Wolf Moon: Chapter One
Jan. 24th, 2008 08:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberfocusI'll just be posting the story here and maybe one day I'll get everything sorted. And I'll send it along to Teaspoon, too. Alt!Nine/Rose pairing. PG-13. Doctor Who's not mine, but I'll treat it well while I play with it and put it back gently when I'm done.
Here's the summary:
Here's the summary:
Start with one happy, well-adjusted Rose Tyler living her life in the parallel world at age twenty-nine. Add one top of the line TARDIS with an attitude and a relationship problem with one angry, annoyed, crotchety, old, alternate Doctor who shouldn’t exist but does. Shake well.
Wolf Moon
Chapter One: Night of the Wolf Moon
Chapter One: Night of the Wolf Moon
“I see the bad moon arising,” sang Rose Tyler as she drove home from work in the deepening twilight of a cold January day. “I see trouble on the way.” She was forever grateful that Creedence Clearwater Revival was one of the things that had translated from her original universe to the one she was currently living in. She turned the radio up just a bit louder and belted out the rest of the verse, then wondered if after the day she’d had today, maybe singing about earthquakes and lightning wasn’t really such a good idea.
She pulled her hair out of the uptight bun she wore it in at work and shook out her medium brown locks. They fell five or six inches past her shoulders and as she swung her head around she could feel her hair settle into place. By the time she got to the verse about hurricanes ablowing the full moon had come into view. It was gorgeous, low to the ground, and brilliantly yellow, almost orange. The first full moon of January was the only full moon of the month this year. One of the years she’d spent traveling with the Doctor had resulted in her seeing a blue moon up close and personal one January night. It had been lovely. She smiled at the memory.
The song ended and the DJ came on announcing record low temperatures for the night. She made a little moue of disgust. Really, she was getting tired of how cold it had been lately. At least the recently transplanted American DJ with his eclectic musical tastes gave her something different to listen to and the sound of his voice was quite warm. The way the man spoke reminded her of Jack Harkness, someone she hadn’t thought about actively in years. At first, because it had been too painful to think about him and then eventually because she had closed that chapter of her life and moved on.
It didn’t hurt to think about Jack now, anymore than it hurt to think about the Doctor. Ten years was a long time for a heart to heal itself and hers had. She’d had two years to grieve, two years to mope, one year to figure out how to really live again, and five good years of being a whole and complete person within herself.
She dated casually and had a lot of fun with a man named Davin McBain who lived in her building and though neither one of them dated anyone else, they didn’t consider themselves to be a couple, even if they had discussed the fact that if the spark hadn’t hit either one of them in the next five years they ought to make a go of a marriage and maybe have a kid or two together. The idea seemed manageable and she didn’t see any reason why she wouldn’t make that choice some day.
Rose had a good life now and she could remember with fondness the life she’d once lived. She’d had sparks with the Doctor that she’d never found again, but she could live with that because she’d at least had it once upon a time. Fairytales and forever didn’t play into her game plan anymore. She didn’t need them. She’d grown up and could be grateful that at least she’d had it, had that chance to love someone so completely and utterly and to be loved back the same way. Even if nothing had ever been allowed to come of it before they’d parted ways.
She focused on the DJ again. “In my country, the first full moon of January was called the Wolf Moon, named so by the first peoples’ nation Algonquian. It was most common for wolves to howl on the cold January nights, food being much harder for them to hunt at this time of year, even on the night of the full moon.”
Now that was a difference she had had trouble adapting to. When she was a kid the original people of America had been called Indians and then Native Americans. They’d been reduced to teeny tiny plots of land. Here several of the first people’s nations existed side by side with the colony states, were part of the governing body, and cooperated in a Union very much as one country. The bloodshed that had occurred in her world had never happened here. There’d never been slavery either and there’d been a lot more cooperation. Of course, Europe had more than made up for that. She still wasn’t used to their being no EU. And she didn’t even want to think about what New Germania had done to Africa. She shook her head.
The DJ finished up his tale with, “Just a bit of useless trivia from the Union. Take a look up at the moon tonight and see if you can’t see the wolf, head tipped back, howling away. And speaking of howling, next up, The Howling by Within Temptation.”
“I’m sensing a theme here,” Rose muttered. Nevertheless it didn’t stop her from singing along with the music. She did take a gander at the moon and did fancy she could see the howling wolf the DJ spoke about. She pulled into a petrol station and stopped her engine, waiting impatiently for the full service man to come out and tend to her car. If it hadn’t been so cold she’d have gone to a self-service station.
Finally the man was done and she paid her money and left, frowning when the radio came back on halfway through Duran Duran’s Hungry Like the Wolf. She was starting to get an uncomfortable feeling prickling at the skin between her shoulder blades, her own hackles rising a bit. She knew it was probably just the American DJ doing a themed show based on the Wolf Moon but it had been a long time since she’d had so many wolf references show up in one day. Admittedly none of them had been Bad Wolf references, but this was borderline weird, even for her.
She turned off the radio and tried to find the carefree feeling she’d started her drive home from work with. Rose saw a Tesco’s up ahead and pulled in so that she could run in for a few groceries that she was in need of. As she walked into the checkout line a few minutes later she could hear the cashier singing along to the sound system. “Hey, there little red riding hood, you sure are looking good. You’re everything a big bad wolf could want.”
“Okay that does it! This is getting ridiculous,” she mumbled to herself as she walked out to her car. She didn’t believe in portents and signs, not after so many years, but as she glanced up at the moon and saw the head of the wolf tipped back and howling again, a strong presentiment swept through her. Something’s coming, she thought. Something powerful and strong.
But just as suddenly the feeling was gone. She got back into her car and headed home for the night, shaking off the creepy mood that had crept over her after one coincidence too many. Two minutes after she left the parking lot a small concession stand appeared out of nowhere, the sort used for fund raisers by school groups raising money to send the orchestra, band, or choir on tour, or for sports teams in need of new uniforms.
The man who emerged from it looked neither like a student, a music teacher, or a coach. He was tall, with close cropped brown hair, cold blue eyes, and a well-fitted brown leather jacket. There wasn’t much to distinguish him from anyone else, perhaps a too prominent nose and ears a bit larger than usual might have made him stand out if anyone had really taken the time to look at him. Usually people didn’t. He was an every man who found it easy to blend in to the world around him. Even if the world around him wasn’t his.
In his hand he held a device that looked rather like an awkward, clunky calculator from decades past or something that had been salvaged from the inside of an old TRS-80 interface. It wasn’t, of course. It measured residual Vortex energy and for some reason when he’d been universe hopping something had gone ding in his fancy pants, top of the line, most recently adapted, time ship. She’d told him quite sharply to get off his lazy backside and go and find out what it was.
He’d growled back at the ship, demanding to know just who she thought was in charge in this relationship and she had promptly responded that she was and he’d better get to it or she’d lock him out next time he got it into his head to go and play chicken with a Retzn beast.
They did not get along well at all, but as the only two survivors of a nasty war they clung to each other, each too desperately lonely to finally be rid of the other once and for all. The man always knew that even if she did lock him out, it wouldn’t be forever, she’d give in and let him in and use her infirmary to heal his wounds. Because in the end they only had each other and fight and make up was quite frequently all the relationship it seemed they were capable of.
When he returned to his cleverly disguised ship and went inside he heard her expectant, “Well?” It rang through his head a little too loudly and he winced.
“Just once, could you modulate the volume of your thought speech?” He asked sharply. She remained silent and he sighed heavily. Darn touchy, sentient time ship, he thought in the quietest part of his mind, careful not to let her hear him.
“Something was there and no, I don’t know what it was but it left a very strong residual trace of Vortex energy. And before you ask again, let me reiterate that no, I really don’t know what it was. I don’t think it was another one of your kind, though. It doesn’t read right for that. But whatever it is, that kind of power can’t be left to run loose on any Earth. Humans are too dangerous.”
“Are you sure it’s not--.”
He cut the ship off as she began to get argumentative. “It’s not a TARDIS,” he said flatly. “It’s not. Not any TARDIS and especially not my TARDIS. And nothing as advanced as you. There’s none left, okay? I know you’re all hope eternal but they’re gone. They’re all gone. It’s just you. And for my kind it’s just me. And we’re stuck with it. So get over it.”
“How?”
“I don’t know! There’s a Rift up in Cardiff. You could get drunk on power, maybe fry out a few circuits. Might do you some good to stop being such a self-pitying, high and mighty, whiney little girl,” he said harshly.
A strong jolt of electricity zapped through the grids beneath his feet. “Hah!” He snapped. “Rubber soles. I’m not falling for that one again.”
In response she flooded the console room with the stench of skunk cabbage. She had been sorely tempted to go with full-fledged skunk but there were still parts of her that hadn’t washed free of the scent the last time she’d done that. And she could smell even if not in quite the way he could.
“That all you got?” He snapped.
She gave a pathetic hum and he softened. “Not fair is it? Last time ship of the finest Time Lady ever born stuck with a miserable old crotchety outcast of a Time Lord. One of these days we’ll figure out how to get along and we’ll both be the better for it.”
Tentatively he laid a hand down on the console. “Peace?” He asked her. She didn’t answer him but she didn’t shock him either. Well, it was a start.
Ch. 2: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/4381.html
She pulled her hair out of the uptight bun she wore it in at work and shook out her medium brown locks. They fell five or six inches past her shoulders and as she swung her head around she could feel her hair settle into place. By the time she got to the verse about hurricanes ablowing the full moon had come into view. It was gorgeous, low to the ground, and brilliantly yellow, almost orange. The first full moon of January was the only full moon of the month this year. One of the years she’d spent traveling with the Doctor had resulted in her seeing a blue moon up close and personal one January night. It had been lovely. She smiled at the memory.
The song ended and the DJ came on announcing record low temperatures for the night. She made a little moue of disgust. Really, she was getting tired of how cold it had been lately. At least the recently transplanted American DJ with his eclectic musical tastes gave her something different to listen to and the sound of his voice was quite warm. The way the man spoke reminded her of Jack Harkness, someone she hadn’t thought about actively in years. At first, because it had been too painful to think about him and then eventually because she had closed that chapter of her life and moved on.
It didn’t hurt to think about Jack now, anymore than it hurt to think about the Doctor. Ten years was a long time for a heart to heal itself and hers had. She’d had two years to grieve, two years to mope, one year to figure out how to really live again, and five good years of being a whole and complete person within herself.
She dated casually and had a lot of fun with a man named Davin McBain who lived in her building and though neither one of them dated anyone else, they didn’t consider themselves to be a couple, even if they had discussed the fact that if the spark hadn’t hit either one of them in the next five years they ought to make a go of a marriage and maybe have a kid or two together. The idea seemed manageable and she didn’t see any reason why she wouldn’t make that choice some day.
Rose had a good life now and she could remember with fondness the life she’d once lived. She’d had sparks with the Doctor that she’d never found again, but she could live with that because she’d at least had it once upon a time. Fairytales and forever didn’t play into her game plan anymore. She didn’t need them. She’d grown up and could be grateful that at least she’d had it, had that chance to love someone so completely and utterly and to be loved back the same way. Even if nothing had ever been allowed to come of it before they’d parted ways.
She focused on the DJ again. “In my country, the first full moon of January was called the Wolf Moon, named so by the first peoples’ nation Algonquian. It was most common for wolves to howl on the cold January nights, food being much harder for them to hunt at this time of year, even on the night of the full moon.”
Now that was a difference she had had trouble adapting to. When she was a kid the original people of America had been called Indians and then Native Americans. They’d been reduced to teeny tiny plots of land. Here several of the first people’s nations existed side by side with the colony states, were part of the governing body, and cooperated in a Union very much as one country. The bloodshed that had occurred in her world had never happened here. There’d never been slavery either and there’d been a lot more cooperation. Of course, Europe had more than made up for that. She still wasn’t used to their being no EU. And she didn’t even want to think about what New Germania had done to Africa. She shook her head.
The DJ finished up his tale with, “Just a bit of useless trivia from the Union. Take a look up at the moon tonight and see if you can’t see the wolf, head tipped back, howling away. And speaking of howling, next up, The Howling by Within Temptation.”
“I’m sensing a theme here,” Rose muttered. Nevertheless it didn’t stop her from singing along with the music. She did take a gander at the moon and did fancy she could see the howling wolf the DJ spoke about. She pulled into a petrol station and stopped her engine, waiting impatiently for the full service man to come out and tend to her car. If it hadn’t been so cold she’d have gone to a self-service station.
Finally the man was done and she paid her money and left, frowning when the radio came back on halfway through Duran Duran’s Hungry Like the Wolf. She was starting to get an uncomfortable feeling prickling at the skin between her shoulder blades, her own hackles rising a bit. She knew it was probably just the American DJ doing a themed show based on the Wolf Moon but it had been a long time since she’d had so many wolf references show up in one day. Admittedly none of them had been Bad Wolf references, but this was borderline weird, even for her.
She turned off the radio and tried to find the carefree feeling she’d started her drive home from work with. Rose saw a Tesco’s up ahead and pulled in so that she could run in for a few groceries that she was in need of. As she walked into the checkout line a few minutes later she could hear the cashier singing along to the sound system. “Hey, there little red riding hood, you sure are looking good. You’re everything a big bad wolf could want.”
“Okay that does it! This is getting ridiculous,” she mumbled to herself as she walked out to her car. She didn’t believe in portents and signs, not after so many years, but as she glanced up at the moon and saw the head of the wolf tipped back and howling again, a strong presentiment swept through her. Something’s coming, she thought. Something powerful and strong.
But just as suddenly the feeling was gone. She got back into her car and headed home for the night, shaking off the creepy mood that had crept over her after one coincidence too many. Two minutes after she left the parking lot a small concession stand appeared out of nowhere, the sort used for fund raisers by school groups raising money to send the orchestra, band, or choir on tour, or for sports teams in need of new uniforms.
The man who emerged from it looked neither like a student, a music teacher, or a coach. He was tall, with close cropped brown hair, cold blue eyes, and a well-fitted brown leather jacket. There wasn’t much to distinguish him from anyone else, perhaps a too prominent nose and ears a bit larger than usual might have made him stand out if anyone had really taken the time to look at him. Usually people didn’t. He was an every man who found it easy to blend in to the world around him. Even if the world around him wasn’t his.
In his hand he held a device that looked rather like an awkward, clunky calculator from decades past or something that had been salvaged from the inside of an old TRS-80 interface. It wasn’t, of course. It measured residual Vortex energy and for some reason when he’d been universe hopping something had gone ding in his fancy pants, top of the line, most recently adapted, time ship. She’d told him quite sharply to get off his lazy backside and go and find out what it was.
He’d growled back at the ship, demanding to know just who she thought was in charge in this relationship and she had promptly responded that she was and he’d better get to it or she’d lock him out next time he got it into his head to go and play chicken with a Retzn beast.
They did not get along well at all, but as the only two survivors of a nasty war they clung to each other, each too desperately lonely to finally be rid of the other once and for all. The man always knew that even if she did lock him out, it wouldn’t be forever, she’d give in and let him in and use her infirmary to heal his wounds. Because in the end they only had each other and fight and make up was quite frequently all the relationship it seemed they were capable of.
When he returned to his cleverly disguised ship and went inside he heard her expectant, “Well?” It rang through his head a little too loudly and he winced.
“Just once, could you modulate the volume of your thought speech?” He asked sharply. She remained silent and he sighed heavily. Darn touchy, sentient time ship, he thought in the quietest part of his mind, careful not to let her hear him.
“Something was there and no, I don’t know what it was but it left a very strong residual trace of Vortex energy. And before you ask again, let me reiterate that no, I really don’t know what it was. I don’t think it was another one of your kind, though. It doesn’t read right for that. But whatever it is, that kind of power can’t be left to run loose on any Earth. Humans are too dangerous.”
“Are you sure it’s not--.”
He cut the ship off as she began to get argumentative. “It’s not a TARDIS,” he said flatly. “It’s not. Not any TARDIS and especially not my TARDIS. And nothing as advanced as you. There’s none left, okay? I know you’re all hope eternal but they’re gone. They’re all gone. It’s just you. And for my kind it’s just me. And we’re stuck with it. So get over it.”
“How?”
“I don’t know! There’s a Rift up in Cardiff. You could get drunk on power, maybe fry out a few circuits. Might do you some good to stop being such a self-pitying, high and mighty, whiney little girl,” he said harshly.
A strong jolt of electricity zapped through the grids beneath his feet. “Hah!” He snapped. “Rubber soles. I’m not falling for that one again.”
In response she flooded the console room with the stench of skunk cabbage. She had been sorely tempted to go with full-fledged skunk but there were still parts of her that hadn’t washed free of the scent the last time she’d done that. And she could smell even if not in quite the way he could.
“That all you got?” He snapped.
She gave a pathetic hum and he softened. “Not fair is it? Last time ship of the finest Time Lady ever born stuck with a miserable old crotchety outcast of a Time Lord. One of these days we’ll figure out how to get along and we’ll both be the better for it.”
Tentatively he laid a hand down on the console. “Peace?” He asked her. She didn’t answer him but she didn’t shock him either. Well, it was a start.
Ch. 2: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/4381.html
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