My Guilty Little Secret

Writer's Block: Book worms unite!

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:10:10 GMT

Best:
The Many Coloured Land (and the sequels) by Julian May. Okay, so it's fairly silly sci fi/fantasy, but it's vast in scope, consistantly characterised and very original.

The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. I loved it as a kid, and have re-read it as an adult and still enjoyed it. I mourned when they made the god-awful film.

and... wait for it...

Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson. Yes, it is a picture book. But it is the perfect example of a picture book for small kids. I love it. My kids love it. The kids in the Primary school I visit as a storyteller love it. It's even better than the Gruffalo, and that's saying something.

Worst:
Eragon. Bought for my stepson. Read to see what I was giving him. Sorry, but a literal rendition of the hero's journey published by your dad does not make a good book. It's vanity publishing for the privileged.

About half a chapter of Twilight. In my defence, I knew I would hate it, but my friend's teenage daughter had been given the book, and reacted with such horror that we both felt it necessary to see what she, a noted bookworm, would refuse to read. It's bad fanfiction, published. End of.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles. I read this at school, and got in massive trouble for writing an essay on why it was an awful book. Despite pissing off the teacher, and instigating a mini rebellion (English Lit essays in my class became a lot less 'party line') I still got an A as I argued my case well. Tess is pathetic. The plot is unlikely, and it really shouldn't be so revered, but hey it's old so it must be good.

MUSE The Resistance

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:35:20 GMT

Okay, so it's not writing, but I have to say it:

The Resistance by Muse is the best album I have ever heard.

I recently discovered Spotify, but have been listening through my rubbish old speakers. Got hold of the decent ones this evening, and bloody hell, the album is even better on decent kit.

On the up side, unlimited access to brilliant music and a sudden increase in available writing time has meant that I'm getting around to some serious electron bothering (like writing, but computer-based) although the current story Leporid is not something I ever thought I would find myself writing, even it is a rather funny idea.

Heroes

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 10:07:07 GMT

Mr Guilty and I are currently working our way through Heroes series 1. When it was originally shown on TV in the UK I only managed to watch 3 episodes before I decided that: a) I couldn't follow it; b) I thought it was overrated, and c) I wanted to murder Nicole's too-cute son.

But earlier this week, a friend of ours lent us the DVDs and I gave it another go.

I take back what I said before - it's actually pretty good. And you can't really go wrong when there's unexpected Christopher Eccleston. I didn't know he was in it, so to have him suddenly show up was something of a surprise. Add to that the fact that one of his first lines was, "Fantastic!" and you have one very happy me on your hands.

I do wonder if that was intentional, as later in the same episode(? we watched rather a lot last night) there was a rather blatant nod to Star Trek that reduced Mr Guilty to a squeeing fangirl. He was pretty impressed when Hiro's abductor turned out to be his dad, played by George Takei. But when he leaves to go home to Japan -

Me: *watches Hiro's dad get into the car*
Mr G: *bounces like a 5 year old on a sugar high* Did you see that? Did you see it? That's -so- great.
Me: What?
Mr G: Rewind it! Rewind it! You have to see this...
Me: Okay, but what? What am I supposed to see?
DVD: *rewinds*
Mr G: The car number plate. Look at the number plate.
Me: Okaaaaaaay. NC-1701. And?
Mr G: *starry eyed* Star Trek! That's the designation of the Enterprise. They gave Sulu an Enterprise numberplate.
Me: And you laughed at -me- when I was grinning like an idiot when Claude said "Fantastic!"?

This just goes to prove that no matter how geeky I am, I have NOTHING on my husband.

In other news I'm trying to decide if I want to accompany Mr Guilty and his friend Comic Book Nut to see Watchmen at the cinema. They're both keen to go, and I'm quite tempted, but I'm not a massive fan of really graphic violence - The Dark Knight was about as gory as I'm willing to go. It's not because I'm particularly squeamish, some of my original fiction is pretty damn dark in places, but I find that too much blood and guts annoys me as it's often unncessary to the plot.

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 13:41:14 GMT

I know this is supposed to be my fic journal, but normal service is currently suspended due to Act of Dentist.

I'm trying to work on another story in my Closed Loop series, but keep getting sidetracked by Ten/Rose smut that I know I will never in a million years finish. Not that it matters, as I am barely coherent due to having porridge for brains - I don't get on well with local anaesthetics (and you don't want to know how many tries that took me to type).

Root fillings are most definitely NOT GOOD.

Oowwwwowoowoooowwww.

And lo, the plot bunnies did descend and crossover wierdness did abound.

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:14:08 GMT

Following a thread on the doctor who comm, I have a rather nebulous plot bunny lurking in my skull, but I'm struggling to pin it down and make any sense of it.

Basically, it boils down to sticking the HHGG characters into the premise of a Doctor Who episode and having them trash it. Trouble is, it needs to have Jack in it and really, for the sake of my writing, 10. Because, let's face it, Ford is 10 with a drink problem and responsibility issues.

But the episodes with Jack and 10 aren't really suitable for what I want to do - Utopia perhaps, but that ends with the Master coming back, which gets into more serious territory that I'm happy with, and likewise with the gamestation and 9.

Dammit.

Doctor Who: Manners

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:26:02 GMT

Four drabbles, written for Mr Guilty, who shares the Doctor's views on sticky things in jars.

Rose

He's perched on the worktop in the kitchen when Rose finally emerges from her room, mascara-smeared and pale faced.
"So," he prompts, "feeling any better?"
She shrugs noncommittally and busies herself with the kettle.
"I guess you're still you," she begins, "but what's with the jam?"
He looks down, guiltily, at the jar in his hand.
“You were crying, and I was hungry.” The words fall from his mouth in a tangle, and he’s not sure he likes the unfiltered way they tumble out. He offers her the jar. “Want some?”
She shakes her head.
“Nah. Let’s get chips instead.”

*****
Martha

“Doctor!” Martha exclaims as she walks into the kitchen, only to find him having a quick snack.
“What?” he says, twisting his arm to lick a drip of honey running down the side of his palm.
“That’s disgusting!” she says, pointing to the jar of honey on his lap. “You can’t just eat it from the jar with your fingers.”
“Why not?” He seems genuinely surprised that she’s so horrified.
“It’s unhygienic! You’ve just put me right off eating anything in this kitchen,” she frowns, then brightens a moment later. “So now you’re going to take me out to dinner.”

*****
Donna

He reaches for the jar that Donna set on the counter and absently unscrews the lid, still talking ten to the dozen.
"So I changed the input polarity on the reality decoder and gave it a new cup of really hot tea..." Unheeded, his fingers scoop up the oozing contents of the jar and bear it ever closer to his mouth. "...and before I knew it there was an enormous explosion and..." Barely pausing in his monologue, he puts the jar back down and licks the sticky residue from his fingers.
An expression of surprised disgust blooms across his face.

"That's wrong! That's, that's... NOT JAM!" He leaps from the counter and runs from the kitchen. For a skinny streak of nothing, he can show a fair turn of speed, given the right incentive.
A scant half a second after the Doctor's abrupt exit, Donna's toast pops up. She considers the jar of Marmite for a moment, but decides that nothing unpleasant, not even Time Lord nasties, could survive in something that salty.
Satisfied, she returns the jar to the shelf, basking in the knowledge that from now on eating jam in the Tardis kitchen will be a lot safer.

Writer's Block: On Character Preferences

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:10:31 GMT

Who is your favorite fictional character? Why do you love them? What fictional character bugs you?

Submitted By twisted_clarity

View 500 Answers

Favourite fictional character? Ford Prefect from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (The radio play/TV series/books NOT the awful awful awful film). He's my favourite because he's so totally insane that he's come out the other side into a peculiar eye of almost-sanity.
Character that bugs me? I absolutely loathe pretty much every character in all the Star Trek series because even the flawed characters are still too damn goody-goody. The only redeeming thing to come out of that franchise was Enterprise, mainly because they screwed absolutely everything up.

Doctor Who/Hitchhikers crossover: In Which Arthur Finally Manages To Aquire A Proper Cup of Tea

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:52:49 GMT

Honestly not as utterly insane as it sounds. No, really.
Blame the amazing doctorwhy comic strip, particularly #16. It sparked my brain, which is always a bad thing.

In which Arthur Dent finally manages

to acquire a proper cup of tea.

It was entirely fitting that the sublevels of Milliways, the most fashionable eating establishment in the universe, should be packed with an array of spectacular spacecraft. It was also remarkably fortunate if you were in dire need of making a rapid exit from said eating establishment and had omitted to secure transportation in advance. Confronted with such an abundance of choice Zaphod and Ford were, quite naturally, bickering.

As it was, Arthur barely noticed the exotic shapes once his eyes caught upon a particularly impossible blue object close to the entrance to the docking bays.
"That," he said slowly, "is a police box."
"Yeah, yeah Monkeyman," Zaphod muttered, waving him away absently, "go climb on it or something."
Arthur shot him a withering glare, and returned to examining the unexpected blue box.
"What," he pondered aloud, "is a police box doing at the end of the universe?"
"Sightseeing?" ventured Ford. "Really, Arthur, if you can't come to terms with even slightly unlikely things, you are never going to survive for long in this galaxy. Or any other, for that matter." He turned to examine a sleek silver dart which was docked nearby, whistling tunelessly between his teeth.
"But that still doesn't answer my question," Arthur continued, slightly belligerent. "Why is there an Earth police box parked in the car park of an impossible restaurant at the end of time, when MY Earth, MY planet, was destroyed millions of years ago? A fact which still does not sit entirely comfortably with me, by the way, as wherever I go I feel like the universe is taunting me about its demise!"
He slammed his hand against the Police Box door for emphasis. It was a tribute to how resigned he had become to the vagaries of space travel that Arthur experienced very little surprise when door swung open beneath his fist and he fell inelegantly into its interior. He emerged, wide-eyed, a moment later.
"Ford," he said eventually, "I really think you should look at this."

*****

“They’re not any kind of ship controls that I’ve ever seen,” Ford said, studying something that resembled a bicycle pump protruding from the console inside the blue box. He poked it. It made a faintly unsatisfactory 'plink' noise. “Maybe it’s where they keep Marvin when he gets too much to take.” The grin which was beginning to spread across his face halted its advance as the door clicked shut and a grating sound filled the impossible chamber.
“I don’t think this is a cupboard, Ford,” Arthur remarked, as the floor tilted alarmingly. “We’re clearly going somewhere.”
"Oh Zarquon! What did you do this time?" Ford exclaimed as he loped away from the console to rattle the door uselessly.
"Me?" Arthur said, outraged, "I didn't touch anything." He paused. "You know, Zaphod was right by the door when it closed."
"Not me, Monkeyman," drawled Zaphod, from where he leaned against the curiously curved wall. "I wanted nothing to do with this hunk of junk."
Rolling his eyes, Ford pulled on the door handle, alternating between cursing under his breath and shooting pointed looks at Zaphod.

"I'll just... look at these controls then." Arthur muttered, and turned to examine the instruments sprouting from the panels beside him. His toe connected with something, and he glanced down.
"Ford, Zaphod," he said warily, “this control bank appears to have grown legs.” He cautiously stepped over the limbs and moved back towards the door. “They seem to have pinstripes.”
"What," said the console indistinctly, "are you doing in here?" There was a prolonged scuffling noise, a resounding clang, and a scruffy head popped up from behind the bank of controls. “And what, exactly, have you done to my Tardis?”

Zaphod clearly saw this as his cue to switch into social mode.
“Hey man, it’s really great to meet you,” he said with a practiced smile, extending a hand to the stranger. “Whoever the hell you are.”
"I'm the Doctor," said the pinstriped man, regarding Zaphod’s outstretched arm with puzzlement. "And who might you be?"
“I’m Zaphod Beeblebrox,” said Zaphod.
The Doctor looked at him blankly.
“President Beeblebrox?” Zaphod waited hopefully for the spark of recognition which surely must come.
The Doctor continued to stare for a time, then said, very carefully,
"That must be nice for you."
There was a muffled sound from the solitary chair in the room. It appeared to have something to do with Ford trying to cram his own fist into his mouth as he marveled at the impact of Zaphod’s ego with an apparently immovable object. Something akin to a laugh's deranged cousin escaped.

"Right," said the Doctor, rubbing his hands together. "Let's see if we can't put you back where you belong." He grinned, flicked a switch, and mercifully the floor's uncertain movement ceased.
Ford sidled closer, and peered around the Doctor’s elbow at what he was doing to the controls. The Doctor frowned, and shifted to another panel.

Ford followed.

This continued all the way around the console.

Eventually the Doctor removed a pair of glasses from his jacket pocket and turned abruptly to regard Ford. Unfortunately for Ford, due to the disparity in heights this was rather more chin to forehead than face to face.
"Look,” said the Doctor, holding the glasses up to his eyes and taking a pace backwards. “Will you please stop that? Who are you?”
"Ford Prefect, field researcher for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,” said Ford, stepping closer, with one of his grins which Arthur had come to associate with things rapidly spiraling even further out of control. “I'm sure you've heard of it.”
"The Guide? Yes. The Guide. Very informative. Very guide-y,” said the Doctor. With an exaggerated stride, he moved to put the console between himself and Ford’s curious scrutiny, then leant over sideways and sighted along a lever on the console.
"I can see you've never come across a copy," Arthur muttered.
The Doctor paused in his elaborate dance with the controls and stared at him.

“Arthur Dent? You’re Arthur Dent!” He said, vaulting over one side of the console to land in front of Arthur. “Arthur Dent from Earth?”
Arthur nodded, and was surprised to find his hand being shaken vigorously.
“Terrific to see you, really, really terrific,” the Doctor babbled. “Although, and I’m guessing here, the way you’re staring me like I’m utterly insane makes me think we may not, in fact, have met yet.” He bounded back to the controls and set to work. “So, I’ll just pop you back to where I found you, and be on my way, no harm done.”

Those are NHS glasses, Arthur thought inconsequentially. I’m trapped in a logically impossible Police Box with an insane alien who wears free NHS spectacles and claims that he already will have met me. Once again, once a-bloody-gain, the Universe is playing silly buggers with me. A thought tickled the back of his mind, logic persisting despite seemingly insurmountable odds. NHS spectacles must, by their very nature, be procured from a National Health Service optician, he mused. Unless there has been some massive expansion drive I was unaware of, that means that I have encountered yet another alien who has, at some point, visited the Earth. Or, more specifically, an Earth-based NHS optician. Which means...

"I don't suppose," Arthur began, in tones which spoke of desperate hope, "I don't suppose you would happen to have any tea aboard?"
"Tea?" the Doctor said, brightly. "Of course I do, very important stuff tea. I always keep a flask to hand when I'm working; you never know when you might need a cuppa. Help yourself." He fished around in his jacket pocket and extracted a large tartan thermos flask, a sight which sent the logical part of Arthur's brain into spasm.

He poured a generous cupful and peered at it suspiciously. Tea had, thus far, been something of a disappointment in the parts of the galaxy he had visited, and if this tea was of similar provenance to the glasses there was a good chance that things were not about to improve. Even the worst tea that the Heart of Gold had produced was superior to that found in the vending machines which lurked in that shining beacon of the NHS, the Royal Surrey Hospital. He took a cautious sip, and for a moment he was home.

He was broken from his tea-induced calm by a juddering crash.
"Here you go, all ashore who's going ashore and all that," said the Doctor cheerfully, flinging the doors open. "Right back where you started." He looked around. "Well, more or less. I couldn't park exactly where I picked you up as someone's gone and parked a dirty great black spaceship there. It's near enough though." He stepped aside, waving his visitors through. As Arthur trailed reluctantly after, he grabbed his hand and shook it enthusiastically. "I hope you enjoy it when I meet you the first time, as the cricket is particularly thrilling."

Arthur took a moment to process this, but as it appeared there would be cricket in the future, he decided it couldn't be all bad. It also occurred to him that anyone who could manage to confuse time itself was probably far more in tune with the fundamental nature of the Universe than he personally was.

"Doctor," Arthur called as the door of the Tardis began to close, "I don't suppose you know the ultimate question to life, the universe and everything?"
The Doctor's head popped back out.
"What? The Ultimate Question?" he began, "oh, certainly. I can tell you all about that..." but to Arthur's dismay the unsettling grating sound drowned out anything further.

They stood watching the spot where the police box was now conspicuously absent.
"What we need is another ship," Ford said eventually. "Although, personally I'd settle for a large gin and tonic."
Zaphod was half-way along the gantry, the Doctor and his Tardis already forgotten in his eagerness to select a ship.
"That," he called, "that... is really bad for the eyes..."
Ford sighed.
"He really does have the attention span of a demented gnat," he said. "Come on, let's see if we can get off this planet."
Arthur watched them go, sipping happily from the cup.

It really was terribly good tea.

</lj>

Doctor Who: Closed Loop (Donna, Jack) PG

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:45:07 GMT

A/N: This is a follow on from my first Doctor Who fic Pockets. It didn't follow the path I originally planned, turning into the millennia-spanning demon below. Please excuse the formatting, I can't get on with LJ.

Summary:

Despite what she allowed Jack to believe when she borrowed, well, more like stole, his teleport, Donna has no intention of running straight back to the Doctor. For one thing, she couldn’t really recalibrate Jack’s teleport as fast as she suggested to the dumbstruck former Time Agent. But she’s learnt a lot from her new Time Lord mind, and a great deal of it comes down to one simple thing – style. She knows instinctively that you can get away with almost anything if you throw up enough spectacle around it.

*****

Her life started to change long before her untimely death by taxi. She’d kept temping to help pay the bills, but in her free time she’d felt compelled to write. Impossible things spilled from her fingers at one hundred words per minute in the tiny back room of her mother’s house. ‘Agatha Christie in Space’, one reviewer had called her, no doubt revelling in the parallel of two murder mystery authors linked not only by their oeuvre but by mysterious bouts of amnesia. Looking back, she finds this terribly amusing.

Her grandfather had proof-read her books eagerly, suggesting a tweak here and there and helping her knock a few rough edges off John Smith, hapless intergalactic detective. Despite his enthusiasm, he’d always seemed troubled by her jokes that ‘Doctor’ Smith felt like a separate entity within her mind, but he’d supported her nonetheless. Even her mother had been unexpectedly encouraging when she’d announced that she was planning to write a novel.

The books sold well. The sales of her third book eclipsed those of the offerings from perennial summer bestsellers like Dan Brown and Michael Crichton. She’d used the proceeds to buy a country estate, Eddison Grange. When they’d moved into the rambling old house, an awestruck Sylvia had described it as straight out of a murder mystery. Wilf had remained oddly quiet.

*****

The third time she dies, she manages to trigger the emergency program on her teleport before the regeneration energy takes hold. It drops her into Jack’s office in Torchwood Cardiff. Even to her fading sight it’s clear that Jack and Ianto weren’t expecting company.

“Oi, Lovebirds,” she manages to croak before the fire and the agony take her.

Mickey is her saviour that day. At Jack’s horrified summons he rushes into the office, takes one look at the incandescent form collapsing to the floor, and calmly walks away to put the kettle on. He’s rather more surprised when, returning to the office bearing a laden tea tray, he finds a woman slumped against Jack’s desk.

*****

Mickey is head of the Torchwood R and D department, based out of the old Torchwood Estate in Scotland. He’s greying now, and starting to put on weight around the gut since he no longer draws field duty. Advancing years aside, he can still turn in a good sprint when he hears the distinctive pop and hiss of an arriving teleport in the halls of his domain.

He both loves and dreads Donna’s visits. On the one hand it’s good to see her, and she often helps decipher the bits of tech they’re having no luck with. But then, inevitably, she will disappear into the vaults and help herself to the pick of the shelves at will.

He feels a deep and weary empathy for the authors of the old UNIT reports his department… …acquired… not so long ago, the ones which express, through layers of officialese and military euphemism, the complete bewilderment of the staff who were expected to work on a daily basis with an unpredictable, and unmistakably alien, alien.

Torchwood also crosses paths with the Doctor on a number of occasions. Each time, he’s surprised with their progress since he saw them last. Each time, they adhere to the new unwritten rule, latest in the weighty invisible rulebook, which states ‘never mention Donna to the Doctor’.

*****

She journeys through the stars with her array of gizmos liberated from Torchwood. They’re advanced technology, not safe to be left mouldering in the twenty first century, so she reasons that she’s doing the universe a favour by taking them.

She finds the Tardis on one such trip, and she can’t resist going over and giving the old girl a pat. The possibility that it’s her Doctor passing through is too good to miss.

“Excuse me,” she asks, “have you seen a skinny bloke in a suit go by?”

The man in the scarf looks at her as if she is some strange puzzle to solve, but eventually shakes his head.

*****

On her travels, she loses her name. The knowledge in her head allows her to speak the languages of a million races, but when she gives her name, it is the meaning, not the pronunciation, that is conveyed. ‘The Lady’ becomes known on a thousand worlds.

Travelling alone is hard. She returns to Earth less frequently as those whom she remembers fall to time’s relentless advance. There is no-one to stand beside her as she scatters Wilf’s ashes into the heart of a distant sun. She couldn’t give him the stars, but now at least she can leave him with them.

She sometimes thinks of her twin, although she knows he must be dead, having lived out the mortal span her humanity gifted him. It leaves a hollow ache to think that the measure of Donna Noble that he absorbed will be long gone by now. Eventually, there are only she and Jack who remain of those who fought Davros at the Crucible.

*****

She watches Ianto’s funeral from the trees at the edge of the crematorium. The mourners leave; they’re mostly Torchwood employees come to bid their deeply respected Director farewell, she notes, and soon a solitary figure remains, studying the floral tributes outside the chapel.

“It doesn’t get any easier,” he says as she approaches. “No matter how many die.”

She places a hand on his shoulder. Neither speaks, but when Jack finally turns to look at her, the despair in his eyes forces her to act. Tightening her grip on his suit jacket, her hand moves to the teleport device on her wrist and she answers his unspoken plea.

The leaves swirl briefly where they stood, and then lie still once more.

*****

She takes him to Felspoon to see the mountains sway; he watches them silently, then wonders aloud what Ianto would have thought of them. She sighs deeply, and teleports them again, trying to fill the yawning void in Jack’s heart with the universe. Travelling together is eventful to say the least. On a hundred worlds, they grasp hands and run.

She can feel the wrongness of Jack, a hairline crack in space around him; he doesn’t quite fit in the slot the universe allows for him, and through the gaps the Void flickers, catching her eye when she looks at him, like sunlight through a chink in a wall. This is what drove the Doctor to run from him, this unavoidable difference, but she tolerates it; her foreknowledge of his place in the future gives her no option. Without a hand to hold, he will break under the pressure of so many millennia.

She comes and goes, leaving him to live lives on a dozen worlds, but always returning after a span, ready to look for the next adventure. Usually she skips forward, letting seventy years pass in an eyeblink, but sometimes she heads off on her own to explore, living each moment until she returns to him, the Fixed Point in Time’s only point of reference.

*****

She can see so much. Time Lord mind, human spark, the fates on her back and eons of life have shown her the truth of many things. Sometimes she finds it hard to believe that she has not been driven as mad as Dalek Caan.

She sees that time is an endless Mobius strip, coiled tightly in the void. Sees the parallel universes for what they are – the stacked loops of time’s endless march. Knows instinctively the ceaseless repetition of the cycle, each time a minute variation on the last.

She wonders if the great civilisation of Gallifrey would enjoy the irony of being the greatest paradox of them all. For, in exiling their wayward brother back a step to Pete’s World (and oh, how perfect, how fitting, that she still considers it by such a human name), the Oncoming Storm, destroyer of their race, also became their progenitor. The greatest race in the entire galaxy, descended from two stupid little apes, the shop-girl and the temp, and the instigator of their own genocide. They are tiny drop in the immense gene pool of the human race, but the children of the hybrid Time Lord and the Bad Wolf, changed forever by the heart of the Tardis, will be the catalyst for the emergence of the new race.

*****

She watches the Tardis materialise in New New York, sees the youthful faces of the occupants as they enter the city. Even the Doctor, some 900 years old, seems little more than a child to her now. She waits patiently for events to unfold. Eventually the exodus from below begins and she grieves silently, foreknowledge doing nothing to soften the blow of her loss.

She has served her purpose, fulfilled her self-imposed obligation to Jack. She has just one more duty left, one more broken cog in the intricate mechanism of the universe to set to rights.

*****

He’s still soaking wet from the Chiswick rain, slumped against the Tardis coral, despairing, tired, and so jarringly, achingly young to her ancient eyes. She knows that for him, only minutes have passed since he left her empty shell in the care of her mother and Wilf. He’s broken, closer to human than ever before, and she realises that she has avoided returning until now for that very reason. Over the centuries he has slipped ever closer to the race which accepted him when his own rejected him, offered him sanctuary when he was the last of his kind. He needed her to return more Time Lord than human to pull him back from the precipice.

Even after all the time that she has endured, she can’t help but smile when he spots her standing where she had materialised for that first time, a point both two years and a thousand lives ago. It is a dizzy blend of the familiar and the almost forgotten.

“What?” he says, instantly manic and wild eyed, falling back into his role as the Doctor, the grieving man fading behind the irrepressible alien.

There’s only one way she can respond to such characteristic confusion. Opening her arms wide, and pulling the Donna-that-was to the fore, she replies.

“Oi Spaceboy, what did you go and do that for?”

Doctor Who: Pockets. (Donna, Jack) PG

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:57:09 GMT

Word count: 1183
Disclaimer: Nope. Not mine.
Spoilers: If you haven't seen the end of series 4 what rock are you hiding under? don't read.
A/N: First foray into a new fandom! I can't help thinking that there's a great big loophole been left at the end of series 4...

Summary: When he hears the door begin to ratchet open he begins to call out, but the words die on his lips when he sees the stranger stride into the Hub as if she owns the place.

He watches from his vantage point in his office as the woman in the strange waistcoat runs a finger along the bank of consoles Tosh constructed so long ago, peers up into the dizzying heights above and cocks her head to consider the metallic guts of Mickey's latest project where they lie strewn across the workbench and floor. The alarms that should be calling back the rest of the team remain silent though, although the war in his head between the shock of the new and a strange familiarity sets off alarm bells of its own.

Eventually she stops her exploration at the bottom of the stairs to his office. She looks up, directly at him, and even though he's motionless and silent crouching behind the desk he knows with absolute certainty that she's fully aware that he's lurking there. She snorts, clearly impatient with him.

"Oi! Captain Dishy! You can hug me if you like." she hollers, and suddenly, like a camera pulling into focus, what he's seeing makes complete, although as yet mystifying, sense. The hair colour is wrong, even the face, but perhaps that's part of why he feels so certain.

"Donna?" he calls, but it's a cautious greeting, and he'll be damned if he's going to put his gun down just yet. "You're alone?"

She snorts and nigh on skips up the metal staircase to join him. He thinks he can see the woman he met before in this stranger, although he didn't have time to get to know her well enough to be sure. The total lack of caution she exhibits in exploring his domain brings to mind someone else entirely.

She breezes into the office and he finds himself scrabbling back to his feet, feeling foolish. The uneasy edge is still there though, and he can't quite bring himself to put the firearm down.

"A gun Jack?" she smirks as she flops into his chair at the desk. "Like to see you try it, Soldier Boy." She leans forward, chin in hand to study his desk. She seems more than content to sit reading his documents and fiddling with the contents of the drawers, so he is reduced to shuffling the papers around the desk to try and keep them out of her hands. He can't help noticing how often her attention strays to the now-useless teleport that weights down a stack of old letters.

"So?" he prompts. "You. My office. Why?"

"He bloody left me, that's why! Wiped my mind and left me!" In an instant she's fiercely indignant and springs from the chair, arms flailing wildly as she paces his cramped office. It's a strange, unnerving sight; mannerisms he recognises from two other people bursting from this unfamiliar figure.

"Why?" he asks, disgusted that he's reduced to asking questions like some hopeless simpleton.

"Because..." she begins, and oh boy, the eye roll and drawn out vowels are pure, undiluted Donna Noble there, "Skinny Boy didn't think it through properly, did he? If Doctor Mark Two was more human than Time Lord, what did that make me? Stands to reason that I'd be more Time Lord than human. Time Lord enough to regenerate, anyway. Being able to regenerate isn't going to disappear just because I can't remember, is it? Genius he may be, but he's got no common sense."

"Regenerate? You died?" Jack cringes inwardly once again. He's pretty sure that there's vast acres of this story passing him by, but he finds himself seizing on the one word that makes some kind of sense in her rapid-fire rant and hoping that he'll end up somewhere he can understand.

"Yeah. Hit by a taxi in the middle of Chiswick High Street on a Friday night." she says with remarkable ease. His own first death had left him shaking and sick to the stomach for days. "Took a while for the process to get going, thankfully. Don't think it would have gone down well outside of the club if I'd done the whole..." she trails off, waving a hand vaguely in the air, "...thing there and then. Gave the mortuary guy a shock though. Had to tell him I was the new admin temp. Spent four hours being introduced to their computer system, and you wouldn't believe how much paperwork it takes to track a dead body. It's not as if they're gonna get up and walk away, is it?" she pauses and grins. "Well, not often anyway. Special circumstances and all that."

Then, she walks right up to him, huge beaming smile and all, grabs his hands and slaps them enthusiastically to her chest.

"Look! Feel! How's that for special circumstances!" she says, still grinning. Sure enough, once he's recovered from the surprise of having his hands forcefully placed on the breasts of some strange woman, he can feel two distinct heartbeats. It occurs to him that whilst he wouldn't have any objection to such unexpected events under other circumstances, this is the augmented Donna, and she's possibly more terrifying than anything he's encountered before. He also spots that she's snagged his teleport device from the desk and it's now strapped firmly to her wrist.

"And that?" He stares pointedly at his property proudly displayed on her arm. She feigns confusion and tugs at her ludicrous waistcoat.

"This? Lots of pockets. You can never have too many pockets. Never know when you might need some doodad or other." She fishes a lumpy agglomeration of wires and metal from a bulging pouch. Jack blinks as the queasy shifting focus returns and Donna's old voice paraphrasing the new in his head phases seamlessly into that of the Doctor. "Don't have a TARDIS of my own, so I have to carry it all with me."

"And what the hell is that you're waving at my teleport?" he asks pointedly, indicating the ugly thing in her hand.

The device disappears back into one of the multitude of pockets.
"That? Almost-sonic screwdriver. Thought it might come in handy." She's near incandescent with delight now, and Jack knows without question why she's here, stealing from him.

"How will you find him?" he asks, almost involuntarily. The urge to grab her by the ridiculous pocketed jacket, to tag along with her, is intense, but he fights it down.

"Didn't you know? I'm brilliant, me! He isn't going to know what's hit him." she crows triumphantly, and slaps her free hand to the device on her wrist.

She winks out of existence, pulling the breath from him as the air rushes to fill the void left in her wake.

He draws a huge shaking breath and wonders how long it will be before they come crashing back into his life. After all, now there are two of them out there he's twice as likely to run into them as he was before, and he's got all the time in the world to wait.
And posted in dwfiction

Harry Potter: One Last Jaunt For Old Times' Sake (Harry, Ron, Snape) G

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 10:41:03 GMT

One Last Jaunt For Old Times’ Sake

It was definitely more crowded under the Invisibility Cloak than Ron remembered.

“Remind me again, Harry. Why are we here?” he whispered. “You know, creeping around Hogwarts when we’re supposed to be taking Neville out for a belated birthday drink?”

Harry shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat.
“Because I need to check something out,” he muttered.

Frustrated by his friend's non-answer, Ron tugged nervously at the cloak, trying to ensure that no suspicious, disembodied feet would give them away.

“Well, when you said ‘help me check something out,’ I assumed you meant borrowing a key to the library or visiting Dumbledore’s portrait or something. It didn’t cross my mind that you were planning on doing a little light breaking and entering,” he grumbled as they shuffled awkwardly along the familiar corridors of Hogwarts.

“Borrow a key to the library? You’ve been married to Hermione for too long, Ron."

Harry sounded too amused by half for Ron's liking. His mouth fell open in indignation, then snapped shut at the thought of his wife's reaction should she ever hear about this little outing. After a moment of quiet dread, he recovered enough to try to reason with his reckless friend.

"Well there’s the thing, Harry. I’m Mr. Ronald Weasley, father and respectable junior Auror these days, not Ron Weasleby, Gryffindor class clown," he began, trying to look as dignified as was possible for a lanky young man crouching under a too-small Invisibility Cloak. It was not an unqualified success.

Harry muttered something to the gargoyle which sounded suspiciously like 'powdered Skrewt bone,' and the door swung open to reveal the staircase to the headmaster's office. Despite his misgivings, Ron had no choice but to follow Harry up the stairs with a crab-like gait – it was either that or mysteriously appear in the open doorway to the Headmaster’s private office in front of a wall full of gossiping portraits. He had a feeling that Hermione would hear about that in about thirty seconds flat, and no matter what he thought of the current Headmaster, he was definitely more scared of his own wife. Yes. Definitely.

It seemed that Harry knew exactly where to find the target of their adventure, for he moved purposefully over to the desk and shoved a huge book into Ron’s hands.

“Just hold this for me, yeah?” he said, already starting to flip through it.

The ledger was heavier than Ron expected, and his arms were aching by the time Harry had finished fanning through the pages. He was greatly relieved when, with a final chuckle, Harry hefted the book into his own arms.

“Take a look at this,” he said, gesturing at the page. It wasn’t easy to read in the dim light under the cloak, but the elegant calligraphic script across the top of the page declared the list of names below ‘Hogwarts Intake 2017.’ Ron scanned the page, at a loss as to why Harry was so interested in his infant daughter's future classmates.

“Ruddy hell, Harry, the only funny thing I can see on that page is proof that Malfoy is in fact male, not the girl I’d always thought. Unless, of course, he’s been on the receiving end of some highly experimental magic.” Ron shuddered. “Actually, mate, would you mind obliviating me? That’s not a train of thought I want to continue with.”

Before Harry had a chance to respond, there was a creak from below and brisk footsteps advanced upon the stairs. They continued without faltering, steadily and unerringly before coming to an abrupt halt directly behind the two hapless spies. Ron felt the unmistakable slide of cloth over his head. Hands grasped uselessly at the traitorous garment, but with a terrible inevitability, the Invisibility Cloak was whipped away. Green eyes met blue in a shared look of abject horror, and the ancient tome fell to the floor with an accusing thud. Ron closed his eyes, fervently hoping for a quick death. He could not suppress the whimper which escaped his throat, a sound usually reserved for only the largest of spiders. Still half crouching, he slowly turned to face their captor and experimentally opened one eye.

Black.

This was not good.

He closed the eye again. That was better. With his eyes closed he could pretend that this whole disaster wasn't real.

Unfortunately, it seemed that reality had other ideas. A voice, which inexplicably featured in more of his nightmares than that of Lord Snake-Face the Deceased, pierced the rosy clouds of self-delusion he was attempting to hide within.

"Mr. Weasley, I am not some bizarre variety of boggart. I will not disappear just because you cannot see me."

Given that hiding from the situation was failing abysmally, Ron decided that the best course of action would be to face up to the situation. Opening his eyes, he found himself practically nose to nose with Hogwarts’ current headmaster. The usually spider-induced whimper bubbled up again, unheeded.

“What in the name of Merlin is going on?” Stepping back to better study his unexpected visitors, Headmaster Snape pinched the bridge of his nose and scowled as if in pain. "I foolishly assumed that you would cease to plague me once you were no longer my students, but that would appear to have been somewhat optimistic. Should I perhaps check the storeroom for Miss Granger? Or maybe Professor Longbottom has abandoned his greenhouses in favour of destroying a cauldron or two in the Potions classroom?”

As Snape paused to draw breath for what Ron suspected would be some rather spectacular shouting, Harry’s elbow connected sharply with Ron’s ribs. He glanced pointedly across at the still open door and mouthed “Run!” to his friend. As one, the pair bolted for the door, taking the stairs three at a time back down to the corridor below.

For a moment or two, Snape stared after them as if not quite believing the evidence of his own eyes. Then a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and, wand in hand, he followed after them.

His voice echoed back into the office. “Potter, I’m sure Mr. Filch would still enjoy your company, even though you are no longer a student.” At this, there was a flicker on the walls as the portraits fled their frames with unseemly haste, eager to see what was to become of the Boy-Who-Lived-To-Irritate-The-Headmaster-Again.

The student enrollment ledger lay forgotten on the office floor, its pages fanned by the breeze from the slammed door. Centuries of magical history flicked past, coming to rest on the final page of neatly inscribed names. If any of the portraits had remained to look, they would have seen that the very last entry, directly beneath ‘Weasley, Rose, 18th June 2006,’ was ‘Dursley, Darren, 31st August 2006’.

I offer thanks to my lovely beta IrishEspressoGirl, who I found at The Petulant Poetess.

Harry Potter: Silence (Molly) G

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:19:55 GMT

Words: 112

Silence

The light through the window gives everything a shimmer of dusty gold. Her hands move calmly, smoothing the faded patchwork quilt, tugging and fussing and tucking to get it just so. The sheet, clean and white, folds back over the quilt, revealing the nicely fluffed pillow.

She had done this a thousand times before, but never so perfectly.

Then, when it is silent and still and there is no-one else to see, she kneels beside the bed she has so carefully made and lays her cheek on the smooth cool patches he will never sleep under again. It is only her and the silence now, and her tears begin to fall.

Harry Potter: Hers (Molly, Bellatrix) PG for slight language

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:29:29 GMT

Title: Hers.
Rating: PG for language yet again - and boy am I reining it in to keep it that low.
Disclaimer: I have unashamedly embroidered upon the best scene in the whole of Deathly Hallows. It belongs totally and utterly to JK Rowling, but it was fun to play with it for a little while. Although, "Not my daughter, you bitch" is remarkably similar to "Get away from her, you bitch", so Molly is possibly channeling Ripley from Aliens at this point :-D

Notes: I have no idea why on earth I wrote this in second person. It just came out like that. I'm currently attempting to write 50 fics about Molly Weasley for 100quills, and with the prompt of "Hers" there was really only one thing I could possibly write. So, some of the dialogue that follows may seem a little familiar.....

Hers.

Time slows, stretching like toffee. Years of being ensnarled in the mundane dulls the senses, but now, in this ever lengthing second you are more alive than ever. The moment gets drawn out, thinner and thinner into a white hot thread, and all the air is gone and your lungs are on fire, and the figures around you slow to statues. And then...

...when there is nothing more that can be crammed into this eyeblink, this eternity...

...then the magnesium flare snaps, and you are running faster than you thought possible, screaming a challenge at the top of your lungs.
"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!"

They are frozen, a tableau of fear and defiance in the face of evil. You wonder, looking at them, how can evil be so immaculate and beautiful, while the good is so tearstreaked and dishevelled and more precious to you than life itself?

"OUT OF MY WAY!" you screech, a banshee wail, willing your cherished daughter and her friends to move. They scatter like leaves before a gale, leaving you a clear path to where she stands, laughing that someone as ordinary as you would dare challenge her.

For years your grimoire has been a recipe book, your potions lab a cosy kitchen and your duelling ground a gnome-infested garden, but all the time that has passed is nothing, and you are a battlehardened witch of the Order once again. Your wand is a blur as you cast curses and countercurses, animal, instinctive actions faster that your conscious mind can follow.

You sense, rather than see, a few brave souls edging closer.
"No!" you shriek, hoping they'll have enough sense to get out of your way. "Get back, get back!" If they come any closer you're worried they'll be hurt, and enough children have died today. Fred. Let this deatheater whore face an equal fight for once.

"She is MINE!" you shout. The right is yours. She is Voldemort's creature, and he has taken too many of those dear to you for it to go unpunished.  It is time to repay him tenfold and take those closest to him. At this moment, you are vengance given form, a lioness in defense of her cubs.

"What will happen to your children when I've killed you?" her taunts seem foolish, and you realise with a jolt that you are fighting to the death with an opponent who has a broken, child's mind in her woman's body. She is still throwing words at you, but they slide past, unheeded. "When mummy's gone the same way as Freddie?" And at that moment you know, with a crystal certainty, that this is where it ends. It seems almost too easy, as the foolish, pitiable child before you gloats and taunts, to raise your wand.

"You-will-never-touch-our-children-again!" You cry, and she laughs.  The poor madwoman is laughing in your face as your curse flies straight and true. It passes beneath her trembling, outflung arm  and strikes her, a killing blow. Above frozen lips, still curled in a misplaced smile, you fleetingly see realisation dawn in her eyes before she crumples to the ground.

An inhuman scream splits the air, but Voldemort's agony is of no consequence to you. The roar of triumph from those around you passes through you without acknowledgement. Your mind is filled with just one, triumphant thought.

Bellatrix will never touch your children again.

In a related question, there is an utterly utterly amazing comicstrip style rendition of this scene that I saw somewhere, and I'd really love a link to it. Anyone?

Harry Potter: Knots (Molly, Ginny) G

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 10:51:22 GMT

Word Count: 250ish
Summary: Some knots are easier to untie than others

Ginevra’s hair always did get tangled easily. I pull the brush gently through the snarls and knots, trying to ignore her squeaks of complaint. I could probably do this ten times faster with a charm, but I like the closeness I get to share with my daughter when I brush her hair. If I tried to put a comb anywhere Ron’s head now he’d struggle and turn red, and if I suggested I tamed their hair, the twins would probably make the brush explode. The oldest boys are men now, and all I have left of my time caring for them are memories.

I tease apart a particularly stubborn knot, and glance at the clock. Ginny’s hand is edging ever closer to ‘Hogwarts Express’ for the first time.

Sometimes I envy the Muggle families I see around me, as they get to keep their children all year round. But then I remind myself that if I had Fred and George at home the Burrow would probably collapse within a month. I think Hogwarts might be a little more durable than my homey cottage. But tomorrow my nest will feel emptier than ever, and I’ll wish, yet again, that they didn’t have to make the long journey to Scotland each autumn.

The brush is running more smoothly now Ginny’s locks are almost all combed out. I know that she’ll be home at Christmas, but it feels like the knots I’m unsnagging in her hair are the last of the ties that bind her here.

Harry Potter: Pictures in a window (Molly/Arthur) G

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 15:02:47 GMT

Word Count: 252
Summary: Molly and Arthur make an important decision.

It was raining when they met, a steady, hissing downpour which showed no sign of stopping. Molly, an Impervio charm protecting her favourite green robe, hurried over to Arthur and ducked under the edge of the strange Muggle object he was sheltering beneath. She planted a quick kiss on his cheek, then couldn’t resist asking,
“So how did it go?”
Arthur smiled at her eagerness and patted her swollen belly fondly.
“I got the job, Mollywobbles.” He beamed. “I start next week.”

The umbrella Arthur had been holding whipped away in the wind, forgotten, as he twirled his pregnant wife around and around in the street. Although the weather was atrocious, a few startled passers-by were forced to dive through shop doors to avoid their irregular path along the alley.

They stopped before a many-paned window beneath a sign which declared the establishment to be Dee and Strood, magical property services.
Breathless from laughing, Molly peered through a pane at the rows of images cycling endlessly through the seasons behind the glass. She pointed delightedly at one of the pictures on the bottom row.
It was still there!
“So?” she prompted, impatient.
“It is a little small,” Arthur began, then paused as Molly’s face fell. He continued quickly, “but we can always extend if we decide to have more children.”
He grasped her hand, and gripped it tightly as he opened the shop door.
“Let’s go put in an offer. If we’re lucky, we can be settled in before little Bill arrives.”

Harry Potter: Hero (Molly) PG

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 10:49:32 GMT

Word Count: 139
Spoilers: End of Deathly Hallows. Haven't read? Don't click.
Disclaimer: Still not JKR. Oh pants.

Summary:

The whispers that follow her through the castle are subdued, but she can hear the awe and shock in people's voices as she passes.

...Bellatrix...

She knows she should feel pride; after all, her children are heroes of the war against Voldemort, or relief; the nightmare is over, ordinary witches and wizards can sleep safe in their beds. What she actually feels is numb, an aching hole in her stomach that no amount of adulation will fill.

...duel...

It doesn't occur to her that what she did was remarkable. That bitch was threatening her Ginevra. No-one threatens one of her children. Not even Voldemort's whore. The nagging, seething emptiness reminds her, you didn't protect Fred. Duelling ten, no, a thousand dark wizards can't make up for not being there for Fred.

Being a hero is no consolation when everything's broken.

Notes: Mums are people too :-D This was meant to be G, but the language got away from me at the end.

Harry Potter: Moony's Got A Problem (Lupin, Snape/Lily) G/PG

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 13:01:03 GMT

Word count: 507
Spoilers: Not really, DH possibly.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, wish I did.

Summary:

Moony's got a problem.

Being a werewolf isn't as much hassle as having friends, he muses.

He wasn't spying on her, he tells himself. He only noticed there was something going on because he'd needed to speak to her about that Potions essay they'd been set. He'd found her on the map and gone rushing to catch up because of all his friends, only Lily Evans cares about assignments the way he does.

Maybe he should have stopped to think. Maybe he should have noticed that she wasn't alone. Maybe he should have walked quietly away after turning that corner and finding them kissing.

Instead he'd blundered in, "Hey Lily, can you give me a hand.... Oh shit! Sorry!" and turned tail and ran. He's not even entirely sure that they noticed who it was who'd interrupted, they were so engrossed in each other. They'd certainly known that they'd been caught though, as by the time he glanced at the map again they had both fled.

It's all because of that damned map, he curses. Sirius' bright idea; the project that he'd worked on so diligently, Peter had risked detention or worse to gather the pieces for and bloody, bloody James had appropriated for himself.

He's hidden it somewhere on his desk. That should buy him some time to work out what to do, as there's no way any of them will volunteer to tidy that phenomenal mess, even to find such a wonderful prize. If there's one thing he really does not need, it's James spotting their names tucked together in some secluded corner and jumping to the right conclusion. Now all he has to do is find a way to talk to Lily about this. Well, that should be a piece of cake, he thinks with a frown.

He's got a sneaking suspicion that had the Sorting Hat placed them in a different house, say Ravenclaw, the three of them, Moony, Snape and Lily would have been friends. Although, from what he's just seen, he'd probably have ended up being the odd one out. Ha, what's new? But, he thinks, wouldn't even that have been easier than spending his every waking moment trying to keep Sirius and James from bringing the school down around their ears?

But more than anything else, he's furious. What does it say if even a reject from Slytherin has more luck with girls than him? In Lily's words, "You're like my brother, Remus." A brother. He's sick of being like a brother. But the only other option for him is monster, and that's not so great either. And really, who is going to go for serious, bookish Lupin who gets worse PMT than she does?

He heaves a resigned sigh.

Yeah, Moony's got one hell of a problem.

Harry Potter: A Measure of Redemption (Snape/Lily) PGish - briefly

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 11:02:09 GMT

Word count: 343

Spoilers: Not really, although possibly the whole series if you've lived under a rock for the past X years.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter; which is a shame really as I'm a bit skint right now.

Summary:

She doesn't really know why she came. She should have handed the note to someone, anyone. Betrayed her oldest friend for what he has become. Despite all that has gone before, she could not.

She has the baby with her in a sling on her chest, a shield, a statement which screams "I am a mother now, a married woman, don't ask of me that which we both desire." Without him there she does not trust her will.

She waits, suddenly fearful that this has been some cruel trick, a way to leave her vulnerable. Time passes, but at last she sees him hovering in the shadows. He looks so pale, so worn, so desperately sad.

There are tears in his eyes as he pleads with her, spilling the words too fast, too wild to follow. That scares her more than any warnings he can offer. She has never seen him cry. Even as a child, when he spoke to her of the horrors he had suffered which she could scarce imagine it was always measured, matter of fact.

He entreats her; don't trust your closest friends. He warns, you have a traitor in your midst, but when she asks him who he cannot answer. Mere words fail him then, and he steps closer and presses his lips gently to her forehead. That chaste kiss stirs a memory of other kisses in another world, of whispers and caresses stolen in the dark. She knows in an instant that without her son, her living armour, she would have melted, collapsed into his embrace and been damned forever.

She raises her downcast eyes to gaze up into his, and then finds herself blinking back tears when she sees her longing mirrored there. She breaks away and bows her head again, to whisper loving nothings to the restless infant at her breast. After a long moment she hears him turn away. A breath later he is gone.

She stands alone in the growing dark, knowing in her heart that what he said will come to pass.