knows so she doesn't know why she asked.

The TARDIS continues not behaving for them. River and Kathy take turns in trying to correct her but it doesn't seem to work.

"What are you doing, what's wrong?" River asks.

"Hold on let me..." Kathy tries as they make another attempt at trying to get back on track. Then the TARDIS stops with a jolt.

"OK? You OK now?" Kathy asks but doesn't get a response.

The monitor acts up and River whacks it a few times before leaving. Kathy glances back knowing the monitor will show the location as Earth and the date as 26/6/2010. The moment of the explosion.

——

"She's brought us to Amy's house." Kathy fearfully mutters. She hoped it wouldn't but the explosion seems inevitable. She honestly doesn't know why she tried. Maybe she should've stayed with Amy, the Doctor and Rory?

River holds out her scanner and Kathy holds a torch as they slowly walk towards the door. The scanner begins to beep and Kathy sees alien symbols burned into the grass.

"OK, so something's been here." River murmurs.

"Seems so." Kathy turns to see the door is off its hinges. They share a look before they proceed carefully into the house.

They proceed up the stairs to Amy's room with River's scanner beeping. Kathy sees Amy's childhood "Raggedy Doctor" dolls and- oh my god. Kathy picks up a doll that seems to have her light brown hair colour and blue dots where the eyes would bebut is dressed in torn Tudor clothing. Is this her?

"Amy... Oh, Doctor, why do I let you out?" River asks herself.

"Mmmh..." Kathy hums. She then sees a children's book on Roman Britain, a soldier featuring prominently on the cover, the Commander. "Look." She hands it out for River to look.

River then sees a book on Pandora's Box. Amy's favourite book as a child.

"Oh no... Kathy am I right in thinking this is a trap?" River questions.

"Yes. I'm afraid so. I thought we could stop it." Kathy replies sadly.

"We can still try." River declares and they run out of the room.

——

"The TARDIS, where is it? Hurry up!" The Doctor says through the communicator.

"Don't raise your voice, don't look alarmed, just listen." River replies.

"Somethings been here. To Amy's house. And something is going on with the Romans." Kathy quickly explains.

River follows. "They're not real, they can't be. They're all right here in the story book," she flips through Amy's book, "those actual Romans, the ones we sent you, the ones you're with right now. They're all in a book in Amy's house, a children's picture book."

"What are you even doing there?" The Doctor asks.

"The TARDIS brought us here for a reason. I think it's connected but something else is going on." Kathy tells him.

"Doctor, how is this possible?" River asks.

"Something's using her memories, Amy's memories." The Doctor replies.

"But how?"

"You said something had been there." The Doctor says.

"That's what burn marks on the grass outside, the landing patterns, say." Kathy says.

"If they've been to her house, they could have used her psychic residue. Structures can hold memories, that's why houses have ghosts. They could've taken a snapshot of Amy's memories. But why?" The Doctor thinks out loud.

"Who are those Romans?" River asks.

"Projections. Or duplicates." The Doctor lists.

"Autons." Kathy adds.

"But they were helping us. My lipstick even worked." River insists.

"They might think they're real. The perfect disguise. They actually believe their own cover story, right until they're activated." The Doctor argues.

"Doctor, that Centurion..." River holds up a photo of Rory and Amy. Rory is dressed as a Roman soldier.

It wasn't wrong not stopping this though Kathy doesn't know how she could've. Kathy being too afraid to change things massively, going down a certain route gives her certainty that everything will turn out okay.

"It's a trap, it has to be. They used Amy to construct a scenario you'd believe, to get close to you." River says.

"Why? Who'd do that? What for? It doesn't make sense." The Doctor says.

Kathy goes to answer him but the console sparks and the TARDIS shudders.

"River? Kathy? What's happening?!"

"It's the engines. Doctor, there's something wrong with the TARDIS, something else is controlling her." River says.

"You're flying it wrong."

"We're flying it perfectly. The TARDIS taught us." Kathy cries irritably.

"Where are you? What's the date reading?" The Doctor asks rapidly. They check the monitor.

"It's the 26th June, 2010." Kathy says. This confirms it. She immediately tries to get out. Why did she linger so long?

"You need to get out of there now! Any other time zone, just go." The Doctor orders. They try but it doesn't work.

"We can't break free." River replies.

"Well, then, shut down the TARDIS. Shut down everything!" The Doctor orders.

"Didn't you hear, we can't!" Kathy retorts. She flicks multiple switches.

Then she hears a voice. "Silence will fall. Silence will fall." Okay, that's creepy.

"Someone else is flying it. An external force. We've lost control." River tells him after more tries.

"But how? Why?"

Kathy honestly can't remember what was causing the TARDIS to explode but that it just did. There is then a high-pitched whine. The Autons are activating.

"Listen to me, just land her anywhere. Emergency landing, now." The Doctor orders. "There are cracks in time, I've seen them everywhere, and they're getting wider. The TARDIS exploding is what causes them, but we can stop the cracks ever happening if you just land her!"

"It's not safe." River tells him.

"Well, now. Ready to come out, are we?" The Doctor says faintly meaning he's lowered the communicator but also the prison is now opening.

Sparks are flying as Kathy and River attempt an emergency landing, which eventually works.

"Doctor, we're down. We've landed." Kathy tells him.

"OK, just walk out of the doors." He sounds like he's holding the communicator closer again. "If there's no-one inside, the TARDIS engines shut down. Just get out of there."

"We're going." River says.

"Run!"

They run to the TARDIS door. Kathy tries to open the TARDIS door but it won't budge. She grunts in frustration and they run back to the communicator.

"Doctor! Doctor! We can't open the doors!" River cries.

All they hear is the Doctor yelling, "Amy!"

"Doctor, we can't open the doors! Doctor, please, we've got seconds!" River cries into the communicator but there's no response and Kathy can't hear what's being said at the other but she knows that they've got him now.

"River, River!" Kathy cries getting the woman's attention and placing her hands on her cheeks to hold her. "It's okay we'll be okay! The TARDIS will protect us but that doesn't mean we can't try."

Kathy doesn't understand it as she has only just met the woman, but she feels a stronger draw to her than any others from the Doctor Who world. It's as if the universe is trying to tell her something.

River nods and they immediately get back to work. Kathy connects the wires as the TARDIS continues to spark and explode. River opens the doors to the TARDIS only to be met by a stone wall.

"I'm sorry, my love." River looks back over her shoulder, to Kathy, who stands in the steps, as the console explodes with a bright light.

——

A/N: Please leave comments on how you're enjoying this story and what you think.

[pendragonfics]

Eleventh Time’s the Charm

Paring: Crowley/Reader

Tags: female reader, alternate universe - soulmates, time travel, reincarnation, Crowley being Crowley, murder, character death, but not really, angst and feels, angst with a happy ending, fluff. 

Summary: Living a dreary, slow life working in a diner-slash-cafe in a terrible small town, waiting for your life to start and soulmate to walk into your life...it happens. You meet the guy. And thus, the story begins.

Word Count: 4,461

Current Date: 2017-09-29

Everyone has someone. Your someone, was perhaps, preoccupied. Soulmates were a thing, and while it was good for the 99% of people who had their shit together, you did not have yours together, and lived out your days working days at the diner, nights working on your online education. Poor as hell, living out of a caravan in a nobody town’s trailer park, you rarely saw anyone new who wasn’t a regular at Bean There, Donut That. Apparently, when people met their One, everything sort of clicks. Comes into focus. You’d never had that happen with Joe who loved maple syrup more than life, or the coffee addicts with their stamp-cards.

One night, it might have happened. You’re not sure, because you were quite out of it. There was an essay due for your online university, and you’d left the only copy of it on your USB that was attached to your spare set of keys at work. You were rushing around, practically screeching for Zach the busboy to toss them to you. Zach was never good at throwing things, especially projectiles that weren’t footballs. Thus, a strange bearded patron was hit on the back of his head with your Punisher USB and keys.

“Bloody –,” he mutters.

But before he can blink, you scoop up your keys from behind his chair where he’s sipping pink milk, and give a wan, apologetic smile and dash out. “Sorry, man!” You call out over your shoulder, and dash out to your beat-up pickup truck.

You didn’t notice the clarity of the night until you’d uploaded the final essay for your exams and hit send. With the laptop shut, the lamplight inside the caravan low, stars littering the night sky outside the window brighter than ever before, you sit there, breathless. You don’t think it’s to do with Zach smacking your keys into that bloke until you’re dunking a camomile teabag into your Sherlock cup an hour later. Checking your watch, you see the diner has a few minutes before it’s closed for business, and with your old phone, call them up.

“Hello, Bean There, Donut That, it’s Keith.” Another co-worker, works the grill.

You sigh. “Hey, Keith, it’s __________.” You scratch your nose, and add, “Sorry it’s late, I was just wondering if you know who that guy was who came in today. Emr, earlier. When I was in.”

You hear Keith make a noise, and then, “Oli? He’s one of your regulars.”

Oli? No. “No, no, not one of my regulars…the other guy. Uh, beard? Older? I don’t know, I was in a rush. Zach hit him with my keys.”

The phone rustles, “__________, hey, did you submit that paper?” You hear Ned, the owner of the diner on the phone. He’s the type of guy who’d make you feel like absolute shit if you were late to work, but would be all Suburban Dad if someone was out to wrong you. “I heard what you and Keith were saying. Yes, we had a new patron come in, I didn’t catch his name.”

You sigh, nowhere closer to finding out if he was the guy. “Did he say he’d stick around town?”

“Didn’t get that either. But you’re working the morning shift anyway, so you can see for yourself.” Ned reminds you, and clicks his tongue into the phone. “Okay, diner’s closed. See you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, __________.”

You hung up. Brushed your teeth, straightened the picture frame above the bed of Vincent van Gough’s sunflowers, switched off the lamp. Your head was still spinning. For once in your life when you needed the clouded thoughts, all you could think about was the flash of dark green eyes as you ran out of the diner.

---

He was back again. You were wiping your hands on your apron when he came in the door like a warm breeze, clicking the pen to get it to write vanilla milkshake for the nice young couple on a date. Your breath caught in your throat, he stilled. But Keith’s voice called out for you over the usual din of the diner, and you gave the new order for the kitchen to make. You didn’t realise that he was standing beside you until you could smell him – a pleasant scent, a hint of chai and burned earth – and he cleared his throat.

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced.” He said, an accent thick, like cold butter lumpy over toast. Refusing to melt, insisting to stay in a brave new world.

You turn toward him, so he can read the name badge that sits above your breast. “I’m actually going to say sorry for hitting you with my keys yesterday,” you preface. “So, don’t take it out on Zach.”

He tsks, “Please. It’s all in his lack of coordination…none of your fault. Can I buy you a drink?”

“This – isn’t a bar,” you tell him. Ned eyes you over the bench, and motions to a new group of people who have been sitting for a while. “Sorry, I’m working right now. But I’d love coffee. If you’re into that. After I’m –,”

“__________!” Ned calls out, annoyed.

“Coming!” you reply, and spare a glance to your current conversation. “I finish at midday.”

He smiles. “I’ll see you then, darling.”

By the time you’re back from taking the order from the new table, delivering the milkshake to the other, and fixing the split bill (Zach is terrible at math, but he’ll never admit it) not on your area, you find a napkin where you’d been speaking to the guy sitting there. In a sort of half cursive script, reads, The name’s Crowley. Underneath the napkin, you find, is a handful of quarters and half dollars, and a folded piece of paper, with more writing that this time, says, Coffee’s on me.

By the time your shift has ended, you only remember the coffee plans when your fingers brush on the loose change in your pocket. Instead of ordering two cappuccinos from Zach, you opt for the takeaway joint down the road. It isn’t until you’ve got the two cups in your hands until you see him, Crowley again, strolling toward you like he owns the small town.

“Hello, darling.”

You pass him his cup, and grab a sachet of sugar from the vendor. “Hello yourself. Got you a black coffee.”

He smiles, taking a sip from the paper cup, and content, he sighs. “Mm. Like my soul.”

You walk in silence together, the small town’s area painfully small at that moment. It was a short walk to anywhere, really – with a police station caring for only less than a thousand people – the main street had all the places needed on it, be it clothes, food, money, sex. The cemetery around the corner. The school wasn’t too far away, either, and neither was the park. You gravitated toward the location of the latter, leading the mysterious man toward the empty commons and plastic playground.

“I think you’re my soulmate,” you tell him, closing the gate to the empty play area behind you.

He frowns at your wording. “What makes you think I’m your soulmate?” He questions, draining his coffee all at once, like a craven caffeine addict. “I could be a married man, with children and a dog named Pollyanna.”

“You’re not, though.” You tilt your head. “You’re a businessman.”

He raises a brow. “And? You’re a budding high school teacher, and that doesn’t erase the fact that I could be those things.”

You laugh, and take another sip of your coffee. “I just have a feeling, man.” You look over the park, and slowly, taking another sip, embrace the silence of the park, and the lack of bustle as opposed to that of work. “Just…everything’s clearer now.”

“Okay, slow down there, Johnny Nash. You think I’m your soulmate because you don’t need prescription glasses anymore?” The way Crowley said it made your point sound silly, if not puerile. “…I’m just a guy passing through town.”

You pitch your half-drunken coffee into a bin nearby, and when it misses the rim, go to put it in the bin. “You’re making this really hard on me, you know?” You hum, annoyed. “I’ve lived a really shit life, and I’ve always known that there were soulmates. Heck, even Ned has one, and he’s an ass to me.

Crowley lifted a brow at the latter remark, but didn’t question it.

“I’ve barely known anyone my whole freakin’ life! Everyone I meet could be the One, but they’re not, but you – you walk in like you’ve always been there, and just go and tell me it’s not real? Screw you, man.” You swipe a tear from the corner of your eye, and storm off. Leaving him standing in an empty playground, alone.

---

It’s two months later when you get your results back from the online university. It’s a stressful two weeks, and you take every damn shift at the diner you can, saving every penny and dime until Ned approaches you to ask if you’re okay, which doesn’t shock you as much as it really could. He’s nice, under all the sternness and responsibilities he has.

But you’re sitting in your caravan, staring at the screen of your laptop. You’re not observing the tab abandoned on the upper right side of the screen, reading that you’ve managed to save over eight thousand dollars in the last four years. You’re not seeing at the background image of your laptop, a still from My Neighbour Totoro. Nope. You’re staring at the marks the university have sent through, sitting in your inbox.

High distinction.

You almost whoop for joy when the power cuts out of your caravan. It’s not the first time it’s happened before, what, with the electricity company often having problems out in the middle of nowhere where you live, and calmly, you reach for your cell phone for the torch app. But in the dark, you can’t see it, and all the clarity you got those months ago is useless on moonless nights. Blindly, you walk to the entrance of the outside world, going to see what had happened.

You hear grunting, clash of metal on metal, animalistic groans as you open the door. A part of you wants to close the door, lock it, and pretend you’ve been dreaming since you opened the laptop this evening. Another, slightly larger part wants you to go out, and see what’s happening. Aided only by the light of the nearby gas station, you see two silhouettes, male, wearing odd clothes considering they’re battling it out with short white swords in a trailer park at eleven fifty at night. You don’t even get close enough to see their faces when a stone crunches under your foot, and one of the men’s faces look to you. A bolt of terror passes through you, but before you can react, a blade is thrown near your head, and the other man – wearing a suit, a coat, and a tie – presses his fingers to your forehead.

Then, it’s dark.

---

When you wake, your limbs are at odd angles, face cold, and mushed into the ground, mud wet on your face and smelling like fresh herbs. It’s dark, still – the kind of dark that you see right before dawn, when the birds decide to sing for the world to wake – and slowly, you tell your body to move, your limbs screaming from whatever it has happened to you. You remember approaching the two men who had been fighting, being touched, and then, nothing.

“Ah cannae believe yoo've dain thes, Fergus, efter aw we've dain!” A woman’s voice screeched, louder than the birds, her accent thicker than anything you’ve ever heard in your life. It’s English, yes, but it’s hard to focus over all the butchered vowels that are strange to your American-born ears. “– aw we've bin ben! Aam th' mammy ay yer bairn, an' ye - ye tak' a mistress since day th’ first day!”

When your eyes focus in the dark, you see a woman with unruly hair the colour of fire on the horizon, and from what light spilled over the hills, you could see a similar fury to match that hair of hers. She stormed off, her old dress billowing over her feet, a knapsack over her shoulder, running away from wherever it was where you were. Where you were. Your blood ran cold. There were no hills, where you lived, and there certainly was no spikey purple flowers that grew this, that, and every edgeways over the grass, and there certainly was no people who spoke like that.

Whatever that man had done to you, it wasn’t good.

“__________?” A familiar, albeit foreign voice asked, your name strange on their lips. When you looked up, your heart stuttered, your words failed. “Lassie, whit ar’ ye doing doon there?”

You’d seen this exact face two months ago, and not a day after you’d left him alone in the park for your askew coffee date. Some things had changed – he looked a little…younger, eyes wider, frown lines less prominent on his face. Even though he’s been arguing with the other woman, he looks at you so tender, it’s almost strange, considering how he’d last looked at you before. It isn’t until you see what he’s wearing, that you realise something very unnatural has happened, and instead of going through time the usual way (forwards, gradually), you’ve been thrust the other way (backwards, painfully).

“I – I don’t know,” you whisper, groaning as you go to stand. “What year is it?”

He chuckles, arms steadying you as you waver on your feet. “Ye say such strange things, _______, when yoo've bin drinkin...it’s a body year nigh ay th' century.” He brushes the dirt from your shoulders, and sighs, “Dornt tell me yoo've forgotten th' years spent wi' me warmin' th' sheets, hen.”

Your eyes widen. “I – Crowley, that – she’s your wife!”

He raises an eyebrow. “I'll have some’ah whit you've bin drinkin’, lassie.” He chuckles, knocking a final part of mud from your shapeless nightdress. Had you really time travelled in your nightie? “Ye – m’name is Fergus – an' och aye, she is mah wife. Don’t ye rememb’r aw those nights hidin' from ’er?” He motions to the cottage where you’re nearby to, and adds. “Come in. You’ll catch yer death in ‘at, lassie.”

Slowly, you will yourself to move beside him, walking toward the house. It’s a nice place, and even though it’s small, it’s nothing you’d be able to afford to live in with your current salary and savings. It has a thatched roof, the brickwork is beautiful, the door thick and heavy like a barrel that you’ve seen people make scotch in. Inside, the house is lovely, and lit and heated by a fireplace barely living through the frigid air. Naively, you go to it, hands extended to warm yourself.

Fergus chuckles at that, and busies himself at the other end of the room. You notice there’s two beds in the antipodes of the inside, and that he’s sitting in a handmade chair that rocks, hands busy at work with material and a needle.

“C–Fergus,” you correct yourself, his dark green eyes focusing on you, and not the stitching in his hands, “What am I to you?” You ask, voice soft. “Your wife –,”

He sighs, heavily. You see crowfeet lines mark in the side of his eyes, his face downcast. “She knows abit us...has dain, for a while, now.” He places the neat sewing he’s working on aside, and rests his hands to hold his forehead, like Atlas holds the world. “She has aye bin a strong-willed, loch me…but we're nae a match.”

You frown, piecing things together, “Fergus, where’s your child?”  

“Nae loch ye an' me.” His eyes are so sad, and if you didn’t know any better that this wasn’t the same person you met two months ago, you’d even go to him, console him. You sure did work minimum wage, but that didn’t make you a heartless b-witch. “I've gone an’ made a mess ay everythin' I’ve ever tooched…”

Your heart wrenches, but still, when you stand, considerably warmer than waking up on the glens of Scotland near naked, you motion to the door. “I’m sorry, I really am…but I need to, ah,” you motion to your bladder below your belly, and the older man nods, understanding. “Thank you.”

“Ye know where th’ lavvy is, lass.” He motions toward a small building across the way, and closes the door behind you to make your way.

But you don’t make it to the outhouse, instead, a familiar-scented hand grasping your arm and wrenching you out of view from the open shutters of the shieling where 15th Century Crowley-not-Crowley is inside. But when you go to fight your assailant, you see the face you had just parted with not fifteen seconds beforehand. But this time, you know it’s not the other one, Fergus. It’s Crowley.

“What – can this day get any weirder?” You hiss at him, trying to get out of his arms.

He nods. “Yeah. Wait about four seconds, darling.” You huff, complying, but internally agree. Because just like you’ve seen another Crowley, there, coming from the edge of the forest, is another you. She has slightly longer hair, braided nicely, and wears a dress like the one Fergus’s wife wore. She glances left, right, and seeing nobody was there, makes way to enter Fergus’s house. “You owe me money.”

You growl, turning to him. “I owe you nothing!” you push against his chest, infuriated at how calmly he’s taking your Alice in Wonderland of a day.  “You – you owe me an explanation. How did I – why are we –,” your anger is cut short when you see the figure of Fergus’s wife approaching, her fiery hair a warning across the morning sky. You’d think nothing of it, except, in her hands is a dagger, glinting in the early air of the day, and a murderous look upon her face. You cover your mouth with your hands, knowing what she will find when she enters her home. “Oh my g–,” you stammer, turning toward Crowley, holding your hands on your ears to block out the homicidal noises.

“__________,” he says your name with urgency.

Holding you close to his chest, Crowley moves through something dark, like a gate. A portal? You didn’t see, your eyes were closed, but when your eyes open once more, you’re not in Scotland, hiding outside an old stone house that another __________ has just been murdered in. You’re on the steps to your caravan, and sitting there, you shake. It’s warm out, and you’re not sure why you’re like this until Crowley places a blanket over your shoulders. Shock.

“__________,” he says again, and it’s only this time you realise that you’re not alone with one another. One another being, another pair of yourselves. Before you, are two men in plaid, and a man who you think you’ve seen before. “Hello, boys…”

You’re silent as they share words that make barely any sense or understanding over the static and numbness that fills your ears and that which lays between them. It’s only when you look to the blue-eyed man wearing a suit, coat, and tie which you confirm that this isn’t a normal experience. Because he’s the one who touched you, and made you go to the past in the first place.

“Can someone – explain this,” you motion gently to the air surrounding you, “to me?”

“Chronokinesis,” the man with the tie responds.

“Cas made you time-travel,” The shorter-haired man interrupted the fancy story, and added, “From what I hear, it was an accident. You’re okay.” The unspoken addition to that sentence is, at least, from what we can see. “Crowley got you in time, I hear.”

You blink. “This – this is normal, for you all…?” you question, mouth agape. “I saw myself being murdered by his wife in 1699, and its –,” you can’t blink the image of Fergus from behind your eyes, the way he moved so smoothly, like silk on lace, but you also can’t rid your ears of the sounds of the – “if this is what being a soulmate is, I don’t want it.”

The bow-legged man raised his eyebrows. “Soulmate? Didn’t think the demon King of Hell had –,”

“D-demon?” you whisper.

“Dean,” the longer-haired man interrupted, seeing your expression. He sounds hesitantly nice, and glancing to the man beside you, Ferg-Crowley, you wonder what his relationship is to this trio of strange people. “– Crowley, is there anything else we can do for you…before we leave you two to work out whatever just happened to you?”

“King of Hell…?” you breathe. “What?”

Cas puts a hand on both boys, and with a blink of an eye, all three are gone before they can answer you. Crowley scratches absently at his facial scruff, the blanket falling from your shoulders. You sit in silence for what seems like hours, but really, from the way the sun is spilling over the trailer park, awakening life back to this small, dreary town, it’s only minutes.

“You’re a demon?” you ask him, glancing to the face you’ve seen a lot of, of late.

He nods. “Yeah. Haven’t always been…you knew me, before.” He looks sadly into his hands, which sit like apples abandoned in his lap, and then to you, “Every thirty years, you come back to me, always with the name __________, always with your face, with your voice, with your –,” his voice chokes up, and you swear that there’s a glint of moisture in the corner of his eyes. “And you always die beside me.”

Your mouth gapes, words lost for a moment. “Are you talking about…reincarnation?” Crowley nods. “Wait. I don’t – I never signed up for this, I just wanted to find someone to buy a dog with, move into my first house with, call my family…” you wipe a tear from your eye now, feeling as sad as Crowley looked. “That knife, your wife used – do you think it did something to my soul?”

From a bag on his side, he withdraws a dagger, old and worn, but still as wicked sharp as you last saw it, when it was in the hand of his spouse from three hundred years ago. On the hilt, is etched, adelante, morte. But on the blade, there is a catch on the cannelure, a sharp triangle of metal missing.

“Is that Latin?” you frown, staying a safe distance away from your past-life’s murder weapon.

Crowley shakes his head. “Gaelic,” he tells you, and places it back in the bag. “It says, onward, death.” He chuckles. “Might have been cursed, and terribly looked after, as the chip might have only partially severed your –,”

Just hearing that, you gather the sides of the blanket that had fallen, and adjust them so you’re hidden from sight. Gone. Like a babe craving the seclusion of the womb after leaving it. The voice of your soulmate, so tantalisingly beautiful stops as you’re hidden, and while hidden, tears start falling from your eyes.

“Darling?”

You poke your head out from the blanket, gazing up at his face. As the morning settles over the lonely, little town you’ve been in for so much of your life, working, saving, sleeping, working some more, you allow your eyes to linger, focus on Crowley. The way his eyes watch yours, softer than the snarl he gave the trio of oddballs earlier. The way his hair on his face is slowly growing into a beard, now a soft covering over his facial features. How his hands are empty, and in your hands, you feel a want, a need to place yours in his.

You wouldn’t have been able to see this clearly months before meeting him. It’s only fair that with the clarity that came with finding your soulmate that you study the person you’re destined to be with.

“How many times have you met me?” you ask him, voice soft. “How many __________’s?”

“You’re the eleventh,” Crowley mutters, sighing deeply.

You’re sitting in a trailer park, beside the demon king of hell, considering the difficulties of what just happened to you, and what has happened to the pair of you over the last three hundred years. Eleven reincarnations of you. That’s almost enough to give you a T.A.R.D.I.S. and a popular timeslot on the BBC. And sitting there, on the steps to the caravan you’ve lived, breathed, studied, and lived through so far, you have an idea.

“If it’s all right with you,” you tell him, voice low, reserved, “I’m very happy just being number eleven.” He cocks an eyebrow, and you add, “You said that dagger had done something to me, severed my –,”

“Soul.” Crowley nods, “It’s not unheard of, but…I think I know someone who can help us out with this predicament. He owes me a favour.”

---

Everyone has someone. Your someone, was, in fact, the King of Hell, ruler of the underworld, the soulmate to ten other reincarnations of yourself throughout history. Soulmates were a thing, and while it was good for the 99% of people who had their shit together, you were proudly human. The 1% who still worked at the diner, despite being the domestic partner to the endless wealth and power of that of the ruler of Hell.

You’re fixed. The archangel who fixed you was disgruntled, snappy, but gets the job done. There will never be a twelfth __________. Just you, and Crowley.

With your degree completed, you managed to secure a job as an interpreter of ancient historical texts at the university in a flourishing town by the seaside, and with your savings You upgraded your living situation to live in a small house, with a garden out the front and a basement at the bottom (Crowley’s favourite haunt). While it was sad to leave your life in the sad, dead-end job and the small, tired town, it really wasn’t, and you were glad to leave Bean There, Donut That behind.

Life just isn’t that shitty. It’s all a little window that goes very slowly for the person living it, because life isn’t a television show which cuts to the action. You need to live the little parts. Make your hard work into the montage that the viewers cherish. It wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows, yes, but nothing really is. It’s like the Beatles said, all you need is love – except, perhaps, food, oxygen, and a place to call your own.

And with your new life with Crowley, you had all of that.